KEY ARTICLES
A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. Right? ………..4
The links are missing………...………5
The fossil record Becoming more random all the time………..……….7
Living fossils: a powerful argument for creation………..………...10
IS THERE ANY TYPE OF ORDER IN THE FOSSIL RECORD Are there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?...11
Index fossils—really?...14
Fossil flip-flop How objective are scientists?...15
Further expansion of evolutionary fossil time ranges……….………..16
Fossils—do they get more complex?...17
How well do paleontologists know fossil distributions?...18
Oldest’ fossil shrimp?...18
Slow fish in China………....19
‘Remarkable’ mammal hairs in amber?...20
ARE THRE REALLY MISSING LINKS IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTION Another major ‘link’ fails……….21
Cladistics, evolution and the fossils……….…………23
That quote!—about the missing transitional fossils……….………..28
Argument: The fossil record supports evolution……….………30
Punctuated equilibrium: come of age?...35
Another leggy snake?...39
Evolution of multicellularity: what is required?...40
Mammal-like reptiles: major trait reversals and discontinuities………...…….42
‘Transitional form’ in mammal ear evolution—more cacophony………..……48
Darwinopterus v Dawkins………..……….50
DO FOSSILIZED PLANTS AND ANIMALS REALLY LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM ANIMALS WE SEE TODAY Alligator ancestor antics……….………..53
Evolutionists can’t dodge ‘Living Fossils’………..53
Horsetails are ‘living fossils’!...55
Living Fossils: the Shovelnose Ray ……….……….…….55
Death March Horseshoe Crab stopped dead in its tracks……….……….……55
Fish that ‘fly’ ……….………56
Another ‘living fossil’ tree ……….56
Salamanders are ‘living fossils’! ………57
Correcting the headline: ‘Coelacanth’ yes; ‘Ancient’ no ………..…..58
Living fossils and evolution, and does it matter if ‘junk DNA’ has functions? ……….………59
Does it matter if endogenous retroviruses have functions? ……….…………60
DO FOSSILS GIVE EVIDENCES OF THEIR QUICK FORMATIONS SUCH AS GREAT CATASTROPHE AND GLOBAL FLOOD A ‘165 million year’ surprise ………. 60
Dead whales: telling tales? ………..62
Deluge disaster ………63
Fast fossils Billions of well-preserved fossil fish clash with popular belief. ………..………64
Fossil squid ink that still writes! ………..………65
Hundreds of jellyfish fossils! ……….………..66
FAST FOSSILS. WHAT OTHER EVIDENCES SHOWS THAT FOSSILS DON`T TAKE LONG PERIODS OF TIME TO FORM The Amazing Stone Bears of Yorkshire ……….………..68
Tarawera's night of terror………..69
Petrified flour ………70
Message in a bottle ………..………71
Whale explodes fossil theory ……….72
Toy car rocks million-year belief ………...……….73
ARE THERE TRANSITIONAL FORMS BETWEEN FISH AND TETRAPODS The fossil record of ‘early’ tetrapods: evidence of a major evolutionary transition?... 74
Tiktaalik roseae—a fishy ‘missing link’ ……….………78
Tiktaalik, the transitional star, faces an evolutionary dead-end ………..80
Livoniana—have they (finally!) found a missing link? ………..………..82
Gogonasus—a fish with human limbs? ………...……….83
The oldest pregnant mum’—not! ………..……85
A review of Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body ……….….87
Panderichthys—a fish with fingers? ………...……90
DOES THE FOSSIL RECORD OF WHALES SHOW THAT THEY EVOLVED FROM LAND ANIMMALS A handbook for students, parents, and teachers countering the latest arguments for evolution……….. 91
A whale of a tale? ……….……… 93
The strange tale of the leg on the whale ………...……. 96
The world of whales ………..……….. 98
Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist? ……….……. 99
DAILY ARTICLES Tasmania’s fossil bluff ………...104
Fossil jellyfish from the Pilbara, Western Australia ……….105
Giant compound eyes, half a billion years ago? ………....109
Modern birds found with dinosaurs .Are museums misleading the public? ………...109
Frozen in stone … in just decades ………...…110
Dinosaur fairy tales ………...111
Dinosaur disarray .Evidence for the Flood at Dinosaur National Monument, USA ………..113
Hadrosaur skin found ……….…. 115
Mummified trees millions of years old—not ………...116
Claimed ‘oldest-ever’ amber fossil—millions-of-years mighty mites? ………... 116
Twice as wrong—and more.Fossilized eukaryote cells and giant anomalocaridids force dramatic revisions of the evolutionary timeline. ………..……….…..117
Taxonomic manipulations likely common ………..117
Oil not always a ‘fossil fuel’ ……….. ……..….119
Ghosts in the rocks ………...119
Evolutionists have ‘allergic’ reaction to Precambrian pollen–South American fossils more than a billion years ‘out of date’ ………..….. 121
Either way, it’s like a game with loaded dice—the ‘house’ (long-age belief) wins every time.Fast octopus fossils reveal no evolution ………..…. 122
Darwin fossil hyper-hype ……….… 123
Evidence for turtle evolution ………125
Tiktaalik—sticking its head out of water? ………... 127
Dancing Dinosaurs? Stony footprints point to something more serious ………..…… 127
Dino dung overturns objection ………...…. 128
Ediacaran ‘explosion’ Another thumping headache for evolutionists ………... 129
The slow rise of dinosaurs .New fossil finds cause evolutionists to revise dino evolution theories ………..129
A lousy story………..130
Old Bee, Young Creation ……….. 130
Killer Kangaroos and Demon Ducks? ……….……131
A preliminary analysis by Ryan McClay ………..133
EVIDENCES FROM THE FOSSILS THAT SHOW RAPID AND CATASTROPHIC BURIAL Ichthyosaurs: evidence for a recent global flood ………. 133
Massive graveyard of parrot-beaked dinosaurs in Mongolia ………. 134
Swedish fossil fern preserves chromosome detail, pointing to catastrophic burial .A casualty of the global Flood ……… 135
Precambrian rocks ………...……….136
The meaning of porous dinosaur eggs laid on flat bedding planes ……….. 139
Moulting arthropod fossilized in a flash! ……….... 140
Tiny pterosaur’s untimely end ……….. 141
A stunning new book with family friendly, groundbreaking creationist research will excite many ……….142
Gilding the (sea) lily ………...… 143
Dinosaur stumble preserved in trackways, Utah, USA ………...… 145
Death throes ……….. 146
A world drowned ……….... 147
Dinosaur herd buried in the Global Flood in Inner Mongolia, China ……….… 149
More evidence of the Global Flood, this time from Mongolia ………. 150
Watery catastrophe deduced from huge Ceratopsian dinosaur graveyard ………. 151
Can’t see the Flood for the sediment ………. 153
KEY ARTICLES
A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. Right?
Figure 1. MOR555 (AKA Wankel T-rex) on display at the Museum of the Rockies, Montana, USA. All bones are in excellent preservation but show little sign of petrification. They are pure bone thought to be 65 million years old.The recent findings of bio-molecules, soft-tissue blood vessels and blood cells in 65-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex fossil bones1 have caused geologists to re-evaluate the process of the preservation of fossils. After all, everyone knows that a fossil is an impression, cast, outline, or track of any animal or plant that is preserved in rock after the original organic material is transformed or removed.2 So, how can blood vessels and bio-molecules be found in fossils that are rock? Answer: a fossil does not need to be turned to stone to be a fossil.
