Triassic Tumors or a Very Good Creation

Biblical creationists have some challenges to meet in order to remain faithful to Scripture. One of those is with fundamentally flawed dating methods used by secularists as well as religious compromisers. In this case, a Triassic tumor dated to be 240 million years old.

Pappochelys rosinae reconstruction image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Rainer Schoch

We maintain that the Bible says what it means, and to change the plain reading to accommodate long-age owlhoots is unfaithful to the text (Prov. 30:6, 1 Cor. 4:6, Isaiah 40:8). But what of radiometric dating that puts critters back millions of years, and some of them had cancer? Despite the claims of secularists, radiometric dating has serious flaws. This includes wildly disparate results — including for rocks of known ages. Fact is, the Genesis Flood is a more rational description for what is found in geology.

Compare faulty claims of deep time to Scripture, where God said his creation was very good (Gen. 1:31). It beggars reason to believe that God used the waste, inefficiency, cruelty, and chaos of evolution as his method of creation. He allowed cancer to be in his very good world? No. Death and disease were not there at the beginning, and will not be there at the restoration of all things, old son.

German researchers described rare bone cancer in a Triassic reptile fossil found in limestone near Velberg, Germany. The find reignites conversations about the origin of diseases and ultimately of life.

The team published micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scans of the creature’s femur in the journal JAMA Oncology. It showed the insides of the enlarged region and confirmed the haphazard bone growth characteristic of a periosteal osteosarcoma—a rare bone cancer. According to the PhysOrg news that announced the discovery, this disease affects about 850 U.S. citizens each year, but occurs at an even lower rate in fossils.

To read the rest about this fascinating research and its meaning to biblical creationists, click on "Triassic Tumor Raises Creation Questions".