Darwin's
theory of evolution consists of three parts: (1) the doctrine of
common descent, that all earthly species are derived from a common
ancestor; (2) the doctrine of gradualism, that all new species and biological innovations occur because of gradual changes that very slowly occur; (3) the idea that the
origin of species and biological complexity can be explained as a
result of merely accidental natural events: so-called "natural selection" and random changes or random mutations. Don't be fooled by the constant attempts to make such a theory sound modern by mixing it with modern data. Inconsistent with modern data such as the enormous organization and fine-tuned complexity of protein molecules and cells, Darwinism is a moldy old ideology from the nineteenth century, which echoes ideas of Epicurus and Lucretius dating from the first century BC and earlier.
Some think that series of very old fossils dating back many thousands
or millions of years provide proof for Darwin's theory of evolution.
But I will now explain why very old fossils do not prove Darwinism as a whole, and also do not prove any one of the theory's three
parts.
No
Fossils Prove Common Descent
There
are almost no fossils dating back earlier than about 550 million
years. Then the fossil record suddenly blossoms with a huge number of
fossils. This explosion of fossils (very difficult to explain under
Darwinian assumptions) is called the Cambrian explosion. The fossils
that appear in the Cambrian explosion are fossils of highly developed
organisms such as trilobites.
But
it is believed that life began more than three billion years ago. We
have virtually no fossil record of the first three billion years of
life's history. So it clear that fossils cannot prove any doctrine of
common descent, that all life is derived from the same ancestor. In
order to prove that, you would have to have a complete fossil record
showing the intricate details of the first three billion years of
life's history. We have no such thing. From the fossil record, we
cannot tell whether all life has evolved from the same ancestor, or
12 different ancestors, or 100 different ancestors.
The
major groups of animals are called phyla, and there are about 24
different animal phyla. What the first major flourish of the fossil
records shows us is not one phyla appearing, and then branching out
into twenty. What we see is more like phyla suddenly appearing at
the same time. While this is not (strictly speaking) incompatible
with the idea of common descent, it is not particularly consistent
with such an idea, and almost seems to suggest a very different idea.
No
Fossils Prove That Natural Selection Drives Evolution
As
far as the Darwinian doctrine that natural selection is the main
cause of evolution, such an idea is a speculative idea that is not
proven by any fossil or any series of fossils. Fossils suggest
nothing about a cause of evolution. A series of fossils no more
proves that natural selection is causing species to appear than it
proves that magic fairies are causing species to appear. It might
be otherwise if natural selection left some kind of tell-tale mark or
trace element that you could use to tell when natural selection
occurred. But there is certainly no such trace or tell-tale mark in
any fossil.
It
Is All But Impossible to Distinguish Between the Fossils of a Real
Transitional Series and a Coincidentally Similar Set of Fossils That
Is Not From a Real Transitional Series
Many
Darwinists naively assume that once a series of fossils has been
arranged into a series suggesting a transitional series, that such an
arrangement proves a line of evolution from one species to another
(the idea of gradualism that is one of the three parts of Darwinism).
But such an assumption is erroneous. One reason is that assuming
alternate scenarios under which gradualism does not occur, and one
species does not evolve into another, we would coincidentally expect
to see many sequences of fossils that a gradualist might mistakenly
interpret as a transitional series.
For
example, let's imagine some super-advanced and very old
extraterrestrial civilization that visits Earth at long intervals.
Suppose that 10 million years ago they introduced monkey-like species
to our planet, that 5 million years ago they introduced ape-like
species, and that 100,000 years ago they cause the human species to
appear on Earth. This might result in a fossil record that cannot be
distinguished from a Darwinian fossil record in which apes evolve
from monkeys, and men evolve from apes.
Here
is a very interesting idea for a computer program, one I may one day
write. The program would first generate a hypothetical history of
life of an extraterrestrial planet, based not on Darwinian
assumptions, but on the idea that some unknown force or power causes
species to suddenly appear and then survive for a random length of
geological time. Each of these hypothetical species would have a
certain set of characteristics. Then in its second phase the program
would search through the data generated in the first phase, looking
for sequences that look rather like transitional series in which one
species evolved from the next (even though no such thing had ever
happened in this hypothetical history). The program would probably
be able to find many such series looking like transitional series,
even though they would all be false alarms resulting from
coincidence.
