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Rapid Burial Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial. Many fossils, such as fossilized jellyfish (a), show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions (b) that they were buried rapidly, before they could decay. (Normally, dead animals and plants quickly decompose.) The presence of fossilized remains of many other animals, buried in mass graves and lying in twisted and contorted positions, suggests violent and rapid burials over large areas (c). These observations, together with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly—not over hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, almost all sediments that formed today’s rocks were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood. The fossil record is not evidence of slow change (d). http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fossil_fish_eating_fish.jpg [/img] Figure 7: Fossil of Fish Swallowing Fish. The fossilization process must have been quite rapid to have preserved a fish in the act of swallowing another fish. Thousands of such fossils have been found. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fish_in_fossil_fish.jpg [/img] Figure 8: Fish in Long Fish. In the belly of the above 14-foot-long fish is a smaller fish, presumably the big fish’s breakfast. Because digestion is rapid, fossilization must have been even more so. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fish_in_curved_fish.jpg [/img] Figure 9: Fish in Curved Fish. The curved back shows that this fish died under stress. http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fossilized_dragonfly_wing.jpg[/img] Figure 10: Dragonfly Wing. This delicate, 1 1/2-foot-long wing must have been buried rapidly and evenly to preserve its details. Imagine the size of the entire dragonfly! a. Thousands of jellyfish, many bigger than a dinner plate, are found in at least seven different horizons of coarse-grained, abrasive sandstone in Wisconsin. [See James W. Hagadorn et al., “Stranded on a Late Cambrian Shoreline: Medusae from Central Wisconsin,” Geology, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 2002, pp. 147–150.] Coarse grains slowly covering a jellyfish would allow atmospheric oxygen to migrate in and produce rapid decay. Burial in clay or mud would better shield an organism from decay. If coarse-grain sand buried these jellyfish in a storm, turbulence and abrasion by the sand grains would tear and destroy the jellyfish. To understand how thousands of jellyfish were gently collected and preserved in coarse-grained sand, see pages [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Liquefaction2.html#wp1100074]195-212[/url]]. Charles Darwin recognized the problem of finding fossilized soft-bodied organisms such as jellyfish. He wrote: “No organism wholly soft can be preserved.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 330. Once again, a prediction of evolution is seen to be wrong. Preston Cloud and Martin F. Glaessner, “The Ediacarian Period and System: Metazoa Inherit the Earth,” Science, Vol. 217, 27 August 1982, pp. 783–792. [See also the cover of that issue.] Martin F. Glaessner, “Pre-Cambrian Animals,” Scientific American, Vol. 204, March 1961, pp. 72–78. b. Donald G. Mikulic et al., “A Silurian Soft-Bodied Biota,” Science, Vol. 228, 10 May 1985, pp. 715–717. “...preconditions for the preservation of soft-bodied faunas: rapid burial of fossils in undisturbed sediment; deposition in an environment free from the usual agents of immediate destruction—primarily oxygen and other promoters of decay, and the full range of organisms, from bacteria to large scavengers, that quickly reduce most carcasses to oblivion in nearly all earthly environments; and minimal disruption by the later ravages of heat, pressure, fracturing, and erosion....But the very conditions that promote preservation also decree that few organisms, if any, make their natural homes in such places.” Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), pp. 61–62. c. Presse Grayloise, “Very Like a Whale,” The Illustrated London News, 1856, p. 116. Sunderland, pp. 111–114. David Starr Jordan, “A Miocene Catastrophe,” Natural History, Vol. 20, January–February 1920, pp. 18–22. Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1858), pp. 221–225. d. Harold G. Coffin, Origin By Design (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1983), pp. 30–40. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences25.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Embryology 2 Ernst Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings (b), originated and popularized this incorrect but widespread belief [of the “biogenetic law”]. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this false idea as evidence for evolution (c). b. Haeckel, who in 1868 advanced this “biogenetic law” that was quickly adopted in textbooks and encyclopedias worldwide, distorted his data. Thompson explains: “A natural law can only be established as an induction from facts. Haeckel was of course unable to do this. What he did was to arrange existing forms of animal life in a series proceeding from the simple to the complex, intercalating [inserting] imaginary entities where discontinuity existed and then giving the embryonic phases names corresponding to the stages in his so-called evolutionary series. Cases in which this parallelism did not exist were dealt with by the simple expedient of saying that the embryological development had been falsified. When the ‘convergence’ of embryos was not entirely satisfactory, Haeckel altered the illustrations of them to fit his theory. The alterations were slight but significant. The ‘biogenetic law’ as a proof of evolution is valueless.” W. R. Thompson, p. 12. “To support his case he [Haeckel] began to fake evidence. Charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court at Jena, he agreed that a small percentage of his embryonic drawings were forgeries; he was merely filling in and reconstructing the missing links when the evidence was thin, and he claimed unblushingly that ‘hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge.’” Pitman, p. 120. “A Professor Arnold Bass charged that Haeckel had made changes in pictures of embryos which he [Bass] had drawn. Haeckel’s reply to these charges was that if he is to be accused of falsifying drawings, many other prominent scientists should also be accused of the same thing ...” Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian Faith (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1969), pp. 76–77. M. Bowden, Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? 2nd edition (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications, 1981), pp. 142–143. Wilbert H. Rusch, Sr., “Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 6, June 1969, pp. 27–34. “...ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, meaning that in the course of its development [ontogeny] an embryo recapitulates [repeats] the evolutionary history of its species [phylogeny]. This idea was fathered by Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist who was so convinced that he had solved the riddle of life’s unfolding that he doctored and faked his drawings of embryonic stages to prove his point.” Fix, p. 285. “[The German scientist Wilhelm His] accused Haeckel of shocking dishonesty in repeating the same picture several times to show the similarity among vertebrates at early embryonic stages in several plates of [Haeckel’s book].” Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 430. “It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology.” Michael K. Richardson, as quoted by Elizabeth Pennisi, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,” Science, Vol. 277, 5 September 1997, p. 1435. “When we compare his [Haeckel’s] drawings of a young echidna embryo with the original, we find that he removed the limbs (see Fig. 1). This cut was selective, applying only to the young stage. It was also systematic because he did it to other species in the picture. Its intent is to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life.” Michael K. Richardson and Gerhard Keuck, “A Question of Intent: When Is a ‘Schematic’ Illustration a Fraud?” Nature, Vol. 410, 8 March 2001, p. 144. c. “Another point to emerge from this study is the considerable inaccuracy of Haeckel’s famous figures. These drawings are still widely reproduced in textbooks and review articles, and continue to exert a significant influence on the development of ideas in this field.” Michael K. Richardson et al., “There Is No Highly Conserved Embryonic Stage in the Vertebrates,” Anatomy and Embryology, Vol. 196, No. 2, August 1997, p. 104. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences24.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Embryology 1 Evolutionists have taught for over a century that as an embryo develops, it passes through stages that mimic an evolutionary sequence. In other words, in a few weeks an unborn human repeats stages that supposedly took millions of years for mankind. A well-known example of this ridiculous teaching is that embryos of mammals have “gill slits,” because mammals supposedly evolved from fish. (Yes, that’s faulty logic.) Embryonic tissues that resemble “gill slits” have nothing to do with breathing; they are neither gills nor slits. Instead, those embryonic tissues develop into parts of the face, bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. Embryologists no longer consider the superficial similarities between a few embryos and the adult forms of simpler animals as evidence for evolution (a). a. “This generalization was originally called the biogenetic law by Haeckel and is often stated as ‘ontogeny [the development of an embryo] recapitulates [repeats] phylogeny [evolution].’ This crude interpretation of embryological sequences will not stand close examination, however. Its shortcomings have been almost universally pointed out by modern authors, but the idea still has a prominent place in biological mythology.” Paul R. Ehrlich and Richard W. Holm, The Process of Evolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 66. “It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.” George Gaylord Simpson and William S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965), p. 241. Hitching, pp. 202–205. “The enthusiasm of the German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, however, led to an erroneous and unfortunate exaggeration of the information which embryology could provide. This was known as the ‘biogenetic law’ and claimed that embryology was a recapitulation of evolution, or that during its embryonic development an animal recapitulated the evolutionary history of its species.” Gavin R. deBeer, An Atlas of Evolution (New York: Nelson, 1964), p. 38. “...the theory of recapitulation has had a great and, while it lasted, regrettable influence on the progress of embryology.” Gavin R. deBeer, Embryos and Ancestors, revised edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 10. “Moreover, the biogenetic law has become so deeply rooted in biological thought that it cannot be weeded out in spite of its having been demonstrated to be wrong by numerous subsequent scholars.” Walter J. Bock, “Evolution by Orderly Law,” Science, Vol. 164, 9 May 1969, pp. 684–685. “...we no longer believe we can simply read in the embryonic development of a species its exact evolutionary history.” Hubert Frings and Marie Frings, Concepts of Zoology (Toronto: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1970), p. 267. “The type of analogical thinking which leads to theories that development is based on the recapitulation of ancestral stages or the like no longer seems at all convincing or even interesting to biologists.” Conrad Hal Waddington, Principles of Embryology (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956), p. 10. “Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail.” Keith Stewart Thomson, “Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated,” American Scientist, Vol. 76, May–June 1988, p. 273. “The biogenetic law—embryologic recapitulation—I think, was debunked back in the 1920s by embryologists.” David Raup, as taken from page 16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D. Sunderland on 27 July 1979. [See also Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (San Diego: Master Book Publishers, 1984), p. 119.] “The theory of recapitulation was destroyed in 1921 by Professor Walter Garstang in a famous paper. Since then no respectable biologist has ever used the theory of recapitulation, because it was utterly unsound, created by a Nazi-like preacher named Haeckel.” Ashley Montagu, as quoted by Sunderland, p. 119. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences24.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Two-Celled Life? Many single-celled forms of life exist, but no known forms of animal life have 2, 3, 4, or 5 cells (a). Known forms of life with 6–20 cells are parasites, so they must have a complex animal as a host to provide such functions as respiration and digestion. If macroevolution happened, one should find many transitional forms of life with 2–20 cells—filling the gap between one-celled and many-celled organisms. a. E. Lendell Cockrum and William J. McCauley, Zoology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1965), p. 163. Lynn Margulis and Karlene V. Schwartz, Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1982), pp. 178–179. Perhaps the simplest forms of multicellular life are the Myxozoans, which have 6–12 cells. While they are quite distinct from other multicellular life, they are even more distinct from single-celled life (kingdom Protista). [See James F. Smothers et al., “Molecular Evidence That the Myxozoan Protists are Metazoans,” Science, Vol. 265, 16 September 1994, pp. 1719–1721.] So, if they evolved from anywhere, it would most likely have been from higher, not lower, forms of life. Such a feat should be called devolution, not evolution. Colonial forms of life are an unlikely bridge between single-celled life and multicelled life. The degree of cellular differentiation between colonial forms of life and the simplest multicellular forms of life is vast. For a further discussion, see Libbie Henrietta Hyman, The Invertebrates: Protozoa through Ctenophora, Vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1940), pp. 248–255. Nor do Diplomonads (which have two nuclei and four flagella) bridge the gap. Diplomonads are usually parasites. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences23.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Vestigial Organs Some structures in humans were once thought to have no function but to have been derived from functioning organs in claimed evolutionary ancestors (a). They were called vestigial organs. As medical knowledge has increased, at least some function has been discovered for all alleged vestigial organs (b). For example, the human appendix was once considered a useless remnant from our evolutionary past. The appendix plays a role in antibody production, protects part of the intestine from infections and tumor growths (c), and safely stores “good bacteria” that can replenish the intestines following bouts of diarrhea, for example (d). Indeed, the absence of true vestigial organs implies evolution never happened. a. “The existence of functionless ‘vestigial organs’ was presented by Darwin, and is often cited by current biology textbooks, as part of the evidence for evolution....An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures and an analysis of the nature of the argument, leads to the conclusion that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.” S. R. Scadding, “Do ‘Vestigial Organs’ Provide Evidence for Evolution?” Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3, May 1981, p. 173. b. Jerry Bergman and George Howe, “Vestigial Organs” Are Fully Functional (Terre Haute, Indiana: Creation Research Society Books, 1990). c. “The appendix is not generally credited with substantial function. However, current evidence tends to involve it in the immunologic mechanism.” Gordon McHardy, “The Appendix,” Gastroenterology, Vol. 4, editor J. Edward Berk (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1985), p. 2609. “Thus, although scientists have long discounted the human appendix as a vestigial organ, a growing quantity of evidence indicates that the appendix does in fact have a significant function as a part of the body’s immune system. ” N. Roberts, “Does the Appendix Serve a Purpose in Any Animal?” Scientific American, Vol. 285, November 2001, p. 96. d. “...the human appendix is well suited as a ‘safe house’ for commensal bacteria, providing support for bacterial growth and potentially facilitating re-inoculation of the colon in the event that the contents of the intestinal track are purged following exposure to a pathogen....the appendix...is not a vestige.” R. Randal Bollinger et. al., “Biofilms in the Large Bowel Suggest an Apparent Function of the Human Vermiform Appendix,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 249, 2007, p. 826. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences22.html#wp1616566]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

