[Armageddon]

Life Appears Suddenly

16 Let us take a closer look at the evidence. In his book Red Giants and White Dwarfs Robert Jastrow states: “Sometime in the first billion years, life appeared on the earth’s surface. Slowly, the fossil record indicates, living organisms climbed the ladder from simple to more advanced forms.” From this description, one would expect that the fossil record has verified a slow evolution from the first “simple” life forms to complex ones. Yet, the same book says: “The critical first billion years, during which life began, are blank pages in the earth’s history.”16

17 Also, can those first types of life truly be described as “simple”? “Going back in time to the age of the oldest rocks,” says Evolution From Space, “fossil residues of ancient life-forms discovered in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.”17

18 From this beginning, can any evidence at all be found to verify that one-celled organisms evolved into many-celled ones? “The fossil record contains no trace of these preliminary stages in the development of many-celled organisms,” says Jastrow.18 Instead, he states: “The record of the rocks contains very little, other than bacteria and one-celled plants until, about a billion years ago, after some three billion years of invisible progress, a major breakthrough occurred. The first many-celled creatures appeared on earth.”19

19 Thus, at the start of what is called the Cambrian period, the fossil record takes an unexplained dramatic turn. A great variety of fully developed, complex sea creatures, many with hard outer shells, appear so suddenly that this time is often called an “explosion” of living things. A View of Life describes it: “Beginning at the base of the Cambrian period and extending for about 10 million years, all the major groups of skeletonized invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet.” Snails, sponges, starfish, lobsterlike animals called trilobites, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Interestingly, the same book observes: “Some extinct trilobites, in fact, developed more complex and efficient eyes than any living arthropod possesses.”20

20 Are there fossil links between this outburst of life and what went before it? In Darwin’s time such links did not exist. He admitted: “To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system, I can give no satisfactory answer.”21 Today, has the situation changed? Paleontologist Alfred S. Romer noted Darwin’s statement about “the abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear” and wrote: “Below this [Cambrian period], there are vast thicknesses of sediments in which the progenitors of the Cambrian forms would be expected. But we do not find them; these older beds are almost barren of evidence of life, and the general picture could reasonably be said to be consistent with the idea of a special creation at the beginning of Cambrian times. ‘To the question why we do not find rich fossiliferous deposits belonging to these assumed earliest periods prior to the Cambrian system,’ said Darwin, ‘I can give no satisfactory answer.’ Nor can we today,” said Romer.22

21 Some argue that Precambrian rocks were too altered by heat and pressure to retain fossil links, or that no rocks were deposited in shallow seas for fossils to be retained. “Neither of these arguments has held up,” say evolutionists Salvador E. Luria, Stephen Jay Gould and Sam Singer. They add: “Geologists have discovered many unaltered Precambrian sediments, and they contain no fossils of complex organisms.”23

22 These facts prompted biochemist D. B. Gower to comment, as related in England’s Kentish Times: “The creation account in Genesis and the theory of evolution could not be reconciled. One must be right and the other wrong. The story of the fossils agreed with the account of Genesis. In the oldest rocks we did not find a series of fossils covering the gradual changes from the most primitive creatures to developed forms, but rather in the oldest rocks, developed species suddenly appeared. Between every species there was a complete absence of intermediate fossils.”24

23 Zoologist Harold Coffin concluded: “If progressive evolution from simple to complex is correct, the ancestors of these full-blown living creatures in the Cambrian should be found; but they have not been found and scientists admit there is little prospect of their ever being found. On the basis of the facts alone, on the basis of what is actually found in the earth, the theory of a sudden creative act in which the major forms of life were established fits best.”25

[Armageddon]

Continued Sudden Appearances, Little Change

24 In the layers above that Cambrian outburst of life, the testimony of the fossil record is repeatedly the same: New kinds of animals and new kinds of plants appear suddenly, with no connection to anything that went before them. And once on the scene, they continue with little change. The New Evolutionary Timetable states: “The record now reveals that species typically survive for a hundred thousand generations, or even a million or more, without evolving very much. . . . After their origins, most species undergo little evolution before becoming extinct.”26

25 For example, insects appeared in the fossil record suddenly and plentifully, without any evolutionary ancestors. Nor have they changed much even down to this day. Regarding the finding of a fossil fly that was labeled “40 million years old,” Dr. George Poinar, Jr., said: “The internal anatomy of these creatures is remarkably similar to what you find in flies today. The wings and legs and head, and even the cells inside, are very modern-looking.”27 And a report in The Globe and Mail of Toronto commented: “In 40 million years of struggling up the evolutionary ladder, they have made almost no discernible progress.”28

26 A similar picture exists for plants. Found in the rocks are fossil leaves of many trees and shrubs that show very little difference from the leaves of such plants today: oak, walnut, hickory, grape, magnolia, palm and many others. Animal kinds follow the same pattern. The ancestors of those alive today appear in the fossil record suddenly and were much like their living counterparts. There are many variations, but all are easily identified as the same “kind.” Discover magazine notes one such example: “The horseshoe crab . . . has existed on earth virtually unchanged for 200 million years.”29 Those that became extinct also followed the same pattern. Dinosaurs, for example, appear suddenly in the fossil record, with no links to any ancestors before them. They multiplied greatly, then became extinct.

27 On this point the Bulletin of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History states: “Species appear in the sequence very suddenly, show little or no change during their existence in the record, then abruptly go out of the record. And it is not always clear, in fact it’s rarely clear, that the descendants were actually better adapted than their predecessors. In other words, biological improvement is hard to find.”30

[Armageddon]

No Transitional Features

28 Another difficulty for evolution is the fact that nowhere in the fossil record are found partially formed bones or organs that could be taken for the beginning of a new feature. For instance, there are fossils of various types of flying creatures—birds, bats, extinct pterodactyls. According to evolutionary theory, they must have evolved from transitional ancestors. But none of those transitional forms have been found. There is not a hint of them. Are there any fossils of giraffes with necks two thirds or three quarters as long as at present? Are there any fossils of birds evolving a beak from a reptile jaw? Is there any fossil evidence of fish developing an amphibian pelvis, or of fish fins turning into amphibian legs, feet and toes? The fact is, looking for such developing features in the fossil record has proved to be a fruitless quest.

29 New Scientist noted that evolution “predicts that a complete fossil record would consist of lineages of organisms showing gradual change continuously over long periods of time.” But it admitted: “Unfortunately, the fossil record does not meet this expectation, for individual species of fossils are rarely connected to one another by known intermediate forms. . . . known fossil species do indeed appear not to evolve even over millions of years.”31 And geneticist Stebbins writes: “No transitional forms are known between any of the major phyla of animals or plants.” He speaks of “the large gaps which exist between many major categories of organisms.”32 “In fact,” The New Evolutionary Timetable acknowledges, “the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another. Furthermore, species lasted for astoundingly long periods of time.”33—Italics added.

30 This agrees with the extensive study made by the Geological Society of London and the Palaeontological Association of England. Professor of natural science John N. Moore reported on the results: “Some 120 scientists, all specialists, prepared 30 chapters in a monumental work of over 800 pages to present the fossil record for plants and animals divided into about 2,500 groups. . . . Each major form or kind of plant and animal is shown to have a separate and distinct history from all the other forms or kinds! Groups of both plants and animals appear suddenly in the fossil record. . . . Whales, bats, horses, primates, elephants, hares, squirrels, etc., all are as distinct at their first appearance as they are now. There is not a trace of a common ancestor, much less a link with any reptile, the supposed progenitor.” Moore added: “No transitional forms have been found in the fossil record very probably because no transitional forms exist in fossil stage at all. Very likely, transitions between animal kinds and/or transitions between plant kinds have never occurred.”34

31 Thus, what was true in Darwin’s day is just as true today. The evidence of the fossil record is still as zoologist D’Arcy Thompson said some years ago in his book On Growth and Form: “Darwinian evolution has not taught us how birds descend from reptiles, mammals from earlier quadrupeds, quadrupeds from fishes, nor vertebrates from the invertebrate stock. . . . to seek for stepping-stones across the gaps between is to seek in vain, for ever.”35

[Armageddon]

What the Fossil Record Really Says

36 When we let the fossil record speak, its testimony is not evolution-oriented. Instead, the testimony of the fossil record is creation-oriented. It shows that many different kinds of living things suddenly appeared. While there was great variety within each kind, these had no links to evolutionary ancestors before them. Nor did they have any evolutionary links to different kinds of living things that came after them. Various kinds of living things persisted with little change for long periods of time before some of them became extinct, while others survive down to this day.

