Dr. Carlo Cossano: What do the fossils tell us?

As you know very well, today,  hundreds of millions of fossils were unearthed from geological layers. Many animal and plant fossils provide us scientific proofs on history of living things in great detail. What do the fossils tell us?

 

  With regard to what Darwin proposed in his theory, the fossil findings did not confirm what he claimed. On the contrary, the characteristics of some fossils, for example those found in the Cambrian layer, a layer that is described as “the Cambrian explosion” from a paleontological point of view, reveal a sudden appearance. This sudden appearance is not only of different species of living organisms, but also the order of more advanced systems such as the phylum. 

  The occurrence of dozens of phyla happened instantaneously from a geological point of view. Therefore, there was not a gradual or progressive modification in the shape of organisms, but a sudden appearance. This sudden appearance, this explosion reveals that the fact that there are no characteristics that were indicated by Darwin as the explanation of the complexity and variability of living organisms .  In addition, the characteristic forms that are discovered in living beings, such as the complexity of the eyes of some organisms , are basically the same characteristics of today's species. There is a real preservation of the characteristics. Indeed, the theory of evolution often describes this trend as a “stasis”, that means that the forms do not change. Now, if the complexity appeared instantly and vastly, and if there were no gradual changes, we can ask ourselves: where is evolution?