Evolution Cruncher Chapter 22
Evolutionary Science Fiction
Fabulous fairy tales which only small children can believe
This chapter is based on pp. 953-959 (Scientists Speak) of Other Evidence (Volume Three of our three-volume Evolution Disproved Series). You will find many other statements on our website: evolution-facts.org.
Here are quaint little stories that only tiny tots should find of interest. But, surprisingly, evolutionary theorists love them too.
1 - FAIRY TALES FOR BIG PEOPLE"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 (because he was always saying- Humph to everybody). Modeled on the folktales of tribal peoples, they express humor, morality, or are 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. As many scientists are well-aware, *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."
Gather around. 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 one written by a well-known fiction writer for very small children. See if you can tell the difference:
2 - WHERE THE WHALE CAME FROM*Charles Darwin, always ready to come up with a theory about everything, explains how the "monstrous whale" originated:
3 - HOW THE ELEPHANT GOT ITS LONG NOSE"In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely 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 and 1984 editions), p. 184.
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 mama 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 poor 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.
4 - HOW THE GIRAFFE GOT ITS LONG NECKThe 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 short-necked animals were eating). So only the longest-necked giraffes had enough food to eat while all their brother and sister giraffes died from lack of food. 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 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.
Oh, you don’t believe me. Read on.
"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. There is even more to the story: "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, you need to attend a university.
Three Fairy Tales
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"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 was 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: *F. 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 either 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 fossils 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.
5 - HOW THE CATFISH LEARNED TO WALKThere 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! Luther Sunderland interviewed several of the leading fossil experts. Each paleontologist was 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 interviewed experts knew of any fossil evidence proving that any fish had ever grown legs and feet and begun walking on land!
Here is a more recent fish story that recalls to mind that highly honored one found in evolution books:
6 - A LIVING CREATURE EMERGES FROM DUST"The Kingston Whig-Standard for 7 October 1976, on page 24, had a brief account, from Jonesboro, Tennessee, of the U.S. National Storytelling 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.
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 thousands of years later, its descendants gradually figured out how to invent organs necessary for survival and they eventually learned how to reproduce their own, and bear young. And that’s how we began."
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.
Here is another story of life arising out of the soil, where no life had been before. This tale was originally told, not to modern folk 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 spices, set the nest on fire, and 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 (1988), p. 101.
Concern not yourself with the foolish prattle of Creationists about scientific facts—such as DNA and amino acid codes, concentrated chemical compounds, food requirements, complex reproduction systems, cell contents, bone construction, hormones, gastrointestinal tract, brain, heart, nerves, circulatory system, lymphatics, and all the rest.
Instead, be content with the marvelous tale: "Lightning hit some seawater and changed it into a living organism, complete with DNA coding, 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." "Lightning hit some seawater and changed it into a living organism, complete with DNA coding, 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 has never happened today, and no evidence is available that it has ever occurred in the past. Evolutionists say you should believe it, and you should bow to their superior intelligence. Do not question; do not think.
7 - HOW THE FISH GOT ITS SHAPEWe could cite a remarkable number of other 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 reproduce and pass on their genetic material to their offspring, who then did the same. Those less suited either 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 also! Each fish made the changes, 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.
Are you still wondering about that whale of a story that *Darwin told? Charlie later may have waffled a little over it; but, to close friends, he remained staunchly in defense of the principle of the thing: It was obvious to him that a bear had changed to a whale!
"Extremes of adaptation—such as the whale provoke wonder about how such a creature could have evolved. Sometimes larger than a herd of elephants, this intelligent mammal loads on tons of tiny plants and animals (plankton) it extracts from seawater. Since it is air breathing, warm-blooded and milk giving, it must have developed from land animals in ancient times, then gone back to the sea. But 150 years ago, who could imagine how such a transformation could come about?
"Charles Darwin could. He had noticed in a traveler’s account that an American black bear was seen ‘swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water.’ If this new food-getting habit became well-established, Darwin said in the Origin of Species (first edition, 1859) . . [Darwin’s statement quoted].
" ‘Preposterous!’ snorted zoologists. Such an example, they thought, sounded so wild and far-fetched it would brand Darwin as a teller of tall tales. Professor Richard Owen of the British Museum prevailed on Darwin to leave out the ‘whale-bear story,’ or at least tone it down. Darwin cut it from later editions, but privately regretted giving in to his critics, as he saw ‘no special difficulty in a bear’s mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits.’ Years later he still thought the example ‘quite reasonable.’ "—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 483.
There is a lot more to changing a bear into a whale—than just enlarging its mouth! The fact is that Darwin was right in giving that illustration, for it exactly fitted his theory. The problem was that, as long as we airily stay with theory, it all sounds good; but, when we give concrete examples of how the theory would have had to occur, reasoning men recognize it to be a fantastic absurdity.
9 - CHANGING A MAMMAL INTO A WHALEAdapting *Darwin’s theory that a land animal, the bear, changed itself into a whale, evolutionists went ahead and expanded it into an even more complex fish story. With serious faces, they declare that after that first fish got out of water, it began walking and then changed itself into a land animal; still later another land animal stepped back into the water and became a whale!
