Quotes: Who's your Daddy?

Evolution postulates that we all descended from a common ancestor, and that all life evolved through a series of steps (rapid or slow) that are allegedly well documented in the fossil record. It may therefore come as a shock to many readers that this notion is not all that well supported when we take a close look at the fossil record. This page reveals a stunning collection of quotes on the origin of various vertebrate groups who are our alleged ancestors. What we find is a lot about what scientists suspect about evolutionary relationships, rather than what those relationships actually were or can be demonstrated to have been. And, trust me when I say that this has been the source of an incredible amount of controvery and frustration among many paleontologists and others who study these relationships. Controvery abounds, and we find they are far more often stumped than in agreement. Conjecture, speculation, extrapolation, inference, and hunches are typical in most cases where evolutionary relationships are discussed. Read separately, none of these comments would likely cause much of a stir. But read in context, i.e., seeing these quotes in their totality, reveals a pattern of the depth and breadth of what we don't know about evolutionary relationships that the average evolution advocate is probably unaware of. We'd like to make sure everyone understands just how much conjecture is vested in how scientists interpret edvolutionary relationships based on the fossil evidence. The bottom line is this: an honest appraisal of the fossil evidence shows us incredible STASIS rather than evolution. Evolution can only be inferred, not demonstrated from the fossils.

Comment from chapter 1 in SOD (by Kevin Wirth) about these quotes: Suffice it to say that reading this material quickly begins to sound like a broken record about what we don’t know, rather than the affirmation most typical observers assume the experts have cobbled together about what we do know for how evolutionary events proceeded in the past. These selected quotes are typical and almost uniformly representative of the type of comments offered by paleontologists who have written comprehensively about the fossil record. A reading of their accounts clearly demonstrates that fossil evidence supporting key evolutionary relationships among the vertebrates is largely missing, and what these experts claim to actually know about the evolution of any major vertebrate group is based on massive doses of speculation and extrapolation. One would think that such a monumental absence of compelling evidence would give them pause, however it appears that their dedication to the a priori assumption that evolution must have occurred takes precedence over any potential disconfirmation based on the evidence.

This is why many Darwin skeptics understandably make the claim that Darwinians have allowed their evolutionary assumptions to dictate their conclusions in spite of what the evidence shows. One cannot help but be struck with the staggering volume of speculation in many evolutionary writings detailing the nuances of vertebrate evolution. This critter “must have evolved” from that one, or is a “plausible link” to the other one, or “seems to be a more appropriate ancestor” with yetvanother.

The words “probably”, “assumed”, “may have”, “appear to be”, “indicate that”, “it is safe to suppose”, “presumed to have sprung”, “apparently evolved”, “must have evolved”, “probably evolved”, “could have arisen”, and “most certainly evolved” litter the discussions of fossil evidence right and left. This is hardly the kind of terminology most typical observers would expect to encounter for an idea so widely touted as a scientific “fact.” On the contrary, these kinds of comments instead invite well founded and understandable skepticism. It’s clear, at least from the fossil material now available, that evolution lacks crucial and unambiguous confirming evidence. Experts can construe the evidence to mean this or that and make it align with evolutionary presuppositions. But this is a far cry from what is needed to convince the Darwin skeptic since such explanations could also just as easily align with confirmation bias (which I discuss later in this chapter). Add to this the fact that most fossil critters were highly specialized, and those specializations provide serious roadblocks to explain the supposed relationships between ancestors and predecessors for nearly all vertebrate groups.

I think most readers can begin to see a clear pattern emerging here. That pattern largely consists of missing critters precisely where evolution says we should find some. But the evolutionists also seem to always find plenty of excuses they claim are credible reasons for why this is so (“the fossil record is too poorly preserved,” “the critters evolved so fast that their fossils are very rare,” “they had too many soft parts to leave any fossils behind,” “their environment was not well suited for long term evolution” and so on). The experts seem to be pretty busy setting our expectations for why so much important evidence has not and may never be found, as if this should keep us hanging on to the idea of evolution anyway. The bottom line of what we find paleontologists saying is this: they have not reached a consensus on the origin of the vast majority of vertebrates. And for those few vertebrates for which evolutionary patterns seem to be evident, one has to wonder how big a role confirmation bias plays in forming the evolutionary relationships the experts think they see. One cannot discount or dismiss the ability of the imagination to account for at least some of the alleged “evidence” of evolutionary events, especially when wide-ranging speculations are the admitted stock and trade of paleontological inquiry. The reason I’ve undertaken some effort to underscore all of this is not to discredit evolution, but to show that there is ample cause for skepticism about it.

Note: the quotes presented here are an expanded version of what appears in Chapter 1 of SOD.

