10 Things You Should Know about American Criminal Justice

 

This article is part of the 10 Things You Should Know series.

1. Only a very small percentage of serious crime in the US is solved.

“Mass incarceration” is a phrase often invoked in contemporary American discussions of criminal justice. Perhaps you have heard reference to the fact that the United States has only about 4.25 percent of the world’s population but houses about 19 percent of the world’s prisoners. These statistics, however, tell us very little about the health of the American system of criminal justice. 

The United States has a rate of violent crime markedly higher than that of most Western European nations, yet only a fraction of those crimes is ever solved and the perpetrators held accountable. One recent study estimated that about 10 percent of serious crime—meaning murder, rape, aggravated assault, theft, burglary, robbery—result in arrests.¹ Singling out murders, only about half of them are ever solved.² For all the incarceration that is occurring in the United States, there is still an enormous amount of serious crime that goes unaddressed, leaving victims (past and future) unprotected and perpetrators uncorrected.

2. The American founding was motivated, in part, by concerns about the justice system.

Concerns about and criticism of the criminal justice system is not un-American; rather, it is quintessentially American. The American Revolution often brings to mind tea taxes and the Boston harbor protest of such. But skimming the Declaration of Independence, one realizes that the colonists were also quite concerned about abuses of the criminal justice system by King George III. In the very first Congress, James Madison proposed a series of constitutional amendments—now known as the US Bill of Rights—that were overwhelmingly focused on how criminal prosecutions must be conducted. The American founders understood that the power to criminally punish was an enormous one and the emotional outcry to solve a crime could lead the authorities to run roughshod over the rights of the accused.

3. You can be jailed for years before a trial on criminal charges.

The Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution promises that a criminal defendant facing charges will receive a speedy trial, while the Eighth Amendment prohibits the government from imposing excessive bail on those charged with crimes. These two provisions were intended to work together to ensure that the government could not punish a defendant by extended incarceration before conviction. Bail could only be imposed in an amount to ensure that the defendant would return to court for trial, and even those defendants detained prior to trial would be quickly brought to trial. At least, that’s the theory. But courts, including the US Supreme Court, have ruled that years-long delays do not violate the speedy trial right, and a defendant can be detained before trial merely because he is deemed dangerous. The result is that criminal defendants are regularly jailed for years before they ever receive their day in court. In 2019, for example, a man in Washington state was acquitted at trial after spending more than eight years in jail, unable to make bail.³

4. Approximately 95 percent of criminal cases are resolved through guilty pleas.

Television shows and movies cause many people to think criminal cases are mostly resolved through trials. The truth is that about 95 percent of criminal convictions are the result of guilty pleas rather than trials. Given that the US Constitution guarantees criminal defendants the right to a jury trial, why would nearly all defendants waive that right and instead plead guilty? The answer is that the US Supreme Court has not only allowed for pretrial detention and lengthy pre-trial delays (see #3 above), which create pressure to plead guilty, but has also ruled it constitutional to impose substantially higher sentences for those defendants convicted after trial rather than by guilty plea. The result is that prosecutors either threaten unjustly severe sentences after trial or offer unjustly lenient sentences if the defendant waives the trial. Either way, the guilty pleas are secured through unjust sentences.

5. The right to counsel for the poor is going unfulfilled.

In 1963, the US Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that since the government is represented by a lawyer (prosecutor) in a justice system governed by complicated procedural and evidentiary rules, basic due process requires that the defendant likewise be represented by a lawyer even if he cannot afford one.⁴ But in the sixty years since that decision, states have done an abysmal job of providing even minimally competent representation for indigent defendants. Studies by the American Bar Association in an array of states—including Rhode Island, New Mexico, and Oregon—concluded that states are funding approximately one-third the number of defense attorneys needed for the criminal cases brought against men and women too poor to hire their own attorneys.⁵ Louisiana had about one-fifth the needed number of attorneys.⁶ As a federal judge in Louisiana observed about the underfunding of defense counsel in that state, “It is clear that the Louisiana legislature is failing miserably at upholding its obligation under Gideon.”⁷

6. Since 1989, more than 3,430 people convicted of crimes have later been exonerated.

There was a time in the United States when the idea of an innocent man or woman wrongly convicted was viewed as implausible.⁸ But the advent of forensic DNA technology in August 1989 has shown that convictions of the innocent are anything but rare. As of the end of 2023, 3,433 people were exonerated after having been wrongly spending a collective 31,078 years in prison for crimes they did not commit.⁹ To be clear, these aren’t people who got off because of legal technicalities that were not followed in their cases. These are people who didn’t commit the crimes of which they were convicted. In December 2023, Glynn Simmons was exonerated of a 1975 murder for which he was convicted and spent forty-eight years in Oklahoma prison. He was released from prison in 2023 at the age of seventy-one, having been imprisoned since he was twenty-three years old.¹⁰ Simmons’s case was the longest known wrongful imprisonment in United States history, but he is not the only innocent to have spent more than four decades in prison for someone else’s crime.

7. About one quarter of exonerations are of people who pled guilty to crimes they didn’t commit.

People plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. Of the 3,433 exonerations since 1989, 830 (or 24%) were of people who had pled guilty.¹¹ In fact, of the first 250 people exonerated through DNA, sixteen were of people who pled guilty to crimes that we now know as a scientific fact that they did not commit.¹² The pressure to plead guilty is enormous when people are denied bail and jailed before they are convicted, when their trials could be years away because the speedy trial right is not enforced, when there are not enough defense attorneys to represent the poor, and when defendants can receive far more severe sentences if they take their cases to trial. The result is that innocent people, not only guilty people, plead guilty.

8. Prosecutors have absolute immunity from federal civil rights lawsuits.

A common refrain when someone is exonerated after years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit is something like, “I hope he sues them.” But the legal reality is that lawsuits against prosecutors for wrongful convictions are nearly impossible. States typically provide prosecutors with immunity from lawsuits under state law.¹³ And the US Supreme Court ruled that state prosecutors have absolute immunity from federal civil rights lawsuits to recover money damages for even intentional misconduct.¹⁴

9. At least two percent of people sentenced to death in the US are innocent.

As of the end of 2023, just over 8,800 people have been sentenced to death in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1973.¹⁵ In that same time period, 195—or 2 percent—of those sentenced to death were later exonerated.¹⁶ These aren’t people who later had their convictions reversed based on legal technicalities; rather, these are people who it was later discovered had not committed the crimes for which they were condemned to death. Exonerations take time and not everyone sentenced to death is ultimately executed, whether because their convictions are reversed based on legal errors, they receive clemency, or they die while pursuing appeals. Statistical modeling that takes these factors into account estimates that the actual rate of death sentences for the innocent is at least 4 percent.¹⁷

10. The death penalty is largely extinct in the United States.

Since 1973, the number of death sentences imposed in a single year peaked at 316 in 1996,¹⁸ while the highest number of executions in a single year was ninety-eight in 1999.¹⁹ But over the last decade, the numbers of death sentences and executions have fallen dramatically. In 2023, only twenty-one people were sentenced to death and only twenty-four executions were carried out.²⁰ Only twenty-one states still allow for the death penalty as a matter of law, and in seven of those states there is a moratorium on the death penalty.²¹ In other words, only fifteen states still carry out the death penalty as of 2023, while only ten states have carried out an execution in the last five years.²²

Notes:

