Evolutionists try to prove their position by asserting that common features – morphological, chemical, and genetic – indicate common descent, in other words, macro-evolution. They attempted to do this with the fossil record. However, this record has stubbornly resisted efforts to conform it to evolutionary orthodoxy. Here are just a few confessions by noted evolutionists:
The late Harvard luminary, Stephen Jay Gould admitted: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as a trade secret of palaeontology…The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with the idea that they gradually evolved:
1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking pretty much the same as when they disappear…
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’” (John C. Lennox, God’s Undertaker, 111)
Likewise, noted evolutionist Mark Ridley, confessed,
• No real evolutionist…uses the fossil record as evidence in favor of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation.”
Dr. Gareth J. Nelson, American Museum of Natural History, also admitted,
• It is a mistake to believe that even one fossil species… can be demonstrated to have been ancestral to another.
Not to be discouraged by this massive disappointment, they have sought out commonalities in other areas to support their belief in common descent. However, instead of consistently finding commonalities within one family, it seems that the commonalities are so broadly distributed that “common descent” can’t explain the similarities.
One example of this is bioluminescence, the ability to produce light. Fireflies are just one of 40 species that can do this. Malone and Vett explain,
• From single-celled organisms called dinoflagellates to glow worms found in caves; from deep-sea fish to googly-eyed glass squids; there is a vast array of creatures with an ability to mix varying forms of luciferin and luciferase to produce light at will. It turns out that each of these creatures uses a slightly different variation of the key chemicals to produce light. One would think that closely-related organisms should have similar luciferins and liciferases, while creatures further apart on the evolutionary sequence would have much different versions of such chemicals. NO SUCH PATTERN EXISTS. Thus according to those who have extensively studied this subject, “bioluminescence is estimated to have evolved independently at least 40 times.” (Inspired Evidence)
It is difficult enough to believe that this ability to produce light – with its necessary structures and complex chemicals – could have evolved at all. However, evolutionists are forced to insist that this same ability magically evolved “independently 40 different times.” It is wildly improbable that chance mutations could have accounted for these common features.
Whatever we might think about this improbability, these observations and many others like them demonstrate that commonalities do not prove common descent. The evolutionist can’t logically have it both ways. Either commonalities do prove common descent or they do not prove common descent, which they admittedly don’t! However, evolutionists have construed it so that “heads I win; tails you loose.” They’ve even made up a term for when common features fail to reflect common descent – “convergent evolution.” Sounds scientific, doesn’t it!
If light-making occurred independently 40 different times, perhaps all of the other commonalities invoked as evidence for common descent also arose independently! If the commonalities do not unequivocally prove common descent, this line of reasoning should be abandoned. However, this will not happen. It’s just too necessary for their argument.
There’s another interesting feature about bioluminescence. Malone and Vett observe,
• A firefly’s luminescence is 88% efficient while the light produced by the best luminescence reaction developed by mankind is a mere 23% efficient.
The wonders of evolution!
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