Zinjanthropus

So far have evolutionists gone in their adoption of evolution as a dogma that they can even ascribe very different faces to the same skull to provide supposed evidence for their theories.

The three totally different reconstructions produced for the fossil known as Australopithecus robustus(Zinjanthropus) are a well-known example of this attitude. (See Australopithecus.)

Wallace, Alfred Russell

The British natural historian Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) is known for the idea that species emerged through natural selection. In a paper he wrote in 1855 titled "On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New Species," Wallace maintained that all species were extensions of other species to which they were closely related.

Despite developing his thesis at approximately the same time as Darwin, Wallace held different views on a number of points. As a believer in the human soul, Wallace believed that Allah had created by means of evolution, and maintained that human mental capacities could not be explained in terms of natural selection and similar naturalistic mechanisms. In contrast to Darwin, he believed that non-biological factors outside natural selection were responsible for the emergence of human physical traits and mental capabilities.274

274. "Darwin or Wallace?: Scientific and Religious Interpretations of the Human Being," H. James Birx, 

http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/darwin.html

Watson, James

The famous American biologist James Watson is best known for his work in the field of molecular biology. He and Francis Crick revealed the extraordinarily complex structure in DNA as a result of their joint work in 1955.

Watson and Crick's discovery of nucleic acids-DNA and RNA, for short-gave birth to new problems for the theory of evolution. With their discovery of the structure of DNA, they also revealed that life was far more complex than had previously been imagined.

The theory of evolution seeks to account for the origin of life in terms of coincidences, but cannot provide any consistent explanation regarding the existence of the most basic molecules. And these advances in genetic science represented a major impasse facing evolutionists.

Variation

Variation is a term used in genetic science, and concerns the emergence of different varieties, or species. This genetic phenomenon causes individuals or groups within a given species to possess different features from others. For example, all human beings on Earth possess essentially the same genetic information. But thanks to the variation potential permitted by that genetic information, some people have round eyes, or red hair, or a long nose, or are short and stocky in stature.

Darwinists, however, seek to portray variation within a species as evidence for evolution. The fact is, however, that variations constitute no such thing, because variation consists of the emergence of different combinations of genetic information that already exists, and cannot endow individuals with any new genetic information or characteristics.

Variation is always restricted by existing genetic information. These boundaries are known as the gene pool in genetic science. (See The Gene Pool.) Darwin, however, thought that variation had no limits when he proposed his theory267, and he depicted various examples of variation as the most important evidence for evolution in his book The Origin of Species.

According to Darwin, for example, farmers mating different variations of cow in order to obtain breeds with better yields of milk would eventually turn cows into another species altogether. Darwin's idea of limitless change stemmed from the primitive level of science in his day. As a result of similar experiments on living things in the 20th century, however, science revealed a principle known as genetic homeostasis. This principle revealed that all attempts to change a living species by means of interbreeding (forming different variations) were in vain, and that between species, there were unbreachable walls. In other words, it was absolutely impossible for cattle to evolve into another species as the result of farmers mating different breeds to produce different variations, as Darwin had claimed would happen.

Luther Burbank, one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of genetic hybrids, expresses a similar truth: "there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law." 268 Thousands of years of collective experience have shown that the amount of biological change obtained using cross-breeding is always limited, and that there is a limit to the variations that any one species can undergo.

Indeed, in the introduction to their book Natural Limits to Biological Change Professor of Biology Lane P. Lester and the molecular biologist Raymond G. Bohlin wrote:

That populations of living organisms may change in their anatomy, physiology, genetic structure, etc., over a period of time is beyond question. What remains elusive is the answer to the question, How much change is possible, and by what genetic mechanism will these changes take place? Plant and animal breeders can marshal an impressive array of examples to demonstrate the extent to which living systems can be altered. But when a breeder begins with a dog, he ends up with a dog-a rather strange looking one, perhaps, but a dog nonetheless. A fruit fly remains a fruit fly; a rose, a rose, and so on.269

Variations and their various changes are restricted inside the bounds of a species' genetic information, and they can never add new genetic information to species. For that reason, no variation can be regarded as an example of evolution.
The Danish scientist W. L. Johannsen summarizes the situation:

The variations upon which Darwin and Wallace placed their emphasis cannot be selectively pushed beyond a certain point, that such variability does not contain the secret of "indefinite departure."270

The fact that there are different human races in the world or the differences between parents and children can be explained in terms of variation. Yet there is no question of any new component being added to their gene pool. For example, no matter how much you seek to enrich their species, cats will always remain cats, and will never evolve into any other mammal. It is impossible for the sophisticated sonar system in a marine mammal to emerge through recombination. (See Recombination.) Variation may account for the differences between human races, but it can never provide any basis for the claim that apes developed into human beings.

268. Ibid., p.36.
269. Lane P. Lester, Raymond G. Bohlin, Natural Limits to Biological Change, pp. 13-14.
270. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, Vintage Books, 1958, p. 227.

Vestigial Organs Thesis, The

One claim that long occupied a place in the literature of evolution but was quietly abandoned once it was realized to be false is the concept of vestigial organs. Some evolutionists, however, still imagine that such organs represent major evidence for evolution and seek to portray them as such.

