By Lana Sweeten-Shults
GCU News Bureau
Dinosaurs were on Noah’s Ark.
That's the belief of creation scientist and flood geologist Dr. Timothy Clarey of the Dallas-based Institute for Creation Research.
“There were these giant reptiles called dinosaurs that actually did go on the ark -- and they came off the ark,” said Clarey, whose One Foundation-sponsored talk Friday on the GCU campus, called “Genesis, Global Flood and Giant Reptiles,” spanned the gamut of his research on the Bible's great flood and how dinosaurs fit into the Bible story.
For Clarey, the overriding message was this: The Bible is true. Scientific data proves it.
Not that his research didn’t meet with some resistance.
Audience members challenged his belief that the Earth is a few thousand years old and not millions, they questioned his doubts concerning carbon 14 dating, and they asked about his literal, rather than symbolic, translation of the Bible.
Dr. Daisy Savarirajan, One Foundation faculty lead who teaches in the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, said the goal in bringing Clarey to campus is for students to be exposed to a diversity of viewpoints and to be able to address faith- and science-related issues with a Christian worldview perspective.
"It is to achieve this end; we are committed to creating open forums for discussion of controversial topics without fear of being judged," Savarirajan said.
She added that another goal of the guest speaker series is to provide professional-development opportunities for faculty to explore the relationship between science and faith.
"The intent to invite the ICR scientist is to gain insights into scientific facts and research that support the creation account in the Bible. This will help us develop a well-rounded understanding and be able to serve the needs of our students that specifically seek to learn at a private Christian school.
"The views of the creation scientist certainly sparked a lively response from the audience. The information he shared provided valuable insights into how scientific discovery helps confirm the Genesis account of creation."
Clarey, who worked as an exploration geologist for Chevron USA and taught at Delta College in Michigan for 17 years, said some probably question how dinosaurs could fit on the ark. He said it was “because God probably didn’t bring full-sized T.Rexes on there. He brought juveniles.”
His belief is that most dinosaurs were the size of a bison and that monolithic creatures, such as sauropods, skewed the median.
Clarey believes only about 60 kinds of dinosaurs existed, not the roughly 700 species recognized by secular scientists. Just like we have dogs of different breeds, he believes dinosaurs thought to be different species actually were just different breeds.
“Nobody argues the ark wasn’t big enough. They (those in the secular world) just think it didn’t happen. It’s just a fairy tale,” he said.
Recent research that Clarey said supports his belief that the Earth is nowhere near millions of years old also rests with dinosaurs.
“Every year, there are two or three more papers coming out showing more proteins, original cells, osteocyte cells with the nuclei. … They’re finding collagen and proteins -- all those things that can’t be there, that shouldn’t be there … blood vessels still preserved, still soft. How can these things be millions of years old? You look at the biochemists and they’ll tell you after 900,000 years, even collagen can’t survive under the greatest conditions. … They (dinosaurs) aren’t millions of years old.”
The discovery of proteins in dinosaur fossils, Clarey said, “is something that’s being suppressed by most of the scientific community. They’re not talking about this. They’re not bringing it up.”
He also questioned secular thought about dinosaurs evolving into birds: “Dinosaurs are not birds. They walk completely differently … reptiles today sprawl.”
Clarey spent much of his talk on the Bible's global flood.
Secular science, he said, recognizes these flood events: the Sauk, Tippecanoe, Kaskaskia, Absaroka, Zuni and Tejas.
“The secular world believes there were six floods. If you study geology, we call these megasequences. The secular world believes these waves came in, almost like tsunami-like waves flooding the continents over millions of years, then backed off. … But do the rocks really show those millions of years?
“No, I don’t see that. … I believe, as a scientist, these all happened in a year -- the year of the (global) flood. There’s no evidence of all these millions of years between.”
Clarey spoke about blanket sandstone being deposited across the earth.
“How do you get this exact same rock type that was supposed to have taken millions of years and deposit it with nothing else, nothing below it, nothing above it?”
The sandstone can be found not just across North America but Jordan and a slew of other countries.
“How do you have events that are worldwide without a worldwide event?” he asked, referring to the great flood, which would have deposited the sandstone.
He also spoke of Redwall limestone that goes into Canada, all the way up to Greenland and Alaska.
“How do you have limestone that covers half the continent all at one time?"
Clarey said much of his data comes from his experience as an exploration geologist working in the oil industry. He added that he has been plotting his findings in a database of stratigraphic columns from across the world as part of an ICR project.
One audience member challenged Clarey's belief that the earth is a few thousand years old and not millions of years old.
He said the age of the Hawaiian islands, using two independent measurements of potassium argon dating and tracking the Pacific plate, is millions of years old. Both methods reveal the same age for the islands -- millions of years and not thousands: “A scientist looking at the data … without the benefit of Genesis, would not be a scoffer, but would be somebody who would look at that objectively and say, ‘I’ve got two measurements, two independent measurements.’”
GCU reptile biologist Rachel Pikstein also questioned Clarey’s literal view of the Bible.
“Is God’s definition of a day the same as ours? You see numbers like 40 and 8 and 7 over and over and over again,” Pikstein said. “Many people say that maybe we should not take the Bible directly, or literally, and are they exact numbers or are they representations of time?”
Clarey said he was concerned about the attempts to convert the six-day creation that the Bible mentions into great periods of time.
He also asked why anyone should care about the Great Flood or dinosaurs. He said we have to ask ourselves if we’re making science our idol and putting science above God’s word.
“The fastest growing religious group in America are the ‘Nones.’ They have no religious affiliation at all," he said. "… They’re turning from God because they are believing we don’t need God to explain life, we don’t need God to explain the universe.”
Savarirajan said the College of Science, Engineering and Technology faculty will have a follow-up discussion of Clarey's talk this week.
Contact Lana Sweeten-Shults at (602) 639-7901 or [email protected].
