Changing Definitions
This little cartoon by comic Johnny Hart may seem simple at first but it is actually a very good example of the methods of evolutionary 'evidence' and propaganda.
Creationists have been pointing out for years the inability of the fossil record to show any kind of evolution. When geology and paleontology were newly developing disciplines, the evolutionists argued that when the record was more complete these transitional fossils between species would appear. This has not happened. With a very complete and extensive fossil record, the stasis of the species is very obvious. Finding very little in hard evidence to counter this glaring discrepancy, the evolutionists have now developed a new strategy. They are no longer interested in finding 'missing links' between each animal.
In a recent book entitled 'Evolution and Creationism~ author Eugenie Scott presents this new strategy.* The evolutionists rather than search for transitional fossils are in the search for transitional features. The sophisticated sounding term 'synapomorphies' is what they label this term. In other words because animals of a wide variety of species share some similar features of bone structure means they have evolved. This is the type of 'evidence' that there is for evolution. They use the assumption of evolution as their proof for it. Because we no longer have tails, but the other structures are similar, means we have evolved from ape like creatures. These assumptive arguments have been hidden in sophisticated sounding terms and definitions since the development of evolutionism. But, it really is just broadening the definition again, just like before, when they claimed the fossil record was incomplete.
The fossil record for years has been used by the evolutionists as an evidence of evolution. Because many of the fossilized creatures are extinct, the average person is reluctant to question this interpretation. When we realize that the real evidence does not come from the ground but from the definition of the evidence, we wonder how these interpretations became accepted. This question requires a full understanding of the development of 'Enlightenment thought' and is more than this little paper can answer in a complete way. I will try for brevity. Evolutionism is an atheistic religion. I know there are Christians who will disagree with this bold statement. Ten years ago I would have been one of them. Through some unfortunate events, I was forced to research this subject. The essence of what I learned was that two separate but related streams of thought contributed to the general acceptance of evolutionism. The paradigm switch in science to pure naturalism and the promotion of 'higher criticism.' Both are extremely complex and comprehensive but I will reduce them to the simplest form.
Evolutionism began as the counter alternative to the Biblical worldview. All of the most famous advocates of evolutionism, from the Enlightenment until now, have been not only atheistic but anti-theistic. Anyone who searches deeply the history and philosophy behind 'establishment science' will realize this is obvious. The atheists used the possibility of the truth of evolution as their evidence for it and wrote volumes asserting this position. All scientific concepts today (including radiometric dating) have been influenced by this philosophy. The confident assurance of this position led to the other contribution, which is the Christian acceptance and silent participation. Remember that Christians have always been of a broad spectrum, from liberal to literal and this is not a recent phenomena.
The integrity of the Bible was being severely questioned at nearly the same time as evolutionary politics were being developed. This was the intellectual idea called 'higher criticism' and is now an almost dead enterprise in scholarly circles. (Liberal theologians are the only support it has because most scholars realize its false assumptions.) The authority of Scripture therefore was viewed as skeptical, so Christians looked for consensus with the atheists and tried to harmonize the Bible with their opponent's anti-Biblical agenda. Almost all Bible commentary today is distorted by these various compromises; and the influence of strict naturalism from our modern and postmodern culture.
Creation Science is obviously religious. It is based on the Bible's self-proclaimed infallibility and divine inspiration. Less obvious is that Evolution is also a religion, based on philosophical naturalism and human authority.** Modern Christianity has very little influence on the establishment anymore, shown obvious by our current political debates regarding the removal of God from the public square. The current status quo has been established by the naturalist/atheist insistence on and promotion of evolution. This has been aided substantially by Christian compliance and compromise.
The little evolutionist leaning on the rock in the cartoon uses his assumption of evolution as his proof and the Christian one is silenced by either frustration or intimidation. This cartoon has more truth in several sentences, than in volumes of books that have been written trying to harmonize the Bible with evolution. Part of the problem lies in the assertion of proof by changing the definitions and part of the problem is a submissive acceptance of those definitions.
Stuart T Schmidt
**Eugenie Scott is the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, which is mostly an anti-creationist watchdog group that promotes evolution and propagandizes to the public. The public school system looks to this group for guidance in science curriculum but the credentials are not hard science, only atheistic and naturalistic philosophy. Ms. Scott, who is an atheist, has labeled herself as an 'evolution evangelist'. I have written a review of her book and posted it on Amazon.com. Anyone that would like to read this review can go to Amazon.com and search either the author or the book, click on it and then on 'reviews.
** An excellent book that throws light on this subject from a modern and political perspective is Ann Coulter's book 'Godless'. Whether you agree with her conservative views or not you will realize the well-researched and scholarly presentation of this issue. Her book deserves respect in at least that aspect.
Redefining Science
In Webster's dictionary 'Science' is defined as 'knowledge' A growing number of scientists in the past few decades have appealed to an intelligent design in trying to explain such complex issues as irreducible complexity and the intricacies of the cell - This because the naturalist process was clearly insufficient to produce these examples and others such as DNA, life's information system. A mutation or adaptation within species is always a loss of information. Evolution depends on the assumption that mutations or adaptation produces new information. These assumptions have never been observed so this group of scientists promoted a new theory called Intelligent Design. This movement started from within the secular science community and is labeled ID. It agrees in principal with Biblical creationism except that ID doesn't adhere to strict Biblical timeframes or give credit to the Biblical God. They leave the designer open to interpretation and concentrate on scientific data.