Note: Some of my critics often complain that many of these quotes are very old and are therefore not reliable indicators of the current state of our knowledge. While this may be true in some instances (and I'm always willing to update these quotes to reflect new speculations...), for the most part, the vast majority of these quotes continue to represent the current state of our knowledge of evolutionary relationships as determined by qualified paleontologists and others who study fossils. Critics would also do well to keep in mind that those who write about alleged evolutionary relationships often draw from and rely on sources much older than what I cite here.

In prevertebrate forms, no true heart is present. In amphioxus, for instance, a pulsating ventral blood vessel that extends forward from the liver pumps the blood through the gills with the assistance of enlargements located at the bases of the gill bars. Beyond this simple beginning, a great gap exists before a succeeding stage in the evolution of the heart is represented among the earliest extant vertebrates. Even when this gap is bridged by a hypothetical intermediate, no hint is given as to how the two chambers and two supplementary compartments developed within the primitive pulsating vessel... Another peculiarity of the heart, the striated muscle tissue that comprises its walls, also developed prior to the lampreys and hagfish, but embryology provides no clues as to how it arose.

...the transition from a jawless to a jawed mouth remains virtually undocumented by fossils...Theories about the origin of jaws are thus entirely based on either an imaginary transformation series based on presumed homologies in the oral apparatus of extant vertebrates..., or, more recently, inferences based on data from developmental genetics.

Since the ostracoderms were the first vertebrates, it is thought that they must have given rise to the jawed forms which succeeded them. No series of fossils has appeared,however, to testify how the transition occurred. The known ostracoderms seem to have been too specialized in their structure tohave served as ancestral stock for any of the primitive jawed fishes.

Because of their great numbers and wide range of anatomical diversity, it is a monumental problem to establish phylogenetic relationships among the teleosts. [ie, fish]

No fossils are known of an immediate common ancestor that might have given rise to crossopterygians and Dipnoi...

Despite extensive study of exceptionally well-preserved fossils of sarcopterygian fish near the beginning of their radiation in the Devonian, considerable controversy remains regarding their relationships.

Nevertheless, apart perhaps from euphaneropids, no fossil provides information about any evolutionary transition between non-lampreys and lampreys, non-hagfishes and hagfishes, and even non-cyclostomes and cyclostomes, if the latter are a clade.

"The very first fishes undoubtedly arose from invertebrate protochordates, perhaps a urochordate or cephalochordate. However, the first fishes left no fossil record, and their form and relationships are a mystery."

Since the history of the earliest teleosts is obscure, paleontologists have been unable to define the interrelationships among the many types that had all but replaced the older holosteans by the beginning of the Cretaceous period.

Paleozoic Amphibians gave rise to both the living amphibians and, via the reptiles, to all other groups of terrestrial vertebrates. Unfortunately, we have not established the specific nature of these relationships and thus will consider the Paleozoic amphibians as a unit.

We have not found any fossils that are intermediate between such clearly terrestrial animals and the strictly aquatic rhipidistians described in the previous chapter.

The fossil record of amphibians in the Lower Carboniferous is very incomplete and little is known of the specific interrelationships of the numerous lineages.

The remains of rhipidistian fish are common in the Middle and Upper Devonian deposits that might be expected to yield the remains of ancestral amphibians, but no fossil is known that could be considered intermediate between these two groups.

The origin and relationships of salamanders and caecilian remain uncertain. The presence of pedicellate teeth in all three groups and the operculum-opercularis complex in frogs and salamanders suggest that the modern amphibian groups share a common ancestry from among the Paleozoic amphibians. However, no fossils are known that support this hypothesis, and all three groups may have evolved separately from distinct ancestral groups.

Paleontologists are quite certain of the relationship between the rhipidistians and the amphibians even though they have not discovered the animals intermediate between the finned and limbed forms. The remains of the oldest tetrapods in their collections leave no doubt about the derivation of the axial skeleton from fishes of the rhipidistian group. Since the fossil material provides no evidence of other aspects of the transformation from fish to tetrapod, paleontologists have had to speculate how legs and aerial breathing evolved and why a group of fishes produced forms that habituated themselves little by little to life on land.

The lack of fossil specimens intermediate between anurans or urodeles and the older amphibians has forced paleontologists and students of the living animals to base their speculations about the evolution of the group upon evidence from the anatomy and embryology of modern species. This approach has presented difficulties that have so far proved insurmountable. The structure of the existing amphibians is so specialized that the more generalized condition from which it derived is almost completely obscured.

If sufficient fossil material were available, paleontologists think that the turtles would be traceable...almost directly to the early cotylosaurs. Because turtles enter the record in a nearly modern state in the Triassic period, the supposition rests on inferences from the anatomy of their skull rather than on evidence of known transitional forms.

