The Variety Of Life In The Ediacaran Period And Evolutionists' Inconsistencies
"It is considered likely that all the animal phyla became distinct before or during the Cambrian, for they all appear fully formed, without intermediates connecting one form to another,"28 says evolutionist Douglas Futuyma, New York University's professor of evolutionary biology.
Ediacaran life forms were interesting creatures with very different characteristics from those that came both before and after them. Dickinsonia, around half a meter in length, Palaeophragmodictya, a sponge-like organism with a flattened appearance, and Aspidella, with small cavities on its surface, were just a few of the Ediacaran life forms. Some of these bore no resemblance to any creatures living today. A few, however, had similar features to present-day jellyfish, starfish, sponges and crinoids.
The emergence of these unusual-looking creatures opened a wide divergence of opinion among evolutionists. The Cambridge University evolutionist Simon Conway-Morris said, "The problem is that the same fossils are interpreted in completely different ways by different people."29
However, subsequent discoveries made in Russia confirmed that these were actually multi-celled organisms with certain complex characteristics. Various Dickinsonia specimens were found, as well as Kimberella fossils, which resembled teardrops in shape and had scalloped edges. The remains left behind by Kimberella showed that these creatures were capable of movement. In other words, they did not live and reproduce in one place, as did the single-celled creatures before them. They had organs and extensions that permitted them to walk.30 Ediacaran fossils found in Newfoundland had brush-like appendages rather resembling hairs, and these creatures consisted of various colonies. Each of these animals' hair-like extensions was divided into at least three separate parts. The end parts extended forwards. Such microscopic extensions could be seen in even the smallest of these creatures.31 Therefore, Ediacaran life forms were not merely simple collections of fluid-filled cells, as some scientists imagine.
Evolutionists made enormous efforts in order to establish an evolutionary scenario for how these very different life forms all emerged in the same period; and set all these fossils out in different orders. However, those found in Namibia were incompatible with those discovered in Scotland, and those found in Russia failed to match those discovered in England. The efforts to link these fossils-which failed to constitute a coherent whole among themselves-with Cambrian life forms represented a severe disappointment for evolutionists. No fossil evidence linked Cambrian life forms to any organisms that had existed before them. The remains of these perfectly preserved pre-Cambrian fossils refuted the long history of gradual change predicted by Darwin's theory.32
Simon Conway-Morris admitted this evident fact in these words:
Nevertheless, it remains true that the overall differences between the faunas of Ediacaran and Cambrian age are much more striking than any similarities. These differences cannot be simply be explained by the dilution of an Ediacaran component by a crowd of Cambrian newcomers. Rather, the change that occurred between the two faunas looks much more like a case of replacement. 33
As it became apparent that the life forms that emerged in the Cambrian were so very different from those that had appeared in the Ediacaran, some evolutionists ascribed the failure to find the supposed "ancestors" of Cambrian life forms to the scattered, dispersed nature of the fossil record. Some maintained that the supposed ancestors of Cambrian life forms were either very small, or else had failed to fossilize because of their soft body structure. Others, through various molecular comparisons, referred to an imaginary ancestor that had lived millions of centuries before the Cambrian.
None of these, or any similar claims, had any scientific basis, and certainly went no further than being hypotheses. The idea of "dispersed fossil record" was rejected by many paleontologists. Sufficient pre-Cambrian and Cambrian fossils had been found, and paleontologists were convinced that if there had been any ancestor anywhere, it would have been discovered by now.
The claim that organisms from before the Cambrian had left behind no fossilized remains because they were small and soft-bodied is, as we have already seen, highly unrealistic. In order to see just how unrealistic it is, only consider the fact that microfossils of bacteria have been discovered in rocks dating back nearly 3 billion years.34 In the Ediacaran period, therefore, had there existed living things with a soft structure and a complexity comparable to that of Cambrian life forms, they would inevitably have left traces in the fossil record. Yet the organisms we have from the Ediacaran consist of various multi-celled species, completely different from and independent of the phyla that would later emerge.
And despite their being soft-bodied, these have left traces behind in the fossil record.
