Evolution: Case Closed?

Some teachers and lecturers say that evolution is absolutely certain. I can show you what to investigate to find out for yourself.

14 min read

Evolution: Case Closed?

Evolution Is An Aggressively Defended Belief

It is assumed at the outset by most who believe in evolution that God is not real. It is not that the evidence has been carefully weighed and it stacks up against God and for evolution. Instead, if there is a problem with the evidence for evolution or there is counter evidence, the norm is to trust that some theory or fact will explain why evolution is still true.

Consider also that it is illegal to teach creationism at public schools in the US. Creation science is also called a pseudoscience, and most people are led to believe that there is no real science involved in creationist research—just Bible quoting. That’s what I once thought. And the discrimination extends much further than that. Be honest with yourself and finish this article before you decide whether it is warranted.

The Origin of Life

Evolution obviously does not address how the first life came to be, but most proponents support “chemical evolution,” which proposes that life could somehow arise out of the right chemicals. See The First Life.

Overview of the Evidence

Evidence for evolution could come from two main sources: the fossil record and genetic information. The fossil record shows very different creatures appearing suddenly, not many creatures with forms that smoothly interconnect. The genetic “evidence” amounts to assuming that similar genetic information proves an evolutionary link, yet a creator using the same building blocks to get different results is just as valid of an explanation. Likewise, comparative anatomy (which I do not go into detail on here) simply assumes that similarities in anatomy mean common ancestry, rather than this just being the way the Designer made things.

There is much besides the flaws above in the way of evidence against evolution, such as many biological systems being all or nothing and thus unable to develop bit by bit; animals actually being very different from each other when you look closely, rather than showing a clear continuum; the complexity of many animal features being impossible to arrive at gradually and by chance; the age of the earth not being long enough; animals that differ massively from the ones they are apparently related to (bats, platypuses, and octopuses); the 3D structure of DNA being critical as well as the sequence; and developmental gene regulatory networks being extremely sensitive to mutation and complicated.

No Intermediates Today

The question might be ridiculed, but it is fair: why don’t we see species evolving today? Answers vary.

One answer is that we do, and tiny changes such as different beak shape are evidence of this. One problem is, black pygmies and tall whites are all human; we need more than a change in beak shape to show that a dog-like creature can become a whale (a real claim). The other is that no one disputes that animals can adapt to pretty remarkably degrees. This is no proof of them being able to change what kinds they are.

It is also said that this or that species is clearly an intermediate between two others. For instance, a seal is claimed to be in between a dog and a dolphin. However, seals are very different from both in many ways. What we would need to see is a dog with only one functional improvement, or a few, since all that change from legs to flippers and such would need to happen bit by bit.

We are otherwise told that the intermediate species all died out—“That’s literally how evolution works, dummy! Survival of the fittest.” However, we see both chimpanzees and gorillas today. We do not see their common ancestor. Why not? They can both exist at once, so why not their “ancestor” too? It was apparently fit enough to be favored over its own ancestor. But the evolutionist must assume that competition always leads to complete eradication of the parent kind, which is obviously silly. But okay, let’s say it does. Why aren’t there fossils of these intermediate creatures? How come there is a huge variety of very different species in the same fossil layer, but they are still all very different? Again, there are only excuses, not anything actually reinforcing the theory.

All Or Nothing Systems

Let us begin with an admission by Darwin.

"If it could be shown that any system could not arise by successive slight modifications, my theory would break down."

Charles Darwin

Now Darwin had no idea just how complex and remarkable biology is, since discoveries have abounded since then. Nevertheless, it should have been very apparent that many systems could not arise incrementally. Let me explain what I mean by that.

You cannot have an engine with only one part. There are at a minimum several necessary parts. Likewise, a plethora of detailed parts must come together for blood to be used in an animal. This makes it impossible to suppose that all the accompanying systems arose incrementally (one bit at a time). The same is true for system after system in animals, from the eye to the lungs. Evolutionists have presented ideas for how such systems could have evolved, but if you ask the right questions, you will see that they rely on impossible leaps—miracles, if you will. For more details on the topic, see Irreducible Complexity: The Challenge to the Darwinian Evolutionary Explanations of many Biochemical Structures.

