Darwin himself in his book the Origin of Species noted that
he does not have a plausible answer to the Cambrian explosion. Without a
plausible answer for many years he theorized or argued that not enough fossil
excavation had been conducted. He believed that over time the fossil record
would show a transitioning set of steps or evolving of one species type into
another; supporting his Evolutionary theory. Unfortunately for Darwin’s theory
and for many who still hold to it; the fossil record has clearly shown that his
theory cannot be accurate.
Since the passing of Darwin we have now completed
archaeological and paleontological explorations on every continent. Virtually
all of these excavations have revealed and solidified the Cambrian explosion.
In the latter-half of the 20th century, industry has conducted very deep
offshore oil drilling. These offshore oil drilling projects were conducted by
coring very deeply below the surface of the ocean bottoms. Paleontologists knew
that such drilling would provide a much deeper look at the fossil record well
into the Cambrian period and prior. What they found even more profoundly
solidified Darwin's dilemma.
What they found in sediments dating back to pre-Cambrian was
not a fossil record of transitions of species. On the contrary all they found
were evidence of single cell organisms and simple plant life. The shale and
rock samples beneath the ocean floor have revealed that the single cell
organisms and plant life disappeared from the Earth rather suddenly. Then
sometime after that we see all the basic animal life structures including those
with complex design; bones vertebra, etc., appeared nearly all at once – not an
evolutionary process at all. Everything changed in what seemed to be a
geological instant.
In the early 1990’s, reports of new Chinese fossils were
released to the rest of the world. Marine biologist Paul Chien at the
University of San Francisco was one scientist who followed the news closely.
What drew his attention were a couple of articles that were published in the
People's daily, the official newspaper from the Communist Party in China. The
article stated the Chinese fossils drew the attention of scientists worldwide
and this fossil find actually challenges the theory of Darwin's evolution. Then
on December 4, 1995, Time Magazine published a cover story entitled Evolution's
Big Bang. The story included great detail about the Chinese fossils. Since 1996
Paul Chien has made several trips to conduct his own investigation in China of
the fossil site. Paul Chien has found that when you get into the subject of the
Cambrian explosion and all the various fossil sites there is one of two
possible reactions; people either love to talk about it or they would prefer to
avoid the subject. He says the Cambrian explosion absolutely challenges the
idea of the traditional view of evolution. The problem is that all of the
various fossils and animal species found have clearly appeared in a very brief
period of time. This is very difficult to explain from the evolutionary point
of view.
Paleontologists have determined that the Chinese fossils
were older than those excavated in the Burgess Shale in previous years. Yet,
anatomically they were often even more complex. This discovery also confirmed
that the previous estimates of the Cambrian explosion of life lasting 20 to 40
million years were much too long. The time estimate has now been reduced to
between 5 and 10 million years. So this is truly an explosive event in
scientific terms. What we are seeing is a quantum jump; and this quantum jump
has no explanation. Most scientists agree that we do not know the exact rate of
the Cambrian explosion; they simply agree that it was very fast in evolutionary
terms. As the time period of the Cambrian explosion has shrank, the challenge
to evolutionary theory has grown. This is because the distinct differences and
animal forms would have to be constructed very rapidly are much more dramatic;
these pose a real and fundamental challenge to evolutionary mechanisms.
Scientists began speaking in terms of finding an explanation to the Cambrian
Explosion outside of the Darwinian thought.
The Cambrian Explosion fossils in China were not all that
was discovered. In the area of shale below the Cambrian period, they found
evidence of little tiny microscopic sponge embryos. These embryos were
soft-bodied animals some of which were fossilized 60 million years prior to the
Cambrian explosion. They are eggs and embryos which are preserved in thin
crusts of mineralized materials, on ancient sea floors. Now this suggests that
the chemistry of the seawater in those days was somewhat different than it is
today because this method of preserving fossils disappears during the Cambrian
and it is not around today. Now this is highly significant because one of the
most popular explanations for the missing Precambrian fossils is that the
pre-Cambrian animals were too soft and too small to have been preserved. Dr.
Chien was able to develop a unique process of examining and analyzing the
embryos and the sponge content that they were in. Eventually using an electron
microscope he was able to examine the internal cell structure of the preserved
embryos.
Chien's work on these fragile samples of Precambrian life
raised an important question. If these lower strata that are Precambrian can
preserve an embryo, and if they can preserve a soft microscopic embryo, then
why could they not have preserve the larger ancestral forms of animals that would
have supposedly evolved into the Cambrian animals; according to Darwin's
theory? In other words if you can preserve something as fragile as an embryo,
why couldn't you, in the same strata of rock, preserved the immediate ancestor
of a hard shelled trilobite? So this idea that many scientists had put forth,
that the fossil record is just too damaged to give us an accurate general
picture; well that idea just doesn't wash.
During the past 150 years, fossil hunters have searched the
earth for the many species of transitional links that Darwin's theory requires –
yet they have come up empty.
Resources & Links
Paul Kwan Chien – Marine Biologist,
known for his research on the physiology and ecology of intertidal organisms
and his support for intelligent design and creationism.
Jonathan Wells – Author of Icons of Evolution - PhD Molecular and Cell Biology
Senior Fellow, Center for Science & Culture. Dr. Wells
is an expert on biology textbooks and biology science curriculum as it relates
to Darwinian evolution.
Irreducible Complexity (IC) and Specified Complexity -
James W. Valentine is an American evolutionary biologist and
Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University
of California, Berkeley. He has published widely and -- in addition to
peer-reviewed publications -- has written several books.
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