is confirmed by the absence of transitional forms between both living species and fossil forms.
N. Ya. Danilevsky believed that the numerous facts that species have useless traits for them despite the fact that they are useful for other species contradict the selection theory. Such «useless» signs often include the most significant ones which serve the basis for the taxonomy from genus to type is built. Ch. Darwin, constructing hypothetical examples of the trait advantage’s increase from generation to generation, relied on the usefulness of new traits, taking them in ready-made form presented in the formed species because of the lack of real transitions.
N. Ya. Danilevsky stated in his scientifi papers that development is performed in accordance with the law that while its implementation makes expediency turn out to be a form of some inner plan. The types’ transformations are conceivable only in case of recognition of the internal law of development (every living organism possesses it). It is absurd to think that chance and probability could substitute mind and intelligence. The issue of expediency in nature has a much more important and profound philosophical meaning. In addition, natural selection provides a constant adaptation of species to a changing environment, but the process does not have the gift of foreknowledge; the natural selection responds only to the environment in the present and therefore, evolution cannot have any goals.
The evolutionary theory supporters believe that it is confirmed by the fossil evidence (fossils), the age of which approximately stands for 3.5 billion years. They show a story of the diversity’s gradual complication and expansion, which has led to a great diversity of life forms that inhabit Earth today. There are now doubts that there is a strict order in the geological strata, and the typical fossils are detected in various layers. Sedimentary rocks typically occur in layers, so the deeper layers contain fossils formed at an earlier period. The evolutionary theory’s supporters draw their conclusions about the main directions of the living organisms’ evolution while comparing fossil forms of the successive layers. When the evolutionary theory became the scientific Orthodoxy (dogma), any fossils found by paleontologists, were a priori adjusted to the generally accepted points. Their interpretation in any other way was treated as unscientific one.
However, these were the data accumulated in paleontology that hit the evolutionary theory. While examining the remains and layers of Earth’s crust, one can be sure that many organisms appeared on Earth all of a sudden. For example, remains were found in the Cambrian layer that belonged to such complex invertebrates as snails, Trilobite, sponges, worms, Aurelia aurita, starfish, floating crustaceans and sea lilies. An interesting fact is that all these species, different from each other, appeared at the same time and had a complex structure. Therefore, this amazing phenomenon was called the «Cambrian explosion» in Geology.
According to the concept by Ch. Darwin, there had been minor changes for a long time that being «accumulated», gradually led to the evolution of simple species into more complex ones. Judging from such an assumption, paleontological excavations eventually should have detected transitional forms from one species to other. Their number should have been huge and should have demonstrated how various species, classes, orders and families had been evolving. However, Cambrian rocks lack transitional forms from primitive organisms to organisms with a complex perfect structure. In geological deposits, it is not the stepwise appearance of new species, genera, and families in the process of evolution that is observed, but their sudden occurrence. They are not preceded by any transitional forms. For example, there are no traces of ciliary worms, the class of which unites more than 3,500 species.
The living organisms found in the Cambrian layer possess such developed and complex physiological systems as the eyes, gills, and circulatory system, which do not differ much from modern ones. These complex invertebrates are by no means associated with unicellular, which were the only living organisms preceding them. The trilobite has complex eyes (consisting of hundreds of hexagonal fragments) that have a two-lens system and, as David Raup, professor of geology, said, «Have a design that can be developed by a well-educated and gifted contemporary optical engineer». Moreover, such organized and complex animals have nothing to do with the simplest unicellular organisms that were the only living inhabitants of Earth prior to invertebrates. This fact clearly refutes the evolutionary theory point that living organisms evolved from primitive into complex ones. It should be noted that nowadays dragonflies and bees have the similar system of the trilobite eyes’ structure.
The Mesozoic era also impresses one by the sudden transition of reptiles to the mammals period, many of which are already significantly different from each other despite the fact that they appeared within the same geological period.
The alleged transitional forms were found only for the phylogenetic series from Hyperion to modern horse. The archaeopteryx’s discovered remnants, according to some experts, can be considered an intermediate form between reptiles and birds with significant part of a hypothesis. The fossils’ state indicates that Archaeopteryx had feathers, wings and a beak, like a bird. However, this fossil representative had signs that gave palaeontologists the grounds to suggest its affinity for reptiles − teeth on its beak and claws on its wings. None of these two features confirms that Archaeopteryx evolved from reptiles. In addition, according to radiometric dating, Archaeopteryx cannot be considered the missing link between reptiles and birds.
Nowadays it has become apparent to many palaeontologists that the fossils do not contain any alleged transitional forms at all. No transitional links’ sequential series, as well as individual random transitional forms, have ever been found among the minerals. At the same time, long periods of the same organisms’ stable existence within a relatively short time gave way to the new species’ rapid formation; they appeared completely formed in the fossil record. Despite the lack of continuity in the fossil record, which is strong evidence to oppose the theory of the new species’ formation through gradual evolutionary changes, fossil evidences do confirm the progressive increase in the organisms’ complexity.
The evolutionary theory supporters, in an attempt to explain the lack of transitional forms in the geological record, put forward the «discontinuous equilibrium» (punctuality) hypothesis, according to which evolution is carried out at an uneven rate with long periods of stability, with rapid qualitative leaps alternating the stability period that occur in small populations of organisms. Due to this, some new species arise very quickly, and the intermediate links are practically not found in the geological record because of their minor quantity.
These evolutionary sequence «leaps» originated the term «spasmodic evolution».
The evolutionary theory supporters believe that the paleontological data’ incompleteness can be explained by the fact that dead organisms were quick to decompose or were eaten by carrion-feeding animals. But then a natural question arises: why did this happen to transitional forms and did not affect existing species?
Charles Darwin and Louis Dollo formulated the «law of irreversibility of evolution,» according to which species cannot return to the state of their ancestors. At the same time, the examination of the fossilized remains of the Gastrotheca guentheri species frogs stated that they lost their lower teeth 230 million years ago, but the teeth reappeared about 20 million years ago. Thus, this does not fit the proposed concept.
Cases of the useful genes’ loss are also inconsistent with the evolutionary theory. Such a phenomenon was found among the stick insects’ winged species evolved from the wingless ones, which, in turn, had ancestors with wings. This case of the complex trait loss and its subsequent restoration in the evolutionary development may indicate that in this case the genetic information is regulated not by living conditions and selection, but by purposeful and thought-out changes. The giant forms of almost all types of contemporary living creatures have been discovered among the fossils. Mammals were often twice the size of their modern representatives: turtles, bears, camels, panthers, pigs, rhinos, elephants, tigers, wolves, birds and insects. The very fact of such giant fossils’ existence contradicts the evolutionary theory according to which animals evolve into more complex forms with an increase in their size.
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