The imprecise theory of evolution

I came across an article on Live Science titled, Reptiles evolved earlier than we thought, newly discovered claw-mark fossils suggest.  Here’s a quote from the article:

Based on the fossil record, amniotes were thought to have evolved around 320 million years ago. However, this new discovery of clawed amniote footprints in Australia from 350 million years ago throws these estimations hugely off…  “I'm stunned,” study co-author Per Ahlberg, a professor of paleontology at Uppsala University, said in a statement.  “A single track-bearing slab, which one person can lift, calls into question everything we thought we knew about when modern tetrapods evolved.”

You can read the whole article for itself but here's the gist of it. Evolutionists believe they know when reptiles evolved. However, two amateur palaeontologists found a fossilized track left by a lizard supposedly walking around 30 million years earlier than they had believed.

I read articles like this all the time.  Some new fossil is found that changes everything evolutionists thought they already knew about their theory.  It’s rather hilarious because it points out the flimsy foundation on which they’ve built their models.  How can anything in science be so imprecise and still be considered a "well tested" theory? There are so many things I could say about this article that I’m not sure where to start.  Here are just a few thoughts.

DAWKINS’ “WRONG DATE ORDER” TEST

Richard Dawkins, a rabid atheist and evolutionary apologist, once spoke a terrible lie saying, “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.”  Dawkins tells this lie to make it sound like evolution is a very robust theory that is tested every time a new fossil is found.  Evolutionists make this claim all the time.  Biologist, J. B. S. Haldane famously quipped that if we ever found “fossil rabbits in the Precambrian,” that would disprove evolution.  

Yet in spite of all their hubris, these quotes and every quote like them are all bluff.  Radically out of order dates assigned to fossils will never disprove their theory.  Rather, they merely “correct” their theory.  Just google the term “evolved earlier than thought” or “fossil rewrites evolution” and see how many hits you find.  Go ahead, I dare you!  They say a fossil in the “wrong date order” will disprove evolution but we find examples by the dozen and nothing changes.  Well, Mr. Dawkins, here’s a fossil in the wrong date order.  Are you going to denounce your theory?  I didn’t think so.  

They’re all liars!

NYE ON EDUCATION

There’s an oft repeated claim that, if kids are taught creation, they won’t be able to understand science.  Bill Nye has made this very point. In his own words, he claimed the following (source):

[T]here are more people in the world — another billion people all trying to use the world’s resources. And the threat and consequences of climate change are more serious than ever, so we need as many people engaged in how we’re going to deal with that as possible. And we have an increasingly technologically sophisticated society. We are able to feed these 7.2 billion people because of our extraordinary agricultural technology. If we have a society that’s increasingly dependent on these technologies, with a smaller and smaller fraction of that society who actually understands how any of it works, that is a formula for disaster.... My biggest concern about creationist kids is that they’re compelled to suppress their common sense, to suppress their critical thinking skills at a time in human history when we need them more than ever.... There are just things about evolution that we should all be aware of, the way we’re aware of where electricity comes from.

Life improving technologies - made by real scientists - are made every day without a single thought being given to evolution.  Nye thinks we need to understand evolution just like we understand electricity.  Really, Nye? You want us to think we can understand evolution the way we understand electricity? Finds like this highlight exactly how unsure “scientists” really are about evolution.  Remember the quote from the Live Science article, “[This] single track-bearing slab, which one person can lift, calls into question everything we thought we knew about when modern tetrapods evolved.”  If we had this same lack of precision in how we understand electricity, we'd still be reading by candlelight.  Yet they still insist that kids are taught evolution as though it somehow will help them understand “science.”  

I’ve seen videos where kids can't answer basic questions about science or politics or geography or history. If evolutionists were truly worried about preparing kids for the future, they would be alarmed that young people don’t know how many dimes make a dollar!  But no, they think we need to devote more energy and resources to teaching them evolution! I truly believe they are more interested in indoctrinating kids rather than educating them.

EVOLUTION IS NOT IMPORTANT ANYWAY

In 1977, construction on the Citigroup Center in New York was completed.  Because of a building restriction, the 59-story building was built on 4 stilts, positioned in the middle of each side of the building, rather than at the 4 corners.  In the following year, a young, architectural student was asking the building’s structural engineer, William LeMessurier, a question about wind shear for the building when LeMessurier realized a terrible error had been made in the planning.  The stresses put on the building due to wind were much higher than the design had anticipated and the building would almost certainly collapse eventually.

