ARJ: Four Years and Counting

Answers Research Journal (ARJ) is a professional, peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework. All published papers are available to download free of charge. Consider submitting your paper.

When Answers Research Journal launched in January 2008, the Internet buzzed with controversy. Skeptics claimed the journal would never produce quality scientific research or discussion. But thanks to the Lord’s guidance and blessing, they have been proved wrong.

In fact, the quality of scholarship from such a wide range of creation researchers has surpassed even our highest expectations. In only four years, we’ve published nearly 1000 pages of solid scientific and theological discussion in 66 papers. That includes 19 papers in 2011—our highest number yet.

Perhaps it’s the unique nature of ARJ that has helped make it a success. Being completely online, we’ve removed many of the limitations inherent in bound “offline” journals. Researchers aren’t limited by page counts, and they can include dozens of full-color images and tables to illustrate their results. And this has certainly enhanced the presentation of each paper. Given the consistent readership of each one, apparently you appreciate this as well. In fact, more readers visited the ARJ website in 2011 than ever before (a 9% uptick over 2010).

If you’re new to our website—or if you’re interested in what creation scientists and theologians have discovered recently—we invite you to take a look back at some of the groundbreaking research over the last four years. It’s certainly not a “best of,” since we’d have to include every paper for that. But these representative examples are worthy of your attention.

2008

Interest in ARJ exploded when the first three papers rolled out at launch. While some of that interest came from those seeking to mock, God used their mocking to generate a great deal of traffic to the site. And thanks to quality submissions, the first volume proved to be a strong debut.

• Catastrophic Granite Formation: The timescale for the generation of granitic magmas and their subsequent intrusion, crystallization, and cooling as plutons is no longer incompatible with the biblical time frames of the global, year-long Flood cataclysm and of 6,000–7,000 years for earth history.
• Toward a Practical Theology of Peer Review: Despite the centrality of peer review to the development of a scholarly community, very little is known about the biblical basis and Christian conduct of peer review.
• The Origin of Oil—A Creationist Answer: The dominant view of the origin of oil amongst western oil companies until 1969 was that it was due to the decay of living matter. Now other views are making themselves heard.

2009

While we thought it might be difficult to equal the debut volume, God took care of that and provided a second volume filled with engaging topics.

• More Abundant than Stars: Microbes form a life-sustaining organosubstrate on earth and contribute to our understanding of geology, ecology, and biology. Creation microbiologists are actively involved in research and publication, but a field of creation microbiology has not yet been formally established. This paper represents a first attempt to organize the field of creation microbiology.
• Fungi from the Biblical Perspective: Fungi are intriguing organisms with a wealth of diversity in their morphology and ecology. Determining the fundamentals of their biology from a biblical perspective is a daunting but achievable task.
• Christian Theodicy in Light of Genesis and Modern Science: The problem of evil is always a challenge for the Christian witness. Human suffering and moral evil are relatively easy for the apologist to explain, and the Fall of Adam is a key to that explanation. But the thornier question is that of natural evil that kills not only people but innocent animals.

2010

We saw the most pages so far (over 300) in Volume 3 of ARJ. But it’s not just the number of pages that make this volume stand out; it’s the growing maturity and depth of creation research.

• Numerical Simulation of Precipitation in Yosemite National Park with a Warm Ocean: Deep Upper Low and Rex Blocking Pattern Case Studies: Precipitation from a warm winter, orographic storm during Christmas of 1996 in Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada was simulated with the NCAR mesoscale weather model called WRF. Based on the likely increase in precipitation rate and frequency of storms following the Genesis Flood, glaciers thousands of feet thick would have developed in a few hundred years.
• Baraminological Analysis Places Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Australopithecus sediba in the Human Holobaramin and Baraminological Analysis Places Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and Australopithecus sediba in the Human Holobaramin: Discussion: An important discussion in regard to Australopithecus sediba and its classification.
• Anisotropic Synchrony Convention—A Solution to the Distant Starlight Problem: We find that an observer-centric anisotropic synchrony convention eliminates the distant starlight problem by reducing radially inward-directed light travel-time in the reference frame of the observer to zero. Such a convention implies that everything in the universe has an age of a few thousand years as we currently see it.

2011

As mentioned earlier, Volume 4 saw the most papers published in ARJ so far.

• Beyond Distant Starlight: Next Steps For Creationist Cosmology: The question of how distant starlight can be seen in a young Universe has received much attention within creationist research. But creationist cosmological models need to explain much else in addition to the passage of light across vast distances.
• An Examination of Augustine’s Commentaries on Genesis One and Their Implications on a Modern Theological Controversy: Biblical creationists have repeatedly warned about the dangers of allegorizing narrative passages and reinterpreting the text based on the science of the day. Since these two practices are exemplified in Augustine’s writings on Genesis, readers will see why the literal historical-grammatical hermeneutic protects one from making egregious interpretive errors.
• Determining the Ark Kinds: As part of the Ark Encounter Project at Answers in Genesis, a research effort has been initiated to provide information necessary for the best possible reconstruction of the animal kinds preserved on the Ark. This initial paper outlines the basic rationale that will be used and the underlying justification for it.

Coming in 2012

Soon, we’ll be launching Volume 5 for 2012, and we’re excited about what’s coming. Here’s a bit of a sneak peek:

• Numerical Simulations of Hypercanes Charley and Fay in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico over a Warm Ocean: Two tropical cyclones were simulated with the NCAR WRF model to determine if warm sea-surface temperatures would cause them to intensify into hypercanes and follow similar storm tracks as the original cyclones. Both storms intensified, but not as much as had been anticipated, and the storm tracks diverged greatly from storm tracks of the actual cyclones. Such storm modeling is relevant to understanding the early post-Flood climate.
• Can Theistic Evolutionism Explain the Origins of Morality? A Young-Earth Creationist Response: The backbone argument of theistic evolutionists is that, although life originated from non-life and humans from ape-like creatures over millions of years by way of a natural process, God is working in and through the evolutionary process. It is argued that theistic evolution entails that God is the cause of evil in the world, and that efforts to avoid this conclusion come at a huge price: God must be necessarily conceived of in terms that make Him less than perfect, all-powerful and all-knowing.
• Radiohalos in Multiple, Sequentially-Intruded Phases of the Bathurst Batholith, NSW, Australia: Evidence for Rapid Granite Formation During the Flood: This large granite body has been intruded by a major granite dike, and both have been intruded by smaller granite dikes. All these phases contain polonium radiohalos. The evidence firmly establishes that all these granites were sequentially intruded as hot magmas rapidly during the Flood.

Through the prayers and support of many, we are thankful that the Lord has been blessing this effort. The first papers of 2012 are in the process of finalization right now. Will you please pray for the researchers, writers, reviewers, editors, producers, and web team as they continue to forge ahead with ARJ as the Lord blesses? Perhaps 2012 will also be a year for you to publish your original research. Consider submitting your paper to share with an engaged audience of scientists and other interested readers. And check back in February for our first paper of the year.