Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

Is this pessimistic, antitheistic, and nihilistic view of humans widespread? One researcher claimed that "ninety-nine percent of the scientists whom I met in my career . . . support the view expressed by Dawkins [that anyone] . . . who denies evolution is either ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked" (Rörsch, p. F3). This oft'made claim is totally false: an estimated 10,000 scientists in the USA and about 100,000 creation scientists in the world reject Darwinism, and hold instead to a creation worldview (Bergman). A question every concerned parent and grandparent should ask is: "Do we want our children taught that life has no ultimate purpose, and that our minds are merely a computer made of meat?" The fact is:

    . . . the philosophy implied by Darwinism, that life may have no "purpose" in the traditional religious sense, and that life is ultimately a random process . . . Darwinism is unique among scientific theories because it attempts to explain man's origins . . . (Leith, p. 9, emphasis his).

Why do so many people believe the pessimistic, nihilistic, and depressive Darwinist view? One reason is they are convinced that science has proven Darwinism to be true. Sadly, however, many scientists are unaware of the large body of evidence supporting creationism. And numerous scientists recognize that, at best, the view common among elite scientists is unscientific. Shallis argues that:

    It is no more heretical to say the Universe displays purpose, as Hoyle has done, than to say that it is pointless, as Steven Weinberg has done. Both statements are metaphysical and outside science. . . . This suggests to me that science, in allowing this metaphysical notion, sees itself as religion and presumably as an atheistic religion (pp. 42-43).

Darwinists have indoctrinated our society for over 100 years in a worldview that has proven to be tragically destructive. And they often have done this by a type of deceit that began before the Piltdown hoax and continues today in many leading biology textbooks (Wells).

Acknowledgments:

    Bert Thompson, Ph.D., and Clifford L. Lillo for their insight.

References

    * Bass, Thomas. 1990. Interview. Omni, 12(4):58-89.
    * Bergman, Jerry. 1999. "The Attitude of Various Populations Toward Teaching Creation and Evolution in Public Schools." CEN Tech J, 13(2):118-123.
    * Dawkins, Richard. 1999. "You Can't Have It Both Ways: Irreconcilable Differences?" Skeptical Inquirer, July/August, pp. 62-63.
    * Easterbrook, Gregg. 1997. "Of Genes and Meaninglessness." Science, 277:892, August 15.
    * Futuyma, Douglas. 1983. Science on Trial. NY: Pantheon Books.
    * Gould, Stephen Jay. 1999. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. NY: Ballantine.
    * Johnson, Phillip. 1991. Darwin on Trial. Washington, D.C.: RegneryGateway.
    * Leith, Brian. 1982. The Descent of Darwinism. London: Collins.
    * Miller, Kenneth R. 1999. Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution. NY: Cliff Street Books.
    * Raymo, Chet. 1998. Skeptics and True Believers. New York, NY: Walker.
    * Rörsch, A. 1999. "Mutation Research Frontiers: Challenges to Evolution Theory." Mutation Research, 423:F3F19.
    * Shallis, M. 1984. "In the Eye of a Storm." New Scientist, January 19, pp. 42-43.
    * Simpson, George Gaylord. 1970. The Meaning of Evolution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
    * Weinberg, Steven. 1977. The First Three Minutes. NY: Basic Books.
    * Wells, Jonathan. 2000. Icons of'Evolution: Science or Myth. Washington, D.C.: RegneryGateway.

* Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., is on the Biology faculty at Northwest State College in Ohio.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Darwin's Influence on Ruthless Laissez Faire Capitalism
by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D

Abstract
A review of the writings of several leading "robber baron" capitalists shows that many of them were influenced by the Darwinian view that the strong eventually will overcome the weak. Their faith in Darwinism helped them to justify this view as morally right and completely natural. As a result, they thought that their ruthless (and often unethical or even illegal) business practices were justified by science, and that Darwinistic concepts and conclusions were an inevitable part of the "unfolding of history," and for this reason were justified.

Introduction

The Darwinian worldview was critical, not only in influencing the development of Nazism and communism, but also in the rise of the ruthless capitalists that flourished in the late 1800s and early 1900s (Morris and Morris, 1996). A key aspect of this brand of capitalism was its extreme individualism which indicated that other persons count for little, and that it is both natural and proper to exploit "weaker" companies. The socalled robber barons often concluded that their behavior was justified by natural law and was the inevitable outcome of history (Josephson, 1934). Many were raised as Christians, but rejected their Christianity or modified it to include their socialist/Darwinian ideas. Gertrude Himmelfarb noted that Darwinism may have been accepted in England in part because it justified the greed of certain people.

