THE DARWIN PAPERS
VOLUME 1 NUMBER V
FOSSILS:
HISTORY
WRITTEN IN STONE
From The Nebulous Hypothesis:
A Study of the Philosophical and
Historical Implications of Darwinian Theory
© 1996 by James M. Foard
Editor and Publisher James M. Foard.
not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid
or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”
Evolutionist Richard Dawkins (I)
The Darwin Papers
may be freely
copied and distributed for non profit use
provided
acknowledgement is made
for material written by the author.
The Darwin
Papers © 2004 James Foard
Chapter Ten of Darwin's Origin is titled On the Imperfection of the Geological
Record. Here at last
we have hit on the cornerstone of Darwinian theory, the Fossil Record. Now,
perhaps we shall find the story of Darwin's magnificent discoveries written in
stone. The rocks speak, and should we not find in the book of nature's past vast
convincing arguments to validate Darwin's Theory of Evolution? Let us examine
the evidence.
Ever since (and before) Darwin's
time, evolutionists have repeatedly insisted that all species of life have
descended from a common ancestor as a result of a purely natural process of
adaption to changing circumstances. Darwin wrote: "I believe that animals are
descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal
or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step farther, namely, to the belief
that all animals and plants are descended from some one prototype."(1)
Where did Darwin derive his
evidence for this grand theory from? Not from any presently existing species:
"Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed; but the very process of natural selection constantly tends, as has been so often remarked, to exterminate the parent-forms and the intermediate links. Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains which are preserved, as we shall attempt to show in a future chapter, in an extremely imperfect and intermittent record."
(Darwin,Origin, Chapter Six: Absence or Rarity of Transitional Varieties.)
So in lieu of the existence of any present proof for evolution, Darwin said that the only evidence of it would come from examining the fossil record. We have also read in the previous chapter, by Darwin's own admission both to F.W. Hutton and in his Origin itself, that he had never seen any real evidence of evolution taking place at present, and we have read his rather brutal reason as to why he saw no evidence of evolution occurring at the present time.
Yes, the record in stone is held to
be the one incontrovertible testimony of evolution. Nicholas Hotton lll, curator
of fossil amphibians and reptiles at the Smithsonian Museum, has stated:
"In consequence, most living
species do not in themselves show recognizable evolutionary change. . .
All the evidence we have of the history of organic
evolution is provided by the fossil record." (2) Carl O. Dunbar, Professor Emeritus of
Paleontology and Stratigraphy from Yale University, said:
"Although the comparative study of
living animals and plants may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossils
provide the only historical, documentary evidence Paleontologists, geologists, and
evolutionists have what is known as the "geologic column," which is a supposed
historical sequence of rock formations containing fossils that would tell of the
early history and formation of life on the earth. Thus if evolution did occur, one
would expect to find a gradual series of fossils embedded in the rocks, from
simple "almost life" chemicals, (of course there is no such thing as "almost
life", an organism is either living or it is not) to one-celled creatures, then
two-celled creatures, on and on with greater complexity until you have the
sponges and algae, the chordates and the trilobites and all of the
invertebrates, then the vertebrates appearing (animals with backbones), these
last including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and man. That is only the Animal
Kingdom, there is still the Plant Kingdom to be considered, with grapes and
giant sequoia trees, carrots and flowers, potatoes and lawngrass, all of which
supposedly evolved from the same common ancestor, according to evolutionists.
Now let us find out what kind of
evidence Darwin was able to produce for evolution having occurred in the fossil
record. The lowest level of
fossiliferous rock (rocks bearing
fossils) was known as the Cambrian layer in Darwin's time and
was supposedly laid down some six hundred million years ago. Darwin wrote in his Origin,
"Consequently if this theory be true (evolution) it is indisputable
that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed,
as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Cambrian
age to the present day; and that during these vast periods the world swarmed
with living creatures."(4) Darwin stated here that if his theory were
true there should
have been multiplied billions of living creatures evolving who lived then for
millions of years before the Cambrian era on the earth. What evidence did Darwin
provide for any of this? Darwin wrote immediately afterward:
"To the
question why we do not find rich fossiliferous
deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the
Cambrian system I can give no satisfactory answer . . . Nevertheless,
the difficulty of assigning any good reason for the absence of vast piles of
strata rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian system is very
great." (5) Thus the fossil record of
these necessary multitudes of living creatures that the earth should have
swarmed with were nowhere to be found, and Darwin offered no explanation
for this contradiction to his theory at all! This shouldn't be so suprising after
reading the title to this section of his
Origin, which was self explanatory: On the Sudden Appearance of Groups of allied
Species in the lowest known Fossiliferous Strata. Darwin continued:
"The case at present must remain
inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a valid argument against the views
here entertained." Further on from the very same section
he wrote ". . . the sudden manner in which
several groups of species first appear in our European formations;-the
almost
entire absence, as at present known, of formations rich in fossils beneath the
Cambrian strata,-are all undoubtedly of the most serious nature. We see this
in the fact that the most eminent palaeontologists, namely Cuvier, Agassiz,
Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest
geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgewick, &c., have unanimously, often
vehemently, maintained the immutability of species [in other words, species do not
evolve]." (6) Darwin stated that many of the great
scientists of his time held the fossil record up as evidence against evolution, not for it. This is a very serious and important
difficulty: we have two noted paleontologists of the twentieth century informing
us that the best evidence for evolution are fossils; Darwin said that
if his theory is true then there must have been innumerable
transitional links before the Cambrian strata; and yet Darwin wrote
that there was no fossil evidence for these supposed multitudes of diverse forms
of life before the Cambrian era. All of the major phyla of life on
earth today already existed in the Cambrian layer and they appear suddenly
with no evidence of any pre-existing intermediate forms leading up to
them! Moving on from the Cambrian layer, did Darwin
provide any evidence at all for intermediate links as evidence for
evolution in any of the strata of the fossil record? Darwin wrote in
his Origin:
"So that the number of intermediate
and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must
have been
inconceivably
great. But
assuredly, if this theory
be true,
such have lived upon the
earth." He wrote immediately after this in
his Origin:
"Independent of our not
finding fossil remains of such infinitely numerous connecting links . .
