The fossils shout creation
by Robert Doolan
Dr. Arlton C. Murray is known for digging up fossils and burying evolution.
For most of his life he has worked at excavating fossils and preparing them for
professional display. He has worked for the Smithsonian Institution and the National
Park Service in Washington, DC, and for the William Penn Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
More recently he excavated a dinosaur for Liberty University’s museum in Lynchburg,
Virginia. He has built up such a knowledge about fossils, and enjoys his work with
them so much, that when he lectures or talks on this subject he is usually introduced
as ‘Mr Fossil’.
Dr. Murray worked for 27 years with the Smithsonian Institution as a field collector
and preparator of vertebrate fossils. He proudly admits to being a creationist,
and even has the words ‘creation scientist’ printed on his business
cards. He was once an atheist and evolutionist, but now totally rejects those former
beliefs.
‘The true explanation of the fossil record is very clear’, he says.
‘The only reasonable explanation for the fossil record, and the sedimentary
formations in which they are found, is the great cataclysm of the Noachic Deluge.’
During Dr. Murray’s early years at the Smithsonian he was heavily indoctrinated
in evolution. ‘Not being a Christian, my indoctrination in evolutionistic
geology just seemed to come naturally, and like so many do, I assumed it was all
true.’ He says he fell deeply into the rut of evolutionary belief and the
study of ‘the age of rocks’.
Found the right rock
At the insistence of some friends, he attended some revival meetings in a little
church in Maryland. He sees this as his graduation day from death to life. ‘God
reached down and lifted me from the miry clay of evolution to the glorious realm
of creation science’, he says. ‘I now had met the “Rock of Agesâ€?—and
that Rock is Jesus Christ. He gave me my BA degree—Born Again.’
From that time he started to see the errors and problems with the theory of evolution
that he hadn’t noticed before.
For example, he says, ‘Evolutionists assume that in each sedimentary stratum
certain fossils appear to be distinctively abundant. To them, these fossils are
labelled as index fossils. So they come to the conclusion that the fossils are the
means of dating the rocks. But how do they know that index fossils only lived in
certain ages and not in others?’ He says the answer is simply the assumption
that evolution is true!
Dr. Murray also sees a major obstacle for evolutionists in the fact that the fossil
record contains no indication that one type of creature has turned into a completely
different type. ‘There is not a single intermediate fossil ever found’,
he says. ‘All fossils that are found clearly show that each has developed
“after its kind”?, as the Bible tells us.’
Exicting find
One of Dr. Murray’s major fossil recoveries was Pennsylvania’s most
complete skeleton of a mastodon—an extinct mammal something like an elephant.
On a hot Friday in July of 1968, a mining company accidentally unearthed three bone
fragments at Marshalls Creek in the Pocono area of Pennsylvania.
‘I was employed by the William Penn Museum at this time, in the departments
of archaeology and palaeontology. So I had the honour of going to see the three
bone fragments.’
Dr. Murray identified them as belonging to the left rear part of a mastodon skull.
Within weeks, he was leading a crew from the museum to Marshalls Creek to excavate
the rest of the skeleton. ‘It turned out to be about a 98 per cent complete
mastodon skeleton, and represents the most complete skeletal recovery in the State
of Pennsylvania.’
And there was more. While preparing the bones for display back at the museum, Dr.
Murray found an unusual characteristic of the skeleton. ‘I discovered that
this mastodon had suffered a severe case of osteomyelitis, a serious bone infection
that is rather rare in vertebrate fossils.’ The mastodon soon became a highly
prized exhibit in the William Penn Museum in Pennsylvania.
How his interest began
Dr. Murray says that some of the best times of his life have been out on the fossil
fields. His fossil-finding goes back to when he was at a boy scout camp at Chesapeake
Bay in Maryland. He was walking along the beach when he found a fairly good specimen
of an extinct long-beaked porpoise (Eurhinodelphis bossi) in the cliffs.
A few days later his fossil was at the Smithsonian. He was shown around the Smithsonian
museum, and his fossil porpoise was given a lot of attention.
‘This is where the “fossil bugâ€? bit me real hard’,
he says. ‘The late Dr. Charles W. Gilmore graciously took me under his wing
and eventually arranged for me to be employed as a preparator and field collector.’
He says there are many exciting aspects to the science of vertebrate palaeontology.
‘I find that the extensive fossil beds contain many remains of plants and
animals in a perfect state of preservation, thus showing they were killed and buried
suddenly by a great deluge.’
He believes an excellent example of this is in the millions of fossil fish that
can be found. ‘Fossil fish are sometimes found in a very distorted position,
showing instant burial and suffocation. It is exciting to uncover these relics of
the Flood of Noah’s day and hold in my hand some of the remains of the flora
and fauna of that time.’
Creationist dinosaur recovery
One recent fossil dig he took part in was the excavation of a dinosaur in Colorado
for Liberty University’s Creation Museum in Virginia. This dinosaur was the
first of its kind in any creationist museum.
‘What a thrill it is for me to be out on an expedition for fossils and to
see a specimen from the days of the Flood burst out of an obscure antiquity into
a very lively present time.’
With more than 45 years’ experience with fossils, Dr. Murray has long been
in demand as a lecturer at Christian schools, churches, and other groups. He speaks
about vertebrate fossils and their relationship to creation and Noah’s Flood,
and about other evidences for creation. Some of his favourite other topics are the
archer-fish, which catches insects by stunning them with a jet of water forced through
a hole in its mouth, and the design features of spiders.
What about those who say God could have used evolution as His method of creation?
 ‘There
is just no way that the theory of evolution can be reconciled with the truth of
creation as recorded in the Bible. And as a former adherent to this false theory
of evolution, I can assure anyone that to discount the God of creation and His wonderful
works is sheer folly.’
Dr. Murray delights in the fact that his early experiences are now used to God’s
honour and glory. ‘The best day in my life was my graduation day from death
unto life and from “the age of rocks”? to “the Rock of Ages”?
by the power of the God of creation.’
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