Fossils & Archaeology part 1 - SC2513

SPEAKER A Welcome to Science Conversations. I'm Kaysie Vokurka. Are fossils evidence for evolution? Joining me to discuss part one of this topic is Dr. John Ashton. Welcome to the programme. Dr. JOHN hello, Kaysie. Good to have you with us again. Dr. John Ashton has written a book entitled Evolution 12 Reasons why Evolution Cannot Explain the Origin of Life On Earth. And we'll be referring to his book in this programme. We are up to chapter five. So, John, tell me a bit more about the fossil record and why it's important to talk about it in the context of the evolutionary subject. SPEAKER B Yeah, sure. I think most scientists came to believe in the theory of evolution as a result of what we call the geologic column and the arrangement of fossils within the geologic column. And so this has been taught in, in geology classes and in schools and so forth, then gets into our education system. And that's a fundamental evidence for evolution because the fossils are purported to show the gradual development of life from primitive forms through to the more complex forms that we have today in correlation with where they're found in terms of the geologic column. So the geologic column was set up essentially back in the 1800s by a geologist. Charles Lyell wrote a book, Principles Of Geology, and essentially he assigned different fossils to the different layers in the rock and said that these again, correspond to different time periods and showed that then these time periods, as we progress to more recent times, the fossils of the animals became more complex. So this really, I think, gave strong support to Darwin to develop his idea of the theory of evolution. So it underpins this. But one of the fascinating things is that when we look at the evidence, that it actually supports a global catastrophic event. And this is so important. But often the evidence for this is the way it's taught in universities is in silos, they don't interconnect so much. And so perhaps the big picture hasn't come together, but when I was researching the book, I realised the evidence was overwhelming for the biblical flood, both in terms of time, both in terms of what happened and the evidence that we have today. Now, I actually did geology at uni for a bit, studied stratigraphy and palaeontology and mapping and mineralogy and so forth. And I had a friend actually at uni who went on to become the chief geologist for the world's largest mining company. And I was quite interested in, you know, mineral exploration and this sort of thing earlier on, but. And so the history of understanding geology is quite interesting. So up until probably the time of Charles Lyell, mid-1800s, geology at universities that was largely taught in the context of the biblical flood. And so essentially it was Lyell's work that changed this. SPEAKER A So there's, like, been a. There was a fundamental shift then in perspective through, like, the early 1800s. Is that about the right timing, like, from having a biblical flood worldview of interpretation of geology to suddenly, oh, no, maybe it's long ages and slow processes is now thought. SPEAKER B Yes, yes. So the model, essentially, the model of stratigraphy began probably early on, back in the 1600s. SPEAKER A Okay. SPEAKER B And the. The idea there was that rock layers essentially on top of one another. The layer on top was going to be the more recent layer. And generally that is the case. And then the other law essentially that was developed was that if you find strata that's vertical or. Or on an angle at some stage, those strata were horizontal, that they're all laid down horizontally. Now, a lot of work was also done by another geologist in the late 1700s. So 100 or so years later, he was digging a lot of canals, William Smith was his name, and he noticed that as he was digging through these layers of shale and limestone, that they were very rich in fossils. And there was the same order of sequence of these different types of layers when he was digging in, say, in England and also in France. And so he essentially developed the idea that the fossil content of these layers could be used to identify the layers and that these sequences were sort of uniform. So in one area you could find often find similar sequences, and so they were probably the same layers that have been spread across there. Yeah. So that came from that. Now, also at this same time, and maybe a little bit before, a few years before, Hutton developed the idea that these layers had been laid down, you know, quite slowly, and that the processes that we see today are the processes that have gone on for millions of years. So he developed this whole concept of uniformitarianism. Now, what Charles Lyell did was he did a lot of work in the French Alps and other areas. And he noticed, of course, that the. As he looked at these layers in the Alps, the layers higher up, again, seemed to have more complex animals. The layers further down seem to have less complexity. And so. And he calculated the