Page 532 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

erect. Their hands were now off the
ground; and as a result they began using
their hands to make tools. The more they
used their hands, the more their intelli-

gence grew. They thus turned into
human beings.
You can often find stories like this in
evolutionist newspapers and magazines.

Reporters who accept the theory of evo-
lution, or whose knowledge of it is lim-
ited or superficial, relate these stories to
their readers as if they were factual.

However, more and more scientists pro-
claim that they have no scientific value.
Dr. Collin Patterson, for years the senior
paleontologist at the British Museum of

Natural History in London, writes:

It is easy enough to make up stories of how
one form gave rise to another, and to find
reasons why the stages should be favored by
natural selection. But such stories are not

part of science, for there is no way of putting
them to the test. 117

Throughout the course of history, apes have always existed as apes, and And in his book Fossils and Evolution
human beings have always been fully human.
(1999), the evolutionist paleontologist
T.S. Kemp takes up the lack of scientific
value in what has been written about the supposed evolution of birds:

A scenario for the origin of birds might be that during the Late Jurassic there was a selection pressure favouring
the adoption of increasingly arboreal [tree-dwelling] habits acting on a group of small, lightly built bipedal di-
nosaurs. Arboreality increased their ability to escape predators and find new food sources. Subsequent selection
forces promoted leaping, then gliding, and eventually powered flight from branch to branch and tree to tree.
Absolutely none of these suppositions about the intermediate forms, the ecological conditions they lived in, or

the selective forces to which they were subjected could be tested empirically. The outcome is the evolutionary
scenario or, rather more pejoratively, the "Just-so Story". 118

The subject that Patterson and Kemp deal with—that "just-so stories" cannot be tested and therefore
have no scientific value—is only one aspect of the problem. A second, perhaps more important, aspect is
that apart from the fact that these stories have no scientific support, they are impossible nonsense.

To explain why, let us return to the story of the "hominoids that started to walk on two feet."
Jean Baptiste Lamarck invented this myth in the unsophisticated scientific world of 150 years ago.
However, modern genetics has shown that a characteristic acquired over a lifetime is not passed down to
the next generation. The relevance of this lies in the supposition that the so-called ancestors of human be-

ings evolved with characteristics they had acquired during their lifetime. This scenario claims that homi-
noids stood up on their hind feet to see above the vegetation, freeing their hands for use, and as a result,
their intelligence developed. Nothing of this sort ever happened. Besides, it is not possible for a creature to
acquire characteristics simply by trying to stand up straight and by using hand tools. Even if we accept the

possibility of such acquisition (which is scientifically impossible), these skills cannot be passed on to the
next generation. Therefore, even if the impossible did take place and one ape could force its skeleton into an
upright position, it could not pass on this habit to its offspring, and evolution would not occur.

530 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3