Mark Stewart
Review of 2001 Creation Conference.
August 30 - September 3, 2001
(unpublished)
Awesome! If I had to describe the 2001 Creation Conference that took place
August 30 - September 3, 2001 (Labor Day Weekend) at the Higher Ground
Conference & Retreat Center, near West Harrison, Indiana, in one word, that
would be it. While I was not there for the whole conference, It was truly a
world-class teaching event. It was a unique opportunity to have your faith
strengthened, and to be challenged by some of the world's best minds in creation
apologetics.
I arrived Friday evening and lodged in the Bungalow rooms. After I got
settled in, I went to the Graves Family Life Center where the sessions took
place. Upon entering the Center, tables were immediately visible that had
materials available for purchase. I picked up several books that have been on my
want list including Paley's Watchmaker by Bill Cooper, Green Eye of the Storm by
John Rendle-Short and the Mythology of Modern Dating by John Woodmorappe. For
those of us who pre-registered we received a free Answers in Genesis video 'Is
Genesis Relevant Today?' They also provided free copies of Werner Gitts book
'Time and Eternity'. Audio and Video Tapes of the Conference were being made
available. Audio tapes were $5.00 for each speaker presentation and Video tapes
were $10.00 each. If anyone is interested in these, let me know, and I can email
the information to you.
Each evening beginning at 7:15 and ending at 7:45 we were entertained by
Buddy Davis by his guitar playing and singing. He is very good! Buddy was part
of a 1994 five-member team (which included Mike Liston, George Detwiler, John
Whitmore, Dan Specht, and Buddy Davis) that found unfossilized dinosaur bones in
the tundra of Alaska above the Artic Circle. This amazing discovery revealed
that dinosaurs must have been roaming the Earth in the past few thousand years;
if dinosaurs died out millions of years ago (65 million, according to
evolutionists), their remains would have fossilized millions of years ago.
Buddy works in the museum development department for Answers in Genesis. He
is responsible for designing exhibits for the Answers in Genesis Creation
Museum. He is a full-time 'paleo-artist' specializing in building life-size
dinosaur sculptures. He has been sculpting dinosaur models, I know, for at least
since 1986 when I first read about his work in the Columbus Dispatch, Columbus,
Ohio. He has traveled extensively with them across the U.S. and his work is
internationally known and has been featured in newspapers, magazines, books,
radio, and national television.
In 1988 Buddy went on an expedition in search of Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat in
Turkey. He has excavated dinosaurs and other fossils across the United States.
He has also traveled to many parts of the American West in search of dinosaur
petroglyphs. He is a co-author of the book The Great Alaskan Dinosaur Adventure
(1998), which recounts his 1994 trip to Alaska, and is the author of the new
Special Wonders series of animal books.
At 7:45 Dr. Werner Gitt spoke on 'In the Beginning was Information'. Dr.
Gitt is a director and professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and
Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Braunschweig), the head of
the Department of Information Technology. Three requirements must be met in
order for the German Ministerium to award the title 'Director and Professor' at
a German research institute, on the recommendation of the Praesidium. The person
concerned must be a scientist, one who has published a significant number of
original research papers in the technical literature, and the head of a
department that's in his or her area of expertise which employs several working
scientists.
Dr. Gitt has written numerous scientific papers in the fields of information
science, mathematics, and control engineering. He has also writtern several
creationist books including Did God Use Evolution?, If Animals Could Talk, In
the Beginning was Information, Stars and their Purpose: Signposts in Space, Did
God use Evolution?, The Wonder of Man, Questions I have always wanted to Ask,
What About Other Religions?, and Time and Eternity.
In his talk he first spoke of the three sources of information. These were
1) the Bible 2) the Laws of Nature and 3) Theories, models, speculations, and
Dogma formulated by man.
Gitt indicated that the Laws of Nature are 1) based on experience 2)
universally valid 3) do not vary in time 4) can be falsified and 5) there are no
excpeptions. He said that the Realitys of the Laws of Nature included 1) matter
2) information and 3) life (which has twenty amino acids).
