 
Atlas of Creation - Volume 2

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)

# About the Author

Now writing under the pen-name of HARUN YAHYA, Adnan Oktar was born in Ankara in 1956. Having completed his primary and secondary education in Ankara, he studied arts at Istanbul's Mimar Sinan University and philosophy at Istanbul University. Since the 1980s, he has published many books on political, scientific, and faith-related issues. Harun Yahya is well-known as the author of important works disclosing the imposture of evolutionists, their invalid claims, and the dark liaisons between Darwinism and such bloody ideologies as fascism and communism.

Harun Yahya's works, translated into 57 different languages, constitute a collection for a total of more than 45,000 pages with 30,000 illustrations.

His pen-name is a composite of the names Harun (Aaron) and Yahya (John), in memory of the two esteemed prophets who fought against their people's lack of faith. The Prophet's seal on his books' covers is symbolic and is linked to their contents. It represents the Qur'an (the Final Scripture) and Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace), last of the prophets. Under the guidance of the Qur'an and the Sunnah (teachings of the Prophet), the author makes it his purpose to disprove each fundamental tenet of irreligious ideologies and to have the "last word," so as to completely silence the objections raised against religion. He uses the seal of the final Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace), who attained ultimate wisdom and moral perfection, as a sign of his intention to offer the last word. All of Harun Yahya's works share one single goal: to convey the Qur'an's message, encourage readers to consider basic faith-related issues such as God's existence and unity and the Hereafter; and to expose irreligious systems' feeble foundations and perverted ideologies.

Harun Yahya enjoys a wide readership in many countries, from India to America, England to Indonesia, Poland to Bosnia, Spain to Brazil, Malaysia to Italy, France to Bulgaria and Russia. Some of his books are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Urdu, Arabic, Albanian, Chinese, Swahili, Hausa, Dhivehi (spoken in Mauritius), Russian, Serbo-Croat (Bosnian), Polish, Malay, Uygur Turkish, Indonesian, Bengali, Danish and Swedish.

Greatly appreciated all around the world, these works have been instrumental in many people recovering faith in God and gaining deeper insights into their faith. His books' wisdom and sincerity, together with a distinct style that's easy to understand, directly affect anyone who reads them. Those who seriously consider these books, can no longer advocate atheism or any other perverted ideology or materialistic philosophy, since these books are characterized by rapid effectiveness, definite results, and irrefutability. Even if they continue to do so, it will be only a sentimental insistence, since these books refute such ideologies from their very foundations. All contemporary movements of denial are now ideologically defeated, thanks to the books written by Harun Yahya.

This is no doubt a result of the Qur'an's wisdom and lucidity. The author modestly intends to serve as a means in humanity's search for God's right path. No material gain is sought in the publication of these works.

Those who encourage others to read these books, to open their minds and hearts and guide them to become more devoted servants of God, render an invaluable service.

Meanwhile, it would only be a waste of time and energy to propagate other books that create confusion in people's minds, lead them into ideological chaos, and that clearly have no strong and precise effects in removing the doubts in people's hearts, as also verified from previous experience. It is impossible for books devised to emphasize the author's literary power rather than the noble goal of saving people from loss of faith, to have such a great effect. Those who doubt this can readily see that the sole aim of Harun Yahya's books is to overcome disbelief and to disseminate the Qur'an's moral values. The success and impact of this service are manifested in the readers' conviction.

One point should be kept in mind: The main reason for the continuing cruelty, conflict, and other ordeals endured by the vast majority of people is the ideological prevalence of disbelief. This can be ended only with the ideological defeat of disbelief and by conveying the wonders of creation and Qur'anic morality so that people can live by it. Considering the state of the world today, leading into a downward spiral of violence, corruption and conflict, clearly this service must be provided speedily and effectively, or it may be too late.

In this effort, the books of Harun Yahya assume a leading role. By the will of God, these books will be a means through which people in the twenty-first century will attain the peace, justice, and happiness promised in the Qur'an.

First English Edition published in February, 2007

Second English Edition published in July, 2007

Translated by: Carl Rossini, and Ron Evans

Edited by: Tam Mossman

Published by: GLOBAL PUBLISHING

Talatpasa Mah. Emirgazi Caddesi

İbrahim Elmas İş Merkezi A Blok Kat 4

Okmeydani - İstanbul / Turkey

Phone: (+90 212) 222 00 88

Printed and bound by: Secil Ofset in Istanbul

100 Yil Mah. MAS-SIT Matbaacilar Sitesi

4. Cadde No: 77 Bagcilar-Istanbul/Turkey

Phone: (+90 212) 629 06 15

All translations from the Qur'an are from

The Noble Qur'an: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English

by Hajj Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley, published by Bookwork,

Norwich, UK. 1420 CE/1999 AH.

Abbreviation used:

(pbuh): Peace be upon him (following a reference to the prophets)

www.harunyahya.com

www.harunyahya.net

# To The Reader

A special chapter is assigned to the collapse of the theory of evolution because this theory constitutes the basis of all anti-spiritual philosophies. Since Darwinism rejects the fact of creation—and therefore, God's existence—over the last 140 years it has caused many people to abandon their faith or fall into doubt. It is therefore an imperative service, a very important duty to show everyone that this theory is a deception. Since some readers may find the chance to read only one of our books, we think it appropriate to devote a chapter to summarize this subject.

All the author's books explain faith-related issues in light of Qur'anic verses, and invite readers to learn God's words and to live by them. All the subjects concerning God's verses are explained so as to leave no doubt or room for questions in the reader's mind. The books' sincere, plain, and fluent style ensures that everyone of every age and from every social group can easily understand them. Thanks to their effective, lucid narrative, they can be read at one sitting. Even those who rigorously reject spirituality are influenced by the facts these books document and cannot refute the truthfulness of their contents.

This and all the other books by the author can be read individually, or discussed in a group. Readers eager to profit from the books will find discussion very useful, letting them relate their reflections and experiences to one another.

In addition, it will be a great service to Islam to contribute to the publication and reading of these books, written solely for the pleasure of God. The author's books are all extremely convincing. For this reason, to communicate true religion to others, one of the most effective methods is encouraging them to read these books.

We hope the reader will look through the reviews of his other books at the back of this book. His rich source material on faith-related issues is very useful, and a pleasure to read.

In these books, unlike some other books, you will not find the author's personal views, explanations based on dubious sources, styles that are unobservant of the respect and reverence due to sacred subjects, nor hopeless, pessimistic arguments that create doubts in the mind and deviations in the heart.

# Contents

Fossil Records Refute Evolution

Introduction

Darwin Was Mistaken: Species Have Never Changed

The Claim Of Intermediate-Form Fossils Is A Deception

The Fossil Record Verifies Creation:

Stasis In The Fossil Record

The Coelacanth Silenced The Speculation Concerning Fossils

The Starting Point Of Punctuated Equilibrium

Conclusion

Fossil Specimens of Land-Animals

Turtle

Hyena Skull

Rabbit

Snake

Turtle

Frog

Crocodile Skull

Turtle

Hyena Skull

Fossil Specimens of Sea Creatures

Flying Fish

Sturgeon

Horseshoe Crab

Stingray

Oyster

Crab

Shrimpstingray And Herring

Lobster

Guitar Fish

Lobster

Sea Urchins

Crab

Bowfin

Sawfish

Stingray (With Its Counterpart)

Lobster

Lobster

Puffer Fish

Sea Urchin

Crayfish

Horseshoe Crab

Coelacanth

Flying Fish

Catshark (With Its Counterpart)

Guitar Fish

Crinoid

Stingray (With Its Counterpart)

Catshark

Stingray

Crab

Crinoid

Razorfish

Fossil Specimens of Birds

Conficiusornis

Messel Bird

Liaoxiornis

Conficiusornis Sanctus

Liaoningornis

Fossil Specimens of Plants

Hackberry Leaf

Fern

Beech

Zelkova Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Elm Leaf With Section Of Branch

Robinia And Birch Leaves

Willow

Fern

Mountain Ash Branch

Serviceberry Leaf

Magnolia Leaf

Serviceberry Leaf

Birch Leaf With Underlying

Elm Leaf

Serviceberry Leaf With

Sequoia Stem

Magnolia Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Magnolia Leaf

Hornbeam Leaf On Stem

Soapberry Leaf

Fern

Pine Cone

Fern

Sycamore Branch With

Seed Pods

Figs

Seed Fern

Seed Fern

Elm Leaf

Palm Leaf

Fern

Fern

Ginkgo Leaf

Fern

Ginkgo Leaf

Pine Cone

Ginkgo Leaf

Fern

Keaki Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Mountain Alder Leaf

Black Gum Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Birch Leaf

Robinia Leaf

Serviceberry Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Elm Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Alder Leaf

Walnut Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Alder Leaf

Elm Leaf

Hop Hornbeam Leaf

Alder Leaf

Willow And Birch Leaves

Sequoia Leaf

Sequoia Cone

Fern

Alder Leaf

Ginkgo And Alder Leaves

Fern

Cascara Leaf

Zelkova Leaves

Black Willow

Fern

Redwood Cone

Magnolia Leaf

Birch Leaves

Alder Leaf

Ginkgo Leaf

Magnolia Leaf

Serviceberry Leaf

Fern

Ash Leaf With Sequoia Stems

And Branches

Elm Leaf

Honeysuckle Leaf

Horsechestnut Leaves

Willow

Ginkgo Leaf

Fern

Metasequoia

Fossil Specimens of Insects

Centipede

Cockroach

Humpback Fly

Gall Midge And Bog Beetle

Weevil

Marchfly

Centipede

Hister Beetle

Centipede

Honeybee

Centipede

Wasp

Soldier Beetle Larva

Springtail

Flying Queen Ant, Long-Legged Fly

Scorpionfly

Cockroach

Lacewing

Pseudoscorpion

Fly

Aphid

Homopteran

Fly

Jumping Spider

Spider

Crane Fly

Spider

Soft-Bodied Arthropod

Aphid

Fungus Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Dragonfly Larva

Fungus Gnat

Fly

Fly And Spider

Fungus Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Midge

Fungus Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Gall Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Spider

Long-Legged Fly

Fungus Gnat

Long-Legged Fly

Midge

Fungus Gnat

Fungus Gnat

Spider

Mosquito

Black Fly

Pedilid Beetle

Lauxaniid Flies And Midges

Leaf Beetle

Jumping Ground Bug And

Gall Gnat

Tick

Sap Beetle

Teneral Mayfly

Webspinner (Male)

Water Strider

Wasp

Froghopper

Ant-Loving Beetle

Thrip

Flat-Footed Beetle

Centipede And Non-Biting Midges

Rove Beetle And Two Flies

False Click Beetle

Toe-Winged Beetle And Dark-Winged Fungus Gnat

Scale Insect

Wasp

Fungus Weevil

False Flower Beetle

Pseudoscorpion And Fly

Hairy Fungus Beetle

Long-Legged Fly And Caddisfly

Ants

Bee

Larva Of A Snakefly

Flower-Cricket

Stilt Fly

Millipede And Spiders

Assassin Bug

Tumbling Flower Beetle

Stick Insect

Millipede

Wasp

Centipede

Millipede

Millipede

Winged Plant Louse

Tumbling Flower Beetle

Centipede

Hairy Fungus Beetle And Long-Legged Fly

Deathwatch Beetle

Non-Biting Midges, And Wasp

Wasp

Centipede

Crane Fly

Deathwatch Beetle

Stick Insect

A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

Foreword

Introduction

Civilizations Retreat As Well As Advance

Astonishing Remains Of Ancient Civilizations

The True Religion Has Existed Since

The Beginning Of History

Conclusion

Darwinism Refuted

Foreword

A Short History

The Mechanisms Of Darwinism

True Natural History – I (From Invertebrates To Reptiles)

True Natural History – Ii (Birds And Mammals)

The Origin Of Man

Molecular Biology And The Origin Of Life

The Myth Of Homology

Immunity, "Vestigial Organs" And Embryology

The Origin Of Plants

Irreducible Complexity

Information Theory And The End Of Materialism

Distinguishing Between Science And Materialism

Conclusion

# Fossil Records Refute Evolution

## Introduction

In schools just about everywhere in the world, the biology textbooks used to teach students set out a false story of life. What students read under the heading of "The Theory of Evolution" in fact consists of totally faulty mechanisms, false proofs, conjectural illustrations and drawings, wrongly interpreted fossils and a spurious history of living things.

This myth, the subject of textbooks and repeated countless times by instructors every week, is regarded as so factual that hardly anyone exposed to an education feels the slightest doubt as to the accuracy of evolution. Students all imagine that they have received an education that will serve them in good stead throughout life. Such people will probably be bewildered to learn that they have been taught a lie on such an exceedingly important subject—one that includes the very meaning of life—under a scientific guise.

The fact is, however, that a determined effort is being made to impose this lie on the public, and being carried out all over the world. It is an invented and designed lie, being taught in all schools. False proofs and erroneous stories regarding the history of life are manufactured in the most of the media. Experts on the subject, even some Nobel-Prize winning scientists, espouse a lie and advocate a deception. The "history of life" that instructors have taught for so many years is a false scenario—an alliance perpetrating across the world a coordinated deception whose name is evolution.

The sole reason for this alliance's growing strength and the way it dominates school textbooks and occpies pride of place in the media is that it is based upon materialism. Darwinism, nourished by the materialist perspective that currently dominates the world, has been strengthened and brought to the fore with the help of that same mindset. (See The Religion of Darwinism by Harun Yahya.) The materialists have felt no qualms about presenting falsified evidence to the public. Because this comprehensive policy of deceit's objective is obvious: to turn people away from faith in God, to deny His existence and to depict matter as the only absolute reality!

The point that Darwinists ignore, however, is this: Living things were created! There is no such thing as evolution in the history of life. God is the Creator and Lord of all things. It is He Who creates matter and gives life to any entity. There is no other Creator than God, and no other power but Him. Therefore, there is nothing but proofs of the fact of Creation on Earth.

Darwinists encounter these proofs in every piece of research they perform when they attempt, but fail, to prove evolution, because there is no evidence that evolution ever happened. All they find is traces of a sudden, complex and sublime creation. False evidence does not support a false theory. On the contrary, it makes it even more untrustworthy and groundless. For the sake of keeping materialism alive, however, Darwinists continue with their deceptive methods, in the framework of a vicious circle.

But this, of course, has an end point—which has finally been reached. Evolution has been demolished with countless proofs. One of the greatest of these proofs are the "living fossils," whose numbers are being added to with every passing day. The fact that a life form has remained the same for 150 million years, never changing over even 300 million years, definitively eliminates the evolution scenario. Millions of living species, about which countless evolutionary scenarios have been produced, show fossilized evidence that they never evolved. What we now observe are living things that, according to Darwinists, should have undergone evolution. Yet the fossil specimens of those identical species document the fact that they have never undergone any evolution at all.

Living fossils are such powerful pieces of evidence that they demolish all Darwinist claims, refuting all the evolutionary nonsense taught in textbooks. They invalidate all the fake "intermediate" reconstructions in all museums of evolution, and show that the imaginary evolutionary scenarios in various Darwinist texts and articles are fabrications.

The fact that Darwinists manage to ignore all this does not eliminate the clear proofs in question. Living fossils, more of which are being discovered every day, have already eliminated the claim of evolution.

This book presents these important facts and the way that Darwinists squirm in the face of this evidence. You will see how this deception has been in a state of collapse ever since the time of Charles Darwin, who first proposed the theory. The examples of living fossils illustrated in this book represent just a small part of the evidence that reveals the invalidity of this great deception. Even though "living fossil" specimens are regularly excavated from just about every sedimentary stratum, just one of these specimens is sufficient to refute Darwinism.

The law of God totally demolishes the Darwinian order:

Or do they desire to dupe you? But the duped ones are those who do not believe. Or do they have some deity other than God? Glory be to God above any idol they propose! If they saw a lump of heaven falling down, they would just say, "Banked-up clouds!" Leave them then until they meet their Day when they will be struck down by the Blast: the Day their ploys will not profit them at all and they will not be helped. (Surat at-Tur, 42-46)

## Darwin Was Mistaken: Species Have Never Changed

Perhaps the greatest problem that he (Darwin) had to tackle was the means by which adaptive characteristics were passed on from generation to generation, for the principles of genetics were still to be discovered at the time of Darwin's death. A second problem he could not resolve related to the nature of the fossil record.1

Darwin gave the name of the "theory of evolution" to the hypothesis he developed, on the two expectations described by Douglas Ward in the extract cited above.

His first assumption was that the genes that give rise to different characteristics could be transmitted, in some imaginary manner, to subsequent generations, thus resulting in changes between species. His other surmise was that this series of imaginary changes would be preserved in the fossil record.

It was easy for Darwin to claim that changes occurred in a living thing's anatomical features that were then transmitted to subsequent generations, eventually resulting in a new species. The mid-1800s, when Darwin produced his ideas, were a relatively "primitive" time scientifically. The study of genetics had not yet come into existence. The complexity of the cell and its chromosomes, let alone DNA, had yet to be discovered. The glorious structure of the genes that determine all of a living thing's characteristics, the data contained by those genes and the sensitivity within them were all still completely unknown.

It was also easy for Darwin to trust that fossil record existing somewhere in the world would eventually confirm these hypothetical changes among species. According to his claims, intermediate form fossils did exist in the geologic layers, but had simply not yet been unearthed. At his time, the number of fossil specimens extracted from rocks was still very limited. Since no intermediate forms had as yet appeared, Darwin expected that one day in the future, people would start discovering these imaginary "missing links." All that was required was enough time and detailed studies to be carried out.

Darwin founded his theory on these two basic assumptions, but close inspection reveals no evidence or observation—because essentially, the theory of evolution was advanced for totally ideological reasons, not scientific ones. It was developed in order to turn people away from their faith in God and to offer them an alternative to the fact of Creation. It was an adaptation to natural history of the materialist logic being disseminated across the globe with that aim in mind. That the theory was being proposed in the name of science was accepted, again due to the primitive state of science at the time. The claim's illogicality was plain to see, but under the scientific standards of the era, evidence that would reveal the theory's entire lack of proof had not yet been understood.

The roughly one century and a half that followed rapidly provided countless scientific proofs that demonstrated the invalidity of Darwin's hypothesis and the fact that it was totally invalid. The facts revealed by the science of genetics completely eradicated the idea that species "descended" from one another through minute changes. Genes, as we now know, are exceedingly complex and delicate. Any mutation will have an adverse, damaging effect on them. It is therefore impossible for totally unconscious, random changes to occur in genes so that an organism's structure is converted into another with different functions. (For details, see Darwinism Refuted, by Harun Yahya, from Goodword Publishing.)

The fossil record also represents a major disappointment for latter-day Darwinists. None of the intermediate form fossils that Darwin expected to be discovered some day in the future has actually been unearthed. The idea that the fossil record is "inadequate" is now no longer part of the Darwinist credo, because the Earth has yielded up almost all existing specimens. A large part of the planet has been investigated, and paleontology reveals that in fact, there is not one single example of a "transition." Living things that existed hundreds of millions of years ago have never changed in all that time.

The late Harvard University evolutionist paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould openly states that Darwin was in fact aware of this. As he wrote, "The fossil record had caused Darwin more grief than joy." 2

The evolutionists Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattershall, of the American Museum of Natural History, have described their position in these terms:

... That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, . . . prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search . . . One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserly fossil record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.

The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way. 3

In short, Darwin arrived at his theory of evolution by deliberately ignoring all these impossibilities, even though they were known well enough at the time. There is no scientific possibility of useful genetic changes taking place by way of random effects on species, or of them being transmitted on to subsequent generations. Fossils do not reveal any such changes, and exhibit not even a single one of all the hypothetical intermediate forms that should have existed over the course of hundreds of millions of years.

That being the case, what scientific evidence keeps the theory of evolution alive?

There is none! This once again shows that the reasons to support Darwinism are ideological, rather than scientific. The scientific protocol requires that a hypothesis should first be stated, and then turned into a law only after proofs are supplied. However, this does not apply to evolution, where there is not a single piece of evidence to support the theory. Nonetheless, it still maintains its place in textbooks and still appears in the media, in highly misleading reports. It is protected by laws and preserved through the logic of "it is immutable, and no decision against it can be made." The sole reason for this is that the theory of evolution is a dogmatic belief, not a scientific thesis.

The fossil record constantly refutes Darwinism's claims and points to the fact of Creation. All Darwinists' efforts to prove otherwise have ended in failure. The evidence in the sedimentary rocks documents and clearly declares that living things never underwent evolution. Two of the greatest proofs of this are—again—the absence of any intermediate form fossils and the stagnant "stasis" in the fossil record itself.

## The Claim Of Intermediate-Form Fossils Is A Deception

The evolutionist Dr. David Raup, curator of geology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, has this to say:

Darwin's theory of natural selection has always been closely linked to evidence from fossils, and probably most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument that is made in favor of darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. 4

Visitors to any natural history museum encountered intense evolutionist propaganda. They are shown imaginary reconstructions and false handmade bones that supposedly belong to our imaginary forebears. A single fossilized fragment of a once-living thing, which constitutes no evidence for evolution, is depicted as highly important "intermediate form evidence" of the fictitious transition from fish to amphibian. A rib bone—that obviously confirms the fact of Creation but which evolutionists misinterpret and portray as "proof of evolution"—is exhibited with enormous pride. Based on the detailed descriptions of supposed fossils and the Latin names given them, a great many of those who examine these things are convinced that they are dealing with an evolutionary fact. Yet the museums' true objective is to give the impression that something exists when in fact it does not, and to display propaganda regarding something that has no existence at all.

Evolutionists imagine that they can attain their objectives by these methods, because museum visitors are unaware that there is not one single intermediate-form fossil to support the theory of evolution—and that living fossils that have remained unchanged for millions of years, contrary to the claims of the theory of evolution, lie concealed in storage areas, often directly beneath the displays themselves.

In fact, the efforts made by evolutionists are all hollow. No intermediate-form fossils documenting evolution on Earth have ever been discovered. There remains not the slightest trace of these imaginary, peculiar and semi-developed creatures that should have existed over the course of millions of years. The evolutionary process is merely a belief—a hope that Darwinists wish would come true. Yet the fossil record has never permitted this dream to become a reality. Countless fossils have been unearthed from just about all over the world. Yet the intermediate-form fossils that were missing in Darwin's time are just as absent today. And it is impossible that they can ever be found, because evolution has never happened. By inventing fictitious theories, constructing their own imaginary intermediate forms out of plaster and bakelite, and producing "reconstructions" and "artist's conceptions" to illustrate the supposed lives of those intermediate forms, Darwinists seek to breathe life into a supposed evolution.

The fact is, however, that their efforts can never bear fruit. Conditions now are different from those in Darwin's time. Scientific facts are now emerging into the light, and new discoveries constantly reveal proofs of the fact of Creation. No Darwinist can any longer maintain that the fossil record is insufficient. Scientific data and the fossil record have revealed incontrovertible facts. The absence of any intermediate fossils is too obvious for evolutionists to cover up any longer.

In the journal Science, D.S. Woodroff of California University sets out this grave disappointment suffered by evolutionists:

But fossil species remain unchanged throughout most of their history and the record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition. 5

In the strata in which they conduct their hunt for intermediate-form fossils, Darwinists continually find fossils of living things that never underwent any changes over the course of millions of years and were never subjected to evolution. The proofs of the fact of creation number millions every day, but the intermediate-form fossils that evolutionists have been expecting with such anticipation are nowhere to be seen. They have therefore had to make do with portraying what are actually proofs of the fact of creation as being intermediate-form fossils. Using various propaganda techniques, they attempt to depict highly developed and complex life forms dating back millions of years as evidence for their own theory. By submitting their biased interpretations of fossils, they tried to describe a bird's highly developed, complex wings as merely "developing," and the fins of a fish as future legs of a creature preparing to emerge onto dry land. By such means, they sought to portray the coelacanth as an example of the transition from water to dry land, and Archaeopteryx as a reptile moving from the ground to the air.

Yet even these fossilized remains show that these creatures possessed exceedingly complex features, but no intermediate ones. Indeed, when a living coelacanth—one of the life forms that had been the subject of such evolutionist speculation—was caught in deep water in 1938, some 400 million years later than fossilized specimens, this shattered all evolutionist dreams.

Evolutionists are suffering a similar disappointment when it comes to Archaeopteryx, which scientific research has shown to be a full-fledged bird. Evolutionists were speechless when Archaeopteryx, depicted for many years as the crucial evidence for the imaginary transition from ground to the air, was discovered to have had flawless flight muscles, feathers ideally suited to flight, and a perfect wing structure.

Other incidents that revealed the intermediate-form predicament facing evolutionists were Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man, once also depicted as supposed evidence of evolution. Faced with complete hopelessness caused by the absence of intermediate forms, evolutionists went so far as to attach an orangutan's jaw onto the skull of a recently deceased human. They named it Piltdown Man and exhibited this forgery for the next 40 years. This hoax fossil, displayed in the British Museum, was hurriedly removed once the deception involved came to light.

Nebraska Man was the subject of countless imaginary illustrations and reconstructions—all based on a single tooth! Looking at just that single tooth, evolutionists claimed that this had come from an intermediate-form fossil that combined human and ape features. But this tooth was later determined to belong to a wild boar. Similarly, the fossils that countless museum visitors encounter as supposed "evidence of evolution" are the product of just such fraudulent logic.

The evolutionist paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, of the American Museum of Natural History, admits the intermediate-form problem confronting evolutionists:

This is true of all thirty-two orders of mammals . . . The earliest and most primitive known members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed. . .

This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all classes of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate . . . it is true of the classes, and of the major animal phyla, and it is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants.6

Despite their total lack of evidence, evolutionists still maintain that "Living things evolved." This claim involves millions of species that cannot possibly have existed, much less emerged. Yet evolutionists maintain that they developed during the course of a process—evolution—that cannot be explained. The impossibility of protein emerging spontaneously in a mindless environment has been proven. Yet according to evolution, such a miracle did take place, and protein came into existence as the result of chance.

It is also impossible for all the cell's organelles to have come into being together coincidentally. Yet according to evolution, that is just what happened. That miracle also took place—leading to the cell nucleus, genes, DNA, enzymes and countless other complex structures that cannot be produced artificially today, even under controlled laboratory conditions. Yet according to evolution, they all emerged through blind chance.

Evolutionists are now sorting through the fossil record for any traces of this process and the changes involved. Yet again according to evolutionists, yet another miracle must have taken place—and all these traces in the fossil record have disappeared!

The logic involved in their argument is this: Evolution emerges from a list of millions of impossibilities that, according to evolution, came about as the result of blind, unconscious coincidences. Darwinism, though it denies God and any supernatural events and phenomena, has no qualms about claiming that millions of living organisms came into being through a series of miracles. Thus the theory of evolution, portrayed as scientific, is in fact a belief that adopts countless miracles and coincidences as its multitudinous deities.

The theory of evolution has been unable to prove that a single protein could have come into existence spontaneously. It's unable to point to a single intermediate-form specimen demonstrating that a living species evolved. The theory is refuted by its own two most important foundations—and is in a big predicament that cannot be erased by covering up the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record and concealing examples of living fossils, whose number rises with every passing day.

On the contrary, faced by this lack of evidence, Darwinists keep expanding their fraudulent methods. But people are becoming much more aware that evolution keeps being taught for entirely ideological reasons, not scientific ones. Darwinists want to give the impression that intermediate-form fossils exist when they truly do not, and they hide proofs of the fact of Creation away in museum vaults. Why? The reason is obvious:

They are well aware of the countless and incontrovertible proofs of the existence of God, the Lord of all the worlds. And since they are struggling to deny the existence of God, they attempt to conceal the facts. However, God manifests His own existence with countless proofs—and constantly foils Darwinists' plans.

Do they not see how We come to the land eroding it at its extremities. God judges and there is no reversing His judgment. He is swift at reckoning. Those before them plotted but all plotting belongs to God. He knows what each self earns, and the ones who do not believe will soon know who has the Ultimate Abode. (Surat ar-Ra'd, 41-42)

Evolutionists Claim That Intermediate-Form Organisms With Abnormal Structures Once Lived, But Not A Single One Of Their Fossils Exists.

The theory of evolution claims that living things developed or "descended" into other life forms under the effects of mutations. Modern science, however, has made it clear that this is a grave deception. There is not a single intermediate form to indicate that modern life forms have diversified through minute changes.

According to the theory of evolution, all the species now living and that have ever lived on Earth are all descended from one another. According to that theory, the transition from one species to another took place slowly and progressively. Therefore, according to this claim, various life forms representing a transition between two species and bearing some of the features of each must have existed once. According to evolutionist claims, for example, life forms with vestigial gills and rudimentary lungs, with appendages that are half fins and half feet, must have existed for millions of years between fish could finally emerge—and survive—on dry land, before turning into reptiles. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures they believe once lived in the past as "intermediate forms."

Were the theory of evolution actually true, then many such creatures must have existed in the past. Their numbers and types must have numbered in the millions, even in the billions. And the remains of at least a few of these monstrous life forms should be found in the fossil record.

However, to date not a single intermediate form fossil has ever been encountered. Indeed, Charles Darwin, who first proposed the theory, wrote this in the chapter "Difficulties on Theory" in his book The Origin of Species:

... Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined? . . . But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? . . . 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 gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. 7

Challenged by Darwin's own words, evolutionist paleontologists from the mid-19th century to the present day have carried out fossil research all over the world in search of intermediate forms. Yet despite all their efforts, such forms have never been found. All the findings from the excavations and research carried out shows that, contrary to the theory of evolution's expectations, all species appeared on the Earth suddenly, perfectly formed and in a flawless manner.

The well-known British paleontologist Derek Ager admits as much, despite his advocating the theory of evolution:

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find—over and over again—not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another. 8

Mark Czarnecki, another evolutionist paleontologist, makes a similar comment:

A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants—instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God. 9

In his book The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, the well-known biologist Francis Hitching says:

If we find fossils, and if Darwin's theory was right, we can predict what the rock should contain; finely graduated fossils leading from one group of creatures to another group of creatures at a higher level of complexity. The "minor improvements" in successive generations should be as readily preserved as the species themselves. But this is hardly ever the case. In fact, the opposite holds true, as Darwin himself complained; "innumerable transitional forms must have existed, but why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?" Darwin felt though that the "extreme imperfection" of the fossil record was simply a matter of digging up more fossils. But as more and more fossils were dug up, it was found that almost all of them, without exception, were very close to current living animals. 10

As stated by Darwin and the others quoted above, the fact that not a single intermediate form fossil has been unearthed to date clearly reveals the invalidity of the theory of evolution. Because first of all, had living things turned into other life forms, they should have left a large number of intermediate forms during their transition process, and all around the world, the fossil record should be full of these intermediate forms in various stages of evolution. The fact is, however, that of the 100 million or so fossils unearthed so far, all belong to fully formed, complete life forms.

The fossil record shows that living species emerged instantaneously, with all their different structures, and have remained unchanged over very long geological periods. Stephen Jay Gould, the Harvard University paleontologist and evolutionist, admitted this in these words:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and "fully formed." 11

Had evolution really taken place, the Earth should be full of billions of intermediate fossils. What is more, because of the effects of mutations, these life forms, numbering in the millions, should be extremely abnormal in appearance.

According to evolutionist claims, all living things—and all the organs they possess—formed as a result of random mutations. If that were so, an organ beginning with an abnormal structure should have been subjected to many mutations while its functions were developing. Any such organ should have assumed one abnormal state after another at each and every stage. Before assuming the perfect and pleasing appearances they display today, the living things in question must have endured abnormal structures and looked very ungainly. For example, before the highly symmetrical human face emerged with its two ears, two eyes, nose and mouth, there must have been a very large number of abnormal faces with imperfect symmetry, with several ears and eyes, a nose between the eyes or on the jaw, with some eyes on the back of the head or on the cheeks, with a nose where an ear ought to be, extending as far as the neck, and millions or even billions of other defects. Indeed, before that stage was ever reached, there must have been odd life forms with an ear on the soles of their feet or an eye in their back, their mouths on their stomachs, with two or three brains, unable to stand because they had not yet developed knee caps, with three or five arms on one side of their body instead of one, or whose foot bones ran from side to side instead of back to front to enable them to stand properly.

If Darwinists' claims were true, then chance and mutations should give rise to considerable lack of proportion, imbalance and peculiarity in the perfect and magnificent human body. They should produce many abnormalities such as a skull growing from the hip, more than one arm sprouting from the shoulder, and a large number of ribs or pelvic bones. Arm and leg bones should be lopsided, instead of being straight as we see them today. Yet not a single such fossil specimen has ever been discovered. The bodies of all the billions of human beings who have ever lived or who are living today have all possessed the same symmetry, balance and order. This demolishes Darwinist claims of "gradual development" as a result of chance and mutations.

If living things had assumed their present structures and appearances through tens of thousands of minute changes, then countless fossil specimens should document this illusory development. Abnormal entities with two brains, three backbones, four eyes, two jaws, three noses, seven fingers and three legs should be in evidence. Yet all the fossils found to date show that human beings have always been human beings.

Yet not a single example exists. A great many human fossils with two, three or four heads; with hundreds of eyes like insects, with several arms and even arms two or three meters in length and many other such abnormalities should have been found. Similarly, there should be abnormal specimens from every plant and animal species. Intermediate fossils of all marine creatures should also have engendered abnormal individuals. Yet there exists not a single one. All the millions of fossils belong to perfectly normal living things.

This fact is a clear expression of the collapse of the theory of evolution. No rational person can possibly espouse the theory in the hope that these exceptions will one day be found, even though every fossil discovered over the last 150 years refutes the theory of evolution. One hundred and fifty years have gone by, no fossil bed on Earth has remained unexcavated, and millions of dollars have been spent. But the transitional fossils that Darwin expected have not been found. On the other hand, we do have millions of "living fossils" that reveal the fact of Creation.

The Eye Is The Work Of Our Omniscient Lord, Not Of Blind Chance

The eyes have been placed in sockets, which are inserted in the skull, surrounded by special tissues on a protective bed of fatty tissue. They are protected by the nose, muscles and upper cheekbones.

. In addition to being well protected, the eyes have been located in a region of the body that permits the most comfortable and efficient form of vision. What would happen if the eyes were located somewhere else in the face—under the nose, for instance? This would present the danger of possible injury and also give the face an unpleasant appearance. In terms of sight, our vision would be far more limited than it actually is.

. In all respects, the fact that the eyes are ideally located and shaped symmetrically is also excellent in aesthetic terms. The average distance between the eyes is the width of a single eye. When this proportion is altered—that is, when the distance between the eyes is greater or smaller than that, then the whole expression of the face is altered.

. The eye, together with all its features, is one of the proofs that human beings are created by God. In the Qur'an, God informs us that:

It is God Who made the Earth a stable home for you and the sky a dome, and formed you, giving you the best of forms, and provided you with good and wholesome things. That is God, your Lord. Blessed be God, the Lord of all the worlds. (Surah Ghafir, 64)

However, evolutionists claim that the eye gradually came into possession of its flawless structure under the effects of random mutations. According to this claim, a succession of random and unintentional coincidences took place over the course of millions of years and therefore, the eye underwent millions of different abnormalities before finally attaining this final immaculate structure. For example, there should have been eyes that emerged on human beings' feet or backs rather than in their heads, in large numbers resembling insects' compound eyes rather than two eyes arranged symmetrically, that soon became blind because they possessed no tear glands, that light could not pass through because the cornea was not transparent and therefore made vision impossible, or that lost the ability to see in the event of even a small change in the light because the iris had not yet emerged. Furthermore, these are just a few of the possible abnormalities. Bearing in mind all the eyes' components and their functions, we can imagine millions of possible defective eye forms.

The fact is, however, that to date not a single fossil specimen with such abnormal and defective eye structures has ever been found. All the organisms in the fossil record possess their own perfect visual systems. This shows that the theory of evolution's claim of living things coming into being through minute changes is a deception.

## The Fossil Record Verifies Creation:

### Stasis in the Fossil Record

Paleontologists conducting research in ancient strata encounter very important fossils that are millions of years old, yet the duplicates of living spiders, flies, frogs, turtles and fish. According to the theory of evolution, these life forms should have exhibited changes over the course of millions of years. They lived in the most ancient periods in the most complex forms, and have come down unchanged to the present day. In other words, they never evolved. There is a stasis or stability in the fossil record, which—according to evolutionists—should not be there at all.

Darwin foresaw that life forms that had remained the same for untold millions of years would represent a major difficulty for his theory, and he frequently referred to this. These special species were even given the name of "living fossils" by Darwin himself!

The evolutionist paleontologist Peter Douglas Ward emphasizes this problem of Darwin's:

Still, Darwin's central tenet was that most organisms have changed through time. But did they all change at the same rate, or did the rate of change vary? Darwin was sure that it varied, for he could point to a host of creatures that were quite similar to fossils he had seen, some from very old strata indeed. Darwin confronted this problem several times. Although he seems satisfied with the explanation he gives in The Origin of Species, the very fact that he repeatedly brings these "living fossils" to the attention of his readers suggests that he was not entirely comfortable with the phenomenon. He writes, for example: "In some cases . . . lowly organised forms appear to have been preserved to the present day, from inhabiting confined or peculiar stations, where they have been subjected to less severe competition, and where their scanty numbers have retarded the chance of favorable variations arising." Nevertheless, the existence of living fossils, a term that he coined, continued to puzzle him, and provided a weapon for his numerous critics to wield against him. 12

Darwin described the living things in question as "lowly organised forms" and for that reason, attempted to portray the issue as a very minor one by ascribing a supposed justification for their survival. Yet these fossils are identical to present-day specimens. They have exceedingly developed characteristics. And their survival cannot be explained away with the few pretexts that even Darwin had difficulty in believing.

For those who came after Darwin, the problem was far less limited than it had been back in Darwin's own day. The number of fossils unearthed from a great many of the Earth's strata was growing into the millions. Their search for intermediate forms ended in the discovery of living fossils: Remains emerged from strata millions of years old in the same forms that their living counterparts possess today, and this represents one of the most significant proofs of the state of collapse facing the theory of evolution.

Darwin may have been uneasy at the existence of living fossils in his own day, but he remained unaware of just how wide-ranging they were, and was ignorant of how many such fossilized specimens would emerge in future years. Later years constantly produced specimens of living fossils instead of the intermediate forms that Darwin expected, which dealt a major disappointment to him and his theory.

So far, over millions of living fossils have been unearthed from the Earth's strata. While some of these are given prominence in the media, the great majority has been consigned to the vaults of various museums. However, the existence of living fossils is too great to be covered up by hiding them away because every fossil-bearing stratum investigated constantly produces new specimens of living fossils. Those who follow developments in the press may imagine that there are only a very few living fossils, and are unearthed only rarely. Yet that is not at all the case. These fossils—earlier representatives of present-day life forms, but millions of years old—are found everywhere.

This stasis in the fossil record, for which Darwin was unable to account, couldn't be explained by those who came after Darwin, either. Initially, evolutionists maintained that (for example) 350-million-year-old cockroaches had remained unchanged because "They were able to live in all environments and feed in all kinds of ways."

Evolutionists almost never discussed the question of how a 350-million-year-old insect first emerged complete, with all its complex features in a period that was, according to the evolutionists themselves, exceedingly primitive. They deliberately ignored the fact that no matter how well it had adapted to its environment, this insect should nevertheless, according to the claim of the theory of evolution, have gradually developed.

Then other similar claims were subsequently made for other life forms. Although a tuatara lizard 200 million years old had come down unchanged to the present day, they still maintained that all living things underwent gradual evolution. Yet for some reason, this claim did not apply to rapidly-multiplying cockroaches and to archaebacteria—which can multiply even in minutes, but of which fossils have been found dating back 3.5 billion years!

That is why evolutionists attach prominent importance to only some living fossils. Making up unscientific, illogical and inconsistent justifications for a few examples is nothing out of the ordinary for evolutionists. If all living fossils were given equal prominence, it would be neither possible nor credible to make up a justification for the existence of every single one.

New Scientist magazine described evolutionists' constant need to find invalid excuses, and the way that these failed to bear any fruit, by saying that "Evolutionary constraint can't explain the persistence of all the living fossils." The magazine then went on to say:

All this leaves a rather complicated picture . . . Be general, or specialised. Live fast, or slow. Keep it simple, or don't. Be in the right place at the right time. If all else fails, try becoming a "superspecies", blessed with a physiology that can withstand anything. 13

To put it another way, Darwinists are ready to ascribe the existence of living fossils to any cause apart from the fact of Creation. If all their explanations fail to hold water, they will then regard a particular organism as a "superspecies," as is clearly stated by New Scientist. The only thing that may not be done, in Darwinist eyes, is to admit that the life form in question was originally "created."

These inconsistent claims—which Darwin hid behind and that present-day Darwinists generally avoid mentioning—have been totally demolished in the face of the extraordinarily large numbers of fossils exhibiting stasis. There are more "living fossils" than evolutionists can dream up scenarios for, and they clearly indicate that evolution never took place.

According to evolutionary theory, an animal resembling a modern-day wolf entered the sea one day, and within 50 million years, its descendants turned into a gigantic marine mammal as the whale.14 If, despite its evident illogicality, evolution is able to turn a land mammal into a whale in such a relatively brief space of geologic time, how could the salamander remain unchanged for 160 million years? No evolutionist has any scientific answer to that question.

Moreover, this applies not just to the salamander, but also to countless species and examples of living fossils today, and you shall be seeing specimens of these in later chapters of this book. Countless specimens confirm the stasis in the fossil record, as stated by the evolutionist Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History:

Stasis is now abundantly well documented as the preeminent paleontological pattern in the evolutionary history of species. 15

The specimens discovered prove that millions of years ago, a great many living things had the same anatomical features as they do today. In fact, as much so that 84% of the insect family that existed 100 million years ago is also alive today.16 The botanist Margaret Helder cites Niles Eldredge's views and describes this magnificent diversity in living fossils thus:

Characterization of an organism as a living fossil basically depends upon the degree of similarity the viewer seeks between living and fossil creatures. If the definition is in terms of general categories of organism, such as sponges in general, or ferns in general, or even specific groups of ferns, then, says Niles Eldredge, ". . . by such a yardstick, virtually everything is a living fossil."17 Whether one allows one's definition to be this broad or not, it is safe to conclude that living fossils are not rare. 18

No doubt, the emergence of these life forms in large numbers comes as no surprise to any rational individual. If people can see that God has created all living things, then they can also understand the proofs that manifest themselves in the fossil record. Throughout the history of life, organisms did not evolve, but emerged suddenly and with the most complex and most perfect features.

This goes to show that all living things are created. It is easy for God to create a living thing that exists today with the same astounding characteristics that He also created millions of years ago. For those able to appreciate this, the existence of living fossils is one of the proofs of God's creation. The Earth provides no evidence of evolution as claimed by Darwin, but confirms the fact of Creation. Niles Eldredge is just one of the evolutionists who admit as much:

Simple extrapolation does not work. I found that out back in the 1960s as I tried in vain to document examples of the kind of slow, steady directional change we all thought ought to be there, ever since Darwin told us that natural selection should leave precisely such a telltale signal as we collect our fossils up cliff faces. I found instead, that once species appear in the fossil record, they tend not to change much at all. Species remain imperturbably, implacably resistant to chance as a matter of course. 19

All this goes to show that evolutionist claims along the lines of "evidence in the fossil record," "the evolutionary process," and "gradual or punctuated change in living things" are all mere speculation. Nobody looking at the facts can believe such Darwinian conjecture—speculative claims that are demolished in a more detailed manner in subsequent chapters.

Pierre-Paul Grassé, the world-famous French zoologist and evolutionist, sets out the evolution error in question:

The "evolution in action" of J. Huxley and other biologists is simply the observation of demographic facts, local fluctuations of genotypes, geographical distributions. Often the species concerned have remained practically unchanged for hundreds of centuries! Fluctuation as a result of circumstances, with prior modification of the genome, does not imply evolution, and we have tangible proof of this in many panchronic species [i.e. living fossils that remain unchanged for millions of years]. . . 20

It is essential for governments in countries where living fossil specimens are unearthed to give them prominence and present them to the world as important scientific evidence. Otherwise, a conception that flies in the face of the scientific facts—in other words, the theory of evolution—will continue to enjoy blind support by way of propaganda and deception. The fossil record documenting the history of life on Earth demonstrates that living things never evolved, but appeared suddenly together with all their complex characteristics. In other words, fossils document the fact of Creation.

People without a close interest in scientific matters imagine, based on reports in the press, that fossil specimens are encountered in excavations only rarely. Again, the press encourages them to think that the fossils discovered are evidence for the supposed theory of evolution.

The truth is very different, however. Millions of fossils have been discovered to date, and thousands more are still being unearthed in Britain, Lebanon, Russia, Canada, Madagascar, China, the USA, Brazil, Peru and all over the world. These fossils are preserved in museums in different countries of the world, or in the private collections of scientists and researchers. No matter how much evolutionists misrepresent these fossils as they display them before the public or how often they seek to keep the majority of the fossil record away from the public's gaze, it is no longer possible for them to conceal the facts.

The facts revealed by fossils are these:

1. Life did not emerge in stages. All species—both living and extinct—appeared suddenly in the fossil record.

2. Living organisms have never changed since they first appeared on Earth, and for as long as they existed.

In other words, the Darwinist thesis that living species descended from one another by way of small changes is totally invalid. The fact is, God has created all living things out of nothing.

Darwinists are unable to point to a single fossil demonstrating that living things evolved. But meanwhile, the millions of fossils on display in hundreds of museums, concealed in the vaults of a great many museums, conserved in many universities' palaeontology departments or kept in the collections of scientists and researchers all tell us that living things were created. Faced with the increasing numbers of these unchanged fossils, evolutionists have no other alternative but to accept that they do not support evolution.

Indeed, many evolutionists now admit that although the fossil record is exceedingly rich, this wealth does not support evolution—that, on the contrary, it invalidates it. One such figure is Prof. T. Neville George of Glasgow University:

There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is outpacing integration . . . The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps. (T. Neville George, "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science Progress, Vol. 48, January 1960, p. 1.)

## The Coelacanth Silenced The Speculation Concerning Fossils

The coelacanth is a large fish some 1.5 meters long. Its entire body is covered with scales, reminiscent of armor plating. It belongs to the Osteoichthyes class of bony fishes, of which the earliest fossils date back to the Devonian Period, 360 to 408 million years ago.

Before 1938, coelacanth fossils were depicted as the solution to a major difficulty for evolutionists. They had not found the slightest trace of any of the millions or even billions of intermediate forms that supposedly must have existed. Evolutionists needed evidence to back up the supposed transition of vertebrates from the sea to dry land. For that reason, they took the fossil coelacanth, whose anatomy they believed was ideally suited to this scenario, and began using it for propaganda purposes. They interpreted the creature's fins as "feet about to walk," and a fossilized fat-filled swimbladder in its body as "a primitive lung." The coelacanth was literally a savior for evolutionists bedeviled by such a lack of evidence. Evolutionists had at last laid hands on "one" of the countless missing links that should have numbered in the millions.

The well known French evolutionist Dr. Jacques Millot, who spent years studying the coelacanth, described how many hid behind it as a lone piece of evidence:

One of the great problems of evolution has been to find anatomical links between the fishes and their land-invading descendants . . . For a long time evolutionists were troubled by this major gap between fishes and the amphibians. But the gap has now been bridged by studies of ancient fishes, and this is where the coelacanth comes in. 21

However, this evolutionist excitement was short-lived, when a living coelacanth specimen was captured by fishermen in 1938. This inflicted a terrible disappointment on evolutionists. James Leonard Brierley Smith, an instructor in the Rhodes University Chemistry Department and also honorary director of various fish museums on the South Coast of England, expressed his astonishment in the face of this captured coelacanth:

Although I had come prepared, that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if striken to stone. Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by bone, fin by fin, it was true Coelacanth. 22

The discovery of this imaginary missing link, once believed to have close links to man's alleged ancestors, in the form of a living fossil, was a most significant disaster for Darwinist circles. The coelacanth, the greatest supposed proof of the theory of evolution, had suddenly been demolished. The most important potential candidate in the fictitious transition from the sea to dry land turned out to be an exceedingly complex life form still alive in deep waters and bearing no intermediate-form characteristics at all. This living specimen dealt a heavy blow to Darwin's theory of evolution.

When the fish was introduced to the press in the middle of March 1939, articles about it appeared in newspapers and magazines all over the world, from New York to Sri Lanka. Full-size illustrations of the creature were printed in the Illustrated London News. Alongside the picture was an article by Dr. E. I. White of the British Museum. Titled "One of the Most Amazing Events in the Realm of Natural History in the Twentieth Century," the article described the discovery as "sensational" and claimed that the discovery was as as surprising as the finding of a living example of the 2.5-meter-long Mesozoic dinosaur Diplodocus. 23

J. L. B. Smith conducted countless investigations into the coelacanth in the years that followed, devoting literally his entire life to it. He led research in various parts of the world in order to find a living coelacanth at the sea bottom and examine its internal organs in detail. (Since the first captured coelacanth was submitted to Smith only long after the event, it had been impossible to preserve its internal organs.)

A second coelacanth was found in later years. However, the fish died soon after being removed from the deep waters in which it lived and brought to the warm, shallow surface waters. Nonetheless it was still possible to examine its internal organs. The reality encountered by the investigating team, led by Dr. Jacques Millot, was very different to that which had been expected. Contrary to expectations, the fish's internal organs had no primitive features at all, and it bore no features of being an intermediate form, nor of a supposedly primitive ancestor. It had no primitive lung, as evolutionists had been claiming. The structure that evolutionist investigators imagined to be a primitive lung was actually a fat-filled swimbladder. 24

In addition, the fish, which had been portrayed as a precursor of reptiles, about to emerge onto dry land, was a bottom-dwelling animal, living in the depths of the ocean and never rising above 180 meters.25 Even raising it into shallow water led to its death. Therefore, according to Millot, this creature that should have represented the "missing link" they were searching for lacked all the primitive characteristics of a life form alleged to be undergoing a process of evolution.26 In other words, the fish was no intermediate form and had lived in the ocean depths with exactly the same complex features for the last 400 million years.

In an article published in Nature magazine, the evolutionist paleontologist Peter Forey said the following:

The discovery of Latimeria [the scientific name of the coelacanth] raised hopes of gathering direct information on the transition of fish to amphibians, for there was then a long-held belief that coelacanths were close to the ancestry of tetrapods. . . . But studies of the anatomy and physiology of Latimeria have found this theory of relationship to be wanting and the living coelacanth's reputation as a missing link seems unjustified. 27

All the coelacanths subsequently encountered and studied in their natural habitats again confirmed this fact, and in an even more explicit manner. The idea that the creature had fins undergoing a process of change to enable it to walk was no more than a deception. As the German evolutionist and biologist Hans Fricke, from the Max Planck Institute, said, "I confess I'm sorry we never saw a coelacanth walk on its fins." 28

For Darwinists, the existence and numbers of living fossils was enough of a dilemma all by itself. But when the coelacanth—which they had depicted as an intermediate form and used as propaganda however they chose and portrayed as the "greatest proof of evolution"—turned out to be another living fossil, the problem facing them became a very great difficulty.

This state of affairs did away with all the theories developed by evolutionists regarding living fossils. Darwinists had claimed that in order for a life form to remain unchanged, it had to be "generalized." That is, in order to remain the same, a creature had to be able to live in any environment and feed in every possible way. But with the coelacanth, they were now faced with a highly complex and "specialized" species. The coelacanth lived in deep waters, in a specific environment, and had its own particular way of feeding. This meant that all these claims made by evolutionists were untrue.

How had this fish managed to withstand changes on the Earth during the course of its own history and thus remained unchanged? According to evolutionists, the continents had undergone changes some 250 million years ago—and thus should have had an effect on the coelacanth, which had already been in existence for 150 million years. Yet for some reason, and despite the changes to its environment, the animal exhibited no alterations at all.

Focus magazine described the position as follows:

According to the scientific facts, all the continents were joined together some 250 million years ago. This enormous area of land was surrounded by a single giant ocean. Around 125 million years ago, the Indian Ocean opened up as the result of continents changing places. The volcanic caves in the Indian Ocean, which form a large part of the coelacanth's natural habitat, came about under the influence of this movement of continents. An important truth emerges in the light of all these facts. These animals, which have been in existence for some 400 million years, have remained unchanged despite the many changes in their natural environment! 29

This state of affairs precludes any possibility of further debate and confirms that this fish has remained unchanged for millions of years—in other words, that it never evolved. In his book The Story of the Coelacanth, Prof. Keith S. Thomson has this to say on the subject:

Similarly, for instance, the oldest known Coelacanth (Diplocercides) possessed a rostral organ (the term used by zoologists to refer to the sac filled with a jelly-like substance in the skull, and the six tubes attached to it), a special skull articulation, a hollow spinal chord (notochord) and few teeth. In the same way that this shows that the group has remained almost unchanged since the Devonian Period (for 400 million years), it also reveals that there is a huge gap in the fossil record, since we lack the chain of ancestral fossils showing the emergence of all the common features observed in all coelacanths. 30

### New Information Concerning the Coelacanth

The latest information concerning the coelacanth's complex structure continues to represent a problem for evolutionists. Professor Michael Bruton, director of the world-renowned South African JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology, says this about the complex characteristics of the coelacanth that have been discovered:

Birth is one of the complex features of this creature. Coelacanths bring their young into the world by giving birth to them. The eggs, the size of an orange, hatch inside the fish. The discovery has also been made that the young are fed thanks to an organ in the mother's body resembling a placenta. As well as providing the young with oxygen and food, the placenta is also a complex organ which removes wastes from respiration and digestion from the babies' bodies. Fossil embryos from the Carboniferous period (360-290 million years ago) show that this complex system existed long before mammals appeared.31

The discovery that the coelacanth is sensitive to electromagnetic currents around it indicates the presence of a complex sensory organ. Looking at the nerves that connect the fish's rostral organ to its brain, scientists agreed that this organ is responsible for detecting electromagnetic currents. The fact that this perfect organ is present in even the most ancient coelacanth fossils, together with its other complex structures, gives rise to a difficulty that evolutionists are unable to resolve.

The problem was described as follows in Focus magazine:

According to fossils, fish emerged some 470 million years ago. The coelacanth emerged 60 million years after that. It is astonishing that this creature, which would be expected to possess very primitive features, actually has a most complex structure. 32

For evolutionists expect a gradual evolutionary process. The appearance of the coelacanth with its complex structures, at a time when they expect fictitious primitive life forms to have existed, is of course astonishing. However, for rational people—able to comprehend that God has created all living things and their complex structures in the form and at the time of His choosing—there is nothing at all surprising about it. The flawless specimens created by God are all means whereby we can appreciate His might and power.

A coelacanth caught and frozen in 1966 provided new information about the animal's blood. Apart from the coelacanth, all bony fish (Osteichthyes) meet their water requirements by drinking sea water and expelling the excess salt from their bodies. The coelacanth's system, however, resembles that in cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), which include the shark. The shark converts the ammonia released as the result of the breaking down of proteins into urea, and maintains a level of urea in its bloodstream that would be lethal to human beings. It adjusts the level of these substances in its blood according to the salinity of the water around it. Since the blood assumes an isotonic level with the sea water around it (since the internal and external osmotic pressures are equalized, achieving the same intensity), no water is lost to the outside.

It was revealed that the coelacanth's liver possesses the enzymes necessary to manufacture urea. In other words, it has unique blood properties not found in any other members of its class and that emerged only tens of millions of years later in sharks—members of an entirely different classification.33 All this goes to show that the coelacanth, portrayed as the greatest link in the supposed evolution of living things, refutes all evolutionist claims, as do countless specimens still living today.

This example clearly demonstrates the kind of wide-ranging propaganda that evolutionists are capable of, based on a single fossil, and how they are able to disseminate that deception with no concrete evidence. Even after the capture of a living coelacanth, notice that they still did not abandon their claims, but continued looking in the living specimen for "a fin undergoing changes to permit walking." They found no evidence to the effect that the coelacanth, whose complex features clearly show it to have been created, was an intermediate form.

They sought to produce evidence against God, but He eliminated all their false proofs. What there is instead, is proof of an immaculate creation.

## The Starting Point Of Punctuated Equilibrium

Those who came after Darwin made enormous efforts to detect in the fossil record examples of the slow and gradual evolution that he foresaw. Darwin had ascribed their absence to the "insufficiency of the fossil record." The fossil record—which, in fact, provided a broad range of specimens even in his own day and shows the existence of all complex life forms as early as the Cambrian Explosion—continued to be the subject of research by evolutionists hoping to discover a miracle. Their objective was to prove Darwin correct, to demonstrate that the fossil record in his time truly was insufficient, and to find examples of intermediate forms, evidence that living things did undergo evolution.

Yet the fossil record constantly produced results at variance with Darwin's expectations. Practically the entire globe was scoured, and the new fossils excavated were no longer "insufficient." Darwin had been wrong when he said that he believed that those who came after him would eventually find the intermediate forms that he expected. The fossil record produced not one single intermediate-form specimen. Instead, it revealed the fact that countless living things had undergone no evolution at all, had remained unchanged for many millions of years, together with all their many complex structures. The fossil record refuted Darwin. The lack of intermediate forms and the fact of stasis very definitely constituted no evidence for gradual evolution.

Some evolutionists clearly saw and admitted that Darwin's model of gradual evolution was untenable in the face of the reality of stasis. They then proposed that evolution "operated in a different way." In 1970, the Harvard University paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History developed an alternative theory, known as "punctuated evolution," which they published in 1972. Their sole aim was to account for the stasis phenomenon.

In fact, this theory was an adaptation of the "Hopeful Monster" theory put forward in the 1930s by the European paleontologist Otto Schindewolf. He had suggested that living things evolved as the result of sudden, dramatic mutations rather than the gradual accumulation of small ones. In citing a hypothetical example of his theory, Schindewolf suggested that the first bird in history had emerged from a reptile egg, through a "gross mutation," in other words, an enormous, though random change in its genetic structure.34 According to that same theory, some terrestrial mammals might suddenly have turned into whales through a sudden and comprehensive alteration.

These claims violate all known laws of genetics, biophysics and biochemistry, and were no more scientific than the fairy tale about a frog turning into a handsome prince. Still, this "Hopeful Monster" theory of Schindewolf's was adopted and defended in the 1940s by the University of California, Berkeley geneticist Richard Goldschmidt. But the theory was so inconsistent that it was soon abandoned.

The impetus that obliged Gould and Eldredge to take up this theory again was, as we have already seen, the lack of any "intermediate form" in the fossil record. Both the "stasis" and "sudden appearance" in the record were so obvious that these two were forced to reconsider the "Hopeful Monster" theory in order to account for this state of affairs. Gould's well-known article "The Return of Hopeful Monsters" was an expression of this forced about-turn. 35

Naturally, Eldredge and Gould did not repeat Schindewolf's theory word for word. In order to give it a more "scientific" nature, they sought to develop some kind of mechanism for the "sudden evolutionary leap" they proposed. (The interesting term "punctuated equilibrium" which they gave to their theory was one expression of this scientific endeavor.) Gould and Eldredge's theory was adopted and fleshed out by some other paleontologists in the years that followed. However, the punctuated theory of evolution was at least as marred with inconsistencies and invalid logic as Darwin's original gradual theory of evolution.

Proponents of gradual evolution ignored stasis. But stasis is constantly seen in the fossil record, proving that living things remained unchanged over millions of years. The only difference between Gould and Eldredge and other Darwinists is that the former two realized that the stasis in the fossil record was an incontrovertible fact that could no longer be left unanswered. Rather than admit the fact of Creation revealed by the fossil record, they felt themselves obliged to develop a new concept of evolution.

Stephen Jay Gould said this on the subject:

But how can imperfection possibly explain away stasis (the equilibrium of punctuated equilibrium)? Abrupt appearance may record an absences of information, but *stasis is data*. Eldredge and I became so frustrated by the failure of many colleagues to grasp this evident point—-though a quarter century of subsequent debate has finally propelled our claim to general acceptance (while much else about punctuated equilibrium remains controversial)—that we urged the incorporation of this little phrase as a mantra or motto. Say it ten times before breakfast every day for a week, and the argument will surely seep in by osmosis: "stasis is data: stasis is data..." 36

Gould, Eldredge and other advocates of punctuated evolution fiercely criticized the proponents of gradual evolution for failing to see the reality of stasis. But in fact, what they were doing was no different from the actions of other Darwinists. Since the fossil record had failed to produce the results they expected, they changed the form of so-called evolution and constructed it in a very detailed manner. The main reason for their anger toward, and intense criticism of, the adherents of gradual evolution was that as long as their professional colleagues failed to accept the stasis in the fossil record, they would cause the theory to lose all credibility in the public eye. For that reason, they attempted to give the impression that they had now "discovered the truth" in the face of the clear facts revealed by the fossil record.

The fact is, however, that the punctuated evolution model is at least as groundless, devoid of evidence, and ultimately discredited as the gradual evolution theory.

Gould's admissions regarding "the mistaken perspective in the past" are criticisms aimed at the supporters of gradual evolution:

We have long known about stasis and abrupt appearance, but have chosen to fob it off upon an imperfect fossil record. 37

As Niles Eldredge describes it, the supporters of gradual evolution ignored one very important fact:

Paleontologists ever since Darwin have been searching (largely in vain) for the sequences of insensibly graded series of fossils that would stand as examples of the sort of wholesale transformation of species that Darwin envisioned as the natural product of the evolutionary process. Few saw any reason to demur—though it is a startling fact that . . . most species remain recognizably themselves, virtually unchanged throughout their occurrence in geological sediments of various ages. 38

Niles Eldredge and the archaeologist Ian Tattershall of the American Museum of Natural History underlined how Darwin's idea of evolution had been disproved by the stasis in the fossil record:

Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit gradual, change affecting all lineages through time is refuted. The record is there, and the record speaks for tremendous anatomical conservation. Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. 39

Elsewhere, Stephen Jay Gould described how stasis, evidence of non-evolution, was ignored by the adherents of evolution:

Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis as uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. . . . The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution). 40

All of Gould and Eldredge's efforts were to adapt the theoretical concept of evolution to the actual fossil record. For that reason they suggested that stasis itself was the most important proof of their evolutionary claims. In some way, they viewed the unchanging nature of the fossil record as evidence for change! Since they could not reconcile the fossil record with the theory of evolution, they adapted the theory to the record. This was the mindset that launched the punctuated model of evolution.

In an article in New Scientist, Tom S. Kemp, curator of the Oxford University museum's zoological collections, described how findings had been turned into evidence for the theory of evolution, just as in the case of punctuated evolution:

In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be 'wrong.' A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it? 41

According to the proponents of the punctuated model of evolution, stasis in the fossil record represented the "equilibrium" in the theory defined as punctuated equilibrium. The theory maintains that under environmental pressures, a species can have evolved in as short a space of time as only a few thousand years. It then entered a period of stasis and remained unchanged for millions of years.

Therefore, proponents believed that this claim could account for the stasis in a large proportion of living things. In this way, they thought they had covered up the challenge that the fossil record poses to evolution. But this was a grave deception.

### The Punctuation Mechanism

In its present state, the punctuated theory of evolution explains living populations that exhibit no change over very long periods of time as having remained in a kind of "equilibrium." According to this claim, evolutionary changes take place in very narrow populations and at very short intervals that interrupt—or in other words, "punctuate" the equilibrium. Since the population is such a narrow one, natural selection quickly favors large mutations, and the emergence of a new species is thus made possible.

According to this theory, a reptile species, for example, can remain unchanged for millions of years. However, one small group of reptiles that split away from this species in some way is subjected to a series of intense mutations, for some reason that is not explained. These mutations endow those individuals with some advantage (and there is no instance of a beneficial mutation). They are quickly selected within this narrow group. The group of reptiles evolves quickly, and may even turn into mammals. Since this entire process is so very rapid and takes place with a relatively small number of creatures within a narrow time frame, few if any fossil traces are left behind.

As close inspection reveals, this theory was proposed as an answer to the question of "How can an evolutionary process happen so fast as to leave no fossil traces behind?" In reply, the theory makes two fundamental assumptions:

1. The assumption that macro-mutations—in other words, wide-ranging mutations that cause major changes in living things' genetic information—bestow an advantage and also produce new genetic information.

2. The assumption that small animal populations have a genetic advantage.

However, both are at odds with the scientific facts.

### The Macro-Mutations Error

As you have just seen, the punctuated model of evolution hypothesizes that the mutations leading to speciation take place on a very large scale or that some individual species are exposed to a succession of serial mutations. However, that assumption contradicts all the observational data from genetic science.

R. A. Fisher, one of the century's best-known geneticists, established a rule, based on experiment and observation, that invalidates this hypothesis. In his book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Fisher reports that any mutation's ability to survive in a population is inversely proportional to its effect on the phenotype.42 To put it another way, the greater a mutation is, the lower will be its chances of remaining permanent in a community.

The reason for this is not hard to see. Mutations represent random changes in a living thing's genetic data. They never have the effect of improving that genetic information. On the contrary, mutated individuals always suffer serious diseases and disabilities. Therefore, the more any individual is affected by mutation, the lower its chances of survival.

The Harvard University evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, one of Darwinism's most passionate advocates, makes the following comment:

The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation . . . is well substantiated, but they are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as "hopeless." They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through stabilizing selection . . . the more drastically a mutation affects the phenotype, the more likely it is to reduce fitness. To believe that such a drastic mutation would produce a viable new type, capable of occupying a new adaptive zone, is equivalent to believing in miracles . . . The finding of a suitable mate for the "hopeless monster" and the establishment of reproductive isolation from the normal members of the parental population seem to me insurmountable difficulties.43

Obviously, mutations do not give rise to evolutionary development—which poses an insurmountable obstacle for the punctuated theory of evolution. Since mutation is destructive, the living undergoing macro-mutations that the proponents of evolution propose will suffer "macro"-destructive effects. Some evolutionists put their trust in mutations occurring in the regulatory genes in DNA. But the destructive effect that applies in regard to other mutations also applies here. The problem is that mutation is a random change, and any random change in any structure as complex as genetic information will have damaging consequences.

In their book The Natural Limits to Genetic Change, geneticist Lane Lester and population geneticist Raymond Bohlin describe the mutation dilemma in question:

The overall factor that has come up again and again is that mutation remains the ultimate source of all genetic variation in any evolutionary model. Being unsatisfied with the prospects of accumulating small point mutations, many are turning to macromutations to explain the origin of evolutionary novelties. Goldschmidt's hopeful monsters have indeed returned. However, though macromutations of many varieties produce drastic changes, the vast majority will be incapable of survival, let alone show the marks of increasing complexity. If structural gene mutations are inadequate because of their inability to produce significant enough changes, then regulatory and developmental mutations appear even less useful because of the greater likelihood of nonadaptive or even destructive consequences . . . But one thing seems certain: at present, the thesis that mutations, whether great or small, are capable of producing limitless biological change is more an article of faith than fact. 44

Observation and experiment show that mutations may alter, but do not improve on, genetic information and that they do damage living things. It is obviously inconsistent for the proponents of punctuated evolution to expect any "success" from them.

### The Narrow Populations Error

The second concept that proponents of punctuated evolution stress is that of "narrow populations." They state that a new species forms only in communities containing very few numbers of a plant or animal species. According to this claim, large populations of animals exhibit no evolutionary development and can maintain their stasis. However, if some small groups leave these populations, they become isolated (generally assumed because of geographical causes) and can reproduce only amongst themselves. It is claimed that macro-mutations affect these small groups because they reproduce only among themselves, and so rapid "speciation" thus takes place.

Why do the proponents of punctuated evolution insist on the concept of narrow populations? The answer is obvious: Their objective is to "explain" the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record. That is why their accounts insist that "Evolutionary changes took place in narrow populations and very rapidly, for which reason insufficient traces have been left in the fossil record."

In fact, however, recent scientific experiments and observations have revealed that in genetic terms, narrow populations are a disadvantage for evolution. Far from developing in such a way as to give rise to robust new species, narrow populations actually produce severe genetic defects. The reason is that in small populations, individuals continually interbreed, reproducing within a narrow genetic pool. For that reason, normally "heterozygotic" individuals become increasingly "homozygotic." Their normally recessive defective genes become dominant, and genetic defects and diseases increasingly emerge within the population. 45

In order to investigate this topic, chickens were observed for 35 years. These observations established that chickens kept in a narrow population became increasingly weaker in genetic terms. Egg production fell from 100% to 80%; reproduction rates from 93% to 74%. But through conscious human intervention—with chickens being brought in from other populations—this genetic contraction was reversed, and the basic chicken population began moving back in the direction of normality. 46

This and similar findings clearly show that there is no scientific validity to the claim that narrow populations are the source of evolutionary development, behind which adherents of punctuated evolution find shelter. James W. Valentine and Douglas H. Erwin have stated the impossibility of new species forming by way of punctuated evolutionary mechanisms:

The required rapidity of the change implies either a few large steps or many and exceedingly rapid smaller ones. Large steps are tantamount to saltations and raise the problems of fitness barriers; small steps must be numerous and entail the problems discussed under microevolution. The periods of stasis raise the possibility that the lineage would enter the fossil record, and we reiterate that we can identify none of the postulated intermediate forms. Finally, the large numbers of species that must be generated so as to form a pool from which the successful lineage is selected are nowhere to be found. We conclude that the probability that species selection is a general solution to the origin of higher taxa is not great, and that neither of the contending theories of evolutionary change at the species level, phyletic gradualism or punctuated equilibrium, seem applicable to the origin of new body plans. 47

### Punctuated Equilibrium is a Major Disappointment for Evolutionists

Today, the fictitious mechanism of punctuated equilibrium has been totally discredited in scientific terms. It has been proved that living things cannot evolve through the methods in question. As Jeffrey Levinton from the State University of New York has stated, there can be no way to test the theory of species formation in question if it cannot be seen clearly in the fossil record. On that basis, Levinton concluded that "the totality of the evidence makes it a theory not worth following up." 48

This is of course true. The claim constituting the foundation of the theory has been refuted scientifically. But the important fact is that the fossil record has provided no evidence for punctuated equilibrium; on the contrary, it has demolished it. Millions of fossils in the record have been in a state of "equilibrium" that the evolutionists claim to have lasted for millions of years, as punctuated equilibrium suggests. Yet for some reason, there is absolutely no trace of the intervening evolution that—again according to the theory—should have lasted for thousands of years, at least. The fossil record provides not one single example of the countless living things expected to have undergone evolution. Nor is there a single piece of evidence to show how punctuated equilibrium might work. As the result of their desperate situation, evolutionists try to take one of the greatest proofs of the fact of Creation and use it as a basis for evolution. This clearly demonstrates the terrible position they are in!

How did such an inconsistent theory ever become so popular? In fact, almost all the proponents of punctuated equilibrium are paleontologists, who clearly see how the fossil record refutes Darwinian theory.

This is why they are literally in a state of panic and trying to keep their theory viable at any cost.

On the other hand, geneticists, zoologists and anatomists perceive that no mechanism in nature could give rise to "punctuations," for which reason they insist on supporting the gradual Darwinist theory of evolution. The Oxford University zoologist Richard Dawkins strongly criticizes adherents of the punctuated model of evolution and accuses them of destroying the credibility of the theory as a whole.

This inconclusive dialogue between the two sides is actually evidence of the scientific crisis into which the theory of evolution has fallen. What we have is a myth that cannot be reconciled with any experimental, observational or paleontological findings. All evolutionist theoreticians look for grounds to support this myth, depending on their own field of specialization, but find themselves in conflict with findings from other branches of science. Attempts are sometimes made to gloss over this confusion by means of superficial comments such as "Science advances through such academic debates." Yet the problem is that these debates are not mental gymnastics performed for the sake of coming up with any true scientific theory, but are dogmatic conjecture intended to support a false theory. The fact that evolutionary theoreticians inadvertently reveal is that the fossil record cannot be reconciled with the concept of evolution in any way. And stasis, one of the most important elements in the fossil record, is clearly visible. Gould expresses this in these terms:

. . . stasis, inevitably read as absence of evolution, had always been treated as a non-subject. How odd though to define the most common of all palaeontological phenomena as beyond interest or notice! 49

By now, all Darwinists have been forced to admit the fact of stasis in the fossil record, which they are still reluctant to see, deliberately pushing into the background and even refusing to accept as data. The lack of any documentation of fossils undergoing evolution—in other words, the absence of any intermediate forms—has done away with all speculation regarding stasis and clearly reveals this as one of the most significant proofs of the fact of Creation. Punctuated equilibrium has been totally discredited, both by the very mechanisms it proposes and by the fossil record, which it seeks to put forward as evidence.

## Conclusion

Why, in his Origin of Species, did Darwin refer to living fossils as causing such a great difficulty? Why, faced with these fossils, did evolutionist scientists feel the need to abandon their claims regarding gradual evolution and manufacture a new theory? Why did the capture of a living coelacanth come as such a disappointment, silencing those evolutionists who had pinned all their hopes on it? What is it about living fossils that has inflicted such a collapse on Darwinists?

It is that living fossils declare the fact of Creation.

The disappointment that Darwinists feel is due to their ideological devotion to their theories. In fact, they have seen their theory demolished, but ignore this, even though they are perfectly well aware of it. That they even resort to deceptive methods to cover it up is one of the greatest proofs of this. Instead of admitting the fact of Creation in the face of living fossils, they resort to irrational, illogical theories devoid of any scientific evidence. They seek to conceal living fossil specimens and eliminate millions of examples, while giving pride of place to hand-made hoaxes—a clear indication of their fears. The way that museums display countless fabricated fossil "reconstructions" and depict highly complex life forms like the coelacanth as examples of intermediate forms, while hiding away in the museum vaults fossils of species that still exist today is most thought-provoking.

How scientific is it to adapt evidence to a theory, when the theory cannot be proven? By what right do evolutionists suggest that their claims are proven and scientific, even though they have no evidence whatsoever? Why does the scientific evidence they come up with embarrass them instead of supporting them? What compels evolutionists to stand by their theory, despite the increasing weight of evidence against it?

The reason is that Darwinism is a false religion and system of beliefs. Because it is a dogma that can never be denied. Because it is the basis of materialist philosophy that maintains that matter has existed for all time, and that nothing exists apart from matter. That is why, although new scientific evidence further disproves the theory with every passing day, such efforts are maintained to keep it alive. Yet these have now come to an end. The deceptive methods of Darwinism and Darwinists have failed. The evidence that demolishes evolution is mounting day by day. New proofs of Creation that dash evolutionists' hopes and force them to produce new misleading explanations are constantly emerging.

That is why living fossils leave Darwinists speechless, and are quietly hidden away in museum vaults. With these methods, Darwinists try to conceal God's sublime artistry. The fact is, however, that God is He Who creates all things, Who knows all that they do, and Who keeps them under His rule at all times. God sees Darwinists as they make their plans against Him. God watches them as they seek to conceal His sublime creative artistry. He writes down all they do as they deny His existence. And, whether they believe it or not, willingly or unwillingly, they will be brought into His presence in the Hereafter.

This is the great truth of which Darwinists are unaware: God will surely baffle and disappoint those who strive against Him. It is the law of God that will truly be victorious.

The existence of living fossils is a sublime proof created by God in order to eliminate all Darwinist strategies and reveal all their frauds. As they strive against the true faith, Darwinists forget that God also creates the evidence for it. They are in a state of defeat from the very outset. The teaching of the theory of evolution in schools, speculation regarding evolutionist claims by various media organizations, and the support gathered from scientists are all temporary phenomena. As revealed in the verse: "Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray!" (Surat al-'Anbiya, 18), God will eradicate all false beliefs.

Darwinists today are in a state of panic about this. Since that is so obvious, those who imagine Darwinism to be true must quickly try to see all the evidence pointing to the fact of Creation and to avoid being taken in by such a false religion as the theory of evolution. They must realize that God, Who created the world in such a flawless form, also has the power to create the eternal life of the Hereafter, because human beings can be saved only when they see and comprehend this truth. The theory of evolution, which induces people to deny God, their one Savior, and which strives to survive through constant lies and strategies, is a terrible waste of time and a terrible disappointment. Instead of realizing this in a state of great regret in the Hereafter, seeing it in this world, where all the proofs are so evident, will lead to salvation in both this world and in the Next.

What, then, of Him Who is standing over every self seeing everything it does? Yet still they associate others with God! Say: "Name them! Or would you inform Him of something in the earth He does not know, or are they words which are simply guesswork on your part?" However, the plotting of those who disbelieve seems good to them and they bar the way. Anyone misguided by God has no guide. They will receive punishment in the life of this world and the punishment of the Hereafter is harsher still. They have no defender against God. What is the Garden promised to those who guard against evil like? It has rivers flowing under it and its foodstuffs and cool shade never fail. That is the final fate of those who guard against evil. But the final fate of the unbelievers is the Fire. (Surat ar-Ra'd, 33-35)

## Notes

1. Peter Douglas Ward, On Methuselah's Trail, W. H. Freedman and Company, 1992, p. 9

2. Stephen J. Gould, The Panda's Thumb, 1980, pp. 238-239

3. N. Eldredge, and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 45-46

4. David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and

Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History: Chicago IL, January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22-29

5. D.S. Woodroff, Science, Vol. 208, 1980, p. 716

6. George G., Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, Columbia University Press, New York, 1944, pp. 105, 107

7. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, pp. 172-280

8. Derek A. Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record," Proceedings of the British Geological Association, Vol. 87, 1976, p. 133

9. Mark Czarnecki, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade," MacLean's, 19 January 1981, p. 56

10. Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New Haven: Tichnor and Fields, 1982, p. 40

11. S. J. Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, May 1977

12. Peter Douglas Ward, On Methuselah's Trail, W. H. Freedman and Company, 1992, p. 10

13. "The Creatures Time Forgot," New Scientist, 23 October 1999, p. 36

14. "Balinalarn Evrimi" (The Evolution of Whales), National Geographic Turkey, November 2001, pp. 156-159

15. Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin, 1995, p. 77

16. http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=774

17. Eldredge and Steven M. Stanley. Eds., 1984, Living Fossils, New York Springer Verlag, 1984, p. 3

18. Margaret Helder, "Living Fossils: How Significant Are They?";

http://www.create.ab.ca/articles/lfossils.html

19. Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin, 1995, p. 3

20. Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial, Intervarsity Press, Illinois, 1993, p. 27

21. Jacques Millot, "The Coelacanth," Scientific American, Vol. 193, December 1955, p. 34

22. Samantha Weinberg, A Fish Caught in Time: The Search For the Coelacanth, Perennial Publishing, 2000, p. 20

23. Ibid., pp. 28-29-30

24. www.ksu.edu/fishecology/relict.htm

25. Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology Journal), November 1998, Vol. 372, p. 21;

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/ Science /9809/23/living.fossil/index.html

26. Samantha Weinberg, A Fish Caught in Time: The Search For the Coelacanth, Perennial Publishing, 2000, p. 102

27. P. L. Forey, Nature, Vol. 336, 1988, p. 7

28. Hans Fricke, "Coelacanths: The Fish That Time Forgot," National Geographic, Vol. 173, No. 6, June 1988, p. 838

29. Focus, April 2003

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid.

33. Ibid.

34. Stephen M. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co. 1979, pp. 35, 159

35. Gould, S. J., 1980, "Return of the Hopeful Monster," The Panda's Thumb, New York: W. W. Norton Co., pp. 186-193

36. http://www.blavatsky.net/features/newsletters/2005/fossil_record.htm

37. Stephen J. Gould, "The Paradox of the First Tier: An Agenda for Paleobiology," Paleobiology, 1985, p. 7

38. Niles Eldredge, "Progress in Evolution?," New Scientist, Vol. 110, 1986, p. 55

39. N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982, p. 48

40. Stephen J. Gould, "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, 1993, p. 15

41. Kemp, Tom S., "A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record," New Scientist, Vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67

42. R. A. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Oxford, Oxford Univesity Press, 1930

43. Ernst Mayr, Populations, Species, and Evolution, Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press, 1970, p. 235

44. Lane Lester, Raymond Bohlin, The Natural Limits to Biological Change, Probe Books, Dallas, 1989, p. 141

45. M. E. Soulé and L. S. Mills, "Enhanced: No Need To Isolate Genetics," Science, 1998, Vol. 282, p. 165

46. R. L. Westemeier, J. D. Brawn, S. A. Simpson, T. L. Esker, R. W. Jansen, J. W. Walk, E. L. Kershner, J. L. Bouzat and K. N. Paige, "Tracking the Long-term Decline and Recovery of An Isolated Population," Science, 1998, Vol. 282, p. 1695

47. Valentine, J., and Erwin, D., "Interpreting Great Developmental Experiments: The Fossil Record," in Development as an Evolutionary Process, Rudolf A. Raff and Elizabeth C. Raff, Editors, New York: Alan R. Liss, Inc., 1985, p. 96

48. http://www.dhushara.com/book/evol/evop.htm

49. Gould. S. J. and Eldredge. N., 1993, "Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age," Nature, 366, p. 223

# Fossil Specimens of Land-Animals

## Turtle

Age: 38-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Brule Formation, Sioux County, Nebraska, USA

Investigations have turned up fossils of turtles that are 300 million years old, on average. The one pictured here is about 30 million years old. Such fossils definitely prove that turtles did not change over all these years but maintained their original form: Living creatures did not evolve, but were created by Almighty God.

## Hyena Skull

Age: 23-5 million years

Period: Miocene

Location: Gansu Province, China

The fossil record has not produced even one single example of a creature in an intermediate stage of development between reptiles and mammals—which evolutionists claim must have lived in the past. As with other classes of living creatures, the origin of mammals cannot be explained by the theory of evolution. As George Gaylord Simpson admitted many years ago:

This is true of all thirty-two orders of mammals . . . The earliest and most primitive known members of every order [of mammals] already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed . . . This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all classes of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate. . . . it is true of the classes, and of the major animal phyla, and it is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants. (George Gaylord Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1944, pp. 105, 107.)

The fossil pictured here, the skull of a hyena between 23 and 5 million years old, corroborates this admission. This fossil proves that hyenas have always existed as hyenas and refutes the theory of evolution.

Evey fossil that evolutionists have produced to date as proof of evolution has been either fake or irrelevant. Whenever they unearth the fossil of an extinct creature, they announce it with slogans as "a newly discovered horse" or "the missing intermediate form." But when these fossils projected as a proof are subjected to serious investigation, they are immediately found to have no relevance to evolution.

So far, milllions of fossils have been discovered throughout the world, and none indicates that evolution ever occurred on Earth. But these fossils, proving that evolution is unscientific and that Creation is an undeniable fact, are mostly hidden away in musem storerooms and never displayed.

The fact that hyenas living tens of millions of years ago are no different from today's members of the species is evidence for the invalidity of evolution. If the evolutionists' claims were true, hyenas should have turned into much different mammals by this time. But no such thing has happened.

## Rabbit

Age: 33 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: White River Formation, Lusk, Wyoming, USA

As spiders always breed spiders, bees breed bees, and rays are pawned from rays; rabbits have always existed as rabbits. The fossil record shows clearly that rabbits did not evolve from any other creature and have always been as they are now, from the moment they were created. In the light of the countless fossil finds showing the invalidity of evolution, its adherents must accept that Darwinism has been defeated.

The 33-million-year-old rabbit fossil shown here underlines this defeat once more, illustratings the fact that God has created all living things.

## Snake

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Messel Shales, Germany

One thing that evolutionists are at a loss to explain is the origin of reptiles. Between the various classes of reptiles, such as snakes, alligators, turtles and lizards, there are strict boundaries. The fossil record shows that each of these categories has come into existence at once, with very different physical characteristics. One of these proofs to deny that reptiles underwent evolution is the 50-million-year-old snake fossil shown in the picture.

## Turtle

Age: 37-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Brule Formation, Sioux County, Nebraska, USA

Darwinists should be able to explain the development of a turtle's shell. They should be able to show how the structure developed by chance through an imaginary process of evolution, and produce proof of it. But to explain the development of living creatures, Darwinists only resort to stories. They have no proofs to substantiate these stories of evolution. Instead, what Darwinists will always discover are living fossils—for example, the fossil shown here is a 37 to 23-million-year-old fossil of a turtle.

## Frog

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Messel Shales, Germany

This frog belongs to the family of Pelopatidae, or mud burrowers. Some members of this family use their back legs to burrow under mud, and others live in an aquatic environment. Darwinists claim that fish are the ancestors of amphibians, but they offer no proof to support this claim. On the contrary, scientific discoveries show that there are such important anatomical differences between the two species that it is impossible for amphibians to have evolved from fish.

One of these scientific discoveries is the fossil record. According to the fossil record, the three basic classes of amphibian all appeared at once. The evolutionist Robert Carroll says, "The earliest fossils of frogs, caecilians, and salamanders all appear in the Early to Middle Jurassic. All show most of the important attributes of their living descendants." (Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 292-293.)

