What you see is complexity at every stage.
Fossil Record
Fossils are the remains of once-living things. They can be plant or animal bodies that have been partially or completely replaced by minerals. They can be impressions that just show the shape of a creature, or tracks left behind by a traveler, or other remnants that testify to the lives of long-gone organisms. Some rare fossils even have original organic soft tissue encased in rock, showing that their organisms couldn't have been dead for millions of years, as evolution claims.
All fossilized creatures appear suddenly and fully formed in the rock record, with no clear history of evolutionary transitions. This is consistent with the Bible’s assertion that God created life forms to reproduce within their own kinds. Second, fossils formed very quickly, before the animal or plant completely decayed or was scavenged. This means that fossils formed through catastrophic circumstances. Most fossils can be attributed to the worldwide catastrophe of Noah’s Flood, in which countless creatures were killed and then rapidly buried, or to its residual effects.
Fossils also serve as reminders of God’s character. His righteousness and holiness obligated Him to cleanse the world of wickedness by drowning every land-dwelling, air-breathing creature that was not providentially preserved on the Ark. Fossils should be taken as reminders of the penalty of man’s sin and should motivate people to prepare for death.
Fossil Anemone Tracks Don't Fit Evolution
Interesting markings were recently found on a rock in Newfoundland. A study concluded that they were trails left by seafloor-dwelling animals around 565 million years ago.
But such a find is difficult to reconcile with the evolutionary teaching that muscles, and therefore animal locomotion, did not evolve until much later. More...
Fossil Cuttlefish Has Original Tissue
Cuttlefish are mollusks with a hard, supportive structure made of cleverly woven strands of a biochemical material called chitin and mixed with a hard biomineral called aragonite. A team of paleontologists found a supposedly 34 million-year-old fossil cuttlebone that still had both the original aragonite and chitin.
This is significant, because one might expect the hard aragonite to persist in the fossil record, but not the organic chitin or protein. More...
Fossil Discoveries Disrupt Evolutionary Timescales
Paleontologists assess the age of fossilized creatures by the rock layers in which they are found. A fossil found in a lower rock layer is considered to have lived in a much earlier time than one found in a higher ("younger") stratum.
Fossil discoveries, however, continue to challenge this interpretation of the geologic timescale. More...
Fossil Feather Colors Paint Recent Creation Picture
But organic molecules like pigments, and especially proteins, shouldn't be there if the specimen is older than a million years. These results challenge the "millions of years" date assigned to this fossil. More...
Fossil Feathers Convey Color
Analysis of an unusual Brazilian fossil has led U.S. researchers to link microscopic fossil features to bird feather colors. The fossil has dramatic black and white banding patterns that have been interpreted as post-fossilization bacterial activity. However, there are structures in the rock in which it was found that are the same size and shape as cells from living dark feathers. More...
Fossil Indicates Fig and Wasp Life Cycles Were Always Intertwined
The life cycles of fig trees and fig wasps are so closely intertwined, they look like they were made for each other. If this is true, then their fossils would be quite similar to modern forms, showing no history of imagined evolutionary past.
And recent research on a fig wasp fossil shows exactly that. More...
Fossil Moth Still Shows Its Colors
Many butterflies and moths have colors that show a metallic sheen. That sheen occurs because the refracting material in their wings and bodies is spread out in layers precisely as thin as the wavelengths of the light they refract.
Researchers recently found these delicate structures in moth fossils from Germany that are supposedly 47 million years old. But how could something that delicate last that long? More...
Fossil Pigment Paints Long Ages into a Corner
The famous Confuciusornis sanctus fossil from China contains patches that appear to be residue from the bird's original tissues. Long evolutionary ages should have made this impossible, since any such biological material would have completely decayed millions of years ago.
But although the fossil is supposedly 120 million years old, researchers recently confirmed the presence of original organic material. There is a serious problem with this fossil's age assignment. More...
Fossil Skin Pigment Evolved Three Times?
Paleontologists recently presented their analysis of original skin leftovers from three marine reptile fossils and inadvertently revealed three clues that darken their evolutionary explanations. More...
Fossilized Biomaterials Must Be Young
Institute for Creation Research scientists documented several clock-like processes in rocks during the groundbreaking Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE) project, confirming an age of 6,000 years. More...
Fossilized Brain May Give Paleontologists Headache
Who has ever heard of a fossilized brain? Few would expect such a discovery, yet it looks like that's what researchers found inside a Stone Age skull from Norway. If so, it would confirm a published creation prediction and challenge many evolutionary timescales. More...
