CREATION BITS No 5.
The Cambrian Explosion —
A Strong Argument Favoring Creation
| Author: Curt Sewell Subject: Creation Overviews Date: 11/2/1999CREATION BITS INDEX |
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The chart above shows a simplified version of the way animal life is thought to have evolved. Beginning with raw chemicals (at the bottom of the chart) simple life-forms such as algae supposedly formed several billion years ago. By some evolutionary process, it’s thought that creatures gradually got more and more complex. Finally (at the top of the chart), the types we see around us today appeared.
But there is a vast mystery, that’s been nicknamed the “Cambrian Explosion.” This took place about 600 million years ago (according to the usual geologic column). Prior to this time, the only forms of life that show as fossils are simple single-celled types such as algae and bacteria. Then suddenly “… a gorgeous array of shelly invertebrates …” appeared (as paleontologist Niles Eldredge said). As he put it, “Indeed, the sudden appearance of a varied, well-preserved array of fossils, … does pose a fascinating intellectual challenge.” These include more than 5000 species, including sponges, jellyfish, corals, worms, mollusks, trilobites, and crustaceans.
There is no apparent explanation for this. We find traces of the algae and other simple forms that preceded these invertebrates, and millions of Cambrian fossils have been found. But surely, if evolution is true, there should be a great many in-between transitional fossils. Richard Dawkins said, “It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.”
Creationists say that this is a strong sign that God created all the kinds of animals within a one-week period, as the Bible says. We must remember that the “geologic column,” that yields million-year ages, is based on highly questionable assumptions, and held together by circular logic.
There’s another cavernous gap in the fossil record, between Cambrian invertebrates and fish. The fish are considered to be the earliest vertebrates (that sub-phylum also includes amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) and, if evolution is true, must have evolved from one or more of the invertebrate phyla just discussed. But again, there are absolutely no intermediate forms found in the rocks; it’s as if fish were just suddenly there, having no ancestors.
In his 1966 presidential address to the Linnaean Society, ichthyologist (fish expert) Errol White said: “But whatever idea authorities may have on the subject, the lungfishes, like every other major group of fishes I know, have their origins firmly based in nothing.” This is still true in the mid-1990’s.
Creationist Dr. Duane Gish discussed this absence of vital transitional fossils in his book Creation Scientists Answer Their Critics. He wrote, “These anti-creationists have enshrouded this profound discontinuity in the history of life in an enormous fog of silence. They not only make no attempt to offer “just-so” stories how this may have occurred, they completely ignore it. It is too embarrassing to evolutionary theory even to discuss in their anti-creation polemics.”
If all of these expert evolutionists, to whom Gish was replying, and who had written specifically to try and discredit creationism, knew of any way to refute Gish’s claims about the huge gap in the ancestry of fishes, and the Cambrian explosion, they would certainly have done so. That they have all remained silent on this tremendously important point shows their tacit agreement that the gap is real. These two cavernous gaps alone should be enough to absolutely disprove evolutionism.
Many elementary textbooks make claims about transitional fossils proving evolution. These claims are nonsense. The only transitional fossils that have ever been found are those that show tiny changes, that lead to a new species. These certainly exist, and this principle is used by many plant and animal breeders in their everyday activities. But these changes are tiny Never have there been transitions above the Family level.
Archeopteryx is often called the missing link between dinosaurs and birds. This is a figment of evolutionist’s hopeful imagination. Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould said that “Archy” is simply a “curious mosaic” — an extinct bird that has some reptilian features (like several present-day birds also have). “Archy” doesn’t qualify as a transition because there is no evidence of which reptile he may have descended from, or which modern bird he evolved into. He had no known ancestors or descendants, so he can’t be fitted into any sort of missing gap.
Fundamental Biblical creationists argue that this Cambrian explosion, and the tremendous void in the fossil record preceding fishes, this sudden appearance of so many different kinds of life, with no trace of ancestors, is good evidence for the sort of divine creation described in Genesis; this conclusion is just what the fossil record clearly shows. But the evolutionists say that that’s simply religious nonsense; and yet their answer is no clearer, and it has almost no evidence to back it up.
CONCLUSION
While these two huge gaps in the fossil record don’t disprove evolution, they clearly demonstrate that evolution is not a proven fact. It’s dishonest for public schools to teach that it is, yet this is often done. Why? Simply because the majority of the scientific and educational establishments believe in evolution, because it’s the only materialistic approach that avoids the necessity of acknowledging divine creation by God. The fact remains that:
Both creation and evolution are actually religious philosophies, because both require faith to believe. One invokes faith in a divine Creator, the other relies on faith in random materialistic processes. Thus one faith is theistic; the other faith is atheistic.
Neither creation nor evolution is truly scientific, because neither can be proved or disproved.
Adherents of both belief-systems can find evidences that show their faith to be superior to the other. It’s a matter of choice. As a Christian, I choose to believe in God and in the Bible — the record He gave to humankind.