## Crocodile Skull

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Phosphate Mines, Khouribga, North Africa

"Crocodile" is the general name given to creatures in the Crocodylidae family. Most live in tropical regions, and their earliest known examples lived about 200 million years ago. There is no difference between crocodiles living today and those that lived about 50 million years ago (like the fossil illustrated here) or even those that lived 200 million years ago. These fossils prove that crocodiles have not changed in hundreds of millions of years. This fact disproves evolution and also demonstrates that God has created all living creaures.

The Djourab desert is one of the many areas of the world where fossils are found. Every one of the many discoveries in this area's 382 fossil fields shows without exception that living species have not changed for as long as they have existed. That is, they have not gone through any process of evolution.

Throughout the Earth's history, crocodiles have always been crocodiles. They have neither come from, nor have changed into, any other species.

## Turtle

Age: 37-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Brule Formation, Sioux County, Nebraska, USA

Thanks to their excellent bony protection, turtles are well preserved in fossil strata. The oldest turtle fossils are about 200 million years old, and in all that time they have undergone no changes. The 37- to 23-million-year-old turtle fossil seen here shows no difference between turtles that lived then and those alive now, in all their perfect detail.

Faced with these proofs, there's one important fact that evolutionists ought to accept. David B. Kitts, an evolutionist in the department of Geology and Geophysics at Oklahoma University, says that "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (David B. Kitts, "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution,Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467.)

A view from below of a 37- to 23-million-year-old fossil turtle.

## Hyena Skull

Age: 23-5 million years

Period: Miocene

Location: China

According to the evolutionists' unscientific claims, reptiles are the ancestors of both birds and also mammals. But there are vast differences between these two groups of living things. Mamals are warm-blooded. Tthey produce and regulate their own body temperature, they give birth to and suckle their young, and their bodies are covered with fur. But reptiles are cold-blooded. Tthey do not produce warmth, and their body temperature varies according to the temperature of the ambient air. They reproduce by laying eggs, do not suckle their offspring and their bodies are covered by scales.

How could a reptile have begun to produce body heat, developed a system of sweat glands to control this heat, changed its scales into hairs and begun to produce milk? So far, evolutionists have not been able to give one single convincing scientific answer to such questions.

This shows that the supposition that reptiles evolved into mammals has no scientific foundation. Besides, paleontologists have not found one fossil of any intermediate form that connects reptiles to mammals. For this reason, the evolutionist Roger Lewin had to admit that "The transition to the first mammal . . . is still an enigma." (Roger Lewin, "Bones of Mammals, Ancestors Fleshed Out," Science, Vol. 212, June 26, 1981, p. 1492.)

The photograph shows the excavation in the Junggar fossil field in China. Fossils found at this dig show that living creatures have been created perfectly and complete.

# Fossil Specimens Of Sea Creatures

## Flying Fish

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Hadjoula, Lebanon

Flying fish leap out of the water, propelled by rapid movements of their tail fin and glide a certain distance before gently dropping back into the water. During this airborne movement, the fish can reach a speed of 50 kilometers (31 miles) an hour. There is no difference between flying fish living today and those that lived about 100 million years ago. The species has not undergone the slightest change in all that time, which destroys all the claims of the evolutionists about the origins and history of living creatures.

Scientific discoveries have shown that living things have not developed in evolutionary stages but were created by Almighty God.

## Sturgeon

Age: 144-65 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

The sturgeons, of which only two families remain in existence, have always been sturgeons. They have neither developed from, nor turned into any other species.

Fossil finds corroborate the fact that like all other creatures, sturgeons have never undergone any process of evolution.

## Horseshoe Crab

Age: 150 million years

Period: Late Jurassic

Location: Solnhofen Limestone, Eichsatt, Germany

Horseshoe crabs belong to a subphylum of the arachnids called Chelicerata, and are more closely related to spiders and scorpions. The 150-million-year-old fossil of a horseshoe crab shown here demonstrates once again that Creation is a fact and that the process of evolution never occurred.

## Stingray

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Byblos, Haqil, Lebanon

Stingrays are cartilaginous fish and live mostly on the sea floor. Their gills are on the bottom, or ventral side of their bodies and their eyes are on top. Their tail fins and dorsal fins are very small; on some species, they are absent altogether.

Stingrays that lived about 100 million years ago have the same characteristics as those still alive today. In all that time, they have not undergone any changes.

This suggests that evolution is an untenable theory.

## Oyster

Age: 150 million years

Period: Late Jurassic

Location: Chile

"Oyster" is a generic name given to a group of shelled mollusks that live in the ocean, feeding on plankton which they filter through their gills.The shells containing high levels of calcium are generally fossilized easily. The oldest known oyster fossil comes from the Ordovician period (490 to 443 million years ago). Despite the approximately half a million years that have passed since then, oysters have not changed. Those oysters that lived 490 million years ago or 150 million years ago are no different from those alive today. This fact completely nullifies the claims of evolution that creatures evolved in stages, in a succession of tiny changes. The fossil record shows that creatures have not gone through any process of evolution and that Almighty God created them.

## Crab

Age: 37-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Lyby, Denmark

The fossil record is rich enough to permit a general comprehension of the origin of living things and provides us with a definite scenario: Various species of living creatures appeared on Earth all at once, individually and without "evolving" through any intermediate forms. This is one of the proofs that Almighty God created all living creatures.

One of these fossils that demonstrates the clear fact of creation is shown here: the nearly 35-million-year-old remains of a crab.

This crab fossil was found in Denmark on the Limfjords coast. This type of fossil is quite commonly found in this area. Preserved in nodules, they usually emerge to the surface in winter or after periods of heavy rain. The rounded stones are split open to discover whether they contain fossils. If a fossil is found, it is prepared for exhibition using files and other tools.

This fossil demonstrates that there is no structural difference between crabs alive today and those alive roughly 35 million years ago, again proving the invalidity of evolutionist claims. If a creature has not undergone the slightest change in tens of millions of years, it is impossible to speak about the evolution of living things.

## Shrimp

Age: 150 million years

Period: Late Jurassic

Location: Solnhofen Limestone, Eichstatt, Germany

Another scientific discovery showing that there was no process of evolution, as the Darwinists claim, is the fossilized shrimp illustrated here. Since shrimp first came into existence, they have always displayed all the same organs and characteristics as they have today and have undergone no changes in all that time. This shrimp fossil shows plainly that evolution is an imaginary scenario.

## Stingray And Herring

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Wyoming, USA

In this specimen we see a thorny stingray of the Dasyatidae family and a herring fossilized together. These fossils show that modern-day thorny stingrays and herrings are no different from the ones that swam tens of millions of years ago; they are among the countless proofs that invalidate the theory of evolution.

## Lobster

Age: 144-65 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Lower Greensand, Atherfield, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

There is no difference between this lobster, which lived tens of millions of years ago, and those that are still alive today. This deals a devastating blow to the theory of evolution. The fossil pictured here of a lobster from the Cretaceous period (between 144 and 65 million years ago) proves that the claims of evolutionists with regard to natural history are completely untenable.

Creatures did not evolve; they are created by God, Lord of the worlds.

## Guitar Fish

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

Paleontology has provided numerous proofs that creatures did not evolve but were created by God. One of these proofs is this 95-million-year-old fossilized guitar fish.

These fish live in tropical and subtropical waters and have not changed in about 100 million years. Darwinists can give no scientific explanation for a fossil like this, which shows that it did not undergo any process of evolution. Today's guitar fish are no different from those that lived approximately 100 million years ago—which once again underlines the fact of God's Creation.

## Lobster

Age: 144-65 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Lower Greensand, Atherfield, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

The lack of any intermediate forms in the fossil record completely undermines the theory of evolution. After years of digging and explorations, not even one fossil has been found to indicate that any primitive, incomplete creature with half-developed organs ever existed. All fossils discovered to date show that all the characteristics of the species in question came to be in complete form and at the same time; that is, that they were created.

One of these many examples is a lobster that lived between 144 and 65 million years ago.

## Sea Urchins

Age: 150 million years

Period: Upper Jurassic

Location: Charente Maritime, France

Evolutionists claim that fish evolved from invertebrate sea creatures; amphibians and present-day fish from one supposedly "ancestral" fish. Reptiles in turn arose from amphibians; birds and mammals developed independently from reptiles. And, finally, apes and human beings evolved from a common ancestor, now extinct.

In order to prove these claims scientifically, it is necessary to find intermediate forms to show the transitional changes between one of these "former" species and their more recent counterparts. But as mentioned earlier, there is no trace of these imaginary creatures. On the contrary, all present-day species have the same characteristics that they possessed millions of years ago. This 150-million-year-old sea urchin is just one of the hundreds of thousands of fossils that prove this.

## Crab

Age: 70 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Belgium

At every turn, the fossil record clearly contradicts the theory of evolution. Crabs are members of the Decapoda (10-legged) order of the phylum of Crustacean. Crabs have existed unchanged for millions of years, and therefore they are one of the living beings disproving the story of evolution. The fossilized crab pictured here is 70 million years old and displays the same physiological characteristics as crabs that are alive today.

Crabs have not changed in 70 million years' time which disproves the theory of evolution's claim that living species evolved from one another over millions of years. This and similar fossils prove the fact that crabs did not evolve but were created by Almighty God.

## Bowfin

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Messel Shales, near Frankfurt, Germany

Bowfins today live mostly in South America. They belong to the class of Actinopterygii and have not changed in millions of years. They also belong to the superorder of Holostei (bony fish), and many fossils have been discovered. These fossils show all the characteristics of present-day bowfin and evidence that they have undergone no change at all over tens of millions of years. This demonstrates that these creatures did not evolve from any previous species, but were created in their present form by the supreme power and intelligence of God.

This fossil bowfin from the Eocene epoch, with its structure unchanged over tens of millions of years, challenges the theory of evolution.

## Sawfish

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Hajoula, Byblos, Lebanon

The upper jaws of these fish project outward and have sharp protrusions on either side. For this reason, they are called sawfish.

All fossilized sawfish in the fossil record are identical to their counterparts alive today. This sameness has persisted for about 100 million years proving that Darwinists' hypothetical claims are invalid and that evolution never occurred.

## STINGRAY (With Its Counterpart)

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

The stingray fossil pictured here is 95 million years old, and there is no difference between it and stingrays living today. This physiological stability throughout 95 million years demonstrates clearly that these living things did not evolve from an earlier, primitive form to a more advanced one. Any claim that they did is wrong; and concrete discoveries and scientific investigations have invalidated this claim.

## Lobster

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

This fossil lobster, 95 million years old, possesses the same physical structure as lobsters today.

Some lobsters display migratory behaviors that are very interesting. In the course of such migrations, lobsters line up so that each one can touch the one in front of it. In this way, a convoy of between 50 and 60 lobsters is formed and moves along the ocean floor day and night for several days.

Migrating in a line enhances the lobsters' ability to move. The resistance encountered by a lobster advancing through the sea water individually is halved when another lobster is moving in front of it. (The same principle is exploited by modern-day trucks and race cars.) Because of this linear movement, lobsters can cover more distance in less time, while expending less energy. Some species have been observed to travel as much as one kilometer in an hour.

## Lobster

Age: 144-65 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Lower Greensand, Atherfield, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

The lobster fossil pictured here, between 144 and 65 million years, reveals once again that the theory of evolution is nonsense. Lobsters have existed for tens of millions of years without change, disproving the Darwinists' claim that living creatures have developed from a supposed primitive state into more advanced forms.

Friar's Bay in East Sussex (left) is a rich source where many fossils have been found—mostly ammonites and many other marine creatures with shells. The picture below shows fossil investigation being done in the area.

## Puffer Fish

Age: 150 million years

Period: Upper Jurassic

Location: Ohmden, Holzmaden, Württernberg, Germany

Most of these fish of the Tetradontidae family contain tetradoxin, a strong poison produced by bacteria that live in their bodies. Tetradoxin is a poison that stops the nerve cells' ability to communicate, and even 1 milligram can cause a human being's death. These fish's skin is rough and flexible. Thanks to a bone under their chin, they are able to swallow water and then double their size by locking this bone.

Pictured is a puffer fish that lived 150 million years ago, with the identical appearance and structure of puffer fish living today. This fossil exposes once again that evolution is a fictious concept.

In these pictures, you see the fossil bed in Solnhofen and the specimens that were brought out. In Solnhofen, one of the world's foremost fossil beds, many animal and plant fossils are excavated. Each fossil shows that these living things never changed over the course of their existence. In other words they didn't evolve.

## Sea Urchin

Age: 150 million years

Period: Late Jurassic

Location: Madagascar

Sea urchins have been alive for about 300 million years, but they have not changed or undergone any process of evolution in all that time. The fossil shown here is 150 million years old. A marine invertebrate, sea urchins have soft bodies encased in a thin shell covered with the spines that protect them from their enemies. They can move these spines; on some species, they are poisonous and reach a length of 30 centimeters (11.8 in). Tube feet protruding from the bodies of sea urchins adhere to rocks so that they can move comfortably along the ocean floor.

Fossil discoveries show that sea urchins have possessed all these characteristics since the first moment they came into being and that they have undergone no change at all throughout that time. The explanation is clear: As with other creatures, sea urchins did not evolve, but were created complete with all their characteristics.

## Crayfish

Age: 150 million years

Period: Upper Jurassic

Location: Solnhofen Lithographic Formation, Zandt, Germany

Crayfish, which are also known as freshwater lobsters, are another one of those creatures that have not changed in a hundred million years. Members of the superfamily of Astacoida, they generally live in fresh water that is not too cold. Some species can even live up to 3 meters (9.8 feet) under the ground.

The crayfish fossil shown here is 150 million years old, yet is no different from those living today. This once again disproves the claims of evolutionists about the origin of living things and shows that Creation is the only explanation.

## Horseshoe Crab

Age: 150 million years

Period: Upper Jurassic

Location: Eichstatt, Bavaria, Solnhofen, Germany

The 150-million-year-old horseshoe crab fossil shown here is proof that these creatures have not changed in an interval of more than a hundred million years. These crustaceans are a clear indication that evolution has never happened and that Almighty God created all living creatures.

## Coelacanth

Age: 150 million years

Period: Upper Jurrassic

Location: Solnhofen, Eichstatt, Bavaria, Germany

Evolutionists once claimed that coelacanths were an extinct "missing link" or "intermediate form" of creature between fish and amphibian. But since 1938, when a live specimen was caught, it is known that the coelacanth is a deep-water fish that still lives off the African coast. Fossils of the creatures such as the coelacanth disprove evolution's scenario that living things have changed over time.

According to the fossil record, the coelacanth dates back 410 million years. Evolutionists thought it was proof of the existence of an "intermediate form" between fish and amphibians. Seventy million years ago, it mysteriously disappeared from the fossil record and was believed to become extinct. But starting in 1938, coelacanths have been caught in the ocean more than 200 times: first in South Africa; then in 1952 in the Comores Islands in southwestern Madagascar, and in 1998 in Sulamesi in Indonesia. The paleontologist, J. L. B. Smith could not help expressing his amazement when he saw a coelacanth that was caught: "If I'd met a dinosaur in the street I wouldn't have been more astonished." (Jean-Jacques Hublin, The Hamlyn Encyclopædia of Prehistoric Animals, New York: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1984, p. 120.)

With the discovery of a living coelacanth, it appeared that the claims made about these creatures were nothing but deceptions. Besides, evolutionists had declared this was a creature that lived in shallow water and was a prospective amphibian, waiting to emerge from the water on its leg-like fins. But it is now known that coelacanths are actually deep-water fish that live in the deepest areas of the ocean and almost never approach within 180 meters (590 feet) of the surface.

Coelacanths, having lived for some 400 million years, bring evolutionists to an impasse. The fact that these creatures have not changed in all this time disproves the claim that living things appeared in stages and evolved from one another.

Additionally, coelacanths demonstrate once again the deep gulf that divides sea and land creatures—which gap evolutionists would like to bridge by an imaginary evolution from one to the other.

The anatomical characteristics of a 400-million-year-old fish show that evolution never occurred.

Anatomical examination of a coelacanth that was caught alive revealed many features that disprove evolutionists' claims. Four hundred million years ago, in a period when only primitive creatures were supposed to have lived, it was discovered that coelacanths already had many complex features that even today's fish do not have. Among them is the ability to sense electromagnetic fields in their vicinity, which shows that coelacanths have highly developed sense organs. When scientists examined the organization of the nerves connecting the fish's rostral organ with its brain, they accepted that this organ's functions allow the fish to recognize electromagnetic areas. Focus magazine wrote about evolutionists' surprise when confronted by the coelacanth's complex structure and features: "According to the fossils, fish appeared about 470 million years ago. Coelacanths appeared 60 millions years later. This creature should be expected to have possessed primitive features, but its complex physical structure is amazing."

## Flying Fish

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

For Darwinists, chance is a divinity that performs miracles. They claim that all of today's complex creatures evolved through small incremental changes that occurred over the course of millions of years. However, chance can create nothing; it could never have produced the wonderful features and complex structures in living things. Creatures are complex because God created them so; they witness to His supreme artistry.

Present-day flying fish manifest God's artistry, just as they did 95 million years ago.

## CATSHARK (With Its Counterpart)

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Byblos, Lebanon

Some fossils are called "paired" fossils, when the layers containing a fossil are split open. As a result, the fossil has a positive, raised image on one side and a negative, concave "mold" on the other slab of stone. The 95-million-year-old catshark fossil in the picture is one such two-part specimen. Catshark belong to sharks classification. The catshark shown here belongs to the Scyliorhidinae family. Modern-day catshark are identical to those that lived 95 million years ago, which fact challenges the theory of evolution.

This catshark fossil can be observed on both negative and positive plates.

## Guitar Fish

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Byblos, Lebanon

Darwinists claim that all creatures have undergone evolution. For this reason, examples of fossils from millions of years ago are very important to show that living things have not changed. Even a single fossil proves this; and the world is full of such examples. One of the fossils showing the invalidity of the theory of evolution is this 95-million-year-old specimen of a guitar fish. The same complex anatomical structure and features displayed by present-day guitar fish are also seen in this one that lived 95 million years ago. One can see the details of the fossil quite clearly. Faced with evidence like this, arguments for the theory of evolution are in the dead end.

## Crinoid

Age: 490-443 million years

Period: Ordovician

Location: Tazarine, Morocco

The skeletons of crinoids are composed of calcareous plates. For this reason, the fossil record has preserved a great many of them. It is presently thought that about 800 species of these creatures exist, and they can be traced back to the Ordovician period between 490 and 443 million years ago. Crinoids have survived for about half a billion years without undergoing the sligh- test change—which presents a serious blow to the concept of evolution.

## STINGRAY (With Its Counterpart)

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

The theory of evolution supposes that the first chordates like pikaia turned into fish over time. But no intermediate-form fossil has been found to substantiate the claims about chordate evolution, therefore, there is no fossil to support any claims of how fish evolved. On the contrary, all classes of fish appear all at once in the fossil record, with no preceding ancestors. The evolutionist paleontologist, Gerald T. Todd, in his article entitled "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes," lists the following unanswerable questions that this fact raises:

All three subdivisions of bony fishes first appear in the fossil record at approximately the same time. They are already widely divergent morphologically, and are heavily armored. How did they originate? What allowed them to diverge so widely? How did they all come to have heavy armor? And why is there no trace of earlier, intermediate forms? (Gerald T. Todd, "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes: A Causal Relationship," American Zoologist, Volume 26, no. 4, 1980, p. 757.)

The illustrated fossils are negative and positive parts of the same fossil.

The illustrations show the An-Namoura fossil bed in Lebanon and the diggings in this bed. While countless fossils have been discovered all around the world showing that evolution has never occurred, there's no point in denying this fact for the evolutionists.

## Catshark

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Lebanon

This catshark fossil from the Cretaceous period is visible on both of the surfaces of the layer of rock in which it was found. It is 95 million years old and has the same features as today's catsharks. This proves that this creature, contrary to what evolutionists claim, did not come into being from any other species as a result of small changes over time, nor did it develop into any other species.

## Stingray

Age: 95 million years

Period: Middle Cretaceous, Cenomanian

Location: Haqil, Lebanon

In over 150 years of digging for fossils, millions of pieces of evidence like this have been found against evolution. Meanwhile, nothing has been discovered to substantiate Darwinist claims. Fossils do not support the theory of evolution, and this fact has even been expressed in evolutionist publications. An article in Science reads as follows:

A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks. (Science, 17 July, 1981, p. 289.)

## Crab

Age: 38-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Lyby, Denmark

For 150 years, Darwinists have hoped that "intermediate-form" fossils will be found in the future. But as the fossil record shows, not one has yet been found. The fossils unearthed to date are rich and varied enough to allow an understanding of the origin of living creatures and present us with a definite schema: Various species appeared on Earth all at once, separately with their own distinct physical structures, and without passing through any intermediate forms. The clear significance of this is that God created living creatures.

One of the many discoveries that corroborates this fact is the 38- to 23-million-year-old crab fossil shown here. Like other crab fossils found in Denmark, this one was found in one of the nodules that come to the surface of the earth only at specific times of the year. Most of these fossils are called "crab balls" most of which belong to the Oligocene period 38-23 million years ago.

## Crinoid

Age: 345 million years

Period: Middle Mississippian, Middle Osagean

Location: Burlington Formation, Pike County, Missouri, USA

Pictured is a perfectly preserved 345-millionyear-old fossil crinoid. All the details of this creature show that there is no difference between it and the crinoids still alive today. These creatures have existed for hundreds of millions of years without undergoing any change; this fact alone is important enough to demolish the theory of evolution. Its invalidity becomes clearer every day from the accumulating evidence supplied by the fossil record.

## Razorfish

Age: 5.3 million years

Period: Lower Pliocene

Location: Marecchia River Formation, Poggio Berni, Rimimini Province, Italy

If Darwinists want to claim that living creatures have evolved, they need to supply an example of an intermediate form to prove their assertions. They must exhibit a half-evolved creature, showing how all its semi-developed organs are in the process of improving themselves and provide a number of examples for each transitional species. But Darwinists cannot show even one example of an intermediate fossil.

On the other hand, there are millions of fossils that preserve the remains of species that are still alive. The approximately 5.3-million-year-old razorfish fossils shown here are yet another proof that argues for Creation, but against evolution.

# Fossil Specimens Of Birds

## Confuciusornis

Age: 120 million years

Period: Mesozoic Age, Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

The theory of evolution claims that birds evolved from small therapod dinosaurs—in other words, from reptiles. The fact is, however, that anatomical comparisons between birds and reptiles refute this claim, as does the fossil record.

The fossil pictured belongs to an extinct species of bird known as _Confuciusornis_ , the first specimen of which was discovered in China in 1995. _Confuciusornis_ bears a very close resemblance to present-day birds and has demolished the scenario of bird evolution that evolutionists have proposed for decades.

In describing the imaginary evolution of birds, evolutionists for years used the bird known as Archæopteryx as evidence. All the subsequent scientific findings made, however, show this claim to be untrue. The Conficiusornis fossil is another piece of evidence showing that _Archæopteryx_ cannot be the supposed forerunner of birds.

This bird, from the same period as _Archæopteryx_ (around 140 million years ago), has no teeth. Its beak and feathers have the same characteristics as those of present-day birds. Its skeletal structure is also identical to that of modern-day birds, and it has talons on its wings, as does _Archæopteryx_. The structure known as the pygostyle, which supports the tail feathers, is also present in this bird. In short, this creature, the same age as _Archæopteryx_ —which evolutionists regard as the oldest supposed forebear of birds, as being half-reptile and half-bird—bears a very close resemblance to modern-day birds. This fact refutes evolutionist theses to the effect that _Archæopteryx_ is the primitive forerunner of all birds.

## Messel Bird

Messelornis cristata

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Messel Shales, Germany

The bird fossil was named for having been discovered in the famous Messel shales. None of the bodily mechanisms of birds, which have a completely different structure from terrestrial life forms, can be explained in terms of any gradual evolutionary model. First of all, wings—the most important feature that makes birds what they are—represent a complete impasse for the theory of evolution. Evolutionists themselves state the impossibility of a reptile being able to fly and indeed, that this claim is contradicted by the fossil record. The ornithologist Alan Feduccia, for example, asks, "How do you derive birds from a heavy, earthbound, bipedal reptile that has a deep body, a heavy balancing tail, and fore-shortened forelimbs? Biophysically, it's impossible." ("Jurassic Bird Challenges Origin Theories," _Geotimes_ , January 1996, p. 7.)

The fossilization of birds is generally a very rare and difficult process because of the hollow structure of their bones. Bird fossils that are very well-preserved with all their limbs are frequently encountered, however, in the Messel Formation in Germany. _Messelornis cristata_ , shown here, is one of the species most frequently discovered. This bird, resembling a small crane in size, is generally included as part of the crane family. It has short feathers, long legs and short nails. Its tail feathers, on the other hand, are quite long. The crest on its head resembles a helmet. The total length of the skeleton is 25 to 30 centimeters (9.8 to 11.8 in).

Some of the fossils belonging to different bird species obtained from the Messel Formation include:

## Liaoxiornis

Age: 144-65 million years

Period: Mesozoic Age, Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

All the fossils unearthed show that birds have always existed as birds, and that they have not evolved from any other life form. Darwinists, who maintain that birds evolved from terrestrial animals, are actually well aware of this, and are unable to account for how wings and the flight mechanism emerged through an evolutionary process and through random mechanisms such as mutation.

The Turkish biologist Engin Korur admits the impossibility of wing evolution: "The common feature of eyes and wings is that they can perform their functions only when they are fully developed. To put it another way, sight is impossible with a deficient eye, and flight is impossible with half a wing. How these organs appeared is still one of those secrets of nature that have not yet been fully illuminated." (Engin Korur, "Gozlerin ve Kanatlarin Sirri" ("The Secret of Eyes and Wings"), Bilim ve Teknik,No. 203, October 1984, p. 25.)

Powerful wing muscles must be securely attached to the bird's breastbone, and have a structure suitable for lifting the bird into the air and establishing balance and movement in all directions when aloft. It is also essential that bird's wing and tail feathers be light, flexible and in proportion to one another—that they should have a perfect aerodynamic framework making flight possible.

At this point, the theory of evolution faces a major dilemma: The question of how this wing's flawless structure could have emerged as the result of a succession of random mutations goes unanswered. "Evolution" can never explain how a reptile's forelegs could have developed into a flawless wing as the result of impairments in its genes—that is, mutations.

As the quotation cited on the preceding page states, flight is impossible with just a half wing. Therefore, even if we assume that a mutation of some kind did cause some kind of changes in a reptile's forelegs, it is still irrational to expect that a wing could emerge by chance, as a result of other mutations being added on. Any mutation in the front legs would not endow the animal with wings, but would deprive it of the use of its forelegs. This would leave the creature physically disadvantaged (crippled, in other words) compared to other members of its species.

According to biophysical research, mutations take place only very rarely. Therefore, it is impossible to expect such handicapped creatures to wait for millions of years for their half-formed, functionless wings to be completed by small mutations.

## Confuciusornis Sanctus

Age: 120 million years

Period: Mesozoic Age, Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

The French scientific journal Science et Vie made the following comment regarding this bird, now known as Confuciusornis sanctus: "According to Chinese and American palaeontologists examining the fossil . . . they were dealing with a first class discovery. This flying bird, the same approximate size as a water rail, is around 157 million years old . . . older than Archæopteryx." (Jean Philippe Noel, "Les Oiseaux de la Discorde," Science et Vie, No. 961, October 1997, p. 83.)

The significance of this discovery is obvious; the fact that Confuciusornis lived during the same period as a life form claimed to have been the supposed forerunner of birds—and the fact that it bears a very close similarity to present-day birds—totally invalidates evolutionists' claims.

There are several structural differences between birds and reptiles, one of the most important of these being bone structure. The bones of dinosaurs—regarded by evolutionists as the supposed ancestors of birds—are thick and solid, making them very heavy. On the other hand, the bones of birds—both living and extinct species—are all hollow and thus very light, which is of great importance in their being able to fly.

Another difference between birds and reptiles is their different metabolic rates. Reptiles have one of the slowest metabolisms of all life forms on Earth, while birds hold the highest. Due to a sparrow's very fast metabolism, for example, its body temperature may sometimes rise to as high as 48°C (118.4 F). Reptiles are unable to generate their own body heat, warming their bodies by basking in the sun's rays. Reptiles consume energy the slowest, while birds consume it the highest of all.

Despite his being an evolutionist, Alan Feduccia strongly opposes the theory that birds and dinosaurs are related, on the basis of scientific findings. On the subject of the dino-bird evolution thesis, he has this to say:

Well, I've studied bird skulls for 25 years and I don't see any similarities whatsoever. I just don't see it . . . The theropod origins of birds, in my opinion, will be the greatest embarrassment of paleontology of the 20th century. (Pat Shipman, "Birds Do It ... Did Dinosaurs?," New Scientist, 1 February 1997, p. 28.)

## Liaoningornis

Age: 140 million years

Period: Mesozoic Age, Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

Yet another discovery that invalidates evolutionist claims regarding the origin of birds is the Liaoningornis fossil shown here. The existence of this bird, around 140 million years of age and first discovered in China in November 1996, was announced by the ornithologists Lianhin Hou, and Martin and Alan Feduccia in an article published in Science magazine.

Liaoningornis had a breastbone to which the flight muscles were attached, as in present-day birds. It was also identical to birds living today in all other respects. The sole difference was that it had teeth in its jaw. This showed that odontornithes (toothed birds) by no means had the kind of primitive structure claimed by evolutionists. Indeed, in an analysis in Discover magazine Alan Feduccia stated that Liaoningornis invalidated the claim that dinosaurs constitute the origin of birds. ("Old Bird," Discover, 21 March 1997.)

One of evolutionists' most unbelievable claims is the thesis they propose to account for how terrestrial animals supposedly began to fly. According to this tale, one that even primary school children would find ridiculous, the forearms of reptiles that hunted flies eventually turned into wings, and the animals began flying. This thesis, a complete misery of logic, is just one of the countless examples of the desperate straits in which Darwinism finds itself. So great is the logical collapse Darwinists exhibited that they never even consider the question of "How were the flies the reptiles were chasing able to fly?"

The fact is that flies have an utterly immaculate flight system. While human beings cannot flap their arms even 10 times a second, an average fly is able to beat its wings 500 times a second. In addition, both its wings beat simultaneously. The slightest discrepancy between the movements of the two wings would cause the fly to lose balance. Yet no such discrepancy ever arises. The biologist Robin Wootton describes the perfection in the fly's wing:

The better we understand the functioning of insect wings, the more subtle and beautiful their designs appear . . . Structures are traditionally designed to deform as little as possible; mechanisms are designed to move component parts in predictable ways. Insect wings combine both in one, using components with a wide range of elastic properties, elegantly assembled to allow appropriate deformations in response to appropriate forces and to make the best possible use of the air. They have few if any technological parallels—yet. (Robin J. Wootton, "The Mechanical Design of Insect Wings," Scientific American, Vol. 263, November 1990, p. 120.)

The countless mosquito fossils discovered to date show that these animals have always been mosquitoes, that they did not evolve from any other life form, and that they never underwent any intermediate stages.

One of the main features of the fossil record is that living things remain unchanged over the course of very lengthy periods of geological time. There is no difference between this 50-million-year-old fossil fly and specimens alive today.

If the Darwinists' claims were true, then a great many other animals famed for their high speed also would chase flies, and lions, leopards, cheetahs and horses should also one day have grown wings and started flying. Darwinists adorn these claims with scientific and Latin terminology, and millions of people naively believe them. The fact is, though, scientific findings openly and clearly reveal the invalidity of evolutionist claims. Not a single example of a living thing gradually acquiring wings has ever been encountered in the fossil record. Research reveals that any such transition is impossible.

Specimens of winged insects are frequently encountered in the fossil record, some of which are 300 million years old. The fossil march fly in the picture is 50 million years old.

ACCORDING TO THE EVOLUTIONIST DREAM—OR RATHER, NIGHTMARE—, THIS SHOULD BE THE CASE

Believing in Darwinist claims regarding the origin of flight means believing that cheetahs will someday gain wings and fly, and that tigers will one day turn into giant birds. No rational person could ever accept such an irrational claim.

# Fossil Specimens of Plants

## Hackberry Leaf

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Wyoming, USA

Hackberries are generally medium-sized trees, reaching a height of 10 to 25 meters (33 to 82 feet).

Like all other plants, hackberries have always remained as hackberries, as is testified by the fossil record. All hackberry fossils unearthed to date reveal that the hackberries of today are identical with those that lived tens of millions of years ago. This exact similarity refutes the theory of evolution.

## Fern

Age: 300 million years

Period: Westphalian B., Duckmantian, Upper Carboniferous

Location: Crock Hey Open Cast Quarry, Wigan, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Fossil record proves that plants, like all other living beings, have undergone no evolutionary process. Ferns that lived 300 million years ago are completely identical to contemporary ones, in both their structure and appearance. This identity renders evolution impossible, revealing Creation as a scientifically obvious fact. All-Mighty God created all living beings flawlessly and completely, with all their current features intact, which fact is also supported by the fossil record.

## Beech

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Beeches, of the Fagaceae family, are native to temperate Europe, Asia and North America. Fossil record affords one of the most striking evidence proving that these trees have never undergone evolution. Beeches, whose traces always appear with the same features in the fossil record, have not undergone the slightest change for tens of millions of years, which shows that these trees did not gradually evolve from any other plant. With His superior wisdom, our Lord created the beech perfectly, as with all other living species, and with no prior examples.

## Zelkova Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Having accepted evolution as their primary dogma and "pushing" plants to comply with their evolutionary scenario—despite their total lack of qualifications to do so—Darwinists are reluctant to admit that fossil record runs against their theory. Furthermore, they make meticulous efforts to hide this fact from the public. One of the evidence showing that fossil plants go against evolutionary explanations is the 50-million-year-old fossil zelkova leaf pictured. Zelkovas that are 50 million years old are identical to contemporary ones. This piece of information alone is enough to render the theory of evolution invalid.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Ginkgo tree dates back some 250 million years. The first to name these plants as "the living fossils" was Charles Darwin. Aware that ginkgo leaves posed a threat to his theory, Darwin definitely never expected that this threat would be supported by millions of other living fossils that would come to light in the following years. While one single living fossil specimen made Darwin reach a deadlock, Darwinists today must explain millions of flawless specimens. The 50-million-year-old ginkgo leaf pictured is just one of these examples.

## Elm Leaf With Section Of Branch

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

In the fossil record, there exists not a single specimen revealing that one species of plant has come into being by evolving from another species by a series of minor changes. Countless fossil specimens unearthed reveal that every plant has been created with features of its own, and that it has remained unchanged as long as the species existed. One of the findings that prove this fact is this 54- to 37-million-year-old elm leaf fossil.

## Robinia And Birch Leaves

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Today, Robinia live mainly in North America, Europe and regions of Asia that enjoy temperate climates. Birches that belong to the family Betulaceae are also widespread in temperate climates. Fossils of these plants evidence that birches have not gone through any evolutionary process. For tens of millions of years, Robinia and birch trees have remained in their original form to reveal that evolution is a lie and Creation is an obvious fact.

## Willow

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Willows are deciduous trees that belong to the Salicaceae family. Like all other plant species, willows have remained unchanged for millions of years. In other words, they have not gone through evolution. Willows, simply refuting Darwinists' claims of gradual evolution, once again verify that God created them, together with all living beings. The 54- to 37- million-year-old willow leaf fossil pictured is one important piece of evidence.

## Fern

Age: 300 million years

Period: Upper Carboniferous

Location: Crock Hey Open Cast Quarry, Wigan, Lancashire, United Kingdom

Living organisms that remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years refute all Darwinist claims regarding the origins and development of life. Darwinists claim that living beings undergo constant genetic change that results in evolution. Fossils, on the other hand, reveal that living beings have never changed since the first moment they appeared. The meaning is clear: Living beings have not evolved, but were created by Almighty God.

## Mountain Ash Branch

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Mountain ash is a tree of the genus Sorbus,widespread in cooler regions of North America. One of the findings that put Darwinists in an impasse is the fossil of a plant like this, which reveals that the tree in question has never, in any period of history, undergone any evolutionary process. The 54- to 37-million-year-old fossil pictured is one of these findings, proving that mountain ash trees have remained the same for tens of millions of years; and that God created them.

## Serviceberry Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The serviceberry (Amelanchier)is a genus of deciduous trees and large shrubs, widely distributed in the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Most of the species occur in North America, and one single species grows in Europe and Asia. The serviceberry leaf fossil pictured once again shows that evolution is merely a figment of imagination. Serviceberry trees have always remained as serviceberries; they have not come into being by gradual changes from any other species of plant—which effectively silences Darwinists.

## Magnolia Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

95-million-year-old fossil specimens of magnolia trees reveal the same structure and features as ones living today. Magnolia trees that lived 95 million years ago, those that lived 50 million years ago, and those living today are all identical. This fact alone is enough to invalidate Darwinists' claim that living species evolved from one another via gradual changes. Living organisms have not undergone evolution, but were created.

## Serviceberry Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Serviceberry is a small deciduous tree with alternate or finely serrated leaves, 2 to 10 centimeters (0.7 to 3.9 in) long and 1 to 4 centimeters (0.3 to 1.5 in) across. The fossilized serviceberry leaf pictured has also the same features, but lived 54 to 37 million years ago, during the Eocene period. This is obvious evidence that this tree has not undergone any evolution. With its leaves and flowers, serviceberry retains the same features as the day it was first created.

## Elm Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The fossilized elm leaf pictured lived 50 million years ago. In its structure and appearance, this fossil reveals that elms have not gone through any changes for 50 million years. If a living species undergoes not the slightest change for 50 million years, it is by no means possible to say that this species has evolved. This logic, as revealed in this elm leaf, is valid for all other living species. They have not come into existence by evolving via random coincidences, but were created.

## Serviceberry Leaf With Sequoia Stem

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This serviceberry leaf, fossilized together with a sequoia stem, is 50 million years old and reveals that for all that time, both species have remained the same. In the face of such fossil findings, Darwinists can never explain how plants first originated.

Pierre-Paul Grassé explains that mutation—one of evolution's conjectural mechanisms—and chance can never explain the occurrence of plants:

The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur . . . There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it. (Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 103.)

## Magnolia Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The magnolia tree, named after French botanist Pierre Magnol, is a large genus comprising about 210 species. The fossil pictured is about 50 million years old. Magnolias, as shown by other 95-million-year-old fossils, have always remained as magnolias since the moment they existed. They have neither evolved from any other plants, nor turned into any other species. Fossil record remains to be one of the most important proofs of this fact.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Biologist Francis Hitching states that the millions of fossil specimens gathered so far do not support Darwin's theory of evolution:

If we find fossils, and if Darwin's theory was right, we can predict what the rock should contain; finely graduated fossils leading from one group of creatures to another group of creatures at a higher level of complexity. The "minor improvements" in successive generations should be as readily preserved as the species themselves. But this is hardly ever the case. In fact, the opposite holds true . . . (Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New Haven: Ticknor and Fields, 1982, p. 40.)

Just as Francis Hitching said, the fossil pictured shows that ginkgo leaves have remained the same for 50 million years, also showing the inaccuracy of Darwinist claims.

## Magnolia Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

So far, many plant fossils have been uncovered. All of them share a common characteristic: They are all flawless and identical to plants alive today. For instance, it is an established fact that billions of years ago, algae—which evolutionists present as primitive cells and claim to be the ancestor of all plants—had the very same characteristics as they do today.

Besides, it is impossible to explain the occurrence of photosynthesis by chance. Turkish evolutionist Ali Demirsoy expresses this impossibility:

Photosynthesis is a rather complicated event, and it seems impossible for it to emerge in an organelle inside a cell (because it is impossible for all the stages to have come about at once, and it is meaningless for them to have emerged separately). (Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim [Inheritance and Evolution], Ankara: Meteksan Publications, p. 80.)

## Hornbeam Leaf On Stem

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Hornbeams of between 30 and 40 different species occur across much of the North Temperate regions, with the greatest number of species in East Asia, particularly China. Only two species occur in Europe, and only one in eastern North America. Fossil findings reveal that hornbeams alive today and those that lived tens of millions of years ago were no different. Hornbeams, which have survived for millions of years without any changes, challenge Darwinist claims and proclaim Creation as an obvious fact.

## Soapberry Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Through almost unceasing propaganda, Darwinist publications try to show evolution as a scientific theory, inculcating the lie that "Evolution is scientific." However many scientists—including evolutionists—point out that Darwin's theory is far from being supported by any scientific evidence. One of them, the Turkish evolutionist Cemal Yildirim, expresses how evolution lacks scientific support:

No scientist (whether be Darwinist or neo-Darwinist) can suggest the notion that the theory of evolution is proved. (Cemal Yildirim, Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik [The Theory of Evolution and Bigotry], Bilgi Publishing, January 1989, pp. 56-57.)

As Darwinists also confess, although there exists not a single scientific finding supporting evolution, countless fossils prove that living species were created. One of these is the 50-million-year-old fossilized soapberry leaf pictured here.

## Fern

Age: 300 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Saint Clair, Pennsylvania, USA

During excavations over the past 150 years, not a single half-developed, supposedly primitive plant fossil possessing the features of two different species (for instance, a half-fern, half-shrub) has been found. This demolishes any claim that plants have evolved. Other findings that invalidate this claim are the countless fossils of plants still living today. The 300 million-year-old fern is one of these "living fossils" that reveals that evolution is a deception.

## Pine Cone

Age: 65-23 million years

Period: Early Tertiary

Location: New Bamberg, Germany

The structure of cones, organs on conifers that contain the plant's ovaries, has remained the same for millions of years, as with the structures of all other living species. This cone, 65 to 23 million years old, and identical ones of our day are one of the important examples revealing that throughout these long ages, evolution has never occurred.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

Fossil findings have put evolutionists in such a position that they can no longer defend their claims regarding the origins of plants. N.F. Hughes, an evolutionist paleobotanist, confesses as such:

. . . With few exceptions of detail, however, the failure to find a satisfactory explanation has persisted, and many botanists have concluded that the problem is not capable of solution, by use of fossil evidence. (N. F. Hughes, Paleobiology of Angiosperm Origins: Problems of Mesozoic Seed-Plant Evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 1-2.)

One of the specimens that make it impossible for Darwinists to defend the theory of evolution is the 320-million-year-old fern pictured. Evolutionists fail to give any explanation for this example, which is one of the countless fossils showing that plants have not evolved, but were created by God.

## Sycamore Branch With Seed Pods

Age: 37-23 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Bonanza, Utah, USA

Evolutionists claim that plants originated from a common ancestor, yet they fail to offer a single scientific finding to prove it. On the other hand, innumerable findings show that plants were separately created, with features distinct to each species, and that they did not evolve. One of these is the 37- to 23-million-year-old sycamore branch that fossilized together with its seed pods. This fossil, which is no different from the sycamores alive today, invalidates the theory of evolution.

## Figs

Age: 70 million years

Period: Upper Cretaceous

Location: Hell Creek Formation, Montana, USA

A fig is the fruit of Figus, a genus of about 800 species of woody trees and shrubs. The 70-million-year-old fig fossil pictured reveals that evolutionists are unable to explain the origins of plants, along with that of animals. Other than a few speculations, the theory of evolution offers no information regarding the origins of tens of thousands of plants and their fruits and flowers. Moreover, all of these speculations are refuted by actual fossil findings.

## Seed Fern

Age: 308-294 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Jastrzebie, Poland

The seed fern fossil pictured is about 308 million years old, and it challenges evolution with its structure, unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.

If the claims that living species develop by constantly changing were true, then during the hundreds of millions of years, ferns should have evolved into trees and germ cells had to change and develop totally different structures. But despite those 300 million years, no such change has been experienced and it will not happen in the future. Ferns of today are identical to those ferns that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. They have never experienced any evolutionary process, but were created with all their current features.

## Seed Fern

Age: 308-294 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Czerwionka, Poland

A fern is any of a group of plants classified in the phylum of Pteridophyta. Most species grow in damp environments, in between rocks or under trees. This example has survived to our day with no changes since the beginning of the Carboniferous period.

Along with leaves, the fossil record also provides specimens of fern spores. Spores are the single-celled reproductive bodies existing in some plants that are highly resistant to negative conditions. Ferns that reproduce through spores bear sporangia under their leaves that contain these cells.

Pictured is the underside of a fern leaf, which possesses the sporangia. For hundreds of millions of years, ferns have been reproducing in the same way and have preserved their physical features. Evolutionists, who claim that living species have gradually developed and constantly change, cannot explain this situation in any convincing scientific manner. This unchanging state of living species' structure shows that evolution has never occurred, that our Lord created them all.

## Elm Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Darwin himself was aware that his theory was contradictory, inconsistent and unrealistic and expressed his concerns in his articles and letters. For instance, in a letter to his close friend Asa Gray, a Harvard biology professor, he wrote that his theory of evolution was only a speculation:

I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science. (N.C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation, 1979, p. 2.)

After Darwin, many scientists confirmed that the theory of evolution has no value and that it is only speculative. One of the branches of science that confirmed this was paleontology. All fossils collected so far demonstrate that evolution has never occurred with any of them. One fossil displaying this fact is the 50-million-year-old elm leaf fossil pictured.

## Palm Leaf

Age: 300 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Liberty, Washington, USA

The theory of evolution's inability to explain the origins of plants is also confessed by evolutionists themselves. For instance, Eldred Corner, a professor in the Botanic Department of Cambridge University, expresses that fossils support not the evolution of plants, but the fact of Creation:

I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of classification, it would be the knell of the theory of evolution. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. (Dr. Eldred Corner, Evolution in Contemporary Botanical Thought, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961, p. 97.)

As Corner also states, fossil findings reveal that plants have not originated from a common, imaginary ancestor but were created individually with all the features they currently possess. One of the fossils displaying this fact is the 300-million-year-old palm fossil pictured. Palms have remained the same for hundreds of millions of years, which stresses the baseless nature of the theory of evolution.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

Plants have extremely complex structures, and it is impossible for them to have emerged through coincidental effects or for one species to have transformed into another, as evolutionists claim. Fossil record also reveals that different plants have emerged on Earth momentarily, with structures peculiar to them and that they had no evolutionary "ancestors" before them, as evolutionists claim.

For instance this 320-million-year-old fossil fern indicates that these plants have not changed for hundreds of millions of years. Ferns in our day are no different from those that lived 320 million years ago. In the face of this fact, evolutionists can give no reasonable scientific answer.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

The fossil pictured is evidence that ferns did not evolve from other plants, and have not transformed into ferns of our day by gradual changes. They have always remained as ferns, with all their features and functions.

This fossil, 320 million years old, is evidence that as with all living and non-living things, Almighty God created plants; and that evolution is nothing but a scenario based on a figment of imagination.

For the last 150 years, every corner of the Earth has been excavated in search of fossils, and millions of them have been discovered. But among all these fossils, there exists not a single half-developed specimen that possesses the features of two different living species—which can be termed an intermediate "missing link." Every fossil discovered so far reveals that living beings emerged all of a sudden and have never changed, as long as they did not become extinct. This has a clear implication: God created living beings.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

One piece of evidence invalidating the scenario of plants' evolution is the 50-million-year-old ginkgo leaf pictured. This fossil indicates that ginkgos have always remained as ginkgos and have not originated from another plant or transformed into another species. This places evolutionists in a deadlock.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

If a living being preserves its structure with no changes for millions of years and if it possessed all its current features millions of years ago, then it is impossible to say that this organism has evolved. The 320-million-year-old fern fossil pictured is no different from ferns in our day—one of the proofs that living things have not evolved.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

If evolution took place, as Darwinists claim, then there had to be thousands of intermediate forms, and not the countless living fossils that remained unchanged on Earth. Evolutionists would continuously find fossils of intermediate species that changed from one life form to another, millions of specimens of "developing species." However, evolutionists have failed to discover even a single such intermediate fossil. They've failed to present a single organ developing in a single organism. As you can see, this ginkgo leaf has not undergone any changes since the Eocene period (54-37 million years ago).

## Pine Cone

Age: 65-23 million years

Period: Early Tertiary

Location: New Bamberg, Germany

Scientists examining the structure of pine cones were astonished by their reproductive structures. The cones which produce pollen make use of aerodynamic forces. Research has shown that these plants can change the wind's linear movement in three different ways.

First, the branches and twigs direct wind's direction towards the center of the pine cone. Then, the wind in this area is directed and angled towards the cone's ovaries, where the seeds will be formed.

In the second method, the wind, getting in contact with the cone's outer covering, whirls around its axis and tends toward the openings to the cone's interior.

Third, thanks to the cone's projections, it causes turbulence that deflects the wind down, toward the cone's outer surface. (For further information, see Harun Yahya's The Miracle of Creation in Plants, Goodword Books, 2002.) No doubt that this tree, which lacks a brain and yet engages in making use of the wind's movements, employs a kind of wisdom that cannot be explained by coincidence, as evolutionists claim. Coincidences cannot teach a plant how to exploit the wind. Moreover, plants lack the ability to plan even a single part of such a complex system. This perfect structure in pine cones is the artistry of our Almighty Lord.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

A ginkgo leaf on a tree today is no different from the one that grew 50 million years ago or even before. The same holds true for all living organisms on Earth. The fact that they have remained unchanged amazes many evolutionist scientists. It has made many of them change their outlook, and brought others to see that evolution, which they had been defending for years, is only a fraud. Those evolutionists who insist in their error in spite of these facts are being entirely ideological, not scientific.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

Ferns that grew 320 million years ago were photosynthesizing, absorbing water from soil, taking benefit of sunlight and reproducing by spores just like those alive in our day. These plants that have the same features for hundreds of millions of years have clearly not evolved. However, Darwinists fail to recognize this obvious fact, due to their ideological concerns.

## Keaki Leaf

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Wyoming, USA

Zelkova serrate is native to Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. In Japan, it is known as keaki, a deciduous tree growing from 20 to 35 meters (65 to 114 feet) tall, with quite broad leaves.

Like all other plants, keaki have remained the same since the time they first existed, and fossil record supports this. The fossilized keaki leaf pictured is 45 million years old, but identical to the keaki leaves of today.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Insentient atoms cannot come together coincidentally and make up a single cell of the ginkgo leaf, with its perfect appearance. Yet this is exactly what Darwinists claim. That is why they try to prove that unconscious atoms have succeeded at doing so, and why they constantly seek intermediate forms they have yet to find. However, as in the past, what they continue to encounter are living fossils.

One example is the 50-million-year-old ginkgo leaf pictured.

## Mountain Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years old

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This mountain alder leaf from the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago) displays the features of our day' s mountain alder leaves. The details in the leaf' s vein system are preserved perfectly, providing evidence, contradicting evolution, that the species has undergone no change.

## Black Gum Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Another piece of evidence for a plant species that has not evolved is the black gum leaf fossil pictured. Examinations of the fossil reveal that the plant of 50 million years ago was no different from what it is currently. It has remained unchanged for millions of years. This example once again reveals the invalidity of evolution.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The theory of evolution cannot explain the origins of living organisms and is also desperate in the face of fossil ginkgo leaves, showing that the species has remained unchanged for tens of millions of years. Such fossils, proving that living organisms have stayed the same as long as they've existed, have dealt a fatal blow to the theory of evolution. As many other branches of science, paleontology also confirms that Creation is an obvious fact.

## Birch Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

God is able to create all organisms perfectly at any time, and in any form. Our Almighty Lord creates any living being upon His order " Be!" The Earth abounds with perfect and complex living things that came into existence with His will, species that have displayed the same perfect features throughout history and—by God's will—have proved that they were created in one moment and in perfect form.

Whether Darwinists accept this fact or not, all paleontological evidence will continue to demolish their theory. That is because, as is in the case of this birch leaf that has remained unchanged for 50 million years, paleontology continues to provide specimens of living fossils.

## Robinia Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Claiming that intermediate forms must exist between known fossils, Darwinists try to deceive people. Yet countless living species and their fossil counterparts reveal clearly, and with adequate proof, that a process such as evolutionists claim to have existed never occurred. Those who continue to believe in the theory of evolution despite these facts are Darwinists. They ignore this obvious evidence revealed by the fossil record and trust that these imaginary "intermediate forms" will be found one day.

One of the living fossils that refutes Darwinists' hopes and keeps them from deceiving people is this 50-million-year-old robinia leaf pictured.

## Serviceberry Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Like all other living organisms, plants too emerged in the fossil record quite suddenly and with structures peculiar to them. The appearance and structures they displayed millions of years ago is the same as the appearance and structures they do now. This shows that living things are created by One having a superior wisdom, that is, our Lord, God.

One piece of evidence is this serviceberry leaf, about 50 million years old.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Throughout history, turtles have remained as turtles, gnats have remained as gnats, ants have remained as ants and ginkgo leaves remained as ginkgo leaves. No matter how old a fossil ginkgo leaf we examine is, we see that it has the very same structure of today' s ginkgos. The leaves are the very same, whether 50 million years old or hundreds of millions of years old. Like all other living things, the ginkgo has not undergone any changes and has not lived through any process of evolution. Each species is created in the same way with the superior artistry of our Lord.

## Elm Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Pictured is a fossilized elm leaf, 50 million years old. As it illustrates, the elms that lived millions of years ago and those of our day are no different. This tree has never undergone any changes, as the advocates of the so-called "punctuated equilibrium" or those who favor the imaginary "gradual evolution" put forward. No matter how hard evolutionists, lacking proofs, try to adapt their theory to the situation they encounter, this truth will not change. Living fossils have refuted evolution.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Of the Earth' s rocks, 99 percent has been excavated, and roughly 100 million fossils belonging to 250 thousand still-living species have been unearthed. Among these fossils, there exists not one intermediate form, or any fossil belonging to a primitive version of a "later" organism. From the first moment they appear in the fossil record, living beings display complete and complex structures. This ginkgo leaf from the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago) is no different from the ginkgo leaves of our own day.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

According to the evolutionist suggestions far removed from science, living things evolved from one another. In such a case, there must have existed intermediate species between two known species and strange, inadequately developed versions. And the number of these intermediate beings' fossils should exceed millions.

However, fossil record lacks such intermediate stages. No one has ever found a single one of these specimens. From the first moment they existed, living things have enjoyed flawless and perfect structures. Living organisms of our own day also possessed their current features millions of year ago—a fact disclosed by the fossil record. This approximately 50-million-year-old ginkgo leaf proves this once again.

## Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This alder leaf of 50 million years ago is only one of the millions of examples showing that living organisms have remained unchanged for many millions of years.

Evolutionists have claimed approximately a dozen fossils to be intermediate forms, but they in fact belong to complex organisms of different types that by no means show any features of an intermediate species. Some of these, in fact, have been exposed as examples of fraud. Evolutionists have no evidence that will justify their claims; and living fossil specimens constantly confirm this fact.

## Walnut Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Walnuts are trees between 10 and 40 meters (33 and 130 feet) tall that grow in almost all corners of the world. This fossilized walnut leaf of 50 million years ago is no different from the walnut leaves that can be seen almost everywhere today.

The fact of Creation is confirmed by countless pieces of evidence. In order to fabricate some evidence to support their own theory, evolutionists have to find an intermediate fossil that will prove the transition of one species to another. However, since evolution has never occurred on Earth, not a single intermediate fossil will be found to support this claim. For this reason alone, evolution lacks any scientific validation and is based totally on deception.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

If evolution were true, then Darwinists would have to publish a book similar to this one, in which they display hundreds of intermediate fossil specimens. However, they can never accomplish this, because it is impossible. There is not a single fossil belonging to an intermediate "missing link." That is because, as the fossil record manifests, living organisms have not evolved. Looking at this single fossilized ginkgo leaf, you can easily understand that living organisms have remained unchanged—that is, they were created.

The ginkgo leaf pictured is about 50 million years old, proving that the species has remained unchanged for millions of years.

## Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find—over and over again—not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another. (Derek V. Ager, " The Nature of the Fossil Record," Proceedings of the British Geological Association, Vol. 87, 1976, p. 133.)

British paleontologist Derek V. Ager considers it a problem that fossils have never supported the theory of evolution, but have confirmed the fact of Creation. The 50-million-year-old alder leaf fossil pictured is one of the many fossils confirming that living organisms appeared all of a sudden on Earth. That is, they were created, have remained unchanged and have never evolved from one form into another.

## Elm Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Scientifically, Darwin' s time was an extremely primitive period. Scientists knew little about living creatures' anatomy, and had no idea about genetics. According to them, cell was simply a small balloon filled with some jelly. As discoveries of genetic and anatomic features of living organisms came one after another, the theory of evolution proposed in such a time of ignorance has been rendered untenable. Paleontology, which reveals the unchanging nature of living beings' structures, has posed another threat to the theory of evolution.

The fact that living organisms' complex structures have never changed once again shows that Almighty God created all living beings. This 54- to 37-million-year-old elm leaf fossil suggests as much.

## Hop Hornbeam Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The leaf of a hop hornbeam, with one of the hardest woods of any tree on Earth, with green branches and grey trunk, lived 50 million years ago with the same features. Our Lord God created it in the same way millions of years ago, just as how He creates it right now. Those who support the false theory of evolution only to deny God's existence will never succeed, for the heavens and the Earth abound with obvious evidence of His existence.

## Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Today, Darwinists can no longer display fossils as evidence for evolution, for the paleontologists' researches since the mid-19th century in every corner of the globe have not found even a single fossil of any intermediate "missing link," though evolutionists claim they should be numerous. Today it is an established fact that "missing links" are an unscientific fable.

What has been discovered in quantity are the living fossils. The 50-million-year-old alder leaf pictured is only one of those that have been discovered.

## Willow And Birch Leaves

(with its counterpart)

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Both of these tree species are often found today in the northern regions of North America and Canada. That these plants existed millions of years ago on the Earth and have never been through any evolutionary process is important evidence for the fact of Creation.

Like all other living things, these were created by God' s order "Be!" and have continued to exist with all the features they have today.

## Sequoia Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Countless remains of sequoia leaves that have survived as fossils prove that this plant has survived in different places on Earth and has never changed. Thanks to this important evidence, Darwinist speculations about the imaginary evolution of plants no longer exist. This 50-million-year-old sequoia leaf is one of the proofs that puts an end to these speculations.

## Sequoia Cone

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Leaves of this tree, reaching heights of hundreds of meters, are no different from the sequoia leaves of our own day. This proves that these giant trees also existed 50 million years ago and had the very same systems. Darwinists try to form imaginary scenarios regarding the gradual evolution of plants, but are not sure what to do in the face of paleontological evidence. This is an indication of the failure of the theory of evolution.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

The 320-million-year-old fern fossil pictured is important evidence that today's plants have not undergone any process of evolution, since this fossilized leaf shows that ferns have remained the same for hundreds of millions of years. In the face of this finding, the theory of evolution—claiming that living beings evolved from one another with minor changes over long periods of time—is disproved.

## Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

David B. Kitts, a science history professor from the Oklahoma University, expresses that fossil findings have never supported the theory of evolution:

Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them. (David B. Kitts, " Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 467.))

Whereas paleontology offers evolutionists no evidence, it displays that Creation is an undeniable fact. Innumerable fossils collected from every corner of the Earth reveal that living beings emerged suddenly, with their flawless and complete structures and have not changed since.

## Ginkgo And Alder Leaves

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

These plants, which lived in the Eocene epoch, are among the countless findings that reveal that living beings have not evolved. Millions of fossils gathered for the past 150 years have ruined evolutionists' dreams. It is no longer possible for Darwinists to defend evolution based on the fossil record. This fact is also confessed by evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki:

A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God. (Mark Czarnecki, "The Revival of the Creationist Crusade," MacLean's, 19 January 1981, p. 56.)

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

Like all other living beings, plants were also created. From the first moment they appeared, plants had all their mechanisms intact. Terms frequently used in evolutionist literature such as "development in time," "changes based on coincidences," "adaptations resulting from needs" are far removed from reality and are devoid of any scientific meaning. Fossil findings are one of the most important evidence for this.

Some of the plant fossils obtained belong to those fossilized in Baltic amber. Along with moss and moss-like plants, various flowers, fruits, seeds and leaves are preserved in Baltic amber, dating from the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago), helping botanists define more than 200 plant species.

One of the regions in Poland where Baltic amber is obtained

Cache Creek Formation, Canada

The ongoing excavations of paleontologists have made Darwinists face one fact: Scientific findings deny the theory of evolution.

This twig of thuja fossil in amber, dating back 45 million years, challenges evolutionist claims regarding the origins of plants.

One of the regions where many various species of plant fossils have been obtained is the Cache Creek formation in Canada. This formation still bears traces of the surrounding mountains and the woods that existed in the region 50 million years ago. The rivers and winds carried leaves, flowers and some small living organisms to the lake and, sinking to the bottom there, they started to fossilize.

Two-thirds of the fossils obtained from the site so far belong to plants still alive today. Some, on the other hand, are the fossils of very rare plants that have not yet been identified. This site has a structure rich in silica, making it easier to obtain very well-preserved specimens. Their details make it possible to compare them comprehensively to those organisms' specimens living today—which comparison again shows that living things have been the same for tens of millions of years. In other words, they have not evolved.

## Cascara Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Darwinists fail to explain the unchanging nature of the fossil record in the animal kingdom, as well as the invariability in the plant kingdom.

Along with thousands of animal specimens, the fossil record provides innumerable specimens of plants that have remained unchanged for millions, even hundreds of millions of years. One example is this 50-million-year-old cascara leaf from the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago). These specimens put a scientific end to Darwinism, which is entirely based on fraud.

## Zelkova Leaves

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Since Darwin' s time, evolution' s advocates have been trying to find their imaginary "intermediate links." Darwin himself always hoped that they would be found one day. Because Darwinists tried to keep Darwin's legacy alive in their own way, they truly believed that fossils would eventually provide the evidence they expected. However, developments proved contrary to their expectations. The fossil record proclaimed that intermediate forms never existed on Earth, that living species never changed, and that they were created. One of the most important indications of that fact is this leaf from the Eocene epoch, 54 to 37 million years ago.

## Black Willow

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

All fossils discovered throughout history prove the fact of Creation, but Darwinists continue to advocate otherwise. However, all scientific theories should be supported by scientific evidence. In the face of the unvarying fossil record and the countless living fossils that have appeared, all scenarios related to the theory of evolution have become void. Evolutionists do not have even a single shred of evidence to prove their theory.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

As is true of all other species, plants appear in the fossil record all of a sudden. They have no common ancestor, as evolutionists claim. The fossil record also reveals no such transitions between different species of plants. This renders all claims of evolutionists invalid.

The 320-million-year-old fern fossil pictured is one example that invalidates the theory of evolution. Ferns that lived 320 million years ago and those of today are no different.

## Redwood Cone

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This 50-million-year-old redwood cone fossil clearly shows that redwoods remained the same for millions of years. This and other "living fossil" specimens openly proclaim that evolution never occurred. All Darwinist claims regarding evolution are void and are based on a great lie. Evolution is devoid of any evidence. Darwinists can offer no scientific evidence for the innumerable claims they have advanced. Living beings have not undergone evolution; God created them all.

## Magnolia Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Fossil findings dramatize the invalidity of evolution, and some evolutionists do confess that their theory is not verified by the fossil record. One of these is Dr. David Raup, curator of geology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. He confesses that fossils do not support Darwinism:

. . . most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument in favour of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not true. (David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History: Chicago IL, January 1979, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 22-29.)

One of the findings proving the error of assuming fossils to be evidence for Darwinism is the 50-million-year-old magnolia leaf pictured.

## Birch Leaves

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This birch leaf from the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago) unearthed in British Columbia is identical to the birch leaves of our day. Birch trees have not changed for millions of years and have not gone through any process of evolution.

But thanks to Darwinists' misleading propaganda, some may be deceived into thinking that some fossil specimens belong to "intermediate forms"—a totally imaginary term. In the fossil record, there exists not a single transitional specimen claimed by evolutionists. The record reveals only fossil specimens that have remained unchanged for millions of years.

## Alder Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Darwinism tries to make people believe that coincidence, the false deity of evolution, has formed cells, organisms, animals, plants and even people. Darwinists suggest some irrational, even ridiculous claims that science cannot support and then seek some false evidence for them. That is why they seek imaginary intermediate forms in fossil beds. But as with this fossilized alder leaf from the Eocene epoch (54-37 million years ago), the geologic layers offer the remains of living things that have not changed—which is to say, have not evolved.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

This ginkgo leaf from the Eocene epoch (54-37 million years ago) is no different from the ginkgo leaves of our day. According to Darwinist claims, within a period of 50 million years, this living species should have undergone evolution innumerable times, developing from a primitive to more advanced form. According to evolutionists, in Earth's so-called "primitive" environment of 50 million years ago, this species also had to display primitive features. However, the fossil record shows that ginkgos have not undergone any changes. This fossil alone, with the same complexity as modern-day ginkgos, proves that the evolutionary process is an imaginary concept.

## Magnolia Leaf

Age: 50 million years old

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The fossilized magnolia leaf pictured is 50 million years old. Despite this, the leaf is exactly the same as the ones living today. According to the theory of evolution, all those millions of years should have contributed changes to the organism. But such a change is observed in none of these fossil specimens. This 50-million-year-old magnolia leaf is one of the numerous pieces of evidence refuting evolution.

## Serviceberry Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The fossil of this plant, which grows not very tall and is rich in leaves, is 50 million years old. This immaculate fossil specimen proves that the plant hasn't gone through any changes in millions of years as the evolutionists claim and has no "primitive" form.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

One of the fossils revealing that ferns have always remained the same, and have not gone through any changes—that is, have not evolved—is illustrated here. This fossil shows that ferns that grew 320 million years ago were no different from the present-day examples. This devastates all the claims of evolutionists about the history of nature.

## Ash Leaf With Sequoia Stems And Branches

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The ash, native to North America nowadays, is a medium to large tree. Also 50 million years ago, the ash tree and sequoia—a tree even larger than the ash tree—grew in Canada, with exactly the same characteristics.

The fossil record provides undeniable evidence proving this. The excellent petrified remains show all the identifying details.

## Elm Leaf

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

The elm leaf pictured grew during the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago), with the very same shape it has today. Like all other living fossils, this plant has not undergone any changes. This 50-million-year-old specimen clearly preserves all the details of the plant's leaf. In the face of evidence like this, evolutionists have no explanations or alternatives to offer.

## Honeysuckle Leaf

Age: 58 million years

Period: Paleocene

Location: Sentinel Butte Formation, Central North Dakota, USA

The first person to admit that the scenario of plants' evolution was in a quagmire was Charles Darwin himself. As he wrote in an 1881 letter to botanist Sir Joseph Hooker of Kew Gardens:

Nothing is more extraordinary in the history of the vegetable kingdom [according to the scientific classification], as it seems to me, than the apparently very sudden and abrupt development of the higher plants.

These words are Darwin's admission that the plants' origins could not be explained by evolution and that—like all other living organisms, plants were also created by God.

## Horsechestnut Leaves

Age: 58 million years

Period: Paleocene

Location: Sentinel Butte Formation, Central North Dakota, USA

The fossil record is one of the main findings that devastate the theory of evolution—and the majority of scientists are aware of this. For example N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall make the following comment:

That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself . . . prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search . . . One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions [Emphasis added]. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. (N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, New York: Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 45-46.)

One of the fossils revealing that Darwin was wrong is this 58-million-year-old fossilized horsechestnut leaf.

## Willow

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Uintah County, Utah, USA

Plant cells accomplish a process that no laboratory can: photosynthesis. In a plant's cell, organelles called chloroplasts absorb sunlight and use it in conjunction with water and carbon dioxide gas to produce starch.

This is the first link of the food chain and the food source for all living creatures on Earth. Details of this very complex process are still not exactly understood, and it is impossible for evolutionary mechanisms to explain this complexity.

The fossilized willow leaf pictured is 54 to 37 million years old. Willows that lived tens of millions of years ago employed photosynthesis in the same way that they do today. They reproduced in the same way and displayed the same features. This correspondence pushes evolutionists into a desperate situation and once again stresses the fact that living organisms are created by God.

## Ginkgo Leaf

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Darwin himself first discovered that ginkgo leaf, which has left abundant fossil remains in Earth's geologic layers, has never changed. But in contrast to Darwin's assumptions, the ginkgo is not the only living fossil that has survived to the present day.

The many living fossil specimens displayed in this book and thousands of others displayed in museums definitely refute Darwin.

## Fern

Age: 320 million years

Period: Carboniferous

Location: Lancashire, United Kingdom

By now, many plant fossils have been unearthed, and all of them have something in common: They are all flawless, and exactly like those plants alive in our day. Not a single fossil reveals that a particular plant is the forebear of any other, or that another species is an intermediate form. This is evidence that God created all living things.

The 320-million-year-old fern fossil pictured is one of the findings that shows the fact of Creation.

## Metasequoia

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Cache Creek Formation, British Columbia, Canada

Metasequoia or "dawn redwood" is one of the largest, most upright and symmetrical trees of the world. This fossilized leaf has been preserved for 50 million years, verifying that the plant has never changed. If, 50 million years ago, a species possessed all the features it still has today, if it displays not a single trace of evolution, if none of its features show any characteristic of being an intermediate "missing link" fossil—and betray no inadequacy or "primitiveness," in the words of evolutionists—then they cannot say that this species has evolved. If a living species has not changed for millions of years and the Earth overflows with the evidence, then it is not possible to talk about evolution.

This fossil is a two-sided one. The plant has left its imprint on both surfaces of the layered stone.

# Fossil Specimens of Insects

## Centipede

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

One environment in which fossils are preserved is amber. Resin emerging from trees flow over a living thing, preserving it in its exact original state, and such fossils trapped in amber point to a very important fact, as do all other fossils: Living things have remained unchanged for millions of years—in other words, they never underwent evolution.

The fossil centipede pictured is 50 million years old. According to evolutionist claims, various alterations should have taken place in these arthropods over the intervening millions of years, during which they should have evolved into another species or life form. However, there is no difference between centipede specimens that lived 50 million years ago and their present-day equivalents. These invertebrates have remained the same for millions of years and are clear evidence of Creation.

## Cockroach

Age: 128 million years

Period: Cretaceous

Location: Santana Formation, Araripe Basin, Brasil

Cockroaches, which are encountered in the fossil record from the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago) onwards, are one of the important fossil species proving that living things never evolved. These insects, which have remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, reveal a truth that makes the denial of Creation impossible.

## Humpback Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

The humpback fly pictured is around 45 million years old. There are some 3,000 species of these insects, part of the Phoridae family. The insects have kept the same structures for millions of years. If a living thing has undergone absolutely no change for 45 million years, then any claim that it is evolving is out of the question. Fossils are the most important indication that evolutionists are lying.

## Gall Midge And Bog Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

Gall midges give rise to the "galls" in plants, a swelling that emerges with more rapid growth in particular locations such as the plant's leaf or stem, due to the saliva secreted by larvae of the organism in question. The larvae then feed on the excess plant tissue that forms inside the gall.

Each insect species produces its own characteristic kind of gall. These particular midges, which are generally very small, appear with all their same structures in all fossils yet discovered. In other words, this organism never underwent evolution.

Another insect whose immutable structures show that it never evolved is the bog beetle. The fossilized amber pictured contains a gall midge trapped alongside a bog beetle.

## Weevil

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Utah, USA

Weevils, part of the Curculionidae superfamily, represent more than 60 separate species. When the fossil record is examined, it appears that these bugs have always existed as weevils, did not evolve from any other life form, have remained unchanged for tens of millions of years and never developed into any other species. One of the proofs is the weevil fossil pictured here. It is between 54 and 37 million years old, and identical to specimens living today.

This is a double-sided, "mirror-image" fossil seen on the two halves of a rock.

## Marchfly

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: British Columbia, Canada

With its structure and appearance, which have not altered for tens of millions of years, the marchfly is one of the countless life forms that challenge the theory of evolution. These insects, which average 3 to 12 millimeters (0.1 to 0.4 in) in length, emerge in the springtime, live close to the surface of the soil, and damage plants. The organisms belonging to this family are some of the oldest known flies.

Here can be seen another double-sided, "mirror image" fossil.

## Centipede

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republican

Centipedes are exceedingly complex invertebrates whose bodies consist of between 20 and 100 segments, each of which bears a pair of feet. Thanks to this equipment, the creature is able to use its minimum of 40 feet it possesses in a perfect rippling motion. The fossilized centipede pictured dates back around 25 million years, and came into existence with exactly the same complex system as its descendants today, which have survived by using the perfect equipment in their body. It is Almighty God Who creates these centipedes now, Who created them 25 million years ago, and Who endows them with all their flawless structures, such as their immaculate locomotion system.

## Hister Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

General characteristics of the members of Histeridae family include the truncated structure of their wings and their jointed antennae. The well-preserved insect inside this amber specimen had the same flawless, complete structure as specimens living today. Evolutionists seek to convince people that all living things progress from the primitive to the more highly developed, by way of slow changes. Yet amber specimens millions of years old present clear evidence to show that no such changes ever took place.

## Centipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

The fossil centipede pictured belongs to part of the Geophilidae family. This species' body structure resembles a worm or ribbon, and its antennae and legs are short. The fact that centipedes that lived 45 million years ago are exactly as members of the same family alive today is evidence that Darwinism is a terrible deception. The fact revealed by the evidence of fossil findings is that no evolutionary process ever took place; and living things are created by Almighty God.

## Honeybee

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

This bee preserved in amber is identical to present-day honeybees. These, with the same mechanisms they have possessed for millions of years, continue living in the same social structure. No "survival of the fittest" of the kind claimed by evolutionists is ever to be seen in beehives. On the contrary, bees behave with the highest levels of altruism and co-operation, in a beehive hierarchy consisting of the queen, workers and males (or drones).

Imagine that the same number of humans as the number of bees in a colony had to live together in close quarters, meeting all their own needs by themselves. No doubt, it would be really laborious for humans to establish the order established by bees. Yet from the moment it hatches out of its cell, a bee knows how that order is to be maintained, its duties within that order, and where, when and how to behave. Moreover, no other bee manages these insects or tells them what they need to do. They receive no training, but perform their duties in an exceedingly disciplined manner. That is because bees are created together with these characteristics, and possess exactly the same features as bees that lived millions of years ago.

## Centipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

A centipede that lived 45 million years ago exhibits perfect characteristics that are indistinguishable from those of modern-day specimens. If living specimens provide no evidence that evolution ever happened, if no evidence of any intermediate form has ever been unearthed, this shows that the fossil record refutes the theory of evolution. As in all other branches of science, the theory of evolution has been completely discredited by the fossil record as revealed by paleontology. Many evolutionists admit the truth of this, as does Stephen Jay Gould:

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology . . . We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study. (S. J. Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, p. 14, May 1977.)

## Wasp

Bethylidae

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

Wasps belonging to this family have characteristically small bodies and flattened heads. Like all other wasp species, members of the Bethylidae family invariably appear with the same features and structures in the fossil record. The meaning is evident: These wasps that have remained unchanged over the course of tens of millions of years never underwent evolution, but were created by Almighty God.

## Soldier Beetle Larva

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

In order to find a home to live in, soldier beetle larvae employ a highly interesting technique. The larvae cling together en masse on a piece of vegetation or branch in colonies consisting of an average of 460 individuals. However, this is no ordinary mass: From close up, it bears a strong resemblance to a queen bee. When drone bees land on the mass, the larvae attach themselves to the male's abdomen. This enables the larvae to benefit from the new nest that the queen bee—which the drone will seek out—will establish.

Observations have revealed that the larvae imitate not only the appearance of queen bees but also their scent! (http://www.biltek.tubitak.gov.tr/haberler/biyoloji/2000-06-9.pdf) These highly intelligent tactics manifest evidence that these insects are not the product of chance, but have been brought into being through a sublime Creation.

## Springtail

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

The springtail fossil pictured was obtained from the Baltic amber beds in Poland.

Springtails are part of the order Collembola. Organisms belonging to this order are generally smaller than 6 millimeters (0.2 in) in size, and have 6 or fewer feet attached to their thorax. They also have additional spring-like organs attached to their abdomens that enable them to leap out of harm's way in the event of any attack by predators.

All of these characteristics possessed by these insects alive today, were also possessed by specimens alive 50 million years ago. This proves that evolution, which maintains that living things are in a process of constant change and gradually develop into other distinct species, does not reflect the true state of affairs. The fossil record reveals no changes or intermediate stages, but rather demonstrates that living things have kept the same flawless characteristics ever since the moment they came into being; and that these species never change so long as they remain in existence. The meaning of this is obvious: Living things never evolved, but were created.

## Flying Queen Ant, Long-Legged Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

Darwinism is helpless in the face of the important discoveries of the fossil record. To date, some 100 million fossils have been unearthed, and all belong either to extinct life forms or to species that are still alive today. Since no such thing as evolution ever took place, no intermediate fossils exist in the Earth's fossil strata. Living things survive with the same characteristics they have always possessed, never undergoing any alteration. One of the proofs is this fossil amber showing that queen flying ants and long-legged flies have always been exactly the same for 45 million years.

## Scorpionfly

Age: 125 million years

Period: Lower Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

Scorpionflies, members of the order Mecoptera, are so called because of their abdominal organs that resemble scorpions' stingers. The females do not possess such sting-like organs. The 125-million-year-old fossil scorpionfly pictured documents that the insects have stayed exactly the same for millions of years and never underwent any evolutionary process. In the face of this fact, documented by countless fossil specimens, Darwinism has been condemned to collapse.

## Cockroach

Age: 125 million years

Period:Lower Cretaceous

Location: Liaoning Province, China

Cockroaches live anywhere on Earth, with the exception of the polar regions, and can be traced for millions of years in the fossil record with their flawless and fully developed structures. The specimen pictured is 125 million years old. Cockroaches, having preserved their structures since before 125 million years ago, announce that they never underwent evolution, but were created. Darwinists too will be able to see this evident truth once they rid themselves of their ideological preconceptions.

## Lacewing

Age: 125 million years

Period: Jurassic

Location: Liaoning Province, China

Contrary to what evolutionists claim, these insects, various species of which are encountered as fossils from the Carboniferous period (354 to 292 million years ago), have no evolutionary forerunners. Each species appears suddenly in the fossil record with its own unique structure and characteristics, and remains unchanged for so long as it remains in existence. This fact makes it impossible for Darwinists to defend their scenario of evolution.

## Pseudoscorpion

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

These arachnids, belonging to the arthropod phylum, have been given this name because their structure is reminiscent of scorpions. However, their anatomical characteristics are much closer to those of spiders than of scorpions. The oldest known specimens lived in the Devonian period (417 to 354 million years ago). And these invertebrates have never changed since the moment they first appeared in the fossil record. The fact that they remained unchanged for hundreds of millions of years is proof that they never evolved.

## Fly

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

One of the most distinctive features of the fossil record is how species remain unchanged during the geological periods in which they appear. A species preserves the structure it has when it first appears as a fossil until it either becomes extinct or else comes down unchanged to the present, over the course of tens or even hundreds of millions of years. This is clear evidence that living things never evolved. There is no difference between this 50-million-year-old fly fossilized in amber shown here and flies living today.

## Aphid

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

The aphid is a species of insect that feeds on plants and is a member of the superfamily Aphidoidea. There are some 4,000 known species of aphids, divided into 10 families. The oldest aphids so far identified lived in the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago). They have not changed in the least in the more than 300 million years since. The 50-million-year-old aphid preserved in amber in the picture is evidence that these insects have not changed since the day they first came into being, in other words, they have not evolved.

## Homopteran

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

Concerning the origin of insects, the fossil record once again confirms that God has created all living things. Zoologist Paul-Pierre Grassé admits that the theory of evolution is totally incapable of explaining the origin of insects: "We are completely in the dark on the subject of the origin of insects." (Paul-Pierre Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York: Academic Press, 1977, p. 30.)

As fossils show, all insect species alive today have displayed their same current flawless structures since the first moment they came into being. They never developed in stages and never changed. One of the proofs is this 50-million-year-old homopteran preserved in amber.

## Fly

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

Like all other living things, flies appear suddenly in the fossil record, complete with all their own particular structures. They survive today with no changes in their sophisticated anatomy.

This fossil, preserved in 50-million-year-old amber, shows that there is no difference between flies living that long ago and present-day specimens. This once again reveals that evolution never happened, and proves the manifest fact of Creation.

## Jumping Spider

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

The oldest known spiders date back 400 million years. Some 40,000 species of spiders have been described, divided into 111 families. It is estimated that there are another 200,000 species not yet been identified and classified.

Every one of these spider species emerges suddenly in the fossil record, with all its unique structures fully formed. Not a single fossil exists to indicate that spiders developed from a primitive to a more advanced stage, as evolutionists claim. There are, however, countless fossils showing that spiders have always existed as spiders. Each of these fossils once again confirms the fact of Creation.

## Spider

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

Countless fossils belonging to different species of spider show that these arachnids have existed in perfect form with all the characteristics they now possess ever since they first came into being. Not one is semi-developed. None has turned into any other life form. To put it another way, spiders have always existed as spiders, and will always continue to exist as such.

This spider preserved in amber is 50 million years old and shows that, like other living things, spiders never evolved.

## Crane Fly

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

These flies, belonging to the order Diptera, resemble very large mosquitoes. Their distinguishing features are the length of their legs and bodies. Some 14,000 species have been described to date, representing one of the most numerous families in the order Diptera.

The countless fly fossils discovered to date show that these insects have always existed as flies, they are not descended from any other life form, and never underwent any intermediate stages. In other words, they demolish evolutionist claims, showing us that they are the work of Omniscient and Almighty God.

## Spider

Acarina

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

The 50-million-year-old spider fossil pictured is one piece of evidence showing that spiders never evolved, but have always existed as spiders. There is no difference between spiders that lived 50 million years ago and spiders living today. This once again reveals that the theory of evolution is a figment of the imagination, and that God has created all living things.

## Soft-Bodied Arthropod

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

Soft-bodied arthropods (Miridae) are a family that wreaks the greatest harm on crops and comprises a very large number of species—approximately 6,000. They tear plant tissues and feed on the sap.

The fossils acquired to date show that soft-bodied arthropods have always existed with the exact same characteristics. In other words, like all living things, these insects never underwent any form of evolutionary process. The 50-million-year-old fossil pictured is just one of the indications of this.

## Aphid

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

The fossil record completely refutes the scenario advanced by evolutionists. Yet even those evolutionists who have not lost the ability to evaluate scientific findings in an unbiased manner admit that the fossil record argues against the theory of evolution, because that fact is crystal-clear.

One of these proofs is the 50-million-year-old aphid fossil pictured. There is no difference between aphids living 50 million years ago and those alive today. This totally demolishes the claim that living things attained their present forms by a process of gradual changes.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

The hundreds of thousands of fossil specimens obtained to date all show that living things never evolved different anatomical structures, but have remained the same for hundreds of millions of years. Living species that stay the same for that long deal a severe blow to Darwinism, which maintains that living things are descended from one another and developed by way of gradual changes.

One of the life forms that dealt such a grave blow to Darwinism is the fungus gnat. The fossil pictured here is 45 million years old. These unchanged insects are some of the proofs of the fact of Creation.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Like all other living things, fungus gnats have remained unaltered for millions of years, with the same wings, vision systems and leg structures. Were evolutionists' claims true, then the fossil record should show the gradual changes that fungus gnats supposedly went through... For example, a great many fossils reminiscent of fungus gnats should have been found whose wings have not yet formed fully or whose eyes are only half-developed, and which have yet to achieve the form they have today. Yet despite around a century of excavations all over the world, not a single fossil specimen that might support evolutionists' claims has ever been encountered. All the specimens obtained are of fungus gnats with the same fully formed features they now display.

## Dragonfly Larva

Odonata

Age: 125 million years

Period: Lower Cretaceous

Location: Santana Formation, Nova Olinda Member, Araripe Basin, Brasil

With their compound eyes and sublime flying abilities, dragonflies are marvels of Creation. There is no difference between this dragonfly larva from 125 million years ago and a modern-day specimen. This demolishes the idea of the evolution of living things. The hollow, groundless comments and publications of evolutionists that are produced for propaganda only do not change this fact.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Fungus gnat larvae live on plant roots, fungi or waste. They are small, dark in color and have short life spans. There is no difference between the fungus gnats of 45 million years ago and specimens living today. Fossil discoveries are one proof of this. Fungus gnats that have remained unaltered over the course of millions of years once again confirm that living things did not evolve, and that God has created all life forms.

## Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

One of the proofs that flies have always existed as flies, are not descended from any other life form and never underwent any intermediate stages are the 45-million-year-old fossils shown here. Unaltered despite the intervening millions of years, flies confirm that the theory of evolution is a deception and that God has created all living things.

## Fly And Spider

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Poland

A fly and a spider have been fossilized in amber. This dual fossil, which is 50 million years old, is one of the proofs pointing out the despairing situation of evolutionists.

Spiders, mites, centipedes and other such invertebrates are not true insects, although that is how they are commonly referred to. Highly significant fossil findings regarding these creatures were presented at the 1983 annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science: The fascinating features of these 380-million-year-old spider, mite and centipede fossils were no different from those of contemporary specimens. One of the scientists who examined these fossils commented, "It is as if they had died yesterday." (New York Times Press Service, San Diego Union, 29 May 1983; W. A. Shear, Science, Vol. 224, 1984, p. 494.)

