Chapter 1 - Life: Accident of Nature, or Created by God?

Chapter 2 - Are Mutations the Source of New Genetic Information from which Plants, Animals, and their Organs have developed?

Chapter 3 - Claim: Evolution is happening today: Light Colored Moths Were Replaced by Dark Colored Moths

Chapter 4 - Claim: Embryology shows that a baby in its mother's womb relives the stages through which its species evolved

Chapter 5 - Claim: The fossil evidence proves Evolution

Chapter 6 - Uniformitarian Geology

Chapter 7 - Vestigial Organs

Chapter 8 - Comparative Anatomy

Conclusion

The pillars of evolution

The Theory of Evolution can be compared to a bridge erected on a number of seemingly sturdy pillars, in this case, pillars of scientific evidence, each one of which inspired faith in the whole theory. The pillars of evidence that held up the bridge sounded so scientific and compelling that multitudes put their faith in the bridge and walked out onto it. As the years have passed, a lot of water has washed around these pillars and swept them away! The shaky old bridge still stands as a religious or philosophical belief system held in place by faith and tradition, but the seemingly compelling "scientific proofs" which once gave the theory of evolution its credibility, though in many cases still found in schoolbooks, have been disproved by subsequent discoveries. If you are an evolutionist, this does not necessarily show that the theory of evolution is false, but it does show that many of the arguments which caused people to believe in it were not true.

The Theory of Evolution

Evolutionists claim that all the differences between the simplest living thing and trees, fish people, etc. came about through evolution. Dawkins, the famous atheist, referring to this kind of evolution gives an example which he calls "Climbing Mount. Improbable." {R. Dawkins, Climbing Mount Improbable, mentioned by Kevin L. Anderson, Yeast Fails to Rise to Evolutionists" Expectations, Creation Matters, Jan./Feb., p.1, 2002.} I often use the term "uphill evolution" for the idea that all the complex living things around us developed from a primitive one celled organism.

Whenever I say this, some evolutionist always jumps to his feet and yells that evolution only concerns survival, not improvement, that it is not an upward movement but goes in any direction. There are many definitions of the word evolution, among them my dictionary calls evolution: "The theory that all existing organisms developed from earlier forms by natural selection." Any theory of evolution that does not climb Mt. Improbable is an emasculated evolution which could never change bacteria into men, but only into different bacteria. That is another definition of evolution which simply means change. It is not what makes the theory of evolution objectionable to creationists. Rather it is the idea that all plants and animals evolved from a single cell that evolved from chemicals.

There is no combination of down hill or horizontal changes by which evolution could ever transform the offspring of bacteria into people. Most evolutionists accept this and insist that today's biologists evolved from yesterday's bacteria. Yet typical examples used to convince students that evolution occurs show something quite different. They show downhill and horizontal changes rather than uphill. For example:

• Fish in dark caves which have lost their ability to see.
• Sheep which have been born with short defective legs.

We can all agree that if the available food changes, finches whose beaks won"t handle the new food may die off, leaving alive the birds whose beaks can handle it. This is horizontal evolution. It does not show that finches evolved from dinosaurs or that they became eagles. They just remained finches.

Evolutionists have used the loss of three toes as evidence that horses evolved. This is an attempt to support uphill evolution with a downhill illustration. They use these examples because uphill mutations which produce new and more complex organs have not been observed and did not leave fossils.

What is needed? David DeWitt puts it this way: "Successful macro-evolution [uphill] requires the addition of NEW information and NEW genes that produce NEW proteins that are found in New organs and systems." {David A. DeWitt, "Hox Hype: Has Macro-evolution been Proven?" Creation Matters, a CRS publication, Jan./Feb. 2002, p. 10}

If uphill evolution had actually produced every type of plant and animal and all their organs, evidence should abound. If it did, wouldn"t textbooks use uphill evidence, instead of asking us to believe in uphill evolution on the basis of downhill and horizontal illustrations?

As we examine the standard textbook proofs of evolution, consider this perplexing problem: If real evidence for the theory of evolution exists, why have the evolutionists not quit using both false and downhill evidence and replaced it with true uphill examples?"

Read on! You may be surprised to find that even your own faith in uphill evolution is based on false statements and downhill evidence!

Spontaneous Generation?

"The scientific principle that life only comes from life is called Biogenesis." {Essenfeld, Gontang, Moore, Addison-Wesley Biology, 1996, p. 223} It states that spontaneous generation does not happen, instead, every living thing has come from some other living thing. It is one of the best proved scientific principles, sometimes called the Law of Biogenesis. Even the most atheistic schoolbook authors admit that all the scientific evidence, both observational and experimental, upholds this basic scientific principle. Often, however, when you turn over the page you will find the claim that there once was an exception to this basic principle of science: that a first living cell came about as very complex chemicals evolved without the help of a living Creator. The idea of life developing from non life without a Creator used to be called spontaneous generation. Since almost everyone now knows that spontaneous generation is anti scientific, the name has been changed to "abiogenesis" which comes from roots which mean: "not biogenesis".

I started studying the origin of life with the idea of comparing the scientific evidence that favors an intelligent Creator with that which favors abiogenesis. I had already read about the subject a good deal, so I went into the study believing that I would find more scientific evidence favoring an intelligent living Creator than that which supports abiogenesis. I was also influenced by the fact that I read the Bible every day, and it explains that God created certain categories of living things. I know God and have found Him trustworthy. This increased my expectation that I would find more evidence that supported an intelligent and capable designer than I would find supporting abiogenesis. In spite of all this, I was not prepared for what I found! After reading book after book promoting abiogenesis, some written by expert origin of life researchers, it began to dawn on me that I had not found a single book that gave even one shred of scientific evidence that life had begun by abiogenesis. I have a request out on this website for anyone who knows of any to let me know, and no one has. Instead, authors who support abiogenesis, do so with speculation, scenarios, and made up fables and myths which they substitute for the evidence we would expect them to present.

Almost unbelievably, many of the letters I receive from atheists show that they have been completely taken in by the substitution. They don"t weigh the evidence for and against to see which seems stronger. They actually believe that if anyone is able to make up a story of how something might have happened by accident, it wipes out all scientific evidence to the contrary. It does not matter if there is only one chance in a billion that the made up story could work. If there seems to them to be a chance in a billion that the made up story could work, then in their mind the evidence that God created has all been wiped out, no matter how strong that evidence is. Be prepared for the temptation to treat speculation as better than evidence and resist it.

School textbooks not only substitute made up stories for evidence against the Creator, they almost always censure out the scientific evidence that God did in fact create life, so as you read ahead, prepare to be surprised! I will pile evidence upon evidence before you, first evidence against abiogenesis, and then evidence for an intelligent planner and Creator.

Were the materials cells are made of available?

Just as you can"t make an airplane out of aluminum unless aluminum is available, reasonable atheists admit that for a first cell to form without a Creator, the materials cells are made of would have to have been available: "If life indeed started without the help of miracles, the first organisms must have been made of materials that were easily available." {Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 127. See also: Holt, Biology, Visualizing Life, 1998, p. 192} This obvious fact puts textbook authors who oppose the Creator in a terrible bind because, as we will see, cells are made of very large molecules that will not form in nature except when assembled by already living cells. DNA and RNA for example, are not only never found in nature outside of cells, scientists can"t even make them in the lab!

Let's examine a few of their most popular made up stories about how life might have begun without a Creator. I give them in the order in which they became popular. Notice that each of these stories claims that life was started by a different chemical, and that not one of these chemicals will form in nature except when made by already living cells:

The myth that Lipids formed in nature and produced the first life

If you pour a little oil in water and shake it up, the oil separates into little round balls called coacervates. Chemists call oils and fats "lipids." In the days when microscopes were still too crude to give much idea of the complexity of cells, some people thought that these tiny bubbles of fat must have evolved into cells. Here is an example:

"When mixed with water, certain lipids will form a bubble that is called a coacervate (koh AS uhr vayt) which has a double-layered membrane much like the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane." The early oceans probably contained numerous small lipid coacervates, each one forming and then dispersing. Over millions of years, coacervates that could survive longer by taking in molecules and energy from their surroundings would have become more common than the here-today-gone-tomorrow kind. When a means arose to transfer this ability to "offspring" coacervates, probably through self-replicating RNA, life had begun." {Holt, Biology, Visualizing Life, 1998, p 194} This simplistic little made up story is contrary to the evidence!

Both lipids and RNA are too complex to form in nature, so the statement that both formed at the same time, and in the same place with the RNA inside a lipid membrane is also false. Here is a quote by Cairns-Smith, one of the most prominent first life researchers which explains that lipids, and the nucleotides which make up RNA are only formed in the miniature factories of already living cells:

"Though a few organic substances - for instance certain simple amino acids - can form fairly easily under prebiotic conditions, other biochemical building blocks such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy." {Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 126, 176-177; Quoting Cairns-Smith, Seven Clues to the Origin of Life, 1985, p. 126.}

Notice that according to this expert, neither lipids nor nucleotides are produced in nature except by the "real factories" of already living cells. The made up story that lipid coacervates with the help of nucleotides produced the first cell which we have read from the schoolbook Biology, Visualizing Life, is not true. But millions read textbooks, and who reads an origin of life researcher like Cairns-Smith? Few if any of the kids and teachers that you know will ever discover the truth unless you give them copies of this book.

There was a third false statement in the brief biology textbook quote. Did you catch it?

"Over millions of years, coacervates that could survive longer by taking in molecules and energy from their surroundings would have become more common than the here-today-gone-tomorrow kind."

Is this true? Does natural selection work on chemicals like lipids? No, it only works on things that can keep track of information, reproduce, and pass the information on to their offspring. { James P. Ferris, "From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life," in Life's Origin, Editor: JW Schopf, 2002, p.136} While lipid coacervates did not exist till living things made them, they have been around for quite a number of years, and they are still the here-today-gone-tomorrow kind.

