How Darwinism Morphs to Censor Critics

Censorship of creation still occurs in the media, but when
the implications of a fossil slip past the censors, the Darwinists
can always maintain their belief by rewriting the textbooks

by Jerry Bergman, PhD

The Toledo Blade, an Ohio newspaper, published an article last September claiming that humans have many useless organs.[1] Staff writer Luke Ramseth said,

We have all kinds of body parts that don’t serve a purpose — or at least not a significant one that we know about. There are the wisdom teeth, muscles that control ear movement, the tailbone, the appendix, contracting muscles that run from our wrist to elbow, fibers on our skin that produce goosebumps, and several others. These are called vestigial organs — basically, evolutionary leftovers that at one point likely played important roles for the human species, and largely don’t anymore.”[2]

His article continued to bring in evolution as the explanation for the existence of vestigial organs, writing:

The tailbone, a triangular bone at the bottom of the spine below the sacrum, is believed to be a remnant of what was an actual tail in our ancestors…. Ancestors of apes and humans lost their tails around 25 million years ago…. it’s hard to say how fast it may take for some of these vestigial features to change, though some features that are lost in some of us already may be the first to be eliminated entirely.”[3]

 

I have investigated the vestigial organs argument for many years, and am well aware of the evidences used for and against this longstanding “proof” of evolution. To his credit, Ramseth quoted some experts who pointed out that some of the alleged vestigial organs do have functions, and the rest may have functions.

“We’re always learning in medicine, and we may not have the knowledge or technology or kind of wherewithal yet to understand what … [a given organ] does,” Dr. Rennels said. The appendix appears to help us with storing good gut bacteria, something researchers didn’t realize until the last several years. And the tailbone does have important muscles, tendons, and ligaments attached to it, Ms. Arps noted.[4]

His article continued by noting how much guesswork is involved in deciding whether an organ is functional or useless:

“We would have to predict mutations that change the expression of the structure, reproductive patterns of individuals and populations, as well as environmental conditions in the future,” she said. “Which traits will be a liability? Which structures will be advantageous in an environment so influenced by human activity and technology?” … “Some features may be lost just due to chance, which makes predicting change over time difficult, too,” Ms. Arps added.”[5]

Ramseth also wrote that views about the appendix—one of the most often cited examples of a vestigial organ—have changed. For instance, surgery to remove the appendix was once common. The Blade article admits that several uses for the appendix are now known. Consequently, appendicitis is no longer routinely treated with surgery, he writes.

“‘Antibiotics and rest can sometimes resolve the problem’, Dr. Rennels said. ‘Europeans started managing acute appendicitis this way more frequently five to 10 years ago’, Dr. Markowiak said.”[6]

Another reason for not performing an appendectomy is that antibiotics are non-invasive and carry a lower risk of problems.

This admission is laudatory, but a full, honest confession might be more blunt about the deceit committed by Darwinists who used vestigial organs to ‘prove’ evolution. It might be said:

Evolutionists have pushed their Darwinian view and misled people for over 150 years, claiming that humans had over 100 useless organs. This was historically, and still is today, a major argument used to convince millions of people to accept evolution. The argument was not only wrong, but has impeded scientific research and, in some cases, caused the unnecessary injuries of thousands, if not millions of people, and even the premature deaths of some. We evolutionists now apologize for this long history of misinformation.

One is unlikely to see such a statement in the near future by evolutionists! I gave it a try, but without success.

I responded to The Toledo Blade article as follows:

This article piqued my interest because I have taught anatomy and physiology (A&P) at the college level for almost three decades. Of the many A&P textbooks I used in teaching, and reviewed to consider using, none mentioned the term vestigial or even the concept. The idea was popularized by Charles Darwin in the middle 1800’s using the term ‘rudimentary organs’. Over 100 examples were claimed, and slowly each one was discarded as research progressed.  In fact, as is well-documented, labeling an organ or structure ‘vestigial’ has impeded research. The examples cited in the article actually have several uses and the fact that many patients can do well if they are removed is true of many organs, including the spleen, the gall bladder, the thyroid (with hormone-replacement therapy), and even one lung or one kidney. The appendix has close to five functions (some are still being debated), the coccyx (not “tailbone” as the article claimed) and the tonsils each have three. In short, you are better off if you can retain all of these organs and attempt to practice good health to ensure they are kept in good health.[7]

As I expected, The Blade, although they called me to verify that I wrote the letter, never printed my letter. I have presented this incident eight times to audiences so far, and none of them were surprised when my letter was not printed. Evolutionists do not want to lose their grip on the public and will use censorship and even deception if necessary.[8]

 

Implications of a New Fossil Discovery Slip Past the Censors

A reporter at the Dallas Express this month seems to have eluded the Darwin censors with his headline, “Ancient Shark Discoveries Challenge Evolutionary Theory.”[9] In the end, though, the Darwin Party always wins.

Ty Cederstrom’s article relates the story of an “ancient shark” fossil, reported in Nature by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Cederstrom explained why he thought the new find challenges evolution.[10] In brief, evolutionary theory postulates that cartilage evolved first and, much later, bone evolved, often replacing the cartilage.

