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Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 1 

Chapter 13 Appendix Part 2

EVOLUTIONISTS DEFEND NATURAL SELECTION

The whale is a mammal, and evolutionists maintain that a fish crawled out of the water and became an amphibian, which changed into a reptile, which became a mammal, which then crawled back into the water and became a whale! (Don't laugh; that in brief is what they teach!) How could the perfectly adapted eye of the whale come from an ancestor which lived on land?

"[In] the eye [of the whale], . . light rays through the sea water are brought to focus on the retina. In water man becomes long-sighted, while with the whale it is the reverse. In water it sees well but in air everything becomes blurred. It has a sclerotic coat [over the eyeball] for protection at great depths."*Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 212.

*Taylor, an ardent evolutionist, wonders how color filters got into the eye.

"There are no precursors for the lens, the origin of which, in the words of Gordon Walls of Wayne University, who has made the study of the vertebrate eye in all its forms his life work, is 'a tantalizing mystery'. (Part of the mystery is how the lens comes to lie inside the coats or 'tunics' of the eye, which derive from the meningeal coats of the brain. It is, so to say, a bit of skin which has got inside the coating of the brain.)

"In the course of evolution various refinements were added, notably the ability to distinguish colours. Less well known is the fact that the eye employs various red and yellow filters to enhance acuity. The pigeon, for instance, has yellow filters which take out the blue of the sky in that part of the retina it uses when looking upwards, and red filters which separate the greens in that part it uses in looking downwards.

"Originally these filters took the form of oil droplets within each photosensitive rod or cone. When these were lost, a yellowed cornea was evolved to achieve the same end. Burrowing species often protect their eyes with 'spectacles' which cover the cornea and these can be yellow-tinged too." *G.R.Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 99.

Now compare the many differences between the vertebrate and invertebrate eye:

"One of the essential and most important differences between vertebrate and invertebrate eyes is that in the former the receptors [light sensitive cells] point outward [are inverted] toward the choroid, whereas in the invertebrates, they mostly point inward toward the lens [are inverted]. But for that obstacle we should have been deluged with theories on the original evolution of the vertebrate eye from the invertebrates."*J. Prince, Comparative Anatomy of the Eye, (1956), p. 234.

The eye has to be perfect or it is perfectly useless.

"How then are we to account for the evolution of such a complicated organ as the eye? . . If even the slightest thing is wrong if the retina is missing, or the lens opaque, or the dimensions in error the eye fails to form a recognizable image and is consequently useless. Since it must be either perfect, or perfectly useless, how could it have evolved by small, successive, Darwinian steps?."*G. Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (1961) pp. 71-72.

The trilobite is found at the very bottom of the geological strata in immense numbers millions in a few yards of Cambrian formation. Yet the lowly trilobite had an extremely complicated lens system!

"The lens systems were very different from what we now have. Riccardo Levi-Setti [a field Museum research associate in geology and professor of physics at the University of Chicago] has recently done some spectacular work on the optics of these lens systems. Figure 7 shows sketches of the common type of trilobite lens. Each lens is a doublet [composed of two lenses] . . The shape of the boundary between the two lenses is unlike any now in use either by humans or animals. But the shape is nearly identical to designs published independently by Descartes and Huygens in the seventeenth century.

"The Descartes and Huygens designs had the purpose of avoiding spherical aberration and were what is known as splenetic lenses. The only significant difference between them and the trilobite lens is that the Descartes and Huygens lenses were not doublets that is, they did not have the lower lens. But, as Levi-Setti has shown, for these designs to work underwater where the trilobite lived, the lower lens was necessary. Thus the trilobite 450 million years ago used an optical design which would require a well trained and imaginative optical engineer to develop today and one who was familiar with the seventeenth century optical literature." *David Raup. "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology, "in Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, January 1979, pp. 22, 24.

The tapetum is the mirror behind the retina of nocturnal animals to help them see better at night. *Taylor explains it:

"Great sensitivity at night also necessitates devices to protect the retina by day. Among these was the slit pupil which can close off light entirely, unlike the iris diaphragm with which we humans are equipped. Another device for increasing efficiency in the dark is the tapetum, a mirror behind the retina which reflects back any light which has passed through it and thus gives it a second chance of detection. Anyone who has seen a cat's eyes reflect the light of motor headlights at night will know what I mean. Unbelievably intricate forms of tapetum are found in some fishes. Silvery crystals of guanine serve as a backing for the visual cells. But granules of the pigment fuscin emerge to cover them up in bright light, and retreat to expose them in poor light."*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 99-101.

How did the rods and cones know to form themselves so as to catch those certain wavelengths we call "light"?

"The following may be quoted from Dr. Charles Tyndall's Through Science to God :'Beneath the retina is a bacillary layer known as Jacob's membrane; this consists of 8 to 10 millions of rods and cones of varying lengths and vibratory rates. Each rod and cone is in tune with its own particular vibration in the light waves, and with no other. Light falls on the retina and comes into contact with the rods and cones whose vibratory rate is in unison with the vibrations in the light waves; all the others remain quiescent . .

"'Those vibrations which are between 13 and 55,000 per second, the ear detects and we term them sound. Thirty-three octaves above the range of hearing, are ether vibrations which we designate 'light'. There is one octave of these, or a trifle less. When 434 trillion vibrations a second fall upon rods and cones whose vibratory note is in unison with that number, we experience the sensation known as the color 'red;' 500 trillion such vibrations are known as 'orange,' 520 trillion vibrations as 'yellow,' 570 trillion vibrations 'green;' 634 trillion 'blue;' 690 trillion vibrations 'indigo' and 740 trillion 'violet' "*H. Enoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 112.

Such things as the highly-developed squid eye, and the equally complex trilobite eye should be enough to make any dedicated evolutionist shudder.

"There is no evidence of how a single-celled organism might have converted into multicelled organisms. The metazoa just abruptly appear in the fossil record with every organ and structure complete. Some of the most complex structures are present in the Cambrian organisms, such as the eye of the squid, which is very similar to the human eye.

"The squid eye, with its lens, pupil, and optic nerve, is obviously fully functional, and there is no evidence that a light-sensitive spot on the skin gradually generated these highly complicated and coordinated features. Also, the various trilobites found in the Cambrian already possessed very complex eyes. Evolutionists admit that trilobites would have had to evolve eyes separately about 30 or 40 different times since they have such distinctive types of eyes [among their various subspecies].

"Palsy [1743-1805] made much of the intricacy and perfection of the eye, and said that it could have no other interpretation than that it was not the product of chance. In fact he began his book with this very point. Since Darwin [1809-1882] was quite familiar with Palsy's book, it is no wonder that he wrote that the eye turned him cold all over when he pondered its origin."LD. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1988), p. 52.

Then there is that complexity of nerve and structure we call the compound eye of the insect:

"Insects, composed of hundreds of thousands of different species, have eyes of a completely different kind: the compound eye. Instead of a single lens, compound eyes have hundreds, and in some, thousands upon thousands of separate little lenses, each working as an optical receptor. The eyes of vertebrates have muscles attached to the eyeball which allows them to rotate it within a certain arc in order to observe a greater area. Insects do not have this possibility as eye muscles are not involved. The compound eyes of insects and crustaceans, instead of muscles, have a quantity of lenses placed at different angles around a half-sphere so as to receive the light rays coming from a much larger arc of vision.

"The compound eye is made of ommatidia, which are individual lenses positioned in different directions along a semicircular arc. Each ommatidium extends downward so as to direct the incoming light onto receptor cells of another organthe rhabdom. Light received by these rhabdoms are then guided to the optical nerve, which in turn transmits impulse signals to the brain of the insect. With this ingenious system, the animal obtains vision around the arc of the eye through thousands of these miniscule lenses, without having to rotate its eyes.

