Ask a Baraminologist: Extinction?

Our first question comes from Kaleb, who asks: “How far can a wolf swim?”

Great question, Kaleb! Like most other dogs, wolves are very comfortable in the water. Some even hunt regularly in the water, catching fish and other aquatic life as their regular diet. There is a subspecies of Canis lupus in Canada called the sea wolf, and it regularly swims for miles at a time. The longest recorded swim by a wolf was roughly seven and a half miles! I would not recommend trying to match that.

Our next question comes from Aiden, who asks, “Why do they say fossils are evidence of evolution, and why do they say that fossils changed over a small amount of time?”

Awesome question, Aiden! Evolutionists claim that fossils are evidence of evolution because they show the change that has taken place over time. Supposedly, fossils show the life history of organisms, beginning with the simplest and progressing all the way to humans. According to them, each step in the process takes millions of years, and there are small changes along each step of the pathway.

This explanation is, of course, nonsense. There are lots of fossil organisms that look exactly the same as their modern relatives. Things like ginkgoes, coelacanths, species of shrimp, Wollemi pine, and others are identical to or almost identical to their fossil relatives. There has been no evolution. Further, if evolution were true, we would expect to see a plethora of missing links between organisms. After over a century of looking, they have found exactly zero unambiguous transitional forms. There is no evolution anywhere in the fossil record.

Our third question comes from Roderic, who asks, “What were terror birds—the ones that run on the ground and cannot fly?”

Awesome question, Roderic! The terror birds are members of the family Phorusrhacidae, and they reached up to ten feet tall. Their fossils are found in North and South America. They had powerful hooked beaks and sharp talons, ideal for hunting small mammals. It is believed they were powerful runners. While they are not considered closely related, their appearance is relatively similar to modern shoebills, though their exact mode of life cannot be directly ascertained from fossils.

Our final question comes from Renae, who asks, “Are woolly mammoths related to elephants?”

Awesome question, Renae! The answer is most likely yes. Mammoths have very similar characteristics to modern elephants. The most obvious difference is the amount of hair—overall, the two are very similar. They are so similar, in fact, that people who are trying to bring back the woolly mammoth are using elephants to help them do it. If you want to learn more about the potential to bring back creatures like the mammoth, read my Q&A from February 16, 2023, where I directly answer this question.

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!