Excerpts for Darwin’s Dilemma Media Presentation
Illustra Media - The Intelligent Design Collection
(Video below)
The Cambrian explosion was the most remarkable and puzzling event in
the history of life. - Stephen J Gould, Paleontologist
Today most paleontologists believe that much of the animal
life we see in the fossil record appeared on the earth about 530 million years
ago during a geological period known as the Cambrian period. However early in
the 19th century little was known about this period of time.
Darwin himself clearly stated that the mystery of the
Cambrian and absence of fossils beneath the Cambrian strata – could very well
render his theory as obsolete. Quoting
Darwin, "the difficulty of assigning any good reason for the absence of
vast piles of strata rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian system is very great.
The case at present must remain inexplicable and maybe truly urged as a valid
argument against the views here entertained." – Charles Darwin – The Origin of Species.
All of the known animal body plans seem to have appeared in the
Cambrian radiation. - Rudolf Raff, Evolutionary Biologist
In 1831, six months after his first exposure to Cambrian
geology, young Charles Darwin embarked upon an expedition that would influence the development of his theory of evolution. As the naturalist aboard the HMS
Beagle, Darwin sailed to the Galapagos Islands 600 miles off the coast of
Ecuador. For five weeks Darwin explored this remote island chain, home to an
extraordinary assembly of animals. Here the idea for his history of life was
invented. According to Darwin, as one form of life morphed into another, new
species arose. And as they gradually branched apart, larger differences in form
emerge. Eventually, evolution produces an even greater level of disparity, the
distinct body plans of new phyla.
While what we find in the fossil record is at the top of
Darwin's tree; anything below the top of Darwin's tree is not what we find in
the fossil record at all. If we are using a botanical explanation as a visual,
the diagram would not be a tree it would be a lawn with separate blades of
grass sprouting out of the ground independent of each other. Each blade of
grass would be a distinct phylum (a unique and individual group that has
genetic relationship). Now within each blade there would be subsequent
diversification (i.e. birds would be one phylum, and then we would see different
types of birds); and each diversification we now know shares common genetic
relationship (discovered via genetic and DNA research in science).
The fossil record absolutely does not support the visual of
Darwin’s Theory – his classical tree of life; that suggests single cell
organisms evolving into distinctly different phyla over long-long periods of
time. We do not have the tree with the branches connecting, that visual is not
supported in the fossil record.
With thousands of excavations around the world, and
literally millions of fossils unearthed – we have not once found a fossil or
series of fossils that clearly show one type of animal or plant life evolving
into another.
What we have found however, in the thousands of excavations –
is that complex animal life appeared in a very brief period of time; very
quickly during the Cambrian Period.
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