1. Shima Baradaran Baughman, “How Effective Are Police? The Problem of Clearance Rates and Criminal Accountability,” Alabama Law Review 72, no. 1 (2020): 86, https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/213/.
2. “Clearance Rates,” Murder Accountability Project, accessed October 1, 2022. https://www.murderdata.org.
3. Sara Jean Green, “After Nearly 11 Years and Two Trials, Killing of Redmond Woman Who Had Been ‘Living Her Dream’ Remains Unsolved,” Seattle Times, June 14, 2019, last modified June 15, 2019, https://www.seattletimes.com/.
4. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
5. The Rhode Island Project: A Study of the Rhode Island Public Defender System and Attorney Workload Standards (American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, November 2017), 26, https:www.americanbar.org/; The New Mexico Project: A Study of the New Mexico Public Defender System and Attorney Workload Standards (American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, January 2022), 5, https:www.americanbar.org/; The Oregon Project: A Study of the Oregon Public Defender System and Attorney Workload Standards (American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, January 2022), 26, https:www.americanbar.org/.
6. The Louisiana Project, A Study of the Louisiana Public Defender System and Attorney Workload Standards (American Bar Association Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigen Defendants, February 2017), 2, https://www.americanbar.org/.
7. Yarls v. Bunton, 231 F. Supp. 3d 128, 137 (M.D. La. 2017).
8. United States v. Garsson, 291 F. 646, 649 (S.D.N.Y. 1923) (“Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream.”).
9. “Exonerations by State,” National Registry of Exonerations, accessed December 31, 2023, https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/Exonerations-in-the-United-States-Map.aspx.
10. Ken Miller, “Oklahoma judge rules a man who wrongfully spent nearly 50 years in prison for murder is innocent,” Associated Press, December 21, 2023, https://apnews.com/article/inmate-murder-oklahoma-exonerated-50-years-1d06d2a65792f55ab1f1e2f4acace8ee.
11. “Exonerations by State,” National Registry of Exonerations, accessed December 31, 2023, https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/Exonerations-in-the-United-States-Map.aspx.
12. Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 7, 26-27, 150-53.
13. See, e.g., Griffith v. Slinkard, 44 N.E. 1001, 1002 (Ind. 1896).
14. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976).
15. “Death Sentences in the United States Since 1973,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/sentencing-data/death-sentences-in-the-united-states-from-1977-by-state-and-by-year.
16. “Innocence,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/innocence.
17. Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O’Brien, Chen Hu, and Edward H. Kennedy, “Rate of False Convictions of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced to Death,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 20 (May 20, 2014): 7234-35, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1306417111.
18. “Death Sentences in the United States Since 1973,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/sentencing-data/death-sentences-in-the-united-states-from-1977-by-state-and-by-year;
19. “Executions by State and Region Since 1976,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/number-of-executions-by-state-and-region-since-1976
20. “The Death Penalty in 2023: Year-End Report,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/2023.
21. “State by State,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-landing.
22. “States With No Recent Executions,” Death Penalty Information Center, accessed December 31, 2023, https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/executions-overview/states-with-no-recent-executions.

Matt Martens is the author of Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal.

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Matthew T. Martens (JD, University of North Carolina School of Law; MABS, Dallas Theological Seminary) is a trial lawyer and partner at an international law firm in Washington, DC. He has spent the bulk of his more than twenty-five-year legal career practicing criminal law both as a federal prosecutor and as a defense attorney. He served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the US Supreme Court and also as a political appointee in the criminal division of the US Justice Department under Attorney General Ashcroft. Matt and his wife are members at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and have two sons and a daughter.

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IS WATER BAPTISM ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION?

 IS WATER BAPTISM ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION?

Brethren do you know that sin is a person’s greatest problem?. Salvation is a person’s greatest need. “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Men crucified Him, God raised Him up! Why? So that we might be saved. One of the messages of Peter, according to 1 Peter 3:21, is the message of the above title: “Baptism now saves you.”

Christians, Peter uses the word “now” in contrast to a previous time. When was that time? “When once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah” (1 Peter 3:20). What relation does baptism and our salvation “now” have to do in relation to “the days of Noah”? He says, “eight souls were saved by water,” and the fact that “baptism doth also now save us” is “the like figure” corresponding to the salvation of Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their wives.

Perhaps, you are thinking: “The water did not save Noah’s family! The ark did!” Consider with me how the water saved those eight souls and how being immersed in water “now” saves us. Noah and his family were living in a world where “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5). Had Noah not “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” (Genesis 6:8), he would have remained in that world of unrighteousness until God destroyed it. Rather, God had a plan of redemption for Noah and his family. God designed the plan, communicated the plan, and Noah and his family obeyed the plan.

God’s plan was to purge or cleanse the earth of evil in the days of Noah. “Now,” God has designed a plan, He has communicated the plan, and we are to obey the plan if we desire to be cleansed from the evil of this world. “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Baptism, immersion in water, is “not the putting away of the filth of the flesh” (1 Peter 3:21). Rather, it is the point at which you “wash away thy sins” (Acts 22:16).

