The Evolution of a Creationist

[Soldier4Christ]

7  EARTH'S PRE-FLOOD WATER CANOPY

I can remember one particular lunch period sitting in my office at Baylor College of Dentistry studying Genesis 1. Those dental students had asked me to explain to them what God meant in verses 6-8a. How often we read the Bible but don't really think about what it says. As I studied these verses, I realized that I didn't know quite what they were saying. Here is what the Bible says:

"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which  were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven." (Gen.1:6-8a)

It says God divided the waters and put some water above the firmament (heaven 1:8a) and left some water under the firmament. What is this firmament? Genesis 1:20 reads:

"And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven."

The expanse or firmament of Genesis 1:7 may be the open heavens of Genesis 1:20 where the birds fly around. Now, there are several views and different interpretations in these Genesis verses, but the one that seems to make the most sense to me is this: God separated the waters that covered the earth in the beginning and left some on earth and put some up above where the birds fly. If this water was in the form of water vapor, it would have made the heaven and earth system #1 similar to a giant terrarium. There would have been no rain! And what does the Bible say? Genesis 2:6: "But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground." That is the exact effect expected if the earth was surrounded by a water vapor canopy: a morning mist would form. Genesis 2:5b is more specific: "...for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth." No rain, therefore no rainbow! Heaven and earth system #1 was obviously different from our present system, system #2.

The rainbow was the perfect object for God to use as the sign of His covenantal promise of no more global floods. Noah had never seen a rainbow in the clouds before the flood, because it had never rained. After the flood, when the canopy had collapsed during the forty days and nights of rain, Noah was in heaven and earth system #2, and was therefore experiencing our weather: rain and rainbows. He also would experience the difference between pre-flood system #1's heavy atmospheric pressure and system #2's post-flood lighter atmospheric pressure -- the latter causing rapid fermentation of alcohol and quite possibly the reason for Noah's drunkenness.

This pre-flood canopy probably consisted of water vapor. There are other theories, but we must keep in mind that the birds were flying in the expanse under this water, and one must be able to see through the water. The sun, moon and stars were visible to Adam and to Noah, in view of the fact that Genesis 1:14 states that they would serve as signs.

Water vapor is clear, unlike clouds or steam. A little experiment to prove this point can be accomplished in your kitchen by filling a tea-kettle with water and putting it on the stove to boil. When steam begins coming out of the spout, look closely at the very tip of the spout. You will see about one-half to one inch of clear 212°F. water vapor before it becomes cloudy steam. This may have been the form of the water that God put above the firmament in which the birds flew around.

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

With a water-vapor canopy, heaven and earth system #1 would be considerably different than our present system (#2). A greenhouse effect would be expected due to the heat generated by the sun-warmed canopy. Is there any evidence that greenhouse warmth once surrounded our globe? Palm tree fossils have been found in Alaska and broad leaf ferns in the Arctic. How could a palm tree fossil be in Alaska? Some scientists have postulated they travelled there on the tectonic plate (earth crust) movement over millions of years. But these trees are not millions of years old! A creationist would say, "No problem, palm trees grew in Alaska in the tropical world before the Flood." These trees were buried during the Flood of Noah's day resulting in their fossilization.

Scientists have found tropical forests and coal deposits in Antarctica. Ninety-foot plum trees which were quick frozen and over ninety feet in height with green leaves have been found in the New Siberian islands where, today, only one-inch high willows grow [see Charles Hapgood, The Mystery of the Frozen Mammoths; from Bassett Digby, The Mammoth and Mammoth Hunting Grounds in Northeast Siberia (N.Y.: Appleton, 1926), pp. 150-151].

In these frigid zones many trees, some fossilized and some quick-frozen, have been found with rings, signifying rapid, warm temperature growth. The Evolutionist asks, "How did they get here?" The Creationist says, "They grew there before the Flood when the earth was pole to pole greenhouse warm."

The water vapor canopy may have more than doubled atmospheric pressure on earth. In this environment of heavier atmospheric pressure, healing would be more efficient. Many hospitals have pressurized rooms called Hyperbaric Rooms. Into these rooms oxygen is pumped under pressure and healing is miraculously speeded up. Very sick people and the severely burned are treated in this high pressure environment.[1] In the pre-flood, high efficiency atmosphere, reptiles could have grown to immense sizes, giant flying creatures could have flown more easily, and gigantism would have been much more likely.[2]

[Soldier4Christ]

THE GREAT DINOSAUR MYSTERY

Evolution has a problem called The Great Dinosaur Mystery. Where did the great dinosaurs come from; how did they grow so big; and, if it is "survival of the fittest", why did these powerful creatures become extinct?

A creationist would answer, "no problem". God created the giant reptiles and may have referred to one or two of them which existed in Job's day (see Job 40:15 - 41:34). Reptiles do not have a built-in growth inhibiting factor like other animals and man. The dinosaurs would have continued growing as long as they lived. The older they got, the bigger they grew. Reptiles function best, as cold-blooded animals, in warm temperature climates. God created large reptiles which kept growing in an efficient high pressure atmosphere with plenty of warmth and unlimited supplies of lush vegetation to eat and nothing to eat them. The Bible says,

"And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat...." (Genesis 1:30)

This indicates that all animals ate plants, not flesh, before the Flood. Plants themselves are a testimony to God's creative genius. They start as a seed and take dirt, water, air and sunshine and are converted into roses, rubber and rhubarb! And these incredible factories not only do not pollute the environment, but they silently clean the air and replenish it with life-supporting oxygen. Oh, the wonders of the God of all creation! It was only after the flood that God gave permission to eat flesh "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things" (Genesis 9:3). Nothing ate the dinosaurs before the Flood, and they had bounteous vegetation as food. They, therefore, could grow to great size during a long lifetime of hundreds of years. Even Tyrannosaurus rex ate plants, not other dinosaurs, before the flood. The textbook pictures of this great dinosaur eating another reptile are not based on scientific method and are not supported with factual information. The three to five inch long teeth of the Tyrannosaurus rex have roots which are too short to support a meat-tearing, bone-crunching diet. Tyrannosaurus most probably was a vegetarian (at least before the flood of Noah, Genesis 1:29, 30) and used his long sharp teeth to strip leaves from plants. After the flood, these reptiles could never grow so huge. The lighter atmosphere (the weighty canopy came down as rain water at the flood), cooler average temperature and predators would prevent long life and excessive size.

By the way, did you know that there never was a dinosaur called "Brontosaurus"? Brontosaurus fooled the scientific community for many, many years. It turned out to be the head of one creature and the body of another. The evolutionary community was too embarrassed to admit this mistake for more than fifty years. Brontosaurus does not appear in most new textbooks.

In recent years some evolutionists have postulated that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, not cold-blooded creatures. Warm-blooded dinosaurs have been proposed because scientists are beginning to realize that 300,000 pound cold-blooded creatures do not and could not exist in our environment. There is not enough air pressure to enable their blood to circulate properly. Somehow an important fact has escaped the notice of these evolutionists (or they are "willingly ignorant," II Peter 3:5). The fact is these huge reptiles would have had no problem thriving in the warm, high pressure atmosphere of system #1. The big ones went into extinction after the Great Flood. It is not politically correct for an evolutionist to believe that the universal Flood of Noah's day actually happened. Belief in the Flood is grounds for dismissal from your job or cancellation of your grants. So the evolutionist is left to speculate regarding "The Great Dinosaur Mystery", whereas the creationist has a valid, scientifically testable position -- the environmental differences between system #1 and system #2.

Evolutionists may have theorized that warm-blooded dinosaurs would solve their dilemma, but recent research indicates that the giant reptiles were cold-blooded as are all reptiles to this day. The Dallas Morning News of March 21, 1994 (p.9-D) reported that three University of Pennsylvania paleontologists have published their view (in Nature magazine) that ..."dinosaurs...were probably cold-blooded..." This is a blow to the evolutionist's dream of solving the mystery of these huge creatures! Of course if you wait a few days some other evolutionary scientists will refute his colleagues' position. Evolutionists keep batting this "warm-blooded" or "cold-blooded" idea back and forth. The Dallas Morning News of July 11, 1994 (page 7-D) published a review by science reporter Matt Crenson of a July 1994 Nature magazine article. The review is partially quoted here:

  "Tyrannosaurus rex had a stable body temperature, a new study shows, suggesting that the largest terrestrial carnivore was warm-blooded.

Reese E. Barrick and William J. Showers of North Carolina State University in Raleigh studied Tyrannosaurus bones uncovered in the rocks of the Hell Creek Formation in eastern Montana...

The remarkable consistency of the oxygen isotopes in the dinosaur's bones demonstrate that its body temperature never varied by more than about 7 degrees Fahrenheit, the North Carolina researchers wrote last week in Nature. If Montana's seasons were anywhere near as variable 70 million years ago, when Tyrannosaurus lived, as they are today, a creature with such a stable body temperature would have had to be warm-blooded."

A creationist might say that a stable body temperature in a giant cold-blooded reptile is consistent with the creationist view that the earth's temperature was uniformly warm in the tropical pre-Flood heaven and earth system number one. Creationists would expect to find "...remarkable consistency of the oxygen isotopes in the dinosaur's bones...". Apparently these evolutionistic researchers would rather pretend that cold-blooded reptiles were actually warm-blooded than to consider the pre-Flood pole-to-pole greenhouse warm condition of earth (6,000 years ago, not 70 million years ago) as presented by the creationist model.

