Evolution – Fact Or Fiction?

Well, let’s examine the real, verifiable facts, OK?

There is a long list of reasons why the Theory of Evolution is not likely to be true!

First, there’s not a single accurate dating method that can be verified with any sample of any kind! Then there’s the problem of “irreducible complexity”. This is where the animal can’t survive without every single feature of their body existing from the very beginning of their lives! And then you find out that there’s a very complicated design to their whole body, and if any part of that design is missing, the whole animal would die! Then there’s the beauty found in nature, for which there is no logical explanation; there’s absolutely no reason for its existence found in the theory of Evolution! Then there are the various problems with the study of genetics, a whole myriad of problems for the evolutionist, just in the field of genetics! Then there are thousands of very serious problems found in the so-called “geological layers,” for example, sea creatures found on every one of the tallest mountains in the world! Sounds like a worldwide flood, doesn’t it? Just like the one the Bible describes! Live tissue cells inside dinosaur bones that were supposedly dated as millions of years old?! Yeah, sure! And the list goes on and on!

OK, let’s start with genetics! Here’s part of an article I found online:

Butterfly Nightmare

by Richard William Nelson | Aug 29, 2010 | 26 comments

Jerry Coyne, in his new book entitled Why Evolution is True, conveniently circumvents any reference to the butterfly, as does Darwin-Discovering the Tree of Life by Niles Eldridge. The California State sponsored website, “Understanding Evolution,” website completely ignores the notorious nature of butterflies—metamorphosis.

So, why is the evolution industry silent on butterfly metamorphosis? The answer is simple—the same DNA is found in all four life cycles; egg, caterpillar (larva), cocoon (pupa) and butterfly (adult). Metamorphosis, to the theory of evolution, is an enigma.

For over 3,500 years, to the Egyptians, Chinese, and Greeks, the butterfly symbolism was derived from the unique butterfly life cycles. The egg first develops into the caterpillar before transitioning into the cocoon. Amazingly, inside the cocoon, the caterpillar is destroyed before developing into the stunningly colorful butterfly cycle.

According to the theory of evolution, the DNA (genotype) determines the form (phenotype). The fact that the metamorphosis of the butterfly uses the same DNA in all four cycles, challenges gene-centric theories of evolution.

With the same DNA producing different forms, the message is clear: DNA is not the lone blueprint controller of life. Genetic evidence from the butterfly undermines the Central Dogma of evolution—“one gene, one protein.”

The butterfly is not an isolated phenomenon. Italian geneticist Giuesppe Sermonti points out that “examples of highly divergent forms possessing one and the same DNA are so conspicuous and so numerous that the marvel is that they have attracted so little attention.”

Even more astounding in the case of the butterfly, Sermonti notes, “what we call metamorphosis is not really a change in form. Once the pupa, or chrysalis, stage is reached, the caterpillar starts emptying itself: its organs dissolve, and its outer covering is shed. Only certain groups of cells, called marginal disks, remain vital. From these cells develop all the structures of adult.”

The larva of the butterfly not only changes form, but actually dissolves before rebuilding into the structure of a butterfly—a new life-form. From the same DNA arises a completely different organism. According to Sermonti, the same DNA, then, can play different roles: “DNA may lend itself to such diverse forms, but it is not the DNA that imposes the blueprint.”

The presence of the same DNA in different life-forms has been given the term “genomic equivalence”. This means that control of the cell is beyond the DNA, or “epigenetic.”

Brian Goodman, Canadian developmental biologist and key founder of theoretical biology, focuses on the methods of mathematics and physics to understand processes in biology concludes –

While genes are responsible for determining which molecules an organism can produce, the molecular composition of organisms does not, in general, determine their form.

H. Frederik Nijhout of the Department of Biology at Duke University, a critic of Crick’s central dogma, came to the conclusion that “the only strictly correct view of the function of genes [DNA] is that they supply cells, and ultimately organisms, with chemical materials.”

The butterfly nightmare phenomena in evolution adherents are real, the result of the holding on to the belief: DNA mutation + natural selection = evolution—a theory not supported by evidence in nature.

State funded evolutionary education along with the high priests of evolution, Jerry Coyne, and Niles Eldridge, should now deliver a therapeutic service to humanity by addressing blatant contradictions between the theory of evolution and natural history.

This discovery should have marked the end of the evolutionary theory being accepted as fact in our public schools, but it did not! And this discovery was made before 2011! Anybody else besides me smell a “cover up”?

Whew, that was a doozy, even for me! I’m kinda leaning toward “Fiction”, but hey, let’s give these evolutionists a fair shake!

Here’s another article I found online concerning “irreducible complexity”:

Behe presents several examples of irreducibly complex systems to prove his point, but I’ll just focus on one: the cilium. Cilia are hair-like structures, which are used by animals and plants to move fluid over various surfaces (for example, cilia in your respiratory tree sweep mucous towards the throat and thus promote elimination of contaminants) and by single-celled organisms to move through water. Cilia are like “oars” which contain their own mechanism for bending. That mechanism involves tiny rod-like structures called microtubules that are arranged in a ring. Adjacent microtubules are connected to each other by two types of “bridges”-a flexible linker bridge and an arm that can “walk” up the neighboring microtubule. The cilia bends by activating the “walker” arms, and the sliding motion that this tends to generate is converted to a bending motion by the flexible linker bridges.

