Lesson 6 – The Origin Of The Species: Part I

DARWINIAN EVOLUTION

O LORD, how many are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. There is the sea, great and broad, in which are swarms without number; animals both great and small.
- Psalm 104:24, 25

(Darwinian) Evolution is both a beautiful concept and an important one, more crucial nowadays to human welfare, to medical science, and to our understanding of the world than ever before. It’s also highly persuasive – a theory you can take to the bank.
- National Geographic, November 2004


Darwinism (biological evolution)

The elements of the theory of evolution, which was originally formulated by Charles Darwin in 1859 in his treatise The Origin of the Species, can be summarized as follows:

1. All living organisms are related by common ancestry. This relationship is normally depicted as the “evolutionary tree of life.”[i]


2. Incremental biological improvements to a species originate by chance variations which happen to provide a survival advantage. This is the primary mechanism of evolution and is known as natural selection.


3. Species progress in survivability over time in tiny continuous steps (gradualism) from simpler organisms to more complex ones (descent with modification). Natural selection gives competitive biological survival advantage to the fittest organisms (survival of the fittest).


4. The biological advantages of an organism are passed on to succeeding generations through heredity.


5. Major transformation of life forms, e.g., the formation of a new species, takes place gradually over long periods of time through the accumulation of a great number of tiny changes.


6. Some branches of the evolutionary tree die out over time, i.e., the species goes extinct. These are the ones not having survival capability. The fittest organisms with survival advantage keep reproducing (differential reproduction).

In the early 20th century new discoveries in genetics and mutation theory were integrated into Darwinian evolution to become the basis of today’s Neo-Darwinian Synthesis.

Intelligent Design (ID)

In the early 1990’s, Berkeley law professor Philip Johnson began challenging conventional evolutionary theory on the basis that since the 1960’s scientific evidence has yielded so much disconfirming evidence that Darwinism is no longer a viable theory.[ii] Today his initial work has grown into a movement known as Intelligent Design (ID), which not only challenges the veracity of evolution based on the evidence, but also offers its own theory (design) to better explain the origin of the universe and life in it. In opposition to ID, evolutionists insist that the evidence supporting their traditional theory is “abundant, various, ever increasing, solidly interconnected, and easily available.”[iii]

The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis

Darwinian theory was beginning to wane by the late nineteenth century, almost being discredited all together because of a lack of evidence and experimental data, particularly in the area of how variations occur and how characteristics are passed on to the next generation. During the 1860’s, an Austrian monk with an interest in natural history, Gregor Mendel, started experimenting with successive generations of plants. He laid the theoretical groundwork upon which our modern theory of heredity is built, although his work was largely ignored for 35 years. Around 1910 geneticist Thomas H. Morgan observed spontaneous mutations among a breeding population of fruit flies. Morgan and Mendel’s experimental contributions breathed new life into Darwinian theory. Morgan supplied chance variation with a more energetic mechanism for change – mutation; and Mendelian genetics supplied natural selection with the needed mechanism for how a single new advantageous trait could be passed on from parent to offspring.[iv] The integration of Mendelian genetics and mutation theory into Darwinism came together by 1930 to become the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis.

Subsequently, the big-bang theory (cosmological evolution), origin of life studies (chemical evolution), and sociobiology (social evolution) have been conceptually integrated with the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis to form a complete and continuous naturalistic explanation of the creation of the universe, the origin of life, the origin of the species (including mankind), and the evolution of our societal order. What started out as a biological scientific hypothesis – Darwinism – has evolved into a grand metaphysical scheme of evolutionism (naturalism).

Evolutionism

When scientific Darwinian theory is integrated with other aspects of evolutionary thought, including the social sciences, the humanities, philosophy, etc., it is labeled evolutionism. Since all these studies eliminate the consideration of God as a possible agent, and are constrained by their own pre-suppositions to explain all phenomena by purely material and naturalistic means, it is also called naturalism. The conclusions of evolutionism/naturalism are: (see the cover page of Lesson 1)

• Time, space, matter and energy were “created” by big bang cosmological evolution. Natural evolutionary processes then created everything else from these fundamental building blocks.


• Organic molecules (up to and including the first living cell) evolved from inorganic atoms through chemical evolution.


• Living cells first evolved into lower forms of life which, in turn, evolved in higher forms of life and eventually into human beings through biological evolution (Darwinism).


• Meaning, purpose, ethics, morality and values in human life are created by individuals and societies over the history of mankind through social evolution.


