Paul Garner’s book, The New Creationism, has been reviewed in the latest edition of Origins magazine (July 2010, Number 53, p.23) published by our sister organization, the Biblical Creation Society (BCS). The reviewer is Professor Colin Reeves. You can find out more about BCS, including how to become a member, here.

There is certainly no shortage of books on creation and evolution, but most are sadly rather predictable, contenting themselves with a tour through the manifest flaws of Darwinism. In some cases this may be coupled with an analysis of Genesis 1-11, leading to conclusions that reflect the writer’s stance on the meaning of the word ‘day’ (Hebrew: yôm) in Genesis one, the status of Adam and Eve, the purpose of the genealogies etc.

Paul Garner’s book does all this, extremely competently and very readably, but it also does something more. He sets out his case for a 6 (24-hour) day creation week and for reading the genealogies as actual history, so that he stands unequivocally for a ‘young earth’ position. But thereafter he does not leave matters at the level of a critique. Rather he is concerned to build scientific models on the basis that the early chapters of Genesis are true history. In this he is not alone, of course, and much of the work he reports has been done by others. (Not all, I hasten to add, since Garner is a scientist who is prepared to get his hands dirty – literally so in the case of his geological research). What is impressive, though, is the way he has been able to synthesize and explain some of this technical work with great clarity and lucidity.

The areas of science covered in this work concentrate on cosmology, biology and geology. The degree to which progress in scientific model-building has been made by creationists varies quite substantially, but Garner describes several cases where it is nevertheless significant. Indeed, scientific models have been developed to such an extent that it is impossible to give more than a flavour of what are quite specialized theories, requiring graduate-level physics, biology, geology etc. But whether it is Humphreys’ time-dilation model of cosmology, the implications of the RATE¹ project’s work on radiometric dating, Oard’s ice-age model or the relevance of catastrophic plate tectonics, Garner manages to help the reader understand the principles of some advanced technical ideas. There is also a handy glossary of most of the necessary technical terms in case readers get lost. Other topics covered include the origins of life, language and culture, some novel ideas on speciation and understanding the fossil record in the context of the Genesis Cataclysm. Where scientists differ in their theories, he gives a fair and balanced account of their reasons for this.

There is very little to criticise here; some might complain that the title is not very informative – but the subtitle deals with that problem. It is questionable whether biblical quotations should have uniformly been taken from the King James Version, since this slightly obscures the argument for universal animal vegetarianism before the Fall (p.158), for example. A more comprehensive bibliography would also have been useful – it is limited to major works – as it can be hard work tracking down the complete reference for a citation that has been made more than once (e.g., try finding the original citation for note 4 on p.212). And some of the references are rather cryptic – does everyone understand what TJ means, for example?

Despite these slight – and mainly editorial – blemishes, they cannot hide the fact that this book is a tremendous achievement. It is very accessible to non-scientists, and it should encourage the Christian layman that it is possible to do origins science on the basis of a creation model, rather than trying to accommodate the assumptions of neo-Darwinism in some form of ‘theistic evolution’. For those readers who are scientists (and especially students who plan to follow a scientific career), it should arouse an interest in scientific research that operates on the assumption that Genesis is valid history. There is clearly much more to be inferred and revised, as Garner is also concerned to acknowledge that scientific models cannot have the status of the Bible. They are always provisional, and open to correction or even complete overthrow, even when they are built on biblical foundations. So this book manages to be both a satisfying survey of current creationist research, and a stimulus towards future developments. It is highly recommended.

Footnotes

1. RATE stands for Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth.

On Saturday 15 May, Calvary Evangelical Church in Brighton hosted a debate between Dr Steve Lloyd of BCM and Dr Ard Louis of the University of Oxford on the question ‘Creation or evolution: do we have to choose?’

The discussion was chaired by Professor Richard Vincent, Associate Dean of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School until his retirement in 2008. Each speaker gave an opening presentation with Dr Lloyd going first. There was then an opportunity for the participants to respond to one another’s opening remarks. Finally, questions were invited from the audience.

You can now listen to a recording of the debate on the UCCF’s ‘Be Thinking’ website.

The annual joint meeting of the Creation Biology Study Group (BSG) and the Creation Geology Society (CGS) took place at Truett-McConnell College, Cleveland, Georgia, on 29 and 30 July 2010. Twenty two talks were packed into two days. The biology abstracts from this year’s conference can be found on the BSG website (see Occasional Paper 17) and the geology abstracts will shortly be available on the Cedarville University website. Here are some brief summaries of the presentations.

Biology talks:

I. Demme presented an intriguing study of Genesis 2:5, arguing that the Hebrew text refers to the absence of thorny plants and cultivated crops in the pre-Fall world.

K. P. Wise expounded the biblical concept of man’s ‘dominion’, suggesting a plethora of practical implications for bioethics and environmentalism.

J. Bartlett offered some thoughts on how creationists can develop an approach to biological causation that goes beyond the merely physical.

G. Wilson cautioned against the premature ‘lumping’ of species into holobaramins in the absence of clear synapomorphies uniting them.

R. W. Sanders presented a statistical analysis suggesting that the Verbena family is a holobaramin.

T. C. Wood explained that new baraminological studies using cranial and postcranial characters did not falsify his original hypothesis that Australopithecus sediba was a member of the human holobaramin.

