Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

Let us now consider theories on the origin of life. Here also the so-called evolutionary origin of life chemist is forced to utilize processes contrary to natural laws. In their experiments designed to produce even very simple molecules, they run into insuperable difficulties. For example, they must postulate some form of energy that would be available to convert simple molecules into more complex molecules. The only forms of energy that would have been available on their hypothetical primitive Earth would have been energy from the Sun, electrical discharges (lightning), radioactive decay, and heat. Most of the available energy would be that from the Sun. All raw forms of energy are destructive. The raw, unshielded ultraviolet light coming from the Sun is deadly, destroying rapidly the biological molecules required for life, such as amino acids, proteins, DNA, and RNA. UV light rapidly kills bacteria by disrupting molecules. All forms of life from bacteria to man are killed by UV light, and you know that if you are hit by lightning you would not become more complex—you would be severely injured or killed.

In all experiments employing these sources of raw energy, the rates of destruction vastly exceed the rates of formation. How then was Miller in his experiment1 able to obtain a small quantity of several amino acids and a few other products? He employed a trap. As tiny quantities of these substances were constantly being created and were immediately isolated in the trap, the gases he employed were circulating continuously through his raw energy, electrical discharges (simulating lightning). Without the trap, the products would have been destroyed by the electrical discharges at rates that vastly exceed the rates of formation, and no detectable quantities of the products would have formed. There could have been no traps available on the hypothetical primitive Earth. If these products were formed in the atmosphere they would be destroyed before they could reach the ocean. Furthermore, the ocean could not have acted as a trap since even there destructive processes would eliminate any surviving products.

In any case, a trap is fatal to the theory. The purpose of the trap is to isolate the products from the energy source, but this brings the process to a complete halt. For amino acids to join together to make a protein, a large quantity of energy is required, but the very purpose of the trap is to isolate the products from the energy. No energy, no further progress. Even as long ago as 1960 the physical chemist, D. E. Hull, taking into account the rates of destruction versus the rates of formation in these origin of life schemes, concluded that, "The physical chemist, guided by the proved principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics, cannot offer any encouragement to the biochemist [origin of life chemist], who needs an ocean full of organic compounds to form even lifeless coacervates" (Nature 186:693). Coacervates are mere blobs of disorganized material. Please note that Hull states that these so-called origin of life schemes are contrary to proved principles of chemical thermodynamics and kinetics, which are essentially the same as natural laws.

To the evolutionist, history began with "In the beginning, hydrogen . . ." To the creationist, history began with "In the beginning, God . . ." Science and natural laws come down solidly in support for the fact of creation.

    "Thou are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created" (Revelation 4:11).

Endnote

1. Miller, S. L. May 15, 1953. A production of amino acids under possible primitive earth conditions. Science 117:528.

* Dr. Duane Gish is Senior Vice President Emeritus of ICR.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Do Volcanoes Come in Super-Size?
by Various Authors

Abstract
Supervolcanoes on a scale unlike any in recorded human history once shook western North America. The gigantic Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation stands as mute testimony of this violence. Three observations, including super-cracks, super-deposits, and widespread soft-sediment deformation, suggest a violent rending of fissure vents in the Sierra region that was the source for the Brushy Basin ash.

by Steven A. Austin and William A. Hoesch *

Geologists have long known that explosive volcanoes of the past were far bigger than the relatively tepid eruptions known from human recorded experience.1 As a new generation of geologists wonder about the mechanics of supervolcanoes,2,3 some ICR geologists are also wondering about a gigantic volcanic ash pile—the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation.4 Did this enormous deposit originate as ejecta from super volcanoes in the Sierra region of California? If so, what might these eruptions have been like?

Three styles of explosive volcanoes

Explosive volcanoes come in three types and are classified according to their vent structures: (1) "nozzle," (2) "ring fissure," and (3) "linear fissure array." Nozzle eruptions occur through a pipe-shaped vent with a constricted open-ing, as at Mount St. Helens (1980) and North Mono Craters (~A.D. 1350). They are the familiar volcanoes of human experience and appear to be size-limited to about 100 cubic kilometers of volcanic products.

Ring-fissure eruptions, also known as collapsed caldera eruptions, begin with a set of surface fractures above a shallow magma body. With increased instability, the fractures "unzip" into a circular pattern and vast "curtains" of ejecta are explosively released along the ring-shaped set of fissures. The evacuation of magma results in the signature collapse structure named a caldera. To give some idea of size of these eruptions, Long Valley Caldera is a 16 by 32 km structure that in a near instant hurled 600-cubic-kilometers of ejecta resulting in the Bishop Tuff. Yellowstone Caldera of northwestern Wyoming was about four times this size. Humans, fortunately, have had very little experience with ring-fissure eruptions, especially these large ones.

Linear-fissure-array eruptions include the largest known in earth history. These occur in settings where crustal tension (associated with plate movements) opens multiple, straight fissures above elongate batholith-size magma bodies. For example, the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains of western Mexico are composed almost entirely of ignimbrite, a rock-type that originated as explosively-emplaced pyroclastic flows.2 At more than 300,000 cubic kilometers, it is called "the largest ignimbrite field in the world" erupted from a series of linear fissures, not calderas. Individual fissures are 50-100 meters in width and over 25 kilometers in length, and the collective dike swarm is thought to extend for the full length of the mountain range (1,200 kilometers). Basin-and-Range faults and grabens provided the plumbing system that delivered the highly fluidized rhyolitic magmas to the surface at discharge rates that can only be described as "super." A higher orbit of the Space Shuttle would be a safe distance to view so massive an eruption.

A super-size deposit

In the western interior states of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming is a remarkable deposit known as the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation. The layer is over 100 meters thick across wide portions of the Rocky Mountain and Colorado Plateau regions, and altered volcanic ash in the form of smectitic clay is its dominant component. Sedimentary bedforms indicate airfall tephra settled into water and, in some cases, formed into an ash-water suspension that flowed with considerable energy before coming to rest. One such suspension in northeast Utah carried dinosaur carcasses and deposited them in what is today a world-famous dinosaur exhibit.5 Marble-size pumice fragments occur within the air-fallout deposit in Colorado and Utah. The (dense rock) volume of pyroclastics in the Brushy Basin Member, an estimated 15,000 cubic kilometers, would be enough to bury the state of New Jersey to a depth of 740 meters. Volcanoes in the Sierra region are thought to have spewed the ash.6 Chemical and isotopic composition of the Brushy Basin Member appear to match granitic plutons in the Sierra Nevada Batholith, as well as rocks of the Independence dike swarm in the eastern Sierra and Mojave region. The Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation testifies of super-size volcanism and simultaneous watery catastrophe. But where were the fissures from which this ejecta came?

Did supervolcanoes erupt in the Sierra Nevada region during the Flood?

Nearly all the granitic rocks making up the Sierras originated as plutons emplaced during two abbreviated "magmatic flare-ups"; one in the Late Jurassic and another in the Late Cretaceous.7 Remnants of volcanic rock in the highly eroded Sierra Nevada Range indicate that highly explosive volcanism also accompanied these flare-ups. Three lines of evidence suggest explosive volcanism during this Late Jurassic flare-up in the Sierras was the source for the gigantic ash deposits of the Brushy Basin Member.

1. In California's southern Inyo Mountains and western Mojave Desert are volcanic deposits that may represent the "upwind" equivalent to the Brushy Basin Member.

A 2,260-meter-thick succession of volcanic mudflow and pyroclastic flow deposits, known as the upper interval of the Inyo Mountains Volcanic Complex, is considered "the eastern fringe" of a volcanic/sedimentary cover that once extended over the top of the Sierra Nevada Batholith.8 The mudflow deposits consist of matrix-supported volcaniclastic conglomerates with subangular dacite clasts to 1.5 meters in diameter. Individual mudflow beds to 20 meters thick sometimes display coarsening-upward, then fining-upward texture, indicative of catastrophic flow conditions. These are interbedded with coarse sandstones and pyroclastic ignimbrite sheets of dacite-rhyodacite composition. Fossils found in the deposit include bivalves of the Unionidae family and gastropods of the Neritidae family, which remarkably are found also in the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation far to the east. It is easy to envision the Inyo Mountain mudflows and pyroclastic flows grading eastward into the airfall tuffs and mudstones of the Morrison Formation in a vast, once-continuous sheet that has since been dissected by erosion. A source-vent in the Sierras is indicated.

