FAIRY TALES FOR BIG PEOPLE

The facts of nature cannot be explained by the simplistic theories of evolutionists, but they keep trying. Here are some of the funniest stories you have ever heard. But you are not supposed to laugh. For this is evolutionary "science." This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

CONTENTS: Fairy Tales for Big People

Introduction: Alice in Wonderland stories are still being invented
Where the Whale Came from: *Charles invented this one
How the Elephant Got Its Long Nose: We slipped in one here from a child's story book. But it remarkably matches the next one
How the Giraffe Got Its Long Neck: The giraffe really had to stretch in order to get where he is today
How the Catfish Learned to Walk: Oh, not really! Yes, it really happened. Just ask any evolutionist. That fish became grandpa to all the land animals!
A Living Creature Emerges from the Dust: Let's compare the evolutionists' theory about the origin of living creatures—with a tall tale which won a prize
How the Fish Got Its Shape: It is old-fashioned Lamarckian inheritance all over again: the inheritance of acquired characteristics
When the Whale Got Back into the Water: The stories get funnier all the time

This material is excerpted from the book, HISTORY OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY.  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.

INTRODUCTION

"Rudyard Kipling, in addition to his journalism, adventure stories and chronicling of the British Raj in India is remembered for a series of charming children's tales about the origins of animals. The Just-So Stories (1902) are fanciful explanations of how . . the camel got his hump (rolling around in lumpy sand dunes). Modeled on the folktales of tribal peoples, they express humor, morality or whimsy in `explaining' how various animals gained their special characteristics.

" `Not long ago,' writes science historian Michael Ghiselin, `Biological literature was full of `just-so' stories and pseudo-explanations about structures that had developed `for the good of the species.' " Armchair biologists would construct logical, plausible explanations of why a structure benefited a species or how it had been of value in earlier stages."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 245.

Times have not changed; in fact things are getting worse. *Darwin's book was full of just-so explanations, and modern theorists continue in the tradition of ignoring facts and laws as they search for still more implausible theories about where stars, planets, and living organisms came from.

When they are written for little people, they are called fairy stories; but when prepared for big people, they are called "the frontiers of evolutionary science."

In this section, we will read together from stories put together by Uncle Charlie and Friends. For purposes of comparison, the first and third stories will be by Uncle Charlie, and the second will be by a well-known fiction writer for very small children. See if you can tell the difference:

1: WHERE THE WHALE CAME FROM

*Charles Darwin explains how the "monstrous whale" originated:

"In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with wide open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits with larger and larger mouths till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."—*Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859; 1964 edition), p. 184.

2: HOW THE ELEPHANT GOT ITS LONG NOSE

We have slipped one story in here that was written for children, not for adults. But, really now, there isn't much difference.

Once a baby elephant was not staying close to his mamma as he was supposed to. Wandering away, he saw the bright shiny river and stepped closer to investigate. There was a bump sticking out of the water; and, wondering what it was, he leaned forward to get a closer look. Suddenly that bump—with all that was attached to it—jumped up and grabbed the nose of the little elephant. Kipling continues the story:

" `Then the elephant's child sat back on his little haunches and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the crocodile floundered toward the bank, making the water all creamy with great sweeps of his tail; and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.' "—*Rudyard Kipling, children's story, quoted in Wayne Frair and Percival Davis, Case for Creation (1983), p. 130. And that is how the elephant got its long nose.

3: HOW THE GIRAFFE GOT ITS LONG NECK

The giraffe used to look just like other grazing animals in Africa, but while the other animals were content to eat the grasses growing in the field and the leaves on the lower branches, the giraffe felt that the survival of his fittest depended on reaching up and plucking leaves from still higher branches. This went on for a time, as he and his brothers and sisters kept reaching ever higher. Only those that reached the highest branches of leaves survived. All the other giraffes in the meadow died from starvation, all because they were too proud to bend down and eat the lush vegetation that all the other animals were eating. So only the longest-necked giraffes had enough food to eat. All the other giraffes starved to death. Sad story; don't you think? But that is the story of how the giraffe grew its long neck.

Picture the tragic tale: Dead giraffes lying about in the grass while the short-necked grazers, such as the antelope and gazelle, walked by them, having plenty to eat. So there is a lesson for us; do not be too proud to bend your neck down and eat. Oh, you say, but their necks were, by that time, too long to bend down to eat the grass! Not so; every giraffe has to bend its neck down to get water to drink. Darwin's giraffes died of starvation, not thirst. So that is how the giraffe acquired its long neck, according to the pioneer thinkers of a century ago, the men who gave us our basic evolutionary theories.

"We know that this animal, the tallest of mammals, dwells in the interior of Africa, in places where the soil, almost always arid and without herbage [not true], obliges it to browse on trees and to strain itself continuously to reach them. This habit, sustained for long, has had the result, in all members of its race, that the forelegs have grown longer than the hind legs and that its neck has become so stretched that the giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, lifts its head to a height of six meters."—Jean-Baptist de Monet (1744-1829), quoted in Asimov's Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 87.

