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a deviation from the expected course, a mutation involving chromosomes | |
the generation of living things from nonliving material (spontaneous generation) | |
the deliberate termination of a pregnancy, usually before the embryo or fetus is capable of independent life | |
the process of becoming accustomed to a new environment | |
an adjustment in the structure or function within the genetic range of an organism so that the organism benefits | |
one who thinks that it is impossible to know whether there is a God, or a future life, or anything beyond material phenomena | |
the quality or state of being alkaline (soluble mineral salt capable of neutralizing an acid) | |
the Moslem name for the Supreme Being | |
one of several alternative forms of a gene occupying a given locus on a chromosome | |
earth, sand, gravel and other transported matter which has been washed away and deposited by flowing water, especially along a river bed | |
an organic molecule containing both an amino group and a carboxyl group. Those that serve as the building blocks of protein are alpha amino acids, having both the amino and carboxyl groups linked to the same carbon atom | |
the representation of something as existing or occurring at another than its proper time; anything out of its proper historical time | |
able to live and grow where there is no air or free oxygen, as certain bacteria | |
a type of fine-grained extrusive volcanic rock containing acid plagioclase | |
the belief that all life is produced by a spiritual force separate from matter; the belief that natural phenomena and objects, as rocks, trees, the wind, etc. are alive and have souls | |
anaerobic; without the presence of oxygen | |
before the Flood or Deluge of Noah's time; relating to things or times antecedent to the Deluge | |
a concept about the significance of all factors that appear to be carefully designed for the well-being of mankind | |
having human shape and appearance | |
prejudice against Jews; dislike or fear of Jews and Jewish things | |
of doubtful authorship or authenticity; hence fictitious or false | |
the creation was "mature" from its birth and did not have to grow or develop from a simple beginning | |
a mineral made up of calcium carbonate in orthorhombic crystals, with less distinct cleavage and greater density than calcite | |
living in trees; pertaining to life in woods or trees | |
the study of the magnetization of bricks, pottery, campfire stones, and other man-related objects studied by archaeologists. Iron oxides in those objects retain a record of the strength and direction of the earth's magnetic field at the time they last cooled to normal temperatures | |
a fossil bird that has some unusual characteristics, such as teeth and a bony tail; evolutionists claim it is the earliest known bird to appear in the fossil record after the evolution of birds from reptiles | |
in biology, the theoretical basic design from which any group of organisms may be said to have sprung | |
the philosophical system of Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher of the fourth century B.C., maintaining the deductive method in opposition to the inductive method, and experimentalism as opposed to intuitionalism | |
having an even number of toes or digits | |
Aryan has no validity as a racial term, although it has been so used, notoriously by the Nazis to mean "a Caucasian of non-Jewish descent," etc. The use of the word in connection with race is due to the idea, regarded as false by most ethnologists, that peoples who spoke the same or related languages must have had a common racial origin | |
an object orbiting the sun that is smaller than a major planet, but has no atmosphere | |
impact craters on the Earth from meteors | |
the semi-major axis of the orbit of the Earth; it is also defined in terms of the speed of light | |
in the manner of an asymptote (a line which continually approaches nearer to some curve, but though indefinitely extended, would never meet it) | |
the doctrine of disbelief in a Supreme Being | |
one who believes in atheism (that there is no God) | |
the smallest particle of an element that retains the properties that characterize the element | |
the number of protons in each atom of a particular element | |
the mean mass of an atom of a particular element in atomic mass units | |
nucleoside triphosphate composed of adenosine, ribose, and three phosphate groups that is the principle carrier of chemical energy in cells. The terminal phosphate groups are highly reactive in the sense that their hydrolysis, or transfer to another molecule, takes place with the release of a large amount of free energy | |
(literally "Southern Ape"); a genus of extinct apes found only in Africa; divided into two groups—robust australopithecines (Australopithecus boisei) and gracile australopithecines (Australopithecus africanus) | |
of obvious truth; self-evident |
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Baby-boomers | the generation of people born in the U.S. during the great increase in birthrate (the baby boom) in the years following World War II |
Baramin | from Hebrew bare = "create" and min = "kind"; the term baramin was introduced by Frank Marsh as a word to describe the "kinds" of plants and animals created by God |
Basalt | an extrusive igneous rock, dark in color and usually exhibiting columnar jointing; it is composed primarily of silicon, oxygen, iron, aluminum, and magnesium, produced by the cooling of lava. Basalts make up most of Earth's oceanic crust. |
Base | molecule (usually containing nitrogen) that accepts a proton in solution; often used to refer to the purine and pyrimidine subunits in DNA and RNA |
Basicranium | the base of the skull |
