Evidence Speaks: An interview with Lou Hamby

A few years ago the Discovery Institute made arrangements to show the premier of a movie entitled The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian Institution.  It made no references to God, the Bible, or supernatural events. It merely documented the incredible number of things that had to be just right, within very narrow parameters, in order for life to exist on earth.

Yet, angry scientists all over the U.S. sent emails, letters, and made other contacts, demanding that the film not be shown at the Smithsonian. The reason for all the outrage was because it seemed to infer that the earth was the result of careful planning and design. Continue reading Evidence Speaks: An interview with Lou Hamby

Bottom Line, It’s the Definition. No Kidding!

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Prior to the publishing of On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin in 1859, European scientists were making revolutionary scientific discoveries and, in the process, making science a highly respected field.  Scientific empirical methods were being developed, and research was conducted to discover how things operate in nature.

Some of the more well-known early scientists included Galileo, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and Johannes Kepler.  They all used empirical methods in their research, and they all based their explanations on natural processes.  This meant that these scientists were both empiricists and naturalists. Continue reading Bottom Line, It’s the Definition. No Kidding!

What Are the Right Questions to Ask Darwinists?

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Rationalism is an attempt to justify that something is true when evidence and conclusions are hard to pin down. It often leads to the practice of starting from the position that a certain explanation is true and then looking for evidence to show that it is true.

When On the Origin of Species was published, it soon became obvious that the kind of evidence that supported Darwinian evolution was not going to have the same level of certainty as that provided by the empirical methods of operational sciences.  Evidence for Darwin’s version of how life originated was vague and general. It was difficult to find solid evidence by standard empirical methods, so rationalism and justification became necessary methods used by evolutionists. Continue reading What Are the Right Questions to Ask Darwinists?

Where Are Next Generation Science Standards Taking Us?

The new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were released in April of 2013. They are not requirements, but they will have a major influence on textbooks and state curricula for years to come.

One of the goals was to help students have a deeper understanding of a few basic core ideas rather than focus on a lot of unconnected ideas. Another goal was to teach the core ideas at increasingly advanced levels from K-12 and to integrate them with scientific and engineering practices and with concepts from the different disciplines.

These were reasonable goals, except that the core ideas in both life science and earth & space tilted heavily toward naturalistic evolution and the effects of human activities on the environment.   Continue reading Where Are Next Generation Science Standards Taking Us?

Naturalism Is a Philosophy

Naturalism Is a Philosophy

Anyone trying to understand the secular evolutionary version of “where did we come from?” is at a huge disadvantage unless they first understand the science behind it. The next few posts will deal with this. I guarantee you will be better prepared to defend your Christian worldview if you can grasp these principles.  These posts are taken from an unpublished manuscript, “The Resurrection of Genesis 1-11” by Carolyn Reeves.

First of all, you need to understand that secular science is based on the philosophy of naturalism. Its followers believe that there is a natural explanation for everything that exists, including the beginning of all things. When it comes to origins, naturalists believe that all forms of life on earth can trace their origins back to the same one-celled ancestor rather than to a supernatural creation by God. They also believe there is a natural explanation for how the earth and the universe came to be. Evolutionary naturalists consider a Creator to be either false or irrelevant when it comes to how all living things came to be. Continue reading Naturalism Is a Philosophy

Explaining the Ice Age

The President’s agenda for his second term includes dealing with climate changes, which many scientists claim are caused by man-made technologies.  There have been major climate changes in the past, but none of them resulted from man or man-made technologies. Here’s something to consider as a national debate develops.

One of the great mysteries of world history is the Ice Age and the Ice Age animals that lived within the past few thousand years. The usual assumption is that the Ice Age began because something caused the earth to begin cooling.

However, this is a false assumption. Colder temperatures alone could never start an Ice Age with the buildup of massive amounts of snow. A drop in the average world temperature would produce fewer rather than more snow-producing clouds. This is because little water evaporates from cold oceans, and cold air does not hold much water vapor. In fact, super cold environments are technically deserts.

A combination of two extremely rare conditions is necessary in order to put enough moisture into the air to produce large amounts of snow. These conditions are cooler summer temperatures and warmer ocean waters, especially in the Polar Regions.

In order for snow clouds to form, liquid water must evaporate as water vapor. The process of evaporation occurs faster when the water is warm. The air above the water must also be warm enough to hold large amounts of water vapor until it can rise into higher regions of the atmosphere where the air is colder.

Eventually, the water vapor will condense back into tiny particles of liquid water and form clouds. At colder temperatures, tiny ice crystals quickly form within the clouds and eventually fall to earth as snow.

In addition to warm waters and warm air, one additional condition is needed to start an ice age. There must be something that prevents all the winter snow and ice from melting every summer. During an ice age, new layers of snow are added every year on top of older layers.

So, what is a possible explanation for why the ocean waters became warmer at the same time the average temperature of the world became cooler? The Biblical history of the world gives a very plausible, straightforward explanation.

Genesis 6-8 gives an account of a worldwide Flood that occurred more than 4000 years ago. There were unrepeatable conditions around the world following the Flood that would have been optimal for starting an ice age.

