How Fossils Overturned Evolution: Millions of Proofs that Refute Darwinism

INTRODUCTION A fossil is the remains or traces of a plant or animal that have been preserved in the Earth's crust down to the present day. Fossils collected from all over the world are our most important source of information about the species that have existed on Earth since life began. The skeletons of living things whose contact with the air was suddenly interrupted have come down, often perfectly preserved, to the present day. Research into these fossils permits us to learn increasingly detailed information about extinct animals or plants. Most basically, this information also tells us about which living things existed during which period. For evolutionists, fossil specimens, often hundreds of millions of years old, are all tools they can use in line with their own theories. Evolutionists take a fossil, link it arbitrarily to some present-day species, and then claim that the fossil is the ancestor of the living organism in question. Upon this premise, they then construct dramatic and detailed scenarios. If the fossil in question is a fish, for example, they claim on the basis of a few bones that it possesses primitive features, newly developing organs and limbs in the process of undergoing a transition to a "higher" life form. They write books about the creature, hold conferences, and exhibit it as the intermediate form or "missing link" they have been seeking for so long. That is, until they find themselves looking at a living specimen of this supposedly extinct creature! When a living thing emerges in the same form it was known to have existed in millions of years ago, it of course demolishes all the evolutionist fables told about it. Its simple presence demonstrates that a living organism that—according to Darwinists' claims—should have undergone considerable evolution after the course of millions of years, somehow remained immune to the process. Moreover, it proves that at a time when, again according to evolution, only primitive forms of life were in existence, fully developed life forms with complex features and their own unique structures were already thriving. The creature that evolutionists imagine to be "primitive" is in fact nothing of the sort. In other words, the deceptive nature of invalid claims regarding "transition from a single-celled organism," "an intermediate form" and "a primitive life-form" is soon realized. Eventually, important evidence proves that the "process of gradual evolution" is nothing but a myth. All these specimens manifest one single truth: Living things did not come into being through the fictitious processes of the theory of evolution, but were created in a single moment. Today's living things, with all their perfect features as manifestations of God's superior artistry, possess exactly the same splendor and perfection as their counterparts that existed millions of years ago. Once all evolutionist speculation and claims are eliminated, the fact of creation is revealed for all to see—albeit in a manner totally unexpected by evolutionists. "Living fossils" are proofs that all the living things on Earth, past and present, were created from nothing; and that each one, possessing complex and superior attributes, is a miracle of God. This means that in fact, the supposed developmental process that evolutionists claim took place over millions of years never happened at all. Fictitious intermediate forms disappear along with fictitious scenarios. The Origin of Species According to the Fossil Record: CREATION The theory of evolution claims that all the living species on Earth descended, by means of a series of minute changes, from a common ancestor. To state the theory another way, living species are not separated from one another by absolute differences, but exhibit an inner continuity. However, actual observations in nature have indicated that there is no such continuity as claimed. What we see in the living world are different categories of organisms, separated by vast and distinct differences. Robert Carroll, an expert on vertebrate paleontology, admits this in his book Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution: Although an almost incomprehensible number of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited number of clearly distinct major groups...1 Evolution is a process alleged to have taken place in the past, and fossil discoveries are the only scientific source that can tell us about the history of life. Pierre Grassé says this on the subject: Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. ... Only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution and reveal its course or mechanisms.2 In order for the fossil record to shed light on this subject, we need to compare what the theory of evolution predicts against the actual fossil discoveries. According to the theory, all living things have descended from various "ancestral" forms. A living species that existed before gradually turned into another species, and every present species emerged in this way. According to the theory, this transition took place slowly over hundreds of millions of years and progressed in stages. That being the case, countless numbers of "intermediate forms" must have emerged and lived over the long process of transition in question. And a few of them must certainly have been fossilized. For example, half-fish, half-amphibian creatures that still bore fish-like characteristics but which had also acquired certain amphibious features must have existed. And reptile-birds with both reptilian and avian features must have emerged. Since these creatures were in a process of transition, they must have been deformed, deficient and flawed. These theoretical creatures claimed to have existed in the distant past are known as "intermediate forms." If any such living species really did exist, then they should number, in the millions, or even billions. Abundant traces of them should be found in the fossil record, because the number of intermediate forms should be even greater than the number of animal species known today. The geologic strata should be full of the remains of fossilized intermediate forms. Darwin himself admitted this. As he wrote in his book, The Origin of Species: If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.3 Yet Darwin was aware that no intermediate forms had yet been found, and regarded this as a major dilemma facing his theory. In the chapter "Difficulties on Theory," he wrote: ... Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.4 In the face of this difficulty, the only explanation Darwin could offer was that the fossil records of his time were insufficient. He claimed that later, when the fossil records had been examined in detail, the missing intermediate forms would definitely be found. The Sufficiency of the Fossil Record In the face of the lack of intermediate forms, Darwin claimed, 140 years ago, that they were not available then but new research would definitely unearth them. But has it? To put the question another way, after looking at the results of all the fossil research carried out to date, should we accept that intermediate forms never actually existed—or should we await the results of still further excavations? The answer to that question of course depends on the wealth of the fossil record we already have available. Looking at the paleontological data, we see that the fossil records are extraordinarily rich, with literally billions of fossil specimens obtained from different regions of the world.5 From examining these fossils, experts have identified some 250,000 different species, many of which bear an extraordinarily close resemblance to the 1.5 million species living today.6 (Of the 1.5 million species alive today, fully 1 million are insects.) Yet among these countless fossil specimens, no supposed intermediate form has ever been found. It seems impossible for the intermediate forms, that have not been discovered despite the rich fossil records, to be unearthed in new excavations. T. Neville George, the Glasgow University professor of paleontology, admitted as much many years ago: There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is outpacing integration … The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps.7 Niles Eldredge, a well-known paleontologist and director of the American Museum of Natural History, states that Darwin's claim to the effect that "the fossil record is deficient, which is why we cannot find any intermediate forms" is invalid: The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: The gaps we see [in the fossil record] reflect real events in life's history – not the artifact of a poor fossil record.8 In his 1991 book, Beyond Natural Selection, Robert Wesson says that the gaps in the fossil record are real and phenomenal: The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of any record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, ... genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.9 The argument put forward 140 years ago that "no intermediate forms have been found yet, but they will be in the future" is no longer tenable today. The fossil record is sufficiently rich to account for the origin of life, and it reveals a concrete picture: Different species all emerged independently of one another, suddenly, and with all their different structures. No imaginary evolutionary "intermediate forms" existed among them. Facts Revealed by the Fossil Record What is the origin of the "evolution-paleontology" relationship that has been installed in society's subconscious? Why is it that when the fossil record is mentioned, most people assume that there's a definite, positive link between this record and Darwin's theory? The answers are set out in an article in the magazine Science: A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.10 N. Eldredge and Ian Tattershall make the following important comment on that matter: That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, ... prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search ... One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way.11 The American paleontologist S. M. Stanley describes how this fact, revealed by the fossil record, is ignored by the Darwinist dogma that dominates the scientific world, and how others are also encouraged to ignore it: The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured. ... "The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin's stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation." ... their story has been suppressed.12 Let us now examine this truth revealed by the fossil record, which has so far been "suppressed," in rather more detail. Stasis in the Fossil Record When we investigate natural history, we find not living things "evolving into different anatomical structures," but ones that have remained unchanged, even over the course of hundreds of millions of years. This lack of change is referred to by scientists as "stasis." Living fossils and organisms that have not survived down to the present day, but which have left their fossils behind in various strata of the Earth's history are concrete proof of stasis