Date:   Sat Aug 19 1995  01:01:32
From:   Lenny Flank
To:     Luke Clark
Subj:   Paluxy river footprints
EVOLUTION                      -------------------------------

THE PALUXY RIVER "MAN PRINTS"

by Lenny Flank, Jr.

(c) 1995

One of the most commonly encountered claims of the creationists is that
creationist geologist Dr. Clifford Burdick, a member of the Creation
Research  Society, found modern human footprints next to dinosaur
footprints along the Paluxy River, near Glen Rose, Texas, thus proving
that (a) humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, and (b) evolution
must therefore be wrong.  For instance, Henry Morris of the Institute
for Creation Research, writes:  "One of the most spectacular examples of
anamolous fossils is the now well-known case of the Paluxy River
footprints, in the Cretaceous Glen Rose formation of central Texas.
Here, in the limestone beds, are found large numbers of both dinosaur
and human footprints.  The tracks occur in trails, and in two or three
locations the dinosaur and human trails cross each other, with two known
cases where human and dinosaur tracks actually overlap each other. . .
These tracks and their discovery have been conclusively documented by
on-the site, at-the-time, motion pictures."  (Henry Morris, "Scientific
Creationism", CLP Publishers, San Diego CA, 1974, pp 122-123)
     As usual, this creationist claim is a mixture of misinterpretation,
misrepresentation and unwillingness or inability to correct past
mistakes.  There is no evidence whatsoever for human footprints
co-existing with dinosaurs anywhere along the Paluxy River, as both the
Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research
now admit.
     One of the earliest debunkings of the Paluxy footprints is reportedly
contained in the book "Dinosaur Tracks and Giant Men", written in
1975 by Berney Neufeld, a creationist Seventh-Day Adventist, Flood
geologist and geneticist.  I've not been able to obtain a copy of
this book yet, so I can only repeat citations from it that I've seen in
other places.  The conclusion reached by Neufeld was that there was not
any "good evidence for the past existence of giant men", and the Paluxy
River prints did not "provide evidence for the coexistence of such men
(or other large mammals) and the giant dinosaurs." (cited in Ronald
Numbers, "The Creationists", Alfred Knopf, NY, 1992, p. 266)
     Burdick's original tale was that he had found human footprints
actually overlapping those of dinosaurs, and this was the story that
Morris and Whitcomb repeated in the first edition of their book
"The Genesis Flood".  Later, however, Burdick admitted that no such
overlapping prints existed, and Morris and Whitcomb were forced to
revise this portion of their text in the third edition. (cited
in Numbers, 1992, pp. 202-203)  (As shown above, Morris nevertheless
repeated this debunked claim in 1974, in his book "Scientific
Creationism".)
     Paleontologists who examined the Paluxy "man prints" have without
exception declared them to be nothing more than partially-registered
dinosaur tracks, natural depressions, or, in some instances, deliberate
forgeries carved by local residents to sell to tourists.  These
were also the conclusions reached by biologist Glen Kuban in 1980, as
well as another group of scientists in 1984, which included physicist
Ronnie Hastings, geologist Steven Schaferman, anthropologist John Cole
and physical anthropologist Laurie Godfrey. (Arthur N. Strahler, "Science
and Earth History", Prometheus Books, Buffalo NY, 1987, p. 463)
     Descriptions of the Paluxy prints indicate that they range in size
from around 11 inches to over 20 inches, and average about 15 inches.
In the FidoNet EVOLUTION echo, creationist Andrew Cummins, who claims
to have seen a cast of the footprints, described them as a "normal
appearing human footprint 15 inches in length".
     The length of a human foot is equal to approximately 1/6.6 of the
height, so if we have the length of the footprint, we can calculate
the height of the person by multiplying this by 6.6 .  (People who doubt
this can easily get a ruler and try it on themselves.)  A
human being with 15 inch feet, therefore, would be approximately eight
foot three inches tall.  A human being with 11-inch feet would be a bit
over six feet tall, and a human with 20 inch footprints would be about
eleven feet tall.  If these footprints are human, they are damn awful
BIG humans.
     Thus, one of Morris's theories of the Paluxy prints was that in the
time before the Flood, evil demons took possession of human bodies and
seduced young women, who then had children--"The men whose bodies were
possessed," Morris says, "were evidently thereby made so attractive to
women that they could take any they chose as wives.  These 'Sons of
God' thus controlled not only the men whose bodies they had acquired
for their own usage, but also the wives they took to themselves, and
then all the children they bore."  Morris says that the children of
these demons then became "the giants, the mighty men of old" mentioned
in the Bible, and he speculates that these "giants" may have been the
makers of the Paluxy River footprints  (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 211)
It was this hypothesis that was taken on by Neufeld in his book.  I think
such a "scientific explanation" needs no further rebuttal.
     Finally, if you examine the photos of the Paluxy prints in Morris's
book "The Genesis Flood", you can clearly see loose sand and dirt that
has been piled around the prints, particularly near the "toe" regions,
and the effect of this (if not the intent) is to make the "toe" regions
of these prints look much more humanlike than they would without them.
     When the Paluxy River footprint story was printed in the "Creation
Research Society Quarterly", it caused a lot of debate within
CRS.  Burdick was already under suspicion by CRS because of his claims
to have found pollen grains in pre-Cambrian strata at the Grand
Canyon--a claim which was investigated by two independent researchers
at CRS expense and was found to be baloney (the investigators
concluded that Burdick was too incompetent to take an uncontaminated
sample).  When Burdick announced his discovery of human footprints
alongside of those of dinosaurs prints at Paluxy, Walter Lammerts, the
co-founder of CRS, was skeptical, and inserted an editor's note into
the original article in CRS Quarterly:  "Admittedly this discovery
offers as much of a problem for Flood geologists as for those of the
orthodox point of view.  For it is difficult to explain how two men
could still be alive after such a depth of strata had been deposited.
And if already drowned, why were they not buried later in the Mesa
Verde formation?  A more detailed and clear-cut concept of just how
the Flood accomplished its work is badly neeed in order to be able to
see how such finds as these fit into theoretical expectations, or
creationists will be guilty of the same ad hoc explanations as
evolutionary minded colleagues."  (cited in Numbers 1992, p. 266)
     Privately, Lammerts had already begun to doubt Burdick's competence.
He had received a letter from Burdick's old friend Frank Lewis Marsh,
a fellow creationist, stating that Burdick had a "tendency to lean
into the fantastic in geology" (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 261)
Lammerts wrote to fellow CRS co-founder Henry Morris that he was concerned
about "the slowness of Burdick mentally when at the Creation seminar
and hope he is not misleading us on some [of] his opinions.  He for
instance had evidently never heard of the series of horse-like animals
found and was at a complete loss to explain them.  Evidently he has
not kept up with his reading very much." (cited in Numbers, 1992, p.
266)
     Evidently not. Lammerts' suspicions about Burdick were confirmed when
he investigated and found that Burdick had lied when he claimed to
have had a Masters Degree from the University of Arizona.  Lammerts
investigated Burdick's claim that he had failed to get his
PhD from the U of Arizona because of his creationist beliefs, and found
that Burdick's story was baloney.
     After this, Lammerts wrote to Morris that he hoped that Burdick was
"really academically honest" and did "not have delusions of some easy
road to fame", but admitted that the "doctors degree stuff" made him
wonder. (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 260)
     In 1970, the CRS asked Wilbert Rusch to visit the Paluxy River and
find out once and for all if the prints were real or not.  Rusch
concluded that the best he could say was that Burdick's claim was "not
proven". (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 265)  Rusch concluded that Burdick
had rushed into printing a sensational story with little to back it
up--"We need these episodes for our cause," Rusch reported, "like we
need a hole in the head.  Premature statements, too strong statements
on insufficient evidence, do us as much harm." (cited in Numbers 1992,
p. 265)  Lammerts, meanwhile, wrote again to Morris, "The whole
footprint business raises more problems for our side than for
evolutionists.  On the basis of a worldwide Flood what were people
doing WALKING [emphasis Lammerts'] around yet after so much sediment
deposited?  Burdick has never answered this question [he still hasn't
today-!-LF] nor has any of the footprint enthusiasts." (cited in
Numbers, 1992, p. 265)
     In 1984, during a dry spell in which the Paluxy River dried up, two
investigators found that the outline of the dinosaur prints at Paluxy
exhibited a peculiar color change caused by a layer of slightly
different-colored sediments filling them in after they were laid down,
and these color changes were visible when the rock dried.  When the
riverbed was dry, entire new lines of three-toed dinosaur tracks were
visible, even though they were not depressed to a noticeable degree.
More importantly, THE SO-CALLED "MAN TRACKS" EXHIBITED THE SAME
DIFFERENT-COLORED THREE-TOED OUTLINE, indicating that they were ALL the
incompletely-registered tracks of dinosaurs, NOT humans.  The two
investigators, Kuban and Hastings, called upon the Institute for Creation
Research to send investigators of their own, and after some prodding the
ICR sent John Morris and several others.  The evidence that the "man
tracks" were in fact dinosaur prints was so convincing, even to the
creationists, that John Morris himself wrote, in the January 1986 issue
of the ICR's newsletter "Impact":

"In view of these developments, none of the four trails at the Taylor site
can today be regarded as unquestionably of human origin.  The Taylor trail
appears, obviously, dinosaurian, as do two prints thought to be in the
Turnage trail.  The Giant trail has what appears to be dinosaur prints
leading toward it, and some of the Ryals tracks seem to be developing
claw features, also." (cited in Strahler, 1987, p. 469)

     Morris concluded, ". . . it would now be improper for creationists
to  continue to use the Paluxy data as evidence against evolution."
(cited in Strahler, 1987, p. 469)
     Henry Morris, in an accompanying letter to ICR members  tried to
backpedal from the earlier statements of creationists (like himself)
who had prominently featured the Paluxy prints as solid evidence that
evolution was wrong:  "This question in no way affects the basic
creation/evolution issue.  These tracks have always been only
illustrative, not definitive, and the over-all scientific case against
evolution, which is overwhelmingly strong, is not affected in any
way." (cited in Numbers, 1992, p. 267, and in Strahler, 1987, p. 469)
     Based on this evidence, Films for Christ, which made the movie
"Footprints in Stone" claiming the Paluxy prints proved that
humans and dinosaurs lived together, released a statement that
read:  "We highly recommend that no one represent any of the
Paluxy tracks as proven evidence of human existence during the
Cretaceous until final, reliable conclusions can be reached
regarding new and old data." (cited in Strahler, 1987, p. 469)
     Neither the Creation research Society nor the Institute for Creation
Research nor Films for Christ maintains any longer that human
footprints appear anywhere along the Paluxy River.


