Extinction Is the Rule—Not the Exception

It’s like when you empty the lint trap in your dryer and realize all of that fuzz you just threw away came from the fibers in your favorite clothes that are gradually growing thinner and weaker every time you do another load of laundry.

And of course, we all know that the same thing is happening to all of us as well, because no matter how many vitamins we take or how careful we eat or how many workouts we do, we all grow weaker and waste away eventually.

The World Will Pass Away, but Salvation Is Forever

Scripture speaks about this reality, but it also contains encouragement in regard to it as well, in light of our relationship with Jesus Christ.

The earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever, and my righteousness will never be dismayed. (Isaiah 51:6)

The Gospel of John outlines how we may attain this salvation—because of the righteousness of Christ—when it reports Jesus saying the following:

I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9)

The Judgment of Noah’s Day

The Bible records another door that provided a way to be saved as well—the entrance to Noah’s ark, which at the time of the flood was the only way to be saved from God’s coming watery judgment upon the earth.

For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. (Genesis 6:17–19)

This door was the same one the creatures on the ark departed from, arriving into a brand-new landscape, newly seeded and filled with vegetation that had been growing for the past seven months prior to Noah and his family exiting along with all of the creatures God had sent to him.

Dinosaurs After the Deluge

Now, some of the creatures that left the ark would have been the dinosaur kinds, as the detailed history revealed in the creation account “tells us that all the land-dwelling creatures were made on Day Six of Creation Week—the same day God made Adam and Eve.”1

And, “it is clear [without influence from sources outside of Scripture] that dinosaurs (being land animals) were made with man.”2

“Nothing indicates that any of the land animal kinds were already extinct before the Flood,”3 it’s therefore logical to conclude dinosaurs were part of the cargo carried onboard, as Genesis 6–9 clearly states that “two of every kind (seven of some) of land animal boarded [and disembarked] the ark”4 after the flood.

There is, of course, a massive amount of evidence that what we today refer to as dinosaurs were indeed part of the biological payload that Noah and his family cared for and dispersed from the ark, as there are people groups around the world (that obviously lived after Noah’s flood) that have dragon legends that show their having seen creatures that match modern-day depictions of dinosaurs.

And the many artifacts, tapestries, carvings, drawings, and paintings depicting these creatures, made since the time of Noah’s flood approximately 4,400 years ago, are a testament to the fact that people did indeed see what we refer to today as dinosaurs, but which they referred to generically as dragons.

Gone the Way of the Dinosaur

However, these creatures appear to have gone completely extinct. Which leads to a question we often hear, usually stated something like this.

Why did only the dinosaurs go extinct and not all of the other animals onboard Noah’s ark?

It’s often legitimately asked by Bible-believing Christians, but more often, it’s posed in a much more skeptical manner by those who have bought into the popular story of evolution, which states that dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago.

They state that the lack of living dinosaurs today points to the evolutionary view being correct, as there is no legitimate reason to believe they would have gone extinct in such a short time (the time since the flood) while all but a few of the other kinds of creatures survived in the same general environments.

However, this is largely due to a lack of understanding of what the actual percentage is of creatures onboard Noah’s ark that have gone extinct since they dispersed from it.

Who Went Aboard?

To answer the question, we must know two things. How many animal kinds went aboard, and how many kinds are still alive today. And we must also remember we are talking about the various kinds of creatures God sent to Noah, not the various species we see today that are descended from those various kinds.

For example, there are many species of dogs today, some varieties derived from mechanisms like natural selection which favors different genetic combinations in specific environments (such as long fur in cold environments or short fur in extremely warm environments), while other variations are the result of artificial selection, such as those arrived at through dog breeding.

However, all of these different canines are descended from the individual parent animals of the dog kind (Hebrew word min) that God sent aboard Noah’s ark. These were most likely closer to wolves, as even secular scientists have admitted that all modern dog breeds descended from them.

The origin of the domestic dog from wolves has been established....we examined the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence variation among 654 domestic dogs representing all major dog populations worldwide....suggesting a common origin from a single gene pool for all dog populations.5

Of course, the same would go for the various other kinds, such as the cat kind, the elephant kind, the bear kind, etc. And we often see tremendous variation within each of the various kinds, but this is simply a reshuffling of genetic information derived from the parent kinds that would have departed from the ark.

When comparing the biblical kinds or baramin (bara meaning “created” and min meaning “kind” in Hebrew) to our modern classification system, “kind” is often thought of as falling around the family level.

This is the primary metric that was used when determining how many kinds of animals would have been sent to Noah’s ark, based on those still alive today and those found in the fossil record (most of which would have been laid down at the time of the flood).

Breaking It Down

Our best calculations suggest the total number of air-breathing kinds (again, not to be confused with the total number of animals) onboard the ark totaled 1,398. These consisted of 320 reptile kinds (which included dinosaurs), 248 amphibian kinds, 284 bird kinds, 468 mammal kinds, and 78 of what are called synapsids (which were more mammal-like reptilian creatures).

Currently, this is the total number of now-extinct kinds from each group:

• Reptiles—219 extinct
• Amphibians—54 extinct
• Birds—89 extinct
• Mammals—332 extinct
• Synapsids—78 extinct

The results show that of the total 1,398 kinds aboard Noah’s ark, 772 of them are now extinct, which means approximately 55% of the animal kinds that boarded the ark are now gone! So, it wasn’t just the dinosaurs that have gone extinct over the last (approximately) 4,400 years—far from it. Rather, it’s been a majority of the animal kinds onboard the ark that have disappeared.

