Deconstructing Evolution’s Icons

By Rev. Joshua V. Schneider

I have a question for those who believe in evolution: “What specific evidence compels you to believe in evolution?” Unfortunately, because evolution is all we hear about in the media and in most schools, we often accept it uncritically without examining the evidence or both sides of the question. Unthinking acceptance of what everybody says is hardly a reason to believe anything.

In the DVD, Icons of Evolution, biologist Dr. Jonathan Wells explores several “textbook” evidences that supposedly prove evolution. What’s startling is that many of these supposed “icons” of evolution are known, even by evolutionists, to be misleading, inaccurate, and even fraudulent. Yet they remain in our textbooks!!

Here are a few examples of such icons. First, there are the diagrams of embryos found in many biology textbooks (including my freshman general biology textbook from college) that seem to show how similar humans look and develop as embryos when compared to reptiles, fish, or birds. Supposedly these stages of early development “retrace” our evolutionary ancestry within the womb. However it’s long been known that these drawings don’t accurately match the real embryos and leave out the earliest stages of development where the differences are the greatest. This was a case of picking and choosing evidence, and artists fraudulently changing the facts.

A second well-known icon is “Darwin’s Finches.” There are many kinds of finches on the Galapagos Islands that come from a single finch ancestor, but each are adapted with different-sized beaks to feed on specialized food sources. This has been called the “best and most detailed demonstration to date of the power of Darwin’s processes.” But does the difference in beak sizes even begin to explain how we got birds in the first place, i.e., the origin of species? Research has shown that these are cyclical changes and move back and forth with drought patterns, and so no net evolution takes place. This example only shows horizontal variation among birds (microevolution— which creationists affirm and accept), but shows no vertical increase in information that could drive evolution into new species with fundamentally different organs or body plans. In the end, finches are still finches, and evolutionists are still no closer to explaining the origin of finches.

Yet another icon of evolution is the existence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In many cases the resistance of bacteria to a drug is something they genetically inherited, so the information for resistance was something they already had, and the non-resistant ones just died out. In other cases, mutations can also cause bacteria to get a resistance they didn’t have before. But in experiments with these mutant-survivors and resistant bacteria, the consistent finding is that the “survivors” overall are weaker than the original parent bacteria. While these mutations may have been beneficial for the shortterm survival of the bacteria against an antibiotic, they did not result from an increase of genetic information that could provide the engine to drive evolution forward. These examples actually run counter to evolution because the genetic changes are from a scrambling or deletion of information in the genetic code, not an increase of new information, which upward evolution requires. In order for evolution to produce more and more complex life, it needs an information-generating engine—but no such engine exists. Evolution cannot rely on scrambling and deleting already existing information.

Finding out that man’s theories are fallible and prone to crumble when they run contrary to the teaching of Scripture should come as no surprise to Christians. The Bible is the only fully authoritative and inspired account of the “history of the universe” from creation through God’s redemption in Christ Jesus. But what should come as a surprise to us, and should give us pause to reflect, is why many Christians so readily accept and endorse a theory such as evolution, which is propped up by supposed “icons” that are really pillars of dust. My prayer is that we will use our God-given reason and knowledge of the Bible to be wise and discerning, so that we aren’t misled to think that truth is found by majority opinion.

Rev. Joshua V. Schneider serves at Emmanuel Lutheran Church of Maui, in the city of Kahului, Hawaii. The church has both a preschool and K-8 grade school. He and his wife Kristine are the proud parents of a newborn daughter, Eleonora. Pastor Schneider and his wife enjoy hiking in the mountains and valleys of their island home of Maui. He can be reached at pastor.schneider@ hotmail.com