Though there was no source of lipids before real cells were present to make them, lipids would still have been vital to a first cell because cell membranes are made of lipids. Whatever cell part an atheist wants to believe came first, if it did not have a functioning membrane surrounding it, the other parts would just have just been so much loose goo dissolving into the ocean. The proposed membrane, however, must do much more than keep the cell's parts together. If a cell is to live, its membrane must also let in nourishment while keeping out unwanted materials and expelling wastes. Lipids can"t do all this alone. They keep out nourishment for example. So real cell membranes also contain pumps and channels which are made of proteins. {Bruce Alberts, etc. Essential Cell Biology, An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell, 1998, p. 347.}

The myth that proteins formed in nature, and produced life

Stanley Miller showed in his famous experiment in 1953 that amino acids could be formed under conditions that might have occurred in nature. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins which are the main ingredients of living things, so it was a simple step to make up story claiming that the amino acids got together to form proteins which then formed living cells. Miller's experiment became the most widely publicized origin of life experiment of all time, even though in nature, proteins are only made by already living cells.

Before Miller, Oparin had produced "proteinoids," but unlike the amino acids in proteins which are hooked together one behind the next, like cars in a train, those in Oparin's proteinoids were organized into small spheres which will not work in living things.

Leslie Orgel is another of the foremost origin of life researchers today. He contributed a chapter, "The Origin of Biological Information" to the book, Life's Origin. Orgel begins: "Organic chemists should have invented the computer scientist's motto, ‘Garbage in, garbage out."" Orgel says that if they have garbage rather than a pure compound going in, garbage will come out {p. 140}. While school text books use Miller's famous experiment to convince students that chemicals built up to become life, Orgel uses the same experiment as an example of the extreme difficulty of producing the chemicals needed for living cells. Orgel writes: "For example, Miller's classic experiment (discussed in chapter 3) produces tar along with a percent or two of a complex mixture of racemic amino acids." {Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Biological Information," from the book Life's Origin, edited by J. William Shopf, 2002, p. 140.}

Orgel is saying three things:
 

• Miller's experiment, the most famous of all origin of life experiments, produced all garbage except for a percent or two of amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins, the main ingredients of cells.

• The amino acids that made up that percent or two were "Racemic," which means mixed, half right and half left handed. Proteins will not work in cells unless all their amino acids are left handed. All amino acids made in nature or in experiments that simulate nature are mixed left, and right-handed, and will not work in proteins. Even if there had been a way to produce all left-handed amino acids, over time, they break down to half and half. {See my book How Life Began, p. 15-16, 23-26 for explanation and documentation.} Half and half won"t work, but neither will 90% left handed amino acids, or 99%. Only pure left-handed amino acids will work in living things, {Life's Origin, edited by J. William Shopf, 2002, p. 73, 151}. The percent or two of racemic amino acids that were produced were nicer garbage, but still garbage because they would not work in living cells.

He uses amino acids as an example, to point us to the problem of producing functional RNA which is almost infinitely more difficult. He asks: "How could chemistry on the primitive Earth proceed in such a messy way, producing information rich living cells, those exquisitely designed chemical factories, from such unpromising starting materials? This is the central and as yet largely unanswered question facing investigators on the origin of life." {Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Biological Information," from the book Life's Origin, edited by J. William Shopf, 2002, p. 140.} Orgel goes on to look at attempts that have been made to solve the problem of getting anything that could possibly serve to form cells, but concludes the chapter lamenting that a very large gap separates the huge molecules of RNA from the small molecules of non living things.{Life's Origin, p. 154.}

Another problem is that without the little factory of the living cell to catalyze them and put them together, amino acids will not link together one after another to form proteins. Even when scientists buy all left-handed amino acids at a chemical supply house and make a perfect organic broth, no proteins are produced. Even some school books now admit:

"Scientists have not been able to cause amino acids dissolved in water to join together to form proteins. The energy-requiring chemical reactions that join amino acids are reversible and do not occur spontaneously in water. However, most scientists no longer argue that the first proteins assembled spontaneously. Instead, they now tell us that the initial macromolecules were composed of RNA, and that RNA later catalyzed the formation of proteins."{George B. Johnson, Holt, Biology, Principles & Explorations, 1996 p. 235}

Most of those who rejected their Creator to trust the made up stories that proteins or lipids formed the first life have since abandoned these stories to trust in:

The myth that the first living cell was started by RNA.

Andrew Knoll, a professor at Harvard explains an obstacle to the claim that RNA was the material from which life was formed. No RNA was available:

"Worst of all, even if we could produce the right components, combining them to form nucleotides, the building blocks of nucleic acids, is daunting. To date, no one has figured out how to do it."

Knoll is admitting here that no one can yet make the nucleotides which are the building blocks of RNA and DNA. Even if a competent scientist had all the right parts to start out with, he could not put them together to make even the nucleotide building blocks of RNA, let alone RNA itself. This information is vital to understanding any discussion of the origin of life. Try to find a public school biology book that admits that, and you will get an idea of what censorship is all about.

Knoll's quote continues:

"There is still another difficulty. Nucleotides are chiral molecules, which is to say that they come in two forms which are mirror images of each other-like your hands. RNA can be built from right-handed or left-handed molecules, but mixed chains won"t grow. How then could RNA-which in cells consists exclusively of right handed nucleotides-have emerged from a fifty-fifty mixture of left- and right-handed building blocks? Again, no one knows.

The problems are so difficult that many researchers have given up on the idea that RNA was the primordial molecule of life." {Andrew H. Knoll, Life on a Young Earth, 2003, p. 79.}

Others, instead of giving up on RNA, and deciding that life must have been formed by some simpler chemical, claim that RNA may have formed on some clay which served as a template on which RNA was built. They cite experiments which have shown that when a scientist places fresh building blocks of RNA (nucleotides) on clay daily, some will connect to form short strings. {Editor: JW Schopf, Life's Origin, James P. Ferris, "From Building Blocks to the Polymers of Life," 2002, p. 123.} When this information filters down to the school book level, it often sounds easy, but in reality, finding a scientist who would have been able to place fresh nucleotides on the clay every day before there were any living cells would have been a bit difficult because:
 

• Scientists can"t make nucleotides in the laboratory.
• In nature nucleotides are never produced except by living cells.
• If they did occur, they would not work because they would not all be right handed. {Stanley L. Miller, and Antonio Lazcano, "Formation of the Building Blocks of Life,": in the book Life's Origin, editor JW Schopf 2002, p.98-100.} Many textbooks strip out these facts and speculate that RNA forms, or did form from chemicals in nature.

One textbook I was reading recently told the innocent students a much worse whopper: "RNA molecules can form spontaneously in water" {George B. Johnson, Peter H. Raven, Biology,Principles & Explorations, Holt, Rinhehart and Winston, 1998 p. 230}

Why do these textbooks use false statements to convince students that life started without a Creator? I don"t believe for a minute that the authors would falsify evidence if there were real evidence which would get their point across. I believe they feel so compelled to convince students that that life began without the Creator that when they can"t do it with truth, they turn to other means. It makes me sad to see atheists use my tax dollars to spread their religion in public school books. It disturbs me even more when they do it by deceiving innocent kids with false statements like these. It makes me sadder still that our government permits them to establish atheism as the religion of our public schools and universities. Students and their teachers have no idea that there is no evidence at all to back up the atheistic statements about the origin of life. They trust their textbooks and have no easy way to check up on them - unless you give them a copy of this book. It may be the only way you and I have to break the stranglehold of atheism on our schools.

To be fair I must admit that some authors probably did not know the statements they were writing were false. They were so convinced by other public school textbooks that RNA had formed in nature that they deduced a logical way in which it must have happened: The nucleotide building blocks formed in nature first, and then the RNA. After one of these made up stories had found its way into older biology books, {For example, Cecie Starr, Ralph Taggart, Biology, the Unity and Diversity of Life, 1989 p. 572-573} it was copied into newer books.{Holt, Biology, Visualizing Life, 1998, p. 192.}

Science textbooks should present evidence, not what they think should have happened or what some older schoolbook said. Fry, a philosopher and historian of science, instead of starting from a premise followed by logic, studied the work of all the most important first life researchers who have been trying to find a naturalistic method by which life could have started. She showed the result of their research when she wrote:

"other biochemical building blocks such as nucleotides and lipids, require for their synthesis a 'real factory.' The synthesis of these substances involves a series of reactions, each reaction following the previous one in utmost accuracy." {Iris Fry, The Emergence of Life on Earth, 2000, p. 126, 176-177.}

Lipids and the nucleotide building blocks of RNA are only made by the real factories found in cells.

The authors of Rare Earth engage in a bit of atheistic speculation about life in space, but they tell the truth about RNA production:

"Some of the steps leading to the synthesis of DNA and RNA can be duplicated in the laboratory, others cannot. The problem is that complex molecules such as DNA (and RNA) cannot simply be assembled in a glass jar by combining various chemicals. Such organic molecules also tend to break down when heated."

"The abiotic synthesis of RNA remains the most enigmatic step in the evolution of the first life, for no one has yet succeeded in creating RNA" {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, First quote: p. 63. (See also The RNA World, second edition, 1999, p. 68, 159) Second quote: Rare Earth p. 65, see also 62-66}

I have looked in vain for such admissions in high school biology books which tend to skip all such evidence to the contrary, and to lead the students to believe that RNA formed from chemicals; usually in ways that first life researchers have found over and over again do not work.

Many older people who were first convinced by textbook claims that life started from lipid coacervates, later were convinced that life came from proteins. Now they are even more convinced that it came from RNA. At each stage, they had faith that whatever they believed was true science. Their faith, however, was never based on scientific evidence, but on the false claims of one made up story after another, and why not? Solid evidence that God created life has been hard for them to come by because it is consistently censored out of the textbooks.

After textbooks spin the story that a primitive RNA had formed, they tell what it must have been like. Since it did not yet have the help of a cell, it had to be able to do some things by itself that modern RNA does not do, so we are taught that it self replicated, catalyzed the formation of proteins, and later formed DNA.

