EvoWiki is now a project of the RationalWiki Foundation, to learn how to participate please visit the EvoWiki project page.
A petrified hammer was found in Cretaceous rocks
From EvoWiki
Contents |
Claim
An iron hammer with wooden handle was found embedded in rock in Cretaceous sediments (or Ordovician, by some accounts) near London, Texas. The enclosing rock contains Lower Cretaceous fossils.
Source
- Patton, Don, n.d. Fossilized hammer, [1].
Response
- The hammer is not petrified, it is encased in stone. This makes it a concretion instead of a true fossil. That means someone lost his hammer in a hole or empty space that filled up with sediment, then the sediment was cemented together, forming the concretion, whereupon the concretion came loose from the surrounding matrix and was ultimately found by Carl Baugh. Scientists are well aware that concretions can form in only a few years, and that they can include fossils from older sediments.
- The claim that it was found in Cretaceous rocks is unsupported. In fact, different accounts place Baugh's hammer in different sediments, including Ordovician, and Devonian layers, as well as Cretaceous. In actuality, the hammer was found loose, not embedded in any rock strata. Baugh has repeatedly refused to have actual scientific dating methods applied to the hammer or the rock. As such, until he actually allows his hammer to be verifiably tested, he can not legitimately claim that it is "old." He has no justification at all for claiming it is Cretaceous just because some nearby rocks were Cretaceous anymore than me finding a warm bag of french fries in a sixty year old building proves french fries can stay fresh for sixty years.
- Scientists do not claim the Earth is old because fossils take a long time to fossilize. In fact, scientists are well aware that some kinds of fossils form quickly, like insects being trapped in tree resin.
- add more responses
Fallacies contained in this claim
External Links
- Kuban, Glen J., 1997. The London Hammer: An Alleged Out-of-Place Artifact, [2].
- Matson, Dave E., 1994. How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments? [3].
Further Reading
- Cole, John R., 1985. If I Had a Hammer. Creation/Evolution 5(1): 47-56.
Related claims
- Human footprints have been found with dinosaur tracks at Paluxy
- Sandal footprints have been found associated with trilobites
- Moab man was found in Cretaceous sandstone
- Malachite man was found in Cretaceous sandstone
- Castenedolo, Olmo, and Calaveras skulls were found in Pliocene strata
- Baugh found a fossilized finger from the Cretaceous
^
