AFTER ITS KIND
From the book by the same name
Their Strong Reasons.
THE ground having been cleared somewhat by the foregoing remarks, the reader is invited to proceed to an examination of those "proofs" and "evidences" of evolution that are said to be overwhelming when once they are frankly considered. Each proof will be presented just as fairly as possible. Errors in statements of fact or interpretation will then be pointed out, and the reader left to judge for himself as to whether the proofs offered are as impressive as many have been led to believe.
THE "PROOF" FROM CLASSIFICATIONS
This proof is taken first, because it is usually so considered in books that are written to advance the theory. The evolutionist looks about the world of living organisms and observes that organisms are very simple of structure and some are very complex. It occurs to him that it is possible to arrange or classify these organisms in a fairly graded system from the most simple to the most complex,, or, as the evolutionist would say, from the "lowest" to the "highest." He therefore proceeds to make an arrangement or classification of all these living things. He begins with the simplest form, some single-celled animal like the amoeba. Next to it, or "above" it that he places a "higher" invertebrate like the star-fish.Next to or above that he places the simplest form of vertebrate, a chordate like amphioxus. Next to that a fish. Above that an amphibian. Next to that a lower mammal. Above that one of the lower apes. Above that, one of the higher apes, and above that man. When he is done arranging these creatures, he has a graded system from the simplest living form to the most complex. Then he turns to the creationist and says. "Here is a proof of evolution."
The reader has no doubt already seen the ridiculous absurdity of this mode of reasoning. He has also seen the subtlety of it. Absurd as this proof is, because it assumes the thing to be proved, it nevertheless has deceived thousands. We know that old shoes have never evolved. Yet by the above mode of reasoning we could prove that old shoes have evolved, merely by collecting samples of every known kind, and, starting with the smallest and simplest dolls slippers, grade them up in a series through baby's shoes, little brother's shoes, big brother's shoes, mamma's shoes, grandma's shoes, daddy's low shoe's, daddy's high shoes, ending with daddy's high-boots. Taking every kind of shoes known—wooden shoes, sandals, rubber shoes, Chinese shoes, we could grade them all so as to fit them into a tree as the evolutionists do with creatures they wish to prove have evolved, showing how the wooden shoes branched off millions of years ago 1ow down in the stem, how the patent-leather oxfords branched off higher up on the other side, and thus we could prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that no shoe was ever made as it is, but—has come into its present state by evolution. We might prove the evolution of the White House by starting with the "lowest" form of house—the grass hut of the savage— placing next in succession all the "higher" houses known, and ending finally with the White House.
The well known biologist and evolutionist, T. H. Morgan, in his book A Critique of the Theory of Evolution, admits hat the proof from classification sin fact no real proof at all. He says that when the fallacy of the argument is pointed out to pupils of his who believe in evolution they are resentful.
As far, therefore, as the evidence from classification is concerned evolution is not established. It merely begs the question. All creatures, whether simple or complex, may have come into existence at one time, or even the most complex first.
THE "PROOF" FROM COMPARATIVE ANATOMY
This second proof is based on the facts that come to light through a study and comparison of the physical structures of unrelated species. It will be presented and considered in three parts. (1) The proof from comparative anatomy of adult organisms. The student of anatomy studies carefully the skeleton, the muscles, the nerves of one creature., for example, the cat. Then he goes to another species, the dog for instance, and studies the bones, muscles, nerves, of this species and compares them with the same structures in the cat. From the dog the student goes to the monkey and examines very carefully the structures he finds there and compares them with the same structures in the dog. From the monkey the student proceeds to man and observes carefully the structure of the human skeleton, muscles, nerves, and compares them with what he has already found, in the monkey, the dog, and the cat. As he does so it becomes apparent to him that there is a certain similarity of structure underlying them all. The skeletons have all a general similarity in plan. The nerves are alike in design. The muscles are alike.
The student goes to the head of the horse. He finds there certain muscles, some used for twitching the skin of the forehead, some used for moving the ears. He comes back to the head of man. He finds there muscles that correspond to those in a horse. The muscles by which the horse can move his ears well correspond to those by which the man can move his ears poorly. The muscles by which the horse can vigorously twitch the skin of his forehead correspond closely to those by which man slightly moves his scalp. The design or plan of structure of the head muscles of these two unrelated creatures, horse and man, are similar.
Thus the student of comparative anatomy goes the whole round of living things, from those that live, in the air to those that live in the sea, and finds the same general plan underlying the structures of vast numbers of them.
Seeing this similarity of pattern or design in so large a number of living things, the student, if he is an evolutionist, says to the creationist, "How can you account for this similarity in so many creatures except on the basis of evolution, except on the basis that one living organism grew out of another, or that all had a common ancestor?" If the creationist is not able to see how it could be otherwise, he becomes an evolutionist, or remains a bewildered creationist. It is the fact of a general similarity in the structures of many animals, together with the suggestion that this similarity is to be accounted for only on the basis of a common evolutionary descent, that constitutes what is said to be one of the strongest arguments for evolution.
Perhaps the reader, if he has never been over this ground, is considerably worried by this "proof." It may seem as overwhelming to him as it has to thousands of misguided young Christians in the colleges and universities where the evolutionary theory is taught. As this sort of evidence is presented in great detail by those who have studied comparative anatomy, and numerous minute likenesses of plan or pattern between creatures pointed out, it often takes greater stubbornness of faith in the Bible, and greater analyzing powers than many young Christians possess, to discern the grave error this line of reasoning contains. The reader is therefore invited to proceed until the mask is pulled off this argument and the fallacy in it revealed.
The criticism of this "proof" does not consist in denying the similarity in plan or structure that comparative anatomy reveals. The likenesses can be admitted in as great detail as the evolutionists care to have them asserted. The criticism of the argument from comparative anatomy from the creation point of view consists in admitting the similarity of structure, but in denying the interpretation put upon it. and offering instead another interpretation equally as reasonable and perfectly in harmony with the doctrine of special creation.
Similarity of plan, pattern, or design may well be a proof of creation. To impress upon himself this fact the reader is asked to call up in his mind a large number of church buildings of various sizes and shapes, none of which are exactly alike, but in all of which there is a general similarity of design. (Fig. 4.) Each may have a tower or steeple. Each may have a large front door. Earn may have similar rows of windows. Inside is the same seating
Fig. 4. Above, from left to right, are corresponding parts of four widely different species: A. wing of bat, B. forefoot of turtle, C. forefoot of frog, D. arm of man, all built with modifications on the same general plan. This similarity in structure is supposed to prove the evolution of these species from a common ancestral form. Below are four churches built with modifications on the same general plan. Since these churches did not evolve, similarity of design can not of itself be said to prove evolution. Similarities in animal structures may be looked upon as evidence of a common plan in the mind of the Creator.
arrangement. Galleries, similar, yet not identical, are found in them all. Seeing this similarity of plan in all these various churches, would any man be so foolish as to contend because of it that the churches evolved from one another or from a common ancestor? Hardly. They were all made separately. They may well have been planner and constructed by one architect at one and the same time. Similarity in design in the case of churches, does not prove their evolution. Nor does similarity of design prove evolution in the case of living organisms. The two cases are identical as far as the reasoning in the case is concerned. Similarity in itself proves evolution no more than it proves creation. To the believer in the Bible the similarity of structure in living organisms merely establishes the fact that there was one Great Architect, or Creator, who, when He was about to build many of His species, had in mind one plan or pattern, and this He used for as many creatures as possible with such modifications of the general plan as were necessary for different conditions of existence. Granting there was a special Creator such as the Bible
Fig. 5. The "proof" from comparative anatomy in its most subtile and impressive form. The visual impression from such comparisons has a hypnotic influence which leads to a false conclusion that only clear, logical thinking can dispel. What actually is shown by the illustration is that the gibbon, orang, chimpanzee, gorilla and man have somewhat of a similarity in skeletal structure, a fact which there is no reason to deny, since it proves that God created all on a common plan as much as it proves common ancestry. To the illustration could be added in the same position the skeleton of a rabbit, squirrel, sheep, horse and even bird, and the same general similarity would be noted. Until the creationist learns instantly to see the logical fallacy of all such evolutionary illustrations he will be in trouble.
portrays, that Creator might have made His creatures all on a different plan. He might readily have created the dog with four legs, the horse with five, the cow with six, the elephant with ten. He might have shown His ingenuity, by making man with three legs and nineteen arms. He might have so constructed sheep that the species might have its nostrils in its back and its ears on its legs. He might have put one kind of nerves or digestive system in man and a totally different system in all of the apes. Is there any reason why He would not do so? Yes. Since all creatures were to live on the same earth under similar conditions, breathing the same kind of air, drinking the same kind of water, eating the same kind of food—it seems reasonable that a Creator would have conceived of one good and excellent plan for all creatures to be constructed upon, the crown of His creation as well as the dumb brutes over which man was to rule, and then modified this plan when modification was wise or necessary. The common plan observable in all creatures may with as good grounds point to one great, economical, and wise Creator as to any evolutionary process.
(IF MAN WAS ORIGINALLY A GATHER/HUNTER AND HAD TO CONTEND WITH WILD ANIMALS TRACKING HIM DOWN TO EAT, WHY DID NOT EVOLUTION PUT MAN'S EYES ON THE SIDE OF HIS HEAD, LIKE THE HORSE. THE HORSE CAN SEE ABOUT 340 DEGREES WHEN ITS HEAD IS FACING STRAIGHT-AHEAD. THE HORSE IS KNOWN AS A PREY ANIMAL; OTHER ANIMALS ATTACK AND EAT HORSES. HORSES THEREFORE WERE GIVEN EYES ON THE SIDE OF THEIR HEAD, AS LIKE MANY OTHER WILD ANIMALS HAVE, FOR MANY HUNT AND EAT EACH OTHER. WITH SO MANY WILD [AND DOMESTICATE] ANIMALS WITH EYES ON THE SIDE OF THEIR HEAD, FOR PROTECTION, WHY WAS IT MAN, WHO EVENTUALLY OUT-MASTERED ALL WILD ANIMALS, DID NOT EVOLVE WITH EYES ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD, ESPECIALLY IF MAN WAS PART OF THE WILD ANIMAL KINGDOM FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS. THE HORSE ALSO HAS MUCH GREATER EYESIGHT, SMELL AND HEARING ABILITIES THAN MAN, BEING A PREY ANIMAL. WHY DID NOT MAN HAVE OR EVOLVE THE SAME ABILITIES IN THESE AREAS AS THE HORSE, SEEING HE WAS PART OF THE WILD ANIMAL KINGDOM FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, AS EVOLUTION WOULD TEACH? SIMPLE ANSWER: MAN WAS CREATED BY GOD AS WERE ANIMALS - Keith Hunt)
COMMON ANCESTRY
Fig. 6. One may take his choice. Granting the existence of God, the top explanation of the similarity between "faces" is as reasonable as the bottom. Fish - God - Ape - Man. Anyone can kind similarities in all of them.
Consideration of the argument from comparative anatomy might well be left with what has already been said. There remains, however, another angle from which the faultiness of the reasoning underlying it can be seen.
If, as is said, similarity proves that different species have had a common ancestry, then it follows that the greater the similarity between two species, the more closely they are related, and that, conversely, the more unlike two species are, the more distantly they are related. To illustrate, sheep and goats are more closely related than sheep and cats, since there is a greater similarity between sheep and goats than between sheep and cats. But sheep and cats are more closely related than sheep and ostriches, since sheep and cats are more alike than sheep and ostriches. Resemblance as a proof of evolution carries with it the implication that the degree of similarity between species shows the closeness of the relationship between them, and is used by evolutionists as a guide in tracing the supposed lines of evolutionary descent, in making evolutionary "trees." in constructing "phylogenies."
But here, in getting away from generalities and down to concrete facts, is where the evolutionary theorist meets his difficulties, for it is utterly impossible very often for him to decide what particular point of similarity in species he shall choose as the basis of their supposed relationships, and the more he studies and becomes familiar with the complexities of living things the more tangled and confused does the situation become for him. God created living things with a common pattern or design in mind, but He varied the pattern so often and so intricately—making forms so much alike in one respect and so different in others, making resemblances between species where the evolutionist would prefer non-resemblances and non-resemblances where he would prefer resemblances-—-that those who would take the organic world as God has made it and try to fit it into hypothetical trees showing evolutional lines of descent are continually at a loss what to do. Biologists are continually altering the "genera" and even the "families" to which many species belong, which in other words means that they are changing the species back and forth from one branch of the mythical tree of evolution to another. They are unable to agree among themselves on which branch vast numbers of species belong because these species are similar to species on one branch in one respect and similar to species on another branch in another respect. The great difficulty for the evolutionary tree-makers is that, on the basis of their own argument for evolution from comparative anatomy, species have, as has been said, "too many ancestors."
What we mean will now be shown by a number of definite illustrations. The case of the dolphin, porpoises and whales may first be taken. These aquatic animals are commonly thought to be fish, for in appearance and mode of life they are like fish. On the basis of the argument for evolution based on similarity it is proved, if the argument is valid, that modern fishes and modern whales, dolphins and porpoises are all close relatives, having descended from a common ancestor in very recent times. How else, the evolutionists may ask, can such a similarity as exists between whales and fish be accounted for?
