Intelligent Design Archives – Page 3 of 4

Earth’s magnetic field: Testament to more than a young earth

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

The earth is protected by a powerful but decreasing magnetic field.

Earth’s magnetic field exhibits signs of being young and part of a grand design.

Saturn has its beautiful rings. Diamonds are often photographed adorning the fingers or the necks of beautiful women. Both Saturn and diamonds are testimonies to a young earth (which I wrote about here and here). The earth’s magnetic field is also a testament to a young earth – but it’s more than that; it’s a powerful testimony that God created it. But being invisible to the naked eye, earth’s magnetic field is at a distinct disadvantage in this visual age – requiring visual aids like the depiction of the field above. But make no mistake, the magnetic field around the earth is one of the most powerful testaments to a carefully and lovingly designed young earth that you’re likely to find. And what it lacks in glamour, it makes up for in the power of its evidentiary support of Genesis 1.1: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Here’s why:

Evidences Gleaned from Earth’s Magnetic Field

1. Young earth

Old earth proponents will tell you that the earth is about 4 1/2 billion old. That means the magnetic field should also be about 4 1/2 billion years old. If that were true you would expect to have a magnetic field that’s very stable, not changing much over time – since we’re talking about a lot of time: not merely hundreds of years, or thousands or even millions of years, but billions with a “b”. The problem with that supposition is that it doesn’t match the observed measurements. It has been known for some time that the earth’s magnetic field is decaying. As geologist and creationist John D. Morris put it:

“The strength of the magnetic field has been reliably and continually measured since 1835. From these measurements, we can see that the field’s strength has declined by about seven percent since then, giving a half-life of about 1,400 years.”¹

Obviously that’s a problem. A field decaying that quickly will last only a few thousand years not a few billion. And it’s gotten worse for old age earth believers: scientists have recently discovered that the field has begun to decay even faster:

“Previously, researchers estimated the field was weakening about 5 percent per century, but the new data revealed the field is actually weakening at 5 percent per decade, or 10 times faster than thought.”²

This does not bode well for the old earth explanation of a magnetic field that is billions of years old. Their explanation up to this point has been the field is created and maintained by a “dynamo”, a natural generator. Magnetic fields are created by the movement of electrons – a current flow. Scientist posit that the rotation of the earth and convection (movement due to heat) is sufficient to produce a current from the molten iron/nickel of the earth’s outer core, which they believe would create a self-sustaining field generating dynamo. The problem with the theory is that “Scientists have not produced a workable analytic model, despite 40-50 years of research, and there are many problems.”³

Creation Theory is Better Science
Contrary to claims that Creation Science is not really science because it makes no predictions and has no objective data that can be tested, creationist scientist Continue Reading

Everyone should have one (The Watchmaker Analogy)

Posted on June 14, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

I tend to be hard on watches. The bands break, the crystals crack, they get scratched up – something usually befalls them. So I tend to ask for watches as gifts – especially around Christmas time. This past year was no different. My family gave me an extraordinary gift – two watches – one digital, one mechanical. What’s extraordinary is not that I received two watches (though that was very nice), it’s the type of watch I received.

The one watch – a mechanical one featured above – is an amazing sight to behold. It has a see through design, so you can see the inner mechanisms from both the front and the back. I’m not a watch maker, so bear with me as I try to describe just a few of the marvelous mechanisms in this mechanical wonder with terms borrowed from Wikipedia. Continue Reading

Evolution falsified – Again

Posted on February 14, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

The irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum

Darwinian evolution has been falsified many times. With the recent bacterial find, it’s been falsified again.

A recent bacterial discovery once again demonstrates that evolution is false, and that adherents believe it on a faith basis, not an evidentiary, scientific basis. To fully appreciate that point one must understand how faith is expressed. As a Christian, there are certain things that I believe that you will not change my mind on. For instance, I hold the following as true:

God exists
God is good
God is love
Jesus is the image of the invisible God

I have good reasons to believe all these things¹, which makes my belief a rational one. (More on that here.) But the fact that regardless of what you show me, I will still believe them indicates that they are un-falsifiable statements, which make them statements of faith, not of science.

