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Little Water Bears

Little Water Bears

Intermediate

“Strange is this little creature, because the whole organisation of his body is extraordinary and strange and because his external appearance, at the first sight, has the closest similarity to a little bear.  This also led me to give him the name little water bear” (cited in Greven 2015).

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Creation Weekend 2023

Creation Weekend 2023

Introductory

It was like old times again! What a pleasure it was to hear our speaker, Dr. Gordon Wilson of New Saint Andrews College in Idaho, address us in person. And everyone appreciated the wonderful venue, Meadowlands Baptist Church, which provided excellent technical assistance as well as an attractive facility. The opportunity to chat with other people and to buy new book and DVD titles, were additional blessings.

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Food for Living

Food for Living

Introductory

As Christians, we understand that people from earliest times have made their living from farming. Cain and Abel, for example, had crops and herds. The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had huge flocks of sheep, goats, cattle, donkeys and camels. Such flocks needed large areas of pasture for grazing. Also in Isaiah 28: 24-25 we read about farmers sowing crops of dill, cumin, barley and wheat. These farmers ploughed and sowed seeds. Nobody suggested that they should leave nature undisturbed. Farmers in New Testament times also ploughed the land and sowed seed. Agriculture has always been regarded as a good thing. At the present time however, agriculture has become somewhat controversial.

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Elephant in the (Class) Room

Elephant in the (Class) Room

Introductory

In past ages, Christian faith had a large impact on society. This faith determined the laws, the festivals/holidays, attitudes to family and to the environment. Of course, none of these customs and values perfectly reflected biblical norms, but that was at least the hope. More recently the pervasive belief system of society has turned from God to evolution. This about face has changed society’s values and hopes. Not least of these changes has been what society considers important to teach children. Soon we discover that evolution has become the foundation on which most curricula are based. This is the elephant in the (class) room. Attitudes in the public square, and attitudes in education, are based on a tacit acceptance of evolution, but nobody bothers to mention it.

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The Sea Dragon: What is it?

The Sea Dragon: What is it?

Introductory

Sea dragons (or seadragons) have long had the honor of being on the list of ugliest animals on Earth. The foot-long (from 30-to-45 centimeters) sea dragons, although classified as a fish, look like no fish an ichthyologist has ever seen. They look more like large worms with leaf appendices, a design that has baffled taxonomists and evolutionists alike ever since they were discovered over 200 years ago. This has been a major problem in not only classification, but in producing a plausible evolutionary tree. They do not fit into the category of  insects and other water life, so, by default, they are classified as fish. The reason for this classification is they spend their life in water, have fin-like structures like fish to help them move, their young hatch from eggs, and they breathe by gills.[1] Aside from these traits they are very unlike fish.

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As a perfect companion was created for man, namely woman, so too was a perfect companion created for both men and women. That companion was the dog. A study of dogs’ design, temperament, variety, and personality shows they were created specifically to be companions, helpmates, and servants for humans. No other animal is even close that meets these many requirements.

That God made the perfect companion for both men and women, namely the dog, humans agree. In the United States, 77 million dogs live; 1.6 per household. From 2018 to 2020, the Canadian dog population grew from 7.6 million to 7.7 million. In the entire world, the number of dogs is close to a billion! Dogs are so loved that their passing evokes more emotional responses than any other animal, often more than even the death of a close relative (Bova, 2022). The fact is “for many modern dogs, social bonding is vital to their individual well-being” as it is for ours (Morey,1994, p. 346). Dogs were genetically programmed to have unconditional love for their human master. They will fiercely protect their master and at the same time also show great affection for him or her. Dogs are loyal, trainable and able to work very hard from sun up to sun down.

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Good Questions / Good Answers

Good Questions / Good Answers

Intermediate

In high school biology courses, it soon became apparent to Angie that among her fellow Christians, there was a diversity of opinions about origins. So, she consulted the HeadStart program about the impact of world views on the relationship between faith and science. She read information on the gap theory, the day age theory, the framework hypothesis, theistic evolution, neo-Darwinism, methodological naturalism, intelligent design and creation. Now she better appreciates why this whole website is devoted to creation.

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Some Plants Have Sneaky Plans

Some Plants Have Sneaky Plans

Introductory

I remember one beautiful summer day when our family decided to hike in a local wetland (marsh). As they scampered along, the children were very taken by yellow snapdragon-like flowers projecting above the water surface. Was this somebody’s idea of a joke? Who planted garden flowers under water? This plant however is anything but humorous. Its purpose is to trap and digest small aquatic organisms like water fleas, mosquito wrigglers, tiny worms or anything that is the right size and moves.

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Always use the offered help!

Always use the offered help!

Introductory

The Bible tells us that Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. He used this training when he was called upon, later in life, to lead the Children of Israel through the desert and to write an account of their history. Obviously, Moses did not adopt the pagan philosophy in which his training in Egypt was couched. He evaluated what he heard.

