Do you belive in God? (Page 12 of 13)

Beveled surfaces below, within, and above thick strata sequences provide evidence of rapid flood and post-flood erosion. Fossils provide universal evidence of rapid burial, and even agonizing death.

Rapid burial is necessary to entomb organisms as the first step in fossilization. The abundant marine invertebrate fossils throughout the entire fossil strata demonstrate extraordinary burial conditions.

Polystrate fossil logs (tree trunks in vertical position running through several sedimentary layers) are common in the fossil layers and are clear evidence of rapid burial.

Common vertebrate fossils show rigor mortis and postures indicative of asphyxiation—sudden smothering of the animal (e.g., Archaeopteryx and dinosaur fossils in the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument).

Fossils Are Found at All Levels

The earth is covered with layers of sedimentary rock, much of it containing microscopic fossils such as plankton, pollen, and spores.

The entire record of visible fossils consists mainly of marine invertebrates (animals without a backbone), including clams, jellyfish, and coral. What is surprising is that these ocean creatures are found primarily on the continents and rarely in the deep ocean basins. More clam shells are found on mountain peaks than under the ocean floor.

From the bottom layers to the top layers, most fossils are marine creatures. The upper levels do have an increasing number of vertebrates, such as fish and amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, but the fossils at the bottom levels are equally as complex as any animal today.

All fossil types appear suddenly, fully formed and fully functional, without less complex ancestors under them.

The fossil record is strong evidence for the sudden appearance of life by creation, followed by rapid burial during a global flood.

Fossils have been frequently cited as the main evidence for evolution. The evolution/uniformitarian worldview postulates that the slow and gradual processes we see operating today are responsible not only for the death and extinction of plant and animal types but their burial in sediments which will eventually harden into sedimentary rocks. Uniformity’s slogan, “the present is the key to the past,” reflects their view of the origin of the features in the rock and fossil record. I think the great Flood of Noah’s day is a better explanation.

First note that very few fossils are forming today and then only in the case of rapid burial by water. For instance what happens to a fish when it dies? It either floats to the surface or sinks to the bottom where it decays and is eaten by scavengers. Yet many fish fossils are so exquisitely preserved that even the scales and organs are preserved. Obviously there was no time for decay and bacterial action. We can certainly say that something extraordinary happened to form the fossils.

Furthermore, most fossils occur in huge fossil graveyards where things from different habitats are mixed together in a watery grave. The predominant type of fossil is that of marine invertebrates but these are found on the continents within catastrophically deposited rock units.

Of the several different kinds of fossils, each one requires rapid burial and circumstances which are seldom, if ever, at work today. Processes of fossilization include:

Mineralization: This happens by partial or entire replacement of an organism by minerals, usually one molecule at a time as the organism decays. Time is involved but not time before burial. Petrification occurs when the replacing mineral is silica.

Carbonization: Living things consist of high carbon content, and under extraordinary circumstances only the carbon remains. This includes the thick coal bands as well as thin carbon residues left in the host rock. Rapid isolation and heating is required.

Impressions: These common fossils occur when the entire organism is replaced by the same material as the host rock leaving only the form of an organism. The detail preserved indicates no time for decay.

Ephemeral markings: These common markings include worm burrows, animal tracks, coprolites, and rain-drop impressions. All are extremely fragile and need rapid lithification to be preserved.

Hard parts: Bones and shells are found but these are usually broken. For instance, limbs ripped from dinosaurs, found in fossil graveyards, are the rule.

Soft parts: Obviously these will only last for a very short time without rapid burial. These include flesh, feathers, skin, scales, plant tissue, color, and even smell.

Frozen parts: These imply extremely low temperatures which trapped and froze the organisms quickly. Certainly this is not happening now on any scale.

These fossil types (and other subcategories could be mentioned) require extraordinary circumstances of a rapid and catastrophic nature. The great Flood of Noah’s day which destroyed a world full of life is the best explanation.

Don't the Fossils Prove Evolution?

