Evolution: A Fossil In The Minds
Harun YahyaA report dated March 7, 2005, was published on the dailytimes website. The story, titled "110m-year-old sea turtle fossils found," concerned fossil discoveries made by Australian scientists. Paleontologist Ben Kear announced that they had found the fossils of 10 sea turtles dating back around 110 million years, together with a 40 million-year old crocodile fossil. The striking discovery with regard to the sea turtle fossils was that despite being more than 100 million years old they were identical to present-day specimens. The crocodile fossils belonged to a crocodile family that is now extinct. (Like sea turtles, modern-day crocodiles are "living fossils" and no different to specimens from 80 million years ago.)
Let us now ask what kind of evidence these fossils, which have undergone no changes despite all the climatic changes over the last 110 million years, constitute? That these creatures have undergone no evolution, of course. When considered together with other known living fossils from many species, these represent evidence that species have not turned into other species throughout the course of natural history and that they have remained unchanged for millions of years, maintaining all their characteristic features for as long as they have been in existence.
Nonetheless, the dailytimes report carried a number of evolutionist comments by Ben Kear, and stated that research was ongoing into why sea turtles had remained unchanged despite climatic changes. This is an attempt to give the impression that the fossil record actually supports evolution and that the latest discoveries have produced an anomaly in this picture. Let nobody be deceived. These words are based on no scientific evidence whatsoever. They consist of a cloud of fog that a researcher who has adopted evolution as a dogma seeks to disseminate in order to distract people from evidence that undermines evolution.
Ben Kear speaks as if this were the first time he had seen stasis in turtle fossils. The fact is, however, that stasis, state of no change, is the first principle learned about the fossil record by any paleontologist at university, and a striking fact they all know perfectly well. For example, evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould from the Harvard University and a world authority on paleontology, teaches that it is one of two elements of the fossil record that conflict with gradual evolution:
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." (S.J. Gould, "Evolution"s Erratic Pace," Natural History, vol. 86, May 1977)
Tom Kemp, curator of the world famous Oxford University"s Zoological Collections, expresses the principle in these terms:
As is now well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the record, persist for some millions of years virtually unchanged, only to disappear abruptly… (Tom S. Kemp, "A Fresh Look At The Fossil Record," New Scientist, vol. 108 (5 December 1985), p. 66)
As a qualified paleontologist, Ben Kear is well aware of these facts. His asking, in amazement, why sea turtles have remained unchanged is one that has to be regarded as artificial. This artificiality stems from the fact that the theory of evolution has been adopted as a dogma in the academic arena, and that it has become essential for researchers to interpret every finding according to that dogma if they are to be able to continue with their careers. Despite all the contrary evidence, a paleontologist feels the need to think and interpret in Darwinist terms, and attracts no criticism as long as he or she does so. Well known paleontologists have openly admitted that they ignored scientific facts for that very reason. Two such, Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall (American Museum of Natural History) have written as follows on this subject:
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. (N. Eldredge, and I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, Columbia University Press, 1982, pp. 45-46)
Confessions such as these only began appearing explicitly in the 1980s. In other words, despite their seeing no evidence for it, in the 120 years after Darwin paleontologists behaved as if Darwinian evolution really had taken place.
Kear"s words, which seek to give the impression that all findings actually confirm evolution and that stasis is something surprising, are an extension of this unscientific attitude.
However, as the tale of The Emperor"s New Clothes used as an analogy by Eldredge and Tattersall shows, every lie will eventually be exposed in the face of the true facts.
Neither does the theory of evolution have any escape from this inevitable end. Evolution is a theory invalidated by evidence from many different disciplines of modern science. Yet interpreting the fossil record according to the theory of evolution and creating artificial astonishment by saying things like "I wonder why they have not changed," will not bring the theory of evolution back. If this theory is still doggedly defended by certain circles in the scientific world, that is solely because it continues to exist as a "fossilized" idea in some people"s minds.
The facts that invalidate the theory of evolution are now widely known. The rapid worldwide decline of Darwinism shows that the theory of evolution will soon lose even this fossilized existence in people"s minds. Thus, as in The Emperor"s New Clothes, the truth that every eye sees, but denies, will be openly declared: the fact of Creation. This is a promise made by God, Who reveals in the Qur"an:
""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, 21:18)
