In a videotape being shown to my biology classes the narrator referred to several groups of fishes as "antique, ancient and living fossils." Being a student of Biological and Geological sciences, I knew what he was referring to. But, several of my students did not understand what this meant. The answer is one that everyone should know, especially those who believe that all things were created instantly by a supreme creator. It is a powerful piece of evidence that evolution did not happen.
In the rocks of the earth are found the remains of organisms that lived earlier in the earth's history--fossils. Some of the fossils are of extinct animals and plants but there are also fossils of organisms of animals living today--exact replicas! It is as if no or just a very little time has passed since they first appeared on earth. It is these fossils of living animals that are being discussed. They have been studied very carefully because this is totally unexplainable in terms of evolutionary understanding. These animals should not be here. They should have changed over time like all other organisms that evolved. The living fossils include representatives of all types of organisms, but the fish seem to have an unusually large number. The paddlefish, according to evolutionary theory, is more than 275 million years old, being found in rocks formed supposedly 50 million years before the dinosaurs evolved. The coelacanth, another ancient fish, was claimed to be a transition fossil as evidence of the evolution from fish to amphibian. Yet, they are now being caught alive, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar, unchanged after 250 million years of evolution. Many other fish are also considered as living fossils; the bowfin, gar and sturgeon for examples. How did these fish avoid the effects of time and evolution that supposedly changed all other organisms including the fishes? They themselves, up to that point even, were changed by the accidental forces of evolution. Then they miraculously stopped and changed no more. No explanation has been found by the evolutionary scientists.
We as creationists would predict that this is exactly what would be found. Any fossils that are found would be very similar to the living animals as they were created instantly by the creator. No evolutionary forces have changed animals--and the living fossils continue to prove it.
"A half-billion years ago the remarkably complex forms of animals we see today suddenly appeared. A new bonanza of Chinese fossils may finally tell us why." [emp. added]
"In a blink of geologic time a planet dominated by simple spongelike animals gave way to one ruled by a vast variety of sophisticated beasts whose relatives still inhabit the world today." [emp. added]
"This is Genesis material."
"When ordinarily sober-minded scientists reach the biblical reference, it's clear that something unusual has turned up--" [emp. added]
These quotes are from an article by Alan E. Cober appearing in the April 1993 Discover magazine. They are referring to the unearthing of a new fossil graveyard in southern China that shows the "explosion of life" on earth; the supposedly Cambrian explosion which marked for the first time in the fossils the appearance of representatives of every major phylum of living things "in a blink of geologic time."
As a creationist I find it amazing, as I read the reports of these discoveries, how surprised the evolutionists are. You see, these fossils do not fit their preconceived ideas about how animals came to be here. It is totally wrong! They have no answer for it, and struggle to present an educated answer.
Yet, we as Christians and "sober-minded scientists" who regularly reach for biblical references" for information about life origins are not in the least shocked. This is exactly what is predicted by the Creation Model. The instant creation of living things! Praise the Lord!