[Soldier4Christ]

The giant flying reptiles such as the pterosaurs (pterodactyls and pteranodons) would be unable to fly in our present atmosphere. They needed a heavier atmosphere to get enough air to lift them with their 40 to 50-foot wingspans. Heaven and earth system #1 would have provided the heavier atmospheric pressure necessary for the flight of these huge creatures. Evolutionists say we don't know how these giant reptiles could have flown in our atmosphere. To a creationist, this is not a problem. Heaven and earth system #1, before the water canopy came down at the flood of Noah's day, would have provided the air density needed for these huge creatures to fly. In order to protect their jobs the evolutionists dare not even suggest the global flood of Noah's day as part of the solution to their problems, and yet the Flood supplies the explanation for what we "see". We even read in our older history books about ancient cultures which taught a global flood.

Gigantism was common in the heavy pre-flood atmosphere. Fossil dragonflies with a 32-inch wingspan have been discovered and would be a frightful bug to hit your windshield! The hornless rhinoceros grew to about "...seventeen feet high and nearly thirty feet long!" [3] Giant sabre-toothed tigers, mastodons and woolly mammoths roamed the earth side-by-side with the great dinosaurs.

Man lived during the age of the dinosaurs. In cretaceous rock strata of the Paluxy River bottom near Glen Rose, Texas, human and dinosaur footprints have been found crisscrossing each other. Much has been said about these footprints because, if authentic, they prove in solid rock that man and dinosaur lived at the same time. If accepted as genuine, they are a fatal blow in rock to evolution. They are proof that evolution is a false speculation of man! Most textbooks claim that the dinosaurs became extinct about 60 or 70 million years before man stepped onto the scene and into his footprints. Dinosaur and human footprints crisscrossing each other in the same rock strata destroys the evolutionary belief that over a period of millions of years man evolved from his ancient reptilian ancestors!

Two Texas scientists have sectioned (cut into slices of rock) one of these human footprints. Carl Baugh and Don Patton discovered that the rock under the footprints shows pressure structures (called laminations). These pressure structures are exactly what a scientist would expect to find surrounding a human footprint! The human prints (and there are many) are not "carved" into the river-bed and neither arethe dinosaur prints.[4]

In the summer of 1993 Drs. Patton and Baugh noticed eleven and one-half inch long human footprints (people have feet that big today) stepping along - left, right, left, right - inside giant three-toed dinosaur prints. Someone was walking in the soft mud of fresh dinosaur tracks! One of the tracks shows in rock the human footprint beside the dinosaur track. Apparently the person got "side-tracked" and missed one dinosaur print, but got back "on track" for his next step. These footprints are conclusive, hard, observable evidence that man and dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously. For a while The Humanist magazine had discredited these Paluxy River footprints to the extent that creationists withdrew their articles and films (a good film documenting the footprints is entitled Footprints in Stone). The summer of 1993 work by Drs. Baugh and Patton should put the shoe back on the other foot! Contact Dr. Don Patton for the incredible account of how several of the footprints (but not all) were destroyed by an overly threatened evolutionist attempting to "...suppress the truth...".

Proverbs 14:12 tells us that "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Evolutionists travel to Glen Rose, Texas and examine the human and dinosaur footprints side by side or overlapped with each other in cretaceous rock, and they concoct foolish speculations rather than bow their knees and heads before their Creator who told us all that dinosaurs and humans existed together on the sixth day of the creation week. The Bible teaches that man and dinosaur shared the same earth at the same time (Genesis 1). This presents no difficulty since those giant creatures ate only plants before the Flood! In the early days of His creation, God prevented animals from eating each other or man, since He purposed to fill the earth with His creatures.

Another evidence to support the fact that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time in history is the cave paintings of dinosaurs. How could a "pre-historic" man or woman paint a picture of a dinosaur if he or she had never seen one? The Institute for Creation Research (ICR) circulates an excellent video documenting the cave drawings of dinosaurs.

LONGEVITY OF LIFE

Another result of the water (vapor?) being above the firmament in which the birds fly would be the shielding effect from cosmic radiation. Scientists have studied how much solar radiation is filtered by water. Their conclusions are reported by Dr. Joseph Dillow in his book, The Waters Above: Earth's Pre-Flood Water Vapor Canopy. In heaven and earth system #1, people could live to be very old. One of the primary aging factors is solar radiation. By filtering out the harmful radiation (as a water canopy would do) humans might be able to live close to l,000 years.

The Bible reports that Adam died at 930 years of age and Methuselah lived almost l,000 years. After the flood, the ages of people dropped off drastically to an average of 70 to 80 years. A lot of people think that you cannot believe the Bible when it says people lived to be 800 or 900 years old -- that it must be a different kind of year or the writer did not know quite what he was talking about. Those old ages are 360-day years just like the Bible says (compare Genesis 7:11 and 8:3,4).[5] You can believe the Bible as it is written. Some present-day researchers who study longevity of life believe that humans could live that long again if we were sheltered from the harmful effects of the sun and the now polluted air.

Solar shielding by the water canopy above the atmosphere where the birds fly would also affect dating techniques. Negligible amounts of carbon 14 would have formed before the flood.[6] That means that carbon 14 dating techniques would be totally worthless after 5,000 years or so. More about dating techniques later.

[1] For more information about "Hyperbaric Therapy" see: J. C. Davis, "Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy," Journal of Intensive Care Medicine, 4 (1989), 55-57. Also: Textbook of Hyperbaric Medicine, ed. K. K. Jain (Toronto: Hogrefe and Huber Pubs., 1990), p. 492. Also: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: A Committee Report (UHMS PUB 30 CRHOB), ed. J. T. Mader (Bethesda: Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, Inc., 1989), p. 90.

[2] Most of my comments about the effects of the vapor canopy came from Dr. Joseph Dillow's excellent discussion of the effects of the vapor canopy in The Water's Above: Earth's Pre-Flood Water Vapor Canopy (Moody Press, 1982).

[3] Petersen, Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation, pp. 28,29.

[4] For more information about Glen Rose and the human footprints, contact: Dr. Don R. Patton at the Metroplex Institute of Origin Science, Inc. (MIOS), P.O. Box 550953, Dallas, TX 75355-0953 and Dr. Carl E. Baugh at the Creation Evidences Museum and Archaeological Excavations, P.O. Box 309, Glen Rose, Texas 76043 (817) 897-3200.

[5] In Genesis 7:11, the flood began on the seventeenth day of the second month and in the seventh month on the seventeenth day (five months later) as recorded in Genesis 8:4, the ark rested on Ararat. According to Genesis 8:3, these five months included 150 days -- 150 days divided by five months = 30 days in a month; 30 days x 12 months = 360 days in an Old Testament year.

[6] The Institute for Creation Research is most helpful and has several different publications dealing with dating techniques. Every family should subscribe to the I.C.R. monthly newsletter, Acts and Facts, Institute for Creation Research, P.O. Box 2667, El Cajon, CA 92021 (619) 448-0900.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Beaver
     The beaver is another uniquely designed creation. The following is copied verbatim from Creation Ex Nihilo Vol. 15 No. 2, March-May 1993, pages 38-41. Hopefully you will see the value of subscribing to this creationist magazine as you read the words of author and scientist, Denis Dreves:

"Beavers: Aquatic Architects"

"The dam building ability of beavers is fairly well known, but beavers possess other amazing design features which God has included in their anatomy. Beavers are air-breathing mammals which spend a great deal of time in water. For this reason they need special equipment.

First, the beaver has special valves in its ears and nose. When the beaver dives below the water these valves automatically close so that no water can enter. When the animal resurfaces, the valves reopen and it breathes again.

Perhaps their most amazing piece of equipment is their eyelids. If you have done any diving or snorkeling you will know that water and materials in it can irritate your eyes and wash out natural lubricants. Not only that, but your eyes do not see well under water. That is why snorkelers wear goggles.

Were we original to think up this idea of goggles?

Not really. God designed beavers with "built-in" goggles. Their eyelids are transparent, so they can close their eyes underwater and still see extremely well. Their transparent eyelids give protection to their eyes from waterborne irritants.

During winter, beavers must feed on the bark of trees they have cut and stored in the autumn, using their specially designed, self-sharpening front incisors (perhaps one of the beaver's better known pieces of equipment).

The beavers collect the young trees [usually two to five centimeters (one to two inches) in diameter] for food, cut them to suitable lengths and then transport them, by holding them in their teeth, to their underwater cache, forcing the branches into the mud at the bottom of the pond.

            AMAZING DESIGN

Which brings us to another amazing design feature. To retrieve the stored food in the winter months when ice covers the pond, the beaver may need to chew the sticks underwater. They can do this without water entering their mouths, because they have fur mouth flaps between their front incisors and their rear molar teeth, which are set considerably further back. These two folds of skin, one on each side of the mouth, meet behind the incisors and seal off the rest of the mouth.

The beaver's large paddle-shaped tail, which has a scale-like skin covering it, is used as a rudder when it swims. This is particularly important when the animal is swimming with a branch in its mouth. The tail must compensate for any uneven drag from the branch, thus the tail is often held at an angle for accurate steering.

The rear feet of the beaver are large and webbed like a duck's feet, to give the animal good swimming ability. The two inner claws of each foot have split toenails, which the beaver uses as a comb to groom itself and oil its fur.

Beavers use their smaller, unwebbed front paws to carry mud and other materials, and to dig canals which they use as a means of transporting wood and also as a means of quick escape from predators.

The fur of the beaver must be oiled to prevent water reaching the animal's skin. The oil is provided from two large oil glands. They are filled with a rich, thick, deep yellow oily liquid, which the beaver spreads on its fur for waterproofing. This, along with its two layers of fur, are so effective that water rarely reaches the skin. A layer of fat beneath the skin gives further protection against the cold.

