Creation and Science Chronicle

James Hutton Institute Established in Scotland

November 11, 2010 Comments Off

The influence of one of the founders of geology continues to reverberate even into the 21st century. Amazing.

For additional information see the Biography of James Hutton from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, 1910-1911, at the Creation History Project wiki.

New centre to honour ‘father of geology’
by Andrew Arbuckle
The Scotsman (Scotland), p. 12.
November 10, 2010

The new “super research institute” which is being formed from the Scottish Crop Research Institute at Invergowrie and Aberdeen’s Macaulay Land Use Research Institute is to be named the James Hutton Institute in honour of the Scottish enlightenment science pioneer.

James Hutton, who lived from 1726 to 1797, was a leading figure of the Scottish enlightenment, an 18th century golden age of intellectual and scientific achievements centred on Edinburgh. his counterparts included Adam Smith, the economist, and David Hume, the philosopher and historian.

Hutton is internationally regarded as the father of modern geology and one of the first scientists to describe the earth as a living system; his thinking on natural selection influenced Charles Darwin in developing his theory of evolution.
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Canadian Creationist Ian Juby and His Travelling Creation Museum

November 10, 2010 1 Comment

Kudos to Ian Juby for the nice article and photo in the Canadian Newfoundland newspaper, Compass.

Also in the same issue of the newspaper was a letter from a reader critical of Ian’s lecture at a local church. Oddly enough (perhaps not!) is that the letter was much longer than is typical found in a newspaper. In fact, it took up 3 columns with no other letters printed that issue.

I suppose the editorial page editor couldn’t allow a rather favorable write-up of the talk and Juby’s ministry to go unchallenged!

More information about Ian and his activities can be found at his website, The Creation Ministries of Ian Juby.

Questioning evolution
by Andrew Robinson
The Compass (Canada), p. B3
November 9, 2010

In the world of academia, evolutionary biology is accepted as an important scientific field. From grade school in public institutions to graduate studies at the most prestigious universities and colleges in the world, the subject, which focuses on changes in inherited traits through different generations of species over time, is a widely studied topic.

Within pockets of the evangelical Christian community, however, there are concerns about evolution supporting the existence of Earth for millions and millions of years. At the Calvary Pentecostal Church in Carbonear on Tuesday, Oct. 26, one of those doubters was on hand to present an alternative view of the world’s past.

Ian Juby calls himself a creation science speaker who has been conducting research to support creationism for over 15 years. Creationism is the belief Earth and all that inhabits it is the creation of a supernatural being. Creation science aims to collect evidence supporting the Genesis narrative, which says the Earth was created in seven days.

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Creationism short on facts, says writer
The Compass (Canada), p. 4
November 9, 2010

Dear editor,
The great debate featuring creationist versus evolutionist finally made a rather late appearance in our small town, courtesy of the Pentecostal Assembly of Carbonear. There was a rehash of the same old “evidence” that to the “ believers,” especially the children in attendance, left no doubt that the earth is 6,000 years-old and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.

The slick but rather disjointed presentation which included computer graphics and animations, fossils and what was claimed to be casts of fossils were presented as conclusive proof that Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is false.

Who could dispute a cast of a fossil that showed a dinosaur footprint overlaid by a human footprint? I approach ideas with a healthy skepticism, realizing that breakthroughs in science often come from radical thinkers; however, my mantra is that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”

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American Grace: How Religion Divides

October 17, 2010 Comments Off

What a sad conclusion this article makes. Apparently the authors believe that pastors will repackage their message to make Christianity more palatable. Judging from what we’ve seen from various ‘new’ movements such as the Emergent church and other appeals to “buffet-style” Christianity, they are correct…but a bit late in pointing this out!

Losing faith
Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, and David E. Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, are the authors of “American Grace: How Religion Divides
Los Angeles Times, page A33.
October 17, 2010

Young people are rejecting organized religion they see as too politically conservative.

The most rapidly growing religious category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. While middle-aged and older Americans continue to embrace organized religion, rapidly increasing numbers of young people are rejecting it.

As recently as 1990, all but 7% of Americans claimed a religious affiliation, a figure that had held constant for decades. Today, 17% of Americans say they have no religion, and these new “nones” are very heavily concentrated among Americans who have come of age since 1990. Between 25% and 30% of twentysomethings today say they have no religious affiliation — roughly four times higher than in any previous generation.

So, why this sudden jump in youthful disaffection from organized religion? The surprising answer, according to a mounting body of evidence, is politics. Very few of these new “nones” actually call themselves atheists, and many have rather conventional beliefs about God and theology. But they have been alienated from organized religion by its increasingly conservative politics.

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Time Required for Sedimentation Contradicts the Evolutionary Hypothesis

October 16, 2010 Comments Off

by Guy Berthault
CRS Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 4
Spring 2010, pp. 261-269.

Abstract:

Stratigraphy, the basis of geological dating, was founded in the seventeenth century on three principles proposed by Nicolas Steno: superposition, continuity, and original horizontality. Successive observations and experiments show that his stratigraphic model was not in line with experimental data, because it overlooked the major variable factor of sedimentation: the current and its chronological effects. Experiments simulating the formation of sedimentary layers at variable current velocities using different-sized particles show that Steno’s principles apply only to the case of deposition at zero current velocity. Since sedimentary processes affect stratigraphy and geological dating, paleohydraulic conditions must be considered in any stratigraphic analysis. The estimated time of deposition is often the crucial factor in developing a local timescale, and the paleohydraulic approach links deposition to the critical transport velocity of current as determined by particle size. From this velocity, the corresponding transport capacity in units of volume and time is calculated. The time of sedimentation is the quotient obtained from dividing the volume of sedimentary rocks by the transport capacity. A team of Russian sedimentologists have applied this method to geological formations of the Crimean Peninsula and of the Northwest Russian Plateau in the St. Petersburg region. They discovered that the time required for sedimentation was only 0.01% of the corresponding period of the geological timescale. This is at variance with the time required for species to evolve.