Figure 2. The right foot of MOR555 on display at the Museum of the Rockies, Montana, USA. In the background is the display of the rest of Wankel T-rex.The definition of fossil by the American Geological Institute begins, ‘The remains or traces of animals or plants which have been preserved by natural causes in the Earth’s crust.’3 There is nothing in this definition that requires transformation into rock. All that is important is that the fossil has been preserved. And preservation is a qualitative term that does not describe how the fossil was preserved. This is illustrated by Schweitzer in describing the fossil specimen MOR 555 [AKA, ‘Wankel T-rex’]:
‘An exceptionally well preserved specimen of the tyrannosaurid dinosaurTyrannosaurus rex shows little evidence of permineralization or other diagenetic effects.’ She further states, ‘Most fossils show signs of sediment infilling or secondary mineral deposition, but certain specimens can show little evidence of diagenetic change.’4In other words, MOR 555 is a well preserved fossil with almost no mineral petrification, i.e. it is nearly pure bone (see figure 1)! This ‘65 million year old’ fossil is almost exactly the same today as it was when it was buried. So, if a fossil like MOR 555 can be a fossil without being turned to rock, then what makes a fossil a fossil?We need to read the rest of the definition of fossil by the American Geological Institute. ‘The remains or traces of animals or plants which have been preserved by natural causes in the Earth’s crust exclusive of organisms which have been buried since the beginning of historic time.’3 It is more clearly stated as, ‘A remnant or trace of an organism of a past geologic age, such as a skeleton or leaf imprint, embedded and preserved in the earth’s crust.’5So, according to this definition, a true fossil is something that has been preserved in some way or other from some ‘past geologic age before the beginning of historic time.’ It doesn’t matter if the material has or has not been turned to stone, i.e. petrified, but just that it was buried before the historic records of man! Has this added caveat of deep time always been a part of the definition of fossil?
Let’s begin with a history of the use of the word fossil as paraphrased from Challinor’s A Dictionary of Geology:
The term ‘fossil’ (L. fossilis, dug up) was, as the word suggests, originally given to anything extracted from the earth or the rocks. It included minerals, all kinds of stony objects, and pieces of the rock itself, as well as the remains of organisms. ‘Fossilia’ in the wide sense and not, in fact, including organic remains, was used by Agricola in 1546. Gesner’s illustrated work on fossils included organic remains (1565). In Britain organic fossils were called ‘petrified shells’ (1665), ‘formed stones’ (1677), ‘fossil-shells’ (1695), ‘figured stones’ (1699), ‘marine fossils’, ‘fossil fish teeth’ (1721), ‘native’ (minerals, &c.) and ‘extraneous’ (fossil shells, &c.) (1728). Owing, no doubt, to these various confusing usages, the term ‘fossil’ dropped out for a time, ‘petrification’ largely taking its place. The always appropriate ‘organic remains’ then became popular (1804/11), and was being used much later (1849 and following years). Meanwhile ‘fossil’ was again coming into use, but now for organic remains only, though usually with, or as, a qualifying adjective (1816, 1822). Already, however, the word by itself was beginning to be used. Parkinson (1804) remarks that ‘in the common language of those most conversant with these substances’ their nature ‘is conveyed by the substantive (“fossil”) alone’. Lamarck in France seems to have been the first definitely to restrict the term (1801, 1802). The substantive ‘fossil’, alone and exclusively for organic remains, became
thoroughly established some twenty years later (1822).6
Figure 3. The femur of MOR1125 (AKA B-rex), the first dinosaur fossil from which soft tissue was extracted. B-rex is also the first fossil dinosaur to be identified as female.
Up through 1948, fossils were defined as the remains of animals and plants or direct evidence of their presence preserved in the rocks of the earth. Yet, even then, the caveat of age is hinted at. While fossils were ‘evidences of animal or plant life in the rocks, such as petrified shells, skeletons, leaf and fern imprints, animals footprints and the like. It is chiefly by the aid of fossils that the age of the rock is determined.’7
Figure 4. Well preserved soft tissue that is still elastic within a recently discovered Tyrannosaurus rexskeleton. For an animal that is claimed to have died at least 65 million years ago, the existence of soft tissue in its remains is astounding.As is typical of much of the debate about evolution and creation, the definition of fossil is not just descriptive but also interpretive since it includes the
evolutionary interpretation of long ages. Therefore, in the evolutionists’ minds, every time creationists use the word fossil, they unwittingly concede the validity of the evolutionary paradigm. Furthermore, since creationists believe that most everything typically called a fossil was actually buried during a Global Flood, which occurred within historic time, then, from the creationists’ viewpoint, there is no such thing as a fossil, by that definition!
So what are creationists to do with the word fossil? It seems there are two choices. Either creationists can redefine fossil to fit the creationary viewpoint every time we use it, or invent a new word. A redefinition of fossil could be as simple as using just the first part of the American Geological Institute’s definition: The remains or traces of animals or plants which have been preserved by natural causes in the earth’s crust. The inconvenient part would be the need to state that redefinition in each creationary paper where fossil is used. The Latin clades fossio, meaning ‘catastrophic buried fossil’, has been suggested8 as a possible replacement. But anything new that is not as simple as the original may not catch on. In any case, the important thing to remember is a fossil may or may not be petrified. But we do not accept the evolutionary definition that a fossil is a biological remnant of a past geologic age before the history of mankind.
Blood and soft tissue in T. rex bone:
01 Dec 1993 Dinosaur bone blood cells found
01 Sep 1997 Sensational dinosaur blood report!
25 Mar 2002 Evolutionist questions CMI report—Have red blood cells really been found in T. rex fossils? 25 Mar 2005 Still soft and stretchy: Dinosaur soft tissue find—a stunning rebuttal of ‘millions of years’
28 Mar 2005 “Ostrich-osaurus” discovery?
16 May 2005 Squirming at the Squishosaur
01 Sep 2005 Dino soft tissue find
01 Dec 2005 Answering objections to creationist ‘dinosaur soft tissue’ age arguments
19 Jul 2006 ‘Schweitzer’s Dangerous Discovery’
16 Dec 2006 Why don’t they carbon-test dino fossils?
20 Apr 2007 Squishosaur scepticism squashed: Tests confirm proteins found in T. rex bones 02 Aug 2008 Doubting doubts about the Squishosaur
06 May 2009 Dinosaur soft tissue and protein—even more confirmation!
09 May 2009 Dino proteins and blood vessels: are they a big deal?
01 Dec 2009 More confirmation for dinosaur soft tissue and protein
11 Dec 2012 DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone
22 Jan 2013 Radiocarbon in dino bones
Other examples of soft tissue preservation in fossils:
01 Jun 1992 Fresh dinosaur bones found
01 Aug 1998 Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a fossilised dinosaur
01 Dec 1998 Dinosaur bones—just how old are they really?
30 May 2000 ‘Sue’ the T. rex: another ‘missionary lizard’
01 Dec 2002 Feathered or furry dinosaurs? Soft tissue preservation
01 Apr 2004 Bone building: perfect protein (See paragraph six re osteocalcin in Iguanodon bones.) 01 Apr 2006 A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. Right?
