KEY ARTICLES A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. Right? ..4 The links are missing...5 The fossil record Becoming more random all the time...7 Living fossils: a powerful argument for creation.....10IS THERE ANY TYPE OF ORDER IN THE FOSSIL RECORD Are there out-of-sequence fossils that are problematic for evolution?...................................................................11 ndex fossilsreally?..............................................................................................................................................14 Fossil flip-flop How objective are scientists?..........................................................................................................15 Further expansion of evolutionary fossil time ranges...16 Fossilsdo they get more complex?......................................................................................................................17 How well do paleontologists know fossil distributions?...........................................................................................18 Oldest' fossil shrimp?..............................................................................................................................................18 Slow fish in China....19 'Remarkable' mammal hairs in amber?...................................................................................................................20 ARE THRE REALLY MISSING LINKS IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTION Another major 'link' fails.21 Cladistics, evolution and the fossils.23 That quote!about the missing transitional fossils...28 Argument: The fossil record supports evolution.30 Punctuated equilibrium: come of age?....................................................................................................................35 Another leggy snake?..............................................................................................................................................39 Evolution of multicellularity: what is required?.........................................................................................................40 Mammal-like reptiles: major trait reversals and discontinuities....42 'Transitional form' in mammal ear evolutionmore cacophony..48 Darwinopterus v Dawkins...50DO FOSSILIZED PLANTS AND ANIMALS REALLY LOOK ALL THAT DIFFERENT FROM ANIMALS WE SEE TODAY Alligator ancestor antics...53 Evolutionists can't dodge 'Living Fossils'..53 Horsetails are 'living fossils'!.....................................................................................................................................55 Living Fossils: the Shovelnose Ray ...55 Death March Horseshoe Crab stopped dead in its tracks..55 Fish that 'fly' .56 Another 'living fossil' tree .56 Salamanders are 'living fossils'! 57 Correcting the headline: 'Coelacanth' yes; 'Ancient' no....58 Living fossils and evolution, and does it matter if 'junk DNA' has functions?.59 Does it matter if endogenous retroviruses have functions? .60DO FOSSILS GIVE EVIDENCES OF THEIR QUICK FORMATIONS SUCH AS GREAT CATASTROPHE AND GLOBAL FLOOD A '165 million year' surprise . 60 Dead whales: telling tales? ..62 Deluge disaster 63 Fast fossils Billions of well-preserved fossil fish clash with popular belief. ..64 Fossil squid ink that still writes!..65 Hundreds of jellyfish fossils!...66FAST FOSSILS. WHAT OTHER EVIDENCES SHOWS THAT FOSSILS DON`T TAKE LONG PERIODS OF TIME TO FORM The Amazing Stone Bears of Yorkshire...68 Tarawera's night of terror..69 Petrified flour 70 Message in a bottle..71 Whale explodes fossil theory .72 Toy car rocks million-year belief....73ARE THERE TRANSITIONAL FORMS BETWEEN FISH AND TETRAPODS The fossil record of 'early' tetrapods: evidence of a major evolutionary transition?................................................. 74 Tiktaalik roseaea fishy 'missing link'.78 Tiktaalik, the transitional star, faces an evolutionary dead-end..80 Livonianahave they (finally!) found a missing link?....82 Gogonasusa fish with human limbs?....83 The oldest pregnant mum'not! ..85 Ventasteganot a leg to stand on86 A review of Your Inner Fish: A Journe into the !.5"#illion"Year $istor o% the $u&an #o' ..87 (an'eri)hthsa fish with fingers? ...90DOES THE FOSSIL RECORD OF WHALES SHOW THAT THEY EVOLVED FROM LAND ANIMMALS A handbook for students, parents, and teachers countering the latest arguments for evolution.. 91 A whale of a tale?. 93 The strange tale of the leg on the whale .... 96 The world of whales .... 98 Walking whales, nested hierarchies, and chimeras: do they exist? .. 99DAILY ARTICLES Tasmania's fossil bluff ...104 Fossil jellyfish from the Pilbara, Western Australia .105 Giant compound eyes, half a billion years ago? ....109 Modern birds found with dinosaurs .Are museums misleading the public? ...109 Frozen in stone in just decades ...110 Dinosaur fairy tales ...111 Dinosaur disarray .Evidence for the Flood at Dinosaur National Monument, USA ..113 Hadrosaur skin found .. 115 Mummified trees millions of years oldnot...116 Claimed 'oldest-ever' amber fossilmillions-of-years mighty mites? ... 116 Twice as wrongand more.Fossilized eukaryote cells and giant anomalocaridids force dramatic revisions of the evolutionary timeline. .....117 Taxonomic manipulations likely common..117 Oil not always a 'fossil fuel'.. ...119 Ghosts in the rocks ...119 Evolutionists have 'allergic' reaction to Precambrian pollenSouth American fossils more than a billion years 'out of date'.... 121 Either way, it's like a game with loaded dicethe 'house' (long-age belief) wins every time.Fast octopus fossils reveal no evolution... 122 Darwin fossil hyper-hype. 123 Evidence for turtle evolution125 Tiktaaliksticking its head out of water? ... 127 Dancing Dinosaurs? Stony footprints point to something more serious.. 127 Dino dung overturns objection.... 128 Ediacaran 'explosion' Another thumping headache for evolutionists... 129 The slow rise of dinosaurs .New fossil finds cause evolutionists to revise dino evolution theories ..129 A lousy story..130 Old Bee, Young Creation .. 130 Killer Kangaroos and Demon Ducks?.131 A preliminary analysis by Ryan McClay ..133EVIDENCES FROM THE FOSSILS THAT SHOWRAPID AND CATASTROPHIC BURIAL chthyosaurs: evidence for a recent global flood. 133 Massive graveyard of parrot-beaked dinosaurs in Mongolia. 134 Swedish fossil fern preserves chromosome detail, pointing to catastrophic burial .A casualty of the global Flood 135 Precambrian rocks ....136 The meaning of porous dinosaur eggs laid on flat bedding planes.. 139 Moulting arthropod fossilized in a flash!.... 140 Tiny pterosaur's untimely end .. 141 A stunning new book with family friendly, groundbreaking creationist research will excite many .142 Gilding the (sea) lily ... 143 Dinosaur stumble preserved in trackways, Utah, USA ...145 Death throes.. 146 A world drowned .... 147 Dinosaur herd buried in the Global Flood in nner Mongolia, China . 149 More evidence of the Global Flood, this time from Mongolia . 150 Watery catastrophe deduced from huge Ceratopsian dinosaur graveyard. 151 Can't see the Flood for the sediment. 153 Terrible lizards trapped by terrible Flood 153KEY ARTICLESA fossi is ! fossi is ! fossi. Ri"#$%Fi"&'( ). MOR555 (AKA Wankel T-rex) on display at the Museum of the Rockies, Montana,USA. All bones are in excellent preservation but show little sign of petrification. They arepurebonethought tobe65millionyearsold.Therecent findingsof bio-molecules, soft-tissue blood vessels and blood cells in 65-million-year-old Trannosaurus re* fossilbones1 havecausedgeologiststore-evaluatetheprocessof thepreservationof fossils.After all, everyone knows that a fossil is an impression, cast, outline, or track of any animalor plant that ispreservedinrockafter theoriginal organicmaterial istransformedorremoved.2 So, how can blood vessels and bio-molecules be found in fossils that are rock?Answer: a fossil does not need to be turned to stone to be a fossil.Fi"&'( *. The right foot of MOR555 on display at the Museum of the Rockies, Montana,USA. n the background is the display of the rest of Wankel T-rex.The definition of %ossil bythe American Geological nstitute begins, 'The remains or traces of animals or plants whichhavebeenpreservedbynatural causesintheEarth'scrust.'3 Thereisnothinginthisdefinition that requires transformation into rock. Allthat is important is that the fossilhasbeen preserved. And preservation is a qualitative term that does not describe how the fossilwas preserved. This is illustrated by Schweitzer in describing the fossil specimen MOR 555[AKA, 'Wankel T-rex']:'Anexceptionally well preservedspecimenof thetyrannosauriddinosaurTrannosaurusre* shows little evidence of permineralization or other diagenetic effects.' She further states,'Most fossilsshowsignsof sedimentinfillingorsecondarymineral deposition, but certainspecimens can show little evidence of diagenetic change.'4n other words, MOR 555 is a wellpreserved fossil with almost no mineral petrification, i.e. it is nearly pure bone (see figure 1)!This '65 million year old' fossil is almost exactly the same today as it was when it was buried.So, if a fossil like MOR 555 can be a fossil without being turned to rock, then what makes afossil a fossil?We need to read the rest of the definition of %ossil by the American Geologicalnstitute. 'The remains or traces of animals or plants which have been preserved by naturalcauses intheEarth's crust e*)lusi+eo% organis&s whi)hha+e,een,urie'sin)ethe,eginning o% histori) ti&e.-3 t is more clearly stated as, 'A remnant or trace of an organism o%apast geologi)age, suchasaskeletonorleaf imprint, embeddedandpreservedintheearth'scrust.'5So, accordingtothisdefinition, atruefossil issomethingthat hasbeenpreserved in some way or other from some 'past geologic age before the beginning of historic time.' t doesn't matter if thematerial has or has not been turned to stone, i.e. petrified, but just that it was buried before the historic records of man!H!s $#is !++(+ ,!-(!$ of +((. $i/( !0!1s 2((3 ! .!'