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

One of the most distinctive features of the fossil record is how living things remain unchanged during the geological periods in which they are discovered. A species preserves the structure it had when it first appears in the fossil record, until it either becomes extinct or else survives unchanged, over the course of tens or even hundreds of millions of years, to the present day. The meaning of this is clear: Living things did not undergo any process of evolution. God creates all living things together with the characteristics they possess.

One of the organisms that has survived unaltered for millions of years is the fungus gnat. There is no difference between this 45-million-year-old fungus gnat pictured and specimens living today.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

The 45-million-year-old fungus gnat pictured, with all its features, is fully formed and flawless. A fungus gnat living 45 million years ago is identical to those living today. Not the slightest change has taken place over millions of years in the fungus gnat's wings or flight systems, eyes and visual systems, or legs or any other of its physical structures. Fungus gnats were exactly the same 45 million years ago as they are today.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

In the absence of a single fossil specimen showing that species evolve from earlier ones and are in a constant state of change, there are nevertheless countless fossil discoveries to show that living things preserve the exact same structures for as long as they are in existence. The 45-million-year-old fungus gnat pictured is one example. This finding shows that these insects have remained unchanged for millions of years. The stability in the fossil record, by itself, is sufficient to totally undermine the theory of evolution.

## Midge

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Midges are a very small species of fly, and another life form that demolishes the theory of evolution. In the same way that spiders have always been spiders, flies have always been flies, and ants have always been ants, so midges have always existed as midges. There is not the slightest evidence that they evolved gradually from any other species, as evolutionists claim. On the contrary, all the scientific findings and fossil records show that midges emerged suddenly, together with all their flawless structures. In other words, God created them and they have never changed—meaning that they never evolved.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

There is not the slightest difference between the 45-million-year-old fungus gnat fossil pictured and specimens alive today. Evolutionists have no logical explanation for fungus gnats, which have remained unchanged for 45 million years. As you have seen, natural history definitively and clearly refutes the theory of evolution.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

As can be learned from fossils—our source of information regarding the natural history of species that once existed in the past—living things possessed of complete features have always populated the Earth. The feet, forearms, wings, skins, fur, lungs, skulls, vertebrae, bone structures and countless other such characteristics of these creatures have always been fully formed, unique to them and of an ideal structure. No intermediate stage—in other words no "developing" limb or organ—exists in any fossil. This represents a major impasse for evolutionists.

The 45-million-year-old fungus gnat fossil pictured is one proof of these facts.

## Gall Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

The fossil record shows that living things have remained unchanged for tens or even hundreds of millions of years. This, by itself, is sufficient to demolish the theory of evolution. In addition, the absence of any "intermediate forms" (half-fish, half-reptile, or half-reptile, half-bird species) in the fossil record again gives the lie to the theory. Among all the millions of fossils belonging to thousands of living species obtained so far, there is not a single example of a life form that isn't fully developed, or lacks certain attributes, that has remained halfway between two separate species. Every fossil shows that the living thing preserved is fully formed with all its characteristics, and that today's descendants have never changed since the species first came into existence.

The 45-million-year-old fossil pictured is one example, showing that gall gnats have not changed over that period of time.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

All the fossils of fungus gnats found to date show that these animals have always been fungus gnats, are not descended from any other species, and did not evolve into any other species. This 45-million-year-old specimen preserved in amber is one confirmation of this.

## Spider

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

A large number of fossils show that spiders have existed as spiders for hundreds of millions of years. One of these specimens is this 45-million-year-old spider preserved in amber. Spiders living 100 million years ago, those living 50 million years ago and those alive today are all exactly the same. This poses a major dilemma for evolutionists and reveals their theory to be a terrible deception.

## Long-Legged Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

There are more than 200 genera and around 6,500 known species of long-legged fly. They can be found just about everywhere on Earth, including the Tropics and at high altitudes.

The 45-million-year-old long-legged fly pictured is identical to specimens alive today. These life forms, which have remained unaltered for millions of years, completely overturn the claim that living things descended from one another by undergoing small changes over lengthy periods of time.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

One of the proofs showing that fungus gnats have always existed as fungus gnats is this 45-million-year-old fossil. Fungus gnats of 45 million years ago were identical to those living today, showing that the concept of "evolutionary development" is a grave deception. The fossil record reveals that in fact, living things did not evolve, that Almighty God creates all of them.

## Long-Legged Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Flies appear suddenly in the fossil record with all their organs and functions fully formed, invalidating evolutionist claims. The fact revealed by the fossil record is that flies did not evolve gradually from some other species. From the moment they first came into being until the present day, they have not changed at all.

The 45-million-year-old long-legged fly fossil pictured is one proof that these flies have never changed—in other words, that they never evolved.

## Midge

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Ever since the mid-19th century, evolutionists have been looking for intermediate-form fossils to confirm their theory, carrying out wide-ranging excavations all over the world. The supposedly intermediate forms they seek have never been found. All the findings from excavations and the research performed show that contrary to evolutionists' expectations, living things appeared suddenly on Earth, fully and perfectly formed. In other words, God creates all living things. In seeking to prove their theory, evolutionists have actually demolished it with their own efforts.

One of the pieces of evidence that disprove the theory of evolution is the 45-million-year-old midge fossil pictured. This fossil shows that midges have undergone no changes over 45 million years, revealing that Creation is an indisputable fact.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Even bacteria that lived billions of years ago have been preserved in the fossil record. Despite this, however, it is striking that not a single fossil that might argue in favor of the theory of evolution has ever been found. Fossils belonging to a great many species, from ants to bacteria, from birds to flowering plants, have been unearthed. Extinct life forms have been so perfectly preserved that we are even able to establish the inner anatomy of these life forms we have never seen alive. Despite such a rich fossil record, the absence of any evidence in support of the theory of evolution once again emphasizes that the theory is a terrible deception and that Creation is an inarguable fact.

## Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

One of the first to realize that paleontology's findings would argue against the theory of evolution was Charles Darwin himself. This is how Darwin warned that fossils would represent the greatest difficulty facing his theory:

But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? . . . 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 gravest objection, which can be urged against my theory. (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species)

Research conducted in the 150 years since Darwin's time has translated his fear into reality, and all subsequent discoveries have proven that his theory is entirely unrelated to actual natural history. One of these proofs is the fungus gnat pictured, showing that these insects have remained unchanged for millions of years and have never undergone any intermediate stages.

## Spider

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

The oldest known fossilized spider dates back some 300 million years. The Museum of Australia's web page, for example, states that 380-million-year-old specimens of the species Attercopus fimbriungus possessed silk-producing organs even at that time. Spiders, which for hundreds of millions of years have undergone no changes in their physical characteristics, silk-producing organs or the silk they produce, inflict complete despair on Darwinists. The fossil record shows that spiders emerged not through evolution, but suddenly and fully formed. In other words, they did not evolve, but were created and remained unchanged for millions of years.

## Mosquito

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

The mosquito is an insect with a great many miraculous features. The characteristics it possesses, during its larval and pupal stages and as an adult clearly reveal that mosquitoes, like all other living things, are the work of a sublime Mind—in other words, of Almighty God.

Fossil discoveries also clearly show that mosquitoes did not emerge as the result of any evolutionary process. They underwent no evolutionary changes. This mosquito preserved in amber seen in the picture is about 25 million years old, yet is identical to present-day mosquitoes. In the face of this complete absence of any change, Darwinists are condemned to silence.

## Black Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Lithuania

Black flies are members of the Simuliidae family. Some 1,800 species have been identified to date. These flies are generally grey or black in color and have short legs and antennae.

Males generally feed on nectar, while the females also feed on the blood of other animals, just like mosquitoes.

All the fossilized black fly that have come to light show that these insects have remained the same ever since they first came into being and have never changed—in other words, they have never evolved. One such fossil is this 45-million-year-old black fly preserved in amber.

## Pedilid Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Cenozoic Era, Oligocene Epoch

Location: Dominican Republic

These beetles of the Pedilidae family are also known as false ants. Adults live on flowers or greenery, where they feed on the plants' sap and nectar. The growing larvae live in rotting vegetation in moist environments.

The fossil pictured shows that Pedilid beetles have remained unchanged for millions of years. Pedilid beetles, still identical to present-day specimens despite all the intervening years, tell us that the theory of evolution is a terrible deception.

## Lauxaniid Flies And Midge

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

These flies, belonging to the family of Lauxaniidae, are known to have 1,500 species. They are approximately 5 millimeters (0.1 in) in length, and their wings are generally patterned. In this illustration, one midge was fossilized in amber beside two Lauxaniid flies. Darwinists hid and distorted most of the fossil record because they couldn't accept the fact these findings pointed out. Just like all other fossil discoveries made up until today, the fossils of Lauxaniid flies demonstrate the invalidity of evolution.

## Leaf Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Leaf beetles live in a great many regions around the world. They remain under stones or soil during winter and appear in spring. The leaf beetle illustrated is approximately 25 million years old. The fact that leaf beetles living today are exactly identical to those that lived 25 million years ago refutes the theory of evolution.

## Jumping Ground Bug And Gall Gnat

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Jumping ground bugs belong to the Dipsocoridae superfamily, usually live by the water and move very rapidly. Gall gnats cause the cells of plants' leaves and stems to grow faster, forming round, swollen gall. The gnats' larvae feed on these overgrown plant tissues. Specimens of both insects living today are the same as these examples that lived tens of millions of years ago. These insects, having stayed unchanged for tens of millions of years, demolish all the claims of Darwinists about the history of nature and betrays the fact that evolution never occurred.

## Tick

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

The tick fossil pictured is 25 million years old, but is no different from those living today. One of the most important living fossils, the ticks prove once again the Creation of God.

## Sap Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Belonging to the Nitidulidae family, sap beetles feed mostly on the fluids, pollen and fruits of damaged plants. They often damage fruits by digging themselves in beforehand. Like all species of beetles, the one pictured demonstrates that the theory of evolution is a fictitious scenario. These beetles, unchanged for 25 million years, show that living things never underwent evolution and that all creatures were created by God.

## Teneral Mayfly

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Mayflies, which spend most of their lives as larvae, are sometimes called "one-day-flies" because they spend only one day at most, as adults during which time they mate and die. In the fossil record, they always appear with the same physiological features. These insects, which have remained unchanged for millions of years, affirm that Creation is a clear fact.

## Webspinner (Male)

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Beetles in this order are distinguished by having up to 100 separate silk glands. Each one of them opens to the outside through a hollow hair. In this way, the spiders weave shelters in which they live. In temperate climates, they build their nests with denser silk tissues and retreat inside them during those times of the year when the weather is unsuitable.These beetles are generally found under tree bark, underneath stones and among rotting vegetation, where they construct a system of nests. All individuals in the colony can travel freely through the nests connected to one another with tube-like passages. Because of the delicate nature of these beetles' bodies and their webs, fossilized specimens are rarely encountered.These beetles, having remained the same for tens of millions of years, challenge the theory of evolution.

## Water Strider

Age: 54-37 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Uintah county, Utah, USA

These beetles, which move on water by straddling the surface and supported by surface tension, have thin, long forelegs and hind legs. Water striders, which belong to Gerridae family, continuously smear the hairs on their feet and so they can stand on water without sinking. Those water striders that lived 54 to 37 million years ago were no different from those alive today. These beetles that have remained unchanged for tens of millions of years refute the Darwinists, who claim that the living species emerged through incremental changes. All living things were created by the Almighty God, Who created everything.

## Wasp

Age: 48-37 million years

Period: Middle Eocene

Location: Green River Formation, Uintah County, Utah, USA

Darwinism thrives in an environment of ignorance, trying to create the belief that intermediate-form fossils exist although they don't, and continuously puts forward false proofs. Authentic fossil evidence discovered all around the world points to only one explanation: the fact of Creation. The wasp pictured belongs to the Eocene epoch, and by itself is just one of these pieces of evidence that invalidates evolution.

## Froghopper

Age: 125 million years

Period: Lower Cretaceous

Location: Yixian Formation, Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, China

Froghopper larvae produce a foamy substance on the stems of plants. Inside the foam, the larvae stand head down, feeding on the sap of the plant. Evolutionary theory cannot explain even one single chromosome possessed by this insect. Evolutionists claim that the cell was constituted through coincidences, but scientists cannot produce even one living cell using even the highest technological devices. Despite all these facts, the theory of evolution persists in the assertion that complex organisms came into being by chance. But the fossil record demonstrates that froghoppers existed 125 million years ago. The story of gradual evolution has no evidence, and exists only in the minds of Darwinists.

## Ant-Loving Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Thanks to the palpi on its colostrum, they are able to identify the property of the nutrients and one of these beetles' main characteristics is being able to live with the ants in peace. While the ants feed these beetles on purpose, the ant-loving beetles benefit the ants with the liquids they secrete from their bodies. The fossil pictured is evidence that these beetles haven't changed or undergone evolution for 25 million years.

## Thrip

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

Thrips, of which there are more than 5,000 species, fall under the order of Thysanoptera. They have not undergone any change since the first day of their existence, and the fossil record is the most important proof of this. The fossil thrip pictured is 25 million years old, but is no different from those thrips living today, which emphasizes the invalidity of evolution and demonstrates that Creation is a clear fact.

## Flat-Footed Beetle

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Dominican Republic

The flat-footed beetle illustrated is 25 million years old. These insects, which have undergone no changes over 25 million years, expose the claims of evolution about natural history to be falsehoods. The fact revealed by the fossil record is that God created these beetles, like all other creatures.

## Centipede And Non-Biting Midges

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Non-biting midges often fly in swarms that can be sometimes up to a few kilometers long. Occasionally, these swarms are so dense that other creatures find it impossible to penetrate them. Evolutionists are unable to maintain a reasonable, logical explanation for the fact that these non-biting midges that lived 40 million years ago are no different from those living today. Pictured are two non-biting midges fossilized beside a centipede.

## Rove Beetle And Two Flies

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

The oldest fossils of rove beetles, belonging to the family of Staphylinidae , are from the Triassic period (248 to 206 million years ago). Two flies were fossilized beside this beetle in the amber. The rove beetles that lived 200 million years ago and those that lived 45 million years ago are no different from those that are still alive today. This situation, which proves that they never underwent evolution, also shows that Creation is a fact.

## False Click Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

These beetles, members of the Eucnemidae family, are mostly brown or black and inhabit forest areas. Fossils show that false click beetles have always existed as false click beetles, have never undergone any change and didn't evolve from any other insect. Despite the millions of years that have passed, false click beetles which have undergone no change refute the claims of evolutionists.

## Toe-Winged Beetle And Dark-Winged Fungus Gnat

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

These toe-winged beetles, which belong to the superfamily _Byrroidea_ , live mostly in damp grass, along water fronts and in forests. They feed on weeds, and some plant species.

Dark-winged fungus gnats, which belong to the _Diptera_ order, have 1,700 as yet not formally defined species. The fossils pictured show that both species of insect didn't change for tens of millions of years, in other words, they didn't evolve. These specimens, unchanged for 45 million years, invalidate the theory of evolution and confirm Creation.

## Scale Insect

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Having a good understanding of these insects' characteristics is important, for these living species, so very small in size, are often assumed to be simple creatures. Scale insects are parasites that feed on the sap of plants. Roughly dome-shaped, they secrete a sticky, somewhat sweet liquid. There are over 7,000 species of scale insects, including the common soft scale, woolen scale, half-spherical scale and fig scale.

These insects' reproductive system is remarkable. In May, a female scale starts to lay some 3,000 eggs under her shell, which is made up from a section of her back. Beneath this shell, the eggs continue their embryonic development. This way, the young larvae are protected. Within a short period of time, larvae with an oval structure emerge, moving freely and migrate to other sites along the plant.

The advocates of evolution, which is merely a deception, benefit from people's lack of knowledge and avoid mentioning the highly complex features of living species like these. But scale insects' features such as their reproductive systems and the parasitic life they lead with plants are too complex to be explained away by the simplistic claims of the theory of evolution.

## Wasp

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

This 45-million-year-old species of wasp that has been preserved to this day in amber is a parasite. It has around 12,000 defined species and unidentified 40,000-50,000 species are estimated to be living around the world today. To lay eggs, these wasps select other species of insects and paralyze them. Then they deposit their eggs into this insect, providing a secure place for their larvae to grow. Some species sting their prey to death, while others make them sterile and slow down their movements, and thus make them secure places for the offspring to hatch and dine.

Evolutionists who define species that lived millions of years ago as "primitive" cannot explain the identical correspondence between these specimens preserved in amber with those alive today. The exact similarity between today's wasps and those specimens in the past is an obvious proof that these insects have never undergone evolution.

## Fungus Weevil

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

This insect with its snouted head has been preserved in amber for 45 million years. A comparison between the contemporary specimens and this insect's fossilized form reveals that the species has not changed for millions of years. This, in turn, clearly shows the invalidity of the evolutionist claim that species transform into other species with minor changes over time. Sir Fred Hoyle, the British mathematician and astronomer, expresses the invalidity of this evolutionist claim thus:

Over ten thousand fossil species of insects have been identified, over thirty thousand species of spiders, and similar numbers for many sea-living creatures. Yet so far the evidence of step-by-step changes leading to major evolutionary transitions looks extremely thin. (Fred Hoyle,The Intelligent Universe: A New View of Creation and Evolution, p. 43.)

## False Flower Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

False flower beetles, belonging to the Scarabaediae family, feed on the leaves of some plants. Fossil record shows that, like all other beetles, this species too had no change since it first appeared. These creatures have no intermediate form and are yet another one of the proofs of evolution's invalidity. Evolutionists admit that no intermediate form was encountered in the fossil record.

Boyce Rensberger took the floor at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, in a symposium in which the problems of gradual evolution was discussed by 150 evolutionists over four days: "Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown." (Boyce Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, 5 October 1980, Section 4, p. 15.)

## Pseudoscorpion And Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Pictured are a pseudoscorpion and a fly in Baltic amber. Pseudoscorpions resemble true scorpions, but they don't possess tails. On this specimen in amber, one can see these features clearly. Their length is between 2 and 8 millimeters (0.07 and 0.3 in).

Until recently, pseudoscorpions were thought to date back only 30 to 45 million years, but now examples from 380 million years ago (of the Devonian period) have been discovered. Pseudoscorpions had no changes over an interval of some 400 million years, which refutes the theory of evolution.

The accompanying fly in amber is another creature that sustains its existence and thus refutes Darwin.

## Hairy Fungus Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

If evolution had indeed taken place, numerous examples of creatures that were in the "in between" stages of development should have been unearthed. Consequently, organs in their partly developed stages should exist in the fossil record. But among billions of fossils, not even one example displays any features to verify this claim. Moreover, still-living creatures are no different from their fossilized forms. This hairy fungus beetle 45 million years old is one of the examples that verifies this.

## Long-Legged Fly And Caddisfly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

In this amber can be seen a long-legged fly and caddisfly, a moth-like creature. Larvae of the caddisfly live under water and make themselves cylindrical sheaths as armor to be protected against enemies, and possess the silk-producing system used solely for this purpose. Then they construct these sheaths with the objects they find in the river, such as sticks and pebbles.

It is quite hard to recognize the caddisfly larva, once it has camouflaged itself perfectly in this interesting "dress." The larvae of these very insects have been protecting themselves from their enemies in this way for millions of years. This 45-million-year-old specimen in amber is proof that this creature never evolved in all the years since.

## Ants

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Technology, cooperative work, military strategy, efficient communication networks, an ideal and rational hierarchy, discipline, immaculate city planning—in these fields where human beings are not always successful, ants always are. And they have been for tens of millions of years. Ants that lived 45 million years ago and those living today share the exact same characteristics.

## Bee

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Like all other creatures, bees have their own species-specific behaviors that present many questions for the evolutionists. For example, they are unable to explain through the fictitious mechanisms of evolution the inconceivably complex calculations that the bees employ to make honeycombs. Charles Darwin was also constrained to admit that his theory could not explain the behavior of bees. In his book, The Origin of Species, Darwin emphasized the dilemma of his theory about the origin of living things: "As natural selection acts only by the accumulation of slight modifications of structure or instinct, each profitable to the individual under its conditions of life, it may reasonably be asked, how a long and graduated succession of modified architectural instincts, all tending towards the present perfect plan of construction, could have profited the progenitors of the hive-bee?" (Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 186.)

## Larva Of A Snakefly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Snakeflies are mostly found on the shady parts of all kinds of trees, bushes and weeds, near forests. The larvae have adhesive organs on their feet that let them climb on even the smoothest surfaces. About 45 million years ago, this creature had the same superior features as those living today. This insect was preserved in its every detail in amber, which survived up to the present day. Excellently well-preserved features of insects like this leave the evolutionists mute. Its structures, clear enough not to admit of any speculation, declare that no evolution took place during the intervening millions of years.

## Flower-Cricket

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Flower crickets are brightly colored and rounded, with large heads, short wings, and long antennas. They are around 2 centimeters (0.8 in) in length and in the daytime they hide in the holes that they have dug. Only the males produce sounds, to attract the females, by rubbing their wings against each other. In the amber shown, you can see a flower cricket, which has been preserved without degradation for 45 million years.

When we examine the recent examples of this insect, we see that they carry the same features since the day they were created. To put it another way, they never evolved.

## Stilt Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

. . . There seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree. . . We have not completely solved the riddle of living to an extreme degree. . . (Niles Eldredge, Fossils, 1991, pp. 101, 108.)

These are the words of Niles Eldredge, a paleontologist from the American Museum of Natural History and an advocate of punctuated equilibrium. He posited this thesis in the face of the desperate situation of the gradual evolution theory developed by Darwin's leadership. Eldredge manifests the fact that 45-million-year-old fossils like the stilt fly pictured here place evolutionists in a deadlock.

## Millipede And Spiders

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

It can be seen that the 45-million-year-old millipede and two spiders in Baltic amber are no different from their counterparts alive today.

Spiders of different species are able to set up various mechanical traps—underwater nests, lassos made out of web, chemical poison sprays, jumping from very high places by holding a string of web stronger than steel produced in their body, and camouflage. These arachnids can also make webs that are architectural and engineering wonders. Their bodies contain combs that work like a textile factory, labs producing chemicals, organs secreting very strong digestive secretions, sensors detecting the most sensitive vibrations, strong clamps that inject venom, and many other features evidencing Creation.

When all these characteristics are considered, spiders alone are an important challenge to the theory of evolution and once again refute the Darwinists' claim of coincidence.

## Assassin Bug

Age: 25 million years

Period: Oligocene

Location: Region near Santiago, Dominican Republic

Assassin bugs are predatory insects of the Reduviidea family. Some of the species in Central and South America are able to transmit to humans a fatal malady known as Chagas disease. It is this very insect that poisoned Darwin and caused him to spend the rest of his life in pain.

This species uses its antenna to inject its poison and liquefies its victim's tissues. Its identical ancestors had the very same extraordinary defense system 25 million years ago. At that time, they employed the very same methods and led their lives in the very same way. The fossil record makes it clear that the insect of 25 million years ago was in no way primitive and that it displayed no differences from those alive today. This is yet another of the species that put Darwinism in an impasse.

## Tumbling Flower Beetle

Age: 50 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Kaliningrad District, Russia

Living beings are extremely complex, having perfect features. Even a single little hair on a single insect has a function and is essential for its survival. The structures of all living beings have one element in common: irreducible complexity. Flawless systems that God created work as a living whole, in integrity. It is impossible to find features any more primitive in a 50-million-year-old tumbling flower beetle than in its counterpart alive today. Almighty God, the Creator of this beetle in its perfect form 50 million years ago, has the power to create it in the same way today. The fossil record continues to display this fact to Darwinists with new examples, constantly.

## Stick Insect

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene epoch, Cenozoic era

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

A stick insect, one of the creatures that refute the Darwinist claims, possesses an elongated body. Its structure, appearance and features have not changed over 45 million years. These insects, which have remained the same for tens of millions of years, reveal the invalidity of the theory of evolution—which holds that living organisms develop through minor changes.

## Millipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene epoch, Cenozoic era

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

The oldest known fossil millipede specimens are from the Devonian period (417 to 354 million years ago). With their structure having been unchanged over hundreds of millions of years, they are just another of the innumerable species that challenge the theory of evolution. This fossil millipede in amber is 45 million years old. The fact that millipedes of 300 million years ago, and those of 45 million years ago are all identical to living specimens has demolished all Darwinist claims with regard to the origin of life.

## Wasp

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

This wasp is from the superfamily Chalcidoidea.In flight, these species are usually mistaken for mosquitoes or flies. Being quite small in size (1 to 20 millimeters, or 0.04 to -0.8 in), these wasps have maintained the same structure and features for tens of millions of years. Faced with these insects surviving for 45 million years without undergoing any changes at all, Darwinists should accept that their claims do not reflect the truth.

## Centipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

To date, Darwinists have not been able to put forward even a single fossil to back up their theories, for which reason they distort genuine fossils or produce falsified ones. On the other hand, they meticulously conceal from the public the millions of fossil specimens that refute their theory.

However, the truth can no longer be concealed. Fossils give clear evidence that living creatures have not changed, nor evolved. One such piece of ancient evidence is this 45-million-year-old fossil centipede.

## Millipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Just as spiders have always existed as spiders and mosquitoes have always existed as mosquitoes, millipedes too have always existed as millipedes. The 45-million-year-old fossil millipede pictured confirms this fact. In the face of innumerable living fossil specimens, the theory of evolution is now due to be consigned to the dusty pages of history.

This has been recognized and understood by masses of people. But for some ideological concerns, a handful of Darwinists close their eyes to facts.

## Millipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

Millipedes appear in the fossil record suddenly and with their distinctive, peculiar structure. The oldest known millipedes (which are approximately 300 million years old) and present-day millipedes possess exactly the same anatomy. This identical structure puts evolutionists in a major deadlock. Furthermore, it applies not only to millipedes, but to all species. The conclusion is plain: Living beings did not undergo evolution, but were created by our Lord.

## Winged Plant Louse

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

The oldest known plant louse fossils date back to the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago). The winged plant louse trapped in amber in the picture is 45 million years old. Fossils like this one, which show that these animals have not altered at all since the moment they first came into being, are also proof that they never evolved.

## Tumbling Flower Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

These insects live mainly in the tropic regions and are smaller than 1 centimeter (0.3 in) in size. The rear part of their abdomen is long and thorn-like in appearance.

There is no difference between the 45-million-year-old fossil pictured and specimens living today. The fact revealed by a living insect that has remained unchanged for 45 million years is clear: Evolution is a process that exists only in Darwinists' imaginations. The reality is that evolution never happened. Living things are the work of our Omnipotent Lord, God.

## Centipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Jantarny, Russia

The centipede in this 45-million-year-old Baltic amber is completely identical to present-day specimens. The very oldest centipede fossils date back to the Devonian period, making them around 400 million years old. This shows that centipedes have existed over the last 400 million years, without undergoing evolution, with all the advanced systems they still possess.

## Hairy Fungus Beetle And Long-Legged Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

The amber pictured contains two different insects. The hairy fungus beetle is small, oval and covered in hair. It lives on fungi and is generally black or brown. The 45-million-year-old specimen inside this amber has the same features as present-day specimens. The long-legged fly beside it in the amber is an insect that has survived completely unaltered from the Cretaceous period— a period of more than 100 million years. This beetle is completely identical to modern-day specimens, and all by itself is sufficient to invalidate evolutionists' claims.

## Deathwatch Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

Like all other beetles, this deathwatch beetle preserved in amber that dates back to the Eocene epoch (54 to 37 million years ago) possesses very interesting characteristics. During their larval stage, deathwatch beetles store the nutrients they need as fat tissue and use them during their adult stage, not taking on any further nutrients from the outside. These insects, which live in wood, are able to digest cellulose with the help of bacteria and fungi in their stomachs.

During the mating period, they knock on the tunnels they've dug in the wood, producing a noise that can easily be heard by human beings. Deathwatch beetles have had these fascinating characteristics for millions of years.

## Non-Biting Midges And Wasp

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

Inside this 45-million-year-old amber, there are two different species. As can be seen in the picture, the three midges and one wasp have left their remains behind. According to the theory of evolution, these insects should have had primitive, deficient characteristics 45 million years ago, compared with their present-day counterparts. A very large number of changes in these creatures should be now visible, after the imaginary process of evolution lasting millions of years. However, there is not the slightest difference between the appearances of both midges and wasps as they were 45 million years ago and their "living fossil" counterparts today.

## Wasp

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

This wasp fossil that has been preserved together with all its features for 45 million years displays exactly the same characteristics as present-day specimens. If—as Darwinists maintain—evolution had taken place, then this insect should exhibit exceedingly primitive features, various half-developed organs in its structure, and also a large number of incompletely formed organs that, again according to evolutionists, supposed evolution should have either eliminated or else developed fully.

Yet this scenario does not apply to any of the fossil record. Living things have existed fully formed and in a complex state, with all their present organs and characteristics, over millions of years.

## Centipede

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Russia

Pictured is a small but fairly long species of centipede. Today, these crustaceans live in the ground and under rocks and may sometimes have more than 30 pairs of legs. Centipedes have exceedingly complex features. The occurrence of these animals inside fossilized amber proves that they have had the same complex structure and anatomy for millions of years.

Darwin and those who came after him believed that the fossil record would eventually provide evidence for their theories. Yet the exact opposite transpired: The fossil record actually provides abundant evidence for Creation, and refutes evolution.

## Crane Fly

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

Today's crane flies have characteristically long legs and bodies and large, well-veined wings. These same features can also be seen in this 45-million-year-old crane fly fossilized in amber. The fact that this insect has preserved its same anatomy over 45 million years, with no change whatsoever, is a clear indication that it never evolved—and that it was created in possession of the same superior features it has now since it first came into existence on Earth.

Evolutionists make utterly groundless claims regarding the supposed evolution of insects, as they do with all other living things—and they themselves are well aware of this.

## Deathwatch Beetle

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

Darwin claimed that all living species attained their present complex structures by undergoing small, gradual changes. According to his imaginary claim, an extremely lengthy evolutionary process must have taken place, and primitive and half-developed transitional life forms must once have existed in the past.

In addition, there should be a large number of fossils belonging to such creatures in the geologic strata of the Earth. However, the fossil record provides not a single example of any semi-developed or supposedly "primitive" life forms whose discovery Darwin predicted. As can clearly be seen in the fossil record, as well as in the 45-million-year-old deathwatch beetle pictured, the fact is that living fossils reveal the fact of Creation.

## Stick Insect

Age: 45 million years

Period: Eocene

Location: Baltic States, Russia

The stick insects are known for their ponderously slow movements and superb camouflage. With their long bodies, antennae and colors, they do indeed resemble slender twigs. It can sometimes be difficult to tell a stick insect on a plant apart from the plant itself.

Animals that use various forms of camouflage enjoy special protection with their bodily structures, shapes, colors and patterns, all created to match the environments they inhabit. As can be seen in this specimen, living things possess well-organized, complex structures that totally invalidate the theory of evolution's claims of "chance." Every living thing bears its own evidence that it was created. The ability to employ camouflage is just one of these pieces of evidence.

It can sometimes be difficult to tell a stick insect on a plant apart from the plant itself.

# A Historical Lie: The Stone Age

##  Foreword

Did you know that 700,000 years ago, people were sailing the oceans in very well-constructed ships?

Or have you ever heard that the people described as "primitive cavemen" possessed an artistic ability and understanding just as refined as those of today's artists?

Did you know that the Neanderthals, who lived 80,000 years ago and whom evolutionists portrayed as "ape-men," made musical instruments, took pleasure from clothing and accessories, and walked over painfully hot sands with molded sandals?

In all probability you may never have heard any of these facts. On the contrary, you may have been handed the mistaken impression that these people were half-ape and half-human, unable to stand fully upright, lacking the ability to speak words and producing only strange grunting noises. That is because this entire falsehood has been imposed on people like yourself for the last 150 years.

The motive behind it is to keep alive materialist philosophy, which denies the existence of a Creator. According to this view, which distorts any fact that stands in its way, the universe and matter are eternal. In other words they had no beginning, and thus have no Creator. The supposedly scientific basis for this superstitious belief is the theory of evolution.

Since materialists claim that the universe has no Creator, they must provide their own explanation for how the life and myriad species on Earth came into being. The theory of evolution is the scenario they employed for that purpose. According to this theory, all the order and life in the universe came about spontaneously and by chance. Certain inanimate substances in the primeval world combined by accident to give rise to the first living cell. As a result of millions of years of similar coincidences, organisms came into existence. And finally came human beings, as the final stage of this evolutionary chain.

The early history of mankind—which is alleged to have come into being as the result of millions of accidental mutations, each more impossible than the last—has been distorted to fit in with this scenario. According to the evolutionists' account, which is totally lacking in any proof, the history of mankind is as follows: In the same way that life forms progressed from a primitive organism up to man, the most highly developed of all, so mankind's history must have advanced from the most primitive community to the most advanced urban society. But this assumption is completely devoid of any supporting evidence. It also represents the history of mankind prepared in line with the claims of materialist philosophy and the theory of evolution.

Evolutionist scientists—in order to account for the supposed evolutionary process that they claim extends from a single cell to multi-celled organisms, and then from apes to man—have rewritten the history of mankind. To that end they have invented imaginary eras such as "The Cave-Man Age" and "The Stone Age" to describe the lifestyle of "primitive Man." Evolutionists, supporting the falsehood that human beings and apes are descended from a common ancestor, have embarked on a new search in order to prove their claims. They now interpret every stone, or arrowhead or bowl unearthed during archaeological excavations in that light. Yet the pictures and dioramas of half-ape, half-man creatures sitting in a dark cave, dressed in furs, and lacking the facility of speech are all fictitious. Primitive man never existed, and there never was a Stone Age. They are nothing more than deceptive scenarios produced by evolutionists with the help of one section of the media.

These concepts are all deceptions because recent advances in science—particularly in the fields of biology, paleontology, microbiology and genetics—have totally demolished the claims of evolution. The idea that species evolved and transformed into "later" versions of each other has been deemed invalid.

In the same way, human beings did not evolve from ape-like creatures. Human beings have been human since the day they came into existence, and have possessed a sophisticated culture from that day to this. Therefore, "the evolution of history" never happened, either.

This book reveals scientific proofs that the "evolution of human history" concept is a falsehood, and we shall show how the fact of creation is now supported by the latest scientific findings. Mankind came into the world not through evolution, but by the flawless creation of God, the Almighty and Omniscient.

In the following pages, you can read for yourself about the scientific and historical proofs of this.

## Introduction

The evolutionist historical perspective studies the history of mankind by dividing it up into several periods, just as it does with the supposed course of human evolution itself. Such fictitious concepts as the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age are an important part of the evolutionist chronology. Since this imaginary picture is presented in schools and in television and newspaper stories, most people accept this imaginary picture without question and imagine that human beings once lived in an era when only primitive stone tools were used and technology was unknown.

Yet when archaeological findings and scientific facts are examined, a very different picture emerges. The traces and remains that have come down to the present—the tools, needles, flute fragments, personal adornments and decorations—show that in cultural and social terms, humans have always lived civilized lives in all periods of history.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, people lived in houses, engaged in agriculture, exchanged goods, produced textiles, ate, visited relatives, took an interest in music, made paintings, treated the sick, performed their acts of worship and, in short, lived normal lives just as they do today. People who heeded the prophets sent by God came to have faith in Him, the One and Only, while others worshipped idols. Believers with faith in God abided by the moral values commanded by Him, while others engaged in superstitious practices and deviant rites. At all times in history, just as today, there have been people who believed in the existence of God, as well as pagans and atheists.

Of course, throughout history, there have always been those living under simpler, more primitive conditions as well as societies living civilized lives. But this by no means constitutes evidence for the so-called evolution of history, because while one part of the world is launching shuttles into space, people in other lands are still unacquainted with electricity. Yet this does not mean that those who build spacecraft are mentally or physically more advanced—and have progressed further down the supposed evolutionary road and become more culturally evolved—nor that the others are closer to the fictional ape-men. These merely indicate differences in cultures and civilizations.

### Evolutionists Cannot Account for Archaeological Discoveries

When you examine an evolutionist's history of mankind, you'll notice the detailed depictions of how man's allegedly primitive ancestors went about their daily lives. Anyone impressed by the confident, authoritative style, but without much knowledge of the subject, may well assume that all these "artistic reconstructions" are based on scientific evidence. Evolutionist scientists arrive at detailed descriptions as if they had been around thousands of years ago and had the opportunity to carry out observations. They say that when our supposed ancestors—who had now learned to stand on two legs and had nothing else to do with their hands—began making stone tools, and for a very long period used no other implements other than ones made of stone and wood. Only at a much later date did they start to use iron, copper and brass. Yet these accounts are based on misinterpretation of findings in the light of evolutionist preconceptions, rather than on scientific proof.

In his book Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, archaeologist Paul Bahn says that the scenario of mankind's evolution is nothing but a fairy tale, adding that so much of science is based on such tales. He stresses that he uses the word "tale" in a positive sense, but that still, this is exactly what they are. He then invites his readers to consider the traditional attributes of the so-called human evolution: cooking and campfires, dark caves, rites, tool-making, aging, struggle and death. How much of these conjectures, he wonders, are based on bones and actual remains, and how much on literary criteria?

Bahn is reluctant to openly answer the question he poses: namely, that man's alleged evolution is based on "literary" criteria rather than scientific ones.

In fact, there are a great many unanswered questions and logical inconsistencies in these accounts, which someone thinking along the lines of evolutionist dogma will fail to detect. Evolutionists refer to a Stone Age, for example, but are at a loss to explain how implements or remains from the time could have been carved and shaped. In the same way, they can never explain how winged insects first came to fly, though they maintain that dinosaurs grew wings and thus started to fly by trying to catch them. They prefer to forget the whole question, and to have others do the same.

Yet shaping and carving stone is no easy task. It is impossible to produce perfectly regular and razor-sharp tools, as in the remains that have come down to us, by scraping one stone against another. It is possible to shape hard stones such as granite, basalt or dolerite without them crumbling apart only by using steel files, lathes and planes. It is equally obvious that bracelets, earrings and necklaces dating back tens of thousands of years could not have been crafted using stone tools. The tiny holes in such objects cannot be made with stones. The decoration on them cannot be produced by scraping. The perfection in the objects in question shows that other tools made of hard metals must have been employed.

Many archaeologists and scientists have performed tests to see whether such ancient artifacts could have been manufactured under the conditions that evolutionists conjecture. For example, Professor Klaus Schmidt carried out one such experiment on the carvings on the stone blocks at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, estimated to date back some 11,000 years. He gave workmen stone tools, of the kind evolutionists claim were employed at the time, and asked them to produce similar carvings on similar rocks. After two hours of non-stop work, all that the workmen managed to complete was a vague line.

You can carry out a similar experiment at home. Take a piece of hard stone such as granite and try to turn it into a spearhead of the kind used by people living 100,000 years ago. But you are not allowed to use anything else than that piece of granite and a stone. How successful do you think you might be? Can you produce a piece with the same narrow point, symmetry, smoothness and polish as those found in the historical strata? Let us go even further; take a piece of granite one meter square and on it, try and carve a picture of an animal, imparting a sense of depth. What kind of result could you produce by grinding that rock with another piece of hard stone? Clearly, in the absence of tools made of steel and iron you can make neither a simple spearhead, much less an impressive stone carving.

Stone-cutting and stone carving are fields of expertise all their own. The requisite technology is essential in order to make files, lathes and other tools. This demonstrates that at the time these objects were made, the "primitive" technology was well advanced. In other words, evolutionists' claims that only simple stone implements were known, that there was no technology in existence, are myths. Such "Stone-Only" Age has never existed.

However, it is perfectly plausible that any steel and iron tools used in cutting and shaping stones should not have survived down to the present day. In a naturally moist and acidic environment, all kinds of metal tools will oxidize and eventually disappear. All that will be left is chips and fragments of the stone they worked, which take much longer to vanish. But to examine these fragments and suggest that people at the time used only stone is not scientific reasoning.

Indeed, a great many evolutionists now admit that archaeological findings do not support Darwinism at all. Richard Leakey, an evolutionist archaeologist, confessed that it's impossible to account for the archaeological findings, especially stone tools, in terms of the theory of evolution:

In fact, concrete evidence of the inadequacy of the Darwinian hypothesis is to be found in the archeological record. If the Darwinian package were correct, then we would expect to see the simultaneous appearance in the archeological and fossil records of evidence for bipedality, technology, and increased brain size. We don't. Just one aspect of the prehistoric record is sufficient to show that the hypothesis is wrong: the record of stone tools. 1

### The Fictitious Evolutionist Chronology

In classifying history, evolutionists interpret the objects they find in line with their own dogmatic theories. The period during which bronze artifacts were manufactured they call the Bronze Age, and suggest that iron began being used much more recently—based on their claim that in the most ancient civilizations, metals were unknown.

As already mentioned, however, iron, steel and many other metals quickly oxidize and decay, much faster than stone does. Some metals such as bronze, which oxidize with much greater difficulty, may survive for longer than others. It is therefore perfectly natural that excavated objects made of bronze should be older and those of iron of a much more recent date.

In addition, it's not logical to maintain that any society able to produce bronze was unaware of iron, that a society with the technical knowledge to produce bronze did not use any other metals.

Bronze is obtained by adding tin, arsenic and antimony, with a small quantity of zinc, to copper. Anyone who creates bronze must have a working knowledge of such chemical elements as copper, tin, arsenic, zinc and antimony, know at what temperatures these are to be melted, and possess a kiln in which to melt and combine them. Without all this knowledge, it will be very difficult to produce a successful alloy.

To begin with, copper ore is found in old, hard rocks in powder or crystalline form (which is also referred to as "native copper"). A society that uses copper must first possess a level of knowledge to identify it in powder form in these rocks. It must then construct a mine to extract the copper, remove it, and carry it to the surface. It is clear that these things cannot be done using stone and wooden tools.

Copper ore must be introduced to red-hot flame in order for it to liquefy. The temperature needed to melt and refine copper is 1,084.5oC (1,984oF). There also needs to be a device or bellows to ensure a steady flow of air to the fire. Any society working with copper must construct a kiln able to produce such high heat and also make such equipment as crucibles and tongs for use with the furnace.

This is a brief summary of the technical infrastructure needed to work copper—which by itself, is too soft a metal to hold a sharp edge for long. Producing harder bronze by adding tin, zinc and other elements to copper is even more sophisticated, because every metal requires different processes. All these facts show that communities engaged in mining, producing alloys and metal-working must have possessed detailed knowledge. It is neither logical nor consistent to claim that people with such comprehensive knowledge would never have discovered iron.

On the contrary, archaeological discoveries show that the evolutionist claim that metal was unknown and not used in very ancient societies is untrue. Proof includes such findings as the remains of a 100,000-year-old metallic vessel, 2.8-billion-year-old metal spheres, an iron pot estimated to be 300 million years old, fragments of textiles on clay dated to 27,000 years ago, and traces of metals such as magnesium and platinum, successfully melted in Europe only a few hundred years ago, in remains dating back a thousand years. These scattered remains totally demolish the Rough Stone Age, Polished Stone Age, Bronze and Iron Age classifications. But a large part of these findings, after appearing in many scientific publications, have either been ignored by evolutionist scientists or else hidden away in museum basements. Fantastical evolutionist tales have been presented as the history of mankind, instead of the true facts.

### Believers Have Led Civilized Lives Throughout History

Throughout the course of history, God has sent messengers to call people to the true path. Some people have obeyed these messengers and believed in the existence and oneness of God, while others have persisted in denial. Ever since humans first came into existence they have learned faith in the one and only God, and the moral values of the true religion, by means of our Lord's revelations. Therefore, the evolutionist claim that earliest societies did not believe in the One and Only God is untrue. (Greater detail will be provided on this subject later in this book.)

In the Qur'an, it is revealed how, in all periods of history, God has sent messengers to call people to believe and live by religious moral values:

Humanity was a single community. Then God sent out prophets bringing good news and giving warning, and with them He sent down the Book with truth to decide between people regarding their differences. Only those who were given it differed about it, after the clear signs had come to them, envying one another. Then, by His permission, God guided those who believed to the truth of that about which they had differed. God guides whoever He wills to a straight path. (Surat al-Baqara: 213)

Another verse reveals that a messenger has been sent to every society to warn its members, remind them of the existence and oneness of God, and to call them to abide by religious virtues:

... There is no community to which a warner has not come. (Surah Fatir: 24)

Although our Lord has sent people messengers and sacred scriptures, some have fallen into misunderstanding, turned their backs on the virtues of the true religion and adopted deviant superstitious beliefs. Some have developed pagan beliefs and fallen into the perversion of worshipping the earth, stone, wood, the Moon or the Sun, and even so-called evil spirits. Even today, along with believers in the true religion, there are also some who worship fire, the Moon, the Sun or idols made of wood. Some people ascribed partners to our Lord, even though they were fully aware of His existence and uniqueness. Yet still our Lord has sent them messengers, revealed to them the errors they had fallen into, and called on them to abandon their superstitious beliefs and live according to the true religion. And in all periods in history, there have been believers and unbelievers, those with a pure faith and those who have gone down paths of perversion.

Throughout history, believers who have lived with the prophets have enjoyed high-quality lives under very civilized conditions. They lived within a sophisticated social order in the days of the Prophets Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses and Solomon (peace be upon them all), just as they do today. In all ages, believers have prayed, fasted, heeded the bounds set by God, and lived clean and lawful lives. Archaeological findings reveal the best, noblest and cleanest standards of living from those possessed by devout believers in God. The prophets and true believers used the finest means available in their times, in a manner appropriate to His approval.

All technological progress in the time of Nimrud was used in the best way by Prophet Abraham (pbuh) and those who believed with him. Technical knowledge in the time of Pharaoh was used in the service of Prophets Joseph, Moses, Aaron (peace be upon them all) and true believers of that time. The high level of technology attained in the fields of architecture, art and communications in the time of Prophet Solomon (pbuh) was employed in the wisest manner. The wealth and magnificence that our Lord bestowed as a blessing on Prophet Solomon (pbuh) inspired awe down the generations.

We must remember that the information and means possessed by those living hundreds of thousands of years ago, and by people alive today, are blessings from God. People who founded civilizations hundreds of thousands of years ago, who created beautiful paintings on cave walls tens of thousands of years ago, who built the pyramids and ziggurats, who constructed giant stone monuments and who constructed great structures on the highest altitudes in Peru did so through God's inspiration and teaching. People who study the sub-atomic particles today, who send shuttles into space and who write computer software do so because God so wills. All the information that human beings have possessed since they were first created is a blessing from God, and every civilization they have founded is equally the work of our Lord.

God created man out of nothing and gives him various tests and blessings throughout his life in this world. Every blessing bestowed is also a test. People who know that the civilization, technology and means they possess are actually all blessings from God give thanks to our Lord, Who increases His blessings on them:

And when your Lord announced: "If you are grateful, I will certainly give you increase..." (Surah Ibrahim: 7)

God causes His devout servants to enjoy pleasant lives both in this world and in the Hereafter. This is revealed in the Qur'an:

Anyone who acts rightly, male or female, being a believer, We will give them a good life and We will recompense them according to the best of what they did. (Surat an-Nahl: 97)

As a manifestation of this verse, all Muslims throughout history have possessed the finest means of the age they lived in, and have led pleasant lives. Naturally, some have been tested with difficulty and troubles, but this does not suggest that they lived under difficult, primitive conditions and did not live civilized, humane lives. No matter how wealthy, comfortable and advanced their civilizations might have been, those who have denied God and persisted in their denial, who failed to live by proper moral values and brought about corruption on Earth, have always ended up disappointed. In addition, many of them have perhaps enjoyed more advanced technologies than those of present-day societies. This is also revealed in the Qur'an:

Haven't they traveled in the Earth and seen the final fate of those before them? They had greater strength than them and cultivated the land and inhabited it in far greater numbers than they do. Their messengers also came to them with the clear signs. God would never have wronged them; but they wronged themselves. (Surat ar-Rum: 9)

### Cultural Accumulation Is No Evidence of Any Evolutionary Process

Evolutionists maintain that the first human beings were half-ape creatures whose mental and physical characteristics developed over the course of time, that they acquired new abilities, and that civilizations evolved for that reason. According to this claim, based on no scientific evidence whatsoever, our supposed primitive ancestors led animalistic lives, became civilized only after they became human, and registered cultural progress as their mental capacities developed. Fictitious images of primitive Man, with a body entirely covered in fur, or seeking to make fire while squatting under animal skins, walking along the waterside with a freshly killed animal on his shoulder, or seeking to communicate with his peers by gestures and grunting, are false recreations based on this unscientific claim.

The fossil record does not support this fantasy. All scientific findings point to the conclusion that Man was created as Man, out of nothing, and has always lived as human since the first day he was brought into being. Neither do archaeological findings support the evolutionist chronology in any way. Findings from the period when evolutionists claim that humans had only learned to speak show that human beings of the time had kitchens and enjoyed family lives. Decorative objects and raw materials for paint have been found in excavations from times when evolutionists say that humans were still unaware of art. Many examples will be considered in detail in later chapters of this book.

All these discoveries reveal that humans never endured primitive, animalistic lives. There never was an uncivilized age when all people used only stone and wooden implements. Believers have always led human lifestyles, with clothes, plates, bowls, spoons and forks used in a manner befitting human beings. People have always lived in circumstances, spoken, constructed buildings and produced artworks befitting human beings. There have been doctors, teachers, tailors, engineers, architects and artists, in established social orders. By the inspiration of God, people possessed of reason and good conscience have always made the finest use of the blessings on Earth.

Of course, as technology has advanced and peoples have accumulated knowledge, there have naturally been technological changes. New devices have been developed in line with the prevailing circumstances, scientific discoveries have been made, and cultural changes have occurred. However, the accumulation of knowledge and technological progress made over the course of history do not imply that any evolution took place.

It's perfectly natural for knowledge to keep on accumulating. A person enjoys different levels of learning in primary school, in his high school years and at university. But if someone constantly accumulates knowledge throughout his life, that doesn't mean that he is constantly evolving and progressing by means of random effects. A similar dynamic applies to the life of a society. New discoveries are also made in light of a society's needs, new mechanisms are invented and subsequently improved upon by later generations. Yet this is not a process of evolution.

## Civilizations Retreat As Well As Advance

Darwinism maintains that Man—and thus the culture he possesses—advanced from rudimentary, primitive, tribal stages toward civilization. However, archaeological findings show that since the very first day of human history, there have been periods with societies that maintained very advanced cultures along with others whose cultures have been more backward. Indeed, most of the time, very wealthy civilizations have existed at the same time as backward ones. Throughout the course of history, most societies of the same period had very different levels of technology and civilization, with very great sociological and cultural differences—just as is the case today. For example, though the North American continent is very advanced today in terms of medicine, science, architecture and technology, some communities in South America are rather backward technologically, with no links to the outside world. Diseases in many parts of the world are identified using the most advanced imaging techniques and analysis, and are treated in very modern hospitals. Yet in other parts of the world, diseases are thought to develop under the influence of so-called evil spirits, and attempts to heal the sick involve ceremonies to banish such spirits. Such societies as the people of the Indus, the Ancient Egyptians and the Sumerians, who all lived around 3,000 BCE, possessed cultures incomparably richer in all respects than that of these present-day tribes, and even than that of societies more advanced. This means that in all periods of history, societies with highly advanced civilizations have been able to survive together with more backward ones. A society that existed thousands of years ago may actually have advanced much further than one in the 20th century. This demonstrates that there has been no development within an evolutionary process—in other words, from the primitive to the civilized.

Over the course of history, of course, major advances have been made in all fields, with great strides and development in science and technology, thanks to the accumulation of culture and experience. However, it is neither rational nor scientific to describe these changes as an "evolutionary" process in the way that evolutionists and materialists do. Just as there are no differences in physical characteristics between a present-day human and someone who lived thousands of years ago, so there are no differences in regard to intelligence and capabilities. The idea that our civilization is more advanced because 21st-century man's brain capacity and intelligence are more highly developed is a faulty perspective, resulting from evolutionist indoctrination. The fact is people in very different regions today may have different conceptions and cultures. But if a native Australian may not possess the same knowledge as a scientist from the USA, that doesn't mean his intelligence or brain haven't developed enough. Many people born into such societies may even be ignorant of the existence of electricity, but who are still highly intelligent.

Moreover, different needs have arisen during different centuries. Our standards of fashion are not the same as the Ancient Egyptians', but that doesn't mean that our culture is more advanced than theirs. While skyscrapers are symbols of civilization in the 21st century, the evidence of civilization in the Egyptian period was pyramids and sphinxes.

What matters is the perspective from which facts are interpreted. Someone starting with the preconceived idea that the facts support a so-called evolutionary development will evaluate all the information he obtains in light of that prejudice. Thus he will try to support his assertions with imaginary tales. Based on fragments of fossil bone, he will conjecture a great many details, such as how people living in that region spent their daily lives, their family structures and their social relations, in a way adapted to that preconception. He'll conclude, based on those fragments of bone, that the living people they belonged to were only semi-upright and grunting, covered in hair and using crude stone tools—not because that is what scientific evidence suggests, but because his ideology requires it. Actually, the facts obtained do not imply such a scenario at all. This illusory picture comes about through interpretations by a Darwinist mentality.

Currently, the archaeologists who make detailed interpretations about the period in question based on fossil remains, carved stone or paintings on cave walls, are scarcely different from the above example. Yet evolutionists still write about pretty nearly all aspects in the life of so-called primitive man on the basis of a prejudiced analysis of the evidence. Their fanciful descriptions and illustrations still adorn the pages of many magazines and newspapers.

Here is one of the scenarios created by Louis Leakey, one of the best-known contemporary evolutionists, on the daily life of so-called primitive man:

Let us for a moment imagine that we can stand back and observe the sequence of events at a rock-shelter some twenty or thirty thousand years ago.

A Stone Age hunter is wandering down the valley in search of game when he espies a rock-shelter in the side of the rocky cliff above him. Carefully, and with the utmost caution, he climbs up to it, fearful lest he may find that it is occupied by the members of some other Stone Age family who will resent his intrusion, or possibly even that it is the lair of a lion or a cave bear. At last he is close enough, and he sees that it is quite unoccupied, and so he enters and makes a thorough examination. He decides that it is a much more suitable habitation than the little shelter where he and his family are living at present, and he goes off to fetch them.

Next we see the family arriving and settling into their new home. A fire is lit either from some embers carefully nursed and brought from the old home, or else by means of a simple, wooden fire drill. (We cannot say for certain what methods Stone Age man used for obtaining fire, but we do know that from a very early period he did make use of fire, for hearths are a common feature in almost any occupation level in caves and rock-shelters.)

Probably some of the family then go off to collect grass or bracken to make rough beds upon which they will sleep, while others break branches from bushes and trees in the near-by thicket and construct a rude wall across the front of the shelter. The skins of various wild animals are then unrolled and deposited in the new home, together with such household goods as they possess.

And now the family is fully settled in, and the day-to-day routine is resumed once more. The men hunt and trap animals for food, the women probably help in this and also collect edible fruits and nuts and roots. 2

This description, right down to the tiniest detail, is based on no scientific findings whatsoever, but solely on its author's imagination. Evolutionists, who dress up similar tales with various scientific terms, base all their details on the basis of a few pieces of bone. (Actually, these fossils demonstrate that no evolutionary process ever took place—the exact opposite of what evolutionists claim!) Obviously, bone fragments cannot provide any definite information as to whatever emotions inspired people in very ancient times, what their daily lives were like, or how they divided work amongst themselves.

However, the tale of human evolution is enriched with countless such imaginary scenarios and illustrations, and widely used by evolutionists. Unable to rid themselves of this dogma of evolution since the theory was first put forward, they have produced differing versions of the scenario above. Yet their intention is not to elucidate, but to wield indoctrination and propaganda to convince people that primitive man once really existed.

Many evolutionists seek to prove their claims by producing such scenarios, even in the absence of any supporting evidence. Yet every new finding, when interpreted in an biased manner, very clearly reveals to them certain facts, one of which is this: Man has been Man since the day he came into existence. Such attributes as intelligence and artistic ability have been the same in all periods of history. Peoples who lived in the past were not primitive, half-human half-animal creatures, as evolutionists would have us believe. They were thinking, speaking human beings, just like us, who produced works of art and developed cultural and ethical structures. As we'll shortly see, archaeological and paleontological findings prove this clearly and incontrovertibly.

### What Will Remain from Our Own Civilization?

Imagine what will be left of today's great civilizations in hundreds of thousands of years. All our cultural accumulation—paintings, statues and palaces—will all disappear, and barely a trace of our present technology will remain. Many materials designed to resist wear and tear will gradually, under natural conditions, begin to succumb. Steel rusts. Concrete decays. Underground facilities collapse, and all materials require maintenance. Now imagine that tens of thousands of years have passed, and they have been subjected to thousands of gallons of rain, centuries of fierce winds, repeated floods and earthquakes. Perhaps all that will remain will be giant pieces of carved stone, the quarried blocks that make up buildings and the remains of various statues, just like what has come down to us from the past. Or maybe not a definite trace of our advanced civilizations will be left to fully understand our daily lives, only from tribes living in Africa, Australia or some other place in the world. In other words, of the technology we possess (televisions, computers, microwave ovens, etc.), not a trace will remain though the main outline of a building or a few fragments of statues will perhaps survive. If future scientists look at these scattered remains and describe all societies of the period we are living in as "culturally backward," will they not have departed from the truth?

Or, if someone discovers a work written in Mandarin and concludes, solely on the basis of this text, that the Chinese were a backward race communicating by means of strange signs, will this be any reflection of the true facts? Consider the example of Auguste Rodin's statue "The Thinker," which is familiar to the whole world. Imagine that this statue is re-discovered by archaeologists tens of thousands from now. If those researchers hold their own preconceptions about the beliefs and lifestyle of our society, and lack sufficient historical documentation, they may well interpret this statue in different ways. They may imagine that the members of our civilization worshipped a thinking man, or may claim that the statue represents some mythological false deity.

Today, of course, we know that "The Thinker" was a work produced for aesthetic, artistic reasons alone. In other words, if a researcher in tens of thousands of years lacks enough information and holds his own preconceived ideas about the past, it's impossible for him to arrive at the truth, because he will interpret "The Thinker" in the light of his preconceptions and form an appropriate scenario. Therefore, evaluating the information at hand without prejudice or bias, avoiding all forms of preconception, and thinking in broader terms is of the greatest importance. Never forget, we have no evidence that societies evolve or that societies in the past were primitive. These suggestions consist solely of conjecture and are based solely on analysis by historians and archaeologists who support evolution. For example, drawings of animals on a cave wall were immediately described as primitive drawings by cavemen. Yet these pictures may well say volumes about the aesthetic understanding of the humans at that time. An artist wearing the most modern clothing for the time may have produced them solely for artistic reasons alone. Indeed, many scientists now emphasize the impossibility of these same cave drawings being the work of a primitive mind.

Another example is the interpretation of sharp-edged stones as the first tools made by "ape-men." People at that time may have shaped these stones and used for decorative purposes. There is no proof, only an assumption, that the pieces found were definitely used by these people as tools. Evolutionist scientists have examined the evidence found during excavations from a biased perspective. They have played about with some fossils that, in their own view, prove their theories, and have ignored or even discarded others. Similar games have been played to demonstrate that history evolved as well. 3 The American anthropologist Melville Herskovits describes how the "evolution of history" thesis emerged and the way that evolutionists interpret the evidence:

Every exponent of cultural evolution provided an hypothetical blueprint of the progression he conceived as having marked the development of mankind, so that many examples of nonlinear sequences have been recorded. Some of these progressions were restricted to a single aspect of culture... 4

One of the most important examples to confirm Herskovits' view is one study carried out by the evolutionist ethnographer Lewis Henry Morgan, who examined the phases a society undergoes to achieve the patriarchal and monogamous structure that, he claimed, had "evolved" from the primitive to the more developed. But in carrying out this research, he used for his examples different societies from all over the globe, entirely unconnected from one another. He then set them out in accord with the result he wanted to achieve. It's clear that from the hundreds of thousands of cultures in the world, he selected only those compatible with his preconceived thesis.

Herskovits illustrates how Morgan re-arranged history to validate his ideas. Starting with the very primitive matrilineal Australians, he drew a line leading to the patrilineal American Indians. He then moved his sequence to Grecian tribes of the proto-historic period, when descent was firmly established in the male line, but with no strict monogamy. The last entry in his ascending scale was represented by today's civilization—with descent in the male line and strict monogamy.

Herskovits comments on this imaginary sequence:

But this series, from the point of view of a historical approach, is quite fictitious... 5

### The Advanced Art in Caves

Evolutionists maintain that some 30-40,000 years ago in Europe, and in an earlier period in Africa, so-called ape-like humans experienced a sudden process of transition, and suddenly acquired the ability to think and produce things, just like present-day human beings. This is because archaeological findings from that period offer significant evidence that the theory of evolution cannot explain. According to Darwinist claims, the technology of stone implements, which had remained unchanged for almost 200,000 years, was suddenly replaced by a more advanced and rapidly developing hand-crafted technology. So-called primitive man, who had supposedly descended from the trees and begun to modernize only shortly before, suddenly developed artistic talents and began carving or painting pictures of extraordinary beauty and sophistication on cave walls and produced exceedingly beautiful decorative objects such as necklaces and bracelets.

What happened to cause such development? How and why did "half-ape primitive beings" acquire such artistic ability? Evolutionist scientists have no explanation as to how this might have come about, though they do propose various hypotheses. The evolutionist Roger Lewin describes the difficulties Darwinists face on this subject in his book The Origin of Modern Humans: "Perhaps because the still incomplete archeological record is equivocal at best, scholars respond to these questions in very different ways." 9

However, archaeological findings reveal that man has had a cultural understanding for as long as he has existed. From time to time, that understanding may have advanced, retreated, or undergone abrupt changes. But that does not mean that any evolutionary process took place, rather that cultural developments and changes occurred. The appearance of works of art that evolutionists describe as "sudden," doesn't demonstrate any biological human progress (especially not in terms of intellectual ability). People at the time may have experienced various societal changes, and their artistic and productive understanding may have altered, but this does not constitute evidence of any transition from the primitive to the modern.

The contradiction between archaeological remains left by people in the past and the anatomical and biological remains that should exist—according to evolutionists—once again invalidates Darwinist claims on this subject. (For detailed evidence that scientifically demolishes the supposed human family tree, which is Darwinism's fundamental claim, see Darwinism Refuted by Harun Yahya.) Evolutionists claim that humans' cultural development must be directly proportional to biological development. For example, men must first express their emotions through simple drawings, then develop these further until their gradual development eventually reaches a peak of artistic achievement. However, early artistic remains from human history totally undermine that assumption. The cave paintings, carvings and reliefs widely regarded as the first examples of art, prove that human beings of that era possessed a very superior aesthetic understanding.

Scientists carrying out research in caves evaluate these pictures as some of the most important and valuable works in the history of art. The shading in these pictures, the use of perspective and the fine lines employed, the depth of feeling expertly reflected in the reliefs, and the aesthetic patterns that emerge as the sunlight strikes the carvings—are all features that evolutionists are unable to explain because, according to the Darwinist view, such a development should have emerged very much later.

Many cave paintings found in France, Spain, Italy, China, India, in parts of Africa and various other regions of the world provide important information about mankind's past cultural structure. The style and coloring techniques employed in these drawings are of such quality as to astonish researchers. Even so, Darwinist scientists evaluate them through their own prejudices, interpreting these works in a biased manner so as to fit in with their evolutionary fairy tales. They claim that beings who had just become humans drew pictures of animals they either feared or hunted, and did so in the exceedingly primitive conditions of the caves in which they lived. Yet the techniques these works employ show that their artists possessed a very deep understanding, and were able to depict it in a most impressive manner.

The painting techniques employed also show that they did not live under primitive conditions at all. In addition, these drawings on cave walls are no evidence that people of the time lived in those caves. The artists may have lived in elaborate shelters nearby, but chose to create their images on the cave walls. What emotions and thoughts led them to select what to represent are something known only to the artist. Much speculation has been produced regarding these drawings, of which the most unrealistic interpretation is that they were made by beings who were still in a primitive state. Indeed, a report published on the BBC's Science web page on 22 February, 2000, contained the following lines regarding cave paintings:

... [we] thought that they were made by primitive people... But according to two scientists working in South Africa, this view of the ancient painters is totally wrong. They believe the paintings are evidence of a complex and modern society. 10

If many of our present-day artworks were to be analyzed with the same logic in thousands of years' time, a number of debates might arise over whether 21st-century society was a primitive tribal one or an advanced civilization. If undamaged pictures by present-day artists were discovered 5,000 years on, and if no written documentation regarding the present day had survived, what would people of the future think about our own age?

If people of the future discovered works by Van Gogh or Picasso and judged them from an evolutionist perspective, how would they regard today's society? Would the landscapes of Claude Monet inspire comments like "Industry had not yet developed, and people led an agricultural way of life," or the abstract pictures of Wassily Kandinsky inspire comments along the lines of "People still unable to read or write communicated by way of various scribbles"? Would such interpretations lead them to any insights about our present-day society?

## Astonishing Remains Of Ancient Civilizations

The erroneous concept of socio-cultural evolution was proposed at different times by such ideologues as August Comte, Herbert Spencer and Lewis Henry Morgan—and later combined with Charles Darwin's theory—stating that all societies evolve from the primitive towards complex civilization. This error, developed in the late 19th century and whose influence increased in the period following World War I, supplied a supposedly "scientific" basis for racism, colonialism, and the ruthless movement of eugenics. Societies in different parts of the world with different cultures, skin colors and physical features were subjected to inhuman treatment inspired by this unscientific preconception.

Writers and thinkers like Adam Ferguson, John Millar and Adam Smith suggested that all societies evolve through four basic stages: hunting and gathering, pastoralism and nomadism, agriculture and finally, commerce. According to evolutionists' claims, primitive men who had just diverged from the apes only hunted and collected plants and fruits with the simplest of tools. As their intelligence and abilities gradually increased, they began domesticating grazing animals like sheep and cattle. Their intelligence and abilities eventually developed to the point of being able to engage in agriculture, and at last, to engage in trade and exchange of goods.

However, advances and recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and other branches of science have invalidated this basic claim of the tale of "cultural and social evolution." These are nothing more than materialists' attempts to portray Man as having evolved from unreasoning beasts and to impose this myth—in which they believe for philosophical reasons—on science.

That humans could survive by hunting or agriculture does not show that they were either more backward or more advanced mentally. In other words, no society engages in hunting because it is backward and mentally closer to apes. Engaging in agriculture does not mean that a society has distanced itself from being primitive. No society's activities imply that its inhabitants are descended from other living things. Such activities do not produce, through any alleged evolutionary process, individuals who are more advanced in terms of intelligence and ability. Many of today's technologically backward tribes engage solely in hunting and gathering, but this definitely does not suggest that they are any less than human. The same will apply to humans living tens of thousands of years in the future, just as it did to those living hundreds of thousands of years ago. The latter were not primitive humans, nor will those in the future be a more advanced species.

Constructing an evolutionary history of civilization based on societies' lifestyles is an unscientific approach. This perspective rests on interpreting various archaeological findings according to scientists' materialist prejudices, which assume that those humans who used stone tools were ape-men who grunted, stooped over with their knees bent, and exhibited animal-like behavior. Yet no remains discovered provide any clue regarding these people's mental capacities. This is all mere conjecture. As already stated, if various examples of today's art are discovered in 100,000 years' time and if the people of the future lack any further information, then they will likely produce very different interpretations of today's humanity and the technology we possess.

As we've shown, the idea that societies evolve is based on no scientific evidence whatsoever. This theory's foundation is the mistaken, unscientific view that Man originally possessed an ape-like mind. The Harvard university evolutionist anthropologist William Howells admits that the theory of evolution raises other questions, not about the body but about behavior that are to do with philosophy, determining the scientific facts about which is far more difficult. Howells points out that behavior is not "fossilized" in the sense that a skull may be and that it does not survive like stone tools. Therefore, he says, we have only very slight clues as to what might have happened in the ancient past. He also notes that it is just about impossible for such hypotheses to be tested. 36

Recently, indeed, the majority of social scientists have admitted the errors in the evolutionist view, stating that the social-evolution theory conflicts with science on the following points:

1. It is closely linked to ethnic discrimination, making biased interpretations of different societies—for example, on the assumption that Western societies are more civilized.

2. It suggests that all societies progress along the same path, using the same methods, and share the same objectives.

3. It views the society from a materialistic perspective.

4. It is largely incompatible with findings. Many communities living under primitive conditions possess more civilized spiritual values than various communities regarded as modern—in other words they are peace-loving and favor equality. Because of their diets, many are also healthier and stronger.

As these points clearly show, the conception that societies progress from the primitive to the civilized is incompatible with the scientific values and facts. This theory is based on interpretations distorted under the influence of materialist ideology. The remains and artifacts that past civilizations left behind reveal the errors in the "evolution of history and culture" deception.

### Traces of the Past Refute Evolution

Findings from past civilizations invalidate the theory of "progress from the primitive to the civilized." When we examine the course of history, the truth that emerges is that humans have always enjoyed the same intelligence and creativity. The works produced by people hundreds of thousands of years ago, and the traces they've left behind, actually have very different meanings than what evolutionists claim. When we look at these same traces we see that people in all past ages, with their intelligence and capacities, have made new discoveries, met their needs and constructed civilizations.

The messengers sent helped their people develop and progress by way of initiating major changes. Inspired by God, they possessed detailed scientific knowledge. For example, Prophet Noah (pbuh) knew boat-building technology, for we understand from the Qur'an that his ark was steam-powered (God knows the truth):

So when Our command came and the oven gushed forth water, We said: "Load into it [the ark] a pair of every species, and your family – except those against whom the Word was preordained – and all who believe." But those who believed with him were only few. (Surah Hud: 40)

Such an oven, known as tannur, is still used today in various regions. It is related in the verse that this oven gushed forth water. Thus, the ark was readied for movement by the stove's bubbling or, in other words, by the stove boiling. Indeed, in his commentary, Hamdi Yazir of Elmali says that the ark was "a kind of steamship powered by a stove":

Tannur: Described in the dictionary as a closed oven or stove. The word "fara" means boiling and spurting with great force and intensity. ... In other words, it implies that the boat is not a sail-powered one, but is reminiscent of a steamer powered by a stove. 37

Major advances in science, art, and technology were made also in the time of Prophet Solomon (pbuh). The Qur'an indicates, for instance, that transport vehicles as fast as airplanes were used in his day: "And We gave Solomon power over the wind – a month's journey in the morning and a month in the afternoon" (Surah Saba': 12).

This verse clearly indicates that long distances could be traversed quickly. This points to wind vehicles that used a technology similar to that employed in our own day. (God knows the truth.) Moreover, the Qur'an reports that:

They made for him anything he wished: high arches and statues, huge dishes like cisterns, great built-in cooking vats. "Work, O family of David, in thankfulness!" But very few of My servants are thankful. (Surah Saba': 13)

In other words, Prophet Solomon (pbuh) caused his workers to employ very advanced construction and architectural technologies.

Another verse states that:

... And the demons, every builder and diver. (Surah Sad: 36-37)

The fact that Prophet Solomon (pbuh) could control diver demons indicates the location and extraction of undersea resources. Undersea oil and precious metal extraction processes and work require a highly advanced technology. These verses emphasize that such technology both existed and was used.

Another verse describes "a fount of molten copper" (Surah Saba': 12). The use of molten copper indicates the existence of an advanced technology using electricity in Prophet Solomon's (pbuh) time. As we know, copper is one of the best conductors of metal and heat, for which reason it represents the basis of the electricity industry. The term, "We made a fount of molten copper flow" in all probability points to large quantities of electricity being produced and used in many technological fields. (God knows the truth.)

Several verses reveal that Prophet David (pbuh) had a good knowledge of ironworking and making armor:

And We made iron malleable for him: "Make full-length coats of mail, measuring the links with care. And act rightly, all of you, for I see what you do." (Surah Saba': 10-11)

The Qur'an also mentions that Dhu'l-Qarnayn constructed a barrier between two mountains that could not be crossed or tunneled through by the societies of the time. According to the relevant verse, he used ingots of iron and molten copper:

[Dhu'l-Qarnayn said:] "Bring me ingots of iron!" Then, when he had made it level between the two high mountain-sides, he said: "Blow!" and when he had made it a red hot fire, he said: "Bring me molten copper to pour over it." (Surat al-Kahf: 96)

This information indicates that Dhu'l-Qarnayn used reinforced concrete technology. Iron, one of the strongest materials used in construction, is essential for increasing the strength of such architectural works as buildings, bridges, and dams. It appears from this verse that he laid the iron end to end and made a strong reinforced concrete structure by pouring mortar over it. (God knows the truth.)

Inscriptions from ancient Central American civilizations refer to a tall, bearded person arriving wearing white robes. They also report that within a short space of time, belief in a single deity spread and a sudden leap forward in art and science occurred.

Many prophets, such as Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Aaron (peace be upon them all) were sent to ancient Egypt. These messengers and the people who believed in them may have had an important influence on the rapid artistic and scientific progress made by Egypt at various times.

Muslim scientists following the Qur'an and the Sunnah of our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) made important discoveries in astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, and other sciences. These made major change and significant progress possible in science and social life. Some of these Muslim scientists and their work are as follows:

Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi is known for his work on anatomy. He rectified previous errors concerning many of the body's bones, such as the lower jaw and the breastbone. His Al-Ifada wa al-I'tibar was set out in 1788 and translated into Latin, German, and French. He studied the five sense organs in his Makalatun fial-Havas.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna) described the treatments for many diseases. His best-known work, Kitab al-Qanun fi at-Tibb, was written in Arabic and translated into Latin in the 12th century. It was taught and regarded as a basic textbook in European universities until the 17th century. Much of its medical information still applies today.

Zakaria Qazvini demolished many mistaken ideas regarding the brain and the heart that, since Aristotle's time, had been considered accurate. The information he provided about these two organs is very similar to our present-day knowledge.

Zakaria Qazvini, Hamd Allah Mustawfi Qazvini (1281-1350), and Ibn Nafs all studied anatomy and formed the foundation of modern medical science.

Ali ibn Isa wrote a three-volume work on eye diseases, Tazkirat al-Kahhalin. The first volume is totally devoted to the eye's anatomy and contains much valuable information. It was later translated into Latin and German.

Al-Bayruni demonstrated, 600 years before Galileo, that Earth revolves and also calculated its diameter 700 years before Newton.

Ali Kuscu produced the first map of the Moon, one region of which is named after him.

Thabit ibn Qurra discovered differential calculus centuries before Newton.

Al-Battani was the first to discover trigonometry.

Abu'l Vafa was responsible for trigonometry acquiring the terms secant and cosecant.

Al-Khwarizmi wrote the first book on algebra.

Al-Maghribi discovered the equation known as Pascal's triangle 600 years before Pascal himself.

Ibn Haytham is the founder of optics. Bacon and Kepler made use of his works, and Galileo used his works in his discovery of the telescope.

Al-Kindi put forward relativity and the theory of relativity 1,100 years before Einstein.

Akshamsaddin, who lived some 400 years before Pascal, was the first to discover the existence of microbes.

Ali ibn Abbas performed the first cancer operation.

Ibn Jazzar described the causes and treatment of leprosy.

Muslim scientists, only a minute fraction of whom are listed above, made major discoveries that would form the basis of modern science by following the Qur'an and the way of our Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace).

As we have seen, many earlier peoples made progress in art, medicine, technology, and science through the messengers sent to them. By obeying the prophets and learning from these individuals' suggestions and encouragement, they acquired knowledge and handed this on to subsequent generations. In addition, societies that sometimes turned away from the true religion and developed superstitious beliefs returned to faith in the One God through these messengers' efforts.

When findings regarding past ages are looked at without prejudice, humanity's history can be understood very clearly and distinctly.

As already stated, backward and advanced civilizations have existed together at all periods in history, just as they do today. In our day, we enjoy space technology, while people in other parts of the globe are living under primitive conditions, so in the past Ancient Egypt had a glorious civilization on the one hand, while rather more backward societies existed in other parts of the world. The Mayans, who built highly developed cities, and who from the traces they left behind can be seen to have possessed a clearly advanced technology, calculated the orbit of the planet Venus and discovered the moons of the planet Jupiter. At the same time, people in many regions of Europe believed that the Earth was the center of the Solar System. While the Egyptians were successfully performing brain surgery, in other regions people believed that disease was caused by supposed evil spirits. With their legal system, literature, understanding of art and astronomical knowledge, the Sumerians built a deep-rooted civilization in Mesopotamia, while another corner of the world held societies that were still illiterate. Therefore, in the same way that today's civilizations are not all advanced, so in the past there was never a time when the only societies were backward ones.

So far, we have examined evidence belonging to different periods of history and reviewed examples of the cultures of tens or hundreds of thousands years ago. Looking at more recent history, again we encounter evidence that human beings have always been human: Here we are dealing not with "primitive" people who have only recently parted ways with apes, but civilized human beings who can be seen to have inherited yet another civilization that had persisted for thousands of years before them.

As technology advanced in the 20th century, archaeological research accelerated enormously, and began to unearth more and more evidence regarding the true history of mankind. Thus it emerged that life in Egypt, Central America, Mesopotamia and other regions thousands of years ago was in many ways parallel to how we live today.

### Megaliths: Astonishing Artifacts from Human History

Megalith is the name given to monuments consisting of large blocks of stone. Many ancient megaliths have survived down to the present day. One of the most surprising aspects of these monuments is how such huge blocks of stone, some weighing more than a ton, were used to build the structures in question, how these stones were carried to their construction sites and by what techniques. How did the people of that time build these structures by placing one enormous block on top of another? These megaliths were generally built using stones brought from a long distance away, and are regarded today as marvels of construction and engineering. The peoples who produced such works must obviously have possessed some advanced technology.

First of all, of course, planning is essential in order to create these monuments, and those plans must be communicated accurately and fully to everyone involved in the project. Technical drawings of where the monument is to be erected have to be prepared. Moreover, the calculations in these drawings must be free of any error, because the slightest inaccuracy will make it impossible for the monument to be built. In addition, the organization involved must also be flawless if construction is to take place. Factors such as coordinating the workers and meeting their needs (for meals, rest, etc.) are vital to the progression of the construction in the desired manner.

Clearly, the people involved in constructing these monuments possessed an accumulated knowledge and a technology far superior to what is generally imagined. As mentioned earlier in this book, civilization does not always move in a forward direction; sometimes it regresses. And indeed, most of the time, both advanced and backward civilizations are able to exist simultaneously in different parts of the world.

It is exceedingly probable that the people who constructed the megaliths in question possessed an advanced civilization, as shown by the archaeological and historical remains. The structures they produced show that they had a wide-ranging knowledge of mathematics and geometry; that they knew the technology needed to build monuments by calculating fixed points in hilly areas; that they used equipment (such as the compass) to determine geographical positions, and that when necessary, they could transport the materials needed for construction from many kilometers away. Obviously, they did not manage all this by using only primitive tools and manpower. Indeed, many experiments by researchers and archaeologists have demonstrated that it would have been impossible to construct these monuments under the conditions proposed by the theory of evolution. Researchers who have attempted to construct similar monuments by reproducing the imaginary "Stone Age" conditions postulated by evolutionists have failed dismally. These researchers have not only found it difficult to construct any similar structure, but have also experienced enormous difficulties in transporting these stones from one place to another. This shows yet again that people of that era did not lead backward lives, as evolutionists would have us believe. They enjoyed and understood architecture, made expert use of construction technology and engaged in astronomical investigations.

It is perfectly understandable that only stone blocks, stone structures and various stone tools should remain from the civilizations of thousands of years ago. However, it is not logical to look at a handful of stone structures and artifacts and conclude that the people of that time had an undeveloped civilization completely lacking in any technology and was only able to use stone. Such assertions, based on various dogmas, are of no scientific significance. But if we evaluate these findings without the negative effects of preconceptions, then interpretations rather closer to the truth can be made. Even if a society of hundreds of thousands of years ago lived in impressive wooden houses, built beautiful villas with glass windows and used the most attractive decorative materials, obviously very little evidence of this would survive the erosive effects of the intervening centuries of wind, rain, earthquakes and floods. Under natural conditions, it takes only an average of 100 to 200 years for timber, glass, copper, bronze and various other metals to be worn away. In other words, in two centuries' time, the walls of your house will be worn away, and very little will remain of the furnishings inside. Even less will be left if it is subjected to earthquakes, floods or storms. All that will be left will be stone blocks that take much longer to be eroded away. Even then, stone materials will be worn away into smaller fragments. On the basis of these blocks of stone, therefore, it is impossible to make interpretations about the daily lives of societies of that time. Their social relationships, beliefs, tastes and artistic understanding cannot be deduced with any measure of certainty.

Yet evolutionists still attempt the impossible, adorning various discoveries with fictitious interpretations and inventing various scenarios. Producing fantasies by distorting the facts is something that is actually criticized by some evolutionists themselves! They have even given this approach the name of "Just So Stories."

That term appears in a criticism by the famous evolutionist paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, which term he borrowed from the 1902 book of the same name by the British writer and poet Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936). In this book of tales intended for children, Kipling told a number of imaginative stories about how living things might have acquired their various organs and attributes. About the elephant's trunk, for example, he wrote this:

In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose ... But there was one Elephant—a new Elephant, an Elephant's Child—who was full of satiable curiosity ... So he went on ...till he trod on what he thought was a log of wood at the very edge of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees. But it was really the Crocodile ... Then the Elephant's Child put his head down close to the Crocodile's musky, tusky mouth, and the Crocodile caught him by his little nose ... Then the Elephant's Child sat back on his little haunches, and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the Crocodile floundered into the water, making it all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled. 38

Gould and certain other evolutionist scientists have criticized the literature for filling itself with similar scenarios, with no supporting evidence to back them up. The same applies to those who attempt to explain the development of societies in terms of the theory of evolution. Like Kipling's tales, the Just So Stories of evolutionist social scientists rely solely upon imagination. Indeed, consider a history of mankind based on societies whose supposed forerunners were only able to grunt and use crude stone tools, lived in caves, and survived by hunting and gathering, and who, as subsequently developed, began engaging in agriculture, and later began using metals, and began establishing social relationships as their mental powers increased. That "history" is no different from the story of how the elephant got its trunk.

Gould describes this unscientific approach:

Scientists know that these tales are stories; unfortunately, they are presented in the professional literature where they are taken too seriously and literally. Then they become "facts" and enter the popular literature...39

In addition, Gould also states that these tales prove nothing in terms of the evolutionary theory:

These tales, in the "just-so story" tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything. But the weight of these, and many similar cases, wore down my faith in gradualism long ago. More inventive minds may yet save it, but concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal much to me. 40

### Newgrange

This monumental grave near Dublin is agreed to have been built around 3,200 BCE. Newgrange was already old at a time before Egypt's civilization had come into existence, and before the birth of Babylonian and Cretan civilizations. Stonehenge, one of the most famous stone structures in the world, had not yet been built. Research has shown that Newgrange was not only a grave, but that its builders possessed a comprehensive knowledge of astronomy—and possessed engineering techniques and architectural knowledge worthy of emphasis.

A great many archaeologists describe Newgrange as a technical miracle. For example, the dome atop the structure is an engineering marvel all by itself. The single stones, heavy at the bottom and lighter on the upper parts, have been placed on top of one another so expertly that each one protrudes slightly from the one beneath it. From this, a hexagonal 6-meter-high chimney rises above the central part of the structure. On top of the chimney is a stone lid that can be opened or closed at will.

Obviously, this giant structure was built by people with an excellent understanding of engineering, able to calculate accurately, plan correctly, transport heavy loads of stone, and make good use of their construction know-how. Evolutionists can shed no light on how this structure was erected because, according to their unrealistic view, people of that time labored under primitive and backward conditions. But it's impossible for such an enormous monument to have been built by anyone lacking a sophisticated knowledge of engineering and construction.

The structure's astronomical features alone are astonishing. This giant monument has been constructed in such a way that at winter solstice, it gives rise to an impressive light show. Shortly after daybreak on the shortest day of the year, a shaft of sunlight illuminates the Newgrange burial chamber. At this point, a perfect play of light occurs. Rays from the rising sun pass through a narrow opening on the bottom of the roof box over the entrance and shine down the passage to the inner chamber. All the stone blocks are placed at angles that allow the light to reach them and be reflected off them—one vital factor that makes this entire light show possible.

You can see, therefore, that the builders of this giant structure not only had a knowledge of engineering, but also possessed a knowledge of astronomy that let them calculate the length of days and the movements of the Sun.