37 “The concept of evolution cannot be considered a strong scientific explanation for the presence of the diverse forms of life,” concludes evolutionist Edmund Samuel in his book Order: In Life. Why not? He adds: “No fine analysis of biogeographic distribution or of the fossil record can directly support evolution.”40

38 Clearly, the impartial inquirer would be led to conclude that fossils do not support the theory of evolution. On the other hand, fossil evidence does lend strong weight to the arguments for creation. As zoologist Coffin stated: “To secular scientists, the fossils, evidences of the life of the past, constitute the ultimate and final court of appeal, because the fossil record is the only authentic history of life available to science. If this fossil history does not agree with evolutionary theory—and we have seen that it does not—what does it teach? It tells us that plants and animals were created in their basic forms. The basic facts of the fossil record support creation, not evolution.”41 Astronomer Carl Sagan candidly acknowledged in his book Cosmos: “The fossil evidence could be consistent with the idea of a Great Designer.”42

[Armageddon]

“Ape-Men”—What Were They?

FOR many years there have been reports that the fossil remains of apelike humans have been found. Scientific literature abounds with artists’ renderings of such creatures. Are these the evolutionary transitions between beast and man? Are “ape-men” our ancestors? Evolutionary scientists claim that they are. That is why we often read expressions such as this article title in a science magazine: “How Ape Became Man.”1

2 True, some evolutionists do not feel that these theoretical ancestors of man should rightly be called “apes.” Even so, some of their colleagues are not so exacting.2 Stephen Jay Gould says: “People . . . evolved from apelike ancestors.”3 And George Gaylord Simpson stated: “The common ancestor would certainly be called an ape or a monkey in popular speech by anybody who saw it. Since the terms ape and monkey are defined by popular usage, man’s ancestors were apes or monkeys.”4

3 Why is the fossil record so important in the effort to document the existence of apelike ancestors for humankind? Because today’s living world has nothing in it to support the idea. As shown in Chapter 6, there is an enormous gulf between humans and any animals existing today, including the ape family. Hence, since the living world does not provide a link between man and ape, it was hoped that the fossil record would.

4 From the standpoint of evolution, the obvious gulf between man and ape today is strange. Evolutionary theory holds that as animals progressed up the evolutionary scale, they became more capable of surviving. Why, then, is the “inferior” ape family still in existence, but not a single one of the presumed intermediate forms, which were supposed to be more advanced in evolution? Today we see chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, but no “ape-men.” Does it seem likely that every one of the more recent and supposedly more advanced “links” between apelike creatures and modern man should have become extinct, but not the lower apes?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Nice try, Blu's husband. What can you do? My favorite example of evolution in action was given by Richard Dawkins. It concerns the salamanders surrounding the Great Valley of California. They stretch up and down the Mountain slopes bordering the valley. In the south of the valley there are two distinct species, but stretching up the two sides of the valley, they gradually morph from one species to the other. A most obvious example of evolution.

[Armageddon]

How Much Fossil Evidence?

5 From the accounts in scientific literature, in museum displays and on television, it would seem that surely there must be abundant evidence that humans evolved from apelike creatures. Is this really so? For instance, what fossil evidence was there of this in Darwin’s day? Was it such evidence that encouraged him to formulate his theory?

6 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists informs us: “The early theories of human evolution are really very odd, if one stops to look at them. David Pilbeam has described the early theories as ‘fossil-free.’ That is, here were theories about human evolution that one would think would require some fossil evidence, but in fact there were either so few fossils that they exerted no influence on the theory, or there were no fossils at all. So between man’s supposed closest relatives and the early human fossils, there was only the imagination of nineteenth century scientists.” This scientific publication shows why: “People wanted to believe in evolution, human evolution, and this affected the results of their work.”5

7 After more than a century of searching, how much fossil evidence is there of “ape-men”? Richard Leakey stated: “Those working in this field have so little evidence upon which to base their conclusions that it is necessary for them frequently to change their conclusions.”6 New Scientist commented: “Judged by the amount of evidence upon which it is based, the study of fossil man hardly deserves to be more than a sub-discipline of palaeontology or anthropology. . . . the collection is so tantalisingly incomplete, and the specimens themselves often so fragmentary and inconclusive.”7

