I stumbled onto an interesting example of the absurd reasoning used by some creationists: Creation or Evolution - Which?e by Dr. Seikou Tsukioka.
Trying to re-visit this link on 2023-08-23, I am met with a generic redirection to a site in Japanese. Following a few links on the new site, I have found an at least very similar document under https://remnant-p.com/creation.htme, but I cannot guarantee that this is the exact same text that I originally addressed. (Generally, of course, even a text under the old URL could have been edited over time—just like my own text, on this page, has been edited since the original publication.)
Below I will discuss some of his arguments and claims.
I have left out much that is just religious talk without relation to the matter at hand, as well as statements not leading anywhere. Further, some statements that are repetitive and debunked by those already discussed have also been left out. Should the reader be a die-hard creationist needing an explanation for any individual unquoted statement (actually pertaining to evolution), he can drop me an email with the quote. Even the non-creationist reader may benefit in understanding from independently visiting the original page with the full text.
Generally, the text quoted is a mixture of misunderstandings and/or misrepresentations of how evolution works, combined with flawed logic and rhetoric. Occasionally Tsukioka demonstrates that he does not understand other branches of science either, including geology and thermodynamics.
Note that I only counter-argue his arguments—there is plenty of evidence for evolution that he has not attacked, and which would also be enough to convince most scientists without the points discussed here.
IN THE BIBLE it is written that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," that He made plants and animals "after their kind," and finally created man and "breathed into him the breath of life." This does not conflict with the discoveries of modern science.
Yes, it does: While modern science does not rule out God as a creator and guiding hand, the separate creation of man is in direct conflict with evolution. The other statements are not clear-cut, either; however, may be acceptable in the right interpretation.
The theory of evolution postulates that all living things came into existence by chance, that living organisms like the amoeba and the jellyfish evolved into fish[...]
Fish did not evolve from amoeba and jellyfish. The “by chance” claim is disputable, because the theory of evolution includes strong guiding mechanisms: In terms of poker, a pure chance system might be compared to being dealt five cards and being stuck with those five cards, while actual evolution is closer to one of the poker versions that allow tossing unwanted cards in exchange for new cards. Clearly, the chances of getting a good hand are much larger in the later version than in the former.
A slightly more accurate, but harder to understand, analogy would be to have unchanging hands in every deal/generation, and to let the hands of one generation “procreate” by allowing them to create card mixtures with other hands, with a probability of “procreation” depending on factors like the relative success of each hand during game play. (I originally used a dice-based example here. A somewhat similar idea is expressed in another dice example below, which I have not rewritten.)
Below, remember that evolutionary success is not measured by survival—but procreation. (And this not limited to the current generation, but including the procreation of the offspring, the offspring’s offspring, etc.) The phrase “survival of the fittest” is an unfortunate over-simplification, which, even if popularized by Darwinists, misses the point of even Darwin’s early version of the theory of evolution.
The Lamarckian theory states that "the giraffe’s neck became longer as it tried to reach for the leaves on tall trees," and Darwinism claims that "over the generations the giraffes that could reach for leaves in tall trees managed to survive."
Lamarckism is entirely outdated and should not be mentioned when criticizing modern day evolutionary theory. The description of Darwinism seems acceptable, if a little simplistic, but is immediately revealed as a straw-man:
But if the extension of the neck is requisite to the survival of the fittest in the evolutionary sense, then the baby giraffe and any other leaf-eating animals with short necks could not survive.
Here we see that critical aspects were left-out: Darwinism would say that a longer neck gives a giraffe better chances than a shorter neck—not that a short-necked giraffe is doomed to die without reproducing. Further, other leaf-eaters may have other adaptions and occupy other niches (lower branches, bushes, grass), and it is not uncommon for the off-spring of an adult to have different eating habits/occupy a different niche than its parents. (An obvious example of the latter is the mammalian suckling, but there are plenty of other examples, e.g. in what size of prey is hunted.)
Also, it is said that "...the longer the neck the sooner the discovery of, and the better the chance for escape from enemies." But on the other hand, long necks surely make them more conspicuous and readily visible to their enemies. So it is obvious that the giraffe’s neck is not long as the result of evolutionary change, nor because it is most needful for survival.
