Putting a Lie About Living Fossils to Rest

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

Every once in a while when creationists use the term "living fossils" to show flaws in evolutionary ideas, someone comes along with a comment like, "That's a term made up by YECs to attack evolution!" That's the opposite of the truth. But what if Young Earth Creationists did make up that term? Words and phrases are made up all the time. So if we did make it up, somehow it wouldn't be legitimate — but it's all right for atheist evolutionists like Clinton R. Dawkins to make up the word "meme"? Double standards, you can but we can't.

But we didn't.

The first known use of the term "living fossil" seems to have been with Papa Darwin himself. Like his successors, he used an observation and then guessed about an explanation. When people do it today, it's called "science".


PiltdownSuperman.com, The Question Evolution Project, BCSE, Charles Darwin, Living Fossils, Evolution, Creation, Creation Science

Since some people want to cling to their beliefs despite the evidence, I'm going to show you that the term "living fossil" is not just something creationists lassoed for our own use. The following sources are not creation-friendly:
In addition to the source from Darwin, you can clearly see over a dozen links to evolutionary sites that use the term "living fossils". It's not a creationist term, despite what Darwin's Stormtroopers pa-TROLL-ing the Web may try to tell you. This is a fallacy called "prejudicial conjecture"; someone heard someone else say that it's a creationist term and then s/he passed that lie around as well. It could easily have been avoided by doing a few minutes of online research.

But wait! You may very well be studying on this and wondering, "Hey, Cowboy Bob, what do creationists think about living fossils, and why does it matter to them?

I'm glad you asked. Here are some links on the matter:
So, the next time someone tells you that YECs made up the expression, or that evolutionists don't use it, you can say, "Not hardly!", and show them this link. I did the research for your convenience, and also because most anti-creationists can't be bothered to do it. You'll thank me later.