4 Reasons to Believe Evolution is NOT True

Jeff Miller, Ph.D.

Creation vs. EvolutionAlleged Human EvolutionGeneticsPaleontolog

 Article in Brief

While a majority of Americans accept Darwinian evolution to be true, at least four insurmountable barriers stand in the way of its validity. The origin of life, its complexity, and its genetic information prohibit evolution from even starting, and the oft’-cited textbook evidences for the evolution of that life are all either erroneous, irrelevant, or inadequate. Creation is still the logical (and obvious) explanation for the origin of life and its immense diversity.

The Bible does not allow evolution to be true, so theistic evolution is not an option.1 Therefore, either Creation is true or God-less evolution is true. But there is no evidence to support the self-creation of the Universe, matter and energy, or the laws of science.2 Nor is there evidence that the Universe is as old as is required by evolutionary theory.3 In fact, there are scientific evidences which just as easily provide support for a young Universe.4 And yet, cosmic evolution is still accepted by many as a legitimate scientific explanation for the Universe.

The problems with evolutionary theory, however, do not stop with the origin, age, and evolution of the Universe itself. Biological evolution (or “macroevolution”) is just as much a problem as is cosmic evolution.5 At some point(s) in the past, if evolution is true, life must have arisen from lifelessness and somehow changed into all species which have ever roamed planet Earth. Does the evidence support biological evolution?

Problem #1: Life from Non-life

Before life can evolve, life has to exist. If evolution is true, that first life had to come about from non-life, a phenomenon called “abiogenesis” or “spontaneous generation.” Abiogenesis, however, has long been acknowledged to be an unprovable, though necessary, part of evolution. In 1960 G.A. Kerkut published The Implications of Evolution. Therein he listed seven non-provable assumptions upon which evolution is based. “The first assumption is that non-living things gave rise to living material, i.e., spontaneous generation occurred.”6 In spite of the admission that evolution is based on non-provable assumptions, many today in the evolutionary community boldly assert that their theory is a scientific fact. However, the unbiased observer must ask: what does the scientific evidence actually have to say about the origin of life?

The work of various scientists over the centuries disproved the superstitious idea that life can come from non-life (e.g., Francesco Redi and Lazzaro Spallanzani). Louis Pasteur is generally acknowledged to be the scientist whose experiments drove nails into the proverbial abiogenesis coffin. Even standard evolution-based high school biology textbooks have historically acknowledged that fact. For example, one such popular textbook stated, “It was not until 1864, and the elegant experiment of French scientist Louis Pasteur, that the hypothesis of spontaneous generation was finally disproved.”7 They acknowledged that, “Pasteur, like Redi and Spallanzani before him, had shown that life comes only from life.”8 This truth is so absolute that it has been deemed a scientific law: the Law of Biogenesis. Evolutionist George G. Simpson, one of the most influential paleontologists of the 20th century, articulated well the findings of science: “[T]here is no serious doubt that biogenesis is the rule, that life comes only from other life, that a cell, the unit of life, is always and exclusively the product or offspring of another cell.”9 Though many attempts have since been made to initiate life from non-life, none have succeeded. Leading evolutionary biologists have been forced to acknowledge, therefore, that abiogenesis is “impossible,” “absurd,” and an “obsolete concept,”10 but without it, evolution cannot even get started!

Notice the following acknowledgements by leading evolutionists over the years. Evolutionist and Nobel Laureate, George Wald, of Harvard University wrote: “As for spontaneous generation, it continued to find acceptance until finally disposed of by the work of Louis Pasteur.”11 He further admitted, “One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are, as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.”12 Notice that his belief in spontaneous generation is not based on the actual evidence but, instead, on blind faith in evolution in spite of the evidence. In the lecture series, Origins of Life,13 evolutionary geologist Robert Hazen made notable admissions: “The origin of life is a subject of immense complexity, and I have to tell you right up front, we don’t know how life began.”14 “How can I tell you about the origin of life when we are so woefully ignorant of that history?” Evolutionists do not know how life could emerge from non-life within their naturalistic theory, but they believe in it anyway.

