Chapter 11b:
Animal & Plant Species
Why the Species Barrier cannot be Broken
LOSS OF FITNESS—Not only is there a limiting wall that will always be reached,—but as the researcher nears that outer wall, the subjects being bred become weaker. The variations made within those borders do not actually bring overall improvements in the corn, cows, and chickens. All of the apparent improvement is made at the expense of overall fitness for life. Gish explains why this is so:
"It must be strongly emphasized, also, that in all cases these specialized breeds possess reduced viability; that is, their basic ability to survive has been weakened. Domesticated plants and animals do not compete well with the original, or wild type . . They survive only because they are maintained in an environment which is free from their natural enemies, food supplies are abundant, and other conditions are carefully regulated."—Duane Gish, Evolution: Challenge of the Fossil Record (1985), p. 34.
"Our domesticated animals and plants are perhaps the best demonstration of the effects of this principle. The improvements that have been made by selection in these have clearly been accompanied by a reduction of fitness for life under natural conditions, and only the fact that domesticated animals and plants do not live under natural conditions has allowed these improvements to be made."—*O.S. Falconer, introduction to Quantitative Genetics (1960), p. 186.
GENE DEPLETION—The scientific name for this loss of fitness through adaptation is gene depletion. According to this principle, selective breeding always weakens a species—and never strengthens it.
"[The original species came into existence] with rich potential for genetic variation into races, breeds, hybrids, etc. But so far from developing into new kinds, or even improving existing kinds, such variations are always characterized by intrinsic genetic weakness of individuals, in accordance with the outworking of the second law of thermodynamics through gene depletion and the accumulation of harmful mutations. Thus, the changes that occur in living things through the passage of time are always within strict boundary lines."—John C. Whitcomb, The Early Earth (1986), p. 94.
In chapter 10, Mutations, we mentioned the genetic load, mentioned in the above quotation.
The original stock was strong, but as it branched out into variations within its kind, it became weakened. That is gene depletion. In addition, with the passing of time, genes are damaged through random radiation and mutations occur. Such mutations are also weakening, and gradually a genetic load is built up.
Thus we see that, on one hand, the farther the species strays from its central original pattern, the weaker it becomes (gene depletion). On the other, as the centuries continue on, mutational weaknesses increase in all varieties of a given species (genetic load).
The total picture is not one of evolving upward, strengthening, improving, or changing into new and diverse species.
EVOLUTION WOULD WEAKEN AND NARROW—It is an astounding fact that evolutionary theory, if true, could only produce ever weaker creatures with continually narrowed adaptive traits. A Dutch zoologist, *J.J. Duyvene de Wit, explains that if man were descended from animal ancestors, "man should possess a smaller gene-potential than his animal ancestors"! (*J.J. Duyvene de Wit, A New Critique of the Transformist Principle in Evolutionary Biology, 1965, pp. 56, 57).
Well, that is a breath-taking discovery! If we had actually descended from monkeys, then we would have less genetic potential than they have! Our anatomy, physiology, brains, hormones, etc. would be less competent than that of a great ape.
In turn, the monkey is supposedly descended from something else, and would therefore have less genetic capacity than its supposed ancestor had. Somewhere back there, the first descendant came from protozoa. All that follows in the evolutionary ladder would have to have considerably less genetic potential than protozoa! That point alone eliminates biological evolution!
How can evolutionary theory survive such facts! It can only be done by hiding those facts. Evolution ranks as one of the most far-fetched ideas of our time; yet it has a lock-grip on all scientific thought and research. The theory twists data and warps conclusions in an effort to vindicate itself. Just imagine how much further along the path of research and discovery we would have been if, a hundred years ago, we had throttled evolutionary theory to death.
SELECTIVE BREEDING—Selective breeding occurs when people thoughtfully select out the best rose, ear of corn, or milk cow; and then, through careful breeding, they produce better roses, corn ears, or milk cows. But please notice several facts in connection with this:
(1) "Selection" requires intelligence, planning, and consistent effort by someone who is not the rose, corn, or cow. Random action is not "selection." Therefore "natural selection" is a misnomer. It should be called "random activity." The word "selection" implies intelligent decision-making. "Meaningless muddling" would better fit the parameters the evolutionists have in mind.
(2) Contrary to what the evolutionists claim, selective breeding can provide no evidence of evolution, since it is intelligent, carefully planned activity; whereas evolution, by definition, is random occurrences.
