Many Evolutionists have commented on the phenomena in which trees are found upright and
spanning multiple strata. Trevor Major commented that these upright trees, which are found in
some coal beds, do not represent the remains of trees growing in a swamp, but rather the
effects of a flood or similar disaster.
After discussing the effects of the May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Trevor Major
commented:
―...upright tree stumps found in many coal beds represent, not the remains of trees
growing in a peat swamp, but the effects of a flood or similar disaster‖ (1996, p. 16).44
William J. Fritz, an Evolutionist, recognised the phenomenon in fossilised trees at Yellowstone
National Park and stated:
―I do not think that entire Eocene forests were preserved in situ [in place—JD/BT] even
though some upright trees apparently were preserved where they grew‖ (1980a, p.
313, emp. Added).45
In another article published the same year in the same scientific journal, Fritz wrote:
―Deposits of recent mud flows on Mount St. Helens demonstrate conclusively that
stumps can be transported and deposited upright. These observations support
conclusions that some vertical trees in the Yel owstone ―fossil forests‖ were
transported in a geologic situation directly comparable to that of Mount St. Helens‖
(1980b: 588).46
In his book, “The Creation-Evolution Controversy”, R.L. Wysong presents a photograph of
another extremely unusual polystrate tree. The caption underneath a photograph of the tree
describes it as follows:
―This fossil tree penetrates a visible distance of ten feet through volcanic sandstone of
the Clarno formation in Oregon. Potassium-Argon dating of the nearby John Day
formation suggests that 1,000 feet of rock was deposited over a period of about seven
million years or, in other words, at the rate of the thickness of this page annually!
However, catastrophic burial must have formed the rock and caused the fossilization,
otherwise the tree would have rotted and col apsed‖ (1976, p. 366; see Nevins, 1974,
10[4]:191-207 for additional details).47
The fact that entire forests are found in the form of polystratic fossils goes directly against the
idea that sediment was deposited around these trees over periods of millions of years. Any
other scenario than that of a quick burial of material will ultimately lead to the decomposition or
rotting of the plant material, long before mineralisation could set in.
Thirdly, the Evolutionary view would have you believe that a tree can survive in an upright
position and stay alive for millions of years while the Earth goes through geological eras.
Looking at these claims objectively, the assumption would be that you have a living tree, since
as soon as a tree dies it would rot or decompose, unless it is isolated from decomposing factors
such as oxygen and bacterial organisms. While this tree is alive, the earth moves through
different ages having different climates, while vast numbers of species are evolving and
evidence of their existence and evolution is deposited in the sedimentary layers that accumulate
around the tree. The tree should then be millions of years old and yet the petrified tree-rings
that are visible in some of these polystratic trees clearly indicate that these trees were not
millions of years old. The sediment that was deposited around the tree - forming different strata
in the process – therefore had to have been deposited over a short period of time.
The oldest tree that we have on earth today is believed to be a bristle-cone pine, dated at just
over 4,000 years old.48 If trees could survive for millions of years, as the Evolution Theory
suggests, why do we not have several examples of trees today that are at least older than 4,000
years?
The problem that the Evolution Theory presents is that one has to believe something that is
clearly demonstrated to be false. It is a theory where facts are omitted if they do not match the
philosophy and any evidence to the contrary is blatantly rejected or ridiculed. This goes directly
against what science stands for and one then has to ask how this is not considered religion, but
accepted science. The Evolutionary viewpoint is riddled with evidence that indicates that the
hypotheses, which were adopted around the Earth being billions of years old, are clearly false.
The Uniformitarian view is self-contradictory, since if conditions on Earth have not changed
much since the eras in which huge Dinosaurs, such as Brachiosaurus or the T-Rex, lived, why
did they form fossils and not decay? If the same processes were at work during their lifetime as
we have today, we would have expected scavengers, decomposition and normal decay to have
disposed of any evidence before anything could fossilise. This is not the case and we see
evidence, which can only be explained as a catastrophic burial of specimens, which then
created the right conditions for fossilisation to occur.
Another obstacle to prove the authenticity of Evolution, is the fact that animals which were found
in the fossil records that are estimated to date back to between 360 and 65 million years ago,
suddenly show up as alive today. These specimens do not show the expected effects on their
current forms of the mechanics that Evolution proposes. The Coelacanth is a good example.
