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Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record
This book contains all the information from "The fossils say NO!" plus up to date information on the fossil record to challenge the evolution theory.
- GenresScience
278 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
About the author
Duane T. Gish
35 books16 followersDuane Tolbert Gish is an American biochemist and a prominent member of the creationist movement. Gish is a former vice-president of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) and the author of numerous publications on the subject of scientific creationism. Gish has been called "creationism's T.H. Huxley" for the way he "relished the confrontations" of formal debates with prominent evolutionists, usually held on university campuses."
He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
He spent 18 years in biochemical and biomedical research at Cornell University Medical College, the Virus Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, and The Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is the author or co-author of numerous technical articles in his field and a well-known author and lecturer on creation/evolution.
He holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
He spent 18 years in biochemical and biomedical research at Cornell University Medical College, the Virus Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, and The Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan. He is the author or co-author of numerous technical articles in his field and a well-known author and lecturer on creation/evolution.
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February 22, 2025
AN UPDATING OF GISH’S EARLIER BOOK ON THE FOSSIL RECORD
Duane Gish (1921-2013) was a biochemist associated with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), who was also the most effective debater in the creationist movement.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1985 book, “What criteria must be met for a theory to be considered as scientific in the usually accepted sense?... it must be supported by events, processes, or properties which can be observed, and the theory must be useful in predicting the outcome of future natural phenomena or laboratory experiments. An additional limitation … is that the theory must be capable of falsification…It is on the basis of such criteria that most evolutionists insist that creation be refused consideration as a possible explanation for origins… The general theory of evolution … fails to meet all three of these criteria… Evolution has been postulated, but it has never been proved.” (Pg. 12-13)
He notes, “It has long been maintained by a significant number of evolutionists… that no undoubted multi-cellular fossils had been found in rocks that were unquestionably older than the Cambrian… In more recent times, however, a collection of metazoan fossils … are believed to be late Precambrian, supposedly about 680 million years old… These discoveries do not alleviate the problem for evolution theory. These creatures are in no way intermediate between single-celled organisms and the complex invertebrates previous found in Cambrian rocks. They ARE complex invertebrates.” (Pg. 56-57) Later, he adds, “Surely, if paleontologists are able to find numerous fossils of microscopic, single-celled, soft-bodied bacteria and algae… they could easily find fossils of all the intermediate stages between these microscopic organisms and the complex vertebrates of the Cambrian.” (Pg. 59)
He asserts, “What are the facts? Not a single transitional form has ever been found showing an intermediate stage between the fin of the crossopterygian and the foot of the ichthyostegid. The limb and the limb girdle of Ichthyostega were already of the basic amphibian type, showing no vestige of a fin ancestor.” (Pg. 72).
He says of the proposed ‘horse series’ of development, “Do they not provide [a] nice, logical evolutionary series? No, not at all, for they do not occur in this sequence at all! Diadiaphorus, the three-toed ungulate with reduced lateral toes, and Thoatherium, the one-toed ungulate, were contemporaries in the Miocene epoch. Macrauchenia, with…three full-sized toes, is not found until the Pliocene epoch, which followed the Miocene according to the geological column. In fact, it is said that that one-toed Thoatherium became extinct in the Miocene before the three-toed Macrauchenia made his appearance in the Pliocene.” (Pg. 84-84)
He explains, “Mammals possess three bones in the ear, the stapes, malleus and incus. Evolutionists maintain that the stapes corresponds to the columella and that the quadrate and articular bones of the reptile somehow moved into the ear to become, respectively, the incus and malleus bones of the mammalian ear. No explanation is given how the intermediates managed to hear while this was going on.” (Pg. 96-97)
About the proposed reptile-to-mammal series, he comments, “The organ of Corti is an extremely complicated organ… It has no homologue in reptiles. There is no possible structure in the reptile from which it could have been derived. It would have to have been created de novo, since it was entirely new and novel… we still have reptiles and birds today with the same old-fashioned reptilian and avian auditory apparatus which are just as efficient as the corresponding mammalian apparatus.” (Pg. 101)
