Ken Ham

The founder of Answers in Genesis, the popular Creation Museum, and the world-renowned Ark Encounter.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Our Creator holds us accountable for our actions (Genesis 2:17) and expects us to choose and distinguish between right and wrong.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Consider a forensic scientist.

Imagine forensic scientists trying to solve a murder. They may find someone’s fingerprints and even blood type at the scene. The circumstantial evidence can overwhelmingly point to a particular person being the murderer. That person could be found guilty and put in jail. But these scientists didn’t have all evidence.

What happens if some evidence is found later that would throw a whole different light on the murder scene and that the murder was actually committed by someone else? This has really happened more than once in real life. There have been people found guilty of a crime based on circumstantial evidence only to be found to be innocent later on when additional evidence comes along.

Now apply this to the creation/evolution issue.

People may think that the evolutionists’ view of history makes sense of the evidence of the present. But they don’t know everything there is to know, so they don’t know for sure they have the correct interpretation of the evidence.

But God’s Word is the Word of the One who knows everything and understands all the evidence. That’s why we need to trust what God states in Genesis concerning origins and use what God reveals to judge the ideas of man—not the other way around as has happened so much in the church.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

According to God’s Word, humans were specially created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Footnotes are not inspired by God!

I remember my father telling me when looking at the notes in the Scofield Reference Bible about the supposed “gap theory” (the idea of a gap of millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) that we needed to always understand the notes were not inspired like the Word of God. He told me that God’s Word should always be looked on as the commentary on the notes and not the other way around because only God knows everything, and it’s God’s Word we can totally trust.

In other words, we should judge the notes by what God’s Word states. And when we do—the gap theory fails!

The notes were fallible, the text of Scripture is infallible.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Morality simply cannot be the result of naturalistic processes over millions of years.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

How much do you know?

Well, no matter how much we know, there’s an infinite amount more to know. This means no matter how much we know, we don’t know how much we do know or don’t know in relation to whatever there is to know. That means we just don’t know much at all.

That’s the lesson God taught Job. When Job was going to argue with God concerning what had happened to him, God then asked Job a series of questions to show him that he didn’t know much at all compared to God. That’s why after God had enabled Job to understand how finite his understanding was, Job said:

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2–6).

Job recognized, as we all need to recognize, that we know next to nothing compared to God. How arrogant of humans to think they know better than God when they determine man’s views of origins must be correct, and therefore, we have to reinterpret God’s Word in Genesis to tell God what is supposedly actually true about the origin and history of life and the universe.

No, God’s Word is a revelation from God who doesn’t lie, who knows everything. This means all our thinking in every area has to be founded on God’s Word. We must use God’s Word to judge what man is saying and not the other way around.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Humans aren’t basically good!

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

What does a recent controversy about a YouTuber and AI teach us about morality?

So here’s the story, according to reports: YouTuber Hank Green, who has 3.2 million subscribers across his channels, recently had to apologize after fans noticed an AI prompt response in one of his videos, showing that he’d been using AI to create the video. After the backlash, he shared that he’s pausing producing videos on some of his channels, saying:

“I have been relying too heavily on AI as a research aid. . . . It can be very useful for this task, giving me access to a lot of papers I didn’t know existed really fast, but I think that has been to the detriment of my work because it has not given me the freedom to find all of my own ways into and around a topic.”

With how new AI is, the debate rages about ethical and unethical uses for AI. Now, most people would agree there’s nothing wrong with using AI as a productivity tool or for research assistance, maybe even for generating an outline or script that a human fact-checks and adds on to. Many of us at AiG will use AI for such purposes. But when people pass off AI generated content as if it were their own, many people get upset. And why? Well, because it’s a form of plagiarism and seems dishonest. But where does the idea of honesty come from?

You see, people want content creators to be honest, but the concept of honesty comes from a biblical worldview, which most people in our culture today reject. In a secular worldview, there is no moral imperative to be honest—as long as you are getting what you want, why be honest? The end justifies the means! If there is no ultimate authority, there is no ultimate morality, and therefore nothing is truly right or truly wrong. Sure, we may prefer honesty, but that’s all it is—a personal preference—and others might not have the same preference (and without a moral authority, we can’t judge preferences!).