"The single-lens eye of vertebrates (including man's) is equipped with a round iris that opens or closes depending on the intensity of the light received, and accordingly controlling the amount of light entering the lens. The compound eye, however, achieves the same result through a different method. At the bottom of the cone-shaped ommatidia is a black pigment with the ability to raise or lower its level just like the mercury of a thermometer. The higher it moves up the wall of the cone, the greater an area it darkens, the less light penetrates to the optic nerve. The lower its level, the more light will hit the optic nerve. Thus, diurnal insects would display a larger pronounced black surface, while nocturnal ones would require more light which means lower levels of this black filter." LH. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), pp. 121-122 [It is well-known among speciation biologists that there are five or more different types of insects which could not have evolved from each other. Therefore, if evolution were true, several compound eyes would have had to separately evolve from eyeless microbes. j

One humble worm has two retinas!

"It is very hard for an evolutionist even to suggest, in any plausible way, how it [the eye] could have evolved. Moreover, there are very good eyes in kinds of creatures not supposed to be closely related; thus the evolutionist may have to maintain that rather similar eyes have evolved independently several times . .

"The annelid worms, types Torrea and Vanadis, turn out to have very effective eyes. Indeed, they have a feature of their own. The eyes have two retinas, especially sensitive to different colors." E. Norbert Smith, news note, in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1978, p. 69.

Evolutionists are still trying to figure out how snakes got their eyes:

"One of the great puzzles in the evolution of the eye is how the eye of snakes arose, for their visual cells have no similarity to those of the lizards from which snakes derived, and this is true even of the most primitive forms. Gordon Walls calls it 'literally a bundle of substitutes for lizard-eye features'. Snakes arose from huge monitor lizards which learned to live in burrows in the dark. Their eyes degenerated: there was no need for an iris diaphragm or focusing muscles. The visual cells themselves lost pigment. There was no need for a lacrimal gland. When the burrowing lizards re-emerged as pythons and boa constrictors 'the snakes had almost to invent the vertebrate eye all over again. Nothing like this tremendous feat has occurred in any other vertebrate group, as far as we can tell,' says Walls." *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 101.

In a lecture at Harvard University,  * Macbeth describes the eye of the trilobite:

"First, and perhaps most important, is the first appearance of fossils. This occurs at a time called the "Cambrian," 600 million years ago by the fossil reckoning, The fossils appear at that time in a pretty highly developed form. They don't start very low and evolve bit by bit over long periods of time. In the lowest fossil-bearing strata of all [the lowest of the Cambrian], they are already there, and are pretty complicated in more-or-less modern form.

"One example of this is the little animal called the trilobite. There are a great many fossils of the trilobite right there at the beginning with no buildup to it [no evolution of life forms leading to it]. And, if you examine them closely, you will find that they are not simple animals. They are small, but they have an eye that has been discussed a great deal in recent years an eye that is simply incredible.

"It is made up of dozens of little tubes which are all at slightly different angles so that it covers the entire field of vision, with a different tube pointing at each spot on the horizon. But these tubes are all more complicated than that, by far. They have a lens on them that is optically arranged in a very complicated way, and it is bound into another layer that has to be just exactly right for them to see anything . . But the more complicated it is, the less likely it is simply to have grown up out of nothing.

"And this situation has troubled everybody from the beginning to have everything at the very opening of the drama. The curtain goes up [life forms first appear in the Cambrian strata] and you have the players on the stage already, entirely in modern costumes." *Norman Macbeth, Speech of Harvard University, September 24, 1983, quoted in LD. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1988), p. 150.

The trilobite, according to evolutionary theory one of the most ancient of all creatures, had as many as 15,000 lenses in each eye! Trilobites are supposed to have lived for 300 million years, yet their eyes were perfect to begin with, and never evolved into a better perfection.

"The trilobite, one of the first complex life forms found on this earth, first appeared [according to evolutionary theory] 600,000,000 years ago, complete with compound eyes. Depending upon the subspecies, they sported 100 to 15,000 lenses in each eye. These species survived for about 320 million years, and for all these millions of years, their eye structure did not change. Except for minor variations, trilobites maintained the same form with which they were endowed from the first moment of existence. Why did the trilobite's eye not 'evolve' and improve during 320,000,000 years? Could it be that 'evolution' was satisfied with the end product and did not feel the necessity for further improvement? Obviously so but then would that not imply an evaluating capacity and intelligence? How does a trilobite 'know' that it could have a superior vision if it only could add another 5,000 lenses to its eye? When is 'satisfactory' vision satisfactory?" LL. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 125.

Doublet lenses are two lenses glued together to correct spherical and chromatic (color) problems in optic. The tiny trilobite had a doublet lens!

"It is well-known in optics that it is almost impossible to form a good image with one lens; there are spherical and chromatic aberration and other defects. These faults are corrected by using two or more lenses together, instead of one, to correct for each fault; the result is called a 'doublet' (or 'triplet', etc.). Naturally, it is more difficult to make such a combination; that is why good cameras or microscopes are expensive.

"Now it has been found from fossils that certain trilobites, of the suborder Phocopina, had such eye lenses long ago [E.N.K. Clarkson and R. Levi-Setti, trilobite Eyes and the Optics of Des Cartel and Huygens,' in Nature, 254(5502):663667 (1975)] Their 'schizochroal' eyes, as they have been called, actually have 'doublet' lenses. It is stated that these lenses are ' . . designed to eliminate spherical aberration . . '; and that this design is'.. in accord with constructions by Des Carte [Reno Descartes] and [Christian] Huygens and is dictated by a fundamental law of physics

"To make a doublet requires two materials, having different indices of refraction. The trilobite lenses accomplish that by being partly of calcite, partly of another material.

"The authors [Clarkson and Levi-Setti] hint at evolution, but really, how could such a thing have evolved? . .

"Incidentally, human eyes, and those of many other creatures, are composed of different materials, in that the indices of refraction of the various humors and other things are somewhat different." Harold L Armstrong, "Panorama of Science, " in Creation Research Science Quarterly, June 1976, p. 66.

"The numbers are almost unreal."

"The ant has 400 lenses, the common housefly about 4,000 lenses, the honeybee about 6,300 lenses, the swallowtail butterfly about 17,000 lenses, the beetle Mondella about 25,000 lenses, the sphingid moth about 27,000 lenses, and the dragonfly about 30,000 lenses.

"The numbers are almost unreal; imagine the small size of a dragonfly's eye and divide that miniscule space into 30,000 cones, each one with a perfectly shaped lens, functioning in unison with each other, and with a nerve system tied to the brain and all of it in harmony with other organs!

"Naturally the question arises: how and why did each insect species develop the same system of vision, but yet generated different amounts of lenses? Why did the dragonfly evolve into having 30,000 lenses, while the common housefly decided to stop at 4,000? . .

"It takes millions of nucleotides all precisely aligned, to translate DNA orders for the creation of 4,000 lenses. It would take additional millions of nucleotides again precisely aligned, to create the growth of 30,000 lenses . .

"What is the probability that 1,000,000 nucleotides can align themselves by chance in a very specific sequence one that will translate itself into the growth of 26,000 additional lenses, ommatidia, rhabdoms, and pigment cells? The answer is zero." L.L. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), pp. 124-125. (For an excellent set of diagrams showing these complicated eye structures, see his book pages 122-123, 127, and 128. )

From its earliest formation in the embryo, to its complete development later on the eye remains a total mystery to dedicated evolutionists.

"[In the human embryo] Even before the brain is formed, two dimples can be seen in the nerve tissue which are destined to become the retina. As the brain forms, two bulges appear, become cup-like and form the retina. They secrete a substance, termed an inducer, which causes the skin above them to develop into a lens. If an eye-cup is transplanted to some other part of the body, it causes a lens to form there. This accounts for the way in which brain tissue and skin cooperate. But how in Darwin's name did evolution produce a substance with such extraordinary properties? Its mode of action remains a mystery." *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 102.

