Apologetics (What is Truth: Epistemology and Natural Science)

These books are listed to be as updated as possible with current studies, and present a one-stop shop launchpad to current research, and will be listed in order of accessibility, meaning higher up -> easier to read.

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(Subject/Issue | Book)

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General Readable One-stop-shop style Overviews

(I have not read this book yet) | Taking Religion Seriously - Charles Murray (2025)

A great explanatory overview and candid persuasive account by a converted former-athiest and biologist, consisting of examinations from general cosmology, biology, geology and other sciences; philosophies in general; internal and external historical evidences of the Bible and theories/counter-arguments revolving those evidences; and subjective reasons for faith. On the Creation-evolution debate, this author leans towards the Guided/Planned Evolution stance | The Shortest Leap - Ally Van Der Herik (2022) (my Chinese translations of this book can be found here: Traditional Chinese Vol. 1 and Vol. 2; Simplified Chinese Vol. 1 and Vol. 2)

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Philosophy (including Logic):

History of Philosophy

An atheist's take on the history of (Western) philosophy (this one in particular is notorious for its bias) | A History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russel (1945)

A Jesuit's take on history of philosophy (A true classic that tries to show the philosophy in detail and with as little bias as possible) | A History of Western Philosophy - Frederick C. Copleston (completed in mid 1970s)

Succinct general history and critiques of Western philosophy with their crucial flaws from a Christian standpoint | A History of Western Philosophy and Theology - John Frame (2015)

Self-Reference

An accessible take on the impossibility/trade-off of self-referentiality, and also includes an fun and interesting set-theoretical description of God that at least is a prima-facie answer facing the "Who designed the designer" objection (I would only use it for that negative purpose, but not use it to positively argue for the Christian God)| Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Douglas Hofstadter (1979)

Apologetics in Epistemology

A compilation of Van Til's covenantal/presupposition-exposing style apologetics (more deals with epistemological arguments, since philosophy underwent the epistemological turn in the 16th century) | Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis - Greg Bahnsen (1998)

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Math:

Specified Complexity:

Classical Text on Kolmogorov complexity which will help you gain a rigorous understanding of complexity and randomness | An Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications (1st edition in 1994)

Specified Complexity (as termed Specified Complexity; in statistics, it is equivalent to the concept of Randomness Deficiency) | The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (1st edition in 1998)

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Basic observation on the notion of Specified Complexity:

Specified Complexity (or if you want better terms to deal with semantic complaints from atheist circles: Randomness Deficiency or Complex Specified Design or Specified improbability (point 4. in Shallit's response; go read it to see how absurd it is)) is defined by SC(x) = Maximum Length of Description (x) - Length of Shortest Compressed Description (x). The Length of Shortest Compressed Description can be upper-bounded by any computed length of description/program, in which description includes both the interpreter/language and the content interpreted. Martin-Löf randomness allows for the highest possible value of the Length of Shortest Compressed Description (infinity) due to treating infinite sequences, and a string that is Martin-Löf random (passes all randomness tests) will not be compressible in its original string sequence, and therefore SC(x) = 0, since the Maximum Length of Description equals the Shortest Compressed Length of Description (it is not compressible, and therefore the shortest length equals the maximum length). If any infinite string is not Martin-Löf random, then the Maximum Length of Description will be bigger than the shortest length, and therefore we could have an easy test of whether something is designed by just finding a randomness test that the infinite sequence fails to pass (theoretically, if a program can be conceived as able to finish running for an infinite amount of time).

In reality, we are never dealing with infinite sequences when deciding whether something is designed. Therefore, we need the equivalent for finite length sequences, and that is Kolmogorov randomness.

If every single text in the world was considered as a holistic whole that describes the universe accurately (with all possible explanations of metaphors, translation between languages etc., so that any word and concept in that whole is maximally understandable as far as we know) and without data-loss, and the total amount of texts are estimated to be about at most 50-60 petabytes, with a petabyte being 10^15 bytes and a byte being 2^8 bits, then the total data would be 60*(10^15)* (2^8) bits, or 1.536*(10^19) bits. This is indeed an enormous amount. But consider the amount of bits in the universe can use to compute that physicists have calculated: 10^90 (or 10^120 if gravitational fields contribute). That is about 10^71 times more than all human texts combined.

There is an atheist's omniscience dilemma, or maybe the quantified rational-irrational synthesis (Rational-irrational synthesis is Van Til's important contribution to philosophy) dilemma: if human knowledge (a total of 1.536*(10^19) bits) is considered "omniscient," perfectly describing the universe without data loss, and those number of bits can be related to the "specified-ness" or, upon compression, the shortest program lenth of the universe by Kolmogorov complexity, then it will calculate a Randomness Deficiency of [(10^20)-1.536]*(10^70) = 10^90. The universe's number of bits will bulldoze over the length anyway, and you will need to say that the universe has a 10^(-90) probability of being undesigned. We can quantify the inconceivable ignorance of this: if an atheist can bet on those odds, he would most likely bet on every single lottery in the world, which give much, much, MUCH better odds than this.

The other horn is much simpler: if human knowledge is considered non-omniscient, then its description of the universe has data-loss. As far as it judges from the design or information of the universe, it cannot speak conclusively about the non-existence of God.

There is no third horn. Therefore atheism is not true. Not under physicalism.

