Ghosts in rocks say “boo” to scientists as creation researchers try to bury old earth Icon at

MOYA

1859-2005

Thousands…. not Billions Conference

Millions of years ago Millions of years ago Millions of years ago Millions of years ago!

Thousands…Not Billions (TNB)

A team of creation scientists researching radiometric dating have made astonishing discoveries. Their findings may well prove to be the most important scientific advance for creation in the last 20 years. Briefly, they found that radio decay processes suggest the earth is thousands, not billions of years old. As a result, the wrong idea about the age of the earth may soon be recognized as another icon of evolution belonging to the likes of Haeckel’s fraudulent embryonic drawings which still appear in school textbooks. But first a little history.

The RATE Project. Eight years ago the Institute for Creation Research assembled seven Ph.D. scientists to examine radiometric dating processes that secular science uses to prove the earth is billions of years old. Geologists Steven Austin and Andrew Snelling, Geophysicist John Baumgardner, Physicists Eugene Chaffin, Don DeYoung and Russell Humphreys and Meteorologist Larry Vardiman designed a project to investigate such claims and called it RATE—Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth. (Vardiman was chairman.) Later, Dr. Steven Boyd, a biblical Hebrew scholar, joined the group.

TNB-the Conference. Now the project is done. On 11/5/05, at the “Thousands…Not Billions” conference in Southern California, they will present their findings to the world. This is a once in a lifetime conference with four of the seven RATE scientists speaking and Dr. John Morris emceeing. For those who believe the Bible is the Word of God and thus completely accurate, this is a time to celebrate with great joy and praise. Here are some of the findings.

Carbon 14 in the remains of everything that once lived. According to the MOYA (millions of years ago) people, dinosaurs lived between 65 and 200 MOYA. Coal is the remains of plants and much coal is said to have been formed 300 MOYA.

Diamonds are a form of crystallized pure carbon and supposedly are dated to a billion years. At about 100,000 years, carbon 14 decays below the detection level, yet Carbon 14 was detected in all these items. Were the tests objective? ICR chose to contract out the dating of its samples rather than spend the money on an in-house dating laboratory, so all the tests were conducted by independent sources.

Was this previously unknown? No. There are numerous reports of significant amounts of Carbon-14 detected in “ancient” organic samples including fossils, petrified wood, shells, whale bone, coal, oil, and natural gas. Carbon 14 was also found in inorganic rocks and minerals including marble, graphite, and calcite. The samples were from all around the world and from all depths.

However, ICR did establish one record. It could find no reports in scientific literature of diamonds being tested for carbon 14. Diamonds are the hardest natural substance on earth and have a melting point higher than most metals. The carbon within diamonds is assumed to have remained locked away from any exchange with the atmos-phere since early in earth’s history, TNB 56. So diamonds represent the most extreme test. ICR had 12 diamonds from West and South Africa tested for Carbon 14; all 12 contained measurable carbon 14.

Ten coal samples were obtained from the US Dept of Energy Coal Sample Bank. Samples are available from dated deposits. ICR selected the 10 from categories in the 60, 100, and 300 million year ranges. Surprisingly they all contained approximately the same range of carbon 14.

This suggests the 60, 100, and 300 million years actually happened at the same time. Rather than saying the dates are unreliable, maybe the dates are quite reliable. If there was accelerated decay in the past, these could all date back to the Biblical Flood, which biblical creationists believe formed the coal fields of the world.

The finding of the universal presence of carbon 14 is remarkable in itself; but, it is not the end of the story. Other rate findings help to explain how to handle a date as great as 100,000 years old. The next finding points to the answer—accelerated radio decay in the past.

Excessive helium in minerals. Each uranium atom gives off eight helium atoms as it decays to lead. Incredible amounts of helium are found in New Mexico deep granites. Is the helium locked in the earth or does it escape; and, if so, how long does it take?