Finally brethren, how important is baptism to you? Peter says, “baptism now saves you.” Have you been immersed in water in order to be cleansed from your sins? To God be the glory! Love you. Pr. Alex Kebaso

 

Why Are Christians Told Not to Love the World? (1 John 2)

This article is part of the Tough Passages series

Read the Passage

¹⁵Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. ¹⁷And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

To Love the World

This first imperative of this letter can be misunderstood if we fail to identify the “world” properly. “Things in the world” does not refer to creation; this is not a dualist call to be concerned only with spiritual rather than physical things. John can use “world” (kosmos) more positively, such as in God’s love for the world (John 3:16), Jesus as the propitiation for the sins of the world (1 John 2:2), or Jesus as the Savior of the world (1 John 4:14). In these instances mankind, the inhabitants of the world, is in view. They are opposed to God, but God still loves humanity and comes to redeem it. Quite often, however, the “world” is the realm, even the system, of rebellion against God (1 John 4:4–5). It does not know God or believers (1 John 3:1) and indeed hates believers (1 John 3:13). It is the realm of false prophets and the antichrist (1 John 4:1, 3), for “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). Into this realm of hostility Jesus came (1 John 4:17) in order to be the Savior, to redeem people out of this realm, allowing us to overcome the world (1 John 5:4–5).¹

Thus John is not forbidding appreciation of creation or love for people. Rather he is warning against setting one’s affections on sin or behaviors inimical to God and his character. John “counsels strategic disavowals of loyalties to features of the world that would surely compromise the total devotion that is appropriate to God alone.”²

This point is made even clearer in the second half of the verse, which contrasts love of the world with love of the Father. John directs his readers toward the proper object of their affections by holding up contrasting objects. One cannot love the world and love the Father at the same time, for the world is at odds with the Father. One must choose. One must take a side. And because of who God is, proper love for him can brook no rivals. True love for God must place him supreme in one’s affections.

The problem with “the things in the world” mentioned in 1 John 2:15 is, first of all, that they are not “from the Father,” that is, they are not rooted in him. They arise instead from that which is in opposition to God. “John is thinking of things that can be regarded as detrimental because they lack sanctifying ties with the Father.”³ Obviously, people who love God ought not be attracted to things that arise from opposition to God and thus to them. John is saying, in part, “Do not love the sin that seeks to destroy you.”

The rivals in view here are heart dispositions. “Desire” (epithymia) is not always negative, but here it clearly is.⁴ “Desires of the flesh” refers to those desires that arise from fallen humanity apart from the influence of God’s sanctifying work, including a broad range of sinful desires such as lust, gluttony, and the pursuit of various other addictions.

The second element of things of the world, “the desires of the eyes,” is not an entirely separate category but can be seen as another aspect of the desires of the flesh. Our eyes are, of course, wonderful gifts, but once again John has in view the sinful use of these gifts. Jesus spoke of the eyes as the “lamp of the body,” with potential either for good or for causing the “whole body” to be “full of darkness” (Matt. 6:22–23). In the first sin, Eve was taken in as she noticed that the forbidden fruit was a “delight to the eyes” (Gen. 3:6). Thus “desires of the eyes” refers to being captivated via sight by desire for forbidden things. C. H. Dodd suggests this refers to “the tendency to be captivated by the outward show of things, without enquiring into their real values.”⁵ This would then refer to the tendency to chase what “looks good” without concern for whether or not it is pleasing to God.

We must love God, his Word, and his people, but we must not love selfishness and sin.

The last item in the list is the “pride of life.” This phrase is vaguer than the others. The word for “pride” (alazoneia) typically refers to arrogant boasting, while the word for “life” (bios) often refers to material goods, or that which one has to live on (e.g., Luke 15:12, 30; Luke 21:4), which is precisely the meaning of the word when it occurs later in this letter, in 1 John 3:17. Thus what is in view here is not pride generally but the vaunted sense of self-importance derived from one’s possessions, position, or prestige.

These three things “in the world” characterize what is at work in the world system in opposition to God. They are not passive, but aggressively seek to allure the affections of everyone including Christians. Thus, John warns his hearers not to love these things.

