From: bruceh@access.isc-br.com (Bruce Hogan)
Newsgroups: k12.ed.science
Subject: Re: Evolution
Date: 18 Dec 92 15:41:58 GMT
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo

> One cannot assume that the earth was always slowing down at the rate now
>  observed.  It may have been rotating faster at one time or slower than the
>  current rate.  Observation of other planets in the solar system give good
>  evidence that all have been battered by "outer space" objects.  Take the moon
> with all its craters as an excellent example. Sure the earth's orbit has been
>  impacted by all this activity. 
> Just the fact that we find tropical leaves in the arctic regions is reason
>  enough to support the fact that the earth is not rotating on its axis as was
>  once the case.  Perhaps some reader will have some ideas what caused this
>  major change.
> 
> Lowell 
> 

Hi, Lowell.  Just thought I'd pass on an explanation of this from the 
Creation/Scriptural model I heard recently.  I don't have any notes and I'm
not skilled in scientific research so some of my recollections and "facts"
may be fuzzy, but it can be looked up.

The Scriptures say that, originally, the firmament (land) separated the waters
that were above and the waters that were below (Genesis 1) and when the world-
wide flood occurred, the fountains of the deep were broken up and the windows 
of heaven were opened, and it rained.  Prior to this it is mentioned that
dew watered the earth; rain is never mentioned (doesn't prove it didn't exist,
but follow through here).  What the Creation model depicts here is that there
was a water envelope covering the earth that worked like a 'hot-house' in
that it kept the temperature and moisture factors in a tropical-like state
around the earth.  This would explain a number of interesting facts about 
the fossil record like the one you mentioned and also, why, all over the 
earth are millions and millions of fossil remains buried in sedimentary 
layers.

Just an interesting side note on the envelope question...and believe me I am
sorry I didn't keep the article when I read it...but last year I read in one
of the news mags (NewsWeek? something like that) that some researchers in 
Texas had taken the envelope theory and created a model to answer the question
"What would life be like in <some Texas city, I forget which> if there had
been a water envelope encircling the earth?"

I don't remember all their conclusions, but one stuck...and it was their 
comment that people would live to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of years
old because the water envelope would effectively filter out the harmful and 
life-shortening rays from the Sun.  They made no correlation to the documented
ages found in the Scriptures, but I did.  You might remember that before the 
flood (when the Creation model says that the envelope came down and the 'hot-
house' effect was no longer there and therefore the arctic/artic areas and the
seasons came to be because of the angle of the rays of the Sun on the earth)
the ages of men in Genesis were in the hundreds of years i.e. Methusalah = 969,
Adam = 930, Seth = 912, Enosh = 905, Cainan = 910, Mahalalel = 895, Jared = 962,
Lamech = 775 and Noah (of flood fame) = 950 years.  After that, the recorded
ages of folks in the Bible are significantly reduced.  Could be just a 
coincidence, but then again....

Hope this adds fuel to the quest.

Bruce Hogan
Spokane, WA