2. The Independence dike swarm is the preserved remains of a linear set of fissures that may have served as vents for supervolcanoes.

A set of cracks extends for over 600 kilometers from the southern Mojave Desert (Chuckwalla Mountains) to the central Sierra Nevada Range nearly as far north as Mammoth Lakes.9 Known as the Independence dike swarm, this northwest-trending belt consists of hundreds of dikes, individually about a meter in width. They often occur in composite "sheet dikes" in excess of 100 meters in width. In places the belt is 90 km wide. These dikes generated pull-apart space on the order of hundreds of meters along the length of this belt. The cracks are filled with rocks of mafic to felsic composition. The swarm of dikes has long been interpreted as having opened as an event with an interpreted age of ~150 Ma (Late Jurassic). Its origin has traditionally been tied to that of Sierra Nevada granites; "The Independence dike swarm apparently formed by local fracturing of the carapace above the Late Jurassic Sierran batholith during rapid changes in plate motions."10 The dike swarm may represent the eroded substructure of linear-fissure-array supervolcanoes. It is significant that in the east-central portion of the Mojave Desert lava flows of rhyolitic to basaltic composition are up to 500 meters thick. These lavas indicate that the Independence dike swarm once had communication with the surface.11

The Independence dike swarm closely resembles another set of cracks called the Rancho San Marcos dike swarm,12 which extends from southernmost California into northern Baja Mexico and parallels the axis of the granitic Peninsular Range. The dike rock that fills these fissures is cogenetic with both the granites of this range and the thick pyroclastic "carapace" that partially overlies it called the Santiago Peak Volcanics. In fact the cracks are recognized as the source-vents for the volcanics! The picture is one of granitic magmatism and simultaneous violent fissure eruptions. The similarities between the San Marcos and Independence dike swarms suggest a common type of origin for both.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

3. Liquefaction of sandy sediment in south-central Utah points to an immense seismic-shaking event. Supervolcanoes in California may have been the cause.

Liquefaction occurs when loosely packed and water-saturated sediment is transformed from a condition of grain-on-grain stability to a condition in which load is transferred from the particle contacts to the pore fluid. It is usually triggered by seismic shaking. The process can cause large bodies of sand to behave as a fluid for short moments, and revert back to a "frozen" and stable state when the shaking stops. Across a broad portion of south Utah is an accumulation of large cross-bedded sandstones of the Glen Canyon and San Rafael Groups that is 1.5-3.0 kilometers thick. The sands were obviously in a water-saturated state when they were folded into convoluted shapes and injected into an amazing series of dikes and pipes.13 The distribution of disturbed bedding corresponds with the boundaries for the sedimentary basin that contains the thick sands. Overlying the sands like a smoking gun at the scene of the crime is the Morrison Formation (and its equivalents). Something big shook these thick sands when they were all water-saturated, and opinions range from explosive volcanism to meteorite impact. The same supervolcanoes in California that supplied the ash for the Morrison Formation may have triggered liquefaction in these thick sands.

Summary

Supervolcanoes on a scale unlike any in recorded human history once shook western North America. The gigantic Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation stands as mute testimony of this violence. Three observations, including super-cracks, super-deposits, and widespread soft-sediment deformation, suggest a violent rending of fissure vents in the Sierra region that was the source for the Brushy Basin ash. The same watery catastrophe that buried dinosaurs in Utah was accompanied by super-size volcanism from sources in the west. The record is best interpreted in durations of days or weeks, not millions of years. The Genesis Flood provides the historical framework used to understand supervolcanoes.

Endnotes

   1. Austin, S. A., 1998, The declining power of post-Flood volcanoes: Impact (ICR) no. 302, 4 pp.
   2. Aguirre-Diaz, G. J., and Labarthe-Hernandez, G., 2003, Fissure ignimbrites: fissure-source origin for voluminous ignimbrites of the Sierra Madre Occidental and its relationship with Basin and Range faulting: Geology, v. 31, no. 9, pp. 773-776.
   3. The term supervolcano can be defined as a silicic, explosive fissure-eruption more than 1,000 cubic kilometers (DRE) of volcanic products.
   4. Hoesch, W. A., and Austin, S. A., 2004, Dinosaur National Monument: Jurassic park or Jurassic jumble?: Impact (ICR) no. 370, 8 pp.
   5. Hoesch and Austin, 2004.
   6. Turner, C. E., and Peterson, F., 2004, Reconstruction of the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation extinct ecosystem—a synthesis: Sedimentary Geology, v. 167, no. 3-4, pp. 309-356.
   7. Ducea, M., 2001, The California arc: thick granitic batholiths, eclogitic residues, lithospheric-scale thrusting, and magmatic flare-ups: GSA Today, v. 11, no. 11, pp. 4-10.
   8. Dunne, G. C., Garvey, T. P., Osborne, M., Schneidereit, D., Fritsche, A. E., and Walker, J. D., 1998, Geology of the Inyo Mountains Volcanic Complex: implications for Jurassic paleogeography of the Sierran magmatic arc in eastern California: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 110, no. 11, pp. 1376-1397.
   9. Carl, B. S., and Glazner, A. F., 2002, Extent and significance of the Independence dike swarm, eastern California, in Glazner, A. F., Walker, J. D., & Bartley, J. M., eds., Geologic Evolution of the Mojave Desert and Southwestern Basin and Range: Boulder, Colo., Geological Society of America Memoir 195, pp. 117-130.
  10. Carl and Glazner, p. 117.
  11. Schermer, E. R., and Busby, C., 1994, Jurassic magmatism in the central Mojave Desert: implications for arc peleogeography and preservation of continental volcanic sequences: Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 106, pp. 767-790.
  12. Farquharson, P. T., 2004, Geology of the Rancho San Marcos Dike Swarm: Baja California, Mexico. Master's thesis, San Diego State University.
  13. Huuse, M., Shoulders, S. J., Netoff, D. I., and Cartwright, J., 2005, Giant sandstone pipes record basin-scale liquefaction of buried dune sands in the Middle Jurassic of SE Utah: Terra Nova, v. 17, no. 1, pp. 80-85.

* Steven A. Austin, Ph.D. geology, is Chairman of the Geology Department, and William A. Hoesch, M.S. geology, is Research Assistant in Geology, both at ICR.

[nChrist]

AMEN AND AMEN PASTOR ROGER!

Brother, you are posting some dynamite material. Things should be getting pretty clear for people with average intelligence. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution is the biggest hoax ever carried out, and it represents nothing but garbage - certainly not science. It is more than flawed and illogical - it's impossible!

It's far past time for the theory of evolution to be buried with tons of other quackery. YES - it did look like a duck, walk like a duck, and quacks like a duck. "Did" is the operative word. This duck died a long time ago and needs to be buried. I have a theory that this duck used to be Darwin and de-evolved.   

[Soldier4Christ]

I have a theory that this duck used to be Darwin and de-evolved.   

Even real ducks know that God is real and that He is the one who created all things. This duck must be a decoy that has sprung a leak and is sinking right along with evolution.

 

[Soldier4Christ]

 Extremes of Creation
Abstract
A nanometer is a length defined as one billionth of a meter. There are about 100,000 nanometers in the thickness of this page.

 Introduction

Some of the most fascinating details of creation occur on the scale of the very small and the very large. Examples extend widely from the world of tiny living microbes to the vast regions of space. Everyday analogies and comparisons may be the best way to help us appreciate the rich diversity of creation all around us on the boundaries of observation. Four such examples are considered here, two taken from the microscopic world and two others from the opposite portion of the size range.

