We were created to glorify God and make manifest His sovereignty in the world. Every living creature testifies to God’s power and wisdom, and were this not enough, the very stones would cry out and say to our reason: “The LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deut. 4:39).
“He who formed the eye, does he not see?” (Ps. 94:9)
The psalmist’s logic is simple: only one who hears could create the ear; only one who sees could create the eye. Only a super-intelligent Being who understands precisely the principles of light wave diffusion and the properties of the various substances used in the construction of the eye, as well as the principles of processing electronic signals—only such a Being could create the complex organ known as the eye. Yet there are scientists who would have it that all this happened by itself—many times over in fact, and in numerous ways.
For example, in his article on the evolution of optical devices, Australian Professor A.R. Parker states: “Suddenly, and for no obvious reason, the range and variety of life forms erupted somewhere between 520 and 515Ma” [“On the Origin of Optics,” Optics & Laser Technology 43 (2011), pp. 323-329]. Parker considers the so-called “light switch theory” to be a good explanation of the “Cambrian explosion”—that time when, supposedly quite by chance, living creatures developed in themselves the ability to see; and, as a result, there arose over a period of barely a million years a vast array of life forms capable of receiving, analyzing, and utilizing the narrow range of electromagnetic waves that we today call light. A strange position to hold for a scientist who knows that even the rain does not fall without cause. But what do the fossils tell us? Let’s consider the case of trilobites—creatures we know of only from excavations.
Prior to 521 million years ago there were no trilobites. There simply did not exist anything classifiable with this living creature. The trilobite had no real “ancestors” from which to evolve (the Parvancorina being a very doubtful candidate). The oldest fossilized trilobites, which have been dated to around 521 million years ago, appear on the geological record quite suddenly (without any prior development of transitional forms) and, interestingly enough, already possessing eyes. The finds in Morocco, Siberia, and USA are in full agreement in this respect. There are also trilobites without eyes, but these are found in strata of a much later date—which obliges Professor Parker to assert that, “eyeless trilobites evolved later.” Nowhere does the geological record indicate the evolutionary development of the eye from eyeless specimens through those able to distinguish the direction of light, to those actually capable of seeing. Eyes first appeared with the trilobites; there was nothing from which they could have evolved. But then Professor Parker expresses himself in a way typical of the science of the day: “Eyes, and probably predators, first evolved around 521 million years ago. This is a fact, recorded in the fossils.” Now let’s be logical: if 521 million years ago there was nothing from which these eyes could have evolved, how can we say they evolved? Take also Parker’s other statement: “from then on all animals had to adapt themselves to light—that is, to vision” (ibid.) I’d like to see how newly emerging creatures could have known they were visible to others? If mutual devouring was the basic manner of selecting favorable mutations then it is hard to see how this could have brought about the development of eyes, carapaces, and protective colorations in those blind, defenseless creatures which were instantly devoured (future offspring and all) by the seeing predator. If the evolutionary development of all creatures was a process of the random action of genes, then why in the earlier period of the formation of this life are there no fossils to corroborate such an action? The real fact recorded in the fossils is that entirely functional and fully developed living creatures came into existence without transitional forms from which they might have evolved.
How did the eyes of trilobites evolve?
It is generally conceded that random mutation is the engine of evolution. Scientists T. Lenormand, D. Roze, and F. Rousset explain: “Mutations are largely random phenomena: they occur regardless of their phenotypic effects. They are not directed phenomena and do not occur more often when they are advantageous. Significantly, the occurrence of random mutations in this sense does not mean that beneficial and deleterious mutations were equally likely: it has been well established that most new mutations are harmful.” (“Stochasticity in Evolution,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, vol. 24, no. 3-2009, pp. 159-165).
Now there is no way that a beneficial mutation destined to produce the eye, for example, could bring about the favorable changes in the organism of an unseeing specimen to the point where the eye is fully formed and functional. The specimen has only to be devoured by others or perish as result of climatic changes and its genes will never be transmitted to its offspring to continue the series of mutations required to produce the eye. Thus we have to believe that the benefits associated with a random chain of mutations would have to occur in a short space of time—within a few generations, or even within the lifetime of a single specimen. In effect we are forced to conclude that this single specimen arose in its “ready” form and did not evolve from another, more simple and primitive organism. This is what the fossil evidence confirms.