07 Dec 2007 Hadrosaur hi-jinx: Will this find reveal more unfossilised soft tissues? 01 Jun 2008 The real ‘Jurassic Park’?
11 Nov 2009 Best ever find of soft tissue (muscle and blood) in a fossil
25 June 2013 Created or evolved?
Refuting Evolution—Chapter 3
A handbook for students, parents, and teachers countering the latest arguments for evolution
by Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D., F.M. The links are missing
First published in Refuting Evolution, Chapter 3
Teaching about Evolution and the Nature of Science discusses the fossil record in several places. Creationists and evolutionists, with their different assumptions, predict different things about the fossil record. If living things had really evolved from other kinds of creatures, then there would have been many intermediate or transitional forms, with halfway structures. However, if different kinds had been created separately, the fossil record should show creatures appearing abruptly and fully formed.
The transitional fossils problem
Charles Darwin was worried that the fossil record did not show what his theory predicted:
Why 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 is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory.1Is it any different today? The late Dr Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History, wrote a book, Evolution. In reply to a questioner who asked why he had not included any pictures of transitional forms, he wrote:I fully agree with your comments about 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 … . I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.2The renowned evolutionist (and Marxist — see documentation) Stephen Jay Gould wrote:The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.3And:I regard the failure to find a clear ‘vector of progress’ in life’s history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.4As Sunderland points out:It of course would be no puzzle at all if he [Gould] had not decided before he examined the evidence that common-ancestry evolution was a fact, ‘like apples falling from a tree,’ and that we can only permit ourselves to discuss possible mechanisms to explain that assumed fact.5
The gaps are huge
Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon— one of the ‘oldest’ (by evolutionary reckoning) fossil bats. It was found in the Messel oil shale pit near Darmstadt, Germany, and is ‘dated’ between 48 and 54 million years old. It clearly had fully developed wings, and its inner ear had the same construction as those of modern bats, showing that it had full sonar equipment (see chapter 9 for more
details of this exquisitely designed system).Teaching about Evolution avoids discussing the vast gulf between non-living matter and the first living cell, single-celled and multicelled creatures, and invertebrates and vertebrates. The gaps between these groups should be enough to show that molecules-to-man evolution is without foundation.There are many other examples of different organisms appearing abruptly and fully formed in the fossil record. For example, the first bats, pterosaurs, and birds were fully fledged flyers. The photograph to the right shows that bats have always been bats.6Turtles are a well designed and specialized group of reptiles, with a distinctive shell protecting the body’s vital organs. However, evolutionists admit ‘Intermediates between turtles and cotylosaurs, the primitive reptiles from which [evolutionists believe] turtles probably sprang, are entirely lacking.’ They can’t plead an incomplete fossil record because ‘turtles leave more and better fossil remains than do other vertebrates.’7 The ‘oldest known sea turtle’ was a fully formed turtle, not at all transitional. It had a fully developed system for excreting salt, without which a marine reptile would quickly dehydrate. This is shown by skull cavities which would have held large salt-excreting glands around the eyes.8
All 32 mammal orders appear abruptly and fully formed in the fossil record. The evolutionist paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson wrote in 1944:
The earliest and most primitive members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is an approximately continuous series from one order to another known. In most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so large that the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed.10
There is little to overturn that today.11 Excuses
Like most evolutionary propaganda, Teaching about Evolution makes assertions that there are many transitional forms, and gives a few ‘examples.’ A box on page 15 contains the gleeful article by the evolutionist (and atheist) E.O. Wilson, ‘Discovery of a Missing Link.’ He claimed to have studied ‘nearly exact intermediates between solitary wasps and the highly social modern ants.’ But another atheistic evolutionist, W.B. Provine, says that Wilson’s ‘assertions are explicitly denied by the text … . Wilson’s comments are misleading at best.’12Teaching about Evolution emphasizes Archaeopteryx and an alleged land mammal-to-whale transition series, so they are covered in chapters 4 and 5 of this book. Teaching about Evolution also makes the following excuse on page 57:Some changes in populations might occur too rapidly to leave many transitional fossils. Also, many organisms were very unlikely to leave fossils because of their habitats or because they had no body parts that could easily be fossilized.Darwin also excused the lack of transitional fossils by ‘the extreme imperfection of the fossil record.’ But as we have seen, even organisms that leave excellent fossils, like turtles, are lacking in intermediates. Michael Denton points out that 97.7 percent of living orders of land vertebrates are represented as fossils and 79.1 percent of living families of land vertebrates—87.8 percent if birds are excluded, as they are less likely to become fossilized.13
Artist’s impression of a living horseshoe bat.9
It’s true that fossilization requires specific conditions. Normally, when a fish dies, it floats to the top and rots and is eaten by scavengers. Even if some parts reach the bottom, the scavengers take care of them. Scuba divers don’t find the sea floor covered with dead animals being slowly fossilized. The same applies to land animals. Millions of buffaloes (bison) were killed in North America last century, but there are very few fossils.In nature, a well-preserved fossil generally requires rapid burial (so scavengers don’t obliterate the carcass), and cementing agents to harden the fossil quickly. Teaching about Evolution has some good photos of a fossil fish with well-preserved features (p. 3) and a jellyfish (p. 36). Such fossils certainly could not have formed gradually—how long do dead jellyfish normally retain their features? If you wanted to form such fossils, the best way might be to dump a load of concrete on top of the creature! Only catastrophic conditions can explain most fossils—for example, a global flood and its aftermath of widespread regional catastrophism. Teaching about Evolution goes on to assert after the previous quote:
However, in many cases, such as between primitive fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals, and reptiles and birds, there are excellent transitional fossils.But Teaching about Evolution provides no evidence for this! We can briefly examine some of the usual evolutionary claims below (for reptile-to-bird, see the next chapter on birds):
Fish to amphibian: Some evolutionists believe that amphibians evolved from a Rhipidistian fish, something like the coelacanth. It was believed that they used their fleshy, lobed fins for walking on the sea-floor before emerging on the land. This speculation seemed impossible to disprove, since according to evolutionary/long-age interpretations of the fossil record, the last coelacanth lived about 70 million years ago. But a living coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was discovered in 1938. And it was found that the fins were not used for walking but for deft maneuvering when swimming. Its soft parts were also totally fish-like, not transitional. It also has some unique features—it gives birth to live young after about a year’s gestation, it has a small second tail to help its swimming, and a gland that detects electrical signals.14 The earliest amphibian, Ichthyostega (mentioned on p. 39 of Teaching about Evolution), is hardly transitional, but has fully formed legs and shoulder and pelvic girdles, while there is no trace of these in the Rhipidistians.
Amphibian to reptile: Seymouria is a commonly touted intermediate between amphibians and reptiles. But this creature is dated (by evolutionary dating methods) at 280 million years ago, about 30 million years younger than the ‘earliest’ true reptiles Hylonomus andPaleothyris. That is, reptiles are allegedly millions of years older than their alleged ancestors! Also, there is no good reason for thinking it was not completely amphibian in its reproduction. The jump from amphibian to reptile eggs requires the development of a number of new structures and a change in biochemistry—see the section below on soft part changes.
