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VI. Paleontology Charles Darwin fully realized that his biological “grand transformation” story required that massive numbers of intermediate creatures must have existed. If so, then they should have left some kind of generally discernable evidence in the earth’s strata - intermediate or transitional fossils between the major “types” of kinds of lifeforms. However, even in his day (ca. 1859) there did not appear to be any evidence for this gradual transformation of one form into another. The main cause, however, of innumerable intermediate links not now occurring everywhere throughout nature depends on the very process of natural selection, through which new varieties continually take the places of and exterminate their parent-forms. But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous. 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. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geological record.[1] What is Paleontology? Paleontology combines geology and biology - looking at evidences of past lifeforms buried and preserved in sedimentary rocks. Evolutionary paleontology is a marriage of uniformitarian geology and Darwinian biology – assuming that geologic time passed very slowly, with living forms somehow trapped, buried, and preserved in various gradually accumulating strata. Thus, evolutionists have claimed that fossils document the gradual emergence of new forms of life from previous, less advanced forms. However, when you move beyond the evolutionary propaganda, you find that there is a good bit of confusion and disagreement over what the fossil record contains and what it means. This becomes obvious when you consider the collection of comments that scientists have made about the fossil record since the 1920’s. Double-talk on Fossils & Evolution It is hard to question experts who all agree on something and have lots of complimentary hard evidence to back it up. On the other hand, when you see them contradicting one another and making clearly incompatible claims on major issues, then you know somebody (maybe everybody) is really confused. One of the things you have to watch out for here is the “double-talk” that goes on amongst the experts, especially the "evangelistic" evolutionists. To grasp how serious the “double-talk” issue is, let’s survey some comments. For our purposes here, I am concerned with “macro-evolution” – the belief that life began with single-celled creatures from which all of the larger groups of “higher” lifeforms gradually emerged and developed. #1 - "Fossils Prove that evolution occurred" 1953 – “Fortunately there is a science which is able to observe the progress of evolution through the history of our earth. Geology traces the rocky strata of our earth, deposited one upon another in the past geological epochs through hundreds of millions of years, and finds out their order and timing and reveals organisms which lived in all these periods. Paleontology, which studies the fossil remains, is thus enabled to present organic evolution as a visible fact . . .”[2] 1956 – “The most direct evidence for evolution comes from the actual remains of past organisms buried in the sentiments.”[3] 1960 – “Although the comparative study of living plants and animals may give very convincing circumstantial evidence, fossils provide the only historical, documentary evidence that life has evolved from simpler to more complex forms.”[4] 1974 – “In dealing with fossil material, the functional aspect of form can be known only indirectly through inference. For this reason, paleontologists commonly base their interpretations on the one thing they can readily measure and observe – the structure of fossils. This approach is, of course, necessary, and indeed has yielded virtually everything known about the evolutionary histories of modern plants and animals, but it has its dangers, particularly when conclusions are reached on very little evidence.”[5] 1977 – “Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. A knowledge of paleontology is, therefore, a pre-requisite; only paleontology can provide them with the evidence and reveal its course or mechanisms.”[6] 1990 – “Fossils provide hard evidence that evolution has occurred.”[7] #2 - "Fossils do NOT Prove that evolution occurred" Now, let’s see the other side – those who from as early as 1925 have asserted that the fossil record does not really offer any proof for the macro-evolutionary story at all – no evidence of any major groups gradually emerging from some earlier major group of lifeforms. When Henry Morris and the Institute of Creation Research started blowing the whistle on this issue in the early 1960’s, a growing number of evolutionists began to admit that this was the case and were probably, as much as anything, trying to warn their evolutionary associates that the “fossil situation” was going to become a major embarrassment if they didn’t clean up their act and stop making erroneous claims. 1925 – “The more one studies paleontology, the more certain on becomes that evolution is based on faith alone...The evidence from paleontology is for discontinuity; only by faith and imagination is there continuity of variation.”[8] 1953 – “. . . it remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.”[9] 1960 – “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 out-pacing integration. . . The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps.”[10] 1971 – “Though the fossil record makes an enormously important contribution to evolutionary theory, this source of data poses some questions that have proved to be a source of embarrassment to evolutionary theorists. . . It is as though life forms, incubating in single-celled form for a billion years or more, suddenly evolved almost overnight into the great variety of complex multicellular animals.”[11] 1976 – “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.”[12] 1977 – “The fossil record offered no support for gradual change: . . . New species almost always appeared suddenly in the fossil record with no intermediate links to ancestors in older rocks of the same region. . . . The extreme rarity of transitional forms persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. . . Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. . . I wish only to point out that it was never "seen" in the rocks. . . yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.”[13] 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] #3 - “There’s lots of transitional fossil forms” Perhaps there is nothing that is more fun to watch than some very intelligent person trying to defend some really bad idea. One approach is to use “bluster” - continue to boldly assert that there really are “lots” of transitional or intermediate fossils linking the major groups, just like some evolutionists used to claim back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. In 1990, Tim Berra claimed that there were lots (“countless”) of transitional fossils, These examples (and there are many others) demonstrate that fossils intermediate between major groups do exist, as predicted by evolution. Creationists deny that such things can exist, but the evidence is in the rocks, in countless numbers of fossils.[15] A decade later, Eugenie Scott made the same claim, There are transitional fossils out the ying-yang. The problem is [anti-evolutionists] will never tell you what they would accept as a transitional fossil.”[16] Maybe Eugenie should chat with some of her evolutionary colleagues who deny that much in the way of “transitional forms” exists, especially between the major groups of biological categories - what would they accept as a transitional fossil? #3 – "We never claimed that fossil prove Evolution" Another ploy (and this is a real knee-slapper) is to try and keep a straight face while denying that evolutionists ever claimed the fossil record was a major proof of evolution. This ploy was used in 1987 by two different writers in the same article written against, incredibly, the alleged “slick new packaging” of creationism. First, Michael T. Ghiselen claimed that, Their [creationists] strategy depends on misleading discussions of the fossil record, though that record is not, and never has been, the most compelling evidence for evolution.[17] In his portion of the same discussion, Vincent Sarich claimed the same thing, No matter what the creationists may pretend, the fossil record is not, and never has been, our major source of information about evolutionary relationships.[18] Transitional Fossils - Where?
