THE EVIDENCE AGAINST DARWIN'S THEORY AS AN EXPLANATION FOR THE ORIGIN OF LIFE
(last updated: 26th March 2023)

We now know that new species can come into existence over relatively short periods of time. The green anole lizard in Florida is an example where a rapid change in body parts took place over a short period of time. The lizard is reported to have adapted in just 15 years by developing larger toepads and more scales which helped it cling to higher branches to avoid competition from a sudden invasion of brown lizards on lower branches. It has not been claimed that the new variant of green lizard can be classed as a new species of lizard but it does illustrate how rapidly species can adapt to changes in their environment. Natural Selection or survival of the fittest has resulted in those green lizards born with larger toepads and more scales surviving more succesfully than those without those traits. These traits were already present to some degree within the population at the time, and coupled with the capability for the same traits to become even more pronounced and prolific thanks to the ingenius adaptability built into the design of the genome, spurred on by survival pressures, they are now in even greater prevalence. Over the period of 15 years the numbers of those that were being born without the advantageous traits failed to survive as successfully as those that did, and produce off spring, so the population increasingly became one with the advantageous traits. Sadly the green lizard population of Florida does not sport a National Health Service where the disadvantaged are helped to survive. This is clearly not an example of Neo-Darwinism or any variant of the same involving random mutations in action over long ages. Note that this falls well short of monkeys to men evolution although it does show that natural selection is a force for change in the body parts of existing species, and noone disagrees with that. Natural selection explains the survival of species but not their arrival!

VIRUSES AND EVOLUTION
Viruses are not strictly speaking living organisms and need a host to occupy in order to survive and multiply. They multiply rapidly typically producing 10 million new viruses within 24 hours, so the scope for genetic differences to emerge over short periods of time is enormous. Although a virus normally damages its host by commandeering the resources within its cells to replicate it is not in the viruses best interest to kill its host. An obvious question is 'does the Darwinian Evolution mechanism come into its own where viruses are concerned?'. Viruses are obviously in a league of their own and the scope for evolutionary type processes to yield new variants over relatively brief periods of time is huge compared to the case of normal life forms. Random mutations occur at a very rapid rate, but viruses cannot be used to lend credence to the theory of evolution because this would necessitate new life forms emerging from changes to the virus over long ages. Most people would agree that once a virus always a virus, and in any case a virus is not strictly a living organism although it is still ingeniously designed and difficult to thwart, Covid 19 being a good example.

Clearly the above does not illustrate Darwinian Evolution in action. The Bible refers to the creation of different 'kinds', which are a broader category than 'species'. It explaines that God created the different kinds of organisms each of which reproduced "after their kind". Creationists believe that all life on Earth today stems from the original 'created kinds', sometimes by hybridization, the process of crossing two genetically different individuals of the same kind to produce a third individual with a different, often preferred, set of traits. An example of an animal hybrid is a mule. The animal is produced by a cross between a horse and a donkey. Liger, the offspring of a tiger and a lion, is another animal hybrid. There is clearly scope here for producing a variety of new species from initial created kinds. For example, horses, donkeys and mules are entirely separate species of the same kind, and the production of mules is in no way a product of evolution. Created kinds also have enormous in-built capacity to adapt to changing environmental conditions in order to survive by, for example, making use of the vast wealth of alternative genetic information already present in the genome of every life form. Example to illustrate the point:

"A 2016 paper in Nature demonstrated that the dark colour in peppered moths is not a product of random mutation. Rather, it appears that a stretch of moveable DNA (a transposon) is responsible for the colour variation. Transposons are stretches of DNA that are able to move around between various places in the genome. This allows organisms to generate variation within their "kind"; most creationists believe this is a God-designed system that permits different species to adapt to a range of environmental challenges. In this case, a certain transposon inserting itself into one particular place in the moth genome is responsible for the dark colour. Researchers found that ~95% of all black peppered moths, but none of the light-coloured variants, carried this stretch of DNA in that position. This inserted segment is large and complex, consisting of 21,925 DNA letters. So it appears that the expression of the dark trait is due to a complex and well-designed section of code, not a simple, random mutation."

Transposons explain how the rich variety of life forms we see today were able to be produced over time thanks to the ingenius design of the initial created kinds. This process is quite distinct from Darwins naturalistic, God denying, explanation for the origin of life which has never been able to account for how life first emerged in the absence of a designer. Such changes can of necessity occur virtually overnight whereas Darwin's blind and unguided mechanism involving random mutations and natural selection is likely according to its advocates to take millions, if not billions, of years to yield substantive results of the kind that have led to the rich variety of life forms we see on Earth today.

Genes (DNA sequences defining proteins for example) can be automatically switched on and off using genetic switches under the right environmental conditions. Evidence so far suggests that changes in gene regulation (turning genes on and off) may contribute to the origin of new species. Gene regulation is accomplished by a variety of mechanisms including chemically modifying genes and using regulatory proteins to turn genes on or off, all accomplished automatically on demand within the cell. We are only just beginning to scratch the surface of the understanding of what goes on inside living cells.
Another mechanism for the possible emergence of new species is where an ancestral population splits into two or more genetically distinct descendant populations. This results in reproductive isolation of groups within the original population and accumulation of genetic differences between the two groups due to inevitable genetic changes (MUTATIONS) over time. Significant differences may develop over time to warrant classifying the 2 populations as distinct species (a species is a group of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring, so if 2 such populations are unable or unwilling to breed with one another they can be classed as separate species). The factors that determine the duration of time needed will depend on such things as breeding rates, life span of the organism, etc.