The first two statements are true; however, it is not shown that the second would outweigh the first—and certainly not the increased browsing abilities. In particular, it is noteworthy that grazing animals tend to stand around fully visible even a long distance anyway, while predators will typically try to hide and sneak up until they are at “attack distance”. Another consideration is smell: Predators often go by smell in addition to sight—while themselves staying “upwind” of the prey. Correspondingly, the net benefit of a long neck might well be positive. (There might also be few predators likely to attack a giraffe under normal circumstances; however, that strikes both ways by diminishing both the risk of being discovered and the benefit from discovering.)
More generally, various developments almost invariably come with a trade-off, e.g. in that the human brain has allowed great success, but comes with a high cost in energy consumption, dangerous births, a long childhood, etc. Evolution implies that those animals have a better chance at success who are closer to the trade-off line than those who are further from it. If the human brain were to grow too large or the giraffe’s neck too tall, it would worsen chances—and the same if they grew too small resp. short.
The third is a non sequitur. Note further that such changes can often appear in a complicated manner: Assume e.g. that the giraffes’ necks originally grew to survey enemies, and that this incidentally enabled them to browse a higher part of the tree, increasing both the benefit and the growth of the neck; or that there was an “arms race” between an ever growing neck and ever higher lowest branches.
The sheep which cannot reach for tree leaves eats grass. Neither can the sheep become a giraffe through the process of natural selection.
The sheep cannot become a giraffe—true. However, there is nothing that would prevent a sheep from developing into a long-legged and -necked creature browsing on high-up leaves if the right evolutionary pressure was present.
Now the Bible (God’s Word) states that the original species of both plants and animals were made by God "according to its kind." This must be true. God made the giraffe a giraffe and the sheep a sheep from the beginning.
The second and third sentences are leaps of faith given without even remotely sufficient rational justification. Even the claim that the Bible is God’s Word is dubious and unproved—even if we assume, for the sake of argument, that God exists (another entirely unproved claim).
It is known that mutations occur at the rate of once or twice in one hundred thousand chances, and that in most cases they cause functional disability, demonstrating that repeated mutations result in retrogression and not in progression.
The whole point of evolutionary theory is that the results of mutations (and other changes) are filtered so that negative results are (with a higher degree of probability) removed and positive kept. The quote gives the impression that someone takes six dies with a total of 25 eyes, re-throws, and ends up with 21 eyes. The better analogy would be to multiply the dies into ten sets of 25 eyes, re-throw one randomly chosen dice in each set, and then keep the best of the resulting sets. (Strictly speaking, keep each set with a probability increasing with the number of eyes.) A simple experiment made at home will show that this gives an upwards tendency in the number of eyes—and the stronger the lower the initial number of eyes were. (For numbers close to perfection, 36, up-and-downs will be common; which could arguable be what happens with mutations in humans, but only because of the preceding evolution—the closer to the ideal we are, the greater the risk that a change will move us away from it.)
Moreover, I doubt that the claim of “functional disability” is true, as a great many mutations are of a neutral character or, while negative, so small in their effect that no great harm is done.
Moreover, the low probability of mutations is more strongly compatible with evolution than with creationism: In a creationist scenario, they serve no obvious purpose and one might have expected a perfect copying mechanism. In an evolutionary scenario, because most mutations are neutral or negative, it makes sense for individuals with a better copying mechanism to have an advantage, tendentially making future generations better “copiers” than past generations—but never able to reach the perfection that a divinely created copy-mechanism might have had. (Ditto with regard to other mechanisms relating to mutations.)
Unless otherwise stated, I have not verified numbers given, e.g. the above “once or twice in one hundred thousand”. (Ditto some other claims.) Note, however, that Tsukioka sometimes gives numbers with an unwarranted precision, e.g. “100,000,000,000” over something like “a hundred billion”, and that these numbers are almost always wrong through that excess of precision, even should they have the right order.