But then, look at the matter from another point of view. Whales, porpoises and dolphins are mammals. Like cats, horses, apes. Fishes are cold-blooded creatures, laying eggs. Dolphins, porpoises and whales are warm-blooded animals, which develop their young within their own bodies, and suckle them on milk. Since there is this inner resemblance among whales, porpoises and dolphins and land animals, whales must have evolved not from fish, but from land animals. According to the "proof" of evolution from blood-tests, later to be considered, evolutionists say it is from "the hoofed mammals, especially the swine" that whales have descended. Manifestly, however, this and the other can not both be proved by similarity. The whale can not
Fig. 7. Too many ancestors. In shape and mode of existence whales are fishes, while in inner structure they are land mammals, like cattle and horses. If similarity of structure is a proof of evolution a contradiction is seen in whales, since they are similar in opposite directions at the same time. Similarity of structure cannot, then, be a proof of evolution.
be descended from a land animal and also from a fish, at the same time. Similarity, then proving a contradiction, is worthless as a proof of evolutionary descent.
We pursue the matter farther. There lives in Tasmania an animal called the "Tasmanian wolf." Its scientific name is "thylacine." In outward appearance it is exactly like a dog. It runs and kills sheep in a dog-like manner. Even from close observation one would say that the thylacine belonged to the dog or wolf tribe of animals. In skeletal structure, head, teeth and so on the thylacine is so dog-like
Copyright, D. Appleton Q Co., N. Y. and Constable S Co., London—Dendy—Outlines of Evolutionary Biology, part "Convergent Evolution."
Fig. 8. A. skull of dog. B. skull of thylacine. The skulls (and skeletons generally) of these two species are exceedingly alike. Bone for bone, tooth for tooth they are practically identical. This close similarity proves, according to evolutionary reasoning, that they are very closely related. In other respects these species are totally unlike, since one is a mammal and the other a marsupial, wherefore the evolutionists say they are very distantly related. A contradiction is thus "proved" by comparative anatomy.
that scarcely any difference can be discerned even by the trained anatomist. (Fig. 8.) Surely therefore if as evolutionists say, anatomical resemblances prove evolution, the wolf, dog, coyote, and thylacine are, on the basis of their skeletal similarity, all very closely related to one another by evolutionary descent.
However, the thylacine is totally unlike the dog in matters other than skeleton. There is a large group of animals called the "marsupials." The group includes the kangaroo, opossums, wombats and others. This group is said by the transformists to be very "primitive" in structure and is supposed by them to have evolved directly from the reptiles. The strange feature about the marsupials is that they do not develop their young within the body of the female until they mature, as do dogs and wolves, but bring them forth, when they are exceedingly tiny and carry them about in a pouch on the stomach of the female until they are mature. The thylacine is one of the "marsupial" group. It is therefore very closely related by evolutionary descent to the kangaroos, and far, far away from the dogs. This is proved by comparative anatomy, the evolutionists say. But, we ask, how can comparative anatomy prove that the thylacine is very close to the dog and very far away from it at the same time? Something must be wrong with the argument from comparative anatomy.
Still another example is the duck-billed platypus of Australia (Fig. 9). This animal has a bill like a duck and webbed feet. It makes a grass-lined nest and lays eggs which it hatches by curling up on the nest and warming the eggs against its body like a fowl. It must, therefore, have evolved on the same evolutionary stem as the birds. How else can this similarity be explained? But on the other hand, the platypus has four legs, a fur hide, a tail and claws like many mammals. When it is small it has teeth like a beaver. From these things the platypus must be judged to have evolved with the mammals not the birds.
Again, too many ancestors.
Merely to suggest how numerous are the mixtures of similarities and dissimilarities in the created world of organisms, a few of many more illustrations of this kind may be given. There are two common butterflies in America, one called the Viceroy, and the other called the Monarch. The average person would never distinguish them. They are about of the same size and both have orange and black wings of similar pattern. On the basis of outward appearance the Viceroy and the Monarch butterflies are descended from a close common ancestor, reasoning as do evolutionists. Their inside structures, however, tell a different story. Inwardly these two species are very unlike and are therefore said by evolutionists not to have descended from a common ancestor at all. Again, there is
Fig. 9. The duck-billed platypus, a native of the streams of Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania. It has four feet, fur, tail, teeth and claws, but it also has a bill and webbed toes, it makes a nest, lays eggs and hatches them. Hence it must have evolved both from beasts and birds-—-which is contradictory.
an insect called Criorhina which looks so much like the bumble-bee that bumble-bees receive it as a welcome guest in their nests. Criorhina and bumble-bees must have descended from a close common ancestor if similarity proves evolutionary descent. Inwardly however, Criorhina is related to the flies and is classified by biologists as a fly and must, therefore, have evolved from that direction.
Again, there is an animal called the "Slow Worm" or "Blind Worm" - which is indistinguishable outwardly from a worm. Yet inwardly it has the structure of lizards. Evolutionists long called barnacles "mollusks" because of their hard shells, and had them evolving along with clams and oysters, but when it was discovered from an examination of the larvae of barnacles that they were not mollusks but crustaceans (like crabs and lobsters) they transferred the barnacles to the crustacean branch of the evolutionary tree. On the basis of outward form the sea-squirt was also, for many years, regarded as a mollusk, but it was transferred to the vertebrate stem of the evolutionary tree when it was learned that young sea-squirts are tad-poles.
''Convergence" is the name given to the process by which the evolutionists seek to account for the similarities of organisms described above. They say that species have branched away from one another, becoming different, and then have "converged," becoming alike again—This is what makes the whale both like and unlike the fish About ''convergence" we wil1 say nothing except this: if the proof of both evolutionary divergence and evolutionary convergence is comparative anatomy, comparative anatomy must be able to blow both hot and cold in one breath.
(2) The proof from blood-tests. It is in connection with the proof of evolution from comparative anatomy that the much talked of "evidence from blood-tests" should be considered, since it is nothing but the proof from comparative anatomy in another guise.
As a by-product of the scientific investigations which led to the discovery of vaccination there was found about 1900 a test for human blood, a discovery of far-reaching importance in criminal investigations. It is called the "precipitin" test. A liquid called an anti-human serum is made, 15 which, when mixed in certain amounts with the human blood in solution, causes a heavy white precipitate to be formed. When this anti-human serum is mixed in the same amounts with the blood of other animals. e.g.—the frog, horse, dog, monkey, not so much precipitate formed. Thus a fairly reliable test for human blood exists.
In 1902 an English evolutionist named Nuttall made use of this precipitin test to find what he called the "blood-relationships" of man to the lower animals. Applying the test—using anti-human serum—to many species, he found that the more nearly like man a species is, the more like man's is that species' blood—that is the greater the amount of the white precipitate does the test produce. In the case of reptiles, for instance, he got no precipitate. In the case of the birds he got only the faintest suggestion of a precipitate. In the case of marsupials (e.g., kangaroos) he got very little. In the case of the carnivora (e.g. dogs, cats) he got more. In the case of the ungulates (e.g., pigs, sheep, horses) he got still more. In the case of the monkeys he got still more. In the case of the apes he got most. Of
the last two gave the greatest amounts of precipitate. And these results, this proof that there are various degrees of similarity between human and other bloods—the least similarity in bloods being between that of men and that of reptiles (between whom also there is the least similarity in general physical appearance) and the greatest similarity in bloods being between that of men and that of apes (between whom also there is the greatest likeness in general physical appearance)-—-is said to prove the theory of evolution.
We have stated the case in the most favorable way possible for the cause of the evolutionists. But who can not see that we have here, only in a different garb, the same false reasoning we have been considering, namely,—the erroneous argument that similarity proves evolution? Simi-
15 It is made as follows: The clear, colorless serum of human blood is injected in increasing amounts into some animal like the rabbit. After a large amount has been injected and the animal has become used to it, the animal is killed. Its colorless blood serum is then drawn off and is the anti-human serum used in the tests.
larity does not prove evolution any more than it proves creation, whether that similarity is found in structure of skeleton, muscles, nerves, blood or anything else. Similarities existing between different organisms may be said to show that there was one Great Architect who, when He made the organic world, used a common plan. In this case the common plan is seen in the structure of the blood.
If close similarity in blood structure proves the evolution of certain animals from one another, what must the evolutionists conclude from the established fact that the chemical substance called thyroidin—-the active principle—of the thyroid gland-—-has precisely the same composition in sheep as in man and as far as we know in all other animals with a thyroid? If similarity proves evolution, what does identity argue? What is argued by the fact that the milk of asses is more like that of human beings than is the milk of any other animal? What is argued by the fact that when a man is sick with "Haemophilia," a disease which causes profuse bleeding even from slight wounds, and the blood-serum of a rabbit is injected into him, very favorable and curative results follow, whereas, if the blood-serum of an ox is injected it acts as a poison and dangerous symptoms result? What is argued from the fact that Malta fever affects, so far as we know, only man and goats, while plague occurs only in man and rats? 16
Facts such as the above display a side of the matter which evolutionists do not emphasize. Nevertheless—such facts do not offer the best answer to the evolutionary argument based on blood-tests. It can and should be admitted by the creationist with perfect readiness that blood-tests such as Nuttall carried out, point to the same general sort of similarity between God's creatures as do other tests of comparative anatomy. The ape is certainty, when we consider its bones, muscles, nerves and so on, more like man than is a turtle or a fish, and we would be much surprised if Nuttall did not find that the blood of an ape and that of a man showed greater similarity also than did the blood of a fish or turtle and that of a man. The horse, when we consider the structure of its bones, muscles, nerves and so
16 See Zinsser, Infection and Resistance, pages 52-55.
on, is more like a man than is a fish or turtle, though less like a man than is an ape, and it would be odd indeed if blood-tests did not reveal that the blood of a horse is more like that of a man than are the bloods of snakes and turtles, although less like man's than is the blood of an ape. Sheep and deer are certainly more alike than are sheep and tigers, and it is not strange at all that the bloods of sheep and deer are more similar than are the bloods of sheep and tigers. Such things have been shown by blood-tests. But these things, we maintain, do not prove evolution any more than they prove that God created all these creatures on a common plan with modifications.
(3) The proof from comparative embryology. It is in association with the proof from comparative anatomy that one phase of the so-called proof from embryology ought also to be considered.
Just as the student of comparative anatomy has made a comparison of the structure: (skeleton, muscles, nerves, of man) adult forms of life, and found them to reveal a common plan, so the student of comparative embryology has made a comparison of the modes of development of the various embryos and found there also a common plan.
Each individual organism, whether very simple or very complex, begins its existence as a single cell. That one, cell divides to form two cells. Each of these two cells divides to form four cells. These again divide to form eight, then sixteen, then thirtv-two and so on up until the adult form is complete. All species, from man down to the simplest invertebrates, thus begin as single cells smaller than the head of a pin and similarly increase by division and growth and redivision and growth. As the masses of tiny embryonic cells grow in size, the embryos of all species form what is called a "blastula," which, though it is not necessary to describe it, may be said to be roughly similar in all embryos. Some very simple creatures which live in ponds (e.g., volvox) practically cease development with the blastula stage and after some further modification live as adults in a form which looks like a blastula. The "blastula" stage is followed in the course of growth by a formation called the "gastrula," which is also a parallel stage in most embryonic developments. The gastrula is the beginning of the stomach. Some form of life (e g jellyfish) cease development at the gastrula stage. Here they turn off and are developed for adult existence in water as gastrula-like animals. After the gastrula stage has been passed a faint streak appears, called the primitive streak. It marks the beginning of the spinalcolumn. One creature, the lancelet, turns off here and becomes modified for adult life in this form. As development continues a very simply constructed heart and certain
arteries are added. 17 Here the fish turns off the common road and becomes modified into a true fish. The arteries become modified into the gills of the adult fish. As development continues a simply constructed kidney is added and the heart and arteries are made a little more complex in structure. About here the frog turns off from the common course. Thus, step by step, new structures are added, which
17 The simple heart and the arteries (called "aortic arches"), which in the embryonic development of the fish become modified into gills after the turn-off from the common path, are also present in a somewhat similar form in the human embryo. These fact form the basis of the statement made by evolutionists that each man is at one stage in his life a "gilled-creature." This matter will be discussed more fully in the section on embryology, but here it may be said that no structures in the human embryo are gills or ever become gills. Even in the fish embryo the arteries are not gills. They are structures which, only after much modification and further development, become gills.
roughly resemble one another in all vertebrate embryos, and the old structures are made more intricate and complicated, until finally all structures are present and developed into their most perfect and ideal form in man.
That there is this similarity in the development of creatures is undeniable. Since each species develops in its own peculiar way the similarity is often much concealed, yet it is there. This similarity in development is pointed to by the evolutionist as a "proof" of evolution, for how else he asks, can it be accounted for. The answer is simple. As the similarity between adult forms can be accounted for on the basis of a common plan in the mind of the Creator, so the similarity in the development of the adult forms can also be accounted for. Both, showing a common plan, furnish arguments for special creation.
