A spiral galaxy with a disc made up of several swirling arms. Patchy blue clouds of gas are speckled over the disc, where stars are forming and lighting up the gas around them. The core of the galaxy is large and shines brightly gold, while the spiral arms are a paler and faint reddish colour. Neighbouring galaxies - from small, elongated spots to larger swirling spirals - can be seen across the black background.
Take a grain of rice and hold it between your thumb and forefinger at arm’s length while looking up at the night sky. The patch of sky hidden behind that tiny grain of rice probably contains thousands of galaxies—each with around half a trillion stars. Some of these stars are ancient, nearing the end of their tens-of-millions-of-years lifespans; others are just beginning to form from clouds of gas and debris left behind by older stars that exploded as supernovae.
What lies behind that grain of rice is a tiny fragment of a dynamic, evolving, ever-changing, and expanding universe. A universe of which our ancient prophets were completely unaware as they crafted imaginative descriptions of its origins—descriptions written just a few thousand years ago that portrayed it as a small, unchanging cosmos, with a flat Earth at the centre covered by a dome.
But let’s not be too hard on them. As they stood in their Canaanite pastures, the Earth must indeed have looked flat and small, and the sky would have seemed like the roof of a great tent, adorned with tiny lights and with the sun and moon suspended from it. To them, the Earth appeared fixed and immobile while the dome overhead turned slowly, or perhaps invisible spirits moved the lights across the heavens each night. They didn’t know where the sun went after sunset and imagined the moon might hide in a deep valley during the day.
A major stumbling block that non-biologist Christian fundamentalist theologian William A. Dembski has blundered into is that his so-called ‘proof of intelligent design’ (i.e., the Christian god) also, by the same reasoning, constitutes evidence for malevolent design — something found in virtually every genome of every parasite and pathogen. This presents CDesign proponentsists with a fatal paradox: either their ‘proof of intelligent design’ also proves the existence of an evil designer, or ‘complex specified information’ is not the definitive evidence for design they like to claim it is.
A classic example — and another blow to creationist reasoning—has just been described in a study by researchers from the Swiss universities of Basel and Zurich. They have recovered and analysed the genome of the virus responsible for the 1918–1920 ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic, which killed more people than were killed in the First World War. In fact, the term ‘Spanish flu’ is a misnomer; the virus is now believed to have originated in a U.S. military base in Kansas and was brought to Europe by American soldiers.
The Swiss team discovered that from the outset, the virus appears to have been pre-adapted for infectivity and immune evasion. They identified three key mutations that remained unchanged as the virus evolved over the course of the pandemic. Two of these mutations made the virus resistant to an antiviral component of the human immune system, while the third enabled it to bind more effectively to receptors on the surface of human cells, allowing it to enter and infect them more readily. These mutations were so effective that victims frequently died within hours of the onset of symptoms.
This image, taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a spiral disc around the young star HD 135344B.
ESO/F. Maio et al.
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This image, captured with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), shows a spiral disc around the young star HD 135344B. The image, which was released in 2016, was obtained with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet Research (SPHERE) instrument.
It takes a special form of self-deluding immunity to facts and reason for creationists to cling to the absurd belief that the Bible’s description of a small universe formed *ex nihilo* in a few days — by nothing more than a few magic words spoken in a language no one was alive to understand — could possibly reflect reality.
Meanwhile, science continues to produce evidence for a very old, immense universe that is constantly changing and evolving, where new stars and planetary systems are being observed as they form. Many of these systems lie so far away that the light from them has taken billions of years to reach us — in stark contrast to the few thousand years allowed by the Biblical narrative.
As I’ve previously explained on this blog, modern astronomy and the wealth of evidence it provides shows that the Biblical account is not merely inaccurate — it is irredeemably wrong. It can’t even be salvaged as metaphor or allegory. It is exactly as wrong as one would expect from people who believed the Earth was a small, flat disc with a dome over it, and that life was created out of soil, fully formed, just a few thousand years ago.
Today, we have yet more evidence that utterly refutes the Bible’s creation myth — and this time, it doesn’t come from events billions of years ago, but from a mere 440 light-years away. That means the light we’re seeing now set off on its journey in 1585 — the same year Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to found the ill-fated Roanoke Colony in North America, and the Anglo-Spanish War broke out.
Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), using the Very Large Telescope (VLT), have observed a giant planet forming within the accretion disk of a young star — exactly as the modern theory of planetary formation predicts. In other words, the universe is still forming and evolving, in complete contradiction to the static, one-time-only creation described in Genesis.
The sugar ribose is more quickly phosphorylated compared to other sugars with the same chemical formula but a different shape. This selective phosphorylation could explain how ribose became the sugar molecule in RNA.
One fallacy with which anyone who has tried to engage a creationist in debate will soon become familiar is the false dichotomy. This is where a creationist attempts to make a "god of the gaps" argument appear logical by presenting it as a binary choice between something so simplistic or absurd that no serious scientist would argue for it—and "God did it!" In doing so, they ignore the actual scientific explanations and exclude all other plausible natural mechanisms.
A classic example of this is the argument that abiogenesis—often deliberately misrepresented as the spontaneous assembly of a complex, living cell from inorganic materials—is far too improbable to have occurred by chance alone, and therefore must have required a supernatural intelligence. In their minds, the very existence of complex life is "proof" of their particular deity.
This line of reasoning overlooks the crucial role played by natural processes, such as chemistry and physics, and what amounts to an evolutionary process at the molecular level. In such a process, chemical pathways that are more efficient at producing copies of themselves are naturally favoured, leading over time to increased refinement and complexity. For instance, why was the five-carbon sugar ribose selected as the backbone sugar in RNA?
This is the question that two researchers at the Scripps Research Institute have tackled. They demonstrated that ribose is far more efficiently phosphorylated than its alternatives, forming the chemical basis of nucleotides—the building blocks of RNA (and later DNA). This efficiency gave ribose a natural advantage, allowing it to "win" the competition against other sugars.