Evolutionist Paul Davies, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, astrobiologist, and professor at Arizona State University, writing in New Scientist, said, “One of the great outstanding scientific mysteries is the origin of life. How did it happen?…The truth is, nobody has a clue.”15 Evolutionist John Horgan did not even try to veil his admission within an article. He titled one of his articles, “Pssst! Don’t Tell the Creationists, but Scientists Don’t Have a Clue How Life Began.” Such admissions are quite telling, albeit incorrect. What Davies, Horgan, and Dawkins mean is, no naturalistic evolutionist “has a clue.” Biblical supernaturalists, on the other hand, know exactly how life originated, and the answer harmonizes perfectly with the Law of Biogenesis—unlike evolution’s life-origins fairytale. If one sticks with the evidence, he must conclude that to believe life can come from non-life would be irrational, unscientific, and requires blind faith in evolution.16

Problem #2: The Nature of the First Life

Life coming from non-life, in actuality, is the “easy” part. The difficulty of getting life from non-life is so overwhelming that we usually fail to realize other daunting aspects of the equation that compound the difficulty of the problem for evolutionists. The distinguished British astronomer, Sir Fred Hoyle, once highlighted the gravity of the abiogenesis problem.

At all events, anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near-impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cubic faces at random. Now imagine 1050 blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling at just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only biopolymers but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.17

The arrival of life on Earth from non-life is problematic enough, but life cannot exist without an actual “operating program” that tells it how to function once it exists.

But the problem does not stop there, either. What would happen to the first life if it could not reproduce itself? Famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins stated in an interview with Ben Stein regarding the origin of life, “Nobody knows how it got started. We know the kind of event that it must have been. We know the sort of event that must have happened for the origin of life. It was the origin of the first self-replicating molecule.” Obviously, the first life had to already have the functionality to reproduce: yet another hurdle that would be impossible for evolution to jump. Stein asked Dawkins, “Right. And how did that happen?” Dawkins replied, “I’ve told you. We don’t know.” Stein then said, “So, you have no idea how it started?” Dawkins replied, “No. Nor has anybody.”18 John Keosian, biology professor at Rutgers University, said, “Even conceptually, it is difficult to see how a system satisfying the minimum criteria for a living thing can arise by chance and, simultaneously, include a mechanism containing the suitable information for its own replication.”19 We agree.  

And yet, another problem exists when considering what would have to occur for abiogenesis to be possible. The biomolecules of life generally are only found in one (out of two) of the main three-dimensional biomolecule configurations—a scenario called homochirality. However, as biochemist Joe DeWeese of Freed-Hardeman University noted, “in a pre-biotic system (one where life does not yet exist) there is no clear mechanism for preferentially causing the formation of one chiral form over another. This means there is no homochirality. Instead, when chemicals react in experimental systems, researchers tend to get mixtures of L- and D- [i.e., “right-handed” and “left-handed”—JM] forms of molecules,”20 a dilemma called the “homochirality problem” by origin-of-life scientists. Experimental evidence does not support the contention that abiogenesis occurred.

No wonder abiogenesis is deemed by many evolutionists to require a “miracle” that requires blind faith on the part of the evolutionist to accept.21 But the problem for evolutionists does not stop there, either. Evolutionist John Maddox, writing in Nature, said, “[I]t is disappointing that the origin of the genetic code is still as obscure as the origin of life itself.”22

Problem #3: The Origin of Genetic Information

Darwin believed that “natural selection” would serve as a mechanism to make evolution happen. However, in the immortal words of Dutch evolutionary botanist Hugo de Vries, “Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, but it cannot explain the arrival of the fittest.”23 Natural selection is simply a “filtering mechanism” that eliminates those species that are not as well suited to an environment as another species. Those species must already exist, however, in order for them to be filtered. What natural mechanism could create the species in the first place?

