Ken CoulsonI want to start this post with a quote from one of my Creation Unfolding links. This person is a Christian, and in my opinion, well-meaning in his desire to honor Scripture. Yet, as we shall see, statements such as this, “The fossil record shows no transitioning life forms,” are actually misinformed, if not in complete error.
The following article has been reblogged with permission from Creation Unfolding. The views expressed in this article reflect those of the author, and not necessarily those of New Creation.
The facts: “transitional” fossils DO exist. Yes, I’m a young-age creationist who believes in transitional fossils! It is true, a plethora of “transitional” forms do not exist, but there are enough to warrant a better creationist apologetic that accounts for those that do.
The most commonly used are, bird evolution, mammalian jaw evolution, and whale evolution. Yes, yes, I know there are several creationist websites that dumb down the extent of these “transitions,” but I don’t think this is necessary.
As Christians, we should not think it strange that God, in His wisdom, decided to create a suite of organisms that are linked biologically and anatomically. Think of humans and apes. Let’s be honest, humans share much in common with apes. We look like them. Their DNA is very similar. But does that mean we evolved from them? Absolutely not. Look at all the different kinds of birds. Eagles and robins both share an incredibly similar anatomical make-up. But does that mean one evolved from the other? Absolutely not.
Christians living in the Middle Ages also understood these similarities between different organisms. From these observations, they constructed a system of thought that itself was built from Aristotelian philosophy. This system of thought was called, “The Great Chain of Being.” This Great Chain of Being presented a tiered hierarchy of organisms with God at the top and lower life forms at the bottom.
Regrettably, in Aristotle’s scala naturae (the source for The Great Chain of Being) these organisms were “fixed” and unable to change. This idea was later developed and unfortunately incorporated into the scientific milieu of 17th and 18th century biology. It became known as the “fixity of species.”
Although Christians should reject the concept of “fixity of species,” there may yet be much to commend a hierarchical view of creation. This means that creatures are connected in a hierarchical sense that is expressed in their anatomy and biology (hence a connection between theropod dinosaurs and birds). Moreover, God has also built into each organism the ability to change and adapt (thus the diversification of the horse). It is this latter fact, along with the observation that some organisms do share great similarity, that has led secularists to extrapolate these changes into the belief system we call “Darwinian evolution.”
So, yes there are creatures that share close anatomical structures and biology! And yes, apes and humans are a great example of this. And often, organisms actually do change, but within limits (horse evolution). But this combined similarity of form and evolution within groups is not Darwinian evolution, it is God’s creative strategy. So, let’s stop saying things like, “The fossil record shows no transitioning life forms.” It does and that’s ok! It is up to us to choose to believe God’s Word over the philosophical machinations of man.
Christian Ryan
Noel Grimes
Kurt Wise
Peter
Abigail L.
Hi,
I think that use of the term transitional might be confusing. Evolutionists use the term to mean a creature that is evidence that one “form” (phyla or kind) evolved into another. It is not always obvious what is meant when a creationist uses the term.
Some creationists have used terms like mosaic or chimera for creatures like (for example) Archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik and feathered creatures that are neither bird nor dinosaur. Platypus and the red panda are living examples.
There are no transitional fossils, a transitional fossil is theoretically an animal showing that we went from state A to let’s say state Z.
If the idea of Coulson is that there are features found in one animal that are also found in different groups of animals (like the platypus or archaeopteryx) then we should use the word “mosaic” but they are no transitional as for example archaeopteryx does not come from theropods and it didn’t evolve into modern birds.
That discussion has been dealt many times, and many evolutionists have themselves recognized that there are no transitional forms:
Gould, S.J., Evolution’ erratic pace. Natural History 86(5):14, 1977.
Gould, S.J., Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging? Paleobiology 6:119–130 (p.127), 1980.
Respectfully, Gould does not say there are no transitional fossils.
Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory. Discover, May 1981. [This essay is also present in Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes]
From the same article,
Gould, Natural History, May 1994
My aim here is not to bash creationists, nor even to agree with Gould. But you’d be hard-pressed to find an evolutionist who genuinely denies that transitional fossils exist. It’s always important to do our due diligence and ensure that we are not taking others’ words out of context.
Gould did say there are no transitionals fossils (it is the basis of punctuated equilibria), if you can accept a simple reading of his older quotes, you are using the same defense that evolutionists use when they are confronted to Gould admission and others. The quotes you are using came after his numerous admissions on the subject, Gould did change his point of view when he came to know that creationists were using him but his first quotes were more frank and honest that those that came later on in his career. He just didn’t want to be used by creationists so he changed his terminology, unconvincingly.
And there are no transitional fossils, using Gould or not, a transitional fossil would mean that organism B is a transition between organism A and C, and there’s nothing like that in the fossil record, for example Archaeopteryx is not B while some theropod would be A and modern bird C.
The term used in that article is misleading, “transition” means something specific, now if you talk about “likeliness”, creatures looking like each in certain aspects, that’s true, Archaeopteryx does have some theropod features (not much but he does) and bird features (he’s a bird).
This website is playing with fire by acknowledging many evolutionist stuff that doesn’t need to be acknowledged, evolutionists youtubers are using these articles to attack creationism. We need to stand on our ground and keep our fundamentals like the evolutionists do.
Gould’s quote is from the 70’s. It’s not like paleontology has stopped since then.