." .(Origin, Chapter
Ten: Imperfection of Geol. Rec.) In the same section Darwin further
confessed the lack of evidence for his theory:: "
Why then is not every geological formation and every strata full
of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such
finely-graduated organic chain; and this perhaps, is the most obvious and
serious objection which can be urged against my
theory." (7) By Darwin's own admission we discover
that there is a complete absence of any fossil evidence for evolution
not only in the pre-Cambrian layer, but throughout the entire geologic
column. In yet another revealing section in
his Origin, titled On the Absence of Numerous
Intermediate Varieties in any Single Formation, Darwin
wrote:
"It should not be forgotten, that
at the present day, with perfect specimens for examination, two forms can
seldom be connected by intermediate varieties, and thus proved to be the same
species, until many specimens are collected from many places; and with fossil
species this can rarely be done . . . What geologic research has not revealed, is the former existence
of infinitely numerous gradations, as fine as existing varieties, connecting
together nearly all existing and extinct species . . . this has been
repeatedly advanced as a most serious objection against my
views."
(8) The only response that Darwin could
muster was to embark upon a flight of fancy to support his views:
"It may be worth while to sum up
the foregoing remarks on the causes of the imperfection of the geologic record
under an imaginary illustration." (9) Once again, Darwin plainly admitted
that he had no evidence from the fossil record to lend credibility to his theory
of evolution, that he had found no transitional forms showing gradual stages of
the evolutionary development of life throughout long millennia! What manner do fossils appear then in
the geologic strata? There is a section of his
Origin titled On the Sudden Appearance of whole groups of
allied Species, where
Darwin wrote: "
"The abrupt
manner in which whole groups suddenly appear in certain formations, has been
urged by several palaeontologists-for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and
Sedgewick (three of the greatest palaeontologists of the last century)-as a fatal objection to my theory. If numerous species,
belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at
once, the fact would be fatal to my theory."."(10) Darwin had to
confess that all species appeared fully developed and distinct whenever they
were found as fossils, and he
had no
evidence of any gradual evolution occurring for any life forms in the fossil
record, a fact contrary to his theory. Furthermore, the greatest
geologists of Darwin's day, and the greatest paleontologists of his day were
unanimous in stating that there was not one iota of
evidence from the fossil record that would lend support
for his theory that evolution had ever occurred. What was Darwin's answer to this? He
was completely dumbfounded. His only excuse for the absence of any intermediate
links again was to cite the imperfection of the geologic record, and he stated
his belief that in the future more fossils would be found to verify his theory.
"But I do not pretend that I should
ever have suspected how poor was the record in the best preserved geological
sections, had not the absence of innumerable transitional links between
species which lived at the commencement and close of each formation, pressed
so hardly on my theory."(11) Despite Darwin's excuse that the
paleontology record was "imperfect," we know that fossil hunting was going on at
a tremendous pace throughout the nineteenth century, there was an unprecedented
level of interest in geology and paleontology throughout the world, so this
sounds not unlike some of Darwin's other pathetic attempts to explain away the
lack of any real evidence to support his theory. Darwin even wrote in the
Originof "the descriptions which we possess of the Silurian deposits
over immense territories in Russia and in North America."(12) Darwin further wrote:
"I am convinced that nearly all our
ancient formations, which are throughout the greater part of their thickness
rich in fossils, have thus been formed in subsidence [formed under
water]." (Origin,chapter Ten, pp.156, Benton
Pub.) Later on we will discuss the
significance of Darwin's admission that most fossils were formed under water,
but for now it is sufficient to see that there was no lack of fossil evidence
even in Darwin's day. Still, paleontologists have lost no time in trying make up
for this defect since then, bones of ancient animals have been unearthed with
the greatest zeal and persistency ever since, so has the situation changed at
all? Have those numerous transitional
links that Darwin said were essential if his theory were to be true ever been
found? We have read where Darwin and two noted scholars have
stated that fossils were our best source for evidence of evolution. In Darwin's
day, by his own admission, there were no numerous transitional links for
evidence of evolution found in the fossil record. Darwin’s excuse was the lack
of research and he believed that with time those missing links would be
found. What has happened since then to
bolster up the best hope for evolution? "Since Darwin's time the search for
missing links in the fossil record has continued on an ever-increasing scale.
So vast has been the expansion of paleontological activity over the past one
hundred years that probably 99.9% of all paleontological work has been carried
out since 1860." Denton further wrote:
"Despite the tremendous increase in
geological activity in every corner of the globe and despite the discovery of
many strange and hitherto unknown forms, the infinitude of connecting links
has still not been discovered and the fossil record is about as discontinuous
as it was when Darwin was writing the Origin. The intermediates have remained
as elusive as ever and their absence remains, a century later, one of the most
striking characteristics of the fossil record."
