Tag: Biblical Creation

Gotcha Proofs by Young Earth Creationists, II

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Y’all know that I’m an Old Earth Creationist. I make no apologies for rejecting Young Earth interpretations that defy the senses that God gave me. I try to present my opinions respectfully, but sometimes it’s hard in the face of some absurd arguments for that viewpoint.

For several years, I have been “trolling” the Biblical Creation group on Facebook, just for perspective. I rarely comment, or I’d spend all day every day at it. Their stock in trade is supposed “proof” in the form of half-baked misrepresentations of evidence. I did post a detailed response to a post two years ago, which I later transcribed here.

I took on another one today:


This is the original article:

VERY RARE OCTOPUS FOSSIL SHOOTS DOWN EVOLUTION.......

Darwin once said the octopus evolved from starfish. Not only is there no evidence for this, but there are no known ancestors of the octopus. Darwinists have claimed we don't see octopus fossils to prove anything anyway. Not anymore. This supposedly "95 million year old" fossil complete with tentacles and suckers is remarkably preserved and sits in a Paris museum. Normally when an octopus dies, it sinks and gets eaten very quickly, or becomes a blob and decays within days-It's been called a rarer specimen than finding a fossilized sneeze (Science Daily). So a fossil like this does 2 things..1 . It proves that octopuses have always been octopuses as God made them fully complete in the beginning. 2. It shows that something preserved this octopus quickly. According to the Biblical timeframe and Noah's flood, masses of sediment would have created toxic conditions wiping out massive amounts of sea life as we see in the fossil record, quickly preserving specimens as they died on the ocean floor. The Bible trumps evolution..again!

My response:

Please! Things that are true need to be proved by truth, not by uninformed gotchas. My main Facebook presence is in Bible archaeology groups, and the same thing goes on there with supporters of charlatan “Christian archaeologists” like Ron Wyatt and others, whose idea of proof is, “It looks like a duck, so it absolutely IS a duck.”

As a retired petroleum explorationist with decades of practical experience in depositional analysis, I say this story is BUNK! To begin with, fossilization is very commonly found in continental flash flooding, lake beds, aeolian (windblown) sand dunes, and many other situations. In ocean waters, turbidity mud flows are common below silty river mouths; and in deep water, in mud flows due to earthquakes, minor sudden fault shifts, and even when gravity finally tips over mudbanks formed by years of current or tidal action, or even the slow process of continental drift. All those things not only occur but have been observed in action.

As to the specifics here: First, don’t quote Darwin. He authored the theory, but even modern evolutionists who idolize him know that many of the specifics of his views have been superseded or discarded. The theory remains, of course, but please cite newer sources, which posit octopus’ origins in early mollusks (snails and slugs), far removed from starfish.

This particular fossil is similar to modern octopi, but with notable differences in the sucker arrangement and the ink sac, among other factors. This species does NOT exist today.

“It proves that octopuses have always been octopuses”. That’s either an overzealous statement or an outright lie. It proves NOTHING. It does nothing to prove the Bible, which I believe on unwavering faith, and it doesn’t prove anything pro-evolution, either.

As a devout Christian with one foot in theology and the other in science, I wrote the following, for anyone interested (contrary to the link, the actual title is, “Does Science Trump Theology?”, and the short answer is no, but it is valuable):

https://gpront.blog/…/19/theory-in-science-and-theology/

“Gotcha” Proofs by Young Earth Creationists

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The following photo of the substructure of the Lincoln Memorial was posted on January 16, 2023, by an Admin on the Facebook page, Biblical Creation:

Fig. 1: The substructure of the Lincoln Memorial, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. As posted by Biblical Creation.


Here is the text they posted with it:

Anyone who has ever visited a cave has heard the evolutionist claim that stalactites and stalagmites growing in the cave take, on the average, a full century to grow only one inch and grow to be 40 feet or so only after several thousand years. Or so evolutionists once thought. For those who believe this along with millions of cave visitors each year, hundreds of thousands of years of Earth’s history begin to become a reality before their eyes. But the question is, does it really take a century to grow one inch of stalactite?

When the Lincoln Memorial was built during the 1930s, the engineers sank steel cylinders into the bedrock to anchor the monument. The base of the memorial is set high above ground, leaving a cavernous basement beneath the floor. Rainwater seeping through the marble floor has formed stalactites up to five feet long on the basement ceiling! This growth is an inch per year, not per century! The Earth is not millions of years old or even hundreds of thousands of years. We know from Biblical history and geneaologies [sic] that God created the Earth just thousands of years ago. Biblical truth always trumps man’s scientific theories. 

As an old earth creationist, I believe that Genesis 1:1 happened much earlier than 4004 BC, but that God Almighty did, literally, through His awesome and limitless power, create the universe in its entirety. But, according to these people, whether I believe in evolution or not (and I don’t!) I am an “evolutionist”.

According to the above, evolutionists evidently no longer believe that it takes thousands of years, on average, for a stalactite to form, because the Lincoln Memorial proves otherwise. But what does the picture actually show?

To begin with, most of the Memorial, including all of the structure seen here, is concrete. The statue of Lincoln and the surfaces in the chamber surrounding it are in fact marble. Marble is calcium carbonate rock, just like caves with speleothems—stalactites and stalagmites. But the caves and the speleothems are native limestone. Marble is limestone that has been modified (metamorphosed) by the temperatures and pressures caused by thick overburden sediments. Both are water soluble, but the solubility is measurable, and yes, it normally takes a long time. Fig. 2, below, is a photo that I took of a marble and limestone structure that has been standing out in the open for around 2400 years. It has been damaged by human wear and tear, by earthquakes, and even by a 17th Century Venetian bomb, but for the most part, rainwater has had minimal effect on the stone itself.

Fig. 2: The Parthenon, in Athens, Greece. ©Ron Thompson, 1970.

At any rate, seepage between quarried and assembled blocks of marble or limestone can’t in any way be compared to seepage through the pores of native limestone! I can show you buildups of calcium carbonate in the water pipes in my house, too, but that has no bearing on the age of the earth. As usual with young earth creationists, there is no actual scientific analysis presented to back up the claims associated with their photo. My assumption is that the so-called “stalactites” are leeched salt, not calcite at all!

Atheists who attempt to use theology they don’t understand to disprove the Bible are fools. Christian apologists who try to use scientific principles or findings they don’t understand to shame science are also fools, and this “gotcha” post is very foolish.

As a devout Christian engineer retired from a geological field, I have a foot in both camps. I agree that Biblical truth always trumps scientific theory, but when there is a real conflict between the two, one must at least consider the possibility that traditional interpretations of Scripture might be flawed. It has happened before.

Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico. ©Ron Thompson

For more about my views on Creationism in general, please read https://gpront.blog/2022/08/04/the-hijacking-of-creationism/

Next in series: Gotcha Proofs by Young Earth Creationists, II (Extinct octopus’ species)