• This complexity of evolving creatures and societies is in operation today and humankind is still evolving into a yet unknown higher form.

The Origin of the Species (Darwinism)

In 1859, English naturalist Charles Darwin published The Origin of the Species, By Means of Natural Selection; or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Survival. Darwin’s theory of evolution is actually two quite distinct theories:

• The Special Theory of evolution says that species[v] undergo “life enhancing” changes in order to better adapt to their environment. Also, new variants within a species can be brought about by human intervention, i.e., intelligently directed activities such as animal breeding. This special theory has been proven to be true and is generally understood as adaptation and artificial selection, and known as microevolution. It is a modest theory that changes in living organisms can easily and readily take place in nature and by human intervention, but on a small scale and within limits.



• The General Theory of evolution extrapolates the changes observed on a micro basis to explain universally all the manifold diversity of life on earth. This radical extrapolation of the Special Theory is what most people think of when they refer to the theory of Darwinian or biological evolution. It is known as macroevolution and is the “evolution” claimed factual. Macroevolution is what the debate is all about.

Microevolution is true

Microevolution, i.e., biological adaptation within limits, is an observed fact and has been demonstrated to occur on a small scale. Examples include:

• Cumulative adaptive resistance of certain destructive organisms to antibiotics, pesticides and the like.


• The adaptation of a species to its environment, such as the variation in the finches observed by Darwin on the Galapagos Islands (during his voyage on the HMS Beagle in 1831).


• The coloration change in the peppered moth population observed by Oxford Zoologist Bernard Kettlewell in 1950.[vi]


• The purposeful selective breeding of plant and animal species (artificial selection).


• Microevolution occurring in nature across some closely-related species. For example, the Hawaiian fruitfly and certain birds such as the North American wood warbler and Hawaiian honeycreeper.


• Some closely related plant species being formed spontaneously by microevolution through massive chromosomal mutation.

Macroevolution is speculation

The empirical findings of microevolution, however, have been inappropriately extrapolated to “prove” macroevolution, such as the origin and creation of entirely new species, new body plans and organs. The facts of microevolution are used as evidence as facts for macroevolution. This is poor scientific methodology, mere speculation and not supported by the evidence. Darwin in the Origin of the Species, and subsequent supporters of the theory, have gone far beyond the evidence of the Special Theory. They have argued and have won acceptance for the General Theory (macroevolution) by saying that the same natural processes that brought about the variation in Darwin’s finches and Kettlewell’s moths have ultimately brought about all the diversity of life on earth. Within 10 - 20 years after publication, Darwin’s General Theory was elevated from a highly speculative hypothesis to unchallenged dogma and has proven to this day to be a watershed in Western thought. If the microevolution theory had stayed within the scope of the evidence, “evolution” never would have had the revolutionary and controversial impact on all branches of modern thought as it has had.

A recent example of unwarranted extrapolation is demonstrated in the 1994 New York Times article entitled, The Handy-Dandy Evolution Prover; also a book review entitled, The Beak of the Finch.[vii] The authors, two Princeton researchers who studied finches on Daphne Island found that finch beaks grew 5% larger when droughts came. The beak was better shaped for opening the last tough seeds remaining on the island. This example of microevolution-in-action was touted as “overwhelming proof” for macroevolution. According to that kind of reasoning, finch-beak growth is fundamentally the same process that brought birds into existence in the first place: macroevolution is merely the extrapolation of the microevolutionary process. These scientists failed to mention, however, that when the rain returned the beaks grew smaller once again as that was the better adaptation for picking up the tiny seeds that became abundantly available again. The article went on to describe, “the astonishing persistence of Christian fundamentalists who still do not believe in evolution … debating the reality of the (evolutionary) process seems as absurd as debating the existence of gravity.” The authors attribute Christian’s intransigence to their lack of knowledge about the “overwhelming proof” of evolution.

But the facts are that no one has ever observed the origin of a new species by selection -- natural or other wise. Bacteria should be the easiest organism in which to observe this, because bacteria can produce thousands of generations in a matter of months, and they can be subjected to powerful mutation-causing agents and hence intense selection. Nevertheless, in over a century of research no new species of bacteria have emerged. There are Darwinian biologists who have claimed they produced “incipient species” but this merely refers to different strains of the same species that those researchers believe on theoretical grounds might eventually become new species.

