The Necessary Time
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (J.M.
Dent & Sons Ltd., London 1972), p. 455.
...The belief that species were immutable productions was almost
unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and
now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume,
without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us
plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation.
G.G. Simpson, The Evolution of Life, Sol Tax,
editor (University of Chicago Press, 1960), p. 175.
...We cannot disprove the postulate that the universe was created one
second ago, complete with all our apparent memories of our own earlier days, or that it
was not created in 4004 B.C., with all the apparent record of earlier billions of years.
But that would not make sense, and we must pretend, at least, that both we and the
universe are sane.
George Wald, Scientific American, vol. 191,
Aug. 1954, p. 48.
Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which
we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard
as impossible on the basis of
human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes
possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One
has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles. ...
Carl O. Dunbar, Historical Geology, 2nd Edition
(John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1961), pp. 47-48.
...Inasmuch as life has evolved gradually, changing from age to age, the
rocks of each geologic age bear distinctive types of fossils unlike those of any other
age. Conversely, each kind of fossil is an index or guide fossil to some definite geologic
time....Fossils thus make it possible to recognize rocks of the same age in different
parts of the Earth and in this way to correlate events and work out the history of the
Earth as a whole. They furnish us with a chronology, `on which events are arranged like
pearls on a string.'
D.D. von Engeln and Kennedy E. Caster, Geology
(McGraw-Hill, New York, 1952), p. 417.
...The geologist utilizes knowledge of organic evolution as preserved in
the fossil record, to identify and correlate the lithic records of ancient times.
E.M. Spieker, Bulletin, American Association of
Petroleum Geologists, vol. 40, August 1956, p. 1806.
And what, essentially, is this actual time-scale--on what criteria does
it rest? When all is winnowed out, and the grain reclaimed from the chaff, it is certain
the grain in the product is mainly the paleontologic record and highly likely that the
physical evidence is the chaff.
O.H. Schindewolf, American Journal of Science,
vol. 255, June 1957, p. 395.
...The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the
stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geologic events exactly is furnished
by the fossils. Owing to the irreversibility of evolution, they offer an unambiguous time
scale for relative age determinations and for world-wide correlation's of rocks.
R.H. Rastall, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1956,
Vol. 10 (University of Chicago Press), p. 168.
...It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint
geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined
by a study of their remains buried in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are
determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.
Gareth V. Nelson, "Origin and Diversification
of Teleostean Fishes," Annals, New York Academy of Sciences, 1971, p. 27.
That a known fossil or recent species, or higher taxonomic group,
however primitive it might appear, is an actual ancestor of some other species or group,
is an assumption scientifically unjustifiable, for science never can simply assume that
which it has the responsibility to demonstrate. ...It is the burden of each of us to
demonstrate the reasonableness of any hypothesis we might care to erect about ancestral
conditions, keeping in mind that we have no ancestors alive today, that in all probability
such ancestors have been dead for many tens of millions of years, and that even in the
fossil record they are not accessible to us.
Donald R. Griffin, "A Possible Window
on the Minds of Animals," American Scientist, vol. 64, Sept.-Oct. p. 534.
Likewise, paleontologists do their best to make sense out of the fossil
record and sketch in evolutionary sequences or unfossilized morphologies without realistic
hope of obtaining specific verification within the foreseeable future. ...
J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism versus
Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276, Jan. 1976, p. 47.
The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use
of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to
think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the
work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism.
Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphic
Record (John Wiley & Sons, New York, 1973), p. 62.
It is a problem not easily solved by the classic methods of
stratigraphical paleontology, as obviously we will land ourselves immediately in an
impossible circular argument if we say, firstly that a particular lithology is synchronous
on the evidence of its fossils, and secondly that the fossils are synchronous on the
evidence of the lithology. ...
Derek V. Ager, "The Nature of the
Fossil Record," Proceedings of the Geological Association, vol. 87, No. 2, 1976, p.
We all know that many apparent evolutionary bursts are nothing more than
brainstorms on the part of particular paleontologists. One splitter in a library can do
far more than millions of years of genetic mutation. ...
Ronald R. West, "Paleontology and
Uniformitarianism," Compass, vol. 45, May, 1968, p. 216.
Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not
support the Darwinian theory of evolution because it is this theory (there are several)
which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular
reasoning if we than say the fossil record supports this theory. ...
B. Schaeffer, M.K. Hecht and N. Eldredge, "Philogeny and Paleontology," in Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 6, Th.
Dobzhansky, et al., editors (Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1972), p. 39.
The prime difficulty with the use of presumed ancestral-descendant
sequences to express phylogeny is that biostratigraphic data are often used in conjunction
with morphology in the initial evaluation of relationships, which leads to obvious
J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism versus Materialism in
Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, vol. 276, Jan. 1976, p.
The theory of dialectic materialism postulates matter as the ultimate
reality, not to be questioned. ...Evolution is more than a useful biologic concept: it is
a natural law controlling the history of all phenomena.
Ibid., p. 53.
The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more
accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind reasoning if it insists on using only
temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales.
Ibid., p. 54.
Structure, metamorphism, sedimentary reworking and other complications
have to be considered. Radiometric dating would not have been feasible if the geologic
column had not been erected first. ...The axiom that no process can measure itself means
that there is no absolute time, but this relic of the traditional mechanics persists in
the common distinction between `relative' and `absolute' age.