Dr. Gitt asked what is Information? He described that the definition domain
of information must include these five criteria: 1) statistics, 2) syntax, 3)
semantics, 4) pragmatics, and 5) Apobetics
According to evolution: Matter + Information equals Life; According to
creation: Matter + Information does not equal Life. Information is not a part of
Matter.
Transmission information from sender to recipient: Laws of Nature about
information include the following: 1) nonmaterial (not a property of matter) 2)
for works of art - biological & technical systems 3) Information must have a
code 4) Code is the result of free and deliberate convention 5) now new
information without intelligent sender 6) information can be traced back to
intelligent source 7) requires a material medium for storage and transmission 8)
all five laws of nature are required for information 9) mental process requires
intelligent sender and receiver 10) Information requires recipient to take some
type of action 11) Information cannot originate in a statistical process.
He concluded with these seven points: 1) Since DNA is found in living
systems there must be a sender 2) Since density and complexity of DNA are
extremely greater than man's technology the sender must be extemely intelligent;
original sender must be God 3) Sender must be omnipotent, omniscient,
omnipresent 4) Man's nature must have a nonmaterial component (spirit) 5) Sender
must have a nonmaterial component in nature (spirit) 6) The assertion that the
universe is composed soley of matter and energy (Materialistic Monism) is false
and 7) All Theories or concepts of chemical and biological evolution are false.
He did differentiate the difference between Microevolution and Macroevolution.
Gitt was a very good speaker with a German accent, of course, and I enjoyed
his presentation very much.
Jonathan Sarfati played five chess players at the end of the evening at the
same time, blindfolded! It was amazing how he could keep all five games in his
mind, the position of the peices, the potential moves to look for etc...He won
four of his games, and had a draw on his fifth game. I understand he can
actually take on more players, but limited it to five, due to time constraints.
The next morning Ken Ham spoke on Creation Evangelism. Ken has a bachelor's
degree in applied science (with an emphasis on environmental biology) was
awarded by the Queensland Institute of Technology. He also holds a Diploma of
Education (equivalent to a master's degree in America) from the University of
Queensland. He is the author of many books including The Lie: Evolution, The
Genesis Solution, co-author of the Answers Book, Genesis and the Decay of the
Nations, D is for Dinosaur, Dinosaurs and the Bible, Where did Cain get his
wife?, The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved!, Creation Evangelism for the New
Millennium, One Blood-The Biblical Answer to Racism, Is there Really a God?,
Where Did the 'Races' Come From?, Answers to the Four Big Questions!, and
Dinosaurs of Eden - A Biblical Journey Through Time.
Since coming to America, I think it was in 1986, Australian Ken Ham has
become one of the most in-demand Christian conference speakers in the U.S. Each
year he gives dozens of talks to tens of thousands of children and adults (he
receives about 500 invitations to speak annually).
Ken is the Executive Director of Answers in Genesis, based in Florence,
Kentucky and co-director of AIG's sister group in Australia. From 1986 through
1993 he was 'on loan' from the Australian organization (then called the Creation
Science Foundation) to the Institute for Creation Research near San Diego,
California.
I missed his presentation because I was being interviewed then by Doug Sharp
(with the Revolution Against Evolution program).
After the interview, I got back in time to hear Dr. Russell Humphreys talk
on "Cosmology and a Young World". Dr. Humphreys works now full-time with the
Institute for Creation Research. He was Physicist at Sandia National
Laboratories, Albequerque, New Mexico, since 1979.Of course, previously, he
worked as a nuclear physicist, geophysicist, pulsed-power researcher, and in
theoretical atomic and nuclear physics. He received his Bachelor of Science
Degree in Physics from Duke University, North Carolina, in 1963 and his Ph.D. in
Physics from Louisiana State University in 1972. He was formerly involved in
high-voltage engineering at General Electric. He has written professional
articles on theoretical nuclear physics, exploration geophysics, cosmic rays,
lightning research, scientific instruments, hi-voltage power transmission lines
and pulsed power research. He has several U.S. patents including co-inventor of
laser-triggered "Rimfire" high-voltage switches and has received one of
'Industrial Research' magazines IR-100 awards in 1978. He has developed probes
to locate uranium and other mineral deposits and has a patent on part of that
work. He has had numerous publications and awards in physics and geophysics
including an award from Sandia for excellence in contributions to light
ion-fusion target theory. At the Pulsed Power Research Center at Sandia, he
helped to design powerful particle accelerators used in fusion energy and
strategic defense research. His papers on reversals of the earth's magnetic
field during the Genesis flood received awards at the 1986 & 1990 International
Conferences on Creationism. His publications have appeared in Review of
Scientific Instruments, Acta Physica Acad. Sci. Hungaricae, Nuclear Physics,
Nuclear Instruments & Methods, IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science,
International Journal of Applied Radiation & Isotopes, Physics Today, Creation
Research Society Quarterly, Nature, and Nuclear Physics.
