I react to "The Ark and the Darkness," a film blending scientific evidence with biblical interpretations. The documentary, promoting a young Earth creationist viewpoint, emphasizes Noah's flood and end-times prophecy, lacking nuance and scientific engagement. Despite catering to believers, it misses an opportunity for open reflection and falls short of critical analysis.
Creation chronometry was a much debated topic in the late 1600s and early 1700s among Christians with virtually no opinion expressed being of the same kind that that could be described as a literalist view held today. I often wonder what would have happened had the Westminster Confession of Faith been written after this debate rather than before it given how the landscape of the discussion changed in the 40 years after the Assembly of the Westminster Divines met.
Billions of footprints are preserved in the rock record. While bones get all the attention, fossil footprints, a type of ichnofossils outnumber bones. How can we make sense of this observation? Surely, preserving a bone must be far more likely than preserving a footprint? I have written about how paleontologists use information from footprints and bones... Continue Reading →
Have you ever wondered about the origin of mythological creatures like dragons and griffins? Many ancient cultures believed in the reality of such creatures and depicted them in their art and stories. But where did these beliefs, these myths find their origin? Did they come straight from the imagination of social influencers of the day?... Continue Reading →
Most people know about Pixar's beloved film, WALL-E. Released in 2008 and directed by Andrew Stanton, this film has captured the hearts of many with its charming protagonist WALL-E or Waste Allocation Load-Lifter: Earth-Class. A few years ago I taught a Sunday school class on the topic of man's labor in the context of our... Continue Reading →
Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and liquid water on its surface.  Nearly every month data from satellites and multiple ground-based systems provide new evidence confirming what was once speculation about the watery past of Mars.  But how much water and how long ago did this water exist? A large amount of water still exists on Mars... Continue Reading →
Paleontologists can get excited about fossils even if they are not dinosaurs, mammoths and hominids though this story has a Jurassic Park dino connection which helps. In this case several tiny fossil mosquitos had scientists abuzz in 2013. Fossils of mosquitoes are known from amber (fossilized tree sap) but are extremely rare in sedimentary rock... Continue Reading →
The Amazon basin isn’t all a lush tropical forest. In large portions of western Amazonian wet seasonally flooded grasslands--not trees--are the norm. The upper branches of the Amazon River wind themselves across massive flood plains like snakes writhing across a sandy surface. One feature of these nearly featureless flat plains that has long puzzled... Continue Reading →
Young-earth creationists have a geological column problem that 50 years of research has yet to solve: where is the boundary between Flood deposits and post-Flood deposits?
Yes, multituberculates have something to say about the ongoing division among YECs about where to locate the Flood/post-Flood boundary in the geological column. Is that boundary to be found in the Quaternary, at the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary or way down in the Pennsylvanian Period? These are the three primary models that YECs have proposed. The problem... Continue Reading →
What is going on in young-earth creationism these days? In the previous three parts of this series on creationism in 2021 I hypothesized that there is an informal but growing movement within young-earth creationism I referred to as "The New Creationists." In part I of the series I identified some of the prominent members of... Continue Reading →
What is this New Creationism being preached by The New Creationists? What are its distinguishing characteristics? What I am identifying as The New Creationists (TNCs) are not necessarily an intentional or organized distinction. I think it has happened organically and those whom I am calling The New Creationists may have never even thought of themselves... Continue Reading →
In 2017 the film documentary Is Genesis History? marked a significant moment in the history of creationism evangelism. A professional-quality production defending the young-earth interpretation of Scripture and overview of the state-of-the-art in creation science—the attempt to conform the physical evidence of creation into the Young-Earth biblical framework. Upon its release, I wrote several reviews... Continue Reading →
Strike up a conversation about the age of the earth with nearly any group of evangelicals and you are sure to get a lively discussion.  There may be a young earth defender who will pull out some Ken Ham top-10 proofs of a young creation, some will claim to be agnostic on the topic while... Continue Reading →
During the last Ice Age when the oceans were up to 300 feet lower than they are today, an extensive cave system on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico was exposed, above sea level, allowing it to potentially be occupied by animals and humans. When the massive ice sheets melted from the Earth’s surface causing the... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 