Whenever these kinds of moral controversies erupt, it’s a good reminder that morality only makes sense in a biblical worldview founded on God’s Word. It’s only because we have an ultimate authority—the unchanging Word of God—that we can say whether things are right or wrong. And the biblical worldview also explains why we intrinsically know things like honesty are moral—we have God’s law written on our hearts (our consciences).

Apart from a God-given conscience (which is immaterial), there is no consistent reason humans should just know certain things are right or wrong. Our conscience is another reminder that God’s Word is true.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

A brand-new Gallup poll just revealed a number that has evolutionary scientists frustrated. Why is it that such a sizable portion of Americans still believe in young-earth creationism despite all the attempts to indoctrinate?

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Just as there was one door on the ark, there is only one door by which we can go to heaven.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

“Why did anyone do this study?”

Sometimes I come across a study that just makes me wonder, “Why did anyone do this study?” And a recent study is a great example of that. The study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, looked at ape and human skulls to see if ancient human infants were as helpless as today’s human infants—all in an effort to discover when our larger brains supposedly evolved—and, well, I don’t think you’ll be shocked by the study findings!

Here’s how they describe the “need” for this study in the abstract of the paper:

“Unlike other catarrhine primates, modern humans deliver a helpless newborn who requires prolonged extensive care. Such helpless infancy is associated with fetus-like, rapid postnatal brain growth, which is essential to produce the large human brain. In the debate about its evolution, a key question has been whether it emerged in Homo erectus, whose brain sizes were approximately 20–40% smaller than Homo sapiens.”

To test this, the authors examined 1,504 “cranial specimens,” including nearly 1,000 from great apes and over 500 from modern humans, looking for deformational plagiocephaly, otherwise known as flat head syndrome. This deformity comes from human babies lying too long on their backs or in the same position and being unable to lift their heads. Apes do not suffer from this condition as they have stronger head control from birth.

The researchers assume that if a skull shows this deformity, it must be because the infant was helpless, like today’s infants. They then looked at cranial fossils from archaic humans, Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis (the so-called “Hobbits”), and found that two of the H. erectus specimens and one of the H. floresiensis specimens exhibited this deformational plagiocephaly. The researchers’ conclusion?

“These support a deep evolutionary origin of hominin helpless infancy, and imply both elaborate parental childcare and cooperative social behaviours that could likely have accompanied it.”

In other words, humans had babies that looked and acted like human babies! What a shock!

The paper even notes that while Australopithecus—another supposed human ancestor that was really just a variety of ape—was not included in the study, they believe, based on other data, that this species would have had a “postnatal brain and cranial growth pattern” that was “probably different” from the similar-size H. floresiensis (they were quite a short people group) and therefore:

“The brain size reduction in the lineage of H. floresiensis was not a simple evolutionary reversal toward the Australopithecus condition; it was rather a unique adaptation that occurred in an insular Homo group while retaining human-like infant growth pattern accompanied by helpless infancy.”

In other words, the apes had babies that were apes and looked and behaved like baby apes, and the humans had babies that were humans and looked and behaved like baby humans. What an incredibly shocking study!

The more evolutionists attempt to prove their worldview of millions of years of slow and gradual processes, the more they reveal the truth: God created all of life according to its kind. Apes have always been apes, and humans have always been humans.

We aren’t related to today’s living apes or to extinct ones like Australopithecus. All humans—Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, and any other variety (falsely called “species”)—are descendants of the first human couple, Adam and Eve, and made in the image of God. Variety in humans is the result of the genetic diversity God created at the beginning and of the event at Babel, which split the human genome up for a time.

The Bible, not evolutionary fairy tales (which is the correct description of the research mentioned above), explains what we observe.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

There will never be another global flood as a judgment, but there is another judgment coming: when God will judge with fire and make a new heavens and earth.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

“Charles Darwin was just proven right after 150 years!”

