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Laetoli Human Footprints, The

In 1978, Mary Leakey discovered a number of footprints in a layer of volcanic ash in Laetoli in Kenya. These prints were employed as an important part of the evolutionist propaganda regarding the well-known fossil “Lucy” (See The Lucy Deceit,). Evolutionists portrayed the Laetoli footprints as concrete proof that Lucy—which they regarded as the common ancestor of man and ape—walked on two legs. It was announced that the prints were the same age as Lucy, approximately 3.6 millions years, and that they represented evidence of bipedalism.

The footprints were indeed of the same age as Lucy, they had clearly been left by a creature that walked upright. Yet there was no evidence to show that the prints belonged to Australopithecus afarensis, a supposed intermediate-form classification, like Lucy. They had evidently been left by a true human being.

The famous paleoanthropologist Tim White, who worked with Mary Leakey, said this on the subject:

Make no mistake about it . . . They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year-old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn’t be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you. 13

After examining the prints, Louis Robins from University of California said:

The arch is raised—the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do . . . The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms. 14

In short, it was impossible for these 3.6-million-year-old prints to belong to Lucy. Lucy had curved hands and feet and used her forearms when walking. She could not have left behind such prints, which can only belong to a human being. The only reason why they were thought to have been left by Australopithecus afarensis was the volcanic layer in which they were found, estimated as being 3.6 million years old. They were ascribed to A. afarensis from the idea that human beings could not have lived so far back in the past.

Independent examinations defined that 20 of the fossilized prints belonged to a 10-year-old human being, and 27 prints belonging to a younger human. These were definitely normal human beings, just like us. In other words, modern humans were living at a time in which evolutionists claim that our oldest ancestors were alive. In other words, man’s ancestor is man!

Lamarck, Jean B.

Though the theory of evolution’s philosophical roots go back as far as Ancient Greece, it entered the agenda of the scientific world in the 19th century. In his book Zoological Philosophy, the French biologist Jean B. Lamarck hypothesized that living species had evolved from one another.

According to him, living things pass along the features they acquire during their lives, and evolve in this way. Giraffes, for example, had descended from antelope-like creatures; their necks had grown longer and longer over the generations as they sought to reach leaves from tall trees. Darwin also made use of Lamarck’s thesis of the transmission of acquired characteristics as a factor that impelled evolution.

This “transmission of acquired traits” model lost all validity with the discovery of the laws of inheritance. (See The Laws of Inheritance.) With the discovery of DNA in the mid-20th century, science realized that living things possess very special genetic information encoded in the cell’s nucleus, and that this information cannot be altered by behavior or striving. (See DNA.) Therefore, even if a living animal’s neck did elongate by a few centimeters (an inch or two) as a result of constantly stretching up into the trees, it would still give birth to young with the standard neck measurements for its species.

The theory proposed by Lamarck was refuted by the scientific findings, and went down in history as an incorrect hypothesis.

Lamarckism

Charles Darwin made use of Lamarck’s thesis of the “transmission of acquired traits” as a factor giving rise to evolution. (See Lamarck, Jean B.)

Gordon Rattray Taylor, a researcher and proponent of evolution, described Lamarckism in his book The Great Evolution Mystery, and explained why Darwin was so heavily influenced by it:

Lamarckism is known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics . . . Darwin himself, as a matter of fact, was inclined to believe that such inheritance occurred and cited the reported case of a man who had lost his fingers and bred sons without fingers . . . [Darwin] had not, he said, gained a single idea from Lamarck. This was doubly ironical, for Darwin repeatedly toyed with the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics and, if it is so dreadful, it is Darwin who should be denigrated rather than Lamarck. . . In the 1859 edition of his work, Darwin refers to ‘changes of external conditions’ causing variation but subsequently these conditions are described as directing variation and cooperating with natural selection in directing it. . . Every year he attributed more and more to the agency of use or disuse. . . By 1868, when he published Varieties of Animals and Plants under Domestication,he gave a whole series of examples of supposed Lamarckian inheritance: such as a man losing part of his little finger and all his sons being born with deformed little fingers and boys born with foreskins much reduced in length as a result of generations of circumcision.15

Law of Biogenetics, The

—See Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

Laws of Inheritance, The

In the period during which Darwin developed the theory of evolution, the question of how living things transmitted their characteristics to later generations was unknown. Therefore, primitive conjectures such as traits being transmitted by way of the blood were widely accepted. This uncertainty about the mechanisms of heredity led Darwin to predicate his theory on a range of completely erroneous assumptions.

He pointed to natural selection as the basis of the evolutionary mechanism. Yet if beneficial attributes were chosen by means of natural selection (the survival of the fittest”), how could they be transmitted from one generation to another? At this point, Darwin embraced the thesis, which Lamarck had proposed, of “the transmission of acquired characteristics.”

