Lesson of the Giant Sequoias

"Q: What are the biggest trees on planet Earth? 

A: Giant sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum).

They grow on west-facing slopes of California’s southern Sierra Nevada mountains. Visitors to Sequoia National Park and nearby places marvel at these wooden behemoths. 

Q: Where did giant sequoias come from? 

Q: When did they land in the Sierras? 

Sequoia National Park offers three pointers to Biblical creation and the Flood.

Collaborating 

First, sequoia seeds do not release from their strangely small pine cones until the cones get hot enough. A forest fire does the trick. Second, a giant sequoia seed germinates only after it detects recently

burned ground. Fires can clear paths for suitable sunlight to reach young trees that would otherwise be overshadowed by thick growth and tall neighbors.
Sequoia bark is the third collaborating trait. These majestic mammoths produce a uniquely spongy bark layer that’s over a foot thick! The thickness and sponginess combine to provide excellent fire resistance. This is just as well since what good would it do if the fires needed for germination destroyed the very trees that were trying to reproduce?
These three aspects work in concert: 

--cones wait for fire to release their seeds, 

--seeds wait for charred ground to germinate, 

--and bark protects the mother tree from the necessary fires. 

Someone thought this through.

Water Pumps

Just one giant sequoia transports over 500 gallons (1,890 liters) of water over 275 feet (83 meters) skyward per day.

Q: Could human engineers devise a silent pump that could push that much fluid that high for thousands of years?

University of California, Berkeley biologists studied sequoia sap flow. They wrote in 2017,

"Total relative water content at the turgor loss point (total RWCTLP) is controlled by three underlying variables: osmotic potential at full turgor, bulk tissue elastic modulus and apoplastic water fraction."

The turgor pressure loss point refers to the water pressure at which

leaf tissues begin to wilt. The “three underlying variables” are actually tactics that keep wilting at bay. The ways that tree tissues tightly manage each one clearly show creation.
Ions control “osmotic potential.” In this first tactic, cell systems pump ions into the spaces where water needs to go. Water follows the ions, passing from cell to cell up the trunk. However, this only works so far, so the other tactics kick in.
“Elastic modulus” refers to the stiffness of the tiny side walls that contain sap. Tissues higher in the tree have stiffer walls. Floppy vessel walls would collapse at the low pressures way up there, so water would not reach the leaves, spelling tree tragedy.
The last tactic concerns “apoplastic water.” This refers to water stored in separately managed small spaces. Cells can inject these water stores into the sap when pressure wanes. Giant sequoias dynamically adjust these three tactics to accommodate daily and seasonal changes in sunlight direction and intensity.
It’s all so ingenious! Geologist Bill Hoesch rightly wrote, “The sheer size of the sequoias drives us to consider them as marvels of engineering.” We confidently credit our Creator with the craftsmanship required here.

Timing

Experts count growth rings on long, thin cores extracted from the center of the trees’ trunks. Dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman counted sequoia rings, and he wondered why these trees are not older. He wrote in 1954, “Does this mean that shortly preceding 3275 years ago all the then living giant sequoias were wiped out by some catastrophe?”
---Many assume that each ring represents one year, but research has disproven this.

But even assuming one ring per year, some giant sequoias are 3,400 years old. These would have sprouted soon after the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. 

Q: Does this and Schulman’s observation align with Biblical history?

Bible chronology places Noah’s Flood at about 2500 BC. Inferences from Scripture, ancient history, and Earth’s surface support a single Ice Age that lasted some centuries after the Flood. Early Ice Age years saw California’s 373-mile-long Sierra Nevada mountain range buried beneath ice.
Melting alpine glaciers later carved the wide U-shaped valleys that cascade toward today’s sequoia groves. Plants couldn’t pioneer the Sierra Nevada until this ice melted. A Bible-based Ice Age likely waned by about 3,800 years ago. No sequoia should be older than 3,800 years under this Biblical timeline. Expectation met!
Collaborative propagation traits and balanced water pump tactics clearly point to creation. And the ages of these trees match sensible inferences from the Bible’s timeline. 

Q: What did our all-wise Creator say to us through that very Bible? “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters.” (Jeremiah 17:7:8)." 

ICR

18,000 Dinosaur Tracks in Bolivia

 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; 

and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, 

were covered. Genesis 7:19

"A new discovery of 18,000 individual dinosaur tracks in the Bolivian El Molino Formation contains the highest number of theropod dinosaur tracks in the world. The tracks were spread over nine sites in an area encompassing nearly 1.5 football fields. Remarkably, the site also contains the highest number of dinosaur swim tracks ever reported.

Publishing in PLoS One, the joint science team from the United States and Bolivia wrote,

"The Carreras Pampa tracksite in the Torotoro National Park, Bolivia, records a wealth of dinosaur tracks, tail traces, and swim tracks. In this study, we report 1,321 track¬ways and 289 solitary tracks, totaling 16,600 theropod tracks, 280 swim trackways, totaling 1,378 swim tracks, and several trackways with tail traces. Numerous avian [bird] tracks occur locally and are associated with the theropod tracks."