    The theory of natural selection, it is said, could only have originated in England, because only laissezfaire England provided the atomistic, egotistic mentality necessary to its conception. Only there could Darwin have blandly assumed that the basic unit was the individual, the basic instinct selfinterest, and the basic activity struggle. Spengler, describing the Origin as: "the application of economics to biology," said that it reeked of the atmosphere of the English factory . . . natural selection arose . . . in England because it was a perfect expression of Victorian "greed-philosophy" of the capitalist ethic and Manchester economics (1962, p. 418).

Rachels noted that "the survival of the fittest" theory in biology was quickly interpreted by capitalists as "an ethical precept that sanctioned cutthroat economic competition" (1990, p. 63, see also Hsü, 1986, p. 10). Julian Huxley and H. B. D. Kittlewell even concluded that social Darwinism "led to the glorification of free enterprise, laissez-faire economics and war, to an unscientific eugenics and racism, and eventually to Hitler and Nazi ideology" (in Huxley and Kittlewell, 1965, p. 81).
Ruthless Capitalism

Darwinism helped to justify not only the ruthless exploits of the communists, but also the ruthless practices of capitalist monopolists such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. Kenneth Hsü (1986, p. 534) noted:

    Darwinism was also used in a defense of competitive individualism and its economic corollary of laissezfaire capitalism in England and in America.

Like Stalin, Marx, Lenin, and Hitler, Carnegie also once accepted Christianity, but abandoned it for Darwinism and became a close friend of the famous social Darwinist, Herbert Spencer. Carnegie stated in his autobiography that when he and several of his friends came to doubt the teachings of Christianity,

    . . . including the supernatural element, and indeed the whole scheme of salvation through vicarious atonement and all the fabric built upon it, I came fortunately upon Darwin's and Spencer's works. . . . I remember that light came as in a flood and all was clear. Not only had I got rid of theology and the supernatural, but I had found the truth of evolution. "All is well since all grows better" became my motto, my true source of comfort. Man was not created with an instinct for his own degradation, but from the lower he had risen to the higher forms. Nor is there any conceivable end to his march to perfection (1920, p. 327).

Carnegie's conclusions were best summarized when he said:

    the law of competition, be it benign or not, is here; we cannot evade it; no substitutes for it have been found; and while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department (quoted in Hsü, 1986, p. 10).

John D. Rockefeller reportedly once said that the "growth of a large business is merely a survival of the fittest . . . the working out of a law of nature . . ." (Ghent, 1902, p. 29). The Rockefellers, while maintaining a Christian front, fully embraced evolution and dismissed the Bible's early books as mythology (Taylor, 1991, p. 386). When a philanthropist pledged $10,000 to help found a university named after William Jennings Bryan, John D. Rockefeller Jr. retaliated the very same day with a $1,000,000 donation to the openly anticreationist University of Chicago Divinity School (Larson, 1997, p. 183). Morris and Morris noted that the philosophy expressed by Rockefeller also was embraced not only by railroad magnate James Hill, but probably most other capitalists of his day (1996, p. 87). Morris and Morris have suggested that many modern evolutionists:

    . . . deplore the excess of the social Darwinism. The fact is, however, that it [Darwinism] became very popular among the laissezfaire capitalists of the 19th century because it did, indeed, seem to give scientific sanction to ruthless competition in both business and politics (p. 83).

Morris and Morris also noted that both the left wing MarxistLeninism and the right wing ruthless capitalists were anticreationists and "even when they fight with each other, they remain united in opposition to creationism . . ." (p. 82). Many capitalists did not discard their Christianity, but instead tried to blend it with Darwinism. The result was a compromise somewhat like theistic evolution. Although most American businessmen were probably not consciously social Darwinists,

    . . . they attributed such success as they had to their industry and virtue, rather than their achievement in trampling on their less successful competitors. After all, most of them saw themselves as Christians, adhering to the rules of "love thy neighbor" and "do as you would be done by." So, even though they sought to achieve the impossible by serving God and Mammon simultaneously, they found no difficulty in accommodating Christianity to the Darwinian ideas of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, and by no means all of them consciously thought of themselves as being in a state of economic warfare with their fellow manufacturers (Oldroyd, 1980, p. 216).

Several studies have documented the important contribution of Darwin to laissezfaire capitalism: An analysis of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission (1902-1903) hearings found:

    ". . . the coal trust preached a social Darwinist ideology, conflating `survival of the fittest' with freedom and individual rights" (Doukas, 1997, p. 367). This study concluded that "the popularity of social Darwinism in the US national ideology should be comprehended as an innovation of corporate capitalism" (Doukas, 1997, p. 367).

