The idea that vertebrates originated from invertebrates is a pure assumption that cannot be documented from the fossil record. Based on comparative anatomy and embryology of living forms, almost every invertebrate group has been proposed at one time or another as the ancestor of vertebrates.1,2 The transition from invertebrates to vertebrates went through a simple, chordate state, that is, through creatures that possessed a notochord of rod-like shape. Does the fossil record provide evidence for such a transition? Not at all.
Ommanney says:
‘How this earliest ancestor of chordates developed, what stages of development it went through to eventually give rise to fish-like creatures, we do not know. Between the Cambrian period when it probably appeared, and the Ordovician period when the first fossils with actual fish-like characteristics appeared, there is a gap of perhaps 100 million years that we will probably never be able to fill.’3
Incredible! One hundred million years of evolution, and not a single fossilized transitional form! All combined hypotheses, no matter how brilliant, could never claim, based on the theory of evolution, to explain such a gap of this size. Such facts, on the other hand, are in perfect harmony with the predictions of the creationist model.
- Literature
- E. G. Conklin, as quoted by G. E. Allen, Quart. Rev. Biol. 44:173 (1969).
- A. S. Romer, Vertebrate Paleontology 3rd ed., U. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1966, p. 12.
- F. D. Ommanney, The Fishes, Life Nature Library, Time-Life, Inc., New York, 1964, p. 60.