In real sciences, like engineering, being wrong could have terrible consequences.  Fortunately, evolutionary biology isn’t really a science.  So what happened when these tracks were discovered?  I’ll tell you: a bunch of biologists probably started running around, redrawing their cherished, nested hierarchy. In the meantime, the rest of science continued its work improving people's lives. The average person didn’t even notice. Evolution is just that unimportant.

Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., tackled the myth that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. He noted that a survey of college textbooks showed that most rarely discuss evolution. The anatomy and physiology text books examined didn't mention evolution at all. Of the colleges surveyed in Ohio and Michigan, biology majors were required to only take one class in evolution.

From a Bergman article, we read this:

National Academy of Science Member and renown carbene chemist, Professor emeritus Dr. Philip Skell of Pennsylvania State University (see Lewis, 1992), did a survey of his colleagues that were “engaged in non-historical biology research, related to their ongoing research projects.” He found that the “Darwinist researchers” he interviewed, in answer to the question, “Would you have done the work any differently if you believed Darwin's theory was wrong?” that “for the large number” of persons he questioned, “differing only in the amount of hemming and hawing” was “in my work it would have made no difference.”

Evolution is the trivial pursuit branch of science.  If you were to google, “how evolution helps research,” you'll find plenty of articles by people trying to convince you that understanding evolution is critical to scientific research. Here's another exercise to try: see if you can find any invention, scientific advancement, or life improving technology whose discovery hinged upon evolution being true.  Maybe you can find one, but it is dwarfed by the explosion of improvements in medicine, computers, and technology that had nothing to do with understanding evolution.  If you ask me, I think it's a shame that we waste resources studying the theory.

God created all animals to eat plants… and it was so!

 Genesis 1:29-30, And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Creationists are sometimes chided for believing that all animals were created to be herbivorous.  The usual criticism is that the fangs and claws of predatory animals that exist today were obviously designed to kill and eat the flesh of other animals.  Furthermore, due to the design of their digestive systems, most predatory animals couldn’t even survive on a vegetarian diet.  In summary, the sharp teeth of the T-rex weren’t designed to eat coconuts!

The assumption that sharp teeth = predator is overly simplistic.  Evolutionists seem to have a superficial grasp of advantage or adaptation - that is, they look at the survival benefit of a particular trait, then claim that trait evolved in order to convey that benefit!  For example, some might say male birds evolved bright feathers to attract a mate or male lions evolved large manes to protect their head and neck when fighting for dominance.  It’s about as scientific as saying Michael Jordan grew tall in order to play basketball.

Another misunderstanding held by many is the belief that the highly adapted creatures we observe today aren’t substantially different from their ancestors.  Critics have asked, for example, how did freshwater fish species survive the Flood when all the fresh and salt waters were mixed together?  The flawed assumption behind this criticism is that the modern species of fish have exactly the same range of tolerances to salt and temperatures as their ancestors had in Noah’s day.

I believe the creationists’ understanding of Scripture better explains what we observe in the world today.  God originally created plants and animals “after their kind” (Genesis 1:11, et al).  Every modern species we observe today belongs to one of these originally created kinds but modern animals are the products of centuries of changing environments and adaptation.  Today, the species that exists may not look like any of their created ancestors.

I sometimes use bears as an example of kinds and species.  Both creationists and evolutionists agree that all modern species of bears are descended from a common ancestor.  Creationists might call this the “bear-kind” (ursa).  What did the original bear look like?  If we could see this creature now, I think we could probably identify it as some kind of bear but did it look like a panda?  A grizzly?  A polar bear?  It would have shared characteristics with each of these species but I suspect it wouldn’t have looked exactly like any of them.  

God created a bear-kind with the genetic potential for diversity.   As bears spread out around the world after the Flood, natural selection began its work.  Traits well suited to one environment allowed members with that trait to survive while members without that trait died.  Eventually, all the cubs born in that environment possessed only the most beneficial and the population became a new species.  In Asia, some bears became pandas; near the North Pole, some bears became polar bears.

Here’s a question, though: what did the ancestral bear eat?  Pandas almost exclusively eat bamboo while polar bears primarily eat seals.  Both species have sharp teeth and claws.  Both have descended from the same common ancestor.  So, clearly, the ancestral bear did not have the same dietary restrictions as either of these descendants.  Likewise, sharp teeth on a dino or fossilized dung containing bits of bone may be evidence that a critter ate meat, but it’s not proof that it always ate meat or that God always intended for it to eat meat!

