Lake Missoula: Rapid Flood, Huge Geological Formations

Fast formations. Image courtesy of Jina Lee, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Seeing is not always believing. A DVD produced by Creation Ministries International and featuring meteorologist Michael Oard tells the story of what happened when evidence seemed to support a watery cataclysm resembling the one described in Genesis:

“In the 1920's J. Harland Bretz, a secular geologist proposed to his colleagues evidence for a massive Flood across eastern Washington. He was rejected by the scientific community because what was proposing was too close to a catastrophic event with many characteristics closely described in the Bible.”

So for forty years during the heydays of uniformitarianism or slow gradual processes, they pretended that the evidence was not there, but it eventually became obvious that rapid cataclysms can and do produce major geological features.

Lake Missoula shows that even post-Flood cataclysms can form major geological features almost instantly. Millions of years are not needed.

Darwinism Doesn't Work, Resarchers in Nature Say

Sorry, Charlie, but the facts don't support your theory. Photograph: Julia Margaret Cameron (1868). Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen


Popularisers of evolution have tended to claim that their teory is still robust and that there's no dispute in the scientific community about its credibility.

However, as the ranks of the dissenters are growing, even the pro-evolution journal Nature is beginning to indicate some doubts about orthodox Darwinism:

”Charles Darwin conceived of evolution by natural selection without knowing that genes exist. Now mainstream evolutionary theory has come to focus almost exclusively on genetic inheritance and processes that change gene frequencies.

Yet new data pouring out of adjacent fields are starting to undermine this narrow stance. An alternative vision of evolution is beginning to crystallize, in which the processes by which organisms grow and develop are recognized as causes of evolution.”

In addition to the scientists who believe creation or intelligent design is a better interpretation of the data, it seems that mainline scoentists have also began to doubt the power of Darwinian processes:

”Some of us first met to discuss these advances six years ago. In the time since, as members of an interdisciplinary team, we have worked intensively to develop a broader framework, termed the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES), and to flesh out its structure, assumptions and predictions. In essence, this synthesis maintains that important drivers of evolution, ones that cannot be reduced to genes, must be woven into the very fabric of evolutionary theory.

We believe that the EES will shed new light on how evolution works. We hold that organisms are constructed in development, not simply ‘programmed’ to develop by genes. Living things do not evolve to fit into pre-existing environments, but co-construct and coevolve with their environments, in the process changing the structure of ecosystems.”

This, of course, resembles that what creationists have been saying about adaptation.

”The number of biologists calling for change in how evolution is conceptualized is growing rapidly. Strong support comes from allied disciplines, particularly developmental biology, but also genomics, epigenetics, ecology and social science. We contend that evolutionary biology needs revision if it is to benefit fully from these other disciplines. The data supporting our position gets stronger every day.”

However, it seems that many are afraid to let the facts speak for themselves:

”Yet the mere mention of the EES often evokes an emotional, even hostile, reaction among evolutionary biologists. Too often, vital discussions descend into acrimony, with accusations of muddle or misrepresentation. Perhaps haunted by the spectre of intelligent design, evolutionary biologists wish to show a united front to those hostile to science. Some might fear that they will receive less funding and recognition if outsiders — such as physiologists or developmental biologists — flood into their field.”

As expected, Nature also gave orthodox Darwinians the chance to say that there's nothing wrong with Darwinism.

However, the facts are not on their side.

Source:

Laland, Kevin. 2014. Does evolutionary theory need a rethink? Nature 514 (7524), 161–164.

Clever Clams' Design Feature

Giant clam. Image courtesy of Nick Hobgood, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen


A recent article in New Scientist states:

”In many species of giant clam, photosynthetic algae live in the clam's fleshy mantle, which is exposed to the sea and sunlight through the flaps of its shell ... In exchange for their home, the algae secrete glycerol, which feeds the clam.

The association is one of many in which animals work symbiotically with plants and algae to harvest the power of the sun.”

While the article pays lip service to Darwinian mechanisms, the actual science speaks of intelligent design:

”Giant clams have specialised cells called iridocytes that allow algae to grow in microscopic pillars, which go about 2 millimetres deep into the clam mantle. Alison Sweeney of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and her team have demonstrated that the iridocytes ensure that every last algal cell in the micro-pillar still gets its fill of sunlight, even though most of the 300 or so cells in each column have no direct access to the light."

Later on, the article even mentions design and another word related to intelligence, viz. system.

"'What makes this system in the clam special is that the design can extract every last photon from sunlight,' says Sweeney.”

In a Darwinian trial and error world, the clams might well have died off a few million years before they came up with this system.

There is no such risk in a designed and created world.


Source:

Coghlan, Andy. 2014. Clever clams and algae show how best to harvest light. New Scientist (7 October).

Noah's Flood Explains the Ice Age

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research.





Joel Kontinen

Secular models, such as the one relying on Milankovitch cycles (i.e. changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun), are unable to explain why our planet would have had an ice age.

In contrast, the conditions following Noah's flood – hot oceans, evaporation and tiny particles spewed by volcanoes that would have cooled the atmosphere and caused precipitation to fall down as snow – are better explanations for the ice age.

Human Mitochondrial Mutations Speak for a Biblical Timescale of History

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research.




Joel Kontinen


The BioOrigins project of ICR has brought to light interesting results on how genetics provides support for the biblical timescale and challenges the millions of years dogma.

For instance, the amount of mutations in human M DNA is consistent with the biblical timescale that takes the Genesis creation events as real istory.

Genetics is no friend of evolutionatry deep time.

Noah's Ark Was Enormous – Room for 125,000 Sheep-Sized Animals

Plenty of room on board Noah's Ark. Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research.


Joel Kontinen


Contrary to what many skeptics believe, Noah's Ark was no toy ship. There wasjackals probably room for roughly 125,000 animals the size of a sheep on board.

That's more than enough to preserve all the kinds of land animals that were alive in Noah's days.

One should not forget that the modern biological term species differs from the bibluical concept kind. Thus, there is the dog kind (wolves, dingoes, , dogs) and the cat kind (lions, tigers, leopards, cats etc.), for instance.

At least some dinosaurs never stopped growing. It is logical to assume that God probably brought younger specimens to Noah instead of the oldest and biggest individuals.

Quantum Fluctuation: When Is Nothing Not Nothing?

Image courtesy of the Institute for Creation Research.




Joel Kontinen

When is nothing not nothing? Many scientists who embrace a naturalistic /materialistic worldview do believe in a beginning of sorts, but one might ask whether it is at all possible to get everything from nothing, thanks to a quantum fluctuation.

Jake Hebert, who has a PhD in physics, suggests that this nothing cannot really be nothing, as the energy for the fluctuation was already present within the vacuum.


Source:

Hebert, Jake. 2012. A Universe from Nothing? Acts & Facts 41 (7): 11-13.