All posts filed under: Creation

Is David Gelernter God’s response to Joshua Harris?

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The Christian world was recently shaken when former mega church pastor and popular Christian author Joshua Harris publicly stated “I am not a Christian” and at the same time announced that he and his wife of 19 years were separating. Harris, 44, pastored Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland for 11 years and wrote several books including “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” that sold over a million copies. In his Instagram post, Harris stated: “The information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus. The popular phrase for this is ‘deconstruction,’ the biblical phrase is ‘falling away.’ By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.” In simple terms it seems that Harris has now denied his faith. It is discouraging for believers to read of a man with some prominence in Christian circles walking away from Christianity. The Apostle Paul warned of a falling away that will take place in the end times (2 …

Michelangelo's Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel Photo: Bill Read/Flickr/Creative Commons

Is God a Good Idea?

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Is God a good idea? Is God just an idea? Did we invent something, or someone, from our psychology because we wanted some comfort in this world? This is a common idea. One of the founders of Christian Liberal thinking is Ludwig Feuerbach, who believed that we invented God by looking at ourselves. We created our creator in our own image; we looked into ourselves and put pieces of ourselves into our ‘superman in the sky.’ RELATED: Ludwig Feuerbach: Wikipedia Ludwig Feuerbach inspired many, including the founders of Communism, and probably the Nazis. He also inspired the Protestant Liberals. The result of that thinking, in Christian churches, was Liberal Theology, and the end result of Liberalism is empty churches. People who learn the teachings of doubt and dis-belief are not inspired to believe more; they are mostly inspired to leave. Look around your city and notice all the old and empty church buildings. We have some very beautiful buildings where I live, and they are mostly empty on Sunday; beautiful tombs. I remember a historical …

Did God Evolve?

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Evolutionists sometimes discuss the function of the appendix. What is the purpose of that small thing in our body, and why did it evolve? A similar topic is; why do we have religion, the worship of God? Religion is like a spiritual appendix, we can’t explain why it evolved, but it seems to be in everyone. Recently, a writer for the BBC commented on the development, or evolution of religion, among humans. RELATED: Do humans have a religion instinct? If we start with the belief that the universe started from energy, with a “Big Bang” explosion, and then life emerged through some natural accident, the most advanced species today is a large ape, us. If you believe, you will see. We can picture apes in a tree with a sense that something in the world is bigger than them. After millions of years of evolution, that vague sense of something could become a god that we worship. If people are the result of evolution, so is God. In the article, this evolution of religious thought …

Poster child of human evolution gets debunked, again

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Evolutionists have often flung the human appendix in people’s faces harping it is a vestigial organ and evidence of human evolution. The theory goes that certain organs of the human body, that were necessary in the early stages of human evolution, became unnecessary as man evolved. But they still remained part of human anatomy and serve as little more than left overs of our evolutionary past. According to evolutionists, the appendix perfectly fits this description as they believed it no longer had a function in modern humans. However, their poster child has taken a beating in recent years as researchers discovered the appendix has an important role in the health of modern humans. In a major study involving over 62 million people, researchers at Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio) and Cleveland Medical Center discovered that the appendix seems to play a critical role in stopping Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s affects a person’s central nervous system and over time, it increasingly impacts an individual’s motor functions resulting in increased shaking, walking difficulty and rigidness. The research …

Have We Ended the War Between Religion and Science?

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I remember a sermon in church, when I was a boy. I don’t remember the whole sermon, but I clearly remember a dignified and stern preacher telling us about the “fool-osophers” in our universities. I felt sorry for any philosopher in the building. I have also met educated people, who believe in science and think religion is for idiots. When I was a student in a university, I learned that one of my favorite profs was a Christian and a leader in a well-known religious denomination. One day, I was in his office talking about my course work, and I told him the name of the church that I attended. I expected him to be friendly, but he didn’t smile. I could see anger in his face and he said “Oh, so you’re a literalist.” I didn’t know what that word “literalist” meant, but I felt the sneer; like someone was swearing at me. That conversation ended quickly, and I avoided him and his classes after that. So, is there any way that science and …

Did Scientists Just Discover the Creation?

