FOSSIL SPECIMENS OF MARINE CREATURES -4

FOSSIL SPECIMENS OF MARINE CREATURES

PLATED LOBSTER Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Lebanon The fossilized lobster pictured here, a member of the family Palinuridae, reveals that these crustaceans have remained exactly the same for the last 95 million years. The way that species undergo no changes over millions of years is referred to as "stasis," and this represents a major predicament for evolutionists.     Stephen Jay Gould, one of those evolutionists who has often stated that the fossil record does not support the theory of evolution, said this on the subject in an article in Natural History magazine in 1993: "[S]tasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowledged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly . . . [T]he overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevolution)." (Stephen Jay Gould, "Cordelia's Dilemma," Natural History, February 1993, pp. 10-18) There is only one reason why evolutionists describe the stasis in the fossil record as an embarrassment: That living things have never changed means the invalidation of the theory of evolution. This fact, which demonstrates that evolution never happened, confirms the fact of Creation.

MANTIS SHRIMP Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Lebanon Mantis shrimps, which have survived unchanged ever since the Carboniferous period (354 to 290 million years ago), are a life form that invalidates Darwinism. It is impossible to provide any evolutionary explanation for a creature that remains unaltered for 300 million years. The mantis shrimp pictured here is 95 million years old, yet is completely identical to both those that lived 300 million years in the past and specimens alive today.

PUFFER FISH Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Lebanon All the puffer fish fossils unearthed during the last 150 years are identical in every way to puffer fish alive today. If evolutionists' claims were true, then a great many fossils of semi-developed fish should have been excavated. Yet no such fossil ever has been, because no such intermediate form ever existed. The 95-million-year-old fossil pictured here is proof that puffer fish have always existed as puffer fish.

LOBSTER Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Lebanon The fact that concrete evidence, such as fossils, argue against Darwinism cannot be concealed. Even evolutionists who have the ability to evaluate modern-day scientific findings in an unbiased manner admit it is plain to see that the fossil record opposes the theory of evolution. In his book In Search of Deep Time, Henry Gee states that there is no accumulation of evidence to support the theory of evolution in the fossil record—and that, on the contrary, the evidence at hand is interpreted by evolutionists in the light of their own preconceptions: "Many of the assumptions we make about evolution, especially concerning the history of life as understood from the fossil record, are, however, baseless." (Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999, pp. 1-2.)

SEAHORSE Age: 5 to 1.8 million years Period: Pliocene Location: Marecchia River Formation, Italy Seahorses have always existed as seahorses, and are neither descended from not turned into any other life form. This fossil, which is proof that these creatures have never changed over millions of years, also declares that evolution is a lie. The origin of life does not lie in evolution. God, the Almighty and Omniscient, created the universe and all things within it.

One such fossil is the 95-million-year-old mantis shrimp specimen pictured here. MANTIS SHRIMP Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon None of the research conducted to date has been able to discover a single life form that represents the supposed evolutionary forebear of the mantis shrimp. No findings indicate that mantis shrimp came into being through any process of evolution. Every fossil unearthed shows that mantis shrimp have always existed as mantis shrimp and have remained unchanged for millions of years.

This is a two-sided "mirror image" fossil, traces of which can be seen on either surface of the rock. PUFFER FISH Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon You read pro-evolutionary reports in magazines and newspapers and you see similar programs and documentaries on television, not because Darwinism is a scientific viewpoint, but rather, there are tireless efforts to support it out of ideological concerns. Darwinism is the supposed scientific foundation for materialism and atheism. No one who accepts Darwinism's invalidity can support materialism and atheism. That is why, despite all scientific findings and evidence arguing against the theory of evolution, these facts are ignored, and Darwinism continues to be defended through lies and distortions. One of the proofs that evolutionists refuse to acknowledge are the fossils, now numbering in the millions, each one of them clear proof of Creation. Like the 95-million-year-old puffer fish pictured, all fossils tell us that living things never evolved, and that God created them all.

STINGRAY (with its pair) Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon Science has proved that evolutionists' claims regarding the origin of life are mere nonsense, and the theory of evolution has collapsed in the face of many concrete findings. One of the countless bits of evidence to demolish the theory of evolution is the lack of any imaginary intermediate forms in the fossil record. Every fossil unearthed shows that all living species came into being with all their characteristics fully present, and remained unchanged from then on. The 95-million-year-old stingray in the picture is one such specimen. There is no difference between this fossil and stingrays alive today; and all stingrays have been exactly the same ever since they first appeared in the fossil record.

