
David Catchpoole, B.Ag.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D.
Creationist plant physiologist (CMI–Australia)
Tribute to David
Former CMI speaker/scientist/writer Dr David Catchpoole was ’promoted to glory’ on 4 July 2022. This was shortly after an extensive interview with him appeared in the July edition of Creation magazine. We are pleased to bring forward the web release of this article now, as a tribute to his life, his relationship with the Lord, and his faithful service. David leaves behind his wife, Esther, their four children, and five grandchildren. Those who know him will have good memories of him. We expect you will be inspired by David’s story.
Biography
Dr David Catchpoole received his B.Ag.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Adelaide and a Ph.D. from the University of New England (New South Wales). His Ph.D. investigated nitrogen transfer between tree legumes, associated grass and ruminant animals (goats). This was undertaken in Indonesia as part of a joint Australia-Indonesia project in forage research, aimed at improving the quality and availability of animal feed.
Dr Catchpoole subsequently worked for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries as a plant physiologist. His research focused primarily on plant nutrition of tropical fruit trees (especially mango), and varietal selection. He has also worked as a science educator at James Cook University, which included lecturing in tropical horticulture.
David was once an ardent atheistic evolutionist, before being challenged to look critically at the problems of evolution, and the scientific evidence for creation and the Bible.
He went on to work full-time for Creation Ministries International (CMI) in Brisbane, Australia, for over 15 years, serving on the editorial panel of Creation magazine, and was a popular speaker, until his retirement in 2014. He has co-authored The Creation Answers Book and Evolution’s Achilles Heels, and contributed to the book, The Big Argument. David has also contributed many articles for Creation magazine and CMI’s popular website, creation.com.
See also this article about Dr Catchpoole: From lampooning ‘loonies’ to shouting ‘creation!’: Former atheist scientist tours USA.
Education
- B.Ag.Sc. (Hons) [University of Adelaide, South Australia]—Honours thesis title: The effects of applied nitrate on nitrogen fixation by subterranean clover (1982)
- Ph.D. [University of New England, New South Wales, Australia]—Thesis title: The contribution of tree legumes to the nitrogen economy and forage production in the humid tropics (1988)
Publications
Books
- The Creation Answers Book (edited by Don Batten) with Dr Jonathan Sarfati and Dr Carl Wieland) (available in Albanian, Dutch, German, Hungarian, Russian and Spanish). See index of online chapters and free chapter study guides.
Refereed articles arising from Ph.D. and Honours research projects published in secular Science publications:
- Catchpoole, D.W. and Blair, G.J. (1990). Forage tree legumes.; I. Productivity and N economy of Leucaena, Gliricidia, Calliandra and Sesbania and tree/green panic mixtures. sAustralian Journal of Agricultural Research 41(3):521–530.
- Catchpoole, D.W. and Blair, G.J. (1990). Forage tree legumes. II. Investigation of nitrogen transfer to an associated grass using a split-root technique.s Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 41(3):531–537.
- Catchpoole, D.W. and Blair, G.J. (1990). Forage tree legumes. III. Release of nitrogen from leaf, faeces and urine derived from Leucaena and Gliricidia leaf.s Australian Journal of Agricultural Research 41(3):539–547.
- Blair, G., Catchpoole, D. and Horne, P. (1990). Forage tree legumes: their management and contribution to the nitrogen economy of wet and humid tropical environments. Advances in Agronomy 44:27–54.
- Silsbury, J.H., Catchpoole, D.W. and Wallace, W. (1986). Effects of Nitrate and Ammonium on Nitrogenase (C2H2 Reduction) Activity of Swards of Subterranean Clover, Trifolium subterraneum L. Australian Journal of Plant Physiology 13(2):257–273.
- Silsbury, J.H. and Catchpoole, D.W. (1984). Effects of (NO3-) on N2-fixation by Trifolium subterraneum. In Veeger, C. and Newton, W.E., eds, Advances in Nitrogen Fixation Research. Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, pp. 544.)