ICR hired a leading laboratory to test those granites to learn the answer. It turns out that helium doesn’t bond or lock in place but quickly moves through the earth and into the atmosphere. The numbers astonished the RATE team. That helium was produced just six thousand years ago. Since the half-life of uranium is 1.5 billion years, this means that just 6,000 years ago the earth experienced an episode of rapid radioisotope decay. This explains why all the radiometric dating processes give vast ages for the earth.

This also explains why carbon 14 dating might suggest ages approaching 100,000 years. Since the helium finding suggests accelerated radio decay about six thousand years ago a precedent is established (this would be day one and possibly day two of original creation recorded in Genesis, chapter one), Unique circumstances of enormous energy release can cause changes in decay rates. Most carbon 14 in the earth was placed there at the time of the Flood. If there was a brief period of rapid decay during the flood, much of the carbon 14 would have decayed leaving the appearance of great age.

The forces of the Flood are little understood, but the Bible says in three places that the Flood destroyed the world. The planet survived; so, this must be referring to the surface of the earth. We have recently seen what a minor disturbance at the bottom of the Indian Ocean could do and what slightly warm ocean water could do in producing the hurricanes Katrina, Rita and maybe Wilma. Genesis 6:11 says that all the fountains of the great deep broke apart. This reports a worldwide disturbance of the ocean floors that would require enormous volcanic activity heating the oceans to super hurricane strength world wide.

Dr. Larry Vardiman of ICR in his DVD, Wild, Wild Weather, suggests the possibility of 500 MPH winds and mile high storm surges. That kind of energy release could well be accompanied by a brief period of accelerated atomic processes.

New evidence for a literal Genesis, chapter one. The carbon 14 and helium stories are the easiest to tell, but the RATE project found four other bombshells—radiohalos in granite, fission tracks in zircons and discordant radioisotope dates (including discrediting the isochron method of dating). But I will tell this groundbreaking biblical finding. In addition to the seven Ph.D. scientists, a Hebrew scholar with a doctorate degree was added to the project to see if any further arguments could be found to show that Genesis, chapter one, should be taken literally. Dr. Steven Boyd accepted the assignment of searching Genesis 1:1-2:3 (the creation story) to see if God placed in the text conclusive evidence as to how to take this passage—narrative or poetry, literal or figurative.

On two occasions the Scripture tells the same story—once as narrative and once as poetry. These are the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14 (narrative) and Exodus 15 (poetry) and Barak’s defeat of the Canaanites in Judges 4 (narrative) and Judges 5 (poetry). Boyd did an analysis of all the Hebrew verb forms in those four chapters.

Two of the forms predominated in the narrative chapters and the other two forms predominated in the poetry chapters. Then Boyd checked other commonly acknowledged narrative and poetic passages. The same pattern prevailed.

Finally he went to the passage in question, Genesis 1:1-2:3. It tested for narrative with a 99.99% certainty. So the Hebrew language has a way of telling its audience if a writing should be understood in a figurative or a literal way, and Genesis, chapter 1, is so positively rigged to be understood as historical fact that it is fanciful imagination to take it any other way.

I have a Master of Theology degree which required four years of daily academic work beyond a bachelor’s degree. I have never seen how the days of Genesis, chapter one, could be understood in any other way when comparing Scripture with Scripture than literal 24-hour days. To me this is the final coup d’etat of the RATE project.

TNB-the Book. In addition to the conference, the information will be packaged in three other forms. A popular-level book explaining the findings of the eight-year project entitled Thousands…Not Billion is hot off the press and is expected to arrive here at the 7Wonders Museum about 10/24/05. I just finished a review copy of the book and found it a challenge. It is not a book of superlatives or a book that bashes evolution. Rather, it is civil, humble and marked by understatement. By maintaining a conservative tone, it gives little ammunition to evolutionists who might jump on some seemingly innocent statement, pour all sorts of false interpretations into it, and then dismiss the book out of hand. Since the book is the official means for communicating this work on a popular level, it was necessary to be rigidly exact and without overstatement.

