Creation & EvolutionForum for the discussion of this important topic. This forum is open to non-believers. There is a Christians-only forum in the Christians-only section too.
This is a problem that has been bothering me for some time and I'd like some young earth creationist input on the idea.
Why are certain rock strata so picky in the types of organisms that appear in them; Why is it that not a single fossil of a type of organism alive today has been found in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia? Heck, why hasn't a single vertebrate creature or land dwelling organism been found there? You realize, of course, that if one mammalian molar were to be verified to have been found encased in this formation then the evolutionary timeline as we understand it would be shot, right? And yet, that molar or other piece of damning evidence (there are many possiblilities) has yet to be found. Doesn't any of that strike any YEC as being a tad coincidental?
Next question: why is it that the Morrison Formation in Colorado yields predominantly dinosaur bones? Why are there no living species of mammals or birds or even lizards ever to be found in the Morrison? Also, why is no sea life ever found in the Morrison? The Burgess Shale only yields sea life and yet the Morrison has none. Both formations were underwater for a year, right? So why does one have only extinct, invertebrate, marine life while the other has only extinct, terrestrial, vertebrate fauna? Is that just coincidence or is there some reason to this scheme of things?
Next question: why is it that the Hell Creek Formation of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota also yields predominantly dinosaur bones but ones of completely different species (heck, genera)? Wasn't the flood violent enough to carve the Grand Canyon and move the tectonic plates hundreds of miles and other such things? If it was so violent, how come it still couldn't move Morrison dinosaur specimens to Hell Creek and visa versa? Why does the Hell Creek Formation yield almost the exact same type of remains as the Lance Formation in Wyoming and yet has no species overlap whatsoever with the Morrison? If a giant flood created these formations, I'd say that all of this is seeming way to coincidental.
Next question: why is it that in the Green River Formation of Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming, there are no dinosaurs of any sort (unless you count birds )? Instead of dinosaurs and anomalocaris and stegosaurs and things that are found in the other fossil formations I've listed, you find very modern looking animals such as fresh water fish, snakes, birds, primitive bats, turtles, and that type of stuff? If the currents that the Flood wielded could create the Grand Canyon, how come it couldn't drift a single Allosaurus tooth the distance between the Morrison and the Green River formations? Not only are they both in Colorado, they're only 40 miles apart (Grand Canyon is 217 miles in length). Isn't it very coincidental that the Flood could carve a giant canyon farther than it can carry a theropod tooth? Isn't it coincidental that no salt water taxa are known from any of the last three formations I've mentioned? Isn't it coincidental that not a single flowering plant is known from the Morrison yet many are well documented from the Hell Creek and Green River Formations? Jeeze!
__________________
"Creationists are going to distort whatever arguments come up.... Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not. These creationists are confusing an argument about minor details of evolution with the indisputable fact of evolution."
-Dr. Alan Feduccia, in an interview with Discover magazine
Last edited by troodon; 24th June 2003 at 02:18 PM.
You know you'll never get answer to them.
In all the time I've spent reading these forums I have never seen a creation answer those questions, or similar ones. I wonder why.
__________________
To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. dir="ltr">
Hey Lois, look, the two symbols of the republican party, an elephant, and a big fat white guy who's threatend by change.
Perhaps they are confused because we have two very similar threads going. This one and the fossil organization thread are both discussions of how the fossil record falsifies YEC.
Hmm... seeing as this is now only on the second page I'll bump it with some additions (good thing I had them saved from last time )
The Delmarva Penninsula fossil bed in Delaware. This bone bed contains the fossils of Crocodiles, rhinoceros, and primitive horses among other things. Also in the sediment are marine animals such as mullusks, sharks and whales. Unfortunatly (for YEC at least), nothing even close to unusual is found in the site. No iguanodon skeletons (well known from beds on the east coast), no humans, no therapsids... All of these wonderfully bizarre animals known to have lived in North America are completely absent in the site save only some semi-advanced Miocene mammals and some unexciting marine organisms. Why didn't the flood move any unexpected bones/teeth to this fossil deposit? How come there aren't any dinosaurs or therapsids or Cambrian sea life known from this site?