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AS WE HAVE SEEN DIFFERENT HOUSES CAN LOOK SOMEWHAT ALIKE, AND SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT. I LIVE IN AN OLDER PART OF CALGARY, USED TO BE ITS OWN KINDA WESTERN LOOKING VILLAGE AT ONE TIME. NOW OLD HOUSES ARE BEING TORN DOWN AND NEW ONES GOING UP. SOME ARE SPACIOUS ON THE SAME LOT, SOME LOTS WITH TWO THIN BUT LONG HOUSES, QUITE CLOSE TO EACH OTHER. SOME OF THOSE LOOK VERY SIMILAR, LONG THIN HOUSES, BUT STILL HAVE SOME DIFFERENCES. THE INDIVIDUAL LARGE LOT HOUSES….WELL THEY ARE VERY DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. THEY ALL CONTAIN CERTAIN THINGS ALIKE; DOORS, WINDOWS, ROOFS, LIVING-ROOMS, KITCHENS, BEDROOMS. ALL HAVE SOME FORM OF HEATING FOR CANADIAN WINTERS; THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME RUNNING WATER SUPPLY FROM THE SAME CITY HOOK-UP; THEY ALL HAVE THE SAME ELECTRICAL SUPPLY; THEY ARE ALL HOOKED UP TO THE SAME SEWER CONNECTIONS. THEY ALL HAVE SOME SORT OF FRONT AND BACK YARDS. NOW SOME BUILDER MAY HAVE PUT SOLAR PANELS IN THE HOUSE FOR SPACE-AGE HEATING AND POWER. SOME WILL HAVE DIRECT CABEL [LIKE I DO] FOR INTERNET USE, OTHERS SOME FORM OF WIFI. SOME HOUSES WILL LOOK MORE ALIKE AND HAVE MORE OF THE SAME FEATURES; OTHERS WILL LOOK VERY DIFFERENT AND HAVE DIFFERENT INNER FEATURES THAN OTHERS [SOME ELECTRIC RANGE, ANOTHER A GAS RANGE]; SOME CARPETS, OTHERS WOOD OR TILE FLOORS. SOME WILL HAVE BUILT IN AIR-CONDITION, OTHERS WILL NOT. SOME MAY HAVE AN AIR-TIGHT WOOD STOVE FOR HEATING, OTHERS WILL NOT.
ALL WILL BE HOUSES; ALL WILL BE OF THE GENERAL CATEGORY OF HOUSES; SOME OUTSIDE AND INSIDE MORE LIKE EACH OTHER; SOME OUTSIDE AND INSIDE WAY DIFFERENT; SOME INSIDE CLOSER TO OTHERS ON THE INSIDE, SOME FURTHER AWAY IN THE INSIDE THAN OTHERS.
NO ONE WOULD COME CLOSE TO TEACHING THE HOUSES JUST APPEARED KINDA BY ACCIDENT; BY JUST THROWING CEMENT, WATER, WOOD, ELECTRIC WIRES, GLASS WINDOWS, WOODEN DOORS, ROOF SHINGLES, ALL ONTO A LOT AND EXPECTING THE HOUSE TO BUILD ITSELF. NO ONE WOULD EVER THINK THAT A DESIGNER AND BUILDER WAS NOT BEHIND THE BUILDING OF THE HOUSES. OFTEN ONE COMPANY THAT DESIGNS AND BUILDS HOUSES MAKES THEM SOMETIMES LOOKING CLOSE TO OTHERS AND SOMETIMES VERY DIFFERENT THAN OTHERS; BUT ALL FROM THE ONE DESIGNER AND BUILDER.
THERE CAN BE A NUMBER OF MODEL CARS FROM THE SAME DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURER, DIFFERENT ON THE OUTSIDE, DIFFERENT ON THE INSIDE; SOME LIKE EACH OTHER ON THE OUTSIDE, SOME LIKE EACH OTHER ON THE INSIDE; THEN SOME CLOSER TO EACH OTHER ON THE INSIDE, THEN OTHERS NOT AS CLOSE; YOU KNOW THE "OPTION" PACKAGE….. YOU CAN ASK FOR THIS ON THE INSIDE OR THAT; HENCE I MAY HAVE THE SAME MODEL BUT WITH LESS OR MORE OF THE SAME FROM THE FRIEND WITH THE SAME MODEL, OR ONE MODEL DOWN OR UP. BUT WE ALL KNOW THE VARIETY OF MODELS FROM THAT COMPANY, WAS MADE BY THAT SAME DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURER.
SO IT IS WITH THE CREATIONS OF GOD. THE SAME DESIGNER WITH MORE OR LESS "OPTIONS" FOR ALL HE CREATED, SOME CLOSE TO EACH OTHER, SOME MUCH FURTHER AWAY FROM OTHERS, BUT ALL THE SAME CREATOR.
Keith Hunt
AFTER ITS KIND
From the book by the same name (1958)
THE "PROOF" FROM EMBRYOLOGY
This proof consists essentially in the so-called, fact that each embryo in its development from a single cell to adult passes through stages that correspond one after another to each upward step in the evolution of the species as a whole. According to the theory man has evolved from a single cell in some primitive ocean into an invertebrate, thence into a fish, thence into an amphibian, thence to a reptile, thence to a mammal, thence to an ape, finally becoming himself, with thousands of nameless transition stages in between. Therefore, so it is said, the embryo of man begins as a single cell, passes into a fish, thence into a reptile, thence into a mammal, thence into an ape, and finally ends in man. 18 In other words, the embryological development of man is a moving picture of 500,000,000 years of human history.19
The above is the argument for evolution from embryology in its boldest form, as it was formulated by Ernest
l8 Childhood is further said to represent the stage of the development of the race through the low savage-stage. Children like to throw stones and chase one another with sticks!
19 In the language of the evolutionists "Ontogeny (i. e. the history of the individual) is the recapitulation (repetition) of phylogeny (i. e. the history of the race)"!
Haeckel the latter part of the last century. 20 That the embryo passes through such stages is a wild statement not supported by the facts. Each embryo must develop somehow in order to reach the adult condition, and, as has been shown in the preceding section, there is a vague similarity in the development of all embryos. But it is only a prejudiced imagination that is able to see in the embryonic development a retracing of any such evolutionary history as the theory of evolution supposes. The evolutionist Locy says, "Many stages have been dropped out, others are unduly prolonged or abbreviated, or appear out of their
Fig. 11. A stage in the embryonic development of the fish. According to the old argument for evolution from embryology each creature in its development from a single cell to adult form repeats each stage through which its ancestors evolved. Above is one stage in the embryonic development of the fish that must be called a "falsification of the ancestral record," for no creature like the above ever could have existed.
chronological order. And besides, some of the structures have arisen from adaptation and are not, therefore—ancestral at all, but are, as it were, recent additions to the text. The interpretation becomes a difficult task, and requires much balance of judgment and profound—analysis." 21 None but an evolutionist, we suppose, is privileged to have the necessary "balance of judgment."
20 Today no evolutionist of any standing dares to repeat it in the form which Haeckel presented it. "Haeckel saw in it (the evidence of embryology) more than the actual facts warranted and by his over-emphasis of its significance and his detailed interpretation of the evolutionary history brought it into some disrepute." Kellogg, Evolution the Way of Man, page 54.
21 Biology and Its Makers, page 230.
The following facts regarding the proof from embryology deserve special attention:
(1) It is admitted by evolutionists that there are embryonic stages which do not resemble any possible ancestral forms ... Morgan, in his Critique of the Theory of Evolution,provides pictures of several embryonic forms which, he says, "could not possibly represent ancestral animals." 22 He shows the picture of an embryonic fish (See Fig. 11) which has attached to its stomach region a sac as large as itself, and another picture of an embryo chick which at an early stage is so completely enveloped in a membrane that had it ever existed in such form, it would have been shut off entirely from the outside world. An example of a stage, that can not possibly resemble any ancestral animal may be taken from the insects, e.g., the common house-fly. Let an evolutionist describe the embryonic life of this fly, "A maggot hatching from an egg grows so rapidly that it is mature in a few days; then within an impenetrable skin (i.e., the chrysalis) it dissolves itself almost completely. A little later the liquid content of the skin turns to a sort of jelly, and in a few days this is reconstructed into a being so totally different in appearance, in habits, and in structure, that the resources of science, find themselves severely taxed to demonstrate any identity in the organ of the two stages of the insect's existence." 23 Special attention is called to what is said about the maggot's dissolving itself into a liquid. The maggot, according to the evolutionists, represents an ancestral animal. The dissolved stage following does not. Why not, we ask. Why say one does and the other does not ?
"During the period of life within its womb the human embryo develops a large organ like a sucker, which is closely pressed against the wall of the womb and which enables the tiny baby to suck nourishment from its motther's blood. This sucker, which is called the placenta. is developed from the belly of the embryo, which is thereby distorted out of shape." This description is quoted from
22 In evolutionary terminology embryonic stages which represent ancestral animals are called "palingenetic." Those that do not are called "cenogenetic."
23 W. F. Showalter in National Geographic, July, 1929, page 66.
the evolutionist McBride, who also says, "Now no one imagines that some ancestor of man went about through life with a placenta protruding from its under surface." 24 But we ask, why not, if embryological development shows past history? We grant that no human ancestor did go through life thus, but if the reasoning underlying the embryological proof of evolution is valid he did. It is during the same time the human embryo has a placenta protruding
Fig. 12. Four stages in the embryonic development of the Milkweed Butterfly. (1) egg, greatly enlarged. (2) larva. (3) pupa or chrysalis. (4) young butterfly. The larval or worm stage is said to repeat an ancestral animal. The chrysalis stage, in which many species of butterflies spend half their lives, is said not to repeat an ancestral animal. The chrysalis stage is a "falsification of the ancestral record," since it is a stage in which the butterfly spends a long, quiet, helpless existence without taking in food. Two questions may be asked: First, why is the larval stage ancestral and not the chrysalis? Second, why and how did the worm, through thousands of years, evolve itself into such a helpless form as the chrysalis, and how did it manage to evolve out of it?
from its stomach that the embryo has certain structures that are supposed to prove that man recapitulates a fish. But why regard this last as a record of the past history of man and not the first? If evidence is to be valid it must all be taken. If man can choose what he likes from evidence and reject what he does not, he can establish any falsehood. Morgan says that "hundreds of such embryonic cases are known to embryologists and are explained as "falsifications of the ancestral record.'" 25 The absurdity of this proof from embryology is apparent when those who advance it must accuse nature of falsifying. It would seem more proper, if, when natural evidence gives the lie to a theory,
24 Creation of Evolution, 1928, page 56.
25 Critique of the Theory of Evolution, page 17.
the theory and not the evidence should be considered to be "falsifying."
(2) It is admitted by evolutionists that the vast majority of embryonic stages which are supposed to resemble remote ancestors are absent entirely. Only three definite ancestral evolutionary stages are said to be revealed. They are:
A. The "fish" stage. It is said that the embryos of man, cats, dogs, and birds all have gills and gill-slits at an early stage of development, these gill-slits being relics of the days when man was a fish. Here the imagination of the evolutionist is active, or else his regard for accurate statement is lax. To say that the early embryonic folds, clefts, and arteries which appear as somewhat similar formations in all vertebrate embryos, whether of man, ape, bird or fish, are gills and gill-slits is not warranted by facts. This can not be too emphatically stated. These things can not properly be called gills even in the fish embryo. In the case of the fish embryo they are structures that become gills, a far different matter from already being gills. In the case of the human embryo and those of dogs, cats and so on they become ears, jaws and parts of the head and neck. It is just as reasonable to say that the embryonic structures in the fish embryo are human ears, jaws and neck as to say that the somewhat similar structures in the human embryo are gills. What would be thought of the man who, seeing three similar piles of brick in a brickyard, the first pile to be made into a house; the second pile into a store; the third pile into a church, should say of the pile of brick to be made into a house, "That is a house"; and of the pile of brick to be made into a store, "That is a house"; and of the pile of brick to become a church, "That is also a house"? That is like what the evolutionists do when they say of the embryonic structure of land animals, "These are gills." That man is never a "gilled-creature," as is so often said by evolutionists, is clear from the fact that the creases between the early folds of the human embryo never open. In the fish embryo they become open only by the time the embryonic development of the fish is fairly complete. "In gill-bearing animals the grooves become complete clefts, the 'gill-clefts' opening from the pharynx on to the interior; perforation, however, does not occur in birds and mammals." 26 "In all air-breathing vertebrates true gills are lacking," 27 admits Prof. Conklin.
B. The "tail" stage. Usually books on evolution do not mention any tailed ancestor as being represented in any human embryonic form. However, when a book on evolution is intended for the general public some evolutionists dare to make the statement that the human embryo has a tail. Kellogg, in his latest book 28 says, "The tail is longer than the leg in early stages of the human embryo, but gradually becomes more and more reduced, until at birth there is no external sign of it."