The other implication of this argument is that, as Christians, we cannot hope to make our case of God in terms of positively portraying it as a conclusion of the quantified amount of information. The dilemma is only there to show that a worldview with materialist/physicalist foundations is self-defeating. Physicalism mathematically limits itself. We of course are not going to prove Christianity with physicalism, but we must consistently point to the seed of divine knowledge already implanted in man. There is a plus, a more-than, beyond physicalism. The arena is much more than just numbers and science, but is still the competing "revelations" against each other.

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A small preamble before the "scientific" portion:

For a fully Biblical approach in science (just like a fully Biblical approach to philosophy via Van Til), the entire witness of Genesis insomuch as it provides data-points and explanations for change in the earth's conditions and physical laws must be fully acknowledged. In particular, these points are relevant:

(1) The Instantaneous creation of the universe...

(2) with laws that let it operate steadily forever without decay for the first 6 days up to the Fall,

(3) the first violent change in the universe as a result of the curse (i.e. changes in conditions and the introduction of physical laws that cause decay of the universe and of man)

(4) other lesser destruction events, including wide, catastrophic ones as the flood, the gradual decrease of man's maximum earthly age, instant diversification in language and breakdown of society at Babel, destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction of Pharoah, etc.

(5) possible extensions of initial conditions in a hypothetical eternal world to other purposes/features that could be considered "essential" or "beneficial" in future times and not just Eden.

You cannot maintain intellectually integrity by saying simply that Young Earth Creationists are "stupid" for considering these options; in fact, it is more likely that you have considered less scenarios than they have if they are already willing to stretch their interpretive limits on science to the max, and would themselves have to read quite a lot of papers to do so. So basic reading is always required on both sides (those who agree or disagree with YEC, or with any view). On another note, the spectrum of Creator-believing people (in America and not necessarily Christian) across the debate is still wide enough to dwarf the numbers of atheists. Therefore, if you feel that evolution is conclusive and is reason enough to doubt existence in God, all I can say is "get a reality check." Once you get to abiogenesis and physics, the hurdles are larger and more intractable.

Another note on science's relation to faith: Science closes the gap between the unknown principles and the known phenomena, but not the gap between non-existence and known phenomena. We don't explain why or how did something happen as opposed to not happening, but that something happened as opposed to not happening. When we explain how a spark happened between the ends of two metal rods separated at distance d from each other, we lay out the equations to explain that the spark happened, and it happened it a specific way. That is more information that needs an even bigger explanation: Why did the spark happen, and not only that, but why did it happen precisely in this specific way. If all scientific discoveries were worded this way to transfer the question of why as why, instead of putting up red herrings by saying that the other kind of 'why' question (why it happened in a specific way, which simply demands a more specific answer), it is easily pointed out to a child that questions of scientific nature (the specific way something happened) can never be ambitiously used to answer the possibility why question (why it happened at all). Atheists who understand this just go directly to saying that this question is meaningless, and it is at that point where we put the pressure on the Atheist: "why would you say that when obviously many people think it is meaningful?" The universe as a SU(5), SO(10) or whichever simplest variant of Quantum Field theories just gives an incredible load of information on top of that it has all the phenomena that it does. The question that cries out is: how is the universe so obscenely and incredibly rational and symmetric and consistent to this kind of degree? And where does the universe get its titanic energy source to force through a version of Quantum Field Theory to produce all the phenomena we have today?

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Physics

Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory:

A really accessible textbook on Quantum Field Theory | Quantum Field Theory for the Gifted Amateur - Tom Lancaster and Stephen J. Blundell (2014)

A superb reference book on quantum mechanical concepts | Compendium of Quantum Physics: Concepts, Experiments, History and Philosophy (2009) PDF

Anthony Zee's classic with his own intuitive interpretations of equations and concepts | Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell - Anthony Zee (2003)

Beginning of the Universe:

BGV Theorem explained (The universe has a beginning) | Alexander Vilenkin's article (October 2015) on whether the assured beginning of a universe implies the existence of God

General Physics Arguments:

General challenges to atheism (including fine tuning, chemical coincidences etc.) | Modern Physics and Ancient Faith - Stephen M. Barr (2003; Catholic)

How physicists try to solve infinite regression and fine tuning without God: Inflation Theory (inflaton field) and String Theory | The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design - Leonard Susskind (2005)

Popular treatment on the latest physical theories (interestingly admits that the question of why there is something rather than nothing is not yet explained, yet finds solace in the fact that much of the universe can be explained by something that weighs less than a pet dog combined with inflation theory; good case study for the irrationality of physicists, since beginning problem is still left untreated) | The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality - Brian Greene (2007)

Failure of the above to explain the universe (still doesn't explain beginning problem, is non-falsifiable, "explains anything anybody want" etc.)| Physics to God Website (run by two rabbis)

Young Earth Creationist Cosmology that can account for the old-age of stars | A New Creationist Cosmology: In No Time at All - Part 1 (2010), 2 (2011), and 3 (2011) -- the book it was based upon: Starlight and Time - Russell Humphreys (1994)

Basic observation on Beginning of Universe discussions:

Physicists rely on the inflaton field as the (unproved, and maybe unprovable!) theory to compensate for the low probability of this universe happening (which they readily concede) by taking out a theory that is too "strong" that allows them to say that anything that can ever happen will virtually happen (every universe will be substantiated in the megaverse that encloses them). The most obvious example is that Boltzmann brains, which is a more probable scenario in a universe that allows anything provided that the probabilities are high, are considered more "ordinary" within anthropic constraints, and therefore should be taken as the more likely scenario that our universe is in. This means that all of our memories are very likely false thanks to probability. Probability comes back to bite us.

