Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uiucdcsb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsb!miller From: miller@uiucdcsb.UUCP Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: SOR pamphlet #4 Message-ID: <32500017@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Date: Tue, 11-Dec-84 23:29:00 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.32500017 Posted: Tue Dec 11 23:29:00 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 13-Dec-84 02:11:41 EST References: <32500016@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Lines: 205 Nf-ID: #R:uiucdcsb:32500016:uiucdcsb:32500017:000:13856 Nf-From: uiucdcsb!miller Dec 11 22:29:00 1984 ORIGINS No. 4: The Fossil Record The origin of life on earth is a historical event. Whether life came about through creation or evolution cannot be repeated or directly tested by the scientist. Paleontology (the study of fossils) provides the only direct evidence available to the scientist to study the origin of life on earth. Evolutionists believe that all life forms descended from the same source. If this is true, then the fossil record should show the various kinds of plants and animals converging to a common source. Creationists, on the other hand, believe that all life forms have always been separate, with only limited poten- tial for viable variations. If this is true, then the fossil record should show life appearing suddenly, with no evidence of gradual step-by-step develop- ment through transitional forms. Extinctions would have occurred in the past, as they do in the present, but the boundaries between various organisms should always be apparent. Which model, creation or evolution, fits the fossil data better? GAPS: THE RULE, NOT THE EXCEPTION One of the major problems for evolutionists is the sudden explosion of complex life forms in the Cambrian rocks, including trilobites, brachiopods, worms, jellyfish, sponges, etc. No transitional forms, indicating how these complex creatures supposedly evolved, have ever been documented. Pre-Cambrian sedimentary rock can be found which is identical with overlying fossiliferous Cambrian, but the gaps are still present. The evolutionist Neville George was forced to admit that: ``Granted an evolutionary origin of the main groups of animals, and not an act of special creation, the absence of any record whatso- ever of a single member of any of the phyla in the Pre-Cambrian rocks remains as inexplicable on orthodox grounds as it was to Darwin'' [1]. The next step up on the alleged evolutionary progression is the transition from invertebrates to vertebrates. But Errol White, an expert on fishes, in his presidential address to the Linnean Society of London said: ``But whatever ideas authorities may have on the subject, the lung-fishes, like every other major group of fishes that I know, have their origins firmly based in _n_o_t_h_i_n_g'' [2]. This pattern continues throughout the entire evolutionary tree. Paleon- tologists from each specialty admit that their particular area does not docu- ment evolution, while at the same time maintaining a faith that all of the oth- er areas provide the missing evidence. For example, the evolutionary botanist Edred Corner wrote: ``Much evidence can be adduced in favour of the theory of evolution - from biology, bio-geography, and paleontology, but I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation'' [3]. Each time a particular kind of plant or animal appears in the fossil record, it does so fully formed, with no evidence of transitional forms indi- cating how it evolved. Gaps are large, systematic, and continuous throughout the fossil record, confirming the predictions of the creation model. ``Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of `seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists the most notorious of which is the presence of `gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires inter- mediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them'' [4]. Even the prominent Stephen Gould wrote: ``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'' [5]. Relying upon ``inference'' and ``not the evidence'' is not the mark of an objective scientist. PROPOSED TRANSITIONS When pressed hard for evidence of transitional forms, evolutionists always point to Archaeopteryx or to the