Geology is the science of the Earth, and its fundamental principles are derived from our interpretations of the Earth's age and history. "Creationism" is technically the belief that the Universe was supernaturally created from nothing. However, in the United States, and increasingly the rest of the world, Creationism has acquired a much more specific meaning, primarily that the Universe, including the Earth and life, was created in six 24-hour days less than 10,000 years ago, following the stories outlined in the first chapter of Genesis. Furthermore, Creationism as popularly defined includes the belief that Noah's Flood was real, global in its extent, and about a year in duration. These beliefs and others taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible are clearly contradicted by scientific evidence, especially that of geology. "Scientific Creationists" know this and have developed an extensive and popular "refutation" of modern geology, complete with geological evidence for the Flood, claims that dinosaurs lived with people, denials of radiometric dating, and catastrophic explanations for the fossil record. This is clearly pseudoscience and delusion, leading most geologists to simply ignore Creationism, but the movement has gained in energy and adherents in the past decade. The most recent polls say that approximately 45% of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so," and that Genesis is a literal account of Earth's history. Geologists are learning that Creationism must be confronted, and this course is designed to give students the necessary background and tools to do so.

The anti-geology of Creationism gives us a chance to strengthen the conceptual foundation of geology as we learn how to respond. Our task in this seminar course will be to study the geological arguments of Creationism and then address them in various ways. Our primary work will be to develop written position papers and arguments in several forms. This course is thus "writing-intensive" in the sense of the new College curriculum requirements (which do not affect you). The details of the writing and other assignments are covered in the course notes following the schedule of topics below.

It is important to note that this is not a course in religion, and it certainly is not designed as a threat to religious beliefs. We will study and discuss scientific evidence and ideas, regardless of their origins. We will also be careful not to imply that geologists and other scientists are always correct; indeed, the mistakes scientists make are often important parts of Creationist arguments.

This "web syllabus" is a living document for this course. It will change every week, sometimes every day, as we add additional links and discussion topics. In a sense, this syllabus is a combined schedule and newsletter. Plan to check it regularly. Often our assignments will be drawn directly from Creationist and geological material posted on the web.

LATE ADDITIONS: This web syllabus was for a Spring 2001 course, so an increasing number of links will become outdated with time. I will try, though, to keep some of the links current, and I have added a "Late Additions" section at the very end of this document. This course was a delight to teach, for which I thank our wonderful Wooster students.

Mark A. Wilson

Department of Geology

The College of Wooster

Wooster, OH 44691 USA

mwilson@wooster.edu

Return to Geology Course Pages

Schedule of Class Sessions

(With Weekly Links to Other Web Resources)

 

Lectures in Scovel Hall Room 215, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 10:00 - 10:50 a.m.

Web Resources for Week #1:

As you might imagine, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of webpages devoted to Creationism, most of them from enthusiastic proponents. During this first week I want you to become acquainted with some of the primary Creationist sites, many of which we will return to several times this semester. You may want to start with the two largest and slickest organizations, Answers in Genesis and the Institute of Creation Research. The first (AiG) will be the most useful website for us because it is detailed and continually updated by energetic people; the second (ICR) is not nearly as well crafted, representing the slowly fading giant of the movement. The Creation Science Association For Mid-America (CSAMA) maintains a website. It is difficult to deduce just how large this organization is, but it does provide many issues to discuss. The Creation Research Society (CRS) is based in Missouri. They started in the 1960s as a group of scientists who believed they were discriminated against by "mainstream journals". They operate the Van Andel Creation Research Center in northern Arizona. The Young Earth Creation Club is a site apparently run by a single family in Columbus, Ohio; it is loaded with links and other information. You certainly do not want to miss the Creation Evidence Museum for all sorts of "geological anomalies" supporting a literal Noah's Flood. You will also want to see the Christian Geology Ministry site with its convoluted science and full-color diagrams (they are Old Earth Creationists). The Creation Science Site Ring is a new linking of many Creationist sites; it is excellent for just surfing through nonsense. Probably the best list of Creationist, Anti-Creationist, Pro-Evolution, and just plain information links can be found on the Talk-Origins Archive. You can also visit my own small website called "The New Creationists" for a brief summary of the many Creationist concepts we will be working with, along with numerous links. When the Creationism becomes tedious, take a break and visit the excellent evolution websites maintained by the National Center for Science Education, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Geology in the News:

The magnitude 7.6 earthquake in El Salvador on Saturday morning is our most serious geological concern this week. The 'quake and resulting landslides have killed hundreds. Click on CNN Headline News or the site of The New York Times for updates on breaking stories like this one.

Geologists have identified zircon crystals over 4.4 billion years old in a metaconglomerate in Australia. These are the oldest objects known on Earth. Not only do they indicate that granitic rocks (and hence continents) existed by that time, their ratios of O-18 to O-16 suggest that they were formed in rocks which had contact with liquid water. This means there could have been oceans of water on Earth just 200-300 million years after it formed. Remarkable news!

An interesting debate has re-emerged about the origin of modern humans. The "Out of Africa" hypothesis is under challenge by two recent studies. One, using measurements of fossil skulls, says there was considerable interbreeding between modern Homo sapiens, Neandertal, and maybe even Homo erectus. The other story disputes the origin of modern people in Africa by postulating a closer DNA case for an Australian genesis. The geologist involved in the Australian finds disputes the age of the skeleton used, but still supports the evolutionary conclusions. My opinion? I don't put much stock in fossil DNA or statistical analyses of crania.

Astronomers have "seen" for the first time the matter flowing into a black hole. They did this with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center telescope.

Oceanographers exploring the Mid-Atlantic Ridge with a submersible have found an astonishing assortment of underwater spires and hotsprings they call "Lost City". "If this were on land," Duke University geologist Jeff Karson said, "it would be a national park." Dr. Karson was a Geology Club speaker at Wooster last year; he is one of Dr. Varga's friends and co-authors.

Now Ganymede, one of Jupiter's moons, is thought to have liquid water sloshing about as an ocean underneath its frozen exterior. It is the third of Jupiter's moons to show evidence of liquid water, a prerequisite of "life as we know it".

I haven't figured this one out yet. In a Nature paper, two scientists present evidence that water may be transported into planet interiors in the form of a high-pressure ice called "ice VII". Look for it in a subduction zone near you.

Here's an example of why the media needs science writers. A geologist at the University of Alaska says that the impact which started the Cretaceous extinctions wasn't big enough. "If you rely on little pieces of debris actually clobbering organisms, then you're in trouble", says Virgil "Buck" Sharpton. You know, of course, that nobody has ever postulated such scenario. Sharpton says that the impact vaporized "carbonates and sulfates", producing "toxic chemicals", carbon dioxide and showers of "caustic acid". That is an idea which has been around for over a decade and is taught in every History of Life course. This is a news story which should have died at birth.