8 Similarly, the book Origins admits: “As we move farther along the path of evolution towards humans the going becomes distinctly uncertain, again owing to the paucity of fossil evidence.”8 Science magazine adds: “The primary scientific evidence is a pitifully small array of bones from which to construct man’s evolutionary history. One anthropologist has compared the task to that of reconstructing the plot of War and Peace with 13 randomly selected pages.”9

9 Just how sparse is the fossil record regarding “ape-men”? Note the following. Newsweek: “‘You could put all the fossils on the top of a single desk,’ said Elwyn Simons of Duke University.”10 The New York Times: “The known fossil remains of man’s ancestors would fit on a billiard table. That makes a poor platform from which to peer into the mists of the last few million years.”11 Science Digest: “The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin! . . . Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans—of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings—is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter.”12

10 Modern-type humans, with the capacity to reason, plan, invent, build on previous knowledge and use complex languages, appear suddenly in the fossil record. Gould, in his book The Mismeasure of Man, notes: “We have no evidence for biological change in brain size or structure since Homo sapiens appeared in the fossil record some fifty thousand years ago.”13 Thus, the book The Universe Within asks: “What caused evolution . . . to produce, as if overnight, modern humankind with its highly special brain?”14 Evolution is unable to answer. But could the answer lie in the creation of a very complex, different creature?

[Armageddon]

Where Are the “Links”?

11 However, have not scientists found the necessary “links” between apelike animals and man? Not according to the evidence. Science Digest speaks of “the lack of a missing link to explain the relatively sudden appearance of modern man.”15 Newsweek observed: “The missing link between man and the apes . . . is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule.”16

12 Because there are no links, “phantom creatures” have to be fabricated from minimal evidence and passed off as though they had really existed. That explains why the following contradiction could occur, as reported by a science magazine: “Humans evolved in gradual steps from their apelike ancestors and not, as some scientists contend, in sudden jumps from one form to another. . . . But other anthropologists, working with much the same data, reportedly have reached exactly the opposite conclusion.”17

13 Thus we can better understand the observation of respected anatomist Solly Zuckerman who wrote in the Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh: “The search for the proverbial ‘missing link’ in man’s evolution, that holy grail of a never dying sect of anatomists and biologists, allows speculation and myth to flourish as happily to-day as they did 50 years ago and more.”18 He noted that, all too often, facts were ignored, and instead, what was currently popular was championed in spite of evidence to the contrary.

[PenultimateManStanding]

14 So what are you saying? God created us 6000 years ago? You're kidding, right?

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'N')ice try, Blu's husband. What can you do? My favorite example of evolution in action was given by Richard Dawkins. It concerns the salamanders surrounding the Great Valley of California. They stretch up and down the Mountain slopes bordering the valley. In the south of the valley there are two distinct species, but stretching up the two sides of the valley, they gradually morph from one species to the other. A most obvious example of evolution.

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '1')4 So what are you saying? God created us 6000 years ago? You're kidding, right?

[Opies]

Armageddon, your arguments are entirely flawed, and you seem to have an elementary school level of understanding about how our planet and life was formed.

I was typing out a very long responce to this until my computer decided to reboot itself without my permission so screw that.

Look up the following:

The big bang
homogeneous accretion
heterogeneous accretion
abiotic synthesis
miller-yuri apparatus

Etc. And the big bang was NOT NOTHING exploding into SOMETHING
It was SOMETHING (the sum of existent energy) exploding into a more dispersed SOMETHING. Pretty simple stuff if you ask me.

The more and more I've learned about evolution, and how stars and planets are formed etc.... makes me really wonder whether we are the only intelligent / conscious life in the universe.

And yea, our planet hasen't always been like this. In fact, mars used to have the earth-like life sustaining distance from the sun, but as time went on, earth became that place. Scientists figure how Venus is now, is like how earth used to be, and mars is how earth will look billions of years from now. Again, this is pretty simple stuff and doesn't take a whole lot of intelligence to string it together.

