“I sometimes wonder why we talk about anything else.  Because this is the most interesting topic there is: it’s our creation story.  Where did we come from?  How did we get here?  What brought us into existence?  What is our relationship to reality as a whole?”
– Dr. Phillip Johnson, in a new film Unlocking the Mystery of Life from Illustra Media that premiered March 9.

Living Fossil from Age of Dinosaurs Getting Too Warm for Comfort   03/31/2002
The tuatara, an odd-looking lizard from New Zealand that thrived in the age of dinosaurs and is still extant today, is in peril of extinction due to rising temperatures, reports the BBC News.  Nicky Nelson, one of the researchers, said, “They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs, so they've been through climate change before and survived, whereas dinosaurs didn’t, so they must have some mechanisms for coping with it.”

Something sounds incongruous in this story.  On the one hand we are told that dinosaurs, who come in all shapes and sizes, were the most successful land creatures that ever lived, surviving everything from Arctic freezing to Egypt’s hot spells, yet this little contemporary, who has outlived them all, is sensitive to a one-degree rise in climate.  So over 65 million years, with all the climactic changes in that long period, the tuatara, who survived whatever wiped out the dinosaurs, have never been threatened with extinction until now?  Is it remotely possible something is wrong with the millions of years story?
    The tuatara is one of many examples of living fossils – organisms long thought extinct for millions of years, but recently found alive and unevolved today.  Living fossils pose a severe challenge to evolutionary theory.  Other living fossils from the age of dinosaurs, and some before that, are known, from all over the world.  Evolutionists respond that these living fossils just found niches that were comfortable enough to keep them from evolving, but at other times describe natural selection as this inexorable force that carries everything along in its path.  Let the evidence speak for itself.  Either evolution is not inexorable, or the earth is not that old, or (radical thought) both.
Next headline on: Dinosaurs. • Next headline on: Fossils.

If our mind were to see what our retinas see, the world would seem herky-jerky.  That’s because our eyes continually dart from place to place, causing an image to jump about on our retinas.  The brain smooths the scene by briefly blanking out visual perception when the eyes jump.  A simple demonstration illustrates this: Look at one of your eyes in a mirror.  Then look at your other eye.  Then back to the first.  You will not see your eyes move, even though a person watching over your shoulder would easily see the rapid eye movements known as saccades.

If you stared at something without movement, your receptors would be saturated.  So to prevent temporary blindness, God gave you muscles that move the eyes constantly, and nerves that compensate for the movements so you don’t get confused.  How could these two independent functions evolve simultaneously to harmonize just right?
Next headline on: Human Body.

The combined features of supramolecular systems--information and programmability, dynamics and reversibility, constitution and diversity--are leading toward the emergence of adaptive/evolutive chemistry.  Adaptive chemistry implies selection and growth under time reversibility.  It becomes evolutive chemistry when acquired features are conserved and passed on.  Harnessing the power of selection for adaptation and evolution on the molecular scene is ushering in a darwinistic era of chemistry.  The ultimate goal is to merge design and selection in self-organization to perform self-design, in which function-driven selection among suitably instructed dynamic species generates the optimal organized and functional entity, in a postdarwinian process.

... Supramolecular chemistry provides ways and means for progressively unraveling the complexification of matter through self-organization.  Together with the corresponding fields in physics and biology, it leads toward a supramolecular science of complex, informed, self-organized evolutive matter... Through progressive discovery, understanding, and implementation of the rules that govern the evolution from inanimate to animate matter and beyond, we will ultimately acquire the ability to create new forms of complex matter.