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Recently, some scientists have been describing the origins of life on the Earth with language that is almost biblical. This is the strange case of secular scientists discovering something the Bible described thousands of years ago. If there is one thing that separates science from religion, it’s the story of creation, or the origins of life on Earth. Charles Darwin published his theory of The Origin of the Species in November of 1859. Since then, secular science has removed God from our origins. Before that time, most people believed that God, or some divine force that created life. Darwin is commonly called a “naturalist” but really he first apprenticed as a medical Doctor, and then trained as a minister for the Church of England. The young naturalist was a theologian, and I believe his theory of evolution (Origin of the Species) described a universe without God. Removing God was very important for the theologian; the God scientist. Here is an accelerated summary of billions of years of natural history according to Darwin and his followers: …

Gone Bananas

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I’m only sixty percent bananas! Woohoo! And my family said I was one hundred percent bonkers! Actually I am a bit more than sixty percent but I’ll take it. Especially since I am more bananas than chicken. I guess a crazy person who isn’t chicken is pretty scary so I better explain this one. A friend of mine ordered one of those DNA tests to find out about her roots and what wonderful diseases to which she can look forward when she gets old. Apparently she will be a healthy old broad. Then I remembered some old science that claimed we had something like ninety six percent similar DNA to a chimpanzee. Of course the evolutionists thought this was great since it proved we came from apes which came from some other animal etc until you got to pond scum. So the bottom line is we are all evolved pond scum. Except I don’t want to be pond scum! I looked at the similarities between DNA of humans and other things like chimps and bananas. …

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Does a rainbow explain it?

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A few years back, scientists made an unusual discovery high in the Canadian high Arctic. They found the fossilized remains of a foot-wide, tropical Asian turtle. In fact, they have also found the fossilized remains of crocodiles, ferns and other types of tropical animals and plants. There is no way these could survive in the Arctic’s current climate. And in the much more inhospitable southern antarctic, they have found the fossilized remains of a giant forest and even the remains of dinosaurs underneath the land perpetually covered with snow. It is obvious at one point the planet was much warmer than it is today and somehow it was all taking place without the help of SUVs and man-made global warming. But surprisingly the Bible may provide an explanation as it describes a different world at creation than what we see today. Shortly after God judged the world with a flood, God made a promise to Noah that He would never destroy the earth again in this way: 13 I set My bow in the cloud, and …

The Dead Leaf butterfly with its colorful wing display that perfectly mimics a dead leaf when closed. Credit: Left image Public Domain/Right image quartl/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

Transformed!

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I remember as a boy living in Shellbrook, a small Saskatchewan town, walking down the main street when a butterfly fluttered in front of me. Almost instantly it was set upon by a sparrow. What followed was an aero-acrobatic display. Though the sparrow was clearly faster, the butterfly was incredibly elusive. It swooped up and down to avoid captures. Sharp turns left, then right. Darting in every direction as the bird repeatedly dove in to catch it. And the sparrow was always a second too late, biting at air as the butterfly made another erratic move with a brain barely as large as a dot on an “i.” Then just as suddenly as it started, it was over. The bird broke off its unsuccessful chase and landed at the top of the one-story building I was walking by. I could see its beak open, as it breathed heavily trying to catch its breath. The butterfly continued its flight as if nothing had happened. It is interesting display because the butterfly has two sets of wings. …

Malaysia Credit: Juha Riissanen/Flickr/Creative Commons

Oops, that wasn’t supposed to happen: genetic study unravels evolutionary theory

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A study produced by two geneticists Mark Stoeckle from New York’s Rockefeller University and David Thaler from Switzerland’s University of Baler concluded that 90% of animals came into existence at the same time as humans and relatively recently. This conclusion seriously challenges the theory of evolution that requires millions of years for animals to slowly evolve, with man being the climax of the evolutionary cycle. In their study published in the Human Evolution journal, the two geneticists examined the “DNA barcodes” of 100,000 species of animals stored in GenBank, a genetic data base operated by the American government. Based on this study, the two concluded that animals appeared at the same time as humans about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Though there may be some dispute on the dating, their study nevertheless confirms the Biblical account that says humans and animals were created at the same time on the fifth day. In an interview with Christian Headlines, Ken Ham founder of the creationist organization Answers in Genesis suggested the age numbers were inflated by evolutionary …

Lake Naivashu in Kenya's rift valley, a new continent in the making? Credit: Angela Sevin/Flickr/Creative Commons

Another great split?