Catalysts make chemical reactions happen that otherwise would not happen or would be millions of times slower. The ability of the cell to catalyze reactions with great efficiency is one of the major reasons cells can make complex molecules that won"t form in nature or in some cases, even in the laboratory. The catalytic ability of modern RNA, is very limited, and it certainly can"t make proteins, {The RNA World, second edition, 1999, p. 166-171} but if it could, how could it know to make all the specific proteins needed for the first cell? Why make the hard ones? Why would it not just keep catalyzing more copies of one easy protein?

A greater problem is, if RNA were successful at catalyzing the formation of the needed chemicals, and was being perfected by natural selection, why would it quit catalyzing the reactions itself, invent proteins to do those jobs, and turn over the work to them? It would have been impossible for several reasons. First, each protein will connect and function in only one place in its cell, so something would have to have gotten it to that place. Dr.Guenter Blobel received a Nobel prize for discovering the address tags which send each protein to the one place in the cell where it will work. {5 Tom A. Rapoport of Harvard Medical School, Science News, 10/16/99, Vol. 156 Issue 16, p 246. See also Britannica Biography Collection, Guenter Blobel.}

While a protein is on the way to the only spot where it will fit and connect with the proteins around it, it must fold to fit perfectly with the other proteins which will be its neighbors. Unless each protein is properly addressed and folded, it is not only useless, but it will usually cause a genetic disease. IBM is building the world's most powerful super computer so scientists can understand how cells fold each protein into the unique shape which will let it fit with the surrounding proteins.

IBM writes:

"The scientific community considers protein folding one of the most significant ‘grand challenges" - a fundamental problem in science or engineering that has broad economic and scientific impact and whose solution can be advanced only by applying high-performance computing technologies.

Proteins control all cellular processes in the human body. Comprising strings of amino acids that are joined like links of a chain, a protein folds into a highly complex, three-dimensional shape that determines its function. Any change in shape dramatically alters the function of a protein, and even the slightest change in the folding process can turn a desirable protein into a disease." {http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/press_release.html}

The fact that each protein receives information which sends it to the only spot where it can connect and that on the way it folds to fit that spot is evidence: not evidence that a series of lucky accidents happened for each of the cell's many proteins, but that the system was set up by an intelligent Creator.

The plot thickens: For a cell to live, it is not enough for its proteins to be sent to the right places and folded correctly on the way, the cell must also maintain the right amount of each protein. This requires an elaborate control system that turns on and off every activity of the cell at the right time. {Susan Aldridge, The Thread of Life, The story of genes and genetic engineering, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 47-53.} If RNA could produce proteins and did not stop making even one of them at the proper moment, it would jam the cell so full of that protein, that it would kill the cell. No cell could live after it started protein production without a control system to turn the production of each and every protein on and off at the right times. If a cell could produce proteins with no control systems in place, we could expect:
 

• Proteins with mixed right and left handed amino acids.
• Mostly the proteins which were easiest to make.
• Proteins which would not fold properly.
• Proteins without the proper address tags.
• Many copies of any proteins whose production the cell was not yet programmed to turn off.
• Proteins (and other chemicals) not useful to that cell.

How Long?

Even atheists have long recognized that the odds against abiogenesis are astronomical, but for years they thought that enough time was available to increase these odds. Almost no informed atheists believe that story today! Why?

Lipids, proteins, DNA and RNA will not form in nature apart from already living cells, but once formed, all of them break down over time as well as switching over to become half right, and half left-handed, so would be no good after a long wait.

Evolutionists tell us that fossil bacteria have been dated at 3.55 billion years old, not long after they believe earth had cooled enough to support life around 3.8 billion years ago {P. F. Lurquin, The Origins of Life and the Universe, 2003, p. 133.} . The oldest fossils look identical to some modern bacteria today. {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 57. See also Life's Origin, p. 173}.

After that many evolutionists believe it took hundreds of millions of years of evolution to produce the complex bacteria that left the oldest fossils. The time that is left for chemicals to get together and make life is so short that Nobel prize winner de Duve has written:

"It is now generally agreed that if life arose spontaneously by natural processes it must have arisen fairly quickly, more in a matter of millennia or centuries, perhaps even less, than in millions of years." {Christian de Duve, "The Beginning of Life on Earth," American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 428.}

If today's evolutionists are right that life was able to evolve from chemicals in such a short time, scientists should be able to make life in the lab. They can"t even make its RNA or DNA! They can"t even make the nucleotides they are made of!

Speaking of the difficulty of life having begun by chance, one informed atheist writes about, "the enormous improbability (not enough time and atoms for all the necessary trials)." {Franklin M. Harold, The way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms, and the Order of Life, 2001, p. 239, as cited in TJ 18(1) 2004.}

If you still believe in one of the made up stories about lipids, proteins, or RNA having formed the first life, you can put that story into its proper perspective by adding this four word introduction: "Once upon a time!"

Information

The primary purpose of DNA and RNA is to store and transmit information. Like a blank piece of paper or a hard drive, neither DNA, nor RNA is limited to a single message. In computer terms, we can think of DNA and RNA as being the hardware, and the information that they contain as the software.

It is one thing to understand how a computer is made, and quite another to know where its software came from. Who wrote the system (the directions that tell the computer how it is to run)? Where did the information for making and managing hundreds of complex proteins come from? Atheistic origin of life researchers have been hard at work for years trying to find a way that the hardware could have come about by naturalistic means, that is without an intelligent Creator. So far, all I have seen them do with the software problem is side step it. "If we can only show that the hardware had no Creator," they seem to be hoping, the software would have written itself. Hardly! No computer writes its own software. Programmers write it, then each of us types his own data into it. Information comes only from minds, never from matter or energy:
 

• When an archeologist finds an ancient book or inscription, he knows it did not write itself. Someone wrote it. {Charles B. Thaxton, "In Pursuit of Intelligent Causes" Origins & Design, Summer 2001, p. 28-29} I know of no scientist who contests this.
 
• The SETI Institute uses huge radio telescopes to search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Their scientists know that if they find an intelligent message coming from space, it will prove that we are not alone in the universe, but there is other intelligent life out there. {For documentation and further discussion see Heinze, How Life Began, p. 102-103, 131-133}. The SETI scientists, including the ones who are atheists, count on there being no exceptions to the fact that information always comes from intelligent beings.

Because atheists believe that cells evolved from chemicals, they have strong motivation to believe that the first cell was really simple, so they have done research to see how few genes a cell could have gotten by with and still had life: "The number is about 300." {P. F. Lurquin, The Origins of Life and the Universe, 2003, p. 6} The DNA of a bacterium contains as much information as a 1000 page book {Lee M. Spetner, Not by Chance, 1998, p. 30} With this as a reference point, a cell so simple it only had 300 genes would probably have as much information as a 300 page book. Forget the hardware for now! Where did the first cell get the equivalent of around 300 pages of information?

To get around this, evolutionists write me with exotic new definitions of "information" that don"t involve information.

The principle definition of information in my dictionary is, "knowledge communicated or received." The second is "knowledge gained through study" {Random House Webster's College Dictionary, 2000, p. 678.}

Cells contain and use knowledgeable instructions that work perfectly for making even the cell parts that scientists can"t yet make in the lab. If after years of study intelligent scientists are able to decode the instructions and make these materials in their own laboratories, will they have shown that cells received their information with no intelligent input? Hardly! The evidence clearly points to a very intelligent creator. It is because of their world view, not because of the evidence that Atheists claim the information in cells is an exception, produced by accident. The presence of the precise directions for making the complex molecules of living things is one more reason cells can make them even though they never occur in nature.

In the next section, we will see another of the reasons. Machines make the evidence that God created even more specific, and easier to understand. Try to read about them with an open mind!

Machines

In every case in which the origin of a machine is known, it was designed by an intelligent designer. This is true of the space shuttle but it is also true of your bicycle.

Cells are full of tiny functioning machines called molecular machines. Their different parts work together to accomplish things that no one part can do by itself. The ribosomes, for example, are little machinesthat link amino acids together to make proteins. There are a number of ribosomes inside each cell. In each one, led by the directions in the DNA, and with the cooperation of catalysts, several kinds of proteins work together with RNA. Together, they form a molecular machine that links amino acids together to make proteins.

Making proteins, however would kill the cell if too much or too little of any protein were made. The cell needs the right amount at the right time. Completely different machines turn protein production on or off. One type uses specific stretches of DNA called regulatory DNA sequences. The DNA, however, can not turn protein production on or off by itself. Each regulatory DNA sequence works with a specific protein. The protein folds perfectly to fit the correct spot on the DNA, and work with it. DNA and protein work together form a machine that regulates the production of a protein. Together they form a switch that turns a gene for that protein on or off at the right times. {Bruce Alberts, Dennis Bray, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Martin Raff, Keith Roberts, Peter Walter, Essential Cell Biology, An Introduction to the Molecular Biology of the Cell, 1998, p. 259-262.} Neither the regulatory DNA sequences nor the regulatory proteins can do the job without the other.

To get to the right spot on the DNA, each of the regulatory proteins had to have a fully functioning address tag that would send it to the only spot on the DNA where it would fit and function. On the way, it had to be folded correctly. Otherwise it would not fit when it got there.

Now add this vital evidence: If the machine which makes proteins had been able to make them before the one that regulates them was in place, the run away production would have killed the cell. The regulator, in turn, is half protein, and would have been useless without protein production. The cell could not work until both the protein production and the control were up and running. The same is true for many of the cell's machines. They were designed to depend on one another.

Behe quotes Darwin as saying, "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." {Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, 1996, p. 24.} Behe calls any machine which would not work at all unless several parts were present and put together properly, "irreducibly complex." Take away any part of a thing that is irreducibly complex, and it won"t work. Not only does the cell contain machines which in themselves are irreducibly complex, these machines must also work together with other machines of the cell. Now, pay attention! If one could take away either the machines which make proteins, or the regulatory machines, not one of the cell's other machines, which may number in the thousands, would work either.