Basilosaurus | fossil animals that resemble whales; they reached 70 feet in length with a long tail and front paddles; they were long and very thin and had serrated teeth and apparently small rear limb structures; had a world-wide distribution in Eocene rock |
Behemoth | a huge animal described in Job 40:15 - 24; it is said to have "its strength in its loins" and it "moves its tail like a cedar tree;" |
Belles Lettres | literature as one of the fine arts; fiction, poetry, drama, etc. as distinguished from technical and scientific writings |
Biblical creation | the supernatural creation of all things in six literal days by the God of the Bible |
Big Bang | a naturalistic theory of origins which assert that the universe began by undirected expansion from a single point over a long period of time to the size it is now |
Binary star | two stars revolving around each other |
Biogenic law | (ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny); the theory that as the human embryo develops, it goes through evolutionary stages—from fish stage with gill slits to bird stage with yolk sac to mammal stage with a tail—to the human stage |
Bipedalism | using two feet |
Bird- hipped | any dinosaur in which all the pelvic bones are oriented in the same direction (as in bird pelvises) |
Bolshevism | the policies and practices of the radical branch of the Socialist Democratic Party of Russia that favored the rule of the proletariat (the working class) |
Bourgeoisie class | the social class between the aristocracy (or very wealthy) and the working class (or Proletariat); the middle class; in Marxist doctrine, capitalists as a social class antithetical to the Proletariat |
Butte | an isolated hill, usually capped by a flat-lying resistant layer of rock. A butte is the erosional remnant of strata, which were once more extensive. May be contrasted with a mesa which is much more broad than it is tall. |
Byzantine era | the Byzantine Empire, centered at Constantinople, began as the eastern portion of the Roman Empire; it included parts of Europe and western Asia. As the Roman Empire declined, the Byzantine Empire grew in importance and remained an important power until the eleventh century when it was conquered by the Turks |
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Calcite | calcium carbonate (CaCO3) with hexagonal crystallization; calcite is a mineral found in limestone, marble, chalk, Iceland spar, etc. |
Caldera | a deep caldron-like cavity found at the summit of a volcano, formed by an explosion or by the collapse of the cone |
Catalyst | substance that accelerates a chemical reaction without itself undergoing a change. Enzymes are protein catalysts |
Catastrophism | rapid catastrophic processes that affected the earth on a global and regional scale |
Caudal | pertaining to or resembling a tail |
Cellulose | structural polysaccharide consisting of long chains of covalently linked glucose units. It provides tensile strength in plant cell walls. |
Chemical evolution | the formation of complex organic molecules from simpler inorganic molecules through chemical reactions supposedly in the oceans in the early history of the Earth. |
Chiral | optical isomers; two molecules are chiral if they have the same atoms arranged in "opposite" orders, so they appear to be "left-handed and "right-handed" or mirror images of each other |
Chlorophyll | the green coloring matter contained in plants; in the presence of sunlight it converts carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates |
Chondrodystophy | (Conradi's disease) a vertebral defect in which the vertebral bodies do not fuse and are split by a cartilage plate that runs through the affected vertebral bodies |
Chordata | phylum of animals that possess a notochord, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, pharyngeal gill slits, and a postanal tail as embryos |
Christology | doctrines concerning the person of Christ |
Chromosome | a discrete unit of the genome carrying many genes. Each chromosome consists of a very long molecule of duplex DNA and an approximately equal mass of proteins. It is visible as a morphological entity only during cell division. |
Circularity | the state of being circular; a circular form |
Cladistics | a taxonomic approach that classifies organisms according to the order in time at which branches arise along a phylogenic tree, without considering the degree of morphological divergence |
Clastic | Consisting of rocks or of organic components that have been moved individually from their place of origin. |
Cleft palate | a split from the front to the back along the middle of the roof of the mouth caused by the failure of the two parts of the palate to join in prenatal development |
Closed system | a system that does not gain energy from without or lose energy to the outside |
Coacervate | a fluid sediment rich in colloidal substances that forms a layer, or floats in droplets, but remains distinct from non-colloidal solution. The coacervate droplets may fuse with each other, but they will never fuse with material from the non-colloidal layer. |
COBE | a satellite that measured the direction and amount of energy in the background radiation |
Coelacanth | any of several "primitive" ganoid fishes, thought to be ancestors to land animals: so called because of their hollow spines: they were long believed to be extinct, but several living species have been found in recent times |
Coelurosaurian dinosaurs | a group of small, light-weight theropods |
Cold Big Whoosh | the name given to the first stage of expansion of the universe from a cosmic egg to grapefruit size |
Cold Dark Matter (CDM) | an attempt to salvage the Big Bang theory by imagining the presence of missing matter in the form of unseen cold dark mass |
Comet | a small body of icy and dusty matter that revolves about the sun |
Commercialism | the methods and spirit of commerce and business; the spirit or principles of trade |