That is precisely how faith is supposed to work. Care must be taken that you place your faith in an object worthy of faith. Such as Jesus and the Bible. Once that requirement is met, you continue to have faith in revealed truth because your object of faith (God) has presented evidence of the truthfulness of what you believe. More importantly he knows more than you do about things you now question, like why or how did __x___ (fill in the blank) happen. God will at some future date resolve your questions and make sense of apparent contradictions, but that which he has made clear – like the fact of his existence²
– he expects us to continue to believe regardless of the nonsense and lies unbelievers present.

On the other hand, science is not supposed to work that way. Continue Reading

Scientific creeds reveal hidden scientific faith

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

Artist’s depiction of the invisible Higgs field which fills the entire universe according to the standard model of particle physics

Scientists claim to base theories only on science but the fact is they are as faith driven as any fundamental Christian

There have been many famous creeds offered about science by scientists. And I use creed in the normal sense, which as Google defines it is:

“a system of Christian or other religious belief; a faith.”

So to be precise I’m using it in the sense of the faith of scientists. While they don’t like to admit it, materialists scientists do indeed have faith in a belief that underlies all their theories – the physical world is all there is. This faith is typically encapsulated and expressed in what often becomes a well-known adage. Here’s a couple:

“The COSMOS is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”¹

Carl Sagan starts “Cosmos” – both his book and TV Series – with this statement of faith. Here’s another from evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky:

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”²

In case you didn’t notice, both of these are statements of faith. How can we tell? Easy. These are not testable hypotheses based on specific evidence(s). They are general statements which support a specific worldview (a materialist one) clearly intended to discredit other approaches to science. Another dead give away – when other scientists point out serious problems with the associated theory, instead of re-examining the theory, they get angry with the questioner for daring to question them.

Consider the Cosmos statement. Most materialist scientists are firmly in the big bang camp. Yet such scientists can not say the cosmos always was because according to the big bang, there was a time when the cosmos wasn’t. (For Christian apologists, this leads naturally to the Kalam cosmological argument which I discuss in Enraging the Dragon.) Thus for Sagan, since neither he nor anyone else has any evidence the Cosmos always “was”, (in fact the evidence is to the contrary) that is a statement of faith. As for Dobzhansky, who tries to at once both affirm evolution and discredit creationism, the faith based nature of his statement has become apparent as many biologists, and other scientists have reached the conclusion that evolutionary theory is quite unnecessary for true science to progress.³

Man, being a creature of faith, can’t help but espouse some type of faith, so I don’t begrudge scientists their faith. No, the issue I have is with the various pretenses they don as a masquerade, in efforts to mislead the public. In disguising their faith they also disguise the motivations of the resulting behaviors – such as what to research. What pretenses are donned, you ask? Glad you asked: Continue Reading

The Waning, Great Scientific Hope

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Duane Caldwell

	New data from remote telescope Kepler and a yet to be deployed star shade has put blinders on scientists so they can’t see that the great scientific hope – the discovery of life on other planets – is quickly fading.
Depicted: a star shade deployed in front of a remote robotic telescope to provide a man made eclipse to make viewing exoplanets possible.

With a new year comes renewed hope in many endeavors. 2015 is no different. Among materialist scientists (those adhering to philosophical materialism – thus rejecting anything exists beyond the material world), hopes are high that researchers will find an earth like “exoplanet” – a planet that orbits a sun other than our own. As space.com’s Mike Wall¹ reports:

This week, astronomers announced that NASA’s Kepler space telescope had discovered eight more relatively small planets that may be capable of hosting life as we know it, describing two of the new finds as the most Earth-like alien worlds known.

Mission scientists also announced 554 new unconfirmed Kepler “planet candidates” on Tuesday (Jan. 6); six of these potential worlds orbit sunlike stars, are close to Earth-size and are possibly habitable. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]

The excitement is heightened as researchers prepare to launch a sun shade – a man made device to eclipse a star in front of a remote telescope like Kepler in the next decade – allowing it, and them, to see faint planets that would otherwise be invisible due to the glare coming from the star. But why the excitement? And why the insatiable desire to find earth like planets? Simply put, scientists are rushing head long to find the Great Scientific Hope.