We
have no idea whether the alleged transitional series presented by
Darwinists are similar false alarms, resulting from coincidental
similarities rather than actual gradual evolution in which one
species evolves into another species. Those alleged transitional
series could be the result of a kind of “paleontology pareidolia,”
in which people find a few patterns they are hoping to find after
spending great lengths of time scanning a large data realm, rather
like people who spend countless hours scanning Mars photos and who
occasionally find things on the surface they claim are evidence of
ancient Mars civilizations. Dictionary.com defines pareidolia as “the
imagined perception of a pattern or meaning where it does not
actually exist.” The scientist who spends decades searching for
transitional series of fossils (and who eventually finds one or two alleged fossil series that seem to please him) may be like some person who for 40
years carefully checks his toast for dark spots that look like the
face of Jesus, and who eventually finds something that pleases him.
Below
is some random text. The characters in orange accidentally happen to
be sequential characters in the alphabet.
If
I have the entire text to scan through, and I am free to cherry-pick any
sequential progression of characters (such as “defghijk” or
“pqrstuvwx” or “ijklmnopqr”), it may be quite easy (depending
on the size of the text) for me to find a sequential series of
characters. I can then cherry-pick my data, and make an “evolution
graphic” that looks like this:
COLUMN NUMBER |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
LETTER |
a |
b |
c |
d |
e |
f |
I
have now presented a visual that seems to tell a “tale of
evolution.” By making this table I have suggested that the letter
in the first column has evolved into the letter in the second column,
that the letter in the second column has evolved into the letter in
the third column, and so forth. But this is purely a case of finding
a pattern I was hoping to find. There was no actual “evolution of
characters” in this random text.
This
simple example shows how easy it is easy it is to search through a
large amount of data and find some “evolution series” when
evolution is not actually happening.
Doing
research along these lines might be less speculative if we were able
to recover the DNA of presumed human ancestors. But we have very
little of such DNA. Here's the oldest thing found: scientists were
able to retrieve a small fragment of DNA from a 400,000-year-old
hominid fossil, but only the mitochondrial DNA which accounts for
only 37 genes. That's only about a five hundredth of the total human
genome. This fragment told no clear tale supporting conventional
theories, and confusingly resembled DNA of the Denisovans who
supposedly lived about 80,000 years ago.
We may contrast the typical visual claiming a fossil series with a scientific chart such as the periodic table. One shows an extremely arbitrary and doubtful claim of a series, and the other shows a series that involves no ideology at at all. Nature really is objectively structured in a way that matches the periodic table. For example, all carbon atoms have six protons, all nitrogen atoms have seven protons, all oxygen atoms have eight protons, and so forth. Although the arrangement of the periodic table is somewhat arbitrary, there is nothing arbitrary about the numbering found in its squares or the ordering of the squares. We might expect to find exactly the same numbering and ordering on periodic tables drawn up by intelligent species on other planets, because the numbers and sequences match objective facts of nature. The periodic table does not push any ideology; it tells us objective indisputable measurable facts of nature. Charts suggesting fossil series, on the other hand, are extremely cherry-picked affairs in which someone selects fossils out of millions that a particular age may have produced, for the sake of planting in our minds some particular storyline that may or may not be true.
The
Number of Alleged Transitional Series Presented to Support Darwinian
Gradualism Is Small, and Many Say It Is Much Smaller Than We Would
Expect If Darwinian Gradualism Were Occurring
Under
Darwinian assumptions we should expect to find innumerable
transitional series, but the evidence that exists for transitional
series is something much, much weaker. Below is a quote from a leading paleontologist, the late evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould:
"The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our text-books have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record: 'The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find interminable varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps. He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record, will rightly reject my whole theory.' Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution."
Alleged Transitional Series of Fossils Often Involve Fossils Gathered in Places So Geographically Diverse That the Claim of a Transition Is Not Credible
When we see some chart showing an alleged set of transitional fossils, we never see any identification of where the fossils were gathered. What we sometimes get is something like this:
Fossil A --> Fossil B --> Fossil C --> Fossil D
where the fossils came from different continents, or different quadrants of a the same continent. But claims of a gradual transition in such cases are often not credible, because of the impossibility or implausibility of descendants traveling from one continent to another, or traveling from one quadrant of a continent to some other quadrant of that continent thousands of miles away.