(3) Although random accidents could never produce new species,—neither can intelligent selective breeding! Selective breeding never, never produces new species. But if it cannot effect trans-species changes, we can have no hope that evolutionary chance operations could do it.
(4) Selective breeding narrows the genetic pool; although it may have produced a nicer-appearing rose, at the same time it weakened the rose plant that grew that rose. Selective breeding may improve a selected trait, but tends to weaken the whole organism.
Because of this weakening factor, national and international organizations are now collecting and storing "seed banks" of primitive seed. It is feared that diseases may eventually wipe out our specialized crops, and we need to be able to go back and replenish from the originals: rice, corn, tomatoes, etc.
POPULATION GENETICS—(*#5/7 Population Genetics Fails to Prove Evolution*) A related area is termed population genetics; and it is declared, by evolutionists, to be another grand proof of their theory. Population genetics looks at locations of species and variations within species found there,—and theorizes evolutionary causes and effects.
This field of study includes analysis of: (1) "geographic isolation" of species and sub-species produced by that species while in isolation. Some of these sub-species may eventually no longer interbreed with related sub-species, but they are obviously closely related sub-species. (2) "Migration of populations" into new areas resulting occasionally in permanent colonization. Additional sub-species are produced in this way. (3) "Genetic drift" is analyzed. This is the genetic contribution of a particular population to its offspring.
Variability here arises primarily from normal gene reshuffling. It is because of gene reshuffling that your children do not look identical to you. This is quite normal, and does not make your children new species!
Population genetics, then, is the study of changes in sub-species. The information produced is interesting, but it provides no evidence of evolution, because it only concerns sub-species.
A field closely related to population genetics is selective breeding of plants and animals. But a favorite study of the population geneticists is people. Human beings are all one species. Population genetics analyzes changes within the "people species." Yet changes within a species is not evolution.
"It is an irony of evolutionary genetics that, although it is a fusion of Mendelism and Darwinism, it has made no direct contribution to what Darwin obviously saw as the fundamental problem: the origin of species."—*Richard Lewontin, Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change (1974), p. 159.
"The leading workers in this field have confessed, more or less reluctantly, that population genetics contributes very little to evolutionary theory . . If the leading authorities on population genetics confess to this dismal lack of achievement and even chuckle about it, it is altogether fitting and proper for the rank and file to take them at their word. Therefore it seems to follow that there is no need to teach population genetics."—*E. Saiff and *N. Macbeth, "Population Genetics and Evolutionary Theory" in Tuatara 26 (1983), pp. 71-72.
GENETIC DRIFT—"Genetic Drift" is frequently spoken of as another "evidence" of evolution, but even confirmed evolutionists admit it proves nothing in regard to evolution. Genetic drift is changes in small groups of sub-species that, over a period of time, have become separated from the rest of their species. Oddities in their DNA code factors became more prominent, yet they all remained in the same species.
*Frank Rhodes (Evolution, 1974, p. 75) explains that all that "genetic drift" refers to is changes in a "sub-species" of a plant or animal (or in a "race," which is a sub-species among human beings). Even *Rhodes recognizes that genetic drift provides no evidence of change from one species to another. All the drift has been found to be within species and never across them.
THE MALE/FEMALE REQUIREMENT—Inherent in the species quandary is the male and female element problem. It would be so much easier to bear young and, hopefully, produce new species, if everyone were females. But because it requires both a male and female to produce offspring, any possibility of going trans-species would mean producing not one new creature—but two! Only recently was the extent of this problem fully realized.
It was supposed that mingling two sets of genes would produce a new creature; but, in 1984, researchers working with mice tried to fertilize mouse eggs with equal sets of mouse genes from other females. But they found a male gene was required. There are very real differences between identical chemical structures produced by males and females. In addition, the male proteins on the surface of the developing fetus and placenta modify the mother’s immune response so that she does not reject the growing child.
How could two of each species—independent of each other—evolve? Yet this is what had to happen. The male and female of each species are forever uniquely separate from one another in a variety of ways, yet perfectly matching partners—a male and female—would have had to evolve together, at each step. Evolution cannot explain this.
"From an evolutionary viewpoint, the sex differentiation is impossible to understand, as well as the structural sexual differences between the systematic categories which are sometimes immense. We know that intersexes within a species must be sterile. How is it, then, possible to imagine bridges between two amazingly different structural types?"—*Nilsson, Synthetic Speciation, p. 1225.
