Creation Science Rebuttals

     Young earth creation science theorist Michael Oard is the author of this article, which is really a summary of an article that appeared in the secular peer-reviewed magazine Geology.  The author of that article is listed as Leonard Brand, a peleontologist with Loma Linda University.  Oard says he assembled a team of creationist scientists to examine this great find, which consisted of 346 whales within a 1.5 square kilometer area.  The rock layer it was found in is the Pisco Formation, and is mostly diatomite (a sedimentary rock made primarily of fossil diatoms, small single-cell algae).  Diatomite is observed today to form in several locations.  In fact, if you have ever owned a cat, and used clay litter, it was probably made of diatomite.  For the purpose of this article, the author refers to the fjords of British Columbia, and the rate of accumulation is 0.1 to 0.2 inches per year.

     The creationist author Brand proposes that these whales were buried rapidly, to prevent scavenging by other animals.  The old earth position has no problems with this interpretation.  As with other fossil whales in diatomite (the Lompoc specimen, for example), the rapid burial is not the real issue.  The issue is the rate of deposition of diatoms, which clearly does not support a young earth.

     Brand and his team concluded that "The most viable explanation for whale preservation seems to be rapid burial, fast enough to cover whales 5–13 m [16–42 ft] long and approximately 50 cm [20 in] thick within a few weeks or months, to account for whales with well-preserved bones and some soft tissues."   

     Before I give possible explanations, it should be pointed out that the rock layer in which the whales were found is only about 10 million years old.  Thus, it is quite young geologically speaking.  The standard geologic model would say that the layers of diatomite with the whales represents about two million years of deposition.

     The writer of this summary, Michael Oard, says "Remarkably, these rapidly buried fossil whales contradict one of the ruling principles of modern geology, uniformitarianism."  This is only partially true.  Uniformitarianism recognizes that catastrophic events occur today, therefore they occurred in the past.  Thus, uniformitarianism encompasses catastrophism.  He goes on to say that these whales "creates a problem for those who believe in millions of years."  This simply is not true.  Since we accept catastrophic events within uniformitarianism, it is no problem at all.