There is in this respect a tendency toward systematic deficiency in the record of the history of life. It is thus possible to claim that such transitions are not recorded because they did not exist. . . Transitional types are not invariably lacking in the record. A multitude of them are known between species, many between genera, a few between classes, but none, it is true, between phyla.[19] Or, are they rare at the species end of things and become increasingly common as you move towards the other end of classification spectrum, the phyla, as Tim Berra claimed, Transitional forms are scarce at the species level because species are so much alike that it is difficult to tell, from a few bones, one species from another. Transitional forms become progressively more common as one moves up the taxonomic hierarchy, from genera to families, orders, classes, and phyla.[20] This is about as clear a case of contradiction as one could find – are the “transition fossil forms” common at the species (minor variations) level or the phyla (major kinds) level? Between the two of them, you better go with Simpson’s view of the situation - Berra was so worked up against creationism that he wasn’t thinking straight. Another heavyweight, Stephen Jay Gould, has chimed in on this issue and explained why such confusion exists – evolutionists have done a lot of imagining on what happened, but it was not a matter of “science” dealing with hard evidence, The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never seen in the rocks.[21] Colin Patterson made similar response in a letter to Luther Sunderland, 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. . . . Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. . . I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[22] Niles Eldridge echoed the same frustration, No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It never seems to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change - over millions of years, at a rate too slow to account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history. When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that's how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.[23] The Assumed Partnership One of the reasons that Darwinian evolution and the fossil record in the rocks are viewed as inseparable twins is that they both developed as an interlocking cross-assumption system. So we find that geologists have been basing their interpretations on the assumption that organic evolution is true, The geologist utilizes knowledge of organic evolution as preserved in the fossil record, to identify and correlate the lithic records of ancient time.[24] while Darwin himself was assuming that Lyell’s uniformitarian geological concepts were true, With the guidance of Lyell's book, Darwin could make out an astonishing story.[25] Students of logic will recognize what is going here as a fallacy called “circular reasoning” – two different proof-seeking areas of thought are depending on the other being an established truth upon which they can base their own speculations. A number of geologists and paleontologists have also realized this problem, The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism.[26] Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several) which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory.[27] However, this problem has not seriously bothered most evolutionists because orthodox belief systems perpetuate themselves, primarily, upon the confidence supporters have in the validity of their own assumed paradigm. So, what does the fossil record really look like? The Cambrian Explosion
What the men from the 1920’s, Simpson, and Gould were talking about – no intermediate fossils between major kinds – is what Gould called the “trade secret” amongst paleontologists. Another name for it is the “Cambrian Explosion.” Essentially, the actual fossil record does not really look like the Darwinian “tree of life” at all. The problem is that, rather than phyla gradually emerging from earlier ones, a number of different biological phyla, now including boney fishes, suddenly appear in the Cambrian geologic era fully-formed and characteristic of their type and without anything earlier that really looks like transformational fossil connections to the assumed single-celled “trunk” of the tree! As Gould remarked, it is as though there are leaves and fruit out on the ends of the alleged evolutionary tree’s branches, but no hard evidence of the “transitional” forms (i.e. the limbs or branches) that must have existed if the evolutionary transformation story is true. So far, the only known “ancestors” for the lifeforms of the Cambrian era in Pre-Cambrian rocks are the Ediacarans, a group of lifeforms that are dated at about the same age as the Cambrian Explosion (ca. 600 mya), with imagined ancestors suggested as ranging back to 750 mya, but these alleged earlier ancestors are not represented by any fossilized “hard evidence.” From what I have seen of fossilized Ediacaran forms, they do not look like recognizable “transitional forms” between bacteria/algae and many (if any) of the Cambrian phyla. When the actual fossil evidence is plotted out against the uniformitarian geological column, it looks like the chart below,
It is a very bitter pill for most evolutionists to swallow - that most, if not all, of the major types of lifeforms appear suddenly and fully-formed in the fossil record. The difficulty arises because the fossil record looks a good deal more like the sudden and simultaneous origin of major kinds described in Genesis 1:20ff than the gradually branching Darwinian "tree of life."
However, the real story
(at least as much as any ancient evidence
The problem this creates
for evolutionists is immense. Essentially they embraced the idea that
life began with simple, single-celled lifeforms and then slowly and
gradually diversified through a process of branching transformations
into the variety of lifeforms that exist today (with many extinct “dead
ends” along the way). Darwin himself expressed concern about the grave
questions it would raise for his theory if substantial clear fossil
evidence of transitions between these major kinds never showed up.
