CLEARING THE PATH

As we saw on the Fossil Record page, the major characteristic of the fossil record is that of universal discontinuity.  Darwin’s central problem in the Origin of Species lay in the fact that he had absolutely no direct empirical evidence that evolution on a major scale had ever occurred.  There were no clear-cut intermediates in the fossil record, and therefore no evidence that any of the major divisions of nature had been crossed gradually through a sequence of transitional forms. 

Not only was he unable to provide empirical evidence for evolution in the existence of intermediate forms, there was, and is, a real difficulty in imagining the hypothetical pathways through which evolution might have occurred.  This was particularly true of various highly specialized organisms and organs.  The absence of intermediate forms essentially emptied all Darwin’s macroevolutonary claims of any empirical basis. 

The only explanation Darwin was able to offer in the Origin for the lack of intermediates was his appeal to the ‘extreme imperfection’ of the fossil record.  The gaps were a particularly acute problem for Darwin as he was absolutely insistent that evolution by natural selection must be a very slow, gradual process.  Such a slow gradual mechanism of evolution would have required innumerable intermediate transitional forms and certainly evidence of these transitional forms should be abundant.  So why have these abundant transitional forms, which are required if Darwin’s theory is correct, not been found in the 160 years since Origin?

There are only three explanations, aside from special creation, which can be put forward by evolutionists to explain the gaps in the fossil record: 

1. Insufficient search, i.e. that maybe the missing links just haven’t been found yet. 
2. The imperfection of the record itself, i.e. that only a fraction of the species that lived in the past have left fossil remains. Perhaps the ancestors of the Cambrian creatures would not have fossilized because they were too small or because they were soft-bodied.
3. Saltational evolution, i.e. that the gaps in the fossil record are real and therefore evolution must have occurred in a series of jumps rather than gradually, as Darwin had proposed.

First, the idea of insufficient search is all but dead.  As scientists continue to search, the same evidence is found over and over again, regardless of where they dig. In Darwin’s time it was believed that there was not yet enough effort made to find the transitional forms.  However, over 160 years later, this is no longer a legitimate objection, and evolutionists recognize this.  With an estimated 250 million catalogued fossils of some 250,000 fossil species, the problem certainly does not appear to be one of an imperfect record.  Most scientists who care to comment on the subject have conceded that the fossil data are sufficiently complete to provide an accurate portrait of the geological record. 

Second, the imperfection of the fossil record can also no longer be a valid argument.  The assertion that the ancestors of the animal phyla found in the Cambrian rocks failed to fossilize because they were too small or soft-bodied has been debunked.  The microfossils of tiny bacteria have been found in rocks dated (by evolutionists) to be more than three billion years old. If they fossilized and were found, then certainly larger fossils should have been found in the Precambrian, if they in-fact exist.  Further, organisms that have been found in the Precambrian rocks were soft-bodied.  The same is true of many of the organisms fossilized in the Cambrian explosion. 

If the gaps cannot be adequately explained by appealing either to an insufficient search or the imperfection of the record, then this only leaves the third choice, a saltational model of evolution as the only explanation for the gaps, assuming evolution is true.  Overt saltation, which means proposing that new types of organisms arise suddenly instead of gradually, is an obvious way of avoiding the problem.  Obviously, the greater the leaps that are allowed in the course of this evolutionary theory, the less transitional forms are required. 

Darwin was against the idea of any sort of evolution in large jumps. Darwin recognized that in order to show something is of natural origin it must be shown that it evolved gradually from its precursors; otherwise its origins are supernatural.  This was obviously unacceptable.  The distinctive feature of his theory was its uncompromising philosophical materialism, which made it scientific in the sense that it did not invoke any mystical or supernatural forces that are inaccessible to scientific investigation.  To achieve a fully materialistic theory Darwin had to explain every complex characteristic or major transformation as the cumulative product of a great many tiny steps.  Although this saddled Darwin with the problem of having to explain away the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record, he knew that a saltational explanation was unacceptable. 