Newgrange is just one of many stone structures of that period surviving in that region. From looking at this structure, you can conclude that it was made by people with a deep accumulation of knowledge, using advanced techniques and methods. What interpretation can be made regarding the kind of lives those people led? The people who built such a structure may well have lived in comfortable, civilized surroundings. If they had a knowledge of astronomy and sufficient expertise to interpret those observations correctly, their daily lives must have been similarly civilized, in direct proportion to that accumulation of knowledge. This stone monument may be the only surviving building from a society that lived in comfortable homes, had well-maintained gardens, received treatment in good hospitals, engaged in commercial activity, regarded art and literature and enjoyed a broad, important cultural heritage. All these are realistic interpretations about the people who built this stone monument, based on the archaeological findings and the historical facts. Yet evolutionists, accustomed to thinking only along materialist lines, prefer to relate stories that are the product of specific dogmas, rather than make rational interpretations compatible with science. However, their stories can never express a definitive, true explanation.

### Stonehenge

Stonehenge, a monument that stands in England, consists of some 30 large stone blocks arranged in a circle. Each of these blocks is an average of 4.5 meters (15 feet)high and weighs an average of 25 tons. The monument has attracted the attention of a great many researchers, and many theories have been proposed as to how and why it was erected. What matters here is not which (if any) of these theories is actually correct, but that this monument yet again invalidates the theory of "evolution" in the history of mankind.

Research reveals that Stonehenge was built in three main stages, beginning in about 2,800 BCE. In other words, the history of its construction goes back some 5,000 years. The initial stage of building included the digging of a ditch, bank and some round pits in the chalk. In the second stage, some 80 bluestones were set up in two rings around the center of the site and a heel stone was erected outside this. Later, an outer circle of giant sarsen stones was formed, with a continuous run of lintels.

One of the most noteworthy aspects of this monument is the bluestones used in it, because there are no sources of such stones anywhere nearby. These stones were imported to the site from the Preseli Mountains—some 380 kilometers (240 miles) away. If, as evolutionist historians claim, the people of that time lived under primitive conditions, with the only tools at their disposal being wooden cranks, timber rafts and stone axes, then how could they transport these stones all the way to the region where Stonehenge now stands? This question cannot be answered by scenarios that are mere figments of conjecture.

One group of researchers tried to transport bluestones as far as Stonehenge by reconstructing the equipment supposedly used at the time. To that end, they used wooden cranks, built a raft able to carry stones of an equivalent size by lashing three rafts together, moved the raft upriver using wooden poles, and then finally tried to move the stones uphill using crudely manufactured wheels. But their efforts were in vain. This was just one of the experiments carried out in order to establish how the bluestones might have been transported as far as where Stonehenge lies now. Many others have been performed, and investigators have attempted to understand what method of transportation the people of the time might have used. Yet none of these attempts came anywhere near achieving success, because they were all carried out under the misapprehension that the people who built Stonehenge had a backward culture and used only crude implements made of stone and wood.

Another point that needs emphasis is that the experiments in question benefited from present-day technology. They used various models produced in naval shipyards, employed ropes produced in high-tech factories, and made detailed plans and calculations. Yet even so, they obtained no positive results. However, people living some 5,000 years ago transported these stones, weighing many tons each, and arranged them in a circle by calculating their exact geographical positions. Clearly, they did not accomplish all this with stone tools, rafts made of logs and cranks made of timber. Stonehenge and the many other megaliths were built using some technology we are unable even to guess at today.

## The Astonishing Remains In The City Of Tiahuanaco

At about 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level, in the Andes Mountains between Bolivia and Peru, the city of Tiahuanaco is full of ruins that stun visitors. The region is regarded as one of the archaeological marvels of South America, indeed, of the entire world.

One of the most astonishing remains in Tiahuanaco is a calendar that shows the equinoxes, the seasons, and the position of the Moon at every hour and its motions. This calendar is one of the proofs that the people living there possessed a highly advanced technology. Among the other astonishing remains in Tiahuanaco are monuments made out of huge stone blocks, some of them weighing as much as 100 tons.

A Reader's Digest author wrote, "... the best engineers of today still ask themselves whether they could cut and move huge masses of rock such as those used to build the city. The giant blocks look almost as though a die were used to cut them..." 41

For example, the city walls were built by placing blocks weighing 60 tons on top of other blocks of sandstone weighing some 100 tons. The stoneworking used to build these walls required enormous expertise. Huge square blocks were joined together with accurate grooves. Holes 2.5 meters (8 feet) long have been opened in blocks weighing 10 tons. In some parts of the ruins, there are stone water conduits 1.8 meters (6 feet) long and half a meter (1.5 feet) wide. These are of a regularity which is seldom equaled even today. It's impossible for these people to have produced these works in the absence of technological means, in the way that evolutionists claim. That is because under the allegedly primitive conditions, it would take longer than a human lifespan to produce just one of these structures. That in turn would mean that it took centuries to create Tiahuanaco, which alone shows that the evolutionist thesis is false.

One of the most noteworthy monuments in Tiahuanaco is the so-called Gate of the Sun. Made out of a single block, it is 3 meters (10 feet) high and 5 meters (16.5 feet) wide and is estimated to weigh more than 10 tons. The gate has been decorated with various carvings. No explanation can be given as to what methods were used to construct the gate. What kind of technology was employed in the building of such an impressive structure? How were blocks of stone weighing 10 tons extracted, and by what means were they transported from the stone quarries? It is clear that all these things were achieved using more than just simple tools and equipment, of the kind alleged by evolutionists.

When you also consider the geographical conditions of the region where Tiahuanaco stands, the whole feat assumes even more astonishing proportions. The city is many kilometers away from any normal settlement areas and stands on a high plateau some 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) high, where atmospheric pressure is around only half that at sea level. The greatly reduced oxygen level here would make tasks requiring a human workforce even more difficult.

All this goes to show that, as in many other regions of the world, advanced civilizations existed here in the past—which invalidates the thesis that the societies always "evolve" towards more advanced states.

### Ancient Egypt: A Magnificent Civilization in Terms of Art and Science

In one of the most magnificent civilizations in terms of art and science founded by humankind, the Ancient Egyptians possessed more knowledge and experience than could have been possible, had they been the "heirs" or continuation of some primitive society. Among the Egyptians, members of a deviant, pagan religion, there were Jewish workmen with a knowledge of art, which had its origins in the times of Prophets Noah and Abraham (peace be upon them). These skilled people used the knowledge they had learned from the days of the past prophets.

The achievements of the Egyptians have still not been duplicated in many parts of the world today. In various parts of Asia, South America, or Africa, including Egypt itself, a life way beyond the level of the past civilization is still led. The civilization of Ancient Egypt, which registered such great successes especially in medicine, anatomy, urban planning, architecture, fine arts and textiles, is today studied by scientists with great awe and amazement.

### The Origins of Ancient Egyptian Medicine

The sophistication achieved by physicians in Ancient Egypt is quite amazing. Findings obtained from excavations have amazed archaeologists, because no historian expected such a highly developed technology in a civilization that existed in the 3,000s BCE.

X-ray analysis of mummies has revealed that brain surgery was performed in Ancient Egypt. 43 What is more, these operations were carried out using highly professional techniques. When mummy skulls that underwent surgery are examined, it can be seen that the incisions of the surgery have been cut very neatly. Skull bones that have fused back together prove that the patients survived long after such operations.44

Another example concerns various medicines. Giant strides were made in medicine in the 19th century due to the rapid progress made in experimental science, including the discovery of antibiotics. Yet the word "discovery" is not strictly accurate, because many of these techniques had already been known to the Ancient Egyptians.45

Some of the most important evidence of just how advanced the Egyptians were in science and anatomy lies in the mummies they left behind them. They used hundreds of different techniques in the process of mummification, which permits the bodies of living things to be preserved for thousands of years.

The mummification process is highly complex. First, the brain and some of the internal organs of the deceased were removed using special instruments. The next stage in the procedure involved dehydrating the body for 40 days with natron. (Natron is a mineral salt, primarily a mixture of sodium bicarbonate and sodium carbonate with small amounts of sodium chloride and sodium sulfate.) After the excessive body fluids were reduced, the body cavity was then stuffed with linen, sand or sawdust. The skin was anointed with special herbal preparations and then coated with liquid resin to further preserve it. Finally the body was carefully wrapped in linen bandages. 46

Mummification, carried out without damaging the shape of the body and by extracting all the deceased's internal organs, shows that those who performed it possessed a sufficient knowledge of anatomy to know the position of all the various organs.

Quite apart from the techniques of mummification, the Egyptians of 5,000 years ago enjoyed a wide range of other medical sophistication. For example:

-The priests involved in medicine in Egypt treated many diseases in their temples. Just as today, Egyptian doctors specialized in various fields of medicine. Every doctor, provided services in his own specialty.

-Doctors in Egypt were supervised by the state. If the patient failed to recover or died, the state would investigate the reasons why and determine whether the method of treatment employed by the doctor conformed to the rules. If any oversight was found to have taken place during treatment, the doctor was penalized within the framework of the law.

-Every temple possessed a well-equipped laboratory in which medicines were prepared and stored.

-The first steps in pharmacology, and the use of bandages and compresses, go back to Ancient Egyptian times. The Smith Papyrus (which is wholly concerned with medicine) describes how adhesive strips of linen—an ideal material for making bandages—were used to cover wounds.

-Archaeological findings have revealed a detailed picture of medical practices in Egypt. In addition, the names and titles of more than 100 doctors specializing in their own fields have been discovered.

-In reliefs on a wall of the temple at Kom Ombo, a box of surgical instruments is carved. This box contained metal shears, surgical knives, saws, probes, spatulas, small hooks and forceps.

-The techniques employed were numerous and varied. Breaks and fractures were set, splints employed and wounds closed with stitches. Fractures that healed after treatment with great success have been found in many mummies.

-Although no trace of surgical scars has been found in mummies, there are 13 references to wound suturing in the Smith Papyrus. This indicates that the Egyptians managed proper wound suturing, employing linen thread. The needles were in all probability made out of copper.

-Egyptian doctors were able to distinguish between sterile wounds and infected ones. They used a mixture of ibex fat, fir oil and crushed peas to clean infected wounds.

-Penicillin and antibiotics were discovered relatively recently. However, the Ancient Egyptians used the first organic versions of these and other different types of antibiotic, and wrote prescriptions suited to various types of disease. 47

Along with these major strides in medicine, excavations have also revealed that the Egyptians were very interested in such subjects as urban planning and architecture.

### Advanced Metallurgy in Ancient Egypt

In the general sense, metallurgy is the branch of science and technology involving the refining from raw materials, shaping and preservation of metals and their compounds. An examination of Ancient Egyptian civilization shows that between 3,000 and 3,500 years ago, the Egyptians had become expert at extracting and working various minerals and metals, especially gold, copper and iron. Their highly developed metallurgy shows that the Egyptians were advanced in finding, extracting and working ores, and had a highly developed knowledge of chemistry.

Archaeological research has revealed that the Egyptians were producing detailed work on copper ore and producing metallic compounds in around 3,400 BCE. In the Fourth Dynasty (around 2,900 BCE), mining research and operations were monitored by very high-ranking officials and are known to have been supervised by Pharaoh's sons.

In addition to copper, the Ancient Egyptians often used iron. Tin was used to create bronze, and cobalt to color glass. Metals not naturally occurring in Egypt were imported from other regions, particularly from Persia.

Their most frequently used and highly prized metal was gold. Hundreds of gold mines have been discovered in Egypt and parts of modern-day Sudan. One papyrus dating back to the 14th century BCE contains the plans of a gold mine near Apollinopolis, revealing the Ancient Egyptians' professionalism on the subject. The papyrus describes the construction of more than 1,300 dwellings around the mine just to accommodate those working in it. From this, the importance of goldsmithing and the art of jewelry in Ancient Egypt is apparent. Indeed, the hundreds of decorative golden objects discovered in archaeological excavations are indications that the Ancient Egyptians were expert miners and metalworkers.

This also goes to show that the Egyptians possessed the scientific knowledge and technology needed to identify seams of metal, extract ore from them, refine the metals thus extracted, and combine them to produce alloys.

### Ancient Egyptian Urban Planning and Infrastructure

Egypt's arid climate has left behind many clues to their civilization, evidencing that ancient Egyptian cities had a highly developed infrastructure.

Certainly a highly developed infrastructure shows that those who built these cities had an advanced knowledge of architecture and engineering.How far down underground foundations need to be dug, where the supporting beams need to be placed, how an effective ventilation system needs to be planned, the arrangement of pathways for clean and dirty water so they do not mix, and a great many other details must be considered. And, most important of all, no errors can be made in any of them. The Egyptians knew all these techniques, and the buildings they left behind prove this.

The architectural techniques they used in the 3,000s BCE were exceedingly professional and intended to resolve difficulties and problems of infrastructure. Water is of great importance to an arid country like Egypt. In fact, they found permanent solutions to the problem, including the tanks they built in which to store water.

A large reserve of water discovered in the Fayum oasis depression is one of these. The Egyptians also built some artificial lakes to ensure that life could continue in specific regions. These small lakes collected water from the Nile, making possible an advanced civilization in the Egyptian desert. They constructed Lake Moeris, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of present-day Cairo, for the purpose of storing water from the River Nile by means of a canal. Settlements and temples were constructed near this reservoir. 48

The Egyptians' knowledge of medicine, urban planning, and engineering and how it should be put into practice are just some of the evidence of the exceptionally advanced civilization that they possessed. Their knowledge and the measures they implemented once again refute the thesis that societies progress from a primitive state to a civilized one. A society that existed 5,000 years ago possessed a more advanced level of civilization than some communities living in the same country today, something that cannot be explained in terms of "evolutionary progress." There's also no doubt that during the time when the Egyptians were enjoying their advanced civilization, there were more backward communities with people living under more primitive conditions in Africa and other parts of the world. Yet none of these individuals had any features that were less than human, nor any supposedly ape-like traits. The Egyptians, other people living in primitive conditions at the same period, as well as them and human communities that existed hundreds of thousands of years ago, have all been as entirely human as present-day Man, in all respects. Some communities may have lived in more advanced conditions and others in more backward ones, but this does not show, as Darwinists maintain, that they are descended from apes or that one race evolved from another. Such an interpretation is a violation of science, reason and logic.

### Ancient Egyptians' Achievements in Textiles

It can be seen from fragments of linen cloth that have survived from 2,500 BCE that the Egyptians produced very high-quality fabrics, in terms of both materials and weaving. Most important of all, however, are the details in the weaving of the cloth. In 2,500 BCE, the Ancient Egyptians were producing delicate fibers of the kind that are made today in machinery equipped with advanced technology, which linen was used for wrapping around mummies. The delicate weaving of these fabrics has amazed Egyptologists. 49 These specimens are so fine that one needs a magnifying glass to distinguish them from silk, and this fabric is comparable with the best work of the present-day machine loom. 50 Even today these fabrics are renowned for their quality, and the Egyptian linen made today owes its fame to the weavers who lived in the 2,000s BCE.

### An Advanced Level of Mathematics

Numbers were used in Ancient Egypt from very early times. Papyruses from 2,000 BCE describing mathematical problems have been found. The four most referred to documents are known as the Kahun fragments, and Berlin, Moscow and Rhind papyruses. These documents state, with examples, the bases on which measurements are made. The Egyptians knew that a triangle whose sides measure 3:4:5 is a right triangle, and made use of this knowledge (which is now called the Pythagoras Theorem) in their construction calculations. 51

In addition, the Egyptians knew the difference between planets and stars. They added the stars, some of which are very hard to see with the naked eye, to their studies of astronomy.

And since the Egyptians' lives were dependent on the Nile, they had to check its level during its annual floods. The ruler had a "Nilometer" made to measure the height of the river waters, and appointed officials for that purpose. 52

### A Construction Technology Full of Secrets

The most important structures built in Ancient Egypt, at which visitors still gaze in wonder today, are the mysterious pyramids. The most magnificent of them is the Great Pyramid, regarded as the largest stone edifice constructed in the world to date. Historians and archaeologists since the time of Herodotus have put forward various theories as to how this pyramid was built. Some have maintained that slaves were used in its construction and have suggested several different possible techniques, from the ramp technique to a terraced pyramid. The complete picture that emerges from these hypothetical methods is this:

-Had this pyramid been built by slaves, then their number would be extraordinarily high, in the range of 240,000.

-Had a ramp been built to construct the pyramid, then it would have taken some eight years to dismantle this ramp after the pyramid was completed. This theory, according to the Danish civil engineer Garde-Hanson, is ridiculous, because once the ramp had been torn down, giant rough blocks would have been left over. Yet no such evidence is to be seen anywhere. 53

Stating that Garde-Hanson has considered aspects underestimated by other theoreticians, Moustafa Gadalla, in his book Historical Deception: The Untold Story of Ancient Egypt, goes on to say:

Try to visualize the staggering figures as you visit the pyramid: 4,000 year-round quarrymen producing 330 blocks per day. During inundation season, 4,000 blocks per day are transported to the Nile, ferried across, hauled up the ramp to the Giza plateau, and set into place in the core—a rate of 6.67 blocks per minute! Imagine 6.67 blocks every 60 seconds! 54

-In addition, bear in mind the fact that the surface area of each pyramid face is some 5.5 acres. Then some 115,000 casing stones were needed for each surface. These stones have been so scrupulously laid in place that the gaps between them are too small to permit even a piece of paper to fit between them. 55

These are just some of the objections that show that the secrets regarding the construction of the pyramids have still not been resolved by the twenty-first-century science and technology.

### If One Wished to Rebuild the Pyramids ...

In 1978, the Indiana Limestone Institute of America, Inc.—one of the world's leading authorities on limestone—carried out a thought-provoking feasibility study to learn what size workforce and what kind of materials would be needed to build a pyramid similar to the Great Pyramid of Giza. The company officials described the difficulty involved, noting that if they tripled present-day average production, quarrying, fabricating and shipping such a quantity of limestone would take approximately 27 years. In addition, all this work would be done using modern American technology—in other words, hydraulic hammers and electrical crystal-headed saws. Enormous effort would be needed just to quarry and transport the limestone, not including the laboratory tests necessary for the building of the Pyramid, nor any other such preparatory work. 57

So how did the Ancient Egyptians build these giant pyramids? By what power, with what machinery, by what techniques were the rock terraces set out? By what means were the rock tombs carved out? How was lighting provided during construction? (No staining or soot has been found on the walls or ceilings inside the pyramids and tombs.) How were blocks of stone removed from the quarries, and how were the differently shaped faces of the blocks smoothed? How were these blocks, weighing several tons, transported, and how were they fit together to an accuracy of 1/1000 of a centimeter? The list of questions could be a lot longer. Can they be answered in a logical and rational way through the evolutionist misconception of mankind's history? Of course not!

With their art, medicine and culture, the Ancient Egyptians produced a giant civilization. The works they left behind, the medical therapies they used and the accumulated knowledge and experience they possessed are some of the most important proofs of this. Some scientists today even claim that the works produced by the Egyptians—for whom, according to the evolution of history thesis, the building of pyramids must have been exceedingly difficult—were actually made by extraterrestrial visitors.

Of course, any such claim is exceptionally irrational and illogical. Yet evolutionists hide behind it since all their demagoguery is unable to provide a better explanation. First and foremost, there is not the slightest evidence to support their claim. When evolutionists realize that they cannot produce any explanation based on chance or imaginary evolutionary process, they immediately hide behind the idea of "visitors from space." Indeed, they came up with this ridiculous idea when they realized that the DNA in the cell nucleus and the first protein, representing the fundamental building block of life, had far too complex and extraordinary structures to have arisen by chance from inanimate substances. And so, visitors from space must have brought the first living organism to the Earth and left it behind. This ridiculous claim is one of the telltale signs of the despairing position evolutionists find themselves in.

The civilization in ancient Egypt—and all the other civilizations down through history—were all founded by people possessed of reason and will. Today, we are amazed by artifacts dating back to 3,000 BCE, and scientists and experts in the field debate how these could have been created. But what really matters is that the civilization of 5,000 years ago, whose traces can be seen today, was obviously built with an experience and sophisticated knowledge accumulated over thousands of years. In other words, the roots of this ancient civilization go back even further. That means that in the very earliest times there were no primitive, half-animal humans lacking the power of speech, and living solely by hunting, as is claimed by proponents of the evolution of history. Ever since the first human was created, Man has enjoyed the same human characteristics such as intelligence, conception of beauty, understanding, consciousness and moral values, as does Man today.

### The Sumerian Civilization

In describing the supposed "evolutionary march" of the history of mankind, Darwinist scientists are quite helpless on another subject: Man's mind, by which mankind has built universities, hospitals, factories and states, composed music, held the Olympic Games and traveled into space—in short, one of the most important characteristics that makes Man what he is.

Evolutionists maintain that human mind assumed its present capacities by evolving after Man diverged from chimpanzees, our so-called closest living relative. They ascribe the alleged leaps that took place in the mind's evolution to random changes occurring in the brain, and to the improving effect of tool-making skills. You'll frequently encounter such claims in television documentaries and in articles in magazines and newspapers, telling tall tales concerning ape-men who first learned how to make knives out of stone, and then spears. But this propaganda is not valid. Although they attempt to portray the scenarios they set out as scientific, they are actually based solely upon Darwinist preconceptions, and completely unscientific. The most important point of all is that human mind cannot be reduced to matter. By documenting the invalidity of materialism, this fact alone totally undermines any claims regarding the evolution of mind.

Evolutionists maintain that mind emerged through evolution, but they have no means of experiencing what a primitive level of intelligence is like, nor of replicating the conditions in the supposed evolutionary process. Despite his being an evolutionist, Henry Gee, editor of Nature magazine, well known for its evolutionist content, openly admits the unscientific nature of such claims:

For example, the evolution of Man is said to have been driven by improvements in posture, brain size, and the coordination between hand and eye, which led to technological achievements such as fire, the manufacture of tools, and the use of language. But such scenarios are subjective. They can never be tested by experiment, and so they are unscientific. They rely for their currency not on scientific test, but on assertion and the authority of their presentation. 61

Besides being unscientific, such scenarios are also logically invalid. Evolutionists maintain that thanks to the intellect that supposedly emerged through evolution, the ability to use tools emerged and developed, thanks to which, in turn, intelligence developed. Yet such a development is possible only when human intelligence is already present. According to this account, the question of whether technology or mind first emerged through evolution goes unanswered.

Phillip Johnson, one of the most effective critics of Darwinism, writes this on the subject:

A theory that is the product of a mind can never adequately explain the mind that produced the theory. The story of the great scientific mind that discovers absolute truth is satisfying only so long as we accept the mind itself as a given. Once we try to explain the mind as a product of its own discoveries, we are in a hall of mirrors with no exit. 62

The fact that Darwinists are quite unable to account for their own human minds reveals that the claims they make about Man's cultural and social history are also invalid. Indeed, all the facts and findings we have reviewed so far makes Darwinists' claims regarding the "evolution of history" totally meaningless.

Contrary to what evolutionists claim, the history of mankind is full of proofs that ancient peoples possessed far superior technologies and civilizations than had been believed. One of these civilizations is that of the Sumerians. The artifacts they left behind are some of the proofs of the accumulated knowledge possessed by mankind thousands of years ago.

### The Sumerians: An Advanced Civilization

Mesopotamia means "between rivers" in Greek. This region is one of the most fertile in the world, which has made it the cradle of great civilizations.

One group of people who emerged from south of these lands—from the region now known as Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia—spoke a different language from other communities, lived in cities, were ruled by a monarchy based on a legal structure, and used writing. These were the Sumerians, who developed rapidly by founding great city-states from 3,000 BCE on, and brought great numbers of people under their sway. 63

At a later date, the Sumerians were defeated by the Akkadians and passed under their yoke. However, by adopting the Sumerians' culture, religion, art, law, state structure and literature, the Akkadians enabled civilization to preserve in Mesopotamia.

In their time, the Sumerians made significant developments in all fields, from technology to art and from law to literature. They had well-developed trade and a powerful economy. Bronze work, wheeled vehicles, sailing boats, statues and monumental structures are some of the evidence of their rapid progress that has survived to the present day. In addition, the Sumerians are known to have possessed many handcrafts that have not survived. The weaving and dyeing of wool—an important export commodity for Mesopotamian cities—can be cited as one of their developed lesser arts. 64

The Sumerians also had a developed social structure. Their state was a monarchical one, with the priest-king ruling with the help of a series of officials. After the harvest, these would share the produce among the people, and visit and inspect the fields. Bureaucracy formed the basis of the Sumerian administrative system. The priest in every region would assume responsibility for the people living there and thus ensure that food was equitably distributed, in big cities especially. Work carried out by the priests was recorded and archived.

In the social, artistic, scientific and economic spheres, the Sumerians, who lived some 5,000 years before our own time, are at total variance with the evolutionist model of Man supposedly advancing from the primitive to the developed. The great civilization built by the Sumerians was not only exceedingly advanced for its own time, but also considerably advanced in comparison to a great many societies of our day. This level of cultural development cannot be explained by evolutionist claims of human beings first ridding themselves of ape-like features, including communication in grunts, then beginning to socialize and raise animals, and only just learning about agriculture. It is clear that human beings have always been human, with all their intelligence, abilities and tastes, in all periods of history. The images of ape-men sitting by the fire in caves and spending their days making crude stone implements, as so frequently depicted by evolutionists, are entirely fictitious, and conflict with all historical, archaeological and scientific evidence.

### Sumerian Science

The Sumerians had their own number system. Instead of the present-day base-10 system (decimal), they constructed a mathematical system based on the number 60 (sexagesimal). Their system still occupies an important place in our own day, in the way that we have 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute, and 360 degrees in a circle. For these reasons, the Sumerians, whose mathematical knowledge produced the first geometrical and algebraic formulae, are regarded as the founders of modern mathematics.

In addition, the Sumerians attained a rather advanced level in astronomy, and their calculations of the years, months and days were almost exactly the same as ours. The Sumerian calendar, with its year consisting of 12 months, was also used by the Ancient Egyptians, the Greeks and a number of Semitic societies. According to this calendar, a year consisted of two seasons—summer and winter. Summer began on the vernal equinox, and winter on the autumnal equinox.

The Sumerians also studied the heavens from towers they referred to as "ziggurats." 65 They were able to predict solar and lunar eclipses, as can be seen clearly in a number of records. To record their astronomical discoveries, the Sumerians made charts of a great many constellations of stars. In addition to the Sun and Moon, they also studied and noted the movements of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The calculations that the Sumerians produced 5,000 years ago have now been confirmed by the images sent back to Earth by spacecraft.

No doubt this is in complete conflict with claims of the evolution of history. We are looking at information originally discovered 5,000 years ago, which we have reacquired only recently thanks to giant telescopes, advanced computers and technology of various kinds. That being the case, evolutionist scientists should set aside their preconceptions and act in the light of the scientific and historical facts. That truth shows the invalidity of the idea, advocated by Darwinists, that civilizations always progress from the primitive to the more advanced. A number of ideological concerns underlie the attempt to account for the history of Man—who founds civilizations, composes music, produces works of art, constructs impressive buildings, explores space and makes scientific and technological discoveries—in terms of a supposed process of evolution. The correct approach for scientists is to behave in the light of the facts determined by experiment, discovery and observation, not ideological concerns.

### The Mayans: Another Civilization That Refutes the Idea of the Evolution of History

Almost all evolutionist publications have one thing in common: All of them devote considerable space to imaginary scenarios regarding why some biological structure or characteristic of a living thing might have evolved. The striking factor is that all the stories evolutionists dream up are depicted as scientific fact. The fact is, however, that these accounts are nothing more than Darwinist fairy tales. Evolutionists seek to present the scenarios they come up with as scientific evidence. Yet these accounts are all entirely misleading, of no scientific worth, and can never constitute evidence for evolutionist claims.

One tale so frequently encountered in the evolutionist literature is that of allegedly ape-like creatures turning into human beings, and of primitive man gradually becoming a social entity. Despite there being no scientific evidence to support them, reconstructions of these supposed primitive human beings—in which they are depicted as walking only semi-upright, grunting, walking together with their "cave-families" or hunting with crude stone tools—are the best known parts of this scenario.

These reconstructions amount to an invitation to imagine and believe. With them, evolutionists seek to convince people not on the basis of concrete facts, but of fantastic speculation, because these are based on their authors' prejudices and preconceptions, rather than on scientific facts.

Evolutionists have no qualms about keeping these stories in the professional literature, nor about presenting them as if they were scientific truth, even though they are well aware of the erroneous nature of their accounts. However, these scenarios so frequently voiced by evolutionists constitute conjectures, not scientific evidence, for the theory of evolution, because there is no evidence that Man is descended from an ape-like ancestor. In the same way, no archaeological or historical evidence suggests that societies evolve from the primitive to the more advanced. Man has been Man ever since he first came into existence, and has created different civilizations and cultures in all periods of history. One of these civilizations is the Mayan, whose remains still inspire amazement today.

Historical sources refer to a tall figure in white robes who came to the communities living in this region. According to the information contained on monuments, the belief in a single God spread for a short time, while advances were made in science and art.

### The Mayans: Expert Mathematicians

The Mayans lived in Central America in around 1,000 BCE, at a considerable distance from other advanced civilizations like those in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia. The most important features of the Mayans are the scientific advances they made in the fields of astronomy and mathematics, and their complex written language.

The Mayans' knowledge of time, astronomy and mathematics was a thousand years ahead of that of the Western world at the time. For example, their calculation of the Earth's annual cycle was a great deal more accurate than any other such calculations before the invention of the computer. The Mayans used the mathematical concept of zero a thousand years before its discovery by Western mathematicians, and used far more advanced figures and signs than their contemporaries.

### The Mayan Calendar

The Haab, the civil calendar used by the Mayans, consisting of 365 days, is one of the products of their advanced civilization. Actually, they were aware that a year is slightly longer than 365 days; their estimate was 365.242036 days. In the Gregorian calendar in use today, a year consists of 365.2425 days. 67 As you can see, there's only a very small difference between the two figures—further evidence of the Mayans' expertise in the fields of mathematics and astronomy.

### The Mayans' Knowledge of Astronomy

Three books which have come down to us from the Mayans, known as the Maya Codices, contain important information concerning their lives and astronomical knowledge. Of the three—the Madrid Codex, the Paris Codex and the Dresden Codex—the latter is the most important in terms of showing the depth of the Mayan knowledge of astronomy. They possessed a very complex system of writing, of which only less than 30% has been deciphered. Yet even this is enough to show the advanced level of science they attained.

For example, page 11 of the Dresden Codex contains information about the planet Venus. The Mayans had calculated that the Venusian year lasted 583.92 days, and rounded it up to 584 days. In addition, they produced drawings of the planet's cycle for thousands of years. Two other pages in the codex contain information about Mars, four are about Jupiter and its satellites, and eight pages are devoted to the Moon, Mercury and Saturn, setting out such complicated calculations as the orbits of these planets around the Sun, their relationships with one another, and their relationships with the Earth.

So accurate was the Mayans' knowledge of astronomy that they were able to determine that one day needed to be subtracted from the Venusian orbit every 6,000 years. How did they acquire such information? That is still a matter of debate for astronomers, astro-physicists and archaeologists. Today, such complex calculations are made with the help of computer technology. Scientists learn about outer space in observatories equipped with all kinds of technical and electrical apparatus. Yet the Mayans acquired their knowledge 2,000 years before the invention of present-day technology. This yet again invalidates the thesis that societies always progress from a primitive to a more advanced state. Many bygone societies had just as advanced a level of civilization as current ones, and sometimes even more so. Many communities today have not yet achieved the levels attained by societies in the past. In short, civilizations sometimes move forwards and at other times backwards, and both advanced and primitive civilizations sometimes exist at the very same time.

### Network of Roads in the Ancient Mayan City of Tikal

Tikal, one of the oldest Mayan cities, was founded in the 8th century BCE. Archaeological excavations in the city, which stands in wild jungle, have unearthed houses, palaces, pyramids, temples and assembly areas. All these areas are connected to one another by roads. Radar images have shown that in addition to complete drainage system, the city also enjoyed a comprehensive irrigation system. Tikal stands neither by a river nor by a lake, and it was found that the city made use of some ten water reservoirs.

Five main roads lead from Tikal into the jungle. Archaeologists describe them as ceremonial roads. Aerial photographs show that Mayan cities were linked to one another by a large network of roads totaling some 300 kilometers (190 miles) in length and demonstrating detailed engineering. All the roads were made from broken rocks and were covered over with a light-color hard-wearing layer. These roads are perfectly straight, as if laid out with a ruler, and the important questions remain of how the Mayans were able to determine direction during the construction of these roads and what equipment and tools they used. The evolutionist mentality cannot provide rational and logical answers. Because we are dealing with a marvel of engineering, hundreds of kilometers long, it is crystal-clear that these roads are the product of detailed calculations and measurements and the use of the necessary materials and tools.

### Cogs Used by the Mayans

Research in regions inhabited by the Mayans shows that they used devices containing cogwheels.

The photograph overleaf, taken in the major Mayan city of Copan, is one of the proofs of this. A society using cogwheel technology must also possess a knowledge of mechanical engineering.

It is impossible for anyone lacking this knowledge to produce a cogwheel mechanism. For example, if you were asked to produce a similar mechanism to that in the photograph, then without the appropriate training you could not do so, nor ensure that the mechanism would function properly.

Yet that the Mayans managed to do this is an important indicator of their level of knowledge, and proves that those who lived in the past were not "backward," as evolutionists claim.

The examples up to now are only a few that demonstrate the advanced levels of civilization achieved by communities in the past. These point to one very significant truth: The evolutionist thesis imposed for so many years, that societies in the past lived simple, backward, primitive lives, is simply wrong. Societies with different levels of civilization and different cultures have existed in all ages; yet none evolved from any other. The fact that some backward civilizations existed 1,000 years ago does not mean that history itself evolved, or that societies progress from the primitive to the more advanced. Because alongside these backward communities, there were also highly advanced ones that made huge strides in science and technology and founded deep-rooted civilizations. Yes, cultural interaction and the accumulated knowledge handed down through generations may well play a role in societies' development. But this is not evolution.

In citing examples of the communities that lived in the past, God tells us in the Qur'an that some of these did indeed build advanced cultures:

Have they not traveled in the Earth and seen the final fate of those before them? They were greater than them in strength and left far deeper traces on the Earth ... (Surah Ghafir: 21)

Have they not traveled in the land and seen the final fate of those before them? They were more numerous than them and greater in strength and left more and deeper traces on Earth, but what they earned was of no use to them. (Surah Ghafir:82)

How many wrongdoing cities We destroyed, and now all their roofs and walls are fallen in; how many abandoned wells and stuccoed palaces! (Surat al-Hajj: 45)

These statements imparted in the Qur'an are supported by archaeological findings. When archaeological discoveries and the sites where past communities lived are examined, it can indeed be seen that most of these societies enjoyed a higher level than some present-day communities, and that they made enormous advances in the fields of construction technology, astronomy, mathematics and medicine. This yet again invalidates the Darwinist myth of the evolution of history and societies.

### The Impasse of Language Evolution

In recounting the myth of the evolution of mankind's history, evolutionists encounter a number of serious problems. One is how human consciousness emerged in the first place. Another concerns the origin of speech—one characteristic that distinguishes human beings from all other living creatures.

When we speak, we are able to shape our thoughts thanks to language, and to express them in such a way that another party can understand them. Although this requires highly specialized muscular movements of the lips, throat and tongue, we are hardly aware of this. We merely "want" to speak. Sounds, syllables and words emerge through the harmonious contraction and relaxation of some 100 different muscles, and sentences comprehensible to others are formed by the appropriate sequences of such grammatical elements as subject, object and pronoun. The fact that we do nothing more than "wish" to use such an ability, based on such complex stages, clearly shows that speech is not merely an ability that arises from essential biological structures.

The human capacity for speech is an exceedingly complex phenomenon that cannot be explained in terms of the imaginary requirements or mechanisms of an evolutionary process. Despite lengthy research, evolutionists have been unable to produce any evidence that an exceedingly complex ability like speech evolved from simple animal-like sounds. David Premack from Pennsylvania University made this failure abundantly clear when he said, "Human language is an embarrassment for evolutionary theory ..." 68

The well-known linguist Derek Bickerton summarizes the reasons for this "embarrassment:"

Could language have come directly out of some prehuman trait? No. Does it resemble forms of animal communication? No ... no ape, despite intensive training, has yet acquired even the rudiments of syntax ... how words emerged, how syntax emerged. But these problems lie at the heart of language evolution. 69

All languages on Earth are complex, and not even evolutionists are able to imagine how such complexity could have been acquired gradually. According to the evolutionist biologist Richard Dawkins, all languages—even the tribal ones regarded as most primitive—are highly complex:

My clear example is language. Nobody knows how it began ... Equally obscure is the origin of semantics; of words and their meaning ... all the thousands of languages in the world are very complex. I am biased towards thinking it was gradual, but it is not quite obvious that it had to be. Some people think it began suddenly, more or less invented by a single genius in a particular place at a particular time. 70

Two evolutionist brain researchers, W.K. Williams and J. Wakefield of Arizona State University, say this on the subject:

Despite the lack of evidence for intermediate stages in linguistic evolution, the alternatives are hard to accept. If some species-specific characteristic did not evolve in piecemeal fashion, then there would seem to be only two ways to explain its appearance. Either it was put in place by some still-undiscovered force, perhaps through divine intervention, or it was the result of some relatively abrupt change in the development of the species, perhaps some sort of spontaneous and widespread mutation ... but the fortuitous nature of such a happenstance mutation makes that explanation seem suspect. As has been pointed out (Pinker and Bloom, 1990), the chances against a mutation resulting in a system as complex and apparently so ideally suited to its task as is language are staggeringly high. 71

Professor of linguistics Noam Chomsky comments on the complexity of the ability to speak:

I've said nothing so far about the production of language. The reason is that there is little to say of any interest. Apart from peripheral aspects, it remains largely a mystery. 72

To anyone not trapped inside evolutionist preconceptions, the origin of the capacity for speech is perfectly clear. It is Almighty God Who bestows this ability on Man. God inspires speech in human beings and causes them to speak, as is revealed in a verse from the Qur'an:

... They will reply, "God gave us speech as He has given speech to everything. He created you in the first place and you will be returned to Him." (Surah Fussilat: 21)

In the same way that evolutionists are unable to account for the complexity of the biological structures that enable speech, they are also unable to explain the origin of the consciousness that makes language possible. Human consciousness and the complexities of language show that language was created by a superior Intelligence that belongs to Almighty God, our Lord.

## The True Religion Has Existed Since The Beginning Of History

Another error of those who promote the deception that history and society evolved is the claim that religion—society's highest value—evolved as well. This claim was put forth in the 19th century and was avidly defended by materialists and atheists. But there are no archaeological findings to justify it and it remains in the realm of speculation.

Nor is there any support to claim that humans of earlier ages practiced so-called "primitive" tribal and polytheist religions, and that true religion—the religion revealed to the whole of humanity since the time of Adam (pbuh)and based on the belief in one God—came into being only later. Some evolutionists try to portray this claim as a historical fact, but they are greatly mistaken. Just as Darwin's theory of biological evolution is a deception, so is the theory of religious evolution that takes its inspiration from him.

### How Did the "Evolution of Religions" Error Come About?

About one and a half centuries ago, when Darwin's Origin of Species was still in its first edition, the idea of evolution gained support among materialists and atheists. Some thinkers of that period assumed that every event in the human history could be explained by evolution, stating that everything began from a so-called basic, primitive stage and advanced toward greater perfection.

This error was applied in many areas. In the realm of economics, for example, Marxism claimed that such advancement was inevitable and that everyone would eventually adopt communism. Experience has shown that this was only a dream and Marxism's claims did not reflect reality.

In the field of psychology, Sigmund Freud said that human beings were a highly evolved species but that psychologically, their actions were still motivated by the same drives as their so-called primitive ancestors' had been. This major error has been scientifically refuted by psychological research, showing that Freudianism's basic suppositions had no scientific foundation.

In the same way, the fields of sociology, anthropology and history have also been affected by the theory of evolution, but knowledge gained from discoveries in the last century have shown this influence has been counterproductive.

The common feature of all these evolutionary theories is their opposition to any belief in God. This is the philosophical basis behind the mistaken idea of the evolution of religion. According to the false claims of Herbert Spencer, a leading proponent of this error, early human beings had no religion. The first religions supposedly began with the worship of the dead. Other anthropologists who support the deception of religion's "evolution" propose different accounts. Some say that religion has its source in animism (the attribution of divine spirit to nature); others think that it arose from totemism (the worship of a symbolic person, group or object). Another anthropologist, E. B. Taylor, believes that religion developed from animism to manism (ancestor-worship), polytheism (the belief in many gods) and finally ending in monotheism (the belief in one God).

This theory was put forward in the 19th century by atheist anthropologists and has been kept alive ever since, presented in various scenarios. But it is nothing more than a deception. As archaeological and historical evidence shows, contrary to what these scientists have proposed, from earliest times there was a monotheist religion that God revealed to humanity through His prophets. But at the same time, deviant, superstitious beliefs have always coexisted with the true religion. Just as today there are people who believe that God is the One and Only deity and lead their lives according to the religion He has revealed, so also are those who erroneously worship idols of wood and stone, or satan, or their ancestors as well as various spirits, animals, the Sun, the Moon or the stars. And many of these people are not backward, but on the contrary live in very advanced circumstances.

Throughout history, there have also been those who have not obeyed the precepts of the true religions revealed by God and tried to eliminate their moral values. In the Qur'an, God tells us of some people who wanted to include superstitious beliefs and practices in the true religion revealed to them and ended up altering and destroying it:

Woe to those who write the Book with their own hands and then say "This is from God" to sell it for a paltry price. Woe to them for what their hands have written! Woe to them for what they earn! (Surat al-Baqara: 79)

This is why, over the course of time, some who believed in the existence and unity of God and obeyed His commands abandoned true religion. In this way, deviant beliefs and practices came into being. In other words, contrary to what some have proposed, there has never been a process of religious evolution; but true religion was at certain times distorted, as a result of which deviant ones arose.

### Distortion of the True Religion

In the 20th century important research has been done on the origin of religions, thanks to which it has become known that there is no scientific value in claims about religions' evolution, and that such claims are only imaginary scenarios. Research into world religions by such leading anthropologists as Andrew Lang and Wilhelm Schmidt has shown that religions did not evolve; on the contrary, sometimes underwent distortion over the course of time. The results of Schmidt's research were published in detail in the periodical, Anthropos.

Research done especially between 1900-1935 shows that claims about the evolution of religions are totally false, which led many anthropologists to abandon their evolutionary ideas. But despite all these scientific and historical facts, some radical atheists continued to defend this untenable scenario.

### Archaeological Finds from Egypt and Mesopotamia

The Mesopotamian plain, not far from the civilization of ancient Egypt, is known as the "cradle of civilizations."

Among the most important information to emerge from archaeological research in these areas came from discoveries regarding these societies' religious beliefs. Inscriptions tell of the activities of countless false deities. As more information was discovered and researchers discovered better methods to interpret the data, some details about these civilizations' religious beliefs began to emerge. One of the most interesting things is that above all the false deities these people believed in, they also believed in one God. Historical evidence shows that true religion always existed. The following pages will examine the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian and European civilizations together with the Aztecs, Incas and Mayans to prove that they all believed in one God and were visited by messengers who communicated true religion to them. The first researcher to discover that polytheism had originally contained monotheism was Stephen Langdon of Oxford University. In 1931, he announced his findings to the scientific world, saying that they were quite unexpected and totally at odds with previous evolutionist interpretations. Langdon explained his findings as follows:

... the history of the oldest civilization of man is a rapid decline from monotheism to extreme polytheism and widespread belief in evil spirits. 73

Five years later, Langdon would state in The Scotsman as follows:

The evidence points unmistakably to an original monotheism, the inscriptions and literary remains of the oldest Semitic peoples also indicate ... monotheism, and the totemistic origin of Hebrew and other Semitic religions is now entirely discredited. **74**

Excavations at modern Tell Asmar, the site of a Sumerian city dating from 3,000 BCE, unearthed findings that completely corroborated Langdon's ideas. The excavation director, Henry Frankfort, gave this official report:

In addition to their more tangible results, our excavations have established a novel fact, which the student of Babylonian religions will have henceforth to take into account. We have obtained, to the best of our knowledge for the first time, religious material complete in its social setting.

We possess a coherent mass of evidence, derived in almost equal quantity from a temple and from the houses inhabited by those who worshiped in that temple. We are thus able to draw conclusions, which the finds studied by themselves would not have made possible.

For instance, we discover that the representations on cylinder seals, which are usually connected with various gods, can all be fitted into a consistent picture in which a single god worshiped in this temple forms the central figure. It seems, therefore, that at this early period his various aspects were not considered separate deities in the Sumero-Accadian pantheon. 75

Frankfort's discoveries reveal very important facts about how a superstitious, polytheist system comes into being. The theory of the evolution of religions claims that polytheism arose when people started to worship evil spirits representing the powers of nature. But it was not so. In the course of time, people developed different understandings of the various attributes of the one God, which eventually led to distortions in belief in one God. The various attributes of the one God turned into the belief in several.

Long before Langdon had made his translations of the Sumerian tablets, a researcher by the name of Friedrich Delitzsch made similar discoveries. He found that the numerous deities in the Babylonian pantheon all devolved from the various characteristics of Marduk, as they called the one Deity that time. Research has shown that belief in Marduk resulted from the deterioration, over time, of the belief in one true God.

This one Deity, Marduk, had many names. He was called Ninib, or "the Possessor of Power," Nergal or "Lord of Battle," Bel or "Possessor of Lordship," Nebo or "the Lord of the Prophet," Sin or "Illuminator of the Night," Shamash or "Lord of all that is Just," and Addu or "God of Rain." Over the course of time, it seems that the attributes of Marduk became detached from him and assigned to different deities. In the same way, false deities such as the Sun-god and the Moon-god came into being as the products of peoples' imagination. Belief in Marduk, along with the other names of this false deity, shows that this belief system actually developed over time through distortion of belief in the One God.

We can also see traces of such perversion in ancient Egypt. Researchers have discovered that the ancient Egyptians were first of all monotheists, but that they later dismantled this system and turned it into Sabeism, or sun-worship. M. de Rouge writes:

It is incontestably true that the sublimer portions of the Egyptian religion are not the comparatively late result of a process of development or elimination from the grosser. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient; and the last stage of the Egyptian religion, that known to the Greek and Latin writers, heathen or Christian, was by far the grossest and the most corrupt. 76

The anthropologist Sir Flinders Petrie says that superstitious, polytheistic beliefs emerged through the gradual corruption of belief in a single deity. In addition, he says that this process of corruption can be seen in present-day society as well as in societies in the past:

There are in ancient religions and theologies very different classes of gods. Some races, as the modern Hindu, revel in a profusion of gods and godlings which continually increase. Others ... do not attempt to worship great gods, but deal with a host of animistic spirits, devils...

Were the conception of a god only an evolution from such spirit worship we should find the worship of many gods preceding the worship of one God... What we actually find is the contrary of this, monotheism is the first stage traceable in theology...

Wherever we can trace back polytheism to its earliest stages, we find that it results from combinations of monotheism.... 77

### The Origins of Superstitious Polytheism in India

Even if Indian culture is not as old as Middle Eastern cultures, still it is one of the oldest surviving cultures in the world.

In Indian paganism, the number of so-called deities is virtually endless. After long study, Andrew Lang has determined that polytheistic religions appeared in India as a result of a process similar to that in the Middle East.

Edward McCrady, writing about Indian religious beliefs, observed that the Rig Veda shows that in the early days, the deities were regarded simply as diverse manifestations of a single Divine Being. 78 In the hymns in the Rig Veda, we can see traces of the destruction of the monotheistic idea of a single God. Another researcher in this area, Max Müller, agrees that at first, there was a belief in one God:

There is a monotheism that precedes the polytheism of the Veda; and even in the invocation of the innumerable gods the remembrance of a God one and infinite, breaks through the mist of idolatrous phraseology like the blue sky that is hidden by passing clouds. 79

From this, it is again obvious that there has been no evolution of religions, but that people added false elements to true religion, or neglected certain commands and prohibitions—which finally resulted in the perversion of religious belief.

### Contamination of Religions in European History

We can see traces of a similar contamination in the beliefs of historical European societies. In his book The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times, Axel W. Persson, a researcher in Ancient Greek paganism, writes:

... there later developed a larger number of more or less significant figures which we meet with in Greek religious myths. In my opinion, their multiplying variety depends to a very considerable degree on the different invocating names of originally one and the same deity. 80

The same traces of alteration can be seen in Italy. An archaeologist by the name of Irene Rosenzweig, after researching the Iguvine tables, which date from Etruscan times, concludes that "deities are distinguished by adjectives, which in their turn emerge as independent divine powers." 81

In short, all of the last century's anthropological and archaeological evidence indicates that throughout history, societies first believed in one God but altered this belief with the passage of time. At first, peoples believed in God Who created everything from nothing, Who sees and knows all things and Who is Lord of all the worlds. But in time, the titles of our Lord were wrongly considered as separate deities, and people began to worship these false deities. True religion is the worship of the one and only God. Polytheistic religions developed from the contamination of the true religion, which our Lord has revealed to humanity since the time of Adam (pbuh).

### The True Religion Revealed by God

When we look at the culture and religious values of societies in the various areas of the world, we see that they have much in common. These societies could not have shared any cultural exchange, but they believe in beings such as angels, satan and jinni that do not live in the same dimension as human beings. They believe in life after death, in human beings created from the earth; and their worship contains many common elements. For example, Noah's ark is mentioned in Sumerian records, Welsh religion, and in Chinese inscriptions and in ancient Lithuanian religion.

This is just one proof that a single, all-powerful deity—that is God, Lord of the worlds—revealed the religious morality. Throughout the world, cultures have been taught religions that came from the same supreme place, revealing the existence of one incomparable deity. Our Lord has revealed Himself in every period of history through those servants He has chosen and exalted; and through them He has revealed the religion He has chosen for human beings. In the Qur'an, Almighty God's last revelation, He announces that "every people has a guide" (Surat ar-Ra'd: 7). It is revealed in other verses that He sends a messenger to all peoples to warn them:

We have never destroyed a city without giving it prior warning as a reminder. We were never unjust. (Surat ash-Shu'ara': 208-209)

These blessed messengers always taught societies that they should believe in God as the only deity, serve only Him, and that they should practice good and avoid evil. Human beings will attain salvation through obedience to these messengers, chosen and blessed in God's sight, and to the holy books they have left behind as an inheritance. The last prophet sent by our Lord as a mercy to the worlds was Prophet Muhammad (may God bless him and grant him peace); and the Qur'an, the last Divine book which is under Almighty God's eternal protection, is the truest guide for humanity.

## Conclusion

### The Reality of Timelessness Should Not Be Ignored

The historical and archaeological finds we have examined in this book show that Darwinian claims about the evolution of history and societies are nonsense, with no scientific validity. The only reason why they are upheld is concern about the demise of materialism. As we know, materialists make the mistake of rejecting the truth of creation; believing that matter is the one absolute entity that has existed forever and will continue to exist eternally. In other words, they have divinized matter. (God is surely beyond that) Today, however, science has reached the point of confirming that the universe came into being from nothing (that is, it was created), which has invalidated all theories and philosophies supporting materialism and materialist views.

However, even if materialists' views conflict with scientific evidence, they cannot at any cost accept that matter is not absolute but created. If they could just step back from their dogmatic prejudice for a moment, they would be able to see the plain truth and free themselves from the spell that materialism has cast on them. To do this, it will be sufficient to put their accustomed view to one side, rid themselves of their ideological bigotry and keep an open mind.

One of the first things they must consider is the real nature of the concept of time, because materialists think that time, along with matter, is absolute. This deception has prevented many of them from seeing the truth. Modern science has proven that time is a derivative of matter and that like matter itself, time was created from nothing. That is, time had a beginning. Also, it became known in last century that time is a relative concept; that it is a kind of changing perception and not something stable and unchanging, as materialists had believed for centuries.

### The Real Nature of the Concept of Time

What we call "time" is in fact a method by which we compare one moment to another. For example, when a person taps an object, he hears a particular sound. If he taps the same object again, he hears another sound. Believing that there is an interval between the two sounds, he calls this interval "time." Yet when he hears the second noise, the first one he heard is no more than an imagination in his mind, merely a bit of information in his memory. A person formulates his perception of time by comparing the "present" moment with what he holds in memory. If he doesn't make this comparison, he can have no perception of time either.

Renowned physicist Julian Barbour defines time in this way:

Time is nothing but a measure of the changing positions of objects. A pendulum swings, the hands on a clock advance. 82

Briefly, time comes about as a result of comparisons of data stored in the brain. If man had no memory, his brain could not make such interpretations and therefore, he would never form any perceptions of time. One determines himself to be thirty years old, only because he has accumulated information pertaining to those thirty years. If his memory did not exist, then he could not think of any such preceding period and would experience only the single "moment" in which he was living.

### Our Concept of the "Past" Is Merely Information in Our Memories

Because of suggestions we receive, we think we live in separate divisions of time called past, present and future. However, the only reason we have a concept of "past" (as explained earlier) is that various events have been placed in our memories. For example, we recall the moment we enrolled in primary school and therefore perceive it as an event in the past. However, future events are not in our memories. Therefore, we regard these things we don't yet know about as events that we'll experience in the future. But just as the past has been experienced from our point of view, so has the future. But because these events have not been supplied to our memories, we cannot know them.

Were God to put future events into our memories, then the future would be the past for us. For example, a thirty-year-old person recalls thirty years of memories and events and for this reason, thinks he has a thirty-year past. If future events between the ages of thirty and seventy were to be inserted into this person's memory, then for this thirty- year-old individual, both his thirty years and his "future" between the ages of thirty and seventy would become the past for him. In this situation, both past and future would be present in his memory, and each one would be vivid experiences for him.

Because God has made us perceive events in a definite series, as if time were moving from past to future, He does not inform us of our future or give this information to our memories. The future is not in our memories, but all human pasts and futures are in His eternal memory. This is like observing a human life as if it were already wholly depicted and completed in a movie. Someone who cannot advance the film sees his life as the frames pass, one by one. He is mistaken in thinking that the frames he has not yet seen constitute the future.

### World History Is Also a Relative Concept

All these facts apply to history and social life as well. We think of societies and world history as limited within the concepts of time and space. We divide history into periods and look at it in terms of this relative concept of ours.

We rely on our five senses to survive. We perceive only what our senses allow, and we can never succeed in stepping out of the boundaries of our senses. The time and space we live in are similarly perceived. If our brain cannot detect a being through our five senses, we simply say that that being has "disappeared." Accordingly, events, images or sensations stored in our memories still exist for us—that is, they are alive, while those that are forgotten no longer exist. To put it another way, beings and events that are not in our memory become past events for us. They are simply "dead" and non-existent.

Yet, this holds true only for human beings, because only human beings have a limited memory. The memory of God, on the other hand, is superior to everything. It is boundless and eternal, yet one point deserves mention here: The term "the memory of God" is used only for clarification purposes. It is definitely not possible that any comparison or similarity could be drawn between the memory of God and the memory of a human. God is surely the One Who creates everything from nothingness and Who knows everything, down to the last detail.

Because the memory of God is infinite, nothing existing in it ever becomes lost. In other words, no living being created by God ever vanishes. No flower fades, no drink of water finishes, no period comes to an end, and no food is wholly consumed. In its first form as a cloud of dust, the universe is in God's sight; every moment in history exists in His sight as they once were. The stones of Stonehenge are being set in place, the Egyptian pyramids are being constructed, the Sumerians are surveying the stars, Neanderthals eke out their living, the Lascaux cave images are being painted, people live in Catal Huyuk, and World War IIis raging. In the same way, societies that will live thousands of years from now exist in God's sight, even as they are building their civilizations and arranging their lives.

Eternity has begun for a being or an event by the time it is created. For instance, when a flower is created, it is, in reality, destined not to disappear. That it ceases to become a part of one's sensations and is erased from one's memory does not actually mean that it has vanished or died. Its state in the sight of God is what actually matters. Furthermore, all states of this being, from its creation, throughout all moments of its life or death, do exist in the memory of God.

Honest Reflection

All this knowledge is of utmost importance in human life. And this is definitely not any sort of philosophy or school of thought, but the result of scientific conclusions that are impossible to deny. Most probably, many readers are reflecting on these facts about timelessness and the real nature of time for the first time in their lives.

However, one important thing must be kept in mind: God, in the Qur'an, reveals that "only those who sincerely turn to God" (Surah Qaf: 8) take heed. In other words, only those who truly seek the guidance of God and strive to appreciate His infinite might and His greatness will heed these explanations and have a full grasp of these facts.

An individual may be influenced by materialism all his life. Because of this influence, he may not have the opportunity to think about these facts with an open mind. But this does not mean he must continue to lead his life in error. Anyone who sees the truth must no longer insist on error, but listen to and obey the moral voice of his conscience. God states in the Qur'an that every individual must avoid being the kind of person who sees the truth in his conscience but flees from it:

And they repudiated them wrongly and haughtily, in spite of their own certainty about them. See the final fate of the corrupters. (Surat an-Naml: 14)

Those who see the truth and acknowledge it, if God wills, will attain salvation in this world and in the Hereafter:

He who brings the truth and he who confirms it—those are the people who guard against evil. (Surat az-Zumar: 33)

## Notes

1. Richard Leakey, _The Origin of Humankind_ (Science Masters Series), New York: BasicBooks, 1994, p. 12.

2. L.S.B. Leakey, _Adam's Ancestors: The Evolution of Man and His Culture_ , New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, Publishers, 4th Ed., 1960, pp. 9-10.

3. Abram Kardiner, extract from "Posthumous Essays by Branislau Malinowski," in _Scientific American_ , June 1918,

p. 58.

4. Melville Herskovits, Man and His Works, New York:

Knopf, 1950, p. 467.

5. _Ibid._ , p. 476.

6. Edward Augustus Freeman, "Race and Language," in _Essays, English and American_ , with introductions, notes and illustrations, New York: P. F. Collier & Son, [c1910] Harvard classics; No. XXVIII.

7. Ahmad Thomson, _Making History_ , London: Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd., 1997, p. 4.

8. Zach Zorich, "Did Homo erectus Coddle His Grandparents?," _Discover_ , Vol. 27, No. 01, January 2006, p. 67.

9. Roger Lewin, _The Origin of Modern Humans_ , New York: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1993, p. 116.

10. Claire Imber, "Ape-Man: Origin of Sophistication," BBC News, 22 February 2000, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/650095.stm

11. Lewin, _The Origin of Modern Humans_ , p. 148-149.

12. _Ibid._ , p. 149.

13. Dr. David Whitehouse, "'Oldest' Prehistoric Art Unearthed," BBC News, 10 January 2002, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1753326.stm

14. Jean Clottes, "Chauvet Cave: France's Magical Ice Age Art," National Geographic, August 2001, p. 156.

15. Dr. David Whitehouse, "Ice Age Star Map

Discovered," BBC News, 9 August 2000, online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/871930.stm

16. http://www.goldenageproject.org.uk/

108catalhuyuk.html

17. _Fenomen_ , 15 September 1997, p. 45.

18. Robin Dennell, "The World's Oldest Spears," _Nature_ , Vol. 385, 27 Feb. 1997, p. 767.

19. _Ibid._

20. _Ibid._ , p. 768.

21. Hartmut Thieme, "Lower Palaeolithic Hunting Spears from Germany," _Nature_ , Vol. 385, 27 Feb. 1997, p. 807.

22. _Tas Devrinde Yasam_ ("Life in the Stone Age"), Terra X Documentary Film, TRT.

23. _Bilim ve Teknik_ ("Science and Technology" Magazine), September 2000.

24. Philip Cohen, "Open Wide," _New Scientist_ , Issue 2286, 14 April 2001, p. 19.

25. Glynn Isaac, Barbara Isaac, _The Archaeology of Human Origins_ , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 71; C.B.M. McBurney, _The Haua Fteah_ (Cyrenaica), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967, p. 90.

26. Vadim N. Stpanchuk, "Prolom II, A Middle Palaeolithic Cave Site in the Eastern Crimea with Non—Utilitarian Bone Artefacts," _Proceedings_ of the Prehistoric Society 59, 1993, pp. 17-37, pp. 33-34.

27. Paul Mellars, _The Neanderthal Legacy_ , Princeton: University Press, 1996, p. 17; Vadim N. Stpanchuk, "Prolom II, A Middle Palaeolithic Cave Site in the Eastern Crimea with Non—Utilitarian Bone Artefacts," _Proceedings_ of the Prehistoric Society 59, 1993, pp. 17-37, p. 17.

28. "Neandertals Lived Harmoniously," _The AAAS Science News Service_ , 3 April 1997.

29. Ruth Henke, "Aufrecht aus den Baumen," Focus, Vol. 39, 1996, p. 178.

30. Elaine Morgan, _The Scars of Evolution_ , New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 5.

31. _Chi_ , April 2005, p. 46.

32. Michael Baigent, _Ancient Traces: Mysteries in Ancient and Early History_ , England: Penguin Books, 1999, pp. 10-11.

33. David Brewster, "Queries and Statements Concerning a Nail Found Imbedded in a Block of Sandstone Obtained from Kingoodie (Mylnfield) Quarry, North Britain," _Annual Report_ of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1844, p. 51.

34. Baigent, _Ancient Traces_ , p. 14.

35. John Baines, Jaromir Malek, _Eski Mısır Medeniyeti_ , Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1986, Introduction.

36. William Howells, _Getting Here: The Story of Human Evolution_ , Washington, D.C.: Compass Press, 1993, p. 229.

37. www.kuranikerim.com/telmalili/hud.htm

38. Rudyard Kipling, The Elephant's Child, from Just So Stories, 1902;

http://www.boop.org/jan/justso/elephant.htm

39. Stephen Jay Gould, "Introduction," in Björn Kurtén, _Dance of the Tiger: A Novel of the Ice Age_ , New York: Random House, 1980, pp. xvii-xviii.

40. Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," in _The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History_ , [1980], London: Penguin, 1990, reprint, p. 158.

41. Simone Waisbard, in _The World's Last Mysteries_ (2nd edition), Reader's Digest, 1978, p. 138.

42. Graham Hancock, Santha Faiia, _Heaven's Mirror: Quest for the Lost Civilization_ , New York: Three Rivers Press, 1998, p. 304.

43. Moustafa Gadalla, _Historical Deception: The Untold Story of Ancient Egypt_ , Bastet Publishing, Erie, Pa., USA, 1996, pp. 295, 296.

44. Interview with Dr. Zahi Hawass, Director of the Pyramids,

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/pyramid/excavation/hawass.html

45. Gadalla, Historical Deception, p. 296

46. http://www.amonline.net.au/teachers_resources/

background/ancient_egypt04.htm

47. Afet İnan, _Eski Mısır Tarihi ve Medeniyet_ (Ancient Egyptian History and Civilization), Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1956, p. 318.

48. _Ibid._ , p. 87.

49. _Ibid._ , p. 201.

50. James Henry Breasted, _Ancient Times or A History of the Early World_ , 1916, p. 64.

51. Moustafa Gadalla, _Egyptian Harmony: The Visual Music_ , NC: Tehuti Research Foundation, 2000, p. 64.

52. http://www.waterhistory.org/histories/cairo/

53. Gadalla, _Historical Deception_ , p. 115

54. _Ibid._ , p. 116.

55. _Ibid._

56. _The Eyes of the Sphinx_ , NY: Berkley Publishing Group, 1996, pp. 118-119.

57. 2 Nova Productions, _Who Built the Pyramids_ , www.pbs.org

58. Frank Dörnenburg, "Electric Lights in Egypt?", http://www.world—mysteries.com/sar_lights_fd1.htm

59. William R. Corliss, Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts, Maryland: The Sourcebook Project, 1978, p. 443.

60.http://www.unsolved—mysteries.net/english/

earchiv/e8archivobj005.htm

61. Henry Gee, _In Search of Deep Time: Beyond The Fossil Record to A New History of Life_ , The Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1999, p. 5.

62. Phillip E. Johnson, _Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science_ , Law & Education, Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1995, p. 62..

63. _Temel Britannica_ , Vol. 16, Ana Yayıncılık, Istanbul: June 1993, p. 203.

64. Georges Contenau, _Everday Life in Babylon and Assyria_ , London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1964.

65. Samuel Noah Kramer, _History Begins at Sumer: Thirty—Nine Firsts in Recorded History_ , Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.

66. Dr. David Whitehouse, "World's Oldest Telescope?", BBC News, 1 July 1999,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/380186.stm

67. The Mayan Calendar, http://webexhibits.org/calendars/calendar—mayan.html

68. David Premack, "'Gavagai!' or the Future History of the Animal Language Controversy," _Cognition_ , 19, 1985, pp. 281-282.

69. Derek Bickerton, "Babel's Cornerstone," _New Scientist_ , Issue 2102, 4 October 1997, p. 42.

70. Richard Dawkins, _Unweaving the Rainbow_ , Boston: Houghton-Miflin Co., 1998, p. 294.

71. Wendy K. Wilkins and Jennie Wakefield, "Brain Evolution and Neurolinguistic Preconditions," _Behavioral and Brain Sciences_ 18 (1): 161—226.

72. Noam Chomsky, _Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order_ , London: Pluto Press, 1996, p. 16.

73. Stephen H. Langdon, _Semitic Mythology_ , _Mythology of All Races_ , Vol. V, Archaeol. Instit. Amer., 1931, p. xviii.

74. Stephen H. Langdon, _The Scotsman_ , 18 November 1936.

75. H. Frankfort, _Third Preliminary Report on Excavations at Tell Asmar (Eshnunna)_ : quoted by P. J. Wiseman in _New Discoveries in Babylonia about Genesis_ , London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1936, p. 24.

76. P. Le Page Renouf, _Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt_ , London: Williams and Norgate, 1897, p. 90.

77. Sir Flinders Petrie, _The Religion of Ancient Egypt_ , London: Constable, 1908, pp. 3, 4.

78. Edward McCrady, "Genesis and Pagan Cosmogonies," _Transactions_ of the Victoria Institute, Vol. 72, 1940, p. 55.

79. Max Müller, _History of Sanskrit Literature_ : quoted by Samuel Zwemer, p. 87.

80. Axel W. Persson, _The Religion of Greece in Prehistoric Times_ , University of California Press, 1942, p. 124.

81. Review of Irene Rosenzweig's Ritual and Cults of Pre-Roman Iguvium by George M. A. Hanfmann, _American Journal of Archaeology_ , Vol. 43, No. 1, Jan.-Mar. 1939, pp. 170, 171.

82. Tim Folger, "From Here to Eternity," _Discover_ , Vol. 21 No.12, December 2000.

# Darwinism Refuted

## Foreword

Anyone who seeks an answer to the question of how living things, including himself, came into existence, will encounter two distinct explanations. The first is the fact that all living things were created by the All-Wise and Almighty God. The second explanation is the theory of "evolution," which claims that living things are the products of coincidental causes and natural processes.

For a century and a half now, the theory of evolution has received extensive support from the scientific community. The science of biology is defined in terms of evolutionist concepts. That is why, between the two explanations of creation and evolution, the majority of people assume the evolutionist explanation to be scientific. Accordingly, they believe evolution to be a theory supported by the observational findings of science, while creation is thought to be a belief based on faith. As a matter of fact, however, scientific findings do not support the theory of evolution. Findings from the last two decades in particular openly contradict the basic assumptions of this theory. Many branches of science, such as paleontology, biochemistry, population genetics, molecular biology, comparative anatomy and biophysics, indicate that natural processes and coincidental effects cannot explain life, as the theory of evolution proposes, and that all life forms were created flawlessly.

In this book, we will analyze this scientific crisis faced by the theory of evolution. This work rests solely upon scientific findings. Those advocating the theory of evolution on behalf of scientific truth should confront these findings and question the presumptions they have so far held. Refusal to do this would mean openly accepting that their adherence to the theory of evolution is dogmatic rather than scientific.

## A Short History

Despite having its roots in ancient Greece, the theory of evolution was first brought to the attention of the scientific world in the nineteenth century. The most thoroughly considered view of evolution was expressed by the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, in his Zoological Philosophy (1809). Lamarck thought that all living things were endowed with a vital force that drove them to evolve toward greater complexity. He also thought that organisms could pass on to their offspring traits acquired during their lifetimes. As an example of this line of reasoning, Lamarck suggested that the long neck of the giraffe evolved when a short-necked ancestor took to browsing on the leaves of trees instead of on grass.

This evolutionary model of Lamarck's was invalidated by the discovery of the laws of genetic inheritance. In the middle of the twentieth century, the discovery of the structure of DNA revealed that the nuclei of the cells of living organisms possess very special genetic information, and that this information could not be altered by "acquired traits." In other words, during its lifetime, even though a giraffe managed to make its neck a few centimeters longer by extending its neck to upper branches, this trait would not pass to its offspring. In brief, the Lamarckian view was simply refuted by scientific findings, and went down in history as a flawed assumption.

However, the evolutionary theory formulated by another natural scientist who lived a couple of generations after Lamarck proved to be more influential. This natural scientist was Charles Robert Darwin, and the theory he formulated is known as "Darwinism."

### The Birth of Darwinism

Charles Darwin volunteered to sail on the H.M.S Beagle, which sailed in late 1831 on a five-year official voyage around the world. Young Darwin was heavily influenced by the diversity of species he observed, especially of the different Galapagos Island finches. The differences in the beaks of these birds, Darwin thought, were a result of their adaptation to their different environments.

After this voyage, Darwin started to visit animal markets in England. He observed that breeders produced new breeds of cow by mating animals with different characteristics. This experience, together with the different finch species he observed in the Galapagos Islands, contributed to the formulation of his theory. In 1859, he published his views in his book The Origin of Species. In this book, he postulated that all species had descended from a single ancestor, evolving from one another over time by slight variations.

What made Darwin's theory different from Lamarck's was his emphasis on "natural selection." Darwin theorized that there is a struggle for survival in nature, and that natural selection is the survival of strong species or those that better adapt to their environment. Darwin adopted the following line of reasoning:

Within a particular species, there are natural and coincidental variations. For instance some cows are bigger than others, while some have darker colors. Natural selection selects the favorable traits. The process of natural selection thus causes an increase of favorable genes within a population, which results in the features of that population being better adapted to local conditions. Over time these changes may be significant enough to cause a new species to arise.

However, this "theory of evolution by natural selection" gave rise to doubts from the very first:

1- What were the "natural and coincidental variations" referred to by Darwin? It was true that some cows were bigger than others, while some had darker colors, yet how could these variations provide an explanation for the diversity in animal and plant species?

2- Darwin asserted that "Living beings evolved gradually." In this case, there should have lived millions of "transitional forms." Yet there was no trace of these theoretical creatures in the fossil record. Darwin gave considerable thought to this problem, and eventually arrived at the conclusion that "further research would provide these fossils."

3- How could natural selection explain complex organs, such as eyes, ears or wings? How can it be advocated that these organs evolved gradually, bearing in mind that they would fail to function if they had even a single part missing?

4- Before considering these questions, consider the following: How did the first organism, the so-called ancestor of all species according to Darwin, come into existence? Given that natural processes cannot give life to something which was originally inanimate, how would Darwin explain the formation of the first life form?

Darwin was, at least, aware of some these questions, as can be seen from the chapter "Difficulties of the Theory." However, the answers he provided had no scientific validity. H.S. Lipson, a British physicist, makes the following comments about these "difficulties" of Darwin's:

On reading The Origin of Species, I found that Darwin was much less sure himself than he is often represented to be; the chapter entitled "Difficulties of the Theory" for example, shows considerable self-doubt. As a physicist, I was particularly intrigued by his comments on how the eye would have arisen.1

Darwin invested all his hopes in advanced scientific research, which he expected to dispel the "difficulties of the theory." However, contrary to his expectations, more recent scientific findings have merely increased these difficulties.

### The Problem of the Origin of Life

In his book, Darwin never mentioned the origin of life. The primitive understanding of science in his time rested on the assumption that living things had very simple structures. Since mediaeval times, spontaneous generation, the theory that non-living matter could come together to form living organisms, had been widely accepted. It was believed that insects came into existence from leftover bits of food. It was further imagined that mice came into being from wheat. Interesting experiments were conducted to prove this theory. Some wheat was placed on a dirty piece of cloth, and it was believed that mice would emerge in due course.

Similarly, the fact that maggots appeared in meat was believed to be evidence for spontaneous generation. However, it was only realized some time later that maggots did not appear in meat spontaneously, but were carried by flies in the form of larvae, invisible to the naked eye.

Even in the period when Darwin's Origin of Species was written, the belief that bacteria could come into existence from inanimate matter was widespread.

However, five years after the publication of Darwin's book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies and experiments, which disproved spontaneous generation, a cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said, "Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment."2

Advocates of the theory of evolution refused to accept Pasteur's findings for a long time. However, as scientific progress revealed the complex structure of the cell, the idea that life could come into being coincidentally faced an even greater impasse. We shall consider this subject in some detail in this book.

### The Problem of Genetics

Another subject that posed a quandary for Darwin's theory was inheritance. At the time when Darwin developed his theory, the question of how living beings transmitted their traits to other generations—that is, how inheritance took place—was not completely understood. That is why the naive belief that inheritance was transmitted through blood was commonly accepted.

Vague beliefs about inheritance led Darwin to base his theory on completely false grounds. Darwin assumed that natural selection was the "mechanism of evolution." Yet one question remained unanswered: How would these "useful traits" be selected and transmitted from one generation to the next? At this point, Darwin embraced the Lamarckian theory, that is, "the inheritance of acquired traits." In his book The Great Evolution Mystery, Gordon R. Taylor, a researcher advocating the theory of evolution, expresses the view that Darwin was heavily influenced by Lamarck:

Lamarckism... is known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics... Darwin himself, as a matter of fact, was inclined to believe that such inheritance occurred and cited the reported case of a man who had lost his fingers and bred sons without fingers... [Darwin] had not, he said, gained a single idea from Lamarck. This was doubly ironical, for Darwin repeatedly toyed with the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics and, if it is so dreadful, it is Darwin who should be denigrated rather than Lamarck... In the 1859 edition of his work, Darwin refers to 'changes of external conditions' causing variation but subsequently these conditions are described as directing variation and cooperating with natural selection in directing it... Every year he attributed more and more to the agency of use or disuse... By 1868 when he published Varieties of Animals and Plants under Domestication he gave a whole series of examples of supposed Lamarckian inheritance: such as a man losing part of his little finger and all his sons being born with deformed little fingers, and boys born with foreskins much reduced in length as a result of generations of circumcision.3

However, Lamarck's thesis, as we have seen above, was disproved by the laws of genetic inheritance discovered by the Austrian monk and botanist, Gregor Mendel. The concept of "useful traits" was therefore left unsupported. Genetic laws showed that acquired traits are not passed on, and that genetic inheritance takes place according to certain unchanging laws. These laws supported the view that species remain unchanged. No matter how much the cows that Darwin saw in England's animal fairs bred, the species itself would never change: cows would always remain cows.

Gregor Mendel announced the laws of genetic inheritance that he discovered as a result of long experiment and observation in a scientific paper published in 1865. But this paper only attracted the attention of the scientific world towards the end of the century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the truth of these laws had been accepted by the whole scientific community. This was a serious dead-end for Darwin's theory, which tried to base the concept of "useful traits" on Lamarck.

Here we must correct a general misapprehension: Mendel opposed not only Lamarck's model of evolution, but also Darwin's. As the article "Mendel's Opposition to Evolution and to Darwin," published in the Journal of Heredity, makes clear, "he [Mendel] was familiar with The Origin of Species ...and he was opposed to Darwin's theory; Darwin was arguing for descent with modification through natural selection, Mendel was in favor of the orthodox doctrine of special creation."4

The laws discovered by Mendel put Darwinism in a very difficult position. For these reasons, scientists who supported Darwinism tried to develop a different model of evolution in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Thus was born "neo-Darwinism."

### The Efforts of Neo-Darwinism

A group of scientists who were determined to reconcile Darwinism with the science of genetics, in one way or another, came together at a meeting organized by the Geological Society of America in 1941. After long discussion, they agreed on ways to create a new interpretation of Darwinism and over the next few years, specialists produced a synthesis of their fields into a revised theory of evolution.

The scientists who participated in establishing the new theory included the geneticists G. Ledyard Stebbins and Theodosius Dobzhansky, the zoologists Ernst Mayr and Julian Huxley, the paleontologists George Gaylord Simpson and Glenn L. Jepsen, and the mathematical geneticists Sir Ronald A. Fisher and Sewall Wright.5

To counter the fact of "genetic stability" (genetic homeostasis), this group of scientists employed the concept of "mutation," which had been proposed by the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries at the beginning of the 20th century. Mutations were defects that occurred, for unknown reasons, in the inheritance mechanism of living things. Organisms undergoing mutation developed some unusual structures, which deviated from the genetic information they inherited from their parents. The concept of **"random mutation"** was supposed to provide the answer to **the question of the origin of the advantageous variations which caused living organisms to evolve** according to Darwin's theory—a phenomenon that Darwin himself was unable to explain, but simply tried to side-step by referring to Lamarck. The Geological Society of America group named this new theory, which was formulated by adding the concept of mutation to Darwin's natural selection thesis, the **"synthetic theory of evolution"** or the **"modern synthesis."** In a short time, this theory came to be known as **"neo-Darwinism"** and its supporters as **"neo-Darwinists."**

Yet there was a serious problem: It was true that mutations changed the genetic data of living organisms, yet this change always occurred to the detriment of the living thing concerned. All observed mutations ended up with disfigured, weak, or diseased individuals and, sometimes, led to the death of the organism. Hence, in an attempt to find examples of "beneficial mutations" which improve the genetic data in living organisms, neo-Darwinists conducted many experiments and observations. For decades, they conducted mutation experiments on fruit flies and various other species. However, in none of these experiments could a mutation which improved the genetic data in a living being be seen.

Today the issue of mutation is still a great impasse for Darwinism. Despite the fact that the theory of natural selection considers mutations to be the unique source of "beneficial changes," no mutations of any kind have been observed that are actually beneficial (that is, that improve the genetic information). In the following chapter, we will consider this issue in detail.

Another impasse for neo-Darwinists came from the fossil record. Even in Darwin's time, fossils were already posing an important obstacle to the theory. While Darwin himself accepted the lack of fossils of "intermediate species," he also predicted that further research would provide evidence of these lost transitional forms. However, despite all the paleontologists' efforts, the fossil record continued to remain a serious obstacle to the theory. One by one, concepts such as "vestigial organs," "embryological recapitulation" and "homology" lost all significance in the light of new scientific findings. All these issues are dealt with more fully in the remaining chapters of this book.

### A Theory in Crisis

We have just reviewed in summary form the impasse Darwinism found itself in from the day it was first proposed. We will now start to analyze the enormous dimensions of this deadlock. In this book, our intention is to show that the theory of evolution is not indisputable scientific truth, as many people assume or try to impose on others. On the contrary, there are glaring contradictions when the theory of evolution is compared to scientific findings in such diverse fields as population genetics, comparative anatomy, paleontology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. In a word, evolution is a theory in "crisis."

That is a description by Prof. Michael Denton, an Australian biochemist and a renowned critic of Darwinism. In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985), Denton examined the theory in the light of different branches of science, and concluded that the theory of natural selection is very far from providing an explanation for life on earth.6 Denton's intention in offering his criticism was not to show the correctness of another view, but only to compare Darwinism with the scientific facts. During the last two decades, many other scientists have published significant works questioning the validity of Darwin's theory of evolution.

In this book, we will examine this crisis. No matter how much concrete evidence is provided, some readers may be unwilling to abandon their positions, and will continue to adhere to the theory of evolution. However, reading this book will still be of use to them, since it will help them to see the real situation of the theory they believe in, in the light of scientific findings.

## The Mechanisms Of Darwinism

According to the theory of evolution, living things came into existence by means of coincidences, and developed further as a consequence of coincidental effects. Approximately 3.8 billion years ago, when no living organisms existed on earth, the first simple single-celled organisms (prokaryotes) emerged. Over time, more complex cells (eukaryotes) and multicellular organisms came into being. In other words, according to Darwinism, the forces of nature built simple inanimate elements into highly complex and flawless designs.

In evaluating this claim, one should first consider whether such forces in fact exist in nature. More explicitly, are there really natural mechanisms which can accomplish evolution according to the Darwinian scenario?

The neo-Darwinist model, which we shall take as the mainstream theory of evolution today, argues that life has evolved through two natural mechanisms: natural selection and mutation. The theory basically asserts that natural selection and mutation are two complementary mechanisms. The origin of evolutionary modifications lies in random mutations that take place in the genetic structures of living things. The traits brought about by mutations are selected by the mechanism of natural selection, and by this means living things evolve. However, when we look further into this theory, we find that there is no such evolutionary mechanism. Neither natural selection nor mutations can cause different species to evolve into one another, and the claim that they can is completely unfounded.

### Natural Selection

The concept of natural selection was the basis of Darwinism. This assertion is stressed even in the title of the book in which Darwin proposed his theory: The Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection...

Natural selection is based on the assumption that in nature there is a constant struggle for survival and that the strongest ones, the ones most suited to natural conditions, survive. For example, in a herd of deer under threat from predators, generally those individuals that can run fastest will survive. The herd of deer will eventually consist of only fast-running individuals.

However, no matter how long this process goes on, it will not transform those deer into another species. The weak deer are eliminated, the strong survive, but, since no alteration in their genetic data takes place, no transformation of a species occurs. Despite the continuous processes of selection, deer continue to exist as deer.

The deer example is true for all species. In any population, by means of natural selection, only those weak, or unsuited individuals who are unable to adapt to the natural conditions in their habitat are eliminated. No new species, new genetic information, or new organs can be produced. That is, species cannot evolve. Darwin, too, accepted this fact, stating that "Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences or variations occur."7 That is why neo-Darwinism had to add the mutation mechanism as a factor altering genetic information to the concept of natural selection.

We will deal with mutations next. But before proceeding, we need to further examine the concept of natural selection in order to see the contradictions inherent in it.

### A Struggle for Survival

The essential assumption of the theory of natural selection holds that there is a fierce struggle for survival in nature, and every living thing cares only for itself. At the time Darwin proposed this theory, the ideas of Thomas Malthus, the British classical economist, were an important influence on him. Malthus maintained that human beings were inevitably in a constant struggle for survival, basing his views on the fact that population, and hence the need for food resources, increases geometrically, while food resources themselves increase only arithmetically. The result is that population size is inevitably checked by factors in the environment, such as hunger and disease. Darwin adapted Malthus's vision of a fierce struggle for survival among human beings to nature at large, and claimed that "natural selection" is a consequence of this struggle.

Further research, however, revealed that there was no struggle for life in nature as Darwin had postulated. As a result of extensive research into animal groups in the 1960s and 1970s, V. C. Wynne-Edwards, a British zoologist, concluded that living things balance their population in an interesting way, which prevents competition for food.

Animal groups were simply managing their population on the basis of their food resources. Population was regulated not by elimination of the weak through factors like epidemics or starvation, but by instinctive control mechanisms. In other words, animals controlled their numbers not by fierce competition, as Darwin suggested, but by limiting reproduction.8

Even plants exhibited examples of population control, which invalidated Darwin's suggestion of selection by means of competition. The botanist A. D. Bradshaw's observations indicated that during reproduction, plants behaved according to the "density" of the planting, and limited their reproduction if the area was highly populated with plants.9 On the other hand, examples of sacrifice observed in animals such as ants and bees display a model completely opposed to the Darwinist struggle for survival.

In recent years, research has revealed findings regarding self-sacrifice even in bacteria. These living things without brains or nervous systems, totally devoid of any capacity for thought, kill themselves to save other bacteria when they are invaded by viruses.10

These examples surely invalidate the basic assumption of natural selection—the absolute struggle for survival. It is true that there is competition in nature; however, there are clear models of self-sacrifice and solidarity, as well.

### Observation and Experiments

Apart from the theoretical weaknesses mentioned above, the theory of evolution by natural selection comes up against a fundamental impasse when faced with concrete scientific findings. The scientific value of a theory must be assessed according to its success or failure in experiment and observation. Evolution by natural selection fails on both counts.

Since Darwin's time, there has not been a single shred of evidence put forward to show that living things evolve through natural selection. Colin Patterson, the senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London and a prominent evolutionist, stresses that natural selection has never been observed to have the ability to cause things to evolve:

**No one has ever produced a species by the mechanisms of natural selection.** No one has ever got near it, and most of the current argument in neo-Darwinism is about this question.11

Pierre-Paul Grassé, a well-known French zoologist and critic of Darwinism, has these words to say in "Evolution and Natural Selection," a chapter of his book _The Evolution of Living Organisms._

The "evolution in action" of J. Huxley and other biologists is simply the observation of demographic facts, local fluctuations of genotypes, geographical distributions. Often the species concerned have remained practically unchanged for hundreds of centuries! Fluctuation as a result of circumstances, with prior modification of the genome, does not imply evolution, and we have tangible proof of this in many panchronic species [i.e. living fossils that remain unchanged for millions of years].12

A close look at a few "observed examples of natural selection" presented by biologists who advocate the theory of evolution, would reveal that, in reality, they do not provide any evidence for the theory of evolution.