Mainstream evolutionary thinking today is that genetic mutations coupled with natural selection will create the best fit species, a belief known as “Neo-Darwinism.” Once again, however, genes must already exist in order for them to be mutated. Where did the first, “simple” genome come from? And how could new genetic information (i.e., new “raw material”) be subsequently spontaneously created naturally as the original life forms morphed into other life forms? In the words of the late, famous evolutionary paleontologist of Harvard University, Stephen Jay Gould, “A mutation doesn’t produce major new raw material. You don’t make a new species by mutating the species…. That’s a common idea people have; that evolution is due to random mutations. A mutation is not the cause of evolutionary change.”24 If a living thing does not already have the genetic code to grow new parts, it cannot grow them, because that would require new raw material.

Consider the analogy of making a digital copy of a file from a computer onto a flash drive. When a file is copied, “mutations” can sometimes occur. The file does not always copy properly. The final copy is not always exactly like the original. Codon errors, duplications, translocations, deletions, and other mutations exist in genetics—errors that cause the final copy to be “mutated.” Do such mutations add new raw material? Do they “write a new sentence” in the file? No. A mutation might cause a fly to have extra wings (homeotic mutations) or a person to have an extra toe (polydactyly), but mutations do not create a new feature or a new creature. A mutation would not cause a wing to appear on a creature, for example, unless the creature already had wings in its genome.

Why? Because when the structure of the DNA molecule was discovered in the twentieth century, James Watson and Francis Crick “discovered that DNA stores information using a four-character chemical alphabet. Strings of precisely sequenced chemicals called nucleotide bases store and transmit the assembly instructions—the information—for building the crucial protein molecules and machines the cell needs to survive.”25 Information is packed into our genes, and yet, in the words of information scientist Werner Gitt of the Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, “There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.”26 Bottom line: evolution has no way of getting life from non-life, and no way to evolve it into something different when it arrives. Once again, the evolutionist must rely on blind faith to hold his position.27

Problem #4: Insufficient Evidence for Evolution

In order for a belief to be “rational,” it must have sufficient supporting evidence. After all, the Law of Rationality states that one should only draw those conclusions that are warranted by the evidence.28 Biblical creation is rational, since it is based on evidence that the Bible is of divine origin.29 Is belief in evolution a rational belief or a blind faith? Where is the evidence for evolution?

When a student takes “Biology” class in public high school or college, he will most likely find a section in his textbook listing alleged evidences for evolution. Upon closer examination, without exception, these evidences can be categorized as being one of three possibilities: erroneous, irrelevant, or inadequate. Consider the following commonly listed evidences for macroevolution:

Category 1: Erroneous Evidences

• Embryonic recapitulation: Ernst Haeckel, living at the turn of the 19th century, asserted that embryos in their development in the womb repeat the evolutionary history of their species. Though his idea quickly became embedded in evolution-friendly textbooks, his claims were not only found to be inaccurate,30 but eventually found to be a hoax.31 Upon confrontation, Haeckel eventually acknowledged that several of the charts he used to promote his theory were fabricated to support his theory. He said, “I should feel utterly condemned and annihilated by the admission, were it not that hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge. The great majority of all morphological, anatomical, histological, and embryological diagrams are not true to nature, but are more or less doctored, schematized and reconstructed.”32

• Horse evolution charts: Textbooks often have charts allegedly documenting the evolution of horses from the small, fox-like creature known as eohippus or hyracotherium. Several decades ago, however, leading paleontologists acknowledged that the “uniform, continuous transformation of hyracotherium into equus [modern horses—JM], so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature.”33 Perhaps the leading paleontologist of the twentieth century, Harvard professor Stephen Jay Gould, subtly chided those who spread misinformation by using horse evolution as proof of evolution:
  
  Once ensconced in textbooks, misinformation becomes cocooned and effectively permanent, because, as stated above, textbooks copy from previous texts. (I have written two essays on this lamentable practice: one on the amusingly perennial description of the eohippus, or “dawn horse,” as the size of a fox terrier, even though most authors, including yours truly, have no idea of the dimensions or appearance of this breed…).34
  
  Keep in mind that even if some or all of the animals on the typical horse charts were, in fact, part of the ancestry of modern horses, hyracotherium (the first animal on the horse evolution chart) is still acknowledged by evolutionists to be a “horse” and, therefore, is argued by some creationists to be part of the “horse kind” which left the Ark. If so, horse evolution charts would be evidence of microevolution (not macroevolution) and would, therefore, constitute inadequate evidence of macroevolution (category three below). Bottom line: evidence for macroevolution cannot be found among the horses.35