The optic nerve has a million fibers, which can be connected to the brain in a million different ways:

"Auditory powers involve the complex mechanism of the ear and some kind of harmonic analysis: man-made devices for recording and analyzing sounds for the harmonic content are certainly infinitesimally probable ["mathematically impossible", he is saying], and it is not plausible that animal structures for doing the same thing are finitely probably [mathematically possible]. The auditory nerve in man has about 5,000 fibers which may be connected to the brain in 5,000-factorial ways, of which it is plausible that only one is correct.

"The situation is still more difficult with the optic nerve which has about 1,000,000 fibers, which may be connected to the brain in 1,000,000-factorial different ways."Howard Byington Holboyd, "Darwinism is Physical and Mathematical Nonsense, " in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1972, p. 9.

Scallops, shrimps, and lobsters use multi-layer mirrors that reflect light (our eyes refract it).

"Zoologists were unaware that scallops, shrimps, and lobsters had a different optical system . . The new discovery indicated that multilayer mirrors can be made from a great many materials provided they have different refractive indexes. Scallops, for example, take advantage of the pronounced difference between the refractive indexes of guanine (1.83) and cytoplasm (1.34). Many compound eyes use the refractive difference between chitin (1.56) and air (1.00). Behind the lens of the scallops, these layers of material act as a reflector in the form of a concave mirror. In this construction the images thus formed by that mirror are focused in the rear section of the retina behind the lens. They are then captured by the distal photoreceptor cells in the eye " L H. Cohen, Darwin was Wrong (1984), p. 126.

"A considerable strain on one's credulity."

"It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs, such as the eye of vertebrates . . could be improved by random mutations." *Ernst Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of the Species (1942), p. 296.

Just one eye is "almost infinitely improbable," yet there are so many different types of them!

"Evolution in the mutationist world is not merely aimless but directionless. The origin of such an organ as an eye, for example, entirely at random seems almost infinitely improbable." *George Gaylord Simpson, This View of Life (1964), p. 18.

How then are we to account for it?

"How then are we to account for the evolution of such a complicated organ as the eye? . . If even the slightest thing is wrong if the retina is missing, or the lens opaque, or the dimensions in error the eye fails to form a recognizable image and is consequently useless. Since it must be either perfect, or perfectly useless, how could it have evolved by small, successive, Darwinian steps?" *Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (1961), p. 71.

Is natural selection equal to the task?

"That. . eye the human eye . . which Darwin freely conceded to constitute a severe strain on his theory of evolution: Is so simple a principle as natural selection equal to explaining so complex a structure as the image-producing eye? Can the step-by-step process of Darwinian evolution carry adaptation so far?" *Garrett Hardin, Nature and Man's Fate (1961), p. 224.

If the eye is such a marvel, how could it have separately evolved four times, as the evolutionists claim?

"Even something as complex as the eye has appeared several times; for example, in the squid, the vertebrates, and the arthropods [spiders, insects, etc.). It's bad enough accounting for the origin of such things once, but the thought of producing them several times according to the modern synthetic theory makes my head swim." *F.B. Salisbury, "Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, 33:335-38 (1971).

*Pierre Grasse says it well:

"As Professor Grasse has said, with a welcome change of metaphor, 'The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Durer's Melancolia is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of the eye." ' *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 184.

Wernher von Braun speaks to the California State Board of Education:

"'Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of a man or the system of the human eye?' Wernher von Braun (probably the one rocket scientist most responsible for the United States' success in placing men on the moon.) From a letter written by Dr. Wernher von Braun, and read to the California State Board of Education by Dr. John Fad on September 14,1972." WaIter T. Brown, In the Beginning (1989), p. 7.

Accidental formation of the eye would require billions of different steps. Yet how could chance produce something which was useless until its final development?

"The eye, as one of the most complex organs, has been the symbol and arch-type of his [Darwin's] dilemma. Since the eye is obviously of no use at all except in its final, complete form, how could natural selection have functioned in those initial stages of its evolution when the variations had no possible survival value? No single variation, indeed no single part, being of any use without every other, and natural selection presuming no knowledge of the ultimate end or purpose of the organ, the criterion of utility, or survival, would seem to be irrelevant. And there are other equally provoking examples of organs and processes which seem to defy natural selection. Biochemistry provides the case of chemical synthesis formed in several stages, of which the intermediate substance formed at any one stage is of no value at all, and only the end product, the final elaborate and delicate machinery, is useful and not only useful but vital to life. How can selection, knowing nothing of the end of final purposes of this process, function when the only test is precisely that end or final purpose?." *Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1959), pp. 320-321.

Bartz, a natural science writer, tells us even more:

"No computer chip can be made today which could begin to do what the retina does. But, if it could be made, it would have to be something like half a million times bigger than your retina. One computer scientist has estimated that a computer chip which could begin to do what your retina does would have to weigh in at about 100 pounds! The retina, which is something like a small slip of clingy food wrap, weighs less than a gram. It occupies only 0.0003 of an inch of space. On the other hand, the scientists' theoretical 'seeing' chip would fill 10,000 cubic inches. And while your retina operates on only 0.0001 of a watt of power, the 'seeing' chip would require 300 watts of power and a cooling system. And even with all of this, it couldn't see very well. It would only be able to resolve a square area of about 2,000 units of vision, called pixels, while your eye can resolve five times that much! Such a chip would have the equivalent of about a million transistors, while your retina has the equivalent of 25 billion transistors!" Paul Bartz, Letting God Create Your Day (1990), Vol. 1, ft. 2, p. 44.

Klein provides us with a quotation to conclude the matter:

"One author has ably expressed his sentiments in these words: 'Anyone who can contemplate the eye of a housefly, the mechanics of human finger movement, the camouflage of a moth, or the building of every kind of matter from variations in arrangement of proton and electron, and then maintain that all this design happened without a designer, happened by sheer, blind accident such a person believes in a miracle far more astounding than any in the Bible. To regard man, with his arts and aspirations, his awareness of himself and of his universe, his emotions and his morals, his very ability to conceive an idea so grand as that of God, to regard this creature as merely a form of life somewhat higher on the evolutionary ladder than the others, is to create questions more profound than was answered.' " David Raphael Klein, "Is There a Substitute for God?" in Reader's Digest, March, 1970, p. 55.

Nearly 200 years ago, William Paley wrote these words:

"Were there no example in the world of contrivance except that of the eye, it would be alone sufficient to support the conclusion which we draw from it, as to the necessity of an intelligent Creates." William Paley, Natural Theology (1802).

7

WINGS, EARS, AND OTHER THINGS

This section will provide you with once-over-lightly coverage of some other amazing things found !n nature. Of course, entire volumes could instead be written. But, for a few moments, let us consider "wings, ears, and other things" that evolution could never produce:

It is clear from some of *Darwin's statements that he mortally feared that God might exist after all. Gazing upon a peacock's feather, one well knows that it came from the hand of the Creator rather than the paw of chance. Darwin saw this also, and it deeply disturbed him.

"I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of the complaint, and now small trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick." *Charles Darwin, in Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887), p. 296.

Bionics is the science of copying nature with outstanding success. But, actually, most of man's inventions are just crude copies of something already found in nature.

"Engineers are taking cue after cue from the functions of living animals. The name of this fascinating 'copycat science' is bionics, a word so new that most dictionaries haven't listed it yet. .

"Consider the airplane wings modeled after birds' wings, speed indicators that take hints from a beetle's flight, computers that evolved from nerve-cell research, internally worn heart stimulators developed from the study of animal electricity, and TV tubes that copy a crab's eye; we see that man is more and more applying nature's principles to his own needs." *Denial S. Halacy, Jr., Bionics the Science of "Living" Machines (1965), flyleaf.