Well, as When challenged about this problem, many Western evolutionists sluff it off as “no big deal,” as Dr. Mark Levanthal (Purdue University) did in a WBAA radio forum in which I participated (March 2002). When the Cambrian Explosion was brought up and the evidence of boney fishes also suddenly appearing in Cambrian rock, Levanthal dismissed it as “insignificant.” However, the problems created by the Cambrian Explosion and the way it is downplayed is significant enough that a number of Chinese scientists (in 2002) accused Western Darwinists of turning Darwinism into a “religion” and that the issue had become so politically-charged in Western society that those who are aware of the difficulties are afraid to speak up.[28] Of course, there are those who do admit the problem and a number of articles have been written about the Cambrian Explosion in the last decade and none of these authors treat it as “insignificant.”[29] Genesis 1 Doesn't look so "unscientific" after all While the Bible is very sketchy about the mechanics of creation, the first chapter of Genesis does portray God originally creating (at about the same time) a number of major reproducing “kinds,” which perpetuated themselves. On the other hand, the evolutionary scenario has long held that one original primeval lifeform slowly differentiated into many slowly appearing new body types as adaptation, mutation, and natural selection did their work. So, the options are: the sudden and simultaneous appearance of a number of separate reproducing body forms (as the Bible had suggested) versus a long and slow process of gradual transformation and diversification from single-celled life into the myriad of body types existing today. As research has proceeded, the evidence to date suggests that the Biblical account appears to be much more in harmony with the evidence. The “transitional” body forms, which should have existed if an original, simple protozoan body form was evolving into many new ones, have, simply, never materialized. This problem for the evolutionary story hasn’t changed for decades, as this comment from 1928 reveals, So we see that the fossil record, the actual history of the animal life on the earth, bears out the assumption that at its very first appearance animal life in its braoder features was in essentially the same form as that in which we know it. . . Thus, so far as concerns the major groups of animals, the creationists seem to have the better of the argument. There is not the slightest evidence that any of the major groups arose from any other.[30] As it turns out, much of the “long, slow, gradual development of lifeforms” story that is taught is worn-out evolutionary traditionalism, perhaps only useful for ridiculing and removing the hated Genesis account of “creation” from serious consideration. However, with Genesis thoroughly “trashed” in secular academic circles, we now begin to see the scientific and popular literature beginning to fill up with accounts of how quickly life appeared during the “Cambrian Explosion” as it is called, wherein all of the different major body types are said to have actually appeared at the same time after all, Fossil mrcroorganisms discovered in Australia . . . indicate life already was thriving and diversified 3.485 billion years ago, leaving a much narrower window than previously thought for life to develop.[31] Life did not evolve at the leisurely pace Darwin envisioned. . . . [32] Most of evolution's dramatic leaps occurred rather abruptly and soon after multicellular organisms first evolved, nearly 600 million years ago during a period called the Cambrian. The body plans that evolved in the Cambrian by and large served as the blueprints for those seen today. Few new major body plans have appeared since that time. . . . all the evolutionary changes since the Cambrian period have been mere variations on those basic themes. Evolutionary biology’s deepest paradox concerns this strange discontinuity. Why haven’t new animal body plans continued to crawl out of the evolutionary cauldron during the past hundreds of millions of years? Why are the ancient body plans so stable? . . . Nevertheless, compared with the context of the 3.5 billion years of all biological history and the roughly 570 million years since the start of the Cambrian, the phyla do seem to have appeared suddenly and simultaneously. . . .Evolutionary biologists are still trying to determine why no new body plans have appeared during the past half a billion years.[33] For the Cambrian is a period distinguished by the abrupt appearance of an astonishing array of multicelled animals—animals that are the ancestors of virtually all the creatures that now swim, fly and crawl through the visible world. Indeed, while most people cling to the notion that evolution works its magic over million of years, scientists are realizing that biological change often occurs in sudden fits and starts. . . creatures with teeth and tentacles and claws and jaws materialized with the suddenness of apparitions. In a burst of creativity like nothing before or since, nature appears to have sketched out the blueprints for virtually the whole of the animal kingdom. . . . For it was during the Cambrian (and perhaps only during the Cambrian) that nature invented the animal body plans that define the broad biological groupings known as phyla, which encompasses everything from classes and orders to families, genera and species. . . . With just one possible exception - the Bryzoa, whose first traces turn up shortly after the Cambrian - there is no record of new phyla emerging later on, . . . the Cambrian explosion has caused experts to wonder if the twin Darwinian imperatives of genetic vanation and natural selection provide an adequate framework for understanding evolution. What Darwin described in the Origin of Species was the steady background kind of evolution. But there also seems to be a non-Darwinian kind of evolution that functions over extremely short time periods—and that's where all the action is.[34] Did you catch what these articles are saying? Virtually ALL of the major body forms (even vertebrate fish) and phyla appeared very early (Cambrian era), suddenly, and simultaneously, rather than slowly arising sequentially from earlier forms. And the two “Darwinian imperatives” (genetic variation and natural selection) operating slowly over long periods of time may not be “an adequate framework” for understanding how the animal kingdom came to exist. This sounds like Genesis 1:20ff and the creation of all major “kinds” of animal life at the same general time isn’t so far off after all! The Cambrian Explosion is Not Genesis 1 Why don’t evolutionists see the Cambrian Explosion as a picture of Genesis 1:20ff? Simple, that really is not what it portrays. The types of life recorded in the Cambrian fossils are not the kinds of life that are described in Genesis 1:20ff – swarms of water creatures, birds, great sea monsters, cattle, creeping things, beasts of the earth, and humans. The Cambrian rocks portray lifeforms in a marine environment – sponges, hydroids, jellyfish, corals, anemones, Burgess shale fauna, segmented worms, trilobites, horseshoe crabs, snails, clams, octopi, nautiloids, starfish, jawless and armored fishes, boney fishes, etc. Because it portrays a marine environment, it should not be expected to contain any evidence of land creatures. However, the one thing it does indicate is that there is very little evidence of the alleged “evolutionary ancestors” that Darwinism asserts should have existed between what is assumed to be the original single-celled life and any of these creatures. The