LT109 - The Kingfisher Book of Evolution: Fact or Fiction?

No. 109

Roman Theological Forum | Article Index | Study Program

January 2004

THE KINGFISHER BOOK OF EVOLUTION: FACT OR FICTION?

by John F. McCarthy

1. The Kingfisher Book of Evolution, authored by Stephen Webster (New York: Kingfisher Publications, 2000), is a beautifully illustrated book intended to convince children and teachers of children of the validity of the Darwinian theory of evolution. The many, many pictures effectively show the extent to which the structure and habits of living species have been photographed and recorded. The knowledge of modern biologists about animals and plants in general speaks powerfully in this book. But the special message of this book is not what is known today about the anatomy and physiology of biological species. Rather, it is to convince children that evolution is "the fundamental fact that underpins all life" (p. 6). We have been informed otherwise that the fundamental fact that underpins all life on earth is the creation of the world by the one true God, and we can infer from this fact that, if biological evolution has taken place at all, it must have flowed from a potentiality implanted in creation by God. But Stephen Webster openly denies that life was created by God. He tells children that: "Evolution has created a remarkable variety of organisms," and that this evolution is an "ongoing process of life, death, and perpetual change" (p. 6).

2. Webster tells his little readers that belief in God is a thing of the past. He notes that ancient peoples used myths about gods and monsters to explain the origin and workings of the world until Greek thinkers began to explain happenings such as lightning storms and the eruption of volcanoes as results of "impersonal, if still mysterious forces of nature," and no longer as vindictive acts of angry gods (p. 8). Among these ancient peoples, he points out, were the Hebrews and the early Christians who believed that their god created the universe and all living forms in six days, and goes on to say that during the Middle Ages the Christian Church persecuted thinkers whose ideas was more scientific (p. 10). But centuries later, he continues, scientific thinking managed to break away from this religious censorship with the result that today scientists believe that "life has existed for 3.5 billion years" (p. 11).

3. Webster notes that for some time after science had gone its independent way from the thinking of the Church many scientists believed in "both science and God" (p. 12), but belief in God was gradually put aside. The Christian Church taught that God had created all the living species in one original week, but fossils discovered by scientists showed that over a very long period of time some species had become extinct and new species had appeared. Thus, science was showing that the world was not as young as the Church was claiming (p. 14). Then Jean de Lamarck and Charles Lyell "paved the way for a scientific theory of evolution." Webster admits that "there was no real evidence" for Lamarck’s idea, but he still finds this to be "groundbreaking work" for a "scientific theory of evolution," ostensibly because it was leading toward the idea of evolution, rather than towards evidence for evolution itself (p.15). (Actually, St. Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century A.D., with his theory of "seeds of things," had presented a much more cogent idea of leaps to living things, but his better idea is not mentioned by Webster because it did not lead toward the Darwinian theory of evolution that Webster favors and supports.)

4. Then Charles Lyell, so Webster informs the children and their teachers, brought forward arguments that the earth is much older than the Bible would have us believe, since the mountains and valleys were carved "by rivers and subterranean fire" over long periods of time, and not "by sudden acts of God" (p. 15). Webster does not claim that Lyell had convincing scientific evidence for his theory, but only that his idea prepared the way for the Darwin’s idea of evolution by the transformation of species over long periods of time. It seems that the scientific evidence for the idea would have to come later.

