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Evolutionists use every opportunity to push the view that evolution is happening all around us. The latest “Swine-Flu” scare is just one more example as evidence for “evolution in action.” Here’s one example:

Anyone who thinks evolution is for the birds should not be afraid of swine flu. Because if there’s no such thing as evolution, then there’s no such thing as a new strain of swine flu infecting people. For the rest of the population, concern is justified. . . . While much of the modern controversy over evolution centers around whether humans evolved from non-human primates (scientists overwhelmingly agree this is the case), some people still try to poke holes in the theory of evolution, one of the most solid theories in science. In addition to evidence from ancient fossils and modern DNA studies, one of the many lines of evidence supporting evolution is that it can quite simply be seen in action among some species that evolve particularly rapidly, such as fruit flies.

The author of this article is equivocating on the definition of evolution. Change within a species is not evolution. Fruit flies are still fruit flies, and viruses are still viruses. No one has shown fruit flies evolving into birds, wasps, hornets, or mosquitoes. Generational changes take place within humans, but in the end, they’re still humans. Long before Darwin, cattle, horse, and dog breeders understood the principle of modification within species. And guess what? After hundreds of years of directed breeding, they’re still dogs, cattle, and horses. “All cows—however divergent—remain cows; all men, men; all types in a kind remain their type characteristics. So it is in the highest degree improbable that the line that separates them is passable.”[1]

Claiming that evolution is merely change is a common tactic of evolutionists. Tim Berra, professor of zoology at Ohio State University, exhibits the equivocation fallacy when compares biological evolution with the evolution of the Corvette:

“Everything evolves, in the sense of ‘descent with modification,’ whether it be government policy, religion, sports cars, or organisms. The revolutionary fiberglass Corvette evolved from more mundane automotive ancestors in 1953. Other high points in the Corvette’s evolutionary refinement included the 1962 model, in which the original 102-inch was shortened to 98 inches and the new closed-coupe Stingray model was introduced; the 1968 model, the forerunner of today’s Corvette morphology, which emerged with removable roof panels; and the 1978 silver anniversary model, with fastback styling. Today’s version continues the stepwise refinements that have been accumulating since 1953. The point is that the Corvette evolved through a selection process acting on variations that resulted in a series of transitional forms and an endpoint rather distinct from the starting point. A similar process shapes the evolution of organisms.”[2]

Berra’s definition of automotive evolution is in no way similar to non-directed biological evolution whereby life arose from nonlife and changes within a species resulted in gradual changes so that a new species is said to have evolved. The first Corvette was designed by someone as was each new model thereafter. Evolution begins with the premise that there is no designer and change is random, or as Richard Dawkins describes it, “blind.” From initial conception to the first production model, the Corvette does not have a random item in it. There’s nothing blind about it. The anti-Christian evolutionist and religious materialist Richard Dawkins is the epitome of irrationality and worldview blindness when he writes, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed.”[3] If this is true, and the “evolution” of the Corvette is analogous to biological evolution, then I wonder why Chevrolet doesn’t advertise their signature high-performance car as only having the appearance of having been designed.

The fossil record does not show gradual evolutionary changes from one species into another species. If there is an exhibit somewhere that demonstrates the evolutionary process without commentary by the resident evolutionary practitioner, I would like to see it. Theoretical reconstructions and filling in gaps with artistic renderings do not count as science. Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge understood the problem. That’s why they developed a new theory to account for the lack of gradual evolutionary changes from one species into another. They called it Punctuated Equilibrium: “Instead of a slow, continuous movement, evolution tends to be characterized by long periods of virtual standstill (‘equilibrium’), ‘punctuated’ by episodes of very fast development of new forms.” Where is the empirical evidence for this claim? It does not exist. It used to be called the “hopeful monster” theory.

Notice how the above author moves the goal posts of the argument by claiming that “much of the modern controversy over evolution centers on whether humans evolved from non-human primates.” Evolutionists have to demonstrate, before anything else, that life arose spontaneously from non-life to account for primates and humans. No theory of science can account for spontaneous generation today, so why is it a fundamental premise of the origin of life?

The argument goes back even farther. What is the origin of the matter that makes up the cosmos? What is the origin of the information necessary to turn “big-bang” sterile matter into organic life at the molecular level? Has any modern-day scientist duplicated the process of no matter to matter to rudimentary life to more complex life to the gradual and millions of years of evolutionary incremental steps that resulted in a common ancestor that evolved into modern-day humans? The challenge is simple: prove it empirically.

The latest piece of evidence being used by the evolutionary community in support of their unscientific theory is the claim that a 47-million-year-old fossilized lemur is the missing link in human evolution. I have my doubts. How a scientist or group of scientists can tell us what went on 47 million years ago is a mystery to me. Consider this piece of nonsense from David Attenborough, “who for 50 years has been the face and voice of the BBC’s natural history programs popular in both the U.S. and U.K.” and a “staunch advocate of evolutionary theory.” He called the discovery a “a historical fact ‘as certain as the fact that William the Conqueror landed in 1066, except it’s more certain.’” The assertion that a fossilized lemur-like mammal was found is a certainty, but the claim that it’s an evolutionary missing link is far, far, far from certain even for evolutionists! We are to believe that an event that happened less than 1000 years ago is more historically doubtful than an event that supposedly took place 47 million years ago.

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Evolution is an initiatory cult. To enter the prestige of the evolutionary cult, the initiate must have a hood placed over his head and ascent by oath to the belief system of the founders. This is done before any evidence is ever presented of the true history of the basis of the cult. It’s the prestige the cult brings to its members—full employment, academic respectability, and tenure that keeps them in line. Any evidence to the contrary be damned.

Describing this fossilized lemur as “the eighth wonder of the world” borders on the absurd and shows how evolutionists will grasp at anything in an attempt to “prove” what they already believe. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, like the Corvette, were designed. They did not evolve. That lemur is a wonder, but it’s a designed wonder. The always elusive invisible evolutionary “mechanism” called “natural selection” had nothing to do with it.

Endnotes:

1 Benjamin B. Warfield, “Evolution Development” (1889). Quoted in Mark A. Noll and David N. Livingstone, eds., Evolution, Science, and Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000), 124. 2 Tim Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: A Basic Guide to the Facts in the Evolution Debate (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 118–119. Intelligent Design advocate Michael J. Behe’s comments on equivocation are helpful: “The difficulty arises because the word evolution can be used in different senses, and equivocation can easily confuse people. In one sense evolution just means common descent—that living creatures are all related to a common ancestor. . . . In another sense evolution is sometimes used to mean Darwin’s particular theory” of natural selection that results in one species evolving into another. (“Darwin’s Breakdown,” Signs of Intelligence: Understanding Intelligent Design, eds. William A. Dembski and James M. Kushiner [Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press/Baker Book House, 2001], 91).
3 Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York: Norton, 1986), 1. Emphasis added.