Apple to Apples

HT: Cyberbrethren

Google homepage honors Steno — father of stratigraphy

Nicolas Steno, regarded by many as the Father of Stratigraphy, has been honored on today’s Google search page with a “Google Doodle,” showing layers of fossil-bearing strata:

Steno, who was born on January 11, 1638, wrote a paper on fossiliferous rocks in which he outlined what are now known as Steno’s principles of stratigraphy. He recognized that layering was the most conspicuous property of sedimentary rocks, and his three principles help us to decipher the history of a succession of sedimentary rocks:

1. Principle of superposition — Unless deformed by folding or faulting, a sequence of sedimentary layers will progress in age from oldest to youngest as one goes from bottom to top.
2. Principle of original horizontality — Because particles settle from fluids, such as water, most sedimentary strata are formed as horizontal layers. When one sees steeply tilted layers in mountains, for example, we can know that they were once horizontal and have been deformed through mountain-building processes, such as folding or faulting.
3. Principle of lateral continuity — Strata were originally deposited as continuous layers, though those layers may now be broken by subsequent erosion. A good place to observe this is the Grand Canyon, where the layers in the North Rim correlate to the same layers in the South Rim.

Steno also made a significant contribution to the development of the science of mineralogy by observing that for a given mineral, such as quartz, the angles between different crystal faces are constant from one specimen to another. This is known as Steno’s law of constant angles.

The Guardian: Nicolas Steno Google doodle marks his 374th birth anniversary

Grace and Peace

 

Reading the Bible in 2012

“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  Matthew 4:4 ESV

I read the Bible every day. It is through the Scriptures that I know God, Christ, myself, and how to live in regards to God and my neighbor. I cannot think of any greater thing, except that in eternity I will know all of these much better than I do in this life.

Many make a New Year’s resolution to read the Bible more consistently than they have in the past, and many don’t stick to that resolution. Here is what works for me. Rather than using a reading schedule, with a listing of what chapters to read each day, I use a Bible reading checklist:

The GeoChristian Bible Reading Checklist – PDF file

It has all sixty-six books of the Bible with their chapters. I mark off each chapter as I read.

This system gives me greater flexibility than a schedule does, yet still helps me to reach my reading goals. This year I plan on reading the New Testament (probably twice), the wisdom and poetical books (Job through Song of Solomon) and the prophets (Isaiah through Malachi). Two advantages of this system over using a schedule is that I can vary my pace, and don’t get frustrated if I get behind in a reading schedule.

I also intend to do some more intensive study and meditation in a few New Testament books.

The checklist has two pages; I like to print it on two sides on heavy paper, fold it, and stick it in my Bible. The document is in “Landscape” orientation, but may print in “Portrait” orientation for you. You can change that in the “print setup.” Sorry, I’m not sure how to fix it on my end using Excel 2007.

Feel free to download and print this for yourself and pass it on to others:

The GeoChristian Bible Reading Checklist – PDF file

As important as Bible reading is to me, I realize that it is much more important that the Word be in me than that I be in the Word. One can read the Bible every day and learn lots of facts and end up being a self-righteous hypocrite. So my prayer is that I, and you, would be transformed by prayerful, humble, meditative reading of the Scriptures. May you know Christ and his salvation better through the intake of his Word.

Grace and Peace

——————————————————

P.S. Here are some good Bible reading schedules if you prefer that over using a checklist:

• The Discipleship Journal Bible reading plan
• Ten reading plans from esv.org
• The Gospel Coalition Two Year Bible Reading Plan
• If you are really hungry for the Word, you can try Glenn Brooke’s Read the Bible in 30 Days.

Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

Christianity Today has a brief interview with philosopher Alvin Plantinga regarding his recent book entitled Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism. The main points of the interview are:

• The alleged conflict between theistic religion and science is superficial.
• There is a deep harmony between theistic religion and science.
• Part of the reason there appears to be serious antagonism between theistic religion and science is because there are vocal advocates of warfare between the two. These people are wrong.
• Those who add naturalism to scientific theories such as evolution are doing so for non-scientific reasons.
• If we got here by unguided (i.e. no divine involvement) evolution, then there is no reason to trust that our minds can guide us to truth about evolution.

Regarding evolution, Plantinga states

In certain areas, the right word would be alleged conflict. For example, I argue that there’s no real conflict between evolutionary theory—that is, the scientific theory of evolution apart from any naturalistic spin—and what C. S. Lewis called “mere Christianity.” There’s no real conflict, even though conflict has been alleged by people on the Right as well as on the Left. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and a host of others claim that there is outright conflict between evolutionary theory and belief in such a person as God, who has created and designed the living world. At the other end, there are Christian thinkers, too—like Phillip Johnson—who think there is irreconcilable conflict between the scientific theory of evolution and Christian belief.

But I don’t think there is. What current scientific evolutionary theory says is that the living world has come to be via a certain process of natural selection operating on some form of genetic variation. And it’s clear that God could have made the living world that way if he wanted to. What Christianity tells us, what theistic religion generally tells us, is that God has created the world and created human beings in his image. He could have done that through a variety of means. And that point goes all the way back to the 19th century. Some of the Princeton theologians—Charles Hodge, for example—said exactly that shortly after Darwin’s theory of evolution appeared. It’s not a new thought at all.

Despite what you hear from the loud voices on both sides—whether Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett for the atheists or Ken Ham, Hugh Ross, or Phillip Johnson for the Christian anti-evolutionists—the Bible does not say much, if anything, about biological evolution. The two main arguments—at least from the young-Earth side of Christianity—against evolution are that there could not have been any death before Adam’s fall into sin, and that animals were created to reproduce after their kinds. The Bible however does not teach that there was no animal death before the fall, and to take the statements about organisms reproducing after their kinds in Genesis 1 to mean that populations cannot vary over time is quite a hermeneutic stretch. On the other side, atheist extrapolations from “organisms have changed over time” to “there is no God” are downright silly.

The conclusion a clear thinking person ought to make—and most scientists like to think of themselves as clear thinkers—is that one cannot rule out Christianity because of biological evolution or because of any other scientific theory. Those who have rejected Christianity because of evolution—or some other branch of science—have done so because of non-scientific additions to science, and are not being as rational as they have been led to believe.

Grace and Peace

Stratolaunch

From Paul Allen and Burt Rutan: The Stratolaunch.