Rosenthal (1997) showed that, historically, biogenetic doctrines had the effect of promoting an attitude of acceptance of the problems of racism, sexism, war, and capitalism. The field of biogenetics has offered no new scientific evidence that human social behavior has a biogenetic basis, or that business/social competition, male dominance, aggression, territoriality, xenophobia, and even patriotism, warfare, and genocide are genetically based human universals. Yet biogenetic doctrines have occupied a prominent place throughout most of American sociological history. Rosenthal noted that Cooley, Sorokin, Sumner, Ross, and even Park adhered to biological racist doctrines that in the past have signaled and encouraged reactionary social policy.
Darwinism Persists Today in Business

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

The Darwinian concept, applied to business, still is very much with us today. Robert Blake and his coauthors in their 1996 book, Corporate Darwinism, attempted to apply modern Darwinism to business. They concluded that business evolves in very predictable ways, specifically in defined stages very much like the stages of human evolution. This "business evolution" is natural; business in keeping with Darwinian principles either swallows the competition, or finds that it will be swallowed by that competition.
Summary

Darwin's ideas played a critically important role in the development and growth, not only of Nazism and communism, but also of the ruthless form of capitalism as best illustrated by the robber barons. While it is difficult to conclude confidently that ruthless capitalism would not have blossomed as it did if Darwin had not developed his evolution theory, it is clear that if Carnegie, Rockefeller, and others had continued to embrace the unadulterated JudeoChristian worldview of their youth and had not become Darwinists, capitalism would not have become as ruthless as it did in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Morris and Morris (p. 84) have suggested that other motivations (including greed, ambition, even a type of a missionary zeal) stimulated the fierce, unprincipled robber baron business practices long before Darwin. Darwinism, however, gave capitalism an apparent scientific rationale that allowed it to be taken to the extremes that were so evident in the early parts of last century.

    Acknowledgments: I want to thank Bert Thompson, Ph.D., Wayne Frair, Ph.D., and John Woodmorappe, M.A., for their comments on an earlier draft of this article.

References

         Blake, Robert, Warren Avis and Jane Mouton. 1966. Corporate Darwinism. Houston, TX: Gulf Pub.
         Carnegie, Andrew. 1920. Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, ed. John C. Van Dyke. 1986; reprint, Boston: Northeastern University Press.
         Doukas, Dimitra. 1997. "Corporate Capitalism on Trial: The Hearings of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, 1902-1903." Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 3(3):367-398.
         Ghent, William. 1902. Our Benevolent Feudalism. New York: Macmillan.
         Himmelfarb, Gertrude. 1962. Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution. New York: W.W. Norton.
         Hsü, Kenneth. June 1986. "Darwin's Three Mistakes," Geology, (vol. 14), p. 532-534.
         Hsü, Kenneth. 1986. The Great Dying: Cosmic Catastrophe, Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution. NY: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
         Huxley, Julian and H.B.D. Kittlewell. 1965. Charles Darwin and His World. New York: Viking Press.
         Josephson, Matthew. 1934. The Robber Barons. New York: Harcourt and Brace.
         Larson, Edward J. 1997. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. New York: Basic Books.
         Morris, Henry and John D. Morris. 1996. The Modern Creation Trilogy. vol. 3. Society and Creation. Green Forrest, AR: Master Books.
         Oldroyd, D.R. 1980. Darwinian Impacts. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
         Rachels, James. 1990. Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism. New York: Oxford University Press.
         Rosenthal, Steven J. 1977. Sociobiology: New Synthesis or Old Ideology? American Sociological Association.
         Taylor, Ian T. 1991. In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the New World Order. Minneapolis: TFE Publishing.

    * Jerry Bergman, Ph.D., is on the Biology faculty at Northwest State College in Ohio.

[nChrist]

All I can say is WOW! We are in desperate need of some Doctors in COMMON SENSE! and/or COMMON SENSE POLICE who cart evolutionists off to FUNNY FARMS!

The evolutionists have already admitted that they have no purpose, so I was considering an experiment where we plant them, water them, and see if anything happens. Maybe we can discover a use for them other than creating waste products.

    

[Soldier4Christ]

Maybe they could be used to gather all that waste products and put it to a good use like heating peoples homes.

 

[Soldier4Christ]

Diamonds, colored ones, are considered the most rarest of all diamonds and therefore the most expensive. Those with a lack of inclusions, those bits of minerals that are enclosed in a natural diamond as it's formed beneath the earth's surface, are considered even rarer. Those without inclusions are even higher in price.

There is now a process that can make man made diamonds from clear to various colors and up to 4 carats in size in a lab. These diamonds cannot be distinguished from the real ones by expert gemologists. These are called synthetic diamonds even though they are identical to the mined ones minus any inclusions.