$ of $#( +(fi3i$io3 of fossi%Let's begin with a history of the use of the word fossil as paraphrased from Challinor's A Di)tionar o% Geolog:The term 'fossil' (.. %ossilis, dug up) was, as the word suggests, originally given to anything extracted from the earth or therocks. t included minerals, all kinds of stony objects, and pieces of the rock itself, as wellas the remains of organisms.'Fossilia' in the wide sense and not, in fact, including organic remains, was used by Agricola in 1546. Gesner's illustratedworkonfossilsincludedorganicremains(1565). nBritainorganicfossilswerecalled'petrifiedshells'(1665), 'formedstones' (1677), 'fossil-shells' (1695), 'figured stones' (1699), 'marine fossils', 'fossil fish teeth' (1721), 'native' (minerals, &c.)and 'extraneous' (fossil shells, &c.) (1728). Owing, no doubt, to these various confusing usages, the term 'fossil' dropped outfor a time, 'petrification' largely taking its place. The always appropriate 'organic remains' then became popular (1804/11),andwasbeingusedmuchlater(1849andfollowingyears). Meanwhile'fossil' wasagaincomingintouse,but nowfororganic remains only, though usually with, or as, a qualifying adjective (1816, 1822). Already, however, the word by itselfwas beginning to be used. Parkinson (1804) remarks that 'in the common language of those most conversant with thesesubstances' their nature 'is conveyed by the substantive ("fossil) alone'. Lamarck in France seems to have been the firstdefinitelytorestrict theterm(1801, 1802). Thesubstantive'fossil', aloneandexclusivelyfororganicremains, becamethoroughly established some twenty years later (1822).6Fi"&'( 4. The femur of MOR1125 (AKA B-rex), the first dinosaur fossil from whichsoft tissue was extracted. B-rex is also the first fossil dinosaur to be identified asfemale.Upthrough1948, fossilsweredefinedastheremainsof animalsandplantsordirect evidenceof theirpresencepreservedintherocksof theearth. Yet, eventhen, the caveat of age is hinted at. While fossils were 'evidences of animal or plantlife in the rocks, such as petrified shells, skeletons, leaf and fern imprints, animalsfootprints and the like. It is )hie%l , the ai' o% %ossils that the age o% the ro)k is'eter&ine'.'7Fi"&'( 5. Well preserved soft tissue that is still elastic within a recentlydiscovered Trannosaurus re*skeleton. For an animal that is claimed to have diedat least 65 million years ago, the existence of soft tissue in its remains isastounding.As is typicalof much of the debate about evolution and creation, thedefinition of fossil is not just descriptive but also interpretive since it includes theevolutionary interpretation of long ages. Therefore, in the evolutionists' minds, every time creationists use the word%ossil,theyunwittingly concedethevalidityof theevolutionaryparadigm. Furthermore, sincecreationistsbelievethat mosteverything typically called a fossil was actually buried during a Global Flood, which occurred within historic time, then, fromthe creationists' viewpoint, there is no such thing as a fossil, by that definition!So what are creationists to do with the word %ossil? t seems there are two choices. Either creationists can redefine %ossil tofit the creationary viewpoint every time we use it, or invent a new word. A redefinition of %ossil could be as simple as usingjust the first part of the American Geological nstitute's definition: The remains or traces of animals or plants which havebeen preserved by natural causes in the earth's crust. The inconvenient part would be the need to state that redefinition ineachcreationary paper where %ossil is used. TheLatin )la'es %ossio, meaning'catastrophic buriedfossil', has beensuggested8 as a possible replacement. But anything new that is not as simple as the original may not catch on. n any case,the important thing to remember is a fossil may or may not be petrified. But we do not accept the evolutionary definition thata fossil is a biological remnant of a past geologi) age ,e%ore the histor o% &ankin'.Blood and soft tissue in T. rex bone:01 Dec 1993 Dinosaur bone blood cells found01 Sep 1997 Sensational dinosaur blood report!25 Mar 2002 Evolutionist questions CM reportHave red blood cells really been found in T. re*fossils?25 Mar 2005 Still soft and stretchy: Dinosaur soft tissue finda stunning rebuttal of 'millions of years'28 Mar 2005 "Ostrich-osaurus discovery?16 May 2005 Squirming at the Squishosaur01 Sep 2005 Dino soft tissue find01 Dec 2005 Answering objections to creationist 'dinosaur soft tissue' age arguments19 Jul 2006 'Schweitzer's Dangerous Discovery'16 Dec 2006 Why don't they carbon-test dino fossils?20 Apr 2007 Squishosaur scepticism squashed: Tests confirm proteins found in T. re*bones02 Aug 2008 Doubting doubts about the Squishosaur06 May 2009 Dinosaur soft tissue and proteineven more confirmation!09 May 2009 Dino proteins and blood vessels: are they a big deal?01 Dec 2009 More confirmation for dinosaur soft tissue and protein11 Dec 2012 DNA and bone cells found in dinosaur bone22 Jan 2013 Radiocarbon in dino bonesOther examples of soft tissue preservation in fossils:01 Jun 1992 Fresh dinosaur bones found01 Aug 1998 Exceptional soft-tissue preservation in a fossilised dinosaur01 Dec 1998 Dinosaur bonesjust how old are they really?30 May 2000 'Sue' the T. re*: another 'missionary lizard'01 Dec 2002 Feathered or furry dinosaurs? Soft tissue preservation01 Apr 2004 Bone building: perfect protein (See paragraph six re osteocalcin in Iguano'on bones.)01 Apr 2006 A fossil is a fossil is a fossil. Right?07 Dec 2007 Hadrosaur hi-jinx: Will this find reveal more unfossilised soft tissues?01 Jun 2008 The real 'Jurassic Park'?11 Nov 2009 Best ever find of soft tissue (muscle and blood) in a fossil25 June 2013 Created or evolved?Refuting EvolutionChapter 3A han',ook %or stu'ents/ parents/ an' tea)hers )ountering the latest argu&ents %or e+olution, Jonathan Sarfati/ (h.D./ F.0.T#( i36s !'( /issi3"First published in Refuting Evolution, Chapter 3Tea)hinga,out 1+olutionan'the2atureo% 3)ien)e discusses thefossil recordinseveral places. Creationists andevolutionists, withtheirdifferent assumptions, predict different thingsabout thefossil record. f livingthingshadreallyevolved from other kinds of creatures, then there would have been many intermediate or transitional forms, with halfwaystructures. However,if different kindshadbeencreatedseparately,thefossil recordshouldshowcreaturesappearingabruptly and fully formed.T#( $'!3si$io3! fossis .'o2(/Charles Darwin was worried that the fossil record did not show what his theory predicted:Why is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not revealany such finely graduated organic chain; and this is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against thetheory.1s it any different today? The late Dr Colin Patterson, senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History,wrote a book, 1+olution. n reply to a questioner who asked why he had not included any pictures of transitional forms, hewrote: fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. f knew ofany, fossil or living, would certainly have included them . will lay it on the linethere is not one such fossil for whichone could make a watertight argument.2The renowned evolutionist (and Marxist see documentation) Stephen Jay Gouldwrote:Theabsenceof fossil evidencefor intermediarystagesbetweenmajortransitionsinorganicdesign, indeedourinability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and naggingproblem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.3And: regard the failure to find a clear 'vector of progress' in life's history asthe most puzzling fact of the fossil record.4As Sunderland points out:t of course would be no puzzle at all if he [Gould] hadnot decided before he examined the evidence that common-ancestry evolutionwas afact, 'likeapplesfallingfromatree,' andthat wecanonlypermitourselves to discuss possible mechanisms to explain that assumed fact.5The gaps are huge(alaeo)hiropter* tupaio'on4 one of the 'oldest' (by evolutionary reckoning)fossil bats. t was found in the Messel oil shale pit near Darmstadt, Germany,and is 'dated' between 48 and 54millionyears old. t clearly had fullydevelopedwings, anditsinner earhadthesameconstructionasthoseofmodern bats, showing that it had full sonar equipment (see chapter 9 for moredetailsof thisexquisitelydesigned system).Tea)hing a,out 1+olution avoids discussing thevastgulf between non-livingmatter and the first living cell, single-celled and multicelled creatures, and invertebrates and vertebrates. The gaps betweenthesegroupsshouldbeenoughtoshowthat molecules-to-manevolutioniswithout foundation.Therearemanyotherexamplesof different organismsappearingabruptlyandfullyformedinthefossil record. For example, thefirst bats,pterosaurs, and birds were fully fledged flyers. The photograph to the right shows that bats have always been bats.6Turtlesare a well designed and specialized group of reptiles, with a distinctive shell protecting the body's vital organs. However,evolutionists admit 'ntermediates between turtles and cotylosaurs, the primitive reptiles from which [evolutionists believe]turtles probably sprang, are entirely lacking.' They can't plead an incomplete fossil record because 'turtles leave more andbetter fossil remains than do other vertebrates.'7 The 'oldest known sea turtle' was a fully formed turtle, not at all transitional.t had a fully developed system for excreting salt, without which a marine reptile would quickly dehydrate. This is shown byskull cavities which would have held large salt-excreting glands around the eyes.8All 32 mammal orders appear abruptly and fully formed in the fossil record. The evolutionist paleontologist George GaylordSimpson wrote in 1944:The earliest and most primitive members of every order already have the basic ordinal characters, and in no case is anapproximately continuous series from one order to another known. n most cases the break is so sharp and the gap so largethat the origin of the order is speculative and much disputed.10There is little to overturn that today.11E7,&s(sLike most evolutionary propaganda, Tea)hing a,out 1+olution makes assertions that there are many transitional forms, andgives a few 'examples.' A box on page 15 contains the gleeful article by the evolutionist (and atheist) E.O. Wilson, 'Discoveryof a Missing Link.' He claimed to have studied 'nearly exact intermediates between solitary wasps and the highly socialmodern ants.' But another atheistic evolutionist, W.B. Provine, says that Wilson's 'assertions are explicitly denied by the text . Wilson's comments are misleading at best.'12Tea)hing a,out 1+olution emphasizes Ar)haeopter* and an alleged landmammal-to-whale transition series, so they are covered in chapters 4 and 5 of this book.Tea)hing a,out 1+olution alsomakes the following excuse on page 57:Some changes in populations might occur too rapidly to leave many transitionalfossils. Also, many organisms were very unlikely to leave fossils because of their habitats or because they had no bodyparts that could easily be fossilized.Darwin also excused the lack of transitional fossils by 'the extreme imperfection of thefossil record.' But as we have seen, even organisms that leave excellent fossils, like turtles, are lacking in intermediates.Michael Denton points out that 97.7 percent of living orders of land vertebrates are represented as fossils and 79.1 percentof living families of land vertebrates87.8 percent if birds are excluded, as they are less likely to become fossilized.13Artist's impression of a living horseshoe bat.9t's true that fossilization requires specific conditions. Normally, when a fish dies, it floats tothetopandrotsandiseatenbyscavengers. Evenif somepartsreachthebottom, thescavengerstakecareof them. Scubadiversdon't findtheseafloorcoveredwithdeadanimalsbeingslowlyfossilized. Thesameappliestolandanimals. Millionsof buffaloes(bison) were killed in North America last century, but there are very few fossils.n nature, awell-preservedfossil generallyrequiresrapidburial (soscavengersdon't obliteratethecarcass), and cementing agents to harden the fossil quickly. Tea)hing a,out 1+olution hassome good photos of a fossil fish with well-preserved features (p. 