The Great Scientific Hope

For materialist scientists, there is no greater hope than Continue Reading

Bat Flight – Evidence of Design Surprises Researchers

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

A bat performing a complex flip to land maneuver navigates with a system based on a sophisticated geometric shape. –Evidence of a sophisticated navigation system in bats is also evidence of Intelligent Design

The website of the prestigious science magazine Nature recently published an article titled:

‘Bat-nav’ system enables three-dimensional manoeuvres ¹ Study reveals surprising neural code based on bagel-shaped coordinate system.

The article states that bats are able to navigate because their brains function as a sophisticated compass, programmed with a complex geometrical shape (a torus – a figure similar in shape to a bagel). In their words:

“The brains of bats have a neuronal ‘compass’ that enables them to navigate in three dimensions.

The discovery, published in Nature² on 3 December, explains the long-standing mystery of how bats — and perhaps other mammals such as monkeys, which do not fly but swing between branches — manage to orient themselves in the air as well as on the ground.

The ‘bat-nav’ system is “surprising — but also surprising in its beauty”, says May-Britt Moser, a neuroscientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim…

Computational neuroscientist Andreas Herz, from the University of Munich in Germany adds that the simple elegance of the neural coding that makes up the compass has wider implications for how the brain computers.

This article was based on a paper which talks about the requirements for such a sophisticated system:

Navigation requires the knowledge of one’s location (‘map’) and direction in space (‘compass’). The neural representation of spatial location in mammals includes place-cells which compute position, together with grid cells that encode distance.³

GULO and other Irrational Atheist Arguments – Part 2

Posted on September 28, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

7 Popular, but Fallacious Arguments by Atheists

Evolution uses circular arguments to support the supposition that dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.

More arguments used by atheists that upon inspection are clearly wrong and fail to support atheistic or
evolutionary doctrine.

In Part 1 of this article I discussed problems 1 and 2: GULO and LUCA respectively and why they are irrational arguments. In closing the discussion on LUCA I noted that evolutionists and atheists are blind to evidence of intelligent design. This leads into our next irrational
argument:
3. “There’s no evidence”Atheists and Evolutionists alike tend to use this argument for anything they don’t believe. They don’t believe in God, so they say there’s no evidence of God. They don’t believe in intelligent design, so they say there’s no evidence for it. They don’t believe in miracles, so they say there’s no evidence of them. This argument is particularly common in the twitter world:

Notice the above person states no “verifiable” evidence. This means there is no evidence you can present that will meet his standard for “verifiable.” (An illicit shifting of the burden of proof.) The problem with saying “there’s no evidence” is you must then explain away all the sites with evidence – like this one, or creation.com or answersingenesis.org or a host of other sites and books (including the Bible) which provide the evidence against evolution and for God and intelligent design which they claim doesn’t exist. Brian Auten provides a list of such sites on his Apologetics315 here. In light of the overwhelming evidence, one is tempted to say they’re simply lying. After all, it’s one thing to say the evidence is misunderstood; quite another to say that none exists. But there are at least two other dynamics likely at play here.
First, in an attempt to strengthen the case for evolution and atheism they could simply be attempting to suppress the evidence, but really – that is just using the language of logic as another way of saying they’re being deceptive (read – lying) . A second real and likely option is that they are so brainwashed by evolutionary propaganda that they have become blinded to the truth and actually can’t see the evidence – even when looking right at it. As scripture says:

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of
Christ, who is the image of God.

2 Cor 2.4

Part of the light of the gospel is the fact that God exists and God created. The god of this age – Satan – doesn’t want you to believe that; so those following atheistic or evolutionary beliefs have unwittingly fallen for yet another lie of the father of the lies, which keeps them captive to false philosophies. We must pray for such people in hopes that “they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” (2 Tim 2.26)

4. “Dinosaur fossils are millions of years old

“Everyone knows what wiped out the dinosaurs. Sixty five million years ago it came from outer space.”¹ So begins a documentary entitled “What really killed the dinosaurs?” It perpetuates the supposed date which scientists have settled on as the date for when the dinosaurs became extinct: 65 million years ago. Scientists also use fossils to verify that date – a date which supports an old earth theory of earth history instead of a young one. But as Kent Hovind is fond of pointing out the fossil evidence argument is a circular one. He relates the story of a visit he took with his daughter to the School of Mines & Technology Museum of Geology, Rapid City S.D. His daughter asks the tour guide” Continue Reading

GULO and other Irrational Atheist Arguments – Part 1

Posted on September 15, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

7 Popular, but Fallacious Arguments used by Atheists

Evolutionists believe glowing eyes evolved multiple times independently.