This fish is said to have become extinct in the late Mesozoic era, but a live specimen was found
in 1938 and others on several other occasions after that. The fish still resembles the same form
as is found in the fossil record, with no visible adaptations or alterations.49
One of the most recent examples of a living fossil, according to Wieland, is the Wollemi Pine,
found in a gorge in the Blue Mountains, 200 kilometres west of Sydney, Australia. The Wollemi
Pine was thought extinct since the Jurassic period- about 150 million years ago on the
Uniformitarian timescale. This means that the Wollemi Pine should exist in strata between the
Jurassic and the present. One researcher described the discovery as "finding a live dinosaur"
(Wieland, 1995).50 No evolution of the Wollemi Pine has occurred for an alleged 150 million
years. Given its absence in strata younger than "Jurassic," those 150 million years which are
proposed to have spanned the Jurassic period up until today, may never have existed. One
would expect abundant Wollemi Pine fossils during this 150 million-year period.
A better scenario explaining the sudden appearance of an extinct plant or fish for example,
would be a catastrophic burial, which affected the entire globe about 4,500 to 5,000 years ago,
during a world-wide environmental disaster, of which there is mention in the Bible.
If the Evolution Theory was factual, the fossil record should also have contained at least 50%
more transitional forms for each specimen found. However, no transitional forms have ever
been found for any organism. When micro-evolution or mutations and adaptations within a
specific species are evident i.e. you get various breeds of dogs, cats, horses etc. As these
varieties are crossbred, new breeds and different looking specimens of the same species
emerge – nowhere does a species of animal, convert or change from one kind to another. Any
transitional forms that exist between different kinds, either living or fossilised, remain clearly
absent in all cases from the evidence we have before us. There are billions of missing links
today and without them and the evidence as discussed above, Evolution is not really a logical
option, but requires a lot of faith in something that is clearly conjecture only.
The largest collection of fossils in the world is found in the British Museum of Natural History. Dr
Colin Patterson was the Senior Palaeontologist at the Museum and a well-known expert on the
fossil record. He is also the editor of a prestigious scientific journal. Patterson wrote a book for
the museum entitled “Evolution” and did not include any examples of transitional fossils in the
book.
―...I ful y agree with your comments on the lack of direct il ustration of evolutionary
transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included
them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but
where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I
were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? I wrote the text
of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather
different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin‗s authority,
but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the
American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no
transitional fossils. As a palaeontologist myself, I am much occupied with the
philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that
I should at least "show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was
derived." I will lay it on the line - there is not one such fossil for which one could make
a watertight argument.‖ Colin Patterson, personal communication. Luther Sunderland,
Darwin„s Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition, 1988: 88-90.51
In all cases where scientists have searched for the transition forms, as the Evolution Theory
would have us believe, they have come up empty-handed. Not one example of a transitional
species has ever been found anywhere in the world since the time of Darwin. Evolutionists are
becoming uneasy about this fact and are realising that they can no longer blame the lack of
evidence on scarcity of fossil samples. As with any subject put under scientific scrutiny: If no
evidence in support of a theory can be found, or evidence to the contrary of a theory is evident;
the theory or hypothesis is no longer viable and has to be modified or rejected.
