How Fossils Overturned Evolution

The Origin of Species According to the Fossil Record: CREATION

The theory of evolution claims that all the living species on Earth descended, by means of a series of minute changes, from a common ancestor. To state the theory another way, living species are not separated from one another by absolute differences, but exhibit an inner continuity. However, actual observations in nature have indicated that there is no such continuity as claimed. What we see in the living world are different categories of organisms, separated by vast and distinct differences. Robert Carroll, an expert on vertebrate paleontology, admits this in his book Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution:

Although an almost incomprehensible number of species inhabit Earth today, they do not form a continuous spectrum of barely distinguishable intermediates. Instead, nearly all species can be recognized as belonging to a relatively limited number of clearly distinct major groups... 1

Evolution is a process alleged to have taken place in the past, and fossil discoveries are the only scientific source that can tell us about the history of life. Pierre Grassé says this on the subject:

Naturalists must remember that the process of evolution is revealed only through fossil forms. ... Only paleontology can provide them with the evidence of evolution and reveal its course or mechanisms. 2

In order for the fossil record to shed light on this subject, we need to compare what the theory of evolution predicts against the actual fossil discoveries.

Evrimciler hiçbir bilimsel delili olmamasına rağmen, kuşların sürüngenlerden türediğini iddia ederler. Elbette ki böyle bir dönüşümün gerçekleşmiş olması mümkün değildir. Mükemmel bir yaratılışa sahip olan kuş tüylerinin, dinozor pullarından nasıl oluştuğuna ise asla akılcı ve bilimsel bir açıklama getiremezler.

According to the theory, all living things have descended from various "ancestral" forms. A living species that existed before gradually turned into another species, and every present species emerged in this way. According to the theory, this transition took place slowly over hundreds of millions of years and progressed in stages. That being the case, countless numbers of "intermediate forms" must have emerged and lived over the long process of transition in question. And a few of them must certainly have been fossilized.

For example, half-fish, half-amphibian creatures that still bore fish-like characteristics but which had also acquired certain amphibious features must have existed. And reptile-birds with both reptilian and avian features must have emerged. Since these creatures were in a process of transition, they must have been deformed, deficient and flawed. These theoretical creatures claimed to have existed in the distant past are known as "intermediate forms."

If any such living species really did exist, then they should number, in the millions, or even billions. Abundant traces of them should be found in the fossil record, because the number of intermediate forms should be even greater than the number of animal species known today. The geologic strata should be full of the remains of fossilized intermediate forms. Darwin himself admitted this. As he wrote in his book, The Origin of Species:

If my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking most closely all of the species of the same group together must assuredly have existed... Consequently evidence of their former existence could be found only amongst fossil remains. 3

Yet Darwin was aware that no intermediate forms had yet been found, and regarded this as a major dilemma facing his theory. In the chapter "Difficulties on Theory," he wrote:

... Why, if species have descended from other species by insensibly fine gradations, do we not everywhere see innumerable transitional forms? Why is not all nature in confusion instead of the species being, as we see them, well defined?… But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?… Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory. 4

In the face of this difficulty, the only explanation Darwin could offer was that the fossil records of his time were insufficient. He claimed that later, when the fossil records had been examined in detail, the missing intermediate forms would definitely be found.

The Sufficiency of the Fossil Record

210 milyon yıllık kemikli balık fosili ve 33.7-53 milyon yıllık kurbağa fosili

55-35 milyon yıllık yengeç fosili ve 135 milyon yıllık bir tür deniz yıldızı fosili

355-295 milyon yıllık örümcek fosili ve 300 milyon yıllık kaplumbağa fosili

In the face of the lack of intermediate forms, Darwin claimed, 140 years ago, that they were not available then but new research would definitely unearth them. But has it? To put the question another way, after looking at the results of all the fossil research carried out to date, should we accept that intermediate forms never actually existed—or should we await the results of still further excavations?

The answer to that question of course depends on the wealth of the fossil record we already have available. Looking at the paleontological data, we see that the fossil records are extraordinarily rich, with literally billions of fossil specimens obtained from different regions of the world.5 From examining these fossils, experts have identified some 250,000 different species, many of which bear an extraordinarily close resemblance to the 1.5 million species living today.6 (Of the 1.5 million species alive today, fully 1 million are insects.) Yet among these countless fossil specimens, no supposed intermediate form has ever been found. It seems impossible for the intermediate forms, that have not been discovered despite the rich fossil records, to be unearthed in new excavations.

Yeryüzündeki bütün canlılar, tüm kompleks ve üstün özellikleriyle bir anda var olmuşlar, yani yaratılmışlardır. Evrimcilerin iddia ettikleri gibi canlıların birbirinden türediğini gösteren tek bir bilimsel delil dahi bulunmamaktadır.

