1.

THR gAPS IN tHR rECORD WHICH, WHILE PREDICTED BY tHR tHEORY,

NONETHELESSML mKE aN aGRRAVATING tHING tO hAVR tO eXPLAIN
The Fossil Record
Remains of animals and plants found in sedimentary rock deposits give us an indisputable
record of past changes through vast periods of time. This evidence attests to the fact that there
has been a tremendous variety of living things. Some extinct speciAes had traits that were
transitional between major groups of organisms. Their existence confirms that species are not
fixed but can evolve into other species over time.
The evidence also shows that what have appeared to be gaps in the fossil record are due to
incomplete data collection. The more that we learn about the evolution of specific species
lines, the more that these so-called gaps or "missing links in the chain of evolution" are filled
with transitional fossil specimens. One of the first of these gaps to be filled was between small
bipedal dinosaurs and birds. Just two years after Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a
150-145 million year old fossil of Archaeopteryx was found in southern Germany. It had
jaws with teeth and a long bony tail like dinosaurs, broad wings and feathers like birds, and
skeletal features of both. This discovery verified the assumption that birds had reptilian
ancestors.
Since the discovery of Archaeopteryx, there have been many other crucial evolutionary gaps
filled in the fossil record. Perhaps, the most important one, from our human perspective, was
that between apes and our own species. Since the 1920's, there have been literally hundreds of
well-dated intermediate fossils found in Africa that were transitional species leading from apes
to humans over the last 6-7 million years. This evidence is presented in the last 3 tutorials of
this series.

Fossils disprove evolution'j

One of the most powerful pieces of evidence against evolution is the fossil record. If
evolution occurred by slow, minute changes in living creatures, there would be
thousands of times more transitional forms of these creatures in the fossil beds than
complete forms. Since the billions of fossils that have been found are all complete
forms, the obvious conclusion is: Evolution never occurred! Though evolutionists have
stated that there are many transitional forms, this is simply not true. What evolutionists
claim to be transitional forms all have fully functional parts. A true transitional form
would have non-functioning parts or appendages, such as the nub of a leg or wing.

Where are the trillions of fossils of such true transitional forms? Critics often say that
creationism is simply religion, whereas evolutionism is based on science. The Bible
states in Genesis I that all creatures reproduce “after their kind” (no change to another
kind, i.e., no transitional forms). So the complete absence of transitional forms in the
fossil record supports creationism. Is this scientific evidence for creationism, or isn’t it?
 “There are No Transitional Fossils”
Isaak begins this section by offering us this definition: “A transitional fossil is one that looks like
it’s from an organism intermediate between two lineages, meaning it has some characteristics
of lineage A, some characteristics of lineage B, and probably some characteristics part way
between the two. Transitional fossils can occur between groups of any taxonomic level, such as
between species, between orders, etc. Ideally, the transitional fossil should be found
stratigraphically between the first occurrence of the ancestral lineage and the first occurrence
of the descendent lineage...”

Solid Ground or Shifting Sands?

As if that were not enough, while evolutionary literature may be replete with “just so” stories
about how so many organisms evolved into their supposed descendants, there remains a
conspicuous lack of credible accounting for empirically viable changes beyond that of bones
and teeth.
Substantial differences exist between such systems as breathing, vision, circulation,
locomotion, etc., both in general configuration and in the critical details. Faced with the
absence of empirical evidence for transitions in these systems, few evolutionists bother to
speculate on how these systems could have successfully “transitioned” from one to the other,
or how an intermediate version could possibly provide the needed functionality for either the
“original” or the “descendant” system during the alleged transition.

What do the Experts Say?

In the first place, objective paleontologists concede that one’s interpretation of the fossil record
will invariably be influenced by one’s presuppositions (in the case of the evolutionists, the
presumption that evolution has taken place), and that everything must therefore be forced to
somehow fit into that framework.

“The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution
accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that a gradualistic
model can be valid.” [Steven M. Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process. San Francisco:
W. M. Freeman & Co., 1979, p. 39.]