David B. Kitts. PhD (Zoology) is Head Curator of the Department of Geology at the Stoval
Museum. In an evolutionary trade journal, he wrote the following:
―Despite the bright promise that palaeontology provides a means of "seeing" evolution,
it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is
the presence of "gaps" in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms
between species and palaeontology does not provide them‖, Evolution, vol. 28: 467.52
N. Heribert Nilsson, a famous botanist, evolutionist and professor at Lund University in Sweden,
wrote in his book “The Earth Before Man”:
―My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40
years have completely failed… The fossil material is now so complete that it has
been possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional series cannot be
explained as being due to scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will
never be fil ed.‖ Nilsson quoted in “The Earth Before Man”, p.51.53
Something very rarely encountered is mention of this problem in the news media:
In an article from Newsweek, “Is Man a Subtle Accident?” The author writes as fol ows:
―The missing link between man and apes, whose absence has comforted religious
fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole
hierarchy of phantom creatures … The more scientists have searched for the
transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.‖ ―Is
Man a Subtle Accident?‖, Newsweek, November 3, 1980.54
While the evidence has left Evolutionists with red faces, some of them have even tried to
provide evidence to prove the theory and to keep the dream alive:
―Ramapithecus was widely recognized as a direct ancestor of humans. It is now
established that he was merely an extinct type of orangutan. Piltdown Man was
hyped as the missing link in publications for over 40 years. He was a fraud based
on a human skull cap and an orangutan‗s jaw. Nebraska Man was a fraud based on
a single tooth of a rare type of pig. Java Man was based on sketchy evidence of a
femur, skull cap and three teeth found in a wide area over a one year period. It
turns out the bones were found in an area of human remains, and now the femur is
considered to be human and the skull cap from a large ape. Neanderthal Man was
traditionally depicted as a stooped ape-man. It is now accepted that the alleged
posture was due to disease and that Neanderthal is just a variation of the human
kind. Australopithecus Afarensis, or "Lucy," has been considered a missing link for
years. However, studies of the inner ear, skull and bones have shown that she was
merely a pygmy chimpanzee that walked more upright than some other apes. She
was not on her way to becoming human. Homo Erectus has been found throughout
the world. He is smal er than today‘s average human, with a proportionately smal er
head and brain cavity. However, the brain size falls within the range of people today
and studies of the middle ear have shown that he was just like current Homo
Sapiens. Remains are found throughout the world in the same proximity to remains
of ordinary humans, suggesting co-existence. Australopithecus Africanus and
Peking Man were presented as ape-men missing links for years, but are now both
considered Homo Erectus. Homo Habilis is now generally considered to be
comprised of pieces of various other types of creatures, such as Australopithecus
and Homo Erectus, and is not general y viewed as a valid classification.‖ David M.
Raup, "Evolution and the Fossil Record," Science, vol. 213, July 1981: 289.55
Another example, problematic to the Theory of Evolution, is the existence of several human
artefacts that have been found in various layers of rock and coal dated by Evolutionists to be
millions if not billions of years old. These artefacts comprise tools, bowls, hand- and footprints
and figurines crafted out of metals, such as iron and gold.
Followers of the Evolution Theory find it hard to admit that their theory is corrupt and would
rather come up with a hypothesis that aliens must have visited the planet millions of years ago
and left their artefacts behind. These artefacts have been found throughout the Geologic
Column down to the Cambrian layer, which is said to contain the first visible signs of life that
suddenly appeared on the scene with no obvious predecessors, billions of years ago.56
The current population on Earth also does not support an old Earth view, but rather that of one
that is less than 10,000 years old. If modern-day humans have populated the Earth for more
than 10,000 years the population would have been much larger calculated at the average
growth rate. Considering the population growth rate over the past few millennia and
extrapolating backwards, it is clear to see that the human population on Earth cannot be more
than about 5,000 years old. If the Evolutionist were correct in their speculations that humans
have been walking the Earth for many more millennia than the evidence supports, there should
be more people on the Earth.
The Earth‟s magnetic field is scientifical y proven to have decayed by about 10% over the last
150 years. If this decay is extrapolated back into history to about 10,000 years ago, the
magnetic field would have been too strong for life to be supported on the Earth‟s surface. The
surface would have consisted of molten lava by the heat generated through the Earth‟s
magnetic field.57
Spontaneous Generation of Life
The second pillar that crumbles under the Evolutionist view is that of life spontaneously
generating out of a primordial rock soup. Although Darwin‟s Theory attempts to deal with the
mechanisms for modification over time between different kinds of organisms, it fails dismally
when addressing the origin of life on planet Earth. The idea that life spontaneously arose on
Earth actually goes back to Anaximander, a Greek philosopher who lived in the 6th Century BC.
He proposed that when mud was exposed to sunlight, life would arise as a result. Anaximander
also maintained that the first life on Earth probably came from a "little pond" where organic salts
were exposed to sunlight.58
This view was updated during the 1920„s by scientists Oparin and Haldane. They suggested
that a "hot dilute soup" of basic life was created when ultraviolet light from the sun interacted
with the primitive atmosphere of water, ammonia and methane.59
In 1665, Robert Hooke was the first scientist to discover cells by looking at cork through a
magnifying lens.60 At this point very little was available to assist in the analysis of the cell since
scientists did not have the means to analyse in detail the structures of cells.