However, Lamarck’s thesis was refuted when the laws of inheritance discovered by the Austrian botanist and also a priest Gregor Mendel. This meant that beneficial traits could not be passed along. Genetic laws demonstrated that acquired features were not handed on, and that inheritance took place according to immutable rules—which by implication supported the idea of the immutability of species.

The laws of inheritance, determined by Gregor Mendel after lengthy experiments and observations, were published in 1865. However, these laws attracted the interest of the scientific world only towards the end of the century. Scientists accepted the validity of these laws in the early 20th century. This represented a serious impasse for Darwin’s theory, which he had based on Lamarck’s “beneficial traits.”

For that reason, scientific adherents of Darwinism in the first quarter of the 20th century sought to develop a new model of evolution. Thus neo-Darwinism was born. (See The Neo-Darwinism Comedy.)

Le Chatelier’s Principle

As amino acids chemically combine to form a protein, they build what is known as the peptide bond. In building this bond, a water molecule is released. This totally invalidates the evolutionist account of primitive life emerging in the sea. According to the law known as Le Chatelier’s Principle, it is impossible for a so-called condensation reaction—a reaction that gives off water—to take place in an environment that contains water. The probability of a chemical reaction taking place in a watery environment is described as the lowest possible.

Therefore, the oceans—where evolutionists say life began and where amino acids had to form—are totally unsuited to the formation of proteins. The chemist Richard E. Dickinson explains why:

If polymeric chains of proteins and nucleic acids are to be forged out of their precursor monomers, a molecule of water must be removed at each link in the chain. It is therefore hard to see how polymerization could have proceeded in the aqueous environment of the primitive ocean, since the presence of water favors depolymerization rather than polymerization. 16

But in the face of this, it is also impossible for evolutionists to alter their claim and to maintain that life began on land, because the seas were supposedly the only environment capable of protecting the amino acids from harmful ultraviolet rays. Amino acids formed in the primitive atmosphere on land would be broken down by ultraviolet rays.

Yet Le Chatelier’s principle makes it impossible for amino acids to have emerged in the sea! This is yet another insoluble dilemma facing the theory of evolution.

Leakey, Richard

As well as being an anthropologist and paleontologist, Richard Leakey is also a well known evolutionist writer. He is best known for his fossil-hunting activities, having discovered a great many fossils, particularly along the shores of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya. Yet more than once, his suggestions regarding these fossils have misled the world of paleoanthropology.

For example, he described a fossil skull he dated at 2.8 million years old as the greatest discovery in the history of anthropology, though it was later realized that this skull’s human-like face was the result of a deliberately falsified reconstruction. (See Homo rudolfensis.)

Leakey was strongly biased in favor of the theory of evolution, and never changed his attitude in the face of the evidence against it. One example of this was his statements regarding the Turkana Boy. In evolutionists’ imaginary family tree, they advanced the concept of Homo erectus, meaning “upright-walking human,” in order to suggest a transition from ape to man, though the skeleton of Homo erectus is identical to that of any modern man.

The best known fossil included under that classification is the Turkana Boy. Later it was determined that, contrary to evolutionist claims, the fossil belonged to a 12-year-old boy, who would have reached a height of some 1.83 meters when fully grown. In addition, shortly after the fossil was discovered, it was determined that its upright skeleton was identical to that of modern human beings.

In an article titled “Modern and Tall,” Leakey described the inconsistencies between the Turkana Boy fossil and evolutionary theories:

. . . the boy from Turkana was surprisingly large compared with modern boys his age; . . .he would probably go unnoticed in a crowd today. This find combines with previous discoveries of Homo erectus to contradict a long-held idea that humans have grown larger over the millennia.17

Despite being an evolutionist, Leakey goes on to state that the differences between Homo erectus and modern man are not all that significant:

One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time. 18

Left-Handed Amino Acids (Levo-Amino Acids)

The appropriate amino acids being arranged in the correct sequence is not sufficient to form a protein molecule in a living organism. In addition, each one of the 20 varieties of amino acid in a protein’s structure must be left-handed.

In chemical terms, there are two different forms of any one amino acid; right-handed and left-handed. They differ in that their three-dimensional structures are mirror images of each another, just like the right and left hands on human beings.

Amino acids from either group can easily bind together with one another. However, research has revealed a most astonishing fact: The proteins in all living things, from the simplest to the most complex, are made up solely of left-handed amino acids. Even if just one right-handed amino acid is added to a protein’s structure, that protein will become functionless.

In some experiments, bacteria have been given right-handed amino acids, but the bacteria have immediately broken down these amino acids—and in some cases, have reconstructed from these fragments left-handed amino acids that they can use.

Assume for a moment that life did come into existence by chance, as evolutionists maintain. If so, there should be equal amounts of right- and left-handed amino acids in nature, both being the results of chance. Therefore, there should be varying levels of right- and left-handed amino acids in the bodies of all living things, because chemically amino acids from either group can easily combine with one another.

The fact remains, however, that the proteins in living organisms consist solely of left-handed amino acids.