Secular scientists claim the mined ones took millions, some say 3.3 billions, of years to make. Those in the lab took four days to make. Again, just as it was proven at Mount St Helens where coal was made naturally in less than four years, it has been proven that another natural process does not necessarily take that long to make. Put pure carbon under enough heat and pressure - say, 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit and 50,000 atmospheres - and it will crystallize into the hardest material known.

The exact conditions that would exist under a catastrophic condition such as a global flood with volcanic activity.

Take special note of the name of the company in Florida that specialises in making colored ones, Gemesis. I wonder where they got that name from.   

[nChrist]

 

Gemesis is a very clever name for the company, and all of the issues in this article make me think immediately about the AWESOME POWER OF GOD. GOD does as HE pleases in Heaven and on earth. This is really a small example of mankind beginning to understand some of the natural forces in nature. Man got something to work on a tiny scale, but GOD has a universe full of HIS miraculous works.

[Soldier4Christ]

GOD has a universe full of HIS miraculous works.

AMEN!!

[Soldier4Christ]

Does Organic Mean Living? (#218)
by John Morris, Ph.D.*

Often today we hear of the search for "organic" compounds in decidedly "inorganic" places inhospitable to life, such as meteorites or on desolate moons throughout the solar system. What is going on? Doesn't "organic" mean living? Does this mean there is life elsewhere? What does "organic" really mean?

In high school we were all taught that the word organic applies to living things. The primary dictionary meaning has to do with "pertaining to or derived from living organisms." At the end of a list of appropriate usages lies, "that of pertaining to carbon compounds."

Historically, it was thought that certain chemical compounds could only be synthesized in living organisms by a "life force," but later it was shown that some compounds associated in nature only with living things could be made in a laboratory merely by combining appropriate chemicals. Since all living things are composed of compounds made of carbon and hydrogen, this led to a technical definition of "organic compound" as any member of a large class of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon and hydrogen. Many of these hydro-carbons are extraordinarily complex and found only in association with life, but some are rather simple, like methane, which is not necessarily from a living source.

Use of the term often leads to miscommunication of the facts. To a non-specialist the term "organic compound," connotes life and living, yet the discoverer might merely be meaning a carbon-based molecule. Confusion most often arises in evolutionary contexts, where evolution enthusiasts speak of the spontaneous origin of life from non-living "organic" chemicals. Seldom does the evolutionary scientist explain his use of "organic" implies non-living. Perhaps he assumes everyone can understand the term in a technical sense, but few have this training. Thus he allows his listeners to conclude error.

Unfortunately, it is not just a harmless error, for it implies that "living or once-living" compounds can arise from non-living sources. As often admitted even by evolutionists, the original transmutation of non-living chemicals into living things is easily the most difficult problem in all of evolution theory. Thus, a casual episode of mis-information can cause many to assume this insurmountable problem is routinely overcome.

I wonder if the blurring of terms is sometimes purposeful. Evolution cannot stand up to rigorous examination; its problems are too great. But it can convince many if certain vital information is withheld. Thus, the evolution lie lives on.

*Dr. John D. Morris is the President of the Institute for Creation Research.

[Soldier4Christ]

Stalling over Transitional Forms (#218)
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.*

Skeptics of Mr. Darwin's strange theory have for years used a truly remarkable book by evolutionist Barbara J. Stahl of Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire. It is titled, Vertebrate History: Problems in Evolution, (1974).1 Sadly, this is now out of print. Dr. Stahl, anatomy professor and paleoichthyologist, is clearly no friend of the creationist. She was, however, intellectually honest enough to write this 604-page book documenting the many problems associated with alleged evolution of the vertebrates.

Darwinists were understandably quick to downplay Dr. Stahl's research. In recent years their only "valid" criticism is that the book is dated and anything found in its pages are now (thankfully) passé.

I beg to disagree. In 2001 Edwin H. Colbert and his coauthors published their fifth edition of Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates.2 Dr. Stahl's detailed research has held up all these years when compared with Colbert's more recent text.

Bird origin: "In the absence of fossil evidence, paleontologists can say little about the date at which these |sixty-nine living families of Passeri-formes| . . . appeared" (Stahl, 386). "Of all the classes of vertebrates, the birds are least known from their fossil record" (Colbert, 236).

Whale origin: "As with most tetrapods secondarily modified for aquatic living, ascertaining the terrestrial stock from which the whales came is exceedingly difficult" (Stahl, 486). "Like the bats, the whales (using this term in a general and inclusive sense) appear suddenly in early Tertiary times, fully adapted by profound modifications" (Colbert, 392).

Amphibian origin: "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" (Stahl, 195).