• Whale evolution charts: Whale evolution has been called “one of the best documented examples of mammal evolution,”36 and yet the entire timeline of whale evolution is now being re-vamped (again). Whales were historically argued by many to be descended from hippos, until 1979 when pakicetus became the believed ancestor of the whales. Discovery of more bones over the years caused scientists to completely change their portraits of pakicetus to look something like a land-dwelling, wolf-like mammal, with only a slight resemblance to the whale in its teeth. As would be expected, after further discoveries, pakicetus is now being abandoned and scientists are changing the evolutionary story of whales again. They now suggest that carnivorous whales may have descended from a tiny, deer-like, herbivorous, aquatic creature known as indohyus—a big shift, to say the least, in spite of the supposed documentation of whale evolution. What will be the new supposed evolutionary ancestor of whales in the coming years?

• Transitional fossils: As we have shown elsewhere, the fossil record is, perhaps, one of the strongest evidences in favor of Creation, not evolution.37 Abrupt appearance, stasis, and mass extinction characterize the fossil record from bottom to top, exactly as creationists would predict and exactly the opposite of what evolution would predict. While there should be billions of transitional fossils linking all life forms to previous ancestors if Darwin was correct, in truth, there are no undisputed transitional forms.38 While change should characterize the fossil record, leading paleontologists have long acknowledged instead that stasis is the rule.39 If Darwinian evolution actually happened, transitional forms would be prevalent, especially among the invertebrates which fossilize more easily and make up most of the fossils on the planet by far. However, few if any alleged transitional forms among the invertebrates have even been uncovered by evolutionists. Even among the few alleged vertebrate transitional forms, as time passes, the fossil is ultimately re-considered and marked off the list of supposed evidences for evolution. To illustrate, perhaps the two most oft’-cited alleged transitional creatures in the animal kingdom would be tiktaalik and archaeopteryx.
  
  Tiktaalik has been hailed as the transitional creature linking fish and amphibians, a creature whose pelvic fins (its front fins) are thought to have been evolving into legs. However, in 2010 researchers40 in Poland discovered four-limbed animal tracks in fossil strata believed to be nine million years older than the tiktaalik strata. How could tiktaalik be the transition from fish to legged amphibians if four-legged creatures were already around and fully-functional “nine million years” before tiktaalik was on the scene?
  
  Archaeopteryx is thought to be the creature that linked dinosaurs to their descendants, the birds. Equipped with teeth and claws, but also sporting feathers, a wishbone, and a beak, archaeopteryx looked to scientists as though it was not quite bird and was not quite dinosaur. Some admittedly modern birds and birds within the fossil record, however, have claws41 and teeth42 as well, proving that having them does not imply they descended from dinosaurs. Further, acknowledged birds have been found in fossil strata thought to be “millions of years” older than the strata in which archaeopteryx was found,43 and the supposed feathered dinosaurs do not arrive in the fossil strata until “millions of years” after the strata in which archaeopteryx is found. In the words of British paleontologist and senior editor of Nature, Henry Gee, concerning the “dethronement of Archaeopteryx,” “Archaeopteryx is just another dinosaur with feathers.”44 Bottom line: archaeopteryx is now considered by most to be a true bird. It is not transitional.45

Category 2: Irrelevant Evidences

The logical Fallacy of Equivocation occurs when the same word is used in at least two unclear ways in an argument, and the two are treated as though they are one and the same.46 “Trees have branches. My bank has branches. Therefore, my bank is a tree.” Richard Dawkins was no doubt referring to this category of evidence when he claimed that evolution is a “fact that is proved utterly beyond reasonable doubt.” He claimed, “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”47 If, by “evolution” is meant the concept that change happens over time (e.g., we are not exactly the same as our parents), then perhaps only “ignorant, stupid or insane” people reject evolution. If, however, by “evolution” Dawkins is referring to molecules-to-man evolution, then evolution certainly is not a “fact that is proved utterly beyond reasonable doubt.” However, without clarification, many students fall victim to the Fallacy of Equivocation, assuming that since change happens, (Darwinian) evolution must be true.