in the fossil record. And this stasis shows that no gradual process of evolution ever occurred. In an article in the magazine Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould describes this inconsistency between the fossil record and the theory of evolution: 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.'13 If a living thing survives in a flawless form down to the present day with all the features it displayed millions of years ago and having undergone no change whatsoever, then this evidence is powerful enough to entirely dismiss the gradual evolution model anticipated by Darwin. Moreover, far from there being just one example to demonstrate this, there are in fact millions. Countless organisms exhibit no differences from their original states, which first appeared millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago. As openly stated by Niles Eldredge, this state of affairs is causing paleontologists to avoid the idea of evolution, which is still supported today: No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history.14 The stasis in the fossil record really does represent the greatest problem facing the proponents of evolution. That's because evolutionists look in the fossil record for the evidence they need to prove their fictitious process of evolution. However, fossils provide none of the intermediate forms they seek, but furthermore, reveal that living things alleged to have undergone a process of change over time never underwent any evolution at all, even after hundreds of millions of years. Living forms are identical to how they appeared originally, and never underwent the gradual change predicted by Darwin. Niles Eldredge describes how the stasis for long neglected by evolutionist paleontologists undermines Darwin's claim of gradual evolution: But stasis was conveniently dropped as a feature of life's history to be reckoned with in evolutionary biology. And stasis had continued to be ignored until Gould and I showed that such stability is a real aspect of life's history which must be confronted—and that, in fact, it posed no fundamental threat to the basic notion of evolution itself. For that was Darwin's problem: to establish the plausibility of the very idea of evolution, Darwin felt that he had to undermine the older ... doctrine of species fixity. Stasis, to Darwin, was an ugly inconvenience.15 Seeing the invalidity of Darwin's claim of gradual evolution, Eldredge advanced forward the idea of "punctuated equilibrium" together with Stephen J. Gould, and his words above were an accurate expression of the difficulty that stasis posed for Darwin. Yet the point that Eldredge ignores and neglects is that the stasis that is so manifest in the fossil record also represents a major dilemma for punctuated equilibrium. The paleontologists who proposed the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution admitted that the stasis in the fossil record presented a "problem." But since they considered it impossible to abandon the idea of evolution, they suggested that living things came into being not through small changes, but by sudden and very large ones. According to this claim, evolutionary changes took place in very small intervals of time, and in very narrow populations. Until this sudden jump, the population had exhibited little or no change and remained in a kind of equilibrium. Since the hypothetical population concerned was a narrow one, so-called large mutations would very quickly be favored by natural selection, and thus—somehow—the emergence of a new species would be established. Punctuated equilibrium suggests that the formation of a new species took place within communities containing very small numbers of plants or animals. But this model of evolution has now been refuted, with a great deal of proof, by the sciences of microbiology and genetics. (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Darwinism Refuted.) Nor is there any scientific basis for punctuated equilibrium's claim regarding "narrow populations," put forward in order to account for the stasis in the fossil record and therefore, the absence of intermediate forms. Punctuated equilibrium was dealt a severe blow when it was revealed that in genetic terms, a restricted population presents no advantage for the theory of evolution, but rather a disadvantage! Far from developing in such a robust way as to give rise to a new species, narrow populations actually cause genetic defects. The reason is because the individuals in small isolated groups constantly reproduce within a narrow genetic pool. Therefore, normally "heterozygote" individuals—those enjoying a wide gene pool—become "homozygote" or more restricted in their genetic variations. The result is that normally recessive defective genes become dominant, thus producing ever-greater defects and genetic diseases in the population. Therefore, the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record cannot be a result of evolution taking place in narrow populations. In addition to all these scientific impossibilities, the adherents of punctuated equilibrium can't explain why traces of changes in such small populations are never found in the fossil record. This clearly demonstrates that both the gradual model of evolution that Darwin proposed, and the punctuated equilibrium model put forward to cover up its deficiencies, are not able to account for the stasis in the fossil record, the sudden appearance of living forms, and the lack of transitional ones. Whatever theory may be proposed, all claims that living organisms underwent evolution will end in failure and are scientifically condemned to collapse, because living things did not evolve. God has created all living things in their perfect states, from nothing. Therefore, all claims that living things evolved are doomed to disappear. Stephen J. Gould, one of the intellectual fathers of the "punctuated equilibrium" theory, admitted this in all clarity at a conference he gave at Hobart & William Smith College: Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome ... brings terrible distress. ... They may get a little bigger or bumpier. But they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, it's not evolution so you don't talk about it.16 The "Ineffectiveness" of the Environment Living fossils hold a mirror to the lack of difference between present-day specimens and fossil remains from the past, and offer evidence that therefore, species underwent no evolution over millions of years. In that way, they deal a severe blow to the theory of evolution, which, as is well-known, claims that only those organisms able to adapt to changing environmental conditions survive, and that these evolve into other living things under the effect of imaginary random changes. But living fossils show that the idea of species gradually "reacting" to environmental conditions is actually groundless. Examples of very old living fossils include the shark, which reveals no trace of change despite being around 400 million years old. The CÅ“lacanth, which evolutionists portrayed as an intermediate form between fish and ambiphians until living specimens were found off Madagascar, constitutes a striking refutation of the theory of evolution's scenario of change. Despite its evolutionist slant, Focus magazine referred to living things that had remained unchanged for millions of years in its April 2003 issue, which dealt with the CÅ“lacanth: The discovery that a creature as large as the CÅ“lacanth had lived for so many years outside the knowledge of the scientific world led to its attracting a great deal of interest. Yet there are a very large number of organisms which, like the CÅ“lacanth, are identical to fossils remaining from millions of years ago. For example, the Neopilina, a species of crustacean, has remained unchanged for 500 million years, the scorpion for 430 million years, the Limulus, a marine creature with armour and a sword-like tail, for 225 million years, and the Tuatara, a species of reptile living in New Zealand, for 230 million years. Many arthropods, crocodiles, turtles and many species of plant are other components of this growing list.17 Focus cited the examples of cockroaches and archaeobacteria, and openly admitted these species deal a blow to the theory of evolution: Looked at from the evolutionary perspective, the probability of organisms such as these undergoing mutation is much higher than that of others. Because every new generation means the copying of DNA. Bearing in mind the number of times the copying process takes place over millions of years, a very interesting picture emerges. In theory, various elements of pressure such as changing environmental conditions, hostile species and competition between species should lead to natural selection, the selection of species advantaged by mutation, and for these species to undergo greater change over such a long period of time. YET THE FACTS ARE OTHERWISE. Let us consider cockroaches, for example. These reproduce very quickly and have short life spans, yet they have remained the same for approximately 250 million years. Archaeobacteria are an even more striking example. These emerged 3.5 billion years ago, when the Earth was still very hot, and are still alive today in the boiling waters in Yellowstone National Park. The theory of evolution is a fictitious story written about the natural history of species, and is actually refuted by the scientific findings its adherents obtain! Living fossils show that the effect of the environment on living things is not evolution but rather "non-evolution." Species have not come by their present-day structures by undergoing a process of random change. They have all been flawlessly brought into being by Almighty God and have persisted in the form they were first created throughout their time on Earth. Examples of Living Fossils Living fossil is the nickname given to organisms whose traces appear in the fossil layers from early geological periods, of which living specimens are still found today. These living things exhibit no differences from their counterparts from millions of years ago, and represent living examples of those long-dead fossil forms. Without doubt, the most important of these is the forementioned CÅ“lacanth. For many years, evolutionists portrayed it as the most significant supposed intermediate form, on which they wasted a great deal of speculation until the first surprise appeared in 1938. The CÅ“lacanth: An Example of a False Intermediate Form Off the coast of southern Africa, in the winter of 1938, a fishing boat called The Nerine dragged from the Indian Ocean near the Chalumna River a fish thought to be extinct for 70 million years. The fish was a cÅ“lacanth, an animal that thrived concurrently with dinosaurs...18 These words, by the evolutionist Keith S. Thompson, chairman of the Oxford University Academy of Natural Sciences, are a clear expression of how quickly an evolutionary myth faded into nothing. The catching of a live specimen of CÅ“lacanth did away with one of the greatest fake foundations of the theory of evolution. The CÅ“lacanth, which according to the fossil record, dates back some 410 million years to the