Read the latest on Dr. Jack Horner's discovery of an unprecedented five Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons in eastern Montana. For all its popularity, until now we have actually had relatively little skeletal material from this magnificent beast.

Underwater landslides, producing tsunamis, are a new concern in California. It is now clear that an earthquake is not always necessary to trigger one of these enormous and destructive waves. Ohio seems so safe. Cold, certainly, but safe!

One of the most interesting recent developments in cosmology has been the concept of "dark energy" (also known by the delightful name "quintessence"). This mysterious energy repels gravity and may be responsible for the acceleration of the universe's expansion. For more information, read this short, link-rich article called "Making Sense of Modern Cosmology" on the Scientific American website.

Web Resources for Week #2:

The history of creationism is in part a history of fundamentalism in America. One of the most interesting recent articles on American fundamentalism is "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind" in The Atlantic Monthly. It is primarily about modern evangelicals in higher education, but the historical section will be of particular interest to you. "Seven Significant Court Decisions" from the National Center for Science Education website is a useful summary of creation and evolution in the US court system. Their short article on "The Evolution of Creationism" is also good for our topic.

Kirk found for us an essay on the Gap Theory. It is from a decidedly creationist perspective, especially when you see evolutionists and Hitler compared! The author is a Mark E. Howerter. You may want to also see his companion article "THE EARTH IS NOT BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD" (his capitals!).

Heavy stuff. Take a break and look at "Things Creationists Hate" by Bob Riggins. We'll return to his "Silly Flood Story" page later.

I encourage you to sign up for e-mail notification of the on-line version of the Acts & Facts Newsletter and the Website Updates & News from the Institute of Creation Research. It's free!

Geology in the News:

You may remember the Hubble Space Telescope photograph of the awesome Eagle Nebula, with its columns of gas six trillion miles long. There are new ideas from this nebula about how stars condense and ignite in such "stellar nurseries".

Those Amazing Physicists have smashed the nuclei of gold atoms together to make the densest material ever produced in an experiment. It may mimic the dense matter formed within a few millionths of a second of the Big Bang.

Convergent evolution always seemed a chancy thing. How can similar features evolve completely independent of one another? It happens, though, as shown in this recent study of convergent fossil mammal teeth.

NASA plans to blast a projectile into a comet, producing an explosion which could destroy a "small town", in order to see what's inside. Cool. I wouldn't mind one of these NASA jobs.

A new map shows "seismic hot spots" in southern California. See if Aaron's home is in one!

This must be a great time to be in physics. Now they have succeeded in "slowing light to a full stop", holding it for awhile, and then letting it go. Can you believe it?

The planet Mercury is finally getting some attention from NASA and the European Space Agency. Probes and orbiting spacecraft are now being planned.

The recent El Salvador earthquake was due to the geometry of the subducting "slab" underneath it. The Pacific Northwest has a very similar tectonic situation, leading to new concerns.

A 3.4 million year old fossil hominid skeleton has recently been unearthed in Ethiopia. As with most such finds, there will be changes in what we think we know about human evolution. I hope we hear more about this one soon.

Web Resources for Week #3:

We may have the opportunity to hear a talk by Phillip Johnson, an "intelligent design" (ID) creationist and law professor at Berkeley, on February 27th in Cleveland. You may want to thus visit one of the many pages devoted to Johnson's work. His most recent book is called "The Wedge of Truth", a polemic against evolution. NOVA Online has an interesting series of letters exchanged between Johnson and Kenneth R. Miller, a biologist at Brown University and author of the excellent "Finding Darwin's God". The Access Research Network, a group of ID creationists, also has a Phillip Johnson page.

There are so many creationists groups online these days. Some of the latest I've found include True.Origin, a creationist response to the Talk-Origins website, and an endless discussion group on creation/evolution issues covered on that site. The Center for Scientific Creation has lots of geology (well, "geology") on its site, with special emphasis on mammoths and Noah's Ark. The Creation Concept by a Douglas Cox has creationist glacial geomorphology, strange concretions, and even thin-sections. This site is a bit different because its author believes that Genesis 1 has been corrupted. He thus offers a restored version of Genesis 1 which is supposed to be more scientifically correct. Type in the simple and intuitive "www.creationism.org" and you get yet another large site with numerous links and a set of zipped files full of creationist cant. Still, none of these groups reach the sophistication of our old friends at Answers in Genesis.

Here's a report that the Garden of Eden has been located! The find was made by a "Bible scholar" with a group called "Mysteries of the Bible". Lots of enthusiasm, but the good people at Answers in Genesis will have nothing of it.

The assigned web reading for Monday is the 1976 ICR "Impact No. 38" by Henry M. Morris. The title is "Up With Catastrophism". You may also find of interest a more recent and philosophical history of creationism by Ronald Numbers on the "Reasons To Believe" website: part 1, part 2, part3.

Geology in the News:

A major earthquake, 7.9 on the Richter scale, struck western India on their Republic Day. Hundreds are dead, and it could be thousands. Stay tuned to CNN or other news sites for more details. Check their special page "Earthweek - A diary of the Planet" for an interactive map of various other natural disasters. (This includes "Siberian Wolf Raids" because of the unrelenting cold there.)

Northeast Ohio had its own much, much smaller earthquake on the night of the 25th. It was 4.2 in magnitude and apparently centered north of Ashtabula.

Research on Pleistocene and Recent corals appears to indicate that our recent climate fluctuations have never before been so intense. O-18 and O-16 istopes are used for this study of temperature through time.

The American Museum of Natural History has thrown Pluto off the list of planets. How dare they! All the Pluto enthusiasts are very upset. All six of them.

Here's another story on the terrible sacrilege of selling fossils to the highest bidders. Important specimens are ending up as drawing-room curiosities for the wealthy when they should be in museums for the people. (Geez. I'm sounding like a Democrat.)

"It's hard to imagine. We're talking about a torrential and massive wave that can move at the speed of a jet, suddenly flooding most of lower-elevation Puget Sound. And it would come on the heels of the earthquake that caused the wave in the first place." Seattle is in some serious seismic danger. Check out this story from Seattle itself.

Quarks! Gotta love 'em. The essence of matter, and stranger than can be imagined. Read the latest on "free-range quarks".

Does the atmosphere of Venus, with its clouds of sulfuric acid, have lightning? There is evidence of electrical discharges and a faint glow, but it is still a mystery, thank goodness.

The space probe NEAR has been orbiting the asteroid Eros for almost a year. This week it begins a controlled descent in an attempt to actually land on the asteroid's surface. Well, "land" is not quite what it will be doing.

The most serious report yet on global warming predicts a temperature rise of 10.5 degrees (F) in the next century. This is from a special UN panel. A response, though, from a climatologist says that this is extremist hype designed to attract attention (and funds).

