Free Republic

Rockslides on Ararat by John D. Morris, Ph.D. * Mt. Ararat is a volcano, erupting numerous times since the Flood. Its ice cap continually erodes the hardened basaltic rock underneath. As the ice sheets move along, they push the loosened rock over the edges of the mountain, causing high-speed avalanches. On my first expedition I was warned about the “crumbly rock” but was not prepared for the enormity of the dangers. Thursday, August 3, 1972 I heard a noise up above us on the slope. I looked up just in time to see a rock bigger than my head hurtling...

Unlocking the Origins of Snake Venom by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * The origin of snake venom has been a long-time mystery to both creationists and evolutionists. Interestingly, new research confirms that the same genes that encode snake venom proteins are active in many other tissues.1 According to the biblical record, God’s creation was originally void of death, disease, and violence. Because of Adam and Eve’s rebellion, the whole of creation became subject to a curse that resulted in snakes with venom, stinging arthropods, and countless diseases. One of the chief questions facing creation biologists and geneticists is how venom was...

Fountains of the Deep by Tim Clarey, Ph.D. * Most of the fossil-bearing strata on Earth are comprised of six megasequences.1,2 Secular scientists believe they were laid down over millions of years, but this assumption prevents them from describing some prominent geological features—features that are best explained by large-scale flooding. Using data from over 500 stratigraphic columns,3 I examined megasequences across North America to document the sedimentary evidence for the Flood’s catastrophe. At each site, the megasequence boundaries were identified, along with the thicknesses and extent of individual rock types. These findings enabled the creation of computer maps that will...

Has science now proven that God exists? Douglas Ell, author of the new book Counting To God, will speak about this and other “big questions” related to science and faith in two lectures at Trinity Episcopal Church in Vero Beach. Times: Tuesday, October 21, 2014, 6:00 pm Tuesday, November 18, 2014, 6:00 pm Location: Trinity Episcopal Church 2365 Pine Avenue Vero Beach, FL 32960 Both talks are open to the general public and there is no charge. In Counting To God, Ell applies the lens of mathematical analysis to a series of scientific discoveries, drawing startling conclusions about the relation...

In a dozen polls taken from 1982 to 2014, Gallup has asked Americans to choose among three views of evolution. One view is that humans “developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process.” Another view is that humans “developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process.” The third option is that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” In that three-decade span, the young-Earth creationist option has always...

The intellectual role that used to be occupied by theology is now largely filled by science fiction. Wikipedia lists only a dozen of possibly hundreds of books where writers, some of them practicing mathematicians or scientists themselves, examine the consequences of our current understanding of the universe. The familiar, everyday world that we know isn’t what it seems. It is actually a strange place. On large scales it isn’t governed by ‘common sense’ Newtonian physics but by the paradoxes of relativity. At very small scales, perhaps at its foundation, it is governed by quantum phenomena, which is stranger still. Arthur...

The Noble Clock: Radioactive Dating, Part 3 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * Radioactive dating methods—many of which are quite elaborate—have numerous physical condition requirements that cannot realistically remain unaffected over millions and perhaps billions of years. Since the potassium-argon dating methods clearly appear to be unreliable, why should any rational person trust them to provide accurate dates for rocks? In the early 1950s, scientists established theories for using the decay of radioactive potassium (40K) to argon (40Ar) as a clock for dating certain types of rocks. Called “noble” because it rarely bonds with other elements, argon (Ar) is one...

‘From the beginning of creation’—what did Jesus mean? There’s no getting around Jesus’ teaching on the age of the earth by Keaton Halley Published: 25 November 2014 (GMT+10) Not everyone welcomes this news, but some of Jesus’ statements imply, of necessity, that the world is young. This is something I regularly point out when I speak in churches about creation, and it is a theme on which we have written previously, in articles such as Jesus on the age of the earth and in chapter 9 of Refuting Compromise. To reiterate the argument briefly, Jesus claimed that human history began...

Missing Link or Another Fish Story? by Frank Sherwin, M.A. * Recently there has been some celebration from the Darwinian community regarding a discovery of a fossil 1 that allegedly links terrestrial animals to their future aquatic relatives: the ichthyosaurs. Cartorhynchus lenticarpus is proclaimed by some evolutionists to be an amphibious ancestor of the ichthyosaurs, aquatic reptiles whose name means "fish lizards." Rachel Feltman of the Washington Post was jubilant, saying this "fossil could prove a problem for creationists."2

Pure myth! That is today’s typical view of a literal Adam and Eve. Yet, contrary to current skepticism, a real Adam and Eve remain credible—both in terms of Catholic doctrine and sound natural science.By calling the Genesis story a “myth,” people avoid saying it is mere “fantasy,” that is, with no foundation in reality at all. While rejecting a literal first pair of human parents for all mankind, they hope to retain some “deeper” truth about an original “sinful human condition,” a “mythic” meaning. They think that the latest findings in paleoanthropology and genetics render a literal pair of...

