An article by Ken Ham:

I’ve often heard the claim from atheists that creationists can’t be real scientists! What they really mean is if you are a scientist and a creationist, we (the atheists) will do all we can to discriminate against you and not allow you to be published because we are totally intolerant of Christianity.

Answers in Genesis has a number of PhD scientists. One of them obtained his PhD from Harvard university. All of our PhD scientists actually obtained their qualifications from well respected secular universities.

Yes, they are real scientists and ardent (literal Genesis) creationists. I wanted to feature some of them for you and give you a summary of some of the research they are doing to show that observational science confirms the bible’s account of history.

To me, research can be both boring and exciting at the same time! Boring—because sometimes it seems to take millions of years for our researchers to meticulously carry out their investigations! Exciting—because after years of research, our speakers and writers (and others) can use the results to show people how observational science confirms the Bible’s account in Genesis and devastates evolutionary ideas.

Take the research of Dr. Gabriela Haynes. She’s a PhD paleontologist who came to work in AiG’s research department from Brazil. Here her explain some of her research:

“Soft tissue in fossils was always something interesting for me as a paleontologist. Then, during my PhD research on Hymenoptera (wasps, ants, and bees) while I was looking for pollens, I found something that looked like blood cells in an insect fossil. As a creationist, that brought me a lot of excitement!

“At first my secular colleagues were excited to do some research, but then they concluded that those blood cells could not belong to the wasp since it is dated to supposedly 120 million years. They told me, “It is contamination. Don’t bother.” I just thought that their answer was not very scientific, and, as a creationist, I believed that there was a chance those blood cells were not the result of contamination. I tried to make them study the material, but it was in vain. They had already settled the case in their minds.

“I did some research by myself, and all the results I had were pointing to soft tissue material and blood cells. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the support from my secular colleagues to use the laboratory and run more tests.”

She is now continuing her research at Answers in Genesis, and publishing papers in our technical publication, Answers Research Journal.

In fact, there are now many examples of soft tissue found in fossils supposed to be millions of years old. Much more research needs to be done in this vital area and our scientists will certainly be doing this.

Then there’s our Harvard-trained PhD scientist, Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson. He published his monumental book, Replacing Darwin. This ground-breaking book details his genetics research to clearly show that speciation, adaptation, and natural selection, when properly understood, devastate Darwinian evolution.

Dr. Jeanson has also been conducting research into human genetics. He’s looking into whether there’s evidence from human populations to confirm the biblical account of history beginning about 6,000 years ago. Dr. Jeanson’s research also has important things to say about the event of the Flood (i.e., all humans today are descendants of Noah’s sons) and the account of the Tower of Babel.

His research to date is blowing the evolutionary time scale out the window. Dr. Jeanson states:

“In our culture, few things provoke more ridicule than the idea that the earth is just 6,000 years old. As a biologist, I’ve witnessed my anti-evolutionary colleagues critique evolution—and deftly avoid the contentious and embarrassing age question—for decades. With the advent of modern genetics, this avoidance is no longer possible.

“For example, within each of our bodies, we have genetic “clocks” that have marked the passage of time since the dawn of humanity. If anyone wants to explain the origin of mankind, they must deal with these genetic clocks. My published research has found evidence that these clocks have ticked for only 6,000 years.

“I’m now exploring an even more powerful implication of this finding: if the global genetic differences among humans reflect 6,000 years, then they should also bear the stamp of the known history of civilization. If evolution were true, this stamp would be very difficult to detect. Instead, my initial results are showing that 6,000 years are indeed the hero of the plot. New funds would allow me to pursue this research further by obtaining new DNA sequences from other ethnic groups, further confirming this stamp of civilization—and underscoring the Bible’s accuracy on the age of the earth.”

Dr. Jeanson’s research also has some other interesting aspects. Known major events in human history actually show up in his genetics research! Incredible stuff!

He has now published a major book called, “Traced,” based on this research he is doing. He is also continuing to publish his results in Answers Research Journal.

