Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Does The Fossil Record Of Non-Mammalian Synapsid Digits Show An Increasing "Mammal-Ness"?, Emily Anderson, Matthew A. Mclain

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

Non-mammalian synapsids (NMS) are a group of extinct amniotes present in the Carboniferous-Cretaceous geologic systems. NMS are recognized by evolutionary scientists as transitional forms between reptile-like animals and mammals, and are thought to increase in mammal-like characteristics as they progress through the fossil record, especially among the six therapsid subtaxa. Given that Scripture is clear that God created many independent kinds of land animals (Genesis 1:20-25), we sought to investigate the currently accepted evidence which is used to support the claim that NMS are transitional forms. In this study we focused on the NMS hands and feet, which have been …

Noah's Arks And Viking Funeral Ships: A Creationist Look At The Biogeographic Patterns Of Tetrapods In The Collisions Of South America/North America And India/Asia, Ryan Frields, Caleb Lepore, Matthew A. Mclain

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

The question of how animals recolonized the earth after the Flood has been of interest to creation scientists for hundreds of years, and this inquiry led to the birth of the field of biogeography. Biogeographers recognize dispersal mechanisms (e.g., rafting) as well as vicariant mechanisms (e.g., continental drift). In biogeography, a continent carrying animals from one place to another is called a “Noah’s Ark.” There are two continents that start the Cenozoic as islands but later collide with other land masses: India with Asia (in the Eocene) and South America with North America (in the Pliocene). The faunal transfer between …

Do Fossil Data Suggest Greater Animal Longevity In The Pre-Flood World?, Leo Hebert Iii

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

One of the Bible's most ridiculed claims is its assertion that pre-Flood and immediate post-Flood humans experienced lifespans of hundreds of years. Hence, the ability to partially corroborate the Bible's claim in this regard should be of great interest to creation researchers. Paleontologists have within the last two decades become increasingly interested in using growth rings recorded in fossil forms to make inferences about past growth rates, sizes, and lifespans. Examination of these growth rings suggest that some creatures in the pre-Flood world matured quite slowly compared to similar extant forms. Also, multiple studies have shown that slower development and …

What Biostratigraphic Continuity Suggests About Earth History, Kurt P. Wise, Donna Richardson

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

If the present world contains sediments generated in the global Flood described in the Bible, we would expect a distinctive paleontological uniformity at both the beginning and the end of the Flood. Populations of organisms both before and after the Flood would be expected to persist at any particular locality for a significant period of time. Many of the same species would be expected to persist across every depositional time boundary at most localities in the world throughout both the pre-Flood and post-Flood worlds. During the Flood, of the species deposited in more than one depositional level, it would not …

Testing The Order Of The Fossil Record: Preliminary Observations On Stratigraphic-Clade Congruence And Its Implications For Models Of Evolution And Creation, Kathryn Mcguire, Sophie Southerden, Katherine Beebe, Neal Doran, Matthew Mclain, Todd Charles Wood, Paul A. Garner

Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism

As a key evidence for macroevolutionary change, the fossil record has been the focus of much study as creation scientists have attempted to interpret its patterns in light of the Flood. Despite this importance, only rarely has the order of the fossil record been scrutinized in any detail, by creationists or evolutionists. We therefore conducted the first large-scale study of the congruence of the fossil record with evolutionary predictions in thirty years.

Our method begins with published phylogenies for organisms found in the fossil record. The order of appearance for each taxon on the phylogeny is assigned a rank, then …