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2009: Missing Link Still Missing

The world of evolution is celebrating the 200th year since the birth of Charles Darwin. An enormous amount of time is being spent to commemorate his teachings and also to proselytize the masses. Identifying the ever-elusive missing link is central to their efforts.
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2009: Missing Link Still Missing

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Five Nobel Prize winners attended the May 2009 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Reno, Nevada.  One thousand, five hundred high school finalists were there.  Part of a question asked by one of the students was, “If your theories about the future of your field were proven incorrect tomorrow, would you cling to your belief or abandon it in favor of a new idea?”  Scientist Martin Chalfie answered in a way similar to the other Nobelists:

I would say that a good 95 percent—maybe I’m being generous to myself—of my ideas turn out to be wrong.  I think that’s how we do science.  [End of quote]

Chalfie’s answer reminds me of the GodSaidManSaid principle which states that man’s “truth” of yesterday is debunked by his “truth” of today, and his “truth” of today will be debunked by his “truth” of tomorrow.

If is very comforting to know that God’s truth never changes.  That is the nature of truth.  This subject is GodSaidManSaid feature #437.  These subjects prove the absolute, inerrant accuracy of the Word of God discovered in the majority-text Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.  All of these subjects are archived in text and streaming audio.  They are freely given for the illumination of the visitor.  Thank you for visiting.  We’re so glad you’ve come. 

Dear friend, have you found the God of certainty and truth?  Have you believed upon the Lord Jesus Christ and repented of your sins?  Have you been born again—born a second time?  Today is a marvelous day.  Today is your day of salvation.  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  Do it now.  We’ll wait for you here.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

GOD SAID, Exodus 20:11:

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

MAN SAID: The Bible is not a credible source.  Its writings were handed down from generation to generation and recorded by mere men.  It has no place in today’s enlightened society.

Now THE RECORD.  The following e-mail came from G.C.:

I have a question in regard to the special that was on the History Channel about The Link.  What are your thoughts on this?  They claim it’s the missing link that evolutionists have been looking for.  I did not watch the program because of my beliefs about evolution, but I would sure like to be able to debunk it.  That you so much for what you do.  [End of quote] 

Thank you, G.C., for your question. 

The world of evolution is celebrating the 200th year since the birth of Charles Darwin.  An enormous amount of time is being spent to commemorate his teachings and also to proselytize the masses.  Identifying the ever-elusive missing link is central to their efforts.  After being disappointed by the absolute absence of that missing link among millions of fossil discoveries, it’s no surprise that the wishful thinkers in their camp would use a little creative thinking and tinkering to produce their champions.

Their latest champion of the missing links is Ida, a lemur-like fossil, discovered in Germany.  Before we consider Ida, let’s look at some of pseudoscience’s past missing link icons.  In last week’s article concerning Peking Man, we listed six frauds for your perusal, and they follow:

1.  Ramapithecus was originally constructed from a few teeth and a few fragments of a jaw.  As a result of new fossil material, he has been reclassified as an orangutan.

2.  Australopithecines, a proposed missing link, has lost his credentials.  This creature did not walk upright in human manner.

3.  Java Man.  The original discoverer of Java Man (who was constructed from a femur, skull cap, and three teeth) set him forth as a show piece of evolution.  Many years later, he conceded that Java Man was probably just a giant gibbon.

4.  Neanderthal Man.  All anthropologists now believe he was just as human as you and me.

5.  Cro-Magnon Man.  If he walked down the street clean-shaven and in a business suit, he would go completely unnoticed.

6.  Nebraska Man, made famous in the Scopes trial in the 1920s, was the evolutionists’ proof that their theory was fact.  This Nebraska Man was their missing link.  The proof was a tooth.  But years later, after further digging, they discovered their tooth was that of a pig and not an intermediate of man.

A relatively new missing link was Archaeoraptor, which was offered to the public as proof positive that reptiles evolved into birds.  This Chinese chicken-lizard—much to the embarrassment of the evolutionists (and National Geographic, which was promoting it aggressively)—proved to be fraud.  It was discovered that someone had glued a dinosaur tail to a primitive bird.  And the frauds keep rolling.