Where does Professor A.R. Parker stand here? He would simply have it that the sudden and spontaneous appearance of the eye in some organisms triggered an equally random and spontaneous proliferation of technically advanced optical structures and devices in a multitude of other organisms. This is an odd position to hold for a scientist avowing evolutionism. According to Darwin a creature producing a beneficial organ that gives it an advantage over others begins to dominate over them and deter them from producing similar systems. But in the Cambrian record we are dealing with a whole array of different constructions of the eye, which suddenly appeared even within the same family of organisms (the fossils reveal at least three different eye structures among the various kinds of trilobites (holochroal, schizochroal and abathochroal). In his above-mentioned article, Professor A. R. Parker compares the difference between seeing and unseeing organisms to two men, one with his eyes closed and the other with them open. The most the first man can tell is whether it is night or day or possibly on which side the light source is located. The other man enjoys precise orientation on the field and is able to clearly identify both the enemy and the victim. It is clear then that an unseeing prey stands no chance against a seeing predator; above all, it has no time to “produce” a seeing organ by way of random mutation. The evidence of the fossils tells us that there arose, simultaneously, within a very short space of time, a variety of creatures capable of processing and utilizing light signals—not only trilobites, but also a whole host of living creatures provided with lenses, reflectors, light processors, and even diffraction gratings on the surface of the carapace and rich, striking pigmentations capable of warding off the predator. This is a scientifically confirmed fact.
How long would the eye need to evolve?
I am not the first to ask this question. In 1994 Professors Dan E. Nilsson and Susanne Pelger of the University of Lund in Sweden undertook to estimate the time in which the evolution of the eye would take place. In their article “A Pessimistic Estimate of the Time Required for an Eye to Evolve” (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Sciences, vol. 256, no. 1345, 1994), pp. 53-58), they set the figure at 363,992 generations. That is how long it would take for the whole gamut of changes to occur if an unseeing specimen were to develop a fully formed eye by the process of natural selection. The authors consider the figure to be in line with the geological record, and other scientists happily cite their article.
But if we examine these calculations critically we see that they pose a serious problem for the theory of evolution as such. They force us to conclude that in excess of 300 thousand consecutive generations differed from one another in a significant way—i.e. each generation of offspring manifested organic changes so significant that they could not fail to be observed. But the world around us shows us something quite different: namely, that offspring manifest a combination of their ancestors’ characteristics and do not produce new characteristics from generation to generation. Moreover, throughout all this time, there would have to be someone present to meticulously select specimens manifesting the favorable changes and see to it that the next precisely determined and directed change occurs in the generation that follows. Commonsense tells us that a chain made up of 300 thousand distinct changes succeeding one another in a precisely ordered sequence could never occur spontaneously.
More than that: Dov J. Rhodes of Indiana University reckons the Nilsson and Pelger estimate to be much too low. His calculations, using genetic algorithms, indicate the number of generations to be at least five times greater. From the geological standpoint this would have ensured the existence of fossil records of the stages of the evolution of the eye. But, as stated earlier, no fossils recording the developing eye have been found.
Genetic and mathematical studies indicate that changes in the genes do not occur so frequently as to produce, within the space of barely a million years, an organ or other biological structure—a fortiori an entire system. Based on experimental data, Cornell mathematicians Rick Durrett and Deena Schmidt estimate that in the case of the fruit fly (Drosophila) it would require 10 million generations before a sequence of two mutations could switch off one transcription factor binding site and activate another [see article “Waiting for Two Mutations: With Applications to Regulatory Sequence Evolution and the Limits of Darwinian Evolution,” Genetics, November 2008, (180 (3), pp. 1501-1509]. Needless to say, one such genetic change would still not produce the complex optical organ.
Moreover, as M. J. Behe of Leghigh University observes, if that second mutation failed to occur right after the first, then any other mutation would result in the destruction of the protein and not in the development of the beneficial organ. Considering the number of nucleotides contained in a single gene (over a thousand), the “waiting time” for favorable mutations increases by a million times [see the article, “Waiting Longer for Two Mutations,” Genetics, February 2009, 181 (2), pp. 819-820]. There are no grounds, then, to believe in the slow spontaneous appearance of optical organs in living creatures. On the one hand, we have the fossil records, which narrow down the time of the evolution of the eye to a few million years; on the other, we have the laws of genetics, which require the passage of millions of years before at least two consecutive beneficial mutations can occur.
Evidence of evolution?