How do proteins select only left-handed amino acids? And why do no right-handed ones ever creep in? This is a question that evolutionists are unable to explain away, and cannot account for such a specialized, conscious selectivity.

The amino acids of all living organisms on Earth, and the building blocks of complex polymers such as proteins, all have the same left-handed asymmetry. This is tantamount to tossing a coin a million times and having it always come up heads. It is impossible to understand why molecules become left-handed or right-handed, and that this choice is fascinatingly related to the origin of life on Earth.

In conclusion, it is totally impossible to account for the origin of life in terms of coincidences: If we calculate the probability of an average-sized protein consisting of 400 amino acids being made up only of left-handed amino acids, we obtain a figure of 1 in 2400, or 1 in 10120.

In order to grasp some idea about this astronomical figure, we can say that the total number of electrons in the universe is very much smaller than this, having been calculated at around 1079. The chances of amino acids forming in the requisite sequence and functional form, give rise to a far larger number.

If we then add these probabilities and extend them to the formation of many more, and more varied proteins, then the calculations become truly unfathomable.

Lewontin, Richard

Richard Lewontin, a well known geneticist and evolutionist from Harvard University, admits that he is “a materialist first, a scientist second”:

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.19

The term a priori that Lewontin uses is particularly significant. This philosophical term expresses a given assumption, based on no experimental data. In the absence of any information regarding the truth of an idea, that idea is assumed to be true, “from the beginning.” As openly stated by the evolutionist Lewontin, materialism is an a priori assumption for evolutionists, one into which they attempt to make science fit.

Since materialism necessitates the rejection of a Creator, they cling to the theory of evolution as the only remaining alternative. It makes no difference how much the scientific findings refute evolution, since the scientists in question already regard evolution as a fact, a priori. This biased attitude leads to the belief that “unconscious substances can regulate themselves,” which is a violation of both science and reason.

Liaoningornis

The best-known of the claims regarding intermediate forms in the context of reptile-bird evolution is the fossil known as Archaeopteryx. However, it is now known that Archaeopteryx is not an intermediate form at all, but that it was a flying bird, not much different from birds alive today. (See Archaeopteryx.)

Archaeopteryx, which has been proposed as “the forerunner of modern birds,” lived approximately 150 million years ago. However, the discovery in China in November 1996 of a fossil known as Liaoningornis demolished evolutionists’ claims concerning Archaeopteryx.

This bird, Liaoningornis, is around 130 million years old, possessed a breastbone to which the flight muscles are attached—a structure also found in present-day birds. The only difference is that it had teeth in its beak. This showed that, in contrast to evolutionist claims, that toothed birds did not have a primitive structure.20Indeed, in a text published in Discover magazine, Alan Feduccia says that this fossil invalidates the claim that the origin of birds can be found in dinosaurs.21

“Life Comes from Life” Thesis, The

—See Biogenesis.

Linnaeus, Carolus

In 1735, the Swedish natural historian Carolus Linnaeus published his Systema Naturae (“System of Nature”), in which he classified all living species. He believed that species did not change, that the species he had classified possessed characteristics that they would preserve down through future generations. Linnaeus was a pathfinder in botany and zoology, and the classifications he made for plants and animals are still used by biologists today and constitute the basis of their nomenclature.22

Linnaeus first raised the matter of similar organs in animals, regarding them as an example of common creation. In his view, similar organs resembled one another not because they had evolved by chance from some common forerunner, but because they had been consciously designed to fulfill a specific purpose. Different living things having similar organs stems from their being the works of a single Creator. Why all birds have wings, for instance, is because wings have the ideal structure for flight, and therefore, this ideal structure must have been created separately for every species of bird. This view is clearly predicated on the assumption that Allah creates every living thing. (See Creationism.)

In fact, modern scientific findings show that with regard to similar organs, the claim of a common ancestor is not valid, and that the only possible explanation is one of common creation. (See The “Common Ancestor” Lie.)

Lucy Deceit (Australopithecus afarensis), The

“Lucy” is a fossil that Donald Johanson discovered in 1973. Its scientific name, Australopithecus afarensis, derives from the Afar region of Ethiopia, where it was discovered. For years, Lucy was portrayed as the missing link in the human evolution sequence. However, it no longer enjoys that earlier esteem in evolutionist sources, thanks to the latest scientific findings.

The fact Australopithecus can no longer be regarded as the ancestor of human beings was the cover story for the May 1999 edition of the well-known French scientific journal Science et Vie. Under the heading “Adieu Lucy [Goodbye to Lucy],” the text described why, based on a new Australopithecus finding known as St W573, Australopithecus apes needed to be removed from the human family tree:

A new theory states that the genus Australopithecus is not the root of the human race. . . The results arrived at by the only woman authorized to examine St W573 are different from the normal theories regarding mankind’s ancestors: this destroys the hominid family tree. Large primates, considered the ancestors of man, have been removed from the equation of this family tree . . . Australopithecus and Homo (human) species do not appear on the same branch. Man’s direct ancestors are still waiting to be discovered. 23