THE THREE EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS

Evolutionists have their backs to the wall. All they can show for their efforts are three worn-out means by which evolution of plants and animals could possibly occur. Yet all three have been disproved by reputable scientists (See Natural Selection, Mutations, and the subsidiary articles under each of them.) Evolutionary theory is a myth. God created everything; the evidence clearly points to it. Nothing else can explain the mountain of evidence. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

CONTENTS: The Three Evolutionary Mechanisms

Natural Selection: This theory of random accidents was debunked by the early part of our century
Mutations: This theory of random accidents was dead by the middle of the century
Monster Mutations: In desperation, evolutionists are turning to this foolish idea, keyed to simultaneous, multimillion positive mutations

This material is excerpted from the book, MUTATIONS
. An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists.

The public is told that "evolution" produced all our modern species of plants and animals. But it is not told that scientists themselves have gradually, over the years, abandoned, one after another, the various means—the mechanisms—by which it could occur.

NATURAL SELECTION

This theory of random accidents was debunked by the early part of our century.

The first was "natural selection." This was a rather vague concept which *Charles Darwin suggested over a hundred years ago. According to the theory, accidental changes in plants and animals will always produce improvements which will keep changing each species of plant and animal into new and larger ones.

But, by the 1920s, the weaknesses in Darwin's theory had become more and more obvious. Neither plants nor animals ever produced new species, and there was no evidence from the fossil record that this had ever occurred in the past. All the changes which occurred were within species. In addition, the fossil record only had distinct species like the ones we have today, with only gaps between them. (For more on this see Natural Selection and Fossils and Strata.)

Although the public is told that Darwin was the great apostle of scientific evolution, his theory of natural selection was abandoned by most research scientists decades ago!

MUTATIONS

This theory of random accidents was dead by the middle of the century.

Gradually, scientists exchanged "Darwinism" for, what they called, "Neo-Darwinism." Classical "Darwinism" teaches evolution by natural selection. In contrast, "Neo-Darwinism" declares that it is mutations which have made the changes from one species to another, and that natural selection only produced further adaptation within those changed species. By the early 20th century, scientists were already trying to prove that mutations could really make such cross-species changes.

In 1902, *Walter S. Sutton and *T. Boveri independently discovered chromosomes and the linkage of genetic characters. Gregor Mendel's genetic research had only been rediscovered two years earlier. This discovery was to sound the death knell of natural selection as producer of new species.

In 1906, *Thomas Hunt Morgan began experimenting with fruit flies, in an effort to find evidence of cross-species changes. He was watching to see fruit flies change into something else! But, even though they reproduce very quickly (a total life cycle is only 12 days), such changes never occurred. Millions of generations of fruit flies have been examined over the years, without any evidence of cross-species change.

Later, *H.J. Muller, working at the University of Indiana, pioneered in using X rays to induce mutations in fruit flies. (The discovery that X rays could produce mutations was made shortly before in 1927.)

But, with the passing of years, more and more scientists began to realize that mutations never produce cross-species changes. Instead, they only weaken, damage, sterilize, or kill the creatures that the mutations occur in. (For more on this go to Mutations.) Many researchers had given their lifetime to the attempt. The situation was becoming desperate.

MONSTER MUTATIONS

In desperation, evolutionists are turning to this foolish idea, keyed to simultaneous, multimillion positive mutations.

*Richard Goldschmidt spent 25 years trying to get the gypsy moth to change into something else. Using X rays, he was able to compress the mutational changes of millions of years into a short time. Yet all he succeeded in doing was to produce damaged and dead gypsy moths.

By 1933, Goldschmidt recognized that he was getting nowhere. So he developed a new theory to explain evolution, which was even more impossible than the earlier ones.

His idea was that every so many hundreds of thousands of years, millions of favorable mutations would occur in one egg, and it would hatch into a totally new creature. He called this the "saltation" (leap) theory, and he called the emerging new species a "hopeful monster."

Scientists laughed and laughed at such a foolish theory; but, with the passing of years, a large number of them recognized that neither natural selection nor simple mutations could produce the needed cross-species changes.

In 1977, *Stephen Jay Gould, a Harvard professor and leading paleontologist (fossil expert), declared that there were no transitions between species in the fossil record, and therefore *Goldschmidt's theory must be right after all!

Gould said this rare monster-mutation event occurred once every 50,000 years, and had produced all our millions of species. Because the earlier theories had failed and Gould was the leading evolutionary spokesman of the latter half of the 20th century, his revolutionary article was carefully considered.

*Steven M. Stanley, of Johns Hopkins University, is another leading paleontologist. He has come to the same conclusion as Gould, and he gave the monster theory a new name: "quantum speciation." Like the monster advocates before him, he said that nature only produces such a multimillion-positive-mutation creature once every 50,000 years—but, Stanley added, by sheerest coincidence two (male and female) are produced each time.

At the present time, the monster theory is accepted by a growing number of evolutionary scientists. It fits in with two facts: (1) all species, past and present, have always been distinct, with no transitions between them; and (2) no new species are occurring now.

But the foolishness of this theory is even more quickly apparent than were those of natural selection and mutations. (See Monster Mutation Theory for more details on this.)

(1) Mathematics denies the possibility that sudden, multimillion positive-mutations could occur all at once. (2) Each such occurrence is said to occur only once every 50,000 years, yet two such accidental events would have had to occur within a mile or two of each other—and one would have had to be a male and the other a female. (3) One new species every 50,000 years could not produce all the species we now have. (*Gould and company have to stay with long-time periods to avoid the problem of why it is not happening today.) (4) Each new accident requires that all the mutations be positive and harmoniously interrelated.

Those are the only three evolutionary theories of trans-species changeover which are accepted by any evolutionists today. Yet all three are unworkable.

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