Page 14

ETS 2001: Boundaries on creation and Noah's Flood: Early 19

century British Scriptural Geologists

Terry Mortenson, PhD

tmortenson@AnswersInGenesis.org

P. 14

But a number of Scriptural geologists,

along with several respected conchologists (experts

on shell creatures) and even a few old-earth geologists objected that these shells were an unreliable
means of dating the rock formations, for several reasons.

First, the taxonomic classification of

shell creatures was very controversial and confusing at this time. Often different species or even
genus names were given to what in reality was a single species. Secondly, there was experimental
and observational evidence that the same creature could produce different shells depending on
slight changes in such variables as the salinity or temperature of the water, or the surface to which
the creature frequently attached itself. And thirdly, it was known that marine shell creatures could
adapt to fresh water and that fresh water shell creatures could adjust to life in the sea. This meant
that the distinction of fresh-water and salt-water deposits solely on the basis of shells was
questionable to say the least.

A fourth major geological objection related to human fossils. This intriguing specimen was

found in Guadaloupe and reported in a scientific journal in 1814. A primary reason that the
majority of geologists at that time believed that most of the geological record was deposited long
before the creation of man was that apparently no fossil human bones had been found with extinct
animals in lower formations but only in recently formed deposits close to the earth's surface. But
several Scriptural geologists

argued that there were several fossil discoveries which refuted this

widespread opinion, but that this evidence had been misinterpreted due to superficial
investigations or that the correctly interpreted evidence had been ignored or suppressed by old-
earth geologists.

Finally, another important objection of the Scriptural geologists to the old-earth theories

was that since geology was in its infancy as a science in the early 19

century, geological

knowledge was far too limited to justify a theory of the whole earth based solely on the geological
data.

But again, the Scriptural geologists were not the only ones raising this objection.

It is

the basis of [time] correlation [of the strata] using fossils today: first that all members of a species evolve together
over their whole geographical range, so that evolutionary changes can be regarded as taking place at the same time
wherever they occur, and second that evolution is a process which does not repeat itself, so that once a species or
fauna has gone, it will never reappear. For a fossil to be useful in time-correlation it must be widely distributed in a
variety of rock types, reasonably common and easy to recognise, and a member of a well defined, rapidly evolving
lineage. No fossil satisfies all these requirements and all have their particular problems. The most useful are those
like graptolites and ammonites which moved freely in the surface waters and are therefore found over wide areas in
many different rock types. Less adequate are those like corals, gastropods, and bivalves, which evolved slowly and
which were confined to a narrow range of environments. Widely used fossils, including some of the unfamiliar
microscopic forms which are very important in borehole correlation, are shown in figure 21."

E.g., Thomas Gisborne, Considerations on the Modern Theory of Geology ( 1837), pp. 19 & 51; George

Bugg, Scriptural Geology (1826-27), Vol. I, pp. 210-211; and George Young & John Bird, Geological Survey of the
Yorkshire Coast (1828), pp. 329-32.

E.g., George Cuvier, Theory of the Earth (1813), pp. 58-60; F.S. Beudant, "Extract from a Memoir read

to the Institute on the 13

of May 1816 on the Possibility of making the Molluscae of Fresh Water live in Salt

Water, and vice versa," Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XLVIII, No. 22 (1816), pp. 223-27; John E. Gray, "Remarks
on the difficulty of distinguishing certain Genera of Testaceous Mullusca by their shells alone, and on the Anomalies
in regard to Habitation observed in certain Species," Philosophical Transactions, Pt. 2 (1835), pp. 301-310.

E.g., Fairholme, Ref. 28, pp. 41-52; John Murray, A Portrait of Geology (1838), pp. 82-96; Granville

Penn, Comparative Estimate of the Mineral and Mosaic Geologies (1825), Vol. II, pp. 124-34, 394-412.

E.g., Rhind, Ref. 30, pp. 111-14; Young and Bird, Ref. 39, pp. 2-3, 8-9; Gisborne, Ref. 39, p. 6; John

Murray, The Truth of Revelation (1840), 137-38, 142; Bugg, Ref. 39, pp. I:10-14, II:289, 343.

Eg., T., anonymous review of Bakewell's Introduction to Geology (3

edition), Magazine of Natural