FOSSIL FIND UPSETS SCIENTIFIC THEORY

Joined : 13 Apr 2007 Posts : 926

The New York Times
March 9, 1924

FOSSIL FIND UPSETS SCIENTIFIC THEORY
Nevada Mining Engineer Brings East a Petrified Horse's Foot of Modern Shape.

ANTI-EVOLUTION ARGUMENT
According to Archaeologists the Present Equine Quadruped Originally Had Five Toes.

Every once in a while John T. Reid, minding engineer, of Lovelock, Nev., comes East to see his bankers, and when he does he is more likely than not to bring a fossil with him.

Two years ago he brought along what appeared to be the fossilized remains of a human shoe sole dating back millions of years before there were supposed to be any humans who wore shoes. And it surprised the scientific world greatly.

This year he brought in another find which, if it is all Mr. Reid thinks it is, appears to upset the theory of evolution as applied to the development of the horse. And Mr. Reid cannot be fooled much about fossils, because he has spent his life in the mines of Utah and Nevada and has used his knowledge as a mining engineer and geologist to follow a hobby of fossil-finding. He has many specimens and a library of something like 3,000 volumes on the subject in his home at Lovelock, and for years when anything of the kind has been found in that part of the country it has been brought to him.

That is how the horse foot he bears with him among other fossils, on this trip came into his possession. A fireman was stoking his engine in Lovelock one day about a year and a half ago when he noticed in his coal a peculiarly shaped lump which, on close examinaton, proved not to be coal. He showed it to a local doctor, who said: "I'll bet it's a fossil. Show it to Mr. Reid."

Tries to Locate the Mine.

Mr. Reid spent more than a year trying to learn where the coal on that particular engine had been mined. He wanted to find the rest of the horse, if he could, or the rest of the leg. But he never could get any further than tracing the coal as having been shipped from Scofield, Utah.

In the meantime, Mr. Reid put in considerable study on the fossil he had. He learned that equine anatomists had traced the development of the horse from a small four-toed animal they had found in earth formations dating to the eocene epoch, up through the oligocene epoch, the miocene epoch and finally the pliocene and peistocene epochs, growing larger and losing one toe in each epoch until in the last tow they found the equine quadruped as it existed today.

And here, as Mr. Reid explained it, the plot thickens. For coal deposits of Nevada and Wyoming and the region thereabouts are classified under the cretaceous, which antedates any of the epochs mentioned above. In other words, any animals caught in the cretaceous strata of the earth must have been walking about earlier than those described above, and, scientists had averred, a horse dating from that period should have had five toes and been much smaller.

The fossil brought to Mr. Reid, however, was to all intents and purposes a horse such as we today know, and the mining engineer carried three other horse's feet he had found in the desert to New York with him to afford comparisons. This is a good point at which to let Mr. Reid take up his own story.

"This fossil must have dated from the Cretaceous Age," he said, "because it was found among the coal deposits, which are called Laramie in my part of the country and which geologists ascribe variously to the upper or lower horizon of the Cheteceous Period. There is other corroboratory evidence.

Animal Tracks in Coal Veins

"In Willis, Utah, they found recently and now have on exhibition at Brown Brothers' in Ogden, an animal track imbedded in the roof of a coal mine. The track had been imprinted from above, showing that when the coal was forming animals were wandering about the earth, though that is not generally accepted. Miners have told me also that they have come upon animal bones imbedded in coal. They could not, of course, describe them adequately for they had no learning on the subject.

"It is well known that vegatation existed in that period, for fossilized remains are plentiful. Superintendent Pyrde of the Union Pacific coal mines at Rock Springs, Wyo., has told me that imbedded in the coal they have found what closely resembled the modern coconut in excellent preservation. From other authorities we learn that the flora of the period was considerably like present-day vegetation.

"My theory greatly strengthened by this fossilized horse foot, is that the good Lord originally made these things as we see them today. Although I was an evolutionist in the beginning, I have changed my view."