Basic Observation on Quantum Mechanics and Absolutely/Relatively Unknown Information:

Quantum mechanics (defined as any treatment of a system at any scale in which Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle still holds true) just tells us that at low resolution, macroscopic descriptions of any part of the world, the descriptions that have a low amount of bits just cannot describe the system accurately, and therefore there is a cap in prediction power (or a relative loss of it relative to the actual amount of information in that same system under study). The Copenhagen interpretation is a guess that says that information is not just epistemologically but metaphysically less before a measurement is made; measurements are taken to be ontologically important entities that determine the state of the universe. We are doing the "handshaking" or "transaction." Extending that interpretation, the universe is "actually" increasing in information as the bubble of observation expands and forces all the wavefunctions it reaches to collapse. There are also interpretations of the universe that say that the universe is itself calculating information regardless of whether we observe it or not. This is the more ontologically "humble" interpretation. The transactional interpretation where future waves collide with past waves at each moment in the present (or whichever time and place) secures a definite value for observables in every point in spacetime regardless of observation. The universe is already always engaging in "handshakes" or "transactions," and our acts of observation (our "handshakes") are not powerful enough to change the system.

Whichever the case, information that was not in the system under a certain "screen resolution", say system_res1, is always coming into existence in that system_res1. Whether we ourselves are part of the information creating machinery or the universe outside of us is, it makes no difference (if we are conceived as part of the universe).

We don't know if technology will one day be developed to such a degree as to allow us to observe even scales at or below the Planck length and Planck time, and we'll discover the rules of and ways to manipulate the universe at the extremely small space-time or extremely large energy-momentum scales. If we do, we may encounter one of two scenarios as far as information is concerned: (1) we cannot find the source of additional information of system_res1, and it really is a "random number generator" or a dice roll for some class of information, which means that quantum mechanics is preserved down to the smallest scales; or (2) we find more ways to describe the universe, giving system_res2, that can fully account for the missing information at system_ res1, and those information are just lurking there waiting to be "offloaded" or "captured" by the larger time- and length-scales. In the first case, information does indeed appear "ex nihilo," and that actually would also be a point which we could argue as one part of God's Providence, as information is continually injected from somewhere "outside" of system_res2, the best and most extensive possible description of the universe. In the second case, information was already always there (whether in us or out there), and therefore all information would just be frontloaded to the beginning of the universe, where we would argue for Creation. Apologetically, it is just a matter of "where" information is located (at the "beginning" of the universe or "alongside" the universe).

Whichever is the case, "information" (or better, randomness deficiency, to avoid the other definition of information as Shannon entropy; Random deficiency = Shannon Entropy - Kolmogorov Complexity) is there as the necessarily dual component of the ineffable "substance." This all sounds very hylomorphic, and in that sense we have never really escaped Plato. Another related matter is how should we argue for that information/form/structure and substance/raw material. Arguing for design is an argument for a very "informational" or "intellectual" part of the world (although we'd like to agree that it takes some "power" to create it), while arguing for brute, raw and data-compression-resistant matter is an argument for a very "potent" part of the world (although it takes some "intelligence" to decide how much to create, what kind of basic matter-type to create). In all aspects of the physical description of the world, there is that indistinguishable but inseparable intelligence/power (and maybe one could argue for goodness) dual- (or triple-) aspect.

Atheists need an ultimate intelligence-from-stupidity argument, not just at the biological level (where the design inference was used) but also at the physical level of description. Therefore, the inflaton field, conceived to solve a different set of problems, was borrowed to explain the current fine-tuned parameters of this universe. The problem is that that inflaton field has parameters of its own that need fine-tuning, and therefore fine-tuning is just pushed further down. Minimal information (or, more accurately, the randomness deficiency; a lot of variables give a large Shannon entropy, and a tight restriction to win gives the Kolmogorov complexity/compressibility as far as we know) is still repackaged and sent to somewhere, and that itself still needs explaining!

For atheists that argue that Kolmogorov complexity is highly dependent on the language used for description to avoid dealing with it, that argument works both ways: If it is implied that no language is able to describe the universe without (huge) loss of data, how do we then know that the terms/concepts of "evolution" is a well-defined concept that does not present loss of data or whose code-word-length in a program doesn't explode? What use is it of pointing out Berry's paradox at the last moment and saying: "Oh well, on this particular point, we'll never know!" That caveat doesn't really help, but is a selective use of skepticism when convenient. It is remarkably telling that the atheist would resort to this general level objection than quantifying code-word-lengths.

If different strengths of the anthropic principles are spaced too far apart, then one optimization will not necessarily entail another, forcing there to be simultaneous optimizing of multiple factors instead of one single factor, drastically reducing the probability that this particular universe was a "reasonably lucky roll"--why weren't the other more possible observer-containing universes rolled out? This is (one of) the Achilles' heel of Inflaton field theory.