Consider the feather:

"Feathers are unique to birds. Supposedly, [according to evolutionary theory] reptilian scales just happened to become these amazing structures. Out from the shaft of a feather are rows of barbs. Each barb has many barbules, and each barbule has hundreds of barbicels and hooklets. After a microscopic examination of one pigeon feather, it was revealed that it had 'several hundred thousand barbules and millions of barbicels and hooklets.'

"These hooks hold all the parts of a feather together to make flat surfaces or vanes. Nothing excels the feather as an airfoil, and few substances equal it as an insulates. A bird the size of a swan has some 25,000 feathers.

"If the barbs of these become separated, they are combed with the beak. The beak applies pressure as the barbs pass through it, and the hooks on the barbules link together like the teeth of a zipper. Most birds have an oil gland at the base of the tail from which they take oil to condition each feather. Some birds have no oil gland but instead have special feathers that fray at their tips to produce a fine talc-like dust for conditioning their feathers. And feathers usually are renewed by molting once a year." Life: How Did It Get Here? (1985), pp. 76-77.

Look inside the ear:

"A . . very serious limitation to the potential for variation in the living world is the presence of highly complex organs and structures that cannot function effectively unless they are complete. 'They are either perfect or perfectly useless.' For example, the human ear:

"'. . is intricate beyond imagination . . The organ of Corti alone, a spiraling 3mm diameter ridge of cells in the inner ear that seems to play a crucial part in the way we hear pitch and direction of sound, contains some 20,000 rods and more than 30,000 nerve endings.' " John C. Whitcomb, The Early Earth (1986), p. 103 (F. Hitching, Neck of the Giraffe, pp. 90-91 quoted.)

THE DESIGN OF A FEATHER

Here is yet another creative wonder. The feather is a most amazing structure, designed for maximum wind resistance combined with lowest weight. The various parts, discussed in the text, are labeled here. Note the hooks and barbules which fasten and unfasten.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Study the dolphin and the whale:

"To swim at the speeds they were obviously achieving, the dolphin and the whale were either super-powerful or they had achieved what the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic engineers call 'laminar flow.' In other words, the water they swim in must follow the contours of the creatures so closely that there are no disturbances at all . .

"For decades aeronautical engineers have sought for laminar flow, but with only partial success, despite complicated additional equipment coupled to airplane wings." *Daniel S. Halacy, Jr., Bionics the Science of "Living" Machines (1965), flyleaf.

Watch a spider:

Under a picture of a complicated electronic device appears this quote: "A spider appears to be one of nature's simpler creatures and a spider web seems to be a simple structure, wonderful in its symmetry. The fact is, that the spider and its web are far more complex than the machine above, with its tangle of wires and electronic 'brain' . .

"In observing nature, scientists are confronted with the simple and the complex. And nothing appears to be more complex than life itself." *Science Year, 1965, p. 18.

Consider the guidance systems found in birds:

"Perhaps the most challenging mystery is how birds can find their way unerringly over thousands of miles of featureless ocean. During most of the year a species of shearwater wanders over the Pacific, from Japan to California and northward to the Aleutian Islands. Yet the birds arrive at their nesting grounds off the coast of Australia millions of them darkening the sky on the same day every year.

"How do they do it? . . These birds were not following older birds but a far more ancient guidance system, and instinct acquired in the egg." *Reader's Digest Association, Marvels and Mysteries of Our Animal World (1964), p. 237.

How can tiny birds know how to fly by the stars?

"These experiments made it clear that blackcaps instinctively recognized individual constellations, 'knew' that they traveled across the sky during the night and also `knew' the changes of the constellations with the changing seasons . .

"These small feathered astronomers can still navigate if only one or two stars are visible through the cloud cover. But if the sky is totally overcast, . . they simply interrupt their migration . . [Other scientists believe that the birds then switch over to guidance by earth's electromagnetic field.]

"How do they acquire their extraordinary astronomical capacity?.. the blackcap has inherited its knowledge of celestial geography and the course of the stars. Science still has no explanation to offer of how this instinctive knowledge of a subject as complicated as that of the constellations came to be embedded in an animal's germ plasm." V.B. Droscher, The Mysterious Senses of Animals (1965), pp. 175-176.

Study the radar (sonar) of the bat:

"The bat's detective mechanism is highly accurate; it is an echo-location system (sonar) of great complexity, in which high-frequency waves are transmitted through mouth or nostrils from a specialized larynx and the echoes picked up by large and specialized ears. The frequency of its supersonic squeaks is almost 70,000 cycles per second and it emits, in flight, up to 100 squeaks per second.

"The bat distinguishes between its squeaks (which are coded differently in different species) and their echoes by the use of an ingenious mechanism: a small muscle in the outer-ear passage automatically contracts and closes the ear passage every time a squeak is emitted (at intermittent periods of as little as 1/200 of a second), so only the echo is detected.

"This sonar is a marvelous discriminator: in a bat-swarm, in cave or night air, a bat can know its own sound among thousands of mobile neighbors, detecting its own signals even if they are 2000 times fainter than background noises. It can 'see' prey, such as a fruit-fly, up to 100 feet away by echo location and catch four or five in a second. And this whole auditory system weighs a fraction of a gram! Ounce for ounce, watt for watt, it is millions of times more efficient and more sensitive than the radars and sonars contrived by man.

"The bat 'sees' with sound better than light. The idea that such an echo-location system (which would have to work straightaway or else accidents would eliminate the creatures) 'evolved' gradually by random mutation through unspecified 'ancestors' is inadequate. Indeed, that numerous changes must have had to occur simultaneously if the creatures were to operate effectively must prejudice the rational man towards creation theory." *Michael Pitman, Adam and Creation (1x84), pp. 219-220.

Sight, flight, sonar, and bat's wings all proclaim that evolution is impossible.

"Sight is supposed, although we cannot see it, to have evolved at least three separate times in insects, squids and vertebrates. We are also invited to believe that flight, with all the critical structural alterations it entails, `evolved' on at least four separate occasions with insects, reptiles (pterodactyls etc.), birds and mammals.

"Sound for flight in the dark: the bat, with its wings and sonar, is a perfectly aerodynamic mammal. To produce a bat from whatever its mammalian or reptilian ancestor was, must have involved innumerable transitional forms but none has ever been found. The oldest known bat is indistinguishable from modern bats. In spite of continuous fossil representation since the middle Eocene, the bats (Chiroptera) show no sign of evolving. An increase in the size of the skin-fold of such gliders as the colugo (flying lemur) is supposed to have led to the evolution of a bat-like wing. But sixty million years ago there were colugos like today's. There are about 2000 species of bat (mostly tropical), many with highly specialized organs." *Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 218.

None of these astounding organs and functions could be constructed piece by piece over a period of time. They would all have to be there suddenly together. Only high-level Intelligence could produce them. Behold the bat!

"Ounce for ounce, watt for watt, it [the bat] is millions of times more efficient and more sensitive than the radars and sonars contrived by man." *Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 219.

"Even though we have no direct evidence for smooth transitions, can we invent a reasonable sequence of intermediate forms, that is, viable functioning organisms, between ancestors and descendants? Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? Of what good is half a jaw or half a wing? The concept of "preadaptation" provides the conventional answer by permitting us to argue that incipient stages performed different functions. But a plausible story is not necessarily a true one, and, in any case, the issue is not, can preadaptation save gradualism in some cases, but rather, does it permit us to invent a tale of continuity in most or all cases? I submit, although it may only reflect my lack of imagination, that the answer is no, and I invoke two recently supported cases of discontinuous change in my defense." *Steven Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters, "in Natural History, June-July 19 77, pp. 22, 24-25.

Random changes could neither produce nor improve on complicated, finely-tuned, perfectly-designed structures. Bird feathers are highly complicated structures, carefully designed for special purposes.

"It is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird's feather) could be improved by random mutations." *M. Ghiselin, the Triumph of the Darwinian Method (1969), p. 229.