Their findings show that the emergence of ribose was not the result of random chance, but the predictable outcome of the underlying chemistry and physics. The study has been published in the international edition of the journal of the German Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie.
A major difference between science and religion can be summarised as follows: science embraces reasonable uncertainty, while religion often promotes unreasonable certainty.
In practice, this means science always allows room for doubt—however small—and continually re-examines and reassesses evidence to determine whether a change of understanding is justified. Religion, by contrast, typically seeks reasons not to change its views, no matter how tenuous those reasons may be or how far removed from observable reality.
This essential feature of the scientific method is frequently misrepresented by creationists, who portray science as unreliable precisely because it revises its conclusions in light of new evidence. They contrast this with the supposed ‘eternal truths’ of the Bible, arguing that science books need constant revision while scripture remains unchanging.
One of those supposed eternal truths—about which creationists are not permitted to change their minds—is that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and that all living things were created ex nihilo in their current forms, with no evolutionary ancestry or shared origins. Science, on the other hand, can re-evaluate the evidence from a 300-million-year-old fossil bed in Illinois and conclude that the original interpretation underestimated the complexity of the ancient ecosystem that once existed there.
A prime example of such a scientific reassessment has recently been published—open access—in the journal Paleobiology. The study was conducted by a team of palaeontologists from the University of Missouri’s College of Arts and Science, in collaboration with Gordon Baird of the Department of Geology & Environmental Sciences at the State University of New York (SUNY), Fredonia.
The work is based on a comprehensive reassessment of the rich fossil deposits from the Mazon Creek Lagerstätte in Illinois, which, during the Carboniferous Period (~300 million years ago), was part of a vast area of tropical swamps, deltas, and shallow seas. These habitats were shaped by rising sea levels that inundated earlier coal-forming wetlands.
In that long stretch of Earth’s history before it was supposedly "created," according to creationist mythology—a span covering 99.9975% of the planet’s existence—a remarkable geophysical event occurred. Around 41,000 years ago, during a time when modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans coexisted in Eurasia, a major disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field likely influenced human behaviour and may have hastened the disappearance of the Neanderthals.
This event, known as the Laschamps Excursion, was not a typical magnetic pole reversal, which Earth undergoes roughly every 100,000 years. Instead, the planet's magnetic field entered a chaotic state, weakening dramatically to around 10% of its usual strength and breaking into multiple, unstable poles.
Earth’s magnetic field normally shields the surface from ionising radiation by deflecting much of it towards the poles. With that protective barrier severely weakened, the planet would have been exposed to much stronger levels of ultraviolet radiation. The usual deflection of charged particles also produces the auroras, which during this period would have appeared across much of the night sky, including at lower latitudes—perhaps even near the equator—due to the multiple and shifting magnetic poles.
Although the Laschamps Excursion lasted only a few years, the environmental changes it triggered may explain behavioural shifts visible in the archaeological record. This is discussed in an article in The Conversation by Raven Garvey, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan; Agnit Mukhopadhyay, Research Scholar at the University of Alberta and Research Affiliate at Michigan; and Sanja Panovska, a Research Scientist at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. Together with their colleagues, they have published their findings—open access—in Science Advances.
Incidentally, the archaeological evidence discussed here should not exist at all if the biblical flood narrative were true. Such a flood would have obliterated or buried this material beneath a chaotic layer of silt, destroying the stratified layers of sediment by which these finds are reliably dated—dating that is wholly inconsistent with the timeline of human history as derived from biblical mythology. Moreover, the Laschamps Excursion undermines any creationist claim that the Earth was created and fine-tuned especially for human life. If something as fundamental as magnetic polarity—and the UV protection it affords—can fail naturally due to processes in Earth’s core, then the idea of a specially designed planet collapses under its own absurdity.
The article from The Conversation is reproduced below under a Creative Commons licence and has been reformatted for stylistic consistency.
Weird space weather seems to have influenced human behavior on Earth 41,000 years ago – our unusual scientific collaboration explores how
Wandering magnetic fields would have had noticeable effects for humans.
Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)
When we first got together, we wondered whether our unconventional project, linking space weather and human behavior, could actually bridge such a vast disciplinary divide. Now, two years on, we believe the payoffs – personal, professional and scientific – were well worth the initial discomfort.
Our collaboration, which culminated in a recent paper in the journal Science Advances, began with a single question: What happened to life on Earth when the planet’s magnetic field nearly collapsed roughly 41,000 years ago?
Weirdness when Earth’s magnetic shield falters
This near-collapse is known as the Laschamps Excursion, a brief but extreme geomagnetic event named for the volcanic fields in France where it was first identified. At the time of the Laschamps Excursion, near the end of the Pleistocene epoch, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse as they do every few hundred thousand years. Instead, they wandered, erratically and rapidly, over thousands of miles. At the same time, the strength of the magnetic field dropped to less than 10% of its modern day intensity.
So, instead of behaving like a stable bar magnet – a dipole – as it usually does, the Earth’s magnetic field fractured into multiple weak poles across the planet. As a result, the protective force field scientists call the magnetosphere became distorted and leaky.
The magnetosphere normally deflects much of the solar wind and harmful ultraviolet radiation that would otherwise reach Earth’s surface.
So, during the Laschamps Excursion when the magnetosphere broke down, our models suggest a number of near-Earth effects. While there is still work to be done to precisely characterize these effects, we do know they included auroras – normally seen only in skies near the poles as the Northern Lights or Southern Lights – wandering toward the equator, and significantly higher-than-present-day doses of harmful solar radiation.
Aurors in the skies above Europe could have been breathtaking, terrifying or both for ancient humans.
The skies 41,000 years ago may have been both spectacular and threatening. When we realized this, we two geophysicists wanted to know whether this could have affected people living at the time.
The archaeologist’s answer was absolutely.
Human responses to ancient space weather
For people on the ground at that time, auroras may have been the most immediate and striking effect, perhaps inspiring awe, fear, ritual behavior or something else entirely. But the archaeological record is notoriously limited in its ability to capture these kinds of cognitive or emotional responses.
