If evolution is true new species should emerge over time.

But if creation is true

new species should emerge even quicker, that's our topic this week on Creation
Magazine LIVE! Welcome to Creation Magazine LIVE!, my name's Calvin Smith and I'
m Richard Fangrad, and our topic this week is speciation. Yes! Evolution? No! Th
at's right. Poorly informed anti-creationist scoffers occasionally think they wi
ll floor their creationist opponents with examples of species forming in nature.
Its a huge issue. They are often surprised at the reaction they get from better
informed creationists, namely that the creation model depends heavily on specia
tion. Some of the confusion comes because evolutionists and creationists believe
similar things sometimes, about biodiversity, but of course disagree strongly a
bout other things. For example most evolutionists believe that all life came fro
m one original kind and then that kind of creature gradually changed into all of
the kinds that we see today and of course that's often explained in that tree o
f life. Everybody has kind of seen that diagram. We've got one point here and th
en it branches out into all of the different things and you see all of these bra
nching off shoots etc. And of course that means totally unique different types o
f creatures came from that one original type of creature. Yes but creationists b
elieve in more of an orchard scenario, if you want a picture, instead of the tre
e of evolution you have the orchard scenario, where God created all the original
kinds and as time goes by species... ...different species arrive within those k
inds, they derive from the original created kind. But we wouldn't be like the ev
olutionists saying that everything came from one example. So not new kinds of cr
eatures like a lizard turning into a bird for example, but horses making new spe
cies of horses within the horse kind. That's what the orchard scenario suggests.
Now it seems clear that some of the groupings above the species level for examp
le genera, and sometimes higher up in the hierarchy of different kinds, are almo
st certainly linked by common ancestry. That is they are descendants of one crea
ted ancestral population. The 'created kind' or what we would call Baramin. And
virtually all creation theorists assume that, for example Noah, when he was putt
ing the animals on the Ark, he didn't have a pair of dingos and a pair of wolves
and coyotes and all that kind of stuff, he'd have a pair of creatures which wer
e ancestral to all those types a species and probably to a number of other prese
nt day species, but they were all the 'dog kind'. The dog kind, right. Demonstra
ting that speciation can happen in nature especially where it can be shown to ha
ve happened today is thus a positive evidence for creation. A commonly heard obj
ection is that surely speciation is evolution, that's an evolutionary scenario,
and that the creationists are just postulating even more rapid post-flood evolut
ion than evolutionists do. That's an objection that we hear. Well you are just p
ostulating... ...you're talking about evolution and that happening quickly. But
the difference is all about genetic information. We look at the details that's w
here everything happens. The big picture of evolution is that protozoa become pe
licans and palm trees and people and pomegranates and that kind of thing thus it
must have involved the process which, via natural causes, no God, no intelligen
ce, increased the genetic instructions in the living world. So rather than havin
g a bunch of information the gets split up, and so you see different expressions
of that information, you've actually got new information appearing that causes
these new things. Now, the creationist assumes that these real substantial incre
ases in information, that is specifying for an increase, would never arise witho
ut intelligent design. That's what science shows. That's right. So this function
al complexity, you know, if a creature doesn't have wings and then all of sudden
it has wings. Well that would be new genetic information that didn't exist in t
hat kind before. So speciation within the creation model will therefore be expec
ted to occur but we won't see increases in information. Specific information for
forms functions and features that where never there before. That's what the bib
lical mode would suggest as well. These changes, for example, speciation as a re
sult of horizontal changes in information are the result of mutational defect or
loss of information do not in themselves offer evidence against the big picture
of evolution, however, they also don't demonstrate the validity of evolutionary
belief since they can be just as easily assigned a place within the creationist
model, the biblical model. And we'll have a look at some of those examples when

we come back... Half a century ago, nobel prize-winning biologist Sir Peter Med
awar made a startling comment. He declared that the survival of a child in a mot