Example to illustrate how organisms, in this case a plant, can adapt to improve their chance of survival using existing genetic material, courtesy of God.

"The Lure of a fake fly ups a daisy's pollen count", (Daily Telegraph, 24/3/23) by Science Editor Sarah Knapton:

Male fly being duped video

The Gorteria Diffusa daisy has repurposed its genes to grow a "fake female fly" on its petals to attract males and help it pollinate, scientists have discovered. Scientists at Cambridge University have identified 3 sets of genes involved in building the fake fly. One moves iron around, one makes root hairs grow, and one controls when flowers are made. The "iron moving" genes add iron to the petal's normally reddish-purple pigments, changing the colour to a more fly-like blue-green. The root hair genes make hairs expand on the petal to give texture while the 3rd set of genes make the fake flies appear in apparently random positions on the petals. Professor Beverley Glover said in "Current Biology", "This daisy didn't evolve a new 'make a fly gene'. Instead it did something even cleverer - it brought together existing genes, which already do other things in different parts of the plant, to make a complicated spot on the petals that deceive male flies."
This repurposing has nothing to do with evolution in the normal sense of the word (mutations plus natural selection acting over millions of years). No new genes have been produced because none are needed, and even if they were, evolution is not a mechanism for producing them, and neither is science able to manufacture entirely new operational (protein yielding) genetic material in the laboratory.

A scientist writing in "New Scientist" injected his own ideas into the argument with:
"The fake fly-like structure appears to have emerged within the relatively short evolutionary time span of 2 million years". He could not bring himself to acknowledge that this had nothing to do with evolution, and where did the 2 million years come from anyway? David Attenborough perhaps, that great peddler of an atheistic worldview that he doesn't fully subscribe to himself (he claims to be agnostic)! This is morally reprehensible because it sows doubt in people's about the existence of God who he believes might well exist! He seems to be oblivious to the fact that evolutions survival of the fittest underpins faschism and fuelled Nazi ideology!

Analysis of David Attenborough's views on God

Is David Attenborough an atheist or an agnostic?

4.5-minute video, Attenborough professes agnosticism yet the public assume he is an atheist proclaiming there is no Creator God

Video where the great David Attenborough explains his views about God

None of these mechanisms and arguments about biological change over time account for how the first member of the cat family for example, or the first member of any other family in the taxonomy came into existence in the first place (taxonomy: the science of naming, defining and classifying groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics). By way of further clarification there are, for example, currently 156 families and around 6,495 recognized living species of MAMMAL, but none of these mechanisms are able to account for the emergence of the 156 distinct families back in pre-recorded history (in all there are around 20,000 distinct families, give or take a few thousand, and around 1.2 million known species of animals). In a nutshell these various mechanisms for change can bring about small but meaningful adaptations to existing species, sometimes creating new ones, but they cannot account for the creation of life in the first instance. Neither can any of these adaptations result in a member, say, within the cat family (Felidae), changing to a new family designation e.g. Canidae (dog). Once a cat, always a cat, or what is more pertinent, once an ape always an ape. Those who are claiming we shared a common ancestor with apes roughly 10 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion are seriously deluded. Such claims are at best another figment of some ones imagination because there is no credible evidence for them. It is using one unexplained situation to explain another:

Evolutionists are of necessity old age advocates, and based on evidence from the fossil record which evolutionists adhere to they are unable to offer a plausible explanation for this rapid Darwin confounding emergence of animal kinds.

Age of Earth considerations

And Adam said, "Lord, when I was in the garden, you walked with me everyday. Now I do not see you anymore. I am lonesome here and it is difficult for me to remember how much you love me."

For your amusement and light relief

The seemingly infinite ability to adapt made possible by the ingenius design of DNA contained within all living cells is no accident of course. It is all part of the Creators plan to produce a never ending, rich variety of life forms starting out from His initial created forms.
In conclusion, research so far suggests that living organisms are able to adapt to changing environments in order to survive, and prosper, and sometimes new species emerge as a result, but Darwinian evolution plays only a small part at best in this limited story and only then by damaging existing genetic information (DNA). As a result Darwin's famous hypothesis that all life forms are related through 'common descent' and his associated tree of life is dead on the ground! If we are to get to a satisfactory answer to how the most complex, stunning life-forms arose in the first place, we need to look beyond Darwin. It's time to acknowledge the conclusion that only an intelligent mind could have designed life.

You will by now have gathered, based on our arguments above and statements on other pages, that we have come to fully accept the position set by the ID movement that there is intelligent design in nature, and the good news is that it reinforces the traditional understanding that life came about as an act of creation by an Almighty God. The ID community of scientists do not generally dispute this obvious conclusion but rightly insist that their discoveries are not informed, or influenced in any way, by the Genesis account in the Bible.

In general, animations are one of the most effective tools to demonstrate the evidence for design in biological systems. Imagery speaks simultaneously to the mind and to the emotions.

Convincing evidence for Design from Evolution News

There is much more to discover about the cell, but even from our current limited knowledge of its depths it is clear that this tiny unit of compact, adaptive sophistication constitutes something like a third infinity. Where the cosmos feels infinitely large and the atomic realm infinitely small, the cell feels infinitely complex.

The complexity of cells from Evolution News

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