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THE FOSSIL RECORD REFUTES EVOLUTION
According to the theory of evolution, every living species has sprung
from a predecessor. A previously-existing species turned into something
else in time and all species have come into being in this way. According
to the theory, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of
years.
If this was the case, then numerous intermediary species should have
existed and lived within this long transformation period.
For instance, some half-fish/half-reptiles should have lived in the past
which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits
they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile-birds, which
acquired some bird traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already
had. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe
to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms".
If such animals had really existed, there should be millions and even
billions of them in number and variety. More importantly, the remains
of these strange creatures should be present in the fossil record. The
number of these transitional forms should have been even greater than
the present animal species and their remains should be found all over
the world. In The Origin of Species, Darwin explained:
If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties,
linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must
assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence
could be found only amongst fossil remains.13
Even Darwin himself was aware of the absence of such transitional forms.
It was his hope that they would be found in the future. Despite his hopefulness,
he realised that the biggest stumbling-block in his theory was the missing
transitional forms. Therefore in his book The Origin of Species he wrote
the following in the chapter "Difficulties of the Theory":
Why, if species have descended from other species
by fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional
forms? Why is not all nature in confusion, instead of the species
being, as we see them, well defined? But, as by this theory innumerable
transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded
in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? But in the intermediate
region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find
closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time
quite confounded me.14
The single explanation Darwin could come up with to counter this objection
was the argument that the fossil record uncovered so far was inadequate.
He asserted that when the fossil record had been studied in detail, the
missing links would be found.
Believing in Darwin's prophecy, evolutionists have been searching for
fossils and digging for missing links since the middle of the 19th century
all over the world. Despite their best efforts, no transitional forms
have yet been uncovered. All the fossils unearthed in excavations
showed that contrary to the beliefs of evolutionists, life appeared on
earth all of a sudden and fully-formed. Trying to prove their theory,
the evolutionists have instead unwittingly caused it to collapse.
A famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact even
though he is an evolutionist:
The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record
in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find-over
and over again-not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one
group at the expense of another.15
Another evolutionist paleontologist Mark Czarnecki comments as follows:
A major problem in proving the theory has been the
fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth's
geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin's
hypothetical intermediate variants - instead species appear and disappear
abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that
each species was created by God.16
They have also had to deal with the futility of waiting for "missing"
transitional forms to appear in the future, as explained by a professor
of paleontology from Glasgow University, T. Neville George:
There is no need to apologise any longer for the poverty
of the fossil record. In some ways, it has become almost unmanageably
rich and discovery is outpacing integration The fossil record nevertheless
continues to be composed mainly of gaps.17
Life Emerged on Earth Suddenly and in Complex Forms
When terrestrial strata and the fossil record are examined, it is to
be seen that all living organisms appeared simultaneously. The oldest
stratum of the earth in which fossils of living creatures have been found
is that of the Cambrian, which has an estimated age of 500-550 million
years.
Examples exist of fossils millions of
years old that are no different from their current "descendants".
These remains are clear evidence for the fact that they have come
into being not as a result of evolution but by special creation:
(above) shark aged 400 million years
(New Scientist,January 20,1984) |
The living creatures found in the strata belonging to the Cambrian period
emerged all of a sudden in the fossil record-there are no pre-existing
ancestors. The fossils found in the Cambrian rocks belonged to snails,
trilobites, sponges, earthworms, jellyfish, sea hedgehogs, and other complex
invertebrates. This wide mosaic of living organisms made up of such a
great number of complex creatures emerged so suddenly that this miraculous
event is referred to as the "Cambrian Explosion" in geological literature.
Most of the life forms found in this strata
have complex systems like eyes, gills, circulatory system, and advanced
physiological structures no different from their modern counterparts.
For instance, the double-lensed, combed eye structure of trilobites is
a wonder of design. David Raup, a professor of geology in Harvard, Rochester,
and Chicago Universities, says: "the trilobites used an optimal design
which would require a well trained and imaginative optical engineer to
develop today".18
Grasshopper aged 40 million years
(National Geographic,Vol.152) |
These complex invertebrates emerged suddenly and completely without having
any link or any transitional form between them and the unicellular organisms,
which were the only life forms on earth prior to them.
Richard Monastersky, the editor of Earth Sciences, which is one of the
popular publications of evolutionist literature, states the following
about the "Cambrian Explosion" which came as a total surprise to evolutionists:
A half-billion years ago, the remarkably complex forms
of animals we see today suddenly appeared. This moment, right at the start
of Earth's Cambrian Period, some 550 million years ago, marks the evolutionary
explosion that filled the seas with the world's first complex creatures.
The large animal phyla of today were present already in the early
Cambrian and they were as distinct from each other as they are today.19
Ant aged 100 million years(National Geographic,
Vol,152) |
How the earth came to overflow with such a great number of animal species
all of a sudden and how these distinct types of species with no common
ancestors could have emerged is a question that remains unanswered by
evolutionists. The Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, one of the foremost
advocates of evolutionist thought in the world, comments on this reality
that invalidates the very roots of all the arguments he has been defending:
For example the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about
600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major
invertebrate groups. And we find many of them already in an advanced state
of evolution, the very first time they appear. It is as though they
were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless
to say, this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists.20
Cockroach aged 320 million years |
As Dawkins is forced to acknowledge, the Cambrian Explosion
is strong evidence for creation, because creation is the only way to explain
the fully-formed emergence of life on earth. Douglas Futuyma, a prominent
evolutionist biologist admits this fact and states: "Organisms either
appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not,
they must have developed from preexisting species by some process of modification.
If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have
been created by some omnipotent intelligence."21
Darwin himself recognised the possibility of this when
he wrote: "If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families,
have really started into life all at once, the fact would be fatal
to the theory of descent with slow modification through natural selection."22
The Cambrian Period is nothing more or less than
Darwin's "fatal stroke". This is why the Swiss evolutionist paleoanthropologist
Stefan Bengston confesses the lack of transitional links while he describes
the Cambrian Period and says "Baffling (and embarrasing) to Darwin, this
event still dazzles us".23
As may be seen, the fossil record indicates that living things did not
evolve from primitive to the advanced forms, but instead emerged all of
a sudden and in a perfect state. In short, living beings did not come
into existence by evolution, they were created.
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A Creation Miracle That Confounds Evolution
TRILOBITE EYES
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The trilobites
that appeared in the Cambrian period all of a sudden have an extremely
complex eye structure .Consisting of millions of honeycomb-shaped
tiny particles and a double-lens system, this eye "has an optimal
design which would requre a well trained and imaginative optical
engeneer to develop today" in the words of David Raup a professor
of geology.
This eye emerged 530 million years ago in a perfect state. No doubt
the sudden appearance of such a wondrous design cannot be explained
by evolution and it proves the actuality of creation.
Moreover the honeycomb eye structure of the trilobite has survived
to our own day without a single change. Such insects such as bees
and dragon flies have the same eye structure as did the trilobite.*
This situation disproves the evolutionary thesis that living things
evolved progressively from the primitive to the complex.
(*) R.L. Gregory, Eye and Brain: The Psychology of Seeing, Oxford
University Press, 1995, p.31
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