Debunking Evolution - Homological Structures (Lesson 5b)

Genesis Apologetics

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00:14

Is it just me, or is it impossible to line up animals in the way they evolved?

00:35

What's wrong, Jane? I had the weirdest experience last night. Was your dog wearing lipstick again? Yes, but that's not the point.

00:41

I went to my friend Carrie's house. Oh, that is weird. No, see, that's not the part. It's that she's living in my house.

00:48

Does your mom know? No. I mean, her house looks just like mine. Our doors are alike. Maybe it's a parallel universe and Carrie is your alternate.

00:57

Maybe. And you know what? I went inside and I went into the living room, and it's the exact same shape and size as mine.

01:02

Even the stairs are in the exact same place. And the stairs were going up in exactly the same way. At the top was a hallway, and there were two bedrooms straight ahead.

01:10

You didn't go in, did you? Yes. And Carrie's room was to the right, with her bed under the exact same window.

01:17

And let me guess. On top of the bed was a bear. It was such a freaky experience. Jane, it's because you live in tract housing.

01:25

They only make a few different house plans that they repeat throughout the whole neighborhood. Okay. I never knew that.

01:33

Yeah, it reminds me of homologous structures. Of course. Me too. What are you talking about?

01:40

Sorry. I was just studying it in our textbook. So what's the term homo mean? Homos is

01:46

Greek for same. Right. And logos means relation. So homologous means having the same relation.

01:53

And that was in our textbook? Yeah. No, it says right here in the biology book. Gracias. De nada.

02:02

Here. Homologous structures are structures that share a common ancestry. That is, a similar structure in two organisms can be found in the common ancestor of the organisms.

02:15

Not sure I got all that. Which part? Well, all of it.

02:22

Okay. Look at the diagram. So they say the penguin, alligator, bat, and human all evolved from a common vertebrate ancestor because they have similar bones in their forelimbs.

02:33

That's quite a family. So imagine the job evolutionists have. They must take the entire animal kingdom and try to determine which creatures evolved from others.

02:42

Okay. So they look for these homologous structures to show an evolutionary relationship. You got it.

02:48

And they would look convincing, but look at the definition of homologous. Homologous structures are structures that share a common ancestry.

02:57

Sometimes we see structures with similar functions in creatures that don't come from a supposed common ancestor.

03:03

Got an example? I do. A human and a squid eye. What? Both humans and squid have a lens that projects an image onto a retina.

03:12

The problem is that evolutionary theory holds that the closest ancestor to both didn't have eyes, but only a patch of light sensitive skin cells.

03:21

That means that a very similar eye had to evolve twice, completely independent from each other.

03:27

They call this convergent evolution and believe that the same process of random mutations happening over millions of years built similar structures.

03:36

No way. An eye so amazing, it seems impossible that it could have evolved in the first place.

03:41

But now they believe it happened twice? Yep. That would be impossible. Times two.

03:48

Are there other examples of similar looking organs that don't fit evolutionary trees? Oh yeah, lots.

03:54

Think about flight. Man, with all his intelligence, just figured out how to fly less than 200 years ago.

03:59

But flight supposedly evolved at least four different times. Birds, insects, mammals, like bats, and reptilian flight, like pterodactyls.

04:09

Now that makes it four times impossible. So, going back to the human and squid eye, would they be called homologous structures since they look similar?

04:18

Nope. When similar structures are found on creatures that aren't considered closely related, they are called convergent.

04:26

So they evolved completely independent from each other? Yeah. Evolution supposedly built the same basic organ more than one time, but it sounds more like a rescuing device, you know, like a make -believe story than a scientific concept.

04:40

So how do you know the difference between when similar structures are homologous and when they're analogous?

04:47

I'm not sure. It says here, homologous structures are structures that share a common ancestry.

04:55

But how can anyone be sure that structures actually shared a common ancestry? When similarities fit evolution, there are homologous structures.

05:03

But when they don't fit, they claim the structure evolved more than once? Wow, that's circular reasoning.

05:10

How so? Their evolutionary theory decides what is homologous, and then they say homologous structures prove evolution.

05:18

Hey, that's right. That's really messed up. So how do creationists explain similar structures?

05:24

Simple. They share the same master designer, God. God built similarly designed features into his creatures, making sure each feature was precisely tailored to fit that creature's systems.

05:35

It's like airplanes, skateboards, cars, and motorcycles. They all need wheels and tires, but designers made them different to tailor them to each vehicle's unique specifications.

05:44

It's also like the similarities between yours and Carrie's house. They were designed by the same architect for the same purpose.

05:50

That sounds like Nehemiah chapter 9, verse 6. You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them.

06:03

And you preserve them all. The host of heaven worships you. So similar structures point back to a creative and intelligent

06:11

God, not to the circular reasoning or random coincidences of evolution. Kind of makes you think, doesn't it?