Here is an example of the kind of articles IRC (Institute for Creation Research) puts out. This one came from a link on their home page today (July 1, 2010).
Here is the link:
http://www.icr.org/article/5501 (however, I don't know how long that link will be valid since they change articles frequently)
Fossil Discoveries Disrupt Evolutionary Timescales
by Brian Thomas, M.S. *
Conventional geology assumes that different rock layers represent different periods of time. Paleontologists assess the age of fossilized creatures by the rock layers in which they are found. So, a fossil found in a lower rock layer is considered to have lived in a much earlier time than one found in a higher ("younger") stratum.
Not entirely true. Uplift, shifting can bend, tip and even "flip" sections of rock. However, generally true.
But frequently, fossils of the same creatures are discovered in rock layers far above or below the layers in which they were initially found. Very often, they are discovered in almost exactly the same form in both places, and they even look just like their living counterparts.1.
True.
That forces evolutionary scientists to constantly reassess the time periods assigned to fossilized life forms.
Sort of true. It will cause evolutionary biologists to expand the time where that particular species is found. However, any such estimate of age/timespan is always taken as a tentative, not an absolute (that is, scientists know they don't see every creature that lived or died for their entire timespan).
HOWEVER, this does not cause evolutionary biologists to reassess the entire time period, with some exceptions.
The Institute for Creation Research has reported on several fossil discoveries that have challenged conventional evolutionary timescales, including a spider web trapped in an amber deposit that was located in a rock layer supposedly 100 million years older than the time spiders were assumed to have evolved.1 And the web was just like that made by orb-weavers today.
I followed the references given (
http://www.icr.org/article/amber-trappe ... o-old-for/) and then tried to find the reference cited in that article ( Brasier, M., L. Cotton and I. Yenney. 2009.
First report of amber with spider webs and microbial inclusions from the earliest Cretaceous (c. 140 Ma) of Hastings, Sussex.
Journal of the Geological Society. 166 (6): 989-997.. ) Since no direct weblink was given, I went to the Journal of the Geological Society website (
http://jgs.geoscienceworld.org/ ), where could not access the full article, but here is the abstract (Dec 2009, pages 989-997):
Early Cretaceous amber resins with macroscopic inclusions are extremely rare, as are ambers with inclusions from the parent plant. Here, we report earliest Cretaceous amber resins found within alluvial soils of the Ashdown Formation near Hastings in Sussex. In contrast to younger Cretaceous examples, this Hastings amber was arguably deposited shortly before the emergence of the earliest flowering plant communities c. 140 Ma BP. Preliminary studies reveal plentiful organic inclusions, including vascular tissues, tracheid cells and putative resin ducts of the parent coniferous trees. We also report remarkably preserved soil microbes, including structures comparable with actinobacterial colonies, putative fungal or cyanobacterial filaments, and the earliest examples of spider silk webs. The last includes threads that are twisted, paired and coated with sticky fluid droplets, comparable with those of araneoid spider webs studied by us in modern cherry tree resins. Together, these Hastings amber inclusions became entombed within resins that seeped through the charred bark of coniferous trees subjected to severe fire damage, whose logs were then swept onto fluvial wetlands by floods. Embalming resins of this kind may have evolved to combat damage associated with insects, fungi and widespread forest fires.
The important point is that IRC tries to paint this as some kind of "impossibility" or fundamental shift in thinking about fossils. In a way it is, it certainly seems to move the timeline for fossil evolution back. HOWEVER, it in no way, shape or form invalidates evolution or even truly puts a question. As I have said before, what keeps happening is that the age it took all this to happen keeps getting moved back, not forward and more evidence is found to verify that slow evolution happens, not less.
SUMMARY: essentially IRC "lies with the truth" here. The give real facts, but then put them into a context that is just plain false and make assumptions that are plain false.
