3. It is consistent with pre-existing experimental results and at least as accurate in its predictions as are any pre-existing theories.
- Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks. He was correct: they were subsequently found.
- Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found. He wrote in 1859 that the total absence of fossils in Precambrian rock was "inexplicable" and that the lack might "be truly urged as a valid argument" against his theory. When such fossils were found, starting in 1953, it turned out that they had been abundant all along. They were just so small that it took a microscope to see them.
- There are two kinds of whales: those with teeth, and those that strain microscopic food out of seawater with baleen. It was predicted that a transitional whale must have once existed, which had both teeth and baleen. Such a fossil has since been found.
- Evolution predicts that the fossil record will show different populations of creatures at different times. For example, it predicts we will never find fossils of trilobites with fossils of dinosaurs, since their geological time-lines don't overlap. The "Cretaceous seaway" deposits in Colorado and Wyoming contain almost 90 different kinds of ammonites, but no one has ever found two different kinds of ammonite together in the same rockbed.
- Evolution predicts that animals on distant islands will appear closely related to animals on the closest mainland, and that the older and more distant the island, the more distant the relationship.
- Evolution predicts that features of living things will fit a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness. For example, arthropods all have chitinous exoskeleton, hemocoel, and jointed legs. Insects have all these plus head-thorax-abdomen body plan and 6 legs. Flies have all that plus two wings and halteres. Calypterate flies have all that plus a certain style of antennae, wing veins, and sutures on the face and back. You will never find the distinguishing features of calypterate flies on a non-fly, much less on a non-insect or non-arthropod.
- Evolution predicts that simple, valuable features will evolve independently, and that when they do, they will most likely have differences not relevant to function. For example, the eyes of molluscs, arthropods, and vertebrates are extremely different, and ears can appear on any of at least ten different locations on different insects.
"Predictability" refers to something in the future, not in the past.
Evolutionism says its theory is predictable, yet it always refers to something in the past and not in the future. Yes, the fossil was discoved after the prediction, but the evolutionary event it relates to is a past event that happened before the prediction.
To demonstrate predictability, they must predict an evolutionary event in the future, instead of merely "predicting" the discovery of a fossil.
Thus:
1. Precursors to the trilobite were not found. Something was found, but it was not a precursor to the trilobite, nor was it a precursor to anything else.
2. Darwin’s dilemma was the absence of intermediate fossils showing that the Cambrian phyla diverged from a common ancestor.
Since Darwin’s time, they have found so many Precambrian fossils, including exceptionally well-preserved microbes. If preservation was so excellent, they should have found ancestors of the Cambrian phyla, but they have not.
This actually worsens Darwin’s dilemma because instead of finding transitional forms, all they found were microbes and other forms so primitive that they could not have been precursors of the Cambrian phyla.
3. Some whales with teeth, some whales with baleen, some whales with teeth and baleen.
That does not prove evolution. All of them are still whales, aren’t they? Adaptation is not the same as macroevolution.
4. Even if trilobites and dinosaurs were alive today, they still wouldn’t be found together, because they live in different ecological zones. Dinosaurs are land animals, but trilobites are bottom-dwelling sea creatures.
There are variations between ammonite kinds, but the variations do not show macroevolution, since all of them are still ammonites. The sutures in the shells were found to be more elaborate in the Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic, but there is no significant change. There are no intermediate or part-way ammonite forms in the fossil beds—no unambiguous line of evolutionary descent.
5. If biogeography proves evolution, then there should be no case of disjunct distributions in both the fossil record and the living world.
But similar plants and animals are found not only across adjacent regions of land or neighboring islands, but also on different continents, separated by large stretches of land or ocean.
Evolutionists sometimes explain these by arguing that continental drift separated similar groups that once lived in close proximity and therefore shared common ancestors. This is the explanation given, for example, as to why chironomid midges are found in Antarctica, Southern Australia, South America, New Zealand and South Africa.
However, according to evolutionists’ own theories, many species that are disjunct across previously joined continents evolved after their separation. For example, South America and Africa allegedly separated around 100 million years ago, but species of cactus, which supposedly evolved in South America around thirty million years ago, are also found in Africa. Similarly, the evolutionary accounts of the emergence of rodents found in South America and Africa do not fit the generally accepted timing of continent drift.
Many other puzzling disjunctions across these continents are known. Moreover, disjunct species are frequently found on continents that never bordered one another. For example, many plants and insects are known to be disjunct across the Pacific Ocean. Interestingly, the opossum Dromiciops, found in Chile, is much closer to Australian marsupials than to other South American marsupials.
There is an abundance of other biogeographic anomalies that do not fit the expected evolutionary pattern. For example, the fauna of central and southern Africa is closer to that of southern Asia than that of northern Africa, and flora found in Madagascar is remarkably similar to that of Indonesia. Crowberries (Empetrum) are found only in the more northern regions of the northern hemisphere and in the most southern regions of the southern hemisphere. Many closely related plants are found only in eastern North America and eastern Asia.
6. Any set of objects, whether or not they originated in an evolutionary process, can be classified hierarchically.
Cars are independently created; they are not generated by an evolutionary process. But any given list of cars can be classified hierarchically, for example, by dividing them according to body material: fiberglass or metal; fuel: by gas, diesel or battery; by drive: real-wheel, front-wheel, 4-wheel; by body design: sedan or SUV; etc. Yet all of them have tires and a steering wheel.
Living things can also be classified hierarchically. But to jump to the conclusion that this is already evidence for natural evolution from common ancestry is speculative.
The distinguishing feature of flies vs. a non-fly contradicts rather than supports evolution. The fossil record shows fully developed flying insects, but no transitional forms.
In the same manner, fish have gills, reptiles don’t. You will never find a reptile with gills not because reptiles evolved from fish, but because reptiles are creatures that appeared on earth separately and distinctly from fish.
7. Similar eyes = they evolved. Different eyes = they still evolved.
Yet another example of unfalsifiability. No matter where you go, even if it's in contradictory directions, it's still evolution.
