How do the complex structures of the most ancient creatures demolish
the theory of evolution ?

HARUN YAHYA
www.harunyahya.com

Living things form a chain in the fossil record. When we look at these
from the oldest to the more recent, they emerge in the form of micro
organisms, invertebrate sea creatures, fish, amphibians, reptiles,
birds, and mammals. Proponents of the theory of evolution describe this
chain in a prejudiced manner, and try to present it as proof of the
theory of evolution. They claim that living things developed from
simple to complex forms, and that during this process a wide variety in
living species came about. For example, evolutionists suggest that the
fact that no human fossils are to be found when 300-million-year-old
fossil beds are examined is in some way proof of this.
The Turkish evolutionist Professor Aykut Kence says:
"Do you wish to invalidate the theory of evolution? Then go and find
some human fossils from the Cambrian Age! Anyone who does that will
disprove the theory of evolution, and even win the Nobel Prize for his
discovery."

Let us examine the evolutionist logic that pervades Professor Kence's
words. The statement that living things developed from primitive forms
to complex ones is an evolutionist prejudice that in no way reflects
the truth. The American professor of biology Frank L. Marsh, who
considered that evolutionist claim, maintains in his book Variation and
Fixity in Nature, that living things cannot be arranged in a
continuous, unbroken series from simple to complex.

The fact that almost all known animal phyla suddenly emerged in the
Cambrian period is strong evidence against evolutionist claims in this
regard. Furthermore, those creatures which suddenly emerged possessed
complex bodily structures, not simple ones-the exact opposite of the
evolutionist assumption.

Trilobites belonged to the Arthropoda phylum, and were very complicated
creatures with hard shells, articulated bodies, and complex organs. The
fossil record has made it possible to carry out very detailed studies
of trilobites' eyes. The trilobite eye is made up of hundreds of tiny
facets, and each one of these contains two lens layers. This eye
structure is a real wonder of design. David Raup, a professor of
geology at Harvard, Rochester, and Chicago Universities, says, "the
trilobites 450 million years ago used an optimal design which would
require a well trained and imaginative optical engineer to develop
today."

Another interesting aspect of the matter is that flies in our day
possess the same eye structure. In other words, the same structure has
existed for the last 520 million years.
Very little was known about this extraordinary situation in the
Cambrian Age when Charles Darwin was writing The Origin of Species.
Only since Darwin's time has the fossil record revealed that life
suddenly emerged in the Cambrian Age, and that trilobites and other
invertebrates came into being all at once. For this reason, Darwin was
unable to treat the subject fully in the book. But he did touch on the
subject under the heading "On the sudden appearance of groups of allied
species in the lowest known fossiliferous strata," where he wrote the
following about the Silurian Age (a name which at that time encompassed
what we now call the Cambrian):
For instance, I cannot doubt that all the Silurian trilobites have
descended from some one crustacean, which must have lived long before
the Silurian age, and which probably differed greatly from any known
animal... Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that
before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed,
as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the
Silurian age to the present day; and that during these vast, yet quite
unknown, periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures. To
the question why we do not find records of these vast primordial
periods, I can give no satisfactory answer.

Darwin said "If my theory be true, it is indisputable that the world
swarmed with living creatures before the Silurian Age." As for the
question of why there were no fossils of these creatures, he tried to
supply an answer throughout his book, using the excuse that "the fossil
record is very lacking." But nowadays the fossil record is quite
complete, and it clearly reveals that creatures from the Cambrian Age
did not have ancestors. This means that we have to reject that sentence
of Darwin's which begins "If my theory be true." Darwin's hypotheses
were invalid, and for that reason, his theory is mistaken.

Another example demonstrating that life did not develop from primitive
forms to complex ones and that life was already exceedingly complex
from the moment when it first emerged is the shark, which the fossil
record shows to have emerged some 400 million years ago. This animal
possesses superior features not even seen in animals created millions
of years after it, such as the way it can regenerate lost teeth.
Another example is the astonishing resemblances between mammals' eyes
and those of octopuses which lived on Earth millions of years before
mammals.
These examples make it clear that living species cannot be neatly
arranged from the primitive to the complex.