T. Neville George, the Glasgow University professor of paleontology, admitted as much many years ago:

There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich, and discovery is outpacing integration … The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps.7

Niles Eldredge, a well-known paleontologist and director of the American Museum of Natural History, states that Darwin's claim to the effect that "the fossil record is deficient, which is why we cannot find any intermediate forms" is invalid:

The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: The gaps we see [in the fossil record] reflect real events in life's history – not the artifact of a poor fossil record. 8

In his 1991 book, Beyond Natural Selection, Robert Wesson says that the gaps in the fossil record are real and phenomenal:

The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of any record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so, for long periods, ... genera never show evolution into new species or genera but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.9

The argument put forward 140 years ago that "no intermediate forms have been found yet, but they will be in the future" is no longer tenable today. The fossil record is sufficiently rich to account for the origin of life, and it reveals a concrete picture: Different species all emerged independently of one another, suddenly, and with all their different structures. No imaginary evolutionary "intermediate forms" existed among them.

Facts Revealed by the Fossil Record

45-50 milyon yıllık Ağustos böceği fosili

Amber içindeki 24 milyon yıllık tırtıl fosili, tırtılların tarih boyunca hep aynı şekilde var olduklarının yani hiçbir evrim geçirmediklerinin bir delilidir.

What is the origin of the "evolution-paleontology" relationship that has been installed in society's subconscious? Why is it that when the fossil record is mentioned, most people assume that there's a definite, positive link between this record and Darwin's theory? The answers are set out in an article in the magazine Science:

A large number of well-trained scientists outside of evolutionary biology and paleontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is. This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low-level textbooks, semipopular articles, and so on. Also, there is probably some wishful thinking involved. In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general these have not been found yet the optimism has died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks.10

N. Eldredge and Ian Tattershall make the following important comment on that matter:

That individual kinds of fossils remain recognizably the same throughout the length of their occurrence in the fossil record had been known to paleontologists long before Darwin published his Origin. Darwin himself, ...  prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search ... One hundred and twenty years of paleontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong.

The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way. 11

The American paleontologist S. M. Stanley describes how this fact, revealed by the fossil record, is ignored by the Darwinist dogma that dominates the scientific world, and how others are also encouraged to ignore it:

The known fossil record is not, and never has been, in accord with gradualism. What is remarkable is that, through a variety of historical circumstances, even the history of opposition has been obscured.  ... "The majority of paleontologists felt their evidence simply contradicted Darwin's stress on minute, slow, and cumulative changes leading to species transformation." ... their story has been suppressed. 12

Let us now examine this truth revealed by the fossil record, which has so far been "suppressed," in rather more detail.

Stasis in the Fossil Record

When we investigate natural history, we find not living things "evolving into different anatomical structures," but ones that have remained unchanged, even over the course of hundreds of millions of years. This lack of change is referred to by scientists as "stasis." Living fossils and organisms that have not survived down to the present day, but which have left their fossils behind in various strata of the Earth's history are concrete proof of stasis in the fossil record. And this stasis shows that no gradual process of evolution ever occurred. In an article in the magazine Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould describes this inconsistency between the fossil record and the theory of evolution:

Mezozoik döneme ait (245-65 milyon yıl arası) vatoz fosili, günümüz denizlerinde yaşayan vatozların sahip olduğu tüm özelliklere sahiptir. Yaklaşık 250 milyon yıllık bu canlı, evrimsel süreç iddiasının tamamen bir hayal olduğunu açıkça göstermektedir.

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis.Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.

2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and 'fully formed.' 13

If a living thing survives in a flawless form down to the present day with all the features it displayed millions of years ago and having undergone no change whatsoever, then this evidence is powerful enough to entirely dismiss the gradual evolution model anticipated by Darwin. Moreover, far from there being just one example to demonstrate this, there are in fact millions. Countless organisms exhibit no differences from their original states, which first appeared millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago. As openly stated by Niles Eldredge, this state of affairs is causing paleontologists to avoid the idea of evolution, which is still supported today:

No wonder paleontologists shied away from evolution for so long. It seems never to happen. Assiduous collecting up cliff faces yields zigzags, minor oscillations, and the very occasional slight accumulation of change over millions of years, at a rate too slow to really account for all the prodigious change that has occurred in evolutionary history.14

The stasis in the fossil record really does represent the greatest problem facing the proponents of evolution. That's because evolutionists look in the fossil record for the evidence they need to prove their fictitious process of evolution. However, fossils provide none of the intermediate forms they seek, but furthermore, reveal that living things alleged to have undergone a process of change over time never underwent any evolution at all, even after hundreds of millions of years. Living forms are identical to how they appeared originally, and never underwent the gradual change predicted by Darwin. Niles Eldredge describes how the stasis for long neglected by evolutionist paleontologists undermines Darwin's claim of gradual evolution:

But stasis was conveniently dropped as a feature of life's history to be reckoned with in evolutionary biology. And stasis had continued to be ignored until Gould and I showed that such stability is a real aspect of life's history which must be confronted—and that, in fact, it posed no fundamental threat to the basic notion of evolution itself. For that was Darwin's problem: to establish the plausibility of the very idea of evolution, Darwin felt that he had to undermine the older ... doctrine of species fixity. Stasis, to Darwin, was an ugly inconvenience. 15

Seeing the invalidity of Darwin's claim of gradual evolution, Eldredge advanced forward the idea of "punctuated equilibrium" together with Stephen J. Gould, and his words above were an accurate expression of the difficulty that stasis posed for Darwin. Yet the point that Eldredge ignores and neglects is that the stasis that is so manifest in the fossil record also represents a major dilemma for punctuated equilibrium.

