Discover Magazine.com published an article on fossilized skin, and their headline states, “A Rare, Scaly, Fossilized Skin Hints at Evolution of Life in Water to Land.” And they go on to state, “New fossilized skin could help researchers further understand how skin evolved over time.”

However, if one is skeptical about evolution, then this discovery doesn’t tell us anything helpful about evolution. Instead, it actually tells us more about those who do believe in evolution and how they think.

The discovery of fossilized skin should be enough to call evolution into question. The skin is so well-preserved that it looks like the animal died very recently. I often hear evolutionists ask, “If the earth is so young, then why does it look so old?” But discoveries like this turn the question on its head. Instead we ought to ask, “If the earth is so old, then why does it look so young?”

This is not an isolated instance. In fact there are many examples of dinosaur soft tissue being found, making it evidence for a young earth, as there should be no surviving blood vessels, DNA, proteins, keratin, melanosomes, pigmentation, or skin from dinosaurs existing today. If dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago- as evolutionists claim, then all this biological material should have disintegrated long ago. The only thing that should remain are the rocks and minerals they were entombed in.

According to the article, the skin- found inside a limestone cave in Oklahoma- looks like the hide from a crocodile or Edmontosaurus- a dinosaur that supposedly lived up to 76 million years ago. Other sources suggest the skin belonged to a lizard-like reptile that lived 288 million years ago! So the author, recognizing the conundrum, tries to explain it away. Keep in mind, it’s not that evolutionists can’t come up with an explanation, but that any explanation will do. Evolution is elastic enough to do this. The real problem is that their explanation isn’t the best explanation of the data.

In this case evolutionists claim that the skin was preserved because of the “caves distinctive conditions.” They suggest that fine clay sediments “may have” slowed the skin’s decay rate. Further, they think an oil spill helped preserve it. But, if anyone applies a little logic, the explanation fails. Consider, according to paleontologist Ethan Mooney, “Animals would have fallen into this cave system during the early Permian and been buried in very fine clay sediments that delayed the decay process.”

Okay, if this animal had “fallen” into the cave, then why was nothing else preserved except the skin? Why weren’t any bones- which are much harder than skin- preserved? The skin should have been the first thing to decay, leaving the bones behind. Besides, it would be impossible to test their theory, so evolutionists accept the explanation without question. That’s inherently problematic.

Cave conditions do provide an optimal environment for preserving specimens, but not if they’re millions of years old. Biological material doesn’t survive indefinitely. Therefore, the best explanation is that this skin isn’t millions of years old. It’s more likely to have been washed inside the cave only thousands of years ago. This is why the skin looks so young and well-preserved.

The scientists also wish to claim this discovery tells them more about how organisms evolved from fish to land animals, which is interesting since they don’t know what animal the skin belonged to. Still they conclude the skin is clearly from a land animal, therefore, it must have evolved the kind of skin that didn’t need the constant moisturization provided by mucous and water.

In other words, their evolutionary beliefs support evolution in a circular fashion. Since they believe evolution is true, then land animals must have evolved so that they could spend more time on land and less time in the water. And since the skin is clearly from a land animal, then they must have evolved that capability by the time this animal appeared. Ta da!

However, this circular reasoning doesn’t have to be imposed if we believe God created animals according to their kind, just as the Bible says. If science is allowed to consider that God created all winged birds and sea creatures on Day Five, and all land animals on Day Six, and all this happened less than 10,000 years ago, then we don’t need evolutionary stories to account for life on earth. In other words, the skin would have come from the ancestor of a land animal God created on Day Six, and it’s worth studying for that value alone. Especially if the organism is now extinct.

Lastly the author merely assumes evolution occurred, and, therefore, must find a way to fit the discovery into the evolutionary paradigm, and she does this with her imagination. The author says, “According to the study, seeing this type of skin this early hints that it may have proceeded the later evolution of hair follicles and avian feathers.”

See? Once evolution is assumed, then the skin “hints” at where it should be placed within the evolutionary tree of life. Even though it may have its own separate tree unrelated to any other tree, and may not have evolved from any sea creature at all.

This discovery of ancient skin is a wonderful discovery, but it has nothing to do with evolution. God made land animals on Day Six of creation, and the evidence suggests this animal didn’t evolve from a different kind of animal, nor was it evolving into anything else.