The Mole

The chemical mole, related to the word molecule, is a specific quantity of matter. One mole is defined as 6.022x1023 elementary entities such as atoms of carbon or molecules of water. In words, a mole of water consists of about 600 billion trillion molecules. The numerical value is called Avogadro's number, named for Italian scientist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856). One mole of matter also is defined as the quantity of a substance whose mass in grams is the same as its molecular weight, taken from the periodic table. Examples of single mole quantities include 2 grams of hydrogen gas, H2; 18 gms of water, H2O; 32 gms of oxygen, O2; and 44 gms of carbon dioxide gas, CO2. One mole of any material, when converted to a gas, occupies 22.4 liters (0.8 cubic feet) at 0°C and one atmosphere of pressure (figure 1).

One mole quantity of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide

    Figure 1. An illustration of one mole quantity of hydrogen (2 gm), oxygen (32 gm), and carbon dioxide (44 gm). A mole consists of 6.022x1023 molecules, and one mole of any gas occupies 22.4 liters at 0°C and one atmosphere of pressure.

A single tablespoon of water weighs 15 grams, close to one mole. Therefore a single tablespoon of water contains a multitude of molecules numbering close to Avogadro's number. Consider the magnitude of this number:

   1. A copper penny (pre-1982) weighs about 3.1 grams. One mole of copper has a mass of 63.55 grams. Therefore a copper penny consists of 3.1/63.55 mole, a vast collection of about 3x1022 atoms, or 30 billion trillion atoms. Simply rubbing your finger across the surface of such a penny will loosen millions of invisible copper atoms.
   2. Suppose an Avogadro number of marbles could be spread over the surface of the earth. This quantity of marbles would result in a worldwide layer of marbles 50 miles (80.5 km) deep (Poskozim, et al., 1986).
   3. If the entire U.S. population (300 million people) spent 12 hours a day, 365 days a year, counting atoms at the rate of one atom per second, it would take about 127 million years to count the total atoms in one mole.
   4. Avogadro's number is more than 10 times the number of known stars in the universe. This number also exceeds the total of all the sand grains on the earth's seashores (DeYoung, 2002).

One mole of water, sand (silicon dioxide, SiO2), or any other part of creation consists of Avogadro's number of particles. The next time you take a swallow of water, measuring about one mole, think of the incredible number of water molecules involved, each one formed by the Creator.

The Nano-World

A nanometer is a length defined as one billionth of a meter. There are about 100,000 nanometers in the thickness of this page. The nano-scale currently is a very active area of science and technology. Microscopic devices under development include sensors, switches, motors, pumps, and robotics. In the coming years these tiny devices will revolutionize such fields as engineering and medicine.

   1. To glimpse the nano-world, consider the bacterial flagellum. This is a component of molecular motors which has been popularized in Intelligent Design discussions (Behe, 1996). Many bacteria grow flagella "propellers" which rapidly rotate as a means of propulsion through fluids. The length of the filament is typically a micrometer in size, or about one thousand nanometers. Bacteria and their flagella are at least one hundred times smaller than the thickness of a human hair.
   2. In one nanosecond, or 10-9 second, a pulse of light travels a distance of about one foot (30.5 cm). The new generation of optical computers operates on this ultra-short timescale.
   3. Fingernails grow at the rate of about one nanometer per second. In comparison, a "snail's pace" is high speed motion.
   4. A novel form of pure carbon occurs when 60 carbon atoms arrange themselves on the surface of a hollow sphere, similar to a microscopic soccer ball (figure 2). First discovered in 1985, these spheres are called fullerenes or "buckyballs." They are named for the architect Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) who popularized geodesic domes in his building designs. The carbon spheres are about one nanometer in diameter. They may find application as bearings in motors built on the nano-scale. Buckyballs also have potential use as containers or "cages" for time-released medicine.

Bacteria with their molecular motors are by far the most abundant living organisms on Earth. Complex nano-structures such as buckyball carbon molecules have been found on the earth and in space. It is clear that the created micro-scale and nano-scale world is far ahead of current technology.

A spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms, popularly called a buckyball

    Figure 2. A spherical molecule of 60 carbon atoms, popularly called a buckyball. The sphere diameter is about one nanometer, or 10-9 meter. A single component carbon atom is ten times smaller. (Art created by Michael Ströck.)

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

The Sun

Scripture describes the sun as the greater light that rules the day. Just how great is our nearest star? Consider these illustrations:

   1. Imagine the sun as a flat, round disk in the sky. Now position images of planet Earth in a straight line across the sun's surface, somewhat like a string of beads. Between the edges of the sun, this string will consist of 109 beads or planet Earths. In other words, the earth is a small speck in comparison with sun size, 109 times smaller in diameter. Perhaps you have observed sunspots on the solar surface. These solar defects are typically larger than the entire Earth.
   2. Suppose the earth could somehow be placed at the center of the sun. Then the moon in its orbit would also be positioned inside the sun, about half-way out toward the sun's surface. The next time you look at the moon in the evening sky, 239,000 miles distant, consider this fact: If you were at the sun's center, then the moon also would be well within the sun.
   3. Suppose that the sun was a hollow sphere, somewhat like a basketball. How many planet earths could fit inside this hollow sun: one? one thousand? The correct answer is about one million planets (DeYoung, 2002). The million worlds would rattle around inside the sun like tiny seeds inside a basketball.
   4. The sun powers itself, at least partially, by nuclear fusion within its core. In this process the element hydrogen becomes helium. The sun's mass continually decreases as mass (m) is converted directly into energy (E), according to the relationship E = mc2, where c is light speed. The energy leaves the sun as light, heat, and radiation. The sun is "evaporating" itself away at the ferocious rate of five million tons of matter per second. This goes on day and night, year after year. Much more energy leaves the sun each second than mankind has produced since the Creation. Yet, the "fuel gauge" of the sun remains pinned on full. The sun has abundant hydrogen energy reserves to last throughout this age.

The sun is an average size star. Some stars are ten times smaller and are called brown dwarfs. Other stars are more than 100 times larger than the sun and are called red supergiants. In contrast, the sun has a size which is an ideal match for our needs here at home in the solar system. The sun truly is the greater light which rules our day.

The Light Year

Our final illustration on the large scale of creation is the astronomical measure of distance called the light year. This name is confusing because a light year measures length, not time. One light year is the distance light travels during an entire year in the vacuum of space, about six trillion miles or ten trillion km (actually 5.88x1012 miles). A single light year can be visualized in the following ways.

   1. Twelve million round trips between the earth and moon would total a single light year.
   2. If you could travel nonstop at 8.5 million miles per hour during a lifetime of 80 full years, the distance would total about one light year. Our fastest space probes travel 500 times slower than this speed.
   3. The nearest night-time star, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.3 light years dis-tant from Earth. Further away, the stars of the Big Dipper average 100 light years distance. The diameter of our Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light years. Current telescopes see outward to a distance of about 13 billion light years.
   4. Suppose that the entire Earth could be reduced to the size of a baseball. Then an equivalently-reduced light year would still extend about 50,000 miles outward.

We have completed our survey of several small and large extremes of creation, but we have only scratched the surface of possible objects to consider. Surely there are even more distant vistas, both smaller and larger, that we have not yet imagined. Our God, the Creator, has created them all from His omniscience and omnipotence. Truly the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork (Psalm 19:1).

References

    Behe, Michael. 1996. Darwin's Black Box. Touchstone Books, New York, p. 70.
    DeYoung, Don. 2002. Astronomy and the Bible, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, p. 132.
    Poskozim, P., J. Wazorick, P. Tiempetpaisal, and J. Poskozim. 1986. Analogies for Avogadro's number. Journal of Chemical Education, 63(2):125-126.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Presidential Support for Creationism
Abstract
It is clear from this review that at least four presidents and other high government officials openly supported the right to "teach the controversy" about the topic of origins and to avoid indoctrination in Darwinism.

Introduction

Several recent American presidents have openly supported creation thinking. A few "on the record" statements of these presidents in support of their belief in creationism are reviewed below.

President Dwight Eisenhower

Eisenhower's upbringing was "Steeped in Religion" by two devoutly religious parents (Bergman, 1998). Eisenhower stated that he was reared with "a deep Bible-centered faith" (Quoted in Gammon, 1969, pp. 3-4).

