The Very First "Platy-whatever"
Based on the evolutionary demands for "gradual" change by "natural selection" let's be logical. Let's walk back in time. Back, back — millions or billions (or, if evolution insists, even quintillions) of years ago.
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We are looking at our first little "platy-whatever." He is not, decidedly, a "full-fledged" platypus, complete with beaver's tail, duck's bill, otter's body, snake's fang, mammal's glands or turtle's eggs!
Somehow, he is somewhere in between, or under, or somewhere around one or the other of these "stages."
Let's say he lives along the banks of a stream. But he can't swim yet, because, being like any other normal burrowing animal, he has claws only for digging, hasn't evolved retractable webbed feet, nor developed a tail for a keel, nor learned to hold his breath that long, nor developed waterproof hair.
But if that's true, then why develop retractable webbed feet, and then decide to swim only with his forefeet, dragging the hind feet rather uselessly along after?
The hungry "platy-whatever" pauses by the side of the stream. Formerly, (since he obviously spent MOST of his time on dry land) he was accustomed to eating various tiny animals, or plants, or whatever may have suited his particular fancy.
But it enters his mind to eat soft, water-soaked worms!
But WHY should he want to begin feeding on the bottom of streams, when he can't see any food there, and he can't swim underwater, either? And if he MUST begin feeding along stream bottoms in order to survive, then why don't ALL CREATURES ON EARTH with a similar diet feed along on stream bottoms? How did all the other myriad of creatures keep "surviving" without ever getting wetter than the drenching a good rain gives them?
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Clark — Ambassador College
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If this first "platy-whatever" had to evolve water-feeding apparatus, then he only evolved it because he needed it. And if he needed it that means he wasn't getting sufficient food where he was to survive. But if he couldn't have survived where he was — and obviously, couldn't have succeeded in obtaining food from stream bottoms until he had gradually, over MILLIONS OF YEARS, evolved that supersensitive bill, and those retractable, skin-covered forefeet, and his whole, specially designed aquatic body and tail — then he obviously starved to death, and therefore does not exist today.
It should be obvious to any thinking person that his very first attempts to feed along the bottom of streams would have led to one of two things. First, either a successful enough feeding to satisfy him — meaning he was already perfectly adapted to obtain food in that fashion, and therefore should have survived as a "platy-whatever" instead of a "platypus." Or, secondly, an empty stomach and complete frustration, leading him to evolve into something else.
He dives into the water. But — alas! He can't swim! His hair is not water resistant. Besides, he can't see — and as yet has not "evolved" his extremely sensitive, skin-covered, navigator's and food-finder's mechanism in his bill — after all, he's never HAD to search for underwater worms with his EYES CLOSED before!
So, laden with water — forefeet clawing to no avail, for lack of webs, hind feet hanging uselessly, he is caught in the turbid current, and swept away into the sands of time — where he appears, not as a "platypus," but as a "primitivus, beaverus, otterus, duckus beakus, incredibilus!"
But no. That won't work, either. Because no such "creature" is FOUND in the fossils.
Let's concentrate on his children surviving — since obviously, he is not even remotely EQUIPPED to survive! (At least, not as a platypus. And if he's equipped to survive as a SOMETHING ELSE — then WHY DIDN'T HE??)
The first "platy-whatever" was wandering along the banks of his favorite stream one day in what finally became Australia, and ran smack into the most challenging question evolution could EVER have to answer — a mate, of the opposite sex, that looked exactly the same except for certain important details — at least, important to him!
In due time, babies are born.
Perhaps they began bearing the young ALWE, and, not having yet "evolved" the special technique of secreting milk on a given signal that involves enough nerve endings and special sensory techniques — not to mention fathomless animal INSTINCT. — to give a computer a headache, the young starve to death.
But let's forget all those problems — after all, evolution has.
Let's try to imagine HOW ANY ONE GIVEN PART of the platypus COULD POSSIBLY have evolved!
Take the eyes.
The platypus has normal eyesight — but, in swimming underwater, keeps them tightly shut! So WHICH CAME FIRST? Did he begin surviving by keeping his eyes OPEN underwater, and finding the worms and other food visually? If so, then WHY EVOLVE that STUPID-LOOKING BEAK???
If his sensitive bill was ONLY necessary as a food-finding nerve center — then he would NOT have begun "evolving" it until it became NECESSARY! It was not really necessary if he could SEE, was it?
And wouldn't it have been far easier to simply evolve a kind of skin over his eyes and continue keeping them open, instead of evolve the most surprising proboscis in the whole world?
Shall we assume he BEGAN with the proboscis (nose) and without eyes?
No — the very first time the very first platypus swam underwater to find food, he had to have a perfectly developed body for swimming, tail for a keel, since he swims with his front two legs only; webs to be stretched out over his burrowing toenails for paddling; waterproof hair to keep him from drowning; and an extremely sensitive nerve-filled "bill" for finding his way, and finding his food.
The very first time two platypuses mated, they had to already have BUILT-IN instincts (so the male didn't accidentally jab the female with his dangerous "fang" on a hind foot, for instance??) so they would not walk off and leave the eggs, but await their hatching, and then proceed to "nurse" the offspring — NOT by nursing, but by secreting the milk onto underbelly hair at various intervals.
". . . But is this `fair' reasoning?"
But is this "fair" to evolution? Is it "fair" to try to see LOGIC in its claims? Is it "fair" to attempt some sort of rational, logical, appealing method by which evolution COULD HAVE taken place?
Or is that against the rules?