Here again fancy and facts do not agree. The adult human being has thirty-three vertebrae in his spine. The spine of the human embryo also has thirty-three vertebrae and at no time more, which would be the case if the embryo ever in actual fact had a tail. That which is called a "tail" is nothing but the extension of the embryonic spine.
Some conception of the vagueness of the evidence involved in this proof of evolution, and of the room for the imagination to work, is had when it is realized that at this early stage of embryonic development, when man is said to be a "tailed" and a "gilled" creature, the embryo is the size of a pea. At that time only the principal organs of the body are in existence and these only in their faintest beginnings. They are, furthermore, not in their proper place. The heart is at this time as large as the head and is located in front of the mouth region. The spinal column is well marked long before there are any indications whatever of legs or arms.
The absurdity of seeing in the extension of the spine beyond the legs a true tail is most apparent when it is known that the intestine also extends beyond the legs, along with the so-called tail, and is, as Kellogg says of the tail, also "longer than the leg in early stages." Near the end of the so-called "tail" is the anal opening.
26 Gray's Anatomy, 15th edition, page 1168.
27 Creation by Evolution, page 67.
28 Evolution the Way of Man, page 52.
C. The "hair" stage. The following statement appears in Prof. Kellogg's book: 29 "At the seventh month of prenatal life the chimpanzee and gorilla have well developed hair on scalp, eyebrows, and lips and the rest of the body is covered with fine hair. This is also true of the human embryo of the same age and the hair slopes and lines are very similar to those of apes. But before birth the human embryo loses the fine body hair." Such statements as these have influence only because of the ignorance of the ordinary person regarding the actual facts.
In considering the weight of this argument one can do no better than note what is said in several standard embryology books, and draw his own conclusions. The implication of the above statement is that the fine hair with which the embryo ape is covered at seven months and the fine hair with which the human embryo is covered are exactly alike. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The hair of the human embryo is exceedingly fine compared with that of the embryo ape. Heisler 30 says of the human embryo, "The first growth of hair is un-pigmented and is extremely fine and soft and is known as the lanugo or embryonal down. This appears upon the scalp and some other parts of the body in the fourth month, gradually extending over the entire surface in the succeeding months. In the eighth month the lanugo begins to disappear, but is not lost as a whole till after birth when the permanent growth of hairs takes its place. Upon the face, in fact, the lanugo persists throughout life." Minot 31 says, "Lanugo is the term applied to the first coat of hairs in the embryo … The hairs are fine compared with those of the adult and are therefore usually described as woolly hairs. They are lost from most parts of the body and are replaced by larger and coarser hairs. Over the face the lanugo persists throughout life, but owing to the fineness and loss of color is not noticed." The attention of the reader is called to the emphasis placed on the fineness of the hairs. So fine are they in fact that if the
29 Ibid., page 61.
30 Textbook of Embryology, page 250.
31 Human Embryology, page 561.
reader ever has the opportunity to visit medical museums and study the exhibitions of human embryos from five weeks to the age of birth he will not with his naked eye be able to see the faintest sign of a hair except on the head and eyebrows. Bailey and Miller 32 say, "The fine-formed hairs, which are exceedingly fine and silky, develop in vast numbers over the surface of the embryonic body and are known collectively as the lanugo. This growth is lost beginning before birth and continuing during the first and second years except over the face, and is replaced by coarser hairs. These are constantly shed during the life of the individual and replaced by newer ones. The new hairs probably in most cases develop from the old follicles."
If the reader is interested in knowing just what the hairs are like that appear in the fourth month and are on the body when it is born and remain only on the face during life, for the clothes wear them off elsewhere, he can take a mirror and step to the window and, looking carefully, see them along the outer edge of his ears.
The actual value for the theory of evolution of the evidence from embryology, when all the facts are clearly understood, was expressed by Bateson before the assembled scientists of America when he said regarding this argument, "Today we feel silence to be the safer course." 33 Other evolutionists have expressed the same sentiments in complete form but in more technical language. E. B. Wilson, called the "dean of American embryologists," has had this to say, "It is no wonder that a strong reaction against the theory has set in—that faith in the embryo-logical record is giving way to skepticism and indifference. There is a strong suspicion that the embryological record has somehow failed, and there are even some morphologists who seem almost ready to abandon the entire recapitulation theory.'" Wilson quotes with approval Gegenbaur, who said, "But if we are compelled to admit that cenogenetic characters (i. e. those supposed not to represent ancestral stages) are intermingled with palingenetic
32 Textbook of Embryology, pages 447-448.
33 Science, Jan.-20, 1922.
(i. e. those that are supposed to represent ancestral stages) then we can not regard ontogeny (i. e. embryonic development) as a pure source of evidence regarding phyletic relationships (i. e. evolutionary history). Ontogeny, accordingly, becomes a field in which an active imagination may have full scope for its dangerous play, but in which positive results are by no means everywhere to be attained. To attain such results the palingenetic and the cenogenetic phenomena must be sifted apart, an operation which requires more than one critical granum satis. If it is once admitted that not everything in development is palingenetic, and that not every ontogenetic fact can be accepted, so to speak, at its face value, it follows that nothing in ontogeny is immediately available for the critique of embryological development. This conclusion can not be escaped." 34
Referring to the above words of Gegenbaur, Prof. Conklin has said, "Since the time this was written there have been many less moderate utterances to the same effect, some even declaring that there is no evidence that ontogeny ever recapitulates phylogeny and that Haeckel's 'biogenetic law' has no foundation in fact." 35 One of the "less moderate utterances" Conklin probably referred to is that of Montgomery, a biologist of high standing in evolutional circles, "The recapitulation hypothesis is scientifically untenable." 36
34 Biological Lectures - Woodshole, 1894, page 104
35 Creation by Evolution, 1928, page 71
36 The Analysis of the Racial descent in Animals, 1906
…………………
AFTER ITS KIND
From the book by the same name (1958)
THE "PROOF" FROM VESTIGIAL ORGANS
This fourth proof of evolution rests on the so-called fact that there are in the bodies of many animals parts that have absolutely no function. These parts, it is said lost whatever usefulness they once had in the course of evolution. As an illustration of what a vestigial organ is we might take the old kerosene lamps that were once inside the windshield of the early automobile. Now those kerosene lights are no more. Strong electric head-lights have taken their place. If however, the old kerosene lamps were still retained in manufacture because they could not be gotten rid of, they would be what would be designated as "vestigial" organs of the automobile. Such vestigial parts are supposed to be present in great abundance in the bodies of animals and men, especially the latter, and are being carried around as so much useless luggage.
It is certainty not reasonable that the Creator would put into any one of His creatures parts that are of absolutely no use to it. Certainly He would not put in detrimental parts. The only way of determining the value of this argument, therefore, is to determine whether there are in any creature parts that serve no purpose. It makes no difference what degree of functional importance the parts may have. It is not to be expected that all parts of a body should have equally important functions. The thumb could better be dispensed with than the heart. If a part serves any function whatever, whether it is only in the embryonic period, in the years of childhood—grown, or later, that part is useful and cannot reasonably be considered a proof of evolution.
Certain definite organs of men and animals that are said to be "vestigial" will now be considered. So many have been enumerated that it is impossible in these pages to mention them all. Furthermore, it is not necessary. The chief ones will be considered and certain principles will be stated that will serve the purpose of showing the fallacy in this sort of proof.
It should be borne in mind, as was brought out in the section on comparative anatomy, that the Creator has used one common plan or pattern of structure for vast numbers of His creatures. However, since these creatures were to live in different surroundings, it was necessary that the common plan should be modified, now in one place, now in another. Man is one of the creatures made on the common plan. In his body he is not essentially different from the lower animals. According to the Bible it is in his spiritual nature that man is superior to, and a creature totally different from, the dumb brutes.
It is to be expected, in view of the similarity of plan of structure which the Creator adopted, that we should find in the body of man the same muscles and organs which we find in the lower animals, only modified according to human needs. Such is the case.
In the head of the horse for example, and this matter is referred to because it touches the subject of vestigial organs, are certain muscles that are very useful to the horse, muscles by which the horse can twitch the skin of his forehead vigoro-usly to drive off flies, and muscles by which he can turn his ears back and forth quickly in order to detect danger. In man, because he is made on the same fundamental plan as the horse, these same muscles are found, only they are not so highly developed and efficient. With them man can move his ears and his scalp slightly, but not so well as watch the horse in the can. These muscles in man, because they are less useful and less efficient, are therefore said by the evolutionists to be "vestigial" muscles, muscles that—we human beings could and did once use, when we were creatures of a lower order, but cannot now use because we have evolved. Some day, according to the theory, these muscles and others of the face will be entirely gone.
But - let us consider, why, on the theory of creation, man should be made so as to be able to twitch his skin and move his ears as vigorously as the horse. Man has a mind that serves him better than any set of muscles. Let us further ask if, when the time comes that these so-called useless muscles will be gone, we shall not be as dead in facial expression and appearance as stones. We shall be able, neither to laugh nor smile, to raise our eyebrows nor otherwise express the personality within us. Finally, it must be considered, if the muscles that connect with our ears and enable us to move them as we do were ever absent entirely, would not something else be necessary to fill up the holes in the head caused by their absence? If these parts are useful only for filling in, they are not "vestigial."
We might refer in this connection to the so-called rudimentary "third eyelid" in man. Reptiles, birds, cats, all vertebrate animals, in fact, have fastened to the edge of the eye on one side a thin membrane that helps to hold the eye in place in the head. In some creatures this membrane is so well developed that it is useful for cleaning off the eyeball. In man's eye, next to the nose, as the reader can see by inspection, there is a fold of whitish membrane that serves to fill in that corner of the eye and forms a delicate socket in which the eyeball turns. This fold is said to be "vestigial," a proof that man is a direct descendant of the reptiles! However, since the Creator used a common pattern, why should not this fold be there? What would take its place if it were gone?
It is hoped that the above discussion will suggest how to deal with a certain class of "evidences."
There are others, however, that should be taken up separately, among them certain so-called vestigial organs in the lower animals. The two most commonly mentioned are the "relics of rear legs" in whales, which are said to prove that whales are descendants of land animals, and the "relics of legs" in the great snake, the python or boa, which are said to prove that these serpents once
walked.
In the rear part of the whale, about midway between the front paddles and the tail flukes by which the creature drives itself through the water, imbedded in the flesh of that region, are certain cartilaginous bones from six to ten inches in length. These bones are not connected with the spine, but are imbedded in the muscles. They do not approach the outside of the skin but are clearly an interior organ of the whale. These bones, existing in the whale in the general region where rear legs, if they existed would be, are pointed to by the upholders of the evolutionary theory as evidence that the whale was once a land animal in possession of useful rear legs.
Before discussing the actual facts of the case it is well to consider what this "proof" calls upon men to accept. Evolutionists are wont to ridicule the creationists with being credulous, superstitious, able to believe anything. To accept this proof means that one must believe that the whale came out of the water where it had been a fish, became a land animal, worked for millions of years to get legs, got them, used them, perhaps to climb trees with or gallop over the dusty plains, then got tired of being a land animal, being a land animal, began to live near the edge of the water, turned its front legs into paddles, developed tails, flukes to act as propellers, let its rear legs hang uselessly behind until they wasted away, and finally came to exist only in the state it is in today!
Does not such a course of evolution cause one to wonder at the statement of President McMurrich of the University of Toronto, "It seems incredible that man as a reasoning animal can presume to doubt evolution"?
As said above, the whale is a mammal. The Creator made it, internally, not after the pattern of the fish, though it lives in the water, but after the pattern of the four-footed land animals. The pattern was modified, so as to substitute tail-flukes for rear legs. It was necessary, however, to provide certain bones in the rear part of the great monster to help support the mass of organs in that part. The bones were put there by the Creator and muscles attached to them by which the genital and other parts of the creature are supported. Having, thus, an important function these often mentioned bones in the whale are not vestigial anythings.37
The other so-called vestigial organs of the lower animals to be considered are the leg-bones of the boa. In the rear part of this great serpent there are two strong spurs 38 which project two or three inches. They are the visible parts of what are actually legs, the larger part of which are concealed under the skin. But the skin is very loose and pliable in that region and the legs can be moved vigorously back and forth. By means of the spurs the serpent, which kill's by wrapping itself around its victim and squeezing it to death, can cut severe gashes by powerful, quick strokes. By means of the spurs it assists in propelling its great bulk along the ground. In view of the useful advantages, the creature has in the possession of these spurs the leg-bones cannot be considered useless appendages.
We come now to the so-called vestigial organs in man besides those already mentioned: the tonsils, the thyroid,
37 See article, "Whale," in the Cent. Dict. and Ency., 1911 ed.
38 See picture and discussion in Ditmar's Reptiles of the World, pages 197, 218.
the thymus gland, the pineal gland, the pituitary gland, and the vermiform appendix. Belief in evolution was given tremendous impulse until comparatively recent times by the oft repeated statements of evolutionists that the above mentioned organs of the human body were with out rhyme or reason and could be dispensed with at any time. Medical science was then in a rather crude state. Today, because of the great progress of investigation in the study of human anatomy, evolutionists are strangely silent on all these once so-called "Vestigial" organs. As Paley declared, "our list of useless structures decreases as our store of knowledge increases."
