I my last post, I talked about Gambo, the Gambian sea serpent. I talked about how the account given by Owen Burnham, the person who found the body, is his memory of the event and not facts about Gambo. Thus, Gambo’s identity will remain an unsolvable mystery.
I want to comment about another aspect of Burnham’s account and draw an application from it. I already talked about how he rejected possible identifications of Gambo, such as Tasmacetus, and how his rejection of these identities are based on his memory of a one time observation. There are a few more aspects of his critiques of these identities that I want to explore.
Keep in mind, as established in the last post, we cannot be certain how accurate is Burnham’s memory of Gambo. That alone should bring some humility. One might think that, as the only person to have seen Gambo in detail, Burnham is automatically an expert on Gambo. However, since none of those details can be verified, since the body of Gambo is now long gone, Burnham’s “expertise” comes down to his opinion, not a careful study . With that in mind, pay attention to his general attitude when he addresses the expert’s suggestions.
I wrote to various authorities. [One] said it was probably a dolphin whose flukes had worn off in the water. This doesn’t explain the long pointed tail or lack of dorsal fin (or damage).
[Another] decided it could be the rare Tasmacetus shepherdi whose tail flukes had worn off. This man mentioned that the blow hole could have closed after death. Again the tail and narrow jaws seem to conflict with this. Tasmacetus‘s jaws aren’t too long and the head itself seems to be smaller than my animal’s. Tasmacetus has two fore flippers and none in the pelvic region. The two flippers are quite small in relation to body size and pointed rather than round. Tasmacetus has a dorsal fin and ‘my’ animal didn’t seem to have one or any signs of one having once been there. Tasmacetus even without tail flukes wouldn’t have a tail long enough or pointed enough. The tail of the animal I saw was very long. It had a definite point and didn’t look suited for a pair of flukes. Apparently, Tasmacetus is brown above and white below and this seems to be the only link between the two animals. I’ve been to many remote and also popular fishing areas in Senegal and I have seen the decomposing remains of sharks and also dead dolphins and this was so different.
[A third] said it must have been a manatee. I’ve seen them and believe me it wasn’t that. The skin thickness was the same but the resemblance ended there.
Other authorities have suggested crocodiles and such things but as you see from the description it just can’t have been.
After I think of the coelacanth I don’t like to think what could be at the bottom of the sea. What about the shark (Megachasma) [megamouth shark] which was fished up on an anchor in 1976?
I looked through encyclopedias and every book I could lay hands on eventually I found a photo of a skull of Kronosaurus queenlandicus which is the nearest thing so far. Unfortunately the skull of that beast is apparently ten feet long and clearly not of my find.
The skeleton of Ichthyosaurus (not head) is quite similar if you imagine the fleshed animal with a pointed tail instead of flukes. I spend hours at the Natural History Museum [in London, England] looking at their small plesiosaurs, many of which are similar.
I’m not looking to find a prehistoric animal, only to try and identify what was the strangest thing I’ll ever see. Even now I can remember every minute detail of it. To see such a thing was awesome.[1]
Burnham seems to treat the experts as if they are not trying hard enough. “You think it is a Tasmacetus? Well the only similarity I see is the coloration. You think it is a dolphin? Please. My animal has a pointed tail. A crocodile? Do I even need to refute that idea?”
I have a lot of sympathy for these experts. They have been given an impossible task. Gambo’s description does not match any known animal. That is why it is a mystery. They are probably doing their best, suggesting creatures that are known from the area that at least somewhat resemble Burnham’s description. But that is not good enough for Burnham: if their suggestions do not match in every detail, they are wrong. And again, keep in mind that none of Burnham’s details can be verified since there is no body. The experts are left to try and meet Burnham’s standards and try to find a match to meet Burnham’s memory. Burnham thus controls the entire discussion and sits as the sole juror, judge, and executioner of these suggestions.
If you think I am being a little hard on Burnham, consider this. After rejecting the experts’ suggestions, what does Burnham claim is the closest creature he has found to be the most similar to Gambo? Kronosaurus. What did he see about Kronosaurus that made him think that it was similar to Gambo. A picture of its skull.