"This is certainly a logical explanation of the first stages in the change from an aquatic to a terrestrial mode of life. We can only speculate about this" (Colbert, 84-85).

Snake origin: "The origin of the snakes is still an unsolved problem" (Stahl, 318). "Unfortunately, the fossil history of the snakes is very fragmentary, so that it is necessary to infer much of their evolution" (Colbert, 154).

Fish origin: "The higher fishes, when they appear in the Devonian period, have already acquired the characteristics that identify them as belonging to one or another of the major assemblages of bony or cartilaginous forms" (Stahl, 126). "Both these groups |bony and cartilaginous| appeared in the late Silurian period, and it is possible that they may have originated at some earlier time, although there is no fossil evidence to prove this" (Colbert, 53).

Contrast this lack of fossil evidence for evolution with the clear evidence for creation: the sudden appearance of fully formed vertebrates (and invertebrates) in the fossil record.

   1. Stahl, Barbara. 1974. Vertebrate history: Problems in evolution, New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
   2. Colbert, E. H., M. Morales, and E. C. Minkoff. 2001. Evolution of the vertebrates: A history of the back-boned animals through time, 5th ed., New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc.

*Frank Sherwin is a zoologist and seminar speaker for ICR.

[Soldier4Christ]

Vulgar Notions of a Universal Flood (#218)
by William Hoesch, M.S.*

Scientists of the early sixteenth century faced a dilemma: how did fossils originate? Tradition had held for centuries that the existence of marine shells on hilltops was due to the Genesis Flood. On the other hand, pagan philosophies like Aristotle-ianism and Neoplatonism, which were undergoing a renaissance in Europe (at the time), led to very popular interpretations that they had mysteriously formed in place within the rocks (akin to "spontaneous generation"). Which was true? The similarities between living marine organisms and those funny shapes called "fossils" were becoming too glaring to deny, yet the Flood model was resisted. Why?

According to science historian Martin Rudwick in his excellent book, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Paleontology (Univ. of Chicago Press, 2nd ed., 1985), the Flood had failed as an explanation for fossils. The intractable problem was this: a literal reading of the Genesis Flood revealed an event of insufficient violence to sweep marine fossils onto continents. Furthermore, (1) the growing biological awareness of the number of animal species and the inadequacy of the Ark to hold them all, and (2) the production and subsequent disappearance of such huge volumes of water are fatal problems to a Flood model. And so, according to Rudwick, "vulgar notions of a universal Flood," were really tried and found wanting. The only rational alternative, said Rudwick, was to reconcile the Flood narrative of Scripture with the natural philosophy of Aristotle. In other words, the Flood was merely one of many local inundations, and "the continuous, gradual changes in physical geography" was the only means to explain such vast changes in geography. The seas advanced slowly and gradually over a vast timescale, in other words. Rudwick, to his credit, saw what most modern theologians could not -- that diminishing the role of the Flood in this way is tantamount to denying God's sovereignty in all of Earth history. But absent an answer to the above apologetics questions, he saw this as the only rational recourse. In short, the consensus became that Aristotle had it wrong about the origin of fossils, but was right on the vast antiquity of the earth and on geologic gradualism.

How insurmountable were Rudwick's "problems"? I would not want to argue with God that a Flood which began with a rupturing of all the deep ocean basins and covered "all the high hills under all the heavens" in a matter of weeks is logically insufficient to explain marine fossils on continents. Any serious appraisal of the room needed in the Ark for representatives of every kind (or, baramin, not species) of known land-dwelling and air-breathing creature, is enough to make one wonder what Noah did with all the spare deck-space (shuffleboard, maybe?). As for the production and disappearance of the huge volumes of water for the Flood, one need only be reminded that here on the "water planet" the ocean basins are far deeper than the mountains are high. A mere flexing of the Pacific Ocean floor could easily inundate the earth, and there are indications from Scripture of Flood-associated tectonics that were far more severe than this.

Several lessons can be gained from this. First, God never asks man to believe in nonsense. Second, pagan philosophies are as alluring in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth, and science suffers for it. Third, the Genesis Flood can stand in the marketplace of ideas.

*William A. Hoesch, M.S. geology, is research assistant in Geology.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Globular Cluster Bomb (#218)
by David F. Coppedge*

Some of the most stunning astronomical objects are globular clusters. These spherically-distributed celestial ornaments can pack a million stars within a tiny angle of space as seen from Earth. For example, M13 in Hercules fills the eyepiece of a 14" Schmidt-Cassegrain or 20" Dobsonian telescope. Omega Centauri, better placed for southern-hemisphere observers, is the largest globular of our galaxy and one of the few visible with the naked eye.