At the core of the Design/Evolution controversy lies some disingenuous motives and some honest misunderstandings. These motives by a select few of the academic elite come to light if we examine the history of key events influencing our modem interpretations. Naturalism has been introduced into origins science as taught today and this is honestly misunderstood by the common man. This was a result of secular and theistic scholars denying the existence of a supernatural force outside of, and not subject to the natural laws of the known world. Over time this became the underlying belief system for scientific thought. Naturalism by today's definition is associated with natural science. It's basis is that the natural laws we observe around us is all there is. It has been an accepted philosophy since the days of Aristotle and most probably before that.
Because operational science is something that can be proven by repetition and documentation it has been able to cure diseases, save labor, and explore space. Operational science is based on repeating experiments and trial and error. Watching a baseball fall to the ground every time it is dropped proves that it will continue to and establishes a natural law. Origins science is quite different. The past cannot be repeated therefore it is impossible to confirm how it happened. A dinosaur turning into a bird 150 million years ago is what we are taught as origins science but it is obviously not repeatable. But the naturalists insist that the same science that put a man on the moon is the one that explains the evolution of the universe. This is false.
The popularity of naturalism increased throughout history and this is true not only of the secular world but the religious and Christian world as well. Many within the history of the Church and its theological institutions compromised their beliefs in a supernatural divine Creator in order to provide a co-existence with naturalism that would promote an atmosphere of tolerance. This compromise from some of our prominent theologians had laid the groundwork for a paradigm switch.
After the fall of the Roman Empire and before the Renaissance was a period called the Middle Ages. Human beings have always been spiritual but this was a very superstitious period in history. As mankind's knowledge accumulated and through the reinvention of the printing press many influential people became opposed to the varied and corrupted superstitions. A feeling of anti-supernaturalism became common. This, of course, included the Bible and its miracles. Miracles and other spiritual non-natural events couldn't be repeated and tested so consequently anti-supernaturalism left only naturalism and the rules of science were established. This paradigm switch had a bigger impact on our world than the theory of evolution itself.
Origins science was then subjected to the evolutionary view of the naturalists in biology, geology and other natural sciences. In order to understand our origins from a naturalist view the scientific community needed a mechanism to produce the ascent of life. When the scattered ideas of evolution were finally formed into one cohesive theory by Darwin and others, it gave a mechanism for a naturalist explanation for origins. This meant time and mutations and natural selection. With no supernatural explanation to compete with naturalism was free to reach back into our origins and speculate. Naturalism was now married to origins science and the two became indistinguishable from each other. Naturalism won by default but the irony is that it couldn't be proven either. It just had no competing viewpoint to counter it because supernaturalism was overruled. The naturalists made the rules and naturalism was the only player.
This new paradigm led to more misinterpretations in the other fields of science, history and also theology. Archaeology and Egyptology were in their infancy and were subject to a naturalist bias from the beginning, meaning that any evidence or artifact uncovered was assumed to have developed slowly from a previous culture. Biblical criticism expanded the naturalist philosophy into criticism of the Bible and other historic works such as the Greeks, Homer and Herodotus. Anything that contained a deity of supernatural power and omnipotence was subjected to incredible scrutiny. This was labeled mythology and categorized separately than science or history. The God of the Hebrew Bible was disrespected in the same breath as Poseidon or Zeus. Whether it was a conscious disdain for the self-proclamation of divine authority or an implicit anti-Semitism the Bible received the most extreme and overt scrutiny. Any perceived error or contradiction was deemed enough to condemn the whole historic epic of the Bible stories. The evolutionists and secularists used this Biblical criticism to further the acceptance of the naturalistic ideology. This led the theologians to concede some of the historic facts and also the miraculous elements and cling to 'the moral objectives in order to salvage enough of their faith to continue. Even that was construed by the naturalists as an evidence of man's progress. They claimed man's religion was evolving along with his knowledge.
Many things happened in the course of this journey, religious wars, world wars, strife, starvation, and genocide. Man's brutality was obvious and yet he seemed to be getting smarter and smarter. Dragging himself up out of the Middle Ages into the Renaissance and on into the Industrial Revolution, man seemed to be progressing. He no longer needed a deity to worship or explain his beginnings. He could explain them through knowledge and human self-government. Naturalism led to other ideas in the nineteenth century, like socialism and secular humanism.
The beliefs of the masses are pyramid shaped, meaning from the top down it spreads out. What our scientific elite and our church hierarchy teach tends to trickle down from the top. The major scientific institutions are 90% atheistic and 100% naturalistic and this ideology is guarded very exclusively from within. Individual scientists that consider intelligent design as a better explanation for anomalous evidence are ostracized in various ways. Graduation from a university is made extremely difficult if you do not go along with the status quo. Sometimes with a creationist viewpoint, the graduate cannot receive endorsement for a job. At the very least, the job they can acquire is non-origins based. Many creationists are in operational science but if they ever write a scientific paper for publication that includes any mention of Intelligent Design the paper is immediately subjected to a peer review of the scientific establishment. The paper does not get published. Then when someone starts to mention teaching Intelligent Design in school the same establishment says that no Intelligent Design material has ever been published and so it is not scientific. The review process at the same time keeps it out and then has the audacity to say that design is not scientific because it is not published in any peer reviewed journal. This is the disingenuous rhetoric that is propagated in the scientific community today.
Every time there is a controversy about evolution there appears a 'Christian' to defend evolution. But the truth is, our mainline theological institutions are just as influenced by naturalism as any secular ones. Multiple generations have graduated from liberal seminaries and filled the pulpits with the naturalistic teaching. The most positive part of this for the naturalists is that the 'Christians' are complacent and uninterested. The naturalists rely on the misunderstanding of the masses to make evolution the dominant view. Because the education system is dogmatically controlled the only threat to naturalistic domination are the self-educated laymen and an increasing number of abstract thinking scientists.