From Yahoo News: New Stratolaunch plane will take people into Earth’s orbit

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is teaming up with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan to build a giant machine that is part airplane and part spaceship. The new vehicle will be able to transport people and cargo into Earth’s orbit and is scheduled to be commercially available by 2016.

Grace and Peace

Creationists drive young people out of the church — Karl Giberson

Karl Giberson: Creationists Drive Young People Out of the Church

Here is a quote:

In a recent piece titled “Nine Year Old Challenges Nasa,” [Answers in Genesis president Ken] Ham blogged proudly about “Emma B” who, when told that a NASA moon rock was 3.75 billion years old, asked “Were you there?”

The suggestion that scientists cannot speak about the past unless “they were there” is a strange claim. The implication is that we cannot do something as simple as count tree rings and confidently declare “This great pine was standing here 2,000 years ago.” As a philosophy of science, such a restriction would completely rule out the scientific study of the past. This, of course, is precisely what the creationists want.

Many bright evangelical young people are, fortunately, not impressed with the suggestion that only “eyewitnesses” can speak about the past. Just this past spring I taught an honors seminar on science and religion at an evangelical college. The class included a couple of bright students who had grown up in fundamentalist churches that showed Ken Ham videos in their Sunday School class. Both of them recalled the encouragement to ask their teachers “Were you there?” And both of them, a few years older and wiser than “Emma B,” thought this suggestion was ridiculous and wondered what kind of ideas required the embrace of such nonsense on their behalf. These students — in fact, most of the students I have had over the years — will graduate from college accepting contemporary science and its various explanations for what has happened in the past. But unless the leadership in their churches does a better job with its teaching ministry, such students will have a hard time returning to their home churches.

The dismissive and even hostile approach to science taken by evangelical leaders like Ken Ham accounts for the Barna finding above. In the name of protecting Christianity from a secularism perceived as corrosive to the faith, the creationists are unwittingly driving the best and brightest evangelicals out of the church — or at least into the arms of the compromising Episcopalians, whom they despise. What remains after their exodus is an even more intellectually impoverished parallel culture, with even fewer resources to think about complex issues.

Giberson refers to a Barna survey: Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church. I’ve been wanting to blog about this, but just haven’t had the time. Reason #3 is “Churches come across as antagonistic to science.”

With love for the Church

 

The stratigraphic column — not a figment of geologists’ imaginations

I have been involved in an online discussion regarding whether or not the geologic column (Cambrian-Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian…) is real, or  some sort of figment of geologists’ imaginations. Dr. Jay Wile, on his Proslogion blog, has written a post entitled Yet Another Failure of “Geological Column” Reasoning. Please note that I consider Dr. Wile (author of the Apologia series of home school science textbooks) to be one of the better young-Earth creationists; one who is willing to point out the scientific and theological shortfalls of the overall YEC movement when he sees them.

Dr. Wile argues that the discovery of fragments of grass phytolyths (tiny glass particles in grass leaves) in Cretaceous dinosaur dung (coprolites) is evidence that the whole concept of the geologic time scale is in trouble. After all, we had been told rather authoritatively that there were no grasses in the Cretaceous; that grasses did not appear until a few million years after the demise of the dinosaurs. He draws a parallel between this and another “failure” of the the geologic column: living fossils such as Coelacanths. If the geologic column is built on fossils, and if we discover that some fossils occur later or earlier than we realized, then perhaps the geologic column itself is suspect.

In the comments on Dr. Wile’s blog post, I have argued that the geologic column is more of an observation than an inference. I realize from philosophy of science that observations can be highly biased; that we often find just exactly what we are looking for. The young-Earth creationists claim that this is exactly what has happened; that geologists, imbibed with evolution, were expecting to find some sort of evolutionary order in the fossil record, and therefore they went out and found it. When one points out that the geologic column was largely deciphered before Darwin, they respond by saying that there was plenty of evolutionary thinking before Darwin (e.g. Lamarck), and that this is what influenced the early stratigraphers.

One of William Smith's geological maps. From Wikipedia: William Smith (geologist)

But is this what happened? Were the early 19th century geologists more influenced by evolutionary thinking, or by what they observed in sedimentary rocks?

In the early 1800s, William Smith compiled the first geologic maps of Great Britain. At first he focused on types of rocks, but he soon recognized that there were distinct fossil assemblages in the layers as well, and that these too could be traced across Britain .

Within the upcoming decades, scientists across Europe, and then in North America and elsewhere, began to make similar geological surveys. They discovered that not only were many fossils restricted to narrow bands of rock, but that there were many types that no longer could be found on Earth, and that there were consistent patterns in the order in which these fossils appeared in the geological record. This led to the construction (or discovery) of the geologic column. They eventually put labels on parts of the geologic column, such as Ordovician and Triassic.

Some of these early geologists were Christians, some were deists. Many were catastrophists, believing that the sedimentary rocks were the product of worldwide deluges, and many believed in the fixity of species. Few had the molecules-to-man picture that emerged after 1859.

That is a very brief summary of the development of the idea of the geologic (or stratigraphic) column, which is closely tied to the concept of geologic time. I want to make the case that the geologic column exists, that it is in need of an explanation, and that the standard geological explanation of deposition over millions of years works well, while the YEC Flood geologist falls far short.

The basic concept of the geologic column is that sedimentary rocks occur in the crust of the Earth is a specific sequence, and that this sequence has a global, rather than regional, basis.

Let’s start with the stratigraphic section that might be found at one location. This section would be a slice through the Earth. It might be exposed in a canyon or on a mountain side, or detailed by examining cores and cuttings as a well is extended deeper into the crust. My initial column (A) has five layers, which I will label 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

I am not all that concerned at this point whether those layers are sandstone, shale, or limestone. Instead, I wish to focus on the fossils. Layer 1 might contain marine fossils, such as trilobites and brachiopods. Layer 2 might also contain bryozoans and brachiopods, but of different genera than those found in layer 1. Layer 3 might contain corals. And so on for layers 4 and 5.

Now lets move down the road fifty miles and examine another section (B) of the sedimentary record.

Some of the layers clearly connect from A to B. This could be in terms of the rock types, the fossils, or both. But B has six layers, with B4 appearing between what was A3 and A4. Note that the correlation lines do not cross. This is not because of some evolutionary presupposition, but because the fossils in A1 match the fossils in B1, the fossils in A4 match the fossils in B5, and so forth.

Let’s move over one or two counties, and examine a third series of layers, section C.

We can see that A1 correlates with B1 and C1. B2, however has disappeared somewhere between B and C, and a new layer, C6, has appeared at the top of the section. Note again that there is no crossing of the lines.

