Is our education failing us?

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I remember learning about fossils in primary school. The teacher explained in simple terms (she had to use simple terms because it was primary school) how fossilization is the process by which organic material is replaced by stone but in the same shape, which such precession that even fine detail is preserved in stone.

Recently I got into a debate with a creationist who said fossilised soft tissue can last for thousands of years but not millions. I asked if the fossilised soft tissue is made out of stone then why can't it last for as long as fossilised bone?

He said "fossils are not made of stone child"?

What? He thinks that a fossil is just the bones or other tissue of an animal that died? Like the bones are still made of bone?

Strangely enough some of the atheists present (it was an atheist vs Christian debate, I do not mean to imply that only atheists can believe in evolution, I've met plenty of religious people who believed in evolution) also didn't understand fossils are bones that have become mineralised, not just plain old bones.

This got me thinking, the process of fossilization is the sort of general knowledge that the average person would be expected to have, right? It's taught in elementary school. Yet most of the people there thought that a fossil is just a normal bone? Is our education failing us if people can make it to adulthood without that kind of knowledge?

Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 10 Apr 2022, 12:59 am, edited 2 times in total.

First, looks like autocorrect got you on a couple words there.



There are several factors in play in such things.
Among them,
how diligent was the kid about learning and retaining any given specific thing to begin with?
how likely is childhood information to be retained when it is not necessary for the now adult to regularly employ it in getting a job, feeding the kids, and paying the bills?

You got me. I copied it it into MS Word to run spell check on it. Looks like I didn't pay attention to what Word was change it to. Fixed now.

That IS messed up. That most folks in the room thought that something as old as dinosaur bones really are bones, and not rock created by mineralization of the bones. I dont remember any teacher specifically explaining fossilization to us. But somehow I picked it up (our family did visit the petrified forest when I was a grade school kid and I do remember having grownups explaining to me how 'wood can turn into rock').

If we're talking about a very religious person who doesn't believe in evolution, it's possible that the person's religious circles have "taught" them that what they teach at schools about fossils and evolution isn't actually true and that the truth is whatever the religious community teaches. So it might not be a matter of not listening in school or the teaching there being bad, but a matter of the person believing wrong people despite being taught by professionals before.

He said that everyone else in the room, including the non YECs, and even Atheists, had the same misconception.

It’s not wrong to say that soft tissue typically doesn’t mineralise (the conditions have to be just right - sometimes we get an impression left in stone instead), but if the Earth is only thousands of years old then how does he know that they couldn’t last for millions?

Also take in to account that even the professionals seem to employ the words bone and fossil interchangeably,
https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-to-f ... osaur.html

"Prof Paul Barrett is a dinosaur researcher at the Museum and has taken part in many a dig, most recently the Mission Jurassic dig in Wyoming, USA. When it comes to knowing where to look, he says, 'We don't just go to any site and start digging. It's an educated guess.

'When we go out, we're looking for rocks of the right age that we know might have dinosaur fossils in them. So that's rocks from the Mesozoic Era - from the Triassic, Jurassic or Cretaceous periods."

...

"Even the largest dinosaur bones can be fragile and fracture. These sauropod bones were found in the Sahara Desert in the 1980s.

Fossils can break during the excavation process. Paul says, 'It's actually quite common. When you're taking a bone out of the ground, you aren't exactly sure where the ends of it are or where it starts going into the ground.

'Often you first find the bone by accidentally digging into it, so it's very common to take a little nick off. We just keep the little pieces and they get stuck back on. We take really good care of them. We're very good with glue and we can usually make the bones right again.'

To protect the bones during transport, palaeontologists use field jackets. This involves using plaster of Paris and burlap to create a cast around a bone, similar to the casts doctors use to stabilise a broken arm or leg. "

I’m not saying the creationist is right. The problem is that if the Earth is only thousands of years old no fossils can be millions of years old. Always check your presuppositions.

So...the proof that no fossil can be millions of years old is...that the earth is only a few thousand years old?

And the proof that the earth is only a few thousand years old is...that no fossil can be millions of years old?

Always check your circular reasoning.

Is our education system failing us? Yes.

Do I think evolution means what its most vocal proponents say it means? No. I don't believe anyone can be certain about the age of the Earth. Christians can't be certain about how God went about creation, whether evolution was a creative element or not. What's relevant to us is that Adam and Eve were special creations from whom we descended.

Do I believe evolution occurs? Of course, I do. You can see evolution happen in a short interval with rapid speciation of certain insects and birds. Evolution happens and religious people need to get over it.

Our natural world survives because of adaptation. Natural selection results in some traits becoming dominant over others until organisms no longer resemble their ancestor. I'd like to know how it is adaptation threatens theology.

All reasoning is inherently circular. If the earth is only thousands of years old, fossils millions of years old couldn't possibly originate on earth. Either those fossils originated elsewhere or there is a problem with how the age of fossils is determined.

As to exactly how old the earth is, it's impossible to be certain about anything. The earth as best I can tell has to be at least 43 years old. Any determination otherwise is going to depend on how truthful anyone else is. Everything else is purely a matter of faith.

Nice try.

But adolescent Solipsism isnt gonna get you out of this. Obviously you dont "know" that anything exists other than your own sensory impressions. But certain things can be reasonably assumed to be so. If you walk to the edge of a cliff you dont just keep on walking because "you cant know whether or not your eyes are lying and that its safe to walk off the edge of the cliff".

Scientist who were Creation believing christians in the 18th century noticed the earth had geologic layers each with a distinctive community of fossil critters different from the other layers. That started the accumulation of data that would centuries later over turn creationism.

Scientists today do "assume" an old earth, but the assumption is based upon centuries of accumulated data.

I was taught how fossils are formed multiple times throughout my schooling, but I bet that most of the classmates I spent the entirety of that time with couldn't tell you how they are formed. I don't know about previous generations, but classes these days are too crowded for teachers to keep attention and to get anything to stick in most kids heads long term, and their parents certainly don't give a crap about them actually memorizing anything as long as they can pass a test and get a good grade.

Folks dont retain things. And the education system stresses different little facts over others over time. Even folks with degrees from earlier generations (the good old days before things supposedly went down hill) can be boneheaded.

When I was like ten mom would tell me that "it was said that Christ and Mohammed met. One time actually met and talked to each other! They lived at about the same time, so its possible, and it is said that at one time they met and conversed." Several times I heard her say that. I would imagine each being followed by an entrourage of followers. And they cross paths in the Mideast desert somewhere. And the two of them having a nice chat while both of their respective crowds of followers look on in approval. She heard it at some lecture she went to. And found it fascinating - and she would spout the story with good intentions -to promote ecumenicism and religous tolerence- several times. But it would annoy the heck outta me -even as as grade school kid. Finnally when I was like eleven or twelve I finnally asked her "how the heck could the two of them have met? They lived almost 700 years apart? And NOT at about the 'same time'. Thats like saying Shakespeare was influenced by Steven Speilberg because they lived at about the same time." Okay -I didnt actually SAY that last part. But shouldve.

I never heard her repeat the story again after that. She probably looked it up, and found out that I was right. lol!

Irrelevant. Who decides what can be reasonably assumed by and for everyone else? Your eyes might be lying, but you aren't changing your narrative, right? If you can take it on faith that your senses are truthful even if maybe they aren't, I can take ONE thing on faith.

What concerns me about these discussions is the suggestion that theology or faith is compelled to change because of fossils and the age of the earth. This is Galileo-level foolishness. I’m amused that unbelievers get so caught up in things that are only debates among Christians, and I’m not sure it's even a debate that ever accomplishes anything positive.