Creation Science Rebuttals

by Greg Neyman

© Old Earth Ministries

First Published 10 Mar 2003

     Deceit, trickery, and unfounded assumptions go hand-in-hand with young earth creation science claims.  Consider the article "An Australian Fossil Insect Bed Resulting From Cataclysmic Destruction,"¹ by Dr. Andrew Snelling, on the Institute for Creation Research website.

     The article describes the rich deposit of insect fossils in one place in Australia, caused by a volcanic event, supposedly during a watery cataclysm.  You can ignore the whole article, and go directly to the last sentence.  It states the fossil bed "bears eloquent testimony to the devastation during the Genesis Flood."

     Did a catastrophic event occur...yes.  Was it the Flood of Noah?  Of course not.  First, the only way for this to be true is if Mr. Snelling witnessed the event.  There are many catastrophic events throughout geologic history.  Nobody can say the Flood caused it, unless they witnessed it.  In fact, many of these catastrophic events occurred multiple times in the same sequence of rock strata, which the flood model cannot explain.  After all, if you kill all the animals in the flood event, they would all be in the same rock layer...yet when you look, there are fossils scattered throughout the rock layers of the world, sometimes separated by as much as 14,000 feet of sediment!  Using a Noah's Flood model, most would be in the lower rocks, and as a few floated and eventually sank, there may be a few above, but at the top, you would have no fossils at all.  However, the rock record shows the opposite. 

     The only way he can say the Flood did it, is to make an assumption, and thus it amounts to nothing more than trying to deceive people into believing something that cannot be verified.

Solid Proof against Dr. Snelling's Article

      However, that is not the most convincing evidence against the Flood model for the demise of these insects.  More importantly, the stratigraphy of the area shows that the insect bed is located 70 feet below the Fassifern coal seam.  According to Snelling, the insects were killed, obviously at the surface of the earth.  After they were killed, they were covered by another 70 feet of sediment, and then by a coal seam.  Where did the material for the coal seam come from?  He has already covered the ground in this area by flood sediments 70 feet thick.  In fact, there would be no organic material present to produce this coal, so the Flood model cannot be the answer for this insect bed.

     No doubt, Snelling would rely upon the Floating Forest theory as the source of the coal seam.  But, that has already been soundly disproved (click here for this discussion).

Conclusion

     The insects were probably killed by a catastrophic event, but this in no way implies that it was the Flood of Noah.  No proof exists that can tie these insects to the Flood.  Why do young earth creation science theorists resort to such tactics?  Young earth scientists cannot prove a young earth, so they have to resort to tactics of deceit and outrageous assumptions to trick people into believing an unbelievable theory.   

¹  "An Australian Fossil Insect Bed Resulting From Cataclysmic Destruction, (https://www.icr.org/article/australian-fossil-insect-bed-resulting-from-catacl)

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