Archive
The brand new book Gifted Mind has it all: inspiring message, an exciting story with diverse characters, conflict resolution and a happy ending. This is a book that the reader will be reluctant to put down. Best of all, however, this is a true account of how God worked in the life of the amazing inventor of the magnetic resonance imaging machine (MRI). This machine has only been available since the 1980s, yet it has impacted for good the lives of millions of people.
Recently the people of Edmonton have flocked to a new attraction in our part of the world, an ice castle. This edifice features glassy walls that are up to 3 metres thick. There are arching chambers, tunnels, a fountain with liquid water, and slides that the adventurous can ride down on their bottoms. The whole structure weighs about 27,200 tonnes and covers 1 acre. By the time spring comes, about 38 million litres of water will have been used to build and maintain this winter wonder.
Creation Weekend 2015 proved to be as exciting and informative as the organizers had hoped. Dr. Raymond Damadian, of New York, inventor of the MRI scanner and founder of FONAR Corporation, provided large audiences in Edmonton with lots to think about. In his initial lecture on Friday evening, Dr. Damadian shared some of the story of how he first came to the idea for an MRI scanner and how he was able to demonstrate the effectiveness of his idea. Read the rest of this entry »
The common earthworm, part of the Annelid phylum, (Annelida is Latin for little rings) plays a critical part in producing and maintaining fertile soil. Its role includes forming channels in the soil to allow for effective aeration, a critical process necessary for most soil dwelling life forms. The channels that earthworms produce also allow the soil to hold the large amounts of water that provide for plant survival (Johnson, 2002). Read the rest of this entry »
Secular scientists usually do not like to mention discoveries or achievements of people who support Biblical creation. Recently however, some creation supporters have come to the attention of many scientists and even the secular media.
Mark Armitage, for example, recently published an article on soft un-fossilized tissue in one of the largest Triceratops horns ever found in Montana. Mr. Armitage had found the dinosaur fossil himself in 2012. Then in February 2013 he, along with biologist Kevin Lee Anderson of Arkansas State University-Beebe, published a technical article on this find in a mainstream European scientific journal Acta Histochemica (115, 603-608, 2013). Entitled “Soft sheets of fibrillary bone from a fossil of the supraorbital horn of the dinosaur Triceratops horridus.” The article established this find as “the first report of sheets of soft tissues from Triceratops horn bearing layers of osteocytes [bone forming cells], and extends the range and type of dinosaur specimens known to contain non-fossilized material in bone matrix.” (p. 603) Read the rest of this entry »
The ability of fireflies to glow in the dark, delights those who have seen these insects in action. It really seems like a special talent. However a recent issue of National Geographic (March 2015) declared about bioluminescence: “Evolving to make light seems to be relatively easy — it has happened independently in at least 40 different lineages.” (p. 84) Just because we find a special talent in a number of very different creatures, does not mean that the talent was easily developed by chance. National Geographic is not aware that this unusual ability is much more reasonably explained as the choice of God, the creator. There are many examples where we can see the problem for evolution of special talents in very different creatures. And the camera eye is an ideal example. Read the rest of this entry »
There are some useful and visually attractive programs available on YouTube. For example, Privileged Species (previously reviewed in Dialogue) at 32 minutes, has already recorded 33,300 views. However for better quality display, a DVD is required which CSAA sells for $15.00 each.
Several years ago CSAA distributed free copies of the DVD Programming of Life which runs 44 minutes and is produced by LaBarge Media (with Don Johnson). We distributed this to high school and university students, teachers, and pastors. This program examines mathematical issues concerning the living cell. In this context, information is a critical feature of living cells. The kind of information required (proscriptive) involves instructions. From that discussion we proceed to protein manufacturing which is illustrated with beautiful graphics. We then learn the essential features of a computer and how the cell demonstrates these capacities. Read the rest of this entry »
October 23 & 24
Venue: Mill Woods Assembly
2225 – 66 Street
Edmonton, Alberta
Keynote speaker: Dr. Raymond Damadian, inventor of the MRI
All sessions are free of charge. You do not need to register to attend.
