Deconstruction of "The New Creationism," by Paul A. Garner

The following is the logical deconstruction of the book, "The New Creationism; Building scientific theories on a Biblical foundation," by Paul A. Garner. I have not included any critique of the author's approach, evidence, or logic. I'll grant that particular privilege to the reader. My personal reaction and challenges to the book will come later.

Chapter 1, In the Beginning

The claim that God exists is supported by...

• the size of the universe
• the complexity of the universe
• the beauty of the universe

The claim that the universe was designed for mankind is supported by...

• the "look" of the universe
• the existence of natural laws and physical constants
• the fact that we can comprehend the universe, esp in mathematical terms
• the indication that the Earth is in a central location (based on the discreet grouping of red shifts observed in distant galaxies).

Chapter 2, The Sun, Moon, and Stars

The apparent old age of the universe can be explained by...

• Time Dilation
• or God having created the universe to look old... or already be old (?)("mature creation")

The sun is a special star that appears to be made for us because...

• it is larger, hotter, brighter, and more massive than most suns
• it does not have a companion star like most do.
• it does not produce enormous super-flares once a century like most stars do

The moon appears to be made for us because...

• it is reflective, allowing for the perfect amount of light for nighttime
• it helps us keep time
• its gravitational pull produces the tides which keep the ocean clean, oxygenized, and full of nutrients.

Chapter 3, There's No Place Like Home

We can conclude that God loves variety because...

• all the planets are unique

The Earth appears to be made for us because...

• it is not too hot or too cold
• its tilt allows for the four seasons and an estimated 50% more agricultural production (vs a non-tilted earth)
• the length of its day keeps us from freezing to death at night and being scorched in the day
• its atmosphere has the perfect mixture of oxygen and nitrogen for us
• the atmosphere protects the Earth from meteors
• the ocean holds heat and prevents catastrophic freezing
• its waters hold and carry nutrients necessary for life
• its optimal distance from the sun allows for the hydrological cycle with its three forms of water: liquid, ice, and vapor

Part II: Questions of Time

Chapter 4, A Matter of Days

(skipped. irrelevant discussion explaining why the author interprets a creation day as one day)

Chapter 5, Is the Present the Key to the Past?

The Earth appears to be younger than scientists think because...

• of the size and type of old sedimentary deposits, which are indicative of catastrophic, rapid events.
• there exists unusually smooth transitions between some sedimentary layers, which indicate that there was no time for prolonged erosion or disruption from burrowing animals.

Chapter 6, The Clock that Ran Fast

Radioactive dating seems to be inaccurate because...

• it doesn't account for "the systematic nature of the dating discordances." One or more episodes of accelerated decay rates in the Earth's past would account for the discordances.

The young age of the Earth is supported by

• the presence of large quantities of helium-which should have escaped in just a few thousand years-in zircon crystals.
• parentless polonium halos indicate that a great amount of uranium decayed quickly and was washed away by water.

Chapter 7, A Youthful Creation

The solar system is young because...

• we still see short-period comets
• it is so dusty
• Jupiter and Saturn are still so hot
• Io has high heat flow
• planetary rings still exist despite observed high rates of disintegration

The Earth is younger than scientists think because...

• the ocean is not as salty as it should be if it were so old
• there is not as much sediment on the ocean floor as one would expect for an old Earth
• no continent would remain above sea level after a few hundred million years, even if erosion rates were very low (one millimeter per 1,000 years)
• carbon 14 is present in diamonds that are supposed to be billions of years old.
• population growth rates less than half of what they are now would have still resulted in a total human population of 6 billion from just two individuals in 4,000 years.

Part III: Life-Past and Present

Chapter 8, The Origin of Life

Divine creation is a good explanation for the origin of living things because...

• living things are "bewilderingly complex"
• DNA is arranged in meaningful ways

Natural explanations for the origin of life are "as elusive as ever" because...

• researchers have not been able to produce life from scratch in a laboratory
• life inexplicably emerged from nonliving matter shortly after a period of destructive and volatile meteor bombardment.
• the composition of the Earth's early atmosphere would have broken down the first life forms (due to high levels of oxygen) and not allowed for the building of amino acids (due to lack of the right gasses).
• there were too many destructive forces to allow the proper ingredients of life to coalesce.
• lab experiments produced 50/50 distribution of left and right handed molecules; unlike the uneven distribution found in ancient life.

Chapter 9, Diversity by Design

Creationists have a reasonable alternative to evolutionary theory for explaining the diversity of life:

• God created original kinds or "baramins".
• God designed into these baramins a degree of adaptability from which we get such a wide array of species today. This process of adaptability is unlike natural selection. Instead, free moving dna replicators like parasites and viruses provided the genes necessary for adaptation.
• (two of each "unclean" baramin was present on Noah's ark, and seven individuals or pairs of the "clean" barmain were on board)

Chapter 10, Similarities and Relationships

Creationist theory is a better explanation for the pattern of life than evolutionary theory because...

• there is an abundance of evolutionary tree-contradicting similarities between apparently unrelated species, which creates many possible nested hierarchies
• "chimeromorphs" ,which share features with two or more groups, exist, defying the notion of life being singularly nested (example: the primate-like brains of megabats must have evolved independently from micro-bats, yet they share the wings of microbats).
• species of bacteria have been observed undergoing horizontal gene transfer, which undermines the "tree of life" pattern of evolution.
• there are good reasons for God to design wide ranging species with similar morphology:

a) the features are necessary for a functioning creation

b) they result from an economy of design

c) they point to a common creator

Chapter 11, Defects and Degenerations

The Bible accounts for imperfections and disease. They are God's curse, or punishment, for Adam's sin. Everything Adam watched over (including all of nature) was also cursed. (btw, before the curse, all animals were vegetarian. Predatory features likely existed before the curse, but were not used for any evil until afterwards.)