When the local school boards across the nation try to pass resolutions relating to the teaching of intelligent design along with evolution or just teach the problems of evolution the naturalists come out of their gated community and scream 'theocracy' and 'separation of church and state' and 'religious bigotry' and a host of other politically correct buzz words. Then they scurry back to their safe haven of smug intellectual sanctuary to allow their guardians of the dogma to attack. The ACLU will threaten lawsuits to the small and under funded school boards. Scientific American and others science journals will reassure the curious public that all is well, evolution was safely defended and is secure as always and the watchtower is still standing. Then PBS, and National Geographic will promote another series on what the evolution of life might look like in the future and other speculative and computer generated distractions for the unsuspecting public.
As the Bible was scrutinized mercilessly in the nineteenth century, it is naturalistic science that should now be examined. And it is. Every week we hear of Intelligent Design being discussed in another corner of our country. It will take another paradigm shift to create an atmosphere of independent critical thinking. Either a grassroots revolution to change our interpretation of our past or a catastrophic event and visible miracles witnessed by thousands or millions at once. I'm willing to work for the first one but I'm willing to bet on the second.
Stuart T. Schmidt
Creation Science Chronology
In order to understand Creation Science and any of it's specifics we need to first understand it as a whole. It is basically a model or framework with which to understand the Biblical worldview and interpret the evidence from history and science. Many aspects of it come into play and understanding it completely requires a good comprehension of the chronology of the Bible. To do this I ask that you put aside the time periods that you have learned and just trust the strict literal reading of the Bible.
In the 1600's Archbishop James Ussher of England gave us our best understanding of the linear history of the Hebrews. Others have contributed but do not stray far from Ussher's chronology. He used the chronological tables such as "and Seth lived a hundred and five years and begat Enos." Did you ever wonder why all the 'so and so' begat 'so and so' was in the Scriptures? I think it was to confirm the linear chronology. This gives us an almost uninterrupted record up until the time of Jesus and our modem records are complete after that.
Using Ussher's model and up until the discrediting of the Bible in the late 1800's all the scholars placed the creation of the world at 4004 B.C. The flood took place 1656 years later at 2348 B.C. Therefore, all historical data of man has to be since then. Because of our long ages presuppositions it seems a short time period for all of history of mankind to be compressed into. But we can see that many varied evidences of history and science work together and corroborate each other to give us an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the Scriptures.
One of the most confusing aspects of creationism is where the Ice Age fits in. If we believe in a global rearranging flood in about 2348 B.C. then what other major events in history fall on this side of the flood and which don't. We've learned in school that the Ice Age (the last one of many) ended about 10,000 years ago and if Noah's flood was just over 4000 years ago then the Ice Age must have been before that, right. No, we have to shed our 'long age' bias and think Biblically. A straightforward reading of Genesis gives us a chronological table something like this.
Creation of the world 4004 B.C.
Noah's Flood 2348 B.C.
Ice Age 2300-1800 B.C. approx.
Tower of Babel 2242 B.C.
Abraham 1900 B.C.
Exodus 1451 B.C.
Bronze Age 1600-700 B.C.
Noah's Flood was a one time event. It set up a climate change that was a one time change. This was the one catastrophic event that set into motion climate fluctuations for centuries. This paper is to deal with chronology but the atmospheric conditions of the magnitude of a worldwide flood would produce a one time Ice Age. This is well documented in several books.1
During this time is the Tower of Babel and the dispersions of the sons of Noah and their families. Many of these families endured hardships of an Ice Age nature. The Sons of Japheth who inhabited Europe as their allotments tell of Ice Age conditions in many of their early writings.2
The Neanderthal Man is one of the most misunderstood people in history. At first (by evolutionists) they were touted as evidence of man evolving from an ape. But now regarded as a separate species that died out during the Ice Age. They are neither. They were simply human beings cast out from the Tower of Babel into a harsh and unforgiving climate. Probably dark skinned people whose skin contains more melanin and are shielded from the sun's rays in a dark and cloudy atmosphere. This caused them to suffer from a Vitamin D deficiency and their bodies exhibit evidence of rickets and other malnourishment. Neanderthal Man has been found with armor and clothing and ceremonial burials.3, 4 This misunderstanding of the 'Cave Man' has caused much anomalous evidence in history. Placing the end of the Ice Age at ten thousand years ago plus means the cave paintings and other intelligent behavior to be ignored or unexplained. Placing it at 2300-1800 B.C. makes it reasonable and logical.5, 6
The Ice Age extinctions of the mammoth, saber tooth cat, etc. are all better placed at this historical period. They are buried at the same time as man was reduced to a hunter-gatherer existence. After the Tower of Babel, during the catastrophic meltdown and runoffs of the end of the Ice Age is a better explanation for these extinctions. During the Ice Age the fluctuation of the ocean levels were as much as 300 feet. This left many exposed land bridges causing greater and faster migrations of people and animals over the whole earth by both land and sea.
This places our entire history in a compressed time period of 2350 B.C. forward. And our evidence reflects that. Some peoples of the world were less affected than others physically but they were all extremely intelligent with complex languages and religious ceremonies. At this point, the so-called races of the world were becoming more distinct. But we are all one race, the human race and we as creationists know that all people are our cousins who have traveled different paths beginning at the same place and time, the Tower.
Many other unexplained mysteries from around the world such as the Mound Builder culture, the pyramids of Egypt and South America, Stonehenge and the other sites in Europe are all better explained by this 'dispersion of peoples' scenario. Remember that carbon dating and other dating methods are subject to misinterpretation and ideological bias. Egyptian dating which all human history is based on is faulty and constantly being revised even from within its own camp.7 So when you hear that a certain culture is six to eight thousand years old or the pyramids were built in 3000 B.C. that is all subject to man's understanding of history. It is subject to much atheistic bias from the academic community and many constantly changing measurements of time. But God's word to us, the Bible is not changing and never has. The Bible's timeline is the same now as it was in the time of Moses or Abraham or Noah or Adam.
