No Transitional Species

THE GAP PROBLEM—(*#8/55 No Transitions, Only Gaps*) In this section we will deal with four specific problems, but we will frequently intermingle them in the discussion:

(1) There are no transitional species preceding or leading up to the first multi-celled creatures that appear in the Cambrian, the lowest stratum level.

(2) There are no transitional species elsewhere in the fossil record.

(3) The species that appear in the fossils are frequently found in many different strata.

(4) The great majority of the species found in the fossils are alive today.

NO TRANSITIONS—The Cambrian explosion is the first major problem with the fossil record. The lack of transitions is the second. But of all the problems, this lack of transitional creatures—halfway between different species—is, for the evolutionist, probably the biggest single crisis in the geologic column. Indeed, it is one of the biggest of the many crises in evolutionary theory!


Throughout the fossils. we find no transitions from one kind of creature to another. Instead. only individual. distinctive plant or animal kinds.

"It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptible changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolu tion."—*GG Simpson, in The Evolution of Life, p. 149.

To make matters worse, in the fossil record we find the very same creatures that we have today, plus a few extinct types which died out before our time! Neither now nor earlier are there transitional forms, halfway between true species.

"When we examine a series of fossils of any age we may pick out one and say with confidence, 'This is a crustacean'—or starfish, or a brachiopod, or annelid, or any other type of creature as the case may be."—*A.H. Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis, p. 100.

In the rock strata, we find horses, tigers, fish, insects, but no transitional forms. For example, we find large horses and small horses, but nothing that is part horse and part something else.

After giving years to a careful examination of the fossil record, comparing it with that of species alive today, a famous biologist on the staff of the Smithsonian Institute wrote these words:

"All the major groups of animals have maintained the same relationship to each other from the very first [from the very lowest level of the geologic column]. Crustaceans have always been crustaceans, echinoderms have always been echinoderms, and mollusks have always been mollusks. There is not the slightest evidence which supports any other viewpoint."—*A.H. Clark, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis (1930), p. 114.

"From the tangible evidence that we now have been able to discover, we are forced to the conclusion that all the major groups of animals at the very first held just about the same relation to each other that they do today."—*Op. cit., p. 211.

FOSSIL GAPS—This glaring fact is a repudiation of evolutionary theory. Evolutionists even have a name for the problem: They call it "fossil gaps." No creatures that are half fish and half bird, or half pig and half cow are to be found—only distinct animal and plant types such as we know today.

A related problem is the fact that great numbers of fossils span across many strata, supposedly covering millions of years. This means that, throughout the fossil record, those species made no changes during those "millions of years."

THE OCTOPUS—Here is an excellent example of what we are talking about: The squid and octopus are the most complex of the invertebrates (animals without backbones). The eye of the octopus is extremely complicated, and equal to the human eye! Checking carefully through the fossil record, you will find only squid and octopi, nothing else. There was nothing evolved or evolving about them; they were always just squid and octopi. (You will also find an extinct species, called the nautiloids. But they seem to have been even more complex!)

Checking into this more carefully, you will find that octopi first appear quite early in the fossil strata. The reason for that would be simple enough: When an octopus is frightened, it may curl up in a cave or corner someplace, or it may shoot out quickly using jets of water. For this reason, some octopi would be buried early while others would be buried in higher strata.

Checking still further, you will find that the octopus is found in nearly every stratum, from bottom to top! Many octopi continued to jet their way to the top of the waters as they rose.

(Later, after the Flood was finished, the balance of nature worked against the nautiloid and they were devoured by their enemies. Today there are none. Darwin's "survival of the fittest" [the fittest will survive better than the others] apparently did not apply to the nautiloids, which were distinctly different than the octopi and squid, but apparently more capable than either.)

Checking still further, you will find that octopi and squid in all strata are identical to octopi and squid to day.

MISSING LINKS—(*#11/133 Searching for Transitions [over a hundred quotations!]*) [It should be mentioned here that Appendix 11, at the back of our Fossils and Strata chapter on our website (, is the largest quotation appendix of all. It has 25 categories and 133 quotations. There are enough quotations here to form the basis for a major thesis.]

The links are missing. Nearly all the fossils are just our present animals, and the links between them are just not there. Few scientists today are still looking for fossil links between the major vertebrate or invertebrate groups. They have given up! The links just do not exist and have never existed.

Evolutionists know exactly what those transitional forms should look like, but they cannot find them in the fossil record! They are not to be found, even though thousands of men have searched for them since the beginning of the 19th century! Everywhere they turn, the paleontologists (the fossil hunters) find the same regular, distinct species that exist today, plus some that are extinct. The extinct ones are obviously not transitional forms between the regular species. For example, the large dinosaurs are not transitional forms, but are just definite species which became extinct in ancient times—probably by the waters of the Flood.

(Contrary to the lurid paintings of dinosaurs which evolutionists like to display as proof of their theory—extinction of a distinct species is not evolution, and provides no evidence of it.)

The search to find the missing links and fill the gaps between the distinct kinds has resulted in enormous collections of fossils. Recall to mind the earlier statements by Sunderland and *Kier, that 100 million fossils have been examined by paleontologists around the world.

"There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become al most unmanageably rich, and discovery is outpacing integration . . The fossil record nevertheless continues to be composed mainly of gaps."—*T. Neville George, "Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective, " in Science Progress, January 1960, pp. 1, 3.

If there are no transitional forms in the fossil record. there has been no evolution!

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