"This book is written from a conviction that the prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and animals is inconsistent with current evolutionary theory."— *George C. Williams, Sex and Evolution (1975), p. v.
"Indeed, the persistence of sex is one of the fundamental mysteries in evolutionary biology today."—*Gina Maranto and Shannon Brownlee, "Why Sex?" Discover, February 1984, p. 24.
"So why is there sex? We do not have a compelling answer to the question. Despite some ingenious suggestions by orthodox Darwinians, there is no convincing Darwinian history for the emergence of sexual reproduction."—*Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (1982), p. 54.
ALTERNATE ORIGINS OF THE SPECIES—Because of the inflexible nature of the species, *Austin H. Clark, a distinguished biologist on the staff of the Smithsonian Institution, wrote a shocking book in 1930. He concluded that, since there was no evidence now or earlier of any cross-overs between species,—all of the major groups of plants and animals must have independently originated out of raw dirt and seawater!
"From all the tangible evidence that we now have been able to discover, we are forced to the conclusion that all the major groups of animals at the very first held just about the same relation to each other that they do today."—*A.H. Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis (1930), p. 211.
The fossil evidence indicating no transitional forms, but only gaps between species, would have proved his point. But *Clark ignored that and said that separate evolutions and origins had to have occurred—just because there were simply too many differences between the various life forms. They could not possibly have evolved from each other.
Clark’s book shook up the scientific world. The evolutionists tried to quiet matters; but about a decade later, *Richard Goldschmidt, of the University of California at Berkeley, published a different alternative view: Gigantic million-fold mutations must have occurred all at once, that suddenly changed one species to another. Goldschmidt’s dreamy theory is today becoming more accepted by evolutionists, under the leadership of *Stephen Jay Gould.
*Clark recognized the impossibility of evolution across major groups of plants and animals. Therefore he said each one independently originated out of sand and seawater. *Goldschmidt and *Gould recognized the impossibility of evolution across species, so they theorized that once every 50,000 years or so, a billion positive, cooperative, networking mutations suddenly appeared by chance and produced a new species. (For more on this, see chapter 10, Mutations.)
THE CLADISTS—(*#6/5 Cladists against Evolution*) What about the experts who classify plants and animals; what do they think about all this controversy over species and ancestral relationships?
Scientists who specialize in categorizing life forms are called taxonomists. A surprising number of them have joined the ranks of the cladists.
Cladistics comes from a Greek noun for "branch." Cladists are scientists who study biological classifications solely for its own sake—for the purpose of discovering relationship, apart from any concern to determine ancestry or origins. In other words, the cladists are scientists who have seen so much evidence in plants and animals that evolution is not true; that, as far as they are concerned, they have tossed it out the window and instead simply study plants and animals. They want to know about life forms because they are interested in life forms, not because they are trying to prove evolution.
Cladists are biological classification specialists who have given up on evolution. They recognize it to be a foolish, unworkable theory, and they want to study plants and animals without being required to "fit" their discoveries into the evolutionary "ancestor" and "descendant" mold. They are true scientists who are concerned with reality, not imaginings.
A leading British scientist and life-long evolutionist says this:
"So now we can see the full extent of the doubts. The transformed cladists claim that evolution is totally unnecessary for good taxonomy; at the same time they are unconvinced by the Darwinian explanation of how new species arise. To them, therefore, the history of life is still fiction rather than fact and the Darwinian penchant for explaining evolution in terms of adaptation and selection is largely empty rhetoric . . It seems to me that the theoretical framework [of evolutionary theory] has very little impact on the actual progress of the work in biological research. In a way some aspects of Darwinism and of neo-Darwinism seem to me to have held back the progress of science."—*Colin Patterson, The Listener. [Patterson is senior paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History, London.]
THE SPECIES ARE NOT CHANGING—If one species cannot change into another, there can be no evolution. But this should not be surprising. For example, the fossil record reveals that the bat has not changed since it first appeared in the fossil record, supposedly "50 million years ago,"—and there was no transitional form preceding it. The same can be said for the other creatures. Throughout the fossil record, there are only solid, fixed forms and wide gaps between species. Those gaps are no surprise to us, but they are agonizing for the evolutionists. In chapter 12, Fossils and Strata, we go into detail on such matters.