Stars in a globular appear densely packed but are actually widely spaced. About 180 of these clusters orbit the center of the Milky Way at various inclinations, and globulars have also been detected around other galaxies. They have played an important role in the development of astronomical thought since the Christian astronomer William Herschel named them in 1789. Few amateurs at star parties may know that they are now centerpieces of a significant upset in astronomy occurring right now, after a near century of consensus.

In 1914, Harlow Shapley noticed their spectra were different from those in the galactic disk. He named the disk stars Population I, and the globular cluster stars Population II. Because they are low in elements heavier than helium, the Population II stars were assumed to be older than the Population I stars. (A third category, Population III, is assumed to comprise the very first stars after the Big Bang, made out of pure hydrogen and helium, but none have been observed.) The distinct spectral signature of globulars, combined with their lack of dust and gas, gave rise to the view that they represent some of the oldest objects in the universe, mostly composed of old red giants in regions where no new stars are forming. The disk, by contrast, was thought to be young and actively engaged in star formation. This had been the textbook orthodoxy for most of the twentieth century.

The story started to unravel three years ago (see Astronomy, Nov. 2003) when the Hubble and other orbiting telescopes found globulars containing mixed populations of stars, with exotic members called "blue stragglers" and even planets. News@Nature last August reported that the findings are "changing our ideas completely" and will require us to "tear up textbooks." New explanations are being considered. Perhaps they formed during galactic mergers. But each new solution breeds new problems: how was there enough material left over to form these densely-packed clusters?

One thing is clear; globulars can no longer be thought of as simple, homogeneous collections of ancient stars. The article said, "In a complex Universe, astronomers thought they had at least one simple system to tell them how stars are born. Turns out they were wrong." Moreover, this upset can have ripple effects on other theories. One astronomer said, "If you have problems reproducing star formation in globular clusters, you will have problems with a galaxy."

Astronomers will undoubtedly come up with new ideas. There's an important lesson here about how science is done in these days of Big Bang-to-man theorizing. It's not that scientists are unable to concoct a story to fit the data, it's that the data require a story to fit a belief.

*David F. Coppedge works in the Cassini program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

[Soldier4Christ]

Water Activity on Mars: Landscapes and Sedimentary Strata (#404)
by Andrew A. Snelling, Ph.D.*

Despite 30 years of accumulating increasingly abundant and unequivocal geomorphological evidence, the case for past catastrophic water-related activity on Mars has remained controversial until very recently.1 Ingenious non-aqueous explanations had been proposed for individual Martian landforms that otherwise were strikingly similar to water-generated features on Earth. However, new developments resulting from robotic exploration of the surface of Mars have profoundly changed the consensus view, notably the nuclear physical measurement of abundant, extant, near-surface ice,2 and direct chemical analyses of aqueous minerals associated with sedimentary rocks.3

Channels and Valleys

Previously recognized channels and valleys extensively dissect the surface of Mars. The channels are elongated troughs that display clear evidence of large-scale fluid flow across their floors and along their walls. Immense channels, with widths of tens of kilometers and lengths up to a few thousand kilometers, have features that can only be explained by cataclysmic flows of water and sediment.4 On Earth, such flows produced the distinctive landforms of the Channeled Scabland of the USA's Pacific Northwest. An important recent discovery is that the Martian flood channel activity involved outbursts of water with huge discharges and associated lava flows.5

These huge Martian channels have now been recognized to be valleys that dissect the Martian highlands much more extensively than was apparent from earlier spacecraft-derived images.6 The Martian highlands consist of craters and impact basins that appear to have been extensively eroded by surface runoff processes.7 Large alluvial fans occur in the craters, being remarkably similar to low-relief terrestrial alluvial fans formed dominantly by fluvial processes.8 Furthermore, it has been discovered that the upper layers of the crust of the Martian highlands contain extensive sedimentary rocks that were deposited during intense denudation episodes.9 Cratering, fluvial erosion, and deposition of the sedimentary layers probably occurred contemporaneously, resulting in a complex interbedding of lava flows, igneous intrusions, sediments, buried crater forms, and erosional unconformities.

Surface Water Bodies

Evidence for past large bodies of water that covered the northern plains of Mars includes the morphological characteristics of sedimentary deposits and, more dramatically, a pattern of surrounding shorelines.10 These distinctive water-laid sedimentary layers, known as the Vistitas Borealis Formation, were deposited by a body of water which was approximately contemporaneous with the floods responsible for the largest outflow channels, and which covered an area of as much as three million square kilometers to average depths of hundreds of meters. The largest estimates involve as much as 20-60 million cubic kilometers of water, equivalent to 200-400 meters spread evenly over the whole planet and comparable to the inferred collective flows from the outflow channels.11

Even more compelling evidence supports the former existence of numerous lakes and seas, which were temporarily extant on the surface of Mars at various times in its history. Some lakes that filled highland craters held up to several hundred thousand cubic kilometers of water over an area of about one million square kilometers, the water spilling over to feed valleys, with peak discharge flows of millions of cubic meters per second over.12 Fluvial deltas are commonly associated with these paleolakes. Furthermore, some complexes of alluvial channels display paleo-meander topography that suggests these were laterally accreting rivers similar to the modern Mississippi.