her's womb contradicted immunological laws. Since the immune system normally det
ects foreign tissue and attacks it, you'd expect the mother's immune system to a
ttack the genetically distinct child within her. Well we now know that it actual
ly does, but the baby survives by putting up a very specific defense. Researcher
s at the Medical College of Georgia discovered that mammalian embryos produce a
special enzyme that suppresses the mother's killer T-cell action. A human embryo
starts to produce this enzyme just before it attaches to the mother's uterus. T
his refutes a major argument used to support abortion, that the embryo is just a
part of the mother's body to do with she pleases. The research clearly shows th
at the human embryo is distinct from its mother from the beginning. To find out
more from Creation Ministries International visit our website Creation.com. Welc
ome back this week we're talking about speciation? Yes. Evolution? No! Rapid spe
ciation is a must for the creationist model. Note that some anti creationists of
course have mockingly claimed that for the number of species that we see today
to have descended from one pair, coming of the Ark for example, would require th
at pair to have huge super chromosomes to carry all that information needed. Now
while we can't say dogmatically that what we presently know of genetic mechanis
ms is definitely sufficient to provide for all the post flood variation that we
see, in fact some creationist thinkers have postulated there might be yet undisc
overed mechanisms as well, we'll get into that later on in the show, we suggest
that the converse is not been demonstrated either. Evolutionists have not demons
trated that you couldn't get that. Just just think of the variations of dogs for
example. Look at all the wild and wacky dogs and evolutionists have admitted th
ey all come from wolves so that can happen quickly. All sexually reproducing cre
atures contain their genetic information in paired form. Which means that for wh
atever trait this information codes, for let's say your eye color or whatever, y
ou could be homozygous, which means both copies of the alleles are the same or y
ou could be heterozygous which means that they're different. So one person could
have two different eye colors while another could only have alleles that are th
e same. So maximum heterozygosity at the beginning when God originally created w
ould surely give a massive variation potential. If, when God created, he created
creatures with differently alleles for different traits, just through natural s
election, adaptation pressures, Mendelian genetics, reshuffling and sorting of t
hat type of information you could have got substantial diversity arise in a very
, very short time period. That's actually been been demonstrated. Like I mention
ed dogs for example. Ya that's a good example. However the reality is that in th
e case of the postulated post-flood variation in the creation model, the subgrou
ps have the status of separate species, and that's where it gets kind of tricky.
That is even though in some instances they breed in captivity, they generally d
on't do so in the wild, thus the mechanisms for speciation, particularly rapid s
peciation, far from causing creationists to shudder are actually of great intere
st to us its a great area of study. So what can cause speciation to happen quick
ly? Well, taking the most straightforward modern understanding of a species as "
A group of organisms which can interbreed in nature and does not naturally and f
reely interbreed with another." It's not hard to see how this sort of variation
could easily lead to reproductive incompatibility for example. It may be for ins
tance that sheer size difference would allow a population of chihuahuas and Grea
t Danes for example, to be classified as a separate species. Yes, because they n
o longer interbreed. Yeah right, they just don't get together because of very ob
vious reasons and they would be considered separate species. Also cutting popula
tions off with physical barriers for example, mountain ranges, topographical cha
nges that kind of thing, can easily isolate subsets of genes so that could cause
speciation as well, you have physical barriers that cause that. So understandin
g how these physical barriers could give rise to rapid speciation, that's always
been fairly straightforward, nevertheless the amount of post flood speciation m
ust have been staggering, we need to admit that, because we look at all these va
riations. Particularly among insects, it's hard to see how there could have been
that many physical barriers for example to cut off these founder populations an

d stuff like that in insects because of the massive variation there. So there ar
e some challenges there certainly. But it's both encouraging and fascinating for
creationist biologists to note that there's now an increasing acceptance of the
concept of sympatric speciation. And what that means is that populations can sp
lit into separate species even when they're isn't any kind of physical barrier.
