Evolution pushes Christians to doubt what our Bibles say about creation by asserting impersonal processes made everything over eons. Scripture asserts God created everything over six days. How can we know for sure that evolution is wrong?
To answer that, we should make sure we know what evolution means. Saying that it simply means change is too broad. After all, creation scientists also acknowledge creature changes. ICR is even studying how sighted, surface Mexican tetras (fish) became blind cave tetras while hardly changing their DNA. God simply made certain traits adaptable.1 Which traits?
Image credit: Michael J. Boyle, Michael Lane, MD Imaging Center of the Institute for Creation Research
Creatures adjust decorative or adaptive traits but not their core traits. Even the tetra radically change color and eyes while core features like streamlined bodies with fins and mouths connected to gills stay stable. Most folks miss this distinction. They assume evolution can engineer differences in creatures’ core features. Could that work? Not at all, and here’s why.
Creatures’ core features include all-or-nothing systems. These need whole sets of specific parts to be in place at the same time. For example, contrast the parts that apes and humans use to walk. No animals walk like humans. Every bone would need reshaping to change an ape into a human.
Our toes point forward and we have arched feet. Our hips allow our legs to swing behind the plane of our backs. S-curved spines swivel and attach to our heads at an angle that aims our noses forward when we stand tall.
In contrast, apes prefer knuckle-walking. Their toes point inward and they have hinged feet. Their hips prevent their legs from swinging behind the plane of their backs. Stiff, C-shaped spines attach to their heads at an angle that aims their noses forward when on all fours. Some apes supposedly evolved, bit by bit, a fully human set of walking parts. How would that process go?
Let’s say some ancient ape’s big toes evolved into human ones while all else stayed the same. That evolving ape would lose its full ability to climb trees, plus it would be nowhere close to walking like a man. Or place a nearly-human spine into an ape’s body.2 This malformed creature would lose the stability needed to climb and walk. Professor Stuart Burgess wrote, “Such a scenario is completely ridiculous because such creatures would be struggling to walk properly on two legs for millions of years while supposedly being habitually bipedal [walking] and fit for survival!”3
Molecules-to-man evolution is wrong because it requires the impossible. Nature never engineers all-or-nothing systems. Engineers do that. Unchangeable core systems support the Bible’s record of Jesus Christ as Creator.4
References
- Learn about ICR’s theory of biological design (TOBD) called continuous environmental tracking (CET) by searching ICR.org for those phrases. Learn about the tetra here: Boyle, M. J. et al. 2023. Testing the Cavefish Model: An Organism-Focused Theory of Biological Design. Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism. 9, article 17: 120–143.
- Some experts have done this using artwork while still calling it science. See Thomas, B. Anthropologist Wows Scientists. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org June 27, 2022, accessed December 12, 2025.
- Burgess, S. 2016. Human Anatomy: Unique Upright Design. In Searching for Adam: Genesis and the Truth about Man’s Origin. T. Mortenson, ed. Green Forest, AR: Masterbooks.
- “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth” (Colossians 1:16).
Dr. Thomas is a research scientist at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in paleobiochemistry from the University of Liverpool.