Eisenhower's religious background was River Brethren and a fellowship then called Bible Students. Both groups were strong creationists. Their first anti-Darwin book was an 1898 work titled The Bible Versus the Evolution Theory. In addition, the Bible Students published hundreds of articles that support creationism and are critical of Darwinism. Those who have studied Eisenhower's life conclude that he had an unshakable belief in the Bible teaching that God is the Creator and Sustainer of life (Hutchinson, 1954, p. 369; Bergman, 2000).

Eisenhower's worldview openly influenced his public statements. An example is his conclusion, based on his study of the founding fathers' writings, that America is a religious nation today because the country's fathers expressed their

    full reliance on "the laws of nature and nature's God" and because they published before the world these self-evident truths: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. . . ." In contrast with this concept of the sacredness of life, modern atheistic dictatorships treat men as nothing more than animals or educated mules. How many materialistic psychologists and smart-alec professors sneer that men invented God in a childish search for security; yet, I have noticed that men in the foxholes or at the moment of death turn to some higher Power for comfort and courage (Quoted in Gammon, 1969, pp. 3-4, emphasis mine).

Eisenhower insisted that God had often intervened in response to his prayers. For example, he believed the numerous contingencies that all worked together in his life to allow him to destroy fascism and Nazism were not a result of chance, but rather God's will. Eisenhower strongly believed that God was with him in his battle against "Hitler and all that he stood for" (Eisenhower, 1967, p. 52).

President James Earl Carter

For Carter, religion was continually at the forefront of his presidency. Always more in agreement with Intelligent Design than creationism, he wrote that the evidence of the design argument was so persuasive that even for persons

    without specific religious convictions . . . the awe-inspiring beauty of starlit sky or sunset, the emergence of a butterfly from a chrysalis, the industry of an ant, or the sprouting of a seed were adequate proofs of God's hand in our lives and in creation (2005, p. 48).

He added that he believed an "omnipotent Creator" created the "entire universe" (2005, p. 49). An example where he stressed the clear evidence for design in nature was in a 1989 letter to one of his "favorite writers on scientific subjects," Harvard Professor Stephen Jay Gould. Carter disagreed with Gould's conclusion that evolution was

    like a tape going through a machine, with the results being attributable to a completely haphazard recording. I wrote him a private letter, expressing my belief that there had obviously been some logic or order in the process. He didn't respond directly, but subsequently quoted and slyly ridiculed my opinion in one of his monthly magazine articles (2005, pp. 49-50).

Carter added that "my own personal belief [was] that God created the universe" and not a blind watchmaker as taught by orthodox Darwinism.

President Ronald Reagan

During Reagan's 1967-1975 California governorship, the "state board of education had pushed to weaken the teaching of evolution and endorsed creationism" (Mooney, 2005, p. 36). A Science magazine editorial opined that Reagan's sympathy with the creationists was common knowledge when he was governor. Reagan supported an unsuccessful 1972 suit brought by the state school board . . . to bring the teaching of creationism to public schools (Science, 1980, p. 1214).

During a 1980 press conference, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan was asked if he thought the theory of evolution should be taught in public schools. He answered that evolution is a

    theory only, and it has in recent years been challenged in the world of science and is not yet believed in the scientific community to be as infallible as it once was believed. But if it was going to be taught in the schools, then I think that also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a theory but the biblical story of creation, should also be taught (Science, 1980, p. 1214).

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Asked if he personally accepted the theory of evolution, Reagan replied: "I have a great many questions about it. I think that recent discoveries down through the years have pointed up great flaws in it" (Science, 1980, p. 1214).

After Reagan's election, several key administration members also supported teaching creation. Due to the opposition of mainline science to anything less than dogmatic teaching of Darwinism, though, they had to be circumspect. For example, Reagan's science adviser, George Keyworth, "refused to repudiate the teaching of creationism in public schools during his 1981 confirmation hearing." Reagan's Secretary of Education, William Bennett, also supported teaching of creationism. For example, in 1986 Bennett "declared that in his view, the selection of public school textbooks should involve the `judgment of the community,' a tacit nod to creationist forces at the local level" (Mooney, 2005, p. 36).

Mooney concludes that "The Reagan administration's sympathies with creationism signaled a new development for the Republican Party and conservatism more generally" (2005, p. 36). Reagan also wrote in a letter to a correspondent that certain quotes, evidently made in response to statements made by Paul Kurtz in The Humanist, that

    Humanism can not in any fair sense of the word apply to one who still believes in God as the source and creator of the universe. Christian Humanism would be possible only for those who are willing to admit that they are atheistic Humanists. It surely does not apply to God intoxicated believers (Skinner, et al., 2003, p. 644).

Reagan then expressed his concern about teaching Humanism in public schools by paraphrasing John J. Dunphy from the Humanist magazine who wrote that "the battle for humankind's future will be waged and won in the public school classroom and the new faith of Humanism will replace the `rotting corpse of Christianity'." (Skinner, et al., 2003, p. 644). Some of Reagan's cabinet members also supported Reagan's view. For example, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, said that the issue in the Scopes trial

    was not whether the doctrine of evolution should take the place of the Biblical account of Creation. The question was whether the theory of evolution could be discussed. . . . Scopes lost the trial. . . . Censorship was as wrong then as it is now. We believers in the Old Testament want the theories of both evolution and Creation taught. . . . Unfortunately, in many school systems, the liberals have now censored the teaching of Creation. Yet is censorship by liberals right and by conservatives wrong? (1985, pp. 109-110).

President George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush's writings also indicate that he accepted the creation worldview, and felt that Darwinism should be taught objectively in public schools. An example is Bush's statement about creationism made while campaigning, as summarized by the journal Church and State:

    Creationism also gets a Bush nod. . . . the candidate says, "I'm not a scientist, but it seems to me that the Bible has an abundance of clues and evidence to help archeologists, astronomers and other scientists in their endless quest for knowledge. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Biblical account of creation and the scientific evidence of the origins of the universe will yet find common ground (Boston, 1988, p. 10).

President George W. Bush

When campaigning for President in 1999 Bush openly "supported the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in public schools" (Mooney, 2005, p. 9) and has also openly given support to creationism while in public office. In a Roundtable interview he gave on August 1, 2005, Bush was asked about his personal views on the "growing debate over evolution versus intelligent design" and if he thought "both should be taught in public schools." Bush answered "that decision should be . . . [up] to local school districts, but I felt like both sides ought to be properly taught. . . . so people can understand what the debate is about" (2005, p. 4). During his 2000 election campaign President Bush was quoted as saying that "on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth" (Dowd, 2005).

Both Democrats running against Bush, Albert Gore and Joseph Lieberman, supported Bush on this issue. Professor Gregory Paul noted that

    Gore supported teaching both creationism and evolution, his running mate Joe Lieberman asserted that belief in a creator is instrumental to "secure the moral future of our nation, and raise the quality of life for all our people" (2005, p. 4).

Conclusion

It is clear from this review that at least four presidents and other high government officials openly supported the right to "teach the controversy" about the topic of origins and to avoid indoctrination in Darwinism. Several other presidents accepted the idea called Intelligent Design, the conclusion that evolution can not fully explain the living world which displays clear evidence of intelligence.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Dinosaurs vs. Birds: The Fossils Don't Lie
Abstract
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the idea that dinosaurs evolved into birds continues to be the lack of fossil support.

The term "Dinosauria" was first used in 1841 by Sir Richard Owen in an address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, subsequently publishing the term in 1842. He was the first to recognize that dinosaurs ("fearfully great reptiles") were a distinct group of reptiles, much different from today's lizards. Owen defined dinosaurs as reptiles that walked erect, having a posture similar to elephants and rhinos. Dinosaurs did not have wings, flippers, or fins. Owen was the best known and most authoritative comparative anatomist in the nineteenth century. He argued extensively against Darwin's theory of evolution later in his life.

