Page 61 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

Harun Yahya

This 120-million-year-old fossil
tortoise is proof that tortoises are
not descended from other living
things, never underwent any in-
termediate stages, and have
maintained exactly the same
structure for millions of years.

Niles Eldredge and the archaeolo-

gist Ian Tattershall of the American
Museum of Natural History under-
lined how Darwin's idea of evolution

had been disproved by the stasis in the
fossil record:

Darwin's prediction of rampant, albeit
gradual, change affecting all lineages
through time is refuted. The record is

there, and the record speaks for
tremendous anatomical conservation.
Change in the manner Darwin expected is just not found in the fossil record. 39

Elsewhere, Stephen Jay Gould described how stasis, evidence of non-evolution, was ignored by the
adherents of evolution:

Stasis, or nonchange, of most fossil species during their lengthy geological lifespans was tacitly acknowl-
edged by all paleontologists, but almost never studied explicitly because prevailing theory treated stasis

as uninteresting nonevidence for nonevolution. . . . The overwhelming prevalence of stasis became an
embarrassing feature of the fossil record, best left ignored as a manifestation of nothing (that is, nonevo-
lution). 40

All of Gould and Eldredge's efforts were to adapt the theoretical concept of evolution to the actual
fossil record. For that reason they suggested that stasis itself was the most important proof of their evo-

lutionary claims. In some way, they viewed the unchanging nature of the fossil record as evidence for
change! Since they could not reconcile the fossil record with the theory of evolution, they adapted the
theory to the record. This was the mindset that launched the punctuated model of evolution.

Adnan Oktar 59