In response, people may have adopted practical measures: spending more time in caves, producing tailored clothing for better coverage, or applying mineral pigment “sunscreen” made of ochre to their skin. As we describe in our recent paper, the frequency of these behaviors indeed appears to have increased across parts of Europe, where effects of the Laschamps Excursion were pronounced and prolonged.
Naturally occurring ochre can act as a protective sunscreen if applied to skin.
At this time, both Neanderthals and members of our species, Homo sapiens, were living in Europe, though their geographic distributions likely overlapped only in certain regions. The archaeological record suggests that different populations exhibited distinct approaches to environmental challenges, with some groups perhaps more reliant on shelter or material culture for protection.
Importantly, we’re not suggesting that space weather alone caused an increase in these behaviors or, certainly, that the Laschamps caused Neanderthals to go extinct, which is one misinterpretation of our research. But it could have been a contributing factor – an invisible but powerful force that influenced innovation and adaptability.
Cross-discipline collaboration
Collaborating across such a disciplinary gap was, at first, daunting. But it turned out to be deeply rewarding.
Archaeologists are used to reconstructing now-invisible phenomena like climate. We can’t measure past temperatures or precipitation directly, but they’ve left traces for us to interpret if we know where and how to look.
An artistic rendering of how far into lower latitudes the aurora might have been visible during the Laschamps Excursion.
Maximilian Schanner (GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany)
But even archaeologists who’ve spent years studying the effects of climate on past behaviors and technologies may not have considered the effects of the geomagnetic field and space weather. These effects, too, are invisible, powerful and best understood through indirect evidence and modeling. Archaeologists can treat space weather as a vital component of Earth’s environmental history and future forecasting.
Likewise, geophysicists, who typically work with large datasets, models and simulations, may not always engage with some of the stakes of space weather. Archaeology adds a human dimension to the science. It reminds us that the effects of space weather don’t stop at the ionosphere. They can ripple down into the lived experiences of people on the ground, influencing how they adapt, create and survive.
The Laschamps Excursion wasn’t a fluke or a one-off. Similar disruptions of Earth’s magnetic field have happened before and will happen again. Understanding how ancient humans responded can provide insight into how future events might affect our world – and perhaps even help us prepare.
Our unconventional collaboration has shown us how much we can learn, how our perspective changes, when we cross disciplinary boundaries. Space may be vast, but it connects us all. And sometimes, building a bridge between Earth and space starts with the smallest things, such as ochre, or a coat, or even sunscreen.
Raven Garvey, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan; Agnit Mukhopadhyay, Research Scholar at University of Alberta; Research Affiliate, University of Michigan, and Sanja Panovska, Research scientist, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences
Published by The Conversation. Open access. (CC BY 4.0)
Abstract
In the recent geological past, Earth’s magnetic field reduced to ~10% of the modern values and the magnetic poles shifted away from the geographic poles, causing the Laschamps geomagnetic excursion, about 41 millennia ago. The excursion lasted ~2000 years, with dipole strength reduction and tilting spanning 300 years. During this period, the geomagnetic field’s multipolarity resembled outer planets, causing rapid magnetospheric changes. To our knowledge, this study presents the first space plasma analysis of the excursion, linking the geomagnetic field, magnetospheric system, and upper atmosphere in sequence using feedback channels for distinct temporal epochs. A three-dimensional reconstruction of Earth’s geospace system shows that these shifts affected auroral regions and open magnetic field lines, causing them to expand and wander toward lower latitudes. These changes likely altered the upper atmosphere’s composition and influenced anthropological progress during that era. Looking through a modern lens, such an event would disrupt contemporary technology, including communications and satellite infrastructure.
INTRODUCTION
For over 3.2 billion years, Earth’s intrinsic magnetic field has protected the planet’s atmosphere (1) and habitability (2) by serving as a shield against the solar wind (3), a continuous stream of energetic charged particles emanating from the Sun. This shield, known as the magnetosphere (4), takes on a shape resembling a magnetic dipole and is shaped by convective flow processes (5) and currents carrying charged particles (6). Within the magnetosphere, magnetic field lines transport charged particles by trapping and/or accelerating them, creating a space plasma environment (7, 8) that spans tens to hundreds of Earth radii (RE; ~6378 km in distance units) in the dayside and nightside, respectively. Earth’s space plasma environment is a complex and nonlinear system that plays a crucial role in safeguarding life from space-based threats (9). Charged particles from this environment interact with the upper atmosphere near the magnetic poles, giving rise to the captivating natural light displays known as the aurora borealis (Northern Lights) and aurora australis (Southern Lights) (10). Because of their close association with the planet’s intrinsic magnetic field, the attributes of the aurora are directly affected by magnetic disturbances like space storms (11), and magnetic substorms (12, 13). These disturbances can alter the trajectories of charged particles, affecting the location and intensity of the aurorae (14). Beyond shielding Earth from the solar wind, the space plasma environment also safeguards the planet’s habitability by deflecting harmful solar charged particles and cosmic radiation (15), thereby preserving the integrity of the stratospheric ozone layer (16) and atmospheric circulation processes (17). Furthermore, this magnetic environment plays a critical role in protecting modern technology like satellites (18), communication channels (19), and electrical power grids (20) during such disturbances, underscoring its profound societal importance.
Despite serving as a protective shield, Earth’s intrinsic magnetic field is prone to fluctuations. Owing to its convecting liquid outer core (21), which drives the planetary dynamo (22), the intrinsic magnetic field has constantly varied in geological time (23), occasionally leading to a complete reversal of the field (24). On certain occasions, the geomagnetic field changes rapidly over the time span of a few millennia; these events are called geomagnetic excursions (25) (henceforth referred to as excursions). Excursions are similar to geomagnetic reversals but occur over shorter timescales (24). They cause the intrinsic field strength to diminish and the magnetic tilt to change (25), rapidly relocating the magnetic poles over vast distances, even within a human lifetime (26). By contrast, the duration of the most recent reversal, Matuyama-Brunhes reversal, is estimated to be in the order of 20 to 30 thousand years (27). Although the exact circumstances that cause an excursion are not clearly established (23, 24), geomagnetic records indicate that the Earth’s magnetic field changed markedly about 41,000 years ago (or 41 ka). This event, known as the Laschamps excursion, is the most recent, well-documented, and best-studied global excursion, having been observed in several geological archival records worldwide (28). During this event, the axial dipole components of Earth’s geomagnetic field substantially weakened, resulting in a significant reduction in field intensity and a departure from dipolarity (29).