Purpose, Progress, and Promise, Part 2 by Nathaniel T. Jeanson, Ph.D. * In last month’s article, I described the purpose of ICR’s life sciences research and sketched out the need for a counter-offensive strategy against evolution’s lines of scientific arguments. This month I describe the scope of this counter-offensive. To reclaim the scientific throne from Darwin, creationists must not only identify the flaws in his explanation, they also need to replace his ideas with scientifically superior ones. Unfortunately, in the intense battle over the details of Darwin’s claims, it’s not always clear precisely which scientific questions need answering. For example,...

Trees Really Are 'Pleasant to the Sight' by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Genesis 2:9 records one of the Lord's original intentions for creating trees, saying, "Out of the ground the LORD God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." A new study has quantified just how pleasant to the sight trees can be, inadvertently confirming the truthfulness of this ancient biblical passage. Professor William Sullivan and lecturer Bin Jiang of the...

Using science is wise - blindly patronizing science is presumption and idolatry - Anon. In a blazing headline One News Now published an article entitled "Pope backs evolution, Vatican calls creation 'blasphemous,'" in it, author Michael F. Haverluck says "In a speech given at a Pontifical Academy of Sciences ceremony unveiling a bust of his predecessor, Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, Pope Francis declared his full-fledged support of evolution as the scientifically correct explanation of the origin of man - and the universe." Unwilling to go full-fledged "everything from nothing' the Pope has scratched out an explanation from the playbook of 'theistic-evolution'...

Researchers report that they've found the missing link between an ancient aquatic predator and its ancestors on land. Ichthyosaurs, the dolphin-like reptiles that lived in the sea during the time of the dinosaurs, evolved from terrestrial creatures that made their way back into the water over time. But the fossil record for the lineage has been spotty, without a clear link between land-based reptiles and the aquatic ichthyosaurs scientists know came after. Now, researchers report in Nature that they've found that link — an amphibious ancestor of the swimming ichthyosaurs named Cartorhynchus lenticarpus. "Many creationists have tried to portray ichthyosaurs...

More reasons to doubt Darwin A review of: Darwin‘s Doubt, the explosive origin of animal life and the case for intelligent design by Stephen C. Meyer HarperOne, Nashville TN, USA 2013 Reviewed by Philip Bell Published: 6 November 2014 (GMT+10) Stephen Meyer has an impressive pedigree in the philosophy of science and geophysics but is better known as a prominent spokesperson for the ID movement in the USA. Darwin’s Doubt3 is, in many ways, a sequel to his Signature in the Cell (2009)4, both of them impressive in length, scope and incisive analysis. In both, he explicitly distances ID from...

Genetic Entropy Points to a Young Creation by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Many creationists believe that the bulk of scientific evidence for a recent creation comes from the fields of geology, physics, and astronomy and that biology and genetics have little to contribute. However, data that confirm a young creation are rapidly emerging from genetic studies performed by both creationist and secular scientists. One of the most important finds in recent years came from modeling the accumulation of mutations (genetic code errors) in the human genome over time using computer simulations. Researchers found that this buildup of mutations can only...

Traditions of a Global Flood by John D. Morris, Ph.D. * Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Corinthians 1:20) One of the strongest evidences for the global Flood that annihilated all people on Earth except for Noah and his family has been the presence of flood legends in the folklore of people groups from around the world. And the stories are all so similar. Local geography and cultural aspects may be present, but they all seem to be telling the...

The Iconic Isochron: Radioactive Dating, Part 2 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * The Bible is quite clear about the origin and timeframe for the creation of Earth and the cosmos. If Scripture is inaccurate in this, then how can it be trusted in anything else? Some evolutionists throw out theistic evolution (God using evolution as His creative process) as a philosophical panacea, with the goal of leading people to conclude that Genesis is a myth. Like Nimrod of ancient times, they know they must provide an alternative (i.e., naturalism, specifically scientism—the belief that science alone can render truth about...

Have you heard about Pope Francis’ recent comments about God, evolution, and Creation? If so, chances are you’ve heard wrong. Here are four things you should know:

The theories of evolution and the Big Bang are real and God is not “a magician with a magic wand”, Pope Francis has declared. Speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, the Pope made comments which experts said put an end to the “pseudo theories” of creationism and intelligent design that some argue were encouraged by his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Francis explained that both scientific theories were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”. “When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with...