A beaver can swim submerged for perhaps 800 meters (a half-mile) or more. Most air-breathing creatures would be adversely affected by lack of oxygen to the brain. The beaver has special equipment to compensate for this need. Large lungs and liver allow for the storage of more air and oxygenated blood. In addition, a beaver's heart beats more slowly when it dives, in order to conserve oxygen, and the blood is restricted to the animals extremities while the vital supply to the brain remains normal.

     ENGINEERING SKILLS

Beavers construct dams that may be hundreds of meters long. Construction of the dam is done by cutting down trees and shrubs, dragging each piece to the dam-site, and laying them in the water parallel to the stream (end facing upstream). Almost everything the beavers can find goes into the dam - live wood, dead wood, mud, grass and rocks. When the beaver's pond floods, mounting pressure on the dam can cause it to break. To prevent this, if there is time, the beaver engineers a spillway to relieve pressure, then fixes it after the water subsides.

Beaver lodges are also the work of a master builder. They are built with sticks, and sealed from the cold with mud. The center of the roof is not sealed, which allows some ventilation. Access is only from underwater, with more than one entry in case of the need to escape. The beavers can gain direct underwater access to the cache of sticks they have stored under the water when ice covers the pond in winter and this is their only available food.

Truly the beaver is yet another example of the wonderful provision and wise planning of a caring Creator God. Such variety of essential equipment could not have evolved over time by chance and selection. All of the beaver's equipment must be present and fully functional in the animal from the beginning for it to survive its semi-aquatic life-style."

[Soldier4Christ]

8     THE COLLAPSE OF THE WATER CANOPY

What might have caused the water vapor canopy to come down as rain? Several theories exist, although, of course, God does not need a naturalistic cause; He could just sovereignly command the rains of the flood to pour down by His omnipotent power.

One proposed idea for the precipitation of the rain is that a meteorite slammed into the earth, shooting great clouds of dust up into the water vapor. The dust particles would provide the nuclei of condensation for the raindrops and down comes the canopy. Along with this idea is the suggestion that the earth tipped 23 1/2 degrees off dead center during this meteor's impact, resulting in frozen ice-caps and the four seasons.

Another theory holds that a large number of volcanoes erupted simultaneously around the earth, and the volcanic dust provided the particles for the condensation of the vapor into rain. Perhaps all of these cataclysmic events were happening at the same time -- the meteor hit the earth, fracturing the earth's crust, which in turn gave birth to multiple volcanoes.

If there were volcanic activity at the time of the flood, then volcanic ash would be expected in deep, old ice and frozen muck. In the antarctic[1] and arctic, the oldest ice and muck is saturated with volcanic ash. The creationist position holds water.

A sudden and permanent temperature drop from pole-to-pole greenhouse warm (heaven and earth system #1) to frozen ice-caps and moderate temperature (heaven and earth system #2) would occur during the canopy collapse and Flood. In 1893, just one volcano, Krakatau,[2] lowered the average global temperature five degrees for a year. Dust from Krakatau shot 30 miles up into the atmosphere and a series of tidal waves washed across the seas with the greatest being 120 feet high. This incredible wave pushed several miles inland on Java and Sumatra.

If the dust from one volcano could lower the temperature of the earth for an entire year, what might be the chaos and cataclysm of hundreds of volcanoes erupting simultaneously? Could it be that the Bible is describing volcanic activity when it tells us that on the seventeenth day of the second month: "...the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,..." (Genesis 7:11)? This was the first day of a sudden and permanent temperature drop, the effects of which are in evidence to this day.

Science News (July 6, 1991, Vol. 140, #1, p. 7) headlines:

        "VOLCANO COULD COOL CLIMATE, REDUCE OZONE."

The article states: "The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo could chill the Earth slightly for the next few years and hasten the destruction of the ozone layer over large portions of the world, say scientists...." (p. 7). Scientific literature refers to the "Ring of Fire". Several thousand years ago, volcanoes erupted simultaneously all around the world. What caused this cataclysmic ring of fire? Could this have been the "seventeenth day of the second month"?

QUICK FROZEN ANIMALS

Evolutionary science has no answer for the existence of many quick-frozen animals found in various places around the globe. Among these frozen animals are rhinoceros, hyena, oxen, sabre-toothed tigers, hippopotamus, bison, donkeys, leopards, ibex and giant woolly mammoths. What is a quick-frozen rhinoceros doing in Siberia? Is it that he was on a little summer vacation and before he could get back to Africa, got caught in a freezing blizzard? No, there were tropical animals living in Siberia before the Flood of Noah's day! The earth was pole-to-pole greenhouse warm under the water canopy. This presents an immense problem for evolutionists. What happened back then to quick-freeze tropical plants and animals in Siberia? None of these frozen "fossil" animals are transitional-form animals. All of these very ancient animals are discrete entities. They are instantly and easily classified as bison or mammoths. "Well", say evolutionists, "It must have been a slowly creeping ice age that caught up to these animals."

The frozen animal remains do not represent a slowly creeping ice age. They were caught and permanently frozen (they are still frozen today) with such incredible speed that undigested plants remained in their mouths and in their stomach's digestive juices. Giant nine-ton mammoths have been discovered with undigested buttercups in their mouths and in their stomachs which are still identifiable as to genus and species of the plant! (see Dillow, footnote #68)

What would it take to quick-freeze a happy, healthy nine-ton mammoth grazing on buttercups (and several hundred other identifiable plants which no longer grow in the frigid climate where the frozen mammoths are found)? Some scientists went to a major food-freezing company and posed this question. The answer does not fit into the known realities of heaven and earth system #2 (our present system). To quick-freeze nine tons of warm blooded animal munching on buttercups, it would take a temperature of -175°F (the coldest temperature ever recorded on earth is near -128°F), a wind-chill factor of a 200-400 m.p.h. wind, over a time of about four hours (eight hours at the outside limit). The problem is that there is nothing on earth that approaches these conditions necessary to freeze the animals -- and yet the animals are frozen. To preserve the meat and undigested plants, drastic conditions not known on our present earth would have been necessary for the quick-freeze. The freezing of these ancient plants and animals was not caused by a slowly creeping ice age. Many textbooks will show an artist's imaginary picture of a mammoth standing in a blizzard with a slowly creeping glacier moving up from behind. This is imagination, not reality. The mammoths were warm-temperature animals, eating warm-temperature plants in a warm-temperature climate that suddenly, in a matter of hours, became permanently frozen.

Another interesting fact about mammoths is documented by M. L. Ryder:

"The scarcity of hair in the modern elephant is associated with a corrugation of the epidermis, and a lack of skin glands. Although the mammoth, too,...lacked glands, the increase of the hair was associated with a loss of the epidermal corrugation....

Sections cut parallel to the skin surface revealed sparse, round, non-medullated hairs with no glands or erector muscles." [3]

Mammoth skin has been dissected and, to the surprise of evolutionists, it contains no sebaceous (oil) glands. Why should this be a surprise? Because cold temperature animals have a plentiful supply of oil glands to oil their hair and fur. Wolves, polar bears and seals have such oily fur that the frigid northern water rolls off and does not penetrate to the skin. Cold temperature animals need a lot of oil to protect them from the wet cold. A mammoth could not last very long in a frigid climate without oil in its hair. It was a warm-temperature animal eating warm-temperature plants that was caught suddenly and frozen quickly and permanently in the distant past. Evolution provides no answer for this! A slowly creeping ice age is not a sufficient explanation for the quick-frozen animals -- but a cataclysm such as would have resulted with the collapse of the canopy at the Flood of Noah's day provides the answer and the evidence.

[Soldier4Christ]

An animal with no oil glands in its skin cannot survive in a frigid climate. But an animal with oil glands can survive in frigid or tropical climates. Leopards have oil glands and can survive in tropical climates. Yet, their pelts have been used to make fur coats that are quite warm in winter. Polar bears survive in zoos in the intense summer heat of southern states.

These mammoths (and many other animals) were frozen so quickly that their meat can still be eaten.

"In many instances, as is well known, entire carcasses of the mammoth have been found thus buried, with the hair, skin and flesh as fresh as in frozen New Zealand sheep in the hold of a steamer. And sleigh dogs as well as Yakuts themselves, have often made a hearty meal of mammoth flesh thousands of years old." [4]

This sudden and permanent temperature change from pole-to- pole greenhouse warm to the present perma-frost or permanent ice condition at and near the poles could have happened during the collapse of the water canopy at the Flood-judgment of God in the days of Noah. The frozen condition, since the break-up of the canopy permitted heat to escape our atmosphere, has preserved for us animal and plant life (now extinct) which existed in heaven and earth system #1. Evolution has no good answer for the sudden death of the frozen animals. The Bible would lead us to believe these things happened at the Flood destruction of system #1.

The Bible gives us a warning in Colossians 2:8:

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Evolution is a philosophical system and an empty deception.[5] Christians should not be taken captive by evolution -- there is no factual science (science not based on assumptions, see Dr. Kerkut's assumptions in Chapter 2, page 21) to support the molecules-to-man model of origins. In studying origins (where we came from) we must keep in mind that both evolution and creation are faith systems. We have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed into believing that scientific facts prove evolution of molecules-to-man to be true. No one but God was there when the universe and life appeared. Let us not be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ! (II Cor. 11:3)

l.      Praise Ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise him in the heights!
2.     Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
3.     Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
4.     Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens.
5.     Let them praise the name of the Lord: for he commanded, and they were created. (Psalm 148:1-5)

[1] See Anthony Gow, "Glaciologial Investigations in Antarctica," Antarctic Journal of U.S., Vol. 7 No. 4 (1972),100-101.