Not only are the “world” and its “things” opposed to God, but they are also “passing away.” They will not endure and thus are not suitable objects for our affections. Nor do they provide a stable basis for life. In contrast, those who do the will of God “[abide] forever.” John’s point is exhortatory: we ought not set our hearts on these sinful desires that will fade and fall away, for they will finally disappoint. Obedience to God, however, will lead to lasting joy. If, then, we love life and long for fulfillment, we must resist the allure of sinful desires and obey God instead.

Contrary to much of popular culture, John realizes that love, in and of itself, is not the answer. It matters what we love. Some love is sinful. We must love God, his Word, and his people, but we must not love selfishness and sin.

Some have wreaked havoc with 1 John 2:15, seeing there a pleasure-hating asceticism or a curmudgeonly skepticism toward beauty, enjoyment, or people. None of this is called for here. It is clear that there is a common way of life that is opposed to the things of God, a way that seems to help one get ahead but is actually opposed to God. This is what John is telling us not to love. He is not telling us to hate God’s creation or the good gifts he has given to us as part of that creation.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ministered in the shadow of the Nazi machine, where friendship with the world captivated many believers, as it seemed to promise safety. He captured the essence of our text when he wrote,

In obedience and faith alone the church took up the struggle ordained for her. From the Word alone she may be led. For her Lord she gladly gave up all cares, all security, all friendship with the world. Yes, our way leads also through distress, but the Lord bound us not to yield. Do we want to yield today for the sake of friendship with the world, do we want to sell our calling for the mess of pottage of a safe future? Through our own behavior we are making the Gospel of our church unworthy of belief!⁶

Notes:

1. Cf. further the chapter on “The World,” in Paul Rainbow, Johannine Theology (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), 115–145.
2. Yarbrough, Robert W. 1–3 John. BECNT. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008, 128
3. Ibid., 131.
4. Peter also contrasts wrong human desires (epithymia) with God’s will, that which God desires (thelēma) (1 Pet. 4:2).
5. Dodd, Johannine Epistles, 41. Cf. also Daniel Akin 1, 2, 3 John, NAC (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2001), 110.
6. Bonhoeffer, quoted in Rudolf Wentorf, Paul Schneider: The Witness of Buchenwald, trans. Franklin Sanders (Las Vegas: Geodesics, 1986), 68.

This article is by Ray Van Neste and is adapted from the ESV Expository Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Volume 12) edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., Jay Sklar,

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Shadows of Evolution

TREVOR MAJOR, MSC, MA

CREATION VS. EVOLUTIONALLEGED HUMAN EVOLUTIONDESIGN OF THE HUMAN BODYDESIGN OF THE HUMAN BODY

Charles Darwin’s theory, in its modern form, says that life has evolved over billions of years by natural selection working on genetic mutations. Evolutionists still debate the details of how this supposedly happened, and their suggestions have grown more sophisticated with the advance of science and technology. However, some arguments advanced in favor of the theory have not kept pace with these changes. They linger on in textbooks without being updated. Other ideas sound similar, but the evidence and reasoning have changed.

This article is a response to three ideas that persist either in updated or outdated forms. These are: vestigial organs; atavisms (or reversions); and embryonic recapitulation. All three are similar in suggesting that living things sometimes reveal remnants of their evolutionary past. Darwinists have used these arguments to make their case for the common origin of all species. As we will see, however, the same evidence often suggests common design by an intelligent Creator.

VESTIGIAL ORGANS

Charles Darwin cited several cases where animals have diminished or unused parts (1859, pp. 175-179). For example, the ostrich has wings but cannot fly, and cave fish have eyes but cannot see. Darwin used this as evidence that animals have changed over time: ostriches descended from birds with functional wings, and blind cave fish descended from fish with functional eyes. By the end of the nineteenth century, scientists had compiled a long list of such vestigial and rudimentary structures. In man, wisdom teeth, the coccyx, and the appendix were included as remnants of our animal past. Evolution, it was thought, eventually would eliminate these “useless” structures from our bodies.

However, with the advance of scientific knowledge over the last hundred years, it is difficult to find any “useless” body part. It now appears that vestigial simply meant “of unknown function.” Let us examine just three examples from the human body (summarized from Bergman and Howe, 1990).

