June 2011

Living Fossils

As the first chapter of the book of Genesis explains, every living organism was created to reproduce “after its own kind,” not to evolve into new kinds (or species). But as a result of Adam’s sin and the Fall, man’s sinful condition eventually became so toxic that God had to intervene. God’s plan was to rescue mankind through Noah and re-establish the human race through the descendents of his family. While “Noah found grace (unmerited favor) in the sight of the Lord,” God sent a worldwide, cataclysmic flood to wipe out satanically-corrupted mankind, whose “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” (Genesis 6:1-8).

The Flood was so powerful that it literally transformed the face of the planet. This universal deluge that covered the mountains produced—in just a matter of months—a majority of the geologic column, with the plants and animals that perished in it buried throughout. Instead of justifying Darwinian evolution, the fossil record serves as a testimony of the death and destruction resulting from God’s righteous judgment of the earth. It stands as a sentinel, pointing the way to the One who provides mankind with a “living ark,” Jesus Christ. Just as God provided a safe haven for Noah and his family (as well as animals), today Christ stands as a lighthouse of forgiveness and reconciliation amid the storm of a sin-cursed world. He is the Light of the World, who guides men and women of every generation to the truth of God’s unfailing love. Played on thousands of cable networks and eight satellites around the world, Evolution: The Grand Experiment has aroused much attention in evolutionary circles, and Dr. Werner has been accused of Experiment has aroused much attention in evolutionary circles, and Dr. Werner has been accused of Experimentmany unfounded things, including lying, not being a doctor and other slanders. Our ministry stands with Dr. and Mrs. Werner and believes the message of their historic work needs to get out to the public, so people can witness the brainwashing and outright censorship that takes place in the name of evolution.

Their second project concluded with the production of a Living Fossils DVD, revealing interviews with Living Fossils DVD, revealing interviews with Living Fossils DVD,curators of prestigious museums around the world with damaging testimony against evolution. This DVD will open eyes and set the record straight as you join Dr. Werner and his wife on this beautiful video journey exposing of the numerous modern-day creatures that appear throughout the fossil record. CSI is pleased to offer the Living Fossils DVD for a $35.00 dollar donation. Living Fossils DVD for a $35.00 dollar donation. Living Fossils DVD

Evolutionary dogma is undermining the faith of millions around the world. Would you join our effort to help the Werner’s outstanding work give testimony to the truth and receive the recognition it deserves? If so, please prayerfully consider contributing $35 or more to our ministry. Your gift will enable both CSI and the Werners continue to serve as beacons of light, exposing the fallacies of evolution. God bless you.For your convenience you may also order and donate online at www.creationstudies.org

Tom DeRosaExecutive Director and Founder of Creation Studies Institute

Dear Fellow Creationist,Did you know that flamingos, sandpipers, penguins, cormorants, parrots, owls and many othercreatures living today, including numerous types of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and arthropods are found in supposedly 65-plus-million-year-old rock layers, when dinosaurs and other “pre-historic” beasts once roamed the earth? So, why don’t we ever see them displayed in our museums or depicted together in books and textbooks?

Even though many fossils of these kinds of extent (or living) fauna have been found in allegedly “ancient” rock layers, this information is purposely censored from public view because it doesn’t fit the evolutionist’s millions-of-years timeline. The idea that animals we see today on a visit to the zoo occupied a spot in time with dinosaurs and earlier is considered “preposterous” by the chief evolutionary biologists and paleontolo-gists at our universities and schools of higher education—even in the face of clear proof. Reasoning that if the Bible is true we should find modern creatures in the fossil record, a Christian medical doctor who specializes in emergency medicine was passionately determined to discover the truth. Dr. Carl Werner and his wife Debbie took up the challenge 14 years ago to find out what the fossil record truly reveals, traveling over 160,000 miles and visiting 60 museums and 10 dinosaur dig sites in eight countries. In their search for the truth, they photographed fossils and videotaped interviews with expert evolutionary paleontologists and biologists. What they found was that there are massive problems with the fossil record and how it has been presented to the public. At the end of their exhaustive study, they concluded that the geological column’s fossils neither support Darwinian evolution nor any other aspect of evolution, such as common ancestry.

Discovering That the Fossil Record Is Filled With Holes. As they collected data and conducted interviews, the Werners began to see very clearly that the fossil record is terribly incomplete to support the theory of evolution and has a plethora of gigantic holes. They discovered wide spaces between evolutionary groups that are void of the many transitional species the evolutionary model requires. Their findings supported the work of Dr. Collin Paterson, past senior paleontologists of the British Museum of Natural History. In 1978 in his publication, "Evolution" there were Evolution" there were Evolution"no illustrations of transitional fossils and when asked why, he admitted:

"I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustrations of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them…I will lay it on the line—there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument. "

Has the situation changed since 1978? Have more transitional fossils been found to fill in the gaps? The answer to that question is a resounding NO. In fact, it’s easy to find evidence for theirnon-existence by just being observant. I made this surprising realization on a family visit to the American Museum of Natural History in 2001.

After seeing the museum’s highly detailed two-story illustration on the evolution of dinosaurs during the day, in the evening I discovered a startling confession by one of the curators, Mark Norell, who helped author the book, Discovering Dinosaurs, in 1995. Filled with great illustrations of these magnificent creatures, I purchased this book at the museum bookstore. It had an interesting question-and-answer format, with the authors—all expert dinosaur paleontologists— providing the responses. As I read it that night, I was surprised to find one particular answer that placed dinosaur evolution in real jeopardy. The question was, “How many different kinds of dinosaurs are there?” The answer was, “about 40 different species.” This was based on “a literal reading of the record” during the “heyday of diversity” that occurred, according to evolution, at the end of the reign of the dinosaurs—the Late Cretaceous or 65 million years ago. Why so few? The answer continued, “Because the fossil record is incomplete; we can view the record only as a minimum estimate of the number of kinds of dinosaurs that existed in the past.” Then they admitted, “We do not know how bad the fossil record is, but we suspect it may be very bad.”

Based on Dr. Werner’s findings about the fossil record, that is an understatement! When asked point-ed questions about the origin of seals, sea lions, bats, fish, whales and even dinosaurs, the answers he received from museum curators, paleontologists and biologists are often uncompelling, if not ambiguous, and sometimes just an awkward silence. For example, when Dr. Angela Milner, paleontologist and head of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural Museum of London, was asked about meat-eating dinosaurs, she replied:

"We certainly are lacking information that ties together meat-eating dinosaurs and all the rest of the dinosaurs…We really don’t have any idea how the whole group of dinosaurs, called ornithischians, evolved. We really do not know exactly the timing and the way they branched off. We’ve got nothing yet. There is a huge gap.” (Evolution: The Grand Experiment, p.123)

The ornithischians is a distinctive major group of “bird-hipped” dinosaurs; the other major group being the “lizard-hipped” (saurischians). As Dr. Milner’s quote indicates, there are obviously major problems with dinosaur evolution as represented in the fossil record. According to the evolutionary model, ornithis-chians were plant-eating dinosaurs that were hunted by Tyrannosaurus rex and other meat-eating dino-saurs. However, there is no explanation for how the meat eaters evolved into their plant-eating “cousins!” Dr. Milner’s “huge gap” needs to be filled, and she and many other evolutionists are waiting hopefully for gaps like that to be filled. Unfortunately, as time moves on, the list of gaps just continues to grow. The rational thing to do would be to reject the evolutionary model for the creation model, because it very accurately matches the fossil data. But don’t hold your breath!

Finding Modern Creatures Among Supposedly Million-Year-Old Fossils Leaves the Current Evolutionary Model in Shambles.

Perhaps the most embarrassing fact that defies evolution—and the most well-kept secret the Werners discovered—was finding modern plants and animals in fossil layers that date back to the dinosaur era (250 million to 65 million years B.C. and beyond. To his total amazement, Dr. Werner found numerous examples of modern creatures in fossil collections all over the world. (Go to creationstudies.org for more examples.)

As he puts it, “We found fossil examples of every major animal phyla living today, and the fossils looked nearly identical to the modern forms.” According to Dr. Werner, when you find modern fossils with dino-saurs there’s a serious problem: “If lots of modern animals and fossils are found alongside dinosaurs, it implies they lived together and [that] supports one-time creation.”

In the second book and DVD based on their discoveries, called Living Fossils, Dr. Werner and his wife accurately document the living creatures they found in the fossil record. Comparing modern-day versions of the major aquatic arthropods (crustaceans), such as shrimp, crayfish, fresh water pawns, lobsters, crabs and horseshoe crabs, with their fossil “ancestors,” clearly demonstrate how closely they match up. Birds show this same pattern. Dr. Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, provide genuine insights into the discovery of living animal groups that are buried alongside the dinosaurs:

"What has become apparent is that many of the modern bird groups—parrots, maybe even pen-guins, and other kinds of owls—evolved earlier in the Dinosaur Era, and we are beginning to pick up their traces." But if modern types of birds were living with the dinosaurs alongside extinct birds, how could they evolve from them—and where is the line of descent, not to mention all the intermediate (transitional) species?

It would appear that Dr. Sereno has not thought this problem out thoroughly. Sereno’s thinking is blinded by the belief that evolution is inherently true, no matter what the evidence reveals. As is typical of evolutionary science, there is a lack of open-mindedness and willingness to let the evidence speak for itself and lead to truth.

Evolution is only made to appear credible in the fossil record by tremendous amounts of bias, manip-ulation and outright censorship employed by secular paleontology, which the Werner’s Living Fossils blatantly exposes. We at the Creation Studies Institute believe that everyone should see this DVD (if not read the book), especially the young people in our public schools. As Dr. Werner inquires:

"Would you believe me if I told you that evolution scientists have found flamingos with dinosaurs, parrots with dinosaurs, opossums with dinosaurs, sequoias with dinosaurs; or dinosaurs with boa constrictors, box turtles, frogs, and salamanders?…Even though parrots have been found in dinosaur rock layers, who has ever seen a parrot sitting on the back of T. rex in their college textbook artwork? Or who has ever seen a boa constrictor slithering under Triceratops at their local museum—or an opossum, or a duckbilled platypus?"

Death and the Fossil Record Fossilization is a method of preservation where once-living organisms are preserved by a variety of different processes. Methods include permineralization and petrification, carbonization or coalification, freezing or refrigeration, drying or desiccation, and preservation in amber or some other suitable substance like tar, such as at the La Brea Tar Pits in downtown Los Angles. Basically, for fossils to form, an organism must die and be rapidly buried under conducive, low oxygen (anaerobic) conditions. As has been thor-oughly proved, the one thing it doesn’t take is a lot of time. The old uniformitarian concept that fossils form over lengthy periods has been thoroughly debunked.

Contrary to the claims and machinations of evolutionary science, fossils bear vivid witness to the truth of God’s Word. When presented honestly and fairly, the fossil record shows every organism appearing abruptly, fully formed and without evidence of evolutionary precursors or transitional species. The model of a worldwide, cataclysmic flood, as described in the Bible, actually predicts this result. What else could have created such a vast record of death and destruction as found in the geological column, composed primarily of marine creatures (vertebrate fossils account for less than 1% of all fossils), with complex life forms appearing suddenly in one of the "bottom layers," i.e., the Cambrian Explosion, with only bacteria, plankton and multi-celled algae appearing below?

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