You might be surprised that I can agree with this headline! Something Charles Darwin believed actually was just proven to be correct.

Of course, Darwin is most well-known for his ideas regarding naturalistic evolution—and this new study had absolutely nothing to do with that. What Darwin is less known for is his obsession with carnivorous plants such as sundews (pitcher plants and Venus flytraps are other well-known carnivorous plant species).

Darwin spent countless hours feeding various things to these plants and recording his observations, which were published in his 1875 book Insectivorous Plants. In that book, he apparently speculated that two species, Saxifraga rotundifolia and Saxifraga umbrosa (both low-growing plants with tall flower stalks), were insect-eaters. These plants have hairlike structures that ooze a gooey substance that Darwin observed was frequently covered in gnats. He thought this plant might be digesting the gnats, but he could never prove it.

Inspired by this hypothesis, a team of researchers put it to the test, using Saxifraga candelabrum (an alpine species in the same kind), as the test plant.

Here’s how they pulled off this rather high-tech study:

“Through chemical analysis, scientists showed how the plants attracted tiny gnats with tempting odors and then digested trapped prey using an enzyme called phosphatase. Isotope labeling — a technique for tagging forms of an element with different atomic weights — highlighted the transfer of the nutrient nitrogen-15 from insect prey to the plants that dissolved them, indicating a direct path from trapping to digestion.

“Genetic analysis then clarified S. candelabrum’s relationship to other sticky carnivorous plants, revealing shared genes linked to traits such as prey attraction, digestion and nutrient absorption. When the scientists expanded their investigation to include other types of traps, they found dozens of genes across different plant groups related to digesting insect remains.”

In other words, Darwin was right—this plant was indeed purposefully luring in insects, trapping them, and digesting them to supplement its need for nitrogen (the alpine soil they grow in has low levels of this necessary nutrient). And researchers think their study can be used to reveal hidden carnivory in a variety of other species.

“‘Some species of the plants previously only known to bear sticky glandular hairs or trap insects incidentally may actually have undiscovered digestive and nutrient absorption capabilities. . . . Carnivory is likely far more widely distributed among angiosperms’ — or flowering plants — ‘than previously believed, and new carnivorous plant lineages may be discovered in the future.’”

Of course, this is all observational science. Researchers are doing experiments and using technology in unique ways to uncover the mysteries of plants. Like Darwin’s experiments in the 1870s, they are doing good observational science. But, also like Darwin, these researchers then leave the realm of observable, repeatable, testable science to try to explain where this ability came from—and they’ve now stepped into historical science. Historical science isn’t directly testable, repeatable, or observable. Rather, it’s an interpretation of the evidence in the present based on a view of the past. That’s what evolution is: an attempt to explain the past based on a particular worldview (an atheistic, naturalistic worldview that excludes the supernatural).

So how do they explain this carnivory in over 750 species (across what is likely 14 kinds) of plants? Well, a botanist not involved with the study was cited as saying that

“at least 350,000 species of flowering plants exist, of which more than 750 species are known to be carnivorous. Different styles of carnivory evolved independently in 14 plant families — a process called convergent evolution — and the study provides important new information about this intriguing lifestyle.”

In this view, the ability and necessary adaptations to eat insects independently evolved 14 different times! Yes, evolution is a belief system—a blind-faith belief!

Now, how do we understand these sorts of “murderous” plants in a biblical worldview? Well, God’s original creation was “very good,” but now it is fallen, and that fallen state includes modifications to plants, including “thorns and thistles” as Genesis 3:17–18 says. The ability to trap and consume insects may be one of these post-Fall modifications that allows plants to thrive in a world with many different environments, including nutrient-poor ones. (There’s also debate on whether insects meet the criteria for nephesh life, and therefore perhaps they, like plants, don’t “die” in the biblical sense.)