There are four types of flying creatures which knowledgeable evolutionary scientists recognize could not have evolved from one another: birds, bats, flying insects, and now-extinct flying reptiles.

"The evidence is nonexistent for the origin of . . flying animals. The flying insects were always flying insects, the now extinct flying reptiles have no transitional fossils connecting them to nonflying reptiles, and the flying mammals (bats) were always well-engineered bats." R.E. Kafahl, Evolution Refuter (1980), p. 63.

Two scientists consider the immense quantities of required data contained in an organism's DNA, in order to produce these various body systems. (All the things we have spoken of in this section come from DNA coding, not from surface accidents. A bird has feathers because its DNA is coded to produce feathers, not because a feather accidentally grew on a creature's front legs, and then he decided to flap them and begin flying!)

"From the beginning of this book we have emphasized the enormous information content of even the simplest living systems. The information cannot in our view be generated by what are often called 'natural processes,' as for instance through meteorological and chemical processes occurring at the surface of a lifeless planet. As well as a suitable physical and chemical environment, a large initial store of information was also needed." *F. Hoyle and *N. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (1981), p. 150.

Random, damaging mutations could neither improve on an organ, much less make it to begin with.

"It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird's feather) could be improved by random mutations. This is even more true for some of the ecological chain relationships (the famous yucca moth case, and so forth). However, the objectors to random mutations have so far been unable to advance any alternative explanation that was supported by substantial evidence." *Ernst Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of Species (1x42), 296.

According to the theory, fish evolved into land animals, so *Gordon R. Taylor, a confirmed evolutionist, tries to figure out how lateral lines on the fish (which can sense water pressure and movements from the side) somehow later changed itself into ears!

"Precisely at the time the eye was developing, so was the ear and other sense organs, such as taste. The fishes enter on the scene equipped with an array of sense organs. We [as evolutionists] have to believe that mutations bringing about all these changes, as well as the structural ones, occurred simultaneously. The development of the ear is hardly less complicated that the development of the eye.

"If the eye is the most complex instance of coordinated development, the ear is perhaps the most puzzling, because of the extensive way in which existing structures, originally intended for another purpose, were remodeled to detect and analyse sound." *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 103.

"To find an answer to that question we must go back to the earliest bony fishes. They possessed, as do modern fishes, a structure known as the lateral line, running from head to tail on either side. At the head end it fans out into a system of canals in the skull. The lateral line is a canal enclosing cells armed with sensitive hairs embedded in gelatine which detect the motion of the fluid in it and which in this way register vibrations in the water or so it is claimed. It has also been alleged to register electric currents or to be an organ of taste, registering chemical changes. But since recent experiments have shown that it can distinguish between water flowing past it head-to-tail from water flowing tail-to head, the most probable explanation is that it is an accelerometer for straight-line swimming.

"Where it came from is totally mysterious, but where it went to is the ear." *Op. cit., p 104.

*Taylor marvels at how the lateral line in fish could later so miraculously change itself into a complete ear in land animals, providing such acute hearing.

"When we turn from fishes to terrestrial animals we find the sacculus and utriculus have been carried over unchanged, but the lagena has wound itself into a spiral. This first occurs in snakes, the process being completed in birds and mammals, where the spiral becomes a helix: in a word the cochlea aforementioned. In mammals the sensitivity of the cochlea is improved by a new structure, the organ of Corti, which renders the hairs so sensitive that they can detect vibrations whose amplitude is no more that the diameter of a hydrogen atom. What was once merely a pressure detector now provides for us the miracle of sound." *Op. cit., p. 104.

*Taylor concludes with a question: Why did fish evolve into creatures that developed such outstanding organ as the ear, when they did not know they needed it?

"In contrast with the case of the eye, where undifferentiated cells were specialised into the required forms, here existing structures have been profoundly modified and even shifted to another position in a progressive series of changes which certainly look more like the refinement of a plan than the result of a series of happy accidents.

"But the insoluble problem is how and why did a balance organ [in fish] become an organ of hearing [in mammals]? As van Bergeijk pointedly asks: 'What prompts the fish to begin developing a sensory apparatus that will respond to a stimulus about the very existence of which the fish knows nothing?"' *G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 105.

"Circadian rhythms" is the name given to a strange phenomenon that runs through all nature. Vast numbers of things in natural life are governed by body clocks! Nearly all plants and animals have a variety of different timing codes inside them. There are hourly clocks, daily clocks, monthly clocks, seasonal clocks, yearly clocks, governing hormones, digestion, blood pressure, and many other body functions. How can all this be? How could random chance produce it? Yet, for purposes of survival, most of those clocks would have to be there in the very beginning.

"Our bodies have many different rhythms. For example, your body temperature fluctuates throughout the day, tied to a cycle of about 24 hours. A person's blood pressure can change, according to a 24-hour cycle, by as much as 20 percent. Some body rhythms go through their complete cycle in a few hours, others in seven days, and others in about 28 days. And in each case, one or more organs in the body control each rhythm.

"Some bodily rhythms are controlled through the hypothalamus. Your pituitary controls still other rhythms. Still other organs control other cycles. In a very real sense, this arrangement sounds sort of like standing in a room with hundreds of clocks ticking away. And to make matters worse, in this case each clock goes off on its own time none are set to the same time! . .

"But now it has been learned that the brain has one master clock which coordinates all the other clocks in the body. This master clock goes by the initials SCN. It was once thought that the hypothalamus did this work. But the hypothalamus only helps the SCN do its work. Together they turn out a bewildering array of chemical signals for the rest of the body, so that everything keeps humming along in fine order." Paul Bartz, Letting God Create Your Day (1989), Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 46.

The first sentence in the following statement by *Charles Darwin is absolutely true:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such case." *Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, (1859), p. 189.

Seriously now, Charles, there are thousands of such cases!

8.

NATURAL SELECTION

IS BASED ON REASONING IN A CIRCLE

This section is but a variant of the proceeding one. "Darwin said that natural selection was the survival of the fittest, and this single mechanism was the means by which everything evolved. The preceding section focused on the "survival of the fittest" concept; this one looks more closely at "natural selection. "

"Those things which have succeeded were able to succeed."

"It leads to the justifiable criticism that the concept of natural selection is scientifically superficial. T.H. Morgan, famous American geneticist, said that the idea of natural selection is a tautology, a case of circular reasoning. It goes something like this: If something cannot succeed, it will not succeed. Or, to put it another way, those things which have succeeded were able to succeed." Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism (1986), p. 49.

Evolutionists ignore the tautology charge because if they did not, evolutionary theory would be gutted.

"One of the most frequent objections against the theory of natural selection is that it is a sophisticated tautology. Most evolutionary biologists seem unconcerned about the charge and only make a token effort to explain the tautology away. The remainder, such as Professors Waddington and Simpson, will simply concede the fact. For them, natural selection is a tautology which state a heretofore unrecognized relation: The fittest defined as those who will leave the most offspring will leave the most offspring." *Gregory Alan Pesely, "The Epistemological Status of Natural Selection," Laval Theologique et Philosophique, Vol. 38, February 1982, p. 74.

Knock down natural selection, and the whole structure crumbles.

"First, I think, is natural selection. When you ask all the different evolutionists to identify the real heart of evolution, they'll often give you three or four points adaption, the number of generations, mutations and recombination. they've got a list of things that are supposed to be factors, but natural selection is on all lists and is obviously the dominant theory of all evolutionary discussion. With some people, it is the whole thing, so if you knock over natural selection, the whole structure crumbles." *Norman Macbeth, "What's Wrong with Darwinism?" Personal interview with Luther D. Sunderland, May 29, 1982.

It is not a true scientific theory.

"I tend to agree with those who have viewed natural selection as a tautology rather than a true theory." *S. Stanley, Macroevoluton qq (1979), p. 193.