Reptile to mammal: The ‘mammal-like reptiles’ are commonly asserted to be transitional. But according to a specialist on these creatures:
Each species of mammal-like reptile that has been found appears suddenly in the fossil record and is not preceded by the species that is directly ancestral to it. It disappears some time later, equally abruptly, without leaving a directly descended species.15Evolutionists believe that the earbones of mammals evolved from some jawbones of reptiles. But Patterson recognized that there was no clear-cut connection between the jawbones of ‘mammal-like reptiles’ and the earbones of mammals. In fact, evolutionists have argued about which bones relate to which.16
The function of possible intermediates
The inability to imagine functional intermediates is a real problem. If a bat or bird evolved from a land animal, the transitional forms would have forelimbs that were neither good legs nor good wings. So how would such things be selected? The fragile long limbs of hypothetical halfway stages of bats and pterosaurs would seem more like a hindrance than a help.
Of course, the soft parts of many creatures would also have needed to change drastically, and there is little chance of preserving them in the fossil record. For example, the development of the amniotic egg would have required many different innovations, including:
The shell.
The two new membranes—the amnion and allantois.
Excretion of water-insoluble uric acid rather than urea (urea would poison the embryo). Albumen together with a special acid to yield its water.
Yolk for food.
A change in the genital system allowing the fertilization of the egg before the shell hardens.17 Another example is the mammals—they have many soft-part differences from reptiles, for example:
Mammals have a different circulatory system, including red blood cells without nuclei, a heart with four chambers instead of three and one aorta instead of two, and a fundamentally different system of blood supply to the eye.
Mammals produce milk, to feed their young.
Mammalian skin has two extra layers, hair and sweat glands.
Mammals have a diaphragm, a fibrous, muscular partition between the thorax and abdomen, which is vital for breathing. Reptiles breathe in a different way.Mammals keep their body temperature constant (warm-bloodedness), requiring a complex temperature control mechanism.The mammalian ear has the complex organ of Corti, absent from all reptile ears.18 Mammalian kidneys have a ‘very high ultrafiltration rate of the blood.’ This means the heart must be able to produce the required high blood pressure. Mammalian kidneys excrete urea instead of uric acid, which requires different chemistry. They are also finely regulated to maintain constant levels of substances in the blood, which requires a complex endocrine system.19
The fossil record
Becoming more random all the time by John Woodmorappe Summary
The reality of the geologic column is predicated on the belief that fossils have restricted ranges in rock strata. In actuality, as more and more fossils are found, the ranges of fossils keep increasing. I provide a few recent examples of this, and then show that stratigraphic-range extension is not the exception but the rule. The constant extension of ranges simultaneously reduces the credibility of the geologic column and organic evolution, and makes it easier for a Global Flood to explain an increasingly-random fossil record.
Different kinds of fossils do not occur randomly. Instead, they tend to be found at specific horizons, and these horizons can be located in rocks all over the world. For example, the evolutionist asks us why a layer of rock containing trilobites is never found to contain dinosaurs, and why a layer with dinosaurs is always found above one with trilobites and never the reverse. Fossil succession can be viewed in terms of solitary fossils, commonly called index fossils. Otherwise, groups of fossils can be used. These are often called fossil assemblages or assemblage zones. The essence of fossil succession, however, remains the same whether individual fossils, of groups of them, are used.For approximately the last two hundred years, this succession of fossils in sedimentary rock has been used to argue that the earth has undergone successive events. For instance, trilobite-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when trilobites were the dominant life form on earth, and dinosaur-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when dinosaurs were dominant on the earth. However this view is weakened because the range of fossils from one supposed time period keeps extending and overlapping fossils ostensibly typical of another period of time in the past. In this article, I will examine some examples of increases of overlap of fossils that are assigned to different geologic periods of time.
Implications of fossil succession
At first, creationists tried to cope with this discovery of successively-different types of fossils by retreating from the single Creation and Flood and replacing them with a series of creations and global floods. That was Baron Cuvier’s compromise, and it did superficially seem to account for multiple and differing horizons of fossils. As is the eventual fate of all compromises, it was only a matter of time before any semblance to Scripture (in this case, the multiple creations and the multiple floods) had been dropped altogether. After Darwin, evolution was added to the picture, and thus the notion of transformation of one life-form to another replaced the earlier belief that each horizon of fossils represented a separate creation and world-destroying flood. Both considerations, of course, tacitly suppose that each type of horizon of fossils represents a distinctive period of time over which the particular organism lived.But what are the ramifications of fossils seeming to occur in multiple, different horizons in the earth’s rock strata? Is the succession of life-forms, over long periods of time, the only way to explain the succession of fossils in earth’s sedimentary rocks? Certainly not.Creationists, including myself,1 have provided a variety of alternative explanations for fossil succession. These include such mechanisms as the sorting of organisms during the Flood, differential escape of organisms during the same, ecological zonation of life-forms in the antediluvian world (such that different life-forms in different strata reflect the serial burial of ecological life-zones during the Flood), and TABs (Tectonically-Associated Biological Provinces—wherein different life forms occur in successive horizons of rock as a reflection of successive crustal downwarp of different life-bearing biogeographic communities).All of these mechanisms do away with the notion that horizons of fossils demand successive passages of time during which the organisms lived. In other words, they allow for there to have been only one set of mutually-contemporaneous living things on a young earth, instead of a repetitive replacement of living things over vast periods of time. Most of the earth’s sedimentary record is viewed as being deposited by the Noachian Deluge, and not over successive depositional events in analogues of modern sedimentary environments on an evolving earth.Unfortunately, some modern creationists have also bought into the belief that successive fossils represent horizons of time. These neo-Cuvierists have, as their original namesakes, relegated the Noachian Deluge to only a small fraction of the earth’s fossiliferous sedimentary rocks. This contradicts common sense . After all, if all kinds of life had been created by intelligent designer several thousand years ago, then all fossil and contemporary life-forms must have been contemporaneous, and it makes absolutely no sense to use succession of fossils to delineate time-stratigraphic horizons in sedimentary rock.For example, although trilobites and dinosaurs were contemporaries of each other, there is no basis for believing that trilobite-bearing and dinosaur-bearing rocks were necessarily deposited at the same time all over the world. During the Flood, trilobite-bearing beds at one point on earth were probably being deposited at the same time as dinosaur-bearing beds at another place on earth.Nor can it be said that, when dinosaur-bearing beds locally overlie trilobite-bearing beds, the former are significantly younger than the latter. This, of course, excepts the small amount of difference in time, within the Flood, that elapsed between the burial of the trilobites and the burial of the overlying dinosaurs.
The irony of the position taken by Cuvierists, neo-Cuvierists, and standard evolutionary-uniformitarians is the fact that fossil succession is a reality only to a limited extent. As we shall see, the Flood-related mechanisms discussed above need not have been overly efficient to account for only the limited degree of fossil succession that does exist. Successive episodes of time, however conceived, also are completely unnecessary to explain the limited degree of fossil succession.