Web Resources for Week #4:

You have been waiting for this site: the Anti-AnswersinGenesis homepage! You will find it most useful as you prepare your second essays. It may also give you additional ideas for your research papers.

While we are concentrating this week on the "Biblical Geological Model" of Dr. Tas Walker, there are other such schemes posted on the Web. Here's one on the science of The Flood, complete with geological explanations. Here's another one on Flood Geology which contains, if you look hard enough, a citation of your professor! This third model is highly detailed and highly eccentric in its inclusion of a Pre-Adamic Flood which can explain part of the geological record.

Want to see more creationist cartoons? It is hard to get outraged any more. You may also want a preview of our coming discussion of Noah's Ark.

The Timken Science Library people have produced a wonderful tutorial webpage for geology library research. It is brand new and highly recommended for students starting geology research papers!

Geology in the News:

Remember the erupting volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat? Scientists can now summarize five years of experience with it, and they have learned some possibly life-saving lessons.

The New York Times has this interesting article on the new technology for finding and exploiting oil reserves. This is especially important now as we consider opening up the North Slope of Alaska to further petroleum exploration.

Modeling the cold vacuum of outer space, scientists have shown that combinations of simple chemicals (water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide) can produce membrane-like structures. The implication is that life could have started in space and was later "seeded" on Earth. Still, I wouldn't go quite as far as one NASA scientist who said, "This implies that life could be everywhere in the universe."

If you ever doubt the value of hydrogeology, look at the issues involved in the $8 billion restoration project in the Florida Everglades. So much relies on knowing where the water is going and how fast.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is shrinking! 7.5 cubic miles have eroded from one area in only eight years. This has long been suspected, but new data published in Science now confirms it. The world is getting warmer. No doubt about it now.

Web Resources for Week #5:

Noah's Ark is one of the most popular topics on fundamentalist and creationist websites. The iconography of the story is dramatic, so there are sites devoted to images of the Ark and its times. Some pages are very detailed, such as the "Noah's Ark Feasibility Study" listed above and the Ark page on ChristianAnswers.net, which has an extensively illustrated questions & answers section. Some sites appear to be too odd even for mainstream creationists. An example would be the huge, text-rich website devoted to Ron Wyatt's discovery of Noah's Ark in Turkey. It is a complex story with lava flows, petrified wood, huge "anchor stones", and a charming naivete about geology. (Skip ahead to the conclusions if you want to avoid the melodrama.) You've got to love a site which says: "All scientists agree that the earth was indeed split in two. The disagreement lies in how and when it happened." Read more here about rapid continental drift and water sprayed so high it becomes hail. National Geographic and Bob Ballard take advantage of the intense interest in Noah's Ark with this elaborate site devoted to the hypothesis that a catastrophic flood of the Black Sea is the source of the original story.

I found another large Creation Science website which may provide information for your research papers. It is called the "Creation Science Homepage".

Geology in the News:

Kids just HATE this idea: Tyrannosaurus rex may not have been a vicious predator; it may have instead been just a particularly large scavenger. Read the latest ideas from Montana paleontologist Jack Horner.

Northwestern India has an enormous seismic risk, as we saw demonstrated with last month's terrifying 7.7 magnitude earthquake. Now geomorphological surveys of river channels show that the region has long had cataclysmic earthquakes.

Mount Fuji is venerated in Japan. It is also an active volcano which endangers nearby Tokyo. Mount Fuji has recently had an increase in the number of small tremors it experiences, suggesting that some internal magma may be on the move.

Eruptions of Mount Merapi on the island of Java, Indonesia, have killed thousands of people in the recent past. A major eruption is apparently imminent, so the authorities have issued the highest alert and ordered massive evacuations.

Recent analyses of the DNA of extinct flightless birds in the southern hemisphere provides evidence for the timing of Gondwana's break-up 200 million years ago. It also suggests we may be able to clone the Dodo soon! Just what the world needs, eh?

A French-Kenyan team has just displayed the fossils of what they now call "Millennium Ancestor" from 6-million-year-old fossil beds in Kenya. (They called it "Millennium Man" two months ago, before they learned that wasn't cool.) They claim this new hominid species is "more human than Lucy" (which is half its age), but paleoanthropologists are reserving judgment.

On Monday at 1631 GMT (11:31 a.m. our time) the NEAR (Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) spacecraft will attempt to land on Eros. Whatever happens, there will be some cool images sent back to Earth.

The Big Bang remains a news item. This time there are some new ideas about the leftover background radiation from the event. This radiation is in the form of microwaves coming nearly uniformly from all directions in space.

Using a technique called radioactive cosmochronometry, astronomers can actually estimate the amount of thorium and uranium in ancient stars. With the ratios of these two elements, it now appears that the universe is 12.5 billion years old, which may settle a long-standing debate.

Before we get too cocky, the particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratories appears to show a new kind of matter which calls into question the Standard Model of subatomic construction. Back to the drawing board, physicists!

Web Resources for Week #6:

To complete our section on Noah's Ark, see the page from The Skeptic on the Ark hoax we discussed in class, along with a more anxious response from The Ararat Report. You might also appreciate this brief note which cites Dr. Ethel Nelson as an "American Sinologist" rather than a "medical doctor from Tennessee". Remember "Dr. Carl Baugh" from the film? You may want to return to his "Creation Evidence Museum" to sort out his objectivity (and knowledge).

Radiometric dating is a huge topic on creationist websites. You can start with a visit to a typical anti-radiocarbon dating article by our friends at Answers in Genesis (who still have not responded to my letter), or their article on how the Earth does not even look old!. The Institute of Creation Research has many webpages on its version of the radiometric dating debate; they include one on radiocarbon dating, a technical article on excess argon in a Mt. St. Helens dacite, and a very complex paper attempting to show that decay rates may have changed over time. Henry Morris has an article on the history of radiometric dating and the Bible. In it is a classic statement: "Therefore, there must be a true and satisfying answer to this troublesome radiometry problem. The earth is young, and the data must confirm this, if they are rightly understood." Not much room for science in that thought. "The Radiometric Dating Deception" is a "sermon" against Old Earth concepts by someone who thinks decay rates have changed. The "Revolution Against Evolution" people have yet another page blasting carbon-14 dating. They have another webpage detailing other evidence for a young Earth. Tom Baillieul, a uranium geologist and mineralogist in Ohio, has recently posted this excellent page providing a new critique of Robert Gentry's polonium haloes work.

In all the weirdness of the pseudoscience we've been exploring, it is probably inevitable that we'd find a website promoting a geocentric solar system.

The Case Western Reserve University website devoted to the February 27th visit of Philip Johnson is now up and running. We will talk this week about plans to go to the talk.

Geology in the News:

Kansas now has rejoined Western Civilization and placed evolution back in the science curriculum. You can read about it on the websites of CNN or The New York Times. As you can imagine, the Creationists are not happy with this decision.