Now evolutionists often use astronomy in an attempt to prove their billions of years/evolutionary history of the universe. There is so much more research needed in astronomy, and we praise the Lord that our PhD astronomer, Dr. Danny Faulkner, is involved in all sorts of such fascinating research. Dr. Faulkner states:

“I have been working and publishing in the field of eclipsing binary stars for four decades. Two other creation astronomers who are close associates of mine also have studied eclipsing binary stars for years. We often have wondered why all three of us ended up in this field, and we may now know the answer to that question. Due to magnetic interactions of close binary stars, their orbital periods change. We are seeing evidence that these systems are changing far faster than previously thought.

These orbital changes place constraints upon the maximum possible ages of such systems, and it appears that their maximum ages must be far younger than the billions of years typically thought. This is very difficult to resolve with the evolutionary paradigm, but it is quite consistent with recent creation. Therefore, it is important that we continue to study this very interesting possibility.”

And then there’s the ongoing research conducted by Dr. Andrew Snelling, who has been leading research on the massive folding of sedimentary strata in the Grand Canyon. This is the project that the Grand Canyon National Park and secular scientists tried to stop. It’s that intolerance of anything Christian they have. But a legal challenge was lodged on our behalf by the religious freedom group, Alliance Defending Freedom. Because of clear and obvious violations of our First Amendment rights (discrimination, because we were Christians) by the federal government, Grand Canyon officials were forced to settle, and all the necessary specimens were collected.

Dr. Snelling’s ongoing research at the Canyon is being published in a series of papers in our free Answers Research Journal. Dr. Snelling explains more about this research:

“Evolutionary geologists claim the flat-lying sedimentary layers exposed like a stack of pancakes in the walls of the Grand Canyon were deposited grain by grain over 300 million years. Then some 150 million years later those layers were bent as the area was pushed up by earth movements to form a plateau. By that time, those layers were hard and brittle, so when they were bent, the rocks should have cracked and shattered. Or, because of the burial of these layers under a two-mile thickness of other layers above them, the pressure and heat may have made the rocks plastic enough to bend them smoothly as well.

“What we find is the layers are bent smoothly without any major cracking or shattering. So the layers had to have been bent while still soft. Thus, I have collected samples from these layers where they are bent and from well away from the bent layers for comparison. The laboratory and microscope examination results so far show no differences in either the minerals or the textures present in these sedimentary layers.”

What this research shows is that those layers could not be millions of years old—they couldn’t have been bent millions of years after they were laid down. The evolutionary story doesn’t fit at all. Dr. Snelling has found a lot of intriguing evidence he is now publishing.

Now, it only took you a few minutes to read this article. But the research I’ve outlined for you can take many months—or even a few years—to complete. And yet, such research is vital for the Answers in Genesis apologetics ministry.

I sometimes smile in my public talks as I share a particular piece of powerful evidence, but I take just a minute to do it! I know it may have taken two years of painfully meticulous work for a researcher to complete the work.

Yes, I am passionate about our research team and their work

The ongoing research by our PhD scientists is so important in today’s anti-Christian culture. It’s crucial that Christians have the tools and the information they need to help refute the many attacks on the Bible.

“O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” 1 Timothy 6:20.

Article: “3 False Assumptions About Science” by Leah Baugh, staff writer at Core Christianity and Associate Editor of Bible Studies at White Horse Inn. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry before turning to theology and receiving a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies. (original source here)

Our modern society celebrates reason and rationality as the pinnacle of man’s virtue and ability. Particularly the field of science has been influenced greatly by the idolization of reason and logic as the source of all meaningful and true knowledge. The scientific method in particular has claimed rational superiority to any other method of determining reality. It is this superiority that has been used to exclude religion or faith as a viable mode of knowledge. Science has often been used to push God out of the picture.

Part of the reason science and God seem incompatible is a misunderstanding of what exactly “science” means. Unless you’ve worked in a scientific field of study, it can be easy to simply trust the experts without knowing how to check their conclusions yourself. There are several things to note when evaluating science and what it claims to say about faith, God, and this world. Briefly, here are three false assumptions about science.