If you do a Google image search for "oceanic dispersal," you can find maps depicting claims that plants or animals somehow crossed oceans long before there were any boats. The page here has one of those maps, which appeared in a scientific paper. The arrows in the map tell us a large set of vastly improbable tall tales of oceanic movements before the existence of boats, such as (1) the claim that eons ago monkeys and cotton plants traveled from Africa to South America; (2) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from South America to Africa; (3) the claim that eons ago gecko lizards traveled from Africa to Cuba; (4) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from North America and Africa to Australia; (5) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from Australia to Hawaii; (6) the claim that eons ago chameleons and frogs traveled 200 miles between Madagascar and Africa; (7) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from New Zealand to South America; (8) the claim that eons ago some plant traveled from India to New Zealand; and (9) the claim that eons ago some trees traveled between Africa and Australia. These are the kind of claims that paleontologists make in connection with some of their claims of transitional fossil series. The problem is that these claims are tall tales lacking in credibility, sounding like the tale of a cyclone taking Dorothy's house from Kansas to Oz.
The
Alleged Transitional Series Presented to Support Darwinian Gradualism
Typically Involve Too-Fast Evolution That Darwinism Cannot Plausibly
Account For
It's
not enough to just have an alleged transitional series – you need
to have a series with plausibility. Suppose you are a district
attorney presenting a kind of transitional series as part of your
case against a defendant. You maintain that the defendant left his
job near Penn Station in Manhattan at 5:00, went to an apartment in
eastern Brooklyn, killed the murder victim at 5:10, and then returned
to his apartment in northern Manhattan by 5:20. This is a transitional
series, but not a plausible one, because it happens too fast. Whether
you take subway, train, car, or cab, you cannot get from Penn Station
to eastern Brooklyn and back to northern Manhattan in only twenty minutes.
An
equal lack of plausibility is found in most or all of the fossil
transitional series alleged by Darwinists. The most famous such
series is the fossils claimed to be a transitional series between
4-million-year-old primates and modern man. This series involves an
explosive growth of brain power, requiring many favorable mutations.
But the smaller the population, the lower the likelihood of getting
favorable mutations; and it is generally held that about a million
years ago the population of human ancestors was very small, only
about 10,000. Given such a small population, Darwinian evolution
cannot explain a rapid transition to human brains of the type that
Darwinists imagine.
Four
scientists (one from Cornell University) published a scientific paper
entitled “The Waiting Time Problem in a Model Hominem Population,”
which was published in the journal Theoretical Biology and Medical
Modelling. The paper can he read here. Using a computer simulation, they “simulated a classic
pre-human hominin population of at least 10,000 individuals, with a
generation time of 20 years, and with very strong selection (50 %
selective elimination).” They were basically trying to see how long
it would take before you got a mutation consisting of two nucleotides
(which is a fairly minor mutation, only some tiny fraction of the
mutations needed for the evolution of human intelligence). This is
called the “waiting time problem.” The authors summarize their
results as follows:
"Biologically
realistic numerical simulations revealed that a population of this
type required inordinately long waiting times to establish even the
shortest nucleotide strings. To establish a string of two nucleotides
required on average 84 million years. To establish a string of five
nucleotides required on average 2 billion years. We found that
waiting times were reduced by higher mutation rates, stronger fitness
benefits, and larger population sizes. However, even using the most
generous feasible parameters settings, the waiting time required to
establish any specific nucleotide string within this type of
population was consistently prohibitive."
Another
series of fossils that Darwinists like to discuss is one that
supposedly suggests an evolution from land-based creatures to whales.
But the dating of these fossils shows they were deposited over a span
way too short to plausibly account for such a transition under
Darwinian assumptions of mere random mutations and natural selection.
When a major popular science web site gives us a headline claiming,
“Whales Evolved in the Blink of an Eye,” we have a series of
postulated changes occurring too fast to be accounted for under
Darwinian assumptions.
What
does this “too fast” problem mean? It means that the most famous
series of alleged transitional fossils must be “taken off the
table” as evidence for Darwinian evolution. Like a wise jury that
would need to disqualify and invalidate any “transitional series”
claim that a defendant got from mid-Manhattan to Brooklyn and then to northern Manhattan in 20 minutes, we must disqualify and invalidate any series of
fossils used to support claims of Darwinian gradualism that appear
to show transitions happening way too fast to have occurred under
Darwinian assumptions.