I’m not surprised that unbelievers believe in a theory that is so muddled and unconvincing.  What surprises me more, though, is that people who claim to be Christians also believe the same things.  Theistic evolutionists often apply the label of “myth,” “allegory,” or “parable” to the creation account.  They do this to try to make Scripture compatible with the corrupt theory of evolution.  But when we read Genesis 1:29-30, where God clearly tells the man that plants would be food to him and every animal, what do they do with the phrase, “and it was so”?

When God created the animals, He commanded that plants were to be their food.  The Bible clearly says, “and it was so.”  In other words, God said it and it happened!  All animals ate plants - even the ancestral bears, cats, wolves, and other predators.  I believe this comports with other passages that say death follows sin and was not what God intended.

Some people may ask why I would make a big deal about this point?  I believe that evolution is a religion of death.  The very idea of the “survival of the fittest” requires that the unfit don’t survive.  It is the struggle to live that supposedly drives evolution.  The death of one species, gives rise to a new species.  It’s the circle of life.  Evolution almost makes death seem noble which makes evolution one of Satan’s most successful lies!

The Bible says the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).  Death is the judgment that God spoke to Adam because of his disobedience.  But the judgment wasn’t on Adam only, but on the entire creation.  God also cursed the ground for Adam’s sake (Genesis 3:17-19) and even now, the whole creation groans under the Curse (Romans 8:22).

Evolution makes the Bible seem nonsense.  Evolution says that the history of the earth before the appearance of man was defined by death, disease, and struggle.  Death is the way things are and, when Homo sapien finally appeared, they were mortal just like everything else.  This backward way of thinking has led many Christians into gross error in their interpretation of Scripture.  The YouTube channel, Inspiring Philosophy, made a comment bordering on heresy.  In a video titled, TOP TEN Biblical Problems for Young Earth Creationism, they made the following claim:

The implication numerous scholars have pointed out is Adam and Eve were already mortal and the only way they obtained immortality in the Garden was eating continuously from the Tree of Life. To make them mortal again, all God had to do was prevent access to this sacred tree. But that means humans were already mortal before the Fall and only granted immortality through a special fruit – not because they were created with immortal bodies….  This is also supported by the fact that Adam is called dust, which is an idiom in the Bible to denote that one is mortal. In Genesis, it might just be metaphorical language to denote that he was a mortal human – meaning Adam was mortal before the Fall which implies death was a possibility before sin entered. [bold added for emphasis]

Yikes!!  What terrible hermeneutics!  

The gospel is seen in the entire Bible, even in Genesis.  When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, they were ashamed and tried to hide themselves.  They tried to cover their nakedness with fig leaves but the Bible says God killed an animal and covered them with the skin of the animal.  What a sobering realization must have set in for the first couple when they looked upon that dead animal and saw the terrible consequence of their disobedience. 

That act ushered in an era of sacrifices where the shedding of blood was made to cover our sins (Hebrews 9:22).  The practice continued until the appearance of Christ - the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  His was the final sacrifice and now our sins are covered by His blood and righteousness.  Praise God!!

So you see, it is a big deal.  Understanding that God commanded the animals to eat plants was part of His plan that there would be no death - not even the death of animals.  The death of animals is evidence that He judges sin.  Christ’s death on the Cross was His plan to deal with sin.  We also have His promise of a restored creation where there is no more death.  

God said it, so I know it’s so!!

Is evolution even a good theory? Part 2: Predictions

This is part two of a two-part series examining evolution as a scientific theory. More specifically, I'm judging the soundness of the theory based on two criteria: 1) is it falsifiable and 2) does it make good predictions. In my last post, I discussed how evolution is so plastic as a theory, no evidence, no matter how contrary it is to our current understanding of evolution, could ever prove the theory is false. In this post, I'm going to examine how successful evolution has been at making predictions.

https://unsplash.com/@hulkiokantabak

To be of any practical use, a scientific theory should be able to make predictions. A prediction is basically to say that, if a theory is true, then we might expect a certain other thing to be true. I might say, for example, that hair is unique to mammals. If that is true, then I could predict that, if there is hair on any creature we ever discover, it will be a mammal. Predictions go hand in hand with falsifiability. If we ever discovered a cold-blooded, egg-laying, gill-breathing creature with hair, my theory would be proven false.

