Evolutionists who have realized this will then argue that although the structures serve a function and have served the same function over the course of history, that they are somehow vestigial because the organism that they are a part of can survive and in most cases thrive without them. This claim is simply evolutionists twisting a word’s definition to support their view. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word vestigial as “remaining in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function.” This was the original definition evolutionists used until it did not work in their favor. Moreover, this play on definitions is illogical. People can survive and in most cases thrive without their pinky fingers, and that does not make pinky fingers a vestigial structure. 

Genetics did not fully become a component of evolutionary theory until after Darwin, but what is true on the physical level must be true on the genetic level. So likewise with the argument for vestigial structures, evolutionists argue for vestigial (or as it is more commonly known as for the sake of catchiness) “junk” DNA. Just like vestigial structures, vestigial DNA is claimed by evolutionists to be evidence for common ancestry; in this scenario embedded into the genetic code, rather than physical appearances. 

Reviewing a book by Dr. Darrell Falk on the subject, Casey Luskin for Evolution News wrote that “Dr. Falk relies heavily upon the argument that introns (a type of DNA) are “gibberish” DNA that we share with other species at the same position, and this supposedly demonstrates common ancestry. The problem for the argument is that introns are not “gibberish,” but have important functions, such as regulating gene expression.” Also according to Luskin, an article by W. Wayt Gibbs for  Scientific American ,“explains how “the introns within genes and the long stretches of intergenic DNA between genes … were immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk”…The article admits that “(t)hat assumption was too hasty” and quotes a molecular biologist explaining how this Darwinian-based dogma stifled research, calling the failure to recognize introns as functional possibly “one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.””

Introns are not the only type of DNA that Dr. Falk argues for as junk. He also argues for pseudogenes, which according to a paper in Annual Review of Genetics by Evgeniy S. Balakirev and Francisco J. Ayala,”have been suitably investigated (to) often exhibit functional roles, such as gene expression, gene regulation, generation of genetic… diversity … Pseudogenes exhibit evolutionary conservation of gene sequence, reduced nucleotide variability, excess synonymous over non-synonymous nucleotide polymorphism, and other features that are expected in genes or DNA sequences that have functional roles.” 

Dr. Falk is also not the only evolutionist to support the idea of junk DNA, and introns and pseudogenes are not the only used and debunked examples of such DNA. For the sake of Time, however, I will end there on the topic of vestigial DNA. Her gavel has already pounded too much on the head of this tenent of evolutionary theory. 

The fossil record

Evolutionists have long claimed that the fossil record provides sound evidence for evolution. They claim that the record shows how the ancestors of species evolved into what we know them as today. But two main things, unsurprisingly found via Time and her spouse Discovery, contradict this element of evolutionary theory; a lack of transitional forms among fossils, and a pattern of DNA explosions cumulatively known as the Cambrian Explosion. 

It was not until after publishing his book On the Origin of Species, that Darwin realized a detrimental flaw in his evidence for evolution concerning fossils. 

There are transitional forms among fossils. 

If Darwinian theory were true, the fossil record would show the intermediary stages of evolution. For example, a human-monkey hybrid. A handful of paleontologists have discovered what they believe to be transitional forms, but their discoveries have either been debunked or are simply too questionable. Regardless, though, there are not enough such findings to infallibly prove evolution. Considering the amount of species on this planet, would we not have found more alleged transitional forms in the fossil record than we have? 

Desperate to cover his butt, Darwin claimed that intermediate fossils had not yet been found because of physical and human imperfections in the geological record. Because Time had not yet ruled on the matter. In Darwin’s day, this claim worked. But now it is but another lame attempt by evolutionists to twist fiction into fact. According to Luskin once more for Evolution News, “Paleontologists today generally recognize that while the fossil record is imperfect, it is still adequate to assess questions about evolution. One study in Nature (direct source no longer available) reported that “…the past 540 million years of the fossil record provide uniformly good documentation of the life of the past.”” The article then goes on to mention that “realization that the fossil record is not…incomplete has forced evolutionary biologists to accept that the record shows a pattern of explosions, not gradual evolution of living organisms.”

First of all, “…a pattern of explosions” is impossible under how Darwinism explains the origins of species. Evolution plays on the gradual, long process of mutations formed via natural selection. The explosions of life mentioned in the article (known wholly as the Cambrian Explosion as they occurred during the Cambrian period) took place either over seventy-million or ten million years, depending on who you talk to. Regardless, though, both proposals are but glimpses of time considering the Earth’s four and a half billion year history. Most evolutionists agree that evolution could not have happened over such a short period of time. Going off of that, the Cambrian Explosion was specifically when phyla (the major animal groups) appeared abruptly in the fossil records. But here is the key thing. The phyla were fully developed, and like I already said, appeared abruptly. 

There is no phyla, nothing remotely related to phyla, or anything that could be the intermediary stages of an ancestor of a kind of phyla becoming that kind of phyla in the precambrian fossil records. 