When we consider the fact that fossil succession is limited in overall extent, it is another way of stating that there are many fossils which are found at many stratigraphic intervals. In fact, only a minority are confined to rocks attributed to only one geologic period.2Since the early days of the acceptance of the standard geologic column, fossils have been turning up in ‘wrong’ places as more and more fossils have been collected, and this process continues to this very day.3,4,5 And even this does not include the numerous instances where fossils are supposed to be reworked from older strata, often with no independent supporting evidence.6Furthermore, extension of stratigraphic ranges occurs not only for individual fossils, but also for presumed grade of biologic complexity (that is, so-called stratomorphic intermediates). A stratomorphic intermediate is supposed to reflect a certain grade of complexity attained by all living things up to a certain point in the geologic time scale. An example would be the first appearance of vertebrate legs in the stratigraphic record. I will discuss stratomorphic intermediates shortly. Let us now consider some recent examples of stratigraphic range extension.
Dasycladalean algae
As a result of a recent find, a dramatic increase in the stratigraphic range of Dasycladalean algae has occurred. Dasycladales are members of the algal family Dasycladaceae. It consists of 175 live and extinct genera. The extension of this plant has been into presumably-older strata:
‘Uncatoella possesses a suite of features usually associated with late Mesozoic and Cenozoic Dasycladales, and our proposed relationships imply very large range extensions (200-350 Myr) to some groups.’ 7
This stratigraphic-range extension is dramatic, and equivalent to more than half of the entire Phanerozoic geologic column. Moreover, this discovery upends earlier notions of stratomorphic intermediates that were believed to be true of the evolutionary history of plant-reproductive traits:
‘Choristospore gametangiophores are usually associated with Mesozoic and Cenozoic Dasycladales, but the new data on Uncatoella show that this form of reproduction had already developed by the Early Devonian.’ 8Many evolutionists, and also unfortunately some professing creationists, have made much of the presumed significance of stratomorphic intermediates. But, as the above example proves vividly, it takes only one well-placed life-form to completely demolish existing notions of stratomorphic intermediates. A certain grade of complexity can be moved back considerably earlier in time with just one discovery of fossils! In the above example, a grade of morphological complexity, formerly believed to be of relatively recent origins (Mesozoic and Cenozoic) suddenly has become much more ancient (Devonian).
Pipiscids
The pipiscid group of metazoan animals represents another example of an extension of fossils into much older strata. Formerly thought to be restricted to the Upper Carboniferous, remains of possible pipiscids have now been discovered in Cambrian strata.9 If the identification is correct, this find suddenly ages the pipiscids by nearly five geologic periods.
The foregoing instances may perhaps be belittled by the fact that both marine plants and soft-bodied fossils are said to have a poor fossil record, and hence stratigraphic-range extensions are perhaps not so surprising for that reason. But this consideration cannot possibly be applicable to the remaining examples in this report because their respective fossil records are good to excellent.
Agnathan (jawless) fishes
Many groups of fossils appear suddenly in the Early Cambrian. This is so much so that it is often called the ‘Cambrian explosion’. As more and more fossils experience a stratigraphic-range increase down to the Early Cambrian, the ‘Cambrian explosion’ becomes more and more pronounced. Apropos to this, vertebrates have just recently been found in the Early Cambrian of south China.10 These are agnathan fish, whose previous undisputed earliest appearance had been in the Lower Ordovician.
The therapsid reptile Lystrosaurus
Fossils of the mammal-like reptile, Lystrosaurus, are so common, notably in South Africa, that it is said that paleontologists don’t even bother to pick up specimens when they see them at their feet. Lystrosaurus is an important index fossil. Directly or indirectly, it is used to correlate Early Triassic continental beds throughout much of the southern hemisphere. Let us therefore consider the implications of the recent discovery of Lystrosaurus in the Permian of Zambia.11 Without question, it can no longer be straightforwardly believed, on uniformitarians’ own terms, to represent a horizon of time and to correlate strata accordingly:
‘… the widespread Lystrosaurus, hitherto regarded as characteristic of the Lower Triassic, cannot be used in isolation as a biostratigraphical zone fossil … The occurrence of Lystrosaurus in Late Permian rocks indicates that isolated specimens of the genus should no longer be used for biostratigraphical purposes … use of Lystrosaurus alone could be misleading. This is obviously unfortunate, since Lystrosaurus is the most common genus in many assemblages and so most likely to be encountered in the course of stratigraphical work.’11There are other implications of the fact that Lystrosaurus-bearing rocks can no longer automatically be assumed to be Early Triassic. The supposed chain of evolving mammal-like reptiles is placed in chronological sequence largely through the use of Lystrosaurus, or on spore-bearing beds which are correlated with beds containing Lystrosaurus. In fact, for decades at least, beds all over the southern hemisphere have been assigned to the lowermost Triassic solely because they contain Lystrosaurus.12 In view of the extension of this genus downward into the Permian, the chronological sequence of mammal-like reptiles needs to be re-examined. It is more than possible that some ‘more mammal-like’ therapsids will now be found to be contemporaneous with ‘less mammal-like’ therapsids. At worst, the entire chain of mammal-like reptiles and their presumed progression to mammals will come crashing down. A detailed analysis of the intercontinental correlation of the relevant strata should be undertaken to evaluate this possibility.
The Permo-Triassic boundary is conventionally believed to have been one at which there had been a greater turnover of living things than at any other comparable interval throughout the Phanerozoic fossil record. It is therefore interesting to note that this discovery admittedly blurs the distinctiveness of the Permo-Triassic boundary,13 as do a variety of other, transitional Permo-Triassic faunas and floras.14
The sponge Neoguadalupia — another Permo-Triassic boundary ‘violator’
Up to now, all of the examples discussed have been ones where specific fossils have unexpectedly been found in strata older than where they were ‘supposed’ to be found. The remaining examples in this work are fossils whose stratigraphic ranges have been extended into presumed younger rocks. To show that Lystrosaurus was no fluke in terms of the crossing
of the Permo-Triassic boundary, consider the sponge genusNeoguadalupia oregonensis. Formerly assumed to be found in strata no younger than Permian, it has been discovered in the Triassic (and Upper Triassic at that) in Oregon.15
The bivalve Camptochlamys
Let us now turn our attention to the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary. Consider the implications of Camptochlamys found occurring in the K-T beds of the North Slope, Alaska:
‘The occurrence of Camptochlamys extends the chronostratigraphic and geographic range of this genus, previously unknown from any strata above the uppermost Jurassic (Tithonian) of Europe and unknown from any strata in North America.’16In this particular instance, we have more than a stratigraphic-range extension. We also have a contradiction between this particular fossil’s stratigraphic occurrence in European strata, and that of North America. So much for the myth that there is a consistent succession of fossils from one continent to another! Of course, this is not the only such instance. Whenever a fossil is listed as having a long stratigraphic range (say, Cambrian to Devonian), this range may conceal a contradictory stratigraphic occurrence of the fossil from one part of the world to another. Thus, the fossil in question may occur in only Cambrian rock on one continent, only in Ordovician rock on another continent, only in Silurian on another, and only in Devonian on still another continent.Let us now take a closer look at the K-T boundary. Second to the Permo-Triassic boundary, in terms of faunal turnover, is the K-T boundary. It is at this boundary that dinosaurs, ammonites, and other Mesozoic animals became extinct, according to standard evolutionary-uniformitarian interpretations. Yet more and more hitherto-believed Cretaceous life-forms are turning up in Tertiary rock. These include marine fossils, for which a poor fossil record cannot be used as an excuse for their appearance beyond the ‘proper’ stratigraphic intervals. And these do not include the many instances of late Cretaceous life forms found in earliest Tertiary rock, for which a reworking rationalisation is frequently invoked.
