The Fossil Record—References

Author: Paul S. Taylor of Christian Answers

This references section is designed to be used in conjunction with the main text, or as a concise listing of additional quotes and resources related to this topic.

INTERPRETING STRATA ORGANIZATION AND DISORGANIZATION

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Also called geologic periods.

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It is interesting to note that the Geologic Column was originally constructed, not mostly by Evolutionists, but Christians (Creationists who believed in catastrophism) many of whom thought the Earth was only thousands of years old. Those who believed Earth's strata were formed mostly by catastrophe included Adam Sedgwick, Roderick Murchison, and William Coneybeare.

[Luther D. Sunderland, The Geologic Column: Its Basis and Who Constructed It, Bible-Science Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 12 (Minneapolis: Bible-Science Association, December 1986), pp. 1-2, 5-6, 14.]

[R. Ritland, Historical Development of the Current Understanding of the Geologic Column: Part II, Origins, Vol. 9 (Loma Linda, California: Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, 1982), pp. 28-47.]

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Glenn R. Morton, Fossil Succession, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 19 (1982), pp. 90, 103-111.
Gary E. Parker, The Fossil Evidence, in Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What Is Creation Science?, revised and expanded edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1987), pp. 163-176.
It is worth mentioning that continuous 'Evolutionary' series derived from the fossil record can in most cases be simulated by chronoclines successions of a geographical cline population imposed by the changes of some environmental gradients. (Evolutionist V. Krassilov)

[Valentin Krassilov, Causal Biostratigraphy, Lethaia, Vol. 7, No. 3 (1974), p. 174.]
Evolutionist David Raup (Ph.D. from Harvard University, Curator of Geology at the Field Museum in Chicago, and former Professor of Geology at the University of Rochester) pointed out that there is actually little or no real orderly progression in the fossils which Creationists need accommodate in constructing Flood geology theories.

[David M. Raup, Evolution and the Fossil Record, letter, Science, Vol. 213 (July 17, 1981), p. 289. Also see: David M. Raup, Geology and Creationism, Field Museum Bulletin, Vol. 54 (March 1983), pp. 16-25.]

Also see Woodmorappe quotations in endnotes (see index).

IS THE EVOLUTIONARY TIME SCALE BASED ON STRONG GLOBAL EVIDENCE?

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Eminent Evolutionist Edmund Spieker admits:

No I wonder how many of us realize that the time scale was frozen in essentially its present form by 1840? How much world geology was known in 1840? A bit of western Europe, none too well, and a lesser fringe of North America. All of Asia, Africa, South America, and most of North America were virtually unknown. How dared the pioneers [of this theory] assume that their scale would fit the rocks in these vast areas, by far most of the world? Only in dogmatic assumption a mere extension of the kind of reasoning developed by Werner from the facts in his little district of Saxony. And in many parts of the world, notably India and South America, it does not fit. But even there it is applied! The followers of the founding fathers went forth across the Earth and in Procrustean fashion made it fit the sections they found, even in places where the actual evidence literally proclaimed denial. So flexible and accommodating are the 'facts' of geology.

[Edmund M. Spieker, Mountain-Building and Nature of Geologic Time-Scale, Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 40 (August 1956), p. 1803 (emphasis added).]

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Geologist John Woodmorappe states that two-thirds of Earth's land surface has only 5 or fewer of the 10 geologic periods in place. (p. 46)

Eighty to eighty-five percent of Earth's land surface does not have even 3 geologic periods appearing in 'correct' consecutive order. (p. 46)

A significant percentage of every geologic period's rocks does not overlie rocks of the next older geologic period Some percentage of every geologic period rests directly upon Precambrian 'basement' (p. 67)

Since only a small percentage of the Earth's surface obeys even a significant portion of the geologic column, it becomes an overall exercise of gargantuan special pleading and imagination for the evolutionary-uniformitarian paradigm to maintain that there ever were geologic periods. The claim of their having taken place to form a continuum of rock/life/time of ten biochronologic 'onion skins' over the Earth is therefore a fantastic and imaginative contrivance. (p. 69)

[John Woodmorappe, The Essential Non-Existence of the Evolutionary Uniformitarian Geologic Column: A Quantitative Assessment, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1 (June 1981), pp. 46-71.]
Geologist Steven Austin, Ph.D. says there are TEN COMMON MAJOR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE GEOLOGIC COLUMN. He states that the evidence is clear and overwhelming that NONE of the following beliefs is true:
1. The geologic column was constructed by geologists who, because of the weight of evidence that they had found, were convinced of the truth of uniformitarian theory and organic evolution.
2. Geologists composed the geologic column by assembling the 'periods' and 'eras' which they had recognized.
3. The strata systems of the geologic column are worldwide in their occurrence with each strata system being present below any point on the Earth's surface.
4. Strata systems always occur in the order required by the geologic column.
5. Because each strata system has distinctive lithologic composition, a newly discovered stratum can be assigned easily to its correct position in the geologic column.
6. Fossils, especially the species distinctive of specific systems, provide the most reliable method of assigning strata to their level in the geologic column.
7. Sedimentary evidence proves that periods of millions of years' duration were required to deposit individual strata systems.
8. Radiometric dating can supply 'absolute ages' in millions of years with certainty to systems of the geologic column.
9. The environmental 'pictures' assigned to certain portions of the geologic column allow us to accurately visualize what its 'geologic ages' were like.
10. The geologic column and the positions of fossils within the geologic column provide proof of amoeba-to-man evolution.
[Steven A. Austin, Ten Misconceptions About the Geologic Column, Acts & Facts, Impact series No. 137 (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, November 1984), 4 pp.]

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William Waisgerber, George F. Howe, and Emmett L. Williams, Mississippian and Cambrian Strata Interbedding: 200 Million Years Hiatus in Question, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 4 (March 1987), pp. 160-167.
Creationists do not generally believe that most of the layers are actually missing; they believe these layers simply never existed. Some say the evidence indicates that most of the sedimentary layers of the Grand Canyon were actually laid more or less continuously during truly massive flood conditions.

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Science News reported:

In many places, the oceanic sediments of which mountains are composed are inverted, with the older sediments lying on top of the younger.

[Anonymous, Mountain Building in the Mediterranean, (News of the Week section under Marine Biology), Science News, Vol. 98, No. 16 (October 17, 1970), p. 316 (emphasis added).]

Documentation of “Wrong Order” Formations and “Out-of-Order” Fossils

Duane T. Gish, More Creationist Research (14 Years)—Part I: Geological Research, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1989), pp. 161-170 (includes discussion of overthrusts, Thornton Quarry deposits, evidence from the Grand Canyon / includes 50 references to other articles).
Walter E. Lammerts, Recorded Instances of Wrong-Order Formations or Presumed Overthrusts in the United States: A Bibliography, in multiple parts, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 1986), p. 38, Vol. 22 (1986), pp. 188-189, Vol. 22 (1985), p. 127, Vol. 21 (1985), p. 200, Vol. 21 (1984), pp. 88, 150.
George F. Howe, Creation Research Society Studies on Precambrian Pollen, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 1986), pp. 99-104.
William R. Corliss, Remarkable Unconformities, Unknown Earth: A Handbook of Geologic Enigmas (Glen Arm, Maryland: The Sourcebook Project, 1980), and Inverted Strata, in Strange Planet: A Sourcebook of Unusual Geological Facts, Vol. E-1 (Glen Arm: Sourcebook Project, 1975), pp. 177-184.
John Woodmorappe, An Anthology of Matters Significant to Creationism and Diluviology: Report 2, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 4 (March 1982), pp. 208-216 (Includes a listing of over 200 published instances of anomalously-occurring fossils).
John G. Read, Fossils, Strata and Evolution (Culver City, California: Scientific-Technical Presentations, 1979).
Henry M. Morris, Creation and the Modern Christian (El Cajon, California: Master Books, 1985), pp. 252-260.

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J.E. Ransom, Fossils in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 43.
Certain fossils appear to be restricted to rocks of a relatively limited geological age span. These are called index fossils. Whenever a rock is found bearing such a fossil, its approximate age is automatically established. This method is not foolproof. Occasionally an organism, previously thought to be extinct, is found to be extant. Such 'living fossils' obviously cannot function as index fossils except within the broader time span of their known existence. (Dr. W. Stansfield, Biology Department of California Polytech State University)
[William D. Stansfield, Science of Evolution (New York: Macmillan, 1977), p. 80.]

Existence of Dinosaurs Within Human History

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Paul S. Taylor, The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible (Denver, Colorado: Accent Books, 1987), 63 pp.
Paul S. Taylor, writer/director, “The Great Dinosaur Mystery” (motion picture (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Eden Communications, 1979).

ESTIMATING THE AGE OF FOSSILS

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There is presently no radioactive age estimation method which can be used to directly date a dinosaur bone (or any other part of the body), and prove it to be tens of millions of years old.
Radiometric dating:

is an exceedingly crude instrument with which to measure our strata and I can think of no occasion where it has been put to an immediate practical use. Apart from very 'modern' examples, which are really archaeology, I can think of no cases of radioactive decay being used to date fossils. Ever since William Smith at the beginning of the 19th century, fossils have been and still are the best and most accurate method of dating and correlating the rocks in which they occur. (Geologist and Evolutionist Dr. Derek Ager, former President of the British Geological Association)

[Derek Ager, Fossil Frustrations, New Scientist, Vol. 100, No. 1383 (November 10, 1983), p. 425 (emphasis added).]
As yet there is no radiometric method (that is, one based on radioactivity) for the direct absolute dating of dinosaurs. (Paleontologist and Evolutionist Alan Charig, head of the British Museum's paleontological laboratory)

[Alan Charig, A New Look at the Dinosaurs (New York: Mayflower Books, 1979), p. 36 (emphasis added.]

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Geology researcher and Creation/Evolution specialist Dr. H. Morris:

Since there is no way to tell the geologic age of rocks except on the assumption of evolution, there is no way to be sure that any one 'age' is different from any other. Thus, they could all well be the same age, exactly as the Biblical Flood model requires. The rocks and fossil beds were all formed catastrophically, and by the same catastrophe at that.