The once loudly proclaimed useless part, the thyroid gland, is now known to be vitally important in normal body growth. Improper functioning of the organ causes that hideous deformity called cretinism. 39 The thyroid controls the iodine that comes into the system in the food that is eaten. Yet this important part, because its function, was unknown, was until quite recently an infallible "proof" of evolution. Another "vestigial" part, whose lack of function has been disproved, is the pituitary gland. On the functioning of this gland depends the proper growth of the skeleton. Over-activity of the gland causes abnormal
growth. The giants which we see in circuses are probably victims of an over-activity of pituitary functions. 40 The pineal gland, another once infallible "proof" exerts its chief functional activity in childhood. "Until the seventh year this organ exerts an inhibitory influence upon the development of the sexual glands." 41 The function of the thymus is now clearly known. It is an endocrine gland working with the thyroid. Four pairs of lymphatic tissues exist in the upper human throat, one of which ordinary people call their "tonsils." although all four pairs are their tonsils. These are "a chain of fortresses protecting the body against invasion by pathogenic organisms." 42 In other words, the tonsils help to prevent disease germs from
39 See Thyroid and Thymus Gland, 2nd ed., page 21, of George W. Crile and Associates.
40 See The Endocrines, by S. Wyllis Bandler, pages 100-104.
41 See ibid., page 93.
42 A Laboratory Textbook of Human Anatomy, by O. F. Kampmeier, 1944, page 128, part VII.
entering the system. They are especially important in children. Concerning the thymus and the tonsils, Sir Arthur Keith, head of the Royal College of Surgeons. London said, "no one would describe them as vestiges." 43
The following concerning that notorious "proof" of evolution, the appendix, is from a member of the faculty of one of the large medical schools of America:
"Both the tonsils and the appendix are largely composed of lymphoid tissue. The function of lymphoid tissue, wherever it is found, is intimately related to combatting the invasion of the body by foreign agents, particularly bacteria. The tonsils and appendix engage in this protective function, consequently they can not be thought of as inert or vestigial tissues from this point of view. The appendix, in addition to being a lymph organ, also happens to be an extension of the large intestine. Because of its narrow lumen (or duct) . . . it is difficult to conceive how the appendix can play a significant role in the digestion and absorption of food-stuffs. From this point of view. i.e. as an organ important in the handling of foodstuffs, it may be considered rudimentary in the human species, but it must be remembered that it still contains its lymph structure and functions in much the same manner as its parent, the larger intestine."
The member of the faculty of the medical school thus quoted then refers to the author of a text-book of human anatomy 44 who says, "The designation 'abdominal tonsil' ... is sometimes applied to the appendix . . . (which) is found only in scattered forms of mammals: in the wombat, rabbit, some lemurs, in anthropoid apes, and in man. It is erroneously classed as a vestigial organ.'" Keith likewise says 45 that the appendix "does not merit the name 'vestigial'" and says that in growth and atrophy in later years the appendix keeps company with other lymphatic glands of the body.
Attention is called to the presence of the appendix in lower animals. If, as was once said, the appendix is a "vestigial" organ in man because its function is unknown,
43 Nature, Dec. 12, 1925.
44 Kampmeier, O. F., A Laboratory Textbook of Human Anatomy, 1944, p. 405, part IV.
45 Nature, Dec. 12, 1925.
then evolution has produced a totally useless organ in the entire animal world, because no more is known about its function in the lower animals than in man. Furthermore, it is odd that the appendix should exist in what are said to be man's closest relatives, the higher apes, but not in his less immediate relatives, the monkeys, and yet should appear again in animals farther down the scale, e.g., the rabbit, wombat and opossum. 46
It might be well to add a word in connection with so-called vestigial organs regarding the reputed existence of human beings with "tails." Every now and then it is reported that a baby has been born with a tail, or a tailed family has been discovered somewhere, usually in some far away corner of the earth. It is rather significant that when such cases are reported the descriptions of them are so meager, or the time of their occurrence so remote that one who might wish to make a personal investigation would not be able to do so. All reports of human tails, however apparently authoritative, should be received with suspicion. Zeal to establish their theory will sometimes lead evolutionists to accept and report cases that are totally without foundation. As a proof of this, what occurred a few years ago may be cited. Dr. W. W. Keen, a man of reputation in evolutionary circles, wrote a book called "I Believe in God and in Evolution" in which he published a faked picture of a man with a tail. When the fact that the photograph was faked was called to his attention he wrote to the magazine Science as follows: "In my book, 'I Believe in God and in Evolution' I have included in the fourth edition a photograph of an Igorot with a tail, which I vouched for, as I understood that it had been photographed by own grandson, Mr. John Freeman. A few days ago within a few hours of each other, I received letters from Dr. Alex Hrdlicka, of the division of physical anthropology of the National Museum of the Smithsonian Institute and from Mrs. Ella F. Grave, who a year ago had been doing some work in the Philippines for the National Research Council. Both of these correspondents stated that the Bureau of Science in Manila had shown them the original of this
40 Mivart, Man and Apes, page 161.
photograph which showed it was a fake photograph, the tail having been added to the original by the photographer, I suppose as a joke. On communicating with my grandson I find that I misinterpreted his letter and that he did not photograph this Igorot." Keen then went on to say that his mistake did not mean that human tails do not prove man's animal ancestry, "for there are plenty of genuine tails." In a later communication to the same magazine he stated that "two new photographs, unquestionably authentic" had been substituted for the faked one, one photograph of a case reported in 1901, the other in 1889. It is doubtful, however, if many will agree that the new photographs are "unquestionably authentic" after the publication of the faked one, which was also once to be relied on as authentic. 47
Aside from falsely reported cases of actual human tails what may happen is this:
As students of embryology know, injuries or accidents are likely to occur in embryonic development which cause freaks of nature. Among animals two-headed calves and cats and puppies, and in the human family three-legged men and two persons with a common stomach have been born. Evolutionists do not contend that therefore there have been such ancestors as these for animals and men. In like manner injuries have occurred in the development of the human embryo which have caused the coccyx or lower end of the spine to be abnormally developed, thus giving the suggestion of a tail. This does not mean that men had tailed ancestors any more than two-headed calves prove that modern cattle are descended from two-headed cattle.
Monstrosities due to accidents in very early stages of individual development, rather than the evolution of the whole human race, account for some so-called proofs of evolution, such as the very rare births of men or women with supernumerary breasts. A rather common condition, in which men's second and third toes are joined, may well be a condition which is of genetic origin, i. e., one Divinely provided for at creation, like white streaks of hair above the forehead, rather than be a condition due to man's
47 Science, April 2, 1926, and June 11, 1926.
evolution from webbed bird or reptile ancestors, as some evolutionists have maintained.
Much has been made by evolutionists of the fact that very young infants can support their weight by their fingers at an early age, this being a sign, it is said, of man's arboreal ancestry. It is to be explained, however, by the fact that infants possess this ability because they have been very active in the womb in opening and closing their fingers, and have thus developed strong hand muscles. Where the will to believe in evolution exists there exists also the willingness to grasp at any straw which may seem to support that theory.
………………..
INDEED MANY A CIRCUS HAD AT TIMES IN THE PAST "THE FREAK" PERSON, WITH ABNORMAL THIS OR THAT. WE STILL KNOW TODAY NOW AND AGAIN BABIES ARE JOINED TOGETHER AT DIFFERENT PARTS OF THEIR BODY, SOME CAN BE OPERATED ON AND DIVIDED; SOME CANNOT BECAUSE THEY SHARE A VITAL ORGAN. ABNORMAL HAPPENINGS DO TAKE PLACE IN THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE WOMB OF ANIMALS AND MANKIND. THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE FACT OF LIFE. JUST AS WE HAVE "DOWN-SYNDROME" CHILDREN, NOW UNDERSTOOD WHY BY SCIENCE, SO WE HAVE HAD AND DO HAVE FROM TIME TO TIME, VARIOUS BIRTHS OF ANIMALS AND CHILDREN WITH VARIOUS, WHAT WE MIGHT CALL "ABNORMAL PHYSICAL" CHARACTERISTICS.
Keith Hunt
AFTER ITS KIND
From the book by the same name (1958)
THE "PROOF" FROM GEOLOGY
What is considered by many evolutionists as the strongest proof for evolution is now to be considered. Throughout the world in many places there are known be rock-lavers of various thicknesses lying horizontally one upon another. These layers, or "strata," as they are also called, can often be seen along railroad cuts and river banks. The horizontal deposits were evidently made by the agency of water. Those that are lowest in the earth were deposited first, those on the top deposited last. The evolutionists say that these layers of rock were deposited thus through periods of hundreds of millions of years. The first to be deposited, they say, was, laid down almost a billion years ago. The latest is being de-
Fig. 14. Leaf of a living hickory compared with the leaf of a hickory from the so-called Pliocene epoch. Fossil from United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 98 [very much the same]
posited today. And all through the intervening ages deposits were being made. Furthermore, the evolutionists say, during the immense periods when these deposits were being made, living things were evolving upon the earth. Starting with some
Fig. 15. Leaf of a living Japanese oak compared with a leaf of a fossil Japanese oak from the so-called Eocene age. Fossil from United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 91 [very much the same]
very simple form, life changed and developed until man and all the host of plants and animals of today were produced. And, evolutionists say these developing forms left records of their evolution through the ages in the layers of soil that were deposited contemporaneously with them. Consequently, in the lowest strata are found as fossils the simplest forms of life, those which were evolved first, while in the top or most recently deposited—lasers are found the most complex forms, the forms of life last to be evolved.
It is the statement, therefore, in substance, that the deeper down into the earth we dig the simpler and stranger will be the forms of fossil-life discovered, until we come to a place where no traces of past life exist, which constitutes the geological argument for evolution.
Fig. 16. Leaf of a living walnut compared with the leaf of a walnut from the so-called Cretaceous age. Fossil from United States Geological Professional Paper 101 [very much the same]
The criticism of this "proof" from the creationist's point of view is so ample and varied that it will be considered under the following heads:
(l) Do the fossils themselves show this evolution, or are they essentially the same as corresponding forms today?
Granting, for the time being, that some fossil forms are many millions of years old, the fact remains that those that have, living representatives, no matter how old they are, are the same in appearance as living forms. The world in which we live is as it has been called, "a zoologically impoverished" world, by which is meant a world which has no longer the large numbers of species with which it was once stocked. Of those that were created a considerable portion have been unable to withstand the rigors and hardships that a changed condition 48 in the world has produced, and have ceased to exist. But those
Fig. 17. Leaf of a living grape compared with the leaf of a grape from the so-called Cretaceous age. Fossil from United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 101. [very much the same]
which have survived correspond exactly with those of their— kind whose remains have been unearthed as fossils.
In 1938 deep-water fishermen, who were fishing off the coast of South Africa, brought to the surface a fighting, threshing fish, five feet long and a hundred and twentv-seven pounds in weight, such as they had never seen before. Scientists, being called in to investigate, called "it a Coelacanth (Fig. 18), identical in every respect with the Coelacanths whose fossils are found in considerable numbers buried in the strata of the United States, Germany, and elsewhere. These strata are said bv evolu-
48 The Deluge offers to the believer in the Bible a likely point in world history when the changed condition began.
(BUT THE DELUGE OF WATER ALL OVER THE EARTH WAS NOT IN THE TIME OF NOAH, BUT SOMETIME IN THE UNKNOWN PAST, AS WE THEN COME TO THE EARTH IN GENESIS 1:1-2, WHERE THE EARTH IS COVERED BY WATER. THIS WAS THE TIME WHEN THE AGE OF DINOSAURS CAME TO AN END. ALL SHOWN IN OTHER STUDIES ON THIS WEBSITE - Keith Hunt)
tionary geologists to have been formed in the Triassic Age, or "Age of Reptiles," and the Coelacanths whose fossils these strata contain are said to have become extinct "90.000.000 years ago." 49
Fig. 18 Above, photo of a living Coelacanth caught in a net in very deep water
off the coast of South Africa in December, 1938. Below, photo of a fossil Coelacanth from the "Triassic" strata of Germany, said to agree in every detail with the living Coelacanth.
49 Life, April 3, 1939; Time, April 3, 1939. Some geologists place the Triassic Age at 400,000,000 years ago. A second fish of the Coelacanth species was caught near Madagascar in December, 1952.
In the so-called oldest rocks, those supposed to be always deepest down in the earth, the "Paleozoic," there are fossil remains of star-fish, which, when compared with living forms, are found to be essentially the same. (Fig. 21). In spite of supposed hundreds of millions of years of evolution the present star-fish, corals, and crinoids of our modern seas are still today easily recognized as the same creatures as their, remote ancestors.
Fig. 19. Leaf of a living magnolia compared with the leaf of a magnolia from the so-called Cretaceous age. Fossil from United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 101.