Stuart T. Schmidt
(1) Michael Oard "An Ice Age caused by the Genesis Flood."
(2) Bill Cooper "After the Flood"
(3) Rene Noorbergen "Secrets of the Lost Races"
(4) Donald E. Chittick "The Puzzle of Ancient Man"
(5) Stuart T. Schmidt "Early Man" www.grandrivermuseum.org
(6) Henry M. Morris "The Biblical Basis for Modern Science."
(7) Immanuel Velikovsky "Ages in Chaos"
Early Man
The view of Neolithic or Stone Age Man as being primitive is coming under increasing scrutiny and dissent amongst some modem scholars and scientists. Under the old evolutionary model that emerged through the academic circles in the nineteenth century, Early Man evolved from ape-like ancestors a million or more years ago and struggled through the food chain to the top. Only in the last 7 to 8 thousand years has man developed civilization. This is considered the Upper Paleolithic to the Neolithic Age. Accordingly language, agriculture, and lastly religion have all developed very gradually since then. But this very unsubstantiated hypothesis has been coming under increasing pressure in the last 20 years. As with all new thought there are proponents and opponents of each hypothesis. It tends to be democratic with a dictatorial overseer. In other words, the more people on one team as long as it doesn't go against the naturalist dogma. The school textbooks have not been updated to include these alternative viewpoints. I will try to give a concise effort to explain some of these views and how they fit with a creationist perspective.
The new dilemma emerging is that Early Man was more intelligent than previously thought. Because of faulty traditional dating of the Ice Age and the discoveries associated with it archaeologists are perplexed at explaining the data. According to this it means that historic man, with writing and art and animal husbandry and religion is older than previously thought by thousands of years and it pushes pre-historic man back 50 to 100 thousand years prior to that. However, most of the new trend is still based on the same old, tired evolutionary scales. Because of the misuse and misunderstanding of radio carbon dating many evidences of Early Man and his art, religion, agriculture and sophistication have been found to date back to the Last Ice Age. The Last Ice Age, according to the evolutionary geologic timescale, ended about 12000 years BC Let me give you some scientific evidence that seems out of place and then try to explain it without an evolutionary bias.
The cave paintings at Lascaux, in southwestern Europe, have always baffled archaeologists because they were not considered technically equaled until the Bronze Age frescoes of Egypt and Crete. (The Bronze Age is 1800-1000 BC) But they were conventionally dated to the fifteenth millennium BC, which is a twelve to thirteen thousand year discrepancy. This also led to the discovery of the harnessing of the horse at this period which was not thought "officially possible" until eight thousand years later. Another discovery at this same site is a reindeer bone with an enigmatic script written on it. It is very similar to other script found near that area that is dated at about 2000 BC This leaves about 12000 years difference. Linguists that have studied languages since historic times often use the evolving language as a way to date its origin. The reindeer bone script showed no signs of change for 12000 years. No change for 12000 years is unexplainable. Unless the Ice Age is closer to historic man than previously thought.
In spite of this recent data almost all new alternative archaeologists still adhere to the conventional dating methods. Archaeology in the past was loosely married to art and history and language, but in more recent times has become more and more associated with radiometric dating, and other hard sciences. All fields of science are very narrow, specified disciplines, therefore almost all accredited scientists are laymen in all other fields or disciplines. (Let's remember that even people who attain a doctorate in one field are still a layman in all other fields. This puts us all more or less on the same level in most all fields.) As experts in their own field they feel they should not question the soundness of another's discipline. They are prone then to just push back their own field a little further. More time has always been their answer. Man just needs more time.
But more time is not always beneficial to their cause. The Neolithic Revolution has always been a stumbling block in the evolutionary hypothesis. It seems that almost all aspects of civilization arose suddenly and developed very rapidly, almost immediately. This has been a Problem to pushing the dates of early civilized man back for ten to twelve thousand more years. Most modem archaeologists are trying to shy away from using the term "Revolution" because it gives the impression that it was not a gradual process evolving over time but an eruption of civilization. This is exactly what the evidence says, an eruption of civilization all at once. To push it back either requires pushing back the Neolithic Revolution or trying to explain it away as a gradual process which does not fit the evidence.
In past columns I have talked about the problems with radiometric or carbon 14 dating methods. Let me quote Henry Morris in his "Biblical Basis for Modern Science".
"Paleolithic and earlier dates are based largely on potassium-argon dating and Neolithic dates primarily on radiocarbon dating. These methods, when critically examined, can be shown to be seriously in error for all dates earlier than about 2000 BC Radiocarbon dates for events more recent than 2000 BC may be fairly good, but all earlier dates are invalid due to fallacious assumptions involved in these and other radiometric age calculations."
Willard F. Libby, the inventor of the carbon 14 method, himself admitted the limits of his process. He claimed that through his research he discovered that his method was fairly accurate to about 5000 years ago give or take 500 years. This puts it at approximately 3000 BC give or take 500 years. A coincidence that the time frame of the flood is about the extent of It's limits. I don't think so.
As a biblical literalist I see pushing back the dates of civilized man in a different perspective. The facts and evidences of Early Man are not anomalous if you view it through a different framework. In a biblical time frame the Flood occurred in approximately 2348 BC. The residual effects of a catastrophe of this proportion left in place the conditions to develop the Ice Age. The one and only Ice Age. This puts the Ice Age at between 2300 to about 1800-1700 BC When the Ice Age is at this time the enigmatic early script on the reindeer bone becomes feasible. The Lascaux paintings line up perfectly. The reason they resemble Bronze Age art is that it is Bronze Age art. The reason the script found on the reindeer bone is synonymous with other Bronze Age script is because that is the time period it is from. This compressed time frame rather than an extended one fit's the evidence better. It also puts it in the period that the early historians wrote about.
