Dr Chad Rodekohr Chad with his family
Chad Rodekohr earned a B.S. in Aviation Management, an M.S. in Physics, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, all from Auburn University (Alabama). He is an Associate Professor of Physics at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, where he and his wife are raising their five children.
As a mechanical engineer and a physics professor, Dr Chad Rodekohr is passionate about the scientific method. Some might be surprised to find that he is also a biblical creationist. But he says that his career actually helps confirm the amazing design in the world.
“Physics is the study of our real physical surroundings. Since all physical things were created and are now sustained by God, it is easy to point to God’s glory while studying physics.”
Chad points out that: “Those who deal in the historical sciences desire the authority of having used the scientific method. In reality they are peddling a false worldview about history disguised as science and claimed as fact. I think that this is why the scientific method is not taught to most students anymore. Although students all act like they know the scientific method, when pinned down, most can’t actually differentiate between hypothesis, theory, law, or fact. It is no wonder they don’t distinguish between repeatable science and claims about history.”
He was asked to explain how he handled disclosing his creationist views in the classroom as a student, and how he would advise students to handle it themselves.
“What I did may or may not have been the best way to handle it, and is probably not what I would do now if I could do it all over. The primary way I handled the issue was to select carefully the classes that I took. I simply didn’t select courses which were historical in nature—knowing full well what the theme of the class would be. But even in operational science courses, the issue would occasionally come up. In those situations I would only steer into the creation discussion when it was in a personal setting with my fellow students.”
“How would I handle it now? What if I didn’t have the luxury of simply not taking historical science courses? Peter gives us clear teaching on this—1) Honour Christ as Lord by bringing such conversations back to Him—the Creator and Redeemer, 2) Be prepared—understand the scientific issues so you can ‘give an answer’, and 3) be gentle and respectful (1 Peter 3:15). If you are treading into unfamiliar waters, it is easiest to accomplish this with a series of questions leading back to the faulty foundational assumptions on which evolutionary teaching is always based. From there it can be contrasted with the solid biblical witness of our holy Creator, Christ the Lord.”
To students who are considering pursuing a scientific career, Chad says: “Please continue! Please persevere! Please investigate fully! Please teach truth!”
Extract from interview with Lita Cosner on http://www.creation.com
Prof Stuart Burgess & intricate design of the Envisat ESA satellite drive shaft – nothing compared to the design in nature.
A world expert on biomimetrics (imitating design in nature), Prof. Stuart Burgess, BSc, PhD(Brun), CEng, FIMechE, is Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bristol (UK).
Dr Burgess is the author of over 40 papers published in secular science journals, and another 50 conference proceedings. He has also registered 7 patents.
Is it more difficult for engineers—who spend so much time considering designed objects – to embrace Darwinian evolution than it is for biologists?
Stuart explains: “Yes, for two reasons. Firstly, since the design by human beings is not limited by the step-by-step change that evolution is limited by, human engineers should produce designs which are far more sophisticated than those found in nature. Yet the opposite is true. Nature has by far the most sophisticated designs. A second reason is that engineers know that you cannot design by making random mistakes. If you randomly change a single parameter in a car engine it will always result in a retrograde step. Design improvements always require careful planning and careful changing of many parameters at the same time.”
Stuart has ample experience of this, including working on the design of a solar array for the hugely expensive Envisat ESA satellite, as he explains:
“The Envisat satellite cost £1.6 billion4 and has hundreds of thousands of components and several million separate pieces of design information, like dimensions and material properties. It would only have taken one or two errors in the design information and the whole mission would have failed. This kind of project illustrates how difficult design is and how design does not happen by chance.”
This brings us to the nub of the issue—whether or not we are the purposeful Creation of Almighty God?
Stuart explains how his Christian faith connects with the work he has been involved in all these years.
“Engineering is a great profession for a Christian because it involves creativity. Man’s ability to create is one aspect of our being made in the image of God. The difficulty of designing and building things that are relatively simple makes you realize how great is the wisdom and power of God who has made all things.”
