Charles Darwin originally predicted that the fossil record would teem with transitional forms. However, much to his chagrin, the record did not reflect this in his day. He wrote, “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”[1] Intelligent Design (ID) advocate Phillip Johnson comments, “Most people are unaware that Darwin’s most formidable opponents were not clergymen, but fossil experts.”[2]
Over a century and a half after Darwin, the current fossil record still shows great leaps in the origin of species. The late Harvard professor of biology Stephen Jay Gould writes,
The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils… We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life’s history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.[3]
But the earth scorns our simplifications, and becomes much more interesting in its derision. The history of life is not a continuum of development, but a record punctuated by brief, sometimes geologically instantaneous, episodes of mass extinction and subsequent diversification.[4]
Gould’s colleague Niles Eldridge writes,
When we do see the introduction of evolutionary novelty, it usually shows up with a bang, and often with no firm evidence that the fossils did not evolve elsewhere! Evolution cannot forever be going on somewhere else. Yet that’s how the fossil record has struck many a forlorn paleontologist looking to learn something about evolution.[5]
With the extreme diversity of species on Earth, we would expect to find millions of transitional forms between species. However, this hasn’t been reflected in the record.
Cambrian Explosion
The Cambrian Era was a period of geological history, which began roughly 540 million years ago and lasted until roughly 490 million years ago. During this period of history, we discover a burst of new life forms. On December 4, 1995, the cover of Time magazine referred to the Cambrian as “Evolution’s Big Bang.” Others regularly refer to this era as the Cambrian Explosion to explain this phenomenon. Let’s consider a number of important aspects of the Cambrian Explosion:
First, the Cambrian Explosion shows a large leap in the complexity of species. Science writer John Gribbin notes that before the Cambrian explosion “no comparable dramatic changes occurred and the oceans swarmed with single-celled life.”[6] Pre-Cambrian life consisted of algae and eukaryotic cells. However, at the Cambrian, almost all animal phyla arrived, including trilobites, echinoderms, brachiopods, molluscs, and chordates. Of course, phyla are the broadest categories of biological classification in the animal kingdom. Gribbin writes,
Adapting the ‘tree of life’ analogy, [Gould’s] version is more like that of a Christmas tree, with a trunk corresponding to the monocellular monotony of life in the Precambrian, a sudden spreading out of diversity at the beginning of the Cambrian, and then a tapering towards a point… As Gould puts it, ‘the maximum range of anatomical possibilities arises with the first rush of diversification.’[7]
At present, there are about thirty-five phyla… But Gould claims that many of the animals found in the Burgess Shale do not belong in any of the modern phyla. In a key passage of his book, he says, ‘the fifteen to twenty unique Burgess designs are phyla by virtue of anatomical uniqueness. This remarkable fact must be acknowledged with all its implications…’ and, according to Gould, those fifteen to twenty phyla have no descendants alive today—implying that perhaps twenty out of an original fifty-five phyla, almost half, have disappeared.[8]
In their 2013 graduate textbook The Cambrian Explosion, world-renowned paleontologists Erwin and Valentine write,
During a relatively narrow time span in the early Cambrian (after about 542 Ma), there is an explosive appearance of many different, morphologically distinctive fossils, including representatives of most of the major animal groups that are alive today.[9]
The scrappy fossil record improved with a bang, geologically speaking. Following a prelude of a diverse suite of enigmatic, soft-bodied organisms beginning about 579 Ma, a great variety and abundance of animal fossils appear in deposits dating from a geologically brief interval between 530 to 520 Ma, early in the Cambrian period. During this time, nearly all the major living animal groups (phyla) that have skeletons first appeared as fossils.[10]
It seems likely that all or nearly all the major phylum-level groups of living animals, including many small soft-bodied groups that we do not actually find as fossils, had appeared by the end of the early Cambrian.[11]
The evolutionary history behind these assemblages was not well understood, however. A long, hidden history of animal evolution seemed possible. Taken at face value, the geologically abrupt appearance of Cambrian faunas with exceptional preservation suggested the possibility that they represented a singular burst of evolution, but the processes and mechanisms were elusive.[12]
The only animals present during most of the preexplosion interval were sponges and architecturally simple organisms built of sheets of tissues… but the earlier faunas did not consist of numerous, large, complicated body plans.[13]
Second, the Cambrian Explosion occurred in a short amount of time. The Cambrian explosion occurred between 540 and 490 million years ago (though some are looser with these dates). To put this in comparison, imagine a clock that represents the origin of life on Earth. If life on Earth corresponded to a twenty four hour period, then the Cambrian Explosion would have occurred in just two minutes out of the entire day. While the Cambrian Explosion occurred over millions of years, paleontologists Erwin and Valentine refer to this as “almost a geological instant.”[14]
Third, the Cambrian Explosion was global—not local. Paleontologists have discovered these fossils all over the globe—not just in isolated areas. For instance, fossil deposits have been discovered in the Burgess Shale in Canada, the Sirius Passet in Greenland, and Chengjiang in southern China. Therefore, the Cambrian Explosion can be represented in the fossil record worldwide.
What if the Cambrian precursors simply were not fossilized?