5. And so we come to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), "founder of the modern theory of evolution." Webster affirms that the discovery of fossils of large extinct mammals "proved to Darwin that life on earth had evolved over time" (p. 17). What Webster is saying is that this discovery was enough to convince Darwin personally, even though Darwin knew that what was available from the fossil record of his time did not provide convincing scientific proof of his theory, and Darwin admits this in several places in his famous work, The Origin of Species. For instance, he says: "But I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor was the record in the best preserved geological sections, had not the absence of innumerable transitional links between the species which lived at the commencement and close of each formation pressed so hardly on my theory."¹ Now, it should be noted here that the theory of evolution does not pertain to the science of biology at all; it is a philosophical overview that aims to fit the data of biology into a general explanation of the origin of species. While Darwin’s Origin of Species and the writings of his disciples have convinced many people that "evolution occurs naturally, without supernatural intervention" (Webster, p. 19), these same evolutionists have no reasonable explanation for what Webster calls the "impersonal, if still mysterious forces of nature" (p. 8). As long as these "impersonal, if still mysterious forces" have not been identified and explained, Webster cannot logically and justifiably say that they are either natural or impersonal. And so, while Darwin’s theory, in one form or another, is, indeed, believed today by most natural scientists and educated people, it appears to others as a fictitious idea formed from a biased use of the data of biology which deliberately substitutes belief in the one true God with an unfounded belief in "impersonal, if still mysterious forces" that reason does not explain or uphold.

6. Webster avers that "fossil finds have made the history of evolution clearer than ever before" (p. 21), but actually fossil finds have not upheld the theory. Webster makes much of the fossil record as though it had confirmed Darwinian evolution, but his book shows no real evidence to this effect. As an excuse for this lack of proof he notes that "Evolution is hard to study because it happens so slowly," to the extent that "the changes that transform one species into another may take millions of years" (p. 22). But if the transforming changes do take so long, than the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record refutes the theory of evolution. Webster points out that there are 1.4 million known biological species (p. 31), and, therefore, the number of discovered fossils is up in the millions. Hence, if the transformations took place with small changes over long periods of time, then the number of incomplete and transitional fossils should be enormous. Darwin believed that, according to his theory of evolution by natural selection, "the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory is true, such have lived upon the earth.² Yet actually there are only a handful of alleged transitional fossils, and the authenticity of each one of these is questioned by experts. What happened to the other fossils of the transitional organisms? Evolutionists have no good answer for this. Darwin reasoned that weaker individuals of a species would become extinct rather quickly through the process of natural selection, but that answer does not apply to a new species in formation, because the organisms undergoing the transformation are said to be carrying the species for thousands or even "millions of years." Just imagine how many members of each level of a transforming species there would have to have been for chance variation to have produced the next step! And the desired intermediate forms have not appeared in the fossil record! Webster claims that creationists "do not regard fossils as evidence for evolution" (p. 34). Why should they? The virtually complete absence of transitional forms in the fossil record is a proof that the transformation of species never took place. Furthermore, evolutionists cannot show from the fossil record that any one of the 1.4 million known species ever emerged from another species. Nor can they show from current observation that any one of the presently living species is now turning into another species.

7. Later in his book Webster uses pragmatic contradiction to explain this embarrassing lack of any incidence of transitional forms in the fossil record. While his basic premise is that a transformation of species happens very, very slowly (see the preceding paragraph), to explain why there are no transitional forms for the emergence of humans he observes that "these times of change were quick, so there was less chance of the ‘missing links’ becoming fossilized" (67). And so, in spite of the absence of any concrete scientific evidence, he claims that "the overall pattern is clear." Actually, all that is clear is the subjective idea of evolution that he and other evolutionists are imposing upon the fossil record. Once they have superimposed from without a pattern of evolution upon the authentic data in the fossil record, they have no trouble seeing in the data the overall pattern of evolution.

8. Genesis 1:27 tells us that God created man "male and female." To Stephen Webster "sex is a biological mystery," because "biologists find it hard to explain how such an inefficient system could evolve" (p. 32). In fact, Darwinian evolutionists cannot explain it at all. In the emergence of a new species in the Darwinian scenario both a male and a female would have to appear at the same time and in the same place. But the unlikeliness of this happening by chance for any new species, and all the more for the whole gamut of species, is so great that it is overwhelming.