Mostly, the values are of secondary importance to the principle. Here, for instance, copy-errors and other events that could lead to mutations are indisputably rare relative non-mutations—regardless of whether the proportions claimed are correct. (Also note that a mutation in, say, a skin cell will not be propagated to the next generation, while one in a successful sperm cell might be.)
The results of many mutation experiments have shown that there is not a single case of a new species arising from mutation but only variants within the same species.
New species do not arise by one single mutation, but by an accumulated mass of divergence from the original species. Consider the similarly oriented sorites paradoxw: Add or remove one grain of sand (resp. mutation), and everything remains the same. Repeat the procedure over and over, and in the end a change becomes indisputable.
Moreover, this might require a number of generations so large that it is doubtful that any mutation experiment would have had time to create a new species. (Not that I can recall hearing of anything that I would consider a “mutation experiment” to begin with, but that might be my loss.)
A potential complication, depending on what was intended, is that many intra-species developments, e.g. when comparing dachshunds and poodles, are not, or only marginally, the result of new mutations at all. Instead, they are a matter of selection of old mutations from the gene pool—often very old mutations. (More correctly, “alleles”.) I would certainly not rule out that the brunt of the work when going from one species to another is done in a similar manner.
Evolutionists arrange their fossils in order and claim: "Both plants and animals gradually evolved from the simple to the complex." In other words, they contend that things evolved in the order A-B-C. If that were true, in the process of evolution there should be a medium stage between A and B, and between B and C, the "missing links" species AB and BC. But meticulous examination of the fossils has produced no discovery of any specimen in the transition stage. Moreover, such medial links are not found anywhere among present-day plants and animals.
This is at best a straw-man: There are plenty of “medial links” and in, at least, some cases a convincing trail of fossils can be followed. That there are many apparent holes is unavoidable considering the low probability that appropriate fossils should have been both preserved and found.
As I have seen pointed out by someone else (I do not remember who, unfortunately), the game of missing links is rigged. Let us say that we find the above AB and BC species. In a next step, the anti-evolutionist can simply demand the new missing links between A and AB, AB and B, B and BC, respectively BC and C. Before this line of thought is followed, to ensure a fair game, the anti-evolutionist would have to define how many intermediaries are acceptable between two known species or otherwise remove such traps.
The simple-to-complex angle is at least partially misleading, but this need not be Tsukioka’s fault: To some degree, and especially in earlier stages, evolution is from the simple to the complex. However, it is not a general rule, and complexity can both decrease and (very often) remain approximately the same, even when considerable time passes. Is, say, an archaeopteryx less complex than a swallow? (A better case could conceivably be made for increasing specialization over increasing complexity, but that is a different topic altogether.)
There are doubts as to whether archaeopteryx was a direct ancestor of birds. If not, the example becomes less illustrative, but the principle behind it remains true.
Appearance of variations within the same species (A1 or A2) or (B1 or B2) is not evolutionary change, but it is absolutely impossible for species A to become species B.
Unsupported claims; the first of which may be wrong per definition (depending on what exactly is meant); the second of which is provably wrong, except as discussed below.
It is obvious from Mendel’s Law of Heredity that there can be different varieties of dogs but a dog can never produce a cat.
This is a straw-man attack: Evolutionary theory does not claim that dogs can evolve into cats—it claims that dogs can evolve into a new non-dog species. (And, in the other direction, that cats and dogs are both descended from a common ancestor.)
It seems that the theory of evolution has confused evolution and variation, or that it errs in believing that during the process of the development of varieties there might be deviation into a new species.
Empty rhetoric—and, again, there is solid evidence for speciation.
For example, breeding a horse and a donkey produces a mule, but mules are sterile and between themselves they cannot bear offspring. Also a lion and a leopard can reproduce a leopon but it also remains sterile. This demonstrates the limitation of procreativity to the same species.
Firstly, this again overlooks a variation of the sorites paradox. Secondly, this is begging the question: By the typical definition of species, fertile offspring is only possibly within the same species. If leopons (and lipards) were sufficiently fertile to allow long-term breeding and inter-breeding, lions and leopards would be of the same species. Effectively, the quote tries to create a Catch-22 by use of sophistry concerning the meaning of the word “species”. (The Catch-22 fails due to gradual changes/the sorites paradox.)
