Origins: What Does the Fossil Evidence Reveal?

In 1859 Charles Darwin published a book entitled The

Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection. This one book has

spawned hundreds more and raised controversy in religion, science,

education, and government. People in all walks of life have been

effected whether a person is an atheist or a believer in a deity.

Most of Darwin's conclusions are based on what he observed in the

fossil record. This, of course, would be the place to come to look

for evidence to support his theory of evolution. Here in the fossil

record the remains of creatures that lived perhaps millions of years

ago would be found. This is exactly the same place that creationists

go for evidence to support the theory of creation. Just how well

does the fossil record support one theory or the other?

In discussing the origins of life we are concerned with

how the world and the multitudes of living organisms all came into

being.

There are only two accepted models used when speaking of

origins. The first and most widely accepted viewpoint is that of

evolution. The evolution theory requires extremely long time spans;

some scientists believe that it took as long as three billion years

for life to reach the complexity that we see today (Volpe 144).

Long

time periods are needed because evolution works slowly with chance

and natural selection guiding structural change. Another require-

ment of evolution is that life occured spontaneously by accident

from non-life. The origin of life is a process which is innate in

matter (Gish 17). All life, as we know it today, emerged from single

celled organisms which evolved over billions of years. Evolution

also mandates that geologic processes on earth have been uniform.

That is to say, there have been no sudden changes in geography or

the environment here on earth. Man and apes have a common ancestor;

the universe and our solar system have all ocurred through natural

processes.

In order for evolution to be true, the fossil evidence must

support the evolution model. The slow and gradual change necessary

to bring about highly complex creatures should be clearly shown

in preserved animal remains. During the billions of years that

evolution has been operating there must be millions and millions

of transitional forms of life. These transitional forms would be

in the process of changing from one form to another. The change

may be from invertebrate to vertebrate or from fish to amphibian.

It is believed that lizards evolved into birds. To support this

tremendous change in form and function we can expect to find

fossil evidence which is rich in transitional forms. This means

that creatures will be found with partially formed wings or fea-

thers or front leg structures that have partially changed to wings.

The evidence of the transitional form is critical to the evolution

model.

The creationist has an obviously divergent point of view.

The earth is relatively young. Its age is on the order of tens of

thousands of years. Earth's geology has been one of catastrophy

rather than uniformity. All life occured through the willful act

of a Designer. Each type of species was complete and highly complex

at the moment of creation. Life has not become more complex with

the passage of time.

Any change in speciation has been small and

limited to particular kind. These changes are controlled by the

constraints of genetics. Man and apes are not related. Again we

can say that the evidence in the fossil record must support the

theory. The creationist would not expect to find transitional

forms, but rather, highly complex creatures should appear in the

sedimentary rock. There should be no evidence of any gradual change

from one kind to another.

Before going any further, it is important to establish one

other point. Neither theory, creation or evolution, can be proven

in the laboratory.

Evolution requires tens of millions of years

for any observable changes to occur. It is intuitively evident

that it is not possible to conduct an experiment over such a vast

time period. Creation has a problem of even greater magnitude.

For creation to be true, it must be proven that it occured through

divine intervention. This is a major obstacle for the theory.

Again, it is impossible to perform any such experiment in the lab-

oratory. We now have a dilemma because neither of these two theories

can be proven in a controlled situation. Here is where the fossil

evidence will prove to be of such great importance. The fossils

are a historical record of what creatures existed in the past.

This historic information can be used with the two origin models

we have established. By comparing the historical evidence with

what can be expected on the basis of these two origin models we

should be able to see which model best fits the evidence.