They're living together but they they speciate. A major scientific conference on
speciation held in Elsinore California in May 1996 reports about it appeared in
Science magazine afterwards, and when we come back we'll show you more about th
e results of that report, it may be surprising to you. We'll be right back... Cr
eation Ministries International focuses on the Bible's first book, Genesis and t
he creation/evolution issue. Many of our speakers are scientists with PHD's who
before joining CMI we employed in various scientific fields. Creation Ministries
speakers go to churches equipping and encouraging people with the message of th
e truth and authority of the Bible and its relevance to the real world. To locat
e upcoming CMI events or inquiring about booking a speaker into your church visi
t creation.com. Welcome back. This week we're discussing; Speciation? Yes. Evolu
tion? No. So yes speciation takes place. Is its support for evolution? No! And w
e're giving the details here on this week's episode. That's right. Rapid speciat
ian has to be part of the creation model. It does yes. Now as as you mentioned,
there was a major scientific conference on speciation held in Elsinore Californi
a in May 1996 and reports about it of course appeared in Science magazine, major
science magazines around the world. At the conference in question evidence up s
ympatric speciation, meaning that the the population of creatures could split in
to different species, even while living in the same area with no separation or p
hysical barriers was presented on this the sort of thing having happened with ea
se in populations in certain types of fruit eating insects, which used the the f
ruits of their host plant for courtship displays and mating. If one group of ins
ects, used to eating a certain type of fruit for example started to try a new ho
st plant then food choices became linked with mate choice. And so reproductive i
solation began. And it's interesting that no one at the conference put forward a
ny evidence that new genes arose by mutation or anything like that, there was no
new information seemed to be required for any these mechanisms. So here's evide
nce of creatures living together, suddenly speciating, becoming different specie
s... I mean when I was in school I was always taught well look, natural selectio
n pressures would cause creatures to evolve new things needed to adapt to enviro
nments... Here we've got species happening, there's no natural selection factor
whatsoever. No, they just decided to eat new food. And then mates decided to han
g out with this one instead of the other one and then those genes get isolated.
Yes amazing. Fish living in the same lake can also, it seems, become separate sp
ecies, reproductively isolated, because a food choices again. It's the same type
of thing as the the insects there. Which leads to different sizes and thus diff
erent mating choices. It's kind of like the Great Danes and the chihuahuas. Yes,
it's kind of like that again. It's the same kind of thing. There's no physical b
arriers, food choices lead to a change in size and then you have speciation as a
result. It wonderfully fits with creation. In another instance several species
of wasps appear to have a been thrust apart from a single ancestral wasp populat
ion by way of nothing more than differing species of bacteria in their gut. So h
ere they are living in one area, certain ones get certain types of bacteria in t
heir gut and somehow the bacteria in the females destroy the DNA for males of th
e other species and you know...there's been other mechanisms of speciation menti
oned as well in this report, which are as simple as things like the song of one
bird attracting certain mates. Or certain pigment genes attracting certain mates
and things like that. So we're watching rapid speciation happen, that fits with
the creationist model, it doesn't fit with the evolutionary model. So it sounds
like there's quite a number of different mechanisms here which could produce sp
eciation in groups of living things. It fits beautifully with the Bible. Things
that happened after the Flood. Also hybridization, mixing of genes from two dist
inct species to form a third, a hybrid, a reproductively distinct grouping. That
that can sometimes produce different species as well. Creationists would hold t
hat two species which hybridized were likely to have previously formed from a si

ngle ancestral population, or a single original kind, We're going to say more ab
out that on next week's episode. But this is a non- evolutionary process. It's a
non-information gaining process. It's speciation but it has nothing to do with
evolution. Once again, no new information appears out of nothing, which was not
already existing in the living world at that time. And that would have to occur
if evolution was to have happened on this planet. That's the name of the game wi
th evolution. Its new information and speciation is seen as, well that's somethi
ng new. You've got one species and now there's two, it's something new. But when
you look at it the way scientists need to, at a detailed level, there's no new
information. Speciation? Yes! Evolution? No! That's what is going on there. So t
his idea of rapid speciation, so important to the creationist model is, surprise
, surprise, supported by scientific observations in a huge way. And even though
rapid speciation can be incorporated into an evolutionary model, it doesn't prov
ide any support for the big picture of evolution. Yes well rapid speciation is a
ctually difficult... yes it fits in... Well they fit it in now because they're o
bserving it so it's got to fit somehow. But it wasn't there in the beginning it
doesn't provide support for evolution really, in the sense of brand new genetic
information being formed. Right. And of course the biblical creation fall, Flood
, migration model predicts rapid formation of new species and varieties. This is
because all of the modern varieties of land vertebrates must have descended fro
m a comparatively few bunch of animals that disembarked from the Ark only about
4500 years ago. So in contrast, Darwin thought that this process would normally
take eons to occur. It turns out that the evidence actually supports the creatio
n model. And we'll be right back... Dogs vary greatly in size, from chihuahua to
Great Dane. Yet they're all part of the dog or wolf created kind. They can all
interbreed. Researchers have found that the small breeds of dog have something i
n common, a mutation in a gene that codes for an important growth regulator. Thi
s prevents the small dogs growing to normal size. Mutations do that sort of thin
g, they destroy normal biological functions. Some of that destruction might be e
ntertaining for us, producing cute miniature dogs that don't cost much to feed.