Next. The Judith River formation of Montana and Alberta. Oh, this is a lovely rock formation. This fossil bed (eerily close to Hell Creek which I mentioned earlier) has no species overlap with its close neighbor. Both formations have relatively similar fauna but nothing too precise. Judith River boasts Daspletosaurus but no Tyrannosaurus, Chasmosaurus but no Triceratops, Edmontonia but no Ankylosaurus. In fact, I can only find two examples of overlapping genera between the two formations (no overlapping species mind you). Why is there no species overlap and such little genera overlap? Why is it only Parasaurolophus skeletons washed into the Judith River formation while only Anatotitan skeletons washed into the Hell Creek formation? Why didn't the flood waters carry a Torosaurus skull from Hell Creek to the Judith? Why didn't Tyrannosaurus's body get washed to the other side of Montana when the flood had the strength to carve the Grand Canyon and mess up radioactive decay rates and cause enormous tectonic activity to create most the world's large mountain ranges? Is all this skeletal placement just some huge coincidence?
Next; the White River formation. This is located in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska and yields some of North America's greatest Oligocene fossils. This formation (pretty close to lots of the others I've mentioned huh?) is very well known for its mammal fossils. Among the finds include North American marsupials, saber-toothed cats, North American camels, rodents, snakes and many other types of less spectacular or less well known (by the public) animals. In case you didn't notice, some animals not found in the White River formation include therapsids, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, cambrian sea life, sharks, mullusks (except for the terrestrial variety), whales, humans, chimps, modern horses, thecodonts, hippos, seals, dolphins, and countless other creatures that were supposedly living (or being killed rather) at the time this sediment was being laid down. Isn't it then a coincidence of tremendous magnitude to think that the only organisms that managed to be fossilized here were some primitive plecential and marsupial mammals and some boring reptiles? How is this possible? Was there some Oligocene mammal magnet sitting under the location of the sediment? Did this magnet attract all these different types of animals to this location so that the fossil record is nice and organised for us humans? Or is it possible that this unfathomably powerful flood actually didn't happen on a global scale?
And so that no one forgets, no grass has ever been found (fossilized or in coprolites) in the Morrison, Hell Creek, Lance, or the Judith River. Yup, no grass. Anyone else see it as odd that grass didn't exist in areas of dinosaur populations?
__________________
"Creationists are going to distort whatever arguments come up.... Archaeopteryx is half reptile and half bird any way you cut the deck, and so it is a Rosetta stone for evolution, whether it is related to dinosaurs or not. These creationists are confusing an argument about minor details of evolution with the indisputable fact of evolution."
-Dr. Alan Feduccia, in an interview with Discover magazine
And so that no one forgets, no grass has ever been found (fossilized or in coprolites) in the Morrison, Hell Creek, Lance, or the Judith River. Yup, no grass. Anyone else see it as odd that grass didn't exist in areas of dinosaur populations?
Obviously grass was afraid of dinosaurs and ran away whenever it saw them coming. All flowering plants were fast runners in preflood days. They just lost their running ability through loss of information after the flood. We know this because we know that grass and oak trees outran velociraptors in escaping the flood and got higher up the mountains that didn't exist before the flood before being buried by the flood that was depositing cambrian organisms on the tops of the mountains that didn't exist before the flood while burying cambrian organism deep in the fossil record because they were bottom dwellers.
The great thing about YEC is that you can just make it up as you go along and never worry about contradictary explainations for the same phenomona because the faithfull will never bother to check either your facts or your logic.
)? Instead of dinosaurs and anomalocaris and stegosaurs and things that are found in the other fossil formations I've listed, you find very modern looking animals such as fresh water fish, snakes, birds, primitive bats, turtles, and that type of stuff? If the currents that the Flood wielded could create the Grand Canyon, how come it couldn't drift a single Allosaurus tooth the distance between the Morrison and the Green River formations? Not only are they both in Colorado, they're only 40 miles apart (Grand Canyon is 217 miles in length). Isn't it very coincidental that the Flood could carve a giant canyon farther than it can carry a theropod tooth? Isn't it coincidental that no salt water taxa are known from any of the last three formations I've mentioned? Isn't it coincidental that not a single flowering plant is known from the Morrison yet many are well documented from the Hell Creek and Green River Formations? Jeeze! 
Linear Mode
