Flower in Amber Shows No Evolution

Flower in Amber Shows No Evolution

The details in a flower said to be 100 million years old look just like those in modern flowers.

A beautifully-preserved set of flowers from an extinct angiosperm has been found in an amber mine from Myanmar.  The press release from Oregon State University has a photo, but the details extend beyond the visible down to the microscopic level: even pollen tubes penetrating the stigma were found.

The press release gives the usual story of how angiosperms began to dominate the world in the Cretaceous age of dinosaurs, but mentioned this tidbit about the details of sexual reproduction seen in the amber:

The perfectly-preserved scene, in a plant now extinct, is part of a portrait created in the mid-Cretaceous when flowering plants were changing the face of the Earth forever, adding beauty, biodiversity and food. It appears identical to the reproduction process that “angiosperms,” or flowering plants still use today.

OSU professor George Poinar noted, “It’s interesting that the mechanisms for reproduction that are still with us today had already been established some 100 million years ago.”

The origin of angiosperms is often called “Darwin’s abominable mystery” by evolutionists.  This find does not solve the mystery.  It only reinforces the impression of complex systems appearing out of nowhere, then remaining virtually unchanged for 100 million years or more.  Angiosperms were thought to originate 140 million years ago (4/21/10), but recently fossil pollen said to be 245 million years old, yet identical to modern pollen, was reported (10/02/13).  No ancestor for angiosperms has ever been found (4/16/09).  In evolutionary dating, flowering plants appeared in a “big bang” of geological time, diversifying rapidly into “all five major lineages of flowering plants that exist today” (12/01/07, 12/21/07).

Another recent find surprised evolutionary botanists.  Amborella, a South Pacific shrub, appears to have incorporated wholesale the mitochondrial genomes of several species into its own mitochondria by horizontal gene transfer (see paper in Science).  Science Daily illustrated the DAM Law by hoping this surprise might help solve “Darwin’s Abominable Mystery” – the sudden origin of flowering plants without fossil ancestors.  The thinking is that horizontal transfer might somehow translate into a “driving force” for evolution.  From there, the article devolved into a fairy tale about the old lady swallowing a fly then a spider, ending with a rather indelicate description of this plant:

“So you can think of this genome as a constipated glutton, that is, a glutton that has swallowed whole genomes from other plants and algae and also retained them in remarkably intact form for eons.”

The jokes are a distraction.  Here’s the point: once again, we see abrupt appearance of complex features, followed by stasis.  That’s the rule in the fossil record.  Why should fully-modern plant reproductive systems via pollen tubes and stigmas abruptly appear, only to exist 105 million years with little change, then suddenly diversify in a “big bang” into modern subgroups that remain unchanged for another 140 million years?  Didn’t Darwin expect gradual improvement?  What a weird law evolution is.  Complex systems “appear” out of nowhere then don’t change except for big bangs every once in awhile.  That’s no explanation.  That’s Stuff Happens on steroids.  It belongs in Murphy’s law book, not Newton’s.

Delete the mythical millions of years, and the facts fit creation of plants not that long ago, reproducing after their kind.  Created variability allows plants to adapt to their environments with existing systems.  That’s not “evolution” (the appearance of new systems) but robustness in the face of change – an intelligent design feature.

For too long the constipated evolutionists have been emitting a story that (logically) could not happen and (as the fossils show) did not happen.  Readers can decide which is more abominable: their story, Darwin, or his disciples.  What despicable ingrates to trivialize the glory of flowers!  That’s the real abomination. 

Go admire some beautiful plants in your garden, and thank your Creator for the wondrous way He provided food while decorating the world with beauty and variety.