"No one has ever produced a species by mechanisms of natural selection. No one has gotten near it."—*Colin Patterson, "Cladistics," in BBC Radio Interview, March 4, 1982.
"Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappeared; morphological change is usually limited and directionless."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution’s Erratic Pace," in Natural History, April 1980, p. 144.
"Evolution requires intermediate forms between species, and paleontology [the study of fossils] does not provide them."—*David Kitts, "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory" in Evolution, September 1974, p. 467.
All this is a most terrible problem for the evolutionists.
"Evolution is . . troubled from within by the troubling complexities of genetic and developmental mechanisms and new questions about the central mystery—speciation itself."—*Keith S. Thomson, "The Meanings of Evolution" in American Scientist, September/October 1982, p. 529.
Evolutionists have reason to be troubled: All the evidence they can find to substantiate their claims is changes within species (so-called "microevolution," which is not evolution), never changes across species ("macroevolution," which is evolution).
"Two very influential books in recent years have been the beautifully colored Life Nature Library volume, Evolution, by Ruth Moore and the Editors of Life, and the even more beautifully colored and produced volume, Atlas of Evolution, by Sir Gavin de Beer. The impressive demonstrable evidence which fills these volumes is micro-evolution only!"—Frank Marsh, "The Form and Structure of Living Things," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1969, p. 21 (italics his).
NO TRANSITIONAL SPECIES—The speciation problem is a gap problem. There are no transitional species, as there ought to be if evolution were true.
But we find there are absolutely no transitional forms to fill the gaps. In desperation, evolutionists have come up with an answer: "The transitions were made so slowly that they left no remains behind."—Wait a minute! How can that be? The more slowly the transitions, the larger would be the number of transitional forms that would be in the fossil strata for posterity to examine! (*Steven M. Stanley, "Macroevolution and the Fossil Record" in Evolution, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1982, p. 460).
—And none other than *Charles Darwin himself agrees with us!
"When we descend to details, we can prove that no species has changed [we cannot prove that a single species has changed]; nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory."—*Charles Darwin, in *Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Vol. 2 (1887), p. 210.
IT TAKES A MILLION YEARS TO MAKE ONE SPECIES—(*#7/4 Millions of Years for One Species*) That is what the evolutionists say! How can there be millions of species, when the evolutionists tell us it takes a million years to make just one of them?
"It takes a million years to evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million for a class, a billion for a phylum—and that’s usually as far as your imagination goes.
"In a billion years [from now], it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects . . To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it’s the kind of change you’d expect over billions of years."—*Freeman Dyson, Statement made in 1986, quoted in Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 93 [American mathematician].
If it takes a million years to produce just one new species,—there would not have been time for the millions of present species in the world to come into existence.
There just is not enough time for all those species changes to occur. Evolutionary dogma states that nothing was alive on Planet Earth over 2 billion years ago, and that all the evolving of life forms has occurred within that brief time span.
"Evolution is surmised to be of the order of two billion years . . from causes which now continue to be in operation, and which therefore can be studied experimentally."—*Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of Species (1951), pp. 3-11 [Columbia University].
Two billion is only 2 thousand million. If it takes a million years to produce one species change, there would only be time for 2000 new species to be produced. An evolutionist would reply that more than one species was changing at the same time in various parts of the world, and this is how all our present millions of species could evolve into existence in 2 billion years.
But that is an oversimplification. What about the theoretical stairstep pattern from the first single-celled creature that made itself out of sand and seawater to man? That single stairstep progression alone would require hundreds of thousands of major changes! Yet only "millions of years" are provided for all the changes to come about.
"Evolution, in very simple terms, means that life progressed from one-celled organisms to its highest state, the human being, by means of a series of biological changes taking place over millions of years."—*Houston Post, August 23, 1964, p. 6.
Billions of transitional species would have to occur in order to climb the evolutionary stairs from amoeba to man. Those transitional forms simply do not exist; they never have existed. There are only gaps between the species. But the transitional forms would have had to be there in order for evolution to have occurred. It could not take place without them.
Even the evolutionists themselves avow that these cross-species changes take place so slowly, that they are not seen within a single lifetime.
"Evolution, at least in the sense that Darwin speaks of it, cannot be detected within the lifetime of a single observer."—*David G. Kitts, "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," Evolution, Vol. 28, September 1974, p. 466.