1. Scientific conclusions are made up completely of empirical facts.
The results of hypothesizing and experimenting do not just produce objective facts. The information gained through the scientific method must be interpreted and can be interpreted falsely. Physicist John Polkinghorne writes,

In the first case, the facts that concern scientists are already interpreted facts. Most of the time you can’t see directly what’s happening. You have to infer it from the things you can see, and that inference requires the use of theoretical interpretation. (Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity, 2-3)

He goes on to say that scientific conclusions are usually a mix of fact and opinion. Because of the interpretive element of the scientist, most scientific conclusions have a measure of uncertainty inherent in them.

2. The scientific method is the best method for gaining knowledge about everything.
Traditionally, science has made four claims about itself: rationality, truth, objectivity, and realism. However, these claims have been under attack, and the consensus about the ability of science to fulfill all four of these claims varies widely among scientists. The rationality of a scientific conclusion can be examined by looking at the presuppositions, evidence, and logic that went into reaching that conclusion. However, the bigger question to ask is what is the scientific method used for?

While this assumption is necessary for science to work, this presupposition itself both supports and limits science. Author Marilyn Robinson states the problem:

While the assumption of the intelligibility of the universe is still useful, it is not appropriately regarded as a statement of doctrine, and should never have been. Science of the kind I criticize tends to assert that everything is explicable, that whatever has not been explained will be explained—and, furthermore, by their methods” (The Givenness of Things, 14).

The mysteries of the human mind, the human self, history, and religion all operate outside of the basic assumption science makes in order to operate. The principle that everything is knowable only by this specific methodology is like assuming that everything can be measured by tablespoons. John Polkinghorne writes, “Science makes maps of the physical world that are reliable for some, but not every, purpose” (Quarks, Chaos, and Christianity, 7).

Limitations of science actually come from within science itself. The best example of this is Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Basically, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that you cannot simultaneously know where a particle is and what it is doing. This is just one example of the strange world we find ourselves in that sometimes is rational and predictable and other times completely bucks our theories.

3. Science determines what is possible and not possible in our world.
The other fundamental problem is that science of the kind I have been talking about captures the realm of possibility and severely restricts it. Marilyn Robinson writes, “Possibility has been captive to a narrow definition for a very long time, ourselves with it” (The Givenness of Things, 14). If we assume science is the only way to determine not only what does happen but what can happen, then our view of the world is extremely narrow. A purely naturalistic explanation of the world cannot satisfy every aspect of human life. The mind, consciousness, self-awareness, and human history refuse to be captured by a purely materialistic definition.

In many ways, the great success of science has expanded our models of reality to include multiple worlds, realms, and dimensions. This expansion only cements further the realization that our planet is radically exceptional and that “our capacity for awareness is therefore parochial in ways and degrees we cannot begin to estimate.” (The Givenness of Things, 14).

With these considerations in mind, science can be used and supported for what it is and for the good it can achieve in helping us understand our world. Trouble arises, however, when scientism exceeds the limits of its reference and purpose. We must be willing to lift our eyes above the horizon of purely naturalistic explanations as we seek to understand the complex and multidimensional world we find ourselves in.

Keith Matthison

“How old is the universe?”

During the second Question and Answers period at the Ligonier Ministries 2012 National Conference, the speakers were asked this question in connection with the ongoing debate between Christians who think the universe is less than 10, 000 years old and those who think it is much older. Dr. R.C. Sproul took about five minutes to answer the question, and what he said in that brief period of time should be heard by every Reformed Christian who is interested in this subject and by every Reformed Christian who is discussing and debating it.

Please take a few minutes to watch Dr. Sproul’s entire response.

Science, Scripture, and the Age of the Universe from Ligonier Ministries on Vimeo.