Arguments that are demonstrably wrong yet still believed demonstrate the irrational nature of atheist and evolutionist belief.

The Biblical book of Acts recounts an event where a demon possessed girl who made a business for her masters from telling fortunes took to following around the Apostle Paul, shouting:

“…These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.¹

For those wondering why the apostle cast out a demon providing free advertisement for him, the answer is simple: God’s people are forbidden from having anything to do with demons² – even if what they do is initially helpful. The amazing thing to Christians is that Paul put up so long with it. I mention it because I likewise feel troubled by the recurring contention of Atheists that the pseudo-gene known as GULO or GLO proves common descent. So let me
cast out this demon and be done with this irrational contention once and for all. And while I’m at at it I’ll address 6 other irrational atheist arguments as well. (I use irrational in the sense that these arguments are easily demonstrated to be fallacious.) So following are 7 arguments used by evolutionists and atheists alike which are logically fallacious – and thus those who continue to use them – having read this – are showing themselves to be irrational in their anti-Christian beliefs.

To understand the atheists’ and evolutionists’ contention for these first two items that they present as evidence – GULO and LUCA – one must first understand one of the core theories of evolution – common descent. I say one component because according to the well respected late evolutionist Ernst Mayr, there are 5 basic components that make up the theory of evolution.³ The theory of Common Descent states that all creatures – from the worm in the ground to your cat and dog to you and your family are all descendant from a single common ancestor. That’s why they talk of the evolutionary “tree of life.” The common ancestor is at the trunk of the tree, and all other species make up the limbs and leaves. This concept is key to the next two items.

1. “GULO proves Evolution”

What is GULO and how does it supposedly prove evolution?

GULO and the implications for evolution

L-gulonolactone oxidase – commonly known as GULO – is a gene designed to synthesize vitamin C from glucose or galactose, but in some groups of animals, the GULO gene does function in that manner, and so it is given the label of “pseudogene.”⁴

Additionally, the gene is “broken” reportedly in the same place in multiple species resulting in a loss of the ability to synthesize vitamin C. Humans are not able to synthesize vitamin C. Neither are guinea pigs, chimpanzees and several species of monkeys along with some species of birds, bats and fish. Evolutionists look at these facts and conclude that the only way the gene could have broken in the sample place is if the gene of a common ancestor became broken, and that same broken gene was then inherited by subsequent descendants. Thus to their way of thinking the only way this broken gene would show up in multiple species is if it started in a common ancestor.

Recent evidence refutes this conclusion, and the attempts by evolutionists to salvage their conclusion makes matters worse – Continue Reading

Detecting the Doctrines of Demons

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

A member of an alien species transfigured on Star Trek: The Next Generation

An impossible lie disguised as entertainment is still an impossible lie. This one is from the father of lies.

Honest atheists will tell you there is no purpose or meaning to life, no hope of an after life and all your thoughts, feelings and desires are merely the result of the electro-chemical reactions in your brain and thus are ultimately meaningless. As one such honest atheist put it:

But make no mistake: all our dreams, loves, opinions, and desires are figments of our primordial imagination¹

Or as Cornell University atheist William Provine famously stated:

Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear — and these are basically Darwin’s views. There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely
certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end of me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either.²

Yet in spite of their profession that everything is meaningless (including they themselves), and that there is no hope of an afterlife; yet still you see their glimmers of hope poking out from behind their denials like Kilroy’s head poking over the fence.

Knowing that the atheistic worldview can not support any sort of future meaning, hope or purpose does not stop some of them from trying to inject these into atheistic life and thought through any number of means. One such means is entertainment. Case in point – an episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation, titled “Transfigurations” which posits that man may be able to evolve into a higher spiritual state. Here’s how the guest character explains it:

“Captain, my species is on the verge of a wonderful evolutionary change. A transmutation beyond our physical being. I am the first of my kind to approach this metamorphosis. They tried to convince us that it was a sickness we’d never survive. They destroyed anyone who exhibited the signs of the transfiguration.”³

Thus the decidedly atheistic Star Trek series displays a curiously messianic figure who has been exhibiting messianic attributes (like healing) just before he is seen completing another messianic miracle: the transfiguration.