Modern sharks are regarded by evolutionists as evolutionary “living fossils.” A living fossil is an “organism (such as a horseshoe crab or a ginkgo tree) that has remained essentially unchanged from earlier geologic times and whose close relatives are usually extinct.”[11]

Evolutionists have long claimed that sharks represent a very early form of life when cartilage dominated the skeletons of vertebrates before bone evolved. The Chinese team found a fully modern feature in a very ancient animal, namely “evidence of extensive resorption and remodeling that are typically associated with skeletal development in bony fish, including humans [sic].”[12]

In view of this research, science news reporter Ty Cederstrom at the Dallas Express wrote:

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered a shark-like fossil that they have dated at 439 million years old. Researchers determined the fossilized shark-like creature had a bony skull and skeleton, whereas ancient sharks were previously thought to only have cartilage-based skeletons. This discovery suggests that modern sharks and similar fish evolved from creatures with complex bone structures.[13]

To rescue Darwinism, the team must now claim that bones evolved earlier than thought. Sharks, then, must have devolved to produce modern cartilaginous species, having lost the bony structure of some alleged ancestor that possessed a bony skeleton of “more evolved” vertebrate animals. Cederstrom quotes one of the discoverers:

“It was a very unexpected discovery…. here is clear evidence of bony inner skeleton in a cousin of both sharks and, ultimately, us,” stated lead researcher Dr. Martin Brazeau, from the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial. In 2020, a similar creature was discovered by the Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum and was calculated to be 410 million years old.[14]

The solution, therefore, was not to question evolution, but to revise their theory and, as the expression goes, to ‘rewrite the textbooks.’ In my experience, revision is common tactic when new evidence contradicts evolutionary theory. The revision in this case was for Darwinists to modify the evolutionary timeline by pushing back the origin of bones tens of millions of years earlier:

The discovery of the two ancient sharks upsets a previously theorized pathway of evolution. …  there is now proof that creatures with vertebrates began to diversify before previously thought. “This is the oldest jawed fish with known anatomy,” said Prof. Zhu Min from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “The new data allowed us to place Fanjingshania in the phylogenetic tree of early vertebrates”…. Dr. Ivan J. Sansom from the University of Birmingham said, “The discovery puts into question existing models of vertebrate evolution by significantly condensing the timeframe for the emergence of jawed fish from their closest jawless ancestors.”[15] [Emphasis added.]

The evolutionists and their willing accomplices in the media succeeded in returning the data into Darwin’s narrative. The falsifying fossil now proves evolution!

These discoveries provide verifiable proof that major vertebrate groupings began to diversify tens of millions of years before the 420 million-year-old start of the so-called “Age of Fishes.”[16]

Modifying the evolutionary timeline is a major way that inconvenient facts can be forced into support for evolution.

Summary

Evolution is a belief. When contradictory evidence is discovered, its true believers simplify modify the theory (i.e., massaging the facts) in order to retain the belief. There is some hope, however: evolutionary theory modification cannot proceed indefinitely. One can predict that at some point, as contradictions with the theory accumulate, the core of the theory will have to be discarded. That will open a doorway for a scientific revolution about origins.

The fossil shark reviewed above agrees with the creation worldview. Without the Darwin narrative and timeline, the evidence by itself indicates that so-called “primitive” sharks and bony fishes appeared contemporaneously with the advanced forms. This is just what the creation model and Flood geology would predict.

References

[1] “Spare Parts.” The Toledo Blade. September 25, 2022 (Sunday), pp. H1, H3.

[2] Ramseth, Luke. 2022. “Appendix, tailbone, goosebumps: How did we end up with largely useless body parts?” The Toledo Blade. September 25, 2022 (Sunday), pp. H1, H3.

[3] Ramseth, 2022.

[4] Ramseth, 2022.

[5] Ramseth, 2022.

[6] https://www.toledoblade.com/health-well-being/2022/09/25/appendix-tailbone-goosebumps-useless-body-parts/stories/20220916127.

[7] Letter send to The Toledo Blade dated October 12, 2022. Slightly edited for clarification

[8] H.S. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution”, Physics Bulletin.  31(4):138. May 1980

[9]  Cederstrom, Ty. 2022. Ancient Shark Discoveries Challenge Evolutionary Theory. The Dallas Express, November 2. https://dallasexpress.com/lifestyle/ancient-shark-discoveries-challenge-evolutionary-theory/.

[10] Chinese Academy of Sciences. 2022. Shocking 439-Million-Year-Old “Shark” Forces Scientists To Rethink the Timeline of Evolution. SciTechDaily, November 1. https://scitechdaily-com.

[11] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/living%20fossil.

[12] Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2022.

[13] Cederstrom, 2022.

[14] Cederstrom, 2022.

[15] Cederstrom, 2022. Italics added.

[16] https://scitechdaily-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/scitechdaily.com.

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Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,300 publications in 12 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.