The 150-million-year-old sea lily in the picture is one of the proofs in question. SEA LILY Age: 150 million years Period: Jurassic Location: Solnhofen Formation, Germany The wealth of the fossil record poses a serious dilemma for evolutionists. These fossils present those people unwilling to understand the origin of life with a fully detailed, complete picture. Living things emerged separately, each one in a single moment and with all its different structures, with no imaginary "intermediate evolutionary" forms preceding them.

MANTIS SHRIMP Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon Darwin's hypotheses regarding the origin of life were based on no scientific findings or experiments. However, with the support and encouragement he received from materialist biologists of the time, Darwin constructed a theory out of these hypotheses. According to his theory, all living things were descended from a supposed single primitive ancestor, underwent minute changes over a very long period of time, and thus became different from one another. This hypothesis has been confirmed by no concrete scientific findings, neither in Darwin's own time nor in the intervening 150 years. On the contrary, all the fossils unearthed have revealed that living things have remained unchanged, often for tens of millions of years and sometimes for hundreds. His theory has collapsed in the face of science. One of the proofs of that collapse is the 95-million-year-old mantis shrimp pictured.

PUFFER FISH Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Lebanon In the fossil record, it is sometimes possible to come across remains of living things bearing features belonging to another species. Darwinists, interpreting these findings in a prejudiced manner, claim that these fossils confirm their theories. But that is a grave error, because one living thing having features similar to another's is not characteristic of any "intermediate form." The platypus, for example, lives in Australia, and despite being a mammal, lays eggs like reptiles. In addition, it has a beak resembling that of birds. Scientists describe the platypus as a "mosaic form." Even leading evolutionists admit that these cannot be regarded as intermediate forms. Instead of engaging in distorted interpretations regarding mosaic forms, Darwinists need to produce concrete evidence to prove that species descended from one another by way of minuscule changes. But this they can never do, because no such process ever took place.

BOWFIN Age: 50 million years Period: Eocene Location: Messel Quarry, Germany The theory of evolution is not based on scientific fact, but is maintained by means of invented scenarios and propaganda, and it is impossible to find any fossils supporting this fictitious theory. Darwinists have written an imaginary natural history, and have attempted to find fossils to fit it. Yet the exact opposite actually happened: Every new fossil places the theory of evolution in an even worse predicament. The bowfin fossil pictured dates back 50 million years. Its sharp teeth have been perfectly preserved, and its skeletal structure can be seen to be identical to that of specimens alive today.

SEA HORSE Age: 23 -5 million years Period: Miocene Location: Marecchia River Formation, Poggio, Rimini, Italy Sea horses (Hippocampus sp.) generally cling onto plants with their tails, and swim upright with their dorsal fin because they lack tail fins. Their ability to swim upright is based on their being able to fill their flotation sacs with air very quickly. Pictured is a fossilized sea horse discovered in rock beds in northern Italy. This sea horse, from Miocene period, is exactly the same in terms of all its organs and structures—its skeleton, flotation sac and gills—as present-day sea horses. Sea horses have remained unchanged since they first begin appearing in the fossil record, and fundamentally invalidate evolutionist claims.

COELACANTH Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon In 1938, Darwinists suffered a terrible disappointment with the capture of a living coelacanth, a fish they had long depicted as so-called evidence of the transition of vertebrates from the sea to dry land. In the years that followed, some 200 coelacanths were caught. In 1987, Professor Hans Fricke of the Max Planck Institute observed these creatures in their natural habitat by descending to a depth of 200 meters off the East African Comoro Islands, in a submarine named Geo. He observed that their bony fins had no functional link to the limbs that permit walking in tetrapods (four-footed animals). The April 2003 issue of Focus magazine reported the findings from this research: "The flexible fins had no similar functions to those in four-footed land vertebrates. These allowed the creature to swim head-down and in all directions, even backwards." (Focus, April 2003) With its structures that have remained unchanged for 400 million years, the coelacanth places evolutionists in a highly difficult position. Bear in mind, too, that continental shifts have taken place over those 400 million years, during which the coelacanth never changed at all. It can be seen that evolutionists are in an utterly hopeless position. Moreover, the coelacanth exhibits a profound gulf between the marine and terrestrial life forms, between which the theory of evolution presumes a transitional link.