9. Evolution is "a theory without a mechanism" (Walt Brown). Webster tells children and others that for Darwin natural selection "was the mechanism of evolution," but natural selection, the survival of the fittest, requires first the existence of the fittest, and evolutionists cannot produce or even suggest a credible mechanism by which viable new species could emerge. On the other hand, creationists, following the inspired word of Genesis 1, say that on the third "day" God created the plants, "each according to its kind" (Gen 1:12), and on the fifth "day" God created the fish and the birds, "each according to its kind" (Gen 1:21), and on the sixth "day" God created the cattle, the species of animals that live on the dry land, and man (Gen 1:24-27). Now, creation by the infinite power of God needs no natural mechanism because it is above all natural mechanisms. In fact, all of the existing natural mechanisms were also created by God. But the Genesis account does not exclude that God may have used some created forces and processes in the acts of creation. The length of time used by God for these acts of creation is not specified in Genesis, since a "day" is therein defined as an unspecified space of time consisting of a period of darkness followed by a period of light ("evening and morning"), and the account even tells us that the establishment of the 24-hour day was done by God only on the fourth "day" (Genesis 1:14). Hence, the "six days" of creation in the first chapter of Genesis need not have been 24-hour days. Therefore, Stephen Webster’s rejection of the Genesis creation account on the ground that it falsely limits the building up of the world by God to six 24-hour days (p. 10) is without foundation in fact.

10. The Genesis account of creation does not necessarily say that God directly created all of the more than a million species categorized by modern biology. It says that He created the genera, or major categories, with gene pools such that they might have had the potentiality of later developing into more limited species in each category. Such adaptation goes by the name of "microevolution" and does not offer evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory. But it does imply that the idea of each species and its pattern of genetic structure was instilled originally by an intelligent act of God.

11. Webster notes that the way in which each kind of living organism adapts to its environment was "in the past" considered to be a proof for the existence of God. Yes, and it is still considered to be so. It takes just a little objectivity and common sense to realize that plants and animals could not have performed such a task of themselves and by themselves. For Webster "chance genetic variation" makes some individuals of a species more fit to address their environment than it does others (p. 28), but studies have shown that there is no statistical probability that chance variation could produce a new gene or organ.

12. Darwinian evolutionists have no credible explanation for the origin of life on earth. Consider the living cell. Webster maintains that "For almost 3 billion years after it first appeared, most life consisted of single-celled organisms drifting in the sea" (p. 40). While admitting that "no one is certain [that is, no evolutionist really knows] how life began," he goes on to speculate that carbon molecules were accumulated somewhere and then "chemical reactions in the sea or atmosphere over thousands of years made the first life forms" (p. 39). Evolutionists have looked without success for some evidence of the past existence of simpler forms of the living cell. Webster speculates that the earliest life forms may not have had a membrane or even DNA (p. 38). But it seems obvious that such conglomerations, since they are assumed to have been floating in water or air, would quickly have drifted apart. To counter this fact, Webster imagines that the first microscopic life forms might have been "fatty bubbles floating in water" and "able to absorb molecules and divide in two" (p. 39). But this kind of division would be a living act involving the internal reproduction of protein molecules, and there is no reasonable scientific indication that a mere fatty bubble could begin to do this. Attempts such as this to suggest how primitive ancestors of these one-celled organisms might first have arisen appear to be paltry at best and do not reflect the complexity of the question. Since the 1950s molecular biology has shown the immense intricacy of every living cell. Molecular biologist Michael Denton, in his well-known work, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, points out that each and every tiny bacterial cell "is in effect a veritable microminiaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million [American: one hundred billion] atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world."³ Denton maintains that the complexity of any living cell is so great that it would be "impossible " for these components to have been thrown together suddenly "by some freakish natural event," which, if it could occur, "would be indistinguishable from a miracle."⁴ (Here we are at the act of creation by God.) And Denton points out also that there is absolutely no positive scientific evidence whatsoever for the existence now or at any time in the past of a "pre-biotic soup" that evolutionists like to conjecture as a base for the leap to life (p. 261). Before the 1950s the idea was circulating that certain viruses would prove to be intermediate between the non-living world and the living cell, but since then, says Denton, "molecular biology has served only to emphasize the enormity of the gap."⁵