For a final look, I’ll add two more sections, D and E.

It is apparent that some layers correlate all the way across from A to E, others pinch out, and still others appear. Once again, there is no crossing of lines.

These are all hypothetical columns of rock. In the real world, the same types of patterns occur, and geologists have given names to sets of rocks, based on the fossils that they contain. The lowermost layers contain distinct assemblages of fossils that have been given the label “Cambrian.” Higher in the column, another distinct assemblage of fossils has been named “Ordovician.” This continues upward for the entire geologic column.

Credit: NPS & USGS http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/gtime/gtime1.html

Don’t get distracted by the numbers at this point. I am not defending so much the age of the Earth right now, but the reality of the geologic column, and I have this diagram here as an illustration.

The well-read young-Earth creationist, at this point, will say that this entire column does not exist in any one place; that it is all an inference. Look at the Grand Canyon, for example. It only contains fossil-bearing rocks from the Cambrian, and Devonian through Permian (no Silurian, Ordovician, or anything younger than the Permian).

Credit: NASA http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect2/Sect2_1b.html

That objection is pretty easy to answer. First of all, if one looks at the broader context, the Cambrian through Permian rocks of the Grand Canyon can be traced laterally to where they are beneath rocks in Utah that have Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary fossils.

http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect2/Sect2_1b.html

So in a distance of roughly one hundred miles, we can trace most of the periods of the geologic column. All that is missing is the Ordovician and Silurian. There are Quaternary deposits in this area, they just are not shown on the diagram. This sort of situation—correlation of layers—is the rule rather than the exception.

Second, there are a number of persistent sedimentary basins—that is areas that for one reason or another have continued to collect sedimentary deposits through much of geologic history—that do indeed contain layers from each of the geologic periods. If one drills into the Williston Basin (North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan), they will find the layers in the proper order. Starting from the bottom, there are layers from the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary. There is nothing out of order. This can be seen on the following stratigraphic correlation chart.

Credit: Core Lab --- http://www.landman.ca/pdf/CORELAB.pdf

This really is a nice looking correlation chart; I encourage you to look at the full-scale version at the Core Lab web site. This chart (and others like it) show the same thing that I was doing with sections A-B-C-D-E earlier. Note that in the Montana and North Dakota columns at the far right of the chart, there are rocks from the Cambrian all the way up through the Quaternary. This chart only covers a corner of North America (British Columbia to Manitiba and down into parts of the United States). It could easily be extended to the whole of North America, and even to Europe and the rest of the world.

Note that the fossilized rocks express the same order no matter where you go. You simply do not find Cambrian rocks lying on top of Jurassic rocks. There is no crossing of the correlation lines. (Side note: YECs will often point to areas where older rocks are above younger rocks in areas that have been deformed by folding and faulting. If you undo the deformation, everything always slides back into place).

One can go to a number of basins throughout the world—in Libya, Bulgaria, China, Australia, Colombia, and elsewhere—and find exactly the same thing. It is not Cambrian-Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian in North America, and Permian-Cambrian-Devonian-Ordovician in Europe.

Many of the better young-Earth creationists acknowledge that there is some sort of order to the fossil record. They know that there are only invertebrates in the lower parts of the column, that land vertebrates (amphibians and then reptiles) don’t show up until the middle, and that mammals don’t show up until the top part.

At the simplest level, there was the proposal that marine organisms got buried first, and then the slow moving amphibians and reptiles, and the mammals and birds, who were quicker, were able to run faster (or fly) and so escape the earlier Flood waters. But this verges on being nonsense, as there are terrestrial sediments deposited throughout the column. And there are lake deposits, and shallow marine deposits, and deeper marine deposits also scattered throughout the column. And am I supposed to accept that all mice were able to outrun the advancing Flood, but pterodactyls couldn’t?

More sophisticated models have come along, such as various horizontal and vertical ecological zonation models. These models run into some of the same problems, as well as some additional ones. First is the problem of sorting. I would expect a worldwide Flood to at least sometimes have some turbulence, and to either mix groups of fossils together, or to put them out of order. Maybe even a little tiny bit. But it doesn’t seem to have happened. The order is Cambrian-Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian…  It isn’t Cambrian-Ordovician-Mixture-Mixture-Mixture-Silurian, and it isn’t Cretaceous-Devonian-Permian-Cambrian. Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, likes to say, “If there really was a global Flood, you would expect to find billions of dead things buried in rock layers laid down by water all over the earth … which is exactly what you do find!”  No, if the sedimentary rock record were a product of a single giant flood, I would expect to find a giant mess. I would not expect to find Cambrian-Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian…

A further problem with the ecological zonation models is that there would have had to have been plenty of critters still alive (and thriving) most of the way through the Flood. For example, think about all of the organisms of the Mesozoic Era (Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous). This includes not only the dinosaurs, but a host of mammals, birds, plants, and marine organisms, such as ammonites. Many of these organisms are unique to the Mesozoic, and even unique to subdivisions of the individual periods. Where were they all during the massive catastrophe that deposited the rocks of the Paleozoic? Vast areas of Mesozoic rocks are underlain by Paleozoic rocks. Were they huddled together on islands that had escaped earlier flooding? Were they floating around on mats of vegetation? Both of these proposals have very serious problems, but they are what the Flood geologists seem to be clinging to.

I’m barely getting started, and just scratching the surface. But I need to get back to Dr. Wile’s objection: that grass in the Cretaceous and Coelacanths in the Holocene are enough to discredit the whole thing. Do they? If anything, they discredit geologists and paleontologists who should have been a little more cautious in their statements.

The discovery of grass in dinosaur dung isn’t that big of a change. Paleobotanists had been saying that grass appeared sometime in the Paleocene or early Eocene (perhaps around 55 million years ago), and now we know that there was at least some grass around in the very late Cretaceous (a little over 65 million years ago). In any case, it appears that grasses were probably a minor constituent of the Mesozoic fauna. Perhaps I’m wrong on this. I don’t think any actual fossils of Cretaceous grass leaves have been found. In regards to the Coelacanth, which was once thought to have gone extinct in the Cretaceous but then discovered alive in the Indian Ocean, I think we should expect this sort of thing from time to time. There are fossils that, as far as we know, only lived in the Tithonian age of the Jurassic. Do we know everything? We should expect that for at least some of our index fossils (those fossils that are supposed to tell us the age of the rock in a very narrow range) that some survived somewhere and could even still be alive today.

