Platypus tooth bites hard into long-held beliefs
People have often asked sceptically why we don’t find fossils of kangaroos
or platypuses, for example, anywhere but in Australia. Surely, they say, this means
they must have evolved in Australia.
However, we don’t find lion fossils in the Middle East where they are known
to have lived—fossilization requires special conditions. In the biblical model,
creatures such as platypuses may well have reached other parts of the world—Australia
is simply the only place where they have survived. So while it is not necessary
to find their fossils anywhere else, if a few such fossils were found it would support
the biblical model, but would be a big blow to those who say they must have evolved
here.
Now South American scientists have discovered a fossil platypus tooth in Patagonia,
near the tip of South America.1 Not surprisingly, it ‘has sent
shock waves through the scientific community’.2 Platypus teeth
are unique and distinctive, with a V-shaped, double-crested blade system. The find
has been confirmed by the Royal Zoological Society in Sydney, Australia.
The question of how the kangaroo, platypus, etc., travelled to Australia is the
subject of chapter 12 of The Answers Book. Whether evolutionists believe the platypus
evolved in South America or Australia, they face the same question (with the same
possible answers) as creationists do, namely how it crossed over the ocean.
References
- New Scientist, August 24, 1991 . Return to text
-
The Daily Telegraph-Mirror (Sydney), August 26, 1991. Return
to text
|