Thus, the cilium has several essential components: stiff microtubules, linker bridges, and the “motors” in the form of walker arms. While my description is greatly simplified (Behe notes that over 200 separate proteins have been identified in this particular system), these 3 components form the basic system, and show what is required for functionality. For without one of these components, the system simply will not function. We can’t evolve a cilium by starting with microtubules alone, because the microtubules will be fixed and rigid-not much good for moving around. Adding the flexible linker bridges to the system will not do any good either-there is still no motor and the cilia still will not bend. If we have microtubules and the walker arms (the motors) but no flexible linker arms, the microtubules will keep on sliding past each other till they float away from each other and are lost.

This is only one of many biochemical systems that Behe discusses in his book, Darwin’s Black Box. Other examples of irreducible complexity include the light-sensing system in animal eyes, the transport system within the cell, the bacterial flagellum, and the blood clotting system. All consist of a very complex system of interacting parts which cannot be simplified while maintaining functionality.

Since the publication of Darwin’s Black Box, Behe has refined the definition of irreducible complexity. In 1996 he wrote that “any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.”(Behe, M, 1996b. Evidence for Intelligent Design from Biochemistry, a speech given at the Discovery Institute’s God & Culture Conference, August 10, 1996 Seattle, WA. http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idfrombiochemistry.htm). By defining irreducible complexity in terms of “nonfunctionality,” Behe casts light on the fundamental problem with evolutionary theory: evolution cannot produce something where there would be a non-functional intermediate. Natural selection only preserves or “selects” those structures which are functional. If it is not functional, it cannot be naturally selected. Thus, Behe’s latest definition of irreducible complexity is as follows:

“An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway.” (A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box, by Michael Behe, PCID, Volume 1.1, January February March, 2002; iscid.org/)

Evolution simply cannot produce complex structures in a single generation as would be required for the formation of irreducibly complex systems. To imagine that a chance set of mutations would produce all 200 proteins required for cilia function in a single generation stretches the imagination beyond the breaking point. And yet, producing one or a few of these proteins at a time, in standard Darwinian fashion, would convey no survival advantage because those few proteins would have no function-indeed, they would constitute a waste of energy for the cell to even produce. Darwin recognized this as a potent threat to his theory of evolution-the issue that could completely disprove his idea. So the question must be raised: Has Darwin’s theory of evolution “absolutely broken down?” According to Michael Behe, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

Well, now, what do you think? Is Evolution a Fact or is it Fiction?

Let’s keep investigating anyhow just for the sake of completeness, OK?

Here’s another article concerning various “dating methods” that are used by evolutionists:

What We Really Know about Dating Methods

When someone mentions scientific dating methods, the first thing to come to mind for most people is carbon dating. However, there are many methods that can be used to determine the age of the earth or other objects. The textbooks focus on relative dating, based on the layering of the rocks, and radiometric dating.

Relative ages are assigned to rocks based on the idea that rock layers lower in the strata were deposited before rock layers that are higher. Creationists do not necessarily disagree with this concept, but it can only be applied to layers that are found in one location and/or can be determined to have been deposited in a continuous layer over a very wide area. There is also a difference in the timescale used to explain the layers. Determining the relative age of a rock layer is based on the assumption that you know the ages of the rocks surrounding it. Uniformitarian geologists use so-called absolute dating methods to determine the ages of the surrounding rocks.

Certain types of rocks, especially those that form from magma (igneous), contain radioactive isotopes of different elements. It is possible to measure the ratio of the different radioactive parent isotopes and their daughter isotopes in a rock, but the ratios are not dates or ages. The dates must be inferred based on assumptions about the ratios. Some of the common isotope pairs used are K-Ar, Rb-Sr, Pb-Pb, and U-Pb. Radiometric Dating Using ratios of isotopes produced in radioactive decay to calculate an age of the specimen based on assumed rates of decay and other assumptions.

Carbon-14 dating is another common technique, but it can only be used on carbon-containing things that were once alive. The method of calculating radiometric dates is like using an hourglass. You can use the hourglass to tell time if you know several things: the amount of sand in the top of the hourglass when it started flowing, the rate that the sand flows through the hole in the middle, and that the quantity of sand in each chamber has not been tampered with. If any of these three conditions is not accurately known, the hourglass will give an inaccurate measure of time.

Using an hourglass to tell time is much like using radiometric dating to tell the age of rocks. There are key assumptions that we must accept in order for the method to be reliable.