These are little things. Grass appeared a bit earlier than we knew. Coelacanths survived throughout the Tertiary without leaving any fossils, but they are alive today. The plain and simple fact is that the geologic column exists. What the young-Earth creationists would need to find in order to overturn the well-established and well-justified concept of the geologic column is something like a mastodon in Devonian sediments, or an ostrich in the Ordovician. Until then, I’ll accept Cambrian-Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian… as an observation that is in need of an explanation.

Grace and Peace

As an old-Earth creationist I believe that the universe was created by the triune God of the Bible I believe that the Bible does not dictate when this creation took place I believe in a real Adam in a real garden in a real fall into sin in real consequences for that sin and in Jesus Christ as the only solution for sin Amen

Lunar topography

http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/news/index.php?/archives/484-Lunar-Topography-As-Never-Seen-Before!.html

From NASA: LRO Camera Team Releases High Resolution Global Topographic Map of Moon.

The science team that oversees the imaging system on board NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has released the highest resolution near-global topographic map of the moon ever created.

This new topographic map, from Arizona State University in Tempe, shows the surface shape and features over nearly the entire moon with a pixel scale close to 100 meters (328 feet). A single measure of elevation (one pixel) is about the size of two football fields placed side-by-side.

Although the moon is our closest neighbor, knowledge of its morphology is still limited. Due to instrumental limitations of previous missions, a global map of the moon’s topography at high resolution has not existed until now. With the LRO Wide Angle Camera and the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) instrument, scientists can now accurately portray the shape of the entire moon at high resolution.

“Our new topographic view of the moon provides the dataset that lunar scientists have waited for since the Apollo era,” says Mark Robinson, Principal Investigator of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) from Arizona State University in Tempe. “We can now determine slopes of all major geologic terrains on the moon at 100 meter scale. Determine how the crust has deformed, better understand impact crater mechanics, investigate the nature of volcanic features, and better plan future robotic and human missions to the moon.”

Called the Global Lunar DTM 100 m topographic model (GLD100), this map was created based on data acquired by LRO’s WAC, which is part of the LROC imaging system. The LROC imaging system consists of two Narrow Angle Cameras (NACs) to provide high-resolution images, and the WAC to provide 100-meter resolution images in seven color bands over a 57-kilometer (35-mile) swath.

The WAC is a relatively small instrument, easily fitting into the palm of one’s hand; however, despite its diminutive size it maps nearly the entire moon every month. Each month the moon’s lighting has changed so the WAC is continuously building up a record of how different rocks reflect light under different conditions, and adding to the LROC library of stereo observations.

Arizona State University has a pan- and zoomable version.

HT: Astronomy Picture of the Day 11/18/2011.

Grace and Peace

Evangelical pastors, the age of the Earth, and human evolution

From Christianity Today — Survey of Evangelical pastors convictions regarding the age of the Earth and human evolution:

Self-identified evangelical pastors on whether the earth is 6,000 years old:

No answer: 13%

Strongly agree : 29%

Somewhat agree: 19%

Somewhat disagree: 12%

Strongly disagree: 27%

 

Self-identified evangelical pastors on whether God used evolution to create people:

No answer: 3%

Strongly agree: 8%

Somewhat agree: 10%

Somewhat disagree: 9%

Strongly disagree: 70%

 

Source: LifeWay Research

Grace and Peace

Twitter Language Map

A portion of a world map of the languages of Twitter:

The colors represent languages: gray for English, purple for French, red for German…

It looks like a lot of people tweet while they drive. Or perhaps those lines are rail lines (the lines from Moscow to St. Petersburg looks like they follow both the highway and railroad).

From Eric Fischer on Flickr

HT: Strange Maps

Trap shooting, geology, and Romans 12

I went trap shooting for the first time this weekend, at a church men’s retreat near Nye, Montana:

photo by Craig Nelstead

For those who are interested, I’m standing on a terminal moraine, with the Beartooth Mountains behind me. I looked for erratics from the Stillwater Complex, and may have found a boulder of anorthosite.  The valley in front of me is carved into an anticline that parallels the mountain front, and the hills in the mid distance are Upper Cretaceous sandstones. The hills in the further background on the right are volcanic rocks (andesitic breccias/lahars) of the Upper Cretaceous Livingston Group, with the vent being a few miles to the west.

The theme of the retreat was “Renewing Our Minds,” and was based on Romans 12, which begins with

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Rom 12:1-2 NIV)

The highlights of the teaching for me weren’t necessarily the main points that our speakers were emphasizing, but here they are:

• The starting point in the Christian life is always what Paul starts with in Romans 12: the mercy of God. Everything we do flows out of God’s mercy expressed in Christ. Because of this we need to be constantly reminded of the Gospel.
• One way that we conform to the world is in the effort we put into making ourselves look good to others. I don’t mind that others know about how good our kids are doing, that I was a missionary in Romania, or about my achievements at work, but I don’t want them to see my failures and hurts.
• If we really understood God and ourselves, we would be humble. Our tendency is to think we are better than we really are.
• When we see God as he really is, ourselves as we really are, and the people around us as they really are, we will move from being centered on ourselves toward ministering in the lives of others.

Grace and Peace

Tharsis Tholus from Mars Express

Colored elevation image of Tharsis Tholus from directly overhead. Dark blue represents lower elevations, and white the higher elevations. The flanks of the volcano have collapsed in giant landslides at least twice, but interestingly there are no obvious debris piles at the foot of the volcano.

From the European Space Agency: Battered Tharsis Tholus volcano on Mars

The latest image released from Mars Express reveals a large extinct volcano that has been battered and deformed over the aeons.

By Earthly standards, Tharsis Tholus is a giant, towering 8 km above the surrounding terrain, with a base stretching over 155 x 125 km. Yet on Mars, it is just an average-sized volcano. What marks it out as unusual is its battered condition.

Shown here in images taken by the HRSC high-resolution stereo camera on ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, the volcanic edifice has been marked by dramatic events.

At least two large sections have collapsed around its eastern and western flanks during its four-billion-year history and these catastrophes are now visible as scarps up to several kilometres high.

The main feature of Tharsis Tholus is, however, the caldera in its centre.

It has an almost circular outline, about 32 x 34 km, and is ringed by faults that have allowed the caldera floor to subside by as much as 2.7 km.

It is thought that the volcano emptied its magma chamber during eruptions and, as the lava ran out onto the surface, the chamber roof was no longer able to support its own weight.