Putting the civilization of Early Man back to the conventionally dated Ice Age causes-problems in digesting the evidence, but moving the Ice Age to it's proper place in history will make the facts fall into place. Whose authority will we go by? The continually changing authority of man or the unchanging authority of God.
Stuart T. Schmidt
Noah's Flood
One of the basic tenets of creation science is a belief in a literal, global flood that wiped out all living creatures except those that were on the ark of Noah. This concept is difficult at first because we have been taught that the geology of the earth is extremely old and slow to develop. Most advocates of Noah's flood are insistent on either a local flood or a tranquil flood theory. The secularists insist on none of the above, but rather a collection of quaint legends by a simple and developing (evolving) people as a way to explain something they are not capable of understanding. The point of this paper is to examine the evidence and let you decide the case.
According to Ushher, the sixteenth century theologian the flood was about the year 2343 B.C. and contrary to common belief it was not just a forty day rainfall that caused it. According to Genesis 7-8 it happened like this: 40 days of rain, 110 days the waters rose and reached their greatest height, 74 days the waters decreased and Noah could see the mountaintops, 7 days and Noah sent the dove that returned, 7 more days and the dove returned with the olive leaf 7 more days and the dove did not return because the water was abated, 29 days till Noah removed the covering from the ark and 57 days till the animals and Noah and his family left on dry ground. A total of 371 days aboard the ark.
Many skeptics question the amount of rainfall needed to cover the earth with 15 cubits above the highest mountain. But rainfall was only a small portion of the total water that was involved in the flood. In Genesis 7:11 it says " . . .the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." Recent science has confirmed that there is still more water under the earth's crust than in all the worlds oceans. (And at the time of the flood there may have been more still) Remember in Genesis 1:7 "And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." Some creationists think the water above the firmament formed a vapor or water canopy around the earth that provided very different pre-flood conditions (oxygen levels, growing conditions, etc.) and this contributed to the extreme rainfall.
Another problem from nay Sayers is the size of the ark, that it would be too big for people of that generation to have built. As we know from the Bible, people have always been intelligent and capable of technological feats we still don't understand. The ancient Greek historians toll of many ships almost the size of the ark and with propulsion capabilities. Cargo ships capable of 4000 tons of cargo have been written of, and when a new discovery is made in the archaeological field the scientists are always surprised at the sophistication of the B.C. people. Engineers from the major shipping corporations have been consulted with the most seaworthy dimensions for building ocean going freighters. Any size vessel is the most seaworthy that uses the standard percentages given for the ark. In other words as long as the height and width are in proportion to the length it will stand up to the ocean. If it is not it will break up. The ark was the perfect ratio for seaworthiness, according to modem engineers. Why should we be surprised?
Because of secular science's uniformitarian philosophy a catastrophe of this magnitude is unfathomable and so it cannot be accepted. However by accepting this as the truth many other evidences will confirm our theory.
Let's look to the people and nations of the world and see how they explain themselves and their origins. It is no secret that almost all cultures from all continents have a creation myth or legend, but it was interesting to me that almost every one of them has a flood legend as well. A good percentage of them have many common characteristics, including:
1. General wickedness among men
2. God judged the world and used a flood
3. One family, eight members were protected
4. A giant boat or box was constructed
5. The family and the animals went into the boat
6. The flood killed all the living beings on the earth
7. The deluge covered the whole earth for a time
8. The boat landed in a mountainous area
9. Two or three birds were sent out first
10. The people left the boat with the animals
11. The people worshipped God
12. A divine promise not to overwhelm the earth with water
There are over two hundred flood legends around the world and each with differing characteristics but these are some of the coincidences. A lot of them contain a Noah figure and amazingly his name is not that different in some widely varying places. In India it's Manu, In the Germanic tribes, Mannus. In Japan it was Maru and it was Njord in the Scandinavian countries. In Hawaii it is Nu-u, in China it's Fuhi and he has three sons and wives and they were the only people left after the flood to repopulate the earth. These are just a few examples of a huge collection of coincidences. Or are they coincidences?
The giant sequoia trees of California have no known enemies except man. Insects don't bother them and neither does forest fires. They live on century after century but the oldest ones are about 4000 years old.
Coral reefs are easy to date. They grow at a definite rate year after year. The oldest ones in the world are about 4000 years old.
Our Missouri-Mississippi river system is the longest in the world. It dumps 300 million cubic yards of sediment every year into the Gulf of Mexico and the state of Louisiana gets a little bigger. But measuring the delta back to where it begins only gives us a date of about 4000 years ago when it started.
Niagara Falls erodes the rock away as it cascades over it. This is also consistent and measurable. Experts deduce it started eroding about 5000 years ago. Of course the initial runoff from the flood would have caused many years worth in a short time.
I talked about population density in a previous article but to restate from that; if we take a half percent growth rate starting from about 4400 years ago with 4 couples we could expect about 6 billion people to inhabit the earth in 2000 A.D. Our last world census says a little over 6 billion. Coincidences? I don't think so.
A worldwide flood of this magnitude would have the force and velocity to form all the major landforms: mountain ranges, volcanism, drainage systems and so on. It would have had the capacity to have formed the conditions for the Ice Age and to have fossilized the millions of fossils we have around the world. This explains the fish and sea bottom fossils on the tops of mountains and also the oil and coal deposits of massive amounts of vegetative material formed from catastrophic conditions.