13. Consider the protein molecules in every living cell. Molecular biology has shown that the design of elements is basically the same in all cells, and that the size, structure, and design of the protein manufacturing machinery "is practically the same in all cells." In this sense "no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth."⁶ The tiniest known bacterial cells have a protein manufacturing system of nearly one hundred different proteins, "all carrying out different, very specific steps in the assembly of a new protein molecule."⁷ Some evolutionists speculate that there was a series of much simpler cell systems, but they have to admit that their hypothetical protein synthesizing systems would have been imperfect in comparison to the "wonderfully efficient translational apparatus" of all existing cells today, and modern biologists admit that the probability that a less efficient protein synthesizing system could reproduce any gene entirely correctly is "zero."⁸ Denton points out that, if even a small portion of these proteins were primitive, in the sense of crudely made, "it is practically impossible to accept that any protein would ever be manufactured, let alone one with a specific molecular configuration capable of performing a specific function in the cell."⁹ He notes that, since "transitions to function are of necessity abrupt," the problem of the origin of life [for non-believers] adds further support to the idea that "the divisions of nature arise out of the necessities rooted in the logic of the design of complex systems."¹⁰ What he means is that every functional part of living mechanisms implies the existence of the whole organ. The eye, the ear, the feather cannot be acceptably thought to have come into existence part by part over many generations and a long period of time, because there is no sufficient reason for parts of a non-functioning mechanism to have come into existence earlier by themselves. Denton concludes that the failure of evolutionists to give a plausible explanation of how life arose "casts a number of shadows over the whole field of evolutionary speculation,"¹¹ because it is one more instance of where a lack of empirical evidence of transitional forms coincides with an inability even to imagine plausibly what these hoped-for transitional forms might have been like.

14. How seriously, then, can one take the primordial "fatty bubbles floating in water, able to absorb molecules and divide in two" imagined for young readers by Stephen Webster (p. 39)? Has molecular biology confirmed the theory of evolution? Webster relates that electron microscopes have revealed the details of living cells, and biochemistry has revealed the functions of cellular molecules, with the result that "this research has confirmed Darwin’s main ideas and strengthened the conclusions he reached" (p. 20). On the contrary, molecular biologist Michael Denton recalls the hope that evolutionists had around the middle of the twentieth century that the new field of comparative biochemistry might at last provide the connecting links of evolution that the fossil record had failed to produce, and he makes the sobering observation that "as more protein sequences began to accumulate during the 1960s, it became increasingly apparent that the molecules were not going to provide any evidence of sequential arrangements in nature, but were rather going to reaffirm the traditional view that the system of nature conforms fundamentally to a highly ordered hierarchic scheme from which all direct evidence for evolution is emphatically absent."¹² In a chapter dedicated to the comparison of molecules in the cells of related species, Denton states the conclusion that "there is no evidence at all for evolutionary transformations in this sequencing data" and that no class of cells can be designated as ancestral to another.¹³ What truth is there, then, in Webster’s enthusiastic claim that "at the beginning of the twenty-first century, evidence of evolution is flooding in from every area of biology" (p. 34)? The facts appear to be otherwise. Denton was able to show in 1985 that the new era of comparative biology "illustrates just how erroneous is the assumption that advances in biological knowledge are continually confirming the traditional evolutionary story. There is no avoiding the serious nature of the challenge to the whole evolutionary framework implicit in these findings. For if the ancient representatives of groups such as amphibia, lungfish, cyclostomes and reptiles manufactured proteins similar to those manufactured by their living representatives today, and if, therefore, the isolation of the main divisions of nature was just the same in the past as it is today, if for example ancient lungfish and ancient amphibia were as separate from each other as their present day descendants are, then the whole concept of evolution collapses."¹⁴

