Living Fossils Disprove Evolution

A theory that uses the same process to explain both
stasis and change is not a theory worth defending

 

Darwin concocted the term “living fossil” to account for animals that have not changed for eons of time. In his disarmingly gentle act of fake humility, he appeared to be trying to deal honestly with “difficulties” in his theory. Some have argued, however, that his pre-emptive explanations made the idea of natural selection unfalsifiable. If a bear evolved into a whale, that was natural selection. If another animal showed no change at all, that was natural selection. That’s why we routinely call his vacuous theory the Stuff Happens Law.

One of the imaginary scenarios Darwin concocted to explain living fossils was that certain animals became so comfortable in their little Brigadoon-like ecological niches, they had no need to evolve further. Yet that idea contradicts Darwinism itself. No creature is isolated in any environment. If the world around them was evolving, including the predators and competitors, they would have “had to” evolve to keep up (given Darwin’s assumptions, where the environment causes “selection pressure” to evolve). Over millions of Darwin Years, furthermore, the climate, the geology, and the ecology were in a state of flux. Darwin envisaged a world where “Evolve or Perish!” was the natural order of things. Consider, too, that these living fossils often inhabit the same ecological niche as other creatures that supposedly underwent dramatic transformations. Can both be explained by the same process?

In the following examples, one must put Darwinism to the test. One must not assume it to be true merely because a “consensus” of scientists believe it. One must courageously oppose the B.A.D. assertions coming from the consensus. One must refuse to accept the matter-of-fact manner of the moyboys just because they sound authoritative. One must speak truth to power.

Decoding the secrets of a 310 million-year old brain (University of New England). Behold: a fossil horseshoe crab, so perfectly preserved that even the structure of its brain can be detected. How old is it? Is it really 310 million years old? Get your baloney detector ready to detect special pleading from these Darwin bigots:

The study also reveals that the brain anatomy of horseshoe crabs has remained essentially unchanged throughout most of their evolutionary history.

Why must it be termed “evolutionary history”? What’s wrong with just “history”? There was no evolutionary change, they say.

“The fossil’s central nervous system is closely comparable to that of living horseshoe crabs and match up in their arrangement of nerves to the eyes and appendages. It also shows the same central opening for the oesophagus to pass through. This is quite remarkable, given the substantial morphological and ecological diversification that has taken place in the group over the intervening 310 million years,” Prof. Paterson said.

Your baloney detector should be flashing, vibrating and beeping. Why must one accept his idea of 310 million years? In any other field of science, that kind of “remarkable” contradiction would be called a falsification of one’s theory. But without blinking an eye, Paterson has just exposed a willingness to suspend disbelief in order to preserve his fundamentalist Darwinism. Then he has the gall to bluff his way up to the podium and announce success!

“We have been given a rare glimpse into the prehistoric past, allowing us to further our understanding of the biology and evolution of these long-extinct animals.”

Heads should roll in the science department for a failure this spectacular. But like Hunter Biden, Darwinians get away with crimes – crimes, in this case, against scientific integrity. Darwinists live by a different standard of empirical justification than everyone else. Their D-Merit Badge grants them immunity from falsification.

Squirrel Wonders and the Failure of Evolution to Explain Them (Dialogue 48:2, July 2021). This article by Jerry Bergman in the publication of the Creation Science Association of Alberta tells a number of interesting facts about squirrels, like their ability to run on narrow wires, their sharp teeth that can crack nuts, and their bushy tails that act as a signaling device, a thermoregulatory device, a sunshade and a blanket. Then the article says that squirrels, too, are living fossils.

Evolutionists believe that squirrels evolved about 36 million years ago from some hypothetical “more primitive rodent” (Thorington and Ferrell, 2006, p. 23). Previously, the earliest squirrel fossil evidence was found in western North America Darwin-dated to about 36 million years ago. A nearly complete skeleton was discovered in 1975 which “is surprisingly like that of a modern tree squirrel” (Thorington, and Ferrell, 2006, p. 23). The skeleton of the find, determined to be a D. jeffersoni breed squirrel, was “discovered in early Oligocene deposits of Wyoming, [and] represents what may be the oldest fossil squirrel known… Except for minor differences in joint construction, the skeleton is strikingly similar to that of Sciurusniger, the living fox squirrel. It differs from extant ground squirrels in the more gracile proportions of its long bones and asymmetry of foot construction. This early member of the squirrel family was clearly an arboreal squirrel, with morphology, and presumably habits, very similar to those of extant Sciurinae.” (Emry and Thorington, 1982). The bones that were examined were judged to be “identical” to modern squirrels (Emry and Thorington, 1982, pp. 9, 10, 19, 20).

Evidence since 1975 makes the case for Darwin even worse:

The newest discovery after 1975 was a squirrel-like creature from China Darwin-dated over 200 million years old. The fossils were discovered by private collectors and amateur paleontologists in the fertile fossil province of Liaoning (Choi, 2014). The phylogeny [evolutionary relationship] of the fossils found “remains unsolved and has generated contentious views on the origin and earliest evolution of mammals.” (Shundong et al., 2014). As two of the leading experts of squirrels observed, “biologists consider tree squirrels to be living fossils because they remain virtually indistinguishable from European and North American specimens that lived more than 5 million years ago.” (Steele and Koprowski, 2001, pp. 11-12). Squirrels are only one of hundreds of examples of living fossils (Eldredge and Stanley, 2012).