3) and a jellyfish (p. 36).Such fossils certainly could not have formed graduallyhow long do dead jellyfish normally retain their features? f youwanted to form such fossils, the best way might be to dump a load of concrete on top of the creature! Only catastrophicconditions can explain most fossilsfor example, a global flood and its aftermath of widespread regional catastrophism.Tea)hing a,out 1+olution goes on to assert after the previous quote:However, in many cases, such as between primitive fish and amphibians, amphibians and reptiles, reptiles and mammals,and reptiles and birds, there are excellent transitional fossils.But Tea)hing a,out 1+olution provides no evidence for this! Wecan briefly examine some of the usual evolutionary claims below (for reptile-to-bird, see the next chapter on birds):Fishtoa&phi,ian: Someevolutionists believethat amphibians evolvedfromaRhipidistianfish, somethinglikethecoelacanth. t was believed that they used their fleshy, lobed fins for walking on the sea-floor before emerging on the land.Thisspeculationseemedimpossibletodisprove, sinceaccordingtoevolutionary/long-ageinterpretationsof thefossilrecord, the last coelacanth lived about 70 million years ago. But a living coelacanth (.ati&eria )halu&nae) was discoveredin 1938. And it was found that the fins were not used for walking but for deft maneuvering when swimming. ts soft partswere also totally fish-like, not transitional. t also has some unique featuresit gives birth to live young after about a year'sgestation, it hasasmall secondtail tohelpitsswimming, andaglandthat detectselectrical signals.14 Theearliestamphibian, I)hthostega (mentioned on p. 39 of Tea)hing a,out 1+olution), is hardly transitional, but has fully formed legsand shoulder and pelvic girdles, while there is no trace of these in the Rhipidistians.A&phi,ian to reptile: 3e&ouria is a commonly touted intermediate between amphibians and reptiles. But this creature isdated(byevolutionarydatingmethods)at 280millionyearsago, about 30millionyears ounger thanthe'earliest'truereptiles $lono&us and(aleothris. That is, reptiles are allegedly millions of years older than their alleged ancestors! Also,there is no good reason for thinking it was not completely amphibian in its reproduction. The jump from amphibian to reptileeggs requires the development of a number of new structures and a change in biochemistrysee the section below on softpart changes.5eptile to &a&&al: The 'mammal-like reptiles' are commonly asserted to be transitional. But according to a specialist onthese creatures:Each species of mammal-like reptile that has been found appears suddenly in the fossil record and is not preceded by thespecies that is directly ancestral to it. t disappears some time later, equally abruptly, without leaving a directly descendedspecies.15Evolutionistsbelievethat theearbonesof mammalsevolvedfromsomejawbonesof reptiles. But Pattersonrecognized that there was no clear-cut connection between the jawbones of'mammal-like reptiles' and the earbones ofmammals. n fact, evolutionists have argued about which bones relate to which.16T#( f&3,$io3 of .ossi2( i3$('/(+i!$(sThe inability to imagine functional intermediates is a real problem. f a bat or bird evolved from a land animal, the transitionalforms would have forelimbs that were neither good legs nor good wings. So how would such things be selected? The fragilelong limbs of hypothetical halfway stages of bats and pterosaurs would seem more like a hindrance than a help.Sof$ .!'$ ,#!3"(sOf course,the soft parts ofmany creatures would also have needed to change drastically, and there is little chance ofpreserving them in the fossil record. For example, the development of the amniotic egg would have required many differentinnovations, including:The shell.The two new membranesthe amnion and allantois.Excretion of water-insoluble uric acid rather than urea (urea would poison the embryo).Albumen together with a special acid to yield its water.Yolk for food.A change in the genital system allowing the fertilization of the egg before the shell hardens.17Another example is the mammalsthey have many soft-part differences from reptiles, for example:Mammals have a different circulatory system, including red blood cells without nuclei, a heart with four chambers instead ofthree and one aorta instead of two, and a fundamentally different system of blood supply to the eye.Mammals produce milk, to feed their young.Mammalian skin has two extra layers, hair and sweat glands.Mammals have a diaphragm, a fibrous, muscular partition between the thorax and abdomen, which is vital for breathing.Reptiles breatheinadifferent way.Mammals keeptheir bodytemperatureconstant (warm-bloodedness), requiringacomplex temperature control mechanism.The mammalian ear has the complex organ of Corti, absent from all reptile ears.18Mammalian kidneys have a 'very high ultrafiltration rate of the blood.' This means the heart must be able to produce therequired high blood pressure. Mammalian kidneys excrete urea instead of uric acid, which requires different chemistry. Theyarealsofinelyregulatedtomaintainconstant levelsof substancesintheblood, whichrequiresacomplexendocrinesystem.19T#( fossi '(,o'+B(,o/i3" /o'( '!3+o/ ! $#( $i/(, John WoodmorappeS&//!'1The reality of the geologic column is predicated on the belief that fossils have restricted ranges in rock strata. n actuality, asmore and more fossils are found, the ranges of fossils keep increasing. provide a few recent examples of this, and thenshow that stratigraphic-range extension is not the exception but the rule. The constant extension of ranges simultaneouslyreduces the credibility of the geologic column and organic evolution, and makes it easier for aGlobalFlood to explain anincreasingly-random fossil record.Different kinds of fossils do not occur randomly. nstead, they tend to be found at specific horizons, and these horizons canbe located in rocks all over the world. For example, the evolutionist asks us why a layer of rock containing trilobites is neverfound to contain dinosaurs, and why a layer with dinosaurs is always found above one with trilobites and never the reverse.Fossil succession can be viewed in terms of solitary fossils, commonly called index fossils. Otherwise, groups of fossils canbeused.Theseareoftencalledfossil assemblagesorassemblagezones.Theessenceof fossil succession, however,remains the same whether individual fossils, of groups of them, are used.For approximately the last two hundred years, thissuccession of fossils in sedimentary rock has been used to argue that the earth has undergone successive events. Forinstance, trilobite-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when trilobites were the dominant life form on earth, anddinosaur-bearing beds are supposed to reflect a time when dinosaurs were dominant on the earth. However this view isweakened because the range of fossils from one supposed time period keeps extending and overlapping fossils ostensiblytypical of another period of time in the past. n this article, will examine some examples of increases of overlap of fossilsthat are assigned to different geologic periods of time.I/.i,!$io3s of fossi s&,,(ssio3At first,creationiststried to cope with this discovery of successively-different types of fossils by retreating from the singleCreation and Flood and replacing them with a series of creations and global floods. That was Baron Cuvier's compromise,andit didsuperficiallyseemtoaccount for multipleanddifferinghorizons of fossils. As istheeventual fateof allcompromises, it was only a matter of time before any semblance to Scripture (in this case, the multiple creations and themultiplefloods)hadbeendroppedaltogether. AfterDarwin, evolutionwasaddedtothepicture, andthusthenotionoftransformation of one life-form to another replaced the earlier belief that each horizon of fossils represented a separatecreationandworld-destroyingflood. Bothconsiderations, of course, tacitlysupposethat eachtypeof horizonof fossilsrepresentsadistinctiveperiodof timeoverwhichtheparticularorganismlived.Butwhat aretheramificationsof fossilsseeming to occur in multiple, different horizons in the earth's rock strata? s the succession of life-forms, over long periods oftime, the onl way to explain the succession of fossils in earth's sedimentary rocks? Certainly not.Creationists, includingmyself,1 have provided a variety of alternative explanations for fossil succession. These include such mechanisms as thesorting of organisms during the Flood, differential escape of organisms during the same, ecological zonation of life-forms inthe antediluvian world (such that different life-forms in different strata reflect the serial burial of ecological life-zones duringtheFlood), andTABs (Tectonically-AssociatedBiological Provinceswhereindifferent lifeforms occur insuccessivehorizons of rock as a reflection of successive crustal downwarp of different life-bearing biogeographic communities).All ofthese mechanisms do away with the notion that horizons of fossils demand successive passages of time during which theorganisms lived. n other words, they allow for there to have been only one set of mutually-contemporaneous living things ona young earth, instead of a repetitive replacement of living things over vast periods of time. Most of the earth's sedimentaryrecord is viewed as being deposited by the Noachian Deluge, and not over successive depositional events in analogues ofmodern sedimentary environments on an evolving earth.Unfortunately, some modern creationists have also bought into thebelief that successive fossils represent horizons of time. These neo-Cuvierists have, as their original namesakes, relegatedthe Noachian Deluge to only a small fraction of the earth's fossiliferous sedimentary rocks. This contradicts common sense .After all, if all kindsof lifehadbeencreatedbyintelligent designerseveral thousandyearsago, thenall fossil andcontemporary life-forms must have been contemporaneous, and it makes absolutely no sense to use succession of fossilsto delineate time-stratigraphic horizons in sedimentary rock.For example, although trilobites and dinosaurs werecontemporaries of eachother, thereisnobasis for believingthat trilobite-bearinganddinosaur-bearingrockswerenecessarily deposited at the same time all over the world. During the Flood, trilobite-bearing beds at one point on earth wereprobably being deposited at the same time as dinosaur-bearing beds at another place on earth.Nor can it be said that, whendinosaur-bearingbedslocallyoverlietrilobite-bearingbeds, theformeraresignificantlyyoungerthanthelatter.This, ofcourse, excepts the small amount of difference in time, within the Flood, that elapsed between the burial of the trilobites andthe burial of the overlying dinosaurs.8&s$ #o0 '(! is fossi s&,,(ssio3%The irony of the position taken by Cuvierists, neo-Cuvierists, and standard evolutionary-uniformitarians is the fact that fossilsuccession is a reality only to a li&ite' extent. As we shall see, the Flood-related mechanisms discussed above need nothave been overly efficient to account for only the li&ite' degree of fossil succession that does exist. Successive episodes oftime, however conceived, also are completely unnecessary to explain the li&ite' degree of fossil succession.Whenweconsider thefact that fossil successionislimitedinoverall extent, it isanother wayof statingthat thereare &an fossils which are found at many stratigraphic intervals. n fact, only a &inorit are confined to rocks attributed toonly one geologic period.2Since the early days of the acceptance of the standard geologic column, fossils have been turningup in 'wrong' places as more and more fossils have been collected, and this process continues to this very day.3,4,5 And eventhis does not include the numerous instances where fossils are supposed to be reworked from older strata, often with noindependent supporting evidence.6Furthermore, extension of stratigraphic ranges occurs not only for individual fossils, butalso for presumed grade of biologic complexity (that is, so-called stratomorphic intermediates). A stratomorphic intermediateis supposed to reflect a certain grade of complexity attained by all living things up to a certain point in the geologic timescale. An example would be the first appearance of vertebrate legs in the stratigraphic record. will discuss stratomorphicintermediates shortly. Let us now consider some recent examples of stratigraphic range extension.D!s1,!