The paleontologist and the skeleton

    A paleontologist decided to teach his students a hands on class, in a field where he had partially dug up the skeleton of a dinosaur. Many longhaired young fellows and some eager to learn girls were paying riveted attention to the professor, as he explained the techniques used at the site.

    Suddenly one of the students raised his voice and said: "Sir, this is not a real skeleton. This is a calcareous formation due to the erosion suffered by this rock, along millions of years." Some of the students said: "Could it be? Maybe he is right!"

    The professor, who could not hide his indignation to what he classified as boldness, brashness and stupidity of his student's statement, answered:  "These bones, although not 100 % well preserved, have many details and characteristics that absolutely preclude the possibility of them having been formed by mere chance and erosion. Take a look at this femur. Its epiphysis shows a perfect shaped surface to form a joint with the next bone. Apophysis and other muscle attachment points, tell you of the former existence of muscles. Nutrition channels prove that there were veins and arteries. All these details could not be formed by simple erosion of a rock. It is too complex and well organized to be the result of a mere chance and water erosion. To think this way is just idiocy."

    The student who cast doubts about whether the bones were legitimate or not, asked for permission to answer and said: "Sir, a couple of weeks ago you told us that not only the bones of dinosaurs, but the entire body of these animals, were formed by chance through millions and millions of years. Today I brandish the same argument you taught me before, and you reject it and classify it as sheer idiocy. The entire animal had more details and characteristics than these bones have, and is much more complex than these dry bones, and you want me to believe that it was formed by mere chance and luck. Bones alone could not be formed by chance, but the entire animal could. I don't see logic or science in it, but dogmatism."

    "The problem, said the professor, is that you are a religious fanatic, who cannot understand science."

    "No sir, answered the student, I am applying the very same arguments and reasoning that you used before to explain the origin of these animals. If these arguments are not scientific or if they are redolent of idiocy, it is not my fault; I learned them in paleontology class."

 

    It is true that the same "reasoning" and arguments that some people use for denying God's creation, are good for denying their own hypothesis about the origin of life. In these cases we can apply what Jesus Christ says:

"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words

thou shalt be condemned."             ( Mt 12: 37 )

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