This is a mirror-image fossil, traces of which can be seen on either side of the rock surface. STINGRAY (with its pair) Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon The 95-million-year-old fossil stingray pictured reveals that these fish have undergone no change since they first came into being on Earth. This has gone down as yet another of the proofs demolishing the Darwinist thesis that "Fossils support the theory of evolution." Countless scientific books and articles have revealed the invalidity of these illusory evolutionist claims. The fact that fossils have failed to produce the "intermediate forms" of which Darwin dreamed—and that, on the contrary, different living groups on Earth appear suddenly in the fossil record and with all their unique structures—is agreed by a great many scientists, including many present-day evolutionist paleontologists. Niles Eldredge, for example, admits that evolutionist paleontologists are well aware of the lack of intermediate forms and the stasis in the fossil record (the fact that living species have remained unaltered), but this evidence goes ignored: "Each new generation, it seems, produces a few young paleontologists eager to document examples of evolutionary change in their fossils. The changes they have always looked for have, of course, been of the gradual progressive sort. More often than not their efforts have gone unrewarded—their fossils, rather than exhibiting the expected pattern, just seem to persist virtually unchanged. . . . This extraordinary conservatism looked, to the paleontologist keen on finding evolutionary change, as if no evolution had occurred. Thus studies documenting conservative persistence rather than gradual evolutionary change were considered failures, and, more often than not, were not even published. Most paleontologists were aware of the stability, the lack of change we call stasis." (an excerpt from Niles Eldredge, "Evolutionary Tempos and Modes: A Paleontological Perspective," in the anthology What Darwin Began: Modern Darwinian and non-Darwinian Perspectives on Evolution [ed. Godfrey, 1985], as quoted in the book Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson, Regnery Gateway, 1991, pp. 58-60)

GUITAR FISH Age: 95 million years Period:Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon The countless proofs revealed by paleontology over the years confirm that living things never evolved. The fossil pictured is one of the many proofs that evolutionists ignore. This 95-million-year-old fossil, popularly known as a guitar fish thanks to its appearance, has to a large extent preserved its skeletal structure. The head and fins can be made out in perfect detail. Confronted by this fossil, which is identical to modern-day guitar fish, evolutionists have no explanation to offer, and no evidence to submit. All they can do is attempt to mislead and deceive people through demagoguery.

PIPEFISH Age: 40 million years Period: Eocene Location: Green River Formation, Wyoming, USA Pipefish, members of the family Syngnathidae, are toothless, and their mouths are tube-shaped. Those that lived tens of millions of years ago had exactly the same features as pipefish alive today. Nonetheless, evolutionists still claim that pipefish came into existence by chance, as the result of a long process of evolution—as indeed they do with regard to all other life forms. They are completely lacking in any evidence to support their claims. Yet there are millions of proofs, like the one in the picture, that clearly show that the evolution hypothesis is not true.

PUFFER FISH Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon Darwinist publications contain no accounts based on concrete scientific evidence. The fundamental dilemmas that contradict the theory of evolution are glossed over in a few sentences, while on the other hand, a great many fantastical scenarios are dreamed up and presented as factual. Evolutionists constantly claim that all living things developed by gradually evolving from one another, yet remain silent when firm evidence is demanded. For example, if you ask evolutionists who have offered a long explanation of how "Fish forced to emerge onto dry land as the seas dried up eventually turned into reptiles" whether they have any fossil evidence with which to support their claim, you will never receive an answer. Despite all their searching over the last 150 years, Darwinists have failed to find one single example of an intermediate form. All the fossils they have unearthed show that life emerged suddenly—in other words, species were created, never changed, and never underwent evolution.

NEEDLEFISH Period: Cretaceous Age:95 million years Location: Lebanon Evolutionists, who persist in claiming that "species evolved from one another" at every available opportunity are helpless in the face of the fossil record because they possess not a single piece of evidence. The fossil needlefish in the picture, for instance, documents how these have remained unchanged for 95 million years. This slender fish, which belongs to the family Belonidae, is no different to specimens alive today.

MANTIS SHRIMP Age: 95 million years Period: Cretaceous Location: Haqel, Lebanon The theory of evolution consists of a hypothesis. In order for that hypothesis to be regarded as scientific it needs to be testable or else confirmed by findings. Yet evolutionist fantasies lack these criteria. There is no significance or scientific value in the tales that Darwinists have been relating for so long, about how invertebrates supposedly turned into vertebrates, how fish living in the seas moved to the dry land as the oceans dried up, or how dinosaurs chasing flies began to fly themselves. They need to point to a single fossil of a half-invertebrate and half-vertebrate, half-fish and half-reptile or half-dinosaur and half-bird—if any such exist. Evolutionists are unable to point to any such fossils, yet there are a countless—and ever-increasing—number of fossils proving that evolution never happened at all. This 95-million-year-old fossilized mantis shrimp is one such example.