1. Some people experience problems with their wisdom teeth (or third molars). These teeth sometimes grow improperly, and have to be removed. Evolutionists explain this problem by saying that the human jaw is getting smaller. As apes we had the right number of teeth, they assert, but now there are too many for our modern jaw. However, many people have healthy, useful wisdom teeth. That they can cause problems may be a function of our changing diet. Or perhaps bad wisdom teeth represent a physical weakness, like failing eyesight, or hardening of the arteries. This does not suggest poor design, but a fallen state from perfect creation.

2. The coccyx is attached to the lower end of the vertebral column, and consists of three to five (usually four) fused vertebrae. Evolutionists believe this is a rudimentary tail, and it often is referred to as the “tail bone.” However, the coccyx serves a very real function as an anchor for muscles and tendons. These have a role in bowel movements, giving birth, leg movement, and other functions in the lower torso.

3. Perhaps the most popular example of vestigial structures is the appendix. This is a small, worm-shaped tube attached to the cecum at the end of the ascending colon. Many books on anatomy say that it has no function. Evolutionists have suggested that it was once part of a much larger cecum in our herbivorous ancestors. Like wisdom teeth, the appendix can cause problems. Sometimes it can become infected and, in severe cases, require removal. Like wisdom teeth, countless people have had an inflamed appendix removed with no negative, long-term effects. However, this does not mean that the appendix has no use at all. While all of its functions are not fully understood, the appendix has a rich supply of blood and contains masses of lymphatic tissues in its walls. This suggests that it may play a crucial role in the body’s immune system, especially in defense against infection in young children. Its presence may also boost antibody production in the spleen, and may play a role in preventing cancer.

What about the diminished size of ostrich wings, and cave fish with eyes that cannot see? Darwin could not imagine why a Creator would design such imperfect creatures. However, Darwin made the assumption that these structures have no obvious purpose. Yet the ostrich wing is used in courtship displays, for balance during running, and to shield the nest from the Sun. Further, it is quite conceivable that degenerative changes could have occurred since the creation. For example, mutations may have caused the loss of sight in cave-dwelling animals, with no detriment to their survival. Even if these eyes are vestigial, they represent only limited change from the sighted condition (Frair and Davis, 1983, p. 29). Such vestiges do not support Darwin’s claim that lack of use is a driving force in large-scale evolution.

ATAVISM

The word “atavism” comes from the Latin atavus, which means father of a great-grandfather. French, and later British, doctors adopted it as a term to describe cases in which “a bodily peculiarity, deformity or disease, existing in a family, is lost in one generation; reappearing in that which follows” (Holland, 1839). In evolutionary theory, atavism (or reversion) refers to the appearance of features or traits belonging to a hypothetical ancestor.

Darwin gradually compiled a list of potential atavisms, but he settled on two main examples: the horse, and his favorite animal, the pigeon (1859, pp. 195ff.). In the case of the pigeon, he noted that a grayish-blue bird, resembling the ancestral rock pigeon, would appear occasionally among the progeny of exotic breeds. The case of the horse was not so simple because the ancestral form no longer exists. However, Darwin observed that zebra-like stripes often would appear on asses, quaggas, and many breeds of horses. “I venture confidently,” he wrote, “to look back thousands on thousands of generations, and I see an animal striped like a zebra” (1859, p. 201). For Darwin, this random appearance of a distinct trait among several varieties or species proved their common ancestry.

Today, the popular examples of atavism are more sensational and difficult to document. Perhaps the most commonly cited case is that of human babies born with a “tail.” This is supposed to represent a reversion to our animal ancestry. However, more detailed studies have shown that this caudal appendage, as it is known, contains no bone and is not connected to the vertebral column. It may be nothing more than excess tissue covering the lower end of the spinal column. This abnormality is no more a reversion than other birth defects such as spina bifida (see Gish, 1983).

So, how do reversions fit into evolution? We know from genetics that a characteristic can lay hidden for many generations. It may not appear in offspring unless both parents carry the gene for this characteristic. Or, a mixing of the parents’ genes at conception may recreate a former trait purely by chance. Either of these processes may cause “reversions,” but this is not the real issue.

