Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown. Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other materials.
1. Current increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) are trivial compared to the amount spilled out during the flood. [See "The Origin of Limestone" on pages 261–266.] That release helped reestablish Earth’s forests that the flood destroyed and buried. CO2 is food for plants, and provides almost every carbon atom in every living thing.
Experiments conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture have shown that if the atmosphere’s CO2 is increased by a given percentage, plant growth increases by a much greater percentage. [See Sherwood B. Idso, CO2-Climate Dialogue (Tempe, Arizona: Laboratory of Climatology, 1987).] Certainly, increases in atmospheric CO2 have negative consequences, but the above experiments show positive aspects as well.
u “While CO2 has increased substantially [in recent decades], its [direct] effect on temperature has been so slight that it has not been experimentally detected.” Arthur B. Robinson et al., “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons,” Vol. 12, Fall 2007, p. 85.
Indirect effects are larger. Warming of earth’s surface (by CO2, or any other means) raises ocean temperatures, causing the oceans to release some of their immense amounts of dissolved CO2. More importantly, warmer oceans increase water vapor into the atmosphere. Water vapor is a more potent greenhouse gas. Warmer oceans also increase the frequency, strength, and destructiveness of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons.
However, the doubling of atmospheric CO2 is estimated to increase atmospheric temperatures by about 2.3° C. [See Piers Forster, “Half a Century of Robust Climate Models,” Nature, Vol. 545, 18 May 2017, p. 296.
2. Sea levels rise as oceans warm and thermally expand. Of course, sea levels also rise when ice above sea level melts, but if ice resting on the sea bottom melts, sea level is lowered slightly. If floating ice melts, water levels do not change.
3. Gordon McGranahan et al., “The Rising Tide: Assessing the Risks of Climate Change and Human Settlements in Low Elevation Coastal Zones,” Environment & Urbanization, Vol. 19, April 2007.]
4. Dry snow reflects 70–90% of the Sun’s radiation; open water reflects only 7–10%.
5. “Researchers have confirmed that rising sea levels caused by melting glaciers are slowing Earth’s rotation.” Philip Campbell, “Rising Sea Levels Alter Earth’s Spin,” Nature, Vol. 528, 17 December 2015, p. 310.
6. Since 1841, increasingly accurate estimates have been made of the volume of ice on the earth at the peak of the Ice Age. Knowing that volume, one can approximate how far sea level was lowered. [For details, see Richard Foster Flint, Glacial and Quaternary Geology (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1971), pp. 84, 315–342.]
7. Some experts are predicting sea level rises of 10–40 inches (28–97 centimeters) by 2100, and about 1 foot each subsequent century. [See Nicola Jones, “Rising Tide,” Nature, Vol. 501, 19 September 2013, pp. 300–302.
8. Lucas C. R. Silva, “Carbon Sequestration Beyond Tree Longevity,” Science, Vol. 355, 17 March 2017, p. 1141.
9. Doug Boucher, “Science for a Healthy Planet and Safer World,” Union of Concerned Scientists, http://www.ucsusa.org/ publications/ask/2012/reforestation. Last accessed 19 September 2017.
10. Magdalena Skipper, “Suicide Rate Tracks Warming,” Nature, Vol. 560, 2 August 2018, p. 9.
11. “Today, the average rate of energy capture by photosynthesis globally is approximately 130 terawatts, which is about three times the current power consumption of human civilization.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthesis, Last accessed 19 September 2017.
12. Charles H. Hapgood, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (New York: Chilton Books, 1966; reprint, Kempton, Illinois: Adventures Unlimited Press, 1996).
On 6 July 1960, the commander of the 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron, U.S. Air Force, wrote the following letter to Charles Hapgood. [Ibid., p. 243.]
Dear Professor Hapgood:
Your request for evaluation of certain unusual features of the Piri Reis World Map of 1513 by this organization has been reviewed.