In his presentation Humphries first discussed the various velocity of light
scenarios (the appearance of age, euclidean geometry model, decrease in the
velocity of light, and his white hole cosmology). The Bible and Relativity
equals different clock rates. Clocks are slower near the center of the universe
and the Earth is near the center of the Universe. I believe Robert Gentry holds
this to be true as well in his model. The Big Bang model uses non-Biblical
arguments, i.e., the Copernican Principle, formerly called the Cosmological
Principle which is that the cosmos is the same everywhere. The cosmos has no
edge or center. The universe is approximately spatially homogeneous (uniform
composition throughout). There are a number of evidences that indicate that this
is not the case, however. In the Big Bang, matter fills all space. There is no
center (which results from assuming the Copernican Principle. He indicated that
the Copernican Principle is arbritrary and evolutionary having an admixture of
ideology. He maintained that the Bible contradicts the Copernican Principle (a)
island earth (b) Earth near center. A Center makes Gravity important. In the Big
Bang, matter fills all space and there is no net force. In the Biblical Cosmos,
we have an island universe and there is a net force which is toward the center.
Scientists agree that Gravity affects Time (Gravitational Time Dilation). If
today's cosmos is an "island", clocks near its center tick 2% slower. In the
Past, the cosmos was smaller, i.e. the redshift (See: Isa.40:22). When the
cosmos was smaller, clocks at the center were very slow. During the six days on
Earth, Billions of years elapsed in the distant sky. Age of the universe = Six
days EST (Earth Standard Time). Distant objects would appear to be "old". This
theory follows straight forwardly from the Bible. Basics of this Theory
scientifically sound. God used relativity to let us see a young universe. Red
shifts of galaxies fall into "quantized" groups. "Quantized" Red Shifts suggest
a nearly geocentric cosmos. Evidence for Cosmic rotation supports a cosmic
center. He was also a very good speaker.
The next speaker was Dr. Danny Faulkner. Danny is Associate Professor of
Astronomy and Physics at the University of South Carolina and has been since
1986. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Mathematics in 1976 from Bob
Jones University. He received his Master of Science Degree in Physics from
Clemson University in 1979. He received a Master of Arts Degree in Astronomy
from Indiana University in 1983 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy from Indiana
University in 1989 with his dissertation on 'Violet Opacity Problems in Red
Giant Stars'. He has been the conductor of photoelectric observations on
telescopes of aperture between 16 and 50 inches in Georgia, Indiana, Arizona,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and Chile. He is a member of the American
Astronomical Society, Sigma Pi Sigma, Sigma Xi, and the Creation Research
Society. He has written many articles which have appeared in various
professional astronomy and astrophysical journals.
Dr. Faulkner spoke on Craters and the Age/History of the Solar System. He
began his talk by asking where do craters come from? He indicated two sources 1)
Volcanic and 2) Impact. According to the evolutionary history of the solar
system, the solar system formed aproximately 4.6 billion years ago. Solid
surfaces appeared by 4.2 ~ 4.6 billion years ago.The early Earth was heavily
bombarded (EHB) by meteoroids (planetismals) and Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB)
ended about 3.9 million years ago. There has been little cratering since the end
of the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB), and reworking of surfaces have occurred at
various times. Four Creationary Possibilites concerning the above include that
craters are primordial (dating from the creation week), craters were introduced
at the fall, craters were caused by later catastrophes, for example Noah's
Flood, and or some mixture of the above.
