In the year 2002 in Cobb County, Georgia, there was a sticker that was placed
on the inside cover of the biology textbooks. That sticker simply said that,
"These textbooks contain information on evolution. Evolution is a theory--not a fact--
about living organisms and it should be looked at with an open mind,
studied carefully, and critically considered." Do you know if you were to
take the sentiments of that sticker and you were to look at the evidences
for evolution with an open mind and you study them carefully and you critically consider them,
what you would find is these evidences don't prove evolution at all.
Here are six supposed evidences for evolution that simply
are not good reasons to believe in evolution.
Number one: Vestigial organs. In 1865, a German anatomist named Robert Weidershem
said that he discovered 185 different useless or virtually useless organs in the body
and he said this was evidence of evolution. In fact, the argument goes that if humans evolved
then they would have had at one time organs that an animal would have used
in a certain way but would no longer be used in that way in the human body
and those organs would begin to atrophy and start to be useless.
The problem with this vestigial organ idea is that there are two reasons it cannot prove evolution.
Number one: If you did have vestigial organs in your body, that wouldn't prove evolution.
You see, evolution has to go from a single-cell organism to a human
and you don't need organs that are decaying and atrophying.
You need evolution to produce new organs.
We should find wings that are almost ready to allow organisms to fly that can't yet fly.
We should find new visionary optical connections in living organisms that don't have them.
We should see things adding information, not losing genetic information.
And the second problem with the vestigial organ argument
is that that 185 list of vestigial organs? It began to dwindle very rapidly when?
When we started looking more closely into them and it became 180 and then 175.
And then, do you know, as we look more into the body we realize
that those vestigial organs were very useful, many of them extremely useful.
Number two: The idea of homology.
We're told that similarity proves ancient ancestry.
And what I simply mean by that is we're told that because humans have similar
physical characteristics to certain animals, that proves that they evolved from animals.
Similarity doesn't prove evolution at all. In fact, you could see things that are similar
and you would realize that those similarities are often caused by a common designer.
Suppose there were a supernatural intelligent designer
and He created a world where many organisms would need to drink the same water,
eat the same kinds of food, walk over the same types of terrain. What would happen?
Well obviously He would use similarities-- similar structures--to accomplish His goals.
Similarity doesn't prove common ancestry.
In fact, similarity argues more for a common Creator than anything else.
Supposed evidence for evolution number three: The fossil record.
You know what we're told is that you can look into the fossil record
and you can find proof that organisms evolved over millions of years.
Supposedly--we're told--that you can find transformational organisms
that prove this animal evolved into some other kind of animal.
But if you were to take that seriously and you were to go to the fossil record,
what you would find is that those transformational fossils are missing on a grand scale.
In fact, evolutionist Mark Ridley stated that, "No real evolutionist,
whether gradualist or punctuatist, uses the fossil record as evidence
in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation."
Why would he say that? He would say that because when you look at the fossil record
you see organisms coming into the fossil record fully formed.
You see a stage of stasis where they do not change and then they go out of the fossil record
without evolving into anything else. Exactly as the creation model would predict.
The fossil record does not prove evolution.
Number four: The idea of mutations.
We're told that mutations prove you could get a certain single-celled organism
to mutate over multiplied millions of years and bring about new information on a grand scale
that given enough time, you could get a human being.
What's the problem with that line of reasoning?
The problem is that mutations don't give us new information.
Mutations can only take information that is already available and cause it to decay.
Mutations are an example of a loss of genetic information.
Let me give you an example: For the last hundred years or more now,
scientists have been studying fruit flies. They are great examples
of how you can mutate an organism. We have been zapping these fruit flies
with radiation and mutating them in chemical ways for more than a hundred years now.
The reason that they are so valuable to study is because you can get a new generation every 14 days.
We have in that hundred year period
the equivalent of what would be millions of years of evolutionary time.
And what do you have after all the radiation and mutation?
Do you have a fruit fly that has evolved new genetic information?
No, you don't. In fact, all you still have is a fruit fly.
It hasn't evolved into anything else. Mutations don't prove evolution.
That's simply not the mechanism that could get a single-celled organism to a human.
Number five: English peppered moths. We're told that English peppered moths
provide an example of evolution in action. You see, before the Industrial Revolution
there were two varieties of English peppered moths:
One dark colored, one light colored.
But the light colored was much higher in ratio than the dark color.
But after the Industrial Revolution, the dark colored became the more prominent color
and the light the fewer in the mix.
And we're told that's because birds could see the light color better, etcetera.
And this was supposedly an example of natural selection.
The problem with this example is number one, many of the pictures were faked
because the English peppered moths don't often land on tree trunks
and the entire idea was flawed in that way. But the second problem was that before
the Industrial Revolution, the genetic information in the English peppered moth genome
had genetic information for two varieties: light colored and dark colored.
And after, the genetic information was the same.
English peppered moths simply do not prove evolution.
And number six: Horse evolution. If you were to look in your biology textbooks,
you would see that horse evolution is often used as evidence that evolution really occurred.
You would see a picture of a very small animal-- almost looks like a fox or something like that--
evolving into modern horse, but this scenario is fabricated. It's not true it was made up.
In fact, more than 50 years ago, Dr. George Gaylord Simpson said,
"The uniform continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus,
so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature."
This information that's presented to us as proof
that evolution actually occurred is not proof at all.
If we look at it with an open mind and we study it carefully and we critically consider it,
we'll realize that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth
and all of the organisms and evolution just simply didn't play any part in God's creation.