By Dr Sylvia Baker
April 2013
Scientific (including creation)
Darwinism detrimental
New discoveries are emerging thick and fast in the wake of the recent debunking of the 'junk DNA' myth.
Read moreAll articles in category Scientific (including creation)
February 2013
Scientific (including creation)
Evaluating Christian views on origins (2)
Evaluating Christian views on origins (2) There are four views on origins popular among evangelical Christians — theistic evolution, old earth creationism, the gap (or ruin-restoration) theory and young earth creationism (see January 2013 ET). We should examine how compatible each of these views is with the Bible’s storyline. Theistic evolution is increasingly popular today. Many evangelicals have adopted it as an elegant way to minimise the potential conflict between science and the Bible. It allows the conventional evolutionary view of origins to be accepted in its entirety. However, major aspects of the biblical storyline must be rewritten to accommodate it. For example, the standard...
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By Paul Garner
January 2013
Scientific (including creation)
Evaluating Christian views of origins (1)
Evaluating Christian views of origins (1) Ever since the time of Darwin, there have been debates among Christians about how Genesis (and in particular chapters 1-11) should be interpreted. Should we search for harmony between Genesis and modern scientific accounts of origins? And, if so, what are the options available to us? In fact, these debates had been raging for over 100 years before Darwin came along, because of the demands being made by geologists for increasingly long periods of pre-human history in their understanding of geological phenomena. While theological liberals have been content to relegate Genesis to the status of pre-scientific myth, those...
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By Edgar Andrews
December 2012
Scientific (including creation)
Meet the multiverse
Meet the multiverse According to Goldilocks, Little Bear’s porridge was ‘just right’, but only in the last 60 years or so have scientists been forced to agree. Not just about porridge, of course, but about planet Earth’s apparently unique capacity to sustain life. The realisation that Earth is perfectly suited (‘just right’) for the task of playing host to intelligent life has led scientists to call it ‘the Goldilocks planet’. Logically, of course, it should be called the porridge planet, since it was the porridge rather than Goldilocks that was just right, but that’s a detail. Exploration of the solar system has demonstrated...
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By Dr Sylvia Baker
November 2012
Scientific (including creation)
Could this be the death of Darwinism?
Could this be the death of Darwinism? On Thursday 6 September 2012, the Guardian newspaper carried a dramatic headline on its front page, announcing that ‘Breakthrough study overturns theory of “junk” DNA’. http://genome.ucsc.edu/ENCODE/aboutScaleup.html The story was carried by many newspapers and news bulletins and soon the blogosphere was buzzing with a mixture of excitement and consternation. Many people, understandably, could not see what all the fuss was about, but for those who had been following the ‘junk DNA’ story this was a ‘make or break’ moment. The cause of all the hoo-ha was an announcement made jointly by more than 400 scientists working in...
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By Paul Garner
March 2012
Scientific (including creation)
Fossils and the Flood
Fossils and the Flood Ever since I was a boy I have loved fossils — collecting them, handling them, studying them. There is something magical about splitting open a rock on the beach to find a beautifully preserved ammonite inside. Fossils are the remains or traces of animals and plants that lived in the past. They are preserved in rock layers that accumulated as sediments like sand or mud. Fossils have a story to tell — but what story? Most scientists think that the fossil-bearing rock layers were deposited over a time span measuring hundreds of millions of years. But creationists think the fossil-bearing rock...
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By Derek Thomas
December 2011
Scientific (including creation)
Komodo Dragons and the virgin Mary
A few days before Christmas 2006, the London Times ran with the headline, 'Wise Men seek a virgin mother'. Another newspaper ran the headline, 'Lizard's immaculate conception'.
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By Edgar Andrews
December 2011
Scientific (including creation)
Brainwaves and pickpockets
The Royal Institution's Christmas Lectures this December will be given by psychologist Professor Bruce Hood, Director of the Bristol Cognitive Development Centre. The advance announcement says he 'will induce false memories in members of the audience and use pickpockets to demonstrate how easily we are distracted'.
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