That plucky little spacecraft which successfully landed on the asteroid Eros has had its mission extended. It will stay in radio contact with Earth, and it may tell us something new about the asteroid's magnetic field. Remarkable for a spaceship designed only to fly, not land.

Here's a strange little article from the LA Times about how science continues to humilate humanity by removing it further and further from the center of the Cosmos. I don't see it that way. After all, the glories of scientific discovery come from real people exploring the far edges of knowledge. It makes me feel rather good about what people have figured out (or think they have figured out!).

One of the tremendous accomplishments of recent science has been the sequencing of the human genome. It is now apparent that humans are operating on relatively few genes. We have only about 30,000 of them. This is a surprise because the traditional estimate has been bout 100,000. In contrast, a fly has 13,000 genes, and a typical plant almost as many as we have (26,000). This triumph of science has been marred recently, though, by an all-too-human turf battle over the results. Here is a brief description of the human genetic code, with its 3.1 billion nucleotides, 97% of which do not appear to code for anything. Did you know that if all the DNA in the human body were put end to end, it would reach to the Sun and back more than 600 times?

A group of Argentine paleontologists announced that they found a "veritable Jurassic Park" of dinosaurs and other fossils in Patagonia. They say it is "possibly the most significant find ever." That is certainly an overstatement (it is a press release announcement, after all), but they do appear to have some interesting specimens, including mammals and pterosaurs.

Web Resources for Week #7:

Now it is time for the non-radiometric arguments used by Creationists to demonstrate a young Earth. We can start our links with a return to Dr. D. Russell Humphreys' page on evidence for an Earth less than billions of years old. (Note the awkwardness here due to the inevitable results of most processes that at least show the Earth is far older than 10,000 years!) You will want to visit, of course, the Q&A webpage on a young Earth by our Answers in Genesis buddies. They also have pages on their site revisiting Lord Kelvin, who was not a friend of the modern geological time scale, and discussing "Moon Dust and the Age of the Solar System". The Institute of Creation Research has, of course, even more webpages devoted to a young Earth, many overly complex. Try, for example, to digest "A Biblical Model of Deep Sea-Floor Sedimentation", "Young Age for the Moon and Earth" and their article on magnetic field decay. You may be pleased to learn, though, that Dr. John Morris says believing in a young Earth "is not necessary for salvation" (although God is not happy about it).

When you're ready to return to real geology, visit the "Age of the Earth" webpages on Talk.Origins. Our ideas about the Earth's age have changed, of course, over the past 200 years; a nice summary of this is on the Talk.Origins' history of geologic time page. If you want to see a very nasty debate, read the Talk.Origins webpages on the work of John Woodmorappe, who specializes in evidence for a young Earth. The reply by Woodmorappe (which is apparently a pseudonym, I've just learned) and the response by the original author Schimmrich is a classic ad hominem slugfest. Talk.Origins has a complete list of geochronology articles on its website. One of those articles is an extraordinary debate between the Young-Earther Dr. Duane Gish and the Old-Earther (but anti-evolutionist) Dr. Hugh Ross. Hard to know who to root for here! Your colleague Michael Miller sent us this useful link to young Earth arguments (and rebuttals).

Geology in the News:

The biggest story of the week is the new evidence for an extraterrestrial impact at the end of the Permian. The evidence is extremely esoteric (noble gases trapped in fullerenes), but the conclusions are dramatic. Read the story on CNN, BBC and Eureka to see contrasting styles and quoted experts.

Marine scientists from around the world have started a massive program to record ocean life. Only 5% of the oceans have been biologically surveyed, which is astonishing. Maybe they'll finally find those giant squid?

It's a story from last year, but I'm just now finding it. The world's largest trilobite specimen was found by Canadian paleontologists in Canada. It is 72 centimeters long, dwarfing our Ohio specimen which was previously a claimant.

Old news again, but news to me. The bill before the Ohio legislature to require that "evidence against evolution" be presented wherever evolution is taught in the public schools has died. Its sponsor was not re-elected. There is some fear that it will be reintroduced by others.

Another UN warning about global warming. "Most of the Earth's people will be on the losing side," are the comforting words of a Harvard scientist on the panel.

El Salvador continues to suffer earthquakes. The smaller ones following the big 'quakes continue to do damage to weakened buildings. We are blessed to live in such a stable place.

Scientists have detected numerous compounds in interstellar dust clouds which are essential to life. They include water, molecular oxygen, carbon, carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, benzene, formic acid, acetic acid, methanol, and the class of organic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known as PAHs (which were found earlier in Mars-derived meteorites). Creationists at Answers in Genesis responded to this one quickly, missing the major point that the presence of these compounds only shows that the precursors to life exist in space.

Web Resources for Week #8:

This week we will examine in detail the unusual and elaborate "Hydroplate Theory" from Dr. Walter Brown. You have two links for this material. I hope you read the first (from Dr. Brown's "Center for Scientific Creation" site) because it has many linked illustrations, but it is long. The second pdf file is a good summary. Very strange stuff, but many creationists find it compelling. Few geologists have bothered to address this concept (for good reasons!), but you will find some comments on the "Problems with a Global Flood" page from Talk.Origins.

For additional web resources on Flood Geology, start with Lambert Dolphin's "On the Great Flood of Noah" for a Young-Earth and Biblical analysis, with good illustrations and many links. You also will not want to neglect our old friend Dr. John Morris, who has a recent ICR Impact article on the Flood. His friend and another author you know, Dr. John Baumgardner, explains the Flood with his "Runaway Subduction" model, which is slightly more respectable than Dr. Brown's delusions. Slightly. Note the article's "irreducible complexity". Dr. Baumgardner was interviewed in US News & World Report about his Young Earth views on plate tectonics and Noah's Flood. Want to make it even more complicated? Try this chart outlining five biblical catastrophes by a Bernard Northrup. A geologist named Joe Meert takes this concept on directly with his anti-Flood webpage. (He also has a good webpage on paleosols and the Flood, and he reveals that John Woodmorappe is actually Jan Peczkis, a high school teacher in Illinois. With that in mind, check out this web article by Woodmorappe which cites Peczkis! It is an odd world we've entered.) For geological responses to Flood Geology, see the extensive site by former creation geologist Glenn Morton.

That excellent American Scientist article on the "Creationist Timescale" is now online in an expanded version. There is material here which will be useful for many of your research papers.

Here is something I've just discovered: Last year I gave a talk to the Women in Science group on campus (now "Pursuing Science Interests") about "The New Creationists". I posted a detailed webpage from that talk outlining a classification of creationism and giving many links. Turns out that Phillip Johnson used it in a talk last year in Washington! There is a detailed report in this online bulletin ("The Homepage for all Baptists") from The Baptist Press. He certainly didn't mention my paper in his talk at Case Western Reserve University last week! There are some distortions, especially "... the Women in Science paper debunks belief in God." Still, I suppose I'm honored, and I see the long reach of the Web goes both ways.