### The True Story of Industrial Melanism

When evolutionist sources are examined, one inevitably sees that the example of moths in England during the Industrial Revolution is cited as an example of evolution by natural selection. This is put forward as the most concrete example of evolution observed, in textbooks, magazines, and even academic sources. In actuality, though, that example has nothing to do with evolution at all.

Let us first recall what is actually said: According to this account, around the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England, the color of tree barks around Manchester was quite light. Because of this, dark-colored moths resting on those trees could easily be noticed by the birds that fed on them, and therefore they had very little chance of survival. Fifty years later, in woodlands where industrial pollution has killed the light-colored lichens, the bark of the trees had darkened, and now the light-colored moths became the most hunted, since they were the most easily noticed. As a result, the proportion of light-colored to dark-colored moths decreased. Evolutionists believe this to be a great piece of evidence for their theory. They take refuge and solace in window-dressing, showing how light-colored moths "evolved" into dark-colored ones.

However, even if we believe these to be correct, it should be quite clear that they can in no way be used as evidence for the theory of evolution, since no new form arose that had not existed before. Dark colored moths had existed in the moth population before the Industrial Revolution. Only the relative proportions of the existing moth varieties in the population changed. The moths had not acquired a new trait or organ, which would cause "speciation."13 In order for one moth species to turn into another living species, a bird for example, new additions would have had to be made to its genes. That is, an entirely separate genetic program would have had to be loaded so as to include information about the physical traits of the bird.

This is the answer to be given to the evolutionist story of Industrial Melanism. However, there is a more interesting side to the story: Not just its interpretation, but the story itself is flawed. As molecular biologist Jonathan Wells explains in his book Icons of Evolution, the story of the peppered moths, which is included in virtually every evolutionary biology book and has therefore, become an "icon" in this sense, does not reflect the truth. Wells discusses in his book how Bernard Kettlewell's experiment, which is known as the "experimental proof" of the story, is actually a scientific scandal. Some basic elements of this scandal are:

• Many experiments conducted after Kettlewell's revealed that only one type of these moths rested on tree trunks, and all other types preferred to rest beneath horizontal branches. Since 1980s it has been widely accepted that moths only very rarely rest on tree trunks. In 25 years of fieldwork, many scientists such as Cyril Clarke and Rory Howlett, Michael Majerus, Tony Liebert, and Paul Brakefield concluded that in Kettlewell's experiment, moths were forced to act atypically, therefore, the test results could not be accepted as scientific.14

• Scientists who tested Kettlewell's conclusions came up with an even more interesting result: Although the number of light moths would be expected to be larger in the less polluted regions of England, the dark moths there numbered four times as many as the light ones. This meant that there was no correlation between the ratio in the moth population and the tree trunks as claimed by Kettlewell and repeated by almost all evolutionist sources.

• As the research deepened, the scandal changed dimension: "The moths on tree trunks" photographed by Kettlewell, were actually dead moths. Kettlewell used dead specimens glued or pinned to tree trunks and then photographed them. In truth, there was little chance of taking such a picture as the moths rested not on tree trunks but underneath the branches.15

These facts were uncovered by the scientific community only in the late 1990s. The collapse of the myth of Industrial Melanism, which had been one of the most treasured subjects in "Introduction to Evolution" courses in universities for decades, greatly disappointed evolutionists. One of them, Jerry Coyne, remarked:

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 on Christmas Eve.16

Thus, "the most famous example of natural selection" was relegated to the trash-heap of history as a scientific scandal—which was inevitable, because natural selection is not an "evolutionary mechanism," contrary to what evolutionists claim.

In short, natural selection is capable neither of adding a new organ to a living organism, nor of removing one, nor of changing an organism of one species into that of another. The "greatest" evidence put forward since Darwin has been able to go no further than the "industrial melanism" of moths in England.

### Why Natural Selection Cannot Explain Complexity

As we showed at the beginning, the greatest problem for the theory of evolution by natural selection, is that new organs or traits cannot emerge in living things through natural selection. A species' genetic data does not develop by means of natural selection; therefore, it cannot be used to account for the emergence of new species. The greatest defender of the theory of punctuated equilibrium, Stephen Jay Gould, refer to this impasse of natural selection as follows;

The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit. Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well.17

Another of the misleading methods that evolutionists employ on the issue of natural selection is their effort to present this mechanism as an intelligent designer. However, natural selection has no intelligence. It does not possess a will that can decide what is good and what is bad for living things. As a result, natural selection cannot explain how biological systems and organs that possess the feature of "irreducible complexity" came into being. These systems and organs are composed of a great number of parts cooperating together, and are of no use if even one of these parts is missing or defective. (For example, the human eye does not function unless it exists with all its components intact).

Therefore, the will that brings all these parts together should be able to foresee the future and aim directly at the advantage that is to be acquired at the final stage. Since natural selection has no consciousness or will, it can do no such thing. This fact, which demolishes the foundations of the theory of evolution, also worried Darwin, who wrote: "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."18

### Mutations

Mutations are defined as breaks or replacements taking place in the DNA molecule, which is found in the nuclei of the cells of a living organism and which contains all its genetic information. These breaks or replacements are the result of external effects such as radiation or chemical action. Every mutation is an "accident," and either damages the nucleotides making up the DNA or changes their locations. Most of the time, they cause so much damage and modification that the cell cannot repair them.

Mutation, which evolutionists frequently hide behind, does not transform living organisms into a more advanced and perfect form. The direct effect of mutations is harmful. The changes effected by mutations can only be like those experienced by people in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl: that is, death and disability...

The reason for this is very simple: DNA has a very complex structure, and random effects can only damage it. Biologist B. G. Ranganathan states:

First, genuine mutations are very rare in nature. Secondly, most mutations are harmful since they are random, rather than orderly changes in the structure of genes; any random change in a highy ordered system will be for the worse, not for the better. For example, if an earthquake were to shake a highly ordered structure such as a building, there would be a random change in the framework of the building, which, in all probability, would not be an improvement.19

Not surprisingly, no beneficial mutation has been so far observed. All mutations have proved to be harmful. The evolutionist scientist Warren Weaver comments on the report prepared by the Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation, which had been formed to investigate mutations that might have been caused by the nuclear weapons used in the Second World War:

Many will be puzzled about the statement that practically all known mutant genes are harmful. For mutations are a necessary part of the process of evolution. How can a good effect—evolution to higher forms of life—result from mutations practically all of which are harmful?20

Every effort put into "generating a beneficial mutation" has resulted in failure. For decades, evolutionists carried out many experiments to produce mutations in fruit flies, as these insects reproduce very rapidly and so mutations would show up quickly. Generation upon generation of these flies were mutated, yet no beneficial mutation was ever observed. The evolutionist geneticist Gordon Taylor writes thus:

It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact that, though geneticists have been breeding fruit-flies for sixty years or more in labs all round the world— flies which produce a new generation every eleven days—they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species or even a new enzyme.21

Another researcher, Michael Pitman, comments on the failure of the experiments carried out on fruit flies:

Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller, and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark, and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: Few of the geneticists' monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice mutants die, are sterile, or tend to revert to the wild type.22

The same holds true for man. All mutations that have been observed in human beings have had deleterious results. All mutations that take place in humans result in physical deformities, in infirmities such as mongolism, Down syndrome, albinism, dwarfism or cancer. Needless to say, a process that leaves people disabled or sick cannot be "an evolutionary mechanism"—evolution is supposed to produce forms that are better fitted to survive.

The American pathologist David A. Demick notes the following in a scientific article about mutations:

Literally thousands of human diseases associated with genetic mutations have been catalogued in recent years, with more being described continually. A recent reference book of medical genetics listed some 4,500 different genetic diseases. Some of the inherited syndromes characterized clinically in the days before molecular genetic analysis (such as Marfan's syndrome) are now being shown to be heterogeneous; that is, associated with many different mutations... With this array of human diseases that are caused by mutations, what of positive effects? With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it should be possible to describe some positive mutations if macroevolution is true. These would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But, when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent.23

The only instance evolutionary biologists give of "beneficial mutation" is the disease known as sickle cell anemia. In this, the hemoglobin molecule, which serves to carry oxygen in the blood, is damaged as a result of mutation, and undergoes a structural change. As a result of this, the hemoglobin molecule's ability to carry oxygen is seriously impaired. People with sickle cell anemia suffer increasing respiratory difficulties for this reason. This example of mutation, which is discussed under blood disorders in medical textbooks, is strangely evaluated by some evolutionary biologists as a "beneficial mutation." They say that the partial immunity to malaria by those with the illness is a "gift" of evolution. Using the same logic, one could say that, since people born with genetic leg paralysis are unable to walk and so are saved from being killed in traffic accidents, therefore genetic leg paralysis is a "beneficial genetic feature." This logic is clearly totally unfounded.

It is obvious that mutations are solely a destructive mechanism. Pierre-Paul Grassé, former president of the French Academy of Sciences, is quite clear on this point in a comment he made about mutations. Grassé compared mutations to "making mistakes in the letters when copying a written text." And as with mutations, letter mistakes cannot give rise to any information, but merely damage such information as already exists. Grassé explained this fact in this way:

Mutations, in time, occur incoherently. They are not complementary to one another, nor are they cumulative in successive generations toward a given direction. They modify what preexists, but they do so in disorder, no matter how.... As soon as some disorder, even slight, appears in an organized being, sickness, then death follow. There is no possible compromise between the phenomenon of life and anarchy.24

So for that reason, as Grassé puts it, "No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution."25

### The Pleiotropic Effect

The most important proof that mutations lead only to damage, is the process of genetic coding. Almost all of the genes in a living thing carry more than one piece of information. For instance, one gene may control both the height and the eye color of that organism. Microbiologist Michael Denton explains this characteristic of genes in higher organisms such as human beings, in this way:

The effects of genes on development are often surprisingly diverse. In the house mouse, nearly every coat-colour gene has some effect on body size. Out of seventeen x-ray induced eye colour mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, fourteen affected the shape of the sex organs of the female, a characteristic that one would have thought was quite unrelated to eye colour. Almost every gene that has been studied in higher organisms has been found to effect more than one organ system, a multiple effect which is known as pleiotropy. As Mayr argues in Population, Species and Evolution: "It is doubtful whether any genes that are not pleiotropic exist in higher organisms."26

Because of this characteristic of the genetic structure of living things, any coincidental change because of a mutation, in any gene in the DNA, will affect more than one organ. Consequently, this mutation will not be restricted to one part of the body, but will reveal more of its destructive impact. Even if one of these impacts turns out to be beneficial, as a result of a very rare coincidence, the unavoidable effects of the other damage it causes will more than outweigh those benefits.

To summarize, there are three main reasons why mutations cannot make evolution possible:

l- The direct effect of mutations is harmful: Since they occur randomly, they almost always damage the living organism that undergoes them. Reason tells us that unconscious intervention in a perfect and complex structure will not improve that structure, but will rather impair it. Indeed, no "beneficial mutation" has ever been observed.

2- Mutations add no new information to an organism's DNA: The particles making up the genetic information are either torn from their places, destroyed, or carried off to different places. Mutations cannot make a living thing acquire a new organ or a new trait. They only cause abnormalities like a leg sticking out of the back, or an ear from the abdomen.

3- In order for a mutation to be transferred to the subsequent generation, it has to have taken place in the reproductive cells of the organism: A random change that occurs in a cell or organ of the body cannot be transferred to the next generation. For example, a human eye altered by the effects of radiation, or by other causes, will not be passed on to subsequent generations.

All the explanations provided above indicate that natural selection and mutation have no evolutionary effect at all. So far, no observable example of "evolution" has been obtained by this method. Sometimes, evolutionary biologists claim that "they cannot observe the evolutionary effect of natural selection and mutation mechanisms since these mechanisms take place only over an extended period of time." However, this argument, which is just a way of making themselves feel better, is baseless, in the sense that it lacks any scientific foundation. During his lifetime, a scientist can observe thousands of generations of living things with short life spans such as fruit flies or bacteria, and still observe no "evolution." Pierre-Paul Grassé states the following about the unchanging nature of bacteria, a fact which invalidates evolution:

Bacteria ...are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. [B]acteria ...exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. 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! What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not [produce evolutionary] change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect. Cockroaches, which are one of the most venerable living insect groups, have remained more or less unchanged since the Permian, yet they have undergone as many mutations as Drosophila, a Tertiary insect.27

Briefly, it is impossible for living beings to have evolved, because there exists no mechanism in nature that can cause evolution. Furthermore, this conclusion agrees with the evidence of the fossil record, which does not demonstrate the existence of a process of evolution, but rather just the contrary.

## True Natural History-I (From Invertebrates To Reptiles)

For some people, the very concept of natural history implies the theory of evolution. The reason for this is the heavy propaganda that has been carried out. Natural history museums in most countries are under the control of materialist evolutionary biologists, and it is they who describe the exhibits in them. They invariably describe creatures that lived in prehistory and their fossil remains in terms of Darwinian concepts. One result of this is that most people think that natural history is equivalent to the concept of evolution.

However, the facts are very different. Natural history reveals that different classes of life emerged on the earth not through any evolutionary process, but all at once, and with all their complex structures fully developed right from the start. Different living species appeared completely independently of one another, and with no "transitional forms" between them.

In this chapter, we shall examine real natural history, taking the fossil record as our basis.

### The Classification of Living Things

Biologists place living things into different classes. This classification, known as "taxonomy," or "systematics," goes back as far as the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist Carl von Linné, known as Linnaeus. The system of classification established by Linnaeus has continued and been developed right up to the present day.

There are hierarchical categories in this classificatory system. Living things are first divided into kingdoms, such as the plant and animal kingdoms. Then these kingdoms are sub-divided into phyla, or categories. Phyla are further divided into subgroups. From top to bottom, the classification is as follows:

Kingdom

Phylum (plural Phyla)

Class

Order

Family

Genus (plural Genera)

Species

Today, the great majority of biologists accept that there are five (or six) separate kingdoms. As well as plants and animals, they consider fungi, protista (single-celled creatures with a cell nucleus, such as amoebae and some algae), and monera (single-celled creatures with no cell nucleus, such as bacteria), as separate kingdoms. Sometimes the bacteria are subdivided into eubacteria and archaebacteria, for six kingdoms, or, on some accounts, three "superkingdoms" (eubacteria, archaebacteria and eukarya). The most important of all these kingdoms is without doubt the animal kingdom. And the largest division within the animal kingdom, as we saw earlier, are the different phyla. When designating these phyla, the fact that each one possesses completely different physical structures should always be borne in mind. _Arthropoda_ (insects, spiders, and other creatures with jointed limbs), for instance, are a phylum by themselves, and all the animals in the phylum have the same fundamental physical structure. The phylum called _Chordata_ includes those creatures with the notochord, or, most commonly, a spinal column. All the animals with the spinal column such as fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals that we are familiar with in daily life are in a subphylum of _Chordata_ known as vertebrates.

There are around 35 different phyla of animals, including the _Mollusca_ , which include soft-bodied creatures such as snails and octopuses, or the _Nematoda,_ which include diminutive worms. The most important feature of these categories is, as we touched on earlier, that they possess totally different physical characteristics. The categories below the phyla possess basically similar body plans, but the phyla are very different from one another.

After this general information about biological classification, let us now consider the question of how and when these phyla emerged on earth.

### Fossils Reject the "Tree of Life"

Let us first consider the Darwinist hypothesis. As we know, Darwinism proposes that life developed from one single common ancestor, and took on all its varieties by a series of tiny changes. In that case, life should first have emerged in very similar and simple forms. And according to the same theory, the differentiation between, and growing complexity in, living things must have happened in parallel over time.

In short, according to Darwinism, life must be like a tree, with a common root, subsequently splitting up into different branches. And this hypothesis is constantly emphasized in Darwinist sources, where the concept of the "tree of life" is frequently employed. According to this tree concept, phyla—the fundamental units of classification between living things—came about by stages, as in the diagram to the left. According to Darwinism, one phylum must first emerge, and then the other phyla must slowly come about with minute changes over very long periods of time. The Darwinist hypothesis is that the number of animal phyla must have gradually increased in number. The diagram to the side shows the gradual increase in the number of animal phyla according to the Darwinian view.

According to Darwinism, life must have developed in this way. But is this really how it happened?

Definitely not. Quite the contrary: animals have been very different and complex since the moment they first emerged. All the animal phyla known today emerged at the same time, in the middle of the geological period known as the Cambrian Age. The Cambrian Age is a geological period estimated to have lasted some 65 million years, approximately between 570 to 505 million years ago. But the period of the abrupt appearance of major animal groups fit in an even shorter phase of the Cambrian, often referred to as the "Cambrian explosion." Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, in a 2001 article based on a detailed literature survey, dated 2001, note that the "Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years."28

Before then, there is no trace in the fossil record of anything apart from single-celled creatures and a few very primitive multicellular ones. All animal phyla emerged completely formed and all at once, in the very short period of time represented by the Cambrian explosion. (Five million years is a very short time in geological terms!)

The fossils found in Cambrian rocks belong to very different creatures, such as snails, trilobites, sponges, jellyfish, starfish, shellfish, etc. Most of the creatures in this layer have complex systems and advanced structures, such as eyes, gills, and circulatory systems, exactly the same as those in living specimens. These structures are at one and the same time very advanced, and very different.

Richard Monastersky, a staff writer at ScienceNews magazine states the following about the "Cambrian explosion," which is a deathtrap for evolutionary theory:

A half-billion years ago, **...the remarkably complex forms of animals we see today suddenly appeared.** This moment, right at the start of Earth's Cambrian Period, some 550 million years ago, marks the evolutionary explosion that filled the seas with the world's first complex creatures.29

The same article also quotes Jan Bergström, a paleontologist who studied the early Cambrian deposits in Chengjiang, China, as saying, "The Chengjiang fauna demonstrates that the large animal phyla of today were present already in the early Cambrian and that they were as distinct from each other as they are today."30

How the earth came to overflow with such a great number of animal species all of a sudden, and how these distinct types of species with no common ancestors could have emerged, is a question that remains unanswered by evolutionists. The Oxford University zoologist Richard Dawkins, one of the foremost advocates of evolutionist thought in the world, comments on this reality that undermines the very foundation of all the arguments he has been defending:

For example the Cambrian strata of rocks... are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history 31

Phillip Johnson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who is also one of the world's foremost critics of Darwinism, describes the contradiction between this paleontological truth and Darwinism:

Darwinian theory predicts a "cone of increasing diversity," as the first living organism, or first animal species, gradually and continually diversified to create the higher levels of taxonomic order. The animal fossil record more resembles such a cone turned upside down, with the phyla present at the start and thereafter decreasing.32

As Phillip Johnson has revealed, far from its being the case that phyla came about by stages, in reality they all came into being at once, and some of them even became extinct in later periods. The diagrams on page 610 reveal the truth that the fossil record has revealed concerning the origin of phyla.

As we can see, in the Precambrian Age there were three different phyla consisting of single-cell creatures. But in the Cambrian Age, some 60 to 100 different animal phyla emerged all of a sudden. In the age that followed, some of these phyla became extinct, and only a few have come down to our day.

Roger Lewin discusses this extraordinary fact, which totally demolishes all the Darwinist assumptions about the history of life:

Described recently as "the most important evolutionary event during the entire history of the Metazoa," the Cambrian explosion established virtually all the major animal body forms — Baupläne or phyla — that would exist thereafter, including many that were "weeded out" and became extinct. Compared with the 30 or so extant phyla, some people estimate that the Cambrian explosion may have generated as many as 100.33

### The Burgess Shale Fossil Bed

Lewin continues to call this extraordinary phenomenon from the Cambrian Age an "evolutionary event," because of the loyalty he feels to Darwinism, but it is clear that the discoveries so far cannot be explained by any evolutionary approach.

What is interesting is that the new fossil findings make the Cambrian Age problem all the more complicated. In its February 1999 issue, Trends in Genetics (TIG), a leading science journal, dealt with this issue. In an article about a fossil bed in the Burgess Shale region of British Colombia, Canada, it confessed that fossil findings in the area offer no support for the theory of evolution.

The Burgess Shale fossil bed is accepted as one of the most important paleontological discoveries of our time. The fossils of many different species uncovered in the Burgess Shale appeared on earth all of a sudden, without having been developed from any pre-existing species found in preceding layers. TIG expresses this important problem as follows:

It might seem odd that fossils from one small locality, no matter how exciting, should lie at the center of a fierce debate about such broad issues in evolutionary biology. The reason is that animals burst into the fossil record in astonishing profusion during the Cambrian, seemingly from nowhere. Increasingly precise radiometric dating and new fossil discoveries have only sharpened the suddenness and scope of this biological revolution. The magnitude of this change in Earth's biota demands an explanation. Although many hypotheses have been proposed, the general consensus is that none is wholly convincing.34

These "not wholly convincing" hypotheses belong to evolutionary paleontologists. TIG mentions two important authorities in this context, Stephen Jay Gould and Simon Conway Morris. Both have written books to explain the "sudden appearance of living beings" from the evolutionist standpoint. However, as also stressed by TIG, neither Wonderful Life by Gould nor The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals by Simon Conway Morris has provided an explanation for the Burgess Shale fossils, or for the fossil record of the Cambrian Age in general.

### Simultaneous Emergence of All Phyla

Deeper investigation into the Cambrian Explosion shows what a great dilemma it creates for the theory of evolution. Recent findings indicate that almost all phyla, the most basic animal divisions, emerged abruptly in the Cambrian period. An article published in the journal Science in 2001 says: "The beginning of the Cambrian period, some 545 million years ago, saw the sudden appearance in the fossil record of almost all the main types of animals (phyla) that still dominate the biota today."35 The same article notes that for such complex and distinct living groups to be explained according to the theory of evolution, very rich fossil beds showing a gradual developmental process should have been found, but this has not yet proved possible:

This differential evolution and dispersal, too, must have required a previous history of the group for which there is no fossil record.36

The picture presented by the Cambrian fossils clearly refutes the assumptions of the theory of evolution, and provides strong evidence for the involvement of a "supernatural" being in their creation. Douglas Futuyma, a prominent evolutionary biologist, admits this fact:

Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.37

The fossil record clearly indicates that living things did not evolve from primitive to advanced forms, but instead emerged all of a sudden in a fully formed state. This provides evidence for saying that life did not come into existence through random natural processes, but through an act of intelligent creation. In an article called "the Big Bang of Animal Evolution" in the leading journal Scientific American, Jeffrey S. Levinton, Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the State University of New York, accepts this reality, albeit unwillingly, saying "Therefore, something special and very mysterious—some highly creative "force"—existed then."38

### Molecular Comparisons Deepen Evolution's Cambrian Impasse

Another fact that puts the theory of evolution into a deep quandary about the Cambrian Explosion is genetic comparisons between different living taxa. The results of these comparisons reveal that animal taxa considered to be "close relatives" by evolutionists until quite recently, are in fact genetically very different, which totally refutes the "intermediate form" hypothesis—which only exists theoretically. An article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, in 2000 reports that recent DNA analyses have rearranged taxa that used to be considered "intermediate forms" in the past:

DNA sequence analysis dictates new interpretation of phylogenic trees. Taxa that were once thought to represent successive grades of complexity at the base of the metazoan tree are being displaced to much higher positions inside the tree. This leaves no evolutionary ''intermediates'' and forces us to rethink the genesis of bilaterian complexity.39

In the same article, evolutionist writers note that some taxa which were considered "intermediate" between groups such as sponges, cnidarians and ctenophores, can no longer be considered as such because of these new genetic findings. These writers say that they have "lost hope" of constructing such evolutionary family trees:

The new molecular based phylogeny has several important implications. Foremost among them is the disappearance of "intermediate" taxa between sponges, cnidarians, ctenophores, and the last common ancestor of bilaterians or "Urbilateria."...A corollary is that we have a major gap in the stem leading to the Urbilataria. We have lost the hope, so common in older evolutionary reasoning, of reconstructing the morphology of the "coelomate ancestor" through a scenario involving successive grades of increasing complexity based on the anatomy of extant "primitive" lineages.40

### Trilobites vs. Darwin

One of the most interesting of the many different species that suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age is the now-extinct trilobites. Trilobites belonged to the Arthropoda phylum, and were very complicated creatures with hard shells, articulated bodies, and complex organs. The fossil record has made it possible to carry out very detailed studies of trilobites' eyes. The trilobite eye is made up of hundreds of tiny facets, and each one of these contains two lens layers. This eye structure is a real wonder of creation. David Raup, a professor of geology at Harvard, Rochester, and Chicago Universities, says, "the trilobites 450 million years ago used an optimal design which would require a well trained and imaginative optical engineer to develop today."41

The extraordinarily complex structure even in trilobites is enough to invalidate Darwinism on its own, because no complex creatures with similar structures lived in previous geological periods, which goes to show that trilobites emerged with no evolutionary process behind them. A 2001 Science article says:

Cladistic analyses of arthropod phylogeny revealed that trilobites, like eucrustaceans, are fairly advanced "twigs" on the arthropod tree. But fossils of these alleged ancestral arthropods are lacking. ...Even if evidence for an earlier origin is discovered, it remains a challenge to explain why so many animals should have increased in size and acquired shells within so short a time at the base of the Cambrian.42

Very little was known about this extraordinary situation in the Cambrian Age when Charles Darwin was writing The Origin of Species. Only since Darwin's time has the fossil record revealed that life suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age, and that trilobites and other invertebrates came into being all at once. For this reason, Darwin was unable to treat the subject fully in the book. But he did touch on the subject under the heading "On the sudden appearance of groups of allied species in the lowest known fossiliferous strata," where he wrote the following about the Silurian Age (a name which at that time encompassed what we now call the Cambrian):

Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.43

Darwin said "If my theory be true, [the Cambrian] Age must have been full of living creatures." As for the question of why there were no fossils of these creatures, he tried to supply an answer throughout his book, using the excuse that "the fossil record is very lacking." But nowadays the fossil record is quite complete, and it clearly reveals that creatures from the Cambrian Age did not have ancestors. This means that we have to reject that sentence of Darwin's which begins "If my theory be true." Darwin's hypotheses were invalid, and for that reason, his theory is mistaken.

The record from the Cambrian Age demolishes Darwinism, both with the complex bodies of trilobites, and with the emergence of very different living bodies at the same time. Darwin wrote "If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection."44—that is, the theory at the heart of in his book. But as we saw earlier, 60 to 100 different animal phyla started into life in the Cambrian Age, all together and at the same time, let alone small categories such as species. This proves that the picture which Darwin had described as "fatal to the theory" is in fact the case. This is why the Swiss evolutionary paleoanthropologist Stefan Bengtson, who confesses the lack of transitional links while describing the Cambrian Age, makes the following comment: "Baffling (and embarrassing) to Darwin, this event still dazzles us."45

Another matter that needs to be dealt with regarding trilobites is that the 530-million-year-old compound structure in these creatures' eyes has come down to the present day completely unchanged. Some insects today, such as bees and dragonflies, possess exactly the same eye structure.46 This discovery deals yet another "fatal blow" to the theory of evolution's claim that living things develop from the primitive to the complex.

### The Origin of Vertebrates

As we said at the beginning, one of the phyla that suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age is the Chordata, those creatures with a central nervous system contained within a braincase and a notochord or spinal column. Vertebrates are a subgroup of chordates. Vertebrates, divided into such fundamental classes as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, are probably the most dominant creatures in the animal kingdom.

Because evolutionary paleontologists try to view every phylum as the evolutionary continuation of another phylum, they claim that the Chordata phylum evolved from another, invertebrate one. But the fact that, as with all phyla, the members of the Chordata emerged in the Cambrian Age invalidates this claim right from the very start.

As stated earlier, 530-million-year-old Cambrian fish fossils were discovered in 1999, and this striking discovery was sufficient to demolish all the claims of the theory of evolution on this subject.

The oldest member of the Chordata phylum identified from the Cambrian Age is a sea-creature called Pikaia, which with its long body reminds one at first sight of a worm.47 Pikaia emerged at the same time as all the other species in the phylum which could be proposed as its ancestor, and with no intermediate forms between them. Professor Mustafa Kuru, a Turkish evolutionary biologist, says in his book Vertebrates:

There is no doubt that chordates evolved from invertebrates. However, the lack of transitional forms between invertebrates and chordates causes people to put forward many assumptions.48

If there is no transitional form between chordates and invertebrates, then how can one say "there is no doubt that chordates evolved from invertebrates?" Accepting an assumption which lacks supporting evidence, without entertaining any doubts, is surely not a scientific approach, but a dogmatic one. After this statement, Professor Kuru discusses the evolutionist assumptions regarding the origins of vertebrates, and once again confesses that the fossil record of chordates consists only of gaps:

The views stated above about the origins of chordates and evolution are always met with suspicion, since they are not based on any fossil records.49

Evolutionary biologists sometimes claim that the reason why there exist no fossil records regarding the origin of vertebrates is because invertebrates have soft tissues and consequently leave no fossil traces. However this explanation is entirely unrealistic, since there is an abundance of fossil remains of invertebrates in the fossil record. Nearly all organisms in the Cambrian period were invertebrates, and tens of thousands of fossil examples of these species have been collected. For example, there are many fossils of soft-tissued creatures in Canada's Burgess Shale beds. (Scientists think that invertebrates were fossilized, and their soft tissues kept intact in regions such as Burgess Shale, by being suddenly covered in mud with a very low oxygen content.50)

The theory of evolution assumes that the first Chordata, such as Pikaia, evolved into fish. However, just as with the case of the supposed evolution of Chordata, the theory of the evolution of fish also lacks fossil evidence to support it. On the contrary, all distinct classes of fish emerged in the fossil record all of a sudden and fully-formed. There are millions of invertebrate fossils and millions of fish fossils; yet there is not even one fossil that is midway between them.

Robert Carroll admits the evolutionist impasse on the origin of several taxa among the early vertebrates:

We still have no evidence of the nature of the transition between cephalochordates and craniates. The earliest adequately known vertebrates already exhibit all the definitive features of craniates that we can expect to have preserved in fossils. No fossils are known that document the origin of jawed vertebrates.51

Another evolutionary paleontologist, Gerald T. Todd, admits a similar fact in an article titled "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes":

All three subdivisions of bony fishes first appear in the fossil record at approximately the same time. They are already widely divergent morphologically, and are heavily armored. How did they originate? What allowed them to diverge so widely? How did they all come to have heavy armor? And why is there no trace of earlier, intermediate forms?52

### The Origin of Tetrapods

Quadrupeds (or Tetrapoda) is the general name given to vertebrate animals dwelling on land. Amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are included in this class. The assumption of the theory of evolution regarding quadrupeds holds that these living things evolved from fish living in the sea. However, this claim poses contradictions, in terms of both physiology and anatomy. Furthermore, it lacks any basis in the fossil record.

A fish would have to undergo great modifications to adapt to land. Basically, its respiratory, excretory and skeletal systems would all have to change. Gills would have to change into lungs, fins would have to acquire the features of feet so that they could carry the weight of the body, kidneys and the whole excretory system would have to be transformed to work in a terrestrial environment, and the skin would need to acquire a new texture to prevent water loss. Unless all these things happened, a fish could only survive on land for a few minutes.

So, how does the evolutionist view explain the origin of land-dwelling animals? Some shallow comments in evolutionist literature are mainly based on a Lamarckian rationale. For instance, regarding the transformation of fins into feet, they say, "Just when fish started to creep on land, fins gradually became feet." Ali Demirsoy, one of the foremost evolutionist scientists in Turkey, writes the following: "Maybe the fins of lunged fish changed into amphibian feet as they crept through muddy water."53

As mentioned earlier, these comments are based on a Lamarckian rationale, since the comment is essentially based on the improvement of an organ through use and the passing on of this trait to subsequent generations. It seems that the theory postulated by Lamarck, which collapsed a century ago, still has a strong influence on the subconscious minds of evolutionary biologists today.

If we set aside these Lamarckist, and therefore unscientific, scenarios, we have to turn our attention to scenarios based on mutation and natural selection. However, when these mechanisms are examined, it can be seen that the transition from water to land is at a complete impasse.

Let us imagine how a fish might emerge from the sea and adapt itself to the land: If the fish does not undergo a rapid modification in terms of its respiratory, excretory and skeletal systems, it will inevitably die. The chain of mutations that needs to come about has to provide the fish with a lung and terrestrial kidneys, immediately. Similarly, this mechanism should transform the fins into feet and provide the sort of skin texture that will hold water inside the body. What is more, this chain of mutations has to take place during the lifespan of one single animal.

No evolutionary biologist would ever advocate such a chain of mutations. The implausible and nonsensical nature of the very idea is obvious. Despite this fact, evolutionists put forward the concept of "preadaptation," which means that fish acquire the traits they will need while they are still in the water. Put briefly, the theory says that fish acquire the traits of land-dwelling animals before they even feel the need for these traits, while they are still living in the sea.

Nevertheless, such a scenario is illogical even when viewed from the standpoint of the theory of evolution. Surely, acquiring the traits of a land-dwelling living animal would not be advantageous for a marine animal. Consequently, the proposition that these traits occurred by means of natural selection rests on no rational grounds. On the contrary, natural selection should eliminate any creature which underwent "preadaptation," since acquiring traits which would enable it to survive on land would surely place it at a disadvantage in the sea.

In brief, the scenario of "transition from sea to land" is at a complete impasse. This is why Henry Gee, the editor of Nature, considers this scenario as an unscientific story:

Conventional stories about evolution, about 'missing links', are not in themselves testable, because there is only one possible course of events — the one implied by the story. If your story is about how a group of fishes crawled onto land and evolved legs, you are forced to see this as a once-only event, because that's the way the story goes. You can either subscribe to the story or not — there are no alternatives.54

The impasse does not only come from the alleged mechanisms of evolution, but also from the fossil record or the study of living tetrapods. Robert Carroll has to admit that "neither the fossil record nor study of development in modern genera yet provides a complete picture of how the paired limbs in tetrapods evolved..."55

The beings claimed to represent the transition from fish to tetrapods have been several fish and amphibian genera, none of which bears transitional form characteristics.

Evolutionist natural historians traditionally refer to coelacanths (and the closely-related, extinct Rhipidistians) as the most probably ancestors of quadrupeds. These fish come under the Crossopterygian subclass. Evolutionists invest all their hopes in them simply because their fins have a relatively "fleshy" structure. Yet these fish are not transitional forms; there are huge anatomical and physiological differences between this class and amphibians.

It is because of the huge anatomical differences between them that fish cannot be considered the evolutionary ancestors of amphibians. Two examples are Eusthenopteron (an extinct fish) and Acanthostega (an extinct amphibian), the two favorite subjects for most of the contemporary evolutionary scenarios regarding tetrapod origins. Robert Carroll, in his Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, makes the following comment about these allegedly related forms:

Eusthenopteron and Acanthostega may be taken as the end points in the transition between fish and amphibians. Of 145 anatomical features that could be compared between these two genera, 91 showed changes associated with adaptation to life on land... This is far more than the number of changes that occurred in any one of the transitions involving the origin of the fifteen major groups of Paleozoic tetrapods.56

Ninety-one differences over 145 anatomical features... And evolutionists believe that all these were redesigned through a process of random mutations in about 15 million years.57 To believe in such a scenario may be necessary for the sake of evolutionary theory, but it is not scientifically and rationally sound. This is true for all other versions of the fish-amphibian scenario, which differ according to the candidates that are chosen to be the transitional forms. Henry Gee, the editor of Nature, makes a similar comment on the scenario based on Ichthyostega, another extinct amphibian with very similar characteristics to Acanthostega:

A statement that Ichthyostega is a missing link between fishes and later tetrapods reveals far more about our prejudices than about the creature we are supposed to be studying. It shows how much we are imposing a restricted view on reality based on our own limited experience, when reality may be larger, stranger, and more different than we can imagine.58

Another remarkable feature of amphibian origins is the abrupt appearance of the three basic amphibian categories. Carroll notes that "The earliest fossils of frogs, caecilians, and salamanders all appear in the Early to Middle Jurassic. All show most of the important attributes of their living descendants."59 In other words, these animals appeared abruptly and did not undergo any "evolution" since then.

### Speculations About Coelacanths

Fish that come under the coelacanth family were once accepted as strong evidence for transitional forms. Basing their argument on coelacanth fossils, evolutionary biologists proposed that this fish had a primitive (not completely functioning) lung. Many scientific publications stated the fact, together with drawings showing how coelacanths passed to land from water. All these rested on the assumption that the coelacanth was an extinct species.

However on December 22, 1938, a very interesting discovery was made in the Indian Ocean. A living member of the coelacanth family, previously presented as a transitional form that had become extinct 70 million years ago, was caught! The discovery of a "living" prototype of the coelacanth undoubtedly gave evolutionists a severe shock. The evolutionary paleontologist J. L. B. Smith said, "If I'd meet a dinosaur in the street I wouldn't have been more astonished."60 In the years to come, 200 coelacanths were caught many times in different parts of the world.

Living coelacanths revealed how groundless the speculation regarding them was. Contrary to what had been claimed, coelacanths had neither a primitive lung nor a large brain. The organ that evolutionist researchers had proposed as a primitive lung turned out to be nothing but a fat-filled swimbladder.61 Furthermore, the coelacanth, which was introduced as "a reptile candidate preparing to pass from sea to land," was in reality a fish that lived in the depths of the oceans and never approached nearer than 180 meters from the surface.62

Following this, the coelacanth suddenly lost all its popularity in evolutionist publications. Peter Forey, an evolutionary paleontologist, says in an article of his in Nature:

The discovery of Latimeria raised hopes of gathering direct information on the transition of fish to amphibians, for there was then a long-held belief that coelacanths were close to the ancestry of tetrapods. ...But studies of the anatomy and physiology of Latimeria have found this theory of relationship to be wanting and the living coelacanth's reputation as a missing link seems unjustified.63

This meant that the only serious claim of a transitional form between fish and amphibians had been demolished.

### Physiological Obstacles to Transition from Water to Land

The claim that fish are the ancestors of land-dwelling creatures is invalidated by anatomical and physiological observations as much as by the fossil record. When we examine the huge anatomical and physiological differences between water- and land-dwelling creatures, we can see that these differences could not have disappeared in an evolutionary process with gradual changes based on chance. We can list the most evident of these differences as follows

1- Weight-bearing: Sea-dwelling creatures have no problem in bearing their own weight in the sea, although the structures of their bodies are not made for such a task on land. However, most land-dwelling creatures consume 40 percent of their energy just in carrying their bodies around. Creatures claimed to make the transition from water to land would at the same time need new muscular and skeletal systems to meet this energy need, and this could not have come about by chance mutations.

The basic reason why evolutionists imagine the coelacanth and similar fish to be the ancestors of land-dwelling creatures is that their fins contain bones. It is assumed that over time these fins turned into load-bearing feet. However, there is a fundamental difference between these fish's bones and land-dwelling creatures' feet. It is impossible for the former to take on a load-bearing function, as they are not linked to the backbone. Land-dwelling creatures' bones, in contrast, are directly connected to the backbone. For this reason, the claim that these fins slowly developed into feet is unfounded.

2- Heat retention: On land, the temperature can change quickly, and fluctuates over a wide range. Land-dwelling creatures possess a physical mechanism that can withstand such great temperature changes. However, in the sea, the temperature changes slowly, and within a narrower range. A living organism with a body system regulated according to the constant temperature of the sea would need to acquire a protective system to ensure minimum harm from the temperature changes on land. It is preposterous to claim that fish acquired such a system by random mutations as soon as they stepped onto land.

3- Water: Essential to metabolism, water needs to be used economically due to its relative scarcity on land. For instance, the skin has to be able to permit a certain amount of water loss, while also preventing excessive evaporation. That is why land-dwelling creatures experience thirst, something that sea-dwelling creatures do not do. For this reason, the skin of sea-dwelling animals is not suitable for a nonaquatic habitat.

4- Kidneys: Sea-dwelling organisms discharge waste materials, especially ammonia, by means of their aquatic environment: In freshwater fish, most of the nitrogenous wastes (including large amounts of ammonia, NH3) leave by diffusion out of the gills. The kidney is mostly a device for maintaining water balance in the animal, rather than an organ of excretion. Marine fish have two types. Sharks, skates, and rays may carry very high levels of urea in their blood. Shark's blood may contain 2.5% urea in contrast to the 0.01-0.03% in other vertebrates. The other type, i. e., marine bony fish, are much different. They lose water continuously but replace it by drinking seawater and then desalting it. They rely on excretory systems, which are very different from those of terrestrial vertebrates, for eliminating excess or waste solutes. Therefore, in order for the passage from water to land to have occurred, living things without a kidney would have had to develop a kidney system all at once.

5- Respiratory system: Fish "breathe" by taking in oxygen dissolved in water that they pass through their gills. They cannot live more than a few minutes out of water. In order to survive on land, they would have to acquire a perfect lung system all of a sudden.

It is most certainly impossible that all these dramatic physiological changes could have happened in the same organism at the same time, and all by chance.

### The Origin of Reptiles

Dinosaur, lizard, turtle, crocodile—all these fall under the class of reptiles. Some, such as dinosaurs, are extinct, but the majority of these species still live on the earth. Reptiles possess some distinctive features. For example, their bodies are covered with scales, and they are cold-blooded, meaning they are unable to regulate their body temperatures physiologically (which is why they expose their bodies to sunlight in order to warm up). Most of them reproduce by laying eggs.

Regarding the origin of these creatures, evolution is again at an impasse. Darwinism claims that reptiles evolved from amphibians. However, no discovery to verify such a claim has ever been made. On the contrary, comparisons between amphibians and reptiles reveal that there are huge physiological gaps between the two, and a "half reptile-half amphibian" would have no chance of survival.

One example of the physiological gaps between these two groups is the different structures of their eggs. Amphibians lay their eggs in water, and their eggs are jelly-like, with a transparent and permeable membrane. Such eggs possess an ideal structure for development in water. Reptiles, on the other hand, lay their eggs on land, and consequently their eggs are created to survive there. The hard shell of the reptile egg, also known as an "amniotic egg," allows air in, but is impermeable to water. In this way, the water needed by the developing animal is kept inside the egg.

If amphibian eggs were laid on land, they would immediately dry out, killing the embryo. This cannot be explained in terms of evolution, which asserts that reptiles evolved gradually from amphibians. That is because, for life to have begun on land, the amphibian egg must have changed into an amniotic one within the lifespan of a single generation. How such a process could have occurred by means of natural selection and mutation—the mechanisms of evolution—is inexplicable. Biologist Michael Denton explains the details of the evolutionist impasse on this matter:

Every textbook of evolution asserts that reptiles evolved from amphibia but none explains how the major distinguishing adaptation of the reptiles, the amniotic egg, came about gradually as a result of a successive accumulation of small changes. The amniotic egg of the reptile is vastly more complex and utterly different to that of an amphibian. There are hardly two eggs in the whole animal kingdom which differ more fundamentally... The origin of the amniotic egg and the amphibian – reptile transition is just another of the major vertebrate divisions for which clearly worked out evolutionary schemes have never been provided. Trying to work out, for example, how the heart and aortic arches of an amphibian could have been gradually converted to the reptilian and mammalian condition raises absolutely horrendous problems.64

Nor does the fossil record provide any evidence to confirm the evolutionist hypothesis regarding the origin of reptiles.

Robert L. Carroll is obliged to accept this. He has written in his classic work, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, that "The early amniotes are sufficiently distinct from all Paleozoic amphibians that their specific ancestry has not been established."65 In his newer book, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, published in 1997, he admits that "The origin of the modern amphibian orders, (and) the transition between early tetrapods" are "still poorly known" along with the origins of many other major groups.66

The same fact is also acknowledged by Stephen Jay Gould:

No fossil amphibian seems clearly ancestral to the lineage of fully terrestrial vertebrates (reptiles, birds, and mammals).67

So far, the most important animal put forward as the "ancestor of reptiles" has been Seymouria, a species of amphibian. However, the fact that Seymouria cannot be a transitional form was revealed by the discovery that reptiles existed on earth some 30 million years before Seymouria first appeared on it. The oldest Seymouria fossils are found in the Lower Permian layer, or 280 million years ago. Yet the oldest known reptile species, Hylonomus and Paleothyris, were found in lower Pennsylvanian layers, making them some 315-330 million years old.68 It is surely implausible, to say the least, that the "ancestor of reptiles" lived much later than the first reptiles.

In brief, contrary to the evolutionist claim that living beings evolved gradually, scientific facts reveal that they appeared on earth suddenly and fully formed.

### Snakes and Turtles

Furthermore, there are impassable boundaries between very different orders of reptiles such as snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and lizards. Each one of these different orders appears all of a sudden in the fossil record, and with very different structures. Looking at the structures in these very different groups, evolutionists go on to imagine the evolutionary processes that might have happened. But these hypotheses are not reflected in the fossil record. For instance, one widespread evolutionary assumption is that snakes evolved from lizards which gradually lost their legs. But evolutionists are unable to answer the question of what "advantage" could accrue to a lizard which had gradually begun to lose its legs, and how this creature could be "preferred" by natural selection.

It remains to say that the oldest known snakes in the fossil record have no "intermediate form" characteristics, and are no different from snakes of our own time. The oldest known snake fossil is _Dinilysia_ , found in Upper Cretaceous rocks in South America. Robert Carroll accepts that this creature "shows a fairly advanced stage of evolution of these features [the specialized features of the skull of snakes],"69 in other words that it already possesses all the characteristics of snakes of our day.

Another order of reptile is turtles, which emerge in the fossil record together with the shells which are so characteristic of them. Evolutionist sources state that "Unfortunately, the origin of this highly successful order is obscured by the lack of early fossils, although turtles leave more and better fossil remains than do other vertebrates. By the middle of the Triassic Period (about 200,000,000 years ago) turtles were numerous and in possession of basic turtle characteristics... Intermediates between turtles and cotylosaurs, reptiles from which turtles [supposedly] sprang, are entirely lacking."70

Thus Robert Carroll is also forced to say that the earliest turtles are encountered in Triassic formations in Germany and that these are easily distinguished from other species thanks to their hard shells, which are very similar to those of specimens living today. He then goes on to say that no trace of earlier or more primitive turtles has ever been identified, although turtles fossilize very easily and are easily recognized even if only very small parts are found.71

All these types of living things emerged suddenly and independently. This fact is a scientific proof that they were created.

### Flying Reptiles

One interesting group within the reptile class are flying reptiles. These first emerged some 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic, but subsequently became extinct. These creatures were all reptiles, because they possessed all the fundamental characteristics of the reptile class. They were cold-blooded (i.e., they could not regulate their own internal heat) and their bodies were covered in scales. But they possessed powerful wings, and it is thought that these allowed them to fly.

Flying reptiles are portrayed in some popular evolutionist publications as paleontological discoveries that support Darwinism—at least, that is the impression given. However, the origin of flying reptiles is actually a real problem for the theory of evolution. The clearest indication of this is that flying reptiles emerged suddenly and fully formed, with no intermediate form between them and terrestrial reptiles. Flying reptiles possessed perfectly created wings, which no terrestrial reptile possesses. No half-winged creature has ever been encountered in the fossil record.

In any case, no half-winged creature could have lived, because if these imaginary creatures had existed, they would have been at a grave disadvantage compared to other reptiles, having lost their front legs but being still unable to fly. In that event, according to evolution's own rules, they would have been eliminated and become extinct.

In fact, when flying reptiles' wings are examined, they have such a flawless structure that this could never be accounted for by evolution. Just as other reptiles have five toes on their front feet, flying reptiles have five digits on their wings. But the fourth finger is some 20 times longer than the others, and the wing stretches out under that finger. If terrestrial reptiles had evolved into flying reptiles, then this fourth finger must have grown gradually step by step, as time passed. Not just the fourth finger, but the whole structure of the wing, must have developed with chance mutations, and this whole process would have had to bring some advantage to the creature. Duane T. Gish, one of the foremost critics of the theory of evolution on the paleontological level, makes this comment:

The very notion that a land reptile could have gradually been converted into a flying reptile is absurd. The incipient, part-way evolved structures, rather than conferring advantages to the intermediate stages, would have been a great disadvantage. For example, evolutionists suppose that, strange as it may seem, mutations occurred that affected only the fourth fingers a little bit at a time. Of course, other random mutations occurring concurrently, incredible as it may seem, were responsible for the gradual origin of the wing membrane, flight muscles, tendons, nerves, blood vessels, and other structures necessary to form the wings. At some stage, the developing flying reptile would have had about 25 percent wings. This strange creature would never survive, however. What good are 25 percent wings? Obviously the creature could not fly, and he could no longer run...72

In short, it is impossible to account for the origin of flying reptiles with the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution. And in fact the fossil record reveals that no such evolutionary process took place. Fossil layers contain only land reptiles like those we know today, and perfectly developed flying reptiles. There is no intermediate form. R. Carroll makes the following admission as an evolutionist:

...all the Triassic pterosaurs were highly specialized for flight... They provide little evidence of their specific ancestry and no evidence of earlier stages in the origin of flight.73

Carroll, more recently, in his Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, counts the origin of pterosaurs among the important transitions about which not much is known.74

As can be seen, there is no evidence for the evolution of flying reptiles. Because the term "reptile" means only land-dwelling reptiles for most people, popular evolutionist publications try to give the impression regarding flying reptiles that reptiles grew wings and began to fly. However, the fact is that both land-dwelling and flying reptiles emerged with no evolutionary relationship between them.

### Marine Reptiles

Another interesting category in the classification of reptiles is marine reptiles. The great majority of these creatures have become extinct, although turtles are an example of one group that survives. As with flying reptiles, the origin of marine reptiles is something that cannot be explained with an evolutionary approach. The most important known marine reptile is the creature known as the ichthyosaur. In their book Evolution of the Vertebrates, Edwin H. Colbert and Michael Morales admit the fact that no evolutionary account of the origin of these creatures can be given:

The ichthyosaurs, in many respects the most highly specialized of the marine reptiles, appeared in early Triassic times. Their advent into the geologic history of the reptiles was sudden and dramatic; there are no clues in pre-Triassic sediments as to the possible ancestors of the ichthyosaurs... The basic problem of ichthyosaur relationships is that no conclusive evidence can be found for linking these reptiles with any other reptilian order.75 Similarly, Alfred S. Romer, another expert on the natural history of vertebrates, writes:

No earlier forms [of ichthyosaurs] are known. The peculiarities of ichthyosaur structure would seemingly require a long time for their development and hence a very early origin for the group, but there are no known Permian reptiles antecedent to them.76

Carroll again has to admit that the origin of ichthyosaurs and nothosaurs (another family of aquatic reptiles) are among the many "poorly known" cases for evolutionists.77

In short, the different creatures that fall under the classification of reptiles came into being on the earth with no evolutionary relationship between them. As we shall see in due course, the same situation applies to mammals: there are flying mammals (bats) and marine mammals (dolphins and whales). However, these different groups are far from being evidence for evolution. Rather, they represent serious difficulties that evolution cannot account for, since in all cases the different taxonomical categories appeared on earth suddenly, with no intermediate forms between them, and with all their different structures already intact.

This is clear scientific proof that all these creatures were actually created.

## True Natural History – II (Birds and Mammals)

There are thousands of bird species on the earth. Every one of them possesses distinct features. For example, falcons have acute vision, wide wings and sharp talons, while hummingbirds, with their long beaks, suck the nectar of flowers.

Others migrate over long distances to very specific places in the world. But the most important feature distinguishing birds from other animals is flight. Most birds have the ability to fly.

How did birds come into existence? The theory of evolution tries to provide an answer with a long scenario. According to this story, reptiles are the ancestors of birds. Approximately 150-200 million years ago, birds evolved from their reptile ancestors. The first birds had very poor flying skills. Yet, during the evolution process, feathers replaced the thick skins of these ancient birds, which were originally covered with scales. Their front legs were also completely covered by feathers, and changed into wings. As a result of gradual evolution, some reptiles adapted themselves to flight, and thus became the birds of today.

This scenario is presented in evolutionary sources as an established fact. However, an in-depth study of the details and the scientific data indicates that the scenario is based more on imagination than reality.

### The Origin of Flight According to Evolutionists

How reptiles, as land-dwelling creatures, ever came to fly, is an issue which has stirred up considerable speculation among evolutionists. There are two main theories. The first argues that the ancestors of birds descended to the ground from the trees. As a result, these ancestors are alleged to be reptiles that lived in the treetops and came to possess wings gradually as they jumped from one branch to another. This is known as the arboreal theory. The other, the cursorial (or "running") theory, suggests that birds progressed to the air from the land.

Yet both of these theories rest upon speculative interpretations, and there is no evidence to support either of them. Evolutionists have devised a simple solution to the problem: they simply imagine that the evidence exists. Professor John Ostrom, head of the Geology Department at Yale University, who proposed the cursorial theory, explains this approach:

No fossil evidence exists of any pro-avis. It is a purely hypothetical pre-bird, but one that must have existed.78 However, this transitional form, which the arboreal theory assumes "must have lived," has never been found. The cursorial theory is even more problematic. The basic assumption of the theory is that the front legs of some reptiles gradually developed into wings as they waved their arms around in order to catch insects. However, no explanation is provided of how the wing, a highly complex organ, came into existence as a result of this flapping.

One huge problem for the theory of evolution is the irreducible complexity of wings. Only a perfect structure allows wings to function, a "half-way developed" wing cannot function. In this context, the "gradual development" model—the unique mechanism postulated by evolution—makes no sense. Thus Robert Carroll is forced to admit that, "It is difficult to account for the initial evolution of feathers as elements in the flight apparatus, since it is hard to see how they could function until they reached the large size seen in _Archaeopteryx_."79 Then he argues that feathers could have evolved for insulation, but this does not explain their complex design which is specifically shaped for flying.

It is essential that wings should be tightly attached to the chest, and possess a structure able to lift the bird up and enable it to move in all directions, as well as allowing it to remain in the air. It is essential that wings and feathers possess a light, flexible and well proportioned structure. At this point, evolution is again in a quandary. It fails to answer the question of how this flawless anatomy of wings came about as the result of accumulative random mutations. Similarly, it offers no explanation of how the foreleg of a reptile came to change into a perfect wing as a result of a defect (mutation) in the genes.

A half-formed wing cannot fly. Consequently, even if we assume that mutation did lead to a slight change in the foreleg, it is still entirely unreasonable to assume that further mutations contributed coincidentally to the development of a full wing. That is because a mutation in the forelegs will not produce a new wing; on the contrary, it will just cause the animal to lose its forelegs. This would put it at a disadvantage compared to other members of its own species. According to the rules of the theory of evolution, natural selection would soon eliminate this flawed creature.

According to biophysical research, mutations are changes that occur very rarely. Consequently, it is impossible that a disabled animal could wait millions of years for its wings to fully develop by means of slight mutations, especially when these mutations have damaging effects over time...

### Birds and Dinosaurs

The theory of evolution holds that birds evolved from carnivorous and bipedal theropods. However, a comparison between birds and reptiles reveals that the two have very distinct features, making it unlikely that one evolved from the other.

There are various structural differences between birds and reptiles, one of which concerns bone structure. Due to their bulky natures, dinosaurs—the ancestors of birds according to evolutionists—had thick, solid bones. Birds, in contrast, whether living or extinct, have hollow bones that are very light, as they must be in order for flight to take place.

Another difference between reptiles and birds is their metabolic structure. Reptiles have the slowest metabolic structure in the animal kingdom. (The claim that dinosaurs had a warm-blooded fast metabolism remains a speculation.) Birds, on the other hand, are at the opposite end of the metabolic spectrum. For instance, the body temperature of a sparrow can rise to as much as 48°C due to its fast metabolism. On the other hand, reptiles lack the ability to regulate their body temperature. Instead, they expose their bodies to sunlight in order to warm up. Put simply, reptiles consume the least energy of all animals and birds the most.

One of the best-known ornithologists in the world, Alan Feduccia from the University of North Carolina, opposes the theory that birds are related to dinosaurs, despite the fact that he is an evolutionist himself. Feduccia has this to say regarding the reptile-bird scenario:

Well, I've studied bird skulls for 25 years and I don't see any similarities whatsoever. I just don't see it... The theropod origins of birds, in my opinion, will be the greatest embarrassment of paleontology of the 20th century.80

Larry Martin, a specialist on ancient birds from the University of Kansas, also opposes the theory that birds are descended from dinosaurs. Discussing the contradiction that evolution falls into on the subject, he states:

To tell you the truth, if I had to support the dinosaur origin of birds with those characters, I'd be embarrassed every time I had to get up and talk about it.81

Yet, despite all the scientific findings, the groundless scenario of "dinosaur-bird evolution" is still insistently advocated. Popular publications are particularly fond of the scenario. Meanwhile, concepts which provide no backing for the scenario are presented as evidence for the imaginary "dinosaur-bird evolution."

In some evolutionist publications, for instance, emphasis is laid on the differences among dinosaur hip bones to support the thesis that birds are descended from dinosaurs. These so-called differences exist between dinosaurs classified as Saurischian (reptile-like, hip-girdled species) and Ornithischian (bird-like, hip-girdled species). This concept of dinosaurs having hip girdles similar to those of birds is now and then taken as evidence for the alleged dinosaur–bird link. However, the difference in hip girdles is no evidence at all for the claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs. That is because Ornithischian dinosaurs do not resemble birds with respect to other anatomical features. For instance, Ankylosaurus is a dinosaur classified as Ornithischian, with short legs, a giant body, and skin covered with scales resembling armor. On the other hand, Struthiomimus, which resembles birds in some of its anatomical features (long legs, short forelegs, and thin structure), is actually a Saurischian.82

In short, the structure of the hip girdle is no evidence for an evolutionary relationship between birds and dinosaurs. The claim that dinosaurs resemble birds because their hip girdles are similar ignores other significant anatomical differences between the two species which make any evolutionary link between them untenable from the evolutionist viewpoint.

### The Unique Structure of Avian Lungs

Another factor demonstrating the impossibility of the reptile-bird evolution scenario is the structure of avian lungs, which cannot be accounted for by evolution.

In land-dwelling creatures, air flow is bidirectional. Upon inhaling, the air travels through the passages in the lungs (bronchial tubes), ending in tiny air sacs (alveoli). The exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place here. Then, upon exhaling, this used air makes its way back and finds its way out of the lung by the same route.

In birds however, air is unidirectional. New air comes in one end, and the used air goes at the other end. Thanks to special air sacs all along the passages between them, air always flows in one direction through the avian lung. In this way, birds are able to take in air nonstop. This satisfies birds' high energy requirements. This highly specialized respiratory system is explained by Michael Denton in his book A Theory in Crisis:

In the case of birds, the major bronchi break down into tiny tubes which permeate the lung tissue. These so-called parabronchi eventually join up together again, forming a true circulatory system so that air flows in one direction through the lungs. ...[T]he structure of the lung in birds and the overall functioning of the respiratory system is quite unique. No lung in any other vertebrate species is known which in any way approaches the avian system. Moreover, it is identical in all essential details in birds as diverse as humming birds, ostriches and hawks.83

The important thing is that the reptile lung, with its bidirectional air flow, could not have evolved into the bird lung with its unidirectional flow, because it is not possible for there to have been an intermediate model between them. In order for a creature to live, it has to keep breathing, and a reversal of the structure of its lungs with a change of design would inevitably end in death. According to evolution, this change must happen gradually over millions of years, whereas a creature whose lungs do not work will die within a few minutes.

Michael Denton states that it is impossible to give an evolutionary account of the avian lung:

Just how such an utterly different respiratory system could have evolved gradually from the standard vertebrate design is fantastically difficult to envisage, especially bearing in mind that the maintenance of respiratory function is absolutely vital to the life of an organism to the extent that the slightest malfunction leads to death within minutes. Just as the feather cannot function as an organ of flight until the hooks and barbules are coadapted to fit together perfectly, so the avian lung cannot function as an organ of respiration until the parabronchi system which permeates it and the air sac system which guarantees the parabronchi their air supply are both highly developed and able to function together in a perfectly integrated manner.84

In brief, the passage from a terrestrial lung to an avian lung is impossible, because an intermediate form would serve no purpose.

Another point that needs to be mentioned here is that reptiles have a diaphragm-type respiratory system, whereas birds have an abdominal air sac system instead of a diaphragm. These different structures also make any evolution between the two lung types impossible, as John Ruben, an acknowledged authority in the field of respiratory physiology, observes in the following passage:

The earliest stages in the derivation of the avian abdominal air sac system from a diaphragm-ventilating ancestor would have necessitated selection for a diaphragmatic hernia in taxa transitional between theropods and birds. Such a debilitating condition would have immediately compromised the entire pulmonary ventilatory apparatus and seems unlikely to have been of any selective advantage.85

Another interesting structural feature of the avian lung which defies evolution is the fact that it is never empty of air, and thus never in danger of collapse. Michael Denton explains the position:

Just how such a different respiratory system could have evolved gradually from the standard vertebrate design without some sort of direction is, again, very difficult to envisage, especially bearing in mind that the maintenance of respiratory function is absolutely vital to the life of the organism. Moreover, the unique function and form of the avian lung necessitates a number of additional unique adaptations during avian development. As H. R. Dunker, one of the world's authorities in this field, explains, because first, the avian lung is fixed rigidly to the body wall and cannot therefore expand in volume and, second, because of the small diameter of the lung capillaries and the resulting high surface tension of any liquid within them, the avian lung cannot be inflated out of a collapsed state as happens in all other vertebrates after birth. The air capillaries are never collapsed as are the alveoli of other vertebrate species; rather, as they grow into the lung tissue, the parabronchi are from the beginning open tubes filled with either air or fluid.86

In other words, the passages in birds' lungs are so narrow that the air sacs inside their lungs cannot fill with air and empty again, as with land-dwelling creatures.

If a bird lung ever completely deflated, the bird would never be able to re-inflate it, or would at the very least have great difficulty in doing so. For this reason, the air sacs situated all over the lung enable a constant passage of air to pass through, thus protecting the lungs from deflating.

Of course this system, which is completely different from the lungs of reptiles and other vertebrates, and is based on the most sensitive equilibrium, cannot have come about with unconscious mutations, stage by stage, as evolution maintains. This is how Denton describes this structure of the avian lung, which again invalidates Darwinism:

The avian lung brings us very close to answering Darwin's challenge: "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."87

### Bird Feathers and Reptile Scales

Another impassable gulf between birds and reptiles is feathers, which are peculiar to birds. Reptile bodies are covered with scales, and those of birds with feathers. The hypothesis that bird feathers evolved from reptile scales is completely unfounded, and is indeed disproved by the fossil record, as the evolutionary paleontologist Barbara Stahl admits:

How [feathers] arose initially, presumably from reptiles scales, defies analysis... It seems, from the complex construction of feathers, that their evolution from reptilian scales would have required an immense period of time and involved a series of intermediate structures. So far, the fossil record does not bear out that supposition.88

A. H. Brush, a professor of physiology and neurobiology at the University of Connecticut, accepts this reality, although he is himself an evolutionist: "Every feature from gene structure and organization, to development, morphogenesis and tissue organization is different [in feathers and scales]."89 Moreover, Professor Brush examines the protein structure of bird feathers and argues that it is "unique among vertebrates."90

There is no fossil evidence to prove that bird feathers evolved from reptile scales. On the contrary, feathers appear suddenly in the fossil record, Professor Brush observes, as an "undeniably unique" character distinguishing birds.91 Besides, in reptiles, no epidermal tissue has yet been detected that provides a starting point for bird feathers.92

Many fossils have so far been the subject of "feathered dinosaur" speculation, but detailed study has always disproved it. The prominent ornithologist Alan Feduccia writes the following in an article called "On Why Dinosaurs Lacked Feathers":

Feathers are features unique to birds, and there are no known intermediate structures between reptilian scales and feathers. Notwithstanding speculations on the nature of the elongated scales found on such forms as Longisquama ... as being featherlike structures, there is simply no demonstrable evidence that they in fact are.93

### Signs of Creation in Feathers

On the other hand, bird feathers have such a complex structure that the phenomenon can never be accounted for by evolutionary processes. As we all know, there is a shaft that runs up the center of the feather. Attached to the shaft are the vanes. The vane is made up of small thread-like strands, called barbs. These barbs, of different lengths and rigidity, are what give the bird its aerodynamic nature. But what is even more interesting is that each barb has thousands of even smaller strands attached to them called barbules. The barbules are connected to barbicels, with tiny microscopic hooks, called hamuli. Each strand is hooked to an opposing strand, much like the hooks of a zipper.

Just one crane feather has about 650 barbs on each of side of the shaft. About 600 barbules branch off the barbs. Each one of these barbules are locked together with 390 hooklets. The hooks latch together as do the teeth on both sides of a zip. If the hooklets come apart for any reason, the bird can easily restore the feathers to their original form by either shaking itself or by straightening its feathers out with its beak.

To claim that the complex structure of feathers could have come about by the evolution of reptile scales through chance mutations is quite simply a dogmatic belief with no scientific foundation. Even one of the doyens of Darwinism, Ernst Mayr, made this confession on the subject some years ago:

It is a considerable strain on one's credulity to assume that finely balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird's feather) could be improved by random mutations.94

Feathers also compelled Darwin to ponder them. Moreover, the perfect aesthetics of the peacock's feathers had made him "sick" (his own words). In a letter he wrote to Asa Gray on April 3, 1860, he said, "I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over, but I have got over this stage of complaint..." And then continued: "... and now trifling particulars of structure often make me very uncomfortable. The sight of a feather in a peacock's tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!"95

In short, the enormous structural differences between bird feathers and reptile scales, and the unbelievably complex structure of feathers, clearly demonstrate the baselessness of the claim that feathers evolved from scales.

### The Archaeopteryx Misconception

In response to the question whether there is any fossil evidence for "reptile-bird evolution," evolutionists pronounce the name of one single creature. This is the fossil of a bird called Archaeopteryx, one of the most widely known so-called transitional forms among the very few that evolutionists still defend.

Archaeopteryx, the so-called ancestor of birds of our day according to evolutionists, lived approximately 150 million years ago. The theory holds that some small dinosaurs, such as Velociraptors or Dromaeosaurs, evolved by acquiring wings and then starting to fly. Thus, Archaeopteryx is assumed to be a transitional form that branched off from its dinosaur ancestors and started to fly for the first time.

However, the latest studies of Archaeopteryx fossils indicate that this explanation lacks any scientific foundation. This is absolutely not a transitional form, but an extinct species of bird, having some insignificant differences from present-day birds.

The thesis that Archaeopteryx was a "half-bird" that could not fly perfectly was popular among evolutionist circles until not long ago. The absence of a sternum (breastbone) in this creature was held up as the most important evidence that this bird could not fly properly. (The sternum is a bone found under the thorax to which the muscles required for flight are attached. In our day, this breastbone is observed in all flying and non-flying birds, and even in bats, a flying mammal which belongs to a very different family.) However, the seventh Archaeopteryx fossil, which was found in 1992, disproved this argument. The reason was that in this recently discovered fossil, the breastbone that was long assumed by evolutionists to be missing was discovered to have existed after all. This fossil was described in the journal Nature as follows:

The recently discovered seventh specimen of the Archaeopteryx preserves a partial, rectangular sternum, long suspected but never previously documented. This attests to its strong flight muscles, but its capacity for long flights is questionable.96

This discovery invalidated the mainstay of the claims that Archaeopteryx was a half-bird that could not fly properly.

Morevoer, the structure of the bird's feathers became one of the most important pieces of evidence confirming that Archaeopteryx was a flying bird in the true sense. The asymmetric feather structure of Archaeopteryx is indistinguishable from that of today's birds, and indicates that it could fly perfectly well. As the eminent paleontologist Carl O. Dunbar states, "Because of its feathers, [Archaeopteryx is] distinctly to be classed as a bird."97 Paleontologist Robert Carroll further explains the subject:

The geometry of the flight feathers of Archaeopteryx is identical with that of modern flying birds, whereas nonflying birds have symmetrical feathers. The way in which the feathers are arranged on the wing also falls within the range of modern birds... According to Van Tyne and Berger, the relative size and shape of the wing of Archaeopteryx are similar to that of birds that move through restricted openings in vegetation, such as gallinaceous birds, doves, woodcocks, woodpeckers, and most passerine birds... The flight feathers have been in stasis for at least 150 million years...98

Another fact that was revealed by the structure of Archaeopteryx's feathers was its warm-blooded metabolism. As was discussed above, reptiles and dinosaurs are cold-blooded animals whose body heat fluctuates with the temperature of their environment, rather than being homeostatically regulated. A very important function of the feathers on birds is the maintenance of a constant body temperature. The fact that Archaeopteryx had feathers shows that it was a real, warm-blooded bird that needed to retain its body heat, in contrast to dinosaurs.

### The Teeth and Claws of Archaeopteryx

Two important points evolutionary biologists rely on when claiming Archaeopteryx was a transitional form, are the claws on its wings and its teeth.

It is true that Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings and teeth in its mouth, but these traits do not imply that the creature bore any kind of relationship to reptiles. Besides, two bird species living today, the touraco and the hoatzin, have claws which allow them to hold onto branches. These creatures are fully birds, with no reptilian characteristics. That is why it is completely groundless to assert that Archaeopteryx is a transitional form just because of the claws on its wings.

Neither do the teeth in Archaeopteryx's beak imply that it is a transitional form. Evolutionists are wrong to say that these teeth are reptilian characteristics, since teeth are not a typical feature of reptiles. Today, some reptiles have teeth while others do not. Moreover, Archaeopteryx is not the only bird species to possess teeth. It is true that there are no toothed birds in existence today, but when we look at the fossil record, we see that both during the time of Archaeopteryx and afterwards, and even until fairly recently, a distinct group of birds existed that could be categorised as "birds with teeth."

The most important point is that the tooth structure of Archaeopteryx and other birds with teeth is totally different from that of their alleged ancestors, the dinosaurs. The well-known ornithologists L. D. Martin, J. D. Stewart, and K. N. Whetstone observed that Archaeopteryx and other similar birds have unserrated teeth with constricted bases and expanded roots. Yet the teeth of theropod dinosaurs, the alleged ancestors of these birds, had serrated teeth with straight roots.99 These researchers also compared the ankle bones of Archaeopteryx with those of their alleged ancestors, the dinosaurs, and observed no similarity between them.100

Studies by anatomists such as S. Tarsitano, M.K. Hecht, and A.D. Walker have revealed that some of the similarities that John Ostrom and others have seen between the limbs of Archaeopteryx and dinosaurs were in reality misinterpretations.101 For example, A.D. Walker has analyzed the ear region of Archaeopteryx and found that it is identical to that of present-day birds.102

Furthermore, J. Richard Hinchliffe, from the Institute of Biological Sciences of the University of Wales, studied the anatomies of birds and their alleged reptilian ancestors by using modern isotopic techniques and discovered that the three forelimb digits in dinosaurs are I-II-III, whereas bird wing digits are II-III-IV. This poses a big problem for the supporters of the Archaeopteryx-dinosaur link.103 Hinchliffe published his studies and observations in Science in 1997, where he wrote:

Doubts about homology between theropods and bird digits remind us of some of the other problems in the "dinosaur-origin" hypothesis. These include the following: (i) The much smaller theropod forelimb (relative to body size) in comparison with the Archaeopteryx wing. Such small limbs are not convincing as proto-wings for a ground-up origin of flight in the relatively heavy dinosaurs. (ii) The rarity in theropods of the semilunate wrist bone, known in only four species (including Deinonychus). Most theropods have relatively large numbers of wrist elements, difficult to homologize with those of Archaeopteryx. (iii) The temporal paradox that most theropod dinosaurs and in particular the birdlike dromaeosaurs are all very much later in the fossil record than Archaeopteryx.

As Hinchliffe notes, the "temporal paradox" is one of the facts that deal the fatal blow to the evolutionist allegations about Archaeopteryx. In his book Icons of Evolution, American biologist Jonathan Wells remarks that Archaeopteryx has been turned into an "icon" of the theory of evolution, whereas evidence clearly shows that this creature is not the primitive ancestor of birds. According to Wells, one of the indications of this is that theropod dinosaurs—the alleged ancestors of Archaeopteryx—are actually younger than Archaeopteryx: "Two-legged reptiles that ran along the ground, and had other features one might expect in an ancestor of Archaeopteryx, appear later."104

All these findings indicate that Archaeopteryx was not a transitional link but only a bird that fell into a category that can be called "toothed birds." Linking this creature to theropod dinosaurs is completely invalid. In an article headed "The Demise of the 'Birds Are Dinosaurs' Theory," the American biologist Richard L. Deem writes the following about Archaeopteryx and the bird-dinosaur evolution claim:

The results of the recent studies show that the hands of the theropod dinosaurs are derived from digits I, II, and III, whereas the wings of birds, although they look alike in terms of structure, are derived from digits II, III, and IV... There are other problems with the "birds are dinosaurs" theory. The theropod forelimb is much smaller (relative to body size) than that of Archaeopteryx. The small "proto-wing" of the theropod is not very convincing, especially considering the rather hefty weight of these dinosaurs. The vast majority of the theropod lack the semilunate wrist bone, and have a large number of other wrist elements which have no homology to the bones of Archaeopteryx. In addition, in almost all theropods, nerve V1 exits the braincase out the side, along with several other nerves, whereas in birds, it exits out the front of the braincase, though its own hole. There is also the minor problem that the vast majority of the theropods appeared after the appearance of Archaeopteryx.105

### Archaeopteryx and Other Ancient Bird Fossils

Some recently found fossils also invalidate the evolutionist scenario regarding Archaeopteryx in other respects.

Lianhai Hou and Zhonghe Zhou, two paleontologists at the Chinese Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, discovered a new bird fossil in 1995, and named it Confuciusornis. This fossil is almost the same age as Archaeopteryx (around 140 million years), but has no teeth in its mouth. In addition, its beak and feathers share the same features as today's birds. Confuciusornis has the same skeletal structure as birds of our day, but also has claws on its wings, just like Archaeopteryx. Another structure peculiar to birds called the "pygostyle," which supports the tail feathers, was also found in Confuciusornis.106 In short, this fossil—which is the same age as Archaeopteryx, which was previously thought to be the earliest bird and was accepted as a semi-reptile—looks very much like a bird of today. This fact has invalidated all the evolutionist theses claiming Archaeopteryx to be the primitive ancestor of all birds.

Another fossil unearthed in China caused even greater confusion. In November 1996, the existence of a 130-million-year-old bird named Liaoningornis was announced in Science by L. Hou, L. D. Martin, and Alan Feduccia. Liaoningornis had a breastbone to which the muscles for flight were attached, just as in birds of our day.107 This bird was indistinguishable from birds of our day in other respects, too. The only difference was the teeth in its mouth. This showed that birds with teeth did not possess the primitive structure alleged by evolutionists. That Liaoningornis had the features of a bird of our day was stated in an article in Discover, which said, "Whence came the birds? This fossil suggests that it was not from dinosaur stock."108

Another fossil that refuted the evolutionist claims regarding Archaeopteryx was Eoalulavis. The wing structure of Eoalulavis, which was said to be some 25 to 30 million years younger than Archaeopteryx, was also observed in slow-flying birds of our day.109 This proved that 120 million years ago, there were birds indistinguishable from birds of our day in many respects, flying in the skies.

These facts once more indicate for certain that neither Archaeopteryx nor other ancient birds similar to it were transitional forms. The fossils do not indicate that different bird species evolved from each other. On the contrary, the fossil record proves that today's birds and some archaic birds such as Archaeopteryx actually lived together at the same time. It is true that some of these bird species, such as Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis, have become extinct, but the fact that only some of the species that once existed have been able to survive down to the present day does not in itself support the theory of evolution.

### Archaeoraptor: The Dino-Bird Hoax

Unable to find what they were looking for in Archaeopteryx, the advocates of the theory of evolution pinned their hopes on some other fossils in the 1990s and a series of reports of so-called "dino-bird" fossils appeared in the world media. Yet it was soon discovered that these claims were simply misinterpretations, or, even worse, forgeries.

The first dino-bird claim was the story of "feathered dinosaur fossils unearthed in China," which was put forward in 1996 with a great media fanfare. A reptilian fossil called Sinosauropteryx was found, but some evolutionist paleontologists who examined the fossil said that it had bird feathers, unlike known reptiles. Examinations conducted one year later, however, showed that the fossil actually had no structure similar to a bird's feather. A Science article titled "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur" stated that the structures named as "feathers" by evolutionary paleontologists definitely had nothing to do with feathers:

Exactly 1 year ago, paleontologists were abuzz about photos of a so-called "feathered dinosaur," which were passed around the halls at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. The Sinosauropteryx specimen from the Yixian Formation in China made the front page of The New York Times, and was viewed by some as confirming the dinosaurian origins of birds. But at this year's vertebrate paleontology meeting in Chicago late last month, the verdict was a bit different: The structures are not modern feathers, say the roughly half-dozen Western paleontologists who have seen the specimens. ...Paleontologist Larry Martin of Kansas University, Lawrence, thinks the structures are frayed collagenous fibers beneath the skin—and so have nothing to do with birds.110

A yet more sensational case of dino-bird hype broke out in 1999. In its November 1999 issue, National Geographic published an article about a fossil specimen unearthed in China which was claimed to bear both bird and dinosaur features. National Geographic writer Christopher P. Sloan, the author of the article, went so far as to claim, "we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals." This species, which was said to have lived 125 million years ago, was immediately given the scientific name Archaeoraptor liaoningensis.111

However, the fossil was a fake and was skillfully constructed from five separate specimens. A group of researchers, among whom were also three paleontologists, proved the forgery one year later with the help of X-ray computed tomography. The dino-bird was actually the product of a Chinese evolutionist. Chinese amateurs formed the dino-bird by using glue and cement from 88 bones and stones. Research suggests that Archaeoraptor was built from the front part of the skeleton of an ancient bird, and that its body and tail included bones from four different specimens.

The interesting thing is that National Geographic published a high-profile article about such a crude forgery—and, moreover, used it as the basis for claiming that "bird evolution" scenarios had been verified—without expressing any doubts or caution in the article at all. Dr. Storrs Olson, of the famous Smithsonian Institute Natural History Museum in the USA, later said that he warned National Geographic beforehand that this fossil was a fake, but that the magazine management totally ignored him. According to Olson, "National Geographic has reached an all-time low for engaging in sensationalistic, unsubstantiated, tabloid journalism."112

In a letter he wrote to Peter Raven of National Geographic, Olson describes the real story of the "feathered dinosaur" hype since its launch with a previous National Geographic article published in 1998 in a very detailed way:

Prior to the publication of the article "Dinosaurs Take Wing" in the July 1998 National Geographic, Lou Mazzatenta, the photographer for Sloan's article, invited me to the National Geographic Society to review his photographs of Chinese fossils and to comment on the slant being given to the story. At that time, I tried to interject the fact that strongly supported alternative viewpoints existed to what National Geographic intended to present, but it eventually became clear to me that National Geographic was not interested in anything other than the prevailing dogma that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Sloan's article takes the prejudice to an entirely new level and consists in large part of unverifiable or undocumented information that "makes" the news rather than reporting it. His bald statement that "we can now say that birds are theropods just as confidently as we say that humans are mammals" is not even suggested as reflecting the views of a particular scientist or group of scientists, so that it figures as little more than editorial propagandizing. This melodramatic assertion had already been disproven by recent studies of embryology and comparative morphology, which, of course, are never mentioned.

More importantly, however, none of the structures illustrated in Sloan's article that are claimed to be feathers have actually been proven to be feathers. Saying that they are is little more than wishful thinking that has been presented as fact. The statement on page 103 that "hollow, hairlike structures characterize protofeathers" is nonsense considering that protofeathers exist only as a theoretical construct, so that the internal structure of one is even more hypothetical.

The hype about feathered dinosaurs in the exhibit currently on display at the National Geographic Society is even worse, and makes the spurious claim that there is strong evidence that a wide variety of carnivorous dinosaurs had feathers. A model of the undisputed dinosaur Deinonychus and illustrations of baby tyrannosaurs are shown clad in feathers, all of which is simply imaginary and has no place outside of science fiction.

Sincerely,

Storrs L. Olson

Curator of Birds

National Museum of Natural History

Smithsonian Institution 113

This revealing case demonstrates two important facts. First, there are people who have no qualms about resorting to forgery in an effort to find evidence for the theory of evolution. Second, some highly reputable popular science journals, which have assumed the mission of imposing the theory of evolution on people, are perfectly willing to disregard any facts that may be inconvenient or have alternative interpretations. That is, they have become little more than propaganda tools for propagating the theory of evolution. They take not a scientific, but a dogmatic, stance and knowingly compromise science to defend the theory of evolution to which they are so strongly devoted.

Another important aspect of the matter is that there is no evidence for the thesis that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Because of the lack of evidence, either fake evidence is produced, or actual evidence is misinterpreted. In truth, there is no evidence that birds have evolved from another living species. On the contrary, all discoveries show that birds emerged on the earth already in full possession of their distinctive body structures.

### The Origin of Insects

While discussing the origin of birds, we mentioned the cursorial theory that evolutionary biologists propose. As we made clear then, the question of how reptiles grew wings involves speculation about "reptiles trying to catch insects with their front legs." According to this theory, these reptiles' forefeet slowly turned into wings over time as they hunted for insects.

We have already stressed that this theory is based on no scientific discoveries whatsoever. But there is another interesting side to it, which we have not yet touched on. Flies can already fly. So how did they acquire wings? And generally speaking, what is the origin of insects, of which flies are just one class?

In the classification of living things, insects make up a subphylum, Insecta, of the phylum Arthropoda. The oldest insect fossils belong to the Devonian Age (410 to 360 million years ago). In the Pennsylvanian Age which followed (325 to 286 million years ago), there emerged a great number of different insect species. For instance, cockroaches emerge all of a sudden, and with the same structure as they have today. Betty Faber, of the American Museum of Natural History, reports that fossil cockroaches from 350 million years ago are exactly the same as those of today.114

Creatures such as spiders, ticks, and millipedes are not insects, but rather belong to other subphyla of Arthropoda. Important fossil discoveries of these creatures were communicated to the 1983 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The interesting thing about these 380-million-year-old spider, tick, and centipede fossils is the fact that they are no different from specimens alive today. One of the scientists who examined the fossils remarked that, "they looked like they might have died yesterday."115

Winged insects also emerge suddenly in the fossil record, and with all the features peculiar to them. For example, a large number of dragonfly fossils from the Pennsylvanian Age have been found. And these dragonflies have exactly the same structures as their counterparts today.

One interesting point here is the fact that dragonflies and flies emerge all of a sudden, together with wingless insects. This disproves the theory that wingless insects developed wings and gradually evolved into flying ones. In one of their articles in the book Biomechanics in Evolution, Robin Wootton and Charles P. Ellington have this to say on the subject:

When insect fossils first appear, in the Middle and Upper Carboniferous, they are diverse and for the most part fully winged. There are a few primitively wingless forms, but no convincing intermediates are known.116

One major characteristic of flies, which emerge all of a sudden in the fossil record, is their amazing flying technique. Whereas a human being is unable to open and close his arms even 10 times a second, a fly flaps its wings 500 times on average in that space of time. Moreover, it moves both its wings simultaneously. The slightest dissonance in the vibration of its wings would cause the fly to lose balance, but this never happens.

In an article titled "The Mechanical Design of Fly Wings," Wootton further observes:

The better we understand the functioning of insect wings, the more subtle and beautiful their designs appear ... Structures are traditionally designed to deform as little as possible; mechanisms are designed to move component parts in predictable ways. Insect wings combine both in one, using components with a wide range of elastic properties, elegantly assembled to allow appropriate deformations in response to appropriate forces and to make the best possible use of the air. They have few if any technological parallels – yet.117

Of course the sudden emergence of living things with such a perfect structure as this cannot be explained by any evolutionist account. That is why Pierre-Paul Grassé says, "We are in the dark concerning the origin of insects."118 The origin of insects clearly proves the fact that all living things were created by God.

### The Origin of Mammals

As we have stated before, the theory of evolution proposes that some imaginary creatures that came out of the sea turned into reptiles, and that birds evolved from reptiles. According to the same scenario, reptiles are the ancestors not only of birds, but also of mammals. However, there are great differences between these two classes. Mammals are warm-blooded animals (this means they can generate their own heat and maintain it at a steady level), they give live birth, they suckle their young, and their bodies are covered in fur or hair. Reptiles, on the other hand, are cold-blooded (i.e., they cannot generate heat, and their body temperature changes according to the external temperature), they lay eggs, they do not suckle their young, and their bodies are covered in scales.

Given all these differences, then, how did a reptile start to regulate its body temperature and come by a perspiratory mechanism to allow it to maintain its body temperature? Is it possible that it replaced its scales with fur or hair and started to secrete milk? In order for the theory of evolution to explain the origin of mammals, it must first provide scientific answers to these questions.

