ChristiansUnite Forums

Brothers and Sisters,

I am very happy to announce that Bronzesnake has offered to post a major study on Biblical Creation vs. Evolution. Our Brother John has spent a great deal of time on this issue for many years.

PLEASE - this is not an invitation to argue or debate against Biblical Creation - Just the opposite. Evolution is taught in our public schools and Almighty God is banned. Here, Brother John will be giving the Biblical account of God's Creation and debunking evolution. There won't be any debate or argument about the points Brother John makes. In other words, Christians Unite will be the opposite of our public schools.

Evolution is a banned topic on Christians Unite and will remain so. Biblical Creation has never been banned here and never will be. Brother John has been invited to take evolution apart, debunk it, and clearly show why evolution will never be anything but a theory, a bad one at that. Evolution remains an unopposed topic in our public schools, and the opposite will be true here.

Christian parents, I hope you will direct your children to Christians Unite to hear the truth about evolution. Brother John is doing a web site at the same time. Please follow this study carefully and make sure that your children can finally study what isn't allowed in public schools. Our children are being taught unopposed lies in school, and the truth will be taught here and on Brother John's web site. His web site is excellent, and I highly recommend that you bookmark it now as one of your favorites. Please check it often because vast amounts of new material is being added almost daily.


http://www.fifthday.2ya.com/ (http://www.fifthday.2ya.com/)

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Brother John for years of hard work on this issue and offering to make it available on Christians Unite. Some of the older users will remember a time when Christians Unite had a Creation vs. Evolution area on the forum. That area was finally removed for many reasons. Brother John posted many excellent articles there that gave all Glory, Honor, and Praise to Almighty God, not evolutionists. I pray that God will guide and direct our Brother John again in presenting the  TRUTH, BIBLICAL CREATION!

Love In Christ,
Tom

2 Timothy 4:2-4  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Brothers and Sisters,

It make me very happy to see great interest in Brother John's study. There are already many views, and the beginning material has only been up for several hours.

Please stay tuned and watch for additions. It will take Brother John several days to get this thread going good. What we have now is just a start, and this will obviously be a lot of work for Brother John.

I anticipate this study will grow very large and involve years of work by our Brother John. If you get a chance, thank him and encourage him here or by private mail.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 Thessalonians 2:2-4  But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile: But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.

Brothers and Sisters,

Please follow along with an ever growing case for Biblical Creation vs. Evolution.

Our Brother John has worked long and hard on this topic, and his posts under In The Beginning are excellent.

Christian parents, do your children a favor by copying this material and teaching it to your children. They've been taught a pack of lies in school, and the truth of Biblical Creation has been banned. Please, be an instrument and let your children finally hear the truth.

I would like to take this opportunity to again thank our Brother John for years of work and sharing it with us.

A few excerpts to peak your interest:




Brothers and Sisters, evolution is falling apart before our very eyes. Evolution is being dismantled in the scientific community also. The truth of Biblical Creation is going to be a bitter pill to swallow for some of the most proud and egotistical evolutionists, but they might as well get something to wash that pill down with.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 24:3  Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established:

I really enjoyed reading the site and I believe the author has made excellent points on the whole Evoultion thing. I have really wanted to know some different well thought views on that subjet for a while..thanks.

Faithinhand,

Bronzesnake is recovering from an illness right now, but you should see some more work later. He has worked on this subject for years and makes evolution a myth, both Biblically and scientifically. Many recent discoveries are even convincing the scientific community, so it will only be a matter of time before the theory of evolution is debunked completely and becomes just another hoax.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Romans 10:9  That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

please visit my website  and go under creation vs. evolutions, to see what I feel about the topic, and maybe it will give you some insight as well.

Thanks Brother!

First, WELCOME TO CHRISTIANS UNITE!


I will definitely go back when I have more time to read and study. I will pray that God uses your web site for HIS Glory. It is my opinion that evolution is on the way down the tubes as a bad joke that should never have been taught in our schools. What irks me the most is why many embraced it in the first place - anything against Almighty God as being the CREATOR would have made them happy.

Brother, I sincerely hope that you enjoy the Christian fellowship here.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Revelation 3:20  Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Tom,
Thank you for the warm welcome, and yes so far I am enjoying it, and having fun learning, and teaching at the same time.  I will talk to you later, and thanks again for the warm welcome.

God bless you,
Walter

 Thanks Tom.

 I am at it again, and I will be presenting "The Flood" as soon as it's complete. This is a very involved study, and I want to make it easy to read and informative at the same time. Sounds simple right? It's actually the most difficult subject in the evolution vs creation debate that I have encountered so far.

Bronzesnake,

Brother John, I'm looking forward to it. The "Flood" should be a fascinating topic. I've read many articles that claim the flood could never have happened in the way that the Holy Bible describes it. So, what's new about some scientists either denying the existence of God or trying to define His Power.

It is very foolish to use the laws of nature that God created to say that God could or could not do certain things because of those laws.

I'm reflecting on many areas of confusion for scientists that just might be answered by the "Flood". But, we must remember that the "Flood" described in the Holy Bible could NOT have happened. AND, Noah's Ark was just another fairy tale.  :D  On the other side of the coin, there are many scientists now who have many excellent reasons to believe that the "Flood" described in the Bible DID happen. Further, the story of Noah's Ark was a documentary of history.

It's not ironic that new discoveries every day result in more and more scientists accepting Christ and knowing that Almighty God is THE CREATOR!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Creationist Condemns Catholic Cardinal's Compromise on Evolution

by Jim Brown
July 14, 2005

(AgapePress) - Washington, DC's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick says Roman Catholics do not have to believe in the biblical account of creation. He recently told reporters at the National Press Club that, instead of the Bible's account of God creating Adam and Eve, Catholics can believe in evolution -- as long as they agree that God was involved.

McCarrick says a contemporary Catholic "need not say that creationism is the only answer -- that in six days or seven days, God made the world." That, he contends, is only "the beautiful story of Genesis." But Ken Ham of the creation apologetics group Answers in Genesis says Catholics need to think through the consequences of such a statement as the one the DC Cardinal suggests.

"If you're going to believe in evolution," Ham asserts, "and say that God took an ape man and made a soul to make Adam, and God took an ape woman and made a soul to make Eve, then the woman came from an ape woman. She didn't come from Adam. And if the woman didn't come from Adam's side, then you've got a major problem."

By accepting this idea that evolution accounts for the origin of man, the creation scientist says, "You've just destroyed the whole basis of marriage, the whole basis of oneness in marriage and even Christ's relationship to the Church, which is based upon the doctrine of marriage -- the church being the bride of Christ."

McCarrick claims this concept of "theistic evolution" -- accepting Darwin's evolutionary theory as truth but understanding the process as having been guided by God -- was the view of the late Pope John Paul. That view of origins was echoed last week by a leading European cardinal as well.

But Ham believes the Roman Catholic Church's embrace of theistic evolution is a direct assault against scripture. Unfortunately, he says, the Catholic Church is telling the next generation that it is okay to use man's ideas to reinterpret the Word of God.

"The issue about believing in millions of years and evolution undermines biblical authority," the AIG spokesman says. "That's the real issue -- using man's fallible ideas to say the Bible is not the absolute authority. And that's the problem with much of the Church, and the problem you find in the Catholic Church, where the Bible is really not the ultimate authority. It's really the Church [that is considered] the ultimate authority."

Ham insists that any person of faith who does not believe in literal, biblical creation as described in Genesis will have a serious problem, because he says the truth found there is foundation to every single biblical doctrine of theology.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion03010.shtml

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

Oh, that's hideous.  The catholics need to get McCarrick out of there.  You know, the enemy comes from within sometimes.  How do we know what McCarrick says is true?  Who's McCarrick that he can say catholics can believe this way?  He's not the authority of the catholic church.  Better believe this will get some publicity on the TV talk shows. Maybe O'Reilly or Hannity and Colmes.  Humm.  I'm sure one big bunch of catholics will not like this at all.  The pope isn't here to defend himself so I don't know what his belief was.  People lie.  If this was his belief, then I'm absolutely appalled. I really would like to hear the catholic rebuttal on this.  Oh, it will be interesting.

In my opinion this is how problems begin.  One person saying something is true when it isn't, and then gossip gets around until everyone believes it.  Not all catholics love God and not all protestants love God either.

It is my understanding that the catholic church is the authority because it is the catholic church who interprets the bible for the faithful.  In a way, itsure beats personal interpretation.  Don't hit me over the head now guys for saying that.

Whether it is the church or it is the individual does not matter it usually comes out the same as it can be man using his own understanding to "interpret" the meaning of the Bible. This is where man fails and so many different intrepretations of the written word and different doctrines comes from.



2Pe 1:20  Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.
2Pe 1:21  For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.




Only with the Bible IF I were to do so.   ;) ;D

Whew.............now I can get up.  My back was beginning to kill me. ;D

Ref. interpretation of the bible.  What I was thinking and probably should have said was this.  If there weren't so many "people" interpretations of the bible, we wouldn't have so many different denominations.  This is how they all got started.................disagreements on what the bible said. If one chooses to be catholic, then that one chooses (they are supposed to, many do not, they're catholics in name only)to believe in how the c. church interprets the bible.  I guess one could say that the catholic church becomes the authoritarian interpreter of the bible, hence "the authority."  Anyway this is my understanding of it.

PR.........thou shalt not hit me, (if ye chose to do so) even with the bible. ;D ;)  God will get ya! ;D

I'm loggin out............gotta go get some grub!

Later..............

Not if I do so in words only. I stay safe that way.  :D :D ;D ;D

 :D  Now I feel safer. If we were about to start hitting each other over the head with Bibles, I have one over 200 years old with leather-bound covers almost 1/2 inch thick. I think it weighs about 40 pounds. Now that I think about it, someone else might have something on stone tablets, so we're better off using just words.  ;D

By the way, I can't remember what translation that old family Bible is. I just know that it's a beautiful work of art.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 150:6  Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

Not if I do so in words only. I stay safe that way.  :D :D ;D ;D



 :D  Now I feel safer.  Now that I think about it, someone else might have something on stone tablets ;D

Tom


ROFL.........stone tablets!  Oh my!  Maybe he'll send in lions and tigers and bears, too.  Oh my!  Vain imaginations.  Oh my!  Just look at what you've done PR! ;D  Like words are nothin'. Humph!  


 

The Words Of God are more powerful........

I found this article at PROBE Ministries about Pope JP2's view on evolution, for whatever it's worth to anyone.

http://www.probe.org/content/view/642/134/


 

Creationists Explain Dinosaurs, Ice Age, Flood, Big Bang
2,000 creationists gathered for the nation's premier Creationism conference from July 15-22.

Thursday, Jul. 21, 2005 Posted: 11:05:22AM EST

More than 2,000 Christians and supporters of creationism gathered for the nation's premier Creationism conference.

 The 2005 Creation Mega-Conference, slated from Jul. 17 to 22 in Lynchburg, Va. tackled several prominent issues facing the creation/evolution debate, such as the dinosaurs, the flood and Big Bang theory.

The six-day conference opened with a performance by Buddy Davis - a Dinosaur sculptor, author/speaker, and musician, whose keynote presentations clarified the creationist's take on issues such as the age of the earth and fossils.

David Dewitt, Director of the Center for Creation Studies and associate professor of Biology explained in a nutshell, "We believe that Adam and Eve were real people and that God created everything in six 24-hour days."

In "Rocks Around the Clock: The Eons That Never Were," Geologist Dr. Emil Silvestru rejectedmthe notion that the earth had existed for millions of years, and instead offered a six thousand year chronology: Creation, six days, Lost World, 1700 years, no big mountains, no plate tectonics, Flood, 370 days, creation of high mountains, deep oceans, sedimentary rocks, plate tectonics form continents, Ice Age, 1000 years, and Post Ice Age, 3000 years.

Flood hydrology is a belief that the flood covered the entire earth.

Dinosaurs were also explained. According to John Whitcomb, co-author of the seminal creationist book, The Genesis Flood (1961), Noah's ark carried 1,000 different kinds of dinosaurs as well as all of the other species, and the book has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in English.

Considered the father of modern creationism, Whitcomb is critical of those who accept progressive creationism or intelligent design.

The intelligent design movement tries to defeat evolution without any reference to the Bible or the Creator of the World, he said.

"Are people believing in Christ their Lord and Savior as a result of hearing the message of intelligent design scholars?" he asked.

Ken Ham, president of AiG, rejects the Big Bang because Genesis explains God created the waters and Earth on the third day, and the sun, moon and stars on the fourth day.

In his talk "What's the Best Evidence that God Created," Carl Kerby said, "You should allow the Word of God to drive your understanding of the evidence."

According to one assessment, at the root of the creationist argument is the concern that evolution undermines moral beliefs, leading to lawlessness, family breakdown, homosexuality, pornography, and abortion.

If evolution is true, said Philip Bell in his talk, and we are descended from ape-like animals with no morality, no aesthetic sensibility and no soul," then "you would have no purpose for your existence."

"If we don't understand the young earth and how God created it in six 24-hour days, then our values are skewed, said the Reverend Jerry Falwell, and he is hopeful that "The biblical account is the believable one. The creation debate is being won."

Talks today will include, "Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble" and "Fossils, the Flood and the Age of the Earth."

Almighty God created the Heavens and the Earth exactly as described in Genesis!

Pastor Roger, I really wonder about how many people have never read the truth about creation. I feel led to post it brother, so I will.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Hebrews 13:15-16 ASV  Through him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to his name.  But to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.

Evolutionist Admits False Assertions Against Critic of Darwin's Theories

by By Jim Brown
August 1, 2005

(AgapePress) - The head of a pro-evolution think tank has issued a retraction for factual misstatements and false allegations she made in an article attacking a California man who wants the scientific weaknesses of Darwin's theory of evolution taught in public school science classes.

In her retraction, director Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) conceded that she wrongly accused Roseville attorney Larry Caldwell of submitting two books on young-Earth creation to the local school board for adoption -- one of which was published by the Jehovah's Witnesses. Scott also admits to erroneously claiming that a science expert found Caldwell to have "a gross misunderstanding of the nature of science."

Scott's retraction comes after Caldwell filed a libel lawsuit against the director and against the NCSE over the recent article she wrote, which was published in California Wild: the Magazine of the California Academy of Sciences, and which contained the false statements at the heart of the lawsuit. Caldwell says he was gratified to learn that the California Academy of Sciences was willing to publish the retraction. He feels even pro-evolution scientists must realize that the integrity of their position is at stake when false allegations and misinformation take the place of fair, rational, and well-informed debate.

As the target of Scott's error-filled article, the California attorney says he hopes the settlement of his libel suit against her will change the way the pro-Darwin crowd approaches the controversy over evolution and science education. "When the Darwinists aren't sticking to the truth in public debates," he says, "it's causing people to start to question the claims they're making about evolution in the classroom."

What Caldwell is hoping, he adds, is that the proponents of Darwin's theories will realize the need to stick to the truth. That is essential, he says, "because this debate over how we teach evolution in public biology classes is just way too important to have it decided on the basis of false statements and what I call 'science fiction.'"

While some critics have suggested that evolution science advocates try to shut down debate over alternate theories by discrediting their proponents, that tactic has apparently not worked in Caldwell's case. Ironically, the Roseville man points out, Dr. Scott has credited his libel suit with sparking an "absolute explosion" of evolution debates around the country.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion03092.shtml

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

criss quote...


 The Catholic Church was taken over by the Illuminati years ago. The leaders in that Church do not believe the Bible literally. I won't go into any exhaustive details - it's very complex, but it is true my friends.

 This is not to say all Catholics are non-believers. I know many Catholics; my sister in law is one, as is my niece, both of whom I love very much. They are faithful Bible believing Christians. There are many Catholics here on C.U. who are faithful, Bible believing Christians. The leaders are politically motivated, and very powerful. Pope John Paul II was not a part of this underground group. The truth of the matter is that the Popes aren't actually in control, and some of them have been murdered for not playing along, and this is in the not so far off past my friends. So when I hear statements such as "we don't have to take creation literal" I am not at all surprised.

Hey there Bronze,

I didn't know this.  This is the first time I've heard about it.  Where did you get this info or maybe I should say, where can I get some more info on this?  Very interesting indeed.  Talk about the enemy coming from within!  Guess I better add the catholic church to my already long daily prayer list.  If I disappear from CU you'll know what I'm doing. ;) :)  Seems as if I'm a little longer in prayer everyday.  For this very reason, some mornings I put off prayer for "just a few more minutes" because I know how long it takes.  Once I'm in prayer though, I just seem transported into God's presence and really don't want to end those prayers.  Anyone else like this?

Yes,My wife and I can easilt spend an hour in passionate prayer,and we stop just because we need physical rest,from it.Then we are at it again.It goes in waves,sometimes not as often,and other times a couple times a day.

Back to creation the winner,and Evolution the aleady looser.
*******
Copyright May 18, 2005 2:55 AM CST
By Dr. Michael J. Bisconti
 
Now that the Theory of Evolution has been disproven, why is it still taught in our schools?  Here are ten reasons:

1.      Many schools and school systems haven’t learned that the Theory of Evolution has been disproven.

2.      Many biology teachers and other teachers of evolution haven’t learned that the Theory of Evolution has been disproven.

3.      Many biology teachers and other teachers of evolution are unwilling to face reality.

4.      Many evolutionists are afraid that religion will take over the schools and school systems.

5.      Evolutionist lecturers and writers would stop earning the more than $1 billion they earn every year by preaching evolution.

6.      Biology textbook publishers would have to spend $3 billion rewriting the biology textbooks.

7.      Schools, colleges, and universities would lose $10 billion in government grants provided for the purpose of advancing the Theory of Evolution.

8.      Over one hundred thousand evolutionary biologists and other scientists would be humiliated before the eyes of the entire world.

9.      A number of evolutionary biologists and other scientists would have to admit to lies, evasions, and incompetence in their research.

10.  Evolutionary biologists would finally have to acknowledge the superiority of Physics over Biology in answering one of the great questions of life – the origin of life.
*******

Relentless for Christ Jesus and his words,
PeterAV
Thy word is truth.
John17:17

 

Both Evolution and Creationism should not be taught in the classroom.
Hows that for a wrinkle!
Check it out.
*******

Copyright May 23, 2005 6:58 AM CST
By Dr. Michael J. Bisconti
 
Updated May 28, 2005 3:46 AM CST
Copyright May 28, 2005 3:46 AM CST
By Dr. Michael J. Bisconti

God says no to both evolution and creationism in science classes!  Why?  Each is a mixture of faith and science.  Evolution involves faith in natural forces.  Creationism involves faith in natural forces and in God.  In each case, faith is involved.  When we remove the faith element from evolution we are left with science.  When we remove the faith element from creationism we are left with science.  The science extracted from evolution is identical to the science extracted from creationism.  It is this science that must be taught in science classes.

Furthermore, currently, both evolution and creationism are uninformed to a degree with regard to what constitutes science.  This is where physics (especially, the Unified Field Theory) comes in.  Very simply, matter does not move about aimlessly.  Matter follows a plan.  Matter follows a certain path.  Electrons orbit the nuclei of atoms.  They don’t decide one day to just get up and leave and go to another atom.  Physical objects on the surface of the earth stay on the surface of the earth.  They don’t just decide one day to go flying off into outer space.  Magnets stick to iron.  They don’t just decide one day to stick to wood or plastic.  Science is, fundamentally, the description of matter and of the observed behavior of matter.

For centuries, of course, the human race has been led to believe that science includes a description of the agents (things that act) that move matter.  This is false.  Once you begin to talk about the agents that move matter, believed to be God or natural forces or magical elves, you have left the realm of science and entered the realm of “scientific belief.”  (Make no mistake…we believe in both God and in natural forces.)  Scientific belief is not science.  Evolutionists have one scientific belief, creationists have another.  All science can say is that there are “unknown agents” that move matter.  Science does not include the knowledge of the nature of these agents but it does include the knowledge of the existence and behavior of these agents.

There is much more we have to say on the subject of the “agents that move matter” but we will have to save that for another time.  We must point out that human beings have an instinct that drives them to pursue both science and scientific belief.  You cannot avoid pursuing science.  You cannot avoid pursuing scientific belief.  If you decide to ignore both science and scientific belief, then, in effect, science and scientific belief will pursue you.  In the end, you cannot help but possess both science and scientific belief.

We recommend that schools start teaching a new subject called “Scientific Fideism.”  “Fideism” is pronounced “fee-day-i-zum.”  A course in Scientific Fideism is a course in scientific belief.  In such a class, both evolution and creationism can be presented as possible explanations of the “agents that move matter” in the biological realm.  Of course, from a scientific perspective, creationism is far, far more probable than evolution and our personal belief is in creationism.
*******

Relentless for Crist Jesus and his pure words,
PeterAV
Thy word is truth.
John17:17

 

Brothers and Sisters,

I don't think that evolution should be taught at all in school. I would view it like many other topics that should not be forced on our children (i.e. acceptance of alternative lifestyles).

Some of the controversial topics have opt out provisions for parents these days, but I don't think this is good enough. As a compromise, let the parents have an opt in if they want all this garbage taught to their children. In terms of creation as part of the mandatory curriculum, let it be the truth of Genesis or none at all.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 Corinthians 1:30-31 ASV  But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption:  that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Brothers and Sisters,

WOW! - The latest additions to the "In The Beginning" thread by Bronzesnake are fascinating. Read them carefully and many questions will be answered.

The Great Flood in the time of Noah is not a myth, and I found it fascinating to look at the effects of such a flood and other events. Scientists have spent hundreds of years to develop theories about what God's Word can explain in minutes. There is no irony that more of the Holy Bible is shown to be ABSOLUTE TRUTH by the minute, and the opposite is true for the theory of evolution.

The theory of evolution is an embarrassment to the scientific community, and it is literally falling apart before our eyes as garbage. Please let me remind readers that there is NO invitation to debate the theory of evolution here. The theory of evolution contradicts the Holy Bible and isn't permitted here. It makes me sad to know that the reverse is true in our schools.

Bronzesnake, thanks for some more fascinating information to study and digest. I also appreciate you explaining things in a way that plain folks like me can understand.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Genesis 1:1-3 NASB  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.  Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.

Thankee Tom.  :D

I have a real passion on my heart from Jesus for this stuff.
I explain it the way I understand it.

There are two other possibilities that are posed by creation scientists. One is that there are asteroids of ice and that we had a swarm of them hit the earth all at once. This is possible as our scientists have seend evidence of a few of these today.

There is another one that is more recent. The Bible tells us that in the early days of the earth that a mist arose from the earth (Gen 2:6). One scientists believes that this condition was because of a sort of hydrogen bubble surrounding the earth. Through experiments he created such a condition. In his experiments the condition created an atmosphere that was higher in oxygen and prevented fewer harmful rays from passing through to the surface. In this condition things grew bigger and lived longer.

If this bubble were to burst (Gen 7:11 ...and the windows of heaven were opened.) the hydrogen mixing with the very high atmosphere of oxygen and guess what you have ......

It would indeed appear as if the windows of heaven were opened.

What could possibly break such a hydrogen bubble? Perhaps an asteroid shower. Without the protection of this bubble life would be shorter.

Add all this to what you have presented already and you have a major worldwide event, enough water to cover the entire earth in 40 days.

Yes Pastor Roger, I believe there were several devestating catastrophies which culminated to cause all the geological damage, such as canyons, deep ocean trenches, and the continental drift, which resulted in a massive flood which reached above the tallest mountain tops.

There is no missing link or proof of evolution, it is a myth unfortunatly taught to our kids in school. If there is proof, show it to me.
Baddog

Hello Baddog,

I see this is your first post, so WELCOME!!


I agree with you completely. Evolution is literally falling apart now, and it will be viewed for what it is, a complete fraud. Take a look at the "In The Beginning Thread" in this same area for some really interesting information on this topic.

I sincerely hope that you enjoy Christians Unite.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Proverbs 2:6 NASB  For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Intelligent Design Proponent Optimistic About Current Worldview Shift

by Jim Brown
August 23, 2005

(AgapePress) - The head of a biblical creationism museum sees a major worldview shift on the academic level from neo-Darwinism to intelligent design.

The debate over evolution vs. intelligent design is as hot as it has ever been, and one creation scientist believes now is the perfect time for Christians to enlighten the culture about their belief in God's creative work recorded in the Book of Genesis. Dr. Thomas Sharp, founder of both the Oklahoma-based Creation Truth Foundation and the Arkansas-based Museum of Earth History, cautions that all intelligent design theorists are not biblical.

"The biblical view is that we don't hesitate to identify who the intelligence is," he explains. "[But] the unfortunate problem with intelligent design across the board is that it's not all biblical."

Still, intelligent design provides an "incredible support base for the biblical view," he explains, "because obviously the wisdom and super-intelligence of the Almighty God was the logos, or the concept, behind the creation of life and everything in the universe."

Sharp contends that if Christians in America are able to "step up" and answer the questions about the hope that is within them, a spiritual awakening could occur in the United States.

"We have the possibility in the near future, if the church in America can prepare herself and will engage the culture with biblical reality, that we can have an awakening in this country," he asserts, "because we're seeing a transition in worldview at the academic level. There's a great shift taking place from Darwinism to intelligent design."

A young Earth creationist, Sharp is at odds with intelligent design theorists who believe the Earth is millions of years old. Despite that, he says intelligent design is a prediction from the biblical creation model that life, universe, and man are products of intelligent design.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion03207.shtml

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

(My Note:  I realize this is not ideal, but we are seeing the theory of evolution fall apart before our very eyes. YES!!! - this is a great opportunity for every Christian to talk about the real truth. The teachers might not be able to tell the whole truth for some time, but we can.)

Alternative Views to Evolution Gaining Public Support

by Jim Brown
September 6, 2005

(AgapePress) - The head of a creation apologetics ministry is reacting to a new public opinion poll regarding the origin of life.

A poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found about half the public says that humans and other living things have evolved over time, while 42 percent say that living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. Answers in Genesis CEO Ken Ham believes the survey question was probably not detailed enough because creationists like himself do believe that living things have changed over time.

Regardless, Ham says he is not surprised that such a large number of people believe in creationist views. "The creation movement has over the years put out a lot of information," Ham offers. "I think a lot more people are becoming aware of the arguments and the information in books and DVDs and through websites like Answers In Genesis and so on -- and I believe a lot more people are educated on this issue."

The poll also found that just 6 percent of parents with children in school say their child has mentioned feeling uncomfortable when the subject of evolution comes up at school. "There's a lot more people out there who hold to creationist views than what the elite secular humanists have been really letting on," Ham points out.

In fact, the poll found that 64 percent of Americans say they are open to the idea of teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools. And 38 percent favor replacing evolution with creationism in public school curricula. Ham contends that most people realize education involves looking at alternative views.

"If the evolutionists are so convinced that evolution is true, why would they even be worried about including creationist views?" the apologist wonders -- then answers his own question: "Because then they could be looked at carefully; and if they're obviously not true from their perspective, then science should show that -- which, of course, it doesn't."

Ham offers this observation. "I think what's really happened is, a lot of the elite secular humanists who really have an atheistic agenda have really taken over the education system," he says. "But the majority of people are quite willing to consider all views -- and that includes the secularists as well as the Christians."

Ham notes that many secularists approve the teaching of creationism in public school social science classes, but not in science class.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion03274.shtml

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

‘Instant’ stalagmites!

by Don Batten

The photo records a large stalagmite shawl. A shawl is a limestone formation which has formed by running down the rock, rather than being free-standing like stalactites (which ‘stick tight’ because they hang from the roof) or stalagmites (which grow up from the ground).

Guides to limestone caves usually say that such large lumps of limestone take many thousands—even millions—of years to grow. However, this specimen was found in an abandoned gold mine tunnel near Burrendong Dam in central New South Wales, Australia. This is not far from Stuart Town, the town of ‘The Man from Iron Bark’ in A.B. (‘Banjo’) Paterson’s poem by the same name.

The Australian gold rushes began not far from here at Ophir in 1851, so the tunnel dates after that. Since the tunnel cuts through solid basalt rock, it was probably blasted out with a considerable amount of explosives. Such engineering feats were not undertaken by the average gold rush fossicker and so this tunnel almost certainly dates from considerably later than 1851. In any case, the tunnel and the shawl can be no older than about 140 years.

The horizontal tunnel is about 1.6 metres (about 5 feet) high and runs 50 metres (160 feet) straight into a hill. There are no side-tunnels, so the exploratory tunnel apparently failed to reveal any worthwhile gold-bearing veins. The shawl in the photo is near the inside end of the tunnel—in the middle of the hill.

The lesson? Stalactites and stalagmites do not need a long time to form!

Scientific proof that the birds from dinosaur theory is false.


_________________________


Local Scientist Disputes Dinosaur-Bird Link

Sunday Times (Johannesburg)
NEWS
November 20, 2005
Posted to the web November 21, 2005

By Brett Horner
Johannesburg

A DURBAN scientist who buried a dolphin and exhumed it a year later to experiment with its carcass has used the exercise to challenge the theory that birds are direct descendants of dinosaurs.

Professor Theagarten Lingham-Soliar, a palaeontologist at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and two other scientists -- Professor Alan Feduccia of the University of North Carolina and Dr J Richard Hinchliffe from the University of Wales -- dismissed the long-held theories of a direct evolutionary link between birds and dinosaurs in a paper published in the US Journal of Morphology last month.

Lingham-Soliar examined the fossils of two dinosaurs, Sinosauropteryx and Sinornithosaurus, that were discovered in China in 1996 and 2001.

The chicken-sized specimens, which appeared to contain traces of "feathers", were immediately latched onto by scientists as the ultimate proof that birds came from dinosaurs.

But this week Lingham-Soliar labelled the original studies of the Chinese fossils as "shabby" and "distorted".

He said the skin decomposition of the dolphin he had buried and later exhumed was strikingly similar to the "feather" patterns of the fossils and other reptiles he studied.

"The object was to see what happened to collagen upon decomposition. I didn't know what to expect," he said.

His conclusions that the "feathers" identified on the Chinese fossils were instead meshworks of collagen, have deeply divided the palaeontological community.

Avian palaeontology has split into two factions: the Birds Are Dinosaurs (BAD) camp and the Birds Are Not Dinosaurs (BAND) brigade.

Feduccia, Lingham-Soliar's co-author, said their research had created a "buzz" among biologists in the US, particularly due to the contribution made by Lingham-Soliar.

Dr Mark Norell, curator of palaeontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is one of the biggest critics of BAND and has dismissed Lingham-Soliar's work on collagen fibres in his most recent book on the Chinese fossils.

Three Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher about Evolution

Worldview with Sean McDowell

 

          High school biology textbooks are riddled with errors, misstatements, and exaggerations about evolution.  This may come as a surprise to you, especially since evolution is taught a fact in most public schools.  But, believe it or not, there is much more to the issue of evolution than is included in the pages of most high school biology textbooks.  In fact, when all the facts are considered, and despite all appearances to the contrary, evolution is a theory in crisis.  Let me explain.

            As a high school student in the late 1950’s Jonathan Wells was steeped in the theory of evolution.  Even though he had grown up in a Christian home Jonathan abandoned his faith when he went off to college.  He credits the theory of evolution as playing a major role in his decision to become an atheist.  According to Jonathan, “The evolutionary story simply replaced the religious imagery I had grown up with.”[1]   Jonathan continued his education by earning two college degrees and two doctorate degrees, but all the while he continued to assume evolution was true.  After all, that’s what everybody was teaching him.  But when he began to look at evolution critically, he came to an entirely different conclusion.

            In 2000 Jonathan Wells recorded his findings on evolution in a book called Icons of Evolution[2].  In Icons, Wells demolishes the most common examples used as support for the theory of evolution.  When I picked up a copy of his book, it was his subtitle that most piqued my interest: Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution is Wrong.  In his book, Wells lists 10 examples of why evolution is wrong.  Let’s briefly consider three of his examples.  There is a good chance you will find one of the following examples in your current biology textbook.

THE MILLER-UREY EXPERIMENT

            In 1953 Stanley Miller used a laboratory apparatus to artificially produce amino acids—the building blocks of life.  In his experiment Miller simulated the early conditions of life on earth, shot an electric current through it, and “bam” out came amino acids.  If this was true, then God was out of a job. For if man can create life from non-life, then why would we need God?  Although his experiment was heralded as a significant breakthrough (and still appears in most biology textbooks today), it has major flaws.

First, there is no existence that the pre-biotic soup (warm little ponds) ever even existed!  Second, geological evidence indicates that the early atmosphere would have been very hostile, not friendly, to the production of life.  Even if an amino acid was produced it could not have survived.  Third, the amino acids produced by Miller were not even the types of amino acids that have any relevance to living cells. Even Miller, forty years after his famous experiment conceded in Scientific American: “The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be much more difficult than I, and most other people, envisioned.”[3] When the rubber hits the road, evolutionists simply have no idea how life could have emerged from non-life.

DARWIN’S TREE OF LIFE

            Probably the most well known example used to teach evolution is Darwin’s tree of life.  Textbooks are full of the illustration of how all living creatures are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived millions of years ago.  The simple tree-like structure is meant to illustrate how creatures “evolve” over time and eventually account for all the complexity and diversity in the circle of life.  But does the evidence of geology support such a claim?

Interestingly, even Darwin was aware of how his own theory was at odds with the facts.  He observed in The Origin of Species, “Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory.”[4]  Since the time of Darwin, the evidence has been even more disparaging for his theory.

According to Darwin’s theory, the geological record should be full of species that are slowly increasing in complexity over time.  Since evolution relies on time, chance, and incremental steps, sudden leaps are not possible.  But this is exactly what the fossil record shows, which directly contradicts the theory of evolution! (Note: I assume old-earth dating for the sake of argument—even if we accept an old earth evolution is still false!)

In the Cambrian Explosion (which is dated by scientists to 530 million years ago), all the major body plans for animals show up in a geological instant without any trace of less complex ancestors.  Rather than emerging in a step-by-step fashion, as predicted by evolutionary theory, the most complex animals show up virtually overnight (which is why the Cambrian Explosion is also called “The Biological Big Bang”).  The Cambrian explosion occurred within an exceedingly narrow window of geologic time, lasting no more than 5 million years.  Compared with the 3-plus-billion-year history of life on earth, the period of the explosion is less than one minute in a 24-hour-day.  In comparison, this is less than one stride across an entire football field.  Rather than life evolving over a long period of life on earth as Darwin surmised, it actually appeared in a very short time span.  Darwins’ tree of life is a myth.

FROM APE TO HUMAN                    

            Probably the most common example used to support evolution is the idea that humans evolved from apes.  The pictures of a knuckle-walking ape evolving through a series of stages into an upright human being are included in virtually all biology textbooks.  And the fossils fill the halls of museums.  Yet the evidence, as in the case of the other supposed evidences for evolution, is not as straightforward as it appears.

            The first problem with the fossil record is that interpretations are greatly influenced by personal beliefs and prejudices.  Scientists often begin with the conviction that human evolution is true and then fit the existing fossils into their preconceived ideas.  This is illustrated in the famous example of the “Piltdown Man.”  In 1912 paleontologist Charles Dawson found some pieces of a human skull and part of an ape-like lower jaw with no teeth in a gravel pit in England.  Since scientists had supposed that an earlier ancestor would have a large brain and an ape-like jaw, it was assumed to be the “missing link.”  Since “Piltdown Man” fit the description so accurately, no one checked to see if the skull and jaw fragments even belonged to the same individual.  Later findings demonstrated that the skull was human and the jaw fragments belonged to an orangutan.  In fact, the jaw had been chemically treated to make it look like a fossil and the teeth had been deliberately filed down.

            The second problem is that the fossil record is open to many interpretations as individual specimens can be reconstructed in many different ways.  For example, when National Geographic hired four artists to reconstruct a female character from seven fossil bones found in Africa, they came up with radically different interpretations.  The reconstructions varied from a modern African woman to apelike creatures with varied foreheads, jaws and faces.  Even though the artists had the exact same fossils they interpreted them in completely different ways.

CONCLUSION

            The case for evolution is greatly overstated.  Nevertheless, most biology textbooks have errors, misstatements, and biased data about evolution.  In sum, here are three questions to ask your biology teacher or anyone else who may believe in the theory of evolution:[5]

1.      Origin of Life: Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth -- when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?

2.      Darwin’s Tree of Life Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed instead of branching from a common ancestor -- thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?

3.      Human Origins. Why are artists' drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident -- when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?

 

AMEN PASTOR ROGER!!

Great Post!!

I give thanks that the TRUTH about the garbage theory of evolution can be and is given here.

Biblical Creation, the ONLY TRUTH, is banned in public schools, and the promotion of the garbage theory of evolution is banned here. I also give thanks there are many places where the TRUTH is the ONLY thing permitted and the Darwin garbage is where it belongs - IN THE TRASH!

A host of scientific conclusions are being made by the day now that the theory of evolution is completely false and garbage. The theory of evolution really boils down to one simple thing:  it was garbage used to discount and discredit the ONLY TRUTH given by the Holy Bible.

The CREATOR is ALMIGHTY GOD, and the perfect and undisputed TRUTH of CREATION is in Genesis of the HOLY BIBLE! That's really the end of the story.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 124:8 NASB  Our help is in the name of the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.

rchaeoraptor hoax update—National Geographic recants!

Update to the article: Archaeoraptor—Phony ‘feathered’ fossil

In stark contrast to their sensationalistic ‘Feathers for T. rex’ article, National Geographic has printed a brief, yet revealing statement by Xu Xing, vertebrate paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Beijing. Xu's revelation appears in the somewhat obscure Forum section of the March, 2000 issue, together with a carefully crafted editorial response. The letter from Xu Xing, vertebrate paleontologist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, reads:

    ‘After observing a new feathered dromaeosaur specimen in a private collection and comparing it with the fossil known as Archaeoraptor [pages 100–101], I have concluded that Archaeoraptor is a composite. The tail portions of the two fossils are identical, but other elements of the new specimen are very different from Archaeoraptor, in fact more closely resembling Sinornithosaurus. Though I do not want to believe it, Archaeoraptor appears to be composed of a dromaeosaur tail and a bird body.’ 1

National Geographic followed the letter from Xu with this statement:

    ‘Xu Xing is one of the scientists who originally examined Archaeoraptor. As we go to press, researchers in the U.S. report that CT scans of the fossil seem to confirm the observations cited in his letter. Results of the Society-funded examination of Archaeoraptor and details of new techniques that revealed anomalies in the fossil’s reconstruction will be published as soon as the studies are completed.’ 2

As more evidence of altered fossils begins to surface, one must seriously question the integrity of the fossil industry and the stories these fossils are supposed to tell. A Feb. 19, 2000 New Scientist article sheds light on the growing problem of faked and altered fossils. Referring to the Chinese fossil birds, paleontologist Kraig Derstler from the University of New Orleans in Louisiana says, ‘almost every one that I’ve seen on the commercial market has some reconstruction to make it look prettier.’ 3

The illegal yet highly profitable market of Chinese bird fossils has enticed the local farmers into creating marketable fossils, real or not. Derstler points out that ‘adhesives and fake rock have become very easy to make and very difficult to spot.’

The paleontologist Luis Chiappe, of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, describes how one such specimen almost fooled him, till he noticed that one leg was longer than the other. ‘I wasn’t sure what was wrong with it,’ Chiappe said. Only close examination revealed that two slabs had been mortared together. ‘On the surface you really couldn’t see that.’

Dr Larry Martin of the University of Kansas, who is a staunch critic of the dino-to-bird theory, commented, ‘I don’t trust any of these specimens until I see the X-rays.’ Joints and gaps in the reworked fossils are revealed with X-rays. Martin went on to say:

    ‘The farmers do not believe this is wrong, they look at it as restoring an art object to make it more marketable. The whole commercial market for fossils has gotten riddled with fakery.’

Archaeoraptor and other Chinese fossils, such as Sinosauropteryx, have been used as ‘proof’ of evolution and thus ‘disproof’ of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. We must remember that God’s Word never changes and must therefore be the basis for all our thinking rather than the fanciful, ever-changing findings of men.
References

   1. Xu Xing, Response to ‘Feathers for T. rex?’ National Geographic 197(3), March 2000, Forum Section (pages unnumbered).
   2. Response to Xu Xing, National Geographic 197(3), March 2000, Forum Section (pages unnumbered).
   3. Jeff Hecht, ‘F is for fake’, New Scientist 165(2226):12, Feb. 19, 2000.

 

The Grand Canyon in N. Arizona, USA is an awesome spectacle, a classic example of erosion unequaled anywhere on earth.

Carved through sedimentary layers of limestone, sandstone and shale, and into the bedrock of schist and granite, this great chasm stretches 277 miles through the Colorado Plateau. It descends over a mile into the earth and extends as much as 18 miles in width.

The Grand Canyon is also a place to find and explore the wonders of God’s creation. When viewed from a biblical perspective, the Canyon has “God” written all over it, from the splendor and grandeur of the entire area, to the diverse and unique design of the plants and animals that inhabit this “magical” place. They all display the magnificence of the hand of our Creator.

Not only is the Canyon a testimony to the Creator, but it also presents evidence of God’s judgment of the world. It was a judgment by water of a world broken by sin. The Canyon gives us a glimpse of the effects and scale of a catastrophic global flood, the biblical Flood of Noah’s day.

Visitors to the Grand Canyon generally find it to be awe-inspiring, but at the same time, too strange and overwhelming to be fully understood on its own—for the Canyon can’t tell us about itself.

As humans, we tend to ask two questions as we view this vast, grand, mysterious hole in the ground: how and why?

We do have the one and only true history book, the Bible, that can help answer these questions. Even though Scripture does not mention the Grand Canyon, we can do some theorizing based on the evidence that we see and examine in light of the Bible.
The “how”

As we consider the “how,” we find that virtually all geologists agree that the Grand Canyon was carved by water. The question is how quickly and when. If we examine the prevailing interpretive literature about the Canyon, we find that the views presented are predominantly based on evolutionary theories. For the Canyon, this means that the rock layers were laid down over literally hundreds of millions of years, and that the Canyon was later carved slowly by the Colorado River. These theories tend to deny God’s involvement.

But, if we look at the Canyon through the eyes of a biblical, or scriptural, geologist (those who believe in the Bible’s timeline of a young earth), we will see a very different Canyon. These geologists see a young canyon carved with a massive amount of water, likely in a matter of just days, shortly after the global flood of Noah’s day about 4,300 years ago.

So is there evidence to support a biblical model? Yes. Let’s briefly examine a couple of the areas which do just that.

According to the biblical model, the vast majority of the sedimentary layers we see in the Grand Canyon (and in the rest of the world for that matter) were deposited as the result of a global flood that occurred after, and ultimately as a result of, the initial sin that took place in the Garden of Eden about 6,000 years ago.

Let’s look at the folding that is found in the sedimentary rock layers of the Canyon.  The picture to the left is a fold in the Tapeats Sandstone in Carbon Creek, one of the side canyons within Grand Canyon. You can plainly see here that the rock was bent, or as the geologist would say, “folded,” while still soft or pliable. Notice that this folding has taken place without cracking the rock. Folds like this indicate that the folding had to happen soon after deposition, and that the deposition and the upheaval responsible for the folding were in fact one event.

Another area that supports the biblical model is the contact lines between the layers themselves. When evolutionists look at this contact point between the Coconino Sandstone and the Hermit Shale, as seen to the right, they see 10 million years of “missing” time and material.

But the creationists, using the biblical model, don’t see “missing” material at all. They see classic flood geology, only on a scale so large that it boggles the mind of the evolutionist.

Note the knife-edge line of the contact point; this contact is the same throughout the length of the Canyon. If this represents 10 million years of missing material, why don’t we see any sign of either physical or chemical erosion between the layers?

So does this “prove” the Grand Canyon is the result of a global Flood or how it was formed? No. It does show, however, that there is a legitimate, scientific alternative to the evolutionary dogma that has permeated our society.
The “why”

As to the “why” of the Grand Canyon, that is somewhat more speculative. The Canyon is often called “Exhibit A” in support of a young earth, and with the wonderful design of its animals and plants, it also confirms the Master Designer, the Creator God of the Bible. The Bible says: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). What we see in the Canyon only supports and upholds what we read in the Word of God. And only from down in the Canyon can so much of it be seen.

So is the Grand Canyon there to provide the skeptics with evidence that may be “clearly seen” if only they were willing to see? The heart of the issue is clearly addressed in Colossians 2:8 which reads, “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” It is the elementary principles of the world (or those of man) that have developed the evolutionary theories that reject the Word of God and God Himself.

As you view the Grand Canyon, remember that it is the result of God’s judgment of the world, not just His creative design. As with everything around us, a simplistic “God made this” is really inadequate, as what we see today is not the world He originally made, since it has all been corrupted by the global judgment of sin—Noah’s Flood.

Could God have started a process (evolutionary uniformitarianism) that would have carved the Canyon over millions of years? Perhaps some would say yes, but the issue isn’t what God “could have done.” He could have done it any of a million ways. The issue is what God said He did in His Word.

You can trust God’s Word, right from the very first verse, and the Grand Canyon is one of His most magnificent examples of that.

AMEN PASTOR ROGER,

Everything in God's majestic creation speaks of and is a testimony to the MASTER, THE CREATOR, ALMIGHTY GOD! Everything we see is simply the handiwork of the MASTER. Men can't make anything at all unless they use materials or ingredients that the MASTER has already CREATED and provided.

I was just thinking about the wonders of nature. Specifically, I was thinking about medicine and many other good things that are still being discovered in nature. I'm thinking that I know many other secrets are still locked away in the secrets of nature. ALMIGHTY GOD put them there for the benefit of man, and it's just something else to give thanks for. We serve an AWESOME GOD, and HE is the CREATOR of all.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Colossians 1:9-12 NASB  For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

The following paragraphs are excerpts from various different web pages on some recent finds that support the Biblical account of creation and Noahs flood.



FABULOUS NEW FOSSIL TREE FOUND, WITH LEAVES still attached as John Mackay excavates giant polystrate tassel fern in Cumberland Plateau rocks Tennessee USA. Nothing could be a better example of rapid fossilization.

 We have the biggest  research file in the world on vertical fossil trees (polystrate). These have made a remarkable impact, in universities around the world where we use them to show that millions of years of evolution is not in the rocks. The tree which we exposed on our 2002 Blue Mountains coal field trip is just one more nail in the coffin of those who insist the evidence points to evolution and millions of years, therefore the Bible must be reinterpreted or thrown out.

AUSSIE ROD PEARCE
Helps in a project to compare flood deposited plant fossils in Pennsylvanian rocks with our discoveries in Tennessee. Rod is a graduate of Masters College and is now associate pastor at a church in Pennsylvania. So far results show the fossil plants in Pennysylvania and those in Tennessee have been laid by flood currents going in the same direction, SW - NE. This is not something that would result from the plants falling into swamps over millions of years.

 Geologist Bob Powell, USA, (February 2003) reports new finds of FOSSIL LAND PLANTS in "Marine" Limestone west of Nashville. The plants were found in the St Louis formation (Mississippian) which is lower down the geologic column than the plants which we discovered in the Hartselle Shales and the Bangor limestone (Pennsylvanian) , near the Cumberland Plateau. No land plants are registered in the TN geological archives from either "marine" location.  

The St. Louise discovery was made by Bob's youngest daughter, Marilyn, and a friend as they were out biking. The new plants (right) are long strap-like structures up to1.5cm (¾ inch) wide and have been found in crystalline limestone which seems devoid of any other fossils.

 On a Field trip in Kentucky, Vance Nelson unearthed a spectacular fossil specimen (photo below) in Devonian Chatanooga Shale. On one side was a plant fossil that today grows in the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky. This plant belongs to the same family as those we have previously discovered in the ST. Louise limestone, the Hartselle shales and the Bangor limestone. In the same Kentucky layer, Vance found fossil shells that John Mackay readily identified as belonging to the Lingula group. They are found living today in mud off the  Australian coast.

Field trippers were asked: “How would you mix highland plants with Australian sea shells and bury them in the same rock?” The field trippers quickly answered, “The water on the land which had to be higher than the plants, ripped them up, then took them to wherever the sea shells were.” All agreed that calling this a flood deposit seemed the only logical thing to do. Since these plant and shells are still present in the world, the fossils also were no help to the theory of evolution.

From the St Louis Limestone (USA), which is officially listed as Lower Mississippian, (around 300 million evolutionary years old). It is regarded as being produced by an ancient sea. One exposure north west of Nashville has now yielded a wealth of land plant fossils mixed with sea shells to Creation Researchers, Bob Powell, Marilyn Powell and John Mackay. The photos below and beside show giant plants (Tassel fern variety), side by side with Brachiopod shells. Present day Tassel ferns are miniature by comparison and the Brachiopod family has today been reduced to a mere handful of species.

 OUR KIWI CREATION RESEARCH GEOLOGIST, Mark Simpson continues to keep his eyes open for great evidence of creation and rapid deposition. He is pictured here after discovering a sedimentary sandstone dyke south of Auckland in the old coal field near Huntly. The sandstone under the coal has pushed its way through the overlaying coal seam and layers. This meant the sandstone under the coal was still soft and fluid while the coal formed on top. It pushed up through the coal without breaking it, so the coal was also still soft and fluid. It then proceeded through the rock layers many metres above the coal seam. All of which tells us the sediments and the coal were not laid down slowly one after the other over millions of years.

I am far from being as educated in this subject as Brother John is even though I have been studying it for about the past five years. I do know though that the Bible is Gods word and that God does not lie. I also know that there are many excellant scientists that have studied hard on this subject and given accounts that support the Biblical account of Creation. Some of these scientists have even come to know the Lord because of their discoveries.

There are many magazines or journals that are put out that support Evolution. I am sure that most of you have heard of National Geographic and the recent bumbles it has made. There are also a few magazines that actually report such news in the Creationists viewpoint. Two of these that I have found are known as "Creation" and "TJ: The in-depth journal of Creation". Both of these magazines put out articles from a scientific point of view, with scientific proof that supports the Biblical account of Creation.

Since these people are much more of an expert than I am I will be posting articles written by these scientists and scientfic reporters on Creation and how good science actually supports the Bible. It is my hope and prayers that Brother John will recover from is illness and be able to rejoin me here with his expertise on this subject. Until then I will struggle on with the Lords guidance.

To start with I would like to point out that some people claim that the only true scientists of today support evolution. These people are totally wrong. The following list are individuals that possess a doctorate in a science-related field that do support the account of Creation and have done a lot of research to support these beliefs.

    * Dr Paul Ackerman, Psychologist
    * Dr E. Theo Agard, Medical Physics
    * Dr James Allan, Geneticist
    * Dr Steve Austin, Geologist
    * Dr S.E. Aw, Biochemist
    * Dr Thomas Barnes, Physicist
    * Dr Geoff Barnard, Immunologist
    * Dr Don Batten, Plant physiologist, tropical fruit expert
    * Dr John Baumgardner, Electrical Engineering, Space Physicist, Geophysicist, expert in
          supercomputer modeling of plate tectonics
    * Dr Jerry Bergman, Psychologist
    * Dr Kimberly Berrine, Microbiology & Immunology
    * Prof. Vladimir Betina, Microbiology, Biochemistry & Biology
    * Dr Raymond G. Bohlin, Biologist
    * Dr Andrew Bosanquet, Biology, Microbiology
    * Edward A. Boudreaux, Theoretical Chemistry
    * Dr David R. Boylan, Chemical Engineer
    * Prof. Linn E. Carothers, Associate Professor of Statistics
    * Dr David Catchpoole, Plant Physiologist (read his testimony)
    * Prof. Sung-Do Cha, Physics
    * Dr Eugene F. Chaffin, Professor of Physics
    * Dr Choong-Kuk Chang, Genetic Engineering
    * Prof. Jeun-Sik Chang, Aeronautical Engineering
    * Dr Donald Chittick, Physical Chemist
    * Prof. Chung-Il Cho, Biology Education
    * Dr John M. Cimbala, Mechanical Engineering
    * Dr Harold Coffin, Palaeontologist
    * Dr Bob Compton, DVM
    * Dr Ken Cumming, Biologist
    * Dr Jack W. Cuozzo, Dentist
    * Dr William M. Curtis III, Th.D., Th.M., M.S., Aeronautics & Nuclear Physics
    * Dr Malcolm Cutchins, Aerospace Engineering
    * Dr Lionel Dahmer, Analytical Chemist
    * Dr Raymond V. Damadian, M.D., Pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging
    * Dr Chris Darnbrough, Biochemist
    * Dr Nancy M. Darrall, Botany
    * Dr Bryan Dawson, Mathematics
    * Dr Douglas Dean, Biological Chemistry
    * Prof. Stephen W. Deckard, Assistant Professor of Education
    * Dr David A. DeWitt, Biology, Biochemistry, Neuroscience
    * Dr Don DeYoung, Astronomy, atmospheric physics, M.Div
    * Dr Geoff Downes, Creationist Plant Physiologist
    * Dr Ted Driggers, Operations research
    * Robert H. Eckel, Medical Research
    * Dr Andr� Eggen, Geneticist
    * Prof. Dennis L. Englin, Professor of Geophysics
    * Prof. Danny Faulkner, Astronomy
    * Prof. Carl B. Fliermans, Professor of Biology
    * Prof. Dwain L. Ford, Organic Chemistry
    * Prof. Robert H. Franks, Associate Professor of Biology
    * Dr Alan Galbraith, Watershed Science
    * Dr Paul Giem, Medical Research
    * Dr Maciej Giertych, Geneticist
    * Dr Duane Gish, Biochemist
    * Dr Werner Gitt, Information Scientist
    * Dr D.B. Gower, Biochemistry
    * Dr Dianne Grocott, Psychiatrist
    * Dr Stephen Grocott, Industrial Chemist
    * Dr Donald Hamann, Food Scientist
    * Dr Barry Harker, Philosopher
    * Dr Charles W. Harrison, Applied Physicist, Electromagnetics
    * Dr John Hartnett, Physicist and Cosmologist
    * Dr Mark Harwood, Satellite Communications
    * Dr George Hawke, Environmental Scientist
    * Dr Margaret Helder, Science Editor, Botanist
    * Dr Harold R. Henry, Engineer
    * Dr Jonathan Henry, Astronomy
    * Dr Joseph Henson, Entomologist
    * Dr Robert A. Herrmann, Professor of Mathematics, US Naval Academy
    * Dr Andrew Hodge, Head of the Cardiothoracic Surgical Service
    * Dr Kelly Hollowell, Molecular and Cellular Pharmacologist
    * Dr Ed Holroyd, III, Atmospheric Science
    * Dr Bob Hosken, Biochemistry
    * Dr George F. Howe, Botany
    * Dr Neil Huber, Physical Anthropologist
    * Dr Russell Humphreys, Physicist
    * Dr James A. Huggins, Professor and Chair, Department of Biology
    * Evan Jamieson, Hydrometallurgy
    * George T. Javor, Biochemistry
    * Dr Pierre Jerlstr�m, Creationist Molecular Biologist
    * Dr Arthur Jones, Biology
    * Dr Jonathan W. Jones, Plastic Surgeon
    * Dr Raymond Jones, Agricultural Scientist
    * Prof. Leonid Korochkin, Molecular Biology
    * Dr Valery Karpounin, Mathematical Sciences, Logics, Formal Logics
    * Dr Dean Kenyon, Biologist
    * Prof. Gi-Tai Kim, Biology
    * Prof. Harriet Kim, Biochemistry
    * Prof. Jong-Bai Kim, Biochemistry
    * Prof. Jung-Han Kim, Biochemistry
    * Prof. Jung-Wook Kim, Environmental Science
    * Prof. Kyoung-Rai Kim, Analytical Chemistry
    * Prof. Kyoung-Tai Kim, Genetic Engineering
    * Prof. Young-Gil Kim, Materials Science
    * Prof. Young In Kim, Engineering
    * Dr John W. Klotz, Biologist
    * Dr Vladimir F. Kondalenko, Cytology/Cell Pathology
    * Dr Leonid Korochkin, M.D., Genetics, Molecular Biology, Neurobiology
    * Dr John K.G. Kramer, Biochemistry
    * Prof. Jin-Hyouk Kwon, Physics
    * Prof. Myung-Sang Kwon, Immunology
    * Dr John Leslie, Biochemist
    * Prof. Lane P. Lester, Biologist, Genetics
    * Dr Jason Lisle, Astrophysicist
    * Dr Alan Love, Chemist
    * Dr Ian Macreadie, molecular biologist and microbiologist:
    * Dr John Marcus, Molecular Biologist
    * Dr George Marshall, Eye Disease Researcher
    * Dr Ralph Matthews, Radiation Chemist
    * Dr John McEwan, Chemist
    * Prof. Andy McIntosh, Combustion theory, aerodynamics
    * Dr David Menton, Anatomist
    * Dr Angela Meyer, Creationist Plant Physiologist
    * Dr John Meyer, Physiologist
    * Colin W. Mitchell, Geography
    * Dr John N. Moore, Science Educator
    * Dr John W. Moreland, Mechanical engineer and Dentist
    * Dr Henry M. Morris, Hydrologist
    * Dr John D. Morris, Geologist
    * Dr Len Morris, Physiologist
    * Dr Graeme Mortimer, Geologist
    * Stanley A. Mumma, Architectural Engineering
    * Prof. Hee-Choon No, Nuclear Engineering
    * Dr Eric Norman, Biomedical researcher
    * Dr David Oderberg, Philosopher
    * Prof. John Oller, Linguistics
    * Prof. Chris D. Osborne, Assistant Professor of Biology
    * Dr John Osgood, Medical Practitioner
    * Dr Charles Pallaghy, Botanist
    * Dr Gary E. Parker, Biologist, Cognate in Geology (Paleontology)
    * Dr David Pennington, Plastic Surgeon
    * Prof. Richard Porter
    * Dr Georgia Purdom, Molecular Genetics
    * Dr John Rankin, Cosmologist
    * Dr A.S. Reece, M.D.
    * Prof. J. Rendle-Short, Pediatrics
    * Dr Jung-Goo Roe, Biology
    * Dr David Rosevear, Chemist
    * Dr Ariel A. Roth, Biology
    * Dr Jonathan D. Sarfati, Physical chemist / spectroscopist
    * Dr Joachim Scheven Palaeontologist:
    * Dr Ian Scott, Educator
    * Dr Saami Shaibani, Forensic physicist
    * Dr Young-Gi Shim, Chemistry
    * Prof. Hyun-Kil Shin, Food Science
    * Dr Mikhail Shulgin, Physics
    * Dr Emil Silvestru, Geologist/karstologist
    * Dr Roger Simpson, Engineer
    * Dr Harold Slusher, Geophysicist
    * Dr E. Norbert Smith, Zoologist
    * Dr Andrew Snelling, Geologist
    * Prof. Man-Suk Song, Computer Science
    * Dr Timothy G. Standish, Biology
    * Prof. James Stark, Assistant Professor of Science Education
    * Prof. Brian Stone, Engineer
    * Dr Esther Su, Biochemistry
    * Dr Charles Taylor, Linguistics
    * Dr Stephen Taylor, Electrical Engineering
    * Dr Ker C. Thomson, Geophysics
    * Dr Michael Todhunter, Forest Genetics
    * Dr Lyudmila Tonkonog, Chemistry/Biochemistry
    * Dr Royal Truman, Organic Chemist:
    * Dr Larry Vardiman, Atmospheric Science
    * Prof. Walter Veith, Zoologist
    * Dr Joachim Vetter, Biologist
    * Dr Tas Walker, Mechanical Engineer and Geologist
    * Dr Jeremy Walter, Mechanical Engineer
    * Dr Keith Wanser, Physicist
    * Dr Noel Weeks, Ancient Historian (also has B.Sc. in Zoology)
    * Dr A.J. Monty White, Chemistry/Gas Kinetics
    * Dr John Whitmore, Geologist/Paleontologist
    * Dr Carl Wieland, Medical doctor
    * Dr Lara Wieland, Medical doctor
    * Dr Clifford Wilson, Psycholinguist and archaeologist
    * Dr Kurt Wise, Palaeontologist
    * Dr Bryant Wood, Creationist Archaeologist
    * Prof. Seoung-Hoon Yang, Physics
    * Dr Thomas (Tong Y.) Yi, Ph.D., Creationist Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering
    * Dr Ick-Dong Yoo, Genetics
    * Dr Sung-Hee Yoon, Biology
    * Dr Patrick Young, Chemist and Materials Scientist
    * Prof. Keun Bae Yu, Geography
    * Dr Henry Zuill, Biology

I am sure that there may be even more than I have listed here.

In addition to those currently, there are many scientists of the past that have done a lot of research into and support the Biblical account of Creation.

Early

    * Francis Bacon (1561–1626) Scientific method. However, see also
      Culture Wars:
         1. Part 1: Bacon vs Ham
         2. Part 2: Ham vs Bacon
    * Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) (WOH) Physics, Astronomy (see also The Galileo ‘twist’ and
           The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography?
    * Johann Kepler (1571–1630) (WOH) Scientific astronomy
    * Athanasius Kircher (1601–1680) Inventor
    * John Wilkins (1614–1672)
    * Walter Charleton (1619–1707) President of the Royal College of Physicians
    * Blaise Pascal (biography page) and article from Creation magazine (1623–1662)
           Hydrostatics; Barometer
    * Sir William Petty (1623 –1687) Statistics; Scientific economics
    * Robert Boyle (1627–1691) (WOH) Chemistry; Gas dynamics
    * John Ray (1627–1705) Natural history
    * Isaac Barrow (1630–1677) Professor of Mathematics
    * Nicolas Steno (1631–1686) Stratigraphy
    * Thomas Burnet (1635–1715) Geology
    * Increase Mather (1639–1723) Astronomy
    * Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) Medical Doctor, Botany

The Age of Newton

    * Isaac Newton (1642–1727) (WOH) Dynamics; Calculus; Gravitation law; Reflecting telescope; Spectrum of light (wrote more about the Bible than science, and emphatically affirmed a Creator. Some have accused him of Arianism, but it’s likely he held to a heterodox form of the Trinity—See Pfizenmaier, T.C., Was Isaac Newton an Arian? Journal of the History of Ideas 68(1):57–80, 1997)
    * Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646–1716) Mathematician
    * John Flamsteed (1646–1719) Greenwich Observatory Founder; Astronomy
    * William Derham (1657–1735) Ecology
    * Cotton Mather (1662–1727) Physician
    * John Harris (1666–1719) Mathematician
    * John Woodward (1665–1728) Paleontology
    * William Whiston (1667–1752) Physics, Geology
    * John Hutchinson (1674–1737) Paleontology
    * Johathan Edwards (1703–1758) Physics, Meteorology
    * Carolus Linneaus (1707–1778) Taxonomy; Biological classification system
    * Jean Deluc (1727–1817) Geology
    * Richard Kirwan (1733–1812) Mineralogy
    * William Herschel (1738–1822) Galactic astronomy; Uranus (probably believed in an
           old-earth)
    * James Parkinson (1755–1824) Physician (old-earth compromiser*)
    * John Dalton (1766–1844) Atomic theory; Gas law
    * John Kidd, M.D. (1775–1851) Chemical synthetics (old-earth compromiser*)

Just Before Darwin

    * The 19th Century Scriptural Geologists, by Dr Terry Mortenson
    * Timothy Dwight (1752–1817) Educator
    * William Kirby (1759–1850) Entomologist
    * Jedidiah Morse (1761–1826) Geographer
    * Benjamin Barton (1766–1815) Botanist; Zoologist
    * John Dalton (1766–1844) Father of the Modern Atomic Theory; Chemistry
    * Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) Comparative anatomy, paleontology (old-earth
            compromiser*)
    * Samuel Miller (1770–1840) Clergy
    * Charles Bell (1774–1842) Anatomist
    * John Kidd (1775–1851) Chemistry
    * Humphrey Davy (1778–1829) Thermokinetics; Safety lamp
    * Benjamin Silliman (1779–1864) Mineralogist (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869) Physician; Physiologist
    * Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847) Professor (old-earth compromiser*)
    * David Brewster (1781–1868) Optical mineralogy, Kaleidoscope (probably believed in an
           old-earth)
    * William Buckland (1784–1856) Geologist (old-earth compromiser*)
    * William Prout (1785–1850) Food chemistry (probably believed in an old-earth)
    * Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Michael Faraday (1791–1867) (WOH) Electro magnetics; Field theory, Generator
    * Samuel F.B. Morse (1791–1872) Telegraph
    * John Herschel (1792–1871) Astronomy (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    * William Whewell (1794–1866) Anemometer (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Joseph Henry (1797–1878) Electric motor; Galvanometer

Just After Darwin

    * Richard Owen (1804–1892) Zoology; Paleontology (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Matthew Maury (1806–1873) Oceanography, Hydrography (probably believed in an
           old-earth*)
    * Louis Agassiz (1807–1873) Glaciology, Ichthyology (old-earth compromiser, polygenist*)
    * Henry Rogers (1808–1866) Geology
    * James Glaisher (1809–1903) Meteorology
    * Philip H. Gosse (1810–1888) Ornithologist; Zoology
    * Sir Henry Rawlinson (1810–1895) Archeologist
    * James Simpson (1811–1870) Gynecology, Anesthesiology
    * James Dana (1813–1895) Geology (old-earth compromiser*)
    * Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert (1817–1901) Agricultural Chemist
    * James Joule (1818–1889) Thermodynamics
    * Thomas Anderson (1819–1874) Chemist
    * Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819–1900) Astronomy
    * George Stokes (1819–1903) Fluid Mechanics
    * John William Dawson (1820–1899) Geology (probably believed in an old-earth*)
    * Rudolph Virchow (1821–1902) Pathology
    * Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) (WOH) Genetics
    * Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) (WOH) Bacteriology, Biochemistry; Sterilization; Immunization
    * Henri Fabre (1823–1915) Entomology of living insects
    * William Thompson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) Energetics; Absolute temperatures; Atlantic
         cable (believed in an older earth than the Bible indicates, but far younger than the
         evolutionists wanted*)
    * William Huggins (1824–1910) Astral spectrometry
    * Bernhard Riemann (1826–1866) Non-Euclidean geometries
    * Joseph Lister (1827–1912) Antiseptic surgery
    * Balfour Stewart (1828–1887) Ionospheric electricity
    * James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) (WOH) Electrodynamics; Statistical thermodynamics
    * P.G. Tait (1831–1901) Vector analysis
    * John Bell Pettigrew (1834–1908) Anatomist; Physiologist
    * John Strutt, Lord Rayleigh (1842–1919) Similitude; Model Analysis; Inert Gases
    * Sir William Abney (1843–1920) Astronomy
    * Alexander MacAlister (1844–1919) Anatomy
    * A.H. Sayce (1845–1933) Archeologist
    * John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945) Electronics; Electron tube; Thermionic valve

The Modern Period

    * Dr Clifford Burdick, Geologist
    * George Washington Carver (1864–1943) Inventor
    * L. Merson Davies (1890–1960) Geology; Paleontology
    * Douglas Dewar (1875–1957) Ornithologist
    * Howard A. Kelly (1858–1943) Gynecology
    * Paul Lemoine (1878–1940) Geology
    * Dr Frank Marsh, Biology
    * Dr John Mann, Agriculturist, biological control pioneer
    * Edward H. Maunder (1851–1928) Astronomy
    * William Mitchell Ramsay (1851–1939) Archeologist
    * William Ramsay (1852–1916) Isotopic chemistry, Element transmutation
    * Charles Stine (1882–1954) Organic Chemist
    * Dr Arthur Rendle-Short (1885–1955) Surgeon
    * Sir Cecil P. G. Wakeley (1892–1979) Surgeon
    * Dr Larry Butler, Biochemist
    * Prof. Verna Wright, Rheumatologist (deceased 1997)
    * Arthur E. Wilder-Smith (1915–1995) Three science doctorates; a creation science pioneer

Note: The scientists of the past listed here believed in a literal Genesis unless otherwise stated. The ones who did not are nevertheless included in the list below, because of their general belief in the creator God of the Bible and opposition to evolution. But because the idea that the earth is ‘millions of years’ old has been disastrous in the long run, no present day ‘long-agers’ are included intentionally, because they should know better.

