CRSQ Abstracts, 2015, Volume 52, Number 2 (Fall)
Random Retinal Imagery
David E. Stoltzmann
In an earlier paper, the statistical case was made for the impossibility of the human visual system (eye and brain) to have organized itself by random-chance evolutionary processes. The “data connections” between the eye’s retina and the brain that must be correctly correlated in order to produce an excellent image of a scene require a Designer to implement a system that obeys the laws of optics for correct object-image mapping. This paper builds on that earlier paper to illustrate randomly generated imagery for a number of object scenes, including randomness levels from 0% to 100%, and draws some conclusions about what we should be seeing with our visual system if evolutionary processes were the creative agent. God has provided the human stereo visual system, along with millions of other created visual systems in nature, to offer His testimony of miraculous Creation.
Cyclostratigraphy
Part I: What Is Cyclostratigraphy?
John K. Reed and Michael J. Oard
Stratigraphy has undergone dramatic changes. From a simple timescale resting on paleontology and relatively few and less precise radiometric dates, it has become an integrated, sophisticated discipline built around a timescale that is increasingly complex and supported by new and equally complex methods. Creationists must understand and address these changes, especially those changes in the methods. This series will focus on one of the newer methods: cyclostratigraphy and its associated astrochronology. Cyclostratigraphy links various properties of sedimentary rocks to an astronomical “clock” based on the extrapolation of orbital mechanics into the past. This clock sends a signal of varying sunlight to Earth, manifested as “Milankovitch cycles,” that are thought to force climate change sufficient to be recorded in sedimentary rocks.
The Little Ice Age in the North Atlantic Region
Part VIII: Geologic Observations
Peter Klevberg, Michael J. Oard
Earlier papers in this series addressed the climatology and historic observations of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age and how the data obtained from the Little Ice Age should constrain our study of climate change and our speculations regarding previous glaciations. In this final paper of the series, geologic observations resulting from the Little Ice Age are presented. As climatologic observations from recent centuries should constrain paleoclimatology, so also should geologic observations from Little Ice Age deposits constrain our interpretation of apparently glacial deposits elsewhere.
Understanding Open Questions
on the Origin of Life
Peter M. Murphy
Open, unanswered questions in the field of origin of life (OoL) describe the vast gaps in explaining the supposed historical, continuous, and naturalistic path from lifeless chemicals to cellular life that utilizes genetics and metabolism. At three recent international conferences, participants clarified dozens of open questions on the origin of life (OQ/OoL) and discussed possible scientific and philosophical resolutions. This paper examines a few important OQ/OoL from the perspective that a naturalistic OoL scenario contradicts the revelation of creation in Scripture and that scientific research is bringing into focus how difficult it will be to resolve these OQ/OoL, rather than converging toward explanations for a naturalistic, historical explanation of the OoL.
