email - October 2003

Rock Layers

We have received several emails from “EB” on a variety of topics. Here is the most recent.

Subject: rock layers and thermo
From: EB
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003

Mr. Jones:

In your latest feature article, "Evolution Expose", you attempt making a case against the fossil record. I was sadly disappointed that all you could come up with is this:

[Charles Lyell quote deleted]

Looking at the reference, however, this quote was from the early 1800's (note: Charles Lyell, Princliples [sic] of Geology, Volume I, 1830) 1830 is during the time they got rid of the patent office because they though[t] everything that could be invented had already been invented. I actually thought at first you put this there by mistake. Even if this was 1930, it wouldn't be relavent [sic] anymore. They now have discovered that the fossil layers compare thoughout [sic] the world. Also in my response below (which you have never answered), more modern dating techniques are being used.

Best wishes, EB

If “they got rid of the patent office”, then impostors must have granted me a patent for my radar signal processing algorithm ! Seriously, since EB believes this urban legend about the patent office, we should not be too surprised that he also believes the legend about rock layers.

We were not attempting to make a case against the fossil record in our Evolution Exposé article. We were merely giving an overview of a five-hour lecture we were going to give. We mentioned all the topics we were going to discuss, and gave little teasers to encourage people to come. The Lyell quote was a teaser.

In the email we never answered, EB said,

The geographic and rock layers of the earth support a gradual development of life. Everytime [sic] they dig real deep, no matter where they are on the earth, they find things consistent with the theory. Just one time, they need to find a bear fossil with a prehistoic [sic] fossil to falsify things. This never happens. It has always been consistant [sic].

EB is repeating a myth that Lyell disproved more than 170 years ago. We quoted Lyell’s 1830 work rather than a modern work to show how long it has been known to be untrue. But since EB considers all 19th century literature obsolete (does that include Origin of Species?), we will give him a more recent quote.

After saying that Darwin expected that if fossils were found in Precambrian rocks they would show a gradual development, Stephen Jay Gould makes this comment on the Precambrian fossils that actually were found after Darwin’s death.

Yet the particular character of this evidence has not matched Darwin’s prediction of a continuous rise in complexity toward Cambrian life, and the problem of the Cambrian explosion has remained as stubborn as ever--if not more so, since our confusion now rests on knowledge, rather than ignorance, about the nature of Precambrian life. 1

Fossils don’t show gradual development of life. EB is merely parroting a myth he has been told all his life, which he never bothered to verify. He says,

I have not heard one good argument [from a creationist] on how the layers of the earth are consistent and always start with simple plant life and then eventually go to mammals.

Creationists know there is no gradual development of fossils in the rock layers, so they don’t try to explain away the existence of something that isn’t even there.

When someone finds something like a bear fossil with a prehistoric fossil, it doesn’t falsify the evolutionary interpretation as EB says it would. Evolutionists simply explain it away with one of these three explanations:

  1. Bears evolved earlier than previously believed
  2. The older fossil went extinct later than believed
  3. One of the fossils is out of place because of an unrecognized tectonic disturbance or later burial

We don’t mean to pick on EB. We are printing his email simply because his statements are representative of the myths that children learn in public schools. We presume (from his writing and attitude) that EB is probably a sophomore in high school. We hope that when he goes to college, he will major in geology and become a geologist. When he does, and learns the truth about rock layers and dating techniques, we hope his outrage will stimulate him to refute these myths, and improve the quality of public science education.

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Footnotes:

1 Gould, Wonderful Life, 1989, page 57 (Ev+)