Early Supporting Evidence

Darwin’s theory became buttressed at an early stage by a supposedly powerful array of supporting evidence. But in fact, this so-called evidence is nothing more than assumptions made by the ruling intellectual elites of Darwin’s era whose ideology lingers on to this day. Examples include:

• Vestigial Organs – The Encyclopedia Britannica still says there are more than 100 redundant human organs left behind by evolution. School biology lessons and some textbooks list the pineal gland, thyroid, thymus, appendix, tonsils, coccyx, as vestigial organs. But over time science has found that most of these organs have at least some function during our life span. The coccyx (tail bone) serves as a point of insertion for several muscles and ligaments. It is not the vestigial remnant of where our tail was connected so we could swing through trees. There is evidence that the appendix is a lymphoid organ which acts as a reservoir of antibody producing cells, etc.


• Recapitulation – Ernst Haeckel asserted that the human embryo started life resembling a single-celled marine organism; then developed in latter stages into a “worm” with a pulsating heart; then into a fish with gill slits and a two-chambered heart; then into a mammal with a four-chambered heart (with a tail); and finally into a human baby. This is no longer taken seriously by embryologists. Yet these pictures continue to be reproduced in our modern day biology textbooks. Worse yet, Haeckel fraudulently developed his drawings of the embryonic developmental process. He faked the similarities between the species in their early stages of development; and he cherry-picked his examples to get closest to his desired conclusion. Worst of all, he lied by saying the diagrams represented the earliest stage of development when they do not! Yet, his wishful thinking and fraudulent evidence has been passed down as evolutionary legend and can still be found in textbooks, the media, and is used in many public school district debates. Detailed scientific studies of developmental pathways clearly indicate that the human embryo never undergoes the developmental stages diagrammed by Haeckel and assumed by early Darwinists. In fact, we now know that there are striking and unpredictable differences between all the species in early developmental stages.

The Fossil Record demonstrates gaps, not continuity

Darwinists claim that the fossil record offers convincing evidence that evolution is responsible for the common ancestry of all living things. To Darwinists there is no intellectual basis for dissent because the fossil record proves evolution-in-action. Evolutionists can’t understand why there is such a disturbingly large group of Christians who, in their view, irrationally reject it. The fossil record has been continuously heralded as proof of evolution. The prestigious National Academy of Sciences says: “The fossil record thus provides compelling evidence of systematic change through time – of descent with modification.”[viii] Evolutionary scientists are nearly unanimous in believing that the fossil record has preserved the critical evidence demonstrating that evolutionary change (transition) has occurred from the lower to the higher forms of life.

After 145 years of finding and classifying fossils (since the publication of the Origin of the Species) we have found and cataloged an estimated 250 million fossils representing some 250 thousand fossil species. What does that record show? It demonstrates that there are sudden and abrupt changes between species, not gradual transitional forms. We see a fossil record composed entirely of gaps. “Modern gorillas, orangutans, and chimpanzees spring out of nowhere, as it were. They are here today; they have no yesterday.”[ix] “The fossil record fails to contain a single example of a significant transition.”[x] Since Darwinian evolution operates so infinitesimally slow, we would expect the entire fossil record to be chock full of transitional forms. Instead there are none, except for a few highly controversial candidates. No serious paleontologist disagrees with the fact of extensive gaps. Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at the American Museum in New York City confessed: “I admit that an awful lot of that (misinformation about the fossil record) has gotten into textbooks as though it were true … Now I think that that is lamentable, particularly because the people who propose these kind of stories themselves may be aware of the speculative nature of some of the stuff. But by the time it filters down to the textbooks, we’ve got science as truth and we’ve got a problem.”[xi]

In my library I have Eldredge’s book, Fossils, The Evolution and Extinction of Species. It is a beautiful work with 220 pages of high quality photographs of many of the most significant fossils ever discovered. Stephen Jay Gould, the famous Harvard paleontologist, wrote in the Introduction, “I love this book … a rare example of excellence [of text and picture] in union. Photographs and text are united into a common vision of life’s history and evolution.” Both Gould and Eldredge realize and admit that the fossil record actually disproves the Darwinism mechanism of evolution. Yet they choose to remain committed evolutionists. How then do they rationalize the fossil evidence? They suggest that the gaps should be viewed as real and proof of their own theory of Punctuated Equilibrium (“punk-eek” to the in-crowd). This theory says that “lineage change is little during most of a species history, but events of rapid speciation occasionally punctuate this tranquillity.”[xii] In other words, to get new species, evolution speeds up and happens so fast that the fossil record just doesn’t capture it. Punctuated Equilibrium doesn’t remove the need for the intermediate fossils, it only attempts to explain why the transitional fossils are never found. It may be the only scientific theory ever put forth to explain why evidence for it cannot be found! This matter is glossed over in the literature as a minor in-house debate and certainly not as evidence that evolution might not be true in the first place.