Christian Persecution in America

Although Christians in America are not persecuted to the extent that they are many other countries such as India and China there are definite persecutions and prejudices against Christians in America. Especially in the public schools, colleges and universities. This persecution runs over into the business world also making it difficult for the Christian in many work places.

Seeing as this thread is about Creation vs Evolution I am concentrating on the persecution of Scientists and those that want to get into this field. This is a very long article. I was going to link to it but cannot do that due to the site promoting the sale of books and magazines. So Instead I am just posting excerpts from this article that I deem most important to fully understand the situation.



There was an article written in the "Technical Journal" or "TJ" as it is commonly referred to about this subject. The author had interviewed over 100 people who were active in what is known as the creation-intelligent design movement. Most felt that the standard evolutionary paradigm of origins was inadequate and should be ‘balanced’ with alternative positions. The creationists interviewed differed considerably relative to their views of origins, and about half would be identified with the seven day literal 24-hour day non-gap universal Noachian deluge creationist position. Almost all felt that they had faced serious religious discrimination in their academic careers at least once or more often. The discrimination ranged from derogatory comments to denial of tenure or an earned degree. The writer also reviewed the literature and interviewed about a dozen academic deans and department chairs in the field of science. All, without exception, felt that openly holding a ‘scientific creation’ worldview would seriously impede or terminate an academic career. Many openly stated that they would not hire or support the candidacy of an out-of-the-closet scientific creationist for a tenured position in academia.

It is now well documented that discrimination against creationists is serious and widespread. In the words of Hull:

    ‘Most scientists are only dimly aware of the various “anti-science” systems of belief now widespread [including] … politically dangerous movements such as creationism … . We protect ourselves by never letting these mutually exclusive beliefs surface at the same time. For example, the constellation of religious fundamentalism and creationism is often combined with a high regard for high tech. Many creationists’ tracts are tapped out on extremely expensive personal computers. Creationists are able to accept and reject the physics that makes these machines possible as the occasion demands. There is no God, and Mary is His mother.

Braun summarised the problem as follows:

    ‘… hardy believers in creation … have been heaped with scorn and ridicule. Evolutionists dominated the field so securely that creationists were fired, denied tenure and denied advanced degrees with impunity in public schools and universities.

A 1979 Civil Rights Commission report concluded that, although religious discrimination is serious and widespread, little is presently being done to ameliorate this problem. Aside from this report, most civil rights and governmental agencies have done little or nothing to remedy what has developed into a nationwide problem. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has not until recently even published guidelines for dealing with religious discrimination. The current guidelines deal primarily with reasonable accommodation. This agency, set up to deal with concerns of racial, religious, and other minorities, has done little to help creationists facing discrimination, even declining to hold public hearings on the problem. Creationists and conservative Christian educators are now a persecuted minority, often with little recourse but to endure the discrimination. Admittedly, though, some of their problems stem from conflicts over specific issues, such as concerns over their proselytizing or the teaching of creationism in the public school classroom.

In addition, little if any effort has been expended by most other American institutions to enforce the section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlaws discrimination based on religion (page 29, Section 703). It is a law which currently exists largely on paper only. As Roberts concludes:

    ‘America has a new bigotry. Traces of it have been around for a long time, glimpsed only fleetingly and in widely-scattered places. But in 1983, it assumed nationwide proportions. This is bigotry against evangelicals. Two things are particularly frightening about this bigotry. Few recognized it, and nobody … [has so far done] anything about it. It is difficult to say which is more disturbing. Any religious group that defies public opinion and practices nonconformity runs the risk of ridicule and rejection. This can quickly turn to persecution in time of crisis, particularly if such persecution is advantageous of those in power.’

Novak, in a study of this problem, called ‘antievangelical bigotry’ the least understood and ‘most painful’ hate in America today. He concluded that the 1980s

    ‘revealed more bigotry against evangelicals, without anybody leaping to denounce it, than against any other group … . The attacks have been public, without introducing evidence, often by association.’

Scientific creationists are facing the most serious attack, especially in academia. Haney reports that:

    ‘It appears from various reports reaching this office, that a trend is developing in the halls of Academe … that Liberalism’s great contribution to American education, namely “Academic Freedom” has become a victim of incest, having been raped by its own sires … . [A] former Louisiana State Senator … said instances [of] … pro-creationism professors and teachers … being dismissed have begun to proliferate in the past ten years … highly-qualified educators denied tenure or otherwise discriminated against simply because they hold views or engage in activities which oppose the tenets of … [evolutionism].’

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Extensive legal research by the author has revealed that, as of yet, not a single court case of employment discrimination has been decided in favour of a creationist. Nor has the writer been able to find even a single case of non-�reasonable accommodation� religious discrimination in employment successfully litigated by a religious believer in an American court. Surveys indicate that thousands of cases of employment termination occur each year in which the plaintiff feels clear evidence of religious discrimination exists. As Bergman found, the judicial system has also done virtually nothing to remedy this problem:

    �The only conclusion that can be reached � is that the American courts are not serious about enforcing the rights of religious minorities. Although many of the better cases are likely settled out of court, nonetheless the situation is such that employers are generally aware that they can exercise even blatant religious discrimination with little or no fear or reprisal. This conclusion was supported by a recent report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.�

The extent of the discrimination

The writer, as part of an ongoing research project, has interviewed over 100 active self-labelled creationists who are, or were, employed in academia. He specifically asked if they had faced religious discrimination and, if so, to delineate their experience. Almost all believed that their creationist beliefs caused at least some career problems. These ranged from open derision to outright firings, and even attempts to rescind earned degrees. Some cases were tragic in their extent, blatancy and consequences. The discrimination experiences discovered were grouped in the following general categories:

(1) Derogatory and clearly inappropriate comments

Examples range from placing obscene or anti-creationist cartoons in the workers� mailboxes to open, blatant, inappropriate direct name-calling. Bolyanatz noted that evolutionists often assume that

    �anyone holding the creationist viewpoint must be illogical, backward, subversive, uneducated, and stubborn.�

Gross name-calling, even by eminent scientists, is commonly found in the secular literature. A typical example is Isaac Asimov�s statement that all

    �creationists are stupid, lying people who are not to be trusted in any way.� And that all of their �points are equally stupid, except where the creationists are outrightly lying.�

(2) Refusal of admittance to graduate programs

It was found that it was not uncommon for a creationist to be denied admission to a degree program even if he/she clearly exceeded published admission standards. In some cases the person denied was able to locate letters of recommendation which recommended against admission specifically because of the candidate�s creationist worldview.
(3) Refusal to award degree

Some creationists interviewed, although they clearly met all of the requirements, were openly denied a degree (usually a Ph.D. in the sciences) because of their creation orientation and/or publications.
(4) Denial of promotion

Many creationists claimed that they were not promoted even though they clearly exceeded the written standards for promotion (high student ratings, more than an adequate number of publications, etc.). In several cases this was openly because of their creationist publications.

(5) Denial of tenure

Many cases of tenure denial clearly based mainly on the creationist activities of the candidate were encountered. It was often obvious that bias existed because of active involvement in the creationist movement. Research has well documented that a known scientific creationist who does not experience some bias in this crucial decision is a rare exception. This view was fully supported by the interviews with creationist professors and others.

In many cases of religious discrimination, the university was open and blatant about such, either claiming immunity or citing various laws or precedents which they felt either rendered them unaccountable, or the law ineffective in rectifying their illegal behaviour. In one case the university did:

    �not deny either religious discrimination or [lack of] university specified due process. Its entire case rests on immunity (as a State institution, immune from lawsuits unless plaintiff is given permission by the State to sue itself).�

In this case, the university claimed that:

    �as a whole, whatever wrongdoing occurred, it is not liable to damages�.

Discrimination against students

In discussing whether creationist students should be discriminated against, one well-known science educator approvingly quotes those who conclude that a professor should have the right

    �to fail any student in his class, no matter what the grade record indicates�,

and even advocates,

    �retracting grades and possibly even degrees, if [a person espouses creationism] � after passing the course or after graduating.�

He also stresses that it is the university�s responsibility to terminate creationists and rescind their degrees, advocating that even students with excellent grades who produce highly regarded work should be denied their degree and expelled from the university if it is discovered that they are a creationist! He argues that grades do not necessarily measure competency, and a student can memorise material and be able to discern the �correct� answers on tests yet still hold views which in Frazier�s mind at least are incorrect. They thus should be failed or denied a rightfully earned degree, or if previously awarded, it should be retracted. Zuidema reports that some professors have proposed that

    �� grades or degrees of university students who hold special creation concepts after having taken science courses [should be retracted]. In other words, flunk them�retroactively, if necessary!�

This proposal, Wirth responded,

    �� is nothing less than gross religious discrimination. A student�s command of a subject in science can be disassociated from his religious beliefs. In other words, someone with religious beliefs can function as a scientist.�

Further, many educators have stated in print that they feel that it is irresponsible for a university to grant a creationist a Ph.D. degree. Flacks, openly concludes that:

    �It is a pathetic commentary on our universities that grant doctorate degrees � without fully determining a candidate�s true understanding of universal knowledge and logic � The alleged concept of �scientific� creationism is not only an illogical contradiction in terminology but an absurd fiction.�

Thus, he concludes, creationists should not be awarded advanced degrees. The reason for this discrimination, many of its proponents claim, is not concern over religion, but competency. An anonymous reviewer of an earlier draft of this paper (which was rejected by the journal on the grounds that creationists should be discriminated against) said:

    �� the opposition [to creationists] rests instead on a conviction that �creationism� � precludes neutrality/objectivity, adequate methodology, and the integral nature of science (physics, astronomy, geology, biology). There is a perceived way to best do science and see one discipline in the context of others � Must a department accept someone whose �creationist� case seems erroneous methodologically and factually simply because one pleads �religious or academic� freedom? � Departments evaluate people not only on knowledge and expertise but on their research and on its likely fruitfulness. They see creationists of the �young earth� or �anti-evolution� sort as incapable of sustaining a research program on these bases. Religious freedom is not a ground for academic incompetence in research (and creationist research has, I think, very little to show for its labors). Freedom carries responsibility to one�s colleagues, profession, and research.�

cont'd on page three

Page Three

G. Merle Bergman is more specific about the problem of firing creationists:

    ‘I am aghast at the suggestion that … [a creationist was fired] because of his religious views, as expressed in his writings on the subject. Obviously nothing could be further from American tradition and constitutional principles than that a man be denied opportunity on the basis of his religious thought. On the other hand, I have to ask myself how practical it is for a creationist to impress scientifically minded men and women with his objective—which is certainly a prime virtue for any teacher. I could not myself consider that a teacher had much of a grasp on reality if he or she believed that the creationist view of the universe was a realistic one. There is no point in reviewing the reasoning on both sides … . Suffice it to say … that from the point of view of science, evolution is proven many times over, whereas creationism is … a leftover from very primitive folklore.’

Whether or not the creationist worldview and belief structure is correct is irrelevant in this discussion. Our primary concern here is freedom of religion and belief, and the right to work and pursue one’s education regardless of one’s religious views, as the law and the American Constitution guarantee. And this includes the right to do research and go where the results of one’s research leads. Powerful persons in the academic community concluded that Galileo was incorrect and thus incompetent. And for this reason, to the embarrassment of scientists today, some endeavored to ruin his scientific career.

When we permit fallible value judgments as to the correctness of a person’s view on controversial topics (as surely is the case with creationism) to terminate a person’s career, the door to discrimination is opened against any person who disagrees with the beliefs of the administrative or power structure. Yet, G. Merle Bergman concludes:

    ‘I think … faculty [firing a creationist is] a reflection of their view that [these people are] too far removed from reality to be able to direct young people along objective paths. The issue is whether this view is a reflection of religious prejudice. They are not judging the man’s right to hold and to express religious views different from their own, but his ability to define reality. That that ability is colored by his religious outlook merely muddies the waters.

He thus actually concludes that creationists are not able to ‘define reality’ or, in psychiatric terms, are insane! This is the same ploy used in the old Soviet Union to confine those who objected to communism in psychiatric hospitals. Although Zuidema stresses it is not religion, but competency, that is of concern, the veracity of the Scriptures has historically been of central concern to most Christians. As the above anonymous reviewer concluded:

    ‘The crux of the matter, obviously, is the question of competency to teach science [and] evolution concepts, being essential to an understanding of the life sciences, might arise. One critic … has even questioned whether faculty … who accept Scripture literally are qualified for faculty or administrative positions. Isn’t the integrity of scholars at the heart of this [controversy]?’

The above line of reasoning has horrendous implications. As McGuigan said of one discrimination case a creationist was then fighting in the courts:

    ‘Conservatives, supporters of academic freedom, and friends of liberty in general will be watching this case carefully, more than a little nervous about their own futures if such a miscarriage of justice is not overturned.’

Persons who advocate currently unpopular views in science and other academic disciplines (such as the non-Marxist economic view by sociology, government, and history faculty) have always faced serious problems. In general though, conservative Christians are now facing the most serious problems. Thus Wildman stated:

    ‘… the persecution of practicing Christians has already begun, albeit not in a physical manner … [there are already many] cases in which educators who subscribe to the creation theory have suffered because of that intellectual belief. These cases have not been heavily reported in the national secular media, although … had the individuals been dismissed from a Christian school for teaching evolution they would have made major headlines … . The irony of [these] … cases … is the silencing of academic freedom by those who supposedly support [it] … and the condoning of … the persecution of those who dare to believe in creationism because of intellectual honesty. We do, however, indeed find it odd that the creation theory cannot be taught in schools because it is “religion”, but the evolution theory is openly taught—sometimes not as theory but as fact—despite the fact that it is a basic tenet of the humanist religion. (See Humanist Manifesto I) “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.” ’

The justification for religious persecution has always been the presumption that those persecuted deserve it because their view of reality is incorrect or erroneous, often called heresy. If one is able to justify discrimination on the grounds that the victims are not ‘accurately able to assess reality’, or because their view is based on metaphysical presuppositions as opposed to an examination of empirical data, one could use this reasoning to discriminate against any and all religious beliefs. All sacred positions are to some degree based upon a view of reality which is less than fully empirically supportable. Faith, the bridge between empirical reality and belief, is an especially important aspect of the Judeo-Christian-Muslim worldview. For one to categorically state that someone’s view of reality is wrong, and thus this justifies denial of employment and consequently denial of life’s basic necessities, is an horrendous conclusion. Normally the state steps in only if beliefs are translated into illegal criminal actions such as assault.

Mormons believe that all humans have always existed and in the after-life will become gods, that Adam and Eve were literally created in Independence, Missouri, and that, in spite of what many scholars have concluded are its many inaccuracies and errors, The Book of Mormon is inspired by God. They also would have a poor grasp of reality, according to those quoted above. Thus, should not all Mormon teachers also be terminated?

Likewise, Catholics obviously do not have much of a grasp on reality in that they believe, in contradiction to all chemical analysis, that the Eucharist literally changes the bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Christ. Thus, all Catholic teachers likewise should be terminated. The explanation that transubstantiation causes ‘substantial change’, which scientists today cannot study, or ‘accidental change’ in Aristotelian terminology, one could easily conclude is a rationalisation to cover an irrational conclusion.

Some also may feel that Jews, believing that they are God’s chosen people, and that it is morally wrong to eat pork (a perfectly nutritious food if cooked properly) and that someday a ‘messiah’ will come to earth from heaven, obviously do not have a very accurate grasp of reality. Thus, should they also be terminated from their teaching positions, denied degrees, etc.? One could argue in the same way about all religious faiths, including atheism which Melton defines as a religion in the American liberal tradition.

In the old Soviet Union, this exact reasoning was utilised to justify discrimination against all theistic positions. The signing of a statement swearing that one is an atheist was once required to teach in a Soviet university. It was obvious to them that anyone who held a religious viewpoint, even a ‘liberal’ one, does not have an accurate grasp of reality and thus should ‘not be in a position to influence young people along objective paths’ and therefore should not be allowed to be teachers regardless of their academic record. All religious views, they concluded, are myths impeding an objective grasp of reality. One must obviously first ask, ‘Who is qualified to be the judge of such things as the worldviews of others?’ Bergman tries to answer this as follows:

    ‘Even if one holds controversial views which are directly related to one’s teaching or occupational assignment, it is generally conceded that, if one can accurately articulate the opposing position (such as a young earth creationist who can accurately explain and present the data, reasoning, etc., used to support the old earth position), then one cannot charge incompetence, and discrimination should not take place.’

cont'd on page four

Page Four

One’s private religious views, whether right or wrong, are usually irrelevant in the work place. A person can be a highly competent mathematician, and yet hold views on astrology or parapsychology not commensurate with the contemporary scientific consensus. Some professors of the author’s acquaintance follow astrology, or give credence to other ideas that many authorities conclude have been clearly refuted. If all of these likewise are terminated, who is going to be left? Our foremost concern should be religious freedom and freedom of conscience. Where genuine differences of opinion exist, concerns relative to one’s teaching qualifications may be discussed, but teachers should be evaluated primarily upon their knowledge and expertise in their speciality area, not their religious views or scientific conclusions.

What must be done

Few persons or organisations have concerned themselves with the rights of religious minorities, and even fewer with those of creationists—and some who have experienced difficulties would more accurately be classified as progressive or liberal creationists. The academic community now seems to be becoming more open and blatant relative to this form of discrimination. Laws are useless unless enforced, and as we have noted the government has so far in most cases refused to enforce existing laws relative to this form of religious discrimination. They often now do not aid creationists or those with a conservative religious orientation in general. As the anonymous reviewer quoted above concluded:

    ‘… governments and universities have not enforced existing laws because religious discrimination is really not the basic issue … Creationism of many sorts has proven to be astoundingly unfruitful as a research program and so distortive of factual material that it is unclear how that material can be competently taught.’

Can we truly call our society free if Meikle’s call, quoted below, is implemented?

    ‘It is the responsibility of professional societies to discriminate against [creationists] … by separating them from teaching through exposure and removal. It is the responsibility of the public school system to do likewise.’

The solution to this problem is best summarised by Wildman who, in his public presentations,

    ‘… has been telling his audiences that unless the Christian community becomes involved in the struggle for [religious freedom] and does so quickly, that those being born today will be physically persecuted if they desire to practice their Christian faith. “I fully understand how radical this statement sounds, but it is an intellectually honest statement—not one to shock”.’

The only thing preventing termination of employment for many creationists, tenure, may not be as safe as assumed in the past. As Zuidema found:

    ‘“Academic freedom” and “tenure”, those twin holies of academia, have been restraining factors by keeping state university faculties from openly challenging … their creationist colleagues. Yet some brave souls have sought confrontations.’

The appropriate response to this problem is to bring to the attention of the authorities the commonality and seriousness of this problem. Religious discrimination is illegal, and thus vigorous efforts need to be made by those discriminated against and the various law and policy enforcement officials to fight it. This will help to ensure that the law is taken seriously and enforced. Increased public awareness is immensely important in dealing with this problem. In addition, several precedent court cases would reduce the likelihood that employers in the future discriminate against creationists. If the likelihood of losing a case is high, forcing payment of wages, damages, lawyer’s and other costs, most employers would probably not discriminate. They now clearly perceive, and presently correctly so, that the likelihood of a conviction in a religious discrimination case is extremely low. They are now for this reason often not hesitant to discriminate. They can now often cover their tracks, generally have available highly paid attorneys, and are often able to win cases by skirting around the law or dragging it out for years.

To their credit, many individuals are concerned about the civil liberties and rights of individuals, even those that they personally disagree with. In reviewing several religious discrimination cases, the author found that it is not uncommon to find some persons active in defending the rights of those religious minorities that they clearly disagreed with. Their support comes from their conviction that all persons have the right to hold a set of beliefs, however unpopular, if they are sincerely held and are not openly detrimental to the welfare of the local community or the population as a whole. The belief that we are created beings, deliberately designed by God, is hardly detrimental to the community’s welfare, and it could be argued that it is useful in facilitating behaviour which is supportive of community order and functional morality.

We can see from the prior posts the difficulties that these scientists have had getting into their careers, getting work in these fields and in publishing their findings.

Following this I will be posting excerpts of those that have succeeded in getting their findings out.

Amen Pastor Roger!

Many of us pray for Brother John several times per day, and I know that he spent years on this topic. I would also love to see Brother John recover and finish this series. In my heart, I know that it's very important for people to have a place to learn the real and undiluted truth about Creation. I'm very sad to know that the public schools get to brain-wash our children with evolution garbage, and the school is not permitted to teach Creation from the Holy Bible.

History is this area is very interesting. The theory of evolution is still relatively new in terms of human history, but it's important to note that it's still JUST a theory and nothing more. Reading the many articles about the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in 1925 is very interesting. If you were to guess that the ACLU put forth tremendous resources in defense of evolution, you would be right. It really wasn't about evolution for the ACLU, rather it was another anti-God exercise that the ACLU is famous for.

Some might ask why I characterize the defense or promotion of evolution as anti-God. Evolution denies the Holy Bible and calls God a liar. Here's what it really boils down to:  evolution is an intellectual exercise into a theory that says man has a better understanding and explanation for Creation than the Holy Bible and God. It's really just as simple as that. Here we are all these years later with massive resources in science, and evolution is still JUST A THEORY. In fact, evolution is falling apart, and it is really making many of the so-called intellectuals who believe it look silly. However, they must hold on to the last since they will be nothing but fools when evolution completely falls into the garbage can where it belongs. The case for evolution is weakening by the minute.

HERE'S A NEWS FLASH!!! - the complete TRUTH and only FACTS about CREATION are in Genesis of the HOLY BIBLE! Any man who calls GOD a liar is a fool!!  Those who don't believe in GOD must come up with an alternate story of Creation if they are to maintain their rejection of GOD and JESUS. So, we have the pitiful theory of evolution that many are clinging to with their last fingernails. After all, what would happen if the so-called intellectuals had nothing left to counter the REAL TRUTH OF CREATION BY ALMIGHTY GOD? It should be and is pretty pitiful when men try to put their little pea-brained intellect up against the Word of God. Some of them will have to look for something else when evolution falls into the garbage can. After all, many of those so-called intellectuals are too smart to believe the simple TRUTH OF ALMIGHTY GOD AND THE HOLY BIBLE.

Brother Roger, thank you sincerely for sharing some fascinating information with us. Brother, please labor on. We need a place where nothing but the TRUTH will be taught. Parents need a place to get the TRUTH so they can properly teach their children and undo the lies that are taught in public schools. Young people and young adults also need a place to come and study the TRUTH. Really intellectual people believe GOD, and there is tons of evidence, especially now, to prove Darwin was little more than a scientific fool, but there's still a problem with this statement. We really shouldn't use the term "science" since science deals with facts. Hoax and con-game are better terms to describe the theory of evolution.

Brother, thanks again for your work and sharing with us.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 John 5:4-5 NASB  For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Psalms 139:13-14 NASB  For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb.  I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

Legislator Leads Effort to Counter Darwinism in South Carolina Schools

by Jim Brown
December 29, 2005

(AgapePress) - - An education panel in South Carolina is mulling changes to a biological evolution teaching standard for the state's schools. The state's Education Oversight Committee recently moved to modify four biology teaching guidelines in an effort to balance schools' teaching of evolution by introducing a broader range of scientific viewpoints.

Republican Senator Mike Fair says the Oversight Committee is trying to, at the very least, get public policy to embrace neutrality as it relates to scientific philosophies. The South Carolina lawmaker, who is spearheading an effort to incorporate critical analysis of evolution into the state's public school science curriculum, believes criticism and analytical questioning of Darwinism should be permitted in the classroom.

The problem with the state's current treatment of biological evolution in the classroom, Fair contends, is that South Carolina science teachers "are delivering axioms rather than an encouragement or even framework for students to critically analyze the subject matter. It isn't that there's a huge outcry to kick Darwin or Darwinism out of the public schools."

In fact, the senator says he hopes the revisions in the state biology education guidelines will stimulate more discussion and debate about evolution and other origin theories in the classroom. However, he acknowledges that the changes have angered some philosophical materialists in higher education.

"Those professors are just falling out of the trees, as it were, complaining," Fair says, "because we're trying through the public schools to encourage the classroom teacher, through the curriculum, to be more rigorous and more relevant and to critically analyze information to determine what is fact and what is fiction on this subject of Darwinism."

It was for that purpose that Fair, a creationist, introduced a bill in the South Carolina legislature last summer requiring state schools to expose students to the "full ranger of scientific views that exist" on biological evolution. Nevertheless, the conservative lawmaker has found many proponents of Darwinian evolution uncomfortable with and resistant to the introduction of competing theories.

Fair says although intelligent design is a secular scientific perspective that he considers appropriate for public schools, the idea of teaching the theory in South Carolina schools has yet to gain much political support across the state.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.

http://news.christiansunite.com/Religion_News/religion03795.shtml

Additional information on ChristiansUnite.com is available on the Internet at http://www.christiansunite.com/
Copyright © 2003 ChristiansUnite.com. All rights reserved.

Austin, Steven A., Ph.D.
Creationist Geology Professor
(USA)

B.S. (Geology), University of Washington, Seattle, WA,1970

M.S. (Geology), San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, 1971

Ph.D. (Geology), Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 1979


In August of 1993 Dr. Steven Austin and others from the Institute for Creation Research climbed into the crater of Mount St. Helens to view the lava dome. The dome sits like a small mountain (roughly 3/4 mile in length and 1000 feet high) directly over the volcanic vent, which is at the south end of the huge horseshoe-shaped crater blasted out of the mountain by the May 18, 1980 eruption. It is composed of a volcanic rock called dacite and appears to an observer in the crater as a huge steaming mound of dark, blocky rubble.

Actually the present lava dome at Mount St. Helens is the third dome to form since the 1980 eruption, the first two having been blasted away by subsequent eruptions. The current dome started to form after the volcano's last explosive eruption on October 17, 1980. During 17 so-called dome-building eruptions, from October 18, 1980 to October 26, 1986, thick pasty lava oozed out of the volcanic vent much like toothpaste from a tube. Dacite lava is too thick to flow very far, so it simply piled up around the vent forming the mountain-like dome, which now sits as a plug over the volcanic orifice.

Why does the lava dome provide an opportunity to test the accuracy of radioisotope dating? There are two reasons. First, radioisotope dating methods can be used mainly on volcanic (igneous) rock, such as dacite. (Fossil-bearing sedimentary rock cannot be directly dated radioisotopically.) Second, the date of formation of the dacite is known. (This is one of the rare instances in which, to the question, "Were you there?", we can answer-"Yes, we were!") It is widely assumed that the radioisotope clock is set at zero and starts ticking when igneous rock solidifies from a molten state.

Radioisotope dating is used by evolutionists to "prove" that the earth is millions and even billions of years old. Radioisotope dating is the dating of rocks. The concept of radioisotopic dating is fairly simple. The method used at Mount St. Helens is called potassium-argon dating. It is based on the fact that potassium-40 (an isotope or "variety" of the element potassium) spontaneously "decays", becoming argon-40 (an isotope of the element argon). This process proceeds very slowly at a known rate, having a half-life for potassium-40 of 1.3 billion years. In other words, 1.0 gram of potassium-40, in 1.3 billion years, would decay to the point that only 0.5 gm was left. Theoretically, given certain assumptions, one could measure the amount of potassium-40 and argon-40 in a volcanic rock sample and calculate how old the rock is. When this is done, the age is usually very great, often millions of years.

In June of 1992, Dr. Austin collected a 15 lb. block of dacite from high on the lava dome. A portion of this sample was crushed, sieved, and processed into a whole rock powder as well as four mineral concentrates. These were submitted for potassium-argon analysis to Geochron Laboratories of Cambridge, MA, a high quality, professional radioisotope dating laboratory. The only information provided to the laboratory was that the samples came from dacite and that "low argon" should be expected. The laboratory was not told that the specimen came from the lava dome at Mount St. Helens and was only 10 years old. The results of this analysis, (below), were recently published.

        Sample:                     "Age" :
(Mt.St.Helens' new dome)   (in millions of years)
    1.  "Whole Rock"        0.35  ±  0.05
    2.  Feldspar, etc.        0.34  ±  0.06
    3.  Amphibole, etc.        0.9   ±   0.2
    4.  Pyroxene, etc.        1.7   ±   0.3
    5.  Pyroxene                    2.8   ±   0.6


What can one observe about these results? First and foremost is simply that they are wrong. A correct answer would have been "zero argon" indicating that the sample was too young to date by this method. Instead, the results ranged from 0.35-2.8 million years! Why is this? A good possibility is that solidification of magma does not reset the radioisotope clock to zero. Probably some argon-40 is incorporated from the start into newly formed minerals giving the "appearance" of great age. It should also be noted that there is poor correspondence between the different samples, each taken from the same rock.

Is this the only example where radioisotope dating has failed to give correct dates for rocks of known age? Certainly not! Dalrymple gives the following potassium-argon ages for historic lava flows:

Historic Lava Flow                                    Potassium-Argon "age"
                                                              (in millions of years)
Hualalai basalt (Hi, AD 1800-1801)              1.6  ±  0.16
Mt. Etna basalt (Sicily, AD 1792)                1.41  ±  0.08
Mt. Lassen plagioclase (Ca, AD 1915)         0.11  ±  0.3
Sunset Crater basalt (Az, AD 1064-1065)     0.27  ±  0.09
                                                                0.25  ±  0.15


Another example is found at the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The bottom layers of the canyon are widely held to be about one billion years old, according to evolutionary chronology. One of these layers is the Cardenas Basalt, an igneous rock amenable to radioisotope technology. When dated by the rubidium-strontium isochron method the Cardenas Basalt yielded an "age" of 1.07 billion years, which is in agreement with the evolutionary chronology.

However, volcanoes of much more recent origin exist on Grand Canyon's north rim. Geologists agree that these volcanoes erupted only thousands of years ago, spilling lava into an already eroded Grand Canyon, even temporarily damming the Colorado River. Rocks from these lava flows have been dated by the same rubidium-strontium isochron method used to date the Cardenas Basalt, giving an "age" of 1.34 billion years. This result indicates that the top of the canyon is actually older than the bottom! Such an obviously incorrect and ridiculous "age" speaks eloquently of the great problems inherent in radioisotope dating. (Numerous other radioisotope "ages" are also given.)

Radioisotope dating is widely perceived to be the "gold standard" of dating methods and the "proof" for millions of years of earth history. But when the method is tested on rocks of known age it fails miserably. (The lava dome at Mount St. Helens is really not a million years old! We were there! We know!) By what twisted logic then are we compelled to accept radiometric dating results performed on rocks of unknown age? I would submit we are not so compelled, but rather called to question and challenge those who promote the faith of radioisotope dating.

This is absolute proof theat the solid "proof" that the evolunists use for old earth age is not valid.

Dr Donald James Batten
Creationist Agricultural Scientist
(Australia)

1969�72: B.Sc.Agr.(First Class Honours)�University of Sydney

1973�76: Ph.D.�University of Sydney, Department of Agronomy and Horticultural Science. Thesis: Induction of adventitious root formation in mung bean (Vigna radiata (L.) Wilczek)

Dr. Batton has many published books and journal articles. I will be posting just a few of them here.


Are look-alikes related?

by Don Batten

My childhood best friend looked so much like me that our teachers, and even our friends, had a lot of trouble telling us apart. 'Are you twins?', we were often asked. However, there was no family connection as far back as anyone could trace. The similarity in our appearance was not due to being closely related - or, putting it another way - due to us having a recent common ancestor, like a common father, grandmother, or even great grandparent. It was just a 'fluke'.

The main (only?) argument for evolution is that similarities between living things are due to relatedness, or common ancestry. If two kinds of animals share a lot of common features, then they are 'obviously' closely related and so must have had a recent common ancestor - or so the evolutionary reasoning goes. Birds, for example, all lay eggs, have feathers and a specialized lung comprised of interconnected air sacs, so the evolutionist would say all birds had a common ancestor which had these features. Creationists would say that birds have these similarities because they were created with a common basic plan. People would assume that because my friend and I were so similar we must have shared a very recent common ancestor�like the same parents. They were wrong. In like manner, the evolutionists are often - not always - wrong in assuming similarity is due to common ancestry.

Of course my friend and I are members of the same human kind and so we know that we had a common ancestor - who was a descendant of Japheth, in this case. However, the analogy is accurate - that the degree of similarity in appearance does not necessarily indicate the degree of genetic relatedness. As we shall see, evolutionists are forced to recognise this at times, but they (illogically) do not admit that such recognition undermines the main argument for evolution (if similarities occur that clearly are not due to common ancestry, how does the evolutionist know that any similarities are due to evolution?).

If living things had a common creator/designer, we would expect there to be many similarities - just like the early Porsche and VW 'beetle' have many similarities because they shared the same designer. If there were not these similarities in living things we might be inclined to believe in many creators, not just one. The Bible tells us that God's very nature is revealed to us in what He has created (Romans 1:18-23). I believe that God created things in such a way that the patterns we see defy a natural explanation - such as evolution - but support a supernatural explanation. In other words, the patterns of similarity cannot be consistently explained by any naturalistic (everything-made-itself) theory.

The more similar creatures are, according to the evolutionary argument, the more closely they should be related - that is, the more recent it is since they had the same ancestor. Take, as an example, the usual textbook illustration of the similarities between the limbs of animals with backbones (vertebrates) and people. Human beings have a five - finger/toe hand/foot pattern, and limbs with two bones attached to the hand/foot joined to a single other major limb bone. We share this pattern with bats and frogs and therefore, the evolutionist argues, we must share common ancestors with these animals. That explains the similarities, we are told.

However, if we look at the horse limb (right), we see that it is quite different to the human form. Frogs and people have remarkably similar limb structures, but horses, which are supposedly very much more closely related to humans, have a limb with little resemblance to the human limb. Just on the basis of limb structures, it might be reasonable to suppose that frogs and people are more closely related than people and horses.

However, horses, as mammals, share many similarities to humans which frogs, as amphibians, don't share - horses, like us, are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, suckle their young, have hair, etc. The evolutionist claims that horses and humans must be more closely related than frogs and humans.

But what about the remarkable differences in the limbs of horses and humans? The evolutionist 'explains' the profound differences in the horse and human limbs as due to 'adaptation' in the horse. So, when the evolutionist confronts anomalies like the horse limb, a story is invented to 'explain' it. In this case the story is 'adaptation'. The limb was supposedly 'modified' by natural selection to do a different job. However, this is a just-so story to explain away evidence which does not fit the common ancestry idea.
Quolls and cats

Marsupials are mammals which give birth to very immature babies which are suckled in a protective pouch. These include the kangaroos, koalas, wombats and possums of Australasia and the opossums of the Americas. Placental mammals nurture their young in the womb, which develops an elaborate nourishing structure called a placenta. The babies are born in quite a developed state compared to marsupials.

Marsupial               Placental
Tasmanian �Tiger�
or Thylacine           Wolf
Feathertail Glider    Flying squirrel
Dunnart or
Marsupial mouse    Mouse, Shrew
Cuscus                 Monkey
Marsupial mole      Golden mole of Africa
Quoll                    Cat
Bilby                    Hare
Rat kangaroo        Rat
Wombat               Marmot
Numbat                Anteater


Nearly all the mammals in Australia are marsupials. Why is this so? The evolutionist claims to have an answer: the marsupials evolved in Australia from a common ancestor which just happened to be here. Placental mammals - such as dogs, cats, horses, squirrels, mice, etc., evolved on other continents. That's the story.

However, there are many incredible similarities between marsupial and placental animals which defy this naturalistic story. Take the marsupial mouse, or dunnart, and placental mouse, for example. Some types are so similar it is difficult to tell them apart without close inspection to look for the pouch.

The marsupial mole from the Northern Territory of Australia is incredibly similar to the golden mole of Africa. When the cuscus was first discovered in Papua New Guinea it was mistaken for a type of monkey. It has a flat monkey-like face, opposable digits on front and hind limbs, and a prehensile (grasping) tail.

The number of similar marsupial and placental animals is astounding, if they just arose by the evolutionary processes of chance mutations and natural selection.

The list could be extended by including extinct types such as the marsupial diprotodon, a hippopotamus-like creature. So there are many similarities which are not due to common ancestry, or evolution. How does the evolutionist account for these similarities? Here another story comes into play: many of the marsupials and placentals ended up looking like one another because they happened to be in similar ecological niches and so evolved similarly to fill those similar niches. This is another 'just-so' story. Such similarities are said to be due to 'convergence' or 'parallel evolution'. 'Convergence' is really just a grab bag to put similarities which cannot be explained through common ancestry (evolution). This is supposed to account for similarities which do not fit the evolutionary scheme of descent based on other similarities.

It stretches the bounds of credulity to believe that so many marsupials just happened, without any plan and purpose, to look so similar to their placental counterparts. It's like trying to believe that two artists painted a series of almost identical paintings without reference to one another, or that the similarities between a VW and Porsche were not due to their having a common designer.

Also, if being in a similar ecological niche automatically generates similarities, why is the kangaroo not more like cattle, horses or deer - the kangaroo's ecological counterparts on other continents? The kangaroo throws a spanner into the logic of the 'convergence' story used to explain similarities which do not fit the evolutionary story.

God has indeed created things in such a way as to confound naturalistic (everything made itself) explanations for the origin of organisms. Various ad hoc, or just-so, stories have been invented in an attempt to explain the many things which do not fit the evolutionary scheme, but they are just that - stories. May God receive the glory that is His due for the marvelous things He has created!

To a Christian, these make sense, to a non-christian this makes no sense. This was posted by my brother in Christ, Bronzesnake.


Resting in the hands, of the Lord.
Bob

Acts 6:8 Now Stephen, full of grace (divine blessing and favor) and power (strength and ability) worked great wonders and signs (miracles) among the people.

When the discovery of what appeared to be human footprints, along with dinosaur tracks (in the Paluxy River bed near Glen Rose, Texas), was reported in the May 1939 issue of Natural History, it created a furor that has not subsided to this very day. For decades it seemed obvious to careful observers that this was clear evidence of human/dinosaur co-habitation.

Then, a few years ago, Glen Kuban, a computer programmer from Cleveland, Ohio, discovered chemical discolorations at the front of some of the human-like prints. This led him and others to suggest that the human-like tracks were not human at all; rather, they were simply portions of the dinosaur tracks that had been altered by mud-fill.

It has even been speculated that someone may have “doctored” some of the dinosaur/human prints to eradicate the impression of “humanness.” Evolutionists, of course, desperately want to discredit the tracks as human, for as some of them have conceded: “Such an occurrence (i.e., human and dinosaur tracks in the same stratum), verified, would seriously disrupt conventional interpretations of biological and geological history and would support the doctrines of creationism and catastrophism”.

Those who accept the testimony of the Bible are confident that men and dinosaurs did occupy the ancient earth at the same time. We are not dependent upon modern discoveries to confirm that for us. However, when clear evidence does come to light, we should not hesitate to accept it.

Resting in the hands, of the Lord.
Bob

Romans 1:5 It is through Him that we have received grace (God's unmerited favor) and [our] apostleship to promote obedience to the faith and make disciples for His name's sake among all the nations,

Those who were disposed to believe in the theory of evolution alleged that this destroyed the Paluxy evidence once and for all. Some creationists, e.g., those of the Institute of Creation Research in San Diego, adopted a wait-and-see policy until further research is forthcoming. Others were not so easily swayed. Two authors, Robert F. Helfinstine and Jerry D. Roth, recently produced a study which strongly argues for the validity of comtemporary human/dinosaur tracks (Helfinstine & Roth, Texas Tracks And Artifacts, 1994,

This is another article written by Dr D. Batten. It shows us that the population today, with or without catastophic amount of deaths cannot account for todays population.

_____________

Where are all the people?

by Don Batten

Six billion people live on planet Earth. That sounds like a lot of people. Well, I would not want to invite them all to a barbecue at my house! However, they could all fit into an area the size of England, with more than 20 square metres each. Many of us live in cities, so we have the impression that the world is bursting with people. However, much of the world is sparsely populated.

Nevertheless, many wonder at how the population could have grown to six billion from Noah’s family who survived the Flood that wiped out everyone else about 4,500 years ago. When you do the figures, it confirms the Biblical truth that everyone on Earth today is a descendant of Noah’s sons and daughters-in-law. Not only that, but if people have been here for much longer, and there was no global Flood of Noah’s day, there should be a lot more people than there are—or there should be a lot more human remains!

Many people have problems understanding growth rates of things. When the population doubles from 16 to 32, it does not seem like much, but when it doubles from three billion to six billion it seems like a lot more. But, it is exactly the same rate of growth. Given enough generations, the number of people being added with each generation becomes astronomical. It’s like compound interest on an investment—eventually the amount being added each year becomes very great.

To illustrate this, think of the story of the inventor of chess. His king offered him a reward, but instead of gold he asked for one grain of rice doubled for each successive square on a chessboard. The number of grains would have been 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 · etc. The 10th square would have 512; the 20th, 524 thousand; the 30th, 537 million. The amount of rice on the last square1 would have been a number so great—vastly in excess of the total world rice harvest at present—that it would have represented wealth far exceeding that of the king. Such is the power of compounding. And population growth is compound growth—that’s why so many people are now being added each year. It’s not necessarily that people are having more children than they once did, or that fewer people are dying.
What causes population growth?

The population grows when more people are born than die. The current growth rate of the world population is about 1.7% per year.2 In other words, for every 100 million people, 1.7 million are added every year; i.e. births net of deaths.

Many assume that modern medicine accounts for the world’s population growth. However, ‘third world’ countries contribute most of the population growth, suggesting that modern medicine is not as important as many think.

Population growth in a number of South American and African countries exceeds 3% per year. In many industrialized countries with modern medical facilities, the population growth is less than 0.5%. Some relatively wealthy countries are actually declining in population.

The move from agriculture to manufacturing/technology has been a big factor in slowing population growth in industrialized countries. Farmers needed to have sons to help with the farm work. This was particularly necessary before mechanization. My own family records show that in the early- to mid-1800s in Australia, couples commonly had 8–10 surviving children. One couple had 16! And this was before the discovery of the germ basis of disease,3 aseptic surgery,4 vaccines3 and antibiotics. Opportunity to expand, combined with biology, saw growth in population of 4% or more, plus increases due to immigration. High rates of population growth were also seen in Quebec, Canada, from 1760 to 1790, following the British conquest of Canada in 1759,5 and well before the impact of modern medical knowledge.

In industrialized countries, the advent of social security pensions and retirement plans (superannuation) has probably been another major factor in the decline of population growth. These schemes mean that people do not see the need to have children for security in their old age. Furthermore, people can now easily choose how many children they have because of modern birth control methods, such as the contraceptive pill.

What growth rate is needed to get six billion people since the Flood?

It is relatively easy to calculate the growth rate needed to get today’s population from Noah’s three sons and their wives, after the Flood. With the Flood at about 4,500 years ago, it needs less than 0.5% per year growth.6 That’s not very much.

Of course, population growth has not been constant. There is reasonably good evidence that growth has been slow at times—such as in the Middle Ages in Europe. However, data from the Bible (Genesis 10,11) shows that the population grew quite quickly in the years immediately after the Flood. Shem had five sons, Ham had four, and Japheth had seven. If we assume that they had the same number of daughters, then they averaged 10.7 children per couple. In the next generation, Shem had 14 grandsons, Ham, 28 and Japheth, 23, or 130 children in total. That is an average of 8.1 per couple. These figures are consisent with God’s command to ‘be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’ (Genesis 9:1).

Let us take the average of all births in the first two post-Flood generations as 8.53 children per couple. The average age at which the first son was born in the seven post-Flood generations in Shem’s line ranged from 35 to 29 years (Genesis 11:10–24), with an average of 31 years,7 so a generation time of 40 years is reasonable. Hence, just four generations after the Flood would see a total population of over 3,000 people (remembering that the longevity of people was such that Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, etc., were still alive at that time).8 This represents a population growth rate of 3.7% per year, or a doubling time of about 19 years.9

If there were 300 million people in the world at the time of Christ’s Resurrection,2 this requires a population growth rate of only 0.75% since the Flood, or a doubling time of 92 years—much less than the documented population growth rate in the years following the Flood.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

A remarkable coincidence?

The Jews are descendants of Jacob (also called Israel). The number of Jews in the world in 1930, before the Nazi Holocaust, was estimated at 18 million. This represents a doubling in population, on average, every 156 years, or 0.44% growth per year since Jacob. Since the Flood, the world population has doubled every 155 years, or grown at an average of 0.45% per year. There is agreement between the growth rates for the two populations. Is this just a lucky coincidence?

Hardly. The figures agree because the real history of the world is recorded in the Bible.
What if people had been around for one million years?

Evolutionists claim that mankind evolved from apes about a million years ago. If the population had grown at just 0.01% per year since then (doubling only every 7,000 years), there could be 1043 people today that's a number with 43 zeros after it. This number is so big that not even the Texans have a word for it! To try to put this number of people in context, say each individual is given standing room only of about one square metre per person. However, the land surface area of the whole Earth is only 1.5 x 1014 square metres. If every one of those square metres were made into a world just like this one, all these worlds put together would still only have a surface area able to fit 1028 people in this way. This is only a tiny fraction of 1043 (1029 is 10 times as much as 1028, 1030 is 100 times, and so on). Those who adhere to the evolutionary story argue that disease, famine and war kept the numbers almost constant for most of this period, which means that mankind was on the brink of extinction for most of this supposed history.10 This stretches credulity to the limits.
Where are all the bodies?

Evolutionists also claim there was a 'Stone Age' of about 100,000 years11 when between one million and 10 million people lived on Earth. Fossil evidence shows that people buried their dead, often with artefacts, cremation was not practised until relatively recent times (in evolutionary thinking). If there were just one million people alive during that time, with an average generation time of 25 years, they should have buried 4 billion bodies, and many artefacts. If there were 10 million people, it would mean 40 billion bodies buried in the Earth. If the evolutionary timescale were correct, then we would expect the skeletons of the buried bodies to be largely still present after 100,000 years, because many ordinary bones claimed to be much older have been found.12 However, even if the bodies had disintegrated, lots of artefacts should still be found.

Now the number of human fossils found is nothing like one would expect if this 'Stone Age' scenario were correct. The number found is more consistent with a 'Stone Age' of a few hundred years, which would have occurred after Babel.13 Many people groups could have used stone tools as they moved out from Babel (Genesis 11), having lost the technologies of metal smelting (Genesis 4:22) due to the Flood and the confusion of languages at Babel.

Immigrant peoples, when they settled in a new area, would have had an initial phase where they would shelter in caves, or have rudimentary housing. They would have made use of stone tools, for example, while they developed agricultural techniques appropriate to the local soils and climate, found sources of ores, and rediscovered how to manufacture tools, etc.

Groups that descended into animism might never emerge from this 'stone age' of their development, because of the stifling effects of such things as taboos, and fear of evil spirits. One tribal group in the Philippines, for example, had a taboo against water, causing rampant disease due to lack of hygiene, before the Gospel of Jesus Christ rescued them from superstition.

Australian Aborigines - how long have they been in Australia?

When Europeans came to settle in Australia in 1788, it was estimated that there were perhaps only 300,000 Aboriginal people.14 And yet today we are told that the people have been here for 60,000 years or more. Now there is no way that a mere 300,000 people had exhausted the plenty of this large country so as to account for a long period of very low population growth. If we allow for one-third of the land area as desert, it means that there was only one person for every 18 square kilometres (7 square miles) of habitable land area - hardly overpopulated, even for a subsistence existence.

If 20 people had come to settle some time after the Flood, say 3,500 years ago, it would have needed a population growth of a mere 0.28% per year to produce 300,000 people. Such a minimal rate operating over 60,000 years could produce more people than there are atoms in the Milky Way Galaxy!

The real history of the world is recorded in the Bible, the Word of the Creator-God who was there in the beginning. This record shows that the world was deluged and destroyed (Genesis 6�9, 2 Peter 3) so that all people living today came from those who survived aboard Noah's Ark. A study of population growth clearly supports this Biblical record.

References and notes

   1. For the nth square, the number of rice grains = 2n-1 = 263 for the last square, or about 1019 grains!
   2. Encyclopaedia Britannica CD 2000, Trends in world population.
   3. Proven/developed by the creationist scientist Louis Pasteur (see Lamont, A., 21 Great Scientists Who Believed the Bible, Answers in Genesis, Brisbane, 1995).
   4. Pioneered by another great creationist scientist, Joseph Lister (see Lamont's book).
   5. Armstrong, H.L., More on growth of a population, Creation Research Society Quarterly 22(1):47, 1985, citing Lower, A.R.M., Canadians in the Making, Longmans, Green and Co., Toronto, p. 113, 1958. There was little immigration in this period.
   6. If r = % rate of growth per year, and the number of years of growth = n, then after n years, the population produced by the eight survivors of the Flood = 8(1+r/100)n. For a more comprehensive formula that takes into account longevity, number of children born and generation time, see Morris, H.M., World population and Bible chronology, Creation Research Society Quarterly 3(3):7-10, 1966.
   7. It is possible that the births mentioned are not the firstborn; they could just be the sons leading to Abraham. This would shorten the generation times and make the population growth even greater.
   8. This answers a common sceptical objection regarding the population at the time of Babel about 100 years after the Flood. This dating assumes that Peleg was named because of this event (Genesis 10:25) - see In the Days of Peleg. However, his naming could have been prophetic, like Methuselah, who died in the year of the Flood and whose name means 'When he dies, it shall be sent'. If this is true, then Babel could have been some time after Peleg's birth, but during his lifetime.
   9. The 'rule of 72' states that dividing 72 by the annual growth (in %) gives the years to double the population. This is an approximation that makes the calculations easy. A figure of 69.3 is more accurate (100 x ln2 = 69.3).
  10. Even if the population were a million, the low reproductive rate would not be sufficient to eliminate harmful mutations. The mutational load alone would have ensured extinction. For details, see ReMine, W., The Biotic Message, St Paul Science, St Paul, Minnesota, 1993 (see my review and purchasing details).
  11. Some extend the 'Stone Age' to a million years or more.
  12. Such as dinosaur bones in Montana, claimed to be over 65 million years old, but so 'fresh' that blood cells and hemoglobin are still present. See Wieland, C., Sensational dinosaur blood report! Creation 19(4):42-3, 1997.
  13. Osgood, A.J.M., A better model of the Stone Age, CEN Tech. J. 2:88-102, 1986 and Part 2, CEN Tech. J. 3:73-95, 1988.
  14. The Australian Encyclopaedia, 5th Edition, 1988, The Australian Geographic Society, Sydney, 1:230, 1988. There has been a tendency to revise this estimate upwards, possibly driven by the obvious inconsistency of the 300,000 figure with the belief in the antiquity of the Aboriginal population.
  15. How long have Aborigines been in Australia? Creation 15(3):48-50, 1993.

Supporting addendum to the prior article:



Australian Aborigines — cultural traditions connect to Noah

In addition to population figures, there is much other evidence against the supposed long ages of Aboriginal occupation of Australia—the observed rapid deterioration of supposedly ancient paintings, for example.15

Furthermore, many Aboriginal tribes have stories, long predating their contact with Christian missionaries, of a global Flood, sometimes with startling similarities to the Bible’s account, but with sufficient differences to show that they were not recently incorporated into their folklore following contacts with missionaries.15 It is stretching credulity to suggest that these stories have been maintained by word-of-mouth for 40 to 60 thousand years, or that they were invented and just by chance have these incredible similarities to the Bible account.

The Aboriginal population and their stories are much more in line with their having been a nomadic/‘gypsy’ people who found themselves in Australia relatively recently—certainly after the Biblical Flood.

Still another article by Dr D. Batten


Human/chimp DNA similarity
Evidence for evolutionary relationship?

by Don Batten

The idea that human beings and chimps have close to 100% similarity in their DNA seems to be common knowledge. The figures quoted vary: 97%, 98%, or even 99%, depending on just who is telling the story. What is the basis for these claims and do the data mean there really is not much difference between chimps and people? Are we just highly evolved apes? The following concepts will assist with a proper understanding of this issue:

    * Similarity (homology) is not evidence for common ancestry (evolution) as against a common designer (creation). Think about a Porsche and Volkswagen Beetle car. They both have air cooled, flat, horizontally opposed, 4 cylinder engines in the rear, independent suspension, two doors, boot (trunk) in the front, and many other similarities (homologies). Why do these two very different cars have so many similarities? Because they had the same designer! Whether similarity is morphological (appearance), or biochemical, is of no consequence to the lack of logic in this argument for evolution.
    * If humans were entirely different from all other living things, or indeed if every living thing was entirely different, would this reveal the Creator to us? No! We would logically think that there must be many creators rather than one. The unity of the creation is testimony to the One True God who made it all (Romans 1:18-23).
    * If humans were entirely different from all other living things, how would we then live? If we are to eat food to provide nutrients and energy to live, what would we eat if every other organism on earth were fundamentally different biochemically? How could we digest them and how could we use the amino acids, sugars, etc., if they were different from the ones we have in our bodies? Biochemical similarity is necessary for us to have food!
    * We know that DNA in cells contains much of the information necessary for the development of an organism. In other words, if two organisms look similar, we would expect there to be some similarity also in their DNA. The DNA of a cow and a whale, two mammals, should be more alike than the DNA of a cow and a bacterium. If it were not so, then the whole idea of DNA being the information carrier in living things would have to be questioned. Likewise, humans and apes have a lot of morphological similarities, so we would expect there would be similarities in their DNA. Of all the animals, chimps are most like humans,1 so we would expect that their DNA would be most like human DNA.
    * Certain biochemical capacities are common to all living things, so there is even a degree of similarity between the DNA of yeast, for example, and that of humans. Because human cells can do many of the things that yeast can do, we share similarities in the DNA sequences that code for the enzymes that do the same jobs in both types of cells. Some of the sequences, for example, those that code for the MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex) proteins, are almost identical.
    * What of the 97% (or 98% or 99%!) similarity claimed between humans and chimps? The figures published do not mean quite what is claimed in the popular publications (and even some respectable science journals). DNA contains its information in the sequence of four chemical compounds known as nucleotides, abbreviated C,G,A,T. Groups of three of these at a time are read by complex translation machinery in the cell to determine the sequence of 20 different types of amino acids to be incorporated into proteins. The human DNA has at least 3,000,000,000 nucleotides in sequence. Chimp DNA has not been anywhere near fully sequenced so that a proper comparison can be made (using a lot of computer time to do it, imagine comparing two sets of 1000 large books, sentence by sentence, for similarities and differences!).

      Where did the 97% similarity come from then? It was inferred from a fairly crude technique called DNA hybridization where small parts of human DNA are split into single strands and allowed to re-form double strands (duplex) with chimp DNA.2 However, there are various reasons why DNA does or does not hybridize, only one of which is degree of similarity (homology).3 Consequently, this somewhat arbitrary figure is not used by those working in molecular homology (other parameters, derived from the shape of the melting curve, are used). Why has the 97% figure been popularised then? One can only guess that it served the purpose of evolutionary indoctrination of the scientifically illiterate.

      Interestingly, the original papers did not contain the basic data and the reader had to accept the interpretation of the data on faith. Sarich et al.4 obtained the original data and used them in their discussion of which parameters should be used in homology studies.5 Sarich discovered considerable sloppiness in Sibley and Ahlquist�s generation of their data as well as their statistical analysis. Upon inspecting the data, I discovered that, even if everything else was above criticism, the 97% figure came from making a very basic statistical error averaging two figures without taking into account differences in the number of observations contributing to each figure. When a proper mean is calculated it is 96.2%, not 97%. However, there is no true replication in the data, so no confidence can be attached to the figures published by Sibley and Ahlquist.

      What if human and chimp DNA was even 96% homologous? What would that mean? Would it mean that humans could have evolved from a common ancestor with chimps? Not at all! The amount of information in the 3 billion base pairs in the DNA in every human cell has been estimated to be equivalent to that in 1,000 books of encyclopaedia size.6 If humans were only 4% different this still amounts to 120 million base pairs, equivalent to approximately 12 million words, or 40 large books of information. This is surely an impossible barrier for mutations (random changes) to cross.7
    * Does a high degree of similarity mean that two DNA sequences have the same meaning or function? No, not necessarily. Compare the following sentences:

          There are many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.

          There are not many scientists today who question the evolutionary paradigm and its atheistic philosophical implications.

      These sentences have 97% homology and yet have almost opposite meanings! There is a strong analogy here to the way in which large DNA sequences can be turned on or off by relatively small control sequences. The DNA similarity data don't quite mean what the evolutionary popularizers claim!

      Ed. note: the point of this article was to refute one widely parroted proof that humans evolved from apes, as should be clear from the title. It was simply beyond the scope of a single Creation magazine article to deal with all other proofs of human evolution, although, amazingly, some atheistic sceptics have attacked this article for this alleged failing!

cont'd on page two

Page Two

References and notes

   1. However, Jeffrey Swartz, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Pittsburg, maintains that man is closer to orangutans in gross morphology. Acts and Facts, 16(5):5, 1987.
   2. Sibley and Ahlquist, 1987, J. Molec. Evol. 26:99–121). The resulting hybrid duplex material is then separated from single–strand DNA remaining and heated in 2 to 3 degree increments from 55o to 95o C, and the amount of DNA separating at each temperature is measured and totalled, comparing it to human–human DNA re–formed as duplex. If 90% of the human DNA is recovered with heating from the human–chimp hybrid, compared to the human-human DNA, then there is said to be 90% normalised percentage hybridisation.
   3. Sarich et al. 1989. Cladistics 5:3–32. Return to text.
   4. Ibid.
   5. Molecular homology studies could be quite useful to creationists in determining what were the original created ‘kinds’ and what has happened since to generate new species within each kind. For example, the varieties / species of finch on the Galápagos Islands obviously derived from an original small number that made it to the islands. Recombination of the genes in the original migrants and natural selection could account for the varieties of finch on the islands today—just as all the breeds of dogs in the world today were artificially bred from an original wild dog/wolf kind not long ago. It is interesting that molecular homology studies have been most consistent when applied within what are probably biblical kinds and contradict the major predictions of evolution regarding the relationships between the major groups such as phyla and classes (see ref. 6 regarding the latter).
   6. Michael Denton, 1985. Evolution: Theory in Crisis. (Burnett Books, London).
   7. Haldane’s Dilemma recognises the problem for evolutionists of getting genetic changes in higher organisms, especially those which have long generation times. Due to the cost of substitution (death of the unfit) of one gene for another in a population, it would take over 7x1011 years of human–like generations to substitute the 120 million base pairs. Or in 10 million years (twice the time since the chimp/human common ancestor is alleged to have lived), only 1667 substitutions could occur, or 0.001% of the difference. There has simply been insufficient time for ape–like creatures to turn into humans. And this understates the problem by assuming perfect efficiency of natural selection and ignoring deleterious processes like inbreeding and genetic drift, as well as problems posed by pleiotropy (one gene controlling more than one characteristic) and polygeny (more than one gene controlling one characteristic)—most real genes. See W.J. ReMine, The Biotic Message (St. Paul Science, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1993), pp. 215–217.

Ligers and wholphins and zorses, oh my!

______________________________

Ligers and wholphins? What next?
Crazy mixed-up animals … what do they tell us? They seem to defy man-made classification systems — but what about the created ‘kinds’ in Genesis?

by Don Batten

If we can cross-breed a zebra and a horse (to produce a ‘zorse’), a lion and a tiger (a liger or tigon), or a (false) killer whale and a dolphin (a wholphin), what does this tell us about the original kinds of animals that God created?

The Bible tells us in Genesis chapter 1 that God created plants to produce seed ‘after their kind’ (vv. 11, 12). God also created the animals to reproduce ‘after their kind’ (vv. 20, 24, 25). ‘After their/its kind’ is repeated ten times in Genesis 1, giving emphasis to the principle. And we take it for granted. When we plant a tomato seed, we don’t expect to see a geranium pop up out of the ground. Nor do we expect that our dog will give birth to kittens or that Aunt Betty, who is expecting, will bring home a chimpanzee baby from hospital! Our everyday experience confirms the truth of the Bible that things produce offspring true to their kind.

But what is a created ‘kind’? And what organisms today represent the kinds God created in the beginning? The creationist scientist, Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), the founder of the science of taxonomy,1 tried to determine the created kinds. He defined a ‘species’ as a group of organisms that could interbreed among themselves, but not with another group, akin to the Genesis concept. (See aside below.)
Finding the created kinds

From Genesis 1, the ability to produce offspring, i.e. to breed with one another, defines the original created kinds. Linnaeus recognised this, but named many species2 without any breeding experiments, on the basis of such things as flower characteristics. In his mature years he did extensive hybridization (cross-breeding) experiments and realised that his ‘species’ concept was too narrow for the species to be considered as created kinds; he thought that the genus perhaps corresponded better with the created kind.3,4

Even today, creationists are often misrepresented as believing that God created all the species we have today, just like they are today, in the beginning. This is called ‘fixity of species’. The Bible does not teach this. Nevertheless, university professors often show students that a new ‘species’ has arisen in ferment flies, for example, and then claim that this disproves the Genesis account of creation. Darwin made this very mistake when he studied the finches and tortoises on the Galapagos islands. (He also erred in assuming that creation implied that each organism was made where it is now found; but from the Bible it is clear that today’s land-dwelling vertebrates migrated to their present locations after the Flood.)

If two animals or two plants can hybridize (at least enough to produce a truly fertilized egg), then they must belong to (i.e. have descended from) the same original created kind. If the hybridizing species are from different genera in a family, it suggests that the whole family might have come from the one created kind. If the genera are in different families within an order, it suggests that maybe the whole order may have derived from the original created kind.

On the other hand, if two species will not hybridize, it does not necessarily prove that they are not originally from the same kind. We all know of couples who cannot have children, but this does not mean they are separate species!

In the case of three species, A, B and C, if A and B can each hybridize with C, then it suggests that all three are of the same created kind — whether or not A and B can hybridize with each other. Breeding barriers can arise through such things as mutations. For example, two forms of ferment flies (Drosophila) produced offspring that could not breed with the parent species.5 That is, they were a new biological ‘species’. This was due to a slight chromosomal rearrangement, not any new genetic information. The new ‘species’ was indistinguishable from the parents and obviously the same kind as the parents, since it came from them.

Following are some examples of hybrids that show that the created kind is often at a higher level than the species, or even the genus, named by taxonomists.

Crossing a male ass (donkey — Equus asinus) and a horse (Equus caballus) produces a mule (the reverse is called a hinny). Hybrids between zebras and horses (zorse) and zebras and donkeys (zeedonk, zonkey, zebrass) also readily occur.

Some creationists have reasoned that because these hybrids are sterile, the horse, ass and zebra must be separate created kinds. However, not only does this go beyond the biblical text, it is overwhelmingly likely that horses, asses and zebras (six species of Equus) are the descendants of the one created kind which left the Ark. Hybridization itself suggests this, not whether the offspring are fertile or not. Infertility in offspring can be due to rearrangements of chromosomes in the different species — changes such that the various species have the same DNA information but the chromosomes of the different species no longer match up properly to allow the offspring to be fertile. Such (non-evolutionary) changes within a kind can cause sterility in hybrids.

A male African lion (Panthera leo) and a female tiger (Panthera tigris) can mate to produce a liger. The reverse cross produces a tigon. Such crossing does not normally happen in the wild because most lions live in Africa and most tigers live in Asia. Also, lions and tigers just don’t mix; they are enemies in the wild. However, the Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (USA), raised a lion and a tigress together. Arthur, the lion, and Ayla, the tigress, became good friends and bred to produce Samson and Sudan, two huge male ligers. Samson stands 3.7 m (12 feet) tall on his hind legs, weighs 500 kg (1,100 lbs) and can run at 80 km/hr (50 mph).

Lions and tigers belong to the same genus, Panthera, along with the jaguar, leopard and snow leopard, in the subfamily Felinae. This subfamily also contains the genus Felis, which includes the mountain lion and numerous species of smaller cats, including the domestic cat. The cheetah, genus Acinonyx, belongs to a different subfamily.6 Thus the genera Panthera, Felis and Acinonyx may represent descendants of three original created cat kinds, or maybe two: Panthera-Felis and Acinonyx, or even one cat kind. The extinct sabre-tooth tiger may have been a different created kind (see diagram at right).

The Panthera cats lack a hyoid bone at the back of the tongue, compared to Felis. Acinonyx has the hyoid, but lacks the ability to retract its claws. So the differences between the cats could have arisen through loss of genetic information due to mutations (loss of the bone; loss of claw retraction). Note that this has nothing to do with molecules-to-man evolution, which requires the addition of new information, not loss of information (which is to be expected in a fallen world as things tend to ‘fall apart’).

cont'd page two

Page Two

Kekaimalu the wholphin

In 1985, Hawaii's Sea Life Park reported the birth of a baby from the mating of a male false killer whale (Pseudorca crassidens) and a female bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus).7 The birth surprised the park staff, as the parents are rather different in appearance. Here we have a hybrid between different genera in the same family, Delphinidae (dolphins and killer whales).8 Since the offspring in this case are fertile (Kekaimalu has since given birth to a baby wholphin), these two genera are really, by definition, a single polytypic biological species.2 Other genera in the group are much more alike than the two that produced the offspring in Hawaii, which suggests that the 12 living genera might have all descended from the original created kind.
Rama the cama

Veterinarians in the United Arab Emirates successfully cross-bred a camel and a llama. The 'cama', named 'Rama', has the cloven hooves of a llama and the short ears and tail of a camel. The scientists hope to combine the best qualities of both into the one animal - the superior fleece and calmer temperament of the llama with the larger size of the camel.

Genae the hybrid snake

Genae  resulted from a cross between an albino corn snake (Elaphe guttata) and an albino king snake (Lampropeltis triangulum) in a reptile park in California.9 Apparently, this particular intergeneric hybrid is fertile. Genae is almost four years old and already 1.4 m (4 ft) long. The parent snakes belong to the same snake family, Colubridae; the success of this hybrid suggests that the many species and genera of snakes in this family today could have all originally come from the same created kind.

Other hybrids

With the cattle kind, seven species of the genus Bos hybridize, but so also does the North American buffalo, Bison bison, with Bos, to produce a cattalo. Here the whole family of cattle-type creatures, Bovidae, probably came from an original created cattle kind which was on the Ark.10

Plant breeders have bred some agriculturally important plants by hybridizing different species and even genera. For example, triticale, a grain crop, came from a cross of wheat (Triticum) and barley (Secale), another fertile hybrid between genera.

During my years as a research scientist for the government in Australia, I helped create a hybrid of the delicious fruit species lychee (Litchi chinensis) and longan (Dimocarpus longana), which both belong to the same family.11 I also studied the hybrids of six species of the custard apple family, Annonaceae. Each of these two family groupings, recognised by botanists today, probably represents the original created kinds.

God created all kinds, or basic types, of creatures and plants with the ability to produce variety in their offspring. These varieties come from recombinations of the existing genetic information created in the beginning, through the marvellous reproductive method created by God. Since the Fall (Genesis 3), some variations also occurred through degenerative changes caused by mutations (e.g. loss of wing size in the cormorants of the Galapagos Islands).

The variations allow for the descendants of the created kinds to adapt to different environments and fill the earth, as God commanded. If genera represent the created kinds, then Noah took less than 20,000 land animals on the Ark; far fewer if kinds occasionally gave rise to families. From these kinds came many daughter species, which generally each have less information (and are thus more specialized) than the parent population on the Ark. Properly understood, adaptation by natural selection (which gets rid of information) does not involve the addition of new complex DNA information. Thus, students should not be taught that it demonstrates evolution happening, as if it showed the process by which fish could eventually turn into people.

Understanding what God has told us in Genesis provides a sound foundation for thinking about the classification of living things, as Linnaeus found, and how the great diversity we see today has come about.