A century or so ago, the claim was put forward that some living things had organs that were inherited from their ancestors, but which had gradually become smaller and even functionless from lack of use.

Those organs were in fact ones whose functions had not yet been identified. And so, the long list of organs believed by evolutionists to be vestigial grew ever shorter. The list of originally proposed by the German anatomist R. Wiedersheim in 1895 contain approximately 100 organs, including the human appendix and the coccyx. But the appendix  was eventually realized to be a part of the lymph system that combats microbes entering the body, as was stated in one medical reference source in 1997:

Other bodily organs and tissues--the thymus, liver, spleen, appendix, bone marrow, and small collections of lymphatic tissue such as the tonsils in the throat and Peyer's patch in the small intestine-are also part of the lymphatic system. They too help the body fight infection. 271

The tonsils, which also appeared on that same list of vestigial organs, were likewise discovered to play an important role against infections, especially up until adulthood. (Like the appendix, tonsils sometimes become infected by the very bacteria they seek to combat, and so must be surgically removed.)  The coccyx, the end of the backbone, was seen to provide support for the bones around the pelvic bone and to be a point of fixation for certain small muscles.

In the years that followed, other organs regarded as vestigial were shown to serve specific purposes: The thymus gland activates the body's defense system by setting the T cells into action. The pineal gland is responsible for the production of important hormones. The thyroid establishes balanced growth in babies and children. The pituitary ensures that various hormone glands are functioning correctly.

Today, many evolutionists accept that the myth of vestigial organs stemmed from sheer ignorance. The evolutionist biologist S.R. Scadding expresses this in an article published in the magazine Evolutionary Theory:

Since it is not possible to unambiguously identify useless structures, and since the structure of the argument used is not scientifically valid, I conclude that ‘vestigial organs' provide no special evidence for the theory of evolution.272

Evolutionists also make a significant logical error in their claim that vestigial organs in living things are a legacy from their ancestors: Some organs referred to as "vestigial" are not present in the species claimed to be the forerunners of man.

For example, some apes have no appendix. The zoologist Professor Hannington Enoch, an opponent of the vestigial organ thesis, sets out this error of logic:

Apes possess an appendix, whereas their less immediate relatives, the lower apes, do not; but it appears again among the still lower mammals such as the opossum. How can the evolutionists account for this? 273

The scenario of vestigial organs put forward by evolutionists contains its own internal inconsistencies, besides being scientifically erroneous. We humans have no vestigial organs inherited from our supposed ancestors, because humans did not evolve randomly from other living things, but were fully and perfectly created in the form we have today.

271. The Merck Manual of Medical Information, Home edition, Rahway, New Jersey: Merck & Co., Inc. The Merck Publishing Group, , 1997.
272. S. R. Scadding, "Do ‘Vestigial Organs' Provide Evidence for Evolution?," Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, May 1981, p. 173.
273. Hannington Enoch, Creation or Evolution, New York, 1966, pp. 18-19.

Urey, Harold

Harold Urey was the teacher of the American researcher Stanley Miler at Chicago University. Because of Urey's contribution to Miller's 1953 experiment on the origin of life, this is also known as the Urey-Miller Experiment. This experiment is the only "proof" used to supposedly confirm the molecular evolution thesis, which is put forward as the first stage in the evolutionary process. However, the experiment was never able to offer any findings to support evolutionist claims regarding the origin of life. (See The Miller Experiment.) 

The Morphological Homology Myth

In biology, structural similarities among different living species are referred to as homologous. Evolutionists attempt to use these similarities as evidence for evolution. Pointing to homologous organs in different life forms, they maintain that these species are descended from a common forebear. (See Homologous organs.) Yet in order for evolutionist claims regarding homologous organs to be taken seriously, these organs would have to be coded by similar DNA codes. Yet these homologous organs are generally determined by different genetic (DNA) codes.

In addition, similar genetic codes in different life forms also correspond to very different organs! In his bookEvolution: A Theory in Crisis, the Australian professor of biochemistry Michael Denton describes the predicament represented by the evolutionist interpretation of homology:

Homologous structures are often specified by non-homologous genetic systems, and the concept of homology can seldom be extended back into embryology.211

In order for that same claim to be taken seriously, the embryological development process of these similar structures—in other words, the phases of development in the embryo in the mother’s womb—have to be parallel to one another. Yet the embryological stages for similar organs are different in all living things.

Genetic and embryological research has shown that the concept of homology, which Darwin took as proof that living things are descended from a common ancestor, does not in fact provide any backing for such a definition. Thus it is that science has revealed the unrealistic nature of yet another Darwinist thesis.

The evolutionist claim regarding homology is not only invalid at the level of organs, but also at the molecular level. (See Molecular homology thesis, the.) There are enormous molecular differences between living things that outwardly appear very similar and closely related to one another. Professor Michael Denton comments:

 Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology . . . At a molecular level, no organism is “ancestral” or “primitive” or “advanced” compared with its relatives . . . . There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago. . . the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted. 212

211 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, p. 145.