Circular Reasoning in Polar Bear Origins Date
Biologists agree that polar bears, brown bears, and black bears all descended from a prototype of the bear kind. Some researchers infer from the biblical record that bears rapidly and recently diversified from a representative bear pair on board Noah’s Ark, while those who reject the biblical record derive age information from other sources. More...
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Evolutionists often speak of missing links. They say that the bridge between man and the apes is the "missing link," the hypothetical ape-like ancestor of both. But there are supposed missing links all over the evolutionary tree. For instance, dogs and bears are thought to be evolutionary cousins, related to each other through a missing link. The same could be said for every other stop on the tree. All of the animal types are thought to have arisen by the transformation of some other animal type, and at each branching node is a missing link, and between the node and the modern form are many more.
If you still don't know what a missing link is, don't worry. No one knows what a missing link is, because they are missing! We've never seen one. They're still missing. Evolution depends on innumerable missing links, each of which lived in the unobserved past and have gone extinct, replaced by their evermore evolved descendants.
While we don't really know what a missing link is (or was), we can know what they should be. As each type evolves into something else, there should be numerous in-between types, each stage gaining more and more traits of the descendant while losing traits of the ancestor.
If some type of fish evolved into some type of amphibian, there should have been distinct steps along the way of 90% fish/10% amphibian; then 80% fish/20% amphibian; etc., leading to the 100% amphibians we have today. You would suspect that unless evolution has completely stopped, there might even be some transitional links alive today, but certainly they lived and thrived for a while in the past before they were replaced.
Actually, evolutionists don't mention missing links much anymore. With the introduction of "punctuated equilibrium" in the early 70s, they seem to have made their peace with the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. Their claim is that basic animal types exhibited "stasis" (or equilibrium) for a long period, but they changed rapidly (punctuation) as the environment underwent rapid change, so rapidly they had little opportunity to leave fossils. Thus we wouldn't expect to find transitional forms or missing links. Fair enough, but the fact is we don't find them. Evolution says they did exist, but we have no record of them. Creation says they never existed, and agree that we have no record of them.
Some of these gaps which should be filled in by missing links are huge. Consider the gap between invertebrates and vertebrate fish. Which marine sea creature evolved into a fish with a backbone and internal skeleton? Fish fossils are even found in the lower Cambrian, and dated very early in the evolution scenario. But there are no missing links, no hint of ancestors. The missing links, which should be present in abundance, are still missing!
Both creation and evolution are views of history, ideas about the unobserved past, and both sides try to marshal evidence in their support. Creation says each basic category of life was created separately, thus there never were any "missing links." Evolution says links existed whether or not we find them. The fact is we don't find them. The question is: which historical idea is more scientific, and which is more likely correct?
* Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Morris, J. 2006. What's a Missing Link? Acts & Facts. 35 (4).
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Evolutionists often speak of missing links. They say that the bridge between man and the apes is the "missing link," the hypothetical ape-like ancestor of both. But there are supposed missing links all over the evolutionary tree. For instance, dogs and bears are thought to be evolutionary cousins, related to each other through a missing link. The same could be said for every other stop on the tree. All of the animal types are thought to have arisen by the transformation of some other animal type, and at each branching node is a missing link, and between the node and the modern form are many more.
If you still don't know what a missing link is, don't worry. No one knows what a missing link is, because they are missing! We've never seen one. They're still missing. Evolution depends on innumerable missing links, each of which lived in the unobserved past and have gone extinct, replaced by their evermore evolved descendants.
While we don't really know what a missing link is (or was), we can know what they should be. As each type evolves into something else, there should be numerous in-between types, each stage gaining more and more traits of the descendant while losing traits of the ancestor.
If some type of fish evolved into some type of amphibian, there should have been distinct steps along the way of 90% fish/10% amphibian; then 80% fish/20% amphibian; etc., leading to the 100% amphibians we have today. You would suspect that unless evolution has completely stopped, there might even be some transitional links alive today, but certainly they lived and thrived for a while in the past before they were replaced.
Actually, evolutionists don't mention missing links much anymore. With the introduction of "punctuated equilibrium" in the early 70s, they seem to have made their peace with the lack of transitional forms in the fossil record. Their claim is that basic animal types exhibited "stasis" (or equilibrium) for a long period, but they changed rapidly (punctuation) as the environment underwent rapid change, so rapidly they had little opportunity to leave fossils. Thus we wouldn't expect to find transitional forms or missing links. Fair enough, but the fact is we don't find them. Evolution says they did exist, but we have no record of them. Creation says they never existed, and agree that we have no record of them.
Some of these gaps which should be filled in by missing links are huge. Consider the gap between invertebrates and vertebrate fish. Which marine sea creature evolved into a fish with a backbone and internal skeleton? Fish fossils are even found in the lower Cambrian, and dated very early in the evolution scenario. But there are no missing links, no hint of ancestors. The missing links, which should be present in abundance, are still missing!