Yet, when we look at evolutionist sources, we either find completely imaginary and unscientific scenarios, or else a profound silence. One of these scenarios is as follows:

Some of the reptiles in the colder regions began to develop a method of keeping their bodies warm. Their heat output increased when it was cold and their heat loss was cut down when scales became smaller and more pointed, and evolved into fur. Sweating was also an adaptation to regulate the body temperature, a device to cool the body when necessary by evaporation of water. But incidentally the young of these reptiles began to lick the sweat of the mother for nourishment. Certain sweat glands began to secrete a richer and richer secretion, which eventually became milk. Thus the young of these early mammals had a better start in life.119

The above scenario is nothing more than a figment of the imagination. Not only is such a fantastic scenario unsupported by the evidence, it is clearly impossible. It is quite irrational to claim that a living creature produces a highly complex nutrient such as milk by licking its mother's body sweat.

The reason why such scenarios are put forward is the fact that there are huge differences between reptiles and mammals. One example of the structural barriers between reptiles and mammals is their jaw structure. Mammal jaws consist of only one mandibular bone containing the teeth. In reptiles, there are three little bones on both sides of the mandible. Another basic difference is that all mammals have three bones in their middle ear (hammer, anvil, and stirrup). Reptiles have but a single bone in the middle ear. Evolutionists claim that the reptile jaw and middle ear gradually evolved into the mammal jaw and ear. The question of how an ear with a single bone evolved into one with three bones, and how the sense of hearing kept on functioning in the meantime can never be explained. Not surprisingly, not one single fossil linking reptiles and mammals has been found. This is why Roger Lewin was forced to say, "The transition to the first mammal, ...is still an enigma."120

George Gaylord Simpson, one of the most important evolutionary authorities and a founder of the neo-Darwinist theory, makes the following comment regarding this perplexing difficulty for evolutionists:

The most puzzling event in the history of life on earth is the change from the Mesozoic, the Age of Reptiles, to the Age of Mammals. It is as if the curtain were rung down suddenly on the stage where all the leading roles were taken by reptiles, especially dinosaurs, in great numbers and bewildering variety, and rose again immediately to reveal the same setting but an entirely new cast, a cast in which the dinosaurs do not appear at all, other reptiles are supernumeraries, and all the leading parts are played by mammals of sorts barely hinted at in the preceding acts.121

Furthermore, when mammals suddenly made their appearance, they were already very different from each other. Such dissimilar animals as bats, horses, mice, and whales are all mammals, and they all emerged during the same geological period. Establishing an evolutionary relationship among them is impossible even by the broadest stretch of the imagination. The evolutionist zoologist R. Eric Lombard makes this point in an article that appeared in the leading journal Evolution:

Those searching for specific information useful in constructing phylogenies of mammalian taxa will be disappointed.122

In short, the origin of mammals, like that of other groups, fails to conform to the theory of evolution in any way. George Gaylord Simpson admitted that fact many years ago:

This is true of all thirty-two orders of mammals ... The earliest and most primitive known members of every order [of mammals] already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous sequence from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed ... This regular absence of transitional forms is not confined to mammals, but is an almost universal phenomenon, as has long been noted by paleontologists. It is true of almost all classes of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate...it is true of the classes, and of the major animal phyla, and it is apparently also true of analogous categories of plants.123

### The Myth of Horse Evolution

One important subject in the origin of mammals is the myth of the "evolution of the horse," also a topic to which evolutionist publications have devoted a considerable amount of space for a long time. This is a myth, because it is based on imagination rather than scientific findings.

Until recently, an imaginary sequence supposedly showing the evolution of the horse was advanced as the principal fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. Today, however, many evolutionists themselves frankly admit that the scenario of horse evolution is bankrupt. In 1980, a four-day symposium was held at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, with 150 evolutionists in attendance, to discuss the problems with the gradualistic evolutionary theory. In addressing this meeting, evolutionist Boyce Rensberger noted that the scenario of the evolution of the horse has no foundation in the fossil record, and that no evolutionary process has been observed that would account for the gradual evolution of horses:

The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.124

While discussing this important dilemma in the scenario of the evolution of the horse in a particularly honest way, Rensberger brought the transitional form difficulty onto the agenda as the greatest difficulty of all.

Dr. Niles Eldredge said the following about the "evolution of the horse" diagram:

There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.125

Then what is the scenario of the evolution of the horse? This scenario was formulated by means of the deceitful charts devised by the sequential arrangement of fossils of distinct species that lived at vastly different periods in India, South Africa, North America, and Europe, solely in accordance with the rich power of evolutionists' imaginations. More than 20 charts of the evolution of the horse, which by the way are totally different from each other, have been proposed by various researchers. Thus, it is obvious that evolutionists have reached no common agreement on these family trees. The only common feature in these arrangements is the belief that a dog-sized creature called Eohippus (Hyracotherium), which lived in the Eocene period 55 million years ago, was the ancestor of the horse. However, the fact is that Eohippus, which became extinct millions of years ago, is nearly identical to the hyrax, a small rabbit-like animal which still lives in Africa and has nothing whatsoever to do with the horse.126

The inconsistency of the theory of the evolution of the horse becomes increasingly apparent as more fossil findings are gathered. Fossils of today's horse species (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis) have been discovered in the same layer as Eohippus.127 This is an indication that the today's horse and its so-called ancestor lived at the same time.

The evolutionist science writer Gordon R. Taylor explains this little-acknowledged truth in his book The Great Evolution Mystery:

But perhaps the most serious weakness of Darwinism is the failure of paleontologists to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of organisms demonstrating major evolutionary change... The horse is often cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the fact is that the line from Eohippus to Equus is very erratic. It is alleged to show a continual increase in size, but the truth is that some variants were smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from different sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking sequence, but there is no evidence that they were actually ranged in this order in time.128

All these facts are strong evidence that the charts of horse evolution, which are presented as one of the most solid pieces of evidence for the theory of evolution, are nothing but fantastic and implausible fairy tales. Like other species, horses, too, came into existence without ancestors in the evolutionary sense.

### The Origin of Bats

One of the most interesting creatures in the mammalian class is without doubt the flying mammal, the bat.

Topping the list of the characteristics of bats is the complex "sonar" system they possess. Thanks to this, bats can fly in the pitch dark, unable to see anything, but performing the most complicated maneuvers. They can even sense and catch a caterpillar on the floor of a dark room.

Bat sonar works in the following way. The animal emits a continuous stream of high-frequency sonic signals, analyses the echoes from these, and as a result forms a detailed image of its surroundings. What is more, it manages to do all of this at an incredible speed, continually and unerringly, while it is flying through the air.

Research into the bat sonar system has produced even more surprising results. The range of frequencies the animal can perceive is very narrow; in other words it can only hear sounds of certain frequencies, which raises a very important point. Since sounds which strike a body in motion change their frequency (the well-known "Doppler effect"), as a bat sends out signals to a fly, say, that is moving away from it, the sound waves reflected from the fly should be at a different frequency that the bat is unable to perceive. For this reason, the bat should have great difficulty in sensing moving bodies.

But this is not the case. The bat continues to catch all kinds of small, fast-moving creatures with no difficulty at all. The reason is that the bat adjusts the frequency of the sound waves it sends out toward the moving bodies in its environment as if it knew all about the Doppler effect. For instance, it emits its highest-frequency signal toward a fly that is moving away from it, so that when the signal comes back, its frequency has not dropped below the threshold of the animal's hearing.

So how does this adjustment take place?

There are two groups of neurons (nerve cells) in the bat's brain which control the sonar system. One of these perceives the echoed ultrasound, and the other gives instructions to the muscles to produce echolocation calls. These regions in the brain work in tandem, in such a way that when the frequency of the echo changes, the first region perceives this, and warns the second one, enabling it to modify the frequency of the sound emitted in accordance with that of the echo. As a result, the pitch of the bat's ultrasound changes according to its surroundings, and sonar system as a whole is used in the most efficient manner.

It is impossible to be blind to the mortal blow that the bat sonar system deals to the theory of gradual evolution through chance mutations. It is an extremely complex structure, and can in no way be accounted for by chance mutations. In order for the system to function at all, all of its components have to work together perfectly as an integrated whole. It is absurd to believe that such a highly integrated system can be explained by chance; on the contrary, it actually demonstrates that the bat is flawlessly created.

In fact, the fossil record also confirms that bats emerged suddenly and with today's complex structures. In their book Bats: A Natural History, the evolutionary paleontologists John E. Hill and James D. Smith reveal this fact in the form of the following admission:

The fossil record of bats extends back to the early Eocene ... and has been documented ... on five continents ... [A]ll fossil bats, even the oldest, are clearly fully developed bats and so they shed little light on the transition from their terrestrial ancestor.129

And the evolutionary paleontologist L. R. Godfrey has this to say on the same subject:

There are some remarkably well preserved early Tertiary fossil bats, such as Icaronycteris index, but Icaronycteris tells us nothing about the evolution of flight in bats because it was a perfectly good flying bat.130

Evolutionist scientist Jeff Hecht confesses the same problem in a 1998 New Scientist article:

[T]he origins of bats have been a puzzle. Even the earliest bat fossils, from about 50 million years ago, have wings that closely resemble those of modern bats.131

In short, bats' complex bodily systems cannot have emerged through evolution, and the fossil record demonstrates that no such thing happened. On the contrary, the first bats to have emerged in the world are exactly the same as those of today. Bats have always existed as bats.

### The Origin of Marine Mammals

Whales and dolphins belong to the order of marine mammals known as Cetacea. These creatures are classified as mammals because, just like land-dwelling mammals, they give live birth to their young and nurse them, they have lungs to breathe with, and they regulate their body temperature. For evolutionists, the origin of marine mammals has been one of the most difficult issues to explain. In many evolutionist sources, it is asserted that the ancestors of cetaceans left the land and evolved into marine mammals over a long period of time. Accordingly, marine mammals followed a path contrary to the transition from water to land, and underwent a second evolutionary process, returning to the water. This theory both lacks paleontological evidence and is self-contradictory. Thus, evolutionists have been silenced on this issue for a long time.

However, an evolutionist hype about the origin of marine mammals broke out in the 90's, argued to be based on some new fossil findings of the 80's like Pakicetus and Ambulocetus. These evidently quadrupedal and terrestrial extinct mammals were alleged to be the ancestors of whales and thus many evolutionist sources did not hesitate to call them "walking whales." (In fact the full name, Ambulocetus natans, means "walking and swimming whale.") Popular means of evolutionist indoctrination further vulgarized the story. National Geographic in its November 2001 issue, finally declared the full evolutionist scenario on the "Evolution of Whales."

Nevertheless, the scenario was based on evolutionist prejudice, not scientific evidence.

### The Myth of the Walking Whale

Fossil remains of the extinct mammal Pakicetus inachus, to give it its proper name, first came onto the agenda in 1983. P. D. Gingerich and his assistants, who found the fossil, had no hesitation in immediately claiming that it was a "primitive whale," even though they actually only found a skull.

Yet the fossil has absolutely no connection with the whale. Its skeleton turned out to be a four-footed structure, similar to that of common wolves. It was found in a region full of iron ore, and containing fossils of such terrestrial creatures as snails, tortoises, and crocodiles. In other words, it was part of a land stratum, not an aquatic one.

So, how was a quadrupedal land dweller announced to be a "primitive whale"? Merely based on some details in its teeth and ear bones! These features, however, are not evidence on which to base a link between Pakicetus and the whale.

Even evolutionists admit that most of the theoretical relationships built on the basis of anatomical similarities between animals are completely untrustworthy. If the platypus, a billed mammal, and the duck had both been extinct for a long time, then there is no doubt that evolutionists would define them as very close relatives, based on the similiarity between their bills. However, since platypus is a mammal and duck is a bird, the theory of evolution cannot establish any link between the two, either.

Pakicetus, which evolutionists declare to be a "walking whale," was a unique species harboring different features in its body. In fact, Carroll, an authority on vertebrate paleontology, describes the Mesonychid family, of which Pakicetus should be a member, as "exhibiting an odd combination of characters."132 Even leading evolutionists such as Gould admit that such "mosaic creatures" cannot be regarded as evolutionary intermediate forms.

In his article "The Overselling of Whale Evolution," the creationist writer Ashby L. Camp reveals the total invalidity of the claim that the Mesonychid class, which should include land mammals such as Pakicetus, could have been the ancestors of Archaeocetea, or extinct whales, in these words:

The reason evolutionists are confident that mesonychids gave rise to archaeocetes, despite the inability to identify any species in the actual lineage, is that known mesonychids and archaeocetes have some similarities. These similarities, however, are not sufficient to make the case for ancestry, especially in light of the vast differences. The subjective nature of such comparisons is evident from the fact so many groups of mammals and even reptiles have been suggested as ancestral to whales.133

### _Ambulocetus Natans:_ A False Whale with "Webbed" Claws

The second fossil creature after Pakicetus in the scenario on whale origins is Ambulocetus natans. It is actually a land creature that evolutionists have insisted on turning into a whale.

The name Ambulocetus natans comes from the Latin words "ambulare" (to walk), "cetus" (whale) and "natans" (swimming), and means "a walking and swimming whale." It is obvious the animal used to walk because it had four legs, like all other land mammals, and even wide claws on its feet and paws on its hind legs. Apart from evolutionists' prejudice, however, there is absolutely no basis for the claim that it swam in water, or that it lived on land and in water (like an amphibian).

In order to see the border between science and wishful imagination on this subject, let us have a look at National Geographic's reconstruction of Ambulocetus. This is how it is portrayed in the magazine:

If you look at it carefully you can easily see the two little visual manipulations that have been employed to turn the land-dwelling Ambulocetus into a whale:

• The animal's rear legs are shown not with feet that would help it to walk, but as fins that would assist it to swim. However, Carroll, who examined the animal's leg bones, says that it possessed the ability to move powerfully on land.134

• In order to present a flipper-like impression, webbing has been drawn on its front feet. Yet it is impossible to draw any such conclusion from a study of Ambulocetus fossils. In the fossil record it is next to impossible to find soft tissues such as these. So reconstructions based on features beyond those of the skeleton are always speculative. That offers evolutionists a wide-ranging empty space of speculation to use their propaganda tools.

With the same kind of evolutionists touching up that has been applied to the above Ambulocetus drawing, it is possible to make any animal look like any other. You could even take a monkey skeleton, draw fins on its back and webbing between its fingers and present it as the "primate ancestor of whales."

The invalidity of the deception carried out on the basis of the Ambulocetus fossil can be seen from the drawing below, published in the same issue of National Geographic:

In publishing the picture of the animal's skeleton, National Geographic had to take a step back from the retouching it had carried out to the reconstruction picture which made it seem more like a whale. As the skeleton clearly shows, the animal's foot bones were structured to carry it on land. There was no sign of the imaginary webs.

### The Invalidity of the Myth of the Walking Whale

In fact, there is no evidence that Pakicetus and Ambulocetus are ancestors of whales. They are merely described as "possible ancestors," based on some limited similarities, by evolutionists keen to find a terrestrial ancestor for marine mammals in the light of their theory. There is no evidence linking these creatures with the marine mammals that emerge in the fossil record at a very similar geological time.

After Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, the evolutionist plan moves on to the sea mammals and sets out (extinct whale) species such as Procetus, Rodhocetus, and Archaeocetea. The animals in question were mammals that lived in the sea and which are now extinct. (We shall be touching on this matter later.) However, there are considerable anatomical differences between these and Pakicetus and Ambulocetus. When we look at the fossils, it is clear they are not "transitional forms" linking each other:

• The backbone of the quadrupedal mammal Ambulocetus ends at the pelvis, and powerful rear legs then extend from it. This is typical land-mammal anatomy. In whales, however, the backbone goes right down to the tail, and there is no pelvic bone at all. In fact, Basilosaurus, believed to have lived some 10 million years after Ambulocetus, possesses the latter anatomy. In other words, it is a typical whale. There is no transitional form between Ambulocetus, a typical land mammal, and Basilosaurus, a typical whale.

• Under the backbone of Basilosaurus and the sperm whale, there are small bones independent of it. Evolutionists claim these to be vestigial legs. Yet in Basilosaurus, these bones functioned as copulary guides and in sperm whales "[act] as an anchor for the muscles of the genitalia."135 To describe these bones, which actually carry out important functions, as "vestigial organs" is nothing but Darwinistic prejudice.

In conclusion, the fact that there were no transitional forms between land and sea mammals and that they both emerged with their own particular features has not changed. There is no evolutionary link. Robert Carroll accepts this, albeit unwillingly and in evolutionist language: "It is not possible to identify a sequence of mesonychids leading directly to whales."136

Although he is an evolutionist, the famous Russian whale expert G. A. Mchedlidze, too, does not support the description of Pakicetus, Ambulocetus natans, and similar four-legged creatures as "possible ancestors of the whale," and describes them instead as a completely isolated group.137

### Evolutionary Tales about Ears and Noses

Any evolutionary scenario between land and sea mammals has to explain the different ear and nose structures between the two groups. Let us first consider the ear structure. Like us, land mammals trap sounds from the outside world in the outer ear, amplify them with the bones in the middle ear, and turn them into signals in the inner ear. Marine mammals have no ear. They hear sounds by means of vibration-sensitive receptors in their lower jaws. The crucial point is that any evolution by stages between one perfect aural system to a completely different one is impossible. The transitional phases would not be advantageous. An animal that slowly loses its ability to hear with its ears, but has still not developed the ability to hear through its jaw, is at a disadvantage.

The question of how such a "development" could come about is an insoluble dilemma for evolutionists. The mechanisms evolutionists put forward are mutations and these have never been seen to add unequivocally new and meaningful information to animals' genetic information. It is unreasonable to suggest that the complex hearing system in sea mammals could have emerged as the result of mutations.

In fact, fossils show that no evolution ever happened. The ear system of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus is the same as that in terrestrial mammals. Basilosaurus, which follows these two land mammals in the supposed "evolutionary tree," on the other hand, possesses a typical whale ear. It was a creature that perceived sounds around it not through an outer ear but by vibrations reaching its jaw. And there is no "transitional form" between Basilosaurus' ear and that of Pakicetus and Ambulocetus.

A similar situation applies to the "sliding nose" tale. Evolutionist sources set out three skulls from Pakicetus, Rodhocetus and a grey whale from our own time above one another and claim that these represent an "evolutionary process." Whereas the three fossils' nasal structures, especially those of Rodhocetus and the grey whale are so different that it is impossible to accept them as transitional forms in the same series.

Furthermore, the movement of the nostrils to the forehead would require a "new design" in the anatomy of the animals in question, and believing that this could happen as the result of random mutations is nothing but fantasy.

### National Geographic's Lamarckian Tales

Many evolutionists maintain a kind of superstition about the origin of living things. This superstition is the magical "natural force" that allows living things to acquire the organs, biochemical structures, or anatomical features that they need. Let us have a look at a few interesting passages from National Geographic's article "Evolution of Whales":

... I tried to visualize some of the varieties of whale ancestors that had been found here and nearby... As the rear limbs dwindled, so did the hip bones that supported them... The neck shortened, turning the leading end of the body into more of a tubular hull to plow through the water with minimum drag, while arms assumed the shape of rudders. Having little need for outer ears any longer, some whales were receiving waterborne sounds directly through their lower jawbones and transmitting them to the inner ears via special fat pads.138

On close inspection, in this whole account the evolutionist mentality says that living things feel changing needs according to the changing environment they live in, and this need is perceived as an "evolutionary mechanism." According to this logic, less needed organs disappear, and needed organs appear of their own accord!

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of biology will know that our needs do not shape our organs hereditarily. Ever since Lamarck's theory of the transfer of acquired characteristics to subsequent generations was disproved, in other words for a century or so, that has been a known fact. Yet when one looks at evolutionist publications, they still seem to be thinking along Lamarckian lines. If you object, they will say: "No, we do not believe in Lamarck. What we say is that natural conditions put evolutionary pressure on living things, and that as a result of this, appropriate traits are selected, and in this way species evolve." Yet here lies the critical point: What evolutionists call "evolutionary pressure" cannot lead to living things acquiring new characteristics according to their needs. That is because the two so-called evolutionary mechanisms that supposedly respond to this pressure, natural selection and mutation, cannot provide new organs for animals:

• Natural selection can only select characteristics that already exist, it cannot create new ones.

• Mutations cannot add to the genetic information, they can only destroy the existing one. No mutation that adds unequivocally new, meaningful information to the genome (and which thus forms a new organ or new biochemical structure) has ever been observed.

If we look at the myth of National Geographic's awkwardly moving whales one more time in the light of this fact, we see that they are actually engaging in a rather primitive Lamarckism. On close inspection, National Geographic writer Douglas H. Chadwick "visualizes" that "the rear limbs dwindled" in each whale in the sequence. How could a morphological change happen in a species over generations in one particular direction? In order for that to happen, representatives of that species in every "sequence" would have to undergo mutations to shorten their legs, that mutation would have to cause the animals no other harm, those thus mutants would have to enjoy an advantage over normal ones, the next generations, by a great coincidence, would have to undergo the same mutation at the same point in its genes, this would have to carry on unchanged for many generations, and all of the above would have to happen by chance and quite flawlessly.

If the National Geographic writers believe that, then they will also believe someone who says: "My family enjoys flying. My son underwent a mutation and a few structures like bird feathers developed under his arms. My grandson will undergo the same mutation and the feathers will increase. This will go on for generations, and eventually my descendants will have wings and be able to fly." Both stories are equally ridiculous.

As we mentioned at the beginning, evolutionists display the superstition that living things' needs can be met by a magical force in nature. Ascribing consciousness to nature, a belief encountered in animist cultures, is interestingly rising up before our eyes in the 21st century under a "scientific" cloak. However, as the well-known French biologist Paul Pierre Grassé, a foremost critic of Darwinism, has once made it clear, "There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it."139

Another scenario which evolutionists are trying to impose, without too much discussion, concerns the body surface of the animals in question. Like other mammals, Pakicetus and Ambulocetus, which are accepted as land mammals, are generally agreed to have had fur-covered bodies. And they are both shown as covered in thick fur in reconstructions. Yet when we move on to later animals (true marine mammals), all the fur disappears. The evolutionist explanation of this is no different from the fantastical Lamarckian-type scenarios we have seen above.

The truth of the matter is that all the animals in question were created in the most appropriate manner for their environments. It is irrational to try to account for them by means of mutation or facile Lamarckian stories. Like all features of life, the perfect systems in these creatures manifest the fact that they were created by God.

### Impasses of the Evolution Scenario of Marine Mammals

We have so far examined the fallacy of the evolutionist scenario that marine mammals evolved from terrestrial ones. Scientific evidence shows no relationship between the two terrestrial mammals (Pakicetus and Ambulocetus), that evolutionists put at the beginning of the story, and the marine mammals. So what about the rest of the scenario?

The theory of evolution is again in a great difficulty here. The theory tries to establish a phylogenetic link between Archaeocetea (archaic whales), sea mammals known to be extinct, and living whales and dolphins. However, evolutionary paleontologist Barbara J. Stahl admits that; "the serpentine form of the body and the peculiar serrated cheek teeth make it plain that these archaeocetes could not possibly have been ancestral to any of the whales of our day."140

The evolutionist account of the origin of marine mammals faces a huge impasse in the form of discoveries in the field of molecular biology. The classical evolutionist scenario assumes that the two major whale groups, the toothed whales (Odontoceti) and the baleen whales (Mysticeti), evolved from a common ancestor. Yet Michel Milinkovitch of the University of Brussels has opposed this view with a new theory. He stresses that this assumption, based on anatomical similarities, is disproved by molecular discoveries:

Evolutionary relationships among the major groups of cetaceans is more problematic since morphological and molecular analyses reach very different conclusions. Indeed, based on the conventional interpretation of the morphological and behavioral data set, the echolocating toothed whales (about 67 species) and the filter-feeding baleen whales (10 species) are considered as two distinct monophyletic groups... On the other hand, phylogenetic analysis of DNA... and amino acid... sequences contradict this long-accepted taxonomic division. One group of toothed whales, the sperm whales, appear to be more closely related to the morphologically highly divergent baleen whales than to other odontocetes.141

In short, marine mammals defy the imaginary evolutionary scenarios which they are being forced to fit.

Contrary to the claims of evolutionist propaganda on the origin of marine mammals, we are dealing not with an evolutionary process backed up by empirical evidence, but by evidence coerced to fit a presupposed evolutionary family tree, despite the many contradictions between the two.

What emerges, if the evidence is looked at objectively, is that different living groups emerged independently of each other in the past. This is compelling empirical evidence of the fact that all of these creatures were created.

Mammals are regarded as the life forms on the top rungs of the so-called evolutionary ladder. That being the case, it is hard to explain why these animals moved over to a marine environment. Another question is how these creatures adapted to the marine environment even better than fish, since animals such as the killer whale and the dolphin, which are mammals and therefore possess lungs, are even better adapted to the environment they live in than fish that breathe in water.

It is perfectly obvious that the imaginary evolution of marine mammals cannot be explained in terms of mutations and natural selection. One article published in GEO magazine refers to the origin of the blue whale, a marine mammal, and states the despairing position of Darwinism on the subject thus:

Like blue whales, the bodily structures and organs of other mammals living in the sea also resemble those of fish. Their skeletons also bear similarities to those of fish. In whales, the rear limbs that we can refer to as legs exhibited a reverse development and did not reach full growth. Yet there is not the slightest information about these animals' form changes. We have to assume that the return to the sea took place not through a long-term, slow transition as claimed by Darwinism, but in momentary leaps. Paleontologists today lack sufficient information as regards which mammal species whales are evolved from.142

It is indeed very difficult to imagine how a small mammal living on dry land turned into a whale 30 meters in length and weighing some 60 tons. All that Darwinists can do in this regard is to produce figments of the imagination, as with the following extract from an article published in National Geographic:

The Whale's ascendancy to sovereign size apparently began sixty million years ago when hairy, four-legged mammals, in search of food or sanctuary, ventured into water. As eons passed, changes slowly occurred. Hind legs disappeared, front legs changed into flippers, hair gave way to a thick smooth blanket of blubber, nostrils moved to the top of the head, the tail broadened into flukes, and in the buoyant water world the body became enormous.143

The scenarios of gradual evolution described above satisfy nobody, not even their own authors. But let us in any case examine the details of this tale stage by stage in order to see just how unrealistic it actually is.

### The Unique Structures of Marine Mammals

To see the impossibility of the evolutionist scenario on the marine mammals, let us briefly examine some other unique features of these animals. When the adaptations a land-dwelling mammal has to undergo in order to evolve into a marine mammal are considered, even the word "impossible" seems inadequate. During such a transition, if even of one of the intermediary stages failed to happen, the creature would be unable to survive, which would put an end to the entire process. The adaptations that marine mammals must undergo during the transition to water are as follows:

1- Water-retention: Unlike other marine animals, marine mammals cannot use sea water to meet their water needs. They need fresh water to survive. Though we have limited information about the freshwater resources of marine mammals, it is believed that they feed on organisms containing a relatively low proportion of salt (about one third that of sea water). Thus, for marine mammals the retention of water in their bodies is crucial. That is why they have a water retention mechanism similar to that of camels. Like camels, marine mammals do not sweat; however, their kidneys are perfectly functional, producing highly concentrated urine that enables the animal to save water. In this way, water loss is reduced to a minimum.

Water retention can be seen even in minor details. For instance, the mother whale feeds her baby with a concentrated form of milk similar to cheese. This milk contains ten times more fat than human milk. There are a number of chemical reasons why this milk is so rich in fat. Water is released as the young whale digests the milk. In this way, the mother meets the young whale's water needs with minimum water loss.

2- Sight and communication: The eyes of dolphins and whales enable them to have acute eyesight in different environments. They have perfect eyesight in water as well as out. Yet most living things, including man, have poor eyesight out of their natural environments.

The eyes of marine and land-dwelling mammals are astonishingly elaborate. On land, the eyes face a number of potential dangers. That is why the eyes of land-dwelling animals have lids to protect them. In the ocean, the greatest threats to the eye come from the high level of salt and the pressure from currents. To avoid direct contact with the currents, the eyes are located on the sides of the head. In addition to this, a hard layer protects the eyes of creatures which dive to great depths. The eyes of marine mammals are equipped with elaborate features enabling them to see at depths where there is little light. For example, their lenses are perfectly circular in shape, while in their retinas, rods (the cells sensitive to light) outnumber cones (the cells sensitive to colours and details). Furthermore, the eyes of cetaceans also contain a phosphorus layer, which also helps them see particularly well in the dark.

Even so, however, sight is not most important sensory modality of marine mammals. They rely more on their sense of hearing than is typically the case with land-dwelling mammals. Light is essential for sight, whereas hearing requires no such assistance. Many whales and dolphins hunt at a depth where it is completely dark, by means of a sonar mechanism they possess. Toothed whales, in particular, "see" by means of sound waves. Just as happens with light waves in the visual system, sound waves are focused and then analyzed and interpreted in the brain. This gives the cetacean accurate information regarding the shape, size, speed and position of the object in front of it. This sonic system is extremely sensitive—for instance, a dolphin can sense a person jumping into the sea. Sound waves are also used for determining direction and for communication. For example, two whales hundreds of kilometers apart can communicate via sound.

The question of how these animals produce the sounds that enable them to determine direction or to communicate is still largely unresolved. As far as we know, one particular feature in the dolphin's body deserves particular attention: namely, the animal's skull is insulated against sound, a feature that protects the brain from continuous and intensive noise bombardment.

Let us now consider the question: Is it possible that all these astonishing features in marine mammals came into existence by means of natural selection and mutation? What mutation could result in the dolphin's body's coming to possess a sonar system and a brain insulated from sound? What kind of mutation could enable its eye to see in dark water? What mutation could lead to the mechanism that allows the most economic use of water?

There is no end to such questions, and evolution has no answer to any of them. Instead, the theory of evolution makes do with an unbelievable story. Consider all the coincidences that this story involves in the case of marine mammals. First of all, fish just happened to come into existence in the water. Next, they made the transition to land by pure chance. Following this, they evolved on the land into reptiles and mammals, also by chance alone. Finally, it just so happened that some of these creatures returned to the water where by chance they acquired all the features they would need to survive there.

Can the theory of evolution prove even a single one of these stages? Certainly not. Far from being able to prove the claim as a whole, the theory of evolution is unable to demonstrate how even one of these different steps could have happened.

### Conclusion

All the findings we have examined so far reveal that species appeared on earth suddenly and fully formed, with no evolutionary process prior to them. If this is so, then this is concrete evidence that living things are created, as evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma has acknowledged. Recall that he wrote: "If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence."144 Evolutionists, on the other hand, try to interpret the sequence by which living things appeared on earth as evidence for evolution. However, since no such evolutionary process ever took place, this sequence can only be the sequence of creation. Fossils reveal that living things appeared on earth first in the sea, and then on land, followed by the appearance of man.

## The Origin of Man

Darwin put forward his claim that human beings and apes descended from a common ancestor in his book The Descent of Man, published in 1871. From that time until now, the followers of Darwin's path have tried to support this claim. But despite all the research that has been carried out, the claim of "human evolution" has not been backed up by any concrete scientific discovery, particularly in the fossil field.

The man in the street is for the most part unaware of this fact, and thinks that the claim of human evolution is supported by a great deal of firm evidence. The reason for this incorrect opinion is that the subject is frequently discussed in the media and presented as a proven fact. But real experts on the subject are aware that there is no scientific foundation for the claim of human evolution. David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says:

If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."145

And William Fix, the author of an important book on the subject of paleoanthropology, makes this comment:

As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence...146

This claim of evolution, which "lacks any evidence," starts the human family tree with a group of apes that have been claimed to constitute a distinct genus, Australopithecus. According to the claim, Australopithecus gradually began to walk upright, his brain grew, and he passed through a series of stages until he arrived at man's present state (Homo sapiens). But the fossil record does not support this scenario. Despite the claim that all kinds of intermediate forms exist, there is an impassable barrier between the fossil remains of man and those of apes. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the species which are portrayed as each other's ancestors are actually contemporary species that lived in the same period. Ernst Mayr, one of the most important proponents of the theory of evolution in the twentieth century, contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation."147

But what is the so-called basis for the human evolution thesis? It is the existence of plenty of fossils on which evolutionists are able to build imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 species of ape have lived, and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 species live on the earth. These 6,000 or so species of ape, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists.

On the other hand, there are considerable differences in the anatomic makeup of the various human races. Furthermore, the differences were even greater between prehistoric races, because as time has passed the human races have to some extent mixed with each other and become assimilated. Despite this, important differences are still seen between different population groups living in the world today, such as, for example, Scandinavians, African pygmies, Inuits, native Australians, and many others.

There is no evidence to show that the fossils called hominid by evolutionary paleontologists do not actually belong to different species of ape or to vanished races of humans. To put it another way, no example of a transitional form between mankind and apes has been found.

After these general explanations, let us now examine how the human evolution scenario contradicts the scientific findings.

### The Imaginary Family Tree of Man

The Darwinist claim holds that present-day man evolved from some kind of ape-like creature. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started from 5 to 6 million years ago, it is claimed that there existed some transitional forms between today's man and his ancestors. According to this completely imaginary scenario, the following four basic categories are listed:

1. Australophithecines (any of the various forms belonging to the genus Australophithecus)

2. Homo habilis

3. Homo erectus

4. Homo sapiens

Evolutionists call the genus to which the alleged ape-like ancestors of man belonged Australopithecus, which means "southern ape." Australopithecus, which is nothing but an old type of ape that has become extinct, is found in various different forms. Some of them are larger and strongly built ("robust"), while others are smaller and delicate ("gracile").

Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as the genus Homo, that is "man." According to the evolutionist claim, the living things in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus, and not very different from man of today. The man of our day, that is, the species Homo sapiens, is said to have formed at the latest stage of the evolution of this genus Homo. Fossils like "Java man," "Peking man," and "Lucy," which appear in the media from time to time and are to be found in evolutionist publications and textbooks, are included in one of the four groups listed above. Each of these groupings is also assumed to branch into species and sub-species, as the case may be. Some suggested transitional forms of the past, such as Ramapithecus, had to be excluded from the imaginary human family tree after it was realised that they were ordinary apes.148

By outlining the links in the chain as "australopithecines > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens," the evolutionists imply that each of these types is the ancestor of the next. However, recent findings by paleoanthropologists have revealed that australopithecines, Homo habilis and Homo erectus existed in different parts of the world at the same time. Moreover, some of those humans classified as Homo erectus probably lived up until very recent times. In an article titled "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia," it was reported in the journal that Homo erectus fossils found in Java had "mean ages of 27 ± 2 to 53.3 ± 4 thousand years ago" and this "raise[s] the possibility that H. erectus overlapped in time with anatomically humans of our day (H. sapiens) in Southeast Asia."14

Furthermore, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthal man) and Homo sapiens sapiens (man of our day) also clearly co-existed. This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that one is the ancestor of the other.

Intrinsically, all the findings and scientific research have revealed that the fossil record does not suggest an evolutionary process as evolutionists propose. The fossils, which evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of humans, in fact belong either to different human races, or else to species of ape.

Then which fossils are human and which ones are apes? Why is it impossible for any one of them to be considered a transitional form? In order to find the answers, let us have a closer look at each category.

### Australopithecus

The first category, the genus Australopithecus, means "southern ape," as we have said. It is assumed that these creatures first appeared in Africa about 4 million years ago, and lived until 1 million years ago. There are a number of different species among the australopithecines. Evolutionists assume that the oldest Australopithecus species is A. afarensis. After that comes A. africanus, and then A. robustus, which has relatively bigger bones. As for A. Boisei, some researchers accept it as a different species, and others as a sub-species of A. Robustus.

All of the Australopithecus species are extinct apes that resemble the apes of today. Their cranial capacities are the same or smaller than the chimpanzees of our day. There are projecting parts in their hands and feet which they used to climb trees, just like today's chimpanzees, and their feet are built for grasping to hold onto branches. Many other characteristics—such as the details in their skulls, the closeness of their eyes, their sharp molar teeth, their mandibular structure, their long arms, and their short legs—constitute evidence that these creatures were no different from today's ape. However, evolutionists claim that, although australopithecines have the anatomy of apes, unlike apes, they walked upright like humans.

This claim that australopithecines walked upright is a view that has been held by paleoanthropologists such as Richard Leakey and Donald C. Johanson for decades. Yet many scientists who have carried out a great deal of research on the skeletal structures of australopithecines have proved the invalidity of that argument. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world-renowned anatomists from England and the USA, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, showed that these creatures did not walk upright in human manner. Having studied the bones of these fossils for a period of 15 years thanks to grants from the British government, Lord Zuckerman and his team of five specialists reached the conclusion that australopithecines were only an ordinary species of ape, and were definitely not bipedal, although Zuckerman is an evolutionist himself.150 Correspondingly, Charles E. Oxnard, who is another evolutionary anatomist famous for his research on the subject, also likened the skeletal structure of australopithecines to that of orangutans of today.151

That Australopithecus cannot be counted an ancestor of man has recently been accepted by evolutionist sources. The famous French popular scientific magazine Science et Vie made the subject the cover of its May 1999 issue. Under the headline "Adieu Lucy"—Lucy being the most important fossil example of the species Australopithecus afarensis—the magazine reported that apes of the species Australopithecus would have to be removed from the human family tree. In this article, based on the discovery of another Australopithecus fossil known simply as St W573, the following sentences appear:

A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race... The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind's ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree... Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man's direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered.152

### Homo Habilis

The great similarity between the skeletal and cranial structures of australopithecines and chimpanzees, and the refutation of the claim that these creatures walked upright, have caused great difficulty for evolutionary paleoanthropologists. The reason is that, according to the imaginary evolution scheme, Homo erectus comes after Australopithecus. As the genus name Homo (meaning "man") implies, Homo erectus is a human species, and its skeleton is straight. Its cranial capacity is twice as large as that of Australopithecus. A direct transition from Australopithecus, which is a chimpanzee-like ape, to Homo erectus, which has a skeleton no different from that of man of today, is out of the question, even according to evolutionist theory. Therefore, "links"— that is, transitional forms—are needed. The concept of Homo habilis arose from this necessity.

The classification of Homo habilis was put forward in the 1960s by the Leakeys, a family of "fossil hunters." According to the Leakeys, this new species, which they classified as Homo habilis, had a relatively large cranial capacity, the ability to walk upright and to use stone and wooden tools. Therefore, it could have been the ancestor of man.

New fossils of the same species unearthed in the late 1980s were to completely change this view. Some researchers, such as Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace, who relied on those newly-found fossils, stated that Homo habilis (which means "skillful man," that is, man capable of using tools), should be classified as Australopithecus habilis, or "skillful southern ape," because Homo habilis had a lot of characteristics in common with the austalopithecine apes. It had long arms, short legs and an ape-like skeletal structure just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes were suitable for climbing. Their jaw was very similar to that of today's apes. Their 600 cc average cranial capacity is also an indication of the fact that they were apes. In short, Homo habilis, which was presented as a different species by some evolutionists, was in reality an ape species just like all the other australopithecines.

Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs, which enabled them to climb trees just like today's apes do.

The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, human, at all, but rather unequivocally an ape. Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following;

Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.153

Within the same year, Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood and Frans Zonneveld, all specialists on anatomy, reached a similar conclusion through a totally different method. This method was based on the comparative analysis of the semicircular canals in the inner ear of humans and apes, which allow them to maintain their balance. Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld concluded that:

Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the present day human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semi-circular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes.154

Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."155

This finding yielded two important results:

1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e., humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e., apes.

2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures that walked stooped forward—that is to say, they had the skeleton of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man.

### The Misconception About Homo Rudolfensis

The term Homo rudolfensis is the name given to a few fossil fragments unearthed in 1972. The species supposedly represented by this fossil was designated Homo rudolfensis because these fossil fragments were found in the vicinity of Lake Rudolf in Kenya. Most paleoanthropologists accept that these fossils do not belong to a distinct species, but that the creature called Homo rudolfensis is in fact indistinguishable from Homo habilis.

Richard Leakey, who unearthed the fossils, presented the skull designated KNM-ER 1470, which he said was 2.8 million years old, as the greatest discovery in the history of anthropology. According to Leakey, this creature, which had a small cranial capacity like that of Australopithecus together with a face similar to that of present-day humans, was the missing link between Australopithecus and humans. Yet, after a short while, it was realized that the human-like face of the KNM-ER 1470 skull, which frequently appeared on the covers of scientific journals and popular science magazines, was the result of the incorrect assembly of the skull fragments, which may have been deliberate. Professor Tim Bromage, who conducts studies on human facial anatomy, brought this to light by the help of computer simulations in 1992:

When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of present day humans. But recent studies of anatomical relationships show that in life the face must have jutted out considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus.156

The evolutionary paleoanthropologist J. E. Cronin states the following on the matter:

... its relatively robustly constructed face, flattish naso-alveolar clivus, (recalling australopithecine dished faces), low maximum cranial width (on the temporals), strong canine juga and large molars (as indicated by remaining roots) are all relatively primitive traits which ally the specimen with members of the taxon A. africanus.157

C. Loring Brace from Michigan University came to the same conclusion. As a result of the analyses he conducted on the jaw and tooth structure of skull 1470, he reported that "from the size of the palate and the expansion of the area allotted to molar roots, it would appear that ER 1470 retained a fully Australopithecus-sized face and dentition."158

Professor Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist from Johns Hopkins University who has done as much research on KNM-ER 1470 as Leakey, maintains that this creature should not be classified as a member of Homo—i.e., as a human species—but rather should be placed in the Australopithecus genus.159

In summary, classifications like Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis, which are presented as transitional links between the australopithecines and Homo erectus, are entirely imaginary. It has been confirmed by many researchers today that these creatures are members of the Australopithecus series. All of their anatomical features reveal that they are species of apes.

This fact has been further established by two evolutionist anthropologists, Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, whose research was published in 1999 in Science. Wood and Collard explained that the Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis (Skull 1470) taxa are imaginary, and that the fossils assigned to these categories should be attributed to the genus Australopithecus:

More recently, fossil species have been assigned to Homo on the basis of absolute brain size, inferences about language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone tools. With only a few exceptions, the definition and use of the genus within human evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are unproblematic. But ... recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing taxa to Homo....in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of one or more out of four criteria. ... It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain, and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier studies had implied...

... In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it, the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. habilis and H. rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.160

The conclusion of Wood and Collard corroborates the conclusion that we have maintained here: "Primitive human ancestors" do not exist in history. Creatures that are alleged to be so are actually apes that ought to be assigned to the genus Australopithecus. The fossil record shows that there is no evolutionary link between these extinct apes and Homo, i.e., human species that suddenly appears in the fossil record.

### Homo Erectus

According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus, then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations and unique races in the human family. The difference between them is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African, or a pygmy and a European.

Let us first examine Homo erectus, which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, Homo erectus means "man who walks upright." Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness," because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of man of today and that of Homo erectus.

The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive" is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average present-day man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance). It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organization of the brain, rather than on its volume.161

The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realized that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java man is composed of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found yards away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named Homo ergaster by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus.)

The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus," or the "Turkana Boy," which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of man of today. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a today's human." Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."162 As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a present-day human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a human race of today.

Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and man of today are no more than racial variance:

One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.163

Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily similar to Homo erectus. The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens (man of today):

When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens, it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species.164

It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific community that Homo erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils assigned to the Homo erectus class are actually not so different from Homo sapiens as to be considered a different species. In American Scientist, the discussions over this issue and the result of a conference held on the subject in 2000 were summarized in this way:

Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species, Homo sapiens, with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of the conference, Homo erectus, didn't exist.165

The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is not a different species from Homo sapiens, but rather a race within Homo sapiens." On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus, a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario (Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, and Homo rudolfensis). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history.

### Neanderthals: Their Anatomy And Culture

Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) were human beings who suddenly appeared 100,000 years ago in Europe, and who disappeared, or were assimilated by mixing with other races, quietly but quickly 35,000 years ago. Their only difference from man of today is that their skeletons are more robust and their cranial capacity slightly bigger.

Neanderthals were a human race, a fact which is admitted by almost everybody today. Evolutionists have tried very hard to present them as a "primitive species," yet all the findings indicate that they were no different from a "robust" man walking on the street today. A prominent authority on the subject, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University, writes:

Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans.166

Many contemporary researchers define Neanderthal man as a subspecies of man of our day, and call him Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

On the other hand, the fossil record shows that Neanderthals possessed an advanced culture. One of the most interesting examples of this is a fossilized flute made by Neanderthal people. This flute, made from the thighbone of a bear, was found by the archaeologist Ivan Turk in a cave in northern Yugoslavia in July 1995. Musicologist Bob Fink then analyzed it. Fink proved that this flute, thought by radio-carbon testing to be between 43,000 and 67,000 years old, produced four notes, and that it had half and full tones. This discovery shows that Neanderthals used the seven-note scale, the basic formula of western music. Fink, who examined the flute, states that "the distance between the second and third holes on the old flute is double that between the third and fourth." This means that the first distance represents a full note, and the distance next to it a half note. Fink says, "These three notes ... are inescapably diatonic and will sound like a near-perfect fit within any kind of standard diatonic scale, modern or antique," thus revealing that Neanderthals were people with an ear for and knowledge of music.167

Some other fossil discoveries show that Neanderthals buried their dead, looked after their sick, and used necklaces and similar adornments.168

A 26,000-year-old sewing needle, proved to have been used by Neanderthal people, was also found during fossil excavations. This needle, which is made of bone, is exceedingly straight and has a hole for the thread to be passed through.169 People who wear clothing and feel the need for a sewing needle cannot be considered "primitive."

The best research into the Neanderthals' tool-making abilities is that of Steven L. Kuhn and Mary C. Stiner, professors of anthropology and archaeology, respectively, at the University of New Mexico. Although these two scientists are proponents of the theory of evolution, the results of their archaeological research and analyses show that the Neanderthals who lived in caves on the coast of southwest Italy for thousands of years carried out activities that required as complex a capacity for thought as present-day human beings.170

Kuhn and Stiner found a number of tools in these caves. The discoveries were of sharp, pointed cutting implements, including spearheads, made by carefully chipping away layers at the edges of the flint. Making sharp edges of this kind by chipping away layers is without a doubt a process calling for intelligence and skill. Research has shown that one of the most important problems encountered in that process is breakages that occur as a result of pressure at the edge of the stones. For this reason, the individual carrying out the process has to make fine judgments of the amount of force to use in order to keep the edges straight, and of the precise angle to strike at, if he is making an angled tool.

Margaret Conkey from the University of California explains that tools made in periods before the Neanderthals were also made by communities of intelligent people who were fully aware of what they were doing:

If you look at the things archaic humans made with their hands, Levallois cores and so on, that's not a bumbling king of thing. They had an appreciation of the material they were working with, an understanding of their world.171

In short, scientific discoveries show that Neanderthals were a human race no different from us on the levels of intelligence and dexterity. This race either disappeared from history by assimilating and mixing with other races, or became extinct in some unknown manner. But they were definitely not "primitive" or "half-ape."

### Archaic Homo Sapiens, Homo Heidelbergensis and Cro-Magnon Man

Archaic Homo sapiens is the last step before contemporary man in the imaginary evolutionary scheme. In fact, evolutionists do not have much to say about these fossils, as there are only very minor differences between them and human beings of our days. Some researchers even state that representatives of this race are still living today, and point to native Australians as an example. Like Homo sapiens (archaic), native Australians also have thick protruding eyebrows, an inward-inclined mandibular structure, and a slightly smaller cranial capacity.

The group characterized as Homo heidelbergensis in evolutionist literature is in fact the same as archaic Homo sapiens. The reason why two different terms are used to define the same human racial type is the disagreements among evolutionists. All the fossils included under the Homo heidelbergensis classification suggest that people who were anatomically very similar to Europeans lived 500,000 and even 740,000 years ago, in England and in Spain.

It is estimated that Cro-Magnon man lived 30,000 years ago. He has a dome-shaped cranium and a broad forehead. His cranium of 1,600 cc is above the average for contemporary man. His skull has thick eyebrow projections and a bony protrusion at the back that is characteristic of both Neanderthal man and Homo erectus.

Although the Cro-Magnon is considered to be a European race, the structure and volume of Cro-Magnon's cranium look very much like those of some races living in Africa and the tropics today. Relying on this similarity, it is estimated that Cro-Magnon was an archaic African race. Some other paleoanthropological finds have shown that the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal races intermixed and laid the foundations for the races of our day.

As a result, none of these human beings were "primitive species." They were different human beings who lived in earlier times and either assimilated and mixed with other races, or became extinct and disappeared from history.

### The Collapse Of The Evolutionary Tree

What we have investigated so far forms a clear picture: The scenario of "human evolution" is a complete fiction. In order for such a family tree to represent the truth, a gradual evolution from a common ancestor of apes and human beings to man must have taken place and a fossil record of this process should be able to be found. In fact, however, there is a huge gap between apes and humans. Skeletal structures, cranial capacities, and such criteria as walking upright or bent sharply forward distinguish humans from apes. (We already mentioned that on the basis of recent research done in 1994 on the inner ear, Australopithecus and Homo habilis were reclassified as apes, while Homo erectus was reclassified as a fully human of our day.)

Another significant finding proving that there can be no family-tree relationship among these different species is that species that are presented as ancestors of others in fact lived concurrently. If, as evolutionists claim, Australopithecus changed into Homo habilis, which, in turn, turned into Homo erectus, the periods they lived in should necessarily have followed each other. However, there is no such chronological order to be seen in the fossil record.

According to evolutionist estimates, Australopithecus lived from 4 million up until 1 million years ago. The creatures classified as Homo habilis, on the other hand, are thought to have lived until 1.7 to 1.9 million years ago. Homo rudolfensis, which is said to have been more "advanced" than Homo habilis, is known to be as old as from 2.5 to 2.8 million years! That is to say, Homo rudolfensis is nearly 1 million years older than Homo habilis, of which it is alleged to have been the "ancestor." On the other hand, the age of Homo erectus goes as far back as 1.6-1.8 million years ago, which means that Homo erectus appeared on the earth in the same time frame as its so-called ancestor, Homo habilis.

Alan Walker confirms this fact by stating that "there is evidence from East Africa for late-surviving small Australopithecus individuals that were contemporaneous first with H. Habilis, then with H. erectus."172 Louis Leakey has found fossils of Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus almost next to each other in the Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania, in the Bed II layer.173

There is definitely no such family tree. Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist from Harvard University, explains this deadlock faced by evolution, although he is an evolutionist himself:

What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.174

When we move on from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, we again see that there is no family tree to talk about. There is evidence showing that Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens continued living up to 27,000 years and even as recently as 10,000 years before our time. In the Kow Swamp in Australia, some 13,000-year-old Homo erectus skulls have been found. On the island of Java, Homo erectus remains were found that are 27,000 years old.175

One of the most surprising discoveries in this area was the 30,000-year-old Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Homo sapiens fossils found in Java in 1996. The New York Times wrote in its front-page story: "Until about a couple of decades ago, scientists conceived of the human lineage as a neat progression of one species to the next and generally thought it impossible that two species could have overlapped in place or time."176

This discovery reveals once again the invalidity of the "evolutionary tree" scenario regarding the origin of man.

Latest Evidence: Sahelanthropus tchadensis

and The Missing Link That Never Was

The latest evidence to shatter the evolutionary theory's claim about the origin of man is the new fossil Sahelanthropus tchadensis unearthed in the Central African country of Chad in the summer of 2002.

The fossil has disturbed the world of Darwinism. In its article giving news of the discovery, the world-renowned journal Nature admitted that "New-found skull could sink our current ideas about human evolution."177

Daniel Lieberman of Harvard University said that "This [discovery] will have the impact of a small nuclear bomb."178

The reason for this is that although the fossil in question is 7 million years old, it has a more "human-like" structure (according to the criteria evolutionists have hitherto used) than the 5 million-year-old Australopithecus ape species that is alleged to be "mankind's oldest ancestor." This shows that the evolutionary links established between extinct ape species based on the highly subjective and prejudiced criterion of "human similarity" are totally imaginary.

John Whitfield, in his article "Oldest Member of Human Family Found" published in Nature on July, 11, 2002, confirms this view quoting from Bernard Wood, an evolutionist anthropologist from George Washington University in Washington:

"When I went to medical school in 1963, human evolution looked like a ladder." he [Bernard Wood] says. The ladder stepped from monkey to man through a progression of intermediates, each slightly less ape-like than the last. Now human evolution looks like a bush. We have a menagerie of fossil hominids... How they are related to each other and which, if any of them, are human forebears is still debated.179

The comments of Henry Gee, the senior editor of Nature and a leading paleoanthropologist, about the newly discovered ape fossil are very noteworthy. In his article published in The Guardian, Gee refers to the debate about the fossil and writes:

Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the old idea of a 'missing link' is bunk... It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.180

The Secret History of Homo sapiens

The most interesting and significant fact that nullifies the very basis of the imaginary family tree of evolutionary theory is the unexpectedly ancient history of today's man. Paleoanthropological findings reveal that Homo sapiens people who looked exactly like us were living as long as 1 million years ago.

It was Louis Leakey, the famous evolutionary paleoanthropologist, who discovered the first findings on this subject. In 1932, in the Kanjera region around Lake Victoria in Kenya, Leakey found several fossils that belonged to the Middle Pleistocene and that were no different from man of today. However, the Middle Pleistocene was a million years ago.181 Since these discoveries turned the evolutionary family tree upside down, they were dismissed by some evolutionary paleoanthropologists. Yet Leakey always contended that his estimates were correct.

Just when this controversy was about to be forgotten, a fossil unearthed in Spain in 1995 revealed in a very remarkable way that the history of Homo sapiens was much older than had been assumed. The fossil in question was uncovered in a cave called Gran Dolina in the Atapuerca region of Spain by three Spanish paleoanthropologists from the University of Madrid. The fossil revealed the face of an 11-year-old boy who looked entirely like man man of today. Yet, it had been 800,000 years since the child died. Discover magazine covered the story in great detail in its December 1997 issue.

This fossil even shook the convictions of Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, who lead the Gran Dolina excavation. Ferreras said:

We expected something big, something large, something inflated—you know, something primitive... Our expectation of an 800,000-year-old boy was something like Turkana Boy. And what we found was a totally modern face.... To me this is most spectacular—these are the kinds of things that shake you. Finding something totally unexpected like that. Not finding fossils; finding fossils is unexpected too, and it's okay. But the most spectacular thing is finding something you thought belonged to the present, in the past. It's like finding something like—like a tape recorder in Gran Dolina. That would be very surprising. We don't expect cassettes and tape recorders in the Lower Pleistocene. Finding a modern face 800,000 years ago—it's the same thing. We were very surprised when we saw it.182

The fossil highlighted the fact that the history of Homo sapiens had to be extended back to 800,000 years ago. After recovering from the initial shock, the evolutionists who discovered the fossil decided that it belonged to a different species, because according to the evolutionary family tree, Homo sapiens did not live 800,000 years ago. Therefore, they made up an imaginary species called Homo antecessor and included the Atapuerca skull under this classification.

### Huts And Footprints

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and man of our day must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago.183 This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that man of our day evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.

Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of man of our day back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.

The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:

Make no mistake about it,... They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.184 After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments:

The arch is raised — the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do — and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe ... The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.185 Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a human of our day (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints, wrote:

A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them... In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.186

Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilized footprints of a 10-year-old present-day human and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly present-day people like us.

This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the center of discussions for years. Evolutionary paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a present-day man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:

In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.187

To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus. The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not have lived so long ago.

These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.

Briefly, the theory of evolution is not a scientific theory, but a dogma kept alive despite science.

### The Bipedalism Problem

Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking.

Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours.

Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?

Of course not. Research has shown that the evolution of bipedalism never occurred, nor is it possible for it to have done so. First of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in which apes move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary, since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground. For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic of evolution, apes should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.

Another impasse of the evolutionary claim is that bipedalism does not serve the "gradual development" model of Darwinism. This model, which constitutes the basis of evolution, requires that there should be a "compound" stride between bipedalism and quadrupedalism. However, with the computerized research he conducted in 1996, Robin Crompton, senior lecturer in anatomy at Liverpool University, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.188 A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.

The immense gap between man and ape is not limited solely to bipedalism. Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionary paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:

Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?

The orthodox answers to these questions are: 1) 'We do not yet know;' 2) 'We do not yet know;' 3) 'We do not yet know;' 4) 'We do not yet know.' The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without affecting the monotony of the answers.189

### Evolution: An Unscientific Faith

Lord Solly Zuckerman is one of the most famous scientists in the United Kingdom. For years, he studied the fossil record and conducted many investigations, for which he was elevated to the peerage. Zuckerman is an evolutionist. Therefore, his comments on evolution cannot be regarded as ignorant or prejudiced. After years of research on the fossils included in the human evolution scenario however, he reached the conclusion that there is no truth to the family tree that is put forward.

Zuckerman also advanced an interesting concept of the "spectrum of the sciences," ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"—that is, dependent on concrete data—fields are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific," are extra-sensory perception—concepts such as telepathy and the "sixth sense"—and finally human evolution. Zuckerman explains his reasoning as follows:

We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.190

Robert Locke, the editor of Discovering Archeology, an important publication on the origins of man, writes in that journal, "The search for human ancestors gives more heat than light," quoting the confession of the famous evolutionary paleoantropologist Tim White:

We're all frustrated by "all the questions we haven't been able to answer."191

Locke's article reviews the impasse of the theory of evolution on the origins of man and the groundlessness of the propaganda spread about this subject:

Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds.192

The same fact was also recently accepted by Henry Gee, the editor of the well-known journal Nature. In his book In Search of Deep Time, published in 1999, Gee points out that all the evidence for human evolution "between about 10 and 5 million years ago – several thousand generations of living creatures – can be fitted into a small box." He concludes that conventional theories of the origin and development of human beings are "a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices," and adds:

To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story – amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.193

As we have seen, there is no scientific discovery supporting or propping up the theory of evolution, just some scientists who blindly believe in it. These scientists both believe in the myth of evolution themselves, although it has no scientific foundation, and also make other people believe it by using the media, which cooperate with them. In the pages that follow, we shall examine a few examples of this deceptive propaganda carried out in the name of evolution.

### Deceptive Reconstructions

Even if evolutionists are unsuccessful in finding scientific evidence to support their theories, they are very successful at one thing: propaganda. The most important element of this propaganda is the practice of creating false designs known as "reconstructions."

Reconstruction can be explained as drawing a picture or constructing a model of a living thing based on a single bone—sometimes only a fragment—that has been unearthed. The "ape-men" we see in newspapers, magazines, and films are all reconstructions.

Since fossils are usually fragmented and incomplete, any conjecture based on them is likely to be completely speculative. As a matter of fact, the reconstructions (drawings or models) made by evolutionists based on fossil remains are prepared speculatively precisely to validate the evolutionary thesis. David R. Pilbeam, an eminent anthropologist from Harvard, stresses this fact when he says: "At least in paleoanthropology, data are still so sparse that theory heavily influences interpretations. Theories have, in the past, clearly reflected our current ideologies instead of the actual data."194 Since people are highly affected by visual information, these reconstructions best serve the purpose of evolutionists, which is to convince people that these reconstructed creatures really existed in the past.

At this point, we have to highlight one particular point: Reconstructions based on bone remains can only reveal the most general characteristics of the creature, since the really distinctive morphological features of any animal are soft tissues which quickly vanish after death. Therefore, due to the speculative nature of the interpretation of the soft tissues, the reconstructed drawings or models become totally dependent on the imagination of the person producing them. Earnst A. Hooten from Harvard University explains the situation like this:

To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can with equal facility model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little if any scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public ... So put not your trust in reconstructions.195

As a matter of fact, evolutionists invent such preposterous stories that they even ascribe different faces to the same skull. For example, the three different reconstructed drawings made for the fossil named Australopithecus robustus (Zinjanthropus) are a famous example of such forgery.

The biased interpretation of fossils and outright fabrication of many imaginary reconstructions are an indication of how frequently evolutionists have recourse to tricks. Yet these seem innocent when compared to the deliberate forgeries that have been perpetrated in the history of evolution.

There is no concrete fossil evidence to support the "ape-man" image, which is unceasingly promulgated by the media and evolutionist academic circles. With brushes in their hands, evolutionists produce imaginary creatures; nevertheless, the fact that these drawings correspond to no matching fossils constitutes a serious problem for them. One of the interesting methods they employ to overcome this problem is to "produce" the fossils they cannot find. Piltdown man, which may be the biggest scandal in the history of science, is a typical example of this method.

### The Piltdown Man Scandal

In 1912, a well-known doctor and amateur paleoanthropologist named Charles Dawson came out with the assertion that he had found a jawbone and a cranial fragment in a pit in Piltdown, England. Even though the jawbone was more ape-like, the teeth and the skull were like a man's. These specimens were labelled the "Piltdown man." Alleged to be 500,000 years old, they were displayed as an absolute proof of human evolution in several museums. For more than 40 years, many scientific articles were written on "Piltdown man," many interpretations and drawings were made, and the fossil was presented as important evidence for human evolution. No fewer than 500 doctoral theses were written on the subject.196 While visiting the British Museum in 1921, leading American paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn said "We have to be reminded over and over again that Nature is full of paradoxes" and proclaimed Piltdown "a discovery of transcendant importance to the prehistory of man."197

In 1949, Kenneth Oakley, from the British Museum's Paleontology Department, attempted to use "fluorine testing," a new test used for determining the date of fossils. A trial was made on the fossil of Piltdown man. The result was astonishing. During the test, it was realized that the jawbone of Piltdown man did not contain any fluorine. This indicated that it had remained buried no more than a few years. The skull, which contained only a small amount of fluorine, showed that it was only a few thousand years old.

It was determined that the teeth in the jawbone, belonging to an orangutan, had been worn down artificially and that the "primitive" tools discovered with the fossils were simple imitations that had been sharpened with steel implements. In the detailed analysis completed by Joseph Weiner, this forgery was revealed to the public in 1953. The skull belonged to a 500-year-old man, and the jaw bone belonged to a recently deceased ape! The teeth had been specially arranged in a particular way and added to the jaw, and the molar surfaces were filed in order to resemble those of a man. Then all these pieces were stained with potassium dichromate to give them an old appearance. These stains began to disappear when dipped in acid. Sir Wilfred Le Gros Clark, who was in the team that uncovered the forgery, could not hide his astonishment at this situation, and said: "The evidences of artificial abrasion immediately sprang to the eye. Indeed so obvious did they seem it may well be asked—how was it that they had escaped notice before?"198 In the wake of all this, "Piltdown man" was hurriedly removed from the British Museum where it had been displayed for more than 40 years.

### The Nebraska Man Scandal

In 1922, Henry Fairfield Osborn, the director of the American Museum of Natural History, declared that he had found a fossil molar tooth belonging to the Pliocene period in western Nebraska near Snake Brook. This tooth allegedly bore common characteristics of both man and ape. An extensive scientific debate began surrounding this fossil, which came to be called "Nebraska man," in which some interpreted this tooth as belonging to Pithecanthropus erectus, while others claimed it was closer to human beings. Nebraska man was also immediately given a "scientific name," Hesperopithecus haroldcooki.

Many authorities gave Osborn their support. Based on this single tooth, reconstructions of Nebraska man's head and body were drawn. Moreover, Nebraska man was even pictured along with his wife and children, as a whole family in a natural setting.

All of these scenarios were developed from just one tooth. Evolutionist circles placed such faith in this "imaginary man" that when a researcher named William Bryan opposed these biased conclusions relying on a single tooth, he was harshly criticized.

In 1927, other parts of the skeleton were also found. According to these newly discovered pieces, the tooth belonged neither to a man nor to an ape. It was realized that it belonged to an extinct species of wild American pig called Prosthennops. William Gregory entitled the article published in Science in which he announced the truth, "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not an Ape Nor a Man."199 Then all the drawings of Hesperopithecus haroldcooki and his "family" were hurriedly removed from evolutionary literature.

## Conclusion

All the scientific deceptions and prejudiced evaluations made to support the theory of evolution show that the theory is a kind of ideology, and not at all a scientific account. Like all ideologies, this one too has its fanatical supporters, who are desperate to prove evolution, at no matter what cost. Or else they are so dogmatically bound to the theory that every new discovery is perceived as a great proof of the theory, even if it has nothing to do with evolution. This is really a very distressing picture for science, because it shows that science is being misdirected in the name of a dogma.

In his book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth, the Swedish scientist Soren Lovtrup has this to say on the subject:

I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology: for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar "Darwinian" vocabulary—"adaptation," "selection pressure," "natural selection," etc.—thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events. They do not... I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.200

Further proof that Darwinism is the greatest deception in the history of science is provided by molecular biology.

## Molecular Biology and the Origin of Life

In previous sections of this book, we have shown how the fossil record invalidates the theory of evolution. In point of fact, there was no need for us to relate any of that, because the theory of evolution collapses long before one gets to any claims about the evidence of fossils. The subject that renders the theory meaningless from the very outset is the question of how life first appeared on earth.

When it addresses this question, evolutionary theory claims that life started with a cell that formed by chance. According to this scenario, four billion years ago various chemical compounds underwent a reaction in the primordial atmosphere on the earth in which the effects of thunderbolts and atmospheric pressure led to the formation of the first living cell.

The first thing that must be said is that the claim that nonliving materials can come together to form life is an unscientific one that has not been verified by any experiment or observation. Life is only generated from life. Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inanimate materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.

The theory of evolution claims that a living cell—which cannot be produced even when all the power of the human intellect, knowledge and technology are brought to bear—nevertheless managed to form by chance under primordial conditions on the earth. In the following pages, we will examine why this claim is contrary to the most basic principles of science and reason.

### An Example of the Logic of "Chance"

If one believes that a living cell can come into existence by chance, then there is nothing to prevent one from believing a similar story that we will relate below. It is the story of a town.

One day, a lump of clay, pressed between the rocks in a barren land, becomes wet after it rains. The wet clay dries and hardens when the sun rises, and takes on a stiff, resistant form. Afterwards, these rocks, which also served as a mould, are somehow smashed into pieces, and then a neat, well shaped, and strong brick appears. This brick waits under the same natural conditions for years for a similar brick to be formed. This goes on until hundreds and thousands of the same bricks have been formed in the same place. However, by chance, none of the bricks that were previously formed are damaged. Although exposed to storms, rain, wind, scorching sun, and freezing cold for thousands of years, the bricks do not crack, break up, or get dragged away, but wait there in the same place with the same determination for other bricks to form.

When the number of bricks is adequate, they erect a building by being arranged sideways and on top of each other, having been randomly dragged along by the effects of natural conditions such as winds, storms, or tornadoes. Meanwhile, materials such as cement or soil mixtures form under "natural conditions," with perfect timing, and creep between the bricks to clamp them to each other. While all this is happening, iron ore under the ground is shaped under "natural conditions" and lays the foundations of a building that is to be formed with these bricks. At the end of this process, a complete building rises with all its materials, carpentry, and installations intact.

Of course, a building does not only consist of foundations, bricks, and cement. How, then, are the other missing materials to be obtained? The answer is simple: all kinds of materials that are needed for the construction of the building exist in the earth on which it is erected. Silicon for the glass, copper for the electric cables, iron for the columns, beams, water pipes, etc. all exist under the ground in abundant quantities. It takes only the skill of "natural conditions" to shape and place these materials inside the building. All the installations, carpentry, and accessories are placed among the bricks with the help of the blowing wind, rain, and earthquakes. Everything has gone so well that the bricks are arranged so as to leave the necessary window spaces as if they knew that something called glass would be formed later on by natural conditions. Moreover, they have not forgotten to leave some space to allow the installation of water, electricity and heating systems, which are also later to be formed by chance. Everything has gone so well that "coincidences" and "natural conditions" produce a perfect design.

One who manages to sustain his belief in this story so far should have no trouble surmising how the town's other buildings, plants, highways, sidewalks, substructures, communications, and transportation systems came about. If he possesses technical knowledge and is fairly conversant with the subject, he can even write an extremely "scientific" book of a few volumes stating his theories about "the evolutionary process of a sewage system and its uniformity with the present structures." He may well be honored with academic awards for his clever studies, and may consider himself a genius, shedding light on the nature of humanity.

The theory of evolution, which claims that life came into existence by chance, is no less absurd than our story, for, with all its operational systems, and systems of communication, transportation and management, a cell is no less complex than a city. In his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, the molecular biologist Michael Denton discusses the complex structure of the cell:

To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity... Is it really credible that random processes could have constructed a reality, the smallest element of which—a functional protein or gene—is complex beyond our own creative capacities, a reality which is the very antithesis of chance, which excels in every sense anything produced by the intelligence of man?201

### The Complex Structure and Systems in the Cell

The complex structure of the living cell was unknown in Darwin's day and at the time, ascribing life to "coincidences and natural conditions" was thought by evolutionists to be convincing enough. Darwin had proposed that the first cell could easily have formed "in some warm little pond."202 One of Darwin's supporters, the German biologist Ernst Haeckel, examined under the microscope a mixture of mud removed from the sea bed by a research ship and claimed that this was a nonliving substance that turned into a living one. This so-called "mud that comes to life," known as Bathybius haeckelii ("Haeckel's mud from the depths"), is an indication of just how simple a thing life was thought to be by the founders of the theory of evolution.

The technology of the twentieth century has delved into the tiniest particles of life, and has revealed that the cell is one of the most complex systems mankind has ever confronted. Today we know that the cell contains power stations producing the energy to be used by the cell, factories manufacturing the enzymes and hormones essential for life, a databank where all the necessary information about all products to be produced is recorded, complex transportation systems and pipelines for carrying raw materials and products from one place to another, advanced laboratories and refineries for breaking down external raw materials into their useable parts, and specialized cell membrane proteins to control the incoming and outgoing materials. And these constitute only a small part of this incredibly complex system.

W. H. Thorpe, an evolutionist scientist, acknowledges that "The most elementary type of cell constitutes a 'mechanism' unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man."203

A cell is so complex that even the high level of technology attained today cannot produce one. No effort to create an artificial cell has ever met with success. Indeed, all attempts to do so have been abandoned.

The theory of evolution claims that this system—which mankind, with all the intelligence, knowledge and technology at its disposal, cannot succeed in reproducing—came into existence "by chance" under the conditions of the primordial earth. Actually, the probability of forming a cell by chance is about the same as that of producing a perfect copy of a book following an explosion in a printing house.

The English mathematician and astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle made a similar comparison in an interview published in Nature magazine on November 12, 1981. Although an evolutionist himself, Hoyle stated that the chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.204 This means that it is not possible for the cell to have come into being by chance, and therefore it must definitely have been "created."

One of the basic reasons why the theory of evolution cannot explain how the cell came into existence is the "irreducible complexity" in it. A living cell maintains itself with the harmonious co-operation of many organelles. If only one of these organelles fails to function, the cell cannot remain alive. The cell does not have the chance to wait for unconscious mechanisms like natural selection or mutation to permit it to develop. Thus, the first cell on earth was necessarily a complete cell possessing all the required organelles and functions, and this definitely means that this cell had to have been created.

### The Problem of the Origin of Proteins

So much for the cell, but evolution fails even to account for the building-blocks of a cell. The formation, under natural conditions, of just one single protein out of the thousands of complex protein molecules making up the cell is impossible.

Proteins are giant molecules consisting of smaller units called amino acids that are arranged in a particular sequence in certain quantities and structures. These units constitute the building blocks of a living protein. The simplest protein is composed of 50 amino acids, but there are some that contain thousands.

The crucial point is this. The absence, addition, or replacement of a single amino acid in the structure of a protein causes the protein to become a useless molecular heap. Every amino acid has to be in the right place and in the right order. The theory of evolution, which claims that life emerged as a result of chance, is quite helpless in the face of this order, since it is too wondrous to be explained by coincidence. (Furthermore, the theory cannot even substantiate the claim of the accidental formation of amino acids, as will be discussed later.)

The fact that it is quite impossible for the functional structure of proteins to come about by chance can easily be observed even by simple probability calculations that anybody can understand.

For instance, an average-sized protein molecule composed of 288 amino acids, and contains twelve different types of amino acids can be arranged in 10300 different ways. (This is an astronomically huge number, consisting of 1 followed by 300 zeros.) Of all of these possible sequences, only one forms the desired protein molecule. The rest of them are amino-acid chains that are either totally useless, or else potentially harmful to living things.

In other words, the probability of the formation of only one protein molecule is "1 in 10300." The probability of this "1" actually occurring is practically nil. (In practice, probabilities smaller than 1 over 1050 are thought of as "zero probability").

Furthermore, a protein molecule of 288 amino acids is a rather modest one compared with some giant protein molecules consisting of thousands of amino acids. When we apply similar probability calculations to these giant protein molecules, we see that even the word "impossible" is insufficient to describe the true situation.

When we proceed one step further in the evolutionary scheme of life, we observe that one single protein means nothing by itself. One of the smallest bacteria ever discovered, Mycoplasma hominis H39, contains 600 types of proteins. In this case, we would have to repeat the probability calculations we have made for one protein for each of these 600 different types of proteins. The result beggars even the concept of impossibility.

Some people reading these lines who have so far accepted the theory of evolution as a scientific explanation may suspect that these numbers are exaggerated and do not reflect the true facts. That is not the case: these are definite and concrete facts. No evolutionist can object to these numbers.

This situation is in fact acknowledged by many evolutionists. For example, Harold F. Blum, a prominent evolutionist scientist, states that "The spontaneous formation of a polypeptide of the size of the smallest known proteins seems beyond all probability."205

Evolutionists claim that molecular evolution took place over a very long period of time and that this made the impossible possible. Nevertheless, no matter how long the given period may be, it is not possible for amino acids to form proteins by chance. William Stokes, an American geologist, admits this fact in his book Essentials of Earth History, writing that the probability is so small "that it would not occur during billions of years on billions of planets, each covered by a blanket of concentrated watery solution of the necessary amino acids."206

So what does all this mean? Perry Reeves, a professor of chemistry, answers the question:

When one examines the vast number of possible structures that could result from a simple random combination of amino acids in an evaporating primordial pond, it is mind-boggling to believe that life could have originated in this way. It is more plausible that a Great Builder with a master plan would be required for such a task.207

If the coincidental formation of even one of these proteins is impossible, it is billions of times "more impossible" for some one million of those proteins to come together by chance and make up a complete human cell. What is more, by no means does a cell consist of a mere heap of proteins. In addition to the proteins, a cell also includes nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and many other chemicals such as electrolytes arranged in a specific proportion, equilibrium, and design in terms of both structure and function. Each of these elements functions as a building block or co-molecule in various organelles.

Robert Shapiro, a professor of chemistry at New York University and a DNA expert, calculated the probability of the coincidental formation of the 2000 types of proteins found in a single bacterium (There are 200,000 different types of proteins in a human cell.) The number that was found was 1 over 1040000.208 (This is an incredible number obtained by putting 40,000 zeros after the 1)

A professor of applied mathematics and astronomy from University College Cardiff, Wales, Chandra Wickramasinghe, comments:

The likelihood of the spontaneous formation of life from inanimate matter is one to a number with 40,000 noughts after it... It is big enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution. There was no primeval soup, neither on this planet nor on any other, and if the beginnings of life were not random, they must therefore have been the product of purposeful intelligence.209

Prof. Fred Hoyle comments on these implausible numbers:

Indeed, such a theory (that life was assembled by an intelligence) is so obvious that one wonders why it is not widely accepted as being self-evident. The reasons are psychological rather than scientific.210

An article published in the January 1999 issue of Science News revealed that no explanation had yet been found for how amino acids could turn into proteins:

....no one has ever satisfactorily explained how the widely distributed ingredients linked up into proteins. Presumed conditions of primordial Earth would have driven the amino acids toward lonely isolation.211

Left-handed Proteins

Let us now examine in detail why the evolutionist scenario regarding the formation of proteins is impossible.

Even the correct sequence of the right amino acids is still not enough for the formation of a functional protein molecule. In addition to these requirements, each of the 20 different types of amino acids present in the composition of proteins must be left-handed. There are two different types of amino acids—as of all organic molecules—called "left-handed" and "right-handed." The difference between them is the mirror-symmetry between their three dimensional structures, which is similar to that of a person's right and left hands.

Amino acids of either of these two types can easily bond with one another. But one astonishing fact that has been revealed by research is that all the proteins in plants and animals on this planet, from the simplest organism to the most complex, are made up of left-handed amino acids. If even a single right-handed amino acid gets attached to the structure of a protein, the protein is rendered useless. In a series of experiments, surprisingly, bacteria that were exposed to right-handed amino acids immediately destroyed them. In some cases, they produced usable left-handed amino acids from the fractured components.

Let us for an instant suppose that life came about by chance as evolutionists claim it did. In this case, the right- and left-handed amino acids that were generated by chance should be present in roughly equal proportions in nature. Therefore, all living things should have both right- and left-handed amino acids in their constitution, because chemically it is possible for amino acids of both types to combine with each other. However, as we know, in the real world the proteins existing in all living organisms are made up only of left-handed amino acids.

The question of how proteins can pick out only the left-handed ones from among all amino acids, and how not even a single right-handed amino acid gets involved in the life process, is a problem that still baffles evolutionists. Such a specific and conscious selection constitutes one of the greatest impasses facing the theory of evolution.

Moreover, this characteristic of proteins makes the problem facing evolutionists with respect to "chance" even worse. In order for a "meaningful" protein to be generated, it is not enough for the amino acids to be present in a particular number and sequence, and to be combined together in the right three-dimensional design. Additionally, all these amino acids have to be left-handed: not even one of them can be right-handed. Yet there is no natural selection mechanism which can identify that a right-handed amino acid has been added to the sequence and recognize that it must therefore be removed from the chain. This situation once more eliminates for good the possibility of coincidence and chance.

The Britannica Science Encyclopaedia, which is an outspoken defender of evolution, states that the amino acids of all living organisms on earth, and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins, have the same left-handed asymmetry. It adds that this is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and always getting heads. The same encyclopaedia states that it is impossible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed, and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the origin of life on earth.212

If a coin always turns up heads when tossed a million times, is it more logical to attribute that to chance, or else to accept that there is conscious intervention going on? The answer should be obvious. However, obvious though it may be, evolutionists still take refuge in coincidence, simply because they do not want to accept the existence of conscious intervention.

A situation similar to the left-handedness of amino acids also exists with respect to nucleotides, the smallest units of the nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. In contrast to proteins, in which only left-handed amino acids are chosen, in the case of the nucleic acids, the preferred forms of their nucleotide components are always right-handed. This is another fact that can never be explained by chance.

In conclusion, it is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the probabilities we have examined that the origin of life cannot be explained by chance. If we attempt to calculate the probability of an average-sized protein consisting of 400 amino acids being selected only from left-handed amino acids, we come up with a probability of 1 in 2400, or 10120. Just for a comparison, let us remember that the number of electrons in the universe is estimated at 1079, which although vast, is a much smaller number. The probability of these amino acids forming the required sequence and functional form would generate much larger numbers. If we add these probabilities to each other, and if we go on to work out the probabilities of even higher numbers and types of proteins, the calculations become inconceivable.

### The Indispensability of the Peptide Link

The difficulties the theory of evolution is unable to overcome with regard to the development of a single protein are not limited to those we have recounted so far. It is not enough for amino acids to be arranged in the correct numbers, sequences, and required three-dimensional structures. The formation of a protein also requires that amino acid molecules with more than one arm be linked to each other only in certain ways. Such a bond is called a "peptide bond." Amino acids can make different bonds with each other; but proteins are made up of those—and only those—amino acids which are joined by peptide bonds.

A comparison will clarify this point. Suppose that all the parts of a car were complete and correctly assembled, with the sole exception that one of the wheels was fastened in place not with the usual nuts and bolts, but with a piece of wire, in such a way that its hub faced the ground. It would be impossible for such a car to move even the shortest distance, no matter how complex its technology or how powerful its engine. At first glance, everything would seem to be in the right place, but the faulty attachment of even one wheel would make the entire car useless. In the same way, in a protein molecule the joining of even one amino acid to another with a bond other than a peptide bond would make the entire molecule useless.

Research has shown that amino acids combining at random combine with a peptide bond only 50 percent of the time, and that the rest of the time different bonds that are not present in proteins emerge. To function properly, each amino acid making up a protein must be joined to others only with a peptide bond, in the same way that it likewise must be chosen only from among left-handed forms.

The probability of this happening is the same as the probability of each protein's being left-handed. That is, when we consider a protein made up of 400 amino acids, the probability of all amino acids combining among themselves with only peptide bonds is 1 in 2399.

Zero Probability

If we add together the three probabilities (that of amino acids being laid out correctly, that of their all being left-handed, and that of their all being joined by peptide links), then we come face to face with the astronomical figure of 1 in 10950. This is a probability only on paper. Practically speaking, there is zero chance of its actually happening. As we saw earlier, in mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 in 1050 is statistically considered to have a "zero" probability of occurring.

Even if we suppose that amino acids have combined and decomposed by a "trial and error" method, without losing any time since the formation of the earth, in order to form a single protein molecule, the time that would be required for something with a probability of 10950 to happen would still hugely exceed the estimated age of the earth.

The conclusion to be drawn from all this is that evolution falls into a terrible abyss of improbability even when it comes to the formation of a single protein.

One of the foremost proponents of the theory of evolution, Professor Richard Dawkins, states the impossibility the theory has fallen into in these terms:

So the sort of lucky event we are looking at could be so wildly improbable that the chances of its happening, somewhere in the universe, could be as low as one in a billion billion billion in any one year. If it did happen on only one planet, anywhere in the universe, that planet has to be our planet—because here we are talking about it.213

This admission by one of the theory of evolution's foremost authorities clearly reflects the logical muddle the theory of evolution is built on. The above statements in Dawkins's book Climbing Mount Improbable are a striking example of circular reasoning which actually explains nothing: "If we are here, then that means that evolution happened."

As we have seen, even the most diehard of the proponents of evolution confess that the theory is buried in impossibility when it comes to accounting for the first stage of life. But how interesting it is that, rather than accept the complete unreality of the theory they maintain, they prefer to cling to evolution in a dogmatic manner! This is a completely ideological fixation.

### There Is No Trial-and-Error Mechanism in Nature

Finally, we may conclude with a very important point in relation to the basic logic of probability calculations, of which we have already seen some examples. We indicated that the probability calculations made above reach astronomical levels, and that these astronomical odds have no chance of actually happening. However, there is a much more important and damaging fact facing evolutionists here. This is that under natural conditions, no period of trial and error can even start, despite the astronomical odds, because there is no trial-and-error mechanism in nature from which proteins could emerge.

The calculations we gave above to demonstrate the probability of the formation of a protein molecule with 500 amino acids are valid only for an ideal trial-and-error environment, which does not actually exist in real life. That is, the probability of obtaining a useful protein is "1" in 10950 only if we suppose that there exists an imaginary mechanism in which a hand joins 500 amino acids at random and then, seeing that this is not the right combination, disentangles them one by one, and arranges them again in a different order, and so on. In each trial, the amino acids would have to be separated one by one, and arranged in a new order. The synthesis should be stopped after the 500th amino acid has been added, and it must be ensured that not even one extra amino acid is involved. The trial should then be stopped to see whether or not a functional protein has yet been formed, and, in the event of failure, everything should be split up again and then tested for another sequence. Additionally, in each trial, not even one extraneous substance should be allowed to become involved. It is also imperative that the chain formed during the trial should not be separated and destroyed before reaching the 499th link. These conditions mean that the probabilities we have mentioned above can only operate in a controlled environment where there is a conscious mechanism directing the beginning, the end, and each intermediate stage of the process, and where only "the selection of the amino acids" is left to chance. It is clearly impossible for such an environment to exist under natural conditions. Therefore the formation of a protein in the natural environment is impossible.

Since some people are unable to take a broad view of these matters, but approach them from a superficial viewpoint and assume protein formation to be a simple chemical reaction, they may make unrealistic deductions such as "amino acids combine by way of reaction and then form proteins." However, accidental chemical reactions taking place in a nonliving structure can only bring about simple compounds. The number of these is predetermined and limited. For a somewhat more complex chemical material, huge factories, chemical plants, and laboratories have to be involved. Medicines and many other chemical materials that we use in our daily life are made in just this way. Proteins have much more complex structures than these chemicals produced by industry. Therefore, it is impossible for proteins, each of which is a wonder of design and engineering, in which every part takes its place in a fixed order, to originate as a result of haphazard chemical reactions.

Let us for a minute put aside all the impossibilities we have described so far, and suppose that a useful protein molecule still evolved spontaneously "by accident." Even so, the theory of evolution again has no answers, because in order for this protein to survive, it would need to be isolated from its natural habitat and be protected under very special conditions. Otherwise, it would either disintegrate from exposure to natural conditions on earth, or else join with other acids, amino acids, or chemical compounds, thereby losing its particular properties and turning into a totally different and useless substance.

What we have been discussing so far is the impossibility of just one protein's coming about by chance. However, in the human body alone there are some 100,000 proteins functioning. Furthermore, there are about 1.5 million species named, and another 10 million are believed to exist. Although many similar proteins are used in many life forms, it is estimated that there must be 100 million or more types of protein in the plant and animal worlds. And the millions of species which have already become extinct are not included in this calculation. In other words, hundreds of millions of protein codes have existed in the world. If one considers that not even one protein can be explained by chance, it is clear what the existence of hundreds of millions of different proteins must mean.