Once
we do that, Darwinism seems to be left with very little in the way of
supporting fossil evidence. Such a situation could possibly be
reversed if Darwinists were to revolutionize their thinking to allow
for some plausible method of fast evolution. But our Darwinists keep
stubbornly sticking to their same old “random mutations plus
natural selection” story that is way, way too slow to produce the
transitions they claim occurred.
Visuals Used to Depict the Appearance of Alleged Transitional Species Are Often Fanciful or Misleading, and Do Not Correspond to Any Fossils
What often occurs is something like this:
(1) Some fossil will be found that slightly suggests the possibility of something a little like some transitional species that paleontologists hoped to find.
(2) There will then be many artist depictions which depict such a species as having characteristics that are not justified by the fossil that was found.
For example, if you do a Google image search for "tiktaalik," you will see a great number of artist depictions showing a fish-like animal with forelimbs. But if you do a Google image search for "tiktaalik fossil," you will see that the very slight fossil evidence for such a species does not correspond to the artist depictions, and merely show slight protrusions that might easily be mere fins.
So it's kind of a "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile" situation.
A
Large Fraction of the Fossil Evidence Presented in Support of
Darwinian Gradualism Involves Subjective Interpretation, Subjective Forensics, Social Construction and Adhesive Construction
Some
of the leading fossil cases involve subjective analysis. An example
is the famous skeleton called Lucy, which consists of fragments of a
skeleton rather than anything like a complete skeleton. We have in
this case subjective analysis both in the judgment that the fragments
were all originally part of the same animal skeleton, and also
subjective analysis when people speculate on what this Lucy animal
looked like. If any prosecutor in a court were to try to argue that
scattered fragments of a skeleton were bone fragments of a particular
individual who died decades ago, a defense attorney would be able to
raise all kinds of objections relating to how the evidence was
gathered, how the conclusions were drawn, and whether there were
alternate interpretations. Medical studies are double-blinded to
avoid scientist bias, but no such procedure occurs for
paleontologists who are gathering fossil fragments. We typically let
some paleontologist eager to support some orthodox Darwinian
interpretation do the evidence gathering and interpretation, without
guarding against bias that might produce “find whatever you hope to
find” kind of results.
A
related example of subjective interpretation may be found in rocks
that are claimed to be evidence that human ancestors existed about
500,000 years ago. It has long been claimed that flaked rocks from
hundreds of thousands of years ago must have be stone tools made by
human ancestors. But this link says, “Recent research published in
Nature by a team led by Tomos Proffitt at the University of Oxford
shows that capuchin monkeys regularly produce sharp-edged flakes
indistinguishable from those made by early hominins.”
Claims made about the significance of particular fossils are typically socially constructed claims. They rely on some chorus of paleontologists repeating countless times claims about fossil fragments that are of debatable or doubtful significance. Paleontologists also often rely on a literal adhesive construction of fossil fragments. In the history of paleontology what has very often occurred is that bone fragments were found scattered around some site, and paleontologists or their helpers decided to glue together fragments to make some impressive-looking find. This often involves dubious assumptions that the fragments came from a single organism or the same species, when no such assumption is warranted. My post "Fragment Follies of the Guessing Glue Guys" discusses how paleontologists often resort to dubious gluing efforts to make speculative constructions from fossil fragments. Often, it is not merely glue that is used, but baking soda mixed with superglue, which allows massive gaps to be filled in with some binding substance that looks like bone.
The Deliberate Faking of Fossils Has Long Been a Cloud on Paleontology Claims
A history of paleontology will tell the tale of Piltdown Man, some fossil fakery that long fooled paleontologists, who for decades cited it is as important evolution evidence. Nowadays what looks like an important fossil can be sold for large sums of money. This has given rise to a "cottage industry" in faking fossils in certain countries. A Scientific American article entitled "How Fake Fossils Pervert Paleontology" states, "A nebulous trade in forged and illegal fossils is an ever-growing headache for paleontologists." We read of "a growing and serious problem of fraudulent fossils being produced on an industrial scale in China."