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Towards a general apologetic of the natural world

Can long-term or highly regular laws co-exist with short-term or low regularity actions? I think it can. As long as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle is not disproved, there is always an omnipresent realm co-extensive with our spacetime (in which highly regular laws operate) where new information is constantly being injected into the universe through quantum fluctuation processes. This process is considered "just so" by naturalists who do not want to ascribe it to a God who is actively injecting information or influencing the course of every single field/particle, and is taken as the proof of the world's coming into being ex-nihilo: As long as it obeys certain law-like constraints, and as long as there is some sort of energy source (preferably infinite if we want an eternal multi-verse to bootstrap our universe), new information (that does not break energy conservation) can come into the universe to direct it. There is no need to posit a second entity called "matter" apart from energy if it is just a coefficient of coupled fields that phenomenologically has been conceptualized as matter (matter finds its full meaning in its spatio-temporal response to forces), just as water is not a second entity from H₂O if H₂O has been shown to possess all the properties of "water."

The necessary components for the natural universe we see can be boiled down to three things: energy, regular laws of how energy moves, and irregular information. An atheist will look at these things at this fundamental level of description, and say: energy was and is and will always just be there, either in the form of an untapped potential, or already converted into momentum in space, and is absolute energy; the regular laws of how energy moves is "just so," "purely natural," "impersonal", absolute laws; irregular information appears out of nowhere and is just chance occurence, and absolute chance at that. But these things can be connected theologically to the Bible by the Christian at this very level of description as so (insofar as we humans can understand at a prima facie level): The regular laws of how energy moves was determined by God's wisdom, enforced by His power, and made regular according to His goodness and faithfulness (could we say that the laws are part of God, if it strictly refers to the enforcing part? The enforcing law is God/God's Word?); energy came into existence through God's power; and irregular information is part of God's freedom and power and providence and wisdom (and is just missing knowledge to us)?

No doubt, all the objects and properties of the universe and God can be closely analyzed in a way that may give a more nuanced and holistic description of the objects and the universe. This prima facie description is just there to highlight which of God's properties each property of the universe shows more than God's other properties. In these simple, general level concepts, a believing child can be made to understand the crucial point of disagreement with an unbelieving child at the same meta-scientific level as an adult.

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Explaining Apparent Age

There are many lines of scientific inquiry that do point to an ancient earth, and one of them is radio dating of a sample with known decay rates of parent-to-daughter isotopes that seem to give an ancient age with the best experiments and scientific theories currently available. Disregarding radiocarbon dating, which works on relatively young-earth friendly timescales, Potassium-Argon or Argon-Argon dating, Rubidium-Strontium dating etc., works on the scale of millions to billions of years, and experiments have been done that show that the radioactive decay rates are not affected by extreme environmental conditions. This gives Old Earth Creationists the confidence that God may very well have created the universe (and even the earth) with an actual age on the scale of billions of years.

One way to solve this is referred to as the Omphalos hypothesis. There was a book published in 1857, 2 years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species, titled Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot (by Philip Henry Gosse). The Greek word "omphalos" translates to "belly button," and was also used to refer to the belly button of the world in Delphi, according to Greek myths. The book's namesake refers to Adam's belly button--if he ever had one, despite being without a biological mother and therefore without ever having an umbilical cord--and the book's central point is related to the discussion of apparent age: If the world, like Adam, was created mature but with the vestiges of a non-existent past deduced by natural principles that were operative in successive periods or generations, then by principle, all the extrapolations of science to the past could be perfectly reasonable extrapolations based on that version of science (of course, if we generously grant that it was accurate to the point of ensuring the truth or high probability of truth of its deductions), as long as it is first asserted that God made it "seem" so. That God made it seem so raises a question: Was God dishonest in making it seem so? Or can God do so with other justifications that do not make God out to be a liar? Whatever the answer, I think that this course of reasoning is one possible way to resolve the problem.

As I was thinking about other ways to allow an apparent age, I thought of the whole process of explanation of a phenomenon. We usually explain any given phenomenon by both initial conditions and physical laws, and deduce one with the other once we have the phenomenon. Think of algebra. Given an equation, we can put placeholders called variables, say a and b, and solve for a once we have b. This usually assumes that we know the equation, e.g. we know that there's a plus sign here that means addition, or a superscript of a value that means the power to which a number is raised. We are solving for values that we easily undestand as elements that can be fed into a theory. But what about the whole equation and the operations used inside are also understood as variables? Sometimes we are solving for the equation when we know the initial conditions. An example is the Gaussian distribution, which we deduce from known relations between the microscopic states in a given frame of reference in multiple spatial dimensions and those in a rotated frame of reference, which form our initial conditions and final conditions respectively. The configuration of atoms, molecules, fields, or any static-like physical entity, are also "rotated," (or "translated") through time under certain equations that express the physical laws, while the physical laws themselves are considered even more static and unchanging (or only painfully slow in changing), so as to ensure an at-bottom stable enough framework in which all the other changeable laws are allowed to change, as long as they sacrifice their ultimacy aand title as physical laws, and are subordinate to other "deeper" physical laws, and so on until all physical laws are ultimately subordinate to the ultimate physical law... or God's will? Are we willing to put that ultimacy past our deepest "theorized" physical laws and into the hands of God?

