We hope that you will find this issue of our newsletter welcoming and even supportive of your faith and your celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, we encourage you to particularly read the article on "The Star of Bethlehem" and our "Question and Answer" section concerning Creation or Evolution and Noah's flood, as these items show how science supports the clear reading of scripture. May God bless you and have a Merry Christmas.

Inside:

• Coming Events
• The Star of Bethlehem... Can Science support belief?
• Education Update > School Board Elections... What are the results?
• Experiment of the Month > Shaping Our Land (Rock, Paper, Scissors...Ice!)
• Science Merit Recognition > David Allan a Man About Time
• Recent Activity
• Questions & Answers > Biblical Creation and a Global Flood Supported by Science?
• Share this Newsletter with a Friend
• About this Newsletter
• Contact Us

Coming Events

The Star of Bethlehem... can Science support belief?

How can our children defend their beliefs in science class?

It is popular today to write-off aspects of the Bible that seem too fantastical as incompatible with modern scientific understanding. Many scoffers readily dismiss accounts of "miracles" as the confused imagination of a picturesque but primitive people trying to understand a world that was too complicated for them. They point to science for explanations, confident that it will disprove anything that seems uncomfortably out of place in their worldview. What a surprise it would be for many to realize that when we take off the blinders of preconceived notions and allow the scientific data to speak for itself, it often lends support to the accounts in scripture! A perfect case in point is the story of the Star of Bethlehem which led Magi from the east to the Infant Jesus. Rick Larson has investigated this mystery from a scientific perspective and found that the evidence available to us supports the factual account given in the New Testament. You can learn more about his research in the documentary The Star of Bethlehem or by visiting his website bethlehemstar.com.

Tim Adams has also researched this subject and has expanded on this topic with research from LDS sources in a chapter of his book "Pattern of the Heavens" available through Digital Legend. As we approach our questions with an open mind and heart, it is important to remember that although some may criticize faith because they believe it is disproved by science, others have found, upon deeper investigation, that science can be a great support to their faith. In the end, truth is always compatible with truth.

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Education Update

School Board Elections... What are the Results?

Last month we asked for your support for several candidates running for positions on their local school boards. Although not all of them were successful, we are delighted to report these results:

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Utah State School Board Election Results

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Our choise for District 11 Lisa Cummins prevailed. She will cover the areas of Southwest Salt Lake County including South Jordan, Riverton, Herriman, Bluffdale and Northwest Utah County including Cedar Fort & Fairfield.

We were delighted to see Alisa Ellis emerge victorious in District 12. She will be representing Orem, Lindon and Summit, Wasatch, Duchesne, Daggett, Uintah Counties.

In District 13 we are pleased to announce Scott Neilson will be serving the areas of Provo and Spanish Fork.

It is with pleasure that we announce Michelle Boulter has been elected to serve in District 15 which covers Washington & Iron Counties.

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Alpine School District

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With joy we announce that Sara Hacken will represent seat 7 in the Alpine School District.

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In time the Utah State Board of Education web site will be upated with their bios and contact information ( State Board bios here). We look forward to these individuals, which have been elected, to now be able to bring their love of education and liberty into the service of their communities. Way to go, voters!

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Experiment of the Month

Shaping Our Land

Rock, Paper, Scissors...Ice!
Every kid knows that rock beats scissors, scissors beat paper, and paper beats rock. But in the natural world, it is water that often beats rock! This experiment will help your young student learn about how freezing water can cause physical weathering to rock, one of the forces shaping our land.

You will need:

• A small disposable container (the ones from margarine or cottage cheese work well)
• Plaster of Paris
• A small water balloon
• A freezer or outdoor weather that is consistently well below freezing

Procedure:.

1. Fill the balloon with water until it is about the size of a golf ball. Try to get all the air out of the balloon before you tie it shut.
2. Put the filled balloon in the small container.
3. Stir water into the Plaster of Paris until it is a smooth consistency (follow the directions on the package) and pour it into the small container to cover the balloon. You may have to poke the balloon down to get it under the plaster. It's ok if a tiny bit shows but it is more dramatic if the surface is blank and smooth when you are done.
4. Let the plaster dry for several days until it is hard. This is now your "rock". Observe its appearance and record your observations. If possible, take a photo to print off and attach to the page.
5. Tell your child you are going to freeze the container. Allow them to speculate about what will happen. Write down their predictions.
6. Place the container in the freezer or out in weather isolated from heat sources and sunlight where the temperatures will be consistently well below freezing for four or more hours.
7. Retrieve the container and observe its appearance. Again, record your observations. Were your predictions accurate? If you are doing photos, take another to show the changes.