(13) Thus the sudden abrupt appearances of
entire classes of organisms appearing in all levels of the fossil record since
Darwin's time has remained the most serious objection to his theory, something
Darwin said should be fatal to his ideas. Denton went on to say:
"An enormous effort has been made
over the past century to find missing links in these rocks which might bridge
the deep divisions in the animal kingdom. Yet no links have ever been
found and the relationships of the major groups are as enigmatic today as
one hundred years ago . . . As we have seen, newly discovered hitherto unknown
groups, whether living or fossilized, invariably prove to be distinct and
isolated and can in no way be construed as connecting links in the sense
required by evolution theory." Here are some more quotes from
present day evolutionists, taken in context, in other words these references
express the honest opinions of these men:
“One hundred and twenty years of
paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil
record will not confirm this part of Darwin’s predictions. Nor is the problem
a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction
is wrong.” – Eldredge & Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, 1982,
p45-46 "The old Darwinian view of
evolution as a ladder of more and more efficient forms leading up to the
present is not borne out by the evidence.” - N.D. Newell, Why Scientists
believe in Evolution, 1984, p 10, American Geological Institute pamphlet
“Many fossils have been collected
since 1859, tons of them, yet the impact they have had on our understanding of
the relationships between living organisms is barely perceptible. … In fact, I
do not think it unfair to say that fossils, or at least the transitional
interpretation of fossils, have clouded rather than clarified our attempts to
reconstruct phylogeny” – P.L. Forey, Neontological Analysis Versus
Palaeontological Stories, 1982, p 120-121 Indeed, what was the major dilemma in
Darwin's day continues to be the major closet secret among evolutionists today:
The sudden, abrupt appearance of every major phyla in the Cambrian period, and
the abrupt appearance of all other forms of life as well, lending evidence that
life did not evolve, but was created:
“…the Cambrian strata of rocks,
vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest 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” –
Richard
Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1987, p 229 “One of the most difficult problems
in evolutionary paleontology has been the almost abrupt appearance of the
major animal groups” - A. G. Fisher, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, 1998,
fossil section Steven Jay Gould, Professor of
Geology and Paleontology at Harvard, wrote in Natural History, Vol LXXXVI (6),
June-July, 1977, "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains
precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major
groups are characteristically abrupt."(14) Senior paleontologist at the British
Museum of Natural History in London, Dr. Colin Patterson, wrote a personal
letter to Luther Sunderland, the late aerospace engineer and author of the
excellent book, Darwin's Enigma, dated April 10,1979, in which he said,
". . . I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of
evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would
certainly have included them." (15) Phylogenic "trees" are used by
evolutionists as props to lend support to their theory that all life forms
on earth descended from a common ancestor. The Tree of Life
Project on the internet is a very popular representation of just such a
phylogenic tree. The illustration is meant to suggest that all of the different
species shown in the tree can be traced to a common ancestor, and the branches
are meant to illustrate the evolutionary history of our common descent. What is
not mentioned though is that all of the branches of the tree both in the main
illustration and in the linked secondary pages where the phylogeny of organisms
is supposedly represented don't exist in real life! Evolutionist Nicholas Hotton wrote a few years
back:
"Unfortunately the fossil
record is never that complete, and in no case can we follow such a transition
species by species. . . Nor do fossils provide us with much of a
record of breeding populations . . . Living animals are separated by
reproductive isolation [ no present evidence of evolution], and fossil animals
by the incompleteness of the fossil record [reiterating Darwin's excuse for no
past evidence]. It is rather ironic that this came
from his book, titled The
Evidence of Evolution. Thus there still is an embarrassing
lack of fossil evidence for evolution. Just as Darwin attempted to do over
one hundred years ago, Hotton cited the imperfection of the geologic record as
an excuse for the absence of any transitional forms found today as fossils,
But just how numerous are fossils?
Norman D. Newell, former curator of Historical Geology and Fossil Invertebrates
at the American Museum of Natural History and Professor of Geology at Columbia
University, said at the Commemoration of the Centennial of the publication of
The Origin of Species in April, 1959: "One of the earliest discoveries
about the paleontologic record is that fossils actually are more abundant
in fossil-bearing rocks than might be assumed from cursory inspection. In
many cases it may be suspected that even those forms represented in
collections by a few specimens, or only one, are numerous or abundant within
the rocks. . . Strata considered to be only sparsely fossiliferous as judged
from superficial inspection actually may be abundantly so. The degree to which
this is true is clearly shown by methods of mass collecting fossils, wherein a
volume of fossiliferous clay or marl is dug by hand shovel, or power
machinery, washed with water, and sieved for fossils. This method has long
been used widely for microscopic fossils such as spores and Foraminifers, but
it also is coming into use for larger invertebrates and bones and teeth of
small vertebrates. The number of fossils thus obtained is usually greater per
unit volume of rock than per unit surface and fossils collected in matrix have
an advantage that they are damaged less frequently by weathering than those
found at the surface. Small fossils are incredibly numerous in certain strata
. . .Leidy once estimated a quarter of a million Foraminifera in an ounce of
marine sediment . . . Teichert
(1956) has undertaken an interesting estimate of the total number of fossil
species of animals and plants . . Taking twelve million (evolutionary) years
as the average longevity of a species, he concludes that the number of species
of animals and plants preserved in the rocks may reach a total of ten million.
According to an estimate made by Muller and Campbell (1954), about ninety-two
thousand fossil species of animals are now described . . .and I think that the
plants would bring the total to around one hundred thousand or only ten
percent of Teichert's estimate of the ultimate richness of the fossil
record." Thus fossils turn
up just about anywhere you want
to dig, enormous beds of fossils exist all over the globe, and yet those
transitional fossils necessary for documenting the evolution of species that
would lend validation to Darwin’s theory are still missing! The fact that fossils exist at all
should say something about the way that they died, since Newell goes on to say,
"Fossils may be destroyed quickly by weathering . . . The process of
sedimentation in may cases complicates interpretation of the associations of
fossils . . .The dead remains of various forms may be transported from
diverse habitats and deposited together in association that do not reflect any
single life environment. Under these conditions there is much winnowing and
sorting of organic remains by size, shape, and effective specific
gravity." So fossils found at different levels
in the geologic column may not necessarily mean that the ones laid down
underneath those above represent older fossils, they could have all been
transported and buried by some natural process at the same period of time.
Massive tidal action from in-rushing water would have laid them out in sequence
according to specific gravity and buoyancy (see Chapter Seven, Dinosaurs and the
Flood of Noah). This would ruin the imagined separation of the different parts
of the geologic column by millions of years, compressing it perhaps into only
some few thousands of years. The well known carbon 14
method for dating fossils does not yield reliable dates for anything older (by
evolutionists standards) than one hundred thousand years, thus for anything
thought to have lived more than a million years ago, such as the dinosaurs that
were thought to have lived from 200 million years ago to 65 million years ago,
the carbon 14 method is useless. Potassium argon dating is used to date igneous
rocks, while fossils are found in sedimentary rocks, thus potassium argon is not
used for dating fossils either. How then are fossils dated? This may sound
incredible, but fossils are dated by the sedimentary rocks that they are found
in, while the sedimentary rocks that they are found in are dated by the fossils
that are found in them! This type of circular reasoning is very common in
evolutionist literature, where the assumption of evolution is used as part of
the criteria for the evidence of evolution itself! 99 % of all fossils are only
found in one type of rock-sedimentary rock-which is formed primarily (the
estimates run from 75%-85%), although not universally, by swift hydraulic
action. Fossils in sedimentary rock could only be formed within a
specific time period shortly after death, otherwise the organism would be
totally reduced to unrecognizable particles (we don't find vast buffalo fossil
graveyards, despite the enormous amount of them killed in the last century).
