Condor 22

Conservationists fear extinction when a breeding population is small. That’s why the California condor is a protected species. I was fortunate enough to take this picture of a rare condor in the Grand Canyon in 2009.

Protected species are sometimes bred in captivity because, when the population gets very small, it can be hard to find a member of the opposite sex with which to mate.

The Evolutionary Difficulty

Here is the evolutionary problem: For a new species to arise, some mysterious process (presumably mutation) must produce individuals that are a different species from their parents.

Biologists generally consider individuals to be of different species if they can’t mate and produce viable offspring capable of reproducing after their kind. If the mutant individual is an only child, there is no other individual of that species to mate with, so the new species dies when that one individual dies.

Therefore, for a new species to originate, that mysterious process must produce a litter of at least two mutant offspring, with at least one of each sex. This means the original population of mutants is very small. Certainly it must be smaller than the populations of most species on the endangered species list today. Since the survival of endangered species today presumably needs human intervention, how could so many endangered species have survived before humans evolved to save them?

The evolutionists’ answer is that the mutation that caused them to be a different species gave them such a great survival advantage that they drove the original species to extinction against all odds. If that is true, the mutants must have beaten the odds innumerable times because every species on Earth (living and extinct) had to have done it (at least for a little while) at some time in the past.

The theory of evolution depends upon the illogical belief that a tiny population could drive its well-established ancestor population (which is now a missing link) to extinction, and that this must have happened quite often. But if it happens so often, why haven’t we observed it happening in historic times?

Sexual Selection

Evolutionists believe that some traits have evolved because of sexual selection. That is, the peacocks with the biggest, fanciest tails were more attractive to peahens than less well endowed peacocks, and had better success mating with them, and produced more offspring. Size matters. A similar argument could be made for brightly colored parrots.

There is a problem with this idea. Although the peacock’s big tail might turn on the ladies, it also makes it harder to escape from predators. The brightly colored feathers of a parrot will not just attract the attention of the ladies; it will also make it harder to hide from predators. Therefore, a remarkably beautiful variation of an existing species isn’t guaranteed to survive long enough to have offspring which will inherit its handsome genes.

When you think about it, this whole idea that beauty is the key to reproductive success is doubtful for several reasons.

Look at Condor 22. Have you ever seen an uglier bird? Yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but really …

Look at yourself in the mirror. Be honest now. This is no time for false modesty. Aren’t you better looking than 90% of the people you see on the street? Why isn’t everyone as good looking as you are? Why hasn’t natural selection whistled all the ugly people out of the gene pool? Sexual selection doesn’t seem to be a very good lifeguard.

Have you ever watched The Batchelor on TV? Twenty-five amazingly beautiful women arrive in limousines, and your first reaction is probably, “How can such a beautiful woman not be able to get a man?” With a couple of notable exceptions, the answer to that question becomes apparent in just a few episodes.

Sexual selection is simply another “just so” story that evolutionists use to try to make their impossible fairy tale seem plausible. There are no laboratory experiments that prove beautiful individuals have more children. Furthermore, informal (admittedly unscientific) observational evidence seems to indicate that they don’t.

Overcoming the Odds

For new species to arise, mutation has to produce a litter of offspring of both sexes that can mate with each other, but won’t mate with the original species. (If they can mate with the original species, they aren’t a new species. But even if they could mate with the original species, only ½ of their offspring will inherit the mutation, and ¼ of the next generation will have the mutation, and after a few generations the mutation will disappear from the gene pool.) The initial mutant litter has to be a very small population.

The fact that so many endangered species have gone extinct is evidence that small populations just aren’t viable.

Evolutionists might try to argue that mutations can provide a tremendous sexual or survival advantage which allows the new endangered species to establish itself. But the power of natural selection to shift the odds significantly is a matter of some debate in evolutionary circles. It isn’t necessarily the slowest gazelle that wanders near the lion hidden in the tall grass. Sometimes it is survival of the luckiest—not survival of the fittest.

We Don’t See It

The theory of evolution rests on the notion that a small population won’t naturally go extinct—contrary to what we see in nature.

The theory of evolution includes the notion that beauty is more important than other more useful traits when it comes to survival—which is debatable.

The more you study the theory of evolution, the more you will see that the theory rests upon ideas that aren’t observed in nature.

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