Does the fossil record support: creation, evolution, or both? Explain.?

Answer 1

The fossil record supports creation. Here is the way to think about it - evolution sees the fossil record as a time sequence, while creation sees the fossil record as an energy sequence, with most of the energy being expended at the time of the flood. So when looking at phenomena, you have to ask yourself if the phenomena makes more sense as the result of a time sequence or a physical action.

Consider that:
1) Trace fossils (footprints, trackways, etc.) almost always precede body fossils in the fossil record. If the record was a time sequence, then why would this be? It makes perfect sense if these were animals fleeing a flood and then later overcome by the flood.
2) The grand canyon shows great evidence of the flood. The layers are flat except for the upper layers, which have eroded away. It makes sense if you think of sedimentary layers from a flood (flat/horizontal), then the top has eroded away over the last few thousand years. If this was a record of long ages, there should be erosion throughout the canyon.
3) The fossils that are considered "major transitions" are not transitional between any two known species, but rather transitional between habitats. For it to be evidence of evolution, we would need to know what two species the organism was transitional between between. Instead, it is simply a sequence of habitats - ocean bottom, amphibious creatures, reptiles, and mammals, with fish sprinkled throughout. Note that this is also the basic sequence that dead animals make when going through moving water.
4) The time markers in the column which supposedly point to long ages are in complete disarray. If they are really time markers, they should all give consistent dates. But in fact the heavy elements give longer dates than the lighter ones, beta decay rates always gives young dates, and the measure of helium escape from zircon crystals (a dating method not based on radioactivity) shows zircons at the bottom of the geologic column to be 6,000 years old.
5) The vast planation surfaces of the land indicate that there has been massive water runoff in recent times. Long periods always produce channelized erosion. A catastrophic water event would create a planation surface, not long ages.
6) Some of the most complex features of animals were present at the bottom of the geologic column. Trilobites, for instance, were complex in having what is thought to be the most advanced eye of all time. In addition, they grew by molting, which is the most biochemically complex method of development. Thus, you have the complexity at the very beginning of the column, not increasing with strata. If this is a time sequence, then it is certainly not an evolutionary time sequence - the complexity existed from the beginnning!
7) There have been many out-of-place artifacts found in coal and other supposedly ancient layers, when presumably humans have not lived.

I could go on, but this post is already getting long.

Answer 2

The God-people have told you that it supports creation as well as evolution. Quite unequivocally, it does not. The biblical chronology which is doggedly insisted upon by fundamentalist creationists puts the age of Universe, earth, life, and humans at 6000 years. Heather would like to "marry" the two and this is what many people try to do. But there can be no marriage. Let's use a time-line scale to illustrate. Let the scale be 1 inch = 1000 years. The creationist time line for all creation is six inches long. The fossil evidence shows human existence to be over 200 feet, on that scale. The formation of the earth was 71 miles ago, on the time line. The age of the Universe is over 200 miles!

Look again: 6 inches, (as dictated by the bible and not supported by ANY evidence found so far), compared to 200 MILES, (as supported by all the evidence.) The whole creationist time line is only 1/400th of the amount of time humans have existed and they have been very recent in comparison to life on this planet.

Sorry. No common ground. No possibility of compromise or marriage. Creationism is an ancient myth and utterly incorrect.

Answer 3

The fossil record actually loosely supports both, depending on your interpretation. Based on the way in which we find the fossils in the strata, we find the animals and plants in the order in which we believe them to have evolved. Of course, there are many missing pieces so-to-speak, so we have to infer from those fossils. If we interpret the fossil record in a particular way, and the Creation story a particular way (more broadly than just 7 24 hour days), then we can successfully marry the two. I have chosen to do this. Looking at the fossil record, we find that plants and animals arrive in the same order as the creation story and evidence of a widespread flood, so everything can be tied together. It's just a matter of deciding to do so. I am too logical to write off all the science, and too faithful to write off the faith, so I tied it all together. It works for me.

Answer 4

The fossil record supports the Fact of Evolution. Before you attack me for bigotry, hear me out. The fossil record clearly demonstrates that life has changed over time; this is the Fact of Evolution: life has definately changed somehow. The Theory of Evolution, which you are probable referring to in your question, is a highly-tested and well-supported explanation as to WHY life has changed over time.

Therefore, it can be said that the fossil record does not clearly support either THEORIES; it only supports the fact.

Answer 5

Even Darwin said that Evolution would be proven true in the future by the billions of yet undiscovered intermediate species (missing links) that would have to exist for evolution to work.
Update 2007: Theres a guy in China with a dremmel tool etching feathers on a lizard fossil and claiming to find the missing link from dinos to birds.
Evolution "Scientists" have committed so many frauds trying to prove evolution. (Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man ect.)They have no credibility with me and I am not all that religious.
For evolution to be true the missing links would have to be the overwhelming majority of the fossil record but instead they are either extremely rare or non existent.

Answer 6

It does support both, but not in the way most people would think. If we look at Genesis chap 1:1 we find the earth covered in water, later we find it again covered in water, after that one God promised not to do it again. We have scientific evidence of the earth being flooded even before the Genesis 1:1 flood. The Bible is only a record of our creation, not any other stage of life on this planet. We also find that God spoke to the Earth and told it to bring forth the beast of the field during the time of our current creation. Suppose for a second if this had been repeated while the Earth was young, Just like a young child the first time you ask it to do draw something, or make something with clay, it is usually mis proportioned arms and legs to long, small, skinny or long for the body. God then floods the earth. Several million years later God again comes to Earth, and again ask her to bring forth the beast of the field. she has now grown and matured so the beast she brings forth has a little better proportions than before. Again God comes along and floods the Earth, and another few million years pass before He comes again to her, and ask for her to bring forth the beast of the field, and she does however this time things are much smaller, more to scale, and God looks and says this is good, so He lays hands himself to man. The evolution this proves is not of the beast of the field but the natural evolution or maturity something goes through as it grows. Man is narrow minded if he tries to lay aside the fossil record, rather he should embrace it. because this in itself proves the eternalness of God himself.

Answer 7

As a world-renowned award-winning Creationist, I can tell you most plainly that there are no fossils. Those are just shaped stones that were placed into the strata laid down by the Great Flood, by the fallen angels, as a means of misleading us. Do not be misled! As for the pepper moths, a photographer staged the famous pictures of the moths on the tree. I speculate that maybe he spray-painted them himself too. This could be the biggest hoax since Haekel drew all those embryos to look alike when really they don't. > bacteria who adapt to beat antibiotics and rats who adapt to beat poison. These are clearly examples of God performing miracles in the modern era. He is blessing populations of lesser organisms with new traits. The nylonase that evilutionists like to talk about is just such a blessing. God gave nylonase to a population of bacteria so that some day we don't find ourselves neck deep in discarded stockings.

Answer 8

Evolution. Through science, we believe that we can tell how old the fossils are and they are millions of years old, much older than the 6,000 years biblical scholars quote. Man has been here much longer than 6,000 years. Plants and animals were here longer than 6,000 years. End of story.

It would be interesting if the biblical scholars said that a day was longer than 24 of our hours, way back then. They could fudge it so their 6,000 years worked out to our 1.5-2.5 million years.