You Just Can’t Win With These Guys…

by Sara on 04/10/08 filed under Evolution vs. Creation

In the 2007 ABC Nightline Debate between The Way of the Master and the Rational Response Squad, Kirk Cameron spends a good deal of time attacking the theory of evolution. “…More than a hundred years (since Darwin) have gone by and those missing links, those transitional forms, those in between stages, are still missing.” In the video below, Cameron can be seen holding up pictures of the “crockoduck,” the “bullfrog,” and the “sheepdog,” firmly proclaiming that these are exactly the types of transitional forms that evolutionary scientists would expect to find.

Cameron and partner Ray Comfort are so sure that there are no transitional fossils that they take a page out of James Randi’s book and set up a website offering $10,000 “to the first person who can prove…that they have found a genuine transitional form…”

The challenge website is very clear on exactly what Comfort and Cameron are looking for in a transitional form. Comfort insists on seeing, “a lizard that produced a bird, or a dog that produced kittens, or a sheep that produced a chicken…” Is it possible for anyone to ever win this challenge? Comfort doesn’t seem to think so.

After explaining the challenge, the website goes on to say, “Species do not cross, no matter how long you leave them. The whole of creation is proof that evolution is truly ‘a fairy tale for grownups’.”

Who Put These Guys In Charge?

One might wonder how Cameron and Comfort, who are not scientists, can be so sure of the exact definition of a transitional form. Of course no evolutionary scientist would ever expect to find a duck with the head of a crocodile or a dog that gives birth to a kitten. Evolution does not claim any of these things. Demanding evolutionists to prove something they aren’t claiming would be like asking Christians to prove Santa Claus is real.

What Is A Transitional Form?

According to the theory of evolution, a transitional form is a form “that shows a mosaic of features from an older and more recent organism.” Between fossils and living creatures, there are many, many transitional forms.

On April 10, 2008, BBC News reported on the discovery of a fossil animal found in Lebanese limestone. This was a fossil of the 85cm-long Eupodophis descouens—a snake with two legs.

Scientists had already theorized that Eupodophis descouens had two legs, so this new finding only confirmed the “evolutionary narrative that goes from ancient lizard to limbless serpents” as we know them today.

Ray Comfort Must Be Shaking in His Boots, Huh?

So…surely this new discovery would be enough to win the $10,000? Why not bring the fossil remains to Comfort—and just in case he wants to see some live things, we can bring a duckbilled platypus, a crawling anglerfish, and newly-discovered lungless Barbourula kalimantanensis. All of these, of course, fit perfectly within the framework of what we would expect to find if evolution were true.

Sadly, Cameron and Comfort would likely refuse to accept any of these creatures as a winner of their challenge. By narrowing the contest to include only “transitional forms” which no one expects will ever be found, Cameron and Comfort have all but insured that no one will ever walk away with their money, and more importantly, no one will ever feel the great sense of achievement for having set these, ahem, bozos, straight. Watch the tape until about 9:55—Cameron himself mentions the platypus, clearly stating that it wouldn’t count as a transitional form because, “That’s exactly how god made it.”

He’d probably say the same thing if someone actually brought him a crockoduck.