...The Origin of Old –Earth Geology …21st Century Diane Hammonds Dr. Travis Bradshaw PHSC210B11 September 3, 2014 Introduction This article review will provide the reader with a brief overview of Dr. Mortenson’s article, Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century, which was written on August 5, 2003. One will also read about Dr. Mortenson’s strengths and weaknesses as an author of his article. It should be noted that he does not take one side over the other, but rather presents information that he found during his thesis development. There are some definite strengths and weakness to his article that explores a debate that has been around for generations about how the earth came to be. Overview Dr. Mortenson focuses on four main reasons on how the earth was created, some of which have no mention of God and others that explain how God played a role in the creation of the earth. He begins his article out by discussing theories that were developed prior to the 19th century and he lets the readers know that the following three well known French scientists did not believe tat God played a role in the formation of the earth. These scientists were, Comte de Buffon (1708-1788), Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), Jean Lamarck (1744-1829), and how they were involved in the development of theories without the involvement of God. However, during the early 19th century there were three theories/ideas that existed to explain how the earth was formed:...
Words: 943 - Pages: 4
...This document is a journal article review providing a brief synopsis, observed strengths, and observed weaknesses of Doctor Mortenson’s “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century”. This article is not an attack on Christianity or the Christian ideology. This paper is simply an honest attempt to review Mortenson’s information provided, his hypothesis, and venue chosen for Christian Apologetics. Brief Overview and Main Points The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century, by Doctor Terry Mortenson, is a journal article that claims to be about Old Earth Geology history, and perceived consequences that this ideology has inflicted on our society today. In actuality, this article provides little knowledge or background on the Old-Earth theory. This article utilizes most of its text explaining Scriptural Geology, key individuals of Scriptural Geology, arguing the validity of the Young-Earth belief, and closing with an over generalized assessment of Old-Earth theory’s impact on society. Article Strengths The article clearly identifies the writer’s discontent with the flaws in modern science, and the downfall of modern society. Doctor Mortenson provides, with vast detail, the belief of validity regarding Scriptural Geologist theories, and their credentials. Mortenson provided a section, consisting of seven paragraphs, which discussed the development of Scriptural Geologists, and dynamic backgrounds for various...
Words: 274 - Pages: 2
...Journal Article Review 1 “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson Introduction This paper is a review of the August 2003 article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson. After a brief overview of the main points, the article’s strengths and weaknesses will be discussed. Concluding remarks will then be given. Brief Overview and Main Points The theme of the article is the question concerning the age of planet Earth. Mortenson’s main point centers on the debate (which has been going on since the early 19th century) between Christian scientists and new theorists concerning how Earth came into being. In short, Christian scientists believe Earth was a process of divine creation; non-scientists believe Earth came about through a process of evolution (Mortenson, 2003). Article Strengths Mortenson did an excellent job when describing the differences between the beliefs of the scriptural geologists (Christian scientists) and the new theorists. For the most noted ones, he gave a brief description of their background. This allowed the reader to understand a little about the person and the kind of research the person had been doing. When discussing the views of the scriptural geologists, Mortenson talked about how their views stemmed from what the Bible says about the creation of Earth. As far as the new theorists were concerned, he discussed...
Words: 485 - Pages: 2
...Ashley Dr. Travis Bradshaw PHSC 210 April 7, 2014 Journal Article Review Introduction In this paper I will discuss and review Dr. Terry Mortenson’s article about The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century. I will discuss the many strengths of this article and also the weaknesses that are also involved in Dr. Terry Mortenson’s paper. Brief Overview and Main Points Dr. Mortenson’s paper discussed the many different scientific views of how the Earth was created from the point of view of many different scientists such as scriptural geologists, uniformitarians and catastrophists. Each have their own views on the history of the Earth and how it was created. Dr. Mortenson then goes into explaining how these scientific theories have impacted our society today. Towards the end of the paper, we learn the author’s view of how the Earth was created and how it impacts society today. Article Strengths I think Dr. Mortenson did very well writing this article in many different ways. Everything appeared to be stated in a professional and grammatically correct way, with little to no errors. Dr. Mortenson also does a great job in describing each scientist according to their different theories such as scriptural geologists by providing just enough detail. He didn’t go overboard by boring the reader with too many facts about each scientists, but clearly stated the facts needed and their scientific views without straying from the main topic. Dr...
