The October 2009 edition of Science and Education has a paper by Timothy Heaton entitled ‘Recent developments in young-earth creationist geology’. Actually the paper has been available online for some time now and I’ve been intending to blog about it for a while. The author is a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of South Dakota, and a long-time observer of creationism. Having read Heaton’s critique of the latest model-building efforts of creationists, I have to say that he’s also one of our most fair minded and insightful critics — perhaps not so surprising when you realize that he’s been friends with Kurt Wise since their days together at Harvard.

Heaton’s paper begins by pointing out that there has been a shift of emphasis associated with the rise of a new generation of creationists with advanced degrees in relevant scientific fields. The move has been away from “evolution bashing” and towards the construction of positive creationist models incorporating data from both science and the Scriptures. Since the early 2000s, especially, we have witnessed the emergence of “collaborative research efforts of considerable sophistication”. Heaton makes these the focus of his paper, covering the RATE project on radioisotope dating, catastrophic plate tectonics (CPT) as a model of the global Flood, attempts to explain the stratigraphic distribution of fossils and, finally, creationist models for the development of the Pleistocene ‘ice age’.

In describing these modelling efforts, Heaton allows creationists to speak for themselves by drawing on extensive quotations from the literature. He then offers his own critical commentary on each model, sometimes highlighting differences of opinion within creationism itself. This is especially the case with catastrophic plate tectonics which is rejected by a vocal and prominent group of creationists, including John Reed, Carl Froede and Michael Oard. Heaton points out unresolved problems with each of these models: the mechanism of acceleration and the excessive heat and radiation produced by accelerated nuclear decay; the lack of an explanation for pre-Mesozoic plate motions and the heat produced by the rapid replacement of the ocean floor in CPT; the strict zonation of the fossil record and the absence of agreed mechanisms for rapid post-Flood diversification; and the lack of references to glaciation in the Bible and other historical sources.

One particularly perceptive comment is as follows:

A troublesome issue in these models is that multiple causes are invoked to explain the same phenomena. The fossil record, which has similar patterns throughout, is partly attributed to sequential catastrophic destruction of biogeographic zones (Paleozoic/Mesozoic) and partly to rapid evolution (Cenozoic). The nested hierarchy of taxonomic groups is partly attributed to God’s creative acts (Kingdom to Family level) and partly to adaptive evolution (Genus and Species level), even though no demarcation is evident. Therefore these models lack the unity of cause that is a hallmark of good scientific theories.

Heaton also says that since these models were introduced, little progress has been made towards resolving the problems that they face, and in many cases that’s true. Too often, good foundations have been laid but then things have been left there. We need a new generation of scholars who can take up the challenge of building on these foundations, testing and refining our models, perhaps even rejecting some of them and proposing new ones in their place. To be fair, Heaton does wonder what a major research effort like RATE might be able to achieve if applied to catastrophic plate tectonics.

The ad hoc nature of some creationist ideas comes in for criticism too, for example recent creationist speculations as to why modern mammals, birds and humans appear to be unrepresented in Flood-deposited sediments. Wood and Murray (2003 p.190) suggested that this pre-Flood biome was annihilated in a subduction zone during the Flood. According to Heaton it is virtually impossible to test such ideas, especially as they’re trying to explain an absence of data, although I like to think that testable hypotheses might be formulated in the future.

Heaton favourably contrasts the efforts of young-age creationists with those of intelligent design advocates “who propose no historical models at all”. He even likens the activities of the ID movement to the bad old days of “evolution bashing” by an earlier generation of creationists. He says that the young-age creationists he has talked to “love science and want it to be a functional enterprise within the context of their Christian belief system.” He commends them for “their honesty and constructive efforts”. Nevertheless, he rejects their assumption that the Bible must be regarded as authoritative from the outset and that models must then be sought which conform to both biblical revelation and the scientific data. To Heaton’s mind, this imposes an unnecessary constraint on scientific theorizing. He acknowledges that creationists try to minimize the need for extrabiblical miracles in their model-building efforts, but posits that the logical extension is to give up miracles altogether. He concludes that the faith commitment of creationists to biblical concepts like a young world leads to “cumbersome and untestable” explanations, which soon degenerate into “mere story telling”.

I think creationists need to read Heaton’s paper, and some will perhaps want to interact with it. It represents the genuine efforts of an outsider to understand the most scholarly thinking in contemporary creationism and then critique it from an informed perspective. That surely is an approach to be encouraged. 

