Welcome back. Today, I’m tackling a long-time puzzle for young Earth creationists: how did marsupials, like kangaroos and koalas, make their way to Australia following Noah’s Ark?
For those who believe in a young Earth and the biblical account of Noah’s Ark, explaining the geographic distribution of animals post-flood has been a challenge. The question of how marsupials traveled from the Ark, located in the Middle East, to Australia without leaving populations along the way puzzles many. Why are there no native kangaroos in Asia or the Middle East if they traveled from the Ark to Australia? And maybe even more curious: if so many marsupial species could get from the Middle East to Australia why did NO placental mammals make the trip?
Recently, I stumbled upon a 2023 article in the Journal of Creation that proposes a new theory. The theory suggests a direct act of God—rather than natural dispersal mechanisms—placed marsupials in Australia. This is a significant shift from traditional attempts to find natural explanations, which have included everything from land bridges to vegetation rafts.
The idea that God might have directly placed these animals in Australia simplifies some of the complexities young Earth creationists face with natural explanations. Young-age proposed naturalistic theories fail badly to convincingly explain how these creatures could traverse vast distances and geographical barriers without leaving evidence of their journey across continents.
This new perspective might seem like a convenient solution, but it opens up a broader debate about the use of supernatural explanations in scientific discourse. Where do we draw the line between natural and supernatural causes? This is particularly pertinent in discussions that intersect science with religious beliefs and avoiding the so-called “God of the gaps” fallacy.
In my video linked above, I delve deeper into this topic, reading through the article, and discussing the implications of such theories both scientifically and theologically. I explore whether invoking divine intervention in this way is consistent with a scientific approach to questions about the natural world. Additionally, I examine the broader implications for young Earth creationism if such supernatural explanations were to become more mainstream within their community.
So, whether you’re a creationist, a person of faith, a science enthusiast, or just curious about different viewpoints on the origins and distribution of living things on Earth, my discussion aims to provide some perspectives for the understanding of the complexities involved in such theories.
Naturalis Historia 
OK, but why would God send some marsupials back to Australia, and others to South America (nobody ever seems to know about those)
And why no terrestrial mammals in that land that’s now a mammal haven, New Zealand?
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Years ago I wrote an article addressing the problem of Australian marsupials, and the many lame YEC explanations for it, which ranged from far-fetched to absurd. http://paleo.cc/ce/marsupials.htm. Since they have no plausible explanation for the ‘marsupial problem,’ perhaps it’s not surprising that some YECS resort to miracles, just as they long ago when some suggested God directly placed fossils in the rocks, or more recently,when ICR RATE project (on radiometric dating) authors invoked multiple ad-hoc miracles (I think they called them providential events) to explain the data (even tho it still left major problems). Indeed, as I discuss in an article at: http://paleo.cc/ce/RATE-project.htm, after years of “study” the RATE authors that the amount and distribution radioactive decay recorded in the rock record strongly contradicts a young-earth time-table. However, instead facing the music and abandoning or even questioning young-earthism, they invoked multiple ad-hoc miracles … suggesting that God vastly accelerated radioactive decay (exactly when they could not say) and then did one or more miracles to protect the earth from the massive global radiation and lethal heat the acceleration would cause. Of course, they did explain why God would do such miracles, with no apparent benefit, only to have the Earth look old. Despite all these problems, they had the audacity to declare their RATE project a “success.” Of course, this kind of approach removes any pretense of science from “scientific creationism.”
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Check out the genetics of marsupials of Australia and S-America. Evolutionism has the same problems as creationism.
These problems are solved in my book: https://www.amazon.de/Darwin-Revisited-understand-biology-century/dp/6202315113
Did anybody read it, in the meantime?
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I love the video! It’s very strange that God would *specifically* want marsupials to live in Australia, and do all that work to make sure they went there and nowhere else- and then it follows that God *wanted* the dinosaurs to go extinct, which also doesn’t make sense- why save the dinosaurs on the ark and then immediately let them die after?
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Such an excellent exposition! I especially liked the somewhat subtle pointing out of how young earth creationists (and even some old earth creationists, I suppose) try so very hard to incorporate natural explanations into their theories right up until they can’t make that work anymore and then fall back into the zillions of tiny miracles idea. Just go whole hog and claim that God did it all. I suppose they think that incorporating some elements of science bolsters their reputation in some way.
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