Words: 819 - Pages: 4
...The overview of the article, The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century by Dr. Terry Mortenson, is the differing views between the Old-Earth and New-Earth beliefs. The main points given were that there were three views in the early 19th century: Catastrophists, Uniformitarians and scriptural geologists. “Catastrophists believed that several major floods destroyed a large percentage of living creatures and God replaced them with new living beings. Uniformitarians believed that all geological change happened at the same rate, intensity and power over history. And scriptural geologists believe in the biblical account of a literal six-day creation of all things by God, followed by a global flood which created that geological record.” (Mortenson) The strengths in the article are the differing views presented by various scientists and non-scientists both Christian and non-Christian based. Dr. Mortenson summarized these scientist’s views straight to their points of belief. The points that I found clear was that there was not proof to back the “theories” of the Old Earth views expressed and there was proof of the New Earth view, the Bible. I feel the weakness of the article was that there was not much elaboration on the scientist’s findings. There were a lot Journal Article Review One 3 of names and dates given but not a lot of detail. I feel there should have been more backing information on the views that each...
Words: 331 - Pages: 2
...Comparative Essay: Original creation of the Earth PHSC 210, D03-LUO I. Introduction The old-Earth evolution and young-Earth creation debate has been one that has gone on for centuries. Each viewpoint seeks to give an answer to life’s most difficult questions or origins and how the Earth came to be what it resembles today. While the Young Earth viewpoint has remained constant and unchanged throughout the centuries the Old Earth view seems to be continually evolving as new discoveries tend to discredit previous assumptions. One certainty is that both viewpoints take a dogmatic stance against each other in regards to the interpretation of scientific evidence. The purpose of this paper is to compare old-Earth and young-Earth viewpoints on the original creation of the Earth. II. Old-Earth Secular View The old-Earth evolution viewpoint on the original creation of the Earth is the nebular hypothesis. This viewpoint gave birth to evolutionary thought concerning origins. “…the history of evolution did not begin in 1859 with Charles Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ but with the publication in 1796 of Pierre Simon Laplace’s so-called nebular hypothesis” (Numbers. 1977). This viewpoint suggests “About 4.6 billion years ago our solar system formed from a cloud of gas and dust which slowly contracted under the mutual gravity of all of its particles” (The Solar Nebula. N.d.). It is believed that this cloud of gas and dust was spinning at an accelerated rate and...
Words: 1273 - Pages: 6
...PHSC 210 2014 Review of article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson The following is a journal review over the article “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century” by Dr. Terry Mortenson. Overview In Dr. Terry Mortenson’s article, “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century”, the subject of Earth’s creation and age is briefly discussed. Several contributors to the theories behind the history of earth are introduced, along with their respective backgrounds. Dr. Mortenson explains the geological findings and resulting theories of each contributor regarding: the age of the earth, evolution, catastrophic events and their relationship of science to Christianity. (Mortenson, 2003) Strengths The importance of the history of science, especially relating to Christianity, is expressed early in the reading. Readers are also cautioned regarding views on evolution and creation and the consequences of those views (social, moral, spiritual) (Mortenson, 2003). Dr. Mortenson expresses the Christian mindset towards the creation of earth and mankind in a series of six 24 hour days, along with a detrimental flood accompanying Noah around 1600 years later. The author further presents that in the late 1700’s the non-Biblical history of earth began to theorized and become popular. The developing field of geology in early 19th century...
Words: 530 - Pages: 3
...Journal Article Review on The Origin of Old-Earth Geology, and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century by Doctor Terry Mortenson. Introduction This document is a journal article review providing a brief synopsis, observed strengths, and observed weaknesses of Doctor Mortenson’s “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century”. This article is not an attack on Christianity or the Christian ideology. This paper is simply an honest attempt to review Mortenson’s information provided, his hypothesis, and venue chosen for Christian Apologetics. Brief Overview and Main Points The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century, by Doctor Terry Mortenson, is a journal article that claims to be about Old Earth Geology history, and perceived consequences that this ideology has inflicted on our society today. In actuality, this article provides little knowledge or background on the Old-Earth theory. This article utilizes most of its text explaining Scriptural Geology, key individuals of Scriptural Geology, arguing the validity of the Young-Earth belief, and closing with an over generalized assessment of Old-Earth theory’s impact on society. Article Strengths The article clearly identifies the writer’s discontent with the flaws in modern science, and the downfall of modern society. Doctor Mortenson provides, with vast detail, the belief of validity regarding Scriptural Geologist theories, and their credentials...
