This week, I read of a shocking study—a supposed example of “evolution in action.” Brace yourself! Here we go: In the African nation of Mozambique, elephants are evolving, and they are turning into . . . elephants. Obviously, I say all that tongue in cheek, but I had to laugh when I saw an article titled “Want Modern Proof of Evolution? Look at the Elephants of Mozambique.”
By the way, dogs turn into dogs and cats turn into cats, so we are not surprised that elephants turn into elephants.
Dogs turn into dogs and cats turn into cats, so we are not surprised that elephants turn into elephants.
So what’s the story? Well, this popular science article was commenting on research published a few years ago that found that the percentage of female elephants without tusks has risen dramatically in the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique. The bloody civil war of 1977–1992 not only killed one million people, but also devastated wildlife numbers, dropping large herbivore populations, including those of elephants, by 90%—largely because animals were poached and sold on the black market to fund the war. Most notably, elephants were poached for their ivory tusks.
Prior to the war, about 18% of the elephant population were tuskless females; in 2021 the study found the number is now 50%. Why? Well, the article claims it’s because of “rapid evolution” due to “potent evolutionary pressure.” In other words, as they explain,
The tuskless elephants were more likely to survive the period of hardship, and thereby pass on their genes, because they didn’t possess any ivory.
This is not evolution! Tusklessness already existed in the population, either due to a genetic variant or a mutation. The poaching pressure merely selected for tusklessness, causing a change in the population. Nothing evolved—elephants remained elephants!
Consider that this example of “evolution in action” is just another example of a loss of a feature. How is losing something evolution? A loss certainly doesn’t help evolutionists who need a mechanism that can create brand-new functioning information to turn a single-celled organism into all the life we have today! And yet it’s invariably examples like this that make headlines as supposed proof of evolution. Sadly, this is how young people are indoctrinated to falsely believe in evolution.
Elephants didn’t evolve in the past, and they aren’t evolving today. Their kind was created by God on day six of creation week.
This item was discussed Monday on Answers News with cohosts Avery Foley, Dr. Gabriela Haynes, and Kevin Hadsall. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum, broadcast on our Answers in Genesis YouTube channel, and posted to Answers TV. We also covered the following topics:
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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken
This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.
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