With NO scientific evidence, why do so many "scientists" embrace evolution? Following are some quotes from noted evolutionists, which will shed light on this subject: Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote: "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." (The Blind Watchmaker, page 6) H.G. Wells, author and historian, wrote: "If all animals and man evolved ... then the entire historic fabric of Christianity—the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement—collapsed like a house of cards." (The Outlines of History) Aldous Huxley stated the matter succinctly in his article, “Confessions of a Professed Atheist” : “I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently, assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find reasons for this assumption. ... The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do. ... For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom” (1966, 3:19). The late Sir Julian Huxley, once the world's leading evolution "expert", and head of the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO), In answer to the question on the Merv Griffin show: ‘Why do people believe in evolution?” said, “The reason we accepted Darwinism even without proof, is because we didn’t want God to interfere with our sexual mores.” George Wald, another prominent Evolutionist (a Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate), wrote, "When it comes to the Origin of Life there are only two possibilities: creation or spontaneous generation. There is no third way. Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. We cannot accept that on philosophical grounds; therefore, we choose to believe the impossible: that life arose spontaneously by chance!" ("The Origin of Life," Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954). According to their own testimonies, the most prominent evolutionists believed and taught evolution, NOT because of any scientific evidence, but based upon their rejection of God.

It is refreshing that one of my readers actually thinks. Keep up the good work.

Convergent Evolution or Intelligent Design? 2 It is illogical to maintain that similarities between different forms of life always imply a common ancestor (c); such similarities may imply a common designer and show efficient design. In fact, where similar structures are known to be controlled by different genes (d) or are developed from different parts of embryos (e), a common designer is a much more likely explanation than evolution. c. “By this we have also proved that a morphological similarity between organisms cannot be used as proof of a phylogenetic [evolutionary] relationship...it is unscientific to maintain that the morphology may be used to prove relationships and evolution of the higher categories of units...” Nilsson, p. 1143. “But biologists have known for a hundred years that homologous [similar] structures are often not produced by similar developmental pathways. And they have known for thirty years that they are often not produced by similar genes, either. So there is no empirically demonstrated mechanism to establish that homologies are due to common ancestry rather than common design.” Jonathan Wells, “Survival of the Fakest,” The American Spectator, December 2000/January 2001, p. 22. d. Fix, pp. 189–191. Denton, pp. 142–155. “Therefore, homologous structures need not be controlled by identical genes, and homology of phenotypes does not imply similarity of genotypes. [emphasis in original] It is now clear that the pride with which it was assumed that the inheritance of homologous structures from a common ancestor explained homology was misplaced; for such inheritance cannot be ascribed to identity of genes. ... But if it is true that through the genetic code, genes code for enzymes that synthesize proteins which are responsible (in a manner still unknown in embryology) for the differentiation of the various parts in their normal manner, what mechanism can it be that results in the production of homologous organs, the same ‘patterns’, in spite of their not being controlled by the same genes? I asked this question in 1938, and it has not been answered.” [Nor has it been answered today.] Gavin R. deBeer, formerly Professor of Embryology at the University of London and Director of the British Museum (Natural History), Homology, An Unsolved Problem (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 16. e. “Structures as obviously homologous as the alimentary canal in all vertebrates can be formed from the roof of the embryonic gut cavity (sharks), floor (lampreys, newts), roof and floor (frogs), or from the lower layer of the embryonic disc, the blastoderm, that floats on the top of heavily yolked eggs (reptiles, birds). It does not seem to matter where in the egg or the embryo the living substance out of which homologous organs are formed comes from. Therefore, correspondence between homologous structures cannot be pressed back to similarity of position of the cells of the embryo or the parts of the egg out of which these structures are ultimately differentiated.” [emphasis in original] Ibid., p. 13. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences21.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Convergent Evolution or Intelligent Design? 1 When the same complex capability is found in unrelated organisms but not in their alleged evolutionary ancestors, evolutionists say that a common need caused identical complexities to evolve. They call this convergent evolution. For example, wings and flight occur in some birds, insects, and mammals (bats). Pterosaurs, an extinct reptile, also had wings and could fly. These capabilities have not been found in any of their alleged common ancestors. Other examples of convergent evolution are the three tiny bones in the ears of mammals: the stapes, incus, and malleus. Their complex arrangement and precise fit give mammals the unique ability to hear a wide range of sounds. Evolutionists say that those bones evolved from bones in a reptile’s jaw. If so, the process must have occurred at least twice (a)—but left no known transitional fossils. How did the transitional organisms between reptiles and mammals hear during those millions of years (b)? Without the ability to hear, survival—and reptile-to-mammal evolution—would cease. Concluding that a miracle—or any extremely unlikely event—happened once requires strong evidence or faith; claiming that a similar “miracle” happened repeatedly requires either incredible blind faith or a cause common to each event, such as a common designer. a. “...the definitive mammalian middle ear evolved independently in living monotremes and therians (marsupials and placentals).” Thomas H. Rich et al., “Independent Origins of Middle Ear Bones in Monotremes and Therians,” Science, Vol. 307, 11 February 2005, p. 910. “Because of the complexity of the bone arrangement, some scientists have argued that the innovation arose just once—in a common ancestor of the three mammalian groups. Now, analyses of a jawbone from a specimen of Teinolophos trusleri, a shrew-size creature that lived in Australia about 115 million years ago, have dealt a blow to that notion.” Sid Perkins, “Groovy Bones,” Science News, Vol. 167, 12 February 2005, p. 100. b. Also, for mammals to hear also requires the organ of Corti and complex “wiring” in the brain. No known reptile (the supposed ancestor of mammals), living or fossil, has anything resembling this amazing organ. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences21.