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How did unique fish appear in particular areas?

Stephanie from the United States wrote to ask about animal migration. Her question is highlighted in green.

Credit: Don Battenunique-fish

Hi,

I was wondering how to answer this question. How did some fish only end up in certain lakes, ponds, etc. This one actually stumped me. Of course, I’m not about to deny the Creator. This is actually one question I really can’t find an answer for.

Thanks so much! Love the site by the way.

CMI’s Jonathan O’Brien responds:

Hi Stephanie,

Your question is a good one. During the Flood the marine animals such as fish would have survived in the floodwaters, although many perished due to sedimentation and other factors. Immediately after the Flood the marine creatures that survived would have been distributed around the world in the oceans and other water bodies. These would have multiplied in the areas where they found themselves and migrated to other areas from generation to generation. At the end of the Flood all the air-breathing land-animals would have been in the Middle East where they disembarked from the Ark, and these too would have migrated to different parts of the globe over a period of generations.

There are many ways that all sorts of organisms can get into particular locations where they are uniquely found. Once there, they find a ‘niche’ for themselves and are able to adapt to that location, if necessary. This of course is not Darwinian evolution in action, just biological adaptation in which pre-existing genetic information is sorted. No new or novel genetic information is created. Many unique organisms are now only found in very particular locations because this is where it so happens they managed to survive. They may indeed have made it to some other areas, but did not survive in that location.

As to how organisms travel to where they are found, there are many possibilities. Fish eggs can stick to birds’ legs. When the bird lands for a drink or to look for food, the fish eggs detach and later hatch out. I think some eggs of certain organisms, such as insects and shrimps, can even be wind-blown, especially if stuck to leaves and things like that. Other organisms were introduced to new areas either deliberately or inadvertently by man, not long after the Babel dispersion. Explorers would have soon traveled to all of the farthest-flung places of the globe, soon after the Babel event, especially after sea-levels fell and land bridges were temporarily created. Man also traveled far by boat and ship, taking all sorts of animals with him.

morgueFile.com/clarita9322-water-desert

The great Flood itself would have deposited many eggs of insects and marine animals, and transported juvenile marine creatures. The retreating waters left behind detritus such as tree limbs that had been floating in the waters. Land animals can travel enormous distances by clinging to driftwood—including reptiles, amphibians and mammals. It doesn’t take long for organisms to overtake new areas, such as is seen in the cane toad invasion of northern Australia.

I highly recommend The Creation Answers Book for answers to many other questions regarding the Flood, and animal migration, including the question of how salt and fresh water fish survived the Flood. This is available from the store on Creation.com and as a free download from the books section.

I hope this has helped you.

God bless,

Jonathan O’Brien


W.F. from Australia writes in response to Mummified Trees.

Dear Sir,

In your Creation magazine, 2012, was an article by Jonathan O’Brien on Mummified trees.

Was carbon-14 dating done on these wood samples? Surely if they appeared to be so young, then this dating method would have given the closest date than the 12 million years which were reasoned by Joel Barker. This should be a more positive evidence.

Yours sincerely,

W. F.

CMI’s Jonathan O’Brien responds:

Dear Mr F.

Thank you for your question. I couldn’t find any reference to Carbon-14 dating having been done on these wood samples. This doesn’t surprise me as the researchers believe in long ages, and already believe that the wood is 2 to 12 million years old. Carbon dating can only give dates of thousands of years, not millions. They wouldn’t expect to find any Carbon-14 after about 50,000 years, and therefore wouldn’t bother to do such tests.

Andreas Tille9322-glacier

However, doing a Carbon-14 test on the wood would be an excellent project for creationists to undertake, and I expect that there would indeed be Carbon-14 found in the timber. Carbon-14 has been found over and over again in old wood samples, and also in coal samples. Carbon-14 has also been found at detectable levels in diamonds, indicating that the diamonds are far younger than commonly believed. Carbon-14 has even been found in dinosaur bones. If a sample has Carbon-14 in it, it is good evidence that it is not millions of years old.

If Carbon-14 dating was undertaken on the wood, it is possible that the dating laboratory would come up with a date older than the true age. Carbon-14 dates of material older than about 3,500 years are inaccurate because such dates cannot be calibrated against historically-verified material of known age. Even younger, historically-calibrated Carbon-14 dating is known to have anomalies and is not considered to be very accurate. Standard laboratories have developed a ‘calibration curve’ for carbon-14 dating to try to overcome the obvious discrepancies.

In my opinion the wood found by Joel Barker is very likely post-Flood in origin, no more than about 4,500 years old, and possibly younger. If the wood was older, and was buried in the global Flood, it would give a Carbon-14 age of something like 30,000 years based on the carbon-14 ratio in today’s atmosphere, which is the basic way scientists who calculate such ages do their calculation. They do not take the global Flood into account. During the Flood, massive amounts of organic material were buried, permanently altering the carbon balance.1 The Creation Answers Book, Chapter 4, has further helpful information on this.

I hope my answer has been useful to you.

God bless,

Jonathan O’Brien

Published: 15 September 2013

References

  1. See Wieland, C., 22 January 2013, creation.com/c14-dinos, and the list of related articles at the bottom of that article. Return to text.

Helpful Resources

The True Story of Noah's Ark
by Tom Dooley and (illustrator) Bill Looney
US $17.00
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Refuting Evolution
by Jonathan Sarfati
US $12.00
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