Researching Creation

January 22, 2014

General / Naming Infinity

JB

Someone posted a link to a book that looks fantastic -- Naming Infinity.  I'm a big fan of infinity (both in philosophy and mathematics), and have been learning more about it.  This looks like a great contribution to the discussion.

A friend of mine posted this review of it.

September 03, 2011

General / Special Creation Research Society Discount for Students

JB

For those interested in joining the Creation Research Society, they are running a special membership drive at a steeply discounted price:

See here

June 28, 2011

General / The Doctrine of Creation and the Making of Modern Biology

JB

I just posted a new article on the Classical Conversations website - check it out!

May 18, 2011

General / On Being an Amateur

JB

I'm posting this mainly because I was thinking about it today, and it took me over an hour to find it.  So I'm saving it here for future reference.  Biblo at Telic Thoughts put up some excellent thoughts about being an amateur ID proponent.  I also added the following comment:

I think it is dangerous for any discipline to reject the criticisms of amateurs out-of-hand. I have been programming computers for 25 years, have a book on programming that is used at Princeton University, have taught programming, and have numerous papers and articles on programming published by IBM and others.

Nonetheless, I still, often, have customers who come up with ways of doing things that I don't think of – customers who have never programmed a day in their life. I know many people who dismiss their customers ideas out-of-hand because they don't believe that non-programmers have valid input. That is total B.S. The fact is, being a non-programmer gives someone an outside look at the issues that aren't obscured with all the things us programmers normally worry about that, and sometimes that opens their minds up to possibilities that we don't see.

It doesn't mean that I take their ideas without criticism – there are more bad ones than good ones (which is expected, because they are outside the field, and aren't familiar with the issues). But nonetheless, I would be a lesser developer if I used the fact that these people are non-experts as a reason to dismiss what they had to say.

This also often requires translating what the have to say. Non-experts often use terms wrong, have a bad understanding of the way certain concepts work together, and the like. But *my* job is not to use my expertise as a way of beating their ignorance over their heads, but rather to *translate* their conceptualizations of their ideas into full-fledged, implementable ideas. So, rather than using my expertise to knock down, I use it to build up – to find a way to understand the non-experts in the most gracious light, and find a way for them to be right.

Doing so improves us both.

February 20, 2011

General / New Book - Sacred Cows in Science

JB

The book Sacred Cows in Science was just released.  This book is a compilation of issues from 17 authors in 3 countries which each challenge some aspect of science that normally goes unchallenged.  I have a chapter in it, so please take time to purchase a copy!  My chapter is on genetic mutations and whether they are accidental or not (or both).

The book covers a lot of territory, including astrophysics, biology, sociology, and other topics.  Many of the topics deal directly or indirectly with creation and evolution but not all.  Anyway, the chapters are all very different, some lay-oriented and some that are more technical.  Anyway, purchase a copy today!

February 08, 2011

General / A Theory of Undesign

JB

One thing that is often missing in ID contexts is a theology of "undesign".  That is, if we are going to take our design inferences seriously, that means that there needs to be a real category of "undesign".  Yet, if we take our faith seriously, then we also need to understand God as the designer of the whole universe.

David Snoke takes a pass at working through this issue in a paper titled "Defining Undesign in a Designed Universe".  Well worth your read.

September 20, 2010

General / Wooden Ships the Size of Noah's Ark

JB

Ian just pointed me to an excellent link about Chinese Treasure Junks.  These are ships built in the 15th century that have approximately the same dimensions as Noah's ark, and built out of wood.  Pretty amazing!  I wonder what these could teach us about the ark itself, if anything, and if perhaps the technology to build these came from the ark itself.

August 31, 2010

General / Please vote for the Little Light House

JB

Please vote for the Little Light House to receive $500,000 from Kohl's Cares.  This is a wonderful organization which benefits special needs children without taking any payment whatsoever.  They have been a lifesaver to me and my family.

July 21, 2010

General / The Mind

JB

[WARNING - this post may not make any sense until I give my BSG talk - sorry - I'll refer back to it later after I describe that talk]

In preparation for my BSG talk on creationary cognition models, I was digging through some papers, and ran into a whole collection of papers on the Gödelian argument against the physicalism of the brain.  Would someone please take these papers to the theology departments?  Anyone?