Radiometric dating is based on the fact that radioactive isotopes decay to form isotopes of different elements. The starting isotope is called the parent and the end-product is called the daughter. The time it takes for one half of the parent atoms to decay to the daughter atoms is called the half-life. If certain things are known, it is possible to calculate the amount of time since the parent isotope began to decay. For example, if you began with 1 gram of carbon-14, after 5,730 years you would be left with 0.50 g and only 0.25 g after 11,460 years. The reason this age may not be a true age—even though it is commonly called an absolute age—is that it is based on several crucial assumptions. Most radiometric dating techniques must make three assumptions:

1. The rate of radioactive decay is known and has been constant since the rock formed.
2. There has been no loss or gain of the parent or daughter isotopes from the rock.
3. The amounts of parent and daughter isotopes present when the rock formed are known.

The major problem with the first assumption is that there is no way to prove that the decay rate was not different at some point in the past. The claimed “fact” that decay rates have always been constant is actually an inference based on a uniformitarian assumption. It is true that radioisotope decay rates are stable today and are not largely affected by external conditions like change in temperature and pressure, but that does not mean that the rate has always been constant.

Recent research by a creation science group known as RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) has produced evidence of accelerated rates of decay at some point (or points) in the past. Creation scientists suggest that there are two possible times that God supernaturally intervened on a global scale—during Creation Week and the Flood. It is not unreasonable to assume that God used the energy of accelerated radioactive decay to initiate and drive the major geologic changes in the earth that accompanied the Flood.

Evidence for the period of accelerated decay is found in zircon crystals. Zircon crystals in granite contain radioactive uranium-238, which decays into lead over time. As the uranium decays, helium is produced in the crystals. Helium escapes from the crystals at a known, measurable rate. If those rocks were over a billion years old, as evolutionists claim, the helium should have leaked out of the rock. The presence of lots of helium in the crystals is evidence in support of a young earth.

Fossils and rocks do not come with dates stamped on them. The dates must be interpreted based on the evidence. Biblical geologists start with the assumptions laid out in the Bible and conclude that the rocks must be less than 6,000 years old. Evolutionists reject the authority of the Bible and conclude that the rocks must be millions or billions of years old.

Other important findings of the RATE project include detecting carbon-14 in coal and diamonds. If these substances were really millions or billions of years old respectively, there should be no carbon-14 left in them. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. With the most accurate mass spectrometers, the oldest calculated age of items containing carbon-14 is about 80,000 years. Diamonds are assumed to be many billions of years old and should contain no detectable carbon-14 as it would have all decayed to nitrogen-14 long ago. The same is true of coal which was supposedly deposited hundreds of millions of years ago, according to the evolutionary model. The presence of carbon-14 in these materials clearly supports the idea of a young earth as described by the Bible.

The assumption that there has been no loss or gain of the isotopes in the rock (assumption 2) does not take into account the impact of weathering by surface and ground waters and the diffusion of gases. It is impossible to know to what degree the parent and daughter products have been added to or removed from the rocks over the alleged millions or billions of years.

The final assumption (assumption 3) does not take into account the fact that isotopes can be inherited from the source areas of magmas and/or from surrounding rocks as the magmas pass through the mantle and crust of the earth. Uniformitarian geologists do make efforts to eliminate errors, but the fact that rocks of known recent age give dates of millions, and even billions, of years supports the claim that radiometric dating cannot provide accurate “absolute” dates. Also, samples taken a few feet apart can give ages that differ by many hundreds of millions of years.

Many people do not realize that fossils themselves are usually not directly dated. Instead, layers that contain datable igneous rocks above or below a fossil-bearing layer are used to estimate the age of the fossil. The age of the fossil can be estimated within the range of the layers above and below it. In some cases, the ages are correlated to other rock layers of supposedly known age or by using index fossils. These methods assume that the distribution of index fossils and the correlation of strata are well understood on a global scale.

Another finding of the RATE team is very intriguing. The team took samples of diabase, an igneous rock, and tested them using various radiometric dating techniques. If the dating methods are all objective and reliable, then they should give similar dates. The rocks were tested as whole-rock samples using K-Ar dating and also separated into individual minerals. The whole-rock and separated mineral samples allow a method known as isochron dating to be done. This method is supposed to eliminate the assumption that the initial concentration of the daughter element is zero.

The facts from the rock layers do not speak for themselves—they must be interpreted. The assumptions used to interpret the data influence the conclusion. Starting with the Bible produces different conclusions than starting with evolutionary reasoning.

Despite removing this assumption, the RATE team has shown that this method is not reliable. Dating the Cardenas Basalt, a layer near the bottom of Grand Canyon, and a volcanic layer from near the top of Grand Canyon produced an amazing result. Based on the law of superposition, the lower layers in the canyon should be older than the upper layers (unless there was an intrusion or other event that changed the order). Using isochron dating from a respected lab, the lower rocks were dated at 1.07 billion years and the upper, and presumably younger rocks, were dated at 1.34 billion years. There is an obvious discordance (disagreement) in the data. So the question becomes, “Can we trust the dates given in the textbooks if the techniques are not objective?” (More information on the RATE research can be found in article 4:3.)

Because these dates are based on methods with multiple assumptions, and are contrary to the Bible, we must reject that they are accurate. Despite the fact that a majority of scientists and even many theologians accept the dates, God’s Word must be our ultimate authority.

