Monday, October 31, 2011

I have been unable to access this blog from my laptop but it is working on my desktop. I have been posting creation science comments in my Livestock Weekly column and this week I got two replies. For my next column I plan to tell how to find Creation Science books. When you do a search for Creation Science books you get several excellent sites. One site has free online books and I spent an hour or so reading some of them last night. I want to read Walt Brown's book that is listed online but haven't gotten to it.

I am reading Alien Intrusion by Gary Bates on my Kindle and am halfway through it. He makes an excellent rebuttal of evolution in the first half of the book and tells how the science fiction books and movies have prepared the public for the common belief in aliens from outer space. The first ones were from the Moon,Venus and  Mars, but as we investigated those planets and found that they could not support life, the aliens moved to other planetary systems. In the second half that I have just started he is making the argument that the alien sightings and abduction stories are coming from spirits that are trying to subvert Christianity. He makes a good argument and interesting discussion of angels in the Bible.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Another example of radioactivity measurements showing young earth ages. I have only copied the last of the article published by ICR.

Humphreys used the argon data from Figure 2 to compute the age of sample 5 to be 5,100+3,800 -2,100 years, where 5,100 years was his best estimate with the lowest age of 3,000 years and the oldest age of 8,900 years. Humphreys’ lower estimate of 3,000 years was the same as the estimate made by Harrison et al.4

Conclusions

Humphreys concluded that the observed high argon retentions shown in Figure 2 conflict severely with the uniformitarian-assumed long ages. These data say that the feldspar in the Fenton Hill borehole generated over a billion years’ worth of argon-40 and then retained it during a period of time that began only thousands of years ago.The argon data thus support accelerated nuclear decay, RATE’s young helium age, and the biblical youth of the world. Consequently, we can say that both argon and helium diffusion rates agree that the earth is only thousands of years old.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

NEW BOOKS

I apologize for not posting more often in this blog. I read something everyday that should be here, but I don't get around to posting. The Institute of Creation Research had a summer sale and I bought some bargain books both for me and sent some to the Cross Plains Public Library. I checked the other day and they only had a couple of creation science books. And those hadn't been checked our. I have been thinking about writing essays for publication in the Review to let people know what is in the Library and on the Internet. I wrote a Livestock Weekly column on this subject for next week.

I am reading a couple of the books. One is Biblical Creationism by Henry M. Morris, written before he died that goes through the entire Bible showing how all of the books support the concept of a young earth and belief that God created the universe in six literal days. A recent argument in Creation Matters published by the Creation Research Society argued that the age of the earth is history not science and that the historical report in the Bible may be the correct age of the earth. That same publication had four of five essays showing the problems with the astronomy assumptions of long ages that are not supported by the many solar observations.

I am also reading THE GENESIS FACTOR: Myths and Realities edited by Ron J. Bigalke, Jr. that argues with Hugh Ross' position on creation by millions of years. It argues strongly for the young earth creation concept. I also have the book by Sarfarti arguing with Ross but haven't read it yet. It is quoted often. Bigalke's book is a number of essays about geology, flood, astronomy, RATE report (that looks at radioactivity measurements) that all support young earth theories.

Friday, June 3, 2011

I respect Guliuzza because he is both an engineer and an M.D. This was one of his articles in Acts and Facts that takes a design engineer approach to understanding evolution and creation.
Charles

Evaluating Real vs. Apparent Design

by Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D. *

Everyone has some unhealthy habits and the best way to achieve long-term freedom from them is not to "drop" them but to "replace" them with something better. The freedom-through-replacement reality is also useful during any conversation about evolution's failure to explain the origin of nature's design, since, at some point, an evolutionist is likely to ask, "Well, do you propose something better?"

Creationists, in fact, do have a scientifically better explanation to replace the notion that nature's design is all an illusion that stems from a purposeless process in which evolution's substitute god, the imaginary "Natural Selector,"1 chooses the fittest mutations randomly arising in an organism's DNA. A concise answer could be, "Our claim that nature's design is produced by a real designer can be tested by observation and is mathematically quantifiable. Furthermore, compared to the legacy of evolutionary thinking, it liberates minds to pursue more rational approaches toward scientific research."

That answer ought to catch attention and keep discussion on the main question: "What is the best explanation of nature's design?" The Bible says in Romans 1:18-23 that the Lord's witness to His reality is "clearly seen" from the "creation" by the things He has "made." He used the language of design construction, not biology. Everyone can see nature's design and conclude it was designed--by a cause bigger than nature. Thus, Romans details how everyone's accountability to acknowledge God has always been based on the very clear design-designer (i.e., created-creator) connection, demonstrated by all human cultures, and not on detailed biological insight.