"So under nature with the nascent giraffe, the individuals which were the highest browsers and were able, during dearths, to reach even an inch or two above the others, will often have been preserved . . By this process long-continued . . combined no doubt in a most important manner with the inherited effects of increased use of parts, it seems to me almost certain that any ordinary hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe."—*Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1859), p. 202.

Gather around and listen; we're not finished with giraffes yet. The story goes something like this: "Once long ago, the giraffe kept reaching up into the higher branches to obtain enough food to keep it from perishing. But, because only those giraffes with the longest necks were fittest, only the males survived—because none of the females were as tall! That is why there are no female giraffes in Africa today." End of tale. You don't believe It? Well, read on:

"This issue [of how the giraffe got its long neck] came up on one occasion in a pre-med class in the University of Toronto. The lecturer did not lack enthusiasm for his subject, and I'm sure the students were duly impressed with this illustration of how the giraffe got its long neck and of the power of natural selection.

"But I asked the lecturer if there were any difference in height between the males and the females. He paused for a minute as the possible significance of the question seemed to sink in. After a while he said, `I don't know. I shall look into it.' Then he explained to the class that if the difference [in male and female giraffe neck lengths] was substantial, it could put a crimp in the illustration unless the males were uncommonly gentlemanly and stood back to allow the females `to survive as well.'

"He never did come back with an answer to my question; but, in due course, I found it for myself. According to Jones, the female giraffe is 24 inches shorter than the male. The observation is confirmed by Cannon. Interestingly, the Reader's Digest publication, The Living World of Animals, extends the potential difference to 3 feet!

"Yet Life magazine a while ago presented the giraffe story as a most convincing example of natural selection at work."—Arthur C. Custance, "Equal Rights Amendment for Giraffes? in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1980, p. 230 [references cited: 8F. Wood Jones, Trends of Life (1953), p. 93; *H. Graham Cannon, Evolution of Living Things (1958), p. 139; *Reader's Digest World of Animals, 1970, p. 102].

Sunderland compares the tall tale with scientific information:

"It is speculated by neo-Darwinists that some ancestor of the giraffe gradually got longer and longer bones in the neck and legs over millions of years. If this were true, one might predict that there would be fossils showing some of the intermediate forms or perhaps some living forms today with medium-sized necks. Absolutely no such intermediates have been found either among the fossil or living even-toed ungulates that would connect the giraffe with any other creature.

"Evolutionists cannot explain why the giraffe is the only four-legged creature with a really long neck and yet everything else in the world [without that long neck] survived. Many short-necked animals, of course, existed side by side in the same locale as the giraffe. Darwin even mentioned this possible criticism in The Origin, but tried to explain it away and ignore it.

"Furthermore it is not possible for evolutionists to make up a plausible scenario for the origination of either the giraffe's long neck or its complicated blood pressure regulating system. This amazing feature generates extremely high pressure to pump the blood up to the 20-foot high brain and then quickly reduces the pressure to prevent brain damage when the animal bends down to take a drink. After over a century of the most intensive exploration for fossils, the world's museums cannot display a single intermediate form that would connect the giraffe with any other creature."—Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1988), pp. 83-84.

4: HOW THE CATFISH LEARNED TO WALK

There is a fish or two known to walk on land for a short distance, and then jump back into the water. But there are none that stay there and change into reptiles! In an appendix section at the back of our book, Fossils and Strata
, several interviews with leading fossil experts are discussed. In these interviews, each paleontologist is asked about that great evolutionary "fish story"—the first fish that began walking on land—which then became the grandpa of all the land animals! Although this is a basic teaching of evolutionary theory, none of the interview experts knew of any fossil evidence proving that any fish had ever grown legs and feet and began walking on land!

The Kingston Whig-Standard for 7 October 1976, on page 24, had a brief account from Jonesboro, Tennessee, of the U.S. National Story-telling Festival held there. One particular tall story was as follows:

" `The storyteller, as a boy, while fishing one day caught a catfish, but he threw it back. The following day he caught it again. This time he kept it out of the water for a little longer, and then threw it back. And so it continued all summer; the fish staying out of the water for longer and longer periods until it became accustomed to living on land.

" `At the end of the summer, as the boy was walking to school, the fish jumped out of the water and began following him like a dog. All went well until they started across an old bridge with a plank missing. Then the catfish, alas, fell through the hole in the bridge into the water below and drowned.' "—Harold L. Armstrong, News note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1977, p. 230.

5: A LIVING CREATURE EMERGES FROM THE DUST

We have another story for little children. Gather around and listen closely, for only the gullible could find it believable:

"Long ago and far away, there was a pile of sand by the seashore. It looked just like regular sand, and so it was. Water was lapping at the shore. It looked just like regular water, and so it was. Then a storm arose and lightning flashed. Nothing ran for cover, for nothing was alive. Then the bolt of lightning hit the water—and a living creature came into existence. It swam around for a time, had children and, later, descendants. Thousands of years later it gradually figured out how to invent various organs necessary for survival (such as the heart and kidneys). And they eventually learned how to reproduce and bear young."