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Scientists are reporting on the formation of a massive crack in Africa that may result in the continent splitting in half. They don’t believe it will happen in our lifetime, but expect it could happen at some point in the far future. According to an article in the Daily Mail, the lithosphere made up of the earth’s outer crust and upper mantle has tectonic plates floating underneath. Post Doctoral researcher Lucia Perez Diaz, who works with the Fault Dynamics Research Group,  says these plates can rupture creating a rift that results in a separate tectonic plate that would essentially create a new continent. They believe that such a rift is starting to occur in south-western Kenya. The crack is now 3,000 kms long and extends from the Gulf of Aden in the North to Zimbabwe in the South. This crack even resulted in the collapse of a stretch of the Nairobi-Narok highway. Diaz described the large crack’s appearance as “sudden.” If this crack continues to move southward, it would essentially spit the African tectonic plate …

Credit: KuanLaun Chiu/Flickr/Creative Commons

Bodies by Design

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In Psalm 95:6 David opens his heart and declares “Come let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord God our Maker, for He is our God…” David had the revelation that we were created, intricately crafted by the masters hand. Three thousand years have now past and scientists are continually amazed at the complexity in the design of our bodies. When you consider our brain consists of approximately 12 billion cells, with 120 trillion interconnections allowing us to see and do amazing things. And when you also consider the human eye with its 10 million photoreceptor cells in the retina that are so complex, it would take a Cray supercomputer a minimum of 100 years to simulate what takes place in the eye several times per second. Not to mention the 20 feet of blood vessels intricately woven into every square inch of skin and the 72 feet of nerve fiber in each square inch of our hands. The list of masterful design goes on and on. The blueprints that map …

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Human Evolution in 2017

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“It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a religious believer. I don’t point to the Bible to prove this, but rather to the universe.” — Mick Mooney, Why I’d Still Believe In God Did you know, our picture of the world changed in the year 2017, in a big way? I am writing this in early 2018, and some science writers are looking back in shock and awe. For example, when I was a boy, public schools and libraries and publications like “Scientific American” and “National Geographic” gave one orthodox picture of humans who are apes that climbed down from trees and walked on the planes of Africa, and evolved into us. This was science, and there was no other way, and for sure there was no God. I was a Christian who went to church every Sunday, and I also studied and worked in a large university. My first degree was in Anthropology, the driver of human evolution ideas. I learned to keep my head down …

RNA strand Credit: Vossman/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

Blinded by a theory?

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It has been a problem that has haunted evolutionists for years — how did ribonucleic acid (RNA) evolve? According to the RNA Society, “Ribonucleic acid, or RNA is one of the three major biological macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life (along with DNA and proteins).” It is a required cog for producing enzymes. However, there was a major evolutionary problem. Since RNA requires its own enzymes to replicate, it was impossible for RNA to evolve without enzymes. It was the old what came first — the chicken or the egg. Since the enzyme could only be created by RNA and it could only replicate with the enzyme, both had to spontaneously appear at exactly the same time for it to evolve. It sounds more like creation than evolution. But in 2016 Nobel Prize laureate Jack Szostak, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School,  wrote a paper stating he had discovered how RNA replicated without the required enzyme paving the way for its evolution. It was a ground-breaking announcement that fell in …

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The Eve Gene

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Have you ever wished that you could travel back through time? Most of us, if not all of us, have daydreamed about just such a thing. Growing up with movies like “Time Tunnel” and “Back to the Future” have fueled our imaginations. Today using genetic science we can get a glimpse of our past by stepping back in time, not through a  mystic portal or modified sports car but through our DNA. There is so much information available through our genetic material, that it should yield a tremendous amount of knowledge about the past. Each one of our cells contains millions and often billions of bits of genetic information. This incredible storehouse of information is now being revealed by what is called “gene sequencing techniques.” It is possible that from this information, we may one day even be able to obtain a good estimate of the date of the Creation. A study of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mutation rates is of interest in this respect. A  1997 article in  Nature Genetics 15(4):363-367 stated. “Mitochondrial DNA is …

