Page 672 - Atlas of Creation Volume 1

KATSURA TREE LEAF

Age: 65-54 million years

Location: Spain

Period: Paleocene

One of the most significant facts revealed by the fossil

record is that living species appeared in a single moment,
together with all their characteristics. In other words,
there is no sign any species that developed from a prim-
itive form and slowly began to acquire all its limbs. All
living species were flawless and fully formed from the
moment they emerged, and those species that have sur-
vived are still identical to their original form. The book
The Origin of Species Revisited describes how this repre-
sents a serious dilemma for Darwinism:

The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species sud-
denly appear in certain formations, has been urged by sev-
eral palaeontologists—for instance, by Agassiz, Pictet, and
Sedgwick—as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmu-
tation of species. If numerous species, belonging to the

same genera or families, have really started into life at
once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution
through natural selection. (The Origin of Species Revisited,

p. 46)

670 Atlas of Creation