212 Ibid., pp. 290-291

Theory of Favored Races, The

Most present-day Darwinists claim that Charles Darwin was not actually a racist, but that racists have interpreted his ideas in a biased manner in order to support their own views. They maintain that the expression “by means of The Preservation of Favored Races” in the subtitle of his book The Origin of Speciesis meant solely for animals. However, those who make such claims ignore what Darwin actually said about human races in his book The Descent of Man.

According to the views that by Darwin set out in that book, the different human races represented different stages of evolution, and some races were more highly “evolved” and thus advanced than others. Some, in fact, were pretty much at the same level as apes.

Darwin suggested that the struggle for survival also applied to human races, (See Struggle for Survival, the.) In the course of that struggle, favored races would be victorious. According to Darwin, these favored were European whites. Asians and Africans, on the other hand, had lagged behind in the fight for survival going on in the world. Darwin went even further and suggested that these races would soon lose the struggle entirely and be eliminated altogether:  

At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes. . . will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. 109

In another chapter of The Descent of Man, Darwin claimed that inferior races should disappear, and that there was no need for advanced human beings to protect them and seek to keep them alive. He compared this situation to livestock breeders:

 With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. . . .Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man.110

In line with these statements, Darwin regarded native Australians and blacks as being at the same level as gorillas and maintained that these races would eventually become extinct. He also advocated the need to prevent other races whom he regarded as inferior from multiplying. and that these races should therefore be eradicated. Darwin thus approved of and justified racist and discriminatory practices, the remains of which can still be seen today.

According to Darwin’s racist ideas, the duty of any civilized human being was to speed up this evolutionary process. That meant that there was no scientific reason why these backward races should not be eliminated right away!

Darwin’s racist side revealed itself in several of his writings and analyses. For example, in 1871, in describing the native people of Tierra del Fuego that he had seen during the course of his long voyage on the Beagle, he made his racist preconceptions perfectly clear. He depicted them as “wholly nude, submerged in dyes, eating what they find just like wild animals, uncontrolled, cruel to everybody out of their tribe, taking pleasure in torturing their enemies, offering bloody sacrifices, killing their children, ill-treating their wives, full of awkward superstitions.111

Yet the researcher W. P. Snow, who had visited the same region ten years earlier, described those same people as;

C9 powerful looking, strong, fond of their children, having inventive                                                                                              

handicrafts, bearing the notion of private ownership for some

goods and accepting the authority of the elder women

in the community. 112

From these examples, it is clear that Darwin was a full-fledged racist. Indeed, as Benjamin Farrington, author of the book What Darwin Really Said, puts it, Darwin made many comments about “the evident nature of the inequality among human races” in The Descent of Man.113

Moreover, Darwin’s theory denied the existence of God, leading to his ignoring fact that man is an entity created by God and that all human beings are created equal.

This was another factor that accelerated the rise of racism and its worldwide acceptance. The American scientist James Ferguson states that there is a direct relation between the rejection of creation and the rise of racism:

 The new anthropology soon became a theoretical background between two opposed schools of thought on the origin of humans. The older and more established of these was ‘monogenism,’ the belief that all humankind, irrespective of colour and other characteristics, was directly descended from Adam and from the single and original act of God’s creation. . . . [In the 18th century] opposition to theological authority began to fuel the rival theory of ‘polygenism,’ (theory of evolution) which held that different racial communities had different origins.114

The Indian anthropologist Lalita Vidyarthi describes how Darwin’s theory of evolution imposed racism on the social sciences:

 His (Darwin’s) theory of the survival of the fittest was warmly welcomed by the social scientists of the day, and they believed humanity had achieved various levels of evolution culminating in the white man’s civilization. By the second half of the nineteenth century, racism was accepted as fact by the vast majority of Western scientists. 115

Many Darwinists after Darwin set about trying to prove his racist opinions. For that purpose, they had no qualms about perpetrating scientific distortions and fraud. They imagined that if they managed to prove their own superiority, they would also have scientifically demonstrated their own superiority and their right to oppress, exploit, and if necessary, even eradicate other races.

Stephen Jay Gould also stated that some anthropologists twisted the facts in order to demonstrate the superiority of the white race. According to Gould they most frequently resorted to engaging in distortions regarding the brain sizes of skulls they discovered. In one book Gould describes how many anthropologists suggested there was a direct relation between brain volume and intelligence and how, despite having no true criteria, they exaggerated the brain volumes of Caucasians in particular and portrayed these as greater than those of blacks and Native Americans.116

Gould sets out some of the unbelievable claims that Darwinists made to depict certain races as inferior:

 Haeckel and his colleagues also invoked recapitulation [the theory of the repetition of the so-called evolutionary process during individual growth] to affirm the racial superiority of northern European whites. They scoured the evidence of human anatomy and behaviour, using everything they could find from brains to belly buttons. Herbert Spencer wrote that “the intellectual traits of the uncivilized are traits recurring in the children of the civilized.” Carl Vogt said it more strongly in 1864: “The grown up Negro partakes, as regards his intellectual faculties, of the nature of the child” . . . Some tribes have founded states, possessing a peculiar organization, but, as to the rest, we may boldly assert that the whole race has, neither in the past nor in the present, performed anything tending to the progress of humanity or worthy of preservation. 117

 In his work Race et Milieu Social Essais d’Anthroposociologie, the French Darwinist anthropologist Vacher de Lapouge advanced the view that non-white races were the representatives of wild children who had been unable to adapt to civilization, or classes whose blood had been corrupted. He drew his conclusions from measuring the skulls from the upper and lower classes in Parisian graveyards. According to these results, people’s skulls determined whether they would be wealthy, self-confident and in favor of freedom, while others would be conservative, content with very little and make excellent servants. Classes were the product of social divisions. Higher classes equated with higher races, and degree of wealth was directly proportionate to skull volume.

