Premise 1: The transitional fossils the theory of evolution would require are not there
A transition represents a distinct change in a species becoming stronger in it’s own class, or a change from one species to another. Evolutionists believe that Amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds evolved after fish. That the first amphibians evolved from a lobe-finned fish ancestor about 365 million years ago. And that Mammals and birds both evolved from reptile-like ancestors.
The modern theory of evolution proposes that all the organic beings which have every lived on this earth have descended from some primordial form and that complex organisms, and organs were formed by micromutations (small infintessimal changes) occurring individually and sporadically over millions of years.
Evolutionist believe that fish evolved into reptiles, and reptiles into birds. Yet none of the fossils in the world’s most extensive fossil beds have revealed a reptile with distinct fish characteristics such as gills or fins, or reptiles with any bird characteristics such as feathers, or the essential avian lung. Yet there are countless fossils of fully formed reptiles, fish and birds without a hint of transitions.
According to the Evolutionary Chain birds evolved from dinosaurs and scientist claim that in the process of transformation over millions of years dinosaurs shrank down to the size of birds. None of the fossil beds reveal Dinosaur species shrinking but staying the same size as when the species appeared in the fossil record, and there are no fossils showing transitions from dinosaurs to birds even though there should be countless examples.
Charles Darwin himself felt that the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record could be fatal to his theory.
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.
Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species
Fossil discovery and fossil collection has increased dramatically in the last century
Modern paleontology has led to unprecedented fossil collection, documentation and research. Numerous major fossil beds have been discovered around the world using advances such as ultrasound, 3 D scanning, sonar, and satellite technology.
To date, scientist worldwide have catalogued some 200 million large fossils and billions of small fossils.
The American Museum of Natural History house over 4.5 million fossil specimens. It has the The first fossil collected for American Museum of Natural History was in 1897. It has the world’s largest amphibian, reptile and bird collection in the world. All of the specimens reflect fully formed bird, reptile and amphibian species, none are transitional forms.
Three Museums with some of the largest collections of fossil specimens:
- Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: 40 million
- American Museum of Natural History: 4.5 million
- British Museum of Natural History: 80 million
In a private letter to Dr. Luther Sunderland, Dr. Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History author of the book “Evolution” wrote the following:
“I fully agree with your comments on the lack of of direct illustrations of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any such fossil I certainly would have included them.
I will lay it on the line…There is not one such fossil for which one might make a watertight argument.“
Here are just a few of the 600 major fossil beds that are listed on Wikepedia “List of Fossil Sites” that represent sites found in all four corners of the globe:
- Argentina, South America: Largest Fossil Beds in South America
- Hells Creek, United States: Arguably the most famous fossil site in the world.
- Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Canada: Home of one of world’s most important Carboniferous sites
- Jurassic Coast, England: According to Paleontologists documents 185 years of Earth’s History
- Stanska Skala, Czech Republic: Home of one of most important Pleistocene fossil sites in Europe
- Jiufotang Formation, China: Early Cretaceous Period around 120 million years ago
- Gobi Desert, Africa: Largest dinosaur fossil reservoir in the world.
- Messel Pit Fossil Site, Germany: Richest site in the world for understanding the environment of the Eocene Era
- Alexander Island, Anarctica: One of three major fossil bed sites on the South Pole.
- Prince Creek, North Pole: One of many sites found in the Artic
The Ukhaa Tolgod which is the greatest Gobi fossil bed found to date was found using a NASA satellite from space. After over 150 years of of fossil collecting and 200 million plus fossils found the dominant fossil trend is anatomical sameness.
In all of the major fossil beds on the Wikepedia list of 600 all the fossils appear in the record fully developed with no transitional forms. Species appear in the fossil record looking almost the exact same as when they disappear.
Charles Darwin who did not have the knowledge of the fossil record we have today predicted that not only would numerous transitions would be found; but he actually believed that the fossil record would be made up of mostly transitions.
The number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great.
Charles Darwin; The Origin of Species, page 355
Even ardent proponents of evolution struggle to explain why advances in fossil exploration have not uncovered any transitional fossils
The fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.” In addition, species remain fundamentally unchanged for an average of more than one million years before disappearing from the record.
Steven M. Stanley is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is best known for his empirical research documenting the evolutionary process of punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record. Yale University. National Book Award Science, Penrose Medal, Guggenheim Fellowship For Natural Science
The missing link between man and apes…is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule…The more scientist have searched for the transitional forms between species, the more they have been frustrated
Newsweek (Is Man a Subtle Accident?)
Discussion Question : If Evolution is true—then why haven’t the countless millions of transitional fossils been found anywhere on the globe?
Premise 2: The Fossil Record demonstrates unexpected species overlap and fossils appearing in the record where they are not supposed to be according to the necessary evolutionary timeline.
Fossil formations across the globe lend credence to the lack of harmony in the fossil record. The Thomas Fork Formation in Wyoming contains fossil snails, fish scales, turtle carapaces, reptile bones, and dinosaur eggshells, which should not all be found together.
John A. Dorr; Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan
This chart shows the widely accepted evolutionary timeline for animal phyla.. However the fossil record shows massive overlap of species being before or after where they were supposed to be.
The Bighorn Basin in Wyoming contains a continuous local record of fossil deposits for about five million years, during an early period in the age of mammals. Because this record is so complete, paleontologists assumed that certain populations of the basin could be linked together to illustrate continuous evolution. On the contrary, species that were once thought to have turned into others turn out to overlap in time with their alleged descendants. Just one example is that fully formed birds appear with their fully formed reptile descendents.