In addition, the team documented the orientation of the trackways,

finding them to have traveled across the site in two primary directions. The swim tracks also followed one of these same directions but were formed on top of (later than) the walking trackways. The scientists wrote,

"The abundant swim tracks were made by the theropods, which nearly floated and swam while kicking the soft bottom with the tips of their toes. The presence of swim tracks impressed upon walking tracks indicates that the latter formed first, and the swim track producers swam later in the same area [and same direction]."

They continued:

"This stratigraphic relation indicates that the substrate preserved walking track impressions even while water levels rose enough for dinosaurs to swim. Swimming trackways and isolated, shallow swim tracks were created by individuals who paddled and scratched the substrate."

The science team also found that

"Theropod footprints with tail-drag traces are abundant and well preserved in the tracksite, appearing in trackways featuring shallow, deep, and very deep tracks. The tail traces suggest that dinosaurs exhibited some form of locomotive behavior in response to sinking into soft substrate, which resulted in their tails coming into contact with the surface."

The rock unit upon which the trackways are found was a rippled limestone bed containing an abundance of small ostracod shells and carbonate ooids and invertebrate burrows. Ooids are little BB-sized balls of limestone that accumulate and roll in shallow waves. And ostracods are tiny crustaceans about one sixteenth of an inch in length. They are commonly found in marine environments but also live in freshwater. The scientists also found fish teeth and shell fragments of bivalves in the same layer. Collectively, these features—the rippled limestone, ooids, and ostracods—are a dead ringer for a shallow ocean deposit.

At another site in the same rock layer, north of Torotoro, the

paleontologists reported finding “a variety of invertebrates, plants, and vertebrates, including dinosaurs, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and terrestrial and marine ichthyofauna.” This mixture of terrestrial (dinosaurs) and marine fauna in the El Molino Formation continues to baffle conventional science. No wonder the uniformitarian paleontology team wrote, “No single paleoenvironmental interpretation explains the entire El Molino Formation [the unit that contains the trackways].”

Q: But why would dinosaurs and birds be “running, sauntering and even swimming” across a soft, fresh limestone bed that was likely flooded by a few feet of ocean water? And why so many in the same directions? 

Q: What were they heading for and/or moving away from? 

Q: And why did this happen just prior to the disappearance of all the dinosaurs in the rock record?

The global Flood provides the best answer to all of these questions. 

--And it offers an explanation for the walking first, then the swimming, and the tail dragging. 

--It also explains the terrestrial and marine mixing that is so common around the world.

The dinosaurs that made these tracks were doing their best to stay above the rising water and were likely heading toward a remnant of higher ground. That may be why so many of the tracks are heading in similar directions. To do so, they had to wade in shallow water on top of a fresh limey substrate, maybe in between tsunami waves. This respite was just long enough to leave their tracks. Then, as the next wave hit, creating the rippled surface and deepening the water, the dinosaurs were forced to swim. But they still kept heading in the same direction, toward what little high ground may have remained.
This explains the order of trackways, starting with walking, the sinking into the soft lime (creating tail marks), and then the outright swimming. It was for survival. But eventually, the floodwaters overcame all of these creatures, washing them away and entombing many of them elsewhere in other rock layers.

Deliberately ignoring the global Flood that occurred about 4,500 years ago leads to great confusion and fictional stories. Believing in the truth of God’s Word resolves many apparent mysteries and leads to clarity." 

ICR

Two-word incantation of science for other gods

Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not worship other gods. 1 Kings 17:38 NLT

"Evolutionists, of course, believe that they are appealing to science, in contrast to the religionists' reliance on faith. 

But the truth is that when they utter their two-word incantation, "natural selection," they are not being remotely scientific. 

Nor are they expected to provide any details.... To today's biologist, in short, natural selection operates as an omnipotent force, just as divine fiat once did."
Tom Bethell, Darwin's House of Cards (2016), p 123

SATURN: Those Pristine Rings

"Q: What are Saturn’s spectacular rings composed of? 

But there are still huge unsolved problems for evolutionists. presume passing objects were captured and pulverized by large planets’ gravitational forces, struggle to provide satisfactory explanations.
As Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, observed regarding Saturn’s ring ice, “Even if you can get it in the first place, how does it survive for four billion years and still look pristine?”

This was a great mystery to scientists ever since Christian Huygens first suggested in 1655 that Saturn had rings. It was solved by the great creationist physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1859: they could not be solid, because they would be unstable; so instead, they comprised independently orbiting particles.

Q: Why are Saturn’s rings comprised mostly of water ice, whereas the less massive rings of Neptune and Uranus have more rock in them? 

---Current evolutionary theories of ring formation, which mostly

---Aside from the difficulty of explaining how the icy rings formed, one of the problems is the “question of timing” i.e. according to the evolutionary timeline. That’s because the water ice of Saturn’s rings is too clean to be the claimed billions of years in age—interplanetary dust ought to have polluted it, if it really were that old.