A picture of its skull!
Burnham rejected both the dolphin and Tasmacetus suggestions at least in part because those animals have a dorsal fin and flukes and Gambo does not. Does Kronosaurus have fins and flukes? He doesn’t know: he only saw its skull! So how can he know that Kronosaurus is similar to Gambo? He cannot. If the only known similarities he knows about are in the skull, how can he know that Kronosaurus is more similar to Gambo than is Tasmacetus? He cannot.
Similarly, Burnham says that an Ichthyosaurus is similar to Gambo, if you ignore its skull and its tail fin. Yes, and Tasmacetus looks a lot like Gambo if you ignore its flukes and fin, but Burnham didn’t allow those details to be ignored. Only he gets to decide if a certain detail is or is not an acceptable deviation from his description of Gambo. As I said previously, Burnham gets to decide for himself whether or not a given animal is similar to Gambo, because the only “evidence” for the animal is his own memory.
I have seen other people commit the same fallacy as Burnham. That is, they reject an idea based on specific details, but when it comes to suggesting an alternate, they overlook or gloss over those same details. I think it is an easy fallacy to fall into. After all, we don’t need a lot of evidence to convince ourselves of something that we “know” is true. That “truth” goes without saying. But an idea we believe to be false, well, it must be false through and through, so any small inconsistency is evidence of its falsehood.
Here is a specific example of what I am talking about. In The Modern Creation Trilogy, Volume 2, John and Henry Morris are talking about the lack of transitional fossils. After quoting Stephen Gould, the Morrises have this to say:
Try creation, Dr. Gould! His mention of an “extensive Precambrian fossil record” is a reference to the so-called “Ediacaran fauna,” a complex of strange metazoan fossils that are radically different from any of the Cambrian invertebrates. These unique creatures likewise have no transitional connection with any of the Precambrian protozoa. As Gould says, neither is there any transitional form connecting any of the Ediacaran fossils with any of the Cambrian invertebrates.[2]
In this quote, the Morrises have a specific objection to the theory of evolution: there is a lack of transitional forms between single-celled organisms and the Ediacaran fossils and between the Ediacaran fossils and the Cambrian fossils. With such big gaps, the Morrises suggest that Gould should give up on evolution and try creationism.
On what grounds? Sure, creationists expect fossils to “appear suddenly” in the fossil record, but do creationists have a good explanation for Ediacaran fossils? The Morrises admit that they are strange, but do nothing to explain how creation makes them less strange. The Ediacaran fossils do not appear to belong to any extant group of fossils. In fact, it is still questioned whether these fossils are body fossils or trace fossils, whether they are animal fossils or something else. With so many mysteries surrounding the Ediacaran fossils, it is no surprise that evolutionists lack transitional fossils between them. But can creationists put them in the Biblical narrative any better? What kinds do they belong to? On which day of Creation Week were they created? If they were contemporaneous with creatures that are alive today, why is the Ediacaran fauna completely extinct while other bottom dwelling creatures flourish today? Why are the Ediacaran fossils entirely new and novel? Why are they not found alongside creatures that are still alive today? Is creationism really the better explanation for the Ediacaran fossils if there are so many unanswered questions?
Furthermore, the Cambrian Explosion (the sudden appearance of complex fossils in Cambrian rocks[3]) is certainly a feature that is difficult for evolutionists to explain. However, the creatures in the Cambrian Explosion are all extinct, and many of them differ significantly from living forms.[4] Thus, we can ask similar questions about the Cambrian fossils. Are they the same kinds as we see today? Why are they not found alongside extant creatures? Why did they go extinct while other creatures within the same phyla survived? Again, no explanation is given nor are these questions addressed.
To the Morrises credit, they talk about a whole lot more in their book: they are not hinging their defense of creationism on a lack of transitional fossils. However, that particular argument is weak, in my opinion, because they tear down evolution but do little to build up creationism in its place. This is similar to Burnham, who tears down the Tasmacetus explanation for Gambo but does little to build up the Kronosaurus and Ichthyosaurus explanations.