[Henry M. Morris, King of Creation (Santee, California: Master Books, 1980), p. 160 (emphasis added).]
Henry M. Morris: Creationist (former Evolutionist) / Hydraulicist / Lecturer /Author / Ph.D. from University of Minnesota (1950) (hydrology, geology, mathematics) / Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Society of Civil Engineers / Former Professor of Hydraulic Engineering and Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute (1957-1970) / President of the Institute for Creation Research / Further information can be found in Who's Who: in the World, in America, in Science, and in Engineering.

Circular Reasoning and the Geologic Column

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See Ager quotation in endnotes (see index).
Evolutionist O. Schindewolf:

The only chronometric scale applicable in geologic history for the stratigraphic classification of rocks and for dating geologic events is furnished by the fossils. Owing to the irreversibility of evolution, they offer an unambiguous time-scale for relative age determinations and for worldwide correlations of rocks.

[O.H. Schindewolf, American Journal of Science, Vol. 255, No. 6 (June 1957), p. 394 (emphasis added).]
Historic geology relies chiefly on paleontology, the study of fossil organisms The geologist utilizes knowledge of organic evolution, as preserved in the fossil record, to identify and correlate the lithic records of ancient time. (Evolutionary geologists Engeln and Caster)

[O.D. von Engeln and K.E. Caster, Geology (New York: Mc-Graw-Hill, 1952), p. 423.]
This method of estimating the age of rocks is still the chief method used to this day.
A.E. Wilder-Smith, Ph.D., Dr.es.Sc., D.Sc., F.R.I.C.:

So firmly does the modern geologist believe in evolution up from simple organisms to complex ones over huge time spans, that he is perfectly willing to use the theory of evolution to prove the theory of evolution [p. 128] one is applying the theory of evolution to prove the correctness of evolution. For we are assuming that the oldest formations contain only the most primitive and least complex organisms, which is the basic assumption of Darwinism [p. 127]

If we now assume that only simple organisms will occur in old formations, we are assuming the basic premise of Darwinism to be correct. To use, therefore, for dating purposes, the assumption that only simple organisms will be present in old formations is to thoroughly beg the whole question. It is arguing in a circle. [p. 128]

[Arthur E. Wilder-Smith, Man's Origin, Man's Destiny (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1968), pp. 127-128 (emphasis added).]
Luther D. Sunderland, The Geologic Column: Its Basis and Who Constructed It, Bible-Science Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 12 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bible-Science Association, December 1986), pp. 1-2, 5-6, 14 (p. 6 cites a 1979 interview with Dr. Donald Fisher, state paleontologist of New York, in which he admits the circular reasoning and says, Of course; how else are you going to do it?).
Are the authorities maintaining, on the one hand, that Evolution is documented by geology and, on the other hand, that geology is documented by Evolution? Isn't this a circular argument?

[Larry Azar, Biologists, Help!, Bioscience, Vol. 28, No. 11 (November 1978), p. 714.]

Evolutionists on Circular Reasoning

Evolutionist and paleontologist Niles Eldredge:

And this poses something of a problem: If we date the rocks by their fossils, how can we then turn around and talk about patterns of evolutionary change through time in the fossil record?

[Niles Eldredge, Time Frames (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985), p. 52.]
Evolutionist Tom Kemp, Curator of the University Museum of Oxford University:

A circular argument arises: Interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?

[Tom Kemp, A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record, New Scientist, , Vol. 108, No. 1485 (December 5, 1985), p. 66.]
Evolutionist researcher J. O'Rourke:

The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks. The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results. This is supposed to be hard-headed pragmatism.

[J.E. O'Rourke, Pragmatism Versus Materialism in Stratigraphy, American Journal of Science, Vol. 276, No. 1 (January 1976), p. 48.]
Evolutionist R.H. Rastall, Lecturer in Economic Geology, Cambridge University:

It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint, geologists are here arguing in a circle. The succession of organisms has been determined by the study of their remains imbedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of the organisms they contain.

[R.H. Rastall, Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 10 (Chicago: William Benton, Publisher, 1956), p. 168.]
J.E. O'Rourke, Pragmatism versus Materialism in Stratigraphy, American Journal of Science, Vol. 276, No. 1 (January 1976), pp. 47-55.

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Michael Oard:

Few people realize that the index fossil dating system, despite its poor assumptions and many problems, is actually the primary dating tool for geologic time. Even though 'absolute' dating methods have been widely touted to be accurate, this is not the case at all. They have many serious problems In other words, radiometric dating methods are actually fit into the geological column, which was set up by fossil dating over 100 years ago.

[Michael J. Oard, Ice Ages: The Mystery Solved?, Part II: The Manipulation of Deep-Sea Cores, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3 (December 1984), p. 132 (emphasis added).]

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Concerning the popular potassium/argon system, radiometric dating researcher A. Hayatsu confirms:

In conventional interpretation of K-Ar age data, it is common to discard ages which are substantially too high or too low compared with the rest of the group or with other available data such as the geological time scale. The discrepancies between the rejected and the accepted are arbitrarily attributed to excess or loss of argon.

[A. Hayatsu, K-Ar Isochron Age of the North Mountain Basalt, Nova Scotia, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences, Vol. 16, No. 4, (1979), p. 974 (emphasis added).]
In general, dates in the 'correct ball park' are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published nor are discrepancies fully explained. (Geologist Richard Mauger, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Geology at East Carolina University)

[Richard L. Mauger, K-Ar Ages of Biotites from Tuffs in Eocene Rocks of the Green River, Washakie and Uinta Basins, Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1977), p. 37 (emphasis added).]
It has been reported that a London lab once gave Evolutionist Richard Leakey a date of 220 million years on a volcanic tuff associated with bones he discovered. It is said that because this date did not at all fit his theories, he requested a new dating which yielded a much more acceptable 2.6 million years.

[E.T. Hall, article in Sunday Telegraph (November 3, 1974), p. 15.]

MACROEVOLUTION AND THE FOSSIL RECORD

“OLDEST” FOSSILS REVEAL GREAT COMPLEXITY

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Fred Hoyle, Ph.D. and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Ph.D.:

The problem for biology is to reach a simple beginning. the tendency is to imagine that there must have been a time when simple cells existed, but when complex cells did not. this belief has turned out to be wrong. Going back in time to the age of the oldest rocks fossil residues of ancient life-forms in the rocks do not reveal a simple beginning. Although we may care to think of fossil bacteria and fossil algae and microfungi as being simple compared to a dog or horse, the information standard remains enormously high. Most of the biochemical complexity of life was present already at the time the oldest surface rocks of the Earth were formed.

[F. Hoyle and C. Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981), p. 8,70 (emphasis added).]
Evolutionists acknowledge that very complex life forms are found in the Cambrian rocks, including vertebrates, and call the origin of the vertebrates an unsolved problem of great magnitude (p. 34):

Finding vertebrate bone in Cambrian rocks, for instance, has proved that the backboned animals are as old as most of the known invertebrates (Evolutionist Professor of Biology, B. Stahl, St. Anselm College)

[Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution (New York: Dover Publications, 1985), p. vii (emphasis added).]
Of those earliest stages of evolution we have no direct evidencewe cannot make any definite statements about it. (Evolutionist author and Professor G.S. Carter, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England)

[G.S. Carter, Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), 520 pp. (quote from p. 8 emphasis added).]
Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems (El Cajon, California: Master Book Publishers, 1984), pp. 43-53.

Articles By Evolutionists Which Reveal the Puzzle They Are Confronted With on This Point:
Mark McMenamin, “The Emergence of Animals,” Scientific American, Vol. 256, No. 4 (April 1987), pp. 94-102 (includes useful illustrations and photos and summarizes new speculation on the problem by Evolutionists).
Simon Morris, “The Search for the Precambrian-Cambrian Boundary” American Scientist, Vol. 75, No. 2 (March/April 1987), pp. 157-167 (p. 157 admits that the problems set by the fossil record across the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary remain for the most part unsolved.).

THE ORIGIN OF FLIGHT

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Concerning the abrupt appearance of bats:

The fossil record of bats extends back to the early Eocene and has been documented on five continents All fossil bats, even the oldest, are clearly fully developed bats and so they shed little light on the transition from their terrestrial ancestor. (Evolutionists Hill and Smith)

[John E. Hill and James D. Smith, Bats: A Natural History (London: British Museum of Natural History, 1984), p. 33 (emphasis added).]
Glenn L. Jepsen, Early Eocene Bat from Wyoming, Science, Vol. 154, No. 3754 (1966), pp. 1333-1339.
Marvin L. Lubenow, Significant Fossil Discoveries Since 1958: Creationism Confirmed, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 3 (1980), p. 159.

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Robert R. Sanders and George F. Howe, Insects Indicate Creation, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 4 (March 1986), pp. 166-170.
Stephen Butt, Insect Flight: Testimony to Creation, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 4 (March 1980), p. 195.

ARCHAEOPTERYX

Paleontologist and Evolutionist expert Dr. John Ostrom:

There can be no doubt that Archaeopteryx was a true bird

[John Ostrom in The Beginning of Birds (Eichstatt, West Germany: Jura Museum, 1985), p. 174 as cited by Ronald C. Calais, “Response to Padian,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1989), p. 203.]
Famed Evolutionary paleontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge have said that Archaeopteryx does not count as evidence of an intermediate evolutionary transition between basic morphological designs. They say it is simply a curious mosaic.

[Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge, “Punctuated Equilibria: The Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered,” Paleobiology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1977), pp. 147.]

More Evidence Against Archaeopteryx as a Macroevolutionary Transitional Form

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Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, Publishers, 1986), 368 pp.
Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems (El Cajon, California: Master Book Publishers, 1984), pp. 69-76.
Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven: Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), pp. 34-36 (Shows that every one of its supposed reptilian features can be found in various species of undoubted birds).
Colin Brown, Another Look at the Archaeopteryx, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1980), pp. 87, 109.
Frank W. Cousins, The Alleged Evolution of Birds, in Donald W. Patten, editor, A Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 89-99.

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L.D. Martin, et al The Origin of Birds: Structure of the Tarus and Teeth, The Auk, Vol. 97 (1980), pp. 86-93 (Shows that Archaeopteryx had unserrated teeth with constricted bases and expanded roots like those of other Mesozoic birds).
All sub-classes of vertebrates have some species with and without teeth.
Also, it is said that Archaeopteryx's teeth are not like those of any known dinosaur, despite the claim of some Evolutionists that Archaeopteryx evolved from dinosaurs. See: L. Martin, The Relationship of Archaeopteryx to Other Birds, in The Beginning of Birds (Eichstatt, West Germany: Jura Museum, 1985), p. 179.