In 1670, Antony van Leeuwenhoek, made use of microscopes to view sperm cells, blood cells
and protozoa.61 They were seen as the simplest building blocks from which living organisms
were constructed, and without the ability to study the complexity of the “simple cel ”, scientists at
the time incorrectly assumed these building blocks to be simple in their composition.
These hypotheses that life spontaneously originated have been moulded into what is today a
cornerstone for the Evolution Theory. All of this of course occurred at a time where technology
was limited and where evidence for establishing or testing the validity of the theory was lacking.
Scientists were incapable of investigating, analysing and understanding the complexity of
biology to confirm their notions. The majority of scientists and ordinary people accept the
concept of life spontaneously generating on Earth as factual and true, without giving it much
thought, although no scientific evidence can be produced to support this theory. In fact, the
opposite has already been proven. Today the majority of the scientific community have placed
spontaneous generation of life in the realm of total impossibility.
Scientists who refuse to abandon the theory of life spontaneously generating on Earth, because
of their unwillingness to accept the alternative, are very uncomfortable when this topic is brought
up. When facts show the flaws in this theory, scientists would respond with ridicule and/or
aggravation instead of applying the scientific method. This unwillingness to consider
alternatives is very evident in the words of George Wald, a Harvard University biochemist and
Nobel Laureate who said:
―One has to only contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the
spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we are here - as a
result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.‖ George Wald, "The Origin of Life,"
Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954.62
Once new technology became available, providing more detailed information about the smallest
cells and simplest life forms, even evolutionary scientists started looking at the odds of a living
cel spontaneously forming from a chance interaction of life‟s building blocks. Once a better
understanding of the complexity of the cell was obtained, the odds were shown to be truly
astronomical. Harold Morowitz, the author of “Origin of Cel ular Life” (1993) and a renowned
physicist from Yale University declared that the odds for any kind of spontaneous generation of
life were one chance in 10100,000,000,000.63
In 1953, Francis Crick, who co-discovered the intricate structures contained in the DNA
molecule, could not rationalise the implications of his discovery and subsequently devised a
new hypothesis in 1970, in which he proposes that interstellar spores must have been
responsible for life on Earth.64 Even if life came from interstellar space, it still does not explain
the overwhelming impossibility of life spontaneously generating, no matter where it originated.
Scientists from various disciplines also hold the view that having odds of less than one chance
in 1050 or 1 chance in 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
- is generally seen as completely impossible and unattainable in the lifetime that has been
assigned to our Universe. Fourteen billion years is simply too short a time span to allow for any
chance occurrence of probabilities of 1 in 1050. The chances for spontaneous generation, as
shown by Prof. Morowitz, prove that the odds for Evolution to have come about through
spontaneous generation, is actually contradictory to what is accepted as true science by
mainstream scientists.
If we were to assume that life spontaneously generated here on Earth, we could also assume
that a computer data storage device, such as a memory stick or thumb drive, which consists of
some silicone based chips, a few other electronics, some packaging and an interface device,
came together and assembled itself under some special circumstances from a rock soup. Most
sane people would find such a suggestion ludicrous. What is even more astonishing is that
when plugging this “accidental device” into a computer, by chance, it exactly matches the
receptacle on the computer and can amazingly be read by the computer. Further, it even has an
accidental operating system, which can automatically execute thousands of individual programs
also stored on the same device.
If any person listened to someone telling this story today - suggesting that this memory device
could spontaneously come together - they would immediately raise their hand and indicate that
they would find it more plausible for it to have had a designer, a manufacturer and a computer
programmer. Keeping in mind that it would also need to match the requirements of the
computer on which it would be executed. Most people would find it absurd if someone believed
and suggested that this device put itself together by chance, no matter what the circumstances
were.
Similar processes, vastly more complex than an electronic memory stick containing information,
are contained within a single cell. On top of the instructions, which are contained within DNA
and which could be compared with a computer program, the cell also contains code for the
construction of cellular machinery to build products according to the programs that are
executed. Living matter consists of various complex amino acids. They come in different
shapes and forms and perform specific functions; just as a flash memory stick or thumb drive
would work to provide storage and the means of storing and communicating information.
Then, if we move a step further, we have DNA molecules which form the basis