Mutations are irrelevant and natural selection a tautology.

"In the meantime, the educated public continues to believe that Darwin has provided all the relevant answers by the magic formula of random mutations plus natural selection quite unaware of the fact that random mutations turned out to be irrelevant and natural selection a tautology." *Arthur Koesder, Janus: A Summing Up (1978), p. 185.

Evolutionary theory is built on one irrelevant fact: plants and animals produce offspring.

"I am a believer that some of the basic statements of neo-Darwinism are vacuous; . . So the theory of neo-Darwinism is a theory of the evolution of the changing of the population in respect to leaving offspring and not in respect to anything else. Nothing else is mentioned in the mathematical theory of neo-Darwinism. It is smuggled in and everybody has in the back of his mind that the animals that leave the largest number of offspring are going to be those best adapted also for eating peculiar vegetation, or something of this sort; but this is not explicit in the theory. All that is explicit in the theory is that they will leave more offspring. . Everybody has it in the back of his mind that the animals that leave the largest number of offspring are going to be those best adapted also for eating peculiar vegetation or something of this sort, but this is not explicit in the theory . .

"There, you do come to what is, in effect, a vacuous statement: Natural selection is that some things leave more offspring than others; and you ask, which leave more offspring than others; and it is those that leave more offspring; and there is nothing more to it than that. The whole real guts of evolution which is how do you come to have horses and tigers and things is outside the mathematical theory " *C.H. Waddington, quoted by Tom Bethell, in "Darwin's Mistake," Harper's Magazine, February 1976, p. 75.

A statement of an inevitable relation.

"Natural selection turns out on closer inspection to be tautology, a statement of an inevitable although previously unrecognized relation. It states that the fittest individuals in a population (defined as those which leave the most offspring) will leave most offspring." *C. Waddington, "Evolutionary Adaptation, "in Evolution After Darwin (1960), Vol. 1, pp. 381, 385.

When both sides say the same thing, the conclusion is meaningless.

"Thus we have as Question: 'Why do some multiply, whole others remain stable, dwindle, or die out? to which is offered as Answer: Because some multiply, while others remain stable, dwindle, or die out.

"The two sides of the equation are the same. We have a tautology. The definition is meaningless." *Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (1971), p. 47.

Natural selection is "anything that produces change." "Change is caused by what causes change."

"[George Gaylord Simpson says:] 'I . . define selection, a technical term in evolutionary studies, as anything tending to produce systematic, heritable change in population between one generation and the next.' [G.G. Simpson, Major Features of Evolution (1953), p. 138] But is such a broad definition of any use? We are trying to explain what produces change. Simpson's explanation is natural selection, which he defines as what produces change. Both sides of the equation are again the same; again we have a tautology . . If selection is anything tending to produce change, he is merely saying that change is caused by what causes change . . The net explanation is nil." *Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (1971), p. 49.

Waddington, a confirmed evolutionary defender, freely admits that "natural selection" is a tautology, but still defends the therefore-meaningless concept as a powerful means of convincing people that evolution must be true! (How can something be true, if the only effective means of defending it is an error?)

"Natural selection, which was at first considered as though it were a hypothesis in need of experimental or observational confirmation, turns out on closer inspection to be a tautology . . It states that the fittest individuals in a population (defined as those which leave the most offspring) will leave most offspring . . This fact [that it is a tautology] in no way reduces the magnitude of Darwin's achievement. . biologists realize the enormous power of the principle as a weapon of explanation." *C H. Waddington, "Evolutionary Adaptation," in *Sol Tax (ad.), Evolution of Life (1960), p. 385.

Haldane also defends the use of this tautology as a scientific evidence:

"The phrase 'survival of the fittest,' is something of a tautology . . There is no harm in stating the same truth in two different ways." *J.B.S. Haldane, "Darwinism Under Revision," in Rationalist Annual (1935), p. 24.

In reply to this statement of Haldane, Macbeth scathingly replies:

"This is extremely misleading. There is no harm in stating the same truth in two different ways, if one shows what one is doing by connecting the two statements with a phrase such as in other words. But if one connects them with because, which is the earmark of the tautology, one deceives either the reader or oneself or both; and there is ample harm in this.

"The simplest case, where one is informed that a cat is black because it is black, may be harmless, though irritating and useless; but the actual cases [in statements of evolutionary theory] are always harder to detect than this, and may darken counsel for a long time." *Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (1971), p. 63.

"The survivors survive." Is that the best that evolution has to offer us as proof that it is true?

"Of one thing, however, I am certain, and that is that 'natural selection' affords no explanation of mimicry or of any other form of evolution. It means nothing more than 'the survivors survive.' Why do certain individuals survive? Because they are the fittest. How do we know they are the fittest? Because they survive." *E. W. MacBride, Nature, May 11, 1929, p. 713.

-9.

PLANNED BREEDING

VS. NATURAL SELECTION

It has been said that breeding experimentation by mankind has provided one of the best evidences that evolutionary theory is true. It is true that plant and animal breeding has seemingly produced better varieties, but planned breeding and "natural selection" have little or nothing in common.

"Natural selection" is nothing more than random variation in plants and animals. In total contrast, is "artificial selection," or selective breeding. Evolutionists point to the results of selective breeding as an example of what natural selection accomplishes. But there is a vast difference between them.

Several points should be kept in mind, among which are these:

(1) The results of breeding never cross the species line; they are always improvements within a species.

(2) There is a limit to how much change can be made. Beyond that limit, no further changes can be made. The wall imposed by the genetic code cannot be penetrated.

(3) "Improvements" through breeding may improve certain qualities, but others will be weakened. The original was generally stronger and more vigorous than the "improved" varieties.

(4) After being left alone for a time, the improved varieties will slip back toward the original pattern.

(5) The very fact of success in breeding points out that intelligent minds caused it, by careful preplanning, purposive activities, and continual observation at each step. It is just that: "selective breeding." The evolutionist's "natural selection" is totally different: it involves no intelligence, no planning, no design, no purpose, yet it is supposed to change chemicals into trilobites, trilobites into turtles, turtles into turkeys, turkeys into tapirs, and tapirs into mankind.

Selective breeding and Darwin's "natural selection" are two different things:

"Artificial selection is often considered as a means for testing population genetic theories. But there remains, in my opinion, serious doubts about the role that artificial selection could or should play. Dobzhansky argued that [point].

"Darwin used artificial selection as a model of the natural process; a mathematical theory of selection must almost necessarily be derived for experiments on artificial selection.

"This belief, however (and its doubtful conclusion) rests on the implicit hypothesis that artificial selection necessarily simulates some natural selection process. One could only confirm this hypothesis by studying first the natural selection process extensively and then examine how well artificial selection simulates it. But if one could study the natural process in the first place, then one would not need any simulation, unless the simulation process could be better controlled (and provided the controls do not change the effects of the simulation process much from those of the natural process)." *G. Wassermann, "Testability of the Role of Natural Selection Within Theories of Population Genetics and Evolution, " in British Journal of Philosophy of Science, (1978), Vol. 29, pp. 223, 235.

Basing much of his thinking on the excellent results that men were having in breeding new types of roses, pigeons, etc., *Darwin was infatuated with the possibility that chance changes in an organism, which he termed "natural selection," might be able to produce worthwhile variations across species.

"At the same time, however Darwin fell into the traps that Fischer warns against. First, he was so enchanted with the similarities that he paid little attention to the obvious dissimilarities (presence of a guiding intelligence in artificial selection, plus the breeders' concentration on the micro changes rather than on the big gaps). Second, he offered the analogy as a proof.

"Although the analogy had nobly performed its function in stimulating Darwin's imagination, it furnished no evidence of the correctness of Natural Selection. It has historical interest, but it was not essential to the understanding or proof of Natural Selection. Alfred Russel Wallace did not need it to reach the same conclusion as Darwin; to the contrary, McKinney (1972, pp. 144-145) shows that he rejected the analogy .  " *Norman Macbeth, "Danger: analogies ahead, " in Rivista de Biologic (Biology Forum, (1986), Vol. 79, pp. 191, 194.