In summary, the racist aspect of Darwin’s theory found very fertile ground in the second half of the 19th century, when European whites were hoping for just such a theory to legitimize their own crimes. 

109  Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, 2nd Edition, New York: A L. Burt Co., 1874, p. 178.
110 Ibid., p. 171.
111 Ibid.
112 W. Parker Snow, “A Few Remarks on the Wild Tribes of Tierra del Fuego from Personal Observation,” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London, Vol. 1, 1861 (1861), pp. 261-267.
113 Benjamin Farrington, What Darwin Really Said, London: Sphere Books, 1971, pp. 54-56.
114 James Ferguson, “The Laboratory of Racism,” New Scientist, Vol. 103, September 27, 1984, p. 18.
115 Lalita Prasad Vidyarthi, Racism, Science and Pseudo-Science, Unesco, France, Vend99me, 198, p. 54.
116 Rebekah E. Sutherland, “Social Darwinism,” http://www.rebsutherland.com/SocialDarwinism.htm.
117 Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992, pp. 217-218.

Taung Child Fossil, The

All Australopithecus fossils have been unearthed in the southern part of the African continent. The reason why this species has been given the name Australopithecus, meaning "South African ape," is that these animals have features very similar to those of present-day apes.

The first fossils claimed to belong to this species were found in a coal mine in the Taung region of South Africa in 1924. The first fossil described as Australopithecusconsisted of a young ape's face and lower jaw bones, and a skull  of 410 cubic centimeters in volume. The discoverers of the fossil took it to Raymond Dart, an anthropologist.

Based on the skull's fine structure and thinking that its teeth resembled human teeth, Dr. Dart suggested that the fossil belonged to a hominid. Shortly afterwards, he published an article in Nature magazine titled "Australopithecus: Ape-Man in South Africa." Scientists who said that the fossil actually belonged to a chimpanzee did not take Dart seriously. Yet he persisted with the idea that the fossil was a hominid and convinced Dr. Robert Bloom, a famous physicist, of this, devoting the rest of his life to finding support for the new species he had found. Even then, scientific circles began jokingly referring to the fossil he had found as "Dart's baby." Evolutionists then lined up behind the fossil, inventing a new species to which they had given the name Australopithecus. The first fossil discovered was given the full name Australopithecus africanus.

Following the discovery of this fossil, which was given the nickname of "the Taung Child" because it was thought to belong to a young individual, other paleontologists-especially the Leakey family-stepped up their own research. In the 1950s, other fossils regarded as belonging to Australopithecus were found in digs financed by National Geographic magazine in Kromdraai, Swartkrans and Makapansgat in South Africa. Some of these ape fossils had a coarser structure, while others were smaller and finer. The coarser ones were bulkier and heavier than the others, with a larger bottom jaw and bony protrusions over the eyebrows being their most distinguishing features.

Although these are all typical examples of gender differences between modern-day male and female monkeys, scientists persisted in regarding them as separate species.

After Dart presented the fossil given the name Australopithecus africanus, he received substantial criticism from scientists. Arthur Keith, one of the most prominent anatomists to comment on the fossil, said:

[Dart's] claim is preposterous, the skull is that of a young anthropoid ape . . . and showing so many points of affinity with the two living African anthropoids, the gorilla and chimpanzee, that there cannot be a moment's hesitation in placing the fossil form in this living group. 237

According to evolutionists, what Australopithecines shared with human beings was they had left the trees and adapted to bipedalism (walking upright). Dart concluded that the Taung Child he had found was able to walk on two legs, since according to him, that part of the spinal cord known as the magnum was further back than that in humans, but further forward than in monkeys. On the basis of this, Dart then claimed that the animal was capable of standing on its two hind legs. This theory was not accepted by scientists at the time, but was supported until the 1950s. However, no part of the skeleton that might permit an estimation of bipedalism was available. The only specimens consisted of the skull and a few fragmented thigh, hip and foot bones. Yet evolutionists still insisted on their claims regarding bipedalism.