Both creation and evolution are views of history, ideas about the unobserved past, and both sides try to marshal evidence in their support. Creation says each basic category of life was created separately, thus there never were any "missing links." Evolution says links existed whether or not we find them. The fact is we don't find them. The question is: which historical idea is more scientific, and which is more likely correct?
* Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research.
Cite this article: Morris, J. 2006. What's a Missing Link? Acts & Facts. 35 (4).
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"And the light shineth in darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5)
Common folklore holds that petrification takes "millions and millions of years." Even though every knowledgeable scientist knows differently, this misconception continues. The great ages concept forms the backdrop for the entire evolution worldview, thus there's no desire to lessen the hold "millions and millions of years" has on the lay public. But petrification can and does happen rapidly. At least this argument can and should be removed from evolution's arsenal.
Petrification is that subset of fossilization in which the organic material is encapsulated or replaced by silica. In wood it can best be accomplished by injection of hot, silica-rich water into the wood. The silica fills in the voids left by decaying cells, or, most often, surrounds each cell with an impervious shell, halting all organic activity or decay.
Wood can be petrified in a laboratory in a very short period of time using high pressure injection. Likewise in nature many examples can be given of recent or living objects rapidly petrifying in the presence of silica and hot water. In Yellowstone National Park, hot waters percolating through volcanic ash dissolve the silica contained therein. Trees growing near the bubbling sources naturally draw the waters into their trunks. As the silica penetrates into the pores, organic activity is interrupted, and the tree eventually dies by petrification.
Many, many examples could also be given of human structures, mine timbers, bridge supports, etc., being petrified since their time of emplacement. It obviously doesn't take a long time; it takes the right conditions.
Recently, at a seminar in the state of Washington, I was given a "petrified fence post" pictured above. Subsequent analysis showed that it was definitely petrified wood, had a nail imprint and marks of a strand of barbed wire. It was found along an old fence line probably dating from the late 1800s in an area of central Washington dominated by a thick blanket of volcanic ash. All that remained of the post was a stub four inches long, three inches wide and two inches thick. It was obviously a "worked" piece of wood, for the clearly visible tree rings had been truncated. The log from which it had come was probably two feet or so in diameter, judging from the curvature of the rings.
Does it prove anything? No, not really, but maybe this report will encourage some reader to realize that these long age/evolutionary stories of "millions and millions of years" he's heard over and over again are really just myths. The Biblical truth of creation/flood/young Earth might just be right after all.
[body_edit] =>
"And the light shineth in darkness; and
the darkness comprehended it not." (John 1:5)
Common folklore holds that petrification takes "millions and millions of years." Even though every knowledgeable scientist knows differently, this misconception continues. The great ages concept forms the backdrop for the entire evolution worldview, thus there's no desire to lessen the hold "millions and millions of years" has on the lay public. But petrification can and does happen rapidly. At least this argument can and should be removed from evolution's arsenal.
Petrification is that subset of fossilization in which the organic material is encapsulated or replaced by silica. In wood it can best be accomplished by injection of hot, silica-rich water into the wood. The silica fills in the voids left by decaying cells, or, most often, surrounds each cell with an impervious shell, halting all organic activity or decay.
Wood can be petrified in a laboratory in a very short period of time using high pressure injection. Likewise in nature many examples can be given of recent or living objects rapidly petrifying in the presence of silica and hot water. In Yellowstone National Park, hot waters percolating through volcanic ash dissolve the silica contained therein. Trees growing near the bubbling sources naturally draw the waters into their trunks. As the silica penetrates into the pores, organic activity is interrupted, and the tree eventually dies by petrification.
Many, many examples could also be given of human structures, mine timbers, bridge supports, etc., being petrified since their time of emplacement. It obviously doesn't take a long time; it takes the right conditions.
Recently, at a seminar in the state of Washington, I was given a "petrified fence post" pictured above. Subsequent analysis showed that it was definitely petrified wood, had a nail imprint and marks of a strand of barbed wire. It was found along an old fence line probably dating from the late 1800s in an area of central Washington dominated by a thick blanket of volcanic ash. All that remained of the post was a stub four inches long, three inches wide and two inches thick. It was obviously a "worked" piece of wood, for the clearly visible tree rings had been truncated. The log from which it had come was probably two feet or so in diameter, judging from the curvature of the rings.
Does it prove anything? No, not really, but maybe this report will encourage some reader to realize that these long age/evolutionary stories of "millions and millions of years" he's heard over and over again are really just myths. The Biblical truth of creation/flood/young Earth might just be right after all.
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