Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
a . Dr. Colin Patterson—Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Palaeontology Department at the British Museum (Natural History)—gave a talk on 5 November 1981 to leading evolutionists at the American Museum of Natural History. He compared amino acid sequences in several proteins of different animals. The relationships of these animals, according to evolutionary theory, have been taught in classrooms for decades. Patterson explained to a stunned audience that this new information contradicts the theory of evolution. In his words, “The theory makes a prediction; we’ve tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely.” Although he acknowledged that scientific falsification is never absolute, he admitted, “evolution was a faith,” he was “duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way,” and “evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is harmful to systematics [the science of classifying different forms of life].” “Prominent British Scientist Challenges Evolution Theory,” Audio Tape Transcription and Summary by Luther D. Sunderland, Personal communication. For other statements from Patterson’s presentation, see Tom Bethell, “Agnostic Evolutionists,” Harper’s Magazine, February 1985, pp. 49–61.
u “... it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies ...” Christian Schwabe, “On the Validity of Molecular Evolution,” Trends in Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p. 280.
“It appears that the neo-darwinian hypothesis is insufficient to explain some of the observations that were not available at the time the paradigm [the theory of evolution] took shape. ... One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather may be rooted in human nature.” Ibid., p. 282.
u “Evolutionary trees constructed by studying biological molecules often don’t resemble those drawn up from morphology.” Trisha Gura, “Bones, Molecules ... or Both?” Nature, Vol. 406, 20 July 2000, p. 230.
b . R. B. Brown, Abstracts: 31st International Science and Engineering Fair (Washington, D.C.: Science Service, 1980), p. 113.
u Ginny Gray, “Student Project ‘Rattles’ Science Fair Judges,” Issues and Answers, December 1980, p. 3.
u While the rattlesnake’s cytochrome c was most similar to man’s, man’s cytochrome c was most similar to that of the rhesus monkey. (If this seems like a contradiction, consider that City A could be the closest city to City B, but City C might be the closest city to City A.)
c . “As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology.” Colin Patterson et al., p. 179.
d . Gregory J. Brewer, “The Imminent Death of Darwinism and the Rise of Intelligent Design,” ICR Impact, No. 341, November 2001, pp. 1–4.
u Field, pp. 748–753.
e . Denton, p. 285.
f . “The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins’ amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of evolutionary series.” Ibid., p. 289.
“Thousands of different sequences, protein and nucleic acid, have now been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any sequence been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor of any other sequence.” Ibid., pp. 289–290.
“Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology.” Ibid., p. 290.
“There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available one century ago it would have been seized upon with devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted.” Ibid., pp. 290–291.
“In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed ‘intermediate’, ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ by generations of evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status.” Ibid., p. 293.
g . After sequencing just the first chimpanzee chromosome, surprises were apparent.
Surprisingly, though, nearly 68,000 stretches of DNA do differ to some degree between the two species ... Extra sections of about 300 nucleotides showed up primarily in the human chromosome ... Extra sections of other sizes—some as long as 54,000 nucleotides—appear in both species. Bruce Bower, “Chimp DNA Yields Complex Surprises,” Science News, Vol. 165, 12 June 2004, p. 382.
u “Indeed, 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences [even] at the amino acid sequence level. ... the biological consequences due to the genetic differences are much more complicated than previously speculated.” H. Watanabe et al., “DNA Sequence and Comparative Analysis of Chimpanzee Chromosome 22,” Nature, Vol. 429, 27 May 2004, pp. 382, 387.
h . Tarjei S. Mikkelsen et al., “Initial Sequence of the Chimpanzee Genome and Comparison with the Human Genome,” Nature, Vol. 437, 1 September 2005, p. 69.
i . “Surprisingly, however, >30% of chimpanzee MSY [male-specific portion of the Y chromosome] sequence has no homologous, alignable counterpart in the human MSY, and vice versa. ... Moreover, the MSY sequences retained in both lineages have been extraordinarily subject to rearrangement ... .” Jennifer F. Hughes et al., “Chimpanzee and Human Y Chromosomes Are Remarkably Divergent in Structure and Gene Content,” Nature, Vol. 463, 28 January 2010, p. 537.
j . “... the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310-million years of separation.” Ibid., p. 538.
k . “Studying human and Western chimpanzees, we found no hotspot sharing between the two species,” Adam Auton et al., “A fine-Scale Chimpanzee Genetic Map from Population Sequencing,” Science, Vol. 336, 13 April 2012, p. 196.
u “Chimpanzees’ shuffling pattern is similar to that seen in some previously studied organisms, while the human pattern is unusual ... .” Gil McVean, as quoted by Tina Hesman Saey, “Going Ape Offers Better Family Tree,” Science News, Vol. 181, 21 April 2012, p. 16.
l . “Instead, the comparisons [using DNA] have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well.” Elizabeth Pennisi, “Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?” Science, Vol. 284, 21 May 1999, p. 1305.
u “We are left with a conundrum. [Evolutionary trees based on bodily characteristics (morphology) differ from trees based on genetics.]” Jonathan B. Losos et al., “Who Speaks with a Forked Tongue?” Science, Vol. 338, 14 December 2012, p. 1429.