Will 'The Lost World' Ever Be Found? | The Institute for Creation Research

 
Will 'The Lost World' Ever Be Found?

The recent blockbuster movie, The Lost World (the sequel to Jurassic Park), has captivated the attention of the country. The science fiction thriller weaves a story of extinct dinosaurs cloned back to life on a deserted island. Efforts to contain them go awry and mayhem ensues. Let me briefly answer some of the movie's themes and place dinosaurs in their proper Biblical context.

Dinosaurs- Dinosaurs did exist, some were large, others small. Their usually fragmentary remains are found in sedimentary rock units, hardened from sediments laid down by high energy water currents. There is a lot of evidence suggesting man and dinosaur lived at the same time and even some interesting hints that some might still exist today.

Cloning- To clone an animal requires the entire DNA code to be intact. While this has now been accomplished with living mammals, the DNA breaks down rapidly once the animal dies. There is no chance that enough fossil DNA would be preserved to allow cloning.

Dinosaur Behavior- The movie and the book on which it is based, extensively discuss dinosaur behavior. The cloned beasts exhibit high intelligence, parental care for young, memory, revenge, etc-none of which can rightly be discerned from fossilized bone.

Evolution-Whenever dinosaur fossils are found, they are fully dinosaurs, no transitional fossils have been found. The dinosaurs appear to have been created as dinosaurs. The book on which the movie is based has an entire chapter entitled, "Problems of Evolution," in which the impotence of natural selection and random mutation to produce large scale evolutionary change is discussed. When someone brings up the possibility that "evolution is directed," the main character, a scientist, answers, "No, that's creationism and creationism is wrong." Just plain wrong. No reason given, except that natural forces are all we are allowed to consider.

Chaos Theory- In this theory life's complexity is attributed to an undiscovered trend in nature which produces order from disorder, merely by natural processes. It consists of mathematical and computer simulations, and rightly refers to small fluctuations in existing order. Unfortunately, the observed trend in nature is toward deterioration, not improvement.

The Lost World- There is no island paradise where dinosaurs exist. Dinosaurs are better understood as animal types created during Creation Week and part of that once "very good" (Genesis 1:3) earth. They fell under sin's penalty in Genesis 3 when Adam rebelled. In Noah's day, the fully wicked and violent world was judged by the Creator during which many dinosaurs died and were buried and fossilized in flood sediments. In time, the survivors on Noah's Ark also became extinct or nearly so.

That "very good" Edenic world is indeed lost. Even the pre-flood world, with its canopy-controlled climate, is gone. Our present world with all its hardships is all we really know.

But there is a coming world, a restored creation awaiting us—"a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (II Peter 3:13).

*Dr. John Morris is President of ICR.

Cite this article: John D. Morris, Ph.D. 1997. Will 'The Lost World' Ever Be Found?. Acts & Facts. 26 (7).

The Latest
NEWS
June 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from...

CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Getting the Gospel into People's Hands | Creation.Live Podcast:...
Can God use an atheist airline pilot to reach other nations with the truth of the Gospel? The answer, obviously, is yes.   Host...

NEWS
Chimp Genome Only 75% Similar to Human?
An oft-repeated claim of evolutionary propaganda is that chimpanzee and human DNA are 98.5% identical. This high level of DNA similarity, which has...

NEWS
''73-Million-Year-Old'' Alaskan Salmon
Fish evolution remains an enigma. Evolutionists can only say fish first “appeared” over a half-billion years ago.1 Creationists...

NEWS
God's Memorial Day
“And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of...

NEWS
The Origin of Eukaryotes
Eukaryotes are multicellular organisms that contain diverse differentiated cell types. Within almost every cell there are subcellular compartments called...

CREATION PODCAST
Water vs. Wind: The Controversial Coconino | The Creation Podcast:...
Welcome to the sixth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old...

NEWS
Fossil Fish Finally Filmed
The bizarre lobe-finned coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) “that flourished some 350 million years ago”1 continues to be a thorn...

NEWS
The Mosasaur: A Giant Sea Dragon
Mosasaurs (order Squamata) were massive marine lizards that were common in the pre-Flood oceans. Therefore, it is not surprising that their fossils...

DAYS OF PRAISE DEVOTIONALS
Summer 2025
...