A FOUR-EYED LOOK at EVOLUTION
Plain Truth Magazine
November 1966
Volume: Vol XXXI, No.11
Issue:
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A FOUR-EYED LOOK at EVOLUTION

Last month, we saw how some of the amazing creatures around us present insurmountable difficulties to the evolutionary theory. Great reader interest and comments resulted. Here is ANOTHER look at some of the questions evolution CANNOT answer!

   LAST MONTH'S article on the archer fish and woodpecker resulted in some very interesting letters. One of them, from a theistic evolutionist, we feel needs an open answer in The PLAIN TRUTH,
   Here is the letter:
I have just read "The Questions Evolution Can't Answer" in the October, 1966, PLAIN TRUTH. Yes, I know of many interesting and unusual creatures you might explain, but I am more eager to know why you so oversimplify the evolution-religion matter. You seem to assume that we are all either believers or evolutionists, as if the two were mutually exclusive. I would appreciate answers to the following by you or any of your staff biologists at Ambassador...
   Before continuing the letter, and answering the questions set forth in it — wish to point out that NONE OF THE QUESTIONS POSED IN THE ARTICLE WERE ANSWERED in the letter. The title of the article challenged evolution to give plausible answers. The writer of the above letter did not attempt an answer to the questions posed in The PLAIN TRUTH, but asked a few of his own.
   His questions are answerable.
   Here they are.
1. Would you allow God to create animal species by an evolutionary process if He saw fit to do so?
   ANSWER: We neither allow nor disallow God to do anything! God is ALL powerful, RULING SUPREME — it is not a question of what WE ALLOW — but a question of WHAT DID GOD DO? The questioner seems to believe there IS a God, but that God "used" evolution as the tool by which He created! If God had done this, and if He PLAINLY TOLD us He had, by revealing it to us in His sacred WORD to man, CERTAINLY we would believe it. But God says otherwise. He plainly reveals in a detailed account the CREATION of all the organic life on this planet. God REVEALS how life was created suddenly!
2. If the universe appears to run on orderly laws, could the Creator not order things into being by an evolutionary process, knowing that His Jaws of Thermodynamics, gravity, cause and effect would result in the order and beauty we see, without any need to pull out of a hat or produce woodpeckers by saying magic words. Is the archer fish any less inspiring jf God allowed centuries of His Evolution to produce it?
   ANSWER: What do you mean "IF" the universe appears to run on orderly laws? It DOES run according to orderly law! And the incontrovertibility of those same laws PROVES the Creator did not set into motion great FORCES, POWERS and ENERGIES, and then allow those laws to gradually BREAK themselves, deny themselves, alter themselves, so as to bring about a supposed evolutionary process.
   The archer fish would be not only LESS INSPIRING — but would be NONEXISTENT if it depended upon a fanciful "evolutionary" process as the previous article proved!
   And speaking about "magic words," how's THIS quotation from an evolutionist, published in the Amarillo Daily News, November 19, 1965? "Chemicals, in general, follow certain laws in combining. These laws are as binding on the chemicals as the physical laws are on falling bodies.
   "Over millions and perhaps billions of years [would you believe trillions??], countless chemical reactions took place, building more and more complex compounds.
   "One day one of these compounds learned a trick that no other compound could perform... it... acquired the capability of building other chemical compounds that looked and acted exactly like itself!" (Emphasis mine.)
   Wow! That's quite a "trick," all right!
   Who is it who feels "magic words" and " pulling rabbits out of hats" necessary for the defense of their views?
   Evolutionists believe in just such "magic," while a Creationist, or a firm believer in the great God who CREATED all things, JUST AS STATED IN THE BIBLE, believes in the Divine power of His GOD, not in chemical compounds "learning" sneaky little tricks!
   Here's the third question asked:
3. Would God arrange the evidence of orderly processes and ecological adaptions and even manipulate rates of radioactive decay to give us a false idea of geological time, and then give us minds that inquire and find only consistent misinformation leading to a false doctrine of evolution?
   ANSWER: Then you're admitting evolution is a false doctrine? First, the "orderly processes" of which you speak ARE orderly. But when geneticists try to attach the LABEL of "orderly processes" to impossible CHAOTIC LEAPS from ONE SPECIES to another — there is nothing "orderly" about their theories.
   Mutations DO occur. Mutants are fundamentally degenerative, not so well equipped to survive. Mutations produce only varieties WITHIN a Genesis KIND, not whole new forms as evolution claims.
   Second, ecological adaptations are nothing more than normal, LAWFUL, and completely orderly changes IN INDIVIDUAL CREATURES or within defined SPECIES that fit them for their environmental conditions. The changing of an animal's coat of fur, or color with the seasons proves NOTHING for evolution — but DOES prove the great and careful DESIGN thought out by the Creator.
   Third, GOD did not "manipulate" rates of radioactive DECAY! Radioactive decay remains CONSTANT. Evolutionists fail to take into account variable conditions in past history. The basic assumption is that everything has been uniform — that there have never been any catastrophes.
   It is not "consistent MISINFORMATION" we FIND — but consistent MISINTERPRETATION of the facts of geology that God has made available. This whole question of radioactivity will be explained in detail in an article in the very near future.
   No, there is not conflict between TRUE science and the Bible.
   But what is the PURPOSE behind some men's desire to see evolution as the "tool" God used in His creation?
   It is because they desire to keep God MUTE. They may want a "first cause" type of God, a Metaphysical Dean, or a blind "force," way off in the universe, who is not a definite RULING PERSONALITY! Men want to keep God DISTANT, UNABLE to interfere in the course of human events, unable to INTERVENE in their own private lives!
   No, Theistic Evolution, or the belief God used evolution as HIS process of "creation," is utterly impossible.
   God CREATED. Just as He said. BELIEVE He did. It's the absolute truth!
   The letter posed other questions not related to evolution. There is no space in this issue to answer them here.