So, the volcano collapsed, forming the large caldera.

The summit of Tharsis Tholus, showing its large caldera.

HT: Yahoo News

Job 28 — Mining for gold, mining for wisdom

From the 28th chapter of Job —

1 “There is a mine for silver
and a place where gold is refined.
2 Iron is taken from the earth,
and copper is smelted from ore.
3 Man puts an end to the darkness;
he searches the farthest recesses
for ore in the blackest darkness.
4 Far from where people dwell he cuts a shaft,
in places forgotten by the foot of man;
far from men he dangles and sways.
5 The earth, from which food comes,
is transformed below as by fire;
6 sapphires^[a] come from its rocks,
and its dust contains nuggets of gold.
7 No bird of prey knows that hidden path,
no falcon’s eye has seen it.
8 Proud beasts do not set foot on it,
and no lion prowls there.
9 Man’s hand assaults the flinty rock
and lays bare the roots of the mountains.
10 He tunnels through the rock;
his eyes see all its treasures.
11 He searches^[b] the sources of the rivers
and brings hidden things to light.

12 “But where can wisdom be found?
Where does understanding dwell?
13 Man does not comprehend its worth;
it cannot be found in the land of the living.
14 The deep says, ‘It is not in me’;
the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’
15 It cannot be bought with the finest gold,
nor can its price be weighed in silver.
16 It cannot be bought with the gold of Ophir,
with precious onyx or sapphires.
17 Neither gold nor crystal can compare with it,
nor can it be had for jewels of gold.
18 Coral and jasper are not worthy of mention;
the price of wisdom is beyond rubies.
19 The topaz of Cush cannot compare with it;
it cannot be bought with pure gold.

20 “Where then does wisdom come from?
Where does understanding dwell?
21 It is hidden from the eyes of every living thing,
concealed even from the birds of the air.
22 Destruction^[c] and Death say,
‘Only a rumor of it has reached our ears.’
23 God understands the way to it
and he alone knows where it dwells,
24 for he views the ends of the earth
and sees everything under the heavens.
25 When he established the force of the wind
and measured out the waters,
26 when he made a decree for the rain
and a path for the thunderstorm,
27 then he looked at wisdom and appraised it;
he confirmed it and tested it.
28 And he said to man,
‘The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom,
and to shun evil is understanding.’”

Footnotes:
[a] Job 28:6 Or lapis lazuli; also in verse 16
[b] Job 28:11 Septuagint, Aquila and Vulgate; Hebrew He dams up
[c] Job 28:22 Hebrew Abaddon

New International Version 1984

BBC — Human Planet

C.S. Lewis, evolutionist

Dr. Jay Wile has an excellent summary of C.S. Lewis’s beliefs about evolution on his Proslogion blog: Another Point About C.S. Lewis.

To summarize the summary:

• Lewis refused to join or endorse the Evolution Protest Movement, even though it was led by a personal friend.
• His writings state acceptance of biological evolution [and, I should add, an ancient Earth (and Mars!)].
• Lewis believed that evolution posed little threat to Christianity.
• Lewis didn’t even believe in a literal Adam and Eve
• Despite these beliefs, most would consider Lewis very orthodox in his Christian beliefs.

Grace and Peace

The tragedy of “creation evangelism”

The following item was originally posted in October 2009, and I have added it to my blog recycling program. Because I have new readers of The GeoChristian, I will occasionally go back and re-use some of my favorite blog entries (sometimes with a little editing). This post quotes from Michael Spencer, the late author of the blog Internet Monk (Dispatches from the Post-Evangelical Wilderness).

Creation evangelism: using young-Earth creationism (Earth < 10,000 years old, most of geology is the product of Noah’s flood) to win people to faith in Christ.

There are many people who have come to faith in Christ through young-Earth creation ministries such as Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and a multitude of smaller organizations. I rejoice when people come to Christ or have their faith strengthened.

There is another side to this, however. These same organizations also needlessly drive perhaps millions of others away from Christ. The arguments presented by the young-Earth creationists for a young Earth or a global flood may be convincing to those who don’t know much science (and specifically, geology), but when critically examined these arguments are far from persuasive. The result is twofold. First, scientists (and other scientifically-minded people) are driven away from Christ. They are basically told that in order to become a Christian, they have to check their brains at the door. The second result is that many of our young people eventually leave the faith, not because of what the Bible actually says, but because of what the young-Earth organizations have given them as solid evidence for the truthfulness of the Bible. When they see that these arguments are not valid, they often chuck their Christianity along with their young-Earth creation dogmas.

Here’s a tragic story, illustrating the failure of “creation evangelism” from Internet Monk: Niki Made Her Choice and, Apparently, So Did We.

Her name is Niki. (Not her real name.) She’s a Japanese student who lived with an American family for a year and attended a Christian school. She took a year of Bible. She attended worship and heard lots of preaching. The Gospel was explained to her many times. She was well liked and sociable.

A very smart girl. A great student, much advanced over the average American student. She made A’s in everything, including Bible.

She left America after graduation and went back to Japan.

She came to America an atheist and she returned to Japan an atheist, and very aware that she had rejected Christianity.

Before she left, she talked with one of her teachers.

“I am an atheist because I believe in evolution. When people here explained to me what they must believe as Christians, I always ask them about evolution, and they say “You cannot be a Christian and believe in evolution.” So I cannot be a Christian, because I believe that evolution is true.”

No doubt, Niki has met many Christians who told her that she could not be a Christian and “believe” in evolution. No doubt, few, if any, of those Christians took the time to explain what they meant by evolution. Most probably meant that the Bible teaches that the earth is 10,000 years young, that no biological death of any kind happened before sin and the major Creationist ministries such as AIG have all the answers to the hard questions of physics, astronomy and science. (”Were you there?”)

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Was Niki ever told about the the thousands of Christians in the sciences who believe the “Big Bang” is evidence for creation by God? No, she wasn’t. Was she told of the many conversions to Christianity among scientists who have been moved by the evidence for God as creator now available in astrophysics? No, because that would complicate the views of Creationism she was told were non-negotiable.

Was Niki ever told that the vast majority of Christians on planet earth don’t believe now and haven’t ever believed science and Christianity answer the same questions in the same way? No, she wasn’t.

Was Niki told that millions of Christians believe in some form of evolution? (For Catholics, it’s in the Catechism!) Some form of an old earth? That millions of Christians do not accept the claims of the Creationist ministries as representing the Bible accurately or correctly? No, she wasn’t.

