The Testimony of Living Things

WHEN we look at the world of larger living things, is there any evidence that one kind of living thing changes into another kind? Is there a gradual series of animals and plants between “lower” types and “higher” types?

If evolution is true, there should be. If the Bible is true, there should not be.

When we study the plant and animal realm that is alive today, what does it tell us? Can we observe the gradual changing of one kind into another kind?

In a book supporting evolution, Processes of Organic Evolution, we read: “To be sure, no biologist has actually seen the origin by evolution of a major group of organisms.”

Why not? Why has no one ever seen the evolution of a major group of organisms?

Evolutionists will answer that question by saying it is because evolution takes millions of years and man does not live long enough to observe it. But such a conclusion is not evidence. It is, again, “guesswork.” When we deal only with the evidence, it gives a different answer.

No Transitions

The reason why such evolution cannot be seen among living things now is that all forms of life are complete. None are observed to be in the transition stage, changing into another kind of life. Nowhere are there to be found partial organs or limbs evolving into something else. Wherever there is an eye, ear, wing, hand, foot or some other organ or structure, it is not in an “in-between” stage. It is complete, and useful to the organism that has it.

True, some have pointed to organs such as the appendix and tonsils in man, claiming that these have been ‘left over’ from evolution. But further knowledge revealed that such organs were not ‘left over’ at all, but have a definite use. The problem was that investigators did not understand their function until recently.

The fact that there are no transitional forms among living things was also noted in his day by Charles Darwin, the “father” of modern evolution. Over a century ago he wrote:

“Why, if species have descended from other species by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?”

Darwin answered by saying that the transitional forms had all been exterminated already. But does this seem reasonable? Should we not expect that at least some transitions would still be in evidence, since evolution is said to be continuing?

Why No Transitions

Why are there no transitional forms among living things? Simply because they are not in transition! They are not changing from one kind to another kind, but remain within their kinds.

While there is much variety, or changing, going on within each kind, the various kinds are kept separate. And they are kept that way by a barrier that no scientist has ever been able to overcome. What is that? The barrier of sterility between basic kinds.

To illustrate: among humans we see a vast variety of sizes, shapes, colors and abilities. Hardly any two persons look the same. Why, of the 3.8 billion people on earth now, few, if any, even have the same set of fingerprints! Yet, no matter how different they are, people everywhere are easily recognized as being of the human family.

All people can intermarry and produce children regardless of the variations that exist. But humans cannot mate with any animal and produce offspring. They can only reproduce if they stay within their kind, humankind. If they try to step outside that boundary, outside their kind, they cannot reproduce with any other living thing. There is no exception to this rule.

What Breeding Experiments Show

In breeding experiments scientists have tried to keep changing various animals and plants indefinitely. They wanted to see if in time they could develop new forms of life. With what result? The English medical publication On Call reports:

“In breeding procedures, breeders usually find that after a few generations, an optimum is reached beyond which further improvement is impossible, and there has been no new species formed which is infertile with its ancestral form, and fertile with other individuals of the same species. Breeding procedures, therefore, would seem to refute, rather than support Evolution.”

In his own extensive research on this matter, lawyer Norman Macbeth reached that same conclusion. He said:

“Although the subject is seldom discussed [by evolutionists], my view is shared by reputable scientists. Thus [Loren] Eiseley says: ‘It would appear that careful domestic breeding, whatever it may do to improve the quality of race horses or cabbages, is not actually in itself the road to the endless biological deviation which is evolution. There is great irony in this situation, for more than almost any other single factor, domestic breeding has been used as an argument for the reality of evolution’ . . .

“Professor [Edward] Deevey supplies terse phrases such as ‘the species barrier’ . . . then confesses bankruptcy: ‘Some remarkable things have been done by crossbreeding and selection inside the species barrier, or within a larger circle of closely related species, such as the wheats. But wheat is still wheat, and not, for instance, grapefruit; and we can no more grow wings on pigs than hens can make cylindrical eggs.’”

Thus, basic kinds of living things are found to be remarkably stable. The most intensive breeding experiments cannot push them beyond a certain point. When they go too far, they reach the boundary of sterility. An example of this is the mule, produced by mating a donkey and a horse. But the mule has evidently reached the outer limit of the horse kind, for the mule is ordinarily sterile.

So while experiments, and observations of what goes on in the natural state, show great variety and adaptability within basic kinds, plants or animals never change so much that they begin transforming into something else.

That is not what you would expect if evolution were true. However, it is precisely what you would expect if the Bible is true, if living things were created and reproduce only “according to their kinds.”