Below is a statement by two natuaral history museum curators (link).:
"Countries where fossil fakes are common include Peru, Colombia, Russia, USA, Germany, France, and (especially) Morocco and China. The biggest markets for these fakes are in the USA, Morocco and China. The US market is also the leader in the trade of fakes and the Internet provides a ready source for them. Sale and auction websites on the Internet are an ideal way for selling fake fossils. Other outlets for selling fake fossils are the numerous mineral and fossil fairs organised around the world, and the more important the fair, the larger the number of fakes.... An important fact to emphasise is that, since China became open to commerce, fakes have increased by more than 500% as a result of the massive demand for Chinese fossils. The variety and magnitude of Chinese fake fossils is endless. They include every kind of forgery, from fakes made of pieces of different specimens (dinosaurs, turtles and crocodiles), to copies made completely of plaster (turtles, crocodiles and sabre-toothed cat skulls)."
Proving
an Example of One Species Gradually Evolving Into Another Would Not
Prove That Most Species Have Appeared Because of Gradual Evolution
Darwinists
typically take a kind of “if I've moved a meter, I've moved a mile”
attitude in the way they act as if proving one case of a species
evolving into another would prove the general idea that all species
have appeared through gradual evolution. But, to the contrary, one
would have to prove that very many or most species have evolved from
more primitive species to prove the gradualism claim of Darwinism.
A
Marxist may dogmatically claim that class struggle is the main thing
that explains historical events, and he may try to prove that by
giving the example of the French Revolution, which did seem to be a
case of class struggle. But proving this one example (or a few
similar examples) does not prove that most historical events occur
because of class struggles. Similarly, if a Darwinist were, for
example, to prove some particular transition showing that one species
had evolved into another millions of years ago, this would not prove
that most species had appeared because of such a process, nor would
it prove that the rather recent appearance of mankind had occurred
because of such a process.
Darwinists Lack Any Credible Theory of Macroevolution
Darwinism can possibly explain small-scale transitions, such as a species gradually changing its color to better adapt to environmental changes. But Darwinism lacks any credible theory of how dramatic evolutionary changes could occur, such as dinosaurs evolving into birds or ape-like animals evolving into humans. The modern theory of Darwinism (called Neo-Darwinism or the Modern Synthesis) relies on a lie: the lie that DNA is an anatomy blueprint. DNA only stores low-level chemical information, such as which amino acids make up a protein. If there is no anatomy blueprint in DNA (and there certainly is not), then Darwinists cannot explain dramatic anatomical transitions by postulating gradual DNA changes.
Almost Any Large Group of Richly Funded Researchers Will Produce Superficially Persuasive Results for Its Favored Tenets
There is a rule that I may call the Rule of Richly Funded Researchers. I may define this as the rule that almost any large group of richly-funded researchers will be able to produce superficially persuasive evidence for its cherished beliefs, even if those beliefs are false. So, for example, let us imagine that there were to exist tens of thousands of astrology researchers, who were given more than a billion dollars in federal funding to do research. Such researchers would probably be able to crunch data on births, illnesses and deaths to produce superficially convincing evidence in favor of astrology, the belief that stars and planets produce a mysterious influence on humans. Given that very many millions of dollars have been given over the past century to paleontologists very eager to prove their Darwinist beliefs, we should not be surprised if they are able to produce a few superficially persuasive cases of "transitional fossil series," even if their ideas about origins are way wrong. Similarly, if there was some community of thousands of researchers who passionately believed that the ghosts of animals live in the clouds, and were such researchers to receive many millions of dollars in funding, they would no doubt eventually be able to produce some superficially impressive photos showing clouds that looked very much like animals.
Correcting the Most Iconic Visual of Darwinism
The most famous visual presented by Darwinists is one in which we see a series of four or five species, all shown facing the right. The visual is misleading because it typically fails to display an implausible transitional state, and also fails to mention the intellectual gulf between these species. But the famous visual may be corrected by showing it as below:
Now we can see why it makes no sense to imagine gradual accidental changes producing such a transition: (1) the lack of any explanation for the giant leap from speechless organisms to speaking organisms; (2) the lack of an explanation for why there would have been a "survival of the fittest" transition resulting in an intermediate organism that would not be able to walk as well as its predecessor.