The variations observed in Earth’s magnetic field during the Laschamps excursion would have had profound implications on Earth’s biosphere (30). The weakening magnetic field intensity likely led to an influx of energetic particles and cosmic radiation penetrating Earth’s atmosphere (31), potentially causing notable alterations in atmospheric circulation (14) and composition (32). Although it is widely believed that these variations had a direct impact on early human development with the emergence of modern humans and megafaunal extinctions being recorded during the same time period as this excursion (26), such assumptions were based on oversimplified models of the space plasma environment. Accurately assessing their impact remains challenging without a comprehensive reconstruction of the space plasma environment on a global scale. A previous study (33) has attempted to delineate Earth’s magnetospheric morphology and its effect on the upper atmosphere and aurora for nondipolar geomagnetic fields, albeit relying on synthetic data with idealized parameters. Until recently, only a limited number of studies (34) have explored the state of the near-Earth space environment concerning transient nondipolar geomagnetic fields. Although these studies provide insights into the effects of geomagnetic reversals on the magnetosphere, the specific conditions of the magnetosphere and aurorae during the Laschamps event have never been investigated until now.
To our knowledge, this manuscript presents the first study that delves into the global repercussions of the fluctuating intrinsic magnetic field on Earth’s magnetospheric structure during the Laschamps event, linking this structure to the formation of a wandering auroral zone. Recent progress in numerical modeling has allowed us to accurately investigate the geospace system not only in three dimensions but also as a collective system. The study breaks down the timeline of the Laschamps excursion into specific temporal epochs that reveal notable variations in the space environment while enabling easy comparisons of variability across different time frames. Moreover, correlating the geophysical findings with anthropological evidences offers a pathway for future research to delve deeper into the precise effects of geomagnetic fluctuations not only on Earth but also on Earth-like planets in distant stellar systems.
GEOMAGNETIC VARIATIONS DURING THE LASCHAMPS EXCURSION
Recent studies examining the multimillennial variations of Earth’s magnetic field have yielded remarkable insights into the overarching morphology of the Laschamps excursion, suggesting that its genesis lay in the decay and subsequent recovery of the axial dipole field’s influence on the geomagnetic field (29, 35). Studies indicate that the magnitude of the axial dipole field, the field component allowing Earth to have a dipole-like magnetic field structure, directly dictated the scale of the excursion, whether it was regional or global in scope (36). Although the field intensity was globally very low, reconstructions of spatial morphology showed that regional field intensities and directions differed strongly (22). Notably, the equatorial dipole and nondipole components of the field remained relatively stable amidst these fluctuations (36).
The Laschamps excursion persisted for roughly 1800 years at the Earth’s surface, and a deeper investigation into the core-mantle boundary across an extended time frame of the event (50 to 30 ka; see Fig. 1A) revealed three distinct periods: pre-Laschamps period (50 to 43 ka), the excursion period (42 to 40 ka), and post-Laschamps period (39 to 30 ka) (36). In the pre-Laschamps period, the geomagnetic field resembled the present-day configuration, dominated by a strong axial dipole field with high dipole moment values. However, during the excursion period, the axial dipole field weakened substantially, approaching near-zero levels and occasionally even reversing its polarity for geologically brief periods. Globally, the field intensity plummeted to levels lower than the contemporary field intensity observed over the South Atlantic Anomaly (37), the region with the weakest magnetic field strength on present-day Earth. Transitional directional changes in the field were observed worldwide, albeit with varying magnitudes and timings across different regions. Meanwhile, the nondipole field components remained relatively consistent with pre-Laschamps levels. In the post-Laschamps period, whereas the nondipole field continued to behave typically, the axial dipole field began a slow recovery. However, this recovery failed to fully restore the pre-Laschamps levels, resulting in frequent, regionally confined excursions (36) until the modern-day field intensity was attained (24, 28). This study focuses its geomagnetic analyses on the period encompassing the peak drop during the Laschamps event, honing in on the excursion state and the brief intervals immediately preceding and following it (see Fig. 1A, inset). Within the 42- to 39-ka time frame, three distinct phases were evident: the stable field before the extreme decay (Phase A), the Laschamps midpoint (Phase B), and the recovery (Phase C).
Fig. 1. Variations in Earth’s internal magnetic field during the Laschamps Event.
(A) Intensity (denoted as “magnetic intensity”) and directional variations (denoted as “magnetic inclination”) of the intrinsic magnetic field during the Laschamps excursion, in comparison to modern conditions. B.P., before the present. (B to F) Global maps of intensity and inclination at the Earth’s surface for selected epochs across the peak field intensity drop during Laschamps as identified in subplot (A).
The differences in the geomagnetic field during the three phases of the Laschamps excursion have been illustrated in Fig. 1 (B to F). Phase A signified a dipole-dominated field with a gradual decline in the dipole moment strength that reached approximately half of present-day values (38). Concurrently, as estimated from the dipole components (the first three Gauss coefficients of the geomagnetic field) (39), the dipole tilt underwent large deviations from the geographic poles to equatorward latitudes (∼15°; see Fig. 1B). Phase B witnessed the field intensity plummeting to its nadir, with the dipole moment plummeting to approximately an order of magnitude lower than present-day levels (∼10% of the modern dipole moment), alongside rapid and pronounced variations in dipole tilt (see Fig. 1C). These tilt fluctuations stemmed from the reduced axial dipole contribution, resulting in a complex field marked by the emergence of multiple poles, contrasting starkly with a simplistic dipole model (see Fig. 1, D and E). Phase C heralded the beginning of field intensity recovery to moderate levels, with dipole tilt gradually reaching present-day norms. Throughout much of this phase, the field adopted a dipole structure reminiscent of the modern-day configuration (see Fig. 1F). Nevertheless, although the dipole moment at 39.9 ka is similar to that of the pre-Laschamps epoch, discernible differences in the global geomagnetic structure between these two periods were evident, as illustrated by the isoclinic lines on both maps.