Evolutionist Isaac Asimov admits that this is what the facts show, saying:

“Life comes only from life in the case of every animal man herds and of every plant man cultivates. . . .

“To be more exact, we should say that life comes only from similar life. . . . Each has young like itself; each was born of parents like itself; each comes from a long line (extended indefinitely backward in time) of creatures just like itself.”

What of humankind? The same thing is true, as the testimony of all recorded history shows. In Statement on Race, Ashley Montague says:

“Scientists have reached general agreement in recognizing that mankind is one: that all men belong to the same species, . . . It is further generally agreed among scientists that all men are probably derived from the same common stock. . . .

“St. Paul’s dictum that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth’ is in perfect accord with the findings of science.”

Professor Moore also says: “There is absolutely no experimental evidence for any change of one animal form into another animal form; or for that matter, any change of one plant form into another plant form . . . The only evidence of change that can be classed properly as the result of sound scientific method is the evidence of genetic variation WITHIN limits of kinds or forms of animals, or WITHIN limits of kinds or forms of plants.”

What the Fossil Record Reveals

Also of interest is Moore’s observation regarding plants and animals that have lived in the past, but that have since died. He says:

“There is absolutely no . . . evidence in the prime historical source, the fossil record, for any actual connection in sequence of these kinds. No transitional forms have been found in the fossil record very probably because no transitional forms exist in fossil stage at all. Very likely, transitions between animal kinds and/​or transitions between plant kinds have never occurred.”

That is the evidence after more than a century of digging. The record remains precisely the same as when, over a century ago, Darwin exclaimed: “As by this [evolution] theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them imbedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”

He passed off the difficulty by stating that the fossil record was at fault. But after more than a century of intensive digging, that excuse can no longer validly be used. The fossil record is complete enough to show the same thing that the living record does​—a living thing reproduces only “according to its kind.” It is not found to be changing from one kind into another.

Furthermore, Darwin said that if it could be shown that groups of living things “have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution.” What does the evidence show? Professor Moore reports:

“In the 1967 publication, The Fossil Record, . . . jointly sponsored by the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontological Association of England . . . some 120 scientists, all specialists, prepared 30 chapters in a monumental work of over 800 pages to present the fossil record for plants and animals divided into about 2,500 groups. . . .

“A conclusive generalization drawn from these charts is as follows: Each major form or kind of plant and animal is shown to have a separate and distinct history from all the other forms or kinds!!!

“Groups of both plants and animals appear suddenly in the fossil record. . . . Whales, bats, horses, primates, elephants, hares, squirrels, etc., all are as distinct at their first appearance as they are now. There is not a trace of a common ancestor, much less a link with any reptile, the supposed progenitor. . . .

“And proponents of the General Theory of Evolution, who are familiar with the facts of paleontology, admit existence of gaps between all higher categories. They admit that this is an undeniable fact of the fossil record.”

This is indeed admitted by evolutionists. For instance, in Processes of Organic Evolution, G. L. Stebbins says of the fossil evidence regarding the origin and evolution of major groups of living things: “Evolutionists are impressed above all with the imperfection of the fossil record for this purpose.” He speaks of “profound gaps” and the “incompleteness and biased [prejudiced!] nature of the fossil record.”

Yet, he also says: “The record of past forms of life [in fossil form] is now extensive and is constantly increasing in richness.” So there is a sufficient amount of fossils to draw conclusions. But nowhere are there to be found the transitional forms that should have existed if one group transformed into another by evolution.

This is acknowledged to be the case with smaller life forms as well, for Asimov admits: “Primitive though a unicellular [one-celled] creature seems in comparison to a man, or even to an oyster, it must itself be the end product of a long line of evolution, of which no trace has been left.” And he says of higher forms: “Perhaps both chordates and echinoderms branched off from a common ancestor of which we have no record.” [Italics ours]

Thus, we can understand why Stebbins laments: “The fossil record is exactly the wrong kind for evolutionists who wish to learn how the major groups of organisms originated.”

And admits evolutionist Edmund Samuel, Associate Professor of Biology, Antioch College, Ohio: “The concept of evolution cannot be considered a strong scientific explanation for the presence of the diverse forms of life in space and time. . . . This is because the data must be used circumstantially and no fine analysis . . . of the fossil record can directly support evolution.”​—Order: In Life (1972), p. 120.

Hence, from the record of living things, and from the fossil record, what would you honestly conclude? Do the facts support a gradual evolution of one kind of living thing into another? Or do they instead support the Bible’s view that God created different kinds of living things and that they multiply only “according to their kinds”?