Ancient fossil forest found by accident (potential major out of order problem for Darwinists)

news@nature.com (via BioEd online) ^ | April 23, 2007 | Katharine Sanderson

[GodGunsGuts]

Geologists have found the remains of a huge underground rainforest hidden in a coal mine in Illinois. The fossil forest, buried by an earthquake 300 million years ago, contains giant versions of several plant types alive today.

...

Also surprising is the presence of remains from mangrove-like plants. "It was always assumed that mangrove plants had evolved fairly recently," says Falcon-Lang.

[Always Independent]

Because the dinosaurs ate them!

[dontposttome]

You see, there are young earth creationists, and there are old earth creationists. An old earth is fine with the old earth creationists.

[GraniteStateConservative]

fyi...

[cinives]

There is in Iowa - we taxpayers are paying to create one !

“Just three months into the 110th Congress, Democrat leaders are showing a very low regard for fiscal restraint. Democrats have been adding massive amounts of extra pork to spending bills such as a $45 million Tropical Rain Forest in Iowa”

[ari-freedom]

complexities of evolutionary theory? No, there is no theory. It’s just a lot of stories applied on an ad hoc basis to give the illusion it explains everything. Just as ptolemaic theory appears complex and explanatory because poof! you add an epicycle whenever the data doesn’t fit the original model.

[mnehring]

Evolution exists because God created it.

One of my favorite quotes is by C.S. Lewis.
The Bible tells us why God created the universe.
Science (evolution) tells us how.

[JamesP81]

Must have been one hell of an earthquake!

Depends on the soil, I think. Loose soil (and the article suggested that this forest was in loose soil) will liquify during a bad enough earthquake; it basically turns into quicksand and everything sinks into it.

[ari-freedom]

for the same reason you won’t find humans with lions or penguins with mountain goats.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

My dad is a retired coal miner, and he likes to tell stories about him and his co-workers finding whole stands of fossilized trees embedded in coal and rock deep underground. He used to bring home a lot of cool fossils of things like small palm-tree looking logs for me to collect.

[353FMG]

“..diehard creationists would only admit that the Earth is 7,000 years old and thats it (or something like that).”

I agree - it was created on a Friday the 13th.

[GreenOgre]

I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a single piece of creation/ID evidence.

Taking swipes at and calling Darwin a tool of the devil is not evidence supporting ID/creationism.

[mnehring]

I’m totally confused here......the Creationists are revelling in the fact that this find throws a “monkey-wrench” into the complexities of Evolutionist theory YET at the same time they’re acknowledging that this fossilized forest is millions of years old. I always thought diehard creationists would only admit that the Earth is 7,000 years old and thats it (or something like that). It seems to me that it’s just one more piece to a impossible puzzle that no one can totally figure out.

There are a lot of us who don't see the gap between science and the Bible.. of course, we aren't 'Young Earthers'.. The problem a lot of people have (on both sides) is trying to apply the How (Science) to the Why (Bible) and vice versa and thinking that the Why is the How and the How is the Why.. Thusly, the 'Young Earth' creationists are always trying to refute science that contradicts their interpretation of the Bible and atheist evolutionists are unable to answer the statistical improbabilities for many of the fundamental trigger events and intangibles- such as the faith they are trying to refute.

I consider myself a theo-evolutionist. (this is not 'intelligent design' which just tries to plug God into whatever gap that science has.)

[Bruinator]

Evolution has yet to be established. It is after all a theory. Its too complex to explain in this forum, however there is plenty of data available to reconcile the the age of the earth and creationism.. However, the one major tenet of creationism is faith. There is no faith in evolution.

[ari-freedom]

a single piece? The simplest single celled organism. And the fact that nobody was able to evolve it into into a simple 2 celled organism.

[mnehring]

for the same reason you won’t find humans with lions or penguins with mountain goats.

Really?

[atlaw]

Hominid fossils aren't found with dinosaur fossils "for the same reason you won’t find humans with lions or penguins with mountain goats."

Huh?

[navyguy]

Care to explain/clarify that? What are you driving at?

[ari-freedom]

let me try again

humans generally don’t live with lions (because they are dangerous) therefore we don’t expect them to be buried with each other.

penguins don’t live with mountain goats (completely different ecosystem, elevation) so we don’t expect them to be buried with each other.

[Coyoteman]

humans generally don’t live with lions (because they are dangerous) therefore we don’t expect them to be buried with each other.

penguins don’t live with mountain goats (completely different ecosystem, elevation) so we don’t expect them to be buried with each other.

Lets try a different approach.

Humans and dinosaurs are separated in time by about 65 million years, therefore they are not found in the same geological deposits.

OK?

[mnehring]

But then, that lack of evidence due to non-shared environment doesn’t contribute either way either pro or con old earth evolution and/or creation. It doesn’t disprove or prove that man and dinosaurs existed at different times.