References

Heaton T. H. 2009. Recent developments in young-earth creationist geology. Science and Education 18(10):1341-1358.

Wood T. C. and Murray M. J. 2003. Understanding the Pattern of Life: Origins and Organization of the Species, Broadman and Holman, Nashville, Tennessee.

Last night I attended a meeting at St Mary’s Church in Ely addressed by Dr Denis Alexander of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Readers of this blog may know Denis as the author of Creation or Evolution: Do we Have to Choose? published by Monarch in 2008.

Denis’ lecture basically summarised the thesis of his book, namely that the biblical account of creation and the evolutionary explanation of origins are complementary, rather than competing, narratives. He appealed to his audience to accept both the evolutionary and theological narratives and seek models for understanding how they relate to one another.

Of course, I disagree with Denis about the compatibility of evolution (in the sense of universal common ancestry) with the biblical record of creation. If you want to explore the reasons why, the theological arguments outlined by my BCM colleague, Steve Lloyd, in the recently published book Debating Darwin: Is Darwinism True & Does it Matter? (Paternoster, 2009) are a good place to begin. Steve shows that the debate is not merely over the interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis but the coherence of the historic Christian understanding of core doctrines such as the cross and resurrection. The arguments in Steve’s carefully reasoned chapter are very pertinent as we try to evaluate the theistic evolutionary thesis presented by Denis.

However, what stood out for me last night was the description Denis gave of young earth creationism. According to Denis, young earth creationists believe that the creation occurred less than 10,000 years ago (so far, so good), that every species was separately and independently created by God (no!), and that Genesis should be read as a scientific text (again, no!). It needs stating very clearly that young earth creationism is not, and never has been, synonymous with belief in species fixity. Earlier this year, at the Genesis Kinds Conference, I presented an historical survey of scholarly Christian views on the origin of species from the seventeenth century to the present day. Far from unanimously asserting that species are fixed and immutable, many creationists, both before and after Darwin, rejected fixity and embraced the idea of biological change within broad limits. Today, acceptance of species change within broad limits is integral to creationist thinking in the biological sciences. And as for young earth creationists reading Genesis as a scientific text, that isn’t how we see it all. We read it as an historical text with implications for how we reconstruct earth history, perhaps, but not as a scientific text. That would be anachronistic and very silly.

I did have the opportunity to point these things out during the question time, and Denis was very gracious in acknowledging that what he had said was mistaken and that he’d seek to be more careful in future. Afterwards I wondered how Denis could have got it so wrong in the first place. Perhaps as young earth creationists we haven’t been as careful as we ought to have been in setting out our own position. Perhaps naïve claims made by the less well informed have been taken as representative of young earth creationism as a whole? But the main lesson I think we should draw from this is that all of us bear some responsibility for making sure that we represent the views of others fairly and accurately – and let me be clear that that applies as much to creationists making claims about evolutionists as it does to evolutionists making claims about creationists. Perhaps some of the ’sting’ might even be taken out of our discussions if we all sought to raise our game in this respect.

Entering the exhibition

In February, when we held the Genesis Kinds Conference, we organized a day trip to Cambridge to see some of the historical sites associated with Charles Darwin as well as taking in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences and the University Museum of Zoology. Unfortunately, the Sedgwick’s exhibition on Darwin the geologist wasn’t scheduled to open until July. Today, I finally managed to get along to see it and thought I’d post a few photographs here.

Few people are aware that Darwin originally regarded himself as a geologist before embarking on the Beagle voyage and making his name as a biologist with the theory of evolution by natural selection. His geological career didn’t get off to a promising start. In his Autobiography (p.52) Darwin recalls attending Robert Jameson’s geological lectures at the University of Edinburgh and finding them unutterably dull. He wrote, “The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology or in any way to study the science.”

Sedgwick's map and field notebook from North Wales

Nevertheless, later on at the University of Cambridge Darwin came under the influence of men like John Stevens Henslow, a mineralogist who had turned to botany, and Adam Sedgwick, the distinguished geologist. In fact it was Sedgwick who tutored Darwin in the practical skills he required to become a field geologist. During August 1831, Darwin spent several weeks with Sedgwick studying the geology of North Wales. He learned many field techniques from his mentor, including how to identify different rocks and minerals and how to accurately record his observations.