Plants continue to show the handiwork and creativity of God. As the botanist cited above noted, “identifying S. candelabrum as carnivorous also reminds us that plants are full of surprises and that there is much to still be discovered about them. . . . ‘We are still barely scratching the surface of botanical knowledge.’” Yes, the more we learn, the more we learn that there is more to learn!

So, yes, Darwin’s hypothesis, based on observations of plants in the present, was recently proven correct. But what will never be proven correct are his worldview-based assumptions about the past that led to the development of modern-day evolutionary beliefs. Evolution is just a fairy tale!

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

The Bible records the history of the universe from the days of creation.

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

“The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”

That was a claim reportedly made back in 2019 by Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). Of course, doing the math, that means we all have a mere five years left (unless you take a different climate prediction that put the end of the world due to climate change smack-dab in 2026!).

The clip of AOC’s “climate prophecy” has resurfaced because she recently posted a video showing her injecting herself with hormones so she can freeze her eggs to maybe have a child someday. And so people are asking, “If the world is ending in five years—in just 2031—why are you planning to possibly have a baby?” And, of course, the answer is because none of the dire climate predictions of the past have come true and there’s no sign that hers will be an exception to the rule! In fact, I predict it will not come true—unless Jesus returns!

And the data confirms that. Recently, a man who goes by the name “The Honest Broker” created a US Extreme Weather and Climate Change Dashboard that “follows the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) framework for detecting a change in climate in the context of internal variability. This dashboard tracks 38 variables associated with 8 types of extremes: heat waves, cold extremes, tornadoes, flooding, drought, winter storms, wildfire, and hurricanes.”

And what was the result? In terms of long-term change, there was no detected change in five of the eight categories. Of the remaining three categories, one (cold extremes) is decreasing, and only two are currently increasing (heat waves and wildfires). That’s a very different story than you will hear from the mainstream media! Anytime there’s a weather event—a hurricane, tornado, flood, heat wave, etc.—it’s always blamed on man-made climate change. But the data doesn’t support that hype!

Yes, the climate is changing. It’s changed in the past, and it will continue to change in the future. There’s been climate change ever since Noah’s Flood. But the idea that it’s man-made and catastrophic, leading to an apocalyptic scenario in just a few years if we don’t do something dramatic, isn’t supported by the data. And that’s why these end-of-the-world doomsday claims never come to fruition. They’re poor interpretations of the data based on a certain environmentalist worldview.

We believe that God created the climate. He made it intelligently and designed it for life to flourish. Yes, it varies over time (the global Flood of Noah’s day was the most dramatic climate change of all time, resulting in the Ice Age), but it’s relatively stable and self-correcting. And that’s what we actually observe!

The world isn’t going to end in five years due to climate change, no matter what politicians say. The world will end when Jesus returns to judge sin and make a new heavens and a new earth. In the meantime, we’re to be good stewards of creation, caring for it with wisdom and using what God has provided for our good and His glory.

And remember God’s promise to Noah (and therefore all of humanity):

“While all the days of the earth remain,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

“How much would you pay for a smarter baby?”

That’s the question an article in The Economist is asking as it highlights boutique IVF clinics, part of a “burgeoning industry aspir[ing] to reshape the way humans are made” by allowing parents to screen their embryos for IQ, height, and eye color.

These start-ups are front and center in the commodification of children, turning human beings into products so wealthy parents can—according to their advertising on the New York subway—“have [their] best baby.”

Of course, this kind of specialized screening is out of reach (thankfully!) for most couples using IVF, as the screening currently costs up to $50,000. But these start-ups believe that AI and other technological advancements will soon make it more affordable. And if that’s the case, parents are going to use it. The article notes, “demand for such tests could be substantial.”

“Nearly three-quarters of American IVF patients say they would use such tests if free…

“A survey published in 2023 in Science found that 43% of all IVF participants would use polygenic screening to increase their child’s chance of getting into an elite university, provided it were safe and free. [Safe for whom? Certainly not for the babies who are discarded simply for potentially having a lower IQ than their siblings!] A third said the same for genetic editing.”