Thus there had to have been rapid
sedimentation, and of an overwhelming proportion to create the tremendous number
of preserved fossils often found buried together in mass tombs in sedimentary
rock, in other words, a great flood. In fact, most of the early palaeontologists
of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries used the term
diluvium to describe sedimentary strata, it was even used by Darwin in
his Origin to describe the conditions under which fossils were
formed.. The word diluvium means
deposited by a deluge, a massive influx of water. This obvious fact has been
ignored by present day evolutionists because it hints too much at verification
of the Biblical account of a great flood. We will discuss the flood
theory in more detail in a later chapter, but for now it would be
appropriate to examine the supposed evolutionary tree of life, letting the
experts speak for themselves. Since Darwin's time mysterious animals have been found in
pre-Cambrian rock strata, known as the Vendian epoch, or the Ediacaran layer,
and these are called "Vendian biota" or
"Ediacara fauna", but they have no clear
relationship to the phyla that appear suddenly in the Cambrian
and they are sort of a mystery to scientists, who haven't found out precisely
how to classify them:
"The question of what these fossils
are is still not settled to everyone's satisfaction; at various times they
have been considered algae, lichens, giant protozoans, or even a separate
kingdom of life unrelated to anything living today. Some of these fossils are
simple blobs that are hard to interpret and could represent almost
anything."(University of
California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley,
4/05/02) One of these extinct creatures, the Arkarua,
is supposedly related to the Echinodermota, spiny-skinned animals like star
fish, sea urchins and others in their phylum. "The evolutionary origins of
five-fold symmetry remain obscure" So as far as the phylogeny (supposed evolutionary
"tree") of the Echinodermota, there is no evidence for their
evolution, and the evidence that Arkarua is related to the Echinodermota is pure
speculation. There were extinct
Echinodermota that were not penta-lateral, the carpoids and the helicoplacoids. Were there any transitional forms linking them
and the penta-lateral Echinodermota? GeoNews reports that the
"carpoids are at the center of an ongoing
controversy about their origin and evolution" (GeoNews,
December 1999) ), thus the matter is by no means settled among evolutionists as
to their status and phylogeny. " Furthermore we find once again
from the Tree of Life Web Project: "Phylogenetic
relationships, and in some cases status as monophyletic groups, remains unclear
for the extinct classes . . ." of Echinodermota such as the carpoids
and the helicoplacoids. All of the major phyla show up fully
distinct in the Cambrian era, and since then every Class, Order, Family, Genus
and Species appear fully distinct in the fossil record, something that Darwin
said should be "fatal" to his theory.
Let us now
therefore go through the
evolutionist’s ladder from simple, single cell creatures on to more complex life
forms to find out whether we have found any evidence to support the evolutionary
hypothesis since Darwin. Since some of these quotes come from the middle and
latter period of the twentieth century, some evolutionists have complained that
the quotes aren't "current". My answer to that is, simply because a fact or a
quote is twenty five, fifty or one hundred years old, that does not make it
irrelevant, indeed the longer a fact has remained uncontested, thus if it has
"stood the test of time", the more verifiable it becomes. If it were the case
that old facts are no longer reliable, then we could certainly throw out the
Pythagorean Theorem, along with Euclid's Geometry, which are both over two
thousand years old, and we could get along without Pascal's work and Newton's
Principia and every other scientific work written over the past one thousand
years, were this argument to hold any salt. These facts have not changed, and
the facts listed here in this work have not been contested yet either. And I
have every confidence that The Darwin Papers will stand the test of time,
and outlast many of it's fiercest critics. Let the evolutionists show facts to
the contrary, which they have failed to do, instead of using such worthless
arguments as opining that some of the quotes here are older than MTV. While
revisions have been in progress from time to time as new facts emerge, to
constantly update a work with every new quote, unless it brings something new to
light that changes what was previously said, would be an endless task, and one
which I don't intend to waste my time with. The basic thesis for this work holds
true and will hold true throughout the rest of mankind's history. The evidence
stands firm. There has never been any evidence of any genuine missing link or
series of missing links in the manner and the amount necessary for evolution to
have been a fact of life on planet earth; they have not shown up, and they never
will show up, thus demonstrating that Darwin's claim that this would be
devastating to his theory remains as much a fact today as it was when he
originally wrote it. An excellent site to go to and view
the various groups of organisms would be Mikko's
Phylogeny Archive, although the name Phylogeny Archive is a slight misnomer.
The entire site is in fact (unintentionally) a good testimony to the
creationist viewpoint on life. There are no phylogenic lineages
between any of the major Phylums that exist: The Virus's (not a phylum, but
presumed by many evolutionists to have led up to the Prokaryotae) and the
Prokaryotae (bacteria) are well defined with no intermediates; The Prokaryotic
bacteria and the Eukaryotae (life forms that have a well defined nuclear
membrane in the cell), are quite distinct with a huge gap between
them; Fungi and the Metazoa have no evolutionary intermediates; The Radiata
and the Bilateralia are not "cousins" and show no ancestor/descendant
relationship; Not only are there no living or
fossil intermediates to be found, but what is not told in Mikko's Phylogeny
Archive is that the so-called progression from more primitive life to more
complex life as shown by the chart is very misleading from a biochemical point
of view: Although it can be said that the Monera (Eubacteria and Archaea) are in
certain ways simpler than the Eukaryotae, the Eukaryotic organisms higher up on
the chart are just as far removed genetically from the Eubacteria and the
Archaea placed just above them as the Eukaryotae farther down on the chart are.
