Origin of the Bats

Heading the list of bats' fascinating characteristics is the complex sonar system they possess, thanks to which bats are able to fly and perform aerobatic maneuvers in pitch darkness, where they cannot see at all. They are able to detect and catch a tiny caterpillar on the floor of a pitch-black room.

The bat works this sonar by emitting a constant stream of high-frequency sounds, analyzing the echoes made by them, and thus obtaining a detailed perception of its surroundings. It does this at an extraordinary speed, non-stop and perfectly during the time it spends in flight.

Research into the sonar system in bats has revealed even more astonishing discoveries. The frequency range the bat can detect is very narrow, and since it can perceive sounds only within a specific range, a very important problem arises. According to the physical phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect, the frequency of a sound changes when it reflects off a moving body.

Therefore, when a bat emits sound waves in the direction of a moth flying away from it, the returning sound waves will be below the frequency that the bat can detect. For that reason, the bat should have enormous difficulty in detecting its moving prey.

Yet that is not actually the case, and bats continue to detect all kinds of moving object with no problem at all, because they raise the frequency of the sound waves they emit towards moving objects, just as if they were taking the Doppler Effect into account. For example, a bat will emit the highest frequency sounds in the direction of a fly moving away from it, so that when the sound echoes back, it will not fall below a detectable frequency.

Two types of neurons or nerve cells in the bat's brain supervise the sonar system; one of these perceives the ultrasound emitted, and the other adjusts the bat's squeaks by issuing commands to particular muscles. These two types of neuron work together, so that when the frequency of the echoes changes, the first neuron detects this and causes the other neuron to adapt to the echo's frequency, either by suppressing or stimulating it. As a result, the bat changes its frequency according to its surroundings, using it in the most efficient manner.

It is easy to realize the lethal blow that this system deals to the theory of evolution's explanation of gradual improvements by way of random mutations. The sonar system in bats has an exceedingly complex structure, and can never be accounted for in terms of random mutations. In order for the system to function, it must exist fully formed and complete, right down to the smallest details. The sonar will work only if the bat has the proper structure for emitting high-frequency sounds, the organs with which to detect and analyze these, and a system capable of varying the frequency, depending of changes in movement. Such sophistication cannot, of course, be explained in terms of random chance, but actually shows that the bat was created in the most perfect manner.

In addition, the fossil record also shows that bats appeared suddenly on Earth, and with all their present-day characteristics. The evolutionist paleontologists John Hill and James Smith make the following confession:

The fossil record of bats extends back to the early Eocene . . . and has been documented . . . on five continents . . . [A]ll fossil bats, even the oldest, are clearly fully developed bats and so they shed little light on the transition from their terrestrial ancestor.91

It is impossible for the bat's complex bodily systems to have emerged through evolution, and the fossil records confirm that no such evolution ever took place. On the contrary, the first bats that came into being on Earth were exactly the same as their present-day counterparts. Bats have always existed as bats.

91. John E. Hill, James D Smith, Bats: A Natural History, London: British Museum of Natural History, 1984, p. 33.
92. L. R. Godfrey, "Creationism and Gaps in the Fossil Record," Scientists Confront Creationism, W. W. Norton and Company, 1983, p. 199.