Committees of Correspondence | a "loosely organized system of autonomous committees, one for each state, was established to respond to anti-evolutionist pressure." (National Center for Science Education Reports Jan.- Feb. 1989 pp.7 - 10 by Wayne Moyer, Past President of NCSE) |
Communism | a social structure where all things are held in common; Marx and Engels regarded communism as the final stage of social development, a state to be reached after socialism has been achieved. In the canons of Marxist doctrine, society began with a "primitive communism" and will end with the withering away of the state. To reach this goal, the stages of revolution and the "dictatorship of the proletariat" must occur. |
Communist Utopianism | visionary schemes for producing perfection in social or political conditions by removing societal classes |
Communists | those who hold the doctrines of, or practice communism |
Concordia plots | a plot of 206Pb:238U against 207Pb:235U for concordant samples of various ages; should define a single curve (Concordia). If the ratios plotted for samples fall below this concordant age pattern expected for the rock body, this produces a discordant age pattern. A straight line drawn through two or more such points should intersect the Concordia curve at two points |
Conductivity | the ability to transfer energy by the direct passing of energy or electrons from atom to atom |
Conduit | a canal, pipe, or passageway for the conveyance of fluids |
Conglomerate | A sedimentary rock composed of rounded fragments of pebbles, cobbles, or boulders. If the fragments are angular, the rock is called breccia |
Continental drift | the drift of the continents over the surface of the Earth due to plate tectonics |
Convection | in physics, the transmission of heat or electricity by the mass movement of the heated or electrified particles, as in air, gas, or liquid currents |
Coptic | the ancient Hamitic language of the Copts, now only used in the ritual of the Coptic Church (the native Christian church of Egypt, and at one time of Ethiopia |
Coriolis effect | action produced by the acceleration of any body moving at a constant speed above the Earth with respect to the surface of the rotating Earth; inertial force caused by the Earth's rotation that deflects a moving body to the right in the northern hemisphere (vice verse in the southern hemisphere) |
Cosmic background radiation | the microwave radiation coming from all directions that is believed by evolutionists to be the red shifted glow of the big bang |
Cosmic egg | the evolutionary idea that the universe was once compressed into an initial tiny mass |
Cosmic pantheism* | the belief that the whole universe is a live, conscious being |
Cosmogony | the study of the origin and evolution of the universe |
Cosmological principle | the evolutionary idea that the universe should be uniformly distributed in space |
Cosmology | theory or philosophy of the nature and principles of the universe |
Cosmos | the universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole |
Council at Constantinople | the council held in 381 A.D. that modified the Nicene Creed; Constantinopolitan Creed is accepted by the Eastern Orthodox Church |
Council at Nicea | the council held in Nicea in 325 A.D. under Pope Silvester I on account of the Aryan heresy. It drew up the Nicene Creed and settled the controversy as to the keeping of Easter |
Council at Ephesus | the third ecumenical council held in Ephesus in A.D. 431 that established Mary's place as the "Mother of God" in Western Catholic theology |
Covalent | a type of chemical bond that forms in which two atoms share electrons to fill their outer shells |
Cranial capacity* | the size of the brain |
Creation | regarding origins, the doctrine that God was the Author of all things |
Creationism | The doctrine that both living and non-living things came into existence by the supernatural acts of God. The idea that things were formed by an intelligent cause |
Creative cosmos | the belief that evolutionary progress is an intrinsic property of the universe itself; matter has the ability to arrange itself into more and more complex forms |
Creative evolution | theistic evolution |
Crevassing | making a deep crack or fissure or a break in a river embankment, usually by pressure or high water |
Crinoids | designating or of a class (Crinoidea) of echinoderms, some of which are flowerlike in form and are anchored by a stalk opposite the mouth, others of which are free-swimming |
Cross-bedding | oblique pattern of stratification in a layer of rock produced by water or wind currents |
Cultural evolution | a sociological manipulation of countries to reject nationalism and encourage globalism |
Cultural relativism | the theory of ethics or knowledge which maintains that the basis of judgment is relative, differing according to culture |
Cuneiform | the wedge-shaped characters in the inscriptions of the ancient Akkadians, Babylonians, Persians, and Assyrians, or the inscriptions themselves |
Cynodont | a group of reptiles with mammalian characteristics, supposed to be quite advanced in the evolution of reptiles to mammals |
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| Daltons | in biochemistry, a unit of mass, 1/16 of an oxygen atom: approximately 1.65 X 10-24 gram |
Darwinian evolution | evolution according to Darwin's theory which holds that all species of plants and animals developed from earlier forms by hereditary transmission of slight variations in successive generations, those forms surviving which are best adapted to the environment (natural selection and survival of the fittest) |
Darwinism | belief in or support of Darwin's theory of evolution, which holds that all species of plants and animals developed from earlier forms by hereditary transmission of slight variations in successive generations, those forms surviving which are best adapted to the environment (natural selection and survival of the fittest) |