References and notes

   1. The study of the naming and classification of organisms.
   2. Biological species is often used today to refer to a group of organisms that can interbreed to produce fertile offspring. It does not always correlate with the taxonomic species. Note that the kinds would originally have met the criterion for each being a separate biological species, since they did not interbreed with any other kind.
   3. In Latin, genus conveys the meaning of origin, or kind, whereas species means outward appearance (The Oxford Latin Minidictionary, 1995).
   4. Creationist biologists today often combine the Hebrew words bara (create) and min (kind) to call the created kind a baramin.
   5. Marsh, Frank L., Variation and Fixity in Nature, Pacific Press, CA, USA, p. 75, 1976.
   6. Encyclopaedia Britannica 98 CD. Other authorities call the Panthera genus Leo, so that the lion is then Leo leo.
   7. Keene Rees, Waimanalo Hapa Girl Makes 10! Waimanalo News, May 1995, <http://www.hotspots.hawaii.com/Wolphin.html>, March 1, 2000.
   8. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica 23:434, 1992.
   9. Genae belongs to David Jolly, Manager of the Information Department, AiG (USA). She was bred at a reptile park at Bakersfield. Corn snakes are one of the most popular pet snakes in North America, and snake fanciers have bred all sorts of colour variations, which are catalogued at <http://members.aol.com/guttata319/Hawkherp/morfs.html>, March 22, 2000.
  10. See Wieland, C., Recreating the extinct Aurochs? Creation 14(2):25-28, 1992.
  11. McConchie, C.A., Batten, D.J. and Vithanage, V., Intergeneric hybridization between litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) and longan (Dimocarpus longan Lour.) Annals of Botany 74:111-118, 1994.

I have been posting a lot of articles on the scientific proof that supports the Bible but so far I haven't given a whole lot of information on exactly what the Bible tells us of Creation. So I want to break here for a while and specifically cover the Bible side of this subject which is still good science (1Ti 6:20). Naturally the place to start is in Genesis. Genesis is not the only book though that covers this subject. Even Jesus had some things to say about this in the New Testament and I hope to cover that also.

One of the ways that God speaks to people (both believers and non-believers) is through the Bible. Many non-believers have come to know Jesus through the teachings of the Bible and believers have come to know Him better. One of the purposes of Genesis is to let us know about Him, what He did, how He did it. It is to teach us also about sin. How it came into the world and how all men and and the world is affected by it. Yes, there is much more to it but this is the points that I want to stay with in the study of this thread.

We start out in Genesis with the record of God making the world. Why is He telling us of these things? Because He wants us to know that He is the one that is all powerful. What power that is! No one else has this power to create so much so perfectly. Man is just the opposite, we are nothing in comparison.

When God speaks to us He does so in a means that we can understand. He does not want us to be confused when it comes to understanding that He is all powerful. He tells us that He created the earth, sky (universe) and all that is in it within six days. There are those that use the verse 2 Pet 3:8 to say that these "days" may be a longer timeframe. This verse is talking about the coming of the Lord not in His creation of the world. It is explaining why the Day of the Lord has not yet come. We see a reference in Heb 4;4 of the day of rest. It also mentions here the day the Lord rested yet it makes no difference in this verse between the meanings of the word day. This tells us that a day is just that .... a day. As I said previously the days mentioned in Genesis is to explain the almighty power of God. What better way is there than for Him to have created everything in six literal days.

All through Genesis 1 we see "And God said" so we know that through the power of His voice that He created all things. It does not say that He created something and then let it form slowly into something else but that it was formed immediately, perfect and complete.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." We see reference to this in other portions of the Bible also, not just in Genesis. Mar 13:19, Joh 1:1-2, Eph 3:9, Heb 1:10.

Some thesists say that the Bible is not in contradiction with the teachings of the Bible. If we truly read what we are told in Genesis we will see that this is false. We are told that God created all things not created some things and then changed them.

 

What difference does it make whether one believes the world was created or evolved? Can't one embrace Christianity and Evolution? An outspoken evolutionist answered this question in the American Atheist magazine with the following reply:

      "Christianity is - must be! - totally committed to the special creation as described in Genesis, and Christianity must fight with its full might against the theory of evolution. And here is why.

      In Romans we read that 'sin entered the world through one man, and through sin - death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.' (5:12)

      ...the whole justification of Jesus' life and death is predicated on the existence of Adam and the forbidden fruit he and Eve ate. Without the original sin, who needs to be redeemed? Without Adam's fall into a life of constant sin terminated by death, what purpose is there to Christianity? None.

      Even a high school student knows enough about evolution to know that nowhere in the evolutionary description of our origins does there appear an Adam or an Eve or an Eden or a forbidden fruit. Evolution means a development from one form to the next to meet the ever-changing challenges from an ever-changing nature. There is no fall from a previous state of sublime perfection.

      Without Adam, without the original sin, Jesus Christ is reduced to a man with a mission on a wrong planet!"

Did this opponent of Christianity understand the issues more clearly than most Christians? How important it is that we as Christians be consistent in our thinking. We must accept all of the Bible as God's Word. In it God says what He means and He means what He says.

We are reminded of the words of the apostle John who wrote, "The word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

No, Christ was not merely a man with a mission on the wrong planet. He was truly God incarnate of a love mission to the right planet. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

The narrow road

by Ken Ham

A pastor’s wife called me to plead with us not to, as she put it, ‘alienate people in the church’ with our stand on the ‘non-essentials in Genesis.’ She explained that her husband would love to bring his people to our seminar to hear the message of creation. However, because we insisted on six literal days, a young Earth and so on, even though they agreed with our stand against evolution, they could not support our seminar.

‘Why can’t we just agree on the essentials so we can work together without this division?’ she exclaimed!

‘What do you mean by the essentials?’ I asked.

‘Well, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he died on the cross for our sin, and was raised from the dead.’ She went on, ‘Do you believe that if a person is born again as the Bible describes, then they will go to heaven even if they don’t believe in Genesis as you do?’

I told her that if someone was truly born again, even if they didn’t believe as I did concerning Genesis, then they certainly would spend eternity with the Lord. She then blurted out, ‘See, what you believe about Genesis is not essential—the essential thing to believe is the message of Jesus and the Resurrection.’

I then asked her a very important question: ‘Why did Jesus die on the cross?’

’For our sins,’ she answered.

I said, ‘Please explain to me what you mean by the word "sin".’

‘Well, sin is rebellion against God,’ she replied.

‘How do you know this—what is the origin of this rebellion?’ I continued.

She seemed to think for a moment, and then exclaimed, ‘I know what you’re trying to do!’

‘Yes, of course,’ I answered. ‘I’m trying to get you to see that unless there was a historical event in a real garden with a literal man, serpent, and fruit, as recorded in Genesis, then there is no origin for sin.’ I continued, ‘Even though a person will go to heaven if they are born again, ultimately, is it essential to believe in “original sin” or not?’

There is a growing emphasis in the church today for a tolerance of everyone’s beliefs—we are being asked by church leaders and others to bury any areas of disagreement and work together. That sounds attractive on the surface, but in reality it is not just a request to put aside minor doctrinal differences. Rather, it is being used to counter any challenge to the church concerning serious departure from the teaching of Scripture in major, foundational areas.

A look at just a few of the doctrines which are grounded in a literal Genesis should quickly lay to rest the idea that this is some sort of ‘minor issue’ for the Christian.

The Crucifixion and Resurrection. (1 Corinthians 15:21–22) The whole reason Jesus (the ‘last Adam’) died for us was because of the sin nature inherited from the (literal) first Adam. Jesus rose from (physical) death to conquer (physical) death, which the Bible calls the ‘last enemy’ (v.26). If long-age theology is right, God has sanctioned billions of years of death and suffering. How then could death be an ‘enemy’? And why would God call His creation ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31) if the ‘last enemy’ was an integral part of it?

Marriage (Mark 10:6–9) Jesus refers to the creation of a literal Adam and Eve—from the beginning of the creation, not millions of years later.

The restoration (Acts 3:21; Revelation 21:4, 22:3) In the long geological ages view, death and suffering were there all along. All things can’t be restored back to a sinless, deathless world if there never was such a world in the first place.

Trustworthiness of the Bible. Topflight Hebrew academics are unanimous that Genesis was written to convey exactly what we creationists claim.1 Are not those who reject this accusing God of misleading His people for thousands of years?

Many Christian leaders today speak out against the creation movement and its stand on six literal days, no death before sin (and thus a young Earth), etc. Diverting attention from the Biblical issues, they label creationists as intolerant and unnecessarily ‘divisive.’

Sadly, some of these attacks come from those professing to be ‘anti-evolution creationists.’ For instance, Dr. Hugh Ross is a progressive creationist who believes such things as the ‘big bang,’ a local Flood for Noah’s day, millions of years of death and bloodshed before sin, and various humanlike ‘soulless’ beings before Adam and Eve who buried their dead and did cave paintings. In his book Creation and Time he stated the following:

    ‘Much as circumcision divided the first-century church, I see the creation date issue dividing the church of this century. As circumcision distorted the gospel and hampered evangelism, so, too, does young-universe creationism.’2

cont'd on page two

Page Two

The irony is, of course, that one of the main reasons why ministries like Answers in Genesis are growing rapidly is because people can see their evangelistic effectiveness. In my years in creation ministry, I have seen countless letters from people from all walks of life who came to Christ through God’s use of our stand on Genesis. Often, they had already given up on Christianity, because the answers they had been given (by Christians trying to fit the long-ages idea, with death and suffering before sin, into the Bible) were so clearly wishy-washy attempts to distort the Bible to fit the current orthodoxy.

One effective means of discrediting believers in Genesis creation, both inside and outside the church, is through the way the label ‘fundamentalist’ is applied to them today. This was once an honourable term for those who believed in ‘the fundamentals’ of Christianity. Thanks to media associations with ‘Islamic fundamentalists,’ terrorism and fanaticism, it now carries connotations of extremism and bigotry. Because of this change in perceived meaning, I would prefer to be called a ‘revelationist’—one who believes the God of history has told the truth in His Word, the Bible.

Even the Catholic church is getting in on the act. A 1994 Associated Press report began: ‘A new Vatican document on how to interpret the Bible condemns the fundamentalist approach as distorting, dangerous and possibly leading to racism.’ The document, written by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, says that ‘fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide ... The fundamentalist approach is dangerous for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life.’3

In another ‘hit’ against a literal Genesis, the Bill Moyers program, ‘Genesis: A Living Conversation’ was released on public television in the USA in October, 1996. This show, which contains derogatory judgments on the character and motives of God, features the opinions of Jewish, Islamic, liberal Christian and atheist commentators—but none who believe Genesis to be true history.4

A Newsweek article on the Moyers series made an interesting comment on the Christian world today: ‘Denominational loyalties are disappearing. Seminaries float theories that once would have been blasphemous ... Americans still proclaim their belief in God, but divine authority is hardly absolute.’5

The Biblical creation movement insists on a literal Genesis, standing on the authority of Scripture, without compromise, regardless of the reaction from the church or the secular world, knowing that much is at stake. Once God’s Word in such an overwhelmingly plain area can be re-interpreted on the basis of secular theories (such as the alleged age of the Earth), then the door is open to re-interpreting the rest of Scripture, so ultimately all truth is seen as relative.

Recently, a colleague of mine wrote to a very influential pastor in England, considered to be one of the leading spokesmen for evangelical Christianity in that country, challenging him on his stand against a literal Genesis.

The pastor replied, ‘I am afraid I simply don’t agree with you that the authority of scripture is at stake in the issue of a non-literalist interpretation of Genesis 1–3 ... The issue for me is closely associated with the antiquity of the Earth ... My deliberate ambiguity in Masterplan [his book dealing with Genesis] reflects a desire to maintain evangelical unity across the divided opinions on this vexed issue.’6

The sad thing is that while Christians are prepared to compromise their views in the face of secular opinion, and thus undermine the authority of God’s Word for the sake of ‘unity,’ the non-Christians are not!

For instance, World reported that an Islamic professor who appeared on the Bill Moyers Genesis programs, ‘ refuses to compromise his beliefs—Islam at least retains its doctrinal integrity. Judaism appears mired in endless dialogue and Christianity looks apologetic and confused.’7

There is a chasm widening in our Western culture—not between the church and the world, but between those in the church like literal creationists who stand on the absolute authority of the Word of God, and the rest of the church and the world!

Is division always wrong? Jesus said in Luke 12:51 ‘Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on Earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:’ When you shine the light of God’s Word in a dark world there must of necessity be some division.

Does it really matter that the literal creationists seem to be a minority even within the conservative church today?

In Matthew 7:13–14, in the context of salvation, Jesus presents the picture of a wide gate opening into a broad road leading to destruction, yet favoured by the majority. He instructs his followers to choose the small gate and the narrow road leading to life, a road which few are on. I often think of these words when I see the way in which so many in the church are rushing headlong to destructive compromise with the world on these crucial, foundational issues. Standing for the truth of Scripture is always the ‘narrow road.’

Which road are you really on?

References and notes

   1. Oxford Hebrew professor James Barr has written (in a letter to David C.C. Watson in 1984) that he knows of no professor of Hebrew at any world-class university who thinks that Genesis was meant to convey anything other than an actual account of a real, recent creation in six ordinary days and a global Flood. Like Barr, that does not mean they actually believe Genesis to be true, just that they are unanimous about what it means.
   2. Dr. Hugh Ross, Creation and Time, Navpress, p. 162, 1994.
   3. Quoted in Foundation, News & Views XV(4), July–August, 1994. On top of this, the Pope’s announcement in October 1996, saying that he saw no conflict between evolution and Christianity (so long as God created the soul of man) provided the media with more ammunition to continue to try to alienate creationists from what it sees as ‘mainstream Christianity.’
   4. Time, p. 72, October 28, 1996, reported: ‘ ... Moyers decided not to include Christian Fundamentalists: ... It would have struck people as the same discourse they’ve been hearing for the last 15 years.’ Earlier, the same article stated: ‘Much of the recent popular controversy around Genesis has focused on the issue of whether the Creation should be understood literally. That debate has tended to obscure a further set of issues hinging on the character of both God and the patriarchs.’ Again, literal creationists are made out to be a stumbling block to people understanding the ‘real truth’ of the Bible.
   5. Newsweek, October 21, 1996, p. 76.
   6. Correspondence from Pastor Roy Clemens, Eden Baptist Church, Cambridge UK September 25, 1996.
   7. World, October 26, 1996, p. 23.

Grotesque dinosaur cannibals!

by David Catchpoole

When paleontologists recently announced they had discovered fossil evidence of cannibalistic dinosaurs (see box), I rejoiced. This was just what the church needed to hear.

‘But that’s horrible’, I can imagine you saying, ‘For something to eat members of its own species is grotesque in the extreme’. And that’s exactly the point. It is grotesque—surely all Christians would be in one mind on that. Which is why I would like to show this to everyone in the church, and ask them if these dinosaurs practised their perverse cannibalism in the ‘very good’ world (Genesis 1:31) before Adam sinned, or afterwards.

Why ask this question? Because, for too long, many Christians have compromised on Genesis. While conceding that there was no human death before Adam disobeyed God, they claim it does not defy Scripture to have animal death before then, that it was ‘natural and God-ordained’ for animals to hunt their prey (citing Psalm 104:21, 27–28, for example). But this contradicts God’s instruction that animals (and man) were originally created to be vegetarian (Genesis 1:29–30; cf. 9:3), and overlooks the effect of the Curse on creation (Genesis 3:14–19; Romans 8:19–22)—i.e. the Bible clearly shows that today’s world is very different from the pre-Fall world.

It also means that these Christians struggle to answer (cf. 1 Peter 3:15) when asked, for example, by a distraught young daughter why a God of love allowed the child’s favourite pet budgerigar—the one which used to perch all day on her shoulder, from time-to-time caressing her cheek—to be caught and eaten by the neighbour’s cat.

Too often the answer sounds to the child like ‘Life’s tough, kid. That’s the way God made it.’ Or ‘For some things we have no answers—but God knows.’

So that’s why I think this issue of dinosaur cannibalism can be a wake-up call to compromising Christians to think again. If (as popular wisdom claims) these dinosaurs lived and became extinct millions of years before man walked on the earth, then that means that cannibalism existed before Adam sinned. Was that ‘very good’ in God’s sight? Of course not! Remember He commanded (Genesis 1:21, 24) that animals were to reproduce ‘after their kind’, not to eat their own kind!

In contrast, a biblical view puts the timing of these cannibal dinosaurs after the Fall, most likely being buried (and fossilized) under water-borne sediment during the global Flood of Noah’s day, around 4,500 years ago.

But why were these dinosaurs eating members of their own species rather than preying upon different species? We see today that in a post-Fall world prone to drought and famine, animals at times become sufficiently desperate to eat anything they can find—including one another, if they can get away with it.

Opportunistic cannibalism has been documented in a number of species (e.g. lions, komodo dragons and grasshopper mice),1 so it’s not surprising that evidence of cannibalism has now been found among dinosaurs as well.

The key point here, though, is that because dinosaurs are so often thought to have died out millions of years ago, Genesis-believing Christians can use this latest discovery to respectfully challenge those in the church who say, ‘I believe in creation’ but who nevertheless put the millions-of-years fossil record before the universe-corrupting actions of Adam and Eve in Eden. If all the saints were ‘one in heart and mind’ (Acts 4:32) in understanding this issue, no longer would the church feel the need to hide from a favourite taunt of sceptics: ‘How could there be a God of love when it is clearly a dog-eat-dog world?’

The post-Fall reality of cannibal dinosaurs is indeed grotesque. But, to me, so is the lion’s ripping apart a gazelle calf while its mother bleats plaintively at a distance; the stray dog’s opportunistic mauling of a child’s favourite pet rabbit; and the wild boar waiting beside cows in advanced labour, ready to tear chunks of flesh from the newborn calf even before it’s fully emerged from the birth canal.

All these things are clearly part of the cursed and hurting post-Fall world, a world that waits to be ‘liberated from its bondage to decay’ (Romans 8:21). This will be a time when ‘there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain’ (Revelation 21:4), because there will be ‘no more curse’ (Revelation 22:3).
Reference

   1. Pilcher, H.R., Dinosaurs ate each other, Nature Science Update,  14 August 2003.

AMEN PASTOR ROGER!!

Brother, thanks for some really great information. Christians should know there are mile-high stacks of so-called scientific books that are obsolete because they are full of junk that turned out to be false. The Holy Bible is still with us and is still just as TRUE as when it was written. The Holy Bible will never be obsolete BECAUSE IT'S TRUE!! So, if someone wants to be smart and intellectual, they can simply BELIEVE IN THE HOLY BIBLE!

The devil has been attacking the Holy Bible since it was written, but the devil has never been able to stop the TRUTH from the Holy Bible in doing the work that GOD intended to do. Many have tried to destroy the Holy Bible, but it can't be done. Nobody can destroy the Word of God, and nobody can stop the Word of God.

Brother, I'm glad that you posted the simple TRUTH that evolution and the Holy Bible can't both be true and why. Christians need to know and understand that. It really boils down to either believing what GOD said or believing what Darwin said. It's a no-brainer for me - I BELIEVE WHAT GOD SAID 100% FROM COVER TO COVER IN THE HOLY BIBLE! The theory of evolution is long past due in joining the junk science that simply isn't true. It's falling apart as we speak, and most will know it is nothing but junk soon.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Deuteronomy 8:16-18 NASB  "In the wilderness He fed you manna which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do good for you in the end. "Otherwise, you may say in your heart, 'My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.' "But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

Some little known facts published by "Creation Research"

______________________________

CREATION RESEARCH IS EXCITING
Did you know Christianity is the one religion in the world in which faith depends on facts? If the facts aren�t true, the faith is foolish. As the Apostle Paul said, "If it's not fact that Christ rose from the dead, then your faith is in vain" (I Cor. 15:17). It's just as necessary for the entire Biblical record to be based on fact. Whether it's creation, Noah's flood, or the tower of Babel, did you know the facts show you can have faith in them all? Consider the following discovered during our research programs :-


"YOU COULDN'T FIT DINOSAURS ON THE ARK!"

This claim was made by a science teacher in a front page article of a leading Australian newspaper. After all, Brontosaurus (now Apatosaurus) was so big Noah couldn't have had two on the ark! Recently during a research trip to North America, we photographed these dinosaur eggs. Most people don't know you can hold a dinosaur egg in your hand. A baby dinosaur was not much bigger than a baby crocodile. They are cousins you see! Noah would have had no more trouble fitting two baby Apatosaurs which God sent to the ark, than he would have had fitting two infant crocodiles.

"BUT TYRANNOSAURUS WOULD HAVE EATEN ALL THE ANIMALS ON THE ARK!"

Tyrannosaurus Rex couldn't have been the most savage killer of all. We found that out when we took this photograph. The teeth were too long, too fragile and too poorly attached to his skull for him to have sneaked up behind Triceratops, grabbed it with his metre long mouth and savaged it to death. If he had, his teeth would have snapped off or fallen out. Genesis says God created all animals to be plant eaters at first, and Tyrannosaurus Rex is no exception.


WHAT ABOUT CARNIVORES?

The truth is: animals with sharp teeth rip things, those with flat teeth chew things, but what they chew and what they rip is what they choose (or what they're forced to choose). Consider the Kea Parrot. Only a few decades ago, this animal was vegetarian. But man's greed has reduced its food supply, and it has changed diet to eat meat. Our research in New Zealand has shown its large, sharp beak is well shaped for killing, but until recently it never touched flesh. The beak wasn't designed for killing at all, it was designed for ripping. Now it rips meat. Lions and tigers were all originally vegetarians - that's how they survived in British and European zoos during World War II, when there was no meat for them to eat - they feed them vegatables and straw!
Everybody knows animals with sharp teeth are savage meat eaters except those people who've checked and found animals with sharp teeth mostly eat plants. In Australia there is one animal with a set of razor sharp teeth which are used to kill bananas... we're referring to the Fruit Bat.


AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES?

A cave painting of The Three Brothers is located in an Aboriginal cave site. Eastern Australian Aboriginal stories state the three brothers were the first people to land on the East Coast. Asked �when did this happen?� they replied, �after the flood�. Aborigines have not been in Australia for tens of thousands of years! The evidence from their own myths and legends shows their ancestors, like all other races, left the Tower of Babel only thousands of years ago.


RAPID FOSSILS

 Students are still taught fossils are produced by slowly being buried with sediment and therefore the earth is very old, because rocks represent such a long period of time. But this is simply false. In order for animals to be preserved so remarkably in rocks throughout the world they had to be buried rapidly. Therefore the rocks don�t represent millions of years after all.


HAVASUIPI LEGEND

We found the Havasuipi Indians living in the Grand Canyon believe it came into existence after a flood covered the world. It wasn't missionaries who told them this, for they already knew the story and told it to the missionaries. They relate how the good God made a safe boat for his one daughter who was going to become the mother of all living; she survived through the flood and gave rise to all the people in the world. The American Indians brought the story of Noah with them from Babel.


GIANT ANIMALS AND PLANTS?

We've added this supposedly 140 million year old fossil dragonfly to our collection. It is so like living dragonflies one can conclude (if he was 140 million years old) you�ve got proof that "animals reproduce after their kinds" - no matter how long you give them. After all, if insects show so little change in 140 million years, they are never going to evolve at all. We've also had the privilege of seeing a fossil of the world's largest dragonfly. Its wing span was approximately 1 metre.

"What made animals and plants grow so big?" The answer is the world before Noah's Flood was a much better place. Recently scientists have been experimenting on maintaining plants in glasshouses at their optimum conditions, supplying them with all the moisture they needed daily. The results: one tomato plant up to 12 metres tall, with some 26,000 tomatoes on it and each tomato up to a kilogram. Now you know how dinosaurs started from hand-size eggs and ended up monsters.


ORCHIDS by design

We grow and research orchids because they are so big you can get inside to see what's happening. The design mechanisms are fantastic! Chance is a silly explanation for some of the world's best insect traps, which many orchids are. Consider the Flying Duck orchid: when a Saw Fly lands on the base, the head of the Duck ducks down, boots the Saw Fly inside the flower, beats it against the back of the flower, and holds it until the glue on the pollen is dry enough to stick to the Fly. Then it lets the Fly go to take the pollen to another Flying Duck orchid. What attracts the fly to such sadistic treatment, no one is quite sure.

Even more interesting is if the Saw Fly jumps out of the way, then the flower knows it hasn't caught an insect and opens again straightaway.

When was the last time you came across a rat trap made by man that could tell it had missed the rat, load the cheese again and reset itself? Not one rat trap got here by chance did it? They were all created!

This is why Paul wrote in Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead: so that they are without excuse."


IN THE IMAGE OF GOD


Genesis tells us God made man in His image, and John's gospel says "In the beginning was the Word." Man is made in the image of the Word. That difference alone separates us from other creatures, such as apes, gorillas and monkeys. We have abandoned trying to teach such creatures to talk. We now know they cannot. Their brains are not even equipped to enable them to talk. Yet human beings are programmed to talk. It's built in to them. When baby twins are isolated, they can invent a language. They are programmed to speak. Man is indeed made in the image of the Word.

All the facts you need to support the Biblical record of creation, the flood, the tower of Babel are there, so you can have faith in it, and more importantly you can joyfully believe in God as Creator, Who brought all things into being from nothing through His Word, the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 11:3).

Throughout society, people are being immunized against the Gospel of Christ. They are taught at school and told by the media there are no facts to support the Christian faith. They are indoctrinated with evolutionary humanism, with ape-men, and billions of years of change which denies creation, the Bible and Christ. The resultant rejection of Christianity ought not to surprise you. As Christ said, "if they do not believe what Moses wrote (creation, flood, Babel, law, etc.), they will not be convinced even by the resurrection'' (Luke 16:31).

 

A group called Creation Research Society has done some wondrous research that supports Biblical Creation and a complete global flood. Evolutionists claim that there is no evidence to prove a global wide flood. When pointed out that there was a tree that became fossilized in many, many layers of coal in an upright position and with leaves intact, the evolutionists will discount this and say it is a rare event and not the norm. However Creation Research has found eveidence in many places around the world to show that this is a very widespread event.Creation Research has the largest research file in the world on vertical fossil trees (polystrate).

Many coal beds throughout the U.S. have already been dug up by coal companies without any research done on them prior to this thereby destroying any evidence that may have been in them. Creation Research has found those that are yet untouched that do have this information still intact.

Coal beds supposedly took millions of years to form, layer by layer, one strata at a time. If this were the case any tree found in them would have pushed and distorted these layers as it grew and expanded. These trees that have been found in the coal beds do not display this charateristic there fore we know that the trees were there before and as the coal beds formed. These trees would not have the leaves intact either as soft substances such as leaves and bark would have decayed and disintegrated prior to being covered enough to solidify into a fossil. By this evidence we know that a catastrophic event covered these plants very quickly.

In these coal beds other plants have been found also that are in an upright position with leaves still intact. One such plant is unmistakeably a horestail rush. Found mixed in this same strata levels with these various land plants are many ocean creatures. Not fresh water creatures that might be expected if there were a local generalized flood but ocean creatures that are many hundreds of miles away from where known ocean levels would be found. Also mixed into these same strata levels were found fossilized land mammals. All this shows that they were covered quite quickly with mud, silt and ocean water.

Another thing that was noticed was that these plants were all gigantic in comparison to the same plants that we have today. One such example was the horsetail rush I mentioned above. It was quite obviously much larger than the largest known horsetail rush found today. This same was true of many of the trees and trees were found in areas that do not support trees today such as in Alaska. What few trees are found in Alaska today are nothing more than scrub bush trees.

Some scientists account this to the conditions prior to the flood being much better for things to grow larger and live longer. Again this goes in accordance to what is taught in the Bible.

 CONCLUSION: Fossil trees, leaves, etc. buried vertically in multiple layers,
are provably not rare. None of these fossils provide any help to evolution, as in
every case the so-called first known representatives of magnolia, tassel fern,
etc., appear suddenly in the fossil record,and show little evidence of change
except in size, usually from larger to smaller. The immense size of many beds
containing well preserved polystrate fossils, also points to rapid catastrophic
deposition on a huge scale which does not support millions of years of
sedimentary processes. There are many theories and opinions that
contradict Biblical Creation and Noah's Flood - but the facts do not!


I was going to post verifying pictures but due to copyright laws I cannot do that and I cannot link to their site due to soliciting for funds on that site. If you are interested in seeing these things I suggest doing an internet search on Creation Research Society and I am sure that you will be able to find them.

Creationist Says Darwinists' Recent Claims Suggest Desperation

By Allie Martin
January 5, 2006

(AgapePress) - The founder of the creationist group Answers in Genesis (AIG) says a recent announcement by the journal Science claiming evolution was the top scientific breakthrough of 2005 shows how desperate the proponents of the theory of evolution are becoming.

Editors of Science cited wide ranging research, including a study showing a four percent difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, as major factors contributing to its decision to make its bold proclamation regarding 2005 and scientific discoveries supposedly offering support for Darwin's theory. However, Ken Ham, the president and founder of AIG, says the journal's announcement shows that secular humanists are worried about the increasing availability of information that contradicts their ideas about evolution.

"Why are they proclaiming 2005 the 'Year of Evolution' and all these big breakthroughs in evolution?" Ham asks. "Well, I believe it's because a creationist ministry like Answers in Genesis has put so much information out there, and we've got the Creation Museum under construction. I think what's happened is that it's made such an impact on the culture, the humanists are running scared."

The creation science advocate believes evolutionists are trying to declare 2005 as a year of breakthroughs for evolution in order to push the evolution on an increasingly disabused public with unprecedented access to scientific data supporting creationism. "We're getting information out there, and once people get this information, they can see that evolution is totally bankrupt," he asserts.

As for the scientific establishment's claims about the similarities between the genetic code of apes and humans, the AIG spokesman points out, "When you look at DNA, it consists of what are called base pairs, and there's three billion of them in human DNA. Do you realize a four percent difference means 120 million differences? That's an enormous difference. That, in itself, is very, very significant, even if the 'four percent' was real. but the four percent, as I've said, is a very arbitrary figure."

Given the opportunity, Ham contends he can debunk nearly all of Darwinists' arguments for evolution in a 40-minute lecture. He says secular humanists are aware of the many challenges posed to their pet theory by creationists -- and he believes they are increasingly alarmed and desperate to fight back, even with empty declarations and false assertions about "the year of evolution."

Hello Pastor Roger,

It's really humorous how silly and unfounded evolution really is. It does appear to be only a short period of time now before evolution will be completely exposed, debunked, and discarded. I'm wondering how many living scientists will look like total buffoons. I honestly believe that many scientists who continue to push evolution already know it's garbage. Maybe some of them have been so outspoken that their reputation is at stake regardless of what they do. I simply hope they live long enough to get the reward they so richly deserve for leading so many astray with lies. It's also true that untold hosts rejected Christ and the Holy Bible because of junk science. PRETTY SAD!![b/]

Love In Christ,
Tom

3 John 1:2-4 NASB  Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.

Oops ...  to late!



That is the sad part including themselves.

Evolutionists do all they can to suppress ideas that are in conflict with their beliefs. Yes, I said beliefs because that is what evolution is. It is a belief and not a provable fact. They do so because they are afraid that the truth fo their false belief will become known and they will no longer have a leg to stand on. I have some startling news for them. This has already happened and it will become more prevalently known with every discovery made. Through the actions of evolutionists it can be seen that they are a fish floundering out of water and no the fish is not growing legs, it is dying.

In recent "finds" evolutionists have been grasping at straws in an attempt to come up with more "evidence" to support their beliefs. In each and every case it has been miniscule evidence that they have formulated through twisting and guessing into a supposed "large find" that is all based on the presupposition that there is no God.

This "evidence" that they have come up with has not been sufficient, nor will it ever be, to convince those with enough intelligence and desire to learn to think their way. In fact this "evidence" has turned more and more people to understand that they have been lying all along. As more evidence comes out it is becoming more and more apparent that there is in fact a God and that the Biblical accounts are accurate.

These finds of evidence range from archaeological finds through geoligical finds to all other fields of true science. As we see in the many articles that we have placed in this thread, science supports God and His word in the Bible. Without God there is no true science, it simply becomes another false, unverifiable belief. A belief that has men dying in their sins instead of accepting Jesus Christ as their Saviour and having eternal life. Now that is true science!



One thing that I find to be quite curious is that most evolutionists today tout that only scientists that support evolution are performing good science and that creationists, being just religious people, do not have a right to say anything in regards to science. After all evolutionist scientists are the only ones with a proper degree to make such determinations. Something that most people do not realise is that Charles Darwin's only academic degree was in Theology not in any field of what is considered to be traditional science today. He couldn't even get Theology down right. Charles Darwin broke away from the traditional church at that time and started a religion of his own. He was shunned by the church and by scientists as being to eccentric. Yet evolutionists say that science and religion cannot mix.

Today, evolutionists revere Darwin and his theology as though he were a god and his theology on the origins of all life were a written law that dares not be broken and mankind must adhere to. It has all the earmarks of a cult.

Greetings to all.  I am new to this forum, but not new to the debate of Creationism vs. evolution.  I have for years debated with evolutionists about their beliefs, and it almost always ends the same way,  they cant explain the fact of "missing links" just not being there.  I heard a  pastor about 24 years ago make a statement in his message, and it was this "Do you know why they cant find the missing link?  IT IS MISSING!"  How true.  I usually tie in evolution with  the age of the earth, as according to the evolutionists, these changes would have had to occur over millions of years, and yet the old age believers, dont have a leg to stand on if they look at what happened at Mt. St Helens where layerization took place over a very short period of time.  One not familiar with this would have said the oldest layer now visible on the side of Mt St.Helens would have to be at least 50 million years old if not older and yet it all took place in less than 6 months.  If evolution was true we would have seen drastic changes in most animals in the past 6,000 years of recorded history and yet it isnt there.  I have a file that is at least one inch thick on the debunking of evolution and that by very well known scientists who have studied for years and find no proof of evolution at all and very strong proof of Intelligent design. I say Praise God for all of your strong support for our God who created ALL things.    :)  yours truly
James

Hi James,

Welcome to Christians Unite. Yes, there is a lot of evidence to support the Biblical story of Creation. What we have posted here is just barely touching the subject. We don't debate evolution here. We just support the only truth there is and that is the truth of the Bible.

Hello BibleBeliever58,

I see that you are new, so WELCOME!! I sincerely hope that you enjoy Christians Unite.


I've read about many so-called missing links, and every last one of them was a hoax. It seems there has never been a shortage of so-called scientists who were desperate to prove the theory of evolution, even if it took fraud to do it. It's too late now for even fraud to help, even though several generations have been taught nothing but lies in public schools. All it takes is some logic and exposure to the truth. The REAL TRUTH of the CREATION is nothing but the HOLY BIBLE!

Love In Christ,
Tom

Psalms 104:24 NASB  O LORD, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; The earth is full of Your possessions.

Dr. Kent Hovind for 15 years worked as a high school science teacher. His love for science sparked his interest in creation vs evolution. He saw the tremendous need for exposing evolution as a dangerous, religious world-view, and for arming Christians with scientific evidence that there are no contradictions between true science and the Bible. In response to these needs, shortly after finishing his Ph.D. in education, he began the full-time ministry of Creation Science Evangelism.

Since its beginning in 1989, his ministry continues to grow as Dr. Hovind speaks over 700 times each year in public and private schools, churches, universities, and on radio and television broadcasts. His humerous, fast-paced, illustrated seminars provide documented evidence against the unscientific theory of evolution. Dr. Hovind's goal is to strengthen the faith of believers and to confound and convict evolutionists. He offers $250,000 to anyone with emperical evidence (scientific proof) of evolution. He lives in Pensacola, Florida with his wife and their three children.

Dr Hovinds Creation Science Seminar can be seen on-line or downloaded to your computer for free at:

http://www.biblebelievers.com/hovind/

This is an excellant video that shows proof of Creation and dispels all the myths of evolution.

Is it just me or are we have a few bugs? I am not getting the full stats on the board index and for some reason I got logged off.

Thats Admin, trying to get the bugs out sister. I got logged off as well, and didn't know it till a few minutes ago.

Such things as this always takes time.

One of the things that evolutionists find themselves in is a situation where they date fossils according to the strata they are in yet then they in turn date the strata according to the fossils that are in it. This is called circular reasoning and gets them no where except on a bad merry-go-round trip. This is done to substantiate the age of both fossils and strata. No definite conclusion can be made using this method.

The fossils used to employ this method  are referred to as index fossils. One of these index fossils are known as trilobites. If a trilobite is found in a rock layer, the rock layer is said to have formed 500 million years ago. You think the rock with the trilobite is 500 million years old? Well, I have a question. How come somebody found a human shoe print where somebody with a shoe on had stepped on a trilobite? They asked geologists all over, how could a human step on a trilobite? I mean trilobites lived 500 million years ago, man didn’t get here until three million years ago and he didn’t start wearing shoes until five thousand years ago. How can this be? One geologist said, "Well, maybe aliens visited the planet 500 million years ago." Yes, that will do it every time. Another guy said, "Maybe there was a larger trilobite shaped like a shoe that fell on a small one." Oh there are some big ones, but they are not shaped like a shoe.

      Anyway, if you took this fossil and showed it to any University professor who believes in evolution, and said, "Sir, how old is this rock?" He’d say, "Ah, this is an easy one. This contains an index fossil. That index fossil is in graptolite, and the graptolites lived 410 million years ago. It’s the New York State fossil." That’s what they said until 1993 when they found that graptolites are still alive in the South Pacific. Oops. Well, now, think about it. If they are still alive, maybe they lived between 400 million years ago and today. Maybe they could be found in any rock layer. Maybe all of the dating we’ve done by geologic positioning is bologna, and it is by the way. By the way, there is good indication that some trilobites are still alive in the Deep Peruvian Trench. In the Pacific Ocean.

Other Evidences

     "Dinosaur blood found in bone. Medical pathologists examined dinosaur bone under a microscope and found dinosaur blood inside the bone." (Earth June 1997) How could the blood survive seventy million years? Well, it couldn’t but they don’t want to admit that. Eighteen million-year-old Magnolia leaves from Idaho shale were still green when the rock was cracked open. Kind of interesting don’t you think? Folks, those layers are not different ages and if you’ve been taught that the earth is millions or billions of years old, you have been either lied to or deceived. Hopefully, the teacher doesn’t know they are lying to you. But they are regardless. It’s a lie. The earth is not millions of years old. Those layers are not different ages.

Another instance in proof that dating of strata layers are found in petrified trees. Petrified trees are found standing straight up running through many layers of rock strata. Now, think about it for a minute. If those layers are different ages, you’ve only got two choices: the tree stood there for millions and millions of years and didn’t rot or fall down, or it grew through seventy-five feet of solid rock looking for sunlight. Which do you prefer? Petrified trees standing straight up are found all over the world, folks. They are called Polystrate fossils. Evolutionists have no explanation for this. I’ve seen lots of them. Petrified trees standing up. How can this be?

Well, according to evolution, this is a real problem. They call it a geologic enigma. (enigma=something hard to understand or explain) Because it doesn’t fit the theory. Sometimes the petrified trees are upside down running through many rock layers. Explain that one, would you please? The tree grew upside down for millions and millions of years? "That sun is up there somewhere, we’ve just got to find it, boys—keep growing!" I don’t think so.

No, this geologic column does not exist anywhere in the world. But in spite of that it has had a profound influence. It has changed people’s worldview. The geologic column was accepted in the early 1830's—long before there ever was any carbon dating. That was done in 1950. But it turned people away from a Biblical worldview. Up until that time people accepted the Bible as God’s word and the earth is about 6,000 years old and the world was destroyed by a flood. It was just a common, accepted worldview. This geologic column is one of the primary things that changed people’s minds about the authority of God’s Word. And it is still taught in your textbooks today, by the way, in earth science and geology classes.

The Geologic Column and Charles Darwin

     Especially this had a very profound influence on Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin graduated from Bible College to be a preacher. The only degree he ever got, by the way. Charlie Darwin, at age 22, fresh out of Bible College, couldn’t get a job. So his dad pulled a few strings and got him on board HMS Beagle. He was going to sail around on this ship for five years collecting bugs and birds for somebody back in England.

Where Darwin Went Wrong

While he sailed around on that voyage, he brought with him some books to read. He brought his Bible (he had just gotten out of Bible College) and he brought with him this book, Principles of Geology. As Charles Darwin read this book, Principles of Geology, it absolutely changed his life forever. Later in life he said, "Lyell one of my favorite authors, has made a profound influence on my life." As he read that book, Charles Darwin began to doubt the Bible and began to think the earth is millions and millions of years old. That’s the book that changed his life. Studying about Geology. And it’s amazing how many kids go through seventh or eighth grade in regular public school and they are taught in their earth science book that the earth is millions of years old and it destroys their faith in the Bible and they don’t even realize it. It undermines it. Cuts it right out from under them. That’s where it all starts.

Later in life Darwin said, "Disbelief crept over me very slowly. I felt no distress." By the way, he did not repent on his deathbed. His wife started the rumor that he did and that rumor still circulates today. But the best research says he did not repent on his deathbed. He remained loyal to his atheism right up to the end. But that is the book that changed Charles Darwin’s life.

Is this cave millions of years old?

If you have ever visited a large cave, you may have heard the guide warn you, "Don't touch the formations! They took millions of years to form!" Hanging from the ceiling of the cave were probably many beautiful pointed rock hangings, called stalactites. They are formed by mineral deposits left by dripping water over time.

The guide may even have told you that it takes a thousand years to grow a stalactite an inch. Carlsbad Caverns is supposed to have taken 250 million years to grow. But is it true? If so, the world must be millions of years old, and the Genesis account of creation completely wrong.

Dr. Kent Hovind, in his video "The Age of the Earth," offers many surprising facts demonstrating that the world cannot possibly be this old.

Among them is a photo of stalactities, some 50 inches in length, that have been formed by dripping water under the Lincoln Memorial, built in 1922. These stalactites have grown nearly 2/3 inch per year! So much for the "thousand years per inch" idea.

Hovind also shows a photo of a bat covered by flowstone in a cave before he could rot. Imagine how long this bat would have had to lie here dead, without rotting, for this flowstone to cover him as it has! Obviously, these mineral deposits occur much more rapidly than we are led to believe.

If in fact God created the world 6,000 years ago, and then destroyed it by a flood 4,400 years ago, we should expect to find many of the oldest things in the world to be somewhat less than 4,400 years old.

Hovind, in his seminar, offers many examples, including:

    * The Great Barrier Reef, the oldest and largest reef in the world, has been determined to be 4,200 years old.
    * The world's oldest tree is 4,300 years old.
    * Minerals being washed into the ocean by erosion would bring the salt content of the ocean to its present level in less than 5,000 years!

Beetle Warfare
Little Bugs That Evolutionists
Would Like to Forget!

Beetle Warfare

Did you ever notice how sometimes big surprises can come in little packages? Well, such is the case of the surprising little bombardier beetle. The bombardier beetle is a small insect that is armed with an impressive defense system. Whenever threatened by an enemy attack, this spirited little beetle blasts irritating and odious gases, which are at 212ºF, out from two tailpipes right into the unfortunate face of the would-be aggressor.

Hermann Schildnecht, a German chemist, studied the bombardier beetle to find out how he accomplishes this impressive chemical feat. He learned that the beetle makes his explosive by mixing together two very dangerous chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide). In addition to these two chemicals, this clever little beetle adds another type of chemical known as an "inhibitor." The inhibitor prevents the chemicals from blowing up and enables the beetle to store the chemicals indefinitely.

Whenever the beetle is approached by a predator, such as a frog, he squirts the stored chemicals into the two combustion tubes, and at precisely the right moment he adds another chemical (an anti-inhibitor). This knocks out the inhibitor, and a violent explosion occurs right in the face of the poor attacker.

Could such a marvelous and complex mechanism have evolved piecemeal over millions of years? The evolutionist is forced to respond with a somewhat sheepish “yes,” but a brief consideration of this viewpoint will reveal its preposterous nature.

According to evolutionary “thinking” there must have been thousands of generations of beetles improperly mixing these hazardous chemicals in fatal evolutionary experiments, blowing themselves to pieces. Eventually, we are assured, they arrived at the magic formula, but what about the development of the inhibitor? There is no need to evolve an inhibitor unless you already have the two chemicals you are trying to inhibit. On the other hand, if you already have the two chemicals without the inhibitor, it is already too late, for you have just blown yourself up. Obviously, such an arrangement would never arise apart from intelligent foresight and planning.

Nevertheless, let us assume that the little beetle somehow managed to simultaneously develop the two chemicals along with the all-important inhibitor. The resultant solution would offer no benefit at all to the beetle, for it would just sit there as a harmless concoction. To be of any value to the beetle, the anti-inhibitor must be added to the solution.

So, once again, for thousands of generations we are supposed to believe that these poor beetles mixed and stored these chemicals for no particular reason or advantage, until finally, the anti-inhibitor was perfected. Now he is really getting somewhere! With the anti-inhibitor developed he can now blow himself to pieces, frustrating the efforts of the hungry predator who wants to eat him. Ah, yes, he still needs to evolve the two combustion tubes, and a precision communications and timing network to control and adjust the critical direction and timing of the explosion. So, here we go again; for thousands of generations these carefree little beetles went around celebrating the 4th of July by blowing themselves to pieces until finally they mastered their newfound powers.

But what would be the motivation for such disastrous, trial and error, piecemeal evolution? Everything in evolution is supposed to be beneficial and have a logical purpose, or else it would never develop. But such a process does not make any sense, and to propose that the entire defense system evolved all at once is simply impossible. Yet, nature abounds with countless such examples of perfect coordination. Thus, we can only conclude that the surprising little bombardier beetle is a strong witness for special creation, for there is no other rational explanation for such a wonder.

The water beetle is also equipped with an impressive—although different—defense mechanism. He manages to escape his enemies by secreting a detergent substance from a gland. Ejecting the detergent accomplishes two things. Firstly, it serves to propel the beetle forward quickly so that he is out of the immediate danger. Secondly, the detergent causes the surface tension of the water to break down, and the pursuing insect sinks into the water. How true are the words of the psalmist who wrote: "O Lord, how manifold are they works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches" (Ps. 104:24).

Scientists Admit:
Evolution Not Supported By Facts!

"Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless," says Professor Louis Bouroune, former President of the Biological Society of Strasbourg and Director of the Strasbourg Zoological Museum, later Director of Research at the French National Centre of Scientific Research, as quoted in The Advocate, March 8, 1984.

On many campuses, any professor who admits having doubts about the "factual" nature of evolution would be laughed off the campus (and out of his job). But today, more and more courageous scientists are publicly admitting what they have known privately for years: believing in evolution requires an act of blind faith.

Does evolution square with the facts? Here are the statements of several scientific leaders as found in The Quote Book, published by Creation Science Foundation Ltd.

Evolutionists Great Con Men

"Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con-men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact." (Dr. T.N. Tahmisian. Atomic Energy Commission, The Fresno Bee, August 20, 1959.

"...most people assume that fossils provide a very important part of the general argument made in favor of Darwinian interpretation of the history of life. Unfortunately, this is not strictly true." (Dr. David Raup, Curator, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago. Quoted from "Conflicts between Darwin and paleontology," Field Museum of Natural History Bulletin, Vol. 50 (1), 1979.)

Do Fossils Prove It?

"...I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transition in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them...Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils...I will lay it on the line--there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument." (Personal letter from Dr. Colin Patterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London, to L. Sunderland.)

"Despite the bright promise that paleontology provides a means of ‘seeing' evolution, it has presented some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps' in the fossil record. Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them..." (David B. Kitts, Ph.D. -- Zoology, Head Curator, Department of Geology, Stoval Museum, and well-known evolutionary paleontologist. Evolution, Vol. 28, Sept. 1974.

But What About Those Bones?

"...not being a paleontologist, I don't want to pour too much scorn on paleontologists, but if you were to spend your life picking up bones and finding little fragments of head and little fragments of jaw, there's a very strong desire to exaggerate the importance of those fragments..." (Dr. Greg Kirby in an address given at a meeting of the Biology Teachers Association of South Australia in 1976. Dr. Kirby was the Senior Lecturer in Population Biology at Flinders University and was giving the case for evolution.)

"A five million year old piece of bone that was thought to be the collarbone of a humanlike creature is actually part of a dolphin rib...The problem with a lot of anthropologists is that they want so much to find a hominid that any scrap of bone becomes a hominid bone." (Dr. Tim White, anthropologist, University of California, Berkeley, quoted in New Scientist, April 28, 1983.

But the World Is So Old...Isn't It?

"All the above (radiometric) methods for dating the age of the earth, its various strata, and its fossils are questionable, because the rates are likely to have fluctuated widely over earth history...It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age estimates on a given geological stratum by different radiometric methods are often quite different (sometimes by hundreds of millions of years). There is no absolutely reliable long-term radiological ‘clock.' The uncertainties inherent in radiometric dating are disturbing to geologist and evolutionists..." (W.D. Stansfield, Ph.D., Instructor of Biology, California Polytech State University, The Science of Evolution, Macmillan, 1987.

Carbon-14 Will Tell Us...Won't It?

"When the blood of a seal, freshly killed at McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic was tested by carbon-14, it showed the seal had died 1,300 years ago." (From W. Dort Jr., Ph.D. -- Geology, Professor, University of Kansas, quoted in Antarctic Journal of the United States, 1971.

"The hair on the Chekurovka mammoth was found to have a carbon-14 age of 26,000 years but the peaty soil in which is was preserved was found to have a carbon-14 dating of only 5,600 years." (Radiocarbon Journal, Vol. 8, 1966.)

When Did Dinosaurs Really Live?

The existence of dinosaurs long before man came along has been almost a basic tenet of faith for the evolutionist. But what if the footprints of both man and dinosaur were found together?

In the Journal of Geological Education, Vol. 31, 1983, David H Milne and Steven D Schafersman tell us "Such an occurrence, if verified, would seriously disrupt conventional interpretations of biological and geological history and would support the doctrine of creationism and catastrophism."

Well gentlemen, not only have both man and dinosaur prints been found together in Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois, but other U.S. locations as well.

Why Do They Do It?

"One is forced to conclude that many scientists and technologists pay lip-service to Darwinian theory only because it supposedly excludes a Creator." (Dr. Michael Walker, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Sydney University, quoted in Quadrant, October, 1982.)

Since the facts do not prove evolution, since the fossil record does not show any transition from one species to another, since "scientific" dating methods have been proven unreliable, let us remember that for those who desperately desire to reject God, evolution is a religion of last resort. If there is no Creator, there can be no sin, and no need of a Saviour.

A. Lunn summed up the curious faith of the evolutionist as follows: "Faith is the substance of fossils hoped for, the evidence of links unseen." (The Collapse of Evolution, by Dr. Scott Huse.) Those supposedly omniscient scientists who still teach evolution as though it were fact are finally seen for what they are...frail men willing to believe a lie because it helps them avoid the truth.

How did marsupials get to Australia?

Noah was charged with building the vessel to safeguard certain animals during this massive and complex worldwide disaster; not with distributing them afterwards. Once Noah released the animals on Mount Ararat, natural instincts and climatic conditions determined how the redistribution of the animal population took place. As subsequent generations of animals spread across the globe, territorial prowess or chance movements would send certain groups in certain directions. Those animals least suited for of least able to defend a territory would either be forced further from the landing site or exterminated. An immediate consequence of the worldwide flood was a brief but severe ice age which locked ocean water into vast ice fields. This lowered ocean levels and created a land bridge to Australia. A similar land bridge connected Asia to Alaska during this period of Earth history allowing free movement of man and animals between these continents. Land movements during the ice age or subsequent melting of the ice cut off the connection between Australia and Asia effectively isolating the unique animal life to Australia.

How could massive worldwide coal deposits form rapidly?

The first effect of the worldwide flood would have been the ripping up of vegetation worldwide and erosion on an unimaginable scale.

As the water receded from one area, vegetation would have been deposited only to be subsequently buried as the area sank and water brought in more sediment. This, layer upon layer of coal would be formed. Furthermore, it has been shown in the laboratory that vegetation can be turned into coal in as little as 1 hour with sufficient heat and pressure. A recent model of coal in as little as 1 hour with sufficient heat and pressure. A recent model of coal formation is provided by a study of the catastrophic explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980. This explosion knocked down millions of trees which ended up floating on Spirit Lake. Underneath this layer of peat consisting of tree bark and organic matter. If that organic matter were buried by a subsequent eruption, the result would be a coal seam covered by sedimentary rock. Repeated cycles would be rapidly produce a series of coal seams with sediment on top of each seam. This small scale model shows that it is reasonable to believe that an enormous flood would rapidly create the worldwide coal seams which we find today.

Is "Survival of the Fittest" part of the evolution?

Modern evolutionists have tried to distance themselves from this concept due to the obvious negative consequences of the social realm. Denying that survival of the fittest is part of the evolutionary process is akin to denying that one type of animal will drive another to extinction given the right conditions. Contrary to the rosy picture of animal co-operation which evolutionists like to portray, one type of animal has no qualms wiping out another in its quest to propagate itself. Survival of the fittest has always been an integral part of the evolutionary theory. Wild dogs introduced to Australia are endangering native species because they are more aggressive and have no natural enemies. Sounds like "survival of the fittest" doesn't it? If we are also animals who have evolved according to this basic principle of evolution, why shouldn't we extend this principle into the social realm? Why shouldn't we eliminate weaker classes of humans which are competing for what we feel we need? Evolution taken to its logical conclusion leads to a savage world akin to Hitler's Nazi Germany when the strong determine what is right. It was no coincidence that Hitler was strongly influenced by the writings of Darwin.

Does it make any logical sense that this method of death and destruction would be a loving God's method for making us???

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/randers/evolved.gif)

Moral decay in American society accelerated sharply after 1960. There were several things that are said to account for this. The primary occurances that coincide with these events were the removal of the Bible from schools, the prevention of school sponsored prayers and the increased efforts of teaching evolution. Starting in 1960 the number of words devoted to evolution in science text books increased from less than 5,000 to over 30,000 in 1965. Immediately college entrance apptitude test scores began a sharp decline. In the next 20-30 years, Gonorrhea in children ages 15 to 16 increased; violent crime climbed; unwed birth rates grew; pregnancies in girls age 10-14 increased; divorce rates went up; and unmarried couples living together rose; drug use increased; a general rebellion against the moral standards of society. It was the era of the "flower children", rebel against everything, do whatever you feel like doing without regard for the consequences. (look at the charts located here (http://forums.christiansunite.com/index.php?topic=9693.0)  )

Could it be that, when our children learned that they were not really the special creation of a loving Creator, but only another animal accident created by a lightening bolt in a pond of primordial soup, that they had nothing to look forward to but death, that they decided they might as well act out their animal heritage?

Many critics of the Bible say that it makes incorrect statements about science. This is simply not true. For example, ancient astronomers guessed there were about 6000 stars. The Bible says there are so many they can’t be numbered. The Bible is right and the ancient astronomers are wrong. Professor Steve Gilreath has prepared a table of some of these statements and their subsequent discovery by science. The Bible is thousands of years ahead of mans discoveries and it is never wrong.

Astronomy              Bible         Science          Gap in years

Earth suspended
in space
Job 26:7                2000BC     400BC            1600


Stars produce
 sound
Job 38:7               2000BC      1900AD          3900


Stars can’t
be numbered
Gen 15:5, 22,17   1300BC       1700AD      3000
Jer 31:37, 33:32


Stars very far
from Earth
Job 22:12             2000BC     1800AD        3800


Stars differ in
magnitude
I Cor 15:41           50AD        1600AD          1550


Universe
Ex Nihilo
Genesis 1:1,         1400BC     1900AD        3300
Psalm 33:6, 9

Unrefuted evidence for earth's instant creation. An excellant set of videos that are available online for free can be obtained through the following web site;

http://www.halos.com/videos/streaming-video.htm

These vidoes take a while to download especially if you have a dial up connection but believe me they are well worth the time spent to download and to watch. The first video explains how this is possible to prove. In science there is a difference between what is considered a theory and what is considered a fact. A theory does not have to be proven. It is simply an hypothesis of a given situation. In other words an educated guess based on presuppositions. This is the classification given to evolution, a theory, based on the presupposition that there is no God.

In science a fact is something that must be proven by observing the situation and actually seeing it happen. This can be done by replicating the situation.

Evolution says that coal took millions of years to produce. In this video it is shown by replicating the conditions and actually observing the making of coal in just two weeks.

There are many other such proofs given in these videos of this same thing that proves the earth was made in a very short period not millions or billions of years that evolutionists claim.

We all love to laugh, it’s good medicine. We laughed at the Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”. She “sometimes believed in six impossible things before breakfast.” Similarly, I laugh at Darwinian professors who teach impossible fairy tales to their students. And there are tons of laughs in reading of the history of the pathetic attempts of Darwinists who tried to pump embalming fluid into the Lenin-like corpse of evolution. Let’s peel back the skin on this “evolution baloney” and laugh at how this sausage was made.

Charles Darwin was born into wealth, spent two years in medical school, dropping out after spending too much time in bars. He had some divinity training but failed make it as an Anglican minister. He took a position as a naturalist on a ship Beagle, which led to writing his first book. Without any evidence, he conjured up his Pangenesis theory. He assumed that species changed to other species because all cells produced gemmules. Gemmules supposedly arose by some kind of reaction to the environment. Each of these gemmules entered the sex cells of the sperm or egg (it must have been crowded in there), which later were transmitted to the offspring. Big problem! No one could find Darwin’s imaginary Gemmules and Pangenesis died at birth!

Darwin’s writings were not science but philosophical musings. He called assumptions facts and piled up conjectures upon conjectures. “Maybe” and “perhaps” form the basis of his writings

But something had to be done to keep the world believing Darwinism. Ernest Haeckel tried by faking drawings of embryos (which he claimed repeated fish to reptile to mammal evolution). But fellow embryologists in his trial at Jena University discovered his fakes. Although it is hard to believe, but Haeckel’s “most famous fakes in biology” are used as proofs of evolution in textbooks today. His forgeries are like gonorrhea, a gift that keeps on giving!

The next attempt to resurrect Darwinism came in 1872, from the British ship HMS Challenger. It dredged the ocean sediments for four years looking for half-formed fossils. None were found, and since none had ever been found on land, the evolutionary fairy tale of the gradual production of billions of fossils sedimentary strata was quietly set aside. The Challenger did provide a momentary hope. It dredged up some blob from the ocean floor and Darwinists leaped for joy. It was a live microbe, some kind of a missing link! They named it Bathybuis haeckeli after the old king of biological fakery, Ernest Haeckel. However in 1875 a chemist discovered it was not any form of life, but a chemical precipitate of sulphate of lime (gypsum). So, true to form, the discovery was carefully swept under the rug and hidden from the public.

In the meantime Darwin had returned to Lamark’s previously discarded idea, that giraffes developed long necks by stretching to reach those sweeter leaves on the top of trees. This theory died again when German biologist Leopold Weisman, in 1883, cut off the tails of white mice in 19 successive generations and the tails always reappeared. Similarly through 4000 years of circumcision, Jewish men still had foreskins. More bad news for poor old Saint Darwin! Who can rescue Darwinism? Quick, before the unwashed discover the emperor has no clothes.

Finally in 1930 Austin H. Clark tried to plug the gap with a new theory, Zoogenesis. Clark was a well-respected Darwinist at the Smithsonian Institute. He had written books and 600 articles in five languages. However to his dismay, he could never find any evidence of macroevolution in animals or plants. In his 1930 book, The New Evolution: Zoogenesis, he cited fact after fact proving macroevolution could not have occurred. He concluded therefore plants and animals must have sprung fully formed from dirt and water! The evolutionary world was stunned into silence. Clark was the Carl Sagan of his day. He supposedly knew all the answers. Quickly they buried Clark’s theory.

World famous geneticist Richard Goldschmidt attempted to come to the rescue of embarrassed Darwinians by attempting to prove macroevolution was caused by mutations. For twenty-five years he was the godfather to millions of generations of gypsy moths. He zapped them with x-rays and chemicals. He found mutations produced nothing but deformities. No new species! He concluded rats were still rats and rabbits were still rabbits. In his 1940 book, “The Material Basis for Evolution”, Goldschmidt exploded the ammunition box of evolutionary theory. He literally tore the theory to pieces. No one knew how to answer him and they cannot answer him today. He was an honest atheist who faced the facts. But not wanting to acknowledge God, he proposed a new mechanism of evolution called “The Hopeful Monster Mechanism”. One day an alligator laid an egg and a turkey hatched out! You’ve got to remember boys and girls this is science!

For the next 30 years evolutionists were dazed and in turmoil because they had 1) no proof that evolution had ever occurred, 2) no reasonable mechanism to explain evolution, and 3) zillions of missing links! They had bitter arguments among themselves about possible theories. The embarrassment of Goldschmidt’s crude “Hopeful Monster Mechanism” caused Harvard’s Stephen Gould in 1972 and a little later, Steven Stanley, of John’s Hopkins University, to “smarten up” Goldschmidt’s” ugly theory by giving it a new name, ‘Punctuated Equilibrium”(Gould) and the even better “high-fallutin” scientific name, “Quantum Speciation” (Stanley). But it was still a monster by any name.

The discovery in the 1950’s of the DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson crushed the hopes of biological evolutionists. It provided clear evidence that every specie is locked into its own coding pattern. Only variation within a kind (microevolution) can occur. Mathematicians showed the odds against forming DNA by chance were “quad-zillions and quad-zillions to one”. Evolution by chance was impossible! But atheist Crick was not ready to believe in God. He dreamed up a new theory … are you ready for this? Some unknown “space alien” sprinkled sperm in our solar system and eventually creatures evolved on some planet (Krypton?). Then these evolved space creatures built a “Noahs Ark” rocket ship and zoomed down to the earth in a long journey, to unloaded their zoo. Crick named his new theory “Panspermia.” This boys and girls is called science or….. maybe a fairy tale! Now NASA’s “Life in Space Program” believes this baloney and is spending billions of our tax dollars shooting up probes in our solar system looking for this “sperm donor”!

There you have it, the skeletons in Evolution’s closet. The kooky theories of Pangenesis, Gemmules, Lamarkism, Zoogenesis, Hopeful Monster Mechanism, Punctuated Equilibrium, Quantum Speciation and Panspermia are all just guesses. None were proven. They make good fodder for fairy tale writers. They are a barrel of laughs!

How can supposedly reasonable men believe this weird stuff and then try to pass it off as science, when it is really a cult religion? They’ve emptied out the stables and dumped it on the gullible public. Most Americans believe people with PhDs in science are unbiased, honest and seek the truth. But they are just like the rest of humanity. They can have biases, be dishonest and seek only to further their own goals, honorable or dishonorable.

The Darwinists have a well-oiled propaganda machine to keep their true goals hidden from the taxpayers who pay their salaries. They have web sites set up to deflect criticism of evolution and to further their legislative and judicial goals, which are to kill God and elevate humanism to His throne.

Cont'd next post.

Darwinists know they have to hide their atheist religion from the majority of Americans, who believe in God. One of the Darwinist web sites has enlisted Jimmah Carter, our worst ever ex-president, to proselyte Christians and baptized them into The Church of Darwin (in the name of the unholy trinity, Darwin, Haeckel and Nietzsche?). These new converts are called theistic evolutionists. At the 1959 Darwinian Centennial Celebration, Julian Huxley’s keynote address focused on the total repudiation of God. Huxley was asked why the world, a hundred years ago, leaped at Darwin’s book “The Origin of The Species”. He answered it freed us from God’s sexual mores! Evolution is a religion of no God!

Darwinists have given up public debates because they’ve lost hundreds of them in the 1970s and 80s. Why did they lose? As a participant in two of them I will tell you. They lost because they had no proof of macroevolution. Amazing! No Proof! They usually tried old debate tricks of personal attacks on their opponents, i.e. “you can’t be a scientist because you believe the Bible”, etc. But they lost because audiences were shocked. Shocked that the Darwinists had no proof! And they have none today!

In editorials and letters to the editor, the Darwinist produces no proofs. So they commonly try to bluff us Okie rubes with pompous statements like, “evolution has been proved as much as gravity and it is believed by all scientists”. Get real --- sure, and the moon is made of green cheese! Its all bluff, designed to shut up critics and convert us to their atheistic religion. Hitler and his propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, would have been proud. You tell a lie long enough and loud enough and people will believe it! Unfortunately, a lot of Americans have swallowed the lie, including about half of our college graduates. Our courts and media are full of Darwinists. Their bulldog, the ACLU, is working overtime to wipe God from all of public life. Humanism over all is their goal!

Tragically the Darwinists have made great strides in wrecking western civilization. In the first half of the twentieth century, Darwinism hijacked the militant policies of Germany. The religion of Darwin, Nietzsche and Haeckel became the religion of Hitler and his Nazi gang. The result was in the murder of millions in their attempt to produce the Aryan super race and a victorious Germany. World War II was the most violent form of evolutionism ever seen.

In the last half century, evolution hijacked America and its schools and inflicted a great defeat on American culture. Crime has skyrocketed, homosexuality and gay marriage have been mainstreamed, and our morals have submerged into a cesspool. Why? Kids brainwashed with this kooky nonsense are taught that they evolved from apes, there is no God and that morals are relative. If it feels good, do it.

Not only are the Darwinians scrambling to answer attacks from creationists, but also they are also arguing with each other over their different theories. “So heated is the debate that one Darwinian says there are times when he thinks about going into a field with more intellectual honesty, the used car business.” (Newsweek, April 8, 1985, p. 80)

“I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology..…I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked as the greatest deceit in the history of science.”” Soren Lovtrup, “The Refutation of a Myth”, 1987.

Edward F Blick, PhD
Emeritus Professor of Engineering
Univ. of Oklahoma

The Bible gives us principles of interpretation in 2 Corinthians 4:2 and Proverbs 8:8–9:

    Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Corinthians 4:2).

    All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness; There is nothing crooked or perverted in them. They are all straightforward to him who understands, And right to those who find knowledge (Proverbs 8:8–9).

In other words, we are to read and understand the Bible in a plain or straightforward manner. This is usually what people mean when they say “literal interpretation of the Bible” (this phrase is common among those not well-versed in hermeneutics). I try to use the term “plainly” so I don’t confuse people.

Reading the Bible “plainly” means understanding that literal history is literal history, metaphors are metaphors, poetry is poetry, etc. The Bible is written in many different literary styles and should be read accordingly. This is why we understand that Genesis records actual historical events. It was written as historical narrative.

Reading the Bible plainly/straightforwardly (taking into account literary style, context, authorship, etc.) is the basis for what is called the historical-grammatical method of interpretation which has been used by theologians since the church fathers. This method helps to eliminate improper interpretations of the Bible.

For example, I once had someone say to me (who was not a Christian), “the Bible clearly says “there is no God’ in Psalms 14:1.” When you look up the verse and read it in context, it says:

    The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good (Psalm 14:1).

So the context helps determine the proper interpretation—that a fool was saying this.

I also once had someone tell me, “to interpret the days in Genesis, you need to read 2 Peter 3:8, which indicates the days are each a thousand years.” 2 Peter 3:8–9, in context, says:

    But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:8–9).

This passage employs a literary device called a simile. Here, God compares a day to a thousand years in order to make the point that time doesn’t bind Him, in this case regarding His patience. God is not limited to the time He created—that would be illogical.

Also, this verse gives no reference to the days in Genesis, so it is not warranted to apply this to the days in Genesis 1. When read plainly, these verses indicate that God is patient when keeping His promises.

At any rate, I pray this helps to clarify why we advocate reading and understanding the Bible in a plain or straightforward manner, and why Genesis should be understood as actual history.

Should Genesis be taken literally?

Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book under discussion. This is not as difficult as it may seem, as the Bible obviously contains:

    *

      Poetry—as in the Psalms, where the repetition or parallelism of ideas is in accordance with Hebrew ideas of poetry, without the rhyme (parallelism of sound) and metre (parallelism of time) that are important parts of traditional English poetry. This, by the way, is the reason why the Psalms can be translated into other languages and still retain most of their literary appeal and poetic piquancy, while the elements of rhyme and metre are usually lost when traditional Western poetry is translated into other languages.
    *

      Parables—as in many of the sayings of Jesus, such as the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–23), which Jesus Himself clearly states to be a parable and about which He gives meanings for the various items, such as the seed and the soil.
    *

      Prophecy—as in the books of the last section of the Old Testament (Isaiah to Malachi).
    *

      Letters—as in the New Testament epistles written by Paul, Peter, John, and others.
    *

      Biography—as in the gospels.
    *

      Autobiography/testimony—as in the book of Acts where the author, Luke, after narrating the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus as a historical fact (Acts 9:1–19), then describes two further occasions when Paul included this conversion experience as part of his own personal testimony (Acts 22:1–21; 26:1–22).
    *

      Authentic historical facts—as in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, etc.