The Eumetazoa, containing the Radiata and Bilateralia, with the Deuterostoma and
the Chordatata down at the bottom, are just as close genetically to
the Prokaryotae up at the top as the more "primitive" organisms in the
middle are. And the other thing to remember is the earlier organisms, both among
the Prokaryotae and the Eukaryotae, have very complex cellular structure; among
the Eukatyotae there is nothing about a Fungi cell that would indicate that it
is any "simpler" than a chordates cell, or that it is in anyway an
"intermediate" cell between a more primitive cell and an animals' cell. There is
also no indication that there is or ever has been any progression from
Viruses, from a "non-cell" to a living bacterial cell. The Protostoma and Deuterostoma do
not "merge" into each other with some clear evolutionary pathway, all of the
major family groups of living organisms are clearly separated with no
transitional forms bridging the gaps, thus the entire Phylogenic Archive shows
that all living organisms fit into neatly formed, discreet "packages" in a
cladistic manner, as though some Master Designer has made them all for their
particular purposes in life. style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Charter
BT'">This will be demonstrated
in the remainder of the chapter. Nearly all of the quotes that follow come from
committed evolutionists, hence it cannot be inferred that any creationist bias
has influenced the statements. While some evolutionists may make the claim that
some of these quotes are taken out of context, it is one thing to say this, but
it is quite another thing to prove it. I have read the source material
carefully, and everything that follows was quoted quite succinctly and in
context. The "simplest" forms of life, as just
stated, are classed in the Kingdom Monera. Within this Kingdom we find the blue
green algae and certain forms of bacteria. They are known as Prokaryotes, while
all other forms of life are known as Eukaryotes. Virus's are simpler than cells
but are not considered life forms because they are essentially parasitic and
cannot exist long outside of a cell nor can they reproduce without a host cells'
metabolism. Classed alongside the Kingdom Monera is the Kingdom Protista, which
are Eukaryotic single cell organisms, mainly consisting of the familiar protozoa
as well as various other kinds of algae. Claude A.
Villee of Harvard University and Vincent G. Dethier of Princeton University
wrote on these simple forms of life:
"Our concepts of the evolutionary
relationships between the major phyla of plants and animals are rather vague,
because the evolutionary events occurred such a long time ago, and the fossil record of these early forms is very nearly blank.
Thus the evolutionary relationships of viruses and bacteria to other organisms
are unknown, there is little evidence regarding the relationships between the
major kinds of algae and fungi, and the relationships of the several types of
protozoa to multicellular animals is unclear." (16) Wallace, King and Sanders assert with
confidence:
"There is no longer any doubt that
the prokaryotes preceded all other modern forms of life," "The evolutionary transition from
the prokaryotic cell to the much more complex and elaborate eukaryotic cell
has perplexed biologists for some time. One hypothesis proposes that
eukaryotic membrane-bounded organelles evolved when infoldings of the cell
membrane pinched off and enclosed various cellular functions. Hypothesis
such as this often seem reasonable enough, but they can't be tested readily
enough."(17) Botanist Michael Neushul, National
Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Queen Mary College of the University
of London, has written of the various forms of algae:
"A search among the Rhodophyta,
Cryptophyta, Euglenophyta, and Pyrrhophyta points of relationship is not
overly rewarding. Perhaps the most striking conclusion that can be drawn from
such a survey is that these divisions contain no organism that clearly lies
intermediate in structural organization between the Procaryota and the
Eucaryota."(18) So we have no evidence of any
supposed evolutionary transition from the earliest Procaryotae life
to the Eurcaryotae. They are always found fully separated and distinct,
whether living or in fossilized form. Next is the Kingdom
Fungi, which includes molds,
yeasts, lichens, mildews, mushrooms and toadstools. Villee and Dethier wrote on
this Kingdom:
"The evolutionary relationships of
the slime molds and fungi to each other and to other living plants and animals
are unclear,
although ultimately they may have descended from some simple
single-celled flagellated ancestor. The
evolutionary relationships of the several classes of fungi have not been
established. . . Finally, the evolutionary origin of the basidiomycetes
[mushrooms and toadstools] is truly shrouded in mystery, for they show no
relationships with any of the algae."(Villee &Dethier,
pp.360) Neushul wrote on the possible
evolution of Fungi, for which he has no evidence, but makes plenty of
assumptions:
"Although no clear link
exists between procaryotes and fungi, possible relationships
occur between fungi, flagellates, and perhaps even red algae. It is widely
thought that diverse ancestral flagellates have given rise to the
lower fungi. These [as yet undiscovered organisms] are thought to
have resembled the flagellated reproductive stages of existing
Chytridiomycetes and Oomycetes . . .These ancestral types are also
assumed to have been able to use inorganic sulfur and nitrogen and to
synthesize a wide variety of compounds."(Op cit, pp.178) Essentially, he is making up a story,
much like Darwin's numerous hypothesis. The
next Kingdom to be considered is the Plant Kingdom. Concerning the origin
of plants, Chester A. Arnold, Professor of botany and the Curator of Fossil
Plants at the University of Michigan said,
For the supposed development of land
plants from green algae, Neushul stated that there is a "missing link" problem,
much like the problem paleontologist have when trying to reconstruct their
stories of man's supposed simian ancestry:
"Students of the green algae do not
agree on the identity or even existence of a "missing link" between the green
algae and the multicellular land plants. This gap has been filled with
theoretical [imaginary] plants.This kind of speculation, even in the
absence of an adequate fossil record or living intermediates, serves to
focus attention on the environmental problems faced by the multicellular land
plants that are discussed . . ."(Neushul, pp.218) For the evolution of liverworts,
mosses, and hornworts, classified under the Phylum Bryophyta, Neushul
wrote:
"There is rampant indecision as to
the possible evolutionary starting point for the Bryophyta. Although most
botanists would concede that bryophytes are distantly related to green algae,
many feel that present-day bryophytes descended from a now-extinct (and never
found) group of archegonia-producing plants. "Evolutionary speculation
about byrophyte sporophytes, as mentioned earlier, can start with a spherical
sporophyte like that of Riccia and derive the rather more highly
differentiated sporophytes like those of Marchantia. More independent
and highly evolved sporophyte types are thought to have been like those of
some mosses and Antithoceros.
But an opposing theory reverses this series and sees the sporophytes of
Marchantia and Riccia as progressively reduced structures." (Neushul,
pp.238-239). Of the evolution of the higher land
plants, Neushul wrote:
"Since algae and fungi preceded
these plants by such a long time, it seems logical to assume that the
evolution of the land plant was a gradual process that extended to
pre-Silurian periods. But
the fossil record does not support this view!
