The Pre-Cambrian Earth

Cambrian rocks no older than 550 My contained the earliest animal fossil record-arthropods, mollusks, brachiopods, and others. Below them there were no animal fossils [emphasis added]. Darwin himself conceded that his theory of evolution by natural selection required a history of previous populations for all these creatures to have descended from. Scientists hatched a brood of suggestions; all fossil-bearing rocks from the critical interval of animal evolution had been eroded or metamorphosed, or animals arose in freshwater lakes and only later entered the oceans. None proved satisfactory, and the wealth of animal fossils that defined the beginning of the Cambrian age remained an enigma.16

Logically enough, "the Pre-Cambrian Era" is the name given to the vast stretch of time between the formation of the Earth up to the Cambrian Period.

. . . but if you disbelieve, what is in the heavens and in the Earth belongs to Allah. Allah is Rich Beyond Need, Praiseworthy. (Surat an-Nisa', 131)

The Earth itself is estimated to be around 4.6 billion years old. Direct evidence of the oldest organisms from this period date back around 3.5 billion years. In certain strata, colonies of bacteria are laid out like carpets. Known as cyanobacteria, these prokaryotic single-celled microorganisms lived in the seas and were capable of photosynthesis.

Niles Eldredge

Eukaryotic organisms appear in the fossil record some 2 billion years ago. These organisms consisted of a single cell with a distinct nucleus and other organelles with a membrane, with DNA packed inside the nucleus-characteristics that are absent from prokaryotic cells. Between 3.5 billion and 600 million years ago, the Earth was populated only by prokaryotic and eukaryotic single-celled organisms. Therefore, these single-celled organisms constitute more than 85% of the life forms that have ever existed in the history of the planet.

Multi-celled organisms first appear in 600-million-year-old rock beds. The majority of these fossilized traces of organisms are poorly preserved and difficult to interpret, and often their existence can be deduced only from imprints and partial remains in mud. In structure they are generally flattened and appear to lack organs. They have no eyes or appendages permitting them to walk or swim-in short, they possess no complex physiological systems.

Therefore, for a very long time in the pre-Cambrian Period, life forms consisted only of single-celled organisms. Multi-celled organisms, most of whose characteristics are still unclear, appeared at the end of the pre-Cambrian.

In contrast to the limited nature of pre-Cambrian organisms, those of Cambrian Period are far wider ranging and literally flourishing in their diversity. This plethora of species drew the curtain on the long period during which organisms devoid of any organs prevailed, and ushered in a brand new age. Different ecosystems supported an extraordinary increase in biological complexity. During that period, flawless varieties of shelled marine invertebrates appeared at more or less the same time, and everywhere on Earth.

Anatomically, each of the living groups that emerged possessed unique bodily structures that enable us to easily distinguish them from one another. They comprise such distinct phyla as arthropods, brachiopods and mollusks, some specimens of which are still living today.

The number of phyla that appeared in the Cambrian varies according to who is doing the interpreting, but averages around 50. Some Cambrian organisms were equipped with highly complex physiological structures and organs, such as compound eyes, gills, feelers, feet and stomachs, which structures had never existed before in any life form. In short, all the familiar forms of the hard-shelled invertebrates we see in today's oceans first appeared in the Cambrian seas.

There are no intermediate forms in the fossil record. Crocodiles have ft traces of themselves as crocodiles, squirrels as squirrels, and rabbits as rabbits. This also applies to the Cambrian Period, when evolutionists imagine the fictitious ancestors of all living things emerged. Yet in the fossil record, living things appear suddenly, with no intermediate characteristics with no ancestors preceding them, all in their full complex forms.

What makes the pre-Cambrian so important to evolutionists is that they believe it can provide clues about the species, which appeared in the Cambrian explosion, and offer evidence of their evolution-which never actually happened. According to evolutionists, all the ingredients of the Cambrian explosion should have appeared in the pre-Cambrian. All the supposed ancestors of the dozens of Cambrian life forms must have manifested themselves in the pre-Cambrian. Otherwise, the scenario of the evolution of living things would progress no further than being a conjecture, a speculation, a fantasy-and would be consigned to the shelf.

The more characteristics of Cambrian organisms were deduced from the examination of their fossils, the more importance the pre-Cambrian assumed. Increasing research and increased knowledge, however, provided only this information about the period: Nothing existed in the pre-Cambrian other than monocellular organisms.

Detailed research revealed nothing else than this. The fossils found belonged to these organisms that have left behind evidence of their soft tissue. They revealed no information of how they could have been the evolutionary forerunners of the later complex Cambrian anatomy-which made matters even more difficult for evolutionists.

