Creation Science Rebuttals
Technical Journal (TJ)
Dinosaur Extinction
TJ, Volume 11, Issue 2, 1997
Review by Greg Neyman
© Old Earth Ministries
First Published 29 March 2003
Young earth creation science
advocate Michael Oard has written a good article (published in Technical
Journal (TJ)) on the extinction of the dinosaurs (The Extinction of the
Dinosaurs , look under “Overviews” section).1
He takes a good look at the presently debated theories, and then presents
his view that the dinosaurs went extinct during or shortly after the Flood
of Noah. By this model, it had to be shortly after the flood, after all, you
had to kill off those dinosaurs that were on the ark.
Let's take a closer look at this theory from a common
sense approach.
Discussion
The basic model that Oard uses to explain the dinosaur extinction
is Noah's Flood. The claim is that the dinosaurs were buried rapidly by
sediment during the global flood, as evidenced on page 142 (page 6 of the
Adobe Acrobat file) of his article. According to Dr. Oard, that is why we
find dinosaur fossil sites that look like mass burial sites, with hundreds
of dinosaurs that were quickly buried by the rising waters of the flood. He
states "it is no surprise that water is closely associated with the burial
and fossilization of the dinosaurs."1 This is acceptable, since many of the
dinosaur fossil sites do appear to be mass graveyards buried by fluvial
sediments.
To summarize this model, here is what you should see in
the geologic record. As the flood waters rise to ten, twenty, thirty feet
above the land, all the dinosaurs would have died, which would have happened
sometime during the first 40 days of the flood. As the water passed 30 feet,
most species would be dead, and their bodies would accumulate in one spot,
assuming the herding instinct that Dr. Oard mentions is correct. After all
these bodies are covered in sediment, the sediment continues to build up,
until deposition stops and the flood waters recede. What you should see in
the geologic record is this...one single layer of strata containing the mass
dinosaur graves, topped by other layers of rock.
However, here is where the creation science model of
the Flood causing the dinosaur extinctions falls apart. Earlier in the
article, Dr. Oard briefly explains the fact that there have been many
extinctions in the geologic record. In fact, the alleged extinction of the
dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period 65 million years ago is not
the first extinction event for the dinosaur family, nor the largest. What
Dr. Oard does not do, is go back and discuss these extinctions as separate
events. He cannot do this, because then he would sink his own dinosaur
extinction theory. In fact, these dinosaur extinctions are at different
levels of the geologic record, and are clearly separated by millions of
years. There is no way the young earth creation science model can explain
two mass graves at different levels of the rock strata. As the waters rose,
all the dinosaurs would have been killed at nearly the same time, and
deposited in the same rock layer.
The only way to explain this is that there was a
fluctuating water level, temporarily exposing the rock above the dinosaur
graveyard. Then more dinosaurs moved in, and the waters rose again, killing
them in the same spot. Unfortunately, this cannot happen in the worldwide
flood model proposed in young earth creationism.
Lack of Coordination
Dr. Oard did this research article under the auspices
of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). You would think that they
would reference any new publications with previously released material, to
see if there were any conflicts. Obviously, this is not the case here.
One of the leading global flood models is the one
proposed by ICR, in their book Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. Let’s
look at this, from a Biblical and scientific perspective.
The authors propose the early part of the Flood
deposited the horizontal rock layers we see in the Grand Canyon area, which
are dated by geologists as being Paleozoic, or 240-570 million years old.
They go on to state that the receding flood waters deposited the rocks above
this point, which are the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.
All the dinosaur bearing rock strata are above the
Grand Canyon, and are Mesozoic in age. Genesis 7:21-23 clearly states that
after the waters reached their maximum level and prevailed upon the earth,
all creatures on the earth were killed. Genesis 7:24 says the water
prevailed on the earth for 150 days…it stayed at its maximum level. If,
during the first 150 days all animal life died (Genesis 7:21-23), then how
were the dinosaurs still around, laying eggs, making footprints, leaving
dinosaur excrement, when they were already dead! Remember, they are in the
layers of rock laid down by the receding flood waters, during the last phase
of the flood.
