ABSTRACTS
PARTICLE PHYSICS AND PALEY’S WATCH
Jerry Bergman and Don B. DeYoung
This review of particle physics illustrates the energy-matter relationship in nature and describes the building blocks of the physical world. Particle physics research reveals that matter is far more complex than scientists imagined just decades ago. This poses a major challenge to naturalistic interpretations of the origin, existence, and maintenance of the universe. Various theories have been developed to account for the living world, including natural selection and genetic drift, but these mechanisms are not applicable to the inorganic world revealed by particle physics. The failure of naturalism to explain the universe has resulted in a revival of Paley’s watch hypothesis. It has also resulted in new attempts by philosophical naturalists to deal with these discoveries. This includes the blind watchmaker hypothesis, an attempt to show how a universe that looks like it was created by intelligence actually came into being spontaneously. However, evidence shows that the universe, and especially the earth, was clearly designed to support human life.
LICHENS: A PARTNERSHIP FOR LIFE (A VAN ANDEL CREATION RESEARCH CENTER REPORT)
George F. Howe and Mark H. Armitage
This is the first in a series of papers in which we discuss lichens growing on rocks at the Van Andel Creation Research Center, (VACRC), Chino Valley, Arizona. We introduce lichens in general, dealing with their nature, size, growth rate, morphology, distribution, physiology, taxonomy, reproduction, and laboratory growth in this paper. We also analyze aspects of the origin of lichens from both the creationist and macroevolutionary perspectives.
FRANK LEWIS MARSH: HIS LIFE AND HIS LEGACY
Wayne Frair
In early decades of the twentieth century, history was awaiting a new champion in the creationist movement. The call was answered by a hard- working farm boy with a penchant toward science. He obtained a good education and assumed leadership in the creation movement, becoming a science professor, prolific writer and speaker. He recommended the term baramin for the created kind and persistently promoted the concept of discontinuity as contrasted with evolutionary continuity. His scholarship was important inside and outside scientific communities.
NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA: ORIGIN SPECULATIONS
Emmett L. Williams Ph. D.
Natural Bridge, Virginia is a striking geologic structure, and this paper presents a model for its development within a young earth framework. A brief review of uniformitarian conjectures for the origin of the bridge is given. The latter employ erosion by fluvial processes over long periods whereas the creationist model requires erosion by a large volume of water in a short time span.
THE FEASIBLE SAME-SITE REAPPEARANCE OF THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES RIVER SYSTEM AFTER THE GLOBAL FLOOD
John Woodmorappe
Those who recognize the reality of the global Flood have always appreciated its destructive and erosive power, and have accordingly concluded that the antediluvian Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were obliterated. So long as river courses had been understood as forming as the result of shallow-crustal processes, such deductions are entirely consonant with available evidence. New geologic evidence, however, indicates that the courses of major rivers are governed by deep-crustal features. This opens up the serious possibility that the postdiluvian Tigris-Euphrates River system has reappeared at or close to the location and trend of its antediluvian counterpart—all despite the deposition of thousands of meters of Flood sediment. New geologic evidence undercuts the claim of compromising evangelicals that the retention of antediluvian place-names necessarily implies a local flood instead of a global one.
AN EVALUATION OF THE HUMAN SKELETAL REMAINS AND ARTIFACTS FOUND IN THE TOMB OF THE EAGLES ON THE ORKNEY ISLANDS
Lawson L. Schroeder, J.C. Campbell, and George H. Latta
The Tomb of the Eagles is formally known as the Isbister Chambered Tomb. It is located north of Scotland on the remote southeast coast of South Ronaldsay Island, one of the Orkney Islands. The tomb was minimally excavated in 1958. When thoroughly excavated in 1975, a significant collection of human remains, artifacts and animal bones was discovered. This study of the Isbister remains summarizes the state of health enjoyed by the people who lived on this island more than 4000 years ago.