NO CHANGE = NO EVOLUTION!

EVOLUTION is popularly understood as a process of constant change. Over many millions of years 'simple' things are said to have evolved into more and more complex forms. The ancestors of the complex creatures living on the earth today, are, according to this theory, found fossilised in ancient rocks, having been superceded and become obsolete in evolution's great 'experiment'. Charles Darwin, populariser of the evolution theory, wrote: 'We may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity.'¹

JUST THE SAME

Living horseshoe crabs (top) and identical fossil specimens (below), supposedly unchanged in '500 million years' (photos; courtesy Dr Joachim Scheven)

These ideas, however, do not accord with the facts. Indeed, a very strong objection to the evolution theory is the stubborn refusal of numerous organisms to change at all during the passing of those supposed vast periods of time. If evolution is really a continuous process, as Darwin claimed, and all living things are eventually superseded, why do we find so many examples of what are described as 'living fossils'?

Evolutionists believe that life on earth began some 3,500 million years ago, and that the first life-forms were bacteria, from which all living things, including human beings, evolved. Yet we all know there are plenty of bacteria alive on earth today, so does this mean that the very first type of life to appear on earth has remained unchanged for 3,500 million years? What could have caused some bacteria to begin evolving on a course that would lead to man, whilst others were content to remain 'simple'? And what about blue-green algae? These form themselves into mats known as stromatolites. Fossil stromatolites are claimed to be some of the oldest fossils, having been found in rocks dated at '2000 million years old', but in Shark Bay, Australia, are living stromatolites. As evolution really past them by for 2000 million years? David Attenborough has written that Shark Bay is 'as close as we may ever get to a scene from the world of 2000 million years ago'.² We suggest that this vast time period has never existed except in the evolutionists' imagination. Attenborough also describes fossil Sea Pens — a type of jelly-fish — found in Southern Australia in rocks dated as '650 million years old', and goes on to tell us that Sea Pens are still living in the sea, less than 100 miles away!³ Then there is the Horseshoe Crab, unchanged after '500 million years', and the Chambered Nautilus, exactly like its ancestors, which supposedly lived 180 million years ago.

UNCHANGING INSECTS

A modern insect (left), and an identical specimen in 'millions-of-year-old' amber (photo courtesy of Dr Joachim Scheven)

Insects are often found preserved in amber (hardened tree resin). These are often so perfectly preserved that it is possible to compare them with insects living today, and this comparison clearly proves that there has been no change at all, even though evolutionists claim that many millions of years have passed since these insects were entombed. There are ants in amber, dated at '100 million years old', which are identical to modern ants. Evolutionists say this shows that ants were already living in communities that long ago — which is another way of saying that there is no evidence they ever lived any other way! Insects are also found fossilized in thin shale, often in a remarkable state of preservation. Dragonflies with their wing markings clearly visible, in '300 million year-old' rocks, are identical to the dragon-flies flying around today, except that some of the earlier ones were much larger — up to 75 cm (30 ins.) from wing-tip to wing-tip.

PLANTS, ALSO

In the plant kingdom, too, there are many cases of non-evolution. These include the Cycad tree, unchanged for '350 million years' and the Gingko tree, thriving today, and identical to fossils dated at '200 million years old'. Metasequoia trees were only known from fossils in rocks dated at '20 million years old' and over, until the discovery of living specimens, some 100 feet tall, in a remote region of China. This latter case highlights a particular problem for evolutionists, e.g. when fossils of the organism concerned are completed missing from the rocks of the intervening period. The Tuatara, a strange reptile now living only in New Zealand, was thought to have become extinct 135 million years ago since its fossils had only been found in rocks assigned that date. No fossils of this reptile have been found in later rocks! The Coelacanth, a crossopterygian fish, was known only from fossils in rocks dated at '70 million years old' or older, until a living Coelacanth was caught in the Indian Ocean in 1939, and many have been discovered since. A mollusk, known as Neopilina galatheae was believed extinct for 280 million years until a living specimen was dredged up from a depth of 11,700 feet off Central America!

REMARKABLE

Evolutionists say it is remarkable that such organisms have survived for so long without leaving any fossil record in the intervening period. We think it remarkable that they believe that these millions of years actually existed. Hundreds of millions of years without evolutionary change is difficult to believe if evolution really does happen, and the lack of fossils in rocks of the intervening periods makes it even more difficult to accept that these vast ages actually existed. It seems clear from the evidence that living things just don't evolve, but reproduce 'after their kind', with limited variation, as the book of Genesis teaches us. Some things have survived virtually unchanged throughout the world's history — which has been a few thousand years, not millions — while others have become extinct, but none have evolved.⁴

REFERENCES:

1. Origin of Species ch. 15.
2. 'Life on Earth' Fontana/Collins 1979, p. 22.
3. 'Life on Earth' p. 32.
4. See 'World of Living Fossils', a video by John Mackay (obtainable from CRT)

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