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Juvenile touraco (Touraco corythaix), native to North Africa.

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Juvenile hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoatzin), native to So. America.
Colin Brown, The Hoatzin, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (September 1981), pp. 92, 111.
Frank L. Marsh, The Strange Hoatzin, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1974), p. 139.

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A number of species from 9 Families of birds with wing-claws were displayed in 1983 at the British Museum of Natural History.

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These feathers were not reptilian scales partially changed into a primitive feather. This animal had full-blown flying feathers. The shaft went down the leading edge, which is considered a unique characteristic of birds that are strong flyers.

[Alan Feduccia and Harrison Tordoff, “Feathers of Archaeopteryx: Asymmetric Vanes Indicate Aerodynamic Function,” Science, Vol. 203, No. 4384 (March 9, 1979), pp. 1021-1022 (Shows that flight feathers of Archaeopteryx were asymmetrical identical to those of modern flying birds).]
G. Russell Akridge, “Archaeopteryx Aerodynamics,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3 (1979), p. 185.

Feathers: A Barrier for Evolution

Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler & Adler, Publishers, 1986) (shows the implausibility of a reptilian scale transforming into a feather), 368 pp.
Willis E. Keithley, “Feathers: Flight or Fancy?”, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4 (March 1973), p. 203.

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Evolutionist Feduccia:

Feathers are features unique to birds, and there are no known intermediate structures between reptilian scales and feathers. Notwithstanding speculations on the nature of the elongated scales found on such forms as Longisquamaas being featherlike structures, there is simply no demonstratable evidence that they in fact are. They are very interesting, highly modified and elongated reptilian scales, and are not incipient feathers.

[Alan Feduccia, “On Why Dinosaurs Lacked Feathers,” The Beginning of Birds (Eichstatt, West Germany: Jura Museum, 1985), p. 76.]
Vertebrate paleontologist and Evolutionist, Professor Stahl:

It seems, from the complex construction of feathers, that their evolution from reptilian scales would have required an immense period of time and involved a series of intermediate structures. No fossil structure transitional between scale and feather is known. How feathers arose initially, presumably from reptilian scales, defies analysis.

[Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution (New York: Dover Publications, 1985), pp. 349-350 (emphasis added).]

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Gerald Duffett, Archaeopteryx Lithographica Reconsidered (51 Cloan Crescent, Bishopbriggs, Glasgow G64 2HN, Scotland: Biblical Creation Society, 1983), pp. 18, 21-24 (refers to solid bones).
Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe Where Darwin Went Wrong(New Haven, Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), pp. 34-36 (refers to hollow bones and other details of Archaeopteryx).

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The hoatzin has a similarly shallow breastbone.

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Storrs L. Olson and Alan Feduccia, “Flight Capability and the Pectoral Girdle of Archaeopteryx,” Nature, Vol. 278, No. 5701 (March 15, 1979), pp. 247-248.

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Ronald C. Calais:

It is nothing short of absurdity to believe Ostrom has demonstrated the evolution of birds from small carnivorous dinosaurs. His research demonstrates nothing of the sort. Ostrom has merely formulated an hypothesis Ostrom's thesis is by no means universally accepted among paleobiologists

[Ronald C. Calais, “Response to Padian,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1986), p. 205.]
Ron C. Calais, “Response to Padian,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1989), pp. 202-207.

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Archaeopteryx was found in sediments classified as Jurassic (upper) by Evolutionists. The most recent bird find has been named Protoavis texensis. This pheasant-size animal was discovered in Texas in the Dockum sediments classified by Evolutionists as Late Triassic which they date about 75 million years earlier than Archaeopteryx.

[Sankar Chatterjee, “Cranial Anatomy and Relationships of a New Triassic Bird from Texas,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 332B, No. 1265 (June 29, 1991), pp. 277-342.]

[Anonymous, “Fossil Revisionism,” Scientific American, Vol. 255, No. 4 (1986), pp. 84-89.]

[Tim Beardsley, Fossil Bird Shakes Evolutionary Hypotheses, Nature, Vol. 322, No. 6081 (August 21-27, 1986), p. 677.]
It is obvious that we must now look for the ancestors of flying birds in a period much older than that in which Archaeopteryx lived. (Prof. James A. Jepsen of Brigham Young University)

[John Ostrom, “Bone Bonanza: Early Bird and Mastodon,” Science News, Vol. 112, No. 13 (September 24, 1977), p. 198 (bird in strata supposedly 60 million years older than Archaeopteryx).]

Is Archaeopteryx a Fake?

Some Evolutionists (and a few creationists) have claimed that the Archaeopteryx fossils were partial forgeries. This may have been disproven by the recent splitting-open of a rock sample which was supposedly found to contain an Archaeopteryx fossil (the 6th) with possible feather shaft impressions. It was reportedly found by a mayor of Solnhofen, West Germany. There are other anti-hoax evidences, as well.

ANTI-HOAX REFERENCES

Henry Gee, Ruffled Feathers Calmed by Fossil Bird, Nature, Vol. 334, No. 6178 (July 14, 1988), p. 104.
Stephen J. Gould, The Fossil Fraud That Never Was, New Scientist, Vol. 113, No. 1551 (March 12, 1987), pp. 32-36.

PRO-HOAX REFERENCES

Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Archaeopteryx (Swansea, England: Christopher Davies, Ltd., 1986).
Ian Taylor, The Berlin Archaeopteryx, Creation Science Association of Ontario Feature, No. 9 (P.O. Box 821, Station A, Scarborough, Ontario M1K 5C8: Fall 1988), 4 pp., and Archaeopteryx A Case of Fossil Forgery, Creation Science Association of Ontario Feature, No. 8 (Summer 1988), 4 pp.

DO FOSSIL HORSES SUPPORT MACROEVOLUTION?

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One such claim was made by Evolutionist William Matthew, former curator of vertebrate paleontology of the American Museum of Natural History.

[William D. Matthew, “Three-Toed Horses: A Fossil Record That Provides Direct Evidence of Evolution,” Natural History (September/October 1920), reprinted in Natural History, Vol. 89, No. 4 (April 1980), pp. 125-126.]

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Gary E. Parker: Creationist / Former Evolutionist author and professor / Biologist and paleontologist / Ed.D. from Ball State University in biology with a cognate in geology and paleontology / American Society of Zoologists / Former Chairman of the Biology Department of the Institute for Creation Research / Former Chairman of the Natural Science Department at Christian Heritage College / Current head of the Science Department at Clearwater Christian College, Clearwater, Florida.

Concerning Lack of Evidence for Macroevolution of Horses

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The supposed pedigree of the Equidae [horses, asses, zebras] is a deceitful delusion, which in no way enlightens us on the palaeontological origin of the Horse. (French paleontologist and Evolutionist C. Deperet)

[Charles J.J. Deperet in Transformations of the Animal World (New York: Arno Press, 1980), p. 105 (emphasis is Deperet's).]
Classic cases of darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information. (Paleontologist and Evolutionist Dr. David Raup, Curator of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago)

[David Raup, “Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology,” Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 25 (emphasis added).]

Unknown to most laypeople, various prominent Evolutionists knew back in the 1950s that the horse Evolution story was erroneous.

Evolutionist Professor Kerkut, Department of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of Southampton:

The evolution of the horse provides one of the keystones in the teaching of evolutionary doctrine, though the actual story depends to a large extent upon who is telling it and when the story is being told. In fact one could easily discuss the evolution of the story of the evolution of the horse.

[G.A. Kerkut, Implications of Evolution (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1960), pp. 144-145 (emphasis added).]
Evolutionist Professor Heribert Nilsson:

The family tree of the horse is beautiful and continuous only in the textbooks. In the reality provided by the results of research it is put together from 3 parts, of which only the last can be described as including the horses. The forms of the first part are just as much little horses as the present-day damans are horses. The construction of the whole Cenozoic family tree of the horse is therefore a very artificial one, since it is put together from non-equivalent parts, and cannot therefore be a continuous transformation series.

[N. Heribert Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung (Lund, Sweden: Verlag CWE Gleerup, 1954), pp. 551-552 (emphasis added).]
Ardent Evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson, although somehow persisting in acceptance of the various horse fossils as evidence of Evolution, admitted:

The uniform, continuous transformation of Hyracotherium into Equus, so dear to the hearts of generations of textbook writers, never happened in nature (p. 125)

The evolution of the horse family, Equidae, is now no better known than that of numerous other groups of organisms (p. 127)

[George G. Simpson, Life of the Past (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1953), pp. 125, 127 (emphasis added).]
Evolutionist Richard Goldschmidt, Ph.D., M.D., D.Sc., former Professor of Genetics and Cytology, University of California:

Moreover, within the slowly evolving series, like the famous horse series, the decisive steps are abrupt and without transition.

[Richard B. Goldschmidt, Evolution, As Viewed By One Geneticist, American Scientist, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1952), pp. 84-94 (emphasis added).]

278

Gary E. Parker in Willem J.J. Glashouwer and Paul S. Taylor, The Fossil Record (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Eden Films and Standard Media, 1983) (Creationist motion picture).

Additional Problems With the Macroevolution of Horses

Erich A. von Fange, The Litopterna A Lesson in Taxonomy: The Strange Story of the South American 'False' Horses, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1989), pp. 184-190 (von Fange, p. 184 The supposed evolution of the horse was confronted by contradictory fossil evidence from South America. The solution in 1910 was to banish the contradictions into an obscure separate order of mammals. This paper illustrates the strange and wonderful contortions of taxonomists to remain mindlessly loyal when the theory of evolution fails them.).
Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988).
Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (New Haven, Connecticut: Ticknor and Fields, 1982), p. 30 (Shows that fossils of modern horses, Equus nevadensis and Equus occidentalis have been found in strata with Eohippus formerly called Hyracotherium).
Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (Santee, California: Master Books, 1979).
Frank W. Cousins, The Alleged Evolution of the Horse, in Donald W. Patten, editor, A Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 69-85, and A Note On the Unsatisfactory Nature of the Horse Series of Fossils As Evidence for Evolution, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1971), pp. 99-108.

279

Niles Eldredge in Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), p. 78 (emphasis added).

Is There, or Is There Not, Substantial Fossil Evidence of Macroevolution?