TNB-the Video. A popular-level DVD (or VHS), a docu-drama with this information, will be available in November. We will be offering the DVD for sale once we return from the conference. But some will want to look at the details of this research. A technical book for those with a scientific background entitled Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative (876 pages, $79.95) will be released in early November. We will carry this hardbound book as well.

Further, this information will be presented in conferences around the country entitled “Thousands…Not Billions”. The one on November 5^th near ICR headquarters will only be the first of many. If you schedule conferences for your area, begin the process of bringing TNB to your area by contacting ICR now.

The project took courage. What if their research simply confirmed what the BOY (Billions-of-years) crowd has been saying all along? What if they had to say that all the scientific scrutiny by the world’s leading creation scientists pointed to an earth that indeed is billions of years old? What if they had to say the Bible and science are in unresolved conflict?

The project also took money, and none of it came from the government. If I understood correctly some one and a half million dollars was donated to pay for this research. I think that much of tax payer’s money is spent every hour in the US by the National Science Foundation on research kept rigidly within the evolutionary viewpoint. In this case God made much with little. It was also a sacrifice because this work had to be carried on after their regular jobs were done. Finally, it took resources—their friends and associates.

So what now… Will this settle the creation-evolution debate? Maybe not. There will be those who cannot let go of evolution, will switch to other subjects, ignore this evidence or reject it with weak but good-sounding arguments.

But, maybe yes. Keep this project in your prayers because we must always keep believing, prayer changes things.” What this means for the creationist, though, is that we now have strong, satisfying explanations for these former problem areas. LA

Weatherman presents “best evidence” for the Global Flood:

Extinction of the Woolly Mammoths

by Lloyd Anderson

It’s a weather man solving one of the greatest mysteries of all times – extinction of the woolly mammoths – millions of them found buried where vast grasslands once were their home. Solving this mystery also gives the best evidence for Noah’s Flood which, so far, is the only plausible explanation for the Ice Age.

Meet Michael Oard whose 218 page book, Frozen in Time, was published in October of 2004, $13.99. (See side bar).

Secular science literature often ponders, “Why did the mammoths disappear from earth? In 2002 one of them declared, “This question remains one of the greatest mysteries of all time.” FIT, p172.

Oard explains that an Ice Age requires six times as much evaporation from the world’s oceans as occurs today. To reach this threshold the present deep oceans which are 39^o F would have to be raised to 84^o F. The Flood warmed the oceans as the floor of the ocean broke apart and massive molten rock intruded. This is a part of “the fountains of the deep breaking apart” (Genesis 7:11).

After the Flood, as the oceans evaporated great amounts of water, snow began falling at higher elevations. Continuing volcanic activity maintained much ash in the sky through the years; the sun was not able to melt all the snow in the summer, and it slowly accumulated for 500 years until there was a continental ice sheet 2000 feet thick.

Meanwhile the Arctic and Pacific oceans moderated Alaska, the Yukon and Siberia so that the ice did not accumulate in the lowlands of those areas, a fact that is relatively unknown. FIT, p.138. These areas would be the first to glaciate using uniformitarian assumptions, leading them away from resolving the mammoth mystery. Instead those areas became vast grasslands supporting all kinds of wildlife including up to one billion mammoths.

Then as the oceans cooled, the ice progressively closed in toward the north trapping the animals from going to safety in the south. It became bitterly cold. The cooler oceans produced less evaporation and thus less rainfall. The animals didn’t have enough water to drink. Food became scarce. As the ice sheet melted it produced a by-product called loess, a dust composed of silt, some clay and sand. Vast dust storms suffocated and buried more and more of the stately creatures until they were totally extinct—buried in the loess.

