How does a single-cell egg turn into a swimming, metabolizing, hunting tadpole? Common understanding holds that frog DNA carries the required instructional building plans. However, developmental biologists serendipitously discovered that tiny facial features were outlined with bioelectricity just prior to their formation inside frog eggs.

Appealing to public emotions is a tool employed by politicians, media, and anyone trying to win supporters for a specific agenda. Naturally, such efforts can skew or omit facts, as is often the case in mainstream presentations of the ongoing battle between evolution and creation science. A recent Discovery News feature provides a telling example of this particular ploy.

Does it matter whether the larvae of one fruit fly species have hairy backs while those of another are smooth? Well, for scientists who believe both species descended from the same ancestor population, it could perhaps be taken as an example of evolution in action. The genetic causes for these particular differences, however, clearly show that no Darwinian processes were involved.

The famous Confuciusornis sanctus fossil from China's northeast Liaoning Province contains patches that appear to be residue from the bird's original tissues. Long evolutionary ages should have made this impossible, since any such biological material would have completely decayed into the tiniest of its constituent chemicals millions of years ago.