The Creationist Cry: "How Can This Be?"

A 16-year old by name of David Wentz from Port Huron, Michigan decided to do a little snorkeling in the St. Clair River last August.

While flitting about in the water, he spied what he thought to be a weird-looking rock . It was about three inches long. He brought it home.

Whoa! said his father, "It's a shark tooth." (His father watches the Discovery Channel on TV).

They took the tooth to Michael Gottfried, a paleontologist at Michigan State University. Gottfried confirmed David's father's evaluation. The tooth came from the "megatooth" shark, scientifically known as Carcharodon megalodon, a species that went extinct about 2 million years ago.

This shark was not something you'd see at Sea World. It grew to 60 feet long and ate about 1,500 pounds of food (whales and other big fishes) per day.

Gottfried said that people swimming in the St. Clair River need not worry. This tooth was probably carried and dropped into the river by someone at some point in the distant past. There are no sharks with three inch teeth in the river now!

"But how can this be?" asks the creationist. "The earth is only 6,000 years old. The Bible tells me so!"

A related story comes from Madrid, Spain. A human fossil was found in northern Spain last year, along with stone tools and animal bones. Scientists estimate the fossil is close to 1.3 million years old.

The fossil, discovered in a cave, is a small piece of jawbone, and "is the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor in Europe and suggests that people lived on the continent much earlier than previously believed."

Now, all you creationists, read this carefully: When real scientists discover data or information that negates what they have believed, they change their minds and establish a new theory or working hypothesis!

Back in 1997, human remains were found that led to the naming of a new species: Homo antecessor, or Pioneer Man, very possibly a common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern humans. This Homo antecessor lived about 800,000 years ago.

This new Spanish fossil is likely from the same species but indicates that people lived on the European continent much earlier than was previously thought. Eudald Carbonell, director of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleo-Ecology and Social Evolution, claims this fossil leads to the conclusion that "hominins which emerged from Africa and settled in the Caucasus eventually evolved into Homo antecessor, and that the latter populated Europe not 800,000 years go, but at least 1.3 million years ago."

Carbonell, however, does not believe this ends the discussion. In fact, he fully expects to find human fossils in Europe that reach back 1.8 million years.

"How can this be?" cries the Creationist. "The earth is only 6,000 years old. The Bible tells me so!"