This chapter is based on pp. 953-959 (Scientists Speak) of Other Evidence (Volume Three of our three-volume Evolution Disproved Series). You will find many other statements on our website: evolution-facts.org.

"Rudyard Kipling, in addition to his journalism, adventure stories, and chronicling of the British Raj in India, is remembered for a series of charming children’s tales about the origins of animals. The Just-So Stories (1902) are fanciful explanations of how . . the camel got his hump (rolling around in lumpy sand dunes). Modeled on the folktales of tribal peoples, they express humor, morality, or are whimsy in ‘explaining’ how various animals gained their special characteristics.

" ‘Not long ago,’ writes science historian Michael Ghiselin, ‘biological literature was full of ‘Just-So’ stories and pseudo-explanations about structures that had developed ‘for the good of the species.’ Armchair biologists would construct logical, plausible explanations of why a structure benefited a species or how it had been of value in earlier stages."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 245.

"In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale."—*Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (1859 and 1984 editions), p. 184.

" ‘Then the elephant’s child sat back on his little haunches and pulled, and pulled, and pulled, and his nose began to stretch. And the crocodile floundered toward the bank, making the water all creamy with great sweeps of his tail, and he pulled, and pulled, and pulled.’ "—Rudyard Kipling, children’s story, quoted in Wayne Frair and Percival Davis, Case for Creation (1983), p. 130.

"We know that this animal, the tallest of mammals, dwells in the interior of Africa, in places where the soil, almost always arid and without herbage [not true], obliges it to browse on trees and to strain itself continuously to reach them. This habit sustained for long, has had the result in all members of its race that the forelegs have grown longer than the hind legs and that its neck has become so stretched, that the giraffe, without standing on its hind legs, lifts its head to a height of six meters."—*Jean-Baptist de Monet (1744-1829), quoted in Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 87.

"So under nature with the nascent giraffe, the individuals which were the highest browsers, and were able during dearths to reach even an inch or two above the others, will often have been preserved . . By this process long-continued . . combined no doubt in a most important manner with the inherited effects of increased use of parts, it seems to me almost certain that any ordinary hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe."—*Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1859), p. 202.

"This issue [of how the giraffe got its long neck] came up on one occasion in a pre-med class in the University of Toronto. The lecturer did not lack enthusiasm for his subject and I’m sure the students were duly impressed with this illustration of how the giraffe got its long neck and of the power of natural selection.

"But I asked the lecturer if there was any difference in height between the males and the females. He paused for a minute as the possible significance of the question seemed to sink in. After a while he said, ‘I don’t know. I shall look into it.’ Then he explained to the class that if the difference [in male and female giraffe neck lengths] was substantial, it could put a crimp in the illustration unless the males were uncommonly gentlemanly and stood back to allow the females ‘to survive as well.’

"He never did come back with an answer to my question; but in due course I found it for myself. According to Jones the female giraffe is 24 inches shorter than the male. The observation is confirmed by Cannon. Interestingly, the Reader’s Digest publication, The Living World of Animals, extends the potential difference to 3 feet!

"Yet Life magazine, a while ago, presented the giraffe story as a most convincing example of natural selection at work."—Arthur C. Custance, "Equal Rights Amendment for Giraffes?" in Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1980, p. 230 [references cited: *F. Wood Jones, Trends of Life (1953), p. 93; *H. Graham Cannon, Evolution of Living Things (1958), p. 139; *Reader’s Digest World of Animals (1970), p. 102].

"It is speculated by neo-Darwinists that some ancestor of the giraffe gradually got longer and longer bones in the neck and legs over millions of years. If this were true, one might predict that there would either be fossils showing some of the intermediate forms or perhaps some living forms today with medium-sized necks. Absolutely no such intermediates have been found either among the fossils or living even-toed ungulates that would connect the giraffe with any other creature.

"Evolutionists cannot explain why the giraffe is the only four-legged creature with a really long neck and yet everything else in the world [without that long neck] survived. Many short-necked animals of course existed side-by-side in the same locale as the giraffe. Darwin even mentioned this possible criticism in The Origin, but tried to explain it away and ignore it.

"Furthermore it is not possible for evolutionists to make up a plausible scenario for the origination of either the giraffe’s long neck or its complicated blood pressure regulating system. This amazing feature generates extremely high pressure to pump the blood up to the 20-foot-high brain and then quickly reduces the pressure to prevent brain damage when the animal bends down to take a drink. After over a century of the most intensive exploration for fossils, the world’s museums cannot display a single intermediate form that would connect the giraffe with any other creature."—Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (1988), pp. 83-84.

"The Kingston Whig-Standard for 7 October 1976, on page 24, had a brief account, from Jonesboro, Tennessee, of the U.S. National Storytelling Festival held there. One particular tall story was as follows:

" ‘The storyteller, as a boy, while fishing one day caught a catfish, but he threw it back. The following day he caught it again. This time he kept it out of the water for a little longer, and then threw it back. And so it continued all summer; the fish staying out of the water for longer and longer periods, until it became accustomed to living on land.

" ‘At the end of the summer, as the boy was walking to school, the fish jumped out of the water and began following him like a dog. All went well until they started across an old bridge with a plank missing. Then the catfish, alas, fell through the hole in the bridge into the water below, and drowned.’ "—Harold L. Armstrong, news note, Creation Research Society Quarterly, March 1977, p. 230.

"Long ago and far away, there was a pile of sand by the seashore. It looked just like regular sand, and so it was! Water was lapping at the shore. It looked just like regular water, and so it was! Then a storm arose and lightning flashed. Nothing ran for cover, for nothing was alive. Then the bolt of lightning hit the water—and a living creature came into existence! It swam around for a time, had children, and thousands of years later, its descendants gradually figured out how to invent organs necessary for survival and they eventually learned how to reproduce their own, and bear young. And that’s how we began."