Fosil Kayıtlarında Durağanlık

Eğer gerçekten bir evrim yaşanmış olsaydı, ki hiçbir şekilde yaşanmamıştır, canlıların yeryüzünde küçük kademeli değişimlerle ortaya çıkmaları ve zaman içinde de değişmeye devam etmeleri gerekirdi. Oysa fosil kayıtları bunun tam aksini gösterir. Farklı canlı sınıflamaları, fosil kayıtlarında hiçbir ataları olmadan aniden ortaya çıkmışlar ve yüz milyonlarca yıl boyunca hiç değişim geçirmeden durağan bir biçimde kalmışlardır.

Ammonitler, yaklaşık 350 milyon yıl önce ortaya çıktılar ve 65 milyon yıl kadar önce soyları tükendi. Aradaki 300 milyon yıl boyunca üstteki fosilde görülen yapıları hiç değişmedi.

400 milyon yıllık deniz yıldızı fosili

Ordovisyen Dönemi'ne ait "atnalı yengeci" fosili. Bu 450 milyon yıllık fosil de, günümüzde yaşayan örneklerinden farksız.

Ordovisyen Devri'ne ait istiridye fosilleri.

35 milyon yıllık fosil sinekler. Günümüzde yaşayan sineklerle aynı vücut yapısına sahipler.

Jurasik Dönem'e ait yaklaşık 170 milyon yıllık karides fosili. Günümüzdeki karideslerden hiçbir farkı yok.

Almanya'nın Bavyera bölgesinde bulunan 140 milyon yıllık yusufçuk fosili, şu anda yaşayan yusufçukların aynısıdır.

İskoçya'daki East Kirkton bölgesinde bulunmuş olan bilinen en eski akrep fosili. Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis adı verilen türe ait bu akrep, 320 milyon yıllık ve günümüz akreplerinden farksız. (solda) Baltık Denizi kıyılarında amber içinde bulunan yaklaşık 170 milyon yıllık bir böcek fosili. Yaşayan örnekleriyle tıpatıp aynı. (solda başta)

The paleontologists who proposed the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution admitted that the stasis in the fossil record presented a "problem." But since they considered it impossible to abandon the idea of evolution, they suggested that living things came into being not through small changes, but by sudden and very large ones. According to this claim, evolutionary changes took place in very small intervals of time, and in very narrow populations. Until this sudden jump, the population had exhibited little or no change and remained in a kind of equilibrium. Since the hypothetical population concerned was a narrow one, so-called large mutations would very quickly be favored by natural selection, and thus—somehow—the emergence of a new species would be established.

Punctuated equilibrium suggests that the formation of a new species took place within communities containing very small numbers of plants or animals. But this model of evolution has now been refuted, with a great deal of proof, by the sciences of microbiology and genetics. (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Darwinism Refuted.) Nor is there any scientific basis for punctuated equilibrium's claim regarding "narrow populations," put forward in order to account for the stasis in the fossil record and therefore, the absence of intermediate forms. Punctuated equilibrium was dealt a severe blow when it was revealed that in genetic terms, a restricted population presents no advantage for the theory of evolution, but rather a disadvantage! Far from developing in such a robust way as to give rise to a new species, narrow populations actually cause genetic defects. The reason is because the individuals in small isolated groups constantly reproduce within a narrow genetic pool. Therefore, normally "heterozygote" individuals—those enjoying a wide gene pool—become "homozygote" or more restricted in their genetic variations. The result is that normally recessive defective genes become dominant, thus producing ever-greater defects and genetic diseases in the population.

Kurbağaların kökeninde de bir evrim süreci yoktur. Bilinen en eski kurbağalar, balıklardan tamamen farklıdır ve kendilerine has yapılarıyla ortaya çıkmışlardır. Ve günümüzdeki kurbağalarla aynı özelliklere sahiplerdir. Dominik Cumhuriyeti'nde bulunan amber içindeki kurbağa fosili yaklaşık 25 milyon yıllıktır ve yaşayan örnekleriyle arasında hiçbir fark yoktur.

Therefore, the lack of intermediate forms in the fossil record cannot be a result of evolution taking place in narrow populations. In addition to all these scientific impossibilities, the adherents of punctuated equilibrium can't explain why traces of changes in such small populations are never found in the fossil record.

This clearly demonstrates that both the gradual model of evolution that Darwin proposed, and the punctuated equilibrium model put forward to cover up its deficiencies, are not able to account for the stasis in the fossil record, the sudden appearance of living forms, and the lack of transitional ones. Whatever theory may be proposed, all claims that living organisms underwent evolution will end in failure and are scientifically condemned to collapse, because living things did not evolve. God has created all living things in their perfect states, from nothing. Therefore, all claims that living things evolved are doomed to disappear.

Stephen J. Gould, one of the intellectual fathers of the "punctuated equilibrium" theory, admitted this in all clarity at a conference he gave at Hobart & William Smith College:

Every paleontologist knows that most species don't change. That's bothersome ... brings terrible distress. ... They may get a little bigger or bumpier. But they remain the same species and that's not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don't change, it's not evolution so you don't talk about it. 16

The "Ineffectiveness" of the Environment

Denizlerin en tehlikeli canlılarından biri olan köpek balığı ve 400 milyon yıllık fosili bize köpek balıklarının hiçbir evrim süreci geçirmediğini açıkça göstermektedir.