Articles published in Creation magazine, Journal of Creation and on this website:
Creation vs Evolution—overview
Debating the issue
- Thank you, ‘blogosphere battlers’—you’re making a difference
- A candid admission. The real issue behind the creation/evolution battle over origins
- Seekers and scoffers
CMI visits churches …
- Getting behind the evolution facade
- Setting the captives free, one (or two?) at a time
- A conversation arising
- Does CMI ministry to churches reach unbelievers?
- Wolf among the fold? Refuting critic of a CMI church talk
- CMI slammed over Singapore slammer
Genetics and genomic decay
- Super-successful self-cloning crayfish highlights evolutionary problem of sex
- How many lives do cats have?
- Y chromosome shock
- Time—no friend of evolution
- Message Mania—Deciphering the human genome: what does it mean?
- Designer didn’t design junk
- ‘You shouldn’t marry your cousin!’
Morals decline
- How to build a bomb in the public school system
- Morals decline linked to belief in evolution
- Godless girls’ god
- Inside the mind of a killer
- Can Japan ban hara-kiri?
- Atheists credit the gospel
- Prescription for raising children
- Sorry, atheists, but you’re wrong: The death of ‘Love your neighbour’
Racism
- Football banana-throwing racism
- It’s just not cricket!
- Do monkeys play football?
- Michelle Obama racism row—what’s it based on?
- ‘Ape’ slur against Australian indigenous footballer Adam Goodes sparks anti-racism backlash—yet censorship still prevails
Trouble for the ‘evolution of flight’ story
- Supposed ‘icon of evolution’, Archaeopteryx, was “dressed for flight” in modern, probably black, feathers
- Researchers: Evolution of insect flight? Let’s look at flightlessness instead
- Going batty over evolution
Natural selection, mutations, adaptation, etc.
- The last super-tusker?
- Island flightless insects
- Genetic entropy and human lifespans
- No evolution in pollution: killifish survivors are ‘losers’
- Isn’t it obvious? Natural selection can eliminate, but never create!
- Pigeons don’t fancy Darwin
- Nebraskan deer mice—evolution’s latest ‘icon’?
- Tibetan snow lotus
- Why the elephant is losing its tusks (and it’s not evolution!)
- In a do-or-die world, it’s dance or death!
- Where have all the big fish gone?
- Traffic clips wings
- Kauai’s silent nights (the crickets have gone quiet)
- The 3 Rs of Evolution: Rearrange, Remove, Ruin—in other words, no evolution!
- Dear deer—when white ‘mutants’ have a selective advantage
- Locust wings
- Too dry for a fly
- Bighorn horns not so big
- Smaller fish to fry
- Worm evolution in pollution?
- Do toads goad snake evolution?
- The cane toad ‘war’
- Lizard losers (and winners)
- Pesticide resistance is not evidence of evolution
- ‘Unique’ two-headed reptile fossil
- Defining terms: Evolutionist Dr John Endler’s refreshing clarity about ‘natural selection’ has been largely ignored
- Morning Glory’s Designer Label clothing
- No flies on ‘freak’ sheep
- Can’t drink milk? You’re “normal”!
- Swine flu—Is it evidence of evolution?
- Watch a glasswing passing (without flying colours)
- Natural selection cannot explain the origin of life
Herbivorous/gentle ‘carnivores’
- Salad-eating sharks
- Vegetarian shark
- The lion that wouldn’t eat meat
- Echoes of Eden: Instead of eating baby antelopes, this lion wants to love and protect them
- Tigers and pigs … together?
- Off the menu …
- The ‘bird of prey’ that’s not
- Vegetarian spider
- Catching a kinkajou
- Lea, the spaghetti lioness
- A tasty morsel—left uneaten
- The leopard’s friend
Carnivorous ‘herbivores’ and other brutality
- The Attenborough eye-worm argument against God
- More meat-eating lorikeets (and other parrots, too)
- Easy meat for the lorikeet
- ‘Vampire moth’ discovered
- Piranha
- Vampire finches of the Galápagos
- Skeptics challenge: a ‘God of love’ created a killer jellyfish?
- The stingray of death: The tragic end of the life of ‘Crocodile Hunter’ Steve Irwin
Other religions
- The Qu’ran, Messianic prophecy and Christianity
- The Koran vs Genesis (available in Spanish)
- Holy books?