This experiment is designed to demonstrate the changes that can occur to rock when water seeps into cracks and then freezes. The breaking down of rock into smaller fragments is called physical weathering. If possible, take your child on a hike to observe the cracks and weathering of rocks as a wonderful follow-up to the experiment.

Older Kids: Research physical weathering. What other forces can cause physical weathering? What is the difference between physical weathering and chemical weathering?

-Nina Wolf

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Science Merit Recognition

This month, we would like to recognize a truly remarkable man and scientist, David W. Allan. Since receiving his B.S degree in Physics at Brigham Young University in 1960, and his Master's degree from the University of Colorado in 1965, David Allan has authored over 100 papers in the field of precise time and frequency as well as contributing chapters to several books. He is best known for his work in atomic time scales and his contributions to the development of national and international time scales for use both in civic life and for technical applications such as GPS. When he was nominated for the 1992 Department of Commerce Gold medal in physics, the citation read in part, "He 'wrote the book' on the...methods [for characterizing clocks and time and frequency distribution systems] and the statistical variance he introduced is named after him. Mr. Allan is as well recognized in the field of time and frequency technology as any other figure in the world."

Since his retirement from government work in 1992, Dr. Allan has worked as an independent consultant in the area of applied precise timing, assisting companies with such applications as satellite communications and navigation systems. He took a break from his business pursuits from 1997-1999 to serve a mission in West Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, with his wife, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

In the years since returning from the mission field, Mr. Allan has pursued his own research into what he believes to be a Unified Field Theory, including a new theory of gravity. Although much of this work remains unpublished as yet, he has performed several successful experiments that validate his UFT. He has written a book titled, It's About Time - Science Harmonized with Religion, which is available from Digital Legend. In this work, Mr. Allan explores the concept of time and its relation to both the human experience and the eternities. As he applies his scientific insight to an understanding of humanity's place in the universe, he brings his readers to a deeper comprehension of the relationship between truth and time. Here is a short excerpt from his book:

After that experience of receiving direct guidance [in his masters thesis, aka "Allan variance"], I knew that the Lord can and will bless us in all that we do as we seek for light and Truth and to do His will. Further, it doesn't matter whether it is in religious activities or school or family or work or wherever.

After that experience, I sought Him at every opportunity and that has made a great difference in my life. Also, I learned that if we seek not for self-aggrandizement but to serve and use our talents, as my wise BYU physics professor counseled me that makes a big difference as well.

I believe that the Truths of God will harmonize in all areas of life if we will but try to understand the Truth from Him, who is the author of all Truth, and live in harmony with those Truths to the best of our abilities once we receive them. I believe God is the Master Physicist along with being the Master of the Universe.

His personal motto is, "Truth is Light and Light is Love." He is a true inspiration as he pursues scientific knowledge in the context of his wider pursuit of eternal truth.

We are happy to have David Allan's support as a Scientist, Lecturer, and a Science Group Leader for the Manti / Sanpete area of Utah. If you would like to know more about David Allan and his work, please visit his website allanstime.com.

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Recent Activity

On Thursday, November 3rd, Vincent Newmeyer presented a lecture on how the assumption of Darwinian evolution is resulting in removing the "Self Evidence" of our God given rights. This lecture was sponsored by Liberty Hills Academy.

On Thursday, November 10th, David Barker presented a lecture: "C14 and Other Scientific Dating Techniques: Why they produce so many dates inconsistent with the scriptures." This lecture was sponsored by Liberty Rock School.

On Thursday, November 17, Peter Cannon presented "What Prophets and Science Facts Say About Evolution." This presentation was for students from 5th through 12 grade and their parents at Liberty Hills Academy.

Frank Strickland is finishing a three month series presented on Sunday at the K2 Church.

In addition to these presentations, several additional Science Study Groups have been started across the state.

If you are interested in starting a study group in your area, please contact Karen Bates (Click Me).

To book an event please contact Event Scheduler (Click Me).

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Questions & Answers

Biblical Creation and a Global Flood Supported by Science?

