Page 49 - The Transitional Form Dilemma

HARUN YAHYA

Darwin was aware of the rich variety of life that suddenly
emerged in the Cambrian. Even if not so clearly as it is today, the extra-
ordinary situation in the Cambrian Period was already realized, and
Darwin recognized this as a major difficulty confronting his theory. As
he wrote in On the Origin of Species:
There is another difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner
in which species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal king-
dom suddenly appear in the lowest known [Cambrian-age] fossiliferous
rocks. 13

Darwin regarded the Precambrian Period as the only way of ac-
counting—from the evolution point of view—for the living things that
suddenly emerged immediately thereafter, during the Cambrian. If
there had been a large number of very different and complex living
groups in the Precambrian, then he would claim that these were the an-
cestors of the living species in the Cambrian. Darwin said,
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. 14

In the face of the possibility that no trace of a living thing was
found in the Precambrian, he proposed that the fossil record was insuf-
ficient, and that the extreme heat and pressure of the overlying strata
had destroyed the oldest fossils. 15
Relying on inadequate studies, Darwin set out excuses like this in
his On the Origin of Species. In our time, however, the fossil record and
geological strata have been sufficiently studied, and fossil beds older
than the Cambrian have been found and examined. The present state of
knowledge about the Precambrian is much more reliable than what
was possessed by Darwin.
Paleontologists have discovered Cambrian rocks with rich, well-
preserved fossil beds in Wales, Canada, Greenland and China. Rather

47