The claim that the lower part of the map portrays the Princess Martha Coast of Queen Maud Land Antarctica, and the Palmer Peninsula is reasonable. We find this is the most logical and in all probability the correct interpretation of the map.
The geographical detail shown in the lower part of the map agrees very remarkably with the results of the seismic profile made across the top of the ice cap by the Swedish-British-Norwegian Antarctic Expedition of 1949. This indicates the coastline had been mapped before it was covered by the ice cap.
The ice cap in the region is now about a mile thick. We have no idea how the data on this map can be reconciled with the supposed state of geographical knowledge in 1513.
Lt. Colonel Harold Z. Ohlmeyer
13. Other maps of this period show continents joined, which requires lowered sea levels. [See Gregory C. McIntosh, The Piri Reis Map of 1513 (Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2000), p. 52.] If today’s sea level were lowered by only 300 feet, all continents would be joined, except for narrow channels between Australia and Asia and Europe and North America.
14. Using questionable assumptions, evolutionists claim that the ice sheets began building up at least a million years ago. Why then, have scientists, using corings down through 12,000 feet of Antarctic ice, discovered frozen bacteria—with their cell walls intact—directly above Lake Vostok? Obviously, those bacteria were not frozen millions of years ago.
“Both [scientists] detected hundreds, in some cases thousands, of bacterial cells per milliliter of [12,000-foot-deep] ice. Some of the bacteria had intact membranes, so ‘they were alive fairly recently.’” Mariana Gosnell, “The Last Hidden Place on Earth,” Discover, November 2007, p. 48.
15. Researcher Bill Cooper discovered, in a few European libraries, ancient genealogies and histories that go back to Noah and his descendants mentioned in Genesis 10. Those records, written before Europe was introduced to Christianity, were often a basis for ancient rulers establishing their authority. Some of these scrupulously preserved genealogies can be “cross verified.” They show remarkably rapid migrations and explorations after the flood by our rugged, resourceful ancestors. These histories also describe an ice age. [See Bill Cooper, After the Flood: The Early Post-Flood History of Europe Traced Back to Noah (West Sussex, England: New Wine Press, 1995). See also Endnote 5 on page 534.]
Genesis 10, called the “Table of Nations,” names the lands that Noah’s early descendants (including Noah’s great-great-great grandsons) colonized. Some of these individuals appear to match names in Cooper’s historical genealogies and many of these distant lands are identifiable today. All this shows travel across continental distances within a few generations of the flood. This implies navigational abilities similar to the abilities of those who made the source maps used by Piri Re’is and other medieval map makers.
16. Robin E. Bell et al., “Tectonically Controlled Subglacial Lakes on the Flanks of the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains, East Antarctica,” Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 33, 28 January 2006, pp. L02504–L02507.
u Sid Perkins, “Cold and Deep,” Science News, Vol. 169, 4 February 2006, pp. 69–70.
17. Yury M. Shtarkman et al., “Subglacial Lake Vostok (Antarctica) Accretion Ice Contains a Diverse Set of Sequences from Aquatic, Marine and Sediment-Inhabiting Bacteria and Eukarya,” PLOS ONE, 3 July 2013, pp. 1–12.
u “Sure enough, [John] Priscu found dead or dormant cells in the dirty Vostok ice—up to 600,000 per cubic inch.” Douglas Fox, “Life Under the Ice,” Discover, July/August, 2013, p. 58.
18. Rachel Ehrenberg, “Life Under Ice,” Science News, Vol. 184, 7 September 2013, p. 27.
19. “The idea that there was [liquid] water underneath either of Antarctica’s ice sheets (there is an eastern and western one) seemed preposterous.” Gosnell, p. 46.
20. Peter T. Doran et al., “Formation and Character of an Ancient 19-Meter Ice Cover and Underlying Trapped Brine in an ‘Ice-Sealed’ East Antarctic Lake,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 100, 7 January 2003, pp. 26–31.