+!(!3 !"!(As a result of a recent find, a dramatic increase in the stratigraphic range of Dasycladalean algae hasoccurred. Das)la'ales aremembersof thealgal familyDasycladaceae. tconsistsof 175liveandextinctgenera.Theextension of this plant has been into presumably-older strata:'Uncatoellapossessesasuiteof featuresusuallyassociatedwithlateMesozoicandCenozoic Das)la'ales, andourproposed relationships imply very large range extensions (200-350 Myr) to some groups.' 7This stratigraphic-range extension is dramatic, and equivalent to more than half of the entire Phanerozoic geologic column.Moreover, thisdiscoveryupends earlier notionsof stratomorphicintermediatesthat werebelievedtobetrueof theevolutionary history of plant-reproductive traits:'Choristospore gametangiophores are usually associated with Mesozoic and Cenozoic Das)la'ales, but the new data onUncatoella show that this form of reproduction had already developed by the Early Devonian.'8Many evolutionists, and alsounfortunately some professing creationists, have made much of the presumed significance of stratomorphic intermediates.But, as the above example proves vividly, it takes only one well-placed life-form to completely demolish existing notions ofstratomorphic intermediates. A certain grade of complexity can be moved back considerably earlier in time with just onediscovery of fossils! n the above example, a grade of morphological complexity, formerly believed to be of relatively recentorigins (Mesozoic and Cenozoic) suddenly has become much more ancient (Devonian).Pi.is,i+sThepipiscidgroupof metazoananimalsrepresentsanotherexampleof anextensionof fossilsintomucholderstrata.Formerly thought to be restricted to the Upper Carboniferous, remains of possible pipiscids have now been discovered inCambrian strata.9 f the identification is correct, this find suddenly ages the pipiscids by nearly five geologic periods.The foregoing instances may perhaps be belittled by the fact that both marine plants and soft-bodied fossils are said to haveapoor fossil record, andhencestratigraphic-rangeextensionsareperhapsnot sosurprisingfor that reason. But thisconsideration cannot possibly be applicable to the remaining examples in this report because their respective fossil recordsare good to excellent.A"3!$#!3 9:!0(ss; fis#(sMany groups of fossils appear suddenly in the Early Cambrian. This is so much so that it is often called the 'Cambrianexplosion'. As more and more fossils experience a stratigraphic-range increase down to the Early Cambrian, the 'Cambrianexplosion' becomes more and more pronounced. Apropos to this, vertebrates have just recently been found in the EarlyCambrian of south China.10 These are agnathan fish, whose previous undisputed earliest appearance had been in the LowerOrdovician.T#( $#('!.si+ '(.$i( LystrosaurusFossils of the mammal-like reptile, .strosaurus, are so common, notably in South Africa, that it is said that paleontologistsdon't even bother to pick up specimens when they see them at their feet. .strosaurus is an important index fossil. Directlyor indirectly, it is used to correlate Early Triassic continentalbeds throughoutmuch of the southern hemisphere.Let ustherefore consider the implications of the recent discovery of .strosaurus in the Permian of Zambia.11 Without question, itcan no longer be straightforwardly believed, on uniformitarians' own terms, to represent a horizon of time and to correlatestrata accordingly:' the widespread .strosaurus, hitherto regarded as characteristic of the Lower Triassic, cannot be used in isolation as abiostratigraphical zone fossil The occurrence of .strosaurus in Late Permian rocks indicates that isolated specimens ofthe genus should no longer be used for biostratigraphical purposes use of .strosaurus alone could be misleading. Thisis obviouslyunfortunate,since .strosaurus is the mostcommon genusinmany assemblagesandso mostlikely to beencountered in the course of stratigraphical work.'11There are other implications of the fact that .strosaurus-bearing rockscan no longer automatically be assumed to be Early Triassic. The supposed chain of evolving mammal-like reptiles is placedin chronological sequence largely through the use of .strosaurus, or on spore-bearing beds which are correlated with bedscontaining .strosaurus. n fact, for decades at least, beds all over the southern hemisphere have been assigned to thelowermost Triassic solely because they contain .strosaurus.12 n view of the extension ofthis genus downward into thePermian, the chronological sequence of mammal-like reptiles needs to be re-examined. t is more than possible that some'more mammal-like' therapsids will now be found to be contemporaneous with 'less mammal-like' therapsids. At worst, theentirechainof mammal-likereptilesandtheirpresumedprogressiontomammalswill comecrashingdown.A detailedanalysis of the intercontinental correlation of the relevant strata should be undertaken to evaluate this possibility.The Permo-Triassic boundary is conventionally believed to have been one at which there had been a greater turnover ofliving things than at any other comparable interval throughout the Phanerozoic fossil record. t is therefore interesting to notethat this discovery admittedly blurs the distinctiveness of the Permo-Triassic boundary,13 as do a variety of other, transitionalPermo-Triassic faunas and floras.14T#( s.o3"( Neoguadalupia < !3o$#(' P('/o=T'i!ssi, 2o&3+!'1 >-io!$o'?Up to now, all of the examples discussed have been ones where specific fossils have unexpectedly been found in strataolder than where they were 'supposed' to be found. The remaining examples in this work are fossils whose stratigraphicranges have been extended into presumed younger rocks. To show that .strosaurus was no fluke in terms of the crossingof the Permo-Triassic boundary, consider the sponge genus2eogua'alupia oregonensis. Formerly assumed to be found instrata no younger than Permian, it has been discovered in the Triassic (and Upper Triassic at that) in Oregon.15T#( 2i-!-( CamptochlamysLet us now turn our attention to the K-T (Cretaceous-Tertiary) boundary. Consider the implications of 6a&pto)hla&s foundoccurring in the K-T beds of the North Slope, Alaska:'The occurrence of 6a&pto)hla&s extends the chronostratigraphic and geographic range of this genus, previouslyunknownfromanystrataabovetheuppermost Jurassic(Tithonian) of EuropeandunknownfromanystratainNorthAmerica.'16nthisparticularinstance, wehavemorethanastratigraphic-rangeextension. Wealsohaveacontradictionbetween this particular fossil's stratigraphic occurrence in European strata, and that of North America. So much for the myththat there is a consistent succession of fossils from one continent to another! Of course, this is not the only such instance.Whenever a fossil is listed as having a long stratigraphic range (say, Cambrian to Devonian), this range may conceal acontradictory stratigraphic occurrence of the fossil from one part of the world to another. Thus, the fossil in question mayoccur in only Cambrian rock on one continent, only in Ordovician rock on another continent, only in Silurian on another, andonly in Devonian on still another continent.Let us now take a closer look at the K-T boundary. Second to the Permo-Triassicboundary,intermsof faunal turnover,istheK-T boundary.tisatthisboundarythatdinosaurs, ammonites,andotherMesozoicanimalsbecameextinct, accordingtostandardevolutionary-uniformitarianinterpretations.Yet moreandmorehitherto-believed Cretaceous life-forms are turning up in Tertiary rock. These include marine fossils, for which a poor fossilrecordcannotbe used as anexcusefortheirappearancebeyondthe 'proper'stratigraphicintervals.And thesedonotinclude the many instances of late Cretaceous life forms found in earliest Tertiary rock, for which a reworking rationalisationis frequently invoked.T#( "!s$'o.o+ arafususTheremainingexampleinthisreport isanerstwhileCretaceousfossil that hasturnedupinTertiarystrata. FormerlyrestrictedtoUpper Cretaceousrocks, membersof thegastropod (ara%usus havebeenfoundinlargenumbersinthePalaeocene rocks of northeastern Mexico.17T#( 3o'/ o' $#( (7,(.$io3%Are the foregoing examples of stratigraphic-range extensions, and thus the corresponding randomisation of globalfossilsuccession, the exception or the rule? To begin with, it must be stressed that the instances discussed in this brief report arehardly comprehensive. To the contrary, they are in fact only those instances which have inadvertently come to my attentionwhile was in theprocessof researching othertopics.Sohow commonarestratigraphic-rangeextensions? Two recentcomprehensivedatabasesof thestratigraphicoccurrenceof fossilsgiveaclear answer tothisquestion. Maxwell andBenton18 have compared the stratigraphic ranges of all of the fossil vertebrate families (excluding Aves, which have a spottyfossil record) as perceived in 19661967, and again in 1987. For 96 families, there was no change in stratigraphic range.Another 87 fossil families wentthrough a decrease in their accepted stratigraphic range. Yet considerably more families(150) underwent an increase in the amount of strata which they overlap. This trend is even more evident in fossil marinefamilies. n just ten years (19821992), Sepkoski19 reports that 513 fossil families underwent a decline in their stratigraphicrange. A decline in range may mean that the first and/or last occurrence had been misidentified. But whatever the cause, thenumber of fossil-range declines is dwarfed by the 1026 families that enjoyed an increase in either their first occurrence, ortheir last occurrence, or both.Clearly, then, extension of stratigraphic ranges is the rule and not the exception. This is evenmore remarkable when we remember that there is the ever-present evolutionary bias which tends to cause overemphasis ofminute differences in fossils located in different horizons of strata, and hence the proliferation of questionable taxonomicnames for essentially the same organism found at different stratigraphic horizons.T#( +is!..