PLANTS

280

Evolutionist Dr. Edred Corner, Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, England:

I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favor of special creation. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. Textbooks hoodwink.

[Edred J.H. Corner in Anna M. MacLeod and L.S. Copely, editors, 'Evolution' in Contemporary Botanical Thought (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), p. 97 (emphasis added).]
My attempts to demonstrate evolution by an experiment carried on for more than 40 years have completely failed. At least, I should hardly be accused of having started from a preconceived anti-Evolutionary standpoint It may be firmly maintained that it is not even possible to make a caricature of an Evolution out of paleo-biological facts. The fossil material is now so complete that it has been possible to construct new classes, and the lack of transitional series cannot be explained as being due to the scarcity of material. The deficiencies are real, they will never be filled. (Famed botanist and Evolutionist Dr. Heribert Nilsson)

[N. Heribert Nilsson, as quoted in Arthur C. Custance, The Earth Before Man, Part II, Doorway Paper No. 20 (P.O. Box 291, Brockville, Ontario, Canada K6V 5V5: Doorway Publications), p. 51 (emphasis added).]
As yet we have not been able to track the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present. (Evolutionist Chester Arnold, Professor of Botany and Curator of Fossil Plants, University of Michigan)

[Chester A. Arnold, An Introduction to Paleobotany (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947), p. 7 (emphasis added).]

FISH

281

Evolutionist and vertebrate specialist Professor Stahl:

The origin of all these fishes is obscure. It is not possible to demonstrate unequivocally the descent of any group of the higher fishes from a specific stock of placoderms or acanthodians.

[Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution (New York: Dover Publications, 1985), p.126.]
Zoologist J. Norman:

The geological record has so far provided no evidence as to the origin of the fishes (Evolutionist J.R. Norman, Assistant Keeper of the Department of Zoology, British Museum of Natural History, London)

[J.R. Norman, Classification and Pedigrees: Fossils, in P.H. Greenwood, A History of Fishes, 3rd edition (London: British Museum of Natural History, 1975), p. 343, and 2nd edition (New York: Hill and Wang, 1963), p. 296.]

AMPHIBIANS

282

Evolutionist Gordon Taylor:

There are no intermediate forms between finned and limbed creatures in the fossil collections of the world. (Award-winning science writer Gordon Rattray Taylor, former editor of the British Broadcasting Corporation's Horizon series)

[Gordon R. Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (New York: Harper & Row, 1983), p. 60 (emphasis added).]
Each must have required a long and complex series of genetic changes, which needed to be correlated with each other at all times so that the animal remained viable throughout. Evolution of this kind must always need long periods of time, but in spite of this the fossils give us little evidence of its course in the evolution of the Amphibia. Even the most primitive amphibians we know, the Ichthyostegalia, were as adults fully adapted to terrestrial life in many of their characters, for instance in their pentadactyl limbs. (Evolutionist G. Carter speaking of the various differences between amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds)

[G.S. Carter, Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), 520 pp. (quote is from p. 263 emphasis added).]

REPTILES

283

Unfortunately not a single specimen of an appropriate reptilian ancestor is known prior to the appearance of true reptiles. The absence of such ancestral forms leaves many problems of the amphibian-reptilian transition unanswered. (Evolutionist Robert Carroll)

[Robert L. Carroll, Problems of the Origin of Reptiles, Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Vol. 44, No. 3 (July 1969), p. 393.]
Recently a 340 million year old 8 inch long lizard was found in southern Scotland by Stan Wood, a commercial fossil hunter. It was found in Lower Carboniferous strata. This is 40 million years older than any other known reptile. Wood said, It was below the level at which I previously found what were regarded as the ancestors of the reptiles.

[Graham Heathcote, Oldest Reptile Found; Owner Aims to Sell It, Associated Press dispatch from London, The Arizona Republic, Vol. 99, No. 186 (Phoenix: November 20, 1988), p. AA-4.]

MAMMALS

284

Phillip Johnson, Ph.D., University of California:

There is a great deal more to explain than the differences in jaw and ear bone structure between reptiles and mammals. The mammal class includes such diverse groups as whales, porpoises, seals, polar bears, bats, cattle, monkeys, cats, pigs, and opossums. If mammals are a monophyletic group, then the Darwinian model requires that every one of the groups have descended from a single unidentified small land mammal. Huge numbers of intermediate species in the direct line of transition would have had to exist, but the fossil record fails to record them.

[Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1991), pp. 77-78 (emphasis added).]
Each species of mammal-like reptile that has been found appears suddenly in the fossil record and is not preceded by the species that is directly ancestral to it. It disappears some time later, equally abruptly, without leaving a directly descended species (Evolutionist Dr. Tom Kemp, Curator of Zoological Collections at the Oxford University Museum, England)

[Tom Kemp, The Reptiles that Became Mammals, New Scientist, Vol. 92, No. 4 (March 4, 1982), p. 583 (emphasis added).]
The [Evolutionary] transition to the first mammal, which probably happened in just one or, at most, two lineages, is still an enigma. (Evolutionist Roger Lewin, science writer)

[Roger Lewin, Bones of Mammals' Ancestors Fleshed Out, Science, Vol. 212, No. 4502 (June 26, 1981), p. 1492 (emphasis added).]

FOSSIL EVIDENCE FOR MACROEVOLUTION OF ALL ANIMALS

285

On behalf of the New York State Board of Regents, Origins researcher Luther Sunderland interviewed top paleontology experts at five of the world's greatest fossil museums. The result:

No museum official offered any real fossil evidence that any one of the various invertebrates evolved into vertebrate fish. (Sunderland, p. 63)

None of the museum officials could produce any fossil evidence of an intermediate ancestor connecting the amphibians with fishes. (Sunderland, p. 64)

None of the five museum officials could offer a single example of a transitional series of fossilized organisms that would document the transformation of one basically different type to another. (Sunderland, p. 88)

[Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988) (emphasis added).]
As is now well known, most fossil species appear instantaneously in the fossil record. (Evolutionist Tom Kemp, Curator of the University Museum at Oxford University)

[Tom Kemp, A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record, New Scientist, , Vol. 108, No. 1485 (December 5, 1985), p. 66 (emphasis added).]
The curious thing is that there is a consistency about the fossil gaps; the fossils are missing in all the important places. (Francis Hitching, Royal Institute of Archaeology)

[Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe or Where Darwin Went Wrong (Bergenfield, New Jersey: Penguin Books, 1982), p. 19.]
In any case, no real evolutionist, whether gradualist or punctuationist, uses the fossil record as evidence in favour of the theory of evolution as opposed to special creation (Mark Ridley, Professor of Zoology at Oxford University)

[Mark Ridley, Who Doubts Evolution?, New Scientist, Vol 90, No. 1259 (June 25, 1981), pp. 830-832 (quote from p. 831 emphasis added.)]
The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms that lie between species, the more they have been frustrated.

[John Adler with John Carey, Is Man a Subtle Accident?, Newsweek, Vol. 96, No. 18 (November 3, 1980), p. 95 (emphasis added).]
All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.

[Stephen J. Gould, The Return of Hopeful Monsters, Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 6 (June-July 1977), p. 24.]
The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution. (Stephen J. Gould, ardent Evolutionist and Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University)

[Stephen J. Gould, Is a New and General Theory of Evolution Emerging?, Paleobiology, Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 1980), p. 127 (emphasis added).]
The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition (Evolutionist Steven M. Stanley)

[Steven Stanley, Macroevolution: Pattern and Process (San Francisco: W.M. Freeman and Company, 1979), p. 39 (emphasis added).]
most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretations of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true. (Dr. David Raup, Curator of Geology, Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago)

[David Raup, Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology, Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50, No. 1 (January 1979), pp. 22-29 (emphasis added).]
Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University, Stephen Gould:

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism I wish only to point out that it was never 'seen' in the rocks.

[Stephen J. Gould, Evolution's Erratic Pace, Natural History, Vol. 86, No. 5 (May 1977), p. 13-14 (emphasis added).]
Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides us a means of 'seeing' Evolution. It has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of 'gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them. (David Kitts, Ph.D. in Zoology, well-known Evolutionary paleontologist, School of Geology and Geophysics, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, former Head Curator of the Department of Geology of the Stoval Museum)

[David B. Kitts, Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory, Evolution, Vol. 28 (September 1974), p. 467 (emphasis added).]
It must also be remembered that we never have available for our discussions the actual forms from which a later group evolved, for, as we have seen, we never find among the fossils a record of the exact point of divergence of one group from another. [Carter, p. 11]

Many of the forms that would be of the greatest interest to us are missing. In particular, we have no direct fossil evidence of the steps in these early stages of vertebrate evolution by which any of the major groups arose from earlier forms. [Carter, p. 187] (Evolutionist author and Professor G.S. Carter, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, England)

[G.S. Carter, Structure and Habit in Vertebrate Evolution (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1967), 520 pp.]
Evolutionist and Professor of Vertebrate Paleontology, Harvard University, and Professor of Geology at the University of Arizona, Tucson, G. Simpson:

It remains true, as every paleontologist knows, that most new species, genera, and families, and that nearly all categories above the level of families, appear in the [fossil] record suddenly, and are not led up to by gradual, completely continuous transitional sequences.

[George G. Simpson, The Major Features of Evolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), p. 360 (emphasis added).]

286

Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Principal Scientific Officer of the Paleontology Department of the British Museum of Natural History, London:

I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included themYet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional forms You say that I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.

[Colin Patterson in a personal letter to L. Sunderland (April 10, 1979) in Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), p. 89 (emphasis added).]

287

Charles Darwin on the lack of fossil evidence:

But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the Earth? (p. 206, Chapter 6 on 'Difficulties on Theory')

But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the numbers of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the Earth, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory [of Evolution]. [p. 292, first paragraph of Chapter 9 On the Imperfection of the Geologic Record]

[Charles Robert Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, first edition reprint (New York: Avenel Books, 1979) (emphasis added).]

288

Evolutionist Neville George:

There is no need to apologize any longer for the poverty of the fossil record. In some ways it has become almost unmanageably rich

[T. Neville George, Fossils in Evolutionary Perspective, Science Progress, Vol. 48, No. 1 (January 1960).]

Continuing Lack of Evidence Despite Enormous Number of Fossils

289

Evolutionist and paleontologist David Raup:

Darwin was embarrassed by the fossil record we are now about 120 years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn't changed much We have even fewer examples of Evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin's time.