What would he say to those who argue that one’s Christian faith and convictions about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ are largely separate from the issue of origins, and separate from the meaning of the text in the early chapters of Genesis?
“The doctrine of Special Creation is important because it helps remind people there is a personal Creator who was involved in the detailed design of man. Believing in Special Creation also helps people to appreciate God’s skill in creating such a vast array of intricate plants and creatures. I think it is very important to believe in a historical Adam and historical Eve. If you start to compromise by, for example, accepting evolution and ape-men, then the theological problems are very serious. If Adam and Eve were descended from an ape-like creature, then you have to argue that their immediate ancestors, though looking completely like humans, were not actually made in the image of God. This goes completely against what Genesis teaches and it also goes against the fact that God has the supernatural power to create in an instant. When Jesus turned water into wine and gave sight to the blind, He used His supernatural power to do this in an instant. I think the key to accepting Genesis as a literal account is to remember that God is infinite in wisdom and power. When you really grasp this, then you realize that creating the world in six days was never a problem for God.”
Go to http://www.creation.com for the complete article on Professor Stuart Burgess by Phillip Bell.
Mike Oard’s latest book covers one of the lesser traveled pathways in the creation-evolution debate; that of geomorphology, the study of landscapes.
To begin, he provides a concise description of geomorphology, stating that it is:
“… concerned with the geography, topography, shape and other permanent features of the earth’s surface” (p. 19)
Given that landscapes, by means of the camera, are one of the most visually recorded, appreciated and discussed entities on the planet it is rather surprising that the profile of geomorphology is not higher in these debates. This book does much to rectify this situation and place this study in its rightful context, providing compelling evidence for the reality of the biblical Flood that is observable to people everywhere as they go about their daily lives.
In simple language with concise usage of references, Mike shows in his opening chapter that orthodox science is bereft of constructive explanations for mountains, plateaus, mesas, planation surfaces, huge canyons and gullies.
The notion of slow and gradual development of valleys, river systems, glacial systems and various scenic entities as a consequence of gradual development is simply not in keeping with the evidence presented before our eyes. Given that there is a wealth of material on the study of geomorphology, it is rather surprising that experts in the field express considerable doubt as to having any explanations for the development of the landscapes they describe. Mike draws reasoned conclusions in each chapter as he takes the reader through a number of well-known landforms, showing how uniformitarianism fails to explain the evidence. He then describes how their formation can be elegantly explained using Noah’s Flood.
The book is very readable with a nice easy flow to the text and a wealth of photographic material that adds to the landscape wonders that Mike is expounding.
Add to this the recognition that water is one of the critical elements in the development of landscapes then the natural conclusion is that the Flood as described in Genesis, in particular its Recessive stage during which the floodwater’s flowed from the continents into the newly forming oceans, is the causal factor for the scenery observed throughout the earth today. This is the central theme of Oard’s book.
If you want to better understand the scenery and natural features of the landscape and strengthen your belief in the Bible as TRUTH then get this book.
abbreviated version of a review by Barry Tapp for http://www.creation.com
At Dinosaur National Monument in Utah, a confused tangle of bones juts from a ridge of sandstone, chock-full of dinosaur fossils. The sandstone is part of the Morrison Formation, a body of sedimentary rock extending from New Mexico to Saskatchewan in the north and covering more than 1 million square kilometres (400,000 square miles) of the western US and Canada. Eleven different species of dinosaur have been dug from the quarry at Dinosaur National Monument, including one of the largest and most complete skeletons of a giant Apatosaurus ever found.
The dinosaur bones are concentrated in an extensive lens-shaped bed of rock and are an outstanding example of a ‘mass burial’ deposit. Dinosaur National Monument has been called “the greatest dinosaur quarry ever discovered”, and is the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. For decades, visitors to this spectacular site were told that the fossils represent generations of dinosaurs that lived and died within a peaceful swamp environment some 150 million years ago. But geologists now realize that the remains did not accumulate that way. So how did the bones get there, and what do they tell us?