horse series. Archaeopteryx, the proposed link between reptiles and birds, is considered by many evolutionists to be the best example of evolution in action. However, close scrutiny indicates the characteristics of Archaeopteryx do not give much support for the evolutionary model. Archaeopteryx did not have half-scales and half-feathers, but rather fully developed feathers capable of flight. Also, it turns out that Archaeopteryx's so-called reptilian features are not unique to reptiles, but are possessed by several other types of birds. For example, the living ostrich, hoatzin, touraco, etc. are all considered to be 100% birds, and yet possess common traits which are labeled reptilian in Ar- chaeopteryx. Furthermore, even the famous teeth cannot be used to label Ar- chaeopteryx as partially reptile. Some reptiles have teeth and some do not. Some amphibians have teeth and some do not. Some mammals have teeth and some do not. Some fish have teeth and some do not. In fact, this pattern holds true throughout the entire range of the vertebrate subphylum. Even other birds once had teeth, though they are now extinct. Finally, Archaeopteryx cannot be the ancestor of birds, because the fossil record indicates that birds were already in existence during the period in which Archaeopteryx was found [6]. These are just some of the reasons that many evolutionists are beginning to abandon Archaeopteryx as a transitional form. Current speculation centers upon an earlier reptile to bird link called ``pro-avis''. Pro-avis, however, is based totally upon faith, and not upon fact. ``No fossil evidence exists of any pro-avis. It is a purely hypothetical pre-bird, but one that must have existed'' [7]. The famous horse series is often found in museums as one of the classic cases of evolution. However, the observer is not usually told that: all of the various forms appear suddenly in the fossil record, the presumed reduction in the number of toes has many contradictions in order, Eohippus is almost identi- cal to the living African hyrax, and that modern horses have been found in the same strata with their supposed ancestors. In fact, as more fossil evidence is collected, it becomes clear that all of these various animals did not evolve, but were merely contemporaries of each other. The fossil record looks so bad, that a curator of the famous Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (which houses 20% of all fossil species known) wrote: ``Well, we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly ex- panded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much. The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, 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 Ameri- ca, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed informa- tion'' [8]. HUMAN EVOLUTION A wide variety of fossils has been proposed as the evolutionary ancestors of humans. However, each generation of evolutionists succeeds in little more than debunking the preceding generation's hypotheses. A few examples will suf- fice. In 1912, Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) was discovered. For over 40 years, Piltdown Man was examined by the world's leading authorities, contribut- ing in some part to over 500 doctoral dissertations. But in the 1950's, it was revealed that Piltdown Man was a complete hoax! The ``fossil'' turned out to be nothing more than fragments of an ape's jaw with a human skull treated to look old. Scientists of the time were so desperate to find support for evolu- tion, that even a fraud was accepted as valid data. The Nebraska Man (Hesperopithecus haroldcookii) was used in the 1925 Scopes trial to ridicule creationists. Nebraska Man consisted of a single tooth, although evolutionists had reconstructed Nebraska Man's entire appear- ance from that tooth. In 1927, the rest of the fossil was uncovered. Nebraska Man was neither an ape-like man nor a man-like ape, but an extinct pig! Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus, later known as Homo erectus) consisted of a skullcap, femur, and a premolar discovered over a period of seven years. The discoverer, Eugene DuBois, eventually changed his mind and declared that Java Man consisted of nothing more than the unrelated parts of a human and a giant gibbon. By that time, however, evolutionists had already accepted Java Man as an ancestor of humans. Furthermore, DuBois had found (but had kept secret for thirty years) the discovery of human skulls (the Wadjak skulls) in the same strata as Java Man. Since humans already existed, Java Man could not have been their ancestor. Neanderthal Man was originally classified as Homo neanderthalensis, but today is known to be fully Homo sapiens. The original La Chapelle-aux-Saints fossil is believed to have suffered from spinal osteoarthritis, and many later finds do not have the stooped appearance. What about the alleged transitional forms of today? What does the data indicate about those fossils? Currently, evolutionists are speculating about a group of fossils known as Australopithecus, of which Lucy is one form. However, the data suggests that Australopithecus was nothing more than an extinct ape. After proposing transi- tions from hoaxes, extinct pigs, etc. it is not surprising the interest evolu- tionists show in fossil apes. Not all evolutionists, however, are so quick to again repeat the mistakes of the past. For example, Charles Oxnard's multivariate statistical analysis indicates that Australopithecus probably did not walk upright and was not on the main human lineage [9]. Furthermore, posture is not critical to the dis- cussion, as the living pygmy chimpanzee Pan paniscus spends a great deal of time walking upright. In fact, the fossil record so strongly supports the creation model's pred- ictions, that Solly Zuckerman conceded that if humans had evolved from some ape-like creature, then they had done so ``without leaving any fossil traces of the steps of the transformation'' [10]. Paleontology, the only direct evidence the scientist can use to study the origins issue, shows systematic and consistent gaps in the fossil record. It is not a question of missing links, but of a missing chain for the evolution- ist! ``In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuation- ist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation'' [11]. Life appears suddenly, complete, and with fixed boundaries between the various kinds of plants and animals. The conclu- sion is that life did not evolve, but must have been created. REFERENCES [1] T. Neville George, ``Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective,'' _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _P_r_o_- _g_r_e_s_s, Jan. 1960, p. 5. [2] Errol White, ``Presidential Address: A Little on Lung-fishes,'' _P_r_o_c_e_e_d_- _i_n_g_s _o_f _t_h_e _L_i_n_n_e_a_n _S_o_c_i_e_t_y _o_f _L_o_n_d_o_n, Vol. 177, Jan. 1966, p. 8. [3] E. J. H. Corner, article in _C_o_n_t_e_m_p_o_r_a_r_y _B_o_t_a_n_i_c_a_l _T_h_o_u_g_h_t, ed. Anna Ma- cLeod and L. S. Cobley (Chicago, Quadrangle, 1961), p. 97. [4] David Kitts, ``Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory,'' _E_v_o_l_u_t_i_o_n, Sept. 1974, p. 467. [5] Stephen Gould, ``Evolution's Erratic Pace,'' _N_a_t_u_r_a_l _H_i_s_t_o_r_y, May 1977, p. 14. [6] ``Bone Bonanza: Early Bird and Mastodon,'' _S_c_i_e_n_c_e _N_e_w_s, Sept. 24, 1977, p. 198. [7] John Ostrom, ``Bird Flight: How Did It Begin?,'' _A_m_e_r_i_c_a_n _S_c_i_e_n_t_i_s_t, Jan.-Feb. 1979, p. 47. [8] David Raup, ``Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,'' _F_i_e_l_d _M_u_s_e_u_m _o_f _N_a_t_u_r_a_l _H_i_s_t_o_r_y _B_u_l_l_e_t_i_n, Jan. 1979, p. 25. [9] Charles Oxnard, ``Human Fossils: New Views of Old Bones,'' _T_h_e _A_m_e_r_i_c_a_n _B_i_o_l_o_g_y _T_e_a_c_h_e_r, May 1979, pp. 264-276. [10] Solly Zuckerman, _B_e_y_o_n_d _t_h_e _I_v_o_r_y _T_o_w_e_r: _T_h_e _F_r_o_n_t_i_e_r_s _o_f _P_u_b_l_i_c _a_n_d _P_r_i_v_a_t_e _S_c_i_e_n_c_e (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1970), p. 64. [11] Mark Ridley, ``Who Doubts Evolution?,'' _N_e_w _S_c_i_e_n_t_i_s_t, June 25, 1981, p. 831. For more information on this topic: Duane Gish, _E_v_o_l_u_t_i_o_n? _T_h_e _F_o_s_s_i_l_s _S_a_y _N_O! (San Diego, Master Book, 1979). Henry Morris, _S_c_i_e_n_t_i_f_i_c _C_r_e_a_t_i_o_n_i_s_m (San Diego, Master Book, 1974). Henry Morris and Gary Parker, _W_h_a_t _i_s _C_r_e_a_t_i_o_n _S_c_i_e_n_c_e? (San Diego, Master Book, 1982). Randy Wysong, _T_h_e _C_r_e_a_t_i_o_n-_E_v_o_l_u_t_i_o_n _C_o_n_t_r_o_v_e_r_s_y (Midland, Michigan, Inquiry Press, 1976). Edited by A. Ray Miller, fall 1984 Students for Origins Research P.O. Box 203 Goleta, CA 93116-0203