Contentious Fossils Cies As the Result of Degradation And/Or a Review of Cross-Breeding.1 Bone of Contention: Is Evolution True? 2
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Book Reviews Contentious fossils cies as the result of degradation and/or A review of cross-breeding.1 Bone of Contention: Is Evolution True? 2. Just what do the fossils Third edition prove? by Sylvia Baker Published by Biblical Crea- The three evolution-inspired ex- tion Society, UK. 2003 pectations of the fossil record, listed in the previous edition, have now been reduced to just two. The following Philip Bell statement has been dropped: ‘c. We should, of course, expect to This new-look edition of a popular find the rock strata themselves in and helpful booklet is described as the order given by the geological containing new material throughout column, with the oldest at or near the bottom, and the most recent at its pages. With the exception of one 2 illustration of corals, which appeared the top.’ on page 31 of the previous edition Perhaps this is to diffuse espoused by Steven Robinson in a potential criticism that creationist 3 (published by AiG), all the illustrations symposium in this Journal in 1996, but arguments about ‘out-of-place’ fossils from that edition are reproduced here, which (in my view) has been soundly represent a ‘straw man’ perspective of 4 and mostly in the same place in the text, refuted since, again in this journal. To the rocks, not held by paleontologists. giving the superficial appearance that be fair, Baker does not insist that the Alternatively, it could represent an very little has changed. word—machah in the Hebrew—must acknowledgement that the stratigraphic However, there are indeed a mean ‘blot out, without trace’. How- principle of superposition does not number of changes when one actually ever, her wording does quite strongly always apply, at least on small scales. reads the text. This review will largely imply this. Of course, if true, fossils The previous mention of ‘a water or would then not be evidence of the concentrate on certain alterations and water-vapour canopy’ has been toned additions to this new edition. Flood but of more localized, post-Flood down to ‘This may mean that there catastrophes. And here, unsurprisingly, was originally more water in the up- is where we see a major departure from 1. How evolution took over per atmosphere than there is now’ the text of earlier editions. Where once (p. 9)—presumably due to the fact there were five predictions about what This chapter gives an historical that this model for the ‘waters above’ the fossil record would show, there are overview of evolutionary ideas and is not currently popular among today’s now just two. For example, gone is the how they came to be the prevailing creationist community. paradigm for understanding Earth There is a very pertinent insertion following prediction: history and origins. Little new mate- about the nature of the Genesis Flood, ‘It should certainly show the rial appears in this section. However, which shows the unmistakable influence remains of animals killed in the under her discussion of the nature of of advocates of a low Flood/post-Flood Flood. If such vast numbers of a Genesis ‘kind’, the author points boundary in the geologic column: living creatures were wiped out out that although Linnaeus was a key ‘All air-breathing creatures were suddenly they should have left evi- proponent of the fixity of species, “wiped out”. The word means dence in the form of huge numbers he later modified his view. This is a more than simply that they died. It of skeletons bearing the marks of 5 noteworthy observation to make about could mean that they were totally violent death.’ a man who is sometimes maligned for erased from the earth. It was as Instead we read: his belief in species immutability, in though the surface of the earth [i.e. ‘It would not surprise us if the spite of his impressive contribution to “land”] experienced a “meltdown” rocks contained evidence of cata- biological nomenclature and classifi- and the only safe place to be was strophic death. This could possibly cation. This point is also highlighted in the water, where God was pro- result from the year of the Flood in another recent book that critiques tecting Noah, his family and the itself, although the devastation evolution—the author stated that Lin- other creatures that were in the caused may have been too great naeus’ observations of hybrids caused ark’ (p. 9). to leave fossils’ [emphasis added] him to come to see contemporary spe- For instance, this was the position (p. 10). TJ 17(2) 2003 29 Book Reviews But surely this wording has the across this evolutionary argument quite creationists who are tempted to move potential to confuse readers into think- frequently, albeit more usually pre- towards a Flood that left no trace