Words: 938 - Pages: 4
...The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century The theories and beliefs about how the world began can be a tense and hot button issue. Usually, it is the Christians vs. the scientists. However, in Mortenson’s article, he presents us with a third group of believers, the Christian scientists. Mortenson explores these beliefs and theories of all three groups, and explains to us the importance of the debate then and now. Brief Overview and Main Points Christians in Eastern and Western Europe and the United States believed overwhelmingly that the world was created by God in 6 days, and each day was 24 hours long. Belief in this was steadfast until the late 18th century, when different types of theories were developed. These new theories did not include God’s works (or flat-out denied them), but just focused on the origin and history of the earth (Mortenson 2003). . Three French scientists, proposed that the earth was anywhere from 78,000 years old to that the earth was formed an indefinite amount of time, but very, very long ago. These new theories were just focused on biological and geological ideas. At this same period of time, geology was becoming more a legitimate field of study. Abraham Warner, a German mineralogist, was really the first to state that geologically, the earth was at least a million years old. This continued to build and popularize the idea of old-earth theory (Mortenson 2003). James Hutton, a farmer turned...
Words: 836 - Pages: 4
...This paper will contain a review of the article “Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century by Dr. Terry Mortenson, 2003”. Brief Overview and Main Points The theme of the article covered the long debated topics of the earth and universe being billions of years old, which was an idea with its origin and roots beginning in the 19th century, and was understandably named “The Genesis- Geology Debate”. Today, it is a very important topic, to science students, Christianity’s history along with science; and is also highly relevant to the current growing debate over evolution and or creation. The dominant view of the earth’s age in the 1800’s was mostly the creation theory that God created the earth in six 24 hr. days. However, by the end of the 1800’s, theories sought to prove earth’s existence only through natural and evolutionary means. This change in theory was mainly due to 3 French scientists, whose work revolved around natural laws in matter, time, chance and nature itself, leaving God out of the picture. Therefore, during the 19th Century there were 3 dominant earth views: 1) Catastrophists- who believed that creation was “untold-ages” old and that through catastrophic floods many life forms were died off, and God recreated new species. 2) Uniformitarians who ignored origins of life, and believed all geological processes...
Words: 571 - Pages: 3
...Interview Paper The creationism-evolution debate has been on since men exist. It has a long history. In response to conclusions developed by evolution scientists, creationism scientists usually refute the legitimacy of their ideas that are opposite to the text of the Bible. There are many aspects that people would argue about. In this course, we focus on the origin of life. The purpose of this course is to provide a firm foundation for a consistent biblical worldview. After this course, we are supposed to give a correct and persuasive answer to anyone who asks why to believe that God created the universe. You cannot deny how much people are influenced by the evolutionary teaching in public school, on television, at museums… It is important to know where we came from and how we came here. We should all have a good understanding of origins from a biblical perspective of creation. At the beginning of the course, we were asked to interview at least three friends with questions of origins. I interviewed two Christian friends and one evolution friend. Both of the Christian friends absolutely believe in the Bible. They hold the same view that God created everything. In contrast, the evolution friend, who goes to public school, believes that human beings were not created by God. They answered my questions totally differently. The first question is how long the days are in Genesis 1 and why. Both Christians said one day was 24 hours long because it is clearly stated in the Bible...
