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The Cambrian Period
A still extant example of the Cambrian
Period: Nautilus
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When we examine the earth strata, we see that
life on Earth appeared suddenly. Many diverse living species emerged
abruptly and fully in the Cambrian Period. This finding is compelling
evidence for creation.
The deepest stratum of earth that contains fossils
of complex living things is the "Cambrian", which has
an estimated age of 520 to 530 million years. The fossils unearthed
in Cambrian rocks belonged to complex invertebrate species like
snails, trilobites, sponges, worms, jelly fish, starfish, crustaceans
and sea lilies. Most interestingly, all of these distinct species
emerged all of a sudden without any predecessor.
Richard Monastersky, the editor of Earth Sciences,
which is one of the popular journals of evolutionist literature,
admits this fact that put evolutionists into a quandary:
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COMPLEX SYSTEMS
Most of the life forms that emerged all
of a sudden in the Cambrian Period had complex systems like
eyes, gills, circulatory system, and advanced physiological
structures no different from their modern counterparts.
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A half-billion years ago the remarkably complex
forms of animals that we see today suddenly appeared. This moment,
right at the start of the earth's Cambrian Period, some 550 million
years ago, marks the evolutionary explosion that filled the seas
with the earth's first complex creatures. The large animal phyla
of today were present already in the early Cambrian and they were
as distinct from each other as they are today.22
An illustration of the organisms that existed
in the Cambrian Period
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How these distinct living species with no common
ancestors could have emerged is a question that remains unanswered
by evolutionists. The Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins, one of the
foremost advocates of the evolutionary theory in the world, makes
this confession:
It is as though they (the species of the Cambrian)
were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.23
The Cambrian explosion is clear evidence that
God created all living things. The only explanation of the sudden
emergence of organisms without any evolutionary ancestors is creation.
Accordingly, Darwin wrote: "If numerous species, belonging
to the same genera or families, have really started into life all
at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of descent with slow
modification through natural selection."24
This fatal stroke that frightened Darwin comes
from the Cambrian period, right at the outset of the fossil record.
17
22-
Richard Monestarsky, "Mysteries of the Orient", Discover, April 1993,
p. 40 
23- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, London:
W. W. Norton 1986, p. 229 
24 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile
of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 302  |