Page 149 - The Evolution Impasse 2

Paleontology 147

PALEONTOLOGY Science mag a zine:
Paleontology is a branch of sci - A large num ber of well-trained sci en -
tists out side of ev o lu tion a ry bi ol o gy
ence that in ves ti gates fos sils of or -
and pa le on tol o gy have un for tu nate ly
gan isms that lived in var i ous ge o log -
got ten the idea that the fos sil record is
i cal pe ri ods and helps pro vide in for -
far more Darwinian than it is. This
ma tion about spe cies liv ing in those
prob a bly comes from the over sim pli fi -
eras. 166 Another def i ni tion of pa le on -
ca tion in ev i ta ble in sec ond ary sour ces:
tol o gy is the branch of sci ence that
low-lev el text books, sem i pop u lar ar ti -
stud ies the fos sils and bi ol o gy of ex - cles, and so on. Also, there is prob a bly
tinct or gan isms. The first pa le on to - some wish ful think ing in volved. In the
log i cal re search be gan in the 19th years aft er Darwin, his ad vo cates
cen tu ry, stud y ing plant and an i mal hoped to find pre dict a ble pro gres sions.
fos sils to de ter mine the life forms In gen er al these have not been found
that ex ist ed in the ge o log i cal past, as yet the op ti mism has died hard, and
some pure fan ta sy has crept in to text -
well as their mor phol o gy, struc ture,
books. 167
tax o nom ic re la tions with present-
day spe cies, ge o graph i cal dis tri bu - The lead ing ev o lu tion ists N.
tion and en vi ron men tal re la tion - Eldredge and I. Tattersall make an
ships. Information ob tained from im por tant com ment:
pa le on tol o gy is used to de ter mine That in di vid u al kinds of fos sils re main
the age of ge o log i cal stra ta. rec og niz a bly the same through out the
The the o ry of ev o lu tion most length of their oc cur rence in the fos sil
record had been known to pa le on tol o -
com mon ly man i fests it self in pa le on -
gists long be fore Darwin pub lished his
to log i cal re search, be cause fos sil
Origin. Darwin him self, . . . proph e -
find ings have been high ly prone to
sied that fu ture gen er a tions of pa le on -
ev o lu tion ists' dis tor tions and bi ased
tol o gists would fill in these gaps by dil -
in ter pre ta tions. History is full of for -
i gent search . . . One hun dred and
ger ies per pe trat ed in the search for
twen ty years of pa le on to log i cal re -
sup posed ev i dence for the the o ry of search lat er, it has be come abun dant ly
ev o lu tion. (See The Piltdown Man clear that the fos sil record will not con -
Fraud, The Nebraska Man Fraud, firm this part of Darwin's pre dic tions.
and The Neanderthal Man Fraud.) Nor is the prob lem a mis er a bly poor
The false im pres sion that pa le on - record. The fos sil record sim ply shows
tol o gy sup ports the the o ry of ev o lu - that this pre dic tion is wrong. 168
tion is de scribed in an ar ti cle in The ob ser va tion that spe cies re -
Harun Yahya - Adnan Oktar