Thomas Huxley, the famous supporter of Darwin's theory, was the first person to suggest the dinosaurian origin for birds in publications between 1868 and 1870. Huxley found that some dinosaurs had a bird-like ankle joint, a short torso, massively braced hips, a long and mobile neck, and long hind limbs so typical of bird anatomy. He also found that some dinosaurs had holes in the bones for air sacs as in modern birds, and that some dinosaurs possessed the backward pubic bone typical of birds.1 Later, the presence of what is interpreted as a "wishbone" in some dinosaurs was added to this list.2

Archaeopteryx  to Archaeoraptor: Bird to Hoaxp

In the middle of the controversy is the so-called transitional fossil often cited as the link between birds and dinosaurs entitled Archaeopteryx. All ten specimens have been found in Germany in the Solnhofen Limestone of Late Jurassic age (150 million years old by evolutionary standards). Pat Shipman stated that, "These few, special fossils have served as the basis for brilliant deductions, wild speculations, penetrating analyses, and amazing insights."3 It is the well-preserved impressions of feathers on several of the specimens that have elevated Archaeopteryx to icon status as the first bird.

Among the first critics of Archaeopteryx as the first bird was Sankar Chatterjee when he announced the discovery of a Triassic "bird" he called Protoavis. As sponsors of Chatterjee's research, the National Geographic Society (NGS) chose to release the discovery before formal peer-review and scientific scrutiny of his work, drawing sharp criticism from his colleagues.4 He did however, allow the NGS to publicize his finding, theoretically pushing back the first bird 75 million years before Archaeopteryx. However, many paleontologists did not agree, and today some even doubt Protoavis is a bird at all.5 The NGS continued to create controversy with the 1999 publication of the "feathered" dinosaur Archaeoraptor, again announcing the discovery prior to peer-review. It was later learned that this specimen was a glued together composite of a bird and a dinosaur. In other words, it was a fake. Jonathan Wells went so far as to label the specimen the "Piltdown bird" in memory of the Piltdown man hoax. 6 The NGS should have learned in 1991 not to make "scientific" claims or announce discoveries until the findings are first peer-reviewed for scientific integrity.7

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the idea that dinosaurs evolved into birds continues to be the lack of fossil support. Shipman commented, "The bipedal ancestor hypothesis, while favored strongly by logic, has little direct evidence from the fossil record to support or refute it."8 The best fossil evidence for a link is the historical confusion between Archaeopteryx and Compsognathus. At least three of the Archaeopteryx specimens were initially misidentified as either a Compsognathus or a pterosaur. Unfortunately, these two animals are found in the same strata, making it difficult to argue that Compsognathus was the ancestor of Archaeopteryx. Advocates for the dinosaur/bird hypothesis are left claiming that something yet unknown was the ancestor to Archaeopteryx. "This may be true, but balancing on a hypothetical ancestor is an even shakier proposition than balancing on one leg while the other moves forward," stated Shipman.9

It gets even more confusing when you consider that most of the dinosaurs claimed to be ancestors to birds are found in rocks much younger than Archaeopteryx. Dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Deinonychus are found in rocks of the Cretaceous Period. These rocks are, by evolutionary standards, 75 million years younger than the Late Jurassic Period rocks containing Archaeopteryx. This information tends to be downplayed by the advocates for the dinosaur/bird relationship who insist that some, as yet, undiscovered ancestor must be the common link to both groups, regardless of the lack of fossil support.

Cladistics: An Attempt to Circumvent the Facts

Paleontologists have tried to get around the fossil "problems" by employing a new system of classifying organisms called cladistics. This system describes organisms on the basis of sister-group relationships between organisms.10 Cladists classify extinct and extant organisms on equal footing without regard to time, and in the process, unknown or missing transitional fossils become conveniently dismissed or eliminated.

The problem with cladistics is the arbitrary choice of what constitutes an evo-lutionary novelty. An evolutionary novelty is an inherited change from a previous pattern or structure that makes an organism unique.11 Choosing evolutionary novelties creates particular problems for extinct organisms because only morphological features are available for comparison. The choices are made based on expert opinion, or in the words of Henry Gee, "persons qualified to judge the evidence."12 Gee further explained, "The danger for scientists is that they will come to believe the hype, that they are indeed secular priests in possession of the truth with a capital T, the 'truth that can be known'. But such truth is expressly unscientific [falls short]."13 The reason many fell for the Archaeoraptor hoax was their belief in their own hype, regardless of the poor science involved.14 They believed so strongly that birds evolved from dinosaurs that all evidence to the contrary was ignored or brushed aside as unimportant. They became "priests," preaching their own version of "science."

Additional Evidence

Many dinosaur skin imprints have been identified in the last 150 years. These discoveries, like the spectacular discovery of embryonic skin imprints from Argentina in 1998, show only scales, very similar to modern reptiles. There are no known dinosaurs possessing feathers like we see in Archaeopteryx.15

Recently, a new dinosaur was discovered, named Juravenator, from rocks near those containing Archaeopteryx.16 This new specimen exhibited clear reptilian scales along its tail without a trace of feathers. The authors attempted to explain the lack of feathers in such a "bird-like" specimen by suggesting that feathers were merely seasonal or that feathers must have evolved more than once. The simplest solution is that they had no feathers in the first place.

Alan Feduccia, an ornithologist, and his team of scientists found no evidence of true feathers in any of the recently published "feathered" dinosaurs from China.17 They concluded that the presumed "protofeathers" were merely the remains of collagenous fiber meshworks that formed feather-looking patterns during decomposition. Feduccia's team further added that it is too early to declare that "birds are living dinosaurs," and that "the problem of avian origins is far from being resolved."18 These authors warned that the strict overemphasis on cladistics, and the ignoring of data from stratigraphy, embryology, ecology, and biogeography, has resulted in misleading interpretations of the evidence.19

Another team of scientists found both soft-tissue and skeletal support that indicates birds and dinosaurs are not related.20 They concluded that the theropod dinosaurs, including the recently discovered, Sinosauropteryx, did not have a bird-type lung-diaphragm, but a crocodilian-type of system, further widening the gap between birds and dinosaurs.

Conclusions

What does the Bible say about dinosaurs? The term "dinosaur" wasn't used in Biblical times, but we do have a passage in Job 40:15-18 that describes a huge, sauropod-type animal that ate grass (the behemoth). Until recently, no grasses were found as fossils in rocks containing dinosaurs. However, in 2005, a group of scientists discovered titanosaurid sauropods did eat grass.21 They found evidence for grass in fossilized dinosaur dung (coprolites) from Late Cretaceous rocks of India. Even the "tubes of bronze" (literal rendering of "strong pieces of brass") has been backed and supported by discoveries of dinosaur bones, as sauropod vertebrae are hollowed out with structures called pleurocoels along the sides of the centra,22 and possessing strong leg bones like "iron." Again and again, scientists find that dinosaurs were in fact, a unique group of reptiles, not truly like modern lizards and not bird-like either, but indeed one of God's marvels of creation.

[Soldier4Christ]

 The History and Impact of the Book, "The Genesis Flood"
Abstract
In this enormously time-consuming process, twenty-one scientists, nine the-ologians, and two grammarians were asked to review all or part of the manuscript. In retrospect, it seems significant to us that 1959 was also the year of the great Darwinian Centennial celebration in Chicago, at which Sir Julian Huxley, and other atheistic evolutionists, announced that creationism was essentially dead. In retrospect, however, this "graveside service" appears to have been premature!

The Genesis Flood has been a life-changing experience for its authors, even since 1961 when our book was published. My highly esteemed and long-time friend, Henry M. Morris, co-author of The Genesis Flood, joins me in giving praise to God for allowing our 550-page book to be published and I quote: "The publication of The Genesis Flood made a tremendous difference in my life, culminating in a change from engineering to full-time concentration on creationism and Christian evidences. There were numerous speaking requests, then the formation of the Creation Research Society [1963], then eventually the Institute for Creation Research [1970], and extensive seminars, conferences, debates, etc., all over the world. Many have attributed the global revival of scientific Biblical creationism to the catalytic effect of The Genesis Flood."

