Question Evolution Day 2023
 - The Platypus and Coelacanth

Question Evolution Day 2023

Here we are at another February 12th, Question Evolution Day, where instead of presenting evidence for creation, we offer creation skeptics an opportunity to check their intellectual freedom and integrity. An opportunity to see if they are slaves to the evolutionary dogma, or if they have the intellectual freedom and integrity to seriously consider the many challenges to Darwinian Evolution. An opportunity to observe that Darwinian Evolution is not only internally inconsistent, but the evidence does not support it; the evidence supports creation.

Today we're running a two for one special. Thanks to one of my creation compadres who sent me a link to an interesting article just in time for Question Evolution Day, I thought I'd add it to the offering I had already intended to present. So for this year, we'll present two challenges to the evolutionary dogma. First up: the platypus

The Platypus

One of the first things noted about this creature, often called the duck-billed platypus, is how strange it is due to its unique mixture of features from many different animal types. It is so strange that, "when the first platypus specimen reached England in 1799 (it was long dead), it was regarded as a hoax, a [1] ‘high frolic practised on the scientific community by some colonial prankster’.[2]  One zoologist who thought the duckbilled had been sewed on tried to pry it off with scissors. And no wonder they considered the unknown creature a hoax. Consider its features:

• Fur like most mammals
• a bill like a duck
• a flat tail like a beaver
• Webbed feed in front for swimming
• Otter like feet in back
• Venom - while both males and females have spurs on their feet, the males have sharp poisonous ones of their hind feet, which deliver various venoms, three of which are unique to the platypus
• Biofluorescence - In 2020, research in biofluorescence revealed that the platypus glows a bluish-green color when exposed to Black light[3]
   

Platypus electrolocation. Its electroreceptors are arranged on its bill. It moves
the bill from side to side in saccades, quick head movements, as it swims,
so as to locate small electrical signals from its prey as accurately as possible.[4]
 

• Reptile-like features
• Bird-like features
• Mammal-like features
• Marsupial-like features

Questions for evolutionists regarding the duck-billed platypus:
Darwinian evolution states that all life on earth evolved from a single common ancestor. This is depicted by what is referred to as the "tree of life." Supposedly all creatures evolved from a "last universal common ancester" (LUCA) - branching out as they differentiate to different families and species.

Below is the "tree of life" as depicted at the Milwaukee Public Museum.
On this picture you'll note I've highlighted in red boxes four different branches which represent the families of the different features exhibited by the platypus as noted by Rob Carter above.

Notice those families - platypus, marsupials, birds and reptiles are found on different branches of the evolutionary tree. Now here's the question: How can one creature - the platypus evolve from four different families in different branches on the evolutionary tree?

If you want to claim the platypus evolved all those features by itself along its own family line, using the standard beneficial mutations, selection and millions of years of time non-sense, then you have an even bigger problem: Where do you get the genetic information to build the new features? The mutations + selection + time mantra won't work. Because as geneticist John C. Sanford points out:

"It has long been thought that since beneficial mutations happen and since natural selection happens, continuously increasing biological information should be inevitable. This paper shows that this oft-voiced historical perspective was naïve. Not only are there too few beneficial mutations for genome-building, but most of the information in higher genomes is encoded by nucleotides which individually are two subtle to have been selectively established. The few truly beneficial mutations that arise and have sufficient impact to be selectively amplified only arise independently and in isolation. This profoundly limits their potential impact. They can only accomplish fine-tuning of pre-existing biological information. Realistically, genomes cannot be built one beneficial mutation at a time."[6](emphasis mine)

In other words, beneficial mutations can only enhance qualities that are already existing, (by eliminating information as demonstrated elsewhere[7]) they cannot create new features or information. So it is impossible for the platypus to have evolved those features on its own isolated line.

Confirmed Again - this time with Fish:
Evolution Simply does not happen

An article in Science Magazine confirms (perhaps unwittingly) that evolution simply does not happen. The article is titled "A Mesozoic fossil lagerstätte from 250.8 million years ago shows a modern-type marine ecosystem."  A "lagerstätte" is a "finely preserved fossil assemblages", and the mesozoic era runs from about 230 to 62 million years ago - in evolutionary reckoning. The paper reports:

"Here, we report an exceptionally preserved fossil assemblage named Guiyang Biota from Guizhou Province, South China, which is late Dienerian in age (~1 Myr after the PTME [Permian-Triassic mass extinction]) and is therefore the oldest known Mesozoic fossil lagerstätte. The Guiyang Biota represents a diverse and trophically complex marine ecosystem and partially fills the 3-Myr gap of complex marine faunas, indicating a rapid rise of modern-type marine ecosystems after the PTME despite global sea-surface temperatures remaining high." [emphasis mine]

So essentially this paper is saying they're finding modern looking creatures in early time periods where they're not expected. Here is an artist conception of the life in the referenced ecosystem during the stated time period included with the article:

Notice the coelacanth prominently featured. Coelacanths were of course were thought have gone extinct some 350 million years ago. Until they found live groups of them living near places like Madagascar in the Indian ocean.

1. Paula Weston, "The Platypus", Creation.com, https://creation.com/the-platypus publised in Creation 24(2):40–43, March 2002
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2.  Moyal, A., Platypus, Allen and Unwin, New South Wales, Australia, p. xii, 2001.
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7. For beneficial outcomes resulting from a loss of genetic information see the paper:
"Getting There First: An Evolution Rate Advantage for Adaptive Loss-of-Function Mutations" by Michael J. Behe in: John C. Sanford, Biological Information, New Perspectives, Waterloo NY: FMS Publications, 2013, p. 24
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8. Mark Stoneking ref. from Nova "Becoming Human: First Steps" PBS documentary, 2009
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