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Inexplicable Species and the Theory of Evolution
Evolution News ^ | August 8, 2018 | Geoffrey Simmons

Posted on 08/09/2018 11:40:34 AM PDT by Heartlander

Inexplicable Species and the Theory of Evolution

Editor’s note: We were delighted recently to introduce a new series, “Modernizing Darwin,” cross-posted at Shabbat.com, by Geoffrey Simmons, MD. The first post is here. Dr. Simmons is the author of What Darwin Didn’t Know and Billions of Missing Links. He is a Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

Man has been searching for fossils, or stumbling upon them, for millennia. The ancient Greeks and Romans saw the fossilized bones of giant creatures as proof that horrible monsters once walked the land or swam in the seas. Darwin utilized fossils to bolster his theory of evolution. He spent an enormous amount of time hunting down fossils and is rightfully known for a number of interesting finds, including the giant ground sloth Mylodon darwinii.

A Striking Absence of Transitions

Many modern authorities continue to use fossils as proof of evolution, chronologically lining up those which appear similar, yet the gaps have only grown more glaring with time. We now delve into the cellular level comparing chemical processes, electrical charges, and genetic differences. It seems to be a secret, but researchers know that it would take millions of internal changes for dinosaurs to evolve into birds, flat plants into trees, fish into amphibians. Note there are no half-fish/half-salamanders or one-third monkey/two-thirds humans, ever.

Upon close inspection, the absence of transitions (smaller steps) is striking. We should be up to our collective elbows with transitional species that once came about by trial and error, and failed to survive. Not so. Even for whales, the largest animal alive. We’ve been told repeatedly that transitional forms will eventually be found, but that hasn’t happened and the problems are steadily increasing in our awareness. Saying that two fossils with similar appearances, yet found thousands of miles apart, are related, begs the question.

Some whales can grow up to 100 feet long and weigh 200 tons. The rib cage of a blue whale is large enough to accommodate a minivan or small truck. Their hearts are the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Every aspect is so massive. A few fossilized bones from their putative predecessors have been found. But the story is still mysterious, because of the changes required.

Darwin wrote that whales came about as a result of bears going to sea. He had to retract that statement after the first edition of On the Origin of Species was published. Some modern paleontologists say the whale’s ancestor must be the hippopotamus. Maybe because they are mammals and linger in the water most of their lives? But, otherwise they are strikingly (impossibly) different. Other coastal animals, that are now extinct, are also cited, but none of them could survive a day or two at sea. Of interest, the whale’s tail moves up and down, not sideways like fish. And, whales never had scales.

No one knows how blow holes came about, certainly not by small successive steps, or how the internal lungs became connected up to these holes in a way that prevents drowning. Or, how a massive communication center, found in their heads, came about. Or, how the ability to depressurize body segments during deep dives evolved. Calves are born tail first (they cannot go head first in case the process is too slow) and these newborns must rise to the surface immediately for air or else they will drown. The ability to swim must be present from the beginning. Trial and error would never have worked.

Not the Only Misfit

Whales are not the only misfit to smooth transitions, just the largest. The number of exceptions may actually be equal to the number of species on this planet. Standouts are kangaroos, woodpeckers, platypuses, giraffes, butterflies, octopuses, skunks, bombardier beetles, the red tide, dolphins, fireflies, tardigrades, sloths, and all micro-organisms. Maybe viruses, too.

Something besides unguided evolution is going on. In actuality, all living organisms are likely exceptions. Just breeding a horse into a faster horse doesn’t eventually change it into something fast like a cheetah. It’s simply a faster horse. The same goes for pet dogs to guard dogs. It’s true, natural selection does happen in a variety of situations, but it doesn’t change a species into another.

An incomprehensibly intelligent engineer and designer must be responsible.


TOPICS: Education; Reference; Religion; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: intelligentdesign; lucy; piltdownkwtroll; piltdownman; storkzilla
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To: Honest Nigerian
You can’t have evolution without death.

As a side note to the question that Evolutions WILL NOT TOUCH:

the beginnings of LIFE


61 posted on 08/11/2018 7:09:34 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Honest Nigerian
Not speculating at all about HOW life first appeared; but I wonder...

...just how many times did Life appear from the so-called Primordial Goo; before it got tired of dying out and deciding:

I'd better learn how to REPRODUCE the next time I spontaneously appear.


62 posted on 08/11/2018 7:11:59 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Honest Nigerian

It’s still turtles; all the way down.


63 posted on 08/11/2018 7:12:24 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ckilmer
I kinda adhere to the missing link between insects and other living creatures.

SURELY that would be a LOT easier to find.

64 posted on 08/11/2018 7:15:24 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: TexasGator

I like the oil eating ones.


65 posted on 08/11/2018 7:17:15 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: TexasGator
Scientists stumbled upon a plastic-eating bacterium—then accidentally made it stronger

Andromeda Strain
--Michael Crighton

66 posted on 08/11/2018 7:18:52 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

“I like the oil eating ones.”

Yes, and some of them mutated into plastic eaters.


67 posted on 08/11/2018 7:19:35 PM PDT by TexasGator (Z1)
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To: TexasGator; Elsie

“Yes, and some of them mutated into plastic eaters.”

They didn’t mutate they simply turned on and off DNA code that was already present in their cells.


68 posted on 08/11/2018 8:18:58 PM PDT by mrobisr
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To: mrobisr

“They didn’t mutate they simply turned on and off DNA code that was already present in their cells.”

The mutation caused them to turn on their dna


69 posted on 08/11/2018 8:35:20 PM PDT by TexasGator (Z1)
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To: Heartlander

IAW with Genesis 1 all animals were created IAW their kinds meaning God put all the DNA code needed to make every animal that has ever existed. That doesn’t mean every animal we know today was on the Ark, but the DNA code was already present in every animal, that’s not evolution.

Just look at your children and/or siblings and you can see a diverse set of traits that are not obviously present in the two parents, but yet they do indeed contain that DNA whether expressed in their external traits or not.


70 posted on 08/11/2018 8:37:20 PM PDT by mrobisr
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To: TexasGator

“The mutation caused them to turn on their dna”

or the DNA switched on and off and appears to man’s understanding as a mutation, but in reality is the grand design of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.


71 posted on 08/11/2018 8:41:25 PM PDT by mrobisr
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To: Heartlander

Nobody denies that evolution/mutations within species happened and is happening - just not trans-mutational evolution. The absence of transitional forms were and will continue to be a huge embarrassment to evolutionists. Even “accelerated equilibrium” won’t explain it. I suspect the reason so many continue to cling to it because the only alternative is creation.


72 posted on 08/11/2018 9:29:04 PM PDT by boatbums (Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy he saved us.)
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To: Heartlander
To make matters worse in the Corvette to submarine analogy, each resulting vehicle must be operable and useful.

AND be able to reproduce itself!

73 posted on 08/11/2018 10:48:47 PM PDT by boatbums (Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy he saved us.)
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To: Lean-Right; Cletus.D.Yokel
Marty Feldman


74 posted on 08/11/2018 10:55:55 PM PDT by boatbums (Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to His mercy he saved us.)
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To: mrobisr

I’m guessing that the oil eating bacteria were/are constantly reproducing (or whatever bacteria do!) and many of them have the plastic eating DNA in them. But - before plastic came around, they just died.

Like the “adaptation” of the white moths to the dark moths in England - the pollution on the light-colored trees and the moths “adapted” dark colors.

And later, once the pollution was gone and the trees were their natural lighter color again, the moths “adapted” and “became” light colored.

It is the same type of moth - it’s just that the white ones got eaten quickly, and the dark ones survived to reproduce more. And now, the light ones survive and the dark ones get eaten. The only thing that changed was the NUMBER of light vs. dark moths.


75 posted on 08/11/2018 11:02:51 PM PDT by 21twelve
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To: central_va

The fact the species are labeled and grouped


Do you understand how artificial that labeling and grouping is?


76 posted on 08/12/2018 9:01:40 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

However; Science HAS proven; beyond a shodow of a doubt; that if your grandparents never had any children; the odds of you having any are a virtual zero.


77 posted on 08/12/2018 6:08:29 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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