But mutations won't create the complex blocks of genetic instructions needed to
produce the growth regulator in the first place. Evolutionists say that mutation
s changed dinosaurs into birds and apes into people, but how can mutations which
destroyed complex information do that sort of thing? Modern biology really shou
ts creation not evolution. To find out more from Creation Ministries Internation
al visit our website creation.com. Well our topic today is; Speciation? Yes! Evo
lution? No! And we've shown you a lot of examples about why rapid speciation sho
ws and actually supports the creationist model, not the evolutionary model. Yes
there is evidence for the biblical model. And to give you an example of how evid
ence for biblical creation is spun to make it look like evidence for evolution,
let's look at the following story. This is a news headline here. 'Evolution simu
lated in the lab', there it is there... An article in the prestigious journal Na
ture claimed that a research study published last week had successfully recreate
d the South American butterfly Heliconius Heurippa, which has red-orange and yel
low-white stripes on its wings. They did this, the article said, by seeking to,
quote, recreate the evolutionary pathway that gave rise to it. So there's the ne
ws report. Other news media carried the story as well of course, the BBC reporti
ng that the study demonstrates that two animal species, here's a quote, two anim
al species can evolve from one. But is this really a evolution? I mean a closer
look at the facts show otherwise. Researchers had suspected that H Heurippa migh
t be a hybrid of Heliconius Cydno, which had a yellow stripe in Heliconius Melpo
mene which has a red one. So the researchers interbred these two species creatin
g a butterfly with the two stripe pattern of H Heurippa within just three genera
tions. And there was no need to physically separate the two striped butterflies
from the others in order to maintain the purity of the newly bred H Heurippa. "B
utterflies tend to choose partners that look like themselves" said one researche
r, Chris Jiggins of Edinburgh University. So once the new pattern was establishe
d these individuals have tended to mate with one another and shunned their paren
tal species. So there's an example of it happening, but when we look at the deta
ils did we see any new, brand new genetic information form that wasn't already i

n the... ...it's a mix have information that was already there. It's a fantastic
example of rapid speciation, it fits beautifully with the Bible, no surprise to
creationists. However it's not evolution. No new genetic information was produc
ed, the butterflies are still butterflies, the hybrid species simply having an a
ssortment of genes inherited from the two-parent populations. And that stories k
ind of the opposite to this one. This is still touted as evolution, look at this
report from the Star.com. "Is a coyote? Is it a wolf? Yes and yes. It's a 'coyw
olf'. The predators that are plaguing Durham Region and showing up in urban area
s appear to be an emerging species resulting from wolves and coyotes interbreedi
ng." Well we'd agree with that. We see that stuff happening all the time. But lo
ok how they describe it; "The larger highly adaptable animals have the wolf char
acteristics of pack hunting and aggression and the coyote characteristics of lac
k of fear of human developed areas, says Trent University geneticist Bradley Whi
te, who's been studying the hybrids for 12 years. We're seeing evolution in acti
on, he says." Now isn't this what we see in the news reports all the time. Look!