- Bahá’í (Mis-)Behaviour
No compromise! (e.g. No death before sin)
- Understanding the enemy’s schemes: Long ages of time is the atheists’ “bedrock and launch pad”
- Faith can move mountains (but it can’t change history)
- Why evolution hurts the church
- Don’t read the Bible!?
- ‘Billions of years’ makes Christians dumb (and atheists loud)
- No fence to sit on
- Time to think
- Teaching children about animal death: The Please Nana: What is death? book meets an important need
- ‘I don’t believe!!!’
- Grotesque dinosaur cannibals!
- Morality and salvation minus history equals ignorance and unbelief
- ‘Are you a biblical creationist?’
- Drawing power: People get the point when they see these two pictures
- Evolution—the ultimate antidote to spirituality
- Changing Lane—a pastor’s road to atheism
- ‘War Cry’? Or whimper?
- A Right Royal Interpretation?
- When will Europe wake up?
- Valentine’s Day shock
- Don’t cut the anchor line!
- Australia’s drought exposes ‘drowned town’
- Facing the issue
- Tabor’s choice
In six days? Really!
Evangelism and being ready to answer (1 Peter 3:15)
- It’s all about the teacher
- Model message spreads all over the world
- Answering fools’ folly
- How will you respond?
- Church shock: ‘Can you marry your relative?’
- The importance of Evidence
- Quite a challenge
- Is this your first time?
- From Shadows to Light: Dr Carl Wieland’s new book Beyond the Shadows uniquely addresses both intellectual and emotional issues
Animals fit a biblical worldview
- The tapir
- The Octopus
- Bunnies cute and cursed
- The albatross—master aviator of the ocean winds
- The wily coyote—dogged by reputation, this coy ‘wolf’ continues to surprise
- The wombat
- Mirror spider “like a disco ball”
- Cats big and small
- Dia Michels: the evolutionist who’d rather be a platypus
- A is for Aardvark
- The hyena—a creature we love to hate
- The silky anteater
- The Colugo Challenge
- The bamboozling panda
- The Australian dingo: a wolf in dog’s clothing
- Evolution of the rhinoceros? Preposterous!
- Cats from Shinar, not Egypt
- Saltwater platypus surprise!
Design in the human body
- Tooth enamel: hard, and hard to replace
- Facing up to design
- Walking ain’t easy
- The human nose knows better than we thought
- Time to refuel? (Or not!)
- Why nail biters don’t cry
- Fingertip control
- Excellent Eye: Better than any camera—the eye’s response to light
- An eye for detail
Design in creatures
- Caterpillar wheel
- Smart slime
- Over-engineering in nature: an evolutionary conundrum
- Flapping flight challenge
- As silent as a flying owl
- Nature’s self-cleaning marvels: Who did the Research & Development?
- Peacock ‘eyes’ that hypnotize
- lizard skin inspires lubricant free slipperiness
- Nature’s creatures do ‘impossible’ things
- Over-engineered odour detectors
- The atlatl (woomera) and the water-striderheron’s neck
- Manta motion marvel
- Razor clam—impossibly good at digging
- Amazing argonauts
- Why reindeer eyes turn blue in winter
- Squid do fly!
- The secret of Leviathan’s body-armour?
- ‘Christmas Trees’ light up butterflies
- The tarsier’s ‘secret speech’
- ‘Bug Eye’ broadens field of view
- Bees’ guidance strategy for avoiding crash landings
- Robot designers want to copy the hummingbird
- How cats drink milk without wetting their chins
- Box jellyfish eyes surprise scientists
- Jellyfish judgment
- Woodpecker head-banging wonder
- Pygmy pipehorse pipe dream
- Speedy sharks and golf balls
- Wings on the wind
- Aim, spit and catch
- Snail trail
- Why a butterfly flutters by
- Could the mammalian ear have evolved … twice?
- In leaps and bounds: The amazing jumping prowess of frogs and froghoppers
- Practical pouches
- Amazing discovery: Bird wing has ‘leading edge’ technology
- Peacock tail tale failure
- Peacock poppycock?