Words: 1105 - Pages: 5
...Original Creation of the Earth (The Big Bang vs. Six-Day Creation) TANITKA C. SMITH PHSC210_A24_201240 Debora Ladner December 3, 2012 INTRODUCTION The Big-Bang Theory, accepted widely by atheists and many scientists, simply says this: between 10 and 20 billion years ago a “bang” or explosion occurred from a single point in nothingness and with the scattering of googles of atoms, the earth came into being. An eruption of sorts occurred, haphazardly distributing the smallest particles of matter that miraculously adjoined themselves to create living, breathing organisms and every other object on the earth. Every word of the Bible is true. Every day, creation scientists are finding more and more evidence to support the six days of creation. There is nothing wrong with science, but in the end it is the fallible word of man. YOUNG EARTH At its simplest, evolution is a hypothesis which claims that all life has descended with modification from a primitive single celled organism in the remote past. The development has been one of increasing complexity. Originally, the first cell evolved from a preexisting organic “soup” in a primeval ocean, which in turn developed from chance conglomerations of inorganic chemicals. Ultimately, these chemicals themselves were produced by the “Big Bang” origin of the actual universe. Against overwhelming evidence it is said that the Big Bang happened billions of years ago, and gives argument that the earth and the universe are only...
Words: 1106 - Pages: 5
...In my paper I will be talking about article The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for life in the 21st century by Terry Mortenson. I will discussing the main points of the article along with the strengths and weaknesses. This article is a breakdown of a huge debate that has been going on for years. As I mention before this article is based on a debate that has been occurring for years. It is just another argument between the theories of the young- earth and Old-earth. A lot of the information within the article is a based on the creation of earth. Mortenson, uses scientists of religious and non-religious backgrounds which had different philosophies. It is also includes the views of uniformitarianism and catastrophism events and how it was believed to impact the creation of earth. Article strengths in this article are large in number. The author gave us a good outline by the way he broke every paragraph down. Terry used several different scientists that had several different perspectives. These are just a few of the things that I feel were done right. Next I will talk about the points he had clear and if they were writing precisely. We started the article with a section pointing out the new theories on the history of creation. Terry beginning by using the Christian view that has been teach from thousands of years. Let us know that in the 4000 BC God created the world and everything in it within six 24-hour days. The same world he created was the same one he destroyed...
Words: 685 - Pages: 3
...1. • Identify the relationship between the conditions on early Earth and the origin of organic molecules: - Conditions of early Earth: _ Massive oceans existed _ Only small landmasses above the surface of the water _ No ozone layer _ Large amounts of radiation reached the Earth _ No free oxygen in the air _ Large amounts of volcanic activity; heat, ash, dust and gases into atmosphere _ Violent electric storms common _ Atmosphere contained some water vapour (H2O), hydrogen (H2), hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a lot of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2), possibly ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4). - The chemicals of life are contained within the following basic organic compounds: water, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. - These compounds are made up of hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and some other common elements. - As you can see, the elements needed to create the basic organic compounds were already present in the atmosphere; i.e., H, O, C and N were already there. - The lack of an ozone layer, the frequent violent electric storms, and the volcanic activity of early Earth could have provided the energy for molecules to be formed. • Discuss the implications of the existence of organic molecules in the cosmos for the origin of life on Earth: - For life to have originated, the following events need to have happened: _ The required chemicals need to have been formed _ These chemicals need to have come together in a self-replicating...
Words: 1710 - Pages: 7
...Old-Earth Article Review Name Instructor Name PHSC 210-section number Date Old-Earth Article Review Introduction This paper is a review of an article titled “The Origin of Old-Earth Geology and its Ramifications for Life in the 21st Century.” This article was written by Dr. Terry Mortenson in August of 2003. After reading this review, one will have an idea of what the article was about as well as its main points. One will also have an understanding of the author’s strong points and where the article could have been better. Finally the reader of this paper will understand my own opinion of this article. Brief Overview and Main Points This article was written to give the audience an idea of how people have different opinions of the age of the Earth. The article briefly describes several people including their background and their view on the age of the Earth. It gives several scientific views that range from “The Big Bang Theory” to “Darwinism.” This article then discusses how almost every opinion on the age of the Earth completely ignores and goes against what the “Holy Bible” teaches us. Article Strengths This article has many points in which one would consider them to be strong, valid, and well written. Doctor Mortenson, who is the author of this article, gives a clear view of how the opinions on the age of the Earth have changed with time. While discussing the changes of views he makes it not too short but not too long. The article is well organized with the...
Words: 641 - Pages: 3
