How Many Mammoth Remains Exist?  Radically Conflicting
"Answers" from "Answers" In Genesis

Kevin R. Henke, Ph.D.

 

The following material may be freely copied and distributed as long as it's not altered, edited or sold. 

Among the countless problems resulting from their antiquated interpretations of Genesis, young-Earth creationists (YECs) must explain how single pairs of animals (supposedly seven or even seven pairs for "clean animals" depending on the translation) could comfortably fit on the ark, and then repopulate the Earth and re-establish complex ecosystems within a few hundred or thousand years after the "Genesis Flood."  At the "Answers" in Genesis (AiG) website, a critic claims that the remains of roughly six million mammoths exist in the Arctic and that these large numbers are inconsistent with the claims of young-Earth creationism.  In response, an AiG spokesperson attempts to minimize the number of known mammoth remains:

 

"First, six million mammoths is HUGELY EXAGGERATED. There are fewer than 50 known woolly mammoth carcasses, only about a half-dozen of which were complete. An estimated 50,000 tusks have been found, although there may have been a million mammoths living at one time." [my emphasis]

 

Obviously, the spokesperson believes that minimizing the number of mammoth remains will lower estimates for mammoth populations enough to somehow convince people that all mammoths could have originated from two to fourteen proboscidean ancestors that supposedly exited from the ark.

 

In contrast, AiG contributor YEC Michael Oard gives a radically different estimate for the number of found mammoth remains:

 

"Indeed, there have been many hundreds of thousands of large mammoths found in Siberia, and many MILLIONS of bones." [my emphasis]

 

In another AiG article (in Adobe Acrobat), Oard (2000) cites several references, which indicate that mammoths were once very abundant in much of North America and Eurasia.  Oard concludes:

 

"There are probably MILLIONS of mammoths BURIED IN THE PERMAFROST OF SIBERIA ALONE." [my emphasis]

 

So, according to AiG, were the number of mammoth remains abundant or not?  Is the existence of millions of mammoth remains a "huge exaggeration" or not? What does AIG want us to believe?  Until AiG personnel can get their stories straight, they'll continue to fail to prop up their "Genesis Flood" myth. 

 

REFERENCE

 

Oard, M.J., 2000, "The Extinction of the Wooly Mammoth: Was It a Quick Freeze?" Creation Ex Nihilo Technical J., v. 14, n. 3, p. 24-34.