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.

Biologists recently discovered how tomcod…a smaller variation of cod…have thrived in the polluted waters of the Hudson River. The reports on their research are soaked in evolutionary jargon, but the data they dredged from the DNA of these and neighboring tomcod demonstrate that evolution had nothing to do with the fish's unexpected proliferation in poisoned waters.

On a Dallas highway near the Institute for Creation Research offices, a billboard advertising a new computer reads, "The laptop has just evolved." Likely, the statement is not meant to be taken in a literal Darwinian sense, since laptops are the product of human engineering. Why, then, is the word "evolved"—typically used to describe a natural process—used in the advertisement?

If Charles Darwin could see today's best examples of evolution, would he be elated or depressed?

Biology textbooks teach that mutations added the high-quality genetic information needed to transmutate a fish into a monkey—even though experiments have shown that mutations merely corrupt the information that is already present. In a new experiment, microbiologists from Uppsala University in Sweden induced mutations in two bacterial genes to observe the effects.