Creation Science Book Review
The Answers Book, Chapter 15
Where Are All the Human Fossils?
By Greg Neyman
© Old Earth Ministries
First Published 11 June 2003
A very good question, one which the young earth creation science authors of this book cannot provide a good answer for. They go wrong from the very first page. The authors refer to the Coconino Sandstone, a rock unit in the Grand Canyon. They appeal to its supposed quick deposition by the Flood. If you desire, you can check out their argument for this sandstone by clicking here for their article. Unfortunately for the young-earthers, this is an extremely easy article to dismiss, as it is full of problems…click here for the rebuttal.
They claim the Grand Canyon strata are all deposited quickly, but there is no evidence of this. Yes, if you accept the young-earth theorist’s claims, you could believe this, however, in order to do so you must ignore the solid science behind the old-earth claims. As far as the claim about the folded strata, I’ve already discussed in a previous Chapter about the concept of viscosity.
The authors give a listing of six items on page 192, which have been discussed elsewhere on Answers In Creation. They have no solid proof of any evidence which would even remotely suggest rapid deposition.
Dinosaurs and Humans (Page 193)
This is the most important part of this chapter, so let’s look at their claims.
A. Dragons. Last time I checked, dragons were mythical, and did not exist. The authors allude to Job 40…there is no evidence that suggests the author was speaking about dinosaurs. Because of the young-earth creationists’ insistence on accepting every verse of the Bible as literal, they have to explain away the behemoth of Job. The best they can come up with is a dinosaur. However, no dinosaurs have been found with the features described (bones of bronze, ribs of iron (Job 40:18)). He is said to rest under the lotus tree, yet the lotus tree is too small for a Brachiosaurus to rest under (Job 40:21). The Leviathan of Job 41:19-21 breathes fire, yet no dinosaur has this capability.
B. Unfossilized dinosaur bones. A myth that is spread around young-earth circles. When a report came out years ago about a science team at Montana State finding red blood cells in a t-rex fossil, the young-earth community went crazy. Unfortunately, they have failed to print follow-up stories to this claim, because then they would have to tell the truth about the finding, which did not contain red blood cells. Even the more recent discovery of soft tissue inside a T-Rex femur does not support a young earth. Most of the bone was fossilized, in essence sealing the contents inside the bone. Also, consider this…given the millions of fossils that have been found, there are varying stages of preservation…some are poor, some are excellent. To find one with excellent preservation, even with blood cells, would not mean it was recent…it would only mean that it was well-preserved. Even if they did find blood cells (which they didn’t), it does not mean the fossil was only 6,000 years old.
C. Rocks with dinosaurs have very little plant fossils. Plants are soft, fragile things…the break apart when they decay, and the decay process takes less than a year…not enough time for it to fossilize unless they are rapidly buried, thus you would expect little plant material in the same rocks.
The authors mention the Morrison Formation. This formation sits on top of several thousand feet of sediment which the young earth creation science model claims is part of the rocks deposited during the receding water phase of the flood1. How could the dinosaurs be living during this latter phase of the flood? Genesis 7:21-23 makes it clear that by Day 40, when the rains stopped, all animals were dead. Why then do we have footprints, dinosaur nests with eggs, dinosaur poop, and dinosaur bones, in rocks that were deposited after the rains stopped?
The diagram on page 195 confirms this, and shows the dinosaurs during the receding phase, which is absolutely impossible according to Genesis 7:21-23!
Out of Sequence Fossils (Page 194)
This is an example of the young earth theorists only telling their followers part of the story. Let me tell you the rest. They claim that fossils are found outside the range of their supposed lifespan in the rock record. Yes, it does happen…but this does not negate the lifespan of the organism, nor the old age of the rocks. Let’s say we have Organism A, which was supposed to live from 100 to 60 million years ago. Johnny Geologist goes out, and finds a fossil of Organism A in rocks which are 120 million years old. Does this prove the young age of the earth? Far from it…it merely means that Organism A lived from 120 to 60 million years ago. The timeline of the organism’s lifespan is increased. Young-earth proponents always argue that we are always expanding these timelines…of course we are…it is logically impossible to shrink them, so the only way to go is to lengthen them…Duh!
The authors refer to a Hindu book, but don’t provide evidence from it. Why even refer to the book if you are not going to quote evidence from it? I personally don’t read too many Hindu books, so I’ll leave this one alone…
The General Pattern (Page 195)
Here the creation science authors propose their model which can be seen in the diagram on page 195. Only two comments are needed here. First, the general pattern they propose matches exactly the pattern found in the rocks, which matches the old-earth model as well. No surprise here…we just get to the same results via different methods.
Second, on page 196, paragraph 2, they estimate 10 million people by the time of the flood. Then they go on to explain that the reason we haven’t found any human fossils is because these people are buried, scattered throughout all the sedimentary rock layers from the flood (over the entire earth). However, this is not a valid assumption for their burial.
The authors, in other works, have pointed to the great dinosaur graveyards. These are places, such as the bend of an ancient river, where bones are likely to accumulate. They claim that as the flood waters rose, the dinosaurs herded together, until they were overcome. So, let’s look at the Flood model and Humans. All the humans were in a very small geographic area, around Mesopotamia. As the flood waters rose, they also, like the dinosaurs, would flee to higher ground. Therefore, the humans would also be grouped, or herded, together as they escaped the flood.
Because of this herding to escape the flood, and the small geographic distribution of the humans, it is not a reasonable assumption to say that the human bones are scattered throughout ALL the sedimentary rocks of the world. They, like the dinosaurs, should be found in mass graves in the Middle East. However, no such mass graves have been found. I’m certain they were there in the past…so they must not have been found yet.
If they are found, I’m sure the young-earth people will put their spin on the story, and change all their literature…after all, it would not hurt their story any.
1 Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, Figure 4.1. (Young earth creation science book by Steven Austin)
If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.
Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If you are a young earth creationism believer, click here.
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