[David M. Raup, Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology, Field Museum of Natural History, Vol. 50, No. 1 (January 1979), p. 22 (emphasis added).]
Now, after over 120 years of the most extensive and painstaking geological exploration of every continent and ocean bottom, the picture is infinitely more vivid and complete than it was in 1859. Formations have been discovered containing hundreds of billions of fossils and our museums now are filled with over 100 million fossils of 250,000 different species. The availability of this profusion of hard scientific data should permit objective investigators to determine if Darwin was on the right track. What is the picture which the fossils have given us? The gaps between major groups of organisms have been growing even wider and more undeniable. They can no longer be ignored or rationalized away with appeals to the imperfection of the fossil record. (Creation/Evolution researcher Luther Sunderland)

[Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), p. 9 (emphasis added).]
All one can learn about the history of life is learned from systematics, from groupings one finds in nature. The rest of it is story-telling of one sort or another. We have access to the tips of a tree; the tree itself is theory and people who pretend to know about the tree and to describe what went on with it I think, are telling stories. (Evolutionist Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History, London)

[Colin Patterson in a British Broadcasting Corporation television program (March 4, 1982) (emphasis added)—as cited in The Quote Book (Australia: Answers in Genesis), p. 12.]
Evolutionary geologist Dr. Derek Ager, Department of Geology and Oceanography, University College (Swansea, United Kingdom):

It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student, from Trueman's Ostrea/Gryphaea to Carruthers' Zaphrentis delanouei, have now been 'debunked.' Similarly, my own experience of more than twenty years looking for evolutionary lineages among the Mesozoic Brachiopoda has proved them equally elusive.

[Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Fossil Record, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association, Vol. 87, No. 2 (1976), p. 132. As cited in Andrew Snelling, The Revised Quote Book (Acacia Ridge, Australia: Answers in Genesis, 1990), p.8.]
At the present stage of geological research, we have to admit that there is nothing in the geological records that runs contrary to the view of conservative creationists, that God created each species [Creationists would say 'baramin', not 'species'] separately, presumably from the dust of the Earth. (Dr. Edmund J. Ambrose, Emeritus Professor of Cell Biology at the University of London)

[Edmund Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of the Biological World (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1982), p. 164 (emphasis added).]

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988).
Gary Parker, The Fossil Evidence, in Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What Is Creation Science?, revised and expanded edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1987), pp. 125-184.
Duane T. Gish, Evolution: The Challenge of the Fossil Record (Santee, California: Master Books, 1986), and Evolution: The Fossils Say No! (Santee, California: Master Books, 1981).
Richard B. Bliss, Gary E. Parker, and Duane T. Gish, Fossils: Key to the Present (Santee, California: Master Books, 1980).
Randy L. Wysong, The Creation-Evolution Controversy (Midland, Michigan: Inquiry Press, 1976).

Loss of Faith in Evolutionism Among Scientists

Hundreds of scientists who once taught their university students that the bottom line on origins had finally been figured out and settled are today confessing that they were completely wrong. They've discovered that their previous conclusions, once held so fervently, were based on very fragile evidences and suppositions which have since been refuted by new discoveries. (Creation/Evolution researcher Luther D. Sunderland)

[Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), pp. 7-8 (emphasis added).]
A number of formerly ardent Evolutionists have accepted part or all of the concepts of Creationism. Biologist and paleontologist Dr. Gary Parker is one of these. He comments:

In most people's minds, fossils and Evolution go hand in hand. In reality, fossils are a great embarrassment to Evolutionary theory and offer strong support for the concept of Creation. If Evolution were true, we should find literally millions of fossils that show how one kind of life slowly and gradually changed into another kind of life. But, missing links are the trade secret, in a sense, of paleontology. The point is, the links are STILL MISSING. What we really find are gaps that sharpen up the boundaries between kinds. It's those gaps which provide us with the evidence of Creation of separate kinds. As a matter of fact, there are gaps between each of the major kinds of plants and animals. Transition forms are missing by the millions. What we do find are separate and complex kinds, pointing to Creation.

[Gary E. Parker in Willem J.J. Glashouwer and Paul S. Taylor, The Origin of Species (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Eden Films and Standard Media, 1983) (Creationist motion picture) (emphasis is Dr. Parker's).]
Despite all evidence to the contrary, some leading Evolutionists have made such absurd and audacious claims as this in textbooks:

The transitions Osteichthyes-Amphibia [fish to amphibians], Amphibia-Reptilia, Reptilia-Mammalia, and Reptilia-Aves [reptiles to birds] are clearly shown in the record. There are, of course, missing minor steps and more evidence as to details will be welcome, but the material in hand already leaves no doubt as to the reality and the essential features of these derivations of one class from another.

[George Gaylord Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution: A Study of the History of Life and of Its Significance for Man, Revised Edition (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967), pp. 46 (emphasis added).]

290

Figures supplied by Evolutionist Matthews indicate that less than 10% of all the species are known only as fossils; 90% are living. There are approximately 1,105,000 living species of animals and only about 130,000 extinct species discovered thus far.

[William H. Matthews, III, Fossils (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 1982), p. 8.]

291

Duane T. Gish: Creationist / Biochemist / Lecturer / Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of California at Berkeley / Research Associate, Research Division, The Upjohn Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan (1960-1971) / Assistant Research Associate in Biochemistry, University of California (Berkeley), Virus Laboratory (1956-1960) / Assistant Professor of Biochemistry, Cornell University Medical College (NYC) (1955-1956) / Lilly Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University Medical College (1953-1955) / Phi Beta Kappa, University of California, Los Angeles / Vice President of the Institute for Creation Research / Foremost debater on Creation-Evolution.

292

Duane T. Gish in Willem J.J. Glashouwer and Paul S. Taylor, The Fossil Record (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Eden Films and Standard Media, 1983) (Creationist motion picture).

293

All basic kinds of animals appear abruptly in the fossil record. Excellent documentation of this can be found in the following paleontological report: W.B. Harland, et al, The Fossil Record (London: Geological Society of London, 1967).

294

Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 4th edition (Santee, California: Master Books, 1988), pp. 111, 113-114.

295

Fossilization experiments in the sediment-rich Mississippi River delta region showed that it takes far greater than normal sedimentation to prevent the total disintegration of fish by bacteria and scavengers.

[Ranier Zangerl and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr., The Paleoecological History of Two Pennsylvanian Black Shales, Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs, Vol. 4 (Chicago: Field Natural History Museum, 1963), pp. 20-21, 167-169.]
Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, Revised Edition (Santee, California: Master Book Publishers, 1988), pp. 111-114.

WORLDWIDE EVIDENCE OF RAPID, CATASTROPHIC FLOODING

296

Creationist Albert W. Mehlert:

The fossil record does not support any long-age concept No! time is the enemy of historical geologists. The record only makes sense if the world's strata were laid down fairly recently.

[Albert W. Mehlert, Diluviology and Uniformitarian Geology A Review, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 1986), pp. 104, 106 (emphasis added).]
Luther Sunderland, Creation/Evolution researcher:

The scientific establishment's acceptance of worldwide catastrophism and mass extinction does not signify their abandonment of materialistic Evolution. Neither has their grudging acquiescence to the fact that great catastrophes caused the deposition of many of the fossils forced them to consider that virtually no fossils are in the process of forming on the bottom of any lake or sea today. This is a verboten subject. When I asked the editors of several of the most prestigious scientific journals the reason for this silence, I was met with more silence.

[Luther D. Sunderland, Mass Extinction and Catastrophism Replace Darwinism and Uniformitarianism, Contrast: The Creation Evolution Controversy, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: March/April 1986), pp. 1-2 (emphasis added).]
Geologist and Evolutionist Derek Ager:

The hurricane, the flood or the tsunami may do more in an hour or a day than the ordinary processes of nature have achieved in a thousand years.

[Derek V. Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 2nd edition (New York: John Wiley & Sons Publishers, 1981), p. 54.]
Hydraulicist Henry Morris, Ph.D., and geoscientist John Morris, Ph.D.:

The point is that all geologic systems and structures in the geologic column testify of catastrophism! More and more geologists today are acknowledging this fact, even though they are not yet ready, in most cases, to become creationists. Dr. Derek Ager, Head of the Geology Department of the University College of Swansea, England, and past president of the British Geological Association, has devoted an entire book to expounding this fact. After discussing a wide variety of geologic formations and features all illustrating catastrophism Dr. Ager concludes his book as follows:

“In other words, the history of any one part of the Earth, like the life of a soldier, consists of long periods of boredom and short periods of terror.” [Derek Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 2nd edition (New York: John Wiley Publishers, 1981), pp. 106-107.]

That is, according to Ager, in any single local geologic column, what we have is a record of several geologic catastrophes, and no other record! Stated in another way, all the real evidence points to catastrophic deposition, never to slow, gradual processes. Ager, of course, does not believe these were all the same catastrophe, but different ones, scattered throughout geologic time. Although time lapsed between catastrophes, they curiously left no trace.

“I maintain that a far more accurated picture of the stratigraphical record is of one long gap with only very occasional sedimentation.” [Derek Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, 2nd edition (New York: John Wiley Publishers, 1981), p. 35.]
And what we see in the geological record, everywhere and always, are evidences of catastrophe and rapid processes, not long ages of slow, continuous sedimentation.
[Henry M. Morris and John D. Morris, Science, Scripture, and the Young Earth (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, 1989), pp. 25-27 (emphasis added).]
Evolutionist Robert Dott, University of Wisconsin:

I hope I have convinced you that the sedimentary record is largely a record of episodic [catastrophic] events rather than being uniformly continuous. My message is that episodicity [catastrophe] is the rule, not the exception.

[Robert H. Dott, Episodic View Now Replacing Catastrophism, Geotimes (November 1982), p. 16.]

297

The fossils of millions of fish worldwide speak of death by catastrophe. A Science magazine article reported a 4-square-mile area where more than a billion fish were killed and densely packed in the sediment.

[H.S. Ladd, Ecology, Paleontology, and Stratigraphy, Science (January 9, 1959), p. 72.]

