Blog

by Charlie Wolcott

The International Conference on Creationism did something that usually is not done in many conferences. Instead of just one keynote speaker for each evening speaking for 1-2 hours, they decided to give multiple speakers the opportunity to speak on different subjects about where the science based on Creation is standing. There were eleven keynotes over three evenings. I will not be able to cover everything in this blog post, of course, but here are some of the highlights.

Bill Barrick from The Master's Academy International opened up discussing theology. He called out a few of the old earth teachers by name for poor theology but also called out some of the errors that young earthers have made too by using certain Scriptures out of context. He called for bringing back theology as the queen of the sciences and that every scientific study group or team should have a good, qualified (or proven) theologian on the team to show that the models are in line with what Scripture teaches.

Andrew Snelling from Answers in Genesis spoke about geology and listed 12 different fields of geology to be addressed. These included comparing the real geologic column in the physical earth to the textbooks’ models, to further studying where the Flood started and stopped, to dealing with radiometric dating and calling for a more complete model of radioactive decay that is in agreement with Scripture and the Flood.

Russel Humphreys spoke about physics and presented four different projects for future physicists to address. While I have greatly respected Humphreys and his work, I was rather disappointed in this one as one project called for a naturalistic explanation for supernatural events (the forming of galaxies) and another greatly misused a verse from Ecclesiastes where there is nothing new under the sun to suggest that time is “circular.”

Joe Francis from The Master's University spoke about biology with a strong focus on immunity and microbiology. He spent most of his talk explaining the immune system and how much it truly requires an intelligent designer, including how it can tell the difference between real and fake substances.

Douglas Petrovitch from Brookes Bible College spoke about archeology, focusing on the finds from the 2nd century BC. He was featured in the Patterns of Evidence series, namely on “The Moses Controversy” part. He pointed out that all the evidence points to Pharaoh Amenhotep II being the Pharoah of the Exodus, as he is the only king that meets all the criteria. He showcases several stone slabs where Israel is mentioned as a nation but some that actually date all the way back to Joseph with the early Hebrew alphabet, written by Joseph’s first son, Manasseh. He listed several other finds that showcase the Bible’s history and the evidence that Hebrew was indeed the first alphabetic written language in history.

Danny Faulkner from Answers in Genesis spoke about astronomy. He addressed how early on, creation research was more about Big Bang bashing than creating our own models, and he bemoaned that we lack in this area due to lack of qualified experts to study it, a lack of Biblical specifics, and the dangers of having that kind of great freedom to explore many other options. But he also pointed out some of our gains in examining cratering, aspects of Venus and Mars, and how the exoplanets (5700 of them) continue to showcase the uniqueness of Earth.

Then John Baumgardner from Liberty University spoke about Numeric Modeling. Most of his talk was how he used numeric modeling to create the TERRA program in Los Alamos Labs that the government uses today. It was numeric modeling that helped him create Catastrophic Plate Tectonics and various other things.

John Sanford from Logos Research Associates spoke about genetics, possibly for the last time as a focus of study, because another topic related to the sexual identity crisis has his attention. He pointed out five different geneticists who have made a tremendous impact, including himself with “Genetic Entropy” and Rob Carter on Mitochondrial diversity who was the first to discover that humans to trace back to a single woman. Then he addressed Liu-Y.G. (I did not get this full name) for showing how many viruses got their immunity, mentioned Jeff Thomkins (ICR) for his chimp vs human DNA comparison (showing only 84% similarity instead of the claimed 99% similarity), and concluded with Nathaniel Jeanson and his books Replacing Darwin and Traced.

Kurt Wise from Truett McConnell University spoke on paleontology and with much gusto and energy. He spoke about many fossils and said that studying fossils like studying living creatures. While I got where he was coming from, I could not really agree with him on that. He also made a point about horse evolution, just on a YEC time scale, and he is not in a lot of agreement with the rest of the YEC community on that one.

Matt McLain from The Master's University spoke about education. He tried to give it as much of a positive spin as he could, but only 14 colleges still teach YEC and only two of them have YEC-friendly grad school programs. It is critical for teachers to pour into the next generation, and he called for more YEC schools, more YEC programs, more students doing YEC research, more careers available to them, and a need to rethink what it means to prepare a student for success.

Then, finally, Aaron Hutchinson from Cedarville University spoke about chemistry, an often-neglected field in Creation with very few chemists. He suggested that solubility rates and studies would be a valuable field to examine. He pointed out that with many reactions being reversible, we should be looking at solution equilibrium and rock formation, how they form quickly. He specified dealing with carbonates coming from biology and from materials similar to salts. We should look at hot hydrothermal fluids as sources for metals, carbon, and sulfur, along with sorting by solubility going on. Of course, such experiments are quite dangerous as they can explode. As Dr Hutchinson said, as a chemist, he’s not exactly opposed to such notions. He concluded by pointing out that the conditions in which a rock formed could affect the ratio of stable and unstable isotopes regarding the dating methods.

So that is a quick summary of the content of the keynote speakers from the International Conference on Creationism. I’ll touch on the papers and abstracts and posters next week. My point in sharing this is that there is a lot of research being done to validate and verify the Bible’s account regarding origins, and there is still a lot more research to do. We are just starting to catch up to the Bible. We have a long way to go, and that is one of the fun parts of being a scientist who believes the Bible as written. We are finding so much that it is a shame we aren’t being recognized for it. Many of our finds are truly Nobel Prize worthy and beyond. More on this next week.

This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration.  All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved.  Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.