How Did Kangaroos Hop from Ararat to Australia?

G'day everyone. Welcome back to Creation Podcasts. This time we're going to try to answer a common sceptical objection to the Bible, which is how did kangaroos hop from Ararat to Australia? And we will also be discussing why animals are where they are. Now, my name is Dr Jonathan Sarfati and I'm from Australia and with me is my colleague from another island nation of Singapore, Joel Tay. G'day to you. So why is this an issue? Why do people bring this up? What's the problem here? Well, the Bible says that after the flood, that the ark landed on the mountains of Ararat in that region. And so the question is, if they were there, how did they get to Australia? Did the rabbits hop all the way there? So that's a big question that a lot of people have. What's the problem? I was born in Ararat in Australia actually. Oh, was it a different Ararat then? Okay. Yeah. Now, okay. So what is the general answer? How could a kangaroo hop from Ararat to Australia and basically water ski at the same time, do you think? Yes. The issue here is that there are islands in between, but the Bible speaks about a worldwide flood. And we know from studies that if there's a worldwide flood, we will expect an ice age, just one single ice age that will start a few hundred years after the flood, take about 500 years and then goes down. And when you have an ice age, the water level goes down in the sea. Right. Because the waters are now on the continents in the form of ice. So it had to come from somewhere and it came from the ocean. So the ocean is locked down. It's logical. So when the ocean levels are lower, you have a land bridge that connects all the way from Asia to Australia. In fact, you have a land bridge that goes into North America as well. Right. I mean, evolutionists have proposed this to explain some of the animal distribution. So why can't we do the same? Yeah. Evolutionists do the same thing. So why is this only an issue for creationists when the same explanation is used by evolutionists? Happens so often, doesn't it? Looks like Ice Age and the fossils should be separate podcasts as well. But in that case, how come there aren't any fossils of kangaroos in Ararat or in the Middle East then? Well, I would say that the worldwide flood would actually provide the conditions to get fossils. So if the kangaroos only get to Australia after the flood, we wouldn't expect the fossil distribution to be the same. Well, Australia, they are known for not only unique creatures, but for their marsupials. But marsupial animals are not only found in Australia, they're found in South America and some in North America, like the possum. But when you look at the fossil record, the distribution, you find that the marsupial fossils are in places where they are not living today. Well, yeah, because I wrote a book called The Greatest Hoax on Earth, which is a response to Richard Dawkins' book called The Greatest Show on Earth. And one of the chapters is on the geographical distribution. And there's actually a quote here about how an evolutionist is really puzzled as to why the marsupial fossils are different from where they are now. And he said the switch remains unexplained. So you're trying to say that the places where we tend to find fossils, we don't find living marsupials? And where we find living marsupials, we don't find any fossils? That was a real puzzle to these evolutionist authors, you see. So it's not just something we've made up. The evolutionists have a problem with this. In fact, they have a bigger issue than us, I guess. And also the Bible talks about lions around Israel. Are there any lion fossils in Israel? No, they went extinct. Also, just because something lived in an area doesn't mean it's going to leave fossils in the area. Ah, that's interesting. But why is it that Australia has more marsupials than most places in the world today? Well, I addressed this a little bit. I'm actually citing from John Woodmorappi's book called Studies in Flood Geology. And he thought that people may have brought marsupials because they are mostly nocturnal. So it's too much of a problem during the day. And also, they have dormant young inside their pouches. It may have been people selectively bringing the marsupials to Australia. That's interesting because evolutionists, they try to explain that. And they claim that reason why a lot of marsupials are extinct today was because they compete with placental mammals. And the placental mammals kind of out-compete that. Well, that's possible. But then you also know that we had an article in our magazine about the thylacine, the marsupial wolf, and it seemed to be able to beat up the placental dogs quite easily. So what's the evidence that actually they did lose a battle in competition with placentals? I'm not so sure it's so clear cut. So the thylacine was still around like 100 years ago, but they're extinct today. When they were so alive, they could handle the placental dogs quite well. Yeah. I think on our website, we have an article where actually tells about this story about how in one case where you have a dog confronting this thylacine, in one single bite, he actually bit off a big chunk of the skull. Yeah. I wouldn't like to meet one of these things, to be honest. Probably glad they're actually extinct. And I know evolutionists, sometimes they say, oh, the reason why we find marsupials in Australia and in South America was because the continents were once together and they slowly drift apart due to continental drift over millions of years. Why doesn't that explanation work? Well, I mean, it's interesting. Again, I