The gastropod Parafusus
The remaining example in this report is an erstwhile Cretaceous fossil that has turned up in Tertiary strata. Formerly restricted to Upper Cretaceous rocks, members of the gastropod Parafusus have been found in large numbers in the Palaeocene rocks of northeastern Mexico.17
The norm or the exception?
Are the foregoing examples of stratigraphic-range extensions, and thus the corresponding randomisation of global fossil succession, the exception or the rule? To begin with, it must be stressed that the instances discussed in this brief report are hardly comprehensive. To the contrary, they are in fact only those instances which have inadvertently come to my attention while I was in the process of researching other topics.So how common are stratigraphic-range extensions? Two recent comprehensive databases of the stratigraphic occurrence of fossils give a clear answer to this question. Maxwell and Benton18 have compared the stratigraphic ranges of all of the fossil vertebrate families (excluding Aves, which have a spotty fossil record) as perceived in 1966–1967, and again in 1987. For 96 families, there was no change in stratigraphic range. Another 87 fossil families went through a decrease in their accepted stratigraphic range. Yet considerably more families (150) underwent an increase in the amount of strata which they overlap. This trend is even more evident in fossil marine families. In just ten years (1982–1992), Sepkoski19 reports that 513 fossil families underwent a decline in their stratigraphic range. A decline in range may mean that the first and/or last occurrence had been misidentified. But whatever the cause, the number of fossil-range declines is dwarfed by the 1026 families that enjoyed an increase in either their first occurrence, or their last occurrence, or both.Clearly, then, extension of stratigraphic ranges is the rule and not the exception. This is even more remarkable when we remember that there is the ever-present evolutionary bias which tends to cause overemphasis of minute differences in fossils located in different horizons of strata, and hence the proliferation of questionable taxonomic names for essentially the same organism found at different stratigraphic horizons.
The disappearing geological column
Let us now examine the progressive randomisation of the fossil record in the light of the history of the geologic column. Modern researchers are not the first to notice the progressive extension of fossil stratigraphic ranges with increasing collection of fossil specimens from the world’s sedimentary strata. During the time that parts of the geologic column were still being worked out in the mid 19th century, the Victorian philosopher Herbert Spencer commented on the illogicity of the geologic column in his appropriately-named essay, Illogical Geology.20 In doing this, Spencer could hardly be accused of creationist bias. After all, he was a hardened atheist who had been an enthusiastic supporter of both social Darwinism and ‘scientific’ Darwinism.One of the things Spencer challenged was the use of fossils for the correlation and dating of strata. Specifically, he took issue with the practice of using particular fossils as supposed time-markers for the global correlation of strata, and then not questioning the whole procedure when frequently finding such fossils in the ‘wrong’ strata with further collecting of fossil specimens.21 As we have seen, the finding of fossils in previously-unrecognised stratigraphic horizons has continued unabated to this very day, and dwarfs anything that Spencer could have been familiar with. What would Spencer think were he alive today?Let us take the aforementioned occurrence of Lystrosaurus to its logical conclusion. Since Lystrosaurus has always been used to correlate rocks into time-equivalent horizons, and to place them all into the Early Triassic, the Permian find of Lystrosaurus should now mean that Permian and Triassic are contemporaneous! An analogous line of reasoning should lead to the position that Cretaceous and Tertiary are now contemporaneous because the Upper Cretaceous genus Parafusus is now known from Early Tertiary rocks.Of course, the uniformitarians would never follow their own reasoning to its logical conclusion because it would lead to the very reductio ad absurdum discussed in the previous paragraph. At minimum, it would require the uniformitarians to acknowledge the fact that the Permian-Triassic and Cretaceous-Tertiary are now respectively contemporaneous. Such a conclusion, of course, destroys the very foundations of the geologic column, and is unthinkable to standard uniformitarian dogma. In order to paper over this fatal flaw in the geologic column, uniformitarians simply back-pedal, discard Lystrosaurus as well as other once-esteemed index fossils as time-stratigraphic indicators, choose other index fossils as presumed time-indicators, and otherwise act as if nothing has happened in terms of empirical evidence. This enables them to go right on believing in such things as the Permian, Triassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary periods. Heads I win, tails you lose. Clearly, the evolutionary-uniformitarian geologic column has become protected from falsification. To the uniformitarian, no possible fossil discovery would ever count as evidence that would invalidate the sacrosanct geologic column. It is thus clear that use of index fossils and assemblages of such fossils for correlation of strata is an exercise in special pleading.
Some scientific creationist implications
Clearly, now more then ever, creationist scientists should resist the temptation of buying into any sort of scheme which presumes that fossils can be used to delineate time-horizons in the earth’s sedimentary rocks. Even at the local level, fossil
succession is related to Flood-related processes instead of changes in fauna over time. This fact discounts neo-Cuvierism. And, for the mainstream diluvialist, the extension of stratigraphic ranges has implications in terms of Flood-related depositional processes. As the fossil record comes closer to randomness, proposed Flood-originated non-temporal mechanisms22 for fossil succession need to be less and less efficient in order to account for a fossil succession that is becoming more and more crude as more and more fossils are gathered23.
Living fossils: a powerful argument for creation
Don Batten interviews Dr Carl Werner, author of Living Fossils (Evolution: the Grand Experiment vol. 2) Dr Werner
Dr Werner graduated from the University of Missouri with distinction in biology (summa cum laude). He received his doctoral degree in medicine at the age of 23 and practices emergency medicine in St Louis.Dr Werner explained what living fossils are and why he became so interested in them, collecting photographs of these fossils over the last 14 years: “Living fossils are fossilized animals and plants that look similar to modern organisms. I became interested in living fossils as a tool to test evolution.”
“There are basically two models of how life came about: The evolution model suggests that chemicals coalesced and formed a living single-cell almost four billion years ago and then this changed over long periods of time into all other living things. Examples of evolutionary changes include a dinosaur into a bird, or a four-legged land mammal into a whale. The other model, creation, suggests that an external supernatural being created all of the various types of animals and plants at once, and these organisms have changed little over time, other than variations within a basic type.” For example, an animal can change, but only within its kind, such as a wolf into a dog—not radical change such as a four-legged mammal into a whale.1Dr Werner continued, “Living fossils provided me a simple way to test evolution. If evolution did not occur (animals did not change significantly over time) and if all of the animals and plants were created at one time and lived together (humans, dinosaurs, oak trees, roses, cats, wolves, etc), then one should be able to find fossils of at leastsome modern animals and modern plants alongside dinosaurs in the rock layers. I set out to test this idea without any foreknowledge of any modern organisms in the rock layers. My results (as laid out in the book & video Living Fossils) showed that many modern animals and plants are found with dinosaurs—far more than I ever expected to find.”Dr Werner and his wife Debbie travelled over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) and took 60,000 photographs as they filmed the television series Evolution: The Grand Experiment. (Episode 2 of this series, Living Fossils, reveals exactly what they found.) They focused on fossils found in dinosaur rock layers, and compared these fossils to modern animals and plants.“We looked only at fossils found in the dinosaur dig sites so that scientists who support evolution could not suggest that the fossils we looked at were not ‘old’. All of the fossils we used for comparisons were found in dinosaur rock layers (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous).”