Darwinists often reply that the fossil record from before the Cambrian period is incomplete. Imagine travelling through a country and taking photos of the landscape. Since these snapshots are so limited, it’s often difficult to reconstruct the entire trip from just a few snapshots. Similarly, it is argued, we shouldn’t be surprised to find such a stark burst in life, because the record is so limited. Dawkins writes, “Obviously we have no record of the origin of life, and little or no evolutionary history of the soft-bodied organisms. It is hardly surprising, then, that we have so many gaps in the evolutionary history of life.”[15]
However, the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies contains many soft-bodied organisms from this same period. Gribbin writes, “The Burgess Shale is particularly important because it has, unusually, preserved the remains of soft-bodied creatures, not just the bony or shelly bits that fossilize easily.”[16] Simon Conway Morris (a British paleontologist and expert in of the Burgess Shale fossils) notes, “The existing [Burgess] collections represent approximately 70,000 specimens. Of these, about 95 percent are either soft-bodied or have thin skeletons.”[17] This data should cause us to ask ourselves a question: How could bony and armored precursors to the Cambrian not be preserved, when soft-bodied creatures were preserved? Niles Eldredge (evolutionary paleontologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History) states, “The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life’s history—not the artifact of a poor fossil record.”[18]
Even microfossils (dating to over three billion years ago) have fossilized—being preserved for us. Meyer writes, “If paleontologists can find tiny fossilized cells in these far older and rarer formations, shouldn’t they also be able to find some ancestral forms of the Cambrian animals in younger and more abundant sedimentary rocks? Yet few such precursors have been found.”[19] How could microscopic organisms be preserved over three billion years ago, when precursors to the Cambrian were not preserved? It isn’t simply that the fossil record is incomplete; instead, we should expect to find pre-Cambrian intermediate fossils if they in fact existed. Paleontologists Erwin and Valentine add,
A revolutionary change in the sedimentary environments—from microbially stabilized sediments during the Ediacaran to biologically churned sediments as larger, more active animals appeared—occurred during the early Cambrian. Thus, the quality of fossil preservation in some settings may actually have declined from the Ediacaran into the Cambrian, the opposite of what has sometimes been claimed, yet we find a rich and widespread explosion of fauna.[20]
So much for the idea that pre-Cambrian species merely didn’t fossilize! Erwin and Valentine actually argue just the opposite. The conditions for fossilization were actually better before the Cambrian era.
Can’t we explain gaps with punctuated equilibrium?
Stephen Jay Gould invented the theory of punctuated equilibrium. He claimed that certain members of the species would mutate and separate from the rest of the species. When environmental changes occurred,[21] these mutated species would come back and dominate in their survival. Therefore, the fossil record wouldn’t record many of these changes.
However, a number of observations can be made to Gould’s theory. First, this is backhanded proof that the fossil record is disjointed. Punctuated equilibrium isn’t an explanation for what we see in the fossil record; it is more like a description of what we see. If there weren’t giant leaps in the record, Darwinists wouldn’t need to posit theories like this. Second, this doesn’t fit with Darwin’s original prediction of gradualism. While Darwin predicted gradualism, the fossil record actually reflects leaps between species. Third, biblically, a disjointed fossil record fits nicely with what we find in Genesis 1. Of course, God intervened at points of creation (Gen. 1:1; 1:21; 1:27). However, he also worked through a process as well. For instance, in some cases, God says, “Let the Earth bring forth living creatures” (Gen. 1:24).
[1] Darwin, On the Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), p. 280.
[2] Johnson, Phillip E. Darwin on Trial. 2nd ed. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993. 45.
[3] Stephen Jay Gould, “Evolution’s Erratic Pace,” Natural History 86 (1977): 14. Cited in Groothuis, Douglas R. Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011. 288.
[4] Gould, Stephen Jay. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W.W. Norton, 1989. 54.
[5] Eldridge, Niles. Reinventing Darwin: The Great Debate at the High Table of Evolutionary Theory. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995. 95.
[6] Gribbin, John. Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. 152.
[7] Gribbin, John. Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. 157.
[8] Gribbin, John. Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. 157-158.
[9] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. Preface.
[10] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 5.
[11] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 5.
[12] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 6.
[13] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 6.
[14] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 6.
[15] Dawkins, Richard. The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design. New York: Norton, 1996. 229.
[16] Gribbin, John. Alone in the Universe: Why Our Planet Is Unique. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2011. 154.
[17] Morris, Simon Conway. The Crucible of Creation: The Burgess Shale and the Rise of Animals. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 140. Cited in Meyer, Stephen C. Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014. 62.
[18] Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). Cited in Luskin, Casey. More than Myth: Seeking the Full Truth about Genesis, Creation, and Evolution. Chartwell Press, 2014. 25.
[19] Meyer, Stephen C. Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design. New York, NY: HarperOne, 2014. 58.
[20] Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 8.
[21] Paleontologists Erwin and Valentine believe these changes occurred because of (1) changes in physical environment, (2) the establishment of new ecological relationships, and (3) the evolution of developmental systems. For instance, before the Cambrian, the oceans were not filled with oxygen—but filled with sulfur and iron. See Douglas, Erwin, and James W. Valentine. The Cambrian Explosion: The Construction of Animal Biodiversity. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts. 2013. 8. Likewise, Darwinist Michael Shermer speculates that rash environmental factors caused mutations to survive more rapidly. For example, drastic global temperatures dropping or oxygenation of the biosphere (caused by photosynthesis) could have caused quick changes. Shermer, Michael. Why Darwin Matters: The Case against Intelligent Design. New York: Times, 2006. 143.