In similar fashion, young Christians are encouraged to pursue modern learning, according to the talents with which they have been given. Like Moses too, they are expected to evaluate the modern explanations. In the light of the complexity of many modern disciplines however, it is obvious that students need help. They need trusted advisors to help them sort through the onslaught of information.

To this end, Creation Science Association’s Margaret Helder has developed a novel tool to assist students embarking on new courses in biology. Since much of the material taught in these courses is based on studies conducted since the year 2000, there are many new terms and concepts involved.All of them are defined in terms of evolutionary assumptions. The definitions available, on-line, all come from an evolutionary agenda. But the data themselves actually support creation! Read the rest of this entry »


There is no doubt that we are drawn to organization that involves hierarchy. Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) famously devised a scheme for plant classification according to their reproductive characteristics. He established the idea of grouping organisms into a hierarchy of progressively shared traits. In his Systema naturae (1735) Linnaeus decreed that this logical organization of living things should involve increasingly larger categories. Thus, all similar individuals would be members of a species, similar species could be lumped into a genus. Similar genera were clumped into a family, similar families into an order, similar orders into a class, similar classes into a phylum or division. These groups were supposed to be exclusive. An organism was supposed to be a member of only one group. In Linnaeus’ view, this logical arrangement of organisms reflected God’s character and wisdom.

But all that changed with Darwin. Read the rest of this entry »


Viruses: In the News a Lot

Viruses: In the News a Lot

Intermediate

There is no doubt that we are all tired of hearing about viruses! However, they actually do demonstrate some interesting features when we look at them more closely. These submicroscopic particles can reproduce themselves only inside a living cell. All life forms are susceptible to attack by at least one kind of virus. Basically, a virus consists of a protective protein coat with genetic information (RNA or DNA) enclosed inside. In that viruses commandeer the life processes of a cell which they have invaded, they tend not to need a lot of genetic information. Mainly their information deals with how to synthesize the protein coat and any associated molecular machines for packaging the genetic material into the protein capsid (coat). Read the rest of this entry »


Preserving the Joy of Creation

Preserving the Joy of Creation

Introductory

A lot of people in these COVID times, especially young people, are growing tired of the same old scene, the same four walls, the same view out the windows. No matter how beautiful the scene, it soon ceases to interest us if that is all we see. Nevertheless, even in our same old environments, it is still possible to maintain the flame of interest in the creation. Some young people in Alberta recently shared with me some of their interests in the creation. Clearly their stories show how they are keeping their interests alive. Indeed, these stories can help enhance our appreciation of the creation too. Read the rest of this entry »


Wonderful Wood!

Wonderful Wood!

Introductory

Versatile and Beautiful

Have you ever noticed how beautiful objects are which are made of wood? The people of Bible times also appreciated and used beautiful wood. The ancient Phoenicians (Canaanites) exported cedar wood for temples and palaces of many contemporary empires. One of their more famous customers was the Assyrian Sennacherib (about 700 B.C.) who commissioned two fleets of ships to be built from the cedars of Lebanon, one for the Tigris River and the other on the Euphrates River. King David himself made extensive use of cedar wood in his palace and his son, Solomon, proved to be even more enthusiastic about the cedars of Lebanon (Cedrus labani). Solomon promised massive payments to his friend and father-in-law King Hiram of Tyre in return for importing cedar trees for the temple. Much later, the Romans sought cedar wood from Lebanon for their own ships. However, Emperor Hadrian cautioned against over-exploiting this resource. Unfortunately, nobody listened and few of these trees remain today. Read the rest of this entry »


Exciting Coelacanths

Exciting Coelacanths

Introductory

There is a fascination with living organisms that closely resemble fossils dated at millions of years old. The classic definition of a living fossil is an extant organism that closely resembles fossil specimens.

In 1938 Miss Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer of South Africa recognized that among recently caught fish, one specimen was unfamiliar. It turned out to be “the only living member of an ancient group of lobe-finned fishes that was known previously only from fossils and believed to have been extinct since the Late Cretaceous period approximately 70 million years ago (Myr ago)”1 Much later, in 1997, a second species of this fish was discovered in the seas around Indonesia. The two species were named Latimeria chalumnae and L. menadoensis respectively. Read the rest of this entry »


I remember hearing a biologist from Bristol in England. He was talking about his studies on diatoms (algae with glass walls). He described how he set out to study the activities of these cells on the nearby seashore. To collect the diatoms, he said, he used English toilet paper which was scratchy and impervious to water. The English students laughed uproariously at this. The Canadians, sitting straight-faced, did not realize this was a joke! At any rate what he found was that the algae emerged from below the sand surface during low tide in the day, but they then moved back under the sand before the tides returned at a different time every day. This is the kind of timekeeping ability in organisms that biologists were beginning to study. There were studies on people living alone in dark caves, studies on algae that glow in the dark, and fruit flies that emerge from the pupa at a certain time of day. How do they keep track of time? Read the rest of this entry »