- Cows: a magnetic sign for evolutionists
- Desert creatures inspire ‘SandBot’
- Toucan’s beak beats the heat
- Parrot fashion
- What’s in an Egg? Unscrambling the mysteries
- How bees decide
- Bombardier idea
- Insect inspiration solves giant bug mystery
- Surveillance solution: mimicking a bug’s eye view
- Brilliant brittlestars: Entire skeleton forms one big compound eye
- Walking up walls
- Horseshoe crabs invented themselves?
- How does a ‘box’ swim?
- Good design in miniature
- Dragonfly design tips
- Submarines with fish fins?
Design in plants
- Hear bee, make nectar
- Plants are ‘listening’!
- Bird-of-paradise flower pigment surprise
- Plants’ jigsaw puzzle adds to the big picture
- Not-so-‘Still Life’
- Overturnin’ the learnin’ about lignin
- Miracle fruit
- A thorny issue
- In pursuit of plant power
- Autumn leaves don’t Fall (by accident)
- Bunchberry bang!
- Letter to an atheist: A birdbox and a tree
- ‘Window plants’ let the light shine in
- Pulsating plants
- Flat leaves—a curly problem (Journal of Creation)
- Pliable plants
- Sensational Seeds—compact packages attest to God’s handiwork
Other design articles
- Tardigrades too tough for evolution
- Seabed circles ‘Whodunnit?’ solved
- Creation clock
- Appendix shrieks ‘Creation’ (at least 18 times!)
- Creation clock
- The ‘fungus’ that ‘walks’
- Life at the extremes
- What do the atheopaths have to hide?
- Children see the world as ‘designed’!
Astronomy/cosmology
- ‘Impossible’ asteroid
- ‘Fragile comets’ origins mystery
- ‘Backwards’ comet perplexes scientists
- Physicists: The universe had a beginning
- Are you stardust?
- String theory unstrung
- Lunar volcanoes rock long-age timeframe
- Big bang goes pear-shaped?
Well-preserved fossil evidence for the Flood
- Deadly plant’s flowers in amber deadly to evolution
- ‘Surprising’ lizards in amber
- Seabed worm fossils still soft after 500 million years?
- Sperm wail
- Amazing preservation: Three birds in a dinosaur!
- Turtles fossilized while mating!
- Hundreds of jellyfish fossils!
- Tiny pterosaur’s untimely end
- Moulting arthropod fossilized in a flash!
- ‘Exceptionally preserved jellyfishes’
- The Amber Mystery
- Amber needed water (and lots of it)
- Death throes
Living fossils
- Sulfur bacteria stasis—“The greatest absence of evolution ever reported”
- Horsetails are ‘living fossils’!
- More Mekong ‘hidden animals’ found
- ‘Living fossils’ enigma (available in Spanish)
- Another ‘living fossil’ tree
- Salamanders are ‘living fossils’!
- The ‘Lazarus effect’: rodent ‘resurrection’!
- Golden oldie
- Gladiator—an ‘extinct’ insect is found alive
- Fossil ant found alive!
- “Dino tree” project ends
Rapid rocks
Modern examples of rapid geology/erosion and ecology
Aliens/E.T.
- Hawking fear of aliens
- NASA shock: ET from Earth
- Trouble over ET news reporting
- SETI—religion or science?
- ET needed evolution
Darwin and Darwiniana
Dawkins and Dawkinsiana
- Fishy Dawkinsia tales, tragic Dawkinsian philosophy
- Is Richard Dawkins weakening?
- Dawkins and Design
Dinosaurs (and watery giants)
- Tale of the hippo’s tail (a behemothian blunder and cedar misleader)
- Enraged elephants, terrifying tigers, and dangerous dinosaurs
- Dinosaurs ate birds
- Dinosaur heart update: just a lump of mud?
- Mokele-mbembe: a living dinosaur?
- Dino feather folly
- The Horner/Larsson quest: a “chickenosaurus” to publicly demonstrate evolution!