If we do so, then we are pursuing a different route (but perhaps complementary to the "omphalos" solution). Let's call this the "Second Omphalos" hypothesis, and this time the "omphalos" refers to that of the serpent, which was forced to crawl on its belly in the curse after the Fall. Theologically, we know the initial conditions as they are specified by God by the term "Creation," and we know the ongoing physical processes as they are specified by God as "Providence." In the geological Old Earth-Young Earth debate, we are more willing to allow more variations in Creation. There are also good reasons for doing so: The first chapter of Genesis states point blank several initial-conditions-like decisions being made by God. When the flood happened, we also like to think of it as a new set of conditions under a set of still unchanging laws. The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel was new entity-like information that was added or made to replace the original language that was spoken in all the earth. Can we push the possibility of change deep into the (yet-)immutable physical laws themselves?

We need to justify the move from initial conditions to the underlying theories. Can we justify that initial conditions (relative to any later conditions or phenomena) wcan be changed without any change in the usual physical laws? Or is there a continuity between the initial conditions and the physical laws that make it difficult to even hold onto the tenacity and stability of physical laws? Are we justified in saying that God only changes the initial conditions, but never the physical laws themselves? And is there any ultimate proof or justification that God does not change the physical laws themselves? That all changes are only changes in the more changeable parts of the universe, e.g. entities, and not the laws?

First, this assumes that the physical laws themselves have some kind of ultimacy that rivals that of God's freedom--as if there are some physical laws that are eternal and therefore not subject to God's control (insofar as to control means to have the ability to change). In this sense, I cannot accept that the physical laws as we understand them are part of God's nature insofar as we take those physical laws to mean the changeable entities. They would rather have to be classified under God's freedom. Secondly (and more problematic), it also assumes that the empirically deduced laws as we now know just are precisely that set of laws, if we are willing to take the laws embodied by those equations as ultimate and not allow any more superior equations behind those laws to turn even those very laws themselves into changeable variables.

I think that we cannot do so, and must allow the possibility that the laws themselves did indeed change. Theologically, this allows God truly full freedom and control over the universe, and Biblically, as far as we are willing to be Biblical, we have good evidence to do so. The search for Scriptural evidences for this would involve searching for verses that detail more process-like changes, changes into how things usually work, or mechanism-like changes (as opposed to entity-like changes). One example is the curse in response to the fall. Possibly, animals changed (the serpent sure did), such that there were at least death-causing animals that could be harbingers of death to man himself. This could probably be a locus where we might want to place the explanation for fossils: the world changed so violently that many deaths happened in their own ecosystems all at once, in which the usual synergies of a group of animals broke down and were replaced by parasitical relations and predator-prey relations. There are changes in how the world works in terms of its biological plant-like entities ("thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field") that are the laws of the field (but, if one persists, may be construed as an entity-like change in which new entities such as thorns and thistles were introduced instead of a process-like change where the land now produces thorns and thistles). There is definitely enough room for natural disasters that predate Noah's flood to occur, and volcanic rock that already had Argon or Strontium or other daughter isotopes from the mantle (that of course were too technical of a detail to be recorded by humans then) were already present in the lava (and, as a postulate, the world was cursed in such a way to allow death-inducing radioactive processes to be introduced and established among atoms). We may also want to consider the curse as the place in time where The laws of birth are another process-like change: pain accompanies the birthing process. That man would die would also possibly allow many changes across orders e. Another example would be the events surrounding Noah's flood: Gen. 6:3 talks about the truncating of man's age, which is a change in an already established process of aging-towards-death. Also, the world in all its processes was modified in such a way after the flood so that a flood of that same magnitude will not ever happen again. We do not have to put all the attentino on the flood itself, but can allow that a myriad of things could have happened between the fall and the flood that are not all meticulously recorded.

There is much room for science, but the Bible's record and faith in that record can surely fill up all the retrospective space between the literal account of Creation (and Fall!) and modern science. What this would be saying that all of the evidence for Old Earth makes sense under those assumptions of eternal or long-term physical laws if we tenaciously hold onto them (but are not Biblically justified in doing so)! The upshot of this kind of view is that all of the historical details of the Bible can be jointly held with the assumptions of modern science even when it assumes its laws and that the laws it currently hold are "long-term enough" to explain old events reasonably (as long as they are not too old--there is a cutoff date) and provide good predictions for the future. There would be no great impact on science's consistency and practical technological uses (we put science "in its place" by ranking it below in priority God's decision on how physical laws should be at any given time), and would make us Christians consistent when we take God's word as truth over everything else--even our claim that physical laws are unchanged since the universe. The retrodictive battle for the history of the earth is a purely theological one. We don't have to just state that decay rates "slowed," but if we are to wear our theologies on our sleeves, we are free to say that there might not even be any decay rates at the time at all (the sun could burn with a different mechanism--and this does not threaten the fact that the sun very likely relies on decay rates to burn today)!

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Chemistry

Trying to explain how everything came about at the chemical level, including life (particularly, abiogenesis is just speculated to have occurred on asteroids) | Chemical Evolution: Origins of the Elements, Molecules, and Living Systems (1991)

Fine tuning is necessary for carbon synthesis. (This article interestingly argues against that by saying that the tuning does not need to be so fine, as long as the lack of carbon's alpha resonance is compensated by the longer lifetime of beryllium. At least the concession is made that carbon has a monopoly on naturally developing life, and that itself is telling. Why did life not appear as lifeforms consisting of other possible combinations of elements? If carbon chauvinism cannot have its day, and other lifeforms are indeed possible, why did we hit the jackpot in that respect and only observe carbon lifeforms?)