Living fossils hold a mirror to the lack of difference between present-day specimens and fossil remains from the past, and offer evidence that therefore, species underwent no evolution over millions of years. In that way, they deal a severe blow to the theory of evolution, which, as is well-known, claims that only those organisms able to adapt to changing environmental conditions survive, and that these evolve into other living things under the effect of imaginary random changes. But living fossils show that the idea of species gradually "reacting" to environmental conditions is actually groundless. Examples of very old living fossils include the shark, which reveals no trace of change despite being around 400 million years old. The Cœlacanth, which evolutionists portrayed as an intermediate form between fish and ambiphians until living specimens were found off Madagascar, constitutes a striking refutation of the theory of evolution's scenario of change.

Despite its evolutionist slant, Focus magazine referred to living things that had remained unchanged for millions of years in its April 2003 issue, which dealt with the Cœlacanth:

The discovery that a creature as large as the Cœlacanth had lived for so many years outside the knowledge of the scientific world led to its attracting a great deal of interest. Yet there are a very large number of organisms which, like the Cœlacanth, are identical to fossils remaining from millions of years ago. For example, the Neopilina, a species of crustacean, has remained unchanged for 500 million years, the scorpion for 430 million years, the Limulus, a marine creature with armour and a sword-like tail, for 225 million years, and the Tuatara, a species of reptile living in New Zealand, for 230 million years. Many arthropods, crocodiles, turtles and many species of plant are other components of this growing list. 17

Birkaç milyon yıllık Akçaağaç yaprağının fosili ve günümüzdeki Akçaağaç yaprakları.

160 milyon yıllık, bilinen en eski semender fosili.

2 milyon yıllık amber içinde karınca fosili ve üstünde günümüzde yaşayan karınca. Bu canlılar, milyonlarca yıl önce de günümüzdekilerden farklı değildi.

190 milyon yıllık timsah fosili ve günümüzdeki yaşayan örneği.

120 milyon yıllık kuş tüyü fosili.

Çuha çiçeği fosili ve günümüzde yaşayan çuha çiçeği.

Milyonlarca yıllık yılan fosilleri, yılanların hiçbir değişime uğramadıklarını göstermektedir.

Bir tür ağaçkakan tüyü fosili. Günümüz ağaçkakan tüyleriyle aynıdır. (Yukarıda solda) Bugüne kadar bulunan en eski çiçekli bitki fosili. (Yukarıda sağda)

Focus cited the examples of cockroaches and archaeobacteria, and openly admitted these species deal a blow to the theory of evolution:

Looked at from the evolutionary perspective, the probability of organisms such as these undergoing mutation is much higher than that of others. Because every new generation means the copying of DNA. Bearing in mind the number of times the copying process takes place over millions of years, a very interesting picture emerges. In theory, various elements of pressure such as changing environmental conditions, hostile species and competition between species should lead to natural selection, the selection of species advantaged by mutation, and for these species to undergo greater change over such a long period of time. YET THE FACTS ARE OTHERWISE. Let us consider cockroaches, for example. These reproduce very quickly and have short life spans, yet they have remained the same for approximately 250 million years. Archaeobacteria are an even more striking example. These emerged 3.5 billion years ago, when the Earth was still very hot, and are still alive today in the boiling waters in Yellowstone National Park.18

The theory of evolution is a fictitious story written about the natural history of species, and is actually refuted by the scientific findings its adherents obtain! Living fossils show that the effect of the environment on living things is not evolution but rather "non-evolution." Species have not come by their present-day structures by undergoing a process of random change. They have all been flawlessly brought into being by Almighty God and have persisted in the form they were first created throughout their time on Earth.

Amber içinde 50 milyon yıllık akrep fosili. (en solda) Milyonlarca yıldır değişmemiş bir canlı olan Tuatara'nın fosili ve günümüzdeki hali. (ortada) 150 milyon yıllık atnalı yengeci fosili ve günümüzdeki Atnalı yengeci. (en sağda)

Examples of Living Fossils

iving fossil is the nickname given to organisms whose traces appear in the fossil layers from early geological periods, of which living specimens are still found today. These living things exhibit no differences from their counterparts from millions of years ago, and represent living examples of those long-dead fossil forms.

Without doubt, the most important of these is the forementioned Cœlacanth. For many years, evolutionists portrayed it as the most significant supposed intermediate form, on which they wasted a great deal of speculation until the first surprise appeared in 1938.

The Cœlacanth: An Example of a False Intermediate Form

The evolutionist paleontologist J. L. B. Smith and the living Clacanth found in the Comoro Islands. This first specimen showed that the Clacanth was a fully-fledged fish, not an intermediate form as claimed by evolutionists. Another 200 specimens discovered since have confirmed this significant fact. A 410-million-year-old Clacanth fossil.