Thus the author’s intention with respect to any book of the Bible is usually quite clear from the style and the content. Who then was the author of Genesis, and what intention is revealed by his style and the content of what he wrote?
The author

The Lord Jesus Himself and the gospel writers said that the Law was given by Moses (Mark 10:3; Luke 24:27; John 1:17), and the uniform tradition of the Jewish scribes and early Christian fathers, and the conclusion of conservative scholars to the present day, is that Genesis was written by Moses. This does not preclude the possibility that Moses had access to patriarchal records, preserved by being written on clay tablets and handed down from father to son via the line of Adam–Seth–Noah–Shem–Abraham–Isaac–Jacob, etc., as there are 11 verses in Genesis which read, ‘These are the generations [Hebrew: toledoth = ‘origins’ or by extension ‘record of the origins’] of … .’1 As these statements all come after the events they describe, and the events recorded in each division all took place before rather than after the death of the individuals so named, they may very well be subscripts or closing signatures, i.e. colophons, rather than superscripts or headings. If this is so, the most likely explanation of them is that Adam, Noah, Shem, and the others each wrote down an account of the events which occurred in his lifetime, and Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, selected and compiled these, along with his own comments, into the book we now know as Genesis2 (see also Did Moses really write Genesis?).

Chapters 12–50 of Genesis were very clearly written as authentic history, as they describe the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons who were the ancestral heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jewish people, from earliest biblical times to the present day, have always regarded this portion of Genesis as the true record of their nation’s history.

So what about the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are our main concern, as these are the ones that have incurred the most criticism from modern scholars, scientists, and sceptics?

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Genesis 1–11
Are any of these chapters poetry?

To answer this question we need to examine in a little more depth just what is involved in the parallelism of ideas that constitutes Hebrew poetry.

Let us consider Psalm 1:1, which reads as follows: ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’ Here we see triple parallelism in the nouns and verbs used (reading downwards in the following scheme):

walketh          counsel          ungodly
standeth        way               sinners
sitteth            seat               scornful

As well as this overt parallelism, there is also a covert or subtle progression of meaning. In the first column, ‘walketh’ suggests short-term acquaintance, ‘standeth’ implies readiness to discuss, and ‘sitteth’ speaks of long-term involvement. In the second column, ‘counsel’ betokens general advice, ‘way’ indicates a chosen course of action, and ‘seat’ signifies a set condition of mind. In the third column, ‘ungodly’ describes the negatively wicked, ‘sinner’ characterizes the positively wicked, and ‘scornful’ portrays the contemptuously wicked.

Other types of Hebrew poetry include contrastive parallelism, as in Proverbs 27:6, ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful’, and completive parallelism, as in Psalm 46:1, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need.’3.

And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?

Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew scholars of substance are agreed that this is so (see below).

Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g. ‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times; ‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times; ‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’ six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above; rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.

Are any of these chapters parables?

No, because when Jesus told a parable He either said it was a parable, or He introduced it with a simile, so making it plain to the hearers that it was a parable, as on the many occasions when He said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like … .’ No such claim is made or style used by the author of Genesis 1–11.
Are any of these chapters prophecy?

Not in their full context, although two promises of God are prophetic in the sense that their fulfilment would be seen in the future. One of these is Genesis 3:15, which was the pronouncement by God to the serpent (Satan) in metaphorical form: ‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’ (NASB). Many have interpreted the ‘seed’ in this verse as the Messiah, including most evangelicals and even the Jewish Targums4 hence the Talmudic expression ‘heels of the Messiah’5. The Messiah would suffer wounds to His feet (on the Cross), but would completely destroy Satan’s power. This verse also hints at the virginal conception, as the Messiah is called the seed of the woman, contrary to the normal biblical practice of naming the father rather than the mother of a child (cf. Genesis chapters 5 and 11, 1 Chronicles chapters 1–9, Matthew chapter 1, Luke 3:23–38).

The other is Genesis 8:21–22 and 9:11–17,

    ‘And the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake … and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.’

Are any of these chapters letters, biography, or autobiography/personal testimony?

This is where we need to consider some of the subscripts mentioned above.

If Adam knew the events of Creation Days 1–6, they must have been revealed to him by God, as Adam was not made until Day 6, and so he could have known them only if God had told him. This view is reinforced by the words, ‘These are the generations of [NIV: ‘This is the account of’] the heavens and of the earth when they were created …’ in Genesis 2:4a. The details of Day 7, the rest day, are included before this in Genesis 2:2–3, thereby completing (as we might expect) the record of a full seven-day week, before this subscript or closing signature appears.

Then follow the events of Genesis 2:4b–5:1a. This section tells us about Adam, his wife Eve, and their sons, and reads very much like a personal account of what Adam knew, saw, and experienced concerning the Garden of Eden, and the creation of Eve (chapter 2), their rebellion against God (chapter 3), and the deeds of their descendants (chapter 4 to 5:1), albeit written in the third person6. This section ends with the words, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam.’

Is it feasible that Adam could have written Genesis 1:1–2:4a as the result of his pre-Fall conversation with God, and Genesis 2:4b–5:1 as the record of his own experiences? There is no problem concerning his ability to have done so. Adam was created a mature man, endowed with all the DNA, knowledge and skill he needed to perform all the tasks assigned him by God. No cave-man he! Adam knew enough horticulture ‘to dress and to keep’ the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15), and ample intelligence to recognize and name the distinct kinds of animals (Genesis 2:19). He (and Eve) could converse with God without ever having learned an alphabet, and there is no reason to suppose that he was not fully skilled in writing also7.

cont'd on page three

Page Three

Supposed contradictions

What about the supposed contradictions between the order of events in Genesis chapter 2 and the order given in chapter 1?

There are none! See also Genesis contradictions?

If, with the NIV, we read ‘Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east …’ (Genesis 2:8) and, ‘Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field …’ (Genesis 2:19 with emphasis added), it is clearly seen that chapter 2 states that the plants and animals were formed before Adam. When Adam named the animals (Genesis 2:20), they obviously were already in existence. There is no contradictory significance in the order of animals listed in Genesis 2:20; it is probably the order in which Adam met the animals, while the order of their creation is given in Genesis 1:20–25. Dr Henry Morris comments:

    ‘It was only the animals in closest proximity and most likely as theoretical candidates for companionship to man that were actually brought to him. These included the birds of the air, the cattle (verse 20—probably the domesticated animals), and the beasts of the field, which were evidently the smaller wild animals that would live near human habitations. Those not included were the fish of the sea, the creeping things, and the beasts of the earth mentioned in Genesis 1:24, which presumably were those wild animals living at considerable distance from man and his cultivated fields.’8.

Concerning the names of geographical sites, we have no idea what the configuration of the land or the rivers was before the Flood, because the pre-Flood world was completely destroyed. The land areas and rivers named before the Flood do not correspond to similarly named features after the Flood.

The purpose of Genesis 2:18–25 is not to give another account of creation but to show that there was no kinship whatsoever between Adam and the animals. None was like him, and so none could provide fellowship or companionship for him. Why not? Because Adam had not evolved from them, but was ‘a living soul’ whom God had created ‘in His own image’ (Genesis 2:7 and 1:27). This means (among other things) that God created Adam to be a person whom He could address, and who could respond to and interact with Himself. Here, as in many other places, the plain statements of the Bible confront and contradict the notion of human evolution.

There is therefore enough evidence for us to conclude that Adam most probably was the author of Genesis 2:4b–5:1, and that this is his record of his own experiences with respect to events in the Garden of Eden, the creation of Eve, the Fall, and in the lives of Cain, Abel, and Seth.

The next section is from 5:1b to 6:9a, and deals with the line from Adam to Noah, ending with, ‘These are the generations [or origins] of Noah.’

The next section is from 6:9b to 10:1a, and deals mainly with the Ark and the Flood, ending with, ‘Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.’ The wording of this subscript suggests that this portion was written by one of Noah’s sons, probably Shem, as Moses was descended from Shem. These chapters read very much like an eye-witness account because of the intimacy of detail which they contain. Consider Genesis 8:6–12 and note how this contains that ring of authenticity which is characteristic of an eye-witness account. It may even have been Shem’s diary!

Genesis 8:6–12:

    6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:
    7 And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
    8 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
    9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
    10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
    11 And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth.
    12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more. (KJV).

Such meticulous details are the stuff of authentic eye-witness testimony. They have the ring of truth.

There is thus a substantial body of evidence that these portions of Genesis delineated by subscripts were written by the persons named therein, for the purpose of making and passing on a permanent record.

So then, were these first 11 chapters written as a record of authentic historical facts?
Answer: Yes, for several reasons.

Internal evidence of the book of Genesis

1. There is the internal evidence of the book of Genesis itself. As already mentioned, chapters 12–50 have always been regarded by the Jewish people as being the record of their own true history, and the style of writing contained in chapters 1–11 is not strikingly different from that in chapters 12–50.

2. Hebrew scholars of standing have always regarded this to be the case. Thus, Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

    ‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the “days” of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’9.

3. One of the main themes of Genesis is the Sovereignty of God. This is seen in God’s actions in respect of four outstanding events in Genesis 1–11 (Creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the Babel dispersion), and His relationship to four outstanding people in Genesis 12–50 (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph). There is thus a unifying theme to the whole of the book of Genesis, which falls to the ground if any part is mythical and not true history; on the other hand, each portion reinforces the historical authenticity of the other.10

cont'd on page four

Page Four

Evidence from the rest of the Bible

4. The principal people mentioned in Genesis chapters 1–11 are referred to as real—historical, not mythical—people in the rest of the Bible, often many times. For example, Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Noah are referred to in 15 other books of the Bible.

5. The Lord Jesus Christ referred to the Creation of Adam and Eve as a real historical event, by quoting Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in His teaching about divorce (Matthew 19:3–6; Mark 10:2–9), and by referring to Noah as a real historical person and the Flood as a real historical event, in His teaching about the ‘coming of the Son of man’ (Matthew 24:37–39; Luke 17:26–27).

6. Unless the first 11 chapters of Genesis are authentic historical events, the rest of the Bible is incomplete and incomprehensible as to its full meaning. The theme of the Bible is Redemption, and may be outlined thus:

    i. God’s redeeming purpose is revealed in Genesis 1–11,
    ii. God’s redeeming purpose progresses from Genesis 12 to Jude 25, and
    iii. God’s redeeming purpose is consummated in Revelation 1–22.

But why does mankind need to be redeemed? What is it that he needs to be redeemed from? The answer is given in Genesis 1–11, namely, from the ruin brought about by sin. Unless we know that the entrance of sin to the human race was a true historical fact, God’s purpose in providing a substitutionary atonement is a mystery. Conversely, the historical truth of Genesis 1–11 shows that all mankind has come under the righteous anger of God and needs salvation from the penalty, power, and presence of sin.

7. Unless the events of the first chapters of Genesis are true history, the Apostle Paul’s explanation of the gospel in Romans chapter 5 and of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 has no meaning. Paul writes: ‘For as by one man’s [Adam’s] disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one [Jesus] shall many be made righteous’ (Romans 5:19). And, ‘For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive … And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit’ (1 Corinthians 15:21–22; 45). The historical truth of the record concerning the first Adam is a guarantee that what God says in His Word about the last Adam [Jesus] is also true. Likewise, the historical, literal truth of the record concerning Jesus is a guarantee that what God says about the first Adam is also historically and literally true.
Conclusion

We return to the question which forms the title of this article. Should Genesis be taken literally?

Answer: If we apply the normal principles of biblical exegesis (ignoring pressure to make the text conform to the evolutionary prejudices of our age), it is overwhelmingly obvious that Genesis was meant to be taken in a straightforward, obvious sense as an authentic, literal, historical record of what actually happened.
References

1. See Genesis 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:12; 25:19; 36:1; 36:9; 37:2. Return to text.

2. The seminal author on the colophon concepts was P.J. Wiseman, Creation Revealed in Six Days, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, London, 1948, pp. 45–53. For an excellent evaluation of this by a evangelical linguist see The Oldest Science Book in the World, by Dr Charles V. Taylor, Assembly Press, Queensland, 1984, pp. 21–23, 73, 121. Return to text.

3. This discussion of Hebrew poetry was adapted from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Vol. 1, pp. 13-16. Return to text.

4. Aramaic paraphrases of the OT originating in the last few centuries BC, and committed to writing about AD 500. See F.F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments, (Westwood: Fleming H. Revell Co., Rev. Ed. 1963), p. 133. Return to text.

5. A.G. Fruchtenbaum, Apologia 2(3):54–58, 1993. Return to text.

6. The use of the third person is no problem. Moses wrote the long account of his own life in Exodus to Deuteronomy in the third person, and many classical authors like Julius Caesar also wrote in the third person. Return to text.

7. Adam and Eve knew how to sew fig-leaf ‘aprons’ for themselves (Genesis 3:7). Within a few generations, Adam’s descendants founded a city (Genesis 4:17), were tent-makers, cattle farmers, musicians with the ability to make both stringed and wind instruments, and metallurgists with the ability to smelt the ores of copper, tin and iron and then to forge all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Genesis 4:20–24). Dr Henry M. Morris comments in The Genesis Record (Baker Book house, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, pp. 146–147):

    ‘It is significant to note that the elements which anthropologists identify as the attributes of the emergence of evolving men from the stone age into true civilization—urbanization, agriculture, animal domestication, and metallurgy—were all accomplished quickly by the early descendants of Adam and did not take hundreds of thousands of years.’ Return to text.

8. Henry Morris, The Genesis Record, p. 97. Return to text.

9. Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson of the UK, dated 23 April 1984. Copy held by the author. Note that Prof. Barr does not claim to believe that Genesis is historically true; he is just telling us what, in his opinion, the language was meant to convey. Return to text.

10. Adapted from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Vol. 1, pp. 27–29. Return to text.

".... all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; [2] And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; [3] And did all eat the same spiritual meat; [4] And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ. " 1Cor. 10:1-4 (KJV)

My guide stopped the vehicle, pointed to the rock face and said: "Just wander over there. You will find something very interesting." I was completely in the dark, literally! It was 8:00pm in the evening, going on for winter in England. As I made my way to the bare rocky surface which loomed ever higher, my guide said: "Up above you!" It would have been nice if the moon was bright, or the torch worked. But at least I could see the outline of darkened rock in front, probably thanks to the childhood carrots my mother made me eat. So I began to climb. My guide assured me it was worth the effort. There was no-one else there, but I was not surprised. It was not only dark, it was cold. I was even more surprised when a sign emerged that said: "Don't climb this rock." too late - I was already climbing. I guess in daylight the sign was visible from below. My guide yelled: "Look up". Sure enough, beside a hollow in the rock, was another sign, barely visible. It was worth seeing! Fortunately my camera has automatic flash which did help a little.

The sign is found in Burrington Gorge, Somerset Shire, England. One very stormy day, in the 1760's, Augustus Toplady took shelter from a bitter storm. He was protected from the wind and the rain by a huge cleft in the rock, where no doubt, God used the circumstance to bring to his mind the words of what is now one of the best known hymns in Christendom. In his rocky shelter, Toplady wrote on the back of a playing card (history records it was a 6 of diamonds), "Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee; let the water and the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed, be of sin the double cure, cleanse from wrath and make me pure." The author died only a few years later from Tuberculosis, having lived only 38 years. There can be no doubt Toplady had faith in the Rock. But not the limestone rock he was sheltering in, for Toplady's rock was Christ. He was a conservative Christian minister and in his day, few would have challenged the thought that Toplady's rock was also the rock of Moses'.

There can be no doubting that the New Testament Apostle Paul insists strongly that 'Moses' rock was Christ. (1 Cor.10:4) Paul does not say, "seen through New Testament eyes, we now believe that Moses had faith in someone we now know is Christ." There can be no doubt, that Moses saw the Lord face-to-face (Ex 33:11). Yet it was Moses who the Lord used to tell us that no man can see God face-to-face. (Ex 33:20) There can be no doubting that the God who Moses saw, (Exodus 24:9-11) was God the Son, and that Moses was well aware of a Trinity in the Godhead.

We should not be surprised when the world rejects the truththat Moses received from this "Word of God", about creation , they also reject the living Word of God who Moses knew was his salvation. If you take a secular guide through Burrington Gorge today he will tell you about the age of the rock, about hundreds of millions of years of evolution and never once concede the fatal flaw of evolution. It has nowhere to shelter in the time of storm. It offers no cleft to hide in from the wrath of God's judgement. As clever and ingenious as evolutionary theories have been or will yet become, none can offer forgiveness of sin, hope of salvation, or promise of eternal life. That forgiveness, hope and promise come only from the Rock of Ages, and that Rock is Christ!

Author of Christian Research.

There is a lot of information posted here in this thread that shows that evolution is false and that the Bible is accurate in it's description of creation of the Heavens and earth by God and even proves the story of Noah's global wide flood. It is your choice to believe God's word or to believe the lies and distortions of evolution, the made up stories of men that try to hide the truth of God under the guise of science.

As the author of Creation Reaseach said in the prior article in this thread, do want to put your life, your future in the faith of a rock that crumbles and disappears when weathered or would you rather put it all into the hands of the rock that will never weaken nor leave you no matter what may come?

If you want that assurance, that safe haven for eternity then why not come right now to Him. Turn to Jesus Christ right now in prayer and ask Him to forgive you of your sins and to come into your life as your Lord and Saviour. There is no time better than this very moment. Waiting any longer may be too late as we never know when that storm may come over us.

 Un-Bee-lievable Vision
by Frank Sherwin, M.S.

Twenty-first century research has now revealed that bee vision is more complex than anyone thought.

Next to the fruit fly, the most popular insect (arthropod) of the creation scientist could very well be the common honey bee. Much has been written and filmed of this insect's incredible ability to make perfectly-formed combs containing hexagonal cells for maximum utilization of space and heat transfer. The bee's ability to convey the location of a food source to fellow workers via a sophisticated "dance" is legendary.

Twenty-first century research has now revealed that bee vision is more complex than anyone thought. According to science, arthropods have always been complex—and they have always been arthropods. One of the first arthropods found in the fossil record is the amazing trilobite, common in Cambrian and Ordovician sediments. Many of these creatures are so well preserved that a detailed analysis of their eyes has been possible:

The elegant physical design of trilobite eyes employ Fermat's principle, Abbe's sine law, Snell's laws of refraction, and compensates for the optics of birefringent crystals. Thus, trilobites could see an undistorted image under water. Imagine being able to see with undistorted vision in all directions, being able to determine distance in part of that range, while, at the same time, having the optimum sensor for motion detection.1

So, from the beginning, arthropod vision has been extremely complicated, a fact not clarified by Darwinism. Indeed, even explaining how the arthropod head supposedly evolved is an "acrimonious field."2

The composition of the arthropod head is one of the bitterest and longest-running problems in animal evolution. Unresolved after more than a century of debate, this sorry tale is (in)famously known as the "endless dispute."3

The arthropod head never evolved in the first place—it was created.

The brain of the bee is composed of a mere one million neurons (nerve cells), 0.01% of the neurons of a three-pound human brain. Using this tiny bee brain and associated vision, bees have been able to solve complicated color puzzles4 and even recognize human faces.5 They do this by using their 6,300 ommatidia that comprise the eye. Bees have also been created with the ability to distinguish up to 300 separate flashes of light per second, an attribute they use as they rapidly fly over the changing landscape.

The next time a busy bee buzzes by you on its way to a field, remember that it is designed to do and find things that our most sophisticated machines and computers cannot do, using vision and a brain that flies in the face (so to speak) of undirected evolution.

   1. Austin, S., Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe, ICR, 1994, p. 145.
   2. Budd, Graham E., Telford, Maximilian J., "Evolution: Along came a sea spider," Nature, vol. 437, Oct. 20, 2005, p.1099.
   3. Ibid.
   4. Astrobiology Magazine, Nov. 6, 2005. http://www.astrobio.net/news/.
   5. Unger, K., ScienceNOW Daily News, Dec. 2, 2005, citing Journal of Experimental Biology.

Confirmation of Rapid Metamorphism of Rocks
by Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.

Where thick sequences of sedimentary rock layers have been deposited in large basins, the deepest layers at the bottoms of the sequences may subsequently have become folded by earth movements when subjected to elevated temperatures and pressures that were sufficient to transform them into meta-morphic rocks. Thus the clay particles in shales and the mineral grains in sandstones were metamorphosed into the new minerals found today in schists and gneisses. Geologists conventionally envisage these metamorphic processes as having required millions of years.1

In contrast, creation geologists maintain that just as thick sequences of sedimentary rocks were rapidly deposited and movements of the tectonic plates of the earth's crust occurred rapidly during the year-long Flood catas-trophe, these associated metamorphic processes were likewise rapid. The hot waters that saturated the deeply buried sedimentary and other rocks, and/or that flowed rapidly through them, were responsible for the rapid mineral transformations.2,3
Norwegian Metamorphic Rocks

Conventional geologists were surprised recently by documented evidence for rapid metamorphism.4 Along the southwest coast of Norway, in the Bergen area, former igneous (intrusive) rocks were radically transformed into high-grade metamorphic rocks known as granulites by the high pressures exerted on them deep in the earth's crust late in the Precambrian.5 During a subsequent continental collision in the Silurian, hot fluids penetrated along closely-spaced shear zones, where rocks are believed to have deformed plastically as they moved sideways against each other, and transformed most of the granulites into another metamorphic rock called eclogite.6

These eclogites are strikingly beautiful, coarse-grained, and characterized by large pink garnets in a green matrix, rich in pyroxene. They are conventionally believed to have formed at depths of some 60 km and temperatures of around

700°C.7 However, these Norwegian eclogites paradoxically exhibit features more commonly associated with tectonic processes at lower temperatures closer to the earth's surface.8,9 Furthermore, rubidium-strontium radioisotope dating of the granulite lenses immediately adjacent to these eclogites yields an "age" closer to that of the untransformed granulite,10,11 even though the temperatures supposedly required for formation of the eclogites should have obliterated that earlier "age."12 Thus it has been suggested that the Norwegian granulite-eclogite transformation must have occurred during short-lived fluid flow events over less than a million years.13
A Radical Short Timescale

However, a drastically shorter timescale has now been proposed,14 one that "will make many geologists draw breath!"15 An ultraviolet laser was used to measure profiles of argon-argon radioisotope "ages" across individual mineral grains in the untransformed granulite lenses.16 In this technique the abundance of argon-40 (which forms from the radioactive decay of potassium-40) supposedly indicates the elapsed time since the temperature was last high enough for the argon (a gas) to diffuse rapidly through these minerals and escape at the boundaries between grains. The "ages" thus obtained not only confirmed the earlier rubidium-strontium "dates," but demonstrated just how little the granulite lenses had been affected by the later formation of the immediately adjacent eclogites.

Furthermore, these argon-40 data were then used to estimate what the temperature must have been in the granulite lenses during formation of the eclogites. The estimate—less than 400°C—is dramatically lower than the conventional requirement of around 700°C for formation of the immediately adjacent eclogites. The only way this glaring inconsistency can be reconciled is if the time period over which the heat was applied to these granulites during their adjacent metamorphism to eclogites was drastically shorter than the previously suggested one million years or less. It was calculated that the total heating duration must have been around only 18,000 years to explain the argon-argon "age" profiles in the mineral grains.

However, even more radical is the conclusion from heat-conduction calculations that the individual fluid flow "events," when hot fluids (at 700°C) flowed through the shear zones in the granulites and metamorphosed them to eclogites, had to have lasted just ten years or less, otherwise there would have been significant heating beyond 400°C of the surviving granulite lenses between the shear zones. Furthermore, it was concluded that this is exactly what would be expected if fluid migration was triggered by multiple, spasmodic deformation events associated with earthquakes, in which the hot fluids were repeatedly injected into, and pumped along, the shear zones by earth movements. This is consistent with the evidence of hydraulic fracturing17 and rocks formed by friction melting along fractures18 associated with these eclogite-bearing shear zones.19 Thus this model overturns conventional long-age thinking by evoking a radically different picture for the conditions responsible for eclogite metamorphism, in which the exceedingly rapid metamorphic transformation occurs in only ten years or less!
Confirming Evidence

Such rapid fluid flow events are not without precedent, having been associated with vein formation during regional metamorphism of schists in Connecticut (USA).20

However, there is also independent evidence within these Norwegian eclogites of these flows of hot fluids that were responsible for the rapid metamorphism of the precursor granulites. A sample of related eclogite containing biotite flakes was closely examined and polonium-210 radiohalos were found in it (7 polonium-210 radiohalos in 50 microscope slides, each containing 20-30 biotite flakes).21 This discovery, the first time any radiohalos have been documented in eclogites, is highly significant.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Biotite was not in the precursor granulites, so it had to form as a result of both their metamorphism to eclogite and the fluid flows. Of course, these radiohalos could only have been produced in the biotite grains after they formed. Furthermore, because there was no source of either parent uranium-238 or its radioactive decay products within either the eclogites or the precursor granulites, the large quantities of polonium-210 required to generate these radiohalos had to have been transported from external sources into the biotite flakes within these rocks by the hot fluids.22 But the polonium-210 only has a half-life of 138 days, and the radiohalos would only have formed and survived after the temperature in the rocks fell below 150°C. So this drastically restricts the duration of the earthquake-triggered hot fluid flows and associated eclogite metamorphism even more, perhaps to only a few weeks or months! And because the heat flow into the granulites to metamorphose them would have been primarily by convection associated with the fluid flows, rather than just by conduction,23 such a drastically short timescale of only weeks for this eclogite metamorphism is entirely feasible.
Conclusion

Of course, in conventional geological dogma which primarily envisages slow and gradual processes over long ages, even a timescale of ten years is almost too radical and controversial to be readily accepted. However, in the context of accelerated catastrophic erosion, deposition of thick strata sequences, earth movements, plate tectonics and continental collisions during the year-long global Genesis Flood, it is entirely feasible that rapid flows of hot fluids triggered by earthquakes were injected into shear zones within the granulites to transform them into eclogites within weeks. Once again, continued research has provided evidence that confirms the feasibility of another aspect of the Creation-Flood model of Earth history, namely, rapid metamorphism of rocks during the Genesis Flood, consistent with the infallible record of God's Word.
References

   1. Bucher, K., and M. Frey, 2002. Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks, 7th edition, pp. 67-68, Springer-Verlag, Berlin.
   2. Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Towards a Creationist Explanation of Regional Metamorphism." Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, 8(1):51-77.
   3. Snelling, A. A., 1994. "Regional Metamorphism Within a Creationist Framework: What Garnet Compositions Reveal." In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 485-496. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA.
   4. Kelley, S., 2005. "Hot Fluids and Cold Crusts." Nature, 435:1171.
   5. Wain, A. L., D. J. Waters, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Metastability of Granulites and Processes of Eclogitisation in the UHP Region of Western Norway." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 19:607-623.
   6. Austrheim, H., and W. L. Griffin, 1985. "Shear Deformation and Eclogite Formation within Granulite Facies Anorthosites of the Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Chemical Geology, 50:267-281.
   7. Boundy, T. M., and D. M. Fountain, 1992. "Structural Development and Petro-fabrics of Eclogite Facies Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway: Implications for Deep Crustal Deformational Processes." Journal of Metamorphic Geology, 10:127-146.
   8. Austrheim, H., M. Erambert, and T. M. Boundy, 1996. "Garnets Record Deep Crustal Earthquakes." Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 139:223-238.
   9. Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy, 1994. "Pseudotachylytes Generated During Seismic Faulting and Eclogitization of the Deep Crust." Science, 265:82-83.
  10. Kühn, A., J. Glodny, K. Iden, and H. Austrheim, 2000. "Retention of Precambrian Rb/Sr Phlogopite Ages through Caledonian Eclogite Facies Metamorphism, Bergen Arc Complex, W-Norway." Lithos, 51:305-330.
  11. Bingen, B., W. J. Davis, and H. Austrheim, 2001. "Zircon U-Pb Geochronology in the Bergen Arc Eclogites and Their Proterozoic Protoliths, and Implications for the Pre-Scandian Evolution of the Caledonides in Western Norway." Geological Society of America Bulletin, 113(5):640-649.
  12. Jamtveit, B., K. Bucher-Nurminen, and H. Austrheim, 1990. "Fluid Controlled Eclogitization of Eclogites in Deep Crustal Shear Zones, Bergen Arcs, Western Norway." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 104:184-193.
  13. Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit.
  14. Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun, 2005. "Short-lived Orogenic Cycles and the Eclogitization of Cold Crust by Spasmodic Hot Fluids." Nature, 435:1191-1196.
  15. Kelley, S. (2005), op. cit.
  16. Camacho, A., J. K. W. Lee, B. J. Hensen, and J. Braun (2005), op. cit.
  17. Jamtveit, B., H. Austrheim, and A. Malthe-Sorenssen, 2000. "Accelerated Hydration of the Earth's Deep Crust Induced by Stress Perturbations." Nature, 408:75-78.
  18. Austrheim, H., and T. M. Boundy (1994), op. cit.
  19. Bjornerud, M., H. Austrheim, and M. G. Lund, 2002. "Processes Leading to Eclogitization (Densification) of Subducted and Tectonically Buried Crust." Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(B10):2252-2269.
  20. VanHaren, J. L. M., J. J. Ague, and D. M. Rye, 1996. "Oxygen Isotope Record of Fluid Infiltration and Mass Transfer During Regional Metamorphism of Pelitic Schist, Connecticut, USA." Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 60(18):3487-3504.
  21. Snelling, A. A., 2005. "Radiohalos in Granites: Evidence for Accelerated Nuclear Decay." In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, L. Vardiman, A. A. Snelling, and E. F. Chaffin (editors), chapter 3, pp. 101-207 (especially Table 4, p. 188). Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA, and Creation Research Society, Chino Valley, AZ.
  22. Snelling, A. A. (2005), op. cit.
  23. Snelling, A. A., and J. Woodmorappe, 1998. "The Cooling of Thick Igneous Bodies on a Young Earth." In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, R. E. Walsh (editor), pp. 527-545. Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA.

Interpreting Stardust

By Dr. John Baumgardner

On January 15, 2006, a space capsule parachuted out of the sky and landed in the Utah desert.  This capsule contained dust-sized particles snared from the comet named Wild 2 and possibly also a few grains of interstellar dust.  The return of this capsule to earth was the culmination of the successful NASA Stardust mission to collect pristine material from a comet.  The Stardust probe was launched almost six years ago in February 1999 and made a brief encounter with Wild 2 in January 2004, traveling a total of about three billion miles before it returned to earth.  It came within 146 miles of the comet and captured thousands of tiny particles from the comet using a tennis racket shaped collector containing a wispy foam made of silica.  After capture, these particles were locked away in a “clam shell” capsule to safeguard them on their trip back to earth.  These comet samples are now to be distributed to several specialist research teams around the world for careful study and analysis.

Recent news stories make the claims that the samples obtained on this mission “contain the fundamental building block of our Solar System” and that “analysis may be able to determine not only the origins of the Solar System from these samples, but also possibly the origins of life” (http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/stardust1.asp).  How does one interpret such claims?  It is really true that these comet particles represent the original building blocks of the solar system?  Will studying them reveal how the solar system came into being and perhaps even how life arose?

First of all, it is important to realize that researchers have had samples of similar material for a long time in the form of meteorites that have landed on the earth of their own accord.  Generally speaking, most scientists do not expect the basic composition of these comet particles to differ in any major ways from the meteorites that have been studied and analyzed for many years.  One conclusion that has been drawn from these studies is that the estimated overall chemical composition of the earth (in terms of relative abundances of the various elements) is remarkably similar to the composition of the sun, as determined from the characteristics of its spectrum, and also remarkably similar to a certain class of stony meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites.  One of the first issues to be checked in the analysis of these comet particles is how closely their elemental composition matches these earlier results.  It is expected that the match will be reasonably close.  So what does this mean?  It simply means that when God created the solar system, He fashioned it by using the same basic recipe of elements out of which He had already made the earth.  Although Scripture does not go into this sort of detail, it is not surprising that God might have done it this way.

So how much information will the analysis of the comet particles provide as to the processes by which the solar system came into existence?  Probably not much beyond what is already known, namely, that the various bodies comprising the solar system have remarkably similar elemental ratios, implying they were all made from the same basic chemical recipe.  Just where this material came from in the first place and how it was processed to make the earth, the moon, the other planets and their moons, the sun, the asteroids and comets are secrets that these particles almost certainly cannot reveal.  From Scripture we know that the process unfolded quickly, within the first four days of creation, and because of the short time scale, almost certainly had to involve processes beyond the pale of present day science.

What about the claim that the comet particles can give new insights about the origin of life?  The main issue is what carbon-containing molecules might exist in this cometary material.  Scientists have identified some 130 molecules in interstellar space by studying the spectral lines of emitted and absorbed light.  In 2002, two scientists in Taiwan reported findings that suggest the presence of the simple amino acid glycine in interstellar gas clouds (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2558). Therefore, it is of great interest to evolutionists to see which, if any, of these carbon-containing molecules might exist in the comet dust particles.
But it is a staggering leap to go from a few amino acids (actually, just one, tentatively, so far) to any sort of living, self-reproducing system.  In my opinion, to imply that such a thing is plausible from a scientific standpoint is scientific dishonesty.  Claims like these should therefore be challenged.  The complexity of living systems at the molecular level is so stupendous that the only rational conclusion is that they were supernaturally created by God —each of them, from bacteria to human beings.  Christians should be wise and understanding, discerning the materialist belief system that underlies claims such as these. 

Spiritual Oxymoron
by Henry Morris III, Th.D.

"They feared the Lord, and served their own gods" (II Kings 17:33).

God's commentary on Israel in II Kings 17 is one of the more pathetic descriptions of Israel in Scripture. Israel had been given many chances to repent and return to their God, yet they remained two-faced: they worshiped Jehovah but "did secretly those things that were not right against the Lord their God" (II Kings 17:9). The Northern 10 tribes were therefore taken away into Assyria as punishment (II Kings 17:23).

In the closing days of the Northern Kingdom, Hezekiah of Judah led a revival, because: "he clave to the Lord and departed not from following Him, but kept His commandments" (II Kings 18:6). That "revival" was literally a "purge" of the duplicitous worship rampant in Israel and copied in Judah. Josiah led a later purge of Judah and returned genuine worship once again to God's people (II Kings 22-23). Josiah "turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might" (II Kings 23:25).

"A double minded man is unstable in all his ways" (James 1:8).

ICR speakers frequently hear something like, "I believe the Bible is God's word and I believe in creation—just not like it says in Genesis. Science tells us the details." Can this be? Is this attitude a legitimate option for the Christian? It has become common for professors at evangelical seminaries to consider Genesis on a par with Babylonian myth. Belief in creation is not welcome.

Compromise and Confusion Never Produce Revival

If there is one "passion" among the ICR staff it is that we cannot deviate from the text of God's Word. What it says, we must teach and do. Stand with us, please. The work is demanding, vital, and costly.

NEW ROO SPECIES IN NEW GUINEA reported The Independent Online Edition, 7
Feb 2006.  A group of scientists led by Bruce Beehler of Conservation
International have discovered many new species of animals, birds and plants
whilst exploring the upper slopes of the Foja Mountains in western New
Guinea.  The region has not been colonised by local tribes or previously
explored by visiting scientists.  Among the animals they found a new species
of tree kangaroo, named the golden mantled tree kangaroo.  They also found
many animals that have almost been hunted to extinction in other parts of
the island, including wallabies and the rare long beaked echidna.  Amongst
birds the expedition found a new species of honey eater, and living
specimens of birds of paradise that were previously believed to be extinct
and were only known from dead specimens and feathers.  Beehler commented:
"It was a close to the Garden of Eden as you're going to find on earth.  We
found dozens, if not hundreds of new species in what is probably the most
pristine ecosystem in the whole Asia-Pacific region."  The scientists were
also surprised by the "lack of wariness" of the birds and animals.


Independent Article:

The abundance of plants, animals and birds found in this
uninhabited region of New Guinea gives us a clue as to why animals such as
kangaroos and echidnas are now confined to Australia and New Guinea - they
have survived due to lack of predation particularly by humans.  They did not
evolve there.  Fossils of marsuipials are even more widespread, being found
as far as China and South America, Canada and France..  Both living and
fossil evidence of marsupials and montremes (platypus and echidna) fits the
Biblical history of world.  After Noah's flood, animals from the ark
migrated over the earth.  During this time there were extremes of climate
and sea levels varied, enabling animals to migrate across land bridges when
the levels were low, but then trapping them in those regions when the sea
levels rose.  After the flood, some animals became predators and humans
began hunting and killing animals.  As a result some animals quickly became
extinct, but those that found themselves in remote places like mountains of
New Guinea or inland Australia have survived. The next step is obvious-as
people move into this newly discovered "Garden of Eden" - WE PREDICT the
current fauna and flora will start to become extinct as they can not and
will not evolve to cope with the change.

SOIL SUPERBUGS FOUND, according to a report in news@nature 19 Jan 2006
and Science, vol 311, p374, 20 Jan 2006.  Bacteria resistant to many
different antibiotics, often called "superbugs," are becoming a serious
problem in hospitals and other healthcare facilities.  A team of researchers
led by Gerard Wright of McMaster University, Ontario, Canada grew 480
strains of a bacterium named "Streptomyces," isolated from soil samples
collected from numerous different urban and forest sites in Canada.  They
then tested the bacteria with 21 different antibiotics.  Most of the
bacteria were resistant to seven or eight antibiotics, but two particularly
tough customers were resistant to 15.  The antibiotics tested included some
synthetic chemicals as well as naturally occurring substances, so many of
bacteria were resistant to chemicals they could not  have met before.
Because bacteria are known to be able to share genes, medical scientists
fear that genes from this vast pool of antibiotic resistance in the soil may
move into disease causing bacteria, such a "Staphylococcus aureus" ("golden
staph").  Scientists believe that Vancomycin resistance in disease causing
bacteria may have come from genes passed on from soil dwelling bacteria.
Wright suggest that soil dwelling bacteria need to have multiple defences
because they live in an environment filled with numerous chemicals given off
by other micro-organisms as well as by plants, fungi.

Independant Article:

This study confirms that the rise of bacterial antibiotic
resistance in medical facilities has not been evolution.  The ability of
bacteria to defend themselves against chemical is a built in property to
enable them to survive in the soil, and bacteria already possessed it before
they found themselves in a human body (or hospital).  The ability to share
genes is also a built-in mechanism to enable them to survive in a changing
environment.  It is not evolution because no new genes are being made -
pre-existing genes are just being redistributed. Thus, antibiotic resistance
and gene sharing are evidence of plan and purpose, not random processes.
They become a problem for human beings only when antibiotics kill off
non-resistant forms leaving already resistant bacteria to flourish.

   3. The Lord Jesus recognized that men and women existed right from the beginning.
      The current opinion is that the cosmos evolved about 16 billion years ago, the earth about 4.6 billion, primitive life perhaps two billion, and human life about one million years ago. The Lord Jesus, on the other hand (who was there, having Himself created all things—note John 1:1-3), taught that men and women were made essentially at the same time as the cosmos itself, when He said that "from the beginning God . . . made them male and female" (Mark 10:6). "The beginning" obviously was a reference to Genesis 1:1, and Christ was specifically citing Genesis 1:26.

On another occasion, speaking especially of Adam's son Abel, He referred to "the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world" (Luke 11:50-51), thereby acknowledging that Abel was the first prophet, martyred in the very first generation—not 4.6 billion years after the formation of the earth. Jesus also said that Satan, using Cain to slay Abel, "was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).

Note also that the father of John the Baptist, prophesying when filled with the Holy Spirit, said that God's holy prophets had been predicting a coming Savior "since the world began" (Luke 1:70). Then the apostle Peter later preached that the second coming of Christ and the ultimate removal of the great Curse on the earth had even been events that "God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21). The apostle Paul wrote that evidence of God as Creator should have been "clearly seen" (by men, of course) ever since "the creation of the world."

There can be no reasonable doubt that Jesus was what evolutionists today (both theistic and atheistic) would call a "young-earth creationist." It would seem that this should settle the question for all true Christians, who should certainly—on the authority of Christ Himself—completely reject the notion of geologic ages.

But they don't! For one thing, not all who consider themselves Christians really believe the Bible, especially its unpopular teachings. Unfortunately, many who think they are Bible-believing Christians have become adept at "wresting" the Scriptures (note II Peter 3:17), even the recorded words of Jesus and the apostles, to make them conform to the scientism of evolutionary speculation. As noted above, there is not the slightest suggestion of millions and billions of years anywhere in the Bible when it is taken simply to mean what it says. That is why we "young-earth creationists" have to keep on reemphasizing the pervasive Bible teaching of just thousands of years of earth and cosmic history.

But what are we supposed to do when the Bible disagrees with the majority of scientists on such matters?

We are to believe the Bible—that's what! When the teachings of men conflict with the Word of God, it would be wise to go with God.

Furthermore, there are now thousands of scientists (fully credentialed with post-graduate degrees from accredited universities) who have become convinced believers in recent creation. No doubt we are still a minority, but it is a growing minority. There are several hundred such scientists in the Creation Research Society, not to mention those on our ICR faculty as well as those associated with numerous other creationist organizations around the world.

There is also a rapidly growing body of scientific data that not only shows the impossibility of macroevolution but also much that repudiates the so-called evidences of "billions of years." Creationist geologists have been developing an abundance of evidence of global catastrophism instead of uniformitarianism in earth history—thus confirming the Biblical record of the great Flood as the major explanation for the fossil-bearing rocks in the earth's crust, instead of having to invent imaginary long ages of evolution to account for them.

It is possible now even to amass a list of dozens of worldwide natural processes (e.g., accumulation of salt in the sea)
which, even on uniformist assumptions, will yield ages much too brief for evolution. Thus, even without referring to the Bible at all, it is possible to make an impressive case for recent creation. One cannot determine the exact age of the earth by science, of course, and these various processes may yield various values, but all prove too small for evolutionism to be possible.

With the supposed exception of radiometric dating, that is. The decay of uranium into lead, rubidium into strontium, and a few other such processes can be made to show extremely long ages, so radioactive decay processes have been considered by evolutionists to be firm proof of the billions of years.

But Christians need to remember that such calculations, like all the others, are based on the arbitrary assumption of uniformitarianism, which not only is unprovable but contrary to the Bible. The apostle Peter calls it "willing ignorance" (note
II Peter 3:3-6) when this assumption ignores the world-changing impact of special creation of all things in the beginning and the worldwide geologic impact of the global Deluge in the days of Noah.

Furthermore, the forthcoming publications of the ICR/CRS RATE Initiative will show strong scientific evidence that even these radioactive decay processes really provide convincing arguments that the earth is thousands of years old—not billions!

Therefore, we plead once again with our Christian theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, gap creationists, and intelligent design minimalists to come back to the Bible for their view of the world and its history. We should most certainly believe the words of our Lord Jesus Christ on this vital subject. "And why call ye me, Lord, Lord," He might well say, "and [believe] not the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46).

 Ammonite Evolution?
by Frank Sherwin, M.S.



"Cephalopods of Subclass Ammonoidea and especially the Mesozoic forms known in the vernacular as 'ammonites' are amongst the most abundant and well known of all fossils."1 Ammonites were a subclass of cephalopods (squid, octopus) with coiled shells, complex sutures (lines of fusion), and septa (a partition or wall between two cavities). Fossilized remains of ammonites may be found in virtually every country in sizes ranging from nine feet across to less than a half an inch. Ammonites may have been the favorite food2 of the marine reptile called the plesiosaur. The ammonites were free-swimming creatures (called nekton) of the open ocean, falling prey to plesiosaurs as they cruised the seas both before and during the Flood. According to secular science, the ammonites became extinct along with the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But what of their origin? Were they created or did they evolve from an unknown non-ammonite ancestor?

Creation scientists see ammonites as always having been ammonites, complete with their intricately working parts. Evolutionists are puzzled by their regularly coiled shells,3 certainly not a problem for the creationist. Is there variation among these creatures? Certainly, within the created ammonite kind. For example, ammonites—big or small—are found in the fossil record from the Early Devonian to the Upper Cretaceous, but always as ammonites. The sutures in the shells were found to be more elaborate in the Late Paleozoic and Mesozoic, but there is no significant change. There are no intermediate or part-way ammonite forms in the fossil beds—no unambiguous line of evolutionary descent. For example, non-creationist Richard Milton writes of a hundred-foot section of clay in Folkestone, England, containing ammonites:

Museums and private collections are full of them, preserved in beautiful detail including an iridescent pearly shell. They come from a section of clay perhaps 100 feet high, which presumably, in uniformitarian terms, represents millions of years of sedimentation. Yet among the tens of thousands of specimens dug up by collectors, no one has ever found a specimen that is part way between Hoplites dentatus and Euhoplites lautus or between lautus and Mortoniceras inflatum—or between any of the fourteen different ammonites.4

Here's the point. When one searches through specific sections of the sedimentary rock, no evidence of macroevolution is found, be they ammonites or people. Furthermore, the complexity of these creatures doesn't match the Darwinist prediction that states they should become more complex as one goes up the sedimentary rock layers.5 One reads of ammonite extinctions (e.g., BioScience, v. 52, no. 5, p. 446) which fits well with the creation/Flood model, but virtually nothing of their origin (macroevolution).

_____________________________
1.       Clarkson, E., Invertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution, Allen and Unwin, 1986, p. 202.
2.       Discover, November 1998, p. 36.
3.       Checa, Okamoto, and Keupp, Paleobiology, 28(1) 2002, p. 127.
4.       Milton, R., Shattering the Myths of Darwinism, Park Street Press, 1997, p. 111.
5.       Oliwenstein, L., "Onward and Upward?" Discover, June 1993, p. 22.

More Mt St Helens information that supports Biblical Catastorpjies such as Noah's Flood and a young earth. We see much of this sort of thing being described by Job in the Book of Job.



The eruption at Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980 was an important geological event because we were able to witness and document large-scale catastrophic processes, which are otherwise extremely rare. For creation science, the event was most notable because of the rapid deposition and erosion that provided a sizable model of the type of activity likely to have taken place during the great Biblical flood of Noah. The work done at the volcano during its eruption by the creation scientist, Steven A. Austin, et. al. to document this event is a highly recommended study.

Stratified layers up to 400 feet thick formed as a result of landslides, pyroclastic flow, mudflows, etc., during the Mt. St. Helens eruption. Fine laminae from only a millimeter thick to more than a meter high formed in just a few seconds each. A deposit more than 25 feet in thickness, and containing upwards of 100 thin layers accumulated in just one day on June 12, 1980. Naturalists have long claimed that stratified layer such as those found in the geological column have accumulated over vast periods of time, and these laminates represent long season variations or annual changes. However, the Mt. St. Helens deposits have demonstrated that catastrophic processes are able to create these geological formations in a short period of time.

Perhaps the most remarkable catastrophic events to have occurred at Mt. St. Helens was the rapid erosion that was accomplished by mudflows, landslides, and waves of water. On March 19, 1982 a small eruption melted the snow that had accumulated in the crater over the winter, and a resulting mud flow eroded a canyon system up to 140 feet deep. The deepest of the canyons pictured at right has affectionately been called the little Grand Canyon of the Toutle River, and is one-fortieth the size of its namesake. The small creek that now flows through the bottom would appear to have carved this canyon over a great length of time, but this unique event has demonstrated that rapid catastrophic processes were instead responsible for this canyon. The Grand Canyon in Arizona has also been claimed for some time to have been carved gradually by the Colorado River, but it is now becoming clear this American icon is as well the result of catastrophic erosion.


Loowit Falls Canyon
“Spilling from the crater, Loowit Falls reshapes the north slope of the volcano. ‘You’d expect a hardrock canyon to be thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years old,’ says Peter Frenzen, monument scientist, ‘but this was cut in less than a decade." National Geographic, May 2000, p. 121.


As a result of the volcanic eruptions, thick deposits of fine laminate accumulated that was later eroded into large canyons. Naturalists have long claimed that these features, which are common to earth's geology, were accomplished over great lengths of time. The rapid production of these formations at Mt. St. Helens provided evidence that catastrophic mechanisms, such as those ongoing during the Biblical flood, could instead be responsible.

What To Do If You Don't Have an Answer

In T&B and at our seminars, we give answers to many evolutionary arguments that seem to contradict the Bible. Many people have written that AOI has helped them or their children answer those “tough questions” and stand firmly on God’s Word. But what happens when a teacher slaps you with evidence for evolution to which you have absolutely no answer? What do you do if there just doesn’t even appear to be an answer? Do you throw out the Bible? NO! I
recommend that you STOP! That’s right, you STOP! Now what is that supposed to mean?

S: Stand Firm!
1 Corinthians 16:13 says “Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.” Stand on the Word of God rather than on the words of men. Many of yesteryear’s scientific “facts” are laughed at today. For example, Aristotle taught the false notion of spontaneous generation and people still believed it 2,000 years later. George Washington was killed by bloodletting—the accepted practice of the day—even though the Bible said that life is in the blood. Science is always changing but God’s Word doesn’t change. It doesn’t have to.

T: Trust the Lord!
Trust the Lord and His Word enough to believe what He has said. Proverbs 3:5 says “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.” Our own understanding certainly can get in the way! Isaiah 55: 8, 9 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” God is saying He knows more than we do! We won’t be able to explain everything, because we don’t have all the knowledge or answers. That is OK. Trust that God can accomplish what He says even if you don’t understand how He did it.

O: Observe Options!
Are there questions I should be asking, like: What is the evidence? How much of the conclusion is actual data and how much is merely interpretation of that data? Is there another way to interpret the data? For example, it is always assumed it took millions of years for that “little” Colorado River to erode Grand Canyon. But, what if that “little river” was much bigger in the past than it is today? The sudden collapse of a large lake upstream could result in catastrophic flooding and get the job done very quickly. (There is actually mounting evidence for that type of scenario!)

P: Pray With Patience
There are questions for which creationists had no acceptable answer for years. Now we have them. If you have been with us long enough, you have discovered that there really are answers for those “tough” questions” such as: “How do you explain the origin of the races? What about “junk” DNA or “junk” body parts like the appendix, tonsils, and wisdom teeth (which we found are not “junk”)? How can the universe be young when starlight from the remotest parts would seemingly take billions of years to reach us?

Very “compelling” evidences for evolution have either been proven wrong or now have very compelling creation answers, but don’t expect to hear them in the classroom! Remember, you are in a battle for your mind! You won’t normally hear both sides. People are trying to convince themselves and you that evolution is a fact, that there can’t be a God, and that you can’t believe the Bible. Don’t fall for it. STOP and STAND firmly on God’s Word.

Mistaken Identity
by Richard Stepanek

As a creationist, I believe that all humans, including the Neanderthals, descended from one man and one woman (Adam and Eve). Even the findings of secular scientists lended support to this conclusion — at least until the late 1990’s.
This is when a group of scientists compared mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from Neanderthals with sequences from contemporary Europeans. Their studies showed a considerable difference between the two. Their conclusion was that Neanderthals were a different species and not related to humans. However, in Scientific American (8/2003 pg. 24) some of the problems were revealed.

First, in order to have a thorough study, many samples should be used. In this case, too few samples were used in the research to determine the genetic makeup of Neanderthal populations.

Secondly, the Neanderthal mtDNA actually did fall within the wide range of genetic variations of modern Europeans. This is what we would expect from DNA research.

Thirdly, scientists that performed the research were afraid of modern DNA contaminating the Neanderthal mtDNA. Thus, they rejected any mtDNA sequences similar to modern human DNA and accepted only the mtDNA that was outside the modern human range. The article went on to say, “This requirement thereby stacks the deck against Neanderthals that might have DNA like ours,…”

Here’s a wise saying from an unknown author, “If you torture the data long enough you can make it confess to anything.” When scientists promote data that seems to conflict with Scripture, STOP! and let the light shine on the truth.

First-Rate Findings
by Mark Sonmor

A sell-out crowd of 2,300 people gathered in San Diego on November 5, 2005 to hear the recent discoveries of the RATE research. Dr. John Morris began by thanking God and indicated this was one of the most significant and successful research projects in ICR’s history.

One of the most significant findings was the research on helium diffusion in radioactive crystals. As the radioactive material in these crystals decays, it gives off helium. Helium is a “slippery” molecule that diffuses quickly. Very little should be found in rocks if they are millions of years old. However, large amounts of helium still remain. Dr. Russel Humphreys believes this indicates that radioactive decay must have occurred more rapidly at some time in the past and lends strong support for a young age of the earth.

After studying metamorphic rocks, Dr. Andrew Snelling proposed a hydrothermal fluid transport model showing that polonium radiohalos likely formed rapidly under catastrophic conditions. This is very intriguing research that lends further testimony to the belief that radioactive decay was accelerated sometime in history, perhaps during the time of the Flood.
One of the most astounding reports came from Dr. John Baumgardner who reported that large amounts of carbon-14 were found in diamonds — “as much as 100 times the expected threshold!” Since carbon-14 doesn’t last very long, this is more compelling evidence for a young earth.

This news (facts) should really be shared to other people.  We have really been brain washed in school that we came from apes.  I just really glad God is with me and was not blinded by the evolution theory (which most science teacher are stating as if it is a fact). Most Christians really have a hard time accepting the 7day (24 hour) creation; because of what is taught in school. :-[

I just wanted to say continue to open the eyes of the people. :)

By the way, haven't they read that God even made a plant grow in just few hours in Jonah's time. ;)

Amen Blad, More and more people today are having their minds poisoned with the garbage of evolution. As you have said, they are blinded to the truth and tend to consider such things as the plant/Jonah story and those like it as being metaphors instead of taking them for what they really are, the truth of God.

Evolutionists claim it took a very long time for glaciers to form. Because of this they also concluded that it would take a very long time for these glaciers to melt. As usual most scientists do not understand the power of God in His creation. It is for this reason that they are so afraid of what is happening and are trying to come up with manmade solutions to these problems.


Ice Dumped by Greenland's Glaciers Triples in 10 Years
# Scientists say 'wake-up call' study indicates that sea level could climb even more quickly than current projections.

By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer

Greenland's vast glaciers are dumping ice into the ocean three times faster than they did 10 years ago because of increasing temperatures, suggesting that sea level could rise even more quickly than current projections.

The study, published today in the journal Science, found that the glaciers contributed 53 cubic miles of water to the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, resulting in about a 0.02-inch rise in sea level.

The models we had were not terribly alarming about Greenland," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University who was not involved in the research. "This paper is a real wake-up call."

Previous estimates of Greenland's contribution to sea level rise were based on tracking the thickness of the glaciers to calculate the amount of ice that had melted and flowed into the ocean.

Researchers estimated that in 1996 total ice lost through melting was about 8.3 cubic miles. Just one-quarter cubic mile of ice would supply the water Los Angeles consumes in a year.

Researchers led by Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, used satellite imagery to measure another source of water: ice cracking off the ends of glaciers to form icebergs.

The imagery showed that Greenland's southern glaciers are rapidly accelerating their downhill, seaward creep.

Take the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier in the southeast. After creeping along at just more than 3 miles per year, it now moves about 8.7 miles per year.

The increased speed of glacier flow meant that far more water was reaching the ocean.

Greenland's ice cap is larger than Texas and nearly 2 miles thick in places. The researchers calculated that its glaciers deposited 40 cubic miles of ice into the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, about triple the 13 cubic miles dumped in 1996.

More than 13 cubic miles of ice were shed through melting in 2005, they estimated.

Both forms of ice loss are related to rising temperatures, which in southeast Greenland have climbed 5.4 degrees over the last two decades.

As surface ice melts, the water seeps to the underside of the glacier, where it lubricates the ground and exerts an upward force on the ice, accelerating movement of the ice toward the ocean, Rignot said.

Sea level is rising at 0.12 of an inch a year. That would raise the oceans about a foot by the end of the century.

The Greenland ice cap is the third-leading contributor to the rise. It ranks behind the melting of mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water because of higher temperatures.

That 100-year estimate may have to be revised upward to reflect a greater increase from Greenland's glaciers.

"We don't know how much more," said Jason Box, a climatologist at Ohio State University who has modeled melting of Greenland's ice cap.

Churches urged to back evolution
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, St Louis

Charles Darwin US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.

Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.

Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.

As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other"
Gilbert Omenn
AAAS president

There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.

At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.

"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and taxpayers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.

"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."

'Who's kidding whom?'

Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep the teaching of evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.

Sign appealing for voters to support the re-election of a Dover school board Some have already heeded the warning.

"The intelligent design movement belittles religion. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.

"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"

Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.

Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.

Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.

Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.

These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.

"I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design"
Teacher Mark Gihring

"The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.

Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."

However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.

"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."

Economic risk

The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.

"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.

US President George Bush "This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."

Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.

But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design would deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.

"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said.

Churches urged to back evolution (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/science/nature/4731360.stm)

500 doctoral scientists skeptical of Darwin
Growing list of signatories challenges claims about support for theory
Posted: February 21, 2006

More than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution.

The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.

The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."

"Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory," said John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.

The institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.

West said Darwinist "efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list."

The statement, signed by 514 scientists, reads:

    "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

West said the Discovery Institute was encouraged to launch a website for the list because of the growing number of scientific dissenters.

"Darwin's theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought," said David Berlinski, a signatory and mathematician and philosopher of science with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. "It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe."

Other prominent signatories include U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen, evolutionary biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; Smithsonian Institution evolutionary biologist and researcher at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Biotechnology Information Richard von Sternberg, editor of Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum – the oldest still published biology journal in the world – Giuseppe Sermonti and Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.

The list include 154 biologists, 76 chemists and 63 physicists. They hold doctorates in biological sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, computer science and related disciplines.

Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutions such as MIT, The Smithsonian, Cambridge University, UCLA, University of California at Berkeley, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University, University of Georgia and University of Washington.

In the late 1950’s, during road construction in the Euphrates Valley of south-east Turkey, many tombs containing the remains of giants were uncovered. At the sites the leg bones were measured to be 120 cms (47.24 inches). Joe Taylor, Director of Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, was commissioned to sculpt the human femur. This giant stood some 14-16 ft tall (right). Genesis 6:4 claims: "There were giants in the earth in those days;" Deuteronomy 3:11 states that the bed of Og, king of Bashan, was 9 cubits by 4 cubits (approximately 14 ft long by 6 ft wide). In his book Fossils Facts & Fantasies, Joe Taylor cites several accounts of giant human skeletons or depictions being discovered, from Egypt, Italy, Patagonia in Argentina, and the western US. The largest humans in recent history are like Robert Wadlow of Alton, IL (who was just under 9ft tall) who died in 1940.

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/randers/giant2.jpg)


A toxodon (a rhinoceroslike animal the siz of a large elephant) femur qas found in an Argentine Pliocene formation with an arrow-head embedded in it. The Pliocene era is supposedly prior to man's existance according to evolutionists.

A small zinc and silver vessel was found in a Massachusetts rock layer that is supposed to be 600 million years old.

Human bones of complete undisturbed human skeletons were found in the middle of a coal bed. Coal beds are supposedly many millions of years old. Humans were not supposed to exist at the time the coal formed.

Evolutionists say:


The Christian response:

Evolutionists say:



The Christian response:

Evoulutionists say:



The Christian response:

Evolutionists say:



The Christian response:

Evolutionists say:



The Christian response:

Turkish family walks on all fours

The time-warp family who walk on all fours
by BEN FARMER, Daily Mail

An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.

Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.

The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, 'bear crawl' on their feet and palms.

Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.

Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.

And it could provide invaluable information on how humans evolved from a four-legged hominid into a creature walking on two feet.

Two of the daughters and a son have only ever walked on two palms and two feet, but another son and daughter sometimes manage to walk upright.

The five can stand upright, but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed.

Their remarkable story is told in a television documentary, to be screened next week, which shows scientists studying their movement, but also their struggle to fit in with modern society.

Professor Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, visited the family twice. He said: "It's amazing as an example of a strange, strange aberration of human development. But their interest is how they can live in the modern world."

The five are all mentally retarded. Their mother and father, who are closely related are believed to have handed down a unique combination of genes which result in the behaviour.

Some researchers argue the genetic fault has caused the brothers and sisters to regress to a form of 'backward evolution'. Others believe it has led to brain damage which has allowed them to develop the walk.

Rather than walking on their knuckles, like gorillas or chimpanzees, they walk on the palms of their hands, with their fingers spread upwards.

Scientists believe this may be the way hominids moved to protect their fingers for more delicate movements.

Prof Humphrey said he thought the family had reverted to an instinctive form of behaviour encoded deep in the brain but abandoned during evolution.

He said: "I do not think they were destined to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be.

'It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which no one would have guessed from the modern human skeleton."

Study of their hands has shown they are heavily callused and have been walking like this for years.

Prof Humphrey said: "However they arrived at this point, we have adult human beings walking like ancestors several million years ago."

The five siblings spend most of their time sitting outside the family's basic rural home.

However, one brother travels to the local village where he engages in basic interactions with people.


_______________________________

Again the evolutionists disregard the fact that this is genetic material lost in these individuals not a gain of genetic material. Therefoe it is not proof of anything except devolution.

Profile of ministries rises as intelligent design debate grows
Traveling creationism workshops take aim at secular teaching

By Jean Gordon

MADISON — The lights dimmed inside Parkway Pentecostal Church's sanctuary Sunday evening as Steve Grohman directed his laser pointer to an excerpt from a biology textbook projected onto a jumbo screen.

"The whole reason they came up with these ideas was to come up with an alternative to the Bible," he said, speaking about evolution. "They think there's a disagreement between the Bible and science."

The leader of a traveling ministry called the Creation Seminar, Grohman is part of the growing creation evangelism industry, which seeks to undo secular teaching about the origin of the world.

As intelligent design debates have rippled recently through schools, courts and statehouses, these ministries have been toiling for years.

"We've been busy all along," said Grohman, who for the past 13 years has been traveling the country in a mobile home with his wife and son leading creation seminars.

Grohman's 10-hour program mixes Biblical teaching with lessons about the atmospheric conditions during the time of Adam and Eve and how dinosaurs were just giant reptiles.

Creation ministries range from Grohman's one-man show to multimedia stalwarts Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, whose radio programs, books and conferences promote a biblical approach to science.

"The interest is red hot right now," said Mark Looy of the Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis, which held a seminar at Meadow Grove Baptist Church in Brandon last year.

Though Answers in Genesis has grown steadily since it formed in the United States 12 years ago, Looy said recent controversy over intelligent design has accelerated demand for seminars. This year, Answers in Genesis will conduct 500 programs, he said, up from 360 in 2005.

Intelligent design holds that details in nature are so complex they are best explained as products of a designer. The concept doesn't specify who or what that designer may be.

A federal judge ruled in December that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology classes.

Still, controversies about evolution have erupted at public schools in California, Kansas and Ohio. And statehouses have joined the debate. The Oklahoma House passed a bill Thursday encouraging schools to expose students to alternatives to the theory of evolution, while the Utah legislature defeated a bill Wednesday requiring public school students to be told evolution is not a fact.

Supporters say creation ministries provide a relief from an evolution-centered world view.

"They very effectively countered a wave of momentum in society that was going against creation," said Rob Waltzer, a biology professor at Belhaven College, a Christian liberal arts college in Jackson, who describes himself as a creationist.

But critics say they undermine scientific principles.

"Essentially what goes on in these seminars is an effort to tell students they should ignore or deprecate the information the teacher is presenting to them," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science Education. "As a result teachers may teach less evolution, which means we have less science literacy."

Grohman's seminar promotes "young Earth" creationism, which holds God created the world less than 10,000 years ago in six 24-hour days. Mainstream scientists estimate the earth to be 4.5 billion years old, and accept that all living creatures share a common ancestry.

Most Americans believe God created life but are divided over how life has changed since creation. A 2005 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found 48 percent of people believe life evolved over time, while 42 percent believe humans have existed in the present form only.

Though nearly half of Americans believe humans evolved, 64 percent support teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools, according to the Pew survey.

Pastor Kyle Jones of Beacon Baptist Church in Hattiesburg will host an Institute of Creation Research seminar Sunday at his church. "Quite frankly it's to inoculate the younger people in my church from what I believe is bad science," he said, adding good science includes the ability to observe. "Evolution has never been observed. Never been replicated."

Established in 1970, the California-based Institute for Creation Research is considered the intellectual core of the creationist movement. Along with leading seminars around the country, the organization is accredited to teach graduate-level classes in biology and geology.

Founder Henry M. Morris, who died Feb. 25 at age 87, was considered the father of creation science.

Some observers say creation science is more belief than science.

"If the Bible, which you believe is the inerrant word of God, is wrong about the age of the Earth, then the problem is pretty obvious," said Raymond Arthur Eve, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington who has studied the creationist movement. "Then it could be wrong about anything and everything else."

Eve's research has found that people's beliefs about creation and evolution are driven more by values and world views than by their knowledge of science.

Indeed, during last year's Answers in Genesis seminar at Meadow Grove Baptist Church in Brandon, lecturer Terry Mortenson said a nonliteral interpretation of Genesis could condone gay marriage.

"If you reject the early chapters of Genesis you probably don't have a biblical view of marriage," he said.

It also undermines Jesus' word, Mortenson said.

"Genesis is fundamental to the Gospel," he said. "If it's presented as mythology, as not true, then so is the Gospel."

Many people are also uncomfortable with the notion that humans may in some way be related to animals.

The crowd at Parkway Pentecostal Church let out a collective grown Sunday when Grohman clicked through a series of slides suggesting apes had human qualities.

"Man is made in the image of God," he said. "We are not just highly evolved animals."

Profile of ministries rises as intelligent design debate grows (http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060304/FEAT04/603040312)

                 Antelope Springs Tracks.
   
    In June 1968,William J. Meister Sr.,an Evolutionist,was searching for Trilobite fossils in the mountains
of Utah.Splitting a piece of rock in two,he found inside a human footprint stepping on Trilobites.The human
was wearing a sandal !
   Thoroughly shaken,he took other men back who confirmed it and found still more,including some with
sandals stepping on Trilobites.
   As a rresult,Meister became a Christian.The strata was primarily Cambrian,which is supposed to be the
oldest on the planet.


                               Yours in Yeshua,
                               curious

Amen curious,

Another thing that has been pointed out on trilobites is that they still exist today in the exact same form as they did in those fossils except that they are now smaller. There is more and more evidence such as you have posted coming to light everyday that proves that the evolutionists are wrong.

Excellant post.

Evoulutionist scientists bungle it again. A particularly impressive fossil of a long-extinct rodent was unearthed in China last summer. It was estimated to have died out 11 million years ago, according to fossil data.

Then in 2005 a live, squirrel-like rodent was discovered in Laos at a hunters market in a cage. This rodent was well known by the local populace. So well known they had a name for it, the kha-nyou. The creature has dark-grey fur and is about the size of a red squirrel. It has short legs, a hairy tail and a long snout.

After the kha-nyou was discovered, specimens were sent to London's Natural History Museum, to compare with material in its vast research collections.

Based on differences in the skull, teeth, bones and other body features together with DNA analysis, scientists said it was an entirely new rodent family more closely related to rodents in Africa and South America than in Asia.

In an attempt to further identify it a group of scientists went back through the fossil evidence and found that the kha-nyou's skull, teeth, lower jaw-bone and other skeletal characteristics were a striking match to the fossil found in China.

Chief author Mary Dawson, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said it was extremely rare for a mammal to reappear after such a long gap in the fossil record. (Perhaps because it isn't the gap they thought.)

This "living fossil" as they are calling it has not changed, evolved. It is the same today as the fossil was.

More such evidence is being found almost everyday to show that fossil evidence is the same as creatures still living today.

 Why Should Christians believe in Creation?