Rocks collected by Darwin in South America

However, if Darwin’s observational skills and knowledge of field techniques were honed by his interactions with Sedgwick, it was from Charles Lyell that Darwin gained the conceptual framework that was to prove so influential in his geological thinking and future work. Between 1830 and 1833, Lyell had published a three volume book in which he proposed that only those forces that could be seen to be currently acting should be invoked to explain the record of the Earth’s past. This was a repudiation of the catastrophism favoured by men like Henslow and Sedgwick. Ironically it was Henslow who had recommended Lyell’s Principles of Geology to Darwin, while warning him that he was “on no account to accept the views therein advocated.” However, Darwin soon absorbed the Lyellian mode of thinking and it was to have a tremendous impact upon his intellectual development.

A reconstruction of Darwin's cabin on HMS Beagle

Darwin undoubtedly made some important geological contributions, publishing major works on the structure and distribution of coral reefs (1842), volcanic islands (1844) and the geology of South America (1846). In fact, as Greene (2009 p.666) has pointed out, almost all the books and papers published by Darwin in the late 1830s and throughout the 1840s were on geological topics.

‘Darwin the Geologist’ is well worth seeing if you’re in the vicinity of Cambridge, but if not I hope you enjoy the few photographs that I’ve been able to share here. Pedestrian access to the museum is off Downing Street and opening times are 10.00 to 13.00 and 14.00 to 17.00 (Monday to Friday) and 10.00 to 16.00 (Saturdays). Admission is free.

Reference

Greene M. T. 2009. Man, myth, geologist. Nature Geoscience 2:666-667.

Biblical Creation Ministries will be hosting a visit by Todd Wood to the UK next year. Here’s the announcement from our website.

BCM to host speaking tour by leading creation biologist

We are delighted to announce that leading creationist researcher Dr Todd Wood will be visiting the UK again next year. He will be arriving on or around 10 March and staying until 17 or 18 March. We hope that a number of our friends and supporters will be willing to set up meetings at which he can speak during his visit.

His itinerary will be coordinated on BCM’s behalf by Stephen and Joan Bazlinton. We are grateful to Stephen and Joan for their help in this regard. If you would like to invite Dr Wood to speak at your church or other meeting, please contact Stephen and Joan by telephone (01371 856495) or email (s.j.bazlinton@googlemail.com).

Dr Wood will be offering a couple of talks. One will consider the nature of science and what it means to be both a creationist and a scientist. The other will provide an informative overview of modern creationist biology.

Details of Dr Wood’s itinerary will be posted on our website as it takes shape. Further information will also be available from Stephen and Joan Bazlinton.

DR TODD CHARLES WOOD is the current director of the Center for Origins Research at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. He has a PhD from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Virginia and has published 30 peer-reviewed papers and three book chapters on the topics of systematics, genomics and evolutionary biochemistry. He is also the author of a textbook on creation biology and a monograph on the Galápagos Islands. He is a leading creationist researcher in the USA and one of the founding members of the Creation Biology Study Group.

It’s time to eat humble pie. A sharp-eyed reader of my book, The New Creationism, has contacted me to point out that the labels on the figure illustrating the earth’s magnetic field (p.190) are not really right. Here’s the offending diagram. The field lines are correct but the image of the bar magnet has the poles the wrong way round.

The reason is that the magnetic north pole in fact has the polarity of a south magnetic pole. That’s why it attracts the north-seeking pole of a compass needle. Strictly speaking, then, the bar magnet in the diagram ought to have its poles labelled the other way round.

To be fair, some other diagrams of the geomagnetic field, such as this one on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) site, use the same labels as my book. However, I accept that this isn’t really correct and if and when there’s a second edition it’s something I’ll look at again.

Now how about that for a snappy title?

Life beyond the blogosphere has been rather full of late, but I just have time today for a round up of some recent journal articles.

The discovery of pyritized fossils at six new localities in the Ordovician Lorraine Group of New York State is described in the October edition of Geology (Farrell et al 2009). The localities span 54 km of outcrop and occur within thin mudstone horizons representing single depositional events. The reported geochemical data, along with the near-absence of disarticulated and fragmented skeletal material, suggest rapid burial of these organisms with subsequent precipitation of iron sulphides on and in the decaying carcasses. Such studies have the potential to help creationists further understand the processes involved in fossil preservation throughout earth history and especially during the global flood.

Another paper in Geology reports the first measurements of the turbulent velocity field of a volcanic column based on an extensive reevaluation of video and photographs of the 18 May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State (Andrews and Gardner 2009). Over the years, creationists have shown a lot of interest in developments at Mt St Helens (e.g. Austin 1986) and this paper adds to our knowledge of how the famous eruption proceeded.

