There are zillions of possible topics! But it must be strongly related to the topic of creation vs. evolution, or more generally, the accuracy of the Bible in other areas, such as history.
Remember that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO PROVE CREATION! You just need to be careful and honest, and consult writings by both sides of a controversy. How can you argue for your point when you don't know the claims of the other side? Be aware that the usual sources (most textbooks, TV shows, movies, most magazines and newspapers) are very biased against God, the Bible, and creation. Also, not all creationist writers agree on every topic, from a creationist standpoint. Remember also that a few evidences for creation are obsolete or poor, so you need to compare older writings with newer ones. Use several sources!
Do limit your topic to what you can discuss within your length limits: up to 1500 words for Junior Division,
or 2500 words for Senior Division. Footnotes, end notes, bibliography, charts, graphs, and title page do NOT count towards the word limit. You may have to narrow your subject from what you originally planned.
Anthropology - Physical
Neandertal child, modeled using software at Univ. of Zurich. Released to public use by Univ. of Zurich. via Wikimedia Commons
Ape-Men: are there any real semi-humans in the fossil record? What else might those fossils represent?
How Could all the "races" come from one human couple?
Were Neanderthals really humans?
Mitochondrial Eve: scientists can trace the mothers of everyone back to THREE women in the "recent" past; and can trace them back to one original mother of the modern human race. How stong is this as
evidence for Eve, and for the 3 mothers of the human race who survived the Genesis Flood?
Y-Chromosome Adam: every male has one y-chromosome in his cells, which came from his father, who received it from his father, etc . Human Y-chromosomes trace male lineages back to one human father. Any reason
to believe this is NOT the Adam of Genesis?
Anthropology - Cultural
Picture of Noah sacrificing after the Flood
Legends of the flood are found in perhaps half the indigenous cultures on earth. Some are amazingly similar to the Genesis Flood, yet they were told to missionaries and explorers by people groups who likely had never seen a Bible nor heard the Gospel. How did the Chinese, Hawaiians, North American Indians, South American Indians, and so many others get such similar legends?
Were dragons really dinosaurs? Dragons are found in legends around the world. Could these be dinosaurs that survived the Flood for up to only hundreds of years ago?
Material culture: The boomerang, for example, is now thought of as unique to the Australian aborigines, but it has been found in many parts of the world. The Aboriginal Australian word for it is the same as the word for it in a part of India! Why do the people of Australia have the same word for an object as people they supposedly had no contact with for thousands of years?
Why do Religions around the world have so much in common? Sacrifices, especially blood sacrifices, belief in an afterlife, prayer to spirits or gods, priests. Pyramids, and other tombs also, with shafts pointing to particular stars or the sun, on the first day of spring, summer, fall and winter.
Snakes in world religions: Snakes are all over the map, in Greek mythology, Mayan religion, Egyptian religion, and many others! They're often said to give "wisdom" to men, and are presented favorably. In the Bible, "[t]hat old serpent, the Devil" offered Eve "wisdom" if she'd disobey God. Why are snakes, in particular, such common subjects of Biblical AND PAGAN religions, and why are they treated so differently between the Bible and the pagan stories?
The "gods" of the Greeks, Romans, and some others are strangely reminiscent of Biblical historical individuals: Adam and Eve, Noah, Japheth. In what ways? Why?
Languages: How could so many, such different, human languages have developed? How many language families do we think there have been?
Archaeology
Picture of Stonehenge at sunrise. Photo by Howard Walsh on Unsplash, used by permission.
Buildings: Ancient archaeological sites that survive after thousands of years are found in many places around the WORLD. Many show that the builders were able to predict the first day of summer, winter, spring and autumn. Many are grave sites in the United Kingdom, the Near East, Egypt (pyramids). How does this fit in with history as the Bible reports it?
Has Noah's ark been found? Many explorers over many years claim to have found the Ark of Noah. Where? How? How credible are these findings?
Ancient cities, sunken and buried: In the Sahara Desert, and under the ocean shores, in many places there are abandoned cities. Some are claimed by evolutionists to be from 10,000 years ago, when they believe the "last" Ice Age melted! Biblical creationists believe the cities were built after the Flood, which occurred about 4,400 years ago. What can you confirm about this? Don't assume every sunken or buried city is of the Ice Age, and not every claimed "city" is necessarily a city. Don't try to cover this whole topic!
