In another small bay on the opposite side of the hall is one of the most publicized fishes of all time - a coelacanth (figure 4, left). Coelacanths were first discovered as fossils. Evolutionists considered the group to have gone extinct by the Late Cretaceous period (about 70 million years ago) but then, in 1938, one popped up in a fisherman’s catch off the coast of South Africa! And what did it look like? Much the same as the fossils. In other words, where is the evolution? Evolutionists deal with this embarrassing situation through tendentious comments such as “The coelacanth is thought to have evolved into roughly its current form approximately 400 million years ago”. But surely a more likely explanation is that the coelacanth was created like this from the outset.

At one time coelacanths were thought by evolutionists to be a possible contender for the ancestral group of fishes from which the limbs of land animals supposedly gradually evolved. However, this Just So story received a major setback in recent years from film footage of one of the coelacanth species in its natural habitat. The fish lives in deep rocky areas with underwater caves. The film shows the coelacanth using its various fins to scull easily and elegantly in whatever direction it chooses in order to negotiate its terrain - a fish with fins beautifully designed for its particular habitat. Who then was its Designer?

Waterhouse Way

Walking along Waterhouse Way to the left of the central hall, we come to the main dinosaur gallery. The size, variety and power of these creatures is awesome and chief among them is the enormous predator Tyrannosaurus rex (figure 5 right, Tyrannosaurus rex skull).  

A thigh bone from a T. rex fossil collected in 2003 from the Hell Creek formation in the USA was examined by Dr Mary Schweitzer. She extracted bone marrow including elastic soft tissues, blood vessels, heme and even possibly cells. She said, “It was totally shocking. I didn’t believe it until we’d done it 17 times.” Subsequently soft tissues have been extracted from another T. rex specimen, a hadrosaur (a different type of dinosaur) and even a placoderm fish.  

Why was Dr Schweitzer so shocked? Because such fragile molecules as proteins should long ago have disintegrated - if the fossils are indeed the many millions of years old that they are claimed to be. As she said, “The pathways of cellular decay are well known for modern organisms. And extrapolations predict that all organics are going to be gone completely in 100,000 years, maximum”. So how is it that the soft tissues are still present in these fossils? The explanation is obvious, but one that committed evolutionists cannot bear: that these fossils are much younger than they wish to believe, perhaps only a few thousand years old at most.

Incidentally, the epic poem Beowulf contains a detailed account of a battle between the eponymous hero and a young but much feared creature whose description matches that of T. rex very well. Called a grendel (a kind of creature rather than the name of an individual), this bipedal predator was overcome by Beowulf through taking advantage of its weak point: its tiny forelimbs, one of which he wrenched off. The story is covered in some detail in CSM pamphlet no. 371. It is interesting to note that a number of place names still have the word grendel or its derivatives in them, such as Grindelwald in Switzerland. Evidently these creatures were once widespread and feared enough to have their territories identified by name.

The large dinosaurs easily occupy our attention, but one should not overlook a much smaller exhibit in this area. On a wall is a small dinosaur fossil in an extraordinary posture, tail curved back and head strongly arched up and back (figure 6, left). 

Palaeontologists have commented on how characteristic this posture is in so many fossils of dinosaurs and birds. A veterinary scientist, Cynthia Marshall Faux, has argued that dinosaurs died agonising deaths with evidence of brain damage and asphyxiation. One explanation is the animals died in volcanic events, as they are often buried in ash deposits. She also agrees with palaeontologists that some evidence for the posture could be explained by the action of running water. 

We have then a picture of these creatures dying in a sudden catastrophe, buried alive in sediment in a state of distress. Whether pyroclastic ash or water-borne sediment, the conclusion must be the same: these deposits were laid down very rapidly; the millions of years attributed to them do not exist.  

Retracing our steps, we can now cross to the second half of Waterhouse Way, where there is a wonderful display of fossils of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs. Once again we are presented with a number of complete or near complete skeletons, which are very difficult to account for in any scenario except by rapid burial in sediment. But let’s focus on one in particular.

A fossil of the ichthyosaur Stenopterygius quadriscissus (figure 7, right) is outstanding because it shows the adult in the process of giving birth. One baby has almost completely emerged, tail-first, and another three are still inside the body of their mother. Now, how long does it take for animals to give birth? Millions of years? Hardly! So if this creature was engulfed - alive - whilst it was giving birth then it must have happened catastrophically quickly. So once again, the sedimentary layers it was found in cannot represent millions of years; they are very much younger.

There is so much more evidence for Creation in this museum than it is possible to relate in one short article. The basic story, however, demonstrated time and time again by the profusion of exhibits, is that the many millions of years attributed to them do not exist.

Evolution, we know, relies heavily on these immense time periods to work its magic of supposed gradual successive changes from one kind of organism to another - even involving the formation of novel structures and the genetic information content that underlies them! But the scientific evidence stacks up heavily against it. Magic is such an appropriate word: this so-called scientific theory is a paradigm, a worldview. It is, in short, just a fairytale for grown-ups.

Ralph Cambridge

Ralph Cambridge is a biologist working in the UK who has been a frequent visitor to the Natural History Museum since his childhood years. His education included being taught the theory of Evolution as if it was true, but gradually he began to realize the theory's many faults and shortcomings, eventually recognising it for what it is: a pernicious and fallacious atheistic paradigm. 

For several year Ralph has been involved with the Creation Science movement in the UK.