Devonian period, was regarded by evolutionists as a powerful intermediate form between fish and reptile. It had been mysteriously erased from the fossil record 70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period, and was believed to have become extinct at that time.19 Based on these fossils, evolutionist biologists suggested that this creature had a non-functioning, "primitive" as evolutionists put it, lung. Speculation regarding the CÅ“lacanth became so widespread that the fish was cited in many scientific publications as the most significant evidence for evolution. Paintings and drawings of it leaving the water for the land quickly began appearing in books and magazines. Of course, all these assumptions, images and claims, were based on the idea that the creature was extinct. The truth was very different, however. Since 1938, more than 200 present-day CÅ“lacanths have been caught, after that first one off South Africa. The second came from the Comoro Islands off north-west Madagascar in 1952, and a third in Indonesian Sulawesi in 1998. The evolutionist paleontologist J. L. B. Smith was unable to conceal his amazement at the capture of the first CÅ“lacanth, saying, "If I'd met a dinosaur in the street I wouldn't have been more astonished."20 Later, photographs of a pair of CÅ“lacanths cavorting was even published in National Geographic magazine! The capture of living CÅ“lacanths revealed that the claims regarding it were nothing more than deceptions. The structure that evolutionist researchers suggested was a primitive lung turned out to be nothing but a fat-filled swimbladder. In addition, evolutionists had always depicted the fish as living in shallow waters, as a potential reptile preparing to crawl onto the land where it would continue to "evolve." Yet the CÅ“lacanth was now found to be living in the deepest ocean waters—a bottom-dwelling fish almost never rising above 180 meters below the surface.21 In 1987, the German naturalist Hans Fricke confirmed these research findings when he observed and photographed CÅ“lacanths off the Grand Comoro Island. He observed that the fish swam backwards, forwards and even tilted head down, but never once "walked, crawled, or otherwise moved on the bottom with their lobed fins."22 CÅ“lacanth being a living fossil eliminated the so-called evidence that evolutionists had exhibited so proudly to support their imaginary scenario of the fish's transition from water to land. When this creature was encountered in 1938, it immediately revealed the fraudulent nature of the transition from water to land. Evolutionists cast no aspersions on the fact of this living fossil and did not seek to convince anyone that this discovery was in error. They came up with no new conjectures regarding the CÅ“lacanth and the story of how it emerged from the sea onto dry land. The stasis in the fossil record had demolished the story of this fish's evolution by tearing down one of its basic premises. Professor of political science Robert G. Wesson set this fact out in these terms: The bony-finned CÅ“lacanth, thought to be long extinct but rediscovered in 1938, has been approximately static some 450 million years (Avers 1989, 317). ... The nearly timeless species are not exempt from the changes of proteins that go on in all living beings, and they could surely vary in many ways without loss of adaptiveness, but their patterns have become somehow frozen. ... From the point of view of conventional evolutionary theory long-term stasis is hard to explain. Rapid evolution ... is incongruous that species remain unchanged through changing conditions over many million years.23 The Horseshoe Crab The first fossil records of the horseshoe crab go back 425 million years, yet this living fossil still lives along present-day shores. Its tail, which allows it to walk with ease across the sand and which is used for steering, its two eyes with their exceedingly complex structures, and all its other unique features have remained unchanged over the last 425 million years. The Cockroach The cockroach, the oldest winged insect in the world, first appears in fossils some 350 million years old, from the Carboniferous period.24 This insect—with its various feelers and hairs that are extremely sensitive to the slightest movement, even to air currents, its perfect wings, and its resistant structure capable of withstanding even radiation—is identical now to how it was 350 million years ago.25 The Okapi Another living fossil that invalidates one of the greatest faulty proofs of the theory of evolution—and which even revealed a fraud perpetrated in the name of evolution—is the okapi, shown in the illustration below. The fossils belonging to this animal dated back to the Miocene epoch. The okapi had always been believed to be extinct—that is, right up until the first living specimen was captured in 1901. At that time, it was taken up as an example by evolutionists and presented as an intermediate form in the equine evolution scenario, which itself is totally false. However, with the capture of a living okapi, that scenario of equine evolution was also done away with. The "evolution of the horse" was for a long while the evolutionists' Exhibit A in regard to the imaginary origin of mammals. Various living and extinct species were set out, one after the other according to size, totally ignoring the gross anatomical differences between them, and were presented as different stages in the evolution of the horse. This series, exhibited in natural history museums for many years, was described in textbooks as if it were a solid proof of evolution. Today, however, a great many evolutionists admit the invalidity of the equine evolution scenario and confess that it is an example of wishful thinking totally based on sleight-of-hand. In November, 1980, the evolutionist Boyce Rensberger addressed a four-day symposium attended by 150 evolutionists at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which considered problems facing the theory of evolution. He described how the equine evolution scenario had no basis in the fossil record and how the horse never underwent a process of gradual evolution: The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.26 Rensberger was quite right; no evidence exists that any such process as equine evolution ever took place. The equine "series" is totally speculative and is not based on the facts. Moreover, there are considerable anatomical and physical differences among these animals. What Rensberger ignores, however, is that not all the species in the series are extinct. The okapi, encountered in 1901, showed that a creature that evolutionists depicted as an intermediate form was in fact still alive today. This animal, which has no relation to the horse and which bears a far closer resemblance to the zebra, was living in the Miocene epoch (23-5.3 million years ago), displaying the same complex features it possesses today. The living fossil of the okapi again demolished one of the main claims of the theory of evolution. The equine series scenario, full of inconsistencies in all possible regards to begin with, was finally eradicated, and another evolutionary disgrace was quietly placed on the shelf. Dr. Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History said the following about this equine family-tree, which was still lingering in the museum basement: There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.27 Other Living Fossils Newspapers frequently attract attention with such headlines as "20-Milion-Year-Old Spider Fossil Discovered" or "35-Million-Year-Old Lizard Fossil Unearthed." Each of these reports is actually further proof that nothing like the evolutionary process ever happened. There are many examples of living fossils and in addition, these examples go back hundreds of millions of years. The crocodile is a reptile that was living 200 million years ago, as is confirmed by the fossil record.28 Yet it is of course alive today. Ginkgo trees were living 125 million years ago, but living specimens were found in China in our own time. Neopilina molluscs were living 500 million years ago, the tuatara lizard 200 million years ago, and archaeobacteria as long ago as 3.5 billion years ago.29 These are still alive today, with all their complex systems and perfect structures. The nautilus, another mollusc, was living in the seas 300 million years ago,30 and these creatures are living, feeding and reproducing in exactly the same form in today's seas. The Australian and African lungfish is another example of a living fossil that was alive 400 million years ago and still thrives in the present. Charles Darwin was astonished by the survival of these fish down to the present day, and in his Origin of Species, he therefore referred to them as "anomalous forms" that "may almost be called living fossils."31 This is by no means the end of the list of creatures that still survive today unchanged, in exactly the same form as they displayed millions of years ago. The sturgeon, mackerel, freshwater bass, herring, needlefish, lobster, crawfish and the Devonian-period shark are all examples of living fossils. Other examples include the jellyfish, sponges, frogs, bees, ants, butterflies and termites. The 230-million-year-old dragonfly, soldier ants dating back 100 million years, and the 150-million-year-old salamander are all still living today. The same applies to arachnids such as the spider and myriapods such as the millipede.32, 33 Finally, a spider fossilized in amber, and estimated as being 20 million years old, was one of the most important discoveries of the 2000s. A statement from Manchester University announced that this spider, 4 centimeters long and 2 centimeters wide, was identical to present-day specimens. It is hoped that a blood specimen from the spider can extract the arachnid's DNA.34 However, this fossil spider is certainly not the only specimen found. Other fossil spiders unearthed in excavations have been estimated to be hundreds of millions of years old, and are now on exhibit in museums in various countries of the world. The oldest known and most perfect sea spider fossil dates back 425 million years—important evidence that these creatures have remained unchanged for millions of years.35 The Earth contains countless other fossil specimens from millions of years ago of organisms still living today, such as this spider, and of other creatures now extinct. The fossils illustrated in this book are just a few of the millions of specimens kept in various museums. Living Fossils Refute Evolution The evolutionist magazine New Scientist described evolutionist contradictions in the face of living fossils: Some biologists marvel that there is any evolution at all, considering the possible pitfalls of change. "The idea is that organisms are so complex that it is very hard to change one aspect without wrecking everything else," says [Yale paleontologist Elisabeth] Vrba. But it is extremely difficult to show that this is why our supreme survivors remain unchanged for millions of years.36 Of course it is hard for this fact to be explained in evolutionist terms, because adherents are looking for an explanation within the theory of