Archive of Research Articles


Fossil Sharks Show Signs of Greater Past Longevity
Some fossil sharks grew very large.1 Researchers estimate Otodus megalodon, popularized by the Meg movies, was at least 46 feet long and possibly more than 66 feet. By way of comparison,...
DNA Repair: The Built-in Toolbox That Sustains Life
DNA contains the instructions needed to build a whole body from one fertilized egg cell. Chromosomes consist of double-stranded DNA that uses specifically paired nucleotides in precise sequences to...
The Myth of Darwinian Plasticity
Staff Writer Among the mechanisms promoted to account for the process of evolution, plasticity is one of the most prominent. This term broadly refers to a capacity for being shaped, altered, or...
The Myths of Darwinian Homology and Convergence
Staff Writer Foundational interpretations of Darwinian evolution are built upon two conceptual pillars: homology and convergence. Homology proposes that specific characters—including the genes,...
The Myth of Tree Thinking
Staff Writer The instructions to build, maintain, and reproduce every kind of animal on Earth were placed within these organisms when the Lord Jesus created them. The totality of those instructions...
Siccar Point, the Shrine of Deep Time
Rowing in a boat off the east coast of Scotland, geologist Dr. James Hutton told the boat pilot to pull ashore.1 Before his gleeful eyes was the “proof” of an old earth he...
Cavefish Research
At the Institute for Creation Research, we’re investigating Astyanax mexicanus (Mexican tetra) as an experimental model of rapid adaptation by animals to different environmental conditions, such...
Entablature Reveals Flooding of Columbia River Basalts
Many creationists are familiar with the breached-dam explanation for the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington.1 During the Ice Age, the dam holding glacial Lake Missoula in western...
ICR Ice Sheet Research: Status Update
With ICR’s new focus on biology, my current ice sheet research is wrapping up. So, now is a good time to summarize the results so far. Creation scientists argue that there was only one Ice...
Asia Data Confirm Progressive Global Flood
The Institute for Creation Research’s Column Project team recently finished a two-year study of Asia. We have now accumulated column data across five of the world’s continents, with Australia...
Flood Explains Mysterious Iceland Plant Fossils
Recently, a colleague alerted me to some unusual fossil discoveries on Iceland that are best explained by ICR’s Flood model.1,2 The fossils of interest are plants, specifically lignite,3...
Paleontology Supports an N-Q Flood Boundary
by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., and Tim Clarey, Ph.D.* Defining where the global Flood of Genesis terminated in the rock record is of great importance in developing an accurate and cohesive story for...
The Creation Week: A Systems-Based Approach
We are clearly told in the book of Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth in a very short sequence of time, six literal days. The Hebrew text is grammatically put together using a specific...
ICR’s First Dinosaur Excavation
ICR conducted its first paleontological excavation on September 4-5, 2021. Last years’ inspection of a site on private property in Wyoming concluded that bone material partly exposed from a Morrison...
New Proposed Babel Site Supports Ark Location
Most people believe the Tower of Babel was built somewhere in Iraq or even modern-day Syria. However, a recent article proposed that the Tower of Babel was built farther north in southeast Turkey.1...
The Flood Explains the Missing Dinosaurs
The pattern of fossils in the rock record has always been complex, and the dinosaur fossils maybe even more so. A recent article tried to explain why only small and large-size carnivorous dinosaurs...
World's 'Tiniest Dinosaur' Is Just a Lizard
Many of the world’s top paleontologists were again recently fooled by their own preconceived ideas. This time it was a tiny skull trapped in amber that was declared a hummingbird-size dinosaur...
Extending the Whopper Sand Mystery
In the last three years, Shell Oil Company has made three significant discoveries in the Whopper Sand, a massive offshore Cenozoic sedimentary deposit in the Gulf of Mexico.1-3 These new...
Offshore Cenozoic Coal Confirms N-Q Flood Boundary
Studies of stratigraphic data across multiple continents have revealed strong evidence of a global flood that extends to near the top of the Neogene-Quaternary (N-Q) boundary.1-4 Now the...