Darwinian “slow and gradual” story arose from the French Enlightenment's rejection of the Biblical viewpoint and preference for materialistic and naturalistic philosophy, but, as Gould commented, "it was never seen in the rocks." What does the Fossil Record Reveal? The first and most basic thing that the fossil record reveals is that certain forms of life were buried, apparently fairly rapidly (most evolutionists now claim that numerous "local catastrophes" were responsible), and preserved in what became rock layers in various times and places. Naturally, certain types of creatures would live in the same environment, while other types of creatures would not be expected to be found there – you should expect to find shallow water creatures together in marine fossil deposits, fish elsewhere, large sea or land predators off by themselves, types of reptiles and dinosaurs by themselves, mammals elsewhere. Why should you expect to find large predators (reptilian or mammalian) near what would be their prey, including humans? The vast majority of human beings purposely distance themselves from lions, tigers, Komodo dragons for safety sake most of the time – of course there isn’t much fossil evidence of humans and dinosaurs together! On the other hand, don’t read too much into what the fossil record contains or lacks in any given location – all it tells you is what was trapped and buried in a given location at a given time, not what was alive elsewhere and wasn’t trapped and buried! Second, the fossil record is obviously not a comprehensive record of what was alive at any given time. How can we tell that? Simple, there are numerous lifeforms that are found in the fossil record, but then disappear from that point on in the record, according to uniformitarian geology – no more fossils in “younger” later deposits. This led to assertions that these lifeforms were extinct, from 60 to 320 million years (such as was claimed for the Coelacanth, Wollemi pine, and Neopolina Mollusk). What a surprise when these “extinct” lifeforms turn up still alive and kicking in the present. Consider the following graphic,
Based on the fossil record and known living forms, a number of species are “extinct” – they appear to have died out and ceased to exist after a certain point in the fossil record. There are lots of creatures that appear to have died out and no trace of them can be found in the later fossil record or alive today. However, when lifeforms last seen in the fossil record between 60-320 million years ago and declared “extinct” are found alive in our time, one has to wonder how much the “fossil record” really tells us about what was living at any point in the earth’s past. Fossil deposits tell you nothing more than what forms of life were buried together. What other lifeforms may have been alive elsewhere – who knows! Some lifeforms (Coelacanths, Mosasaurs, Wollemi pines, Neopolina Mollusks) obviously have continued to exist down to the present without leaving any trace in the allegedly intervening fossil record. Fossils - rapid, catastrophic burial/preservation events Most of us are a bit fascinated when we see the shape of some past living creature embedded in a rock. Essentially, a fossil is usually not the actual creature, but a mineral replacement of the past body of a creature that was buried. When animals normally die in the wilderness, their bodies begin to decay and, if predators are involved, the carcass can disappear within a couple weeks. If larger predators or scavengers are not involved to scatter the bones, natural processes and flies/maggots alone will still clean a carcass to bone within a couple months. Exposed bones may last for a few years, but if they lay out very long they show the obvious effects of decay.
Marine fossils, usually, suggest a
rapid burial, with bodies complete and without signs
of predation, decay, or scavenging, but sometimes in the act of eating
something, giving birth, or with undigested food in their stomachs. On the other
hand, many fossils of land animals portray masses of animals torn apart,
but then washed together and deposited as a mass of mixed parts.
Immanuel Velikovsky collected the findings of several European experts
concerning mass graveyards of shredded and mixed animals like mammoths,
bison, horses, lions, elephants, rhinoceros, and people in rocky
crevices, deep “muck,” in Alaska’s Tanana river
As we saw in the section on geology, evolutionists were far too anxious to dismiss the Biblical flood from the picture. Their philosophical bias truly shows through when one looks at the serious flaws in uniformitarianism and intentional suppression of catastrophic events. The evidences of catastrophism, documented by Velikovsky, posed such a threat to their story that evolutionists successfully pressured the Macmillan corporation to not publish his books. What were they afraid of - documented evidence that contradicts their precious story? Too Eager to Prove Evolution? Of course, the other side of suppressing valid evidence contradictory to your theory is presenting weak or bogus evidence as support for your theory. How else can you explain such blunders as embracing England's "Piltdown Man" for 40 years (1912-1953) except lack of critical discernment and desperation to provide to some evidence for a theory already assumed to be true and boldly pushed on the public? Why would a single pig's tooth be held up for five years as evidence of early man in North America (Nebraska Man, 1922-1927)? And what has happened to the classic evolutionary proof - the horse? The “Evolution” of the Horse
The horse is undoubtedly one of the classic examples of evolution.[37] Another instance of this confident assumption is found in the following quotation, In some cases the evolutionary changes in a group of vertebraes can be followed in considerable detail by paleontological study. An outstanding example of such a complete fossil record is that of the horse.[38] On Second Thought - This “transitional sequence” began when Owen discovered the first Eozoic fossil in London clay (reported in 1841) and named it Hyracotherium, which is still represented in the Daman of the mountains of Africa and Western Asia, genus Hyrax. Eventually, all Eozoic hoofed animals of the perissodactyl type (horses, tapirs, rhinoceros) were lumped into one family, the Lophiodontidae and by 1870 were being schematically exhibited, along with finds by American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh (1831-1899) and others, by T. H. Huxley who had arranged them in the most logical sequence to portray an increasing order of "development." The alleged sequence (right) of horse evolution was published by Marsh in 1879 and then quickly found its way into many publications and textbooks and continues to be presented in, substantially, the same form to this day. From this material we continue to hear confident assertions about the fossil evidence for the "smooth and complete" evolution of the modern horse. The usual portrayal of horse evolution identifies five major steps: Eohippus, Miohippus, Merychippus, Pliohippus, and Equus (right). The "evolution" is usually identified in two specific areas: increase in size and decrease from three or four toes down to one, as the graphic below portrays. Partially because the scarcity of "transitional" fossil proofs, evolutionists have doggedly held to this as a key proof for their theory. The foremost European expert on horses from this era, Abel, published his work on the subject in 1929 and many alleged sub-varieties included in his charts.