Antarctic Credit: Maxime/Flickr/Creative Commons

Antarctic tree stump fossils reveal what earth looked like at creation

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A recent discovery by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have added another piece to the puzzle of what earth looked like at creation when they discovered several fossilized tree stumps in the Transarcitic Mountains found in the Antarctic. They brought back fragments from 13 different trees that included deciduous, ginkgos (a nut bearing tree common to China) and evergreens. Fossils were first discovered in the Antarctic during the 1910-12 Robert Falcon Scott expedition. Though Scott and his four-man team died during the trip, their remains were discovered and in their notes the group mentioned finding beech-tree like fossils, describing in great detail their different-sized leaves. Since none of the rock samples they collected contained any beech fossils, many evolutionary scientists quickly dismissed the reference because it didn’t fit their world view. Since then, they have not only found tree stumps in the Antarctic, but coal beds and dinosaur bones. Because Antarctic’s climate today is much too cold for trees, this suggests that at one time it was much more moderate. What happened? One suggestion …

Snow monkeys Credit: John Barton/Flickr/Creative Commons

Stop monkeying around

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Every time you turn on the television, whether it’s a feature film, a kid’s program or a documentary, there is often a reference to evolution in the form of “back when we were monkeys…” So for all of you who still believe that you are the product of King Kong rather than children of the King of Kings, here is some hard data for you. Evolutionary regression 1) Common ancestor (evolutionary adam): This creature is believed to have been a forest dwelling creature from which both man and ape descend: No traces of any such creature have ever been found! 2) Gigantopithicus: This creature was discovered to be nothing more than an extinct ground ape, Richard Leaky famed anthropologist and evolutionist has removed it from the chart leading to man (Time magazine Nov 7, 1977). 3) Ramapithicus: Discovered in India in 1930, it was described as an advanced primate. It  was reconstructed from a 2″ long piece of jawbone, and all physical charactaristics were  artistically detailed and published widely. But his height, posture, length of …

The Milky Way viewed from Chile. Credit: Bruno Gilli/ESO/Wikipedia

CERN scientist admits universe should not exist

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A physicist with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, recently admitted in an interview with Newsweek that the universe is defying the laws of physics. CERN physicist Christian Smorra said, “The universe should not exactly exist.” With an annual budget of $1.24 billion, CERN, located in Switzerland, has a particle accelerator deep underground. They use this 17-mile long circular accelerator to have particles traveling at nearly the speed of light collide. They have also been trying to find an imbalance between matter and antimatter. Since the matter and antimatter annihilate each other on contact, such an imbalance would be necessary for the universe to exist. According to the Big Bang Theory the universe originally existed in pure energy the size of a thimble (literally the size of a thimble), this exploded in a “one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second” to create all the matter that makes up the universe today. However, if there was an equal amount of matter and antimatter, the universe should have self annihilated back into …

Sydney, Austrailia's harbour Credit: Pablo Fernandez/Flickr/Creative Commons

Australia warns of a nasty flu season

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If reports coming out of Australia are correct, this year’s flu season in the Northern Hemisphere could be particularly nasty. Of course, Australia is just finishing off its winter when the flu bug becomes the most prominent, and we in the north are just entering our winter season. A report on an Australian news site says this year was particularly bad with a record-setting 172,247 reported cases of the flu. Australia’s immunization Coalition (IC) states this is 156% higher than the number reported last year at the same time. IC suspects that this year’s estimate is undoubtedly low because the health system is under such stress they are behind in their reporting. It is uncertain what the final count will be. Doctors are also describing the flu as a “super strain” meaning it is more potent than what they had seen in the past. The elderly and very young are particularly vulnerable. So far doctors have recorded 288 deaths due to the flu, but again this is probably low. They advise people to get the …

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So who designed the first pocket — man, the sea otter or God?