Is not the reason for similarities in both plants and animals, that is, in their corresponding structures, physical organs and growth processes, due to the fact that they all have a common Creator? Similarity is no proof for evolution. Take buildings for an example. By no natural change can a dog house transform into a one-story wooden house, then into a steel-frame structure and then finally into a ferro-concrete building.
If members of different species had been created by God, there would be no discernible reason for them to be similar—apart from speculation that there is one superior building plan (which is not born out by the many sub-optimal solutions) or that God lacks fantasy (unlikely).
Similarity is not a proof of evolution, but neither is it of creation—and similarity (between sufficiently closely related species) is a near necessity of evolution, but not of creation.
What do buildings have to do with anything? Darwin never claimed that buildings were the product of evolution, so why should the failure of dog house to evolve into a ferro-concrete building be proof against him? Note, in particular, that a dog has the ability to procreate, to mix genes, to undergo mutation, whatnot, while a dog house does not.
(However, by picking the right analogy and making the right comparisons, a form of evolution can be observed in buildings too, e.g. in that various memes related to architecture prosper or fail, that a way of building is gradually improved, that a successful or famous building finds imitators, etc. We might even manage to find a common “ancestor” of both dog houses and, say, apartment buildings.)
In an earlier version of this text, I unfairly attacked Tsukioka for mixing dogs and buildings. Here, I had somehow overlooked the “house” part of “dog house”.
According to the theory of evolution, man evolved through the following chain of stages over a long stretch of time: unicellular organisms (amoeba, etc)- invertebrates (jellyfish, sea anemone, etc)- amphibians - reptiles - mammals- man. But if such is the case, then how can we explain the existence today of amoeba, jellyfish and fish which are not going through evolutionary development? Recently, a fish fossil, supposedly fifteen million years old, was found in Yamagata Prefecture (Japan), and when it was compared to a living specimen of the same variety, hardly any change was found. This is proof that there is no "evolutionary process" even after fifteen million years.
This demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of how evolution and speciation works (and the hierarchy given is faulty): Evolution does not necessitate that one species as a whole becomes another species. Quite the contrary, it is common for new species to take off from a sub-population (e.g. after geographic isolation). The rest of the population may remain the same species, only very slowly evolving (if it is well-adapted for its niche and the niche remains, there is certainly no need for it to die out), or developing into yet other species. (But it does appear that most species that have ever existed are now extinct—often long extinct.)
In the Jurassic Period, the global climate was mild and there are evidences that there was lush tropical vegetation even at the south pole. However, the earth’s temperature dropped suddenly, making it unbearable for the dinosaurs, which then died abruptly because of the cold and thus became extinct. The evolutionists do not know the cause of this phenomenon. Only the Bible gives an explanation of this catastrophe.
This is a gross misrepresentation: Dinosaurs died out (according to the near-consensus theory) after an asteroid strike at the end of the Cretaceous (not the Jurassic). The Bible does not give an explanation for any temperature drop. In the hair-splitting department, I note that birds are monophyletically speaking dinosaurs, and that the dinosaurs are, therefore, arguably not extinct.
Temperatures have varied over time and the Jurassic was warmer than our era. However, the antarctic was likely not then anywhere near the south pole. Instead, the current antarctic land-mass was at a considerably higher latitude, and, depending on where, “lush tropical vegetation” might have existed even with today’s climate. (Vice versa, if another landmass was at the south pole at the time, I doubt that, but have not researched whether, it could really have reached the level of “lush tropical vegetation”.)
This quote is followed by a lengthy explanation of how the “great flood” would have caused a temperature drop. Apart from being extremely speculative and not supported by strong arguments, it overlooks details such as how the dinosaurs would have survived the water long enough to be killed by the cold, or why human and (non-avian) dinosaur fossils have never (?) been found together.
(Why “never (?)”? It happens that fossils and other remains of species from wildly different times are found together, e.g. because of erosion and reburial. With humans, we must also consider possibilities like a human deliberately being buried with a discovered fossil. Such finds are far rarer than when the two species were contemporaries, however.)