Many modern animals in dinosaur rock!
I asked Carl just how many modern types of animals he had found in the dinosaur rock layers.
“We found fossilized examples from every major invertebrate animal phylum living today including: arthropods (insects, crustaceans etc.), shellfish, echinoderms (starfish, crinoids, brittle stars, etc.), corals, sponges, and segmented worms (earthworms, marine worms).
“The vertebrates—animals with backbones such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals—show this same pattern.”
Modern fish, amphibians and reptiles
“Cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays), boney fish (such as sturgeon, paddlefish, salmon, herring, flounder and bowfin) and jawless fish (hagfish and lamprey) have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same as modern forms. “Modern-looking frogs and salamanders have been found in dinosaur dig sites.
“All of today’s reptile groups have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same or similar to modern forms: Snakes (boa constrictor), lizards (ground lizards and gliding lizards), turtles (box turtles, soft-shelled turtles), and crocodilians (alligators, crocodiles and gavials).”
Modern birds
“Contrary to popular belief, modern types of birds have been found, including: parrots, owls, penguins, ducks, loons, albatross, cormorants, sandpipers, avocets, etc. When scientists who support evolution disclosed this information during our TV interviews it appears that they could hardly believe what they were saying on camera.”
Dr William Clemens, UC Berkeley, on modern birds being found in Cretaceous rock. (Clip from Living Fossils DVD)
Mammals
Paleontologists have found 432 mammal species in the dinosaur layers; almost as many as the number of dinosaur species. … But where are these fossils? We visited 60 museums but did not see a single complete mammal skeleton from the dinosaur layers displayed at any of these museums. This is amazing.
“At the dinosaur dig sites, scientists have found many unusual extinct mammal forms such as the multituberculates2 but they have also found fossilized mammals that look like squirrels, possums, Tasmanian devils, hedgehogs, shrews, beavers, primates, and duck-billed platypus. I don’t know how close these mammals are to the modern forms because I was not able to see most of these, even after going to so many museums.”
“ Few are aware of the great number of mammal species found with dinosaurs. Paleontologists have found 432 mammal species in the dinosaur layers;3 almost as many as the number of dinosaur species. These include nearly
100
complete mammal skeletons. But where are these fossils? We visited 60 museums but did not see a
single complete mammal skeleton from the dinosaur layers displayed at any of these museums. This is amazing. Also, we saw only a few dozen incomplete skeletons/single bones of the 432 mammal species found so far. Why don’t the museums display these mammal fossils and also the bird fossils?”
Many modern plants in dinosaur rock!
“In the dinosaur rock layers, we found fossils from every major plant division living today including: flowering plants, ginkgos, cone trees, moss, vascular mosses, cycads, and ferns. Again, if you look at these fossils and compare them to modern forms, you will quickly conclude that the plants have not changed. Fossil sequoias, magnolias, dogwoods, poplars and
redwoods, lily pads, cycads, ferns, horsetails etc. have been found at the dinosaur digs.”
Were any modern organisms not found?
“I did not find fossils of every organism living today in the dinosaur layers, rather I found representative examples from all of the major animal phyla living today and all of the major plant divisions living today. Taking it one step further, within these bigger groups, I frequently found representatives of all of the major groups or classes within a phylum. For example, for echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc.) I found fossils of all of the major types living today. Same with the insects and the crocodilians, etc. I did not find any large mammals. The largest mammal discovered in a dinosaur layer so far (live size) is 30 pounds (13 kg). Nevertheless, with so many living fossils, both plants and animals, from all of the major phyla and all of the major plant divisions, it points to stasis (lack of change), not evolution. I should also note that if you look at the serious problems with the fossil layer system (the geological column as presented by geologists today), the absence of the bigger mammals can easily be accounted for, but I will save this for a later day.”
Evolutionary story telling ‘unsinkable’?
I asked Dr Werner how evolutionary scientists deal with this evidence, given these remarkable findings. Dr Werner remarked, “If you whole-heartedly believe in a theory, you will always be able to sustain that belief—even in the face of contradictory evidence—by adding a rescue hypothesis to that theory. For example, if a scientist believes in evolution and sees fossils that look like modern organisms at the dinosaur digs, he/she might invent an hypothesis to ‘explain’ living fossils this way: ‘Yes I believe that animals have changed greatly over time (evolution), but some animals and plants were so well adapted to the environment that they did not need to change. So I am not bothered at all by living fossils.’ This added hypothesis says that some animals did not evolve. But if a theory can be so flexible, adding hypotheses that predict the opposite of your main theory, one could never disprove the theory. The theory then becomes unsinkable, and an unsinkable theory is not science.”
Different names for the same animal?
Carl related how evolutionary scientists give fossils different genus and species names from the living forms, creating the illusion of evolution: “Let me give you an example. A scientist found a fossil sea urchin in Cretaceous rock that looks nearly identical to a modern Purple Heart sea urchin, but assigned it to a completely new genus (Holaster). If you saw that creature alive in the ocean you would recognize it as a Purple Heart sea urchin (genus Spatangus). The different name suggests that sea urchins have changed over time, but this is contrived ‘evidence’ for evolution. The fossil looks the same as the living one.” (See photos right).
Evolution disproved?
I asked Dr Werner if his study disproved evolution.
“It is becoming more and more difficult for the evolutionary model to stand in the face of this great number of living fossils. Adding the many other problems with evolution (fossil record, origin of first life, geological layering problems, similarities of non-related animals, etc.), you can declare with confidence that yes, the theory is finished. If a few larger mammals were found in the dinosaur layers, it should be over even for the die-hard believers of evolution, but people tend to go to their grave with the theories they learned in college. A new generation might well look at all of this and ask, ‘What were they thinking?’ ”
IS THERE ANY TYPE OF ORDER IN THE FOSSIL RECORD Are there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?
by Gary Bates and Lita Cosner Published: 17 April 2014 (GMT+10)
This jellyfish fossil, which ‘dates’ to over 500 million years, provides two counts against evolutionary predictions regarding the fossil record: that soft organisms would not be preserved and that such a huge period of evolution sees no change in this creature, which has the same features as ones swimming in the oceans today. Image from PLOS, ref. 1.
In his debate with Ken Ham, Bill Nye (the ‘science guy’) dogmatically claimed, and asked Ham, to cite any out-of-order fossils in the geologic record, because if there were any, it would be problematic for the evolutionary model. Due to the seeming confidence of Nye’s assertion (and that it was not answered during the debate), many have contacted us for an answer on this single question. In addition, while out on ministry our speakers have mentioned how this question has often come up. At a recent event, Gary Bates encountered a Christian university student who said this question was being used as a club by lecturers and professors to ‘beat him with’. It appears that this seeming ‘knockout punch’ argument by Nye is being used as a ‘great’ falsification of the creation model.