[39] While the reader is told about the "smooth transition" from Hyracotherium/ Eohippus to Equus, it is hoped that they won't notice that these bones look more like two varieties here - three toed varieties and one-toed. But given the fact that only two real varieties seem to be present in the alleged "five-step" transition, modern horses are occasionally born with the supplemental hooves. Has there really been a lineal evolution of one kind of animal emerging from a different earlier form? Was Eohippus (or the modern Daman) really the ancestor of Equus? How different was Eohippus from a modern horse? Even here, there is very little basic morphological change, nothing like a foreleg turning into a wing. Even granting the connection between the five, is this still not variation within a kind and a long way from proving that chemicals eventually turned into people (or horses)? Many of the variations even here are not represented in the fossil record. G. G. Simpson declared, The most famous of all equid trends, 'gradual reduction of the side toes' is flatly ficticious. There was no such trend in any line of Equidae. . . . Eocene horses all had digitigrade padded, doglike feet with four functional toes in front and three behind. In a rapid transition (not actually represented by fossils), early Oligocene horses lost one functional front toe and concentrated weight a little more on the middle hoof as a step-off point. . . . This type persisted without essential change in all browsing horses.[40] Coming down closer to our time, David Raup, Curator of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, where about 20% of all known fossil species are housed has said that, . . ironically, we have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time. By this, I mean that some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information.[41] As has been said by one summarizing the evidence for the development of the story for horse evolution, The family tree of the horse is beautiful and continuous only in the textbooks.[42] The Alleged Link between Dinosaurs and Birds From its origin with T. H. Huxley, it has come to be commonly believed by evolutionists that birds descended from small dinosaurs, as John Horgan has summarized, The descent of birds from dinosaurs has been enshrined in venues as diverse as the American Museum of Natural History and the blockbuster Jurassic Park.[43]
Archaeopteryx's skeletal anatomy provides clear evidence that birds descend from a dinosaurian ancestor. . . . There is no reasonable doubt, however, that all groups of birds, living and extinct, are descended from small, meat-eating theropod dinosaurs. . . In fact, living birds are nothing less than small, feather-covered, short-tailed theropod dinosaurs.[45] In this same Scientific American article, a "cladogram" was offered suggesting the possible dinosaur lineage of modern birds,
I find it incredible that evolutionists believe that, as the cladogram shows, some unknown lineage of hypothetical “common ancestors” (the line from which the pictured creatures allegedly arose) spawned such a variety of other creatures with powerful front legs reducing into really tiny forelegs and then back into something with powerful forelimbs - wings. However, if transformation from other forms is already firmly believed, then you have to come up with some kind of a an ancestral trail. The reason that the fossil Archaeopteryx is retained is that it was the only thing that even came close to what evolutionists imagined for a fossil link between dinosaurs and birds. Largely ignored are the documented reports of fully-formed birds, such as "proto-avis" entombed in Texas strata "deeper" (and assumed to be older) than strata containing the remains of Archaeopteryx.[46] Another find also pointed to more bird-like traits in earlier strata, Although Archaeopteryx is generally considered the earliest bird on record, a recent find suggests that the creature, which lived some 130 million years ago, may not have been the only bird alive then. A new fossil found by James Jensen of Brigham Young University dates back to the same period-the late Jurassic-and appears to be the femur (thighbone) of a bird . . . . The fossil resembles the thighbone of modern birds more closely than the comparable Archaeopteryx bone does . . . . The hypothesis that Archaeopteryx represents a direct link from reptiles to birds has been generally accepted. The existence of another bird - one that was an adept flyer and thus more advanced on the evolutionary scale-would present a challenge to that hypothesis.[47]
The Evolution of Whales?
When, later, he gets down to business on the whale issue, he does little more than offer a chart of alleged steps in the process and very little explanation in the text about most of the creatures and why we should believe that one evolved from the other. One or two of the characters get lots of attention, but not much convincing argument on the whole package. First, the artistic chart
(right) is offered, laying out the alleged steps in the transformation
from coyote-like Mesonychid to the modern killer whale. . Then,
a good bit of text and artwork is offered for what is claimed to be a
common ancestor
Like all evolutionary trees, this one is a hypothesis.[53] I am amazed that professors of philosophy and logic in our state universities don’t go ballistic over this kind of argument – using a hypothesis (a fancy scientific term for a “guess”) as “proof” for the theory upon which it was based! Another case of evolution being a house of “orthodox” hypothetical cards - create an impression with verbal claims about what people should believe and then offer artwork and “Just So" stories as your “proof”! As the chapter ends, Zimmer admits that there are still lots of questions about the issue. But the job is done, the public has been given another confident “Just-So” story to deepen the impression that “evolution is a fact” (regardless of how much the individual little stories fleshing it out have to be changed as time goes by). What Zimmer didn’t say, because it would get in the way of his card-stacking presentation, is that five years after Thewissen’s discovery of Ambulocetus, a main piece of evidence in the whale evolution scenario, questions were still circulating about the origin of whales, . . . an assertion that is not supported by the fossil record . . . but there is no fossil evidence for such a creature spanning that immensity of time.[54] Further studies on another of the alleged early terrestrial ancestors of whales that Zimmer included in his “direct evidence for evolution” (Pakicetus) have shown that this was a land mammal and showed no signs of any development towards whales.