With that in mind, the Biology student should be careful not to be swayed by this category of alleged evidences for evolution—a category which is, perhaps, proclaimed the loudest. This category contains, for example, instances of “evolution” which are not disputed by creationists (i.e., microevolution), but which do not provide evidence for the form of evolution accepted by mainstream secular scientists today (i.e., macroevolution)—“molecules-to-man” naturalistic evolution.

• Natural selection: When a species is not as well-suited to a particular habitat as another species, if the less “fit” species does not migrate to a different environment for which it is more suited, the more fit species will tend to thrive and the less fit species will tend to die out. That is natural selection, and it is not rejected by creationists. However, natural selection in no way supports the idea that a fish can turn into an amphibian or a dinosaur can turn into a bird. As discussed earlier, natural selection is merely a filtering mechanism which cannot act until a species already exists. Evolution requires the appearance of a new creature before natural selection can do its work. Natural selection, therefore, is an irrelevant evidence in regard to macroevolution—it neither supports it nor refutes it.

• Geographic distribution and finches: Charles Darwin, in his travels, noted that animals that were slightly different from one another, but clearly still related, would often be found in a single local area, but in different habitats (e.g., slightly different climates). He saw this as evidence that those animals descended from a common ancestor in the area and that natural selection caused certain varieties to thrive in different habitats. He observed varieties of finch (as well as tortoises, iguanas, and plants), for example, with different colored feathers and different sized or shaped beaks. These varieties, he postulated, must have descended from a single ancestor in South America.
  
  However, while variety existed among the finches, they all were still acknowledged to be finches. Further, as biologists Peter and Rosemary Grant of Princeton, who spent 35 years studying the Darwin Galapagos finches, acknowledged, “for beak size and shape to evolve, there must be enough heritable variation in those traits to provide raw material for natural selection.”48 In other words, the possible variation seen among the finches was all inherited from the original ancestor—it was not spontaneously generated from thin air. The variation was already built into the species. Nothing new came about, but macroevolution requires new material. Again, therefore, geographic distribution is an irrelevant evidence for macroevolution. Heritable variation within animals implies (1) an initial Creator of the genetic information that was inherited by offspring, and (2) variation is limited by the genetic package that the original ancestor is equipped with. Evolution across phylogenic boundaries from one kind of animal to another, therefore, cannot happen if the ancestor was not already equipped with the genetic information to allow such a change. Since the original, simple single-celled organisms thought by evolutionists to have launched life on Earth would not have been equipped with the genetic information to bring about all of the species on the planet, macroevolution is not possible.
  
  Darwin also acknowledged cases where there were animals in similar habitats across the world that were apparently not descended from the same ancestors but that had similarities in structure anyway. He considered these examples to be evidence of natural selection: that the pressures of natural selection cause certain body characteristics to appear and thrive in certain environments, while other characteristics less suited to the environment die out. This, once again, is merely evidence of natural selection, not macroevolution—an irrelevant evidence.

• Evidences of microevolution: Darwin’s finches are a classic example of microevolutionary change—small changes under the umbrella of the general kind of creature that God originally created (Genesis 1:24). Microevolution is not proof of macroevolution, however, since all available evidence supports a hard reproductive boundary, beyond which an animal cannot evolve. Evolutionary paleontologist Steven Stanley explained: “The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution [i.e., evolution of a new phylum—JM] accomplishing a major morphological transition and hence offers no evidence that the gradualistic model can be valid.”49 Change between species seems only to be capable at roughly the genus or family level (e.g., speciation from wolves to dogs). The original kinds that God created had the potential for a certain amount of diversity within them, but not enough to change the kinds into a different kind. Other often cited examples of microevolutionary change would include peppered moth varieties, bacteria “evolving” resistance to antibiotics, and fruit fly varieties. Mutated flies are still flies, resistant bacteria are still bacteria, and dark peppered moths are every bit as much moths as are light colored peppered moths. Microevolutionary evidences are irrelevant evidences in trying to prove that single-celled organisms can evolve into humans over millions of years.50

Category 3: Inadequate Evidences

Admittedly, one category of alleged evidence for evolution stands as unrefuted potential evidence for evolution. The evidence is not adequate evidence, however, considering that the same evidence can be used with better consistency in support of biblical Creation as well.