Geology in the News:

The main geological news this week, of course, is the Seattle earthquake, which now is estimated to have produced over two billion dollars in damage. All of the web news sources have extensive coverage. The New York Times has a good geological summary. It also has a prescient article published just a month ago on the seismic risks Seattle faces. The CNN story on intraplate earthquakes is also good.

"Crystal proves life existed on Mars". Not likely, but read this CNN report on a recent analysis of magnetite in a Martian meteorite. The study comes from NASA, of course, which has just posted these images of the crystals. The Los Angeles Times report on the story quotes an author, "microscopist" Kathie Thomas-Keprta: "That fits just perfect with what we would see on Mars," and the set of crystals represents the "oldest life form ever found." Stay tuned. This story's going down just like the others. The Answers in Genesis creationists also have their doubts, as you might imagine.

The Hubble Space Telescope operators have just released a fantastic edge-on image of a nearby galaxy. It is a beautiful universe.

The NEAR spacecraft, now a permanent fixture on the asteroid Eros, has been "unplugged" by NASA. Check out the last images it broadcast.

Northern Africa's Lake Chad is dramatically shrinking. It has gone from the size of Vermont to the size of Rhode Island in less than 40 years. The causes appear to be a combination of natural and human-induced. The huge lake is nowhere more than 23 feet deep, so it shrinks quickly.

Odd but compelling. Check out the "Evolvovision" demonstration of evolution from a single cell to us. Click on the TV and watch. What's up with the cheeseburger?

Web Resources for Week #9:

Let's start with our new Creationist author, Dr. Steven Austin, and his "ten misconceptions about the geologic column". (This will be frustrating, especially considering that Dr. Austin is a real geologist. How can he be so misleading?) The falsely-named "John Woodmorappe" has an article on the "illusory" geologic column, written in response to a Talk.Origins piece on the geologic column by "apostate" Glenn Morton. (Can't say there isn't plenty of communication across the battlelines of Creationism!) The Answers in Genesis people have some characteristically hare-brained (I'm starting to get less tolerant) articles on stratigraphic concepts, including this one mentioned earlier by Kirk where a "Mike Miller of Ohio" (say it isn't true, Mike!) finds that sandstone has formed in his pool filter, proving ... proving ... (I'm not sure). Another AiG staffer discovered that "many layers do not mean many years" in a deposit of dredged sand. (He could take an introductory geology course to learn why!) As we ascend the scale of sophisticated arguments, you will note in this brief abstract from the Creation Research Society (CRS) that Creationists have strange comfort in sequence stratigraphy. CRS workers also find in this detailed study that turbidity currents have left geological records, thereby proving the Flood. One of the most interesting articles on the CRS website is an assessment of Creationist stratigraphy in the northern Gulf of Mexico. The authors (Froede and Reed) discover, to no geologist's surprise, that the flood-stratigraphic models of Austin and others do not work. They conclude, though, that Creationists have made an error by accepting the framework of "the global uniformitarian stratigraphic column (GUC)". Creationists must "jettison the evolutionary baggage that permeates the GUC" before their stratigraphy makes sense. Now there's a task.

I hardly need to provide you with alternative geological websites, there are so many. This good one by Jonathon Woolf is a dispassionate "test" of the Austin model and the standard geological model for the origin of Grand Canyon strata. "I don't think there can be any doubt that Steven Austin's young-Earth, catastrophic model for the formation of the Colorado Plateau and the Grand Canyon fails in a great many ways," he writes. You may also want to visit a standard webpage on the geologic column, just to remind yourself that it still exists. For that matter, see the most recent version of our Sedimentology & Stratigraphy course webpage.

You may need this information and citation for your research papers, and for your revision of essay #4: the Gallup survey of the American public's attitudes towards creationism, evolution, and public education. In 1999, 47% of Americans polled believe "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so". 68% favor teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools (with 40% favoring creationism instead of evolution!).

This just in: The Answers in Genesis staff has now posted and responded to my letter on hardgrounds! The primary author is none other than Dr. Tas Walker himself. It is an extraordinary revelation of geological ignorance, ad hoc reasoning, and speciousness, but what did we expect? Of course, I'm hardly a judge, being myself hindered by the "mind-forged manacles of uniformitarianism".

And another bulletin: With only a single dissenting vote, a committee of the Arkansas legislature has endorsed a bill outlawing the use of state money to fund educational materials that present scientific theories as "fact". Of course, this includes evolution as well as "ideas about the earth's age, the origin of life, the results of carbon dating and radioisotope dating, and the notion that fossils represent missing links among life forms". Children will also be required to write in the margins of their textbooks "false evidence" or "theory" next to references to evolution or other objectionable ideas. The star witness for the committee was none other than that arch pseudoscientist Kent Hovind, the one with a degree from "Patriot University". What are they thinking? How does this happen? It is getting more difficult to suppress anger.

Geology in the News:

Very big news in paleoanthropology: a new hominid skull was found by the Leakey team in Kenya. It appears to be 3.5 million years old, and it has a surprisingly flat face. It may represent a new genus ("Kenyanthropus"), or at least a new species of Australopithecus. I have learned, though, that the subject of human evolution is so heated that we have to wait at least a couple of months for the initial rhetoric to die down. We haven't heard much lately, for example, on the newly-discovered "Millennium Ancestor".

Here is a clever approach to the Cretaceous extinction timing problem. A US and Italian team working with K/T boundary sediments from Tunisia and Italy concluded that the boundary clays took no more than 10,000 years to accumulate. They studied the amount of helium-3 in these deposits compared to others, using it as a proxy for interplanetary dust deposition rate. I'm not convinced that it really tells us that the dinosaurs "met a very quick end" (there is other evidence for that), but it certainly has implications for foraminiferan and other marine extinctions.

With a new method in place, we can now confidently assert that some dinosaurs saw amazing displays of the "northern lights" (and southern) because the Earth's magnetic field was at least three times stronger than it is now. Geologists at the University of Rochester used a superconducting quantum interference device (Squid) to detect these paleointensities. The Squid method is far more accurate than traditional paleomagnetic techniques.

Black holes are extraordinarily common in the universe, say astronomers after completing the most extensive X-ray survey yet. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory also detected an X-ray quasar an astonishing 12 billion light years away.

Be sure to check out CNN's weekly "Diary of the Planet". You will learn, for example, that some Russian scientists are concerned that "mutant space fungi" clinging to the crashing spacecraft Mir may pose dangers to life on Earth. Mir will crash to Earth later this month, probably in the Pacific. Say your prayers or trust in Russian technology.