One of the most fascinating fossil graveyards of all time is located in the southern United States. The Ashley Beds is an enormous phosphate graveyard that contains mixed remains of man with land and sea animals, notably dinosaurs, pleisosaurs, whales, sharks, rhinos, horses, mastodons, mammoths, porpoises, elephants, deer, pigs, dogs, and sheep. Basically, it shouldn’t exist if evolution were true. These species are supposed to be descendants of each other showing up together during an ancient period when most of these species should not have even existed yet.
In all the aforementioned fossil beds fully formed vertebrates and animals that are supposed to be towards the middle to end of the evolutionary chain are found in the bottom or “first fossil layers” where only simple invertebrate species should be.
There are also examples of Birds and Dinosaurs found in the exact same fossil although Birds supposedly evolved from Dinosaurs.
Not only do fossil beds reveal descendent species showing up at the same time, but it begs the question of why is there complexity in the oldest part of the fossil record? Complexity being found in the bottom time era of the fossil record defies how evolution is supposed to work. If evolution is true, there should only be simple life forms at the bottom of the fossil record.
Harry F. Sanders (Answers In Depth) October 5, 2018
A large oppossum-sized creature called Repenomamus (a mammal) was discovered in China with a juvenile Psittacosaurus (a dinosaur) undigested in its stomach. According to the widely affirmed evolutionary chain early mammals were supposed to be small and hervivorous.
A study from North Carolina State University in January of 2005 announced that a fossil specimen from Antarctica had been identified as a duck, flipping the evolutionary script. Ducks, some argued, were not supposed to have diverged from their ancestral forms until after the Cretaceous period. Yet this fossil was dated to the late Cretaceous period approximately 70 million years ago, according to evolutionists. This showed that modern birds existed with the dinosaurs they are supposed to have evolved from. The History Files
Dr. Carl Werner author of Living Fossils visited 60 natural history museums and ten dinosaur dig sites in seven different countries to interview various paleontologists. With each interview, more modern birds that had been found with dinosaurs were listed including: parrots, penguins, owls, sandpipers, albatross, flamingos, loons, ducks, cormorants and avocets. Surprisingly, in order to promote the idea animals changed over time the museums would not display dinosaur fossils with birds in them.
Every time you see a T.rex or Tricertatops in a museum display, you should also see ducks, loons, flamingos or some of these other modern birds that have been found in the same rock layers as these dinosaurs
Dr. Carl Werner; Evolution The Grand Experiment
Stromalotites create even more evolutionary timeline confusion
Stromatolites are biologically derived rocks formed by colonies of microbes that live in shallow marine waters. Stromatolites are made by a single-celled organism called cyanobacteria. Previously known as blue-green algae, cyanobacteria came onto the scene about 3500 million years ago, well before the existence of any other complex life forms. They are the oldest type of photosynthetic organism in the world—so old, in fact, that they predate plants by a couple of billion years.
Stromatolites found by scientist in Greenland are now thought to be the oldest evidence of life yet discovered that that push the origin of life to at least 3.7 billion years into the past—the problem is this was a time when our earth was thought to have been experiencing harsh conditions unfavorable to the emergence of life and the thriving existence of complex photosynthesizing bacteria.
The great age of stromatolite fossils complicates the task of restructuring the evolution of life from the chemicals naturally present on earth—It leaves comparatively little time for evolution to have occurred and puts the process close to a time when Earth was being bombarded by destructive asteroids
New York Times (World’s Oldest Fossils Found In Greenland) August 31, 2016
Discussion Question: Finding advanced species where only simple organisms should be in the fossil record should not just be regarded as anomalies but impossibilities. Does this fact along with finding living fossils older than when the evolutionary timeline supported living organisms on earth cast raise serious concerns about the theory of evolution?
Premise 3 : “Living Fossils” remain unchanged over supposed hundreds of millions of years
Living fossils is a term for species in existence today but also have been around long enough to form fossils millions of years ago.
Some examples are the coelacanth fish (fossil coelacanths are believed by evolutionist to be 340 million years old), Gingko trees (125 million years), crocodiles (140 million years), horseshoe crabs (200 million years), Neopilina mollusks (500 million years), and the Tuatara lizard (200 million years)
The challenge for evolutionists is that all the living fossils that have been found are identical to the species alive today.
Why have these life-forms stayed the same for all that time?
New Scientist Article-The Creatures Time Forgot 1999
These images demonstrate the absence of directional change over time which completely violates evolutionary theory
A variety of animals have been preserved in fossilized tree amber including: insects, crustaceans, tadpoles, frogs, lizards, annelids, snails, and spiders. The hair of mammals has been found as well. Living fossils preserved in amber provide vivid windows that also show no directional change of species from where they were supposedly millions of years ago and what they look like today.
Darwin’s Own Doubts:
I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor a record of the mutations of life, the best preserved geological section presented… the difficulty of our not discovering innumerable transitional links between the species which appeared at the commencement and close of each formation, pressed so hardly on my theory.
On The Origin Of Species-Chapter 6 Difficulties Of The Theory
Discussion Question : If Evolution is defined as the gradual change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and yet paleontologist have found numerous “living fossils” that show organisms fully formed early in the fossil record remaining unchanged over millions of years. How can this be explained?
ThinkCubed Truth Veracity Grid:
Have I Considered the issue carefully, honestly, and with an open mind?
Does what I think conform to the rules of logic and avoid contradiction?
Is what I believe influenced by my own bias, presuppositions, or desires?
