How many stone age tools and associated artifacts are there and what are the implications of their existence? I raised those questions in a series of posts in the past year (Trillions of Stone Age Artifacts: A Young Earth Anthropology Paradox and How Rare are Stone Age Artifacts? A Visit to a Stone Tool-Making Center... Continue Reading →
Can You Spot the Difference? The Slowly Changing Surface of Mars
How different is the surface of Mars today compared to one thousand, a hundred thousand or a million years ago? The photo below was snapped by the Curiosity Rover which has spent several years trekking across an ancient lake-bed inside a large crater on Mars. It is a barren, forbidding but strangely familiar and beautiful... Continue Reading →
Is Historical Science Reliable? An Exploration of the AiG “Origins” Science Label
Young earth creationists frequently speak of two kinds of science which they refer to as "origins" and "operational" science. These terms are possibly akin to what scientists may call "historical" and "experimental" science. What is this "origins" science and how does origins science play a role in the discussion of the Age of the Earth?... Continue Reading →
Reflections on a Young Earth Creationist’ Approach to Scientific Apologetics
A few weeks ago I was a scheduled to present several lectures as part of a course offered by Veritas Theological Seminary in Santa Ana, California. The course title was Scientific Apologetics: The Age of the Earth. The course was split 50/50 between speakers from Solid Rock Lectures including myself, and two prominent employees of the... Continue Reading →
Amazonian Forest Islands: Accidental Products of Ancient Human Occupation
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... Continue Reading →
Origins of a Tropical Island II: The Long Road from Lava to Colonization
Imagine a tropic island paradise with beautiful beaches and thousands of plants and birds. Chances are you are imagining an island that formed as the result of volcanic activity. Examples would include the Caribbean islands, the Polynesian islands, and the Hawaiian Islands. But imagine what those islands looked like when they first formed. Rather than... Continue Reading →
Trillions of Stone Age Artifacts: A Young Earth Anthropology Paradox
Trillions of stone artifacts cover the surface of the African continent. The product of the manufacturing of stone tools by hunters and gathers over long periods of time, these stone artifacts literally carpet the ground in some places in Egypt and Libya. Just how much Stone-Age produced rock could be strewn across the African continent? Trillions and trillions... Continue Reading →
Global Flood on Mars: Where Did the Water Go?
News of evidence that Mars was once host to a volume of water equivalent of the Arctic ocean on Earth has been hitting the newswires. This might sound like new news but this is really just a more comprehensive analysis of work that has been ongoing for several years. Preliminary analysis had already suggested that... Continue Reading →
Origins of a Tropical Island: Instant Paradise or a Long Chaotic Process?
In November of 2013, over 600 miles south of Tokyo, a volcanic eruption formed a new island. That new island continued to grow for over a year, eventually joining itself to the neighboring island of Nishino-shima, a volcanic island formed long ago. Today, volcanic activity continues to cause this new ocean-island to expand bringing it... Continue Reading →
Forams and Diatoms: Testing Young Earth Flood Geology Hypotheses
Diatoms with their symmetrical highly-photogenic glass houses may get most of the attention but the foraminiferans (forams) present some formidable competition. In my recent article (Life in a Glass House) I revealed that the glass-house remains of diatoms are conspicuously absent from the bottom two-thirds of the geological column. This raised a rather uncomfortable question... Continue Reading →
Life in a Glass House: Diatoms Shatter Young Earth Flood Geology
Diatoms are single-celled organisms that live in almost any moist environment. They are found by the millions in a cup of sea water or a puddle in your back yard. They play a critical role in the environment as oxygen producers. But they are best known for their visually stunning homes constructed of glass. I... Continue Reading →
The Little Rover that Could: Opportunity Thinks it Can for 11 Years on Mars
Eleven years into a three-month primary mission the Opportunity rover is still making discoveries on Mars. Talk about exceeding your specs! That is eleven years of observations of rocks, craters, sand dunes, weather conditions and the occasional glance into the skies to do some astronomy. To celebrate its 11th anniversary the rover has just climbed to... Continue Reading →
The State of Creationism in the Church Today: Reflections on ETS 2014, Part II
Evangelical Christianity, broadly defined, has seen a number of science and faith battles over the past 50 years. For most of those years the debate has focused on the age of the earth and the closely – though not universally - associated debate about the extent of Noah’s Flood. Today, the age of the Earth... Continue Reading →
Reflections on ETS 2014, Part I: An Overview of Origins Related Talks
The landscape of science and faith discussions within conservative evangelical Christianity has shifted noticeably over the past 20 years. Vigorous debates over the meaning of the day of creation in Genesis 1 were common in the 1990s, resulting in study committee reports from conservative denominations like the Presbyterian Church in America, “Report of the Creation Study Committee”... Continue Reading →
NH Notes: Every Breaking Wave – Concretions Resist the Sands of Time
"Every breaking wave on the shore Tells the next one there'll be one more" Bono and Edge, U2 "Every Breaking Wave" 2014 I was in San Diego a few weeks ago attending the Evangelical Theological Society conference. I will report on that later but today I bring you a few pictures I took before hopping... Continue Reading →