Seismic shocks felt by residents near Chaitén volcano, in northern Patagonia, just 24 hours before a devastating eruption of rhyolitic magma on 1 May 2008 suggested rapid rates of magma ascent. This has been confirmed by petrological and experimental data reported in Nature (Castro and Dingwell 2009) which indicate that the Chaitén magma ascended with velocities on the order of one metre per second. The implied transit time from storage depths greater than five kilometres to the near surface is about four hours. Rapid ascent rates have previously been documented for kimberlitic (Kelley and Wartho 2000), granitic (Brandon et al 1996) and basaltic magmas (Demouchy et al 2006) and it seems that rhyolites fit the same pattern.

Elsewhere on t’internet, Todd Wood has been busy making my frequency of posting look very inadequate. He’s been writing on anything and everything from advice to students looking for credibility as creationists, the new Creation film, homology in Notch proteins, Anchiornis and Ardipithecus. He’s also been winning friends and influencing people with his thoughts on evolution (see the follow ups here, here and here). Do drop by Todd’s blog and take a look.

Finally, thanks to the person who recently took the trouble to send the following message:

You Christians are killing the Earth with your insanity and lies. Your god is a lie, smoke and mirrors. Your God is more evil than your Satan because god  wants eternal pain for those in hell. I’m afraid the only way to save the Earth is to exterminate Christianity and all dualistic religion.

It warms my heart to know that the old fashioned virtues of tolerance and fairmindedness are still alive and well.

References

Andrews B. J. and Gardner J. E. 2009. Turbulent dynamics of the 18 May 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption column. Geology 37(10):895-898.

Austin S. A. 1986. Mt St Helens and catastrophism. Institute for Creation Research Impact Article Number 157.

Brandon A. D., Creaser R. A. and Chacko T. 1996. Constraints on rates of granitic magma transport from epidote dissolution kinetics. Science 271(5257):1845-1848.

Castro J. M. and Dingwell D. B. 2009. Rapid ascent of rhyolitic magma at Chaitén volcano, Chile. Nature 461:780-783.

Demouchy S., Jacobsen S. D., Gaillard F. and Stern C. R. 2006. Rapid magma ascent recorded by water diffusion profiles in mantle olivine. Geology 34(6):429-432.

Farrell Ú. C., Martin M. J., Hagadorn J. W., Whiteley T. and Briggs, D. E. G. 2009. Beyond Beecher’s Trilobite Bed: widespread pyritization of soft tissues in the Late Ordovician Taconic foreland basin. Geology 37(10):907-910.

Kelley S. P. and Wartho J.-A. 2000. Rapid kimberlite ascent and significance of Ar-Ar ages in xenolith phlogopites. Science 289(5479):609-611.

While I was in Arizona during the summer, I had the opportunity to visit Petrified Forest National Park, a locality known worldwide for its extraordinary concentrations of fossilized wood. Here are just a few of the many photos I took during my brief visit. The colourful badlands expose sediments of the Chinle Formation (Upper Triassic), littered with petrified logs and wood fragments, mostly of the gymnosperm species Araucarioxylon arizonicum.

My visit reminded me of a modest study of the petrified forest published some years ago by Art Chadwick and Leonard Brand in which they measured the orientations of over 700 prone logs at eight locations in Arizona and Utah, and were able to demonstrate very strong orientation of logs at most sites (Chadwick and Brand 1974). Everyone agrees that these logs must have been transported into the depositional basin by extensive flash flooding. However, Chadwick and Brand were also able to excavate the bases of two upright stumps, in an area where trees putatively in positions of growth had been previously reported. They found no evidence of palaeosols, suggesting that even these trees might be allochthonous.

In fact the evidence for the rapid transport and deposition of these trees is so ubiquitous that some think the name ‘petrified forest’ is a misnomer and that ‘Petrified Log Jam National Park’ might be more accurate!

Reference

Chadwick A. V. and Brand L. R. 1974. Fossil tree orientation in the Chinle Formation. Origins 1(1):22-28.

It’s been a busy week — not much opportunity for blogging — but I’ve just got time to mention a couple of items from the recent literature.

