Les Fossiles
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Explosive Evolution
The
bulk of the fossil record is found in a series of layers commencing
with the Cambrium. The Cambrium is associated with an explosive occurrence
of various diverse fossil forms. The sudden and almost simultaneous
appearance of fossils, from even different phyla, has been termed
"the Cambrium explosion". Pre-cambrium fossils are largely
limited to micro organisms and where macrofossils occur, they are
normally at contact zones with the Cambrium, and difficult to ascribe
to one or the other layer.
If
evolution were true, one would expect a progressive advance from
simple to complex in the fossil record, but amazingly one finds that
even the complex life forms such as the chordates appear right in the
beginning. In an article entitled "The Big Bang of Animal
Evolution" (Scientific
American, November 1992),
Jeffrey S. Levinton, a professor in ecology and evolution at State
University of New York states:
"Cambrium
explosion was characterized by the sudden and roughly simultaneous
appearance of many diverse animal forms almost 600 million years ago.
No other period in the history of animal life can match this
remarkable burst of evolutionary creativity."
He goes on
to say that evolutionary lawns rather than trees appear to be the
norm. An evolutionary tree normally shows a common ancestor with
branches leading to organisms that develop later in time. In a lawn,
all the branches are parallel which means there is no so-called
ancestor. He goes on to say:
"Those
stories point to a serious problem with all arguments about
evolution that rely on taxonomic classification. Some of the fossils
that suggest the existence of unique classes are very poor scraps
from the geological table."
The
fact that all the major phyla appear simultaneously in the fossil
record is a strong argument for creation rather than evolution. Even
Charles Darwin admitted this in the first edition of the Origin of
Species. He writes regarding this issue:
"The
case at present must remain inexplicable; and may be truly urged as a
valid argument against the views here entertained."
These
facts have urged Neo-Darwinists such as Stephen J. Gould to
reconsider Darwin's idea of gradualism (the slow development of one
form out of another over time) and replaced it with the concept of
evolution through punctuated equilibrium (periods of equilibrium
followed by rapid punctuated changes. Whatever one wishes to term it,
the fact remains that organisms appear suddenly which is in harmony
with the creation account. Punctuated equilibrium has many hurdles to
cross, particularly in the sphere of genetics, where it must be
explained how so many useful mutations could come about so rapidly.
The idea that all major phyla could appear at once seems to be
stretching it to say the least.
Current
concepts require vast time periods, measured in millions of years,
to accommodate changes from one life form to another. Standard geology,
therefore, supposes vast time periods for each of the geological layers
to account for this vast period of time. Historically, the time periods
became longer as evidence for the complexity of evolutionary change
became greater. It is interesting that new evidence of the very rapid
appearance of life on earth, and the absence of evidence for change
over long periods of time, have forced scientists in the opposite
direction, and they are just as willing to slash vast ages out of
the geological column, as they were to insert them. (Samuel
Bowring from M.I.T. and Harvard's Knoll in Time Magazine, Dec 1995)
The
problem is so vast that it almost seems as if scientists are becoming
desperate to find a solution to the problem. They are even talking of
"Evolving at Supersonic Speed". A group of researches from
M.I.T. and Harvard found it necessary to recalibrate the geological
clock by chopping the time for the Cambrium in half and then crammed
the evolutionary events into the first third prompting Gould to state:
"Fast
is now a lot faster than we thought, and that's extraordinarily interesting."
(Time
Magazine, December 4, 1995)
This is
only one step away from special creation. Indeed creationists do just
a little more chopping to the time scale.
- Dr.
Walter J. Veith
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