There are 273 species of squirrels, Bergman says; some live in trees, some live in burrows. Squirrels thrive in most habitats, from deserts to the arctic. They vary in terms of tail bushiness, coat color, size and bone proportions. Creationists readily accept diversification within created kinds. But to believe the Darwin story, one has to imagine squirrels popping into existence with no ancestors, then remaining essentially unchanged for 36 million years – or even 200 million years!

Phylogenomic analyses of echinoid diversification prompt a re-evaluation of their fossil record (Koch et al., biorXiv 24 July 2021). Here’s another example of living fossils from a totally different phylum: the echinoids (Echinodermata; see 22 July 2021). Here’s what 11 biologists conclude about the conspicuous echinoid favorite of children on the beach: sand dollars –

Echinoids are key components of modern marine ecosystems. Despite a remarkable fossil record, the emergence of their crown group is documented by few specimens of unclear affinities, rendering much of their early history uncertain. The origin of sand dollars, one of its most distinctive clades, is also unclear due to an unstable phylogenetic context and discrepancies between molecular divergence times and fossil evidence.

The earliest sand dollar, Pygurus marmonti, looks like – guess what – a sand dollar (Natural History Museum). It has “cosmopolitan distribution,” the article says. So how did this flat, stationary echinoid travel around the world?

We employ seventeen novel genomes and transcriptomes to build a phylogenomic dataset with a near-complete sampling of major lineages. With it, we revise the phylogeny and divergence times of echinoids, and place their history within the broader context of echinoderm evolution…. Our results reveal that crown group echinoids originated in the Permian and diversified rapidly in the Triassic, despite the relative lack of fossil evidence for this early diversification. We also clarify the relationships among sand dollars and their close relatives, showing that the genus Apatopygus represents a relict lineage with a deep Jurassic origin. Surprisingly, the origin of sand dollars is confidently dated to the Cretaceous, implying ghost ranges spanning approximately 50 million years, a remarkable discrepancy with their rich fossil record.

Did you catch the rescue devices used by these 11 Darwin bigots? Without fossil evidence, they “place their history” into a mythical time they call Permian. Then they place sand dollars 50 million years earlier than the earliest fossil. To cover up their sins, they summon the spirits of Darwin demons: they invent “ghost ranges” to account for the lack of fossils! Those fossils must be there, so the ghosts obey and plant them in the scientists’ imaginations. Problem solved, the ghosts snicker.

890-Million-Year-Old Fossils Are Sponges, Oldest Animals: Study (The Scientist). This one takes the cake. Elizabeth Turner, a Canadian Darwinist, claims to see evidence of tiny fossil sponge material 890 million Darwin Years old. That’s way before any multicellular life was ever claimed before (around 630 million D.Y. ago), and before the earth is believed (by Darwinians) to have had enough oxygen to support animal life. Other Darwinians are skeptical; they can’t believe this claim. But they are willing to, because their imaginations can handle anything under the Stuff Happens Law. Turner appeals to futureware:

“Animals emerged evolutionarily long before the first traditional animal body fossils appear in the rock record, so there was a long prehistory to animal evolution, which is not well recorded, and really needs further work,” she adds. “The rock record really needs to be much more thoroughly interrogated.”

And so we see, once again, evidence that Darwin’s main achievement was instituting a culture of Job Security for Storytellers (25 June 2014). He and his disciples have been interrogating the rock record for over 160 years, and it still doesn’t agree with the theory! They have to imagine that animals were “emerging” (how? a miracle?) in the mists of deep time before there is any evidence for it. This “long prehistory to animal evolution” is a figment of their own imaginations.

Oh, by the way, the tiny structures (smaller than 1 millimeter) that Turner found, if they are from sponges in the first place, are just like the protein structures made by modern bath sponges. “In rare slices of rock, she found microscopic networks of connecting tubes of calcium carbonate that branch to form irregular three-dimensional shapes with similarities to modern bath sponges,” the article says. Others have identified “similar sponges in younger fossils.” There was no evolution. These, too, are living fossils.

We need to get angry at the tricks that Darwin bigots play on people’s minds. We need to stop excusing it and instead, expose it. I call them Darwin bigots advisedly, because they talk of their falsified theory as if it is a fact, and they absolutely refuse to consider any other explanation for the origins of complex life. They are so bigoted, in fact, they will mock you, marginalize you, and destroy your career if you even suggest Darwinism is not the only explanation. Ask me. I know. Jerry Bergman knows, too. He’s written 3 books of documented evidence of the evils of the Darwin Cancel Culture.

There are dozens of living fossils that falsify Darwinism. And remember, that is just one of many arguments that could be shown against Darwin’s malicious, injurious, deceitful Stuff Happens Law. Help bring on the day when people look back with astonishment that such a bad theory was dogmatically held by all the world’s experts.