If the transitional changes occur that slowly, then there should be vast numbers of transitional species living today, as well as etched into the fossil record. But they are not to be found. They do not exist; they have never existed.
The above statement by *Kitts indicates that, although it cannot be seen within a single generation, cross-species changes should be observed over a span of several generations. Why then do the hundreds of thousands of paintings from past centuries reveal man and animals to be just as they are today? We can go back thousands of years into the artwork of the past, and find no species change in man or animal. Five thousand years divided by 25 years per generation is 200 generations from our time to the earliest Egyptians. Five thousand years has produced no evolutionary change.
Yet we have only been speaking about the ladder from microbe to man. What about the hundreds of thousands of other ladders? For every species, a ladder of transitional forms leading up to it should be found.
Billions upon billions of transitional species should be engraved in the fossil rock and in nature today. Yet we see none of this. Over a hundred years of frantic searching by evolutionists has not produced even one transitional form! The transitions cannot be found since they have never existed.
SUB-SPECIES RUNNING WILD—New sub-species can be produced very fast,—and they are being produced today! Gene reshuffling does this. When isolated for several years, they sometimes no longer breed across sub-species,—yet they are still sub-species and not different species. Here are some examples:
"A strain of Drosophila paulistorum which was fully interfertile with other strains when first collected, developed hybrid sterility after having been isolated in a separate culture for just a few years . .
"Five endemic species of cichlid [fish] are found in Lake Nabugabo, a small lake which has been isolated from Lake Victoria for less than 4000 years . .
"In birds we have the classic example of the European house sparrow (Passer domesticus) which was introduced into North America about 1852. Since then the sparrows have spread and become geographically differentiated into races that are adapted in weight, in length of wing and of bill, and in coloration, to different North American environments . . Yet it has been accomplished in only about 118 generations (to 1980).
"By 1933 the sparrow had reached Mexico City where it has since formed a distinct sub-species. R.E. Moreau had concluded in 1930 that the minimum time required [by evolution] for a bird to achieve that sub-species step was 5,000 years; the sparrow required just 30 years. As has been aptly commented:
" ‘We can here judge the value of speculation compared with observation in analyzing evolution’ " (E.B. Ford, Genetics and Maptation, 1976).
"Rabbits were introduced into Australia about 1859; yet the wealth of variation now present there is very extensive, vastly exceeding that apparent in the European stock (Wildlife Research 10, 73-82, 1965)."— A.J. Jones, "Genetic Integrity of the ‘Kinds’ (Baramins)," Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1982, p. 17.
The above facts explain why there is such an abundance of so-called "species" in the world today. In reality, an immense number of them are just sub-species.
"According to the late Theodosius Dobzhansky, on our planet we have 1,071,500 species of animals, 368,715 species of plants, and 3230 monerans (blue-green algae, bacteria, viruses). Sabrosky tells us that the arthropods constitute about 82 percent of all animal species; among the arthropods some 92 percent are insects; and among the insects about 40 percent are beetles."—Frank L. Marsh, "Genetic Variation, Limitless or Limited?" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1983, p. 204.
There is far too much jumbling of sub-species with species by the taxonomists. Scientists frequently use the word "species" in a loose sense to include a multitude of sub-species. Repeatedly, a sub-species is given a species name.
THERE SHOULD BE NO SPECIES—In fact, if evolution were true, there should not be any distinct species at all! There would only be innumerable transitions! Categories of plants and animals can be arranged in orderly systems only because of the separateness of the species. But if evolutionary theory is correct, there could be no distinct species. Instead, there would only be a confused blur of transitional forms, each one only slightly different from the others. This is a very significant and important point.
"Why should we be able to classify plants and animals into types or species at all? In a fascinating editorial feature in Natural History, Stephen Gould writes that biologists have been quite successful in dividing up the living world into distinct and discrete species . . ‘But,’ says Gould, ‘how could the existence of distinct species be justified by a theory [evolution] that proclaimed ceaseless change as the most fundamental fact of nature?’ For an evolutionist, why should there be species at all? If all life forms have been produced by gradual expansion
through selected mutations from a small beginning gene pool, organisms really should just grade into one another without distinct boundaries."—Henry Morris and Gary Parker, What is Creation Science? (1987), pp. 121-122.
Another leading evolutionist also wonders why distinct species exist.
"If a line of organisms can steadily modify its structure in various directions, why are there any lines stable enough and distinct enough to be called species at all? Why is the world not full of intermediate forms of every conceivable kind?"—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery, (1983), p. 141.
