Greater Houston Creation Association
Creation News
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Acquiring and Distributing Knowledge Regarding God's Creation
Webinar and Meeting: November 4 at 7 pm
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Answers to Challenges from Uniformitarians 3
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In the last two GHCA meetings we have examined the challenges from critics of the young creation model and evidences. Last month we looked at the Helium diffusion from zircon crystals that are made when rocks first begin to solidify from the molten state. After a short summary of the zircon issues I will introduce the soft tissues in dinosaur topic for this month.
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As zircon solidifies it chemically draws in radioactive atoms like uranium and thorium which then generate Helium as they decay radioactively. That Helium diffuses out of the zircon but the radioactive atoms and their decay products are tightly bound in place. So, one can determine how much helium has been generated. If one could establish how fast Helium diffuses out of zircon one could model how long the diffusion process has been going on. So, the RATE research project anonymously paid an independent expert to measure the zircon helium diffusion rates.
The measured diffusion data was quite high. That measured high diffusion rate indicated that the helium had been leaking out of the zircon samples so fast that only 6000 years would be required to loose the helium generated in the zircon at normal radioactive decay rates assumed to be constant for something like a billion years. Since both the diffusion and decay rate measurements seem to be sound, it can only mean the decay rates have not been constant over time. That conclusion agrees with several other lines of evidence that there has been a period of highly accelerated radioactive decay somewhere early in that 6000 year period, perhaps coincident with the Creation events or the Genesis Flood. Of course this is hard to swallow but none so far have produced a likely history of the zircon’s temperature over billions of years that would produce an old age diffusion model anywhere close the independently measured diffusion data. There is also a legitimate question about the diffusion if the experiment is run backward, will it retrace to the starting point. Only careful but expensive experiments can tell. The Creation Research Society has started a project, as funds will allow, to repeat this work with zircons with a well known history of temperature to close all possible loop holes if possible. We will be watching the progress of this work.
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In the November 4 GHCA meeting we will look at the discoveries of soft tissue found in dinosaur bones and other fossils. The first discoveries of soft elastic tissue in large fossil bones occurred in 2005 and it was shocking and astounding at that time. After all no one would expect any soft tissue to survive for sixty or a hundred million years. Science would expect bacteria to largely destroy any soft tissue. When the oxygen runs out anaerobic bacteria would likely destroy the rest. Over millions of years the bone structures would likely be replaced by minerals from the surrounding geology.
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However, after the initial shock and dismay scientists recognized the opportunity to learn much more about ancient organisms, so they began to look for other cases of preserved soft tissue, particularly in large fossils. In the last decade and a half researchers have found it rather common to have some soft tissue preserved with only some limited amount of degradation.
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In highly permineralized fossils everything including the bone have been replaced by minerals, sometimes with beautiful detail.
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But, in many other cases the tissue is still soft and elastic with blood vessels and nerves and blood cells and connective tissue and specialized bone cells displaying their delicate dendritic fine structure. Along with this many specific proteins are found consistent with the type of animal. Also DNA fragments can be found. The big question has always been how can these tissues remain intact in any form for ten or hundreds of millions of years? A start on an answer is the fact that the decay processes, even just time and temperature, all cause many extra chemical bonding among the proteins called ‘cross-linking’ which gives them considerably more strength and stability. Also the presence of iron in blood cells can act as a preservative that would help. But, is there enough iron in blood cells to preserve not only the blood cells but also all of the surrounding tissue as well? That would be an extreme stretch indeed.
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One obvious question is what about testing these remains of soft tissues for C-14? Clearly these and all animals have a common level of C-14 gained by breathing and eating plants which consume carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But no, most said, C-14 lasts no more than 100,000 years maximum and these fossils are very many millions of years old according to the conventional wisdom. But, some still pliable soft tissue make millions of years look problematic. So a group of scientists had the remains of soft tissue from several kinds of dinosaurs C-14 dated at a highly a reputed dating laboratory. Most of the resulting dates fall in the range of 20 to 40 thousand years old! This kind results have been replicated by several groups now. Some critics say that the preprocessing dating labs use to eliminate surface contamination can actually introduce C-14 contamination at those kinds of levels. But that is terrible. If they are introducing contamination why don’t they do the work it takes to clean up their process? As an electrical engineer who made a career of designing precision instruments and test systems this almost sounds like a fun project! I can think of several lines of action to approach this problem. True, higher precision generally does cost more. But, it is becoming important to be able to achieve substantially higher precision when it is needed.
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At the November 4th GHCA meeting we will explore all these issues in more detail. This will be a fun and fascinating science adventure. So, come and join us in person or via webinar on line at 7 pm on 11/4/21 The webinar link is here and in the red banner at the top of this newsletter and on the events page of our website, www.GHCAonline.com. If you are not signed up for our newsletter you can do so in the right sidebar of our website.
Looking forward to seeing you all again,
Frank Mayo President, GHCA
PS. We will also have a big announcement, so don’t miss this one!
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Over the last sixty years, six national scale YEC organization have grown up with a staff of PhD scientists in their leadership. These organizations include:
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Marine fossils are found in all rock levels with fossils including those with
land animal or other terrestrial fossils such as dinosaurs!
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Whitmore Coconino Research Team Free Access Publications:
For geologist and other technical people here are links to the most recent free access publications making strong case Coconino SS is deposition by water.
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Sincerely,
Frank Mayo, President
Greater Houston Creation Association
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Houston Science & Culture Network
Houston chapter of the Discovery Institute's division of Science and Culture.
Tour calls out false claims. See also the link to Tour's response to critics.
The Science & Faith Podcast by Dr. James Tour
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San Antonio:
The San Antonio Bible Based Science Association (SABBSA) usually meets the second Tuesday of each month, 7:00 p.m., at Faith Lutheran church just south of the corner of Thousand Oaks and Jones Maltsberger. More info is at www.sabbsa.org.
Dallas-Ft Worth:
The Metroplex Institute of Origin Science (MIOS) meets at the Dr. Pepper Starcenter, 12700 N. Stemmons Fwy, Farmers Branch, TX, usually at 7:30 pm on the first Tuesday of each month.
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Examples of Important YEC Scientific Evidences
Some major examples of physical evidence we point to include:
- Remains of original soft tissue still found in dinosaur bones. Along with that tissue is C-14 that would decay completely away in less than a hundred thousand years, a tiny fraction of the dinosaur fossil's supposed age.
- For many years geologists have found C-14 in fossil carbon throughout the fossil record. So, the entire fossil record is less than 100,000 years old.
- The origin of the information and molecular machinery in the first living self-reproducing cell remains a complete enigma for biologist and biochemists.
- In the origin of the universe, big bang theory is being recognized as a dead end by increasing numbers of secular scientists. The hypothesized inflation has nothing to start it, drive it forward, or stop it. Without inflation fatal flaws appear with the absence of predicted antimatter, magnetic monopoles, or any means for the whole universe to come to the same precise background temperature. Then the formation of the first stars is as enigmatic as the origin of the first biological cell. Dark matter and dark energy are as enigmatic as the galactic motions they are needed to explain.
At the root of all standard science are many assumptions that may be quite incorrect. At the top is that there is no God. Another is that present process can be used to explain everything in the past. When we look at a canyon we are taught to assume the river at the bottom cut the canyon. But perhaps tectonic events made the canyon and there is a river at the bottom because water always flows downhill. At the root of big bang theory is a pure assumption that has been named the "Cosmological Principle". Perhaps inaccuracies there are responsible for the big bang's multitude of problems.
There is more about the role of assumptions in science found on our website here. There are many more resources on young earth and young universe evidences here.
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