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Compatible Senders and Receivers Only intelligence creates codes, programs, and information (CP&I). Each involves senders and receivers. Senders and receivers can be people, animals, plants, organs, cells, or certain molecules. (The DNA molecule is a prolific sender.) The CP&I in a message must be understandable and beneficial to both sender and receiver beforehand; otherwise, the effort expended in transmitting and receiving messages (written, chemical, electrical, magnetic, visual, and auditory) will be wasted. Consider the astronomical number of links (message channels) that exist between potential senders and receivers: from the cellular level to complete organisms, from bananas to bacteria to babies, and across all of time since life began. All must have compatible understandings (CP&I) and equipment (matter and energy). Designing compatibilities of this magnitude requires one or more superintelligences who completely understand how matter and energy behave over time. In other words, the superintelligence(s) must have made, or at least mastered, the laws of chemistry and physics wherever senders and receivers are found. The simplest, most parsimonious way to integrate all of life is for there to be only one superintelligence. Also, the sending and receiving equipment, including its energy sources, must be in place and functional before communication begins. But the preexisting equipment provides no benefit until useful messages begin arriving. Therefore, intelligent foresight (planning) is mandatory—something nature cannot do. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences19.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Codes, Programs, and Information 4 All isolated systems, including living organisms, have specific, but perishable, amounts of information. No isolated system has ever been shown to increase its information content significantly (f). Nor do natural processes increase information; they destroy it. Only outside intelligence can significantly increase the information content of an otherwise isolated system. All scientific observations are consistent with this generalization, which has three corollaries: Macroevolution cannot occur (g). Outside intelligence was involved in the creation of the universe and all forms of life (h). Life could not result from a “big bang” (i). f. Werner Gitt (Professor of Information Systems) describes man as the most complex information processing system on earth. Gitt estimated that about 3×10^24 bits of information are processed daily in an average human body. That is thousands of times more than all the information in all the world’s libraries. [See Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 2nd edition (Bielefeld, Germany: CLV, 2000), p. 88.] “There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.” Ibid., p. 107. “If there are more than several dozen nucleotides in a functional sequence, we know that realistically they will never just ‘fall into place.’ This has been mathematically demonstrated repeatedly. But as we will soon see, neither can such a sequence arise randomly one nucleotide at a time. A pre-existing ‘concept’ is required as a framework upon which a sentence or a functional sequence must be built. Such a concept can only pre-exist within the mind of the author.” Sanford, pp. 124–125. g. Because macroevolution requires increasing complexity through natural processes, the organism’s information content must spontaneously increase many times. However, natural processes cannot significantly increase the information content of an isolated system, such as a reproductive cell. Therefore, macroevolution cannot occur. “The basic flaw of all evolutionary views is the origin of the information in living beings. It has never been shown that a coding system and semantic information could originate by itself in a material medium, and the information theorems predict that this will never be possible. A purely material origin of life is thus precluded.” Gitt, p. 124. h. Based on modern advances in the field of information theory, the only known way to decrease the entropy of an isolated system is by having intelligence in that system. [See, for example, Charles H. Bennett, “Demons, Engines and the Second Law,” Scientific American, Vol. 257, November 1987, pp. 108–116.] Because the universe is far from its maximum entropy level, a vast intelligence is the only known means by which the universe could have been brought into being. [See also [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/AstroPhysicalSciences16.html#wp1052519] “Second Law of Thermodynamics” [/url]]] i. If the “big bang” occurred, all the matter in the universe was at one time a hot gas. A gas is one of the most random systems known to science. Random, chaotic movements of gas molecules contain virtually no useful information. Because an isolated system, such as the universe, cannot generate nontrivial information, the “big bang” could not produce the complex, living universe we have today, which contains astronomical amounts of useful information. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Codes, Programs, and Information 3 Life contains matter, energy, and information (e). e. How can we measure information? A computer file might contain information for printing a story, reproducing a picture at a given resolution, or producing a widget to specified tolerances. Information can usually be compressed to some degree, just as the English language could be compressed by eliminating every “u” that directly follows a “q”. If compression could be accomplished to the maximum extent possible (eliminating all redundancies and unnecessary information), the number of bits (0s or 1s) would be a measure of the information needed to produce the story, picture, or widget. Each living system can be described by its age and the information stored in its DNA. Each basic unit of DNA, called a nucleotide, can be one of four types. Therefore, each nucleotide represents two (log24 = 2) bits of information. Conceptual systems, such as ideas, a filing system, or a system for betting on race horses, can be explained in books. Several bits of information can define each symbol in these books. The number of bits of information, after compression, needed to duplicate and achieve the purpose of a system will be defined as its information content. That number is also a measure of the system’s complexity. Objects and organisms are not information. Each is a complex combination of matter and energy that the proper equipment—and information—could theoretically produce. Matter and energy alone cannot produce complex objects, living organisms, or information. While we may not know the precise amount of information in different organisms, we do know those numbers are enormous and quite different. Simply changing (mutating) a few bits to begin the gigantic leap toward evolving a new organ or organism would likely kill the host. “Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.” Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics; or, Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, 2nd edition (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1948), p. 132. Werner Gitt (Professor of Information Systems) describes man as the most complex information processing system on earth. Gitt estimated that about 3 × 1024 bits of information are processed daily in an average human body. That is thousands of times more than all the information in all the world’s libraries. [See Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, 2nd edition (Bielefeld, Germany: CLV, 2000), p. 88.] [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Codes, Programs, and Information 2 No natural process has ever been observed to produce a program. A program is a planned sequence of steps to accomplish some goal. Computer programs are common examples. Because programs require foresight, they are not produced by chance or natural processes. The information stored in the genetic material of all life is a complex program. A complex program is stored in the genetic information in every form of life. Therefore, it appears that an unfathomable intelligence created these genetic programs (d). d. “No matter how many ‘bits’ of possible combinations it has, there is no reason to call it ‘information’ if it doesn’t at least have the potential of producing something useful. What kind of information produces function? In computer science, we call it a ‘program.’ Another name for computer software is an ‘algorithm.’ No man-made program comes close to the technical brilliance of even Mycoplasmal genetic algorithms. Mycoplasmas are the simplest known organisms with the smallest known genome, to date. How was its genome and other living organisms’ genomes programmed?” Abel and Trevors, p. 8. “No known hypothetical mechanism has even been suggested for the generation of nucleic acid algorithms.” Jack T. Trevors and David L. Abel, “Chance and Necessity Do Not Explain the Origin of Life,” Cell Biology International, Vol. 28, 2004, p. 730. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Codes, Programs, and Information 1 In our experience, codes are produced only by intelligence, not by natural processes or chance. A code is a set of rules for converting information (such as language) from one useful form to another. Examples include Morse code and Braille. Code makers must simultaneously understand at least two ways of representing information and then establish the rules for converting from one to the other and back again. It is hard to imagine how natural processes and long periods of time could produce even one language. Having two languages form by natural processes and be able to automatically convert one to the other is unbelievable. The genetic material that controls the physical processes of life is coded information. Also coded are complex (a) and completely different functions: the transmission, translation, correction, and duplication systems, without which the genetic material would be useless, and life would cease (b). It seems obvious that the genetic code and the accompanying transmission, translation, correction, and duplication systems were produced simultaneously in each living organism by an extremely high intelligence (c). a. In 2010, another level of complexity was discovered in the genetic code. On a strand of DNA, a sequence of three adjacent nucleotides form a unit in the genetic code called a codon. Prior to 2010, some codons were thought to have the same function as others. That turns out to not be the case. “...synonymous codon changes can so profoundly change the role of a protein [that it] adds a new level of complexity to how we interpret the genetic code.” Ivana Weygand-Durasevic and Michael Ibba, “New Roles for Codon Usage,” Science, Vol. 329, 17 September 2010, p. 1474. Also see Fangliang Zhang et al., “Differential Arginylation of Actin Isoforms Is Regulated by Coding Sequence-Dependent Degradation,” Science, Vol. 329, 17 September 2010, p. 1734–1537. b. “Genomes [all the DNA of a species] are remarkable in that they encode most of the functions necessary for their interpretation and propagation.” Anne-Claude Gavin et al., “Proteome Survey Reveals Modularity of the Yeast Cell Machinery,” Nature, Vol. 440, 30 March 2006, p. 631. c. The genetic code is remarkably insensitive to translation errors. If the code were produced by random processes, as evolutionists believe, life would have needed about a million different starts before a code could have been stumbled on that was as resilient as the code used by all life today. [See Stephen J. Freeland and Laurence D. Hurst, “Evolution Encoded,” Scientific American, Vol. 290, April 2004, pp. 84–91.] “This analysis gives us a reason to believe that the A–T and G–C choice forms the best pairs that are the most different from each other, so that their ubiquitous use in living things represents an efficient and successful choice rather than an accident of evolution.” [emphasis added] Larry Liebovitch, as quoted by David Bradley, “The Genome Chose Its Alphabet with Care,” Science, Vol. 297, 13 September 2002, p. 1790. “It was already clear that the genetic code is not merely an abstraction, but also the embodiment of life’s mechanisms; the consecutive triplets of nucleotides in DNA (called codons) are inherited but they also guide the construction of proteins. So it is disappointing, but not surprising, that the origin of the genetic code is still as obscure as the origin of life itself.” John Maddox, “The Genetic Code by Numbers,” Nature, Vol. 367, 13 January 1994, p. 111. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences18.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Speech Speech is uniquely human (a). Humans have both a “prewired” brain capable of learning and conveying abstract ideas, and the physical anatomy (mouth, throat, tongue, larynx, etc.) to produce a wide range of sounds. Only a few animals can approximate some human sounds. Because the human larynx is low in the neck, a long air column lies above the vocal cords. This helps make vowel sounds. Apes cannot make clear vowel sounds, because they lack this long air column. The back of the human tongue, extending deep into the neck, modulates the airflow to produce consonant sounds. Apes have flat, horizontal tongues, incapable of making consonant sounds (b). Even if an ape could evolve all the physical equipment for speech, that equipment would be useless without a “prewired” brain for learning language skills, especially grammar and vocabulary. a. Mark P. Cosgrove, The Amazing Body Human (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1987), pp. 106–109. “If we are honest, we will face the facts and admit that we can find no evolutionary development to explain our unique speech center [in the human brain].” Ibid., p. 164. b. Jeffrey T. Laitman, “The Anatomy of Human Speech,” Natural History, Vol. 93, August 1984, pp. 20–26. “Chimpanzees communicate with each other by making vocal sounds just as most mammals do, but they don’t have the capacity for true language, either verbally or by using signs and symbols. ... Therefore, the speech sound production ability of a chimpanzee vocal tract is extremely limited, because it lacks the ability to produce the segmental contrast of consonants and vowels in a series....I conclude that all of the foregoing basic structural and functional deficiencies of the chimpanzee vocal tract, which interfere or limit the production of speech sounds, also pertain to all of the other nonhuman primates.” Edmund S. Crelin, The Human Vocal Tract (New York: Vantage Press, 1987), p. 83. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences17.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Language 2 If language evolved, the earliest languages should be the simplest. But language studies show that the more ancient the language (for example: Latin, 200 B.C.; Greek, 800 B.C.; Linear B, 1200 B.C.; and Vedic Sanskrit, 1500 B.C.), the more complex it is with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, voice, tense, verb form, and inflection. The best evidence shows that languages devolve; that is, they become simpler instead of more complex (f). Most linguists reject the idea that simple languages evolve into complex languages (g). See [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ320.html#wp5829760]Figure 208 [/url]] If humans evolved, then so did language. All available evidence indicates that language did not evolve, so humans probably did not evolve either. f. David C. C. Watson, The Great Brain Robbery (Chicago: Moody Press, 1976), pp. 83–89. George Gaylord Simpson acknowledged the vast gulf that separates animal communication and human languages. Although he recognized the apparent pattern of language development from complex to simple, he could not digest it. He simply wrote, “Yet it is incredible that the first language could have been the most complex.” He then shifted to a new subject. George Gaylord Simpson, Biology and Man (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969), p. 116. “Many other attempts have been made to determine the evolutionary origin of language, and all have failed....Even the peoples with least complex cultures have highly sophisticated languages, with complex grammar and large vocabularies, capable of naming and discussing anything that occurs in the sphere occupied by their speakers....The oldest language that can reasonably be reconstructed is already modern, sophisticated, complete from an evolutionary point of view.” George Gaylord Simpson, “The Biological Nature of Man,” Science, Vol. 152, 22 April 1966, p. 477. “The evolution of language, at least within the historical period, is a story of progressive simplification.” Albert C. Baugh, A History of the English Language, 2nd edition (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1957), p. 10. “The so-called primitive languages can throw no light on language origins, since most of them are actually more complicated in grammar than the tongues spoken by civilized peoples.” Ralph Linton, The Tree of Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), p. 9. g. “It was Charles Darwin who first linked the evolution of languages to biology. In The Descent of Man (1871), he wrote, ‘the formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel.’ But linguists cringe at the idea that evolution might transform simple languages into complex ones. Today it is believed that no language is, in any basic way, ‘prior’ to any other, living or dead. Language alters even as we speak it, but it neither improves nor degenerates.” Philip E. Ross, “Hard Words,” Scientific American, Vol. 264, April 1991, p. 144. “Noam Chomsky...has firmly established his point that grammar, and in particular syntax, is innate. Interested linguistics people ... are busily speculating on how the language function could have evolved...Derek Bickerton (Univ. Hawaii) insists that this faculty must have come into being all at once.” John Maddox, “The Price of Language?” Nature, Vol. 388, 31 July 1997, p. 424. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences16.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Language 1 Children as young as seven months can understand and learn grammatical rules (a). Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) show that language is learned only from other humans; humans do not automatically speak. So, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence language evolved (b). Nonhumans communicate, but not with language. True language requires both vocabulary and grammar. With great effort, human trainers have taught some chimpanzees and gorillas to recognize a few hundred spoken words, to point to up to 200 symbols, and to make limited hand signs. These impressive feats are sometimes exaggerated by editing the animals’ successes on film (Some early demonstrations were flawed by the trainer’s hidden promptings (c)). Wild apes have not shown these vocabulary skills, and trained apes do not pass their vocabulary on to others. When a trained animal dies, so does the trainer’s investment. Also, trained apes have essentially no grammatical ability. Only with grammar can a few words express many ideas. No known evidence shows that language exists or evolves in nonhumans, but all known human groups have language (d). Furthermore, only humans have different modes of language: speaking/hearing, writing/reading, signing, touch (as with Braille), and tapping (as with Morse code or tap-codes used by prisoners). When one mode is prevented, as with the loss of hearing, others can be used (e). a. G. F. Marcus et al., “Rule Learning by Seven-Month-Old Infants,” Science, Vol. 283, 1 January 1999, pp. 77–80. b. Arthur Custance, Genesis and Early Man (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), pp. 250–271. “Nobody knows how [language] began. There doesn’t seem to be anything like syntax in non-human animals and it is hard to imagine evolutionary forerunners of it.” Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998), p. 294. c. “Projects devoted to teaching chimpanzees and gorillas to use language have shown that these apes can learn vocabularies of visual symbols. There is no evidence, however, that apes can combine such symbols in order to create new meanings. The function of the symbols of an ape’s vocabulary appears to be not so much to identify things or to convey information as it is to satisfy a demand that it use that symbol in order to obtain some reward.” H. S. Terrance et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science, Vol. 206, 23 November 1979, p. 900. “...human language appears to be a unique phenomenon, without significant analogue in the animal world.” Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind (Chicago: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968), p. 59. d. “No languageless community has ever been found.” Jean Aitchison, The Atlas of Languages (New York: Facts on File, Inc., 1996), p. 10. “There is no reason to suppose that the ‘gaps’ [in language development between apes and man] are bridgeable.” Chomsky, p. 60. e. “...[concerning imitation, not language] only humans can lose one modality (e.g., hearing) and make up for this deficit by communicating with complete competence in a different modality (i.e., signing).” Marc D. Hauser et al., “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science, Vol. 298, 22 November 2002, p. 1575. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences16.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Extraterrestrial Life? No verified form of life, which originated outside of earth has ever been observed. If life evolved on earth, one would expect that the elaborate experiments sent to the Moon and Mars might have detected at least simple forms of life (such as microbes) that differ in some respects from life on earth (a). [See [url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/FAQ316.html#wp4584911] “Is There Life in Outer Space?”[/url]] http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-mars_surface.jpg[/img] Figure 6:Mars Lander. Many people, including Carl Sagan, predicted the Viking Landers would find life on Mars. They reasoned that because life evolved on Earth, some form of life must have evolved on Mars. That prediction proved to be false. The arms of the Viking 1 Lander sampled Martian soil. Sophisticated tests on those samples did not find even a trace of life. If traces of life are found on Mars, they may have come from comets and asteroids launched from Earth during the flood—as did salt and water found on Mars. [A prediction, later supported by a NASA discovery, is on page [url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Comets10.html#wp11253138]281[/url]. For a full understanding, see pages [url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Comets2.html#wp1069425]270-321[/url]] a. The widely publicized claims, made by NASA in 1996, to have found fossilized life in a meteorite from Mars are now largely dismissed. [See Richard A. Kerr, “Requiem for Life on Mars? Support for Microbes Fades,” Science, Vol. 282, 20 November 1998, pp. 1398–1400.] [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences15.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Altruism 2 If evolution were correct, selfish behavior should have completely eliminated unselfish behavior (c). Furthermore, cheating and aggression should have “weeded out” cooperation. Altruism contradicts evolution (d). c. “Ultimately, moral guidelines determine an essential part of economic life. How could such forms of social behavior evolve? This is a central question for Darwinian theory. The prevalence of altruistic acts—providing benefits to a recipient at a cost to the donor—can seem hard to reconcile with the idea of the selfish gene, the notion that evolution at its base acts solely to promote genes that are most adept at engineering their own proliferation. Benefits and costs are measured in terms of the ultimate biological currency—reproductive success. Genes that reduce this success are unlikely to spread in a population.” Karl Sigmund et al., “The Economics of Fair Play,” Scientific American, Vol. 286, January 2002, p. 87. d. Some evolutionists propose the following explanation for this long-standing and widely recognized problem for evolution: “Altruistic behavior may prevent the altruistic individual from passing on his or her genes, but it benefits the individual’s clan that carries a few of those genes.” This hypothesis has five problems—the last two are fatal. Observations do not support it. [See Clutton-Brock, pp. 69–72.] “...altruistic behavior toward relatives may at some later time lead to increased competition between relatives, reducing or even completely removing the net selective advantage of altruism.” Stuart A. West et al., “Cooperation and Competition between Relatives,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 73. If individual X’s altruistic trait was inherited, that trait should be carried recessively in only half the individual’s brothers and