Dr. Faulkner maintained his belief that there were impacts made during
Noah's Flood because most of the strata were laid down during the flood and
Astroblemes are found in the strata. Wayne Spencer has also studied this
possibility. A Look at the Moon indicates there are Lunar highlands (lighter in
color) and Lunar Maria (darker in color). The History of the Moon included its
formation, early impacts (highlands), Late Heavy bombardments (impact basins),
volcanic overflow in impact basins and very recent impacts visible on the maria.
Evolutionists want this history stretched over 4.6 billion years. Can we develop
this for a 6000 year history? Yes. The Moon bears evidence of two distinct
cratering episodes. This is the basis for the (EHB) Early Heavy Bombardment and
the (LHB) Late Heavy Bombardment. The Maria are large impact basins. Volcanic
overflow occurred only in the impact basins. The Maria are basically only on one
side of the moon, which I found interesting, the side that faces us. This
suggests a rapid, non-random formation of the maria. Other bodies in the solar
system do not show this. Sparseness of impact basins hints of such features on
Mercury, Mars and some of the satellites. No other bodies show hemispherical
segregation of impacts
except maybe Mars and Impetus, if I'm reading my notes correctly.
Dr. Faulkner's proposal includes that many lunar highland craters are
primordial, the Moon rapidly and catastrophically impacted at a later date, the
earth could have shared in this episode and that other solar system bodies were
largely spared. Clues to what the Impacting bodies were include that there were
many bodies, the followed parallel paths, the width of the paths were narrow and
the bodies made one pass through the solar system, discussing the different
types of orbits of these bodies which include parabolic or hyperbolic and those
which were highly elliptical. Identification of the impactors include that the
orbits sound like those of comets, the Earth was the intended object, the Moon
suffered collateral damage, this could have triggered the flood. He refered to
this as the "Comet Swarm Hypothesis". He discussed other catastrophic processes.
A partial list of Martian surface features include Volcanoes (Olympus Mons),
Rift Valley (Valles Marineris), impact craters and flood evidence. How, why and
when did these catastrophes befall Mars and Venus? Perhaps there was a solar
system wide catastrophe at the time of the flood. Danny was also a very good
speaker.
After lunch break Dr. John Baumgardner spoke on 'A Global Model of Noah's
Flood". He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering
from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, in 1968. He received a Master of Science
Degree in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University, Princeton, New
Jersey, in 1970, a Master of Science Degree in Geophysics and Space Physics from
the University of California, Los Angeles in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Geophysics and
Space Physics in 1983. Formerly a project officer in the Laser Division of the
Air Force Weapons Laboratories at Kirkland Air Force Base, New Mexico from 1971
to 1975. He had been involved in computer modeling, design and testing of high
power gas laser devices. He was a member of the Technical Staff in the
Theoretical Division of Los Alamos National Laboratories and Consultant at
Rockwell International, Rocket-dyne Division from 1978 to 1979 and from 1981 to
1984. He worked in the Numerical Fluid Dynamics Group of the Theoretical
Division at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Baumgardner was a Graduate
Research Assistant at UCLA in the Department of Earth & Space Sciences from 1979
to 1983. He completed his doctoral dissertation at Los Alamos, developing a 3-D
spherical hydrodynamics code ideally suited for simulating global tectonic
upheaval, applying the code to the problem of thermal convection in the earth’s
mantle. Dr. Baumgardner has served as staff scientist in the Fluid Dynamics
Group of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico since 1984.
Dr. Baumgardner is considered the world’s pre-eminent expert in the design
of computer models for geophysical convection. He is the chief developer of the
TERRA code, a 3-D finite element program for modeling the earth’s mantle and
lithosphere. His current research is in the areas of planetary mantle dynamics
and the development of efficient hydrodynamic methods for super computers.
Beginning in 1995 Dr. Baumgardner assisted the German Weather Service in
adapting methods from the TERRA code as the basis for a new operational global
weather forecast model known as GME that is now used in Germany and ten other
countries.
Dr. Baumgardner is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the
Mineralogical Society of America. His current research interests include
three-dimensional numerical simulation of planetary mantle dynamics, global
climate change, nonlinear rheological behavior and the development of efficient
hydrodynamics methods, suitable for 3-D, both explicit and implicit, for
massively parallel supercomputers.
