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 →
I follow a number of apologists who play secondary roles in the young-earth (literal-day) creation universe. These are individuals with ministries that rely on repackaging and reselling ideas generated by the primary young-earth organizations like Answers in Genesis and Institute for Creation Research. One of those is David Rives. One of his many websites under... 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 →
When the Creation Museum in Kentucky opens back up on June 8 they will have a new exhibit on great ape origins. There you will be able to learn how all gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and all species of fossil apes including australopiths share a common ancestor no more than 4500 years ago. Ken Ham has... Continue Reading →
One of the great privileges of my job is that I get to participate on graduate student committees. Many times this allows me to get up close and personal with data sub-disciplines extend far from those of my particular expertise. You know that I have a fondness for fossils and the stories they tell. So... 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 →
Baby sea turtles emerge from their sandy nest and quickly make their way down the beach and into the sea. As they do so they leave tiny footprints in the sand, but the tracks are short-lived. Blown away or destroyed by the next large wave, they are lost forever. Imagine the footprints you leave during... Continue Reading →
Here is a puzzle: Where can you stand on dry ground and look up to see a river channel above you? Yes, New Orleans is a good answer. However, I'm talking about looking up 100 feet from a non man-made location. There are many places on Earth and possibly on Mars where such... Continue Reading →
Armadillos are curious little animals but were all of them as small as they are today? DNA extracted from a 12,000 year old bone of an extinct glyptodont the size of a small car revealed a genetic code that clearly places this huge animal inside the group (clade) of diverse animals we collectively call armadillos. These DNA results (see... Continue Reading →
An eleven-foot snake slithers among a cache of eggs and a sauropod dinosaur hatchling. Before it can grab the hatchling a landslide or windstorm buries the eggs, hatchling and snake. This is the scene preserved in Late Cretaceous deposits in India (Wilson et al. 2010). These same rocks have yielded thousands of sauropod eggs, hatchlings,... Continue Reading →
Everyday a new piece of earth's history is uncovered. And everyday those discoveries add a new puzzle piece for young-earth creationists to try to fit into their 6000-year picture of earth's biological and geology history. Yesterday's new puzzle piece comes in the form of seven large footprints on a slab of rock. They were found... Continue Reading →
One headline reads “Giant Prehistoric Toilet Found” another refers to the discovery of an ancient latrine. Don’t know how I missed those headlines when the first news was released. Surely had I seen that headline I would have had to clicked on it to find out what that was all about. The actual title, The... Continue Reading →
How many animals did Noah preserve on the Ark? I often see critics of young-earth creationists (YECs) challenge Noah’s Ark with the question, how could Noah have fit all two million species on the ark? When I see this challenge posed on Facebook or Twitter it is invariably coming from an individual that knows very... Continue Reading →
Naturalis Historia 