sisters, one-eighth of the first cousins, etc. The key question then is: Does this “fractional altruism” benefit these relatives enough that they sire enough children with the altruistic trait? On average, one or more in the next generation must have the trait, and no generation can ever lose the trait. Otherwise, the trait will become extinct. From an evolutionist’s perspective, all altruistic traits originated as a mutation. The brothers, sisters, or cousins of the first person to have the mutation would not have the trait. Even if many relatives benefited from the altruism, the trait would not survive the first generation. The hypothesis fails to explain altruism between different species. Without discussing examples that require a knowledge of the life patterns of such species, consider the simple example above of humans who forgo having children in order to care for animals. Edward O. Wilson, an early proponent of this evolutionary explanation for altruism, now recognizes its failings: “I found myself moving away from the position I’d taken 30 years ago, which has become the standard theory. What I’ve done is to say that maybe collateral kin selection is not so important. These ants and termites in the early stages of evolution—they can’t recognize kin like that. There’s very little evidence that they’re determining who’s a brother, a sister, a cousin, and so on. They are not acting to favor collateral kin.” Edward O. Wilson, “The Discover Interview,” Discover, June 2006, p. 61. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences14.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Altruism 1 Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another—sometimes the life of another species (a). Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.” How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited? Its possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing on its genes for altruism (b)? a. “...the existence of altruism between different species—which is not uncommon—remains an obstinate enigma.” Taylor, p. 225. Some inherited behavior is lethal to the animal but beneficial to unrelated species. For example, dolphins sometimes protect humans from deadly sharks. Many animals (goats, lambs, rabbits, horses, frogs, toads) scream when a predator discovers them. This increases their exposure but warns other species. b. From an evolutionist’s point of view, a very costly form of altruism occurs when an animal forgoes reproduction while caring for another individual’s young. This occurs in some human societies where a man has multiple wives who share in raising the children of one wife. More well known examples include celibate individuals (such as nuns and many missionaries) who devote themselves to helping others. Such traits should never have evolved, or if they accidentally arose, they should quickly die out. Adoption is another example: “From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes, is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone else’s. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of the running in fairly short order.” Cleo Sullivan, “The Adoption Paradox,” Discover, January 2001, p. 80. Adoption is known even among mice, rats, skunks, llamas, deer, caribou, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, bears, and many primates. Altruism is also shown by some people who have pets—a form of adoption—especially individuals who have pets in lieu of having children. Humans, vertebrates, and invertebrates frequently help raise the unrelated young of others: “...it is not clear that the degree of relatedness is consistently higher in cooperative breeders than in other species that live in stable groups but do not breed cooperatively. In many societies of vertebrates as well as invertebrates, differences in contributions to rearing young do no t appear to vary with the relatedness of helpers, and several studies of cooperative birds and mammals have shown that helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising and that the unrelated helpers invest as heavily as close relatives.” Tim Clutton-Brock, “Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative Vertebrates,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 69. Six different studies were cited in support of the conclusions above. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences14.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Altruism 1 Humans and many animals will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another—sometimes the life of another species (a). Natural selection, which evolutionists say selects individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic (self-sacrificing) “individuals.” How could such risky, costly behavior ever be inherited? Its possession tends to prevent the altruistic “individual” from passing on its genes for altruism (b)? a. “...the existence of altruism between different species—which is not uncommon—remains an obstinate enigma.” Taylor, p. 225. Some inherited behavior is lethal to the animal but beneficial to unrelated species. For example, dolphins sometimes protect humans from deadly sharks. Many animals (goats, lambs, rabbits, horses, frogs, toads) scream when a predator discovers them. This increases their exposure but warns other species. b. From an evolutionist’s point of view, a very costly form of altruism occurs when an animal forgoes reproduction while caring for another individual’s young. This occurs in some human societies where a man has multiple wives who share in raising the children of one wife. More well known examples include celibate individuals (such as nuns and many missionaries) who devote themselves to helping others. Such traits should never have evolved, or if they accidentally arose, they should quickly die out. Adoption is another example: “From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes, is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone else’s. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of the running in fairly short order.” Cleo Sullivan, “The Adoption Paradox,” Discover, January 2001, p. 80. Adoption is known even among mice, rats, skunks, llamas, deer, caribou, kangaroos, wallabies, seals, sea lions, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, bears, and many primates. Altruism is also shown by some people who have pets—a form of adoption—especially individuals who have pets in lieu of having children. Humans, vertebrates, and invertebrates frequently help raise the unrelated young of others: “...it is not clear that the degree of relatedness is consistently higher in cooperative breeders than in other species that live in stable groups but do not breed cooperatively. In many societies of vertebrates as well as invertebrates, differences in contributions to rearing young do no t appear to vary with the relatedness of helpers, and several studies of cooperative birds and mammals have shown that helpers can be unrelated to the young they are raising and that the unrelated helpers invest as heavily as close relatives.” Tim Clutton-Brock, “Breeding Together: Kin Selection and Mutualism in Cooperative Vertebrates,” Science, Vol. 296, 5 April 2002, p. 69. Six different studies were cited in support of the conclusions above. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences14.