Thank you for your question about the current discovery from China of the allegedly 220 million year old creature dubbed Odontochelys semitestacea or the half-shelled turtle with teeth. As you now Creation Studies Institute (CSI) is dedicated to the truth revealed in Scripture and confirmed by the evidence at hand that the evolutionary time frame is both inaccurate and unsupported by the fossil record.

What we do have with this alleged ancestor of the modern turtle is being characterized as “the first turtle with an incomplete shell.”1 This is because it predates the earliest fossil turtles found with complete shells, e.g. Proganochelys which is alleged to be 210 million years old by experts at the American Museum of Natural History. Other allegedly prehistoric turtles have been given dates from 115 million years ago by various paleontologists.

This of course begs the question, are these completely shelled turtles, dating back to only 10 million years after this half-shelled Chinese fossil really what we refer to as “living fossils?” Living fossils are so called because they appear virtually identical to their now-living counterparts. This also raises another question concerning the lack of change in turtles since they appeared in the fossil record 220 million years or so ago.

The really problematic factor with the Theory of Evolution (ToE) is that it works against true science. It becomes an artificial framework upon which we force all of our data. It is a framework based upon the notion that given enough time, anything is possible. That inorganic molecules will somehow form themselves into organic matter and that organic matter will inevitably form itself into every carbon-based life form on planet earth. That is if you include the magic ingredient of time into the equation.

This is not science. In fact Darwinian evolution is really anti-science. Dr. Colin Patterson, paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History: "The explanatory value of the hypothesis of common ancestry is nil... I feel that the effects of the hypotheses of common ancestry in systematics has not been merely boring, not just a lack of knowledge, I think it has been positively anti-knowledge... Well, we're back to the question I've been putting to people: 'Is there one thing you can tell me about evolution?' The absence of answers seems to suggest that it is true: evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven't yet heard it."2

The problem of “living fossils” is really very serious. If we are to believe the basic premise of Darwinian evolution, e.g. that natural selection and beneficial mutation can account for all the complexity in the biological realm, then living fossils, creatures that remain unchanged for tens of millions of years, should not exist.

The fact is that scientists have no understanding of how turtles came into existence or what they evolved from. They appear in the fossil record, just like almost every other living thing, fully formed without transitional precursors.

Other living fossils include salamander fossils recently found in China. These specimens have been placed as living in the Bathonian age of the middle Jurassic epoch which occurred between 167.7 million and 164.7 million years ago. It was during this period on the evolutionary timescale that the new cryptobranchid (salamander) appears along with its extraordinary morphological similarity to its now living relatives. This similarity or stasis [no change] within salamander anatomical evolution is exactly what we would expect to see if God created these creatures and pre-programmed via DNA to reproduce “according their own kind.”3 Indeed, these extant cryptobranchid salamanders can be regarded as living fossils whose structures have remained little changed for over 160 million years."4

I also noted that the photograph of the fossil in question only shows the anterior view of this creature. Noting that fossil evidence is somewhat limited, the conclusions made concerning the unseen posterior view of this creature must be designated as imaginary at best. Even though it is not unusual for our evolutionary brethren to speculate, the statements made as if they were fact can only serve to prove our point, e.g. that the ToE does not serve to enlighten us only to confuse and cloud any real educational value of these discoveries. When we use the Bible, God’s Holy Word, as our guide, as did many of the great men and women of science, we begin to see the glory of God in our scientific endeavors and gain true insight into the nature of God’s amazing creation.

References

1- Rieppel, Oliver. (2008). Curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago, IL.
Commenting on this discovery went on to say “The shell is an
Extraordinary innovation. It is difficult to explain how it evolved without an
intermediary example.”
2- Patterson, Colin. (1981). Excerpted from a speech at the American Museum of
Natural History, NYC, Nov 5, 1981.
3- The book of Genesis repeats the formula that every living thing reproduces “after its
own kind” indicating that the reproductive process part of the genetic make-up of life
and that is exactly what we see in nature, e.g. every living creature reproduces itself
and errors in reproduction led to genetic anomalies, e.g. mutations, are
overwhelmingly detrimental to the health and survivability of the organism.
4- Ke-Qin Gao & Neil H. Shubin, Earliest known crown-group salamanders, Nature
422:428, March 27, 2003.