* The Renowned Cornell Geneticist Argues Against Darwin: J.C. Sanford has published over 80 scientific publications in peer reviewed journals and is the inventor with his colleagues at Cornell University of the gene gun, a prototype of which is housed in Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian Museum. Sanford's book, Genetic Entropy, highly recommended by Fred Williams, presents arguments against what Sanford calls The Primary Axiom, that man is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection.
* For Biology, Use 'Entropy' Not 'Second Law': Bob has long argued that when arguing against biological evolution creationists should use the term entropy, as Sanford does, rather than the term second law of thermodynamics. An American Journal of Physics paper on evolution and thermodynamics prompted Bob Enyart and TOL's Johnny to debate Entropy & Evolution. Kindly, Prof. Dan Styer himself, the author of the AJP paper, joined in while Bob was arguing that it is not possible to translate information entropy into heat entropy. Bob urges creationists to refrain from that sloppy argument, and if he's correct, then Bob has shown that Styer failed to refute the entropy argument against Darwin.
* Conversation with a Restaurant Manager: Real Science Radio co-hosts Fred Williams and Bob Enyart discuss their chats with the manager of a local restaurant who became an atheist through higher education while obtaining his degree in communications. Please pray for Andres!
* The Firmament of the Earth Had Water Above and Below: Popular atheist Brett Palmer made a 40-minute YouTube video critical of Bob Enyart's little article on the firmament of the earth. Seems we hit a nerve. As it turns out, this topic of the "firmament" is of great interest to atheists who attack biblical creation, and with Dr. Walt Brown, we can answer their objection. So see that atheist video, now embedded into our article, and our reply!
* On the Timing of the Fall: Further considerations from Real Science Radio.
In the 2011 Fall issue of Creation magazine, in the article, Why Bible History Matters, Dr. Jonathan Sarfati makes three observations about how long after their creation on Day 6 until Adam and Eve sinned.
1. Adam and Eve did not conceive any children prior to the Fall
2. Eve would likely have become pregnant during her first menstrual cycle
3. Lucifer would have rebelled in the short time between Day 7 when all was "very good" and Eve's sin
Recognizing that Adam and Eve fell prior to conceiving their first child is the primary realization for chronicling the earliest days in human history. These notes present additional biblical and biological observations that may further narrow the timing of the fall of Adam and Lucifer. Scripturally, Dr. Sarfati is on solid ground concluding that Satan fell in that short time period. For as traditionally understood, the passage interpreted as Satan's fall in Ezekiel 28 says about Lucifer that, "You were in Eden, the garden of God." And in Isaiah 14, the parallel passage about the perfect and wise Lucifer, “you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven… I will ascend above the heights of the clouds…"
Lucifer was "fallen from heaven," not geographically, for He was on the earth in the Garden of Eden coveting to rise above the clouds and ascend of his own will into heaven. So he fell not from heaven, but from God's kingdom of heaven, which initially encompassed everything created. For Lucifer was, "perfect… from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you." And prior to his temptation of Eve, he was not cursed to be lower than the animals, and prior to Eve's fall he was not at enmity with Eve nor with her future descendants." For God said, "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle… And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed."
Coveting both the obedience of man, and the millions of offspring represented by the ova in Eve's ovaries (and all of their posterity), Lucifer tempted Adam and Eve before their first conception. And while so quick a fall by Man, and by an archangel, and by his followers, seems difficult to understand, surely that difficulty would increase, not decrease, the longer these beings had lived in fellowship with God.
But when might Eve have become pregnant? With a significant range among healthy women, the normal human menstrual cycle is about 28 days (four 7-day weeks) and ovulation occurs, while varying a few days either way among women, averaging near the middle of the cycle. During that time, the hypothalamus triggers a vital and irreducibly complex process beginning with instruction to the pituitary gland to release gonadotropic hormones, which the blood stream carries to the ovaries, which in turn use hormonal chemical signals to prepare the endometrium of the womb. (Of course, hormones are chemical signals WITHIN an organism, whereas pheromones are chemical signals BETWEEN organisms; and so endocrinologist Dr. Joel Brind of Baruch College in New York City argues that the first cry of the baby to mom that he is hungry is the chemical signal detected by Early Pregnancy Tests, which is not a hormone, but a pheromone signal to another organism, that is, from one person to another, from child, to mom.)
We reliably infer from both secular and sacred history that Adam and Eve had no sinless offspring. For if they had, there would have been war not only in heaven, and between man and God, but also between fallen and unfallen mankind, something that has not occurred. Thus, Eve did not conceive a child prior to Adam's sin.
While a woman's ovum is viable for about one day after being released, a man's sperm can live in vivo, even today after millennia of degeneration, in the woman's fallopian tubes for up to one week. By subtracting that week from the approximate middle of Eve's cycle, it appears that Adam may have rebelled within seven days of his creation. Since Adam and Eve were created on day six, the Fall may have occurred on the calendar date one week later which would have been the 13th day of creation.
Biblical numerology, while a valid area of study, easily leads to destructive superstition and so must discussed wisely. The number 13 does not factor heavily into biblical numerology but its first reference dates a rebellion, and its second dates the origin of a claim from gentiles of being the true possessors of Israel's covenant, and a third contrasts devotion to God with devotion to one's self.
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. Gen. 14:4
Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised… Gen. 17:25
"the house was finished… So he was seven years in building [God's Temple]. But Solomon took thirteen years to build his own house…" 1 Kings 6:38 – 7:1
These biblical references may have subtly played into man's superstitious ideas about the number 13, which are so strong that many owners of skyscrapers and hotels resist marking a 13th floor, as many people foolishly fear Friday the 13th.
The exact date of the Fall is beside the point however. What is relevant in the study of human history is that there is strong biblical evidence to indicate that Lucifer, Adam and Eve fell within about one week of creation.
by Bob Enyart
Real Science Radio.com
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Eugenie Flubs Genetics Prediction, Bob Hits the Bull's-Eye: Eugenie Scott offered the "evidence" for evolution of Junk DNA. This scientist, from her Darwinist worldview, made a philosophical argument that a Creator would not fill our DNA with mostly junk. (Unlike the relatively few gene segments that code for the 20,000 proteins in the human body, the widespread evolutionary claim of the 1990s was that the rest of the genome had no function and so was called Junk DNA.) Bob, the Christian fundamentalist, answered from his biblical worldview, that our knowledge of genetics was in its infancy, and that it was too early to make the determination that all those non-coding segments of DNA had no function. The next decade of explosive genetic discoveries overwhelmingly validated this creationist perspective, so much so that aside from coding for 20,000 proteins, it is estimated that the remainder of the genome has approximately one million other functional regulatory segments of DNA. So much for junk. Fulfilled predictions, as the world saw with Einstein, go toward scientific credibility. However, Dr. Scott strongly rejected this creationist prediction making an extraordinary claim, which Bob immediately offered her to retract, that scientists currently knew everything they would ever need to know about genetics to conclusively state that all those regions were useless junk. Bob would love a rematch. But Eugenie Scott, (Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology, leading anti-creationist, and director of the National Center for Science Education), who had just debated evolution on a nationwide PBS television program, ended this one-hour program with Bob stating, "Well, I don’t debate."