One creation model for the cause of the Flood has an asteroid crashing into the earth. The model says the magnetic field caused ice from the asteroid to dump on the poles, quick-freezing the mammoths. Oard uses innumerable scientific evidence to show that the mammoths were not buried in the sedimentary rock layers that entombed the pre-flood animal life, but that they were buried in the several hundred feet of dust that sits on top of the sedimentary rock layers which are up to 50,000 feet thick in one place. Oard puts on his weatherman’s hat to show how the ice could get into the dust to produce the present burial conditions and how undigested food could be preserved in their stomachs under this scenario. The evidence is overwhelming that the mammoths died out over many years near the end of the Ice Age, not all at once at the beginning of the Flood. However, much research remains to be done on this subject. I believe all Biblical creationists would agree that there was just one ice age. Oard has been writing and lecturing on this topic for 15 years. The mammoths are a new chapter. But the key is the Flood. If the billions-of-years crowd could acknowledge the Flood, they would not still be in the dark about the mammoths.

Skullduggery:

Neanderthal “expert” discredited

A Frankfurt University panel recently reported that a German scientist who had once been considered a widely recognized expert in carbon dating lied about the age of human skulls. Even though they were much younger, Reiner Protsch von Zieten had dated them to be tens of thousand of years old. He resigned his position when the commission discovered he had forged and manipulated scientific facts over the past 30 years.

“Anthropology now has to revise its picture of modern man between 40,000 and 10,000 B.C.”, said Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist at the University of Greifswald.

Protsch’s work had once been considered a major piece of evidence showing that Neandertals once lived in Northern Europe. In 2004, suspicion arose during a routine investigation of German prehistoric remains by two other anthropologists. The female “Bischof-Speyer” skeleton with unusually good teeth in Northern Germany that Protsch dated to 21,300 years was found to be only 3,300 years old. Another skull was found to be simply an elderly man who died in 1750 – not one of the oldest of human remains.

Poison in the Pot?

Intelligent Design– what kind of science is this?

by Doris Anderson

When evolutionists stop grinding their teeth long enough to dispute the inroads intelligent design proponents are making, they blurt out, “bad science.” They believe that any dash of religion somehow poisons the scientific pot.

So, what is good science? What methods of inquiry into earth’s ways of working are the best, and what does God have to do with natural laws? Did He wind things up like a top and leave the earth and the cosmos spinning without His intervention? Hardly! The Bible repeatedly declares, as it does in Colossians 1:17, that God is not only the Creator but the sustainer of the universe. Over and over we learn how God continues to be at work providentially. Can science be studied apart from revelation; or, must science, of necessity, be enlightened by

biblical revelation and its sound interpretation?

As it turns out, both bad science and bad theology poison our lives.

Under piles of history lie the skeletons; but

alongside are the heroes who combined elements of true faith and good science.

Such renowned thinkers as Galileo, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, and Einstein made their discoveries based on some level of truth in both arenas. Various models for the scientific method changed with time and none of them were without philosophical underpinnings.

Carl Sagan, modern pop science buff, declared, “the Cosmos is all there is, all that was and all that ever will be.” While some may think this is science, it is his own article of faith that reverberated to popularize the Big Bang theory. His poison in the pot is bad because it denies the true God and promotes the god of materialism.

Galileo, a man of the church, was primarily the target of biased educational institutions that refused new ideas and made the church the fall guy. The church merely knuckled under to the views of higher education in the 17^th century much as they have done today. In that case, both bad science and bad theology needed antidotes. But Galileo’s godly motivation drove him on, and much of his good work survived or at least became the basis for better science.

How to organize hypotheses, collect data and verify conclusions objectively has not been as simple as most text books seem to indicate. Observable facts must be categorized, catalogued, reviewed and revisited as new observations are made. Old conclusions change with new observations. However, old investments forbid new ideas.

That is the poison of pride.

Much of Galileo’s work involved new ways of conceptualizing former observations and basing his experiments upon them. He developed the telescope and fostered the Copernican principal that the sun, not the earth, is the center of the solar system. Theologians balked because their interpretations of scripture were hazy and they wanted to bend to educators.

