Bioturbation Evidence Stuffed into Deep Time Narrative

Deep Time is an assumption, not
a deduction. Evolutionists force
data into their pre-existing story

If you start working a puzzle with a mental image of what the finished picture should look like, but you don’t have all the pieces, you can play for decades arranging the pieces you have into your presumed image. Colleagues who agree with your mental image will come along to help. They may debate which pieces go where to fit the image best, but the image remains (see “How not to work a puzzle,” 5 Feb 2013). Thomas Kuhn, philosopher of science, described “normal science” as puzzle solving within a paradigm. The job of the scientist is to solve the remaining puzzles within the paradigm, not to question the paradigm. See if this is what is going on in a recent paper about bioturbation: the scrambling of sediments by burrowing animals.

Trilobite mass death display, Wyoming Dinosaur Center (DFC). Trilobites and worms are examples of burrowing animals.

As the world churns — a history of ecosystem engineering in the oceans (Yale News, 11 August 2025). Notice the wording: “a history,” not “the history.” It is a history according to the paradigm of Darwinian evolution and deep time, worked on by a team of puzzle solvers at Yale.

Press agent Jim Shelton describes the busy work of a team at the university, telling how Assistant Professor Lidya Tarhan and colleagues worked on a small part of the puzzle of evolution in deep time: bioturbation in shallow ocean sediments. Bioturbation is a form of “ecosystem engineering”— that is, the reworking of the environment by organisms as they dig and burrow down into soil (on land) or into sea bottom sediments (in the ocean). Notice the restricted scope of this part of the puzzle they worked on: ocean sediments—and not all ocean sediments: only shallow ones. Like everything else in the Darwinian-Hegelian worldview, bioturbation evolves.

“In the oceans, bioturbation plays a critical role in shaping the habitability and ecology of the seafloor, as well as in regulating nutrient cycling in overlying ocean waters,” Tarhan said. “However, how bioturbation has varied through Earth’s past, and the evolutionary timing of when bioturbators became the enormously impactful ‘engineers’ they are today, has long been poorly understood.”

A poorly understood part of the puzzle allows scientists to work on a part of the narrative not often studied in detail. That’s good for job security.

But were they arriving at certain Truth about the history of the world? The world is a big place. There are far too many uncertainties to know whether the pieces fit well. Instead, they used the evolutionary Geological Column as the framework for their storytelling, since it has global consensus as a paradigm, with “golden spikes” and globally accepted naming conventions. The fossils and organisms studied already had their roles in the narrative, “emerging” at certain eons, epochs, periods or eras, and going extinct later, or surviving to the present. By assuming evolution, they didn’t have to concern themselves with the improbability of complex organisms emerging by chance. The framework for the puzzle was already set in stone (dinosaur soft tissue notwithstanding).

This Smithsonian display shows all of recorded human history as a tiny sliver at the right end of the timeline. But how can they know everything left of that sliver without making assumptions about deep time? The only portion available for human observation is that sliver at the right end magnified into the yellow bar above (notice the pyramid for the date of the construction of the Egyptian monuments).

With data from sea cores at four locations and a thousand previous studies (all evolutionary) on different continents, Tarhan and her colleagues gathered their puzzle pieces to try to fit them into the narrative. “Ultimately, they amassed a database covering 540 million years of Earth’s history — nearly the full evolutionary history of animal life.”

Astute readers will perceive that “evolutionary history” is not necessarily “true history” and “evolutionary timing” is not necessarily “true timing.” To understand this, note that the Geologic Column itself has had numerous revolutions since it was first conceived, stretching many times its original length (from millions of Darwin Years to billions), with dates and lengths of the various periods similarly stretching or squishing as needed to preserve the paradigm (14 Dec 2004).

Never attempt evolutionary work without completing the required meditation exercises.

Tracking bioturbation through time: The evolution of the marine sedimentary mixed and transition layers (Tarhan et al., Science Advances, 30 July 2025). In the open-access scientific paper, readers should take note of the many assumptions and interpretations made. The authors define two levels of bioturbation: a sediment mixed layer, where burrowing animals have pretty much scrambled the sediments, and a deep transition layer, where distinct burrows can be found. Generally speaking, the latter lie beneath the former at any given site. Then, they weave a tale about their few puzzle pieces, feeling good that they can make it fit the Darwinian timeline with some imagination:

Here, we provide a record for the depths of the sedimentary mixed and transition layers through the Phanerozoic [the eon of multicellular life]. We find that although deepening of the sediment mixed layer spanned hundreds of millions of years, a deep transition layer was established as early as the Cambrian and did not further deepen until the Mesozoic—trajectories reflecting evolutionary radiations, changes in nutrient cycling, and alleviation of oxygen stress.

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This story, however, does not pop out of the data. To see, look at Figure 3, with data represented as dots scattered all over the place with no clear trend, and only a few outliers (about six) deeper in more “recent” periods. Did Tarhan and her friends check the whole globe? At any given site in their limited data set, maybe previous investigators missed some deeper burrows. How can anyone know? The data points look nearly random.

Even worse, Figures 4, 5, and 6 show no clear trend over time. Tarhan et al. also have to fit their puzzle pieces to the paradigm’s mass extinctions. It’s not that these evolutionary DODOs (not a slur, but an acronym, “Darwin-only” 2x) failed to be rigorous in their work, or failed in their storytelling. They do tell an interesting story. But it is a story, not a truth. Without a time machine, how could anyone be certain it represents the true history of the earth? There are way too many uncertainties in the data.

No; these scientists were on a mission: a mission to fit the data into Darwin’s narrative. See it in this quote:

It’s not a bug; it’s futureware.

We describe existing records and interpretations for the Phanerozoic trajectory of the sedimentary mixed layer, and we present an analysis of burrow depth data to provide updated constraints on the Phanerozoic evolution of the sedimentary transition layer. We additionally highlight intervals for which primary data are currently inadequate. In particular, with limited exception (e.g., the lower Paleozoic, the Permian–Triassic transition, and recent intervals of the Cenozoic), the data necessary to robustly quantify mixed layer depths are sparse to nonexistent, hampering efforts to reconstruct evolutionary, paleoenvironmental, and paleogeographic trends; generating these data should be a key priority for future studies. Nonetheless, those data available—which we review here—yield broad-scale, critical insights into Phanerozoic mixed layer evolution and suggest both parallels to and notable disparities from concurrent patterns in transition layer evolution.

Future studies: anything that doesn’t quite yet fit the narrative can be worked on in futureware. That keeps the Darwin Party employed. The paradigm is never falsified. It only needs more work by D-Merit Badge wearing members of the Darwin Party. Everyone else is excluded from participating. This is evolutionary “science.”

We repeat: it’s not that evolutionists are unable to concoct a story to fit the data, but that the data require a story to fit a belief.

Oh, but remember how they wanted to incorporate the five big mass extinctions that Darwinians believe in? Look at this headline from New Scientist (2 June 2025): “There’s growing evidence the big five mass extinctions never happened.” Another headline that shakes up the timeline: “No mass extinction for South American mammals at the Eocene–Oligocene transition” (PNAS Commentary, 9 June 2025). Now what?

Not to worry. The Darwinian web of belief is made of stretchable steel. It can absorb almost any earthquake, tsunami, or tornado. The only thing it cannot bear is being stepped on by a Divine foot.

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding” (Job 38:4).