Truth Really Matters

Have you ever just marveled at the sophistication of living design at the organ and at the organism levels? A detailed look at specialized organs and optimally designed creatures boggles the mind at the brilliance of the Creator – which is a smaller leap of faith than assuming “design” by random mutation and natural selection.

In 1802, an English archdeacon named William Paley wrote a book entitled, Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature. He superbly presented the argument from design, despite having only the rudimentary knowledge of biological form and function possible at that time in history. In the last century, many evolutionists make fun of Paley, especially his arguments on the complexity of the human eye. But none of these evolutionists have ever answered his argument!

A modern (but still cursory!) description of the evolutionary priest’s problem is given by Wysong:

“To form the eye, a constellation of beneficial mutations would have to occur. These mutations would not involve simple rearrangements of a few bases in DNA, but would first of all have to form sufficient DNA to work with, then mutations of this DNA would have to be integrated with other segments of DNA controlling the nervous, vascular, skeletal, muscular, and endocrine systems.

Two bony orbits must be “mutated” to house the globe of the eye. The bone must have appropriate holes (foramina) to allow the appropriate “mutated” blood vessels and nerves to feed the eye. The various layers of the globe, the fibrous capsule, the sclera and chorioid must be formed, along with the inner light sensitive retina layer. The retina, containing the special rod and cone neurons, bipolar neurons, and ganglion neurons, must be appropriately hooked with the “mutated” sight center in the brain, which in turn must be appropriately hooked with the grey matter, brain stem and spinal chord for conscious awareness and lifesaving reflexes.

Random rearrangements in DNA must also form the lens, vitreous humor, aqueous humor, iris, ciliary body, canal of Schlemm, suspensory ligament, cornea, the lacrimal glands and ducts draining to the nose, the rectus and oblique muscles for eye movement, the eyelids, lashes and eyebrows.

All of these newly mutated structures must be perfectly integrated and balanced with all other systems and functioning near perfection before the vision we depend upon would result. Deficiencies in any category would make vision not possible and make the whole mutated endeavor a useless waste.”

This description is but the most superficial overview of the problem, however. For example, the biochemistry of sight is an immensely complex process involving many genes to code many specialized proteins to enable conversion of a photon of light into a carefully crafted electrical pulse.

I encourage any of the high priests of evolution to publish an analytical scientific paper that suggests how the incremental processes of mutation and natural selection could construct such a vision system — even in one’s imagination. If they achieve this impossible goal, then they merely have to provide evidence that history actually unfolded that way. If this is too hard . . . then admit that a scientific theory of evolution does not exist!

Examples abound at the organ level. Bats have wonderfully designed sonar systems (see Sarfati). Fishing bats can detect a minnow’s fin when extended only 2 millimeters above the surface of the water. This resolution is possible because the bat can separate ultra-sound return echoes only 2 microseconds apart. The best man-made systems struggle to get under a 10-microsecond resolution. Shall we conclude that the best designs of scientists and engineers fall woefully short of random chemical processes?

The sonar system of dolphins beats those of the U.S. Navy by a wide margin. (see Sarfati) A dolphin can detect a fish the size of a golf ball 70 meters away. A recent discovery based on chaos theory has shown that the apparently random click pattern the dolphin uses is mathematically designed for reconstruction of maximum information from the sonar “scene.”

The dolphin and other sonar-using cetaceans employ a “melon” — a fatty protrusion on the forehead. This turns out to be a sophisticated structure that focuses the transmitted sound into a directional beam. This lens depends on multiple lipids — complex fat molecules — that have different indices of refraction. Multiple enzymes are required to construct the necessary variety of lipids and many genes are necessary to control the melon’s detailed structure and development as the creature grows.

The supposed evolution of birds from reptiles is fraught with impossibilities. Let’s consider some of the issues (see Denton), starting with the feather. A bird’s feather is a wonderfully complex device, incorporating a million barbules of different kinds interconnected by a system of hooks to form an impervious vane. The structure is marvelously light and strong. When “ruffled” out of order, a quick “brush” produces realignment.

A feather exploits aerodynamic principles, including a distribution of slots to smooth the air flow, thus minimizing turbulence. The feathered aerofoil allows variable geometry to enable all of the fascinating maneuvers we observe connected with powered flight, takeoff, gliding, soaring, turning, airbraking, etc.

The feather allegedly evolved from reptiles’ scales. Somehow, a transitional creature must have mutated a “frayed” scale which became more and more feather-like. But evolutionist’s discussions on this subject have merely story-book quality. Scales and feathers are wildly different. A “fraying” scale would not provide the mutated reptile any advantage in its environment. To achieve the complexity of the feather, perhaps hundreds of favorable mutations must have occurred, each with some population selecting advantage for environmental conditions that biologists have not even postulated . . . ie., no theory exists.

Worse than the problems with the feather are the incredibly unique lungs possessed by birds. In other vertebrates air goes in and out of the same passage. In birds, the microscopic and macroscopic structures are entirely different, producing unidirectional air flow. Additionally, the avian lung is fixed rigidly to the body wall, unlike other vertebrates. Also, the bird’s lung’s capillaries are so delicate that within the first few days before hatching, aeration must develop gradually to avoid collapse. A bird’s lungs, once collapsed, cannot be reinflated.

Since the respiratory system is vital to the moment-by-moment life of any creature, it is impossible to see how incremental changes could have produced such a revolutionary “new” system for birds.

Darwin was more honest than his modern compatriots when he wrote:

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”

In this section we’ve listed just a handful of such cases. But, of course, there are thousands to be found just by looking around. Where is the scientific paper that does a serious analysis of ANY case?

Tizi Ouzou References:

R. L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy, Inquiry Press, 1976.
Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Evolution, Master Books, 1999.
Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, 1985.

– Dr. Dave