Was Niki told that even atheists are largely agreed that evolution does not equal atheism, and atheists like Dawkins are wrong to claim that is the case?

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Niki, who heard about Jesus for weeks and weeks in her Bible class, could not bring herself to believe in creationism, so she cannot be a Christian.

Many are zealous defenders of young-Earth creationism. They try to use it to try to win non-believers to Christ, and blame Satan when it doesn’t work. But how much of this resistance to the gospel is due to Satanic blinding, and how much is due to the errors of young-Earth creationist teachings on topics such as the age of the Earth, the geological work of the flood, or biological evolution?

With love for the body of Christ and unbelieving scientists.

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This was originally posted on October 4, 2009. Click here to read the original comments.

Peace?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. — Matthew 5:9 (NIV 1984)

‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. — Jeremiah 6:14 (NIV 1984)

Is the world getting to be a better place, or are we just in the calm between storms?

From Yahoo News/AP — Bombings, beheadings? Stats show a peaceful world (written by Seth Borenstein):

It seems as if violence is everywhere, but it’s really on the run.

Yes, thousands of people have died in bloody unrest from Africa to Pakistan, while terrorists plot bombings and kidnappings. Wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan. In peaceful Norway, a man massacred 69 youths in July. In Mexico, headless bodies turn up, victims of drug cartels. This month eight people died in a shooting in a California hair salon.

Yet, historically, we’ve never had it this peaceful.

That’s the thesis of three new books, including one by prominent Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. Statistics reveal dramatic reductions in war deaths, family violence, racism, rape, murder and all sorts of mayhem.

In his book, Pinker writes: “The decline of violence may be the most significant and least appreciated development in the history of our species.”

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The number of people killed in battle — calculated per 100,000 population — has dropped by 1,000-fold over the centuries as civilizations evolved. Before there were organized countries, battles killed on average more than 500 out of every 100,000 people. In 19th century France, it was 70. In the 20th century with two world wars and a few genocides, it was 60. Now battlefield deaths are down to three-tenths of a person per 100,000.

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Pinker says one of the main reasons for the drop in violence is that we are smarter. IQ tests show that the average teenager is smarter with each generation. The tests are constantly adjusted to keep average at 100, and a teenager who now would score a 100 would have scored a 118 in 1950 and a 130 in 1910. So this year’s average kid would have been a near-genius a century ago. And that increase in intelligence translates into a kinder, gentler world, Pinker says.

“As we get smarter, we try to think up better ways of getting everyone to turn their swords into plowshares at the same time,” Pinker said in an interview. “Human life has become more precious than it used to be.”

But the article has a cautionary note as well:

“The facts are not in dispute here; the question is what is going on,” John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and author of “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.”

“It’s been 21 years since the Cold War ended and the United States has been at war for 14 out of those 21 years,” Mearsheimer said. “If war has been burned out of the system, why do we have NATO and why has NATO been pushed eastward…? Why are we spending more money on defense than all other countries in the world put together?”

What’s happening is that the U.S. is acting as a “pacifier” keeping the peace all over the world, Mearsheimer said. He said like-minded thinkers, who call themselves “realists” believe “that power matters because the best way to survive is to be really powerful.” And he worries that a strengthening China is about to upset the world power picture and may make the planet bloodier again.

And Goldstein points out that even though a nuclear attack hasn’t occurred in 66 years — one nuclear bomb could change this trend in an instant.

I rejoice to see a reduction of violence around the world, and am very thankful for those who work hard for peace, sometimes even at the cost of their own lives.

At the same time, I see much to be concerned about: unstable economies, religious and ethnic hostilities, a volatile Middle East, unsustainable energy policies, proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, and violence in entertainment. Democracy and education may have curbed the violent side of human nature, but history demonstrates that it can quickly return on a massive scale.

Grace and Peace

All truth is God’s truth — Arthur Holmes

From Christianity Today: Arthur Holmes, Author of ‘All Truth is God’s Truth’ Has Died (emphasis added):

Arthur Holmes, author of All Truth is Gods Truth who promoted the idea of integrating faith and learning, died October 8.

The Wheaton College philosophy professor authored several books related to faith and learning, including The Idea of a Christian College and Building the Christian Academy. He was born in 1924 and taught at Wheaton for more than 40 years, according to a blog post by David Osielski.

Throughout his writings and career, Holmes emphasized that, indeed, “all truth is God’s truth.” His desire was for Christians to not shy away from the difficult questions that may arise from whatever subject of academic study they choose. With a firm belief that any truth they find can be reconciled with their faith, Holmes challenged educators and Christians in academia to grapple with what they are interested in, noting that a strong faith can handle some turbulence while coming to a better understanding of God’s creation.

In reflection on his career, it is obvious he accomplished the goals he set forth for himself as a young teacher: he encouraged faith and learning in students, he countered the anti-intellectualism he found in the American church, and he helped prepare a great many students and Christian intellectuals for the various ranks of academia.

Grace and Peace

After writing this, I realized that the first person to come to mind to many of my readers when I mentioned “Arthur Holmes” would be British geologist Arthur Holmes, not Wheaton philosophy professor Arthur Holmes. Geologist Arthur Holmes was a pioneer in geochronology, being the first to use uranium-lead dating. He was also an early supporter of the idea of continental drift, and was the first to propose mantle convection as the driving mechanism for moving continents.

Sounds from the past

This brings back memories:

Chrysostom on creation and ignorance

“There is nothing that has been created without some reason, even if human nature is incapable of knowing precisely the reason for them all.”

– John Chrysostom (c. 347-407, Archbishop of Constantinople), Homilies on Genesis 7.14

Free thinkers?

Why do “free-thinkers” all come to the same conclusions?

Is it permissible for a skeptic to be skeptical about skepticism?

Is it rational to believe that “In the beginning nothing created everything?”

Can science prove that science is the only way to know anything?

How can an atheist know that God doesn’t exist without being omniscient?

If an atheist steals from a fellow atheist, have they done something inherently evil?

The Genesis Flood — 50th anniversary

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Genesis Flood, by Henry Morris and John Whitcomb. This was, perhaps, the most influential young-Earth creationist book of the twentieth century, and was listed at #22 on Christianity Today’s Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.

Morris (a hydraulic engineering professor at the time) and Whitcomb (a theologian) made a serious, scholarly attempt to demonstrate that the Bible requires a young Earth and global flood; and that this global flood provides a better explanation for the world’s sedimentary rocks than does the standard geological explanation.

