The Creation Biology Study Group (BSG) held its annual conference at the Holiday Inn Hurstbourne, Louisville, Kentucky on 30 and 31 July 2009. Once again, the conference took place jointly with the annual meeting of the fledgling Creation Geology Society. Paul Garner was there representing Biblical Creation Ministries. (The photo on the right shows some of the geologists visiting Louisville Zoo. From l to r: Steven Austin, Paul Garner, Kurt Wise and Andrew Snelling).

The first day of the conference was devoted to the symposium of talks that were given at the Genesis Kinds Conference in England in February. You can read a full report of those talks here.

The second day was given over to the contributed biology and geology talks. The biology talks were as follows:

• Tom Hennigan began with a survey of the current taxonomic status of bears and the implications for baraminology. More data are needed, but the bears appear to form a holobaraminic group that underwent rapid diversification after the Flood.
• Todd Wood gave a fascinating talk about Odontochelys, the toothed, half-shelled fossil turtle that has been interpreted as an evolutionary intermediate. Baraminological studies suggest that Odontochelys occupies odd positions in morphological space that would not be expected of an intermediate. However, the analyses were based on data sets including relatively few morphological characters and so firm conclusions could not be drawn.
• Jean Lightner spoke about the strange patterns of variation observed in the Anatidae (ducks, geese and swans) and what this means for the intrabaraminic evolution of the group. A possible role for directed mutation in speciation was also discussed.
• Kurt Wise offered a series of suggestions for creation biology research from the field of evolutionary genetics. Research since the 1940s has yielded many insights with interesting implications for how we understand the role of natural selection and mutation in the natural world.
• Roger Sanders talked about the origin of the liver toxins found in Lantana (’shrub verbena’). He suggested mechanisms by which the liver protectants also known to occur in this plant genus could have given rise to the toxins during diversification.
• Jud Davis gave some theological reasons for God’s use of ‘negative elements’ (such as darkness, formlessness, emptiness, nakedness) in his pre-Fall creation. These elements play an important role in the overall salvation story of the Bible, especially as we understand the final consummation of all things.
• Cindy Golian presented some initial data from molecular genetics comparisons between modern human populations and discussed their implications for migration patterns following Babel.
• Ying Liu spoke about his research on human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) and their role during the menstrual cycle. Such retroviruses are usually regarded as molecular fossils that point to the common ancestry of humans and chimps, but his research suggests that at least some HERVs were created in situ for a purpose.

The geology talks given later in the afternoon were as follows:

• Kurt Wise presented compelling evidence favouring the rapid formation of a cave system in Cumberland County, Tennessee, by the passage of rising hydrothermal fluids. This is in stark contrast to the usual model of slow dissolution by weakly acidic water flowing from the surface.
• Paul Garner reviewed what is currently known about the grain size and textural characteristics of sediments from modern sandwaves. Sandwaves are underwater dunes common in tidally dominated shallow marine environments and have been suggested as a possible modern analogue for certain cross-bedded sandstones in the stratigraphic record.
• John Whitmore showed numerous photographs of thin sections documenting the presence of detrital mica grains throughout the Coconino Sandstone in central and northern Arizona. Mica is a soft mineral that is not expected to survive the harsh abrasion that occurs in desert environments. Thus it poses a challenge to the conventional interpretation of the Coconino Sandstone as an eolian deposit.
• Stephen Cheung described the discovery of four types of dolomite (dolomite beds, clastic dolomite grains, dolomite cements and concentric ooids) within the Coconino Sandstone at Andrus Point and several other outcrops in northern and central Arizona. These discoveries suggest the need to re-think the depositional environment of the Coconino Sandstone.

Another exciting development was the announcement that the Creation Geology Society, established last year, is now open to members. Anyone wanting to join is invited to contact Dr Marcus Ross, the Society Secretary, for more information.

This year’s biology abstracts can be found on the BSG website (see Occasional Paper 13) and the geology abstracts will shortly be available on the Cedarville University website. The next conference will be held at Truett-McConnell College in Cleveland, Georgia, on 28-30 July 2010 and will once again be a joint meeting of the biology and geology groups.