One important
subject in the origin of mammals is the myth of the "evolution
of the horse," also a topic to which evolutionist publications
have devoted a considerable amount of space for a long time.
This is a myth, because it is based on imagination rather
than scientific findings.
Until recently, an imaginary sequence supposedly
showing the evolution of the horse was advanced as the principal
fossil evidence for the theory of evolution. Today, however,
many evolutionists themselves frankly admit that the scenario
of horse evolution is bankrupt. In 1980, a four-day symposium
was held at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago,
with 150 evolutionists in attendance, to discuss the problems
with the gradualistic evolutionary theory. In addressing this
meeting, evolutionist Boyce Rensberger noted that the scenario
of the evolution of the horse has no foundation in the fossil
record, and that no evolutionary process has been observed
that would account for the gradual evolution of horses:
The popularly
told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual
sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living
nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed
horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual
change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully
distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional
forms are unknown.152
While discussing this important dilemma in the
scenario of the evolution of the horse in a particularly honest
way, Rensberger brought the transitional form difficulty onto
the agenda as the greatest difficulty of all.
Dr. Niles Eldredge, a curator at the American
Museum in New York, , where "evolution of the horse"
diagrams were on public display at that time on the ground
floor of the museum, said the following about the exhibition:
There have been
an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others,
about what the nature of that history [of life] really is.
The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is
the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years
ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook
after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly
when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves
be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.153
Then what is the basis for
the scenario of the evolution of the horse? This scenario
was formulated by means of the deceitful charts devised by
the sequential arrangement of fossils of distinct species
that lived at vastly different periods in India, South Africa,
North America, and Europe, solely in accordance with the rich
power of evolutionists' imaginations. More than 20 charts
of the evolution of the horse, which by the way are totally
different from each other, have been proposed by various researchers.
Thus, it is obvious that evolutionists have reached no common
agreement on these family trees. The only common feature in
these arrangements is the belief that a dog-sized creature
called Eohippus (Hyracotherium), which lived in the Eocene
period 55 million years ago, was the ancestor of the horse.
However, the fact is that Eohippus, which became extinct millions
of years ago, is nearly identical to the hyrax, a small rabbit-like
animal which still lives in Africa and has nothing whatsoever
to do with the horse.154
The inconsistency of the theory
of the evolution of the horse becomes increasingly apparent
as more fossil findings are gathered. Fossils of modern horse
species (Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis)
have been discovered in the same layer as Eohippus.155
This is an indication that the modern horse and its so-called
ancestor lived at the same time.
The Evolution of the Horse exhibition
in London's Natural History Museum. This and other "evolution
of the horse" diagrams show independent species which
lived at different times and in different places, lined
up one after the other in a very subjective presentation.
In reality, there are no scientific discoveries regarding
the evolution of the horse. |
The evolutionist science writer Gordon R. Taylor
explains this little-acknowledged truth in his book The
Great Evolution Mystery:
But perhaps the most
serious weakness of Darwinism is the failure of paleontologists
to find convincing phylogenies or sequences of organisms
demonstrating major evolutionary change... The horse is
often cited as the only fully worked-out example. But the
fact is that the line from Eohippus to Equus is
very erratic. It is alleged to show a continual
increase in size, but the truth is that some variants were
smaller than Eohippus, not larger. Specimens from different
sources can be brought together in a convincing-looking
sequence, but there is no evidence that they were actually
ranged in this order in time.156
All these facts are strong evidence that the
charts of horse evolution, which are presented as one of the
most solid pieces of evidence for Darwinism, are nothing but
fantastic and implausible fairy tales. Like other species,
horses, too, came into existence without ancestors in the
evolutionary sense.
  
152 Boyce
Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, November 5, 1980,
p. 15. (emphasis added)
153 Niles Eldgridge, quoted in Darwin's
Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland (Santee, CA, Master Books,
1988), p. 78.
154 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the
Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New American Library,
New York, 1982, pp. 16-17, 19.
155 Francis Hitching, The Neck of the
Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong, New American Library,
New York, 1982, pp. 16-17, 19.
156 Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great
Evolution Mystery, Abacus, Sphere Books, London, 1984,
p. 230. (emphasis added) |