Exploring the Intersection of Science and Faith in the Spirit of John Ray
The Xenarthrans include the armadillos, anteaters and sloths. What makes these animals different from other mammals? They all have a unique projections on their vertebral (back) bones; the ischium and sacrum bones of the hip are fused, unlike all other mammals; the males have internal testicles (no external scrotum) located near the bladder and they experience […]
Please welcome Lars Cade* as a guest blogger on Naturalis Historia. I am a Christian currently studying to become a paleontologist. While I still have much more that I need to learn before I could properly consider myself one, I know enough of the discipline to know when it is being misrepresented. Unfortunately, the young-earth […]
The question posed in the title of the documentary-style film “Is Genesis History?” sounds provocative, but the answer was never in doubt in the mind of the filmmakers—or the primary audience. The producers surely hoped that non-Christians and Christians alike with questions about origins/natural history/science would be drawn in by the title query and subtitle […]
The documentary-style film, Is Genesis History, (IGH) lays out clearly and concisely the implications of a literal-six-day and global flood interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis. While providing only a bare-bones defense of the biblical case for a literal-day interpretation, the film uses most of the screen time to explore how young earth and global […]
Animal tracks preserved in stone are found in great abundance in many parts of the geological column. You might be asking yourself, aren’t the chances incredibly small that any individual track made in mud would be preserved over long periods of time? You would be right. The vast majority of footprints won’t survive the ravages of […]
Billions of footprints are preserved in the rock record. While bones get all the attention, fossil footprints likely 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 to reconstruct […]
Dinosaur tracks and eggshells are found in great abundance in the geological column. Many paleontologists have devoted their careers to finding, characterizing and interpreting these remains of these extinct organisms. But is all their work to put these fossils into a historical context simply a fantasy? If the young-earth view of earth’s history is correct, […]
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 […]
The year was 1700 B.C. Severe climate change had been engulfing the entire Earth for several years. People from every corner of the globe were traveling to Egypt to buy grain which Joseph has stored up as a result of a vision that God had given to Pharaoh nearly a decade before. During this time […]
Three years ago Ken Ham very publicly promoted what he believes is a biblical model of biological evolution to explain the diversity of life on Earth. However, I have a book before me that provides compelling evidence that his model of evolution is wrong. That book is the Bible. For those that follow young earth creation literature nothing […]
Are the existence of plant thorns and thistles proof that the world can only be a few thousand years old? Yes! according to most young-earth creationists. I’ve written several times about thorns and creation (eg. The Prelapsarian Acacia and the Good Creation: On the Origin of Thorns) but a video available at creationtoday.org – a small fringe young-earth […]
Ken Ham would have us believe that the modern reincarnation of the young-earth creationist movement, which he claims began only 55 years ago, is the real deal this time. Unlike previous attempts over the past 300 years to create a history of the Earth with a recent global flood as a centerpiece, this time his para-church apologetics […]
What happens when a speaker gives a talk about dinosaurs but doesn’t have any training in geology or paleontology? You could get a string of distortions of both of these fields of inquiry and even problems keeping facts straight. A few weeks ago I witnessed just such a talk when I attended an Answers in Genesis […]
The difference between what young earth creationists like to term “operational” or “observational” science and historical science doesn’t have the sharp distinction they like to project to their audience. I was reminded of this recently when I had an opportunity to hear Tommy Mitchell speak at a local Answers in Genesis conference a few weeks ago. One particular talk was […]
John Ray, one of England’s greatest 17th century natural theologians, spent much time pondering the meaning of fossils or “formed stones” as they were called then. I have shared some of his thoughts about fossils and Earth’s history before (See: John Ray on Flood Geology: Words that Still Apply Today). In a correspondence with […]