What then happened to the huge quantities of water responsible for generating these channelized megafloods and relatively short-lived lakes and seas? The geomorphological evidence suggests that the water, even in the "Oceanus Borealis," was not on the Martian surface for prolonged periods. Instead it resided nearly all the time, except for brief spectacular episodes, within or beneath semi-permanent, ice-rich permafrost. This ice-rich layer, about 1-2 kilometers thick in equatorial areas and 5-6 kilometers thick at the poles, is documented by a variety of geomorphological features.13 These include various types of flow-lobed ejecta blankets, debris flows, lobate debris aprons, and polygonally-cracked terrains. Other landforms related to volcano-ice interactions14 document the short periods of volcanically induced outbursts from these reservoirs of ice and underlying ground water. Following these episodes, surface water seems to have very rapidly returned to these reservoirs.

Water and Glacier Related Landforms

Mars also displays other diverse suites of globally distributed landforms that are water related. Where observed on Earth these landforms are readily recognized to be of aqueous origins, involving dynamic hydrological cycling. Perhaps the most striking of these are the numerous small gullies developed on hillslopes associated with crater rims and channel or valley walls, their morphological similarity to terrestrial counterparts suggesting formation by aqueous debris flows involving the melting of near-surface ground ice.15 Very distinctive debris flows occur on the debris-mantled slopes of large sand dunes, most likely produced by water-sediment mixtures.16

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Glaciated landscapes are some of the most important Martian landform features now documented. The growth and persistence of large glaciers required a dynamic hydrologic system that moved large quantities of water from surface-water reservoirs, such as lakes and seas, through the atmosphere to sites of precipitation. The Martian glacial landforms include erosional grooves, streamlined/sculpted hills, drumlins, horns, cirques, tunnel valleys, depositional eskers, moraines, kames, ice-marginal outwash plains, kettles, and glaciolacustrine plans.17 These landforms occur in spatial associations that exactly parallel terrestrial glacial geomorphological settings.

Sedimentation and Diagenesis Features

Sedimentary structures examined during recent robotic exploration of the Martian surface also provide evidence of aqueous depositional processes on Mars.18 The layering in the sandstone exposed in the interior wall of a crater was found on closer imaging to be millimeter-scale laminations.19 The sand consists of altered basaltic mud grains, so this finely laminated sandstone is reminiscent of the similar sediments that were catastrophically deposited at Mount St. Helens.20 Fine-scale trough or festoon cross-lamination also present confirm the action of surface water.

Hematite-rich concretions within outcrops would have formed during diagenesis in a groundwater/brine-saturated environment. Microtextural features preserved in the sandstone are also consistent with diagenetic processes commonly associated with groundwater recharge and evaporation. These include early pore-filling cement leading to primary lithification, post-concretion cement resulting from recrystallization and new growth, and millimeter-scale voids interpreted to be secondary porosity.

Conclusions and Implications

There is no longer any doubt that the surface of Mars has in the past been covered by huge volumes of water which spread over vast areas. These resulted from cataclysmic outflows, which were also responsible for catastrophic erosion of channels and valleys, on a scale far greater than anything comparable on Earth, and deposition of sedimentary strata. It appears that much of this water still resides near the Martian surface in permafrost and as ice. Mars has in the past also experienced huge volcanic eruptions and vast lava outpourings across its surface, perhaps on a greater scale than those on the earth.

There is an irony in the obvious parallels with the earth. Most geologists today vehemently oppose any suggestion that in the earth's past there were cataclysmic outbursts of water that flowed catastrophically across its surface as the global Genesis Flood, even though planet Earth is still 70% covered in water. Yet they are equally adamant that the surface of nearby planet Mars has in the past been cataclysmically covered in water, even though most of its surface is now dry. However, the evidence on both planets is the same -- landforms carved and sedimentary strata deposited catastrophically. Obviously their conclusions are based on a belief in uniformitarianism ("the present is the key to the past"), not the evidence which is consistent with the Bible.