Off the coast of southern Africa, in the winter of 1938, a fishing boat called The Nerine dragged from the Indian Ocean near the Chalumna River a fish thought to be extinct for 70 million years. The fish was a cœlacanth, an animal that thrived concurrently with dinosaurs...18   

These words, by the evolutionist Keith S. Thompson, chairman of the Oxford University Academy of Natural Sciences, are a clear expression of how quickly an evolutionary myth faded  into nothing. The catching of a live specimen of Cœlacanth did away with one of the greatest fake foundations of the theory of evolution.

The Cœlacanth, which according to the fossil record, dates back some 410 million years to the Devonian period, was regarded by evolutionists as a powerful intermediate form between fish and reptile. It had been mysteriously erased from the fossil record 70 million years ago, during  the Cretaceous period, and was believed to have become extinct at that time.19   Based on these fossils, evolutionist biologists suggested that this creature had a non-functioning, "primitive" as evolutionists put it, lung. Speculation regarding the Cœlacanth became so widespread that the fish was cited in many scientific publications as the most significant evidence for evolution. Paintings and drawings of it leaving the water for the land quickly began appearing in books and magazines. Of course, all these assumptions, images and claims, were based on the idea that the creature was extinct.

The truth was very different, however. Since 1938, more than 200 present-day Cœlacanths have been caught, after that first one off South Africa. The second came from the Comoro Islands off north-west Madagascar in 1952, and a third in Indonesian Sulawesi in 1998. The evolutionist paleontologist J. L. B. Smith was unable to conceal his amazement at the capture of the first Cœlacanth, saying, "If I'd met a dinosaur in the street I wouldn't have been more astonished."20 

Another living Clacanth specimen.

Later, photographs of a pair of Cœlacanths cavorting was even published in National Geographic magazine! The capture of living Cœlacanths revealed that the claims regarding it were nothing more than deceptions. The structure that evolutionist researchers suggested was a primitive lung turned out to be nothing but a fat-filled swimbladder. In addition, evolutionists had always depicted the fish as living in shallow waters, as a potential reptile preparing to crawl onto the land where it would continue to "evolve." Yet the Cœlacanth was now found to be living in the deepest ocean waters—a bottom-dwelling fish almost never rising above 180 meters below the surface.21 

The tail of the living Clacanth and that of a 140-million-year-old fossil specimen are identical to one another.

In 1987, the German naturalist Hans Fricke confirmed these research findings when he observed and photographed Cœlacanths off the Grand Comoro Island. He observed that the fish swam backwards, forwards and even tilted head down, but never once "walked, crawled, or otherwise moved on the bottom with their lobed fins."22

Cœlacanth being a living fossil eliminated the so-called evidence that evolutionists had exhibited so proudly to support their imaginary scenario of the fish's transition from water to land. When this creature was encountered in 1938, it immediately revealed the fraudulent nature of the transition from water to land. Evolutionists cast no aspersions on the fact of this living fossil and did not seek to convince anyone that this discovery was in error. They came up with no new conjectures regarding the Cœlacanth and the story of how it emerged from the sea onto dry land. The stasis in the fossil record had demolished the story of this fish's evolution by tearing down one of its basic premises.

Professor of political science Robert G. Wesson set this fact out in these terms:

The bony-finned Cœlacanth, thought to be long extinct but rediscovered in 1938, has been approximately static some 450 million years (Avers 1989, 317). ... The nearly timeless species are not exempt from the changes of proteins that go on in all living beings, and they could surely vary in many ways without loss of adaptiveness, but their patterns have become somehow frozen. ... From the point of view of conventional evolutionary theory long-term stasis is hard to explain. Rapid evolution ... is incongruous that species remain unchanged through changing conditions over many million years.23 

The Horseshoe Crab

Horseshoe crab. A 450-million-year-old horseshoe crab is no different to specimens alive today. It has possessed the same complex features and equipment for the last half billion years or so. Clearly, at a time whenaccording to Darwinistsliving things should have been evolving, no evolution actually took place.

The first fossil records of the horseshoe crab go back 425 million years, yet this living fossil still lives along present-day shores. Its tail, which allows it to walk with ease across the sand and which is used for steering, its two eyes with their exceedingly complex structures, and all its other unique features have remained unchanged over the last 425 million years.

The Cockroach

A 300-million-year-old cockroach, with exactly the same features as cockroaches today. This fossil, which lived 300 million years ago, definitively refutes Darwin's theory of evolution.

The cockroach, the oldest winged insect in the world, first appears in fossils some 350 million years old, from the Carboniferous period.24  This insect—with its various feelers and hairs that are extremely sensitive to the slightest movement, even to air currents, its perfect wings, and its resistant structure capable of withstanding even radiation—is identical now to how it was 350 million years ago.25 

The Okapi

Another living fossil that invalidates one of the greatest faulty proofs of the theory of evolution—and which even revealed a fraud perpetrated in the name of evolution—is the okapi, shown in the illustration below.

The fossils belonging to this animal dated back to the Miocene epoch. The okapi had always been believed to be extinct—that is, right up until the first living specimen was captured in 1901. At that time, it was taken up as an example by evolutionists and presented as an intermediate form in the equine evolution scenario, which itself is totally false. However, with the capture of a living okapi, that scenario of equine evolution was also done away with.

