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The late 18th century would have been an exciting time to be an English naturalist. As the British Empire expanded, new cultures were being discovered, new lands were being settled, and amazing new creatures were being sent to England for examination. One of these new creatures, however, was so astounding, so paradoxical, that the naturalist who first examined it literally did not believe his eyes.

When Captain John Hunter of Australia sent a specimen of the newly discovered duck-billed platypus to naturalist George Shaw, the keeper of the Department of Natural History at the British Museum, Shaw’s first reaction was to examine the preserved specimen for stitches. He though it was a hoax, a well-conceived prank wherein various parts from several different animals were sewn together in order to trick him. After all, this thing looked like a small beaver with poisonous spurs on its back legs and the bill of a duck on its face.

Chinese sailors had been known to get some kicks by stitching together new creatures and sending them to unsuspecting Westerners before, but the platypus was not one of these attempts. As amazing and paradoxical as it looked, the platypus was 100 percent real.

A Unique Mammal

It has been said that God created the platypus as a means to confuse and befuddle the evolutionist. After all, where would something that supposedly shares common genetic material with reptiles, chickens, mice and humans have evolved?

A study that made the cover story on the May 8, 2008, edition of the journal Nature says that since the platypus shares characteristics with mammals, birds and reptiles, it must be a primitive creature closely related to some mammal-like reptile that lived over 300 million years ago. But beyond just the fact that it has some characteristics similar to those of reptiles, what proof is offered that the platypus is actually related to reptiles at all?

For the physical characteristics of any organism to evolve, there would have to be a change in the genetic information contained in that organism’s reproductive cells. Otherwise any physical change would not be passed on to the next generation. Yet, a change of even three nucleotides (what makes up DNA and RNA) of genetic information in one generation is fatal. That means that it would have had to have taken 24 million generations to bridge the 48 million nucleotide difference between chimpanzees and humans. And that is assuming that two beneficial nucleotide mutations occurred every generation—even though it is well known that the vast majority of mutations are actually harmful. How much longer would it have taken for some mammal-like reptile to have evolved into a duck-billed platypus? Even assuming perfect circumstances, Nature’s 300-million-year figure would be an ultra-conservative estimate. Actually, even eternity would have been a conservative estimate.

The Fossil Record Is Silent

Beyond even these questions, however, is the question: How would 300-plus million years of evolution have gone undocumented in the fossil record? Thousands of platypuses and proto-platypuses would have had to have died every year for over 150 million generations (a platypus takes two years on average to produce the next generation). The platypus is a river-dwelling creature, and since most fossils form in water, there should be a plethora of half-reptile, half-platypus fossils available after over 300 million years.

The current platypus fossil records, however, consist primarily of several teeth found in Australia and South America—even though adult platypuses do not have teeth. The “scientific” explanation is that these discovered teeth are similar enough to the vestigial “baby teeth” of juvenile platypus to assume that ancient adult platypus did have teeth. Clearly, we need more evidence than this to prove that the teeth came from an ancient platypus at all, much less to prove that these ancient platypuses were a link back to a reptilian ancestor.

The most spectacular fossil finds have been the discovery of a platypus skull in Australia and the discovery of an otter-like fossil in China that had a jawbone similar to that of a platypus. These finds show there may be a few extinct species that are similar to the platypus, but neither of these two fossils is any more reptilian than the platypus is.

The probability of any mammal-like reptile undergoing two beneficial nucleotide changes a generation, in the perfect way to evolve into a platypus, after even 100 billion years is so low that it is firmly in the realm of impossibility. Add to this the fact that not even one half-reptile, half-platypus fossil has been found, and you began to scratch the surface of how ridiculous the evolutionary theory really is.

Maybe God really did create the platypus as a means to confuse and befuddle those who would accept the evolutionary theory and reject His creative genius.

For more information on the impossibility of evolution, read The Giraffe’s Amazing Neck and The Fraud of Evolution.

True Education, January-February 2009