Article by John D. Morris, Ph.D.

For decades students have been shown a representation of the fossil record appearing as a vertical column with marine invertebrates on the bottom, overlain by fish, then amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, with man on the top. The column is a column of time, they are told, with the long ago past on the bottom and the present on top. The fossil column (or similar figure) is presented without question as if it were true—as if it were real data. Students are led to believe that the order of first appearance of the fossils over time proves evolution.

I suggest that it does no such thing, for several reasons. First, the fossils do not occur in this order, simple to complex from bottom to top. The fossils at the bottom (i.e., long ago) are equally as complex as any animal today, and are essentially the same as their modern counterparts. In reality, the fossils appear abruptly in the record, fully formed and fully functional without less adapted ancestors in lower levels that would have preceded them in time. To be honest, the entire fossil record consists of predominately marine invertebrates (animals without a backbone, like clams, jellyfish, coral). The column is nothing more than a statement of evolutionary thinking. A case can perhaps be made for the order of first appearance of vertebrates (i.e., fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals), but vertebrate fossils are exceptions to the rule and usually quite fragmentary, with the lower range of each often being extended downward with new discoveries. Most come from Ice Age deposits which sometimes contain human remains also.

Second, the evolutionary presentation in the textbook column implies that all life has come from one (or perhaps a few) common ancestor(s). But the Cambrian System, the lowest (i.e., oldest) level containing extensive multicellular fossils, exhibits a virtual explosion of life. Suddenly (by this I mean without the necessary ancestors lower in the column), every phylum of life is found—every basic body style, including vertebrate fish. The abrupt appearance of diverse forms of life does not match with evolutionary predictions of one form descending into many.

Third, these diverse forms continue up the column (i.e., throughout time) with much the same appearance possessed at the start. The term stasis describes the tendency to "stay" the same, remain "stationary" or "static." Some body styles go extinct as you come up the column, but no new basic styles are introduced.

Summarizing:

1) Abrupt appearance
2) Diversity at the start, and
3) Stasis.
Certainly the fossil record does not prove evolution. On the other hand, its character fully supports creation of multiple "kinds" at the start with no evolutionary lineage, and continuance of those rather static kinds with limited adaptations into the present, or else going extinct. This is the creation idea.

The fossils further support the Flood. While no evolutionary trends can be seen bridging the basic kinds and producing new ones, we do see a transition from totally marine at the bottom to more terrestrial toward the top. At every level the dominant fossil is marine, but more and more land-dwelling fossils creep in. What more pursuasive testimony to the Biblical model could there be?

T. Rex Cousin Evolved 60 Million Years Too Early

By Brian Thomas, M.S.

The most popular dinosaur is probably Tyrannosaurus rex, a Latin term that loosely translates as “king lizard.” Based on evolutionary assumptions, scientists have long held that these dinosaurs lived for “only” 3 million years, approximately 68 to 65 million years ago. A fossil looking remarkably like a small version of T. rex, however, has been located in a much lower rock layer.1 Using the evolutionary dates assigned to the relevant strata, this adds 60 million years to the T. rex timeline. If the evolutionary interpretation was this wrong about one creature, can it be trusted on the rest of the fossil record?

Nicknamed Raptorex, this comparatively small dinosaur shared with T. rex “a proportionately large skull, incisiform premaxillary teeth, expanded jaw-closing musculature, diminutive forelimb, and a hindlimb with cursorial proportions,” according to a report recently published in Science.1

The Lower Cretaceous rocks that Raptorex was found in have been assigned a date of approximately 125 million years. But that would mean that this mini-T. rex was unaware that its body plan was not supposed to have evolved for another 60 million years. Paleontologist and report co-author Stephen Brusatte admitted fossils like this “totally throw us for a curve” and are “completely unexpected.”2 A similar find was made recently in Japan of teeth from a mid-sized T. rex discovered in rock dated at 140 million years.3