RESPONSE OF THE MAGNETOSPHERIC SYSTEM
Variations in intrinsic magnetic fields have considerable ramifications on a planet’s magnetospheric system. Comparisons between Earth’s magnetosphere and those observed in other planets within the solar system like Jupiter and Neptune show significant disparities in size and structure, primarily attributed to variations in planetary magnetic moments and rotation periods (40, 41). Thus, it is virtually certain that the notable fluctuations observed in the geomagnetic field during the Laschamps excursion would have triggered a marked transformation in Earth’s magnetospheric configuration. Recent investigations into Earth’s magnetospheric structure during the Matuyama-Brunhes reversal—the most recent geomagnetic reversal that took place 778 ka—uncovered a substantial reduction in the magnetosphere’s size and the emergence of numerous regions where the magnetic field lines interact and release energy over a period spanning multiple millenia (34). However, because of the accelerated pace of geomagnetic instability characteristic of an excursion, Earth’s magnetospheric configuration transformed profoundly and swiftly over the course of a few centuries during the Laschamps excursion. Leveraging advanced techniques rooted in first principles–based global-scale numerical schemes, we present a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of Earth’s prehistoric magnetosphere during the Laschamps excursion and analyze the system’s shape, size, and structure.
Figure 2 illustrates the swift variations in Earth’s magnetospheric structure across distinct temporal epochs, spanning the various phases of the Laschamps excursion. During much of Phase A of the excursion, Earth’s magnetospheric structure remained largely dipolar, resembling modern times (see comparisons of Fig. 2, A and B). However, a gradual decrease in geomagnetic strength resulted in a reduction in the magnetosphere’s size. By 42.153 ka, Earth’s magnetosphere shrunk to ∼5.3 RE (33,804 km from Earth’s surface) on the dayside, almost half the size of the present-day magnetosphere, which ranges between 8 and 11 RE (∼51,000 to 70,000 km from Earth’s surface) during moderate solar conditions (42). Diminishing geomagnetic strength also expanded the open-closed field line boundary around the poles. The open-closed field line boundary is a region characterized as a boundary between open geomagnetic field lines, magnetic field lines that extend from the magnetosphere into interplanetary space and facilitate the entry of energetic particles from the Sun (43) and galactic cosmic radiation (44), and closed geomagnetic field lines, looped field lines that connect back to the planetary magnetic field (45). Furthermore, a gradual increase in the geomagnetic field’s dipole tilt meant that the magnetosphere’s dipole axis was significantly inclined toward the equator. During this epoch, the magnetosphere tilted by 46.3° to the geographic polar axis, at least four times higher than modern Earth’s geomagnetic tilt of ∼11°. By 41.168 ka (see Fig. 2C), as Phase A of the excursion drew to a close, a weakening axial dipole field caused Earth’s magnetosphere to exhibit strong nondipolar characteristics. The dipole axis was severely tilted to the geographic axis by 76°, resulting in a magnetospheric configuration that resembled those observed in outer planetary systems like Neptune (46). Although still displaying dipolar features like a dayside bow shock (47) and a compressed magnetosheath region (48), the substantial geomagnetic tilt resulted in the open-closed field line boundary relocating near the dayside equatorial magnetospheric boundary. This peculiar magnetic arrangement has been further visualized through 3D snapshots of the prehistoric magnetosphere provided in the Supplementary Materials.
Fig. 2. Reconstructed magnetospheric configurations across successive temporal epochs during the Laschamps excursion.
(A) Present-day magnetosphere at Earth. (B to F) Magnetospheric morphologies in the x-z plane (geocentric solar ecliptic coordinates) for temporal epochs spanning the various phases of Laschamps, as delineated in Fig. 1. All configurations were reconstructed under moderately southward solar wind driving conditions at 00:00 UT. White lines trace magnetic field lines, whereas the background contour represents the plasma particle pressure values saturated at 1.5 nPa.
Phase B marked the excursion’s peak alterations to Earth’s magnetospheric structure. By 40.977 ka, the axial dipole strength during this phase was only about 10% of present-day levels. Consequently, the magnetosphere contracted in size, as depicted in Fig. 2D, with the magnetopause—the magnetic boundary of the magnetosphere in the dayside—reaching a meager 2.43 RE (15,498 km) from Earth’s surface. On the nightside, the magnetospheric field lines were restricted to ∼32.3 RE. This phase also gave rise to powerful nondipolar characteristics. Multiple weak magnetic poles emerged around various geographic locations, as illustrated in fig. S4. These poles created clusters of closed field lines that did not extend beyond ∼2 RE (12,700 km from Earth’s surface) on both the dayside and the nightside, whereas substantial interactions between open field lines were observed. By 40.531 ka, despite a muted dipole strength (∼19% of modern values), the magnetosphere started to show signs of recovery (see Fig. 2E), with a stronger dayside and nightside closed field line region and a discernible bow shock and magnetosheath region against the upstream solar wind. Notably, the dipole tilt was higher during this epoch, offset by the emergence of nondipolar configurations near the southern geographic pole, leading to a further broadening of the open-closed field line boundary.
As Phase C unfolded and geomagnetic conditions began to recover, Earth’s magnetosphere gradually reverted to its dipolar state (Fig. 2F). By 39.9 ka, the dipole tilt had nearly returned to modern levels (∼10°), albeit with a weaker dipole strength. This resulted in a magnetospheric configuration reminiscent of the pre-Laschamps era yet with a smaller dayside presence and an expanded open field line region near the poles. Notably, closed field line regions expanded on both the dayside and nightside, whereas the bow shock and dayside magnetospheric boundary pushed sunward, extending to 6.4 RE (40,820 km). Simultaneously, the nightside magnetosphere enlarged compared to earlier phases (see fig. S5). Toward the latter part of Phase C, there were no notable changes in the dipole tilt angle. Over the subsequent 10,000 years, as the geomagnetic field regained its pre-Laschamps dipole strength, the magnetosphere likely maintained an enlarged open field line region around the poles before gradually shrinking back to the present-day auroral zone.