Also see: David S. Jordon, A Miocene Catastrophe, Natural History, Vol. 20 (1920), pp. 18-22.
It can definitely be said that, through all the geologic formations in which fish remains occur, a large proportion of the remains consists of entire fishes or of sections in which every scale is in position All of this conclusively proves that when myriads of fish were simultaneously killed, their bodies were deposited and preserved intact either immediately or within a day or two at most after death. (J.M. MacFarlane of the University of Pennsylvania states)

[J.M. MacFarlane, Fishes, The Source of Petroleum(New York: Macmillan, 1923), p. 400 (emphasis added).]

298

Experiments by Dr. George R. Hill and Dr. Don C. Adams at the University of Utah have shown that plant matter can be turned into coal in a matter of hours.

[George R. Hill, Some Aspects of Coal Research, Chemical Technology (May 1972), p. 296.]

[George R. Hill and Don C. Adams, Exothermal Metamorphosis of Coal Precursors (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, College of Mines and Mineral Industries, 1970).]

[Don C. Adams, Exothermal Metamorphosis of Coal Precursors, doctoral dissertation (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, Dept. of Mineral Engineering, August 1970).]
The scientific journal Research and Development reported the rapid formation of coal when plant material (lignin) was heated together with illite clay or montmorillite:

A group at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, Illinois, recently uncovered some clues as to the origin of coal. The studies indicate that currently accepted theories of the development of coal probably are wrong

[Anonymous, Basic Coal Studies Refute Current Theories of Formation, Research and Development, (February 1984), p. 92.]
Similarly, experiments by the U.S. Bureau of Mines showed that petroleum (oil) can be produced from organic matter in only 20 minutes.

[Hayden R. Appell, Y.C. Fu, Sam Friedman, et al, Converting Organic Wastes to Oil, RL-7560 (Washington, D.C.: United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Mines, 1971).]

Also, see: Science News, Vol. 125 (March 24, 1984), p. 187.
Andrew A. Snelling, How Fast Can Oil Form?, Creation: Ex Nihilo, Vol. 12, No. 2 (March-May 1990), pp. 30-34.

299

Steven A. Austin: Creationist / Geologist / Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University, doctoral dissertation on coal formation / Professor of Geology, Institute for Creation Research Graduate School / Consulting geologist for government and industry.

300

Steven A. Austin, Catastrophes in Earth History (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, 1984), 318 pp. (includes large bibliography of recent secular geology books and papers supporting catastrophism), and Depositional Environment of the Kentucky No. 12 Coal Bed (Middle Pennsylvanian) of Western Kentucky, With Special Reference to the Origin of Coal Lithotypes, doctoral dissertation (Pennsylvania State University, 1979), 390 pp. (University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, MI, Order No. 8005972.)
Steven A. Austin (a.k.a., Stuart E. Nevin, The Origin of Coal, Impact Series No. 41, Acts & Facts (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, November 1976).

301

Dr. Austin made this discovery by producing ultra-thin cross-slices of numerous coal samples for microscopic analysis.

Further Details on Polystrate Fossils

302

Mats Molen, Vart Ursprung?: Om Universums, Jordens Och Livets Uppkomst Samt Historia (Box 3110, 13603, Haninge, Sweden: Salt & Ljus, 1988), 302 pp. (includes a good selection of photos and references concerning polystrate fossils / text is in Swedish).
Harold G. Coffin, Erect Floating Stumps in Spirit Lake, Washington, Geology, Vol. 11 (May 1983), pp. 298-299, and Vertical Flotation of Horsetails (Equisetum): Geological Implications, The Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 82 (July 1971), pp. 2019-2022, and Research on the Classic Joggins Petrified Trees, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 1 (June 1969), pp. 34-44, 70.
N.A. Rupke, Prolegomena to a Study of Cataclysmal Sedimentation, in Walter E. Lammerts, editor, Why Not Creation? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1970), pp. 152-157.
Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1968), pp. 111-112 (re: Craiglieth Quarry).
F.M. Broadhurst, Some Aspects of the Paleoecology of Non-Marine Faunas and Rates of Sedimentation in the Lancashire Coal Measures, American Journal of Science, Vol. 262 (Summer 1964), pp. 858-869.
George McCready Price, The New Geology (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1923), p. 462.
E.A. Newell Arber, The Natural History of Coal (England: Cambridge University Press, 1912), pp. 101, 114.
C.O. Dunbar, Geology, 2nd edition (New York: Wiley and Sons, 1960), p. 227.
A. Geikie, Textbook of Geology, 4th edition (London: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1903), pp. 654-655.
Robert R. Schrock, Sequence in Layered Rocks (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1948), p. 293.
H. Witham, A Description of a Fossil Tree Discovered in the Quarry of Craiglieth, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. 12 (1832), pp. 147-152.
Another interesting evidence for the rapid burial of trees comes from the research of Dr. Robert Gentry. In numerous samples of coalified wood he found microscopic radiohalos produced by Polonium-210. The halos were elliptical, rather than perfectly round.
This indicated that the halos were formed while the wood was still in a soft condition, before it was compressed by the weight of overlying sediment. After careful analysis it was found that the elliptical polonium halos in wood specimens taken from three different geological strata the Triassic, Jurassic and Eocene were virtually identical. Evidence suggested that all the wood had been infiltrated with the same uranium-bearing solution during a single event. These findings had disturbing implications for conventional geochronology. The Triassic, Jurassic and Eocene formations are thought by most scientists to have been deposited tens of millions of years apart The simplest scenario to account for their infiltration would be a major flood which uprooted trees, soaking them in water which had absorbed large amounts of uranium from nearby ground deposits, and finally compressing them between layers of sediment. A flood like the one described in the biblical book of Genesis would have done just that. (Reporter Dennis Crews)

[Dennis Crews, Mystery in the Rocks, The Inside Report (March/April 1988), pp. 3-4 (emphasis added).]

303

Arthur V. Chadwick: Creationist / Geologist / Ph.D. in Geology from University of Miami (1969) / Professor of Geology and Biology at Southwestern Adventist College, Keene, Texas.

Awesome Power of Fast-Moving Water

304

Geologist A. Chadwick, Ph.D.:

One thing that supports this view is the fact that these layers are continuous for mile after mile through the Canyon. You can pick any one of these layers and follow it through for 100 or 200 miles in the Canyon, with very little change. This kind of continuity and uniformity suggests that deep water was involved in the process.

[Arthur V. Chadwick in the Creationist motion picture, The Fossil Record (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Eden Films and Standard Media, 1983).]
Also, see: Arthur V. Chadwick, “Megabreccias: Evidence for Catastrophism,” Origins, Vol. 5 (Loma Linda, California: Geoscience Research Institute, Loma LInda Univ., 1978), pp.39-46.

305

Albert Mehlert, Creationist researcher:

A week's study of the Grand Canyon should be a good cure for Evolutionary geologists as it is a perfect example of Flood geology with its paraconformities and striking parallelisms of the under strata. The whole area was obviously laid down quickly, then uplifted and then the whole sedimentary area split open like a rotten watermelon.

[Albert W. Mehlert, Diluviology and Uniformitarian Geology A Review, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 1986), p. 106 (emphasis added).]
Steven A. Austin, editor, Grand Canyon: Monument to Disaster (Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1994), 284 pp.

306

See examples of very rapid, mature-appearing canyon erosion after the eruption of Mount St. Helens, U.S.A.

[Steven A. Austin, Rapid Erosion at Mount St. Helens, Origins, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Loma Linda, California: Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, 1984), pp. 90-98.]
The speed of moving water greatly increases erosive force and sediment transporting capacity (increases at a rate of a 3rd or 4th power of its velocity).

[A. Holmes, Principles of Physical Geology (New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1965), p. 512 (as cited by John C. Whitcomb in The World That Perished, 2nd edition (1988), p. 133.]
Increasing the flow speed 10 times results in an increased sediment carrying capacity of 1 thousand times greater or even 10 thousand times greater.

[John C. Whitcomb, The World That Perished book, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988), p. 133.]
A process called cavitationproduces an astoundingly powerful erosive force involved in flooding. During rapid discharge at the Glen Canyon Dam, U.S.A., cavitation once eroded over 62 thousand cubic feet of solid rock (equivalent to a 12 foot thick slab of rock the size of a basketball court) in about one minute. Engineer and educator Paul MacKinney:

Vacuum bubbles formed within turbulent fluids [including water] possess unimaginable capability for rapidly reducing materials. Evidence from constantly monitored civil engineering projects, aerodynamics, marine acoustics, engine design, etc.; combine to witness that cavitation: unavoidable in floods, must be avoided in fluid dynamics design. Rampant cavitation explains flood sediment Origins within minimum time. Laboratory tests at Stanford University demonstrate impacts as high as 350,000 pounds per square inch resulting from shock waves initiated by the collapse of vacuum bubbles [cavitation]. Other investigators suggest forces as high as 30,000 atmospheres, or about 450,000 psi The certainty of its widespread activity in floods is beyond question both theoretically and from observation. Ongoing cavitation during the historical Flood and the breaking up of the fountains of the deep would have resulted in sequential subsidence of large sections of the crust of the Earth down into the exhausted fountain cavities. These reservoirs supported the crust prior to all being broken up in one day. Impact, electrical and thermal shock from cavitation event may make cement instantaneously, providing rapid sedimentary lithification.

[Paul M. Mackinney, Abstract: 'Nothing' Can Reduce 'Everything,' (3468 Don Juan Drive, Carlsbad, California 92008: P. MacKinney, 1989) (emphasis added).]
Edmond W. Holroyd, III, An Introduction to the Possible Role of Cavitation in the Erosion of Water Channels, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 1 (June 1990), pp. 23-32, and Some Simulations of the Possible Role of Cavitation in Catastrophics Floods, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 2 (September 1990), pp. 49-55.

307

Steven A. Austin, editor, Grand Canyon: Monument to Disaster (Santee, CA: Institute for Creation Research, 1994), 284 pp.
Hydraulicist and flood geology specialist Dr. Henry Morris says there is no doubt that a worldwide flood would be accompanied by geological upheaval, earthquakes and massive volcanic activity: Anyone with the slightest understanding of the hydraulics of moving water and the hydrodynamic forces associated with it would know that a worldwide 'tranquil' flood is about as reasonable a concept as a worldwide tranquil explosion![H.M. Morris, King of Creation (Santee, CA: Master Books, 1980), p. 151 (emphasis added).]

308

John Woodmorappe, The Antediluvian Biosphere and Its Capability of Supplying the Entire Fossil Record, in Robert E. Walsh, et al., editors, Proceedings of the First International Conference on Creationism, Vol. 2 (August 4-9, 1986), pp. 205-218.