We believe in creation, first of all, not because of scientific evidence, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ and in His Word the Bible. The Lord Jesus is revealed in the Bible to be the Creator of all things (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:1-3), and He is for Christians the Lord of all and the Head over all things, including science (Acts 10:36, Ephesians 1:22). Our Head has said something about science in John 5:45-47, namely this: If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we must believe Moses' writings. What did Moses write about first of all? He wrote about the creation of all things by God. So we judge science by the Bible and not the other way around. "We walk by faith, not by sight." (I Corinthians 5:7)

God has given us Scientific Evidence for Creation

Since the beginning all men have been without excuse if they have not acknowledged the Creator God, for the evidence is all around them in the created world (Romans 1:19-20). And modern science has revealed a vast web of evidence which supports the biblical record of creation. Let us think first about the logic of the scientific argument for creation.

The Logic of the Scientific case for Creation

Creation is by definition a divine miracle, an act of God which is outside of and above the physical laws He has established in the world. Therefore, scientists who believe in creation do not try to devise theories to explain how God created, for human beings cannot understand how God created. On the other hand, evolutionary scientists say that they are devising theories to explain the evolution of all life and that they are discovering natural processes or mechanisms which can evolve new plants and animals. So we say to them, "The burden of proof is on you. Come on, now, give us theories which really explain evolution, and show us the natural mechanisms or processes which can produce new designs and evolve new plants and animals."

Has evolutionary theory really explained evolution? No. Have they discovered any mechanism or process of genetics which can evolve anything really new. No, they have not. And, as long as this failure of evolutionary science continues, divine special creation continues to be an intellectually and scientifically viable belief for anybody, including scientists, to hold.

A Brief Look at the Evidence

The Fossil Evidence. Evolution is supposed to be a process of change. If some ancient species of worm or other creature without a backbone slowly changed into a vertebrate fish with a backbone, there should be a series of intermediate fossil species which document that actual process of change. These intermediate fossil forms are totally absent from the fossil record. Prof. Alfred Romer at Harvard University wrote that this evolution from invertebrate to vertebrate must have required 100 million years for which we do not have the fossil evidence. Prof. Stephen Stanley of Johns Hopkins University wrote in 1979 that the known fossil record provides not a single example of a series of fossils which prove that a process of evolution really took place to produce a new kind of creature.

These systematic gaps in the fossil record mean that every basic type of plant or animal seems to appear suddenly in the fossil-bearing rocks. The fossils speak of sudden appearance of the kinds, not the slow, gradual change of one kind into another kind. But this fossil evidence appears more in agreement with special creation than with evolution, doesn't it?

Biological Design. Nature is rich everywhere with biological designs which defy evolutionary explanation. Secular scientists, when pressed, have to admit that they cannot offer testable or even plausible explanations for the origin of biodesigns. For just one example, consider the little intestinal microbe, Escherichia coli. Each tiny single-celled microbe propels itself around with six corkscrew propellers which are connected by universal joints to six constant torque, variable speed, reversible rotary motors!

Evolutionary scientists have not the slightest idea how this complex assembly of complex, interdependent parts could have evolved. Yet, they believe it happened. They have faith in dumb atoms. Faith in the Creator God is far superior.

Genetics: For thousands of years intelligent humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals to develop varieties which are of special value to man. So there are 150 varieties of dogs, scores of varieties of roses, many different varieties of cattle and sheep, of apples and potatoes, etc. But they are still dogs, roses, cattle, sheep, apples and potatoes. There is much variation under artificial selection. Also, there is much variation in nature in the wild. But the changes are always limited. Genetics teaches that there are barriers through which genetic change cannot go. Species of plants and animals exist in groups of species which are separated from all other such groups. And this is just what the Bible teaches in Genesis 1 where Moses tells us that God created the "kinds" of plants and animals to reproduce each one "after its own kind." Genetics gives the lie to Charles Darwin's notion that, given time, genetic variation has been unlimited, so that an amoeba could evolve into a university professor in 3 billion years.

Molecular Biology. In 1953 Crick and Watson demonstrated the helical structure of the DNA molecules which are the genes that control inheritance of characters. Since then the new science of molecular biology has opened up a vast new field of knowledge. The amazing accomplishments of molecular biologists are a tribute to the power of the human intellect and of the scientific method. The knowledge of cell biology at the level of the individual molecules is expected to give understanding of life and of evolution. However, after over 30 years of molecular biology it can be said the evolutionary theory has yet actually to explain or demonstrate the origin of anything new. He can boldly say that today there are no testable scientific theories for inheritance, development of the embryo from egg to animal, formation of new species, or the evolution of anything new.

Evidences for Evolution. The standard evidences adduced for evolution can either be shown to be invalid or be reinterpreted within the framework of the creation model of origins. For example the stages and similarities of embryos of different species can be shown to be related to the condition and needs of particular species at each stage. Similarities revealed by comparative anatomy (of the vertebrates, for example) can be explained in terms of the Creator's use of basic designs modified for particular applications. Biological classification reveals the separateness of the kinds, and the data for alleged molecular evolution also shows the separateness of the kinds. Limited space forbids more discussion of these subjects in this brief paper.

Summary

The advocates of evolution are unable to adduce fossil intermediate forms which show an actual historical process of evolution of new kinds of organisms. They have failed to devise scientific theories which really explain evolution, and they cannot demonstrate the evolution of anything new by any known genetic mechanism or process. Furthermore, there is no evidence which proves that the alleged evolution of all life really occurred. Throughout the history of the world no new complex design has been observed to originate except from an intelligent mind. In the absence of an evolutionary explanation, divine special creation remains as the only scientifically viable explanation for the origin of life and of all biological designs.

Conclusion

You and I are not being unscientific in the least because we believe that in the beginning God created the kinds of plants and animals, each to reproduce after its own kind. As Christian citizens we should openly avow our faith in the biblical record of creation. And we should work to stop the dogmatic teaching of evolution and the persecution of Christians in the tax-funded public schools and universities.

Charles Darwin's Hidden Agenda for Science
The standard, long held view of the connection between Darwin's religion and his theory is wrong. Supposedly he was a Christian who studied at Cambridge to become a minister. But then, during his voyage around the world on the Beagle, the scientific facts persuaded him to believe in evolution and give up his Christian faith. However, an examination of the various influences upon the youthful Charles Darwin reveals an entirely different story.

Family Background.

Charles' grandfather, Erasmus, a successful and wealthy physician in the 18th century, wrote the book, Zoonomia (Laws of Life), which portrays a pantheistic world in which all life and species evolved. Erasmus' close friend, industrialist Josiah Wedgwood I, embraced Unitarian theology. Erasmus' son and Charles' father, Robert Darwin, also a wealthy physician, probably an atheist, married Susannah Wedgwood. Other marriage ties between the two families followed. Not surprisingly, Darwin males generally were freethinkers, following the Unitarian, pantheistic and atheistic views of their principal sires.

The Son, His Father and His Wife.

Charles Darwin, was born in 1809. His dominant, atheistic father, Robert, advised him to conceal his unorthodox beliefs from his wife. Should he predecease her this would spare her from unnecessary grief because of her spouse's dying an unbeliever. Charles never spoke publicly about his religious views. However, before he married Emma Wedgwood in 1839 he told her about his rejection of Christian faith. Though probably not herself evangelical, she was nevertheless pious, and the rather gross unbelief of her husband was painful to her. But during his life and even after his death she protected his reputation by concealing his unbelief.

Charles' Education

Robert Darwin sent his son off to Edinburgh University in 1825. The sixteen-year-old boy found himself in a university community which was in a continual ferment of radicalism of all sorts advanced by dissenters from the Anglican church, freethinkers, anti-Christians and atheists, materialists and evolutionists. Evolution was in the air. Most influential in this phase of Charles Darwin's life was Robert Grant, a dozen years his senior. Holding the medical degree from Edinburgh, he had made himself the leading British authority in invertebrate zoology. Grant was an avowed atheist, and evolutionist, and also a social and political radical. On zoological field trips with Grant young Charles listened to his persuasive private lecturing but kept his own counsel. Deeply interested in biological science, Charles abhorred medicine The sight of blood sickened him. After two years he returned home without a degree.

Disappointed, father Robert Darwin decided to send him off to Cambridge University for a degree in theology, after which he could purchase for him a "living" in an Anglican country church. There he could be a sportsman, a scholar, or an amateur naturalist, supported by a government stipend for life. Charles dutifully signed onto the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England and entered Cambridge. He surely saw the hypocrisy in an atheist father's financing his son's preparation to be a minister of the gospel.

At Cambridge Prof. Adam Sedgwick, a leading English geologist, took Darwin with him on a geology field trip in the south of England. Impressed with the young man's abilities, he predicted that his student would make his mark in science. Though studying for a degree in theology, Darwin put his greatest energies into geology and other natural sciences. Darwin read Archdeacon William Paley's classic book on the evidence for God in the designs of living creatures. Darwin was impressed with the book but devoted the rest of his life to disproving it. Reading the standard theology texts, he concluded that he could accept intellectually the arguments for Christianity. Later, however, with a fellow student he decided that he could not affirm having a divine call to the Christian ministry.On the other hand, naturalist Von Humboldt's reports of his travels to exotic places stirred in Charles a yearning to follow in his steps. Thus when he received his theology degree in 1831, his future was doubtful. With a young friend he was planning a trip around the world when a letter arrived from the Royal Navy inviting him to be the official naturalist on a voyage around the world on H.M.S. Beagle. He accepted and his destiny was sealed.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Darwin's Theology and His Theory of Evolution.

On the five-year voyage on the Beagle Darwin's abilities in natural history became apparent. The large collections of specimens of rocks, fossils, plants, fish, marine invertebrates, insects, birds and land animals which he sent back to England made him famous before his return. Shortly after his return to England in December, 1836, Charles moved to London to arrange for the proper use of his specimens and write several books about his observations. He was also reading voraciously, seeking support for his ideas about evolution. Mostly between 1837 and 1840 he filled a number of notebooks with his private brain storming speculations about geology and evolution. Within five months of debarking from the Beagle Darwin had written down his espousal of the theory of evolution of all species. Those early notebooks contained the germinal ideas for most of his research and writing for the next forty years.

His Notebooks also reveal his theological views in those early years from 1837 to 1840. The Creator God of the Bible is discarded, man is degraded to an evolved animal and his mind, thoughts, religion, emotions, language and facial expressions are made into products of evolution. The philosophy of materialism is enthusiastically embraced and human freedom of the will is repudiated. By 1842 Darwin wrote out a lengthy essay in which he gave a detailed summary of his theory of evolution.

Darwin's Duplicity and Opportunism.

During the five years on the Beagle Darwin was a close companion of Captain Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy was an opinionated conservative Anglican. It is interesting indeed that on the long voyage young Charles maintained a reputation for being a biblical literalist. Yet as we have seen, after only five months or less off the ship Darwin had written down some of his basic ideas on evolution and his repudiation of the God of the Bible.It is incredible that his thinking could have undergone total transformation from biblical literalism in that short time. No, on board ship he must have acted like an orthodox Christian in order to please his opinionated captain. In the period from 1837 to 1840 Charles Darwin's reputation was rising, promoted especially by Adam Sedgwick who sponsored him in the Royal Society. Yet to Sedgwick evolution was an abomination, so Charles had to keep his chief love absolutely to himself. In one of his notebooks he wrote out a verbal strategy he could use to conceal his belief in evolution. If Sedgwick had guessed what his young protege was thinking, Darwin's career would have suffered a severe setback. Yet he yearned to tell his associates about his theory. It was during this time of great inner stress before 1840 that he began to suffer from severe headaches and stomach trouble. Darwin kept his ideas from general circulation for some years until his reputation in the scientific community was established. Nevertheless, he delayed publication of the Origin of Species for 17 years, offering in that book only a few hints on the subject of human evolution. He delayed the publication of his book on The Descent of Man another 12 years until 1871. Always the consummate social and political strategist, he waited for decades for the right intellectual and religious atmosphere and political climate to develop which would assure his victory when his infamous book, The Origin of Species, was published in November, 1859.

When another naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace, in 1858 sent Darwin a short essay outlining the essence of Darwin's own theory, his hand was forced. An arrangement was made for joint credit to be given the two men, but Darwin wrote the definitive book. In the fifteen months of the crash writing project, Darwin's illnesses all converged on him. He could scarcely write twenty minutes without excruciating stomach pains, and he suffered from violent headaches and vomiting. During the two weeks when the book was being printed and bound for sale, Charles was undergoing treatment in the hydropathic clinic at Ilkley. In a letter to fellow scientist J.S. Dalton he wrote: "I have been very bad lately; having had an awful 'crisis' one leg swelled like elephantiasis--eyes almost closed up--covered with a rash & fiery Boils...it was like living in hell." Could it be that God was trying to tell Darwin something? He would not listen. A lost soul ruled by satanic power, he had to be a man of iron will wholly given over to a consuming vision.

Darwin's Hidden Agenda for Science.

There is no evidence in all of Charles Darwin's published correspondence and writings that he ever embraced biblical Christianity. As we have seen, virtually all the formative influences on his thinking were contrary to Christian faith. He always concealed his rejection of Christianity, but in his 1876 Autobiography he stated his unbelief in very blunt, even crude words. His closest scientific associates were all men who had given up biblical Christian faith, and some of them were committed enemies of the faith. For example, Sir Charles Lyell, the father of modern geology, was determined to discredit the biblical record of earth history, and Charles' "bulldog," anatomist T.H. Huxley, wrote that he was "sharpening [his] claws," ready to "disembowel" any clergymen who criticized Darwin's Origin of Species.

It is clear that Charles Darwin's hidden agenda for science was to drive out of the thinking of all scientists any concept of divine special creation, divine intervention into the world, and divine teleology (purpose, plan or goal) in the natural world. This amounts to redefining science wrongly to make it an automatic weapon against Christian faith. Darwin's theory has often been criticized by secular scientists, but his agenda for science has long enjoyed universal success in the secular establishment.

The Responsibility of Christians

We Christians must as a part of our faith boldly reassert the Lordship of Jesus Christ over all things, including science. If the Lord Jesus delays His coming, those whom God calls to serve Him in science, education or other fields of scholarship must labor to get science correctly redefined. We must, in the name of truth and correct science, demand a level playing field so that all kinds of believers or unbelievers may work in science. Thus all will have the opportunity to demonstrate by the quality of their work the value for science of their faith or non-faith. The persecution of Christians in the scientific-educational-scholarly establishment because of their faith must be stopped. Christians must be free to glorify their God and Redeemer in all areas of endeavor. Especially this is so wherever tax dollars are involved.

The Teaching of Evolution in the Science Curriculum
Controversy in Science

Controversy has not been uncommon in the history of the scientific enterprise. Generally the controversies among scientists have centered around questions of the interpretation of scientific data and the validity of theories old or new. It is central to the scientific method that all hypotheses must be so constituted as to be subject to rejection on the basis of empirical evidence. Therefore, when a new hypothesis has been put forward it is immediately a potential object of controversy, of a process of "natural selection," so to speak. The hypothesis, in order to survive and become established as an accepted scientific theory, must survive numerous empirical tests. It may be a candidate to replace another long accepted theory, a theory in which some or many scientists have vested interests of one kind or another. Or other new hypotheses may be in competition with it. Controversy may well result, with more or less heated disagreement between two or more parties. Empirical science provides the means by which such a controversy can be moved toward resolution, and this involves the objective examination of all pertinent data and all logical implications of the data, with willingness to discuss all sides of the controversy in a logical, rational way. Professional scientists are bound to conduct themselves under such circumstances in a manner which reflects respect for those with whom they disagree. In scientific circles it is commonly assumed that all parties are motivated as professional members of the scientific community by a commitment to the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Controversial Issues in the Science Classroom:
the Creation / Evolution Controversy

Controversy should not be excluded from the science classroom, but should be one of the means used to give students a correct understanding of the processes of science. It is necessary that controversial issues which arise in connection with the science curriculum be handled in the classroom in a way which helps all students, without compromising their personal beliefs, to mature in their understanding of how to relate to and work with others with whom they may have important differences, even strongly conflicting convictions. The procedures in the public schools for handling some controversial issues in the science curriculum have already been established by state legislation and actions by state boards of education. In California, for example, the correct procedure for teaching about reproductive biology and special accommodation for the laboratory dissection of animals are mandated in the California Education Code sections 51550 and 32255.1 [Chapter 65, Statutes of 1988], respectively. There has been, however, no definitive policy adopted for the treatment in the science classroom of theories of origins, i.e., the evolution/creation controversy. Private secular and religious schools have up to now enjoyed complete freedom to teach about theories of origins in any manner they may choose, without state influence or intervention.

All subjects included in the science curriculum must be taught in a manner which is at once scientifically, pedagogically, and legally and constitutionally correct. On each of these aspects much controversy has arisen in recent decades, between factions of the general public, in the ranks of scientists, and among educators. Often more heat than light has been generated, and as a result many teachers are fearful in their treatment of the subject of theories of origins, often compromising science and correct pedagogy, as well as the constitutional rights of students. Therefore, it is important that this Science Framework delineate unambiguously the fundamental principles and guidelines for the correct treatment of the origins issue in the science curriculum materials and classrooms. For this purpose the following is provided:

Erroneous Past Handling of
Theories of Origins in the Classroom

In the public controversy, legislation, and legal actions characterizing the past two decades of creation/evolution issue in the tax-funded educational system there have been numerous errors on the part of virtually all parties involved. Principal errors include the following:

    1. Many secular scientists and educators who are personally committed to an evolutionary view of nature have insisted that all science education, especially biological science must be taught by indoctrination in evolution as a fact of earth history. They have also insisted that students be taught that belief in divine creation can have no part in their interpretation of the observed data of science or in their classroom discussions of the data and theories of science.

    2. Conversely, many parents and other citizens, some active in science or science oriented professions, have insisted that creation, "creation science," or "scientific creationism" should be included in the science curriculum. Some have even attempted to convert this into a totally secular scientific subject, devoid of any religious content.

    3. Most science textbooks and other curriculum materials in the past have offered no critical evaluation of evolutionary concepts, nor informed students of the problems, weaknesses and failures of evolutionary theories.

    4. Boards of education, administrators, and teachers have sometimes attempted to muzzle students in the classroom by forbidding them to discuss their reasons for believing in creation and rejecting evolution.

    5. There continue to be many reports by students of science teachers' ridiculing the concept of divine creation and those who believe in it.

The above cited actions are errors for the following reasons:

    1. There is no place in science and, therefore, no place in science education for indoctrination, dogmatism or authoritarianism.

    2. There is no place in science and, therefore, no place in science education for the protection of concepts and theories from criticism.

    3. Science properly defined offers no justification for tying science exclusively to a materialistic philosophy or world view, making it by definition opposed to religious faith which holds to divine special creation. Thus, there is no justification for teaching that the evolutionary view of nature is the only one which is admissible for scientists.

    4. Dogmatism, protectionism and exclusivism in the teaching of evolutionary ideas put the State, through its agents, the public school teachers, in the position of attempting to change the religious faith of students who believe in divine special creation. But the State has no compelling interest in changing the religious beliefs of students. By attempting to do so, the State violates the rights guaranteed to all students by the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

When the State teaches students who hold to special divine creation as a part of their sincerely held religious faith, in effect, "You were not created, but you evolved from ancient ape-like animals," the State is really saying to them, "Your religious faith in the God of creation is a falsehood, and you cannot be `scientific' until you change your faith." This is a gross violation of the First Amendment's Free Exercise guarantee. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees to all students equal treatment under the law and, therefore, a quality science education which is devoid of gratuitous insult to their religious faith or to them as religious believers.

It is obvious that the above cited errors must be corrected in the California public schools.

The Teaching of Evolution

The following policies are to be implemented in all curriculum materials and classroom teaching of science:

1. References to concepts, interpretations and theories relating to evolution must be properly qualified to reflect both the support and lack of support for them. Until such time as this is effected in the adoption of new curriculum materials, all dogmatism in current curriculum materials is to be identified and properly qualified by the teacher.

2. Students are to be given, in curriculum materials in the classroom, adequate access to scientific evidence and opinion, from the secular scientific literature and other qualified scientific literature, which reveal the problems, weaknesses and failures of evolutionary concepts as well as their successes and strengths.

3. Students are to be given the correct understanding of the relation of evolution to science, specifically, that although a majority of scientists may espouse an evolutionary view of the universe, life, species and man, their belief is not required by the definition of science for people to be scientists, teachers, or students of science. It is not acceptable to teach that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution," other than as the opinion expressed by one scientist, Theodosius Dobzhansky.

4. Students may not be forbidden to question or criticize any scientific theory or interpretation in the classroom. When evolutionary concepts are discussed in the curriculum materials or in the classroom, students should be given appropriate opportunity to introduce alternative, anti-evolutionary interpretations for discussion of the pertinent scientific evidence in the classroom. Differences of opinion, discussion and debate are proper in the teaching of science, because they help develop the critical thinking of students. The discussion of theological doctrines, however, is not appropriate in the science classroom. On the other hand, it is also wrong to advocate or promote a materialistic philosophical world view in the name of science.

5. The principal goal of science instruction is to produce students who know how to examine and evaluate all evidence pertinent to a question, dispassionately and logically, and who have a commitment to practice this process consistently in the search for knowledge and truth. Able to distinguish opinion from scientific fact, these students will understand that the final authority in science is the observable, reproducible scientific data. They will understand the relationship between the hypotheses, theories and laws of science. They will appreciate the place and importance in science of creative imagination or inspiration. And, finally, they will understand the freedom of all practitioners of science to espouse their own personal belief systems and to draw on them for inspiration, motivation and goals in their professional endeavors.

6. A correct, philosophically neutral definition of science is to be taught. This means that students are to understand that science is essentially a method for studying and understanding the working of the natural world and for testing all ideas about the natural world, and that neither the definition of science or the rules of its methodology restrict what a scientist, teacher or student of science may or may not believe. The students are to understand that all have freedom to function in science, provided simply that they with integrity perform in accord with the rules of the method of empirical research.

7. The public schools and teachers cannot be mandated to teach about creation in the science classroom, since creation is basically a theological concept. However, it is not allowable to ignore the fact that the concept of divine special creation is one that has been held historically and at present by many scientists. Nor is it permissible to teach or imply that a person in any way violates the canons of science by believing in creation and even conducting his or her scientific thought and research guided by that belief.

8. It is proper, even necessary, for the teacher to identify the two competing explanations of origins and to outline the fundamental assumptions of each perspective. This prepares students to make their own personal examinations of the controversy. Some of the basic assumptions are as follows:

    Evolution

    1) All basic biological designs and systems are the products of purely spontaneous materialistic processes, devoid of any intelligently directed plan, purpose or goal.

    2) All species living and extinct are related by common descent from one or a few original simple organisms.

    3) Biological variation has been effectively unlimited, in the sense that some original protist could evolve into the human species in three or four billion years.

    Creation

    1) All basic biological designs and systems are, indeed, the products of intelligent, purposeful design and special creation.

    2) All species living and extinct have existed in groups or "kinds" which have always been separate from each other, separated by uncrossable genetic boundaries.

    3) Biological variation is limited within the boundaries of the originally created kinds.

A science teacher is not "teaching religion in the science class" by outlining for the students the basic assumptions of organic evolution and the creation perspective for biology. This simply identifies the two alternative views in a rational way so that students can then pursue the controversy by further personal study, if they so desire. It also lays a proper groundwork for any classroom discussion of scientific evidence related to that controversy. And, finally, it gives students a correct basis for understanding that both perspectives involve certain faith propositions. This, in turn, helps engender in the students mutual respect for others with whom they may have very fundamental disagreements on matters both scientific and philosophical.

9. Since this Science Framework mandates a science curriculum which is empirical and encompasses a sequence of intermediate objectives and final objectives which stand related in a hierarchy of dependent facts, concepts and theories, it is in accord with the historical and logical process by which scientific knowledge has advanced. In this context, theories of origins are high level concepts which, for their understanding and critical evaluation, require much underlying knowledge of science and a degree of intellectual sophistication. Therefore, the concept of organic evolution should not be presented in textbooks or studied in the classroom until the high school level science courses. To present evolutionary concepts in elementary and junior high school courses without a thorough discussion of their empirical basis, is only to indoctrinate the students with authoritarian ideas. This is not in accord with either the method of empirical science or proper pedagogy, especially in a pluralistic society in which the creation/evolution issue is so controversial.

Where does Knowledge Come From?
"...Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2:3

Adam was created with knowledge--with the knowledge that he was a creature of God, with a language with which to think and to talk with God and receive more knowledge from God. Adam naturally and spontaneously believed God, experienced His love and care, and responded with loving obedience. Adam learned by experience also, as he served and had fellowship with his Creator in the Garden, but he always had the perfect wisdom and personal counsel of God to guide him in his experience and learning about the world and its plants and animals which God had created.

Thus, our first parent was also the first scientist, for a scientist learns about the natural world by means of human experience. But for Adam this kind of learning came second and was always subject to and guided in accordance with the knowledge that God gave him as they communed from day to day. God had commanded Adam to "subdue" the natural world and "have dominion" over all its creatures. This required that Adam learn about the world so that he could exercise dominion over it for the glory of God, intelligently and obediently. (Genesis 2:19-20)

The Fall and Its Consequences

Adam could learn all he needed to know in a good and perfect world if he continued to believe and obey his Creator. But there was a knowledge forbidden to him, the knowledge of "good and evil." Our first parents, exercising their free will, did disobey and immediately knew both good and evil. They had performed a single experiment with disobedience which plunged them and the race which sprang from them into a history of rebellion, wickedness and unbelief, just the opposite of God's will for mankind created in His image. The Fall resulted in the corruption and ruin of every human capacity and attribute, including his intellect, affections, moral capacity and will. (Romans 5:12ff)

Down through the millennia since Eden, time and sin's degenerative effects caused the knowledge of God to become distorted and fade from the collective consciousness of the race (Romans 1:19ff). But the defaced divine image in man caused him still to desire to know. Cut off by his unbelief and sin from receiving knowledge by the divine Word, man was shut up to learning by his own experience, by science. So great was the power of even the ruined human intellect, that knowledge flourished, secular knowledge apart from God and from His Word. But such knowledge, though it may bear some good temporal fruits, is really darkness, not light. Into the darkness God from time to time sent light, by His Word, delivered by His inspired prophets. Some in every generation responded in faith to the message of grace, but the mass of humanity continued to stumble on in the darkness of their secular knowledge. God spoke through the patriarchs, through the nation of Israel and her prophets, and finally through His son, Jesus Christ, whom He sent into the world to become man, the God-man, who gave Himself and died the death for sin on a cross, was buried and rose again from the dead--all to redeem the rebel people from their darkness and sin (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Modern Science and the Two Streams of Faith

After Christ's resurrection and ascension the Christian Church bore witness to the Truth, and following the dark period of the Middle Ages, this truth of the Gospel broke forth in the renewed brightness of the 16th century Reformation. The Word of God, the Bible, illuminated many nations and wrought a transformation of western society. One of the fruits of biblical faith was the founding of modern science, which depended upon the Christian concept of an infinite-personal God who created a real, lawful and knowable world which was worthy of systematic study. Modern science was founded by men who believed the gospel and who believed in the Creator-God of the Bible. They believed that they were studying God's creation for His glory. They were not stumbling in the darkness of the ancient pagan philosophers who did not have the light of the Word of God concerning creation. They believe that there were two paths to knowledge, the way of human experience, i.e., science, and the way of faith, i.e., the written Word of God. But the latter, the Bible, was held to be of supreme authority. They were men of faith as well as men of science.

One medieval philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, Anselm, set down the basis of man's knowledge in the 11th century when he wrote, "I believe so that I may understand." He was saying that man must first establish a right relationship with the Creator by faith, believing what God says, before he can rightly understand the world and his own place in it. Reason must be subject to faith that is informed by the Spirit of god. This expressed the view of knowledge adopted by the Protestants who came out of the Reformation. It is the biblical view, revealed theology, which is received by faith in the biblical revelation. (I Corinthians 2:9-16)

Some two centuries later Thomas Aquinas, chief of Catholic theologians, made faith subject to autonomous human reason. Man must first establish by reason the logical proof, for example, of the existence of God. Then faith would be justified. Reflection upon the nature of things could lead to the knowledge of God and His relationship to His creatures apart from the Bible, and faith is thus sustained by reason. This is natural theology, which might be characterized by the maxim, "I understand so that I may believe." Human reason was held to be autonomous, independent.

The Faith Undergirding Darwinism

So there were two streams of faith--in human reason and in divine revelation--which competed for the western mind. Gradually, after the Reformation period, faith in divine revelation receded and faith in autonomous human reason advanced. In science the competition between the two philosophical grounds for the scientific enterprise came to a decisive climax in the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. Darwin had rejected the sovereign God of the Bible, Creator and providential Ruler and Sustainer of the universe. He purposed to remove from science any concept of divine plan, purpose or design in the world, any possibility past, present or future, of divine intervention in the world. And Darwin succeeded. Science soon began to be remolded after his model and men of faith were first silenced and then excluded from the Establishment, although some silent ones and a very few vocal men of faith remained.

Most practitioners of science today hold that the only way to knowledge about the natural world is science. They deny, therefore, that divine revelation in the Bible can afford to man any true knowledge about nature. They include that denial in their definition of science, but this is an error, a distortion of science. It cannot be proved that science is the only source of knowledge about the natural world. It cannot be proved by science that the biblical revelation about the origin of the world is not true. Science cannot prove that divine revelation is not a source of true knowledge, particularly concerning origins. Belief in science as the only way to such knowledge is a faith, just as much as is faith in divine revelation. Faith in autonomous human reason is a faith, even as is faith in divine revelation. And neither one is science.

Failure and Hope

The tragic fact about the supposed progress for science accomplished by Darwin is that it put modern back with the ancient, pagan scholars who struggled in the darkness produced by their reliance upon human reason coupled with ignorance or rejection of divine revelation. Sadly, much of the professing Christian Church has regressed with secular science back into the same darkness. Even the so-called evangelical churches are being drawn into compromise with it, so great is the desire to be respected by the secular scientific Establishment.

Yet there is hope, for the Word of God is powerful and living. The people of God are beginning to stir, beginning to see their responsibility to bear witness to the whole counsel of God. They are becoming willing to stand for divine truth against secular error, however impressive its scholarly credential may be. Increasing numbers of Christians, many scientists among them, are coming out into the open with a firm declaration of their rejection of evolution and their faith in the biblical record of creation. They are unashamed to own their faith in the Jesus Christ, the unchangeable divine Lord of His creation and the coming Judge. They intend to see God and the Moral Law again honored in the nation's public life.

The World Prepared for Darwin, and the World he Made
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." "God...has in these last days spoken...by his son...by whom also He made the worlds." Genesis 1:1, Hebrews 1:1, 2

Ancient and Medieval Views of Origins

The biblical revelation alone proposes that the infinite-personal Spirit, God the Creator, is the only eternally existent entity. Only the biblical faith holds that everything else, the entire natural order and spiritual order, had a beginning, was created from nothing. All other ancient religions postulate an eternally existent natural order of some kind to which a God or gods may or may not be attached. They also have, in their beginning or somewhere along the way, incorporated, assumed or implied some kind of evolutionary development in the world. Ancient Greek philosophers, including Anaximander (600 B.C.), Empedocles (450 B.C.) and Democritus (400 B.C.) assumed evolutionary processes of one kind or another. The Hebrew Scriptures (1400-400 B.C.) taught special creation, and the New Testament revelation strongly reinforced faith in creation.

During the Medieval Period in Europe the literal biblical picture of creation apparently predominated in religious and philosophical thought, and the last great theologian of that period, Aquinas, espoused a strictly literal understanding of the Mosaic creation account. The Protestant Reformation theologians continued this traditional view, and the early founders of modern science generally believed in creation. Nevertheless, in Catholic circles some evolutionary thinking was being published, and even in the 18th century some philosophers and scientists were playing with theories of evolutionary development.

Evolutionism in Scientific Thought Before Darwin

During the 17th and 18th centuries, as such sciences as astronomy, physics, chemistry, geology and biology began to germinate and develop, although most scientists were Christian believers, some started to espouse a Deistic view of the world. According to Deism, god created the world and then walked away to let it run according to built-in laws. This idea of a self-running, evolving mechanical world gradually took over astronomy and geology. The idea soon appeared in biology. By the mid-19th century some scientists were openly anti-biblical and promoting evolutionary ideas. Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, published long before his grandson's birth several ideas basic to later evolutionary theory. By the early 19th century Jean de Lamarck in France, openly anti-biblical in spirit, had proposed a theory of evolutionary progress by the inheritance of acquired characters. These pressures against the traditional biblical view of special creation led the English Archdeacon and theologian, William Paley, to publish in 1802 his classic book, Natural Theology. In this book he skillfully supported special creation by appeal to a wealth of evidence for intelligent, purposeful design in living things.

The Attack On the Bible In the Churches

In the church world profound changes were also taking place. The great state churches in England and Europe which came out of the Reformation had for the most part declined from their original biblical faith and fervor, becoming approved and tax-supported social institutions. But even more damaging for the future of the Christian churches was the beginning in the early 19th century of a concerted attack upon the Bible. Initiated in the German universities and theological schools by scholars who claimed to be studying the Bible scientifically, this "Higher Criticism" was actually a program for destroying the credibility of the bible. One of its major products, the Documentary Hypothesis of the Books of Moses, made out Moses' writings to be "pious" forgeries. Supposedly the first five books of the bible were written 500 to 1,000 years after poor old Moses died. The real authors allegedly were assorted persons and groups who had pet religious and political axes to grind. One assumed group of authors used "Jehovah" as the name for God, another group the name, "Elohim," a third group promoted the law (Deuteronomy means second giving of the law), and a fourth crowd composed of priests promoted their professional interests. So the modern critics cut up Moses' books into piles of scraps which were called the J (for Jehovah), E (for Elohim), D (for Deuteronomy) and P (for Priestly) "documents," although no such documents were ever found. The higher critical "scholars" claimed that over a period of centuries these bits and scraps were put together by unknown editors until the present books of Moses resulted.

The higher critical analysis of the "documents" was made under the assumption that the religion of the Hebrews slowly evolved from polytheism to henotheism (one-God-among- many) to monotheism, and that all references to supernatural activity in the Bible are spurious. But the facts of history and archaeology contradict these assumptions. It is obvious that anybody who accepts the assumptions and conclusions of Higher Criticism of the Bible can have no respect for faith in the bible as the authoritative Word of God. This view of the Scriptures spread from Germany to England to America in the mid-19th century. Theologians holding this anti-Christian view became professors in seminaries and Christian and secular universities. Soon hundreds of young ministers tainted with this unbelief were filling pulpits in Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal and Lutheran churches. This "Modernism" began to conquer the old-line denominations in England and America.

The rejection of the historic biblical faith and its replacement by an evolutionary view of the Bible, set the stage for the acceptance of Darwinism by the churches. Other social changes were preparing the way for Darwin. The Industrial Revolution which began in the latter part of the 18th century greatly increased wealth, promoting worldliness and materialism among the general public and the upper classes, engendering resistance to the restraints of biblical morality. Darwinism sold to a Prepared World All of these factors--the materialistic philosophy of scientists, the attack in church circles against the historical and scientific validity of the Bible, and the growth of wealth, worldliness and materialism--these had eaten away the spiritual substance of nominally Christian western culture and society. The Christian character of Victorian society was really a shell, empty and ready to be filled with a new idea or faith which would support and justify the surrender of the former faith. Thus when Charles Darwin, in 1859, finally rushed into print the theory which he had persistently developed and cautiously promoted among his scientific peers for over twenty years, he became the super-salesman of an idea whose time had come. His book sold out over night and had to be reprinted. Its influence was immediate and sweeping, although debated continued for decades. Within a few years the scientific Establishment was largely converted to Darwinism or at least to evolutionism. His book, Origin of Species, became perhaps the most influential of all time, outside of the Bible, and its effects have been distinctly the opposite of those the Bible had in the world.

Now that a world prepared for Darwin had received his work with applause, what were the effects of the conversion of thinking about man nature? One thing that is clear is that Darwinism reinforced and accelerated the very changes that had prepared the way for its reception. Science was rather quickly monopolized for materialistic philosophies. The attack on the Bible inside the religious community was reinforced and advanced by the incorporation of Darwinism into the theology of main-line Protestant denominations as well as into the thinking of many theologians and priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

As a result the divine authority of the Bible was systematically undermined in these churches, unbiblical ideas supplanted the Truth of the Gospel, and spiritual life declined. Finally, the general drift of society into worldliness, materialism, immorality and social-political chaos continued as reasons for faith and concern for the spiritual values of life declined in the minds of the common people. In our century there is no question that Darwinian evolution lies in the foundations of both Nazism-Fascism and Communism (Marxism-Leninism). Hitler's vision of the superior, conquering super-race and Communism's vision of materialistic, economically determined man evolving toward perfection in the collectivist environment both either flow from or are reinforced by Darwinism. And what of the Western world's present march toward statism and ultimate socialist world government? Darwin's evolved and evolving man is the subject of all of these schemes for people control and exploitation.

What Is the Remedy?

The remedy for this social-political-religious degeneration is the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ and the Law of God. The doctrine of man created in the image of God must be allowed to compete in the public as well as in the private sector with Darwin's doctrine of evolved man. The responsibility of sinful man before a Holy God must be preached to a wicked, unbelieving world. And the believing Church must take up its full responsibility to do this evangelism for the glory of the soon-returning King. Is it too late? No, it is never too late to obey God in this world which He created, rules over, and will judge.

Original Sin in the Garden of Science?
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all they that do his commandments; His praise endureth forever." Psalm 111:10

Most secular scientists probably don't believe in sin, but they are guilty, I think, of a great "original sin" against science, their God. This great sin has its roots not in science, but in various materialistic and humanistic philosophies, no doubt. But the Fall of the scientific Establishment into this sin was completed by the work and writings of Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century. To understand the exceeding sinfulness of this transgression of secular scientists we need to define science.

Definition: Science is the systematic extension of human experience (by intent, methodology and instruments) for the purpose of learning more about the natural world and for the critical testing and potential falsification of all hypotheses and theories about the natural world.

Common sense rules for the scientific method flow logically from the definition of science. One of these rules may be called "the central policy of science." It is the requirement that all hypotheses and theories must be so constructed that they can be subjected to empirical testing, with a view to falsifying those that are false. From a good scientific hypothesis it is possible to deduce many logical consequences, predictions which are very demanding and restrictive concerning what is possible and what is not possible in the natural world. These predictions are then the basis for new experiments or observations which confirm or contradict the predictions. If a particular prediction is confirmed, some corroboration for the hypothesis has been gained. If the prediction is contradicted, the hypothesis has failed to pass a test. After the contradiction of a number of predictions, the hypothesis is considered to be falsified, proved to be false. It needs to be modified or replaced by another hypothesis. This is the way science progresses and is continually corrected.

Another characteristic of science to be noted in the definition of science is that it makes no reference whatsoever to the philosophical or religious commitment of the scientist. For example, a person can be a good scientist and be a Buddhist, Protestant fundamentalist, theological liberal, Roman Catholic, atheist, or agnostic, provided he is willing honestly and consistently to submit his methodology, data, and conclusions to critical review by his peers. Nobody has the slightest justification in the canons of science for criticizing the scientist's work on the basis to his philosophy or religion. And this includes belief in either evolution or creation, as well as the adoption of a neutral stance with respect to the origins issue.

So what is the great original sin of the evolutionary science Establishment? It is the utterly heinous act of injecting their philosophy of materialism into the definition of science. Once this was done and widely accepted, science was distorted. It became unprofessional for a scientist to entertain any concept of teleology (i.e., purpose or plan) in the natural world. In his major writings Darwin persistently fought against all teleology, against any possibility of plan, purpose, or intelligent design in biology. In the Origin of Species he often used theological arguments against special creation and against any possibility of divine intervention into the natural order. And virtually the entire scientific and intellectual community was soon conquered by a definition of science which had been falsely bent out of shape and directed against God by the monkey wrench of materialistic philosophy.

A principle result of the universal acceptance of the jimmied definition of science was first the silencing of scientists who believe in creation, then their gradual expulsion, and finally the virtual exclusion of believers in creation from the ranks of scientists. and it has long been forgotten that believers in the God of Creation actually laid much of the foundations of modern science.

So now evolution, the materialistic explanation of origins, is almost universally held to be the "scientific" explanation of origins. But is evolution really a bona fide scientific theory founded on scientific facts? Is creation in contrast just a religious idea held by blind faith? If evolution is to qualify as science it must be testable, falsifiable. Is it? It is not! There is, in fact, no experimental test which can prove that the grand concept of either evolution or creation is false. This is because both postulate events and processes in the past which were not observed by man and which cannot be reproduced in the laboratory or observed in the field. and the evidence for both is circumstantial, subject to differing interpretations depending upon the assumptions of the interpreters. Sir Karl Popper, considered by many to be the world dean of the logic of science, in his 1976 book, Unended Quest, wrote, "I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme--a possible framework for testable scientific theories." And the first point in his definition of "Darwinism" is that of a past history of evolution of all species from a few original organisms.

The category of "metaphysical research programmes" is strongly suggestive of religion. Indeed many writers have noted the religious aspects of the evolutionary belief system. It is good sometimes to boil down concepts to a few words. Evolution attempts to explain the origins of all things in terms of spontaneous materialistic process. Creation is an explanation of origins in terms of intelligent purposeful design. These are two conceptual frameworks which are actually faith propositions. There is no way by scientific observation or experiment to prove or disprove that either one is the correct or incorrect explanation of origins. On the other hand, testable sub-theories can be formed under the conceptual framework of Darwinism (or evolution) and under the conceptual framework of special divine creation.

From what we have considered above there logically follow three propositions which, in my opinion, properly characterize the evolution/creation controversy.

    I. Evolution and creation are equally non-scientific, being non-falsifiable models of the past.

    II. Evolution and creation are equally religious, being logical corollaries to two faith world views, materialism and biblical theism, respectively.

    III. Evolution and creation are equally scientific, for the two groups of believers, from the common pool of scientific data, adduce circumstantial evidence in support of the two explanations of origins.

We can conclude from all this that it is not necessary for either believers in either evolution or creation to compromise their convictions in order to arrive at an equitable solution to the problems of equity, law and Constitutional rights which are raised by the current controversy. there must first of all be agreement that the definition of science does not restrict the religious or philosophical beliefs or commitment of scientists, teachers or students of science. Or if the materialistic scientists cannot repent of their original sin, they must at least agree to stop forcing their definition of science on other who reject it. If this agreement is achieved and properly implemented, the result will be an opening up of the scientific enterprise, science education, indeed, all scholarly disciplines, to the critical evaluation of and competition between explanations, models, and theories based upon the two competing conceptual frameworks or paradigms for studying nature, i.e., spontaneous, materialistic process and intelligent, purposeful design. This agreement will also bring an end to the persecution of scientists, teachers, and students who choose to place their faith in an intelligent Creator rather than in dumb atoms, time, chance and evolution. These results will be good for science, for education, and for people. There will be more potential scientists, better motivated students, and greater intellectual and personal freedom in science and education. Who could possibly find fault with these objectives? Only those who love their "original sin" and intend to use the politics of the scientific Establishment to force their sin upon others.

The Relationship of Science to Biblical Faith
1. Science is a human enterprise which leads to knowledge of the natural world. This knowledge is tentative, not absolute, and is subject to revision based upon new empirical data. Science deals with observable, reproducible data.

2. The scriptural revelation provides knowledge about both the natural world and the supernatural. This knowledge is absolute and is not subject to revision based upon empirical data.

3. The origin of the universe, galaxies, solar system, earth, life, species, and man was not observed and cannot be reproduced by man, so questions of origins lie outside of empirical science.

4. Scientists who assume purely natural causes explain the origin of all things may devise materialistic hypotheses to explain origins, but strictly speaking, such hypotheses generally are not hypotheses of empirical science.

5. Data from the present world may be adduced as evidence in support of naturalistic theories about origins, but such evidence is circumstantial. Empirical data can be used neither to prove naturalistic theories of origins, nor to falsify them.

6. Scientists who assume a supernatural cause for origins do not, by definition, propose mechanisms to explain origins.

7. Data from the present world may be adduced as evidence against naturalistic explanations of origins and in support of a supernatural cause, but it cannot prove the case for creation. Neither can empirical data falsify the concept of creation.

8. A correct definition of science makes no reference to the philosophical or religious beliefs of scientists.

9. A person can be a Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian, Roman Catholic, liberal Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, Agnostic or Atheist, etc., etc., provided he honestly and consistently abides by the rules of the scientific method and submits his methodology, data and conclusions to critical review by his peers. Nobody has any justification in the canons of science for criticizing his science on the basis of references to his philosophical or religious commitment, and this includes believe in either creation or evolution.

10. Christian who are believers in God and in creation should be free to operate in the education, scholarly and scientific world openly as Christians without being subjected to discrimination, repression or persecution because of their faith, their expression of their faith, or the conduct of their professional work under the paradigms provided by their faith world view. The materialists, atheists, humanists and agnostics operate in science openly on the basis of their belief systems, and Christian deserve the same status, that of being accepted on the basis of their performance, not on the basis of their conforming to somebody else's religious or irreligious belief system.

A Biblical Creation Model

Day 1. About ten thousand years ago, more or less, the infinite-personal Spirit, God, created the physical universe and the spiritual creation from nothing by the Word of His power. Earth was dark, formless, except that it was surrounded by water. Light and the day-night cycle were provided, perhaps by a special source of light at the first.

Day 2. The watery envelope around the earth was separated into the seas covering the globe, and a surrounding canopy of water, probably vapor and clouds, with an open atmosphere (the firmament) or the first heaven between.

Day 3. One huge continental mass was lifted up out of the waters. Plant life was created, probably mostly as seeds which germinated and grew at miraculous rates. The species within each created "kind" had the potential for variation to adapt to changing environmental conditions, but only within the genetic boundaries of the crated kinds.

Day 4. The sun, moon, and stars were either created or brought into condition to make them suitable as a basis for telling time, seasons, years, and days. The usage of the words "day" and "night" in verses 14-18 strongly supports the view that the word "day" in verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31 means a normal solar day (cf. Ex. 20:8-11).

Day 5. Sea life and flying creatures such as birds and perhaps insects were created.

Day 6. The animal life of the dry land was created. Extinct types such as dinosaurs are included in the term "beast of the earth." The species within each created kind, while less plastic than many of the plants, were nevertheless endowed with the potential to vary considerably within the genetic limits of the respective kinds. Thus they could better survive by adapting to changing environments. When the earth had been populated with the plants and animals necessary to make it habitable for man and a suitable environment in which man could serve God, God created man, the first man Adam, from the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life to make him the only creature made in the likeness of God. This means man was created a personal being having the attributes of intellect, affections, moral capacity and will. His duty was to know, love, and obey his Creator. Adam was alone as the only personal creature on earth, but God conversed with him in language given by God. Adam demonstrated his dominion and stewardship over the world as well as the intellectual capacity of primal, unfallen man, by classifying and naming all of the animals and birds which God brought to him. Then Eve, the first woman, was created from the side of Adam, so that all of the race descending from our first parents would find their unity in Adam. When God completed the creation on the sixth day He pronounced it perfect, "very good." Thus Satan had not yet rebelled.

Day 7. On the seventh day the Creator rested from His work of creation.

Subsequently Satan and the fallen angels entered earth and Adam and Eve disobeyed God by listening to Satan and partaking of the forbidden fruit, which was a simple, naked test of obedience. This willful act plunged the entire race into a state of sin and misery and subjected the entire universe to the divine curse which is causing it to degenerate continually, a process which will end with the dissolution of this world and the creation of the new heavens and new earth wherein righteousness dwells. Expelled from Eden, the race multiplied and developed culture, technology, and civilization, but expect for Seth's godly line, without God and always departing from Him. The flood of God's judgment which came in Noah's day was global, destroying the antediluvian world. The major part of the sedimentary geological strata was deposited during the flood year, and the fossils bear testimony to many species of plants and animals which lived before the flood.

Some time after the flood the continents completed their separation and moved into their modern relationships. for several thousand years the earth's crust was unsettled and its climate disturbed. Vast mountain building movements and volcanic lava outpourings changed the surface of the land, and glacial periods buried large areas under thick ice sheets. In the meantime the eight people and the animals preserved in the ark overspread the earth. Some frontier populations degenerated genetically to produce some degraded or aberrant groups who were later absorbed or exterminated. But technology, culture and civilization redeveloped rapidly in the Middle East, building on the considerable body of knowledge and skills brought through the flood by Noah's family. The stage was set for the saga of recorded human history which is portrayed in the clay tablets and artifacts of ancient buried civilizations and in the books of historians. The history of God's dealings with Adam's race and especially with His believing people is recorded in His book, the Bible.

Education, medicine, evolution and The Times

Mark Henderson, the science correspondent of The Times (of London, UK) has published a provocative article entitled “Junk medicine: creationism.” His article is an extraordinary mixture of half-science and pseudo-science.

Henderson expresses relief “that our [meaning: British] schools have not had to fight off a lobby [as in the USA] seeking to deny the facts of evolution.” The so-called “facts” that he then expounds are not really facts at all, and many of his observations do not even relate to molecules-to-man evolution.

By the way, a main reason why creation in schools is less of an issue in the UK than America is because UK law (sensibly) does not ban critical examination of Darwinism. The Science National Curriculum in England states that “Pupils should be taught … how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of interpreting empirical evidence [for example, Darwin’s theory of evolution]”.1,2

In the National Curriculum documents, examples in square brackets like the one above (while not mandatory) are considered “fair game,” both in the classroom and in assessment.

While evolution is to be taught in state schools, we believe it is wise for teachers to encourage their pupils to examine Darwinism critically. Henderson, while claiming to endorse “critical thinking,” actually shows what he really thinks about the scientific method when he stated that such a critical attitude to evolution “must be resisted.” My seventeen years of teaching science in state comprehensive schools3 were motivated by encouraging children to think scientifically and critically. The uncritical acceptance of unproven (indeed, unprovable) evolution is contrary to scientific methodology and good science teaching.

The National Curriculum also states that “Pupils should be taught … ways in which scientific work may be affected by the contexts in which it takes place [for example, social, historical, moral and spiritual]” (emphasis added).4 Henderson claims that there are “city academies adding God to science lessons”—presumably a reference to the controversy surrounding a talk given by AiG–USA’s Ken Ham at Emmanuel College, Gateshead a few years ago (see Ken Ham stirs up England). Such schools (and Henderson apparently found many of them) would be fulfilling the terms of the National Curriculum.

Evolutionist advocates like Henderson would benefit from a few National Curriculum science lessons themselves when they turn their attention towards the so-called creationist problems with modern medicine. Henderson, for example, claims that “it is impossible to understand biology, and therefore medicine, without a good grasp of evolution.” What do others say, including evolutionist Philip Skell, Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University in the USA? Dr Skell: “I … queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.”5

In addition, this Answers in Genesis website contains many detailed articles refuting the supposed evidences cited by Henderson. For example, there is the supposed example of organisms developing an antibiotic resistance that is cited by Henderson as evidence for evolution. However, as we have often pointed out, Darwinism—in the “molecules-to-man” scenario—requires an increase in genetic information at each mutation, which has never been observed to have happened. [See, for example, Dr Tommy Mitchell’s web article Evolution and Medicine.]

The antibiotic resistance of the MRSA bacteria (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, sometimes known as the “Superbug”) is due to mutations destroying the information that allows it to resist antibiotics. There is no increase in information. While Darwinists assume that natural selection is the engine of evolution, in practice evolution would only proceed by natural selection plus information-increasing mutations. True Mendelian natural selection is entirely consistent with a creationist way of interpreting empirical evidence of changes in species.

I would submit that it is somewhat disingenuous that Henderson appeals to the old chestnuts of sickle-cell anaemia and cancer being part of the process driving evolution. (Of course, his views do not provide any comfort to sufferers of those diseases.) Once again, however, he is in error—as neither disease causes increase in genetic evolution, so takes us no further along a Darwinian “goo-to-you” path. (See our article Has evolution really been observed?)

The treatment of these and other medical conditions owes nothing to Darwinian evolution. On the contrary, research into many medical areas has actually been hindered by evolutionary beliefs. Witness, for example, the unnecessary removal of so many organs, carried out solely on the belief that such organs were “vestigial” (remnants supposedly useless after millions of years of evolution). For many years, the thymus gland was held to be a leftover of evolution. Many children had the gland irradiated. We now understand that the thymus gland is important in the development of the immune system.

The labelling of an organ as vestigial does not mean it has no use—it merely means we haven’t discovered the use yet. Evolutionary dogma indeed has caused much needless suffering in this area of medicine.

Dr David Menton, former Associate Professor Emeritus in Anatomy at Washington University School of Medicine and now an AiG–USA speaker and writer, says this:

    If evolution were thrown out of consideration, it would have no negative impact [in medicine]—it plays no necessary role in either the teaching or practice of medicine.

    This is not to imply it’s not believed by most or that it doesn’t come up. It does come up from time to time, but from the lectures I’ve attended, when it does come up, it’s mentioned in passing as almost a confession of faith. It doesn’t contribute materially to the topic.

    The professors can’t spend too much time on evolution, as they have too much real medical knowledge to get across to the students. Spending a lot of time on evolutionary speculations just wastes time. If you remove evolution, there’s nothing in the whole realm of empirical science that you can’t pursue.6

We should be glad that the National Curricula in England and Wales embody a more enlightened view of the criticism of Darwinism than curricula in America. If Henderson’s beliefs were more fully embraced by the medical community at large, his unscientific and anti-educational views would set medicine back by years. Thankfully, though, only 48% of the UK public believe evolution, according to the BBC survey quoted by Henderson. At least these British citizens are not completely taken in by Darwinian pseudo-science.

A Squashed Mosquito is Dead Forever
Author: Tom Wagner

Have you ever squashed a mosquito? Interestingly, the squashing of a mosquito may help us understand what makes life possible and what makes the spontaneous generation of life impossible.

When a mosquito is slapped, what happens? Obviously it's shape changes and it dies. But what makes it die? All of the thousands of sophisticated chemicals which make up its body are still there, relatively unaltered. At the moment of impact its cellular components are still intact including the all-important DNA. So why is it now dead?

Prior to being smashed, the mosquito was highly organized information. But when hit, it became disordered, causing critical information in the design of its body to become jumbled. There arose confusion in the finely tuned co-ordination of chemistry (including the chemicals involved in its overall structure) which culminated in an overall breakdown, resulting in death. And you thought you just slapped it!

For another example, lets say you were to take 100 million bacteria and concentrate them in the bottom of a test tube. Now if you were to physically lyse (break open) the membrane of each of the cells, insides would spill out, forming a concentrated mixture of incredibly complex "life-giving" chemicals. Yet, even though all of the right 'stuff' for life is there, not even one of the 100 million critters will come back to life, nor would any new creature arise.

If the already complex chemistry of minuscule bacteria cannot reorganize itself back into a living cell, even when concentrated in the test tube environment under carefully controlled conditions, then how could life have evolved in the first place, from basically uncomplicated chemicals in conditions FAR less appropriate than this experimental situation? It simply could never happen!

As with the mosquito, in order for life to exist the chemistry must be specifically organized and controlled in time and as well as space. For a cell to live, it must be surrounded by a sophisticated membrane that allows only certain chemicals in and out, according to when they are needed, not just at any time. Inside the cell, the proportions of an element or compound must be just right, otherwise the whole system may be thrown off balance and the organism will die. Furthermore, the entire living mechanism must be controlled by the fantastically complex genetic structure of DNA.

All this means that, in order for the chemistry to have come together in the first place, the individual atoms must have been purposefully and simultaneously organized by a creator having the knowledge and power to do such a thing. It could not possibly have happened by the right chemicals just "coming together".

It is Jesus, the Son of the Living God, who deserves our praise for the awesome things He has accomplished in this creation of His. There is no other plausible explanation for the complex life we find all around us. Yet this only plausible explanation is the only plausible explanation is the only one not allowed to be discussed in out public schools!

A feet of imagination

No story related to human evolution has drawn as much press—and as much imagination—in recent times as the account of family members in Turkey (of Kurdish descent) who walk hunched over, using their hands as well as feet to ambulate. In fact, over a one-week period, more AiG supporters alerted us to this news item than any other we have ever received—by far.1

Initially some scientists thought this bizarre story might have been a hoax, but after studying this family for some time, a TV documentary crew and researchers have concluded that it is not (e.g., the siblings, they discovered, have calluses on their palms). British TV (BBC 2) will broadcast a documentary on this unusual family tonight, and the concern is that these people might be portrayed as “freakish” and perhaps less-than-human because of the evolutionary connection some researchers will make to man’s supposed knuckle-dragging ape-like ancestors.2

Indeed, some evolutionists are claiming that this ability by members of this family to walk with hands and feet helps prove that an ape-like ancestor of man once walked on all fours. Evolutionists generally agree that about 3–4 million years ago, man’s ancestors developed the ability to walk upright. Accordingly, some evolutionists are telling the media that these siblings have reverted to “an instinctive behavior deeply encoded in the brain but abandoned in the course of evolution.”3 This supposedly helps to explain how humans eventually evolved from crawling to walking upright.4

More thoughtful scientists, though, say that there is simply a genetic mutation involved. The siblings appear to suffer from mental retardation (their parents are closely related, perhaps first cousins—but that is not known yet). “In-breeding” can result in genetic defects and abnormalities. That is why the Bible forbids such unions. At the time of Moses, it was declared (in the book of Leviticus) that close relatives could not marry, whereas it was not a problem for Cain, for example, to marry his sister, because both were the offspring of Adam and Eve, who were created physically perfect. Adam and Eve did not have accumulated genetic mistakes that would have caused deformities in their children since the effects of sin and the Curse would not have been great in their offspring’s physical bodies (but over time deformities would increase as generation after generation passed on genetic mistakes). See Cain’s wife—who was she?

Evolutionary scientists who use this modern-day example of a genetic mistake leading to mental retardation (so that they can try to make a better case for evolution) are the ones who are stooping low and grasping at straw(men). It shows just how weak the evolution worldview must be. Furthermore, these unfortunate people in Turkey are being exploited by the secular media as something of freaks and throwbacks to evolution (almost as if they are not fully human), when they should instead be recognized as descendants of Adam and Eve and created in God’s image—but who have suffered from the effects of the Curse (Genesis 3:15).
References and notes

   1. Dozens of ministry friends did so using the “Report newsworthy media items” function on this website. Return to text.
   2. A producer claimed that she was not intending this program to be “voyeuristic” and that it would be “sensitive” toward the family. She also made this curious comment: “We thought it [the quadrupedal family] raised all kinds of fascinating scientific, and many other, questions. I think the reason it's created such a fuss because bipedality is something that defines us as human beings—separate and distinct from beasts -- and their existence is challenging philosophically.You only have to look at the Bible, for instance, to see how the word 'upright' is loaded with meaning about purity, morality etc. That's ingrained very deeply in us” (scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/03/statement_from_a_producer_of_t.php). Return to text.
   3. As summarized by Donna Friesen, NBC-TV news correspondent. Return to text.
   4. Gorillas and chimps walk on their knuckles, however—the Turkish siblings use their palms. Return to text.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Introduction to Creation Biology

Part 1

Many people first encounter the issue of origins in the subject of biology.  Secondary and college students are exposed to an evolutionary approach to biology in school or college classes.  The general idea ofevolution has become an important part of the value system of our culture, thus it has influenced all subjectareas in public education.  The issue of the origin of living things is important because it says something about what it means to be human.  Are we just extra-intelligent animals, or are we uniquely created for adivine purpose?  Some attempt to combine these two ideas.  This brings up challenging questions on howChristian values and beliefs relate to science.  Evolutionary ideas have been entrenched into biology,geology, and astronomy.  But for many years evolutionary theories have been challenged occasionally byevolutionist scientists who are nonchristians, evolutionist scientists who are Christians, and by othersincluding myself who reject evolution and hold to Biblical creation.  Certain aspects of the Biblical teachingson creation have direct implications contrary to accepted ideas of biological evolution.  Yet, I would say thatcreationism is not contrary to science, if the issues are understood correctly.

This article is written to focus on some of the most important aspects of understanding biology from acreationary point of view.  It will be in several parts.  After studying the issue of creation and evolution for some years, spending many hours in university libraries, and havingdiscussions with individuals of varied points of view, this is my attempt to pull together some main ideas.  All of the ideas from creationism which follow are in need of further research and refinement.  Some of thefollowing is based on creationist publications, some is based on personal correspondence with certaincreationist biologists.  Contrary to a common evolutionist misconception, there are plenty of young-agecreationists with graduate degrees in the sciences.  There are too many to ignore, though compared to thescientific community (practicing scientists and university professors) they are a small minority.  As formyself, biology is definitely not my major field but I offer this information to anyone interested.  I hope thatthe following will help avoid some misunderstandings of creationism that are very common, and help thosejust starting to learn about the issues.

The Biblical term "Kind" and modern Biology

Any biology course would teach about the Linnaean Classification system. This is a hierarchical systemthat places all living things in various groups based on important characteristics they have. The Linnaean system, from the largest category grouping down to the smallest, includes the following: Kingdom, phylum,class, order, family, genus, and species. Genesis 1 says that living things multiplied "according to theirkind." The implication of Genesis is that living things cannot cross the boundary of "kind." Living things can change and adapt to their environment to some degree, but there is a limit to how far this change cango. Just where is this limit? This is an important question that creationists are researching. The limit is notat the species level, that would be the equivalent of saying that living things are all created a certain way by God and they do not change. Creationists do not believe this, however. Creationist biologists wouldsay that the biblical term "kind" does not correspond in any simple way to any term from the Linnaean classification system. Sometimes creationists would put "kind" at either the genus or family levels,depending on what organism you are discussing. This would represent the limit of change. This leads to aview of Genesis that agrees very well with what modern biology and with what selective breeding tell usfrom experience. Evolution would imply that living things would go beyond reproducing "according to theirkind" and would actually produce new kinds over many generations. Evolution requires large changes thatwe do not see occurring in the living world (such as from fish to amphibian for example).

cont'd on page two

Page Two

In a creationary view of biology as I see it, there are positives and negatives. The positives are creationist attempts to reinterpret the facts from a creationary framework. The negatives are issues in which creationists point out scientific problems with some aspects of biological evolution. I will briefly mention three positives, four negatives, and one special issue that represents both a negative for evolution and a positive for creation. I am only providing a brief introduction to these ideas here. Of all creationist booksand articles related to the life sciences, most of them would fall into one of the following subject areas.

For the positives, where creationists are working to provide a better way of understanding the facts, the first would be intelligent design. 1) In the last few years there has arisen what is now called the IntelligentDesign Movement, which is influencing scientific circles more and more. This is the general idea that thereis a Creator-God who has created things for a purpose and that there is a complexity in how things aremade that demands that a Creator deliberately planned and arranged things to be as they are in nature. 2)Another major subject area of creationist research is in the subject of classification. How should weclassify living things? Creationists are trying to develop a new classification scheme known asBaraminology, which attempts to avoid following evolutionary concepts. 3) A third major area of creationist work is a Biblical and scientific issue, about how to understand life before Noah's Flood and at the time ofCreation. This is about the question of how is life different now than when it was originally created. This isa very important question; a number of other questions about understanding biology depend on how you answer this question. There is not currently a consensus among creationists on many questions in thisarea. 4) The last issue is called homology, which from the evolutionary view is about arguing for evolutionbased on the similarities between organisms. Creationists have shown this can be both a problem forevolution and a positive that supports the idea of intelligent design in living things.

Now for the negatives. These are areas where creationists attack evidences often presented for evolution. 1) One key area has been the matter of the problems with the mechanisms of evolution (especially mutations and natural selection). 2) Another major issue is the concept that the first living cells formed by natural processes from simple organic chemicals. This is basically the idea that your ancestor was anamino acid. The staggering complexity of living cells has pointed out devastating technical problems withthe evolution of life from chemicals. 3) The third main topic area in the negatives is cell biology andmolecular biology. This is a subject in which there has been incredible scientific advances in recent years. 4) A fourth area creationists have addressed for years is embryology. Though the basis of the idea hasbeen clearly disproven since the 1800's, evolutionists and often modern textbooks still use the argumentthat the developing embryo goes through stages like its evolution. All these issues are important toaddress in what follows.

Two terms should first be defined that are very important for understanding the issue of how much livingthings can change. Microevolution is a term for small changes in a type of living thing, changes that takeplace through the reproductive process. Macroevolution is a term for large scale changes in living things. Macroevolution is where the controversy lies. Macroevolution says that there is no limit to how much livingthings can change, given enough time and the right circumstances. Creationists say that there are limits tohow much change is possible. Creationists have acknowledged microevolution for years, so creationistsand evolutionists generally agree on small scale changes in living things. Living things are made so thatover generations the characteristics of their bodies are able to change in minor ways. This is very good because it makes living things able to adapt and survive as conditions change.

Here is a very important point not adequately explained in many biology courses and textbooks. Forthousands of years, man has been able to do selective breeding of livestock and plants to make somedesirable trait emphasized and more common. This is how we have cows that are specialized forproducing milk (dairy cows) and how we can cross various flowers or grain-bearing plants to get variouscolors or other characteristics. Also, in observing animals in the wild, we see how conditions like theclimate or food available can make one variety of bird more common that another, even though they areboth the same type of bird. Charles Darwin, in the 1800's, became well known for observations like this offinches on the Galapagos islands. He watched them and found that the size of their beaks seemed to berelated to what kind of food they ate and where they lived. All these kind of changes that we can really seeand study or produce in the real world are microevolution. The kind of changes required for macroevolution could not be seen in real living things even if macroevolution were true because they taketoo long. So, basically microevolution happens, and biology textbooks give a variety of examples of it thatwe can see in real life. But, macroevolution is never seen happening, nor could it ever be seen happening. Creationists acknowledge that living things can change, but they maintain the changes are limited. On the other hand, evolutionists believe that over long periods of time and many generations, larger changes cantake place by the same mechanisms that produce the small changes we can see. But, the mechanisms of microevolution cannot explain macroevolution.

Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, the Biblical term "kind" was explained, as well as the terms microevolution and macroevolution. Macroevolution represents the large scale changes required for evolution, such as from fish to amphibian, for instance. Part 2 will address how living things change to adapt to their environment. Macroevolution requires large inputs of information into the genetic makeup of living things, to makeorganisms change from one form to another. In macroevolution, without a Creator's input, there is no explanation for where all this information can come from to make the complex changes required byevolution. In the creationist view, the Creator made living things able to change, but only within limits.

Mutations

DNA is the special complicated molecule that contains all the information that determines what the body ofa living thing is like. Every cell in our bodies contains this informational molecule. Chemical sequences inthe DNA are copied in reproduction, with half of the information coming from the father and half from themother. If something is not copied correctly in some way it is called a mutation. Mutations are a bad thingas a rule, though some mutations have little or no effect. There are mechanisms in cells that tend tocorrect mutations or prevent them from affecting us. Mutations cause many genetic diseases. But,evolutionary biologists argue that mutations would sometimes produce changes beneficial to a living thing, something that gives it an advantage of some kind and helps it survive.

There are several problems with mutations producing the changes required by macroevolution. First, mutations are almost all harmful and mutations are so rare that even if there are "beneficial" mutations, they could never become common in the population. They wouldn't last. I do not make this statement lightly, the problem of mutation rates is a major issue and an issue that requires some significant technical discussion to fully appreciate. The problem with mutations and how often they occur is a mathematical problem that many biologists do not appreciate adequately. Recent research implies that there are something from 1 to 3 mutations in humans per generation, on the average (harmful or not). This is enough to create problems for evolution theories. It creates a problem for macroevolution because if mutations were this frequent, the harmful ones would cause too many negative effects. On the other hand, if mutations occur less frequently, evolution still has a problem because then the beneficial mutations cannot become common in the population, so the beneficial changes in living things cannot get going.