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There is a counter-argument to fine-tuning that says: The argument and wonder of fine tuning is only valid when you have multiple universes in the first place to show that this universe is the lucky one out of them all, just as you have multiple planets that don't have life to show convincingly that this planet is the luckiest one out of all of them. This is absurd and is not consistent with the physicists' right intuition that there is a need to discuss multiple universes (and indeed they do go there automatically). The exact reasons for the absurdity of the counter-argument are twofold: (1) From a practical method of doing physics, much of the existence of entities are given by reasonable inferences from data and theories. We could just say that we don't know if there are other planets, and physicists would plainly point to the flying bodies that our sun illuminates in our solar system and say that those can be inferred to be planets, point to the stars in the sky and say that they are like the sun we have, and just assume that there are planets around those suns. In the same vein, the existence of possible universes are not an idle claim, but are being seriously considered with field/string theories and inflation mechanisms to create them. (2) Actual entities and events require counterfactuals to make a theory to begin with and construct predictions which assume that such-and-such will happen under yet-to-be-actualized experimental conditions. A theory about an electron is not very impressive if it only records that electrons start to accelerate away from each other at distance 3 m, 0.1 nm, 2.99 m and 1 million other data points while being scientifically reserved and refusing to say what will happen at a yet-to-be-observed mutual distance by some equation (e.g. Coulomb's law). The person who brings up this counter-argument has not done much science.

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Biology

Overviews of all views within the Evolution-Creation Debate Spectrum:

Overviews of and dialogue between 4 Christian standpoints (Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Theistic Evolution, and Intelligent Design), including more in-depth discussion of the crucial flaws and defenses of each | Four Views on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) (2017)

Overviews of roughly 6 camps (not necessarily Christian) across the entire spectrum of the origins of life debate (Naturalistic Evolution, Non-teleological Evolution, Planned Evolution, Directed Evolution, Old Earth Creationism, and Young Earth Creationism), discussing the views more from the viewpoint of their underlying assumptions | Mapping the Origins Debate: Six Models of the Beginning of Everything; eBook text online at Wright Library

Evolution:

Updated discussions of the many layers of evolution: The genetic (modern Synthesis), Evo-devo and the epigenetic (extended synthesis) | Evolution Evolving: The Developmental Origins of Adaptation and Biodiversity - Kevin N. Lala, Tobias Uller, Nathalie Feiner, Marcus Feldman, Scott F. Gilbert (2024)

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Intelligent Design:

A comprehensive book for Intelligent Design debates, philosophy of science etc. (interestingly, even talks about the inflaton field!) | Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design - Stephen Meyer (2009) (The website for the book, on which you can find praises/critiques of the book up until 2012)

A book from the secularist (agnostic) corner that proposes structuralism and typology, and presents criticisms of evo-devo, epigenetics, and proposes homology as actually against evolution | Evolution: Still a Theory in Crisis - Michael Denton (2016)

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There are people who say that ID proponents don't realize that convergent systems with feedback can search for the islands of function. This characterization is naive. ID proponents obviously recognize that there are cells and selection processes. The challenge to evolutionists is simply to show that there is a convergent system with feedback at the level of abiogenesis, and at every or at least most degrees of DNA length (No. of base pairs).

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Basic Observations about the main debate:

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tl;dr:

Paleontology and interpretation problem of fossils, Eigen's Paradox (for DNA error-correcting), mutation rate

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Apart from redefining types and taxa and whether they can be stable concepts to be used to discuss evolution (a consistent evolutionist can very well reject their absolute validity and just say they are nominal, with univocal reality being the actual configurations of the DNA base pairs and its interaction with the environment), paleontology remains the main battlefield for evidence for and against evolution. A rebuttal of Denton's view that there are too few transitional forms by talkorigins.org frankly admits the evidence and merely replies that Denton is too strict:

"Now to the fossil record. Similar to the creationists, Denton proposes that there are not enough transitional forms in the fossil record, and that what transitional forms do exist are rather dubious in nature because they do not show soft organ changes (since organs aren't fossilized) and are not intermediate in every single characteristic. Thus, Archaeopteryx lithographica, perhaps the most famous transitional form of all time, is inadequate because its wings and feathers were fully formed. Never mind that Archaeopteryx sported more reptilian skeletal characteristics than it did avian ones, and ignore the fact that its skeletal characteristics very closely match a class of wingless reptiles called therodonts that existed around the same time and in the same geographical location. It is apparent, then, that Denton's standards for labeling a fossil a "transitional form" are unreasonably restrictive."

(futher down)

"Every once in a while, a new transitional form turns up and strengthens the evolutionary pattern inherent in the fossil record . But in any case, to deny that the ones that already exist are what they appear to be is a sure indication of unreasonably strict criteria for transitional forms.

We have seen that Denton's assault on evolutionary pattern has failed. The "problems" he points out with the evolutionary interpretation of the data have turned out to not be problems at all. It has additionally been shown - thanks to transitional forms, true homologous structures, and the various novelties that appear in embryological and molecular realms not subject to selective pressures - that deriving a typological pattern from the data is itself a problematic undertaking."

Thus on this point of hard evidence, it seems that evolutionists and anti-evolutionists will keep talking past each other due to different interpretations of the same evidence. A person's belief in evolution can be gauged by how much he is willing to say in the face of this collection of paleontological evidence.