Schoolbooks which replace the scientific evidence with made up stories, are dumbing down students in order to support the world view that there is no Creator.

Let me ask you: Why do proteins connect to, and work in conjunction with, RNA, DNA, lipids and other proteins to form working machines which will not work at all unless other machines are present and making their contribution to the life of the cell? It is because each cell contains in its library of information the directions for making the machines, and the instructions which make them work together. How did this information get there? How do the directions for making machines get into any database? Does the evidence show that such directions result from a number of lucky accidents undirected by any source of intelligence? No! Never! Such information only comes from an intelligent source. The cell's machines show at least as much evidence for an intelligent designer as do other machines. Even atheists admit that all other machines, from wheel barrows to washing machines, had intelligent designers. Only, in the case of the molecular machines in cells, does their prior commitment to materialism require them to make an exception. It is the most complex, and therefore the very worst exception possible. If atheists claimed that a watch had come about by accident we might wonder at how they could believe something so contrary to the evidence, but making this claim for molecular machines is worse even than making it for a watch that automatically resets itself by signals from a satellite. The molecular machines are even more complexly inter coordinated. If atheists want to get themselves into such an obvious conflict with reality, I probably should not complain, but why should they drag schoolbooks out onto such thin ice with them? Can"t they see that the ice is going to break? Sure, its possible to fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but this time they are going too far.

My prayer is that you, my readers, may understand, and act on your knowledge to let God bring you into the most wonderful of all relationships. May you fit with God like a regulatory protein fits the stretch of DNA it was made for.

Perhaps you are an atheist who until now has been able to believe made up anti scientific fables, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Now that you know, why choose the way of death over the way that leads to God. Jesus said, "Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake" (John 14:11). Jesus was speaking of the miracles those who were listening had seen him do. The creation of life is another of God's works that when not manipulated by atheists leads us to believe in God.

I am sure that when many of you who are atheists rejected God, you were convinced that you were following science. Now you know! If you don"t know, reread this chapter, or read my book, How Life Began. Both the scientific evidence which they lay out before you, and the Bible the Creator's message to us, show that an intelligent Designer and Creator made living things. Why put the made up myths of atheism ahead of both science and the Bible?

At this moment, while you know the truth, don"t harden your heart against your Creator. You can come to Him through Jesus Christ, God's revelation of Himself to mankind.

The laws of heredity worked out by Gregor Mendel were little known and not well accepted when Darwin's theory became popular. Darwinists recognized the differences that exist between one individual and another of any species, and believed that as natural selection chose individuals having the best traits, from one celled animals, elephants developed.

It was later that Mendel's laws of heredity became known and showed how traits are shuffled and passed on to the offspring. The process provides nothing new, but only redistributes traits that have always been there. Therefore, this idea which was once claimed to have been the principle mechanism for evolution has been largely abandoned. Evolutionists now believe that mutations are the principle source of new genes. Genes are the sets of instructions in the DNA which guide the various mechanisms which do the work of each cell. NeoDarwinism is the name of the belief that mutations are the principle source of the new instructions which, starting with a single cell, have produced all the more advanced plants and animals, and developed their new organs. Mutations are errors in copying and passing the instructions on to the next generation. Their frequency is increased by radiation, etc. Mutations are random changes to already accurate instructions for producing complex organisms.

Thousands of diseases are known to be caused by mutations. These, however, could be called down hill mutations. No mutations have been identified which add complexity, that is new genes containing commands which might have produced a head or a tail or a hand for example, when it did not yet exist. The chance of accidental mutations making complex improvements in living things is about the same as that of a cat walking on the author's keyboard improving a book. Who would have imagined that as the author prepared many new editions the cat's aimless walks, helped by a proof reader who took out the worst mistakes, would originate new and better books on other subjects?

There is ample evidence that random changes in the instructions for making living things produce downhill evolution, but uphill evolution, the kind that starts with a simple one celled creature and develops fish, trees, and people, must be accepted by faith. If any uphill mutations that increase biological complexity happen, no one seems able to indicate them, and they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by those that are harmful, and are responsible for thousands of genetic diseases. Many insist that I am wrong and mutations cause uphill evolution. How can you know? Here is an experiment you can do yourself. Radiation speeds up the mutation rate, so buy a trunk full of atomic waste and keep it under your bed. Maybe the children you have after that will be super evolved geniuses. Maybe not.

Great numbers of laboratory experiments were carried out to learn about the effect of mutations on evolution by studying the fruit fly. Since scientists could choose the mutations they wanted to preserve, many hoped to see good mutations gradually lifting the fruit flies to a higher level, developing new organs, and the other things evolution is supposed to be capable of doing.

The mutations that were studied caused a wide range of defects. While evolutionists believe that many constructive mutations also occur, they have been difficult to pin down. The usual rebuttal involves a mutation that repeated the genes for wings, adding an extra pair. They hung down, got in the way, but did not function, so would not be retained by natural selection. They help us understand what is involved in adding new organs. For mutations to write the code for wings, if they had not existed before, would have required somewhat simultaneous modifications which provided and attached muscles, nerves, blood supply, etc. To duplicate already functional wings would only require duplication of the genes for the whole package. The observed mutations of fruit flies were not steps toward their becoming men, birds, or even butterflies.

The famous French zoologist Pierre Grassé wrote:

"The fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster), the favorite pet insect of the geneticists, whose geographical, biotopical, urban and rural genotypes are now known inside out, seems not to have changed since the remotest times." (Evolution of Living Organisms New York: Academic Press, 1977, p. 130).

Since fruit fly experiments did not give the desired result, E. coli bacteria were used. E. coli have generations much more rapidly than the flies. The results? According to Grassé,

"The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago!" (Evolution of Living Organisms, p. 87).

More recent evolutionists tell us that it is even worse:

"The oldest fossils that we do find are from rocks about 3.55 billion years of age, and they look identical to bacteria still on Earth today." {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 57 .}

Bacteria, which can often split off another generation every 15 minutes, evolve very rapidly in theory, and they do adapt to changing environments, but their mutations are not producing fish or worms, but bacteria. David DeWitt describes what would be required if the theory of evolution were true:

"Successful macro-evolution requires the addition of NEW information and NEW genes that produce NEW proteins that are found in New organs and systems." {David A. DeWitt, "Hox Hype: Has Macro-evolution been Proven?" Creation Matters, a CRS publication, Jan./Feb. 2002, p. 10}

Evolutionists assume that helpful mutations that increase the information content of the organism and lead to new genes which direct the construction of new organs happen. They are not found. Those who want to show me otherwise usually tell me about sickle cell anemia, an often lethal hereditary disease which distorts the shape of the red blood cells. The distorted cells don"t carry oxygen as well, but give some resistance to malaria, and this resistance contributed by defective cells is the most common illustration of a "helpful" mutation that evolutionists give. While it does have a helpful side effect, is it really a helpful mutation? Even if your answer is "Yes," it does not help solve the problem. What is needed is not mutations that distort the shape of red blood cells, making them less efficient at carrying oxygen, but uphill mutations that produce new organs.

Almost all mutations are harmful. If this were not the case, evolutionists who want to improve their future children would be flocking to Chernobyl to soak up radiation from the world's greatest nuclear accident because radiation greatly increases the number of mutations. The Encyclopedia Britannica comments:

"Most mutations, however, turn out to be deleterious and often lead to some impairment or to death of the organism. To illustrate, it is unlikely that one can improve the functioning of a finely crafted watch by dropping it from a tall building. The watch may run better, but this is highly improbable. Organisms are so much more finely crafted than the finest watch that any random change is even more likely to be deleterious." {Life, Encyclopedia Britannica 2002"}

Recessive mutations

Biology books usually shrug off the fact that all or almost all mutations are harmful, or at best neutral by saying: "Natural selection eliminates the harmful mutations." However, around two thirds of all mutations are recessive, that is, they only show up in the offspring which inherit the same mutation from both parents. Recessive mutations cannot be rapidly eliminated, because natural selection can only eliminate the diseased offspring, not the two thirds which carry the disease and pass it on, but are not affected.

In addition, the same mutations tend to be repeated, so harmful recessive mutations have about as much tendency to build up as to be eliminated.

The huge preponderance of harmful mutations poses another problem:

To develop a new organ would require a number of coordinated mutations that would code for the new muscles, nerves, bones, etc. that the new organ would need. They would need to happen in a short period of time so they can start working together before some are eliminated. If a few mutations happened, but without the others with which they would have to cooperate to form a new organ, they would not be helpful. What good is a new bone, muscle, or gland without the blood vessels, nerves and connections to the brain which would have to be present for it to function? The individuals which contained them would be eliminated by natural selection.

Point Mutations:

If an organism were to receive a helpful mutation within a cluster of 100 harmful mutations, that individual would be eliminated by natural selection because many of the 100 harmful mutations would cause genetic diseases. Natural selection eliminates a harmful mutation by eliminating the whole organism which contains it. Because harmful mutations so greatly outnumber good mutations, the larger the group of mutations, the greater the chance that one or several lethal mutations will kill its carrier.

In practice, any mutations that change more than one amino acid in one protein are generally eliminated. Minimal mutations like this are called point mutations.

Drake says:

"...point mutations are likely to allow the afflicted individual to survive and reproduce, and may thus be transmitted and affect subsequent generations. In terms of human suffering, therefore, the summed effects of single gene mutations probably exceed the deleterious effects of changes in chromosome number or arrangement." (Drake, John W., "Environmental Mutagenic Hazards," Science, vol. 187, Feb. 14, 1985, p 505)

Developing new organs or new kinds of animals would require large groups of coordinated mutations, but large groups of mutations contain so many harmful mutations that they are eliminated by natural selection. Point mutations often survive, but it is hard to see how they could make the new organs, etc. necessary for uphill evolution.