So, the biological question "how do organisms adapt to environments?" is not the root issue, which is founded on a basic question corresponding to problem-solving activities of intelligent engineers:

"Are features of design evident when the innate programming of organisms actively solves problems (or exploits opportunities) presented by environments?"

Real Design: A Scientifically Superior Explanation

Begin by stating that you have carefully examined the two explanations head-to-head. You find the explanation for real design is more persuasive since the activities of real engineers--which cannot be duplicated by natural processes--are reflected in the living world. Then, enumerate four verifiable observations that reflect real design.

Possibly the clearest observation of organisms is that they have multiple intricately arranged parts that fit together for a purpose. Many of these parts show proper alignment, exact dimensions and shape, tight fit, proper balance, and moving parts with precisely synchronized timing. These complex patterns are features of design that have been observed to originate only in intelligently designed items--never by natural forces.

The fact about sections of DNA is that their four letters are precisely arranged as a set of plans and specification detailing the materials and controls to reproduce a new organism. Since DNA 1) selects 2) in advance 3) exact attributes 4) for a purpose, it has the same features of intelligence as any engineer's specification. Throughout recorded human experience, plans and specifications are always a product of intelligence. In addition, all known natural processes that randomly choose letters one-by-one outside the context of an intelligence to guide the selection--as evolutionists assert--always yield nonsense that is totally inconsistent with information held in DNA.

Another certain feature of design is demonstrated when engineers foresee aspects of their project that cannot be built by increments. They respond by establishing conditions so all information and materials are 1) available, 2) localized together, 3) at the right time, 4) capable of functioning together 5) for the intended purpose. Only intelligent agents have been observed to set conditions where all of the parts must be collected and built together or none of a specific function is obtained. Creatures have many examples of this all-or-nothing unity, but the best example is reproduction. Evolution is a dead end without operative reproductive abilities. Intelligent foresight best explains why the minimum number of parts necessary for an organism to reproduce--is the organism itself.

Mathematicians have quantified the probability of the information for the most basic functional proteins developing by natural processes as exceedingly small.2 Therefore, it is not a stretch to assert that it is mathematically impossible to obtain by natural processes the information that is needed for the origin of a living, reproducing bacterium. Overcoming infinitesimally small probabilities in a single bound by engaging them--as evolutionists do--with infinite numbers of resources generated by an infinite number of universes falls outside the realm of acceptable scientific explanations.

Intricately arranged parts, information for specifications, all-or-nothing unity, and the impossibly low probabilities of these things happening in living things by chance are real observations. Their association to the actions of real designers is visible. Science is based on observation and testing. Real design is the better scientific explanation.

A better scientific explanation supports a better approach to science. Since these features point so clearly toward real design, biological researchers should approach investigations of nature like engineers would study an unknown electronic device. They should expect to discover well-designed, coherent, and incredibly complex systems functioning for a purpose--an expectation forbidden by the rules governing evolution's mental "thought prison."

Escaping the Thought Prison Called "Apparent Design"

Being confined to a tiny cell is the depressing reality that makes prison awful. But even worse is when a mind is so straitjacketed by the atheistic philosophy of naturalism that it eagerly believes explanations that are resisted by scientific observations. Claiming that the purpose of an eagle's wing cannot be known and that the synchronized movement of all its precisely fitted parts is only an "illusion of design" is a perception contrary to real external stimuli. How much better could scientists--set free to conclude design when they see design--approach research when released from misconceptions that flow from invalid, yet firmly held, reasoning constricted by naturalism?

First, researchers would be free to follow data wherever it leads, which allows them to never stop questioning and discovering. This mental state far exceeds the shackled thinking characterized by a candid statement from a Kansas State University professor:

"Even if all of the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic. Of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism.3"

Second, there is freedom from the sense-dulling obligatory conclusion that intricate designs are "only an illusion"--a peer-enforced mantra indistinguishable from forced indoctrination. Researchers would not be pressured by popular evolutionary authorities such as Cambridge's Richard Dawkins, who insists that "biology is the study of complicated things that have the appearance of having been designed for a purpose."4 Or by Francis Crick, a co-discoverer of DNA, who cautioned, "Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved."5

Third, it would liberate researchers from a smothering presupposition that expects regular mistakes in nature due to millions of years of chaotic evolution. They will escape a blinding mindset inclined to label not-readily-defined findings as "junk," "vestigial," or "bad design." Reacting to observations with ill-informed hasty conclusions such as labeling non-protein coding DNA "junk DNA" or the human appendix a "vestigial organ" is not only poor scientific practice, but this prejudice tends toward neglect in research. Stanford University reported on immunological research on "natural killer" cells that "have largely been ignored by immunologists…[and] thought by some to be an archaic remnant of the primitive mammalian immune system."6