Friday, October 23
- 7:30 PM – Dr. Damadian will speak on “The Story of MRI: To God be ALL the Glory”
Saturday, October 24
- 9:30 AM – Complimentary Continental Breakfast
- 10:00 AM – CSAA President Margaret Helder will speak on “Design: Wonders Upon Wonders”
- 1:30 PM – Vance Nelson, founder of Untold Secrets of Planet Earth, will speak on “Dire Dragons: the Missing Link in Dinosaur History”
- 7:30 PM – Keynote Address with Dr. Damadian “Medical Research, Technology and Christian Faith: You Can’t Get There Without Him!”
Sponsored by:
Creation Science Association of Alberta
www.create.ab.ca
Untold Secrets of Planet Earth
www.UntoldSecretsOfPlanetEarth.com
It is not just the Bible believing Christians who base their interpretations of nature on their worldview, so too do the secular scientists. It so happens however that the worldviews of these two groups, and thus the assumptions used in interpreting nature, are totally different. The most obvious assumption of the Christians is that God’s work and character are evident in nature. Mainstream scientists alternatively assume that God will never be revealed in nature, but only matter and processes. Read the rest of this entry »
Creation Weekend 2015
October 23 & 24, 2015
It is not very often that an Edmonton audience has the opportunity to hear a world class expert tie together medical research, technology and Christian faith. Read the rest of this entry »
Review of Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels (book)
Like Alice of Wonderland fame (in Through the Looking Glass), who found that she had to run extremely fast just to stay in the same place, so also it is hard to maintain an up-to-date understanding in science. The scientific journals constantly churn out new articles with new information and arguments. Keeping up to date is hard work! But it is extremely helpful to have an understanding of current issues in science and their significance. This makes the new book Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels (Robert Carter, Editor) and its companion DVD of the same title, extremely relevant. Read the rest of this entry »
Armadillos (Spanish for little armoured one) are New World nocturnal mammals covered by a leathery armour shell overlaid by horn. Of all living animals, “few are as amazing … as the armadillos” (Storrs, 1982). Even Carolus Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy, was puzzled about how to classify this “strange-looking mammal” (Smith and Doughty, 1984, p. 2). They are shy, timid mammals that mammalogist David Lamp calls bizarre (1977, p. 36). They look nothing like any other living animal, appearing much more like a fierce miniature dinosaur. These nearly blind and deaf animals must use their keen sense of smell to locate food. Read the rest of this entry »
The ball arcs into the air, and then downward. A player rushes forward. Whew!! Another save made. The player’s strategy was to move to intercept the ball as it follows a predictable trajectory downward. We are happy the ball was caught, but the situation was not complicated. This is called a “constant bearing strategy” in pursuit of a target moving in a predictable arc. The strategy becomes more serious however when we learn that many animals similarly catch their prey by converging on the straightforward escape route of the hapless victim. Read the rest of this entry »
During the 1960s and 1970s, improved strains of wheat and rice resulted in a doubling of crop yields. Despite predictions of disaster from some environmentalists, the world continued to feed quickly growing human populations. This green revolution, kick-started by the research of American plant scientist Norman Borlaug and Indian rice geneticist M. S. Swaminathan, provided much higher yielding crops. However for optimum growth, these crops require the widespread application of nitrogen fertilizers and other chemicals. As a byproduct of this practice, a significant amount of fertilizer ends up in natural waterways. As a result, scientists now consider the application of such chemicals as “so last century!” (Nature October 30, 2014 p. S52). The hunt is now on for crops that do not require chemical inputs and yet produce high yields. Read the rest of this entry »
Launched in 1977, the two Voyager probes have seen some strange and unexpected sights as they cruised through our solar system. After passing the planets, the probes have continued outward towards the farthest reaches of the solar system. In the summer of 2012, Voyager I was now 18.2 billion km away from us, more than three times the distance between the sun and Pluto. The solar system however by definition consists not only of the planets, but of the volume in space to which the sun’s particles extend, or in other words the volume in space which is impacted by the sun. The question everybody was asking, was how long would it take Voyager I to leave the solar system and enter interstellar space? And what would Voyager find when it got to interstellar space? Read the rest of this entry »