Let me give you an analogy that might demonstrate how useful predictions can be to a scientific theory. Suppose I wanted to mix paint to make new colors. I would need to know which colors to mix to make the color I want. If there were a “color theory” that predicted yellow and blue together make green, then that's useful information if I wanted to make green paint. If I mix yellow and blue paint and actually get green paint, then I might use that theory to help me with other color combinations. However, if the “color theory” said yellow and blue could make green, red, or any other color, then the theory isn't predictive and isn't useful to me at all.

Now suppose the color theory predicted yellow and blue would only make green, but when I mixed yellow and blue, I got red. In that case, I would know the theory doesn't make successful predictions. You could say it has been falsified. The inventor of the “color theory” might try to say that yellow and blue should make green but he can “explain” why it made red. OK, but the next time I mix them, I get brown. He then “explains” why I got brown. If he has an explanation every time I don't get blue, then there's really no way to falsify the theory. We're back to the problem that the theory isn't predictive but neither is it falsifiable. It's a useless theory.

Some people claim evolution is a strong theory that has made many successful predictions. Excuse me while I have a chortle. Following are a few of evolution's epic fails.

RADIOMETRIC DATING

Certain, naturally occurring substances are unstable and so will decay over time until it becomes a stable substance. Uranium, for example, decays over time and eventually becomes lead. The rate at which the decay occurs varies from substance to substance. Some decay at an extremely slow rate while others decay more rapidly (relatively speaking). By measuring the ratio of the parent/daughter elements (uranium/lead, for example), scientists can estimate how long the decay has been occurring. Many scientists consider radiometric dating to be the final word in determining the age of any sample and it is from radiometric dating that many people are convinced that the earth is very old. If radiometric dating actually dates things accurately, we could make a few predictions:

Prediction #1: Newly formed rocks should not have any of the daughter element present and should show an age of “zero.”

Results: Rocks formed at the Mt St Helen's eruption were dated using potassium/argon dating, the samples yielding ages up to 2.8 million years even though the known age of the rocks was 10 years old. FAIL.

Prediction #2: Carbon 14 is an unstable element found in all living things. As living things breath and eat, they accumulate C14. Once the thing dies, the C14 begins to decay and becomes C12. The key difference in this radiometric dating method and those discussed in the previous paragraph is that the decay rate of C14 is much quicker than many other types. It has a half-life of only 5,730 years. Due to its short half-life, we can predict that samples more than 100,000 years old should have no detectable C14 remaining in them.

Result: An 8 year long endeavor by creation scientists known as the RATE project, has found it is impossible to find any old samples without detectable levels of carbon. Even diamonds, the hardest natural substance and virtually impossible to contaminate, consistently yield trace C14 even though they are supposed to be a billion years old. FAIL.

PROGRESSION IN THE FOSSIL RECORD

According to secular dating, the rock layers represent the accumulation of sediment being laid down over time. The layers further down are older than the layers above them. Where fossils are found in the layers supposedly represents when those creatures lived. Creatures found in fossils in lower strata lived before the creatures found above them.

Prediction #3: If evolution were true, there should be a clear progression of simple to complex in the fossil record where the older creatures are more primitive than the younger creatures.

Result: Dinosaurs allegedly evolved into birds. However, I recently wrote about feathers identified as 78 myo yet are still described as being “nearly identical to those of modern birds.” Apparently, evolutionists don't see a problem with evidence showing modern birds lived contemporarily with their supposed ancestors.

The Laetoli footprints are a famous track of footprints left by three individuals as they trekked through volcanic ash. From Wiki, we read this about the prints:

The footprints themselves were an unlikely discovery because they closely resemble modern human footprints, despite being almost 4 million years old. It is noted that the toe pattern is much the same as the human foot, which is much different than the feet of chimpanzees and other non-bipedal beings. The footprint impression has been interpreted as the same as the modern human stride, with the heel striking first and then a weight transfer to the ball of the foot before pushing off the toes.

Interesting. Modern humans weren't supposed to have existed 4 million years ago but here are footprints that “closely resemble modern human” footprints found in ash they claim is 4 million years old. Since this evidence isn't compatible with evolutionists' claims about human evolution, they allege the prints belonged to Australopithecus afarensis, a supposed human ancestor. According to the Wiki article, other footprints were found in the same ash as the suspect prints.

Other prints show the presence of twenty different animal species besides the hominin A. afarensis, among them hyenas, wild cats,... baboons, wild boars, giraffes, gazelles, rhinos, several kinds of antelope, Hipparion, buffaloes, elephant relatives (of the extinct genus Deinotherium), hares and birds.

Think about this for a moment – they find baboon footprints and assign them to baboons; they find giraffe footprints and assign them to giraffes; they find rhino footprints and assign them to rhinos; they find modern human footprints and assign them to A. afarensis!! Isn't that hilarious?!

We have myriad examples of modern species living simultaneously with their supposed ancestors. There is no clear progression of fossils from ancestor to modern. FAIL.

TRANSITIONAL FORMS

Evolution is a history of descent with modification. A lobed fin becomes a leg which become wing. A fold in the skin becomes a scale which becomes a feather. The structures found on every creature of every species are simply adaptations of more primitive structures found on the creatures' ancestors.

Prediction #4: If evolution were true, we should expect to find volumes of fossil evidence showing creatures in transition from one species to another. In Darwin's own words, “innumerable transitional forms must have existed.... [J]ust in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed on the earth, be truly enormous.” We should not be able to turn over a shovel of dirt without finding another transitional form.

Result: Darwin himself was surprised that we didn't find, “every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links.” After more than a century and a half of looking, and the trillions of fossils that exist, evolutionists have – at most – a few dozen examples of transitional forms and even most of these are suspect. The “innumerable” amount we would expect to find are simply not there. FAIL.

THE APPENDIX

As we've already discussed, evolution is a history of descent with modification. Over time, some structures have supposedly lost their original function and have either become useless or have been adapted for some completely different function. Such structures are called, “vestigial.” The appendix is perhaps the most touted example of a vestigial structure.

Prediction #5: The appendix appears in many different species of mammals. If descent with modification has occurred, we should be able to trace the appendix along the so called, “tree of life” and find that all the creatures who have an appendix also share a common ancestor.

Result: The problem is, there is no predictable pattern among the mammals with appendixes. The appendix appears in some species of primates, rodents, and even marsupials but is absent from the intermediate groups linking these species. It's not at all what we would expect if evolution were true. FAIL.

TIKTAALIK

I bring this up because it is often cited by evolutionists as an example of a successful prediction made by their theory. It was even used by Bill Nye in his debate against Ken Ham. The most commonly accepted understanding of history is that life began in the sea and evolved onto land. If this has occurred, scientists would expect to find fossil evidence of creatures with structures in transition from sea-to-land.

Prediction #6: Based on their understanding of when the supposed transition of sea-to-land occurred, researchers began exploring an area of exposed, Devonian deposits in the Canadian Arctic in hopes of finding fossil evidence of a creature in transition from sea-to-land. They found Tiktaalik. According to one website detailing the prediction, “Not only was it exciting to find a new species, but it was made all the better by the fact that scientists had predicted the existence of a creature like this all along.”

Result: A few years after the discovery of Tiktaalik, a track of fossilized footprints belonging to a tetrapod were uncovered in a quarry in Poland. They were dated according to evolutionary dating methods to be 18 million years older than Tiktaalik. This would mean that fully evolved, ambulatory tetrapods were walking around millions of years before their supposed ancestor, Tiktaalik, ever lived (see failed prediction #3). FAIL.

In summary, I'll just say that I'm not sure of any successful prediction the theory of evolution has made. I only know that there are many, many failed predictions. Evolutionists will offer a lot of excuses in an effort to explain away these failed predictions but they are similar to the excuses I discussed about about failed predictions of mixing paint using a color theory. The difference is, knowing what colors to mix to make new colors is actually useful information. Evolution isn't useful to any field of science. There is no life-improving advancement made in the last 100 years whose invention hinged on an understanding of evolution. It's the trivial pursuit branch of biology. It's generous that we still even call it a “theory.”

How are myths born?

 Numbers 23:22, He hath as it were the strength of a unicorn.

The King James Bible mentions unicorns in six verses. It doesn't give much detail about the creature except to say that it noted for having great strength. To the western mind, unicorns are mythical creatures that now only exist in fantasy novels and Dungeons & Dragons but the Bible talks about them as though they are real creatures. Many people pounce on this fact as an opportunity to label the Bible as a work of fiction. Even liberal Christians use the mention of unicorns as an excuse to say the Bible shouldn't be taken literally.