Lord Solly Zuckerman had carried out perhaps the most detailed studies of the Australopithecines family. Despite being an evolutionist, Zuckerman thought that Australopithecus was nothing more than an ape. Together with a four-member team, Zuckerman used the most advanced methods of anatomical investigation, which began in 1954 and lasted for several years. In the wake of these investigations, he declared that these creatures had not walked on two legs and were not an intermediate form between humans and apes. The concluding report by Zuckerman and his team read:

For my own part, the anatomical basis for the claim that the Australopithecines walked and ran upright like man is so much more flimsy than the evidence which points to the conclusion that their gait was some variant of what one sees in subhuman Primates, that it remains unacceptable. 238

These judgments, published by Zuckerman in the mid-1950s, were confirmed by subsequent researchers. Dean Falk, a specialist in neuroanatomy, declared that the Taung skull belonged to a young monkey. "In his 1975 article, Dart had claimed that the brain of Taung was humanlike. As it turned out, he was wrong about that. . . . Taung's humanlike features were overemphasized," claimed Falk, who went on to say:

Like humans, [apes and monkeys] go through stages as they grow up. In his analysis of Taung, Dart did not fully appreciate that infant apes have not had time to develop features of the skull, such as thickened eyebrow ridges or attachment areas for heavy neck muscles, that set adult apes apart from human. Apparently he did not carefully consider the possibility that Taung's rounded forehead or the inferred position of the spinal cord might be due to the immaturity of the apelike specimen rather than to its resemblance to humans. 239

The protrusions over the eyebrows, the most important feature that led to Australopithecus africanus being described as a hominid, can be seen in young gorillas today. From all this, it appears that the skull ascribed  to Australopithecus africanus by evolutionists did not belong to an ancestor of man but in all probability, to a young ape.

237. David Johanson and James Shreeve, Lucy's Child, NewYork: William Morrow and Co., 1989, p. 56.
238. Solly Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower (1970), p. 93.
239. Dean Falk, Braindance, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1992, pp.12, 13.

Taxonomy

Biologists divide living things into specific classes. This classification, known as taxonomy, dates back to Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century. The classification system that Linnaeus constructed has been expanded and revised, but is still in use today.

This system of classification contains hierarchical categories. Living things are first divided into kingdoms, such as the animal and plant kingdoms. Kingdoms are then subdivided into phyla, which are then further subdivided. Classification takes the following form, in descending order:

kingdom
phylum (plural phyla)
class
order
family
genus (plural genera)
species

Most biologists today accept the existence of five separate kingdoms. In addition to the plant and animal kingdoms, they regard fungi, monera (single-celled organisms with no cell nucleus, such as bacteria) and protista (cells with a nucleus, such as algae) as separate kingdoms.

The most important of these is without doubt that animal kingdom. The major divisions within the animal kingdom are its various phyla. In the classification of these phyla, their differing bodily structures are considered. Arthropods, for example, constitute a separate phylum, and all the creatures within that phylum have a similar body plan. The phylum known as  Chordata consists of creatures with a central nervous system. All the animals familiar to us such as fish, birds, reptiles and mammals are included in the vertebrate category, a subdivision of the Chordata.

Tetrapod Finger Structure, The

Just about every book about evolution points to the hand and foot structure of tetrapods —that is, land-dwelling vertebrates—as an example of homology. Tetrapods have five digits on their front and rear feet. Even if these do not always fully resemble fingers or toes, these creatures are still regarded as pentadactyl(having five digits) because of their bone structure.

The hands and feet of a frog, a lizard, a squirrel or a monkey are all of this kind. Even the bone structures of birds and bats agree with this basic design. Therefore, evolutionists claim that all these life forms are evolved from a single common ancestor and for long, they regarded the phenomenon of pentadactylism as evidence of this. In our own time, however, it was realized that this claim actually lacked any scientific validity.

Even evolutionists admit that pentadactylism is a characteristic found in different living groups among which they cannot construct any evolutionary relationship. For example, in two separate articles published in 1991 and 1996, the evolutionist biologist M. Coates states that the phenomenon of pentadactylism emerged on two separate occasions, independently of one another. According to Coates, a pentadactyl structure emerged in both Anthracosaurs and in amphibians, quite independently of each other.164 This finding indicates that pentadactylism cannot represent any evidence for the hypothesis of a common ancestor. (See Common ancestor.)

Another difficulty for the evolutionists is that these vertebrates have five digits on both their front and hind feet. Yet nowhere in the evolutionist literature is it suggested that front and back feet developed from a common ancestor and it is not hypothesized that they then developed independently. Therefore, we would expect front and back feet to have different structures as a result of different random mutations.

Michael Denton has this to say on the subject:

 [T]he forelimbs of all terrestrial vertebrates are constructed according to the same pentadactyl design, and this is attributed by evolutionary biologists as showing that all have been derived from a common ancestral source. But the hind limbs of all vertebrates also conform to the pentadactyl pattern and are strikingly similar to the forelimbs in bone structure and in their detailed embryological development. Yet no evolutionist claims that the hind limb evolved from the forelimb, or that hind limbs and forelimbs evolved from a common source. . . . Invariably, as biological knowledge has grown, common genealogy as an explanation for similarity has tended to grow ever more tenuous. . . . Like so much of the other circumstantial “evidence”” for evolution, that drawn from homology is not convincing because it entails too many anomalies, too many counter-instances, far too many phenomena which simply do not fit easily into the orthodox picture. 165

The real blow to the claim of five-digit homology, so long propagated in evolutionist publications, was dealt by molecular biology. The hypothesis collapsed when it was realized that finger structure was controlled by different genes in different species with a pentadactyl digit structure.