One of the notes from the website is just plain denial:

^"2A creationist critic responded to me at this point by saying that all dogs are members of the same species, and that their variation thus does not constitute evidence for evolution. However, this critic misses my point entirely. What I was attempting to show was that large structural change could occur naturally. The fact that such change can occur within the same species makes the case for macroevolution stronger, not weaker."

It does not make the case for macroevolution stronger. This is just plain question-begging. The whole question should be reformulated as: Is gene-sequence change (mutation and muration rates, the basis for macroevolution) responsible for large structural changes, or are isolated gene pools, evo-devo factors and epigenetic changes (the latter two as bases for microevolution rather than macroevolution) responsible?

Stephen Jay Gould's punctuated equilibrium is only a statement at the species level, and not at the class level (per his comment on The Panda's Thumb). Therefore it is admittedly not appropriate to use it to argue with evolutionists about fossil change. The timescale is just different.

Can the mutation rate provide a cap on macroevolution? We can compare the mutation rate of the proposed ancestor of the Asian Elephant (specifically the subspecies Indian Elephant), the Woolly Mammoth (M25 sample), towards the Asian Elephant (0.4-0.6% genetic difference over 1.2 million years, so 5 × 10⁻⁹ per basepair per year), and the mutation rate of the Asian Elephant itself (5.3 × 10^-9 per generation, with generation time at 31 years, so a de novo substitution rate of 1.7 × 10⁻¹⁰per basepair per year). If the mutation rate for the Woolly Mammoth to the Asian Elephant is faster (30 times faster) even given this more generous estimate of the Woolly Mammoth's temporal distance from the Asian Elephant today, then we need to see how other factors make it faster. Since this is a sample gene among a larger population, we need to account for the population as well to know the true range of the gene pool and therefore the true genetic distance it needs to cover. This would involve finding the closest genetic ancestor among Woolly Mammoths to this particular Asian elephant being compared, but we might not have that. We could therefore guess in the opposite direction by taking the genetically closest Asian Elephant to that particular Woolly Mammoth.

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Analyzing the evolution-creation debate:

Enlarging the phenotype-space is valid as a rough support for evolution, if we calculate phenotype distance similarly to the distance between two points on a Euclidean space with multiple, mutually-orthogonal axes. Quantum, step-like changes (not to be confused with quantum mechanics) across phenotypes can produce a close-to-continuous fitness-spectrum that can fit multiple environments. Say, for example, 1 step in the x direction and 2 steps in the y direction, which produces a phenotype distance of 5 squared, smaller than 3 (if all 3 steps were taken in the same direction, say x). Actual calculations would determine the weight of each mutation by itself and paired with different distributions. Evolutionists will haggle on how much certain mutations or combinations of mutations can travel over from one species to another with a noticeably "novel" trait. They will also make the regions between the pockets more "forgiving" of mutations that are not-quite-there. If selection is hyper-sensitive, then no travel will be possible. Small deviations from one species will be quickly killed off before the next step of travel takes place. If selection is weakly sensitive, then deviations in all directions will be possible, and the tree will look more like a web with no identifiable "branches" giving structure to the "tree."

The gene sequence will have to travel from one adaptable pocket to the next. Evo-devo and epigenetics will turn those steps into jumps. The whole debate is about how plausible is the jump from one to the next, and fossils give clues to how those jumps actually happened (and incidentally, how they could happen). Evolutionists will therefore "continuitize" the available pockets as much as possible, and both "continuitize" and "amplify" the travel distance per gene mutation as much as possible. Evo-devo and epigenetics do cover a lot of distance, and therefore phenotypes could be chunked into a smaller number of genes. Is the chunking enough?

Most evolutionists will want to allow the whole tree of life (or tree of phenotypical-pockets) to converge to one point. The one tree could have "roots," but those multiple roots must too converge through mutative-biological mechanisms to one point. This is a testament to the incredible life-fitness of the cell. Michael Denton is the dissenter who thinks the phenotypical pockets only converge to multiple trees of life with no overlap between trees at the biological-mutative level (Typology), but could be "linked" to more fundamental physical constraints (Structuralism) or other factors. Denton is therefore an interesting evolutionist that gives us a gauge on the religiosity of the whole evolution camp. He is like the open-minded evolutionist who is sending an invitation to the physicists to calculate a higher probability of cell-like life formation. Evolutionists therefore would want him if they wanted to solve more convincingly the abiogenesis problem (the physicist/chemist side), but that would sacrifice the validity of pure, biological evolution.

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Can creationists leverage the problems of evolution without tacitly assuming other non-problematic features of evolution? Yes. All creationists have to do is point out the difficulties (the early appearance of angiosperm, the Cambrian explosion etc.) naturally arise when post-fall physical laws run against Creation initial conditions and discontinuous curse-events that potentially change the laws of the universe. This limits the use of science to purely predictive purposes and severely limits its use in retrodictive explanatory purposes past the curses and past the moment of Creation.

Young Earth Creationism/Young Universe Creationism:

A partial-apparent age treatment | Scientific Creationism - Henry Morris (1974)

Basic observations on apparent age and non-essential features:

The definition of non-essentiality is still far too broad (since essentiality is unreasonably limited to the Garden of Eden in only the first six days), and practical concerns (e.g. navigation over broad distances) that may arise in future non-fall scenarios are not considered among the essential features.