It further contains oddities like a complete misunderstanding of mechanisms relating to Carbon 14, or having a very ... unusual ... take on geology.
The so-called "primitive man," such as the Neanderthal and the Cro-Magnon man, has a larger skull capacity than modern man. He stands erect and is not in any way inferior to man of today.
So what? Even if we take this to be true, it proves nothing of relevance. It might well be that some, especially early, evolutionists have believed in a steady improvement of species, but this is not an idea taken seriously today. If in doubt, evolution selects for fitness relative the current environment and this environment changes over time. Indeed, even contemporaries of Darwin, maybe most notably Herbert Spencer, were aware of the risk of dysgenic pressure on humanity. (Arguably, more so than today, because the Left has spent many decades of anti-scientific propaganda making such topics taboo.)
In an earlier version of this page, I noted:
The skull capacity does not indicate intelligence in a deterministic manner: There are many animals, e.g the elephant, who have a larger cranial capacity than humans do without being more intelligent. Like with a computer chip, better use of space is a part of humankind’s success. Besides, Cro-Magnons are considered modern humans for almost all practical purposes (unlike the Neanderthals) and would not stand out as non-humans in today’s multi-racial societies—trying to point to this as a counter-argument against evolution is misleading at best, like saying “my father was not a monkey; ergo, evolution does not work”.
This statement is not wrong, but it misses the point through trying to argue against something that has no bearing on the larger issue.
Recently it was discovered that the fragments of fossils of the Java man, Ramapithecus, and Australopithecus are skeletal remains of large monkeys.
Except as far as humans, too, are large monkeys, this is an outrageous lie: In current classification, the Java man (specimens of Homo Erectus) count as almost-human, and Australopithecus and Ramapithecus are at least members of Hominidae and, thereby, apes. Even if they were just large monkeys, however, this would disprove nothing—after all, man’s descent from early monkeys is one of the claims of evolution; and monkey ancestors and monkey cousins of ancestors will necessarily be found, if we go back far enough in time.
Names and classifications change over time. For instance, Ramapithecus is now considered a junior synonym for Sivapithecus.
In recent years, with the great progress in molecular biology research, it has become clear that life cannot be generated from a lifeless substance even with the passage of hundreds of millions of years. This fact is obvious even from Pasteur’s experiments.
This is simply not correct: There are no such scientific results; on the contrary, it is comparatively easy to construct at least the basic building blocks of life and a form of proto-life in the laboratory by approximately recreating the circumstances under which life is supposed to have been created. (I am not aware of any experiment that has reached actual life; however, considering the time spans of evolution resp. modern science, this is entirely unsurprising.)
Pasteur, dead in 1895, has nothing to say about the modern state of the issue.
Supposing man made a cell, if it is left alone, with the passing of time, it will disintegrate and return to its original component elements. This happens in accordance with the Second Law of Thermodynamics (Law of Entropy), which states that, "Bodies of complex structure gradually deteriorate into simpler forms." Thus, even the laws of science do not validate the evolutionary progress of matter but its regression.
Tsukioka proves that he does not understand what science says about thermodynamics either: Try e.g.
In a system, a process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe.
(Second law of thermodynamicsw)
instead. There is nothing that speaks against a local decrease. In fact, local decreases can be trivially observed in everyday life, e.g. when doing house cleaning. The original growth of an apple (Tsukioka’s text has an image of a fresh and a dried-up apple at this place) is another observable example.
Here I have two points of non-Tsukioka irritation:
Firstly, my own first formulation of the above was extremely sloppy, including saying “increases” where I obviously meant “decreases”... (In fairness to Tsukioka, it is possible to have a clear idea in one’s head and make a complete hash of it when putting it into words.)
Secondly, I am used to seeing the law formulated in terms of “isolated system” or some such. Going back to the quoted source, Wikipedia, I cannot find the above quote at all, while there are 1001 other definitions present. I lack the time to dig into this issue, but I note that any “innermost” isolated system of a non-trivial size will have local areas that do not form isolated sub-systems and local decreases will still be possible.