evolution. Yet the living fossils reveal that living things did not descend from one another in stages, nor have they evolved in any way. The fossil record provides no examples of intermediate forms. Countless living things have remained unchanged for millions of years, and their current anatomical structures are exactly the same as they were millions of years ago. The fossil record is almost complete with both animal and plant specimens demonstrating this. It definitively and scientifically refutes evolution. The evolutionist Niles Eldredge admits that no explanation exists with regard to living fossils, which constitute one of the countless secrets that evolution has been unable to unravel: ... there seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree. ... We have not completely solved the riddle of living fossils.37 Pierre-Paul Grassé, one of France's best-known zoologists, former editor of the 28-volume Traité de Zoologie (Treatise of Zoology) and former president of the French Academy of Sciences, ends the chapter "Evolution and Natural Selection" in his book Evolution of Living Organisms with these words: The "evolution in action" of J. Huxley and other biologists is simply the observation of demographic facts, local fluctuations of genotypes, geographical distributions. Often the species concerned have remained practically unchanged for hundreds of centuries! Fluctuation as a result of circumstances, with prior modification of the genome, does not imply evolution, and we have tangible proof of this in many panchronic species [i.e. living fossils that remain unchanged for millions of years].38 Living fossils and the stasis in the fossil record could not be explained in Darwin's time, much less afterwards. Scientists attempting to adapt Darwin's theory of evolution by means of changes of form to modern scientific findings have also admitted as much, no matter how reluctantly. Facts revealed by the scientific data and the fossil record totally conflict with the present-day theory of evolution, just as Darwin himself admitted 150 years ago: ... I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.39 With these words, Darwin states unhesitatingly that his claim does not square with the facts—for which reason he has ignored them. That is the same situation for those who support the theory of evolution today; despite the truth revealed by the fossil record they blindly continue in Darwin's wake and turn their backs on the facts. However, this deception is a short-lived one. The facts are now far more evident, and far more identifiable. The number of people who have seen the truth and preferred it is rising, and the number of people who unquestioningly believe in fairy tales is on the decrease. The facts cannot be concealed and ignored, as widely as they were in Darwin's day. Genetics, microbiology, paleontology, geology and all other branches of science constantly reveal a truth that Darwin and his supporters never wanted, and that they perhaps never expected—the fact of Creation. That is because God is the Real and what you call on apart from Him is false. God is the All-High, the Most Great. Don't you see that God sends down water from the sky and then in the morning the earth is covered in green? God is All-Subtle, All-Aware. Everything in the heavens and everything in the Earth belongs to Him. God is the Rich Beyond Need, the Praiseworthy. Don't you see that God has made everything on the Earth subservient to you and the ships running upon the sea by His command? He holds back the heaven, preventing it from falling to the Earth—except by His permission. God is All-Compassionate to humanity, Most Merciful. It is He Who gave you life and then will cause you to die and then will give you life again. Man is truly ungrateful. (Qur'an, 22:62-66) Conclusion From time to time, newspapers and magazines report that a 200-million-year-old mosquito fossil has been found, or a 30-million-year-old lizard fossil discovered. Reading reports of that kind, one may well imagine that there is something special or unique about these fossils and that their like is seldom encountered. Yet that assumption is not correct. The Earth is filled with millions-of-years-old fossils of present-day living things. A very large part of these have been unearthed, and everywhere that paleontologists excavate and study, still they find fossil specimens of modern living things with all their flawless attributes. Kept in countries' museums are millions-of-years-old spiders, ants, flies, spiders, scorpions, crabs, frogs and many other creatures, extinct and otherwise. Even specimens perfectly preserved in amber in all their detail are to be found in museums in their thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. Yet their numbers are seldom mentioned in books and newspapers, and scientific journals, forums and discussions do not address them. Why is this? The reason is that every "living" fossil discovered is another proof that demolishes evolution. Every single example of such a living species is enough to destroy the theory to which Darwinists dedicate their professional lives. For that reason, evolutionists attempt to keep large numbers of these fossils hidden. The Cambrian life forms hidden in the famous Smithsonian Institution for 70 years—in other words, fossils of the oldest complex life forms in the history of the planet—are a significant instance of this. Charles Doolittle Walcott, a paleontologist and Secretary (1907-1927) of the Smithsonian, began research in the fossil-bearing Burgess Shale region in the Rocky Mountains, Canada. On 31 August, 1909, Walcott unearthed one of the greatest finds in the history of paleontology: the first fossils of creatures 530 million years old—which lived more than half a billion years ago. Walcott collected these fossils, and when looked at the phyla to which they belonged, he was amazed, because the fossil stratum he had found was so very ancient. No significant life forms had been encountered in any older strata. But this one contained fossils of almost all of the known phyla, as well as fossils belonging to unknown phyla, showing that all the bodily structures in the animal kingdom had emerged all together, in the same geological period. This represented a lethal blow to Darwin's theory, because Darwin had suggested that living things developed like the branches of a slowly spreading tree. According to the evolutionary tree that Darwin dreamed up, a single phylum should appear first, then different species, and then, different phyla over a very long period of time. Yet Walcott was looking at clear evidence that all of the phyla existing in the present day, and even more, had emerged suddenly and at the same time, around 530 million years ago. This discovery completely did away with the imaginary "evolutionary tree" that presumed that phyla began with one species that branched off over long periods of time. Right at the beginning of the history of life, complex features were displayed with ever-more complex fossil specimens representing a total of 50 distinct phyla, and numerous species. These approximately 530-million-year-old fossils entirely eliminated the false reasoning of gradual evolution. Yet they were brought out from where they had been stored and presented to the world only after 70 years had gone by. Walcott had decided to conceal the fossils he had obtained rather than making them available up to his fellow scientists. As the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Walcott was a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist. According to the theory of evolution, fossils with relatively simple structures were to be expected in rocks of such great age. Yet in terms of complexity, the fossils he discovered were no different from our present-day creatures, such as crabs, starfish and worms. For Darwinists, the alarming aspect of this was that no fossil specimen that might be proposed as the ancestor of these creatures was to be found, either in Burgess Shale or in older rocks. Faced with these dilemmas, Walcott was all too aware that the fossils he had obtained would constitute a major stumbling block for the theory of evolution. Instead of announcing them, he sent them to the Smithsonian, together with a few photographs he had taken and a set of notes. There the fossils were locked away in drawers and forgotten for 70 years. The Burgess Shale fossils were brought to light only in 1985, when the museum archives were re-examined. The Israeli scientist Gerald Schroeder comments: Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution. Today fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The [Cambrian] explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported.40 These fossils represent one of the greatest difficulties for the evolutionists, making it a certainty that their theory is invalid. They are proofs of creation that evolutionists are completely unable to explain. Historically, the proponents of evolution have committed countless examples of fraud, in which an ape jaw was added to a human cranium, reconstructions were produced from a single fossil pig's tooth showing the imaginary social lives of ape-men, or feathers were added to dinosaur fossils. (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Darwinism Refuted, Goodword Books, 2003 and The Evolution Deceit, Ta-Ha Publishers, 1999). The adherents of this theory seek to keep it alive not with scientific evidence but ideologically. They didn't hesitate to produce fake "intermediate" fossils to support their claims, but have felt compelled to conceal fossils hundreds of millions of years old that would consign their theory to the dustbin. Their illogicality gradually began to be realized, and since the Earth's strata were full of such fossil specimens, some of them were slowly, reluctantly displayed. Yet this deception still persists today, and some fossil specimens are still kept quietly concealed in museums. If all these specimens kept out of public view were made available, the obvious facts would be realized. Most scientists, however, lack the courage to make such a move that would completely do away with the theory of evolution. This book presents a small selection of living fossils and their counterparts millions of years old. Our aim in doing so is to show that no evolutionary process ever took place on Earth, to prove that millions of years ago, living organisms were equipped with the same immaculate features they possess now, and to reveal that evolution is a false theory that has sought to keep itself alive by concealing the truth and misleading people. Any theory that hides the scientific evidence, that seeks to assume an authoritative guise through fraud and deception, has openly disproved itself. Evolutionists are well aware that all the scientific evidence shows that their "process" is nothing but a myth. Living fossils are the work of God, the Creator and Lord of all things, Who first created them millions of years ago and has maintained them in all their perfect forms right down to the present day. Ever since Darwin's time, his followers have been terrified of this evident fact being revealed for all to see. At last, however, this manifest and indisputable truth is out in the open, and all their efforts to conceal it have been in vain. Superstition has vanished in the face of the facts; and God, Lord of the worlds, has once again revealed His greatness and might in the most ideal form: We did not create heaven and Earth and everything in between them as a game. If We had desired to have some amusement, We would have derived it from Our Presence, but We did not do that. Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray! (Qur'an, 21:16-18) The Collapse of Darwinism Darwinism, in other words the theory of evolution, was put forward with the aim of denying the fact of creation, but is in truth nothing but failed, unscientific nonsense. This theory, which claims that life emerged by chance from inanimate matter, was invalidated by the scientific evidence of clear "design" in the universe and in living things. In this way, science confirmed the fact that God created the universe and the living things in it. The propaganda carried out today in order to keep the theory of evolution alive is based solely on the distortion of the scientific facts, biased interpretation, and lies and falsehoods disguised as science. Yet this propaganda cannot conceal the truth. The fact that the theory of evolution is the greatest deception in the history of science has been expressed more and more in the scientific world over the last 20-30 years. Research carried out after the 1980s in particular has revealed that the claims of Darwinism are totally unfounded, something that has been stated by a large number of scientists. In the United States in particular, many scientists from such different fields as biology, biochemistry and paleontology recognize the invalidity of Darwinism and employ the fact of creation to account for the origin of life. We have examined the collapse of the theory of evolution and the proofs of creation in great scientific detail in many of our works, and are still continuing to do so. Given the enormous importance of this subject, it will be of great benefit to summarize it here. The Scientific Collapse of Darwinism Although this doctrine goes back as far as ancient Greece, the theory of evolution was advanced extensively in the nineteenth century. The most important development that made it the top topic of the world of science was Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, published in 1859. In this book, he denied that God created different living species on Earth separately, for he claimed that all living beings had a common ancestor and had diversified over time through small changes. Darwin's theory was not based on any concrete scientific finding; as he also accepted, it was just an "assumption." Moreover, as Darwin confessed in the long chapter of his book titled "Difficulties on Theory," the theory failed in the face of many critical questions. Darwin invested all of his hopes in new scientific discoveries, which he expected to solve these difficulties. However, contrary to his expectations, scientific findings expanded the dimensions of these difficulties. The defeat of Darwinism in the face of science can be reviewed under three basic topics: 1) The theory cannot explain how life originated on Earth. 2) No scientific finding shows that the "evolutionary mechanisms" proposed by the theory have any evolutionary power at all. 3) The fossil record proves the exact opposite of what the theory suggests. In this section, we will examine these three basic points in general outlines: The First Insurmountable Step: The Origin of Life The theory of evolution posits that all living species evolved from a single living cell that emerged on the primitive Earth 3.8 billion years ago. How a single cell could generate millions of complex living species and, if such an evolution really occurred, why traces of it cannot be observed in the fossil record are some of the questions that the theory cannot answer. However, first and foremost, we need to ask: How did this "first cell" originate? Since the theory of evolution denies creation and any kind of supernatural intervention, it maintains that the "first cell" originated coincidentally within the laws of nature, without any design, plan or arrangement. According to the theory, inanimate matter must have produced a living cell as a result of coincidences. Such a claim, however, is inconsistent with the most unassailable rules of biology. "Life Comes From Life" In his book, Darwin never referred to the origin of life. The primitive understanding of science in his time rested on the assumption that living beings had a very simple structure. Since medieval times, spontaneous generation, which asserts that non-living materials came together to form living organisms, had been widely accepted. It was commonly believed that insects came into being from food leftovers, and mice from wheat. Interesting experiments were conducted to prove this theory. Some wheat was placed on a dirty piece of cloth, and it was believed that mice would originate from it after a while. Similarly, maggots developing in rotting meat was assumed to be evidence of spontaneous generation. However, it was later understood that worms did not appear on meat spontaneously, but were carried there by flies in the form of larvae, invisible to the naked eye. Even when Darwin wrote The Origin of Species, the belief that bacteria could come into existence from non-living matter was widely accepted in the world of science. However, five years after the publication of Darwin's book, Louis Pasteur announced his results after long studies and experiments, that disproved spontaneous generation, a cornerstone of Darwin's theory. In his triumphal lecture at the Sorbonne in 1864, Pasteur said: "Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment."41 For a long time, advocates of the theory of evolution resisted these findings. However, as the development of science unraveled the complex structure of the cell of a living being, the idea that life could come into being coincidentally faced an even greater impasse. Inconclusive Efforts of the Twentieth Century The first evolutionist who took up the subject of the origin of life in the twentieth century was the renowned Russian biologist Alexander Oparin. With various theses he advanced in the 1930s, he tried to prove that a living cell could originate by coincidence. These studies, however, were doomed to failure, and Oparin had to make the following confession: Unfortunately, however, the problem of the origin of the cell is perhaps the most obscure point in the whole study of the evolution of organisms.42 Evolutionist followers of Oparin tried to carry out experiments to solve this problem. The best known experiment was carried out by the American chemist Stanley Miller in 1953. Combining the gases he alleged to have existed in the primordial Earth's atmosphere in an experiment set-up, and adding energy to the mixture, Miller synthesized several organic molecules (amino acids) present in the structure of proteins. Barely a few years had passed before it was revealed that this experiment, which was then presented as an important step in the name of evolution, was invalid, for the atmosphere used in the experiment was very different from the real Earth conditions.43 After a long silence, Miller confessed that the atmosphere medium he used was unrealistic.44 All the evolutionists' efforts throughout the twentieth century to explain the origin of life ended in failure. The geochemist Jeffrey Bada, from the San Diego Scripps Institute accepts this fact in an article published in Earth magazine in 1998: Today as we leave the twentieth century, we still face the biggest unsolved problem that we had when we entered the twentieth century: How did life originate on Earth?45 The Complex Structure of Life The primary reason why the theory of evolution ended up in such a great impasse regarding the origin of life is that even those living organisms deemed to be the simplest have incredibly complex structures. The cell of a living thing is more complex than all of our man-made technological products. Today, even in the most developed laboratories of the world, a living cell cannot be produced by bringing organic chemicals together. The conditions required for the formation of a cell are too great in quantity to be explained away by coincidences. The probability of proteins, the building blocks of a cell, being synthesized coincidentally, is 1 in 10950 for an average protein made up of 500 amino acids. In mathematics, a probability smaller than 1 over 1050 is considered to be impossible in practical terms. The DNA molecule, which is located in the nucleus of a cell and which stores genetic information, is an incredible databank. If the information coded in DNA were written down, it would make a giant library consisting of an estimated 900 volumes of encyclopedias consisting of 500 pages each. A very interesting dilemma emerges at this point: DNA can replicate itself only with the help of some specialized proteins (enzymes). However, the synthesis of these enzymes can be realized only by the information coded in DNA. As they both depend on each other, they have to exist at the same time for replication. This brings the scenario that life originated by itself to a deadlock. Prof. Leslie Orgel, an evolutionist of repute from the University of San Diego, California, confesses this fact in the September 1994 issue of the Scientific American magazine: It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means.46 No doubt, if it is impossible for life to have originated from natural causes, then it has to be accepted that life was "created" in a supernatural way. This fact explicitly invalidates the theory of evolution, whose main purpose is to deny creation. Imaginary Mechanism of Evolution The second important point that negates Darwin's theory is that both concepts put forward by the theory as "evolutionary mechanisms" were understood to have, in reality, no evolutionary power. Darwin based his evolution allegation entirely on the mechanism of "natural selection." The importance he placed on this mechanism was evident in the name of his book: The Origin of Species, By Means of Natural Selection… Natural selection holds that those living things that are stronger and more suited to the natural conditions of their habitats will survive in the struggle for life. For example, in a deer herd under the threat of attack by wild animals, those that can run faster will survive. Therefore, the deer herd will be comprised of faster and stronger individuals. However, unquestionably, this mechanism will not cause deer to evolve and transform themselves into another living species, for instance, horses. Therefore, the mechanism of natural selection has no evolutionary power. Darwin was also aware of this fact and had to state this in his book The Origin of Species: Natural selection can do nothing until favourable individual differences or variations occur.47 Lamarck's Impact So, how could these "favorable variations" occur? Darwin tried to answer this question from the standpoint of the primitive understanding of