Michael Oard, the author of Frozen in Time and a specialist in meteorology, agrees that a worldwide Flood occurred over 4000 years ago that was followed by an Ice Age. He estimates that the Ice Age would have lasted from 500 to 800 years from beginning to end. He is one of several scientists who propose the following explanation for what happened.

The earth’s crustal plates broke open as the Flood began, exposing the oceans to the warmer temperatures of the deep crust. There was also an increase in volcanic activity on the ocean floor, which would have warmed the oceans even more. Then the warmer ocean waters would have warmed the air above it.

The evaporation of water from warm oceans, as well as the warm air above the oceans, would have put huge amounts of water vapor and clouds into the air.  Abundant snow would have occurred around the Polar Regions, with glaciers first forming in the higher elevations and later expanding to low-lying areas and shorelines. Eventually glaciers would have moved even farther into more temperate regions.

At the same time, the movement and shifting of tectonic plates in the earth’s crust would have caused a great increase in volcanic activity. The large amount of volcanic ash in the atmosphere would have blocked some of the radiations from the sun, causing the overall temperatures of the earth to remain cooler than usual. This cooling period would have aided in the buildup of huge glaciers and sheets of ice, because it prevented much of the snow on the ground from melting.

The Ice Age would have ended as the oceans cooled and the intense volcanic activity slowed. The unrepeatable conditions that would have been present at the end the Flood are a logical explanation for why the Ice Age began and ended and why another ice age will never occur again.

What does history say about this period of time? The very early cities and civilizations of the earth during the Ice Age were located in the more temperate areas of the earth and were not greatly affected by the icy conditions. They were, however, receiving abundant rain for the same reasons other parts of the world were receiving huge amounts of snow.

The Ice Age provides a very credible explanation for the extinction of woolly mammoths and other Ice Age animals. There is no question that these animals were living on the earth within the last few thousand years. A few probably remained as recently as a few hundred years ago.

The covering of flat lands with sheets of ice would explain why millions of woolly mammoths rapidly became extinct. The ice would have destroyed the large fields of grasses and the fresh water that they depended upon for their survival. Some ice age animals probably moved to more temperate regions. Unable to adapt and survive in these new environments, they also became extinct.

Reference: Frozen in Time by Michael Oard, MasterBooks.

The Pyramid Belt

 

In the small community where I grew up there are still a couple of log cabins that owners have preserved. But most of the 1800 houses and buildings are no longer standing. There are even fewer buildings from the 1700s, 1600s, or 1500s within hundreds of miles of my hometown.

However, there are still several man-made structures that were built around 1000 A.D. within easy driving distance of where I grew up. These are well-built earthen mounds found in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and other Southeastern states. There are literally thousands of mounds in or around the Mississippi basin and its tributaries.

Mounds near the ocean were typically made from shells, animal bones, and other items.  Not all of the mounds are well-preserved, but of the ones that have been studied by professional archeologists, many skillfully made artifacts have been recovered.

Not a lot is known about the mound builders, but they seem to have made up flourishing communities from around A.D. 800-1500. About 500 years ago, they dissipated or died off, leaving few clues as to what happened to them.  The original people who lived in these cultures were apparently very intelligent and used advanced technologies in building mounds, sun calendars, and other items. Continue reading The Pyramid Belt

Billl Nye vs Creationism: A Video Gone Viral

Bill Nye vs Creationism: A Video Gone Viral

Bill Nye is a terrific teacher. He can take a difficult concept in science and make it clear as crystal to students. What gives him even more of an edge as a teacher is that he makes learning fun and interesting. It’s no wonder that the TV show “Bill Nye The Science Guy” became a very popular show with many fans.

However, Bill has recently found himself in the middle of a raging controversy as the result of his inappropriate warnings to parents about creationism on a video-gone-viral. The YouTube video, “Creationism Is Not Appropriate for Children,” was posted by the online forum Big Think in August.1  It has already counted almost 5 million viewers and logged thousands of comments.

Continue reading Billl Nye vs Creationism: A Video Gone Viral

Crossing the Earth’s Oceans: 2000 B.C.

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Would it surprise you to know that three women, Tori Murden in 1999, Julie Wafaei in 2006, and Katie Spotz in 2010, rowed solo across the Atlantic? In fact, the number of recorded times individuals or small teams have rowed across the Atlantic and even the Pacific Ocean is now in double digits. The first recorded account of a team of two people to row across the Atlantic was in 1896, completed without the help of modern electronics or tools.

The jingle “In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue” is so ingrained in our thinking that it’s hard to imagine that Columbus wasn’t the leader of the first team ever to row or sail across the Atlantic. But, some compelling evidence indicates that many people traveled across the oceans and mapped the places they visited well before the time of Columbus.

Continue reading Crossing the Earth’s Oceans: 2000 B.C.

Views About Creation From a Rocket Scientist

Have you ever heard the expression, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that”?  Here is a true rocket scientist expressing his views on the teaching of creation in public schools. Dr. von Braun was director of the arm of NASA that put a man on the moon. It is unclear when his Christian walk began, but his opinions are clear and wise. I have highlighted some of his remarks. They speak for themselves.

 

The following letter was written by Dr. Wernher von Braun to the California State Board of Education in 1972.

Continue reading Views About Creation From a Rocket Scientist