• Homologous structures: Evolutionists argue that similarities in different life are every bit as much evidence for our relation to them as is our similarities to our human ancestors. It is true that if we are related to someone, we would predict there to be similarities between us (we share similarities with our parents, for example). However, as Darwin himself observed (see Geographic distribution above), similarities are often seen in species that clearly share no common ancestor. That concession begs the question: how do evolutionists really know which species are actually related and which are not? Similar bone structures between birds and dinosaurs, or chimps and humans, for example, do not necessarily suggest relationship. Could there be a different explanation? Actually, yes: there is a perfect explanation that fits the evidence better.
  
  If Creation, rather than evolution, is true, then similarities seen between different kinds would suggest a common Designer, rather than a common ancestor. Car manufacturers often use the same features and car parts on multiple models (e.g., tires, brake systems, windshield wipers, bolts, light bulbs, etc.), rather than “re-inventing the wheel” with each model. If a particular part has proven to be the most effective part and it can be used multiple times in other applications, it would be extremely inefficient of an engineer to use a different part or design a new part in all new designs. Car manufactures often even design their various car models with a similar “look” that distinguishes their brand from others.
  
  Similarly, one would expect God, if He is an efficient Engineer, to use similar structures in many life forms on Earth, since they were all designed to live on the same planet. Those designed to live in similar environments on Earth and do similar things would be expected to be even more similar than other species. Those creatures who would be breathing air would be expected to have similar lungs. Many of those creatures designed for swimming in water would be expected to have fins, and so on. If the same Designer was behind the different kinds of animals of the Earth, one would expect similarities between them—and, of course, there are.
  
  Which view—common ancestry or common design—fits the evidence better and more consistently? Several evidences could be highlighted which reveal the superiority of the Creation model in explaining the evidence, but let’s look at one. Recall again the above section on “Geographic distribution.” While similarities between those species living in the same relative environment—species that are distinctive from those found elsewhere—is admittedly suggestive of possible common ancestry (though, once again, not macroevolutionary ancestry), the second category of similarity observed by Darwin (i.e., creatures similar though not related) is a problem for macroevolution. In the case of descent from a common ancestor, the genetic potential for similarities between descendants is at least possible (though Someone would have to create the “heritable variation” in the first place), but when common ancestry has been ruled out, there is no means of creating the observed similar features between creatures. A common Designer, therefore, is the reasonable conclusion from the evidence for both of Darwin’s observations.51

Conclusion

Even if the Big Bang could create the Universe and explain away all of the inconsistencies we see when studying the cosmos, at some point, in order for biological evolution to occur, life had to come from non-life. If that feat was not difficult enough, that life had to be extremely complex—more complex than we might typically even realize. It had to have an operating program that told it how to function. It had to be able to replicate itself and be homochiral. It had to be equipped with the necessary genome to allow life to continue. That pool of genetic information had to be continually increased spontaneously over millions of years in order to allow that single-celled organism to turn into all of the species on the planet, ending with the genetically complex species we call homo sapiens. The pool had to increase in spite of the fact that there is no known way to spontaneously generate such information in a natural way.

With such facts established, it should come as no surprise to find that evolution has never been able to be substantiated by solid evidence. Its alleged evidences are always, without exception, erroneous, irrelevant or, at the very least, inadequate. Belief in evolution, therefore, requires one to hold a blind “faith” in a superstitious fairytale. It’s no wonder that the late Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, said about evolution, “One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock to learn that one can be misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me, or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory.”52

Endnotes

1 See Jeff Miller (2022), “Should Christians Accept Evolution and an Old Earth to Win Converts?” Reason & Revelation, 42[4]:38-44, April.

2 See Jeff Miller (2017), Science vs. Evolution (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press), 2nd edition, pp. 9-38.

