A POWERFUL CRITIQUE OF EVOLUTION, AND SOME ORIGINAL PROPOSALS.
Author Walt Brown wrote in the Preface to this 2001 (7th edition) book, “This study began unexpectedly in June of 1970. I was a Christian, an evolutionist, and a new professor at the Air Force Academy… However, the biblical flood was always hard for me to imagine…. For two years I pondered these issues… The case for the Ark’s existence grew stronger as many of my questions were answered… The more I struggled… the more amazed I became at the lack of evidence supporting evolution and the abundant evidence supporting creation. By 1972, I had become a creationist… invitations to speak arose… In this way, the first edition of this book began to ‘evolve.’ In 1978, my wife and I decided the subject was so broad and important that I should pursue it full time… As you read this book, identify questions to ask educators. If they object to any scientific information or conclusion in the book, I will be happy to discuss it with them by telephone, provided you are part of our three-way conversation… Our task, then, is educating the public. People who are aware of this evidence will inevitably bring pressure and embarrassment on the entrenched interests, starting in the classroom.”
He outlines, “Scientific advancements have shown us that evolution is an even more ridiculous theory than it seemed in Darwin’s day. It is a theory without a mechanism… The arguments used by Darwin and his followers are discredited or, at best, in dispute, even among evolutionists… the requirements for life are incredibly complex… Nevertheless, evolutionists still argue against this design oddly enough, using arguments which they spent a great deal of time designing. The theory of organic evolution is invalid.” (Pg. 19)
About the theory of continental drift, he proposes, “These continents … were connected by rock that was rapidly eroded and transported worldwide by erupting subterranean water… As these eroded sediments were deposited, they trapped and buried plants and animals. The sediments became sedimentary rock; buried organisms became fossils… The continents quickly slid on a layer of water (rapid continental drift) away from what is now the mid-Atlantic ridge and came to rest neat their present locations.” (Pg. 97)
He thee explains his “Hydroplate Theory”: “About half the water now in the oceans was once in interconnected chambers about 10 miles below the earth’s surface… Above the subterranean water was a granite crust… With less water on the earth’s surface, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas were joined across what is now the Atlantic Ocean… On the crust were seas, both deep and shallow, and mountains, generally smaller than those of today… water was trapped and sealed under the crust… Eventually, this shell of rock reached its failure point. Failure began with a microscopic crack at the earth’s surface… Within seconds, this crack penetrated down to the subterranean chamber … along a great-circle path around the earth… the ten-mile-thick crust opened … Water exploded with great violence… a fountain of water jetted supersonically into and FAR ABOVE the atmosphere… This produced torrential rains such as the earth has never experienced… Eroded particles (or sediments) were swept up in the waters that gushed out from the rupture… These sediments settled out over the earth’s surface in days, trapping and burying many plants and animals, beginning the process of forming the world’s fossils… the compression event at the end of the continental drift phase easily and continually crushed and thickened each hydroplate for many minutes. Mountains were quickly squeezed up. Mountains formed and overthrusts occurred as the weaker portions of the hydroplates crushed and buckled.” (Pg. 99-104)
He suggests, “The Grand Canyon appears to have been carved a few centuries after the flood---after animals and humans migrated to the region… A Navajo legend about the Grand Canyon may give another reason for dating it several centuries after the global flood… Apparently, a local flood inundated norther Arizona… Survivors discovered the newly formed Grand Canyon, still carrying runoff from the local flood. Therefore, the Grand Canyon formed while people occupied that area.” (Pg. 118) Later, he adds, “The Ice Age followed the flood.” (Pg. 174) He also says, “The ‘fountains of the great deep’ launched rocks as well as muddy water… many rocks and their surrounding clouds of water vapor merged to become asteroids… [and] concentrated asteroids in what is now the asteroid belt.” (Pg. 219)
He argues that uniformitarian geologists in the 1800s would “simply … disallow global catastrophes… How were catastrophes disallowed? Professors … were primarily selected from those who supported the anticatastrophe principle. These professors did not advance students who espoused catastrophes. An advocate of a global flood was branded … not worthy of an academic degree… This practice continues to this day.” (Pg. 181)
He cites the work of astronomer Barry Setterfield: “His results show that the speed of light has apparently decreased so rapidly that experimental error cannot explain it!... it is hard to see how one can claim, with any statistical rigor, that the speed of light has remained constant… Although the speed of light has only decreased a percent or so during the past three centuries, the decrease is statistically significant… The speed of light appears to increase at an accelerating rate the farther one looks back in time… Projecting… back in time, the speed of light becomes so fast that conceivably light from distant galaxies could have reached Earth in several thousand years… V.S. Troitskii… concluded, independently of Setterfield, that the speed of light was ten billion times faster at time zero!... If either Setterfield or Troitskii is correct, the big bang theory will fall (with a big bang).” (Pg. 232)
He asserts, “Archaeopteryx’s fame seems assured, not as a transitional fossil between dinosaurs (or reptiles) and birds, but as a forgery… Because the apparent motive for the Archaeopteryx forgery was money, Archaeopteryx should be labeled as a FRAUD… Piltdown man may soon be replaced as the most famous hoax in all of science.” (Pg. 242)
He quotes the Book of Job (ch. 40 & 41) and its mention of “Behemoth” and “Leviathan,” adding, “For the past three centuries, unconfirmed reports have come from the Congo in western Africa that dinosaurs exist in remote swamps… If any of these accounts are correct, man and dinosaurs are contemporaries. Consider the many dragon legends. Most ancient cultures have stories or artwork of dragons that strongly resemble dinosaurs… The simplest and most obvious explanation for so many common descriptions of dragons from around the world is that man knew the dinosaurs.” (Pg. 249-250)
About fish after the flood, he notes, “Natural selection eliminated fish in each generation that could not tolerate the declining salinity… LIMITED variations in each generation allowed rapid adaptation in their ability to control the water in their bodies. This is microevolution, not macroevolution. Meanwhile, fish that ended up in the new oceans had to tolerate slowly increasing salinity or face extinction. Survivors became our saltwater fish…. Perhaps, wider salinity tolerances, such as those of salmon, existed before the flood.” (Pg. 253)
He strongly rejects the notion of a “Water Canopy,” observing, “No canopy theory claims to provide all the water for a global flood… If flood water fell from a canopy high above the atmosphere, where did that water go after the flood. Somehow transporting this water back into outer space or suddenly forming deep ocean basins after the flood is hard to imagine or explain. However the phrase ‘the fountains of the great deep’ implies that the flood water came from subterranean sources.” (Pg. 260)
Brown’s case against evolution on pages 1-83 is very succinct and forcefully stated. But his “original” ideas (e.g., the Hydroplate theory; the formation of the Grand Canyon, etc.) are often not accepted by even many “young earth” creationists (e.g., ICR, Answers in Genesis, even Kent Hovind). So ‘caveat emptor’ to purchasers of the book.