The scene: 1956. A creationist is debating with an evolutionist.
Creationist: So you guys think we're evolved from apes, right?
Evolutionist: That's an inaccurate way of saying it. We share a common ancestor with the great apes.
Creationist: A distinction without a difference.
Evolutionist: If you say so.
Creationist: Anyway, if that's true, isn't it odd that great apes have 24 pairs of chromosomes, while humans have just 23?
Evolutionist: What are you talking about? Everyone knows humans have 24 pairs of chromosomes.
Creationist: Yes, but it seems everyone is wrong. New technology has finally allowed scientists to count chromosomes accurately, and the number is 23. It's in Hereditas, volume 42.
Evolutionist: Um.
Creationist: Yes?
Evolutionist: At some point in the past, humans must have lost a chromosome somehow.
Creationist: A ridiculous assertion! Why don't you just accept the inevitable. Evolution doesn't work. Very soon, biologists will accept that they've been wrong all along.
Cut to 1991. Our now-somewhat-aging creationist and evolutionist are talking again.
Evolutionist: Have you seen this paper by IJdo? Human chromosome 2 turns out to have been produced by a fusion of two chromosomes.
Creationist: Yes, yes, I know. But all this proves is that the human lineage lost a chromosome at some point. It doesn't show that we're related to apes.
When it became clear that humans had one less chromosome pair than the great apes, evolutionists immediately knew that humans had somehow lost a chromosome. They knew not how, but they knew nevertheless. Now that this prediction has been confirmed, creationists are trying to claim that it's perfectly consistent with their views.
Consistent or not, it's a very big coincidence that the prediction of evolution should just happen to have been correct.
... unless evolution is correct. Then it's not a coincidence at all.
Written: 2008-12-06
allancrossman.com