GEOLOGICALLY RAPID WANDERING OF THE AURORAL OVAL
The Earth’s magnetosphere is constantly interacting with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from the surface of the Sun. This dynamic interaction results in the alignment of charged particles with Earth’s magnetic field, which are accelerated in the magnetosphere to precipitate into the upper reaches of the atmosphere (∼110 km). These charged particles, upon collision with neutral atoms within Earth’s atmosphere (9), ignite the ethereal display known as the aurorae or the Northern/Southern Lights. Primarily concentrated around the geomagnetic poles, the aurora finds its most pronounced manifestation near the delineating boundary between zones characterized by open and closed field lines (45). In doing so, it forms a ring-shaped contour surrounding the geomagnetic poles, commonly referred to as the auroral oval. Variations in magnetospheric shape and structure instigate the auroral oval in both the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere to fluctuate. In modern times, the auroral oval’s location, structure, and intensity have been frequently affected by varying solar activity during space weather events (49). Space weather studies primarily focus on variations in Earth’s magnetosphere driven by changes in solar wind input to a relatively stable Earth’s magnetic field. In contrast, this study examines variations in Earth’s geomagnetic field under near-constant solar conditions. Building on the magnetospheric variations in the previous section, two substantive changes occurred in the aurora during the Laschamps excursion:
1) With the reduction in geomagnetic dipole moment, the magnetosphere was more compressed. This resulted in the expansion of the polar region encompassed by open field lines and resulted in the subsequent expansion of the aurora (26).
2) Rapid variations in the dipole tilt angle over a few centuries enabled the geomagnetic poles to be severely inclined, causing the location of the open-closed field line boundary and, by extension, the auroral oval to wander across the globe.
Figure 3 illustrates the transformative shifts across the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere auroral zones during the excursion. The contoured rows within the figure delineate the auroral energy fluxes, quantifying the sheer magnitude of energy input from energetic charged particles at a distance of 1.5 RE (equivalent to 10,000 km) from Earth’s surface. Concurrently, the approximate positions of the auroral oval and the open-closed field line boundary are mapped at a height of 110 km above Earth’s surface in the subsequent row.
Fig. 3. Visualization of auroral charged particle energy flux variations and corresponding auroral zone wandering during the Laschamps excursion.
Subplots (A to E) depict auroral coverage in the Northern Hemisphere at specified temporal epochs as identified in Fig. 1, whereas subplots (F to J) showcase auroral coverage in the Southern Hemisphere during the same epochs. (Top projection in each subplot) Auroral energy flux contours are represented at 1.5 RE (10,000 km), with values saturated at 10 mW/m2. (Bottom projection in each subplot) The auroral oval (light green) and aggregate open field line zones (dark green) are projected at atmospheric altitudes (110 km) for each epoch, displayed over an orthographic globe projection. Red lines indicate the trajectory of the geomagnetic poles, based on the axial dipole tilt.
As the geomagnetic dipole underwent a simultaneous weakening and tilting during Phase A, the Northern Hemisphere’s auroral oval traversed from the Arctic region through Western Eurasia to Northern Africa, extending further to Northwestern Sahara. Similarly, in the Southern Hemisphere, the auroral oval shifted from the Antarctic sector toward the eastern expanse of Australia and New Zealand. Notably, the open field line region and the auroral oval underwent a substantial expansion, with the auroral poleward boundary broadening from an average diameter of 5610 km at 42.153 ka to an impressive 8167 km at 41.168 ka. For reference, the modern auroral oval has a diameter of <3000 km during nominal solar wind conditions. During Phase B, this expansion intensified significantly, propelled by the drastic reduction in the axial dipole strength and escalating influence of the nondipolar field. Despite a relatively reduced tilt in the oval, vast expanses of both hemispheres were enveloped by expansive open field line regions, unleashing a substantial barrage of auroral precipitation on a global scale. In modern space weather, extreme events can cause the oval region to expand, but only by a fraction of what occurred during the peak reduction in dipole strength. This epoch witnessed a monumental expansion and the probable fragmentation of the auroral oval, attributable to the nondipolar components of the geomagnetic field. As illustrated in Fig. 3C, the aurora assumed a global presence, engulfing sizeable regions of the Earth with both open and closed field lines, thus sculpting a near-Earth space environment unparalleled in history or during any contemporary space weather phenomenon. This anomalous auroral morphology began its gradual restitution by 40.531 ka, marking the onset of Phase C. The protracted progression of globally unstable auroral zones likely persisted for several centuries until, by 39.9 ka, the Earth’s axial dipole reasserted its dominance, confining the aurora to the polar regions, as is the case today.
The authors present compelling evidence linking observable changes in the palaeontological record—specifically in human behaviour—to the geophysical disruption of Earth’s magnetic polarity known as the Laschamps Excursion. The very existence of this palaeontological and geophysical evidence stands in stark contrast to the creationist belief in the Bible as an inerrant account of Earth's history and life upon it.
Far from supporting the notion of a stable, perfectly designed planet fine-tuned for human life and created ex nihilo just a few thousand years ago, findings like these reveal a picture of humanity shaped by environmental pressures on a dynamic—and at times hostile—planet. The overwhelming weight of evidence exposes the biblical narrative as the product of pre-scientific imagination, rooted in the fearful infancy of our species. That belief in its literal truth still persists is, perhaps, the real wonder of the Bible — though it might be better attributed to the enduring power of childhood indoctrination, which at times borders on psychological abuse.
HOPS-315, a baby star where astronomers have observed evidence for the earliest stages of planet formation.
This image shows jets of silicon monoxide (SiO) blowing away from the baby star HOPS-315. The image was obtained with the with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner.