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Some Implications of the Demise of the Demarcation Problem

October 16, 2010 Comments Off

by Tom Hogan
CRS Quarterly, Volume 46, Number 3
Winter 2010, pp. 119-125.

Abstract:

Two court cases, McLean v. Arkansas (“Arkansas”) in 1980 and Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. (“Dover”) in 2005, showed how decisive philosophy can be when wielding the demarcation argument, as both creation science and intelligent design were denied victories because they were judged to be unscientific based on demarcation arguments. However, since the Arkansas decision and before Dover, the demarcation problem has generally come to be viewed by philosophers of science as intractable (i.e., “unsolvable”). The corollary of the intractability of the demarcation problem is that anything and everything can claim to be science without fear of being proved otherwise and that, therefore, the term “science” has no meaning. This has some clear implications for the creation project, including the renewed prospect for success in the courts and powerful answers to anti-creationist rhetoric.

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Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism

October 15, 2010 Comments Off

Cambridge University Press has recently published a new book on Nietzsche’s views about Darwin and Darwinism. What’s interesting is that the author, Dirk R. Johnson, takes the approach that Nietzsche was NOT a Darwinist. Both creationist and evolutionists should find this a challenging book to read.

Friedrich Nietzsche’s complex connection to Charles Darwin has been much explored, and both scholarly and popular opinions have tended to assume a convergence in their thinking. In this study, Dirk Johnson challenges that assumption and takes seriously Nietzsche’s own explicitly stated “anti-Darwinism.” He argues for the importance of Darwin for the development of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but he places emphasis on the antagonistic character of their relationship and suggests that Nietzsche’s mature critique against Darwin represents the key to understanding his broader (anti-)Darwinian position. He also offers an original reinterpretation of the Genealogy of Morals, a text long considered sympathetic to Darwinian naturalism, but which he argues should be taken as Nietzsche’s most sophisticated critique of both Darwin and his followers. His book will appeal to all who are interested in the philosophy of Nietzsche and its cultural context.

Contents

Introduction; Part I. Early Darwinism to the ‘Anti-Darwin’: 1. Towards the ‘Anti-Darwin’: Darwinian meditations in the middle period; 2. Overcoming the ‘Man’ in Man: Zarathustra’s Transvaluation of Darwinian categories; 3. Nietzsche Agonistes: a personal challenge to Darwin; Part II. Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals: 4. Nietzsche’s ‘Nature’; Or, whose playing field is it anyway?; 5. The birth of morality out of the spirit of the ‘Bad Conscience’; 6. Darwin’s ‘Science’: or, how to beat the shell game; Conclusion; Bibliography.

Ota Benga: The Story of the Pygmy on Display in a Zoo

February 10, 2010 Comments Off

by Jerry Bergman
CRS Quartlery, Volume 30, Number 3,
December 1993, pp. 140-149.

Abstract:

One of the most fascinating historical accounts about the fallout of biological evolution theory on human relations is the story of Ota Benga, a pygmy who was put on display in an American zoo as an example of an evolutionarily inferior race. The incident clearly reveals the racism of evolutionary theory and the extent that the theory gripped the hearts and minds of scientists and journalists in the late 1800s. As humans move away from this time in history, we can more objectively look back at the horrors that evolutionary theory has brought to society of which this story is a poignant example.

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The Real Nature of the Fossil Record, Acts & Facts, Feb. 2010

February 10, 2010 Comments Off

Acts & Facts, Vol. 39, No. 2, February 2010, monthly, free. 24 pages.

Executive editor: Lawrence E. Ford.

Institute for Creation Research, PO Box 59029, Dallas, TX 75229. Website.

Acts & Facts just keeps getting better. The change from a digest publication to a standard magazine format (August 2007) gives A&F a more professional looking layout. And, with the increase of page count from 20 to 24 pages (April 2009) it’s beginning to feel more like a magazine, than a newsletter.

Lawrence Ford’s 3-page summary of all the current ICR speakers and writers is particularly timely what with all the ICR staff changes in the past few years. James Johnson’s brief article on the differences between the ID movement and the creationist movement is another reminder that IDM shies away from Scripture as their foundation. Austin, Guliuzza, Morris, Sherwin and Thomas nicely round out this issue with a mixture of articles on geology, fossils, archaeology, and even philosophy of science.

Table of contents
From the Editor: Be Mine by Lawrence E. Ford. p. 3.
Communicating the Message of the Creator by Lawrence E. Ford. p. 4-6.
Events. p. 7,
The Scientific and Scriptural Impact of Amos’ Earthquake by Steven A. Austin. p. 8-9.
Fit & Function: Design in Nature by Randy J. Guliuzza. p. 10-11.
Impact: The Real Nature of the Fossil Record by John D. Morris. p. 12-14.
Back to Genesis: An Amazing Anomalous Fossil by John D. Morris. p. 16
Back to Genesis: Darwinism’s Rubber Ruler by Frank Sherwin. p.17.
Back to Genesis: Fresh Tissues from Solid Rock by Brian Thomas. p. 28
The Intelligent Designer Movement by James J. S. Johnson. p. 19.
Letters to the Editor / Radio Log. p. 20
Stewardship: Matters of True Substance by Henry M. Morris IV, p. 21.
Biblical Worldview: The Information Age by Henry M. Morris III, p. 22.

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From: Creation & Science Chronicle.