Noah's Flood is a complex issue, especially in Creation Science where it is one of the most crucial factors to consider. But a straightforward reading of Genesis provides the answers if we are willing to accept them. No other time or event has had a bigger impact on the history of this world than the Flood and the evidence is all around us. Remember the Tower of Babel and Troy were both thought myths till the archaeologists spades uncovered them. The reason the Flood is thought a myth is because the geological evidence is too big. It's all around us.
Stuart T. Schmidt
Science
We all have a bias in what we believe. If we like what the Republicans are saying we have a bias toward them, if we don't we have a bias against them. If you have always disliked the taste of coffee it will not be easy to convince you to try the new flavored stuff that everyone is talking about. You are biased. A truly open mind is not only rare but a very dangerous thing.
Over the past century and a half we have been indoctrinated in almost all of western society and thought to believe that man has been evolving upward from his nascence to our present highly intelligent and technologically advanced state. The theory has supposedly taught us that we evolved several million years ago along with the other primates from a common ancestor. Then we have been steadily progressing and becoming more intelligent and have finally reached a stage where we are aware of our self existence and have invented religion as a natural development of morals. This is the naturalistic viewpoint that is generally accepted in our major learning centers and media and politics. It is philosophy. Most scientists receive a doctorate that relates to their field. A medical doctor receives a MD; A veterinarian receives a DVM and so on. Paleontologists and archaeologists and many others in the science field receive a Ph.D. A doctor of Philosophy. Almost exclusively naturalist philosophy. This is the predominant bias among the scientists. Lets talk about some facts. How we interpret them is because of our bias.
There are basically two sources of evidence when we are talking about the journey of man. History and Science. First the science. The missing link that the naturalists are forever seeking and finding has been going on for 150 years. Countless times they have found some small piece of evidence that has served as a catalyst for their theory only to have it discarded under closer scrutiny. The lack of evidence does not deter their determination in explaining every find as one step closer to the true missing link. The most recently heralded specimen is a member of the australopithecine family nicknamed Lucy. The drawings and artists renditions of her are splashed all over the major magazines and museums. All derived from a few broken leg bones and a piece of skull. Lucy is now believed to be an extinct form of chimp. In fact the whole human evolution charts that we have all seen at every museum and science textbook has either been exposed as fraud or truly ape-like or truly human. Even Neanderthal man has now been diagnosed as fully human beings with a severe Vitamin D deficiency. Probably darker skinned people living in caves during the Ice Age. Darker skin produces excess melanin which when deprived of sunlight and warm weather causes severe Vitamin D deficiency. Some have been found with clothing, chain armor and tools. They also had musical abilities and religious rituals. The missing links are still missing, not only in man but in every other kind of animal, plant and insect on earth.
In 1997 there was an experiment to understand the differences and similarities in human DNA. From all over the world DNA was collected from people of all groups and ages. The result was that we are all the same. There was as much difference within groups as there was between groups. (I.e. Caucasian, Asian, Australian Aborigine etc.) Our DNA showed something like 98.8% similar. Out of this study came the mitochondrial DNA tests. The mutation rate of DNA was measured on the YY chromosome (female side) and it was realized that we all descended from one woman about 200,000 years ago. This was very hard for the evolutionists to accept. The time frame was much to short for the evolving mechanism to have worked. But it got worse, or better depending on your bias. After realizing that the DNA did not mutate at a steady rate but at an ever expanding and snowballing rate a curved mathematical formula was needed. When applying this curve the total time it took for our DNA to mutate from one woman was about 6000 years. That is the time frame that our Bible says. We know her as Eve. The name of this study was the 'Mitochondrial Eve' study.
While we are talking mathematics lets see about population density. The Bible says that about 4500 years ago there was a flood. Only eight people survived. By applying a 1.5% growth rate which is far less than we see now, and taking into account famine and war and such we could achieve about six billion people in 4500 years from a total of 4 couples. Our population on this planet is a little over six billion at last census.
Science through DNA studies and population growth shows no evolution so lets look at history. Historians are amazed that there seems to be no gradual progression in the cultures of the past. The histories of Sunteria, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Aztec, Maya, and many others show just the opposite. They had complex mathematical calculations without the aid of computers, more precise calendars than our modem ones and an understanding of astronomy we didn't achieve until the 1700's. High culture and knowledge in the beginning and steadily descending downward. Another example is the mysteries of the Great Pyramid in Egypt. We have no modem methods to attempt to build a structure of this magnitude and precision. We could build it out of steel, plastic and concrete but to cut megaton blocks of stone with a machinist tolerance would require a higher technology than we have in the 21st century. That doesn't include moving the blocks hundreds of miles and erecting them in astrological positions we barely understand. Pyramids and other megalithic structures all over the world show a supreme intelligence somewhere in antiquity. This also shows a knowledge of the earth, its size, relationship to other planets, stars the moon and sun. Also there is much evidence of a worldwide maritime culture that modem scientists are refusing to acknowledge. Very accurate maps of the coastlines of North and South America and Antarctica that are dated hundreds of years before Columbus possibly even back to Before Christ. (Antarctica is now under ice and the only way to confirm the accuracy of the maps is with seismic data).
Language both written and spoken have not evolved or progressed upward either. In fact many of the oldest written and spoken languages were extremely complicated grammatically in their beginning and have been continually becoming simpler. It amazed nineteenth century explorers and linguists to find the so called primitive peoples of Africa and the Americas and the spoken languages of these remote peoples were every bit as eloquent and structurally complex as the most revered languages of Europe. The Cradle of Civilization did not derive it's name for nothing. Linguists can trace the languages back to the eastern Turkey-northern Iraq area as can many other areas of the beginnings of civilization. Population spread, agriculture, animal domestication, metallurgy, writing, city building all started in this vicinity and given the discrepancies of radiometric dating, about the same time, 2500 BC. The list goes on but the pattern is the same, civilization spread Out from where the ark landed and the Tower of Babel was built. This is history.
