David Plaisted PhD

In 1 Corinthians 13 the Bible says, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.” Our knowledge is imperfect in this life, and we are continually learning more. This is also true in the scientific realm, and theories that were once held often have to be given up. We may see scientific theories change again very soon due to new discoveries concerning rates of radioactive decay, the speed of light, and the degree of ape-human similarity. All of these areas are significant for theories of the origin of life on earth, so it is helpful to examine them in more detail. Here there is only space to examine the first of these areas, namely, the rate of radioactive decay.

Shifts in the lines of absorption in the spectrum of visible light

When astronomers view distant objects through the telescope, they find that the more distant objects have a larger red shift. This means that their light is shifted towards the red end of the spectrum; in other words, the wavelengths have become longer than for similar objects seen close to us. They interpret this as meaning that these distant objects are receding from us and that objects farther away are receding from us faster. It’s a little like the Doppler effect that makes sound have a lower pitch when the source is traveling away from us. The faster an object travels, the larger the change in pitch. However, some properties of the red shift call this interpretation into question; these are the subject of the article that follows. One such property is the quantization of red shifts. They seem to occur in abrupt steps rather than continuously, which has interesting implications for the study of the universe. This suggests that the red shift may be caused by something other than the expansion of the universe, at least in part.

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Four giant stone hand axes were recovered from the dry basin of Lake Makgadikgadi in the Kalahari Desert. How big would a human have to be to use such a giant stone tool?

A Roman portrait bust believed to be that of Josephus, from Plagnieux, P. 'Les sculptures Romanes' Dossiers d'Archéologie

The genome of organisms contains their genetic material, which largely determines how they will develop. Scientists are learning more and more about the genome of various organisms, which is revealing more and more about the amazing wisdom of God in their design and creation. It seems that our understanding of the functioning of life is always incomplete, and the genome is always more complex than we had thought. Will we ever fully understand the functioning of life, or will it always be a mystery to us?

The Big Bang is the most widely accepted theory among scientists for the origin of the universe. It specifies that the universe began as a very small speck of space filled with incredibly dense matter. Then the universe began expanding at an astounding rate; in a billionth of a trillionth of a second, the newborn universe doubled and redoubled 100 times over, stretching each atom-sized volume to the size of a galaxy. 1

From time to time, new research results give additional insight into the Biblical flood. In fact, for one who understands the Biblical flood, many current discoveries are easy to understand. For example, a recent article in Science “calls for critical reappraisal of all mudstones previously interpreted as having been continuously deposited under still waters”. 1  Because mud sediments are “the dominant sediment type on earth”, this reappraisal has tremendous  implications for our understanding of the entire geological column.

Geological structures give considerable evidence about the sequence of events during the world-wide flood described in Genesis and also give evidence for the flood itself. These structures include the chalk deposits during the Cretaceous period, paleocurrents, which indicate the direction of water flow when fossils were deposited, coral formations, and others. Astronomical findings also give us information about the flood and its development.

Figure 1

Figure 1