Daily Devotional – September 27

Paleontology

One of the greatest mysteries of evolution is not how things change but why things don’t change for the better. Mutations are real, and random changes deteriorate the DNA coding as each new generation makes copies of itself. It is inevitable that any organism will change over time as these copying mistakes destroy useful information within an organism. Thus, the result is downward deterioration, not upward advancement. But even more startling is the idea that any creature could remain unchanged for hundreds of millions of generations. Yet, this unchanging nature of creatures in the fossil record (called stasis) is quite common. Small changes over time have been made but not enough for a current species to be unrecognizable from its fossilized form.

It is widely taught that birds exist because of small changes in dinosaurs over time. In other words, over millions of years, dinosaurs turned into birds. Yet, dinosaur bones have been found buried with a host of other creatures - such as crocodiles, dragonflies, redwood trees, grass, clams, and birds. They look essentially identical to modern living examples, so we call them “living fossils.” Dinosaurs evolved into birds while other creatures remained unchanged?! God’s word is clear; He created birds on Day 5 and dinosaurs on Day 6 of creation week. Dinosaurs did not evolve into birds!

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

~ Genesis 1:24

Source: "Pearls in Paradise" by authors Bruce Malone and Jule Von Vett

References for this devotional.