To this the honorary mention that I am not entirely certain whether this type of order and entropy are sufficiently closely related that e.g. evolutionary complexity and house cleaning are fully relevant examples. (Now in 2023, it has been almost thirty years since I took thermodynamics, compared to roughly half that at the time of the first version of this page.) However, (a) if they are not relevant, Tsukioka’s argument fails even harder, (b) I have seen enough popular science mentions to not feel too guilty.
Why do cells, through the process of simple cell division, increase by two’s four’s, and eight’s etc.? Also, how does sexless reproduction change into sexual reproduction? In order to effect production of offspring by union of a male and female, it is necessary for the male and female reproductive organs to evolve fully into child-bearing capability, simultaneously and close to each other. If such a transformation were possible for both sexes at the same time, then evolution is nothing short of a miracle.
Here, for the first time, an argument is raised that is not entirely without value. The exact mechanisms that lead to life, sexes, and similar, are indeed not yet fully explained and understood; however, there are theories that indicate how it could have happened. The problem, nowadays, is less about determining whether a certain chess position could occur naturally during play, and more of finding the sequence of moves that were actually used.
Further, even if it were not possible, this would not invalidate the theory of evolution, but only necessitate divine intervention in a very small area.
The claims around the simultaneous and complete creation of reproductive organs are incorrect: On the contrary, gradual step-by-step processes are possible and expected—as with other evolutionary changes. Notably, if sexual reproduction arose sufficiently early (which I consider likely), the original “parents” would have been so primitive that the complexities of gestation and (in particular) the female reproductive organs were a non-issue, “sex” being an accidental transfer of genetic material between two unformed clumps of cells—possibly even between just two individual cells.
As to cell division: If we have one cell and it divides into two, we have two cells. If the two divide again at approximately the same time (which is to be expected), we have four. And so on, until the time of division has drifted apart, some cell fails to divide, or similar. Legitimate questions could include why cells divide and/or why in specifically two, but that there is an early trend of doubling, given that they do divide into two, is unsurprising and irrelevant to the main issue at hand.
It is clear from this [a description of a cell under an electron microscope] that it is impossible for even a cell to have evolved or come about by mere chance.
As discussed above, evolution is not about chance, but a combination of chance and controlling processes. As anyone who has dealt on a non-trivial level with subjects like complexity, computer science, and mathematics knows: This is enough to construct structures of a comparable complexity. (Consider a Mandelbrot set for one of many similar examples.) In fact, constructing such structures using automatic mechanisms based on simple processes is far easier than doing so by hand.
No scientist can make even one single cell. Who produces the new 1,200,000,000,000 cells every day and causes you to live? It is none other than the almighty and omniscient God.
This is pure idiocy: Why would the capabilities of a scientist matter here? Why should we jump to the conclusion that God is involved in this manner, rather that go by the actual observations of cellular reproduction by natural means? Indeed, even if we take a creationist point of view, it does not seem reasonable to put God in charge of making all individual cells, instead of creating cells once that have the ability to make other cells.
In this manner, through metabolism, the blood, muscles of your body, and even the protein in the 100,000,000,000 brain cells undergo a total change and are completely renewed in a mere one hundred and twenty days. Why is it then that you do not lose your power of recollection? Neither is there any change in the consciousness of self.
There is no contradiction between exchange of cells and a kept recollection/consciousness: If I take a Lego building and replace one piece a day with a near identical piece, then the building will remain recognizably the same through-out. True, if we compare the house on day one and one year later, the accumulated changes may well be noticeable—but so it is with humans too. (Also note the “Ship of Theseus” pseudo-paradox.)
You did not develop into a man, after fertilization from one cell after millions of years of evolution. After a mere 280 days in your mother’s womb, all the organs of your a body developed, and you became a complete human being.
This confuses development of the individual with development of the species. It would be equally wrong to compare the process of building an individual car with the work of developing the model it belongs to.
[The oft repeated and oft debunked eye–camera example.]
This has been done to death already—and the eye is a structure of which evolutionary scientists have a very solid understanding.
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