Do creationists try to find and study fossils?

Hi Faith,The PDF that Bernd ran down (http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/6389) is searchable - Romer never wrote what that website claims he said. If you Google around you'll find other creationist websites repeating the same erroneous claim verbatim.I think I found the original source of that quote: The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible by Paul Taylor. The quote begins on page 28 in the section titled Doesn't it take millions of years for a dinosaur bone to become a fossil?Creationist fossil digs and research seem to bear a strong resemblance to making things up. Paul S. Taylor makes things up in his book. Other creationists use quotes from books like his to make things up at their websites.Can I suggest you use this search engine: Google Scholar. If creationists are engaging in fossil digs and studying their fossil discoveries, this is where you would find it. A search for "rapid fossilization" turned up this interesting article: The Medusa effect: instantaneous fossilization--Percy

I suspect that the original source is something earlier and more authoritative in Creationist circles. Taylor is likely just somebody repeating the error. It's hardly unusual for creationists (and cranks in general) to copy material from each other without doing any checks.My guess in this case is that a creationist claim got confused with a genuine quote from Romer and the error just got propagated again and again and again.

How is that? Where would more area come from, other than the tiny wrinkles from mountains and valleys, both on land and under water?

I am unable to find the article in Natural History by Romer although supposedly it's there. I used the Search feature on his name and many phrases from the quote imputed to him. It may be that there is just too much material there for me to sort through but I could not find the article, that's all I know.The term fossilization covers many different phenomena, and I think the embedded clock that Granny Magda is ridiculing is only meant to illustrate the fact that a modern object can be encased in real rock, certainly not implying that the clock itself was mineralized or altered, merely encased.He asks me to judge something about the look of the bones in the boots. Well, that's a pretty subjective standard, isn't it? If they say the pores of the bone were mineralized why isn't that sufficient to call it fossilized? In fact that IS one of the forms of fossilization according to Wikipedia.Fossil - WikipediaThe following is from Ken Ham, who is not saying anything that isn't discussed in the same terms at Wikipedia: Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

If this thread is supposed to get to a discussion of creationists who work in the field I personally only know of two, Steve Austin and Paul Cameron. Austin studied the nautiloid fossils in the Redwall of the Grand Canyon, and Cameron is at this time studying the Coconino in the Grand Canyon, where he expects to be for a few more years. Both these men are generally attacked here with ad hominems rather than by discussion of their work, Austin for instance for having published something under a pseudonym.I've posted at EvC before the following video of a presentation on the Grand Canyon by Cameron, which I still think does a terrific job of demonstrating how the Grand Canyon is best explained in terms of the Flood than Old Earth geology:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNlb3lFhFMIt covers Austin's study of the nautiloid fossils.

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I am unable to find the article in Natural History by Romer although supposedly it's there. I used the Search feature on his name and many phrases from the quote imputed to him. It may be that there is just too much material there for me to sort through but I could not find the article, that's all I know.

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I have had more success. The article is there. The alleged quote is not in it. It doesn't even look like it belongs there - the writing style is different enough that it isn't likely to have been written by Romer at all.

And the phenomenon that you have showed us is not one of them. I'm sorry Faith, but you have been misled by your sources. But the site does imply that it is a fossil when it is clearly not. Look at what it says;

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Here is a picture of a clock embedded in rock. Clocks have not been around for millions of years, so it is easy to see that fossils do not always take long periods of time to form.

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Quite clearly the site author is trying to pass this off as a fossil when it is nothing of the kind.And even if we use your interpretation, that it was merely showing an encased object, then the observation becomes pointless. There are plenty of fossils that are preserved in very different ways. This observation does nothing to challenge those. The pores are not mineralised because they are merely empty spaces. What is important is that the bone itself is not mineralised, replaced or altered in any way other than to coat it in lime-scale. This is not what we see in genuine fossils.Seriously Faith, does the fact that the entire foot is allegedly mineralised whilst the boot remains intact not bother you? Or how about the fact that the boot was produced by known hoaxer Carl Baugh? That alone ought to be a warning sign.Mutate and Survive

Not to belabor the point too far I hope, but the clock encased in rock would supposedly demonstrate that ROCK doesn't take a long time to form EITHER. He may have been stretching the term "fossil" but not as far as you are implying.