Darwin wanted to show that life had the potential for variation, as opposed to the prevailing idea of his time that species could not change at all. The occasional appearance of wild-type pigeons and striped horses served him well in illustrating his argument. However, the concept of reversions wrongly assumes that a population will reveal its entire range of variation at one time. Some characteristics may not appear in the current generation, but may have existed in previous generations, or may be expressed in generations to come. All this shows is that variation exists both in space and time. In other words, although populations may show variation from one place to another, and from one generation to the next, the total amount of variation remains essentially the same.

Still, evolutionists see this wealth of living history as a storehouse of future change (e.g., Gould, 1983, pp. 185-186). Yet how can reversions contribute to the evolution of species, if contemporary forms keep regressing to a previous state? In his early years of research, Darwin admitted the possibility that “any great change in species is reduced by atavism” (see Barrett, et al., 1987, p. 259). So through time, a population may experience cycles of evolution and devolution without ever changing into a different species. Reversions may show how populations can vary, but they cannot prove large-scale change over long periods of time.

While older ideas on atavism persist in some textbooks, new research on embryos has changed the face of the argument (Gould, 1983). In one experiment, scientists used embryo tissue from a chick to stimulate the growth of teeth in embryonic mouse tissue. Evolutionists call this apparently hidden ability atavistic, supposing it to be a remnant of the chick’s tooth-bearing, reptilian ancestry. Also, the ability of chick and mouse tissues to work together is supposed to show their common ancestry, again, from a reptilian ancestor. Atavism, in this updated form, is not an additional argument for evolution, but a part of the argument from homology (i.e., that similar form implies similar ancestry).

The main problem with this interpretation is that embryonic cells are very flexible in their development. If chick and mouse tissues were taken from different places in the embryo, and then brought into contact, other body parts might develop. This experiment shows that embryonic cells can be manipulated to produce bizarre effects. Further, the similarity of embryonic cells that allowed these strange teeth to develop does not prove common ancestry. Rather, it is evidence of common design by an intelligent Creator Who used similar parts to achieve similar ends. Also, some fossil birds (like Archaeopteryx) had teeth. Perhaps God gave some bird kinds this ability, which they eventually lost through harmful mutations (Frair and Davis, 1983, p. 46).

EMBRYONIC RECAPITULATION

In the nineteenth century, Ernst Haeckel developed the theory of “embryonic recapitulation.” He believed that the biological development of an individual (ontogeny) repeats the evolutionary development of its species (phylogeny).

One oft-repeated “fact” of Haeckel’s theory is that mammalian embryos, including those of humans, develop “gill slits.” These are supposed to prove our evolutionary descent from fish. However, these “slits” are merely folds of flesh that later develop into the various parts of the neck region; they never function like the breathing organs of fish. For instance, although biologist Aaron Wasserman believes there are similarities between fish and mammal embryos at certain stages, he states that the mammalian embryo “can in no sense be called a fish; it never actually develops functional gills and is at all times a mammal” (1973, p. 497).

George Gaylord Simpson and William Beck also appear evasive on the issue of fish-like stages. In the body of their text they write:

Human embryos develop tails, which later disappear. They also develop gill-like pouches in the neck region, which disappear as such and are in part transformed into quite nongill-like structures, including the ear canal. At this stage the embryo looks a little like a fish, although the resemblance is not so close as is sometimes suggested (1965, p. 240).

Yet in a footnote they comment: “The human embryo does not have any differentiated gill tissue, and the gill-like pouches do not have open gill slits as in fishes. Fins are lacking. The tail is not at all like any fish’s tail. Indeed, the resemblance to an adult fish is vague and superficial” (1965, p. 240). The authors later conclude: “It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny” (1965, p. 241, emp. in orig.).

Further, Haeckel fabricated his drawings of embryos. W.R. Thompson makes the following comment:

When the “convergence” of embryos was not entirely satisfactory, Haeckel altered the illustrations of them to fit his theory. The alterations were slight but significant. The “biogenetic law” as a proof of evolution is valueless (1956, p. xvi).

