The number of different kinds of living organisms is one measure of biological diversity, or what has become known as “biodiversity.” Our world’s oceans have the highest known biodiversity, second only to the number of species found in the tropical rainforest.
During 1833, Arthur Henry Hallam died suddenly and unexpectedly. This would be one of those sad but unremarkable facts of history were it not for his close friendship with Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson spent the next 17 years struggling with the death of his friend. During this time, Tennyson composed “In Memoriam,” a long poem that wrestles with the shock, sadness and despair he experienced and his…
Biogeography is the study of the distributions of living organisms. Biogeographers seek to discover what historical and ecological factors explain why a species lives in one particular area but not in another area. This article examines how the flood might have influenced the present patterns of distributions of various types of living organisms.
This article describes evidence for what appears to be physical design on Earth, in the universe, and in the basic laws of nature. Some have used the examples of design as arguments for the God of religion as the intelligent designer; others have explained the design naturalistically. Some pros and cons of the arguments will be outlined along with cautions in using the arguments.
Picture a ground squirrel who spots a predator and gives an alarm call. The call alerts other squirrels who run for cover, but the call attracts the predator to the one giving the alarm. This unfortunate squirrel may give its life to protect its neighbors. How could this altruistic behavior, assisting other individuals at the expense of the calling squirrel, result from evolution? This seems contrary…
Many kinds of animals appear designed for predation and violence, in contrast to what one would expect based on the biblical description of Edenic peace. It seems that animal species must have changed in major ways since the creation, but is this idea compatible with biblical teachings? Many people have asked this question, wondering whether changes in species point to evolution rather than creation.…
The West Chester University Professor of Biology, Frank E. Fish, was vacationing along New England's coast frequented by magnificent humpbacked whales. While browsing in a gift shop one day he couldn't help but notice a gifted sculptor’s rendition of one of the splendid creatures and commented to the shop owner that the artist had put bumps on the wrong side of the pectoral fin. The bumps should be…
Among those who reject the Biblical record of God’s action in creating everything, including all living things, the process of chemical evolution from atoms to the first cell is usually explained something like this: elements reacted with each other spontaneously forming simple molecules. These simple molecules continued to react forming larger and more complex molecules such as the nucleotide building…
Recently I flew to London on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Despite what media hype might lead a Dreamliner passenger to expect, there were no fires on board and the experience wasn’t particularly different from what I’ve experienced on innumerable other flights. From my perspective, the seats were too small, too close together and too hard. That is not to say that there were not some differences,…
If one accepts the evidence of the Cambrian Explosion at face value, the Darwinian theory of evolution is falsified. Unsurprisingly, evolutionists have tried to explain the Cambrian Explosion as an artifact, due to the incompleteness of the fossil record. However, there is an explanation for the Cambrian Explosion that is consistent with the data. An intelligent being could generate the genetic information needed for a diversity of body types in a short time.
Can we detect design in nature? What kind of arguments have been used to make the design inference?
From the trillions, yes trillions, of non-human cells that live in our bodies cooperating with us in various ways that keep us healthy and happy, down to the molecular machines that keep each cell running all the way up to the cooperation between plants and animals that keep the animals fed, the plants pollinated and any number of other cooperative relationships between organisms, the real question is, “Who designed the marvelous plans we see brought to life all around us?”
We are warned in Romans 1:20 that those who observe God’s handiwork yet do not believe “are without excuse.” Before the artist-Creator we must stand in awe.
I suggest that the level of confidence any one person has in the truth of evolutionary history directly reflects the degree of confidence they have that science is the surest way of finding truth in any topic, and/or the confidence they have in the assumption of naturalism.
For a large part of the 20th century, there was much discussion about evolution’s difficulty in explaining altruism. This was an important, unsolved problem.
Recently, the city buses in my neighborhood gained a new set of brightly-colored advertisements along their sides. In bold letters, they proclaimed that humans and chimpanzees are 98% identical: “Come and meet your relatives.”
While Dembski’s position is that Intelligent Design is a scientific rather than a religious concept, in actuality his proposal falls within Berkouwer’s problem of the immortal soul.
A group of serious scholars in science and philosophy have been building the case that the origin of living things requires a designer. This intelligent design movement has been growing since the mid 1990s, and continues to be controversial.
At present, there is an almost absolute exclusion of God from scientific textbooks and journals. Unfortunately, such a closed attitude prevents science from following the data of nature wherever it may lead. Science cannot evaluate evidence for God as long as He is excluded from consideration.
As science develops more complete naturalistic explanations to describe the universe, it may appear that there is less room for God in the picture. And if science ever discovers a “complete” theory, it could be presumed that it would describe a universe without God. I am confident, however, that this conclusion is neither necessary nor valid. Drawing upon examples from physics, my purpose is to show that in developing a more complete picture of the universe, scientists are led to greater evidences for God and His design.
