ABSTRACTS
Henry M. Morris, now in his eighties, is still active in defending the Christian faith. This invited article is a synopsis of a chapter, "The Wild Blue Yonder", in his new book, Defending the Faith. The author discusses in his usual crystal clear manner, the abject foolishness of atheistic scientists trying to account for the physical universe without the benefit of a creator. He touches on the so-called Big Bang theory, hydrogen as the father and mother of all things physical and the even more esoteric concepts of the universe generating itself. A sense of realism prevails as one reads the author's arguments contrasted against the mathematical "fog-bound" mazes that brilliant scientists construct to free themselves from God.
We believe that the thirty-eight years of creationist stratigraphy that have followed the publication of The Genesis Flood have demonstrated a fundamental incompatibility between the global uniformitarian stratigraphic column and biblical history (i.e., Flood-based stratigraphy). Whitcomb and Morris advocated a refashioning of stratigraphy starting with actual data. Unfortunately, their advice was not heeded and instead creationists have attempted to leverage limited resources and accommodate the global uniformitarian column in a biblical framework. None of these efforts have succeeded in unifying creationists. We evaluate several of these strategies by comparison to the Northern Gulf of Mexico Basin in an effort to consider an alternate conclusion: The absence of profit in continuing to follow the route of uniformitarian-based stratigraphy. We believe that future profitable efforts in creationist stratigraphy will require a different conceptual framework. Unfortunately, this conclusion forces creationists to pursue stratigraphy at a fundamental level; the reintegration of field data absent the "plug-and play" uniformitarian column. There is no denying that this redirection will require significant effort, and will not generate a global synthesis in a short time. But it is just as obvious to us that additional time and resources spent on any attempted synthesis with the uniformitarian column will be wasted.
Some teachers and textbooks still are presenting a simplistic nineteenth century Darwinian hypothesis that a developing embryo summarizes the evolutionary history of that organism. Mainstream embryologists have rejected this view, called recapitulation, for more than one-half century. The main promoter of recapitulation was anti-theistic Ernst Haeckel who was guilty of falsifying illustrations in order to support his views. Even today some authors unwisely continue to use some of these misrepresentations in evolution sections of textbooks. Because of studies on developmental processes including homeotic genes, our understanding of the origin of life forms is changing rapidly. Design with Divine creation of unrelated types is becoming an increasingly more viable option.
Sequence stratigraphy has, to a notable extent, supplanted traditional uniformitarian stratigraphy. Some creationist geologists have embraced sequence stratigraphy as a singular opportunity for the redemption of the science of geology, while others have rejected it as the latest mutation in uniformitarian thinking. Still others remain unaware of the principles of this approach or undecided as to its merits. To properly evaluate the scientific validity of sequence stratigraphy and its applicability to geologic research within the context of a Biblical worldview one must have a basic understanding of the philosophy of science.
The geology of Verde Valley in central Arizona near the Van Andel Creation Research Center is introduced. Characteristics of the Verde Formation are discussed along with the possibilities that it may have been deposited either from water being ponded by a lava dam blocking water flow out of the valley or from water being ponded in a closed graben. The development of the Mogollon Rim and the various gravel beds near or on the Rim are presented from the aspect of Flood geology. A monoclinal fold feature within the valley is examined. The many volcanic formations within the valley need to be studied to determine if they were deposited either subaqueously or subaerially. Suggestions are offered for possible creationist field work in Verde Valley.