Non-Darwinian Research of Note
Not all research assumes Darwinism or
accepts the warfare myth of science vs religion.
Here are three recent scholarly examples.
Modern society tells students that science is at war with religion, and that to do science, you must shed theology at the door and assume only natural causes. But is that true? Consider these three examples in the news.
Biblical Research
“You are Cursed by the God YHW:” an early Hebrew inscription from Mt. Ebal (Stripling et al., Heritage Science, 12 May 2023). Years of work sifting through discards of the Mt. Ebal site in Israel, excavated in the 1980s, has yielded a spectacular inscription: a “curse tablet” inscribed on lead, with the name of the God of Israel (YHWH) indicated. Because of its delicacy, this 2×2 cm folded piece of lead, recovered last year, had to be scanned using X-ray tomography to reveal the writing inside. It is translated as, “You are cursed by the god YHW, cursed. You shall die, cursed – cursed, you will surely die. Cursed you are by YHW – cursed.”
The authors date the inscription at Late Bronze Age II and noted its contemporaneity with the Bible’s record of Joshua setting up altars on Mt Ebal and on Mt Gerizim, the former for reading the curses for disobedience to YHW, the latter for reading the blessings of obedience (Joshua 8:30-35). Moses had commanded Joshua to do this (see Deuteronomy 27). Since the earlier excavations, it was known there were two altars at the site: a larger one built on top of an earlier one. The inscription is dated to the earlier altar.
In conclusion, the paper says,
An expedition to wet sift Adam Zertal’s dump piles from the 1980s at el-Burnat (A) yielded a small, folded lead object. Enhanced photogrammetry and tomographic reconstructions revealed letters written in a proto-alphabetic (= Proto–Hebrew) script, likely dating to the Late Bronze Age II (ca. 1400–1200 BCE), but no later than ca. 1250 BCE. The original archaeological context and analysis of the lead reinforce this date. The text contains repeated use of the word ’arur (= curse) and is the oldest Hebrew text found within the borders of ancient Israel, predating the Khirbet Qeiyafa ostracon by at least two centuries. The use of the divine name YHW leaves no doubt that the text is Hebrew and not Canaanite. The recovery of this formulaic curse from an altar on Mt. Ebal synchronizes with Joshua 8, which mentions the construction of an altar (vss. 30–31), writing (vs. 32), and pronouncement of curses (vss. 33–34). This text requires adjustments to certain anthropological and biblical paradigms.
Finding the Israelite name of God on an inscription is significant, and finding one that is two centuries older than the previously earliest one found at Khirbet Qeiyafa (time of David) is doubly significant. As could be expected, revisionists and Bible doubters are claiming the dating and translations are flawed or too uncertain. The paper is open access, with 71 references, for those wishing to read the evidence. For a popular article about this inscription, see an article at JewishPress.com from January 2022 with photos and background information.
Flood Geology Research
The Carbon Canyon Fold, Eastern Grand Canyon, Arizona (Andrew Snelling, Answers Research Journal, 22 Feb 2023). With national park permits, PhD geologist Andrew Snelling collected samples from Carbon Canyon in the Grand Canyon, a place where Tapeats sandstone rocks have been folded vertically.
The Tapeats Sandstone beds are severely bent in the Carbon Canyon fold exposed in a side canyon in eastern Grand Canyon. Conventional geologists accept that this folding occurred during the Laramide orogeny at ~35–70 Ma when the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. However, the Tapeats Sandstone had been deposited at 507–508 Ma, so after ~450 million years it should have been fully cemented and lithified. Yet the sandstone beds look as though they were bent smoothly while they were still unlithified and soft. Such a conclusion is preposterous if there were ~450 million years between deposition of the Tapeats Sandstone and its deformation in the Carbon Canyon fold.
Using thin sections under the microscope and multiple modes of analysis, he ruled out theories that the fold occurred after the rocks had cemented. No one had done this microscopic analysis before. The rocks must have folded when the rock was still wet and soft. Snelling used this evidence to support the Genesis Flood model.
Because the Tapeats Sandstone beds were still relatively damp and soft after less than a year of rapid burial, they easily responded to the soft-sediment deformation to form the smooth bending (without brittle fracturing) in the Carbon Canyon fold before the beds dried, and were cemented and lithified to sandstone. Altogether, more than 500 million years of claimed geologic history are thus eliminated.
Snelling had to fight bullies who did not want him to collect samples, because they knew he would use them against Deep Time. The paper, published in February by the Answers Research Journal sponsored by Answers in Genesis, contains all the data, analysis, and detail one would expect in a geology paper, but the antagonism against creation research is intense. Quality of research is of no concern to those who cherish Deep Time and wish to censor anyone who questions it.
Intelligent Design Logic
William Dembski Offers an Updated Edition of an Intelligent Design Classic (Evolution News, 22 Nov 2022). Dembski, one of the pioneers of design logic and one of the leading lights of the Intelligent Design Movement, broke ground in 1998 with his major work published by Cambridge University Press, The Design Inference. In the book he presented his “Design Filter” diagram that eliminates chance and natural law by small probabilities. Now, Dembski has news:
The second edition of The Design Inference will be out in September 2023, exactly 25 years to the month after the first edition appeared in print. Below is the front matter of the new edition, including the original preface as well as the new preface, but excluding the foreword and acknowledgment. The first edition was written by me; the second includes my colleague and good friend Winston Ewert as a full co-author.
The press release with link to a podcast by Dembski gives clues about the new and improved 2nd edition:
Dembski says he stands by that work and his early contributions to intelligent design theory, but adds that he has learned a lot more in the intervening years, particularly from his work with Robert J. Marks and Winston Ewert at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab. Lessons from that and other research, Dembski explains, will enrich the new edition.
Dembski does not question Deep Time, and does not agree with young-earth creationists. The logic of this epochal work, however, is essential for eliminating unguided processes for complex specified information. It started with this book and continued in his subsequent books No Free Lunch, The Design Revolution (responses to questions about intelligent design and challenges by skeptics), and Being As Communion, a philosophical work about ontology that elevates “information” to the most fundamental reality.
The second edition of his foundational book, with its updated information from the past quarter century of design thinking, is poised to give another generation the reasoning behind the art of discriminating intentional phenomena from chance and natural law.
One More
See also how tenured professor Dr James Tour (Rice University) has taken on the Darwinian take on the origin of life on YouTube, outside the censored avenues of Big Science, where he can reason directly with any viewer willing to listen to facts and evidence. No one questions the quality of Dr Tour’s expertise in structural chemistry.
We usually report from secular sources, but like to bring quality research from creationists and ID advocates to our readers’ attention on occasion. There is actually a steady flow of it in creation journals which succeed on presenting views censored by the Darwin Party. Like secular journals, creation papers undergo peer review and generate discussion. Because of the Darwin censorship wall, however, many people do not get exposed to criticisms of Darwin and deep time.
When the Darwin wall of censorship cracks, people will be able to judge the merits of research based on evidence, not on ideology.