[2] Cheryl Simon, "Krakatau 1893: The Shock Felt 'Round the World'," Science News, 124 (May, 1983), 138.

[3] M. L. Ryder, "Hair of the Mammoth," Nature, 249 (May 10, 1974), 190,191.

[4] G. Richard Lydekker, "Mammoth Ivory," Smithsonian Reports (1899), p. 363, as reported by Dr. Joseph Dillow, The Waters Above, p. 312. (See footnote #69)

[5] When we depart from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ (II Cor. 11:3), we accept empty deceptions. Many Christians have departed from Biblical Truth to believe in Darwinian evolution or in Punctuated Equilibrium (evolution did not happen too slow to see, it happened too fast to see). Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge promote "Punctuated Equilibria" as the mode of evolution (see: "Punctuated Equilibria: the Tempo and Mode of Evolution Reconsidered," Paleobiology, 3 (Spring 1977). The punctuated equilibria model (evolution is too fast to see) has been around for a long time even though Gould seems to accept praise as the "father" of it. Punctuated equilibria is foundational to Marxist-Leninism and was seen by Marx and Lenin as essential to move people away from Biblical Truth into the vain philosophy and empty deception of Marxist-Leninism. For excellent documentation of this and Gould's roots as a Marxist, read: The Long War Against God by Dr. Henry Morris (Baker Book House, 1989), and Understanding the Times by Dr. David Noebel (Summit Ministries, Box 207, Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829, 1991).

[Soldier4Christ]

The Chicken Egg

A fertilized chicken egg is a very special creation. Before even thinking about a chick developing in an egg, it is interesting to ponder how the chicken manages to get a shell around that slippery, raw, fertilized egg. It is a rare sight on the farm to see raw egg smeared on the outside of the shell. Have you ever attempted to put an egg back into its shell after it rolled off the counter?

The shell itself is highly specialized. Each egg shell has about 10,000 tiny holes or pores. How does that chicken form a shell around a soft, messy egg and design the shell to have porosity?

 Put a raw egg in warm water and soon you will see tiny bubbles floating up. These bubbles are escaping through the pores in the shell. The developing chick needs these pores to breathe. Evolution requires a need before an organism will change. How does a chicken know it needs to make a shell with porosity, and how can it manufacture such a shell? The chick does not know it needs the holes in the shell to breathe until it dies for lack of air. Of course, dead chicks cannot evolve.

Within the first few days after the egg is laid, blood vessels begin to grow out of the developing chick. Two of these attach to the membrane under the eggshell and two attach to the yolk. By the fifth day, the tiny heart is pumping blood through the vessels. What makes those blood vessels grow out of the chick, and how do they know where to go and to what to attach?

The chick feeds from the yolk with the yolk vessels and breathes through the membrane vessels. If any of these vessels do not grow out of the chick or attach to the correct place, the chick will die.

The chick gives off carbon dioxide and water vapor as it metabolizes the yolk. If it does not get rid of the carbon dioxide and water vapor, it will die of gaseous poisoning or drown in its own waste water. These waste products are picked up by the blood vessels and leave through the pores in the eggshell.

By the nineteenth day, the chick is too big to get enough oxygen through the pores in the shell. It must do something or die. How does it know what to do next? By this time, a small tooth called the "egg-tooth" has grown onto its beak. It uses this little tooth to peck a hole into the air sack at the flat end of the egg. When you peel a hard-boiled egg you notice the thin membrane under the shell and the flattened end of the egg. This flattened end, which looks like the hen did not quite fill up her egg shell, is the air sack. The air sack provides only six hours of air for the chick to breathe. Instead of relaxing and breathing deeply, with this new-found supply of air, the chick keeps pecking until it breaks a small hole through the shell to gain access to outside air in adequate amounts.

On the twenty-first day, the chick breaks out of the shell. If one step in the development of the chick is missing or out of order, the chick dies.[1]

Each step in the development of the chick defies evolutionary logic. The process must be orchestrated by God, our Creator. The impersonal plus time plus chance is not an adequate explanation for the incredible complexities of life as we observe it.
 

   [1] Bob Devine, God In Creation (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982), pp. 9-13. This booklet discusses ten of God's creations and shows how they could not have evolved. There are a series of these booklets.

 

[Soldier4Christ]

9   DO MUTATIONS PRODUCE NEW LIFE FORMS?

When I began to feel the pressure of having no experimentally testable facts to substantiate my position as a theistic evolutionist, I turned to what I thought was my ace in the hole: Genetics. Didn't everyone know that the science of genetics had irrevocably shown evolution in progress?  Without mutations (changes in the genes and chromosomes), there is no evolutionary change. The question my students asked was, "Do mutations produce new life forms or improvements in present life forms?" Naturally I assumed they produce new forms and I thought I could prove it from the scientific literature. I was due for another rude awakening!

Many creationists[1] and evolutionists study the phenomenon of genetic mutation. The predominant view of evolutionists was expressed by Dr. Ernst Mayr of Harvard: "Ultimately, all variation is, of course, due to mutation." [2] Dr. Mayr instructs us that all variation (different types of plants and animals) observable in life is due to changes in the genes and chromosomes. These mutations occur in the make-up of DNA.

DNA: LANGUAGE OF THE CELL

DNA, the basic information system of the cell, contains the blue prints needed to manufacture twenty or more different proteins. Each of these proteins is manufactured in little "cell-factories" at the direction of the DNA and is essential for the maintenance of life. So, which came first? If DNA is essential in the manufacturing process of proteins, and the manufacturing process produces the proteins essential to DNA, then you can't have one without the other. This means they both must have been created fully functional and at exactly the same point in time. In other words, God must have created the information system of all cells at a point in time and fully functional. DNA is needed to make DNA! DNA provides the instructions to the chemical factories inside the cell for making itself.

Scientists call DNA the "language of the cell." All scientists agree that language requires intelligence. Could there be an implication here that DNA, the "language of the cell" required intelligence to create it? Could it be that DNA was created fully functional in all the different kinds of life by an intelligent Designer, the God of the Bible! Evolution offers no answers to this weighty problem. Yet the God of Creation proclaims through His Holy Scriptures, "I created, created, created!"

The genetic information of DNA cannot be improved upon in any normal, healthy organism. Natural selection or "survival of the fittest" does not produce new genes, it merely selects the best suited animal or plant life for a specific niche or environment. This is adaptation to a specific environment and not mutation. Yet mutation is the only mechanism scientists have proposed to generate the "new" genetic information needed for evolutionary change in the molecules-to-man model. This presents an enormous problem for the evolution model, especially when we learn that mutation in a gene is a rare event.[3]

How could life have evolved into all its millions of forms if the very mechanism that causes it to evolve (mutation) is a rare event? When mutations do occur, geneticists tell us that mutations are 99.9% harmful.

"The process of mutation is the only source of the raw materials of genetic variability, and hence, of evolution....The mutants which arise are, with rare exceptions, deleterious to their carriers, at least in the environments which the species normally encounters." (Theodosius Dobzhansky) [4]

Dobzhansky spent his professional life breeding and mutating fruit flies. In the end, he had somewhat strange fruit flies, but fruit flies nonetheless. Some of those flies were not even able to reproduce because they had become sterile. Dobzhansky writes that mutations are the only source of evolution, but that they are almost always harmful (which means the mutation makes the life-form that gets it less able to survive where it lives). If "survival of the fittest" is true, then mutations should, cause extinctions, not new and better life forms. Of course what we observe in nature are extinctions of plants and animals rather than emerging, new life forms. There are millions of living things from plants to insects, but we hear almost weekly of more extinctions. How many newly evolved creatures have you heard about in your lifetime? With all the millions of living things in the world surely mutations are happening and something is or has evolved into something else. The evolutionists are frantically searching for the smallest hint that something will evolve and prove their theory to be true.

A few years ago the evolutionary community presented to the public their best example of evolution in progress. It was a guppy family that had been separated from their old friends for several years. When the guppies were reunited they would not mate. Evolutionists consider a life-form to be a new species when it will no longer mate with its old friends. Maybe the guppy didn't smell good when it came back from its temporary environment. Or maybe its old friends didn't recognize it, or maybe the researchers didn't wait long enough to see if the guppy would be accepted again. The fact is that both populations of guppies were still unmistakably identifiable to scientists and laymen as guppies. Where is the evidence for the evolution of one creature into another when after more than eleven years of breeding guppies they are still guppies.

Even if these fish refuse to breed with each other and are therefore categorized as a new species of guppy, does this prove evolution of one kind into another kind of creature. People have devised their definitions of and limits to species, but God refers to "kinds" in the Genesis account. Biblically, there are certain boundaries that no living form can cross. A specific "kind" of creature will never evolve into another "kind" of creature. Guppies are fish. Within the fish-kind there is a lot of room for change, even "evolutionary" change, but fish will forever be fish, big ones, little ones, fresh water and salt water, but still fish.

It doesn't seem right for scientists to tell us in school and college that the chief mechanism in our ever upward and onward evolutionary process is mutation in the genes when they say in the scientific literature mutations are harmful or deadly:  "Mutations are more than just sudden changes in heredity; they also affect viability, and, to the best of our knowledge, invariably affect it adversely." (C.P. Martin)  [5],[6],[7]

So we learn that mutations in a healthy life-form invariably cause harmful changes or death (lethal) to the organism. How does evolution from molecules-to-man occur if the very process that supposedly causes it to happen, in truth, harms or kills the organism? To put this another way, why did the evolutionary scientists evacuate the area when the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania destroyed itself? Why didn't these scientists move their families into the area to be irradiated so mutations might develop and they could evolve into the next higher life form? The scientists knew that their offspring would inherit unhealthy characteristics from the Three Mile Island irradiation. They got away from the mutation-causing radiation as fast as they could!