ICR Ice Core Research Update
In contrast to secular scientists, creation researchers think there was just one Ice Age that was caused by the Genesis Flood.1 Intense volcanism and rapid seafloor spreading during the Flood...
Archaeopteryx by the Numbers
Sometimes scientists get a chance to collaborate. This happened last year when a fellow creation-based researcher invited me to contribute comments about bird and dinosaur anatomy to his statistical...
Extinct Radionuclides
What do you think of when you hear the word extinct? Dinosaurs, perhaps? Maybe saber-toothed cats, mammoths, or short-faced bears? We might also include the more recent Bali tiger, passenger pigeon,...
Largest Canyons Were Formed by the Receding Flood
Two newly discovered canyons in Greenland and Antarctica have a lot in common with Grand Canyon. Both canyons are as deep as or deeper than Grand Canyon and are at least 60 miles in length. But what’s...
Developing a More Rigorous Ice Sheet Model
In the creation model, a single Ice Age lasting hundreds of years was caused by and quickly followed the Genesis Flood.1 In 1994, ICR atmospheric scientist Dr. Larry Vardiman published a...
Microscopy May Detect Fossil Bone Collagen
Longtime followers of ICR should be familiar with our research into original organics in fossils. Over 100 peer-reviewed secular publications have shown that one might discover original tissue remnants...
Rogue Moths Didn't Start Out That Way
Butterflies and moths fluttering around a flower are a beautiful sight. They innocently lap up nectar and float on the wind. Countless plants depend on the pollination that occurs during their feeding. One...
Soft Tissue Fossils Reveal Incriminating Trends
In December 2019, the journal Expert Review of Proteomics published a paper I authored with Stephen Taylor titled “Proteomes of the past: the pursuit of proteins in paleontology.”1...
ICR Paleoclimate Research Continues
Because the Genesis Flood caused the Ice Age,1 studies of Earth's past climate, or paleoclimatology, have long been a focus of the Institute for Creation Research’s research programs....
Plants Model Continuous Environmental Tracking
All plants and animals were divinely engineered with innate systems of adaptation that track various aspects of their environment and respond accordingly—an internal ability known as continuous...
Deep Water Coals Discovery Supports Flood
Recent geological discoveries are defying standard uniformitarian explanations. First there was the massive Whopper Sand found in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico.1 Then there was the...
Salt Deposits Confirm the Pre-Flood Pangaea
Debate exists over the pre-Flood continental configuration, with some creation scientists advocating for an initial supercontinent called Rodinia centered at the South Pole.1 ICR scientists,...
Flood Model Solves Antarctica Rainforest Mystery
A recent study published in Nature has evolutionary scientists baffled. The researchers reportedly found an ancient rainforest in Antarctica, of all places. The study’s authors claim this part...
Compelling Evidence for an Upper Cenozoic Flood Boundary
ICR’s Column Project team recently published two papers supporting a high Flood/post-Flood boundary. Both articles are a result of ICR’s ongoing investigation of the stratigraphic columns...
Contamination Claims Can't Cancel Radiocarbon Results
Radiocarbon (C-14) keeps popping up in the wrong places. Carbon-dating labs have struggled to find ancient samples with zero radiocarbon levels. C-14 has turned up in coal, natural gas, and fossils....
Flood Evidence from Sea Levels and Strontium
Vernon R. Cupps, Ph.D., and Tim Clarey, Ph.D. The October 2019 issue of Acts & Facts ran an article on the variation of the 87Sr/86Sr ratio in marine rocks.1...
The Gospels Affirm the Dominion Mandate for Research
Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., and James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. At the end of His creation work, God gave humans a directive that’s sometimes referred to as the dominion mandate: “Be...
ICR Research at GSA Convention
Recently, the ICR Column Project team presented their research at the Geological Society of America’s (GSA) annual meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. Over 5,500 people representing 44 countries attended...
Whale Fossils Confirm Post-Flood Boundary
Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D., and Tim Clarey, Ph.D. In 2018, as a complement to ICR’s ongoing megasequence research, ICR scientists Drs. Jeffrey Tomkins and Tim Clarey described the beginning...