(!'i3" "(oo"i,! ,o&/3Let us now examine the progressive randomisation of the fossil record in the light of the history of the geologic column.Modernresearchersarenot thefirst tonoticetheprogressiveextensionof fossil stratigraphicrangeswithincreasingcollection of fossil specimens from the world's sedimentary strata. During the time that parts of the geologic column were stillbeingworkedout inthemid19th century,theVictorianphilosopherHerbert Spencercommentedontheillogicityof thegeologic column in his appropriately-named essay, llogical Geology.20 n doing this, Spencer could hardly be accused ofcreationist bias. After all, he was a hardened atheist who had been an enthusiastic supporter of both social Darwinism and'scientific' Darwinism.One of the things Spencer challenged was the use of fossils for the correlation and dating of strata.Specifically, he took issue with the practice of using particular fossils as supposed time-markers for the global correlation ofstrata, and then not questioning the whole procedure when frequently finding such fossils in the 'wrong' strata with furthercollecting of fossil specimens.21 As we have seen, the finding of fossils in previously-unrecognised stratigraphic horizons hascontinued unabated to this very day, and dwarfs anything that Spencer could have been familiar with. What would Spencerthink were he alive today?Let us take the aforementioned occurrence of .strosaurus to its logical conclusion.Since .strosaurus has always been used to correlate rocks into time-equivalent horizons, and to place them all into theEarlyTriassic, thePermianfindof .strosaurus shouldnowmeanthat PermianandTriassicarecontemporaneous!Ananalogous line of reasoning should lead to the position that Cretaceous and Tertiary are now contemporaneous because theUpper Cretaceousgenus (ara%usus isnowknownfromEarlyTertiaryrocks.Of course, theuniformitarianswouldneverfollow their own reasoning to its logical conclusion because it would lead to the very re'u)tio a' a,sur'u& discussed in theprevious paragraph. At minimum, it would require the uniformitarians to acknowledge the fact that the Permian-Triassic andCretaceous-Tertiary are now respectively contemporaneous. Such a conclusion, of course, destroys the very foundations ofthegeologiccolumn, andisunthinkabletostandarduniformitariandogma. nordertopaperoverthisfatal flawinthegeologic column, uniformitarians simply back-pedal, discard .strosaurus as well as other once-esteemed index fossils astime-stratigraphic indicators, choose other index fossils as presumed time-indicators, and otherwise act as if nothing hashappened in terms of empirical evidence. This enables them to go right on believing in such things as the Permian, Triassic,Cretaceous, and Tertiary periods. Heads win, tails you lose. Clearly, the evolutionary-uniformitarian geologic column hasbecome protected from falsification. To the uniformitarian, no possible fossil discovery would ever count as evidence thatwould invalidate the sacrosanct geologic column. t is thus clear that use of index fossils and assemblages of such fossils forcorrelation of strata is an exercise in special pleading.So/( s,i(3$ifi, ,'(!$io3is$ i/.i,!$io3sClearly, now more then ever, creationist scientists should resist the temptation of buying into any sort of scheme whichpresumes that fossils can be used to delineate time-horizons in the earth's sedimentary rocks. Even at the local level, fossilsuccession is related to Flood-related processes instead of changes in fauna over time. This fact discounts neo-Cuvierism.And, for themainstreamdiluvialist, theextensionof stratigraphic ranges has implications interms of Flood-relateddepositional processes. As the fossil record comes closer to randomness, proposed Flood-originated non-temporalmechanisms22 forfossil succession needtobelessand less efficientinorder to account forafossil succession thatisbecoming more and more crude as more and more fossils are gathered23.Li-i3" fossis@ ! .o0('f& !'"&/(3$ fo' ,'(!$io3Do3 B!$$(3 interviews !r Carl Werner, author of Living "ossils #Evolution$ the %rand Experiment vol. &'Dr WernerDr Werner graduated from the University of Missouri with distinction in biology (su&&a)u& lau'e). He received his doctoral degree in medicine at the age of 23 and practicesemergency medicine in St Louis.Dr Werner explained what living fossils are and why hebecame so interested in them, collecting photographs of these fossils over the last 14years: "Livingfossilsarefossilizedanimalsandplantsthat looksimilar tomodernorganisms. became interested in living fossils as a tool to test evolution."There are basically two models of how life came about: The evolution model suggeststhat chemicals coalesced and formed a living single-cell almost four billion years agoand then this changed over long periods of time into all other living things. Examples ofevolutionary changes include a dinosaur into a bird, or a four-legged land mammal intoawhale. Theother model, creation, suggests that anexternal supernatural beingcreatedallofthe various typesof animals and plantsatonce, and theseorganismshave changed little over time, other than variations within a basic type. For example, ananimal canchange, but onlywithinitskind, suchasawolf intoadognot radicalchangesuchasafour-leggedmammal intoawhale.1Dr Werner continued, "Livingfossils provided me a simple way to test evolution. I% evolution did not occur (animals didnot change significantly over time) and i% all of the animals and plants were created at one time and lived together (humans,dinosaurs, oak trees, roses, cats, wolves, etc)/ then one should be able to find fossils of at leastso&e modern animals andmodern plants alongside dinosaurs in the rock layers. set out to test this idea without any foreknowledge of any modernorganisms in the rock layers. My results (as laid out in the book & video .i+ing Fossils) showed that many modern animalsand plants are found with dinosaursfar more than ever expected to find.Dr Werner and his wife Debbie travelled over100,000miles(160,000km) andtook60,000photographsastheyfilmedthetelevisionseries 1+olution: TheGran'1*peri&ent. (Episode 2 of this series, .i+ing Fossils, reveals exactly whatthey found.) They focused on fossils found indinosaur rock layers,and compared these fossils to modern animals and plants."We looked only atfossils found in thedinosaur dig sites so that scientists who support evolution could not suggest that the fossils we looked at were not 'old'. Allof the fossils we used for comparisons were found in dinosaur rock layers (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous).(any /o+('3 !3i/!s i3 +i3os!&' 'o,6A asked Carl just how many modern types of animals he had found in the dinosaur rock layers."Wefoundfossilizedexamplesfrom e+er majorinvertebrateanimal phylumlivingtodayincluding: arthropods(insects,crustaceansetc.), shellfish, echinoderms(starfish, crinoids, brittlestars, etc.), corals, sponges, andsegmentedworms(earthworms, marine worms)."Thevertebratesanimalswithbackbonessuchas fish, amphibians, reptiles, birdsandmammalsshowthissamepattern.Mo+('3 fis#B !/.#i2i!3s !3+ '(.$i(s"Cartilaginous fish (sharks and rays), boney fish (such as sturgeon, paddlefish, salmon, herring, flounder and bowfin) andjawless fish (hagfish and lamprey) have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same as modern forms."Modern-looking frogs and salamanders have been found in dinosaur dig sites."All of today's reptile groups have been found in the dinosaur layers and they look the same or similar to modern forms:Snakes (boa constrictor), lizards (ground lizards and gliding lizards), turtles (box turtles, soft-shelled turtles), andcrocodilians (alligators, crocodiles and gavials).Mo+('3 2i'+s"Contrarytopopular belief, moderntypesof birdshavebeenfound, including: parrots, owls, penguins, ducks, loons,albatross, cormorants, sandpipers, avocets, etc. When scientists who support evolution disclosed this information during ourTV interviews it appears that they could hardly believe what they were saying on camera.Dr William Clemens, UC Berkeley, on modern birds being found in Cretaceous rock. (Clip from Living Fossils DVD)M!//!s(aleontologistsha+e%oun'7!8&a&&al spe)iesinthe'inosaur laers9 al&ost as&anasthenu&,er o% 'inosaurspe)ies. #ut where are these %ossils: ;e +isite' enin)o&pleteskeletonsAsingle,oneso% the7!8&a&&al spe)ies%oun'so%ar.;h'on-t the&useu&s 'ispla these &a&&al %ossils an' also the ,ir' %ossils:B0an modern plants in dinosaur rock!"n the dinosaur rock layers, we found fossils from e+er major plant division living today including: flowering plants, ginkgos,cone trees, moss, vascular mosses, cycads,and ferns. Again, if you look at these fossils and compare them to modernforms,youwill quicklyconcludethattheplantshavenotchanged. Fossil sequoias, magnolias, dogwoods, poplarsandredwoods, lily pads, cycads, ferns, horsetails etc. have been found at thedinosaur digs.W('( !31 /o+('3 o'"!3is/s not fo&3+%" did not find fossils of e+er organism living today in the dinosaur layers,rather found representative examples from all of the major animal phylaliving today and all of the major plant divisions living today. Taking it onestep further, within these bigger groups, frequently found representativesof all of themajor groupsor classeswithinaphylum. For example, forechinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, etc.) found fossils of all of the majortypes living today. Same with the insects and the crocodilians, etc. did notfindanylargemammals. Thelargest mammal discoveredinadinosaurlayer so far (live size) is 30 pounds (13 kg). Nevertheless, with so manyliving fossils, both plants and animals, from all of the major phyla and all ofthe major plant divisions, it points to stasis (lack of change), not evolution. should also note that if you look at the serious problems with the fossil layersystem(thegeological columnas presentedby geologists today), theabsence of the bigger mammals can easily be accounted for, but will savethis for a later day.E-o&$io3!'1 s$o'1 $(i3" >&3si36!2(?% asked Dr Werner how evolutionary scientists deal with this evidence, giventheseremarkablefindings. Dr Werner remarked, "f youwhole-heartedlybelieve in a theory, you will always be able to sustain that beliefeven inthe face of contradictory evidenceby adding a rescue hypothesis to thattheory. For example, if a scientist believes in evolution and sees fossils thatlook like modern organisms at the dinosaur digs, he/she might invent anhypothesisto'explain' livingfossilsthisway: 'Yes believethat animalshave changed greatly over time (evolution), but some animals and plantswere so well adapted to the environment that they did not need to change.So am not bothered at all by living fossils.' This added hypothesis saysthat some animals did not evolve. But if a theory can be so flexible, addinghypotheses that predict the opposite of your main theory, one could neverdisprove the theory. The theory then becomes unsinkable, and anunsinkable theory is not science.Diff('(3$ 3!