Professor of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin, James Crow writes:

"...mutants would usually be detrimental. For a mutation is a random change of a highly organized reasonably smoothly functioning living body. A random change in the highly integrated system of chemical processes which constitute life is almost certain to impair it -- just as a random interchange of connections in a television set is not likely to improve the picture." [8]

Dr. Crow's analogy is accurate. All of us know that stirring up and haphazardly reattaching wires in the back of a T.V. set will not improve the picture. In the same way random changes in the genes do not improve our ability to live and function. As a matter of fact no scientist has yet observed a random mutation produce a new hormone, enzyme, or simple organ.[9] Nevertheless they teach us and our children the lie that we are here because our primeval ancestors had mutations occur in their genes that caused them to evolve higher and higher until here we are. Magic!! Listen to the words of the famous evolutionist from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Loren Eiseley:

"With the failure of these many efforts (to prove evolution to be true), science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate. After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today had in truth, taken place in the primeval past." [10]

[Soldier4Christ]

PLANT EVOLUTION

One of the world's leading experts on plant evolution and fossil plants, Dr. E. J. H. Corner of Cambridge University dogmatically states:

"The theory of evolution is not merely the theory of the origin of species, but the only explanation of the fact that organisms can be classified into this hierarchy of natural affinity. Much evidence can be adduced in favour of the theory of evolution -- from biology, bio-geography and paleontology, but I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation." [11] (Emphasis added)

According to expert Corner, there is no evidence for the evolution of plants. In fact, when plants are studied closely they appear to be a special creation! The field of botany (plants) does not prove evolution, and yet Dr. Corner still believes in an evolutionary mythological system. He is trusting his compatriots in "biology, bio-geography and paleontology" to prove evolution to be true. In Corner's field (plants), special creation appears to be the best option.

If there is no evidence for the evolution of people or plants, then how about evidence for the evolution of fish?

EVOLUTION OF FISH

"The geological record has so far provided no evidence as to the origin of the fishes,...[J.R. Norman (British Museum of Natural History)] [12]

According to these experts, there is no evidence for the evolution of plants, and no evidence for the evolution of fish. What about amphibians?

EVOLUTION OF AMPHIBIANS

"...none of the known fishes is thought to be directly ancestral to the earliest land vertebrates. Most of them lived after the first amphibians appeared, and those that came before show no evidence of developing the stout limbs and ribs that characterized the primitive tetrapods...

Since the fossil material provides no evidence of other aspects of the transformation from fish to tetrapod, paleontologists have had to speculate how legs and aerial breathing evolved..." (Barbara J. Stahl) [13] (Emphasis added).

No evidence for the evolution of plants and no evidence for fish. What's more, the only evidence for amphibians is the "speculations" of the fossil experts. The evidence, then, for evolution of creatures as they supposedly developed the ability to crawl out of water and live as land animals is in the imagination of the evolutionist. There are no fossils and no facts to support belief in the evolution of amphibians. How about birds?

EVOLUTION OF BIRDS

"The [evolutionary] origin of birds is largely a matter of deduction. There is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved." (W.E. Swinton) [14]

The evolution of birds is a "matter of deduction". "Deduction" in this case is a polite synonym for imagination. There is not a single, undisputed fossil that shows the evolutionary transitions of reptiles into birds.

   According to the above evolutionary experts, evolution is grossly lacking in hard evidence! Although we are told that mutations are good because they generate new life and produce evolution, we do not see this "good" happening in reality. Genetic mutations cannot be the driving force behind evolution. Nor do the evolutionists provide evidence to prove the evolution of any creature.

TIME GENERATES MIRACLES

But what if earth history was counted in billions of years? The old argument always comes along at this point that anything can happen in a random-chance system if it is given enough time. The miracle of life can come from dead chemicals if given enough time. We will discuss the "billions of years" argument in Chapter 10. But before leaving Chapter 9, let us not forget that changes in the genes (random mutations) do not improve present life forms, nor is there any solid factual evidence that they generate new plants or animals. The evacuation of Three Mile Island spoke volumes! (If, indeed, mutations are helpful then we should gladly and willingly expose ourselves to them to "improve" our evolutionary opportunities!)

[1] Dr. Walter Brown wrote a paper several years ago on the evidences for creation. In his footnotes was a selection of quotes from the pro-evolutionary literature dealing with genetics. For this valuable information, please contact Dr. Walter Brown, The Center for Scientific Creation, 5612 North 20th Place, Phoenix, AZ 85016.

[2] Ernst Mayr, Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (Philadelphia: Wister Institute Press, 1967), p. 50.

[3] "Although mutation is the ultimate source of all genetic variation, it is a relatively rare event..." , Francisco Ayala, "The Mechanics of Evolution," Scientific American, September 1978, p. 63.

[4] Theodosius Dobzhansky, "On Methods of Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology," American Scientist, Winter, December 1957, p. 385.

[5] C. P. Martin, "A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution," American Scientist, January 1953, p. 162.

[6] "If we say that it is only by chance that they (mutations) are useful, we are still speaking too leniently. In general, they are useless, detrimental, or lethal." W. R. Thompson, Introduction to the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1956), p. 10.

[7] "Lethal mutations outnumber visibles (Albinism, Dwarfism, Hemophilism) by about 20 to 1. Mutations that have harmful effects are even more frequent than lethal ones." A. M. Winchester, Genetics, 5th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mufflin Co., 1977), p. 356.

[8] James Crow, "Genetic Effects of Radiation," Bulletin of Atomic Sciences, 14 (1958), 19-20.

[9] "Do we, therefore, ever see mutations going about the business of producing new structures for selection to work on? No nascent organ has ever been observed emerging, though their origin in prefunctional form is basic to evolutionary theory. Some should be visible today, occurring in organisms at various stages up to integration of a functional new system, but we don't see them: there is no sign at all of this kind of radical novelty. Neither observation or controlled experiment has shown natural selection manipulating mutations so as to produce a new gene, hormone, enzyme system or organ." Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (London: Rider Press, 1981), pp. 67,68.

[10] Dr. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), p. 199.

[11] E. J. H. Corner, 'Evolution' in Contemporary Botanical Thought, eds. Anna M. Macleod and L. S. Cobley, Oliver and Boyd, for the Botanical Society of Edinburg, 1961, p. 97. As quoted (partially) from The Quote Book, p. 11.

[12] J. R. Norman, "Classification and Pedigrees: Fossils," in A History of Fishes, 3rd ed., ed. Dr. P. H. Greenwood, British Museum of Natural History, London, 1975, p. 343. As quoted (partially) from The Quote Book, p. 11.

[13] Barbara J. Stahl, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), pp. 148,195. As quoted in The Quote Book, p. 11.

[14] Wo. E. Swinton, "The Origin of Birds," Chapter 1 in Biology and Comparative Physiology of Birds, A. J. Marshall, ed., Vol. I (New York: Academic Press, 1960), p. 1. As quoted in The Quote Book, p. 11.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Chuckwalla Lizard           

 

Chuckwalla lizards are large, pot-bellied lizards which wear a loose, baggy skin. Though the skin appears to be much too large, it is just exactly what this lizard needs when an enemy approaches. You see, when an enemy comes near the chuckwalla, the lizard runs very quickly to a rock crevice and hides in it. In the crack of the rock, the chuckwalla swallows air and blows up like a balloon. When the enemy arrives the chuckwalla is safely wedged in the crack. Though it is within easy reach, it is safe. Years ago, the Indians of our desert Southwest learned how to catch the chuckwalla. They pierced its body with an arrow to let out the air; then the Indians could easily remove the lizard from its haven. Man is probably the only enemy of the chuckwalla lizard from whom it is not completely safe.

Of course, the desert is very dry. Some chuckwallas live where there may be only a single rain shower in a whole year. In these arid places the chuckwalla generally lives a dormant life for most of the year. It estivates, or sleeps, for all but about five months of the year.

While living actively, the chuckwalla eats whatever juicy plants it can find. Special glands store the water from the greenery, and the chuckwalla grows fat from its food. Generally, chuckwallas are dormant from August through March.

Many desert plants absorb much salt from the soil in which they grow. The chuckwalla receives enough salt from its food to kill an ordinary animal. The salt would kill the chuckwalla, too, were it not for its special salt-removing glands. These glands are located in the nostrils of the chuckwalla, and, as the salt builds up on the glands, the lizard occasionally sneezes. The sneeze expels the crystallized salt which the glands have filtered out of the lizard's bloodstream.

The cold-blooded chuckwalla sleeps late. But when it arises, it must warm up in a hurry. Desert nights and early mornings are often very cold. Cold-blooded creatures are slow and sluggish when they are cold, and cold lizards are easy to catch. For this reason, the chuckwalla wears a dark-colored, heat-absorbing skin. The sun warms the lizard before the air warms up. Later in the day, the lizard's skin changes to a heat-reflecting light color because the chuckwalla must not get too hot either. The rationality we find when we examine the chuckwalla's body structure compels us to recognize its Designer. Only God, Who is an intelligent, rational Being, can account for the order and design evident in the chuckwalla lizard and all of nature." [1]

 

[1] DeWitt Steele, Science: Order and Reality (Pensacola, Fl: A Beka Book Publications, 1980), p. 138. Christian parents, do you realize that there are science books that your children can be studying that defend the creationist's perspective?