For instance, when Galileo demonstrated the moons of Jupiter with his telescope, one professor at the University of Pisa refused to even look at them because Aristotle had taught that such phenomena could not exist. In the same way, miracles cannot even be discussed today. The philosophy of naturalism assumes that in a natural world such cannot exist.

Accurate observation is just as important in Bible study as it is in science. These are both honed skills.

Charles E. Hummel, in his book, The Galileo Connection, says, “One who accepts naturalism is, ironically, more like the Greek philosopher than a modern scientist, since the matter is decided deductively on the basis of first principles before considering the evidence.”

Evolutionists’ attacks on intelligent design, now reaching federal court in Pennsylvania, are based on the much touted principle that religion should never enter the field of science. If the Intelligent Design movement succeeds in changing this idea, good science rather than bad should result. In reality, many great discoveries were made as scientists carried on their shoulders a reality of faith that cast its light over all their observations. ID makes room for that faith without abandoning scientific method.

Hummel writes of Johannes Kepler: “Kepler’s sense of order and harmony was intimately linked with his knowledge of God the Creator. “

Here’s what’s rocking at Mount St. Helens

Continuing Dome Building

Mount St. Helens has now oozed lava for over a year straight. The original lava dome took six years and many episodes to grow to the volume of 97 million cubic yards of rock. At the present rate it will take just three more months to equal the volume of the first lava dome. However, this time the rock has squeezed out onto the surface of the crater along the rim. At one time it was just 10’ below the top of the rim where it deeply notches on the SE side. Sooner or later each pile has fallen apart. However, to get a mountain as high as the old one, this process would have to continue for 44 years and that is unlikely. The scientists cannot say whether the oozing will continue for a day or a year, but they say there is a reasonable possibility that it could continue for some time. This month they estimate it is extruding 3 cubic yards a second. Whenever water falls on the hot rock, bursts of steam jet into the sky, sometimes well above the rim of the crater. LA

7 Wonders Museum 2005 Report

The guest register recorded 2104 visitors in 2004. That number has already been exceeded in 2005. At one time 2005 numbers were 400 ahead of 2004 numbers, but when gas prices went sky high, visitors fell to a trickle. We gave the PowerPoint presentation about 75 times and took people on 25 field trips. Groups, families or individuals typically begin their day at the museum and then do a field trip. Why not begin planning a visit to the Museum now?

Once you have selected a date, call the Museum and get on our calendar. If you wish us to lead a field trip, we will work with you to come up with the best itinerary for the ages involved. The ministry is based on grace. There are no charges. However, the museum does have expenses and these are met through sales and donations. Sales are approaching $20,000 which will also be a record. Nearly 1/3 of the sales is profit. Donations are about $9000. The Museum started the year with about $1000 in the bank and it looks like it will end the year in about the same condition. The Lord supplies. Praise Him for the 7^th year of the 7Wonders Museum. LA

Off-Season Hours. Because visitors have really slowed down, we plan to be gone more this winter. During the tourist season (May-September) we were only closed 3 or 4 days. To avoid disappointment, call before you come. Have us put you down on our calendar. We arrange our schedule around our calendar. We will be closed October 30^th to November 16^th.

Speaking Trips. Now that we are done with the big projects of the Addition and the 25^th Conference, we hope to take the MSH story on the road during the off-season. Can you arrange for us to speak to a group? Give us a call.

Thank you volunteers:

MSH Anniversary Conference Succeeds

With the help of volunteers from at least three creation organizations and many area churches, ICR filled a new Cowlitz County Conference Center Auditorium with the largest single event in the remembrance of the 25^th Anniversary of MSH. Over 900 people registered. Thank you volunteers!

It was only fitting that God’s work take center stage when He was responsible for the eruption in the first place. Although most people assume that eruptions can be somewhat predicted by their past rates, the Bible indicates that God is in control of His universe at all times, whether by His natural laws or supernatural means. We thank Him

for the publicity made available by recent volcanic activity that began last October and

continued to lure visitors to MSH way into early September of this year.