For example, of the largest group brought aboard, there are only around 29% of the mammal kinds left. In contrast, the synapsids had a 100% extinction rate, while the most successful group of survivors were the bird kinds, which retain approximately 69% of their representatives today.

And one can propose all sorts of guesses as to why certain groups fared better than others. Perhaps synapsids and dinosaurs were less capable of adapting to various environmental conditions or temperature changes (such as the ice age would have initiated). Perhaps birds are simply able to fly away from potential dangers and seek out suitable habitats more easily.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter. The big picture of what we see is that even though speciation has given rise to many variants of the kinds that still remain, rapid extinction has been the rule and not the exception ever since the animals left their floating refuge. And that trend is likely to continue. As Scripture says,

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:22)

The World’s Answer to the Problem of Extinction

The world, of course, teaches a different history (the story of evolution) from what the Bible reveals, and so explains extinction rates through that understanding. We are all constantly being inundated with dire warnings and requests for help from various organizations around the world that are attempting to save certain creatures from extinction. And there tends to be an overuse of hyperbole from many groups who outright blame human activity as the direct cause of most of today’s animal extermination.

As an example, the website for the organization The World Counts (with quotes from Professors from MIT and Stanford) declares,

The current rate of extinction is up to 10,000 times higher than the average historical extinction rates. We, the humans, are almost wholly responsible for this increase....We don't know exactly how many species go extinct every year but it could be...about 1 every 5 minutes....The worsening and loss of biodiversity are projected to continue, and even accelerate.6

And an article from the Smithsonian titled “Extinction Over Time” stated,

Scientists are racing to catalogue the biodiversity on Earth, working against the clock as extinctions continue to occur.7

Extinction Through a “Millions of Years” Lens

Again, because they don’t hold to the biblical timeline, the article explains the extinction of animals through a “millions of years” of earth history worldview “lens.” Articles such as these discuss five distinct past mass extinction events that supposedly wiped out approximately 95% of all creatures ever to have existed.

This is because they include all known creatures (including marine organisms, which, of course, aren’t factored in when biblical creationists are calculating the animals present on Noah’s ark) in their calculations.

And they almost always bemoan mankind as being the cause of today’s extinction problem, making statements like, “The current level of extinction is almost solely caused by one particular species - humans.” But in the same breath they also say, “Of all the species that have existed on Earth at some point over the past 3.5 billion years, over 95% have gone extinct. That’s part of the natural process of evolution.”8

OK, but wait. If, within an evolutionary worldview, humans are also just the by-product of evolution, if we were to somehow cause another mass extinction, wouldn’t that just be another “natural” event as well?

If the story of evolution is true, then death, suffering, and the extinction of animals to make way for new animals to come into being is just part of the natural order. There’s no need to preserve anything because new things will eventually pop up over time.

And yet, many of these people rightly express deep concern for the loss of creatures. However, it seems inconsistent within their worldview framework as a whole.

Some predict that half of all living species could be gone within 100 years....Within the next 15 to 40 years it is likely that the following animals will become extinct: polar bear, chimpanzee, elephant, snow leopard, tiger, mountain gorilla, orangutan, giant panda, rhino, and the koala bear. Unfortunately, these are just a few of many....9

Save the [Insert Creature Name Here]!

As noble as the motivations behind many of these causes may be (after all, good stewardship over God’s creation is a biblical mandate), nothing man can do will change the fact that this creation and everything in it will eventually come to an endpoint.

Just like your favorite sweater or slippers that are so perfectly worn in that you just can’t imagine getting rid of them, unfortunately, everything will eventually wear out.

Ultimately, this idea is believed even in a secular worldview. The laws of entropy state that all of the available energy in the universe is winding down and eventually it will reach a state called heat death, where there is no more available energy, and everything will cease to function.

The difference found in the true biblical worldview is that it is God who has determined when the end of this world will be, how it will happen, and who will be judged at that point.

Because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:31)

The Reality of God’s Judgment

Although no one knows the exact time, the fact is that God’s Word is true—the entire creation is wearing out and groaning because of the fall. And it is not going to last forever.

But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. (2 Peter 3:7)

Our willful rebellion against God—typified by our first father, Adam, rebelling against God and his Word—contributes to the sinful state of the world we live in. And God is going to judge this world just as he did in Noah’s day. And it is only through faith that we today can be saved from the coming judgment, just as it was then.

By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. (Hebrews 11:7)

So, the next time someone compares something as having “gone the way of the dinosaur,” perhaps you should remind them that the majority of creatures have already had their time, and that one day we’ll all do so as well.

The difference between us and the animals is that we are created in the image of God and are going to be held accountable according to his Word. Although there has been some debate among theologians as to exactly how the end will come about, we know that God promises to create a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17; 2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1), and that at some point there will be a consummation of all things.

The Bible says in the beginning, everything was very good, but things changed when Adam rebelled. Since then, it has gotten continually worse over time. However, because of Christ’s willing sacrifice, there will be an eventual reuniting effect with God, man, and creation and a full restoration of peace because of what Christ has done.

And there shall be no more curse....(Revelation 22:3, NKJV)

The earth was very good before the curse, and it will be perfect in the end. Extinction, which (obviously) involves death, will ultimately be done away with. As Scripture says,

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:26)