2 According to string theory, which seeks to unite quantum mechanics and general relativity in a so-called "Theory of Everything" (TOE), tiny vibrating strings, in a space-time of ten dimensions, would "supplant quarks as crude approximations of a deeper physics" ( Johnson 1999; see Weiss 2006; Cho 2004b; Greene 1999; Gibbons and Shellard 2002; and Patricia Schwarz's The Official String Theory Web Site). For more on physics and the TOE search, see Halpern 2004 and Hawking 2001. On quantum mechanics, see Ford 2004, Hey and Walters 2003, and Treiman 1999. On the search for the Higgs boson (nicknamed "the God particle"), which theoretically causes mass to exist, see Cho 2007; ScienceDaily; Weiss 2004a and 2001a; and the DZ Collaboration 2004. On antimatter, specifically why there is so little of it, see Weiss 2004b. On the effort to unite string theory and inflationary cosmology, see Guth and Kaiser 2005.
3 On the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), see "General Prologue," note 21. The Pauline quote is from Colossians 1:17.
4 H. Morris 1997a, c; 1984a, 59-60, 69.
5 See "The Geologist's Tale," lines 46-47. On the Dietz-Hess controversy (the Geologist is correct), see Cloud 1988, 198-199.
6 H. Morris 1985, 157-158. This fallacious argument originated with a book by the late creationist physicist Thomas G. Barnes (1983). ICR physicist Russell Humphreys (1989) accepts the evidence for numerous magnetic field reversals, but believes they all occurred at a rate of "about one per week" during Noah's flood. See Ecker 1990, 104-106.
7 Abell 1983, 36-37; Spencer 1983, 266; Stokes 1982, 208.
8 Johnson et al. 2003; Monastersky 1996a; Abell 1983, 36. On geodynamo theory, and computer simulations seeking the cause of magnetic field reversals, see Buffett 2000, Baker 1999b, and Glatzmaier et al. 1999.
9 The ICR equates the first law with "God's rest" after the six days of creation in Genesis (H. Morris 1985, 212).
10 Cloud 1988, 232.
11 H. Morris 1985, 211-212. Answers in Genesis (AiG) does not agree with the ICR that the second law began with the fall of man (see Sarfati n.d.).
12 Gish 1986 and 1996. On measurable time reversals or violations of the second law at extremely small scales, though still theoretically prohibited for large systems, see Weinstock 2002.
13 Schadewald 1983, 26; Hawking 1988, 149.
14 Barrow 1988, 224-226; Spielberg and Anderson 1985, 154-155.
15 H. Morris 1985, 38-46; H. Morris and Parker 1987, 4-5, 204-205.
16 H. Morris 1982b, 100, 126; 1985, 43-45.
17 Freske 1981.
18 Prigogine 1969; Prigogine and Stengers 1984.
19 Self-assembly has been described as "the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures without human intervention" (Whitesides and Grzybowski 2002). As materials scientist Sam Stupp at Northwestern states, "We still don't know many of the rules for how small molecules recognize one another and assemble to make stable, large structures" (Alper 2002). But self-assembling processes are common throughout nature and technology; "living cells self-assemble, and understanding life will therefore require understanding self-assembly. . . . The behavior of critical structures in the cell--including actin filaments, histones and chromatin, and protein aggregates in signaling pathways--involves dynamic self-assembly. The complex processes that occur in mitosis involve every type of self-assembly" (Whitesides and Grzybowski 2002). On self-assembly in biological systems, see Kauffman 1993 and 1995; Deamer 1999; Ingber 1998; Waldrop 1990. On self-assembly of macroscopic tubes, see Yan et al. 2004. On researchers using the self-assembling binding patterns of DNA and proteins to make nanoscale transistors, see Goho 2003b. On complexity theory, see Lewin 2000 and Waldrop 1992b. On complexity, chaos, and emergent order in biology, see Sole and Goodwin 2001. On emergence, see Hazen 2005 and Morowitz 2002.
20 Maynard Smith 1989, 255; Prigogine and Stengers 1984, 14.
21 Aardsma 1988; H. Morris 1978, 91. These remarks about ICR belief would apply equally to Answers in Genesis (AiG), the other leading young-Earth creationist organization. See "General Prologue," note 21.
22 Gish 1995a, 50; H. Morris 1976, 39-41; 1984a, 269; Slusher 1981.
23 For textbooks on radiometric dating, see Faure 1986 and Dickin 1997; for the general reader, see G. Brent Dalrymple's The Age of the Earth (1994).
The radiometric dating methods most commonly used on rocks are the potassium-argon method, measuring the ratio of the isotope potassium-40 (half-life 1.3 billion years) and its daughter isotope argon-40; the rubidium-strontium method, which measures the ratio of parent-daughter isotopes rubidium-87 (half-life 47 billion years) and strontium-87; and the uranium-lead method, which has a built-in age check by measuring the decay of isotopes uranium-238 and uranium-235 to lead-206 and lead-207 respectively. A fourth dating method, carbon-14 (half-life 5,730 years), applies only to organic material or fossils, measuring the amount of the isotope carbon-14 left in once-living matter (see Guilderson et al. 2005; Hughen et al. 2004; Bard et al. 2004).
For more on radiometric dating and creationist claims against its reliability, see Woolf n.d.; Morton 1998; and Wiens 2002. Wiens, a Christian physicist, states, "Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating." Online see also physicist Tim Thompson's A Radiometric Dating Resource List.
24 Eicher 1976, 121; Valentine 1977, 318.
25 Newell 1985, 111.
26 Raup 1983, 156. On margin of error in radiometric dating, see Kerr 1999b, and Renne, Karner, and Ludwig 1998.
27 H. Morris 1985, 137-139. Through a research project called Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth (RATE), the ICR has claimed evidence that nuclear decay rates were accelerated in the past, making conventional dating methods highly inaccurate (Rasche 2005). The RATE project concluded, for example, that the uranium and polonium radiohalos often found in granitic rocks had to have formed simultaneously, "during the Flood year only 4500 years ago," implying that "hundreds of millions of years of radioactive decay (at today's rates) had to have occurred in a matter of a few days!" (Snelling 2005). (On the earlier creationist claim that polonium halos in rocks are "primordial," the "fingerprints of God," see Gentry 1986, Wakefield 1988a and 1988b, and Gardner 1989.)
The ICR's Larry Vardiman previously admitted that a "major obstacle" to accelerated nuclear decay rates is finding "an explanation for the disposal of the great quantities of heat which would be generated by radioactive decay over short periods of time." Vardiman has suggested that the explanation may ultimately depend on "supernatural intervention at the time of Creation, Fall, and the Flood." (See Vardiman 1997.)
28 See "The Geologist's Tale," lines 204-215.
29 Futuyma 1982, 71. On reported evidence that a constant of nature can change, see "The Geologist's Tale," note 24.
30 See "The Astronomer's Tale," lines 209-215 and note 30.
31 Heisenberg 1971, 80. Einstein's remark was in reference not to natural laws changing but to the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics. Einstein could not accept the indeterminism in nature that the principle implies (see "The Philosopher's Tale," lines 378-383 and note 43. On Einstein and religion, see Jammer 2002.