The new uniformitarian views entail belief in many local floods emplacing animals in the same location each time, with identical volcanic eruptions of exceptionally violent extent ‘just so happening’ to occur each time the fossil remains were being deposited. They also require belief in animals fossilizing in situations where they are not observed to fossilize today. Further complicating such interpretations is the presence of whole, articulated skeletons. A more sensible and elegant interpretation, one that makes sense of all the evidence, is that the animals at Dinosaur National Monument were killed and buried by massive water action operating as a single, yet multi-stage, event.
A straightforward reading of the book of Genesis makes plain that dinosaurs were created alongside man (Genesis 1:24–31), and that those not on board the Ark were destroyed in a calamity that engulfed the world (Genesis 7:21–23). The year-long deluge began when the “fountains of the great deep” were opened, and was thus likely associated with volcanic activity.
The Morrison Formation, covering several states of North America, and of which Dinosaur National Monument is a part, reveals an enormous magnitude of watery deposition. It represents just another piece in the geological puzzle that, together with many others all around the world, comes together to spell: global Flood.
extract from article in Creation magazine Vol 33 by Jonathan O’Brien
Information scientist Dr Werner Gitt makes a compelling case in his book “WITHOUT EXCUSE” that the design and information in the universe proves the existence of an all powerful creator.
Dr Gitt obtained his degree in engineering from the Technical University in Hanover, Germany. After receiving his PhD, he was appointed head of the Department of Information Technology at the German Federal Institute for Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Braunschweig). Seven years later he was promoted to Director and Professor at PTB.
Three prerequisites must be fulfilled in order for the German Ministerium to award the title Director and Professor at a German Research Institute on the recommendation of the Presidium. The person must be:
1. a scientist with a PhD qualification from an approved University.
2. one who has published a significant number of original research papers in the technical literature.
3. must head a department in his area of expertise, in which several working scientists are employed.
Dr Werner Gitt has an impressive repertoire of awards and published works so the conclusions reached in his book cannot be lightly dismissed.
WITHOUT EXCUSE relies upon undisputed laws of science and logic, drawing from a wide range of mainline peer-reviewed scientific publications to formulate the premises of the book as well as in representing the main claims of today’s prevalent scientific materialism.
Premised on the truth of Romans 1:20, Dr Gitt and his two co authors Bob Compton and Jorge Fernandez decisively confront the issue of defining information and its properties then proceed to formulate a scientifically valid series of deductions demonstrating how the existence of information leads one first to the existence of ‘a god’ and then specifically to the GOD of the BIBLE.
WITHOUT EXCUSE is an excellent tool for Christians, providing insight into the clash of WORLD VIEWS and tools for defending the claims of scripture.
It is also a must read for any individual who genuinely wants to investigate the claims of Christianity.
To get a copy of the book WITHOUT EXCUSE go to http://www.creation.com
Dr John Matthews has a PhD in Earth Science, B.Sc in Mathematics, chartered geological status (C.Geol. and F.G.S) from working in the upstream oil industry on geoscientific issues.
Geology as currently taught in schools, colleges and universities knows nothing of Noah’s Flood when according to the Bible , the whole world was submerged under water recently (thousands not millions of years ago). The Biblical Flood is sidelined by the establishments bondage to uniformitarianism.
Neither is there any reference in this ‘bondage’ geology to the large number of non biblical flood legends from many parts of the world. These should have prompted a serious study before geology became entrapped by uniformitarianism which is hardly liberated by admission of the occasional catastrophe.
“The UK, because of its relatively small size compared to the world land mass and the early development of geology here has been explored to to a higher level of detail than most other countries. This paper presents evidence from within the uniformitarian paradigm that the UK experienced a complete flood recently. In the process we show that there are other pointers, quite independent of flood legends, to the whole world having experienced a global flood. Other researchers are then encouraged to complete this story geologically.”
Paper appeared in Journal of Creation Vol.27 (1) 2013.
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 