These survey results should be utterly shocking—we are talking about parents deciding which of their children are born and which either become medical waste or are frozen indefinitely simply based on IQ, height, eye color, or future health risk. How evil!

These tests are just the next step in the commodification of children. Listen to how the men and women behind these start-ups talk about these services (keep in mind these are babies—real human beings made in God’s image—they are talking about):

“Late last year New Yorkers noticed a series of strange advertisements on the subway. ‘Have your best baby,’ one promised. ‘IQ is 50% genetic,’ noted another. Predictably, they stirred controversy. Yet Kian Sadeghi of Nucleus, the embryo-screening startup behind them, was pleased. ‘This is a mass-market product. What’s a better way of showing that it’s a mass-market product than the subway?’ . . .

“Noor Siddiqui of Orchid, a competitor, likes to say that ‘sex is for fun; embryo screening is for babies.’ . . .

“As for ethics, Mr Asparouhov argues that all parents-to-be engage in a form of genetic selection when they choose a partner. “If this is eugenics, then so is Hinge,” he argues. [Of course, he’s ignoring that there’s a big difference between embryo screening and dating websites in that when you “swipe left” on someone on a dating app, you aren’t killing them or indefinitely putting them into a freezer!]”

Or listen to what one parent who used this technology shared:

“‘Most of my professional career I’ve been a product manager in tech, and so in some ways this is just like another product to manage,’ he says. . . . ‘All I could do is look at the results for my six embryos and say: “Okay, it kind of seems like this one is better.”’”

Yes, he looked at his six children and then picked the one that looked the best, just like he was managing some kind of tech product. One wonders what happened to the other five children who didn’t look as good to him.

As I said, this kind of boutique screening is currently only available for the wealthy, but that doesn’t mean the average IVF user isn’t also screening their embryos. They are, just not to this degree. As the article explains,

“Some screening is already common among IVF patients. One example is PGT-A, which checks embryos have the right number of chromosomes, and which some studies claim lowers the miscarriage risk (many experts are sceptical). Certain clinics also offer PGT-M, which checks for disorders caused by a single gene, such as cystic fibrosis or Huntington’s.”

Babies who have the wrong number of chromosomes (e.g., children with Down syndrome), have a high miscarriage risk, or will have a disorder like cystic fibrosis are typically never given a chance to live; they are routinely discarded. As I shared in a blog post last year, more babies are discarded through IVF than children killed in abortion in the US.

Of course, those discussing this new technology and these screenings never mention what happens to the embryos that “don’t make the grade.” Consider how the testing is framed as “reducing risk”:

“It claims that, if it tests ten embryos for a couple where both parents have type-2 diabetes, it can reduce their child’s absolute risk of developing the condition by 12-20 percentage points, from a baseline of 40-60%.”

But they aren’t reducing a child’s risk of diabetes. They are killing (murdering) the babies that have a higher risk of diabetes and only allowing the baby that looks the least likely to develop that condition to live. That’s evil! Each of those 10 embryos is a person made in God’s image, not a commodity to be chosen for a chance at life or discarded because of his or her genetics.

Consider also the ramifications of this in parenting. Imagine you paid $50,000 to ensure your lab-made baby would have a high IQ and be healthy and attractive. What if all the hype proves false (according to The Economist, the science behind these screenings might not even be sound) or because of environment or personality, the child simply doesn’t live up to the parent’s lofty expectations? What will that do to the parent-child relationship? After all, that parent paid “good money” for this child, and he or she isn’t living up to the promises. That’s a recipe for disaster!

Children are not commodities or products to be genetically manipulated according to adult desires. Children are people, made in the image of God with inherent dignity and value right from fertilization.

It is God who fearfully and wonderfully knits each child together just as He wants them to be—IQ, eye color, height, diabetes risk, and all. We must stand up and defend these children who are being so callously discarded.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, And render justice to the afflicted and needy. (Proverbs 31:9)

[Ken Ham @aigkenham]

Did Noah Curse Ham?