15. Evolutionists present the incidence of mutations as an evidence of evolution, but mutations are only minor adaptations of a species to it environment; they are not steps toward a new species. Webster recounts that "scientists can now make mutations by exposing organisms to chemicals or X-rays" (p. 36), but these mutations are only deformities produced by bombarding the genes of the individual to produce monsters. The most famous experiments along these lines were made with fruit flies which, after having been bred for many generations under x-rays, produced flies with extra eyes (that could not see), with extra wings (that could not fly), with extra legs (that could not walk), and so on. And yet, we are told, after these monster flies of many mutations were allowed to breed away from the x-rays, their offspring popped right back to what they were in the first place.

16. Webster holds to the Darwinian theory that all the development from one species to another occurred purely by chance, and that natural selection and the survival of the fittest weeded out the less successful developments. Thus, he tells children that "chance genetic variation guarantees that some individuals fit the environment better than others," and that the process of natural selection "favors well-adapted organisms and spreads genes through the population." (p. 28). Now, natural selection can favor well-adapted organisms, but it cannot produce the organisms themselves. The well-adapted organisms have to exist before they can survive the process of natural selection. Michael Denton has devoted a chapter of his book on evolution to the statistical probabilities of organic development by pure chance. First he shows mathematically that complex systems cannot undergo evolution by pure trial and error because "their functional distribution invariably conforms to an improbable discontinuum," (that is, a system forming by chance constantly tends to break apart), and he finds this fact to be "very close to a formal disproof of the whole Darwinian paradigm of nature."¹⁵ He notes also the general consensus of geneticists that the significant functional modification of a gene "would require several simultaneous amino acid replacements of a relatively improbable nature," and that such a functional transformation seems to be impossible.¹⁶ And he points out that neither Darwin nor Dawkins ever calculated the mathematical probability that any of the complex systems abounding in nature could have arisen by chance. And so Denton concludes his own statistical study of the probability of chance mutations in the following words: "It is surely a little premature to claim that random processes could have assembled mosquitoes and elephants, when we still have to determine the actual probability of the discovery [emergence] by chance of one single functional protein molecule."¹⁷

17. While Webster maintains that all of the living species evolved purely by chance and not by purpose or design, he nevertheless repeatedly brings purpose into his evolutionary explanations. Thus, he avers that "invertebrates evolved many defenses to keep themselves safe from attack," that "some fish began to develop jaws, made out of the bones of their gill arches," and that "these were a revolutionary weapon" (pp. 40-41). Again, he observes that "flowers use color to attract bees and other insects," and that "organisms developed communication because it helps survival" (p. 64). So Webster, inconsistent with his theory, uses purpose and not pure chance to narrate these supposed developments. He states a truth where he says that natural selection can modify, but it cannot invent (p. 29), and he is, therefore, left with no mechanism to explain how these developments could have taken place. Instead he implies the existence of an impersonal mysterious force within physical nature, and within a supposed web of life, that has pushed the process of evolution forward and continues to do so. He calls it "evolution," and he even declares that "evolution has created" the system of living organisms (p. 6). What Webster has done, and this would be, I believe, the impression he gives to children, is to take the credit for the creation of life away from God the Creator and placed it in the hands of "impersonal, if still mysterious forces," which he claims have "created" (p. 6) what only God could create. And so he replaces belief in the historical truth of divine creation with belief in a new mythology of "impersonal mysterious forces."

18. The number of meaningful functions in living organisms is immense. That these functions were placed in the genes of living organisms by God is a meaningful explanation of how they got there. But Webster offers no meaningful explanation for these phenomena. He mentions how some plants have beautiful flowers and scents to attract bees. These colorful designs could not have arisen from chance modifications of their genes, as Denton so cogently points out. But how could plants, which have no power of sight or smell, have ever suspected that color or odor could exist at all? And if they knew of this, how would they begin the process of producing color and scent within themselves? Reason tells us that they didn’t produce them by themselves. Yet Webster leaves children to assume that they developed these on their own, even though he offers no idea of a process by which they could have done this. Is Webster’s idea science or fiction?