The Cambrian explosion

The single greatest problem that the fossil record poses for Darwinism is the Cambrian explosion of approximately 530 million years ago (named for the Cambrian period of early earth’s history). The fossil record reveals the absence of complex life forms in the period just before (the Pre-Cambrian period), and then suddenly most all the abundant numbers of advanced life forms appear! In this “biological big bang” nearly all the animal phyla appear in the rocks of this period without a trace of the evolutionary ancestors that Darwinism requires. As Richard Dawkins puts it, “It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.” The complexity of these animals is so great that evolutionists have to admit that it would take (under their theory) at least 1.5 billion years to evolve. Obviously, if evolution were true we should expect to find billions of evolutionary ancestors of the Cambrian life forms in the Pre-Cambrian rocks. However, not a single, indisputable, multi-cellular fossil has ever been found. Clearly this is, at best, disconfirming and very disappointing evidence for the Darwinist; and at worst, it is proof that evolution is false.

In his interview with Lee Strobel for the book The Case for a Creator (Zondervan, 2004), Jonathan Wells, a researcher and Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology, says that the findings of the Cambrian Explosion are absolutely contrary to Darwin’s Tree of Life. The animals, which are so fundamentally different in their body plans appear fully developed all of a sudden in what paleontologists have called the single most spectacular phenomenon of the fossil record. Wells drew an analogy of the timing of the Cambrian explosion to a football game. “Imagine yourself on one goal line of a football field. That line represents the first fossil -- a microscopic, single-celled organism. Now start marching down the field. You pass the 20-yard line, the 40-yard line; you pass mid-field and you’re approaching the other goal line. All you’ve seen this entire time are microscopic, single –cell organisms. You come to the 16-yard line on the far end of the field, and now you see some sponges and maybe some jellyfish and worms. Then – boom – in the space of a single stride, all these forms of animals (of the Cambrian explosion) suddenly appear!” The Cambrian explosion has uprooted Darwin’s tree (and made it a putting green) yet little mention of these remarkable facts appear in school textbooks. Why aren’t we teaching the controversy?

Convergence

Paleontology tells us that some 65 million years ago mammals began their rise to dominance, culminating in the appearance of human beings. Practically all mammals have appeared as either placental (bearing their young when fully developed) or marsupial (giving birth prematurely and nurturing the young in a pouch). A large number of mammals (e.g., rats, wolves, moles, flying squirrels, anteaters, some cats, etc.) can be either marsupial or placental, being practically identical in every other way. The marsupials are confined to Australia and South America and the placental mammals are found all over. How is it possible, if evolution is true, for the Tasmanian wolf (marsupial) and the European timber wolf (placental) to be virtually identical in every way except for their “early childhood?” These animals evolved on two different continents and in two different survival environments. Convergence would be literally a miracle rather than a coincidence if random mutation and natural selection was the mechanism. Evolutionists simply beg the question.[xiii] The existence of identical “evolutionary outcomes in isolated environments” is one of the strongest possible indications that random mutation and natural selection are incapable of explaining the origin of species. This is seldom dealt with in the textbooks.

Intermediate Forms

The “missing links” are missing between all categories (species, genus, family, order, class, phylum) of animals. This is a real problem for Darwinists who maintain, along with Darwin that, “As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modifications; it can act only by short and slow steps.”[xiv] Such a slow gradual mechanism of evolution necessitates innumerable transitional (intermediate) forms, and this was acknowledged freely by Darwin on many occasions. In his day, Darwin could point only to a few candidates as intermediate forms: Archaeopteryx -- the alleged intermediate between bird and reptile; and Hipparion -- an early three-toed horse, the alleged intermediate between existing horses and certain older five-toed forms. Today none of these candidates (nor any other candidates proposed over the decades) are convincing. Archaeopteryx is most likely just an extinct bird; and Hipparion, an extinct horse.