There are many other methods that can be used to establish ages for parts of the earth and the solar system. These methods will be discussed in the following chapter. Regardless of what method we use, we must start with assumptions and interpret the facts accordingly. Understanding what those assumptions are is important. If we are not aware of the assumptions that are being used, we can easily be deceived. We should always start with the Bible, the ultimate source of truth.

When we try to use man’s ideas and assumptions to understand nature, we are forgetting that  tells us:

My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you,
So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding,
If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God.

Reference Article Summaries

4:1 Does radiometric dating prove the earth is old?

Riddle,www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-radiometric-dating-prove

Proponents of evolution suggest that radiometric dating has proven that the earth is between 4.5 and 4.6 billion years old. But what is this age based on? A straightforward reading of the Bible shows that the earth was created in six days about 6,000 years ago. Radiometric dating uses ratios of isotopes in rocks to infer the age of the rock.

Scientists use a mix of observational data and assumptions about the past to determine the radiometric age of a rock. Comparing the amount of a parent isotope to the amount of its daughter isotope and knowing the rate of change from parent into daughter (known as the half-life), the age of the rock can be determined. However, there are several assumptions that must be made in this process.

The three critical assumptions are:

1. The initial conditions of the rock sample are accurately known.
2. The amount of parent or daughter elements in a sample has not been altered by processes other than radioactive decay.
3. The decay rate (or half–life) of the parent isotope has remained constant since the rock was formed.

An hourglass can be used as an analogy to explain the assumptions. An hourglass can be used to tell time only if we know how much sand was in each chamber at the beginning, that there was no sand added or removed from either chamber, and that the sand falls at a constant rate. If any of these factors is not known, the time given may not be accurate. The same goes for the dating of rocks using radioisotopes. Assumption 1 was proven false when scientists from the RATE group had rocks of known age dated. These rocks were dated at up to 3.5 million years old when none of them were older than 70 years. How can we trust this method to tell us the age of rocks when the data do not match with observations?

Isochron dating is supposed to remove the assumption of initial conditions, but some different assumptions are necessary. If radiometric dating techniques are objective and accurate, then comparing the single–sample dates to the isochron dates should give similar results. In the RATE report there were dates that differed by up to a billion years. One volcanic rock layer from the top of Grand Canyon was dated 270 million years older than the oldest rocks below it near the bottom of the canyon.

Other case studies by the RATE group show dates that vary greatly depending on the sample and dating technique used. The most reasonable explanation seems to be that the rates of decay have been different at some point in the past. This is supported by the presence of large amounts of helium in some minerals. If there had been more than a billion years since the rocks had formed, the helium should have leaked out of the rocks by now. The presence of helium seems to support the recent accelerated decay of the isotopes, leaving a large amount of helium trapped in the rocks.

The Bible presents a very different picture of the age of the earth when compared to radiometric dating using evolutionary assumptions. It is better to use the infallible Word of God for our scientific assumptions than to compromise it with man’s ideas.

4:2 Doesn’t carbon-14 dating disprove the Bible?

Riddle, www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/does-c14-disprove-the-bible

Radiometric dating is a technique that uses the change of one isotope, the parent, to another, the daughter, to determine the amount of time since the decay began. Carbon-14 is supposed to allow dating of objects up to 60,000 years. If these dates were true, they would seem to discredit the biblical account of a young earth of about 6,000 years.

Since the Bible is the inspired Word of God, we should examine the validity of the standard interpretation of carbon-14 dating by asking several questions:

1. Is the explanation of the data derived from empirical, observational science, or an interpretation of past events (historical science)?
2. Are there any assumptions involved in the dating method?
3. Are the dates provided by carbon-14 dating consistent with what we observe?
4. Do all scientists accept the carbon-14 dating method as reliable and accurate?

Carbon-14 dating is used to date things that were once living. The unstable carbon-14 decays to stable nitrogen-14 as one of its neutrons is converted to a proton through beta decay. Carbon-14 is constantly supplied as high energy neutrons collide with nitrogen-14 in the upper atmosphere. This carbon-14 combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and is taken in by plants and then animals. Each living thing should have roughly the same ratio of radioactive carbon-14 to normal carbon-12.

When an organism dies, it no longer takes in carbon-14, and the decay process begins. Assuming that the rate of decay and the starting amount of carbon-14 is known, this decay process can be used as a clock. However, the ratio of carbon isotopes is not constant and can be affected by the earth’s magnetic field strength and the amount of plant and animal matter in the biosphere. The plants and animals buried in the recent Flood could account for a large change in the ratios and demonstrate the false assumption of carbon equilibrium.

The RATE group has also documented carbon-14 in coal and diamonds that are supposed to be millions to billions of years old. If these items were truly more than 100,000 years old, there should be no detectable carbon-14 present in them. These findings point to the age of the earth being much younger than evolutionary scientists would suggest.

4:3 Radioisotopes and the age of the earth

Snelling,www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/radioisotopes-earth

A long-term research project involving several creation scientists has produced intriguing new evidence in support of an earth that is thousands of years old rather than many billions. Some of the findings are summarized below.