Giants in the Bible and in archaeology: Can archaeology confirm any claims of "giants" (Hebrew = "Nephilim", probably "fallen ones" in English) in Genesis 6 and Numbers 13? Beware of the hoax emails that have contained photos of "giants!" Are all the "evidences" of giants just hoaxes? You may be unable to prove that the Nephilim in Genesis were giants. But what can we find out?
Does it matter how Genesis is interpreted? Should people not be confronted with creation/evolution, yet, before they consider the claims of Christ?
Why does God allow catastrophes, crimes, and tragic mistakes?
Is Jesus a Copy of the Egyptian God Horus, or any other god?
History/Sociology/Government/Philosophy
U.S. Capitol Building. Public Domain- click for website
Deadly religions: opponents of Christianity, and even of theism in general, have claimed that religions cause wars. Know which belief system has killed by far the most people? Atheism!
History of geology: the Origin of Uniformitarianism
History of science: where does the modern scientific method come from? How far back did it originate? Notice that Daniel and his friends conducted a scientific experiment on the effects of eating a vegetarian diet!
History of the Church's teachings on creation: How far back does the Six-Day view go? How about the long ages view - was it held by all/most/some/a few/no early church fathers?
The Scopes Trial: facts and fictions
The faiths of our fathers: what did the American Founding Fathers believe about the Bible and creation, and how did it affect the government they set up? What about in other countries? Or, what did the early Church Fathers write about creation? How far back in history do we find beliefs in various kinds of evolutionism?
Astronomy/Cosmology/Physics
NASA image "Large and small stars in harmonious coexistence".
Click for original web file.
Is there a center of the universe? If so, are we in it? And what would that mean to evolutionism and creationism?
Implications of the laws of thermodynamics: The Laws of Thermodynamics are so demonstrable that they are called "Laws." Does evolution-by-chance agree with these?
Problems with theories on the origin of ...: stars, galaxies, the universe, the earth, the earth/moon system, the solar system. Pick ONE!
Comets: Comets burn up as they pass the sun repeatedly, so why would any still exist if the solar system were billions of years old? The Oort Cloud is a hypothetical cloud of objects, outside the visible solar system, that is claimed by evolutionists to be the source of comets. How much solid evidence exists for the Oort Cloud? Or, could they be from a breakup of a planet whose fragments are now called "the asteroid belt"? Or what evidence exists that God created them as part of the solar system?
Do "Martian" meteorites contain fossils or life?
Radioactive dating methods: how good are they?
Physics and metaphysics: There are now physicists making astounding claims that contradict the basic reasoning needed for science! "Bubble universes, that keep producing new universes." "The universe came from NOTHING, for NO reason, in a 'quantum fluctuation!'" Do these claims have evidence? Why would a scientist propose these concepts?
Biology
Hoatzin bird in Peru, by Kate in wikimedia
Pick an animal - probably ANY animal, if you search for information far enough, will show that it's much more interesting than you had thought! Examples: frogs that keep their babies in their MOUTHS! The mallee fowl, which instinctively builds an amazing pit/mound of rotting plants for a nest, and the male keeps the nest at the exact temperature for 9 months until the chicks hatch! When they hatch, unlike most other birds, they have no parental help. And the "birds of Paradise" - most or all have an inborn, fabulous mating dance and amazingly colorful appearance. They are said to ALL have a common ancestor, but ... what is the evidence?
Evolution of consciousness? Of instincts? Of conscience? Even if we could find a statistical possibility of the spontaneous generation of a one-celled organism, and even if we could statistically justify it becoming a complex organism, why would it not be an unconscious robot? Animals need instincts to survive and rear young - how would instincts arise by evolution? And in "Nature red in tooth and claw," where "survival of the fittest" means survival of those who out-compete others who eat the same foods and look for the same shelters, how would any creature ever get the idea that some behaviors are morally wrong?
How similar and dissimilar are the organs and DNA of allegedly-related creatures?
How do scientists decide how closely different creatures are related to each other? What surprises have show up in using DNA for this? Does DNA separate the butterflies from moths from skippers?
How does the embryonic development of different organisms compare?
Could DNA Arise by chance, carrying information that would actually form a self-reproducing organism? With a system around it for USING the information to replicate and run the controls of the organism? Could an organism mutate to form a different kind of organism, like a land animal becoming a dolphin?