In His merciful providence, God sent Henry Morris to Grace Theological Seminary (where I was professor of Old Testament) in September, 1953, to present a paper to the American Scientific Affiliation meeting there, entitled, "Biblical Evidence for a Recent Creation and Universal Deluge." This revolutionized my entire approach to ultimate origins, and God motivated me to spend four years writing a 450-page doctoral dissertation entitled, "The Genesis Flood: An Investigation of its Geographical Extent, Geological Effects, and Chronological Setting" (Winona Lake, IN: Grace Theological Seminary, 1957). Soon, he agreed to co-author The Genesis Flood. Both he and I agreed that a project of such magnitude, dealing with stupendous scientific and theological issues, needed the perspectives of a scientist as well as a theologian.

In this enormously time-consuming process, twenty-one scientists, nine the-ologians, and two grammarians were asked to review all or part of the manuscript. In retrospect, it seems significant to us that 1959 was also the year of the great Darwinian Centennial celebration in Chicago, at which Sir Julian Huxley, and other atheistic evolutionists, announced that creationism was essentially dead. In retrospect, however, this "graveside service" appears to have been premature!

Negative Responses to The Genesis Flood

In the late 1980s, about twenty-five years after the publication of our book, two significant counter-movements began to appear. Both of these movements were opposed to naturalistic Darwinism, but, at the same time, were opposed to Biblical and scientific creationism.

From a Biblical perspective, this was sadly predictable. Paul confronted the church at Corinth with these words: "There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you" (I Corinthians 11:19). On the one hand, this can be a healthy process. God's people must not adopt any view just because of a human authority figure, however brilliant or eloquent. Each of us needs to examine the "Scriptures daily" to see if these things are so (Acts 17:11). On the other hand, large numbers of Christians have been deceived into abandoning Biblical truth.

Progressive Creationism

The first of these movements is called "progressive creationism," represented especially by Dr. Hugh Ross, a Christian astronomer. He believes that creation began many billions of years ago with a so-called "big bang"; that animals were supernaturally and periodically created (not evolved) through millions of years; that Adam's rebellion against God did not cause death in the animal kingdom; and that the Flood was local in extent. He believes that the Bible's 66 books are fully inspired, but need to be reinterpreted in the light of a 67th book, namely modern science.

In January, 2003, the Institute for Creation Research responded in depth to the challenges of "progressive creationism." I was invited to join three scientists and another theologian to participate in eight panel discussions and responses to the views of Dr. Ross. (After Eden: Understanding Creation, the Curse, and the Cross.) I was especially amazed at the futile effort of "progressive creationists" to reduce the Genesis Flood to a Mesopotamian catastrophe in order to justify millions of years of sedimentation and fossilization before the creation of mankind.

The Intelligent Design Movement

The second counter-movement is even more amazing to behold. It is called "the intelligent-design movement" (IDM), and is dedicated to the proposition that atheistic naturalism and neo-Darwinian evolutionism have completely failed to explain the irreducible complexity of living things. ID scholars also believe that evolutionism can be defeated by scientific and rationalistic arguments without any appeal to the Bible or to the Creator of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Every Christian should applaud legitimate efforts to restore sanity and reality to the study of ultimate origins. Most IDM augmentation is, to this extent, on target. The tragedy of the movement, however, is that it deliberately stops short of honoring God's written revelation on origins, the Bible. In fact, the book of Genesis as literal history seems to be an embarrassment and an unwanted and unnecessary burden to bear in their debate with evolution-oriented scientists.

Dr. Philip Johnson, IDM's leading spokesman counsels: "Get the Bible and the book of Genesis out of the debate, because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, `Do you need a Creator to do the

creating, or can nature do it on its own?' and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, . . . . They'll ask, `What do you think of Noah's flood?' or something like that. Never bite on such questions because they'll lead you into a trackless wasteland and you'll never get out of it" ("Berkeley's Radical" in Touchstone 15:5 [June, 2002], p. 41).

Indeed, to assert that the universe is the product of an Intelligent Designer is an essential foundation for origins study. But it is only the very bottom rung of the ladder that leads upward to full Creation Truth. It is vastly insufficient! To truly honor God and to bring genuine light into this enormously important question, one must also believe in the divinely inspired account of origins in Genesis 1 and 2 and in God's record of the magnitude of the Flood in Genesis 6-9. True Christians should be deeply shocked to learn that the Son of God, by Whom all things were "created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth" (Colossians 1:16), the One "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3), the ultimate Designer of all life, matter, energy, space, and time, has been practically ignored by these who write so eloquently of "intelligent design."

In response, we humbly insist that it is essential to believe the Genesis record of origins in order to please God. This obviously includes the manner in which living things were created ("full-grown," with a superficial appearance of history); the order in which things were created; and the duration of creation events (six 24-hour days only a few thousand years ago). Our Lord explained that Adam and Eve were created "at the beginning"—not millions of years after the earth came into existence (Matthew 19:4). Thus, it is also essential to believe that death in the animal kingdom did not occur before the creation of mankind, but was an effect of Adam's rebellion (Genesis 1:31; and Romans 5:12 in the light of Romans 8:20-23). Trillions of fossilized plants and animals all over the world, with very rare exceptions, can only be explained in terms of the global catastrophism of the Genesis Flood.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

In the creation/evolution debate today, there is a truly frightening element that is sadly neglected and can lead to one's eternal loss. Our Lord said: "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of Him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory" (Luke 9:26). If we leave Christ Himself out of the discussion, how, then, can we truly help people who are walking in the darkness of materialistic evolutionism?

We agree that discussions and debates concerning Intelligent Design can (in God's providence) temporarily catch the attention of unbelieving minds. But saving faith can only come through the acceptance of the living and powerful Word of God (Hebrews 4:12) and its witness to the finished work of Christ upon the Cross and His bodily resurrection from the dead (cf. Romans 10:9-10). That is why the apostle Paul ended his powerful presentation of Intelligent Design to the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill by asserting that the true and living God of creation now commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:16-18). He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead (vv.30-31). It was because he honored the Lord Jesus in this address that some men joined him and believed (v.34). On another occasion, Paul wrote: "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Romans 1:16).

Here, then, is the burning question that modern proponents of Intelligent Design must answer: are people believing in Christ as Lord and Savior and experiencing a profound renewing of their hearts and minds as a result of hearing their message?

God's words, not ours, can change men's destiny. Saving faith, "cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Romans 10:9,17). This is the only "wedge" that can separate evolutionists from the blindness of sin and bring them to a full knowledge of Christ the Creator of the world and the only Savior of men.

Thus, while Dr. Hugh Ross and his followers have attempted to reduce the mountain-covering, year-long Deluge in the days of Noah all the way down to a local flooding in Mesopotamia, the Intelligent Design scientists and philosophers officially ignore not only the Genesis record of the Flood, but also the entire book of Genesis and the sixty-five God-inspired books which follow it.

Conclusion

Truly, God's people around the world must make a huge decision concerning the origin of the world: either we take God at His Word because of Who He is, and the God who never lies; or surrender our minds to the ever-changing opinions of finite and sinful men who are saying more loudly than ever before: "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation." But God gives us His infinite and eternal perspective on such thinking: "This they willingly are ignorant of, . . . the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:5-6).

Our Lord Jesus Christ confirmed to us that in the days of Noah ". . . they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away" (Matthew 24:38-39). Stop to think: Our Lord said that one man survived "the flood" by entering "the ark" when "the flood came, and took them all away." Could this possibly mean that a regional flood, which did not need any kind of an ark for Noah to survive, took away only some people? Or, as some Christian men of science believe, all mankind in those days was confined to just one region, so that a regional flood could indeed take them "all" away? But even in such a highly unlikely scenario, would an "ark" really be needed? Could not Noah and his family, given even a two-month warning have escaped a regional flood? Would all birds, mammals and reptiles in the world have been destroyed by a regional flood?

The bottom line is this: was the Son of God a dependable source of information about the Flood? Could He ever deceive people? Was He serious when He said: "If ye believe not [Moses'] writings, how shall ye believe my words?" (John 5:47).