The "evolution of the horse" was for a long while the evolutionists' Exhibit A in regard to the imaginary origin of mammals. Various living and extinct species were set out, one after the other according to size, totally ignoring the gross anatomical differences between them, and were presented as different stages in the evolution of the horse. This series, exhibited in natural history museums for many years, was described in textbooks as if it were a solid proof of evolution. Today, however, a great many evolutionists admit the invalidity of the equine evolution scenario and confess that it is an example of wishful thinking totally based on sleight-of-hand.

In November, 1980, the evolutionist Boyce Rensberger addressed a four-day symposium attended by 150 evolutionists at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which considered problems facing the theory of evolution. He described how the equine evolution scenario had no basis in the fossil record and how the horse never underwent a process of gradual evolution:

The popularly told example of horse evolution, suggesting a gradual sequence of changes from four-toed fox-sized creatures living nearly 50 million years ago to today's much larger one-toed horse, has long been known to be wrong. Instead of gradual change, fossils of each intermediate species appear fully distinct, persist unchanged, and then become extinct. Transitional forms are unknown.26 

Rensberger was quite right; no evidence exists that any such process as equine evolution ever took place. The equine "series" is totally speculative and is not based on the facts. Moreover, there are considerable anatomical and physical differences among these animals. What Rensberger ignores, however, is that not all the species in the series are extinct. The okapi, encountered in 1901, showed that a creature that evolutionists depicted as an intermediate form was in fact still alive today. This animal, which has no relation to the horse and which bears a far closer resemblance to the zebra, was living in the Miocene epoch (23-5.3 million years ago), displaying the same complex features it possesses today.

The living fossil of the okapi again demolished one of the main claims of the theory of evolution. The equine series scenario, full of inconsistencies in all possible regards to begin with, was finally eradicated, and another evolutionary disgrace was quietly placed on the shelf.

Dr. Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History said the following about this equine family-tree, which was still lingering in the museum basement:

There have been an awful lot of stories, some more imaginative than others, about what the nature of that history [of life] really is. The most famous example, still on exhibit downstairs, is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps fifty years ago. That has been presented as the literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that is lamentable, particularly when the people who propose those kinds of stories may themselves be aware of the speculative nature of some of that stuff.27 

Other Living Fossils

A 146 to 65-million-year-old nautilus (top), and identical modern specimens.

Newspapers frequently attract attention with such headlines as "20-Milion-Year-Old Spider Fossil Discovered" or "35-Million-Year-Old Lizard Fossil Unearthed." Each of these reports is actually further proof that nothing like the evolutionary process ever happened. There are many examples of living fossils and in addition, these examples go back hundreds of millions of years.

The crocodile is a reptile that was living 200 million years ago, as is confirmed by the fossil record.28 Yet it is of course alive today. Ginkgo trees were living 125 million years ago, but living specimens were found in China in our own time. Neopilina molluscs were living 500 million years ago, the tuatara lizard 200 million years ago, and archaeobacteria as long ago as 3.5 billion years ago.29 These are still alive today, with all their complex systems and perfect structures. The nautilus, another mollusc, was living in the seas 300 million years ago,30 and these creatures are living, feeding and reproducing in exactly the same form in today's seas.

The Australian and African lungfish is another example of a living fossil that was alive 400 million years ago and still thrives in the present. Charles Darwin was astonished by the survival of these fish down to the present day, and in his Origin of Species, he therefore referred to them as "anomalous forms" that "may almost be called living fossils."31 

A fossil ginkgo tree leaf dating back 125 million years, and a present-day example.

This is by no means the end of the list of creatures that still survive today unchanged, in exactly the same form as they displayed millions of years ago. The sturgeon, mackerel, freshwater bass, herring, needlefish, lobster, crawfish and the Devonian-period shark are all examples of living fossils. Other examples include the jellyfish, sponges, frogs, bees, ants, butterflies and termites. The 230-million-year-old dragonfly, soldier ants dating back 100 million years, and the 150-million-year-old salamander are all still living today. The same applies to arachnids such as the spider and myriapods such as the millipede.32, 33  

Finally, a spider fossilized in amber, and estimated as being 20 million years old, was one of the most important discoveries of the 2000s. A statement from Manchester University announced that this spider, 4 centimeters long and 2 centimeters wide, was identical to present-day specimens. It is hoped that a blood specimen from the spider can extract the arachnid's DNA.34 However, this fossil spider is certainly not the only specimen found. Other fossil spiders unearthed in excavations have been estimated to be hundreds of millions of years old, and are now on exhibit in museums in various countries of the world. The oldest known and most perfect sea spider fossil dates back 425 million years—important evidence that these creatures have remained unchanged for millions of years.35  

The Earth contains countless other fossil specimens from millions of years ago of organisms still living today, such as this spider, and of other creatures now extinct. The fossils illustrated in this book are just a few of the millions of specimens kept in various museums.

An Australian lungfish from the Devonian period (408-360 million years ago). Evolutionists claim that lungfish are the ancestors of amphibians. Yet the pulmonary structure in these fish bears no resemblance to that in terrestrial animals.

