Ask a Baraminologist: Ancient History

Our first question comes from Leah who asks, “When animals in the ice age were bigger, were spiders bigger too?”

Great question, Leah! As far as we know, the answer is no. The largest spiders for which we have fossils were not much bigger than the spiders of today. However, because spiders do not have bones or other hard body parts, they do not tend to fossilize well. Therefore, it is possible that there were larger spiders for which we do not have fossil evidence. We just have no way to know for sure. It seems likely the spiders we see today are the same size as spiders were a long time ago, but we cannot be certain.

Our next question comes from Elijah who asks, “Can a house cat interbreed with a tiger?”

Photo by Timo Volz on Unsplash

Awesome question, Elijah! The answer here is probably not directly. The size difference is too significant. The largest house cat breed is 18 inches long and weighs about 20 pounds. The smallest tiger is around 75 inches long and weighs 143 pounds. In other words, a domestic cat is lunch for an adult tiger.

However, domestic cats can breed with other wild cats, like the serval, for example; and tigers can breed with other wild cats, like lions. If you track the ability of species to breed with each other, eventually you find that cats and tigers are connected by a chain of hybrids, making them the same kind.

Our third question comes from Joshua who asks, “What was the first animal in the sea?”

Good question, Joshua! It is one, however, to which we do not have a definite answer. When God talks about creating the organisms that live in the sea, he does not specify which one he made first. Even if we assume that the creation account in Genesis 1:21 tells us the exact order in which God created things on day five, there are multiple kinds contained in the phrase “great sea creatures.” The Bible does not give us the exact kind that was created first.

Our final question comes from Roderic who asks, “What about the Ica stones that have pretty good dinosaur depictions?”

Ica stone1

Awesome question, Roderic! The Ica stones are a very interesting study. Many of the more popular ones are forgeries, created by a Peruvian farmer as a way of making quick money. However, there are some stones that are authentic and date to before Columbus discovered the New World. However, we do not know which ones these are. Without thorough scientific testing, which is unlikely to be done anytime soon, it is probably wise to stay away from the Ica stones as an argument. There are far stronger arguments that could be used instead that dinosaurs lived recently, like the finding of dinosaur soft tissues.

I hope these answers help you and are a blessing to you. Please feel free to keep sending in the questions. I’ll get to them as soon as I can!