Joined : 13 Apr 2007 Posts : 926

An excerpt from American Mercury Magazine May to August 1926, H. L. Mencken, Ed., 2003, "The Fundamentalist Pope", pg. 263:

Once Brother Straton produced some fossils of his own which he had obtained from John T. Reid, of Lovelock, Nevada. One of these fossils, he said, was of a shoe, or moccasin, and it occurred in a rock of the Triassic Era, which certainly exploded the theory that that era antedated man's appearance upon earth. The other was a fossilized horse's hoof of the Cretaceous Era, which, if genuine, would disprove the theory that the horse was evolved from a toed animal. The museum [of Natural History, in New York] rejected the fossils as "absurd rubbish."

Dr. Frederick A. Lucas, the honorary director . . . said: "I know of the 'moccasin.' It is not a moccasin and I don't believe it is a fossil. I hear the discoverer has made another find. This time it is a horse's hoof, which belongs in the same category. If he stood around the museum long enough he could amass a fine collection of fossilized potatoes, lemons, hog feet, broom handles, and other objects brought in by ignorant persons. He could use them as additional ammunition."

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

Pretty old excerpts, but the answer sounds typical of what I have heard form the non-believing community. Why is it so hard to accept evidence for what it is, rather than look for some way to discount it and call attention to the credibility of the discoverer?

Just curious, are there any current finds that would bolster the claims of the article above?

Joined : 13 Apr 2007 Posts : 926

Well, in general, paleontologists continue to insist that the horse evolved from a small creature with five toes, which looked very much like a fox. They say that it had sharp teeth, and unlike the modern horse, the early horse had been a carnivore.

This link will take you to a typical model of the horse's evolution:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/images/v17/i4/p16_horses.JPG

But there have been some brave dissenters to this model, and here are some updates to the debate that are worthy of note:

--

Once we told the horse story wrong
http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v6i5f.htm
This is an interesting article about an exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. The exibit openly admits there is a problem with the old evolutionary model of the horse.

--

In speaking on the subject of evolutionary science, as taught from textbooks, Dr. Niles Eldredge, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, has said:

"I admit that an awful lot of that [imaginary stuff] has gotten into the textbooks as though it were true. For instance, the most famous example still on exhibit downstairs [in the American Museum] is the exhibit on horse evolution prepared perhaps 50 years ago. That has been presented as literal truth in textbook after textbook. Now I think that that is lamentable ..."

--

Here are some other good points that I have encountered on the subject:

* There is no one site in the world where the evolutionary succession of the horse can be seen. Rather, the fossil fragments have been gathered from several continents on the assumption of evolutionary progress, and then used to support the assumption. This is circular reasoning, and does not qualify as objective science.

* The theory of horse evolution has very serious genetic problems to overcome. How do we explain the variations in the numbers of ribs and lumbar vertebrae within the imagined evolutionary progression? For example, the number of ribs in the supposedly "intermediate" stages of the horse varies from 15 to 19 and then finally settles at 18. The number of lumbar vertebrae also allegedly swings from six to eight and then returns to six again.

Age : 78 Joined : 21 Apr 2007 Posts : 1506

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

Age : 78 Joined : 21 Apr 2007 Posts : 1506

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

Dr. Kent Hovind seems at best to be a shady character. How about some other links to support young earth creationism that don't originate from someone with the character of Hovind. I didn't even have to read very much.

Age : 78 Joined : 21 Apr 2007 Posts : 1506

Age : 20 Joined : 21 Jul 2007 Posts : 2022

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

[quote="Sir Shred A Lot"]

Age : 78 Joined : 21 Apr 2007 Posts : 1506

Age : 57 Joined : 06 Apr 2007 Posts : 219

[quote="Sir Shred A Lot]
I would answer that question with a resounding "No." He plays great to the crowds and is a smooth talker, but the substance is lacking severely. I say this as someone who has seen him speak on two occasions, one of which was a debate between Hovind and two others, one of whom was an acquaintence of mine.[/quote]

I am not asking you to agree with their thinking. Then who could you recommend that has good character, has done their homework and believes in a young earth. ie. how is this answers in genesis site?