Actually, one might say that the One whose handiwork adorns the skies did so in such a way as to thwart naturalistic attempts to explain our solar system and the universe beyond. 

The evidence from NASA probes and other studies of Saturn and its rings and moons now overwhelmingly points to a ‘Young Saturn’. This is right in line with the Bible’s account of our universe having been created only thousands of years ago, not billions. The Psalmist indeed said it well: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)." 

CMI

Time & God

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,

that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,

and a thousand years as one day.

2 Peter 3:8

Time to God is for purpose, 

not for minutes.

For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 90:4

But when the fulness of the time was come, 

God sent forth His Son, made of a woman....
Galatians 4:4

I am Alpha and Omega,

the beginning and the ending,...

Revelation 1:8

Convictions of a monkey’s mind?

 For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21 CSB 

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" 

Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, 1881

Genetics vs. Evolution

 For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,... Colossians 1:16

"Genetics and evolution have been enemies from the beginning of

both concepts. 

Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, and Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolution, were contemporaries. 

At the same time that 

Darwin was claiming 

that creatures 

could change into other creatures, 

Mendel was showing that even

 individual characteristics remain constant.

 

While Darwin’s ideas were based on erroneous and untested ideas about inheritance, Mendel’s conclusions were based on careful experimentation. 

--Only by ignoring the total implications of modern genetics has it been possible to maintain the fiction of evolution." 

CMI

Illusion of Natural Selection

 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Genesis 1:24

"A population of organisms, let’s say racoons, lives in an environment somewhere on Earth and eats a variety of foods. Its kind has thrived in that relatively stable environment for centuries. The weather suddenly cools for an extended period, and the creatures’

main food source diminishes. The racoons promptly respond by shifting their diet and behavior and search out more of their secondary foods. Their physiology appropriately adjusts to the change in diet. The creatures also respond to the temperature change by altering their metabolism—perhaps growing thicker coats and additional layers of fat that enable them to better cope with the cold. And the codes for these trait variations can rapidly transfer to the next generation. So, the racoons innately and quickly respond to the environmental changes in several appropriate ways.

One might claim that the environment influenced the racoons to change. Yet, the environment is only a collection of conditions to which organisms are exposed. The environment doesn’t possess any agency to make any of the changes happen. When people project human-like abilities onto nature it’s called personification. 

Q: What actually caused the creature to change? 

Q: Did nature send some sort of message to the racoons? 

Q: Did nature select for their changes and survival? 

A: No, the act of sending requires a mind and a will to determine the signal’s content as well as the power and means to send the signal. Nature possesses none of these attributes.

It’s clear the environmental conditions changed, but the change was actively detected by the creature rather than being sent to the creature. Information possessed within creatures is what specifies any given condition to be a stimulus for reaction.

We don’t observe natural selection 

“working,” “acting on,” or “favoring.” 

Applying these verbs is inaccurate and misleading. This pseudo-activity is misused by some to project agency onto nature and to view it as a substitute Creator. But all the activity—all the sensing, triggering, processing, and selecting— originated within the creature.

The creature’s body systems are specifically engineered to do all these active things: they sense changed conditions, sort the incoming data, employ the innate if-then logic built into their systems for proper response—often quickly and predictively. 

The systems then execute responses from a number of potential actionable options, enabling the creature to adjust to and thrive in its new conditions. The systems then conduct “surveillance” for the next changes. All these phenomenal attributes are innate to the creature. They were specifically designed and placed into the creature from the moment of its creation." 

CMI

A Central Computer in our Cells

 I will praise Thee; for 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made: 

Psalm 139:14

"Dr. Capaldi and his graduate students, led by Cristina Padilla, whose story is emphasized in the press release. Here’s how the press release begins:

"For decades, biologists have known that a protein complex called TORC1 acts as a master regulator of cell growth—turning growth

programs on when nutrients are available and shutting them down when conditions worsen. Now, a new study conducted at the University of Arizona reveals that TORC1 is far more sophisticated than previously believed. Instead of functioning as a simple on and off switch, TORC1 behaves more like a central computer that integrates different signals and then selectively turns specific pathways on and off – tuning metabolism, energy-intensive processes and cell division, all in real time."

LoNA appears when cells move from rich nutrients to poorer ones, not to starvation. In this state, the cell neither continues business as usual nor shuts down. 

Instead, it reorganizes itself. 

More than ninety percent of TORC1’s phosphorylation targets, the molecular settings through which it regulates cellular policy, shift to new configurations. Growth slows, but it does not stop. Metabolism is rebalanced. Transporters on the vacuole surface in yeast, or the lysosome in humans, are adjusted to draw in more resources. Autophagy begins in a limited and controlled way, recycling cellular components without triggering full shutdown.
t reveals TORC1 not as a simple pathway, but as a decision-making system with conditional logic, feedback, and distributed sensing. Calling it a “central computer” is not a metaphor of convenience." 

CEH