SUPPORT FOR AN ANCIENT, WORLDWIDE FLOOD CATASTROPHE

(involving massive amounts of water, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, “tsunamis,” turbidity currents, massive erosion, etc.)

309

EXISTENCE OF EXTREMELY LARGE NUMBERS OF FOSSILS Fossilization requires rapid burial. Yet such burial is exceedingly rare today, and fossilization is almost nonexistent in modern times. The existence of massive numbers of fossils worldwide is clear evidence of quick, deep, mass burial. A global flood catastrophe would offer conditions most ideal to the formation of great numbers of fossils. Many (if not most) fossils give evidence that the animals were killed suddenly most likely connected with their entombment. There is no strong evidence to the contrary. And, in fact, there are often good indicators of this.
RAPID FOSSILIZATION, AS EVIDENCED BY PRESERVATION OF DELICATE PARTS
- Thousands and millions of fish fossils which retain all the body parts indicating very rapid burial. Under normal conditions, fish do not fossilize. Dead fish are torn apart by scavengers and disintegrated by bacteria.
- The existence of fossils of such soft invertebrates as jellyfish and sponges.
- Preservation of animal tracks, fish odors, dung, rain prints, mud cracks, amino acids, proteins, epidermal hairs in plants, cell details, chlorophyll, etc.
WHALE FOSSILS Such huge animals as ancient whales can be found completely and quickly buried in sediment.

[Example: K.M. Reese, Workers Find Whale in Diatomaceous Earth Quarry, Chemical and Engineering News, Vol. 54, No. 42 (October 11, 1976), p. 40.](October 11, 1976), p. 40.]
POLYSTRATE FOSSILS The existence of fossils (trees, shells, etc.) extending into two, three or more layers of strata.
RANDOM ORDER OF FOSSILS The sediments do not exhibit strong evidence of a record of Evolution with simple animals at the bottom, progressing type by type up to more and more complex animals. The order is often random or completely upside down or out of order for Evolution. But, this would be expected in a global flood catastrophe.
MASSIVE SEDIMENTATION The global existence of massive amounts of sediment. Most of Earth's crust is covered with layer upon layer of sediment and evidence of strong sorting action produced by moving water. Frequently the sediment bears strong evidence of having been laid under flood conditions. Where can one find dolomite, siliceous iron, etc. forming in large quantity today?
DOLOSTONE BEDS The global existence of massive amounts of dolostone. Beds are sometimes thousands of feet thick. Dolostone is not forming today.
[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 46-48.]
CHERT BED The global existence of large amounts of chert. Beds are up to 50 feet thick (or more). No chert is forming today.

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 48-49.]
CONGLOMERATE The global existence of massive amounts of conglomerate rock indicating deposition under flood conditions over extremely wide areas with very strong currents. (Conglomerate consists of cemented gravel, sand and boulders.)
[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 50-51 (p. 51 such a present-day widespread conglomerate in the process of formation has not been found.]
GRAYWACKE The global existence of massive amounts of graywacke (greywacke) sandstone. Very rapid deposition is implied. No graywacke sediments have been found forming today.

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 51-53.]
MASSIVE PRECIPITATIONS OF GYPSUM, COMMON SALT, AND ANHYDRITE Enormous, relatively pure beds of these minerals are found globally, sometimes thousands of feet thick without clear evidence of other sediments (water-borne or air-borne). Some claim these beds are much easier to explain in terms of a rapid precipitation in deep water, than it is over thousands of years.

[Duane T. Gish, Precipitation Brought About by Mixing Brines, in More Creationist Research (14 Years) Part I: Geological Research, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (March 1989), pp. 168-169.]

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 53-54.]
FLUID DYNAMICS EXPERIMENTS have yielded evidence for how cyclic turbulence during a global flood might naturally produce a layering effect in the sediments. Layers of clay, sand, lime, organic material, and the like, could naturally tend to be piled on top of each other in repeated patterns in very short periods.

[Marlyn E. Clark and H.D. Voss, Computer Simulation of Large-Scale Wave Motions Associated with the Genesis Flood, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1 (June 1980), pp. 28-40.

[H.D. Voss, M.E. Clark, et al., Investigation of a Global Flood Using a Large Circular Flume (2020 Zuppke Drive, Urbana, IL 61801: The Genesis Research Laboratory, 1980+).]
COAL The existence of coal in enormous amounts. No uniformitarian theory adequately explains the evidence of coal as well as does catastrophic flooding.
MASSIVE VOLCANISM The existence of thousands of cubic miles of volcanic and granitic rock types, as would be expected during a global catastrophic geologic upheaval.
WARM GLOBAL CLIMATE evidence of a worldwide climate that was more uniformly warm before the Flood. No evidence of frozen Poles.
EVIDENCE OF SIGNIFICANT PAST GLOBAL TEMPERATURE CHANGES. This would be an expected result of a worldwide catastrophe involving massive volcanic releases into the atmosphere, worldwide flooding and, later, great evaporation from wet continents.
CORRELATION OF DEATH DATES BY RADIOCARBON When the Carbon-14 dating method is correctly calibrated, and 25 thousand radiocarbon dates are graphed, the result shows evidence of a great peak of death about 4 thousand years ago.

[Robert L. Whitelaw, Time, Life and History in the Light of 15,000 Radiocarbon Dates, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 1 (June 1970), pp. 56-71, 83.]
EVIDENCE OF RAPID DEPOSITION IN THE INTERNAL CHARACTERISTICS OF STRATA SEQUENCES The widespread physical similarity in the order of strata in each sequence indicates that virtually identical conditions were prevalent laterally over broad areas. Sandstones and conglomerates, which form the basal and best preserved parts of many sequences, indicate that widespread flood conditions once prevailed. Sequences are often thousands of feet in thickness. with the coarsest material at the base progressively decreasing in coarseness toward the top.

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 60-62 (quote is from pp. 60-61).]
MOUNTAINS UPLIFTED AFTER MOST SEDIMENTATION Many mountain ranges can be shown to have been uplifted after nearly all of the stratigraphic record was deposited.

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), p. 64 (quote is from p. 64).]
UNDERFIT STREAMS AND RIVERS Evidence that most natural drainage systems globally at one time drained off far larger amounts of water.
MASSIVE, RAPID EROSION evidenced at many locations worldwide, including the Grand Canyon. Also, see evidence of rapid erosion based on widespread sequence-bounding discontinuities.

[Stuart E. Nevins (a.k.a. Steven A. Austin), Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 60-62.]
EXISTENCE OF GREAT PLUNGEPOOLS (created as torrents of floodwater mud plunged off the continents).

[Reginald Daly, Earth's Most Challenging Mysteries (Vancouver, Washington: The Craig Press, 1972), pp. 296-311.]
EXISTENCE OF SUBMARINE CANYONS.
ENCLOSED LAKE BASINS Evidence of formerly huge inland lakes and seas on all continents that dried up as the Floodwaters receded over the centuries.
WATERLINES found on the coasts of every continent.
EVIDENCE FROM STUDIES OF SMALLER-SCALE CATASTROPHES Studies of modern floods, volcanic eruptions (e.g., Krakatoa, Mount St. Helens), tsunamis, turbidity currents, and ocean waves showing these formidable forces of nature are capable of producing rapid and significant geologic changes.
FLOOD LEGENDS throughout the world. (See index.)
GENESIS RECORD of the Flood, and other Biblical references.

More Evidence Against Uniformitarianism and for Worldwide Flooding

John C. Whitcomb, Jr., The World That Perished, 2nd edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1988) (sequel to The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris).
Albert W. Mehlert, Diluviology and Uniformitarian Geology A Review, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (December 1986), pp. 104-109.
Steven A. Austin, Did Noah's Flood Cover the Entire World? Yes., in Ronald Youngblood, editor, The Genesis Debate Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1986), pp. 210-228, and Catastrophes in Earth History (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, 1984), 318 pp. (includes large bibliography of recent secular geology books and papers supporting catastrophism), and Steven Austin (a.k.a., Stuart E. Nevins, Stratigraphic Evidence of the Flood, in Donald W. Patten, editor, A Symposium on Creation III (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1971), pp. 33-65.
Glenn R. Morton, Global, Continental and Regional Sedimentation Systems and Their Implications, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 1 (June 1984), pp. 23-33 (The geologic record displays a trend in which certain lithologies are more prominently deposited during certain geologic periods. The trend is a worldwide phenomenon which seems to better fit within Creationist views of Earth history.)
Henry M. Morris, The Biblical Basis for Modern Science (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1984), pp. 270-364, and Catastrophism in Geology, in Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What Is Creation Science? (Santee, California: Master Books, 1982), pp. 189-218, and Sedimentation and the Fossil Record: A Study in Hydraulic Engineering, in Walter E. Lammerts, editor, Why Not Creation? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1970), pp. 114-137.
Harold S. Coffin, Mount St. Helens and Spirit Lake, Origins, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Loma Linda, California: Geoscience Research Institute, Loma Linda University, 1983), pp. 9-17 (Mount Saint Helens eruption and aftermath provides interesting parallels to phenomena associated with the Flood).
James H. Shea, Twelve Fallacies of Uniformitarianism, Geology, Vol. 10, No. 9 (September 1982), pp. 455-460, and Uniformitarianism and Sedimentology, Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, Vol. 52 (1982), pp. 701-702.
Stanley E. Taylor, writer, The World That Perished (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Films for Christ Association, 1977) (Creationist motion picture and video).
N.A. Rupke, Prolegomena to a Study of Cataclysmal Sedimentation, in Walter E. Lammerts, editor, Why Not Creation? (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1970), pp. 141-179.
Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship Publishers, 1968).
Melvin A. Cook, Prehistory and Earth Models (London: Max Parrish, 1966).
John C. Whitcomb, Jr. and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1967, copyright 1961) (the single most comprehensive book on this subject and the basis for further research by many subsequent authors).