"...Every paleontologist knows that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all
categories above the level of family appear in the record suddenly and are not led up to by
known, gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.” [George Gaylord Simpson
(evolutionist), The Major Features of Evolution, New York, Columbia University Press, 1953 p.
360.]

“Few paleontologists have, I think, ever supposed that fossils, by themselves, provide grounds
for the conclusion that evolution has occurred. The fossil record doesn’t even provide any
evidence in support of Darwinian theory except in the weak sense that the fossil record is
compatible with it, just as it is compatible with other evolutionary theories, and revolutionary
theories, and special creationist theories, and even ahistorical theories.” [David B. Kitts
(evolutionist), "Search for the Holy Transformation," Paleobiology, Vol. 5 (Summer 1979), pp.
353-354.]

“At the higher level of evolutionary transition between basic morphological designs, gradualism
has always been in trouble, though it remains the “official” position of most Western
evolutionists. Smooth intermediates between Baupläne are almost impossible to construct,
even in thought experiments; there is certainly no evidence for them in the fossil record
(curious mosaics like Archaeopteryx do not count).” [S.J. Gould & Niles Eldredge
(evolutionists); Paleobiology 3:147, 1977]

“The extreme rarity of transitional forms is the trade secret of paleontology ... The history of
most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism: 1. Stasis.
Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the
fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually
limited and directionless. 2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise
gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully
formed.’” [S.J. Gould (evolutionist); Natural History 86:14 (1977)]

2. The most compelling evidence of all comes from molecular biology – the fact that DNA code
is universal among all living things, with all creatures sharing identical segments of code.

To begin with, it's striking that all life, from plants and animals to bacteria, viruses and fungi,
rely on the same DNA coding mechanism to carry the biological instructions guiding how the
creature is put together, Dawkins noted. What varies from one animal to another is not the
code's structure or mechanism, but the individual genes.

There is already enough such DNA comparison evidence to prove beyond doubt that all living
things have shared ancestry

The genetic code

This was completely unknown when Darwin espoused his theory, but it explains the things
Darwin observed with extraordinary precision.

It explains how species fall into taxonomic groups, and it allows us to track the evolutionary
history of any species by comparing its DNA to those other other species in the same clade.
Without fail, they show precisely what the theory predicts: that species that phylogenentically
appear to be related (that is, they have the same physical features) have DNA that is similar in
predictable ways.

DNA evidence occasionally brings up surprises, examples of convergent evolution that cause us
to rethink some of the phylogenetic clade assignments, but that too is predicted by the theory:
there's nothing to prevent the same genetic process from happening in two species. It only
causes us to re-check the anatomy, not overthrow the theory, and in doing so actually confirms
the theory.

It also presents the greatest opportunities for falsification of the theory. DNA is not a single
blueprint, and you can achieve the same effect many different ways. It would be so easy for us
to sequence.

Modern DNA lineage mapping and tracking wins hands down. It shows past relationships and
acts as a sort of timeline clock. We can see old bits of ancient viral particles, now unused, in our
genes as well as the same stuff in chimp and ape and lemur DNA. It shows identical aging
artifacts and identical attributes. Also, some of our unused DNA is just "temporarily out of
service" because it's no longer needed. But it can and has been reactivated in the lab and then
provides functions identical to that which WAS functional in older species.

3. Genetic evidence - E.g. the fact that humans have a huge number of genes (as much as 96%)
in common with other great apes ... and (as much as 50%) with wheat plants. The pattern of
genetic evidence follows the tell-tale patterns of ancestral relationships (more genes in
common between recently related species, and fading the further back in time).

4. Molecular evidence - These are commonalities in DNA ... which is separate from genetic
commonalities ... much of our DNA does not code for genes at all. But random mutations
(basically 'typos') enter into DNA at a known rate over the centuries. This is called the
'molecular clock' and again gives excellent evidence of when humans diverged from other apes
(about 6 million years ago, according to this molecular clock), and this corresponds perfectly
with when these fossils first appear in the fossil record (using radiometric dating).