19. Mosquitoes, for another example, would not fare well if they were not able to produce within their bodies an anti-coagulant substance to inject into a vein before they drew blood. Such a substance could not have appeared by chance within their bodies. Nor could they have known that such a substance was possible or how it could be made. Reason tells us that they didn’t make it of themselves. Yet Webster, from his general picture, leaves one to assume that they somehow would have developed this substance on their own. Is Webster’s picture fact or fiction?

20. Scorpions, several kinds of serpents, and some other species of animals have powerful poisons adroitly placed within their bodies to paralyze and kill their prey. These poisons could not have occurred there by chance. Nor could they have known or sensed that such a thing as a poison even existed or how to begin to develop it conveniently within their bodies. Reason tells us that this function was placed in them by God the Creator, while Webster leaves children to assume that they would have created this function themselves. Is Webster’s idea science or fiction?

21. Bats possess a wonderfully precise kind of sonar, called echolocation, by which in the dark they can find their way around and detect and swallow hundreds of flying insects in the space of one night. This faculty could not have developed by pure chance. How would the postulated ancestor bats have known or sensed that such a thing as sonar was even possible, and how would they begin to go about developing it within their bodies? How would we right now go about beginning to develop this power within our bodies? We don’t have a clue, and neither does Stephen Webster. Reason tells us that God designed and placed (directly or indirectly) this function within bats, while Webster’s picture leaves his child readers to assume that they developed this on their own, and that only a sufficient amount of time was necessary. Is Webster’s idea fact or fiction?

22. These four examples of biological functions that could not have been self-produced are obvious to the general experience of people of all places and ages, while modern biology provides innumerable other examples of the same marvelous functions in the physiology of living species both in the macroscopic world around us and in the microscopic and molecular worlds within us. It shouldn’t take much intuition to see the design of nature, if one’s vision is not blocked by something like belief in the Darwinian theory of evolution.

23. Webster says that some fish evolved into land animals and birds (p. 28). According to his calculations, about 380 million years ago some fish crawled up onto dry land and evolved into amphibians like the frogs and toads, salamanders and newts of today (p. 44), then amphibians evolved into reptiles, and, about 225 million years ago, some reptiles evolved into dinosaurs (p. 46), and finally dinosaurs or reptiles evolved into birds (pp. 48-49). How much scientific evidence is there for this story? Denton points out that all of the new forms of life that have turned up as fossils relate as sister species to already known forms and do not fit inside of any hypothetical evolutionary tree, and that is why the British Museum, for instance, in classifying fossil species, works with the assumption that none of them is ancestral to another.¹⁸ In a lengthy and detailed discussion of this supposed evolutionary history, Denton notes, for instance, that birds possess in their lungs and respiratory systems certain bodily characteristics "which seem to defy plausible evolutionary explanations." In all other vertebrates air is moved in and out through the same passage, but in birds the air flows only in one direction through the lungs, and this requires "a highly specialized and unique division of the body cavity of the bird into several compressible compartments." Denton remarks that "just how such an utterly different respiratory system could have evolved gradually from the standard vertebrate design is fantastically difficult to envisage, especially bearing in mind that the maintenance of respiratory function is absolutely vital to the life of an organism to the extent that the slightest malfunction leads to death within minutes."¹⁹ Denton’s point is that for birds to have evolved from reptiles, (as Webster claims), the original respiratory system would have to have been discarded and a completely new and different respiratory system would have to have been inserted, a transition that had to be immediately complete, because neither system could function if a part were missing. But the theory of evolution requires that over a long period of time and over hundreds or even thousands of successive generations this change from one respiratory system to the other gradually took place, and this could not in reality have happened. Darwin suspected this impasse where he remarked in The Origin of Species: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."²⁰