Fossil sea urchin
A constantly changing story
If the fossils themselves provide evidence that suggests rapid burial then it only makes sense to presume that the sediments that buried them had to also be deposited quickly. So how can we answer this challenge? Is this a problem for creationists? First, by definition evolutionists would say there are no out-of-sequence fossils. They would claim that the fragmentary nature of the fossil record means that we don’t have a good idea of the entire period a fossil belongs in. So if we find a fossil in a stratum that is supposed to be 100 million years older than the species (using evolutionary dating for the sake of the argument), it simply means that it evolved 100 million years earlier than we thought. The evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record is so flexible that it can incorporate virtually any new change, no matter how unexpected. In other words, if an out-of-order fossil is found (according to their standard view), then it is just incorporated as new evidence to provide a better understanding of evolution! In short, evolution is assumed and then used to explain the fossils. So, no matter what we find, by the very nature of the way they interpret the facts, nothing would falsify evolution anyway! Fossil octopus remarkably preserved in Lebanon reveals details of the eight arms, suckers, ink, gills, mouth, eye capsule and more.
So a better way to counter this would be to ask whether evolution has made predictions about the fossil record that have been confirmed or otherwise by subsequent discoveries. And by this measure evolution falls dramatically short. For instance, Charles Darwin said that “no organism wholly soft can be preserved.” He was simply wrong, because we have many examples of this. For instance, hundreds of fossilized jellyfish and a fossilized squid, that look remarkably similar to the same creatures living today. Yet they were claimed to be 505 million years old (myo) and 150 myo respectively. The squid even contained an ink sac so fresh that the ink could be used to paint a picture. The ages assigned to these fossils comes from their position in the alleged geologic column
and the dates assigned to the rock layers in which they were found. Remember that it is believed that the rock layers were supposed to have been slowly deposited over millions of years, and similarly, the process of burial and permineralization is supposed to have taken a very long time. But besides soft-bodied creatures, we have fossils like an ichthyosaur giving birth, and fish in the process of eating other fish, that capture moments in time. They must have been preserved quickly. Logically, if the fossils themselves provide evidence that suggests rapid burial then it only makes sense to presume that the sediments that buried them had to also be deposited quickly.
Lots of inconvenient fossils
In reality, there are a lot of fossils that don’t fit within the neatly-defined evolutionary order of things paraded in our geology and biology textbooks:
Trilobites, which are allegedly 500 myo in the Cambrian strata, have eyes that are far too complex for their place in the fossil record. That is, they have no precursors to their appearance.Perhaps most astonishingly, pollen fossils— evidence of flowering plants—were found in the Precambrian strata. According to evolutionists, flowering plants first evolved 160 mya, but the Precambrian strata is older than 550 mya.Dinosaurs are supposed to have evolved into birds. But Confuciusornis was a true beaked bird that pre-dates the ‘feathered’ dinosaurs that it allegedly came from. It also has been found in the stomach of a dinosaur.Grass which has been found in fossilized dinosaur coprolites (fossilized dung). But grass is not supposed to have evolved until at least 10 million years after the dinosaurs went extinct.A dog-like mammal fossil was found with remains of dinosaurs in its stomach—but no mammals large enough to prey on dinosaurs were supposed to exist alongside them.A mammal hair was found in amber supposed 100 million years old. Once again, this is smack in the middle of the alleged ‘age of dinosaurs’ when no such mammals existed.
CMI’s Calvin Smith wrote:
“To the surprise of many, ducks,3 squirrels,4 platypus,5 beaver-like6 and badger-like7 creatures have all been found in ‘dinosaur-era’ rock layers along with bees, cockroaches, frogs and pine trees. Most people don’t picture a T. rex walking along with a duck flying overhead, but that’s what the so-called ‘dino-era’ fossils would prove!”
Tiktaalik! ‘You gotta be kidding’ © Ted Daeschler Tiktaalik fossil.
Being the media entertainer he is, Nye waxed eloquently about the discovery of an alleged sea-to-land (fish to tetrapod) intermediate called Tiktaalik roseae . That he spent so long detailing the find of this ‘perfect missing link’, he obviously thought it was a ‘slam dunk’ for evolution. Indeed, Tiktaalik has appeared on the cover of numerous magazines, textbooks, and it even has its own theme song and website to promote evolution. Now, either Nye was ignorant of, or deliberately dishonest, when he conveniently failed to mention that fossil footprints that predated Tiktaalik have been in Poland predating Tiktaalik by some 18 million years. It can’t be the transition it is claimed to be if creatures that evolved ‘from it’ actually lived ‘before it’. That looks like a slam dunk for falsifying that evolutionary story, ‘wethinks’.
‘
Living fossils’ are out-of-place for evolutionists Piotr Szrek, Uppsala University
Limestone slab from Poland with fossil footprints.
Another indication that the evolutionary story is flawed is the huge number of living fossils. That is, creatures that have been found in the fossil record have been assigned ages of hundreds of millions of years, yet are identical to creatures alive today. Dr Carl Werner has documented museum displays showing how many modern animals are found in dinosaur-era layers. Dr Werner said:
“I found representative examples from all of the major animal phyla living today and all of the major plant divisions living today. Taking it one step further, within these bigger groups, I frequently found representatives of all the major groups or classes within a phylum.”
But if all these animals are found in dinosaur-era layers, what has evolution been doing for the last hundred million years? For example, if apes eventually became humans in just 6 million years, how, with ever-changing ecological pressures, can there be so many plants and animals that are basically unchanged from their forms supposedly millions of years ago? For instance, the Wollemi pine was supposed to have thrived around 150 million years ago and to have been long extinct, but in 1994, they were found growing in a forest in New South Wales, Australia. Even evolutionists claimed it was “like finding a live dinosaur”. And the coelacanth was supposed to have gone extinct around the same time as the dinosaurs, but we know that this deep-sea fish is still living because fishermen have caught them and National Geographic has filmed them swimming around!
Fossil photo by Joachim Scheven, LEBENDIGE VORWELT Museum, Living coelacanth photo from Wikipedia.org
The ‘Cambrian explosion’ is an out-of-order problem for evolutionists?
Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointing out a major weak spot for evolution.
In the Cambrian rocks (some of the alleged oldest complex-fossil-bearing rocks on earth—c. 500 plus myo), ‘index’ fossils of just about every major phylum can be found. Because next to no ancestors of these organisms appears below them, that is, they appear suddenly and simultaneously in the fossil record; it has long been a massive problem for evolutionists. As there is no smooth and gradual sequence to the appearance of these fossils, one could argue that the millions of creatures that represent the Cambrian explosion are out-of-sequence fossils by the evolutionists ‘own measure’.
There are many exceptions to the neatly portrayed order of the fossil record
In fact, the more fossils we find, the more random the picture becomes. This does not fit the orderly progression of ever-evolving specimens that evolutionists would predict. But it does fit very well with the creationist narrative of plants and animals created “according to their kinds”, and buried in a worldwide catastrophe.
Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointing out a major weak spot for evolution. In fact, the fossil record is evidence against Bill Nye’s position, and certainly evolutionists might want to think twice before drawing attention to such a vulnerable chink in their armor!