I would like to make a distinction between what I would call soft beneficial mutations and hard beneficial mutations. (This is my terminology only, I am not aware of any other writer who makes this distinction.) Soft beneficial mutations only involve some modification of a trait the living thing already has (usually the loss of some function), they don't make anything really new. Put another way, soft beneficial mutations do not add significant amounts of new information to the genetic code. Soft beneficial mutations may still be harmful in most circumstances but in certain special situations it may provide an advantage.
Sickle cell anemia is an example. Sickle cell anemia is a genetic disease that you would not wish on anyone. But, for people in certain tropical areas of the world where malaria is a problem, sickle cell anemia gives resistance to malaria. So, sickle cell anemia could be described as a beneficial mutation (in the "soft"sense). But, it could never be important for macroevolution because it is only an advantage in special circumstances. Malaria is not a problem everywhere in the world and so sickle cell anemia will never make the whole human race evolve resistance to malaria. "Soft" beneficial mutations are consistent with Biblical and scientific creationism in my opinion.

"Hard" beneficial mutations, on the other hand, are what macroevolution requires. Hard beneficial mutations have to produce a trait or organ system that is really new, not just a minor modification of what it already has. This requires addition of complex information in the DNA of an evolving animal or plant. And, it must be the type of change that would be an advantage to that living thing wherever it lives. It would have to be something that would benefit all of that living thing, so that the change can become common in the population. Soft beneficial mutations can happen, hard beneficial mutations cannot.

Modern molecular biology has shown us that there are great complexities in how information is encoded inthe DNA. There is much scientists do not yet know. Scientists may determine the genetic function of particular sequences of genes in humans. But the same sequence may have a different function in another living thing, or it may have multiple possible functions that depend on other genes in some way. A changein one particular gene can also affect more than one trait. So, the information encoded in the genes ofliving things is complex. But, mutations are totally random, one mutation has no affect on the next mutationand they have nothing to do with the needs of the organism. Macroevolution requires changes that often affect multiple organ systems at once, and if these changes do not work together properly the organism may not survive.

For instance, in the evolutionary change from reptiles to birds, changes in the skeleton would require changes in the muscles as well as in the respiratory system. Changes in the muscles requires changes inthe nerves, and so on. Living things are wonders of divine engineering. They are organized in complex ways. Yet, random mutations are said to provide the raw material that make the changes of macroevolution possible. I would say mutations are simply not the right kind of phenomena to generate thecomplex specified information that makes living things what they are. In fact, mutations are not necessary for living things to change to adapt to their environment. Many different animals have adapted white coats of fur so they can live effectively in arctic regions where there is lots of snow. These animals were not created so well adapted to arctic conditions at Creation. Rather, the Creator made them with enough information in their genes to allow for that possibility. Thus they became that way over a number of generations. This again is microevolution, not macroevolution. 

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Natural Selection

Macroevolution depends on the idea that the environment can cause the bodies of living things to change to any degree, given enough time. The changes take place over many generations. Natural selection is aprocess in which individual organisms (animals or plants, for instance) that have some advantage overtheir fellows will have more offspring and in time those with the advantage will be the most numerous in the population. The classic example of this for years has been the "peppered moths" in England in the yearsof the industrial revolution. These moths come in two varieties, one light and one dark in color. As thestory goes, when soot and pollution from the factories made the trees dark, the light colored moths were easily seen by birds, so the birds ate them and what was left was mostly dark moths. So, many text books have pointed this out as an example of how natural selection changes a population. Well, this was believed to be a valid example and was not questioned by creationists to my knowledge, but now evidence has come to light that shows the whole story of the peppered moths to be wrong. A now famous picture that shows a light moth and a dark moth on a tree has appeared in many biology and life science textbooks (including in creation-based Christian textbooks). Recent research from evolutionists has shown thatKettlewell, who published this study on the moths years ago, actually faked this picture. These moths actually do not rest on trees and the moths in the famous picture were dead moths glued to the tree! So,this makes the peppered moth story no longer a valid example though it sounds quite plausible. Even if itwere a valid example of natural selection, it would only represent microevolution (or minor changes), not macroevolution.

On the other hand, there are valid examples of natural selection. There is a degree of competition between animals for food, water, for mates, territory, etc. There are winners and losers in the animal world. Natural selection is really just a SELECTION mechanism. It does not create anything new, but only determines who wins in the sense of which animals survive best and have more offspring. Creationists acknowledge that natural selection occurs. This allows living things to adapt to some degree and survive when their environment changes. Natural selection is supposed to work with mutations to make the changes of macroevolution possible. According to evolutionary theory, new traits develop as the climate or food supply changes, or as predators change, or as organisms move into a new habitat. For instance, changes in climate or vegetation could force some animals to move to another area for foodor shelter. Over a period of time, having to live in a different area could cause a group of animals to change in their color, the shape of their teeth, or their fur for instance.

According to evolutionary theory, beneficial mutations are believed to somehow add up in the genetic code until they make some significant improvement possible in the body of an animal. This improvement will give them some new ability. This new ability would give that particular animal an advantage over its peers,but the new ability would never spread to most of the others (of all groups of that type of animal) without natural selection.  By natural selection the animal with this new ability might live longer and have more young. Then its offspring would also have the ability and they would also have more young than others that did not have this new ability. In time, the individuals with the "new ability" would become the norm, and the "new ability"would no longer be new. The individuals who did not have the ability would become fewer and fewer. Evolutionists believe that this process works best in small populations, because a new trait can become the dominant thing in the group easier. But, research has shown that small populations, rather than leading the way in evolution, are more likely to go extinct than larger groups. Charles Darwin's book "The Origin ofSpecies," published in 1859, contains much about natural selection. So, natural selection is a theory about what happens to groups of living things when they are in competition.

We can see natural selection among living things, but living things do not always compete. Living things also cooperate to a surprising degree. They may live and let live if they can. Often they compete only at the points where they have to. The idea that the strong survive but the weak die, based on natural selection, is an oversimplification. There are many examples in nature where instead of the weak dying they end up in some symbiotic relationship with another creature. It's like they "make a deal" with some other living thing that benefits both. A classic example is the cleaner fish. Sharks allow the small cleanerfish to clean their teeth without eating them. Rather than the weak dying, the weak may simply move somewhere else. Being stronger or faster etc. also is not always an advantage all the time. Sometimes real life is more "survival of the luckiest" than survival of the fittest.

Creationists acknowledge that natural selection is a real process in the living world, but natural selection cannot explain how macroevolution could happen. Why? First, because there are many mechanisms in the cells of every living thing that limit how much change is possible; they prevent genetic changes because they are harmful. Second, because the pressures on living things are not so predictable as the idea of "survival of the fittest" and so even if a particular beneficial mutation produced some dramatic new ability, there are enormous odds against it lasting in the population. Natural selection may determine what size or variety of dogs can survive in a particular area, but it cannot provide the information required for the complex changes it would take for a dog to evolve into some other kind of animal.

Note that in a Biblical view, the animal world was somehow affected by mankind's fall into sin in the beginning. This is important for answering many questions about living things. Exactly how life was affected by mankind's Fall into sin is not clear. But, the violence and cruelty of nature is not the way life and ecology operated in the beginning. Living things did not need to eat each other in the beginning. We know this from Genesis telling us that God provided plants for food at Creation.
Two major things have had adverse effects on living things and on ecological relationships between living things. The first was mankind's sin against God, causing a sinful nature to be inherited by all humans from then on. God judged this sin partly by adverse effects on nature and living things (see Genesis chapter 3). The second thing that negatively affected the living world was the worldwide Flood of Noah's time. It is not surprising that there are organs in living things that do not function perfectly today, for example. There have been thousands of years of harmful mutations and adverse effects of living in a fallen broken world. The Earth is not a perfect habitat for living things as it once was. Many processes have caused imperfections in our bodies that are carried on from one generation to the next. Yet, in spite of this, God's marvelous design is still very evident in living things.

Part 3

Previous parts of this series explained microevolution and macroevolution and addressed what are considered to be the mechanisms for macroevolution, mutations and natural selection.  This article will address the evolutionary argument from similarity.  This general subject is known as homology.  It is the idea that all living things, from people to potatoes, have all descended from a common living ancestor that lived in the distant past.  The evolutionary argument has it that the similarities found in different living organisms are there because of a common ancestor that had those traits.

By this logic, a squid and a human, for example, both have very similar eyes because there was some ancient ancestor in the lineage of both squid and humans that evolved an eye like what we have today.  Squid and human eyes would actually be an example difficult for evolutionists to explain. This is because if you go back in time far enough to find a common ancester of man and squid, the ancestor would probably be a primative fish that could not have such eyes.  A more common example would be in the skeletons of vertibrates.  You can compare the number of bones and arrangement of arms or limbs for humans, land mammals, bats, and even fish and the similarities of the skeletons is striking.  Thus the structure of a fishes fin may be similar to the wing of a bat, though the size and proportions of the bones are very different.  There are obvious similarities of the skeletons even though these organisms are very different.

Evolutionists define homologous body parts, like the fish’s fin and the bat’s wing as structures that are similar and that can be shown to have a common ancestor.  This definition is a problem.  The similarity of the body structures is a fact anyone can see.  The common ancestry is unverifiable by experiment or even by fossil evidence.  Since evolutionists know that it is not possible for squid and humans to have a common ancestor with an eye like they have today, squid and human eyes are not considered to be homologous.  Instead, they would be called an example of “convergence.”  The idea of convergence is that the same thing evolved more than once independently.  In other words, by macroevolution, it would take millions of years for the squid to evolve their eyes, it took even longer for humans to evolve and human eyes just happened to turn out very similar to squid eyes.  There are many many examples of “convergence” like this among living things.  Evolutionists do not really have any explanation for this frequent convergence, they just have a name for it.

Convergent traits are considered rare exceptions that are not important to explain at all.  Since the squid and human eyes are defined out of consideration as not being homologous, evolutionists do not have to explain how they could evolve with similar eyes.   But other organisms that may be easier to say are related by evolution, are called “homologous.”  The flipper of a porpoise and the bat’s wing are used as evidence for evolution because of their similarities.  But wait, the evolutionist’s definition of homologous assumes evolution!  So, homologous structures are not really evidence for evolution, since the definition of what constitutes homologous assumes evolution.  This is an example of circular reasoning found in many science textbooks.

Common Ancestor vs Common Design

If the similarities in organisms do not give evidence of macroevolution, then what do they really mean?  I think they point to an intelligent Creator who is simply a great engineer.  When an engineer finds a design that works well, he may use it in many different kinds of devices.  This is very true in the field of electronics and computer technology.  Certain kinds of electronic components (such as capacitors or transistors) can be found in all sorts of devices from televisons, to loudspeakers, to computer motherboards.  This doesn’t mean  that motherboards evolved from televisions for instance.  It is just that transistors are very useful and so it is a design that is reused a lot.

There are many characteristics of living things where the Creator has used a similar design in different organisms.  This is not surprising when you think about it.  After all, living things on Earth are all made to live on the same planet.  Life on Earth shares the same air and water, and animals often eat similar foods and have similar lifestyles and behaviors.  In fact, if plants and animals were too different biochemically than us humans, we wouldn’t have anything we could eat!  So, it is not surprising that there would be some similarities.  But having designed-in similarities does not mean God carbon-copied parts and stuck them together.  The Creator is not limited to only doing things one way.  So even when a basic idea is used in different organisms, there may be unique variations of it in different creatures.

Flight in the living world is a good example of this.  Flight is something that by evolution would have to have evolved four separate times, in birds, insects, bats, and flying reptiles (which now seem to be extinct).  All these different groups of living things fly but they all fly differently!  The principles of flight are basically the same but bats are very different from birds and so are insects, yet they all fly.  Is it really plausible to say that flight just happened to evolve four times?  Modern scientific research from the evolutionary view has not been able to answer how similar traits could come about in different organisms.  It is not that similar traits come from similar genes in the DNA, because the same gene sequence often means something different in different organisms.  Flight is a complex thing.  Considering flight, the respiratory system, skeletal system, nervous system, and muscles must all be made for flight.  If any one of these body systems does not allow the organism to fly, then the creature might eventually go extinct or flight would not evolve.

A Creator is necessary to explain how flight could exist in four different types of creatures that are so different from each other.  The Creator applied the basic principles of flight in different ways in different living things.  And in each type, the various body systems were designed to be coordinated with the purpose of flight.  Thus, birds have hollow but strong bones to make them lighter, they have special flow-through “lungs” that helps them breathe while flying, and the nerves and muscles of a bird’s body are able to control flight and maintain flight for long periods.  Insects and bats are different than birds and they fly just as well for what they need as birds do, though it is done without feathers.  Insects are much smaller than birds (though there is fossil evidence that there used to be insects much larger than today).  This makes flying somewhat different for insects than for birds.  (So insects don’t really need feathers, for example).

The problems with the evolutionist concept of “convergence” is most evident in the many interesting cases of multiple convergence.  One example is the sea horse and chameleons.  Both have a coiled prehensile tail and independently moving eyes, though they could not have a common ancestor with both of these traits.  The duck-billed platypus has multiple examples of multiple convergence.  It has a duck-like bill and lays eggs similar to birds or reptiles.  It also has highly developed sonar and detects electrical currents in water similar to some fish.  It has a poisonous claw similar to a snake’s fang on it’s hind feet as well, similar to snakes, though the platypus is a mammal and it suckles it’s young.  The platypus has a unique combination of intelligently designed and fully functional traits, not a haphazard mix of characteristics that evolved by chance.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Embriology and Similarity

There is one special topic where evolutionary arguments, though incredibly out of date and absurd, still persist in some textbooks today.  This the idea that developing embryos of various organisms follow stages similar to their evolution.  Biologist Jonathan Wells describes it this way, “similarities in early embryos not only demonstrate that they are descended from a common ancestor, but also reveal what the ancestor looked like.”  The technical term for this is embryological recapitulation.  This argument originates from an evolutionary German biologist named Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919).  Haeckel had made drawings of developing embryos of different animals, arranging them in a series and then arguing that the similarities in them were because of descent with modification from a common ancestor (which is macroevolution).  These drawings were done even before Charles Darwin wrote his book The Origin of Species in 1859.  Darwin was very impressed and influenced by Haeckel’s drawings.

Though it is well known in the scientific community that Haeckel misrepresented the facts in his drawings, the argument has persisted in many textbooks to this day.  It is also used frequently by abortionist Doctors to persuade women to get abortions.  The woman will be told something like, “the life inside you is not really human, it is only in the fish stage.”  This embryological argument for evolution from Ernst Haeckel is one of the clearest most undisputed cases of misrepresentation in science.  Even before the publication of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species Haeckel’s ideas were soundly refuted, especially by embryologist Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876).  Darwin even misquoted and distorted von Baer’s work to support the idea, something von Baer objected to.

Haeckel’s drawings of embryos have appeared in many books and publications.   It has been known for over a century that they distort the facts to make the embryos appear more similar than they are.  Haeckel’s drawings include embryos of fish, salamander, tortoise, chicken, hog, calf, rabbit, and human.  For one thing, Haeckel’s drawings started at a midpoint in development and skipped over significant differences in these embryos that is evident from earlier stages.  Secondly, two classes of fishes were omitted from Haeckel’s drawings, the jawless and cartilaginous fishes.  They would not have fit in well.  He used a salamander to represent amphibians, which happens to appear to fit his argument.  But if he would have included a frog, which is more representative of amphibians, it would not have fit his argument at all.  So, Haeckel had a very biased sample of carefully selected cases that implied more similarity than was realistic.

In 1995 a British embryologist Michael Richardson wrote that “These famous images are inaccurate and give a misleading view of embryonic development.”  Richardson is not a creationist.  Haeckel and Darwin thought that at the earlier stages the various embryos were more similar and they became less similar in their later stages of development.  This has been soundly disproven by recent research.  In 1997 Michael Richardson and an international team of scientists reexamined Haeckel’s drawings again and compared each drawing to modern high quality photos of the actual embryos.  This study thoroughly demonstrated again that Haeckel’s drawings misrepresent the truth.  Yet the embryological recapitulation argument is still found in various forms in many high school and college level textbooks.  Even many scientists and biology professors are not aware of the problem, because embryology is not their specialty.

Each type of living thing develops as an embryo in a unique way.  There are stages where there are superficial similarities of appearance between them, but the real function and nature of the embryo’s structures are different from each other.  For instance, there is a point in the development of a human embryo where the embryo has something that looks similar to the gill slits of a fish embryo.  These structures are known by embryologists as pharyngeal folds.  In fish these structures do develop into gills, but in reptiles, mammals, and birds, they develop into totally different organs that have nothing to do with respiration.  Even in fish, they are not gills until a later more mature stage.  In humans, they develop into the tonsils, the middle ear canals, and the parathyroid and thymus glands.  So, in humans, since they are not slits and they have nothing to do with gills, human embryos certainly do not have gill slits.  There are many special structures in embryos whose only purpose is for during the development process, then they no longer function in the adult.  This explains a lot about how embryos develop.  This is just how God planned and designed life to be.

Though the area of embryology is not my field of expertise, I would say that the development of a human embryo demonstrates a great intelligence and wisdom far beyond chance.  It clearly points to creation, not evolution.  The many examples of similarity between very different living things is not surprising from a Biblical point of view.  God as a divine engineer can reuse His designs however he wants.  Furthermore, God’s reused designs do not have to show up in the ways predicted by evolution.  Evolution  theory assumes there was no God involved and that everything just turned out as it is by  random mutations and natural selection.  So, from a creation point of view, both the “homologous” and the “convergent” traits of living things come from the same Creator.

Part 4

This series on Creation Biology has looked at important issues about biological change, biological similarities, and other issues.  No discussion of creationist biology would be complete without discussing what is called “chemical evolution.”  This is the issue of how the first living cells could have allegedly evolved from simple chemicals about 3.5 to 4 billion years ago.  I think this is the subject in which the concept of evolution has the most serious problems.  The evidence in this topic is overwhelmingly in favor of supernatural divine creation, rather than relying on natural processes alone and chance to create the first life.  Modern science has greatly increased our knowledge of complexity of life at the molecular level.  Even the “simplest” cell is so complex that only supernatural divine creation can explain how life could first arise on Earth.

cont'd on page three

Page Three

Chemical Evolution

In the evolutionary view of Earth history, after the Earth formed there were many impacts from space for a period of time.  This heavy bombardment from space is believed to have ended a little under 4 billion years ago.  This bombardment had to end before life could evolve.  At that time the Earth, according to the evolutionary scenario, had a very different atmosphere than it does today.  Many laboratory experiments have been done by scientists attempting to simulate the conditions of this early Earth atmosphere.  It is not that there is solid evidence for Earth’s atmosphere being different than it is now, it’s just that it would have had to be or life could not have evolved by natural chemical processes.  The important thing evolutionists believe about the early Earth is that there was little or no oxygen in the atmosphere, unlike today, when there is nearly 20% oxygen.  If oxygen were present when the first biological molecules were forming it would have stopped the process and other unwanted unimportant chemicals would have formed instead.  So, evolutionists have suggested various types of atmospheres for the early earth.  The famous scientist Stanley Miller, who did electrical discharge experiments on the origin of life used chemicals like carbon dioxide, methane, hydrogen, ammonia, nitrogen, and water vapor.  Today, scientists are considering ammonia as less important, but the basic idea has not changed much.

The idea is that simple gases such as the above would combine into organic “building blocks” such as amino acids, proteins, and enzymes.  Most evolutionists believe this took place in water, which is often called an “organic  soup.”  Living cells are made up of many very large complex organic molecules.  For scientists to form such molecules in a laboratory takes significant effort and special procedures.  Many of these biomolecules do not form easily though scientists have formed some of them in origin of life experiments.  Molecules like proteins, which make up much of our body tissues, are long chain molecules often called biopolymers.  They are made up of many smaller units connected together in some sort of chain  or other three dimensional arrangement.  The smaller units that make up proteins are amino acids.  Amino acids are small molecules.  Proteins in living things are made up of 20 different amino acids.  Organic molecules can combine into different three dimensional shapes or arrangements often.  The three dimensional shape of the molecules makes all the difference in the world in a living cell.  If amino acids combined in the wrong sequence or you had the wrong type of amino acids, it could change the shape of the whole molecule and then the protein forming from that sequence may not function properly inside the cell.  Also, even if the sequence of molecules is correct, many other molecules must be present for it all to work in the cell.  Living cells have all types of complex “machinery” that has to be coordinated to work together properly.  Natural chemical and physical processes alone are totally inadequate for explaining how such complex processes could come about.

What are some of the problems with the first living cell forming by chance from simple chemicals?  Much has been written about this, but here I will only mention a few points.  First, in the so-called “origin of life” experiments, the important sought-after chemicals are generally removed from the reaction so that they won’t be destroyed.  In the early Earth there would be nothing to remove them or concentrate them adequately.  There would always be other chemicals present in a “natural” organic soup that cause unwanted reactions that would prevent the formation of the important large biomolecules such as proteins or RNA.  (These unwanted chemical reactions are known as “side reactions.”)  When experimenters remove amino acids from their origin of life experiment, they are actually interfering with the natural process and this means the experiment is not really simulating real conditions like evolutionists say existed in the early Earth.

Other problems with the formation of the first cells from chemicals include ultraviolet light breaking down the biomolecules, natural energy sources are often of the wrong kind (destroying the biomolecules), and natural processes do not explain how the information content of biomolecules could come about.  This last problem is perhaps the most important one.  Life is tremendously organized, even in the “simplest” one-celled organism.

Complex molecules like RNA and DNA in living cells are I think somewhat analogous to a computer program that has been stored on some storage device, like a hard drive or a computer floppy disk.  Even if you can make the device, like the floppy, it won’t do anything without information on it.  The information is coded onto the floppy device by a certain “language.”  The cell, which uses the RNA and DNA, reads the data or information on the DNA molecule.  The cell also has the necessary machinery to build the materials specified by the information code.  Our Creator designed both the information code and the cellular machinery to use it.  Recent research has just completed mapping the complete sequence of the human genome.  This does not mean that scientists know what everything in the sequence means, it just means we now have a more complete record of what the sequence is.  This research on the human genome will lead to many medical benefits for us.  But it also underscores that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” by a Creator who put in the sophisticated information.  No natural processes operating by chance in an undirected way could explain the origin of the complexity inside living cells.
 

Archbishop: stop teaching creationism

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has stepped into the controversy between religious fundamentalists and scientists by saying that he does not believe that creationism - the Bible-based account of the origins of the world - should be taught in schools.

Giving his first, wide-ranging, interview at Lambeth Palace, the archbishop was emphatic in his criticism of creationism being taught in the classroom, as is happening in two city academies founded by the evangelical Christian businessman Sir Peter Vardy and several other schools.

 "I think creationism is ... a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories ... if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other theories I think there's just been a jarring of categories ... My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it," he said.

The debate over creationism or its slightly more sophisticated offshoot, so-called "intelligent design" (ID) which argues that creation is so complex that an intelligent - religious - force must have directed it, has provoked divisions in Britain but nothing like the vehemence or politicisation of the debate in the US. There, under pressure from the religious right, some states are considering giving ID equal prominence to Darwinism, the generally scientifically accepted account of the evolution of species. Most scientists believe that ID is little more than an attempt to smuggle fundamentalist Christianity into science teaching.

States from Ohio to California are considering placing ID it on the curriculum, with President George Bush telling reporters last August that "both sides ought to be properly taught ... so people can understand what the debate is about." The archbishop's remarks place him firmly on the side of science.

Dr Williams spoke of his determination to hold the third-largest Christian denomination together in its row over the place of gay clergy. He was also highly critical of parts of the church in Africa and said he did not wish to be seen as "comic vicar to the nation", speaking out on issues where he can make no difference.

Speaking of the church's situation in Africa, the archbishop issued snubs to two of the region's archbishops. He described the position in central Africa, where Archbishop Bernard Malango has just absolved without trial Bishop Norbert Kunonga of Harare, accused by his parishioners of incitement to murder, as "dismal and deeply problematic" .

Dr Williams also criticised Archbishop Peter Akinola, leader of the largest single national church in the Anglican communion, in Nigeria, who has been accused of encouraging violence against Muslims during recent rioting by warning that Christian youth could retaliate against them. Dr Williams claimed the African primate had not made himself sufficiently clear: "He did not mean to stir up the violence ... I think he meant to issue a warning which certainly has been taken as a threat, an act of provocation."

Speaking of the gay debate which threatens to split the church, Dr Williams insisted he would continue to try to hold the communion together. "I can only say that I think I have got to try ... For us to break apart in an atmosphere of deep mistrust, fierce recrimination and mutual misunderstanding is really not going to be in anybody's good in the long run." But he accepted there might come a moment where the Anglican Communion says "we can't continue, we can't continue with this".

TWICKY TWINS BORN to 19 year old Kyle Hodgson - one a blue eyed blonde
and the other a dark skinned and firstly blue eyed -now brown eyed
identical(?) twin, reported the  Sunday Mail Australia March 12 p3. Parents
Kyle and Remi are UK residents of mixed ancestry from Nottingham England.
The unusual twins were born April 05 and are now doing very well. After
birth baby Kian's skin went fairer as baby Remee's skin and hair became
darker. Put by the experts at odds of 1,000,000 to one, the identical girls
will undoubtedly get asked lots of questions as they grow up.

ED. COM. We often get asked about the textbook case of the red and grey
squirrels on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon as being evidence for
evolution by speciation. Now you can see why it isn't. Black and white
"identical" twins are the same kind as mum and dad. If perchance the twins
matured and became separated with right coloured partners, you can now
easily see how they could produce two separate tribes of different coloured
humans, who did not go black because it was hot or white, because it was
cool. It would be no more evidence for evolution than an ancestral squirrel
having two differingly coloured offspring, who end up on opposite sides of a
big hole and cannot get back together to mix colour genes again. They and
the humans are excellent evidence that all life forms produce their own kind
as God created them to do as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. (Ref
selection, variation, microevolution),

ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP SAYS stop teaching creationism reports the Guardian,
Tuesday March 21, 2006. "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has
stepped into the controversy between religious fundamentalists and
scientists by saying that he does not believe that creationism - the
Bible-based account of the origins of the world - should be taught in
schools. Giving his first, wide-ranging, interview at Lambeth Palace, the
archbishop was emphatic in his criticism of creationism being taught in the
classroom, as is happening in two city academies founded by the evangelical
Christian businessman Sir Peter Vardy, and in several other schools.

"I think creationism is ... a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were
a theory like other theories ... if creationism is presented as a stark
alternative theory alongside other theories I think there's just been a
jarring of categories ... My worry is creationism can end up reducing the
doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it," he said..

Dr Williams spoke of his determination to hold the third-largest Christian
denomination together in its row over the place of gay clergy.

He was also highly critical of parts of the church in Africa and said he did
not wish to be seen as "comic vicar to the nation", speaking out on issues
where he can make no difference..

Speaking of the gay debate which threatens to split the church, Dr Williams
insisted he would continue to try to hold the communion together. "I can
only say that I think I have got to try ... For us to break apart in an
atmosphere of deep mistrust, fierce recrimination and mutual
misunderstanding is really not going to be in anybody's good in the long
run." But he accepted there might come a moment where the Anglican Communion
says "we can't continue, we can't continue with this".


ED. COM. When will church leaders recognize that the two subjects
confronting the archbishop above are linked. Christ's teaching on human
marriage and his teaching that homosexuality is an utter abomination to God
is based on the historic fact of His creating male and female specifically
for marriage of male and female only (see Matthew 19:1-7, and its cross ref
to Gen 1:27 and 2:24) You let the schools not teach creation and only teach
evolution and student sexual mores will evolve in any direction that their
sinful nature takes them, till they reach what the True Creator God has the
right to label as the perverted position of thinking homosexuality is OK,
even clergy can be gay because their evolved god accepts it.

NEW RODENT IS LIVING FOSSIL, according to report on BBC Online News, 9
Mar 2006 ScienceNOW and Science vol. 311 p1456, 10 Mar 2006. Last year a
previously unknown (to the scientific community) rodent was found in a
hunter's market in Laos by Robert Timmins of the Wildlife Conservation
Society and specimens were sent to the Natural History Museum, London for
study and classification. The animal is similar in size to a red squirrel,
but has grey fur and is known by the local people as the kha-nyou.
Scientists found that its teeth and bones were a "striking match" to a
fossil rodent believed to have been extinct for 11 million years, making the
animal a "living fossil". The scientists who studied and classified it have
given the animal the scientific name "Laonastes aenigmamus" and refer to its
discovery as "a particularly striking example of the "Lazarus effect" in
recent mammals, whereby a taxon that was formerly thought to be extinct is
rediscovered in the extant biota, in this case after a temporal gap of
roughly 11 million years." Taking up the theme of Lazarus, the ScienceNOW
article is entitled "Rodent rises from the Dead".

ED. COM. Charles Darwin used the term "living fossil" to describe living
creatures that are the same as fossilised creatures. If you believe the
evolutionary timetable, the rodent  "Laonastes aenigmamus" has stayed the
same for more than 11 million years, and that is no help to a theory that
claims animals change from one kind to another. In fact, living fossils like
this creature are good evidence for the accuracy of  the Genesis account
which states that organisms were created as fully functional organisms,
designed to multiply after their kind. Both the fossil and living specimens
of this rodent  are only known as fully formed creatures, and if the living
specimens are the descendents of the fossil specimens they must have
reproduced after their kind. The use of the Biblical term "Lazarus effect"
is an example of both ignorance and hypocrisy in the scientific community.
If the authors of the Science paper and ScienceNOW article knew their
Bibles, they would know that Lazarus was resurrected after being observed to
be dead for a few days, not simply out of the sight of scientists for many
years. As the local people had a name for this animal, it can't even claim
to have been missing, let alone presumed dead, except by the ignorance of
western evolutionists who assume their observations are the only ones that
count. If creationists display this kind of ignorance about evolutionists'
writings they are loudly condemned. (Ref. mammals, Asia, biodiversity)

JURASSIC BEAVER SWAM WITH DINOSAURS according to articles in BBC News
Online and news@nature and Science vol 311, p1123, 24 Feb 2006. A team of
palaeontologists led by Zhe-xi Luo of the Carnegie Museum of Natural
History, Pittsburgh, have found a fossil of a beaver-like animal in rocks
from China. The fossil is about half a metre long and is an almost complete
skeleton surrounded by impressions of fur and a broad scaly tail. The shape
of its feet indicate it was a good swimmer. It has been dated as 164 million
years old, which places it in the Middle Jurassic period - a time when the
only mammals were believed to be small, insect eating creatures who spent
their time avoiding being trampled by enormous dinosaurs, and which didn't
diversify into the variety of mammals we have now until the reptilian
monsters died out. According to news@nature this new fossil "shows a
hitherto unexpected diversity in the shape and size of the earliest mammal."

ED. COM. Diversity in shape and size of so called early mammals may be
unexpected by evolutionists but it is no surprise to Creation Research.
Genesis 1:26-31 tells that the different kinds of mammals were separately
created at the same time as the reptiles. Therefore, mammals of diverse
shapes and sizes lived with dinosaurs from the beginning. If you are willing
to think laterally, the fossils that are found in a rock layer indicate how
and where the creatures got buried, not when, or even where, they lived. The
fact that not many mammals have been found in rock layers containing
dinosaurs is not evidence that mammals evolved later. (Ref. palaeontology,
biodiversity)

"FAMILY MAY PROVIDE EVOLUTION CLUE" is the headline of an article on BBC
Online News, 7 Mar 2006, about a family in a remote part of Turkey where
four sisters and one brother walk on all fours. One sister can walk on two
feet sometimes, and another brother walks on two feet with difficulty.
Medical tests indicate all were born with a brain disease called cerebellar
ataxia, which affects the part of the brain that controls balance and
co-ordination. The affected children use their hands to help them move
around, putting the weight on their wrists and lifting their fingers off the
ground. Prof Nicholas Humphrey of the London School of Economics (LSE)
claims: "I think it's possible that what we are seeing in this family is
something that does correspond to a time when we didn't walk like
chimpanzees but was an important step between coming down from the trees and
becoming fully bipedal."  However, Humphreys notes that this palm down
method of quadripedalism is not the way apes walk. Chimps and gorillas are
knuckle walkers, i.e. they support their weight on the backs of curled up
fingers. This means ape fingers are built for strength rather than
dexterity. By keeping their fingers off the ground the Turkish children are
still able to use them for skilled work like crochet and embroidery, as for
other humans. Humphreys suggests that this was how our direct ancestors
walked as it would have enabled the fingers to be used for manipulating
tools, and the brain disease suffered by the Turkish children caused them to
revert to an ancestral form of walking. He went on to say, "Because of the
peculiar circumstances they were in, they kept walking as infants." A team
of researchers at the Max Planck institute in Germany believes the family
are suffering from a defect of a gene on chromosome 17 that was important in
the evolution of two-legged walking.

ED. COM. This story is a bizarre mixture of medical facts and evolutionary
imagination. The closest Prof. Humphreys gets to the truth is the claim that
the affected children kept walking as infants. However, that has nothing to
do with evolution. Human children crawl on all fours before they stand and
walk because they must wait until their brains mature and they develop
strength in their legs and trunk. Because of a genetic defect the Turkish
children's brains did not develop properly, so they continue to use their
arms to compensate for their lack of balance and co-ordination in their
legs. The idea that progression from crawling to walking represents an
evolutionary transition is a belief in recapitulation, i.e. that human
development from conception to adult is a repetition of evolution from
amoeba to man. This is a totally discredited idea based on fraudulent claims
made by the  nineteenth century evolutionist Ernst Haeckel. Cerebellar
ataxia is a rare genetic defect, but it is likely that in the remote part of
Turkey where the family live there has been inbreeding, so genetic defects
are more likely to be expressed. This is a sad reminder that the human race
is degenerating downwards, not evolving upwards, and it is outrageous of
evolutionists to exploit the misfortune of this family to falsely promote
their beliefs. (Ref. bipedalism, gait)

CREATIONISM IS "JUNK MEDICINE" proclaims a headline in The Times, (UK) 11
Feb 2006. In an article subtitled "How evolution can save lives", Mark
Henderson, science correspondent for The Times calls for people to resist
the current interest in creation and Intelligent Design in Britain and
consider the practical benefits of evolution. According to Henderson,
"Darwin's natural selection has transformed medical science. Its
contribution to health stands comparison with Jenner's vaccine, Pasteur's
germ theory of disease and Fleming's antibiotics." He then goes on to cite
"prime examples" - bird flu, HIV, multi-resistant bacteria, sickle cell
anaemia, cancer, obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Two weeks later, a similar
article was published as an editorial entitled "Medicine Needs Evolution" in
Science, vol. 311, p1071, 24 Feb 2006. The Science editors claim evolution
is "the vibrant foundation for all biology" and also use the example of
antibiotic resistance and sickle cell anaemia, but they also claim that
evolution explains the increase in breast cancer, infertility and
miscarriages. They then call for changes to the teaching of medicine to
include evolution. They are: "First, include questions about evolution in
medical licensing examinations; this will motivate curriculum committees to
incorporate relevant basic science education. Second, ensure evolutionary
expertise in agencies that fund biomedical research. Third, incorporate
evolution into every relevant high school, undergraduate, and graduate
course."

Geotimes, a website and magazine that normally reports about geology, has
also joined the call for evolution in medicine with an article in their
March 2006 edition named "Evolution Lessons from Infectious Disease" in
which they also name antibiotic resistance, HIV, bird flu and SARS as
examples of evolution.
Times article: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8123-2032900,00.html
Geotimes article: http://www.geotimes.org/mar06/comment.html

ED. COM. None of the examples cited are evolution. Pasteur's germ theory was
well used by Pasteur as proof that evolution from chemicals to cells did not
happen. Pasteur firmly opposed Darwin's theory. Bird flu and SARS occurred
because of the mixing of already existing genes between viruses. The fact
that some virus combinations flourish because they are more successful at
making people ill and spreading themselves is natural selection, but it is
not evolution. It does not explain how viruses got their genes in the first
place. Genetic changes, i.e. mutations, do occur in viruses but they don't
even  change viruses into different viruses. They just change their already
existing surface properties or growth rates. Mutations do cause sickle cell
anaemia, all cancers and some cases of infertility and miscarriage, but none
of these are evolution. Mutations damage genes and indicate that living
cells are degenerating from fully functional complex structures to partially
defunct structures. This is the opposite of evolution. Antibiotic resistance
in bacteria can be caused by mutations, but the bacteria that gain some
resistance because of mutations are invariably weaker and only do well in
places where there are lots of antibiotics keeping the normal bacteria from
competing with them for food and living space, eg. Hospitals. Most bacterial
resistance is due to bacteria that are already resistant flourishing when
the non-resistant bacteria are killed. Bacteria can also share genes for
antibiotic resistance. This is not evolution because no new genes are being
made - they are just being re-distributed, and the bacteria that gain them
remain the same kind of bacteria.

The call for evolution to be imposed on medical education in coercive ways
that put research funds and licenses to practice at risk, shows that
evolution is not "the vibrant foundation for all biology". If it was, it
would already be in the foundational science courses used in medical
schools, and there would be no need for such totalitarian tactics. We
suggest medical schools should teach the facts about mutations and
selection, i.e. they are the effects of degeneration of living things and
their environment, which is why we need medicine. We also suggest that
Geotimes stick to writing about rocks. (Ref. microbiology, illness, health)

FOSSIL CROCODILE SURPRISES SCIENTISTS, according to articles in
news@nature, BBC Online News and Science Express 10 Nov 2005. South American
palaeontologists have found the skull and jaws of a fossil marine creature
named "Dakosaurus andiniensis" that was believed to be a sea-dwelling
crocodile. This creature was already known from a few fragments. It was
about 4 metres (13 ft) long and had paddle shaped forelimbs. The skull and
teeth are very different from all other known marine crocodiles. All other
marine crocodiles have long narrow snouts with many small pointed teeth.
Diego Pol of Ohio State University, who participated in the study of the new
fossils commented: "Other vertebrate palaeontologists have been asking us
whether this really is a crocodile." The newly found fossils show that the
creature had a short robust head, like a dinosaur and a small number of
serrated teeth. These findings have led researchers to wonder what the
creature ate. Living marine crocodiles catch whole fish by sweeping their
jaws sideways and grabbing them with their teeth. This is an effective way
of catching slippery fish and squid if a creature has a long narrow snout,
but "D andiniensis" would be better suited to biting pieces out of larger
prey, such as other marine reptiles, commented vertebrate palaeontologist
Eric Buffetaut, but he added: "the only way to be sure is to find a fossil
complete with stomach contents."


ED. COM. We are pleased to see an evolutionary palaeontologist admit
something that Creation Research has been saying for many years - you cannot
be sure what a creature ate from simply looking at its teeth. Teeth give you
clues about how it are but to know what a creature ate scientists need to
observe it eating, or in the case of extinct animals find preserved stomach
contents or dung.

SNAILBOT CRAWLS INTO ACTION, as described in news@nature, 13 Dec 2005. A
team of engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have
built a "mechanical mollusc" that can climb wall and crawl along ceilings in
a similar fashion to a snail. Snails move by contracting the muscle in their
foot over a bed of slime that attaches them to the surface and prevents them
from going backwards. The muscle contraction starts at the rear of the foot
and moves forward until it lifts the front end off the surface. The snail
then stretches out to its full length, reattaches to the surface and pulls
the rest of its body forward. The MIT engineers designed a mathematic model
of this movement and built a robot with five moveable segments to test the
model. As the robot did not produce its own layer of slime the engineers ran
their robot over a platform covered with a clear sticky gel made from
Laponite (a type of clay). The researchers admit "that snail locomotion is
slow, slimy and inefficient" so there may not be a great demand for a
snailbot. However, snails can crawl over just about any surface, which means
they can move about in many different environments - a useful property for a
robot.


ED. COM. Whether the snailbot becomes a useful device or remains an academic
engineering oddity, it didn't come about by chance random processes. The MIT
engineers first had to study a living snail, invent a mathematical model and
built a device that could only carry out one function. By using their minds
clever scientists built a far inferior mechanism compared with a real snail.
Therefore, they have no excuse for not recognising that the real snail was
created by a far cleverer scientist. (Ref. design, biomimmetics, robotics)

MATHEMATICAL CABBAGES reported in ScienceNOW 16 Nov 2005 and New
Scientist 19 Nov 2005. Skunk cabbages (not really cabbages, but members of
the Arum family) generate heat with an internal furnace consisting of
special starch burning cells in the central stalk of the plant. This keeps
their flowers from being damaged by cold weather, and the plants can
maintain a steady 24 degrees Celsius even when the outside temperature is
below zero. Two Japanese researchers at Iwate University, Japan, have
studied the way the plant controls its temperature by monitoring the
temperature in several plants and analysing the pattern of temperature
variations using a statistical method called non-linear forecasting. They
concluded that the plants were using a unique mathematical algorithm to
determine whether to turn the internal furnace up or down at any moment.

ED. COM. Anyone who has an automatically controlled central heating system
knows that maintaining an even temperature is the result of clever design in
the thermostat, not chance random processes. Mathematical algorithms are the
product of minds, not matter. Applying them to carry out some useful
function, such as temperature control, requires the application of
information to matter by a creator. Therefore, it is foolish to claim this
plant's central heating system is the result of mindless chance acting on
equally mindless matter. (Ref. mathematics, design, thermoregulation)

FLEXI-CELLS EXPLAINED in a brief item ScienceNOW 31 Oct 2005 (whole item
is quoted). "Red blood cells are amazingly flexible: they can deform and
squeeze through even the tiniest capillaries. But how do they do it?
Scientists know the cell's protein skeleton consists of thousands of linked
hexagons with a central rod-shaped filament holding its shape. And now, a
new model suggests that those filaments aren't just scaffolding: as the cell
deforms, elastic fibers actually twist the filaments around, giving the
oxygen carriers plenty of limberness, researchers report online 21 October
in Annals of Biomedical Engineering."

ED. COM. If human scientists had invented a flexible support structure
system like the one described above, no doubt the editors of Annals of
Biomedical Engineering would have recognised creative engineering and given
them the credit. They have no excuse for not recognising it here. It took
clever biomedical researchers to work out the structure of this cellular
scaffolding. It took a smarter biological engineer to design and build it
(and the rest of the cell) in the first place. (Ref. erythrocytes,
cytoskeleton, bio-engineering)

SUPER-COMPUTER TRACKS PROTEIN BUILDERS, according to a report in
ScienceNOW 27 Oct 2005. Proteins are made of small molecules called amino
acids which need to be strung together in the correct order for the protein
to function. The process of assembling proteins is carried out by a complex
piece of cellular machinery called a ribosome. Individual amino acids are
brought to the ribosome by molecules called transfer RNA's (tRNA's).
Transfer RNA's must line up precisely with another molecule called messenger
RNA (mRNA) which carries the information from DNA. To ensure the correct
amino acids are lined up in the correct sequence each tRNA must match three
genetic code letters with code letters on the mRNA. To understand how tRNA
move through the ribosome and matches code letters with the mRNA a team of
scientists led by structural biologist Kevin Sanbonmatsu has used the sixth
fastest supercomputer in the world to calculate all the molecular
interactions involved and simulate the movement of the tRNA through the
ribosome. They found that the tRNA has a previously unknown extra hinge
where it holds the amino acid and the ribosome has a special loop that the
tRNA must fit through. If the tRNA letters do not exactly fit the mRNA
letters it will run into this loop rather than fit through it.

ED. COM. If it takes a team of clever scientists and a supercomputer just to
follow the process of putting amino acids in the right place, imaging the
creative genius of One who designed and built the protein building machinery
in the first place, without a supercomputer. Ribosomes contain over 50
different proteins and numerous types of RNA which must all work together in
a very precise way. It is foolish to imagine that chance random processes
invented the kind of precision machinery revealed by this study. (Ref.
computers, synthesis, biochemistry)

FISH INSPIRED CAR described in Royal Auto Club Magazine The Road Ahead,
August/September 2005, p4. (Whole article quoted)  "Daimler Chrysler has
turned to nature, and the boxfish in particular, to bolster its
understanding of aerodynamics and design. The boxy tropical fish is
incredibly streamlined, a fact confirmed by DC engineers who they tested a
model in wind tunnel. Their study spawned the Mercedes-Benz Bionic concept
car, modelled on the humble box fish. It has groundbreaking direct injection
diesel technology, a drag coefficient of just 0.19 and will be shown later
this year in the U.S. Studying the boxfish's skin, made up of bony plates,
also enabled Benz engineers to alter construction methods to boost the
concept car's rigidity and reduce its weight."

ED. COM. Learning about the boxfish skin and streamlining, then applying it
to cars took creative engineering. Therefore, the Daimler Chrysler engineers
should admit the boxfish is the product of a much smarter creative designer,
and give glory to its Creator - not "nature" but the Lord Jesus Christ, who
will hold them accountable if they deny the evidence He gave them. No-one
doubts that cars are created by intelligent engineers, even if they have
never seen one being made. Therefore, it is equally absurd to claim there is
no evidence for design in living organisms, which have more sophisticated
engineering in their structure and function. (Ref. biomimmicry, automobiles,
engineering)

SUPER MOLECULAR BLUE FOUND, as reported in Nature vol 436, p791, 11 Aug
2005. For many years scientists have known that the same pigment,
anthocyanin is found in roses and also in cornflowers, but as the old saying
(almost) goes, roses are red and cornflowers are blue. A group of Japanese
scientists have worked out how the anthocyanin pigment gives cornflowers
their intense blue colour. It is combined into a complex structure called
protocyanin, where six anthocyanin molecules are combined with six flavone
glycoside molecules and held together by four metal ions - one iron, one
magnesium and two calcium ions. The scientists concluded: "The blue colour
in protocyanin is therefore developed by a tetranuclear metal complex, which
may represent a new to supermolecular pigment."

ED. COM. This complex chemistry reminds us that blue flowers are good
evidence for creation. The only way human scientists have been able to make
blue flowers is by genetic engineering, i.e. taking genes for blueness out
of one plant and putting them into another by deliberate creative
manipulation. Furthermore, no human scientists designed the genes that have
been moved from blue flowers to non-blue flowers - they simply copied what
was already there. It took a much smarter genetic engineer to design the
genes for blueness out of nothing and today's gene manipulators have no
excuse for not acknowledging the Creator. (Ref. colours, genetics, flowers)

ADAPTABLE BIRDS CATCH CATERPILLARS, as described in Science, vol 310,
p304 and ScienceNOW 14 Oct 2005. Great tits are small European birds that
breed each Spring and feed on caterpillars. As they need the most food when
they are raising their young, it is useful for the birds they lay their eggs
in time to hatch when caterpillars are most abundant. The time of
caterpillar abundance varies each year depending how early the warm spring
weather starts, so it is also useful if the birds are able to vary their
breeding time. Ecologist Marcel Visser of the Netherlands Institute of
Ecology and colleagues have studied data on breeding habits of great tits
living in a Netherlands national park from the past 32 years to see if the
birds could vary their breeding habits with variations in climate. Most of
the birds did not change their breeding habits, but some birds appeared to
be tuned in to climate variation and laid their eggs earlier in warm Springs
and later in cool Springs. These adaptable birds had more surviving
offspring than the less flexible birds. Most interesting is that the ability
to adapt appears to be passed on to the next generation, i.e. it is
genetically programmed. The researchers say there is not enough long term
data to be sure that the birds are evolving greater flexibility but they
think that the more adaptable birds will come to dominate the population.

ED. COM. This study cannot prove that birds are evolving flexibility. It
proves that some birds are able to change their breeding cycle with seasonal
variations and some aren't. The fact that more of the flexible birds are
surviving is not evolution because they already had the ability to do this
and when the climate changed they had an advantage over the less flexible
birds. This is natural selection, but it is not evolution. (Ref. adaptation,
climate, ecology)

TOUCHY FEELY FLYING reported in an article in ScienceNOW, 14 Nov 2005.
Bats are well known for their ability to fly in the dark using echolocation,
a type of aerial sonar, to find their way around obstacles and capture prey
on the wing, but they also need to be able to detect airflow and turbulence
in order to make the right wing movements for complex manoeuvring. John
Zook, a biologist at Ohio University has studied a network of tiny bumps on
the surface of bat wings and found they contain cells similar to a type of
touch sensor called Merckel cells. He also found these had tiny hairs
projecting from the surface. He then recorded electrical signals from the
bumps and found they were sensitive to air flowing over the surface. He
proposed that movement of the hairs enable the bat to detect changes in
airflow patterns over the bats wings and help it fly more efficiently. To
test this theory he treated two bats with a cream that dissolves hair and
then filmed them flying. The bats managed to fly normally in a straight line
but had problems making turns to avoid obstacles. When the hairs re-grew the
bats were able to make complex aerial movements again. Greg Miller, who
wrote the ScienceNOW article commented that Georges Cuvier, an eighteenth
century French scientist, proposed back in the 1780's that bats use their
sense of touch to fly in the dark. It seems he was partly right.

ED. COM. This study is a good challenge to the usual evolutionary story of
bats evolving from a non-flying mammal by growing long fingers with skin
stretched over them because it shows there is more to flying that just
having wings. In order to fly an animal must be able to sense where it is in
three dimensional space, and be able to sense whether the air can hold it up
at any one moment. Both of these functions require complex systems of
sensors and the brain power to interpret the information and make the
necessary movements of the wings. (Ref. aerodynamics, design, bats)

The differences make the difference—differences in gene expression distinguish humans from primates

Ever since the time of Darwin, evolutionary scientists have noted the anatomical similarities between humans and the great apes including chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. Over the last few decades, molecular biologists have joined the fray, pointing out the similarities in DNA sequences. Previous estimates of genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees suggested they were 98.5–99% identical.1 However, after the sequencing of the chimpanzee genome last year, the DNA similarity was fixed at 96%.2 (See Chimp genome sequence very different from man.) Now, a new study highlights important differences that go beyond the DNA sequence.

Yoay Gilad and colleagues published a paper in the prestigious science journal Nature in which they report an analysis of differences in gene expression among humans and primates.3 Using a cDNA array (cDNA is complementary to mRNA and provides the exact code for proteins), they examined the expression of 907 genes in the liver from humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhesus macaques. They found a relatively large number of genes (110) that were expressed at different levels in humans and chimpanzees. In some cases, humans produce more of a particular gene product, and in other cases, less. This type of study of gene expression is quite different from those that investigate DNA sequences. Evolutionists themselves have suggested that gene regulation may be responsible for key differences between humans and chimpanzees.4

While the DNA sequence of a gene specifies the amino acid sequence of the protein, the expression level is the amount of the protein that is made. In other words, the DNA sequence spells out the code for producing a specific protein whereas the expression level is the number of copies that will be produced. The amount of protein that is produced can make a profound difference, and in some cases a more important difference than a change in the DNA sequence.

For example, the amount of melanin (dark pigment in the skin) can be altered by the amount of UV light exposure (the reason people “tan” in the summer). The DNA sequence that determines the proteins involved in melanin production does not change, but the amount of those proteins does change. An increase in the amount of protein can lead to an increase in the amount of melanin.

Often, the amount of a protein that is produced is determined by the functional equivalent of “thermostats” called transcription factors. Transcription factors are proteins that bind to DNA just in front of the sequence that codes for a particular gene. The transcription factors serve as molecular switches to determine whether a gene is turned on or off, and how much of each to make. Clearly, the control of gene expression is very important.

Yoay and colleagues compared the level of expression for the 907 gene products across the various primates. They suggested that the number of differentially expressed genes followed an evolutionary progression. Humans and chimpanzees allegedly diverged from a common ancestor 5 million years ago, orangutans 13 million years ago and Rhesus 70 million years ago. Therefore, humans should have the fewest number of differentially expressed genes with chimpanzees, then orangutans, and the most with the rhesus macaque.

While that trend is apparent (Table 1), there is a discrepancy. Chimpanzees are supposed to be more recently related to orangutans than rhesus macaques. However, chimpanzees have slightly more differentially expressed genes compared to orangutans than compared to rhesus. In addition, the orangutan has essentially the same number of differentially expressed genes with humans as with the rhesus macaques.

Although 60% of the genes had similar expression profiles across the different species, this still leaves 40% that are altered in at least one species relative to the others. For example, the researchers found 19 genes that were expressed differently by humans, but the same in each of the other species. Each species has certain genes that are expressed at different levels than in the other species.

There may be even more significant differences in gene expression in humans and the various primates. This study only compared the gene expression in adult livers. Other organs, especially the brain, are likely to show even more differences in gene expression than the liver. It is also possible that there are many other differences in gene expression during development. For example, some genes may be expressed differently at various times as a baby grows in the womb.

As a creationist, I believe that God made humans, chimpanzees, orangutans and rhesus macaques separately (but on the sixth day of creation week). While there is much similarity in DNA sequences and gene expression among them, there are also important differences. In this, as in other cases, the differences make the difference.
References and notes

   1. Wildman, D.E., Uddin, M., Liu, G., Grossman, L.I. and Goodman, M. 2003, Implications of natural selection in shaping 99.4% nonsynonymous DNA identity between humans and chimpanzees: Enlarging genus Homo, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100(12):7181–7188.
   2. The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium 2005. “Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome.” Nature 437:69–87.
   3. Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A., Smyth, G.K., Speed, T.P., and White, K.P. Expression profiling in primates reveals a rapid evolution of human transcription factors. Nature 440:242–245, 2006.
   4. King, M.C. & Wilson, A.C. Evolution at two levels in humans and chimpanzees. Science 188:107–116, 1975.

                  Chimpanzee       Orangutan       Rhesus macaque
Human                 110                  128                        176

Chimpanzee            -                     150                        141

Orangutan              -                        -                          129


Comparison of the number of differentially expressed genes in various primates. Adapted from Gilad, Y., Oshlack, A., Smyth, G.K., Speed, T.P., and White, K.P. Expression profiling in primates reveals a rapid evolution of human transcription factors, Nature 440:242–245, 2006.

Anglican leader rejects creation

by Paul Taylor, AiG–UK

March 22, 2006

I have long suspected that the national leader of the world’s third largest denominational grouping would, eventually, come out against the biblical account of creation. Yesterday (March 21), Dr. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was featured in a wide-ranging interview with The Guardian—a left-leaning daily newspaper in the UK. Although the Archbishop’s views on Genesis only comprised two column-inches in a four-page article, it was precisely these views that The Guardian chose to highlight for its front-page lead article: “Archbishop: stop teaching creationism” blazed the headline in large type.

Dr. Williams, the de facto head of the Church of England1 (also known as the “Anglican” church), was asked whether he was “comfortable” with the teaching of creationism in schools. “Ah, not very. Not very,” he replied. He continued:

    I think creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it’s not a theory alongside theories. It’s not as if the writer of Genesis or whatever sat down and said, “Well, how am I going to explain all this … I know: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So if creationism is presented as a stark alternative theory alongside other categories, I think there’s just been a jarring of categories. It’s not what it’s about.

Could Dr. Williams, who implied that creation is not on the same par as the theory of evolution, be unaware of Article VI of the Church of England’s “Thirty-Nine Articles”? Article VI says this about the authority of the Bible:

    In the name of the Holy Scriptures we do understand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament, of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church.

Dr. Williams is a recognized master at choosing his words ultra-cautiously, in order (his critics say) to maintain his seat on the fence. But as shown here, Genesis does not give us this fence-sitting option, and that’s why Archbishop Williams’s comments caused such a stir around the UK.

It bears repeating on this website that the historical style of narrative used in the Genesis accounts about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph in chapters 12 to 50 is the same as the historical style used in chapters 1 to 11. Whether Dr. Williams chooses to accept it or not, it is clear that the writer of Genesis firmly believed that he was writing true history, as he penned the Bible’s first book (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, as another Article of Dr. Williams’s church states). Moreover, the Reformers who penned the Articles more than 400 years ago knew that the vital doctrine of sin, for example, depends on a belief in the historical reality of Adam.

    Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. (Article IX)

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, under whose leadership the Thirty-Nine Articles were composed, was burned at the stake exactly 450 years ago to the day that Dr. Williams’s interview came out (March 21). It would probably not have occurred to Cranmer that four-and-a-half centuries later one of his successors would sign allegiance to the Articles without actually believing them.

Most of The Guardian’s interview with Archbishop Williams was actually taken up with examining his views on “moral issues,” including homosexuality in the church. Dr. Williams is torn between support for the U.S. Bishop of New Hampshire—the openly homosexual Gene Robinson—and the threat of secession by figures such as Peter Akinola, Archbishop of Lagos, Nigeria, leader of Anglicanism’s largest national church, who opposes homosexuality as unbiblical. I would submit that there is a clear connection between Dr. Williams’s “socially liberal” views and his rejection of Genesis as the foundation of his theology. (See The Creation Basis for Morality.)

Returning to the Archbishop’s views on education, I recently pointed out on this site that there is no support in the English National Curriculum (or those of Wales or Northern Ireland) for banning creation from the school science laboratory. (See Error in the UK classroom and “Wilful Ignorance” of the English National Curriculum.) Since the Church of England (and its sister church, the Anglican Church in Wales) are sponsors of many Voluntary-Aided2 state schools, they should be giving a clear lead on good science teaching and sound biblical doctrine.

It must be acknowledged that many Anglican churches teach the Bible as God’s authoritative Word. Indeed, I was saved in an Anglican church where the gospel was faithfully preached. But many others, including their current head, Dr. Williams, left biblical truth behind a long time ago.
Notes

   1. Technically, the Queen of England is the head of the Church of England. Return to text.
   2. Voluntary-Aided schools are 85% funded by the UK Government, Welsh Assembly Government or Scottish Executive, and 15% funded by a religious group (Anglican, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim). In England and Wales, they still have to conform to the requirements of the National Curriculum. Return to text.

Introduction to Flood Geology
Wayne Spencer

This article is meant to be a brief introduction to what has become a huge subject--Flood Geology.   What is Flood geology?  It is an approach to Geology that acknowledges the inerrancy of the Bible and seeks to understand Earth’s features in the light of the framework given in the Bible.  The book of Genesis in the Old Testament speaks of a global Flood in the time of Noah that was a judgement on the individuals in the preflood world.  The Bible describes the event as being a little over a year in terms of the time Noah, his family, and the animals were in the Ark.  I believe this Flood was a real event that had far-reaching effects on the entire planet.  This global catastrophe would have taken place somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.  I also believe the Earth is less than 10,000 years in age, based on both Scripture and science.

Young age creationists have made great progress in recent years in geological and geophysical research into the details of how the Flood happened.  There are many unanswered questions and there are now a variety of views on key questions about how the Flood relates to Earth’s rocks and fossils.  There is generally good agreement among young-age creationists that there is much evidence for the Flood from sedimentary rock and fossils.  Many detailed objections and challenges to a young age and a world-wide Flood have been raised from the scientific community.  If the young age creationist view of Earth history is correct, and I think it is, then there is much about historical geology that needs to be reevaluated and re-written.  It is not necessary to understand all the details of how the Flood took place in order to have reason to believe the Bible.  But it is necessary to explain some of the details in order be credible witnesses to our generation of the certainty and authority of the word of God.

I hope that what follows will be an encouragement to you in your faith and will give some insight into how a creationist framework can help us understand the Earth without Biblical compromise.  The Bible is historically accurate.  And, though it is not written like a science textbook, the information it provides about nature agrees with what we know about the real world.  God has told us there was a great judgement that we call Noah’s Flood.  It was really God’s Flood and He does not want us to forget it.  The evidence for Noah’s Flood is literally right under our feet, from the ocean floor to the top of Mt. Everest.  We have to learn how to recognize it, but when we do, it is a marvelous testimony to God’s greatness and His holiness.  God did not allow the evil in the world to just continue, he did something about it!  He judged the world once and he says in the New Testament that He will judge the world again when Jesus Christ returns, though that judgement will be by fire rather than water.  So, the story of the Noahic Flood is not something to be dismissed.  It has tremendous consequences for geology.

Following is information explaining geological terminology for those without a lot of scientific background in geology.  I would refer the reader to other sources to get a more complete explanation of the evidence for the Flood.  The following assumes the Flood has occurred as outlined in Genesis.  This gives a framework or outline that can be built upon.  The details must be filled in using careful science.  An area in which there has been great strides in secular geological research in recent years is the subject of Earth impacts.  I wrote my ICC papers “Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood” and “Geophysical Effects of Impacts during the Genesis Flood” to suggest an approach that acknowledges the abundant evidence of impacts on Earth without making certain mistakes made by evolutionary science about impacts.   The issue of Earth impacts has been studied a great deal by the scientific community.  This effort has been motivated mainly by the desire to support the concept that one large impact from space about 65 million years ago caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.  There is also significant research today to identify asteroids that come near Earth and assess the hazards of possible impacts on Earth.  My goal is to explain the evidence for Earth impacts in a young-age Flood geology framework, not to explain extinctions.  In a creationist view of Earth history, the aftermath of the world-wide Flood provides a very good explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs.

Important Concepts from Geology

It is important to understand certain terms from geology.  Sedimentary rock is rock that has formed from some kind of sediment.  In many cases it is mud or sand that has fallen out of water and then hardened to rock.  Sedimentary rock can also form from chemical and biological processes.  Calcium and Carbon Dioxide can combine in water to form solid Calcium Carbonate, so this can produce the rock known as limestone.  Limestone forms under water but is not related to flowing water or water carrying sediment particles.  Igneous rock is basically volcanic in origin.  It does not involve particles falling or precipitating out of water but rather comes out of the Earth, from the mantle of the Earth.  Metamorphic rock refers to a variety of types of rock that has come from altering other rock or minerals in various ways.  Usually great heat and pressure are involved in forming metamorphic rock and metamorphic rock can be very dense.  Marble is a form of metamorphic rock.  There are certain special and very unusual metamorphic minerals that are good indicators of impacts from space because they require extreme pressures in order to form.  Sedimentary rocks provide many powerful evidences for the Flood.

cont'd page two

Page Two

Fossils are essentially only found in Sedimentary rock, but not all sedimentary rock.  Sedimentary rock itself argues for the Flood because the large size of the sedimentary rock layers, the size of large boulders moved by water, and other facts point to a global Flood.  There are a number of sedimentary rock layers that cover large areas of North America and are single contiguous layers covering vast areas.  These suggest a very large scale catastrophe.  Many rock formations, though usually explained by evolutionists in terms of processes seen in the present, can be explained very naturally and effectively in terms of the effects of a global Flood.  The Noahic Flood would lead to the formation of many types of large scale geological phenomena unlike anything forming in the present.  Creationist geologists have documented many formations that strongly suggest this.  Fossils can be good indicators of Flooding as well since they may be sorted, they may be aligned in a consistent direction, and the way fossil bones are found often indicates rapid catastrophic burial.  Most fossils are of marine creatures and fossils of marine creatures are found all over the continents, including at the top of many mountains.

A real world-wide Flood would produce much volcanic and metamorphic rock as well.  There are unresolved questions as yet about the how these rocks relate to the Flood for particular cases.  However, it seems clear that much volcanism would take place during and after Noah’s Flood.  Many creationists also believe that the dust, ash, and gases input into the atmosphere following the Flood by large volcanic eruptions would affect climate for years and cause a post-flood ice age.  A post-flood ice age appears to explain effectively the evidence for glaciers in North America, Antarctica, etc. within a young age time frame.  Michael Oard, a meteorologist and ICR graduate, has done some excellent research on the idea of a post-flood ice age.  The evolutionary approach to Earth history says that there have been many ice ages through history.  There is now evidence that the facts used to argue for multiple ice ages can be explained by submarine landslides and debris flows.  This means that underwater debris flows during a global Flood could form sedimentary layers that could be mistaken as glacier or ice age related.

Noah’s Flood would have been a dramatic violent event accompanied and followed  by many different types of catastrophic regional events.  There would be tsunami waves that would devastate coastlines, these are formed from earthquakes and Earth movements on the sea floor for instance.  Though it is not completely clear, there may be indications in Genesis that there was one continent and one contiguous ocean prior to the Flood.  One approach to Flood geology, known as Catastrophic Plate Tectonics, proposes that the large supercontinent began breaking up at the beginning of the Flood and continued during the early stages of the Flood for some period of weeks to months.  Another approach some creationists take is to say that the supercontinent broke up after the Flood.  This approach could have advantages for explaining how living things could spread out across the Earth after the Flood.  But, the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model has some very solid research behind it from paleontology (study of fossils), geomagnetism (Earth’s magnetic field and its history of changes), and geophysics (from computer models of the Earth’s interior).  I lean toward the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model for the Flood.  It is not certain but it is the best model available in my opinion.  Today there are several competing models among creationist geologists for explaining how the Flood took place.  This is an exciting area of ongoing research.  I think the primary motivation of this research should be to correct modern science on issues of origins, not to “prove” the Bible.  Still, there are many exciting confirmations of the Biblical view of history in today’s Flood Geology.

An interesting question for creationist geology has always been where did the water come from for the 40 days and nights of rain mentioned in Genesis.  Evolutionist Earth scientists will eagerly point out that there is not enough water in the entire atmosphere today to make rain able to continue for that long.  The traditional answer to this has been the idea of a “vapor canopy” in the preflood Earth.  This would be a layer of the atmosphere with a large amount of dissolved water vapor.  This would not be clouds, so it would be transparent, though some creationists have incorrectly described it as clouds.  The Institute for Creation Research in California has been researching the atmospheric physics of vapor canopies.  Thus far, the idea has not been ruled out but one conclusion seems clear, that any vapor canopy could not contain enough water to provide 40 days of rain.  If that much water were present in the canopy it would produce a powerful greenhouse effect that would make Earth completely uninhabitable at the surface.  But, a thinner canopy with less water could exist in a stable manner between Creation and the Flood and would aid in providing a healthy near-tropical climate all over the world before the Flood.  A thin canopy then would not explain the rains but would shield from cosmic rays and would help explain why there is fossil evidence of tropical plants in areas now described as arctic, such as in Antarctica.  In the Catastrophic Plate Tectonics model, vast amounts of molten magma on the ocean floor would vaporize large amounts of water, which would cause rains.  Another possible source of rain water is impacts from space into the ocean.  It seems clear that some type of geological process must have put large quantities of water into the atmosphere that led to the rains.  These models of the Flood are meant mainly to help understand the natural effects of the Flood and its implications for geology.  They are not intended to explain away or deny the supernatural.  There must have been some supernatural intervention by God in Noah’s Flood in some way in order for it to be a divine judgement.

Some creationists today believe there was no vapor canopy in the preflood Earth.  Dr. Walter Brown, a retired Air Force Engineer and MIT graduate, is an example.  He has an interesting model of the Flood known as the Hydroplate Theory.  His model says there was a layer of liquid water under the crust of the Earth, that was essentially global in the preflood Earth.  Stress and pressure caused it to break out during the Flood through Huge linear fractures in the crust that now form the mid-ocean ridges.  This water under the crust then ejected out in giant eruptions of superheated steam.  He suggests this is what the Bible refers to as the “fountains of the great deep.”  In Browns model, the separation of the continents began during the early part of the Flood, but most of the separation took place after the Flood.

cont'd page three

Page Three

The Geologic Column

A major controversy between creationist geologists today is over the question of the meaning of the standard geologic time table known as the Geologic Column.  This chart breaks up the evolutionist view of Earth history into various time periods.  How it has been arrived at is also controversial, but it comes from correlating rocks and fossils from one location to another across the Earth.  Rocks are classified or identified as representing one of these time periods based on the type of fossils found in them.  Certain fossils called index fossils are used by geologists to identify these rock classifications.  If all the layers shown in this geologic chart were present in one place it would be a very thick section of rock.  A creationist who goes by a pseudo name of John Woodmorappe has studied the geologic column and compared it to what is actually present in Earth’s rock layers.  He found there are actually a few locations, very few, on Earth where all the layers are in one place in the order shown in the chart.  However, this is an extreme exception.  Over most of the Earth, many of the layers are missing.  There are some cases where the layers may be out of order.  One unresolved question is how much order is present in the fossils.  How much are they really in the order given by the Geologic Column?  Creationists have documented examples of fossils in the wrong strata.  This means that they do not fit the sequence of events given by evolution theory due the type of rock they are found in and the assumed ages for that rock.  A world-wide Flood, however, would produce various sorts of order and disorder in the rocks and fossils.  The rock and fossil record in the real world is much like what one would expect from a global Flood.

