The fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is often a subject in mutation experiments. By carefully controlling their interbreeding and bombarding them with all sorts of odd things that people generally try not to get hit with too much, scientists have mutated all sorts of weird fruit flies. Of course, none of this demonstrates evolution, but there is one particular mutation that need to be addressed.
One example is the four-winged fruit fly that they produced with three mutations to the same gene. This involves what are known as 'Hox' or 'homeobox' genes. Basically, they act as guides to tell other genes where to activate. What happened here was that the gene for producing the wings on teh second segment was turned on in both the second and third segments, thus producing two sets of wings. However, the balancing instruments known as halteres, which normally reside on the third thoracic segment, did not develop, and thus the fruit fly could not fly. Also, muscles for the extra wings were never developed.
How evolutionists can use this, in which no new genes are produced at all and information is just directed somewhere else, as support for their model, in which massive quantities of new information would be required, is mind-boggling.
Darwin's finches:
Evolutionists sometimes claim Darwin's finches (from the Galapagos Islands) to be evidence for evolution. It is certainly an excellent case of the abilities of natural selection, and it is certainly a case of speciation. But no one informed denies either of these things. Of course they happen! But this doesn't prove evolution at all!
Between wet and dry years, the beak sizes of the finches oscillate between being small and large. One thing that is interesting with the 14 different species of finch is that they have been known to hybridize,and it seems that the populations both merge and diverge.
Peppered moths (Biston betularia):
Here's a common evolutionist "proof" of evolution. It is a wonderful example of natural selection, but nothing more. Two varieties of the peppered moth (the typica and carbonaria varieties) existed, and the darker version was much rarer because they stood out. When the Industrial Revolution produced more soot and the trees became darker, it was the lighter sort that stood out, and so the darker became more populous and the lighter sort became rarer. However, both varieties had already existed, and nothing changed but the ratio in the population. No new information was produced, and this offers evolution no support.
Embryological recapitulation:
Sometimes, evolutionists claim that embryology gives support to evolution, that individual embryological development imitates the evolution of species (whether supposedly mimicking the adult or embryological forms of the supposed evolutionary ancestors).
An early promoter of this notion was Ernst Haeckel, who made drawings to support recapitulation in 1868. They were denounced as fraud in 1874. Not only did he deliberately pick specimens to manufacture a pattern and not use the correct stages of embryological development, but he also used the same woodcut for separate classes of creatures! Prominent evolutionists have declared that teh concept is a fraud, and it should have died over a hundred years ago. Evolutionists commonly claim that it is no longer cited as evidence, that this is a situation of science correcting itself. Except it is still in countless textbooks used in countless courses, and there is no disclaimer. I came across it in reading my own high school biology textbook!
Haeckel's drawings, supposedly showing the outstanding similarities, actually started midway through development. The earlier stages are radically dissimilar. Developmental pathways of similar features are often completely different.
A still-repeated falsehood is that a human embryo at one point in its existence has gill slits. This is a superficial appearance. These are folds, the ridges being called pharyngeal arches and the pharyngeal clefts being between them.
Embryology does not lend support to evolution.
Double-click to keep reading Home