In response to such criticisms, we must first acknowledge them for what they are – straw man criticisms that don't accurately represent what the Bible says. Many critics aren't intentionally making a straw man. Instead, they are committing the exegetical fallacy of reverse etymology. That is, they are forcing the modern meaning of a word onto its original meaning. When the Bible was written in Hebrew, the Medieval concepts of unicorns did not even exist. The writers of the Bible certainly did not have the western image of unicorns in mind when the original text was penned.

My understanding of Hebrew is next to nothing but, according to Brown-Driver-Brigg's Hebrew Definitions the word translated as “unicorn” in Numbers 23:22 above is the Hebrew word “rêm” (ראם). BDB defines it as “wild bulls which are now extinct.” There's nothing about that definition that suggests the Hebrew writers specifically understood this beast to have a single horn. It could be a description of an animal using terminology similar to our name for the modern breed of cattle, the “long horn.”

Since I'm more comfortable reading Greek, I looked up the verse in the Septuagint where I found it is rendered as monokerōtos (μονοκέρωτος) which literally means “only horn” or “one horn.” So, even long before the KJV translation, it seems the idea of a one-horned animal was already understood. What we have then, is the Bible mentions a one-horned animal renowned for having great strength. Do such animals exist? Of course they do! Even today, there is a species of one-horned rhino. Interestingly, the latin name of this critter is Rhinoceros unicornis so it is literally called a unicorn! Rhinos also possess great strength so a one-horned rhino would definitely fit the bill of the biblical unicorn.

I'm sure there are still other candidates that would fit the description of the biblical unicorns. For example, there is a group of horned dinosaurs called, ceratopsians. One member of this group is Monoclonius which also has one horn. But the point of this post really isn't to discuss the unicorn references of the Bible. Rather, I wanted to explore the idea of what gave rise to the myth of a one-horned horse. I did a cursory search on Google and found there are many opinions. Interestingly, all of the various theories had one thing in common – they all involved elaboration on real animals. Even if we never know which animal it might have been, the mere fact that everyone thinks it was based on a real animal intrigued me. Is that how myths are born? What other legendary animals might have been born out of encounters with real animals. Many creation apologists have long speculated that dragon legends were depictions of man's encounters with dinosaurs. I've thought about writing on that in the past but there's been so much said on the subject that I decided not to unless I come up with some original angle. However, there are many other creatures of legend. Could they too be elaborated upon depictions of real animals? Let's look at a few.

COCKATRICE

In the movie, Jurassic Park, velociraptors were very dinosaur-looking. Since then, a few new fossil finds and much artistic license have made more recent renderings much more bird-like. I've always said that dino-to-bird evolution has been occurring in the minds of scientists. Anyway, if a Renaissance-era person were to describe a modern depiction of a velociraptor, he might say it looks like a cross between a bird and a reptile. Are there any bird-reptile creatures of myth? Certainly there are. According to Wikipedia, "A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon wyvern or serpent-like creature with a rooster's head." If the modern renderings of velociraptors are accurate, I would say it very much looks like a cockatrice. So perhaps the velociraptor gave birth to the cockatrice legend.

Cockatrices are also mentioned four times in the KJV translation. In Isaiah 11, for example, the prophet tells us about the restored creation where there is no more death and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb. Isaiah 11:8 goes on to say, “And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.” In Isaiah 59:5, cockatrices are also said to have eggs. Just as with the wolf and the lamb, Isaiah uses the cockatrice to paint a word picture of the new creation where even a dangerous, reptilian, egg-laying beast is no longer a threat to even a small child.

LINDWORM

Again, according to Wikipedia, lindworm “[p]ortrayals vary across countries and the stories in which they appear, the creature generally appearing as wingless with a serpentine body, dragon's head, scaled skin and two clawed forelimbs ”

That's interesting, if we substituted the word “dinosaur” for “dragon” in that description, the lindworm sounds a lot like a bipedal dinosaur. The lindworm depicted here was used on the coat of arms of a small Bavarian town. I found a rendering of a T-rex in a similar pose. I'm not saying the lindworm was a T-rex but, be honest with yourself, when you look at these pictures side by side, doesn't the lindworm strongly resemble a bipedal dino?

