Who hasn’t read the book of Job more than once and each time come away with new questions and new insights? How many sermons have you heard on the topic? How many bible studies have discussed its contents? It is a multilayered piece of great literature, its composition inspired by God through His chosen human... 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 →
Pick up a copy of The New Answers Book Volumes 1-4 from the young-earth apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis and you could be forgiven for thinking that young-earth creationists have the definitive answers to every question: If the world is young and its surface was completely worked over less than 4500 years ago, how would... 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 →
There are many organizations that have built an apologetics ministry around a young-earth interpretation of Genesis. If you are familiar with young-earth creationism at all you are probably aware of Answers in Genesis (AiG) and its founder, Ken Ham. AiG wasn't the first young-earth ministry but it has undoubtedly become the largest and most influential... Continue Reading →
My post-doctoral research from 1995 to 1999 included searching for, sequencing and characterizing genes of chloroplast genomes of holoparasitic plants (plants that cannot obtain energy from the sun and must steal it from other plants). I am preparing to give a seminar tomorrow on the topic of parasitic plants. So much has been learned since... Continue Reading →
Cheaters prosper! Yes, they really do. Hundreds of thousands of species are singularly devoted to some form of parasitic life strategy. It's a strategy that involves one organism deriving all or much of its resources from a host organism to the detriment of that host. Many of these strategies make us cringe. For example the... Continue Reading →
Young age creationists have responded to biodiversity loss (extinction) in a scattershot way in recent years. So my interest was peaked when the popular journal of Answers in Genesis, Answers Magazine, recently had a issue devoted to "Creation Care." One of those articles, Should We Abandon Some Species to Extinction? was featured on the Answers... Continue Reading →
I own more than 400 books on the topic of origins, broadly speaking. That includes commentaries on the book of Genesis, works on the relationship of science and faith, young-earth creationist textbooks and popular literature and books on the philosophy of science. I’ve recently finished my most recent purchase The Liturgy of Creation by Dr.... Continue Reading →
Sudden catastrophic events are not unknown in earth’s history. Large craters are evidence of past cosmic impacts and widespread layers of volcanic ash are a testimony to massive volcanic eruptions. But when did these catastrophes occur and could they have influenced human history? Standard geological models place the largest catastrophic events far in the past. ... Continue Reading →
How do scientists communicate with each other? What are the latest research results? How can one learn about theories and how they are regarded by the scientific community? Where can you talk to scientists about their work? A partial answer to all of these questions is: scientific conferences. It is possible to stay somewhat current... Continue Reading →
I recently attended the annual meeting of the American Scientific Affiliation held at Wheaton College. About 300 professional scientists who are professing Christians had gathered to discuss a variety of topics related to science and faith. Monday morning I delivered my presentation titled: “Young Earth evolutionists? Adaptation of young-earth creationist models, and implication for the... Continue Reading →
Today, young-earth creationists are actively promoting a new model of the origin of the diversity of life on Earth. This speculative view borrows a number of elements found in any typical evolutionary biology textbook. For example, modern YECs claim that most and possibly all species alive today—except humans—are related to numerous other, though not all,... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 