Bearing this truth in mind, it can clearly be understood that "coincidences" cannot account for the origin of living things.

### The Evolutionary Argument about the Origin of Life

Above all, there is one important point to take into consideration: If any one step in the evolutionary process is proven to be impossible, this is sufficient to prove that the whole theory is totally false and invalid. For instance, by proving that the haphazard formation of proteins is impossible, all other claims regarding the subsequent steps of evolution are also refuted. After this, it becomes meaningless to take some human and ape skulls and engage in speculation about them.

How living organisms came into existence out of nonliving matter was an issue that evolutionists did not even want to mention for a long time. However, this question, which had constantly been avoided, eventually had to be addressed, and attempts were made to settle it with a series of experiments in the second quarter of the twentieth century.

The main question was: How could the first living cell have appeared in the primordial atmosphere on the earth? In other words, what kind of explanation could evolutionists offer?

The first person to take the matter in hand was the Russian biologist Alexander I. Oparin, the founder of the concept of "chemical evolution." Despite all his theoretical studies, Oparin was unable to produce any results to shed light on the origin of life. He says the following in his book The Origin of Life, published in 1936:

Unfortunately, however, the problem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure point in the whole study of the evolution of organisms.214

Since Oparin, evolutionists have performed countless experiments, conducted research, and made observations to prove that a cell could have been formed by chance. However, every such attempt only made the complex structure of the cell clearer, and thus refuted the evolutionists' hypotheses even more. Professor Klaus Dose, the president of the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Johannes Gutenberg, states:

More than 30 years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on earth rather than to its solution. At present all discussions on principal theories and experiments in the field either end in stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.215

In his book The End of Science, the evolutionary science writer John Horgan says of the origin of life, "This is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology."216

The following statement by the geochemist Jeffrey Bada, from the San Diego-based Scripps Institute, makes the helplessness of evolutionists clear:

Today, as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?217

Let us now look at the details of the theory of evolution's "biggest unsolved problem". The first subject we have to consider is the famous Miller experiment.

Miller's Experiment

The most generally respected study on the origin of life is the Miller experiment conducted by the American researcher Stanley Miller in 1953. (The experiment is also known as the "Urey-Miller experiment" because of the contribution of Miller's instructor at the University of Chicago, Harold Urey.) This experiment is the only "evidence" evolutionists have with which to allegedly prove the "chemical evolution thesis"; they advance it as the first stage of the supposed evolutionary process leading to life. Although nearly half a century has passed, and great technological advances have been made, nobody has made any further progress. In spite of this, Miller's experiment is still taught in textbooks as the evolutionary explanation of the earliest generation of living things. That is because, aware of the fact that such studies do not support, but rather actually refute, their thesis, evolutionist researchers deliberately avoid embarking on such experiments.

Stanley Miller's aim was to demonstrate by means of an experiment that amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, could have come into existence "by chance" on the lifeless earth billions of years ago. In his experiment, Miller used a gas mixture that he assumed to have existed on the primordial earth (but which later proved unrealistic), composed of ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and water vapor. Since these gases would not react with each other under natural conditions, he added energy to the mixture to start a reaction among them. Supposing that this energy could have come from lightning in the primordial atmosphere, he used an electric current for this purpose.

Miller heated this gas mixture at 100°C for a week and added the electrical current. At the end of the week, Miller analyzed the chemicals which had formed at the bottom of the jar, and observed that three out of the 20 amino acids which constitute the basic elements of proteins had been synthesized.

This experiment aroused great excitement among evolutionists, and was promoted as an outstanding success. Moreover, in a state of intoxicated euphoria, various publications carried headlines such as "Miller creates life." However, what Miller had managed to synthesize was only a few inanimate molecules.

Encouraged by this experiment, evolutionists immediately produced new scenarios. Stages following the development of amino acids were hurriedly hypothesized. Supposedly, amino acids had later united in the correct sequences by accident to form proteins. Some of these proteins which emerged by chance formed themselves into cell membrane–like structures which "somehow" came into existence and formed a primitive cell. These cells then supposedly came together over time to form multicellular living organisms.

However, Miller's experiment has since proven to be false in many respects.

Four Facts That Invalidate Miller's Experiment

Miller's experiment sought to prove that amino acids could form on their own in primordial earth-like conditions, but it contains inconsistencies in a number of areas:

1- By using a mechanism called a "cold trap," Miller isolated the amino acids from the environment as soon as they were formed. Had he not done so, the conditions in the environment in which the amino acids were formed would immediately have destroyed these molecules.

Doubtless, this kind of conscious isolation mechanism did not exist on the primordial earth. Without such a mechanism, even if one amino acid were obtained, it would immediately have been destroyed. The chemist Richard Bliss expresses this contradiction by observing that "Actually, without this trap, the chemical products, would have been destroyed by the energy source."218 And, sure enough, in his previous experiments, Miller had been unable to make even one single amino acid using the same materials without the cold trap mechanism.

2- The primordial atmosphere that Miller attempted to simulate in his experiment was not realistic. In the 1980s, scientists agreed that nitrogen and carbon dioxide should have been used in this artificial environment instead of methane and ammonia.

So why did Miller insist on these gases? The answer is simple: without ammonia, it was impossible to synthesize any amino acid. Kevin Mc Kean talks about this in an article published in Discover magazine:

Miller and Urey imitated the ancient atmosphere on the Earth with a mixture of methane and ammonia. ...However in the latest studies, it has been understood that the Earth was very hot at those times, and that it was composed of melted nickel and iron. Therefore, the chemical atmosphere of that time should have been formed mostly of nitrogen (N2), carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour (H2O). However these are not as appropriate as methane and ammonia for the production of organic molecules.219

The American scientists J. P. Ferris and C. T. Chen repeated Miller's experiment with an atmospheric environment that contained carbon dioxide, hydrogen, nitrogen, and water vapor, and were unable to obtain even a single amino acid molecule.220

3- Another important point that invalidates Miller's experiment is that there was enough oxygen to destroy all the amino acids in the atmosphere at the time when they were thought to have been formed. This fact, overlooked by Miller, is revealed by the traces of oxidized iron found in rocks that are estimated to be 3.5 billion years old.221

There are other findings showing that the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that time was much higher than originally claimed by evolutionists. Studies also show that the amount of ultraviolet radiation to which the earth was then exposed was 10,000 times more than evolutionists' estimates. This intense radiation would unavoidably have freed oxygen by decomposing the water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

This situation completely negates Miller's experiment, in which oxygen was completely neglected. If oxygen had been used in the experiment, methane would have decomposed into carbon dioxide and water, and ammonia into nitrogen and water. On the other hand, in an environment where there was no oxygen, there would be no ozone layer either; therefore, the amino acids would have immediately been destroyed, since they would have been exposed to the most intense ultraviolet rays without the protection of the ozone layer. In other words, with or without oxygen in the primordial world, the result would have been a deadly environment for the amino acids.

4- At the end of Miller's experiment, many organic acids had also been formed with characteristics detrimental to the structure and function of living things. If the amino acids had not been isolated, and had been left in the same environment with these chemicals, their destruction or transformation into different compounds through chemical reactions would have been unavoidable.

Moreover, Miller's experiment also produced right-handed amino acids.222 The existence of these amino acids refuted the theory even within its own terms, because right-handed amino acids cannot function in the composition of living organisms. To conclude, the circumstances in which amino acids were formed in Miller's experiment were not suitable for life. In truth, this medium took the form of an acidic mixture destroying and oxidizing the useful molecules obtained.

All these facts point to one firm truth: Miller's experiment cannot claim to have proved that living things formed by chance under primordial earth–like conditions. The whole experiment is nothing more than a deliberate and controlled laboratory experiment to synthesize amino acids. The amount and types of the gases used in the experiment were ideally determined to allow amino acids to originate. The amount of energy supplied to the system was neither too much nor too little, but arranged precisely to enable the necessary reactions to occur. The experimental apparatus was isolated, so that it would not allow the leaking of any harmful, destructive, or any other kind of elements to hinder the formation of amino acids. No elements, minerals or compounds that were likely to have been present on the primordial earth, but which would have changed the course of the reactions, were included in the experiment. Oxygen, which would have prevented the formation of amino acids because of oxidation, is only one of these destructive elements. Even under such ideal laboratory conditions, it was impossible for the amino acids produced to survive and avoid destruction without the "cold trap" mechanism.

In fact, by his experiment, Miller destroyed evolution's claim that "life emerged as the result of unconscious coincidences." That is because, if the experiment proves anything, it is that amino acids can only be produced in a controlled laboratory environment where all the conditions are specifically designed by conscious intervention.

Today, Miller's experiment is totally disregarded even by evolutionist scientists. In the February 1998 issue of the famous evolutionist science journal Earth, the following statements appear in an article titled "Life's Crucible":

Geologist now think that the primordial atmosphere consisted mainly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, gases that are less reactive than those used in the 1953 experiment. And even if Miller's atmosphere could have existed, how do you get simple molecules such as amino acids to go through the necessary chemical changes that will convert them into more complicated compounds, or polymers, such as proteins? Miller himself throws up his hands at that part of the puzzle. "It's a problem," he sighs with exasperation. "How do you make polymers? That's not so easy."223

As seen, today even Miller himself has accepted that his experiment does not lead to an explanation of the origin of life. In the March 1998 issue of National Geographic, in an article titled "The Emergence of Life on Earth," the following comments appear:

Many scientists now suspect that the early atmosphere was different to what Miller first supposed. They think it consisted of carbon dioxide and nitrogen rather than hydrogen, methane, and ammonia.

That's bad news for chemists. When they try sparking carbon dioxide and nitrogen, they get a paltry amount of organic molecules - the equivalent of dissolving a drop of food colouring in a swimming pool of water. Scientists find it hard to imagine life emerging from such a diluted soup.224

In brief, neither Miller's experiment, nor any other similar one that has been attempted, can answer the question of how life emerged on earth. All of the research that has been done shows that it is impossible for life to emerge by chance, and thus confirms that life is created. The reason evolutionists do not accept this obvious reality is their blind adherence to prejudices that are totally unscientific. Interestingly enough, Harold Urey, who organized the Miller experiment with his student Stanley Miller, made the following confession on this subject:

All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that its complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did.225

The Primordial Atmosphere and Proteins

Evolutionist sources use the Miller experiment, despite all of its inconsistencies, to try to gloss over the question of the origin of amino acids. By giving the impression that the issue has long since been resolved by that invalid experiment, they try to paper over the cracks in the theory of evolution.

However, to explain the second stage of the origin of life, evolutionists faced an even greater problem than that of the formation of amino acids—namely, the origin of proteins, the building blocks of life, which are composed of hundreds of different amino acids bonding with each other in a particular order.

Claiming that proteins were formed by chance under natural conditions is even more unrealistic and unreasonable than claiming that amino acids were formed by chance. In the preceding pages we have seen the mathematical impossibility of the haphazard uniting of amino acids in proper sequences to form proteins with probability calculations. Now, we will examine the impossibility of proteins being produced chemically under primordial earth conditions.

The Problem of Protein Synthesis in Water

As we saw before, when combining to form proteins, amino acids form a special bond with one another called the peptide bond. A water molecule is released during the formation of this peptide bond.

This fact definitely refutes the evolutionist explanation that primordial life originated in water, because, according to the "Le Châtelier principle" in chemistry, it is not possible for a reaction that releases water (a condensation reaction) to take place in a hydrous environment. The chances of this kind of a reaction happening in a hydrate environment is said to "have the least probability of occurring" of all chemical reactions.

Hence the ocean, which is claimed to be where life began and amino acids originated, is definitely not an appropriate setting for amino acids to form proteins.226 On the other hand, it would be irrational for evolutionists to change their minds and claim that life originated on land, because the only environment where amino acids could have been protected from ultraviolet radiation is in the oceans and seas. On land, they would be destroyed by ultraviolet rays. The Le Châtelier principle, on the other hand, disproves the claim of the formation of life in the sea. This is another dilemma confronting evolution.

Fox's Experiment

Challenged by the abovementioned dilemma, evolutionists began to invent unrealistic scenarios based on this "water problem" that so definitively refuted their theories. Sydney Fox was one of the best known of these researchers. Fox advanced the following theory to solve the problem. According to him, the first amino acids must have been transported to some cliffs near a volcano right after their formation in the primordial ocean. The water contained in this mixture that included the amino acids must have evaporated when the temperature increased above boiling point on the cliffs. The amino acids which were "dried out" in this way, could then have combined to form proteins.

However this "complicated" way out was not accepted by many people in the field, because the amino acids could not have endured such high temperatures. Research confirmed that amino acids are immediately destroyed at very high temperatures.

But Fox did not give up. He combined purified amino acids in the laboratory, "under very special conditions," by heating them in a dry environment. The amino acids combined, but still no proteins were obtained. What he actually ended up with was simple and disordered loops of amino acids, arbitrarily combined with each other, and these loops were far from resembling any living protein. Furthermore, if Fox had kept the amino acids at a steady temperature, then these useless loops would also have disintegrated.

Another point that nullified the experiment was that Fox did not use the useless end products obtained in Miller's experiment; rather, he used pure amino acids from living organisms. This experiment, however, which was intended to be a continuation of Miller's experiment, should have started out from the results obtained by Miller. Yet neither Fox, nor any other researcher, used the useless amino acids Miller produced.

Fox's experiment was not even welcomed in evolutionist circles, because it was clear that the meaningless amino acid chains that he obtained (which he termed "proteinoids") could not have formed under natural conditions. Moreover, proteins, the basic units of life, still could not be produced. The problem of the origin of proteins remained unsolved. In an article in the popular science magazine, Chemical Engineering News, which appeared in the 1970s, Fox's experiment was mentioned as follows:

Sydney Fox and the other researchers managed to unite the amino acids in the shape of "proteinoids" by using very special heating techniques under conditions which in fact did not exist at all in the primordial stages of Earth. Also, they are not at all similar to the very regular proteins present in living things. They are nothing but useless, irregular chemical stains. It was explained that even if such molecules had formed in the early ages, they would definitely be destroyed.227

Indeed, the proteinoids Fox obtained were totally different from real proteins, both in structure and function. The difference between proteins and these proteinoids was as huge as the difference between a piece of high-tech equipment and a heap of unprocessed iron.

Furthermore, there was no chance that even these irregular amino acid chains could have survived in the primordial atmosphere. Harmful and destructive physical and chemical effects caused by heavy exposure to ultraviolet light and other unstable natural conditions would have caused these proteinoids to disintegrate. Because of the Le Châtelier principle, it was also impossible for the amino acids to combine underwater, where ultraviolet rays would not reach them. In view of this, the idea that the proteinoids were the basis of life eventually lost support among scientists.

The Origin of the DNA Molecule

Our examinations so far have shown that the theory of evolution is in a serious quandary at the molecular level. Evolutionists have shed no light on the formation of amino acids at all. The formation of proteins, on the other hand, is another mystery all its own.

Yet the problems are not even limited just to amino acids and proteins: These are only the beginning. Beyond them, the extremely complex structure of the cell leads evolutionists to yet another impasse. The reason for this is that the cell is not just a heap of amino-acid-structured proteins, but rather one of the most complex systems man has ever encountered.

While the theory of evolution was having such trouble providing a coherent explanation for the existence of the molecules that are the basis of the cell structure, developments in the science of genetics and the discovery of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) produced brand-new problems for the theory. In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick launched a new age in biology with their work on the structure of DNA.

The molecule known as DNA, which is found in the nucleus of each of the 100 trillion cells in our bodies, contains the complete blueprint for the construction of the human body. The information regarding all the characteristics of a person, from physical appearance to the structure of the inner organs, is recorded in DNA within the sequence of four special bases that make up the giant molecule. These bases are known as A, T, G, and C, according to the initial letters of their names. All the structural differences among people depend on variations in the sequences of these letters. In addition to features such as height, and eye, hair and skin colors, the DNA in a single cell also contains the design of the 206 bones, the 600 muscles, the 100 billion nerve cells (neurons), 1.000 trillion connections between the neurons of the brain, 97,000 kilometers of veins, and the 100 trillion cells of the human body. If we were to write down the information coded in DNA, then we would have to compile a giant library consisting of 900 volumes of 500 pages each. But the information this enormous library would hold is encoded inside the DNA molecules in the cell nucleus, which is far smaller than the 1/100th-of-a-millimeter-long cell itself.

DNA Cannot Be Explained by Coincidences

At this point, there is an important detail that deserves attention. An error in the sequence of the nucleotides making up a gene would render that gene completely useless. When it is considered that there are some 30,000 genes in the human body, it becomes clearer how impossible it is for the millions of nucleotides making up these genes to have been formed, in the right sequence, by chance. The evolutionary biologist Frank Salisbury has comments on this impossibility:

A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41,000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension.228

The number 41,000 is the equivalent of 10600. This means 1 followed by 600 zeros. As 1 with 12 zeros after it indicates a trillion, 600 zeros represents an inconceivable number.

The impossibility of the formation of RNA and DNA by a coincidental accumulation of nucleotides is expressed by the French scientist Paul Auger in this way:

We have to sharply distinguish the two stages in the chance formation of complex molecules such as nucleotides by chemical events. The production of nucleotides one by one—which is possible—and the combination of these within very special sequences. The second is absolutely impossible.229

For many years, Francis Crick believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by chance, as the result of an evolutionary process:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle.230

The Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy was forced to make the following confession on the issue:

In fact, the probability of the formation of a protein and a nucleic acid (DNA-RNA) is a probability way beyond estimating. Furthermore, the chance of the emergence of a certain protein chain is so slight as to be called astronomic.231

A very interesting paradox emerges at this point: While DNA can only replicate with the help of special proteins (enzymes), the synthesis of these proteins can only be realized by the information encoded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. Science writer John Horgan explains the dilemma in this way:

DNA cannot do its work, including forming more DNA, without the help of catalyticproteins, or enzymes. In short, proteins cannot form without DNA, but neither can DNA form without proteins.232

This situation once again undermines the scenario that life could have come about by accident. Homer Jacobson, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, comments:

Directions for the reproduction of plans, for energy and the extraction of parts from the current environment, for the growth sequence, and for the effector mechanism translating instructions into growth—all had to be simultaneously present at that moment [when life began]. This combination of events has seemed an incredibly unlikely happenstance...233

The quotation above was written two years after the discovery of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick. But despite all the developments in science, this problem for evolutionists remains unsolved. This is why German biochemist Douglas R. Hofstadter says:

'How did the Genetic Code, along with the mechanisms for its translation (ribosomes and RNA molecules), originate?' For the moment, we will have to content ourselves with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than with an answer.234

Stanley Miller and Francis Crick's close associate from the University of San Diego, California, the highly reputed evolutionist Dr. Leslie Orgel says in an article published in 1994:

It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.235

Alongside all of this, it is chemically impossible for nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA, which possess a definite string of information, to have emerged by chance, or for even one of the nucleotides which compose them to have come about by accident and to have survived and maintained its unadulterated state under the conditions of the primordial world. Even the famous journal Scientific American, which follows an evolutionist line, has been obliged to confess the doubts of evolutionists on this subject:

Even the simpler molecules are produced only in small amounts in realistic experiments simulating possible primitive earth conditions. What is worse, these molecules are generally minor constituents of tars: It remains problematical how they could have been separated and purified through geochemical processes whose normal effects are to make organic mixtures more and more of a jumble. With somewhat more complex molecules these difficulties rapidly increase. In particular a purely geochemical origin of nucleotides (the subunits of DNA and RNA) presents great difficulties.236

As revealed by what has been discussed so far, since it is impossible for life to have emerged by chemical means, life was created by All Powerful God. This "chemical evolution" that evolutionists have been talking about since the beginning of the last century never happened, and is nothing but a myth.

But most evolutionists believe in this and similar totally unscientific fairy tales as if they were true, because accepting that living things were created means accepting Almighty God's existence—and they have conditioned themselves not to accept this truth. One famous biologist from Australia, Michael Denton, discusses the subject in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis:

To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process is simply an affront to reason. But to the Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!237

The Invalidity of the RNA World

The discovery in the 1970s that the gases originally existing in the primitive atmosphere of the earth would have rendered amino acid synthesis impossible was a serious blow to the theory of molecular evolution. Evolutionists then had to face the fact that the "primitive atmosphere experiments" by Stanley Miller, Sydney Fox, Cyril Ponnamperuma and others were invalid. For this reason, in the 1980s the evolutionists tried again. As a result, the "RNA World" hypothesis was advanced. This scenario proposed that, not proteins, but rather the RNA molecules that contained the information for proteins, were formed first.

According to this scenario, advanced by Harvard chemist Walter Gilbert in 1986, inspired by the discovery about "ribozymes" by Thomas Cech, billions of years ago an RNA molecule capable of replicating itself formed somehow by accident. Then this RNA molecule started to produce proteins, having been activated by external influences. Thereafter, it became necessary to store this information in a second molecule, and somehow the DNA molecule emerged to do that.

Made up as it is of a chain of impossibilities in each and every stage, this scarcely credible scenario, far from providing any explanation of the origin of life, only magnified the problem, and raised many unanswerable questions:

1. Since it is impossible to accept the coincidental formation of even one of the nucleotides making up RNA, how can it be possible for these imaginary nucleotides to form RNA by coming together in a particular sequence? Evolutionist John Horgan admits the impossibility of the chance formation of RNA;

As researchers continue to examine the RNA-World concept closely, more problems emerge. How did RNA initially arise? RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize in a laboratory under the best of conditions, much less under really plausible ones.238

2. Even if we suppose that it formed by chance, how could this RNA, consisting of just a nucleotide chain, have "decided" to self-replicate, and with what kind of mechanism could it have carried out this self-replicating process? Where did it find the nucleotides it used while self-replicating? Even evolutionist microbiologists Gerald Joyce and Leslie Orgel express the desperate nature of the situtation in their book In the RNA World:

This discussion... has, in a sense, focused on a straw man: the myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it would strain the credulity of even an optimist's view of RNA's catalytic potential.239

3. Even if we suppose that there was self-replicating RNA in the primordial world, that numerous amino acids of every type ready to be used by RNA were available, and that all of these impossibilities somehow took place, the situation still does not lead to the formation of even one single protein. For RNA only includes information concerning the structure of proteins. Amino acids, on the other hand, are raw materials. Nevertheless, there is no mechanism for the production of proteins. To consider the existence of RNA sufficient for protein production is as nonsensical as expecting a car to assemble itself by simply throwing the blueprint onto a heap of parts piled up on top of each other. A blueprint cannot produce a car all by itself without a factory and workers to assemble the parts according to the instructions contained in the blueprint; in the same way, the blueprint contained in RNA cannot produce proteins by itself without the cooperation of other cellular components which follow the instructions contained in the RNA.

Proteins are produced in the ribosome factory with the help of many enzymes, and as a result of extremely complex processes within the cell. The ribosome is a complex cell organelle made up of proteins. This leads, therefore, to another unreasonable supposition—that ribosomes, too, should have come into existence by chance at the same time. Even Nobel Prize winner Jacques Monod, who was one of the most fanatical defenders of evolution—and atheism—explained that protein synthesis can by no means be considered to depend merely on the information in the nucleic acids:

The code is meaningless unless translated. The modern cell's translating machinery consists of at least 50 macromolecular components, which are themselves coded in DNA: the code cannot be translated otherwise than by products of translation themselves. It is the modern expression of omne vivum ex ovo. When and how did this circle become closed? It is exceedingly difficult to imagine.240

How could an RNA chain in the primordial world have taken such a decision, and what methods could it have employed to make protein production happen by doing the work of 50 specialized particles on its own? Evolutionists have no answer to these questions. One article in the preeminent scientific journal Nature makes it clear that the concept of "self-replicating RNA" is a complete product of fantasy, and that actually this kind of RNA has not been produced in any experiment:

DNA replication is so error-prone that it needs the prior existence of protein enzymes to improve the copying fidelity of a gene-size piece of DNA. "Catch-22" say Maynard Smith and Szathmary. So, wheel on RNA with its now recognized properties of carrying both informational and enzymatic activity, leading the authors to state: "In essence, the first RNA molecules did not need a protein polymerase to replicate them; they replicated themselves." Is this a fact or a hope? I would have thought it relevant to point out for 'biologists in general' that not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (1024) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences.241

Dr. Leslie Orgel uses the term "scenario" for the possibility of "the origination of life through the RNA World." Orgel described what kind of features this RNA would have had to have and how impossible these would have been in his article "The Origin of Life," published in Scientific American in October 1994:

This scenario could have occurred, we noted, if prebiotic RNA had two properties not evident today: A capacity to replicate without the help of proteins and an ability to catalyze every step of protein synthesis.242

As should by now be clear, to expect these two complex and extremely essential processes from a molecule such as RNA is againt scientific thought. Concrete scientific facts, on the other hand, makes it explicit that the RNA World hypothesis, which is a new model proposed for the chance formation of life, is an equally implausible fable.

John Horgan, in his book The End of Science, reports that Stanley Miller viewed the theories subsequently put forward regarding the origin of life as quite meaningless (It will be recalled that Miller was the originator of the famous Miller Experiment, which was later revealed to be invalid.):

In fact, almost 40 years after his original experiment, Miller told me that solving the riddle of the origin of life had turned out to be more difficult than he or anyone else had envisioned... Miller seemed unimpressed with any of the current proposals on the origin of life, referring to them as "nonsense" or "paper chemistry." He was so contemptuous of some hypotheses that, when I asked his opinion of them, he merely shook his head, sighed deeply, and snickered—as if overcome by the folly of humanity. Stuart Kauffman's theory of autocatalysis fell into this category. "Running equations through a computer does not constitute an experiment," Miller sniffed. Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged.243

This statement, by a pioneer of the struggle to find an evolutionary explanation for the origin of life, clearly reflects the despair felt by evolutionist scientists over the cul-de-sac they find themselves in.

Design Cannot Be Explained by Coincidence

So far, we have examined how impossible the accidental formation of life is. Let us again ignore these impossibilities for just a moment. Let us suppose that millions of years ago a cell was formed which had acquired everything necessary for life, and that it duly "came to life." Evolution again collapses at this point. For even if this cell had existed for a while, it would eventually have died and after its death, nothing would have remained, and everything would have reverted to where it had started. This is because this first living cell, lacking any genetic information, would not have been able to reproduce and start a new generation. Life would have ended with its death.

The genetic system does not only consist of DNA. The following things must also exist in the same environment: enzymes to read the code on the DNA, messenger RNA to be produced after reading these codes, a ribosome to which messenger RNA will attach according to this code, transfer RNA to transfer the amino acids to the ribosome for use in production, and extremely complex enzymes to carry out numerous intermediary processes. Such an environment cannot exist anywhere apart from a totally isolated and completely controlled environment such as the cell, where all the essential raw materials and energy resources exist.

As a result, organic matter can self-reproduce only if it exists as a fully developed cell, with all its organelles. This means that the first cell on earth was formed "all of a sudden," together with its extraordinarily complex structure.

So, if a complex structure came into existence all of a sudden, what does this mean?

Let us ask this question with an example. Let us liken the cell to a high-tech car in terms of its complexity. (In fact, the cell is a much more complex and developed system than a car.) Now let us ask the following question: What would you think if you went out hiking in the depths of a thick forest and ran across a brand-new car among the trees? Would you imagine that various elements in the forest had come together by chance over millions of years and produced such a vehicle? All the parts in the car are made of products such as iron, copper, and rubber—the raw ingredients for which are all found on the earth—but would this fact lead you to think that these materials had synthesized "by chance" and then come together and manufactured such a car?

There is no doubt that anyone with a sound mind would realize that the car was the product of an intelligent design, and wonder what it was doing there in the middle of the forest. The sudden emergence of a complex structure in a complete form, quite out of the blue, shows that this is the work of an intelligent design.

Believing that pure chance can produce perfect designs goes well beyond the bounds of reason. Yet every "explanation" put forward by the theory of evolution regarding the origin of life is like that. One outspoken authority on this issue is the famous French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé. Grassé is an evolutionist, yet he acknowledges that Darwinist theory is unable to explain life and makes a point about the logic of "coincidence," which is the backbone of Darwinism:

The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe. Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding: A single plant, a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events. Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with an infinitesimal probability could not fail to occur... There is no law against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it.244

All living things in the world, all of which are clear examples of the intelligent planning we have just been discussing, are at the same time living evidence that coincidence can have no role to play in their existence. Each of its component parts—never mind a whole living creature—contains structures and systems so complex that they cannot be the work of coincidence. We need go no further than our own bodies to find examples of this.

One example of this is our eyes. The human eye sees by the working together of some 40 separate parts. If one of these is not present, the eye will be useless. Each of these 40 parts possesses complex structures within itself. The retina at the back of the eye, for instance, is made up of 11 layers. Each layer has a different function. The chemical processes that go on inside the retina are so complex that they can only be explained with pages full of formulae and diagrams.

The theory of evolution is unable to account for the emergence of even such a flawless and complex structure as a single eye by means of "accident," let alone life itself, or mankind.

So, what do these extraordinary features in living things prove to us about the origin of life? As we made clear in the opening part of this book, only two different accounts can be given regarding the origin of life. One is the fallacious evolutionary explanation, the other the evident "fact of creation." As explained throughout the book, the evolution claim is impossible, and scientific discoveries prove the truth of creation. This truth may surprise some scientists, who from the nineteenth century to the present have seen the concept of "creation" as unscientific, but science can only progress by overcoming shocks of this kind and accepting the truth. Chandra Wickramasinghe describes the reality he faced as a scientist who had been told throughout his life that life had emerged as a result of chance coincidences:

From my earliest training as a scientist, I was very strongly brainwashed to believe that science cannot be consistent with any kind of deliberate creation. That notion has had to be painfully shed. At the moment, I can't find any rational argument to knock down the view which argues for conversion to God. We used to have an open mind; now we realize that the only logical answer to life is creation - and not accidental random shuffling.245

## The Myth of Homology

Anyone who studies the different living species in the world may observe that there are some similar organs and features among these species. The first person to draw materialistic conclusions from this fact, which has attracted scientists' attention since the eighteenth century, was Charles Darwin.

Darwin thought that creatures with similar (homologous) organs had an evolutionary relationship with each other, and that these organs must have been inherited from a common ancestor. According to his assumption, both pigeons and eagles had wings; therefore, pigeons, eagles and indeed all other birds with wings were supposed to have evolved from a common ancestor.

Homology is a tautological argument, advanced on the basis of no other evidence than an apparent physical resemblance. This argument has never once been verified by a single concrete discovery in all the years since Darwin's day. Nowhere in the world has anyone come up with a fossil remain of the imaginary common ancestor of creatures with homologous structures. Furthermore, the following issues make it clear that homology provides no evidence that evolution ever occurred.

1. One finds homologous organs in creatures belonging to completely different phyla, among which evolutionists have not been able to establish any sort of evolutionary relationship;

2. The genetic codes of some creatures that have homologous organs are completely different from one another.

3. The embryological development of homologous organs in different creatures is completely different.

Let us now examine each of these points one by one.

The Invalidity of Morphological Homology

The homology thesis of the evolutionists is based on the logic of building an evolutionary link between all living things with similar morphologies (structures), whereas there are a number of homologous organs shared by different groups that are completely unrelated to each other. Wings are one example. In addition to birds, we find wings on bats, which are mammals, and on insects and even on some dinosaurs, which are extinct reptiles. Not even evolutionists posit an evolutionary relationship or kinship among those four different groups of animals.

Another striking example is the amazing resemblance and the structural similarity observed in the eyes of different creatures. For example, the octopus and man are two extremely different species, between which no evolutionary relationship is likely even to be proposed, yet the eyes of both are very much alike in terms of their structure and function. Not even evolutionists try to account for the similarity of the eyes of the octopus and man by positing a common ancestor

In response, evolutionists say that these organs are not "homologous" (in other words, from a common ancestor), but that they are "analogous" (very similar to each other, although there is no evolutionary connection between them). For example, in their view, the human eye and the octopus eye are analogous organs. However, the question of which category they will put an organ into, homologous or analogous, is answered totally in line with the theory of evolution's preconceptions. And this shows that the evolutionist claim based on resemblances is completely unscientific. The only thing evolutionists do is to try to interpret new discoveries in accordance with a dogmatic evolutionary preconception.

However, the interpretation they put forward is completely invalid. Because organs which they have to consider "analogous" sometimes bear such close resemblance to one another, despite being exceedingly complex structures, that it is totally illogical to propose that this similarity was brought about thanks to coincidental mutations. If an octopus eye emerged completely by coincidence, as evolutionists claim, then how is it that vertebrates' eyes can emerge by the very same coincidences? The famous evolutionist Frank Salisbury, who got dizzy from thinking about this question, writes:

Even something as complex as the eye has appeared several times; for example, in the squid, the vertebrates, and the arthropods. It's bad enough accounting for the origin of such things once, but the thought of producing them several times according to the modern synthetic theory makes my head swim.246

According to the theory of evolution, wings emerged independently of each other four times: in insects, flying reptiles, birds, and flying mammals (bats). The fact that wing with very similar structures developed four times—which cannot be explained by the mechanisms of natural selection/mutation—is yet another headache for evolutionary biologists.

One of the most concrete examples of such an obstacle in the path of evolutionary theory can be seen in mammals. According to the accepted view of modern biology, all mammals belong to one of three basic categories: placentals, marsupials and monotremes. Evolutionists consider this distinction to have come about when mammals first appeared, and that each group lived its own evolutionary history totally independent of the other. But it is interesting that there are "pairs" in placentals and marsupials which are nearly the same. Placental wolves, cats, squirrels, anteaters, moles and mice all have their marsupial counterparts with closely similar morphologies.247

In other words, according to the theory of evolution, mutations completely independent of each other must have produced these creatures "by chance" twice! This reality is a question that will give evolutionists problems even worse than dizzy spells.

One of the interesting similarities between placental and marsupial mammals is that between the North American wolf and the Tasmanian wolf. The former belongs to the placental class, the latter to the marsupials. Evolutionary biologists believe that these two different species have completely separate evolutionary histories.248 (Since the continent of Australia and the islands around it split off from Gondwanaland (the supercontinent that is supposed to be the originator of Africa, Antarctica, Australia, and South America) the link between placental and marsupial mammals is considered to have been broken, and at that time there were no wolves). But the interesting thing is that the skeletal structure of the Tasmanian wolf is nearly identical to that of the North American wolf. Their skulls in particular, as shown on the next page, bear an extraordinary degree of resemblance to each other.

Extraordinary resemblances and similar organs like these, which evolutionary biologists cannot accept as examples of "homology," show that homology does not constitute any evidence for the thesis of evolution from a common ancestor. What is even more interesting is that the exact opposite situation is to be observed in other living things. In other words, there are living things, some of whose organs have completely different structures, even though they are considered to be close relatives by evolutionists. For example, most crustaceans have eye structures of the "refracting lens" type. In only two species of crustacean—the lobster and the shrimp—is the completely different "reflecting" type of eye seen. (See the chapter on Irreducible Complexity.)

### The Genetic and Embryological Impasse of Homology

The discovery which really overthrew homology is that organs accepted as "homologous" are almost all controlled by very different genetic codes. As we know, the theory of evolution proposes that living things developed through small, chance changes in their genes, in other words, mutations. For this reason, the genetic structures of living things which are seen as close evolutionary relatives should resemble each other. And, in particular, similar organs should be controlled by similar genetic structures. However, in point of fact, genetic researchers have made discoveries which conflict totally with this evolutionary thesis.

Similar organs are usually governed by very different genetic (DNA) codes. Furthermore, similar genetic codes in the DNA of different creatures are often associated with completely different organs. The chapter titled "The Failure of Homology" in Michael Denton's book, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, gives several examples of this, and sums the subject up in this way:

Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology.249

This genetic question has also been raised by the well-known evolutionary biologist Gavin de Beer. In his book Homology: An Unsolved Problem, published in 1971, de Beer put forward a very wide-ranging analysis of this subject. He sums up why homology is a problem for the theory of evolution as follows:

What mechanism can it be that results in the production of homologous organs, the same 'patterns', in spite of their not being controlled by the same genes? I asked this question in 1938, and it has not been answered.250

Although some 30 years have passed since de Beer wrote those words, they have still received no answer.

A third proof which undermines the homology claim is the question of embryological development, which we mentioned at the start. In order for the evolutionary thesis regarding homology to be taken seriously, the periods of similar structures' embryological development—in other words, the stages of development in the egg or the mother's womb—would need to be parallel, whereas, in reality, these embryological periods for similar structures are quite different from each other in every living creature. Pere Alberch, an eminent developmental biologist, noted, it is "the rule rather than the exception" that "homologous structures form from distinctly dissimilar initial states."251

The emergence of similar structures as the result of totally dissimilar processes is frequently seen in the latter stages of the development phase. As we know, many species of animal go through a stage known as "indirect development" (in other words the larva stage), on their way to adulthood. For instance, most frogs begin life as swimming tadpoles and turn into four-legged animals at the last stage of metamorphosis. But alongside this there are several species of frog which skip the larva stage and develop directly. But the adults of most of these species that develop directly are practically indistinguishable from those species which pass through the tadpole stage. The same phenomenon is to be seen in water chestnuts and some other similar species.252

To conclude, we can say that genetic and embryological research has proven that the concept of homology defined by Darwin as "evidence of the evolution of living things from a common ancestor" can by no means be regarded as any evidence at all. The inconsistency of homology, which looks quite convincing on the surface, is clearly revealed when examined more closely.

### The Fall of the Homology in Tetrapod Limbs

We have already examined homology's morphological claim—in other words the invalidity of the evolutionist claim based on similarities of form in living things—but it will be useful to examine one well-known example of this subject a little more closely. This is the "fore- and hindlimbs of quadrupeds," presented as a clear proof of homology in almost all books on evolution.

Quadrupeds, i.e., land-living vertebrates, have five digits on their fore- and hindlimbs. Although these may not always look like fingers or toes, they are all counted as "pentadactyl" (five-digit) due to their bone structure. The hands and feet of a frog, a lizard, a squirrel, or a monkey all have this same structure. Even the bone structures of birds and bats conform to this basic design.

Evolutionists claim that all living things descended from a common ancestor, and they have long cited pentadactyl limb as evidence of this. But they know that this claim actually possesses no scientific validity.

Even today, evolutionists accept the feature of pentadactylism in living things among which they have been able to establish no evolutionary link. For example, in two separate scientific papers published in 1991 and 1996, evolutionary biologist M. Coates reveals that pentadactylism emerged two separate times, each independently of the other. According to Coates, the pentadactyl structure emerged independently in anthracosaurs and amphibians.253

This discovery is a sign that pentadactylism is no evidence for a "common ancestor."

Another matter which creates difficulties for the evolutionist thesis in this respect is that these creatures have five digits on both their fore- and hindlimbs. It is not proposed in evolutionist literature that fore- and hindlimb descended from a "common limb"; rather, it is assumed that they developed separately. For this reason, it should be expected that the structure of the fore- and hindlimbs should be different, the result of different, chance mutations. Michael Denton has this to say on the subject:

[T]he forelimbs of all terrestrial vertebrates are constructed according to the same pentadactyl design, and this is attributed by evolutionary biologists as showing that all have been derived from a common ancestral source. But the hindlimbs of all vertebrates also conform to the pentadactyl pattern and are strikingly similar to the forelimbs in bone structure and in their detailed embryological development. Yet no evolutionist claims that the hindlimb evolved from the forelimb, or that hindlimbs and forelimbs evolved from a common source... Invariably, as biological knowledge has grown, common genealogy as an explanation for similarity has tended to grow ever more tenuous... Like so much of the other circumstantial "evidence" for evolution, that drawn from homology is not convincing because it entails too many anomalies, too many counter-instances, far too many phenomena which simply do not fit easily into the orthodox picture.254

But the real blow dealt to the evolutionist claim of the homology of pentadactylism came from molecular biology. The assumption of "the homology of pentadactylism," which was long maintained in evolutionist publications, was overturned when it was realized that the limb structures were controlled by totally different genes in different creatures possessing this pentadactyl structure. Evolutionary biologist William Fix describes the collapse of the evolutionist thesis regarding pentadactylism in this way:

The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the `pentadactyl' [five bone] limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale, and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down.255

On closer examination, William Fix is saying that evolutionist claims regarding "pentadactylism homology" appeared in old textbooks, but that the claims were abandoned after molecular evidence emerged. But, some evolutionist sources still continue to put it forward as major evidence for evolution.

### The Invalidity Of Molecular Homology

Evolutionists' advancement of homology as evidence for evolution is invalid not only at the morphological level, but also at the molecular level. Evolutionists say that the DNA codes, or the corresponding protein structures, of different living species are similar, and that this similarity is evidence that these living species have evolved from common ancestors, or else from each other. For example, it is regularly stated in the evolutionist literature that "there is a great similarity between the DNA of a human and that of an ape," and this similarity is presented as a proof for the evolutionist claim that there is an evolutionary relationship between man and ape.

We must make it clear from the start that it is perfectly natural that living creatures on the earth should possess very similar DNA structures. Living things' basic life processes are the same, and since human beings possess a living body, they cannot be expected to have a different DNA structure to other creatures. Like other creatures, human beings develop by consuming carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, oxygen circulates through the blood in their bodies, and energy is produced every second in each of their cells by the use of this oxygen.

For this reason, the fact that living things possess genetic similarities is no proof of the evolutionist claim that they evolved from a common ancestor. If evolutionists want to prove their theory of evolution from a common ancestor, then they have to show that creatures alleged to be each other's common ancestors have a direct line of descent in their molecular structures; in fact, however, as we shall shortly be examining, there have been no concrete discoveries showing any such thing.

Let us first of all take the matter of "the similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA." The latest studies on this issue have revealed that evolutionist propaganda about a "98 %" or "99 %" similarity between man and chimp is totally erroneous.

If a slightly wider study is made of this subject, it can be seen that the DNA of much more surprising creatures resembles that of man. One of these similarities is between man and worms of the nematode phylum. For example, genetic analyses published in New Scientist have revealed that "nearly 75% of human genes have some counterpart in nematodes—millimeter-long soil-dwelling worms."256 This definitely does not mean that there is only a 25% difference between man and these worms! According to the family tree made by evolutionists, the Chordata phylum, in which man is included, and the Nematoda phylum were different to each other even 530 million years ago.

This situation clearly reveals that the similarity between the DNA strands of these two different categories of life is no evidence for the claim that these creatures evolved from a common ancestor.

In fact, when the results of DNA analyses from different species and classes are compared, it is seen that the sequences clearly do not agree with any evolutionist family tree. According to the evolutionist thesis, living things must have undergone a progressive increase in complexity, and, parallel to this, it is to be expected that the number of genes, which make up their genetic data, should also gradually increase. But the data obtained show that this thesis is the work of fantasy.

The Russian scientist Theodosius Dobzhansky, one of the best-known theoreticians of evolution, once stated that this irregular relationship between living things and their DNA is a great problem that evolution cannot explain:

More complex organisms generally have more DNA per cell than do simpler ones, but this rule has conspicuous exceptions. Man is nowhere near the top of the list, being exceeded by Amphiuma (an amphibian), Protopterus (a lungfish), and even ordinary frogs and toads. Why this should be so has long been a puzzle.257

Other comparisons on the molecular level produce other examples of inconsistency which render evolutionist views meaningless. When the protein strands of various living things are analysed in a laboratory, results emerge which are totally unexpected from the evolutionists' point of view, and some of which are utterly astounding. For example, the cytochrome-C protein in man differs by 14 amino acids from that in a horse, but by only eight from that in a kangaroo. When the same strand is examined, turtles appear closer to man than to a reptile such as the rattlesnake. When this situation is viewed from the evolutionist point of view, a meaningless result will emerge, such as that turtles are more closely related to man than they are to snakes.

For instance, chickens and sea snakes differ by 17 amino acids in 100 codons and horses and sharks by 16, which is a greater difference than that between dogs and worm flies, which belong to different phyla even, and which differ by only 15 amino acids.

Similar facts have been discovered with respect to hemoglobin. The hemoglobin protein found in human beings differs from that found in lemurs by 20 amino acids, but from that in pigs by only 14. The situation is more or less the same for other proteins.258

This being the case, evolutionists should arrive at the conclusion that, in evolutionary terms, man is more closely related to the kangaroo than to the horse, or to the pig than to the lemur. But these results conflict with all the "evolutionary family tree" plans that have so far been accepted. Protein similarities continue to produce astounding surprises. For example:

Adrian Friday and Martin Bishop of Cambridge have analyzed the available protein sequence data for tetrapods... To their surprise, in nearly all cases, man (the mammal) and chicken (the bird) were paired off as closest relatives, with the crocodile as next nearest relative...259

Again, when these similarities are approached from the point of view of evolutionist logic, they lead us to the ridiculous conclusion that man's closest evolutionary relative is the chicken. Paul Erbrich stresses the fact that molecular analyses produce results that show very different groups of living thing to be closely related in this way:

Proteins with nearly the same structure and function (homologous proteins) are found in increasing numbers in phylogenetically different, even very distinct taxa (e.g.,hemoglobins in vertebrates, in some invertebrates, and even in certain plants).260

Dr. Christian Schwabe, a biochemical researcher from the University of South Carolina's Faculty of Medicine, is a scientist who spent years trying to find evidence for evolution in the molecular field. He first tried to establish evolutionary relationships between living things by carrying out studies on proteins such as insulin and relaxin. But Schwabe has several times been forced to admit that he has not been able to come by any evidence for evolution in his studies. He says the following in an article in Science:

Molecular evolution is about to be accepted as a method superior to paleontology for the discovery of evolutionary relationships. As a molecular evolutionist I should be elated. Instead it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies: so many in fact that I think the exception, the quirks, may carry the more important message.261

Schwabe's studies on relaxins produced rather interesting results:

Against this background of high variability between relaxins from purportedly closely related species, the relaxins of pig and whale are all but identical. The molecules derived from rats, guinea-pigs, man and pigs are as distant from each other (approximately 55%) as all are from the elasmobranch's relaxin. ...Insulin, however, brings man and pig phylogenetically closer together than chimpanzee and man.262

Schwabe was faced by the same realities when he compared the arrangements of other proteins besides insulin and relaxin. Schwabe has this to say about these other proteins that constitute exceptions to the orderly molecular development proposed by evolutionists:

The relaxin and insulin families do not stand alone as exceptions to the orderly interpretation of molecular evolution in conventional monophyletic terms. It is instructive to look at additional examples of purportedly anomalous protein evolution and note that the explanations permissible under the molecular clock theories cover a range of ad hoc explanations apparently limited only by imagination.263

Schwabe reveals that the comparison of the arrangement of lysosomes, cytochromes, and many hormones and amino acids show "unexpected results and anomalies" from the evolutionary point of view. Based on all this evidence, Schwabe maintains that all proteins had their present forms right from the start, undergoing no evolution, and that no intermediate form has been found between molecules, in the same way as with fossils.

Concerning these findings in the field of molecular biology, Dr. Michael Denton comments:

Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology... At a molecular level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives... There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago... the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted.264

### The "Tree of Life" is Collapsing

In the 1990s, research into the genetic codes of living things worsened the quandary faced by the theory of evolution in this regard. In these experiments, instead of the earlier comparisons that were limited to protein sequences, "ribosomal RNA" (rRNA) sequences were compared. From these findings, evolutionist scientists sought to establish an "evolutionary tree." However, they were disappointed by the results.

According to a 1999 article by French biologists Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "with more and more sequences available, it turned out that most protein phylogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA tree."265

Besides rRNA comparisons, the DNA codes in the genes of living things were also compared, but the results have been the opposite of the "tree of life" presupposed by the theory of evolution. Molecular biologists James A. Lake, Ravi Jain and Maria C. Rivera elaborated on this in an article in 1999:

...[S]cientists started analyzing a variety of genes from different organisms and found that their relationship to each other contradicted the evolutionary tree of life derived from rRNA analysis alone.266

Neither the comparisons that have been made of proteins, nor those of rRNAs or of genes, confirm the premises of the theory of evolution. Carl Woese, a highly reputed biologist from the University of Illinois, admits that the concept of "phylogeny" has lost its meaning in the face of molecular findings in this way:

No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various [groups] to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves.267

The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in favor of, but rather opposed to, the theory of evolution is also admitted in an article called "Is it Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" published in Science in 1999. This article by Elizabeth Pennisi states that the genetic analyses and comparisons carried out by Darwinist biologists in order to shed light on the "tree of life" actually yielded directly opposite results, and goes on to say that "new data are muddying the evolutionary picture":

A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major groupings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation has gotten even more confusing.... Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the beginnings of life's three kingdoms... When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from the truth," says Claire Fraser, head of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Instead, the comparisons have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well...268

In short, as molecular biology advances, the homology concept loses more ground. Comparisons that have been made of proteins, rRNAs and genes reveal that creatures which are allegedly close relatives according to the theory of evolution are actually totally distinct from each other. A 1996 study using 88 protein sequences grouped rabbits with primates instead of rodents; a 1998 analysis of 13 genes in 19 animal species placed sea urchins among the chordates; and another 1998 study based on 12 proteins put cows closer to whales than to horses.

As life is investigated on a molecular basis, the homology hypotheses of the evolutionary theory collapse one by one. Molecular biologist Jonathan Wells sums up the situation in 2000 in this way:

Inconsistencies among trees based on different molecules, and the bizarre trees that result from some molecular analyses, have now plunged molecular phylogeny into a crisis.269

But in that case what kind of scientific explanation can be given for similar structures in living things? The answer to that question was given before Darwin's theory of evolution came to dominate the world of science. Men of science such as Carl Linnaeus and Richard Owen, who first raised the question of similar organs in living creatures, saw these organs as examples of "common creation." In other words, similar organs or similar genes resemble each other not because they have evolved by chance from a common ancestor, but because they have been created to perform a particular function.

Modern scientific discoveries show that the claim that similarities in living things are due to descent from a "common ancestor" is not valid, and that the only rational explanation for such similarities is "common creation."

## Immunity, "Vestigial Organs" And Embryology

In the preceding sections, we examined the inconsistencies and difficulties the theory of evolution finds itself in in the fields of paleontology and molecular biology in the light of scientific proof and discoveries. In this chapter, we shall be considering some biological facts presented as evidence for the theory in evolutionist sources. In contrast to widespread belief, these facts show that there is actually no scientific discovery that supports the theory of evolution.

### Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics

One of the biological concepts that evolutionists try to present as evidence for their theory is the resistance of bacteria to antibiotics. Many evolutionist sources mention antibiotic resistance as "an example of the development of living things by advantageous mutations." A similar claim is also made for the insects which build immunity to insecticides such as DDT.

However, evolutionists are mistaken on this subject too.

Antibiotics are "killer molecules" that are produced by microorganisms to fight other microorganisms. The first antibiotic was penicillin, discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928. Fleming realized that mould produced a molecule that killed the Staphylococcus bacterium, and this discovery marked a turning point in the world of medicine. Antibiotics derived from microorganisms were used against bacteria and the results were successful.

Soon, something new was discovered. Bacteria build immunity to antibiotics over time. The mechanism works like this: A large proportion of the bacteria that are subjected to antibiotics die, but some others, which are not affected by that antibiotic, replicate rapidly and soon make up the whole population. Thus, the entire population becomes immune to antibiotics.

Evolutionists try to present this as "the evolution of bacteria by adapting to conditions."

The truth, however, is very different from this superficial evolutionary interpretation. One of the scientists who has done the most detailed research into this subject is the Israeli biophysicist Lee Spetner, who is also known for his book Not by Chance published in 1997. Spetner maintains that the immunity of bacteria comes about by two different mechanisms, but neither of them constitutes evidence for the theory of evolution. These two mechanisms are:

1) The transfer of resistance genes already extant in bacteria.

2) The building of resistance as a result of losing genetic data because of mutation.

Professor Spetner explains the first mechanism in an article published in 2001:

Some microorganisms are endowed with genes that grant resistance to these antibiotics. This resistance can take the form of degrading the antibiotic molecule or of ejecting it from the cell... [T]he organisms having these genes can transfer them to other bacteria making them resistant as well. Although the resistance mechanisms are specific to a particular antibiotic, most pathogenic bacteria have... succeeded in accumulating several sets of genes granting them resistance to a variety of antibiotics.270

Spetner then goes on to say that this is not "evidence for evolution":

The acquisition of antibiotic resistance in this manner... is not the kind that can serve as a prototype for the mutations needed to account for Evolution... The genetic changes that could illustrate the theory must not only add information to the bacterium's genome, they must add new information to the biocosm. The horizontal transfer of genes only spreads around genes that are already in some species.271

So, we cannot talk of any evolution here, because no new genetic information is produced: genetic information that already exists is simply transferred between bacteria.

The second type of immunity, which comes about as a result of mutation, is not an example of evolution either. Spetner writes:

... [A] microorganism can sometimes acquire resistance to an antibiotic through a random substitution of a single nucleotide... Streptomycin, which was discovered by Selman Waksman and Albert Schatz and first reported in 1944, is an antibiotic against which bacteria can acquire resistance in this way. But although the mutation they undergo in the process is beneficial to the microorganism in the presence of streptomycin, it cannot serve as a prototype for the kind of mutations needed by NDT [Neo-Darwinian Theory]. The type of mutation that grants resistance to streptomycin is manifest in the ribosome and degrades its molecular match with the antibiotic molecule.272

In his book Not by Chance, Spetner likens this situation to the disturbance of the key-lock relationship. Streptomycin, just like a key that perfectly fits in a lock, clutches on to the ribosome of a bacterium and inactivates it. Mutation, on the other hand, decomposes the ribosome, thus preventing streptomycin from holding on to the ribosome. Although this is interpreted as "bacteria developing immunity against streptomycin," this is not a benefit for the bacteria but rather a loss for it. Spetner writes:

It turns out that this degradation is a loss of specificity and therefore a loss of information. The main point is that Evolution... cannot be achieved by mutations of this sort, no matter how many of them there are. Evolution cannot be built by accumulating mutations that only degrade specificity.273

To sum up, a mutation impinging on a bacterium's ribosome makes that bacterium resistant to streptomycin. The reason for this is the "decomposition" of the ribosome by mutation. That is, no new genetic information is added to the bacterium. On the contrary, the structure of the ribosome is decomposed, that is to say, the bacterium becomes "disabled." (Also, it has been discovered that the ribosome of the mutated bacterium is less functional than that of a normal bacterium.) Since this "disability" prevents the antibiotic from attaching onto the ribosome, "antibiotic resistance" develops.

Finally, there is no example of mutation that "develops the genetic information." Evolutionists, who want to present antibiotic resistance as evidence for evolution, treat the issue in a very superficial way and are thus mistaken.

The same situation holds true for the immunity that insects develop to DDT and similar insecticides. In most of these instances, immunity genes that already exist are used. The evolutionary biologist Francisco Ayala admits this fact, saying, "The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the populations exposed to these man-made compounds."274 Some other examples explained by mutation, just as with the ribosome mutation mentioned above, are phenomena that cause "genetic information deficit" in insects.

In this case, it cannot be claimed that the immunity mechanisms in bacteria and insects constitute evidence for the theory of evolution. That is because the theory of evolution is based on the assertion that living things develop through mutations. However, Spetner explains that neither antibiotic immunity nor any other biological phenomena indicate such an example of mutation:

The mutations needed for macroevolution have never been observed. No random mutations that could represent the mutations required by Neo-Darwinian Theory that have been examined on the molecular level have added any information. The question I address is: Are the mutations that have been observed the kind the theory needs for support? The answer turns out to be NO!275

### The Myth of Vestigial Organs

For a long time, the concept of "vestigial organs" appeared frequently in evolutionist literature as "evidence" of evolution. Eventually, it was silently put to rest when this was proved to be invalid. But some evolutionists still believe in it, and from time to time someone will try to advance "vestigial organs" as important evidence of evolution.

The notion of "vestigial organs" was first put forward a century ago. As evolutionists would have it, there existed in the bodies of some creatures a number of non-functional organs. These had been inherited from progenitors and had gradually become vestigial from lack of use.

The whole assumption is quite unscientific, and is based entirely on insufficient knowledge. These "non-functional organs" were in fact organs whose "functions had not yet been discovered." The best indication of this was the gradual yet substantial decrease in evolutionists' long list of vestigial organs. S. R. Scadding, an evolutionist himself, concurred with this fact in his article "Can vestigial organs constitute evidence for evolution?" published in the journal Evolutionary Theory:

Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that 'vestigial organs' provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.276

The list of vestigial organs that was made by the German Anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 included approximately 100 organs, including the appendix and coccyx. As science progressed, it was discovered that all of the organs in Wiedersheim's list in fact had very important functions. For instance, it was discovered that the appendix, which was supposed to be a "vestigial organ," was in fact a lymphoid organ that fought infections in the body. This fact was made clear in 1997:

Other bodily organs and tissues—the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestine—are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection.277

It was also discovered that the tonsils, which were included in the same list of vestigial organs, had a significant role in protecting the throat against infections, particularly until adolescence. It was found that the coccyx at the lower end of the vertebral column supports the bones around the pelvis and is the convergence point of some small muscles and for this reason, it would not be possible to sit comfortably without a coccyx.

In the years that followed, it was realized that the thymus triggered the immune system in the human body by activating the T cells, that the pineal gland was in charge of the secretion of some important hormones such as melatonin, which inhibits secretion of luteinizing hormone, that the thyroid gland was effective in providing steady growth in babies and children and in metabolism and body activity, and that the pituitary gland controlled skeletal growth and the proper functioning of the thyroid, adrenals, and reproductive glands. All of these were once considered to be "vestigial organs." Finally, the semi-lunar fold in the eye, which was referred to as a vestigial organ by Darwin, has been found in fact to be in charge of cleansing and lubricating the eyeball.

There was a very important logical error in the evolutionist claim regarding vestigial organs. As we have just seen, this claim was that the vestigial organs in living things were inherited from their ancestors. However, some of the alleged "vestigial" organs are not found in the species alleged to be the ancestors of human beings! For example, the appendix does not exist in some ape species that are said to be ancestors of man. The famous biologist H. Enoch, who challenged the theory of vestigial organs, expressed this logical error as follows:

Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this?278

Beside all of this, the claim that an organ which is not used atrophies and disappears over time carries a logical inconsistency within it. Darwin was aware of this inconsistency, and made the following confession in The Origin of Species:

There remains, however, this difficulty. After an organ has ceased being used, and has become in consequence much reduced, how can it be still further reduced in size until the merest vestige is left; and how can it be finally quite obliterated? It is scarcely possible that disuse can go on producing any further effect after the organ has once been rendered functionless. Some additional explanation is here requisite which I cannot give.279

Simply put, the scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains a number of serious logical flaws, and has in any case been proven to be scientifically untrue. There exists not one inherited vestigial organ in the human body.

### Yet Another Blow To "Vestigial Organs": The Leg of the Horse

The latest blow to the myth of vestigial organs comes from a recent study on the leg of the horse. In an article in the 20-27 December 2001 issue of the journal Nature, titled "Biomechanics: Damper for bad vibrations," it is noted that "Some muscle fibres in the legs of horses seem to be evolutionary leftovers with no function. But in fact they may act to damp damaging vibrations generated in the leg as the horse runs." The article reads as follows:

Horses and camels have muscles in their legs with tendons more than 600 millimetres long connected to muscle fibres less than 6 millimetres long. Such short muscles can change length only by a few millimetres as the animal moves, and seem unlikely to be of much use to large mammals. The tendons function as passive springs, and it has been assumed that the short muscle fibres are redundant, the remnants of longer fibres that have lost their function over the course of evolution. But Wilson and colleagues argue... that these fibres might protect bones and tendons from potentially damaging vibrations....

Their experiments show that short muscle fibers can damp the damaging vibrations following the impact of a foot on the ground. When the foot of a running animal hits the ground, the impact sets the leg vibrating; the frequency of the vibrations is relatively high—for example, 30–40 Hz in horses—so many cycles of vibration would occur while the foot was on the ground if there were no damping.

The vibrations might cause damage, because bone and tendon are susceptible to fatigue failure. Fatigue in bones and tendons is the accumulation of damage resulting from repeated application of stresses. Bone fatigue is responsible for the stress fractures suffered by both human athletes and racehorses, and tendon fatigue may explain at least some cases of tendonitis. Wilson et al. suggest that the very short muscle fibres protect both bones and tendons from fatigue damage by damping out vibrations...280

In short, a closer look at the anatomy of the horse revealed that the structures that have been considered as nonfunctional by evolutionists have very important functions.

In other words, scientific progress demonstrated that what was considered to be evidence for evolution is in fact evidence for creation. Evolutionists should be objective and evaluate scientific findings reasonably. The Nature article comments as follows:

Wilson et al. have found an important role for a muscle that seemed to be the relic of a structure that had lost its function in the course of evolution. Their work makes us wonder whether other vestiges (such as the human appendix) are as useless as they seem.281

This is not surprising. The more we learn about nature, the more we see the evidence for creation. As Michael Behe notes, "the conclusion of design comes not from what we do not know, but from what we have learned over the past 50 years."282 And Darwinism turns out to be an argument from ignorance.

### The Recapitulation Misconception

What used to be called the "recapitulation theory" has long been eliminated from scientific literature, but it is still being presented as a scientific reality by some evolutionist publications. The term "recapitulation" is a condensation of the dictum "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," put forward by the evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel at the end of the nineteenth century.

This theory of Haeckel's postulates that living embryos re-experience the evolutionary process that their pseudo-ancestors underwent. He theorized that during its development in its mother's womb, the human embryo first displayed the characteristics of a fish, and then those of a reptile, and finally those of a human.

It has since been proven that this theory is completely bogus. It is now known that the "gills" that supposedly appear in the early stages of the human embryo are in fact the initial phases of the middle-ear canal, parathyroid, and thymus. That part of the embryo that was likened to the "egg yolk pouch" turns out to be a pouch that produces blood for the infant. The part that was identified as a "tail" by Haeckel and his followers is in fact the backbone, which resembles a tail only because it takes shape before the legs do.

These are universally acknowledged facts in the scientific world, and are accepted even by evolutionists themselves. Two leading Darwinists, George Gaylord Simpson and W. Beck have admitted:

Haeckel misstated the evolutionary principle involved. It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.283

The following was written in an article in New Scientist dated October 16, 1999:

[Haeckel] called this the biogenetic law, and the idea became popularly known as recapitulation. In fact Haeckel's strict law was soon shown to be incorrect. For instance, the early human embryo never has functioning gills like a fish, and never passes through stages that look like an adult reptile or monkey.284

In an article published in American Scientist, we read:

Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail. It was finally exorcised from biology textbooks in the fifties. As a topic of serious theoretical inquiry it was extinct in the twenties...285

Another interesting aspect of "recapitulation" was Ernst Haeckel himself, a faker who falsified his drawings in order to support the theory he advanced. Haeckel's forgeries purported to show that fish and human embryos resembled one another. When he was caught out, the only defense he offered was that other evolutionists had committed similar offences:

After this compromising confession of 'forgery' I should be obliged to consider myself condemned and annihilated if I had not the consolation of seeing side by side with me in the prisoner's dock hundreds of fellow - culprits, among them many of the most trusted observers and most esteemed biologists. The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises and journals would incur in the same degree the charge of 'forgery,' for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised and constructed.286

In the September 5, 1997, edition of the well-known scientific journal Science, an article was published revealing that Haeckel's embryo drawings were the product of a deception. The article, called "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," had this to say:

The impression they [Haeckel's drawings] give, that the embryos are exactly alike, is wrong, says Michael Richardson, an embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School in London... So he and his colleagues did their own comparative study, reexamining and photographing embryos roughly matched by species and age with those Haeckel drew. Lo and behold, the embryos "often looked surprisingly different," Richardson reports in the August issue of Anatomy and Embryology.287

Science explained that, in order to be able to show the embryos as similar, Haeckel deliberately removed some organs from his drawings or else added imaginary ones. Later in this same article, the following information was revealed:

Not only did Haeckel add or omit features, Richardson and his colleagues report, but he also fudged the scale to exaggerate similarities among species, even when there were 10-fold differences in size. Haeckel further blurred differences by neglecting to name the species in most cases, as if one representative was accurate for an entire group of animals. In reality, Richardson and his colleagues note, even closely related embryos such as those of fish vary quite a bit in their appearance and developmental pathway. "It (Haeckel's drawings) looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology," Richardson concludes.288

The Science article goes on to discuss how Haeckel's confessions on this subject were covered up from the beginning of the last century, and how the fake drawings began to be presented in textbooks as scientific fact:

Haeckel's confession got lost after his drawings were subsequently used in a 1901 book called Darwin and After Darwin and reproduced widely in English language biology texts.289

In short, the fact that Haeckel's drawings were falsified had already emerged in 1901, but the whole world of science continued to be deceived by them for a century.

## The Origin Of Plants

Life on earth is divided into five (or sometimes six) kingdoms by scientists. We have so far concentrated mainly on the greatest kingdom, that of animals. In the preceding chapters, we considered the origin of life itself, studying proteins, genetic information, cell structure and bacteria, issues that are related with two other kingdoms, Prokaryotae and Protista. But at this point there is another important matter we need to concentrate on—the origin of the plant kingdom (Plantae).

We find the same picture in the origin of plants as we met when examining the origin of animals. Plants possess exceedingly complex structures, and it is not possible for these to come about by chance effects and for them to evolve into one another. The fossil record shows that the different classes of plants emerged all of a sudden in the world, each with its own particular characteristics, and with no period of evolution behind it.

### The Origin Of The Plant Cell

Like animal cells, plant cells belong to the type known as "eukaryotic." The most distinctive feature of these is that they have a cell nucleus, and the DNA molecule in which their genetic information is encoded lies within this nucleus. On the other hand, some single-celled creatures such as bacteria have no cell nucleus, and the DNA molecule is free inside the cell. This second type of cell is called "prokaryotic." This type of cell structure, with free DNA unconfined within a nucleus, is an ideal design for bacteria, as it makes possible the very important process—from the bacterial point of view—of plasmid transfer (that is, the transfer of DNA from cell to cell).

Because the theory of evolution is obliged to arrange living things in a sequence "from primitive to complex," it assumes that prokaryotic cells are primitive, and that eukaryotic cells evolved from them.

Before moving to the invalidity of this claim, it will be useful to demonstrate that prokaryotic cells are not at all "primitive." A bacterium possesses some 2,000 genes; each gene contains about 1,000 letters (links). This means that the information in a bacterium's DNA is some 200,000 letters long. According to this calculation, the information in the DNA of one bacterium is equivalent to 20 novels, each of 10,000 words.290 Any change in the information in the DNA code of a bacterium would be so deleterious as to ruin the bacterium's entire working system. As we have seen, a fault in a bacterium's genetic code means that the working system will go wrong—that is, the cell will die.

Alongside this sensitive structure, which defies chance changes, the fact that no "intermediate form" between bacteria and eukaryotic cells has been found makes the evolutionist claim unfounded. For example, the famous Turkish evolutionist Professor Ali Demirsoy confesses the groundlessness of the scenario that bacterial cells evolved into eukaryotic cells, and then into complex organisms made up of these cells:

One of the most difficult stages to be explained in evolution is to scientifically explain how organelles and complex cells developed from these primitive creatures. No transitional form has been found between these two forms. One- and multicelled creatures carry all this complex structure, and no creature or group has yet been found with organelles of a simpler construction in any way, or which are more primitive. In other words, the organelles carried forward have developed just as they are. They have no simple and primitive forms.291

One wonders, what is it that encourages Professor Ali Demirsoy, a loyal adherent of the theory of evolution, to make such an open admission? The answer to this question can be given quite clearly when the great structural differences between bacteria and plant cells are examined.

These are:

1- While the walls of bacterial cells are formed of polysaccharide and protein, the walls of plant cells are formed of cellulose, a totally different structure.

2- While plant cells possess many organelles, covered in membranes and possessing very complex structures, bacterial cells lack typical organelles. In bacterial cells there are just freely moving tiny ribosomes. But the ribosomes in plant cells are larger and are attached to the cell membrane. Furthermore, protein synthesis takes place by different means in the two types of ribosomes.

3- The DNA structures in plant and bacterial cells are different.

4- The DNA molecule in plant cells is protected by a double-layered membrane, whereas the DNA in bacterial cells stands free within the cell.

5- The DNA molecule in bacterial cells resembles a closed loop; in other words, it is circular. In plants, the DNA molecule is linear.

6- The DNA molecule in bacterial cells carries information belonging to just one cell, but in plant cells the DNA molecule carries information about the whole plant. For example, all the information about a fruit-bearing tree's roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit are all found separately in the DNA in the nucleus of just one cell.

7- Some species of bacteria are photosynthetic, in other words, they carry out photosynthesis. But unlike plants, in photosynthetic bacteria (cyanobacteria, for instance), there is no chloroplast containing chlorophyll and photosynthetic pigments. Rather, these molecules are buried in various membranes all over the cell.

8- The biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in prokaryotic (bacterial) cells and in eukaryotic (including plant and animal) cells are quite different from one another.292

Messenger RNA plays a vital role for the cell to live. But although messenger RNA assumes the same vital role in both prokaryotic cells and in eukaryotic cells, their biochemical structures are different. J. Darnell wrote the following in an article published in Science:

The differences in the biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.293

The structural differences between bacterial and plant cells, of which we have seen a few examples above, lead evolutionist scientists to another dead-end. Although plant and bacterial cells have some aspects in common, most of their structures are quite different from one another. In fact, since there are no membrane-surrounded organelles or a cytoskeleton (the internal network of protein filaments and microtubules) in bacterial cells, the presence of several very complex organelles and cell organization in plant cells totally invalidates the claim that the plant cell evolved from the bacterial cell.

Biologist Ali Demirsoy openly admits this, saying, "Complex cells never developed from primitive cells by a process of evolution."294

### The Endosymbiosis Hypothesis And Its Invalidity

The impossibility of plant cells' having evolved from a bacterial cell has not prevented evolutionary biologists from producing speculative hypotheses. But experiments disprove these.295 The most popular of these is the "endosymbiosis" hypothesis.

This hypothesis was put forward by Lynn Margulis in 1970 in her book The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells. In this book, Margulis claimed that as a result of their communal and parasitic lives, bacterial cells turned into plant and animal cells. According to this theory, plant cells emerged when a photosynthetic bacterium was swallowed by another bacterial cell. The photosynthetic bacterium evolved inside the parent cell into a chloroplast. Lastly, organelles with highly complex structures such as the nucleus, the Golgi apparatus, the endoplasmic reticulum, and ribosomes evolved, in some way or other. Thus, the plant cell was born.

As we have seen, this thesis of the evolutionists is nothing but a work of fantasy. Unsurprisingly, it was criticized by scientists who carried out very important research into the subject on a number of grounds: We can cite D. Lloyd296, M. Gray and W. Doolittle297, and R. Raff and H. Mahler as examples of these.

The endosymbiosis hypothesis is based on the fact that the mitochondria of animal cells and the chloroplasts of plant cells contain their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of the parent cell. So, on this basis, it is suggested that mitochondria and chloroplasts were once independent, free-living cells. However, when chloroplasts are studied in detail, it can be seen that this claim is inconsistent.

A number of points invalidate the endosymbiosis hypothesis:

1- If chloroplasts, in particular, were once independent cells, then there could only have been one outcome if one were swallowed by a larger cell: namely, it would have been digested by the parent cell and used as food. This must be so, because even if we assume that the parent cell in question took such a cell into itself from the outside by mistake, instead of intentionally ingesting it as food, nevertheless, the digestive enzymes in the parent cell would have destroyed it. Of course, some evolutionists have gotten around this obstacle by saying, "The digestive enzymes had disappeared." But this is a clear contradiction, because if the cell's digestive enzymes had disappeared, then the cell would have died from lack of nutrition.

2- Again, let us assume that all the impossible happened and that the cell which is claimed to have been the ancestor of the chloroplast was swallowed by the parent cell. In this case we are faced with another problem: The blueprints of all the organelles inside the cell are encoded in the DNA. If the parent cell were going to use other cells it swallowed as organelles, then it would be necessary for all of the information about them to be already present and encoded in its DNA. The DNA of the swallowed cells would have to possess information belonging to the parent cell. Not only is such a situation impossible, the two complements of DNA belonging to the parent cell and the swallowed cell would also have to become compatible with each other afterwards, which is also clearly impossible.

3- There is great harmony within the cell which random mutations cannot account for. There are more than just one chloroplast and one mitochondrion in a cell. Their number rises or falls according to the activity level of the cell, just like with other organelles. The existence of DNA in the bodies of these organelles is also of use in reproduction. As the cell divides, all of the numerous chloroplasts divide too, and the cell division happens in a shorter time and more regularly.

4- Chloroplasts are energy generators of absolutely vital importance to the plant cell. If these organelles did not produce energy, many of the cell's functions would not work, which would mean that the cell could not live. These functions, which are so important to the cell, take place with proteins synthesized in the chloroplasts. But the chloroplasts' own DNA is not enough to synthesize these proteins. The greater part of the proteins are synthesized using the parent DNA in the cell nucleus.298

While the situation envisioned by the endosymbiosis hypothesis is occurring through a process of trial and error, what effects would this have on the DNA of the parent cell? As we have seen, any change in a DNA molecule definitely does not result in a gain for that organism; on the contrary, any such mutation would certainly be harmful. In his book The Roots of Life, Mahlon B. Hoagland explains the situation:

You'll recall we learned that almost always a change in an organism's DNA is detrimental to it; that is, it leads to a reduced capacity to survive. By way of analogy, random additions of sentences to the plays of Shakespeare are not likely to improve them! ...The principle that DNA changes are harmful by virtue of reducing survival chances applies whether a change in DNA is caused by a mutation or by some foreign genes we deliberately add to it.299

The claims put forward by evolutionists are not based on scientific experiments, because no such thing as one bacterium swallowing another one has ever been observed. In his review of a later book by Margulis, Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, molecular biologist P. Whitfield describes the situation:

Prokaryotic endocytosis is the cellular mechanism on which the whole of S.E.T. (Serial Endosymbiotic Theory) presumably rests. If one prokaryote could not engulf another it is difficult to imagine how endosymbioses could be set up. Unfortunately for Margulis and S.E.T., no modern examples of prokaryotic endocytosis or endosymbiosis exist...300

### The Origin Of Photosynthesis

Another matter regarding the origin of plants which puts the theory of evolution into a terrible quandary is the question of how plant cells began to carry out photosynthesis.

Photosynthesis is one of the fundamental processes of life on earth. Thanks to the chloroplasts inside them, plant cells produce starch by using water, carbon dioxide and sunlight. Animals are unable to produce their own nutrients and must use the starch from plants for food instead. For this reason, photosynthesis is a basic condition for complex life. An even more interesting side of the matter is the fact that this complex process of photosynthesis has not yet been fully understood. Modern technology has not yet been able to reveal all of its details, let alone reproduce it.

How is it that evolutionists believe such a complex process as photosynthesis is the product of natural and random processes?

According to the evolution scenario, in order to carry out photosynthesis, plant cells swallowed bacterial cells which could photosynthesize and turned them into chloroplasts. So, how did bacteria learn to carry out such a complex process as photosynthesis? And why had they not begun to carry out such a process before then? As with other questions, the scenario has no scientific answer to give. Have a look at how an evolutionist publication answers the question:

The heterotroph hypothesis suggests that the earliest organisms were heterotrophs that fed on a soup of organic molecules in the primitive ocean. As these first heterotrophs consumed the available amino acids, proteins, fats, and sugars, the nutrient soup became depleted and could no longer support a growing population of heterotrophs. ...Organisms that could use an alternate source of energy would have had a great advantage. Consider that Earth was (and continues to be) flooded with solar energy that actually consists of different forms of radiation. Ultraviolet radiation is destructive, but visible light is energy-rich and undestructive. Thus, as organic compounds became increasingly rare, an already-present ability to use visible light as an alternate source of energy might have enabled such organisms and their descendents to survive.301

The book Life on Earth, another evolutionist source, tries to explain the emergence of photosynthesis:

The bacteria fed initially on the various carbon compounds that had taken so many millions of years to accumulate in the primordial seas. But as they flourished, so this food must have become scarcer. Any bacterium that could tap a different source of food would obviously be very successful and eventually some did. Instead of taking ready-made food from their surroundings, they began to manufacture their own within their cell walls, drawing the necessary energy from the sun.302

In short, evolutionist sources say that photosynthesis was in some way coincidentally "discovered" by bacteria, even though man, with all his technology and knowledge, has been unable to do so. These accounts, which are no better than fairy tales, have no scientific worth. Those who study the subject in a bit more depth will accept that photosynthesis is a major dilemma for evolution. Professor Ali Demirsoy makes the following admission, for instance:

Photosynthesis is a rather complicated event, and it seems impossible for it to emerge in an organelle inside a cell (because it is impossible for all the stages to have come about at once, and it is meaningless for them to have emerged separately).303

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth says that photosynthesis is a process that cannot possibly be learned:

No cell possesses the capacity to 'learn' a process in the true sense of the word. It is impossible for any cell to come by the ability to carry out such functions as respiration or photosynthesis, neither when it first comes into being, nor later in life.304

Since photosynthesis cannot develop as the result of chance, and cannot subsequently be learned by a cell, it appears that the first plant cells that lived on the earth were specially created to carry out photosynthesis. In other words, plants were created by God with the ability to photosynthesize.

### The Origin Of Algae

The theory of evolution hypothesizes that single-celled plant-like creatures, whose origins it is unable to explain, came in time to form algae. The origin of algae goes back to very remote times. So much so, that fossil algae remains from 3.1 to 3.4 million years old have been found. The interesting thing is that there is no structural difference between these extraordinarily ancient living things and specimens living in our own time. An article published in Science News says:

Both blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been found in rocks from S. Africa. Even more intriguing, the pleurocapsalean algae turned out to be almost identical to modern pleurocapsalean algae at the family and possibly even at the generic level.305

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth makes this comment on the complex structure of so-called "primitive" algae:

The oldest fossils so far discovered are objects fossilized in minerals which belong to blue green algae, more than 3 billion years old. No matter how primitive they are, they still represent rather complicated and expertly organized forms of life.306

Evolutionary biologists consider that the algae in question gave rise over time to other marine plants and moved to the land some 450 million years ago. However, just like the scenario of animals moving from water onto the land, the idea that plants moved from water to the land is another fantasy. Both scenarios are invalid and inconsistent. Evolutionist sources usually try to gloss over the subject with such fantastical and unscientific comments as "algae in some way moved onto the land and adapted to it." But there are a large number of obstacles that make this transition quite impossible. Let us have a short look at the most important of them.

1- The danger of drying out: For a plant which lives in water to be able to live on land, its surface has first of all to be protected from water loss. Otherwise the plant will dry out. Land plants are provided with special systems to prevent this from happening. There are very important details in these systems. For example, this protection must happen in such a way that important gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide are able to leave and enter the plant freely. At the same time, it is important that evaporation be prevented. If a plant does not possess such a system, it cannot wait millions of years to develop one. In such a situation, the plant will soon dry up and die.

2- Feeding: Marine plants take the water and minerals they need directly from the water they are in. For this reason, any algae which tried to live on land would have a food problem. They could not live without resolving it.

3- Reproduction: Algae, with their short life span, have no chance of reproducing on land, because, as in all their functions, algae also use water to disperse their reproductive cells. In order to be able to reproduce on land, they would need to possess multicellular reproductive cells like those of land plants, which are covered by a protective layer of cells. Lacking these, any algae which found themselves on land would be unable to protect their reproductive cells from danger.

4- Protection from oxygen: Any algae which arrived on land would have taken in oxygen in a decomposed form up until that point. According to the evolutionists' scenario, now they would have to take in oxygen in a form they had never encountered before, in other words, directly from the atmosphere. As we know, under normal conditions the oxygen in the atmosphere has a poisoning effect on organic substances. Living things which live on land possess systems which stop them being harmed by it. But algae are marine plants, which means they do not possess the enzymes to protect them from the harmful effects of oxygen. So, as soon as they arrived on land, it would be impossible for them to avoid these effects. Neither is there any question of their waiting for such a system to develop, because they could not survive on land long enough for that to happen.

There is yet another reason why the claim that algae moved from the ocean to the land inconsistent—namely, the absence of a natural agent to make such a transition necessary. Let us imagine the natural environment of algae 450 million years ago. The waters of the sea offer them an ideal environment. For instance, the water isolates and protects them from extreme heat, and offers them all kinds of minerals they need. And, at the same time, they can absorb the sunlight by means of photosynthesis and make their own carbohydrates (sugar and starch) by carbon dioxide, which dissolves in the water. For this reason, there is nothing the algae lack in the ocean, and therefore no reason for them to move to the land, where there is no "selective advantage" for them, as the evolutionists put it.

All of this shows that the evolutionist hypothesis that algae emerged onto the land and formed land plants is completely unscientific.

### The Origin Of Angiosperms

When we examine the fossil history and structural features of plants that live on land, another picture emerges which fails to agree with evolutionist predictions. There is no fossil series to confirm even one branch of the "evolutionary tree" of plants that you will see in almost any biological textbook. Most plants possess abundant remains in the fossil record, but none of these fossils is an intermediate form between one species and another. They are all specially and originally created as completely distinct species, and there are no evolutionary links between them. As the evolutionary paleontologist E. C. Olson accepted, "Many new groups of plants and animals suddenly appear, apparently without any close ancestors."307

The botanist Chester A. Arnold, who studies fossil plants at the University of Michigan, makes the following comment:

It has long been hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years.308

Arnold accepts that paleobotany (the science of plant fossils) has produced no results in support of evolution: "[W]e have not been able to track the phylogenetic history of a single group of plants of our day from its beginning to the present."309

The fossil discoveries which most clearly deny the claims of plant evolution are those of flowering plants, or "angiosperms," to give them their scientific name. These plants are divided into 43 separate families, each one of which emerges suddenly, leaving no trace of any primitive "transitional form" behind it in the fossil record. This was realised in the nineteenth century, and for this reason Darwin described the origin of angiosperms as "an abominable mystery." All the research carried out since Darwin's time has simply added to the amount of discomfort this mystery causes. In his book The Paleobiology of Angiosperm Origins, the evolutionary paleobotanist N. F. Hughes makes this admission:

... With few exceptions of detail, however, the failure to find a satisfactory explanation has persisted, and many botanists have concluded that the problem is not capable of solution, by use of fossil evidence.310

In his book The Evolution of Flowering Plants, Daniel Axelrod says this about the origin of flowering plants,

The ancestral group that gave rise to angiosperms has not yet been identified in the fossil record, and no living angiosperm points to such an ancestral alliance.311

All this leads us to just one conclusion: Like all living things, plants were also created. From the moment they first emerged, all their mechanisms have existed in a finished and complete form. Terms such as 'development over time," "changes dependent on coincidences," and "adaptations which emerged as a result of need," which one finds in the evolutionist literature, have no truth in them at all and are scientifically meaningless.

## Irreducible Complexity

One of the most important concepts that one must employ when questioning Darwinist theory in the light of scientific discoveries is without a doubt the criterion that Darwin himself employed. In The Origin of Species, Darwin put forward a number of concrete criteria suggesting how his theory might be tested and, if found wanting, disproved. Many passages in his book begin, "If my theory be true," and in these Darwin describes the discoveries his theory requires. One of the most important of these criteria concerns fossils and "transitional forms." In earlier chapters, we examined how these "prophecies" of Darwin's did not come true, and how, on the contrary, the fossil record completely contradicts Darwinism.

In addition to these, Darwin gave us another very important criterion by which to test his theory. This criterion is so important, Darwin wrote, that it could cause his theory to be absolutely broken down:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case. 312

We must examine Darwin's intention here very carefully. As we know, Darwinism explains the origin of life with two unconscious natural mechanisms: natural selection and random changes (in other words, mutations). According to Darwinist theory, these two mechanisms led to the emergence of the complex structure of living cells, as well as the anatomical systems of complex living things, such as eyes, ears, wings, lungs, bat sonar and millions of other complex systems.

However, how is it that these systems, which possess incredibly complicated structures, can be considered the products of two unconscious natural effects? At this point, the concept Darwinism applies is that of "reducibility." It is claimed that these systems can be reduced to very basic states, and that they may have then developed by stages. Each stage gives a living thing a little more advantage, and is therefore chosen through natural selection. Then, later, there will be another small, chance development, and that too will be preferred because it affords an advantage, and the process will go on in this way. Thanks to this, according to the Darwinist claim, a species which originally possessed no eyes will come to possess perfect ones, and another species which was formerly unable to fly, will grow wings and be able to do so.

This story is explained in a very convincing and reasonable manner in evolutionist sources. But when one reflects on it, a great error appears. The first aspect of this error is a subject we have already studied in earlier pages of this book: Mutations are destructive, not constructive. In other words, chance mutations that occur in living creatures do not provide them any "advantages," and, furthermore, the idea that they could do this thousands of times, one after the other, is a dream that contradicts all scientific observations.