MORE Questions Evolution CANNOT Answer!

   Any serious observer of LIFE cannot help but be continually AMAZED and ASTONISHED at the wonderful and mysterious life forms around him.
   To fail to give the Creator God praise and thanks for the marvelous beauty we see — the intricate and delicate life forms around us, the incredible habits of creatures we take for granted — is to miss out on some of the truly savory experiences of life.
   Think about another of the most amazing creatures on earth — little "four eyes," or Anableps tetrophthalmus, as scientists call him.
   This little fish literally HAS FOUR EYES. You've heard of "four-eyed" professors, in the joking banter of college students; but had you heard about Anableps?
   The fish lives in tropical fresh water in Central and South America, and reaches a maximum size of about 12 inches, though the average is around 8 inches. He spends most of his life swimming along the surface of the water, with two of his eyes ABOVE the surface, and two below.
   Anableps is designed so each set of eyes can see under entirely different conditions!
   Not only does he have two separate corneas, but even separate retinas in the backs of the eyes. Any object seen out of the water is viewed through his special air viewing eyes, flattened much like the human eye lens, and transmitted to his lower retina. But objects he sees under the water are viewed through an oval shaped eye, like fish have, and is seen through the under cornea and brought into focus on the upper retina.
   Study the picture of our Anableps in the Ambassador science lab. Notice the two distinctly different eyes — one just barely above the waterline, the other just below.
   Ichthyologists first wondered whether Anableps' extra set of eyes were for capturing food. But extensive observation has indicated they are purely for defense — for spotting predators, and escaping a potential enemy.
   Anableps has fantastic jumping ability. When his below-the-waterline-eyes spot an approaching predator, he leaps clear out of the water like a missile leaving a launching pad. Man has learned to use the little fellow's extra set of eyes in capturing the fish for aquarium owners. Shining a bright light on the streams the little fish inhabit, the fishermen can see dozens of brightly shining eyes — the reflection from Anableps' top pair. Thus dazzled by the brilliance from above, and unable to adjust between the brightness above and the inky darkness from below, Anableps is captured, and sent on his way to another aquarium.
   But how did Anableps develop those four eyes?
   What hypotheses must Evolutionists use to explain the amazing little fish?
   Let's go back in history — billions and billions of years, perhaps — since Evolutionists seem to assume that, given enough lime) practically ANYthing can happen. Here is our first little would-be Anableps. Only he's not an Anableps, because he doesn't have FOUR eyes, only two.
   But WHICH TWO?
   Does he have his UNDERWATER eyes? Or his above-the-water eyes?
   In either case, let's assume (and this IS a make-believe "assumption!") he had one or the other. He is surviving just fine — obtaining his food just like any other fish, swimming along under the water, looking up through it with his fish eyes — feeding at the surface.
   But he can't spot ospreys, fish hawks, snakes, kingfishers, herons or cranes — Since he feeds RIGHT AT THE SURFACE — he is easy prey for the whole host of predators. No would-be Anableps survive. All are eaten.