24. A desperate attempt to save the theory of evolution in spite of the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record has been suggested by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Gould under the name of "punctuated equilibrium." The idea is that the gradual changes would have occurred only in the genes, so that a new species would pop out all at once. But how could the genes change gradually and yet remain the same over a long succession of generations? Evolutionists have no answer to this question. According to Denton, the gap between a primitive terrestrial mammal and a whale or a primitive terrestrial reptile and an Ichthyosaur, and even more the gaps between major phyla such as mollusks and arthropods "could not, unless we are to believe in miracles, have been crossed in geologically short periods of time through one or two transitional species occupying restricted geographical areas."²¹

25. Webster seeks to save the theory by proposing that, for instance, in the case of the alleged evolution of man, "these times of change were quick" (p. 67). Yes, according to Webster’s calculation, it took only 130,000 years. That would amount to about 3,900 successive generations during which, in geologically recent times, the species of man was forming bit by bit, and during which the new characteristics were building up and being carried by the successive generations. Webster thinks that this gives little chance that "missing links" could have been preserved as fossils. It seems more like a lame excuse. Webster teaches that man evolved through a process that began four million years ago, when a group of apes began to stand on their hind legs (p. 66), and ended with "our own species, homo sapiens," which appeared 130 thousand years ago (p. 68). But he is honest enough to admit that "so far the story remains incomplete" (p. 66), and that "any picture of how humans evolved is uncertain," since "there are no fossils that show the species actually transforming" (p. 67), and that "the evolution of hominids – humans and their bipedal ancestors – is barely understood," because of the fact that "fossil remains are rare and usually so fragmentary that guesswork is needed to piece together the clues" (p. 70). We are back to the doctrine of the "overall pattern," namely, that, by superimposing on the scant fossils that have appeared the mental pattern of evolutionary change, one is able to read into the data a pattern of evolutionary change. Webster doesn’t mention to the children the many mistakes, frauds, and hoaxes published in the past by evolutionists in their eagerness to convince people that man has evolved from lower organisms. The missing links of biology textbooks of the earlier twentieth century have all been removed for the reason that they proved to be frauds, hoaxes, or misreadings of the data. How many of the remaining few fossils that are now alleged to be transitional animal species will also eventually be discarded for the same reason?

26. Evolution is not a scientifically established fact, although most people have been led to believe that it is. Evolution is a disproved idea, a theory without a mechanism, a claim without foundation in historical evidence. The principal motive behind the intense propaganda in favor of evolution is the stubborn refusal on the part of many natural scientists and highly placed educators to accept the fact of creation by God. Children in most of the schools in the United States and elsewhere are having the disproved theory of evolution foisted upon them as if it were a proven fact, and teachers of children in many of these schools are prohibited by law from mentioning any arguments against this theory or from pointing out to the children the obvious design of the universe and of all living organisms. Fortunately, many parents, legislators, and other informed persons of all levels and categories in at least nineteen States of the United States are now raising their voices in massive protest against this outrageous situation and are demanding that the design of nature and of living species be allowed to be presented to students at least as an option, so that their minds will not be malformed by the bias of some and closed to the wider picture of reality. It is my conviction that students and all persons who can read should look at and ponder the overwhelming scientific arguments against the theory of evolution. A shelf of books written by experts who are critical of the theory of evolution has been published during the past few years. Catholic readers who believe in "theistic evolution" on the ground that this idea does not exclude creation by God should not uncritically accept a theistic variation of this basically atheistic theory just because it doesn’t seem to exclude the creation and providence of God. The primary problem is that the theory doesn’t stand up under scientific scrutiny. To believe that the Moon is made of yellow cheese would not conflict with belief in divine creation, but that is not sufficient reason to believe that the Moon is made of yellow cheese. The same is true for evolution. The often heard slogan, "Evolution is science; creation is religion," should at last be laid to rest, because the truth of the matter is that : "Creation is science; evolution is a myth."