Here is another example. In 2009, Creation magazine had a short report about an upcoming expedition to study a mountain range beneath the Antarctic ice. Here is the text of the report:
An international expedition is heading south to the ‘White Continent’ aiming to find an explanation for why there is a great mountain range in the middle of Antarctica.
No-one has ever seen the Gamburtsev Mountains, as they are covered by ice up to four kilometres deep. Discovered by Soviet researchers making a seismic survey across the ice in the late 1950s, the hidden mountains were totally unexpected. Scientists had thought the interior of the continent would be flat.
A lead researcher on the expedition, Dr. Robin Bell from the Lamont-Dohtery Earth Observatory, explained: ‘There are two easy ways to make mountains. One is colliding continents, but after they collide, they tend to erode; and the last collision was 500-million years ago. They shouldn’t be there.’
‘The other way is a hotspot [with volcanoes punching through the crust] like in Hawaii, but there’s no good evidence for underneath the ice sheet being that hot,’ Bell said. ‘I like to say its rather like being an archaeologist and opening up a tomb in a pyramid and finding an astronaut sitting inside. It shouldn’t be there.’
Obviously they can’t be 500-million years old. It makes more sense that they are erosional remnants from the receding waters of Noah’s Flood. For more on this see Journal of Creation 16(3): 40-43, 2022 <creation.com/mountains> and also Chapter 11 (‘What about continental drift?’) in The Creation Answers Book…[5]
Notice that the rejection of traditional explanations is accompanied by specific information. There are only two ways to create mountains and neither applies to these mountains in Antarctica. The mountains could have been created by collision of continents, but the last time that happened in Antarctica (according to long agers) is 500 million years ago, and they would have eroded since that time. Specific information to reject the long age explanation.
What information was presented to support the creationist explanation? Nothing. Yes, the reader is directed to an article and a chapter in a book, but the article says nothing about Antarctica except to say that it was originally flat.[6] There is nothing explaining why the Gamburtsev Mountains are better explained by erosion than by collision of continents or by a hot spot. Without knowing why these mountains were created by erosion, suggesting it is so is as speculative as the other two options. Sure, it may fit better if we stipulate that the Earth cannot be 500 million years old, but can we show that the Gamburtsev Mountains are best explained by erosion? Not with any information presented in this report.
I should add that I do not necessarily believe that either the Morrises or the article in Creation magazine are wrong. Generally, I agree with these people and organizations. My critique is not to cast them as wrong or ignorant. Rather, it is to point out short-coming in their arguments, in order to strengthen our own. Any little inconsistency or gap in reasoning can, and will, be cited by long agers and evolutionists as a reason to reject our thinking. After all, they too see little reason to critique what they already “know” to be true, namely, long ages and evolution. On the other hand, they “know” creationists are wrong, they will use a fine-toothed comb to find any slight inconsistency in creationism and use it as a reason to reject it. We might as well try to avoid giving them opportunities to scrutinize us.
While it may seem strange to focus on a mysterious, one time event, like Burnham’s encounter with Gambo, I think it allows us to practice our reasoning. It is relatively easy to dismiss Gambo as a mystery and leave it at that. However, are we willing to admit that parts of creationism are also mysterious? Are we willing to admit that there are times creationists do not have all the answers? This is harder to admit because we “know” creationism is true, therefore the evidence “must” fit with it. Studying Gambo allows us to check and see if our reasoning is consistent and accurate.
Thoughts from Steven
[1]Shuker, Karl (1995) In Search of Prehistoric Survivors: Do Giant ‘Extinct’ Creatures Still Exist? Blandford, London, England, pg. 117-118
[2]Morris, Henry and John Morris (2004) The Modern Creation Trilogy: Volume 2, Science and Creation Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, pg. 59-60
[3]Ibid. pg. 61
[4]Many creationists will quickly point out that the Cambrian fossils all belong to extant phyla. This is true, but even so, many of them only have broad similarities to living creatures within those phyla.
[5]Editors (2009) “Mountains that ‘shouldn’t be there'” Creation 31(2): 11
[6]Oard, Michael (2002) “The Mountains Rose” Journal of Creation 16(3): 40-43
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