DARWINISTS REMAIN DARWINISTS

If macro-evolution (major changes including new organs) is an historical fact, there should be an historical record – the fossil record. However, according to many evolutionists, this is the very thing that we don’t find:

·       “What is missing [in the record] are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.”  Robert L. Carroll, “Towards a New Evolutionary Synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 15 (2000): 27

·       “I wish only to point out that [gradualism] was never ‘seen’ in the rocks.”  Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History 86 (May 1977), 14

·       “Stasis [remaining the same] is now abundantly well documented as the preeminent paleontological pattern in the evolutionary history of species.”  (Niles Eldredge, “Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate” (New York: John Wiley, 1995), 77) http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/denton-introduction/

Instead, the fossil record is damning to the theory of evolution. Instead of providing evidence for gradual Darwinian change over time, this record shows that frogs remain frogs, and apes remain apes, and Darwinists remain Darwinists.

What the Fossils Say about Darwin

If common descent has taken place, it should most directly be demonstrated in the fossil record, as one paleontology textbook asserts:

• Fossils are the only direct record of the history of life.

However, the fossil record refuses to conform to evolutionary orthodoxy. Darwin even admitted his uneasiness about this evidence. However, he expected that future finds would eventually fill in the gaps by unearthing transitional forms, but these hopes have never been realized. Instead, the gaps have been further highlighted, as the finds have consistently lined up on only one side of the gap. One evolutionist acknowledged:

• Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear “fully formed”…The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to understanding the origin and early diversification of the animal phyla. (Barnes, et al., The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, 3^rd Edition, 9-10)

Darwin had thought that the absence of predecessors – ancestral forms – was due to their not being fossilized because, being softer, they couldn’t be fossilized as easily. However, since Darwin, many tiny soft-bodied fossils have been unearthed below the “fully formed” phyla. Stephen C. Meyer explains the devastating implications of these finds for the theory of evolution:

• If paleontologists can find tiny fossilized cells in these far older and rarer formations, shouldn’t they also be able to find some ancestral forms of the Cambrian animals in younger and more abundant sedimentary rocks. (Darwin’s Doubts)

The late Stephen Jay Gould refers to this absence as “the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution.” Casey Luskin points out that this same absence of predecessors is also found among flowering plants…:

• As one paper states, “Angiosperms appear rather suddenly in the fossil record…with no obvious ancestors”…Many mammals orders appear in a similarly explosive way. Paleontologist Niles Eldredge explains that “there are all sorts of gaps: absence of gradationally intermediate ‘transitional’ forms between species, but also between larger groups – between, say, families of carnivores, or the orders of mammals.” A prominent ornithology textbook observes the “explosive evolution” of major living bird groups.

Luskin summarizes the findings:

• A straightforward reading of the fossil record consistently shows a pattern of abrupt explosions of new types of organisms. (Salvo, Fall 2013, 51)

Darwin and the Growing Gaps in the Fossil Record

If marijuana use leads to harder drugs, then we should be able to document this progression in the case histories of hard core drug users. If we can’t do this, then we should abandon this theory. If polyps lead to cancer, we should be able to demonstrate this lethal progression. If we can’t, then it is time to reconsider our theory. If natural selection leads to macroevolution – the appearance of higher life forms from lower – we should also be able to document this as well. However, the overwhelming consensus of leading paleontologists is that this cannot be done.

I will merely present a very partial list of quotations from these paleontologists:

• "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." (Paleontologist, Derek V. Ager)

• "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." (Paleontologist, Mark Czarnecki)

• "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." (Professor of paleontology - Glasgow University, T. Neville George)

• "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." (David Kitts – Paleontologist)

• "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – (Stephen Jay Gould – Harvard)

• "The sweep of anatomical diversity reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animals. The later history of life proceeded by elimination not expansion." (Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, Wonderful Life, 1989, p.46)

• "Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series." – (Ernst Mayr-Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University)

• "What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types." (Robert L Carroll – Paleontologist)

• "Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? ... The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to imperfection of the fossil record." (Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma 1988, Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, Master Books, p. 9)

• "The evidence we find in the geological record is not nearly as compatible with Darwinian natural selection as we would like it to be .... We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is surprisingly jerky and, ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than in Darwin's time ... so Darwin's problem has not been alleviated". (David Raup, Curator of Geology at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History)

The fossil record provides us with no more reason to suppose Darwinian evolution, no more than to suppose that placing teeth under pillows brings the good tooth fairy. Perhaps it is due time to question the theory of evolution!

Meanwhile, theists are accused of believing “creation myths.” However, can the evolutionist say this with a straight face while they have their own creation myth – that everything sprang into existence uncaused out of nothing? Some do!