[55] The Embarrassing Anomalies An “anomaly” is something that doesn’t belong or shouldn’t be. The uniformitarian view of geology and Darwinian story of life led European intellectuals to embrace a scenario of history in which dinosaurs all became extinct 65 million years ago and homo sapiens (human beings) have only been around for around 100,000 years. The radiometric dates assigned to the strata in the geologic column determine the age of each strata and the fossil evidence in it and evolutionists have a tidy “open and shut” case. Anyone who questions it is, obviously, a dunce that knows nothing about science or reality. Right! The problem is that, from time to time, people with no reason to make up a story find and report things in strata that just shouldn’t be there, according to the evolutionary story. However, the Bible tells us that people have been around since the beginning and that several thousand years ago there was a major, world-wide, year-long, catastrophic flood event that killed most of the life on earth and destroyed or buried everything from the previous world under various depths of sediments. If this were so, then at least 1600 years of human civilization and technology was buried and traces of it might show up from time to time. Whatever the alleged “pre-human” ancestors touted by evolutionists were (ape-like men, man-like apes, degenerate and inbred outcasts on the fringe of society, etc.), the Biblical story would allow for fully human beings to have been buried along with everything else and traces of these might also show up in strata where they shouldn’t be, according to the evolutionary story. In 1913, Hans Reck discovered a modern human skeleton in Bed II at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania that was dated as being the same age as Beijing Man and Java Man - 1.15 million years. Yale paleontologist George Grant McCurdy judged Reck’s skeleton to be genuine. Louis Leakey publicized the obvious conclusion - the Beijing and Java “men” were NOT human ancestors since a Cro-Magnon man apparently lived (or at least was buried) in Africa at the same time as these two. At Castenedolo, Italy the professional geologist G. Ragazzoni discovered in situ (in place) the skeletons of four modern humans - probably a man, woman and two children in a Pliocene formation (1.7 to 12 million years old). In the same area, later on, they found another skeleton in this same area that appeared to be "intrusive" (buried much more recently - intruding into older material) - evolutionists cite this later intrusive find as characteristic of the earlier skeletons (to discredit them) and this is incorrect. Anyone familiar with the Leakey family knows that, along with a number of alleged ape-like human ancestors, they also came across a number of pieces of evidence that didn’t fit the evolutionary story very well. In 1932, Louis Leakey found evidence at Kanam and Kanjera in Western Kenya of several modern humans in strata dated 400,000 to 2,000,000 years old. In 1972, Richard Leakey found a skull (ER 1470) that appeared to be fairly similar to modern humans in volcanic tuff already dated by geologists to be 212-230 million years old, but this was soon adjusted to 2.6 - 2.9 million years old - still far older than should exist. In National Geographic magazine (1973b, p. 819), Richard suggested that this skull should cause present theories about early man to be thrown out. Then, John Harris found leg bones some distance away from where ER-1470 was found that were “almost indistinguishable” from modern humans (ER-1472/75/81). In 1974, B. A. Wood found an ankle bone that was very similar to modern human ankle bones (ER-813) and this was dated at 1.5 - 1.9 million years. In 1979, Andrew Hill and Mary Leakey found footprints remarkably similar to modern humans in volcanic ash near Laetoli that dated to 3.6 million years old. By 1980, both Mary and Richard Leakey became very hesitant about trying to arrange fossil evidence into any “sequence of human evolution” because they were aware of the growing number of evidences for modern human beings long before they should have been around. There are others. Human footprints that appear to be genuine and not carved were found (1938) in carboniferous rock (320 million years old) in Kentucky by geologist G. W. Burroughs and multiple instances in several counties. The Moscow News reported (1968) the discovery of human footprints in Jurassic (150 mya) rock next to a three-toed dinosaur print. Aside from skeletal evidence out of place, there have been a number of other finds that are very out of place. Between 1786-88, evidence of human stonework (columns, hammer handles, and coins) was found below eleven beds of limestone in Aixen Province, France. In a quarry 12 miles from Philadelphia, a block of marble was cut and what clearly appeared to be two raised letters carved by humans were found on the inside. In 1844, Sir David Brewster found a nail embedded in a block of sandstone from a quarry in northern England. The same year, the London Times reported the discovery of a gold thread embedded in a rock at a depth of eight feet. In 1852, The Scientific American reported the discovery of a metallic vase that fell out of a rock 15 feet deep that was blown apart in an explosion - the rock was pudding stone of the Pre-Cambrian era (over 600 million years old). In 1871, the Smithsonian Institute reported the discovery of coins in Illinois, brought up from a depth of 120 feet during the drilling of a well. In 1891, a lady in Morrisonville, Illinois broke open a lump of coal and found a 10-inch section of 8-carat gold chain. In January 1949, Robert Nordling broke a large lump of coal and an iron cup/pot fell out - the coal came from the Wilburton mine in Oklahoma and from coal deposits dated at 312 million years old. In 1922, an imprint of a human shoe sole was found, with several distinguishable sewing lines - the rock was Triassic (213-248 million years ago) and several shoe manufacturers declared the imprint to clearly be that of a hand-welted sole. In 1928, men working in another coal mine in Oklahoma found a wall at least 100-150 feet long, made of smooth 12-inch cubes filled with concrete - found in coal dated as Carboniferous (ca. 286 million years old). Metallic tubes were found in 65 million year old chalk deposits in France (1968). During the closing decades of the 20th century, South African miners have found hundreds of metallic spheres, one of which has three parallel grooves running around it - in deposits dated at 2.8 billion years old.[56]
Conclusion When all is said and done, it is no wonder that a good deal of "double-talk" exists in evolutionary discussions of the fossil record. Evolutionists embraced a "natural progress" myth from the French Enlightenment and wanted, needed, and expected evidence to support what they already believed. However, as research has proceeded, it does not look so likely that inanimate chemicals accidentally "spontaneously generated in a warm little pond" into life and then branched off in many directions through a gradual mutation/natural selection ‘transformation” process. The historical evidence that such a "grand transformation" process actually DID happen - the fossil record - has just not turned out to be what they expected it to be. Thus, the public still gets a good dose of bluster and general assertions about "how true" evolution is and what idiots people are who have doubts or reject that story. However, those who examine the evidence realize that there are still major questions to be answered and that "amoeba to man" evolution is far from proven! Notes: [1] Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Chapter 9: On the Imperfection of the Geological Record. [2] Richard B. Goldschmidt, “An Introduction to a Popularized Symposium on Evolution,” Scientific Monthly, Vol. 77, October 1953, p. 184. [3] The Encyclopedia Britannica, (1956), vol. 8, p. 920. [4] Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, (New York: John Wiley and sons, 1960), p. 47. 2nd edition. [5] A. J. Kelso, Physical Anthropology: An Introduction, 2nd Edition (New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1974), p. 124. [6] P. Grasse, Evolution of Living Organisms (New York: Academic Press, 1977), p. 4. [7] Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 31. [8] Louis T. More, The Dogma of Evolution, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1925), pp. 160,161. [9] George G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), p. 360. [10] T. N. George, “Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective,” Science Progress, Vol. XLVIII (January 1960), pp. 1,3. [11] James F. Case and Vernon E. Stiers, Biology-Observation and Concept (New York: Macimillan, 1971), p. 421. [12] E. D. V. Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record," Proceedings of the British Geological Association (Presidential Address), Vol. 87, No. 2, 1976, p. 133. [13] Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History 86 No. 5 (May 1977), pp. 12,14,16. [14] Stephen Jay Gould, "The Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History, Vol. LXXXVI (June-July 1977), p. 24. [15] Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford University Press, 1990), pp. 39-40. [16] Josh Tyrangiel, “The Science of Dissent,” Time Magazine (July 10, 2000), p. 60 [17] Michael T. Ghiselin, quoted on p. 39 of W. J. Bennetta, ed. "Scientists Decry a Slick New Packaging of Creationism," The Science Teacher (May, 1987), 54:36-43. [18] Vincent Sarich cited in editor W. J. Bennetta’s “Scientists decry slick new packaging of creationism,” The Science Teacher (1987), 54:36-43. [19] George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1967 / Bantom Paperback edition, 1971). pp. 209,210. [20] Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism (Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 50. [21] Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. LXXXVI (May 1977), p. 14. [22] Colin Patterson's letter to Luther Sunderland, dated April 10, 1979, cited in Andrew A. Snelling's "Yet another 'missing link' fails to qualify," Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 15 No. 3 (June-August 1993), p. 42. [23] Niles Eldridge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995), p. 95. [24] O. D. von Engeln and Kenneth E. Caster, Geology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), p. 423. [25] Ruth More, Evolution (New York: Time Inc., 1962), p. 13. [26] J. E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy,'' American Journal of Science, Vol. 276 (January 1976), p. 48. [27] Ronald R. West, "Paleontology and Uniformitarianism." Compass, Vol. 45 (May 1968), p. 216. [28] The Boston Globe, May 30, 2000. p. E1 [29] Jeffrey S. Levinton, “The Big Bang of Animal Evolution” Scientific American (November 1992), pp. 84-91; J. Madeline Nash, “When Life Exploded” Time (December 4, 1995), pp. 66-74; Thomas Hayden, “When Animals Hit the Big-time,” U.S. News & World Report (November 10, 2003), pp. 64-66 [30] Austin H. Clark, Quarterly Review of Biology (December 1928), p. 539. [31] “Fossils Indicate Life Developed At Faster Pace Than Believed” New York Times article cited in the Omaha World Herald (May 1, 1993). [32] J. Madeleine Nash, “How Did Life Begin” Time (11 October, 1993), p. 71. [33] Jeffrey S. Levinton, "The Big Bang of Animal Evolution," Scientific American (November 1992), pp. 84,87. [34] J. Madeleine Nash, “When Life Exploded,” Time (4 December 1995), pp. 67,68,70,74. [35] Immanuel Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval (New York: Simon & Schuster Pocket Books, 1955), pp. 1-7,14-15,46-49,54-55,60-64, 73-75. (1977 Paperback edition). [36] A. O. Woodford, Historical Geology (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company, 1965), p. 24; Velikovsky, Earth in Upheaval, p. 4. [37] P. Arduini and G. Teruzzi, Prehistoric Atlas (London: Macdonald & Co., 1982), p. 65. [38] William Etkin, Robert M. Devlin, and Thomas G. Bouffard, A Biology of Human Concern (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1972), 112. [39] I. Abel, Palaebiologie und Stammesgeschichte (Paleobiology and Family History), (Jena, 1929), p. 288. [40] G. G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), p. 263. [41] David Raup, "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology" Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin (January 1979). [42] Donald W. Patten, ed., A Symposium on Creation, vol. III (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1971), "The Alleged Evolution of the Horse," by Frank W. Cousins, p. 83. See also: Peter Hastie, "What's Happened to the Horse?" Creation Ex Nihilo, 17:4 (September-November 1995), pp. 14-16. [43] John Horgan, "Which Came First?" Scientific American (Feb. 1997), p. 16. [44] Rick Gore, "Dinosaurs," National Geographic (January 1993), p. 28. [45] Kevin Padian and Luis Chiappe, "The Origin of Birds and Their Flight, Scientific American (February 1998), pp. 38-47. [46] Tim Beardsley, Nature (1986, 322:677); "Patriarch of the Aviary," Time (August 25, 1986), p. 50. [47] "The Oldest Fossil Bird: A Rival for Archaeopteryx," Science, Vol. 129 (20 January 1978), p. 284. [48] Jonathon Sarfati, "DinoBird Evolution Falls Flat," Creation Ex Nihilo, 20:2 (March-May 1998), p. 41. [49] Christopher Sloan, “Feathers for T. Rex? New Birdlike Fossils are Missing Links in Dosaur Evolution,” National Geographic, (November 1999), pp. 98-107. [50] Mary Lord, “The Pildown Chicken: Scientists eat crow over so-called missing link,” U.S. News & World Report (February 14, 2000), p. 53. [51] Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p. x. [52] Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), pp. 137-138. [53] Carl Zimmer, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), p. 140. [54] "Cetacean Creation: New fossils leave researchers wondering where whales come from," Scientific American (January 1999), p. 26. [55] Thewissen, Williams, and Hussain, “Skeletons of terrestrial cetaceans and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls,” Nature 413 (6853) 277-281, 20 September 2001. [56] Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson, Forbidden Archaeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (New Delhi: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, 1998), pp. 454-458,628-661,687-693,742-747,795-814. A number of these items have been reported in several sources. [57] “Scientists recover T. rex soft tissue: 70-million-year-old fossil yields preserved blood vessels” MSNBC/Reuters Updated: 9:58 p.m. ET March 28, 2005; NC State University News Release, “NC State Paleontologist Discovers Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Bones” (March 24, 2005) |
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A Ministry of Severn Christian Church (Severn, Maryland) Unless otherwise noted, all material produced by Charles E. McCoy All Scripture citations/quotations from the New American Standard Bible To send a question to Chuck: chuck@severnchristian.org
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If you are a bit confused at this point about the fossil record, you are
in good company – so are evolutionists. Ok, so where are all of these
alleged “transitional fossil” proofs for evolution to be found? As a
reminder, the levels of biological classification are provided (right),
from the largest category (different major kinds) down to the smallest
(variations). Are the "transitional fossil forms" most common on the
“species” end of the spectrum and become more rare and then non-existent
as you move toward the major classification level (the phyla), as George
Gaylord Simpson claimed,
The proverbial Darwinian “tree of life” has been portrayed by the
taxonomic charts that adorn multitudes of textbooks for decades. These
artistic charts always portray an early protozoan trunk for the tree of
life, with new phyla branching off as one moves gradually on through
“geological time” and then other major groups (phyla) gradually emerging
from earlier ones. As we saw in the section on geology, the alleged
Darwinian "tree of life" is usually imposed over the Geologic Column as
"co-dependent" partners in the evolutionary story (right).