The presence of fission tracks and radiohalos in crystals demonstrates that hundreds of millions of years worth of radioactive decay has occurred in a very short period. Because the Bible indicates the earth is young (about 6,000 years old), this large quantity of nuclear decay must have occurred at much faster rates than those measured today.

Using various radiometric dating methods to measure the ages of rock samples consistently produced ages that varied greatly. This may be explained by the different parent atoms having decayed at different rates in the past—an explanation not allowed by evolutionists. These changes in decay rates could be accounted for by very small changes in the binding forces within the nuclei of the parent atoms.

Research has been done to demonstrate that many of the assumptions used in radiometric dating are false. Starting from biblical assumptions regarding the Flood and Creation can provide a new framework for interpreting current scientific data.

4:4 Tree rings and biblical chronology

Lorey,www.icr.org/article/381

Bristlecone pines are the oldest living things on the earth. Native to the mountains of California and Nevada, the oldest tree has been dated at 4,600 years old. By correlating the rings with dead wood found near the trees and beams from local buildings, a chronology of 11,300 rings has been suggested. However, this does not necessarily correlate to years because multiple rings can grow in one year.

The 4,600 year age of the oldest tree, named Methuselah, corresponds to the date of the Flood given by Ussher and others. If Methuselah began growing shortly after the Flood, then it stands as a record that confirms the Bible.

4:5 Are there half a million years in the sediments of Lake Van?

Oard,www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/sediments-lake-van

Lake Van is a salt lake in Turkey that uniformitarian scientists believe holds a record of the last 800,000 years of the earth’s climate. The layers of sediment are up to 400 meters thick and were supposedly laid down one layer at a time each year. Evolutionists assume the layers, called varves, roughly correspond to years based on assumptions about present processes.

Varves are also used to date other lakes around the world to the time of the last ice age—supposedly 10,000 years ago. Many other alleged varve deposits challenge the biblical timescale and must be reinterpreted within the creationist framework. The repeating layers should be referred to as rhythmites and simply represent successive deposits over time. These different layers can be deposited as particles of different size and density settle out of flowing water. Studies at Lake Walensee, Switzerland, showed over 300 layers forming in 160 years. Different areas had different patterns and were not able to be correlated directly.

Other studies have shown multiple layers forming as the result of light rainfall, increasing river flow, and increased snowmelt. Underwater turbidity currents are often interpreted as varves, but they form many layers rapidly. It is common, therefore, for multiple layers to form in a single year.

All of these layers can be explained within the Flood model as catastrophic melting and drainage events deposited many layers over a short period of time during localized residual catastrophism in the immediate aftermath of the Flood. Uniformitarian geologists assume the slow rate of deposition as observed today for the past. However, in many cases they really have not observed the present sedimentation rate, and in some cases where they have used sediment traps, not all the deposition has been recorded. Creationists, on the other hand, can postulate much higher rates in the past due to the Flood, localized residual post-Flood catastrophism, and/or a rapid post-Flood Ice Age—the rate tapering off to the present slow rate.

Whew! That was a LOT of reading! But it looks like these dating methods are nothing more than BS drummed up as “science” by people who have every desire to eliminate God from their lives!

In order to verify this, one simply has to look at examples that prove the inaccuracy of these dating methods. And there are a LOT of such examples!

Here’s another article about this subject:

Are fossils ever found in the wrong place?

By Michael Oard

After Morris, J., The Young Earth, Master Books 1994, page 142

Figure 1. Typical geological column with its alleged ‘ages’.

Creationist geologists have determined that most of the rocks assigned to this column were deposited during Noah’s Flood. Just a small portion toward the top was deposited after the Flood.

When it comes to evidence, many people think that the fossils prove evolution. You may have seen a diagram of the geologic column (figure 1) with pictures of plants and animals showing how evolution progressed over millions of years. It gives you the impression that fossils are always found in the same definite order and that no fossils are ever found ‘in the wrong place’.

You may be surprised to learn that fossils are being found “in the wrong place” all the time. Out of place, that is, compared with the areas, or ranges, shown for them on the geological column. But evolutionists don’t think of them as being ‘wrong’ because they have a way of ‘explaining’ every new fossil discovery, no matter where it’s found. All they do is change their story about how evolution happened. Evolution is never questioned.

The fact is that we know very little about where fossils are buried on the earth. We only find them on the surface from scattered rock outcrops and from cores removed from boreholes. So, it is not surprising that new fossils are regularly found in places where they were previously unknown.

For example, sometimes we will find an organism alive-and-well that was ‘extinct’ for ‘millions of years’. That creates a great surprise and paleontologists call them ‘living fossils’, or even ‘Lazarus taxa’.Of course, they must have been alive for those ‘millions of years’ after they went ‘extinct’, even though their fossils had not been found. These discoveries are no problem for evolutionists; they just extend the range of these animals upward on the geological column.