In those "ancient" rocks, also, are found various kinds of fishes that have their exact couterparts in living fishes of today. The so-called Devonian rocks of Ohio, extending entirely across the state, contain fish remains in great numbers, chiefly sharks, of which it has been said that
Fig. 20. Ginko or Maiden hair leaves from the "Jurassic Epoch" compared with leaves of the living Ginko. Living leaves from one tree. Fossils from United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 85. [virtually the same]
their jaws and teeth "were established essentially as at present." 50 In the group of layers called "Mesozoic," which are supposed to contain the remains of those creatures that came into existence midway through the long-
50 J. E. Hyde in Natural History Magazine, Sept.-Oct., 1926, page 500.
Fig. 21. Above are varieties of star-fish as they exist today. (Smithsonian Institute Bulletin 100). Below are varieties of star-fish found as fossils in so-called "Ordovician Rocks." (Smithsonian Institute Bulletin 88). Three quarters of a billion years are said to separate the living from the fossil types. There is no essential difference between them. How is this persistency of species to be accounted for?
period of supposed evolution, there are remains of plants of various kinds (Fig. 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20)—laurel leaves, oak leaves, willow leaves, beech and alder leaves-— which, by all the straining in the world, cannot but be called by the names by which their living representatives are known. Though the trees have had, according to the theory, at least a hundred million years in which to change, they are readily identified as ancestors of the living forms. When we come down to the fossils of only a supposed ten million years ago, the period called "Tertiary" we find that the creatures of that day—pigs, elephants, tigers, bears, apes, are similar in type to living forms. All of which points to the truth of the Biblical principle that living things have brought forth after their kind.
To impress the reader with this persistence of types as shown. by the geological record we can do no better ,than to quote the famous evolutionist, Thomas Pfuxlev. If we confine ourselves to positively ascertained facts. the total amount of change in the forms of animals and vegetable life, since existence of such forms is recorded. is small. When compared with the lapse of time since the first appearance of these forms, the amount of change is wonderfully small. Moreover, in each great group_oj the animal and vegetable kingdom there are certain forms which I termed persistent types which have remained with but little apparent change from their first appearance to the present time." 51 And we might add the following quotation from a more recent geologist, "Perhaps the first and most obvious lesson to be gleaned from the study of fossils is the elementar}*' truth that life, even in the earliest times, differed in no way from the life of today. Further, we observe that the lowly types of life that appear in the oldest rocks have persisted through all geological times up<to the present day." 52
(2) Do the fossils reveal the transition stages that the geological "proof requires?
If throughout past ages life was actually drifting over in one continual stream from one form into another, it is
51 Critiques and Addresses, page 182.
52 Prof. James Park, Textbook of Geology, page 265 (1925).
to be expected that as many samples of the intermediate stages between species should be discovered in fossil condition as of the species themselves. According to the theory invertebrates gradually turned into fishes, fishes gradually
Fig 22. Missing links exist not only between men and apes but in many other places along the supposed line of evolution. Above is the theoretical line of evolution from fish to land animals. Fossil fish (left) in great numbers are found. Fossil amphibians, lizards, salamanders, crocodiles (right) in great numbers are also found. But no fossil transition forms (center) between fish and amphibians are found, although they ought to exist in as great abundance as either of the other types if evolution has taken place. Below is the only geological proof of the transition from fish to amphibians. "A single impression of a three-toed footprint in the upper Devonian shales of Pennsylvania constitutes at present (1925) the sole paleontological proof of the long period of transition of the vertebrates from the fish type to the amphibian type."-—-H. F. Osborn. Lull describes this impression as "baffling in its obscurity." We readily agree. Footprint illustration and quotation from Osborn's Origin and Evolution of Life, pages 176, 7.
became four-legged amphibians, amphibians drifted over into reptiles. Reptiles with scales gradually transformed their scales into feathers and their front feet info bird's wings, while other reptiles slowly transformed themselves into fur-bearing quadrupeds. The quadrupeds in turn drifted over gradually into apes, and apes drifted in herds over into men. If these things actually happened, it is certainly fair to suppose that we should find vast numbers of the drifting-over forms. There is no reason why we should not. It is difficult to imagine why there should be definite, fixed types such as we find in the fossil world at all. All should be in a state of flux. But these missing links are wanting. There are no fossils of creatures whose scales were changing into feathers or whose feet were changing into wings, no fossils of fish getting legs (Fig. 22) or of reptiles getting hair. The real task of the geological evolutionist is not to find "the" missing link, as if there were only one. The task is to find those thousands upon thousands of missing links that connect the many fossil species with one another. The lack of transition forms described above is acknowledged by Prof. T. D. A. Cockerell of the University of Colorado in the following words, "There are innumerable missing-links in all groups, and we can never hope to complete the history of life from fossil remains." 53 The existence of these gaps is further testified to by Dr. Austin H. Clark of the United States National Museum, whose statements in 1929 caused a furor in evolutionary camps, where it was felt that he was giving the case away. The theory of evolution is that an original, primitive cell slowly and gradually branched out into all modern forms of life like so many branches of a tree. This view, Clark says, must be modified, for, says he, "gaps are found in all these evolutionary lines, and many of these gaps appear to be real—that is, they were never, so far as we have been able to learn, bridged by so-called missing-links. To take a concrete example, it is quite obvious that the gap between cats and dogs is broad, and it remains broad throughout the fossil record. Cats never became dogs, nor dogs cats; but both are cannvorous mammals. Be-
53 Zoology, page 140.
tween the backbones in animals and the invertebrates the gaps are very wide, and those peculiar types which are intermediate between them are widely different from either. Between the various invertebrate groups, as the arthropods, echinoderms, nemerteans, and so forth, the gaps are still wider. Indeed, so broad are the gaps between these various types of lower animals that they can not be arranged in any sort of evolutionary line. . . . The gaps between the various invertebrate phyla go back quite unchanged to the very earliest fossils that are adequately known, those of Cambrian time." 54
The above gives the gist of Clark's view of missing-links. He is of the evolutional school, however, and the way he manages to reconcile these gaps with evolution is to hold that, in some unaccountable way, great leaps were made in the evolutionary process, such that widely differing forms suddenly appeared without any transition steps at all. In later pages of this book the matter of "mutations" will be discussed, a process by which new varieties within species are at present being produced —new forms of dogs among dogs, new forms of poppies among poppies. The mutations or leaps which Clark maintains have occurred are not of this order, but far greater. There is nothing in nature now to which we can compare them.
A late [1938] acknowledgement of the lack of transitional forms comes from Prof. Caullery of the Chair of Evolution of the University of Paris: "The general fact that paleontology shows us few transitional forms, and still fewer primitive forms is very disturbing." 55
(3) The "imperfection" of the geological record.
The manner in which the absence of connecting links among the fossils is accounted for is seen in the following quotation from Charles Darwin. "Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely-graded organic chain: and this perhaps is the most obvious and serious objection which can, be urged against the theory. The explanation lies however, in the extreme imperfection of the geological
54 Science, March 8, 1929.
55 Science, 1938.
record." 56 It should be noted where this great champion puts the blame when conditions are not right for the theory which he made famous. Imperfection as an excuse for the absence of links, however, leaves a dangerous hole in the geological argument. If the record is so imperfect that the necessary connecting links are not found, what assurance can the evolutionists give that the same imperfection does not hide more important facts—such, for example, as that horses lived in the "age of reptiles" and apes in the "age of fishes"? If the record is imperfect, how do they know that the bones of such "higher" types of animals as deer or pigs will not some day be found in strata—supposed to have been deposited millions of years before those types were evolved? How do they know that the remains of the modern horse will not be found in a so-called "Cretaceous" stratum (Cretaceous strata being the deposits supposed to have been made when reptilian forms were ruling the world as the highest forms of life)? If the record is imperfect they do not know, and therefore horses may have roved in one part of the earth in "Cretaceous" time while reptiles lived in another part. Apes may have lived as early as the "Devonian" age, the so-called "age of fishes." Bateson pointed to this hole in the geological "proof" when he said to the assembled scientists of America, "It has been asked how we know that there were mammals (e. g. rabbits, sheep, horses in the the Paleozoic time. May there not have been mammals somewhere on the earth, though no vestige of them has come down to us ?" 57 Of course, mammals will never be found in "Paleozoic" strata—not for very long. Of that we are absolutely positive for this reason: Mammals did not live in "Paleozoic" time (i e. when fishes are supposed to have been the most advanced form of life) according to the evolutionists. Mammals evolved later. If remains of any mammal should ever be found in a layer that had previously been called "Paleozoic," the evolutionists would say a mistake had been made, and the age-name would be changed. Such renaming of strata has been done again
56 Origin of Species, volume 2, page 49, 6th ed.
57 Science, Jan. 20, 1922
and again in the last seventy-five years, and the evolutionists now have the strata labelled about as they want. 58 The evolutional labellers of the rocks simply will not let things get out of order for their theory, and to keep the order right an astonishing method is sometimes used, i. e. the order of the strata is said to have been reversed (See Fig. 23).
No one need expect that such a thing—a mammal being found in "Paleozoic" rock or a horse in "Cretaceous"—will ever occur so long as the evolutionists are in control of the labelling of the rocks. The creationists, however, should know the reason. Which leads to the question:
(4) Is one fossil necessarily any older than any other? May not the vast majority of plants and animals whose remains have been unearthed have lived and been destroyed at the same time? We touch here upon the very vitals of the proof from geology.
The evolutionists say that the simplest forms of life (corals, star-fish, crinoids) are very old, and the very complex forms (bears, elephants, camels) are very young. The former being several hundreds of millions of years old, the latter being only five or ten millions of years old. The youngest have evolved out of the oldest. These statements are made on the basis of the supposed fact that the simplest forms (corals, star-fish) are found in the lowest layers of earth, and the most complex forms found in the highest layers.
Is this, however, always the case? In the fossil world are the simplest forms always found at the bottom and the complex structures at the top? In other words, are corals, crinoids, star-fish-—-forms of life supposed to have
58 The evolutionary rule governing the designation of the age of strata is this: if a deposit contains the remains of several forms, as many do, some higher and some lower in the evolutionary scale, the higher form gives the age to the strata. To illustrate: if a snake and a horse and a turtle are found as fossils in a stratum, the horse is the form that gives the age to the stratum. As long as remains of turtles and snakes alone are found in a rock that rock might be called "Cretaceous." If later a fossil horse is found with the turtle and snake, the age of the rock is changed to "Tertiary."
Geological column
Pleistocene
Tertiary
Cretaceous
Jurassic
Triassic 400,000,000 yr. old
Permian 500,000,000 yr. old
Carboniferous 600,000,000 yr. old
Devonian 700,000,000 yr old
Silurian 800,000,000 yr old
Ordovician 900,000,000 yr old
Cambrian 1,000,000,000 yr. oldl
Algonkian
Fig. 23. "We may even demonstrate that strata have turned completely upside down if we can show that fossils in what are the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them." Sir Archibald Giekie, Textbook of Geology, p. 837. The regions of the earth's surface pictured above, which are but a few of hundreds of similar examples, are parts of areas thousands of square miles in extent which have been "demonstrated" to have "turned completely upside down," because, forsooth, the most complex fossils are at the bottom and the most simple at top. Evolutionists say there are "faults" here. The "faults" are not evident in the mountainous regions themselves. The real fault is in the paper column, built upon an assumed evolution, in the center.
been the first to appear in the evolutionary process—never found in earth-layers that are above those containing fishes and reptiles-—-forms of life supposed to have evolved later? The answer is yes, they are. The order of superposition in which fossils are found is very often upside-down for the theory of evolution. Such upside-down areas are known in China, Norway, the Alps, Scotland, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Alberta and elsewhere and they extend in some instances for thousands of square miles. Where such embarrassing conditions exist, and prove, according to the evidence of superposition, such interesting things as that great monster reptiles became tiny sponges, corals, and trilobites, 59 the evolutionist has an explanation to offer that puts the blame upon innocent Nature, and makes her, instead of the theory he upholds, the deceiver. It is said by him that wherever the order of the fossil-bearingers are in reverse to that which the theory of evolution demands there have been great cataclysms of nature, i. e., monster thrusts or tremendous folds of the strata, whereby thousands of square miles have risen up somehow out of the earth and slid or turned over so that they now lie perfectly horizontally, the top on the bottom and the bottom on the top. Where such things have occurred it is said that the earth has a "fault."
For the full consideration of the attempted evolutionary explanations of the manner in which these griddle-cake stunts of nature, have occurred the reader will have to turn to other books on the subject. 60 Suffice it to be said here that areas of 20,000 square miles or more are involved in the "faults" in nature which have gotten evolutionary geologists into such great difficulties. Further, it should be known, in the regions where these things are said to have occurred there is no real evidence whatever that any great disturbance of normal conditions has ever
59 In Montana and Alberta over a vast territory reptile-bearing "Cretaceous" rocks underlie trilobite "Paleozoic" rocks (Fig. 24).
60 For a full account of the absence of a true chronological sequence, in the fossil containing earth-layers The New Geology and Evolutionary Geology and the New Catastrophism by George McCready Price are recommended, also the author's Deluge Story in Stone.
taken place. Layers of earth containing "lower" organisms lie perfectly naturally on top of layers that contain "higher" forms. (See Fig. 23, 24.)