science at that time. According to the French biologist Chevalier de Lamarck (1744-1829), who lived before Darwin, living creatures passed on the traits they acquired during their lifetime to the next generation. He asserted that these traits, which accumulated from one generation to another, caused new species to be formed. For instance, he claimed that giraffes evolved from antelopes; as they struggled to eat the leaves of high trees, their necks were extended from generation to generation. Darwin also gave similar examples. In his book The Origin of Species, for instance, he said that some bears going into water to find food transformed themselves into whales over time.48 However, the laws of inheritance discovered by Gregor Mendel (1822-84) and verified by the science of genetics, which flourished in the twentieth century, utterly demolished the legend that acquired traits were passed on to subsequent generations. Thus, natural selection fell out of favor as an evolutionary mechanism. Neo-Darwinism and Mutations In order to find a solution, Darwinists advanced the "Modern Synthetic Theory," or as it is more commonly known, Neo-Darwinism, at the end of the 1930s. Neo-Darwinism added mutations, which are distortions formed in the genes of living beings due to such external factors as radiation or replication errors, as the "cause of favorable variations" in addition to natural mutation. Today, the model that stands for evolution in the world is Neo-Darwinism. The theory maintains that millions of living beings formed as a result of a process whereby numerous complex organs of these organisms (e.g., ears, eyes, lungs, and wings) underwent "mutations," that is, genetic disorders. Yet, there is an outright scientific fact that totally undermines this theory: Mutations do not cause living beings to develop; on the contrary, they are always harmful. The reason for this is very simple: DNA has a very complex structure, and random effects can only harm it. The American geneticist B. G. Ranganathan explains this as follows: First, genuine mutations are very rare in nature. Secondly, most mutations are harmful since they are random, rather than orderly changes in the structure of genes; any random change in a highly ordered system will be for the worse, not for the better. For example, if an earthquake were to shake a highly ordered structure such as a building, there would be a random change in the framework of the building which, in all probability, would not be an improvement.49 Not surprisingly, no mutation example, which is useful, that is, which is observed to develop the genetic code, has been observed so far. All mutations have proved to be harmful. It was understood that mutation, which is presented as an "evolutionary mechanism," is actually a genetic occurrence that harms living things, and leaves them disabled. (The most common effect of mutation on human beings is cancer.) Of course, a destructive mechanism cannot be an "evolutionary mechanism." Natural selection, on the other hand, "can do nothing by itself," as Darwin also accepted. This fact shows us that there is no "evolutionary mechanism" in nature. Since no evolutionary mechanism exists, no such any imaginary process called "evolution" could have taken place. The Fossil Record: No Sign of Intermediate Forms The clearest evidence that the scenario suggested by the theory of evolution did not take place is the fossil record. According to this theory, every living species has sprung from a predecessor. A previously existing species turned into something else over time and all species have come into being in this way. In other words, this transformation proceeds gradually over millions of years. Had this been the case, numerous intermediary species should have existed and lived within this long transformation period. For instance, some half-fish/half-reptiles should have lived in the past which had acquired some reptilian traits in addition to the fish traits they already had. Or there should have existed some reptile-birds, which acquired some bird traits in addition to the reptilian traits they already had. Since these would be in a transitional phase, they should be disabled, defective, crippled living beings. Evolutionists refer to these imaginary creatures, which they believe to have lived in the past, as "transitional forms." If such animals ever really existed, there should be millions and even billions of them in number and variety. More importantly, the remains of these strange creatures should be present in the fossil record. In The Origin of Species, Darwin explained: If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently, evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains.50 Darwin's Hopes Shattered However, although evolutionists have been making strenuous efforts to find fossils since the middle of the nineteenth century all over the world, no transitional forms have yet been uncovered. All of the fossils, contrary to the evolutionists' expectations, show that life appeared on Earth all of a sudden and fully-formed. One famous British paleontologist, Derek V. Ager, admits this fact, even though he is an evolutionist: The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find - over and over again - not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.51 This means that in the fossil record, all living species suddenly emerge as fully formed, without any intermediate forms in between. This is just the opposite of Darwin's assumptions. Also, this is very strong evidence that all living things are created. The only explanation of a living species emerging suddenly and complete in every detail without any evolutionary ancestor is that it was created. This fact is admitted also by the widely known evolutionist biologist Douglas Futuyma: Creation and evolution, between them, exhaust the possible explanations for the origin of living things. Organisms either appeared on the earth fully developed or they did not. If they did not, they must have developed from pre-existing species by some process of modification. If they did appear in a fully developed state, they must indeed have been created by some omnipotent intelligence.52 Fossils show that living beings emerged fully developed and in a perfect state on the Earth. That means that "the origin of species," contrary to Darwin's supposition, is not evolution, but creation. The Tale of Human Evolution The subject most often brought up by advocates of the theory of evolution is the subject of the origin of man. The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from ape-like creatures. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started 4-5 million years ago, some "transitional forms" between modern man and his ancestors are supposed to have existed. According to this completely imaginary scenario, four basic "categories" are listed: 1. Australopithecus 2. Homo habilis 3. Homo erectus 4. Homo sapiens Evolutionists call man's so-called first ape-like ancestors Australopithecus, which means "South African ape." These living beings are actually nothing but an old ape species that has become extinct. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world famous anatomists from England and the USA, namely, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, shows that these apes belonged to an ordinary ape species that became extinct and bore no resemblance to humans.53 Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as "homo," that is "man." According to their claim, the living beings in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus. Evolutionists devise a fanciful evolution scheme by arranging different fossils of these creatures in a particular order. This scheme is imaginary because it has never been proved that there is an evolutionary relation between these different classes. Ernst Mayr, one of the twentieth century's most important evolutionists, contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation."54 By outlining the link chain as Australopithecus > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens, evolutionists imply that each of these species is one another's ancestor. However, recent findings of paleoanthropologists have revealed that Australopithecus, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus lived at different parts of the world at the same time.55 Moreover, a certain segment of humans classified as Homo erectus have lived up until very modern times. Homo sapiens neandarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) co-existed in the same region.56 This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that they are ancestors of one another. Stephen Jay Gould explained this deadlock of the theory of evolution although he was himself one of the leading advocates of evolution in the twentieth century: What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.57 Put briefly, the scenario of human evolution, which is "upheld" with the help of various drawings of some "half ape, half human" creatures appearing in the media and course books, that is, frankly, by means of propaganda, is nothing but a tale with no scientific foundation. Lord Solly Zuckerman, one of the most famous and respected scientists in the U.K., who carried out research on this subject for years and studied Australopithecus fossils for 15 years, finally concluded, despite being an evolutionist himself, that there is, in fact, no such family tree branching out from ape-like creatures to man. Zuckerman also made an interesting "spectrum of science" ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"-that is, depending on concrete data-fields of science are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific," are "extra-sensory perception"-concepts such as telepathy and sixth sense-and finally "human evolution." Zuckerman explains his reasoning: We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful [evolutionist] anything is possible - and where the ardent believer [in evolution] is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.58 The tale of human evolution boils down to nothing but the prejudiced interpretations of some fossils unearthed by certain people, who blindly adhere to their theory. Darwinian Formula! Besides all the technical evidence we have dealt with so far, let us now for once, examine what kind of a superstition the evolutionists have with an example so simple as to be understood even by children: The theory of evolution asserts that life is formed by chance. According to this claim, lifeless and unconscious atoms came together to form the cell and then they somehow formed other living things, including man. Let us think about that. When we bring together the elements that are the building-blocks of life such as carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium, only a heap is formed. No matter what treatments it undergoes, this atomic heap cannot form even a single living being. If you like, let us formulate an "experiment" on this subject and let us examine on the behalf of evolutionists what they really claim without pronouncing loudly under the name "Darwinian formula": Let evolutionists put plenty of materials present in the