Chapter 3

Claim: Evolution is happening today: Light Colored Moths Were Replaced by Dark Colored Moths

Moths and butterflies have an amazing life cycle. They start life as an egg from which a caterpillar hatches, eats, , and goes through the pupa (chrysalis) stage, often after spinning a cocoon. In this stage the caterpillar melts to liquid goo which is then transformed into a butterfly or moth with wings, reproductive organs, completely different eyes, number of legs etc. and flies off into the sunset. The process is called metamorphosis.

Evolutionists claim that all animals evolved from a primitive one celled creature as natural selection worked on the results of errors in copying the DNA.

Which evolved first, a complex flying moth, or a relatively simpler caterpillar with no wings or reproductive organs? Neither! When Mrs. Moth lays an egg, its DNA already contains the directions that make the caterpillar, and then the pupa stage, in which its organs melt into a liquid, from which the moth is constructed. Try to find a selective advantage which would make natural selection choose melting into liquid over being a caterpillar!

All the information is already present in the DNA to direct the process from caterpillar to liquid goo to butterfly. To my knowledge no reasonable way has ever been discovered, or even dreamed up, by which mutations could modify moth DNA, to produce the complex programs for all four of the moth's greatly differing but perfectly coordinated stages: egg, caterpillar, pupa, and moth.

Despite having no idea how a moth could possibly have evolved, from the 1960's on, almost every textbook which promotes evolution has used the peppered moth as the prize evidence to back up its teaching that evolution happens. You probably remember the pictures of light and dark peppered moths resting on light and dark tree trunks.

In England before the industrial revolution almost all the peppered moths had a generally light colored mixture of light and dark scales on their wings. At rest they looked very similar to the white lichens which covered many tree trunks. With the coming of the industrial revolution, the lichens died and the tree trunks became dark with the smoke of industry. We are told that because of this, the light colored moths no longer had protective coloration, and the birds saw them resting on the trunks and ate them. Before long the majority of the light colored moths are said to have been seen by birds and eaten, leaving the dark moths which were well camouflaged on the dark tree trunks to became the majority.

In spite of how scientific our textbooks make this "proof" of evolution appear, the experiments behind the statements have come under attack. A recent book explains: "They were, and still are, hailed as ‘Darwin's missing evidence, "evolution in action." Yet the history of the peppered moth has lately become a battlefield, the controversy becoming more inflamed by the moment." {Judith Hooper, Of Moths and Men: an Evolutionary Tail, 2002, p. XV}

Why all this interest in a study of moths? The author who says she is not a creationist, continues: "for contrary to popular wisdom, Darwin's theory of natural selection was on shaky ground in the first part of the twentieth century. Apart from admittedly artificial laboratory studies of fruit flies, experimental evidence for Darwinian theory was lacking. There was doubt that natural selection could ever be experimentally demonstrated at all."

Looking for scientific proof that Darwin was right about natural selection, some noticed that since the smoke of industry had killed the white lichens and blackened the trunks of trees in the industrial part of England, black peppered moths had appeared, and were becoming more and more numerous. Perhaps this might be the proof that was needed to confirm Darwin's theory.

Bernard Kettlewell, a medical doctor who was a knowledgeable moth and butterfly expert was convinced to do a study on the peppered moth which would give scientific evidence for natural selection. He was hired and sent out in the field to document and measure natural selection in action. He became convinced the darker peppered moths were becoming more numerous because their camouflage was better on the smoke darkened tree trunks. He set up his experiments to show just that.

A horizontal change like that of the color of the scales on a moth's wing does not show that natural selection has changed a single celled creature, into a moth, how its completely different stages came about, or that the moth is becoming something else. All remained moths. None became bats or humming birds, or even a different kind of moth. What's more, when ecological awareness later led to cleaning up the industrial smoke, many of the trees returned to their former light color, and so did the moths!

Kettlewell's moths, writes Hooper: "became the most celebrated experiment ever in evolutionary biology. By the 1960s it had conquered all the textbooks, influencing the minds of four decades of biology students. It is the slam dunk of natural selection, the paradigmatic story that converts high school and college students to Darwinism, the thundering left hook to the jaw of creationism." {Judith Hooper, Of Moths and Men: an Evolutionary Tail, 2002, p. XVii}

Craig Holdrege, one of the American biology teachers who used the moth experiments to teach his students was reading an English peppered moth researcher and friend of Kettlewell one day when he was struck by these words: "In 25 years we have found only two betularia [peppered moths] on the tree trunks" {Judith Hooper,Of Moths and Men: an Evolutionary Tail, 2002, p. XViii} Kettlewell's whole proof of moth evolution depended on the moths resting on tree trunks where birds would see and eat them. Holdrege realized that what he had been teaching for years was not really true. Under natural conditions peppered moths almost never rested on tree trunks!

In fact, it turns out that peppered moths spend their days on the lower side of branches up in the shade of the trees. {Hooper, p. 260, 262, 265-256.} The pictures in the textbooks of moths on tree trunks are of two kinds:
 

• For the first pictures Kettlewell placed living moths on tree trunks. {Hooper, p. 172:5-6, 264.}
• Later pictures show dead moths stuck to the trunks. {Hooper, p. 172:16-17, 264.}

Most scientists, however, had no idea there were problems. Jerry Coyne a University of Chicago Professor, found out when he read Michael Majerus's 1998 book, Melanism: Evolution in Action. When he realized that what he had been teaching for years was at least partly faked, Coyne, was "horrified" and wrote in his review of the book for the journal Nature: "My own reaction resembles the dismay attending my discovery, at the age of six, that it was my father and not Santa who brought the presents at Christmas eve." {Jerry Coyne, "Not Black and White," a review of Michael Majerus's Melanism: Evolution in Action,Nature 396, 1998, p. 35-36. Reported in Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Science or Myth? 2002, p. 157. See also Hooper p. 283-286.}

With the increased scrutiny, evolutionists have found many other problems with "the most celebrated experiment ever in evolutionary biology." Here are a few:
 

• For his famous experiment, Kettlewell brought in dark and light moths and early in the mornings put them on tree trunks where they do not normally rest to see whether the birds would eat more dark or light moths. Since moths normally move around at night, if released then, they would have moved to their normal positions in the branches where neither Kettlewell nor the birds would be apt to find them. During the day, moths will stay where they are put. {Hooper, p.110, 114, 260}
• The experiment was based on the assumption, that natural selection favored dark moths due to birds seeing lighter colored moths on the tree trunks and eating them. This assumption was not accurate, both because moths don"t normally rest on tree trunks and because birds seem not to eat many of them . {Hooper, p. 218, 265.}
• The findings were artificial. Setting out large numbers of moths on a few tree trunks taught birds to come there to find food. Because of the unusual concentrations of moths put in unnatural and particularly obvious places, one critic called the experiment a study of "unnatural selection." {Hooper, 267}
• Some of the birds Kettlewell listed as eating his moths seem not to eat them at all under natural circumstances. {Hooper, p. 243, 258.}
• Even in unpolluted woods there are dark places where moths can sit, so some should always exist. They should not have had their origin with the smoke of the industrial revolution {Hooper, p. 249, 262.}
• When Kettlewell did not get the results he wanted, he would change the design of his experiments until he did. {Hooper, p.256-257, 292.}
• In another type of experiment, the number of moths recaptured after being marked and released were an insignificant 3 out of every 60 released until after Kettlewell received a letter from his boss. The average number recaptured daily for the 11 days after he received the letter was 13. {Hooper, p. 115.}
• Both diet and temperature have also been found to cause dark forms of the moths to be produced. Perhaps the gene for dark moths is always present, but is sometimes turned off. {Hooper, p. 280-282, 287.}
• "Kettlewell's studies have not been replicated by a great number of scientists. "It doesn"t happen. David West tried it. Cyril Clark tried it. I tried it. Everybody tried it. No one gets it." {Hooper, p. 296, see also p. 272 quoting Professor Bruce Grant of the College of William and Mary in Virginia.}

Jerry Coyne who wrote the review of Majerus's book represents the other attitude. He was horrified to find that he had been conned into teaching something that was not true. Because he desires honesty in science and in science books, he refused to use the contrived evidence any more from the moment he learned about it.

What will the school books do? At the moment, this "proof of evolution" is still the standard textbook evidence that evolution is taking place, {Prentice Hall, Biology, the Living Science, 1998, p. 233; Adison-Wesley, Biology, Second Edition, page 251; and most biology textbooks, though -------- did not list it.}

The main justification for continuing to use this argument is that the number of dark moths really did increase after the advent of industrial pollution and decrease again when it was cleaned up. On the other hand, the claim that birds picking moths off tree trunks where they don"t really rest left the dark moths to replace light moths is just not true. We expect better science from our science text books.

An even greater problem is the fact that this argument for evolution which has been so convincing does not show up hill evolution. The peppered moths did not become anything different than peppered moths. Creationists as well as evolutionists believe that every species is built with some ability to adapt to changing environments. If one defines evolution as any kind of change, the peppered moth story could be called evolution. However, if the theory of evolution has anything to do with simple animals having given rise to complex animals and people, peppered moths do not show that kind of evolution.

Whether or not textbook authors of the future decide to modify this argument to make it more honest, or to eliminate it all together, when you went to school it was evolution's most effective propaganda, the "story that converts high school and college students to Darwinism, the thundering left hook to the jaw of creationism." {Judith Hooper, Of Moths and Men: an Evolutionary Tail, 2002, p. XVii} If you believe in evolution now, a lot of what convinced you was probably your belief that birds picked moths off of tree trunks.

To impress on us the tremendous influence the moth story has had, Hooper has named her last chapter, "A Damn Good Story." Sure, it was a really convincing story, and that is what she meant, but it is also a damning story. Jesus Christ said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6). Those who do not come to the Father through Jesus Christ because their school books have convinced them of another way, don"t come to the Father. The other way leads to doubt, skepticism and atheism. The only way that leads to the Father is Jesus Christ, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Him. We have that on the authority of Jesus who is the truth.