With all of its deficiencies, then, God has apparently used our book to help thousands of people around the world take the Bible more seriously. It does not require great skills in Biblical theology and hermeneutics and exegesis to understand God's message concerning the depth, extent, and significance of the Flood.

Biblical catastrophism, in the final analysis, stands firmly upon the foundation of divine revelation in Scripture, not on the finite and ever-changing theories of men.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Wollemia nobilis: A Living Fossil and Evolutionary Enigma
Abstract
Who would have thought that, at the close of the twentieth century, only 125 miles from the center of a sprawling metropolis of more than four million people, scientists would find a previously unknown tree in a rugged wilderness area.

When discovered in August 1994, the Wollemi pine was hailed as the "botanical find of the century," like "finding a small dinosaur still alive on earth." It was found by New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service ranger David Noble during a weekend bushwalk into a remote 500-600 meter deep narrow sandstone canyon in the rugged and densely forested Wollemi National Park only 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of downtown Sydney, Australia (figure 1). Thus this strange tree from the "ancient" past,a new genus, was formally named Wollemia nobilis (figure 2).

Features of the Trees

In the first grove discovered there were only 40 trees in a 5,000 square meter area—23 adults, 16 juveniles, and the largest, a fallen tree 40 meters long with a girth of three meters. Botanists were at first puzzled by the strange features of this pine, a unique member of the "monkey puzzle tree" family Araucariaceae. Conifers have dark green foliage, but the Wollemi pine has bright lime green fern-like leaves on younger foliage varying to a yellow-olive green on mature trees. The mature, dense, waxy foliage is arranged in rows of four. The tree trunks have a distinct knobby, spongy, cork-like bark that makes them look like they are coated with bubbly brown chocolate.

Prior to this discovery, all living Araucariaceae belonged to two genera: Agathis, the Kauri pines, confined to rainforests in northeast Queensland (Australia) and elsewhere; and Araucaria, the Norfolk Island, Bunya and Hoop pines found along Australia's east coast and elsewhere. The Wollemi pine has some characteristics of both these genera, but it belongs to neither. Mature trees are between 27 and 35 meters high. Their structure is complex, with successive whorls of primary branches emerging from the trunks. The upper branches are tipped with bright green female cones and brown cylindrical male cones, making the trees bisexual.

Since the initial discovery another grove of 17 trees have been found at an even more secluded location about a kilometer upstream from the first, and a third grove of just three adult trees (the tallest only 15 meters high) around 40 meters up a rock wall in a 150 meter deep slot canyon close to the other two groves but in a different sub-catchment. Thus, the Wollemi pine seems highly specialized in a particular ecological niche, because these surviving trees are only found in deep gorges with similar soils, light regimes, and creeks running in the same direction.

Genetic Fingerprinting

These surviving trees appear to have been isolated for a very long time, because the oldest has been estimated at more than 1000 years old. A research team from the Australian National University, Canberra, analyzed genetic markers in eight adult trees from the first grove and four from the second. They compared between 30 and 40 enzyme-coding sites on the genomes of each of these 12 samples and found no variation at all. The team then used a version of DNA fingerprinting which compares thousands of points on the genome, but again absolutely no genetic variation was found. These pines have thus been a small population isolated for thousands of years, and/or the trees in these two groves are clones of one another, having been propagated by coppicing. Indeed, at one of the sites a group of 160 stems appears to be part of a single individual.

The third grove of trees being in a different sub-catchment means that its establishment could not have been the result of a seed being washed downstream. Preliminary DNA fingerprinting indicates that these three trees may have some genetic variation. They therefore are most likely a remnant of a much bigger forest of pines.

A "Living Fossil"

So where did these few, isolated Wollemi pines come from? The fossil record contains no Wollemi pines. The closest match yet found is between Wollemi pollen and the fossilized pollen Dilwynites, the last known occurrence of which is in sediment layers "dated" at two million years old. From then on, the record is silent. It was thus assumed the genus to which this pollen belonged had become extinct. However, the discovery of the living, apparently related Wollemi pines makes them a living fossil.

The foliage of the Wollemi pine is virtually identical to that of one of its supposed fossil ancestors, the late Jurassic (150 million year old) Agathis jurassica (figure 3). This obvious relationship explains the designation of the Wollemi pine as a "tree from the Dinosaur Age," a "living fossil" that has been "missing for 150 million years." To evolutionary botanists the origin of the Wollemi pine remains an evolutionary enigma. How could this tree go missing for 150 million years when its relative sits fossilized less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) away from the living survivors?

Solving the Puzzle

The fossilized Agathis jurassica is found in the Talbragar Fish Bed, which outcrops less than 100 km away from the living Wollemi pines (figure 1). In this late Jurassic shale lens with these and other plant remains are beautifully preserved fossil fish (figure 3), testimony to the watery destruction responsible for this fossil graveyard. This shale belongs to the strata of the Great Artesian Basin, a vast sedimentary basin which covers 1.8 million square kilometers or about a quarter of the Australian continent (figure 1 inset) and which thus was once covered by water.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

The canyons in which the Wollemi pines are found were eroded into Triassic sandstones of the Sydney Basin, which was once a southeasterly extension of the Great Artesian Basin. However, the Sydney Basin was cut off from Great Artesian Basin by the Cretaceous, when earth movements began to uplift the Great Dividing Range (the continental divide along the western edge of the Sydney Basin) and the Blue Mountains Plateau (figure 1). It was not until the late Tertiary that the canyons now home to the Wollemi pines were rapidly eroded into the Blue Mountains Plateau. So at least 130 million years separates the burial of Agathis jurassica and the erosion of the canyons in which the Wollemi pines became established. No wonder this living fossil's survival is a mystery to evolutionists.

However, the puzzle is easily solved when the millions-of-years interpretation of these strata is jettisoned and the drastically reduced timescale of the recent, global, year-long Genesis Flood is adopted. The Jurassic Talbragar Fish Bed would have been rapidly deposited late in the Flood event, burying parts of Agathis jurassica trees that had floated for months on the Flood waters. As the Flood ended, earth movements rapidly uplifted the mountains, trapping some of the retreating Flood waters behind them to the west. Cuttings and/or seeds of Wollemia nobilis were still floating on those leftover Flood waters. The Blue Mountains Plateau also acted like a natural dam wall to hold back those waters. However, due to post-Flood rains, this "dam wall" was eventually "overtopped" and breached at knickpoints, the released torrent of water catastrophically gouging out the many canyon systems now deeply incised into the Blue Mountains Plateau. As the waters drained away some of the cuttings and/or seeds of W. nobilis were left behind buried in the sediments deposited as soil in the canyons, where the Wollemi pines then grew and survive today. Indeed, it is already well known that Wollemi pines have the capacity to re-sprout after a catastrophe. New trunks can grow from old roots that may be thousands of years old.

Conclusion

Who would have thought that, at the close of the twentieth century, only 125 miles from the center of a sprawling metropolis of more than four million people, scientists would find a previously unknown tree in a rugged wilderness area. It's hard to imagine how this tree, which has now been propagated and will soon be growing in gardens around the globe, could have supposedly been missing for 150 million years. But there's no mystery when this tree's history is understood within God's framework and timescale of Earth history recorded in His Word. Rather than being a living fossil, it is a survivor of the Flood only 4,500 years ago, destined to grow in the new world while its relatives (not ancestors) were buried with the remains of the old world.

