29. Missing Links

“Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers.”—Gen 2:10 (NASB)

The most popular problem with Darwin’s theory is the system of gaps distinctly dividing one sort of organism from another. The “missing link” has been as much the subject of science fiction as vampires or aliens with no better evidence in reality. The gaps dividing one kind of plant or animal from other similar kinds remain as much a much a fact in the fossil record as in the living record. The Theory of Evolution requires slow, small, continual transitions caused by natural mutation. The obvious prediction is that life would progress in a continuum from least to most complex. In spite of attempts to illustrate imaginary links, the evidence available to date suggests the links are in fact missing.

Taxonomy is the science of classification of life forms. It is a science that studies the arrangement and ordering of life and classifies the life into a logical hierarchy by observing distinct characteristics. This logical hierarchy is most often described using a “tree” style. The science of taxonomy superficially appears to illustrate similarities such as would favor the continuous variability required by evolutionary theory. However, as a science, taxonomic observations are meaningful precisely because of distinct differences, not general similarities. Life is ranked into kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Evolution assumes life began with very small and simple components which multiplied and over time different groups took different “evolutionary paths.” Some of that original life became what is today the plant kingdom while other life became the animal kingdom. Some developed exoskeletons (insects) with six legs while others developed endoskeletons (internal bones) and others developed into things like arachnids, jellyfish, and so forth. As illustrated in the previous chapter, the evidence of similarity, on its own, is no more proof of Evolution than of similarity of design. It is into the differences where we must delve.

The eye is one of the most complex organs in any seeing animal. The Evolution model predicts a continuum from non-seeing to seeing organisms. The Evolution model fails to provide a reason for the spontaneous development of this feature, let alone a mechanism for the incredible jump from blind to seeing animals. What we observe is a gap between seeing and non-seeing animals today and in the fossil record.

Lungs convert oxygen from air into a vital component in blood. Fish use gills to accomplish a similar function. Even insects breathe. Plants perform a different conversion process, but even so they must perform conversion processes involving O₂ and CO₂ to live. All animal and plant life must take in nutrition in addition to air. Simple and complex organisms do this by vastly different means, not to mention the incredible difference between plant and animal processes. If Evolution is true, why do spiders see when worms cannot? How did insects get a rigid shell when mammals have rigid internal bones? Why do humans have one stomach and cow has four and birds have none? Why don’t we simply absorb oxygen through our skin the way plants absorb CO₂ through their leaves? In the Evolution model there are incomprehensible gaps not only between kinds of animals, but between the anatomical have and have-nots.

Taxonomy is possible because biological kinds are unique in very specific and significant ways. These observed gaps in living kinds drive Evolutionists to the fossil record in hopes of filling in these gaps. By doing so they believe they can make science fit their philosophy. Unfortunately for Evolution, the gaps are just as clear in the fossil record.

Evolutionists have many questions of their own about the fossil record. For example, there is an unexplained jump from protozoan to metazoan invertebrates. There is no known evolutionary progenitor for trilobites. There is nothing in the gap between vertebrates and invertebrates. There is nothing between spines and shells. There is nothing between fish and amphibians, between amphibian and reptile, or between reptile and bird or mammal. There are no clearly identified fish with leg precursors. The nearest such animal, the coelacanth, was thought extinct in the Mesozoic era until one was caught off the coast of Madagascar in 1938. It was found to have a body and bone structure identical to its fossil, supposedly millions of years old. There are 32 orders of mammals and no indication of any transitions in the fossil record to or between them. The fact some reptiles like pterodactyls could fly does not prove they became birds any more than bats prove mammals came from reptiles.

Relatively few fossilized animals or plants are extinct today in spite of the modern rate of extinction in both kingdoms. While this presents its own math problem for evolution, more profound is the fact that most fossils almost identically represent their living counterparts today. Either the vast majority of life stops evolving after it gets some of its members fossilized or else the fossil record is not necessarily all that old after all. Regardless, the fact that modern gaps match fossil gaps only amplifies the gap problem for Evolution. Conversely, the creation model predicts systematic gaps.

Evolution necessarily requires a vast period of time. To accommodate this, the fossil record is presented is presented in ways which make it appear that the “lowest” forms of life are found in fossil remains at the bottom of the geological columns and the “higher” forms of life are found nearer the surface. It is statistically true that simple organisms are often buried deeper, although this is by no means always the case. In fact, fossil layers often pose serious problems for Evolutionists who, in some cases, resort to supporting catastrophe theories—such as large regional floods—to explain the problems in the geologic columns. Still, the common model remains firmly entrenched across a range of sciences.

Punctuated equilibrium is a relatively recent term used to describe long periods of little or no Evolution with sudden jumps called quantum speciation. These terms sound good, but completely lack genetic evidence. Perhaps one of the biggest mysteries and problems within the evolutionary scheme is the widely accepted "Cambrian explosion." The term Cambrian explosion refers to the sudden appearance of a wealth of diverse life about 250 millions years ago. Much of the original animal life from which modern animals supposedly evolved popped onto the scene in what amounts to a geological or Evolutionary instant.

Revelation is limited by the words issued through the prophet. The revelation cannot change or it ceases to be revelation. Science has no such limitation. Modern Evolution is presented as science. Evolution is therefore a fluid philosophy subject to change whenever hard science throws a roadblock in the way of this or that aspect of Evolutionary theory. Hard science—real life observations of repeatable and testable cause and effect—has never presented an insurmountable problem to the plain biblical account of Creation. On the other hand, hard science frequently force changes to the human idea we call the Theory of Evolution. This alone should provoke the scientific community to reexamine its support for Evolution and the corresponding lack of credence it lends to the revelation of the biblical Creation account.