/(s fo' $#( s!/( !3i/!%Carl related how evolutionary scientists give fossils different genus and species names from the living forms, creating theillusion of evolution: "Let me give you an example. A scientist found a fossil sea urchin in Cretaceous rock that looks nearlyidentical to a modern Purple Heart sea urchin, but assigned it to a completely new genus ($olaster). f you saw that creaturealive in the ocean you would recognize it as a Purple Heart sea urchin (genus 3patangus). The different name suggests thatsea urchins have changed over time, but this is contrived 'evidence' for evolution. The fossil looks the same as the livingone. (See photos right).E-o&$io3 +is.'o-(+% asked Dr Werner if his study disproved evolution."t is becoming more and more difficult for the evolutionary model to stand in the face of this great number of living fossils.Adding the many other problems with evolution (fossil record, origin of first life, geological layering problems, similarities ofnon-related animals, etc.), you can declare with confidence that yes, the theory is finished. f a few larger mammals werefound in the dinosaur layers, it shoul' be over even for the die-hard believers of evolution, but people tend to go to theirgrave with the theories they learned in college. A new generation might welllook at all of this and ask, 'What were theythinking?' IS THERE ANY TYPE OF ORDER IN THE FOSSIL RECORDA'( $#('( o&$=of=s(C&(3,( fossis $#!$ !'( .'o2(/!$i, fo' (-o&$io3%by Gary Bates and Lita CosnerPublished: 17 April 2014 (GMT+10)Thisjellyfishfossil, which'dates' toover 500millionyears,provides two counts against evolutionary predictions regardingthe fossil record: that soft organisms would not be preservedandthat sucha huge period ofevolutionsees no changeinthis creature, which has the same features as ones swimmingin the oceans today. mage from (.C3, ref. 1. n hisdebate with Ken Ham, Bill Nye(the 'scienceguy') dogmatically claimed, and asked Ham, to cite any out-of-order fossils in the geologic record, because if there were any,it would be problematic for the evolutionary model. Due to theseemingconfidenceof Nye'sassertion(andthat it wasnotanswered during the debate), many have contacted us for ananswer on this single question. n addition, while out onministry our speakers have mentioned how this question hasoften come up. At a recent event, Gary Bates encountered aChristian university student who said this question was being used as a club by lecturers and professors to 'beat him with'. tappears that this seeming 'knockout punch' argument by Nye is being used as a 'great' falsification of the creation model. Fossil sea urchinModern sea urchinA ,o3s$!3$1 ,#!3"i3" s$o'1f thefossilsthemselvesprovideevidencethat suggestsrapidburialthen it only makes sense to presume that the sedimentsthat buried them had to also be deposited quickly. So how canweanswer thischallenge?sthisaproblemfor creationists?First, bydefinitionevolutionistswouldsaytherearenoout-of-sequence fossils. They would claim that the fragmentary natureof the fossil record means that we don't have a good idea of theentire period a fossil belongs in. So if we find a fossil ina stratum that is supposed to be 100 million years older than thespecies (using evolutionary dating for the sake of the argument),it simply means that it evolved 100 million years earlier than wethought. The evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record is soflexiblethat it canincorporate virtually any newchange, nomatter how unexpected. n other words, if an out-of-order fossil isfound (according to their standard view), then it is justincorporated as new evidence to provide a better understandingof evolution! nshort,evolutionisassu&e'andthenusedtoexplain the fossils. So, no matter what we find, by the very natureof the way they interpret the facts, nothing woul' %alsi% e+olutionanwa!Fossil octopus remarkably preserved in Lebanonreveals details of the eight arms, suckers, ink, gills, mouth, eyecapsule and more.So a better way to counter this would be to ask whether evolutionhasmadepredictionsabout thefossil recordthat havebeenconfirmed orotherwise by subsequent discoveries.And by thismeasure evolutionfallsdramatically short.For instance,CharlesDarwinsaidthat "noorganismwhollysoft canbepreserved. Hewassimplywrong, becausewehavemanyexamples of this. For instance, hundreds offossilized jellyfishand a fossilized squid, that look remarkably similar to thesame creatures living today. Yet they were claimed to be 505 million years old (myo) and 150 myo respectively.The squideven contained an ink sac so fresh that the ink could be used to paint a picture. The ages assigned to these fossils comesfrom their position in the alleged geologic columnand the dates assigned to the rock layers inwhich they were found. Remember that it isbelievedthat therocklayersweresupposedtohave been slowly deposited over millions ofyears, andsimilarly, theprocessof burial andpermineralizationissupposedtohavetakenavery long time. But besides soft-bodied creatures,wehavefossilslikeanichthyosaurgivingbirth,and fish in the process of eating other fish, thatcapture moments in time. They must have beenpreservedDui)kl. Logically, if the fossilsthemselves provide evidence that suggests rapidburial then it only makes sense to presume thatthesedimentsthat buriedthemhadtoalsobedeposited quickly.Lo$s of i3,o3-(3i(3$ fossisnreality,therearealot of fossilsthat don't fitwithin the neatly-defined evolutionary order ofthings paraded in our geology and biologytextbooks:Trilobites, which are allegedly 500 myo in the Cambrian strata, have eyes that are far too complex for their place in the fossilrecord. That is, they have no precursors to theirappearance.Perhaps most astonishingly,pollen fossilsevidenceof floweringplantswerefoundinthePrecambrianstrata. Accordingtoevolutionists, floweringplantsfirst evolved160 mya, but the Precambrian strata is older than 550mya.Dinosaurs aresupposedtohaveevolvedintobirds. ButConfuciusorniswas a true beaked bird that pre-dates the'feathered' dinosaurs that it allegedly came from. t also has beenfound in the stomach of a dinosaur.Grass which has been foundin fossilized dinosaur coprolites (fossilized dung). But grass is notsupposed to have evolved until at least 10 million years after thedinosaurs went extinct.A dog-like mammal fossil was found withremains ofdinosaurs inits stomachbut no mammals largeenough to prey on dinosaurs were supposed to exist alongsidethem.A mammal hair was found in ambersupposed 100 millionyears old. Once again, this is smack in the middle of the alleged'age of dinosaurs' when no such mammals existed. CM's Calvin Smith wrote:"Tothesurpriseof many, ducks,3squirrels,4platypus,5beaver-like6andbadger-like7creatureshaveall beenfoundin'dinosaur-era' rock layers along with bees, cockroaches, frogs and pine trees. Most people don't picture a T. re*walkingalong with a duck flying overhead, but that's what the so-called 'dino-era' fossils would prove!Tiktaalik! 'You gotta be kidding' Ted DaeschlerTiktaalik fossil.Being the media entertainer he is, Nye waxed eloquently about the discovery of analleged sea-to-land (fish to tetrapod) intermediate called Tiktaalik roseae . That hespent so long detailing the find of this 'perfect missing link', he obviously thought itwas a 'slam dunk' for evolution. ndeed,Tiktaalikhas appeared on the cover ofnumerous magazines, textbooks, and it even has its own theme song and websiteto promote evolution. Now, either Nye was ignorant of, or deliberately dishonest,when he conveniently failed to mention that fossil footprints that predated Tiktaalikhave been in Poland predating Tiktaalikby some 18 million years. t can't be thetransition it is claimed to be if creatures that evolved 'from it' actually lived 'beforeit'. That looks like a slam dunk for falsifying that evolutionary story, 'wethinks'. 'Living fossils' are out-of-place for evolutionistsPiotr Szrek, Uppsala University Limestone slab from Poland with fossil footprints.Another indication that the evolutionary story is flawed is the huge numberof living fossils. That is, creatures that have been found in the fossil recordhave been assigned ages of hundreds of millions of years, yet are identicalto creatures alive today. Dr Carl Werner has documented museum displaysshowing how many modern animals are found in dinosaur-era layers.DrWerner said:" found representative examples from all of the major animal phyla livingtoday and allofthemajorplantdivisionslivingtoday. Takingitone stepfurther, within these bigger groups, frequently found representatives of allthe major groups or classes within a phylum.But if all these animals are found in dinosaur-era layers, what has evolutionbeen doing for the last hundred million years? For example, if apeseventually became humans in just 6 million years, how, with ever-changingecological pressures, cantherebesomanyplantsandanimalsthat arebasically unchanged from their forms supposedly millions of years ago? For instance, the Wollemi pinewas supposed to have thrived around 150millionyearsagoandtohavebeenlongextinct,but in1994,theywerefound growing in a forest in New South Wales, Australia. Even evolutionistsclaimedit was "likefinding alivedinosaur. Andthecoelacanthwassupposed to have gone extinct around the same time as the dinosaurs, butwe know that this deep-sea fish is still living because fishermen have caught them and 2ational Geographi) has filmed themswimming around!Fossil photo by JoachimScheven, LEBENDGE VORWELTMuseum, Living coelacanth photo from Wikipedia.org The 'Cambrian explosion' is an out-of-order problem forevolutionists?Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointingout a major weak spot for evolution. ntheCambrianrocks(someof theallegedoldest complex-fossil-bearing rocks on earthc. 500 plus myo), 'index' fossils ofjust about every major phylum can be found. Because next to noancestors of these organisms appears below them, that is, theyappear suddenly and simultaneously in the fossilrecord; it haslongbeenamassiveproblemforevolutionists.Asthereisnosmooth and gradual sequence to the appearance of these fossils,one could argue that the millions of creatures that representtheCambrian explosionare out-of-sequence fossils by theevolutionists 'own measure'. There are many exceptions to the neatly portrayed order of thefossil recordnfact, themorefossilswefind, themorerandomthepicturebecomes. This does not fit theorderly progression of ever-evolving specimens that evolutionists would predict. But it does fitverywell withthecreationist narrativeof plantsandanimalscreated "according to their kinds, and buried in a worldwide catastrophe. Bill Nye actually did creationists a favour by inadvertently pointing out a major weak spot for evolution. n fact, the fossilrecord is evidence against Bill Nye's position, and certainly evolutionists might want to think twice before drawing attentionto such a vulnerable chink in their armor! I3+(7 fossisR(/!'6!2(? /!//! #!i's i3 !