[Soldier4Christ]

10  EARTH: YOUNG OR OLD -

GIVE ME FACTS, NOT ASSUMPTIONS

When faced with lack of evidence to support their faith system, the evolution of molecules to man, the evolutionist will always fall back on the argument of "time". "Give us enough time," they say, "and evolution will occur." And so the evolutionists publish dates of billions of years for the age of the universe. These "billions and billions of years" are emphasized from our childhood days. As little children, we hear famous people and "credentialed" science writers in white lab coats over and over again and again refer to these long ages of time. News broadcasters and public television nature programs refer to billions of years as a matter of fact. Repetition is essential to brainwashing; and brainwashing is essential to belief in one-cell-to-man evolution, since there is no factual science (science not based on assumptions) to back it up. Most creationists would say that the universe is somewhere between six and ten thousand years old. A young universe is not a problem for creationists because our God, the Creator-God of the Bible, is also the Creator of time. He does not need time. He can and did create fully mature people, plants and animals.

The evolutionists make major assumptions during the course of determining a date of several million or billion years for the age of a piece of rock. If any of their assumptions are invalid, then it is impossible to use that technique to find a correct age for the rock. Here is how these dating techniques work: Let us say we find a rock and then want to determine how old it is. We decide to analyze the rock by looking for certain elements or compounds which break down over time into certain other elements or compounds. We might look for a special isotope of uranium and the element it eventually breaks down (decays) into, which is a special isotope of lead. In our rock specimen, we find some of this special uranium and some of the lead it decays into (the "daughter" element). The lead is called the daughter element because it comes from the breakdown of its mother element, uranium. We can measure how much lead is in the rock, and because we think we know how fast (or slowly) the uranium would decay into the lead, the amount of this special lead in the rock should then tell us how old the rock is. In other words, the amount of lead present in the rock would have resulted from a certain amount of uranium decaying over X number of years into lead. For all of this to yield a specific time frame in millions or billions of years, certain assumptions are made.
ASSUMPTION ONE: NO CONTAMINATION

First, it is assumed by the scientist dating the rock that his specimen of rock had never been contaminated. Nothing could have come into or out of the rock that could alter the dating technique to give an erroneous date. This would demand a "closed system" for the rock's environment. As Dr. Henry Morris says in Scientific Creationism,[1] there is no such thing in nature as a closed system. The closed system is an ideal concept convenient for analysis, but non-existent in the real world. Morris mentions that the idea of a system remaining closed for millions of years becomes an absurdity. Some evolutionists claim that every molecule in the universe has been in at least four different substances since the Big Bang. But evolutionists cannot have both; they cannot have molecules jumping around from one substance to another and molecules steadfast and immovable, as they would have to be in the closed system.

Therefore, the first assumption needed to affix old dates to rocks is not valid. Rocks do get contaminated as things seep into them, and rocks change their constituents as things leech out of them. A closed system sounds good and must be assumed to have accuracy in dating rocks, but it does not occur in nature.
ASSUMPTION TWO: NO DAUGHTER COMPONENT

The second assumption of the rock-dating expert is that the system must have initially contained none of its daughter component. In order to calculate the age of our rock specimen, for example, there can be no lead in the original rock. Let us say it takes l,000,000 years for one milligram of lead to be produced by the decay of uranium. We then analyze a rock and discover it has one milligram of lead in it. The article we publish would state, with full conviction, "This rock was l,000,000 years old as scientifically dated using high-tech procedures by Dr. Credentials who has a double Ph.D. in rock dating." Who will doubt how old the rock is? Almost no one. But hold on for a minute. Suppose God created that rock with some of the lead already in it. Or suppose some lead leaked into it somehow or was formed by some other reaction or process. How can the expert differentiate between the lead that God put there (or was formed in some other way) and the lead that came from uranium decay? Obviously, no one can know how much lead was there to begin with. Consequently, for laboratory "accuracy" the evolutionist must arbitrarily decide, "There was no lead (daughter element) there to begin with; I can't prove it, but I will pretend (assume) this to be true."

Every time you are told that a rock is several million or billion or even tens of thousands of years old, the scientist doing the dating has assumed no pre-existing daughter compound. This means he guesses every time. Do we take scientists' guesses as valid fact and then proceed to the belief that the Bible must be wrong when it talks of 24-hour creation days about six thousand years ago? Surely not!

ASSUMPTION THREE: CONSTANT DECAY RATE

The third assumption listed by Dr. Henry Morris (Scientific Creationism, p. 138) is that "The process rate must have always been the same." If the process rate (the speed at which the mother element breaks down into the daughter element) has ever changed since the rock was formed, then the change of rate of decay would have to be corrected for the age calculation to be accurate. Scientists now know that process rates can be altered by various factors. Decay rates can be speeded up or slowed down in certain substances when subjected to various types of radiation and X-rays. As Dr. Morris states, every process in nature operates at a rate which is influenced by a number of different factors (p. 139).

[Soldier4Christ]

What if radiation bombarded the primitive earth causing the uranium 238 to speed up its decay process (in other words, its half-life was shortened due to the radiation energy). How would the scientist know that the decay process was speeded up during that radiation bombardment one billion years ago? He couldn't know, could he? This means that he could not accurately date the rock. What if the radiation caused the decay rate to speed up, but previous to the x-rays it was twice as slow as it is today? How would the scientist tell us the age of the rock? He could not do it. Yet, have we not been told that a massive bombardment of x-rays hit the primordial ooze of ancient planet earth causing the "spark" that moved dead chemicals into living cells? The so-called "punctuated equilibrium" theory would insist there have been many radiation bombardments over time to cause one kind of animal to rapidly mutate into a higher form. (Punctuated equilibrium teaches that evolution happens too fast to see, in contrast to Darwinian evolution which teaches evolution happens too slow to see.)

It seems that the evolutionists cannot have both. If radiation causes decay rates to speed up or slow down, then the radiation needed to start life from non-life and mutate (change) old life forms into new ones would totally invalidate those billion-year dates and their dating techniques. The atomic clocks would have speeded up or slowed down depending upon the radiation. Let's also look at this the other way around: if there were no radiation bombardments, then the third of the three dating assumptions listed above might even be correct (even though the other two would of themselves destroy the accuracy of the dating technique) -- but now we don't have the radiation "spark" to get life going from non-living chemicals and to stimulate the necessary mutations assumed to improve the organisms! With no radiation, the decay rates may have remained constant for billions of years, but what energy got evolution started and kept it going in this case?

As Dr. Morris says, educated guesses are made to determine apparent ages. But the apparent age may be completely unrelated to the true age of the rock.

These three assumptions: (l) a closed system, (2) no original daughter element, and (3) the same decay rate throughout all time -- are always involved when a scientist dates a rock. None of these assumptions are valid, and none are able to be subjected to the scientific method of observation and reproducible experimentation. There is no way to accurately date anything beyond several thousand years. That means the earth could be quite young and no scientist can absolutely prove otherwise!

"...there is certainly no real proof that the vast evolutionary time scale is valid at all.

That being true, there is no compelling reason why we should not seriously consider once again the possibilities in the relatively short time scale of the creation model.

As a matter of fact, the creation model does not, in its basic form, require a short time scale. It merely assumes a period of special creation sometime in the past, without necessarily stating when that was. On the other hand, the evolution model does require a long time scale. The creation model is thus free to consider the evidence on its own merits, whereas the evolution model is forced to reject all evidence that favors a short time scale.

Although the creation model is not necessarily linked to a short time scale, as the evolution model is to a long scale, it is true that it does fit more naturally in a short chronology. Assuming the Creator had a purpose in His creation, and that purpose centered primarily in man, it does seem more appropriate that He would not waste aeons of time in essentially meaningless caretaking of an incomplete stage or stages of His intended creative work." [2]

The truth is that we have been taught a lie from our earliest school days.[3] We are taught to believe that the earth is very old even though there is no factual science (see Chapter 2 "assumptions") to support aeons of time. But we are not taught the bountiful evidences that lead to the conclusion that the earth is quite possibly only a few thousand years old. How many evidences for a young earth can you list right now? Did you try to think of some? Can you write down even one solid proof that the earth is young? Most people (including Christians) cannot think of even one proof of a young age for the earth. You see, we have been led into one of the lies of Satan's world system -- that the universe is very old. If a group of Christians were asked, "Do you believe God created the heavens and the earth?" Every hand would go up attesting to their sure belief, "Yes, God created the heavens and the earth." Should a second question be proposed, "Do you believe God used billions of years of geologic ages and the process of evolution to create?", some pauses and waffling would occur, and if everyone was being honest, many hands would go up. Now, a third question is in order, "Do you believe that God created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them in a literal six 24-hour day week? In one evangelical church in Dallas, Texas, only five hands went up in a class of fifty people. You say, "They must not have understood the question!" No, they understood, but only five believed what the Bible says in Genesis 1-11, Exodus 20, John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, Revelation 4:11, etc. They had been brainwashed by Satan's world system into thinking there is plenty of scientific evidence to prove an old, old universe.