Instead, fossils of aerially dispersed spores and land-plants appear abruptly
in the Silurian rocks." (Ibid, pp.286) Of the link between Lyginopteris
(extinct ferns) and Cordaitaleans (non flowering trees and plants that produce
their seed in a cone, or strobilus) he wrote:
"No lower Carboniferous fossils
show morphological and anatomical characteristics intermediate between those
of "lyginopterids" and "cordaitaleans."(Neushul, pp.331) Of the origin of flowering plants,
Neushul wrote:
"The flowers, fruits, and seeds of
living plants represent endpoints of past and present environmental influence.
Unfortunately, speculation as to how these flowering-plant structures
evolved is limited by the absence of a fossil record. Several attempts have
been made to fill this gap, and various fossil organisms have been suggested
as (possible) intermediate between gymnosperms and angiosperms. .
.
A clear and undisputable fossil record of early flowering- plant evolution has
not been found." (Ibid,
pp.359, 364). As far as any living intermediate
links among plants, Neushul wrote that trying to use an evolutionary system in
classifying plants was no help at all, since all plants are quite distinct, and
belong to well formed families, orders, etc. with no hint of any evolutionary
relationship:
"There is no need to stress the
practical importance to humanity of an organized body of knowledge about
plants. One of the first steps in organizing botanical information is the
development of a system of classification. In the specific case of the
flowering plants, various systems of classification have been proposed. Nearly
all are attempts to represent evolutionary relationships within the division.
The names of classes and subclasses have been frequently modified and their
relationship reassessed [i.e. evolutionary systems lead to chaos]. Plant
families, on the other hand, are well defined and have remained relatively
stable for many years." (Ibid, pp.365) Thus from the records of the most
primitive plants to the most complex varieties found, every single group is
already fully distinct and separate from each other when they first appear as
fossils. That, in a nutshell, represents all
the evidence that we have for plant evolution. Nothing. The closest thing ever to be found
that would be a transitional form from plants to animals (or the other way
around) would be the fabled half-plant/half-animal Vegetable-Lamb of Tartary. Ah
yes indeed. This mythical animal-tree produced cotton, which the Europeans in
the middle ages were ignorant of, so they mistook it for wool, hence the legend
that the cotton was the fleece of lambs that grew from the tree by their navals.
This is of course absurd, but no more absurd than some of Darwin's incredible
explanations for his theory. Bolton Davidheiser, Ph.D. in Zoology
from John Hopkin's University (and who, incidently, does not adhere to
Darwinism and the traditional evolutionary theory, but is a staunch Biblical
creationist ), has made an interesting observation. Darwin, and those who follow
slavishly in his folly are continually making statements such as this
one found in World Book Encyclopedia: "Although the theory of evolution is
supported by a vast amount of scientific evidence . . ."etc. (20) This is quite typical. Evolutionists
are so insistent that evolution has occurred, they commonly make
statements like "Evolution is a fact, of that we can be certain"; "The fact of
evolution is now accepted by all serious scientists," etc., etc, but then
reverse themselves when having to provide any real evidence. The situation is
not unlike the phrase, "The lady protesteth too much!"concerning a woman of
dubious morals loudly proclaiming her innocence. There are certain statements known as
redundant statements, because they are stating something that is so
glaringly obvious that the statement does not need to be said. When a group of
engineers and mechanics gather together to discuss a better method for
manufacturing a car engine, you wouldn't hear them making such statements like:
"Although the existence of pistons in car engines is supported by a vast amount
of scientific evidence. . ." Geologists don't often make
statements like, "All geologists certainly agree that the earth exists, of that
we can be confident." It would be sheer idiocy to go around insisting that
the earth exists, and anybody doing that would be considered an absolute
loon. There
would be no point in insisting upon the
obvious, but the fact that
evolutionists have to continually defend their theory with these kinds of
specious statements on the "fact" of evolution shows the very weakness of their
position and the very strength of the creationist
position. To get back to the meat, or the bones of our study, we shall
now look at the animal Kingdom. We have already seen that the earliest complex
life forms appear suddenly and fully developed in the fossil record, with no
sign of any intermediate, developing species to precede them. Wallace, King and
Sanders wrote on animal origins: "It seems clear that all existing plants,
animals, and fungi sprang from the ancient protists [we have seen that it is
anything but clear that plants and fungi sprang from the protists]. It
is generally believedthat the animal kingdom evolved from two different
protist lines." (Biosphere, Wallace, King and Sanders,
pp.387) These two different hypothetical
lines supposedly produced the sponges (a unique colonial sort of life form) and
the Metazoa. The authors report that the Metazoa "descended from a protozoan of some sort." Then they wrote "There is a
great deal of argument about the nature of this ancient creature. What was it
like?" (Ibid) They report on the two leading ideas
on what it was like, one being that it was a flagellate "unlike any of those
existing today" and the other that it was similar to a marine flatworm. It is no
wonder that there is a great deal of argument on the subject, for they further
reported:
"Unfortunately, we have no
relevant fossil evidence at all-in fact, the oldest eukaryotic fossils (some
680 million years old) are clearly metazoans, jellyfish similar to those found
today. Therefore we can only guess how the first multicellular animal came to
be." These earliest forms of metazoic life
(life with diverse cells separated into specialised tissues for specific
functions) were known as invertebrates or creatures without an internal spinal
column for a backbone. Most of the invertebrates are found in the Cambrian layer
of rock. We have previously discussed the pre-Cambrian Vendian (Ediacaran)
fossils which have no relationship at all with any of the later phyla found in
the Cambrian layer and through no light on how they might have
evolved. The creatures that appear suddenly in
the Cambrian layer consist of very complex animals, octopi, mollusks, squid,
urchin, jellyfish, trilobites (extinct), shrimp, limpets, worms, and snails to
name a few. "As we have seen, all the main
invertebrate types appear already clearly differentiated very abruptly in
early Cambrian rocks. An enormous effort has been made over the past century
to find missing links in these rocks . . . Yet no links have ever been found
and the relationships of the major groups are as enigmatic today as one
hundred years ago . . . Over the past century a host of rationalizations have
been attempted to explain the mystifying absence of primitive transitional
forms in the pre-Cambrian rocks..."