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So who invented human pockets? The English word “pocket” comes from an old French word “poque” that is literally translated bag. In the 16th and 17th century, people did not have pockets in their clothing, instead men and women had bags that they attached to the outside of their clothing or hung on a piece of rope around their waist. Inside they would put items such as money, jewellery and handkerchiefs. However, as these outside pockets increasingly became a target for thieves, by the 17th century, people started cutting slits in their pants and even dresses and inserting these “poques” inside the slits. They flattened them to remove its purse like bulge and began sewing them on the cloth to help keep them in place. This became the first pocket as we know it. By the 18th century clothing was being manufactured with pockets including pants, jackets, vests and shirts. They even had pockets for specific purposes. They designed pockets to hold tickets and others to hold the “pocket-watch.” Pockets were designed and created for …

The complexity of a simple little multi-winged dragonfly that can reach speeds of 60 miles an hour (97 km) Credit: Wayne Hodgkinson/Flickr/Creative Commons

Cracks in the evolutionary foundation

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In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul makes a very audacious statement. He says in the end people will be without excuse about their belief in God because of creation. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20 NASV) It is interesting because I have run into Christians who are having doubts about their faith because of the theory of evolution. At times, it has caused them to question the Bible and God However, aside from the massive gaps in the fossil record that don’t show the gradual evolution of life, science has never explained how living, breathing and consuming life first sprang from non organic material. These gaps are a huge problem. In an article published in Evolution, the late Oklahoma University paleontologist David B. Kitts wrote there are “some nasty difficulties for evolutionists, the most notorious of which is the presence of ‘gaps’ in the …

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Noah’s Flood, Atlantis, and the Okotok

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People who don’t like the Bible, or believe that it is not true, like to point out the story of Noah’s flood as proof that they are correct. How can any reasonable person believe that the whole world was covered with water and animals marched two by two into a large wooden boat? Where is the scientific evidence for that? You might be surprised. Noah’s flood, in the Bible, is dated at about the same time as other flood stories from almost every ancient culture. Stories about a huge and deadly flood are found in the Australian outback, the mountains of Ecuador in South America, in China, in the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah’s flood from the ancient Middle East, and in the Greek story of Atlantis. Plato and other Greek writers told us about an ancient land of Atlantis that was flooded, and apparently the Atlanteans invaded other places, in desperation. Ancient flood stories are everywhere, from people who did not speak to each other. They made their own versions in isolation. We now …

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Foot prints in the sand disrupting evolutionary theory

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The discovery of human footprints embedded in sedimentary rock on the island of Crete a couple of weeks back is causing major problems for those promoting evolutionary theory. Somebody was basically taking a leisurely walk on a beach that later hardened into rock. According to those who have studied the 50 feet of tracks, these footprints basically match today’s human foot print with a large big toe and the ball found on the heel. Both of which are not found in apes that have distinctly different feet. But here is the problem. Based on the fossils discovered in nearby sediment, evolutionists believe the human footprints are 5.7 million years old. This is disrupting the theory that man evolved from apes somewhere in Africa. As the National Post noted the discovery suggests “human ancestors may have existed in Crete at the same time as they evolved in Africa.” Of course, Crete is closer to the Biblical origins of humanity, the Middle East. The discovery also has humans existing with much older animals, again this is not …

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The Creation of Evolution

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Have you heard about the new Darwin? Jeremy England is a professor at MIT with a theory “dissipation-driven adaptation” about the origins of life. The theory focusses on physics instead of biology, the usual scientific approach to evolution. My best summary is that life is inevitable because of the physical structure of the universe. “random groups of molecules can self-organize to more efficiently absorb and dissipate heat from the environment.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_England Life had to happen because of the design and structure of the universe. That’s a complicated way to say that life was created. The god of creation, in this case, is the physical universe, the thing that made life. By extension, something intelligent made the structure of the universe so that it inevitably produced life, but that is just me talking. The ‘new Darwin’ Jeremy England identifies as Orthodox Jewish and apparently studies the Torah, what Christians call the Old Testament. Did you know that the original Darwin was a religious man? He is described as a naturalist, but that profession didn’t exist in …

Mallard ducks Credit: Laura Gooch/Flickr/Creative Commons

Ducks weren’t created to act this way

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My wife and I were driving down a road in Northern Saskatchewan a few days ago when I noticed a kerfuffle on the highway in front of us involving several birds, one of which was a crow. They were obviously fighting. As our vehicle approached, the crow suddenly took off with the other birds in pursuit. In the crow’s beak I could see another bird struggling to get free. I suspect it was a chick of the birds now chasing the crow. The crow had probably dropped the chick on the road and had swooped down to grab it again. I have no idea how this all ended as the birds disappeared over the ditch and into the forest that crowded the highway. But I suspect it did not go well for the chick. It reminded me of another story reported by the BBC. It was based on a report by Zoologist Silviu Petrovan of the University of Cambridge who was researching behaviour of mallard ducks on a lake in Romania. It was a typical …

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Grand Canyon censored, for Christians?