Living Fossils Refute Evolution

he evolutionist magazine New Scientist described evolutionist contradictions in the face of living fossils:

Some biologists marvel that there is any evolution at all, considering the possible pitfalls of change. "The idea is that organisms are so complex that it is very hard to change one aspect without wrecking everything else," says [Yale paleontologist Elisabeth] Vrba. But it is extremely difficult to show that this is why our supreme survivors remain unchanged for millions of years.36 

Niles Eldredge

Of course it is hard for this fact to be explained in evolutionist terms, because adherents are looking for an explanation within the theory of evolution. Yet the living fossils reveal that living things did not descend from one another in stages, nor have they evolved in any way. The fossil record provides no examples of intermediate forms. Countless living things have remained unchanged for millions of years, and their current anatomical structures are exactly the same as they were millions of years ago. The fossil record is almost complete with both animal and plant specimens demonstrating this. It definitively and scientifically refutes evolution.

The evolutionist Niles Eldredge admits that no explanation exists with regard to living fossils, which constitute one of the countless secrets that evolution has been unable to unravel:

... there seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree. ... We have not completely solved the riddle of living fossils.37

Bats have remained unchanged for 50 million years, and are among the most important proofs that demolish the theory of evolution.

Pierre-Paul Grassé, one of France's best-known zoologists, former editor of the 28-volume Traité de Zoologie (Treatise of Zoology) and former president of the French Academy of Sciences, ends the chapter "Evolution and Natural Selection" in his book Evolution of Living Organisms with these words:

The "evolution in action" of J. Huxley and other biologists is simply the observation of demographic facts, local fluctuations of genotypes, geographical distributions. Often the species concerned have remained practically unchanged for hundreds of centuries! Fluctuation as a result of circumstances, with prior modification of the genome, does not imply evolution, and we have tangible proof of this in many panchronic species [i.e. living fossils that remain unchanged for millions of years].38

Living fossils and the stasis in the fossil record could not be explained in Darwin's time, much less afterwards. Scientists attempting to adapt Darwin's theory of evolution by means of changes of form to modern scientific findings have also admitted as much, no matter how reluctantly. Facts revealed by the scientific data and the fossil record totally conflict with the present-day theory of evolution, just as Darwin himself admitted 150 years ago:

... I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.39

With these words, Darwin states unhesitatingly that his claim does not square with the facts—for which reason he has ignored them. That is the same situation for those who support the theory of evolution today; despite the truth revealed by the fossil record they blindly continue in Darwin's wake and turn their backs on the facts. However, this deception is a short-lived one. The facts are now far more evident, and far more identifiable. The number of people who have seen the truth and preferred it is rising, and the number of people who unquestioningly believe in fairy tales is on the decrease. The facts cannot be concealed and ignored, as widely as they were in Darwin's day. Genetics, microbiology, paleontology, geology and all other branches of science constantly reveal a truth that Darwin and his supporters never wanted, and that they perhaps never expected—the fact of Creation.

That is because God is the Real and what you call on apart from Him is false. God is the All-High, the Most Great.

Don't you see that God sends down water from the sky and then in the morning the earth is covered in green? God is All-Subtle, All-Aware.

Everything in the heavens and everything in the Earth belongs to Him. God is the Rich Beyond Need, the Praiseworthy.

Don't you see that God has made everything on the Earth subservient to you and the ships running upon the sea by His command? He holds back the heaven, preventing it from falling to the Earth—except by His permission. God is All-Compassionate to humanity, Most Merciful.

It is He Who gave you life and then will cause you to die and then will give you life again. Man is truly ungrateful. (Qur'an, 22:62-66)

 Conclusion

rom time to time, newspapers and magazines report that a 200-million-year-old mosquito fossil has been found, or a 30-million-year-old lizard fossil discovered. Reading reports of that kind, one may well imagine that there is something special or unique about these fossils and that their like is seldom encountered. Yet that assumption is not correct.

The Earth is filled with millions-of-years-old fossils of present-day living things. A very large part of these have been unearthed, and everywhere that paleontologists excavate and study, still they find fossil specimens of modern living things with all their flawless attributes. Kept in countries' museums are millions-of-years-old spiders, ants, flies, spiders, scorpions, crabs, frogs and many other creatures, extinct and otherwise. Even specimens perfectly preserved in amber in all their detail are to be found in museums in their thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. Yet their numbers are seldom mentioned in books and newspapers, and scientific journals, forums and discussions do not address them.

Why is this?

The reason is that every "living" fossil discovered is another proof that demolishes evolution. Every single example of such a living species is enough to destroy the theory to which Darwinists dedicate their professional lives. For that reason, evolutionists attempt to keep large numbers of these fossils hidden.

A 40-million-year-old fossil lizard in amber. Its head, front leg bones and some tissues are preserved. All the features of this lizard in the amber are identical to those of modern ones.

The Cambrian life forms hidden in the famous Smithsonian Institution for 70 years—in other words, fossils of the oldest complex life forms in the history of the planet—are a significant instance of this. Charles Doolittle Walcott, a paleontologist and Secretary (1907-1927) of the Smithsonian, began research in the fossil-bearing Burgess Shale region in the Rocky Mountains, Canada. On 31 August, 1909, Walcott unearthed one of the greatest finds in the history of paleontology: the first fossils of creatures 530 million years old—which lived more than half a billion years ago.