Because of finds like these, evolutionary history must accommodate tyrannosauroids (dinosaurs sharing the same core features as the T. rex) having evolved suddenly 140 million years ago, living virtually unchanged in form for 65 million years, then going extinct for an unknown reason. But with such an unimaginably long time for mutations to have been selected, how was it possible for these creatures to have remained so similar if the evolutionary scenario is correct?4

If the vast majority of tyrannosauroid fossils were deposited during the one-year Flood of Noah, however, when “all flesh died that moved upon the earth,”5 then it would stand to reason that their remains—preserved across extensive vertical strata—together represent a snapshot of animals that existed at that time but in different habitats, rather than a record of creatures that died over eons. The distribution of marine fossils in lower layers and terrestrial forms higher up corresponds not to long ages of evolution, but to successive waves or stages of the Flood as the waters encroached higher and higher until the land was totally inundated.

The biblical historical framework offers no reason why the rock layer that this new tyrannosauroid was found in, or that of the Japanese T. rex teeth, should be “completely unexpected.” On the contrary, it fits perfectly with the Genesis record of the Flood.

Should We Expect To Find Transitional Forms In The Fossil Record?
Article by John D. Morris, Ph.D.

A favorite argument of creationists has always been the lack of transitional organisms preserved in the fossil record. The argument goes like this: If one basic type of animal evolved into another basic type, it must have passed through "in between" stages, or transitional forms. Whether or not these transitions were ever preserved as fossils, they must have existed. In fact, they must have existed by the trillions.

Consider an evolutionary favorite—the evolution of a four-legged land animal (variously described as cow-like or wolf-like), into a whale. Surely this incredible transition couldn't take place in just a few steps—legs into flippers, fur into oily skin, etc. Where are the transitional forms?

Evolutionists sometimes brag that they have abundant evidence of transitions, but when pressed, the examples are almost always minor variations within a category, as expected within creation thinking, and thus certainly not proof of evolution.

In general, evolutionists are quick to admit the almost complete lack of transitional fossils. In fact, many of the current leaders in evolutionary thought have made their careers attempting to explain this lack by proposing that evolution of isolated groups went so rapidly in the past that no individuals of the in-between forms were fossilized. Why should we expect to find fossils of organisms which existed only for a short time? Furthermore, they point out that fossilization rarely occurs today. It usually takes massive flooding and rapid burial.

But then a new question arises. How complete is the fossil record? Can we legitimately expect to find these transitions?

Dr. Michael Denton, an agnostic but a decided non-evolutionist compiled a chart on "The Adequacy of the Fossil Record" in his book, Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, by comparing the number of living types to fossil types, gleaning information from Romer's classic book, Vertebrate Paleontology. He found that 97.7% of living orders of terrestrial vertebrates are found as fossils. (Orders are larger groupings of families which are larger than genera which are larger then species.) Many creationists consider the groupings family or genus to best approximates the Genesis kind. Of living families of terrestrial vertebrates, 79.1% are represented, a number which jumps to 87.8% if birds (hardly ever preserved) are excluded. Thus, the fossil record of even terrestrial vertebrates is seen to be remarkably complete.

But far less than 1% of all fossils are terrestrial vertebrates. Approximately 95% are marine invertebrates, with the rest being mostly plants, fish, and insects. Land fossils are notoriously scarce, and when found are usually fragmentary. With partial evidence an evolutionary story can sometimes be told.

When we look at the invertebrates, we see separate and distinct categories (i.e., clams, corals, trilobites, etc.) existing in the earliest strata with no hint of ancestors or of intermediates. We find clams by the trillions, with a lot of variety among them, but no evolution. Furthermore, we have no idea how vertebrate fish could have arisen from any invertebrate. Where there are good data, we see no evolution. Where the data are scanty, evolutionists can tell a story. The fossil record is voluminous and apparently substantially complete. Yet no evolution is seen.

Speaking of this issue, Darwin wrote in an 1881 letter that "the case at present must remain inexplicable and may be truly argued as a valid argument against the views here entertained." Evolution—a theory of change without any evidence of change.