(21) There is quite a bit of difference between a
clam and an octopus, both invertebrates, probably about as much difference as
there is between any other two types of animals in existence, and yet there is
no Let us purview here a condensed enumeration of
some of the major phyla of the invertebrates, with the evidence for their
evolutionary phylogeny as presented in some well known textbooks. (22):
A) Coelenterates,which
includes jellyfish, sea anemones, corals and fresh water hydras: B) Platyhelminthes,
Flatworms, simplest animals with bilateral [left and right sides to their
bodies] symmetry: "The structure of the flatworm suggest that it probably
evolved relatively early in the history of the animal kingdom and that the
higher animal phyla may have evolved from primitive flatworms. Certain
similarities between coelenterates and flatworms have led to various theories
that one group evolved from the other, but the origin of these two phyla is
still very much a matter of speculation." (Ibid, pp. 769) C) Aschelminthes, Rounded
worms with a true digestion tract: "Like flatworms, aschelminths have left no
fossil record." (Ibid, pp. 771) D) Tentaculata, Creatures
with a crown of horseshoe shaped tentacles: "Although it is suggested that the
tentaculates may have evolved from a common ancestor, little can be said with
certainty about the origin of this group."(Ibid, pp. 773) E) Annelida, Segmented
worms with a true circulatory system, earthworms: "Because of the absence of
hard parts, the fossil record of annelids is sparse, but the chitinous jaws of
the polychaetes have been found in rocks formed more than 500 million years
ago. There were no doubt other more primitive annelids, of which no
recognizable fossil record exists."(Ibid, pp. 775) F) Mollusca, More than
50,000 living species, including snails, clams, oysters, mussels, scallops,
octopi, and related species. Encyclopedia Britannica reports: "There are six
major classes of mollusks. The fossil record gives little clue as to how the
six classes diverged from the molluscan base." (Enc. Brit., 24:309, 1986)
They further state:
"Existing Mollusca consist of a
number of well defined classes that do not form an ascending series in terms
of evolutionary development but rather have evolved radially from a common
ancestral condition. . . The precise characteristicsof this hypothetical
animal have been questioned . . .No satisfactory system of classification of
bivalves [clams and oysters] has so far been devised." (Ibid pp.
327) Within the mollusks we have the
Gastropods, snails and slugs. The Britannica reports:
"Unlike mammals, who have undergone
great evolutionary change in the last 50,000,000 years, gastropods have shown
little progressive evolution during that [much earlier] time."
Thus even in their earliest
history, mollusks are fully distinct- no transitional
forms. Now we will move on to the Phylum Arthropoda,
the largest phylum in the animal
kingdom, consisting of segmented animals, lobsters, crabs, and insects, these
latter alone comprising 765,257 species. Listed here are some quotes from noted
authorities, most of them evolutionists, on the evidence (or lack thereof) for
the evolution of these various kinds of creatures. I am indebted to the
Zoologist Davidheiser for his research in this area for some of the following
references. As far as the origin of the
arthropods, R.E. Snodgrass, Collaborator of the Smithsonian Institution
and U.S. Dept. Of Agriculture stated:
"The evolutionary origin of the
arthropods is hidden in remote Pre-Cambrian times Within the Phylum Arthropoda we have
seven classes: A) Merostomata: The horseshoe "crabs" (Limulus polyphemus, Carcinoscorpius rotunda and
Tachypleus gigas) , mostly aquatic. There are three to five species,
depending on which taxonomic system is being used. They are referred to by
Helena Curtis in her book Invitation To Biology as "living fossils," in other words, there is no evidence of any
evolutionary change for them in the fossil record from the time that they first
appeared until the present. (Helena Curtis, Invitation to
Biology, pp. 585) (24) Not only have they shown no signs of
any kind of evolution over these vast ages, "Because its basic body design has
remained almost unchanged for millions of years, the horseshoe crab is often
called a "living fossil". The horseshoe crab gets its common name from the "U"
or horseshoe shaped of its shell, which is called a carapace. The carapace is
the color of sand or mud. This helps the animal blend in with the muddy and
sandy bottoms on which it lives."(National Aquarium of Baltimore Report to
Baltimore Department of Education, Schools, Puffin Report to
Schools, 1991) "Horseshoe crabs have been around in one guise or
another for quite some time now, let's just say since the Lower Silurian for
arguments sake. The earliest examples discovered date to about 435 million
years old. Personally, I reckon they'll outlive that troublesome species Homo
sapiens hands (or at least pincered feet) down. Why? Well, because they are
good at what they do and they don't seem to have any intention of changing
their mode of life or gross body morphology. This is why they are often
refered to as 'Living fossils'." (http://lyall.tripod.com/xipho/) "Xiphosurans (horseshoe crabs) have existed since
the Silurian (440 to 410 million years ago)
with relatively little morphological change." (Universityof
California Berkeley, Museum of Paleontology, 04/05/02,
) "While
we sometimes see the horseshoe crab referred to as a "living fossil", it is
more appropriate and factual to eschew such an oxymoron, since Limulus
polyphemus has no fossil record whatever." (Patty Sturtevant, Ph.D., Mote Marine
Laboratory, 04/04/02), Ms. Sturtevant stated that the horseshoe crab is only 20
million years old and has no fossil record at all! (If it has no fossil record
to be dated by then how does she know how old it is?) At least she is getting
closer to the creationist position, but what about the other evolutionists
quoted above, including the University of Berkeley, stating that the
horseshoe crab has been around for hundreds of millions of years without any
change? And what are we to do with these quotes?
"The horsehoe crab, a close
relative of the extant trilobite, is the oldest living fossil in Maryland,
living here for approximately 360 million years." (Benny
Williams, Maryland Horeshoe Crabs, 04/05/02 ); They all state the horseshoe crab has been around for hundreds
of millions of years, with no record of any change. To move on:
that life has evolved
from simpler to more and more complex forms."(3)
Over the past few years they have found strange fossils in
Pre-Cambrian rock called the Vendian epoch, and these will be dealt
with subsequently in this chapter.