Mark well that the only possible solution to this difficulty is to presume that countless times, non-functional or differently functioning parts just happened to develop and be preserved until they suddenly changed and started working together, which when you consider the complexity of some of these systems, is a comical suggestion.

Genetic Evidence for Evolution

Genetic Similarity

The genetic evidence for evolution mostly relies on a very simple, very foolhardy premise: genetic similarity between organisms shows that they came from the same source. This implication is slipped into nearly every so-called piece of the “evidence.” Did all furniture originate from a primeval piece of furniture because all furniture shares certain characteristics? It is not a false equivalence to demand an answer, since the only “proof” that the similarity of organisms is due to evolution between species is—well, a prior belief in evolution.

Non-Functional Genes

Pseudogenes and other interesting DNA elements are sometimes still trotted out as evidence for evolution, since they were apparently functionless, proving that the genome had evolved is a messy, chance-driven process. There are indeed genes in the human genome that look like bad copies of other ones. Such elements have been shown to have functions though, eliminating this argument.

Phylogenetic Trees

It is argued frequently that evolution is clearly shown by the family trees that can display how proteins and such evolved over time. The thing is, these trees, known as phylogenetic trees, disagree with each other all the time. If you take the tree proposed for one gene and compare it to the one for another gene, you will see that there are huge contradictions in the relationships between the organisms involved. For more, read Phylogenetic Conflict Is Common and the “Hierarchy” Is Far from “Perfect”.

Genetic Challenges to Evolution

Junk DNA

Much of the genome was once called junk by some mainstream scientists but presumed to in fact be useful by intelligent design (ID) scientists. This “unused” area of the genome was understandably thought to be necessary for evolution. Where could mutations build up to eventually provide new genes? Not anywhere important. Now, it is known for sure that huge areas of the genome are involved in previously unknown functions; e.g., you may look into long noncoding RNAs. Additionally, almost the entire genome—if not the whole thing—is transcribed into mRNA, showing that it is not inactive.

Epigenetics

Environmental factors and gene regulation have very large effects. Which genes are expressed and how strongly has been found to be highly responsive, and can be passed on to offspring. In this way, an animal can change the appearance or size or strength of certain body parts within reasonable boundaries very quickly. It does not need a pile of mutations to stack up. This seems to best explain the great variety of dog breeds that came in a couple of hundred years, but they are all still dogs. In other words, mutations do not best explain most differences in the same type of animal—built in adaptations do.

Accumulating Mutations

Mutations overwhelmingly cause damage, not new functions. In fact, there are countless people with genetic diseases, and how many have a body part indicative of a new species? This issue has been long acknowledged in part, and was actually the basis for eugenics. It is also common sense that since far more mutations are harmful than helpful, those mutations which are not damaging enough to kill or disable a person will often be passed on. Thus, over time, the genome of any animal should be getting worse because of imperfect replication.

Body Plans

To get new species, new body plans are needed (different parts and arrangements of them), and the networks that control the body plan are extremely resistant to change: change to any part of a network is harmful or fatal, so to make a new functional part, a new network is needed all at once, which is impossible. See here.

Developing a New Gene

To develop even one new functional protein by random mutation is statistically impossible, given the supposed age of the Earth, so how did all the proteins we need come about? (There are 20 different amino acids commonly found in proteins, so there are 20100 possible sequences for a 100 aa protein. For perspective, there are 1080 atoms in the universe.)

Fossil Evidence

No Transitional Fossils

The fossil evidence shows a marked lack of transitional species. If you decide to look into this, I want you to notice a pattern: Each time the evolutionists make a claim, it turns out to be false. When there is a pattern of untrustworthiness, it is reasonable to pick the other side. Therefore, I encourage you to take a quick look at the claims about the following four organisms from two points of view, as listed on Forbes: Archaeopteryx (creationists, darwinists), Pakicetus (creationists, darwinists), Pezosiren portelli (darwinists, creationists), Tiktaalik (darwinists, creationists).