One of the more dishonest tactics employed by creationist grifter Ken Ham is his infamous question: "Were you there?" As though the only valid form of evidence is eye-witness testimony. The implication is clear—if you didn’t personally observe a species evolving, then you have no grounds to claim that evolution occurred. And by extension, Ham suggests that his own creationist claims are equally valid and deserve the same consideration as scientific explanations, despite the fact that he wasn't there either.
Of course, this deliberately ignores the many well-documented instances of observed evolution and the overwhelming fossil evidence showing gradual transitions over time.
He applies the same fallacious reasoning to cosmology, dismissing scientific accounts of Earth’s and the solar system’s origins on the grounds that no one was there to witness them. As though this somehow makes the biblical Bronze Age myth—a magical spontaneous assembly in response to divine incantation—equally plausible.
In a typically cynical move, Ham teaches children to parrot this question as a way to shut down scientific discussion. Rather than encouraging curiosity with the far more constructive question, "How do you know that?" — a gateway to learning about observation, extrapolation, and logical reasoning — he arms them with a slogan designed to obstruct inquiry and preserve ignorance, while making them feel smugly superior to the scientists having exposed the 'flaw' in their reasoning.
But now, thanks to cutting-edge astronomical research, science has delivered something akin to “being there” at the birth of a planet.
An international team of researchers, using the ALMA telescope (operated in part by the European Southern Observatory) and the James Webb Space Telescope, have observed what appears to be the formation of an Earth-like planet in the accretion disk of a young star. This is direct evidence supporting the scientific model of planetary formation — the very process that explains the origins of Earth and the solar system.
Predictably, this discovery will require some creative misrepresentation from creationists to dismiss it. No doubt we’ll hear claims that it’s not really the same process that formed Earth, or that it doesn’t disprove Genesis — because defending ancient mythology apparently requires ignoring any modern evidence that makes it look absurdly naive.
Some 150 million years before the mythical events of ‘Creation Week’—give or take a few thousand years—our distant ancestors were small, nocturnal, rodent-like mammals eking out an existence in a world dominated by colossal reptiles. Among these dominant life forms were the dinosaurs, thriving in a variety of ecosystems and feeding on plants or other animals, depending on their species.
As they ate, they unwittingly left behind a record of their diet etched into the microscopic wear patterns on the enamel of their teeth. Today, with the help of sophisticated analytical techniques, palaeontologists can read these patterns like a diary of prehistoric meals. And with each new discovery, such as the one published by a team led by Dr Daniela E. Winkler of Kiel University, the yawning gap between ancient mythology and modern science widens ever further. Their findings provide yet another decisive refutation of the simplistic narrative crafted by Bronze Age storytellers—later compiled into what some still insist is the inerrant word of an omniscient creator.
The team focused on the teeth of sauropods—long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs such as Camarasaurus, Brachiosaurus, and Diplodocus — from the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation in North America and the Lusitanian Basin in Portugal. Using a method called Dental Microwear Texture Analysis (DMTA), they examined the microscopic wear patterns caused by feeding, revealing a fascinating spectrum of dietary strategies and environmental adaptations among different species.
What they found demolishes the notion of sauropods as a homogenous group of giant leaf-munchers. Instead, the microwear textures show distinct differences in feeding behaviour, likely linked to differences in available vegetation and habitat. For example, Camarasaurus appears to have consumed tougher, more fibrous plant material—perhaps conifers—while others such as Diplodocus may have specialised in softer vegetation like ferns or aquatic plants. These variations not only suggest niche partitioning, where species avoid direct competition by diversifying their diets, but also point to distinct ecological zones across the ancient landscapes they inhabited.
Even more telling is the comparison between North American and European sauropods. Despite being closely related, the differences in their dental microwear suggest adaptations to different environmental pressures and available flora, implying behavioural flexibility and evolutionary divergence shaped by their respective habitats.
Such complexity and diversity, preserved for over 150 million years in the microscopic textures of fossilised teeth, are a world away from the simplistic narratives of static 'kinds' created in a single week. Instead, we see a dynamic, evolving biosphere responding to ecological challenges—exactly what we’d expect in a world governed by natural selection and deep time.
Samples of ancient boar teeth unearthed at the archaeological site of Asiab in the Zagros Mountains.
Credit: Nic Vevers/ANU
Regional 87Sr/86Sr ratios were estimated using data from the Georoc database37 and measurements of modern plants from Ali Kosh29 and interpolated to the wider region using the underlying lithology (following Barakat et al.87).
A thousand years before Earth was supposedly created—according to the Bronze Age myths that creationists regard as literal history—people were already feasting in the Zagros Mountains, at a site now known as Asiab in modern-day Iran. Then, in what must have been a strangely selective miracle, around 4,300 years ago—when, according to the same myths, a global flood wiped out all life on Earth—the remains of these ancient feasts remained completely untouched. Like countless other archaeological sites, Asiab shows no trace of the thick silt layer that such a cataclysmic flood would inevitably have left behind.
Long before the advent of agriculture, when humans still lived in scattered bands of hunter-gatherers, people gathered at Asiab for a communal feast. The exact reason—whether religious ceremony, marriage, funeral, or some form of tribal leadership event—can only be guessed at. But what is clear is that guests travelled long distances over mountainous terrain, bringing with them the carcasses of wild boar. These animals, dangerous to hunt and not commonly pursued by hunter-gatherers in the region, appear to have held special significance. Their presence suggests that hunting and transporting them was a display of prowess or status, perhaps reserved for prestigious guests.
This conclusion comes from a team of palaeontologists who examined the microscopic wear and isotopic signatures on the teeth of wild boar recovered from the site. (For more on how this technique works, see the AI information side panel.)
The international team, led by Dr Petra Vaiglova of the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at the Australian National University (ANU), has just published their findings open access in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.
I asked ChatGPT to list some of the most common fallacies used by creationists in online debates, and to design memes illustrating them.
