Introduction: Highlights of the Los Alamos Origins Debate

Part Intro in the series: Highlights of the Los Alamos Origins Debate

John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D. Asides and media by Nicholas Petersen

John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D. Asides and media by Nicholas Petersen

The following article has been adapted from my contributions to an ongoing debate over origins issues in the letters to the editor section of our local newspaper¹. Our town, Los Alamos, located in the mountains of northern New Mexico, is the home of the Los Alamos National Laboratory which, with approximately 10,000 employees, is one of the larger scientific research facilities in the United States.

John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D., 1999

The following series is an expanded version of an article written by Dr. John Baumgardner entitled “Highlights of the Los Alamos Origins Debate,” which he wrote in 1999.² This was a synopsis of a number of written debates, which you can read here. The first time I read this article, it struck me as a superbly argued scientific case for biblical creation. Herein Dr. Baumgardner powerfully deconstructs and shows as utterly incapable the chief pillars of the popular materialisitic worldview, which nonetheless reign in society today. Though it is now almost 20 years since Dr. Baumgardner first penned this (I write this in mid 2017), the main points listed here are as valid as ever. Just understand that any relative dates mentioned (e.g. phrases like “in the last 15 years”) must be shifted accordingly. Herein Dr. Baumgardner addresses five main questions, which all relate to the core pillars that undergird materialistic science today, and all of which fit into one of the three main fields of science: biology, geology, and cosmology:

1. Can random molecular interactions create life?
2. How do coded language structures arise?
3. What about the geological/fossil record?
4. How is geological time to be reckoned?
5. What about light from distant stars?

In what follows, I have expanded upon many points made by Dr. Baumgardner (see the colored block asides, such as this comment), and I have added all of the images and their captions. I hope this evidence will prove insightful for you as you contemplate our origins. Jesus once turned to some who believed in him and stated: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32) Today, the popular claim is that we all just evolved by natural processes, and that the Scriptural account of human and earth history is just a fairy tale that has been superseded. It is indescribably liberating to find out that despite that popular claim, that abundant evidence shows these claims to be nothing more than a grand lie, and that they are disproved by the scientific evidence, with odds far greater than a million to 1 (far greater in fact than all of the atoms in the universe).

Nicholas Petersen

About John Baumgardner

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John R. Baumgardner, Ph.D. Geophysics and Space Physics

John Baumgardner has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Texas Tech University, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA (1983). Dr. Baumgardner served as staff scientist in the Fluid Dynamics Group of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico from 1984 to 2004. He is famous for his development of the TERRA program, a 3-D spherical finite element model for the earth’s mantle. Beginning in 1995 Dr. Baumgardner assisted the German Weather Service in adapting methods from the TERRA code as the basis for a new operational global weather forecast model known as GME that is now used in Germany and twenty other countries. Dr. Baumgardner also served four years of active duty as a project officer at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, NM, where he had responsibilities in the design of the resonator optics for a large, classified CO2 gas dynamics laser. Since then Dr. Baumgardner founded the Logos Research Associates. See here for further biographic information.

Footnotes

1. A collection of these letters was originally available at: http://www.nnm.com/lacf [This link is now obsolete, but see updated links posted earlier]

2. Posted originally on globalflood.org. ICR has the original article posted on their website here. This was a synopsis of a number of written debates, which you can read here.