Chapter 12, Embryos and Vestiges

Evolutionary theory fails to explain/inform embryological development because...

• the development of the human heart from one chamber into four does not follow the expected evolutionary pattern. Instead of developing from one to two to four chambers, it starts with two chambers that form into one for a period of time.
• the so-called "gills" seen on human embryos have nothing to do with respiration-they form into the tonsils, thyroid, tongue, etc.
• the covering of downy hair that the embryo develops at seven months is a different form of the same hair it has its entire life. It just happens to be longer and more apparent at one stage.
• the "tail" embryos have are caused by an uneven rate of growth. They're not a sign of our earlier ancestors.

(unsupported claim:) The fact that genes from different species can be made to work together (like using mouse genes to grow teeth in chicken tissue) can be explained by God's intention of building in adaptability into creatures. Some vestigial organs can also be explained this way.

The creationist view of vestigial organs makes more sense than the evolutionary view because...

• there is no evidence of progressive development of new organs (the opposite of vestigial).

Part IV: The Flood and Its Aftermath

Chapter 13, Global Catastrophe

Creationists have a reasonable, scientific explanation for how a global flood occurred:

• It "began with the rapid break-up of the Earth's tectonic plates" which was possible due to the cooler, denser crust and warmer, less dense mantel of the young Earth.
• A catastrophic break up of the crust resulted in rapid subduction of the ocean plates beneath the continental plates, causing a sudden upwelling of hot material from the mantel.
• The hot material would have interacted with ocean water to produce massive geysers and fountains.
• In emergence of less dense ocean floor would have lifted the ocean plate and thrust ocean water and sediments onto the continents, which contributed to and sped up the flooding.
• The new, less dense ocean floor slowed and stopped the process of subduction, which ended the catastrophic rain and flooding.

This is a reasonable theory because...

• magnetic pole reversals and lava flows that recorded them happened rapidly. Evidence for this is found in flows from the Steen Mountains of Oregon as well as in the "patchy" magnetic reversals recorded in the ocean floor lavas.
• study of global sedimentation reveals wide-spread phenomena consistent with catastrophic events, including flooding.
• ocean sediments are found at the top of the highest mountains.

Chapter 14, Understanding the Fossil Record

The fossil record does not support evolutionary theory because...

• transitional forms are rare, especially among the most easily preserved-shallow marine vertebrates
• "fossil groups do not seem to occur in the order that evolutionary theory predicts." One study found that only 5 out of 144 test cases corresponded to predicted evolutionary order.
• so many disparate groups appeared suddenly in the fossil record. "Evolutionary theory has no obvious explanation..."

Creationist theory is reasonable because...

• the fossil record can be divided into three parts: pre-flood, flood, and post-flood.
• "A global flood which began in the ocean and then progressively overwhelmed the land would help explain why some fossil organisms are found in this sea-to-land order."
• subduction zones could have pulled old fossils of modern animals into the Earth.
• the impoverished conditions of the post flood world would have caused the extinction of many species (dinosaurs, etc).
• many fossils show signs of rapid burial; like, 1) the number of fish fossils and crinoids (dead fish being particularly susceptible to quick predation and decay), 2) marine life giving birth or 3) having a meal, 4) dinosaurs appearing to be in the middle of a battle, 5) trilobites curled up as in a defensive position, 6) trees fossilized in standing positions, etc
• the flood and rapid burial of living things would explain why there is such a large proportion of all known species preserved in the fossil record

Chapter 15, The Coming of the Ice

Creationist models of the ice age are supported by...

• evidence that the ocean was much warmer
• evidence that desert areas were wet
• evidence that expansive bodies of water existed over the continent
• the fact that only the post-flood model, with its warm arctic ocean, can explain how the ice dome could have formed in Canada (a cold arctic ocean could not have produced enough snow) while parts of lowland Siberia and Alaska remained relatively ice-free.
• evidence showing that many geological formations were caused by sudden releases of melting glacial water (supporting the more rapid end of the ice age that the creationist model proposes)
• the cooling of the ocean and frequent large volcanic eruptions ((creationist theory proposes a higher rate of these eruptions)) were enough to set off and form the ice age relatively quickly
• the possible mis-reading of snow/ice layers by scientists. "What conventional scientists are counting as annual layers may, in fact, be individual storm layers or other weather cycles."

Creationist theories claim that there was only one ice age is supported by the fact that...

• most glacial sediment is deposited in local regions (as opposed to being spread further out, as multiple instances of glacial advance and retreat would have done)
• most glacial sediment is from the last ice age
• glacial sediment in interior regions is much thinner than expected
• some areas are actually free of glacial sediment; pointing to the existence of one thin layer of ice, but not multiple ice ages
• most large mammals went extinct after the last ice age instead of previous ice ages

Chapter 16, Confusion, Cavemen, and Culture

The Bible's description of how early man came to speak multiple languages and occupy wide corners of the Earth (The Tower of Babel story) is reasonable because...

• each of the main language families appear to be distinct and well developed upon first appearance.
• different cultures emerged rather suddenly and around the same time
• civilizations fanned out geographically and temporally out from Mesopotamia
• it makes sense that people with shared languages and features would have stuck together and located themselves in areas that may (or may not) best suit their features (whites in northern areas with less sun...)

The conventional timescale of stone age man is contradicted by...

• "the low population numbers we can infer from the (meager) fossil record." There are only a handful of sites and virtually no fossils found to record nearly 100,000 years of human inhabitation in Britain.
• the uniformity of stone tools through time

The fossils which are said to depict the evolution of man can be explained as...

• entirely different baramin (more ape-like early fossils)
• extinct members of the human family (more human-like fossils)