Most creationists won’t recognise these as fallacies, of course, because their understanding of science and logic is typically on a par with that of a child of nine or ten—old enough to log onto a computer and access social media, but not yet equipped with the critical thinking skills needed to understand how debate works, what constitutes scientific evidence, and what makes a logical argument.
Many are also conspiracy theorists, as research shows (1) a strong correlation between conspiracism and creationism. Both tend to stem from the same underlying cause: a teleological mode of thinking retained from childhood and, in some individuals, carried into adulthood to such an extent that it becomes a cognitive impairment.
This makes them easy prey for the unscrupulous frauds who thrive in creationist circles—parasites who earn a living by peddling pseudoscience to those willing to pay good money for confirmation of their biases, regardless of the quality of the argument or the validity of the evidence.
The following memes are free to use, though a credit would be appreciated. To download, right click on any image and select 'save as...', or to download zipped memepack.
More embarrassment for creationists comes in the form of new evidence that Neanderthals were butchering and cooking meat in two caves in what is now Israel. Not only did this occur some 40,000 to 50,000 years before creationists believe the Earth was created, but it also shows that Neanderthal culture had diversified into distinct culinary traditions—even among populations inhabiting neighbouring areas.
The most damning evidence against creationist claims is, of course, the very existence of such archaeological remains. According to the biblical narrative of a global, genocidal flood just a few thousand years ago, this evidence simply should not exist. Such a cataclysm would have erased any trace of it—or at best buried it beneath thick layers of chaotic silt, jumbled together with fossils of plants and animals from distant land masses in no coherent stratigraphic order.
The evidence for Neanderthal cultural diversity comes from researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who studied remains in the nearby caves of Amud and Kebara, located just 70 km apart.
What they found was a marked difference in how the two Neanderthal groups butchered their prey, including whether they processed the carcasses at the kill site or transported them back to their caves for preparation. There also appear to be differences in how the meat was cooked.
It never rains but it pours for creationism. Or in this case, not pouring rain but a veritable ice storm — an ice core from the oldest Alpine glacier, holding a remarkably detailed record of the past 12,000 years, stretching back to the end of the last Ice Age.
The core, 40 metres long, was extracted from Mont Blanc’s Dôme du Goûter glacier in the French Alps.
And — surprise, surprise! — there is no sign of a cataclysmic global flood. Not even the faintest trace. In this part of the French Alps at least, the worldwide genocidal flood that creationists believe their deity unleashed upon the Earth quite simply never happened. Strangely, a flood supposedly deep enough to cover all mountains (Genesis 7:19–20) failed to reach the peaks of the European Alps.
Instead, what the ice core reveals is a continuous, uninterrupted history stretching back to at least 2,000 years before ‘Creation Week’, capturing seasonal changes, shifts in climate, volcanic eruptions, and even Saharan dust storms—each leaving a tell-tale signature now entombed in successive layers of ice.
Even more awkward for creationists is the fact that this ice-core record aligns precisely with well-documented events elsewhere, allowing scientists to calibrate and extrapolate timelines deep into European prehistory with high accuracy.
Around the time creationists claim Earth was undergoing a global flood — a mass genocide by drowning, supposedly enacted by a deity - a belief based solely on the origin myths of a Bronze Age Middle Eastern pastoralist tribe — people in the Pyrenees were engaged in violent conflict, using bows and arrows.
Unlike biblical mythology, this insight is grounded in tangible evidence: a human rib bone with a flint arrowhead still embedded in it. Remarkably, the injury had healed before the individual died, suggesting they survived the attack for some time. The rib was found in a mass grave at Roc de les Orenetes (Queralbs, Girona), alongside the remains of several others, many of whom showed signs of trauma from blunt or sharp weapons, particularly to the head and upper body.
The timing of this violence — dated to between 4,100 and 4,500 years ago — is problematic for biblical literalists. If the Genesis flood had truly occurred as described, these remains should either have been destroyed or buried beneath a thick layer of flood-deposited silt, mixed with the remains of animals and plants not native to the region. Alternatively, one must believe that just a few years after a supposed global reset that reduced humanity to eight survivors, their descendants had multiplied sufficiently to form warring groups in the mountains of what is now northern Spain.
And yet, these individuals show no sign of having heard of Noah, his family, or the god who allegedly saved them. There’s no indication of the monotheistic religion supposedly preserved aboard the ark. If the flood story were true, the moral lesson it was intended to deliver seems to have been forgotten almost immediately, everywhere except among a small group in the Canaanite hills.
This discovery joins a growing list of archaeological findings that contradict the flood narrative. Far from showing a global cataclysm, the archaeological record reveals continuous human habitation before, during, and after the time the flood is supposed to have occurred—with no signs of interruption, no replacement by a Near Eastern culture, and no characteristic flood-deposited sediment layer.
It’s almost as if the global flood never happened. Not only is there no geological or archaeological evidence supporting it, but what evidence we do have consistently contradicts it. This find from the Pyrenees is yet another example.
In an era when scientific literacy is not just desirable—but essential—the question of why large swathes of the American public still reject Darwin’s theory of evolution is both troubling and revealing. Edward White's recent article in The Conversation, "Why many Americans still think Darwin was wrong, yet the British don’t", reproduced below under a Creative Commons license, shines a stark light on this divide.
White argues that in the U.S., disbelief in Darwin often stems less from engagement with scientific evidence and more from a pre‑emptive rejection rooted in religious conviction. Here, many fundamentalists begin with a conclusion — evolution must be false because it contradicts the Bible — and then marshal arguments to fit that view. By contrast, the British tend to approach Darwin’s legacy with curiosity rather than hostility, allowing evidence and inquiry to guide their conclusions.
This isn’t just a cultural quirk. It’s a profound divergence in how societies value knowledge, method, and truth. Where curiosity and empirical rigour flourish, science thrives. Where ideological certainty undermines inquiry, progress stalls. The difference is a profound example of the harm religious fundamentalism can do and the control it can exercise over the behaviour and opinions of those affected by it.
In his article, Edward White explores what drives the American creationist impulse, why the British public’s more accepting stance offers a blueprint, and why standing firm on the side of science matters now more than ever.