(5) Is not the argument from geology mere reasoning in a circle. The fact of the matter is that such is the case. Modern historical geology is built on the assumption of evolution. The earth has been compelled by evolutionists to testify the way their theory requires.
In the middle of the last century certain geologists were told by biologists that evolution was an established fact. The geologists believed what they heard, and, believing, began to make an arrangement of the earth-strata on paper so as to conform to the supposed historical fact of evolution. If a layer of earth were discovered which contained fossils of plants and animals said by the biologists to have evolved first, that layer was put at the bottom of their paper diagram, regardless of the actual position in nature. If a layer were discovered which contained fossils of plants and animals which the biologist told them were evolved last, they put that layer at the top, regardless of its actual physical position. Thus, by ignoring upside-down conditions in nature, by describing them as "deceptions," and by concocting impossible explanations of how tremendous areas come to be upside-down, the geological evolutionists got up a "geologic column" based entirely on the assumption that evolution was a fact. Historical geology rests on evolutionary biology. It is an amusing spectacle today, therefore, to find evolutionary biologists, feeling the need of support for their theory, sometimes turning to historical geology for help. The evolutionary geologist and the evolutionary biologist today often present a picture of two men trying to-sit on each other's shoulders.
To establish in the mind of the reader the fact that the above statements concerning the geological proof are true we will quote several foremost modern evolutionary geologists. First, in order to show that evolution is accepted by geologists on the basis of what they are told by biological evolutionists we will quote Grabau, 61 "That the modern animal and plant world has developed by
61 Textbook of Geology, volume 2, page 53.
Fig. 24. Diagram showing how the evolutionists explain the presence of "Paleozoic" rocks, which are supposed to have been deposited when life first began to evolve, on the top of "Cretaceous" rocks, which are supposed to have been deposited hundreds of millions of years later. A (opposite page) shows the situation as the evolutionists imagine it in Montana, Alberta, and British Columbia at the close of the "Cretaceous epoch." Only three of the Paleozoic series of deposits are represented in the diagram (Devonian, Cambrian, Algonkian). B illustrates the situation a little later as the evolutionists imagine it. For some reason the land to the west raised up from the depth of at least 10,000 feet and pushed over the land to the east, upon which, at the end of the shove or "thrust," it was lying horizontally. C illustrates the situation at the present time. During the millions of years that passed since the "thrust" occurred, the winds and rain carried away all the layers above the "Algonkian," leaving it exposed on top of the "Cretaceous." The area of the earth's surface in this region where the order of the fossil-containing-earths is upside-down for the theory of evolution, and where the "thrust" is said to have occurred, is 350 miles long and totals about 7,000 square miles. All this is very clever. The trouble is that it is based merely on the necessity of accounting somehow for a natural condition of earth layers that is in opposition to what the proof of evolution from geology demands. The pushing of so enormous a mass and weight of rock over another mass could not but leave unmistakable evidence of its having done so in the form of cracks and broken fragments and disturbances of various kinds. Yet there is no such evidence. R. G. McConnel of the Canadian Geological Survey says that the upper, "Paleozoic" (Algonkian) rocks and the lower, "Cretaceous" rocks are "nearly horizontal," and "appear to succeed one another conformably." (Annual Report, 1886, Part D.) This means, in geological parlance, according to Webster's Dictionary, that the "Paleozoic" layers lie on the "Cretaceous" as if both "were formed by uninterrupted deposition under the same general conditions." In other words, it appears as if the same action of water that deposited the sediment that became "Paleozoic" rock also deposited the sediment that became "Cretaceous" rock. That the above explanation of this "upside-down" area is not thoroughly satisfactory to evolutionary geologists, although they have nothing better to offer, is revealed by the following statement by Prof. W. W. Watts, President of the Geology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: "The problem of the overthrust 'nappes' (surfaces) of mountain regions is one of our greatest difficulties, and all explanations hitherto proposed are so hopelessly inadequate that we have sometimes felt compelled to doubt whether the facts really are as stated (i.e. upside-down). But the phenomena have now been observed so carefully and in so many different districts that any real doubt as to the facts is out of the question, and we must still look for some adequate method by which the over-thrusting could have been brought about." (Smithsonian Institute Report, 1925,
page 283.) " To account for a more distressing situation which exists in the Alps (see Fig. 23) European evolutionary geologists have offered more wonderful explanations. They have published diagrams showing how the once level strata in that region, totalling ten thousand feet in thickness, pushed up many miles in the air and turned completely over, in the manner of a loose rug which has been folded by a kick, and were not broken in any manner. The "upside-down" strata in the Alps offer no evidence save that they were deposited just as they are and have never been disturbed. If creationists ever invented such explanations in order to maintain their views, the evolutionists would heap untold reproach and ridicule upon them.
natural methods from pre-existing simpler forms . . . has been clearly demonstrated by the labours of biologists." Just how clearly it has been demonstrated has been shown in the preceding pages. Second, in order to show that geologists make evolution the basis of their geological history, we will quote Schuchert and Pirsson, 62 "The fundamental principle underlying all endeavor to make out the geological past is evolution." The same authors also say, 63 "After one hundred years of endeavour a great deal of knowledge has been worked out as to the evolutionary sequence of organisms, and this knowledge can be relied upon to fix in turn the stratigraphical sequence (relate order of the earthlayers)." Third, to show that if the natural order of the layers on the face of the earth is contrary to what the evolutionary hypothesis demands, the natural order is considered wrong. We will quote Nicholson,64 who says that because of the assumed truth of evolution, "It may even be said that in any case where there should appear to be clear any decisive disordance between the physical (layer-order) and the paleontological (fossil) evidence as to the age of a given series of beds, it is the former that is to be distrusted rather than the latter." On this point we also quote Geikie,65 who says that because of the assumed fact that life has evolved on the earth, "We may even demonstrate that . . . strata have turned completely upside down if we can show that the fossils in what are now the uppermost layers ought properly to lie underneath those in the beds below them." Having this information in mind it is not difficult to see the fault in all genealogies based on fossil remains, whether in whole as from fish to man, or in part, as in the case of the horse. Definite reference may be made to the horse, since the ancestral line of man's domestic friend, is claimed by evolutionists to be the best established of all genealogies based on paleontology. Fossils of five animals are found. These are of four extinct animals called respectively Eohippus, Protorohippus, Mesophippus,
62 Textbook of Geology, volume 2, page 446.
63 Volume 2, page 24.
64 Ancient Life History of the Earth, page 40.
65 Textbook of Geology, 1903 ed., page 837.
Protohippus, and the modern horse, Equus. The horse as we know it is found as a true fossil here in America, where it was extinct when Columbus discovered the land. There is no difference whatever in the manner, in which these animals (including the horse) exist as fossils. The places in which they are found are widely scattered, hundreds of miles apart, and the strata in which the fossils are found are surface strata. One fossil is not found below the other in any sense of the word. For all geological evidence there is to the contrary all the animals mentioned may have lived and died at the same time. Yet names are given to the rocks in which the fossils are found suggesting different ages (Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Recent), and the fossils themselves are arranged in a series from the smallest, Eohippus, a four-toed creature about the size of a fox, up to the largest, the modern single-toed horse, and people are told that this is the time order in which the'y lived, and that this is the line of ancestry of the horse. 66
In the "proof of evolution from geology old mother Earth is thus coached, nay even brow-beaten, to testify for evolution. A forced witness is not a good one.
(6) How, in the light of Revelation, can conditions of the fossils and the natural relative orders of the earth's strata be accounted for? Up until the early part of the nineteenth century the existence of fossils was explained on the basis of the Biblical Deluge. (See the author's The Deluge Story in Stone—A History of the Flood Theory of Geology. Augsburg Publishing House, 1931.) With the rise of the modern evolutionary "theory of uniformity," i. e.. that nature!s ways have always been calm and slow, camp the doctrine
66 Osborn's genealogy of the horse has been the basis of this discussion. Another authority, Marsh, gives the horse a somewhat different line of ancestors. According to all genealogies the horse began as a four-toed animal. Coming from a reptile it was once even a five-toed animal. The horse in an early stage of embryological development should, therefore, "recapitulate" that stage and show the five toes well developed. It does not. Which, therefore, is wrong, paleontology or embryology? Nor does the whale, which was once a four-footed land animal, according to theory, ever in embryological development have four legs.
Fig. 25. A deceptive diagnm. According to this drawing it appears as if "Hyra-cotherium" (Eohippus), the smallest animal at the bottom, was geologically much older than Equus (our common horse), the largest animal at the top, and that therefore "Hyracotherium" must have evolved into Equus through a long period of time. It must be remembered, however, that geology itself does not show that "Hyracotherium" is older than Equus. For all that geology proves to the contrary, both animals may have been living side by side, or at the same time in different parts of the world, since the Wasatch formation (see diagram) in which the fossils of "Hyracotherium" are found is a surface formation of the earth, found in Idaho, and the Sheridan formation in which fossils of the true horses are found is also a surface formation of the earth, found in Nebraska. Neither formation can be clearly said to be older than the other. For all that the evolutionists know about the matter, the Wasatch formation and the Sheridan formation may have been "deposited" at nearly the same time, not one million of years before the other as their theory requires. These things show how much the 'proofs' of evolution are nothing but assumptions. Evolution is first assumed to be true; a scheme is then made up to conform to that assumption; then the scheme is used to show that evolution is true.
that all the past changes upon the earth were made not by great, physical forces working fast and violently as in a Deluge, but calmly through long ages. Evolutionists assume, without proof, that events have never occurred in the past in a different manner from that in which they are, occurring now. Only present laws have ever been in operation, they say. The Flood, however, still remains a challenging explanation of conditions as they are found in the earth. Certain respects in which the Deluge readily accounts for the conditions in nature may be mentioned:
Nowhere on the earth is there any considerable number of fossils being formed today. Leaves falling from the trees rot away quickly. Rarely, under modern uniform conditions are they buried in such a way as to form a fossil. Yet, in many places the world over, leaves of trees, vines, ferns and palms are unearthed in the greatest numbers and in the most wonderful state of preservation. Many parts of the so-called "Cretaceous" and "Tertiary" rock are fairly jammed full with marvelous preserved leaf fossils. The coal-beds of the "Carboniferous" strata are composed of the pressed remains of tree-ferns, whose modern representatives make up a large part of the tropical forests of today. These buried tree-ferns have left their beautiful leafy imprints in millions of chunks of coal. Coal-beds of other "ages,", e. g. the "Cretaceous," and "Tertiary" are composer of such plant remains as sassafras, laurel, magnolia, poplar, willow, maple, birch, beech and elm, showing flowers and fruits in a marvelous state of preservation—as the great geologist Dana has said, "with all the perfection they have in a herbarium." Coal is undoubtedly a catastrophic formation, not a "peat-bog" formation as the evolutionists say. No "peat-bog" theory can account for the way many coal layers on top of one another, some thick and some as thin as a sheet of paper, are spread out in horizontal and parallel layers over an area many thousands of square miles, as in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. Only a flood-like action of some sort can do that.
Fish, when they die under modern uniform conditions, immediately come to the surface of the water. flat with stomach up, begin to decompose within a few hours and fall apart bit by bit. Yet the hardened strata of the earth in all continents contain literally millions of fish buried in whole shoals in a perfect state of preservation. Miners in Wallace, Idaho, dig out again and again from deep down in the earth the most perfectly kept fish forms. Hugh Miller, in The Old Red Sandstone, 67 describes fully the fish fossils as they are found in Scotland. He says that over an area of ten thousand square miles fish remains are found bearing "unequivocably the marks of violent death. The figures are contorted, contracted, curved, the tail in many instances is bent around to the head, the spines stick out, the fins are spread to the full" as fish would be which were dying as earth sediment, stirred up from the surfaces
67 Page 221.
of the continents by the Flood, settled thicker and heavier upon them. William Buckland 68 thus describes the petrified fish found in the Alps: "They are always entire, and so closely packed on one another that many individuals are often contained in a single block. All these fish must have died suddenly on this fatal spot, and have been buried speedily in the sediment then in the course of deposition. From the fact that certain individuals have even preserved traces of color upon their skin, we are certain that they were entombed before decomposition of their soft parts had taken place." In the so-called Devonian rocks of Ohio, hundreds of "feet thick" from the top to the bottom are found the remains of sharks of all sizes, and the remains of these fishes when unearthed tell the following tale. They died in the natural Swimming position, belly down, and the weight of the mud that settled upon them from above flattened them to the thickness of a quarter of an inch. Such things point to a catastrophe of the nature of the Flood.
In Sioux County, Nebraska, there is a hill called "Carnegie Hill" which has been formed by the erosion of the level Nebraska prairie by the Niobara River and its tributary streams. The hill was once an integral part of the entire Nebraska plateau and the horizontal layers in the hill are the same as in other, similar hills nearby and in the Nebraska plateau as much as fifty miles away. In that one hill, forty feet below the top, is a horizontal layer of the jumbled remains of nine thousand (estimated) animals not now native of America, embedded in the almost pure, white limestone of which the hill and the plateau is composed. The remains of other kinds of animals are entombed in the same sort of horizontal strata in the entire western part of Nebraska. (Fig. 26.)