No, it demonstrates that lime-scale doesn't take a long time to form. There is, believe it or not, more than one kind of rock, and each forms in it's own way, taking it's own sweet time.Just because calcium carbonate can form quickly, it doesn't follow that any rock can form quickly. I remember growing my own crystals when I was a kid, but that doesn't prove that all crystals can grow so fast.Equally, just because one fossil-like object can form quickly, it does not follow that any fossil can form quickly. This is why I challenged you to show me a chalcedony or slate fossil of a modern item; you can't show me those because they can't form quickly enough.Mutate and Survive

I think that an important point is that these examples require water saturated with calcium carbonate (from passing through limestone).These are not typical conditions, and I can't see any reason to believe that they would be typical after the supposed flood.Indeed, if study is what is called for, we should be seeing evidence-based arguments that conditions were suitable after the flood, and that many fossils did form in this way. I don't see anything that really qualifies.

If that's your criteria nothing from Old Earth geology qualifies either because obviously there is no way to prove the conditions existed that either theory argues for, they being in the unobservable past.I can't PROVE that "conditions were suitable after the Flood," but based on the usual idea that the Flood created the strata in which the fossils are found, we can suppose that the conditions were: wet sediments, which if low enough in the column would have been under great pressure from the weight of sediments above, which ought to be ideal conditions for the formation of fossils. The minerals that are involved can be anything, not necessarily limestone but whatever is in the immediate vicinity. The wetness of the sediments would provide the conditions for filling the cavities of creatures with mineralized water which according to Wikipedia is how "permineralization" occurs.Fossil - Wikipedia Permineralization is how most dinosaurs were fossilized.There is no reason this process would take a particularly long time. The mineralized water was present immediately from the encasing sediments.

The made-up information might have an earlier source, but the specific words and phrasings of the cut-n-paste appear to be original in that book.--Percy

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If that's your criteria nothing from Old Earth geology qualifies either because obviously there is no way to prove the conditions existed that either theory argues for, they being in the unobservable past.

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On the contrary, geologists have done a good deal of that sort of work. You might, for instance look at the stone produced in this way and compare it with older rocks.

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I can't PROVE that "conditions were suitable after the Flood," but based on the usual idea that the Flood created the strata in which the fossils are found, we can suppose that the conditions were: wet sediments, which if low enough in the column would have been under great pressure from the weight of sediments above, which ought to be ideal conditions for the formation of fossils. The minerals that are involved can be anything, not necessarily limestone but whatever is in the immediate vicinity. The wetness of the sediments would provide the conditions for filling the cavities of creatures with mineralized water which according to Wikipedia is how "permineralization" occurs

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In other words real fossils are produced by a number of different mechanisms,and there is no special reason to assume that the speed of the particular method you refer to would actually apply to all of them.

I provided the information in Message 76. The PDF is here: This PDF is searchable. Nothing like that quote appears anywhere in the article.I also identified the actual source of that quote in this book: The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible by Paul Taylor. The quote begins on page 28. Granny Magda already told you about limestone scale. Rather than going back and forth about the definition of fossil, maybe we can just say that if it doesn't bear any resemblance to the fossils (usually casts of the originals, actually) you see in museums, then it isn't a fossil. I think you're gonna have to point us to the particular text in the Wikipedia article that you're misinterpreting. The word "pores" doesn't appear in the article, neither does "boots".Someone else already asked you this, but I'm so amazed I have to ask the same question. Faith, this fossil boot is the kind of thing you see in sideshows and carnival "museums." You didn't think this fossil with the intact leather and embossed designs but with a completely fossilized leg a little bit of a stretch on credibility?Could I again suggest that you use the Google Scholar search engine? You might find it helps you post fewer howlers.From your Message 80: Since this is the topic of the thread, tell us more. I mean, tell us more in your own words. Please don't make us watch 80 minute slide shows presented in a monotone.--Percy

The past is unobservable only to the liars, con men and those who refuse to open their eyes.Events leave evidence.The past left evidence.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin