Dr. Randy Guliuzza | From Learning to Leadership | The Creation Podcast: Episode 110

Summary

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The Creation Podcast: Episode 110

Guest: Dr. Randy Guliuzza (President, Institute for Creation Research)
Host: Trey, ICR
Date: December 2, 2025
Theme: From Learning to Leadership – Dr. Guliuzza’s Journey to Creation Science

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Creation Podcast features a personal, in-depth interview with Dr. Randy Guliuzza, President of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR). Host Trey leads Dr. Guliuzza through the formative experiences that shaped his worldview, his journey from a secular, evolutionary perspective to a strong creationist foundation rooted in his faith, and his extensive professional path in engineering, medicine, military service, and ultimately creation research leadership. The episode is both an inspiring personal testimony and a practical roadmap for listeners interested in careers in creation science or related fields. Key themes include God’s guidance, intellectual transformation, leadership, the future of ICR, and practical advice for navigating secular academia as a Christian.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life and Worldview Formation

[01:09 – 04:59]

• Non-Christian Upbringing:

  • Dr. Guliuzza did not grow up in a Christian home, but credits his parents for instilling discipline and essential life skills.
  • "Religion had become an issue early on in their marriage… We were not going to discuss religion in our household until the kids got old enough to figure things out for themselves." (Dr. G, 01:17)
  • Even without explicit Christian teaching, he recognizes God worked through his family.

• Belief in Evolution & Survival of the Fittest:

  • School, media, and societal messages ingrained a strong belief in evolution and a “survival of the fittest” mentality.
  • "Survival of the fittest was really dominating my thinking at that time." (Dr. G, 02:41)
  • This worldview, Dr. G says, shaped him into a “more cold hearted” young man, with little empathy, especially toward Christian peers.

2. Conversion and Early Christian Growth

[05:12 – 11:27]

• A Personal Testimony:

  • Interest in spiritual things began in high school, catalyzed by a girl he liked (now his wife, June) who challenged him with gospel truth—and, memorably, told him:
    • “Randy, you’re going to hell.” (Dr. G, 08:42)
  • Through repeated conversations, and by reading passages she highlighted (e.g., Romans 3:23, 2 Cor. 5:21, John 5:24), Dr. G grasped the concept of grace and exchanged his old beliefs for faith in Christ.
  • "My sin to the Lord Jesus, His righteousness to me. My sin was judged, His righteousness given to me... That was a life changing event." (Dr. G, 10:50)

• Marriage and Shared Ministry Calling:

  • Married June, the same young woman who introduced him to Christ (11:33).

3. Academic and Professional Journey

[11:59 – 24:34]

• Engineering and Spiritual Training:

  • Began at South Dakota School of Mines (engineering), left for Moody Bible Institute (theology, ministry calling), but remained deeply influenced by evolutionary thinking.
  • "If science said that humans evolved, then they did. How am I going to fit this into the Bible?" (Dr. G, 13:21)

• Creationist Awakening through ICR:

  • At Moody, he discovered an issue of Acts & Facts, featuring Dr. Duane Gish.
  • "Two articles in Acts and Facts, boom, changed my life... I was born again again. This conversion to creation is so radically life changing." (Dr. G, 16:16)

• Mentorship and Career Shaping Decisions:

  • Consulted directly with Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. Duane Gish for advice on becoming a creation scientist.
    • "This is a technical field. To be a creation scientist, you have to know something about science... go back and finish your engineering degree." (Henry Morris, paraphrased by Dr. G, 18:45)
    • "Creation evolution is really about biology... you need to get a doctorate." (Duane Gish, paraphrased by Dr. G, 20:34)
  • Led to degrees in engineering, licensure as a Professional Engineer, medical degree (University of Minnesota), residency, and public health degree (Harvard), alongside service in both Navy and Air Force.

• Empathy and Transformation during Medical Training:

  • Medical school was not only scientific education but spiritual/character formation, as God uprooted his “survival of the fittest” mindset.
    • "He was using, dealing with needy people, dealing with patients, to take this idea of… 'if you don't keep up, you get left behind' mentality out of me." (Dr. G, 22:20)

4. Military Service

[25:28 – 27:18]

• Highlights:
  • Navy Civil Engineer, then Air Force Flight Surgeon and Chief of Aerospace Medicine.
  • Served as a physician during combat deployments (Baghdad).
  • "If anybody were to ask me if the military is a good career, I can give them a double thumbs up from two different branches." (Dr. G, 27:15)

5. Research at ICR and Theory of Biological Design

[27:40 – 36:18]

• Initial Research and Focus on Intelligent Design:

  • Began researching abortion issues, then pivoted to making Intelligent Design concepts accessible to lay Christians.
  • Realized the prevailing explanation for adaptation ("natural selection") was a personification of nature, not a real, observable process.

• Developing a Creationist Alternative:

  • "That's when he led toward... maybe organisms are tracking environmental changes. That led to the development of the model of adaptation, continuous environmental tracking, which is then sprung into a fuller theory, a theory of biological design." (Dr. G, 31:43)

• Strategic Vision for ICR:

  • Emphasis on advancing biological research, especially on how organisms sense and appropriately respond to environmental challenges—explained as purposeful, not random—focusing specifically on black box areas like regulation of genetic and epigenetic change.
  • "What’s happening in the organism between its exposure to something in the environment and its appropriate response? … There’s got to be something there. … How do you explain the cascade of events?... Those are the questions that really need to be answered." (Dr. G, 34:05–35:37)

6. Advice for Future Creation Scientists

[36:51 – 44:36]

• Finding Your Calling:

  • Look for a “burning desire” or an “overwhelming passion.”
  • If unsure, start moving—God can direct a moving person more easily than one standing still.
  • "Start down a path… It’s hard for the Lord to steer you if you’re standing still." (Dr. G, 39:45)
  • Solid Bible education is a foundational recommendation for all.

• Standing Firm in Secular Academia:

  • Anticipate evolutionary assumptions in higher education, but recognize they are not essential for practical science or medicine.
  • "You can be an over the top great engineer and totally reject evolutionary theory... When I went to medical school, nobody appeals to evolutionary theory for anything of any use." (Dr. G, 41:20)
  • Key strategies:
    • Be an “over the top, good student”—hard work and excellence command respect.
    • Don’t battle professors during your training—focus on learning, and after you’ve earned credentials, teach truth.
    • "While you’re in that program... there’ll be a time when you can correct them, but not during that program." (Dr. G, 44:13)

7. Encouragement and Open Opportunities

[45:33 – 48:03]

• Challenges are Surmountable:

  • “The Lord will enable you… Don’t worry about the timing, the difficulty, or anything along those lines.” (Dr. G, 45:43)

• Creation Science is Wide Open:

  • Most creation science so far only critiqued evolution; now the focus is on developing robust creationist frameworks and research.
  • “There's a whole area of science that needs to be developed... What are the better explanations? … That’s a wide, wide open field and there’s loads of research topics, loads of research questions that need to be answered.” (Dr. G, 46:47)

• Diversity of Roles:

  • Not everyone needs to do research—media, messaging, and communication are also essential and creative outlets.
  • “The field's wide open to even do better messaging, more creative messaging, even things that are coming down the road that you aren't even aware of yet.” (Dr. G, 47:43)

8. Quick Explainer: Punctuated Equilibrium

[50:15 – 53:56]

• What is punctuated equilibrium?
  • An evolutionary theory by Gould/Eldredge positing long periods of stasis interrupted by sudden changes—meant to explain fossil record discontinuities.
• Biological Problems:
  • All the standard problems of evolutionary theory still apply, “but even worse” because dramatic changes must occur quickly through undirected processes.
  • “There’s no miracles, there’s no pre planned process per Punky that’s going to do it. So they still have to do all these same biological changes. You just have to do it faster.” (Dr. G, 52:15)
  • Labeled “almost a rescuing device to explain sudden appearance and stasis in the fossil record.” (Dr. G, 53:47)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On worldviews:
  “I really believe firmly in the philosophy of survival of the fittest. So if someone did good in something…it was because they clearly were less fit… you can't keep up, you get left behind.” (Dr. G, 02:41 – 04:59)

• On pivotal witness:
  “She just said, ‘Randy, you're going to hell.’…And she said, ‘Well, you may be good compared to other people, but do you have the righteousness of Christ?’… Every Friday night for several months, this conversation happened over and over and over again.” (Dr. G, 08:42 – 09:54)

• On intellectual conversion:
  “Two articles in Acts and Facts, boom, changed my life... I was born again again. This conversion to creation is so radically life changing.” (Dr. G, 16:16)

• On career guidance:
  “First, know that you’re called… When you have that target in mind, let that be the guide to making decisions.” (Dr. G, 17:30)

• On “natural selection” in evolutionary theory:
  “Evolutionists use that term natural selection as just nothing but a personification of nature … as if it can act like God and as if nature can mold these creatures. … pushing back against this massive personification of nature called selection… come up with the creationist alternative.” (Dr. G, 30:37 – 31:43)

• On pursuing your calling:
  “I just know when people get it, they just cannot not do it.” (Dr. G, 40:23)

• On advice for students:
  “There’s no better protection than being an over the top good student … it is not your job to take down your teachers…your job is to just get that education and be the best you can…then you become a creation scientist and you go back and you take down your teachers.” (Dr. G, 43:27 – 44:36)

• On the future of creation research:
  “There’s a whole area of science that needs to be developed, which is creation science. What are the better explanations? … That’s a wide, wide open field.” (Dr. G, 46:47)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:09] – Childhood, worldview, and parental influence
• [02:32] – Immersion in evolutionary philosophy and “survival of the fittest”
• [06:45] – Coming to faith through friendship & evangelism
• [10:50] – Understanding grace and salvation
• [13:21] – Navigating faith and science: trying to reconcile evolution with Christianity
• [16:16] – Life-altering impact of encountering ICR’s creationist arguments
• [18:45, 20:34] – Mentorship from Dr. Henry Morris and Dr. Duane Gish
• [22:20] – Medical school as spiritual and character transformation
• [27:15] – Double “thumbs up” military career (Navy & Air Force)
• [31:43] – Development of the “continuous environmental tracking” model
• [34:05] – Vision for ICR’s biological research and “theory of biological design”
• [39:45] – Practical steps for finding one’s calling
• [41:20] – Academic advice: evolution’s irrelevance to practical sciences
• [44:13] – Encouragement for students: be excellent, don’t provoke faculty
• [45:43] – Do not be discouraged—God will enable you
• [46:47] – Creation science: a wide-open field for research
• [50:15] – Explainer: punctuated equilibrium and its problems

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Final Thoughts & Takeaways

• Dr. Guliuzza’s journey is a testament to God’s persistent calling, the importance of biblical foundations, and the transformative power of creation science.
• The path to leadership in creation science is long but rewarding; it requires spiritual conviction, academic excellence, and a commitment to serve.
• Creation science stands at an exciting juncture, especially in biology, with vast untapped questions and avenues for research and communication.
• Anyone with a passion for creation science can find a place in this field—whether in research, teaching, or creative media—provided they are willing to pursue excellence and let God direct their steps.

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For a deeper dive:

• Explore ICR’s articles (linked in episode description)
• Check out previous episodes covering Dr. Guliuzza’s Theory of Biological Design and Continuous Environmental Tracking

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Creation Podcast, the show where we discuss the science that confirms scripture. I'm your host, Trey. ICR's science staff have spent more than 50 years researching scientific evidence that refutes evolutionary philosophy and confirms the Bible's account of a recent and special creation. And through their work, thousands of lives have been impacted with Christ's creation truth. But how does one become a creation scientist? What leads an individual down that particular vocational path? In this series, we'll be taking a look at the lives and journeys of several members of ICR science staff to answer those questions. And I have with me today ICR's president, medical doctor, and professional engineer, Dr. Randy Galuza. Thank you for being here, Dr. G.

[B]

Oh, it's always a blessing to be here.

[A]

Awesome. Well, today we're just gonna take a look at your life. Are you ready?

[B]

I'm ready.

[A]

So the answer should be pretty easy. You were there for most of it. First off, I just want to know, did you grow up in a Christian household?

[B]

No. No, I didn't. And let me clarify right off the bat, that doesn't mean I had bad parents.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

I know we're speaking to a lot of Christians, but we also have a lot of non Christians. And I had delightful parents, wonderful parents. But religion had become an issue early on in their marriage, I hate to say, and it caused a little tension between them. And the resolution to that tension was that we were not going to discuss religion in our household until the kids got old enough to kind of figure things out for themselves. I'm not saying that's a good policy by any means. I would have loved to have had some training and education on those things. But in terms of other skills and disciplines and things like that, my parents were over the top, good in so many, many ways. And the Lord clearly used them, even though they did not know he was using them. He clearly used them to put things into my life that are impactful for me today.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, that's a great testimony. God can use anyone and everyone to fulfill his purposes. So I'm assuming that since you didn't grow up in a Christian household, there was no creationism there. Correct. So what was your belief as far as origins go?

[B]

Evolution to the max. I believed it. That's what I was taught in school. My parents believed what they were taught in school. They believed what they saw on Inherit the Wind, the movie. You know, that was a pure propaganda. And in our family, it worked. So my parents believed all of that. I had no reason to distrust My teachers, in fact, my parents said, your teachers are trustworthy, they're looking out for your best interest, you better obey them too. And so I believed what my teacher said and I really believe firmly in the philosophy of survival of the fittest. So if someone did good in something, it was because they either worked hard or something, something about them gave them an advantage in life. And so survival of the fittest was, was really dominating my thinking at that time. And if something, somebody wasn't doing well or didn't do good in school or it was because they clearly were less fit, they were less capable, less. And I wasn't the only one who thought like that. Particularly growing up in the 60s and 70s, there was a eat or be eaten kind of mentality in school even. And so that was what I grew up with.

[A]

Wow, okay, so in particular that survival of the fittest mentality, how did that play out in your life specifically? I mean, I know that you're saying like, oh, you saw someone who wasn't doing as well, maybe they weren't fit. Any experiences that you had that made you think, oh, maybe this isn't good.

[B]

No, no, I can't. I wish I could say that there were experiences like that. But what survival of the fittest mentality did to me is it made me cold hearted, more cold hearted than I probably should have been. Particularly the Christian friends that I had who I knew were Christians. I was like, there was something wrong with them, they were just way too tender hearted and they were just, they kind of made excuses for people and they had way too much empathy. And the survival of the fittest mentality affected me in the sense of you can't keep up, you get left behind.

[A]

Wow. Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm assuming, well, I know that, you know, the Lord drew you to himself at some point. Did that happen in like high school? Did it happen in college?

[B]

What did that look like happened in high school?

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so praise the Lord. Now my view towards survival of fittest has radically changed. And there's lots of things that I would look back and say, wow, I can't believe I used to believe that. I can't believe I used to think those kinds of things regarding abortion, regarding evolution and things like that. It doesn't mean I was necessarily an evil person towards other people, but there wasn't the empathy factor. However, I did believe in God. Not per se, the God of the Bible, but I believed that there was a creator God. I believed in Jesus, that he was real. He was a real Man, I didn't know exactly what to believe about him. And it was towards the end of my senior year of high school that I was starting to get a little interesting in spiritual things. And that's when I have a long testimony that I usually give before one of my talks that some changes in high school policy led me to have some time at lunchtime. And during that time at lunch, I was looking for a girl to sit with.

[A]

We all are, of course.

[B]

And I found one. And she happened to be a Christian. And after appropriately flirting with her for several days, I felt, oh, now's the time to ask her out to see if she'd want to go roller skating with me on Friday night. So that dates me, I'm in the 70s. I'm in the 70s.

[A]

Hey, roller skating is fun.

[B]

Yeah, but it wasn't on a cell phone. It was the real deal. And it wasn't virtual roller skating. It was the real deal. And her Sunday school teacher, she had just become a Christian within a year, told her that she should only date Christian guys. But she didn't know, you know, what's the test for a Christian or not? So she invited me to go to church with her, thinking if I said yes, that's because I was a Christian, and if I would have not been a Christian, I would have said no. She invited me to church, I said yes, not because I was a Christian, but because I thought, guaranteed second date, you know, if I blow it on Friday, I'll make up for it on Sunday in some way. Besides, it was Easter Sunday, and I knew there was something really special about that. And so I went with her. And I heard the gospel that Sunday for the first time in my life. But it didn't really mean a whole lot to me. But I still liked her. So I asked her out again on a Friday night if she'd go get pizza with me. And we did. We had a wonderful time. And then afterwards in the car talking, she said, randy, there's something I need to tell you. And I thought, oh, she's going to tell me what a great date this has been. Great guy, great. Something. Something in that. And she just said, randy, you're going to hell. What? You know, where did this come from? Out of the blue? I've had a bad date, but it never merited hell, right? And she. I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you're a sinner. And as a lost person, my concept of sinners are just. What I said to her, sinners are in prison. That's where sinners really were. And then I began to defend myself. Well, I'm a good person. I do this, I do that. I obey my parents, I obey my teachers, I obey the law of which none of was really totally true, but in my mind, I thought I did.

[A]

True enough.

[B]

It was true enough for me. I obeyed my parents mostly. I obeyed the law mostly. And things. And she said, well, you may be good compared to other people, but do you have the righteousness of Christ? And where did this come from? And so I said, well, who has the righteousness of Christ but Christ? And she said, I do. And it's like, no, this conversation is really going downhill. I'm a sinner. You've got the righteousness of Christ. I bought the pizza. I mean, how is this all working out? And then she began to tell that I was a sinful person and that I didn't measure up to the righteousness of Christ, that the standard was perfection. And I knew I didn't have that. And every Friday night for several months, this conversation happened over and over and over again.

[A]

And you kept going out with her?

[B]

I kept going out.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And she gave me a Bible for high school graduation. And I started reading verses. One of them said, you know, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, by this time, okay, I can see the sinner part. It was like, oh, I get it. I do this stuff only mostly. And maybe not as mostly as I thought, as I did. But the whole part about grace. Grace was really hard for me to understand. Unmerited favor. Because like a lot of people, I thought, you have to do something. You have to earn God's favor. You have to merit it in some way. But then there was a verse it had for God made him speaking, Lord Jesus to be sin for us who knew no sin, in order that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And I saw for the first time there was an exchange. My sin to the Lord Jesus, his righteousness to me. My sin was judged, his righteousness given to me, and that's how I could have the righteousness of Christ. And another verse where it said, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that hears my words and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life and will not come into condemnation, but has passed from death unto life. I wanted that life. And I got down on my knees and asked the Lord Jesus that night, it was in July, after we graduated from high school, to be my Lord and Savior. And that was a life changing event.

[A]

Wow. Absolutely. Amen. What an incredible testimony. And you still continue to date her?

[B]

Not only do I continue to date her, I married her.

[A]

There you go. Hey, that's a happy ending to that story for sure. I'm assuming at this point you're graduating high school, you've graduated high school, you're looking to go to college, you have several science related degrees. Where did your interest in these fields of study come from? Where. Where were you headed? School wise in that regard?

[B]

Perfect question. Because part of the reason why my wife and I got married is we left state, went to a separate college, we left Wyoming, we were growing up. And we went up to western South Dakota to an engineering college. And my wife June was interested in civil engineering. And I didn't know what type of engineering, but one of my high school teachers says, well, why don't you try mining engineering, kind of a little bit of geology and engineering. And. And I did. So I went into mining engineering, and June was in civil engineering program at that time. And we spent a lot of time together. That's probably how we really fell in love. We just spent lots and lots of time together. We got involved with a group on campus called InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the late 70s, and they really put us to work doing all kinds of evangelistic efforts all around the campus. And that was very good for us in terms of our boldness to be a bold witness for the Lord Jesus. And we got married a year later and we felt the Lord was leading us into ministry. So we transferred from South Dakota School of Mines and Technology to Moody Bible Institute. So I went back and forth in school for a while. When I transferred to Moody, I still believed in evolution. Nobody had discussed with me creation ever. And I was one of those people who was trying to reconcile what I thought was absolute scientific truth, because those guys are really objective and they're really unaffected by personal biases. And science is always confirmed by real solid experiments and evidence. And that's what was my belief about science. It's like, oh, science is like the highest standard. It was right up there with the Bible, maybe even higher. In my mind, that's how much I viewed science. And so if science said that humans evolved, then they did. How am I going to fit this into the Bible? And so obviously in my mind, I'm thinking God used evolution, and I was convinced of it.

[A]

Well, obviously, considering where you are now, that changed somewhere along, you know, just along the way. Did that happen at Moody? Did someone have that conversation with you? When did you become a creationist at Moody.

[B]

I was at Moody, but it wasn't because of a conversation. I had conversations with fellow Moody students. And I was taking the theistic evolutionary path. And in the library one day, I found Acts and Facts, the news magazine of icr. It was smaller back then, but I picked it up. Praise the Lord. Moody carried Acts and Facts. And I oh, this is related to science and faith. And I went back to one of those little cubicles in the library and I read two articles by Dr. Duane Gish. One was on the Origin of Life. And it explained so clearly and so concisely how a natural origin of life was really impossible. There was just too much going on. And that the experiments which I had put so much faith in up to that time were really very poor experiments. And they were not doing at all what the textbooks seemed to claim for them. That was like eye opener number one. Then there was another article about, in essence, when you find a fossil that's supposedly millions and millions of years old and you find its living counterpart, they look almost identical. They're not exactly identical, but they're really, really close. The question is, if this is many millions of years old, sometimes tens to hundreds of millions of years old, and it looks exactly like the thing living today, where's the evolution? I mean, why hasn't it changed? If it got from something to this, why hasn't it changed at all? Why does it seem to be fixed? That's called stasis. That was a powerful argument. And those two articles in Acts and Facts, boom, changed my life. Right then and there. I was like, this is true. This is right. I've been lied to. And as I tell most people, I was born again again. This conversion to creation is so radically life changing. And that's when I live for acts and facts coming for the next couple of months. And that's when I knew the Lord was calling me not to be a pastor, not to be missionary, but to do something in creation science.

[A]

Okay, so at this point you were studying engineering still at Moody.

[B]

I know at Moody I was a theology major.

[A]

Theology major. Okay, so you obviously have a very different degree now as a medical doctor. So how did that shift?

[B]

Okay, and this is a great question because your whole program today is on a question that we as ICR scientists get asked a lot. How do I get to your job? How do I get to become a creation scientist? What wickets do I need to go through? And all these kinds of things? And so this little mini testimony I'll give you here will be applicable to Anybody wanting to know that point, first, know that you're called. And you don't have to be called to creation science. You could be called to anything. But you need to know what your calling is. Ask the Lord, even as a young person, what do you want me to do, Lord? What's my calling? What's the direction? And then when you have that target in mind, then you let that be the guide to making decisions. So that's where I'm going with this. With this account. Creation scientist, whatever that is. I want to be one there. So I called Dr. Henry Morris. Back then, you could dial 411, get a real operator, and ask them for the number of somebody, and they told you wild.

[A]

It was wild. It was a different time.

[B]

It was different times. I dialed saying, I'd like to know a number for Henry M. Morris. They give me their number. I call him up. He answers the phone. It's just different times. When people called, you answered.

[A]

Yeah. I was about to say, nowadays if you call, it's like, I don't know this number. Hang up.

[B]

That's right. Delete.

[A]

Clearly, spam is that.

[B]

But back then, when someone called, they picked up and said, hello. And he said. And I told him what had happened to me. And he said, well, this degree that you're getting in Moody, in theology, this bachelor's degree is good. That's a great foundation. That biblical foundation is just what you need. But this is a technical field. To be a creation scientist, you have to know something about science. I suggest, since he was an engineer, you go back and finish your engineering degree. The goal is to become a creation scientist. I'm going to do what he says. So I reapply back to South Dakota School of Mines and I transfer back to South Dakota School of Mines. And I was able to take a lot of credits from Moody for liberal arts and apply those when I transferred back. So that was very good. And then I finished in mining engineering. At the time, the mining field wasn't. It was a bus cycle, not a boom cycle. And I went into the Navy as a civil engineer and practiced in the Navy for a decade. I still want to be a creation scientist. So you get a license in engineering. You can't really practice independently unless you have a license. That's what the professional engineer is. This would also be good for creation science. So I went back and I got my license in civil engineering. That took me to about 10 years of active duty. And I wanted to get out, So I called Dr. Duane Gish, who was the vice President of the Institute for Creation Research.

[A]

Was this still a 411 thing you just asked for the number? It was, oh, wow, it's a 411 all right.

[B]

And I got the number. And life was so sociable back then. It was very good. And I had met him a couple times, but I didn't have his number. And he told me something I really didn't want to hear. He said, well, this degree in theology is good. This degree in engineering is good. Your professional engineer license is good. But creation evolution is really about biology, and I suggest you learn something about biology. Whatever you're going to do, you need to know about biology. And if you're really serious, you need to get a doctorate. It was like, ugh, wow, who wants to do that? And for a while, I protested to June, my wife, I'm not going to do this. And she was good. She said, well, you've promised the Lord. So that's why I went. Initially, what prompted me to even think about going to medical schools? Oh, I will learn biology. I will get a doctorate. And it's not nine years later, it's four years later. And not only that, it'll be a good skill to have. I can get hired if I need to.

[A]

It's in need.

[B]

Yes, it was in need. So I didn't realize how difficult it was to get into medical school. But the Lord led, got me through all of the wickets, got me through the interviews, applied and got accepted to the University of Minnesota while in medical school. The Lord used that time in medical school not just to get me an education in biology, but to really work out, in many ways, the survival of the fittest mentality he was using, dealing with needy people, dealing with patients, dealing with. To take this idea of, you know, if you don't keep up, you get left behind mentality out of me.

[A]

Can't have that if you're a doctor. Sorry, can't help you.

[B]

I know, I know. That was, I have to say, with my very first patient. I was just a med student. I don't even know why I was even seeing patients. But they wanted you to see him. And this guy gave me a list of problems and then a list of all the medications he was on. And of course, I knew nothing about either one of them, but my first thought was, man, it's terrible to be you. There wasn't much empathy there at all. But over the time at med school, dealing with death, dealing with people who had their parents die or their children die and so on, he was working that out so the degree was one thing, the education of biology was another. But he was changing other things through that wicket.

[A]

Yeah. Wow. He knows what he's doing, right?

[B]

He does. So that was that. And then I had taken an Air Force scholarship to pay for med school, went into the Air Force. We were by this time involved in the war in Iraq and they were looking to have a little smaller footprint. So they wanted doctors to also be public health officers, be dual hatted. They could do both jobs. So the Air Force sent me to get a master's in public health. I went to Harvard to do that, thinking this will also be good to go to creation science. And I owed the Air Force a little bit of time for these things that took me to exactly 20 years, two months. And I retired from the Air Force and I called ICR began now icr. I got this degree in theology from Moody and I got this engineering degree and I'm a professional engineer and I went to medical school and I'm licensed and I'm board certified in aerospace medicine. And I just got this degree in Harvard. Can I work for you at icr? And it was, of course, we'd love to have you.

[A]

No, sorry, you need another doctorate.

[B]

That's it. So that goal from going from A to B was 28 years. And so anybody listening to this podcast might be thinking, wow, I don't know if I want to do that. But you may not have to do 28 years, but you should have this goal. I want to be. And let that overall goal guide all of these different decisions you're going to have to make in your life. You will have to make education decisions, you'll have to make job decisions. You'll have to. How are those going to fit into your goal of being this. Tailor those towards that goal. The Lord will be using stuff and putting things into your life that you're going to need during that time. But then he gives you the desires of your heart, which was to work for icr.

[A]

That is a long road to get to, just to get to icr, not to mention the road to where you are now as president. And we'll talk a little bit about that. Can you tell me what it was like in just very brief in the Air Force when you were working in the Air Force?

[B]

Oh, Air Force was great. I was a flight surgeon. So almost from the beginning I took care of pilots and their families. So pilots have particular stressors for high performance aircraft or whatever this. And besides, you want them to be physically and emotionally and mentally capable of Doing flying one of these things, particularly if it's loaded with bombs and ordinance and stuff like that. So I did that, and I did a lot of primary care for their families. And then I was sent to Iraq. I had to really buff up on my critical care skills that I hadn't really done since I was an intern in residency. Praise the Lord. They came back, and that was taking care of combat casualties. So it was. It was, boom, different world altogether. So I was right in downtown Baghdad during the surge. And so it was. It was just a tough time. And then I got out and I came back and was the chief of aerospace medicine for a bomb wing, set policies and standards for those things. And that took me right up to retirement time. So I had a very good time in the navy as an engineer and then for the last 10 years in the air force as a medical doctor. If anybody were to ask me if the military is a good career, I can give them a double thumbs up from two.

[A]

Two different branches.

[B]

Two different branches.

[A]

Wow. Awesome. Well, thank you. Just curious about what that looked like because you don't often get to hear from someone who's been there. Okay, well, now you're at icr. You are working at icr. What did your role look like when you first got here? What were you hired to do?

[B]

I was hired to do research. All the science staff are hired to do research. And there wasn't a clear direction that was given to me. Right. Initially do research on such and such. So the initial tasking was to do research related to abortion and right to life because I was a medical doctor and these kinds of things I did. But. But in many ways, there are other ministries that are doing that. So I felt, you know, my calling is to do creation science research. And the Lord put on my heart the desire to explain intelligent design to the average person in the pew in a way that they could understand it. So how would I teach another creationist to tell their neighbor about organisms being intelligently designed? Because that was the big thing in the late 2000s, 2008, 2009. The books that are out were very good, but they were a little technical. So I started to absorb those things and translate them into layman's language. And then that led to the question, well, how do evolutionists explain the apparent design of creatures? They claim they look designed, but only look designed. Not really designed. They only look like they were designed, but not really. I mean, what a.

[A]

What a backhanded. Right.

[B]

Yeah. What almost a silly thing to say on that. And that's when I started digging into their explanation and their explanation of why creatures look so incredibly designed was natural selection. And I thought, well, that had to make sense, because at the time I was like, well, we at icr, we teach natural selection. We teach that this was an observable phenomenon. This is something that was really real. And so I had this major struggle. This can't really be leading to the design of creatures. But I thought it was real. And through a long process of digging into this and seeing it, I began to see very, very, very plainly that evolutionists use that term natural selection as just nothing but a personification of nature. It's just a way of interpreting things in nature. It's not a real phenomenon. There's no real measurable, there's no real observable selection events. There's no quantifiable selection pressures. There's no identifiable unit of selection. All these things, I began to realize these are all just made up stuff. They're not really real on that. And every time I would see it, natural selection was used as if it was like an agent. Nature can act on nature, can favor nature, can work on nature, can cull nature, can weed out nature, can it can do all these verbs.

[A]

It's like, nature can't do anything.

[B]

They can't do anything. That's like. It hit me, oh, they're personifying selection in a way to give nature intelligence and volition when it doesn't really have those things, as if it can act like an agent, as if it can act like God and as if nature can mold these creatures. And that is when the Lord led me down this door to okay, one, push back against this massive personification of nature called selection. Show that that's like an idolatrous worldview. It's a substitute. But on the other hand, come up with the creationist alternative. Just don't say this is wrong. Come up with how then. How do you explain adaptation? What's your research program? How would you research this? And that's when he led towards, oh, maybe organisms are tracking environmental changes. Maybe they're continuously tracking them. That led to the development of the model of adaptation, continuous environmental tracking, which is then sprung into a fuller theory, a theory of biological design.

[A]

Absolutely. And we have point, point, point. We have several episodes of this podcast about those various topics if people want to take a deeper dive. And we can also link to many of your articles, of which you have dozens at least on this topic. So we'll link those in the description as well. So would you say that that is like the desire of your heart to dig into. Has that been your main area of research the whole time you've been.

[B]

Yes, essentially within a year of doing that. My wife was ill during the first year, and that was a little diverter. But after, from 2010 up to the present, that has been the main area of research.

[A]

Awesome. Fascinating. And we're doing work on it now continually. And then there's exciting things coming up in that regard. So I haven't asked any of the other scientists this question, but you are the president. So from your vision, where do you see ICR moving into in the future as an organization, as a leader in creation science? Where do you see us moving forward to?

[B]

I see us moving even more forward into more biological research. This is not excluding research into physics or geology or anything.

[A]

Don't tell Dr. Clary.

[B]

No, I won't tell Dr. Clary. But in many respects, the name of the game of creation evolution is biology. Dr. Gish was right. Many years ago, it's biology. The board of directors for ICR hired me to be president because they recognized that continuous environmental tracking was a very good model to explain adaptation and that we needed a theory of biological design. So they hired me to take ICR down this direction, go this direction. We think this is pay dirt, so to speak, for creation science. And we need a powerful organization like ICR doing that, developing theory, developing a theory of adaptation, doing research, putting together a real research agenda, real questions that are related and spring from a theory of biological design that you can then research. So where ICR will be headed, at least in the foreseeable future, is further developing in the realm of biology, this whole theory of biological design. Answering questions in the. The big questions that we have right now are what's happening in the organism between its exposure, Exposure to something in the environment, a challenging condition, whatever that is, and its appropriate response to that. We see them respond on that. It's not this causing that or this driving that. It's this happens. The organism detects it, and there's a whole cascade of events that's happening inside the organism that leads to the production of these traits which appropriately solve these problems. What's doing that? Right now, it's somewhat of a black box. We can see certain things in there, but how they all tie together, and there's probably many pathways in here, how that all fits out. That's what ICR will be researching primarily because we're one of the few organizations that's asking the questions. There's gotta be something there. Where's this sensor. And once it senses it, how does something go? And if you have a genetic change, what's regulating that genetic change? If you haven't epigenetic change, what's regulating that epigenetic changes. These things are not happening by magic, and they're not happening randomly. They're happening very purposefully. What's controlling them? Those are the questions that really need to be answered.

[A]

Absolutely. And I'm glad you mentioned genetics and epigenetics. I was just thinking, you know, for such a time as this, we have the technology now to dig into genetics in a way that we never have before, not just here at icr, but worldwide. So we can actually see. And you see articles of evolutionists saying, wow, these things evolve really rapidly. And it's like, wait a minute, that's not evolution then.

[B]

Right, right, exactly.

[A]

Well, now that you're here as president of ICR and you've will say for anyone who may have a desire to also become a creation scientist, you said that, you know, let the calling help guide your choices. What would you say to someone who says, I don't know if that's my calling. If someone's unsure of whether or not they have a calling, how would you say, oh, you know, here's how to find out? Or, how do I know if the Lord's leading me in this direction? What kind of call would they feel, do you think?

[B]

Well, perfect question. I mean, lots of people have that. And that's exactly where I was at Moody Bible Institute up to that time. I was, wow, maybe the Lord wants me to be a pastor. But then they had missions week, and they had all these missionaries come and they told these wonderful stories of what was happening on the mission field. Well, maybe the Lord wants me to be a missionary on that. And you can. Lots of students struggle. What do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? How do you know? How do you know?

[A]

Because it's all important.

[B]

It's all important. It all has to be done. And the Lord is going to put someone into those positions on that. All I know is, and I didn't even ask is. And I've met many, many young people that I just know are called because they will tell me I have a burning desire. And they almost use the word burning. I've got this passion, burning desire, hunger. I cannot get enough of reading about creation. I cannot get enough of listening to these podcasts. I can't get enough. I seem to have to be able to talk to any friend I have about creation. And when someone is saying, I can't get enough, I have to talk, I have to share. You know, this is a call. This is. The Lord has put that in their heart and it's there on all of those kinds of things. But what if you don't have that yet? My suggestion is get going. It's hard for the Lord to steer you if you're standing still. So start down a path. Okay. I don't know exactly what the Lord wants me to do. I want to serve him in some way. One of the best things to do if you don't know exactly is go get a Bible education at a solid Bible college. That way you will never be without the that training and you can always use it. And maybe the Lord will reveal to you during that time this or that or whatever. You could always use the Bible training when you go there. And there'll be many other things about sanctification that you'll learn if you go to a good one on those areas. But you have to, you have to get going. And then the Lord can steer you on those things. But if you just sit around static, it's hard to get any direction.

[A]

Yeah, hey, laws of motion, right.

[B]

And jobs you'll have during that time or things that will come up. You'd be praying and ask him to put that burning desire, what you want me to do in my heart. But I just know when people get it, they just cannot not do it.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. Well, related to that. So because the sciences are. This is where the divide is. Right. You know, you have your mainstream science and then you have creation science. For someone who is pursuing a science degree, you know, they're going to be surrounded by peers and professors, oftentimes who are, who do not share their beliefs. Do you have any recommendations or advice for anyone who's doing that either just like a way to stand firm or a way to, you know, just how to navigate academia.

[B]

Right. Okay. Yes. Rule number one, know it's going to happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You're going to, you're going to have different beliefs that are. It's just going to be assumed the Earth is millions of years old. It's just going to be assumed that we evolved from lower life forms. Just know that's they're going to be the assumptions. That's where they're going to be operating from. Unless you go into evolutionary biology. Point number two, it really doesn't matter. I guarantee you that even though it's the assumption, nobody really uses it for anything useful. And I know most evolutionists Say what? Antibiotic resistance and this and that. Nobody's come up with any major discoveries based on evolutionary theory. When I went to engineering school, you could be a super over the top great engineer and totally reject evolutionary theory. It's totally unapplicable, even to biomedical science. When I went to medical school, nobody, nobody appeals to evolutionary theory for anything of any use. It's led people down the wrong path. Vestigial organs and mistakes and stuff. Nobody uses it. You can be an over the top great medical doctor rejecting it. And you can be an over the top great biologist and completely reject this. You'll be better, in fact, for that. So it's not really a useful thing in terms of guiding your thinking. It's just a framework to interpret.

[A]

Yeah, it's just a worldview.

[B]

Right. Three, be a top notch, over the top student. That is work hard, get good grades. There's no substitute for that. And there's no better protection than being an over the top good student. I mean, it's hard to have a teacher give you a bad grade when you have a whole boatload of all these good grades. And for them to discriminate against you when you. When everybody knows you're a great academic student. Right on that. Four, whatever I'm up to, that will get you into graduate programs. Good undergraduate grades will get you into graduate programs of which then they will start paying you to go to school. Then, oh, now I can get things paid for because I have these great grades. I can get into these great programs on that. While you are in those programs, continue to be a great student. And it is not your job to take down your teachers. It's not your job to take them down. They may say stuff that's wild. They may say things that you just know. No, there's no good evidence for this. There's no good backing for it. They're just spouting things off. Let them go on that. You don't have to take them down. If you want to talk to anybody, you can talk to some fellow students or you can talk to others. But while you're in that program, your job is to just get that education and be the best. You can get your degree and move. And once you get those degrees and you get your postgraduate education, then you become a creation scientist and you go back and you take down your teachers.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

That's when you go back and you can take them down, let them have it. You can go and do lectures, you can do things. You'll have those positions and then you'll be able to help other students. But while you're in the program, you should respect those teachers, learn from those teachers, and there'll be a time when you can correct them, but not during that program. That's my advice to get through it.

[A]

Absolutely. Well, that's excellent advice. It's kind of similar. Dr. Clary said something similar about like, all the stuff that you need to know has nothing to do with evolution. So just learn what you need to know. So that's excellent. Okay, so as we draw this to a close, is there anything else you want to share? Any encouragement, any exciting news, anything major that you want to share to our listeners or viewers? Sure.

[B]

If you want to be a creation scientist, do not get discouraged in any way about going through the programs. The length of education, the difficulty of the program, the fact that you're going to be working with people who have a worldview radically different than yours, all of those things, those are challenges, but you can solve them. Who's ever listening to me? Those are easily solvable challenges. The Lord will enable you to do it abundantly better than a lot of other people. So don't worry about the timing, the difficulty, or anything along those lines. 2. Don't ever begin to think that all the major questions have already been answered and all the good stuff about creation science has already been put out there. Not even close. For the first 50 years of our existence in most other creationist organizations, we've only been pointing out problems with evolution, of which they're there in abundance. That's a full time job. And some of the problems that we've pointed out are even worse problems today, and they can be exposed. But there's a whole area of science that needs to be developed, which is creation science. What are the better explanations? What are the better ways of thinking? How do you integrate what you really are seeing currently in geology or biology with your biblical worldview and put that into operable theories that help your fellow Christians in the pew to understand things better? That's a wide, wide open field and there's loads of research topics, loads of research questions that need to be answered. So don't get discouraged in that realm. There's plenty for you to do.

[A]

Absolutely. And if science isn't your thing, but you're still passionate, you can come work on the media team, right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

There's lots of other staff.

[B]

You know, there's tons of things that say, here's what's learned, here's how you put it into a message and you guys do it in A great message and you package it in real ways. I suppose you could say to anybody following in your footsteps, the field's wide open to even do better messaging, more creative messaging, Even things that are coming down the road that you aren't even aware of yet.

[A]

Absolutely. Yeah. Amen. Well, thank you so much for that. It is a big field and there's lots of shoes to fill. It does feel like we're kind of at a turning point. This biology aspect of it is something kind of new. I remember when I was growing up, I was involved in, you know, creation science and all that growing up, and it was all geology based. Every single thing had to do with geology or dinosaurs. Right. One or the other. And so this whole, like very fine tuned biology CET is something new and something big that can lead to a lot of places.

[B]

Yep, it is.

[A]

Absolutely. So thank you so much for being here, Dr. G. It's always a pleasure to have you on our show.

[B]

Well, I love being here and you're an outstanding host.

[A]

Thank you. And thank you to all of our viewers and listeners for joining us. We'd love it if you liked, subscribed and shared this video, especially if you have any friends or family who have just a particular burning passion for creation science and they're not sure what the next steps are. Again, if you want to be a creation scientist, make that call your guiding light when you make your decisions. Or if you don't want to be a scientist, you can always work for the media team. Also, do you see these names that are scrolling right next to my head? Those are our members and patrons. Those are people who have joined us in our members and patrons program on YouTube or on Patreon. And if you want to join them and have your name right here, or get other perks, such as getting the creation podcast a week early or other exclusive video content, among other perks, you can click the links in the description below to become a member or patron. And while those names are scrolling, I have another question for you, Dr. G. Okay. All right. So Chris park actually has this question. So Chris park asks, what are the biological issues with punctuated equilibrium? And I guess on top of that, what is punctuated equilibrium?

[B]

Well, punctuated equilibrium was a theory that was developed by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge to explain a problem in the fossil record. In other words, fossils, when you see creatures, they seem to show up suddenly without really ancestors in the fossil record. And they continue almost unchanged in the fossil record for a long period of time. And they either go Extinct or they continue on into the present. So you're not really seeing the slow gradual changes in body plans, but there's all these major body plans that you get. How do you explain the lack of fossils in the fossil record? Well, maybe, maybe instead of having a slow gradual change, of which you should see lots and lots of of different fossils in the record documenting that slow change, maybe organisms continue relatively unchanged for a long time and then in a short period of time they rapidly change and you get a change in body plan which then shows up in the fossil record as a changed body plan. That's what punctuated equilibrium is. It's a theory to explain stasis and abrupt appearance in the fossil record right there. But the problems, biological problems. One, you still have to get organisms to evolve in that. And so all the problems related to evolution are applicable to punctuated evolution. In fact, they're probably harder because at least with a slow gradual change you can at least imagine a slow accumulation of mutations that, that are weeded out by struggles to survive and things like that. And maybe on a herky jerky trial and error way that can get better over a period of time that's at least imaginable. But with punctuated equilibrium you still have to have those same changes. There's no miracles, there's no pre planned process per Punky that's going to do it. So they still have to do all these same biological changes. You just have to do it faster. So all the problems with dealing with random genetic mutations, which usually tear things down, apply to Punkey, but even worse,

[A]

because it has to happen quickly.

[B]

Because it has to happen quickly. Of course, in their term, quickly is not within years. It's within a short, relatively 1 to 2 million years, which is still a long period of time. But all the limits to biological change still apply. And any criticism against slow gradual evolution is the same for Punk E as well. The second thing that's a difficulty with it is just theoretically, how does this even happen? What's the mechanism that's causing this rapid change? Is it a massive radical change in the environment that suddenly drives things? And if it's going to, what's the mechanism with inside creatures that are going to allow them to be driven on this? So theoretically you have some problems as well, which at least slow gradual evolution seems to overcome. But not Punky. But the same biological limitations, limitations of change, same biological problems of dealing with random genetic mistakes steal a deal. Applied to Punk E. It's almost a rescuing device to explain sudden appearance and stasis in the fossil record.

[A]

It's like, oh, this is what we expect to see. Oh, that's not what we see. Okay, let me make something up to fix it. Exactly.

[B]

That's what it is.

[A]

Well, thank you so much again for the podcast and thank you for answering the additional question. Definitely. Appreciate, Appreciate it.

[B]

You're welcome.

[A]

And thank you to all of our listeners and viewers. We'll see you next time on the Creation Podcast.