Animal Planet, ""Champions of the Wild""

In that section describing the manatee, a mammal also known as the southern fur seal, a number of evolutionist claims were made about the animal. The first such claim was that elephants and anteaters are among manatees" closest living relatives. This claim of a familial relationship is based solely on prejudice.

In that section describing the manatee, a mammal also known as the southern fur seal, a number of evolutionist claims were made about the animal. The first such claim was that elephants and anteaters are among manatees" closest living relatives. This claim of a familial relationship is based solely on prejudice.

At the root of Animal Planet"s evolutionist claim lie the genetic features shared between manatees and the animals in question. However, this claim based on genetic similarity reveals a number of fundamental inconsistencies.

In the first place, genetic similarities between two living things are not a phenomenon which demonstrates evolution. This can evidently also be based on common design. Evolutionists leave "common design" out of the debate right from the outset and ascribe every similarity they find to the common ancestor hypothesis, which has now attained the status of dogma. In short, Animal Planet"s approach is solely an expression of its evolutionist preconceptions.

On the other hand, the origins of the animal are the subject of debate even amongst evolutionists. These debates to a large extent stem from wide differences amongst animals in the classification in which the manatee is included. Among the creatures which evolutionists portray as having a familial relationship with the animal are a tiny species of mouse as well as the elephant and the anteater. In fact there is a huge morphological distinction between an animal as small as a mouse and an elephant and the manatee. As well as the morphologies of these creatures, their habitats and manners of feeding are also very different. Perhaps out of a concern that these enormous differences might damage the impression it seeks to create in its viewers, Animal Plant never mentions the relationship between the manatee and the mouse. Evolutionists have no convincing way to explain how these creatures, alleged to have evolved from a common ancestor, could have grown so different.

Another point is that this relationship was established relatively recently, and that there is a fierce debate among evolutionists on the subject. The traditional school, which maintains that family trees should be based on anatomical similarities, is the subject of fierce criticism from new family trees based on the rapidly developing science of genetics-and which are radically undermining the old family trees. Evolutionists relying on anatomical similarities are unable to accept the complete ignoring of anatomy in the family relationship between the elephant, mouse and manatee.

Even if these debates are brought to a conclusion and agreement is established on either genetic or anatomical family trees, this will still represent no evidence of evolution. No matter what the position of species on the leaves of the family tree, the schematic form of that tree remains the same, and with common design being left out of the equation the common ancestor hypothesis emerges as sheer dogma. In conclusion, be they genetic or anatomical, family trees are a kind of game of classifying imaginary relationships between species, and have no corroborative force. All this demonstrates that the familial relationship claims regarding manatees are imaginary assumptions based on evolutionist preconceptions rather than on scientific facts.

Another of Animal Planet"s evolution errors regarding the manatee is that these animals" claws are a trace of the so-called evolutionary past they share with the elephant. This claim, however, is totally a work of the imagination with no scientific evidence to back it up. This approach is an extension of the homology argument, one of the fundamental dogmas of evolution, and one which has been scientifically