The fact is that we know very little about where fossils are buried on the earth

The Wollemi pine (figure 2) is a remarkable example of a living fossil. In recent years a grove of trees was found just 100 kilometres west of Sydney, Australia’s largest city, in the Blue Mountains.3 It was thought to be extinct since the so-called Jurassic period—about 150 million years ago on the uniformitarian timescale. So the Wollemi pine would have been living even though it has not been found in strata between the Jurassic and the present. One researcher said it was like “finding a live dinosaur”. Obviously, the Wollemi pine has not evolved over the alleged 150 million years, which in any case never ever existed. Catastrophic burial during Noah’s Flood about 4,500 years ago as well as survival and regrowth explains living fossils such as the Wollemi pine.

Ian Buchanan

Figure 2. The Wollemi pine was thought to be extinct for millions of years but a living grove of trees was discovered near Sydney, Australia.

On Vancouver Island, just off the west coast of Canada, in the late 1990s, a paleontologist found a sponge, which he called Nucha vancouverensis, claiming it was a new species. It was buried in rocks classified on the geologic column as Upper Triassic, which are supposedly some 220 million years old. Surprisingly, this sponge is virtually identical to one previously found in western New South Wales, Australia, named Nucha naucum, from Middle Cambrian rocks, supposedly 520 million years old.6 But why wasn’t it found in any strata from those 300 million intervening years? The Nucha from Vancouver has greatly extended the range for this particular fossil upward in the geological column.

Fossil ranges have also been extended downward. For instance, vertebrates (animals with backbones such as fish and reptiles) have been pushed back into the Cambrian,where 50% to possibly as high as 85% of all the phyla (i.e. the major types of animal designs) originated “suddenly” in what has been graphically called the Cambrian Big Bang.  Sharks have been pushed back 25 million years into the Upper Ordovician. Vascular plants (i.e. land plants) have also been pushed back 25 million years into the Lower Silurian.  Based on tracks of a lobster-sized, centipede-like creature, arthropods invaded the land 40 million years earlier (Upper Cambrian) than previously thought. The discovery of an apparent winged insect has pushed back the origin of winged insects and flight by more than 80 million years into the Lower Silurian. That means the origin of the supposed first land plants, which insects depend on, has to be pushed back even earlier into the Ordovician.

But the fact is that evolution is assumed and then used to explain the fossils.

By analyzing rocks for organic molecules, researchers have said that eukaryote cells (containing a nucleus and other complex structures) originated 2.7 billion years ago in the Upper Archean, in the Precambrian.  That’s one billion years earlier than previously thought. This raises the question, “Where are the remains of all the billions of organisms with eukaryote cells that lived between 2.7 billion years ago and the time of the Cambrian Big Bang?”

These are just a few examples of how the evolutionary time ranges of fossils are continually being expanded, millions of years earlier and later. The evolutionary story is presented in textbooks, movies, museums and documentaries, and we get the impression that the fossils reveal evolution.

But the fact is that evolution is assumed and then used to explain the fossils. So, when fossils are found in odd places not known before, the evolutionists just change their story about evolution. Creationists, on the other hand, assume that the Bible records what really happened in the past. They find that the fossil evidence can be explained from the order of burial during Noah’s Flood and the 4,500 years since.

 I have to say, it’s not looking so great for the Theory of Evolution! In fact it seems like mostly wishful thinking on the part of those who really hate the idea of being accountable to God.

 Here is one more article, just to “finish things off”, OK?

Dinosaur Tissue

A Biochemical Challenge to the Evolutionary Timescale

By Dr. Kevin Anderson on October 20, 2016

In 2005 a group of researchers, led by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, reported extracting pliable pieces of tissue from a T. rex fossil.  Within this tissue they observed osteocytes, common cells found inside the matrix of bone. Even more surprising, they detected fragments of collagen (a common animal protein). Follow-up studies presented additional support for this discovery.

However, the presence of tissue and protein fragments still remaining in dinosaur fossils poses a direct biochemical challenge to the standard geologic dating paradigm. If dinosaur fossils are at least 65 million years old, how has this biological material survived? How could these bones not yet be fully fossilized even after millions of years? These questions raise significant issues about contemporary dating methods.

Not surprisingly, this discovery was widely challenged. Tissue containing proteins were certainly unexpected and should not have survived millions of years of decay and fossilization. Thus, alternate ideas were offered in attempts to dismiss the tissue as “fake.” These alternatives included the suggestion that the material was from a bird carcass mixed with the fossil,3 laboratory contamination,4 and even microbial biofilm.5 While the evidence for such claims proved weak,6 it does reveal an eagerness to show the extracted material was anything other than authentic dinosaur tissue.7

DINOSAUR TISSUE IS NOW RECOGNIZED AS A “COMMON PHENOMENON.”

Subsequent studies found tissue and cells in other dinosaur and reptile fossils.8 Besides collagen, proteins such as actin and myosin were also found.9 These additional discoveries helped verify the authenticity of the dinosaur tissue, and undercut the arguments of contamination. In fact, dinosaur tissue is now recognized as a “common phenomenon.”

As additional evidence, blood vessels were carefully isolated from the femur of a duckbill dinosaur.  They retained many physical characteristics of living animal blood vessels—pliable, translucent, and reacting to immunological based stains. The extracted vessels also contained fragments of a wide array of proteins, which is consistent with the types of proteins present in animal blood vessels.  This work further confirms that the tissue is authentic and not biofilm or other forms of contamination.

Interestingly, despite a large body of evidence for the authenticity of the tissue, there remains a pattern of denial within the evolutionist community—presumably to downplay the ramifications of this discovery. I still receive comments from different sources (including graduate students) that they have been told the discovery was shown to be contamination. Writing for Smithsonianmag.com, Brian Switek did not even include dinosaur tissue in his 2014 list of unsolved dinosaur mysteries.  As of 2015, Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) still claimed there are “no original organic parts preserved” in fossils.14 The popular atheist website, Rationalwiki, cites outdated and misleading sources while continuing to make the claim that the tissue “has since been shown to be mistaken.”  Add to this list all the self-appointed defenders of evolution posting commentary around the internet, scoffing that only ignorant creationists would think that a dinosaur fossil could still contain tissue, cells, and proteins.

And so it goes. Apparently many find the soft-tissue evidence much easier to dismiss than to understand and explain. Perhaps this should not be too surprising. The tissue is certainly difficult to account for within the popular geologic timescale.

Million-Year-Old Protein?

Indeed, some biological molecules, such as collagen and chitin, are chemically “tough”— resisting rapid degradation. Nonetheless, even though collagen may degrade much slower than many other biomolecules, there is no experimental evidence that collagen will survive for millions upon millions of years.  In fact, experimental decay studies actually give an upper survival limit for bone collagen at about one million years even under ideal conditions.  Yet evidence for collagen has been reported not only in an 85-million-year-old dinosaur fossil, but also in bones of a supposed 247-million-year-old reptile.  Thus, the conundrum is evident.

In his book Dinosaur Blood, Dr. Fazale Rana questions the validity of these decay studies since the researchers measured degradation rates only at high temperatures. He concludes that because high temperatures will accelerate protein degradation, these studies cannot be applied to decay rates in cooler, subsurface environments.

However, Dr. Rana completely misrepresents these experiments. High temperatures are often used in protein decay studies to assure a rapid degradation, since lower temperatures can dramatically slow the rate of decay. This slower decay could extend the length of the experiment by months or even years. As long as the protein decay rate fits a predictable reaction curve,21 the Arrhenius equation can be used for converting the rate to different temperatures. Therefore, decay measured at high temperatures can be used to predict the decay rates at lower temperatures. This is a common protocol in protein biochemistry, and is well established with decades of experimental work.

Dr. Rana speculates that high temperatures may unexpectedly alter how collagen will degrade, so perhaps the Arrhenius equation cannot be properly applied. However, he fails to offer any experimental support for his conclusion. If he wants to challenge these decay studies, he needs to provide experimental evidence that collagen decay is somehow an exception to this equation. Since the decay rates are well established, he would have a distinct “uphill battle,” which might explain why he only offers conjecture as his rebuttal to the experimental work.

IN ADDITION TO COLLAGEN, FRAGMENTS OF MANY OTHER PROTEINS HAVE BEEN EXTRACTED FROM DINOSAUR FOSSILS.

Plus, as already mentioned, in addition to collagen, fragments of many other proteins have been extracted from dinosaur fossils.22 Several of these proteins (e.g., myosin, actin, and tropomyosin) are not nearly as structurally “tough” as collagen.23 In fact, studies would suggest some of these proteins degrade fairly rapidly postmortem.24 Thus, there is no experimental evidence that each of these other proteins could survive for more than just a fraction of the time that collagen can survive. Even if there were a biochemical basis that enabled collagen fragments to survive millions of years, this cannot be said about all these other dinosaur proteins.

Preservation by Iron?

By far the most popular explanation for prolonged preservation of this tissue can be referred to as the “iron model.”25 This model proposes that iron (released from hemoglobin in red blood cells) initiates reactions within the tissue that cause proteins to cross-link. By forming cross-links, proteins are potentially more resistant to enzymatic and microbial attack.

Some experimental data has been offered to support this model. Ostrich blood vessels soaked in iron solutions were preserved significantly longer than vessels soaked in water.26 At the time of this initial report, the vessels had been soaking in iron solutions for two years. While not a trivial length of time, it is very difficult to appropriately apply results of a two-year laboratory trial to the internal dynamics of subsurface fossils over a period of 68 million years.

In addition, water offers a rather poor comparison since it tends to accelerate tissue and protein degradation. Moreover, the researchers had to physically disrupt the red blood cells to achieve sufficient hemoglobin release.27 Thus, they failed to demonstrate that the iron model could even function in a natural setting.

It is also unlikely that dinosaur blood contained enough iron for this mechanism to adequately achieve preservation.28 Instead, environmental iron has been suggested as an alternate source.29 This alternative would require water to serve as the iron transporting medium, but water migrating into the fossil will accelerate tissue decay. Thus, opposing chemical dynamics would occur within the fossil (as frequently happens).

