Visit to Three Fossil Exhibits

Jul/03/12 08:41 Filed in: Evolution

On the recent trip to preach Bible conferences in Calgary, Detroit, and Colorado Springs, I visited fossil museums in each of these locations: The Royal Tyrrell Museum in the badlands of Alberta, the “Life on Earth” traveling exhibit at the Cranbrook Museum of Science in Detroit, and the Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado.

Our new apologetics course, An Unshakeable Faith, prepares the students to debunk the pseudo-science and myths that are promoted in natural history museums and science textbooks. It consists of an extensive course book and 1800 PowerPoint/KeyNote slides containing high quality photos that we took at museums and research trips in North America, Australia, England, France, Italy, Israel, Turkey, and Greece.

We recently received the following testimony:

“Just wanted to drop you a note to tell you how much I am enjoying the apologetics course [An Unshakeable Faith]. We are using it in our homeschool support group with our high school age young people, and they are captivated by the material. The curriculum is very well laid out and the Powerpoint presentations are first class. The feedback and involvement of the teenagers shows me that they are grasping the material and I believe it will help strengthen their faith and challenge them to take a stand for truth.”

Following are three examples of the unscientific nonsense that is found in world-class natural history exhibitions:

The ROYAL TYRRELL MUSEUM features a drawing of the alleged first elephant, which was supposed to be a creature the size of a pig. The display says, “The first elephants lived about 40 million years ago. They didn’t have tusks or trunks. About the size of a pig, they lived in the swamps of what is now Africa. ... As elephants evolved into larger and larger animals, their heads got heavier and farther from the ground. They developed long noses, or trunks, so they could still reach food.” They publish nonsense like this at a world-class fossil museum with a straight face, yet they have the audacity to mock the Bible believer’s faith as “blind”! The displays of the supposed “missing links” (e.g., dinosaur to bird) at the Royal Tyrrell omit any scientific evidence that evolution actually occurred. Everything is assumed and nothing is proven. Charles Darwin described no creative mechanism that could account for such a fantastic “evolution” as that from one type of creature to another. “Natural selection” is selective and not creative and it adds no new genetic information. An elephant trunk or a bird’s flying wing are fantastically complex organs, and they have to be programmed at the genetic level in the DNA of the creature in the living cell, which is more complex than a modern city. Darwin wrote “On the Origin of the Species,” but it is grossly misnamed, because the book deals only with varieties within kinds of creatures (such as varieties of pigeons), not how the kinds came into existence.

The LIFE ON EARTH exhibit features “Darwin’s Finches” as an icon of evolution. We deal with this in An Unshakeable Faith. Finches on the Galapagos Islands have exhibited minor adaptation, particularly pertaining to the size of the beak, which evolutionists have promoted as evidence of Darwin’s “theory” of natural selection. Responding to environmental factors, the finches with larger beaks have survived better during drought conditions than the finches with smaller beaks, because available food consisted of large, hard seeds which the finches with larger, stronger beaks could break. But this is evidence for minor adaptation and change within a species, and it is NOT evidence for the creation of a new species or even a new organ. At the end of the day, the Galapagos finches are still finches!

The FLORISSANT FOSSIL BEDS in Colorado are the home of many amazing fossils which preserve the details of soft-bodied creatures, such as butterflies, ants, bees, and even flower blossoms. In fact, some 15,000 species of fossil insects have been unearthed at Florissant. The fossilization even preserves the details of bacteria, fungi, spores, and pollen. The working hypothesis that is presented at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument is that the fossilization required long periods of time. Supposedly, mats of diotoms (algae) formed in a lake and the insects died and were embedded in these living mats, covered with fine volcanic ash, transported to the bottom of the lake, and gradually fossilized. Note the following scenario proposed in the book The Fossils of Florissant, which I purchased at the museum:
“... most of the small plant and insect fossils were preserved UNDER CONDITIONS OF SLOW DEPOSITION during relatively quiet intervals between volcanic activity. ... Diatoms cover the surface of this insect wing, which was probably enveloped in a diatom mat when it sank to the bottom of Lake Florissant. The diatom mat served both as a mechanism for transporting the insect to the bottom and as a protective coating that retarded the decay of the insect’s body. ... The diatoms were key agents in the exquisite preservation of delicate insects and leaves. In spite of its great power, the Guffey volcano had facilitated the preservation of delicate insects and flowers GENTLY AND SLOWLY, NOT VIOLENTLY” (Herbert Meyer, The Fossils of Florissant, pp. 35, 36, 37).

In fact, fossilization of creatures does not occur this way. Such fossilization is certainly not occurring in this way today. Creatures that die are quickly devoured by other creatures and by environmental action. Mats of algae in a wet environment do not preserve dead insects, even with the addition of volcanic ash to the mix.

The fossils that are embedded in sedimentary rock beds throughout the earth are evidence for the global Flood described in the Bible.

In fact, every artifact that is displayed at natural history museums is evidence of the authenticity of the Bible. All you have to do is remove the pseudo-scientific evolutionary mumbo-jumbo and the mythical dates.

The existence of life itself proves the Bible. Science has never demonstrated a “naturalistic” method whereby life can spring from non-life.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:18-21).

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