This fact also emerged as the result of analyses of studies of living
things' forms, functions, and genes. For instance, when we examine the
very lowest levels of the fossil record from the point of view of shape
and size, we see many creatures that were much larger than those which
came later (such as dinosaurs).

When we look at the functional properties of living things, we see
exactly the same thing. As regards structural development, the ear is
an example that disproves the claim of "development from the primitive
to the complex." Amphibians possess a middle-ear space, yet reptiles,
which emerged after them, have a much simpler system, based on a single
small bone, and have no middle-ear space at all.

Genetic studies have produced similar results. Research has
demonstrated that the number of chromosomes has no relation to animals'
complexity. For example, human beings possess 46 chromosomes, the
copepode six, and the microscopic creature called radiolaria exactly
800.

Living things were created at the most "appropriate" time for them

The real fact that emerges from examination of the fossil record is
that living things emerged in the periods most suitable for them. God
has designed all creatures superbly, and has made them well-suited to
meet their needs at the times when they emerged on the Earth.
Let us consider one example of this: the Earth at the time when the
oldest bacteria fossils emerge, some 3.5 billion years ago. Atmospheric
and temperature conditions at the time were not at all suited to
support complex creatures or human beings. That also applies to the
Cambrian Age, the finding of human fossils from which, according to the
evolutionist Kence, would invalidate the theory of evolution. This
period, which refers to some 530 million years ago, was definitely
unsuitable for human life. (There were no land animals at all at that
time.)

The situation is the same in the great majority of succeeding periods.
Examination of the fossil record shows that conditions able to support
human life have only existed for the last few million years. The same
applies to all other living things. Each living group emerged when the
appropriate conditions for it had been arrived at-in other words, "when
the time was right."
Evolutionists make an enormous contradiction in the face of that fact,
trying to explain it as if these appropriate conditions themselves had
created living things, whereas the coming about of "appropriate
conditions" only meant that the right time had come. Living things can
only emerge with a conscious intervention-in other words, a
supernatural creation.

For this reason, the emergence of living things by stages is evidence
not of evolution, but of the infinite knowledge and wisdom of God, Who
created them. Every living group created established the appropriate
conditions for the next group to emerge, and an ecological balance with
all living things was set up for us over a long period of time.
On the other hand, we must be aware that this long period of time is
only long to us. For God it is but a single "moment." Time is a concept
that only applies to created things. As the creator of time itself, God
is not bound by it. (For more details see Harun Yahya: Timelessness and
the Reality of Fate.)

If evolutionists wish to show that one species turned into another,
then showing that living things emerged step by step on the Earth is no
good. The evidence they have to come up with is fossils of the
intermediate forms that link these different species together. A theory
that maintains that invertebrates turned into fish, fish into reptiles,
and reptiles into birds and mammals has to find the fossils to prove
it. Darwin accepted that, and wrote that countless examples of these
would have to be found, even though none were so far available. In the
150 years that have passed since then, no intermediate forms have been
found. As the evolutionist paleontologist Derek W. Ager has admitted,
the fossil record shows "not gradual evolution, but the sudden
explosion of one group at the expense of another."

In conclusion, natural history reveals that living things did not come
about by chance, but that they were created, stage by stage, over long
periods over time. This is in complete agreement with the information
about creation given in the Qur'an, in which God reveals that he
created the universe and all living things in "six days":

God is He Who created the heavens and the Earth and everything between
them in six days and then established Himself firmly upon the Throne.
You have no protector or intercessor apart from Him. So will you not
pay heed? (Qur'an, 32: 4)

The word "day" in the verse (yawm in Arabic) also means a long period
of time. In other words, the Qur'an notes that all of nature was
created over different times, not all at once. Modern geological
discoveries paint a picture that confirms this.