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Distinct Types If evolution happened, one would expect to see gradual transitions among many living things. For example, variations of dogs might blend in with variations of cats. In fact, some animals, such as the duckbilled platypus, have organs totally unrelated to their alleged evolutionary ancestors. The platypus has fur, is warm-blooded, and suckles its young as do mammals. It lays leathery eggs, has a single ventral opening (for elimination, mating, and birth), and has claws and a shoulder girdle as most reptiles do. The platypus can detect electrical currents (AC and DC) as some fish can, and has a bill somewhat like that of a duck—a bird. It has webbed forefeet like those of an otter and a flat tail like that of a beaver. The male platypus can inject poisonous venom like a pit viper. The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought that a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals—a logical conclusion if one believed that each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment. Such “patchwork” animals and plants, called mosaics, have no logical place on the so-called “evolutionary tree.” http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-platypus.jpg[/img] Figure 5: Duckbilled Platypus. The duckbilled platypus is found only in Tasmania and eastern Australia. European scientists who first studied platypus specimens thought that a clever taxidermist had stitched together parts of different animals—a logical conclusion if one believed that each animal must be very similar to other animals. In fact, the platypus is perfectly designed for its environment. There is no direct evidence that any major group of animals or plants arose from any other major group (a). Species are observed only going out of existence (extinctions), never coming into existence (b). a. “And let us dispose of a common misconception. The complete transmutation of even one animal species into a different species has never been directly observed either in the laboratory or in the field.” Dean H. Kenyon (Professor of Biology, San Francisco State University), affidavit presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, No. 85–1513, Brief of Appellants, prepared under the direction of William J. Guste Jr., Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, October 1985, p. A-16. Kenyon has repudiated his earlier book advocating evolution. “Thus so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any one of the major groups arose from any other. Each is a special animal complex related, more or less closely, to all the rest, and appearing, therefore, as a special and distinct creation.” Austin H. Clark, “Animal Evolution,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 3, No. 4, December 1928, p. 539. “When we descend to details, we cannot prove that a single species has changed; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory [of evolution].” Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 1, p. 210. “The fact that all the individual species must be stationed at the extreme periphery of such logic [evolutionary] trees merely emphasized the fact that the order of nature betrays no hint of natural evolutionary sequential arrangements, revealing species to be related as sisters or cousins but never as ancestors and descendants as is required by evolution.” Denton, p. 132. b. “...no human has ever seen a new species form in nature.” Steven M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1981), p. 73. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences13.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Fully-Developed Organs 2 There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes (b), skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of the vital organs (dozens in humans alone). Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing (c). b. Asa Gray, a famous Harvard botany professor, who was to become a leading theistic evolutionist, wrote to Darwin expressing doubt that natural processes could explain the formation of complex organs such as the eye. Darwin expressed a similar concern in his return letter of February 1860. “The eye to this day gives me a cold shudder, but when I think of the fine known gradations [Darwin believed possible if millions of years of evolution were available], my reason tells me I ought to conquer the cold shudder.” Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. 2, editor Francis Darwin (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1899), pp. 66–67. And yet, Darwin admitted that: “To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 175. Darwin then proceeded to speculate on how the eye might nevertheless have evolved. However, no evidence was given. Later, he explained how his theory could be falsified. “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.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179. “It’s one of the oldest riddles in evolutionary biology: How does natural selection gradually create an eye, or any complex organ for that matter? The puzzle troubled Charles Darwin, who nevertheless gamely nailed together a ladder of how it might have happened—from photoreceptor cells to highly refined orbits—by drawing examples from living organisms such as mollusks and arthropods. But holes in this progression have persistently bothered evolutionary biologists and left openings that creationists have been only too happy to exploit.” Virginia Morell, “Placentas May Nourish Complexity Studies,” Science, Vol. 298, 1 November 2002, p. 945. David Reznick, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California (Riverside), explained to Virginia Morell: “Darwin had to use organisms from different classes, because there isn’t a living group of related organisms that have all the steps for making an eye.” Ibid. To solve this dilemma, Reznick points to different species of a guppylike fish, some of which have no placenta and others that have “tissues that might become placentas.” However, when pressed, “Reznick admits that the [guppylike fish’s] placenta might not be as sophisticated as the mammalian placenta” [or the eye of any organism]. Ibid. “The eye, as one of the most complex organs, has been the symbol and archetype 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 built up 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 or final purpose of this process, function when the only test is precisely that end or final purpose?” Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 320–321. c. “Of what possible use are the imperfect incipient stages of useful structures? What good is half a jaw or half a wing?” Stephen Jay Gould, “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” p. 23. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences12.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

Fully-Developed Organs 1 All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design (a). a. William Paley, Natural Theology (England: 1802; reprint, Houston: St. Thomas Press, 1972). This work by Paley, which contains many powerful arguments for a Creator, is a classic in scientific literature. Some might feel that because it was written in 1802, it is out of date. Not so. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe compared Darwin’s ideas with those of Paley as follows: “The speculations of The Origin of Species turned out to be wrong, as we have seen in this chapter. It is ironic that the scientific facts throw Darwin out, but leave William Paley, a figure of fun to the scientific world for more than a century, still in the tournament with a chance of being the ultimate winner.” Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space: A Theory of Cosmic Creationism (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), pp. 96–97. [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences12.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

8f. Complex Molecules and Organs 6 An adult human brain contains over 10^14 (a hundred thousand billion) electrical connections (d), more than all the soldered electrical connections in the world. The human heart, a ten-ounce pump that will operate without maintenance or lubrication for about 75 years, is another engineering marvel (e). d. “The human brain consists of about ten thousand million nerve cells. Each nerve cell puts out somewhere in the region of between ten thousand and one hundred thousand connecting fibres by which it makes contact with other nerve cells in the brain. Altogether the total number of connections in the human brain approaches 10^15 or a thousand million million. ... a much greater number of specific connections than in the entire communications network on Earth.” Denton, pp. 330–331. A more recent neuron estimate for humans is at least 85 billion. [See “Understanding Memory” ScienceNews, 19 March 2016, p. 4. “... the human brain probably contains more than 10^14 synapses ...” Deborah M. Barnes, “Brain Architecture: Beyond Genes,” Science, Vol. 233, 11 July 1986, p. 155. e. Marlyn E. Clark, Our Amazing Circulatory System, Technical Monograph No. 5 (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers, 1976). [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences11.html#wp1008873]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]