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Society of VP Criticizes Creation Museum

ScienceDaily has published a news release from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology "speaking out" against the Creation Museum. They accuse the museum of "a vast number of scientific errors, large and small," including the promotion of a global flood and the view that dinosaurs and man lived together. From the release:

The fossil exhibits at the Creation Museum discount the last 150 years of paleontological and geological discovery. Not only are transitional fossils, including snakes with limbs and dinosaurs with feathers, abundant in the fossil record, but radiometric dating allows paleontologists to pinpoint the timing of major events in the ancient history of the earth.

For example, Tyrannosaurus rex existed over 65 million years ago, whereas modern humans didn’t show up on the scene until 200 thousand years ago. They never walked side by side.

Amazingly, the Creation Museum's fossil exhibits are displays of real fossils! They don't discount 150 years of discoveries, they simply challenge the interpretation of those discoveries, such as whether a global flood might be responsible for the fossil record. Any scientist knows that a challenge to interpretation is a healthy aspect of his trade.

As to scientific accuracy, this news release fails to divulge a couple important facts of its own: (1) Not all paleontologists believe fossils show dinosaurs had feathers (including Alan Feduccia, one of America's most respected bird evolution experts), and (2) radiometric dating is too scattered to "pinpoint" anything. If the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is really worried about people being scientifically misled, they'd better set an example first.

In other news: Scientists have now shown that the giant bugs of the fossil record grew large because of a once higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, as creationists have long suspected.

Two stories about coelacanths break in an unfortunate juxtaposition for Darwinists: One claims a coelacanth fossil shows how limb evolution proceeded; another reports on a live coelacanth. The fact that coelacanths have allegedly thrived for 400 million years (and turned up as a "living fossil" after being labeled extinct) would seem to indicate that the fish's fins were always intended for water, not walking.

A group of fossilized trees is not fossilized. If you're puzzled, so are these scientists

Finally, whoever heard of a brain pacemaker? That's a reality now, and a successful test has allowed a man in a vegetative state to talk with his family and chew his food again.  

Posted on Thursday, August 2, 2007 at 05:45AM by Registered CommenterDaniel James Devine in | CommentsPost a Comment

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