Book Contents

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Introduction

PART 1: ESSENTIAL BACKGROUND (pages 8–159)

1 Why worldviews matter

2 Sizing up the contenders

  • The first criterion: The problem of existence
  • The second criterion: The problem of information
  • The third criterion: The problem of coherence
  • The fourth criterion: The problem of consciousness
  • The fifth criterion: Compatibility with science
  • Conclusion
  • References

3 The tool called science

  • Categories of science
  • Forensic case study: Flight MH370
  • The importance of eyewitness evidence
  • Conclusion
  • References

4 The case of the missing philosophy

5 The scientific rise and fall of the ancients

6 The great reversal of science: from Christian to anti-Christian foundations

  • The intellectual intrapment of the ancients
  • Aristotle returns: priming Europe for empiricism
  • The Black Death
  • The Renaissance: onset of anti-Christian history
  • Why did modern science begin in Europe?
  • Presuppositional shift: Deism and Higher Criticism
  • The emergence of anti-Christian origins science
  • Christian pushback: the scriptural geologists
  • References

7 Darwin’s Origin of Species and the emergence of the creationists

  • Darwin’s theory
  • The failed pushback of Philip Henry Gosse
  • A shift in worldview
  • The Darwinists organize: money, connections and power
  • Darwin’s timing
  • Eugenics: evolution with its sleeves rolled up
  • Darwinism into schools
  • A grand-scheme view
  • Broken walls
  • The creationists respond
  • Creationist science
  • References

8 Terms of the debate

  • A crucial but subtle distinction
  • Early days
  • Evidence for evolution
  • Microevolution
  • Macroevolution
  • An imprecise umbrella term
  • The created kinds
  • A different conception of kinds
  • Secular humanist versus creationist views of biological history
  • Death
  • Motte and Bailey
  • Conclusion
  • References

PART 2: REBUTTAL OF SECULAR ORIGINS (pages 160–300)

9 Big Bang: the collapse of infinity

  • The shifting fortunes of the eternal universe
  • The underpinnings of Big Bang thought
  • The development of the Big Bang account
  • Other Big Bang models
  • Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorum
  • Shifting infinities
  • Secular miracles
  • Trouble in the ranks
  • The collapse of the naturalistic origins account
  • Secular humanist cosmology: where to from here?
  • Conclusion
  • References

10 Abiogenesis: a secular miracle

  • From spontaneous generation to abiogenesis
  • The mathematics of abiogenesis
  • Exponential growth
  • Tapping out the universe in six chessboards
  • The probability of impossibility
  • A putative candidate for abiogenesis
  • Approaches to the abiogenesis problems
  • Forcing their hands: the response of secularists
  • Conclusion
  • References

11 The fossil record: contradicting Darwin’s gradualism

  • Pre-Darwinian investigations
  • Change in the fossil record
  • The “Cambrian explosion”
  • Diarthrognathus broomi
  • Summing up the fossil evidence
  • Conclusion and outlook
  • References

12 Mechanisms of variation: the consensus begins to fragment

  • The slump
  • From tea-clipper to maxi yacht: Neo-Darwinism
  • The gene pool
  • Natural selection
  • Genetic drift: random “selection”
  • Gene flow
  • Summary thus far
  • Speciation
  • An explanation for novelty
  • Point mutations
  • Large-scale mutations
  • The final Neo-Darwinian step
  • Most mutations are harmful
  • Mutational stepping-stones
  • Extrapolation
  • From maxi yacht to foiling monohull: without a rudder
  • Picking up the pieces
  • Headwinds affecting Neutral Theory
  • Timing and textbooks
  • The Third Way
  • Conclusion
  • References

13 The dead-end of common evolutionary descent

  • Spetner: the information theorist
  • Stephen C. Meyer
  • Douglas Axe
  • Hoyle’s doubt: a mathematical analysis of evolution
  • “Evolution” in origins accounts: the real story
  • Conclusion
  • References

14 Darwinian aftermath: the rise of neopaganism

  • Polyinfinitism
  • A broad and diverse origins community
  • The religious aspect of evolutionism
  • Damaging social effects of evolutionism
  • Government funded schooling
  • Crushing dissent by the atheistic establishment
  • Satanic discourse
  • The rise of neopaganism
  • The taunts of paganism
  • The Reversi dictum
  • Conclusion
  • References

PART 3: A YOUNG EARTH CREATIONIST VIEW OF GENESIS 1–11 (pages 301–376)

15 Approaching Genesis

  • Authorship
  • Origins research from a biblical perspective
  • Types of creation
  • Supernatural formative processes
  • References

16 Genesis 1–2: The creation week

  • The First Day
  • The Second Day
  • The Third Day
  • The Fourth Day
  • The Fifth Day
  • The Sixth Day
  • The Seventh Day
  • Two creation accounts?
  • The historicity of Adam and Eve
  • Marriage and blessing
  • The God of Genesis
  • References

17 The conundrum of the ages

  • A biblical estimate of the age of the earth
  • Scientific estimates of the age of the universe
  • Light travel problem
  • Relativistic effects: satellites and muons
  • Biblical cosmologies
  • Ages according to secular science
  • A biblical analogy
  • Assuming synchronized rates
  • Non-synchronized rates
  • Fitting the model
  • Conclusion
  • References

18 Genesis 3–6: The fall and judgement

  • The fall of Man
  • The trial
  • The curse
  • The family of Adam and Eve
  • Violence and corrption
  • God’s choice of Noah and the timing of the flood
  • The ark
  • Kinds, speciation and extinction
  • Conclusion
  • References

19 Genesis 7–11: Flood and confusion

  • Biblical context
  • The Flood (Genesis 7-8)
  • Explaining the naturalistic aspects of the flood
  • Evidence for the flood in the geological record
  • How the Genesis flood explains the fossil record
  • Life after the flood
  • Rapid speciation after the flood
  • Comparing the Genesis account with the Epic of Gilgamesh
  • The Tower of Babel (Genesis 10:21-11:9)
  • The effect of nations
  • Genealogy of Shem
  • Conclusion
  • References

PART 4: OUTLOOK (pages 377–391)

20 The failure of the evolutionary worldview

  • The pyrrhic victory of the X Club
  • Tell-tale signs of rising paganism
  • Changing standards in Hollywood
  • Anno Pagano
  • The rise of anti-science
  • Neopaganism: a big tent
  • The sixth criterion: the worldview values objective truth
  • The immediate outlook for neopagan origins
  • The outlook for young-earth creationism
  • Conclusion
  • References

APPENDICES (pages 392–449)

Appendix A: The problems of suffering and evil

  • The problem of suffering
  • The problem of evil
  • Conclusion

Appendix B: Radiometric dating

  • The RATE project
  • Inferring from point-in-time observations
  • How radiometric dating works
  • RATE group findings
  • Limitations and uses of Carbon-14 dating
  • Unexpected results of Carbon-14 dating
  • Calibration of Carbon-14 dating
  • Comparison of various techniques
  • Conclusion and areas for future research

Appendix C: Abiogenesis calculations

  • Justification of probabilistic approach
  • Probability of abiogenesis

Appendix D: The Intelligent Design Movement

  • Background
  • ID and creationism compared
  • The view of the secular science establishment
  • Conclusion

Appendix E: Catastrophic Plate Tectonics

  • Runaway subduction
  • Flood onset: “the fountains of the deep”
  • Rising floodwaters
  • Geological formations
  • Sediments and their distribution
  • Effect on the Earth’s magnetic field
  • Ocean floor replacement and the end of the flood
  • Climate change
  • The problem of heat

Appendix F: Evidence for a young earth

References for Appendices

INDEX