Darwin acknowledged he was short on candidates, but was confident that the needed fossils just weren’t found yet. Now that we have over 250 million fossils we would expect to have his needed proof. In 1979 Luther Sunderland interviewed the head officials of the five leading natural history museums which house some of the largest fossil collections in the world.[xv] In his book, Darwin’s Enigma, Sunderland presents the substance of those interviews. None of the five museum officials could offer a single example of a transitional series of fossilized organisms that would document the transformation of one basically different type into another. Dr. Colin Paterson, senior paleontologist and editor of a prestigious journal published by the British Museum of Natural History, wrote to Sunderland, “I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.” It is strange that, after 145 years of searching for the linking forms, the world’s greatest fossil museums have not been able to find them -- unless perhaps they do not exist? Even after the last 35 years of strong empirical evidence lining up against Darwin’s theory, and the positive evidence lining up for Intelligent Design (plus recent doubts by many leading evolutionary scientists), Darwinism is still as much on the offensive and defensive as anytime in the past.[xvi]

Human evolution

Darwin and other evolutionists do not claim that humans descended directly from apes. Rather, they believe that modern humans and modern apes have a common ancestor – that we are all part of the “hominid” family. With the available fossil evidence as complete for humans as for any of the animals, evolutionists have assembled a human evolutionary tree based on (1) the uprightness of the posture of the hominid (presumably because that has survival value in a changing environment); (2) the size of the cranial cavity (the bigger the brain, allegedly the more intelligent), (3) the development and use of tools, and (4) linguistic, artistic and religious capabilities. Today, in addition, molecular biology is used to evaluate and classify the placement of a specimen on the evolutionary tree. But that discussion will be the subject of another lesson.

Evolutionists claim that the evidence for human evolution is conclusive and demonstrates that humans and apes evolved from common ancestry. The National Academy of Sciences says, “Today … there is no significant doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all the primates or between apes and humans. The ’missing links’ that troubled Darwin and his followers are no longer missing.” Does the evidence warrant such a conclusion? In his work on the subject, Darwin did not cite a single reference to fossils in support of his belief in human evolution.[xvii] Since Darwin’s time, evolutionists continue to search for fossil remains to support their premise that man evolved. Despite widespread belief to the contrary, the fossil record of mankind is woefully inadequate to justify belief in evolution. There are only miniscule fossil remains of creatures ancestral to humans – often just skull fragments or teeth. One anthropologist in Science magazine likened the reconstruction task to trying to understand the plot of War and Peace by using 13 random pages from the book. Jonathan Wells recounts that the chief science writer for Nature, Henry Gee, was quite candid about the state of affairs in 1999 when he said, “The intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.” Gee went on to say that each fossil is “an isolated point” with no knowable connection to any other given fossil, and “all float around in an overwhelming sea of gaps.” He said that all the fossil evidence for human evolution (several thousand generations’ worth, over millions of years) can be fitted into a small box and that the conventional picture of human evolution is “a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices.” Yet, that doesn’t stop the establishment from indoctrinating our school children with the “fact” that humans and monkeys evolved from some unknown common ancestor. Instead, why aren’t we teaching the controversy?

What does the fossil record show concerning human evolution?

Ramapithecus, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus have all been heralded as transitional forms of human evolution. The average person on the street probably believes these classifications represent genuine intermediate forms. That is because specimens when discovered are assumed to be “missing links” since they are presented as such. After many years of scientific analysis, however, the conclusions are highly debatable. The alleged intermediate forms can just as easily be some kind of monkey or early human instead of a transitional form. That conclusion, however, receives far less fan-fare, and is almost always too late to reverse what had already been put into the school textbooks. The fact is that intermediate forms between ape and man are still mere speculation.

Almost monthly, newspapers carry articles about new discoveries allegedly filling-in the human evolutionary tree. A careful reading, however, reveals just how little is known and how contradictory the evidence is within the established paradigm. The August 6, 2002 New York Times article, Skulls Found in Africa and in Europe Challenge Theories of Human Origins, is representative. In it Dr. Bernard Wood, a paleontologist at George Washington University admits, "This really exposes how little we know of human evolution and the origin of our own genus Homo." "When I went to medical school in 1963, human evolution looked like a ladder," Dr. Wood said. The ladder, he explained, “stepped from monkey to modern human through a progression of intermediates, each slightly less apelike than the previous one.” But today the family tree, once drawn straight as a ladder, has now been reconfigured with branches leading all over the place and, in some cases, leading apparently to a dead end. So today a “tangled bush” has replaced the “evolutionary tree” as the ascendant imagery of human evolution. The picture of human genealogy gets more complex, not simpler. Scholars of human prehistory, however, eagerly await the “next find” to support their pre-suppositions. But, when it gets down to the evidence, human evolution is in fact a “faith position” of the naturalist. And, the fact that Homo sapiens are the only living hominid is still strong evidence for the “faith position” of the creationist.