thickness of the strata and then he also did some measurements, measuring the rate of deposition in deltas. And of course, if you have these layers that might be, you know, 1,000 metres thick and they're each one got millimetre sort of thickness layers, and there must be millions of years. So he came up with these millions of years age, but probably the Key factor in Lyle's work that convinced people to throw away the biblical model was he did some measurements and looked at the rate at which the Niagara Falls were being eroded in the United States. So these are massive falls located in the United States, Very famous. Yes, yes, I've been there and seen there. Now, when Lyle was there, he asked a local, he said about how far back to the. To the falls moved. And the locals said, oh, about three feet, which would be a metre. Yeah, a year. And I thought, oh, no, that's too. Too fast. Come by that bit. And he just guessed that it was a foot. SPEAKER A Right, okay. SPEAKER B He didn't do any measurements. He just guessed that. This guy's wrong. It's probably about a foot now because the canyon at that stage is about 35,000ft long. Then he said, okay, the canyon, these falls must be 35,000 years old. Now, obviously, that's a lot older than Usher's calculation of about 6,000 years. That was the basis of a flood about 2,350 BC that Usher calculated and a creation about 4,000 BC. So this measurement then was the measurement that scientists then. It shattered this whole biblical view. The fascinating thing is that Lyle was wrong. Lyle was wrong. And when we do the measurements on how fast it is eroding, it's eroding at, you know, five to six feet a year. SPEAKER A Wow. SPEAKER B Not one foot. And so if it was, say, you know, five feet a year, five and 35,000, that's only 7,000 years. Yeah, that's a lot closer. If it's six foot, it's pretty close. Yeah, this sort of thing. And matter of fact, as I said, I've been to Niagara Falls and you get the official brochure there, and this sort of thing, the falls are actually dated on the basis of glacial activity as being only 12,000 years old anyway, or 12 and a half thousand years old in terms of secular dating. So we know. And also we know in the past there was much higher rainfall, glacier action, so erosion could have definitely been much faster. So what we see is that this whole shattering of the biblical worldview occurred on the basis of a highly eminent scientist making a guess that was wrong. SPEAKER A And didn't even do a measurement. SPEAKER B Yeah, he didn't do a measurement, but because he had that prestige and I guess he was pretty confident, he looked at other things in the context of things he thought he was right, but that was in the context of a worldview in his mind that the world was millions of years old, that the structures on the world were Millions of years old. So that influenced the way he interpreted things that he was observing and I would guess, influence why he rejected that local, who was somebody there who lived in the area who said, yeah, it's about three foot a year, which was in fact, not a bad guess compared to, yeah, it's about five or six foot a year that he changed it back to one. So it also shows how this sort of unbacked information and assertions has led to a lot of errors in science, particularly in terms of our origins, because people have made assertions about a whole lot of aspects of our origins have been made by eminent people. And as a result of this, people have given up their faith in the biblical account. But in actual fact, there was a lot, very much a lot of evidence that supported the biblical account. But it was essentially Charles Lyell's influence that threw out the biblical flood model. But of course, we now have overwhelming evidence for the biblical flood model. SPEAKER A Wow, that's fantastic insights that you're sharing there. And I guess reflecting on what you've shared, it's interesting to me how that initially some very interesting observations were made about the layers and the different fossils in the layers and the patterns, and that's all okay. But then, of course, the interpretations and assumptions that are put into that is what seem to be where things can go in all different directions. And that's, as you point out, is what we have to be so careful of in science, that the difference between just pure fact and evidence versus people's assumptions being woven into that. Because that can affect your ultimate conclusion. SPEAKER B Yes, very much so, yes. And this is particularly the case where they did the measurements measuring the rate of sedimentation in river deltas and this sort of thing that led also to these very long ages. Whereas we have overwhelming evidence, really, for catastrophic events occurring. SPEAKER A Yeah. Oh, very interesting. Well, we're going to continue to talk about some more of that evidence that you've been referring to in our next session. So next time we're going to examine the question a little bit more. Are fossils evidence for evolution? Be sure to join us.