Creation Science

Old Earth Creationism

Why Believe In An Old Earth?

Evidence #4: Dinosaur Poop

 

by Greg Neyman

 

     Fossilized excrement in the rock record is called a coprolite.  Many studies have been done on coprolites.  You can examine them for evidences of what the animal was eating.  As I write this, I have a piece of dinosaur poop on my desk as a paperweight.  It’s a great conversation item…I have visitors pick it up and guess what it is first, before telling them it’s a 140 million year old piece of dinosaur poop.  Coprolites appear throughout the dinosaur fossil record during the Mesozoic.

     It is important to note that all of the fossilized dinosaur poop is found in Mesozoic age rocks.  According to Steven Austin and the young-earth proponents, these rocks were deposited in the receding phase of the flood, after the rains had stopped, therefore to have dinosaurs pooping in these rocks, when they should have been dead by the end of the waters rising (40 days), seems to be a major contradiction to the YEC model.  Concerning Grand Canyon rocks, he states,

 

   The fourth division consists of strata and erosion surfaces representing erosion and deposition as floodwaters retreated during the last half of the Flood year.  These deposits (so-called "Mesozoic strata") are poorly preserved at the rim..."1

 

     In this book about the Grand Canyon, Austin is referring to the YEC model for the deposition of the Canyon rocks.  In the Canyon itself, there are no Mesozoic rocks, and no dinosaur fossils or poop. (The top layer of the Canyon is the Kaibab Limestone, which is Permian in age).

 

     So let's speculate.  How could the YEC model account for dinosaur poop (and fossils).  I've heard several possibilities from YEC's.  First, I have heard YEC's use what I would call the floating body model.  As the bodies floated around, they gradually sank, giving us the fossil record we see today.  However, let’s consider the poop.  Even if the dinosaurs floated until the same time and then sank, how is it that their poop sank at exactly the same time as the bodies?  How come NO dinosaurs, nor their poop, are in the early and mid-Flood rocks, which are represented by the layers of the Grand Canyon?  I smell something foul here. 

     Another claim I have heard is that the waters came and went during the flood, temporary exposing land, so that dinosaurs could poop, lay eggs, etc, during the middle of the flood. However, this sounds like you would need a lot of dinosaurs who were good at treading water for a few months.  This idea  is also foul smelling.  

     Finally, I have heard that the high grounds, such as the Western US (where many dinosaur fossils are found), were covered by the floodwaters last, therefore the dinosaurs were some of the last to die in the flood.  This argument completely ignores the fact that the rocks the dinosaurs were standing on, and those under them in the Grand Canyon, were supposedly laid down by the Flood.  Again, this doesn't smell good.

 

     For the person considering old-versus-young earth creation, they must consider…why do we have dinosaurs laying down all this poop, right in the middle of sediments deposited by the receding waters of Noah’s Flood?  By the young earth Flood model, all the animals died within the first forty days of the Flood, so why do we have massive amounts of coprolites in late-Flood sediments?  The facts don’t add up to the young earth model for the flood.  And, if we had dinosaurs living just before the flood, it stands to reason that dinosaur poop would be found in the earliest rocks of the flood as well.  However, looking at the Grand Canyon alone, we have at least a mile of sediments laid down by the flood, with no dinosaur poop at all!  (All Grand Canyon sediments are stratigraphically underneath the dinosaur fossil-bearing rock layers of the Mesozoic period.)

     There is only one logical conclusion.  If you believe the earth is young, this is direct evidence of a living, breathing animal, alive on earth in the latter part of the Flood, which is a direct contradiction to God's claim in Genesis 7:4 and 7:17-23 that every living thing was killed by the rising flood waters. Therefore, the young earth creation science model must be incorrect. 

     The moral of this story...YEC's should smell the poop and heed its lessons. 

 

1  Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, page 57


 

     If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while still believing in an old earth.  Click here for more.

 

    Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism?  Now that we have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life?  If you are a young earth creationism believer, click here.

 

 

 

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