FLOOD LEGENDS

310

If a worldwide flood catastrophe took place, and if all subsequent humans have been descendants of the few survivors (the Bible indicates 8), one would expect to find some record of this deluge in ancient records. This is exactly the case. Legends and mythologies of nations and tribes around the world tell of a time when the entire Earth was devastated by water. Anthropologists have collected at least 59 Flood legends from the aborigines of North America, 46 from Central and South America, 31 from Europe, 17 from the Middle East, 23 from Asia, and 37 from the South Sea Islands and Australia. They all agree on at least 3 things:
- A worldwide flood destroyed both man and animals.
- There was a vessel of safety provided.
- An extremely small remnant of people thus survived.
[James A. Strickling, A Statistical Analysis of Flood Legends, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 3 (December 1972), pp. 152-155.]

[Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Flood (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1951), p. 128.]

More on Flood Legends

William H. Shea, A Comparison of Narrative Elements in Ancient Mesopotamia Creation-Flood Stories with Genesis 1-9, Origins, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Loma Linda, California: Geoscience Research Institute, 1984), pp. 2-3, 9-29, and The Structure of the Genesis Flood Narrative and Its Implications, Origins, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1979), pp. 3-4, 8-29.
Stanley E. Taylor, writer, The World That Perished (PO Box 577, Frankfort KY 40602, USA: Films For Christ, 1977) (a Creationist motion picture includes excerpts from numerous legends).
Tim F. LaHaye and John D. Morris, The Ark on Ararat (Santee, California: Master Books, 1976), chapter 30.
Arthur C. Custance, Flood Traditions of the World, in Donald W. Patten, editor, Symposium on Creation IV (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1972), pp. 9-44.
Theodor H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).
Byron C. Nelson, The Deluge Story in Stone (Augsburg, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1931), Appendix I, also (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1968).
Johannes Riem, Die Sintflut in Sage und Wissenschaft (Hamburg, Germany: Agentur des Rauhen Hauses, 1925).
Sir James George Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, Vol. I (London: Macmillan and Co., 1918), pp. 104-361.
William Restelle, The Traditions of the Deluge, Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 64 (1907), pp. 148-167.
Richard Andree, Die Flutsagen: Ethnographisch Betrachtet (Braunschweig, Germany: Friedrich Bieweg und Sohn, 1891).

311

Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Bethesda, Maryland: Adler and Adler Publishers, 1986), p. 358.

312

Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason (Boston: Gambit, 1971 / Third Printing, 1978), p. 5.

EVOLUTIONISM AND THE CURRENT STATE OF SCIENCE

313

Our own interpretation is: 'Be suspicious of a theory if more and more hypotheses are needed to support it as new facts become available, or as new considerations are brought to bear. This interpretation leaves Darwinism in a poor way, for this is exactly what has happened to Darwin's theory over the 120 years since it was announced in The Origin of Species.

[Fred Hoyle and N. Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1981), p. 135 (emphasis added).]
Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist, British Museum of Natural History, London:

Last year I had a sudden realization for over twenty years I had thought I was working on Evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years and there was not one thing I knew about it. That's quite a shock to learn that one can be so misled so long. Either there was something wrong with me or there was something wrong with Evolutionary theory. Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me, so the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. Question is: Can you tell me anything you KNOW about Evolution? Any one thing? Any one thing that is true?

I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of Evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and eventually one person said, I do know one thing it ought not to be taught in high school.

[Colin Patterson, Unpublished transcript of keynote address at the American Museum of Natural History (New York City: November 1981).]
Today, a hundred and twenty-eight years after it was first promulgated, the Darwinian theory of evolution stands under attack as never before. There was a time, not too long ago, when it seemed to the world at large that the theory had triumphed once and for all, and that the issue was henceforth closed. And yet, within the last two or three decades the debate about evolution has not only revived but is showing signs of heating up. Indeed, the question whether the evolutionist claims are justified is currently being discussed and argued, not just in fundamentalist circles, but also on occasion in research institutes, and in the prestigious halls of academe. The fact is that in recent times there has been increasing dissent on the issue within academic and professional ranks, and that a growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp. It is interesting, moreover, that for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances regretfully, as one could say. (p. 1—emphasis added)

The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred. (p. 5-6 emphasis is Smith's)

We are told dogmatically that evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience'; but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists. (p. 2)

[J. Wolfgang Smith, Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of The Teachings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (P.O. Box 424, Rockford, Illinois 61105: Tan Books & Publishers, Inc., 1988), 248 pp.]
John Wolfgang Smith: Mathematician and physicist / Ph.D. in Mathematics from Columbia University (1957) / M.S. in Physics from Purdue University (1950) / B.S. from Cornell University (at age 18) in physics, philosophy and mathematics / Currently Professor of Mathematics at Oregon State University / Formerly an Aerodynamicist with Bell Aircraft Corporation / Provided the theoretical key to the solution of the famed re-entry problem for space flight / Former math instructor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology / Former Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles / Active research mathematician / Published in various scientific journals.
We have had enough of the Darwinian fallacy. It is time that we cry: 'The emperor has no clothes.' (K. Hsu, geologist at the Geological Institute at Zurich)

[K. Hsu, Darwin's Three Mistakes, Geology, Vol. 14 (1986), p. 534 as cited by Wendell R. Bird, The Anti-Darwinian Scientists, Impact series no. 173, Acts & Facts (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, November 1987), p. iv.]
Far from being an established fact of science that it is so typically portrayed to be, evolution is, in reality, an unreasonable and unfounded hypothesis that is riddled with countless scientific fallacies.

[Scott M. Huse, The Collapse of Evolution (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983), 172 pp. (quote is from p. 127 emphasis added).]

Scott M. Huse: Former Evolutionist and former atheist / Lecturer on college campuses / Creationist / Computer scientist / Ph.D. in Philosophy and Religion from Bethany Theological / Th.D. from International Bible Institute and Seminary / Former teacher and principal of Pinecrest Bible Training Center, Salisbury Center, New York.
The fact that a theory so vague, so insufficiently verifiable, and so far from the criteria otherwise applied in 'hard' science has become a dogma can only be explained on sociological grounds. (Biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy)

[Ludwig von Bertalanffy as quoted by Huston Smith, Beyond the Post-Modern Mind (New York: Crossroads, 1982), p. 173 (emphasis added).]
If living matter is not, then, caused by the interplay of atoms, natural forces and radiation, how has it come into being? There is another theory, now quite out of favor, which is based upon the ideas of Lamarck: that if an organism needs an improvement it will develop it, and transmit it to its progeny. I think we need to go further than this and admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know this is an anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject a theory that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it. (H.S. Lipson, Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester)

[H.S. Lipson, in a paper published by The Institute of Physics (Techno House, Redcliff Way, BSI CNX, England: Institute of Physics, IOP Publishing Ltd., 1980) (emphasis added)—as cited in The Quote Book (Australia: Answers in Genesis, 1984), p. 5.]
Unfortunately, many scientists and non-scientists have made Evolution into a religion, something to be defended against infidels. In my experience, many students of biology professors and textbook writers included have been so carried away with the arguments for Evolution that they neglect to question it. They preach it College students, having gone through such a closed system of education, themselves become teachers, entering high schools to continue the process, using textbooks written by former classmates or professors. High standards of scholarship and teaching break down. Propaganda and the pursuit of power replace the pursuit of knowledge. Education becomes a fraud. (Science writer and biologist G. Kocan)

[George Kocan, Evolution Isn't Faith But Theory, Chicago Tribune (Monday, April 21, 1980) (emphasis added).]
Professor Phillip Johnson, University of California, Berkeley:

The continual efforts to base a religion or ethical system upon evolution are not an aberration, and practically all the most prominent Darwinist writers have tried their hand at it. Darwinist evolution is an imaginative story about who we are and where we came from, which is to say a creation myth. As such it is an obvious starting point for speculation about how we ought to live and what we ought to value.

[Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1991), p. 131 (emphasis added).]
In fact, evolution became in a sense a scientific religion; almost all scientists have accepted it and many are prepared to 'bend' their observations to fit in with it. (Professor of Physics, University of Manchester)

[H.S. Lipson, A Physicist Looks at Evolution, Physics Bulletin, Vol 31. (1980), p. 138.]
Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless. (Dr. Louis Bounoure, Director of Research at the French National Center for Scientific Research, Director of the Zoological Museum, and former president of the Biological Society of Strassbourg)

[As quoted in: Wilbert H. Rusch, Analysis of So-Called Evidences for Evolution, Bible-Science Newsletter, Vol. 5, No. 6 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bible-Science Association, 1967), p. 1., and The Advocate (March 8, 1984), p. 17 (emphasis added).]
Scientists who go about teaching that Evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining Evolution we do not have one iota of fact. (Dr. T.N. Tahmisian, a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission physiologist)

[As quoted in: The Fresno Bee (August 10, 1959), and Robert Whitelaw, Voices of Science on Evolution, Bible-Science Newsletter, Vol. 10, No. 8 (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Bible-Science Association, 1972), p. 11, and N.J. Mitchell, Evolution and the Emperor's New Clothes (3D Enterprises Limited, 1983), title page (emphasis added).]
I, myself, am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially to the extent to which it's been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has. (Malcolm Muggeridge, well-known philosopher and journalist)

[Malcolm Muggeridge, Pascal Lectures, 2nd Lecture, Oct. 12, 1978 (Ontario, Canada: University of Waterloo) (emphasis added).]
The result we believe must be striven for can therefore only be the following: biology will receive no advantage from following the teachings of Lamarck, Darwin and the modern hyper-Darwinists; indeed, it must as quickly as possible leave the narrow straits and blind alleys of the evolutionistic myth and resume its certain journey along the open and illuminated paths of tradition. (G. Sermonti, Professor of Genetics at the University of Perugia, former director of the Genetics Institute of the University of Palermo, Senior Editor of the Biology Forum, and R. Fondi, paleontologist both scientifically reject macroevolution)

[G. Sermonti and R. Fondi, Dopo Darwin: Critica all Evoluzionismo (1980), translated by Montalenti, Darwinism Today, 77 Scientia 21, 29 (1983) (emphasis is from Sermonti and Fondi) as cited by Wendell R. Bird, More on the Anti-Darwinian Scientists, Impact series no. 176, Acts & Facts (El Cajon, California: Institute for Creation Research, February 1988), p. iii.]

314

Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried: An Appeal to Reason (Boston: Gambit, 1971 / Third Printing, 1978), pp. 6-7.

315

I.L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong A Study in Probabilities (P.O. Box 231, Greenvale, New York 11548: New Research Publications, Inc., 1984), pp. 6-8, 214-215, 209-210.

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