The fossil record is often cited as evidence for evolution. But actually it provides support for a biblical creationist worldview.  As in all aspects of the Creation vs. Evolution debate, each side follows certain pre-suppositions.  The creationist presupposes an eternal supernatural Creator God, design, thousands of years, abrupt changes, and catastrophism.  While the evolutionist presupposes eternal matter, chance, eons of time, gradual changes, and uniformity (“the present is key to the past”).  Therefore, the creationist holds that fossils were formed in conjunction with the catastrophe of Noah’s global flood about 4400 years ago.  The evolutionist believes they were formed millions of years ago in placid seas that ebbed and flowed.  The following fossil facts are all more consistent with the creationist’s presuppositions:

  • Rapid burial: the nature of fossils requires that they were buried rapidly. Otherwise the processes which form them would not operate, and scavengers, decay, and erosion would prevent their formation.

  • Cambrian explosion: fossils of many sea dwelling creatures appear in the lowest Cambrian rock layer suddenly in all their complexity and without any precursor fossils.
  • Dating by circular reasoning: evolutionists identify and date sedimentary rock layers by certain “index” fossils. However index fossils are dated by the rock layers in which they are found.  This is a classic example of circular reasoning.
  • Out of sequence fossils: Sometimes fossils are found out of sequence – older rock layers/fossils overlaying younger rock layers/fossils. The more consistent view by the creationist holds that the fossils were formed during the turbulent year of Noah’s flood, not in layers laid down over millions of years .

  • Soft tissue: recently, flexible blood vessels, fibrous protein material, and even DNA fragments have been found preserved in dinosaur bones. Scientists have always felt that these proteins and DNA fragments cannot exist very long once an organism dies.  This is totally consistent for the creationist, while the evolutionist must invent a hypothesis for the preservation of this material for 65 million years.
  • No transitional forms / macro-evolution: no definitive transitional forms have been discovered. All fossils reveal organisms that are either extinct or hold a remarkable resemblance to their living counterparts today.  The most abundant fossils in the world, the ammonites, are now extinct.  There are no intermediate or part-way forms in the fossil record, nor do they become more complex in more “recent” sedimentary layers.  The only changes we see in the fossil record are extinction, not macro-evolution.
  • Human “missing links”: there is no agreement among evolutionists that any human “missing links” have been discovered. Attempts to define the human “missing link” have either been fully human (Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon Man), fully ape (Ramepithecus, Australopithecus), an extinct pig (Nebraska Man), or hoaxes (Piltdown Man).  In fact, human genetic roots actually go back to one “recent” couple.  Creationists know them to be Adam and Eve.  Ironically, evolutionists dub the male as Y-chromosome Adam.

  • Fossil graveyards: fossils are often found in large “graveyards.” It is hard to imagine any kind of uniform process where a conglomeration of fish, birds, reptiles, mammals, insects and plants from various habitats are piled together and preserved.  To the creationist, Noah’s Flood provides the mechanism.
  • Polystrate tree fossils: fossil trees are sometimes found vertically embedded in several layers of rock or coal. But this is impossible if, as the evolutionist’s claims, the layers took long ages to form.

In summary, fossils give strong evidence to a young earth creation and not evolution.  A straight forward reading of the Bible shows that God created all the various “kinds” of sea, air, and land animals and man in six literal days about 6,000 years ago, and that billions of fossils were formed in conjunction with Noah’s Flood.  As Christians, we must always place the authority of God’s Word above man’s theories.   It makes no sense that a loving, omnipotent God would choose an eons-long cycle of struggle and death to form His world.