Reading time: ~5 min read
Each and every one of the dead-ends facing the theory of evolution is ignored in the documentary. When the film, which looks at natural history from an evolutionist perspective, speaks of the arthropods, it resorts to totally fictitious Darwinist scenarios to account for the perfectly designed organs in these animals' bodies.
One of these organs is the arthropod antennae, which work together with a complex nervous system. For instance, the 15-30-cm-long antennae of lobsters are organs that can perform special scanning motions in the water and are equipped with sensitive tiny hairs capable of trapping chemicals. The claim put forward to account for the origin of such a complex organ is very far from explaining this multi-faceted design: "To help guide them through their world, arthropods developed a package of on-board sensors; appendages like antennas."
It is true that the arthropods' antennae make their lives easier. It is also true that there is a purpose behind their design. Yet, it is impossible for an arthropod, lacking all powers of reason, to have adopted an aim for itself and to have designed and developed a pair of antennae in the light of that aim. In the same way that we human beings do not "develop" eyes for ourselves but find them ready when we are born, so the arthropods did not develop their antennae but found them ready at their birth. That is because both eyes and antennae, and all other organs, were created. The PBS makes no mention of this fact, preferring instead the nonsensical claim that the animals developed their organs for themselves.
Another organ based on evolution according to the documentary, although no consistent evidence is given for its origin, is the eye. The eye contains light-sensitive cells that are found in no other organ of the body. The job of these cells is to transform light into electrical energy and to forward this to the brain. The eye also contains a lens system for focusing light.
The trilobite, an arthropod from the Cambrian Period, has an eye whose design gives Darwinism a particularly serious blow. The compound eye design in these creatures is some 530 million years old, and just as perfect as visual systems from our own time. Some modern insects, such as bees and dragonflies, possess a very similar system.5 The fact that a system which functions flawlessly in our own time also existed in a nearly identical form 530 million years ago totally undermines the Darwinist hypothesis of evolution from the simple to the complex.
Moreover, the complex design in the eye also includes the feature of irreducibility. In order for the lens and the light-sensitive cells, as well as great many other organs, to do their jobs successfully, they need to exist in that precise form at the very same moment. According to evolution's own logic the eye will not work if just one of these elements is missing, and will thus atrophy and disappear. In short, the claims of Darwinism are in contradiction with each other.
Yet, it is an evident truth that the design in the eye was intelligently created. The program attempts to cover up the fact that the origin of the eye is one of the greatest dilemmas facing Darwinism, and basically glosses over the matter by saying that the arthropods developed eyes with precise and complex structures to enable them to perceive images.
If somebody one day told you "Computers made fast CPUs for themselves in order to function better," you would think that claim was a very odd and nonsensical one. Computers cannot develop their own systems; only computer engineers can do that. The same thing applies to living things. Living things cannot provide themselves with brand new features. That is only possible by intelligent design. The only reason why this intelligent design is being ignored is the Darwinist theory and materialist philosophy to which those who ignore the concept of intelligent design are so blindly devoted (as well as the atheism that underpins both).
The method employed to cover up such matters with regard to the eye and antennae emerges when it comes to extensions such as pincers, with their own particular design. The documentary proposes that with a small evolutionary leap, legs can turn into pincers capable of gripping. This is a truly ridiculous claim. The designs in the leg and pincer are encoded in the creature's DNA. Different DNA sequences are needed for the leg and pincer. Furthermore, both sequences are based on information. It is impossible for this alleged change to have come about by mutations, which evolutionists try to portray as the basis of evolution. Mutations cause damaging effects in an organism, or at best have no effect at all. It is not possible for a random mutation to add to DNA the necessary information for a leg and so regulate the system. Indeed, such a change has never been observed.
In fact, the documentary is filled with such evolutionist fairy tales from beginning to end. This statement is particularly striking from the point of view of revealing the deceptive style that dominates the film: "The basic arthropod body plan, with segments and legs, packs an incredible potential to adapt and evolve."
This, as we have made clear above, is the equivalent of saying that computers possess an unbelievable evolutionary ability. The only fact underlying this nonsense is the prejudice of the filmmakers in the face of that truth that all living things were created.
References
- R.L. Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Physiology of Seeing, Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 31. ↩