WYVERN

The wyvern is basically a winged reptile with two legs and a barbed-tail. Wikipedia explains the etymology of the word, wyvern, this way: “the word is a development of Middle English wyver (attested fourteenth century), from Anglo-French wivre (cf. French guivre and vouivre), which originate from Latin vīpera, meaning "viper", "adder", or "asp". The concluding "–n" had been added by the beginning of the 17th century, when John Guillim in 1610 describes the "wiverne" as a creature that "partake[s] of a Fowle in the Wings and Legs ... and doth resemble a Serpent in the Taile". John Gibbon in 1682 emphasises that it "hath but two Legs"”

So the creature is definitely reptilian, has a long tail, flies, and has two legs. That sounds eerily like a known pterasaurs called, Rhamphorhynchus. Here, again, I've placed a picture of a wyvern taken from British heraldry and placed it next to a artistic rendering of Rhamphorhynchus. Isn't the resemblance uncanny?

*****

If modern scholars look to real animals as the inspiration for mythical animals (as they have done with the unicorn), then we would have to admit that these “prehistoric” creatures could serve as candidates for these various creatures of myth – assuming they were contemporaries of men. Now, I can't claim with absolute certainty that these are the very animals that gave rise to legends. However, I do know with certainty that men lived together with dinosaurs. It wouldn't surprise me, then, to find depictions and descriptions of various types of dinosaurs. If some dinosaurs were feathered, what better animal would serve as a candidate for the legend of the cockatrice? If a lindworm is a bipedal “dragon,” wouldn't a bipedal dinosaur be the most likely source of that legend

In this post you've seen the legendary creatures side by side with real creatures. No one can credibly deny there are similarities. The only reason they would not be considered by some as the inspiration of legends is because evolutionists believe dinosaurs to be separated from man by millions of years. If that is the case, then they aren't going where the evidence leads but they are using their theory to shape the evidence. I say the fantastic depictions of dinosaur-looking animals are evidence of man's eye witness to these animals.

Seven ways that fossils are evidence for the Flood

According to the Bible, there was a worldwide deluge that destroyed all terrestrial life. Genesis 7:18-24 describes the effects of the Flood this way:

And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

This passage is unambiguous. All land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures that were outside of the Ark were buried beneath water and mud. This event, known commonly as Noah's Flood, would have radically changed the earth's topography and is believed by creationists to have created most of the fossils we find in the so called, “geological column.”

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A popular meme used by evolutionists has the caption, “We have the fossils. We win.” The truth is that fossils are best explained as being products of the Flood. Following are seven ways that fossils are better interpreted from the perspective of a global flood.

#1: Abundance

Evolutionists advance the idea that fossils are created gradually as creatures die, are buried, and their bones become mineralized over millions of years. The reality is that fossilization is normally an extremely rare event. When a creature dies, its carcass is usually gone in a matter of weeks or maybe days, the result of scavenging and decay. There is very seldom enough carcass left to even become a fossil.

The best chance for an animal's remains to become fossilized is if the poor critter is buried immediately. As we observe the world, we see there are literally trillions of fossils buried everywhere. You can hardly turn over a shovel of dirt without finding one. Seeing that there are so many fossils everywhere and knowing that virtually none are being created now, our observations fit well with the idea that the creatures were buried in the catastrophic flood described in the Bible.

#2: Sudden Burials

Numerous examples have been found of animals fossils in the middle of the act of doing something. For example, the Creation Museum, in Petersburg, KY, has a fossil on display that clearly shows a fish eating another fish! An ichthyosaur has been found in the act of giving birth. These fossils and others further attest to the fact that these creatures were buried suddenly in some disaster – even before having time to swallow – and preserved as fossils.

#3: Polystrate Fossils

The common evolutionary assumption is that rock layers are laid down gradually with each stratum representing some amount of time, similar to the rings of a tree. The lower the layer, the older the fossils in it are believed to be. Often, though, we will find fossils that intrude through several layers. Fossil tree trunks are a common example, where a trunk, several feet tall, stands upright through several strata. Obviously, the tree could not have stood upright for millions of years while sediment was deposited around it. Neither could it have been driven down into the rock like a nail. The more reasonable explanation is that the successive layers were laid down rapidly before the trunk had time to decompose.

Trying doing a Google search for 'polystrate fossils' and see how many examples you can find from all over the world. Go ahead, do it now. I dare you!