The biologist John Randall describes the collapse of the evolutionist thesis regarding pentadactylism:

 The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the ‘pentadactyl’ [five bone] limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale, and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now, if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down. 166

164 Coates M. 1991. New palaeontological contributions to limb ontogeny and phylogeny. In: J. R. Hinchcliffe (ed.) Developmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Limb 325-337. New York: Plenum Press; Coates M. I. 1996. “The Devonian tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari Jarvik: postcranial anatomy, basal tetrapod interrelationships and patterns of skeletal evolution,”, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 87, pp. 363-421.
165 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, pp. 151, 154.
166 John Randall, quoted in William Fix’s The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984, p. 189.

Theory

A hypothesis that can be supported with large numbers of observations and experiments is known as a theory. To put it another way, a theory is a deep-rooted hypothesis. However, although a theory is proven with experiments, it may also be disproved. 

For example, the claim that "The atom is the smallest known component of matter," known as Dalton's atomic theory, today has lost all validity.240 Advances in science and technology have revealed the existence of much smaller particles than the atom and even the proton, such as the quark.

A scientific theory is an attempt to explain certain phenomena occurring in nature. A frequently occurring phenomenon may be explained in terms of a theory, a fact, or a law. Gravity, example, is a fact. Even if we cannot perceive gravity directly, we can still see its effect when we drop something. There is also a theory of gravity that answers the question of how this takes place. Even if we do not know exactly how gravity works, there are theories that seek to account for it. The law of gravity formulated by Isaac Newton is one such.

In summary, a scientific fact is an observable natural law, and a scientific theory is a mathematical description of how a scientific law works.

The first and most important requirement of empirical (experimental) science is that the object or phenomenon we wish to investigate should be observable. The second condition is that the object or phenomenon should be repeatable. Any observable and repeatable event must be capable of being tested. This enables us to determine whether or not an experiment validates a theory. If the explanation that someone postulates regarding a phenomenon is one that cannot be tested or validated, then this is not a theory, but a belief.241

Evolutionists say that the main evolutionary changes take place very slowly, or so rarely that people cannot observe them during their lifetimes. According to the evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky, even when evolutionary changes occur, they are events that by nature are rare, unrepeated and irreversible. Paul Ehrlich, a well-know evolutionist, maintains that the theory of evolution cannot be refuted by any observation, for which reason it needs to be regarded as being outside the scope of empirical science.242

On the other hand, by suggesting that evolution takes place in two ways-observable micro-evolution and unobservable macro-evolution-evolutionists attempt to portray this imaginary evolutionary process as a scientific fact. (See The Invalidity of Micro-Evolution and The Macro-Evolution Myth.) According to evolutionists, macro-evolution is the process of infinite variation necessary for reptiles to turn into birds, or apes into human beings. Yet nobody has ever observed this happening.243

Micro-evolution, on the other hand, again according to evolutionists, is a limited process of variation of a specific species that we can observe and that produces divergence. However, the changes postulated as micro-evolution cannot produce a new species or a new characteristic. Therefore, they are not, as is claimed, mechanisms with any evolutionary power. In addition, micro-evolution is raised in order to imply that it is a dorm of variation that gives rise to macro-evolution. (See Variation.) This is mere conjecture regarding a phenomenon that cannot be observed and which lacks any evidence. 

Evolution cannot be observed and cannot be repeated, and for these reasons, is therefore not a scientific fact or theory. Neither is it an evident scientific fact, as some circles imagine or as they seek to portray it.244 On the contrary, when the theory of evolution is compared with scientific findings, a great contradiction emerges. In terms of the origin of life, population genetics, comparative anatomy, paleontology and biochemical systems, the theory of evolution is in a state of crisis, as the famous biochemist Michael Denton puts it.245

240. Musa Özet, Osman Arpacı, Ali Uslu, Biyoloji 1, İstanbul: Sürat Yayınları, 1998, p. 7.
241. Dr. David N. Menton, Is Evolution a Theory, A Fact or A Law?, 1993,  http://emporium.turnpike.net/C/cs/theory.htm;
242. Ibid.
243. Ibid.
244. Ibid.
245. Prof. Dr. Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, London:,Burnett Books, 1985.

Theropod Dinosaurs

The theory of evolution claims that birds evolved from a small, carnivorous reptile known as the theropod dinosaur. In fact, however, a comparison of birds and reptiles shows that these classes are very different from one another and that no evolution can have taken place between them. (See The Origin of Birds.)

