Creation Science Rebuttals

Institute for Creation Research

'Living Gears' is Dead on Arrival

ICR News, 23 September 2013

First Published 25 Sep 2013

In a web article dated 23 September 2013, the Institute for Creation Research reported on the discovery of gear teeth on the legs of planthoppers, that helps their legs stay in sync when they hop.¹

Greg Sutton of the University of Bristol discovered the gears, and filmed them with a high speed camera. Concerning this article, Brian Thomas of ICR wrote a short article, and concludes:

“These examples—all appearing as if they just rolled out of a miniature machine-shop—clearly indicate a meticulous and intentional design too difficult for evolutionists to explain. Surely these living gears could only have been created.”

As a Christian, I accept that God designed these planthoppers with their gear mechanism. But, are these gears difficult for evolutionists to explain? Thomas does nothing to support his claim that evolution cannot explain them. In reality, this probably presents no problem for evolution. Whether God created the planthopper directly (through the old earth creationism model known as Progressive Creationism), or whether he guided the evolutionary process and the planthopper's evolution (through Evolutionary Creationism), either way, God did it, or His mechanism that He set in motion (evolution) did it.

This article demonstrates a very common young earth tactic, known as the "God of the Gaps" argument. This argument states that something that is wonderful, intricate, or otherwise hard to explain, could only have been made by God. While Christians would generally agree that things in God's creation are wonderful and attribute them to God, this type of argument does not actually prove that God did it. This type of argument is probably one of the weakest used by Christians, as it offers no actual proof or data to support the claim that God did it.

Not only does Thomas offer no proof that God created the planthopper, he also offers no proof that evolutionists are hopping mad about it. All this article accomplishes is giving ICR a news article to report on for this date, because they had nothing better to report...it merely fills a void to make sure they had something published on this date.

¹ Brian Thomas, Living Gears Might Have Evolutionists Hopping Mad, ICR website.

If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.

Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If you are a young-earth creationism believer, click here.

More Institute for Creation Research Rebuttals

Leave a comment about this article on our Facebook page.

Did you know that you can be a Christian, and believe that the earth is billions of years old? You can even believe in evolution and be a Christian. There is no conflict between science and the Bible...all one needs is a proper understanding how to merge science and the Bible. To learn more about old earth creationism, see Old Earth Belief, or check out the article Can You Be A Christian and Believe in an Old Earth?

Feel free to check out more of this website. Our goal is to provide rebuttals to the bad science behind young earth creationism, and honor God by properly presenting His creation.