A great deal of the schoolbooks "evidence" that we were created gradually by evolution is really evidence of downhill or horizontal evolution. If you refused Jesus Christ in order to accept Darwinism, you did it by faith that for the most part grew out of evidence that you now know was false. Lies damn! The Savior saves! Repent! Quit trusting the false, and trust He who is the way, the truth, and the life. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16) You stand at a fork in the road. Take the right way!

Chapter 4

Claim: Embryology shows that a baby in its mother's womb relives the stages through which its species evolved.

The so-called biogenetic law that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is one of the "proofs" still used for evolution. The idea is that as the embryo grows, it passes through the various stages of its evolutionary history. The claim that at one time a human baby looks like a fish with gills is supposed to show that humans evolved from fish, etc.

The so called law was popularized in 1866 by a famous series of pen and ink drawings by Ernst Haeckel. They represented the stages of the development of embryos as they should have looked if the embryo had gone through stages in its development in which it resembled its evolutionary ancestors in the course of their evolution. To make sure that embryos of some animals closely resembled embryos of other animals, he sometimes repeated the same picture. These drawings were then presented as factual scientific proof that the embryo actually went through the same stages its species had gone through while evolving.

The drawings were exposed as fraudulent, by a number of scientists starting at least as early as 1874 while Haeckel was still alive. When charged with fraud, Haeckel said essentially, "It's OK, everybody does it." Even after being exposed, Haeckel's theory was often presented as a law of science. Some of his drawings are still reproduced in schoolbooks today, even though they have frequently been exposed as fakes.

Jonathan Wells, in Icons of Evolution, critiques seven biology textbooks, mostly from 1998 and 1999, which use Haeckel's drawings. {p.102-107; as an example see Prentice Hall Biology, The Living Science, 1998, p. 223}

In spite of Haeckel's drawings being occasionally exposed as fakes, many, even among leading evolutionists, still think they are true.

Wells writes, "In February 2000 textbook-writer Douglas Futuyma posted a message to a Kansas City internet forum in response to a critic who had accused him of lying by using Haeckel's embryos in his 1998 textbook [advanced college level], Evolutionary Biology. In his defense Futuyma explained that before reading the critic's accusation he had been unaware of the discrepancies between Haeckel's drawings and the actual vertebrate embryos." Futuyama, though a well known, well informed, and highly respected evolutionist probably never would have found out about the hoax if a creationist had not sent him the email.

A few honest evolutionists continue to discover the hoax, and expose it. For example, M. K. Richardson discovered the hoax and in 1998, exposed it in the journal, Science, saying:
 

"Haeckel's drawings of 1874 are substantially fabricated. In support of this view, I note that his oldest "fish" image is made up of bits and pieces from different animals-some of them mythical. It is not unreasonable to characterize this as faking." Later editions of Haeckel's drawings were somewhat more accurate. Sadly, it is the discredited 1874 drawings that are used in so many British and American biology textbooks today." {Michael K. Richardson, Science, Vol. 281, 28 Aug. 1998}.

The evolutionist A. 0. Woodford long ago demolished Haeckel's "proof" of evolution on a scientific basis: "But the implications as to lines of descent are not now taken seriously. The tiny genes in the first cell of a new individual contain the whole program for its later development. The genes are similar to the program fed into a computer, telling it what things to do and the order in which to do them. The only chance would produce a variation of the adult form and also produce at an immature stage the previous adult form." (Historical Geology, 1965, p. 32). He was right in stating that the genes contain the whole program, but most people only read the school books.

To avoid criticism, some schoolbooks show shorter, harder to identify portions of Haeckel's drawings, and some attribute them to someone else. Unfortunately, they are hiding the old fraud with new fraud, and continuing to use it to make converts to evolution.

What makes the idea believable is that there really are some similarities between a human embryo and certain lower forms of life. Most animals are somewhat similar in basic structure, being made of cells, and also in basic function, needing nutriment, oxygen, and a way to dispose of waste materials. The faked drawings, however, mix real and faked similarities to claim that the embryo passes rapidly through one after another of the stages of its evolutionary history which it does not.

The resemblances to lower animals that really do exist in the embryo are usually quite superficial. The famous "gill slits," for example, are still frequently claimed by evolutionists as a proof that man evolved from a fish or a common ancestor. The embryo, when a month old, has certain folds on what is becoming its neck, but they have nothing to do with the gills of a fish. The folds never have either the function or the material of gills. The tissue of the folds is actually developing into jaw, neck, etc., not into gills, yet some young people are still told that their embryos went through a gilled stage, and are fed the conclusion: "fish and humans shared an ancient gilled ancestor." {John H. Postlethwait, Janet L. Hopson, McGraw-Hill, The Nature of Life, 1995, p.373} Or just that men evolved from fish.

When this manuscript was posted on creationism.org while I was writing it, I expected to receive some indignant emails from evolutionists when they found out they had been deceived; that their school books had hoodwinked them. I was not prepared, however, for who they would be indignant with. It was not with Haeckel who had come up with the scam. It was not even with the school books that had promoted a known fraud for 150 years. On the contrary, they defended both Haeckel and the schoolbooks, and were outraged with me! I was attacking their sacred religion, evolution. Worse, I was trying to rob them of an argument which for years had been effective in making converts for their beloved view of life.

That, as far as I am able to tell, was more important than truth for them. If you too feel this way, don"t think your letters will change my mind. Remember, the converts faked embryos are getting for your religion, are taken from mine!

Some folks" faith in evolutionary materialism has distorted their concept of good and evil. Not only do they see anything that attacks their evolutionary belief system as evil, and anything that helps it as good, but their whole basis for morality has changed. When people throw out the Creator and claim to have been raised up by natural selection, it is only natural to tear down the Creator's commandments and replace them with "survival of the fittest," The words which were emblazoned on the tee shirt of the kid who shot so many of his fellow students at Columbine High school.

But, back to Haeckel, even though his theory was known to be false, publicizing it as if it were true has influenced society in another way as well. I believe that some of your friends are having abortions today because Haeckel falsified his drawings in 1866.

If you think this is far fetched, I still receive emails like the following: "I furthermore don't believe that people are having abortions due to his drawings which I acknowledge were not correct, however they weren't that far off, at conception you are not a human you are a group of cells, you do not become a human until you develop the traits of a human, by your reasoning any cluster of developing cells is a human which obviously is not true."

As you see by this email, even after people realize they have been duped into accepting Haeckel's false arguments, some find it hard to let the idea go.

In Oregon where I live, not only abortion, but plain outright murder of unborn babies is legal. Before you call me a liar and quit reading, read this quote from the Oregonian:
 

"FETUS STABBED IN THE WOMB DIES

The fetus of a woman who was stabbed in the abdomen two weeks ago by a man who came into her family's store died last week, police said.  The woman continues to recover from her injuries at OHSU Hospital.

Clackamas County prosecutor Michael Regan said the death of the fetus is not expected to have legal implications for Alfredo Cortes-Villa, 20, of Salem, who has been charged with the attack. A fetus cannot be a homicide victim, according to state law. A homicide victim is defined as a human being who has been born and was alive at the time of the criminal act that led to his death." {Noelle Crombie, The Portland Oregonian, December 30, 2003}

Today, however, a powerful new influence is pulling society back toward truth. Ultrasound is showing an ever growing number of people what their unborn babies really look like. It has taken 150 years, but the textbook position may become such an embarrassment that evolutionists will, with a sigh of reluctance, decide to drop it.

Before I finished writing this book, a new law burst onto the scene on the national level, which makes it illegal to stab unborn babies. The Oregonian includes this comment: "Opponents of the proposal, while saying they sympathized with the desire to severely punish anyone who would attack a pregnant woman, said they were troubled by the definition of the "child in utero" covered under the bill as "a member of the species Homo sapiens at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb." The next paragraph adds:
 

"they thought that once the definition was written into federal law, it would ultimately be used as an argument to overturn existing laws protecting abortion rights."" {The Oregonian March 26, 2004, p. A7}

Let me clarify my position. I do not claim that a new embryo starts out as a perfect miniature adult. He starts out as two cells which unite and become one, and then grow from there. They don't, however, just grow any old which how. A human baby is human from the moment of conception! The development of the embryo is directed by human DNA. It does not begin as a lower animal, and gradually become a human. You will never hear of a paternity test like this: "We tested the baby's DNA and found that his father was a fish!"

There is no stage at which the development of the embryo is determined by fish DNA or monkey DNA. A human baby is fully human even when it is not fully developed, just as a baby fish is fish at every stage.

Chapter 5

Claim: The fossil evidence proves Evolution

Darwin, like many today, thought that because of natural selection each kind of plant or animal was gradually and constantly evolving into new kinds of plants and animals. Unlike many textbook writers today, he admitted in writing that the fossil record did not show that that had happened:

"But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record". {Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, First Collier Books Edition, p. 308}.

Darwin was right in saying that fossils showing the transitions between one major category of plant or animal and another are lacking. The missing links are really missing. His explanation was that not enough fossils had been discovered.

In addition to the lack of transitional fossils that would show that one group came from another, fossils showing the development of organs are also absent. Let's take wings for an example. Flight is a complex process. Evolving it would have taken many tries over a long period of time, leaving behind fossils with quarter wings, half wings, etc. Flying insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals are not even claimed to have evolved from a first winged creature. Evolutionists claim that each of these groups of flying creatures evolved from some animal in its own group that did not have wings. None of them left transitional fossils to show how wings developed. Fossils of wings, and other organs pop up in the fossil record already formed. The gradual transformation that Darwin thought the fossil record should show but does not, is what the theory of evolution requires. Many biology books, instead of admitting the problem as Darwin did, present a make believe fossil record which shows what they want to show, hoping the reader will believe it is real.