Of Richard Leakey’s 1470 skull, he argues, “If… Skull 1470… should actually, along with all others designated as Homo habilis, be placed in the genus Australopithecus, and if the analysis of these creatures by [Charles] Oxnard and his co-workers is correct… then the creature represented by skull 1470 may not have been human-like at all… We can see now that the best advice is always extreme caution… it required nearly fifty years before Piltdown Man was exposed as a fraud, and nearly 100 years to raise the status of Neanderthal Man from a brutish sub-human ancestor to full Homo Sapiens status.” (Pg. 168)
Of the footprints at Laetoli found by Mary Leakey and her team, he comments, “in 1977 footprints were found which were said to have been made by a creature that walked upright in a human manner… Who made the prints? This is the subject of a lively controversy, but none of the participants in the discussion may have the right answer. The dispute is whether the footprints were made by creatures similar to [Donald] Johanson’s ‘Lucy’ or whether they were made by creatures of the genus Homo… [Evolutionists’] preconceived ideas about evolution and the age of these formations do not allow them to concede that a human made the human prints.” (Pg. 175-176)
He asserts, “The evolution theory, in view of known genetic data, produces no satisfactory explanation for the origin of races… there is no way of correlating the genetic data within an evolutionary framework. It is an amazing thing that evolutionists insist that they can explain how the universe evolved, how life evolved, how life evolved… and how apes, monkeys and men evolved from earlier primates, and yet they must admit that they cannot explain the origin of races within the species Homo sapiens! If evolution theory cannot even explain the origin of races … how then can one pretend to use this theory to explain the most profound mysteries of all? Apparently the closer the theory approaches the actual scientific data, the more untenable it becomes.” (Pg. 214)
He contends, “It seems evident that if such a well-established present day evolutionist as Stephen Jay Gould feels forced to postulate that evolution has occurred by something similar to [Richard] Goldschmidt’s hopeful monster mechanism, then indeed there is no actual empirical evidence that evolution is occurring in the present via the mechanism postulated by neo-Darwinists. If there were such evidence, no one would feel forced to adopt the incredible hopeful monster mechanism. But, on the other hand, certainly no one has ever witnessed the birth of a hopeful monster. Sewall Wright… has stated that while recording over 100,000 births of guinea pigs, he has seen many monsters, but never a hopeful monster.” (Pg. 237-238)
He notes that “Evolutionist S.R. Scadding… lists two main arguments against the notion that so-called ‘vestigial organs’ offer support for evolution. He points out that… practically every supposed vestigial organ has been shown to have a useful function. Secondly… it is impossible to demonstrate conclusively that an organ has no function.” (Pg. 252-253)
The relative lack of ‘transitional’ forms in the fossil record was always one of Gish’s most effective arguments in his debates, and he has written several other books on the topic. This book will be of keen interest to Christians opposed to evolution.
Duane Gish (1921-2013) was a biochemist associated with the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), who was also the most effective debater in the creationist movement.
He wrote in the first chapter of this 1985 book, “What criteria must be met for a theory to be considered as scientific in the usually accepted sense?... it must be supported by events, processes, or properties which can be observed, and the theory must be useful in predicting the outcome of future natural phenomena or laboratory experiments. An additional limitation … is that the theory must be capable of falsification…It is on the basis of such criteria that most evolutionists insist that creation be refused consideration as a possible explanation for origins… The general theory of evolution … fails to meet all three of these criteria… Evolution has been postulated, but it has never been proved.” (Pg. 12-13)
He notes, “It has long been maintained by a significant number of evolutionists… that no undoubted multi-cellular fossils had been found in rocks that were unquestionably older than the Cambrian… In more recent times, however, a collection of metazoan fossils … are believed to be late Precambrian, supposedly about 680 million years old… These discoveries do not alleviate the problem for evolution theory. These creatures are in no way intermediate between single-celled organisms and the complex invertebrates previous found in Cambrian rocks. They ARE complex invertebrates.” (Pg. 56-57) Later, he adds, “Surely, if paleontologists are able to find numerous fossils of microscopic, single-celled, soft-bodied bacteria and algae… they could easily find fossils of all the intermediate stages between these microscopic organisms and the complex vertebrates of the Cambrian.” (Pg. 59)
He asserts, “What are the facts? Not a single transitional form has ever been found showing an intermediate stage between the fin of the crossopterygian and the foot of the ichthyostegid. The limb and the limb girdle of Ichthyostega were already of the basic amphibian type, showing no vestige of a fin ancestor.” (Pg. 72).