A team of Japanese geologists has expressed concern that the ground beneath the Peruvian archaeological site Machu Picchu may soon collapse. The Peruvians say there is nothing to worry about. It has "survived 500 years of natural phenomena" and should be fine. Somehow that isn't reason enough for geologists!

That Seattle earthquake is still a mystery to seismologists, who continue to study it this month with increasingly sophisticated instruments. The final magnitude is 6.8, and it was centered 36.7 miles below the surface (which is very deep).

Web Resources for Week #10:

The Creationist attempt to explain most of the geological record with a global flood only a few thousand years ago fails on many grounds, but none so spectacular as with fossils. You can start your webwork with an article on the supposed "random" nature of the fossil record by the falsely-named John Woodmorappe, along with a similar article by Michael Oard questioning how well paleontologists know fossil distribution. You don't want to miss a chance to visit the "fossil" collection at the Creation Evidence Museum, including the famous "fossil finger", nor the evidence of humans and dinosaurs living together. To make things a little more complicated, read why the Christian Geology Ministry (an Old Earth Creationist group) believes the vast majority of fossils are pre-Flood. We would be remiss, of course, if we didn't also visit one of the many sites claiming that there are no transitional fossils to support evolution. (Note in this last one, from "True.Origins", the familiar double-speak about "presuppositions".)

I hardly need to tell you now where to find resources to support the strong role fossils play in the theory of evolution and the long history of Earth. One visit to the extensive Museum of Paleontology at the University of California will be enough.

Remember "Dr." Kent Hovind? check out this practical joke he fell for. (For the perpetrators, see this page.)

A "new martyr for intelligent design theory" may be appearing in Washington state. A public school teacher is under fire from the ACLU for presenting "evidence of a designer" in his science classes. I bet we will soon hear from our friend Philip Johnson on this one.

You also may want to see the "Voices for Evolution" page maintained by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It is inspiring and heartening.

On Friday we will discuss the supposed "man tracks" found with those of dinosaurs. For a preview of the issues, see Glen Kuban's footprints page. More links to come.

Geology in the News:

Some new evidence for evolution has been developed from separate studies of songbirds in the Himalayas and salamanders in California. These supplement the dozens of similar studies, including the classic ones of Darwin's finches in the Galapagos.

Astronomers finally seem to have had a direct look at "dark matter". This discovery could solve one of the fundamental questions about the amount of mass in the Universe.

In 1993, a team of geologists climbed into the crater of a volcano in Colombia and was caught in an eruption. Six of the scientists were killed. Two books have just been published from opposite perspectives on the tragedy. Every geologist should read them as a reminder that our discipline can be dangerous ... and that there are easy ways to reduce the hazards.

Some new ideas about the early geological history of Mars have recently been published. It appears that an absolutely gy-normous volcanic eruption may have changed the climate of the planet so much that it entered the famous "warm and wet" phase. As usual, there is unwarranted speculation about life on Mars here.

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on assigning credit for scientific discoveries. The story is prompted by a new play called "Oxygen", which I've got to see.

A study of toppled chimneys in Seattle is showing how these structures are surprisingly sensitive to fault movement. It is a very low-tech way to get sophisticated seismic information!

Remember Archaeoraptor? This was a "fossil bird" from China which attracted considerable attention (especially from the staff of National Geographic, to their eternal dismay) and turned out to be a fraud. (Creationist groups had much fun with this one. Note, of course, that this has NOTHING to do with Archaeopteryx, which remains a classic link between reptiles and birds.) A recent analysis of the specimen shows that there is within it at least one new species which was nearly lost to science through this hoax.

A superb collection of Late Jurassic salamanders has been found in China. (I hope these are real!) The little critters are so well preserved that even their internal organs can be seen. They are being called "Pompeii salamanders" because they were quickly buried in volcanic ash.

Should there be the equivalent of a Hippocratic Oath for scientists? This is the conclusion of one of England's leading scientists. He believes this may begin to counter what he sees as a growing public mistrust of scientists. What do you think, young scientists?

Web Resources for Week #11:

We will start the week with a discussion of Creationist biogeography (the study of the geographic distribution of organisms). Please read the brief Creationist explanation from The Creation Explanation cited above, along with the rather polemical essay on The Kiwi Question. Other pro-evolutionary biogeographic essays can be found on a biogeography webpage by Don Lindsay and on a biogeography course page from New York University. Biogeography is not commonly discussed on the main Creationist websites, such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute of Creation Research. Try searching their sites, though, for shorter comments on the topic. One unusually detailed Creationist biogeography article is by a Jim Gibson from the "Geoscience Research Institute". It covers the history of South American vertebrates using dispersal from the Ark as the hypothesis.

You asked for the topic "How to Debate a Creationist". There is much advice on the Web for this one. Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE generally recommends that you don't, comparing the staged debates to a Harlem Globetrotter's "game". Dr. Richard Trott describes in detail debating the ICR's Duane Gish. (Someone now needs to write one on "debating Ken Ham".) Dr. Rob Day tells us about a debate he participated in which was poorly managed, all to the creationist's advantage. Dr. Jim Lippard cautions us in "How not to argue with creationists" that scientists can make serious errors if they have not done their research and if they let arrogance override their logic. (It is followed by an essay on "How not to respond to criticism".) Debating resources can be found in countless places, of course, but you may like "Things Creationists Hate" (by R.J. Riggins), and "Stumper Questions for Creationists" (by Tom Scharle). The Creationists themselves, of course, have their own debating culture and history. For a taste, read this complaint from Answers in Genesis about a debate broadcast on the BBC last year. Here is our pal Dr. John R. Baumgardner describing his debates at Los Alamos (although it is hard to find the actual debating parts). The Lion of Creationism, Dr. Duane Gish, takes us through one of his recent debates in an ICR Impact issue.

Remember when we wondered about creationism in the Islamic world? It is growing exponentially. Here is an example in the work of "Harun Yahya", the pen name of a Turkish fundamentalist (and anti-Semite, anti-American, anti-democrat ...). Among other errors, we read on his fossil record webpage, "When terrestrial strata and the fossil record are examined, it is to be seen that all living organisms appeared simultaneously. The oldest stratum of the earth in which fossils of living creatures have been found is that of the Cambrian, which has an estimated age of 500-550 million years." How can we educate the world about Precambrian life? For more information on the context of Harun Yahya and the curious role of Islamic creationism (and its derivation directly from American creationism), see Cloning Creationism in Turkey by Taner Edis. You will learn that Harun Yahya is also the author of a book titled, "The Holocaust Hoax". For a detailed study of Harun Yahya (who may be Necmettin Erbakan and/or Adnan Oktar), see "Debunking a Creationist Cult" by Turkish scientist Ümit Sayin. The story is shocking.

Geology in the News:

Melting of antarctic ice gives us yet another warning that Global Warming is actually happening. The political debates have intensified as to what the industrialized countries can do about it.