The Darwinian “tree” is essentially the same, whether you use the old
“gradualism” model or the Neo-Darwinian punctuated equilibrium
model – branches of life
heading off from the bacterial/protozoan “trunk” by means of gradual
transformations into the various
“higher” lifeforms we see today.
exists for) about the fossil
record is portrayed in the Cambrian Explosion – numerous phyla suddenly
appeared - very early and somewhat simultaneously, with very little or
no fossil trails linking them into the tree trunk! The evidence doesn’t
look like Darwinism at all (and now boney fishes can be added to the lifeforms that suddenly appeared around 600 mya!).
paleontology continued the search the results have been very
disappointing for evolutionists. Many confidently assert that
transitional fossils are abundant, but know that most of the public will
simply believe the confident claim and not press for hard evidence.
Some, like Gould, admit that the expected transitional forms have never
showed up. In fact, the immediate impression one gets of looking at
charts of the fossil record imposed upon the geological strata is that
it doesn’t look like the Darwinian story at all. It looks a lot more
like a creationist “orchard” of major body formats appearing early and
simultaneously as described in Genesis 1. The chart to the right
portrays the Cambrian Explosion and you can see why Darwinists would
rather not talk about it.
Several features of fossils have always interested me. First of all, it
has been reported that virtually all of the fossils that are found exist
in sedimentary rock (rock that is composed of materials that were
suspended in and settled out of water). So, why was
the earth covered
with sediment-rich water from which all of this sedimentary strata
formed with complete living forms trapped and buried in it? Slowly
rising oceans would not stir up massive amounts of sediment and suddenly
trap and bury masses of healthy, intact fish, but a major catastrophic
event would.
Second, there are two kinds of fossils – those in which the actual
material remains and those in which the shape of the original creature
has been preserved, but the actual body has been replaced by minerals.
Third, the condition of many leaves suggests an overwhelming by
sediments in which they were rapidly buried and preserved fresh and
pliable - no signs of deterioration, uncurled and texture intact. 
However they were buried and fossilized, it seems to have occurred
rapidly.
valley,
France and Great Britain, the Ivory Islands of Siberia, California,
Nebraska (right), Maryland, the Himalayas, etc. Often the numbers of
animals remains mixed together are enormous. Often the broken bones
appear to have been snapped fresh and deposited - not exposed to
weathering agents or worked over by predators or scavengers.
For years, when pressed for some kind of hard evidence to support their
assertion that major forms evolved from “primitive” ancestors,
evolutionists confidently pointed to the "evolution" of the modern
horse, as the graphic at right illustrates. The text that accompanied
the graphic stated,
The
specific candidate for "intermediate" has long been a bird with several
reptilian features called Archaeopteryx (right), which was cited
in a 1993 National Geographic article as a fossil link between
dinosaurs and birds.
A more recent "flap" (pardon the pun) has arisen over fossils of an
alleged feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx, found in China and a
similar find in Spain. The presence of "feathers" on these finds is
hotly contested by some who have seen the skin impressions and others
have rejected the ancestral bird interpretation on the basis of
examining the lung structure.
As we hear less and less about the old standard “transitional sequence”
of the horse, evolutionists are substituting the alleged transformation
of a terrestrial coyote-like creature (Mesonychid) into modern
killer whales. This was one of Carl Zimmer’s points of emphasis in
his 2001 companion book to the PBS “Evolution” series. In his
introduction, Zimmer discusses the “transitional stages” in the fossil
record as the “second category of direct evidence” for evolution, and
the prime examples he cited were the “evolution of the whales from
terrestrial mammals” and birds from small running dinosaurs.
for
whales and hippos, Hans Thewissen’s 1994 skeleton, dubbed Ambulocetus
(left).
Last, but certainly not least, are the well-documented reports of
unfossilized dinosaur soft tissue. As it turns out, these reports have
been coming out since the 1990’s, but have (understandably) not been
given much fanfare by the evolutionary community because of the serious
questions they raise about the orthodox belief that dinosaurs have been
extinct for “60 million years”! How in the world could soft tissue
within dinosaur bones remain soft and pliable for that length of time?
Since such a notion is mind-boggling and the alternative (that dinosaurs
have not been extinct for nearly so long as uniformitarian doctrine
asserts) is so unwelcome, these reports have been rarely heard. All of
that changed in the Spring of 2005 when, at least for a week, this
information was presented in the national news media (right).