#4: Preserved Details

Completely intact, larger animals are more scarce in the fossil record. However, an abundance of smaller fossils exist. Something striking about many are the exquisite details that have been preserved – the fragile wings of insects, the scales of fish, leaves (which begin to wilt almost immediately after falling from the tree), and even the soft bodies of jellyfish have all been preserved. Since all of these things would begin to shrivel and decay within hours, the remarkable details could have only been made if the creature was buried immediately upon death. Again, this fits well with the biblical flood.

#5: Ubiquitous Marine Animals

If you've ever found a fossil, I'll bet I can guess what it was. //RKBentley thinks hard// It was a shell!! Am I right? It's not hard to guess, really, because nearly the entire fossil record (some 95%) is comprised of marine animals, primarily shellfish. Most of what is left are plants and algae. Insects make up about .25% of all fossils. Only the tiniest fraction of fossils are of terrestrial vertebrates.

Every fossil ever found is found in the same layers as marine fossils. Always! Even dinosaur and primate fossils are found with marine fossils. There are marine fossils found from top to bottom in the geological column. Marine fossils cover nearly the entire earth's surface including the tops of the highest mountains. The fossil record does not show a history of simple to complex; a more accurate description would be marine animals, amphibians with marine animals, plants with marine animals, reptiles with marine animals, dinosaurs with marine animals, and birds and mammals with marine animals. It is entirely consistent with a worldwide flood.

#6: Out of Sequence Fossils

Richard Dawkins once told a great lie when he said, “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order. Evolution has passed this test with flying colours.”

Live Science once reported about some “controversial footprints” found in Mexico. The fossil prints looked distinctly human but were believed to be about 40,000 years old which would have been much earlier than when humans were believed to have existed there. When they performed radiometric dating on the ash where the footprints were found, it came back as 1.3 million years old! Needless to say, this wasn't compatible with secular theories of human evolution. What would they do? From the article, “After visiting the site, Renne believes the markings are not really human footprints at all, but rather impressions left by machines or animals that have passed through the quarry in recent times.” But what kind of machine or animal might leave tracks that look like a human human footprints? "You have to remember this is a public area," Renne said in a telephone interview. "Vehicles drive across it, you can see tire tracks on the surface. There are cows and other animals grazing nearby." Cows? Cars? I'm not even kidding – they actually said that!

Several years ago, The Atlantic reported a remarkable find of “dinosaur feathers found in amber.” Amber is fossilized tree sap. The researchers admitted, “They can't determine which feathers belonged to birds or dinosaurs yet.” Here's a thought, maybe none of them belonged to dinosaurs! Any way, many of the feathers found, “are nearly identical to those of modern birds.” If dinosaurs are supposed to have evolved to become birds, don't they see a problem with modern bird feathers existing at the same time as their supposed ancestors?!

We find out of sequence fossils all the time. Just Google the words, “fossil redraws evolution” and see how many results you get. Dawkins said just one would disprove evolution!

Creationists believe the order in the fossil record depicts better where the creatures lived rather than when they lived. In a universal flood, the bottom-dwelling sea creatures would be buried first, then swimming marine creatures, amphibians and reptiles further up, with mammals and birds at the top. That's roughly what we observe. “Out of place” fossils are only a problem for the evolutionary theory which claims the creatures were separated by eons rather than environments.

# 7: The Dinosaur Death Pose

When scientists are lucky enough to find the complete skeleton of a dinosaur, there's a good chance it will have its head thrown backward and its tail arched upward. The position is so common, it has earned its own name, the “opisthotonic death pose.” What causes the pose has been much speculated. An enduring opinion had been that the pose is the result of the dying creature's death throes.

An article from New Scientist reports how a team from Brigham Young University attempted to recreate the condition. Leaving the carcasses of plucked chickens on a bed of sand for three months did not produce the muscle contortions. However, when the scientists placed seven chickens in cool, fresh water, their head was thrown back in seconds. The article ends saying, “Cutler has confidence in her freshwater study: "Although the roads to the opisthotonic death pose are many, immersion in water is the simplest explanation.”

These results seem to support the creationists' model. It could be that the dinosaurs were immersed in water (the Flood), their muscles contorted as did the chickens, then they were buried rapidly in sediment – forever preserving their grim posture. And since the pose is so usual and is found everywhere in the world, it suggests the cause was global. I like NewScientist's opening line, “Recreating the spectacular pose many dinosaurs adopted in death might involve following the simplest of instructions: just add water.” That should be on the mind of every scientist as they examine the world around us. As they consider why the world is as it is, they need to add water to the equation. They need to add the Flood!