In Lee Strobel’s book, The Case For A Creator, he interviewed Jonathan Wells.  Wells serves as a senior fellow at the Discover Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.  He received his undergraduate degree in geology and physics from Berkeley.  From Yale, he earned a doctorate in religion.  He also has a doctorate from Berkeley in molecular and cellular biology.  Excerpts from  Strobel’s book follow:

Other outlandish incidents occurred at about the same time the archaeoraptor fraud was coming to light.  Wells was attending a conference in Florida, where the star of the show was a fossil called bambiraptor, a chicken-sized dinosaur with supposedly bird-like characteristics.

“Again, paleontologists called it the missing link,” Wells told me.  “And, sure enough, the reconstructed animal on display had feathers or feather-like structures on it.  The problem was that no feathers were ever found with the fossil!  But because scientists said they should be there, they were added.  And the dinosaur looked even more like a bird because the guy who did the reconstruction used the same artificial eyes that taxidermists put in stuffed eagles.”  While there was a brief disclaimer, he added, it was rather cryptically written.  [End of quote]

In 1912, the newspaper headline blared, “Missing Link Found—Darwin’s Theory Proved.”  Author Donald DeYoung records the following:

The famous Piltdown Man fossil had been located in England.  Over the next 40 years the pieces of skull and accompanying tools were studied, debated, and often used as evolution evidence.  Four decades later however, in 1953, the artifacts were recognized as a complete fraud.  Someone had placed together the skull of a human and the jawbone of an ape.  They were artificially made to look old with acid and markings with a wire brush.  The perpetrator has never been identified.  Suspicions should have been raised immediately, for at least two reasons.  First, Piltdown Man was found just 30 miles from Charles Darwin’s residence.  Second, one of the burial implements alongside the fossil strangely resembled a cricket bat used in modern British sports!  [End of quote]

I found the following piece of information somewhat ironic.  In April of 1948, a significant scientific letter was published in the Physical Review Journal, titled “The Origin of Chemical Elements.”  The authors suggested that all elements in the universe were formed as a by-product of evolution’s big bang.  Unbeknownst to the authors, their “scholarly” labor would be published on April Fools’ Day.  Psalms 14:1 correctly records:

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.

Famed evolutionist Isaac Asimov made the following statement challenging creation scientists just before he exalted the peppered moth as his proof of evolution taking place in front of our very eyes.  Asimov said:

One of the arguments of the creationists is that no one has ever seen the forces of evolution at work.  That would seem the most nearly irrefutable of their arguments, and yet it, too, is wrong.

Concerning Asimov’s statement, Dr. Morris of ICR said:

Asimov then proceeded to recount the evidence of the peppered moth “evolving” into the carbonaria variety of the species Biston betularia by a process that has been called industrial melanism.  This has indeed become the main popular “proof” of natural selection, convincing countless innocent students of the “fact” of evolution.  The idea was that the “peppered moth” had evolved somehow into the “melanic moth” as a defense against bird predation during the industrial revolution in England and the resultant blackened tree trunks.  [End of quote]

Of course, the supposed truth of the peppered moth and its proof of evolution have since been fully discredited.  In regard to the textbooks, evolutionary historian William Provine, when being interviewed by author Judith Hooper, had this to say:

...It’s fun to look through all the textbooks and always this example—and I mean always—is hauled out.  [End of quote]

I’m sure that most prominent evolutionists are aware that their icon, the peppered moth, is no longer an example of evolution taking place before our very eyes.

In 1959, the centennial celebration of 100 years of Darwin was convened in Chicago where adulation and praise were heaped upon the nothing god of evolution.  According to interviewer Ms. Hooper:

The peppered moth was becoming evolutionists’ number one icon just in time for the big Darwin centennial.  [End of quote]

The keynote speaker at the centennial was Julian Huxley, an admirer of Ford and Kettlewell, who “proclaimed the triumph of Darwinism and death of God.”  The peppered moth was frequently noted by the centennial speakers.

Since that great and heady day of the celebration of evolutionism in Chicago, the story of the peppered moth was found to be peppered with falsehood.  Man’s truth, which attempted to discredit God’s truth, again became a lie.

In the 1970s, young scientists were finding it impossible to replicate Kettlewell’s results.  In 1976, Ted Sargent, now emeritus professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts, published his first paper raising doubts about the credibility of Kettlewell’s work.  And it was more than doubt: Sargent asserted that all the famous peppered moths on tree trunks, photographed and published by Kettlewell, were fakes.