He says of the proposed ‘horse series’ of development, “Do they not provide [a] nice, logical evolutionary series? No, not at all, for they do not occur in this sequence at all! Diadiaphorus, the three-toed ungulate with reduced lateral toes, and Thoatherium, the one-toed ungulate, were contemporaries in the Miocene epoch. Macrauchenia, with…three full-sized toes, is not found until the Pliocene epoch, which followed the Miocene according to the geological column. In fact, it is said that that one-toed Thoatherium became extinct in the Miocene before the three-toed Macrauchenia made his appearance in the Pliocene.” (Pg. 84-84)
He explains, “Mammals possess three bones in the ear, the stapes, malleus and incus. Evolutionists maintain that the stapes corresponds to the columella and that the quadrate and articular bones of the reptile somehow moved into the ear to become, respectively, the incus and malleus bones of the mammalian ear. No explanation is given how the intermediates managed to hear while this was going on.” (Pg. 96-97)
About the proposed reptile-to-mammal series, he comments, “The organ of Corti is an extremely complicated organ… It has no homologue in reptiles. There is no possible structure in the reptile from which it could have been derived. It would have to have been created de novo, since it was entirely new and novel… we still have reptiles and birds today with the same old-fashioned reptilian and avian auditory apparatus which are just as efficient as the corresponding mammalian apparatus.” (Pg. 101)
Of Richard Leakey’s 1470 skull, he argues, “If… Skull 1470… should actually, along with all others designated as Homo habilis, be placed in the genus Australopithecus, and if the analysis of these creatures by [Charles] Oxnard and his co-workers is correct… then the creature represented by skull 1470 may not have been human-like at all… We can see now that the best advice is always extreme caution… it required nearly fifty years before Piltdown Man was exposed as a fraud, and nearly 100 years to raise the status of Neanderthal Man from a brutish sub-human ancestor to full Homo Sapiens status.” (Pg. 168)
Of the footprints at Laetoli found by Mary Leakey and her team, he comments, “in 1977 footprints were found which were said to have been made by a creature that walked upright in a human manner… Who made the prints? This is the subject of a lively controversy, but none of the participants in the discussion may have the right answer. The dispute is whether the footprints were made by creatures similar to [Donald] Johanson’s ‘Lucy’ or whether they were made by creatures of the genus Homo… [Evolutionists’] preconceived ideas about evolution and the age of these formations do not allow them to concede that a human made the human prints.” (Pg. 175-176)
He asserts, “The evolution theory, in view of known genetic data, produces no satisfactory explanation for the origin of races… there is no way of correlating the genetic data within an evolutionary framework. It is an amazing thing that evolutionists insist that they can explain how the universe evolved, how life evolved, how life evolved… and how apes, monkeys and men evolved from earlier primates, and yet they must admit that they cannot explain the origin of races within the species Homo sapiens! If evolution theory cannot even explain the origin of races … how then can one pretend to use this theory to explain the most profound mysteries of all? Apparently the closer the theory approaches the actual scientific data, the more untenable it becomes.” (Pg. 214)
He contends, “It seems evident that if such a well-established present day evolutionist as Stephen Jay Gould feels forced to postulate that evolution has occurred by something similar to [Richard] Goldschmidt’s hopeful monster mechanism, then indeed there is no actual empirical evidence that evolution is occurring in the present via the mechanism postulated by neo-Darwinists. If there were such evidence, no one would feel forced to adopt the incredible hopeful monster mechanism. But, on the other hand, certainly no one has ever witnessed the birth of a hopeful monster. Sewall Wright… has stated that while recording over 100,000 births of guinea pigs, he has seen many monsters, but never a hopeful monster.” (Pg. 237-238)
He notes that “Evolutionist S.R. Scadding… lists two main arguments against the notion that so-called ‘vestigial organs’ offer support for evolution. He points out that… practically every supposed vestigial organ has been shown to have a useful function. Secondly… it is impossible to demonstrate conclusively that an organ has no function.” (Pg. 252-253)
The relative lack of ‘transitional’ forms in the fossil record was always one of Gish’s most effective arguments in his debates, and he has written several other books on the topic. This book will be of keen interest to Christians opposed to evolution.
June 22, 2009
This is a very detailed book that concentrates its effort to dissprove the "fact" of evolution by analizing the fossil record. It is a very usefull tool in finding out where the theory of evolution has its weaknesses. But be aware that some parts of this book are outdated so you should not use some of the so-called arguments. It is good to learn so principles.
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