of ing that God’s great Flood judgement sented as an adaptive radiation (‘bush’) pre-Flood creatures (i.e. no fossils) for sin left no evidence; i.e. no fossils rather than the more traditional, ‘linear’ should consider the implication: one is (Genesis 6:7, 14, 17). Throughout view. However, these ‘old chestnuts’ left defending a world-wide Flood that Scripture, death is seen to be the con- die hard and one UK high school book left no fossil evidence! There is the sequence of human rebellion against from 2002 still presented the linear, added burden of having to then explain the Creator. Fossils (which speak so Eohippus-to-Equus picture that was how huge depths of sedimentary rocks, powerfully of death) are surely both discredited decades ago. In addition, I with their entombed fossils, came to be the primary prediction and expectation recently lectured to veterinary students, laid down in the approximately 4,500 of a cataclysm on the scale of Noah’s at a major UK institution, who were years since the Flood; i.e. by local, Flood. Contrary to the author’s state- still being taught these ideas. regional (and in some cases, nearly ment above, it should surprise us if Sub-sections on coal and oil, continental) catastrophes about which the rocks did not contain evidence of polystrate fossils, and ‘Frozen animals both Scripture and contemporary geol- catastrophic death. of Siberia’ seem little changed, as does ogy are silent. The result of such rea- Paradoxically, the author has not the whole section subtitled ‘Fossil soning is that advocates of these ideas significantly altered a statement that links?’ However, the discussion of must extend the post-Flood period be- appears later in this chapter and which apemen has an additional paragraph yond that which is plainly indicated in seems to be at odds with her earlier alerting the reader to two creationist Scripture. Attempts to introduce extra statement that the Hebrew word ‘could books: Marvin Lubenow’s book, Bones time into the biblical chronologies are mean that they were totally erased from of Contention,6 and Reinhard Junker’s the inevitable consequence. the earth’ (p. 9): Is Man Descended from Adam?7 But The chapter-end notes, about ‘Is there any evidence in the fossil it is unfortunate to read: continental drift and plate tectonics, record of … a worldwide devastat- ‘Dubois, the man who discovered have been removed from this new ing flood? [Java man] … announced at the edition, perhaps reflecting that this is Yes, there is … In the earth’s rocks end of his life that they were not a hotly debated topic among biblical are to be found millions upon mil- the remains of an ape-man at all, creationists. lions of fossilised animal remains, but rather that the skull belonged often grouped together in what to a giant gibbon’ (p. 14). 3. Genetics and God’s natural appears to be huge “graveyards”. This represents a misreading selection There are also to be found unim- of Dubois, as the late evolutionist, aginably vast deposits of coal and Stephen Jay Gould showed,8 but is an The author has updated the text to oil, both of which are the remains idea which is prevalent among evolu- allow for the recent exposé that pep- of living organisms’ (p. 11). tionists as well as creationists. pered moths do not rest on tree trunks Similarly, she has left the fol- The section on ‘Giantism’ has in the wild and that the photographs lowing concluding statement about been greatly reduced. The deleted text suggesting they to were staged. She fossil graveyards: emphasised gigantism in pre-Flood concludes: ‘Uniformitarianism can neither creatures, linked to the water-vapour ‘Nevertheless, as a story, it does explain why so many thousands canopy idea. illustrate, in principle, the idea of of animals died violently at the Under ‘The problem of extinc- natural selection’ (p. 18). same time, nor why, having died, tion’ the author again shows a leaning Also, in her subsequent dis- they were buried so rapidly in towards the obliteration of animals cussion of mutations, where she once sediment. Catastrophes like the by the Flood. Instead of her original had, biblical Flood can’ (p. 11). wording, ‘[Geneticists] … have not been One cannot have it both ways. ‘It was as a result of the Flood, able to come up with one convinc- Either the fossil record is testimony to which killed every air-breathing ing case of a mutation that was the Flood (with the corollary that the land animal except those in the clearly beneficial to the organ- uniformitarian framework is false) or ark,’9 ism,’ 10 it is not—in which case the Flood has the text now reads: the new edition removes this error nothing to say about the fossils! ‘It could have been as a result of (there are obvious instances in which a The section subtitled ‘Gradual catastrophe linked to the Flood’ loss can be a survival advantage—e.g.