Natural selection is not "selection," for no purpose nor intelligent thought was involved. A mind is required in order to select.

"It is important to note that in all these processes there is no "selection" in the proper meaning of the word. It is unfortunate that Darwin ever introduced the term "natural selection", for it has given rise to much confusion of thought. He did so, of course, because he arrived at his theory through studying the effects of selection as practiced by man in the breeding of domesticated animals and cultivated plants. Here the use of the word is entirely legitimate. But the action of man in selective breeding is not analogous to the action of "natural selection", but almost its direct opposite, as Woltereck (1931) in particular has pointed out.

"Man has an aim or an end in view; "natural selection" can have none. Man picks out the individuals he wishes to cross, choosing them by the characters he seeks to perpetuate or enhance. He protects them and their issue by all means in his power, guarding them thus from the operation of natural selection, which would speedily eliminate many freaks; he continues his active and purposeful selection from generation to generation until he reaches, if possible his goal.

"Nothing of this kind happens, or can happen, through the blind process of differential elimination and differential survival which we miscall 'natural selection."' * E. Russell, The Diversity of Animals, (1962), p. 124.

Natural selection has no selector.

"Artificial selection, practiced by breeders of agricultural plants and domesticated animals, has commonly been used as a model of the action of natural selection. However, in Lerner's words, 'Natural selection has no purpose.' . For any given generation, natural selection is a consequence of the differences between individuals with respect to their capacity to produce progeny . . Artificial Selection, in contrast, is a purposeful process. It has a goal that can be visualized.'

"Natural selection can and does take place in domesticated and laboratory organisms, and in mankind, under all sorts of natural and artificial conditions. Artificial selection is man-made, however. Natural selection has no selector, it is a self-generated outcome of interactions between organisms and their environments." *T. Dobzhansky, *F. Ayala, *G. Stebbins, and *J. Valentine, Evolution, (1977), p. 97.

In breeding, there is always an ultimate limit:

"Breeders usually find that after a few generations, an optimum is reached beyond which further improvement is impossible, and there has been no new species formed . . Breeding procedures, therefore, would seem to refute, rather than support evolution." On Call, July 3, 1972, p. 9.

"I know from my experience that I can develop a plum half an inch long or one two and a half inches long, with every possible length in between, but I am willing to admit that it is hopeless to try to get a plum the size of a small pea, or one as big as a grapefruit . . In short, there are limits to the developments possible, and these limits follow a law . .

"In the law [of reversion toward the mean, or average], experiments carried on extensively have given us scientific proof of what we already guessed by observation: namely, that plants and animals all tend to revert, in successive generations, toward a given mean or average . . In short, there is undoubtedly a pull toward the mean which keeps all living things within more or less fixed limitations." *Luther Burbank, Partner of Nature, (1939), pp. 89-99.

Selective breeding never crosses the species barrier:

"Some remarkable things have been done by crossbreeding and selection inside the species barrier, or within a larger circle of closely related species, such as the wheats. but wheat is still wheat, and not, for instance, grapefruit; and we can no more grow wings on pigs than hens can make cylindrical eggs." *E. Deevey, "The Reply: Letter from Birnam Wood, " in Yale Review, (1967), Vol. 61, pp. 631, 636 .

"It would appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve the quality of race horses or cabbages, is not actually in itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is evolution." *Loran Eiseley, The Immense Journey, (1958), p. 223.

Improvements in certain features tends to reduce overall fitness for living in the wild.

"The improvements that have been made by selection in these [domesticated breeds] have clearly been accompanied by a reduction of fitness for life under natural conditions and only the fact that domesticated animals and plants do not live under, natural conditions has allowed these improvements to be made." *D. Falcons, Introduction to Quantitative Genetics, (1960), p. 186.

For a time it was hoped that polyploidy might be the cause of evolution. But it produces variations which mostly only occur in plants, never cross the species barrier, and always result in weakening overal vigor. (Polyploidy occurs when the chromosome count is double or more that of the basic or haploid number.)

"The only hope of geneticists in producing a variety of any lasting value is in the phenomenon of polyploidy. But this hardy exists among animals and so cannot account for the evolution of organisms in general. Polyploidy should be considered as a secondary phenomenon mainly observed among plants; polyploids have the same lowering of viability and consequent loss of competitive power as the mutants and therefore are no promising material for progressive evolution." H. Epoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 82.

In 78 years of careful breeding, the DNA wall in sugar beets was reached, as far as a single trait (sugar content) was concerned:

"Similar results have been observed in other species, but in those which are normally cross-pollinated it takes longer to reach the limit of effective selection than in beans, which are self-pollinated. In France, beets were selected for sugar, and from 1800 to 1878 the sugar content rose from 6 percent to 17 percent. From 1878 to 1924, however, the percentage remains 17, even though the same selection methods were used." *D.F. Jones, Genetics in Plant and Animal Improvement (1924), pp. 414.

In five generations, the DNA wall was reached in the eye facets of fruit flies. (This is dedication! How would you like to spend months counting the compound eyes on 30 generations of fruit flies!)

"Results of selection were tested by Charles Zeleny working with a compound eye in Drosophila [the fruit fly]. The normal eye is made up of 859 facets, while the mutant type may have as few as 65. In a white bar race, Zeleny selected a line having the highest number of facets and also a line having the least number. Selection caused a rapid increase in mean facet number during the first five generations, but after the fifth generation the effectiveness of selection ceased, although flies with the most facets were selected for 25 more generations. [C. Zeleny, "The Effect of Selection on Eye Facet Number," in Genetics, 7(January):1-115 (1922)].

"Similar limits of effective selection have been found in sugar bests and corn, showing that while there may be selection in the types of gene the gene itself rarely changes.

"In any case the change brought about by selection tends to reach a limit, as was shown by sugar beets in France. These have been developed from ordinary table beets starting with roots having 6 percent of sugar. By planting seed from the best (i.e., richest in sugar) each year, after about 100 years, 17 percent of sugar was attained. This, of course, was a good result; but the same process of selection, continued for 40 years more, gave no higher percentage of sugar [D.F. Jones, Genetics in Plant and Animal Improvement (1924), p. 414]. This is the situation found time and again in nature with genes, which do not increase in effectiveness. . Charles Darwin, with no observation of such behavior but his neighbor's rule of thumb selection, guessed wrongly that genes change slightly in each reproduction, in every possible direction, and without limit." William J. Tinkle, "Genetics Favors Creation," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, December 1977, p. 156.

Here is additional information on the sugar beet experiment,  plus other facts:

"In 1800, experiments were conducted in France to increase the amount of sugar in table beets (at the time around 6 percent). Artificial selection was conducted on a large scale, selecting the sweetest to produce seed for the next crop. By 1878 the average sugar content of the table beets had risen to 17 percent. However, further selection failed to increase the sugar content from there on; the limits of genetic variation had been reached.

"A similar example is the reduction in the number of bristles on the thorax of fruit flies by artificial selection and breeding. In each generation, the number was reduced, until the 20th generation, after which the number remained the same. The limit of variation by artificial selection had been reached, and any experiment involving cross-breeding and artificial selection, even if it proves the existence of great genetic variations, always demonstrates the limits of the potential for variation fairly soon.

"In the opinion of the well-known zoologist Pierre Grasse, the limits of variation established by artificial selection are in profound contradiction to the Neo-Darwinian argument [P.P. Grasse, L'evolution du Vivant (1973)]. For thousands of years, the dog has been subjected to artificial selection, revealing a great amount of variation, but not allowing the emergence of a new species. The genetic potential is limited. Grasse applies a similar argument to other domesticated animals (cows, bred for 4,000 years; chickens bred for 4,000 years; sheep, bred for 4,000 years).

