[by Dean Smith] During the day, Edgar Nernberg is a backhoe operator in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, but at night he promotes his favorite pastime — Creationism. He even helped build the Big Valley Creation Science Museum in Big Valley, Alberta and sits on the museum’s board.

The museum was set up to counter Alberta’s Royal Tyrrell museum in Drumheller, that promotes evolution. Edgar even wants to have creationism included in the curriculum of Alberta schools. Contrary to evolutionary theory, Edgar believes the world is about 6,000 years old.

Nernberg was excavating a basement in a northwest Calgary subdivision when a sandstone with odd markings caught his attention.  It is now being heralded as one of the greatest fossil finds in Alberta in recent decades — a significant claim considering Alberta is renowned for its fossils.

Edgar had discovered the complete fossils of five yet un-named species of bony-tongue fish. Finding complete fossils is extremely rare and most are convinced it was Nernberg’s interest in fossils that helped spot them in the first place, otherwise they would have been destroyed.

Because of his creationism background, Nernberg’s find is gaining some unique press. The Edmonton Sun had as their headline, “Alberta Creationist Edgar Nernberg digs up what scientists are calling the most important fossil find in decades” and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation titled their article  “Alberta creationist discovers rare fish fossils in basement dig.”

The story even gained international traction, undoubtedly because of this oddity. England’s BBC titled their article, “Alberta ‘creationist’ finds 60m-year-old fish fossils.”

The fact the creationist message is front and center in both the stories and the headlines must annoy some evolutionists.

The fish, about the size of a wallet, were turned over to the University of Calgary paleontology department where Darla Zelenitsky, a paleontologist, rated the find a “ten out of ten for significance.”

According to evolutionary theory (and yes it is just a theory), the five sandstone fossils are about 60 million years old. Of course, Nernberg does not agree, as he wryly added there is no time stamp on these fossils. He believes their untimely death and burial in silt was probably caused by Noah’s flood.

Commenting on his discovery  in the Edmonton Sun, Nernberg said:

“No, it hasn’t changed my mind. We all have the same evidence, and it’s just a matter of how you interpret it.”

It was an odd couple with creationist and evolutionists standing side-by-side, as the University unveiled the find to the world on Thursday, May 28, 2015.

However, this is not the first time an evangelical Christian has made an important fossil discovery. In 2004, North Carolina State University Palaeontologist Mary Higby Schweitzer was analyzing the fossilized thigh bone of a T. Rex dug out of Montana’s Hell Creek formation when she discovered soft tissue.

After the thigh bone was broken for transport, they found what appeared to be organic material inside — blood, blood vessels and cartilage. After running a series of tests, Schweitzer with her biology background concluded this was dinosaur soft tissue.

She published an article to that effect in Journal Science. However, in 2008, an evolutionist challenged those finding with an article in the scientific journal PLoS ONE. Two years later, PLoS ONE essentially issued a retraction publishing a second analysis in 2010 admitting Schweitzer was right, this in fact was dinosaur soft tissue.

Since then, they have found soft tissue in dinosaur bones around the world.

Considering this thigh bone was supposedly 69 million years old, how could it have any soft tissue? The answer is obvious — it is not 69 million years old. In fact, paleontologists working at the Hell Creek formation have noticed a cadaver smell at the dig for years.

But it is the belief in evolutionary theory that stopped many from making this discovery earlier.  In an interview with NBC, Schweitzer said:

“The problem is, for 300 years we thought ‘well the organics are all gone, so why should we look for something that is not going to be there’ and nobody looks.”

 

Read more:

• Alberta Creationists Edgar Nerngber digs up what scientists are calling the most important fossil find in decades: Edmonton Sun
• Alberta creationist discovers rare fish fossils in basement dig: CBC