Another example is the discovery in Japan of a fossilized tooth of what was essentially a small T. rex. Such a find would not normally make headlines, but this tooth was located in a rock layer that predated the assigned T. rex "age" by 60 million years.2
Even human artifacts--including jewelry, tools, and glue--have appeared in sedimentary layers far below the strata in which they had been previously known.3 Finds like these represent a huge upset to the evolutionary story.
I did not follow each of these links given, but the story is much the same as above. Various details for individual species get changed all the time, usually moving things back in time, but these things never come even close to representing the "huge upset to the evolutionary story"
in the way IRC likes to insinuate. In fact, these keep moving the timeline back, not forward.
In fact, one recent discovery was so out-of-step with evolution's story that the evidence was not even allowed to speak for itself. In 2009, scientists discovered amber that had been made from angiosperm--or flowering--tree resin. The problem was that according to the evolutionary timescale, it predated angiosperms by an incredible 195 million years. Clinging to their age assignments at all costs, evolutionists were forced to speculate that the amber came from an unknown tree that made the same resin as today's angiosperms, but was itself not an angiosperm!4
In this case, I am posting most of the article here:
Ancient Amber Discovery Contradicts Geologic Timescale
by Brian Thomas, M.S. *
..... Sargent Bray, currently of Macquarie University in Australia, discovered that amber deposits trapped in Carboniferous coal from “~320 million years ago” may have originated from an evolutionary pre-flowering plant’s sap.7 He noticed that some of the chemicals that comprise the amber match those of known flowering plants. Fossils of flowering plant parts like leaves, stems, and roots are not typically found in those lower rock layers, and such plants have long been assigned an “emergence” date of “about 125 million years ago.”8
Although the amber contained the chemical signature of flowering plants, Bray suggested that this discovery does not mean that the date for the emergence of these plants should be revised in accordance with his find. Instead, he stated that these ambers “suggest that aspects of flowering plant biology began to develop much earlier than the 125 million years ago that we previously thought.”8
Well, compare that to what the article actually says:
From the newsroom of Macquire University:
Bray found that ambers contained in coal deposits which predated the occurrence of flowering plants by hundreds of millions of years contained chemicals most similar to what is seen in ambers produced by modern flowering plants.
Bray said the find was startling because coal deposits from the Carboniferous period are dated some 300 to 350 million years ago.
“The chemistry was totally unexpected because flowering plants are not established in the fossil record until the Cretaceous period – around 125 million years ago,” he said.
Bray said the find does not mean that flowering plants existed earlier than was previously thought. Rather, the amber’s chemical signature provides us with a clue as to the early evolution of flowering plants, he said.
“These ambers do not suggest that flowering plants existed during the Carboniferous period, but they do suggest that aspects of flowering plant biology began to develop much earlier than the 125 million years ago that we previously thought,” he said.
“The nature of the chemical compounds in ambers is the basis for an amber classification system and, since certain plants make certain types of amber, amber chemistry can be used to determine which broad group of plants produced a particular amber specimen.”
Note, this is just a preliminary news note put out by the university. There is nothing about data, methods, etc even mentioned. I have no doubt that one will follow (if it hasn't already), but The IRC "scientist"/article cannot be bothered with that, they still feel free to criticize the "data" as follows:
Again, from the IRC article, "Ancient Amber Discovery...":
However, this suggestion is not based on data obtained from the amber, but on the presumption of evolution. If one were to follow the observed data unencumbered by evolutionary blinders, the most direct explanation would be that the amber came from true flowering plants. The very idea of proto-flowering plants—none of which have been confirmed in either living or fossilized form—seems clearly to be another “just-so” story invented to fit the data into an evolutionary worldview.
Note the reference to "data", but there is no data given here or given in any of the citations. This is opinion, but cleverly masked as if it were a scientifically backed statement. A casual reader likely would not note the difference.