"Grasse furthermore argues that artificial selection produces a much greater variety than natural selection. As an example he compares the dog and the jackal which he considers to be closely related. The dog (Canis familiaris) and the jackal (Canis aureus) are genetically related (in the evolutionary model) and are subject, with some minor differences, to the same kind of mutations. The jackal, however, appears to be very stable genetically, whereas the dog species is divided into numerous races and sub-races. Grasse concludes that this is due to the fact that the dog has been subject to artificial selection whereas the jackal has only been subject to natural selection." Christopher Bluth, "Creationism Defended, "in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1983, p. 17.

There are instances in which the true species (the Genesis species) is to be found at the genus level, rather than the species. This is due to faulty classification work by researchers. It does not mean that the true species level has been bridged.

"Cross breeding . . is almost never satisfactorily possible at the level of the genera, and absolutely never above that level." *George G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (1953), p. 340.

There are millions of different species. If intelligent men cannot breed beyond the species barrier, why should we expect that raw chance did it?

"A rule that all breeders recognize, is that there are fixed limits to the amount of change that can be produced." Lane P. Lester and Raymond G. Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change (1984), p. 96.

The experts all know the truth of the matter, but it is best to avoid mentioning it when expounding the virtues of evolutionary theory.

"All competent biologists acknowledge the limited nature of the variation breeders can produce, although they do not like to discuss it much when grinding the evolutionary ax." *William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution (1984), pp. 184-185.

 THE MARVEL OF METAMORPHOSIS

Another fascinating mystery of nature is metamorphosis. The difference between a human embryo and an adult is quite great, yet both are fully human. But something approximating a straight-line growth and development seems to occur. It is not really that simple, but at least it appears so.

Yet there are living creatures which undergo such strange transformations from inception to adulthood that the process they undergo is termed "metamorphosis. " But how could such astounding changes occur as a result of the randomness of natural selection? In this section we will consider this awesome wonder of metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis is a process by which certain animals undergo changes in form, structure, or function as they develop from an immature form at birth or hatching to an adult.

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Every spring in the ponds we find small, fishlike creatures swimming around. These small tadpoles are adapted for living underwater on vegetable fragments and swim by means of powerful tails. But within a couple weeks, they begin changing into four-legged creatures able to live on land and eat insects. In the process, more than legs and lungs developed. The hemoglobin of a tadpole is quite different than that in a frog. It also has different digestive enzymes. Fish excrete ammonia, which is at once diluted by the surrounding water. Land animals dare not do this or they would poison themselves, so they convert the ammonia to harmless urea. Even the covering changes, for the tadpole only needed a thin, permeable skin, while the frog conserves water by means of a thick, impermeable skin. All of these changes occur within a few days as the tadpole becomes a frog! How could "natural selection," "mutations," or any other random process produce the carefully-designed genetic coding for all this?

But there is more: These changes are exquisitely timed. The tail does not begin to vanish until the legs are ready for action. The gills continue operating until the lung mechanism is fully developed; then the gills are reabsorbed by the body!

We are all acquainted with the dramatic changes which occur in the butterfly. The female butterfly lays eggs, which hatch out into caterpillars; small, worm-like creatures which walk about on several feet. The caterpillar then prepares a pupa and goes into an extended sleep.

During that time, every chemical compound in its body undergoes change! The entire creature turns to mush and all its organs are totally restructured) This is one of the most amazing occurrences in nature. Everything changes: nerves, muscles, digestive organs, respiratory system, sense organs, heart and circulatory system, fat bodies, skin, alimentary canal, and all the rest.

Each creature undergoes a somewhat different pattern of metamorphosis, but that would be understandable since the chemical changes within each one are totally different. Salamanders do not seem to make as dramatic a change in shape, but they too undergo crucial inward changes. Outwardly, both before and after, they have legs and a tail. The only apparent difference is that the legs seemed stronger afterwards, and the tail shorter; but, nonetheless, powerful internal changes occurred.

How long does it take before the changeover is accomplished? In the smaller frogs, the tadpole metamorphoses within a few weeks, but in the larger ones, the tadpole lives for three years before changing into a bullfrog. In some crustaceans, the larval forms persist only for a few minutes. In shrimps the change is very extended, and stretches out over a long period.

There are so many variations of metamorphosis, that, after carefully studying it, *John Costlow of Duke University has declared the phenomenon to have evolved separately for every species on earth!

Insects have successive molts and then a pupal stage. They may not be as dramatic as that of the butterfly, but they are just as astounding. Those parts which will not later change in shape harden before pupation; those, like the wings, which will have to expand later, do not harden until after emergence from the pupa.

Why is it that the caterpillar prepares a pupal case which is the shape of the butterfly which will later emerge from it, instead of making it the shape of the worm-like creature which crawls into it? How could the caterpillar know to do that? There is no doubt but that intelligent advance planning was required. Would you or I know how to shape a case for a caterpillar that would fit the butterfly later to emerge from it? To do that would surely take some thought, yet caterpillars regularly do ft.

What happens to the structures which are reabsorbed; for example, the tail of the tadpole? Reabsorption begins with extreme rapidity. So much so, that chemical changes within the tail can be detected within two or three minutes of onset of the metamorphic process. What happens to the tail after it is reabsorbed? Where does it go? What destroys the cells within it? It is all a great mystery.

METAMORPHOSIS

Here are the four stages in the development of a typical butterfly. Whatever is inside the egg changes into a caterpillar. The caterpillar then forms itself into a pupa. What comes out is as dramatically different as the caterpillar which comes out of the egg laid by the butterfly! (The egg has been scaled up for shape clarification.)

THREE INSECTS GROW UP

 

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One variety of newt, the Notophthalmus vlridescens undergoes a circular kind of metamorphosis. It starts out something like a fish, and has a lateral line as fish do. (The lateral line enables it to sense water pressure, the movement of water past it, and enemies coming toward it from the side.) When it changes, the lateral line is lost, it gains a tongue to catch insects, and climbs out onto the land. About three years later, it metamorphoses back again and loses the tongue, regains the lateral line, goes back into the water and becomes something like a fish again!

Yet another type of "metamorphosis" occurs in certain types of sea creatures. The young of these species hatch, develop a rudimentary backbone and swim around for a time. Then after several days, some of them land on rocks and change into coral! Others drop to the bottom of the ocean and change into anemones! Still others change into jellyfish!

All about us are natural wonders, wonders that are the result of careful planning by the deepest, wisest Intelligence you will ever encounter in your entire lifetime.

NATURAL SELECTION
CHAPTER 13

STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS

1 - Natural selection is randomness in action. Place nine marbles in a solid 3x3 square in the center of a less-used room in your house. With a kick of your foot, apply natural selection to the marbles. Return to the room six times a day for five days and apply additional natural selection to the marbles. Under the title, "Natural Selection in action," write notes on the highly integrated structures produced by the marbles over a period of time.

 2 - Explain the difference between in-species or sub-species variations, and cross-species changes.

 3 - Briefly discuss the peppered moth of England, and why it is not an evidence of evolution.

 4 - Select one of the following, and explain why it is not an evidence of evolution (which requires change across species): insecticide-resistant flies, DDT-resistant bacteria, golden delicious apple, new varieties of tomatoes.

 5 - What was Darwin's error in thinking that the Galapagos finches were an evidence of evolution?

6 - Give two reasons why the mule is not the beginning of a different species

 7 - Write a brief paragraph explaining why evolution would not produce distinct species.

 8 - In a brief paragraph, explain the law of Genesis kinds.

 9 - Why does the population principle of regression toward the mean rule out the possibility of cross-species evolutionary change?

 You have just completed 

APPENDIX 13-B

NEXT Go to the next chapter in this series,

CHAPTER 14- MUTATIONS 

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