composition of living things such as phosphorus, nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium into big barrels. Moreover, let them add in these barrels any material that does not exist under normal conditions, but they think as necessary. Let them add in this mixture as many amino acids and as many proteins-a single one of which has a formation probability of 10-950-as they like. Let them expose these mixtures to as much heat and moisture as they like. Let them stir these with whatever technologically developed device they like. Let them put the foremost scientists beside these barrels. Let these experts wait in turn beside these barrels for billions, and even trillions of years. Let them be free to use all kinds of conditions they believe to be necessary for a human's formation. No matter what they do, they cannot produce from these barrels a human, say a professor that examines his cell structure under the electron microscope. They cannot produce giraffes, lions, bees, canaries, horses, dolphins, roses, orchids, lilies, carnations, bananas, oranges, apples, dates, tomatoes, melons, watermelons, figs, olives, grapes, peaches, peafowls, pheasants, multicoloured butterflies, or millions of other living beings such as these. Indeed, they could not obtain even a single cell of any one of them. Briefly, unconscious atoms cannot form the cell by coming together. They cannot take a new decision and divide this cell into two, then take other decisions and create the professors who first invent the electron microscope and then examine their own cell structure under that microscope. Matter is an unconscious, lifeless heap, and it comes to life with God's superior creation. The theory of evolution, which claims the opposite, is a total fallacy completely contrary to reason. Thinking even a little bit on the claims of evolutionists discloses this reality, just as in the above example. Technology in the Eye and the Ear Another subject that remains unanswered by evolutionary theory is the excellent quality of perception in the eye and the ear. Before passing on to the subject of the eye, let us briefly answer the question of how we see. Light rays coming from an object fall oppositely on the eye's retina. Here, these light rays are transmitted into electric signals by cells and reach a tiny spot at the back of the brain, the "center of vision." These electric signals are perceived in this center as an image after a series of processes. With this technical background, let us do some thinking. The brain is insulated from light. That means that its inside is completely dark, and that no light reaches the place where it is located. Thus, the "center of vision" is never touched by light and may even be the darkest place you have ever known. However, you observe a luminous, bright world in this pitch darkness. The image formed in the eye is so sharp and distinct that even the technology of the twentieth century has not been able to attain it. For instance, look at the book you are reading, your hands with which you are holding it, and then lift your head and look around you. Have you ever seen such a sharp and distinct image as this one at any other place? Even the most developed television screen produced by the greatest television producer in the world cannot provide such a sharp image for you. This is a three-dimensional, colored, and extremely sharp image. For more than 100 years, thousands of engineers have been trying to achieve this sharpness. Factories, huge premises were established, much research has been done, plans and designs have been made for this purpose. Again, look at a TV screen and the book you hold in your hands. You will see that there is a big difference in sharpness and distinction. Moreover, the TV screen shows you a two-dimensional image, whereas with your eyes, you watch a three-dimensional perspective with depth. For many years, tens of thousands of engineers have tried to make a three-dimensional TV and achieve the vision quality of the eye. Yes, they have made a three-dimensional television system, but it is not possible to watch it without putting on special 3-D glasses; moreover, it is only an artificial three-dimension. The background is more blurred, the foreground appears like a paper setting. Never has it been possible to produce a sharp and distinct vision like that of the eye. In both the camera and the television, there is a loss of image quality. Evolutionists claim that the mechanism producing this sharp and distinct image has been formed by chance. Now, if somebody told you that the television in your room was formed as a result of chance, that all of its atoms just happened to come together and make up this device that produces an image, what would you think? How can atoms do what thousands of people cannot? If a device producing a more primitive image than the eye could not have been formed by chance, then it is very evident that the eye and the image seen by the eye could not have been formed by chance. The same situation applies to the ear. The outer ear picks up the available sounds by the auricle and directs them to the middle ear, the middle ear transmits the sound vibrations by intensifying them, and the inner ear sends these vibrations to the brain by translating them into electric signals. Just as with the eye, the act of hearing finalizes in the center of hearing in the brain. The situation in the eye is also true for the ear. That is, the brain is insulated from sound just as it is from light. It does not let any sound in. Therefore, no matter how noisy is the outside, the inside of the brain is completely silent. Nevertheless, the sharpest sounds are perceived in the brain. In your completely silent brain, you listen to symphonies, and hear all of the noises in a crowded place. However, were the sound level in your brain measured by a precise device at that moment, complete silence would be found to be prevailing there. As is the case with imagery, decades of effort have been spent in trying to generate and reproduce sound that is faithful to the original. The results of these efforts are sound recorders, high-fidelity systems, and systems for sensing sound. Despite all of this technology and the thousands of engineers and experts who have been working on this endeavor, no sound has yet been obtained that has the same sharpness and clarity as the sound perceived by the ear. Think of the highest-quality hi-fi systems produced by the largest company in the music industry. Even in these devices, when sound is recorded some of it is lost; or when you turn on a hi-fi you always hear a hissing sound before the music starts. However, the sounds that are the products of the human body's technology are extremely sharp and clear. A human ear never perceives a sound accompanied by a hissing sound or with atmospherics as does a hi-fi; rather, it perceives sound exactly as it is, sharp and clear. This is the way it has been since the creation of man. So far, no man-made visual or recording apparatus has been as sensitive and successful in perceiving sensory data as are the eye and the ear. However, as far as seeing and hearing are concerned, a far greater truth lies beyond all this. To Whom Does the Consciousness that Sees and Hears within the Brain Belong? Who watches an alluring world in the brain, listens to symphonies and the twittering of birds, and smells the rose? The stimulations coming from a person's eyes, ears, and nose travel to the brain as electro-chemical nerve impulses. In biology, physiology, and biochemistry books, you can find many details about how this image forms in the brain. However, you will never come across the most important fact: Who perceives these electro-chemical nerve impulses as images, sounds, odors, and sensory events in the brain? There is a consciousness in the brain that perceives all this without feeling any need for an eye, an ear, and a nose. To whom does this consciousness belong? Of course it does not belong to the nerves, the fat layer, and neurons comprising the brain. This is why Darwinist-materialists, who believe that everything is comprised of matter, cannot answer these questions. For this consciousness is the spirit created by God, which needs neither the eye to watch the images nor the ear to hear the sounds. Furthermore, it does not need the brain to think. Everyone who reads this explicit and scientific fact should ponder on Almighty God, and fear and seek refuge in Him, for He squeezes the entire universe in a pitch-dark place of a few cubic centimeters in a three-dimensional, colored, shadowy, and luminous form. A Materialist Faith The information we have presented so far shows us that the theory of evolution is incompatible with scientific findings. The theory's claim regarding the origin of life is inconsistent with science, the evolutionary mechanisms it proposes have no evolutionary power, and fossils demonstrate that the required intermediate forms have never existed. So, it certainly follows that the theory of evolution should be pushed aside as an unscientific idea. This is how many ideas, such as the Earth-centered universe model, have been taken out of the agenda of science throughout history. However, the theory of evolution is kept on the agenda of science. Some people even try to represent criticisms directed against it as an "attack on science." Why? The reason is that this theory is an indispensable dogmatic belief for some circles. These circles are blindly devoted to materialist philosophy and adopt Darwinism because it is the only materialist explanation that can be put forward to explain the workings of nature. Interestingly enough, they also confess this fact from time to time. A well-known geneticist and an outspoken evolutionist, Richard C. Lewontin from Harvard University, confesses that he is "first and foremost a materialist and then a scientist": It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, so we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.59 These are explicit statements that Darwinism is a dogma kept alive just for the sake of adherence to materialism. This dogma maintains that there is no being save matter. Therefore, it argues that inanimate, unconscious matter created life. It insists that millions of different living species (e.g., birds, fish, giraffes, tigers, insects, trees, flowers, whales, and human beings) originated as a result of the interactions between matter such as pouring rain, lightning flashes, and so on, out of inanimate matter. This is a precept contrary both to reason and science. Yet Darwinists continue to defend it just so as "not to allow a Divine Foot in the door." Anyone who does not look at the origin of living beings with a materialist prejudice will see this evident truth: All living beings are works of a Creator, Who is All-Powerful, All-Wise, and All-Knowing. This Creator is God, Who created the whole universe from non-existence, designed it in the most perfect form, and fashioned all living beings. The Theory of Evolution: The Most Potent Spell in the World Anyone free of prejudice and the influence of any particular ideology, who uses only his or her reason and logic, will clearly