Many other researchers began finding flaws in Kettlewell’s research.  According to Hooper, some of the critics of the peppered moth were accused of “giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the creationists.”  Hooper went on to say of Kettlewell’s research, “...at its core lay flawed science, dubious methodology and wishful thinking.”  [End of quote]

Cambridge lepidopterist Michael Majerus authored the book Melanism: Evolution in Action.  He said that there was no doubt that the classic story of the peppered moth was wrong in almost every detail.  In spite of all the debunking of Kettlewell, Majerus and Judith Hooper were defenders of evolution.

The following excerpt is from Dr. Morris’ paper, “Evolutionists and the Moth Myth:”

It may be surprising to her and other evolutionists that creationists have never had a problem with the traditional story, except with the claim that it was “evolution in action.”  It was really only “variation and conservation in action.”  It could hardly even be called microevolution, because the moth remained the same species throughout the process.  [End of quote]

The list of missing link fakery is long, with the latest entry being the 2009 anointing of Ida.  The following excerpts are from science writer Brian Thomas’ article published in Acts & Facts, titled “The Ida Fossil: A Clever Campaign for a Lackluster ‘Link:’”

Ida is the stunningly well-preserved fossil that has been hailed as “our connection with the rest of all the mammals.”  A massive publicity campaign, including books, videos, a website, and public unveilings, coincided with the May 2009 publication of a scientific study conducted on the fossil.  But published statements from creation and evolutionary scientists alike indicate that Ida’s accolades as a “missing link” are thoroughly undeserved.

Chris Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History wrote that “Ida is not a ‘missing link’—at least not between anthropoids and more primitive primates.”  And Duke University paleontologist Richard Kay stated, “There is no phylogenetic analysis to support the claims” that Ida is a missing link.

Not only does Ida not have transitional features that a missing link should have, but she was found in a rock layer that is too young for her to even be a candidate for a “missing link” status.  Harvard-trained paleontologist Kurt Wise told the Baptist Press that, according to evolutionary timescales, “Ida is much younger than both good fossils of lemurs and good fossils of monkeys.”

What was Ida, then?  Other than a few different teeth, a single ankle bone that is unlike that of modern lemurs, and the absence of modern lemurs’ “toilet claw,” she appears very lemur-like.  To be an evolutionary link, “Ida would have to have anthropoid-like features that evolved after anthropoids split away from lemurs and other early primates.  Here, alas, Ida fails miserably.”  She appears to be just what biblically-informed science would predict – a fully-formed distinct creature with no transitional features that was buried in a catastrophic event.

With such strong evidence that Ida is not a missing link, why has there been such a widespread campaign claiming that she is?  Ida is so well-preserved, and evolutionary theory is currently in such need of an icon, that the match is being made, with or without supporting science.  The extravagant marketing of this fossil purported to be “proof of evolution” seems to have been timed for the effective sale of the evolutionary theory itself.  With so many fossils like “Lucy” having been confirmed as evolutionary dead ends, the evolutionary camp is running out of missing links.  As (paleontologist Jorn) Hurum told UK news outlet The Guardian, “You need an icon or two in a museum to drag people in.”

Since each evolutionary “link” turns out to be false, what does that say about the whole theory?  [End of quote]

Satan’s champions continue to arise to contradict the Word of God, but they will continue to fail.  The Word of God is our only sure foundation.  Build your life upon it.

GOD SAID, Genesis 1:1:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

GOD SAID, Exodus 20:11:

For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

MAN SAID: The Bible is not a credible source.  Its writings were handed down from generation to generation and recorded by mere men.  It has no place in today’s enlightened society.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Asimov’s New Guide To Science, Basic Books, 1984; as quoted by Hooper, op. cit., p309

DeYoung, D., Fascinating Facts, New Leaf Press, September 2000.

Hooper, J., Of Moths and Men, W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 2002

Morris, H.M., “Evolutionists and the Moth Myth,” Back To Genesis, ICR Publications, 8/03

“Nobelists to students: Being wrong may be just right,” Science News, 7/4/09, p32

Strobel, L., The Case for a Creator, Zondervan, pp59-60

Thomas, B., MS, “The Ida Fossil: A Clever Campaign for a Lackluster ‘Link,’” Acts & Facts, July 2009, p17

 

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