This question comes to me from a friend who, though he is an active member of a church, questions the Biblical account of creation in Genesis, and also the reality of the Global Flood of Noah. He believes that science has demonstrated the evolutionary scenario of man's origin and the notion of a Global Flood is scientifically untenable. Though he is certainly not alone in is disbelief, even among professed believers of a faith, it is disheartening for several reasons: First, from a scientific point of view, there is abundant scientific evidence that powerfully tends to falsify the evolutionary scenario and also evidence that is very supportive of the Global Flood, which data seldom sees the light of day in public media or in our educational institutions. Second, for a person of Christian faith, the veracity of both of these events are attested to by Christ himself and are supported by many citations in scripture, from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and even further supported in additional LDS scripture (the faith he subscribes to) including the Book of Mormon. Consider these scriptural references, Creation, Creation of Man, NT Adam Son of God, Flood of Noah, Noah's Ark. As Jesus personally said during his mortal ministry:

"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."
Luke 16:31

Particularly, my friend claimed that the 8.7 million individual species living on the Earth could not possibly fit on Noah's Ark. Just the numbers of insects would over whelm it, he claimed. Some people reduce the number of creatures necessary to fill the Ark by claiming that the biblical term "kind" refers to a group of similar animals and not the individual species as we consider them today. Using that thought he reasoned:

"Allowing the ark to have the capacity to hold 1 million of 'each kind' [of animals,] then there must have been 7.7 million separate instances of diversification in the last 4,000 years. That would require a divergent rate of at least 5 new species every day. Rather than fighting to keep species from going extinct we would be overwhelmed with recording the process and the discovery of each new species each day. Not only that but the process of diversification would be well documented and the [evolutionary] debate would be solved."

My reply to my friend follows:

Noah And his Boat

Yes, to the science, and the issue you brought up about Noah from the Bible. Many people have questioned if this was a factual account for the reason you mentioned - how do you get all of those animals on the ark? First, not every living species would be on the ark. Fish would not need to be on the ark. After a flood, the first thing that one notices is the wild proliferation of insects. Ants for example, can actually live under water for many days. Floating log mats would be a sufficient ark for many insect like creatures. Genesis 7 helps us understand this:

15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.

22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
Genesis 7

What we are talking about is land based air breathing vertebrate animals such as birds, mammals, and reptiles and their now extinct counterparts. Further, not every species of that set of animals would be on the ark, only the basic "kinds" of animals. Genesis 7 again helps clarify this:

14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
Genesis 7

Studies indicate that this would correspond to the family level in current taxonomy. One feasibility study generously moved to the genus level for their count of the number of critters on the ark. Including the seven pairs of clean animals, the total number of land animals and birds on the ark would be less than 16,000. A thorough study on this matter concluded that without stacking of cages, only 47% of the ark floor would have been required. If animals were housed in groups, space requirements would have been lessened even more.

As for the required food and provisions, only 6 to 12 percent of the ark volume would have been needed. Potable water only about 9 percent.

A study can be found in a book published by John Woodmorappe in his Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study.

A few online sources:
Web pages:

How Could Noah Fit the Animals on the Ark and Care for Them?

How did all the animals fit on Noah's Ark?

Audio online discussion at [good to listen to while being productive with other things]:

RSR: How Many Animals Were on the Ark? You can listen by choosing download, or stream, under the title near the top of the page.

Creation Or Evolution?

As for the diversification of life in which [my friend] asserted that we would see "a divergent rate of at least 5 new species every day," We have actually discovered on average 104 species per day (see reference). Many of these may be just undiscovered creatures, but 5 new species per day would easily fit within that number of total discovered. Keep in mind, though, that we really don't even have well settled definition of what a species is.

Yes, there is evolution, or in other words variation, within the various kinds of animals. However, in all of our observations, dogs are still dogs, cats are still cats and as much as we have imposed unnatural mutations and unnatural selection on the fruit flies, they are still fruit flies even after the vast number of generations that have been grown in a lab. However, the fitness of these lab grown mutant fruit flies, in general, is less than the natural fitness of the flies they started with [and would quickly be removed from the gene pool by natural selection in the wild]. Consider the variety of dog skulls (view). [These would probably have been considered many different species if they were only known through fossils. Yet we known they are one species (because they can interbreed and bring forth fertile offspring) and even so, they are still recognizable as a dog, by even a child. ]

In addition to the limits of fruit fly diversification consider what is presented in the Fruit Fly Frenzy! Episode from This is Genesis Week, ep 30, with Wazooloo aka Ian Juby. [Fruit flies, show amazing complexity and design.]

A much more difficult problem exist for Evolution. In the broad scope of evolution, evolution must provide mechanisms to get to all the complexity and diversity of life we have today from molten rock just 4.6 billion years ago.    Think about it!

Let me share some studies that have examined the problem of the sufficiency of mutation and natural selection to account for our current condition.

Michael Behe has a new book out titled The Edge of Evolution. In a talk he gave to introduce his book, he gives an overview of the book and some additional information related to the topic. The talk is fascinating. One of the key points hit me very powerfully. In this particular point he was talking about random mutations in DNA and how these mutations caused two amino acids to change in a protein strand in [plasmodium cells which cause] malaria. These mutations caused the plasmodium cell to become immune to the drug chloroquine which was used for decades to fight it. In one infected person, there are about 10^12 or one trillion cells, so Darwinian evolution processes have a lot of opportunity to work. What is most interesting about this, is that this resistance to chloroquine appears to evolve in about 10^20 malaria cells (which is a huge number). So one can expect that to get a beneficial mutation just twice as complex would require 10^40 cells. He then makes this observation: 10^40 cells is believed to be greater than the total number of all bacterial cells (not just plasmodium cells which cause malaria) than have ever existed on this Earth (even considering an Earth of 4.6 billion years).

Michael Behe concludes this point with:

"This is not an argument that Darwinsim cannot make complex functional systems, it is an OBSERVATION that it does not." And, "In science, observation beats theory every time."

Check it out at: The Edge of Evolution
By Michael Behe (watch Micheal's introduction of the book)   It's fascinating!

Once again we see that that which can be observed and measured cast doubt on the Evolutionary Premise of Common Ancestry. If the programming is not already there in the DNA, either directly or in the sections designed to be quickly adapted as has been observed, the numbers show that random mutation and natural selection are insufficient instruments to account for the complexity and variety of life.

Another good discussion on the insufficiency of random mutation and natural selection is found in this Debate: Dr Meyer & Dr Sternberg argue for Intelligent Design against Dr Shermer & Dr Prothero (watch)

SUMMARY:

• Studies show the viability of the Biblical account of the Ark.
• Other studies show the that random mutation and natural selection are insufficient instruments to account for the complexity and variety of life EVEN IF THE EARTH WERE 4.6 BILLION YEARS OLD
• Carbon Dating [not mentioned in this particular letter] show that the earth is young.

QUESTION:
These items alone bring powerful evidence that Evolution Is Not True. Therefore, either evolution (as in the common ancestry of all life) is not true and the paradigm I present [which is also presented in scripture] is accurate, or this these studies are wrong. Which is it?

-Vincent Newmeyer

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About this Newsletter

The objective of the monthly Science Elevated Newsletter is to share with others information founded in science that is often overlooked or ignored when it comes to controversial issues like Darwinian evolution and Global Warming etc.

We will also discuss the challenging effects that these philosophies have on other aspects of our lives such as our foundations of law, societal and personal morality, and personal religious convictions. Though we will be considering attendant implications of these notions, we want to assure the casual reader or seasoned investigator that our science conclusions are rooted in observation and measurement, not a blind adherence to a dogma.

Please visit our home page at: ScienceElevated.com

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Contact Us

President - Vincent Newmeyer Contact
News Letter Editor - Christina Wolf Contact
Science Experiment Editor - Mark Barlow Contact
Event Scheduling - Karen Bates Contact
Publicity - Tiffany Hess Contact
Study Group Coordinator - Karen Bates Contact


Study Groups (so far)
Logan - Marianne Siler Contact
Mountain Green - Mrs. Lydia Nuttall Contact
Bountiful Tiffany Hess Contact
Salt Lake City - Frank Strickland Contact
Lehi / Alpine - Mark Barlow Contact
Pleasant Grove - Karen Bates Contact
Provo / Orem - Karmel Larsen Contact
Heber - AE Contact
Vernal / Uintah County - Pam Clinch Contact
Manti / Sanpete County - David Allan Contact

Want to help out in your area? Please contact Karen Bates.

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View the November Newsletter (click)

What's New?

Watch for upcoming field trip opportunities.

New Science Study Groups organized.