Henry Morris, who passed away at age 87 back in 2006, was committed to the truthfulness of the Scriptures and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That in itself puts me on his side rather than on that of his opponents. I may strongly differ with Morris’ Biblical interpretation on a secondary issue (he would have said it was a primary issue), and on his geological thinking (the Flood geology model presented in the book didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now after fifty years of refinement), but he was a faithful servant of Christ, and for that I am thankful.

In his New York Times obituary, one of his opponents (Eugenie Scott, humanist, director of the National Center for Science Education) described Morris as cordial and gentlemanly. Morris exemplified the words of 1 Peter 3:15-16:

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (NIV 1984)

Morris went to be with our Lord and Savior the same month I started writing this blog. I aim to have the same gentle and respectful attitude Morris had towards those with whom I differ. I am sure that at times I fall short of the Scriptural standard.

Grace and Peace

Reality

A quote from Eugene Peterson:

I’m always in danger of losing my grip on reality. The reality, of course, is that God is sovereign and Christ is savior. The reality is that prayer is my mother tongue and the eucharist my basic food. The reality is that baptism, not Myers-Briggs, defines who I am.

From Take & Read

Grace and Peace

Thin ice and the importance of Quaternary geology

From NASA Earth Observatory:

2011 Sea Ice Minimum

From the description (emphasis added):

In September 2011, sea ice covering the Arctic Ocean declined to the second-lowest extent on record. Satellite data from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) showed that the summertime ice cover narrowly avoided a new record low.

[...]

Melt season in 2011 brought higher-than-average summer temperatures, but not the unusual weather conditions that contributed to the extreme melt of 2007, the record low. “Atmospheric and oceanic conditions were not as conducive to ice loss this year, but the melt still neared 2007 levels,” said Walt Meier of NSIDC. “This probably reflects loss of multi-year ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, as well as other factors that are making the ice more vulnerable.”

The low sea ice level in 2011 fits the pattern of decline over the past three decades, said Joey Comiso of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Since 1979, September Arctic sea ice extent has declined by 12 percent per decade.

“The sea ice is not only declining; the pace of the decline is becoming more drastic,” he noted. “The older, thicker ice is declining faster than the rest, making for a more vulnerable perennial ice cover.”

While the sea ice extent did not dip below the record, the area did drop slightly lower than 2007 levels for about ten days in early September 2011. Sea ice “area” differs from “extent” in that it equals the actual surface area covered by ice, while extent includes any area where ice covers at least 15 percent of the ocean.

Arctic sea ice extent on September 9, 2011, was 4.33 million square kilometers (1.67 million square miles). Averaged over the month of September, ice extent was 4.61 million square kilometers (1.78 million square miles). This places 2011 as the second lowest ice extent for both the daily minimum and the monthly average. Ice extent was 2.43 million square kilometers (938,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

Climate models have suggested that the Arctic could lose almost all of its summer ice cover by 2100, but in recent years, ice extent has declined faster than the models predicted.

A few years back, I blogged about a report that the Arctic Ocean may have been ice-free around 6000-7000 years ago, so this may be a natural cycle. Or it may be caused by human-induced global warming. I don’t know. I ended that post with the following:

I’m not a global warming denier, which bothers some of my friends. I do believe that human activities are affecting Earth’s climate. This does point out, however, the importance of geological studies of Quaternary (ice age to present) climate systems. Whatever is happening today, even if caused by humans, can only be fully understood in its geological context.

Grace and Peace

There is probably no Dawkins

From Stand to Reason blog:

I’ve written about Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, before (e.g. here here and here).

Grace and Peace

The other book that saved me

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” — Romans 10:17 ESV

I became a Christian through the proclamation of God’s word. The Law was proclaimed and I was convicted of my sin and need for a savior. The Gospel was proclaimed and I was drawn to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead that I too might have eternal life.

That, in short, is my “personal testimony.” It isn’t about me, it is about Christ and what he has done for me.

And I am held by God’s grace. God’s grace moves in the life of a believer in many ways. One of those was through “the other book that saved me.”

That book was Evolution: Nature & Scripture in Conflict? by Pattle P. T. Pun.

I was raised in a Christian home, and attended church regularly. Most of the time I believed in God, Christ, and the Bible, but there were other times when I toyed with atheism and other belief systems, and in hindsight I can see that I could have gone many different ways. By the time I graduated from high school, I was a young-Earth creationist and would have called myself a Christian, though my understanding of Christianity was rather shallow.

After my second year in the university, I changed my major to Geology. I was still a convinced young-Earth creationist, and thought that perhaps I could be used to help topple the edifice of old-Earth evolutionism. It didn’t take long, however, to start seeing that there were a number of serious problems with the Flood Geology and age of the Earth arguments of the young-Earthers. Most Christians I knew were teaching that the Bible requires a young Earth, and yet I was seeing more and more reasons to believe that the Earth is really quite old. I was able to hold these two ideas in tension for quite some time.

It was at this time that I found Evolution: Nature & Scripture in Conflict? at the local Christian bookstore, and it opened my eyes to another legitimate way to look at the “Bible vs. Science” issue. Pun was an advocate of “progressive creationism,” where God spread his creative acts throughout the billions of years of Earth history. I am no longer convinced that the day-age interpretation that underlies progressive creationism is correct, but the significant thing was that Pun opened my eyes to see that there is much more to the relationship between science and Christianity than the conflict model that dominates young-Earth creationism, that there are other possible ways to read the opening chapters of Genesis than that offered by the young-Earth creationists, and that the study of Earth history was a legitimate endeavor for a Christian to undertake.

How did Evolution: Nature & Scripture in Conflict? save me? Many Christians who enter the natural sciences armed with young-Earth creationist beliefs come to a point of having a crisis of faith, and for many it means the crippling or death of their faith. I believe that this book may have been  instrumental in saving me from having a similar crisis of faith. This crisis would not have been caused because I was being indoctrinated by “evolutionists,” but by young-Earth dogmas that often go far beyond the little that the Bible actually says about Earth history.

Pun set a model for me by being gracious in his attitude towards those he viewed to be in error, and humble about his interpretations. I sincerely believe that the Bible is the Word of God, that it doesn’t require us to believe anything one way or another about how old the Earth is, and that much of what comes out of the young-Earth movement is harmful in the broader picture of apologetics and Christian interaction with science and culture. At the same time, I will seek to be loving and gracious towards all who disagree with me, and to be humble about my interpretations, whether they be about Scripture or about the Earth.

