ABSTRACTS
Extraterrestrial Search
Charles McCombs*
For many years, naturalistic scientists have assumed that chemical evolution is the pathway by which life first originated. However, chemical evolution has not been able to explain how chemical reactions could have produced homochiral biomolecules outside a laboratory setting using only natural processes. The search for the origin of homochirality has presented itself as a mystery to the evolutionists because in chemistry there is no known chemical procedure or natural process that can generate new homochirality without preexisting homochirality already present. The need for preexisting homochirality to produce new homochirality and the inability of natural processes to explain the formation of new homochirality has caused evolutionists to take their search for the origin of homochirality into outer space. Some evolutionists now propose that amino acids of deep-space origin were deposited on the surface of rock fragments, irradiated, and enantiomerically enriched with circularly polarized ultraviolet light from starlight and that these newly enriched left-handed amino acids were brought to earth on meteorites. However, the evolutionary explanation for the origin of homochirality is not supported by the current scientific literature, and a critique of their proposed explanation is presented. Ultimately, the mystery of the origin of homochirality vanishes when we accept God’s creative design on life.
The Little Ice Age
Peter Klevberg and Michael J. Oard*
Earlier papers in this series introduced methods of studying past climate change, the historicity of the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, importance of the Little Ice Age in understanding climate change and constraining climatic models, and the importance of the North Atlantic region in understanding and applying constraints on climatic and glacial models. Earlier papers included summaries of the effects of the Little Ice Age in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland, and how the data obtained from the Little Ice Age should constrain our study of climate change. This paper presents an application of Little Ice Age data to our understanding of the inferred postdiluvial Great Ice Age.
Beyond Origin And Operation
John K. Reed and Peter Klevberg*
Because the concepts behind the terms “origin science” and “operation science” are deficient in defending a Christian view of science and history from secular positivism, an alternative scheme is suggested that accommodates a traditional Christian view of truth. In contrast to origin and operation science, we suggest that: (1) origins (properly defined) is a question of metaphysics, (2) the study of the past is the domain of history, and (3) science addresses present phenomena and timeless rules of nature. Interdisciplinary investigations like natural history or historical science are best addressed as “mixed questions.”
Anomalous Impressions In Tapeats Sandstone
W. R. Barnhart*
A group of 32 impressions is documented in the top of the Tapeats Sandstone at Plateau Point, Grand Canyon. These may be biological in origin, and a brief history of relevant local research is reviewed. This analysis assumes the rapid deposition shown in earlier work, and the implications of that model are explored. One is that thixotropic mobility in the sand when the impressions were formed adversely affected their clarity. Evidence of an original, thin, clay-sheet substrate is explored, as are its implications for preservation. This clay diminished the details of the impressions but served as a mold to faithfully preserve forms in the more mobile sand. Organic and inorganic explanations are considered, and the recognition of regular, linear groups suggests a possible biogenic origin