Einstein once thought that "all of space is bubbling with an invisible form of energy that creates a mutual repulsion between objects normally attracted to each other by gravity". He called this the Cosmological Constant, but thought it so strange that he later dropped the idea. Recent Hubble photographs of a supernova, though, now seem to support this concept of negative gravity. It is a strange universe.

NASA has developed a new Digital Tectonic Activity Map which greatly aids our interpretation of global tectonic structures. (You would have wanted this in Geology 200!)

By studying "lineaments" (straight lines) in satellite images, geologists think they have identified several previously-unknown fault systems in upstate New York. I'm always a bit skeptical about these remotely-sensed faults, but they seem to know what they are doing.

The Sun released an enormous flare recently -- one of the largest ever recorded. Fortunately it shot out in a direction away from Earth. The Sun has shown an unusual amount of activity this spring, including some very large sunspot groups.

This is very cool: virtual imaging of fossils which cannot be removed from their rock matrix. The technique involves serial sectioning and the computer development of 3-D images. The example here is from a team of paleontologists at Oxford University.

Web Resources for Week #12:

The Pleistocene Ice Ages used to be an embarrassment for Creationists because they could not easily fit the geological data into the Global Flood Model. They still should be embarrassed, but they now have some sophisticated (and convoluted) arguments to explain a single Ice Age. Please refer to the articles cited in the reading assignment above, plus this classic ICR Impact article by Michael Oard on "The Ice Age and the Genesis Flood" and a more detailed Ice Age article from the "Geoscience Research Institute". Mr. Oard also has a brief Ice Age note on the AiG website. Just to remind yourself that there really were multiple ice ages throughout the Earth's history, go to the Illinois State Museum webpage on Ice Ages.

Friday's topic will be cosmology and creationism, concentrating on creationist responses to the Big Bang theory. You will first want to review Big Bang ideas and observations, especially if you did not have the History of Life course. Start with the PBS-produced "Stephen Hawking's Universe" webpages for short discussions of the standard cosmology, and then move to this Big Bang website at Cambridge University. Creationist critiques of the Big Bang are scattered, and they are mostly exploitations of debates among cosmologists. Dr. Duane Gish has a 1991 ICR Impact claiming "The Big Bang Theory Collapses", which proved to be premature. Dr. Henry Morris calls it "The Big Bust". His son John asks "Is The Big Bang Biblical?", with the expected answer. Dad wades in again with "The Coming Big Bang". The topic seems just a little too intellectual for the Answers in Genesis staff, but they do have a short article by Dr. Carl Wieland titled, "Universe (or should that be the 'Big Bang?') falls flat!".

Geology in the News:

It was only a few weeks ago that we learned about a new hominid skull about 3.5 million years old found in Kenya. Shortly before this was the supposed hominid "Millennium Ancestor" at an astonishing 6 million years of age. These stories are growing rapidly. Considerable discussion has developed about the latter "hominid", including accusations that scientific politics are playing a critical role. Stay tuned!

Remember the carbon-rich meteorite which fell in northern British Columbia about a year ago and was frozen by a quick-thinking amateur geologist? It is a rare meteorite all right, but it is also a disappointment because it does not contain the expected treasure of extraterrestrial amino acids.

The mysterious gamma-ray bursts in distant galaxies are finally beginning to reveal new information about star formation.

Two new studies make it quite clear that human-produced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are really and truly warming the Earth. Doubts are melting away as fast as the ... (that's just too easy!).

Web Resources for Week #13:

Since we have such diverse topics in these last two weeks with the research presentations, our links here will not have any particular theme other than timely interest.

Dr. Robert Wright has an excellent recent article in Slate about "The 'New' Creationists". It is a devastating critique of "Intelligent Design" creationism, including the work of our favorite Phillip Johnson. Dr. Wright has an earlier article called "The Accidental Creationist", or "Why Stephen Jay Gould is Bad for Evolution". I've also recently found two pages from Old Earth Creationists (well, sort of Old Earth) entitled "A Critical Look at Flood Geology: The Earth's Sedimentary Record: Formed in One Year?" and "What Does Genesis Say About The Genesis Flood?". Both are critical of young-earth geology, especially as promoted by Answers in Genesis. You may also want to revisit the Christian Geology Ministry site, which has some interesting new articles including ideas about the GISP2 Greenland ice core, "lifeforms prior to the six days in Genesis", the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, and recent DNA work with ancient hominids.

A man named "Rocky Cinnamon" (maybe) sent me photographs of a "glacieral formed sandstone". He would like more information about it. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Geology in the News:

At the very edge of the Solar System, astronomers have found two small objects orbiting each other. They are in the Kuiper Belt, which extends beyond Pluto. The objects are a few hundred kilometers in diameter, so some ambitious scientists are calling them "planets".

Jupiter has "auroral ovals", which are permanent glowing rings of gas around the poles. Scientists have recently observed the first auroral flare from the planet. They were using that wonderful Hubble Space Telescope.

Here's the latest scientific trend applied to hominid evolution: asteroid impacts! Why did all other hominid species go extinct? Big rocks from space!

The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD which devastated Pompeii and Herculaneum apparently killed some people instaneously with super-heated gases. That is the conclusion of an Italian team of archaeologists studying human remains from the disaster. On that note, there is evidence that numerous individuals of Proconsul, extinct primates possibly ancestral to hominids, died in similar volcanic eruptions in eastern Africa 18 million years ago.

The Great Barrier Reef off Australia may be "choking to death" on silt eroded from agricultural land which was once rainforests and wetlands. This would be a global tragedy.

Web Resources for Week #14:

The last week! Alas. From the beginning this course was unpredictable, and your enthusiastic participation and numerous insights and ideas have made it one of the most enjoyable courses I have ever taught. Thank you! I'll miss our meetings.

Our last set of links are again random tidbits from the world of creationism. As you would expect, the Answers in Genesis people have been very quick to dismiss the announcement of a feathered dinosaur. Dr. Carl Wieland seems to be their primary point man on such issues. He is a medical doctor, and it shows in his discussions of paleontology. AiG's Dr. Jonathan D. Sarfati addresses bird evolution from a creationist perspective on a separate website. They have an uphill fight on this one because the evidence is very clear.

I recently found this article titled "Illogical geology and it's (sic!) relationship to the evolution theory" by the old anti-evolutionist George McCready Price. Read through it and you will see that the rhetoric has not changed much in 60 years. The work is reprinted on a page by a Dr. D. Timothy Anstine, who has this interesting take on the Big Bang.

Here's a fun page of links to articles on fringe ideas, from Atlantis and Afrocentrism to the Hollow Earth and Bigfoot. Hmmm ... the next Special Topics course? Along that line, here is a site maintained by "People for Ethical Evolutionary Practices (P.E.E.P.), a grass-roots international organization committed to exposing and preventing a diabolical and potentially deadly research project currently sponsored by the U.S. military , several of its allies, and at least one, as yet unidentified, multinational corporation." These people are very serious.

