From ancient times, people had noted the fossilized re- mains of animals that did not seem to resemble living species. Moreover, seashells could be found in the strangest places, even on the tops of the highest mountain ranges. The ancient Greeks were aware of these fossilized remains of creatures, and Heredotus (484-425 BC) suggested that they came about as a consequence of changes in the positions of the sea and land. These changes were even associated with considerable time periods, and Aristo- tle believed that they took place so slowly that they could not be observed today.
Many theories regarding fossils have been propagated, ranging from Lusi naturae “jokes of nature” to prehistoric animals buried by catastrophic events (adherents of this view included Robert Hooke who discovered cells and Cuvier, the French comparative anatomist). Fossils were recognized as extinct species whose place has been filled by the creatures living today. Bible-believing scholars, who attributed the fossils to the destruction of animals during the Noachian flood described in Genesis, also accepted the catastrophic model. However, the gradual ascendancy of the idea of long ages, together with the numerous questions raised by the
Biblical account led many to doubt the validity of the Scriptures. Some of the questions that seemingly could not be accounted for were: How did all the animals get into the ark? Why is there a particular order in the fossil record? How did the animals get to the various continents from the ark? Why do the animals represented in the fossil record look so different from those present today?
These questions led to a search for naturalistic explana- tions for the fossil record and the origin of life in general. Before Darwin published his Origin of Species, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was one of the first of the new era of scientists to propose that the geological discontinuities in the stratigraphic record represented gradual changes in the environment and cli- mate to which species were exposed and through their effects on organisms these changes led to species being transformed. The geologists, Hutton and Lyell, expanded this concept and Charles Darwin added the biological arm, thus laying the foundation for modern concepts on the origin of fossils. Indeed, the fossil record is today considered to be the severest blow to all anti-evolutionary ideas.
Ironically, the scientific views on the question of origins have a tendency to go full circle. Whereas exponents of the theory of evolution rejected catastrophism, many scientists are today returning to catastrophism and even to the Biblical account of the flood to explain many of the features of the geological column and the fossil record. A major problem with this view, as scientists see it, is the universality of the Biblical flood with its destruction of all terrestrial life, which would put an end to any theory of natu- ralistic origins. However, it is not only the Bible that speaks about a worldwide flood, but virtually every society on every continent has the story of a worldwide flood in its folklore.1 Moreover, there is evidence that indicates that there was a universal total covering of the earth by water – compelling evidence that cannot readily be ignored. This includes:
- Massive fossil graveyards with evidence of plants and animals being washed into position.
- Huge sedimentary deposits (nearly three quarters of the earth’s exposed surface is covered with sedimentary rock deposits).
- The chalk deposits of the world are universal. Chalk is formed from the skeletons of marine unicellular protozoans and algae, and can only settle out of relatively shallow water. In deep oceans, the calcium carbonate shells dissolve on the way down to the ocean floor. The chalk deposits are thus an indication of worldwide coverage of a relatively shallow sea. Chalk deposits of the same age are found in many areas of North America, Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and all of these deposits are resting on the same type of glauconitic sandstone.2 For these factors to be so universal, the same conditions must have existed universally.
- The vast coal and oil fields of the world are further evidence of a vast flood catastrophe. No process occurring today can even remotely approach the magnitude of the catastrophe necessary to account for such a vast scale of universal burial of plants and other organic material.