Evolutionary Timescales Require Ridiculous Migrations

Which position has more problems in biogeography, creation or evolution? Look at these tales before deciding.

Panama Cabal

Crocodile evolution rebooted by Ice Age glaciations (Phys.org). Evolutionists at McGill University have a problem. Similar crocodiles live on both sides of Panama, but 3 million Darwin Years ago, there was no Isthmus of Panama. Crocodiles are good swimmers but cannot go far over land. The two populations should have been genetically isolated, therefore, for 3 million years once Panama closed off the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific. Genetic testing, however, seemed to indicate only 100,000 years of separation, which is 30 times less variation than expected.

“We assumed we would detect significant genetic differences between Pacific and Caribbean crocodile populations that were isolated for the past 3 million years,” thought José Avila-Cervantes, a recent Ph.D. graduate of McGill University under the supervision of Professor Hans Larsson.

To rescue Darwinian theory, the McGill evolutionists proposed that ice age glaciations raised sea levels so that the crocs could swim across the isthmus. Incidentally, they believe that crocodiles appeared 200 million years ago. Maybe they just popped into existence like universes and life. In all that time, though, crocodiles never evolved to walk upright and dance the Calypso across the isthmus.

Crocodile (New Guinea). From Wiki Commons

Dinosaur Slow-Walking

CO2 dip may have helped dinosaurs walk from South America to Greenland (Phys.org). Two evolutionists, Kent & Clemmensen, have a different problem. They know that sauropods—(which everyone knows are the big, long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs)—are found in South America as far south as Argentina, but they are also found in Greenland way up north. Their problem became two problems when they thought more about it.

Previous estimates suggested that sauropodomorphs—a group of long-necked, herbivorous dinosaurs that eventually included Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus—arrived in Greenland sometime between 225 and 205 million years ago. But by painstakingly matching up ancient magnetism patterns in rock layers at fossil sites across South America, Arizona, New Jersey, Europe and Greenland, the new study offers a more precise estimate: It suggests that sauropodomorphs showed up in what is now Greenland around 214 million years ago. At the time, the continents were all joined together, forming the supercontinent Pangea.

With this new and more precise estimate, the authors faced another question. Fossil records show that sauropodomorph dinosaurs first appeared in Argentina and Brazil about 230 million years ago. So why did it take them so long to expand into the Northern Hemisphere?

If you were a sauropod with wanderlust 230 million years ago, why would you take 15 million years to walk to Greenland, when there was land all the way? That didn’t make any sense. Remember: a million years is a long, long time.

“In principle, the dinosaurs could have walked from almost one pole to the other,” explained Kent. “There was no ocean in between. There were no big mountains. And yet it took 15 million years. It’s as if snails could have done it faster.” He calculates that if a dinosaur herd walked only one mile per day, it would take less than 20 years to make the journey between South America and Greenland.

Enter climate change: the magic wand that cures many an ailing evolutionary theory. Kent & Clemmensen looked for a climate solution. They inferred that carbon dioxide levels were abnormally high before 214 million years ago. It was just too darn hot and wet to make the trip comfortable for the big beasts, they think. On cue, CO₂ levels dropped 214 million years ago—just when the first sauropod fossils show up in Greenland. The sauropods apparently couldn’t wait to vacation there, and took advantage of the first opportunity. If one anoints the tale with a high perhapsimaybecouldness index, the story becomes marginally plausible.

But when the CO₂ levels dipped 215-212 million years ago, perhaps the tropical regions became more mild, and the arid regions became less dry. There may have been some passageways, such as along rivers and strings of lakes, that would have helped sustain the herbivores along the 6,500-mile journey to Greenland, where their fossils are now abundant. Back then, Greenland would have had a temperate climate similar to New York state’s climate today, but with much milder winters, because there were no polar ice sheets at that time.

“Once they arrived in Greenland, it looked like they settled in,'” said Kent. “They hung around as a long fossil record after that.”

Kent calls his story “speculative but plausible.” The Columbia evolutionist and his pal from Copenhagen don’t know for sure what caused the CO₂ dip and how quickly it dropped. They apparently did not think about how their solution would have affected other animals. Theropods in North America, for instance were doing fine during the high-CO₂ period. Why, too, were there no sauropods vacationing in Africa or North America during the Triassic? The solution is not straightforward in their paper* – it contains various speculations worded with “on the one hand this, and on the other hand that.” Readers should be the ones to decide if the story is plausible.

*Kent and Clemmensen, “Northward dispersal of dinosaurs from Gondwana to Greenland at the mid-Norian (215–212 Ma, Late Triassic) dip in atmospheric pCO₂.” PNAS 23 Feb 2021, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2020778118.

The dates, climate swings and continental movements described in these two tales are highly speculative and theory-laden. They are parts of a grand scheme to make the earth seem millions of years old so that Charlie thinks he has enough time to turn bacteria into brains.

The point of sharing these tales is to show that evolutionists have big problems with biogeography, too. Critics of recent creation have tried to use biogeography to attack it, but no view is immune from questions and problems. As we see on the evolutionary side, often they have to back up one story with auxiliary stories to keep it from falling apart. We can add these biogeography tales to other Darwin enigmas, like rafting monkeys (27 April 2020) and long-distance-swimming hadrosaurs (16 Nov 2020).

A million years is a long, long time. It is far beyond the experience of anyone alive. Darwinists think they can accomplish more evolution by multiplying millions of years, but sometimes these reckless drafts on the bank of time create more questions than answers. If a sauropod could make the trip from Argentina to Greenland in 20 years, why did it take millions to get there? And what about an ice-free Greenland back then was so bad? If a warm world was good enough for Brachiosaurus, could it be good enough for Al Gore and crybaby Greta?