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 they survive until those changes were made?"The cetaceans, which include the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, have become adapted to a totally aquatic life since their ancestors returned to the sea nearly 70 million years ago. There is little evidence of cetaceous 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. Front 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 reentry to the sea was the position of their nostrils. From a position on the upper jaw as far forward 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 [bold ours].
"Particularly difficult to accept as chance processes are those prolonged changes which lead to a new lifestyle, 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 the Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, June/July, 1977.
10 - IT WAS A HOOFED ANIMAL THAT TURNED INTO A WHALEBut there is still more: *Milner explains that it was not a bear that went swimming one day and turned into a whale,—it was a cow, deer, or sheep! "No problem," someone will reply, "It didn’t happen all at once; evolutionary change never does. It took thousands of years for the cow to change into a whale."
So that cow was swimming around out in the ocean all that time, till the change came?
*Milner will now explain why it was a cow, deer, or sheep—and not a bear—that went swimming that day:
"Transitional forms have been scarce, but a few suggestive fossils were recently discovered in India of a four-legged mammal whose skull and teeth resemble whales. [No creature on land has teeth like the whales which Darwin was referring to—the baleen whale which keeps its mouth open and strains in tiny creatures through immense bristles.] And, during the 1980s, serum protein tests were made on whales’ blood, to compare it with the biochemistry of other living animal groups. The results linked them not to bears or carnivores, but to hoofed animals (ungulates). Forerunners of whales were closely related to the ancestors of cattle, deer and sheep!
"Such a conclusion fits with the general behavior of the great baleen whales, who move in pods or herds and strain the sea for plankton; they are, like antelopes or cattle, social grazers."—Ibid [bold ours].
Can a cow live on a diet of fish? How could it catch them? According to the story, after it changed into the shape of a fish, it had no way to breathe since it could only breath atmospheric air and its nose was in the front of its head with the outlet downward (such as all land mammals have). EITHER that cow made a dramatic single generation changeover or ALL its descendants suffocated to death, for thousands of years, UNTIL they gradually moved that nose to the top of their heads and became voluntary breathers. (Perhaps the cow learned to swim upside down, so it could keep its nose out of water.)
Differences between whales and hoofed animals could be discussed at some length. (For example, the baby whale has the milk pumped into its mouth; otherwise water pressure would keep it from obtaining enough to survive. If it did not have totally voluntary breathing, it would have drowned as soon as it was born.) In hundreds of thousands of ways, the whale is totally different than a cow, deer, or sheep; yet we are told that some such hoofed animal walked into the sea and, over a period of millions of years, changed into a whale. Now, that IS a tall story. It is but another in a series of myths for gullible people willing to believe whatever evolutionists tell them.
The Just-So Stories are still being told.
Of course, there is a way to settle this matter once and for all: Drop a cow into the ocean and see what happens to it.
Ridiculing the possibility that it could have any application to the Theory, a confirmed evolutionist quotes a statement by the Opposition:
11 - MILLIONS OF YEARS"As one creationist pamphlet put it, ‘A frog turning instantaneously into a prince is called a fairy tale, but if you add a few million years, it’s called evolutionary science.’ "—*Op. cit., p. 399.
FOR THE COW TO CHANGE INTO A WHALE
I am still worried about that cow. She had to stay out in that water, swimming, and chomping on orchard grass that might, by chance, float by while her calf nursed underwater; and she and her descendants had to continue on like that for A MILLION YEARS before that cow could change into whale!
"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."—*Freemen Dyson, 1988 statement, quoted in Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 93 [American mathematician; caps ours].
Another evolutionist agrees: millions of years before the cow would change into a whale.
"The change in gene frequencies of populations over the generations in time produces new species. Darwin called it [the change of one species to another] ‘descent with modification’: a slow process, usually operating over HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, and even MILLIONS, of years."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 157 [caps ours].
Oh, you’re worried about the calf? Needn’t fear. It was holding its nose shut with its hoof while it nursed. Calves have to be persistent, you know, or they don’t live very long.
*Louis Bounoure, former director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum and later director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research, summarized the situation in 1984:
"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progression of science. It is useless."—*Louis Bounoure, Le Monde et la Vie (October 1983); quoted in The Advocate, March 8, 1984.
James Perloff concluded a survey of evolutionary theory with these words:
" ‘The princess kissed the frog, and he turned into a handsome prince.’ We call that a fairy tale. Evolution says frogs turn into princes, and we call that science."—James Perloff, Tornado in a Junkyard (1999), p. 274
CHAPTER 22 - STUDY AND REVIEW QUESTIONSEVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE FICTION
GRADES 5 TO 12 ON A GRADUATED SCALE
Much of what we have discovered in this series of books is humorous. The claims of evolution are, frankly, funny. Select one of the "fairy tales" in section 1 and evaluate it scientifically. Show why it could not possibly be true.
EVOLUTION COULD NOT DO THISThe U.S. military wishes it had a cheaper stealth bomber (presently the most expensive plane in the world). But the tiger moth has a sonar jamming device which switches on as soon as a bat heads toward his way—and the bat cannot locate him! The Department of Defense needs to ask the little fellow how he does it. The tiger moth never paid a dollar for his equipment. It was given to him.
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