Pulling It All Together

In a conversation about the best explanation for the origin of nature's design, first expose the weakness of the assertion that design is "only an illusion." Recount how evolutionists rely on a mindless iterative process to accumulate genetic mistakes "favored" by totally imaginary forces from their stand-in god, natural selection. The impotence of this mechanism always forces them to make conclusions far exceeding what the data support. Consequently, they resort to "counter-intuitive" scenarios that are "mystifying to the uninitiated," full of infinite numbers of self-creating universes where microscopic biological machines "self assemble" by "co-opting" "off the shelf parts," leading to creatures with "ghost lineages" that magically "arise" or "burst onto the scene." So even if the evolutionist doesn't ask "can you offer something better?"…do it anyway.

Creationists can show that nature's design has features associated with those known only to be derived from real designers. Support is based on actual observations of living things' intricately arranged parts, plans and specifications reflected in DNA's information, and many examples of all-or-nothing unity. This truth frees researchers to expect that nature is a product of a rational, coherent design, a path that will lead to research that is once again open to fresh insights into nature. In biology, discovering purposes is better than forcing the absurdity that purpose is unknowable. Real design is the better scientific explanation, and free minds are better than imprisoned minds.

References

Hanke, D. 2004. Teleology: The explanation that bedevils biology. In Explanations: Styles of explanation in science. Cornwell, J., ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 143-155.

Axe, D. 2004. Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds. Journal of Molecular Biology. 341 (5): 1295-1315.

Todd, S. C. 1999. A view from Kansas on that evolution debate. Nature. 401 (6752): 423.

Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. London: WW Norton & Company,

1. Crick, F. 1988. What Mad Pursuit: A Personal View of Scientific Discovery. London: Sloan Foundation Science, 138.

Weidenbach, K. "http://news.stanford.edu/news/1998/january14/nkdrug.html">Natural-born killers: An immunologic enigma solved. Stanford Report. Stanford University news release, January 14, 1998.

* Dr. Guliuzza is ICR's National Representative.

Cite this article: Guliuzza, R. 2011. Evaluating Real vs. Apparent Design. Acts & Facts. 40 (1): 10-11.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

RESPONSE TO COMMENTS

I need to react to the comments to the last blog. My vision of the earth at creation was a perfect world. It was a sub tropical environment with a large canopy of water that distributed the solar heating uniformly from pole to pole. Mammoths at the Siberian and Alaska latitudes were found eating semi-tropical plants when they were frozen after being drowned following the Flood. The Biblical story tells of the ground being watered by heavy dews every morning. I also believe that the oxygen content was closer to 30% than the current 20% that acted to heal cuts and like hyperbaric chambers enabled people to live for hundreds of years. The collapse of the canopy during the Flood permitted the high intensity solar radiation along with the change in oxygen to decrease life spans.

The Biblical story tells of the destruction of all air-breathing animals and men during the Flood. In my mind the earth did not have the high mountains that were formed by later geological events and that the world-wide flood could cover the world easily. It was accompanied by geological events and volcanic eruptions that added water to the collapse of the canopy.

I believe that later, after people restocked the earth and after the tower of Babel that at that time the one continent was divided. How fast could that happen? It would proceed at the speed of sound in the earth. I know that cracks in metal proceed at the speed of sound in certain metals and I assume that the earth can crack and move at the speed of sound in the rocks, so that it would not take long for the continents to be formed and drift apart to their present positions. This would be accompied by the geological movements that have formed the mountains and valleys and canyons. But later continued geological activity formed more of the earth as we know it now, and continues to create new islands in the Pacific.

I haven't read The Genesis Flood since it came out in the 60's but believe much of the hydrodynamic theories are accurate. I believe that all this could have happened within the 6000 years of a young earth theory. A lot of theories have been published about the canopy theory and I have seen them but have not followed all of the arguments. I was intrigued by the Australian physicists who proposed a theory that the speed of light has changed through time which explains the possibility of a young earth in the long times postulated by physicists. The Creation Quarterly has some new proposals for how the universe could be stretched out by God within a young earth time frame.