- Dino protein denial
- Grass-eating dinos
- Dino ‘puberty blues’ for paleontologists
- ‘Schweitzer’s Dangerous Discovery’
- Too many dinosaur names
- What s the rabbitfish—T.rex connection?
- Angkor saw a stegosaur?
- Loch Ness ‘monster’ caught on video?
- Giants of the deep
Rebutting evolutionary and long-age propaganda
- Flowers are still Darwin’s “abominable mystery”
- ‘Dinosaur Age’ bacteria revived from deep sea bed
- The Z-factor
- Mars moons mystery
- Pristine Saturn problem
- Placental versus Marsupial: A tale of two ‘wolves’
- Kepler-78b: The “scorching lava world” that “shouldn’t exist”
- Evolution’s oyster twist
- Telling tales—how evolutionists spin their story
- Evolutionists divided over coexistence of placental mammals and dinosaurs
- Double-decade dinosaur disquiet
- Hadrosaur skin found
- Big-eye brain-less Neandertal nonsense
- Twice as wrong—and more
- Gilding the (sea) lily—Evolutionists’ absurd defense of their long-age story as Mississippian crinoids yield organic molecules
- Answering Grandma Mildred
- Billions of years? Appraising the dangers
- Fossil folly
- Encyclopedic ‘truth’ … or worldly wisdom?
- Genesis, history and Haeckel’s diagrams
- The ‘fish gills’ girl
- The ‘vital mission’ for atheists: discrediting the supernatural
- ‘Sleeping Beauty’ bacteria
- More ‘Sleeping Beauty’ bacteria
- ‘Time is the hero’
- When is “Intelligent intervention” acceptable?
- Charles Lyell’s hidden agenda—to free science “from Moses”
- ‘Moa’s’ Ark vs Noah’s Ark
- Of Moas and Men
- They must be joking!
- Correcting the headline: ‘Coelacanth’ yes; ‘Ancient’ no
- A lousy story
- Creative frogamandering
- Seeing the pattern
- Playwright just plain wrong
- Footprint fiasco
- Mithen’s music mystery magnified!
- ‘The oldest pregnant mum’—not!
- UK Government petitioned over origins teaching in schools
- ‘Asexual’ lizards and pioneer plants
- The poisoning of Litvinenko’s body—and mind
- Summer in the enemy’s camp
- Lunar eclipse, loony offerings
Anti-creation censorship
Clever ancient man
- Neandertal paintings bombshell
- Unravelling the knotty khipu code
- Ancient mariners had current knowledge
- ‘Stone Age’ flour demolishes another evolutionary preconception
- A tale of ancient toothpaste
- Chauvet Cave controversy
- ‘Seashells in the desert’
- Cave men—in the Bible
Paleo-anthropology and anthropology
- ‘Seven Sisters’ similarities point to Babel, not evolution
- Puzzling over evolution of language
- Niah Cave’s ‘Deep Skull’—Teenage boy or elderly lady?
- Aboriginal knowledge amazes evolutionist astronomer
- Icon illusion
- New evidence: Lucy was a knuckle-walker
- Ivanov’s ape-human hybrid project—Why?
- The people that forgot time (and much else, too)
Clever non-primates
- Pigeon Revision: Brainy birds trump bookish baboons
- Birdsong isn’t for ‘birdbrains’
- Fish challenge misconceptions
- Petulant parrot proves a point
- Clever crustaceans
- Alex, the talking grey parrot, dies
Archaeology
Origin of life
The biblical ‘kind’, and speciation
- Polka-dotted zebra
- Zippy ‘zonkey’
- Catfish, big and small
- Parrot puzzle
- How many ‘badgers’ did Noah need on the Ark?
- A horse is a horse of course
- Zenkey, zonkey, zebra donkey!
- Zebra or horse? A ‘zorse’, of course!
- Whether tall or small—people, all!
- Speedy species surprise
- The Heliconius hybrid butterfly—speciation yes, evolution no
- The Stickleback: Evidence of evolution?
Interviewing other biblical creationists
- Blinded by evolutionary brainwashing
- Creation among the coconut palms
- A life of ups and downs
- Lifting for the Lord
- Rooted in God’s truth
- Islam and worldview: the big picture

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