Free Republic

Heavy Metal Clocks, U-Pb and Th-Pb Dating Models: Radioactive Dating, Part 7 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. (Psalm 19:1-3) The heavens do indeed declare the glory of God, but some people choose to believe that the heavens appeared by random chance out of nothing—a stance for which they are “without excuse.” Paul so forcefully points out in Romans 1:18-20 that who God is...

Researchers have been able to map how the Eagle Nebula's Pillars of Creation are distributed in three-dimensional space for the first time, using new data from the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer instrument on the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. Given the tremendous size of this section of the Eagle Nebula and its distance from Earth (around 7,000 light-years), researchers previously thought we were unlikely to ever see the shape of it in anything other than two flat dimensions, as in Hubble's famous photograph.

Three-Dimensional DNA Code Defies Evolution by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * Scientists have long been baffled as to what actually tells proteins called transcription factors (TFs) where to bind in the genome to turn genes off and on. However, new research incorporating the three-dimensional shape of DNA has revealed an incredibly complex system of interacting biochemical codes.1 We know that genes are turned off and on across the genome by intricate networks of transcription factors which bind to DNA in strategic places in and around the genes. But discovering what tells the transcription factors where to bind has proven extremely...

Order! Order in the Universe! – A Meditation on the Wisdom That Creation Reflects By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn a courtroom, the judge can bring an unruly outburst to an end by shouting, “Order! Order in the court!” I often feel the same urge in the debates of our time about God’s existence and His role in the created universe. It is not so much that the debates can get unruly, but that I, with the  insistence of a town crier, want to shout, “Order! Order, there IS order the universe!” And I want to ask everyone to be quiet and listen to the universe herself...

No Salamander Evolution Evidence, Past or Present by Frank Sherwin, M.A. * Scientists in Portugal unearthed a "super salamander" which, although "weird compared to anything today," is still very much a salamander.1 The fossilized bones of the six-foot (two meter) animal were discovered on a hillside dig "chock-full" of bones and declared to originate from the "Upper Triassic" period, some 200 million years ago according to evolutionary dating. While evolutionists like to claim that variations in traits within a species are proof of evolution, salamanders have always been salamanders regardless of their size.

Saturn's Enceladus Looks Younger than Ever by Brian Thomas, M.S. * The more we learn about Enceladus, the younger it looks. Stated another way, the more that our space probes discover about this fascinating little moon that inhabits Saturn's tenuous E ring, the more challenging it becomes for conventional origins to explain. A new discovery adds to the list of young-looking Enceladus features. The most stunning feature of Saturn's sixth largest moon is undoubtedly its water-ice plumes. The Cassini spacecraft passed by Enceladus several times in 2005 and captured amazing images of these continuous jets. They discharge material and send...

Does it matter whether or not matter is eternal? Peter J. Leithart, who writes a regular blog on the web site of First Things, definitely thinks it does. According to Leithart , who is a Protestant theologian in the Reformed Presbyterian tradition in the United States, if matter is eternal, "creation can only be control, limitation, ordering." Then God could only be a master craftsman, working with already existing material to form the universe. If matter is eternal, "creation cannot be a gift; . . . cannot be the bestowal of existence, a grant of being." Finally, if matter is...

No Evolution Is Proof of Evolution? by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., Tim Clarey, Ph.D., and Jason Lisle, Ph.D.* Scientists recently discovered a community of fossilized sulfur-metabolizing bacteria that are alleged to be 1.8 billion years old.1 Surprisingly, the microbes are virtually identical to their modern counterparts, yet the study authors claim that the microbes are proof of evolution.

Another Horizontal Gene Transfer Fairy Tale by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * As the genomes of many new creatures rapidly fill the public DNA sequence databases, the problems for the grand evolutionary story are becoming overwhelming. One issue is the fact that different creatures have unique sets of genes specific to their kind with no apparent evolutionary history. To explain this glaring problem, evolutionists have resorted to the myth of pervasive horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the process whereby genes are transferred from one type of creature to another without sexual reproduction. Earlier in my career, I...

Rare-Earth Clocks, Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating Models 2: Radioactive Dating, Part 6 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * This series has summarized radioisotope dating models, their assumptions, and how those assumptions mistakenly lead to a “deep time” picture of our universe.1 Secularist scientists want us to accept their circular arguments and improbable assumptions as scientific fact, despite the fact these same scientists often push aside the scientific method itself. Using the various types of radioisotope decay as clocks does not produce consistent results, nor are those results verifiable by observational evidence. If these methods do not properly date rocks of...