The facts that species exist at all, that there are no gaps (no transitional creatures) between them, and that living species are identical to those alive "millions of years ago" form a major species problem for the evolutionists.
There is immense complexity within each species, but a distinct barrier between species.
"In the last thirty years or so speciation has emerged as the major unsolved problem . . [Over the years, in trying to solve this problem] we are if anything worse off, research having only revealed complexity within complexity . .
"More biologists would agree with Professor Hampton Carson of Washington University, St. Louis, when he says that speciation is ‘a major unsolved problem of evolutionary biology.’ "—*Gordon R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 140-141.
"Many species and even whole families remain inexplicably constant. The shark of today, for instance, is hardly distinguishable from the shark of 150 million years ago . .
"According to Professor W.H. Thorpe, Director of the Sub-department of Animal Behavior at Cambridge and a world authority, this is the problem in evolution. He said in 1968: ‘What is it that holds so many groups of animals to an astonishingly constant from over millions of years? This seems to me the problem [in evolution] now—the problem of constancy, rather than that of ‘change.’ " —*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), pp. 141-142.
If evolution is constantly producing species, why are the species not changing into new ones?
THE LEBZELTER PRINCIPLE AND HARDY-WEINBERG PRINCIPLE—Evolutionists really have to work hard to find something validating evolution, in what they teach students in the schools. For this reason, several states require that students memorize a complex quadratic equation, called the Hardy-Weinberg principle. Teachers say this mathematical formula proves evolution. A parallel one is the *Lebzelter principle. So we will explain them both.
In 1932, *Viktor Lebzelter stated the "Lebzelter principle":
"When man lives in large conglomerates, race tends to be stable while cultures become diversified; but where he lives in small isolated groups, culture is stable but diversified races evolve."—*Viktor Lebzelter, Rassengeschichte de Menscheit (1932), p. 27.
Here it is in simpler words: When people live, socialize, and select mates from a large group, their racial characteristics are stabilized while within the large group a variety of sub-cultures will develop. But when members only have a highly restricted number of people to socialize with and intermarry among, their cultural patterns will tend to be the same throughout the small group, but racial oddities will develop.
That is true; and the cause, of course, is close interbreeding, when people marry near relatives.
"The quickest way to expose lethal traits [in the genes] is by intensive and continual inbreeding."—*Willard Hollander, "Lethal Heredity," in Scientific American, July 1952, p. 60.
"When a recessive gene arose by mutation, it will only after some time occur in a double dose by means of intermarriage—soonest by a marriage of cousins."—*G. Dahlberg, quoted in Ernst Mayr Animal Species and Evolution (1963), p. 518.
The evolutionists tell us that this Lebzelter principle is another evidence of evolution, but it is no evidence at all. Although this concept is indeed a useful one, it does not help the Darwinists. Evolutionists declare that it is the small, restricted groups (plants, animals, and people) which have produced the new species. But there is no evidence that new species have been produced. The Lebzelter principle only discusses interbreeding within a single species.
Yet the Lebzelter principle does have application to conditions just after the Creation and again at the end of the Flood . . In the time of Adam and Eve, and again as the eight members of Noah’s family left the Ark, there was only a small group and there would have been a decided tendency to produce a variety of racial stocks. As the people scattered after the destruction of the Tower of Babel, they would have settled in new areas (China, Africa, India, etc.), thus producing many restricted groups, and these would have stabilized into distinct races, to the extent that they remained separate from other groups. But, in all of this, no NEW species were produced! Evolution had not occurred, only sub-species (among humans, called "races").
Now for the "Hardy-Weinberg principle": It is merely an algebraic equation, worked out by two scientists, that states the Lebzelter principle. And that is all there is to it; no evolutionary proof here either.
DARWIN’S BEQUEST—It is well-known that *Charles Darwin had little to say about the actual origin of the species—the origin of life in a "primitive environment," but, instead, focused his entire work on an attempt to disprove fixed species. Yet, with the passing of the years, he became so confused regarding the species question that he was no longer certain how species could possibly change into one another.
In his will, he gave a bequest to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England, which was trying to prepare the Index Kewensis, a gigantic plant catalogue which would classify and fix all known plant species.
"Some botanists have commented on the irony that the great evolutionist—who convinced the world that species are unfixed, changeable entities—should have funded an immense, definitive species list as his final gift to science."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 236.