Another representative article has been published as I write (October 2004). A new and “one of the most spectacular fossil finds in half a century” appears in the British scientific journal Nature. According to the authors this find “could rewrite the history of human evolution.” The remains of a tiny (3 foot tall) hominid was discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores. Some believe him to be an extinct offshoot of Homo erectus, but others think a separate species of Homo. But perhaps he is not a full grown human; or a perhaps he’s a dwarf; or possibly an ape? The authors say they are convinced he is a full-grown adult hominid. Again, the evidence is scant, but the hype is extensive.

The human evolutionary tree

Fossil material for the hominid Ramapithecus (12-14 million years ago) was first discovered in 1932. By the 1960’s evolutionists installed Ramapithecus into man’s family tree. But, by 1980 the fossil evidence indicated that Ramapithecus was more similar to an orangutan than to a man. Today, most all anthropologists have dropped it from man’s ancestry. Australopithecus (“Southern ape,” 1-4 million years ago) was first discovered in 1924 (the famous “Lucy” is in this category). It was heralded by many Darwinists as ancestral to man. However, by 1960 many concluded Australopithecus to be an extinct ape. In 1964 H. habilis was incorporated into the lineage for the origin of man. Today it appears that it could just as easily be an extinct primate similar in structure to a chimpanzee, or even possibly a human pygmy. Homo erectus, a.k.a. Java man or Peking man (1.6 million to 250,000 years ago), is thought to have evolved from H. habilis. Many are convinced that Homo erectus was nearly human and directly ancestral to man. But, some regard him as little more than an ape. Others regard him as a true member of the human family. What’s the truth? Why not teach the controversy instead of pretending we know?

Darwinian theory has H. erectus evolving into modern man (Homo sapien) between 500,000 and 250,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon man lived about 40,000 years ago and Neanderthal man disappeared from the fossil record about 10,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon man is anatomically identical to modern humans and left behind finely crafted stone and bone tools, shell and ivory jewelry, and polychrome paintings on cave walls. Neanderthal man differs significantly from Cro-Magnon anatomically (has brow ridges, low, sloping foreheads, a chinless and heavy, forward-jutting jaw, and extremely large front teeth). In the 1950’s the media depicted Neanderthal as “given a bath, a collar, and tie he would pass unnoticed in the New York subway.” However by 2003, DNA analysis revealed that Neanderthal contributed no genetic material to the modern human genome and was not likely linguistic nor cultural in a human sense (no cave paintings, burial goods, or other cultural relics). It is quite likely that Cro-Magnon is simply early modern man and Neanderthal is some kind of extinct hominid. Why not discuss all points of view based on the evidences?

The “missing links” are still missing according to the scientific evidence. But Darwinists go about their business assuming “ape-man”-to-“human” evolution to be true. Anyone not already committed to naturalism, however, and anyone willing to take the time to look seriously at the disconfirming evidence, must conclude that the fossil record provides little support for the evolution of mankind. But the entrenched establishment doesn’t “want to confuse our kids,” let alone start a discussion of whether or not the human evolutionary is true at all. So little of the controversy is ever revealed and the evolutionary indoctrination continues unchallenged.

Indoctrination, not science, in our public schools

In 1997 the San Diego Union-Tribune distributed a free CD-ROM -- How Man Began -- to every public school student in grades 3 through 12. For the entire year, the paper had front-page articles in its Science section regarding the evolution of man from ape-like creatures. The material was developed by a panel of teachers from the San Diego City Schools to meet the California State requirements in science for grade levels 3-12. The project was partially funded by grants from the U. S. Department of Education and the San Diego City School system. How Man Began instructs students in “how millions of years of evolution … (has) “brought life forward, from tiny sacs of nucleic acids to the human beings we are today.” It takes the students through 12 evolutionary steps of humankind that highlight, “the physical, psychological and behavioral changes that helped make humans the remarkable and unique animals we are today.” It presented a synopsis of the “grand evolutionary tale, perhaps the greatest story ever told…a snapshot, a glimpse into a never-ending story.” The CD begins by recounting that in 1896, the first president of Cornell University, Andrew White, said: “The old theory of direct creation is gone forever … It has been replaced by the theory of evolution … Even though the Theory of Evolution is one of the most profound scientific discoveries of all time, affecting every discipline from geology to cosmology, its history has always been one of incredible tumult and unending criticism.” The indoctrination continues, “In 1925, Clarence Darrow had to defend John Scopes for illegally presenting Charles Darwin’s revolutionary theory in the classroom … For 42 years thereafter, Tennessee’s law against teaching evolution remained on the books.” The series assures the students that any debate is only within the confines of the evolutionary details. Any quibbling is only over small details like “accumulation of small gradual changes” (Darwinism) versus “sudden large changes” (Punctuated Equilibrium) since “virtually all scientists agree that evolution remains the only scientifically valid explanation for how life has progressed upon Earth.” Why are they so committed to indoctrination rather than teaching the controversy?

