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October 15, 2018
About 800,000 years ago, a miraculous change took place on Earth. The ice age cycle transitioned from happening every 41,000 years to about every 100,000 years, in what is now referred to as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). And without the MPT and its consummate fine-tuning and exact timing in history, we would not presently be able to enjoy today’s high population and advanced civilization.
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Fine-Tuning
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Earth's History
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Sun
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Solar System Design
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Oceans
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Ocean life
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Atmosphere
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October 11, 2018
The experimental and observational evidence that the universe has a beginning in finite time establishes that the universe must have some kind of Beginner. Space-time theorems provide additional evidence that some kind of causal Agent beyond space and time created our universe of matter, energy, space, and time. I describe and document in much detail the experimental, observational, and theoretical evidence for this causal Agent in The Creator and the Cosmos.
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God's Existence
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Life Design
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Particle Physics
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Galaxy Design
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Universe Design
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Sun
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Solar System Design
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Milky Way Galaxy
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Life History
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Laws of Physics
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Fine-Tuning
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Earth
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Creation
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October 8, 2018
In part 1 of this three-part series, I wrote about how 800,000 years ago, a miraculous transition from a 41,000-year to an approximately 100,000-year ice age cycle took place—a change known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). If not for the exquisite fine-tuning and precise timing of this event, the high population and civilization we presently enjoy would have been impossible.
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Oceans
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Geophysics
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Solar System Design
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Sun
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Comets
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Ocean life
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Earth Design
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Atmosphere
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October 1, 2018
This blog is the first of a three-part series on new scientific discoveries and research that reveal the hitherto unrecognized miraculous nature of a recent event known as the Mid-Pleistocene Transition. If not for the exquisite fine-tuning in multiple ways and precise timing of this event, the high population and civilization we presently enjoy would have been impossible.
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Global Warming
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Atmosphere
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Ocean life
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Earth Design
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September 24, 2018
Nature is filled with examples of mutualistic symbiosis—a relationship in which dissimilar species benefit from the association. Obligatory mutualistic symbiosis is where two or more dissimilar organisms depend upon one another for survival. A recently conducted field experiment reveals one of the most complex and multifaceted examples of obligatory mutualistic symbiosis ever discovered. This discovery challenges biological evolution but affirms biblical creation.
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Life Design
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Atmosphere
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Symbiosis
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Bacteria
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Fine-Tuning
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Creation vs. Evolution
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Challenges to Evolution
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September 17, 2018
Many people quickly identify oxygen and ozone as biologically produced molecules in Earth’s atmosphere. For that reason, exoplanet researchers look for oxygen and ozone in the atmosphere of exoplanets in their search for life. Would such a discovery rank as a true signature for life?
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Extrasolar Planets
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Exoplanets
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Water
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Life on Other Planets
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September 10, 2018
It bothers my wife Kathy that I can be sitting in front of a computer and not even notice that the room temperature has dropped or risen by more than ten degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike me, Kathy is extremely sensitive to temperature changes. A temperature change in our home or in one of our offices as small as a half degree is enough for her to declare that she is too cold or too warm. Her temperature sensitivity is even better than any of our thermostats.
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Early Earth
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Earth
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Earth Design
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Design
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Atmosphere
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September 3, 2018
In the past one hundred years astronomers have moved from knowing virtually nothing about the origin and history of the universe to possessing a detailed and abundantly confirmed cosmic creation model. I describe this journey and all the observational successes of what is now known as the big bang creation model in my latest book, The Creator and the Cosmos.
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Inflation
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Universe Design
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Big Bang Theory
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August 27, 2018
The discovery of two ancient ovens in Jordan provides evidence that humans were making bread at a time consistent with the Bible’s account of early human history. In chapter 15 of my book Improbable Planet1, I described an archaeological/scientific discovery2 that established that humans living along the shore of the Sea of Galilee were selectively breeding and cultivating wild grains at least as long ago as 23,000 years before the present. The breeding and cultivation of such grains suggest that humans living 23,000 years ago were using the grains as a food staple that likely may have included the manufacture of bread or bread-like products.
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Human Flourishing
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Genesis
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Anthropology
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Archaeology
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August 20, 2018
In mountain climbing, the death zone refers to altitudes above 26,000 feet (7,900 meters). At that height, the atmospheric pressure is only 35 percent of what it is at sea level. Irrespective of physical conditioning or acclimatization, it is not possible for any human at that altitude to breathe in enough oxygen to prevent widespread cell death in the body’s vital organs, and especially in the brain. Above 26,000 feet it becomes very difficult to sleep and near impossible to digest food. Any climber that spends more than about 12 hours above 26,000 feet without supplemental oxygen will experience permanent brain damage, increasing risk of loss of consciousness, and ultimately death.
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Exoplanets
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Earth Design
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Sun
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Fine-Tuning
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Extinction
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Atmosphere
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August 13, 2018
An experiment performed by one British and three Hungarian biologists provides yet more scientific evidence that certain non-human animals were designed in advance to engage in complex relationships with human beings.
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Genesis
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Life Design
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Origin of Life
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Human Uniqueness
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Creation
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Animals
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August 8, 2018
The way I typically hear this question is, why did God kill every man, woman, and child living in Sodom and Gomorrah? This question is frequently asked by Christians and non-Christians alike, and it’s commonly used as a basis for people to reject the existence of the God of the Bible. Such individuals presume that an all-loving God would never do such a thing.
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Atheism
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Bible Difficulties
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Problem of Evil
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Sin
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Justice
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Cancer
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Bible
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Morality
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August 6, 2018
Perhaps the most memorable lines in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner are “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” Seawater won’t help sailors in peril, but a new scientific discovery adds yet more evidence to how remarkably designed planet Earth is to allow us to have water to drink and to use to sustain our civilization.
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Earth Design
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Solar System Design
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Moon & Its Formation
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Water
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Early Earth
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Exoplanets
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July 30, 2018
In my last three blogs I described the inevitable climate instabilities that occur on Earth as a result of subtle variations in Earth’s rotation axis tilt and shape of its orbit about the Sun. For the first time, astronomers are paying serious attention to how similar variations affect the possible habitability of planets beyond our solar system. These studies are revealing extraordinarily fine-tuned design features in the solar system—and Earth in particular—that make Earth habitable not only for life, but also for animals, human beings, and global human civilization.
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Fine-Tuning
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Gas Giant Planets
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Global Warming
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Exoplanets
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Solar System Design
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Moon & Its Formation
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Life on Other Planets
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Earth Design
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Early Earth
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July 26, 2018
Twenty-two planetary astronomers from research institutions in Italy who form part of the MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) mission created an international stir when they announced the recent discovery of “subglacial liquid water” on Mars. Norwegian Polar Institute scientist Anja Diez concurrently published a Perspectives commentary in Science titled, “Liquid Water on Mars.“
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Life on Other Planets
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Life
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Origin of Life
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Mars
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July 23, 2018
As I have explained in posts one and two, our present brief (13,000-year) warm interglacial and even briefer (9,000-year) period of extreme climate stability will end. Another ice age is coming. Though for a number of reasons (as I will explain) we cannot prevent the onset of an ice age, there are some things we can do to delay it.
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End Times
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Earth's History
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Earth Design
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July 16, 2018
If an ice age is coming soon, how will our lives be affected? In my first blog post in this series, I described the latest scientific research that demonstrates how continued global warming will bring on the next ice age and approximately when we can expect its onset. In this post I will describe the consequences the onset of the next ice age will create for modern civilization. In the final post in this series I will briefly summarize our options for delaying the dawn of the next ice age and review what preparations we should make ahead of its arrival.
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Plants
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Atmosphere
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Global Warming
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Extinction
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Earth Design
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July 9, 2018
Not a week goes by that I don’t get at least three questions about global warming. Frequently, what underlies these questions is a concern, and sometimes outright panic, that all the ice fields and glaciers in Antarctica, Greenland, and the Himalayas will melt and drown out all the coastal cities of the world where over a third of world’s population currently lives. Adding to this concern and panic is the worry that global warming will raise summer daytime temperatures in inland cities to such a degree that millions of people without air conditioning will die from heatstroke.
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Geophysics
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Ocean life
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Natural Disasters
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Extinction
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Global Warming
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Earth Design
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July 2, 2018
The nature of cosmic dark matter, the exotic matter that makes up about 5/6 of all matter in the universe, ranks as one of the two biggest unsolved components1 of the biblically predicted big bang creation model.2 (The other big unsolved component is the nature of dark energy.3) The exotic property of cosmic dark matter is that, unlike ordinary matter (matter comprised of protons, neutrons, and electrons), it does not interact or very weakly interacts with light. Now, a recent paper published in Nature by two Harvard University astrophysicists4 brings us one step closer to comprehending the nature of cosmic dark matter and thereby giving us yet more reasons to believe in the biblical description of the origin, history, and nature of the universe.
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Universe Design
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Dark Energy & Dark Matter
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Big Bang Theory
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June 25, 2018
The US Food and Drug Administration is concerned that Americans consume too much salt. Yet, when my wife was pregnant with our sons, her obstetrician was concerned that she was not consuming enough salt. In other words, too much—or too little—salt in our diets can be harmful. And what is true for humans is true for every life-form. Now a new scientific discovery reveals that cyanobacteria play a vital role in maintaining a perfect salt balance in our oceans.
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Fine-Tuning
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Ecosystems
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Ocean life
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Plate Tectonics
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Life History
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Early Earth
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Cambrian Explosion
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