What does the Bible say? If you will read the first chapter of Genesis you will see that God is spoken of as separately creating different kinds of living things on earth, over a period of time. First was the vegetation, then the fish and flying creatures, then the land animals, and finally man.

But does the Bible say that every individual plant and animal was created directly by God? No, only basic kinds. Within each kind a great variety could develop over thousands of years. For example, many different types of cats could develop within the cat family, or different dogs in the dog family, or different humans within the human family.

However, Genesis chapter one says that each basic kind could produce offspring only “according to its kind.” So while the varieties within a kind could mate and produce offspring, that would not be true outside the kind. One kind could not mate and produce offspring with another kind. Nor could one kind ever change into another kind. That would be true no matter how long a time was involved. Thus, fish would forever stay fish, birds forever birds, land animals forever land animals, and humans forever humans.

What Evidence to Look For

If evolution is true, the evidence should support a gradual changing of one kind of living thing into another kind. There must be at least some evidence of this in living things, in the fossil record, and even in laboratory and field experiments.

But if the Bible is true, then we should not find any changing of one Genesis kind into another. There should be great variety within basic kinds, but unbridgeable gaps between basic kinds. This should be true in living things and in the fossil record. It should also be impossible for experiments to bridge these gaps between basic kinds.

If evolution is true, there should be evidence of the beginnings of new structures in living things. There should have been an abundance of developing arms, legs, wings, eyes, and other organs and bones. This should be true in the fossil record and even in some living things today. At the very least there should be some partially developed structures somewhere.

In addition, if evolution is true, there should be evidence that life can come into existence on its own, spontaneously, without any outside help. In fact, it should be much easier with outside help, such as in experiments of intelligent humans using complex equipment. But if the Bible is true, then, apart from creation or the divinely arranged processes of reproduction, it would be impossible for life, or living, reproducing creatures, to come into existence, whether by accident or with the help of man; the Bible says only with God is the source of life.​—Ps. 36:9.

What the Evidence Shows

The book Introduction to Geology states: “No case of spontaneous generation has ever actually been observed.” That is the simple fact. Never in history has anyone observed a living cell “accidentally” forming out of inanimate chemicals.

Scientists cannot even make this happen in their most sophisticated laboratories. True, they have produced some carbon-containing compounds, but these are far, far removed from a living cell that can reproduce itself. The publication The Cell admits that such experiments “do not explain how life actually arose from inanimate matter.”

In view of these facts, chemical engineer M. S. Keringthan writes the following to the Toronto Globe & Mail:

“My estimate is that an amoeba [a one-celled animal] consists of about 100-quadrillion atoms, principally carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, with trace amounts of others such as phosphorus, calcium and sulphur. All of these would be in compounds not easily decomposed.

“The evolutionist says, in effect, that this number of atoms, in the correct ratio, accidentally met together, split from the existing compounds, and reassembled themselves into a living amoeba. . . .

“Do we find amoebas forming in this way? Can we put the chemicals into a test tube and make an amoeba? The answer is no, so it is wrong to say it happened in the past. . . . The hypothesis of evolution collapses on the origin of life; some other explanation for the creation of life is needed.”

Also, it has amazed scientists to find out just how complicated a living cell is. Evolutionist F. Salisbury of Utah State University says: “Now we know that the cell itself is far more complex than we had imagined.” He estimates that the nucleus of one cell in the human body “contains about 10⁹ bits of genetic information. Written in normal-sized type, this would fill about 1,000 normal-sized, bound volumes.”

Further knowledge of the cell has revealed that all the many parts it contains are involved in complex, interrelated functions. Without all these functions taking place at the same time, it would be impossible for the cell to keep living. That is why Salisbury says: “It’s as though everything must happen at once: the entire system must come into being as one unit, or it is worthless.” Since it is obvious that such a thing does not happen by accident nor is brought about by man, he laments: “There may well be ways out of this dilemma, but I don’t see them at the moment.”

Naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch made this interesting observation about the matter:

“A great deal of ink has been spilled over the ‘missing link’ between the [apes] and [man]. But it is as nothing by comparison with all the links which are missing​—if they ever existed—​between amoeba and that first particle of barely living matter . . .

“The difference between the animate and the inanimate, the discontinuity of the living and the nonliving, remains absolute.”

The book The Cell also says: “In many ways, the appearance of biological cells in a barren and hostile world is more improbable than the subsequent development of primitive cells into dinosaurs and primates. . . . the essential scientific question of how life began remains unsolved.”

So lifeless chemicals do not “accidentally” produce living, reproducing cells. They cannot even be made to do so by intelligent humans. One-celled animals such as the amoeba come into existence today only from an already-existing amoeba​—yes, “according to its kind.” No exception to this has ever been observed.

Hence, in the matter of the appearance of living cells, when we put the “guesswork” aside, which do you think the evidence actually supports​—the Bible or evolution?

Up the Ladder

Evolutionists say that the next step was for the ‘simple’ single-celled organisms such as the amoeba to develop into many-celled organisms. But is there any evidence of a gradual increase in complexity among such forms of life? The book Earth’s Most Challenging Mysteries says:

“There are no 2-celled or 3-celled transitional forms from protozoa [one-celled animals] to metazoa [many-celled animals]. Yet the whole framework of evolution collapses if this vital link cannot be bridged.”

It has not been bridged. There is no record that one-celled animals change into two-celled or three-celled animals. There is, instead, a huge jump between the one-celled protozoa to the lowest of the many-celled metazoa. And there is no evidence whatever that protozoa turn into metazoa.

Of interest, too, is the fact that today such forms of life stay exactly as they are. None of these ‘simple’ forms of life demonstrate any desire to ‘improve’ themselves. Never do they struggle upward to become more complex forms. What justification is there, then, for saying that it happened that way in the past?

The respected publication Science, commenting on a book that propounded a theory of early evolution from one-celled forms to many-celled forms, said that the book’s explanation belonged to “science fiction.” To quote: “How many-celled animals originated and whether this step occurred one or more times and in one or more ways remain difficult and ever-debated questions that are perhaps, as John Corliss has said, ‘in the last analysis, quite unanswerable.’”

“Quite unanswerable” and “science fiction” from the viewpoint of evolution, true. But what if we examine the evidence as it is, aside from the “guesswork”? The facts fit exactly what we would expect from the Bible account. They show that the single-celled forms of life, and the many-celled forms of life, were created separately and then multiplied “according to their kinds.”

Increasing Complexity Should Show

Furthermore, such an increase in complexity, according to evolution, should show in another way, in the cell structure itself. We should expect to find some pattern reflecting this as cells advanced ‘up the ladder.’

The nucleus of living cells contains the bodies that carry inheritance traits. These bodies are called chromosomes. If evolution is true, then it would be logical to expect an orderly increase in chromosomes as life becomes more complex.

Concerning this matter, Professor Moore of Michigan State University relates:

“As a classroom professor teaching evolutionary concepts to bright, independently working students, I have been shown, often, different lists of chromosome numbers from a variety of textbook authors. . . .

“My independently thinking students formulated the question or problem: If animals changed from so-called single forms to complex multicellular forms (and they raised the same thought regarding plants), then is there any pattern of increase of chromosome number?”

Is there? Well, humans have 46 chromosomes in their body cells. Then surely, less complex plants and animals should have less. But we find that, among others, the deer mouse has 48, the striped skunk 50, the cebus monkey 54, the cow 60 and the donkey 62! Even the lowly potato has 48, and cotton 52! And the one-celled protozoa called aulacantha has 1,600 chromosomes!

So there is no pattern of increasing chromosome numbers such as one would expect if evolution were true. Instead, what we find is that each group of living things has its own special chromosome structure, and it stays that way. That is what we would expect to find if each kind was created separately, with its own characteristics, and was unrelated to other kinds.