First, new simulations described in the August edition of Geology suggest that oceanic crust was being produced at higher rates in the middle to late Cretaceous (~70-90 mm per year) compared with the present day (Seton et al 2009). As a consequence, the average age of the Cretaceous sea floor was younger than today. The lower density of this young ocean crust led to a reduction in the relative volume of the ocean basins, thus displacing ocean water onto the continents. When the pulse of rapid sea floor spreading ended, the oceanic lithosphere cooled, subsided, and global sea level fell. Now imagine, if you will, a time when sea floor spreading rates were much, much higher than the present day, not by tens of millimetres per year, but by orders of magnitude. Catastrophic plate tectonics leading to global flooding of the continents, anyone?

Second, a paper in Nature Geoscience reports mega-scale glacial lineations from the bed of a West Antarctic ice stream that are indistinguishable from those found associated with ancient examples, such as the palaeo-bed of Dubawnt Lake ice stream in northern Canada (King et al 2009). The evidence indicates that these subglacial bedforms are associated with fast flowing ice and evolve rapidly (on decadal timescales). For creationists, this has interesting implications for the interpretation of relict landforms associated with the rapid ice advance following the global Flood.

References

King E. C., Hindmarsh R. C. A. and Stokes C. R. 2009. Formation of mega-scale glacial lineations observed beneath a West Antarctic ice stream. Nature Geoscience 2(8):585-588.

Seton M., Gaina C., Müller R. D. and Heine C. 2009. Mid-Cretaceous seafloor spreading pulse: fact or fiction? Geology 37(8):687-690.

A cardon cactus growing in the Baja California. Courtesy of Wikipedia

The giant cardon cactus (Pachycereus pringlei) of the volcanic region of the Baja California Sur mountain range often manages to grow on nothing more than bare rock. A recently published paper in Environmental and Experimental Botany reveals how it accomplishes this extraordinary feat: by allowing rock dissolving bacteria to grow on and in its roots (Puente et al 2009).

It turns out that the endophytic bacteria help the plant to grow by fixing nitrogen and dissolving minerals, thus releasing significant amounts of nutrients from the unpromising substrate.

Symbiotic relationships of this kind are not only fascinating in and of themselves, but also of great interest to creationists thinking about the role played by microorganisms in the original creation. An excellent introduction to this theme is Joe Francis’ paper, ‘The organosubstrate of life’, first published in the Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism and now helpfully available on the Answers in Genesis website (Francis 2003). 

References

Francis J. W. 2003. The organosubstrate of life: a creationist perspective of microbes and viruses. In: Ivey, R. L., Jr. (editor). Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism, Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, pp.433-444.

Puente M. E., Li C. Y. and Bashan Y. 2009. Endophytic bacteria in cacti seeds can improve the development of cactus seedlings. Environmental and Experimental Botany 66:402-408.

The September 2009 edition of the British newspaper, Evangelical Times, has published the following review of my book (p.21). The reviewer is Nathan Pomeroy of Nottingham.

This title doesn’t just expose the errors of evolutionary theory, but describes attempts to build creationist scientific theories to replace evolutionary explanations. Paul Garner writes, ‘my main aim is to summarise the work of modern-day scholars who are seeking to restore the biblical foundations of the scientific enterprise and build positive creationist theories in the field of origins.’

The author’s fundamental assumption is that ‘Genesis is a book of history — and that it provides a satisfying framework for scientific study relating to origins’.

His book is organised into four parts. The first deals mainly with astronomy. I found his summary of Humphreys new creationist cosmology stimulating, and especially its description of ‘gravitational time dilation’. ‘During the early history of the universe, “billions of years” of processes were able to take place in outer space while only a few days passed as measured by “Earth standard time”‘.

The second part examines geology, and reports the results of RATE, ‘one of the most ambitious creationist research initiatives ever undertaken’. A recent exciting discovery is that the rate of helium escape from zircon crystals points to an amazing conclusion: ‘the helium could not have been escaping from these rocks for more than 6,000 years’.

The third section looks at biology. The evolutionary tree suggests all living things have descended from one common ancestor. The creationist orchard builds on biblical teaching to show God created separate creatures, with many generic [sic — genetic] trees diversifying over time.

The final section returns to geology, with a particular concern to show how the global Flood explains contemporary discoveries relating to plate tectonics, the fossil record and the ice age.

Paul Garner’s book assumes the historical truthfulness of the Bible. He writes in a clear style, explains complex ideas briefly, humbly admits unresolved problems, and paints in the historical background helpfully.

His prayer is that this book will ‘build up your confidence in God’s Word and excite you about the scientific study of God’s world’. His prayer was answered for me; I encourage you to read The new Creationism.