[image removed pending permission from ICR]

Today is the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. But what has that got to do with a blog dedicated to defending a Christian world view? Well, quite a lot actually.

On May 18, 1980 when Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupted, melted snow mixed with the volcanic debris and formed huge mud flows. The flows reached speeds of 90mph, picked up sediment and rock, and, in addition to the original steam explosion, devastated a huge area, including some 150 square miles of forest in only six minutes!

These mud flows laid down enormous amounts of sediment, covering the area like a stack of pancakes, and resulting in a sediment pile up to 600-feet think in places. In some areas, thousands of individual layers formed within those sediments.

Then another eruption occurred on March 19, 1982, which created even more mud flows. They eroded large canyons as they scoured the countryside. One of these canyons is now called the “Little Grand Canyon,” and is almost like a smaller model of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. This new canyon even has side canyons, carved by catastrophic water and mud actions.

Catastrophism was a meaningful way of trying to interpret the strata in the early days of geology and this is well attested by the likes of Dr. Terry Mortensen in his writings on the scriptural geologists of the 19th century. However the uniformitarian view of geology popularized by Charles Lyell (and now becoming less popular in the midst of the “second coming” of catastrophism) compelled us to understand that the Colorado river carved the Grand Canyon over millions of years. Yet the canyons that resulted from the eruption of Mount St. Helens were witnessed to form in mere hours. As the caption in an image from this article says, “…  the stream did not form the canyon, the canyon came first and is responsible for the stream being there!” So perhaps the Grand Canyon formed in a similar fashion?

In fact, Creation scientists believe the Grand Canyon was formed in a similar fashion, probably carved out by the drainage of the enormous lakes that formed after the worldwide catastrophic flood and volcanic upheavals of Noah’s day (Gen 6-8).

See, it doesn’t take long for layered sediments or canyons to form from sediments, as proven by the Mount St. Helens eruption. It just takes the right conditions. Mount St. Helens demonstrated what creationists had been saying for centuries. Not only is Noah’s flood an historical event, but it is a plausible way (the best way?) to understand the geological record.

[Main reference: Answers in Genesis Flood Card Set]

Aren’t Millions of Years Required for Geological Processes?
‘I got excited at Mount St Helens!’

I think SALVO Magazine is a great publication and nothing I am about to say here changes that. I think it’s so great in fact that after subscribing for one year on the recommendation of a friend [thanks Rick], I purchased all the back issues I could get my hands on. I think the mag is worth every cent. But it is because of one particular issue of SALVO that I decided to spend some time clarifying a view that is often misrepresented, even by Christians. That view is creationism, particularly the “young-earth” kind. 

Introducing Issue #4 (Winter 2008) – dedicated to the topic of Intelligent Design. Understandably I had a great time reading this! It includes some great articles that address questions like; Why is ID so important? What is the argument for ID from DNA? What does ID have to say about Biochemistry? What does Information tell us about ID? How can ID help us understand Living Cells? Can ID contribute to our understanding of Genetics? and; How does observability evidence Design? 

Conversely it addresses questions such as; What exactly is the problem with Evolutionary Theory? and; What can Evolution really do? It also delves into the political with articles like; What do ID proponents want taught in Public Schools? Has ID been banned in Public Schools? and; What happens when you challenge a school’s Science Curriculum? 

All very thought provoking articles to be sure. But throughout the magazine I was disappointed at times to find what I believe is an inaccurate characterization of creationism. As a relatively well-versed creationist myself, I decided to do a survey of this issue for references to creationism to highlight the nuances of the view and the ways in which it is often misunderstood and misrepresented.^[1] 

Read the rest of this entry

[Last Updated: 22 February 2010]

Dr. Terry Mortenson provides a great example of what evolution isn’t in his review of a 33-page 2004 National Geographic cover story which asked, “Was Darwin wrong?”

It’s examples exactly like this that are typically paraded as evolution in action, when really it is nothing of the sort.

The bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is troublesome to humans, but doctors can destroy it with an antibiotic. After the patient takes the antibiotic, it is absorbed through the cell wall of the bacterium. It has the genetic information to make an enzyme which reacts with the antibiotic converting it into a poison, killing the bacterium. But due to a mutation, some H. pylori cannot make the enzyme and so cannot convert the antibiotic and so do not die but reproduce, giving the patient and doctor a new problem. The mutant survived through a loss of information, which is not a process that will eventually lead to an increase of information to change a bacterium over millions of years into a biologist.

http://creation.com/national-geographic-is-wrong-and-so-was-darwin

In the scenario above the organism with the mutation has indeed – to use evolutionary language – gained an advantage over the other H. pylori in an environment with the antibiotic present. So has the H. pylori evolved? Well that depends on what you mean by evolution. Is the change that occurred in the organism in the direction for the bacterium to develop new body parts or body plans; is it on it’s way to becoming a baboon, a bird, or a badger? Most certainly the answer is NO. The information change is a negative one, not a positive one. In fact in this example not only is no new information created but the mutation destroyed the information in the bacterium’s genome that would normally have allowed it to produce an enzyme. So the non-evolved H. pylori can make the enzyme and the so-called evolved ones cannot; a damaging mutation with a beneficial side effect. Yet examples just like this (information-destroying changes) are often used to provide support for macro evolution, which requires observable information-gaining changes.

If it makes it any easier to understand, believing that these kinds of changes support the evolutionary theory is analogous to believing that your bank balance will steadily increase the more money you take out. Wish I had a bank account like that!