3 See Jeff Miller (2019), “21 Reasons to Believe the Earth is Young,” Reason & Revelation, 39[1]:2-11, January.

4 Ibid.

5 Biological evolution, macroevolution, and Darwinian evolution all refer to the theory that all species on the planet evolved from previous species, leading back to original common ancestors of all life.

6 Gerald A. Kerkut (1960), The Implications of Evolution (London: Pergamon), p. 6.

7 Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine (1991), Biology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall), p. 341, emp. added.

8 Ibid.

9 George G. Simpson and William Beck (1965), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World), 2nd edition, p. 144, emp. added.

10 See Jeff Miller (2017), Science vs. Evolution (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press), pp. 61-109.

11 George Wald (1962), “Theories on the Origin of Life” in Frontiers of Modern Biology (Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin), p. 187, emp. added.

12 George Wald (1954), “The Origin of Life,” Scientific American, 191[2]:44-53, August, p. 47, emp. added.

13 Robert Hazen (2005), Origins of Life (Chantilly, VA: The Teaching Company).

14 Paul Davies (2006), New Scientist, 192[2578]:35, November 18, emp. added.

15 John Horgan (2011), “Pssst! Don’t Tell the Creationists, but Scientists Don’t Have a Clue How Life Began,” Scientific American, http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=pssst-dont-tell-the-creationists-bu-2011-02-28, emp. added.

16 For an in depth study on the Law of Biogenesis and its implications, see Miller, 2017, pp. 61-109.

17 Fred Hoyle (1981), “The Big Bang in Astronomy,” New Scientist, 92:527, November 19, first emp. in orig.

18 Ben Stein and Kevin Miller (2008), Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Premise Media), emp. added.

19 John Keosian (1964), The Origin of Life (New York: Reinhold), pp. 69-70, emp. added.

20 Joe Deweese (2023), “Homochirality and the Origin of Life,” Reason & Revelation, 43[11]:122-124, November, emp. added.

21 See Miller (2017), pp. 61-109.

22 John Maddox (1994), “The Genesis Code by Numbers,” Nature, 367:111, January 13, emp. added.

23 Hugo De Vries (1905), Species and Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation, ed. Daniel Trembly MacDougal (Chicago, IL: Open Court), pp. 825-826, emp. added.

24 Stephen J. Gould (1980), “Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?,” Hobart College speech, 2-14-80; quoted in Luther Sunderland (1984), Darwin’s Enigma (San Diego, CA: Master Books).

25 Stephen C. Meyer (2009), Signature in the Cell (New York: Harper Collins), Kindle file, Ch. 1, emp. added.

26 Werner Gitt (2007), In the Beginning was Information (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), Kindle file, Ch. 6.

27 For an in depth study of the problem of the origin of genetic information, see Miller (2017), pp. 111-132.

28 Lionel Ruby (1960), Logic: An Introduction (Chicago, IL: J.B. Lippincott), pp. 130-131.

29 See Kyle Butt (2022), Is the Bible God’s Word? (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press); Dave Miller (2020), The Bible is from God: A Sampling of Proofs (Montgomery, AL: Apologetics Press).

30 Aaron O. Wasserman (1973), Biology (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts), p. 497; George G. Simpson and William S. Beck (1965), Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World), pp. 240-241; Erich Blechschmidt (1977), The Beginnings of Human Life (New York: Sringer-Verlag), p. 32; Sir Arthur Keith (1932), The Human Body (London: Thornton and Butterworth), p. 94.

31 W.R. Thompson (1956), “Introduction,” Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin (London: Dent, Everyman’s Library edition),  p. xvi; Jane M. Oppenheimer (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), p. 134; Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph S. Levine (2006), Biology (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), p. 385.

32 As quoted in Malcolm Bowden (1977), Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications), p. 76.

33 George Gaylord Simpson (1953), Life of the Past (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), p. 125, emp. added.

34 Stephen Jay Gould (2000), “Abscheulich! (Atrocious),” Natural History, 109[2]:42-50, March, paren. in orig., p. 45.

35 See also D. Raup (1979), “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, 50[1]:24-25.

36 “Whales Descended from Tiny Deer-like Creature” (2007), ScienceDaily, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071220220241.htm.