Day Age Theory | a theory for the origin of the universe that compromises the Biblical account with long geologic ages; says that each of the days of creation were long ages during which evolution occurred; to avoid contradictions in the days and geologic record, the days supposedly overlapped; we are presently in the "seventh day" of rest. |
Day interpretations | "The use of "Day" (Hebrew Yom) in Genesis 1:5 is its first occurrence in Scripture, and here it is specifically defined by God as "the light" in the cyclical succession of light and darkness which has, ever since, constituted a solar day. Since the same word is used in defining all later "yoms" as used for this "first" yom, it is incontrovertible that God intends us to know that the days of creation were of the same duration as any natural solar day. The word yom in the Old Testament almost always is used in this natural way and is never used to mean any other definite time period than a literal day. This becomes especially clear when it is combined with an ordinal ("first day") or with definite bounds ("evening and morning"), neither of which usages in the Old Testament allow non-literal meanings. It is occasionally, though rarely, used symbolically or in the sense of indefinite time ("the day of the Lord," I Thessalonians 5:2), but such usage (as in English or other languages) is always evident from the context itself. Thus the so- called day- age theory, by which the days of creation are assumed to correspond to the ages of geology, is precluded by this definitive use of the word in its first occurrence, God Himself defining it." (Morris, H. 1995. The Defender's Study Bible KJV. World Publishing, Grand Rapids p.4.) |
Dead Sea Scrolls | a large collection of written scrolls, containing all of the Old Testament, found in a cave near the Dead Sea in the late 1940s. The scrolls were part of a library of some Essenes, a religious community of Jews that flourished for a few centuries around the time of Jesus. The scrolls are highly valued for the information they give about the Bible and about Judaism in the period. |
Deamination | the removal of an amine group |
Deformation (of rock) | The group of processes that, because of application of pressure, change the form or volume of a rock. Folding, faulting, and solid flow are specific processes leading to deformation. |
Democratic socialists | socialism is a system of social organization in which private property and the distribution of income are subject to social control, rather than to determination by individuals pursuing their own interests or by the market forces of capitalism. Democratic refers to the government supplying the capital for the establishment of producers’ cooperatives that would emancipate labor from capitalist domination. (Britannica Macropedia 27 p444) |
Dendrochronology | the study of tree rings; can determine wet seasons, dry seasons, insect infestation, frost, and some unusual weather patterns |
Dentary bone | the bones in mammalian lower jaws that hold teeth. Mammals have two dentary bones - one on each side of the jaw |
Deoxy-ribose | same as the pentose sugar ribose, except that the hydroxyl on the 3' carbon of ribose is replaced by a hydrogen atom |
Design | Particular order or form which, by the "principle of uniform experience," requires an intelligent cause. |
Determinism | (1) the doctrine that everything is entirely determined by a sequence of causes (2) the doctrine that one's choice of action is not free, but is determined by a sequence of causes independent of the will |
Dialectic materialism | the philosophy originated by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, an application of Hegel's logical methods (dialectic) to philosophical materialism; the official doctrine of communism |
Dikes | A tabular body of intrusive rock that cuts across the structural features (e.g., stratification) of the surrounding rock. |
Diorama | a miniature scene, wholly or partially three-dimensional, depicting figures in a naturalistic setting |
Dipole field | earth's main magnetic field that is produced by the current circulating at the core of the earth |
Discontinuity systematics | a method of classification that "tries to identify the boundaries of evolutionary continuity emulating a neutral scientist who (1) has no detailed knowledge of creation theory and (2) views phenetic and cladistic patterns skeptically or agnostically" (ReMine, W. 1993. The Biotic Message: Evolution versus Message Theory. p. 444.) |
Disintegration index | (decay constant) the time t for an exponentially decaying quantity to decrease to 1/e of its initial value (where e is the base of the logarithm) |
Divergence | the act or state of diverging or branching off; going farther apart |
DNA | the hereditary molecule within the nucleus of eucaryotic cells, or the cytoplasm of procaryotic cells |
Doctrinaire evolutionism | practitioners of evolution who dogmatically seek to apply theories regardless of the practical problems involved (Webster’s New World Dictionary p.414) |
Dolostone | sedimentary deposit of dolomite (rock of which more than 50% by weight consists of the mineral dolomite) |
Doppler effect | apparent change in wavelength of the radiation from a source due to its relative motion in the line of sight |
Dromous | running, moving |
Dynamic-decay theory | a version of the free decay theory to explain the origin and decay of the earth's magnetic field; states that the energy of the field has always decreased rapidly, especially during reversals and fluctuations |
Dynamo hypothesis | a theory for the origin and properties of the earth's magnetic field; states that complex processes in the earth's core have converted heat energy into electrical energy, maintaining the field for billions of years |
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