God gave us reason and free will that we might analyze the facts, marshal the evidence, and draw our conclusions. In 2011, Alan R. Rogers of the University of Utah wrote his book The Evidence of Evolution to convince us of the truth of Darwin’s theory. Since he is a well-known evolutionist, we should expect him to adduce all the important evidence in support of the theory of evolution. Chapter three is devoted to fossils, which according to Rogers prove that four-legged land mammals were transformed into whales living in the sea.
But the matter is not quite as simple as the school textbooks and popular science films would like to present it. It is not enough to throw a mammal into the water and wait a few million years until such time as the creature “adapts” to its new living conditions. From the standpoint of the functioning of the organism, such a transformation requires a whole series of important changes beginning with the “production” of a skin surface better suited to aquatic locomotion and ending with the structure of kidney tissue capable of filtering sea water. Again: how much time do we have for such a spontaneous “adaptation” to occur? Several dozen million years, according to Rogers—which is much too short a time. According to some paleontologists, we have even less time. In February of 2011, Argentinian paleontologist Marcelo Reguero discovered the fossilized jawbone of a fully aquatic whale existing some 49 million years ago, a time when, according to the previously held paleontological time scale, the hypothetical ancestor of the marine mammals (Ambulocetus) had only just expressed its intention to live in the water.
Likewise the case with fish that according to the theory of evolution emerged on dry land. In 2006 paleontologists discovered the fossilized remains of Tiktaalik. It had pectoral fins able to bend in the middle, meaning the creature could live both on land and in water. The group of elpistostegids, to which Tiktaalik belongs, are widely held to be the ancestors of all amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds. Meanwhile, scientists of the University of Warsaw and the Polish Geological Institute discovered the remains of a fully developed four-legged animal some 10 million years older than the oldest known elpistostegid (see G. Niedźwiedzki et al., “Tetrapod Trackways from the Early Middle Devonian Period of Poland,” Nature, 463, 2010, pp. 43-48). Rogers fails to account for this fact in his presentation of evidence supporting evolution—even as no account was made of the “Cambrian explosion” discussed earlier. So how valuable is such evidence?
There are other things Rogers fails to take into account of. Fossils of creatures with five legs for example, or a single eye off to the side, or with fins asymmetrically attached—here would be real evidence of the hypothesis that living creatures were capable of producing new organs and systems by random mutation. At first, before predators ever existed, such defective forms could easily have existed and produced numerous offspring. But in the event everything is marvelously symmetrical. Instead of the random action of genes blindly producing some new form or other, we can see the hand of a powerful and wise Creator. Professor Rogers fails to account for the lack of fossils between the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods that would point to an evolution from reptile to placental mammal. Nor does he account for the lack of fossils between the Silurian and Devonian Periods, which would indicate the existence of a life form anticipating the insect. Insects, like trilobites, do not have ancestors. They appeared on the geological record in their fully developed form—proof that they did not develop independently.
And so, since Professor Rogers fails to marshal any convincing evidence in support of a gradual transformation of one form of life to another, we are forced to conclude that the fossils do not substantiate the theory of evolution. Rather they suggest something else: namely, that at a certain time the Creator uttered the Word and everything that exists came into being (John 1:1). A vast array of living creatures with highly complex structures and technically advanced, fully developed organs appeared at the same time; they did not evolve from primitive to higher forms.
Crying stones
When Jesus told the Jews that the stones would cry out, He was not speaking in jest. For centuries, stones had signified important events to the Jews. The pillar raised from stones testified to the covenant between Jacob and Laban (Gen. 31:46-50). The twelve stones set up in the midst of the Jordan served as a memorial of Israel crossing into the Promised Land (Joshua 4:1-10). Above all, Jesus desired the testimony of the stones to soften men’s hearts upon which the Father had inscribed His laws: “‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,’ says the Lord: ‘I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their misdeeds no more’”(Heb. 10:16-17). And, indeed, Jesus Christ, being true God and true man, gave up His life for our sins, conquering Satan and opening up for us the way to salvation.
God speaks to each of us in “many and various ways” (Heb. 1:1). He also speaks to us through stones, which testify to Him and persuade our reason that He is God the Creator and the Savior worthy of our trust—sure as a rock. Let us allow Him to remove from us our “hearts of stone” and replace them with “hearts of flesh” (Ez. 36:26) that will seek to love Him and serve Him according to His Design.