understand that belief in the theory of evolution, which brings to mind the superstitions of societies with no knowledge of science or civilization, is quite impossible. As explained above, those who believe in the theory of evolution think that a few atoms and molecules thrown into a huge vat could produce thinking, reasoning professors and university students; such scientists as Einstein and Galileo; such artists as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Luciano Pavarotti; as well as antelopes, lemon trees, and carnations. Moreover, as the scientists and professors who believe in this nonsense are educated people, it is quite justifiable to speak of this theory as "the most potent spell in history." Never before has any other belief or idea so taken away peoples' powers of reason, refused to allow them to think intelligently and logically, and hidden the truth from them as if they had been blindfolded. This is an even worse and unbelievable blindness than the Egyptians worshipping the Sun God Ra, totem worship in some parts of Africa, the people of Saba worshipping the Sun, the tribe of Prophet Abraham (pbuh) worshipping idols they had made with their own hands, or the people of Prophet Moses (pbuh) worshipping the Golden Calf. In fact, God has pointed to this lack of reason in the Qur'an. In many verses, He reveals that some peoples' minds will be closed and that they will be powerless to see the truth. Some of these verses are as follows: As for those who do not believe, it makes no difference to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe. God has sealed up their hearts and hearing and over their eyes is a blindfold. They will have a terrible punishment. (Qur'an, 2:6-7) … They have hearts with which they do not understand. They have eyes with which they do not see. They have ears with which they do not hear. Such people are like cattle. No, they are even further astray! They are the unaware. (Qur'an, 7:179) Even if We opened up to them a door into heaven, and they spent the day ascending through it, they would only say: "Our eyesight is befuddled! Or rather we have been put under a spell!" (Qur'an, 15:14-15) Words cannot express just how astonishing it is that this spell should hold such a wide community in thrall, keep people from the truth, and not be broken for 150 years. It is understandable that one or a few people might believe in impossible scenarios and claims full of stupidity and illogicality. However, "magic" is the only possible explanation for people from all over the world believing that unconscious and lifeless atoms suddenly decided to come together and form a universe that functions with a flawless system of organization, discipline, reason, and consciousness; a planet named Earth with all of its features so perfectly suited to life; and living things full of countless complex systems. In fact, the Qur'an relates the incident of Prophet Moses (pbuh) and Pharaoh to show that some people who support atheistic philosophies actually influence others by magic. When Pharaoh was told about the true religion, he told Prophet Moses (pbuh) to meet with his own magicians. When Moses (pbuh) did so, he told them to demonstrate their abilities first. The verses continue: He said: "You throw." And when they threw, they cast a spell on the people's eyes and caused them to feel great fear of them. They produced an extremely powerful magic. (Qur'an, 7:116) As we have seen, Pharaoh's magicians were able to deceive everyone, apart from Moses (pbuh) and those who believed in him. However, his evidence broke the spell, or "swallowed up what they had forged," as the verse puts it: We revealed to Moses: "Throw down your staff." And it immediately swallowed up what they had forged. So the Truth took place and what they did was shown to be false. (Qur'an, 7:117-8) As we can see, when people realized that a spell had been cast upon them and that what they saw was just an illusion, Pharaoh's magicians lost all credibility. In the present day too, unless those who, under the influence of a similar spell, believe in these ridiculous claims under their scientific disguise and spend their lives defending them, abandon their superstitious beliefs, they also will be humiliated when the full truth emerges and the spell is broken. In fact, world-renowned British writer and philosopher Malcolm Muggeridge, who was an atheist defending evolution for some 60 years, but who subsequently realized the truth, reveals the position in which the theory of evolution would find itself in the near future in these terms: I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books in the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.60 That future is not far off: On the contrary, people will soon see that "chance" is not a deity, and will look back on the theory of evolution as the worst deceit and the most terrible spell in the world. That spell is already rapidly beginning to be lifted from the shoulders of people all over the world. Many people who see its true face are wondering with amazement how they could ever have been taken in by it. NOTES 1. Robert L. Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 9 2. Pierre Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, New York, Academic Press, 1977, p. 82 3. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 179 4. Ibid., p. 172 5. Duane T. Gish, Evolution: Fossils Still Say No, CA, 1995, p. 41 6. David Day, Vanished Species, Gallery Books, New York, 1989 7. T. N. George, "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective," Science Progress, Vol. 48, January 1960, p. 1 8. N. Eldredge and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, Columbia University Press, 1982, p. 59 9. Robert G. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1991, p. 45 10. Science, July 17, 1981, p. 289 11. Eldredge and Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, pp. 45-46 12. S. M. Stanley, The New Evolutionary Timetable: Fossils, Genes, and the Origin of Species, Basic Books Inc. Publishers, N.Y., 1981, p. 71 13. Stephen J. Gould, "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5, May 1977, p. 14 14. Niles Eldredge, Reinventing Darwin: The Great Evolutionary Debate, [1995], phoenix: London, 1996, p. 95 15. Niles Eldredge, Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria, Simon & Schuster: New York, 1985, pp. 188-189 16. Stephen Jay Gould, Lecture at Hobart & William Smith College, 14/2/1980 17. "Evrimin Cikmaz Sokaklari: Yasayan Fosiller" (Cul de sac of evolution: Living Fossils), Focus, April 2003 18. Keith S. Thomson, Living Fossil: The Story of the Coelacanth, 1991, book cover 19. "Evolution:Living Fossils," http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/living.htm 20. Jean-Jacques Hublin, The Hamlyn Encyclopædia of Prehistoric Animals, New York: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1984, p. 120 21. Don Knapp, "New sighting of 'living fossil' intrigues scientists," CNN.com, 23 September 1998, http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/science/9809/23/living.fossil/index.html 22. "Evolution:Living Fossils," http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/living.htm 23. Wesson, Beyond Natural Selection, 1991, MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 1994, reprint, pp. 207-208 24. "Living Fossils", Discovery Education, http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/livingfossils/ 25. "American cockroach," http://www.insectia.com/beta/e/iv_c202015.html 26. Boyce Rensberger, Houston Chronicle, 5 October1980, Section 4, p. 15 27. Niles Eldredge, quoted in Darwin's Enigma by Luther D. Sunderland, Santee, CA, Master Books, 1988, p. 78. 28. "Living Fossils", Discovery Education, http://school.discovery.com/lessonplans/programs/livingfossils/ 29. David Catchpoole, "'Living Fossils' Enigma," http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i2/living_fossil.asp 30. Lynn Dicks, "The Creatures Time Forgot," New Scientist, 23 October 1999 31. Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, Penguin Books, England, 1985, p. 151 32. "Evolution:Living Fossils," http://www.straight-talk.net/evolution/living.htm 33. "Living Fossils," http://www.nwcreation.net/fossilsliving.html 34. "Spider 'is 20 million years old'", BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4296398.stm 35. "A Silurian Sea Spider," Nature 431, 978-980, 21 October 2004 36. Dicks, "The Creatures Time Forgot," New Scientist, 23 October 1999 37. Niles Eldredge, Fossils:The Evolution and Extinction of Species, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1991, pp. 100, 108 38. Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin On Trial, Intervarsity Press, Illinois, 1993, p. 27 39. Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 66 40. Gerald Schroeder, "Evolution: Rationality vs. Randomness", http://www.geraldschroeder.com/evolution.html 41. Sidney Fox, Klaus Dose, Molecular Evolution and The Origin of Life, W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 1972, p. 4. 42. Alexander I. Oparin, Origin of Life, Dover Publications, New York, 1936, 1953 (reprint), p. 196. 43. "New Evidence on Evolution of Early Atmosphere and Life", Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 63, November 1982, 1328-1330. 44. Stanley Miller, Molecular Evolution of Life: Current Status of the Prebiotic Synthesis of Small Molecules, 1986, p. 7. 45. Jeffrey Bada, Earth, February 1998, p. 40. 46. Leslie E. Orgel, "The Origin of Life on Earth", Scientific American, Vol. 271, October 1994, p. 78. 47. Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, The Modern Library, New York, p. 127. 48. Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 184. 49. B. G. Ranganathan, Origins?, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1988, p. 7. 50. Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, p. 179. 51. Derek A. Ager, "The Nature of the Fossil Record," Proceedings of the British Geological Association, Vol. 87, 1976, p. 133. 52. Douglas J. Futuyma, Science on Trial, Pantheon Books, New York, 1983, p. 197. 53. Solly Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower, Toplinger Publications, New York, 1970, pp. 75-14; Charles E. Oxnard, "The Place of Australopithecines in Human Evolution: Grounds for Doubt," Nature, Vol. 258, p. 389. 54. "Could science be brought to an end by scientists' belief that they have final answers or by society's reluctance to pay the bills?" Scientific American, December 1992, p. 20. 55. Alan Walker, Science, Vol. 207, 7 March 1980, p. 1103; A. J. Kelso, Physical Anthropology, 1st ed., J. B. Lipincott Co., New York, 1970, p. 221; M. D. Leakey, Olduvai Gorge, Vol. 3, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971, p. 272. 56. Jeffrey Kluger, "Not So Extinct After All: The Primitive Homo Erectus May Have Survived Long Enough To Coexist With Modern Humans," Time, 23 December 1996. 57. S. J. Gould, Natural History, Vol. 85, 1976, p. 30. 58. Zuckerman, Beyond the Ivory Tower, p. 19. 59. Richard Lewontin, "The Demon-Haunted World," The New York Review of Books, January 9, 1997, p. 28. 60. Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980, p. 43.   Source: al-shia.org