I've been researching and reading about mass extinctions for the past couple of months. I recently stumbled upon an article by a 'scientist' Dr. Clarey, who says fossilized trees found in Antarctica are proof of the great flood. Disclaimer: He works for the Institute for Creation Research. The article also says "A few months ago, Dr. Clarey insisted that dinosaurs were aboard Noah's Ark, which was also part of the Biblical account of the Great Flood. Addressing questions on how these species could have fit inside the vessel, he said God probably brought juveniles instead of full-sized dinosaurs..." Dinosaurs on the Ark isn't a claim that I've heard before. This is an example of someone who either doesn't understand how science works, or filters the facts through his own interpretation. Understand that I'm not making fun of Dr Clarey nor am I belittling him. He's as entitled to his opinion as we are. It must be tough to practice 'science' when the vast majority of the scientific world disagrees with you.
As a scientist, he is entitled to draw warranted and proven conclusions from data and evidence, not distort and manufacture false proofs and rationale. As a scientist. he is NOT entitled to the opinion that he expresses What he has done is to show that he is a sham scientist -- a charlatan.
True believers in demagogic ideologies and theologies are so certain of their beliefs that it matters not that the vast majority of people find their mental manipulations absurd.
An abbreviated history =P
[ a long-ass time ago]
Man creates story to explain the natural phenomenon of rainbows.
Man edits this story to strike the fear of God into potential converts and believers of a new social structure.
The sight of a rainbow is subsequently hijacked to remind people of God.
[ some time around or before 1637 ]
Rainbows are understood as the refraction and reflection of light through and around water droplets seen at a distance.
People continue to believe the flood stories. Illiteracy is rampant due to lacking resources, insane inequality, and corruption of power. I guess God could've changed the behavior of light or the molecular structure of water, but wouldn't that have had bigger impacts on the story of Earth before and after the flood?
[1665-1683]
[ some time around or after 1824 ]
8 ) A dude named Darwin is making all kinds of interesting observations about how animals adapt and change over time (including gray areas of gender), and this doesn't quite fit nicely into previous narratives.
[ more time passes ]
Scientists discover dozens of ways to date fossils which all indicate that dinosaur fossils are at least millions of years old.
Because the original authors of the flood stories were short-sighted and ignorant of these discoveries to be made ahead of them, they mistakenly placed highly specific timelines and genealogies in their stories. These genealogies dealt with timelines on the order of thousands of years.
Unfortunately, for the Christians, the flood story was their immediate sequel to the story about the creation of life, the universe, and everything. If dinosaur bones were left in sediment before the creation of the universe, we are left with quite the conundrum.
Ardent maintainers of the Christian faith are left stubbornly refuting scientific discoveries out of a misplaced sense of faith and tradition. Others are left scrambling to create modern apologetics (e.g. - highly fluid interpretations of the Bible and when to take things literally or figuratively) to account for inconsistencies with modern discoveries and Biblical timelines.
[ more time passes ]
He also deflects from the real issues related to: