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The Principle of Biome Succession

Lee A. Spencer
Earth History Research Center, Southwestern Adventist University

M. Elaine Kennedy
Geology, Geoscience Research Institute

FOR: Faith and Science Conference, Glacier View Ranch, CO — August 2003

ABSTRACT

    The earliest attempts at explaining the rock record involved diluvial interpretations. Today, naturalistic interpretations have almost completely replaced diluvial ones. Order in the geological column is directly observable and well tested. With few exceptions, modern debate centers not on the existence of order, but what has caused it.
    The biostratigraphic relationships of fossils preserve very detailed stratigraphic ranges where many taxa first appear then disappear at staggered intervals relative to each other. This forms the basis for relative geologic time intervals. Similar patterns of first and last appearances for the same taxa are often observed in completely different basins. These similar patterns form the basis for correlation. Strata in different basins sharing the same fossil taxa are interpreted to have formed at the same time.
    Naturalistic interpretations for the staggered ranges of fossils are usually evolutionary with invoked migrations. Tests of evolutionary hypotheses based on observed biostratigraphic data are almost universally falsified. This has led to the development of alternate views on how evolution must work such as punctuated equilibrium or the use of ad hoc statements on the incompleteness of the fossil record.
    With the birth of neodiluvialism, a new model was proposed to explain the observed order in the fossil record. Originally called Ecological Zonation, it postulated that as the waters of Noah’s Flood rose, they came upon a sequence of biomes that were destroyed and buried in the order encountered. The processes of identifying and correlating biomes are strictly analogous to the processes used to define relative geological time.
    The choice between a neodiluvial and an evolutionary one is a cosmological decision. The data can be interpreted either way with neither viewpoint remaining unfalsified. The acceptance of one or the other position is based largely upon faith.