Episode Details

You’ve probably heard this “proof” of evolution: The fossil record starts out simple and grows increasingly complex the higher you go.

Well, there’s order to the fossil record, but it doesn’t start simple. The life-forms found in the bottom layers are highly complex. Life bursts on the scene not slowly and gradually as you’d expect with evolution but fully-formed and functioning.

Take the Cambrian rock layers for example. A massive diversity of life is found there that seems to have come from nowhere. The layers underneath don’t contain ancestors to Cambrian creatures.

The fossil record—it does not support evolution.

Dig Deeper

• Doesn’t the Order of Fossils in the Rock Record Favor Long Ages?
• Climbing the “Ladder of Life” in the Grand Canyon