The evolution of the amniotic egg is baffling. It was this decisive innovation which permitted for the first time genuinely terrestrial vertebrate life, freeing it from the necessity of embryological development in an aquatic environment. Altogether at least eight quite different innovations were combined to make the amniotic revolution possible: the formation of a tough impervious shell; the formation of the gellatinous egg white(albumen) and the secretion of a special acid to yield its water; the excretion of nitrogenous waste in the form of water insoluble uric acid; the formation of the amniotic cavity in which the embryo floats (This is surrounded by the amniotic membrane which is formed by an outgrowth of mesodermal tissue. Neither the amniotic cavity nor the membrane which surrounds it has any homologue in any amphibian); the formation of the allantois from the future floor of the hind gut as a container for waste products and later to serve the function of a respirator organ; the development of a tooth or caruncle which the developed embryo can utilize to break out of the egg; a quantity of yolk sufficient for the needs of the embryo till hatching; changes in the urogenital system of the female permitting fertilization of the egg before the hardening of the shell. The problem of the origin of the amniotic system is even more enigmatic considering that the basic problem it solves, in freeing reproduction from dependency on a pool of water, has been solved in the amphibia by much less radical means, by merely exploiting the basic amphibian egg. Some amphibian eggs have a tough gelatinous skin which will stand a certain degree of desiccation, others are live bearing. Certain amphibia are therefore quite independent of water for reproduction. The origin of the amniotic egg and the amphibian - reptile transition is just another of the major vertebrate divisions for which clearly worked out evolutionary schemes have never been provided.

Compared to the living amphibians, there are many physiological, soft tissue, and behavioural features characteristic of living amniotes, but of course very little is known about how, when, and in what sequence they evolved. Of all these, none is more significant than the amniote egg. However, understanding the evolution of this and the associated reproductive mode of amniotes is frustratingly difficult, not only because reproductive physiology is generally indecipherable from fossils, but also because the modern amniotes are very similar to one another in this respect, and very different from their closest living relatives, the Amphibia.

It is easier to understand the stages by which the reptiles evolved temporal fenestrae and other distinguishing skeletal characters than to imagine the steps that led to the development of the 'land egg.' Paleontologists continue to speculate upon the way in which the enclosure of the embryo came about, however, because the matter is central to the broad question of reptilian origins. Study of the eggs laid by living reptiles has provided little insight into the evolution of the extraembryonic structures which gave protoreptiles their first advantage over other tetrapods.

The early amniotes [birds, reptiles, mammals] are sufficiently distinct from all Paleozoic amphibians that their specific ancestry has not been established.

[on Captorhinomorphs...] Each of these derivative groups is already well differentiated when it first appears in the fossil record, and the specific times of their derivation has not been established.

By the early Permian, pelycosaurs made up 70 per cent of the known amniote genera and had diversified into a number of distinct families. Unfortunately, remains from the Carboniferous, when these groups underwent initial differentiation, are still poorly known, and specific interrelationships of these families continue to be in dispute.

“All birds that we know from the Cenozoic appear to share a common ancestry above the level of the toothed Hesperornithiformes and Ichthyornithiformes. The fossil record demonstrated that at least some of the modern orders had already differentiated by the end of the Mesozoic, but their remains are so incomplete that it is not possible to establish the common skeletal pattern from which they evolved or to establish their interrelationships.

The fossil record of doves... is meager... their fossil record reveals little of their evolutionary or biogeographic history.

The question of the relations of the various families of diurnal raptors to one another and to other avian orders remains a major challenge of avian systematics.

Nothing is known with certainty as to how birds arose from reptiles or from what reptilian stock.

Cohen, I.L. 1984. Darwin Was Wrong - A Study in Probabilities. NY: New Research Publications, Inc.

Carroll, Robert L. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. NY: W.H. Freeman & Co.

Denton, Michael. 1986. Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. Chevy Chase, MD: Adler & Adler, 1st edition.

Dillon, Lawrence S. 1978. Evolution: Concepts and Consequences (2nd edition). St.Louis: C.V. Mosby

Feduccia, Alan. 1999. The Origin and Evolution of Birds (2nd edition). Yale University Press.

Helfman, Gene S., Bruce B. Collette, and Douglas E. Facey in The Diversity of Fishes. Blackwell Scientific Publications, (1999), p.151-152.

Janvier, Philippe. 2007. "Homologies and Evolutionary Transitions in Early Vertebrate History", in Major Transitions in Vertebrate Evolution, edited by Jason S. Anderson and Hans-Dieter Sues. Indiana University Press.

Kemp, Tom S. 2005. The Origin and Evolution of Mammals. Oxford University Press.

Olson, Everett C. 1965. The Evolution of Life. The New American Library, New York and Toronto.

Russell, Edward Stuart. 1962. The Diversity of Animals. Leiden: E.J. Brill. (reprinted in 2008)