That story would only work for children below the age of six. Above that, they would reply, "Come on, now, you're just fibbing!" A competent geneticist would die laughing. Yet that is essentially what evolutionary theory teaches.

Here is another story of life arising out of the soil, where no life had been before. This tale was originally told not to young moderns, but to ancient ones. It is a pagan myth:

"Phoenix was a fabulous eagle-like bird which existed in the folklore of ancient Egypt. It is said that no more than one of these great birds ever lived at any one time. The solitary nature of Phoenix naturally presented a problem from the standpoint of procreation. Reproduction, however, was solved in a rather unique way. At the end of its life span of no less than 500 years, the bird would construct a nest of combustible materials and species, set the nest on fire, and it would be consumed in the flames.

"Then, lo and behold, from the inert ashes would spring a new Phoenix!

"In the history of mythology, the story of Phoenix is one of the few instances, if not the only one, in which something complex is constructed from lifeless matter, completely unaided."—Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism (1986), p. 101.

Concern not yourself with foolish prattle by men of science about DNA and amino acid codes, concentrated chemical compounds, continuing need for energy, food requirements, necessity for complex male and female reproduction systems, cell contents, bone construction, hormones, gastrointestinal system, brain, heart, nerves, circulatory system, lymphatics, and all the rest. Be content with the tale as it reads: "Lightning hit some seawater and changed it into a living organism, and then that organism had enough brains to continually redo its DNA coding so it could gradually change into transitional forms and make itself into ever-new species." Ignore the fact that it never happens today, and no evidence is available that it has ever occurred in the past. Those enamored with the story give no thought to scientific facts which forbid it.

6: HOW THE FISH GOT ITS SHAPE

We could cite many more examples from evolutionary literature, but a couple should suffice. First, here is how the fish got its shape:

"The fish has assumed its present shape through many millions of years of natural selection. That is, the individuals of each species best suited for their particular environment had a better chance to survive long enough to produce and pass on their genetic material to their offspring, who then did the same. Those less suited neither moved to more suitable environments or died before reproducing and passing their genes to offspring."—*Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau, Vol. 5, The Art of Motion, p. 22.

In the above book, a wide variety of fish shapes are described. But the reader is told that each fish shape was, in effect, the result of Lamarckian inheritance. Each fish subtly changed its DNA code, passed these changes on to its offspring, and by environmental effects, one species changed itself into another. That is Lamarckian evolution. The book tells of fast fish and slow fish, all doing well in the water. But the claim is essentially made that the fast fish made themselves fast or they would have perished, and the slow fish made themselves slow or they would have perished. The changes were made by each fish, with genetic alterations passed on to its immediate children.

We know that gene shuffling can produce some changes within species, but none across species, and not the kind of radical changes suggested here. This fish story is akin to the giraffe's long neck. Just as a giraffe cannot grow a longer neck, so a fish cannot change its shape. Such dramatic changes would be equivalent to a change in species.

7: WHEN THE WHALE GOT BACK INTO THE WATER

Adapting *Darwin's theory that a land animal, the bear, changed itself into a whale, evolutionists went ahead and made it an even more complex fish story. With serious face, they declare that after that fish got out of water and began walking, it then changed itself into a land animal. But this one stepped back into the water and became a whale!

"The cetaceans, which include the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, have become adapted to a totally aquatic life since their ancestors, but most people consider them to have been omnivorous animals, possibly like some hoofed animals today . .

"The most important changes were those having to do with the way the animals moved and breathed. They reassumed the fusiform [torpedo-like] shape of early fish. The bones in their necks became shorter until there was no longer any narrowing between head and body. [Their necks disappeared.] With water to support their weight, they became rounded or cylindrical in body shape, reducing the drag irregularities. From limbs adapted by becoming broad, flat, paddle-like organs . . The tails developed into flukes [horizontal tail fins] . .

"Another change the cetaceans underwent in adapting to their re-entry to the sea was the position of their nostrils. From a position on the upper jaw as far as possible, the nostrils moved upward and backward until they are today located atop the head, sometimes as a single opening, sometimes as a double opening. And these returned-to-sea mammals became voluntary breathers, breathing only upon conscious effort—unlike man and other mammals who are involuntary breathers. The development or return of a dorsal fin for lateral stability was another change that took place in some of the cetaceans upon their return to the sea."—*Op. cit., pp. 26-27.

This story is even more stretched than Kipling's story about the crocodile stretching the elephant's nose! A mammal walked into the ocean and—instead of drowning—continued to live for the rest of its life as it swam around in the ocean! THAT is really a fish story! Gradually it and its offspring made changes so that they could get about easier in the ocean. But how did it survive until those changes were made?

"Particularly difficult to accept as chance processes are those prolonged changes which lead to a new life-style, such as the evolution of birds from reptiles or—perhaps odder—the return of mammals to a life in the sea, as in the case of dolphins and whales."—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 160.

Even Gould classifies them as children's stories:

"What good is half a jaw or half a wing . . These tales, in the `Just-So Stories' tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything . . concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal much to me."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, June / July 1977.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

To the next topic in this series: PANSPERMIA: The fantastic "life spore" theory flies in the face of scientific facts and common sense.