Creation Science Rebuttals -
Insect Fossil Bed (ICR Impact #329)
Greg
Neyman
(Investigator
112, 2007 January)
Deceit,
trickery, and unfounded assumptions go hand-in-hand with young earth
creation science claims.
Consider
the article "An Australian Fossil Insect Bed Resulting From Cataclysmic
Destruction,"1 by Dr. Andrew Snelling, on the Institute for
Creation Research website.
The
article describes the rich deposit of insect fossils in one place in
Australia, caused by a volcanic event, supposedly during a watery
cataclysm. You can ignore the whole article, and go directly to the
last sentence. It states the fossil bed "bears eloquent testimony to
the devastation during the Genesis Flood."
Did a
catastrophic event occur...yes. Was it the Flood of Noah? Of course
not. First, the only way for this to be true is if Mr. Snelling
witnessed the event. There are many catastrophic events throughout
geologic history. Nobody can say the Flood caused it, unless they
witnessed it. In fact, many of these catastrophic events occurred
multiple times in the same sequence of rock strata, which the flood
model cannot explain. After all, if you kill all the animals in the
flood event, they would all be in the same rock layer...yet when you
look, there are fossils scattered throughout the rock layers of the
world, sometimes separated by as much as 14,000 feet of sediment!
Using
a Noah's Flood model, most would be in the lower rocks, and as a few
floated and eventually sank, there may be a few above, but at the top,
you would have no fossils at all. However, the rock record shows the
opposite.
The
only way he can say the Flood did it, is to make an assumption, and
thus it amounts to nothing more than trying to deceive people into
believing something that cannot be verified.
Solid Proof against Dr. Snelling's Article
However,
that is not the most convincing evidence against the Flood model for
the demise of these insects. More importantly, the stratigraphy of the
area shows that the insect bed is located 70 feet below the Fassifern
coal seam. According to Snelling, the insects were killed, obviously at
the surface of the earth. After they were killed they were covered by
another 70 feet of sediment, and then by a coal seam. Where did the
material for the coal seam come from? He has already covered the ground
in this area by flood sediments 70 feet thick. In fact, there would be
no organic material present to produce this coal, so the Flood model
cannot be the answer for this insect bed.
No
doubt, Snelling would rely upon the Floating Forest theory as the
source of the coal seam. But, that has already been soundly disproved.
Conclusion
The
insects were probably killed by a catastrophic event, but this in no
way implies that it was the Flood of Noah. No proof exists that can tie
these insects to the Flood. Why do young earth creation science
theorists resort to such tactics? Young earth scientists cannot prove a
young earth, so they have to resort to tactics of deceit and outrageous
assumptions to trick people into believing an unbelievable
theory.
1
An Australian Fossil Insect Bed Resulting From Cataclysmic
Destruction
www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=474
©
2006, Old Earth Ministries
www.answersincreation.org/greg_neyman.htm