Simon Conway-Morris had this to say on the subject:
[German paleontologist Adolf] Seilacher has pioneered a radical alternative. He suggests that the Ediacaran fossils are certainly not cnidarians, arthropods or annelids, and might not even be metazoans. One reason to think he might be correct is the highly anomalous preservation of these fossils. Despite being almost entirely soft-bodied, the Ediacaran fossils are typically preserved in relatively coarse-grained sediments (siltstones and sandstones) deposited in shallow, turbulent water-the last place a paleontologist could normally expect or look for preservation of soft parts.35
In 1984, Natural History magazine published a long article by Stephen Jay Gould concerning the Ediacaran fossils in Australia. Gould stated that, as in the Cambrian, these life forms shared a basic mode of organization, with their unique characteristics. By the time Cambrian life forms emerged to replace Ediacaran ones, the latter had become extinct. Therefore, Cambrian life forms were not more advanced forms of Ediacaran ones, and Ediacaran forms could not be the ancestors of Cambrian species. With their soft bodies and unique features, Ediacaran life forms were very different from Cambrian ones, which had hard exoskeletons and were much more complex.36
Faced with this significant fact, Gould was forced to make the following confession:
As we survey the history of life since the inception of multicellular complexity in Ediacaran times, one feature stands out as most puzzling-the lack of clear order and progress through time among marine invertebrate faunas.37
Simon Conway-Morris's admission on the subject took this form:
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Apart from the few Ediacaran survivors, . . . there seems to be a sharp demarcation between the strange world of Ediacaran life and the relatively familiar Cambrian fossils.38
Do they not see that Allah, Who created the heavens and Earth, has the power to create the like of them, and has appointed fixed terms for them of which there is no doubt? But the wrongdoers still spurn anything but disbelief.
(Surat al-Isra', 99)  |
In 1983, a series of conferences was held to resolve the question of the origin of Cambrian species. On the fourth day of this assembly, organized jointly by Science News and the International Geological Correlation Project committee, the scientists voted that it be postponed indefinitely in order to determine the boundary between the Cambrian and pre-Cambrian periods, to serve as a reference point for all future research.
After the postponement, Allison Palmer of the Geological Society of America made the following statement:
I don't think we're going to have an easy time. We are all going to go away unhappy in varying degrees.39
No subsequent assembly or conference would produce any consensus either because there was no evidence linking Ediacaran life forms to the Cambrian. Neither was there any evidence regarding the evolution of these organisms.
There has never been any evolution on Earth. Evolutionist scientists have spent years looking for something that never happened and for which there is not the slightest evidence, and have embarked on enterprises that could never produce any results.
Moreover, evolutionists who had spent a century and a half toiling to resolve the origin of Cambrian life forms now needed to account for the origin of the many complex forms that had emerged in the Ediacaran. All the strata they excavated with such high hopes-and all the fossils they found-produced evidence that constantly worked against them.
The Russian paleontologist Mikhail Fedonkin, head of the Moscow Paleontology Institute Precambrian Organisms Laboratory, said this on the subject:
We are now in the situation Charles Darwin found himself in about 150 years ago. He was puzzled by the absence of the ancestors of the Cambrian invertebrates, considering this fact as a strong argument against his theory of gradualistic evolution of species. We do not know the ancestors of the Vendian [Ediacaran] fauna as well, and like the Cambrian biota, it appeared suddenly in a "complete state."40
What evolutionists refuse to understand is that living things feel no need to assume a completed state at the end of any particular process, because they were created in a single moment, with their special bodily structures, perfect metabolic systems, flawless functions and genetic compatibility bestowed upon them. Almighty Allah, Who created them with His infinite knowledge and intelligence, possesses a sublime creative artistry that produces infinite beauties. It is enough for Allah to so wish it for a being to come into existence. All things in heaven and Earth belong to Allah, and it is an easy matter for Him-Who created the universe, the planets and human beings, and Who constantly produces delights and blessings for us-to create all of them.
Everything in the heavens and Earth belongs to Him, and the religion belongs to Him, firmly and for ever. So why do you fear anyone other than Allah?
(Surat an-Nahl, 52) There is no way out for you in Earth or heaven. You have no protector or helper besides Allah. (Surat al-‘Ankabut, 22)  |
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