References

    * Anderson, I., 1994. "Pine `dinosaur' Lurks in Gorge." New Scientist, 144 (1957/1958):5.
    * Anonymous, 1994. "Australia Hails a Prehistoric Pine" and "`Fossil Tree' Reveals Full Splendour." Nature, 372:712, 719.
    * Benson, S., 1994. "Curious Abseiler Unlocks a Jurassic Mystery." The Daily Telegraph Mirror, Sydney, December 15, p. 20.
    * Botanic Gardens Trust, Department of Environment and Conservation, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. "The Wollemi Pine—A Very Rare Discovery." http://www.rbgsyd.gov.au/information-about-plants/wollemi-pine.
    * Da Silva, W., 1997. "On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine." New Scientist, 156 (2111):36-39.
    * Macphail, M., K. Hill, A. Partridge, E. Truswell, and C. Foster. 1995. "`Wollemi Pine'—Old Pollen Records for a Newly Discovered Genus of Gymnosperm." Geology Today, 11(2):48-50.
    * McGhee, K., 1995. "Wollemi Pine." Nature Australia, 25(2):22.
    * Packham, G. H. (editor), 1969. "The Geology of New South Wales." Journal of the Geological Society of Australia, 16(1):1-654.
    * Scheibner, E. (and H. Basden, editor), 1998. Geology of New South Wales—Synthesis. Volume 2 Geological Evolution, Geological Survey of New South Wales, Memoir Geology, 13(2), Department of Mineral Resources, Sydney.
    * Van der Beek, P., A. Pulford, and J. Braun, 2001. "Cenozoic Landscape Development in the Blue Mountains (SE Australia): Lithological and Tectonic Controls on Rifted Margin Morphology." Journal of Geology, 109(l):35-56.
    * White, M. E., 1981. "Revision of the Talbragar Fish Bed Flora (Jurassic) of New South Wales." Record of the Australian Museum, 33(15):695-721.
    * Wollemi Pine.com—The Official Home of the Wollemi Pine, Wollemi Pine International Pty Ltd. Queensland Government Department of Primary Industries and Birkdale Nursery, Brisbane and Sydney, Australia.
    * Woodford, J., 1994. "Found: Tree from the Dinosaur Age, and It's Alive" and "A Chance Discovery Unveils Hidden Gorge's Age-Old Secret," The Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, December 14, pp. 1, 8.
    * Woodford, J., 1997. "The Jurassic Tree and the Lost Valley." The Sydney Morning Herald, News Review June 7, pp. 36-37.
    * Woodford, J., 2002. The Wollemi Pine: The Incredible Discovery of a Living Fossil from the Age of Dinosaurs, 2nd edition, The Text Publishing Company, Melbourne, Australia.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Theistic Evolution and the Creation-Evolution Controversy
Abstract
The most prestigious scientific association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in its official journal, define intelligent design as "the idea that a higher intelligence played a role in creating life on Earth"

In speaking to college audiences about the creation-evolution controversy, the most common response I have encountered is, "Why can we not accept both evolution and Christianity? Is it not reasonable to conclude that God used evolution as His method of creating?" This view, termed theistic evolution is held by many people, especially professors at Christian colleges who conclude that it is the solution to the creation-evolution controversy.

My response asks, is evolution, defined by scientists as the development by natural means of all life from one or more forms originally produced by abiogenesis, true? Only when we prove evolution do we need to concern ourselves with "harmonizing" evolutionism with theism. Evidence that this level of proof has not been achieved includes the long list of scientists and others who have abandoned Darwinism because they became convinced that the scientific evidence does not support it.

Nor have attempts to "harmonize" evolution with theism met with acceptance by leading scientists, science organizations, educators, or the courts. A Nature editorial concludes that the effort to demonstrate that "God's hand shap[ed] the course of evolution" (i.e., theistic evolution) "is bad news for researchers. . . . it also poses a threat to the very core of scientific reason" and must be actively opposed (Nature, 2005, p. 1053).

Creationism is ruled out in the article, as is theistic evolution. Only atheistic evolution (commonly called naturalism) is left, combined with the idea that religion and science are eternally "separate" domains of thought and never the twain shall meet. This common ploy effectively dismisses theism: naturalistic evolution is science (meaning fact), whereas all forms of creationism are religion (meaning "faith," conclusions not based on fact).

Nature then suggested that "religious scientists" take "the time to talk to students about how they personally reconcile their beliefs with their research" (Brumfiel, 2005, p. 1062). As discussed in the Nature feature article, one who tries this in a secular college could well end up in the same place as professor Crocker—and hundreds of others—who were either fired or barred from teaching about the question (Nature, 2005, p. 1064).
Teaching Theistic Evolution Considered Dangerous

The most prestigious scientific association, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in its official journal, define intelligent design1 as "the idea that a higher intelligence played a role in creating life on Earth" (Bhattacharjee, 2005, p. 627). This theistic evolution view, Bhattacharjee con-cludes, "sends chills down the spines of most Kansas scientists and educators." He then argues that merely teaching about Intelligent Design in the schools "will make Kansas an undesirable location for high-tech companies, academics, and other knowledge-based workers." The reason is that University of Kansas biologist Steve Case, chairman of the Board's 26-member science standards writing committee, concludes we "need to turn K-12 education in Kansas into a powerhouse producer of science-literate students" and teaching "intelligent design would do the opposite" (2005, p. 627).

No evidence was cited to support the belief that teaching God had a "role in creating life" will produce "science-illiterate students" and cause high-tech industry to be less likely to move into Kansas, as the article claims. Research to determine if teaching that God had a "role in creating life" makes any difference whatsoever is clearly needed. Only then can we discuss this question intelligently.

The research completed so far indicates that the opposite is true (Bliss, 1978). More telling is the fact that the position the world's leading science journals and organizations claim is "a threat" and "sends chills down the spines of most Kansas scientists and educators" is held by close to 90 percent of all Americans (Nussbaum, 2005). In a recent survey of beliefs about origins, a 2005 CBS News/New York Times Poll of 885 persons found 55 percent of the general public were creationists, 32 percent were theistic evolutionists, and only 13 percent were orthodox Darwinists (the view that leading scientists and educators accept).

Even a high percent of educated persons accept creation and Intelligent Design views. Of 1,482 American physicians polled in 2005 by the Jewish Theological Seminary and HCD Research, 60% of Muslim, 63% of Protestant, 49% of Catholic, and 18% of Jewish doctors supported Creation or Intelligent Design (margin of error plus or minus three percentage points). It seems that, instead of the views of those who believe "a higher intelligence played a role in creating life on Earth" being a threat, the 13 percent (often those who control our educational system, our leading science journals, and science organizations) are actually a threat, at least to the academic freedom of the rest of us. Another example is

    science and education minister Maria Van der Hoeven recently announced plans to stimulate an academic debate about "intelligent design" (ID)—the movement that believes only the existence of a creator can explain the aston-ishing complexity of the living world . . . (Enserink, 2005, p. 1394).

As a result of her suggestion for a dialogue, many prominent biologists openly "denounced Van der Hoeven," a Catholic, "for blurring the line between church and state." She also soon

    faced a barrage of hostile questions in the House of Representatives of the Dutch Parliament, where she was compared to the Kansas school board members who want to introduce ID in the classroom. "Does she want to go back to the Dark Ages?" (Enserink, 2005, p. 1394).

This hostile response to the mere suggestion that we "stimulate an academic debate" about the view that "only the existence of a creator can explain the astonishing complexity of the living world" illustrates the level of opposition by educators and scientists to the views held by close to 90 percent of Americans. It turns out Van der Hoeven was influenced by "Cees Dekker, a renowned nanophysicist at Delft University of Technology who believes that the idea of design in nature is `almost inescapable'" (Enserink, 2005, p. 1394).

Over a decade ago, David Little, of the Department of Religion at the University of Virginia, opined:

    There is in my opinion no more important subject regarding the relation of religion and public life in the contemporary world than the issue of religious and ideological discrimination and persecution (1990, p. 3).

The Van der Hoeven event eloquently illustrates this, as do the articles in Nature and Science discussed above. Furthermore, those who believe "God's hand shaped the course of evolution" also often end up with the same problems—or worse—than those that creationists typically experience. For example, when asked "why he does not provide a list of peer-reviewed articles by design theorists from the biological literature that support intelligent design" Dr. William Dembski answered that he wanted to "spare these authors the harassment they would receive" if he publicized their work because "critics of intelligent design regard it as their moral duty to keep biology free from intelligent design." Once "outed" design theorists are harassed and harangued and "hereafter, the first thing that an Internet search of their names reveals is their connection with intelligent design. Welcome to the inquisition" (Dembski, 2004, p. 305).

cont'd