Dr. Baumgarnder began his presentation by taking a closer look at
Catastrophic Plate Tectonics (CPT). He maintained that theory, experiments and
computer simulations can demonstrate how catastrophic plate tectonics can happen
rapidly. The main geological consequences of (CPT) catasrophic plate tectonics
include the eruption of molten magma, steam generated forms jets, global sea
level rises, high velocity of water results in cavitation, ocean plates plunge
into the earth, salt accumulates at continent edges, intense water currents
(giant eddies), thick sediment sequences, living organisms perish, many becoming
fossilized, flow of hot rock in mantle moves continents, as mantles boundary
reaches edge, zones of thickened low density crust, mostly associated with
subduction at continent edges, bob up like cork because of buoyancy to present
high mountain ranges, and warm oceans result in formation of massive ice sheets.
Seismic images of the mantle reveal a ring of anomalously cold rock at bottom of
mantle. Dr. Baumgardner concluded that evidence that a single global tectonic
catastrophe produced the fossil record is extremely compelling. The Genesis
Flood was primarily a tectonic event. All of today's igneous ocean floor has
been formed since the onset of the Flood. All of the pre-flood ocean floor has
vanished from the face of the planet. He discussed the physics of runaway
subduction and the three regimes of silicate deformation: diffusional creep
(temperature weakening), dislocation creep (strain rate + temperature
weakening), and plastic flow (even stronger strain rate weakening). He compared
rheological models, illustrated three-dimensional spherical geometry and gave an
overview of TERRA composed of finite element formulation (piecewise linear
hexagonal prism elements) and almost uniform spherical mesh derived from regular
icosahedron. He got a good laugh from the audience when he showed his
conservation equations (I'm sure above most of our heads) that's why the good
laugh! He indicated that laboratory experiments reveal that silicate minerals
deform under stress in ways (like metals) that can lead to strong localization
behavior. And then summarized his arguments. Dr.
Baumgardner was a good speaker as well.
Next I got to hear Michael Oard present his topic which was 'Whatever
happened to the Wooly Mammoth?' Oard received his Bachelor of Science Degree in
1969 and his Master of Science Degree in 1973 both in Atmospheric Science and
both from the University of Washington. He was a Research Assistant at the
University of Washington, and worked as a Meteorologist for the National Weather
Service. He has many published articles and several books including An Ice Age
Caused by the Genesis Flood, Life in the Great Ice Age, Ancient Ice Ages or
Gigantic Submarine Landslides? and Wonders of Creation - The Weather Book.
In his talk, Michael Oard asked three questions: Why live in Siberia? What
would the mammals eat? and How did they die? He discussed some carcass puzzles
which included half decayed stomach vegetation, the fact that five animals
suffocated, broken bones, that some carcasses were in an upright standing
position, and that they were entombed rapidly in the permafrost. Some clues
about these things include the wide diversity of animals, including burrowing
mammals and beavers, that most of the mammals were grazers, well dressed giants,
and many mammals now live much further south. He deduced that the grasslands had
a wide diversity of plants and that the soil was fertile among other things.
Oard listed three categories of mammoth extinction theories. The first was
uniformitarian, the second was non-creationist catastrophes mentioning Henry
Howorth, Immanuel Velikowsky, Ivan Sanderson, and Charles Hapgood. Thirdly was
creationist catastrophes which included a) a quick freeze early in the flood and
b) at the end of the post-flood a rapid ice age. The Evidences he listed for a
quick freeze include the relative number of carcasses, the partial decay of some
carcasses, fly pupae associated with bones and carcasses, different seasons of
death, most of the remains in Siberia are of mammoths, and stomach contents
partially preserved in U.S. mastodons. He indicated that the Genesis Flood
fulfills the requirements of the evidence, gave his estimated time frame and
talked about the post-flood mammoth population explosion. Oard was also a very
good speaker.
All of the speakers were open for questions after their presentations when
time allowed. I was able to meet with most of the speakers and had a chance to
talk with them briefly. I had to leave after that but just wanted to report what
I had seen and hope to be able to attend next year, if they have one. It was an
excellent conference and hope they have one next year.
Mark Stewart
creation@bright.net
POWRÓT