Taking the species above aside, it is important to consider just how unacceptable it is that there are no concrete transitional forms in existence today or in the fossil record, and this is not a new point. In fact, in Darwin's time, the fossil record was already explored well enough for critics to note that transitional forms simply are not there.

Darwin himself admitted to being challenged by the Cambrian Explosion—an apparent explosion of animal life documented in the fossil record—which shows many complete and different animals arising seemingly out of nowhere. And all this time later, it still seems that animals are what they are, and that transitional forms are nowhere to be found among fossils. That is why some atheist scientists abandoned the long-held view (neo-Darwinism) for "punctuated equilibrum," which is the theory that somehow new species appear rapidly from others.

The Geological Column

The order of fossils is said to go from the most complex, evolved life at the top, to the simplest life further down in the ground. The thing is, this simply isn't a strong pattern. The first major haul of animal fossils is the "Cambrian period," and already, there are animals with complex, fully developed eyes (trilobites). There are also fossils that cross these layers that apparently span millions and millions of years (polystrate fossils), making it clear that the layers do not actually represent millions of years.

The Age of the Fossils

We never see species actually develop into new species of course, and it is believed that for evolution to work, many millions of years are needed. Therefore, the ages of fossils are important.

Radioactive dating is the main means of dating fossils and rocks, but it has serious flaws. By way of example, ten-year-old rock from Mt. St Helens was variously dated as 380,000 or 2.8 million years old. Such experiments have happened multiple times, and always the excuse is “young rocks are difficult to date!”, but the ages given are never right at the low end, and the measurements do not reflect too little material to work with; therefore, it is clear that the problem is with the assumptions of secular geologists, rather than technical difficulties being to blame.

There are also multiple lines of evidence that indicate the fossils are very young, including the presence of carbon 14, polystrate fossils, and soft tissue being found. Regarding soft tissue, dinosaur fossils are all meant to be at minimum 65 million years old, yet a startling discovery was made by Mary Schweitzer in 2005–soft tissue in a T-Rex bone! It has since been found that even poorly-preserved fossils contain such tissue. Because the degradation rate of collagen is known, it demonstrates that dinosaurs are not that old.

Extinction as a Driver

The more successful the organism, the less likely that natural selection will eliminate all organisms in the population bar a few, or that sexual selection will entirely breed out the disfavored group. Theoretically though, there must have been millions upon millions of these unreasonable cataclysmic events or breeding-out processes to get all the species we have today and not this continuum of similar animals that blend into one another. This is patently unreasonable.

Intelligent Design

The main alternative explanation to evolution is intelligent design (ID), which is branded as pseudoscience (see the Intelligent Design page on Wikipedia), but have you read any or much of it yourself? Read at least part of this article and see if it is unhinged or dishonest in any way: Origin of Life. You may also find it interesting that evolution-believing scientists will often agree with creationists (another name for ID scientists) on some points related to their specialty, but they assume they must be wrong about everything else. This article, for example, effectively makes the case against evolution using real quotes from prominent evolutionists.

The ID view is that lifeforms display very complex engineering, which almost all biochemists would agree with, but we creationists simply say that there must have been an engineer. We then argue that no such system could be usefully changed randomly (except by built-in randomization), nor could it arise by chance, let alone while it is running! Indeed, the human body has more integrated systems than we could list, and the more integrated the parts of a system are, the more difficult modifications become, since a change to one part will have system-wide effects. By way of example, could car be changed by swapping its parts for random pieces of metal, while it is running, into another well functioning, aesthetic car?

Note that there is a difference between changes within kinds (or species) and changes leading to other species. Creationists (ID scientists) believe in changes within species (microevolution), just not changes between species (macroevolution).

Final Notes

From the evidence you have seen, if you have done any digging to confirm what I have said, you ought to see that evolution is a tall tale, told by people committed to not believing in a creator, and backed by no hard evidence. Besides, there is far more counter-evidence than what I have mentioned. This all may be shocking, but it's true, and who knows what else you were wrong about? Go ahead and ask those big questions again.

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