/2('%by Shaun DoylePublished: 22 June 2010(GMT+10)Fi"&'( ). The microscopic details of this hair areidentical to modern mammal hairbut this issupposed to be from the Cretaceous, 100 millionyearsago, supposedlywaybackinthe'ageofdinosaurs'.Amber, which is fossilised tree resin, isa fascinating substance (SeeAmber neededwater (and lots of it)). t has preserved stunningspecimensof manydifferent typesof biologicalstructures and organisms, from bacteria1toinsects,2andevenmarinelife.3Manyof theseorganismsaresaidtohavebeenpreservedforover 100 million years. The latest amber-encasedfossil find that has made headlines is that of some strands of mammalian hair, which have supposedly been preserved inalmost pristine condition for 100 million years (figure 1).4 They were found in the Font-de-Benon quarry at Archingeay-LesNouillers in Charente-Maritime, southwest France.5 t has been making headlines because it apparently shows that mammalhairshaveremaineduntouchedbyevolutionforthelast 100millionyears. Sowhat shouldwemakeof thisfind?Theexceptional 3D preservation of the hair enabled the researchers to compare the hairs to living mammals to see if there wasany difference. The researchers found that the hairs were 'remarkably similar' to modern mammal hair. For the evolutionist,"This discovery implies that the morphology of hair cuticula may have remained unchanged throughout most of mammalianevolution.4M!//!s i3 $#( >!"( of $#( +i3os!&'s?However, from a creation perspective, mammals, even in the so-called 'age of the dinosaurs', would not be radically differentto mammals today.The popular impression among people today is that mammals in the dinosaur era, if they existed at all,were only small, reptile-likecreatures and only diversifiedafter the dinosaurs diedout. However, fromacreationperspective, mammals, even in the so-called 'age of the dinosaurs', would not be radically different to mammals today. Ofcourse, some mammal kinds may have died out, and modern-day mammals are the genetically impoverished descendantsof the original kind (which is why we would not expect a domestic cat in 'dinosaur rock', for instance). But a creationist wouldanticipatethat anyhairorfur,oneof thechief distinguishingcharacteristicsbetweenmammalsandreptiles, wouldbeidentical to that of mammals today, and this is exactly what this find shows. By way of aside, a general rule of thumb for thefossil record, which is also the case with these mammal hairs, is that when one finds the same type of creature in a fossil asthe living form, then the more detail that is preserved in the fossil, the more striking will be the similarity of the fossils to livingcreatures.However, it's more than just the detail of this particular fossil that points in this direction. The entire fossil recordbears witness to this. Mammal fossils with ever increasing diversity and specialization have been found over the last 15years even back into the Jurassic.6 And most orders of mammals were present well before the dinosaurs supposedly wentextinct, while there was little change when the dinosaurs supposedly went extinct.7 After commenting on a number of recentmammal fossil finds, Oard comments:"Evolutionists would have expected that any mammals found that were this 'old' to be generalized and able to evolve inmanydifferent directionswithtime. However, all thesemammalsaresurprisingly(totheevolutionists) specializedanddiverseclear back in the Middle Jurassic!8 Even on evolutionary assumptions, it's now plain that mammals lived in greatdiversity and abundance with dinosaurs. From a creation perspective, we would e*pe)tmammals and dinosaurs to beburiedtogether,at least inpart becausetheyarebothland-dwellinganimals. SincetheFloodcausedalot of mixing,however, this is not a hard and fast rule, but a general guide that still allows for a lot of randomization of fossil placement:"Dinosaurs and trilobites lived in different environments, and we would expect a vertical order in the Flood [i.e. land animals(dinosaurs) abovemarineanimals(trilobites)]. However, wouldbemorecautiousindevelopingavertical order withorganisms from the sa&e or si&ilar en+iron&ents.9 M!//! #!i' 3o3=(-o&$io3These mammal hairs also present a problem for evolution: nothing has changed (figure 1). And they are only the tip of theiceberg. The big problem for evolution is that the general rule of the fossil record is that things stay the same (seeFossilsquestions and answers). Darwin recognized this in his own day, but relied on people finding the intermediate fossils afterhim:"We should not forget that only a small portion of the world is known with accuracy.10 But thisproblemhasnot beensolvedin150yearsof searchingsinceDarwinwrotethosewords.Thefossil recordiscertainly incomplete for evolutionists, but if people have only found a few disputable transitional fossils in 150 years, withtens of thousands of tons of fossils found, then the problem is not with the fossils, it's with the prediction and the idea thatgave birth to it: evolution. But if it can explain everything in the fossil record, that means it is incapable of predicting anything.And that is why evolution is an utterly meaningless concept for explaining patterns in the fossil record.Despite the failure ofDarwin's original prediction, researchers still readily use evolution to explain patterns in the fossil record. But now evolution,whichbydefinitionmeans)hange, canalsoaccommodatenon-changeinthefossil record(SeeEvolutionarystasis).Evolution has become a rather neat way to explain the fossil record: it can now account for every sort of change you canthink of, and even no change at all! Wow! But if it can explain everything in the fossil record, that means it is incapable ofpredicting anything. And that is why evolution is an utterly meaningless concept for explaining patterns in the fossil record(See The slow rise of dinosaurs). As ReMine quipped: "Evolutionary theory predicts nothing, not even a nested hierarchy.Rather, the theory adapts to data like a fog adapts to landscape.11 However, stasis in the fossil record is not a problem forthe creationists. On the contrary, this is what it would e*pe)t, i.e. if we observed in the fossil record what Darwin predicted(countless chains of 'links', with untold thousands of indisputable transitional fossils) then creation modelwould be seriouslyundermined, if not falsified completely. ARE THRE REALLY MISSING LINKS IS THIS A PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTIONA3o$#(' /!:o' >i36? f!isui)ila, claimed ancestor of pinnipeds is an otter, !on *attenFi"&'( ). A page from Appendix E of DrWerner's 1+olution:the Gran' 1*peri&ent/8n'e'ition, showingtheskeltonsof thesupposedtransitional fossil (top)andtheNorth Americanriver otter (bottom). Other than (uiGila standingflat-footed, it is hard to see much difference.For 150 years, evolutionists had not been able tofind evolutionary ancestors for the aquatic groupof mammals calledpinnipedstheseals, sealions, and walruses. This was odd because theyhad found well over 15,000 fossil pinnipeds1 butthey had not found an land ancestors that wereontheway tobecomingaseal, sealionorwalrus. Their 'oldest' fossil, a creaturecalled 1naliar)tos, looked like a modern sea lion,with fully aquatic front and back flippers, not feetorevenwebbedfeet.2 Suchawealthof fossilsbut no transitional creature fossils posed aconundrum for evolution scientists. For creationscientists, this was not a problem at all but theexpected fossil pattern: Pinnipeds were created'as is', and did not evolve from another animal,hence the missing links should not be found.n2009 (uiGila'arwini was announcedas thelatest 'missing link' found, a triumph ofevolution.3 This was publishedin 2ature/ regarded as the most prestigiousjournal in the world. Richard Dawkins waxedlyrical about this fossil:?(uiGila neatly straddles the gap between land and water in the ancestry of pinnipeds. t is yet another delightful addition toour growing list of 'links' that are no longer missing.4A))or'ing to Dr 6arl ;erner it looks like the authors o% the Naturearti)le seriousl &isrepresente' an' &isinterprete' the%ossils.However, according to Dr Carl Werner, who investigated this claimin detail for his book 1+olution the Gran'1*peri&ent (2nd Edition), it looksliketheauthorsof the 2ature articleseriouslymisrepresentedandmisinterpretedthefossils.5The skeleton of (uiGila looks like a modern river otter, not a missing link. The scientists who discovered the fossiltacitlyacknowledgedthis: ?(uiGila didnotpossess flippers,itsfeet wereprobablywebbed, it hada long tail andits limbproportions were generally similar tomodernotters and"thepostcranial skeleton[everything other thanthehead]of (uiGila appears most similar to that of the extant [(living) North American] river otter .ontra )ana'ensis.Dr Werner pointedout that (uiGila looks like a modern river otter and does not have the necessary anatomic features to even call it a pinniped:"(uiGila did not have the typical oversized finned back feet or front flippers diagnostic of pinnipeds. Rather, (uiGila had foursmall webbed feet similar to North American river otters. Even the overall length of(uiGila was similar to the North Americanriver otter ((uiGila: 110 cm versus 112 cm; see figure 1). Nevertheless, the 2ature authors claimed that their fossil was a"primitive Arcticpinniped. Thiswouldbeequivalent tocallingahippopotamusa'whale' becauseyoubelievedhipposevolved into whales, as some evolution scientists claim.So what about the skull, which they claim is different to an otter?The authorsof the 2ature article arguedthat (uiGila had large eye socketslikepinnipeds and backteethlikepinnipeds.Simplyput, theseclaimsdon't stackup. (uiGila didnot havelargeeyesocketsasclaimed. Thesizeof theeyesocketof(uiGila is small, similar to a river otter, not 'large'as seen in Dr Werner's detailed comparisons in 1+olution the Gran'1*peri&ent, (2nd Edition).Regarding the teeth, (uiGila, like living North American river otters, has two distinct types of teethbehind the canines: premolars and molars, which are also large. Their back teeth are nothing like those of pinnipeds, whichare uniform and small. This strongly refutes the claim that (uiGila had pinniped-like teeth (see figure 2).Pinnipeds also havevery short tails. The authors claimed that "the tail of (uiGila appears to have been shorter and more gracile [thinner] than thatof .ontra [the river otter] but this claim is, again, misleading. (uiGila's tail looks like the modern river otter (compare the tailsin the pictures of the two skeletons, figure 1).Fi"&'( *. Comparison of the teeth of a pinniped (top left), a river otter (top right) and (uiGila. The teeth of (uiGila look just likeotter teeth, not at all likeapinniped. PM: pre-molar tooth, M: molar, PC: post-caninetooth. Credits: (uiGila, CanadianMuseum of Nature, Fur seal and otter: Dr Carl Werner.Dr Werner madeother comparisons, whichmakeastrongcase that, in their enthusiasm for finding a significant 'missinglink' the paleontologists got it very wrong. (uiGila is just an otter,almost identical to the North American river otter, which is stillvery much alive today. t appears that evolution scientists haveyet another missing link gone 'missing'.B&$ 0!i$ F $#('(?s /o'(The 2ature paper has a 'family tree' (cladogram)showing (uiGila grouped with the pinnipeds, not the otters.However, Dr Werner shows why this does not stand up to critical scrutiny. For one thing, the authors do not include any ofthe six classic distinguishing characters of pinnipeds in the analyses. See creation.com/puijila-s.C!