Nowadays, even evolutionists admit that the pentadactyl characteristic occurs in different groups that share no evolutionary relationship. The limbs of a frog, lizard, squirrel and a monkey are all pentadactyl. Even the bone structures of birds and bats conform to this basic design. As has been seen, similarities between living creatures constitute evidence not of evolution, but of creation by common design.

Regarding similar structures, the most important evidence to disprove the claims of evolutionary theory comes from molecular biology.

Before the genetic coding structure of DNA was discovered, the claim that similar organs "evolved" from a common ancestor was presented as plausible by evolutionists. As more knowledge was gained of genetics, however, scientists discovered the genetic code for similar organs, and it emerged that usually these genes were markedly different. This discovery dealt the common-ancestor assertion a deadly blow.

One fact that emerged in regard to this discovery was the five-fingered (or pentadactyl) hand structure encountered in all land-living vertebrates.

The hands and feet of a frog, lizard, squirrel and a monkey all have five digits. Even the bone structure of birds and bats conforms to this basic design. Evolutionists used the pentadactyl structure as evidence for the claim that all these various species derived from a common ancestor.

Today, however, even the evolutionists have accepted that pentadactyl anatomy occurs in species of different groups, between which no evolutionary link can be established. In two separate articles published in 1991 and 1996, evolutionary biologist M. Coates points out that the pentadactyl phenomenon appears independently in both the anthracosaurs and the amphibians.31 This finding indicates that the pentadactyl phenomenon does not constitute proof of a common ancestor.

But the essential blow to this evolutionary claim comes from molecular biology. The "pentadactyl homology" hypothesis, long defended in evolutionary publications, collapsed with the discovery that different genes controlled the digit structure in different creatures displaying the pentadactyl structure! As evolutionary biologist William Fix explains;

The older textbooks on evolution make much of the idea of homology, pointing out the obvious resemblances between the skeletons of the limbs of different animals. Thus the "pentadactyl" limb pattern is found in the arm of a man, the wing of a bird, and flipper of a whale-and this is held to indicate their common origin. Now if these various structures were transmitted by the same gene couples, varied from time to time by mutations and acted upon by environmental selection, the theory would make good sense. Unfortunately this is not the case. Homologous organs are now known to be produced by totally different gene complexes in the different species. The concept of homology in terms of similar genes handed on from a common ancestor has broken down... 32

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• 31.Coates M. 1991. New palaeontological contributions to limb ontogeny and phylogeny. In: J. R. Hinchcliffe (ed.) Developmental Patterning of the Vertebrate Limb 325-337. New York: Plenum Press; Coates M. I. 1996. The Devonian tetrapod Acanthostega gunnari Jarvik: postcranial anatomy, basal tetrapod interrelationships and patterns of skeletal evolution. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 87: 363-421.
• 32.William Fix, The Bone Peddlers: Selling Evolution, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1984, p. 189