Darwin also found empirical reasons to reject saltation.  Like all other biologists in the early nineteenth century, Darwin was greatly influenced and impressed by the ideas of natural theology which emphasized the ingenuity and elegance of biological adaptation.  In the Origin he summarized his rejection of saltationalism:

He who believes that some ancient form was transformed suddenly through an internal force or tendency…will further be compelled to believe that many structures beautifully adapted to all the other parts of the same creature and to the surrounding conditions, have been suddenly produced; and of such complex and wonderful co-adaptations, he will not be able to assign a shadow of explanation…To admit all this is, as it seems to me, to enter into the realms of miracle, and to leave those of science. (1)

A century and a half after Darwin, and with no solution to the problem of the gaps in the fossil record, some evolutionist felt they had no choice but to propose a saltational model of evolution. The main example of this saltational type of evolution is the punctuated equilibria model developed by paleontologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould.  The model of evolution they propose envisions evolution as an episodic process occurring in jumps interspaced with long periods of or little or no change.  In other words, in order to get new species, evolution needed to drastically speed up.  But this happens so quickly, according to this theory, that intermediate forms aren’t able to be preserved in the fossil record. 

The fossil evidence demonstrates that species appear in the fossil record fully formed, generally persist for long periods of time, and then disappear from the record looking very much as they did at their first appearance.  Other species then appear in the fossil record fully formed, presumably related to the preceding forms, but no transitional forms can be found to link one species to another.  This obviously contradicts the Darwinian mechanism of evolution.  What the actual fossil record demonstrates is exactly what creation theory predicts.  But now, with this new theory, it is also what evolution predicts !! 

Because there are so few transitional forms needed, then, they contend, it is reasonable that those transitions may not be found in the fossil record. The results of this theory, as well as a growing number of others, is that evolutionists have finally begun to admit that there is no evidence for gradual change in the fossil record, and that they are forced to look for another explanation. 

Gould, in his book The Panda’s Thumb, states: 

"Thus, the fossil record is a faithful rendering of what evolutionary theory predicts, not a pitiful vestige of a once bountiful tale.  Eldridge and I refer to this scheme as the model of punctuated equilibria.  Lineages change little during most of their history, but events of rapid speciation occasionally punctuate this tranquility."(2)

It is fascinating how Gould paints the picture of how the fossil record suddenly is “a faithful rendering” of what evolution theory predicts, especially when he molded the prediction to fit the evidence !!  This is a perfect example of the plasticity of the evolutionary theory in that whatever evidence is found can be adapted to fit the theory. For evolutionists who believe in very slow, gradual change, the fossil record is a direct contradiction of their theory.  But by changing the theory, the findings now fit the model!  Science isn’t supposed to work that way.

Punctuationists eventually produced their theory, with its special emphasis on speciation (the formation of new species).  Yet, the theory did not arise by observing speciation events in living organisms or from an understanding of genetics.  Instead, punctuationists say they read their theory from the fossil record.  Therefore, the only evidence for it is the absence of transitional forms!!  This explains why they stress that their theory is an empirical “fact” based on observation.  This also explains why the punctuationist movement is led by paleontologists, rather than field biologists or geneticists.

One of the most damaging indictment of the punctuationist scheme of evolution, however, is explained by Marvin Lubenow when he states: 

Certainly, the punctuated equilibria theory is unique.  It must be the only theory ever put forth in the history of science which claims to be scientific but then explains why evidence for it cannot be found.(3)

Equally damaging is the explanation of how punctuated equilibrium works.  In trying to explain how punctuated equilibrium actually works we find that there is no mechanism at all.  No one knows why or how a species could rapidly evolve into a new species.  In fact, this notion is contrary to our knowledge derived from the science of genetics. 

The genetic apparatus of a lizard, for example, is devoted 100% to producing another lizard.  The idea that this indescribably complex, finely tuned, highly integrated, amazingly stable genetic apparatus involving hundreds of thousands of interdependent genes could be drastically altered and rapidly reintegrated in such a way that the new organism not only survives but actually is an improvement over the preceding form is contrary to everything we know in science.

One positive effect of the advent of the theory of punctuated equilibrium and the associated publicity it has generated is that for the first time biologists with little knowledge of paleontology have become aware of the absence of transitional forms in the fossil record.  After this revelation of what Gould has called “the trade secret of paleontology”(4)  it seems absurd that so many evolutionists continue to trumpet the fossil record as providing evidence of gradual evolutionary change! 

Saltational models of evolution like punctuated equilibria can never be subject to any sort of empirical confirmation.  They can, therefore, in no way be considered scientific.