Interestingly, pollen grains, which only come from flowering plants, were found embedded in the Hakatai Shale, which are some of the lowermost Grand Canyon rocks. Though scientists committed to the story of flowering plant evolution tried to pass these grains off as “contaminants,” the research was repeated and had the same results―pollen grains embedded in the lowest rocks.9
Cute, their reference for this information is their own article: Howe, G. F. et al. 1988. Creation Research Society Studies on Precambrian Pollen, Part III: A Pollen Analysis of Hakatai Shale and Other Grand Canyon Rocks. Creation Research Society Quarterly. 24 (4): 173.
HOWEVER, even though they reference it as a source, it is not on the web and therefore not accessible. Using their own data might be OK, if one could look at the data and methodology. However, none is given.
Looks like more opinion given to back up other opinion... and still no data or facts, though there is plenty of reference to "data".
If Bray’s amber was formed from true flowering plant sap as the evidence suggests, and if there really is pollen in the Hakatai Shale, then angiosperms have existed from the world’s beginning, even as Genesis records.10 The presence of larger angiosperm plant parts in upper rock layers does not reflect an evolutionary time of emergence. Rather, it likely reflects either the time of deposition for different environments during the year-long Flood, violent floodwater sorting effects, or perhaps a combination of these factors.
Now we get to the summary, paraphrased in my words : IF [our assumptions and opinions are correct, though we cannot give data to back this up or even explain our methodology fully], AND if [this other study we conducted, a study we cannot see or analyse proves accurate,] then "angiosperms have existed from the world's begining"
OK,
even if ALL of the above opinions and assertions are correct, this still does not in any way "prove" that angiosperms were here in the very beginning. They were here earlier than thought, The rest, referring to the flood, etc, absolute does NOT match any data.
Two more discoveries have likewise shocked adherents of deep geologic time. A distinctly mammalian hair was found in "100 million-year-old" amber. Though a few mammal fossils had been known from nearby layers, what came as a surprise was "that the shape and structure of mammal hair has remained unchanged over a vast period of time," according to a BBC News report.5 It is as if mammals were specially created, complete with hair from the beginning.
Or simply as if this one feature had not changed. IN fact, note that they don't even challenge the "100 million year" date.. they simply say it did not change in that time.
In a separate study, the oldest fossil representation of a pelican had a beak that looked very much like pelican beaks do today. BBC News reported, "What has surprised [researchers] most about this ancient pelican is that it is almost identical to modern species."6
Again, IRC says nothing that is untrue. However, the emphasis on the lack of change is fully intentional. The attempt is to claim that this somehow disputes evolutionary theory, supports their theories, but it does not.
These are only a few of a steady stream of discoveries that continues to extend the ranges of flora and fauna throughout earth's rock layers.
Very true.
And each fulfills a distinct prediction of the creation model, which uses the Bible to build a historical framework.
False. The age given supports evolution, not young earth creationism. Second, many creatures noted in evolution are not mentioned at all in the Bible. Most Christians feel this simply means the Bible is not science and was written initially for the ancient tribes who had no concept of all those creatures and for whom their mention would have been meaningless.
Among other tenets, creation science holds that creatures were originally made in stable, basic forms that should have remained fundamentally unchanged since the beginning.
Fine, but finding a few things that have not changed is not proof of this. In fact, Evolution theory never says that everything had to change. Many things have not. To prove the young earth/steady creation, there can be NO transitions, NO moving from one species to another. Yet, the fossil record shows many of these.
Summary-- IRC lies by ommission of facts, facts known to anyone who even gives a cursory look at the science.
Clearly, the fossil evidence supports this predictive tenet
Again, this statement is why I say IRC plain outright lies. They mention a few fossils, ignore what the articles they cite truly say (come up with their own conclusions, but give no data or evidence to support thier criticism) a nd utterly ignore all the other information out there that absolutely disputes what they say.
Coming up with a few facts is not enough to make them scientific. They have to look at available data and truly analyze, not just offer a few unbacked opinions.
Interestingly, they criticize "scientists" for "making assumptions". Yet, in virtually every article put out, all IRC does is make assumption after assumption after assumption. Worse, they assume things to be true that are actually known to be false.