DNA evidence (what changes would be required, and what DNA evidence exists, for creature A being more related to B than to the not-too-similar Q)? Cladograms are diagrams of supposed relationships between living things, and they're based on similarities of the visible parts of the organisms. Comparing DNA between creatures shows those cladograms are often wrong.
Butterfiles and some other insects change from one form to a completely different form, requiring DNA to form TWO DIFFERENT body plans!Insect metamorphosis Many insects, and some similar creatures, change from one body type to something totally different, some by a gradual process, and some turn to jelly and come out a new life-form! The
complexity of this process requires DNA to form TWO DIFFERENT BODY PLANS, and the DNA to keep the creature alive while changing!
Mimicry in nature: does it show Intelligent Design or spontaneous DNA changes that happened to be advantageous to the organism(s)? Example: animals that blend in with, even disappear in, their surroundings! Octopi, fish,
spiders, insects. Caterpillars that resemble bird poop, or owl faces. Baby deer whose coloration camoflages them. Other creatures closely resemble creatures that are dangerous or toxic.
Convergent evolution: this term is used when creatures that are not considered closely related have very similar body forms, or parts, or behaviors. Examples: dolphins, sharks, icthyosaurs: have a "torpedo" body form, but one's a mammal, one was a reptile (now extinct, and the other is a fish. Flight: supposedly evolved separately in birds, insects, mammals and reptiles. How could it have evolved at all, let alone in 4 completely different creatures? Many more examples exist!
Why do venemous/toxic creatures tend to have bright colors? Examples: coral snake, poison dart frog, monarch butterfly. Instead of blending into the background, they stand out! Could the bright colors accidentally evolve to warn other creatures to stay away? Did their ancestors have bright and dull colors, and only the colorful ones lived to reproduce? What makes the colors? What DNA is involved?
How did venemous creatures become venemous? How did these creatures develop not just saliva, but venom that kills their prey? Did God originally intend them to eat other animals?
Antibiotic resistance: in all cases in which the reason for antibiotic resistance is known, it is due to DNA damage, not improved DNA. The bacterium is less able to feed, process food, or something else has gone
wrong - but that problem makes the individual less susceptible to feeding on or otherwise processing the toxin in the antibiotic.
Statistical impossibility of spontaneous generation of life: The origin of life by chance processes is preached as fact by many science teachers and writers. What are the odds of this having happened?
Could sexual reproduction evolve? Most microbes reproduce by getting bigger, then reproducing their DNA, putting equal sets of DNA in far ends of the cell, then dividing it all in halves. That process is not simple, but more impossible yet, how would sexual reproduction ever evolve? How would you get two creatures of the same species but different AND compatible bodies, happen in the same galaxy, the same planet, the
same location, at the same time?
Living dinosaurs? Various parts of the world have stories of living lake monsters, like the Lake Champlain Monster, the Loch Ness Monster, and Mokele-mbembe (in the Congo River basin). What's the evidence,
for or against? If any are proved real, how would that rewrite information about dinosaurs?
This image is not a photo of a live pterosaur, but the ropen of New Guinea might be a pterosaur! Image by Sebastian Ganso on PixabayIs the ropan a living pterosaur? In New Guinea, natives and others have reported seeing a night-flying, bioluminescent creature that sounds like the pterosaur. No images are yet available, but eyewitness accounts are consistent with each other. What other claims of flying reptiles have been made in the last few hundred years?
Evolution of flight - in birds, mammals, insects, and reptiles. Could flight evolve by chance, in multiple kinds of creatures?
Evolution of fish to amphibians: Are lungfish the ancestors of amphibians? How about "walking fish" -- they really do exist! Did they become amphibians? Are all lungfish or walking fish related to all other lungfish
or walking fish? What would have to happen for a mammal to have come from a non-mammal?
Evolution of mammals: Evolutionists have proposed that the first mammals evolved from amphibians or reptiles. How likely would that be? What would be the similarities in one group compared to the other? What changes
would have had to happen? Any evidence for this?
Are all [fill in the blank!] related to each other? Are all sharks related to each other? All bats? All birds? All people? All earthworms? How could we tell, from a purely scientific standpoint?
Earth and Space Science
Bryce Canyon, courtesy of Debbie and Wayne Heitmann
Was there an Ice Age? Ages? How long did it last? How does it fit into the Bible?
Undersea canyons: Under the oceans, on the continental shelves, at the mouths of large rivers, there are canyons that rival the Grand Canyon! (Ex.:
Hudson Canyon) (You can see them using Google Earth!) They formed when the land was above sea level in the Ice Age. Evolutionists believe the latest Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, but creationists believe that happened perhaps 3,500 years ago. What support can you find for the Biblical time-frame, that would place the canyons'
formation at much less than 10,000 years?
Does the Grand Canyon contain sediment layers that were NOT laid down by water?
Uniqueness of the earth: to be habitable by life as we know it, a planet must have many particular properties: size, magnetic field, etc. How common might those be?
Fossils
Picture of the Delk track, having dinosaur and human tracks in the same rock. Is it a forgery? Click for an article on that.
Fossils vs. uniformitarianism: Uniformitarianism is the geological doctrine that the same processes we see in the world today are the only processes that have ever occurred, that the rates haven't changed much over time, and the Genesis Flood never happened. How do fossils form? How do fossils form? What do fossils reveal about the history of their containing rocks?
Evidence for a world-wide flood from the Grand Canyon (or, pick a different location): fossils and sediments both point to a catastrophic origin, not slow formation over millions of years.
Is the Delk Track, with dinosaur and alleged human footprints in the same rock, real, or a forgery?
Fake fossils: the Delk Track is claimed by evolutionists to be a fake, although many creationists see good reasons to believe it's real. There have been fake fossils made for sale. How can this be done? How can scientists tell a fake from a real fossil? Why do people do this, and who's been doing it?
Transitional fossils: Where/when and in what order do claimed transitional forms show up in the geological record?
How much of [your choice of fossil] remains have been found, including parts found in different locations?
Artists' images -- who's right?Different artists make very different images of the same fossil creature. Are any of them right? How would we know? Suggestion: do a web search for images of one species, like "Australopithecus africanus" (that's "Lucy"). How much does the public rely in images rather than the text to form an opinion of what the creature really was?
Journalism and Media
Model of Lucy, an Australopithicine ape, in Chicago Field Museum, showing human-like hands, feet, and upright walking - not supported by fossil evidence
How images influence our ideas about evolution/creation. Examples: the "parade of human evolution" with a monkey following an ape following a bigger ape following ... a human. Models of Lucy the Australopithicine - showing human-like features without physical evidences.
Headlines vs. content: How often do you see an interesting, even shocking, headline, then when you read the article that goes with it, the content does not support the headline? This often happens, and not just in science news! What kinds of topics is this done with? Why? Is there a good reason? Who decides on the headline? How does this influence people's views? Example: when you go into the Evolving Planet Exhibit at the Chicago Field Museum, the first sign on the wall says that "Evolution is one of the best-supported theories in science." Then when you read other signs, the wording changes to "may have," "might have been," etc.
Selective reporting: When someone publishes a report of new evidence for evolution, it might be featured on the evening news, in the Sunday papers, and ALL over the Internet! When other scientists point out that evidence is badly-analyzed, or even terribly exaggerated (as was done with Ida, a fossil lemur), there is much less reporting in the popular media. Why? What do you have to do to find the truth on BOTH sides of that issue? What is the effect of selective reporting on the way we think of origins? (And selective reporting is common in many issues, like politics, religion, and any very controversial area. It's in history textbooks, too! But that's an essay for some other contest.)
Evolutionism in movies, TV shows, beer commercial! Evolution is taken as a fact, and those who challenge the idea are represented as ignorant. Science fiction especially draws on evolutionary concepts, but it's even been featured in a beer commercial! Hey, if you can't trust TV and movies, who CAN you trust? : - )
Science
Sir Francis Bacon, "Father of the Scientific Method"
Rules of science: What are the rules for conducting scientific research and reporting? How have they changed since Francis Bacon and Reneé Descartes originally defined them? How well do creationists and evolutionists
"stick to the rules"? Is it logical to require adherence to the Bible's teachings, or to the teachings of Naturalism (Atheism), or neither? If a scientist is NOT a believer in the Bible as coming from God, what rules should we
expect of him/her?
History of science: Where did the modern scientific method come from? How far back does it go? Why Did Creationist Europe and America produce modern scientific method? What other societies have developed astronomy, metal craft, architecture, medicine?
Medicine: How does the medical knowledge in the Laws of Moses compare with modern ideas about sanitation, disease, etc.? How do ancient non-Hebrew medical texts compare with ours and/or the Laws of Moses? Greece?
Egypt? Others? Where did any of these cultures get their ideas?