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a new arthropod. Yawunik kootenayi was swimming around oceans in Canada in the Cambrian period, 508 million years ago. It's thought to share a common ancestor with today's spiders and scorpions. The arthropod had four eyes and arms lined with both tiny claws to help it feed, and long antennae to sense its surroundings. The study's lead author says species today don't have limbs that function like that. "This dual function is very, very special, because it does not appear in modern forms. If you take insects as an example, they have a...

Dinosaur Moth: An Evolutionary Enigma by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. * Scientists discovered a tiny moth on Australia's Kangaroo Island and gave it the name Enigmatinea glatzella. The name is quite descriptive, as Enigmatinea means "enigma moth" in Latin.1,2 But why is this moth an enigma to evolutionary scientists? Today's living representatives of this moth have "basically the same features" as their ancestors, which evolutionists claim lived forty to fifty million years ago.3 Hence, virtually no evolution has occurred in all that supposed time! Ted Edwards, one of the scientists tasked with describing the new moth family said, "It's really quite...

Spiders Have Always Been Spiders by Frank Sherwin, M.A. * A University of California Berkley graduate student has discovered two beautiful new species of peacock spiders in southeast Queensland, Australia.1 The student, Madeline Girard, named the two colorful creatures "Sparklemuffin" and "Skeletorus," both of the genus Maratus. They are noted for their ornate mating dances that many viewers find amusing. Are these splendid specimens highly evolved species or have spiders always been spiders?

National Geographic claims creationists are at war with science by Lita Cosner and Keaton Halley Published: 19 March 2015 (GMT+10) National Geographic (NG) is a respected popular science magazine with millions of subscribers. So it is unfortunate when they use that platform to promote anti-creation propaganda under the guise of science. The cover of the March 2015 issue is “The War on Science”, and the featured article by science writer Joel Achenbach, “The age of disbelief”, intends to explain why so many people doubt the scientific establishment on a range of issues—from global warming to vaccines to the Apollo moon...

Einstein’s Heroes — biblical creationists by Shaun Doyle There’s little doubt that the most famous scientist of the 20th century was Albert Einstein (1879–1955). Today his name is synonymous with ‘genius’. Most people today would recognize his most famous equation, E=MC2, (though many would be hard-pressed to explain what it actually means!). But even Einstein had his science heroes. So whom would the great Einstein have admired? They must have been incredible scientists for Einstein to have thought highly of them! And they were. Einstein had pictures of his three heroes of science on his study wall.1 They were Isaac...

Evolution of a Creation Scientist by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Unlike many researchers working in the field of creation science, I was not raised in a strong Christian background. The occasional trip to some nominal church with my parents—my father, a successful research chemist for a large corporation, and my mother, a school teacher—was simply something we did to round out our social experience. For the most part, my secular upbringing was steeped in evolutionary science and philosophy. During high school in Vancouver, Washington, I became very interested in biology and especially plant science. My school had an excellent two-year...

A Two Thousand Year Old Project Two thousand years ago the Epicureans believed that the world arose spontaneously. Their idea was that randomly veering atoms attained a great variety of configurations by chance, and would eventually find themselves forming stable, functional structures. And while this may seem unlikely, the immense universe provided a great many opportunities for those configurations to come about. In Cicero’s dialog, the Epicurean explains this to his stoic opponent: You [stoics] would surely have no need of the activity of such a figure [a skilled craftsman] if you would only observe how unlimited, unbounded tracts...

Rare-Earth Clocks, Sm-Nd and Lu-Hf Dating Models: Radioactive Dating, Part 5 by Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D. * Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8) Author’s note: I was about nineteen when I realized Darwinian evolution was unscientific and completely rejected it, but I didn’t give much thought to a “young earth” at the time. Decades later, when I was in my mid-50s, I came to believe in a young-earth view of creation after taking the time...

Above All the Earth Few can say they’ve left planet Earth. Jeff Williams has done it three times. After a lengthy military career, Colonel Jeffrey N. Williams was chosen from among a handful of candidates to become an astronaut for NASA and work on the International Space Station (ISS). He has been a longtime supporter of ICR and recently visited our headquarters for the first time, graciously allowing us an interview.

The Whopper Sand by Tim Clarey, Ph.D. * Evidence for Creation There’s a huge deposit of sand in the deep Gulf of Mexico, and no one seems to know how it got there—except maybe Flood geologists. Early in my career as a geologist for an oil company, we were told not to prospect in water deeper than 2,000 feet. Most offshore oil is found in sand layers sandwiched between thick layers of mud and clay, and our management believed no sand could get that far offshore, and drilling costs were too high. However, in 2001 the BAHA 2 well was...