We've all heard of the cave paintings found in caves around the world. The ones we are usually shown depict animals like cattle and extinct bison and deer. In France some paintings were found that pictured people as well. Men wearing well tailored pants and coats, broad belts and clasps and boots and women with pantsuits, decorated hats and holding a purse. They are at a museum in Paris but not many are on display, they are stored away because the officials thought they would be disturbing to conventional theories. The people we know as cave men were from a breakdown in society at the Tower of Babel Technology and communication were broken and the people scattered Out with simple tools to make a living for their families. These were families dressed as comfortably as possible and fill of compassion and caring and of a spiritual mind as we are. Not grunting, snarling half beasts but real loving intelligent human beings with full and beautiful languages, music and religion. The next time you see an arrowhead or a stone hammer don't believe the pictures you see associated with it. These were civilized people cast out into a rugged and harsh environment, like Tom Hanks in the movie "Castaway". Our perception of the cave man has to change for us to understand the true history of the world.
My point today is that our bias needs to be based on the truth. We did not dig our way Out of caves and a hunter-gatherer existence to progress to where we are now. We as the human race have always been intelligent because we were created that way. We have gone through periods of darkness and wandering because we lost the way but God has a way of showing us the light.
Stuart T. Schmidt
Science-Dating Dinosaurs
I said I would write a column on radiometric dating, but this subject is very complicated and kind of boring, and to understand it we need to understand some other things first.
First of all, when a dinosaur bone or fossil is found, it is not carbon-dated and it usually is not dated using any of the other radiometric dating methods. The fossils are dated, or assigned ages by their position in the geologic column. Here's a little history of the geologic column.
In 1830, Charles Lyell, an atheist lawyer from England, wrote "The Principles of Geology." The geologic column "evolved" from this book and other writings about this time or earlier. One of the reasons for his philosophy was to "free the science from Moses." His hypothesis was that the major sedimentary strata that all the fossils are found in were laid down as slowly and uniformly as we observe it happening today. Thus the uniformitarian view was brought to the scientific community. Charles Darwin read this book and applied biology to a uniformitarian principle and he is credited with the theory of evolution.
We've all seen the geologic column poster in every museum we've been in. (Except the Grand River Museum and a handful of others.) It's a complex graph of different periods broken into Epochs and Ages and within these periods the different geologic formations are found. Hell Creek Formation is the one that covers N.W. South Dakota and parts of North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. According to the geologic column this formation is dated at Late Cretaceous (about 65-70 million years ago, by evolutionary standards).
This date is arrived at by using an Index Fossil. The index fossil for this formation is the Edmontosaurus, the duck-billed dinosaur. This is the most common fossil in this area. Each formation in the world has a certain common fossil that serves as the index fossil. This fossil then dates the whole formation. All this formation from the long ages, millions of years, evolutionary biased geologic column. A column invented by a lawyer whose main goal was to "free the science from Moses."
The fossils are dated by the rocks or geologic formation they are found in. And the geologic formation or the rocks are dated by the index fossil found there. This circular reasoning has been going on in the scientific community for over a hundred years. Occasionally, a fossil is dated using one of the radioisotope dating methods. Carbon-14 is not used on Cretaceous fossils because there shouldn't be any carbon left in something millions of years old. One of the longer age dating methods are used such as Potassium-argon, Uranium-lead, etc. These give much exaggerated ages because they are designed to. Many samples are taken and the ages compared to the geologic column. The tests that agree are published in science journals as proof and the tests that are disagreeable are ignored or discarded. Actually, there are lots of dinosaur bones found with carbon still in them and all the coal samples ever found have contained some carbon. Many creationists have commissioned Carbon-14 tests on fossils and coal and the range of dates are wide, but mostly in the thousands of years old, not millions.
Radioisotope dating is accepted as fact, but the fact is that there are many assumptions that these methods are dependant on:
The starting conditions or amount of parent/daughter elements are known.
The radioactive decay rate has been constant.
The system was closed and unpolluted by elements since the start.
Hundreds of tests and samples have shown enormously long ages for rocks and fossils of known origin so how can we trust the tests and samples that are performed on fossils of unknown ages. basically, what I'm trying to say today is that if you take away the long ages bias of the geologic column and that the radiometric dating methods are flawed or at least full of assumptions then the millions of years of evolution are very skeptical. Without millions of years, all living life is not possible from a single celled organism. But if God created this earth and all living things (after their kind) supernaturally only a few thousand years ago and most of the dinosaurs died in the Flood, then this is the science that we observe today. One creation and one major earth changing catastrophe. Extinction not evolution.
The Museum Gift Shop has several really good books for sale. One new one is called "Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation." This new color version is a beautiful coffee table book full of wonderful pictures, amazing apologetics and logical answers to complicated questions. A wonderful book for the whole family. Call or write if you want to hear more or have questions.
Stuart Schmid
The Seven Wonders of Mount St. Helens
Mount St. Helens was a significant event in geologic history. This event gave rise to a view of catastrophism versus uniformitarianism in geology. It also supported the Creation Science view that almost all Earth's features were produced by catastrophe.
The mountain rearranged beyond recognition in nine hours.
Canyons formed in five months.
Badlands (like the South Dakota Badlands) were formed in five days.
Layered strata formed in three hours.
River system formed in nine hours.
Sinking logs look like many aged forests in just ten years.
A new model for quicker coal formation.
Everyday earth processes would have taken countless years to form the above features. According to evolutionary geologists, 4.5 billion years to form all these features in the Earth's crust. Yet these seven catastrophically produced formations cut the time to nothing. Globally, the unimaginable forces of the Biblical flood epoch would have destroyed nearly every feature on the Earth's surface and established new ones.