An examination of the anatomies and fossil records of birds and reptiles also shows no evidence that evolution ever happened. In an article titled "Demise of the ‘Birds Are Dinosaurs' Theory," the American biologist Richard L. Deem writes:

The results of the recent studies show that the hands of the theropod dinosaurs are derived from digits I, II, and III, whereas the wings of birds, although they look alike in terms of structure, are derived from digits II, III, and IV . . . The second study shows that the theropod dinosaurs did not possess the correct skeletal structure or lung structure to have evolved into birds. The evolution of theropods into birds would have required the introduction of a serious handicap (a hole in their diaphragm), which would have severely limited their ability to breathe. As Dr. Ruben said, such a debilitating mutation "seems unlikely to have been of any selective advantage."246

There are other problems regarding the "Birds Are Dinosaurs" theory. In comparison with Archaeopteryx, theropods' front legs are very small in relation to their bodies. (See Archaeopteryx.) Bearing in mind the body weight of these animals, the development of any proto-wing appears impossible. The majority of theropod dinosaurs have no semilunatic wrist bone (which is found in birds), and possess other wrist components that are absent in Archaeopteryx. In all theropods, the VI nerves leave the skull from the side, together with various other nerves. In birds, however, the same nerves leave the skull through a hole, which is unique to them, in the front of the skull. Another problem is that a great many theropods emerged after Archaeopteryx.247

Another major distinguishing feature between theropod dinosaurs and birds is the structure of these dinosaurs' hip bones. Dinosaurs are divided into two kinds, depending on their hip bone structure: Saurischian(with reptile-like hip bones) and Ornithischian (with bird-like hip bones). In members of the Ornithischian group, the hip bones really do closely resemble those of birds, hence their name. However, in other respects they bear no resemblance to birds whatsoever. For that reason, evolutionists are forced to regard Saurischian dinosaurs (those with reptile-like hip bones), which include the theropods, as the ancestors of birds. Yet as can be seen from their description, the hip bone structure in these dinosaurs bears absolutely no resemblance to that in birds. 248

In short, it is impossible for birds to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs, because no mechanism exists that could possibly overcome the enormous differences between the two classes.

246. Richard L. Deem, "Demise of the ‘Birds are Dinosaurs' Theory," http://www.direct.ca/trinity/dinobird.html
247. Ibid.
248. Duane T. Gish, Dinosaurs by Design, Master Books, AR, 1996, pp. 64-65.

Transition From Jungle to Open Savanna Myth, The

Since the science of genetics and the laws of heredity were not fully known in the 19th century, Darwin and the early evolutionists who followed him regarded bipedalism as something easy to account for. The most popular theory was that apes living in the African savanna grew more upright in order to be able to see over the surrounding grasses.249 However, it did not take long to realize that this Lamarckist theory was completely wrong.

Modern-day evolutionists have only a single thesis with which they seek to account for the origin of bipedalism. According to the theory of transition from jungle to open spaces,, the ancestors of humans and apes once lived together in the jungle. Due to jungle shrinking or for some other reason, some of them moved over to open plains, and bipedalism was born as a result of adaptation. Both the apes in the trees and the bipedal human beings began evolving in their own separate directions.

When examined, however, this thesis, dreamed up under the logic of "making the best of a bad job," is seen to be just like its predecessors, very far from being able to account for bipedalism. It is impossible at the molecular level for there to be such an adaptation. Even if such a thing is assumed to have taken place, there is no evidence of it in the fossil record. Moreover, according to this theory, the East African jungles must have begun shrinking 10 to 15 million years ago. Yet research carried out proves the exact opposite, and no such development ever took place in East Africa. 250 The plants observed in the region have remained unchanged for millions of years. In short, the transition from jungle to the open plains never happened.

Even when considered in logical terms, the theory in question about the origin of bipedalism is unacceptable. In the event of trees disappearing, the most natural course would be for apes to migrate to another region, or be wiped out with the elimination of their natural habitat. There is no basis for the theory that monkeys adapted to living on the ground.

Uluğ Nutku, who holds evolutionist views, describes why the account based on the shrinking of the jungles is insufficient:

It may be suggested that the shrinking of the jungles was the factor that initiated the phenomenon of humanization. This is a palaeontological fact. Napier's thesis is compatible with this, but it leaves out the following question: While one animal species was leaving the jungle and setting out on the path to becoming human, why did its closest relative, the ape, remain in the jungle? The less speculation, the harder it is to find an answer. The answer given by Hermann Klaatsch, in the early part of the century, when anthropology was in its infancy, was very interesting. According to Klaatsch, hominid apes also attempted to become human, but theirs was ‘an unfortunate endeavour.' They were unable to rise up in the process of evolution, and withdrew into the ‘protective darkness of the jungles.' But then the question of ‘Why were apes unsuccessful?' comes to mind. 251

There were a great many other questions apart from "Why were apes unsuccessful?", and they are all unanswered

249. Donald Johanson, "Comment J'ai Trouvé le Passage du Singe a L'homme: Du Nouveau Sur Les Ance[circonflex needed!)tres De L'Homme,"Cahier Sciences du Figaro-Magazine, 1983, p. 110.
250. J. D. Kingston, "Isotopic Evidence for Neogene Hominid Paleoenvironments in the Kenya Rift Valley," Science, vol. 264, 1994, pp. 955-959.
251. Uluğ Nutku, Felsefe Arşivi, Edebiyat Fakültesi, Vol. 24, 1984, p. 86.

Transition from Land to Air Myth, The

Since evolutionists believe that birds evolved in some way, they claim that they are descended from reptiles. One of the theories they propose to account for the origin of flight is that reptiles developed wings while attempting to catch flies. In fact, however, birds have totally different structures from those in terrestrial animals. No physical mechanism can be accounted for in terms of gradual evolution.

