Are the fossils contained in rocks a 'living succession?'
When studying fossils in a rock column, uniformitarian geologists have concluded that the presence of consecutive species in a sample supports the concept of common ancestry.
Despite the absence of transitional forms and significant gaps in the fossils, the conviction is upheld because the fossils, like the rocks, are thought to be the result of millions of years of succession.
Milton goes on to say that the Darwinian view of a constantly evolving species is not reflected in the rocks, citing one of the most well-known examples of such sequences: the early horses discovered in North America.
A Study on Horses
The study in question examines the fossils of numerous 'horse-like' animals discovered millions of years apart, naming them as evidence for the 'evolution' of the species. It begins with a tiny, dog-sized creature known as 'Eohippus' and ends with the modern horse.
Milton comments on these discoveries saying:
“There is no question that these remains, when places together, are strongly suggestive of an evolutionary development. They show what an evolutionary model predicts the fossil record should show.”
However, two comments are made about this discovery which are of profound importance:
No transitional remains have been discovered despite the many intermittent remains found in the fossil record
If we are to label the Eohippus sequence 'evidence of evolution', we must do it in faith rather than fact. The persistent gaps in the fossil record and the absence of the hypothesised intermediate species leave us only to speculate as to the nature of their connection—evolutionary or coincidental?
All of this points to the former existence of various quadruped species with striking similarities, rather than an evolutionary connection between them.
Archaeopteryx
In the case of Archaeopteryx, Darwinists believe that its fossils demonstrate the existence of a feathered creature long before the age of birds. Its seemingly vestigial characteristics have been argued to be evidence of its belonging to the ancestral line of dinosaurs.
Siting Dr David Norman in his illustrated History of Dinosaurs, Milton points out the glaring differences between Archaeopteryx and other dinosaurs/birds anatomically.
What is certain is that upon analysis, there is grave uncertainty in regard to what Archaeopteryx actually was. If Archaeopteryx was a bird, newly discovered fossils known as Protoavis call into question the Darwinian interpretation of a bird-like creature that predated the age of birds. This is because Protoavis, a creature the size of a pheasant with undeniable flappable flight abilities, has been discovered in beds in Texas that are 75 million years older than Archaeopteryx.
Milton concludes that:
“This means that true birds, essentially the same as modern birds, were flying happily in the skies of Texas during the period that Darwinists like to call the age of reptiles; a further indication that their geochronometry may well be faulty and that birds and extinct reptiles were in fact contemporary in a more recent past.”
How have Darwinists dealt with the lack of real transitional fossils?
Darwinists tend to make a number of remarks:
"Finding vertebrate fossils is largely based on chance, as they are rare. The fact that a specific specimen has yet to be discovered does not preclude its discovery at a later date."
Rebuttal:
Despite extensive searches in Africa and the Middle East (the hotspot areas), more than a century of rigorous gathering by well-funded professional expeditions has yielded no evidence of Darwin's presumed remains. There are, however, fossils of early ape-likes and hominids.
Indeed, the repository of primate fossils has grown massively since Darwin's day. Despite this, however, the only 'missing link' discovered so far has been the Piltdown man hoax, in which amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson deceptively used and altered orangutan bones to claim he had uncovered the 'missing link’.
A Darwinist may therefore posit the question to a sceptic:
"What if Archaeopteryx or the Eohippus sequence aren’t evidence for transitions, what would be?"
Reasonable evidence for such a hypothesis would be to see a straightforward fossil sequence from a successive stratum, yet despite billions of fossils being available from thousands of strata, there have been no such findings. If Darwinian evolution was the guiding force of life, as Darwin and his supporters claimed, the fact that it is not observed in any of the strata appears inexplicable.
Nowhere in the world has anyone met this simple evidential criterion with a straightforward fossil sequence from successive strata. Yet there are so many billions of fossils available from so many thousands of strata, that the failure to meet the modest demand is inexplicable if evolution has taken place in the way Darwin and his followers have suggested.
To validate Darwin's theory of slow, progressive species evolution, one would need to present an observable sequence of fossils from adjacent strata that show gradual change above the species level rather than small subspecific variation. Given that the Earth's surface is primarily composed of sedimentary rock, which is known to be continuously layered when outcropped and contains distinct fossils, it is reasonable to seek out a sequence of fossils from sedimentary rock that demonstrate the process of progressive change on a single specimen.
A Point to Consider
The evidence of similarities between species is evidence of a common ancestor
When Darwinists say that organisms as varied as the mouse and elephant exhibit comparable four-limbed structural patterns, they conclude that these animals might have shared a common ancestor.
While this claim might not seem unreasonable, it does pave the way for a more plausible counterargument given the scarcity of discoveries and other concerns in regard to Darwin's theory. If we assert that comparable animal structure demonstrates a common ancestor, one may argue that it actually demonstrates a common designer…
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