Dr. John C. Whitcomb has done us all a great service with his book, The Early Earth: Revised Edition.  Dr. Whitcomb lists and discusses many of the evidences for believing the Bible to be true as written. He contrasts faith in God and His word to faith in evolution and an old earth:

"...the non-Christian scientist must acknowledge that he also comes to the factual, observable phenomenon with a set of basic assumptions and presuppositions that reflect a profound "faith-commitment." No scientist in the world today was present when the earth came into existence, nor do any of us have the privilege of watching worlds being created today! Therefore, the testimony of an honest evolutionist could be expressed in terms of ...Hebrews 11:3..., as follows: "By faith, I, an evolutionist, understand that the worlds were not framed by the word of any god, so that what is seen has indeed been made out of previously existing and less complex visible things, by purely natural processes, through billions of years." Thus it is not a matter of the facts of science versus the faith of Christians! The fundamental issue, in the matter of ultimate origins, is whether one puts his trust in the written Word of the personal and living God who was there when it all happened, or else puts his trust in the ability of the human intellect, unaided by divine revelation to extrapolate presently observed processes of nature in the eternal past (and future). Which faith is the most reasonable, fruitful and satisfying? In my own case, while studying historical geology and paleontology at Princeton University, I was totally committed to evolutionary perspectives. Since then, however, I have discovered the biblical concept of ultimate origins to be far more satisfying in every respect.

Christians who truly desire to honor God in their thinking, must not come to the first Chapter of Genesis with preconceived ideas of what could or could not have happened (in terms of current and changing concepts of uniformitarian scientism). We are not God's counselors; He is ours! `For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who became His counselor?' (Romans 11:34) ...For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith 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' (Isa. 55:8-9)." [4]

Do we know what we believe as Christians? Are we ready to make a defense to everyone who ask us to give an account of the hope that is within us? (I Peter 3:15)

[Soldier4Christ]

IS EARTH 6 THOUSAND OR 4.5 BILLION YEARS OLD?

How divergent are these two views (creation and a young earth versus evolution and an old earth)? The Bible places the Beginning at about 6,000 years ago. Many evolutionists put the beginning of earth at about 4 l/2 billion years ago. Dennis Peterson attempts to help us understand the degree of difference in these two choices of faith:

"One way to visualize the extremes of our choices is to equate one year to the thinness of one page from a typical Bible. If you were to stack up several Bibles to a height about equal with your knee, you'd have about 6,000 pages before you.

Now how many Bibles would you have to stack up to make four and a half billion pages?

The stack would reach at least a hundred and fourteen miles high into the stratosphere.

So, you're standing there between your two stacks,and you are supposed to choose which one to believe in. Why is it you are made to feel rather sheepish to admit that you lean toward the Biblical stack of about 6,000 years? Or why is it that you start to arrogantly ridicule anyone who would dare to not agree with your proud billions?" [5]

Petersen lists 35 or 40 evidences for a young earth. These are scientific reasons to believe the universe to be quite young -- on the order of several thousand rather than several billion years. Petersen states:

"Scientists are aware of over 70 methods that can give us ideas of Earth's age. We could call these "GEOLOGIC CLOCKS." All of them are based on the obvious reality that natural processes occurring steadily through time produce cumulative and often measurable results. Most of these "clocks" give a relatively young age for the Earth. Only a few of them yield a conclusion of billions of years. Those few are loudly publicized to support the commonly held theory of gradualism." [6]

The gravitational fields of the sun and stars pull cosmic dust toward them. This is known as the Poynting-Robertson effect. Our sun is estimated to suck in about 100,000 tons of cosmic dust every day. An old sun should have "pulled in" and destroyed all the particles in our solar system. Yet, our solar system is full of these particles! The Poynting-Robertson effect would demand a sun and solar system of less then 10,000 years of age.[7] Petersen states:

"All stars have a gravitational field and pull in particles like gas, dust and meteors within their range. Stars radiating energy 100,000 times faster than our sun have a spiraling effect, pulling things in all the faster. The unusual thing is that O and B stars are observed to have huge dust clouds surrounding them. If they were very old at all, every particle in close range would have been pulled in by now." [8]

Two types of stars have huge dust clouds and, hence, must be quite young. No one has ever seen the birth of a new star, although some scientists have postulated through computer simulations and theoretical mathematics that as many as three new stars should form every year. No scientist ever has, nor ever will see a star form because the Creator created all of His stars on the fourth day of the creation week (Genesis 1:14-19). In the spring of 1992 some scientists claimed to be observing a star form out in the stellar heavens. They used various mathematical equations to come to their conclusion. However, if their conclusion is in direct contradiction to what the Bible says, then their conclusion is wrong. So we sit back and wait a few months or years and finally some scientist will sheepishly admit "We are sorry folks, all our meticulously produced evidence led us to believe a new star was forming, but we now realize that we made a mistake. We will keep looking for a new star to form and we will let you know as soon as we find it." God created His last star out of nothing on the fourth day of the creation week!

   Astronomers may see stars die since entropy and sin entered the universe, but no star-birth is possible; God completed His creation of the universe and rested on the seventh day. If a star (O and B) and/or a solar system (ours) has significant cosmic dust and meteoroids in the space around it, it cannot be billions of years old.
LIGHT FROM THE FARTHEST STARS

You might be thinking, "Okay, but what about the speed of light and the millions of years necessary to get light from the farthest stars to our solar system?" (This is one of the things I was thinking as I was "evolving" into a creationist back in the early seventies.) Well, first of all, how do we know it takes millions of years for light to travel to earth from the farthest stars? Some evolutionary professor told us, or some writer told us, or someone like Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather or Carl Sagan told us. There does seem to be a problem here, doesn't there? What if you were to discover that light from the farthest star could arrive at earth instantly (God created the star and the light beams from the star to the earth. We can't eliminate this possibility. Our God could do this if He wanted to) or within three days?

Dr. Barry Setterfield has done considerable work on this problem. His papers can be obtained through the Institute for Creation Research, Box 1607, El Cajon, CA 92022. Also see I.C.R. Impact #121, Starlight and the Age of the Universe, by Richard Niessen. Setterfield and Niessen offer four possible solutions to the problem of light from the farthest stars. The first possibility is that God could create the light beam with the appearance of age. A second possibility is that the distance to these remote stars has not been calculated correctly. This is very likely when the methods used to measure great distances in space are closely examined in conjunction with the basic assumptions of Trigonometry. As I.C.R. Impact #121 states, "There is no guarantee that actual distances in space are as great as we have been told." Once you get out of our solar system it is a most difficult problem to accurately measure distance.

A third consideration is that light may have taken a "shortcut" through space. Different types of mathematics and different assumptions and postulates give totally different concepts of space and distances in space. What we know about space is quite limited. How distances through space are calculated depends on the calculator's system of math and his or her basic set of postulates (assumptions).

Outer space may be straight or it may be curved. If you like to think outer space is a straight line, you will use Euclidean Geometry and its accompanying assumptions. Euclidean Geometry is used to find vast distances in space. Its calculations are, for the most part, straight line calculations.

But what if outer space is not able to be measured with straight line from here-to-there-type math? That would mean all the farthest stars could be much closer than the textbooks teach.
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

Another legitimate way to measure distances in outer space is by using Riemannian math. Riemannian math is classified as Non-Euclidean Geometry. It assumes outer space to be curved. Hence Non-Euclidean Geometry produces much smaller distances to the farthest stars. Niessen (I.C.R. Impact #121) reviewed articles by Harold Slusher ("Age of the Cosmos" I.C.R. 1980) and Wayne Zage ("The Geometry of Binocular Visual Space", Mathematics Magazine 53, Nov. 1980, pp. 289-293). Twenty-seven binary star systems were observed, and it appears that light travels in curved paths in deep space. If you convert Euclidean straight line math into Riemannian curved math, light could travel from the farthest stars to earth in, as reported by Niessen, 15.71 years! This is a whole lot less than millions of years, isn't it?

[Soldier4Christ]

Is Riemannian Geometry valid if it shows shorter distances to the stars? H.S.M. Coxeter published a largely ignored book in 1942 entitled Non-Euclidean Geometry. Coxeter stated, "...we still can't decide whether the real world is approximately Euclidean or approximately non-Euclidean." [9] The scientists do not know which is the valid way to measure space as it really is! They are not sure just what outer space really looks like. They have not been there and do not know what shape it has. Everything close enough to our solar system to obtain measurements (though all these contain assumptions) appears to have positive curvature. That means Riemann's method of figuring distance in space is more likely to be correct than the Euclidean methods. Niessen, then, has a better than average chance of being correct when he postulates 15.71 years for light from the farthest star to reach planet earth.
THE SPEED OF LIGHT

Niessen adds one more factor: the speed of light. Scientists have been measuring the speed of light for over 300 years, and it is appears to be slowing down. Using equations to extrapolate backwards, equations that include the figures observed and registered for the slowing down of the speed of light (the farther back in time you go the faster the light travels), light from a five billion light-year away star (assuming stars are that far away) could arrive on earth in just three days!

What conclusion can we arrive at on the basis of the above? You do not have to believe it when some textbook or scientist in a white lab coat tells you that stars are millions of light-years and perhaps trillions of miles away. There is no hard, irrefutable evidence here for a 9 to 20 billion year old universe.

Where do the 9 to 20 billion years come from? A man named Hubble (remember "Hubble's telescope" launched into space recently?) came up with the theoretical, mathematical formula for measuring time back to the initial "Big Bang". His calculations originally estimated about 18 to 20 billion years as the age of the universe. Then a few years ago, some other scientists decided Hubble had made a grievous mistake and was 50% off in his calculations. Thus, the age of the universe was cut in half (from 18 to 20 billion years to 9 to 10 billion years) by the stroke of pen. Some scientists still hold to the 20 billion year figure. They realize that even 20 billion years is statistically not long enough to evolve the universe.

