Evolution and Out-of-Sequence Fossils

Every once in a while, a fundamentalist evolutionist will assert that the fossils are in order, showing primitive to advanced life forms. The most likely reasons for stating this are ignorance or dishonesty. That is because knowledgeable evolutionists are well aware that the fossil record is disrupted.

Indeed, in Origin of Species, the Bearded Buddha himself lamented that the fossil record is incomplete and that transitional forms are missing. Unfortunately, when celebrities like Bill Nye the Propaganda Guy spread falsehoods, evolution believers tend to accept them without question.

Trilobyte fossils, Freeimages / Dave Dyet

Non-scientist Nye made that assertion in the 2014 debate with Ken Ham. Bill is not a scientist, let alone, a paleontologist. Obviously, non-scientists make assertions, but such a strong claim should be examined by thinking people. Some wonder why Ham did not respond to that claim, but I suspect that since Nye was doing elephant hurling and the debate was nor formatted in a way to give proper responses are probably why Ken moved on.

One story evolutionists tell is that fossils are formed when a creature dies and is slowly buried by sediment. Then it becomes permineralized over millions of years. However, the evidence shows that fossils form rapidly and organisms must be buried quickly. Atheists and other evolutionists accuse creationists of ignoring evidence in favor of biblical creation and the Genesis Flood, when in actuality, they are ignoring (and often suppressing) the truth. Another truth that gets suppressed is the importance of worldviews in interpreting evidence.

So how can we answer this challenge? Is this a problem for creationists? First, by definition evolutionists would say there are no out-of-sequence fossils. They would claim that the fragmentary nature of the fossil record means that we don’t have a good idea of the entire period a fossil belongs in. So if we find a fossil in a stratum that is supposed to be 100 million years older than the species (using evolutionary dating for the sake of the argument), it simply means that it evolved 100 million years earlier than we thought. The evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record is so flexible that it can incorporate virtually any new change, no matter how unexpected. In other words, if an out-of-order fossil is found (according to their standard view), then it is just incorporated as new evidence to provide a better understanding of evolution! In short, evolution is assumed and then used to explain the fossils. So, no matter what we find, by the very nature of the way they interpret the facts, nothing would falsify evolution anyway!

To read all of this interesting article, see "Are there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?" Also of interest are "Fossils Unfriendly to Evolution" and a serious difficulty for them, "Solving the Polystrate Fossil Problem."