Ironically, *Charles Darwin’s last act was money given to help categorize the separate species.
CONCLUSION—Here is how one author ably summarized the situation:
"Anyone who can contemplate the eye of a housefly, the mechanics of human finger movement, the camouflage of a moth, or the building of every kind of matter from variations in arrangement of proton and electron—and then maintain that all this design happened without a designer, happened by sheer, blind accident—such a person believes in a miracle far more astounding than any in the Bible.
"To regard man, with his arts and aspirations, his awareness of himself and of his universe, his emotions and his morals, his very ability to conceive an idea so grand as that of God, to regard this creature as merely a form of life somewhat higher on the evolutionary ladder than the others,—is to create questions more profound than are answered."—David Raphael Klein, "Is There a Substitute for God?" in Reader’s Digest, March 1970, p. 55.
POSTSCRIPT: SOON THEY WILL BE GONE—Interestingly enough, although the evolutionary problem is that the species are not changing, mankind’s problem today is that the species are disappearing!
"They [plant and animal species] are vanishing at an alarming rate. Normally, [evolutionists speculate] existing species become extinct at approximately the same rate as new species evolve, but since the year 1600 that equation has grown increasingly lopsided.
"Informed estimates put the present extinction rate at forty to four hundred times normal. One estimate says that 25,000 species are in danger right now. Another says that one million could disappear from South America alone in the next two decades. If current trends continue, some twenty percent of the species now on earth will be extinct by the year 2000. Current trends will probably continue.
"This awesome rate of extinction is apparently unprecedented in our planet’s history. Many experts say it represents our most alarming ecological crisis."—*G. Jon Roush, "On Saving Diversity, in Fremontia (California Native Plant Society), January 1986.
EVOLUTION COULD NOT DO THIS
The quail builds her nest and sets on her eggs on the ground; so they must all hatch at the same time. Not until the entire dozen or so are laid, does the mother quail begin setting. Why does she wait until then? Who told her to do this? However, all the eggs do not develop at the same rate. Yet all hatch out at the same time. Scientists eventually discovered the cause. The faster ones click in their shells to the slower ones, and that causes the slower ones to speed their development! Everything in nature is a continual amazement.
The mole is not blind, but has good eyes although often hidden by fur. It may not run very well, but it surely can dig! A mole’s front feet are small spades, with well-designed claws on the ends. Its nose and tail have special nerve endings which can strongly sense vibrations. These vibration sensors obviously were carefully designed, for they have thousands of parts. With them, a mole can actually hear worms and grubs crawling several feet away in solid dirt. The mole is not ruining the ground, but is eating the grubs which destroy the plants.
A squirrel, rat, or beaver has perfectly designed teeth. When it wishes to cut something with its chisel teeth, it slides its jaw forward. In order to grind up its food with its back teeth, it slides its jaw backward, and the cutting teeth fit, out of the way, in a vacant space.
CHAPTER 11 - STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONS
ANIMAL AND PLANT SPECIES
GRADES 5 TO 12 ON A GRADUATED SCALE
1 - Thoroughly memorize the eight classification categories (kingdom, phylum, class . . ). To whatever extent you study or work in the natural sciences, they will come in handy all your life.
2 - Discuss the several definitions by which a true species can be identified.
3 - There are several names for a true species: species, true species, Genesis kinds, baramins, biological species. Which one or ones do you consider best? Why?
4 - Evolutionists point to microevolution as a proof that evolution occurs. Why is so-called microevolution not evolution at all?
5 - Write a paper on Carl Linnaeus.
6 - Explain the difference between "lumpers" and "splitters." Which of the two do you think causes the most confusion for those who are trying to identify the true species?
7 - Explain the sentence: "There is not an evolutionary tree; there are only twigs."
8 - Explain why gene depletion would make it impossible for evolution to occur. Include a discussion of de Wit’s comments on it.
9 - Why is selective breeding of no use as evidence in favor of evolution? Why is it, instead, definite evidence against evolution?
10 - Why is there always a limit as to how far out offspring can vary, from the genetic average, for that species?
11 - Why is genetic drift an inadequate evidence for evolution?
12 - What is the position of the cladists? Why did they take it?
13 - Did the research work of Gregor Mendel help the theories of the evolutionists or ruin those theories? Why?
14 - Give two reasons why the mule is not the beginning of a different species.