Geology in the News:

The big news, of course, is the feathered dinosaur found in China and recently announced by the American Museum of Naural History. It is an extraordinary find, and this New York Times article is the best reporting on it I've seen (with the BBC version very close).

Lucretius as the first science populizer! Very interesting idea. This Roman writer who lived more than 2000 years ago took many contemporary scientific ideas and presented them to the public "because he was concerned about the misery that ignorance and superstition bring upon the world".

More evidence, this time from a team of British scientists, that the last thirty years were the warmest in the last thousand, and that the causes cannot be entirely natural.

Here is an interesting article on extrasolar planets and how they survive (or don't) the early stages of galaxy formation. It appears that these planets are rarer in our galaxy than we thought just a year ago.

This course is ultimately one of critical thinking, regardless of our opinions on the issues we will discuss and debate. Our primary means of engagement with the material will be with writing, and secondarily through oral expression. My goal is to help you become more knowledgeable and articulate on scientific themes, gaining skills in presenting scientific arguments to a variety of audiences. Since our topic is geological, the prerequisites for this course are at least two previous geology courses.

Four short essays are required, with deadlines stated in the grading format section below. Each essay will be two to three pages long and directly connected with our reading and discussions for that particular class period. At least one will be a technical brief designed for other scientific readers, and at least one other will be a popular essay for a newspaper or nonscientific magazine. The other assignments will be determined by the directions we take in our class discussions. Some essays will be read by your peers in the class, but all will be graded by me. Each essay can be rewritten to improve the grade. The final grade for an essay will be an average of the first score and the score after revision.

The research paper will be 15-20 pages long, including all the illustrations and references. You will choose a relevant topic early in the semester and pursue it in detail. We will talk often about the research process, and all of you will share at least one preliminary draft with me before the final submission of your paper on April 20.

Your research paper becomes the topic for your research presentation sometime during the last two weeks of class. This talk, which will be no more than 15 minutes (depending on the number of student in the class), is your chance to orally explain some aspect of our topic. You can make handouts, use slides, the chalkboard, computer graphics or any other set of techniques for most effectively presenting your argument. Some topics may be conceptually linked, enabling you to work with another student in your presentations.

Although this is a seminar course, we will still have a midterm examination and a final examination. These will be unlike tests you've had in other geology courses. They are essentially "in-class" writing assignments concentrating on the development of arguments rather than the recitation of particular concepts. You will choose from several open-ended questions on these tests, and your grade will primarily depend on the soundness and clarity of your arguments.

Finally, participation in discussions is essential in any seminar. I know well that different students respond in different ways to class discussion. Your grade will not be calculated by counting the number of times you speak, nor how often you make a particularly valuable point. I will be looking for preparation, respect for others (including the authors), and thoughtfulness. To facilitate our discussions, I will distribute preparation questions before each class.

The Bible (any translation, as long as it is in English!); try this Online Bible as well (but you still need a printed version for class).

An introductory geology textbook, preferably one from the History of Life, Geology of Natural Hazards, Environmental Geology or Processes & Concepts of Geology courses.

Austin, S.A. (ed.). 1994. Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. Institute for Creation Research; Santee, California; 284 pages.

Morris, J.D. 1994. The Young Earth. Master Books, Inc.; Green Forest, Arkansas; 141 pages.

(Many other resources will be used, including reprints of articles and web-based materials. All "special readings" will be supplied in class as either paper or links.)

I have a weekly appointment schedule posted outside my office door in Scovel. Please sign up for an appointment if you have any questions about the course format or material.

Our course has been noticed by Ken Ham, one of the most popular of the Young Earth Creationists and founder of Answers In Genesis. In a convoluted argument, Mr. Ham notes that Wooster has a Presbyterian heritage, that there is a Presbyterian church on campus, and that this church had a Sunday School class on "supporting women's choice". He thus concludes that at Wooster, "The rejection of a literal Genesis goes hand-in-hand with the acceptance of abortion!" He would no doubt be shocked to hear that I am a pro-life Republican (and not a Presbyterian). That wouldn't fit neatly into his conception of the world outside evangelical Christianity.

This course may have been newsworthy because of the controversy surrounding a similar course which was planned for the University of Kansas. That course has now been cancelled because of the publication of some injudicious emails from the professor. (What's this about the professor being beaten up over this course proposal?) I am grateful to be teaching in a private school where academic freedom is protected from such repressive moves.

Here is a webpage with a copy of a letter to the editor of The Daily Record (Wooster, Ohio) I wrote in response to a previous letter on fossils and evolution. It was printed on December 13, 2005, and followed by several letters from local creationists. These later letters are also on this webpage as pdf files.

As everyone should know by now, the Intelligent Design argument was thoroughly whipped in the December 2005 Dover, Pennsylvania, case involving its inclusion in the science curricula of public schools. The ruling by Judge John E. Jones is well worth reading directly from this pdf file.

The best news for this class and our topic is the defeat of the "Intelligent Design" movement in Ohio. The new science standards now explicitly include evolution, which will make an extraordinary difference in our schools. It is interesting to see how the primary pro-ID group in Ohio (with the Orwellian name, "Science Excellence for All Ohioans") took this defeat, claiming that the new standards substantially incorporate their teach-the-controversy approach. Our friends at Answers In Genesis know better, calling the new Ohio standards a complete defeat for Intelligent Design and Creationism. The AiG people have long had a problematic relationship with Intelligent Design advocates, which reveals yet another schism in the anti-evolution population. For a splendid website critically examining the Intelligent Design movement, please visit TalkDesign.org. For an antidote to my sunny optimism about the new standards, see this Wooster Daily Record newspaper article on how the standards "won't prompt many changes".

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has a press release on the Top Ten Science Policy Issues for 2002, and Intelligent Design is number five.

The Skeptical Inquirer article generated from this course is mentioned in the June 2002 and December 2002 issues of Acts & Facts, published by the Institute of Creation Research. They are paying attention. The course is also mentioned in this February 2002 article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Readers of this page may also be interested in another course taught in the Fall of 2002 called "Nonsense in America", which was a critical assessment of all sorts of fringe concepts, including scientific creationism.

For those interested, I wrote a brief article for Wooster magazine about the early history of teaching evolution at The College of Wooster. Evolution got an early foothold in this Presbyterian institution because a young biology professor essentially presented a Darwin-free theistic version which was acceptable to his colleagues. True Darwinian evolution followed quickly afterwards.

The Talk Reason website is a new resource for skeptics of creationism, especially intelligent design and its immediate descendants. It is a well organized site rich with news items, dozens of articles and numerous links. Highly recommended!