“Evolution is not only a gradual process, as a matter of fact; it has to be gradual if it is to do any explanatory work.” Richard Dawkins (2009). Charles Darwin himself said that evolution is based on gradualism—nature doesn’t take jumps. And yet, within the fossil record, there are plenty of gaps in time and evidence for continuity between one organism and its supposed ancestor.

Philip Gingerich made the following statement:

“Gaps of evidence are gaps of evidence, not evidence of gaps [in the fossil record].”

What he means by this is that they just haven’t found all the evidence yet, and he refuses to admit that they have found all there is to find. For evolutionists to admit that they are not able to fill in those gaps within the fossil record, will mean that their theory no longer has enough physical evidence. However, the scientific community still classifies evolution as a “theory” rather than a hypothesis, despite the inconclusive evidence. This certainly doesn’t follow scientific protocol.

Dr. Paul Nelson made an analogy that puts this into perfect perspective. Let’s imagine you become a “beachcomber” who goes out every morning to collect shells and other interesting items from a long section of beach near your home. After taking all your finds home, you begin to catalogue them by putting all the similar items together. Day after day and week after week, you continue this new hobby.

What do you think you’ll begin to notice after a while? How often will you find new items that you haven’t seen before? Will you reach a point where you decide that you’ve found everything there is to find? When you reach a point where you are not finding any new evidence, you’ve probably reached the point of saturation, where there just isn’t any new information, data, or evidence to collect. How long can you go on without finding novel items before coming to the realisation or conclusion that there may not be anything new out there?

Darwinian evolutionists would claim that you are undersampling. However, no amount of sampling will help you find something that isn’t there. It is more probable that the gaps in the evidence are actually proof of gaps. Gaps mean that changes in organisms aren’t gradual (as is 100% necessary for evolution), but are actually abrupt—almost as if they were created in an instant… The persistent presence of gaps in fossil records effectively disproves the theory of gradual micro-changes occurring over enormous periods of time, which is the lynchpin of Darwinian Evolutionism.

Even the titles given to “Evolutionary Events” should give rise to some difficult questions that don’t yet have definitive answers from the scientific evolutionary communities. See the examples below.

• The Avalon explosion resulted in a rapid increase in organism diversity about 575 million years ago.²
• The Cambrian explosion, also called the Biological Big Bang, refers to an interval of time approximately 538.8 million years ago when there was a sudden radiation of complex life and practically all major animal phyla started appearing in the fossil record.³
• The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE) was an evolutionary radiation of animal life throughout the Ordovician period, 40 million years after the Cambrian explosion [497.05 Ma]. The distinctive Cambrian fauna fizzled out to be replaced with a Paleozoic fauna rich in suspension feeders and pelagic animals.⁴
• The Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution, also known as the Devonian Plant Explosion (DePE) and the Devonian Explosion, was a period of rapid plant and fungal diversification that occurred 428 to 359 million years ago.⁵
• The Devonian Nekton Revolution has been identified as a major macroevolutionary event, signifying the rapid occupation of the water column by independent radiations of swimming animals.⁶
• The Odontode Explosion: The origin of tooth-like structures in vertebrates is about 420 mya.
• Carboniferous insect explosion between 307 and 325 mya, where suddenly insects were very advanced.
• Triassic explosions: many new families and orders of marine invertebrates, insects, marine reptiles, and terrestrial tetrapods.
• Triassic Tetrapod Radiation from 245 mya.

The list goes on and on. Just the fact that evolutionary theory is full of ‘events’ should raise many eyebrows. Events are abrupt, not gradual. Words like explosion, radiation, revolution, big bang, and event are used to describe something that happened suddenly, not achingly slowly.

The lack of transitional fossils (gaps) indicates a lack of gradualism, and so, until “new evidence” is found (after 150 years of digging efforts), the Fossil Record will continue to disprove Darwinism.

References:

1. This article is based on the information given by Dr. Günter Bechly during an online seminar with the same name. Evidence Against Neo-Darwinism From the Fossil Record by Dr. Günter Bechly, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luxbHIF3MAU.
2. ‘Avalon Explosion’, in Wikipedia, 7 October 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Avalon_explosion&oldid=1179005661
3. ‘Cambrian Explosion’, in Wikipedia, 19 September 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cambrian_explosion&oldid=1176057773.
4.  ‘Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event’, in Wikipedia, 3 September 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Great_Ordovician_Biodiversification_Event&oldid=1173665281.
5.  ‘Silurian-Devonian Terrestrial Revolution’, in Wikipedia, 21 August 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Silurian-Devonian_Terrestrial_Revolution&oldid=1171510232.
6.  Christopher D. Whalen and Derek E. G. Briggs, ‘The Palaeozoic Colonization of the Water Column and the Rise of Global Nekton’, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285, no. 1883 (18 July 2018): 20180883, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0883