"Phoenix was a fabulous, eagle-like bird which existed in the folklore of ancient Egypt. It is said that no more than one of these great birds ever lived at any one time. The solitary nature of Phoenix naturally presented a problem from the standpoint of procreation. Reproduction, however, was solved in a rather unique way. At the end of its life span of no less than 500 years, the bird would construct a nest of combustible materials and spices, set the nest on fire, and be consumed in the flames.

"Then, lo and behold, from the inert ashes would spring a new Phoenix!

"In the history of mythology, the story of Phoenix is one of the few instances, if not the only one, in which something complex is constructed from lifeless matter, completely unaided."—Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism (1988), p. 101.

"The fish has assumed its present shape through many millions of years of natural selection. That is, the individuals of each species best suited for their particular environment had a better chance to survive long enough to reproduce and pass on their genetic material to their offspring, who then did the same. Those less suited either moved to more suitable environments or died before reproducing and passing their genes to offspring."—*Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau: Vol 5, The Art of Motion, p. 22.

"Extremes of adaptation—such as the whale provoke wonder about how such a creature could have evolved. Sometimes larger than a herd of elephants, this intelligent mammal loads on tons of tiny plants and animals (plankton) it extracts from seawater. Since it is air breathing, warm-blooded and milk giving, it must have developed from land animals in ancient times, then gone back to the sea. But 150 years ago, who could imagine how such a transformation could come about?

"Charles Darwin could. He had noticed in a traveler’s account that an American black bear was seen ‘swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water.’ If this new food-getting habit became well-established, Darwin said in the Origin of Species (first edition, 1859) . . [Darwin’s statement quoted].

" ‘Preposterous!’ snorted zoologists. Such an example, they thought, sounded so wild and far-fetched it would brand Darwin as a teller of tall tales. Professor Richard Owen of the British Museum prevailed on Darwin to leave out the ‘whale-bear story,’ or at least tone it down. Darwin cut it from later editions, but privately regretted giving in to his critics, as he saw ‘no special difficulty in a bear’s mouth being enlarged to any degree useful to its changing habits.’ Years later he still thought the example ‘quite reasonable.’ "—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 463.

"The cetaceans, which include the whales, dolphins, and porpoises, have become adapted to a totally aquatic life since their ancestors returned to the sea nearly 70 million years ago. There is little evidence of cetaceous ancestors, but most people consider them to have been omnivorous animals possibly like some hoofed animals today.

"The most important changes were those having to do with the way the animals moved and breathed. They reassumed the fusiform [torpedo-like] shape of early fish. The bones in their necks became shorter until there was no longer any narrowing between head and body [their necks disappeared]. With water to support their weight they became rounded or cylindrical in body shape, reducing the drag irregularities. Front limbs adapted by becoming broad, flat, paddle-like organs . . The tails developed into flukes [horizontal tail fins] . .

"Another change the cetaceans underwent in adapting to their reentry to the sea was the position of their nostrils. From a position on the upper jaw as far forward as possible, the nostrils moved upward and backward until they are today located atop the head, sometimes as a single opening, sometimes as a double opening. And these returned-to-sea mammals became voluntary breathers, breathing only upon conscious effort—unlike man and other mammals who are involuntary breathers. The development or return of a dorsal fin for lateral stability was another change that took place in some of the cetaceans upon their return to the sea."—Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau, Vol. 5, pp. 26-27 [bold ours].

"Particularly difficult to accept as chance processes are those prolonged changes which lead to a new lifestyle, such as the evolution of birds from reptiles or—perhaps odder—the return of mammals to a life in the sea, as in the case of dolphins and whales."—*G.R. Taylor, Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 160.

"What good is half a jaw or half a wing? . . These tales, in the ‘Just-So Stories’ tradition of evolutionary natural history, do not prove anything . . concepts salvaged only by facile speculation do not appeal much to me."—*Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of the Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, June/July, 1977.

"Transitional forms have been scarce, but a few suggestive fossils were recently discovered in India of a four-legged mammal whose skull and teeth resemble whales. [No creature on land has teeth like the whales which Darwin was referring to—the baleen whale which keeps its mouth open and strains in tiny creatures through immense bristles.] And, during the 1980s, serum protein tests were made on whales’ blood, to compare it with the biochemistry of other living animal groups. The results linked them not to bears or carnivores, but to hoofed animals (ungulates). Forerunners of whales were closely related to the ancestors of cattle, deer and sheep!

"Such a conclusion fits with the general behavior of the great baleen whales, who move in pods or herds and strain the sea for plankton; they are, like antelopes or cattle, social grazers."—Milner, pp. 463 [bold ours].

"As one creationist pamphlet put it, ‘A frog turning instantaneously into a prince is called a fairy tale, but if you add a few million years, it’s called evolutionary science.’ "—*Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, p. 399.

"It takes a MILLION YEARS to evolve a new species, ten million for a new genus, one hundred million for a class, a billion for a phylum and that’s usually as far as your imagination goes.

"In a billion years [from now], it seems, intelligent life might be as different from humans as humans are from insects . . To change from a human being to a cloud may seem a big order, but it’s the kind of change you’d expect over billions of years."—*Freemen Dyson, 1988 statement, quoted in Asimov’s Book of Science and Nature Quotations, p. 93 [American mathematician; caps ours].

"The change in gene frequencies of populations over the generations in time produces new species. Darwin called it [the change of one species to another] ‘descent with modification’: a slow process, usually operating over HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, and even MILLIONS, of years."—*R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 157 [caps ours].