How did the giraffe get such a long neck?

One famous storyteller said that "the giraffe used to look just like other grazing animals in Africa." But then he spotted the fresh leaves on some high branches. Those look better, he thought to himself. So he reached and reached -- and stretched and stretched.[1] 

His neck grew longer, but so did his pride. In fact, said the storyteller, he became too proud to bend his neck and eat the food closer to the ground. So only those giraffes who were tall enough to reach the highest branches survived. All the others died.

The long-necked giraffes who could reach the highest branches had baby giraffes who would grow to be tall like them. And, as time passed, those giraffes evolved: their necks grew longer and longer.

Charles Darwin explained this supposed "evolution" of the giraffe:

"...the individuals which were the highest browsers and were able, during [droughts], to reach even an inch or two above the others, will often have been preserved . . By this process long-continued . . combined no doubt in a most important manner with the inherited effects of increased use of parts, it seems to me almost certain that any ordinary hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe."[2]

Is that really true? Do you believe that story?

Think about it. If short-necked giraffes die because they couldn't reach the high branches, what would have happened to the female giraffes who were shorter than the males? Someone wrote a story about that as well. Do you think it is true:

"Once long ago, the giraffe kept reaching up into the higher branches to obtain enough food to keep it from perishing. But, because only those giraffes with the longest necks were fittest, only the males survived—because none of the females were as tall! That is why there are no female giraffes in Africa today."

What about young giraffes? Their necks would also be too short to reach high branches. If they all starved to death, there would be no adult giraffes! It doesn't make sense does it?

But there are other reasons for not believing this myth about evolution. Let's look at them one by one.

1. Has anyone found fossils of short-necked giraffe herds that prove an earlier stage of evolution?

Answer: No. Never.

2. Did short-necked giraffes die because they couldn't reach food?

Answer: No. Like all the other animals, they could bend down and eat the food closer to the ground. The belief that giraffes naturally seek the high branches is a myth:

"According to the competition hypothesis, giraffes use their long necks to advantage during dry seasons, when food is scarce; but, in fact, the opposite is observed in the field.

"In the Serengeti [an animal preserve in eastern Africa]... giraffe spend almost all of the dry season feeding from low Grewia bushes, while only in the wet season do they turn to tall Acacia tortillis trees, when new leaves are ...plentiful ...and no competition is expected. This behavior is contrary to the prediction that giraffe should use their feeding height to advantage at times of food scarcity".

"Moreover, they report, 'females spend over 50% of their time feeding with their necks horizontal [a behavior so common it is used to determine the sex of animals at a distance]' and 'both sexes feed faster and most often with their necks bent". These observations, they conclude, suggest 'that long necks did not evolve specifically for feeding at higher levels.'"[3]

3. What if their necks were longer than their legs, so that they couldn't reach the grasses near the ground?

Answer: They just spread their front legs apart. That's what they have always done to drink water.

4. What happens to a giraffe's head when he bends down to drink? Since his head is below his body, does it fill up with blood and start throbbing? Does it feel strange -- as your head would if you stood on your head for a while?

Answer: The blood vessels in a giraffe's neck has many valves that can open and close to control the flow of blood. The giraffe was created -- from the beginning -- with all the body parts it needed to survive. If it only had a long neck without the special valves or the unusually large heart, it would have died:

"When the giraffe lowers its head to drink, the valves close to stop the blood rushing to the brain. These same valves prevent all the blood rushing away from the giraffe's head, when the giraffe stands up again.... without these parts, all working properly, a long necked giraffe would not even be able to drink!" [4]

"...it is not possible for evolutionists to make up a plausible scenario for the origination of either the giraffe's long neck or its complicated blood pressure regulating system. This amazing feature generates extremely high pressure to pump the blood up to the 20-foot high brain and then quickly reduces the pressure to prevent brain damage when the animal bends down to take a drink. After over a century of the most intensive exploration for fossils, the world's museums cannot display a single intermediate form that would connect the giraffe with any other creature." Luther D. Sunderland [5]

5. Could all those special parts of the giraffe have happened by chance? Could the amazing body of the giraffe simply be an accident?

No, as "The idea that this all happened by chance, through a process of evolution, sounds like a real 'tall story'!" The only explanation that makes sense is in the Bible:

"And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." Genesis 1:11, 25

  See also Darwin's Black Box |  Origin of life | What Darwin didn't know

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Notes:

1. Rudyard Kipling, "How the Giraffe Got its Long Neck," Just So Stories.

 2. Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species (1859), p. 202.

 3. "THE TALLEST TALE" at http://www.whyevolution.com/giraffe.html

 4. Ibid.

 5. Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma (1988), pp. 83-84. t., pp. 26-27. http://remnantprophecy.sdaglobal.org/Library/Creation-Evolution/ARCHAEOPTERYX.pdf or http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:tX7CyPuIrsIJ:remnantprophecy.sdaglobal.org/Library/Creation-Evolution/ARCHAEOPTERYX.pdf+%22rudyard+kipling%22+giraffe+%22long+neck%22+&hl=en

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