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 →
Geological Context II: Neanderthals and the Italian Supervolcano
There are thousands of sites with either human remains or artifacts (stone tools usually) that are known across southern Europe and many are found in locations where they are found in layers stacked on top of each other like in caves or flood plain locations along rivers. But, the exact pattern of Neanderthal and modern human population migrations and changes is not my main interest.
The Frequently Overlooked Geological Context of Hominid Fossils
The human fossil record is probably one of these least understood yet frequently discussed topics in the Christian church. I have neither the expertise nor the desire to attempt to resolve the debate over whether particular fossils represent human ancestors or not. I understand that human origins is a sensitive topic, especially within the conservative evangelical church... Continue Reading →
Psalm 104 – Evidence of Post-Flood Plate Tectonics?
For some time I had been planning to write about the use of Psalm 104 in creationists circles as evidence for a physical description for tectonic events following a world-wide flood. Specifically, versus six through nine of Psalm 104 have been suggested to be not a reflection on creation, as is the traditional reading, but... Continue Reading →
Doggerland: The Ice Age, Sea Level Rise, and Human Migration
Update Feb 2014: I have rewritten this article with updated information here: Fishing For Fossils in the North Sea: The Lost World of Doggerland You may have seen reports of the discovery of the "British Atlantis" circulating the web. Those stories seem to have been sparked by a new display of recent research at... Continue Reading →
Adam and The Fall: A Thorny Young Earth Assumption
My WordPress tag reader led me to this video posted on Eric Hovind's "Creation Today" website. This site is what Dr Dino's website presence morphed into after the arrest and conviction of fringe creation scientists Kent Hovind. What caught my eye was that today's video highlighted evidence of creation from thorns. I have been thinking... Continue Reading →
As The Asteroid Tumbles: Asteroids and the Age of the Solar System
There are millions of asteroids orbiting the solar system most of which are found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Studies of these asteroids, as part of an effort to assess the threats to earth, have allowed us to track and paths, sizes and rotational frequencies of over 1000 asteroids.
The Garden Temple: A Framework for a Biblical Worldview
In Sunday School curricula, their illustrated Bibles and even famous illustrations and paintings over the centuries, literal interpretations have formed our image of the ecology of the Garden of Eden. But even literalist are not likely to explore the theological implications of the specific features of the Garden of the Eden and are even less likely to ask what the regions outside of the Garden was like and why.
The Toba Super Eruption: A Non-Flood Catastrophe – The Artifacts Say Yes!
The Toba volcano is found near the center of Sumatra, Indonesia. It has been estimated that at least 2800 cubic kilometers of material was thrown into the air during the explosion or series of explosions. To put that in perspective the Krakatoa volcano threw just over 2 cubic kilometers of material into the air some of which circled the globe causing dazzling sunsets in Europe.
Bring Out Your Dust: The YEC Moon Dust Argument
Not enough moon dust! It's the argument for a young earth that just won't die even though many YEC leaders have said it should. I was prompted to think about moon dust two days ago, after a 15 year break, when a colleague of mine stopped by my office and told me that she had... Continue Reading →
Web Traffic Data for Reformed and Creationist Sites
I am updating some web traffic data and adding a few new sites. I was wondering how the traffic of some of the prominent creation evangelism sites such as Answers in Genesis (AIG) and the Institute from Creation Research (ICR) compared to that of other general Christian web sites and reformed Christian organizations. I got... Continue Reading →
Permian Pompeii Challenge Taken Up? ICR’s Brian Thomas Comments on Fossil Forests
Recently I shared evidence of an ancient forest preserved in amazing detail in a thick layer of volcanic ash (An Ancient and Alien Forest Reconstructed: A challenge for young earth creationism). I raised a number of challenging questions that this spectacular fossil discovery raises for those that hold to a young-earth creationists (YEC) understanding of... Continue Reading →
Having Faith in Flood Geology – Dogmatic Assertions of Evidence
A comment on another site captures the essence of where I think Christians who have been told the Bible teaches the earth must be young are putting their confidence. Their confidence is placed in the belief that experts in scientific fields have provided them with not only enough evidence but overwhelming evidence that earth is young. This person is putting his faith in experts which, he admits, have bolstered his faith in the Word of God.
America’s Views on Evolution and Creation – poll results
The following image comes courtesy of Biologos.org which has created the easy to visualize summary of some of the most recent polling data regarding American's views of the origin of man. The questions posed by several national polling specialists are rather simple and many people clearly do not fit so easily into the boxes that... Continue Reading →
The “Good Creation” – Mimicry, Design, and the Young Earth Creationists Dilemma
Can you find the gecko in the picture to the right? Yeah, it is that brown leaf-like things toward the top of the image. I saw this image being used as the profile image for the facebook page "we CAN and we WILL find 1,000,000 Creationists." The suggestion of course is that such an amazing... Continue Reading →