My personal effort is directed toward explaining how the earth was created by all matter being formed from "light" that has been explained by the physicist N. S. Japowlsky in his theory of rotating electromagnetic energy being the basis of all matter. It makes a lot of sense to me. The Bible is full of allusions to light. I am behind on writing the paper I have wanted to prepare for a journal.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

WORLD WIDE FLOOD

The Worldwide Flood (Devotional)

February 5, 2011

"And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth." (Genesis 9:11)

Those Christians who accept the concept of the "geological ages" commonly have to explain away the great deluge by assuming it was not really a global flood. They realize that any flood that would rise until "all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered" and in which "every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground" (Genesis 7:19, 23) would undoubtedly eliminate any evidence of the supposed geological ages. Therefore, they have suggested modifying the Bible record to mean an overflow of the Euphrates River or some such phenomenon which would destroy just the peoples of the "known" world at that time.

There are numerous problems with this "local flood" notion, however. Appendix 6 of The New Defender's Study Bible, for instance, lists 100 reasons why the biblical Flood must be understood as worldwide and cataclysmic.

But probably the best argument is that such an argument makes God out to be a liar! God promised Noah that this kind of flood would never be sent on the earth again. There have been innumerable river floods, tsunamis, torrential regional rains, etc., in the more than four millennia since Noah's day. If God's promise referred only to some such flood as one of these, then He has not kept His Word!

But God does not lie, and He has kept His promise. There has never been another such Flood. "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar" (1John/5/10"1 John 5:10). Theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and all others who believe the geological ages instead of God's Word should, it would seem, seriously rethink their position. HMM

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

I found a couple of interesting items in the engineering news that I get online:

Most High School Biology Teachers Do Not Endorse Evolution, Study Finds.

Washington Post (1/30, Strauss) "The Answer Sheet" column reported, "The central theory of biology is evolution, yet a new study shows that most high school biology teachers are reluctant to endorse it in class." This is according to a study from Penn State which "examined data from the National Survey of High School Biology Teachers, a representative sample of 926 public high school biology instructors, to reach their conclusions. More high school students take biology than any other science course, the researchers said. They also said that for as many as 25 percent of them, biology is the only science course they will ever take." The article notes that the finding comes at roughly the same time as the results from the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, which found US students were weak in science subjects.

And another item reported that a high school class in South Carolina formed a creation science club. Both of these reports are promising.

I have created a new screen name on AOL for the purpose of communicating with Methodists to try to educate them on the creation/evolution controversy and help them understand my position and hopefully look at their beliefs in God and creation. So if you get an email from Fundamethodist@aol.com you will know where it is coming from.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Eureka! I finally found how to convert my documents so that I can publish them here. The following column was ignored when I submitted for publication by the United Methodist Reporter but has been accepted for publication in the initial issue of a ressurected publication EPWORTH HERALD.


There are two ways for a scientists to approach their research. One, they can believe that there is a God and two, they can believe that there is no God. If they believe in God then they have the problem of deciding how God has communicated with people. In Europe, North Africa and the New World the basic belief in God has been the Judea/Christian ideas as transmitted through the accepted Old and New Testaments. For over 4,000 years that story told of God creating the universe with the people, plants and animals of the earth in six days. This was the belief of most of the scientists who developed the basics of chemistry, physics and astronomy up to Darwin.

If scientists don't believe in God then they must develop another story of how we came to exist in the highly complex biological state that is programmed to reproduce itself. This has led to the development of the assumption that natural forces randomly interacted to form the elements and life forms. Currently this is expressed as evolution theory. Because the laws of physics say that inorganic molecules will not randomly form more complex molecules or organic living molecules without eons of time for the reactions, they have postulated billions of years as the time line for the universe. However, other atheists have realized the impossibility of nature forming life and have postulated the concept of life being placed on earth by aliens from outer space. They have assumed that the those forms somehow evolved.

The concept of evolution has been accepted by biology and is now developed into evolutionary biology that is taught as fact. Archeology, Anthropology and other life sciences have all accepted that evolution is the only way to view their studies. When opposition to evolution is expressed their response is that they are practicing science and opposition is a religious belief.

However opposition to evolution has existed even before Darwin published his book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. But evolution was debated and finally accepted as the favored theory in scientific circles. Beginning in 1961 with the publication of his book The Genesis Flood co-authored with Whitcomb, Dr. Henry M. Morris, who was educated as a Civil Engineer specializing in Hydraulics, created the Institute for Creation Research that has focused activities on developing science from the Creation viewpoint. When those scientists who believed in creation were blocked from presenting their research in scholarly publications they created the Creation Research Society that published a referred Quarterly Journal of their findings.

These are the two extreme viewpoints. In an effort to reconcile the differences many combinations of thinking have developed including ideas that God used evolution to create and that the times listed in the Bible for creation represented eons rather than days and it is argued that the Bible was edited as it came down through the ages to reflect bias of those copying and transmitting the Bible. This thinking leads to questioning all of the text. Church leaders felt that they couldn't argue with scientists and did not support the Biblical story of creation.