Man versus animal – a huge difference in kind [xviii]

It is human intelligence that stands out as the uniquely defining aspect of human nature. Our symbolically structured intelligence is received and built in human community, so that we are at root social beings. Human language supports a host of other uniquely human characteristics -- freedom and creativity in the arts, culture, and religion. Perhaps most importantly, symbolic reasoning underlies our human ethical capacity and moral reasoning. Without being able to visualize, describe, and categorize future options, moral freedom is impossible. It is for this reason that regardless of whatever ‘pre-moral’ behavior animals are said to possess, no one in the animal-rights discussion ever talks about giving animals moral responsibility -- animals are ‘amoral’. Only human beings exercise moral reasoning, and are capable of responsible interpersonal relationship. If this is what we mean by personhood (and I would suggest this is a minimal definition), then the natural sciences agree that in all the animal kingdom, only human beings are truly persons. Human symbolic reasoning, language, moral capacity, and spiritual awareness are not even potentially present in the rest of the animal kingdom.

While modern science may have closed some of the gap separating human beings from other creatures, it has at the same time illuminated how wide and fixed the gap remains. Human intelligence, linguistic capacity, moral and relational freedom, spiritual nature and awareness, and social and cultural creativity are unique in the world; and as far as we know, unique in the cosmos. We appear to be the highest and most complex material life form in the universe, with an unparalleled level of freedom and an orientation to the infinite and transcendent that sets us apart from all other creatures. Scientists speak with awe of humans as the being “in whom the universe has become conscious of itself”, and of the human brain as “the most complex object in the known universe.” Thus human uniqueness appears to be a credible scientific fact.

As the one creature in the cosmos made in the image of the Creator, this is not a surprise to Christians. Scripture draws an absolute line between humans and all other creatures, and this picture of human uniqueness is consistent with our modern knowledge of evolutionary history. Contrary to the stereotype, contemporary science agrees that in human beings something very special has appeared in the cosmos.

Social Evolution

In 1975 Harvard social biologist E. O. Wilson broke a “precarious truce” between the social scientists and the biological and physical scientists. In his book, Sociobiology, Wilson redefined a person in evolutionary terms: “a person is a gene’s way of making another gene.” Since that time it has been commonplace to relate natural selection to human behavior, e.g., Darwinian anthropology, evolutionary psychology, sociobiology and behavioral genetics.[xix] All human behavior is now subject to explanation in Darwinian terms. Even Mother Teresa’s altruism and her devotion to the welfare of others is interpreted in evolutionary terms as “self-interest.” Either she is motivated by her selfish genes which “hard-wire” her for adaptive advantage, or she is motivated by selfish desire for the hope of heaven. Parents are “designed” (by natural selection) to steer kids towards moral behavior only insofar as those behaviors are self-serving. Scientific observation does not support these theories, neither does our experience and common sense. There are real moral imperatives! Human beings really do care about others, and even sometimes in selfless ways. Evolutionary philosophers such as Michael Ruse, however, have come to the conclusion that selfless behavior is a perverse departure from our evolved nature – a “pathological deviation.” The noblest of all our human behavior – our loving interactions -- is likewise seen as a “radical aberration.” It appears that once you are committed to the evolutionary model, as Ruse is, then no data, scientific experimentation or common sense will make you re-evaluate your pre-supposition. To Wilson, Ruse and others, evolution is true with a capital “T.” All human behavior can be explained by evolution, and researchers keep generating naturalistic theories attempting to do so. Any dis-confirming evidence is simply explained away as a perversion rather than being seen as the theory being flawed.

The Biblical account of creation

In opposition to evolutionism, the Bible gives us the creationist’s account of history. The Bible portrays a transcendent and eternal God who has will, purpose and the power to bring things into existence out of nothing. God is Sovereign over His creation and directs human history towards His ultimate purpose. Reviewing the highlights of the biblical account (see the second cover page in Lesson 1):

The 7 “days” (Hb. “yom”) of creation

• Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”


• Genesis 1:5 – “And there was evening and morning, one day.”


• Genesis 1:20-23 – “Then God said, ‘let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’ And, God created … every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind … And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.”


• Genesis 1:24 – “Then God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind.”