Apparent Age:

Good discussion about different varieties of Apparent Age views of the universe (I think partial apparent age would be the appropriate view) | Asa3

The detailed sequence of starlight would have the function of allowing humans to appreciate the deeper beauty of math and the night sky were humans not fallen and continued to receive direct revelation from God about the natural world. Thus it would merely extend the season-marking and beauty function of basic starlight up to the time when humans would be able to detect the intricate details and start micro-season marking (if, say, history at the femtosecond scale became an interesting project for humans in a supposed perfect world). Do not deny God's possibilities. There should not be just meaning in starlight in an "ancient pre-fall world" and a "modern post-fall world," but also a didactic function about what the world could be in a sadly contrafactual "modern non-fall world."

Humility in crediting God with honesty does not just have to be in asserting that there were non-essential details that have to be respectfully reconciled with a Biblical account, but humility should be exercised even in the interpretation of the details that were taken to be "non-essential" in the first place. How are we sure that we can only interpret detailed sequences as only something analogous to a "non-essential seal of authenticity"? Even as a partial apparent age-r, I could simply extend "essentiality" to include any didactic purpose in the future (indeed, detailed sequences of starlight were never a problem before, and has only now started to give us information about stars that keep its current state consistent with physical laws going both forward and backward in time; how can we venture to say that these details are non-essential?). In short, do we really know what would a minimum apparent age universe without non-essential details would look like? Or do we haggle unreasonably on what is non-essential?

I do not think the last sentence in the summary is honest enough: "This theory is scientifically supported, theologically satisfactory, matches our common sense intuitions about the reality of our experiences, and provides a solid foundation for science and for living by faith." Apparent age is in every way scientifically supported, theologically satisfactory and provides a solid foundation for science and even more so for living by faith, but I suspect that all the reasons that push one to prefer actual old age is snuck into the reasons of "common sense intuitions." Simply put (and to paraphrase Bertrand Russell), your common sense intuition just might not be common.

One harmonizing of old age universe laws and young-age universe history that ends up being complete but non-testable, and was rejected by both religious and scientific circles | OMPHALOS: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

Per Craig Rusbult on the ASA3 website:

Martin Gardner, in Facts & Fallacies (1957), agrees that Gosse "presented a theory so logically perfect, and so in accordance with geological facts that no amount of scientific evidence will ever be able to refute it." Burgeson also agrees: "Gosse argues well that any fiat creation, even by God, must necessarily include unreal history. His arguments need to be taken seriously."

I also think the author misinterprets Henry Morris' claim here:

"But instead of just defending apparent history, he goes on the offensive against its critics by claiming that apparent age is theologically essential: 'here could be no genuine creation of any kind, without an initial appearance of age inherent in it. ... When one decides to reject the concept of real Creation [with apparent age], there is no scientific stopping-point short of what amounts to atheism. ... It is essentially an affirmation of atheism, a denial of the possibility of a real Creation. (1961, pp 237-238)' Wow. This is quite a claim."

He expands Morris' attack on apparent age to mean an attack on old-universe views. But by this point, Morris' point is the implausibility of anti-Creation views, and therefore more attacking eternal universe views instead of views of the universe with arbitrarily old ages. The point is that no matter how old the universe is claimed to be, there will always be a beginning and therefore an absolute discontinuity with nothingness, and that is where the necessity of Creation will always be located. Apparent age is no longer apparent old-age, but "apparent eternality." As long as this is understood, there is no contradiction between Morris' claim here and Rusbult's.

There is an objection to non-essential features:

Hill Roberts says, regarding an "apparent age" explanation for how — if the universe is less than 10,000 years old — in 1987 we saw the supernova explosion of a star (or at least what appeared to be a star) that was 170,000 light-years away, If God created stars at such a distance, and intentionally created the starlight already at the earth from the beginning, then in this case (and many others as well) He would have had to encode the starlight with the history of an event (the change from normal star to explosion) that never actually happened — it just "appears" to have happened. If the universe is only a few thousand years old, this supernova has always been a supernova and never an ordinary star. But up until 1987 it was seen in the starlight to have been just an ordinary star. If God altered the history of this part of His creation to appear to be something it wasn't, who's to say what history is real and what history is fake? And why would God tell us to go look at natural history (Romans 1:19-20) to learn about His godly nature and power if natural history doesn't record true history? This would seem to be a problem since that same God tells us He cannot lie — Hebrews 6:18, Titus 1:2. I will not accept that God is a liar, even if it's just a little "white lie" to astronomers. Therefore, I don't think God faked this event in the starlight. It must have really happened 170,000 years ago. {source}

This objection is unsatisfying. The question that can be raised towards this claim is: why is the statement that "it must have really happened 170,000 years ago" taken as absolute, incontrovertible fact? Is it not enough to say that the phenomenon was given to us at an earlier date than what is expected for star maturity? The phenomenon would be "essential" (or even for night-sky-beautifying purposes) for giving us an even more bright and structured signal to define the night sky. It could also be said to act as a proof of a theory that stars reach supernova (should mankind ever come to that theory and use it for further development of science or just take that theory as an object of marvel itself). The same could be said about why the stars should be positioned so assymetrically across the sky instead of symmetrically (which presents problems for determining which way was stellar north). Be creative!

Homology

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Apologetics (What is Truth: Epistemology and Natural Science)

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