Creation Science Rebuttals

Institute for Creation Research

ICR's T-Rex Toddler and the Food Chain

ICR News, 18 May 2011

First Published 18 May 2011

We've all heard the young earth claims about dinosaurs being on Noah's Ark. In the latest claim, by Brian Thomas of the Institute for Creation Research, titled "T-Rex Toddler Answers Noah's Ark Questions, Thomas cites a discovery of a juvenile T-Rex fossil to repeat the young earth claim that the dinosaurs on Noah's Ark were not fully grown specimins."¹

The young earth position concerning dinosaurs and the ark has been addressed in other articles, thus I won't repeat them here. However, there is one problem that I have addressed before, that bears repeating. In fact, I'd like to hear the young earth solution to this problem (if they have one).

Let's assume for a moment that Thomas is right, and there were dinosaurs on the ark. I know that's a very large assumption, considering that there is absolutely no evidence to support this claim, but please bear with me. The thing I would like YECs to look at is the condition of the earth after the flood. Continents have been eroded away, and the sediments have been re-deposited as landforms all over the globe. The earth's vegetation has also been stripped from the earth, and all animals not on the ark are deceased.

As Noah is letting the animals off the Ark, they are setting foot upon a fresh dirt surface, with no vegetation, and no animals, other than those that were on the Ark. As the dinosaurs get off, and go about their way, they get hungry, but they find that there is no food for them to consume. But wait, there is food present...its walking off the Ark! The only food source for any of the carnivores getting off the Ark, is the other Ark animals. (Remember, there isn't even vegetation for them to eat, so a young earth claim that they ate plants until the earth repopulated won't work.)

This is not just a problem for the carnivorous dinosaurs. Lions, tigers, or any other carnivorous animals would have no choice but to prey upon the animals that God just saved from the flood.

Given this dire food chain problem, it appears that the animals coming off the Ark would kill each other, and within a few short months, even Noah and his family would end up on the menu for the hungry T-Rex's, raptors, carnotaurs, spinosaurs, etc. In the end, the last animals would die of starvation, leaving no animal life upon the earth.

I know what YECs will say...remember the dove, that brought back a olive leaf to Noah. There was vegetation on the earth. I agree! But this only supports an old earth, local flood scenario. The young earth scenario states that there were violent currents, up to 262 feet per second (179 MPH!). Consider the following quote from their research:

The ability of such currents, combined with cavitation, to erode huge volumes of rock and also to transport the resulting sediment and distribute it over extensive areas in a short span of time not only helps to satisfy the Biblical time constraints for the Flood but also appears to be able, in a general sense, to account for the continent-scale extent of many Paleozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary formations as well as evidence in many of these rocks for high energy water transport. ²

Such violent currents capable of massive erosion of rocks, and subsequent redeposition of the sediment, would leave the earth bare of any vegetation. Any seeds that were caught up in the currents, along with the sand, gravel, and other debris, would be pulverized. In short, the earth following a global flood such as that envisioned by YECs would be a barren wasteland. In order to solve the young earth problem of how the earth was eroded, they inadvertantly sterilized the earth.

As is common with young earth claims, an apparent solution to a problem only brings up more problems. If, however, young earth creationists would stick to the scientific facts, then they would discover that there really is no problem with science and the Bible, as old earth creationists have discovered.

¹ Brian Thomas, T.Rex Toddler Answers Noah's Ark Questions, ICR website, 16 May 2011.

² https://www.icr.org/article/ocean-circulation-noahs-flood

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