Observations Support Grand Canyon Flood Origin
Old-earth geologists claim that observations contradict the Flood model origin for Grand Canyon.1 However, recently exposed sediments at Lake Mead refute their claims and instead fully support...
Strontium Ratio Variation in Marine Carbonates
In 1948, geologist F. E. Wickman predicted that the decay of 87Rb (a rubidium isotope) in the earth’s crust and mantle would be reflected in a related increase in the 87Sr/86Sr...
Research Presented at a Secular Conference
This past summer, a colleague and I went to a secular science conference seeking critique from our non-creationist colleagues over what amounts to creation research. Their reactions surprised us. Creation...
Collagen Decays Too Fast for Evolutionary Time
Collagen is a tough, stringy protein that holds bone together like the steel belts in tires. Secular scientists struggle to explain why so many different techniques have found positive detections of...
The Ark Landed West of Mt. Ararat
ICR’s Column Project, which has been compiling stratigraphic data from across the globe, is currently examining Turkey’s geology, including the area around Mt. Ararat. One question of interest...
The Truth about Radiometric Dating
Prove it. That’s the challenge biblical creationists often face when discussing the scientific validity of the Genesis creation account with skeptics. Many people leave the church, especially...
Rocks Reveal the End of the Flood
One of the most important aspects of any Flood model is the definition of its boundaries. Is there an identifiable layer in the rock record where we can say the global Flood ended? And should we expect...
Marine Fossils Mixed with Hell Creek Dinosaurs
Recently, a new species of shark was found at the site where T. rex “Sue” was extracted.1 While this didn’t surprise Flood geologists,2 it required some special...
Subduction Was Essential for the Ice Age
Creation meteorologist Michael Oard has written extensively about what it takes to make an ice age. The first requirement is much warmer oceans than we have today, which would provide the extra evaporation...
A Rock-Based Global Sea Level Curve
Evolutionary geologists compiled a global sea level curve from the Cambrian system to the present using assumed environmental interpretations and deep time (Figure 1).1 They infer global...
Galaxy Redshift Research Update
A fundamental Big Bang assumption is that there are no special places or directions in the universe. However, even observations made by Big Bang scientists call this “cosmological principle”...
2018 ICR Research at a Glance
The scientists at the Institute for Creation Research made great headway in 2018. Below are some of the projects ICR scientists worked on this past year. Understanding the Ice Age ICR physicist...
Separate Studies Converge on Human-Chimp DNA Dissimilarity
The improvement of DNA sequencing technology, along with scientific advances in the field of genomics, is proving to be a profound enemy of evolution. Two new discoveries that challenge the human evolution...
ICR Scientists Make Big Impact at Creation Conference
ICR scientists recently attended the International Conference on Creationism (ICC) to present their latest research and participate in panel discussions with others in their respective fields. The conference...
Building a Biblical Paleo-Biogeography Model
by Jeffrey P Tomkins, Ph.D., and Tim Clarey, Ph.D.* The recent report of a fossil bird discovered in Wyoming shows another glaring indicator of evolution’s failure to explain the story...
ICR Climate Research Advances
Investigating past climates has long been a major focus of the Institute for Creation Research. Creation scientists Michael Oard and Dr. Larry Vardiman have made significant contributions to our understanding...
Palo Duro Canyon Rocks Showcase Genesis Flood
ICR scientists recently led field trips through Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Texas, pointing out many geological features that show clear evidence of the global Flood. The walls of the canyon display...
Rapid Limestone Deposits Match Flood Account
Secular science has long taught that sedimentary rocks were deposited slowly over vast ages, but what does the research show? People are indoctrinated with the notion that enormous periods of time are...
Is the Y Chromosome Shrinking?
Evolutionary scientists claim that the human male chromosome—the Y chromosome—is shrinking.1 Some even predict it will eventually disappear and the genes it currently contains...
Abiogenesis: Water and Oxygen Problems
In addition to original research and data analysis on important themes in the origins debate, ICR scientists also evaluate the progress of secular research reported in many scientific publications....
Minimal Continental Coverage During the Early Flood
Numerous authors have speculated on the extent of the early floodwaters and on when the Flood peaked. Many questions remain unanswered. For example, did the Flood cover the continents early in the Flood...