Helium Diffusion Age of 6,000 Years Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay

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D. Russell Humphreys, Steven A. Austin, John R. Baumgardner, and Andrew A. Snelling

Experiments co-sponsored by the Creation Research Society show that helium leakage deflates radioisotopic ages. In 1982 Robert Gentry found amazingly high retentions of nuclear-decay-generated helium in microscopic zircons (ZrSiO4 crystals) recovered from a borehole in hot Precambrian granitic rock at Fenton Hill, NM. We contracted with a high-precision laboratory to measure the rate of helium diffusion out of the zircons. The initial results were very encouraging. Here we report newer zircon diffusion data that extend to the lower temperatures (100º to 277º C) of Gentry’s retention data. The measured rates resoundingly confirm a numerical prediction we made based on the reported retentions and a young age. Combining rates and retentions gives a helium diffusion age of 6,000 ± 2,000 years. This contradicts the uniformitarian age of 1.5 billion years based on nuclear decay products in the same zircons. These data strongly support our hypothesis of episodes of highly accelerated nuclear decay occurring within thousands of years ago. Such accelerations shrink the radioisotopic “billions of years” down to the 6,000-year timescale of the Bible. Read more…

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Body Mass Estimates and Encephalization Quotients:

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A Fresh Look at the Australopithecines and Homo habilis
Patrick H. Young

The australopithecines and Homo habilis have been publicized for years as examples of evolutionary transitional forms that launched our own human lineage. Dogmatic evolutionists have rationalized these claims on the basis of brain expansion, encephalization quotients, and bipedalism. However, any evolutionary justification for brain expansion in these extinct creatures must rest in a precise model for the determination of body mass. To insure an accurate body mass model, one must take into account whether the animal is quadruped, facultative biped, or obligatory biped. Past body mass estimates for the australopithecines and Homo habilis were based on assumptions about their bipedalism that have proven to be erroneous. When a body mass model is used accounting for the facultative bipedalism of the australopithecines and Homo habilis, the data shows that they are not highly encephalized, and hence nothing more than a microevolutionary adaptation of the pan-troglodytes. Read more…

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An Initial Investigation into the Baraminology of Snakes:

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Order — Squamata, Suborder Serpentes

Tom Hennigan

Evolution theory predicts that the ancestry of organisms can be traced down a hypothetical evolutionary tree and eventually back to the first living cell. Creation theory postulates that ancestry can be traced back only a limited distance to a starting organism of that type. Instead of a “tree” the creation model has a “forest” of unrelated organisms with vast genetic potential. I hypothesize that the snake taxon originated from one or more originally created “trees” or “kinds” that have diversified into the snakes of today and that snakes are unrelated to any other group. In order to test this hypothesis, the snake taxon was analyzed using a discontinuity matrix and the data suggest that snakes can be considered a group unto themselves. Subsequently, a literature search was begun in order to determine additive evidence for relatedness. Three families were identified for their interspecific and intergeneric hybridization tendencies and within each family certain genera and species were classified into subgroups of related snakes. This initial investigation indicates that many snakes have the ability to hybridize, even when they are reproductively isolated over great distances, and are capable of a large degree of variation within a “species.” As more data are gathered and quantified, I predict that evolutionary hypotheses will continue to be frustrated because of faulty metaphysical assumptions and will strongly suggest that snakes began from one or a few originally created kinds, just a few thousand years ago. Read more…

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The Tertiary Stratigraphy Surrounding Americus, Georgia

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Carl R. Froede, Jr.

Uniformitarian scientists define their stratigraphic column using fossils linked to type sections, with the expectation that the rock record should exhibit evolutionary trends in its strata. However, such is often not the case. A significant portion of the “Tertiary” section exposed along road cuts and in open-pit mines near Americus, Georgia is barren of both body fossils and trace fossils. Hence, there is sparse evidence to support the assertion that the strata reflect millions of years of evolution. Instead, these sediments exhibit features suggesting high-energy deposition. The field data are more amenable to an interpretation within the young-Earth Flood framework. Read more…

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Is Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics an Appropriate Example of Evolutionary Change?

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Kevin L. Anderson

Evolutionists frequently point to the development of antibiotic resistance by bacteria as a demonstration of evolutionary change. However, molecular analysis of the genetic events that lead to antibiotic resistance do not support this common assumption. Many bacteria become resistant by acquiring genes from plasmids or transposons via horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal transfer, though, does not account for the origin of resistance genes, only their spread among bacteria. Mutations, on the other hand, can potentially account for the origin of antibiotic resistance within the bacterial world, but involve mutational processes that are contrary to the predictions of evolution. Instead, such mutations consistently reduce or eliminate the function of transport proteins or porins, protein binding affinities, enzyme activities, the proton motive force, or regulatory control systems. While such mutations can be regarded as “beneficial,” in that they increase the survival rate of bacteria in the presence of the antibiotic, they involve mutational processes that do not provide a genetic mechanism for common “descent with modification.” Also, some “relative fitness” cost is often associated with such mutations, although reversion mutations may eventually recover most, if not all, of this cost for some bacteria. A true biological cost does occur, however, in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems or functions. Such loss of cellular activity cannot legitimately be offered as a genetic means of demonstrating evolution. Read more…

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Dinosaur Nests Reinterpreted

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Walter R. Barnhart

Supposed nests of dinosaur eggs are examined for indications that they were laid under normal subaerial conditions. It is shown that when representative clutches of eggs are examined from numerous sites worldwide, they were all laid into a watery environment in which sedimentation was often actively taking place. This leads to the conclusion that dinosaur nests, as they are presently found, cannot represent normal living environments for the dinosaurs and instead show life existed at the survival level under highly stressed conditions. These conditions are consistent with egg laying taking place during a worldwide flood. Read more…

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Deposits Remaining from the Genesis Flood: Rim Gravels in Arizona

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Michael J. Oard and Peter Klevberg

Well-rounded coarse gravel provides clues to the depositional process. The coarse gravel of the Mogollon Rim in central and northern Arizona, called Rim Gravel, was examined at two widely separated and representative locations. Further characteristics of the coarse gravel was obtained from the literature. The coarse gravel occupies the highest terrain in the region and is very coarse in east-central Arizona. It is deduced that this coarse gravel was deposited as a sheet and eroded into remnants during the Recessional Stage of the Genesis Flood. We conclude that the Rim Gravel provides evidence that the Flood/post-Flood (D/P) boundary corresponds to the stratigraphic location of rocks termed “late Cenozoic” in the uniformitarian geological column in this part of the western United States. This interpretation is relevant to theories for the formation of many notable geomorphic features, including the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Read more…

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