One of my greatest joys in life is to be of help to Christians who struggle with science-faith issues. If God uses The GeoChristian to build up the body of Christ as God used Nature & Scripture in Conflict? in my life, or to point non-believers to faith in him, I will be exceedingly glad.

Grace and Peace

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Evolution: Nature & Scripture in Conflict? is out of print, but used copies can be found through Amazon or through other booksellers.

500,000

Sometime back in May or June, The GeoChristian had its 500,000th page view. I don’t completely understand what WordPress counts as a “hit,” and I know that many of these hits are from people who spend about three seconds on the site and decide it isn’t what they were looking for. But still, I am amazed that this blog has generated that level of interest.

I’ve got a long list of things I’d like to blog about, and several enhancements that I think would enhance the impact of The GeoChristian. I’m busy, but I’ll blog when I can.

Why do I blog? My stated purpose is “to increase science literacy among Evangelical Christians, especially in the areas of the Earth and environmental sciences.” My underlying hope and prayer is for two things: To build up the body of Christ, and to point non-believers to Christ. Only God knows how effective I’ve been in that, but I pray that what I write here would bear fruit for the glory of God for all eternity.

I get emails from time to time from people who have been blessed by The GeoChristian. Here are a few excerpts (with some very minor editing):

I’m a chemist and a fellow evangelical Christian.  I just wanted to thank you for your blog, and especially for its tone.  Apart from scientific issues, what troubles me most of all in the YEC/OEC/TE debate is how acrimonious many YEC sites are towards not only atheists but towards fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.  Your site is a breath of fresh air.  Thank you.

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I stumbled upon your blog a while back, and it’s really helped me a lot in talking to my parents about my perspectives on faith and science. I’m a graduate student in the earth sciences, but was raised in a young earth home/church, so, as one might imagine, my research has caused some spirited discussion with my parents and home community… Recently some questions came up that I wasn’t sure about, and I wondered (if you have time/have thought about these issues) whether you might be able to offer some perspectives?

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To be honest I ‘felt’ that the Bible was somehow lacking in depth & history, something was not quite adding up for me. I know that Gods’ wisdom & logic is so incredibly high above ours but still… the conflict between real scientific evidence and what most Christians were teaching really limited, disabled me even, from witnessing to the unsaved. I could not wholeheartedly stand behind God’s word and encourage others to embrace Christ whilst these paradoxes were raging in my brain and heart.

But then I found your blog… Woah!

Suddenly a whole new world opened up before me. [...]

Your blog has not only made the Bible fresh again for me, opening it up to new revelation, but enables me to start witnessing again to friends and intellectual strangers again. I don’t have to be ashamed anymore… it was never Christ I was ashamed of… it was a limited understanding of the truth. My heart wanted to shout from the rooftops but my brain would not let me. You have helped connect my heart & my brain again. For this I know I shall be eternally grateful and give you my deepest thanks.

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I recently visited the Creation Museum outside of Cincinnati.

While it has been decades since I studied Geology at Northwestern University, I found most of what I saw there to be unreasonable. There were a few things that puzzled me, such as the folding of solid layers of sedimentary rocks, so when I got to my computer, I started Googling for a more thorough explanation. I was pleased to find your articles “Six Bad Arguments From Answers in Genesis”, and found my questions to be answered in full.

Thank you for writing the series, and for such a clear and concise refutation of the YEC arguments.

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I’m a research associate for a research scientist, a follower of Jesus, an “old-earther,” and much like you, a distinct minority in the Bible-belt culture in which I live.  I just wanted you to know how refreshing your blog is.  You have a fantastic understanding of God and His creation and you deal with the scientific study of the universe in such a worshipful (of God) and respectful way.  Unlike so many other articles and works that are really propagandized hate, you write as a loving teacher and person who praises God for what He has done.  And remarkably, you do so with the keen understanding that the scientific topics we love to study are secondary to the gospel and God’s redemptive purposes.  Simply superb.  Thank you for your love of Christ and your passion for worshiping God by studying His creation.  Keep up the good work!  I look forward to more!

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Hi as a geologist and a Christian from across the pond, I just had to say I enjoyed your sane site!

Keep up the good work.

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Many thanks for your great website which acknowledges God as our creator without resorting to dubious or false technical information

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I also thought you dealt very well and respectfully with some of those comments that were clearly insulting. So this note is just a little “thank you” for your blog and work in helping to educate Christians. And I support you 100% in the importance of ministering to the scientific and intellectual community.

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I am majoring in geology and was having a very difficult time reconciling my Christian faith with the idea that the earth could be billions of years old. [...] Your blog has been an important part of saving me from having a crisis of faith.

I am thankful that God has used this blog to be a blessing to a number of people. Thank you to all of you who have written encouraging emails to me.

Grace and Peace

Gneiss Chert

I haven’t been blogging lately, but I have been enjoying being back home in Montana. Here I am with my “Gneiss Chert” t-shirt that I got for my birthday a few months ago. The waterfall is Undine Falls in northern Yellowstone National Park.

Grace and Peace

P.S. This waterfall was on the cover of the July 1977 issue of National Geographic:

Look beneath your feet

From XKCD, HT: Webmonk

Seven billion

Depending on who’s counting, the planet’s human population either just hit seven billion or will some time soon (my desktop gadget says 6,925,052,273).

Glenn, at Be Bold, Be Gentle, passes along a quote from Dupont VP Jim Borel:

“This month, the global population reached 7 billion.  Each year, the world population grows by about 78 million people — equivalent to the population of Germany.  By 2050, world population will be 9 billion, growing to 10 billion by turn of the century.  Feeding and providing nutrition for this growing population — and doing it in a sustainable manner — may be the defining challenge of this century.”

Feeding the world is going to be one of the critical issues facing us throughout the century. Given current trends, world population could peak at around 10 billion later in the century, and then begin a slow decline.

I need to give more thought to the whole issue of food and population. I’d be interested in your thoughts on these questions:

• Has the human race fulfilled the Genesis 1 command to “be fruitful and multiply?”
• Can we sustainably feed 10 billion people?
• What are the greatest challenges before us as we seek to feed Earth’s growing population? (I think of water shortages, land degradation, apathy, and political will).
• What is the best approach to feeding the world? Genetically modified foods? Large-scale corporate farming? Small-scale family farming?
• In what ways can Christians be involved in being part of the solution to feeding another three billion or more people in this century?

Grace and Peace