The California University evolutionist professor of botany Daniel I. Axelrod described how pre-Cambrian rocks did not produce the fossils that had been hoped and sought for:

One of the major unsolved problems of geology and evolution is the occurrence of diversified, multicellular marine invertebrates in Lower Cambrian rocks on all the continents and their absence in rocks of greater age.17

The findings in question make one fact obvious: One of the empty gaps in the fossil record that evolutionists encounter constantly also appears in pre-Cambrian strata.

Robert G. Wesson, a political scientist and also an evolutionist, discussed this aspect of the fossil record, which evolutionists cannot ignore:

The gaps in the record are real, however. The absence of a record of any important branching is quite phenomenal. Species are usually static, or nearly so . . . genera never show evolution into new species or genera [emphasis added], but replacement of one by another, and change is more or less abrupt.18

The Ediacara Hills in Australia, where the remains of pre-Cambrian life forms were discovered

The picture revealed by paleontologists is that the Earth's ecology of 4 billion years ago remained virtually unchanged until 600 million years ago. This long period of time featured a largely barren environment. Only single-celled organisms have ever been encountered.

Evolutionists have made enormous efforts in order to account for this long gap. Yet all their explanations produced so far have been invalid and incapable of accounting for the lack of fictitious intermediate forms in the pre-Cambrian era.

Various evolutionists seek to account for this situation, which represents such a difficulty for their theory, in various ways. The evolutionist Niles Eldredge, for instance, takes refuge behind the following account:

We don't see much evidence of intermediates in the Early Cambrian because the intermediates had to have been soft-bodied, and thus extremely unlikely to become fossilized.19

In fact, it's surprising that Eldredge or any other scientist should offer such an explanation! That is because according to their scenario, no matter what the origin of shelled Cambrian life forms, still they must have possessed a complex structure, rather than being soft-bodied.

Moreover, this account is nothing more than a deception, because a good many fossils of single-celled organisms of the pre-Cambrian have survived, and many such specimens are available to researchers. Moreover, of those Cambrian life forms in the fossil record a large part of the soft tissues, including nervous systems, have survived. Right from the outset, therefore, pre-Cambrian and Cambrian rocks invalidate the fictitious claim that soft-bodied intermediate forms left no fossil traces behind them.

Indeed, Eldredge felt the need to make the following admission:

There is still a tremendous problem with the sudden diversification of multicellular life. There is no question about that. That's a real phenomenon.20

Stephen Jay Gould-who, together with Eldredge, formulated the theory of punctuated equilibrium-makes an even more interesting confession:

I regard the failure to find a clear "vector of progress" in life's history as the most puzzling fact of the fossil record.21

It is He Who originated creation and then regenerates it. That is very easy for Him. His is the most exalted designation in the heavens and the Earth. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat ar-Rum, 27)

But actually, for anyone viewing the facts objectively and thinking logically, there is nothing surprising here at all. It's perfectly natural that the Earth provides no information at all about any transitional process that never happened!

Ediacaran life forms were intriguing-looking organisms, very different from the single-celled organisms that came before them. However, they bore no resemblance to Cambrian life forms, which emerged suddenly just as Ediacaran life forms.

Only single-celled organisms have been recovered from pre-Cambrian rock beds, because they were the only organisms living at that time. The remains they left behind confirm this-as does our knowledge of the features of the Earth and its atmosphere during that time.

No evolution took place in the pre-Cambrian period, nor in the eras that came after it, and fossils prove this in the clearest possible way. Abundant fossils show that living things that existed millions of years ago were complete and fully formed, each one a marvel of creation; and that they were brought into being in a single moment, through the sublime Might of Allah. Paleontology, which is the only science that evolutionists have to rely on, has proved the fact of creation and totally invalidated the theory of evolution. (For details, see The Transitional Form Dilemma by Harun Yahya.)

Some of the advocates of evolution have accepted this. However, it appears that it will take some considerable time for certain of their colleagues to agree.

George Neville, an evolutionist and professor of geology from Glasgow University, admits the fact that the pre-Cambrian provides no intermediate form specimens and that for this, there is no other explanation than a "special creation":

Granted an evolutionary origin of the main groups of animals, and not an act of special creation, the absence of any record whatsoever of a single member of any of the phyla in the Pre-Cambrian rocks remains as inexplicable on orthodox grounds as it was to Darwin.22

It is Allah Who created the single-celled creatures that lived in the pre-Cambrian, who determined their way of life and knows their every detail. It is Allah, too, Who created Cambrian creatures in all their wide variety, gave them all their widely different features and enabled them to live together. Allah is the Creator of all things. So long as evolutionists fail to see and admit this, all events regarding the history of the Earth will continue to leave them baffled.

In one verse of the Qu'ran, Allah states:

It is He Who originated creation and then regenerates it. That is very easy for Him. His is the most exalted designation in the heavens and the Earth. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat ar-Rum, 27)