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Dr. Andrew Snelling has a Ph.D in geology from the University of Sydney, a world-renowned institution. He has written a number of articles and reports published in peer-reviewed science journals and has years of experience in geological research. Yet, in 2013 when he wanted to take a few fist-sized geological samples from the Grand Canyon for research and scientific study, he was refused. For decades officials with the Grand Canyon National Park have allowed scientists to take material from the Park for study. The Park had even given Snelling permission to gather samples in the past. So, why did Park officials refuse Snelling this time? The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a non-profit, legal organization dedicated to defending religious liberties, alleges Park officials denied permission because Snelling is a Christian. Snelling also works for Answers in Genesis, a Christian organization providing scientific evidence of creation. He does not accept the narrative that the Grand Canyon was created over 450 million years ago. According to ADF, Dr Snelling was seeking “to gather samples at folds inside the …

Scottish Highlander cattle Credit: Lloyd/Flickr/Creative Commons

Darwin and the Scottish Cows

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Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution for the origin of the species when he sailed around the world on a ship named the Beagle. On that voyage, in 1834, he explored the eroded valley of the Santa Cruz River in Argentina and he commented on the lapse of ages and the gradual erosion that produced the valley. We now know that a GLOF (Glacier Lake Outburst Flood) occurred when an icy glacier blocked the river near the mountains and dammed up a huge reservoir. When the water burst through the ice, the GLOF eroded the valley quickly, probably in days. When I was a boy, I travelled with my family in Washington State, and I noticed that the dry interior had hundreds of eroded water channels, all dry, and I saw probably the biggest water fall in the world, Dry Falls, four times the size of Niagara, in a deep eroded valley. I knew then that something very big had happened. In the 1920s, a Geologist named J. Harlen Bretz named that region in …

A view of the Transantarctic Mountain Range in summer. Credit: Hannes Grobe/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

What do ancient tropical forests in the Arctic and Antarctic tell us?

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When we look at the Antarctic we think of it as one giant bed of ice with the odd penguin strutting its stuff. But in the 1980s beneath all that ice and snow, scientists discovered the remains of a large giant forest located at the base of the Transantarctic mountain range. It’s estimated the forest covered an area of 1,300 kilometers. Of course, where there is a forest there was also animal life, besides penguins. They have found vast quantities of dinosaur bones, including a lizard that grew to 23 feet in length. Of course predictably they say that they are million of years old, but meanwhile the wood from these ancient forests hasn’t fully petrified, it can still burn and float. The Transantarctic Mountain range differs from other mountains in that its made up largely of sedimentary rock formed by layers of dirt and sand laid down by water. It is not much different in the northern Arctic. A similar forest was found on Axel Heiberg Island located just 600 kilometers from the North …

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Seth, stem cells, teeth and the Bible

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As I reported in my previous article, I am going for stem cell therapy on my knees. I have found the numerous news reports on stem cells very interesting but an article in early January from the British newspaper, The Telegraph, provided an insight into stem cells from a Biblical perspective. Now let’s be clear, no where does the Bible directly discuss stem cells other than references to how God formed us in the womb (Psalm 139:13) in which stem cells play a critical role. But the story about work being done by researchers at London’s King College provided another clue for me. They were testing the Alzheimer drug — Tideglusib — and discovered that the drug can cause teeth with cavities to repair themselves. It does this by stimulating the ‘stem cells’ in the pulp of the tooth. Teeth already have a limited ability to repair the dentine and enamel but the layer is so thin that it is not heavy enough to repair larger cavities. Researchers found that by inserting a small sponge …

