Creation Science Rebuttals

Dinosaur Extinction and Global Catastrophe

First published 9 February 2013

Old Earth Ministries Website

In an article titled "Dinosaur Extinction and Global Catastrophe," Creation Today author Paul Taylor attempts to cast doubt upon the scientifically accepted theory that the Chicxulub impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In the opening paragraph, Taylor states

"Remarkably, enviornmentally sensitive creatures like butterflies and frogs were unaffected by this evolutionary global catastrophe, but the great big clod-hopping dinosaurs couldn’t stand the change."

The first thing that stands out is the use of the term "clod-hopping." I don't know how this term strikes you, but to me it seems that Mr. Taylor is not too fond of dinosaurs. I know that dinosaurs cause many problems for the young earth creationist, so perhaps this has led to a little frustration on Mr. Taylor's part. I think, however, he is using the term to disparage what YEC's see as non-believing evolutionary people. Rephrased, it could be understood in YEC terms like this, "How could those dumb evolutionists believe that those stupid dinosaurs are millions of years old." I wish I were wrong about this, but having attended churches that preach YEC, this is exactly how they think about people who are not YEC's. I've personally heard statements exactly like this. (This is not to say that all YEC's are like this.)

I was curious about his claim of butterflies and frogs surviving the asteroid impact, so I looked up their history. The first possible frogs in the fossil record date to about 250 million years ago (Triadobatrachus), so we do have frogs at the extinction point 65 million years ago. Perhaps their aquatic nature helped them survive the impact. But butterflies...the first appearance of butterflies in the fossil record is about 45 million years ago. On another website, I found a date of 130 million years. Which is right? I believe I have the answer at this website, which explains that some scientists put together an evolutionary "family tree" of butterflies, based not on fossils, but upon sequences of genes and morphological characters for today's butterfly genera. There may have been butterflies at the time of the dinosaur, but given their fragile nature, they are difficult to preserve. So the question of how they survived the impact is probably a valid one.

Taylor goes into a short discussion about a failed dinosaur extinction theory, that they died out because their eggshells grew thinner, leaving the eggs more vulnerable to predation. Taylor mentions this to show how dumb (in the minds of his followers) evolutionists are.

Next he mentions a report that a hadrosaur fossil has been dated at 700,000 years after the impact event. I mention this in another article on this site. He states

"the importance of the article is in the doubt that it casts on the KT Impact Event. If a significantly large group of dinosaurs are thought by evolutionists not to have been made extinct by the alleged KT event, then what is the point of hypothesizing such an event? I am not a betting man, but the probability of scientists still believing in the KT event in ten years’ time must be pretty small."

Finding a dinosaur after the KT event in no way casts doubt on the KT impact event, as Taylor claims. It only means that when the meteor hit, all the dinosaurs didn't immediately fall over dead in an instant. Dinosaurs slowly died out during the days, weeks, and years following the event. That some may have lived 700,000 years or more beyond the KT boundary is not a problem for old earth belief. The KT impact played a large role in the demise of the dinosaurs, but it was not the only reason dinosaurs went extinct. Before the event, dinosaurs were already in a steep decline. We don't know why those who survived died off thousands of years later. Regarding his remark about betting that in ten years scientists won't believe in the KT extinction event...I'll take that bet.

Taylor is, of course, a young earth creationist. In his final paragraph, it's all about the Flood of Noah, in his words, a "global catastrophe." He states "the Bible and the geological evidence, correctly understood..." He means the evidence must be interpreted from a young earth perspective. However, if you don't twist the evidence into something that it is not, it clearly indicates the earth is very old, and no scientist buys the YEC claim that the earth is young. There simply is no evidence of it.

What we really need is this...ten years from now, there should be no Christians believing in a young earth. That's a bet I wish I could win, for then the Church would be the real winner.

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