One evolutionist after reading this book on creationism.org wrote to object that the development of the human skull showed the smooth gradual evolution that I was denying, and referred me to a website that lined up skulls so you could clearly see that each skull on the way to becoming human was slightly larger until it came to us. The first thing I noticed was that the skull of Neanderthal man from whom it claimed was our immediate ancestor was just the right amount smaller than that of modern man to show the gradual evolution that this display was teaching. Since I knew the average Neanderthal brain was around 10% larger than ours today, I immediately caught the falsification. They had just photographically reduced the size of the Neanderthal skull in comparison with that of the human skull to fake the smooth transition they were claiming to prove.

My favorite answer to those who claim smooth transitions is in the Cambrian layer, which for years was considered the very beginning of the fossil record. Because all of the major categories called "phyla" which exist today, appeared suddenly, fully formed in the Cambrian, it is referred to as the Cambrian explosion.

Most of us have been taught that eyes gradually evolved, step by step from spots on the skin. What do the fossils show? Way down there among these very old Cambrian fossils was that of an animal called the trilobite which crawled along the bottom of the sea. Its eyes were almost unbelievable to evolutionists. Here are two interesting quotes from evolutionist writers lifted from a fascinating article on Trilobite eyes in Reason and Revelation, Oct. 03 along with their documentation: "Paleontologist Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History commented:
 

"We can be justifiably amazed that these trilobites, very early in the history of life on Earth, hit upon the best possible lens design that optical physics has ever been able to formulate. (as quoted in Ellis, Richard (2001), Aquagenesis (New York: Viking)"

Recently some fossils that evolutionists have dated earlier (Precambrian) have been found, but they seem too different to be ancestral to the Cambrian fossils. The oldest and most famous of these are fossil bacteria dated at 3.55 billion years old. A scientist who is an atheist comments that these bacteria: "look identical to bacteria still on Earth today." {Peter D. Ward, Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth, Why complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, 2000, p. 57.}

So evidence shows:
 

• After being perfected by natural selection for 3.55 billion years, the oldest fossils that have been found look identical to modern bacteria.
• Modern eye lenses are not as good as those evolutionists date at 500 million years ago.

In the past, evolutionists generally claimed that the fossils did show a gradual change from one type of plant or animal to another, and mocked or ignored the creationists. More recently, however, some evolutionist scientists who thought they had found an evolutionary solution to the problem also let the cat out of the bag. In doing so, doctors Stephen Gould and Eldredge stirred up an evolutionary earthquake!

"In 1972, Mr. Gould truly shook up the field when he and Niles Eldredge published a famous paper coining the term "punctuated equilibrium." {Richard Monastersky, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/15/2002, p14-}

What was it that shook up their fellow evolutionists? Doctors Gould and Eldredge wanted them to accept, "the fossil evidence at face value, regarding it as a true representation of how evolution worked." {Richard Monastersky, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/15/2002, p14-} That is, they wanted their fellow evolutionists to tell the truth about the fossils instead of pretending they show evolutionary transitions when they don"t, and that was what "truly shook up the field." These scientists believed other evolutionists should, like them, accept a method of evolution that goes with the fossil record as it is, instead of reinventing the fossil record to go with the old way of looking at evolution.

Gould, who until his death in 2002 was one of the most anti creationist atheists imaginable, announced that the missing links were really missing and would always be missing because evolution had not occurred gradually as Darwin had thought. His suggestion was that after long periods without significant change which he called "stasis", evolution had advanced rapidly in isolated groups so small that none of them happen to leave fossils. The long periods of little change called "stasis" are actually observed in the fossils: "Mr. Eldredge and especially the more rebellious Mr. Gould were suddenly telling their colleagues to stand up for themselves and for the message that fossils were sending. "Stasis is data," the two proclaimed." {Richard Monastersky, Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/15/2002, p14-} "Stasis is data" means that the stable periods without evolutionary change are what the fossils actually show.

Naturally, many evolutionists still object to this, and continue to pretend that transitional fossils are abundant. One of the best evidences that transitional fossils really are lacking is the fact that the experts disagree among themselves as to which animals were the ancestors of almost every group.

Gould resolved the problem of the lack of fossil evidence for evolution by claiming that between periods of stasis, there had been short episodes of rapid evolutionary change, but they occurred among small isolated populations and don"t leave fossils. This solved the problem without having to invent an imaginary fossil record which was clearly contrary to the evidence.

Gould did not, however say that there were no transitions at all, and became quite upset when he felt that creationists inferred that he did, so I will let him clarify this with his own pen:

"since we proposed punctuated equilibrium to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists - whether through design or stupidity, I do not know - as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level but are abundant between larger groups." {Gould 1983, p. 260 }.

His illustration: "Archaeopteryx, the first bird, is as pretty an intermediate as paleontology could ever hope to find." {Gould 1991, p. 144-145}

Archaeopteryx, by some strange coincidence, is the same example that those who believe in a gradual evolution use to support their position. It was a fossil bird with teeth in its beak and claws on the elbows of its wings. While, for lack of a better example, evolutionists claim it is a transitional fossil between reptiles and birds, it is actually is a great illustration of stasis. Seven or eight fossils of Archaeopteryx have been found, and none were more evolved or less evolved than the others. All are fossils of the same distinct bird. Because they show no evolutionary movement at all from one Archaeopteryx fossil to another, they actually confirm the fact that the fossils do not show gradual change from one kind to another.

If either Gould or the neoDarwinists really have a series of fossils that show the steps of evolution from one fossil to another, why use this? No Archaeopteryx fossils were gradually becoming Archaeopteryx. All were already fully formed. People have objected, showing me reports of fossils of dinosaurs that were claimed to have been ancestors to archaeopteryx, but these "ancestors" were dated by evolutionists as having lived after archaeopteryx which they date at the time of the earliest dinosaurs. Many evolutionists are backing off a bit and calling such fossils "intermediary" instead of "transitional." While it sounds like six of one and half a dozen of the other, when a distinction is intended, "transitional" means that one evolved from the other while "intermediary" only means that two groups share some characteristics.

While the reason the punctuated equilibrium idea "truly shook up the field" was that Gould, etc. said the idea that evolution progressed slowly was contrary to the fossil evidence and should be abandoned, some want to keep the old slow system of evolution, and just add punctuated evolution to it as one more way that evolution happens: "In many cases, the fossil record confirms that populations of organisms did, indeed, change gradually over time.

But there is also evidence that this pattern does not always hold. "evolution has often proceeded at different rates for different organisms at different times." {K.R. Miller, Joseph Levine, Prentice Hall Biology, 2002, p.439}.

The next quote makes it clear that this is not the intention of the punctuated equilibrium people:

"Did life on Earth change steadily and gradually through time? The fossil record emphatically says no." For millions of years, life goes along uneventfully; then suddenly, a series of natural disasters disrupts the status quo. Episodes of rapid evolutionary change punctuate long intervals of stasis, during which little or no change takes place." {Carlton E. Brett, "Stasis: Life in the Balance." Geotimes, vol. 40, Mar. 1995, p. 18}.

Brett says the fossil record is emphatically against the claim that living things evolved gradually. Because of his commitment to the theory of evolution he does not consider creation, but believes that evolution produced new forms of life by episodes of evolutionary change that were so rapid that they left no transitional fossils.

The fossil record certainly does not provide the millions or billions of transitional fossils that would validate the theory that every kind of living thing evolved from some other kind of living thing. Those who believe in either fast or slow evolution must do it by faith, and so must we who believe God created a number of different forms of life.

Uniformitarian geology denied rapid geologic changes, and maintained that in the past everything went on at approximately the average speed of today. It provided the long ages which made the theory of evolution seem possible. Earlier most people believed that most of the earth's features were developed rapidly by floods and other cataclysmic events, particularly the Biblical flood. To get rid of the Biblical flood, uniformitarianism denied all big floods and other cataclysmic change. The idea which was born just before Darwin, soon became the majority opinion among geologists and maintained that position until the 1990s.

A good deal of the theory drowned under the waters of a lake near present day Missoula Montana. Evidence indicates that during the ice age, a glacier moved in and dammed up the river which drained the area. As the water accumulated behind the glacier, a lake was formed which became huge and deep. Finally the water lifted the glacier, shoved it aside, and the Missoula flood was born. From Montana, the flood rushed through Oregon and Washington.

Its power cut through everything, digging out the Columbia River Gorge, and depositing 50 feet of top soil over much of the Willamette Valley. Much more was carried out to sea. The flood covered Portland with 300 feet of water traveling an estimated 80 to 90 miles an hour. At its height, the flood's water equaled around 10 times the output of all the worlds rivers. Some think that the blockage, lake building and flooding may have taken place more than once.

Because of their commitment to uniformitarianism, and their fear that accepting the Missoula flood might give the Biblical flood a foot in the door, great numbers of geologists went to their graves refusing to believe in the Missoula flood. It began to be accepted around 1968 when so much evidence had built up that it became almost undeniable.

Other evidence against uniformitarian was equally compelling. Its explanation for the formation of fossils was so ridiculous that my readers may think I am making it up. They taught that when plants or animals died, they would lie on the ground for hundreds or thousands of years while being gradually covered with sediment before starting to fossilize. The evolutionists badly needed a long time for their theory to seem plausible, but was this the way to get it? In the real world it is quite obvious that plants or animals that are not rapidly covered with sediment are eaten or rot away, and any left over bones are spread around to erode away. After a short time no trace at all is left, so plants and animals that are not covered rapidly, usually by a flood or a mudslide don"t fossilize.

Constrained by the evidence, most geologists now call themselves actualists, or modified uniformitarianists, or old earth geologists, and accept the fact that some floods really have laid down in a few days quantities of sediments which uniformitarianists claimed took from thousands to many millions of years. Generation after generation of uniformitarianists had faith in a very old earth because of a dogma that was clearly false.