covered in my book, chapter 10 of this book, and I got a lot of the information from our English colleague, Dominic Statham, who's written a lot about this topic, which is called biogeography, the distribution of living things around the globe. And there's something he's noted called disjunct distribution, which means disjunct means you've got this population of identical things, but they're separated by oceans. So how do they get to be separated? And also those things, according to evolutionary dating, evolved long after the continents split apart. So they cannot appeal to the splitting. So it would appeal if, in fact, they evolved before the split, but not if they evolved after the split. And that's a real problem. It happens over and over again, where it doesn't fit the expected distribution evolutionists would predict. And also when Darwin was talking about the distribution of animals, he assumed the continents hadn't moved. And so somehow his theory fit very well for a static continent distribution, but now it works with a moving continent. So it's a bit of a flexible, too flexible theory if it works for both static and moving continents. I think it's almost like it's an unfalsifiable theory, which makes you question whether it's real science. Yeah, that's true. That's interesting. So, Jono, as I understand it, Richard Dawkins, in his book, he presents the creationist view as if we do not believe there's any change whatsoever, and that creatures are found today where they were once created. Well, that's interesting, because Darwin also knocks down the same straw man, which is actually Lyell's view. Charles Lyell had the idea that there's a fixity of species, and also, sent as a creation, God created different species in the places where they now are, you see. So that's actually the evolutionary view he's attacking? Pretty much. It definitely is not the biblical creation view, because a lot of their attacks can be refuted by understanding, yeah, we believe that things vary within the kind. We also believe there was migration after the flood, as you pointed out, while the ISH happened, while the land bridges, you had the separation. So that's why we find things which are similar in the Galapagos Islands to what they are on the mainland, because they migrated that way via South America to Galapagos. And that's why you find things like in Madagascar, which are similar to things in Africa, because they migrated after Ararat. So, in fact, Darwin and Dawkins are knocking down a straw man here. So it's interesting, because you have shown that the distribution of animals is consistent with what we expect with the Bible, but it's actually a big issue for evolution. And it's also a big issue for the likes of Hugh Ross, who also believes in fixity of species, and the same sort of view that Charles Lyell had, that Darwin and Dawkins have demolished. Interesting. Yet they think that somehow we're the ones who make it hard to argue for the Bible, yet they're the ones that Darwin has already demolished. Not our view. It's a totally ironic thing. It just does everything on its head. This is why it's so important for us to understand the flood. As you had pointed out at the beginning, the flood is such an important thing for us to understand, and migration paths after Ararat. If we don't understand that part of the Biblical creation worldview, we haven't got a chance of dealing with Dawkins, Darwin, or all those people. I say, when I was thinking back in Australia and in New Zealand, where I also grew up, we have a huge problem with rabbits. Rabbits aren't native to Australia or New Zealand. But hang on, they came on a ship, landed in one place, but then they spread out all the way over the vast continent of Australia. So it certainly wasn't a case of one rabbit hopping from one side of Australia to the other, which is five hours by aeroplane. Clearly, it was over many generations that the rabbits spread out over Australia. So why wouldn't we say the same with the kangaroos and everything else coming out? Of course, we believe it happened over many generations, but just that they never left fossils because fossilisation is so rare and needs something like a flood to explain. So Jono, just to summarise what we have covered, we have explained that the animals after the flood started in Ararat, and then over many generations, they get to Australia during the Ice Age, when the sea level was much lower than what it is today. And we also discussed that when you look at the distribution of fossils out there, marsupial fossils, that is actually a huge issue for evolutionists. They can't really explain. But it makes sense out of the biblical creation-migration model, creation-flood-migration model. By the way, one of the key books we have, which is one thing that almost every creation should start with, is our Creation Answers book, which has 60 questions. There is actually one chapter here on how did animals get to Australia, and also a chapter on the Ice Age, which Joel discussed. Also a chapter about what the flood would do, a chapter on continental drift, which you also discussed. Quite a few of the things that we have been talking about actually have more detail in this. But then there is my more technical book, The Greatest Oats on Earth, that had to be a bit more technical because I was refuting Richard Dawkins, so I had to take him on on his own ground, which discusses this in more detail. So thanks very much for listening to us. If you actually like it, then please like it on YouTube, and please share it on Facebook and other social media, and be sure to tune in next time.