There are several different views today among creationist geologists about the significance of the Geologic Column.  It is important to note that fossils begin in Cambrian rock, below Cambrian there are no fossils (except for the boundary of the Cambrian in some cases).  Traditionally this Precambrian/Cambrian boundary was considered the line marking the onset of the Flood, where organisms on the ocean floor began to be buried.  Today, it is now realized that the picture is really quite complicated and so the preflood/Flood boundary as well as the Flood/post-flood boundary are both difficult to determine.  In a given location the boundaries may be determinable but there are difficulties in correlating rock layers in locations widely separated from each other, such as across continents.  So, there have been different views of how to interpret the Geologic Column from a creation point of view, even among well qualified creationist geologists.  Some would say that the Mesozoic strata, known for dinosaur fossils, coal, and plant fossils represents the late stages of the Flood year.  Others would put the Mesozoic after the Flood.  Today a number of creationist scientists suspect the Flood/post-Flood boundary is later in the rock record, such as near the top of the Cenozoic or possibly in the Pliestocene.  This view would mean that more geological structures were formed during the Flood and less was formed after the Flood.  Creationists are finding that a better way to understand Earth’s rock layers may be in terms of events (Flood and post-flood) rather than with any kind of time scale chart.

Following are some definitions that may help the reader understand the creationary literature on geology.  I would be glad to correspond with anyone personally if I can help answer any questions.

Tectonic - Refers to some kind of movement of Earth's crust, uplift, lateral motion as in some earthquakes, or some form of warping of rock layers. Often used to refer to movement of the continents or uplift of mountains.

Breccia - Rock made up of fragments welded together by some other material, such as lava for instance. The fragments can be quite large.

Radiometric Dating - A technique for determining the ages of various materials. Carbon Dating measures amounts of Carbon-14 and Carbon-12 and calculates an age based on the rate of conversion of one form of Carbon to the other.  Carbon dating is only used to date objects up to a few tens of thousands of years in age. Other radioactive isotopes are used to date rock.  Potassium/Argon dating is another common technique used to date volcanic rock (basalt).  Radiometric dating techniques cannot be used on sedimentary rock.

Pascal - This is a metric unit for pressure. 1 Pascal is a very small amount of pressure, equivalent to about one one hundred thousandth of an atmosphere. The prefix "mega" means one million times, the "giga" prefix means one billion times the value.  Automobile tires give inflation pressure figures in kilopascals (kpa).

Phase Change - This is usually used to describe a change between solid, liquid, or gas states of matter.  It can also refer to a change in the arrangement of atoms in a mineral.  When the atoms in a mineral rearrange into a different three dimensional arrangement (which can take up more or less space) this is also called a phase change.

Meteor - an object seen streaking across Earth's atmosphere is a meteor. Commonly called a "shooting star."

Meteorite - an object that remains intact after falling through Earth's atmosphere.

Asteroid - Rocky objects in the solar system, most of which are found in the region between Mars and Jupiter. They vary widely in shape, size, and in the nature of their orbits.

Comet - Comets are objects which orbit the Sun in very long elliptical orbits.  Comets are made up of a rocky core probably with large amounts of icy and other very volatile compounds around the core.  They have been described as "dirty snowballs."  Comets are not necessarily very coherent bodies.  They travel very rapidly and would break up or possibly even explode if they passed through Earth's atmosphere.

Carbonaceous Chondrite - a class of meteorite which contains some carbon and some organic compounds. These objects are made up of large amounts of aluminum, magnesium, and certain other metals but they also have a large water content. They contain little iron or nickel but have various materials that are considered "volatile," that is, they boil away easily.

Stratification Experiments and Flood Geology


by Wayne Spencer
 

The following is a summary regarding experimental research done by creationist Guy Berthault from France and a colleague, Pierre Julien, an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. The original research related to this work was done in 1989 and 1990. Technical papers have been published related to this work by Guy Berthault, Pierre Julien, and Yongqiang Lan in Geological publications in France and in Civil Engineering Report by Colorado State University. Guy Berthault has presented this information and its significance to the Noahic Flood at the International Conferences on Creationism, in 1994 and 1998. Berthault has also produced popular level video programs explaining the concepts, first in a program called "Evolution: Fact or Belief". Recently in 1999, a new short video has been produced called "Experiments in Stratification". This program is a revision of an earlier program with the same name. This short program is a well produced presentation of the essence of the experiments and Berthault's views on the significance of these experiments for Geology and specifically the discipline of Geology known as stratigraphy. While the validity of the experiments has not been questioned seriously, the question of their significance has been somewhat controversial among leading creationists. The following is my attempt to comment on what Berthault's experiments show and what their significance may be for a creationist view of geology.
 

Guy Berthault and Colorado State University have been working on some hydraulic sedimentation experiments that may have important implications for stratigraphy. The experiments show how sediment deposits in water when there is a current. This work shows one mechanism for how a series of rock strata consisting of multiple horizontal layers can be laid down by water in a short time. Because of the unique way that particles are deposited by this mechanism, multiple layers can form simultaneously, being added to horizontally rather than forming in a vertical sequence as is sometimes taught and assumed in evolutionary geology. This is a mechanism that could apply in a number of locations in the real world, but it is not a universal mechanism. I will try to clarify the scope and limits of this work, to the best of my ability. Creationist geologists, often referred to as Flood Geologists, have identified a number of mechanisms whereby sediment can be rapidly deposited or eroded under catastrophic conditions that would exist during and after a true global Flood. Mechanisms such as this do not prove that the Biblical Flood of Noah occurred, but they show plausible known mechanisms that may have operated during or after the Flood that could have had geological effects we could see today. Catastrophic mechanisms can rapidly accomplish effects that have sometimes have been interpreted as requiring long periods of time.
 

In general, creationist geologists would not disagree with many methods of field geology. More at issue between creationists and evolutionists is the way geology is taught and the assumptions of historical geology, which addresses the origin of geological features on Earth. It is possible evolutionary bias could cause field geologists to neglect certain alternatives that would fit a catastrophic Flood interpretation, just because they have not been trained to look at the facts another way. The following research does call into question some assumptions related to the geologic column, at least the way it is often taught in introductory secondary and post-secondary geology courses. We must guard against being overly "married" to traditional accepted ideas, and against overly applying a new idea. The issue revolves around how valid the following two accepted principles or assumptions of stratigraphy are.

1) The Principle of Superposition - In a sequence of strata consisting of several layers, the lower layers were deposited first (in horizontal layers) and moving up, each layer is younger than the layer beneath it.
 

2) The Principle of Continuity - That within each layer that is of the same type of material and which makes a contiguous layer, all the material within each layer is of the same age. (This does not mean precisely the same age. The age spanned within the thickness of the layer is assumed to be much less than the age spanned across the layers of the whole sequence.) I will try to show this below with dots and "o" characters representing different sizes of particles in a sequence of strata. t1, t2, t3, and t4 represent a time sequence. The dots and o's represent particles of varying size in a sequence of sorted layers.
 
 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::                        t5      youngest

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO              t4 (largest particles)

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo          t3 (larger particles)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::                       t2 (small particles)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO              t1      oldest



cont'd page two

Page Two

When sediment is deposited in STILL water, one horizontal layer and then the next, it can give this kind of pattern in the rock strata, with the bottom layer being the first to form and the top being the last. This does apply in some locations. But there seems to be a problem in the standard approach of evolutionary geology that this model of sedimentation has been over applied to too many locations. In Flood geology, catastrophic processes would produce circumstances in which powerful water currents would exist. Indeed even the daily tides can produce significant currents along the margins of the continents, not to mention many flood-related processes associated with volcanism, earthquakes, impacts from space, etc. The Berthault experiments show that when there is one layer of one type of particles separated from a different layer under it, that does not necessarily mean they formed one after the other in time. They can actually all form at the same time, in a horizontal progression rather than a vertical progression.
 

This is in accordance with an important principle of stratigraphy known as Walther's Law (or the law of correlation of facies). This law describes how sedimentary rock units that formed beside each other horizontally end up superposed on top of each other. This occurs not because they are somehow moved or turned over, but because multiple horizontal layers may form simultaneously. This law, then, describes a relationship between the horizontal and vertical variations in sedimentary materials. Geologists routinely apply this law on small scale phenomena, such as stream deposits. It could apply in some larger scale phenomena where evolutionary assumptions tend to prevent its application. In encountering rock strata classified as different geological periods, such as Jurassic and Cretaceous for example, evolutionary geologists would not think of applying Walther's Law and considering the whole sequence being related and having formed in a short time. But, large scale high energy phenomena could deposit according to Walther's Law as well. A global Flood could provide conditions where this could take place. Thus, Berthault's work has important implications for sedimentary geology. Not because the deposition process he studied is unknown to geologists but because it can be applied on a larger scale than is usually assumed.
 

Berthault's research is not guesswork but is shown in flume experiments in which a current is setup and the particulate mixture is made up of various sizes of sand grains. The sediment is mixed and then put into the water flow in the flume, which is a special channel with machinery that can recirculate both the water and the sediment. The engineering laboratory at Colorado State University did the large scale flume experiments, other experiments have been done in France and most of the technical papers on it were presented to French geological societies, with the exception of some creationist conferences. Most of the experiments of Berthault and Julien seem to include sand particles ranging from 0.11 mm to 1.90 mm. The flow velocity of the water ranged from about 26 to 52 cm/sec. On the other hand, some of their experiments were at higher flow velocities (such as 3 m/sec), allowing the mechanism to be applied at the Grand Canyon. There were a number of different types of sand particles studied. Some were coal particles, some limestone, some angular, some rounded, some light, and some dark. Particle mixtures for the flume experiments were made by taking an equal weight of material from two of the various types of particles. Some experiments were done by pouring the mixture through air, some through standing water. Some mixtures segregated into separate layers and some did not.
 

Three possibilities in the segregation of particles:
 

1) No segregation - This means the particles are randomly mixed, not in separate layers.
 

2) Fine particles can deposit on top of course (larger) particles
 

In this case, you have particles of about the same size, but different density. The higher density particles will sink first.
 

3) Course particles can deposit on top of fine particles
 

This occurs in mixtures of particles of different sizes and densities. It also occurs in underwater turbidity deposits and debri flows, where particles are suspended in water currents and then deposited.
 
 

The Moving Water Experiments

There is an important relationship between the water flow velocity, the size of the particles, and whether the particles will be picked up by the current (erosion) or deposited by the current (deposition). For a certain particle size there is a flow velocity that will begin to erode or suspend the particles of that size in the water, rather than depositing them on the bottom. In reading about the Berthault experiments, it is easy to misunderstand the experiment and think that they are in the wrong velocity region for what they are trying to simulate, so their conclusions are not valid. However, it is important to understand how the experiment is done. The flume is several inches deep. The flow velocity is set just fast enough to suspend and carry the particles, so it is just barely in the velocity range for erosion. But then a flat object, called a gate, is introduced at a certain point in the flume to obstruct the flow. What this does is that the lower part of the water, nearer to the bottom, moves slower than the water near the surface. So, the flow velocity in the bottom half is slow enough to just be in the deposition range, so the particles sink to the bottom. Thus the gate allows them to trigger when and where deposition will take place. This is all a normal experimental procedure. To apply the mechanism for real rocks, one must determine from the site some information about the particle sizes, densities, and what the water velocity would have been when the sediment was laid down.
 

Here's the important thing. The experiments show that the particles are sorted by the moving water so that the smaller particles deposit first (less bouyancy) and the larger particles are essentially carried along by the current longer, so that the larger particles roll over the smaller ones and this makes the fine particles deposit below the larger particles. But, what looks like horizontal layers when its all over are not of the same age. All the "layers" form simultaneously, in the direction of the current. This is known to occur in floods and observed geological events, especially around coastlines or beaches apparently. It appears to have occurred at the Grand Canyon on a huge scale, and it is consistent with principles of hydrology in experiment. The process also occurs in deep water deposition processes such as turbidites and debri flows. This is very significant because many formations can be explained as underwater turbidity deposits. Below I will try to show a time sequence of how this works.
 

OOOOO                                    t1                    Current direction >>>

ooooooooo                               t1

::::::::::::::::::::::                             t1
 

OOOOOOOOO                       t2

ooooooooooooooooo            t2

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::            t2

(older) > (younger)
 

This means that the portion of the sequence that is really of the SAME AGE would be something like this.
 

OO

   oooo

        :::::::cont'd on page three

Page Three

To form multiple layers, all that is necessary is changes in current velocity. A change in the current velocity was shown in the experiments to cause multiple sets to form simultaneously. But in this mechanism the horizontal layers are always arranged such that the material with the smaller sized particles is on the bottom.
 

Implications

One of the interesting implications of this is that fossils on the bottom are not necessarily older. In my simple illustrations above, fossils deposited farther left are older and fossils farther to the right were deposited more recently, regardless of whether they are on top or bottom.
 

Now, these results are really undisputable. You can see it all happen in Berthault's videos, which show the flume experiments. The question is how broadly applicable is this to real sedimentary rocks. Berthault makes the following argument. In the deposition of strata according to processes we can see today, which would be a more broadly applicable assumption? 1) That deposition takes place in still water or 2) that it takes place in moving water. Moving water would be more typical of real observed processes. Yet, the Principles of Superposition and of Continuity mentioned above seem to assume still water. Therefore these two principles are unrealistic and called into question.
 

Another implication of this work is that if a whole series of layers can form simultaneously, then the strata could form quickly if you have a catastrophic event of the right kind. These experiments also showed fine laminations in the deposited sediments. It seems that sedimentary layers form in a manner completely surprising, completely different than what you might naturally think, just looking at a sequence of horizontal layers on top of each other.
 

This kind of research needs to be considered in evaluating the significance of the geologic column. The geologic column was based on observations of similar strata in different locations, based on the type of rock. But considering only correlations of rock types, it was only viewed as a relative chronology, not an absolute one. And, at that time, many geologists were apparently creationists who believed in a global Flood, or at least some were. Then, fossils and old-age assumptions were factored in so that the geologic column could be made an "absolute chronology." It is primarily the second idea that it is an absolute chronology which is questioned by creationists. However, the above experiments and other issues may imply that the geologic column may not even be valid as a relative chronology, at least not in a way that applies the same all over the world. If sedimentary rock layers have formed by Berthault's mechanism, then they do not show evidence of macroevolution (large changes from molecules to man) over long periods of time, but are simply the result of what water can do in sorting and transporting particles. If fossils in the sediment are laid down in a horizontal way (left to right in the illustrations above) rather than from the bottom up over long times, then the placement of the fossils has nothing to do with changes in living things over time as macroevolution implies. But how common are fossils in sedimentary rocks that this mechanism could apply to? Berthault does not comment at great length on how deposition of fossils relate to this experimental research. The placement of fossils may tell us more about how living things were buried, than where or how they lived.
 

This tends to call into question some evolutionary assumptions in geology and confirm a young-age Flood view of geology, though there are unanswered questions to be pursued still in "Flood Geology." Sometimes geologists, in looking at a sequence of finely laminated sedimentary rock layers, count how many layers and assuming 1 or 2 layers (for instance) form per year, multiply to obtain the total age of the whole layer (facies). Sometimes this approach is not applicable and a mechanism like in Berthault's experiments may apply. This would mean the sequence could form quickly in a manner that indicates hydrologic processes, such as flooding or tides or turbidity flows under water, rather than slow build up over long periods of time.
 

Berthault uses his research on sedimentation to attack the very basis of the evolutionary Geologic Column. There are locations in the world where the entire sequence represented by the Geologic Column does exist. But a location that allowed you to drill straight down in the rock and obtain a core sample that would contain all the layers would be a very rare exception. Often various layers are missing from the sequence, sometimes enough to represent a long period of time, by an evolutionary viewpoint. The Geologic Column is based on some questionable assumptions about fossils and rock layers and how rocks can be correlated in age from place to place. It possible to correlate rock strata from one location to another to a certain degree. But, whether it is possible to say that a Triassic rock on one continent is of the same age as a Triassic rock on another continent thousands of miles away is another question. These issues are matters creationist geologists continue to research.
 

What are the conditions that would stop or prevent Berthault's sediment segregation mechanism?

    * Sufficient turbulence in the water disrupts the effect. But, varying smooth water flow tends to enhance it. In fact, cross-currents tend to enhance it as well.

    * If the mixture were of particles of approximately the same size then the mechanism would not work. It may not work if there were a large number of different particle sizes, but this was not studied in Berthault's or Julien's experiments. Their mixtures had only two particle sizes.

    * Their experiments described in detail in the technical creationist publications use particles geologists refer to as "fine sand" to "sand" sized. How the mechanism applies for smaller "silt" and "clay" sized particles is not clear. Berthault has done some experiments with smaller particles but has not written as much on this apparently. It appears to me that the mechanism should work down to about particle diameters of 0.2 mm if you have the correct water velocities.

       

cont'd on page four

Page Four

Conclusions

Note that Berthault and Julien are not the first to do experiments of this nature and this mechanism was not totally unknown prior to Berthault's experiments. The research of Berthault and Julien does clarify the physical mechanism for this kind of segregation of particles. The implications of hydrologic processes like this are often not adequately incorporated in the way geology is taught. Real physical principles of hydrology do not always seem to bear out some ideas taught to beginning geology and earth science students. I seriously doubt that this type of mechanism is given adequate consideration even by geologists in the field, in some cases. Geologists would routinely apply Walther's Law for smaller scale phenomena such as a stream deposit or small valley. But on larger scales it is not considered, though there is no reason the physical mechanism in Berthault and Julien's experiments could not be upscaled to higher water velocities and sediment particle sizes. This type of mechanism might apply more often in real rocks than might be expected by an evolutionary geologist, if a global Flood actually happened. In such a Flood, there would be many locations where this mechanism could apply, though it would not apply for all sedimentary rocks. The Biblical Noahic Flood would have been a complex event and many different types of erosion and sedimentary processes would have been involved during and after the Flood proper.

Berthault and Julien's mechanism would not apply where there were highly turbulent environments. It may not apply for some mixtures of small silt or clay sized particles. Most importantly, some mixes of sediment particles could not sort by this mechanism because the mechanism depends on large particles being able to roll over small ones and allow the small ones to fall down in the spaces between the larger particles. In still water and air, somehow the particles seem to sort themselves in a similar manner just before they come to rest.

Still, the mechanism has been applied successfully at the Grand Canyon by Steve Austin, geologist at the Institute for Creation Research. It has also been applied in Colorado, at a location known as Bijou Creek, where there are extensive laminated sand deposits. Berthault's experiments are actually broader than what has been explained above. He also showed that some sediment mixtures laminate even falling through air and sometimes in still water, but it is not clear how much this applies to real rock layers. The mechanism described above for moving water Berthault refers to as the "mechanism of non-horizontal layers." This mechanism can apply in either transgressive environments (such as a rising tide) or regressive environments (a falling tide, for instance). Berthault also did experiments in which he started by grinding up a sedimentary rock into particles, mixed them, then redeposited them and reformed a laminated deposit similar to the original rock's layers. And, this only required a brief period of time. Some of Berthault's experiments on lamination also were done with finer silt and clay particles, which again showed lamination in both water and air. Papers on this aspect of Berthault's work were apparently published only in the French journals (see Austin below, page 54, ref. 68). Also, Berthault and Julien's experiments also show that layers of sediment can form on slopes of significant angles. This means that sediment layers do not have to form on a horizontal surface. Geology students are always taught in introductory Earth Science and geology that sedimentary rock layers always started horizontal and then were tilted after they formed, to form sloped strata as we see today. It seems this is not always the case.

It may be that Berthault somewhat overstates the applicability of this work to real rocks in the field in some respects. The main reason I say this is that in real sedimentary rocks, the type of mix of particles may not be conducive to this mechanism.  Also, very turbulent conditions would definitely take place in Noah's Flood, and this would prevent this mechanism in many cases. On the other hand, where there would be smoother water currents, but with changing current directions and flow velocities, it would be very conducive to the "mechanism of non-horizontal layers." I believe this work does have a lot of applicability in the real world and needs to be considered seriously by geologists. This mechanism is in fact applied by geologists, but on limited scales. The significance of Berthault's research, it seems to me, is not that it refutes the geologic column (it does shoot certain holes in it) or that it explains all sedimentary rock. Its significance is that the mechanism is better understood thanks to Berthault and Julien and the mechanism can be applied on larger scales than most evolutionary geologists consider. This research shows that principles of hydrology are very applicable to interpreting sedimentary rock in a young-earth Flood geology context. Laminated horizontal layers do not require long periods of time to form on small scales and they need not on large scales under the right conditions. Evolutionary geologists believe that present small scale slow processes, scaled over long periods of time, can explain the large scale formations of the Earth. But instead of scaling up the time to explain Earth's features, it is more physically realistic to upscale the energy and catastrophic nature of the events to explain Earth's features. Geologists do apply catastrophic approaches today on scales that are logical extrapolations of what we see today. But, many features on Earth's surface point to processes of the past that were of a much larger scale than is observed in the present. Evolutionist geologists propose many separate catastrophic events over long periods of time to explain Earth's geology. But one global tectonic and sedimentary event such as the Flood would spawn many other smaller catastrophes. These catastrophes still threaten us even today!

Many other topics in geology have been researched by creationist geologists and related to the possible processes of a global Flood. There is often more than one way to interpret a given set of facts, especially when dealing with scientific origins. There are also multiple possible approaches to some geological problems that creationists are researching. But, I believe qualified creationist geologists have done much valuable research that shows how many features of the Earth under our feet can be explained by a global Flood, just as is described in the book of Genesis.

Kansas Fossils and a Great Flood
by

Wayne Spencer

[For images see below]

Though the creationist view of earth history is not usually taught in public schools, this approach to geology has convinced many scientists and others that there are problems with the evolution-based time scale known as the Geologic Column. Creationists have documented evidence of processes in the past which agree very well with the belief that there was a real world-wide Flood in the past that has had profound and far-reaching effects on the earth. This approach to geology, known as catastrophism, holds that many of the earth's features are the result of high energy processes related to flooding and other tectonic activity in the earth. The standard approach to geology has said that the earth's features are the result of the same processes seen today but operating slowly over vast periods of time.

Scientists, whether creationists or evolutionists, interpret the facts in terms of their own beliefs. The same rocks and fossils can be interpreted from either a creationist viewpoint or an evolutionist viewpoint. Nothing can be proven about the past by the scientific method since no scientists were present many years ago to record data or make a live action movie of what was happening. The scientific method requires that one be able to repeat the observations. This is of course impossible in matters of origins, since you deal with events that happened only once, in the past.

The geologic column divides 600 million years of time into the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras. The Mesozoic Era covers from 65 million to 230 million years ago, according to the evolutionary time scale. The Mesozoic Era is known as the age of the dinosaurs and is subdivided into the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous Periods. These are all periods of time in which the evolution of living things is believed to have been taking place. It is worth noting that in much of Kansas both the Triassic and Jurassic periods are missing. These two periods would cover about 90 million years. The Precambrian layer contains almost no fossils and is igneous and metamorphic rock. The layers overlying it, however, are sedimentary rock, which usually forms from material that falls out of water. Sedimentary rock can be considered to be essentially various forms of mud that turns to rock. According to the geologic column the older layers are on the bottom, near the Precambrian and the less old layers are nearer to the surface. Scientists identify which period corresponds to a rock primarily by which fossils are found in them. Ages are assigned to the rocks according to which geological period they correspond to. Evolution is assumed in this process.
 

Creationist geologists are researching other ways of interpreting the rock layers and their fossils in terms of the earth being much younger, about 7-10,000 years. When layers of the geological column are missing in the rock layers, it is assumed that either they were present at one time but were eroded away, or were never deposited. Erosion of some layers away seems to have happened in some cases but in some areas the line between two such layers is very smooth and gives no evidence of there being soil or erosion or life in between the layers. So much "missing" time ought to leave some clues of its existence. Creationists suggest that in many cases these areas are explained better by all the sedimentary layers being deposited continuously in a short time during a great Flood. Other processes, such as tides and earth movements during the Flood would add some complicating factors to this. These complicating processes would cause multiple layers of various materials.

The fact that most of the planet is covered predominately with sedimentary rock is consistent with the earth being covered with water. Even the tops of many mountains are made of sedi-mentary rock. This great Flood would require a minimum of several weeks to cover the earth depending on the extent of the tectonic processes involved. Then the earth would have been covered or partially covered for most of a year.

Such a great catastrophe would certainly be accompanied by intense volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Probably great climate changes would occur until the earth came back to some sort of equilibrium. It is likely that there was one "ice age" period after the Flood, which was the result of having a warm ocean coupled with a cold climate right after the Flood.

Flooding processes on a global scale can explain both the order of the fossils in the rock layers, as well as the randomness of how fossils are found. Catastrophic flooding can transport carcasses, trees, and other material large distances and mix together things that are not normally found together. Catastrophic volcanic and flooding processes were demonstrated in the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980 and have been studied extensively by creationist geologists. Creationist research suggests that a number of things believed to form slowly can actually form very rapidly under catastrophic conditions.
 

cont'd on page two

Page Two

The Miller Stone

On June 1, 1993 Mr. Brian Spomer and myself, both of Wichita, Kansas, travelled to western Kansas to the town of Hanston to go fossil hunting. Mr. Paul Miller, who lives near Hanston, invited Wayne Spencer to come to Hanston to hunt fossils. Mr. Miller knew two sites where some fossils could be found. One site was known to have many shark teeth and Mr. Miller has taken others, including school groups, to the site. The most interesting finds came from this site. These included many small shark teeth, a piece of sandstone containing coal, a fish backbone vertebrae, an excellent specimen of a manta ray tooth, and a piece of sandstone found with wood embedded into the rock. This rock with wood in it (the Miller Stone) was an exciting find, since it is unusual to find wood in rock. It is not unheard of, however.

Paul Miller was the person to actually find the rock, which was found loose along the bank of a creek. I have shown the rock to the Chairman of the Geology Department of Wichita State University and to Lawrence Skelton, Kansas State Geological Survey geologist. Both these geologists agree that the rock is sandstone and is part of a layer known as the Dakota Sandstone (actually just a thin outcrop of). According to the geologic column, which classifies rock by age, this would put the Miller Stone as in the upper part of the lower Cretaceous period. This would make it approximately 90 to 100 million years in age. However, it seems to run against common sense to think that the wood could be that old. The wood is not petrified or fossilized at all but seems to be completely wood. Interestingly, a shark tooth was found on the side of the rock opposite the wood. So, in one rock there is something from a marine environment and something from a terrestrial environment. It is not possible to prove the wood is not 90 million years in age, but it is much easier to believe the wood could be four to five thousand years old, putting it at the time of Noah's Flood.

A paper called The Miller Stone Fact Sheet is available from me at the Creation Education Materials address which tells more about where the Miller Stone was found and gives basic information about Kansas geology and fossils from a creation perspective. The report also addresses the interesting question of how there could be many shark teeth concentrated in one location, where the Miller stone was found. The "Miller Stone Fact Sheet" includes color copies of close-up photos of the Miller Stone, the site, and other fossils. Information on the exact location of the site is also provided; the site can be visited by anyone interested. The Miller Stone Fact Sheet can be purchased for $5.00 individually or $4.00 each for 10 or more. To obtain a copy write to Wayne Spencer at Creation Education Materials, P.O. Box 153402, Irving, TX 75015-3402. Or E-mail Wayne at "wayne@creationanswers.net".

Since the Miller Stone has wood (from dry land) and a shark tooth, the evolutionist would say that the sand which became the Miller Stone was once a beach area along the edge of the inland sea. Only in a beach area, they would say, could there be wood such as driftwood on a beach and shark teeth.

According to evolution, millions of years were necessary for the sedimentary layers to be deposited. It is believed that during the Cretaceous period, much of North America was covered by an inland sea. This sea covered a north to south belt through the middle of North America extending into northwest Canada and south across Mexico. One problem with this idea is that the ocean has never been observed to do anything like this. Sea level would have to rise a great deal to form such an inland sea. A world-wide Flood, however, would form inland "seas" at the beginning before everything was covered and at the end as the water level was dropping. (The water level would drop due to earth movements and evaporation.)

In addition to the Miller Stone, several other interesting fossils were found at the same site. In the same sandstone layer as the shark teeth, one small piece of rock was found which contained coal embedded in the rock. Since coal comes from plant material, especially wood, this is very consistent with finding wood in the rock. Another excellent fossil specimen was found in this same layer--a Ray tooth, such as a Manta Ray. Finely detailed lines are clear on this tooth, making it an very fine fossil of another ocean creature. The author also found a backbone vertebra from a fish at this same site. Many people are surprised to find that fossils of marine creatures are found in Kansas; this is just what one would expect if the whole Earth were covered in a great Judgement.

Shark teeth are not the most interesting fossils which have been found in Kansas. Fossils of large ocean fish, mastodon bones and teeth, trilobites, and even dinosaurs have been recorded. The Stermberg Museum at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas displays a famous fossil of a large ocean fish so well preserved that another fish (itself large by Kansas standards) was fossilized inside the stomach area.

Fossils could be defined as some form of remains or impressions of prehistoric life. The most common forms of fossils are those which are chemically altered hard parts of animals or sea creatures. (Actually most fossils are of sea creatures.) In these fossils the bone or shell material is replaced with mineral or sometimes the pores in it can become filled with mineral, making it much harder and more dense than it originally was.

Other types of fossils are much less common. There are also occasionally found unaltered hard parts, that is for example bones that are still bone. Sometimes these are not referred to with the word "fossil." In a few cases unaltered soft parts, still the original organic material, have been found. In some cases plant fossils or even fish fossils have retained their own characteristic smell! In certain arctic areas creatures have been found frozen in ice or frozen mud, such as the famous Siberian mammoths.

There are also various forms of traces of creatures such as footprints in rock, worm burrows, fossilized dung, mold fossils, and cast fossils. A mold fossil is a cavity, usually where a shell has been but the shell broke up or decayed, leaving the cavity having the shape of the shell. Casts are just the opposite. A shell can become filled with mineral and then may break off or decay away, leaving rock "cast" in the shape of the shell.
 
cont'd on page three

Page Three

Fossils-Solid Evidence for Creation
 

When evolution is the only view of origins taught to children in science, there are many important facts that are left out, including the following. All the following points, which are very important to creationists, actually come from the research of evolutionists. All of the following points have been thoroughly documented as coming from scientific journals and books, written by evolutionists.

Fossils give us a "record" of the past since they tell us what creatures actually existed in the past. There are four characteristics of the fossil record that agree with the creation view much better than the evolution view. First, when looking through the rock record, the geologic column, from the bottom up (old to young) there is abrupt appearance of living things. Then, those that become extinct can suddenly disappear as if due to some catastrophe, not gradually as if by a long process of competition for survival (this is the second point). For instance, in the oldest rock layer, known as Precambrian, there are almost no fossils, and then suddenly there are many fossils of various shelled creatures. They go from none to many, suddenly as you look up through the rock layers.

Thirdly, when they first appear the organisms are fully functional at their first appearance. Evolution implies that creatures would gradually change over time from one form of creature to another. This would lead to their being many many creatures that never made it and died because they had something wrong with them. They perhaps were not strong or fast enough or lacked something in their body that others of their kind had. These unfortunate mutant creatures that couldn't make it are known as transitional forms or intermediates. If evolution occurred, when we look at the fossils, from the old layers to the young layers, we should see living forms that were not fully functional early which then became able to survive better later on. We should see, for instance, fish gradually changing into amphibians, amphibians gradually changing into reptiles, single-celled organisms becoming larger multicelled creatures, and so on. This is not what scientists have found.

Because of the long periods of time required by evolution for the changes to take place, there should be many of these transitional forms fossilized and available for us to find and study. This brings us to the fourth important point--that there are no fossils of living things that are real transitional forms. This point is hotly contested by many evolutionist scientists.  Some of this disagreement revolves around what exactly constitutes a transitional fossil. Also, science textbooks often have photos or drawings of creatures that are said to be transitional forms. There are certain misleading things about the way these examples are described in textbooks. Many of the top evolutionists know better than to claim there are known examples of these intermediates. But there is a strong desire to make the textbooks confidently support evolution in order to influence the values and beliefs of millions of students.

The Bible says in very clear terms that there was a world-wide Flood in the past. This event destroyed not only the life on earth, but also the earth itself, in a sense. The Great Flood caused tremendous far-reaching changes in the earth. The Bible says it occurred as a judgement on the corruption of mankind. The story of the Flood in Genesis (chapters 6-9) points out that the Creator-God is a holy God who does something about evil in the world. Most people do not expect God to do anything about evil in the world today. But God says in the Bible that he will judge the world again, when Jesus Christ returns. But God is faithful to his promises and does provide a way out for anyone who will believe. In the time of Noah, the Ark was made so large that there would have been space enough for people, if only they would have believed Noah. But there was only one door to the Ark, one way to be saved. Similarly, today, there is only one way to be saved. Jesus Christ says he is the "door."

The following quotes (taken from creationist books) show that scientists doing research on fossils agree with the above points. Keep in mind that research scientists are much more likely to be aware of these points than science teachers and most professors. David Kitts, a zoologist from the University of Oklahoma wrote "Evolution requires intermediate forms between species and paleontology does not provide them." [originally from article "Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory," in Evolution, vol. 28, Sept. 1974, p 467.] Top paleontologists who work at some of the worlds most prestigious museums and universities have made similar comments.

A prime example is Dr. Colin Paterson, Senior Paleontologist at the British Museum of Natural History in London. The following is quoted from a now famous letter Dr. Paterson wrote to creationist Luther Sunderland:
 

    "I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutiionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. . . . Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say I should at least 'show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived.' I will lay it on the line--there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument."



Colin Paterson, though one of the world's top experts on fossils and though he has studied evolution for over 20 years, has been seriously questioning it. He does still believe evolution, as far as I am aware. He has made comments shocking to other leading evolutionists. The following quote is a more recent quote of Paterson, taken from an article in the Sept. 1988 issue of Moody Monthy magazine.
 

    "For the last 18 months or so I've been kicking around non-evolutionary or even anti-evoluitonary ideas. For over 20 years I had thought I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for more than 20 years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. It's quite a shock to learn that one can be misled for so long.
    For the last few weeks I've tried putting a simple question to various people and groups: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution? Any one thing ...that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, 'I do know one thing--it ought not to be taught in high school.'"



Creation organizations exist to make up for the one-sided way origins is dealt with in public schools and in the media. Many parents are turning to Christian Schools or Home Schooling, because they believe their children should be exposed to the creation point of view as a part of their education. Active creationists have never advocated removing evolution from the public schools, but the scientific and educational establishments will do anything to prevent students from being exposed to the creation side. This is a great injustice. It is important for parents to be very conscious of what belief system their children are being exposed to through their school subjects. Fortunately, there are excellent materials available that present a more realistic view of science, history, etc., without disparaging the Judeo-Christian viewpoint.

HOW WE KNOW THE WORLD IS YOUNG
by
Wayne Spencer
The author of this manuscript has a degree in physics and is a former high school science teacher. This manuscript is written to show that the young earth position is a reasonable alternative to the standard evolutionary timetable. It is understandable that these concepts will sound strange to individuals trained in science for years, only from the evolutionary point of view. It is hoped that the reader will evaluate the arguments presented here honestly, based on their own merits and not on preconceived biases. Many people with graduate degrees in science, from around the world, have become convinced of the scientific validity of the creation position.

Probably the hottest controversy related to creation and evolution is the question of the age of the Earth and the universe. Evolutionists believe the Earth and Solar System are about 4.5 billion years old and the universe about 16 to 20 billion years old. Young Earth Creationists usually say the Earth is probably in the range of 6-10,000 years old. Though many scientifically trained people have turned from evolution to creation, the idea of a 10,000 year old Earth and universe is the hardest part of creation for many to accept. Some Christians will say, "what matters to me is the Rock of Ages, not the ages of rocks," thinking the issue to be unimportant. But the age of the Earth is a spiritual issue because, 1) evolution absolutely requires billions of years, 2) the Bible implies things are only thousands of years old, and 3) being honest with the scientific evidence points to everything being young. Although no one can really prove the Earth to be young or old, thousands of years is more reasonable or plausible than billions. And if things are only thousands of years old, there could not possibly be time for evolution.  Young-age creationists do not have answers to all the technical questions that can be asked, but I believe very significant progress has been made in coming to some answers.  Many issues related to age questions in science need more research also.
Before we look at the problems with radioactive dating techniques and evidences for things being young, let's consider what the Bible says about the age of the World. In Genesis 5 and 11 and in Luke there are genealogies tracing family lineages from Adam all the way to Jesus. Because these genealogies list the time from birth until one of the sons was born an approximate age of the earth can be calculated by adding up these ages. By comparing the Genesis information with other passages and making a few reasonable estimates it is clear that the earth must be at least 6,000 years old. Comparing genealogies in the Bible show that there are probably a few "gaps" in the genealogies where some individuals have been left out. But this could only add a few thousand years to the 6,000, at the very most.1 So, all this means that the Bible implies the earth, the solar system, and the universe are "young," probably in the range of six to ten thousand years.
This sharply disagrees with the teachings of evolution but actually does agree with the scientific evidence, if one looks at all of the facts. The word "fact," in common usage means something that is true. The word has been used in this way in reference to evolution, which is unprovable and unfalsifiable using scientific methods. In science, "fact" properly means an observation, something learned using the five senses. Creationists and Evolutionists both have their own particular biases or beliefs which affect how they interpret the facts. No theory of origins can possibly be proved by the scientific method, since origins deals with events that happened once in the past. Anything that cannot be repeated in experiments of some kind cannot be conclusively proven by the scientific method. Scientists can only do tests or calculations in the present. So, in the study of origins, we are limited scientifically to the question of how plausible or reasonable a theory is. And where a scientist's bias comes from is irrelevant to whether his view of origins is scientifically plausible. The challenge in issues of origins is to get all of the relevant information and to be willing to face the truth when one finds it. Information pointing to the earth and universe being young is too often blindly dismissed, rather than intelligently evaluated.

cont'd on page two

Page Two

Radiometric Dating
The primary thing used by evolutionists to argue for an old earth is radiometric dating. In these techniques the amounts of different radioactive atoms in a rock or other objects are measured precisely. In radioactivity an unstable atom gives off particles and radiation as it changes from one element to another. From the amounts of the different radioactive atoms present and from the rate one atom changes to another the age of the sample can be calculated. This has been applied to organic material such as wood in Carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14, however, can only be used to measure thousands of years. Other radioactive elements are used to attempt to measure longer times, such as Uranium/Lead, Potassium/Argon and Rubidium/Strontium dating.2
Although scientists are very good at the calculations and at accurately measuring the amounts of the different atoms, these techniques are based on very questionable assumptions and yield unreliable results. Evolutionists assume first that the decay rate of one atom changing to another is known and has never been different than it is today. This seems to be a fairly good assumption, although scientists have been able to alter radioactive decay rates in the laboratory by about three or four percent. Secondly, evolutionists tend to assume that no radioactive atoms have been taken away or added to by other means; that the sample has been a "closed system" since it formed. This is a very bad assumption since various natural processes can interfere with the process and make the calculated ages too large. An example would be rain washing Uranium out of rocks, making the rock appear older than it really is.
The third assumption of radiometric dating is of scientists assuming what amounts of the different radioactive atoms were present when the rock formed. The conditions at the beginning must be put into the calculations somehow. At this point it is very easy for evolutionists to use numbers which conveniently fit old earth thinking, regardless of whether they fit the facts. This assumption regarding the initial amounts is a bad one since there simply were no scientists there in the beginning to measure the initial conditions. So, there is no way to really know how much was there in the beginning or when the rock formed.2
These are general problems in the assumptions of radiometric dating techniques. There are sometimes other problems peculiar to each method. The Rubidium/Strontium "isochron" method is a case desearving special comments, to be given shortly. Some scientists who have worked in the radiometric dating laboratories have reportedly quit their jobs because of the dishonest ways that the work is done. Sometimes, these methods yield absurd results and different radiometric methods may not agree with each other:
"Radiocarbon analysis of specimens obtained from
mummified seals in southern Victoria Land has yielded
ages ranging from 615 to 4,600 years. . . . A seal freshly
killed at McMurdo had an apparent age of 1,300 years."
Dort, Wakefield Jr., 'Mummified seals of southern Victoria
Land,' Antarctic Journal (Washington), vol. 6, Sept.-Oct.
1971, p211. [taken from The Revised Quote Book]
"It is obvious that radiometric techniques may not be the
absolute dating methods that they are claimed to be. Age
estimates on a given geological stratum by different radio-
metric methods are often quite different (sometimes by
hundreds of millions of years)."
Stansfield, William D., The Science of Evolution, Macmillan,
1977, pp 82, 84. [taken from The Revised Quote Book]
"Such enthusiasts continue to claim, incredible though it
may seem, that 'no gross discrepancies are apparent.'
Surely 15,000 years of difference on a single block of soil
is indeed a gross discrepancy! . . . 'Absolute' dates deter-
mined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely
helpful in bolstering weak arguments. . . . No matter how
'useful' it is, though, the radiocarbon method is still not
capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are
gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative,
and the accepted dates are actually selected dates."
Lee, Robert E., Radiocarbon: Ages in Error, Anthropological
Journal of Canada, vol. 19, no. 3, 1981, pp 9-29. Also reprinted
in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, vol. 19, no. 2, Sept.
1982, pp 123, 125. [taken from The Quote Book]



The so-called "isochron" technique is a method used in radiometric dating to avoid some of the potential problems. The isochron method uses multiple samples and uses straight line graphs to obtain the age of the material in question. Isochron dating is only used, however, on volcanic rock. As such, the method involves certain assumptions about the molten rock in the earth's mantle. The rubidium/strontium (Rb/Sr) method depends on measurements of the ratio of the amount of Strontium-87 to the amount of Strontium-86. In an article in Science, Sept. 17, 1976 (vol.193, p 1086) C. Brooks, D. E. James, and S. R. Hart explain how concentrations of these radioactive elements in the mantle can cause Rb/Sr dates to be much too large. There the authors construct graphs called "pseudoisochrons," which should have slopes of zero, according to the standard assumptions of the method. But the slopes were not zero, indicating what the authors call "excess" ages. The authors give examples of cases where the excess time is from 70 million to 3 billion years.
Dr. Steven A. Austin at the Institute for Creation Research has done original research dating samples of basalt rock from the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon contains two formations of rock which formed from lava flows-the Cardenas Basalt, among the lowest layers of the canyon, and the basalts of the Uinkaret Plateau. The basalts at the Uinkaret Plateau are known to be much more recent than the Cardenas basalts since they poured over the rim of the canyon some time after the canyon formed. Dr. Austin has sent several whole-rock samples to three different laboratories to be dated. The results show certain assumptions of the Rubidium/Strontium technique to be demonstrably in error since the younger lava flows of the Uinkaret Plateau calculate to be older than the accepted age figure for the lower Cardenas basalts.3 Other problems could be mentioned and more quotes from the scientific liturature cited to demonstrate the problems with radiometric dating.
Creationists are working on developing techniques to correct some of these age calculations using better assumptions. Dr. Gerald Aardsma of the Institute for Creation Research was a specialist in the radiocarbon dating technique. Dr. Aardsma wrote a technical paper explaining his effort to relate radiocarbon dates to tree-ring chronologies, which are said to show the validity of the radiocarbon method. His paper shows the difficulties with the tree-ring chronologies and that carbon dating work could actually be evidence for the earth being less than 20,000 years in age.
The point is, radiometric dating is not reliable and there is a need for other methods. Creationists have found literally dozens of totally unrelated things in nature which show that the earth and universe cannot be billions or millions of years old. The strength of the evidence for a young earth and universe lies in the fact that there are so many unrelated phenomena pointing to the same conclusion. The oldest living things are Bristlecone Pine trees; one of these in eastern Nevada is about 4,900 years old.11 There is no reason these trees could not live longer than that.  This must indicate the time since the Great Noahic Flood. Following are brief descriptions of some of the best evidences that the world is young, just as the Bible implies.

cont'd on page three

Page Three

Helium Escape
This is based on research done by Dr. Larry Vardiman at the Institute of Creation Research in California.4 Detailed explanation may be found in the technical monograph The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere, which includes documentation from the standard scientific literature. Helium is a light gas that gives evidence too heavy for the evolutionists to explain away. The problem is that evolutionists cannot figure out why there is not more Helium in the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists have determined that Helium comes out of the ground and it escapes into space, but it comes out of the Earth much faster than it escapes into space. At the present rates, it would take only 2 million years for the amount of Helium in the atmosphere to get there if it all came out of the Earth. But it would take 70 million years for the Helium there now to escape into space, so there should be about 2,000 times as much Helium in the air now if the Earth were over four billion years old.
This means the Earth must be less than 2 million years old, and could be even much younger than that. This is based on studies of Helium-4, a form of Helium that comes from radioactive decay. Evolutionists assume that almost all the Helium-4 in our atmosphere has come from radioactive decay, that none of it was there in the beginning when the Earth formed. Because of discoveries of Helium coming from the mantle it seems better to assume that nearly all the Helium in the atmosphere has been there since the beginning. And so the reason there is not more Helium in the atmosphere is that there has not been much time for extra Helium to get there from out of the Earth.
Changes in the Earth's Magnetic Field
This may be the strongest argument for the Earth being young. It may also have implications for the planets. This is original work from a practicing physicist, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys; he says the Earth must be less than 9,000 years old based on how the Earth's magnetic field has lost energy since creation.5 The Earth is an electromagnet; electrical currents in the Earth's liquid iron core produce a field with a North and South pole like the Earth has today. Evolutionists have believed for years that the Earth's magnet has reversed polarity many times throughout the supposed 4.6 billion years of Earth history. This means the North pole would become the South pole and vice versa. Evolutionists think of the Earth as a kind of generator, called a dynamo, continually generating magnetic energy as it maintains itself for billions of years through cycles of reversals.
Dr. Humphreys has shown that there have been magnetic reversals, but they happened very rapidly during the year of Noah's Flood, not over billions of years. The evidence for reversals is from measuring magnetized minerals in volcanic rock at many locations around the earth.6 When lava containing iron cools below a certain temperature called the Curie Point, it will become permanently magnetic due to the Earth's field. Scientists find that in places around the Earth the magnetism of rocks will be in strips or zones pointing in different directions. Dr. Humphreys theories seem to explain these facts very well; other researchers, not creationists, found evidence of a magnetic reversal that only took two weeks, just as Humphreys theories required.7
Dr. Humphreys has proposed a model for magnetic fields of planets unlike the evolutionary dynamo model. Humphreys used his model to correctly predict the strengths of the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune before the Voyager spacecraft measured them.7 This is a prime example of an area where a creationist approach explains the facts better than an evolutionist approach. Humphreys suggests that the Earth's field was much stronger at Creation and has lost energy since that time, probably losing most of its energy during the violent upheavals of Noah's Flood.5
Star Clusters and Galaxies
Stars exist in organized groupings. Small groups of stars are called clusters while large groups of millions or billions of stars are called galaxies. Our galaxy is the Milky Way and is estimated to contain about 100 billion stars. Some clusters do not have their stars close enough together for them to be held together by gravity, and so the stars in the cluster are drifting apart. There are other effects which tend to break up galaxies and clusters over time as well. If the universe were 16-20 billion years old as the Big Bangers say, some star clusters should have broken up a long time ago. Scientists have estimated that some clusters could not last more than 100 million years, others may last only 10,000 years.9 Galaxies with spiral shapes have a "lifetime" because the spiral arms slowly wrap up into a circle as the galaxy rotates. It has been estimated that some spiral galaxie's arms would be destroyed in 200 million years or less.9 But there are many spiral galaxies that still exist. So, the universe could be young. The author and other creationists are currently studying other processes in space which point to youth rather than billions of years.
Rapid Formation of Rock Strata
The May 18, 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens had great significance for geology. It demonstrated how rapidly geological forces can work in catastrophic conditions. Creationist geologists have studied the area surrounding Mt. St. Helens for several years and have learned some very interesting lessons. These lessons include 1) rapidly formed stratification, 2) rapid erosion, 3) upright deposited logs, and 4)coal and coal-precursor formation.
During and after the eruption, layers of debri formed up to 600 feet in thickness, much of this has now become rock. The initial blast, ash falling out of the air, and mud flows were some of the means of the strata being deposited. Pyroclastic flows of fine ash pumice formed laminated beds from one millimeter in thickness to up to more than one meter each. Finely laminated layers such as this would normally be interpreted as representing many years, with each fine layer corresponding to perhaps one year, for instance. But at Mt. St. Helens these deposits formed in seconds to several minutes! Certain deposits, 25 to 200 feet thick, contain many fine laminae, and yet it is known that they formed in less than one day. Material was naturally sorted into layers quickly and straight vertical cliffs hardened to rock in a surprisingly short time.
A variety of processes produced pits, gullies, and other formations for some years after the eruption. The erosion accom-plished a great deal of "geological work" in surprisingly short times. In many cases features were formed rapidly that resemble those of other locations far removed from the Washington area. On March 19, 1982 a canyon system was eroded that has been described as a one-fortieth scale model of the Grand Canyon. This canyon at Mt. St. Helens is up to about 140 feet deep.
Other observations at Mt. St. Helens have shed light on the formation of so-called "petrified forests," and on coal formation. Logs from the forest surrounding Spirit Lake in the area formed a huge log mat on the lake. In time the logs were found to float upright and then later sink vertically into the soft ash, mud, and organic matter on the bottom of the lake. If the lake water were gone and the sediment on the bottom hardened to rock, the area could be easily called a "petrified forest." These "forests" are normally understood to be from forest trees of several generations being buried in place or fossilizing over long periods of time.
Bark and other organic material from these many trees has formed layers of what is very similar to coal. Scientists from the Institute for Creation Research have said that actual coal has been found at Mt. St. Helens in small quantities. This shows that coal formation has nothing to do with so-called peat swamps, but is actually related to floating vegetation mats and volcanism. In fact, coal has been formed from plant material in days or weeks in the laboratory using minerals commonly found in volcanic ash. Another creationist geologist, John MacKay, has travelled around the world studying coal seams. He has found that volcanic ash and coal are found together and large volcanoes, or extinct ones, are often found near large coal seams. MacKay has photographic evidence of this that is quite shocking and perplexing to geologists.
This research from Mt. St. Helens demonstrates the effectiveness of catastrophic flood-related processes in forming geologic features quickly.10 Creationists are making excellent progress in other topics in geology, such as on the question of "ice ages" and glacial varved sediment deposits. It is not that earth's features cannot be explained in terms of them being young. Rather, some of the facts are not being told in evolution-based textbooks and scientists are not trained to interpret things from non-evolutionary perspectives.

cont'd on page four

Page Four

Conclusion
There are many other arguments for a young Earth, solar system, and universe which imply that God created all things less than about 10,000 years ago and that God sent a world-wide Flood about 4,000-5,000 years ago. Interpreting the data in terms of things being young sometimes greatly simplifies the process of explaining how the various features of the earth and universe formed. As time goes on creationists keep discovering more and more processes which show that the world is young. In April of 1978 there was a conference of scientists addressing the age of the universe and the earth. The following quote is by John A. Eddy who at that time worked at the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado. The quote mentions a date by Bishop Ussher. Ussher was the archbishop of Armaugh in Ireland in the 17th century. He published a date for God's creation of 4004 B.C., a date even few creationists completely accept today.
"There is no evidence based solely on solar observations,
Eddy stated, that the Sun is 4.5-5 X 109 years old. 'I
suspect,' he said 'that the Sun is 4.5 billion years old.
However, given some new and unexpected results to the
contrary, and some time for frantic recalculation and theo-
retical readjustment, I suspect that we could live with
Bishop Ussher's value for the age of the Earth and Sun. I
don't think we have much in the way of observational evidence
in astronomy to conflict with that.' "
Kazmann, Raphael G., "It's About Time: 4.5 Billion Years,"
Geotimes, September 1978, p 18.
 
HOW WE KNOW THE WORLD IS YOUNG
Endnotes
1. Morris, Henry, The Genesis Record, El Cajon, California: Master Books, 1976, pp. 281-2 and 308-310.
2. Slusher, Harold S., Critique of Radiometric Dating, (Technical Monograph #2), El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research (ICR), 1973.
3. Austin, Steven A., see ICR Impact Articles numbers 178 and 224, April 1988 and February 1992, available for $.10 each from ICR, P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021.
4. Vardiman, Larry, The Age of the Earth's Atmosphere, El Cajon, CA: ICR, 1990.
5. Humphreys, D. R., "Physical Mechanism for Reversals of Earth's Magnetic Field During the Flood," PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CREATIONISM, Vol. 2, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991, pp. 129-142.
6. Humphreys, Dr. R., "Has the Earth's Magnetic Field Ever Flipped?", CREATION RESEARCH SOCIETY QUARTERLY (CRSQ), Vol. 25, NO. 3, Dec. 1988, pp. 130-137.
7. Humphreys, D. R., "Good News from Neptune: the Voyager II Magnetic Measurements," CRSQ, Vol. 27, No. 1, June 1990; Also, less technical summary found in Impact Article #203, from ICR, May, 1990; also see March 1990 CRSQ (Vol 26, No. 4) for evidence of a two week reversal, pp. 132-3.
8. Slusher, Harold S., Age of the Cosmos, El Cajon, CA: ICR, 1980, p. 45. See also "The Lifetime and Renewal of Comets," in PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CREATIONISM, Vol. 2, by William E. Stillman, pp 267-278.
9. Ibid. pp. 15-16.
10. Austin, Steven A., See I.C.R. Impact Article No. 157 for a brief summary, or for a better study of the issue see the video by Steve Austin on Mt. St. Helens, available from I.C.R. or available on loan from the Mid-Kansas Bible-Science Assoc. lending library in Wichita, Kansas, phone # (316) 683-3610, or write to BSA, 1429 N. Holyoke, Wichita, Kansas 67208. For John MacKay's coal research see the video "An Evening at Oxford," a film of Mr. MacKay speaking to the geology dept. at Oxford University; or, write to CREATION RESEARCH, P.O. Box 281, Hartsville, TN 37074
11. Wysong, R. L., Creation-Evolution: the Controversy, Midland, Michigan: Inquiry Press, 1976, pp. 164-165.

Frozen Mammoths - What Really Happened?


Wayne Spencer

In March of 2001 the Discovery televison channel aired two programs called Raising the Mammoth and Land of the Mammoth. These very interesting programs tell about the discovery and excavation of the remains of a particular mammoth in Siberia, discovered a few years ago. It's been called the Jarkov Mammoth. Scientists removed a large block of frozen ground with the mammoth remains inside it and took it away for study. The frozen ground of Siberia has been known for many years to contain mammoth remains. Estimates of the number of buried mammoths is in the millions. Fisherman working in the Black Sea North of Siberia also have found many mammoth bones or tusks or other remains while fishing. There has been a thriving ivory trade in Siberia for years from the mammoth tusks. The ground of Siberia is frozen much of the year, when it is not frozen it is soft and sometimes very wet and boggy. The wet mixture of clay, silt, mud, and water is known as "tundra."

Creationists have written about the frozen mammoths for years. Unfortunately sometimes creationists have spread some unreliable information and have not collected adequate facts on this subject. An influential book by a creationist once said that the mammoths must have been quick frozen at extremely cold temperatures like 100 to 150 degrees below zero. Various ideas have also been put forward to connect this rapid freezing to Noah's Flood. These authors usually have argued that the mammoths were living in the preflood world and when the Flood began, somehow events occurred that froze and buried the animals. There are several problems with this creationist scenario.

Recently, in the Technical Journal, published by Answers in Genesis, there is an excellent new paper on the mammoths. It is written by Mr. Michael Oard, a meteorologist. There are a number of mysteries to this day about these mammoths. Neither creationists nor evolutionists have all the answers. But, by the evolutionary view of Earth history, there have been a number of ice ages and so evolutionists would say the mammoths lived during one of these ice ages. There are a number of problems with the evolutionist view of ice ages, although there is evidence that something like an ice age occurred. Most creationists with degrees in the sciences believe there was one ice age after Noah's Flood, lasting several hundred years. In fact, Noah's Flood helps explain why there would be an ice age in the first place, something evolutionary geology has trouble with.

The mammoths found in Siberia and Alaska would have lived after Noah's Flood, they are not from the preflood world. The remains are found generally in various unconsolidated (not hardened to rock) layers that lie on top of hundreds of meters of sedimentary rock that seem to clearly be from the Flood. Mammoths could have multiplied to huge numbers in the post-Flood years. Mammoths required lots of vegetation to eat and they would have lived in grassland areas. Mammoths would not have lived in extremely cold arctic regions. We know this because we know they did not have fur like arctic animals, they had hair. There have been a few carcasses of mammoths that still had hair on them, including the Jarkov mammoth shown on the Discovery channel. We also know they ate flowers and other plants that would not grow in an arctic environment.

When the glaciers of the ice age melted back it would have left the areas where mammoths lived very wet. Somehow a great deal of clay mud and silt was washed into Northern Siberia and Alaska. To this day scientists aren't sure where all the mud came from. Wind blown dust storms and volcanic eruptions could be possibilities. The glaciers would have left sedimentary deposits themselves also. The large amounts of mud, silt, and water would have made it impossible for many of the grasses and plants that mammoths ate to survive. The climate would have changed also as the glaciers melted back. The areas that were once beautiful grasslands that supported all kinds of large animals including large cats, mammoths, and even the wooly rhinocerous, turned into a cold frozen wasteland where almost nothing would grow. Then the mammoths had trouble finding food and they often got trapped in deep mud. They would get into ponds and rivers to eat the plants living in the water and then get trapped in the mud. Some were buried quickly and then frozen. A few well known specimens of mammoth remains were relatively well preserved. But even the most well preserved known were not in "normal" condition. Many have been partially eaten and were found with broken bones. The skeleton's of most are scattered over some area. Some clearly got themselves trapped in some way and others were overtaken by some catastrophic mud flow or storm perhaps.

The mammoths are testimony to the dramatic changes the Earth went through after Noah's Flood. There were difficult times for animals and humans living in that period. People lived in Siberia and Alaska where the mammoths lived and hunting or trapping the mammoths in many ways helped these people to survive. Many animals were saved on Noah's Ark from the Flood itself, only to go extinct in the Post-Flood years due to the changes in the Earth caused by the Flood.
 

Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding
the Genesis Flood
Wayne R. Spencer

Much research has taken place in recent years by both geologists and astronomers regarding
impacts on Earth. This research has been motivated by the search for evidence to substantiate
the hypothesis that an impact of a 10 Km diameter object 65 million years ago caused the
extinction of the dinosaurs. Creationists have generally considered Noah’s Flood and its
aftermath an adequate explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs, but this does not address
the physical evidence of impacts on Earth. This paper points out the geological and physical
evidence of impacts and treats Earth impacts as an aspect of God’s judgement during the worldwide
Flood event. It is suggested that impacts began with the onset of the Flood and continued
during and after the Flood year. Solar system evidence suggests a catastrophic event which
caused a heavy influx of dust and meteorites in a short time. A companion paper “Geophysical
Effects of Impacts During the Genesis Flood” addresses climatic and other effects from an impact
bombardment event and suggests that such an event would be survivable for Noah in the Ark.