   Why reason this way?
   Simple. If the Anableps NEEDED to develop his extra set of eyes (which would have taken, admittedly, an innumerable number of years) IN ORDER TO SURVIVE — then he COULDN'T have SURVIVED without them. And if he DIDN'T survive until he developed them — then he doesn't exist.
   But if he needed to develop TWO OTHER EYES to survive — wasn't he taking the long way around? Why STAY AT THE SURFACE where he is so vulnerable to fish from below, and to predators from above? Why not swim down for the mud on the bottom, and hide in the caverns under the rocks, like ANY self-respecting, frightened fish? Why not begin feeding down deeper in the water? Why not, for that matter, develop into a BIRD, and just fly away from all his troubles?
   But let's assume (being facetious, of course) that somehow, one little would-be Anableps (who wasn't really a completely developed Anableps yet) sprouted an extra set of eyes — regardless as to which one!
   Can you imagine it? His brain recoils in mute shock! Dizzily, he swims about in two directions at once. One set of eyes communicates danger from above, while the other set tells him — there is danger from below. Transfixed by the quadrupled vision of approaching horror, the little fish's mixed-up brain dizzily tries to leap free of the water, dive to the bottom, and swim along the surface, all at the same time.
   This results in complete paralysis — and the very first successful Anableps is eaten alive.
   But others keep sprouting another set of eyes — and can be seen slithering and twitching wildly about — some swimming up on shore, others leaping wildly in all directions. and some just lying there and staring, with a wondering look — in all four eyes. Confused, paralyzed, none survive — so they don't exist!
   How many millions of years did it take their little retinas to follow their little corneas? How many millions MORE years (while none survived!) did it take for their brains to sort out the double images?
   How would YOU enjoy suddenly discovering two more eyes in the top of YOUR head?
   Anableps is a funny looking little creature — but that's because he looks twice as fast as you do!
   Look up information about eyes. study the fantastic complexity of the eyes of fish. Look at the numbers of cones and rods, the shape of the different fishes' eyes, the oils, lids and films used to cover them.
   Anything "simple" about an EYE?
   Modern man, with all his fantastic cameras — cannot BEGIN to accomplish with a camera lens what is automatically accomplished in the eyes of thousands of creatures instantaneously.
   Anableps is no exception. His eyes are PERFECTLY formed. They function perfectly for specific and set purposes!
   Is it a convenient accident that the tiny fish has such a complex and wonderfully intricate defense system? Or was it DESIGNED?
   Either Anableps began seeing out of ALL FOUR EYES the instant he began swimming along the surface — or he didn't survive. And remember, Evolutionists don't claim millions of Anableps suddenly grew four eyes all at once!
   No, Anableps is just one more of the amazing marvels of the creation around you — inspiring testimony to the love, WARMTH and HUMOR of your Creator, who gives you every breath of all you breathe!
   Anableps fixes Evolutionists with a baleful, doleful, four-eyed stare — and challenges them: Prove where I came from with your notions about "natural selection."

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Plain Truth MagazineNovember 1966Vol XXXI, No.11