Changing the Earth's crust doesn't take a lot of time if the rates, scales and intensities are large enough
Have you ever wondered why:
The secular science community can't find a missing link between apes and man?
Hundreds of mammoths have been found in the Artic with green vegetation in their mouths and stomachs?
Some species of animals like crocodiles, alligators, sharks and turtles lived with the dinosaurs, but didn't become extinct?
Megalithic structures like the Pyramids are built all over the world and scientists can't agree why?
Radiometric dating doesn't work?
If life developed slowly over billions of years, why do scientists have a hard time explaining the "Cambrian Explosion" where all life is fully formed and mature almost instantaneously in fossil record?
Creation Science has these answers and many others for you.
Since Henry Morris and John Whitcomb wrote "The Genesis Flood" in 1960 and Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, catastrophic geology is starting to gain respect even among secular scientists. For a century and a half, uniformitarian thought was the norm in geology, paleontology and most other scientific disciplines. However, a new "catastrophism" view is emerging. Creation Science has it's roots in the literal interpretation of the Bible and so catastrophism fits this paradigm very well. Genesis tells of a worldwide catastrophe called Noah's Flood.
The authority of the Bible was questioned and rejected in the 1800's. Darwin's Theory of Evolution separated the so-called intellectuals from the religious holdouts. To this day, many people try to explain evolution as a science and creation as a religion. However, through recent advances in science, especially archaeology and catastrophic geology, the Bible is regaining its authority as history, even among non-believers. Recent finds of Egyptian chariot wheels by the Red Sea and stone tablets with "Pontius Pilate's" name on them, helped to legitimize the stories of the Exodus and the Crucifixion.
The best theory to date in plate tectonics by any scientist is by John Baumgardner, a creationist. A worldwide flood not only would provide the mechanism for the breakup and drift of the continents and conditions to fossilize millions of fossils, but provided new atmospheric conditions to develop the Ice Age and increased volcanic activity to form all the geologic formations we see today. That is why here on the plains, just like the Grand Canyon, the rivers and creeks are very small compared to their banks. Lots of water in a short time compared to a little water over a long time.
The Institute for Creation Research of San Diego offers graduate courses in Creation Science, Geology, Paleontology, Biology, etc. Many scientists are accepting this new trend for its answers to the questions of an outdated nineteenth century "evolution" theory. Three influential thinkers of the 1800's helped shape the thoughts of the 20th Century, Marx, Freud and Darwin. The first two have fallen. This is the 21st Century. Will Darwin be next?
Here are some very good websites for more information on Creation Science. Don't take my word for it, ask the professionals:
How Old is Earth?
How old do you think the world is? Some people claim that the universe was created by a "Big Bang" about 20 billion years ago. Then 4.5 billion years ago, in a warm little pond some place on earth, life spontaneously developed by itself. From this one celled organism, all life evolved into what we now know today.
Would it surprise you to know that today, hundreds of scientists believe that the earth did not spontaneously evolve? Would it surprise you that these same accredited scientists of all different fields accept a very literal Biblical view of our origins? Would it surprise you know that they believe God created this universe in six 24 hour days about six to ten thousand years ago? Or that they believe Noah's flood to be a very real, historical fact? It surprised me.
Hundreds of non-believing, even atheistic scientists have joined the ranks of Bible believing Christians and even accepted Christ because scientific evidence convinced them that someone created this place. Irreducible complexity has convinced many that this did not happen by chance. The complex design of even the most minute organisms are so extremely intricate and interfunctional that there has to be a God. And after viewing the data, God didn't need millions of years of evolution to do it. Moses wrote what God told him about our history and it is becoming more clear all the time.
Geo-chronology is the science of determining the age of the earth. Scientists are aware of over 100 methods of observable, measurable evidences of the earth's age. Only a few are portrayed as supportive of billions of years old, but these few are largely publicized and heralded as the only factual data. The fact is most geo-chronology points to a very young earth. However, outside the scientific circles very few people hear about these because to the mainstream public, secular humanism is very politically correct
Here's a few for example:
Evolutionists say that humans have been on earth at least one million years. At a one-half percent growth rate per year, there would be 3 trillion people stacked on this earth. But at the same half percent rate, today's population would take just over 4000 years. A coincidence that Noah's flood was about 4400 years ago?
The magnetic field on the earth has been accurately measured for over a hundred years and is steadily decreasing. Over 10,000 years ago, the magnetic field would have been as strong as a magnetic star, like our sun. Not possible for life.
There are too many evidences to list in detail, but we could use helium concentration, topsoil depth, earth moon distance, absent meteorites in geologic column, shrinking sun, and concentration of ocean salt just to name a few.
What about coal and oil? Long term processes? No, just catastrophic conditions. What about petrified wood? Millions of years to petrify? No, just several weeks under the right conditions. What about carbon-dating or any radiometric dating methods, don't they prove millions of years? I'll save that for a whole column in itself, but let me tell you, it's not as reliable as you've been told. Living snails have been radiocarbon-dated as dead 27,000 years ago.
Not only mainstream scientists are starting to see this new revolution, but mainstream churches and Christian organizations as well. Dr. James Dobson talked in his newsletter about the poor science involved in the giant media PBS extravaganza called "Evolution." In his book called "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel, he quotes William Bradley, "The optimism of the 1950's is gone. The mood at the 1999 International Conference on Origin of Life was described as grim-full of frustration, pessimism and desperation." This is the state of our secular scientific circles today. But the mood is changing. There are three brand new books out that will be available in the museum bookstore. "In Six Days" by John F. Ashton, PhD., "Darwin's Demise" and "Creative Defense" by Nicholas Comninellis and Joe White. Excellent material for anyone interested or call and talk to me if you have any questions.