There has been great interest in the issue of Earth impacts in recent years among geologists,
astronomers, and even the public. Near Earth asteroids are being studied in order to assess the
hazard to Earth. The Alvarez hypothesis, that an impact near the Yucatan Peninsula led to the
extinction of the dinosaurs, has been accepted in many scientific circles. Yet, little has been done
by creationist scientists to address the issue of impacts from a young Earth point of view. In the
past ten years, much has been learned about Earth impacts and how to identify them on Earth.
The evidence of Earth impacts is quite strong for some sites and questionable for others. Much
research has been done related to the hypothesis of Louis and Walter Alvarez, and others that
a ten Km object struck the Earth at the time corresponding to the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary,
subsequently causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and other species. Some geologists oppose
the Alvarez hypothesis and suggest that dinosaur extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous period
were caused by volcanic phenomena rather than by impacts. Creationists have acknowledged
that impacts have occurred. However, Creationists emphasize the Genesis world-wide Flood and
its after effects in explaining extinctions such as of the dinosaurs.
The reasons for this paper and the companion paper on geophysical effects are several. First,
there is a need to explain why the Earth differs from other objects in the inner solar system in
2
having relatively few craters. Secondly, it is important to clarify what constitutes evidence of
impacts. It appears today that the primary indicator of the Cretaceous/Tertiary impact suggested
by the Alvarez team in 1980 is not a clear indicator of impacts at all, namely high concentrations
of iridium and other metals at the K/T boundary. Since the publication of the Alvarez paper in
1980 research has identified better indicators of impact in the mineralogical characteristics of
shock metamorphic minerals. Better techniques for identifying craters and crater-remnants
(astroblemes) on Earth clearly show that craters occur throughout the Geologic Column. Craters
are much more numerous on other solar system bodies than on Earth. Creationists have given
much attention in recent years to refining models of the Noahic Flood. Impacts from space are
powerful events that creationist Earth scientists cannot afford to ignore in developing Flood
models. This paper will argue that a significant impact bombardment episode occurred
surrounding the Noahic Flood. The Flood and post-Flood catastrophes could have wiped out
evidence for many of these impacts. A period of heavy bombardment surrounding the Flood
acknowledges the valid objections some scientists have raised about the impact-dinosaur
extinction hypothesis and also has potential for explaining cratering evidence on Earth and in the
inner solar system.
After briefly addressing the Alvarez hypothesis, some Biblical considerations will look at Earth
impacts as an aspect of God’s judgement during the Flood. The criteria for identifying Earth
impact sites will be examined and related to common arguments for the Alvarez model from
iridium abundances at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary. Examples of a few crater
remnants and other impact evidence will be summarized for various locations on Earth. Then
evidence will be examined for a catastrophic event in the solar system, from the asteroids, cosmic
dust, and cratering in the inner solar system. The second paper “Geophysical Effects of Impacts
During the Genesis Flood” will argue that one large impact would be insufficient for causing global
extinctions and that Noah and his family could survive a significant bombardment event during
the Flood.
The Impact-Extinction Hypothesis
To Evolutionists, the extinction of the dinosaurs (and other species) has been problematic to
explain. The Alvarez Hypothesis suggests that one impact event, the collision of a 10 Km
diameter asteroid with Earth at around 65 million years ago, caused atmospheric and geologic
effects that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Many evolutionists would consider this impact
to mark the end of the Mesozoic era, often called the age of dinosaurs. It is further suggested
that a site just off the coast of Yucatan, the Chicxulub site, is the site of this impact. Many studies
have been done of the effects of a 10 Km diameter object in order to attempt to argue for the
impact-extinction mechanism. The Alvarez hypothesis, first published in 1980 [3], has enjoyed
widespread but not universal acceptance by the scientific community in general. This 1980 paper
by Alvarez argues for impact ejecta and dust being distributed world-wide by this impact, based
primarily on anomalously high concentrations of iridium and other metals found in a clay layer
found at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary. The Alvarez team have always suggested a surface
impact caused the extinctions because that type of impact ejects much greater quantities of dust
into the atmosphere than is the case for a meteor or comet exploding in the atmosphere. The
Alvarez paper of 1980 suggests that the ejecta put into the atmosphere from pulverized surface
rock would amount to about 60 times the mass of the impacting object [3]. Before the discovery
of Chicxulub, the Alvarez team suggested that multiple impacts near the K/T boundary could have
3
been the sources of the iridium. Several criticisms have been put forward against the impactextinction
hypothesis, none of which are arguments originating from creationists [29]. (A very
excellent review of the dinosaur extinction issue from a creation perspective is found in Oard
[28].)



 cont'd on page two

First of all it is impossible to determine, assuming the accepted dating techniques and the
evolutionary geologic column, whether an impact coincides with extinctions. Extinctions are
identified in time by the relationships between the fossils and the rock strata, assuming evolution.
It has been said that the extinctions at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary actually were significant
processes which required long periods of time:
Accumulating paleontologic evidence suggests, however, that many of the
extinctions at the end of Cretaceous time were not sudden, sharply defined
events, but were continuous over a period of several million years [33, p. 455].
Though many small impacts from space go essentially unnoticed by most people, large impacts
are relevant to questions about extinctions. A large impact is an event which is brief but very
intense, much more brief than any extinction in the evolutionary view of Earth history. In the
Alvarez paper of 1980, the authors point out clearly that they assumed the time for impact ejecta
to remain aloft in the atmosphere would be similar to the time frame for ejecta from volcanic
eruptions. Research since 1980 has shown this is very likely incorrect [44]. The severe effects
of one large impact cannot last more than several months, yet the claim is made that the
Chicxulub impact coincided with extinctions. It is actually a pure assumption that the two events
coincided in time closely enough to be related. If the extinctions near the Cretaceous/Tertiary
boundary were caused by one impact, why would the extinctions be stretched out over such a
long period of time? Because of the short term nature of the effects of impacts and new
challenges to the idea that one impact could cause global extinctions, in recent years some
geologists have suggested there were multiple impacts near the K/T boundary [19, p. 671],[4, pp.
48-9]. There are several known impact structures near the K/T boundary other than the Chicxulub
structure. The possibility of bolides has also been put forward. A bolide is an object that
explodes in the atmosphere. In such events most of the energy of the impactor goes into the
atmosphere rather than into affecting surface rock. A bolide, however, would only generate a
very small quantity of dust ejecta compared to a surface impact. Therefore a bolide alone could
not cause the extinctions in question.
Before the Chicxulub site was discovered and put forward as an impact site, the primary evidence
for the Alvarez hypothesis was the abundance of the metal iridium and other metals in a layer of
clay which is located at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary. This clay layer was first studied
for its iridium anomaly near Gubbio, Italy in 1978 [4, p. 34]. This layer is about one centimeter
in thickness and lies between Cretaceous and Tertiary limestones. A similar layer of clay has
been found at a number of other sites around the world which also possess an unusually large
concentration of iridium (abundance peaks at about 9 parts per billion) [4, p. 35]. Because iridium
and platinum are more abundant in meteoritic material than in the Earth’s crust, it is argued that
the iridium must come from an impact or impacts.
Some geologists have objected to impact extinction suggesting rather that the iridium abundance
at the K/T boundary came from volcanic eruptions [29]. This has also been suggested by
4 creationists, such as Oard [27, p. 12]. It has been pointed out that some of the metallic
abundances at the K/T boundary, such as arsenic and antimony, do not match meteoritic material
but are more like mantle material [30, p. 1163-4]. It has also been pointed out that material from
volcanic eruptions in recent times have been found to be highly enriched in iridium, such as at
Kilauea [30, p. 1163]. These and other chemical and isotopic analyses of the K/T boundary clay
frequently do not point clearly to either meteoritic or mantle origin, but could be consistent with
either source. Several researchers have found that deep sea sediments are frequently enriched
in iridium compared to crustal sediments [33, p. 458], [ 30, p. 1162]. This could imply that the
iridium could come from both impact and volcanic sources. Large impacts may also stimulate
volcanism in some cases [7]. Various sedimentary and chemical processes could serve to
concentrate iridium and certain other platinum group elements [33, p. 458]. All of this leads to
the conclusion that the iridium abundances alone are insufficient as indicators of impacts,
therefore in this paper iridium abundance will not be considered a reliable indicator of impact,
since it can accompany both impacts and volcanism.
Recent research related to the Alvarez hypothesis leads to doubts about the adequacy of one
impact to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. First of all the extinction must be selective, but
impacts are deadly in a manner that would not discriminate between dinosaurs and birds, or
mammals. A recent report in Science expressed doubts about the asteroid extinction
mechanisms:


cont'd on page three

Page Three

Ironically, as more scientists satisfy themselves that an impact did occur, other
researchers have begun raising tough questions about whether that impact
packed enough punch to make the dinosaurs disappear [25, p. 1518].
The impact extinction model relies on atmospheric effects, primarily darkness and cold, to cause
extinctions. Other effects such as wildfires and acid rain have also been mentioned in impact
extinction models. The selective nature of the K/T extinctions is a major difficulty for the idea that
extinctions were caused by one impact. Though some scientists have suggested multiple impacts
could cause extinctions, only a handful of known impact structures are found near the K/T
boundary. Chicxulub is far larger than any of the others. The other known sites at the K/T
boundary would be limited in their global climatic effects [19], [18].
The above considerations are just a brief look at the Alvarez hypothesis, but the after effects of
the Noahic Flood from post-Flood catastrophes and environmental changes provides a very
adequate explanation of the extinction of the dinosaurs. Post-Flood volcanism was apparently
a major factor. To suggest that one impact could cause dinosaur extinctions globally seems
unreasonable. In my opinion, the Chicxulub structure, which may or may not be an impact, is not
necessarily related to the end of the Mesozoic era, except possibly in a local sense. This paper
will address the issue of Earth impacts in the context of the world-wide Flood. The larger impacts
are of more interest since smaller impacts would not have global effects lasting months. Impacts
causing global effects would correspond to surface craters at least 15 to 20 Km diameter or
impactor objects in the range of 1 to 5 Km diameter and larger. DeYoung and Froede [12, pp. 23,
30], Aldaney [2, pp. 11-12], [1, pp. 133-136], and Parks [31, pp. 144-146] have all suggested that
impacts accompanied and perhaps even triggered the Flood in some way. These papers have
validity, but some aspects of observational evidence and impact physics are addressed very little
in them. The paper by Froede and DeYoung is a very valuable paper which I agree with in many
5
respects. However, Froede and DeYoung do not discuss why shock metamorphism is evidence
of impact. Also, the Froede and DeYoung paper, though it includes a graph with impacts showing
impactor diameter versus time, no information is given regarding what observational evidence
indicates these points represent impacts. Froede and DeYoung’s graph also shows an
exponential decrease in crater diameter with uniformitarian time. At least some of this decrease
in size could be due to larger craters being more easily preserved through erosion processes.
Parks [31] and Froede and DeYoung [12] have suggested a planet in the asteroid region
exploded to cause much cratering in the inner solar system.
Because impact sites have been found in Flood sediment strata, impacts must have occurred
surrounding the Flood. It is not impossible that some impacts could have occurred during the
time between the Creation and the Flood, but I would assume these to be very few if any. If an
impact bombardment episode began with the onset of the Flood, impacts should be found from
in Precambrian rock up through the geologic column, as they are. This is not necessarily meant
to imply that all Precambrian rock is necessarily pre-Flood rock, that must be evaluated for each
site in question. Also, Precambrian craters known on Earth are relatively few, though they are
of significant size. There is also some evidence suggesting what may be impact ejecta in rock
considered about 3.4 billion years in age by uniformitarian assumptions [23], [22]. These authors
argue for microspherules in South Africa being of impact origin primarily on the basis of the
similarities of their composition to Carbonaceous Chondrite meteorites. I believe theological
considerations tend to imply that as part of God’s judgement, the impacts would begin with the
onset of the Flood. Froede and DeYoung also suggest this [12]. This seems consistent with the
evidence though it may not be the only possibility. My purpose here is primarily to argue that
such an event occurred, not give a detailed model of how it took place.
All the inner planets have an abundance of craters, though Venus has relatively fewer since it has
a young surface, resurfaced by volcanism. What if Earth received a number of impacts similar
to that of the Moon and Mars? The distribution of the sizes of Earth impact structures shows a
power law relationship similar to that for Mars and our Moon. The Moon, Earth, and Mars all
show a relationship in which the cumulative total number of impacts is proportional to
approximately the square of the diameter of the crater [20, p. 233]. This suggests Earth was
struck by the same population of objects that bombarded the Moon and Mars. I would suggest
tentatively that the total number of impacts would be on the order of 10 to 20 thousand for Earth,
with impacts producing global effects being in the range of 40 to 100 [37]. This is only a very
rough figure. Only an event of the magnitude of the world-wide Flood of Genesis could be able
to wipe out evidence of so many impacts on Earth. Michael Oard summarized well the logic of
an impact event surrounding the Flood:

Impact craters are common on the inner planets and our moon, which implies that
the earth probably was bombarded at some time in the past. We find very few
impact craters on the surface of the earth, indicating that catastrophic
meteorite bombardment would have occurred either before the Flood or during the
Flood. If the pre-Flood earth was a time of climatic and geographic stability, it is
doubtful that the meteorite bombardment was before the Flood. The only
possibility left is that the event occurred during the Genesis Flood [27, p. 12].
6

cont'd on page four

Page Four

Biblical Considerations
An impact bombardment event during or surrounding the Genesis Flood can be considered an
aspect of God’s judgement. This seems consistent with end times events described in prophetic
passages. It is obvious that impacts are not mentioned in the Bible in relation to the Flood. But
it apparently was not God’s purpose for Scripture to reveal to us all the mechanics of how the
Flood took place. The absence of mention of impacts in Genesis does not rule out the possibility
that they occurred. However, the effects of an impact bombardment event need to be considered
very carefully in relation to the sequence of events in the Flood account [37]. This paper will look
briefly at how the Bible seems to allow for an impact bombardment event of some kind, as long
as it does not conflict with specifics of the Genesis Flood account.
It is important to clarify at this point that Scripture must be given preeminence in authority over
scientific models. If a scientific model seems well supported and very plausible it is still out of the
question if it clearly conflicts with the Bible. Many scientists have made the mistake of allowing
their view of science to determine how Scripture is interpreted. This is a serious mistake.
Science can clarify the nature of certain events the Bible describes, but science cannot determine
how Scripture is to be interpreted. So, Scripture must not be distorted in order to assemble a
scientific model. On the other hand, there is a need to think creatively in order to allow the
creationist view of science to be refined. The relationship between biblical and scientific
considerations has been clarified very well by Reed and Froede [34].
The Bible seems to mention impacts during certain end times judgement events, especially in
Revelation chapters 8 and 9. Revelation 8:8 says “something like a huge mountain, all ablaze,
was thrown into the sea (NIV).” It goes on to state, “a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the
sky on a third of the rivers...the name of the star is Wormwood (Revelation 8:10-11).” Revelation
9:1 also mentions a star falling from the sky, which could possibly refer to an impact which may
be accompanied by both natural and supernatural effects. In Matthew 24:29 Christ refers to
passages in Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 34 which say that the Sun and Moon will be darkened and that
“the stars will fall from the sky.” Ezekiel 32:7-8 also says, “I will cover the Sun with a cloud, and
the moon will not give its light.” Though we cannot be sure, it seems plausible that these verses
could refer to a solar system catastrophe in the future that causes objects to collide with Earth.
These events in Revelation are not purely natural events in a sense because they are
miraculously timed to take place according to God’s specific judgement timetable. If these are
descriptions of impacts, they are impacts that have been deliberately arranged to carry out God’s
purposes of judgement. The impacts that seem to be described in Revelation 8 are only one
relatively small aspect of the entire complex of judgement events described in Revelation. In
relation to the rest of God’s judgement activity, these impacts are only a minor part of what takes
place, though they will be major catastrophes that cause many deaths and much devastation.
Like the cases mentioned in Revelation, I believe impacts during the Flood could represent
divinely arranged events, appointed to be part of His judgement on the violent world in the time
of Noah. This paper is proposing that impacts accompanied the Flood, not that they represent
a natural cause of the Flood per se. However, they could trigger some of the Flood’s processes.
In my opinion, it is not necessary or appropriate to insist on finding a natural explanation for every
aspect of the Flood.
7
Such an impact event during the Flood might be objected to on the grounds that we have no
historical accounts or legends of such an event, though there are many ancient legends of a great
Flood from different parts of the Earth. There is no compelling reason to expect that an impact
bombardment would be described in the Bible. First of all, many details of the experiences of
Noah and his family are simply not included in the Bible, so Noah could have seen things that are
not in Genesis. Further, if an impact bombardment occurred beginning with the onset of the
Flood, the witnesses of the event would all be killed. After the Flood, there were few people
present to see such events. We do not have actual descriptions of many geologic processes
associated with the Flood, though as creationists we believe in them because they are reasonable
inferences based on Scripture and science. It is appropriate to engage in this kind of “model
building,” so long as we understand that Scripture is much more certain than scientific models.
And so, it is very possible that we just do not have any descriptions of it.

cont'd on page five

Page Five

Evidence on Earth for Impacts
In approximately the past 15 years a great deal has been learned about impacts on Earth.
Craters are plentiful on our Moon and on other solar system bodies but not on Earth. Craters
have not been well preserved on Earth due to the many tectonic, sedimentary, and volcanic
processes which have destroyed or buried them. How are impacts to be identified on Earth when
craters are not often preserved? The following geological features are indicators of impacts from
extraterrestrial objects: 1) shock metamorphic minerals, 2) shatter cones, 3) crater or ring
structure in the rock strata, 4) shattered rock breccia, 5) melt glasses, 6) meteorites, 7) tektites,
8) magnetic and gravity anomalies that correspond with crater structures and fracture patterns.
The most conclusive indicator of impact is the presence of shock metamorphosed material, either
in the form of rock breccia, loose rock, or small tektite spherules. The very extreme pressures
and temperatures of an impact cause atomic rearrangement within the rock crystal structure.
Melting and instantaneous recrystallization occurs along certain planes in the crystals. The effect
produces what is known as shock lamellae, which are fracture lines forming a “V”-shape in the
rock. Impact shock causes these lines to exist in very regular crossing parallel sets. Another
effect can be observed in X-ray diffraction patterns of the crystals. Whereas a normal quartz
crystal, for instance, would exhibit clear discrete spots where the diffraction maxima occur,
shocked quartz will exhibit streaked maxima rather than clear points of light [6, p. 708]. The
lamellae lines can be seen by looking at a microscope thin section of the rock. Shock pressures
are measured in Gigapascals (GPa); one Gigapascal is equivalent to nearly ten million
atmospheres of pressure. Planar fractures and shock lamellae begin forming in quartz at a
threshold pressure of about 5 GPa. In the range of 15-40 GPa quartz is converted to the mineral
stishovite. In the range of 30 to 50 GPa, quartz and stishovite can be converted to coesite.
Glassy material can be produced from about 30 GPa and melting occurs over 40 Gpa [10, p. 122].
Volcanic explosions, in contrast, only produce pressures on the order of hundreds of
atmospheres, rather than millions [8]. Shock lamellae can also be found in rocks of volcanic
origin, but the stress lines will not exhibit such a regular intersecting parallel pattern as is the case
for impact lamellae [4, pp. 51], [17, p. 70].
The same intersecting pattern of lines like the tiny lamellae can be macroscopic in the right
conditions, in the form of shatter cones. Shatter cones are a macroscopic manifestation of shock
metamorphism. Shatter cones are conclusive evidence of impact since no other natural process
8
but impact can generate the rapidly applied high pressures necessary to form them. Striking a
shatter cone with a hammer causes the object to break into a number of smaller shatter cones,
showing that the stress on the rock forms interlacing cones throughout its interior [8, p. 53]. If the
shatter cones at a crater site were undisturbed, their points would point toward the center of the
crater.
Other indicators of impact may not be unequivocal evidence when found alone, but can argue
strongly for an impact origin if found in combination. This would apply to rock breccia, circular
or elliptical uplifted ring structures, circular fracture patterns, magnetic anomalies, and gravity
anomalies. The key question for these features is do they correspond to the kind of structure
observed in known well preserved craters. Rock breccia and possibly melt glasses form a lens
shaped structure that forms the floor of a large crater. Unusual forms of glass form in the crater
floors of large impact structures, called diaplectic glasses.
Craters are of two broad types, simple and complex. Simple craters exhibit a bowl structure, with
no central uplift. Complex craters may or may not have multiple ring structures and always have
a central uplift structure. Every crater has a primary ring and complex craters may have other
rings, which form shortly after the impact. The central uplift also forms after the impact as part
of the process of stresses being relieved after the impact. Some sites may have formed multiple
rings, possibly including Chicxulub, but on Earth the outer rings are usually not well preserved
and may be difficult to identify.
One argument for the impact origin of the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary clay is the presence of
sand-sized spherules in this layer in sites all around the world in the locations where this layer
has been studied [4, p. 42]. The size of the ejecta particles and their distance from the crater can
allow estimates of the energy of the event. Many geologists would consider it impossible for
volcanism to propel particles that large all over the world. The sizes of ejecta particles can be
an important characteristic distinguishing between an impact origin and a volcanic origin.
Volcanic explosions do not have nearly the energy of impact explosions and volcanic explosions
are not able to loft larger particles as far or as high in the atmosphere as impacts are capable of.
Ejecta of special interest are tektites and microtektites. These are very small glassy objects
(microtektites being less than 1 mm in diameter) that are found in certain areas known as strewn
fields, including in sea floor sediments. Tektites have been melted and re-solidified; they are
usually spherical, ovoid, or tear drop in shape since they solidified in air. Tektites are often found
near craters. There are tektites which could be volcanic in origin, but these objects are usually
distinguished by the presence of water or gases which are never found in impact tektites. Volatile
material has been removed from impact tektites, and there can be other compositional differences
as compared to volcanic tektites [23, pp. 960-1]. It is important that the volcanic origin be ruled
out first before confidently labeling a particular site as of impact origin.

cont'd on page six

Page Six

Earth Impacts in the Geologic Column
Recent years have brought forth a great deal of geological research into Earth impacts. Of the
eight types of indicators of impact listed above there are a significant number of sites throughout
the world where several are present. Geological literature will commonly suggest that there are
120 or more Earth impact sites [17, p. 66]. The following table (Table 1) shows that Earth impact
9
sites are found throughout the geologic column. Data for this table comes from two different
sources. The first is a list of 88 sites from Richard Grieve, published in 1982 [18, pp. 27-8]. This
list from Grieve is taken from a table of sites considered “probable impacts.” All of these sites
show evidence of shock metamorphism and Grieve ranks them in their state of preservation of
the crater structure. Some sites have been omitted from Grieve’s published list due to incomplete
information. The second is a list from O. Richard Norton, who has assembled a very conservative
list of 60 sites which are probable impact structures, published in 1994 [26, pp. 413-415]. Norton
gives some information on the type of evidence of impact for each site, generally corresponding
to the eight indicators above except that gravity and magnetic anomalies are not considered.
Norton’s list did not include the Chicxulub site in Yucatan; this site has been added to the
Mesozoic category. Eleven sites in Norton’s list lacked complete information, primarily on the
estimated age. These eleven sites were omitted, giving a total of 50 sites considered. Norton’s
list is a very small sample but it consists of points that I believe we can have a high degree of
confidence of their impact origin, with the possible exception of Chicxulub.
Geologic Column Label Evolutionary
Age (Ma)
No. of
Astrobleme
s,
Grieve-88
sites
No. of
Astroblemes
,
Norton-50
sites
Recent < 1 5 7
Upper Cenozoic 1 - 5 7 3
Lower Cenozoic 5 - 65 14 7
Mesozoic 65 - 100 11 3
Upper Paleozoic 100 - 300 27 15
Lower Paleozoic 300 - 600 20 12
Precambrian > 600 4 3
Table 1 Earth astroblemes in relation to the Geologic Column. Ages are in
millions of years before present, by evolutionary age estimates. Data from
Grieve [18] and Norton [26].
These crater data sets should only be considered small representative samples. Solar system
evidence of impacts would imply numbers of impacts on Earth of possibly ten thousand or more.
The important question is what has happened to thousands of Earth impacts? Astroblemes occur
on Earth in all types of rock. Since many impacts occur in sedimentary rock that would be
considered by creationist geologists to be deposited by the Flood, it logically follows that impacts
were occurring after these depositional events. Erosional and tectonic processes during and after
the Flood could have destroyed evidence for many impacts. Table 1 shows the largest number
of craters in the Upper Paleozoic category.
10
A few Earth impact sites and evidence of their extraterrestrial origin will now be considered,
merely as representative examples. First is the case of the Chicxulub site off the coast of
Yucatan. This site is considered the best candidate for a K/T dinosaur extinction-causing impact
because of its assumed age of 65 million years and its size being appropriate to fit the Alvarez
hypothesis. Actually, the Alvarez hypothesis does not necessarily hinge on the Chicxulub site
being of impact origin, but there is now a great weight of opinion in favor of it. The Chicxulub site
was included in Table 1 in the Norton data primarily to show that it makes no difference in the
conclusions of this paper. If the Chicxulub site were found not to be of impact origin, but of
volcanic origin as some argue, this leaves the Alvarez hypothesis without a single adequate
impact site. Without the Chicxulub site, the Alvarez team might be forced to advocate that there
were a few smaller impacts occurring around the world at the end of the cretaceous period, rather
than one as large as Chicxulub.
Actual evidence for the impact versus volcanic origin of the Chicxulub structure in Yucatan is
controversial. The Chicxulub site does not possess evidence as clear as many other impact sites
on Earth. The Mexican Oil Company Pemex sponsored much of the actual field work on the site
in the 1960's. First, there are concentric circular magnetic anomalies that match with a ring of
fault structures in the cretaceous limestone. The site is at a depth of approximately 400 meters
below the sea floor, and is a circular structure about 200 Km in diameter, about half under the
ocean and half under the continent. A boulder bed found in Cuba and another layer of material
found in Haiti have been said to be impact ejecta. There have also been core samples drilled at
around the center of the Chicxulub structure, where shocked and melted rock should be present
if it is an impact. The drill cores have been purported to contain shocked quartz, but some drill
cores have been lost and some scientists dispute the drill core evidence and claim it is of volcanic
origin. It is very possible the Chicxulub structure could be of volcanic origin. Meyerhoff, Lyons,
and Officer [24, p. 4] claim that the drill cores of the site showed lamellae that were irregular such
as volcanic or tectonic lamellae and not like the regular parallel arrangement of impact lamellae.
Also, they report that the melt sampled in the cores was not of chemically homogeneous
composition as should be the case for impact melt sheets. Meyerhoff was directly involved in the
work with the drill cores. Other considerations are from seismic and stratigraphic studies which
appear to indicate a structure fitting the complex crater type, with a central uplift. The circular
structures and magnetic anomalies are not as clear an indicator of impact as the presence of
shock minerals, so the origin of the Chicxulub structure is still an open question. From a
creationist point of view, there is no compelling motivation to treat the Chicxulub site as an impact
site, since as creationists we do not need an impact or impacts to explain the disappearance of
the dinosaurs.

cont'd on page seven

Page Seven

Another possible impact structure near the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary is found just off the
coast of Virginia in Chesapeake Bay. Some controversy has surrounded this site regarding its
origin but recent research seems to point more clearly to an impact origin [32]. The Chesapeake
Bay site would be the largest known impact structure in the United States. The site began to be
considered as impact related from studies of the breccia deposits in and around it, known as the
Exmore boulder bed. Recent U.S. Geological Survey seismic reflection studies have very likely
detected a two-ringed complex crater structure. Some important areas of the center of the
structure had not yet been drilled for core samples as of the writing of the above paper, but even
so, several clues point to impact. The central peak-ring structure is about 25 Km in diameter and
is surrounded by a 30 Km wide annular trough. The annular trough is bounded by a terraced
11
effect from concentric normal faults. Lightly shocked quartz grains and impact glass has been
found in the trough area as well. The outer rim is estimated to have been 85 Km in diameter. In
this Chesapeake bay location, Cretaceous rock overlies Paleozoic and Precambrian rock. The
impact structure cuts through 650 meters of strata, mostly Cretaceous but reaching up to upper
Eocene strata at the surface. The structure penetrates over a kilometer into basement Paleozoic
and Precambrian rocks [32, p. 692]. The Chesapeake structure is very similar in many respects
to the Ries Crater in Germany, which is somewhat smaller. One important conclusion from this
site is that the Cretaceous and Eocene strata must have been laid down before the impact. This
would imply that the impact occurred either during or after the Flood.
This paper and the second paper examine the possibility that the impact bombardment began at
the onset of the Flood, and that this triggered some of the tectonics associated with the Flood.
The possibility of a relationship between impacts and tectonics has been discussed by M. Fischer
[11]. If the bombardment episode began with the Flood, we would expect to find some evidence
of large impacts in Precambrian and Paleozoic strata. We would not expect to find large numbers
of craters of Precambrian age, due to the destructive nature of the Flood. But a number of
Precambrian astroblemes are known, mainly in Australia and Canada. Also, tektites could exist
where craters no longer exist. Following is an example indicating an Earth impact from
Precambrian strata, which I assume would be antediluvian rock or rock laid down early in the
Flood event. First, the Sudbury structure (Canada), then tektite evidence.
The Sudbury structure is found in Ontario in very extensive layers of igneous and metamorphic
rock known as the Sudbury Igneous Complex, which are over 2.5 Km in thickness. Radiometric
dates place the age of the area at 1.85 Billion years. The structure has been highly modified after
the collision by sedimentary processes. The original Sudbury crater would have been
approximately 220 Km in diameter. Evidence of impact includes shatter cones and shocked
quartz [42, p. 306]. The stratigraphy of the impact site includes very thick clast-free melt layers
which are consistent with melted material in a crater floor. There are also some layers with very
large clasts, up to 100 meters in size [42, p. 308]. During the impact event material flows outward
and then back inward as the outer rim undergoes collapse and slumping. In addition to the usual
collapse moving material inward to fill the crater floor with brecciated rock, sedimentary processes
deposited other material in the crater and eroded away some of the rim. A variety of sedimentary
and metamorphic processes are indicated after the impact by the stratigraphy of the site. These
include post-impact formation of 600 m of shales and siltstones, 850 m believed to be turbidite
deposits, hydrothermal deposits of Pb-Cu-Zn ores from waters passing through hot breccia layers
below, and one layer near the surface which is a breccia in a matrix of carbonaceous material
believed to be of organic origin. The presence of turbidite deposits implies the structure was
submerged after it formed. Characteristics of the structure would imply an initial transient cavity
diameter of 110 Km, which collapsed to about 220 Km. Initial depth of the transient cavity would
have been 28 to 37 Km. This initial cavity is estimated to have formed in about 80 seconds and
the collapse of the rim to 220 Km diameter would have taken place in about 30 minutes. The
impactor would have had a kinetic energy of approximately 8.6 X 1030 Ergs; this corresponds to
an object diameter of 10 to 15 Km and a speed of possibly 20 Km/second. The above facts imply
the possibility of a large impact immediately before the Flood or early during the event. The
crater was then modified and filled by underwater turbidity flows and other sedimentary processes
during the Flood.
12
Tektites are found mainly in four areas across the Earth, two of which are quite large, the North
American and the Australasian strewn fields. The Australasian strewn field has been said to
cover about one tenth of the Earth’s surface, from southern Australia, covering most of Indochina,
and reaching as far as the southeastern coast of Africa and southern India [15, p. 252]. The other
strewn field, which may be the largest (covering about 9 million square kilometers), is the North
American, which encompasses the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, Central America, and continues
westward in a band across the Pacific Ocean. The North American strewn field is distributed in
a belt that reaches about half way around the Earth [15, p. 252]. The Chesapeake structure
seems ideally placed to be the source of the tektites in this area. Other smaller strewn fields are
the Ivory Coast field off the western coast of northern Africa and the Czechoslovakian strewn
field. The Australasian tektite field covers a vast area and though the source of all of it is not
known, there are large impact structures in Australia, such as Acraman, which is purported to be
590 Million years in age and possesses a crater rim of nearly 90 Km diameter [46, p. 221-2]. The
Acraman impact may have taken place shortly after the beginning of the Flood and could be a
source of some of these tektites. The North American tektite field would be dated much later,
according to the geologic column. The time frame in which these tektites were laid down would
be a worthy topic of further research.
Recent studies have shown that the shock mineral coesite as well as shocked quartz are present
in some areas within both the North American and Australasian tektite fields. This includes
studies of sea floor sediment core samples in which minerals were identified by X-ray diffraction
[16, p. 435]. At some sites in the Australasian field Stishovite was also found, which argues very
strongly for an impact origin. The authors of this study also point out that volcanic ash is always
present as well in these tektite layers. “The search for shocked quartz and coesite was
complicated by the presence of volcanic ash at all the sites [16, p. 436].” Thus, there is clear
evidence of both impacts and volcanism occurring simultaneously. There is some other evidence
that many metallic spherules in sea floor sediments may be of extraterrestrial origin even though
the spherules may not be composed of shock minerals. Some ejecta could be produced by an
impact that may not form shock mineral material. This ejecta could produce tiny spherules
indistinguishable from volcanic ejecta, considering outward appearance and size alone. Studies
have been done on the composition of spherules from ocean sediment. Some of these particles
match well the composition of asteroids in their trace metal content [13, p. 1120]. Iridium is one
of the trace metals of importance, others are Ruthenium, Cobalt, Chromium, Nickel, Osmium,
Antimony, to name a few. Cosmic dust, including these spherules, is to be expected in ocean
sediments if impacts were occurring during the Noahic Flood.

cont'd on page eight

Page Eight

Solar System Evidence for Impact Bombardment
The abundance of craters throughout the solar system is obvious. The surfaces of Mercury, our
Moon and many other moons in the solar system are covered with craters that have not been
eroded away or buried as has been the case on Earth. However, on some solar system bodies
there are markedly fewer craters because active volcanism has covered many of them. This
applies especially to Venus, Mars (to a lesser degree than Venus), Io (at Jupiter), and some of
the icy moons of the outer planets. A major impact bombardment event in the solar system would
be expected to be accompanied by an increased influx of cosmic dust as well as of larger
macroscopic impactors. Snelling and Rush, in an important paper in the Creation Ex Nihilo
Technical Journal [36, p. 39], showed that cosmic dust should not be used by creationists to
13
argue against the evolutionist time scale for the Moon or the Earth since the evolutionist scenario
for the history of dust influx is consistent with the amount of dust found on the Moon’s surface.
Snelling and Rush’s analysis of the dust influx rate brought them to the conclusion that the best
estimate for the dust influx is about 10,000 Tons per year for the Earth and the Moon. If Snelling
and Rush are correct, then young-age creationists must conclude that a significant dust influx
event occurred. At the rate of 10,000 Tons per year for 10,000 years the amount of cosmic dust
on the Moon’s surface would be totally negligible, possibly immeasurable. If we assume a similar
influx rate for the preflood period, there should still be a negligible amount of dust on the Moon
today. Yet, there is a measurable amount of cosmic dust on the Moon, and cosmic dust has also
been found in Earth sediments. What is the origin of the cosmic dust then, if the Earth and Moon
are young? A young Earth and Moon does not allow enough time for the amount of cosmic dust
to accumulate at present rates. Holding to a young age of 10,000 years or less therefore implies
that an event occurred to cause much of the dust influx and meteorite collisions in a relatively
short time.
In the evolutionary view of the history of the solar system, most impacting objects producing
craters would be expected to come from the ecliptic plane, roughly speaking. Collisions from
objects in highly inclined orbits would be relatively unusual, although there could be some
exceptions to this from the comets and asteroids. This is a natural consequence in the accepted
evolutionary Nebula model of solar system origin. The late-heavy bombardment period is
believed to have ended at something over three billion years ago. In this scenario, the implication
is that for over half of our solar system’s history, the meteoritic influx rate (of all sizes of objects)
has not changed dramatically. Thus, after the initial planetary formation period, uniformitarian
assumptions are applied to solar system cratering. Uniformitarian long-age assumptions
regarding cratering would lead to two primary conclusions: 1) that apart from major resurfacing
processes, the surfaces of many bodies would be saturated with craters, and 2) that the
distribution of craters would be symmetrical or nearly so across the solar system and over the
surfaces of bodies. These are the implications of the basic Nebula model; though today many
catastrophic collision and capture processes are also proposed to explain the solar system.
It has been previously pointed out that there are some clear examples of asymmetrical crater
distribution in the solar system [39, pp. 519-20]. These are cases where the number of craters
observed is not constant over the entire surfaces of objects. Asymmetrical crater distribution
argues for catastrophic events in the solar system. In Table 2, crater data has been compiled for
our Moon [21], Mars [43], Venus [45], and Ganymede (at Jupiter) [14]. For all cases, the craters
have been categorized into North polar, equatorial, and South polar regions by drawing the
equatorial band from -19.5 degrees latitude to + 19.5 degrees latitude. This separates the
spherical surface into three equal areas. Venus crater data comes from the Magellan spacecraft;
the Ganymede data comes from the Galileo mission, both of these made available by the Lunar
and Planetary Science Institute, Houston, Texas. The Lunar data is the same data used for
Figure 1 in the 1994 paper by Spencer on the solar system [39, p. 520]. The Lunar data did not
include the South Pole Aitken basin, recently discovered through the Clementine mission, so that
site has been added to the South Pole group. The Aitken basin is the largest known impact in
the entire solar system. It is apparently very ancient and is approximately 2,500 Km in diameter.
14
Moon Venus
(Largest)
Venus
(All)
Mars Ganymede
(Largest)
Ganymede
(All)
North Pole 9 19 315 8 12 71
Equator 19 11 301 11 19 88
South Pole 20 17 305 10 16 65
Total Craters 48 47 921 29 47 224
Table 2 Number of craters in equal-area latitude bands. Venus and Ganymede
data from LPI crater databases, based on Magellan and Galileo spacecraft results.
Table 2 shows a trend toward more impacts near the Southern Pole than the Northern Pole for
the Moon. This could possibly be the case for Mars as well but there is a need for a larger crater
data set. The entire Ganymede crater set shows a different trend than is shown by the 47 largest
sites, with more impacts in the North region than the South region. The distribution of craters on
Venus is unlike any of the other planets, with craters essentially randomly or nearly randomly
distributed across the entire surface. The Venus and Mars craters also do not show a higher
concentration in the equatorial region, as the accepted evolutionary view of the origin of the solar
system would imply. Also on Venus, though the entire planet has been resurfaced by dramatic
volcanism, very few of Venus’ craters have been altered or covered by volcanic or tectonic
processes [41, p. 28].


cont'd on page nine

Page Nine

The symmetry of the crater distribution on Venus and asymmetry of the craters on other inner
solar system objects can be explained quite naturally if the solar system is young and a
catastrophic event occurred. Slow gradual cratering over thousands of years from a variety of
unrelated objects would tend to produce a more random crater distribution on surfaces. But a
catastrophic event in the solar system that caused many craters in a short time could produce a
more asymmetrical pattern. If the volcanism on Venus occurred after the catastrophe, then the
craters now found on Venus may be unrelated to the catastrophic bombardment itself. The
uniform cratering on Venus may be the type of random pattern that would be expected from
present meteoritic phenomena, whereas the cratering on our Moon, Mars, Mercury and elsewhere
may have come from a dramatic event of some kind in the history of the solar system.
Mars is worthy of special mention regarding its cratering and volcanism. Table 2 does not show
an obvious trend in the crater distribution for Mars. However there is a great dichotomy between
Mars’ Northern and Southern Hemispheres. There is a region known as the northern lowlands
which has been resurfaced by volcanism. This region is an approximately circular region of about
7,700 Km diameter centered at 50 degrees North latitude. The Southern hemisphere has more
ancient cratered terrain and is higher in elevation. One of the largest impact sites known on
Mars, known as Hellas, is located in the Southern hemisphere antipodal to the massive volcano
Alba Patera, which is one of a group of large volcanoes in the Northern hemisphere on a feature
known as Tharsis. Tharsis is a large bulge encompassing a huge area of Mars’ surface.
Recently, researchers have suggested interesting possibilities for explaining these features on
Mars. It is possible similar processes could be related to some volcanism in Earth’s past. A new
theory known as Antipodal Volcanism, suggests that the Hellas impact (and possibly other
impacts) produced the Tharsis bulge and caused volcanism on the opposite side of the planet as
15
result of refraction and reflection of the shock waves from a large impact [7]. It has also been
suggested that the large northern lowland region of Mars is actually a giant impact basin or a
group of large overlapping impacts that stimulated great volcanic events [40, p. 213-14, 228].
These considerations on Mars imply that some volcanic processes on Earth could be related to
massive impacts, if there were large impacts approximately antipodal to the volcanic activity.
What kind of event in the solar system could have caused a bombardment event at the time of
the Noahic Flood? Froede and DeYoung [12] have suggested that a planet similar to the other
terrestrial planets existed in the region between Mars and Jupiter. This former planet exploded
by an unknown process, producing many fragments that led to meteoritic impacts on the planets.
In this scenario, the asteroids would have originated from the catastrophic disruption of this
planet. Though this has been suggested by a number of scientists, it is an idea that is not
considered seriously today by astronomers, mainly because of what is known of the composition
of the asteroids across the asteroid belt. The asteroids do have varied orbital and physical
characteristics that could suggest a catastrophic origin. They have obviously undergone many
collisions. On the other hand, there are many asteroids in fairly regular orbits, not highly elliptical
or inclined. Furthermore, several of the larger asteroids are nearly spherical, including the
largest, Ceres [43, p. 226]. The rotation characteristics of asteroids greater than about 150 Km
diameter do not fit the relationship expected of collision fragments [39, p. 521]. All this is simply
to say that the asteroids may not all have a single common origin and a destroyed planet in my
opinion is an inadequate explanation for the characteristics of the asteroids.
The density of the asteroids and the type of minerals that predominate in the different regions of
the asteroid belt do not agree well with the idea of a disrupted planet. In the disruption of such
a planet there would be no natural process that would produce a sorting of the objects by density
or mineral content. The composition of the planet would not make any difference in this. Gravity
does not sort collision fragments by density, though it could sort by size. But, a sorting by
density, not size, exists among the asteroids. There are currently 14 recognized composition
classes of asteroids. These many types of objects are categorized into three superclasses as
igneous, metamorphic, and carbonaceous (carbonaceous are called “primitive” in the scientific
literature). The best way to describe the difference between these superclasses is in density and
volatile content. Carbonaceous Chondrite objects are in the primitive category, having some
relatively low boiling point material. Other objects made up mainly of iron and nickel would be
considered igneous. Some classes of asteroids are of unknown composition and are only
distinguished by their spectral characteristics. The asteroids follow a density pattern generally
similar to that followed by the planets, the inner planets have fewer volatile compounds where the
temperature is greater near the Sun and the outer planets (and their moons) have much higher
volatile content where the temperature is lower. This may exist for the created purpose of stability
in composition in the different regions of the solar system. Figure 1, adapted from R. P. Binzel,
et. al. [5, p. 91], illustrates this relationship, showing percent abundance as a function of distance
from the Sun. Igneous asteroids are of higher density than carbonaceous asteroids.
This distribution of the asteroids is better understood as a created relationship, not as a result of
a planet disruption. The evolutionary explanation of the density and composition of the planets
and the asteroids relates to condensation from the proto solar nebula depending on the
temperature as a function of distance from the Sun. The planets were apparently created with
this pattern, it seems logical that the asteroids could be created with the same pattern. On the
other hand, asteroids have obviously undergone many collisions. Rather than supposing the
16


cont'd on page ten

Page Ten

Figure 1 Adapted from Binzel, et. al. Asteroids are
roughly sorted by density.
destruction of a planet in the asteroid
region, it seems more reasonable that the
larger objects are created objects and
some of the smaller asteroids may be
fragments from collisions. This is also
reasonable in the light of the rotation
characteristics of the asteroids [39]. This
argues against the comments of Froede
and DeYoung [12] regarding the source of
the objects striking Earth at the time of the
Flood. There is a need to evaluate various
scenarios based on celestial mechanics
considerations. I believe that a solid
debris field passing through the solar
system may be a better explanation. An
object “swarm” like this could also cause
the bombardment to be periodic or
episodic in some way. Such a debris field
may explain cratering in both the outer and
inner regions of the solar system. A debris field passing through the solar system would allow
for the possibility of larger asteroids being created and smaller asteroids being collision
fragments. Creationists should not adopt any one model too quickly, such as a destroyed planet
between Mars and Jupiter, before other possibilities are investigated seriously.
Other possibilities are suggested by recent discoveries. A planet breakup in the inner solar
system does not explain the cratering records of objects in the outer solar system. A major
collision or break up event could also be a possibility in the outer solar system near Neptune
[38]. Small objects such as collision fragments or comets in the Neptune region tend to be
perturbed toward the inner solar system, so objects from the outer solar system could reach
Earth. Recently small objects often described as “snowballs” or “mini-comets” have been
discovered to be bombarding Earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about 20 per minute [35]. They are
vaporized high in Earth’s atmosphere. The source of these objects is not known; even their
existence may be uncertain. Could they represent remnants of some more severe event in the
past?
CONCLUSION
The Alvarez hypothesis that an impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs has generated
much research into Earth impacts. Though erosion and various other geological processes have
altered Earth impact structures, it is now fairly clear how to identify such structures on Earth, at
least in many cases. There is clear evidence from shock minerals and other observations that
impacts have occurred on Earth. However, the hypothesis of extinctions being caused by one
impact is not an acceptable explanation of the dinosaurs from a creation point of view. Rather
than using an impact to explain dinosaur extinction, as creationists we must attempt to explain
Earth impacts in the context of a young Earth and a world-wide Flood. The aftermath of the
Noahic Flood is a very adequate explanation for what happened to the dinosaurs.
17
Though impacts are not mentioned in Scripture in relation to the Flood, this does not rule out the
possibility of such events. Indeed, impacts would seem consistent with God’s judgement.
Allowing for there being impacts during the Flood creates many additional possibilities for
geological mechanisms that can explain Earth’s features. Since impacts exist in Precambrian
strata, impacts could have begun immediately before the Flood and continued during the Flood
year as well as after that. In some cases it is possible that even craters in Precambrian rock
could have actually taken place after the Flood, after erosion removed many layers of Flood
sediments. These considerations lead to the conclusions that a) an impact bombardment event
occurred, possibly beginning immediately before the onset of the Flood, b) volcanism was
occurring at the same time, and c) impacts continued into the postflood period. The number of
known astroblemes and meteorites on Earth are probably not indicators of the number of impacts
that occurred. That must be resolved from other considerations. The best indicator of the number
of impacts on Earth would very likely be the cratering record of our Moon. Creationist geologists
must consider the effects of impacts in explaining Earth’s geology.


cont'd on page eleven

Page Eleven

REFERENCES
[1] Aldaney, Jeremy, Asteroids and their Connection to the Flood, (letters section)
Proceedings of the 1992 Twin-Cities Creation Conference, Twin-Cities Creation Science
Association, (1992).
[2] Aldaney, Jeremy, Asteroid Hypothesis for Dinosaur Extinction, Creation Research
Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, June 1994, p 11-12.
[3] Alvarez, Luis, W., Alvarez, Walter, Asaro, Frank, Michel, Helen V., Extraterrestrial Cause
for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction, Science, Vol. 208, Number 4448, June 6, 1980,
pp 1095-1108.
[4] Alvarez, Walter and Asaro, Frank, The extinction of the dinosaurs, Understanding
Catastrophe, Janine Bourriau, Editor, 1992, Cambridge University Press.
[5] Binzel, Richard P., Barucci, M. A., and Fulchignoni, Marcello, The Origins of the
Asteroids, Scientific American, October 1991, pp 88-94.
[6] Bohor, Bruce F., Modreski, Peter J., and Foord, Eugene, E., Shocked Quartz in the
Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Clays: Evidence for a Global Distribution, Science,
May 8, 1987, pp 705-9.
[7] Broad, William J., New Theory Would Reconcile Rival Views on Dinosaurs’ Demise,
New York Times, December 27, 1994, pp C1, C10.
[8] Dietz, Robert S., Astroblemes, Scientific American, Vol. 205, No. 2, 1961, pp 50-58.
[9] Dietz, Robert S., Demise of the Dinosaurs: A Mystery Solved, Astronomy, July 1991,
pp 32-37.
[10] Feldman, Vilen I., The Conditions of Shock Metamorphism, Geological Society of
America Special Paper 293: Large Meteorite Impacts and Planetary Evolution, Editors B.O.
Dressler, R.A.F. Grieve, and V.L. Sharpton, (1994).
[11] Fischer, Michael J., A Giant Meteorite Impact and Rapid Continental Drift, Proceedings
of the Third International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh, Editor, Creation
18
Science Fellowship, Inc., (1994), pp 185-197.
[12] Froede, Carl R. and DeYoung, Don B., Impact Events within the Young-Earth Flood
Model, Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 33, June 1996, pp 23-34.
[13] Ganapathy, R., Brownlee, D. E., and Hodge, P. W., Silicate Spherules from Deep-Sea
Sediments: Confirmation of Extraterrestrial Origin, Science, Vol. 201, Sept. 22, 1978,
pp 1119-1121.
[14] Ganymede Crater Database, http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/research/gc/gchome.html,
Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas. (LPI Home Page URL:
http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov).
[15] Glass, Billy P., Possible correlations between tektite events and climatic changes?,
Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, (1982) pp 251-256.
[16] Glass, B. P. and Wu, Jiquan, Coesite and shocked quartz discovered in the
Australasian and North American microtektite layers, Geology Vol. 21, May 1993, pp
435-438.
[17] Grieve, Richard A. F., Impact Cratering on the Earth, Scientific American, April 1990, pp
66-73.
[18] Grieve, Richard A. F., The record of impact on Earth: Implications for a major
Cretaceous/Tertiary impact event, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190,
1982, pp 27-28.
[19] Grieve, R. A. F., When will enough be enough?, Nature, Vol. 363, June 24, 1993, pp
670-671.
[20] Grieve, R. A. F. and Dence, M. R., The Terrestrial Cratering Record, II. The Crater
Production Rate, Icarus, Vol. 38, 1979, pp 230-242.
[21] Horz, F., Grieve, R., Heiken, G., Spudis, P., & Binder, A., Lunar Surface Processes, Lunar
Sourcebook: A User's Guide to the Moon, (1991), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England, 118-119.
[22] Lowe, Donald R., and Byerly, Gary R., Early Archean silicate spherules of probable
impact origin, South Africa and Western Australia, Geology, Vol. 14, January 1986, pp
83-86.
[23] Lowe, Donald R., Byerly, Gary R., Asaro, Frank, Kyte, Frank, Geological and
Geochemical Record of 3400-Million-Year-Old Terrestrial Meteorite Impacts, Science,
September 1989, pp 959-962.
[24] Meyerhoff, Arthur A., Lyons, John B., and Officer, Charles B., Chicxulub Structure: A
Volcanic Sequence of Late Cretaceous Age, Geology, January 1994, pp 3-4.
[25] Morell, Virginia, How Lethal was the K-T Impact?, Science, Vol. 261, Sept. 17, 1993, pp
1518-19.
[26] Norton, O. Richard, Rocks from Space: Meteorites and Meteorite Hunters, Mountain
Press Publishing Company, Missoula, Montana, (1994).
[27] Oard, Michael J., Response to Comments on the Asteroid Hypothesis for Dinosaur
Extinction, (letters section) Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, June 1994, p
12.
[28] Oard, Michael J., The Extinction of the Dinosaurs, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal,
Vol. 11, No. 2, 1997, pp 137-154.
[29] Officer, Charles, Victims of Volcanoes, New Scientist, Feb. 20, 1993, pp 34-38.
[30] Officer, Charles B. and Drake, Charles L., Terminal Cretaceous Environmental Events,
Science, Volume 227, No. 4691, March 8, 1985.
19
[31] Parks, William S., The Role of Meteorites in a Creationist Cosmology, Creation
Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, March 1990, pp 144-146.
[32] Poag, C. Wylie, Powars, David S., Poppe, Lawrence J., and Mixon, Robert B., Meteoroid
mayhem in Ole Virginny: Source of the North American tektite strewn field, Geology,
vol. 22, August 1994, pp 691-694.
[33] Rampino, Michael R., A non-catastrophist explanation for the iridium anomaly at the
Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary, Geological Society of America Special Paper 190, Leon
T. Silver and Peter H. Shultz, Editors, (1982), Geological Society of America, Boulder, CO.
[34] Reed, John K., and Froede, Carl R. Jr., A Biblical Christian Framework for Earth
History Research Part III — Constraining Geologic Models, Creation Research Society
Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4, March 1997, pp 285, 289-90.
[35] Snelling, A. A., Cosmic Snowballs Bombard the Earth?, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical
Journal, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1997, pp 255-6.
[36] Snelling, Andrew A., and Rush, David E., Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System,
Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, (1993), pp 2-42.
[37] Spencer, Wayne R., Geophysical Effects of Impacts During the Genesis Flood,
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh,
Editor, Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., (1998, this volume).
[38] Spencer, Wayne, R., Revelations in the Solar System, Creation Ex Nihilo, Vol. 19, No.
3, June-August (1997), p 28.
[39] Spencer, Wayne R., The Origin and History of the Solar System, Proceedings of the
Third International Conference on Creationism, Robert E. Walsh, Editor, Creation Science
Fellowship, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, (1994), pp 513-523.
[40] Spudis, Paul D., Multi-ring basins on the terrestrial planets, The Geology of Multi-Ring Impact
Basins: The Moon and Other Planets , Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas,
Cambridge University Press, (1993).
[41] Stofan, Ellen R., The New Face of Venus, Sky and Telescope, August 1993, pp 22-31.
[42] Stoffler, D. and Deutsch, A., et. al., The Formation of the Sudbury Structure, Canada:
Toward a unified impact model, Geological Society of America Special Paper 293,
(1994), pp 303-316.
[43] Taylor, S. R., The Role of Impacts, Solar System Evolution, Lunar and Planetary Institute,
Houston, Texas, Cambridge University Press, (1992), pp 165.
[44] Toon, O. B., Pollack, J. B., and Ackerman, T. P., et. al., Evolution of an impactgenerated
dust cloud and its effects on the atmosphere, Geological Society of America
Special Paper 190, 1982, pp 188-190.
[45] Venus Crater Database, http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/research/vc/vchome.html, Lunar and
Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas (LPI Home Page URL: http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov).
[46] Williams, George E., Acraman: A major impact structure from the Neoproterozoic of
Australia, Geological Society of America Special Paper 293, (1994) pp 209-224.
20


cont'd on page twelve

Page Twelve

Letter to the editor, CRSQ
Published in Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 36, No. 3, Dec. 1999, pp 163-165
Earth Impacts, the Geologic Column, and Chicxulub
Some CRSQ readers will be aware of the papers on Earth impacts which I presented at the Fourth
International Conference on Creationism, August 1998 (Spencer, 1998). Following are some comments on
research I have done on the subject of impacts since the publication of these papers. I would like to mention
Earth crater data obtained after the publication deadline of the ICC Proceedings, a minor error in the paper,
and some recent findings relevant to the subject from the scientific literature.
In the ICC Proceedings paper, “Catastrophic Impact Bombardment Surrounding the Genesis Flood”
I presented a table giving data on Earth astroblemes in relation to the Geologic Column. Table 1, page 559
of the Proceedings gives two data sets from Earth crater data compiled by O. Richard Norton, an astronomer
and educator, and Richard Grieve of the Canadian Geological Survey, Canada. The Norton data set was only
50 points, but was recent data from 1994 while the Grieve data was from 1982 and included 88 points. The
50 point data set included good information on the sites and is a set where there is a high confidence of them
being impact sites. The Grieve data set of 1982 was considered a very authoritative list at the time and it has
been quoted and used by many other authors since. The Grieve data from 1982 also included some
information on the sites. Richard Grieve used a ranking system to describe the state of preservation of the
impact structures. After the publication deadline for the ICC papers, I was able to obtain a data set from the
Canadian Geological Survey, including Grieve’s Earth impact site list from 1998. There was no way to get
this data into the Proceedings papers but it was in my presentations at the conference. The 1998 list of Earth
astroblemes included 121 points (points without an assigned age figure were thrown out). This data set has
the advantage of being very up to date but the disadvantage of there being no information about each site.
The crater numbers were totaled in the ICC Proceedings in a manner that contained an error.
Following is a table showing how it was presented for the case of the 1982 data set.
Geologic Column Label Evolutionary Age (Ma) No. of Impacts, Grieve, 1982
Recent < 1 7
Upper Cenozoic 5 - 1 3
Lower Cenozoic 65 - 5 7
Mesozoic 100 -65 3
Upper Paleozoic 300 - 100 15
Lower Paleozoic 600 - 300 12
Precambrian > 600 3
Table 1 Data presented as in ICC 98 Proceedings, italics labels are not correct
The Mesozoic, Upper Paleozoic, Lower Paleozoic, and Precambrian labels are not correct for the age periods
shown in Table 1 (same for the Norton data set, not shown here). The counts of impact sites in each
category are correct for the numerical age ranges shown, but not correct for the Geologic periods shown.
The Lower Paleozoic and Precambrian period counts are not quite correct because Geological societies
21
recently adopted a different boundary age between the Precambrian and Cambrian periods than the figure
used in the Proceedings. This puts the Precambrian/Cambrian boundary at 550 Million years ago rather than
600. Of course, as young earth creationists we do not accept these ages. But the difference does affect the
counts of the astroblemes.
It is important for creationist geologists to look into how Earth impacts are distributed in the
Geologic Column. Though there is not a real consensus on some questions about the Geologic Column and
the Flood among creationists, this kind of data can shed light on the complex events of the Genesis Flood.
The most important point is that impact structures are found in all types of rock and all through the Geologic
Column, from Precambrian up. Such data may be counted and presented in a variety of ways, so there is a
danger of bias coming through in such a table. After recounting the points with the 1998 Grieve data set,
two interesting ways of presenting the numbers follow in Tables 2 and 3.

cont'd on page thirteen

Page Thirteen

Geologic Period Evolutionary Age (Ma) Grieve data, 1998,
121 points
Cenozoic 64 - Present 43
Mesozoic 249 - 65 33
Paleozoic 549 - 250 37
Precambrian > 550 8
Table 2 1998 Earth crater data recounted to correctly correspond to Geologic Periods
Some creationists might argue that showing the data this way shows a bias towards the uniformitarian
presuppositions of evolutionary geology. So, I counted the data in another way, breaking down the ages into
12 equal uniformitarian-time periods of 50 million years each. Table 3 shows the data this way from Grieve’s
1998 data set. (The data sets mentioned here are available from Spencer, 1998c.)
22
Evolutionary Age (Ma) Grieve, 1998, 121 pts.
50 - 0 39
100 - 50 16
150 - 100 12
200 - 150 2
250 - 200 7
300 - 250 5
350 - 300 9
400 - 350 6
450 - 400 5
500 - 450 7
550 - 500 4
> 600 4
Table 3 Earth Impacts throughout the Geologic Column, by equal “time” periods.
Table 3 shows that the greatest number of impacts are in recent strata, which are easier to discover
since they are more accessible for study. The accessibility of the various strata is a very important
consideration. A paper by Trefil and Raup (1990), uses statistical analysis to determine whether most Earth
craters have the same age as the rock they are found in. They conclude that this is the case at most impact
sites. This conclusion needs to be reexamined based on young-age assumptions. Small craters are more
likely to be eroded before the rock they are found in is eroded. On the other hand, large craters are likely
to “survive” even if there is significant erosion around the site. A large impact produces a variety of
indicators of impact that may be observed even if the crater rim has eroded away, such as shocked minerals,
breccia and deformed strata, magnetic anomalies, and various circular structures in the subsurface rock.
Trefil and Raup show statistical data on the percentage of the continental surface which has each geological
rock classification available near the surface. Cenozoic and Mesozoic rock are much more common on the
surface of the continents than is Paleozoic rock. So, for example, Cambrian rock is less accessible than
Cretaceous since it is found over a much smaller area near the surface where we can study it easily. This may
imply that the impact structures in the Paleozoic strata were more numerous than the above numbers tend
to show, since those strata are less accessible today. This tends to be consistent with what I proposed in my
ICC papers.
Another item of note was brought to my attention by Thomas Fritzsche, who presented an excellent
paper at the 1998 ICC on the Chicxulub structure, in Yucatan. This structure has been accepted by many
in the scientific community as the impact that led to the global extinction of dinosaurs. Recent seismic
reflection sounding studies of the Chicxulub structure have shed light on an interesting controversy over the
size of the original Chicxulub crater. Estimates of the transient crater diameter have ranged from 180 to 300
23
Km. After the impact, slumping and erosion would reduce the observed diameter from this value. The
original paper by Luis and Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro and Helen Michel, in 1980, quoted geologist Richard
Grieve as estimating that a 10 Km diameter asteroid would produce a structure 200 Km in diameter. The
new seismic data from Chicxulub have revealed that the transient crater diameter was more like 100 Km, and
that the shock waves of the impact produced a fault structure that reached all the way into the upper mantle.
There is a prominent scarp structure around the Chicxulub impact site at about 195 Km diameter. This was
thought previously to be the main crater rim, but based on the new seismic studies the scarp must be
considered a ring. This means that the Chicxulub structure is now viewed as a two or three ringed complex
crater. Multi-ringed craters can have the rings either outside or inside the main crater rim. Not many impact
sites on Earth have been proposed to be Multi-ringed craters. This may the best evidence of such a structure
to date on Earth, though they are common on our Moon and Mars. On Earth, where erosion, tectonics, and
sedimentation have altered crater structures, it can be very difficult to determine the main crater rim diameter.
Hence the controversy over the size of Chicxulub. What is significant to creationists in this is that this new
data on Chicxulub significantly reduces the energy of the “dinosaur killer” impact. My ICC papers argue that
one large impact, even a large one such as the one at Yucatan, could not cause global extinctions of the
dinosaurs (Spencer, 1998a). The environmental effects of such an event are not long-lived enough (Spencer,
1998b), and from an evolutionary interpretation of the fossil record, the extinctions took too long to associate
them with one impact. The smaller size of the Yucatan impact makes the single-impact extinction hypothesis
even less plausible.
Recently published papers by creationists (Faulkner 1999; Froede, 1999; Steele, 1999) underscore
that impacts from space are an important piece of the puzzle in a Biblical and scientific understanding of Earth
history and the Flood. The events of the post-Flood period, in my opinion, are a very adequate explanation
of the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is possible to incorporate a significant number of impacts in our models
of Noah’s Flood.
Alvarez, Luis; Alvarez, Walter; Asaro, Frank; Michel, Helen; (June 6, 1980), Extraterrestrial cause for the
Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction, Science, Vol. 208, No. 4448, pp 1095-1108.
Faulkner, Danny, (1999), A biblically based cratering theory, Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, Vol.
13, No. 1, pp 100 - 104.
Fritzsche, Thomas, (1998), The Impact at the Cretaceous/Tertiary Boundary, In Walsh, R E. (editor),
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions,
Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 553-566.
Froede, Carl R. Jr., and Williams, Emmett L., June 1999, The Wetumpka Impact Crater, Elmore County,
Alabama: An Interpretation Within the Young-Earth Flood Model, Creation Research Society Quarterly,
36:1, pp 32-37.
Melosh, H. J., (Dec. 4, 1997), Muti-ringed revelation, Nature Vol. 390, pp 439-440.
Morgan, Jo; Warner, Mike, et. al., (Dec. 4, 1997), Size and morphology of the Chicxulub impact crater,
Nature Vol. 390, pp 472-476.
24
Spencer, Wayne R., 1998a, Catastrophic impact bombardment surrounding the Genesis Flood, In Walsh,
R E. (editor), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium
Sessions, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 553-566.
________, 1998b, Geophysical effects of impacts during the Genesis Flood, In Walsh, R E. (editor),
Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Creationism, Technical Symposium Sessions,
Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, PA, pp 567-579.
________,1998c, Earth Impacts and Noah’s Flood: a resource guide for educators and researchers,
Creation Education Materials.
Steele, S. R., (March 1999), The Upheaval Dome Impact Site: Flood Model Interpretations, Creation
Research Society Quarterly, 35:4, pp 236-237.
Wayne Spencer
Creation Education Materials
P.O. Box 153402
Irving, TX 75015
wayne@creationanswers.net

In recent years, some creationists have addressed evidence
of impacts on Earth throughout the geologic record (Froede
and DeYoung, 1996; Froede and Williams, 1999; Oard,
1994; Spencer, 1998a; b, 1999). Remnants of impact craters,
called astroblemes, can be found in all types of rock and
all through the geologic column (Spencer, 1998a; 1999).
Approximately 160 impact sites on Earth have been documented.
The presence of special shocked minerals, gravity
anomalies, magnetic anomalies, circular or concentric fault
structures, and a variety of indications of catastrophic erosion
and deposition phenomena identify these as impact
structures. Sedimentary strata, generally understood by
creationists to have formed in Noah’s Flood, may contain
astrobleme structures, meteorites, impact-shocked minerals,
The Chesapeake Bay Impact and Noah’s Flood
Wayne R. Spencer and Michael J. Oard*

The largest impact structure in the United States, 85 kilometers (km) in
diameter, was discovered under Chesapeake Bay, centered near the small
town of Cape Charles on the eastern shore of Virginia. Evidence that the feature
is an impact structure includes shocked quartz, concentric normal faults,
gravity anomalies, and the presence of tektites. The Chesapeake Bay impact
structure cuts through 1 to 2 km of sedimentary rock classified by uniformitarian
scientists as Mesozoic to Eocene and is covered by hundreds of meters
(m) of other mid- to late-Cenozoic strata, including the Exmore breccia. The
impact likely occurred in water on the continental shelf. From an evolutionary
perspective, the crater is dated at 35.5 million years, or late Eocene, but there
is evidence that the impact was much more recent. We address the relationship
of this impact to the Creation-Flood model, and conclude that the impact
occurred during the Abative Phase of the Recessional Stage of the Flood, the
mid- to late-Flood, according to Walker’s biblical geological model.
* Wayne Spencer, M.S., Creation Education Materials,
P.O. Box 153402, Irving, TX 75015-3402
Michael J. Oard, M.S., 34 West Clara Court, Bozeman,
MT 59718
Accepted for publication: February 1, 2004
tektites and other impact-related features. This implies that
impacts occurred during the deposition of Flood sediments.
There are also a few impact structures in Precambrian
basement rock, suggesting that impacts began at the onset
of Noah’s Flood. Some impacts occurred in the post-Flood
period, as suggested by DeYoung (1994) for the Barringer
crater in Arizona.
The timing and character of impacts in the solar system
and on Earth have been topics of debate and discussion by
creationists (Faulkner, 1999; 2000; Faulkner and Spencer,
2000; Froede, 2002; Hovis, 2000; Spencer, 1994; 2000;
2002). Various possibilities regarding the timing of impacts
have been suggested, including during the Creation week
of Genesis 1, at or following the time of the Fall (Genesis
3), and within Noah’s Flood. Spencer has argued that
impacts took place within the Flood and that the same
event affected not only the Earth, but other objects in the
solar system as well (Spencer, 1994). Faulkner has suggested
impacts took place in the solar system during the
Creation week and on the Earth and Moon at the time
of the Flood. Froede and DeYoung (1996) proposed the
breakup of a planet in the asteroid region that generated
Creation Research Society Quarterly
Volume 41, No. 2 — December 2004
© 2004 Creation Research Society
Volume 41, December 2004 207
impacts in the inner solar system.
In this article, we will analyze a newly discovered large
impact structure in the United States. This feature is known
as the Chesapeake Bay impact and is now considered one
of the largest impacts ever discovered. We will place the
impact within the Creation-Flood model.
The Chesapeake Bay Astrobleme
In 1991 and 1992, a group of researchers from the U.S.
Geological Survey reported evidence of impact-shocked
minerals, glassy material, and concentric normal faults
in the region of Chesapeake Bay, Virginia (Poag, Powars,
Poppe, et. al., 1992; Koeberl, Poag, et. al., 1996). The presence
of shocked minerals and glassy material is a strong
indication of impact, especially since there is no indication
of igneous or volcanic activity in the vicinity. Though
evidence in the early 1990s strongly suggested an impact,
no crater structure was known in the region at that time except
a smaller one that is 10–15 km (6–9 mi) in diameter.
This is the Toms Canyon crater (Poag et al., 1992; Poag and
Poppe, 1998) northeast of Chesapeake Bay along the edge
of the continental slope. Subsequent studies of the region
included single channel and multichannel seismic reflection
profiles of the bay as well as a number of boreholes
that reached depths of 728 m (2,388 ft)(see USGS web site,
<http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/crater>). Boreholes
intersect the basement in some areas at a depth of 681 m
(2,234 ft)(Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999, p. 151).
Based on seismic reflection profiles, the sedimentary rocks
dip seaward. The dip begins gently at 9 m/km below the
coast section, but increases to a rate of about 58 m/km along
the continental margin (Poag, 1997, p. 46).
In these studies, a large crater was discovered below
southern Chesapeake Bay, centered at approximately 37° N
latitude and 76° W longitude, on the Delmarva Peninsula
near Cape Charles, Virginia (Figure 1). The crater averages
85 km (53 mi) in diameter, but the outer rim has slumped

cont'd on page two

Page Two

heavily into the impact basin forming a scalloped margin
(Poag, 1997; Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999). The
structure encompasses an area from Virginia Beach to
Newport News to the mouth of the Rappahannock River on
the west (USGS web site; Poag, 1997). The geographic area
encompassed by the structure is roughly 6,400 km2 (2,471
mi2), about double the area of Rhode Island. The buried
crater structure lies at a depth of approximately 400–500 m
(1,312–1,641 ft) under the ground surface (near sea level).
The depth of the structure itself is roughly 1.3 km (4,265 ft),
based on the probable depth of the inner basin. Southeast
from the center of the crater, the edge of the continental
shelf is about 130 km (81 mi) away from the outer rim).
Seismic profiles reveal that numerous high-angle normal
faults and a few low-angle reverse faults disrupt the basement
inside the crater. Outside the crater, the surface of
the basement is generally smooth. The North American
tektite strewn field is now attributed to the Chesapeake Bay
impact (Poag et al., 1994).
The structure possesses a circular basin around the
edge, called an annular trough, with a central peak ring,
approximately 35–40 km (22–25 mi) in diameter, and
possibly another central peak inside the major peak ring
(Poag, Hutchinson, and Colman, 1999) (Figure 2). Gravity
measurements show a notable negative anomaly, circular
in shape, that corresponds to the inner peak ring structure
(Poag, 1997, p. 58). The underlying basement rock in the
annular trough region includes a number of concentric
normal faults that indicate large-scale slumping from what
would be the outer rim area inward and downward.
There are certain unique characteristics of the Chesapeake
astrobleme that distinguish it from some other impact
sites on Earth. First, since the impact likely occurred in
water, a large amount of water would have been vaporized,
generating a very significant aerosol plume. Vaporized and
fragmented rock and sediment would be entrained with the
steam explosion to produce the plume. The efficiency of
an impact in forming the crater structure in the target rock
depends on the depth of the water compared to the size of
the impactor. Greater water depths tend to make the crater
structure smaller and with lesser relief, as more of the energy
of impact is transferred into the water. The Chesapeake
Bay crater is of nearly the same size as the Acraman impact
crater in Australia and the Popigai crater in Siberia. For the
Acraman structure,
the impactor has been
estimated to be about
4.7 km in diameter, assuming
it was a chondritic
asteroid (Williams,
1994). Because
the sediments under
the Chesapeake site
were likely of a weaker
material than those at
the Acraman crater,
it may be reasonable
to estimate the size of
the Chesapeake impactor
in the range of
3–5 km (~2–3 mi) in
diameter, depending
on its velocity. Since
the size of the impactor
was perhaps significantly
more than
the water depth, most
of the energy would
go into forming the
crater structure and
producing a powerful
tsunami. The tsunami
and the backwash gen-
erated from it seem to have eroded off the crater rim itself
and caused the deposition of breccia that fills the crater.

cont'd on page three

Page Three

The Uniformitarian Date
of the Astrobleme
Evolutionary scientists have arrived at the generally accepted
date of the impact from studies of nearby core
samples and seismic data. They argue that the crater is of
the same age as the Toms Canyon impact crater northeast
of Chesapeake Bay and the same age as core samples from
Site 612 of the Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) from the
New Jersey continental shelf (Koeberl, Poag, Reimold, et.
al., 1996). The Chesapeake Bay crater is thus dated as 35.5
million years based on radiometric dating of tektites from
the DSDP Site 612 core samples and from correlation of
microfossils such as foraminifera from the crater with those
in nearby deposits.
In relation to the standard evolutionary geologic column,
the crater structure cuts through strata ranging from
middle or upper Eocene down to early Mesozoic and
older igneous basement rock. Much of the stratigraphic
information of the pre- and post-impact sedimentary rocks
comes from the Virginia coastal plain. These formations
seem to be relatively widespread sheets (Koeberl, Poag, and
Reimold, 1996) and probably are generally representative
of the sediments around and above the crater, except for
three formations found mainly within the crater. Table 1
presents a stratigraphic section based primarily on the Langley
corehole near Hampton, Virginia. This core was drilled
to 635.1 m (2,083 ft) in the annular trough, approximately
midway between the outer rim and the inner basin. The
coastal plain and continental margin deposits around the
impact crater are underlain by igneous and metamorphic
basement rocks broken up in places by rift basins filled
with sedimentary rocks (Powars, 2000). The long axes of
the rift basins are parallel to the coast and the Appalachian
Mountains. This basement rock consists of granite or
greenstone, a metamorphosed basic igneous rock similar
to basalt but extruded at significantly higher temperatures.
Uniformitarian geologists date the rift sediments as Triassic
or Jurassic. The pre-impact sedimentary rocks thicken
seaward into the Baltimore Canyon trough. This trough is
located below the continental shelf and slope and extends
from Cape Hatteras to Long Island with an area of 200,000
km2 (77,220 mi2), all covered with sediments that obtain a
maximum thickness of 18 km (11 mi) in the northern part
of the trough (Pickering, Hiscott, and Hein, 1989, p. 264).
These sedimentary rocks are siliciclastic rocks with minor
limestone, dated by uniformitarian scientists as Middle
Jurassic to late Eocene (Poag, 1997).
The lower portion of the crater is filled with what is
called the Exmore breccia. Such a feature is not characteristic
of continental craters but seems to be common in
craters along continental margins. If the eastern part of
North America were significantly covered with water at the
time of the impact, then a strong tsunami would have been
generated and spread outward from the crater traveling a
long distance inland over what is now the continent before
depositing sedimentary materials. Thus, extensive impact
deposits would not be found surrounding Chesapeake Bay.
However, there would be a backwash as the water flowed
back into the excavated crater. This backwash appears to
be responsible for many features of the strata in and around
the crater, such as the Exmore breccia. The shape of the
inner peak ring structure and its dimensions suggest that
it was filled extremely rapidly with the breccia, probably
in just a few minutes. This is indicated by the physics of
central peak and peak ring formation (Melosh, 1989) as
well as from the very high sedimentation rates that were
involved (Poag, 1997).
Further evidence that the backwash deposited the Exmore
breccia is that it contains clasts of a wide variety of
materials in a gray, silty, sandy and clayey matrix, sometimes
not completely consolidated (Powars, 2000). Poag (2000, pp.
16–17) provides an interesting description of the breccia:
Suddenly, the drillers were pulling out bright, multicolored
core segments, which resembled psychedelic barber
poles. The dominant constituent of this garish deposit was
grayish green sand, whose color came from an abundance
of iron-rich glauconite. Imbedded within the glauconitic
sand was a kaleidoscopic array of larger clasts, ranging
from dime-sized pebbles to six-foot boulders. The clasts
changed rapidly and randomly downcore through nearly
every color and hue of the rainbow.
The breccia also contains marine fossils that would be
classified from Cretaceous to Eocene. Indeed, some of
these fossils would be classified as Upper Eocene in age,
but no strata have been identified as a possible source for
these fossils anywhere in Virginia and no Upper Eocene
sedimentary clasts have been found in the breccia cores.
This could suggest some fossils and fragments in the breccia
have been transported long distances. Some clasts are
rounded and some are angular with some over 3 m (10
ft) in diameter (Poag, 1997; Powars, 2000). Outside the
outer rim of the crater, the Exmore breccia ranges from
10 to 30 m (33–98 ft) in thickness. It may have extended
as a once continuous deposit farther outside the outer rim
in some areas. Much of it has apparently been eroded. A
short distance inside the outer rim it thickens to over 300 m
(985 ft) and also seems to fill the inner basin. The Exmore
breccia is up to 1,200 m (3,937 ft) thick in the central part
210 Creation Research Society Quarterly

cont'd on page four