Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
5
A Mammoth Problem
T
ODAY, GEOLOGISTS KNOW THAT
more than 99 percent of all animal species that have ever
lived are extinct. You don't have to know any geology to know that trilobites, dinosaurs, and
saber-toothed tigers no longer live among us (unless you count birds as modern dinosaurs).
Given this, it makes no sense to argue that Noah's Flood explains the world's fossils. If that
were the case, it would mean the Flood not only caused extinctions but killed off almost all
the world's then living species—the very thing that Noah supposedly built his ark to prevent
in the first place.
But in the opening days of the eighteenth century, naturalists and theologians alike were
confident that extinctions had no place in God's plan. Almost everyone assumed that living
examples of fossils would eventually turn up as more of the world was explored. Vigorous
arguments continued to rage over how God triggered Noah's Flood, but after Steno, Bur-
net, and Woodward, natural philosophers increasingly interpreted internment of once-living
creatures in rocks as compelling evidence of a divine disaster. After all, there was no way
to know how old fossils were, no way to date when they had lived—or had died. Wasn't the
simplest answer that they had died all at once?
If the only idea you have to explain rocks and topography is a big flood, then you will nat-
urally tend to interpret the evidence you find in terms of a big flood for as long as you can.
Even scientists today are not immune to interpreting evidence, at least initially, through the
lens of prevailing ideas and their preconceived notions. Centuries ago, when natural philo-
sophers learned of fossils near the crest of the Andes, they concluded that the biblical flood
parked the bones of sea creatures within South America's highest mountains.