More evidence of evolution! It's a snow job... It's evolution only if you limit
the meaning of that word to what creationists would agree with. Animals change,
speciation happens. If you want to call that evolution well that's very confusi
ng. If I take a Great Dane and I take a German Shepherd and I breed them togethe
r and they produce a hybrid, is that evolution? I mean that's the simplistic exp
lanation he's saying here for a wolf and a coyote breeding together. And we're s
eeing evolution in action. But without understanding the details the people who
read that article years ago are not going to get the impression that... ...if yo
u look at the details it's not evolution in terms of microbes-to-man, particlesto-people... ...lizards turning into birds where all of the sudden they have win
gs that never existed before... There's confusion in this area certainly and one
of the DVD's that we carry, it's a great DVD called 'Dynamic life; changes in l
iving things'. Dr Carl Wieland, sort of the grandfather of the ministry. He star
ted Creation magazine on his typewriter in the late seventies, he explains the d
ifferences between natural selection, what creationists, what we've always agree
d with, and evolution. That's discussed in theory, particles turning into people
and so on. It's a great DVD, you can get it at a discount using a code. We'll p
ut the code up on the screen, CMLDL Dynamic life. Creation Magazine LIVE! Dynami
c Life. You can get 50% off. So when you go online, as you're checking out put t
hat coupon code in there and you'll get fifty percent off of this fascinating DV
D by Dr Carl Wieland. I remember watching that DVD and as a former evolutionist
it blew my mind to see all that evidence that I'd been taught was proof of evolu
tion actually supported the Bible, it was amazing. I encourage you to check it o
ut. And we'll be back... For a more in-depth understanding of topics relating to
the creation/evolution debate the Journal of Creation contains peer-reviewed re
search papers that support the biblical account of the creation the Flood and th
e Fall. One subscriber said; I'd always assumed that this journal would be to ac
ademic for me, not so. I am a Christian with a very inquiring mind. With each is
sue I find powerful articles that open doors and shine light on my understanding
of the world. Each Journal of Creation is more than 120 pages and published thr
ee times a year. To subscribe visit creation.com. Well welcome back. This is the
Feedback section. We often get feedback from articles that we write, sometimes
from the TV episodes here, and so here was a response from somebody writing from
Australia and they said this; Dear Sir or Madam, I wish to object strongly to y
our ministry's representation of the Bible's recount of creation in Genesis as a
valid scientific alternative to mainstream cosmology, geology and biology. As a
Christian I take seriously the task of reading the Bible. Seriously, but not li
terally. It is significant on this first Sunday in Lent on the ninth of March th
e lectionary readings for the temptations of Christ include passages from Genesi
s about Adam and Eve's temptation. Serious exegesis leads the reader to a deeper
understanding of the human duty to resist temptation while a pilgrim on the way
to the cross at the end the Easter. The details are the type of fruit, or serpe
nt, or the alleged dimensions and location of Eden are not important. As an enth
usiast astronomer and physicist I also perfectly accept that the universe is 13.
8 billion years old and the earth is 4.6 billion. Evolution occurs, just as our

understanding of science and the Gospel does. Yours faithfully, K G from Austral
ia. Okay so there's the letter in full and then as usual, as we usually do, one
of our folks, scientists or speakers responds to it in interspersed fashion. One
of the comments that we mention was; Actually the serious way to take it (to ta
ke the Bible) is governed by two principals. Number one, recognize Scripture as
God breathed. Number two; The true meaning of Scripture is the meaning that the
original readership would have understood by the words the inspired authors used
. Exactly. You know it's interesting to even hear this kind of phrasing because
I've heard these kinds of things before. I've seen it on church billboards as yo
u are driving along sometimes. You know we take the Bible seriously but not lite
rally. And it's like you know, if you applied that to anybody that you really ho
ld in high esteem or that has authority over you... You know if I was to tell my
wife, you know honey, I take you seriously but not literally. Or if I was to te
ll my employer I take you seriously, but not literally. Oh you mean you really w
anted me to do that? Oh you mean I'm supposed to actually do that? Think about t
his... Part of the confusion is over the word 'literal'. What literal means is y
ou take it as it's written. Not a wooden literalism, and people say well biblica
l literalists, "Do you guys believe that the trees of the field literally clap t
heir hands?" No. Taking something literally means taking it in the form that it
is written. We understand there's many different types of literature within Scri
pture? How did the original audience, how were they intended to interpret what t
he scripture? So of course there's things like poetic... ...poems and there is a
llegory and Jesus would use different ways to explain things, different parables
and things like that. But the fact is understanding that it's a parable is taki
ng it in the literal grammatical-historical context. We understand, but even a p
arable has a literal moral explanation. It's got a meaning to that. Yes, literal
is just a confusing word. A word that we're using more and more often within CM
I, within Creation Ministries International is, take it 'straightforwardly'. Jus
t take the word literal out because so many people are confused by that. We take
it straightforwardly, we take it in the way that's written. If it's a parable y
ou take it as a parable, don't pretend that its real history, its a parable. You
know if I go to have a meal and I say "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse", Most
people aren't going to go wow, Cal wants to eat a horse. They'd go wow, Cal's r
eally hungry. That's the literal or plain meaning of what I said, even though I
gave you some... It's a figure of speech and everybody gets that. That's right.
So what we're saying is no, we take the Bible as plainly written and when you re
ad Genesis it really is supported as real history. We'll see you next time...