Evolutionary geologists are not able to deny the numerous indications of the catastrophic, watery deaths and burials of immense numbers and quantities of plants and animals whose remains are found in the earth, but being determined to ignore the meaning and truth of what the Bible says about the Flood throughout its pages, they attribute these watery deaths and burials to a large number
68 Geology and Mineralogy, volume 1, page 124, 5th ed., 1858.
Fig. 26. Remains of camels, pigs and rhinoceroses entombed in limestone at Agate Springs, Sioux County, Nebraska. The rock has been carefully removed from the bones. Evolutionists claim that these were buried when the animals fell into a sink-hole at a watering place, but the fact that they are entombed in pure limestone and are in a horizontal layer which extends for miles beneath the prairie belies that claim. (Photo by the American Museum of Natural History.)
of catastrophes which occurred at different times during hundreds of millions of years. There is, however, no need of this. One catastrophe, the Flood, when properly understood can account for all. It is not sensible to multiply causes when one will do. No thoughtful Flood-geologist will call the Deluge a simple affair nor deny that its geological work is not always easy to interpret, although he has good reason to insist that his task is always very simple compared with the magnitude of the task which faces the evolutionary geologist as he attempts to explain the countless difficult situations which confront him on the basis of his non-Flood or "uniformitarian" theory. 69 In the light of Scripture and nature the Flood is to be regarded as having continued, in its geological effects, for many thousands of years 70 after it had once begun—-until a condition of earth-stability was reached. It can not be thought that the entire world's surface was uprooted by the Flood in the manner in which the Bible implies 71 and a geological situation not arise whereby great natural changes would continue to occur for a long time. Some fossils which would not at first be regarded as having been caused by the Flood, and which can not be directly attributed to it, can be indirectly attributed to it. The Deluge of the Bible can account for the fact that such deep-sea creatures as the star-fish, crinoids and corals are usually, though not always, found today in the deepest layers of earth. It can explain why the higher vertebrates the land animals, supposed to have evolved last, are usually, but not always, found in the upper earth deposits.
69 The immense quantities of oil in the earth are today analyzed by chemists as the altered remains of immense quantities of ancient animal life, particularly ancient sea-animal life. Oil is somewhat of the nature of coal. Nothing taking place in nature today can account for the presence of such great quantities of animal life deep in the entire earth's strata. The Flood, a distinctly supernatural and divinely ordered event, can account for it.
70 Ussher's chronological system, which places the Flood about 2353 B.C., must be regarded as totally false both to the Bible itself and the evadence of nature. See the chapter on Biblical chronology in the author's Before Abraham.
71 Genesis 6:13, "I will destroy them with the earth"; II Peter 3:6, "the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."
As the believer in the Bible enters into any of the large museums of the land, such as the Museum of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D. C, where many thousands of fossils of plants and animals are exhibited, he should divest himself of all notions that one fossil is millions of years older or younger than any other merely because some evolutionist has so labeled them, and conceive of them all as having lived at one time and died together.
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THE AUTHOR BRINGS OUT MANY GOOD TRUTHS; BUT THE SUBJECT OF THE "FLOOD" HAS THE AUTHOR LIKE MANY OF HIS DAY, BELIEVING IT WAS NOAH'S FLOOD THAT DID ALL THIS. THE FACTS ARE THERE WAS ONLY ONE WORLD WIDE FLOOD AND IT WAS NOT IN THE TIME OF NOAH. THE WORLDWIDE FLOOD THAT DESTROYED THE WORLD OF THE DINOSAUR IS GENESIS 1:1-2. WE COME ON THE SCENE WHEN THE EARTH WAS COVERED WITH WATER. I GO INTO DETAIL IN OTHER STUDIES AS TO WHY AND HOW THIS ALL HAPPENED.
ALSO TO BE NOTED IS THAT SOME BURIAL OF SOME FISH AND ANIMALS MAY HAVE BEEN DONE BY LOCAL FLOODS AND DISASTROUS UPHEAVALS IN THE EARTH IN PAST HISTORY.
CERTAINLY THE DEPOSIT OF THE OIL AND COAL BEDS WAS DONE BY THE GLOBAL FLOOD OF GENESIS 1:1-2.
IT SHOULD ALSO BE NOTED THAT IN THE DINOSAUR WORLD, THERE WERE PROBABLY ALSO MANY CREATURES, PLANTS AND SEA FISH ETC. THAT WERE EXACTLY AS WE HAVE SOME OF THEM TODAY. FOR IT IS ALSO TRUE THAT WITH MAN WAS CREATED SOME CREATURES THAT BACK THEN WERE DINOSAUR TYPE. THE BOOK OF JOB GIVES US DESCRIPTIONS OF A FEW CREATURE THAT HARDLY FIT ANY CREATURES WE HAVE IN THE WORLD TODAY. LEGENDS TALK ABOUT FIRERY DRAGONS. THE ANSWER AS TO WHY WE STILL DO NOT HAVE THEM IS VERY SIMPLE…… AS TODAY WE HAVE LOST CERTAIN SPECIES OF ANIMALS. WE TODAY HAVE OUR LISTS OF ANIMALS ON THE "DANGER OF EXTINCTION" LIST AND WE TRY TO PRESERVE LOOSING THEM. SOME PARTS OF THE EARTH THE DINOSAURS WERE NOT COVERED WITH HUNDREDS OF FEET OF MUD, SILT ETC. AS THEY HAVE BEEN FOUND RELATIVELY NEAR THE TOP, SOMETIMES BY PEOPLE JUST NOTICING A BONE STICKING OUT; WEATHER OVER TIME HAVING WASHED AWAY EX NUMBER OF FEET AND SO EXPOSING A BONE. I THINK IT QUITE POSSIBLE IN GOD FORMING THE LAND MASSES IN GENESIS ONE FROM THE WATER, SOME STRATA HE MAY PURPOSELY HAVE BROUGHT UP WHILE OTHER STRATA WENT DOWN. GOD HAS DONE THINGS TO CONFUSE PEOPLE, AND TO KEEP THE MASSES BLINDED TO TRUTHS. HE IS ONLY CALLING A SMALL FEW TO SALVATION IN THE AGE OF MAN, AND WILL CALL THE MASSES OF PEOPLE IN THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT PERIOD, AS EXPLAINED IN MY STUDY CALLED "THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT." Keith Hunt
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THE "PROOF" FROM THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS
Because this proof is so vague that many evolutionists do not use it the writer would be justified in ignoring it also and would do so except that a brief discussion of the present distribution of plants and animals over the earth's surface will show that the Scriptures offer a completely satisfactory explanation of this problem.
The real evolutionary proof on the basis of the geographical distribution of plants and animals consists essentially in one thing, namely, that of setting up a dummy conception of special creation and then knocking it down. A ridiculous and unwarranted doctrine of creation is attributed to those who accept the Biblical account, and a vague conception of evolution is postulated. When the absurd doctrine of special creation is destroyed by ridicule, the dogma of evolution is left standing and is thus "proved." The argument is, therefore, a purely negative one and requires that the creation explanation of the distribution of plants and animals be defended.
Just what that conception of special creation is which is attributed by evolutionists to those who believe the Bible is best shown by a quotation from Charles Darwin, which is quoted with approval by one of the late evolutionary propagandists, Vernon Kellogg. Darwin, after describing the plants and animals of the Galapagos Islands, 500 miles off the West coast of South America, and after telling how similar they are to those on the nearby continents, says, "Why should this be so? Why should the species which are supposed to be created in the Galapagos Islands and nowhere else (note the 'nowhere else') bear so plainly the stamp of affinity to those created in America?
Facts such as these admit no sort of' explanation on the ordinary view of special creation, whereas in the view here maintained (i.e., evolution) it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be more likely to receive colonists from America by flight, on and in logs, than on the creation basis."72
It is evident from the above quotation that Darwin and those who approve his words think that the creation doctrine demands that every living organism was created just as it is and where it is; that the plants and animals of the Galapagos Islands were created there; that those of Wisconsin were created there; that those of England and Africa were created there. Whether they were or not has nothing to do with the present distribution of plants and animals in the light of Revelation …. The evolutionists themselves assume certain "centers of distribution," the chief of these being central Asia. This has been so stated by Henry Fairfield Osborn of the American Museum of Natural History, and thither, therefore, that institution has of late years dispatched Roy Chapman Andrews in hopes of securing evidence on some of the hidden problems of the supposed evolution.….
72 Vernon Kellogg. Evolution the Way of Man, pages 86, 87. Notes in parentheses within quotations in this book are the author's.
….each species began to "mutate" and produce varieties differing in some respect from the original parents (See Appendix II). As this multiplication and variation continued the species spread out continually into new and distant places. The natural species song-sparrow varied into the twenty to thirty known varieties found on two continents. The museum of Princeton University contains a large map of the North American continent to which have been pinned many different varieties of stuffed song-sparrows with a legend saying that this variation in different localities shows the influence of evolution. Joseph Grinnel, writing in the Report of the Smithsonian Institute on the "Geography and Evolution in Pocket Gophers of California," states that there are thirty-three distinct races of pocket gophers in California, occupying regions to which they are adapted from the hot, moist lowlands to the cold, dry highlands. Such sort of evolution the Bible lover can well agree to, for it is what is to be expected on the Biblical basis. Some varieties have found one locality suitable to their tastes and remained there, others have found other localities suitable. Squirrels, rabbits, and other species also varied into the numerous different types in which they were given power in creation to appear, and under one condition or another, according to the possession of a warmer or a colder coat of fur, or a more protective coloring, or some other advantageous inherited characteristics, the species have spread throughout the world. White animals are today usually found in the wild state only in the north where their color against the snow protects them.
The large part of the present distribution of plants and animals has likely taken place outside the influence of man. The population of America with animals and birds from Asia likely took place when the two continents were connected in the region of Alaska. Man, however, has had a part in the distribution, and the readiness with which certain species of plants and animals have multiplied and thrived when they have reached the localities into which man has brought them shows that not all species have yet found the regions to which they are best adapted. No rabbits were in Australia when the English came there. When introduced for hunting purposes they multiplied so rapidly as almost to destroy the cattle industry. No blackberries were in New Zealand originally. Upon being placed there by man they grew so rank as to destroy thousands of acres of valuable land. Man is responsible for the introduction into America of the English sparrow, which now represents forty per cent of the bird life of the land. Man re-introduced the horse into America.
On the evolutionary basis it is difficult to see why, if all species arose by themselves in response to certain environments, they did not originate in the regions where they flourish so well when once introduced. On the evolutionary basis of plant and animal distribution, which is a very vague one and is nowhere stated clearly, there are some serious problems to be faced. For example, how does it happen that the bison pictured on the caves of Europe so closely resembles the bison of America if they have not both come from a common pair as the sacred record indicates? For every difficulty that the Biblical explanation of the distribution of plants and animals may have to face, the evolutionary explanation has one to match it.
The theory of creation does not require, as Darwin and his cohorts have supposed, that the plants and animals of the Galapagos Islands or of any other islands or continents were created there. They may have come over from some neighboring place "by flight, on or in logs" as well on the creation basis as on any other; and there may be slight differences between the varieties in two geographical localities as well on the creation basis as on the evolution basis.
SUMMARY
The "proof from classification" is merely the arranging of living forms in a graded system from the simple to the complex according to a supposed evolutionary course. This proof assumes what is to be proved.
The "proof from comparative anatomy" rests on an interpretation of the similarity of animal structures that is not necessary. The similarity may be accounted for on the basis of a common plan in the mind of the Creator.
The "proof from vestigial organs" rests on the false assumption that there are organs in animal and human bodies that are totally useless. Ignorance concerning the functions of the various organisms of the human body does not constitute a proof that they have no function. Ignorance furnishes no arguments. The early force of the "vestigial" argument rested on ignorance. The least benefit a body derives from the presence in it of a so-called vestigial organ renders that organ non-vestigial, and it is now known that the human body derives much good from every part that is in it.
The "proof from embryology" consists in making untrue statements of facts, and rests on unnecessary interpretations of actual facts.
The "proof from geology" rests on the unwarranted assumption that future search of the evolutionists will reveal the millions of fossil links now missing, and rests also on the arbitrary arrangement on paper, according to an evolutionary order, of fossil-bearing strata that are not in that order in nature. The fossiliferous condition of the earth can be accounted for on the basis of the Deluge.
(IT WAS THE DELUGE OF GENESIS 1:1-2 THAT BROUGHT THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS - THE DINOSAUR WORLD - TO OBLIVION, WITH THE PLANTS THAT BECAME THE OIL AND COAL BEDS WE USE TODAY - Keith Hunt)
The "proof from the geographical distribution of plants and animals" consists in setting up a false doctrine of the present distribution of plants and animals according to the Bible, then knocking it down again by ridicule. The Biblical view of the distribution of plants and animals coincides well with conditions of distribution as they exist.
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TO BE CONTINUED
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