Guests at the conference were told how the eruption of 1980 informed new studies of flow deposits laid down rapidly with mud, ash and water. Grand Canyon formations can now be seen in the light of MSH research. Especially interesting was Dr. Steven Austin’s explanation of the way in which catastrophic flood currents confined nautaloid fossils to the Red Wall Limestone bed that he found extends as far as Nevada.

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We Recommend

Evidence for a Young World by Russell Humphreys. ICR Impact #384, June, 2005, double sheet, 8 pp.

In 2000, AiG published a booklet by noted creation physicist Humphreys containing 12 evidences that the earth is young. In ICR’s June 2005 Impact, Humphreys replaced one of the 12 with a stronger evidence, strengthened a few words describing the other 11 and added two from the RATE project research. What are they? Observable natural phenomena which cannot be associated with billions of years of earth history. To name a few: galaxies wind themselves up too fast, comets disintegrate too quickly, not enough mud on the sea floor or enough sodium in the sea; too much helium in minerals, too much carbon 14 in deep strata, not enough stone age skeletons …Humphreys’ paper can be seen and downloaded on the ICR website (www.ICR.org). We have secured 500 copies and will mail them upon request

New leadership for 7Wonders Board of Directors

It was difficult, so we had put off for several years finding someone to replace Dr. Keith Swenson as President of the 7Wonders Museum Board of Directors. Besides his professional duties as a dermatologist, Dr. Swenson has recently increased his teaching schedule at Multnomah Bible College. Although still on the Board, he will relinquish leadership to Pastor Stan Seigler of Napavine Baptist Church who was voted President at the fall Board meeting.

Pastor Seigler attended the ICR summer institute of geology in 1986 after pastoring

for several years in American Samoa. He was convinced that people of our culture had very little understanding of the Bible and creation. He wanted enough of a science

background to form a bridge from godless materialism, often deduced from evolution, to the Creator.

Pastor Seigler holds a degree in mechanical engineering from Clemson University in South Carolina as well as a Doctorate of Ministries degree from Linda Vista Baptist Bible college and Seminary in San Diego, CA, which he received in 1992.

We Recommend:

New Release: Starlight & Time DVD, by Dr. Russell Humphreys

I am delighted to recommend this new release that has been updated & expanded this year with nearly two hours of additional information. When Humphreys’ book by the same title came out in 1994, I carefully read the details of how light travels at different speeds depending on the fabric of the space it travels through. I learned that, on the basis of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, light created on day four could be seen by Adam on day six of creation.

But I did not grasp the whole idea until he came out with the 22 minute video that had excellent graphics. Humphreys says he let the book get shot at for about eight years and when no one could refute it, he did the video.

Now AiG has filmed Humphreys explaining his concepts to fellow scientist, Dr. John Baumgardener (geophysicist) who plays advocate for the lay person. This and other special features add 118 additional minutes to the original. Now my understanding has increased even more. We sell this updated DVD for just $12. Unfortunately, we still have three copies of the 22 minute DVD version. They originally sold for $19.95. We have reduced the price on them to $6 each. LA

Bookstore mail ordering

We expect to fill orders once we return from the RATE conference. We can usually get orders out in a day or two. We send at media rate and only charge for postage. We have about 170 creation titles in stock and rarely are out of the popular items. Our titles are generally sold at 5-15% below list, but we do sell the Defenders Study Bible and the ICC CD proceedings at cost. We sell any three of the intelligent design videos for $48. They have a list price of $19.95 each. We sell the Incredible Creature set (3 DVD’s) for $55. They have a list price of $22.95 each. We have about 25 VHS videos and will negotiate close-out prices on them. All our new stock is DVD. Because we don’t take credit cards, we send the order with an invoice. You have 15 days to pay. Give us a call about your special creation title needs.

360-274-5737 - Lloyd and Doris Anderson.

Please remember we will be closed from late October thru November 17^th - 2005