T. C. Wood also argued from species and genus counts that that there has been a lack of speciation in most terrestrial mammal families, but spectacular speciation in a few, concluding that any theory of speciation must account for this fact.

J. Bartlett suggested a quantitative approach to discriminating between genetic changes that are part of an organism’s overall design and those that are a result of the curse.

J. W. Francis described his experiences using halobacteria in the undergraduate research setting, and suggested that they might provide a good model for investigating the origin of natural evil.

Geology talks:

A. A. Snelling reported radiocarbon dates of ~30-50 ka from the Permian coals of the Sydney Basin, Australia, consistent with dates obtained from US coal beds of various conventional ages.

S. A. Austin proposed that submarine liquefied sediment gravity currents, such as the one that formed the Whitmore Nautiloid Bed within the Redwall Limestone, were a major mechanism for the transport and deposition of sediments during the Flood.

D. D. Stansbury complemented Steven Austin’s talk by discussing field evidence for flow transformation within the Whitmore Nautiloid Bed as it is traced into southern Nevada.

A. Hutchison described some potential mechanisms for rapidly precipitating salts in near-critical and supercritical submarine environments, which may provide alternatives to the conventional ‘evaporite’ hypothesis.

A. A. Snelling documented the occurrence of polonium radiohalos in multiple, sequentially intruded phases of the Bathurst Batholith, New South Wales, Australia, suggesting that the entire complex was intruded and cooled within days to weeks.

M. J. Oard suggested that dinosaur tracks and eggs could be explained by animals seeking refuge on surfaces briefly exposed by short-lived sea level oscillations early in the Flood.

M. R. Ross critically reviewed a number of materials available for teaching young age geology in the classroom, and outlined a coordinated plan for the development of more suitable resources.

S. Gollmer presented results from climate modelling efforts which were aimed at better understanding the rapid build up of ice sheets after the global Flood.

S. Cheung explained that the conventional eolian interpretation of the Coconino Sandstone is being challenged by the persistent presence of dolomite at multiple localities in central and northern Arizona.

J. H. Whitmore argued that clay content is a critical factor in the formation of desiccation cracks, and that the sand-filled cracks in the Hermit Formation (below the Coconino Sandstone) cannot be the result of desiccation because the Hermit does not contain enough clay-sized material.

J. H. Whitmore presented data on grain size sorting from >500 modern windblown sand samples. Fine to very fine modern dune sands tend to be well sorted and this feature ought to be observed in ancient eolian sands too.

J. H. Whitmore described preliminary data on grain size sorting and rounding in the Coconino Sandstone based on almost 60 thin sections from eight locations. The sand grains in the Coconino tend to be moderately to poorly sorted and subangular to subrounded.

P. Garner summarised many features of the Coconino Sandstone that are difficult to reconcile with an eolian origin, and suggested that these are typical of Permian cross-bedded sandstones generally. He proposed that these units were formed by rapidly migrating subaqueous sand waves during the Flood.

Next year’s conference – under the title Origins 2011 – will be held in Rapid City, South Dakota, on 27-30 July. It will be a special event to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Genesis Flood. However, there will probably be at least one field trip and some special meetings for the general public as well, so the whole thing may run from 26-31 July. Mark your diaries now!

Photos courtesy of Todd Wood: (left) Paul Garner delivering his talk about Permian cross-bedded sandstones and (right) Todd Wood speaking about Australopithecus sediba. Left click on the images for larger versions.

In July, Paul Garner was in the USA for another season of fieldwork with his colleagues, Dr John Whitmore (Cedarville University) and Ray Strom (Calgary Rock and Materials). For the last four years the team has been studying the Coconino Sandstone of central and northern Arizona, a rock unit that most geologists think was deposited slowly in an ancient desert. However, Paul and his colleagues think that it was laid down rapidly in an underwater environment, consistent with the Genesis Flood.

During their latest trip, the team studied the Coconino Sandstone at Buckskin Gulch in southern Utah, around Holbrook, Sedona and Chino Wash in Arizona, and along the Hermit Trail and the New Hance Trail in Grand Canyon. For the last three days of their fieldwork, they were joined by Dr Leonard Brand (Loma Linda University) and two students studying with him over the summer. Dr Brand is well known for his field and laboratory studies (e.g. Brand 1979) suggesting that the fossil trackways in the Coconino were made by animals moving around underwater.

The team also had the opportunity to sample modern windblown sand dunes in Wyoming for comparison with the Coconino, as well as a number of other putatively ‘windblown’ sandstones in the geological record. These included the Weber Sandstone (Pennsylvanian-Permian), the Cedar Mesa Sandstone (Permian), the White Rim Sandstone (Permian) and the Navajo Sandstone (Jurassic).

The team had a close encounter with a rattlesnake in Capitol Reef National Park and were caught in a thunderstorm while hiking in Grand Canyon. However, they managed to complete their field studies without mishap. Many samples were collected and field measurements taken, adding significantly to the growing evidence that the Coconino Sandstone – and by extension other similar ‘windblown’ sandstones – was laid down rapidly underwater and not in an ancient desert.

The photographs show (from top to bottom): (1) Paul Garner (right) and John Whitmore (left) recording strike and dip measurements; (2) The contact between the Coconino Sandstone (above) and the Hermit Formation (below) in Buckskin Gulch; and (3) The rattlesnake encountered in Capitol Reef National Park. Left click on the images for larger versions.