Page 45 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

Darwin suggested that living
things are descended from a single common
ancestor and gradually became differentiated
from one another. If that is really the case, then at the
very beginning, very simple—and similar—living things
should have emerged. Again according to the same claim,
the way that species gradually grew apart and distinct from
one another, and the increase in their complexity, should have
taken place over a very long period of time.
In short, according to Darwinism, any chart of evolution
should resemble a tree, springing from a single root but later di-
viding up into separate, increasingly distant branches. Indeed,
that hypothesis is insistently emphasized in Darwinist sources,
and the image of the tree of life is frequently employed. According
to this tree of life metaphor, all phyla—the basic classificatory
units that categorize living things according to their bodily
plans—should also have emerged gradually.
According to Darwinism, smaller and simpler species
should have appeared first and given rise to a phylum over
the course of time. Other phyla should very gradually, by a
process of minute changes, eventually emerge. According
to this hypothesis, there must have been a gradual in-
crease in the number of animal phyla.
However, the fossil record conclusively
demonstrates that these assumptions are incor-
rect. Contrary to evolutionist claims, mem-
bers of the animal kingdom have been