Again, the earth hasen't always been like this. We used to have a reducing atmosphere (no molecular oxygen) which allowed for the abiotic synthesis of amino acids and other proteins. (look it up; all 20 amino acids have been successfully synthesized abiotically using the miller-yuri apparatus)

One we had those, eventually with enough luck, we got a primitive single celled organism. It wasn't until photosynthetic cells evolved that our atmosphere became rich with molecular oxygen. We went from 0% oxygen, to well over 60% oxygen. Good ol' pond scum, prepping this world for chemoheterotrophs. Anyway, after that, along came more and more complicated shit etc etc. I have my own theory that without molecular oxygen and hence no ozone layer, that the UV light caused major mutations, causing not only the death of many many organisms, (the weak ones) but also caused hyper-evolution, creating some strong organisms.

And so the story goes... we had the more complicated ocean life, then we had the fish that decided land was better and the start of amphibious terrestrial life. Then we get the terrestrial plants, the reptiles... dinosaurs and birds, and finally mammals.

Evolution is not an exact process. In fact it is a very new science, and is still in its very early stages. The taxonomic systems we use today are completely flawed and don't work very well. But if humans just appeared out of nowhere, why do we share over 90% of our DNA with our primate anscestors? And you seem to have left out the 1-3 million years that homo-erectus, and australiopithicus and other such animals lived and evolved. Guess what? human life didn't start 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture and written language. You seem to have left out about 99.9% of it.

Humans evolving today? HAH thats a good laugh. In order to evolve, one must obey the laws of competition. We don't. So we stopped evolving. The only reason we have advanced is because of written language. The ability to pass on more than just genes. We can pass on knowledge and technology and ideas and everything we have. We are where we are not due to evolution, but due to the systematic accumulation of knowledge. It used to be passed down from parent to child through spoken word, but agriculture changed that. Now we have textbooks and encyclopedias.

Most of the stuff in this thread is completely asinine and ridiculous.
Of course we don't have a perfect fossil record. not every bone turns into a fossil. Time and location permits some lucky organisms to fossilize, but not all get that luxury.

Now don't think I'm prancing around here like an asshole expert. I may be the former, but I'm not the latter. I really know very little, but the time I've spent reading, researching and understanding this information is clearly longer than yours. Take a while to learn some basics before you immediately believe some article you read or something else of that sort.

Also, check out homologous structures. I'm sure you've heard of the example about how similar the bone structure is of a bat wing, whale fin, human arm, and cat leg. Yep yep.... good ol' evolution. Here's an example of how it works!

Food source 1 and 2 exist.
Organism 1 exists. Organism 1 has the ability to use food source 1, but does not have the ability to use food source 2. For whatever freak reason, a mutation occurs in say, a single organism of organism 1, creating a new organism, organism 2. Now this mutation happened to occur in the just the right spot that it changed the enzyme organism 1 produces to break down its food. Now that enzyme that organism 2 produces doesnt break down food source 1, however it works for food source 2. Once food source 1 is gone, organism 1 dies out, however, the mutation allowed organism 2 to use food source 2, so it continues to live and reproduce. Survival of the fittest at its best. (survival of the best adapted) Evolution takes millions of years, not a few thousand.

calling evolution a fallacy is like saying the sun rotates around the earth. Evolution is one of the strongest fact-backed scientific theories.... EVER.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'N')ice try, Blu's husband. What can you do? My favorite example of evolution in action was given by Richard Dawkins. It concerns the salamanders surrounding the Great Valley of California. They stretch up and down the Mountain slopes bordering the valley. In the south of the valley there are two distinct species, but stretching up the two sides of the valley, they gradually morph from one species to the other. A most obvious example of evolution.

[Armageddon]

The bottom line is there are no fossil remains that support evolution- none.

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'N')ice try, Blu's husband. What can you do? My favorite example of evolution in action was given by Richard Dawkins. It concerns the salamanders surrounding the Great Valley of California. They stretch up and down the Mountain slopes bordering the valley. In the south of the valley there are two distinct species, but stretching up the two sides of the valley, they gradually morph from one species to the other. A most obvious example of evolution.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', '
')I was being facetious

[lys3rg0]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', 'T')here are no fossil remains that support evolution- none.

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lys3rg0', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', 'T')here are no fossil remains that support evolution- none.

[lys3rg0]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', 'C')an you provide one fossil that shows one species evolving into another ?

[Armageddon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lys3rg0', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Armageddon', 'C')an you provide one fossil that shows one species evolving into another ?