The Institute of Creation Science and Creation Research Society have adopted the concept that the universe was created in six literal 24 hour days. They believe that the earth was surrounded by a canopy of water until the time of the Noah when catastrophic events created the fossil beds as well as reforming the earth. The Bible states that after the Flood the earth was divided and all geologists believe that the world at one time was one land mass called Pangaea that divided into the continents of today. They argue that the evidence for catastrophic geology is much greater than the currently accepted geological theory that the earth is being formed slowly. The Creation Research Science Quarterly, a referred journal has published numerous scientific studies of the earth geology arguing that the land has been formed by massive catastrophic events including the effects of water-driven movement of land masses. Much attention is given to the formation of the Grand Canyon as a catastrophic event with the ground cracking and water scouring out the canyon. They use the catastrophic geology of the Mount St. Helens eruption demonstrating catastrophic geology formation. A special task force was formed to look at the radioisotope age of the earth that has investigated all of the uses of isotopes to date the rocks of the earth. Radio carbon dating has proven to be a real problem for old-earth advocates. Carbon 14 has a half-life that would make it disappear in millions of years and yet it has been found in coal, oil, gas, and diamonds requiring that they must only be a few thousand years old. The scientific facts more and more support the Biblical story of creation.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Here is the action taken where the best candidate for an academic research position was denied the job because he had questioned evolution in his writings as I published it in The Livestock Weekly:

WRITTEN FOR THE JANUARY 27 EDITION OF THE COMPUTER AND THE COWBOY

I haven't seen the documentary film Expelled produced by Ben Stein, but have read about it. It documents the persecution of teachers who dare to question evolution in the classroom. In one of my latest engineering newsletters I got this:

UK Settles With Astronomy Professor Alleging Religious Discrimination.

The AP (1/19, Lovan) reports, An astronomy professor who sued the University of Kentucky after claiming he lost out on a top job because of his Christian beliefs reached a settlement Tuesday with the school. The university agreed to pay $125,000 to Martin Gaskell in exchange for dropping a federal religious discrimination suit he filed in Lexington in 2009. According to Gaskell's suit, he was passed over to be director of UK's MacAdam Student Observatory because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of evolution. The university did not admit any wrongdoing, and said its hiring processes were and are fundamentally sound and were followed in this case.

I went into teaching at a university when we didn't have a tenure policy. Later it was established and the one criteria was that a professor couldn't be fired for what he taught in the classroom in order to ensure freedom of research and teaching. Apparently that only applies if you toe the evolution thinking. I think scientists should only teach only the truth and question every assumption behind their conclusions.

A Kentucky newspaper stated that "no one denies that astronomer Martin Gaskell was the leading candidate for the founding director of a new observatory at the University of Kentucky in 2007--until his writings on evolution came to light." In his lawsuit Gaskell claims that "UK officials repeatedly referred to his religion in their discussions and e-mails" as the real reason he was denied the post. One astronomy professor, for instance, "feared embarrassing headlines about Kentucky's flagship university hiring a 'creationist' in a state already home to the controversial Creation Museum. Three biology professors and a geology professor also hammered that theme, that hiring Gaskell would be a "disaster" and an embarrassment to the university, even though Gaskell disagrees with the young-earth position of the Creation Museum. Some of his views, which resemble those of old-earth astronomer Hugh Ross, are published on his personal webpage. "UK biologists said in their e-mails that evidence for evolution was so overwhelming that Gaskell had no scientific basis to raise questions about it."

I have been quoting from a story in Creation Matters, a publication of the Creation Research Society that anyone can subscribe to. I want to quote their last two paragraphs:

" Even the "potential" exposure was enough to expel this man, without any evidence he had actually tried to influence anyone a the university of observatory about his views. This can only mean one thing: the Darwin Party, whose hardcore stance on secular evolution represents a small fraction of American opinion, is running scared. They cannot afford to give a platform to anyone who potentially might expose to the public the existence of alternative views. They will destroy careers to keep ideological purity in their ranks.

This tactic cannot work forever, because it is self-refuting; it violates academia's own ostensible commitment to the Enlightenment ideals of reason and tolerance. If Darwinists' beliefs are so fragile that they worry exposure to alternative viewpoints is intolerable, then their beliefs are not worth believing. And if they think that the public must be protected from such exposure, they disparage the intelligence of their fellow Homo Sapiens. No scientist should fear openness about the evidence. Bring it on."

You can reach me by E-mail at car926@aol.com.

Copyright C. A. Rodenberger 2011 602 words