Honestly, now — since EVOLUTIONISTS THEMSELVES have no real ANSWERS as to the true origin (once they have denied God!) of the platypus — do YOU CLAIM TO HAVE THE ANSWERS?
Be HONEST with yourself! Haven't you just sort of "DAYDREAMED" about "how" this and that might "possibly" have occurred — but never subjected it to the cold light of LOGIC and FACT?
Oh — you've heard the many "arguments," of course. But just how really LOGICAL are they? One might counter, "But perhaps the ancestors of the platypus began by brief "excursions" into the edge of the water — and, as they became more adept at finding food underwater, just naturally passed on these "acquired characteristics" to their offspring! Perhaps it took MILLIONS OF YEARS of developing platypuses to produce a "modern" platypus.
A nice daydream.
But it doesn't work. IF it were true, then the fossil record would be literally FILLED with the many, many "transitional" species that FINALLY gave rise to the platypus of today!
But there Is no such fossil record.
Let's take a calm look at the facts as presented by the evolutionists themselves.
Mammals from Reptiles?
There are around three thousand, two hundred totally different species of mammals, varying in size from the two fifths of an ounce shrew to the 130-ton whale!
Zoologists, taxonomists, biologists, and a host of other specialists (the majority of whom are believers in evolution), believe mammals developed from reptiles.
And, striking as it sounds, the platypus has been regarded as a DESCENDANT of a "link" between reptiles and mammals of over 150 million (or so) years ago.
Said LIFE NATURE LIBRARY (The Land and Wildlife of Australia, page 61), "The reptilian characteristics of the platypus led scientists to conclude that it is descended from a link between the reptiles and mammals of over 150 million years ago.
"At any rate, it is a highly specialized survivor of an ancient time."
Again — these are "scientific"-sounding arguments, but utterly lacking In PROOF.
If the platypus is only a descendant, a REMNANT of a "LINK" between such vastly different creatures as reptiles and mammals, then where are the literally MILLIONS of fossil remains of the literally THOUSANDS of intermediate species going in both directions from such a "link," and where are all the other intermediate species from the "link" to the platypus himself?
Evolution remains silent to these questions — admitting the fossil record to be "incomplete." But is it, REALLY? Or is the theory woefully inadequate? Which?
Which "leads" do Evolutionists Follow?
What possible CLUES do evolutionists have, from the undeniable evidence of the fossils, and living creatures themselves, that a platypus evolved?
Let's find whether they follow the facts, or the reasoning of others ABOUT a few facts.
What does evolution say about the fossil record of the platypus? "UNHAPPILY, NO FOSSILS have yet been found in any continent which reveal the lineage of the monotremes (single-vent, or the platypus) prior to the last few million years in Australia itself" (The Land and Wildlife of Australia, LIFE NATURE LIBRARY, David Bergamini, page 62, 65).
All fossil platypuses found look EXACTLY like "modern" platypuses.
So there are no leads in the fossils. And none among living creatures.
But, admits the author, zoologists have come to "general" agreement!
"Following the lead of the eminent evolutionary authority George Gaylord Simpson, however, zoologists generally agree, that the monotremes' ancestors must have branched from the premammal stock and reached Australia at least 135 million years ago, perhaps even as long as 200 million years ago" (ibid). (Emphasis ours throughout article)
Said another authority, "The platypus and its egg-laying cousins . . . have altered but little in more recent geological times, as shown by the fact that NO PETRIFIED REMAINS have yet been unearthed to trace their ancestral evolution" (Furred Animals of Australia, Ellis Troughton, page 1).
So — there is NO proof from the fossil record, either in "recent" or in "ancient" times, regardless of the way in which it may be stated in various publications, that the platypus evolved at all! , Then how do evolutionists say they know it evolved?
Easy. They just say it.
You see, every untruth is based on a false premise that is always just carelessly ASSUMED, and casually TAKEN FOR GRANTED. Once a person has rejected his God, and swallowed the idea that all living things evolved from some other living thing — and that simple gave rise to complex, he fancies he sees certain "relationships" among them.
That he may be looking at a remarkable PATTERN — a basic structural FRAMEWORK for ALL life forms that was thought out and carefully PLANNED, by a Great CREATOR, DESIGNER, LIFE-GIVER never occurs to the evolutionist. Or, if it does occur to him — it is quickly discarded.
Said one leading astrophysicist, "It is a terrible mystery how matter comes out of nothing. Could it have been something outside science? . . .
"We try to stay out of philosophy and theology, but sometimes we are forced to think in bigger terms, to go back to something outside science."
The platypus is another of those serious obstacles to the evolutionary theory — a living creature which has NO LIVING COUNTERPARTS and NO CLOSE RELATIVES in the fossil record. Therefore, science calls this little creature a "living fossil."
In other words, the platypus, along with the ants, cockroaches, cycads, and the now famous coelacanth, have been dubbed "living fossils" because evolution is forced to admit they have NEVER CHANGED. That is, that their fossil ancestors, IF ANY, (and in the case of the platypus, there are none!) are exactly the SAME as the living creatures.
So — as far as the actual evidence goes, a platypus has ALWAYS BEEN a platypus — that is, so far as actual EVIDENCE goes. But in the realm of speculation, all sorts of interesting pasts are assigned to this interesting little creature.
One book ascribes this great feat to the platypus:
"When the monotremes were cut off from the rest of the world they were just changing into mammals — but they NEVER QUITE FINISHED" (Marvelous Mammals: Monotremes and Marsupials, Bernice Kohn, page 13).