I am now blocked from commenting on the Facebook page of the Institute of Creation Research (ICR). This was no surprise to me, nonetheless I felt rather sad that they felt they had to cut me off. Below is a screenshot of the ICR meme on which I had made what I thought was a substantive comment. About 20... Continue Reading →
Stalagmite Structures in an Ancient Cave Contradict the Young-Earth Narrative
The pace of discovery of ancient human activities continues unabated. That alone should tell us that that there is much yet to discover and learn. The latest revelation come from deep—more than 1000 feet—inside a French cave. In the blackness of a large opening there are peculiar "structures" constructed from fragments of stalagmites. Found many... Continue Reading →
NH Photography: The 17-Year Cicadas have Emerged in Ohio
Periodical cicadas called Brood V have emerged from the ground after 17 years of life as a nymphs feeding on the juices of plant roots. It took me a week of attempts to locate a local population of these amazing critters. I hiked several miles through nature preserves with no success knowing that they had been seen... Continue Reading →
Reflections on the Death of Toads and the Edenic Perfect Paradise
Ecology is the branch of biology that studies the interactions of organisms with each other and their environment. The animals and plants around you are living in relationship with each other and the environment, including yourself. Around your home you may have considerable control over the environment - moisture, nutrients, lawn-mowing, week control, pest removal - and thus you are probably... Continue Reading →
Bones of Contention V: Dr. Wood Weighs in on the Homo naledi Mystery
Two years ago the South African palaeoanthropologist, Dr. Lee Berger, announced that possible ancient hominin remains had been discovered in an isolated chamber deep in a South African cave system. He assembled a group of scholars and cavers to enter the chamber and retrieve what he hoped would be a new set of ancient hominin... Continue Reading →
Invoking Super-Speed Evolution: The YEC Post-Flood Big Bang of Bird Speciation
The diversity of birds on earth is remarkable. There are more than twice as many bird species alive today as there are mammal species. A challenge for literal-day creationists is explaining how such diversity was either preserved during a global catastrophe not more than 4500 years ago or was formed after that event. Did Noah’s Ark hold... Continue Reading →
New Ad for Ark Encounter Contradicts Ken Ham’s Understanding of Biblical “Kinds”
Answers in Genesis is about to roll out a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for the Ark Encounter. You may have already seen many billboards, Facebook promotions and heard radio advertising for the ark but apparently these were just a preview of the real media blitz that will continue right up to the July 7th opening. As part of... Continue Reading →
The Grand Canyon: Magnificent Witness to Earth’s History
The Grand Canyon is one of the most iconic geological features on Earth. Its immensity of the canyon regularly causes those that have peered into its depths to wonder about its origins. How could such an awe-inspiring canyon have formed? This fascination with the Grand Canyon has fueled a long a history of geological research. As a result there is a wealth... Continue Reading →
Is Natural Selection the Same Thing as Evolution? Assessing Dr. Purdom’s Confusing Answer
The ministry of Ken Ham’s Answers in Genesis exists, in part, to provide Christians with responses to what they believe are anti-biblical beliefs about the age of the earth and the origin of biological diversity. To provide these answers, AiG has assembled a small group of geologists and biologists. These employees provide answers to questions that... Continue Reading →
Testing YEC Hyper-Evolution from Common Ancestors: Comparisons of mtDNA Genome Diversity in Mammals
Ken Ham's Ark Encounter will vividly display what many young earth creationists believe the common ancestors of today's species of animals may have looked like as they rode out a global flood 4350 years ago. After disembarking from the ark, young earth creationists have proposed that these common ancestors experienced a burst of adaptive radiation into new environments... Continue Reading →
The Great Genetic Bottleneck that Contradicts Ken Ham’s Radical Accelerated Diversification (Post-Flood Hyper-Evolution)
How can a population of organisms reproduce and over time become several hundred species each of which has its own menagerie of characteristics? This is a fundamental evolutionary question for which many different mechanisms have been proposed as solutions over the past 200 years. With AiG's Ark Encounter nearing completion Ken Ham is about to put on display his... Continue Reading →
When Peer Review Lets You Down Again: Another YEC Fact-Checking Problem
Do humans have nine billion bases of DNA not found in Chimpanzees? This is the bold claim made by head science writer for the Institute for Creation Research, Brian Thomas, in a newly released video. There is no doubt that Brian is mistaken. After all, the human genome only has 3.2 billion bases! How could such an error... Continue Reading →
Exploding Termites – Sacrifice of an Individual for the Good of the Whole Organism
When do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one, as Spock suggested in Star Trek II? I have no interest in defending the utilitarian philosophy of Jeremy Bentham, especially as a guide for understanding human moral psychology, but it is interesting to observe that some simple organisms display... Continue Reading →
2500 Year Old Human Footprints Discovered: Insight into the Formation of Fossil Footprints
Countless numbers of footprints made by hundreds of kinds of organisms are preserved in hundreds of individual layers of the geological column. Millions of these tracks have been identified from just the tiny fraction of the rocks that are exposed at the surface of the Earth. But how were so many footprints preserved? In conversations with... Continue Reading →