This whole area of research seems completely unknown outside of a few specialists (though Penn State seemed to have a lot of contributions, or at least a lot of archived papers that Google Scholar pointed to).

Anyway, when I had started my research in seminary, I thought that my Gödelian argument for the soul was at least somewhat unique.  I had read Voie's use of Gödel, but did not realize that there was an actual literature on the subject.  I have to say I was a little disappointed when I found Robertson's paper on free will.  I realized my argument wasn't brand-new. 

Anyway, I found one paper that comes at least a little close to what my BSG presentation will be on - Copeland's Turing's o-machines, Searle, Penrose, and the Brain.  On the one hand, even if I didn't add anything to the conversation, I think just popularizing these ideas is worthwhile.  However, my goal is to begin a research program to systematize these ideas as part of a general cognitive studies program.  I think one reason why these ideas aren't getting as much play is because they are being relegated to philosophy.  What we need to do is to start experimenting - then we can put them into practice.

Some interesting and related papers I found in Google Scholar:

June 24, 2010

General / BSG/CGS 2010 Meeting Speaker List

Todd just posted the talk list for the BSG/CGS meeting.  It looks to be a really exciting time, and I have no idea how they are going to fit so many talks into a day and a half - probably switching to a multiple-track format. Anyone who wants to interact with creation research should come here.  Here's the link to register.  After this week the registration price goes up.

Here is the list of talks:

Biology

  • Bartlett - Estimating Active Information in Adaptive Mutagenesis
  • Bartlett - Developing an Approach to Non-Physical Cognitive Causation in a Creation Perspective
  • Demme - Grasses and Shrubs or Grain and Thorn-bushes? The Vegetation of Genesis 2.5
  • Francis - Use of Halobacteria as a Model Research Organism in the Undergraduate Research Laboratory
  • Sanders - Baraminological Status of the Verbenaceae (Verbena Family)
  • Wilson - Revisiting the 'Clear Synapomorphy' Criterion
  • Wise - Dominion: Human raison d’être, Foundation of Bioethics, Foundation of Environmentalism
  • Wood - Species and Genus Counts for Terrestrial Mammal Families Reveals Evidence for and against Widespread Intrabaraminic Diversification
  • Wood - A Re-evaluation of the Baraminic Status of Australopithecus sediba Using Cranial and Postcranial Characters

Geology

  • Austin - Submarine Liquefied Sediment Gravity Currents: Understanding the Mechanics of the Major Sediment Transportation and Deposition Agent during the Global Flood
  • Cheung, Strom, Whitmore - Persistence of Dolomite in the Coconino Sandstone, Northern and Central Arizona
  • Garner - Permian Cross-bedded Sandstones and Their Significance for Global Flood Models
  • Gollmer - Deep Ocean Interaction in a Post-Flood Warm Ocean Scenario
  • Hutchison - Potential Mechanisms for the Deposition of Halite and Anhydrite in a Near-critical or Supercritical Submarine Environment
  • Oard - Dinosaur Tracks, Eggs, and Bonebeds Explained Early in the Flood
  • Ross - YEC Geology in the Classroom: Educational Materials, Challenges and Needs
  • Snelling - Radiohalos in Multiple, Sequentially-Intruded Phases of the Bathurst Batholith, NSW, Australia: Evidence for Rapid Granite Formation During the Flood
  • Snelling - Radiocarbon in Permian Coal Beds of the Sydney Basin, Australia
  • Stansbury - How Does an Underwater Debris Flow End? Flow Transformation Evidences Observed within the Lower Redwall Limestone of Arizona and Nevada
  • Whitmore, Strom - Clay Content: A Simple Criterion for the Identification of Fossil Desiccation Cracks?
  • Whitmore - Preliminary Report and Significance of Grain Size Sorting in Modern Eolian Sands
  • Whitmore, Maithel - Preliminary Report on Sorting and Rounding in the Coconino Sandstone