Wayne Propst of Tyler, Texas was helping his aunt with yard work when he uncovered a rock embedded with petrified Turritella snails. Many Turritella specimens have been found elsewhere in Texas, dating back to the Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago. But Propst emailed Joe Taylor of the creationist Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas, who verified that his Turitella fossils were about 4000 years old and had been buried during Noah's flood.
You might be able to imagine what this news meant to Propst, a young-earth creationist.
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I find this story morbidly fascinating for several reasons.
First, despite apparently believing in a recent global flood, Propst seems amazed at finding fossils close to home. "From Noah's flood to my front yard. how much better could it get?" he says, and, "Who else can say that they have a front yard full of Noah's dirt?" But if we're to take Noah's flood literally, we ought to see these fossils everywhere. That, after all, is the meaning of the word "global". Or do Texas creationists no longer believe in entropy?
Second, both Propst and his aunt are particularly taken with the notion of a destructive God. "What's really interesting to me is, we're talking about the largest catastrophe known to man, you know, the flood that engulfed the whole entire world," Propst says. His aunt, Sharon Givan, offers, "To think that it dated back to when God destroyed the earth. I mean, how much better could anything be?" Personally, I find it hard to imagine something that wouldn't be better than the destruction of the earth. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Finally, there's the creationist "fossil expert", Joe Taylor, who noted, "I've never heard of any of that stuff from over there. I'm surprised that he found it there," yet verified Propst's claims without even seeing the rocks.
If I were conspiracy-minded (and a creationist), I would assume this entire story is a hoax to make creationists look bad.
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