Brussels, Belgium Credit: Francisco Antunes/Flickr/Creative Commons

I am heading out for ‘stem cell’ therapy

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I am heading out-of-town for ‘stem cell’ therapy on my knees, so posts will probably be a bit sporadic over the next few days. There has been a lot of news recently on stem cells therapy for multiple areas from knees to hips to heart and even the brain. After conception, a baby forms through the use of stem cells and because of this some have described them as mother cells. After you are born, you have stem cells inside you used to repair damaged tissue. They are described as undifferentiated cells, meaning a stem cell can repair a damaged knee or that same stem cell could repair a damaged heart. It is basically blank and takes on the characteristic of the tissue it is repairing. Because of this unique ability, doctors are using stem cells to repair damage in multiple areas of the body. They basically harvest stem cells and then insert a concentrated amount into the damaged area such as a knee or shoulder to encourage repair. Though success is not guaranteed, it …

Oriental Hornet from Israel Credit: Gideon Pisanty/Wikipedia/Creative Commons

The first solar cell was invented in 1839 or was it?

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According to Wikipedia, French physicist Edmond Becquerel invented the world’s first solar cell in 1839. He was 19-years-old and used his father’s laboratory to construct it. It was the world’s first photovoltaic cell to convert the sun’s light into electricity. But was Becquerel’s invention the world’s first photo cell as some claim? According to Dr. Marian Plotkin, an entomologist at Israel’s Tel Aviv University, the answer is an emphatic ‘NO’. That honor must go to the Oriental Hornet. It is a large insect — 25mm to 35mm long (1 to 1.38 inches) — common to the Middle East, Northern Africa and India. In his study of this unique insect, Plotkin discovered this species of hornet actually produces electricity from the sun. Yes it is a living, breathing, solar panel. To prove his point, Plotkin wired six hornets together and was able to produce enough electricity to fire up a digital watch. At this point, they are still not sure how the energy is utilized, but some suspect the hornet uses the energy to dig — …

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Baby’s stem cells heal mom

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In a process officially called ‘fetomaternal microchimerism’ — I love how the name just runs off your tongue — medical researchers concluded that a baby actually helps a mother heal from pregnancy and birth. When a woman gives birth it is a traumatic experience for both infant and mother. During the birthing the mother can actually be hurt and medical researchers found that the baby actually sends its stem cells into the mother to help heal the damage. There has been a lot of news recently about stem cells and their ability to heal damaged body parts and organs. Stem cells are “blank cells” that can repair any type of tissue. If a stem cell is hanging around arm tissue, it will repair that. If it is hanging around heart tissue, that same stem cell will replicate those cells. Along with their ability to heal and repair, stem cells also play a major role in the baby’s creation in the mother’s womb. But this is where it gets interesting. Once, the stem cells have played …

Credit: Michal Strzelecki/Wojteck Strzelecki/Jerzy strzelecki/Wikipedia

Jonah and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?

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You have probably seen a documentary or even a movie highlighting the massive mountain ranges that exist at the bottom of the earth’s oceans. Since they are located thousands of feet below the surface, no one knew of their existence until the 1800s. One of the first hints appeared in 1875, when scientists on board the HMS Challenger were plotting a route for a telegraph cable across the Atlantic. But at that point, they had no idea of the size or extent of these under-ocean mountain ranges. It wasn’t until the 1950s, when American-based Columbia University using a research vessel discovered a massive mountain range that extended up the middle of the Atlantic ocean. At first they thought this mountain range – called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – was unique to the Atlantic. But as they surveyed the bottoms of the earth’s other oceans they discovered other ranges as well. Though these underwater mountains are only a recent discovery, the Bible actually spoke of them several times, thousands of year before scientists actually discovered them. Perhaps …

South American Squirrel monkey Credit: cuatrok77/Flickr/Creative Commons

Evolving Evolutionists?

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Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, a respected anthropologist from the University of Pittsburgh, still believes in evolution, but his views on Darwinism have evolved over the years, due to a lack of evidence in the fossil record. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Schwartz no longer believes in “gradualism.” According to the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin, species evolved gradually over millions of years through minute incremental changes. Schwartz argues that if these minute changes actually took place, evolutionists would find thousands examples of these species at different stages in their evolutionary development. Instead the fossil record is starkly quiet with huge gaps in the fossil record. Darwin claimed that the absence of these missing links was simply a matter of bad luck. Schwartz disagrees – based on the evidence – the lack of transitional fossils says the transitions never existed in the first place. Schwartz adds that some organs, such as the eye, are so complicated that the sheer number of changes required for its evolution “defies logic.” He also takes a …