'Oldest' Animal Fossils Evolved in the Wrong Place | The Institute for Creation Research

'Oldest' Animal Fossils Evolved in the Wrong Place

Fossils from South China are being touted as the first animals to have evolved on the planet. A recently-published study on these tiny organisms, however, presents a fresh evolutionary puzzle. Although the common assumption is that the “first animals” emerged from the ocean, the Chinese Doushantuo Formation looks like it came from lake deposits.

The fossils were found in sediments that contain smectite, a clay mineral known to form from salty lakes and not marine environments. Martin Kennedy of the University of California at Riverside told LiveScience, “It is most unexpected that these first fossils do not come from marine sediments."1

Lakes have been considered inadequate evolutionary nurseries, since their lifespans are far too short for the extreme lengths of time biological evolution would supposedly require. However, instead of letting this evidence of early “lake life” call into question the validity of Darwinian assumptions that animals evolved from single-celled organisms, this researcher merely amended his concept of evolution. He suggested that these “earliest” animals’ “evolutionary response is much more rapid than I would have supposed.”1

But the very heart of Darwin’s concept of evolution by natural selection is that creatures evolved over vast eons by small and sure, yet slow, steps. If animal life emerged in lakes—or even if animal life originated in oceans but merely acquired the suite of specifications necessary for life in an alkaline lake—then its evolution must have been so rapid that it would be indistinguishable from a miracle.

One prominent biologist said that “time is in fact the hero of the plot.…Given so much time the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs miracles.”2 But lakes apparently could not provide enough time, and this has evolutionists concerned. Even if lakes somehow did produce life, though, time is certainly the enemy of the plot, not at all the hero.3

The study’s findings not only contradict evolution’s standard scenario of where life began, but also call into question “what factors drove animals to evolve in the first place”1 Despite interpreting the data to favor evolution, scientists have discovered no real set of factors that could possibly have driven animals to evolve from an imaginary pre-animal. And if no natural factors could have done it, then the remaining reasonable option is that animals were produced by a supernatural factor—a Creator.

What these ancient Chinese fossils represent is not ascendant life, but inexorable death. Rather than being the first animals to evolve, they more likely represent the first to have been buried.4

References

  1. Choi, C. Q. Oldest Animal Fossils Found in Lakes, Not Oceans. LiveScience. Posted on livescience.com July 27, 2009, accessed July 28, 2009, reporting research published in Bristow, T. F. et al. Mineralogical constraints on the paleoenvironments of the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online before print July 29, 2009.
  2. Wald, G. 1955. The Origin of Life. In The Physics and Chemistry of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 12. Quoted in Morris, J. 2007. The Young Earth, rev. Green Forest, AR: Master Books: 37.
  3. Time hurts evolution in several ways. Regarding the origin of life, a greater length of time increases the possibility that the chemicals necessary for life would disperse and be destroyed by oxygen, water, minerals, and radiation. Regarding the perpetuation of existing life, harmful mutations accumulate relentlessly over time because they are undetectable by selection. See Sanford, J. C. 2008. Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome. Waterloo, NY: FMS Publications.
  4. These Precambrian deposits likely represent river or local flood deposits laid down before Noah’s Flood.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on August 10, 2009.

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Searching for Truth Across the Globe | Creation.Live Podcast:...
How can we bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of creation to others outside our small spheres of influence?   Host...

NEWS
Marine Mammals: Designed for Deep Diving
While you’re reading this, hold your breath. What is now happening is your blood is delivering the last of oxygenated blood cells to your tissues...

CREATION PODCAST
Humanity's Demise at the Hands of Genetic Entropy | The Creation...
Welcome to the fourth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
''Inside-Out'' Fossil is Amazingly Preserved
It is widely known that vast numbers of fossils—vertebrate and invertebrate—have been discovered incredibly well-preserved.1,2...

NEWS
The Resurrection and the Origin of Life
At Easter time we focus on the cardinal Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, Christianity is a sham. The truth that Jesus...

NEWS
Is an Ancient Extinct Tree-Dweller Our Relative?
Human evolution has always been hazy with seemingly as many attempted explanations for how we evolved from animals as there are paleoanthropologists. Evolutionists...

NEWS
The Return of the Dire Wolf?
There’s been much recent excitement about the birth of three dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) puppies by a Dallas-based biotech company: Colossal Bioscience....

CREATION PODCAST
Cracks in the Layers: Lake Suigetsu and the Old Earth Illusion...
Welcome to the third episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
Fish Fossil Vomit
A rather unsavory news story recently appeared regarding fossilized vomit. Although it’s hardly dinner table conversation, it nonetheless supports...

NEWS
Dino Footprints Down Under
Dinosaur trackways1 are once again making the news. Australia is the setting of a remarkable series of dinosaur tracks attributed to ornithischian...