It was a total explosion. Evolution could therefore not have cultivated the life that the Cambrian period birthed, and Darwin knew this. 

So he tried to cover his butt. 

Darwin thus moved on to argue for physical imperfections in the fossil records. According to Jonathan Wells for Evolution News, “he (Darwin) argued that Precambrian fossils (namely phyla) had been destroyed by heat, pressure, and erosion. Some of Darwin’s modern followers have likewise argued that Precambrian fossils existed but were later destroyed, or that Precambrian organisms were too small or too soft to have fossilized in the first place.” However, “since 1859…paleontologists have discovered many Precambrian fossils, many of them microscopic or soft-bodied. As American paleobiologist William Schopf wrote… “The long-held notion that Precambrian organisms must have been too small or too delicate to have been preserved in geological materials… (is) now recognized as incorrect.”

To conclude, according to the same article, “the abrupt appearance of the major animal phyla about 540 million years ago…is better documented now than in Darwin’s time. According to Berkeley paleontologist James Valentine and his colleagues, the “explosion is real, it is too big to be masked by flaws in the fossil record.” Indeed, as more fossils are discovered it becomes clear that the Cambrian explosion was “even more abrupt and extensive than previously envisioned.”” Time has ruled once again. 

This article has been updated for clarification. 

To explain, blue eyes are a mutation. This mutation in eye color is only possible because the genes that code for eye pigmentation are there. But fish – of which many evolutionists argue some mammals, including humans, came from – cannot develop uteruses and other mammal specific traits because the genes that code for a uterus are not there. A mammal’s uterus is capable of mutating in various ways because the genes that code for the uterus are there. But an organism that does not have genes that code for a uterus cannot randomly develop one, because the genes that code for the uterus are not there. Natural selection is real, but it can only work with genes that are already present.

Evolution supports natural selection, but natural selection does not support evolution. Due to the way natural selection works, species cannot mutate fully enough to become different species. 

Integrated complexity and Time the Judge

People arguing against evolution will often say the world is too complex for evolution to have occurred. But it is not complexity that puts evolution up for questioning; it is integrated complexity. Living things are multifunctional; they can do many complex things at once. Evolution cannot accurately represent this with its step by step, painfully slow approach to the development of life. 

To explain, a fetus needs to make its own blood to survive. It relies on its mother via the placenta (see fig. 1) for food and other things necessary for survival, but it must make its own blood. It cannot make its own blood without hemoglobin. The fetus gets hemoglobin from its mother. But there is a very small yet very big problem. Hemoglobin contains iron, and iron cannot permeate the placental barrier. The fetus cannot make its own blood and dies. 

Fig. 1. Placenta under a microscope. Source

But this is not the case, and why placental mammals like you and me still exist is because of a glycoprotein known as transferrin. (See fig. 2). Transferrin is able to permeate the placental barrier to deliver iron to the fetus. Thus, the fetus is able to make its own blood and live. Without transferrin, all placental mammals simply would not be around. But they are because one little glycoprotein just happens to exist.

Fig. 2. The glycoprotein transferrin. Source

Evolution is based on random mutations. How can randomness birth something so perfect in such a perfect place at such a perfect time? And Time (remember her from Part I?) is not a factor in this equation. Evolution needs billions of trillions of years of her ruling in its favor to even be accepted as slightly possible. Without transferrin, no matter how long Time sits on her bench, placental mammals would not exist. They could not possibly have evolved to possess transferrin, because they would not have been around to evolve without it.

Non-survival mutations?

Evolution is only possible with natural selection, and natural selection only involves mutations necessary for survival. Therefore, things like music and the ability to ponder the universe could not have possibly found their way into the human experience via evolution. 

Music is not something necessary for survival. One can understandably argue that humans evolved to be musical for the sake of communication, but music has always been for the most part, throughout history, a thing of pleasure. We may have very well evolved to speak, read, write and interpret language in general because communication is something necessary for survival, but the ability to create and interpret music is not something necessary for communication and thus for survival. No society has ever used music as a chief and/or an efficient means of communication in the history of the world.

Pondering the universe is a strictly human thing that is not at all necessary for survival. Why else would we have things like philosophy and religion? Evolution portrays humans as animals. As creatures like any other, vying for survival. But trying to survive is not all that the human experience comes down to. We, humans, are uniquely separated on many levels (not just by the intellect) from the other creatures we share this world with. Evolution simply cannot explain that. 

Takeaway

I am not arguing for creationism, nor am I arguing for any other theory on the origins of life. I am simply arguing against evolution, but even then, that is not my main point. What I want you, dear reader, to take away from this column, is a critical mind. I would rather you suffer the pains of research than blindly understand everything that you remotely agree with as fact. I guarantee that at least sixty-percent of you have never questioned evolution until reading this column, when it is something that is, outside of your biology classes, severely scrutinized. With that being said, research. Research, research, research! If I can leave you with any last words, they are these; never find your belly sated with food that has been spoon-fed to you.

Pick up the spoon.