Dino Teeth
Even a glance at one of the dinosaur graveyards gives
compelling evidence against the Flood model. At one site, there are the
bones of plant-eating dinosaurs, and right beside them, are tiny teeth from
baby therapod (meat-eating) dinosaurs (and adults also). The bones of the
plant-eaters show chew marks from these teeth. Now, we have the Global Flood
killing these 20-foot tall plant eaters, then a five-foot tall baby therapod
swims down to them and chews on the bones!
On page 144, Oard addresses the existence of
carnivorous teeth, and teeth marks on the bones in the mass graveyards, and
claims they are further proof of their end during the flood! He explains
that tectonic uplift, or falling sea level, as responsible for exposing
these bodies to air. However, if these dinosaurs were killed in the Flood,
why did T-Rex survive the Flood? He should have perished along with the
others in the mass graves! The sea level could not be falling AND rising,
because there are rock layers on top of these rock layers where the mass
graves are. In the Flood of Noah, the water rose, and the water
receded...that's it...no fluctuating. But, to get this young earth creation
science model to work, you must have rising, falling, rising, falling,
etc...many times, to produce what we see in the geologic record. Wow, I
guess the next theory from the young-earth camp will be that T-Rex was an
excellent swimmer! Also, note that Oard fails to mention the presence of the
baby teeth!
Yes, it is a mystery as to why only one type of
dinosaur is in these mass graves, but that in no way proves anything when
related to a young earth creation science model (unless you want to say it
proves T-Rex was an excellent swimmer who could tread water for months). Of
course, they can’t do this, because Genesis 7:21-23 states all the animals
were killed.
Eggs
Dr. Oard briefly touches on the problem of eggs
appearing at different stratigraphic levels (p.145). He explains this away
because "However, in one instance the 'different levels' are many tens of
kilometres apart. Since outcrops (exposure of rocks at the surface) are
isolated, the stratigraphy could easily be a little confused, due to facies
changes or erosion that could have stripped more strata from one area than
the other. In these cases, the eggs could be at the same time horizon.
That is not a problem at Como Bluff in Wyoming, because
the dinosaur bearing strata are stacked on top of each other, so as to
remove any possibility of them being deposited at the same time. The egg
sites here must be from different time periods, and since the flood would
have only left one graveyard, there must be multiple events differing in
time, not in location. And, since these eggs are in the receding portion of
the flood, there should be no dinosaurs around to lay them anyway!
Conclusion
What are we to conclude? Its obvious from the geologic
record that there are multiple dinosaur graveyards, separated by thousands
of feet of rock. By the model of the Flood extinction, this cannot happen,
because if you killed all the dinosaurs in a few day period, you would only
have one layer of dinosaur fossils...yet we have layer upon layer. The upper
layers should not be there, according to the flood model, because all the
dinosaurs were already killed in the first layer! Obviously, all the
dinosaurs were not killed by the Flood of Noah, but millions of years ago.
One other thought. The author mentions the fact that there were no
juveniles in the mass dinosaur graveyards. While this is nice to know, it
has nothing to do with proving the Flood killed all the dinosaurs,
because...if the Flood model can't lay down multiple dinosaur beds, it
doesn't matter how young or old the dinosaurs were, it just clouds the
issue.
The same thing goes for dinosaur footprints, eggs,
nest-sites, etc. They are all secondary issues to the one overlying logical
conclusion that the multiple layers are from multiple death events.
The author concludes with a discussion of the K/T
boundary at the end of the Cretaceous. While interesting, it has little to
do with disproving the flood theory...we have already done that above with
simple logic.
1 Michael J.
Oard, The Extinction of the Dinosaurs, page 6. This is page 6 of the Adobe
Acrobat file, which is an excerpt from CEN Technical Journal, vol. 11,
Number 2, 1997, page 142. On the web at
answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/tj_v11n2.asp
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