The Origin of Species According
to the Fossil Record: CREATION
The
theory of evolution claims that all the living species on Earth
descended, by means of a series of minute changes, from a common
ancestor. To state the theory another way, living species are not
separated from one another by absolute differences, but exhibit
an inner continuity. However, actual observations in nature have
indicated that there is no such continuity as claimed. What we
see in the living world are different categories of organisms,
separated by vast and distinct differences. Robert Carroll, an
expert on vertebrate paleontology, admits this in his book Patterns
and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution:
Although an almost incomprehensible number
of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous
spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly
all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited
number of clearly distinct major groups...1
Evolution is a process alleged to have taken
place in the past, and fossil discoveries are the only scientific
source that can tell us about the history of life. Pierre Grassé says
this on the subject:
Naturalists must remember that the process
of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. ... Only
paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution
and reveal its course or mechanisms.2

In order for the fossil record to shed light on this subject,
we need to compare what the theory of evolution predicts against
the actual fossil discoveries.
According to the theory, all living things
have descended from various "ancestral" forms. A living species that existed
before gradually turned into another species, and every present
species emerged in this way. According to the theory, this transition
took place slowly over hundreds of millions of years and progressed
in stages. That being the case, countless numbers of "intermediate
forms" must have emerged and lived over the long process of
transition in question. And a few of them must certainly have been
fossilized.
For example, half-fish, half-amphibian creatures
that still bore fish-like characteristics but which had also
acquired certain amphibious features must have existed. And reptile-birds
with both reptilian and avian features must have emerged. Since
these creatures were in a process of transition, they must have
been deformed, deficient and flawed. These theoretical creatures
claimed to have existed in the distant past are known as "intermediate
forms."
If any such living species really did exist, then they should
number, in the millions, or even billions. Abundant traces of them
should be found in the fossil record, because the number of intermediate
forms should be even greater than the number of animal species
known today. The geologic strata should be full of the remains
of fossilized intermediate forms. Darwin himself admitted this.
As he wrote in his book, The Origin of Species:
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.3
Yet Darwin was aware that no intermediate forms
had yet been found, and regarded this as a major dilemma facing
his theory. In the chapter "Difficulties on Theory," he
wrote:
... Why, if species have
descended from other species by insensibly 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?… Why then is not every geological
formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic
chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection
which can be urged against my theory.4
In the face of this difficulty, the only explanation Darwin could
offer was that the fossil records of his time were insufficient.
He claimed that later, when the fossil records had been examined
in detail, the missing intermediate forms would definitely be found.
The Sufficiency of the Fossil Record
In the face of the lack of intermediate forms,
Darwin claimed, 140 years ago, that they were not available then
but new research would definitely unearth them. But has it? To
put the question another way, after looking at the results of
all the fossil research carried out to date, should we accept
that intermediate forms never actually existed—or should
we await the results of still further excavations?
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A bony fossil fish dating back some 210 million years.
A fossil frog, approximately 53-33.7 million years old.
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A fossil spider, some 355 to 295 million years old.
A trionyx (tortoise) fossil, approximately 300 million
years old.
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An echinoderm (starfish) fossil
dating back some 135 million years.
A fossil crab approximately 55 to 35 million years old.
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The answer to that question of
course depends on the wealth of the fossil record we already have
available. Looking at the paleontological data, we see that the
fossil records are extraordinarily rich, with literally billions
of fossil specimens obtained from different regions of the world.5 From
examining these fossils, experts have identified some 250,000 different
species, many of which bear an extraordinarily close resemblance
to the 1.5 million species living today.6 (Of
the 1.5 million species alive today, fully 1 million are insects.)
Yet among these countless fossil specimens, no supposed intermediate
form has ever been found. It seems impossible for the intermediate
forms, that have not been discovered despite the rich fossil records,
to be unearthed in new excavations.
T. Neville George, the Glasgow University professor of paleontology,
admitted as much many years ago:
There is no need to apologize
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.7

All living things on Earth came into existence suddenly with
all their complex and superior features. In other words,
they were created. Absolutely no scientific evidence suggests
that living things are descended from one another, as evolutionists
maintain. |
Niles Eldredge, a well-known paleontologist
and director of the American Museum of Natural History, states
that Darwin's claim to the effect that "the fossil record is deficient, which
is why we cannot find any intermediate forms" is invalid:
The record jumps, and all
the evidence shows that the record is real: The gaps we see
[in the fossil record] reflect real events in life's history – not
the artifact of a poor fossil record.8
In his 1991 book, Beyond Natural Selection, Robert Wesson
says that the gaps in the fossil record are real and phenomenal:
The gaps in the record are real, however. The
absence of any record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species
are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, ... genera
never show evolution into new species or genera but
replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.9
The argument put forward 140 years ago that "no intermediate
forms have been found yet, but they will be in the future" is
no longer tenable today. The fossil record is sufficiently rich
to account for the origin of life, and it reveals a concrete picture:
Different species all emerged independently of one another, suddenly,
and with all their different structures. No imaginary evolutionary "intermediate
forms" existed among them.
Facts Revealed by the Fossil Record
What is the origin of the "evolution-paleontology" relationship
that has been installed in society's subconscious? Why is it that
when the fossil record is mentioned, most people assume that there's
a definite, positive link between this record and Darwin's theory?
The answers are set out in an article in the magazine Science:
A large number of well-trained scientists
outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately
gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian
than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification
inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular
articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking
involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find
predictable progressions. In general these have not been
found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has
crept into textbooks.10

A 24-million-year-old caterpillar fossil embedded
in amber is proof that caterpillars have always existed in exactly
the same form—and never underwent evolution.
A cicada nymph, 50 to 45 million years old.
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N. Eldredge and Ian Tattershall make the following important comment
on that matter:
That individual kinds of
fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length
of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to
paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin
himself, ... prophesied that future
generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent
search ... 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.
The observation that species are amazingly conservative and
static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities
of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred
to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record
obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply
looked the other way.11
The American paleontologist S. M. Stanley describes how this
fact, revealed by the fossil record, is ignored by the Darwinist
dogma that dominates the scientific world, and how others are also
encouraged to ignore it:
The known fossil record
is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What
is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances,
even the history of opposition has been obscured. ... "The majority
of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin's
stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species
transformation." ... their story has been suppressed.12
Let us now examine this truth revealed by the
fossil record, which has so far been "suppressed," in
rather more detail.
1. Robert L. Carroll, Patterns
and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University
Press, 1997, p. 9 
2. Pierre Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York, Academic
Press, 1977, p. 82
3. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179
4. Ibid., p. 172
5. Duane T. Gish, Evolution: Fossils Still Say No, CA, 1995, p. 41
6. David Day, Vanished Species, Gallery Books, New York, 1989
7. T. N. George, "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science
Progress, Vol. 48, January 1960, p. 1
8. N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, Columbia
University Press, 1982, p. 59
9. Robert G. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge,
MA, 1991, p. 45 S
10. Science, July 17, 1981, p. 289
11. Eldredge and Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, pp. 45-46
12. S. M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the
Origin of Species, Basic Books Inc. Publishers, N.Y., 1981, p. 71 |