Evolutionary Sequences | Fossil Record

The

An early evolutionary tree drawn by Charles Darwin.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Darwin_tree.png...

order of evolution found in science textbooks is questionable. According to evolutionist Stephen Gould, "the family trees that adorn our textbooks are based on inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of the fossils."ⁱ In other words, scientists are just guessing when they create evolutionary trees.

If we were given a group of dog skulls without every having seen a dog, and were asked to determine the evolutionary development, how would we organize them? We might group them from small to large with flat-nosed ones on one branch and long-nosed ones on the opposite branch.

The truth, however, is that dogs are one species. The variation between them is a result of the built-in variation in the original gene pool. However logical our idea, it is still wrong. This is the same problem that scientists experience when they create the evolutionary trees.

We find in the fossil record that many species existed at the same time. In addition, scores of insects, invertebrates, and plants have an unchanged record throughout history. Many creatures have always existed and still exist, changing only in size.

The fossil record holds perfect preservations of many animals such as jellyfish and insects. These fossils resemble the living creatures today, even down to the finest detail. However, evolutionists arrange fossils according to their form and structure and the beliefs of the researcher.

Recently, biochemistry has made it possible to compare DNA in fossils. This has only confused the matter more for scientists. For example, sharks are considered more primitive than bony fishes. However, sharks fall among the bony fishes on the evolutionary tree. This means that they have lost the swim bladder and bony skeleton. Sharks may not be as primitive as we think. Rather, they likely degenerated from a more complex state.ⁱⁱ

The ancestral lines of the major living groups of fish do not link up to form a tree at all, but can be traced back in parallel lines, often unchanged except for size, without any links to other life forms. Fossils to link groups together are completely missing from the fossil record. Thus, any links are just speculation. The same is true for amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Read about fossil reefs. Updated June 2009.

i Stephen Gould, "Return of Hopeful Monsters," Natural History 8 (1977):50.

ii A. Rasmussen and U. Arnason, "Phylogenetic studies of complete mitochrondrial DNA molecules place cartilaginous fishes within the tree of bony fishes," Journal of Molecular Evolution 48 (1999):118-123.