COMBUSTION ENERGY OF STARS

Now, back to some more evidences for a young earth. Astronomers calculate that "O" and "B" stars may have surface temperatures of 90,000°F. This is "... more than 100,000 times the energy coming from our sun. Burning down at that rate, and clocking backward, the entire universe would have been filled with the mass of these stars just a few thousand years ago!" [10]

Some evolutionists will object, "But you can't take current processes and extrapolate back like that." Well, what do evolutionists do to find and publish their old, old dates? The same thing! They evaluate, for example, present processes such as decay rates (l/2 life), and extrapolate backwards assuming all was the same from the beginning (II Peter 3).
BRISTLE-CONE PINE TREES

If the Biblical Flood occurred about 5,000 years ago and destroyed all dry-land plant life, then we would not expect to find plants that could be accurately dated at older than about 5,000 years. The bristle-cone pine tree is such a plant. It has been called the oldest living organism on earth and has been accurately dated at about 5,000 years. Peterson states, "It's almost as though all these trees were planted on a virgin Earth just 5,000 years ago." [11]
RIVERS ARE YOUNG

Every year the Mississippi River carries tons and tons of eroded dirt into the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists have been measuring the growth of the Mississippi delta for many years.

"At the present rate the entire Mississippi River delta would have accumulated in only 5,000 years. But science acknowledges that the river has been even bigger in the past.

How could this be? Unless of course the North American continent, and all the other continents for that matter, just haven't been in their present positions any longer than that." [12]

Another river that scientists carefully watch is the Niagara. It also leads to belief in a young earth.

"Because the rim of the falls is wearing back at a known rate every year, geologists recognize that is has only taken about 5,000 years to erode from its original precipice." [13]

Often large chunks of the dirt and rock under water falls, like the Niagara, will break off, yielding even younger ages. Suppose that 200 years from now you decided to calculate the age of Niagara Falls, but you did not know that in 1994 a huge section of rock had broken away from the edge of the falls. You would assume that it took thousands of years to wear away all that rock from the falls' edge, but it happened in an instant. You would date the falls much older than it actually was. This type of mistake is common when scientists attempt to date things.
THE RECEDING MOON

Adding to the evidence for a young earth is our receding moon. Scientists know how fast our moon is moving away from earth (about two inches per year).

Louis B. Slichter, Professor of Geophysics at M.I.T., writes:

"The time scale of the earth-moon system still presents a major problem." [14]

Dennis Petersen continues:

"...working it back would mean the moon and Earth would be touching only two billion years ago. Of course, that's ridiculous. Another way to look at it is this: At the present rate and starting from a realistic distance of separation between the two, if the Earth is five billion years old the moon should be out of sight by now!" [15]
MOON ROCKS

When the first moon rocks were dated in the early 1970's, NASA published the age of the moon rocks at 4 to 4.5 billion years. Several years and many rocks later, they published a range of dates for the rocks of our moon at 3 to 4 l/2 billion years. This author called one of the geologists who dated those rocks and the conversation went something like this:

"I noticed in a recent news release that the dates of the moon rocks have been adjusted to a range of 1 1/2 billion years. That's a pretty big difference in the dates! Was the range any greater than that?"

"Oh yes, the range went from several thousand years to over 20 billion years."

"Well then, why did NASA only publish the 1 1/2 billion year range, instead of the full 20+ billion year range?"

"We did not want to confuse the public. We know the moon is about 3 to 4 1/2 billion years old, so we called the dates outside of that range discordant dates and threw them out."

Apparently, some scientists have pre-decided that the moon is about 3 to 4 1/2 billion years old. What if, in spite of their presuppositional belief, the several thousand year dates were correct and not discordant? Well, that locks in Special Creation and eliminates the possibility of evolution (which requires millions of years). Apparently that would be unacceptable to NASA. Or, what if the 20+ billion dates were correct? That, in effect, demolishes Hubble's math, and the time of the Big Bang is once again up for grabs. These scientists might object and say, "But we use a bell-shaped curve to arrive at our dates." Well, what if the assumptions which are built into their dating system skew the curve one way or another? We've already seen that the three major assumptions invariably included when scientists date rocks (earlier in this chapter) are not valid.

You might ask an astronomer where our moon and its rocks came from. Some fanciful answers will be forthcoming! Evolutionary scientists do not know from whence cometh our moon. A creationist believes that the God of the Bible created the moon, and the sun and stars as well, on the fourth day of the creation week (Genesis 1:14-19). There is no hard, factual, scientific information that can refute a young age for the moon. All old ages given for the moon are not accurate because the assumptions of the dating techniques do not square with reality.

[Soldier4Christ]

SHORT-TERM COMETS

From time to time, comets pass by the earth. Not only can scientists not tell us where our moon came from, they also cannot tell us about the origin of short-term comets. These are comets that astronomers calculate have lifetimes of no more than 10,000 years. If the universe is somewhere between 9 and 20 billion years old, and the astral bodies were formed at the "Big Bang", evolution is left in the embarrassing dilemma of having to postulate theories for the origin of short-term comets, which it cannot prove. You have to admire the imagination of these folks, though. Some actually believe that Jupiter spits comets out of high volcanoes. The only problem is that the short-lived comets are not made of the right stuff to come from Jupiter, and their orbit is in no way oriented to enable them to refer to Jupiter as "mother". Scott Huse says:

"Comets journey around the sun and are assumed to be the same age as the solar system. Each time a comet orbits the sun, a small part of its mass is `boiled off'. Careful studies indicate that the effect of this dissolution process on short-term comets would have totally dissipated them in about 10,000 years. Based on the fact that there are still numerous comets orbiting the sun with no source of new comets known to exist, we can deduce that our solar system cannot be much older than 10,000 years. To date, no satisfactory explanation has been given to discredit this evidence for a youthful solar system." [16]
EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD

An examination of the Earth's magnetic field proves that Earth cannot be very old, since the Earth's magnetic field is losing its strength. Dr. Thomas Barnes has done volumes of work on the depletion of Earth's magnetic field. The conclusion of his work establishes the age of the Earth at less than 10,000 years.[17] Naturally, the evolutionary community has proclaimed Barnes' work invalid, but Barnes answers their charges quite simply and effectively in the ICR Impact #122 of August 1983 entitled Earth's Magnetic Age: The Achilles Heel of Evolution. The earth's magnetic field is getting measurably weaker. Ten thousand years ago it would have been too strong to support life. If life could not have existed 10,000 years ago because of the super-strength of the earth's magnetic field, then evolution had no time to occur.
OUR SHRINKING SUN

Recently a controversy has arisen over the shrinking of our sun. If the figures of John Eddy and Adam Boornazian are correct ("Analysis of Historical Data Suggest the Sun is Shrinking," Physics Today, Vol. 32 No. 9, September 1979), our sun would have been too hot for life to exist on Earth even l,000,000 years ago. This would, in effect, knock out the possibility of the vast expanses of time required for evolution. Evolutionists and theistic evolutionists have jumped on this one to prove Eddy was mistaken. Others now claim the measurements of the planet Mercury crossing in front of the sun each year, prove the size of the sun has not changed. We will have to wait to see how this develops.[18]
RADIOHALOS

Irrefutable support for a young earth is offered by Robert V. Gentry through his studies of radiohalos in coalified wood.[19] Evolutionists believe the coal deposits in the Colorado Plateau to be hundreds of millions of years old. Yet, Gentry's radio-halo "clock" demands a time period of only a few thousand years.

Gentry discovered microscopic bits of uranium in these coal deposits. The effect of the radioactive uranium on the coal was to produce radiation halos in the coal.

"As a radioactive bit decays, radiation extends in all directions into surrounding coal for a small, yet precise distance determined by the particle energy of the radiation. Over time this emitted radiation will change the color of the coal, forming a distinct sphere around the bit of uranium in the center. These tiny spheres of discolored rock surrounding a microscopic radioactive center are termed "radiohalos". Such radiohalos are Robert Gentry's specialty." [20]

How does the bit of radioactive uranium get into the coal to form the halos? Ackerman continues:

"Regarding the radioactive center, a bit of uranium has, at some time in the past, before the wood material was hardened into coal, migrated into its present position. As the uranium bit undergoes radioactive decay, a form of lead is created. Once the coal has hardened and the uranium bit has been cemented into a fixed position, this lead isotope begins to accumulate at the site....

Gentry has found that the uranium/lead ratios in the Colorado Plateau coal formation indicate that this formation is only a few thousand years old." [21]

The halos form around the radioactive particles in the coal and indicate a young age of only a few thousand years for the coal. The coal of the Colorado Plateau was probably formed during the Flood judgment of Noah's day as God was destroying heaven and earth system #1.

Gentry also found halos of Polonium in Precambrian granite rock. These are supposedly the oldest rocks on earth. Precambrian rock is called the "basement" rock of earth since it is thought to be more ancient than all other rock. Ackerman reviews Gentry's work:

"The question Gentry has raised for evolutionists is how the polonium bits and their resulting halos came to be in the basement granites....

The enigma is this: If the granite is hardened, the polonium cannot travel to its intrusion location. But if the granite is not hardened, no halo can form. Therefore, Gentry argues that the time lapse from a permeable, molten state to the present rock state for these precambrian granites had to be extremely brief. How brief? One of the polonium isotopes studies by Gentry has a half-life of three minutes! Another has a half-life of only 164 microseconds!

In the evolutionary model, the time required for the cooling and solidification of these granites is millions and millions of years. Gentry believes these halos to constitute powerful evidence against evolution and its presumed vast time spans. He believes these halos speak of a very rapid formation of these crustal rocks." [22]