First of all, the flawless structure of the wing, the evolutionary main distinguishing feature of birds, represents a major dilemma for evolutionists. The question of how the wing could have developed as the result of consecutive random mutations is one that evolutionists cannot answer. Evolution is unable to explain how a reptile's front legs could have turned into wings as the result of some mutation arising in its genes. No new organ can form as the result of mutations, and any reptile would be naturally disadvantaged if its forelegs lost functionality. (See The Origin of Wings and The Origin of Flight.)

In addition, simply possessing wings is not enough to turn a terrestrial animal into a bird. Land dwellers lack many of the structural mechanisms that birds use to fly. For example, avian bones are much lighter than those of terrestrial creatures. Their lungs have a wholly different structure and function. Birds have different muscular and skeletal structures, as well as far more specialized heart and circulatory systems-mechanisms that cannot form gradually, being added to one another.

Evolutionists who maintain that dinosaurs developed wings while chasing flies cannot explain how those flies developed wings in the first place. Yet according to their own claims, the flies' wings in their most complex forms must have come into being through various mutations. This clearly demonstrates that the claims of evolutionists are simply fictional. In addition, no fossil record confirms this unscientific tale. There are thousands of perfectly formed bird fossils, but not a single example of bird-like creatures, with half-developed wings, has ever been found.

Transition from Water to Land Dilemma, The

According to the theory of evolution, life began in the seas, and the first advanced vertebrate animals were fish. Again according to the theory, these fish began to move toward dry land and in some way, came to use feet instead of fins and lungs instead of gills!

Many books on evolution never consider the how of this major claim, whose baselessness is glossed over in most scientific textbooks in some summary like ". . . and living things moved from the water to dry land."

If one fish that moved out of the water onto dry land couldn't survive for longer than a minute or two, then any of the other fish that did so would also die within a few minutes. Even if fish kept making the same attempts for millions of years, the end result would always be the same: All the fish would die. No organ as complex as the lung can emerge suddenly, by way of mutation. Yet a half-lung would serve no purpose at all.

Both fossil findings and physiological studies totally disprove the claim that fish are the ancestors of terrestrial animals. The huge anatomical and physiological differences between marine and terrestrial animals cannot possibly be bridged by gradual evolution based on chance. Among the most evident of these differences:

1) Weight bearing: Marine creatures do not face the problem of having to support their own weight, so their bodily structures are not directed towards such a function. Those living on land, however, expend 40% of their energy just in moving around. Any water dweller about to pass onto dry land needs to develop new muscles and a new skeletal structure to meet that need-but it is impossible for such complex structures to form through random mutations.

Evolutionists imagine the coelacanth and other similar fish to be the ancestors of terrestrial animals because of the bony nature of their fins. They assume that these bones gradually developed into weight-bearing feet. Yet unlike the feet of land dwellers, the bones in a fish's fins are not connected directly to their backbone. This means they cannot perform a weight- bearing function, as do the leg bones in terrestrial animals. Therefore, the claim that these fins slowly evolved into feet is groundless.

2) Heat protection: On land, temperatures can change very fast and within a wide range. A terrestrial animal's metabolism allows it to adapt to these temperature changes in. In the sea, however, temperatures change very slowly, and do not range as widely as on land. A creature accustomed to the sea's even temperatures therefore needs to acquire a protective system appropriate to the temperature swings on land. It would be ridiculous to claim that fish acquired such a system through random mutations as soon as they emerged onto dry land.

3) Use of water: Water is an essential requirement for living things, and on land, its availability is limited. For that reason water, and even moisture, must be used economically. For example, skin must prevent water loss and evaporation, and land dwellers must be able to feel thirst when they need water. Yet underwater creatures have no sense of thirst and their skins are not suited to a dry environment.

4) Kidneys: Due to the abundant water in their environment, marine creatures can immediately filter and expel their bodies' waste products, particularly ammonia. On land, however, water must be used at minimum levels. For that reason these living things have kidneys, thanks to which ammonia is filtered out as urea and stored in the bladder, and the minimum amount of water is used when it is expelled. In addition, there is a need for new systems that enable the kidneys to function. In order for a transition from water to land, creatures without kidneys will need to develop them immediately.

5) Respiratory system: Fish breathe the oxygen dissolved in water through their gills. Out of the water, however, they are unable to survive for more than a few minutes. In order to live on dry land, they need to acquire a pulmonary system.
It is of course impossible for all these physiological changes to take place by chance and all at the same time.

According to the evolutionist scenario, fish first evolved into amphibians. Yet there is no evidence for that scenario: Not a single fossil has been found to show that half-fish, half-amphibian creatures ever existed.

Robert L. Carroll, the well-known evolutionist and author of Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, admits this, albeit reluctantly:

"We have no intermediate fossils between rhipidistian fish and early amphibians." 252 (See Amphibians.)

The evolutionist paleontologist Barbara J. Stahl wrote a book, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, in which she says:

Although the relationship of the rhipidistians to the amphibians will be discussed in greater detail in the next chapter, it should be said here that none of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the primitive tetrapods. 253

252. R. L. Carroll, Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution, New York: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1988, p. 4.
253. Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, Dover, 1985. p. 148.