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Fits or favors? One-eyed over flatfish
Nailing their pro-evolution colors to the mast with the article "Was Darwin Wrong?" in the November, 2004, issue, in which they dub evolution "a beautiful concept and an important one", the fine folks at National Geographic have just followed up with an online piece, "Odd Fish Find Contradicts Intelligent-Design Argument", in which they suggest that,
The discovery of a missing link in the evolution of bizarre flatfishes — each of which has both eyes on the same side of its head-could give intelligent design advocates a sinking feeling. CT scans of 50-million-year-old fossils have revealed an intermediate species between primitive flatfishes (with eyes on both sides of their heads) and the modern, lopsided versions, which include sole, flounder, and halibut. So the change happened gradually, in a way consistent with evolution via natural selection — not suddenly, as researchers once had little choice but to believe.
This article betrays a logical flaw commonly found among evolution theorists and its supporters; that is, that any find or fact that fits evolution theory automatically favors evolution against creation. (Of course, creationists tend to follow an identical procedure.) That's about as logical as my saying that the discovery that, say, Neptune is green in color favors my hypothesis that the planet is made of green cheese against everybody else's hypothesis that it's made of frozen gases!
A recent study, reported in 10th July edition of the journal Nature, reports that museum fossils of extinct fish have been found to have had partly asymmetrical skulls. Huh? Well, most self-respecting fish, like most all other animals, have symmetrical heads. But flatfish, such as sole, flounder, and turbot, have both eyes on the same side of their skull. Juvenile flatfish are perfectly normal, but when they reach about a centimeter in length, the symmetrical larva undergoes a metamorphosis in which one eye moves, or "migrates", up and over the top of the head before coming to rest next to the other eye on the opposite side of the skull. (Now who would ever have dreamed up such a weird arrangement? You know the answer, and it's not Mr Mutation.) At the same time, the fish develops a flattened shape and flops down on the sea bottom onto its blind side so that the eyed side faces upwards. Evidently, some creationists had made the mistake of arguing that flatfish could not have evolved from normal fish by the orthodox evolutionary mechanism of a long series of tiny, step-by-step cumulative changes. Why not? Because a gradual movement of the eye over millions of years could not possibly have conferred any survival benefit; on the contrary, such mutant monsters would have had problems with coordinating skewed vision signals and so would have perished. Even Charles Darwin, when challenged, "was unable to explain the mechanism of what appeared to be a rather sudden and radical change in morphology".1 Now that a couple of species have been found in which the adults showed incomplete asymmetry — one eye had made a half-hearted migratory move — the evolutionary world resounds with triumphal cries of, "See, we told you so".
O.K., we now have evidence of an extinct form intermediate between normal fish and your favorite fish dinner. Yes, that fact fits the theory that posits change from one form to another through a graded series of intermediaries. But stop and think. Since when do so-called "transitional forms" argue in favor of evolution against creation? Since when does the existence of graded series
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of creatures — of which far fewer genuine series exist than most people realize — militate against creation theory? As if an infinitely intelligent God would be reluctant to make a lot of creatures with close similarities to a lot of other creatures! Why would an intelligent designer recoil from creating a rich diversity of genetic variations on a basic theme? That over twenty thousand distinct variations can be found on the fundamental orchid theme doesn't provide a stitch of support in favor of the theory that they evolved from a common ancestor as opposed to the theory that they were created. Not a thread! Evangelical evolutionists would have you believe otherwise. Indeed, the entire thrust of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" is that no intelligent designer would create the endless variations on set themes one sees in nature, so they must have arisen by natural means. Who says so? In no way do the fascinating variations on the theme of skull asymmetry in flatfish support evolution more than creation.
Evolutionists have meekly followed Darwin's assertion that the same basic pattern seen in "the hand of a man, formed for grasping, that of a mole for digging, the leg of a horse, the paddle of a porpoise, and the wing of the bat" argues against "final causes" (i.e. God). He believed that any attempt to see the hand of design in nature's design is a "hopeless" exercise. Bunkum. Recurring themes in animal architecture point to a brilliant systematic mind just as strongly as they suggest shared ancestry. The so-called "evidence for evolution" could equally well be called "evidence for creation".
Evolution theory may have won the propaganda war, but it certainly has not won the logic contest. All the standard arguments raised in support of evolution — (1) the gradation of organisms in systematics, (2) the biogeographical distribution of species, (3) the existence of homologous and vestigial structures as demonstrated in comparative anatomy, embryology, and molecular biology, and (4) the presence of transitional forms and gradual sequences in the fossil record"2 — fit the concept of intelligent design equally well! Theodosius Dobzhansky's famous statement that "nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" should be rejected as just so much nonsense. If evolutionists were in thrall to intellectual honesty, they would openly admit that every fact of nature fits old-earth creation theory equally as snugly as it fits evolution theory!
For hundreds of years educated people in the western world believed in the dogma of spontaneous generation, that is, that many living things spring spontaneously into existence under the right conditions. Aristotle believed that lovely lilies spring from mud without any need of generative seed and that a number of lower animals are produced out of putrefying substances.3 For centuries the myth persisted that, "the decomposing carcass of an ox or bull could generate, as though out of nothing, a swarm of bees".4 The facts of nature appeared to fit the theory beautifully. Further investigation eventually showed that the apparent fit was a mirage. The same thing will happen one of these days to either evolution theory or creation theory. Which will it be? I know where I'm putting my money.
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