37 Jeff Miller (2019), “Does the Fossil Record Support Creation and the Flood?” Reason & Revelation, 39[7]:74-80.

38 Colin Patterson (1979), Letter of April 10, 1979 to Luther Sunderland: reprinted in Bible-Science Newsletter, 19[8]:8, August, 1981, emp. added.

39 E.g., Stephen Jay Gould (1980), The Panda’s Thumb (New York: W.W. Norton & Co.), pp. 181-182.

40 “Ancient Four-Legged Beasts Leave Their Mark” (2010), Science on-line, January 6, http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2010/01/ancient-four-legged-beasts-leave-their-mark.

41 E.g., the ostrich, African Turaco, and young South American Hoatzin.

42 E.g., Ichthyornis [see  The Editors of Encyclopaedia, “Ichthyornis” (2020), Encyclopedia Britannica, March 4, https://www.britannica.com/animal/Ichthyornis.], Hesperornis [The Editors of Encyclopaedia, “Hesperornis” (2021), Encyclopedia Britannica, December 16, https://www.britannica.com/animal/Hesperornis.], Hongshanornis [Riley Black (2014), “Feathery Fossil Offers Insights into the Flight and Diet of an Early Bird,” National Geographic on-line, January 8, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/feathery-fossil-offers-insights-into-the-flight-and-diet-of-an-early-bird.], and Sulcavis [see Riley Black (2013), “Fossil Bird Had Tough Teeth,” National Geographic on-line, January 13, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/fossil-bird-had-tough-teeth.]. See also the descriptions of Deinonychus and Cryptovolans in “Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origins of Flight” (2024), Arizona Museum of Natural History, https://www.arizonamuseumofnaturalhistory.org/explore-the-museum/exhibitions/previous-exhibitions/feathered-dinosaurs-and-the-origins-of-flight. See also “Pictures: Giant Fossil Bird Found With Spiky ‘Teeth’” (2010), National Geographic on-line, September 16, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/100915-giant-bird-wingspan-science-chilensis-teeth-pictures.

43 E.g., Anchiornis (see Black, 2014) and Protoavis [see Sankar Chatterjee (1999), “Protoavis and the Early Evolution of Birds,” Palaeontographica A, 254:1-100].

44 Henry Gee (1999), In Search of Deep Time (New York: The Free Press), pp. 195,197.

45 In regard to human evolution in particular, typical inadequate evidences would include the lack of necessary transitional forms to substantiate Darwinian evolution [see Jeff Miller (2023a), “Does the Evidence REALLY Support Human Evolution? (Part 1),” Reason & Revelation, 43[8]86-88, August]. Other inadequate evidences would include human-chimp DNA similarities [see Jeff Miller (2023b), “Does the Evidence REALLY Support Human Evolution? (Part 2),” Reason & Revelation, 43[9]:99, September].

46 Hans Hansen (2015), “Fallacies,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/. 

47 Richard Dawkins (1989), “In Short: Nonfiction,” The New York Times, April 9, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/09/books/in-short-nonfiction.html.

48 Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph S. Levine (2010), Biology (Boston, MA: Pearson), p. 472.

49 Steven Stanley (1977), Macroevolution (San Francisco, CA: Freeman), p. 39, emp. added.

50 In regard to human evolution in particular, typical irrelevant evidences would include the examples of species among the Australopithecines, which are now regarded as belonging on a side branch of the human evolutionary tree, rather than being our ancestors. Also included among the irrelevant evidences would be species from the genus Homo, which are generally all regarded as being varieties of human and, therefore, examples of micro-, not macroevolution  (see Miller (2023a), pp. 89-92).

51 In regard to human evolution in particular, typical erroneous evidences would include the many rash claims of transitional forms from the fossil record that have proved to be hoaxes and blunders (see Miller (2023a), pp. 88-89). Another erroneous evidence would include vestigial organs and genes, human-chimp chromosome fusion, mitochondrial DNA and “Eve” (see Miller (2023b), pp. 98-100).

52 Colin Patterson (1981), Written transcript made from audio tape of lecture presented at the American Museum of Natural History, November, emp. added.

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