Walcott collected these fossils, and when looked at the phyla to which they belonged, he was amazed, because the fossil stratum he had found was so very ancient. No significant life forms had been encountered in any older strata. But this one contained fossils of almost all of the known phyla, as well as fossils belonging to unknown phyla, showing that all the bodily structures in the animal kingdom had emerged all together, in the same geological period.

This represented a lethal blow to Darwin's theory, because Darwin had suggested that living things developed like the branches of a slowly spreading tree. According to the evolutionary tree that Darwin dreamed up, a single phylum should appear first, then different species, and then, different phyla over a very long period of time. Yet Walcott was looking at clear evidence that all of the phyla existing in the present day, and even more, had emerged suddenly and at the same time, around 530 million years ago. This discovery completely did away with the imaginary "evolutionary tree" that presumed that phyla began with one species that branched off over long periods of time. Right at the beginning of the history of life, complex features were displayed with ever-more complex fossil specimens representing a total of 50 distinct phyla, and numerous species.

These approximately 530-million-year-old fossils entirely eliminated the false reasoning of gradual evolution. Yet they were brought out from where they had been stored and presented to the world only after 70 years had gone by. Walcott had decided to conceal the fossils he had obtained rather than making them available up to his fellow scientists.

As the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Walcott was a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinist. According to the theory of evolution, fossils with relatively simple structures were to be expected in rocks of such great age. Yet in terms of complexity, the fossils he discovered were no different from our present-day creatures, such as crabs, starfish and worms. For Darwinists, the alarming aspect of this was that no fossil specimen that might be proposed as the ancestor of these creatures was to be found, either in Burgess Shale or in older rocks.

The fossil record represents one of the most important pieces of evidence to refute Darwinism, but is generally ignored by Darwinists. Fossils from the Cambrian period, belonging to the first complex living things in history ,were secretly hidden away for 70 years, and are important examples of this deceptive method. A similar method is usually employed with living fossils, and any evidence that invalidates evolution is concealed. However, these efforts are all in vain, and science has demolished evolution with the most perfect fossil specimens.

Faced with these dilemmas, Walcott was all too aware  that the fossils he had obtained would constitute a major stumbling block  for the theory of evolution. Instead of announcing them, he sent them to the Smithsonian, together with a few photographs he had taken and a set of notes. There the fossils were locked away in drawers and forgotten for 70 years. The Burgess Shale fossils were brought to light only in 1985, when the museum archives were re-examined. The Israeli scientist Gerald Schroeder comments:

Had Walcott wanted, he could have hired a phalanx of graduate students to work on the fossils. But he chose not to rock the boat of evolution. Today fossil representatives of the Cambrian era have been found in China, Africa, the British Isles, Sweden, Greenland. The [Cambrian] explosion was worldwide. But before it became proper to discuss the extraordinary nature of the explosion, the data were simply not reported.40 

These fossils represent one of the greatest difficulties for the evolutionists, making it a certainty that their theory is  invalid. They are proofs of creation that evolutionists are completely unable to explain.

Historically, the proponents of evolution have committed countless examples of fraud, in which an ape jaw was added to a human cranium, reconstructions were produced from a single fossil pig's tooth showing the imaginary social lives of ape-men, or feathers were added to dinosaur fossils. (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Darwinism Refuted,Goodword Books, 2003 and The Evolution Deceit, Ta-Ha Publishers, 1999). The adherents of this theory seek to keep it alive not with scientific evidence but ideologically. They didn't hesitate to produce fake "intermediate" fossils to support their claims, but have felt compelled to conceal fossils hundreds of millions of years old that would consign their theory to the dustbin. Their illogicality gradually began to be realized, and since the Earth's strata were full of such fossil specimens, some of them were slowly, reluctantly displayed. Yet this deception still persists today, and some fossil specimens are still kept quietly concealed in museums. If all these specimens kept out of public view were made available, the obvious facts would be realized. Most scientists, however, lack the courage to make such a move that would completely do away with the theory of evolution.

This book presents a small selection of living fossils and their counterparts millions of years old. Our aim in doing so is to show that no evolutionary process ever took place on Earth, to prove that millions of years ago, living organisms were equipped with the same immaculate features they possess now, and to reveal that evolution is a false theory that has sought to keep itself alive by concealing the truth and misleading people. Any theory that hides the scientific evidence, that seeks to assume an authoritative guise through fraud and deception, has openly disproved itself.

Evolutionists are well aware that all the scientific evidence shows that their "process" is nothing but a myth. Living fossils are the work of God, the Creator and Lord of all things, Who first created them millions of years ago and has maintained them in all their perfect forms right down to the present day. Ever since Darwin's time, his followers have been terrified of this evident fact being revealed for all to see. At last, however, this manifest and indisputable truth is out in the open, and all their efforts to conceal it have been in vain. Superstition has vanished in the face of the facts; and God, Lord of the worlds, has once again revealed His greatness and might in the most ideal form:

We did not create heaven and Earth and everything in between them as a game. If We had desired to have some amusement, We would have derived it from Our Presence, but We did not do that. Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right through it and it vanishes clean away! Woe without end for you for what you portray! (Qur'an, 21:16-18)