Australian scientist and medical doctor
Michael Denton wrote:
The branches of the tree
are merely drawn in to represent the supposed evolutionary history of the
various families of organisms according to evolutionist speculation, but there
are no transitional forms between humans and other apes, or between mammals and
reptiles, or between any of the major families of animals at all. There is no
evidence of their existence today and there is no evidence that they ever
existed in the past!
In reality what you are seeing are different organisms
that just pop up in different spots on the tree with imaginary branches
leading up to all of them. The limbs of the tree are drawn in to hypothetically
represent what is supposed to be thousands of transitional forms and millions of
years of evolution, but they really give no explanation as to what the
transitional forms were or for that matter any evidence that they were,
and at every juncture where a new branch juts out from the tree there is some
unknown, unrepresented common ancestor that is never identified!
It is
like hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree and then telling a visitor that those
ornaments actually grew out of the Christmas tree. Once you have been trained to
spot this subterfuge it becomes incredible to realise that such schemes have
been presented in all of their audacity for years to the public with a wink and
a nod by the evolutionists with no evidence for their claims at
all.
In fact,
so sparse is the fossil record, despite the tens of thousands of fossils that
are stored and studied in museums, that to get a complete picture of evolution
is a little like trying to reconstruct Gone with the Wind from the scraps on
the cutting-room floor. Although we may be able to deduce that the story takes
place during the Civil War, that it is told from a southern point of view, and
that it is centered in Atlanta, we might not be certain who the major
characters are, let alone what the relationship was between Scarlett O'hara
and Rhett Butler." (Hotton, pp. 42, ibid).
Echinodermota are fascinating animals.
Just as higher organisms, such as vertebrates and insects, have bilateral
symmetry (a left and a right matching side) Echinodermota have a five-fold
symmetry, such as we see with the star fish.
Have we found any evidence of
evolutionary transitional forms leading up to this type of remarkable
penta-lateral symmetry? Are there any evolutionary "links" between Echinodermota
and some early prototype evolving into a five formed creature? The Tree of Life
Web Project gives us the answer:
(Tree
of Life Web Project, 4/05/02)
Shaped like a
football, a helicoplacoid had "armor" that was essentially small mineralized
plates formed into spirals. Even its food-gatherng organ was a spiral that
wound around its body." (Geological Society of America, 11/08/01)
This is a far cry
from a starfish, and there are no intermediate forms found linking them
together.
(Tree
of Life Web Project)
So, beginning with the so-called earliest life forms,
we have seen that the Cambrian layer exploded with various creatures,
with no fossil evidence for their having evolved from any pre-existing forms.
These sudden explosions of different, distinct types of living creatures without
any intermediate links to creatures before or after them are known in the
literature as "explosive radiations," or simply "radiations."
yet a few
pages farther on in their book they wrote:
They have
admitted that their prior assertion has no basis in observable fact!
"As
yet we have not been able to trace the phylogenetic history of a single group
of modern plants from its beginning to the present."
(19)
There is little direct
evidence, however to support such a theory. Ideas about evolutionary trends
among bryophytes are also controversial. For example, gametophytes are thought
by adherents of the antithetic theory to have started with flat,
undifferentiated prostrate thypes, which subsequently evolved into complex
thallose forms like Marchantiaor leafy forms like Lophocolea. More recent
theories reverse these evolutionary schemes and postulate that thalloid
gametophytes evolved from leafy ones, becoming reduced to types like
Marchantia and Riccia."
Who would contest a quite
obvious fact? Yet these type of statements are not uncommon in the writings of
evolutionists concerning the "fact" of
evolution.
It may be said that the reason that they make
these statements is because creationists are continually calling into question
the so-called evidence of evolution, but that is precisely the point.
Anybody questioning the existence of the Earth would be absolutely ignored,
because the existence of the earth is such an incontrovertible proposal.
Its
existence doesn't even need to be defended with a remark like, "Now we finally
have proof after all these years that the Earth really exists. Scientists have
recently uncovered part of the earth itself in South Africa"
Paleontologists often make extravagant claims
for the supposed proof that Darwin gave for evolution, and then they later
completely contradict themselves and reveal that Darwin actually offered no
proof at all for the "fact" of evolution.
(Wallace,
King and Sanders, pp.387-388.)
Michael Denton wrote:
evidence of
any "common ancestor" for either of these, in fact there is no evidence for any
kind of ancestor at all for them. All the ancient fossil remains show quite
distinct and fully developed species. When we do find an ancient oyster
or clam or hydra, except for some extinct exotic varieties, they are identical
to the oysters and clams of today, only differing in size in most cases.
"The
evolutionary origin of coelenterates is largely unknown."(Biology Today,
pp. 764,CRM Books, Del Mar, California, 1972)
(Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 24, pp. 319)
". . .".
(23)
we also have no idea where they
"evolved" from either, except other horseshoe crabs.
Here are
some more quotes on the horseshoe crab:
But now we
find such astounding statements like this one from Patty Sturtevant, which only
makes things worse for the evolutionists:
"Horseshoe
crabs, common along the Delaware coast, have evolved little in the last 250
million years." http://www.beach-net.com/horseshoe/Bayhorsecrab.html 04/05/02):
"Horseshoe Crabs are considered to be living fossils because their
appearance has not changed since their origin over 300 million years ago.
There are 4 species which survive today: 3 range along the shores of Southeast
Asia; the other species populate the Atlantic coast from Maine to the Gulf of
Mexico." ( Mystic
Aquarium,)
"The horseshoe crab evolved 100 million years
before the dinosaurs and is closely related to spiders and scorpions. This
ancient creature is important to the medical community, commercial fishermen
and the environment." (Ocean News, 6/21/99)
Is it possible that Ms.
Sturtevant is doing a little taxonomical reshuffling in response
to creationists who are (rightly) pointing out that in over three hundred
million years the horseshoe crab has shown no sign of evolution? (And the above
quotes of hundreds of millions of years with no change refer distinctly to
Limulus polyphemus, the same species that Ms. Sturtevant refers
to)
Paleontology at the
University of California stated that for the evolution of the reptiles,
spiration, and seven vertebrate in the neck.