+is$i,sB (-o&$io3 !3+ $#( fossis, Shaun !oyleCladisticsisthepremier methodusedfor determiningevolutionaryrelationshipsinbiology. Theresultsof cladisticsanalyses, tree diagrams called cladograms, are often used as demonstrations of evolution. Though cladistics was developedby and for evolutionists, it still fails to demonstrate evolution, let alone biological reality. Evolution is still typically seen as thetheoretical justificationfor usingcladistics inpaleontology, sotheconclusionof evolutionmerelybegsthequestion.Cladograms only demonstrate a nested hierarchy of biologicalcharacters; they tellus nothing about whatproduced thepattern. Evolutionary cladistics also depicts a simplistic view of biologicalchange and fails to dealwith pleiotropy withinorganisms. These problems were recognized by some evolutionists over 30 years ago, but their criticisms largely fell ondeaf ears, most likely because their comments were used as ammunition by creationists. Many problems of phylogeneticinferencethat cladisticsclaimstosolvestill remainlargelyunsolved, suchasdistinguishingbetweenhomologyandhomoplasy. Perhaps the largest problem, however, is the illusion of evolution that cladograms and the language used todescribe them give to the public. They both create the illusion of a resolved genealogy despite some cladists' disavowal ofany strict genealogical connotations.W#!$ is ,!+is$i,s%Fi"&'( ). Rooted cladogram of vertebrates basedonanalysisperformedintable1. Thisgivestheillusion that ancestordescendant relationshipshave been identified. However, none of the nodes(hypotheticalancestors) have been identified; theonlyidentifiedorganismsareat theendof thebranches.Cladistics has become the premiermethod that evolutionists use to map outevolutionary relationships in paleontology.Cladogramsareubiquitousinthepaleontologicalliterature, and are often used as evidence forevolution. Cladistics is amethodthat classifiesorganisms in a nested hierarchy of similarity basedon a comparison of individual characteristics. t willidentify a series of characteristics in each taxon forcomparison (table 1), and then arrange the taxa ina cladogram (figure 1). Then different cladogramsare compared in order to find which cladogram organizes the taxa in a hierarchy that has the least non-nested charactersand/or themost nestedcharacters. Evolutionists typically interpret thenestedpatternas descent withmodification.Character state changes are seen as phylogenetic changes.His$o'1 of ,!+is$i,sCladistics was first proposed by Willi Hennig in 1950 as an alternative to then current systematic methods.1However, Hennigdid not coin the term 'cladistics', but preferred to call his method 'phylogenetic systematics', as he believed his method wasa more empirically based way of constructing phylogenies. Rather, Ernst Mayr, a noted critic of Hennig, first coined the term'cladistics' in 1965.2 Moreover, it wasn't until 1966, when Hennig's original work was revised and translated intoEnglish,3 that cladistics begun to have a substantial impact on English-speaking evolutionists.Hennig argued that methods current in his day had two fundamental flaws: they were hopelessly subjective, and they failedto properly identify evolutionary relationships. TraditionalDarwinian taxonomy was generally driven by the intuition of theindividual biologist, which of course creates problems when disagreements arise because there are no evidential reasons tochoose between the two. Phenetics sought to get around this by subjecting characters of organisms to pairwisecomparisons, and thus evaluating the overall similarity between taxa. However, such a method would seem ill-equipped todeal with taxa that have similar forms, but are clearly not closely related, e.g. sharks, ichthyosaurs and dolphins. Characterweighting then became inherent in the analysis, and it thus became as subjective as traditional Darwinian taxonomy.Hennig countered that cladistics was able to identify homology empirically by identifying what he called snapo&orphies, or'shared derived characters'. A comparison of individual traits across a range of taxa would reveal these synapomorphies,which he assumed arose through common ancestry.4E-o&$io3!'1 fi"#$sMuch of the focus then turned to the philosophical underpinnings of cladistics. By the 1980s most systematists agreed thatcladistics was a useful methodology. However, there was considerable debate over what cladistics meant, and what it wassupposed to be used for.The dominant school of thought traced itself back to Hennig, and continued to argue that evolutionisanecessaryassumptionfor cladisticstowork.5 TheHennigianswereclear whentheycall cladistics'phylogeneticsystematics'they worked with the assumption that evolution is the foundation of cladistics. Therefore, they believed thepurpose of cladistics was toelucidatethe most probable e+olutionar relationships that unfoldedthroughout history.Essentially, cladistics became an exercise in evolutionary theorizing.C#!/2('(+#(!'$8!0sFo&'i/2sA/3io$i,(""H!i'Bi'$#i3"i-( 1o&3"S(! !/.'(1((etro&>on &arinus)1 0 0 0 0 0R!i32o0 $'o&$(Cn)orhn)hus &kissH1 1 0 0 0 0A&s$'!i!3 "'((3 $'(( f'o" 1 1 1 0 0 0(.itoria )aerulea)F'i=3(,6(+ iG!'+(6hla&'osaurus kingii)1 1 1 1 0 0P!$1.&s(Crnithorhn)hus anatinus)1 1 1 1 1 0C!$(Felis )atus)1 1 1 1 1 1T!2( ). A simple cladistic analysis of character traits commonly held to be shared derived characters in vertebrates. Traitsare polarized: 0Absent and 1Present.However, some systematists broke with Hennig's insistence that cladisticsnecessarily demonstratedtransformationthroughcharacter statechanges.6 Theseso-called'transformed' or 'pattern'cladistscalledthisprocessassumptionof Hennigiancladisticsintoquestionbysayingthat themethodologydoesnotrequire the assumption of evolution to work. For transformed cladists, the purpose of cladistics was classification based on adescriptive definition of homology. They viewed cladistics as agnostic about history, and that 'evolutionary histories' basedon cladograms were nothing more than futile speculation. Pattern cladists Ebach et al. summarize it like this:"Cladisticsisnot about evolution, but about thepatternof character distributioninorganisms, or therecognitionandcharacterization of groups.7This argument spilled over into the 'creation science' controversies of the day.8 Some candidstatementsof ColinPatterson, anotedcriticof Hennigiancladistics, wereparticularlyinfluential inthecontroversy.9 Hediscounted the speculative evolutionary reconstructions many systematists attached to their cladistics analyses becausethere was no way to identify in reality the putative ancestors 'identified' by the nodes on a cladogram:"Asthetheoryof cladisticshasdeveloped, it hasbeenrealizedthat moreandmoreof theevolutionaryframeworkisinessential, and may be dropped. The chief symptom of this change is the significance attached to nodes in cladistics. nHennig's book, as in all early works in cladistics, the nodes are taken to represent ancestral species. This assumption hasbeen found to be unnecessary, even misleading, and may be dropped.10This raised a rather pertinent question: why invokeevolutionat all if there'snowaytoreconstruct evolutionaryhistoryfrommorphological comparisons?t'sverywell toacknowledge that one believes in evolution, but transformed cladists essentially threw out the fossil record as evidence for it.With no fossilrecord and no viable biologicalmechanism for evolution, transformed cladists were left with a thoroughlyunscientific 'evolution-of-the-gaps' mentality. t'snot surprisingHennigiancladists didn't likeit; transformedcladisticsvalidated the creationist critique of evolutionary 'reconstructions' from the fossils!A,,(.$!3,(With the availability and power of computers in the 1990s, cladistics became much easier to do, since before then weighingup cladograms with more than about 15 characters included in the analysis was unwieldy.11 Much of the contention then dieddown and Hennig was essentially proclaimed the victor.9,12 Hennigian cladistics ended up becoming the dominant cladisticsmethodusedby systematists today, moreonthestrengthof academia's commitment toevolutionthantheactualdependence of the cladistics method on evolution. However, many of the important issues raised in the 1970s and 1980sremain contentious today, though they are rarely talked about as openly.I3,o/.!$i2ii$1 of ,!+is$i, !ss&/.$io3s !3+ (-o&$io3Despite the fact that cladistics was originally intended to demonstrate evolution and the most probable phylogenies, thereare a number of assumptions essential to cladistics methodology that make it ill-suited to demonstrating evolution.D(fi3i3" +is,'($(B i3+(.(3+(3$ -!'i!2(s i3 2ioo"1Cladistics regardsall characters within the analysisasdiscrete,independent variables.However, biologycanhardly bedescribed in solely discrete terms; there are many features of animals that are continuous. Moreover, there are complexinterdependencies within biology from the molecular to the organismal level, many of which we don't currently understand.Therefore, defining a character for cladistics analysis even in genetics can be incredibly difficult. This problem generallybecomes more pronounced with complex morphological features such as bones, as Lieberman points out:"Bones have generally low degrees of heritability because they form parts of complex, integrated functional units that aresubject not only to many genes with multiple effects (pleiotropism), but also to a large number of nongenetic influences. t istherefore difficult to divide bones into discrete, independent units of phylogenetic information. For these reasons, bones andother aspects of morphology can yield reasonably correct results for phylogenetic analyses of high-level taxonomic units, butbecome increasingly less reliable at lower taxonomic levels, such as species.13One of the major reasons for this problem isscalethe smaller one defines the morphological characters used for analysis, the larger the problem of interdependencegenerallybecomes. Therefore, character selectionbecomeslessreliable, andsodoanyinterpretationsof homologythatare based on them. And since homology can really only exist inanymeaningful wayfor evolutionat thespecieslevel, it ispractically impossible to demonstrate evolution using cladisticsmethodology unless one assumes evolution from the outset.>S#!'(+ +('i-(+ ,#!'!,$('is$i,s? !3+ $#( i&sio3 ofi3(!"(sDiagram courtesy of Faustino Nez HernndezFi"&'( *. Diagrammatic representation of fundamental notionsused in evolutionary cladistics. The letters represent individualcharacters. The terms are: apomorphy (derived trait), plesiomorphy (ancestral trait), synapomorphy (shared derived trait),symplesiomorphy (shared ancestral trait), and autapomorphy (unique trait to a particular taxon).Synapomorphies, or 'sharedderivedcharacte