But there is yet another very important aspect to the error. Darwinist theory requires all the stages from one point to another to be individually "advantageous." In an evolutionary process from A to Z (for instance, from a wingless creature to a winged one), all the "intermediate" stages B, C, D, ...V, W, X, and Y along the way have to provide advantages for the living thing in question. Since it is not possible for natural selection and mutation to consciously pick out their targets in advance, the whole theory is based on the hypothesis that living systems can be reduced to discrete traits that can be added on to the organism in small steps, each of which carries some selective advantage. That is why Darwin said, "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."

Given the primitive level of science in the nineteenth century, Darwin may have thought that living things possess a reducible structure. But twentieth century discoveries have shown that many systems and organs in living things cannot be reduced to simplicity. This fact, known as "irreducible complexity," definitively destroys Darwinism, just as Darwin himself feared.

### The Bacterial Flagellum

The most important person to bring the concept of irreducible complexity to the forefront of the scientific agenda is the biochemist Michael J. Behe of Lehigh University in the United States. In his book Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution, published in 1996, Behe examines the irreducibly complex structure of the cell and a number of other biochemical structures, and reveals that it is impossible to account for these by evolution. According to Behe, the real explanation of life is creation.

Behe's book was a serious blow to Darwinism. In fact, Peter van Inwagen, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, stresses the importance of the book in this manner:

If Darwinians respond to this important book by ignoring it, misrepresenting it, or ridiculing it, that will be evidence in favor of the widespread suspicion that Darwinism today functions more as an ideology than as a scientific theory. If they can successfully answer Behe's arguments, that will be important evidence in favor of Darwinism.313

One of the interesting examples of irreducible complexity that Behe gives in his book is the bacterial flagellum. This is a whip-like organ that is used by some bacteria to move about in a liquid environment. This organ is embedded in the cell membrane, and enables the bacterium to move in a chosen direction at a particular speed.

Scientists have known about the flagellum for some time. However, its structural details, which have only emerged over the last decade or so, have come as a great surprise to them. It has been discovered that the flagellum moves by means of a very complicated "organic motor," and not by a simple vibratory mechanism as was earlier believed. This propeller-like engine is constructed on the same mechanical principles as an electric motor. There are two main parts to it: a moving part (the "rotor") and a stationary one (the "stator").

The bacterial flagellum is different from all other organic systems that produce mechanical motion. The cell does not utilize available energy stored as ATP molecules. Instead, it has a special energy source: Bacteria use energy from the flow of ions across their outer cell membranes. The inner structure of the motor is extremely complex. Approximately 240 distinct proteins go into constructing the flagellum. Each one of these is carefully positioned. Scientists have determined that these proteins carry the signals to turn the motor on or off, form joints to facilitate movements at the atomic scale, and activate other proteins that connect the flagellum to the cell membrane. The models constructed to summarize the working of the system are enough to depict the complicated nature of the system.

The complicated structure of the bacterial flagellum is sufficient all by itself to demolish the theory of evolution, since the flagellum has an irreducibly complex structure. If one single molecule in this fabulously complex structure were to disappear, or become defective, the flagellum would neither work nor be of any use to the bacterium. The flagellum must have been working perfectly from the first moment of its existence. This fact again reveals the nonsense in the theory of evolution's assertion of "step by step development." In fact, not one evolutionary biologist has so far succeeded in explaining the origin of the bacterial flagellum although a few tried to do so.

The bacterial flagellum is clear evidence that even in supposedly "primitive" creatures there is an extraordinary design. As humanity learns more about the details, it becomes increasingly obvious that the organisms considered to be the simplest by the scientists of nineteenth century, including Darwin, are in fact just as complex as any others.

### Signs Of Creation In The Human Eye

The human eye is a very complex system consisting of the delicate conjunction of some 40 separate components. Let us consider just one of these components: for example, the lens. We do not usually realize it, but the thing that enables us to see things clearly is the constant automatic focusing of the lens. If you wish, you can carry out a small experiment on this subject: Hold your index finger up in the air. Then look at the tip of your finger, then at the wall behind it. Every time you look from your finger to the wall you will feel an adjustment.

This adjustment is made by small muscles around the lens. Every time we look at something, these muscles go into action and enable us to see what we are looking at clearly by changing the thickness of the lens and turning it at the right angle to the light. The lens carries out this adjustment every second of our lives, and makes no mistakes. Photographers make the same adjustments in their cameras by hand, and sometimes have to struggle for quite some time to get the right focus. Within the last 10 to 15 years, modern technology has produced cameras which focus automatically, but no camera can focus as quickly and as well as the eye.

For an eye to be able to see, the 40 or so basic components which make it up need to be present at the same time and work together perfectly. The lens is only one of these. If all the other components, such as the cornea, iris, pupil, retina, and eye muscles, are all present and functioning properly, but just the eyelid is missing, then the eye will shortly incur serious damage and cease to carry out its function. In the same way, if all the subsystems exist but tear production ceases, then the eye will dry up and go blind within a few hours.

The theory of evolution's claim of "reducibility" loses all meaning in the face of the complex structure of the eye. The reason is that, in order for the eye to function, all its parts need to be present at the same time. It is impossible, of course, for the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation to give rise to the eye's dozens of different subsystems when they can confer no advantage right up until the last stage. Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts the truth of this in these words:

It is rather hard to reply to a third objection. How was it possible for a complicated organ to come about suddenly even though it brought benefits with it? For instance, how did the lens, retina, optic nerve, and all the other parts in vertebrates that play a role in seeing suddenly come about? Because natural selection cannot choose separately between the visual nerve and the retina. The emergence of the lens has no meaning in the absence of a retina. The simultaneous development of all the structures for sight is unavoidable. Since parts that develop separately cannot be used, they will both be meaningless, and also perhaps disappear with time. At the same time, their development all together requires the coming together of unimaginably small probabilities.314

What Prof. Demirsoy really means by "unimaginably small probabilities" is basically an "impossibility." It is clearly an impossibility for the eye to be the product of chance. Darwin also had a great difficulty in the face of this, and in a letter he even admitted, "I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over."315

In The Origin of Species, Darwin experienced a serious difficulty in the face of the eye's complexity. The only solution he found was in pointing to the simpler eye structure found in some creatures as the origin of the more complex eyes found in others. He claimed that more complex eyes evolved from simpler ones. However, this claim does not reflect the truth. Paleontology shows that living things emerged in the world with their exceedingly complex structures already intact. The oldest known system of sight is the trilobite eye. This 530-million-year-old compound eye structure, which we touched on in an earlier chapter, is an "optical marvel" which worked with a double lens system. This fact totally invalidates Darwin's assumption that complex eyes evolved from "primitive" eyes.

### The Irreducible Structure Of The "Primitive" Eye

It remains to be said that the organs described by Darwin as "primitive" eyes actually possess a complex and irreducible structure that can never be explained by chance. Even in its simplest form, for seeing to happen, some of a creature's cells need to become light-sensitive—that is, they need to possess the ability to transduce this sensitivity to light into electrical signals; a nerve network from these cells to the brain needs to emerge; and a visual center in the brain to evaluate the information has to be formed. It is senseless to propose that all of these things came about by chance, at the same time, and in the same living thing. In his book Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik (The Theory of Evolution and Bigotry), which he wrote to defend the theory of evolution, the evolutionist writer Cemal Yildirim admits this fact in this way:

A large number of mechanisms need to work together for sight: As well as the eye and the mechanisms inside it, we can mention the links between special centers in the brain and the eye. How did this complex system-creation come about? According to biologists, the first step in the emergence of the eye during the evolutionary process was taken with the appearance of a small, light-sensitive area on the skin of some primitive living things. But what advantage could such a minute development on its own confer on a living thing in natural selection? As well as this, there needs to be a visual center formed in the brain and a nerve system linked to it. As long as these rather complicated mechanisms are not linked to one another, then we cannot expect what we call "sight" to emerge. Darwin believed that variations emerged by chance. If that were the case, would not the appearance of all the many variations that sight requires in various places in the organism at the same time and their working together turn into a mystical puzzle?... However, a number of complementary changes working together in harmony and cooperation are needed for sight... Some molluscs' eyes have retina, cornea, and a lens of cellulose tissue just like ours. Now, how can we explain the evolutionary processes of these two very different types requiring a string of chance events just by natural selection? It is a matter for debate whether Darwinists have been able to provide a satisfactory answer to this question...316

This problem is so great from the evolutionist point of view that the closer we look at the details, the worse the quandary the theory finds itself in. One important "detail" which needs to be looked at is the claim about "the cell which came to be sensitive to light." Darwinists gloss this over by saying, "Sight may have started by a single cell becoming sensitive to light." But what kind of design is such a structure supposed to have had?

### The Chemistry Of Sight

In his book Darwin's Black Box, Michael Behe stresses that the structure of the living cell and all other biochemical systems were unknown "black boxes" for Darwin and his contemporaries. Darwin assumed that these black boxes possessed very simple structures and could have come about by chance. Now, however, modern biochemistry has opened up these black boxes and revealed the irreducibly complex structure of life. Behe states that Darwin's comments on the emergence of the eye seemed convincing because of the primitive level of nineteenth-century science:

Darwin persuaded much of the world that a modern eye evolved gradually from a simpler structure, but he did not even try to explain where his starting point—the relatively simple light-sensitive spot—came from. On the contrary, Darwin dismissed the question of the eye's ultimate origin... He had an excellent reason for declining the question: it was completely beyond nineteenth-century science. How the eye works—that is, what happens when a photon of light first hits the retina—simply could not be answered at that time.317

So, how does this system, which Darwin glossed over as a simple structure, actually work? How do the cells in the eye's retinal layer perceive the light rays that fall on them?

The answer to that question is rather complicated. When photons hit the cells of the retina they activate a chain action, rather like a domino effect. The first of these domino pieces is a molecule called "11-cis-retinal" that is sensitive to photons. When struck by a photon, this molecule changes shape, which in turn changes the shape of a protein called "rhodopsin" to which it is tightly bound. Rhodopsin then takes a form that enables it to stick to another resident protein in the cell called "transducin."

Prior to reacting with rhodopsin, transducin is bound to another molecule called GDP. When it connects with rhodopsin, transducin releases the GDP molecule and is linked to a new molecule called GTP. That is why the new complex consisting of the two proteins (rhodopsin and transducin) and a smaller molecule (GTP) is called "GTP-transducin-rhodopsin."

But the process has only just begun. The new GTP-transducin-rhodopsin complex can now very quickly bind to another protein resident in the cell called "phosphodiesterase." This enables the phosphodiesterase protein to cut yet another molecule resident in the cell, called cGMP. Since this process takes place in the millions of proteins in the cell, the cGMP concentration is suddenly decreased.

How does all this help with sight? The last element of this chain reaction supplies the answer. The fall in the cGMP amount affects the ion channels in the cell. The so-called ion channel is a structure composed of proteins that regulate the number of sodium ions within the cell. Under normal conditions, the ion channel allows sodium ions to flow into the cell while another molecule disposes of the excess ions to maintain a balance. When the number of cGMP molecules falls, so does the number of sodium ions. This leads to an imbalance of charge across the membrane, which stimulates the nerve cells connected to these cells, forming what we refer to as an "electrical impulse." Nerves carry the impulses to the brain and "seeing" happens there.318

In brief, a single photon hits a single cell, and through a series of chain reactions the cell produces an electrical impulse. This stimulus is modulated by the energy of the photon—that is, the brightness of the light. Another fascinating fact is that all of the processes described so far happen in no more than one thousandth of a second. As soon as this chain reaction is completed, other specialized proteins within the cells convert elements such as 11-cis-retinal, rhodopsin and transducin back to their original states. The eye is under a constant shower of photons, and the chain reactions within the eye's sensitive cells enable it to perceive each one of these.

The process of sight is actually a great deal more complicated than the outline presented here would indicate. However, even this brief overview is sufficient to demonstrate the extraordinary nature of the system. There is such a complex, finely calculated system inside the eye that it is nonsensical to claim that it could have come about by chance. The system possesses a totally irreducibly complex structure. If even one of the many molecular parts that enter into a chain reaction with each other were missing, or did not possess a suitable structure, then the system would not function at all.

It is clear that this system deals a heavy blow to Darwin's explanation of life by "chance." Michael Behe makes this comment on the chemistry of the eye and the theory of evolution:

Now that the black box of vision has been opened, it is no longer enough for an evolutionary explanation of that power to consider only the anatomical structures of whole eyes, as Darwin did in the nineteenth century (and as popularizers of evolution continue to do today). Each of the anatomical steps and structures that Darwin thought were so simple actually involves staggeringly complicated biochemical processes that cannot be papered over with rhetoric.319

The irreducibly complex structure of the eye not only definitively disproves the Darwinist theory, but also shows that life was created by the All-Wise and All-Powerful God.

### The Lobster Eye

There are many different types of eye in the living world. We are accustomed to the camera-type eye found in vertebrates. This structure works on the principle of the refraction of light, which falls onto the lens and is focused on a point behind the lens inside the interior of the eye.

However, the eyes possessed by other creatures work by very different methods. One example is the lobster. A lobster's eye works on a principle of reflection, rather than that of refraction.

The most outstanding characteristic of the lobster eye is its surface, which is composed of numerous squares. As shown in the picture, these squares are positioned most precisely. As one astronomer commented in Science: "The lobster is the most unrectangular animal I've ever seen. But under the microscope a lobster's eye looks like perfect graph paper."320

These well-arranged squares are in fact the ends of tiny square tubes forming a structure resembling a honeycomb. At first glance, the honeycomb appears to be made up of hexagons, although these are actually the front faces of hexagonal prisms. In the lobster's eye, there are the squares in place of hexagons.

Even more intriguing is that the sides of each one of these square tubes are like mirrors that reflect the incoming light. This reflected light is focused onto the retina flawlessly. The sides of the tubes inside the eye are lodged at such perfect angles that they all focus onto a single point.

The extraordinary nature of this system is quite indisputable. All of these perfect square tubes have a layer that works just like a mirror. Furthermore, each one of these cells is sited by means of precise geometrical alignments, so that they all focus the light at a single point.

Michael Land, a scientist and researcher at the University of Sussex in England, was the first to examine the lobster eye structure in detail. Land stated that the eye had a most surprising structure.321

It is obvious that the lobster eye presents a great difficulty for the theory of evolution. Most importantly, it exemplifies the concept of "irreducible complexity." If even one of its features—such as the facets of the eye, which are perfect squares, the mirrored sides of each unit, or the retina layer at the back—were eliminated, the eye could never function. Therefore, it is impossible to maintain that the eye evolved step-by-step. It is scientifically unjustifiable to argue that such a perfect structure as this could have come about haphazardly. It is quite clear that the lobster eye was created by God as a miraculous system.

One can find further traits in the lobster's eye that nullify the assertions of evolutionists. An interesting fact emerges when one looks at creatures with similar eye structures. The reflecting eye, of which the lobster's eye is one example, is found in only one group of crustaceans, the so-called long-bodied decapods. This family includes the lobsters, the prawns and shrimp.

The other members of the Crustacea class display "the refracting type eye structure," which works on completely different principles from those of the reflecting type. Here, the eye is made up of hundreds of cells like a honeycomb. Unlike the square cells in a lobster eye, these cells are either hexagonal or round. Furthermore, instead of reflecting light, small lenses in the cells refract the light onto the focus on the retina.

The majority of crustaceans have the refracting eye structure. According to evolutionist assumptions, all the creatures within the class Crustacea should have evolved from the same ancestor. Therefore, evolutionists claim that reflecting mirrored eye evolved from a refracting eye.

However, such reasoning is impossible, because both eye structures function perfectly within their own systems and have no room for any "transitional" phase. A crustacean would be left sightless and would be eliminated by natural selection if the refracting lens in its eye were to diminish and be replaced by reflecting mirrored surfaces.

It is, therefore, certain that both of these eye structures were designed and created separately. There is such superb geometric precision in these eyes that believing that they came into being by chance is simply ludicrous.

### Signs Of Creation In The Ear

Another interesting example of the irreducibly complex organs in living things is the human ear.

As is commonly known, the hearing process begins with vibrations in the air. These vibrations are enhanced in the external ear. Research has shown that that part of the external ear known as the concha works as a kind of megaphone, and sound waves are intensified in the external auditory canal. In this way, the volume of sound waves increases considerably.

Sound intensified in this way enters the external auditory canal. This is the area from the external ear to the ear drum. One interesting feature of the auditory canal, which is some three and a half centimeters long, is the wax it constantly secretes. This liquid contains an antiseptic property which keeps bacteria and insects out. Furthermore, the cells on the surface of the auditory canal are aligned in a spiral form directed towards the outside, so that the wax always flows towards the outside of the ear as it is secreted.

Sound vibrations which pass down the auditory canal in this way reach the ear drum. This membrane is so sensitive that it can even perceive vibrations on the molecular level. Thanks to the exquisite sensitivity of the ear drum, you can easily hear somebody whispering from yards away. Or you can hear the vibration set up as you slowly rub two fingers together. Another extraordinary feature of the ear drum is that after receiving a vibration it returns to its normal state. Calculations have revealed that, after perceiving the tiniest vibrations, the ear drum becomes motionless again within up to four thousandths of a second. If it did not become motionless again so quickly, every sound we hear would echo in our ears.

The ear drum amplifies the vibrations which come to it, and sends them on to the middle ear region. Here, there are three bones in an extremely sensitive equilibrium with each other. These three bones are known as the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup; their function is to amplify the vibrations that reach them from the ear drum.

But the middle ear also possesses a kind of "buffer," to reduce exceedingly high levels of sound. This feature is provided by two of the body's smallest muscles, which control the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones. These muscles enable exceptionally loud noises to be reduced before they reach the inner ear. Thanks to this mechanism, we hear sounds that are loud enough to shock the system at a reduced volume. These muscles are involuntary, and come into operation automatically, in such a way that even if we are asleep and there is a loud noise beside us, these muscles immediately contract and reduce the intensity of the vibration reaching the inner ear.

The middle ear, which possesses such a flawless design, needs to maintain an important equilibrium. The air pressure inside the middle ear has to be the same as that beyond the ear drum, in other words, the same as the atmospheric air pressure. But this balance has been thought of, and a canal between the middle ear and the outside world which allows an exchange of air has been built in. This canal is the Eustachean tube, a hollow tube running from the inner ear to the oral cavity.

### The Inner Ear

It will be seen that all we have examined so far consists of the vibrations in the outer and middle ear. The vibrations are constantly passed forward, but so far there is still nothing apart from a mechanical motion. In other words, there is as yet no sound.

The process whereby these mechanical motions begin to be turned into sound begins in the area known as the inner ear. In the inner ear is a spiral-shaped organ filled with a liquid. This organ is called the cochlea.

The last part of the middle ear is the stirrup bone, which is linked to the cochlea by a membrane. The mechanical vibrations in the middle ear are sent on to the liquid in the inner ear by this connection.

The vibrations which reach the liquid in the inner ear set up wave effects in the liquid. The inner walls of the cochlea are lined with small hair-like structures, called stereocilia, which are affected by this wave effect. These tiny hairs move strictly in accordance with the motion of the liquid. If a loud noise is emitted, then more hairs bend in a more powerful way. Every different frequency in the outside world sets up different effects in the hairs.

But what is the meaning of this movement of the hairs? What can the movement of the tiny hairs in the cochlea in the inner ear have to do with listening to a concert of classical music, recognizing a friend's voice, hearing the sound of a car, or distinguishing the millions of other kinds of sounds?

The answer is most interesting, and once more reveals the complexity of the design in the ear. Each of the tiny hairs covering the inner walls of the cochlea is actually a mechanism which lies on top of 16,000 hair cells. When these hairs sense a vibration, they move and push each other, just like dominos. This motion opens channels in the membranes of the cells lying beneath the hairs. And this allows the inflow of ions into the cells. When the hairs move in the opposite direction, these channels close again. Thus, this constant motion of the hairs causes constant changes in the chemical balance within the underlying cells, which in turn enables them to produce electrical signals. These electrical signals are forwarded to the brain by nerves, and the brain then processes them, turning them into sound.

Science has not been able to explain all the technical details of this system. While producing these electrical signals, the cells in the inner ear also manage to transmit the frequencies, strengths, and rhythms coming from the outside. This is such a complicated process that science has so far been unable to determine whether the frequency-distinguishing system takes place in the inner ear or in the brain.

At this point, there is an interesting fact we have to consider concerning the motion of the tiny hairs on the cells of the inner ear. Earlier, we said that the hairs waved back and forth, pushing each other like dominos. But usually the motion of these tiny hairs is very small. Research has shown that a hair motion of just by the width of an atom can be enough to set off the reaction in the cell. Experts who have studied the matter give a very interesting example to describe this sensitivity of these hairs: If we imagine a hair as being as tall as the Eiffel Tower, the effect on the cell attached to it begins with a motion equivalent to just 3 centimeters of the top of the tower.322

Just as interesting is the question of how often these tiny hairs can move in a second. This changes according to the frequency of the sound. As the frequency gets higher, the number of times these tiny hairs can move reaches unbelievable levels: for instance, a sound of a frequency of 20,000 causes these tiny hairs to move 20,000 times a second.

Everything we have examined so far has shown us that the ear possesses an extraordinary structure. On closer examination, it becomes evident that this structure is irreducibly complex, since, in order for hearing to happen, it is necessary for all the component parts of the auditory system to be present and in complete working order. Take away any one of these—for instance, the hammer bone in the middle ear—or damage its structure, and you will no longer be able to hear anything. In order for you to hear, such different elements as the ear drum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones, the inner ear membrane, the cochlea, the liquid inside the cochlea, the tiny hairs that transmit the vibrations from the liquid to the underlying sensory cells, the latter cells themselves, the nerve network running from them to the brain, and the hearing center in the brain must all exist in complete working order. The system cannot develop "by stages," because the intermediate stages would serve no purpose.

### Evolutionist Errors Regarding The Origin Of The Ear

The irreducibly complex system in the ear is something that evolutionists can never satisfactorily explain. When we look at the theories evolutionists occasionally propose, we are met by a facile and superficial logic. For example, the writer Veysel Atayman, who translated the book Im Anfang War der Wasserstoff (In the Beginning was Hydrogen), by the German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, into Turkish, and who has come to be regarded as an "evolution expert" by the Turkish media, sums up his "scientific" theory on the origin of the ear and the so-called evidence for it in this way:

Our hearing organ, the ear, emerged as a result of the evolution of the endoderm and exoderm layers, which we call the skin. One proof of this is that we feel low sounds in the skin of our stomachs!323

In other words, Atayman thinks that the ear evolved from the ordinary skin in other parts of our bodies, and sees our feeling low sounds in our skin as a proof of this.

Let us first take Atayman's "theory," and then the so-called "proof" he offers. We have just seen that the ear is a complex structure made up of dozens of different parts. To propose that this structure emerged with "the evolution of layers of skin" is, in a word, to build castles in the air. What mutation or natural selection effect could enable such an evolution to happen? Which part of the ear formed first? How could that part, the product of coincidence, have been chosen through natural selection even though it had no function? How did chance bring about all the sensitive mechanical balances in the ear: the ear drum, the hammer, anvil and stirrup bones, the muscles that control them, the inner ear, the cochlea, the liquid in it, the tiny hairs, the movement-sensitive cells, their nerve connections, etc.?

There is no answer to these questions. In fact, to suggest that all this complex structure is just "chance" is actually an attack on human intelligence. However, in Michael Denton's words, to the Darwinist "the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt - the paradigm takes precedence!"324

Beyond the mechanisms of natural selection and mutation, evolutionists really believe in a "magic wand" that brings about the most complex systems by chance.

The "proof" that Atayman supplies for this imaginary theory is even more interesting. He says, "Our feeling low sounds in our skin is proof." What we call sound actually consists of vibrations in the air. Since vibrations are a physical effect, of course they can be perceived by our sense of touch. For that reason it is quite normal that we should be able to feel high and low sounds physically. Furthermore, these sounds also affect bodies physically. The breaking of glass in a room under high intensities of sound is one example of this. The interesting thing is that the evolutionist writer Atayman should think that these effects are a proof of the evolution of the ear. The logic Atayman employs is the following: "The ear perceives sound waves, our skin is affected by these vibrations, therefore, the ear evolved from the skin." Following Atayman's logic, one could also say, "The ear perceives sound waves, glass is also affected by these, therefore the ear evolved from glass." Once one has left the bounds of reason, there is no "theory" that cannot be proposed.

Other scenarios that evolutionists put forward regarding the origin of the ear are surprisingly inconsistent. Evolutionists claim that all mammals, including human beings, evolved from reptiles. But, as we saw earlier, reptiles' ear structures are very different from those of mammals. All mammals possess the middle ear structure made up of the three bones that have just been described, whereas there is only one bone in the middle ear of all reptiles. In response to this, evolutionists claim that four separate bones in the jaws of reptiles changed place by chance and "migrated" to the middle ear, and that again by chance they took on just the right shape to turn into the anvil and stirrup bones. According to this imaginary scenario, the single bone in reptiles' middle ears changed shape and turned into the hammer bone, and the exceedingly sensitive equilibrium between the three bones in the middle ear was established by chance.325

This fantastical claim, based on no scientific discovery at all (it corresponds to nothing in the fossil record), is exceedingly self-contradictory. The most important point here is that such an imaginary change would leave a creature deaf. Naturally, a living thing cannot continue hearing if its jaw bones slowly start entering its inner ear. Such a species would be at a disadvantage compared to other living things and would be eliminated, according to what evolutionists themselves believe.

On the other hand, a living thing whose jaw bones were moving towards its ear would end up with a defective jaw. Such a creature's ability to chew would greatly decrease, and even disappear totally. This, too, would disadvantage the creature, and result in its elimination.

In short, the results which emerge when one examines the structure of ears and their origins clearly invalidate evolutionist assumptions. The Grolier Encyclopedia, an evolutionist source, makes the admission that "the origin of the ear is shrouded in uncertainty."326 Actually, anyone who studies the system in the ear with common sense can easily see that it is the product of God's magnificent creation.

### The Reproduction Of Rheobatrachus Silus

Irreducible complexity is not a feature that we only see at the biochemical level or in complicated organs. Many biological systems possessed by living things are irreducibly complex, and invalidate the theory of evolution for that reason. The extraordinary reproductive method of Rheobatrachus silus, a species of frog living in Australia, is an example of this.

The females of this species use a fascinating method to protect their eggs after fertilization. They swallow them. The tadpoles remain and grow in the stomach for the first six weeks after they hatch. How is it possible that they can remain in their mothers' stomach that long without being digested?

A flawless system has been created to enable them to do so. First, the female gives up eating and drinking for those six weeks, which means the stomach is reserved solely for the tadpoles. However, another danger is the regular release of hydrochloric acid and pepsin in the stomach. These chemicals would normally quickly kill the offspring. However, this is prevented by a very special measure. The fluids in the stomach of the mother are neutralized by the hormonelike substance prostaglandin E2, which is secreted first by the egg capsules and then by the tadpoles. Hence, the offspring grow healthily, even though they are swimming in a pool of acid.

How do the tadpoles feed inside the empty stomach? The solution to this has been provided, too. The eggs of this species are significantly larger than those of others, as they contain a yolk very rich in proteins, sufficient to feed the tadpoles for six weeks. The time of birth is arrangedperfectly, as well. The oesophagus of the female frog dilates during birth, like the dilation in mammals during delivery. Once the young have emerged, the oesophagus and the stomach both return to normal, and the female starts feeding again.327

The miraculous reproduction system of Rheobatrachus silus explicitly invalidates the theory of evolution, since the whole system is irreducibly complex. Every step has to take place fully in order for the frogs to survive. The mother has to swallow the eggs, and has to stop feeding completely for six weeks. The eggs have to release a hormonelike substance to neutralize stomach acids. The addition of the extra protein-rich yolk to the egg is another necessity. The widening of the female's oesophagus cannot be coincidental. If all these things failed to happen in the requisite sequence, the froglets would not survive, and the species would face extinction.

Therefore, this system cannot have developed step-by-step, as asserted by the theory of evolution. The species has existed with this entire system intact since its first member came into existence. Another way of putting it is, they were created.

### Conclusion

In this section we have only examined a few examples of the concept of irreducible complexity. In fact, most organs and systems in living things possess the feature. On the biochemical level in particular, systems function by the working together of a number of independent parts, and cannot by any means be reduced to further simplicity. This fact invalidates Darwinism, which tries to account for the marvelous features of life by coincidental processes. Darwin said that "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." Today, modern biology has revealed countless examples of this. One can only conclude, then, that Darwinism has "absolutely" broken down.

Materialist philosophy lies at the basis of the theory of evolution. Materialism rests on the supposition that everything that exists is matter. According to this philosophy, matter has existed since eternity, will continue to exist forever, and there is nothing but matter. In order to provide support for their claim, materialists use a logic called "reductionism." This is the idea that things which are not observable can also be explained by material causes.

To make matters clearer, let us take the example of the human mind. It is evident that the mind cannot be touched or seen. Moreover, it has no center in the human brain. This situation unavoidably leads us to the conclusion that mind is a concept beyond matter. Therefore, the being which we refer to as "I," who thinks, loves, fears, worries, and feels pleasure or pain, is not a material being in the same way as a sofa, a table or a stone.

## Information Theory And The End Of Materialism

Materialists, however, claim that mind is "reducible to matter." According to the materialist claim, thinking, loving, worrying and all our mental activities are nothing but chemical reactions taking place between the atoms in the brain. Loving someone is a chemical reaction in some cells in our brain, and fear is another. The famous materialist philosopher Karl Vogt is notorious for his assertion that "the brain secretes thought just as the liver secretes bile."328 Bile, however, is matter, whereas there is no evidence that thought is.

Reductionism is a logical deduction. However, a logical deduction can be based on solid grounds or on shaky ones. For this reason, the question we need to ask is: What happens when reductionism is compared to scientific data?

Nineteenth-century materialist scientists and thinkers thought that the answer would be that science verifies reductionism. Twentieth-century science, however, has revealed a very different picture.

One of the most salient feature of this picture is "information," which is present in nature and can never be reduced to matter.

### The Difference Between Matter And Information

We earlier mentioned that there is incredibly comprehensive information contained in the DNA of living things. Something as small as a hundred thousandth of a millimeter across contains a sort of "data bank" that specifies all the physical details of the body of a living thing. Moreover, the body also contains a system that reads this information, interprets it and carries out "production" in line with it. In all living cells, the information in the DNA is "read" by various enzymes, and proteins are produced. This system makes possible the production of millions of proteins every second, of just the required type for just the places where they are needed in our bodies. In this way, dead eye cells are replaced by living ones, and old blood cells by new ones.

At this point, let us consider the claim of materialism: Is it possible that the information in DNA could be reduced to matter, as materialists suggest? Or, in other words, can it be accepted that DNA is merely a collection of matter, and the information it contains came about as a result of the random interactions of such pieces of matter?

All the scientific research, experiments and observations carried out in the twentieth century show that the answer to this question is a definite "No." The director of the German Federal Physics and Technology Institute, Prof. Werner Gitt, has this to say on the issue:

A coding system always entails a nonmaterial intellectual process. A physical matter cannot produce an information code. All experiences show that every piece of creative information represents some mental effort and can be traced to a personal idea-giver who exercised his own free will, and who is endowed with an intelligent mind.... There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter...329

Werner Gitt's words summarize the conclusions of "information theory," which has been developed in the last 50 years, and which is accepted as a part of thermodynamics. Information theory investigates the origin and nature of the information in the universe. The conclusion reached by information theoreticians as a result of long studies is that "Information is something different from matter. It can never be reduced to matter. The origin of information and physical matter must be investigated separately."

For instance, let us think of the source of a book. A book consists of paper, ink, and the information it contains. Paper and ink are material elements. Their source is again matter: Paper is made of cellulose, and ink of various chemicals. However, the information in the book is nonmaterial, and cannot have a material source. The source of the information in each book is the mind of the person who wrote it.

Moreover, this mind determines how the paper and ink will be used. A book initially forms in the mind of the writer. The writer builds a chain of logic in his mind, and orders his sentences. As a second step, he puts them into material form, which is to say that he translates the information in his mind into letters, using a pen, a typewriter or a computer. Later, these letters are printed in a publishing house, and take the shape of a book made up of paper and ink.

We can therefore state this general conclusion: If physical matter contains information, then there is a Mind possessing superior knowledge that designed that matter. It is the Almighty God Who created the perfect design in the entire universe.

### The Origin Of The Information In Nature

When we apply this scientific definition of information to nature, a very important result ensues. This is because nature overflows with an immense body of information (as, for example, in the case of DNA), and since this information cannot be reduced to matter, it therefore comes from a source beyond matter.

One of the foremost advocates of the theory of evolution, George C. Williams, admits this reality, which most materialists and evolutionists are reluctant to see. Williams has strongly defended materialism for years, but in an article he wrote in 1995, he states the incorrectness of the materialist (reductionist) approach which holds that everything is matter:

Evolutionary biologists have failed to realize that they work with two more or less incommensurable domains: that of information and that of matter... These two domains will never be brought together in any kind of the sense usually implied by the term "reductionism." ...The gene is a package of information, not an object... In biology, when you're talking about things like genes and genotypes and gene pools, you're talking about information, not physical objective reality... This dearth of shared descriptors makes matter and information two separate domains of existence, which have to be discussed separately, in their own terms.330

Therefore, contrary to the supposition of materialists, the source of the information in nature cannot be matter itself. The source of information is not matter but a superior Wisdom beyond matter. This Wisdom existed prior to matter. The possessor of this Wisdom is God, the Lord of all the Worlds. Matter was brought into existence, given form, and organized by Him.

Gerald Schroeder, an MIT-trained Israeli scientist who worked in physics and biology and authored The Science of God, makes a number of important comments on this subject. In his more recent book, Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, Schroeder sets out the conclusion revealed by such branches of science as molecular biology and quantum physics:

A single consciousness, a universal wisdom, pervades the universe. The discoveries of science, those that search the quantum nature of subatomic matter, have moved us to the brink of a startling realization: all existence is the expression of this wisdom. In the laboratories we experience it as information that first physically articulated as energy and then condensed into the form of matter. Every particle, every being, from atom to human, appears to represent a level of information, of wisdom.331

According to Schroeder, the contemporary scientific conclusions have enabled science and theology to agree on a common point. That is the fact of creation. Science has now reached the point of discovering this fact which the Divine religions have been teaching for thousands of years.

### Materialist Admissions

We have already described how one of the fundamental principles that make up life is "knowledge," and it is clear that this knowledge proves the existence of an intelligent Creator. The theory of evolution, which tries to account for life as being the result of coincidences in a purely material world, and the materialist philosophy it is based on, are quite helpless in the face of this reality.

When we look at evolutionists' writings, we sometimes see that this helplessness is openly admitted. One forthright authority on this subject is the well-known French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé. He is a materialist and an evolutionist, although he sometimes openly admits the quandaries Darwinist theory faces. According to Grassé, the most important truth which invalidates the Darwinist account is the knowledge that gives rise to life:

Any living being possesses an enormous amount of "intelligence," very much more than is necessary to build the most magnificent of cathedrals. Today, this "intelligence" is called information, but it is still the same thing. It is not programmed as in a computer, but rather it is condensed on a molecular scale in the chromosomal DNA or in that of every other organelle in each cell. This "intelligence" is the sine qua non of life. Where does it come from?... This is a problem that concerns both biologists and philosophers, and, at present, science seems incapable of solving it.332

The reason why Pierre-Paul Grassé says, "Science seems incapable of solving it," is that he does not want any nonmaterialist explanation to be thought of as "scientific." However, science itself invalidates the hypotheses of materialist philosophy, and proves the existence of a Creator. Grassé and other materialist "scientists" either ignore this reality, or else say, "Science does not explain this." They do this because they are materialists first and scientists second, and they continue to believe in materialism, even if science demonstrates the exact opposite.

For this reason, in order to possess a correct scientific attitude, one has to distinguish between science and materialist philosophy.

## Distinguishing Between Science and Materialism

The information we have considered throughout this book has shown us that the theory of evolution has no scientific basis, and that, on the contrary, evolutionist claims conflict with scientific facts. In other words, the force that keeps evolution alive is not science. Evolution may be maintained by some "scientists," but behind it there is another influence at work.

This other influence is materialist philosophy. The theory of evolution is simply materialist philosophy applied to nature, and those who support that philosophy do so despite the scientific evidence.

This relationship between materialism and the theory of evolution is accepted by "authorities" on these concepts. For example, the discovery of Darwin was described by Leon Trotsky as "the highest triumph of the dialectic in the whole field of organic matter."333

The evolutionary biologist Douglas Futuyma writes, "Together with Marx's materialist theory of history and society.... Darwin hewed the final planks of the platform of mechanism and materialism."334 And the evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould says, "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."335

Materialist philosophy is one of the oldest beliefs in the world, and assumes the absolute and exclusive existence of matter as its basic principle. According to this view, matter has always existed, and everything that exists consists of matter. Materialism denies the evident existence of a Creator.

So the question becomes one of why the materialist point of view is false. One method of testing whether a philosophy is true or false is to investigate the claims it makes about science by using scientific methods. For instance, a philosopher in the tenth century could have claimed that there was a divine tree on the surface of the moon and that all living things actually grew on the branches of this huge tree like fruit, and then fell off onto the earth. Some people might have found this philosophy attractive and believed in it. But in the twentyfirst century, at a time when man has managed to walk on the moon, it is no longer possible to seriously hold such a belief. Whether such a tree exists there or not can be determined by scientific methods, that is, by observation and experiment.

We can therefore investigate by means of scientific methods the materialist claim that matter has existed for all eternity and that this matter can organize itself without a supramaterial Creator and cause life to begin. When we do this, we see that materialism has already collapsed, because the idea that matter has existed since the beginning of time has been overthrown by the Big Bang theory which shows that the universe was created from nothingness. The claim that matter organized itself and created life is the claim that we call the theory of evolution—which this book has been examining—and which has been shown to have collapsed.

However, if someone is determined to believe in materialism and puts his devotion to materialist philosophy before everything else, then he will act differently. If he is a materialist first and a scientist second, he will not abandon materialism when he sees that evolution is disproved by science. On the contrary, he will attempt to uphold and defend materialism by trying to support evolution, no matter what. This is exactly the predicament that evolutionists defending the theory of evolution find themselves in today.

Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "a materialist first and a scientist second" in these words:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.336 The term "a priori" that Lewontin uses here is quite important. This philosophical term refers to a presupposition not based on any experimental knowledge. A thought is "a priori" when you consider it to be correct and accept it as so even if there is no information available to confirm it. As the evolutionist Lewontin frankly states, materialism is an "a priori" commitment for evolutionists, who then try to adapt science to this preconception. Since materialism definitely necessitates denying the existence of a Creator, they embrace the only alternative they have to hand, which is the theory of evolution. It does not matter to such scientists that evolution has been belied by scientific facts, because they have accepted it "a priori" as true.

This prejudiced behavior leads evolutionists to a belief that "unconscious matter composed itself," which is contrary not only to science, but also to reason. The concept of "the self-organization of matter," which we examined in an earlier chapter, is an expression of this.

Evolutionist propaganda, which we constantly come across in the Western media and in well-known and "esteemed" science magazines, is the outcome of this ideological necessity. Since evolution is considered to be indispensable, it has been turned into a sacred cow by the circles that set the standards of science.

Some scientists find themselves in a position where they are forced to defend this far-fetched theory, or at least avoid uttering any word against it, in order to maintain their reputations. Academics in Western countries have to have articles published in certain scientific journals in order to attain and hold onto their professorships. All of the journals dealing with biology are under the control of evolutionists, and they do not allow any anti-evolutionist article to appear in them. Biologists, therefore, have to conduct their research under the domination of this theory. They, too, are part of the materialist order, which regards evolution as an ideological necessity, which is why they blindly defend all the "impossible coincidences" we have been examining in this book.

### The Definition Of The "Scientific Cause"

The German biologist Hoimar von Ditfurth, a prominent evolutionist, is a good example of this bigoted materialist understanding. After Ditfurth cites an example of the extremely complex composition of life, this is what he says concerning the question of whether it could have emerged by chance or not:

Is such a harmony that emerged only out of coincidences possible in reality? This is the basic question of the whole of biological evolution. ...Critically speaking, we can say that somebody who accepts the modern science of nature has no other alternative than to say "yes," because he aims to explain natural phenomena by means that are understandable and tries to derive them from the laws of nature without reverting to supernatural interference.337

Yes, as Ditfurth states, the materialist scientific approach adopts as its basic principle explaining life by denying "supernatural interference," i.e., creation. Once this principle is adopted, even the most impossible scenarios are easily accepted. It is possible to find examples of this dogmatic mentality in almost all evolutionist literature. Professor Ali Demirsoy, the well-known advocate of evolutionary theory in Turkey, is just one of many. According to Demirsoy, the probability of the coincidental formation of cytochrome-C, an essential protein for life, is "as unlikely as the possibility of a monkey writing the history of humanity on a typewriter without making any mistakes."338

There is no doubt that to accept such a possibility is actually to reject the basic principles of reason and common sense. Even one single correctly formed letter written on a page makes it certain that it was written by a person. When one sees a book of world history, it becomes even more certain that the book has been written by an author. No logical person would agree that the letters in such a huge book could have been put together "by chance."

However, it is very interesting to see that the evolutionist scientist Professor Ali Demirsoy accepts this sort of irrational proposition:

In essence, the probability of the formation of a cytochrome-C sequence is as likely as zero. That is, if life requires a certain sequence, it can be said that this has a probability likely to be realized once in the whole universe. Otherwise some metaphysical powers beyond our definition must have acted in its formation. To accept the latter is not appropriate for the scientific cause. We thus have to look into the first hypothesis.339

Demirsoy writes that he prefers the impossible, in order not to have to accept supernatural forces—in other words, the existence of a Creator. However, the aim of science is not to avoid accepting the existence of supernatural forces. Science can get nowhere with such an aim. It should simply observe nature, free of all prejudices, and draw conclusions from these observations. If these results indicate that there is planning by a supernatural intelligence, which is the case in every corner of the universe, then science must accept the fact.

Under close examination, what they call the "scientific cause" is actually the materialist dogma that only matter exists and that all of nature can be explained by material processes. This is not a "scientific cause," or anything like it; it is just materialist philosophy. This philosophy hides behind such superficial words as "scientific cause" and obliges scientists to accept quite unscientific conclusions. Not surprisingly, when Demirsoy cites another subject—the origins of the mitochondria in the cell—he openly accepts chance as an explanation, even though it is "quite contrary to scientific thought":

The heart of the problem is how the mitochondria have acquired this feature, because attaining this feature by chance even by one individual, requires extreme probabilities that are incomprehensible... The enzymes providing respiration and functioning as a catalyst in each step in a different form make up the core of the mechanism. A cell has to contain this enzyme sequence completely, otherwise it is meaningless. Here, despite being contrary to biological thought, in order to avoid a more dogmatic explanation or speculation, we have to accept, though reluctantly, that all the respiration enzymes completely existed in the cell before the cell first came in contact with oxygen.340

The conclusion to be drawn from such pronouncements is that evolution is not a theory arrived at through scientific investigation. On the contrary, the form and substance of this theory were dictated by the requirements of materialistic philosophy. It then turned into a belief or dogma in spite of concrete scientific facts. Again, from evolutionist literature, we can clearly see that all of this effort has a "purpose"—a purpose that requires maintaining, at no matter what cost, that living things were not created.

### Coming To Terms With The Shocks

As we recently stressed, materialism is the belief that categorically rejects the existence of the nonmaterial (or the "supernatural"). Science, on the other hand, is under no obligation to accept such a dogma. The duty of science is to observe nature and produce results.

And science does reveal the fact that living things were created. This is something demonstrated by scientific discoveries. When we examine the fantastically complex structures in living things, we see that they possess such extraordinary features that they can never be accounted for by natural processes and coincidences. Every instance of extraordinary feature is evidence for an intelligence that brought it into being; therefore, we must conclude that life, too, was created by a power. This power belongs to a nonmaterial wisdom—the superior wisdom of the All-Powerful God, Who rules all of nature... In short, life and all living things were created. This is not a dogmatic belief like materialism, but a plain fact revealed by scientific observation and experiment.

We see that this fact comes as a terrible shock for scientists who are used to believing in materialism, and that materialism is a science. See how this shock is described by Michael Behe, one of the most important scientists to stand against the theory of evolution in the world today:

The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.341

Mankind has been freed from such dogmas as that the world is flat, or that it is the center of the universe. And it is now being freed from the materialist and evolutionist dogma that life came about by itself.

The duty that befalls a true scientist in this respect, is to do away with materialist dogma and evaluate the origin of life and living things with the honesty and objectivity befitting a real scientist. A real scientist must come to terms with the "shock," and not tie himself to outdated nineteenth-century dogmas and defend impossible scenarios.

## Conclusion

Throughout this book we have examined the scientific evidence for the origin of life, and what emerges clearly demonstrates that life was not the result of chance, as claimed by Darwinism and materialist philosophy in general. Living species could not have evolved from one another through a string of coincidences. On the contrary, all living things were independently and flawlessly created. As the twenty-first century dawns, science offers but one answer to the question of the origin of life: Creation.

The important thing is that science has confirmed the truth which religion has been witness to from the dawn of history to the present day. God created the universe and all the living things in it from nothing. And it was God Who created man from nothing and blessed him with countless characteristics. This truth has been sent down to man since the dawn of time by prophets, and revealed in holy books. Every prophet has told the communities to whom he was sent that God created man and all living things. The Bible and the Qur'an all tell of the news of creation in the same way.

In the Qur'an, God announces in a number of verses that it was He Who created the universe and all the living things in it from nothing, and flawlessly ordered them. In this verse, it is declared that creation belongs to Him:

Your Lord is God, Who created the heavens and the earth in six days and then settled Himself firmly on the Throne. He covers the day with the night, each pursuing the other urgently; and the sun and moon and stars are subservient to His command. Both creation and command belongs to Him. Blessed be God, the Lord of all the worlds. (Surat al-A'raf: 54)

Just as God created everything that exists, so he created the world we live in today, and made it capable of supporting life. This fact is revealed in certain verses:

As for the earth, We stretched it out and cast firmly embedded mountains in it and made everything grow in due proportion on it. And We put livelihoods in it both for you and for those you do not provide for. (Surat al-Hijr: 19-20)

And the earth:how We stretched it out and cast firmly embedded mountains onto it and caused luxuriant plants of every kind to grow in it. (Surah Qaf: 7-8)

The above verses announce that all plants were created by God. All plants, known and unknown, all trees, grasses, fruit, flowers, seaweed and vegetables were created by God.

And the same thing applies to animals. All of the millions of different animal species that live, or have ever lived, on earth, were created by God. Fish, reptiles, birds, mammals, horses, giraffes, squirrels, deer, sparrows, eagles, dinosaurs, whales, and peacocks were all created from nothing by God, the Lord of infinite art and knowledge. God's creation of the different species of living things is mentioned in the verses:

God created every animal from water. Some of them go on their bellies, some of them on two legs, and some on four. God creates whatever He wills. God has power over all things. (Surat an-Nur: 45)

And He created livestock. There is warmth for you in them, and various uses and some you eat. (Surat an-Nahl: 5)

And God created man in exactly the same way. It is revealed in the Qur'an that Adam, the first man, was created from mud, and then all subsequent people came into existence from each other by a simple liquid (sperm). Furthermore, man had a soul breathed into him, unlike all the other species in the world. The Qur'an reveals this about the truth of the creation of man:

He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay;then produced his seed from an extract of base fluid. (Surat as-Sajda: 7-9)

### Man's Duty

As we made clear at the start, science has once again revealed the truth of creation, as handed down in the Qur'an. Scientific discoveries show that living things possess extraordinary design, and that they were brought into existence by a superior intelligence and knowledge. Biological observations show that one living species cannot turn into another, and that for that reason, if one could go back in time, one would eventually come across, for each species, the first individuals that ever existed and that were created from nothing. For example, since eagles have always been eagles, if we could go back in time, we would arrive at the first pair, or group, of eagles who were created from nothing. In fact, the fossil record confirms this, and shows that different living species suddenly emerged with all their particular, individual features. These species may have been created at different points in time and settled in different parts of the world, but this all happened through the will of God.

In short, science reveals the proof we have considered that living things were all created by God.

However, science goes no further than that. It is the Qur'an, the holy book that has come down to us from God, that introduces us to the essence of God and is the sole source of truth on every subject that tells us why we were created and what the reason for our lives is.

The Qur'an says that the reason for our creation is so that we might believe in God, our Lord, and serve Him. In one verse, He says, "I only created jinn and man to worship me." (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 56) The duty falling to everyone who grasps the truth of creation is to live in accordance with that verse, and to say, "Why indeed should I not worship Him Who brought me into being, Him to Whom you will be returned?" (Surah Ya Sin: 22), like every believer, as described in the Qur'an.

As for those who still deny God and the truth of creation, despite all the evidence before their eyes, their minds have been conquered by their own pride. One of God's holy verses describes how helpless and powerless these individuals really are:

Mankind! an example has been made, so listen to it carefully. Those whom you call upon besides God are not even able to create a single fly, even if they were to join together to do it. And if a fly steals something from them, they cannot get it back. How feeble are both the seeker and the sought! (Surat al-Hajj: 73)

Glory be to You! We have no knowledge except what You have taught us.You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Baqara:32)

## Notes

1 H. S. Lipson, "A Physicist's View of Darwin's Theory", Evolution Trends in Plants, vol. 2, no. 1, 1988, p. 6.

2 Sidney Fox, Klaus Dose, Molecular Evolution and The Origin of Life, W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1972, p. 4.

3 Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, Abacus, Sphere Books, London, 1984, pp. 36, 41-42.

4 B.E. Bishop, "Mendel's Opposition to Evolution and to Darwin," Journal of Heredity, 87, 1996, pp. 205-213; also please see. L.A. Callender, "Gregor Mendel: An Opponent of Descent with Modification," History of Science, 26, 1988, pp. 41-75.

5 Lee Spetner, Not By Chance!, The Judaica Press, New York, 1997, p. 20.

6 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985.

7 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, The Modern Library, New York, p. 127. (emphasis added)

8 V. C. Wynne-Edwards, "Self Regulating Systems in Populations of Animals, Science, vol. 147, 26 March 1965, pp. 1543-1548; V. C. Wynne-Edwards, Evolution Through Group Selection, London, 1986.

9 A. D. Bradshaw, "Evolutionary significance of phenotypic plasticity in plants," Advances in Genetics, vol. 13, pp. 115-155; cited in Lee Spetner, Not By Chance!: Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution, The Judaica Press, Inc., New York, 1997, pp. 16-17.

10 Andy Coghlan "Suicide Squad", New Scientist, 10 July 1999.

11 Colin Patterson, "Cladistics", Interview by Brian Leek, interviewer Peter Franz, March 4, 1982, BBC.(emphasis added)

12 Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial, Intervarsity Press, Illinois, 1993, p. 27.

13 For more detailed information about Industrial Melanism, please see Phillip Johnson, Darwin on Trial, InterVarsity Press, 2nd. Ed., Washington D.C., p. 26.

14 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong, Regnery Publishing, Washington, 2000, pp. 149-150.

15 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong, Regnery Publishing, Washington, 2000, pp. 141-151.

16 Jerry Coyne, "Not Black and White", a review of Michael Majerus's Melanism: Evolution in Action, Nature, 396, 1988, pp. 35-36.

17 Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monster", Natural History, vol. 86, June-July 1977, p. 28.

18 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189.(emphasis added)

19 B. G. Ranganathan, Origins?, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1988. (emphasis added)

20 Warren Weaver et al., "Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation", Science, vol. 123, June 29, 1956, p. 1159. (emphasis added)

21 Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, Abacus, Sphere Books, London, 1984, p. 48.

22 Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution, River Publishing, London, 1984, p. 70. (emphasis added)

23 David A. Demick, "The Blind Gunman", Impact, no. 308, February 1999. (emphasis added)

24 Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, pp. 97, 98.

25 Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 88. (emphasis added)

26 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books Ltd., London, 1985, p. 149.

27 Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 87. (emphasis added)

28 Stephen C. Meyer, P. A. Nelson, and Paul Chien, The Cambrian Explosion: Biology's Big Bang, 2001, p. 2.

29 Richard Monastersky, "Mysteries of the Orient," Discover, April 1993, p. 40. (emphasis added)

30 Richard Monastersky, "Mysteries of the Orient," Discover, April 1993, p. 40.

31 Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, W. W. Norton, London, 1986, p. 229. (emphasis added)

32 Phillip E. Johnson, "Darwinism's Rules of Reasoning," in Darwinism: Science or Philosophy by Buell Hearn, Foundation for Thought and Ethics, 1994, p. 12. (emphasis added)

33 R. Lewin, Science, vol. 241, 15 July 1988, p. 291. (emphasis added)

34 Gregory A. Wray, "The Grand Scheme of Life," Review of The Crucible Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals by Simon Conway Morris, Trends in Genetics, February 1999, vol. 15, no. 2.

35 Richard Fortey, "The Cambrian Explosion Exploded?," Science, vol. 293, no. 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439.

36 Richard Fortey, "The Cambrian Explosion Exploded?," Science, vol. 293, no. 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439.

37 Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial, Pantheon Books, New York, 1983, p. 197.

38 Jeffrey S. Levinton, "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 267, November 1992, p. 84.

39 "The New Animal Phylogeny: Reliability And Implications", Proc. of Nat. Aca. of Sci., 25 April 2000, vol. 97, no. 9, pp. 4453-4456.

40 "The New Animal Phylogeny: Reliability And Implications, Proc. of Nat. Aca. of Sci., 25 April 2000, vol. 97, no. 9, pp. 4453-4456.

41 David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology," Bulletin, Field Museum of Natural History, vol. 50, January 1979, p. 24.

42 Richard Fortey, "The Cambrian Explosion Exploded?," Science, vol. 293, no. 5529, 20 July 2001, pp. 438-439.

43 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 1859, p. 313-314.

44 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 302.

45 Stefan Bengston, Nature, vol. 345, 1990, p. 765. (emphasis added)

46 R. L. Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Physiology of Seeing, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 31.

47 Douglas Palmer, The Atlas of the Prehistoric World, Discovery Channel, Marshall Publishing, London, 1999, p. 66.

48 Mustafa Kuru, Omurgal? Hayvanlar (Vertebrates), Gazi University Publications, 5th ed., Ankara, 1996, p. 21. (emphasis added)

49 Mustafa Kuru, Omurgal? Hayvanlar (Vertebrates), Gazi University Publications, 5th ed., Ankara, 1996, p. 27.

50 Douglas Palmer, The Atlas of the Prehistoric World, Discovery Channel, Marshall Publishing, London, 1999, p. 64.

51 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 296.

52 Gerald T. Todd, "Evolution of the Lung and the Origin of Bony Fishes: A Casual Relationship," American Zoologist, vol. 26, no. 4, 1980, p. 757.

53 Ali Demirsoy, Kal?t?m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, pp. 495-496.

54 Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Going Beyond the Fossil Record to A Revolutionary Understanding of the History of Life, The Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster Inc., 1999, p. 7.

55 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 230.

56 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 301.

57 This time frame is also given by Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 304.

58 Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Going Beyond the Fossil Record to A Revolutionary Understanding of the History of Life, The Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1999, p. 54.

59 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 292-93.

60 Jean-Jacques Hublin, The Hamlyn Encyclopædia of Prehistoric Animals, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., New York, 1984, p. 120.

61 www.ksu.edu/fishecology/relict.htm

62 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science

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63 P. L. Forey, Nature, vol. 336, 1988, p. 727.

64 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, Adler and Adler, 1986, pp. 218-219.

65 Robert L. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, W. H. Freeman and Co., New York, 1988, p. 198.

66 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 296-97.

67 Stephen Jay Gould, "Eight (or Fewer) Little Piggies," Natural History, vol. 100, no. 1, January 1991, p. 25. (emphasis added)

68 Duane Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No!, Institute For Creation Research, California, 1995, p. 97.

69 Robert Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, p. 235.

70 Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, "Turtle – Origin and Evolution."

71 Robert L. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, p. 207.

72 Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No, ICR, San Diego, 1998, p. 103.

73 Robert L. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. p. 336. (emphasis added)

74 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 296-97.

75 E. H. Colbert, M. Morales, Evolution of the Vertebrates, John Wiley and Sons, 1991, p. 193. (emphasis added)

76 A. S Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology, 3rd ed., Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1966, p. 120. (emphasis added)

77 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 296-97.

78 John Ostrom, "Bird Flight: How Did It Begin?," American Scientist, January-February 1979, vol. 67, p. 47.

79 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 314.

80 Pat Shipman, "Birds Do It... Did Dinosaurs?," New Scientist, 1 February 1997, p. 28.

81 Pat Shipman, "Birds Do It... Did Dinosaurs?," New Scientist, 1 February 1997, p. 28.

82 Duane T. Gish, Dinosaurs by Design, Master Books, AR, 1996, pp. 65-66.

83 Michael Denton, A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, 1986, pp. 210-211.

84 Michael Denton, A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, 1986, pp. 211-212. (emphasis added)

85 J. A. Ruben, T. D. Jones, N. R. Geist, and W. J. Hillenius, "Lung Structure And Ventilation in Theropod Dinosaurs and Early Birds," Science, vol. 278, p. 1267.

86Michael J. Denton, Nature's Destiny, Free Press, New York, 1998, p. 361.

87 Michael J. Denton, Nature's Destiny, Free Press, New York, 1998, pp. 361-62.

88 Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover, 1985, pp. 349-350. (emphasis added)

89 A. H. Brush, "On the Origin of Feathers," Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 9, 1996, p. 132.

90 A. H. Brush, "On the Origin of Feathers," Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 9, 1996, p. 131.

91 A. H. Brush, "On the Origin of Feathers," Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 9, 1996, p. 133.

92 A. H. Brush, "On the Origin of Feathers," Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 9, 1996, p. 131.

93 Alan Feduccia, "On Why Dinosaurs Lacked Feathers," The Beginning of Birds, Eichstatt, West Germany: Jura Museum, 1985, p. 76. (emphasis added)

94 Ernst Mayr, Systematics and the Origin of Species, Dover, New York, 1964, p. 296.

95 Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Harvard Common Press, 1971, p. 131.

96 Nature, vol. 382, August, 1, 1996, p. 401.

97 Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1961, p. 310.

98 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 280-81.

99 L. D. Martin, J. D. Stewart, K. N. Whetstone, The Auk, vol. 97, 1980, p. 86.

100 L. D. Martin, J. D. Stewart, K. N. Whetstone, The Auk, vol. 97, 1980, p. 86; L. D. Martin, "Origins of the Higher Groups of Tetrapods", Ithaca, Comstock Publishing Association, New York, 1991, pp. 485-540.

101 S. Tarsitano, M. K. Hecht, Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society, vol. 69, 1980, p. 149; A. D. Walker, Geological Magazine, vol. 117, 1980, p. 595.

102 A.D. Walker, as described in Peter Dodson, "International Archaeopteryx Conference," Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 5(2):177, June 1985.

103 Richard Hinchliffe, "The Forward March of the Bird-Dinosaurs Halted?," Science, vol. 278, no. 5338, 24 October 1997, pp. 596-597.

104 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing, 2000, p. 117

105 Richard L. Deem, "Demise of the 'Birds are Dinosaurs' Theory,"

http://www.yfiles.com/dinobird2.html.

106 Pat Shipman, "Birds do it... Did Dinosaurs?," New Scientist, 1 February, 1997, p. 31.

107 "Old Bird," Discover, March 21, 1997.

108 "Old Bird," Discover, March 21, 1997.

109 Pat Shipman, "Birds Do It... Did Dinosaurs?," p. 28.

110 Ann Gibbons, "Plucking the Feathered Dinosaur," Science, vol. 278, no. 5341, 14 November 1997, pp. 1229 - 1230.

111 National Geographic, Vol. 196, No. 5, November 1999, "Feathers for T. Rex?"

112 Tim Friend, "Dinosaur-bird link smashed in fossil flap," USA Today, 25 January 2000

113 "Open Letter: Smithsonian decries National Geographic's "editorial propagandizing" of dinosaur-to-bird "evolution," http://www.trueorigin.org/ birdevoletter.asp

114 M. Kusinitz, Science World, 4 February, 1983, p. 19.

115 San Diego Union, New York Times Press Service, 29 May, 1983; W. A. Shear, Science, vol. 224, 1984, p. 494. (emphasis added)

116 R. J. Wootton, C. P. Ellington, "Biomechanics & the Origin of Insect Flight," Biomechanics in Evolution, ed. J. M. V. Rayner & R. J. Wootton, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, p. 99.

117 Robin J. Wootton, "The Mechanical Design of Insect Wings," Scientific American, vol. 263, November 1990, p. 120. (emphasis added)

118 Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 30. (emphasis added)

119 George Gamow, Martynas Ycas, Mr. Tompkins Inside Himself, The Viking Press, New York, 1967, p. 149.

120 Roger Lewin, "Bones of Mammals, Ancestors Fleshed Out," Science, vol. 212, June 26, 1981, p. 1492. (emphasis added)

121 George Gaylord Simpson, Life Before Man, Time-Life Books, New York, 1972, p. 42. (emphasis added)

122 R. Eric Lombard, "Review of Evolutionary Principles of the Mammalian Middle Ear, Gerald Fleischer," Evolution, vol. 33, December 1979, p. 1230.

123 George G., Simpson, Tempo and Mode in Evolution, Columbia University Press, New York, 1944, pp. 105, 107.

124 Boyce Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, November 5, 1980, p. 15. (emphasis added)

125 Niles Eldredge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Santee, CA, Master Books, 1988, p. 78. (emphasis added)

126 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New American Library, New York, 1982, pp. 16-17, 19.

127 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New American Library, New York, 1982, pp. 16-17, 19.

128 Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, Abacus, Sphere Books, London, 1984, p. 230. (emphasis added)

129 John E. Hill, James D Smith, Bats: A Natural History, British Museum of Natural History, London, 1984, p. 33. (emphasis added)

130 L. R. Godfrey, "Creationism and Gaps in the Fossil Record," Scientists Confront Creationism, W. W. Norton and Company, 1983, p. 199.

131 Jeff Hecht, "Branching Out," New Scientist, 10 October 1998, vol. 160, no. 2155, p. 14.

132 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p.329.

133 Ashby L. Camp, "The Overselling of Whale Evolution," Creation Matters, a newsletter published by the Creation Research Society, May/June 1998.

134 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 333.

135 Douglas H. Chadwick, "Evolution of Whales," National Geographic, November 2001, p. 73.

136 Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 329.

137 G. A. Mchedlidze, General Features of the Paleobiological Evolution of Cetacea, trans. from Russian (Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema, 1986), p. 91.

138 Douglas H. Chadwick, "Evolution of Whales," National Geographic, November 2001, p. 69.

139 Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York: Academic Press, 1977, p. 103.

140 B.J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover Publications Inc., 1985, p. 489.

141 Michel C. Milinkovitch, "Molecular phylogeny of cetaceans prompts revision of morphological transformations," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 10 August 1995, pp. 328-334.

142 Uwe George, "Darwinismus der Irrtum des Jahrhunderts," Geo, January 1984, pp. 100-102.

143 Victor B. Scheffer, "Exploring the Lives of Whales," National Geographic, Vol. 50, December 1976, p. 752.

144 Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial, Pantheon Books, New York, 1983, p. 197.

145 Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Sphere Books Limited, Barcelona, 1982, p. 43.

146 William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1984, pp. 150-153.

147 "Could science be brought to an end by scientists' belief that they have final answers or by society's reluctance to pay the bills?" Scientific American, December 1992, p. 20.

148 David Pilbeam, "Rearranging Our Family Tree," Human Nature, June 1978, p. 40.

149 C. C. Swisher III, W. J. Rink, S. C. Antón, H. P. Schwarcz, G. H. Curtis, A. Suprijo, Widiasmoro, "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia," Science, Volume 274, Number 5294, Issue of 13 Dec 1996, pp. 1870-1874; also see, Jeffrey Kluger, "Not So Extinct After All: The Primitive Homo Erectus May Have Survived Long Enough To Coexist With Modern Humans, Time, December 23, 1996

150 Solly Zuckerman, Beyond The Ivory Tower, Toplinger Publications, New York, 1970, pp. 75-94.

151 Charles E. Oxnard, "The Place of Australopithecines in Human Evolution: Grounds for Doubt," Nature, vol. 258, 4 December 1975, p. 389.

152 Isabelle Bourdial, "Adieu Lucy," Science et Vie, May 1999, no. 980, pp. 52-62. (emphasis added)

153 Holly Smith, American Journal of Physical Antropology, vol. 94, 1994, pp. 307-325. (emphasis added)

154 Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood & Frans Zonneveld, "Implications of Early Hominid Labyrinthine Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion," Nature, vol 369, 23 June 1994, p. 645

155 Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood & Frans Zonneveld, "Implications of Early Hominid Labyrinthine Morphology for Evolution of Human Bipedal Locomotion," Nature, vol 369, 23 June 1994, p. 648

156 Tim Bromage, "Faces From the Past," New Scientist, vol. 133, issue 1803, 11 January 1992, p. 41. (emphasis added)

157 J. E. Cronin, N. T. Boaz, C. B. Stringer, Y. Rak, "Tempo and Mode in Hominid Evolution," Nature, vol. 292, 1981, pp. 117.

158 C. L. Brace, H. Nelson, N. Korn, M. L. Brace, Atlas of Human Evolution, 2. b., Rinehart and Wilson, New York, 1979.

159 Alan Walker and Richard E.F. Leakey, "The Hominids of East Turkana", Scientific American, vol. 239 (2), August 1978, p. 54.

160 Bernard Wood, Mark Collard, "The Human Genus," Science, vol. 284, No 5411, 2 April 1999, pp. 65-71.

161 Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention: a creationist assessment of the human fossils, Baker Books, 1992, p. 83.

162 Boyce Rensberger, Washington Post, 19 October 1984, p. A11.

163 Richard Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Sphere Books, London, 1981, p. 116.

164 Marvin Lubenow, Bones of Contention: a creationist assessment of the human fossils, Baker Books, 1992. p. 136.

165 Pat Shipman, "Doubting Dmanisi," American Scientist, November- December 2000, p. 491

166 Erik Trinkaus, "Hard Times Among the Neanderthals," Natural History, vol. 87, December 1978, p. 10; R. L. Holloway, "The Neanderthal Brain: What Was Primitive," American Journal of Physical Anthropology Supplement, vol. 12, 1991, p. 94. (emphasis added)

167 "Neandertals Lived Harmoniously," The AAAS Science News Service, April 3, 1997.

168 Ralph Solecki, Shanidar, The First Flower People, Knopf, New York, 1971, p. 196; Paul G. Bahn and Jean Vertut, Images in the Ice, Windward, Leichester, 1988, p. 72.

169 D. Johanson, B. Edgar, From Lucy to Language, p. 99.

170 S. L. Kuhn, "Subsistence, Technology, and Adaptive Variation in Middle Paleolithic Italy," American Anthropologist, vol. 94, no. 2, March 1992, pp. 309-310.

171 Roger Lewin, The Origin of Modern Humans, Scientific American Library, New York, 1993, p. 131.

172 R.E.F. Leakey, A. Walker, "On the Status of Australopithecus afarensis", Science, vol. 207, issue 4435, 7 March 1980, p. 1103.

173 A. J. Kelso, Physical Antropology, 1st ed., J. B. Lipincott Co., New York, 1970, p. 221; M. D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, vol. 3, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971, p. 272.

174 S. J. Gould, Natural History, vol. 85, 1976, p. 30. (emphasis added)

175 Jeffrey Kluger, "Not So Extinct After All: The Primitive Homo Erectus May Have Survived Long Enough To Coexist With Modern Humans," Time, 23 December 1996.

176 John Noble Wilford, "3 Human Species Coexisted Eons Ago, New Data Suggest," The New York Times, 13 December 1996.

177 John Whitfield, "Oldest member of human family found," Nature, 11 July 2002.

178 D.L. Parsell, "Skull Fossil From Chad Forces Rethinking of Human Origins," National Geographic News, July 10, 2002.

179 John Whitfield, "Oldest member of human family found," Nature, 11 July 2002.

180 The Guardian, 11 July 2002

181 L. S. B. Leakey, The Origin of Homo Sapiens, ed. F. Borde, UNESCO, Paris, 1972, pp. 25-29; L. S. B. Leakey, By the Evidence, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1974.

182 Robert Kunzig, "The Face of An Ancestral Child", Discover, December 1997, pp. 97, 100. (emphasis added)

183 A. J. Kelso, Physical Anthropology, 1st Ed., 1970, p. 221; M.D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 272

184 Donald C. Johanson & M. A. Edey, Lucy, The Beginnings of Humankind, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1981, p. 250. (emphasis added)

185 "The Leakey Footprints: An Uncertain Path," Science News, vol. 115, 1979, p. 196.

186 Ian Anderson, "Who made the Laetoli footprints?" New Scientist, vol. 98, 12 May 1983, p. 373. (emphasis added)

187 Russell H. Tuttle, "The Pitted Pattern of Laetoli Feet," Natural History, vol. 99, March 1990, p. 64. (emphasis added)

188 Ruth Henke, "Aufrecht aus den Bäumen," Focus, vol. 39, 1996, p. 178.

189 Elaine Morgan, The Scars of Evolution, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994, p. 5.

190 Solly Zuckerman, Beyond The Ivory Tower, Toplinger Publications, New York, 1970, p. 19. (emphasis added)

191 Robert Locke, "Family Fights," Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999, pp. 36-39.

192 Robert Locke, "Family Fights," Discovering Archaeology, July/August 1999, pp. 36-39.

193 Henry Gee, In Search of Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, New York, The Free Press, 1999, pp. 126-127.

194 David R. Pilbeam, "Rearranging Our Family Tree," Human Nature, June 1978, p. 45. (emphasis added)

195 Earnest A. Hooton, Up From The Ape, McMillan, New York, 1931, p. 332. (emphasis added)

196 Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1980, p. 59.

197 Stephen Jay Gould, "Smith Woodward's Folly," New Scientist, 5 April 1979, p. 44.

198 Stephen Jay Gould, "Smith Woodward's Folly," New Scientist, 5 April 1979, p. 43. (emphasis added)

199 William K. Gregory, "Hesperopithecus Apparently Not An Ape Nor A Man," Science, vol. 66, issue 1720, 16 December 1927, p. 579.

200 Søren Løvtrup , Darwinism: The Refutation of A Myth, Croom Helm, New York, 1987, p. 422.

201 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, pp. 328, 342.

202 Charles Darwin, Life and Letter of Charles Darwin, vol. II, From Charles Darwin to J. Do Hooker, March 29, 1863

203 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, pp. 298-99.

204 "Hoyle on Evolution," Nature, vol. 294, November 12, 1981, p. 105.

205H. Blum, Time's Arrow and Evolution, 158 (3d ed. 1968), cited in W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, p. 304. (emphasis added)

206 W. Stokes, Essentials of Earth History, 186 (4th ed. 1942), cited in W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, p. 305.

207 J. D. Thomas, Evolution and Faith, ACU Press, Abilene, TX, 1988, pp. 81-82. (emphasis added)

208 Robert Shapiro, Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the Creation of Life on Earth, Summit Books, New York, 1986, p. 127.

209 Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1984, p. 148. (emphasis added)

210 Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1984, p. 130. (emphasis added)

211 Simpson, Sarah, "Life's First Scalding Steps," Science News, Jan. 9, 1999, 155(2):25.

212 Fabbri Britannica Bilim Ansiklopedisi (Fabbri Britannica Science Encyclopaedia), vol. 2, no. 22, p. 519.

213 Dawkins, Richard, Climbing Mount Improbable, W.W. Norton, New York, 1996, p. 283.

214 Alexander I. Oparin, Origin of Life, Dover Publications, New York, 1936, 1953 (reprint), p. 196.

215 Klaus Dose, "The Origin of Life: More Questions Than Answers," Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol. 13, no. 4, 1988, p. 348. (emphasis added)

216 Horgan, John, The End of Science, M. A. Addison-Wesley, 1996, p. 138. (emphasis added)

217 Jeffrey Bada, Earth, "Life's Crucible," February 1998, p. 40. (emphasis added)

218 Richard B. Bliss, Gary E. Parker, Duane T. Gish, Origin of Life, C.L.P. Publications, 3rd ed., California, 1990, pp. 14-15.

219 Kevin Mc Kean, Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology), no. 189, p. 7.

220 J. P. Ferris, C. T. Chen, "Photochemistry of Methane, Nitrogen, and Water Mixture As a Model for the Atmosphere of the Primitive Earth," Journal of American Chemical Society, vol. 97:11, 1975, p. 2964.

221 "New Evidence on Evolution of Early Atmosphere and Life," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, vol. 63, November 1982, pp. 1328-1330.

222 Richard B. Bliss & Gary E. Parker, Duane T. Gish, Origin of Life, C.L.P. Publications, 3rd ed., California, 1990, p. 16.

223 "Life's Crucible," Earth, February 1998, p. 34. (emphasis added)

224 "The Rise of Life on Earth," National Geographic, March 1998, p. 68. (emphasis added)

225 W. R. Bird, The Origin of Species Revisited, Thomas Nelson Co., Nashville, 1991, p. 325.(emphasis added)

226 Richard Dickerson, "Chemical Evolution," Scientific American, vol. 239:3, 1978, p. 75. Chemist Richard Dickerson explains the reason for this in this way: "If polymeric chains of proteins and nucleic acids are to be forged out of their precursor monomers, a molecule of water must be removed at each link in the chain. It is therefore hard to see how polymerization could have proceeded in the aqueous environment of the primitive ocean, since the presence of water favors depolymerization rather than polymerization."

227 S. W. Fox, K. Harada, G. Kramptiz, G. Mueller, "Chemical Origin of Cells," Chemical Engineering News, June 22, 1970, p. 80.

228 Frank B. Salisbury, "Doubts about the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336.

229 Paul Auger, De La Physique Theorique a la Biologie, 1970, p. 118.

230 Francis Crick, Life Itself: It's Origin and Nature, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 88. (emphasis added)

231 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 39.

232 John Horgan, "In the Beginning," Scientific American, vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119. (emphasis added)

233 Homer Jacobson, "Information, Reproduction and the Origin of Life," American Scientist, January 1955, p. 121.

234 Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, Vintage Books, New York, 1980, p. 548. (emphasis added)

235 Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth," Scientific American, vol. 271, October 1994, p. 78. (emphasis added)

236 Cairns-Smith, Alexander G., "The First Organisms," Scientific American, 252: 90, June 1985. (emphasis added)

237 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, London: Burnett Books, 1985, p. 351.

238 John Horgan, "In the Beginning," Scientific American, vol. 264, February 1991, p. 119.

239 G. F. Joyce, L. E. Orgel, "Prospects for Understanding the Origin of the RNA World," In the RNA World, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York, 1993, p. 13.

240 Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity, New York, 1971, p. 143. (emphasis added)

241 Dover, Gabby L., Looping the Evolutionary loop, review of the origin of life from the birth of life to the origin of language, Nature, 1999, vol. 399, p. 218. (emphasis added)

242 Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on the Earth," Scientific American, October 1994, vol. 271, p. 78.

243 Horgan, John, The End of Science, M. A. Addison-Wesley, 1996, p. 139.

244 Pierre-P Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 103. (emphasis added)

245 Chandra Wickramasinghe, Interview in London Daily Express, August 14, 1981.

246 Frank Salisbury, "Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution," American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 338. (emphasis added)

247 Dean H. Kenyon, Percival Davis, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing, Dallas, 1993, p. 33.

248 Dean H. Kenyon, Percival Davis, Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, Haughton Publishing, Dallas, 1993, p. 117.

249 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, p. 145.

250 Gavin De Beer, Homology: An Unsolved Problem, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, p. 16.

251 Pere Alberch, "Problems with the Interpretation of Developmental Sequences," Systematic Zoology, 1985, vol. 34 (1), pp. 46-58.

252 Raff, Rudolf A., The Shape of Life: Genes, Development, and the Evolution of Animal Form, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1996.

253 Coates M., "New paleontological contributions to limb ontogeny and phylogeny," In: J. R. Hinchcliffe (ed.), Developmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Limb, Plenum Press, New York, 1991, 325-337; Coates M. I., The Devonian tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari Jarvik: postcranial anatomy, basal tetrapod interrelationships and patterns of skeletal evolution, transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1996, vol. 87, pp. 363-421.

254 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, Bethesda, MA, 1985, pp. 151, 154. (emphasis added)

255 William Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1984, p. 189. (emphasis added)

256 Karen Hopkin, "The Greatest Apes," New Scientist, vol. 62, issue 2186, 15 May 1999, p. 27.

257 Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics of the Evolutionary Process, Columbia University Press, New York & London, 1970, pp. 17-18.

258 Pierre Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 194.

259 Mike Benton, "Is a Dog More Like Lizard or a Chicken?," New Scientist, vol. 103, August 16, 1984, p. 19. (emphasis added)

260 Paul Erbrich, "On the Probability of the Emergence of a Protein with a Particular Function," Acta Biotheoretica, vol. 34, 1985, p. 53.

261 Christian Schwabe, "On the Validity of Molecular Evolution," Trends in Biochemical Sciences, vol. 11, July 1986, p. 280. (emphasis added)

262 Christian Schwabe, "Theoretical Limitations of Molecular Phylogenetics and the Evolution of Relaxins," Comparative Biochemical Physiology, vol. 107B, 1974, pp.171-172. (emphasis added)

263 Christian Schwabe and Gregory W. Warr, "A Polyphyletic View of Evolution," Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, vol. 27, Spring 1984, p. 473. (emphasis added)

264 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, pp. 290-291. (emphasis added)

265 Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "The Rooting of the Universal Tree of Life is Not Reliable," Journal of Molecular Evolution, vol 49, 1999, p. 510.

266 James Lake, Ravi Jain ve Maria Rivera, "Mix and Match in the Tree of Life," Science, vol. 283, 1999, p. 2027.

267 Carl Woese, "The Universel Ancestor," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 95, (1998) p. 6854.

268 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" Science, vol. 284, no. 5418, 21 May 1999, p. 1305.

269 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, Regnery Publishing, 2000, p. 51.

270 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

271 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

272 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

273 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

274 Francisco J. Ayala, "The Mechanisms of Evolution," Scientific American, Vol. 239, September 1978, p. 64.

275 Dr. Lee Spetner, "Lee Spetner/Edward Max Dialogue: Continuing an exchange with Dr. Edward E. Max," 2001, http://www.trueorigin.org/spetner2.asp

276 S. R. Scadding, "Do 'Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?," Evolutionary Theory, vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.

277 The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Home edition, Merck & Co., Inc. The Merck Publishing Group, Rahway, New Jersey, 1997.

278 H. Enoch, Creation and Evolution, New York, 1966, pp. 18-19.

279 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species, http://www.zoo.uib.no/classics/darwin/origin.chap14.html.

280 R. Mcneill Alexander, "Biomechanics: Damper For Bad Vibrations," Nature, 20-27 December 2001.

281 R. Mcneill Alexander, "Biomechanics: Damper For Bad Vibrations," Nature, 20-27 December 2001.

282 Behe's Seminar in Princeton, 1997

283 G. G. Simpson, W. Beck, An Introduction to Biology, Harcourt Brace and World, New York, 1965, p. 241.

284 Ken McNamara, "Embryos and Evolution," New Scientist, vol. 12416, 16 October 1999. (emphasis added)

285 Keith S. Thomson, "Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated," American Scientist, vol. 76, May/June 1988, p. 273.

286 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, Ticknor and Fields, New York, 1982, p. 204.

287 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)

288 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)

289 Elizabeth Pennisi, "Haeckel's Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered," Science, 5 September, 1997. (emphasis added)

290 Mahlon B. Hoagland, The Roots of Life, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978, p.18

291 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Ankara, Meteksan Yay?nlar?, p. 79.

292 Robart A. Wallace, Gerald P. Sanders, Robert J. Ferl, Biology, The Science of Life, Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 283.

293 Darnell, "Implications of RNA-RNA Splicing in Evolution of Eukaryotic Cells," Science, vol. 202, 1978, p. 1257.

294 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kal?t?m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p.79.

295 "Book Review of Symbiosis in Cell Evolution," Biological Journal of Linnean Society, vol. 18, 1982, pp. 77-79.

296 D. Lloyd, The Mitochondria of Microorganisms, 1974, p. 476.

297 Gray & Doolittle, "Has the Endosymbiant Hypothesis Been Proven?," Microbilological Review, vol. 30, 1982, p. 46.

298 Wallace-Sanders-Ferl, Biology: The Science of Life, 4th edition, Harper Collins College Publishers, p. 94.

299 Mahlon B. Hoagland, The Roots of Life, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978, p. 145.

300 Whitfield, Book Review of Symbiosis in Cell Evolution, Biological Journal of Linnean Society, 1982, pp. 77-79.

301 Milani, Bradshaw, Biological Science, A Molecular Approach, D. C.Heath and Company, Toronto, p. 158 .

302 David Attenborough, Life on Earth, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1981, p. 20.

303 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kal?t?m ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p. 80.

304 Hoimar Von Ditfurth, Im Amfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), pp. 60-61.

305 "Ancient Alga Fossil Most Complex Yet," Science News, vol. 108, September 20, 1975, p. 181.

306 Hoimar Von Ditfurth, Im Amfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), p. 199.

307 E. C. Olson, The Evolution of Life, The New American Library, New York, 1965, p. 94.

308 Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany, McGraw-Hill Publications in the Botanical Sciences, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1947, p. 7.

309 Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany, McGraw-Hill Publications in the Botanical Sciences, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, 1947, p. 334.

310 N. F. Hughes, Paleobiology of Angiosperm Origins: Problems of Mesozoic Seed-Plant Evolution, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 1-2.

311 Daniel Axelrod, The Evolution of Flowering Plants, in The Evolution Life, 1959, pp. 264-274.

312 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 189. (emphasis added)

313 Peter van Inwagen, Review about Michael Behe's Darwin's Black Box.

314 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publications, Ankara, p. 475. (emphasis added)

315 Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason, Harvard Common Press, 1971, p. 131.

316 Cemal Yildirim, Evrim Kurami ve Bagnazlik (Theory of Evolution and Bigotry), Bilgi Publications, January 1989, pp. 58-59. (emphasis added)

317 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, p. 18.

318 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 18-21.

319 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, p. 22. (emphasis added)

320 J. R. P. Angel, "Lobster Eyes as X-ray Telescopes," Astrophysical Journal, 1979, No. 233, pp. 364-373. See also B. K. Hartline (1980), "Lobster-Eye X-ray Telescope Envisioned," Science, No. 207, p. 47, cited in Michael Denton, Nature's Destiny, The Free Press, 1998, p. 354.

321 M. F. Land, "Superposition Images are Formed by Reflection in the Eyes of Some Oceanic Decapod Crustacea," Nature, 1976, vol. 263, pp. 764-765.

322 Jeff Goldberg, "The Quivering Bundles That Let Us Hear," Seeing, Hearing, and Smelling the World, A Report from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, p. 38.

323 Veysel Atayman, "Maddeci 'Madde', Evrimci Madde" (Materialist 'Matter', Evolutionist Matter), Evrensel News Paper, 13 June 1999. (emphasis added)

324 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books, London, 1985, p. 351.

325 Duane T. Gish, "The Mammal-like Reptiles," Impact, no. 102, December 1981.

326 "Ear / Evolution of the Ear" Grolier Academic Encyclopedia,1986, p. 6. (emphasis added)

327 William E. Duruelleman & Linda Trueb, "The Gastric Brooding Frog," Megraw-Hill Book com., 1986.

328 Encyclopædia Britannica, "Modern Materialism." (emphasis added)

329 Werner Gitt, In the Beginning Was Information, CLV, Bielefeld, Germany, pp. 107, 141. (emphasis added)

330 George C. Williams, The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995, pp. 42-43. (emphasis added)

331 Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth, Touchstone, New York, 2001, p. xi.

332 Pierre P. Grassé, The Evolution of Living Organisms, 1977, p. 168.

333 Alan Woods, Ted Grant. "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993 .

334 Douglas Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2. b., MA: Sinauer, Sunderland, 1986, p. 4. (emphasis added)

335 Alan Woods, Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science, London, 1993. (emphasis added)

336 Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World," The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28. (emphasis added)

337 Hoimar Von Dithfurth, Im Anfang War Der Wasserstoff (Secret Night of the Dinosaurs), vol. 2, p. 64. (emphasis added)

338 Prof. Dr. Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)

339 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 61. (emphasis added)

340 Ali Demirsoy, Kalitim ve Evrim (Inheritance and Evolution), Meteksan Publishing Co., Ankara, 1984, p. 94-95. (emphasis added)

341 Michael J. Behe, Darwin's Black Box, The Free Press, New York, 1996, pp. 252-53.