The importance of what Dr. Sproul says in this response lies in the fact that he reminds us of certain issues that are necessary to a proper approach to this question, issues that are routinely mishandled, neglected, or simply ignored. Dr. Sproul, for example, reminds us of the source of both general and special revelation, the difference between God’s revelation (general or special) and our interpretation of that revelation, and the fallibility of our interpretations of both kinds of revelation. In doing so, he reminds us of several aspects of a distinctively Reformed approach to questions of science and Scripture that have been largely forgotten in the debates of the last several decades. Continue reading →

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together

Just how small are atoms? And what’s inside them? The answers turn out to be astounding, even for those who think they know. This fast-paced animation uses spectacular metaphors (imagine a blueberry the size of a football stadium!) to give a visceral sense of the building blocks that make our world.

From the” announced Rolf Heuer, director of the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) on July 4. “We have a discovery. We have observed a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson.” Thundering applause resounded from the packed auditorium in Geneva and at the 36th International Conference on High Energy Physics in Melbourne, Australia, which was linked by a live feed.4 Joe Incandela and Fabiola Gianotti, the heads of the two large teams of scientists at CERN, announced they have detected a new subatomic particle consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, commonly called the “god particle.”

The Standard Model of physics is the currently most-accepted model to explain how the physical universe works. Within the Standard Model, which involves quantum physics, some high-energy particles—like electrons and quarks, the tiny particles comprising protons and neutrons—have rest-mass, and other particles—photons, essentially particles of light energy—have no rest-mass. But the Standard Model has not found the reason some particles have rest-mass and others do not. Theoretically, the universe is filled with a Higgs field mediated by Higgs bosons that impart rest-mass to particles of matter as they interact with it.5 The Higgs boson thus is the theoretical—and now likely observed—subatomic particle that imparts rest-mass to matter.

Mass is a measure of how much matter something contains. Gravity acts on mass to give things weight and ultimately to hold the physical universe together.

Such a subatomic particle is extremely unstable. Therefore, in an effort to find proof of the existence of the elusive particle and then to study its characteristics, physicists have for several years been colliding beams of high-energy protons in the 17-mile long Large Hadron Collider under the Alps. They study the debris resulting from the collisions in search of subatomic particles. Now that a subatomic particle closely fitting the expected characteristics of the predicted Higgs boson has been repeatedly found by the two teams, they believe they’ve found it. Read more about the physics involved and the significance of the findings atBeams Collide Today in Expensive Hadron Collider.

Over the past months there have been rumors and hints that this discovery was imminent. In particle physics, for a discovery to be deemed truly “discovered,” it must be detected repeatedly such that there is only the remotest possibility that the signals detected could have resulted from random chance. This is called a “five –sigma” level of certainty, and that is the benchmark that has finally been reached. 6

Notably, as further testing examines the nature of this subatomic particle, physicists hope to learn more about the way the universe works. As with the results thus far, repeatable observations are made and the data interpreted and compared with hypotheses and predictions. This is an excellent example of how experimental science works and how science can help us understand the way God upholds His creation.

What these results do not (and will not) reveal, as many media pundits suggest, is how the universe originated. British scientist Peter Higgs—who was on hand in Geneva for the announcement6—postulated the existence of the Higgs field that produces the Higgs boson “as the way that matter obtained mass after the universe was created in the Big Bang.7 As one of the CERN researchers added, “Without it, or something like it, particles would just have remained whizzing around the universe at the speed of light.”7

Although many believe the collision of the proton beams in the LHC re-creates the conditions of the big bang and therefore claim the Higgs discovery will unlock the secret of how the universe blew into existence without God, it does no such thing. The ability to create a situation in a present-day well-designed and enormously expensive laboratory does not prove the situation ever came about naturally in the past or that such an event produced the universe in which we live. A discovery that deepens our understanding of the nature of matter and energy does not rule out a supernaturally created origin for that matter and energy.

“Thanks, nature!” Gianotti said to laughter, alluding to the unpopular layman’s term for the Higgs boson, the “god particle.” The term was coined by physicist Leon Lederman, much to the consternation of Higgs and many in the Higgs-hunting business,8 due to his book title, The God Particle: If the Universe is the Answer, What is the Question? But though the Higgs boson can help us better understand the way the physical universe works and fill in the gaps in the Standard Model of physics, it does not explain how the universe could come into existence without allowing “a divine foot in the door.”9