From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Thu Oct 09 2003 - 21:59:15 EDT
The distribution of marsupial fossils actually connects somewhat with the topic of Pangea, as it reflects the past patterns of continental conneciton and separation. Marsupial fossils are nearly worldwide in the Cretaceous, when connections between the continents were still widespread. However, they disappeared from North America, Africa, and Eurasia, surviving only in South America, Antarctica, and Australia. In the Eocene, these three continents were finally separated, and the Antarctic marsupials were eventually frozen out. When the connection between South America and North America was established in the Pliocene, many South American marsupials lost out to North American invaders, but others survived, and a few came north.
This also points to one of the major problems with placing the breakup of Pangea in Peleg's day. The breakup was well under way by the Triassic, so all continental movement since the Triassic would have to be crammed into the post-Peleg interval. You need a huge source of energy to power this motion. Currently the earth produces only enough energy to move plates at a few centimeters per year, yet the excess energy produces plenty of volcanos, earthquakes, etc. To speed things up that much would create enough extra heat to kill everything.
Dating the breakup of Pangea to Peleg's day also contradicts much flood geology, because it puts the Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata after the Flood.
As Pangea was breaking up, North Carolina was at the equator and large reptiles were the dominant land animals (dinosaurs were still little and in the background for most of the Triassic). The first mammal fossils appear in the late Triassic. The rocks making up Israel were not yet formed; the oldest outcrops in Palestine are Jurassic. Flowering plants were not present. At the very end of the Triassic, massive outpourings of lava coincide with widespread extinctions, after which the dinosaurs took over on land. None of this resembles the conditions described in the Bible for the time of Peleg (nor for any other time described in the Bible, as the Bible has no need to describe details of prehistoric events).
Trying to equate the division of the earth alluded to in Peleg's name with the breakup of Pangea seems most likely to reflect an extremely vague knowledge of the relevant geology. In fact, the breakup of Pangea is not all that exciting an event, unless you are a geologist or biogeographer. Africa is splitting up right now, but that does not make headlines. The division of humanity at Babel is theologically and humanly relevant and would be likely to be recorded. The beginning of an imperceptibly slow change in the pattern of plate motion is not very significant theologically.
I think integrating science and scripture is important, and that scripture is the more important part of this. However, it is necessary to have an accurate idea of the science that you are trying to integrate. Linking Pangea with Peleg is rather like the sort of thing I have often seen when grading exams (and rarely when writing them). It is also common in Hollywood versions of science. It is the phenomenon of putting down some words that you think are relevant when you do not really know what you are talking about. For example, someone guessed on a biology test that the chlorogenan layer was a layer of the earth's crust when in fact it is a layer in the earthworm. Likewise, a Star Trek episode features Kirk rescued from a vacuum chamber with a dial reading 10 torr. He would have exploded long before the pressure got that low. John Morris claimed that incised meanders are among the erosional features only created by global floods, even though meanders are being incis!
ed all the time.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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