What is more, there are several chemistry problems with the iron model. The same chemical reactions that cause cross-linking in proteins will also cause other reactions that will accelerate protein decay. Plus, these same chemical reactions would cause the amino acids within that protein to be chemically altered. However, numerous “intact” amino acids, such as methionine and tyrosine, are frequently found in extracted dinosaur proteins. These are highly reactive molecules that would almost certainly be chemically altered following significant iron-induced reactions within a protein molecule.32 Thus, we simply do not find the expected chemical footprint within dinosaur proteins if cross-linking were a major preservation mechanism.

Other conditions have also been proposed that might contribute to tissue preservation. However, these claims are often self-contradictory. High temperature and high/low pH can inhibit enzymatic and microbial activity, which reduces their degradative effects on tissue. Yet these temperature and pH conditions will also accelerate decay of the tissue and protein. Excluding oxygen would appear to be a significant preservation factor (oxygen will often accelerate chemical reactions). However, recent experimental evidence indicates that oxygen can help in preservation (at least for short periods of time).33 Water-free environments would certainly help preserve the tissue, but water is needed for those fossilization processes that would facilitate tissue preservation. Modest amounts of water will also help stabilize collagen.34 Furthermore, no preservation condition would protect the tissue from the devastating effect of millions of years of exposure to ground radiation.

The “Either/Or”

Dr. Schweitzer, who continues to be one of the leading researchers in dinosaur tissue, has provided a valuable summary of the discovery. She concludes that we have “two alternatives for interpretation: either the dinosaurs aren’t as old as we think they are, or maybe we don’t know exactly how these things get preserved.”  Fair enough. The problem is that the evolutionary community does not really consider the first alternative as a possibility. Thus, it really is not an “either/or” option. In their view the fossils must be old, therefore the tissue must somehow have survived (biochemical contradictions not withstanding).

In his “letter to creationists” Scott Buchanan states that simply because

scientists are unable at present to give a complete account of the mechanism and trajectory of the preservation of modified proteins in the dinosaur bone pores is not some unique, embarrassing case. This situation arises constantly in the course of scientific discovery.

It is true that mechanisms can often be one of the more complex aspects to elucidate. However, Mr. Buchanan misses the point. This is not a situation where a phenomenon is readily observed, but the mechanism remains unresolved.  Rather, no one has ever observed multi-millions of years of animal tissue preservation. The only reason there is even a quest for an unknown preservation mechanism is because evolutionary assumptions require dinosaur fossils to be at least 65 million years old.  Remove those assumptions and there is no quest.

In point of fact, known protein decay processes actually contradict claims of 200, 100, or even 70 million years of preservation. The experimental evidence simply does not support the notion that any protein could last so long inside a fossil—let alone a variety of different proteins. Any proposed exceptions to the experimental data are simply conjecture.

What is more, with detection of flexible tissue in a supposed 550-million-year-old beard worm40 and evidence of trace amounts of protein fragments still retained in a 417-million-year-old arthropod, there comes a point where no amount of conjecture, inference, or proposed mechanisms (no matter how fanciful) can really even . . . well, you get the point. Buchanan chides biblical creationists for what he considers their dismissal of scientific evidence, making “them, and their version of the Christian faith, look silly.”  At what point does the silliness turn 180 degrees?

Biblical Model

The dinosaur tissue was unexpected and is difficult to explain within the popular-held evolutionary timescale. In contrast, the tissue clearly fits within the expectations of a young earth, global flood framework. By causing a rapid, watery burial, the conditions of the Genesis Flood would enhance fossilization of dinosaurs and other creatures, thereby potentially increasing tissue survival. Protein decay data, while contradictory to a multi-million year preservation period, precisely fits within a few-thousand-year time frame. All this is very consistent with an earth that is six to ten thousand years old.

 Well now, what do you think? Is Evolution Fact or Fiction? Personally, I believe the Bible and it says that the earth is almost exactly 6,000 years old. I also believe that the earth, before the Biblical Flood, was covered with a homogeneous layer of cloud in the upper atmosphere (about 25 miles up) which would account for a different kind of environment than evolutionists would expect in our history. And this would also explain the source of the water that caused the Biblical Flood. I also believe that there was a secondary source of water under the ground, provided by a large network of underground rivers, designed by God to water the plants all over the earth. During the Flood, these underground rivers were broken up by massive forces, causing giant boulders to be thrown miles into the air by the force of the underground rivers blasting them out. This, would also explain why there are so many “geological layers” and why they formed so quickly. I believe that the entire Grand Canyon was probably formed in maybe two or three days, during the flood.

So, do my beliefs sound crazy? Or do they make sense, after considering the real evidence? I’ll leave that for you to decide! As for me, I’ll always consider Evolution to be Fiction! As far as I can tell, the Bible has always proven to be the only book where truly reliable facts can be found! And there’s plenty of evidence everywhere in nature and in True Science to back up what the Bible says!

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