References

   1. Baker, V. R. 2006. Geomorphological evidence for water on Mars. Elements 2:139-143.
   2. Boynton, W. V., et al. 2002. Distribution of hydrogen in the near surface of Mars: Evidence for subsurface ice deposits. Science 297:81-85.
   3. Squyres, S. W., et al. 2004. In situ evidence for an ancient aqueous environment at Meridiani Planum, Mars. Science 306:1709-1714.
   4. Baker, V. R. 2001. Water and the Martian landscape. Nature 412:228-236.
   5. Berman, D. C., and W. K. Hartmann. 2002. Recent fluvial, volcanic, and tectonic activity on the Cerebus Plains of Mars. Icarus 159: 1-17.
   6. Hynek, B. M., and R. J. Phillips. 2003. New data reveal mature integrated drainage systems on Mars indicative of past precipitation. Geology 31:757-760.
   7. Craddock, R. A., and A. D. Howard. 2002. The case for rainfall on a warm, wet early Mars. Journal of Geophysical Research 107(E11):5111, doi: 10.1029/2001JE001505.
   8. Moore, J. M., and A. D. Howard. 2005. Large alluvial fans on Mars. Journal of Geophysical Research 110:E04005, doi: 10.1029/2004JE002352.
   9. Malin, M. C., and K. S. Edgett. 2000. Sedimentary rocks of early Mars. Science 290:1927-1937.
  10. Clifford, S. M., and Parker, T. J. 2001. The evolution of the Martian hydrosphere: implications for the fate of a primordial ocean and the current state of the Northern Plains. Icarus 154:40-79.
  11. Boyce, J. M., et al. 2005. Ancient oceans in the northern lowlands of Mars: Evidence from impact crater depth/diameter relationships. Journal of Geophysical Research 110:E03008, doi: 10.1029/2004JE002328.
  12. Irwin, R. P., et al. 2004. Geomorphology of Ma'adim Vallis, Mars, and associated paleolake basins. Journal of Geophysical Research 109:E12009, doi: 10.1029/2004JE002287.
  13. Kuzmin, R. O. 2005. Ground ice in the Martian regolith. In T. Tokano (ed.), Water on Mars and life (pp. 155-189). Heidelberg, Germany: Advances in Astrobiology and Biogeophysics, Springer.
  14. Chapman, M. G., et al. 2000. Volcanism and ice interactions on Earth and Mars. In T. K. P. Gregg and J. R. Zimbelman (eds.), Deep oceans to deep space: environmental effects of volcanic eruptions (pp. 39-74). New York: Plenum.
  15.  Malin, M. C., and K. S. Edgett. 2000. Evidence for recent groundwater seepage and surface runoff on Mars. Science 288:2330-2335.
  16. Mangold, N., et al. 2003. Debris flows over sand dunes on Mars: Evidence for liquid water. Journal of Geophysical Research 108(E4), doi:10.1029/2002JE001958.
  17. Kargel, J. S. 2004. Mars: A warmer, wetter planet. Chichester, UK: Springer-Praxis.
  18. Jollif, B. L., et al. 2006. Evidence for water at Meridiani. Elements 2:163-167.
  19. McLennan, S. M., et al. 2005. Provenance and diagenesis of the evaporite-bearing Burns Formation, Meridiani Planum, Mars. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 240:95-121.
  20. Austin, S. A. 1986. Mount St. Helens and catastrophism. In Proceedings of the first international conference on creationism 1:3-9. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship.

*Dr. Snelling is a Professor of Geology in the ICR Graduate School.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Creator's Valentine (#200702)
by Henry Morris III, D.Min.

"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God" (I John 3:1).

Today's post-modern world is saturated by a syrupy mix of assorted worldviews that attempt to diminish God's profound love gift to mankind with a salvation that either applies to everyone, or is so tolerant that the "no absolutes" philosophy of atheism is easily absorbed into religious secularism or spiritual naturalism.

God so loved the world

One could very accurately translate this phrase in John 3:16 as: "In this manner, God loved the world." Just what did this great love gift entail?

The Creator Himself is the gift

God's "beloved Son" (Luke 3:22) was incarnated to become the substitutionary atonement (John 1:1-14; Romans 5:11) for mankind. But this same Jesus who cried "Father, forgive them" (Luke 23:34) on the cross also made the worlds (Colossians 1:16).

Only the Creator could provide the gift

Only an infinite, omniscient, and omnipotent Creator could supply the inestimable gift "for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world" (I John 2:2).

Only the Creator could love the ungodly

Created in His "image" (Genesis 1:27), yet now "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1), we can be "redeemed . . . with the precious blood of Christ" (I Peter 1:18-19) because "God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:.

The Creator's gift demands a response

We may receive it and become "the sons of God" (John 1:12), or we will surely "fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). There is no neutral position.