What, then, has happened to all that time that evolution needs? It is literally being swept under the rug. Geologists today are in the difficult position of admitting that most of the earth's sediments were built up much more rapidly than was admitted under uniformitarianism but they still believe in the same long ages as before. They now admit that it did not take long to build up the layers of sediment, but cling to their belief in the same long periods of time. They now claim that instead of the time passing while layers of sediments were being built up a grain at a time, almost all of the time passed after one layer had been laid down, and before the next were it left no evidence. From the beginning of the Cambrian layer near the bottom of the Grand Canyon, for example to the top took a total of 555 million years under uniformitarianism as sediment was gradually laid down, a grain at a time. For actualists the total time was the same 555 million years, but they put all but around two and a half million years of that time between the layers. Several layers were laid down, then many years passed. Then more layers were laid down, etc.

They tuck, a hundred million years between one layer and another, then ten million between two other layers, etc.

Many first believed in evolution because in school they were taught that the earth's sediments were deposited so slowly that the time available to evolution was immense. Knowing that the foundation was rotten frees you to consider other options.

Evolution's argument with regard to rudimental or vestigial organs is that the continued existence of organs which no longer have a function, shows that they are evolutionary leftovers. That is, they are organs which did have a function in a lower animal somewhere down the evolutionary line, but have lost it.

In the search for proof of evolution, past generations of scientists found in humans about one hundred eighty organs with no known function. Some of these are more highly developed in lower animals.

These organs were once greatly used as evidence for evolution. However, with the progress of science, it was discovered that many of them were glands which produced very necessary hormones. Others were found to function in the embryonic stage, and some functioned only as a reserve when other organs were destroyed. Of the few which were left, some functioned only in periods of emergency. Very few of these organs in humans are still claimed to be vestigial today are and many scientists now believe that all are functional.

Evolutionists who write to disagree with me on this subject now often change the argument from organs in humans to those in some animal whose organs are as little known to most people now as human organs were when this argument was first used. Others have found some lesser known human organs.

Since organs cannot be shown to have been developed by evolution, the idea of vestigial organs is an attempt to show that evolution could produce new organs by demonstrating that it could degenerate previously good organs. Degeneration, however, goes in the opposite direction of evolution. It loses genetic information instead of adding it. It is like demonstrating that a kid with a hammer can ruin the hood of your new car, and using that as evidence that the car was built by a kid with a hammer. Evolutionists point us to downhill mutations because that is the kind they can find.

The Appendix

The vestigial organ which has been most commonly used to prove evolution is the appendix. In some "less evolved" animals the appendix is larger than that of man, and has a clear function. It is stated that man evolved from hypothetical ancestors with larger, functioning appendixes, keeping his appendix but loosing its functions. There are, however, animals considered less evolved which have smaller appendixes than that of man, and other animals which have no appendixes at all.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "Animals that have the same organ in a fully developed and functional condition are believed to be close to the ancestry of the animals having the vestigial organ." (Vol. 1, 1967, p. 983). This idea would put man closer in ancestry to the marsupials and rabbits in which the appendix is well developed than to some monkeys which do not have them. It is now well known that man's appendix has a function. Like his tonsils, it contains lymphatic tissue which captures and fights infection.

Scalp and Ear Muscles

The muscles that move the scalp and ears are often cited as vestigial in humans. Horses use them to shoo off flies. In humans they are claimed to have lost their function, and are therefore vestigial. Mine are not vestigial. I can easily move my scalp and ears and often twitch them to keep off flies. Evolutionist writers who use this argument are seriously handicapped. They have to lift a hand from the keyboard for every fly that lands, so I will probably eliminate them in the struggle for the survival of the fittest.

Where did new organs come from?

Whether vestigial organs are many or few, they are another use of downhill examples to support uphill evolution. It is easy to see how random copying errors could ruin previously functional organs. The real problem is how could mutations which are random errors produce new functional organs? It is not only difficult in theory, but the fossil record has not preserved the transitional steps. If the theory of evolution is correct, why don"t we see many evolving organs which are not functional yet, but which will eventually become helpful? People could probably benefit from radar, or sonar like the bats. We could communicate from farther away with radio waves or microwaves, and how about some really new organs based on ideas we have never heard of?

Random mutations can easily destroy functional organs, but how could they possibly create the code that directs the construction and coordination of functioning interconnecting parts.
 

Let's ask ourselves, "What would have been the result if all of our organs became vestigial? Organs which actually do have no function are eventually eliminated all together.

Be alert! Evolutionists often use evidence of the loss of some organ, such as the eyes of fish which live in dark caves, to convince people that evolution has developed us and all other living things from a bacterium. Why do evolutionists use down hill examples in attempting to prove up hill evolution? Because down hill and horizontal examples are the kinds they have. You can"t get from a bacteria to a biochemist by loosing genetic information no matter how much is lost, so examine any "evidence for evolution" that you are shown to see if it demonstrates a loss or a gain in information. It's an eye opener!

If real evidence for the theory of evolution exists, I can see no reason why the schoolbooks would still be using this.

New animals and Endangered Species

The environmental movement is a direct result of the fact that evolution is not producing new types of animals and plants to replace the ones that die out. Environmentalists have a reason to try to save the endangered species. When they become extinct, they are gone for ever. If the theory of evolution were valid, who would care? For every category of plants or animals that died out, several would spring up to take its place. Instead, we are left with one less.

You look like a monkey! Of course this is not completely true, but there are certainly some real similarities. You both have two arms, two legs, and one head, though obviously there are also many differences. Because of the resemblance, evolutionists usually say that either man evolved from the monkey or that both had a common ancestor.

Similarities can indicate family relationships. You probably resemble your father. But they can also indicate something completely different. In front of me, as I write, are a number of books on the shelves. Among these are two which are almost identical. The covers are the same. The paper is of the same type. Only the thickness of the books and the words inside are different. One who knows nothing about books could conclude that the thicker one had evolved from the less thick one. The real reason for the similarity, though, is that the publisher has designed a particular style that he is using for all the books which he puts in this series. Evolution is only one of several possible reasons for similarity. The fact that both originated in the mind of the same designer is often the real reason behind similar design. Similarity of design does not prove that there was no designer.

Having a common designer also explains some similarities that are difficult to explain by evolution. Think for a moment of the ability to fly. Evolution would be very unlikely to be able to impart this ability. It demands the development and coordination of brain, nerves, tendons, muscles, blood vessels, and bones, none of which would have much or any purpose until each part worked and all worked together.

The big problem to evolution though, is that flight is found in widely varying forms of life: Insects, birds, some dinosaurs, and Bats. In this case we are told that similarity of design means nothing. Evolutionists feel that none of these creatures with wings evolved from any other winged creature, but that each evolved from a completely different ancestor that had no wings. If it did, why is there no evidence for it in the fossils? The oldest fossil of a bat, for example, is of a completely formed bat.

We are asked to believe that the anatomical similarities of birds and bats reveals no evolutionary relationship, and at the same time to consider the similarities between man and apes as proof that men and apes had a common ancestor.

Conclusion

Let's face it, many of the arguments that were used to convince you to believe in the Theory of Evolution were false. Haeckel's embryo drawings, for example, are one of the classic "proofs of evolution" that has been used in the textbooks for more or less the entire 150 years that it has been known that they were faked. Many false arguments are still used in school books today. Why? My guess is that it's because they work. They convince kids they have no Creator! If real evidence had been available, would evolutionists have weakened their position by using false evidence?

Often when someone begins to see that he has been taken in by distorted or untrue statements about evolution, he turns to charge that the Bible can not be trusted either. Can it?

The most commonly used "proof" that the Bible is false declares that some of Adam and Eve's sons had wives and children when it would have been impossible for them to have married anyone because the only woman who existed was their mother. While no daughters are named in Genesis chapters three and four where three sons of Adam and Eve are specifically named, if one reads just a few verses farther, the problem is solved. Speaking of Adam, Genesis 5:4 says: "...and he begat sons and daughters." Adam's sons could marry their sisters.

Men don"t marry close relatives now because their children would inherit the same mutations from both father and mother and be born with genetic diseases. Since this kind of mutations are caused by copying errors during reproduction, they accumulate gradually and were not present at the beginning.

Simple explanations are generally available also for the other points in which the Bible is being attacked.

On the other hand, there really are sound indications that the Bible is inspired by God and is not simply a human book. For example:

• It contains many prophesies of very specific events which were off in the future at the time they were written. For example, hundreds of years before His birth it was stated that Christ would be a descendent of David (Isaiah 9:6-7, Jeremiah 33:15-16), that He would be born in the little town of Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), that He would die for our sins (Isaiah 53:4-6) with his hands and feet pierced, and that the soldiers would divide up his clothes and gamble to see who would get His coat (Psalm 22:16,18). Check them out!

When the Bible says that people who trust in Christ will be saved from their sins and go to heaven, it also offers a way to verify this. It says that the lives of people who trust in Christ will be changed in the here and now. In fact, we see wife abusing drunkards and drug addicts leaving their vices and treating their wives and families with love and respect after coming to Christ. The transformation is often very impressive. As a result, most big cities have rescue missions devoted to carrying the gospel to precisely this kind of people. Many thieves have trusted in Christ, stopped stealing, and are working to support themselves and help others.

When I was in College, my room mate lived such an exemplary life, that I could not just brush it off when he explained to me from the Bible that I should trust Christ to save me. I told him I could get to heaven by living a good life. Then, to show him I could, I tried to do it. I made a serious attempt, but it was a dismal failure. I convinced myself that my room mate's life was just a result of his unusual personality, not of God working in his life. Then I gave in and let him take me to a youth meeting at his church where I found a whole group of kids like my room mate, and all told how God had changed their lives when they trusted in Christ. Before long, I gave in, and trusted Jesus Christ to save me too. From that day my own life was radically changed for the better, just as the Bible said it would be.

This is an experiment you can try for yourself.  The Bible says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16-18).

• The bad news in this quote is that people who have not trusted Christ are already condemned. Look over your life. You will see that you too have sinned. Have you trusted the Savior to save you? "He that believeth not is condemned already."

• The good news is that God loves you and if you will trust Jesus Christ to save you and give you everlasting life, He will. You will know that He did by the change He will make in your life in the here and now.