Do places on Earth exist where annual records have been stored for tens of thousands of years and can be accessed today? Ice-cores and tree rings can preserve long records of yearly events but some of the best records come from layers of sediment underlying some lakes which, if formed under the right conditions, can be read like the annual rings of... Continue Reading →
In two prior posts (Creation Science Organizations: Past, Present and Future and The Next Generation of Creation Scientists) I have raised questions about the viability of the creation science movement as measured by the conversion of new scientists to the movement. Of course there have been many converts to belief in a young earth or at... Continue Reading →
I have to believe that when Henry Morris formed ICR he envisioned hundreds of scientists today actively applying the creation model to the historical sciences not just mouthing support for it. That former obviously hasn't happened despite the proliferation of creation science organizations with their significant financial resources and publishing capacity Creationists list hundreds of PhD scientists who are creation scientists but this is not the same as saying there are hundreds of creation scientists doing creation science.
Over the years I have maintained an eye on the ever-changing organizational structure of several creation science ministries. The growth and in some cases retraction of some organizations is not unlike what happens to many non-profit or other para-church organizations. The growth of para-church organizations is frequently caused by one of two main drivers: a dynamic personality... Continue Reading →
Previously we explored some meteorites that have been found on Earth that are very likely from Mars (Finding Mars on Earth). Only a small percentage of the meteorites found on Earth are from Mars with a few more (over 100) originating from the moon. The remainder presumably come from the far reaches of the... Continue Reading →
The data flowing from Mars has been impressive the past two weeks. Each day brings hundreds of new images many of which contain scenes like no others ever sent back to Earth before. I have followed the travels of previous rovers and looked at 10s of thousands of pictures they have beamed back over... Continue Reading →
A reader recently brought the articles linked below from a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) website to my attention. I found them interesting not just because they present a good overview of the challenges that the Greenland ice cores present to young earth creationism but because it raised my own awareness about current discussions in the... Continue Reading →
This is part of series of posts on the Sea Salt Chronometer. Other posts in this series are: The Salty Sea and the Age of the Earth: Confirmation Bias The Salty Sea Part II: A Young Earth Salt Chronometer? The Salty Sea Part III: Are the Oceans Getting Saltier Over Time? The Salty sea Part... Continue Reading →
This is part of series of posts on the Sea Salt Chronometer. Other posts in this series are: The Salty Sea and the Age of the Earth: Confirmation Bias The Salty Sea Part II: A Young Earth Salt Chronometer? The Salty Sea Part III: Are the Oceans Getting Saltier Over Time? The Salty sea Part... Continue Reading →
I would like to take a small diversion from my usual material on this blog to do a little backyard natural history. Our new home has almost a half acre of grass which abuts to our neighbors yard which is several acres of hardwood forest. In researching our home I found out that our... Continue Reading →
In Part I of this series I looked briefly at some recent encounters in which the salty sea is being discussed as a chronometer of sorts for determining the age of the earth. But how is this salt chronometer actually claimed to work? An article from ICR entitled, The Ocean’s Salt Clock Shows a Young World and includes the following:
Curiosity has beamed back some really remarkable images from Mars in the past couple of days. The site for its landing was chosen because it appeared from satellite images that there was layered rock and some diversity of chemical signatures at different elevations but the pictures taken from ground level reveal a more spectacular and... Continue Reading →
According to young earth creationists, there isn't enough salt in the oceans if the earth is old. Recent references to this argument have spurred me to look a little closer at how it is being used today. What I find is that it appears to have only a purely rhetorical use as the actual data about the ocean'salinity suggests that the amount of salt in the sea is a useless tool for indicating the earth is old or young.
How could anyone not be curious about Mars Curiosity rover? NASA gambled by playing up the "7 minutes of terror" landing, using social media very adeptly to get a huge audience right in the middle of the Olympics. Failure of the rover to safely land surely would have been a crushing blow to the... Continue Reading →
One of the stranger behaviors of termites was reported this past week and a summary can be found in a note in Nature. This report contains a description of exploding termites! How, and probably more intriguing, why would a termite explode and commit suicide?
Naturalis Historia 