Jane Oppenheimer adds other examples of fraud:

It was a failing of Haeckel as a would-be scientist that his hand as an artist altered what he saw with what should have been the eye of a more accurate beholder. He was more than once, often justifiably, accused of scientific falsification, by Wilhelm His and by many others. For only two examples, in Anthropogenie he drew the developing brain of a fish as curved, because that of reptiles, birds, and mammals is bent. But the vesicles of a fish brain always form a straight line. He drew the embryonic membranes of man as including a small sac-like allantois, an embryonic organ characteristic of and larger in reptiles, birds, and some nonhuman mammals. The human embryo has no sac-like allantois at all. Only its narrow stalk remains to conduct the umbilical blood vessels between embryo and placenta. Examples could be multiplied significantly (1988, p. 134).

Haeckel’s drawings of embryos at three different stages for (from left to right): fish, salamander, tortoise, chick, hog, calf, rabbit and man (from 1876, Plates VI-VII). The supposed “gill-slits” are shown in red.

Although Haeckel’s theory has fallen into disfavor, embryonic recapitulation has survived in a modified form. In this version, evolutionists argue that similar patterns of embryo development in different animals prove their common descent. For example, the neck folds in human embryos (which Haeckel labeled as “gill slits”) eventually give rise to the jaw. These folds develop from a similar area of the vertebrate column, and are controlled by similar gene sequences, as the gill arches of fish embryos (e.g., Gould, 1990, p. 16). The evolutionist concludes from this that fish and humans had a common ancestor.

However, this similarity is also evidence of common design. Mice, men, and pigs have four appendages and a head, and therefore it is not surprising that embryos should follow a similar path of development. Indeed, the ability of embryos to form in such perfection demands something more than evolution. Natural selection works primarily on organisms exposed to the environment or competition. Yet the embryo is isolated from the outside world. Evolutionary processes are at a loss to explain the origin of the mechanism that causes a fertilized egg to develop into a young version of the adult.

CONCLUSION

Although natural selection working on mutations remains the main thrust of evolutionary theory, the theory itself changes with the times. Many old ideas missed the mark, were unfounded, and in the worst cases, were deliberate falsehoods. Unfortunately, some continue to appear in science textbooks. It is still necessary to review the problems with these ideas, and how they have changed to accommodate new research.

The idea that animals carry diminished or useless parts is still popular among evolutionists. However, most of the rudimentary and vestigial structures they cite have real functions. Genuine cases of vestigial organs are rare, and may be the result of mutations. However, such changes are not sufficient to explain long-term, large-scale evolution.

Atavism and embryonic recapitulation were once put forward as separate lines of evidence in favor of evolution. Scientists now know that these arguments were faulty. Examples of atavism usually represent either natural variation or misunderstood birth defects. And contrary to the fraudulent work of Haeckel, human embryos never go through a fish, or any other nonhuman, stage. New twists on these ideas have arisen, but they reduce to the argument from homology. However, this is neither the only, nor the best, interpretation, because similarity also suggests design by an intelligent Creator.

REFERENCES

Barrett, Paul H., et al. (1987), Charles Darwin’s Notebooks, 1836-1844 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press).

Bergman, Jerry and George Howe (1990), “Vestigial Organs” are Fully Functional (Terra Haute, IN: Creation Research Society).

Darwin, Charles (1859), The Origin of Species (New York: Avenel Books, 1979 reprint of the Penguin 1968 edition).

Frair, Wayne and Percival Davis (1983), A Case for Creation (Chicago, IL: Moody Press).

Gish, Duane T. (1983), “Evolution and the Human Tail,” Impact, No. 117.

Gould, Stephen Jay (1983), “Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes,” Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes (New York: W.W. Norton).

Gould, Stephen Jay (1990), “An Earful of Jaw,” Natural History, 99[3]:12-23, March.

Haeckel, Ernst (1876), The Evolution of Man (Akron, OH: Werner, translated from the German third edition).

Holland, Henry (1839), Medical Notes and Reflections (London). As quoted by Paul H. Barrett, et al. (1987).

Oppenheimer, Jane M. (1988), “Haeckel’s Variations on Darwin,” Biological Metaphor and Cladistic Classification, ed. H.M. Hoenigswald and L.F. Wiener (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press). As quoted in “Ernst Haeckel: Art vs. Science,” The SOR Bulletin, 1989, 5[1]:4.

Simpson, George G. and William S. Beck (1965), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World).

W.R. Thompson (1956), “Introduction,” Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin (London: Dent, Everyman’s Library edition).

Wasserman, Aaron O. (1973), Biology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts).

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