For those not familiar with the biblical account from which this is clearly drawn, here is the salient portion:

17:1 After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
Matthew 17.1-3

One is left to ponder – what is an atheistic series like Star Trek: the Next Generation doing displaying an episode with Christian themes? The answer lies in the explanation given – “a wonderful evolutionary change.” There it is – the atheistic hope. So once again, it is the theory of evolution that comes to the rescue. Just as it has rescued atheists from having absolutely no explanation for the origin of life, now they are hoping it will provide them with hope for a spiritual future for mankind; a hope that professor Provine has explained and clearly stated that atheists have no business expecting or hoping for.

And while it may seem curious for an atheistic series like Star Trek to focus on such overtly Christian themes, once you hear the explanation, it’s supposed to all make sense. But there’s still a problem – a problem that becomes obvious – once you understand the recurring lie of the enemy. Before going there, a word on the historical account.
Continue Reading

Bombs, design and Spiritual Blindness

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Duane Caldwell

Where is the outrage over hundreds of bombs raining down on Israeli cities, and the oft stated intentions of Muslim radicals to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?

How long would the United States tolerate terrorists bombing its capital Washington DC, or its financial center New York City? Well we already know the answer don’t we? When terrorists attacked the US on September 11, 2001 the US response was swift. On September 20, 2001 President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” and later vowed to capture the mastermind Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.”¹ That sentiment resonated with the American voters and helped win him a second term. That was after one attack on a single day with four targets.

What would the response be if terrorists were raining down bombs by the hundreds over months and years?² What if they regularly made statements to totally eradicate every last American? I submit the answer is obvious. Americans wouldn’t tolerate it, and would demand swift, decisive military action to eliminate the threat – as President Bush initiated against the war on terror. There would be no tolerance for hiding in bomb shelters nor a felt need to moderate the force used against the terrorists.

Why then does anyone have a problem with Israel’s actions to defend itself? Why the continued calls for Israel to back down on their defensese? Why the sympathetic articles towards the terrorist group Hamas by liberal papers like the The Washington Post? Why is the world, (not to mention her ally the United States), not rallying behind Israel supporting her 150%,? The answer is easy: As one Israeli Christian put it,

“…it is the very height of hypocrisy that the West, which sheds crocodile tears over the horrors faced by Christians in Iraq and Syria, then turns around and condemns Israel for defending its people against the very same horrors.”³

But why the hypocrisy? Another easy answer: Spiritual Blindness. The type of blindness that prevented the Pharisees from acknowledging that Jesus had healed a man born blind in fulfillment of prophecy and thus both demonstrating and asserting that he is the messiah.⁴

It’s the same type of spiritual blindness that keeps evolutionists from seeing all the evidences of design in God’s creation; that keeps big bang supporters from recognizing that you can not get a universe out of nothing; and the same type of blindness that keeps atheists who are angry with God from seeing that anger or disappointment over some evil in the world does not mean that God does not exist.

Scripture records Jesus reaction on one occasion to the stubbornness and spiritual blindness of those who refuse to answer even a simple a question lest their error and hypocrisy be revealed:

He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts…
Mark 3.5

If you deny Israel’s right of self defense, or obvious things like the fact that universes don’t pop out of nothing, don’t be surprised to get this reaction from a Christian.

Let me close with a reminder to Christians:

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure.
Ps 122.6

Duane Caldwell | posted 7/31/2014 | Print format

1 Bush pledges to get bin Laden, dead or alive USAToday 12/14/2001
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/14/bush-binladen.htm

2 Hamas has showed Israel with hundreds of bombs with the intent to kill as many as possible – regarless of whether civilian, women or children and have targeted the capital Jerusalem, and the financial center Tel Aviv.

Hamas rockets reach Jerusalem and Tel Aviv Jerusalem Post 7/8/2014http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Iron-Dome-intercepts-second-rocket-over-greater-Tel-Aviv-361994

This tweet puts the number of rockets fired by Hamas at Israel at 3034 since the start of Operation Protective Edge
https://twitter.com/israelunderfire/statuses/495544304723451904

3 Israeli Christian Spokesman: Enough With Western Hypocrisy! Israel Today 7/30/2014
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/Default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=24801
4 John 9.1-41; Isaiah 42.1-7