• Genesis 1:27 – “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female he created them.”


• Genesis 1:29-30 – “Then God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every green plant for food,’ and it was so.”


• Genesis 1:31 – “And God saw all that He had made, and behold it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”


• Genesis 2:1, 2 – “Thus the heavens and the earth were completed … And by the seventh day God completed His work that He had done.”


• Revelation 21:1, 2 – “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there was no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”

Purposeful (intelligent) design

• Job 42:2 – “I know that You (God) can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.”


• Ephesians 1:11 – “In Christ we have been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”


• Acts 17:30, 31 – “Having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

The Christian’s Response

As unsupportable as evolution might seem, and as passion-arousing as naturalism might seem as an ideology, the Christian is called to give his or her reasoned response with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15).

2 Timothy 2:24-26 reminds us to:

“… not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses, and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will".


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[i] The first evolutionary “tree of life” was drawn by German biologist Ernst Haeckel in 1866. Drawings based on it are commonly seen in textbooks and wall charts.
[ii] Johnson has written a whole series of books on the subject (see the Bibliography in Lesson 1). His ground breaking, Darwin on Trial challenged Great Britain’s most esteemed public intellectual and popularizer of evolution, Richard Dawkins and his famous 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker.
[iii] National Geographic, November 2004.
[iv] See Of Pandas and People or other biology textbook for discussion on genetics and mutation theory.
[v] The definition of “species” is widely debated – a dozen or more definitions exist. For purposes herein I use the term “species” to refer to “reproducing populations that possess distinctive features, reproducing those features in fertile offspring” (from Ernst Mayr, Animal Species and Evolution, Harvard Press, 1963).
[vi] The peppered moth story is fascinating. Kettlewell was thought the first to offer clear evidence that natural selection actually operated in nature. His experiments were dubbed “Darwin’s missing evidence.” A century before, most of Britain’s peppered moths were light-colored, matching the predominant tree and rock background of their environment. They were well camouflaged from their bird predators. As the industrial revolution progressed, the proportion of dark colored moths within the total population became increasingly great. Kettlewell’s experiments showed that in polluted areas, where the background was dark, the dark moths were far less visible to their major predators and survived better than the light colored ones. Almost every textbook that deals with evolution re-tells the peppered moth story and illustrates it with photographs. The problem, however, is that since 1980’s Kettlewell’s experiments have been shown to be seriously flawed. Even more disturbing is that the photographs shown in the textbooks have been fraudulently staged. Honest evolutionists are now embarrassed by the peppered moth story. But that doesn’t stop textbook publishers and media presentations from continuing to use the story as evidence for Darwinian macroevolution. The fraud and controversy is not reported.
[vii] The Beak of the Finch, A Story of Evolution in Our Time, Weiner and Grant, (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
[viii] Science and Creationism, A View from the National Academy of Sciences, p17, (1984).
[ix] Evolutionists D. Johansen, M. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, p.363 (1981).
[x] Evolutionist Woodruff, Evolution: The Paleobiological View, Science, Vol. 208 (1980).
[xi] Quoted in Darwin’s Enigma, p.78.
[xii] Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, (W. W. Norton, 1980).
[xiii] According to G. G. Simpson in The Meaning of Evolution the answer is simple. This convergence comes about through the “selection of random mutations.” That is pure circular reasoning!
[xiv] Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species, 6th ed., (Collier Books, 1962), p.468.
[xv] Dr. Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History (London); Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of invertebrate paleontology at the American Museum (New York City); Dr. David M. Raup, curator of geology, Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago); Dr. David Pilbeam, curator of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale and professor of anthropology at Harvard (Boston); Dr. Donald Fisher, state paleontologist, New York State Natural History Museum.
[xvi] For example, in the article entitled, Was Darwin Wrong? No!, which appeared in the November 2004 issue of National Geographic, the credibility of Darwin’s theory was compared to the credibility of the theory that the Earth orbits the sun; or that electricity works.
Eugenie Scott, the director of National Center for Science Education, the largest lobby for defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, routinely tells reporters that Intelligent Design is not science and that it is just a sham to get creationism into the public school curriculum.
[xvii] The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin, 1871.
[xviii] Adapted from an essay by Chris Fisher, Ph.D., The Antropocentric Cosmos: Human Uniqueness and the Natural Sciences in the September 13, 2004 Center for Bioethics and Culture Network newsletter.
[xix] See E. O. Wilson, Sociobiology, and On Human Nature, (Harvard University Press, 1975 & 1978).