Self, self, self.  Pasteur would be appalled at what this scientist, at the institute he founded, is saying.  Pasteur thought he had demonstrated for all time the law of biogenesis: only life begets life.  “Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this one simple experiment,” he claimed after demonstrating the results of tests with his famous swan-necked flask.  Leeuwenhoek before him had also argued strongly that living things do not just emerge (self-assemble) from inanimate matter.  But now, spontaneous generation has arisen with a vengeance: the universe is viewed as a self-assembling, self-organizing, self-designing, self-fabricating, self-recognizing, selfish self.  Lehn uses the prefix “self-” 45 times in his short article.  How apt a science for the “me generation.”
    Crystalline structures can be claimed to self-assemble because of the laws governing their bonding (a form of programming that implies design in the laws of physics), but nowhere is there found a type of chemistry that can carry information and be programmed except in living things.  Lehn provides no examples of inanimate primordial soup that has self-organized into a functioning unit.  Instead, he is so convinced that life designed itself that it taints his view of the hard sciences of physics and chemistry, making them animated with intelligence and power.  This is not hard science: it is pantheism.  It is animism dressed up in a lab coat.
    Consider this opening line by Joe Alper in another paper in the same issue: “Despite biology’s considerable lead in working with loose-knit bonds, scientists have learned...”  Here we see biology treated as a god.  It has intelligence, a competitive edge, and technical skill.  You thought atoms were lifeless particles, but lo! they are imbued with spirits.  And these spirits, more powerful than thermodynamics, able to leap tall design specs in a single bound, are creating the most complex programs known to man, by themselves.  And now the good part: we have evolved self-recognition to the point where we can take control of our own evolution.  Isn’t that what it’s all about?  You shall be as gods.
    Know the fallacy of personification well, for you will see it often in evolutionary thinking.
Next headline on: Darwinism.

This is all so amazing, and raises additional questions; how do these eyeless, mindless machines know just what to do?  How do they recognize a badly folded protein?  When our best biochemists can’t solve the highly complex problem of protein folding, how does a cell do it?  Clearly a great deal of sophisticated hardware and software design is behind the construction of these tiny machines.  And remember, these machines are already fully functional in bacteria, the simplest forms of life.
Next headline on: The Cell. • Next amazing story.

Does this tell us much about the origin of life?  Well, you can study geology for a living, but knowing how different rocks form doesn't tell you which lumps of rock will become Teotihuacán, the Taj Mahal or Tony's Tavern.  Studying the chemical building-blocks of life shows that they are ubiquitous and can exist in the absence of life.  Indeed, inferred cosmic abundances of these building-blocks from abiological sources greatly exceed those from living organisms.  Accepting that fact, it follows that process- driven investigations into the emergence of life may need to be cast in a different way, which takes into account the materials involved but is not directly tied to them.  This, I believe, is a major challenge for the fledgling field of astrobiology.

This sounds for all the world like a statement by an Intelligent Design theorist.  What are Teotihuacán, the Taj Mahal or Tony's Tavern, but examples of intelligent (more or less) design?  Dr. Shock correctly distinguishes the building blocks from the way they are assembled.  Of course, this is obvious to anyone, even Tony, that bricks do not spontaneously assemble themselves into taverns.  Yet astrobiologists routinely get excited about finding bricks.  They have never found abiological architects.  We agree with Everett Shock that astrobiology needs to be cast in a different way that is not just tied to the materials; it needs to account for the origin of information that leads to functional structures.  To do this without input of intelligent design is a “major challenge,” to put it wildly mildly.
Next headline on: Intelligent Design. • Next headline on: Origin of Life.

The jury is still out, but this would be a big disappointment to those who expected to find life there.
Next headline on: Mars.

1. Comet impact hypothesis (water was added after the formation of the earth by comets impacting the dry earth): Comets have a twice as high a deuterium to hydrogen ratio than ocean water, so apparently the water was not added as a veneer from comets late in earth’s history. 
2. Wet accretion hypothesis (water was added during the earth’s condensation out of the solar nebula): volatiles such as water, in addition to argon, krypton, xenon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen most likely could not have survived during the alleged period of planetary formation, yet here they are.  Did earth’s water come from silicate rocks with water trapped inside, in a cooler band of the solar nebula?  “If existing objects in space couldn’t have combined to make Earth’s unique mix of water and other elements, the planet must have formed from–and entirely depleted–an ancient supply of water-rich material that has no modern analog, Drake and Righter [proponents of the hypothesis] argue.”  Jonathan Lunine remarks, “If Earth got its water locally, then Mars [too] should have been swimming in water” (but that appears not to be the case; see the March 27 headline).
3. Chance encounter hypothesis (a big wet object hit the earth after its formation): This allows for the unique chemical signature of earth compared to the other planets, but is an ad hoc scenario relying on a highly unlikely, chance event that cannot be tested.

Is there anything in evolutionary theory, whether cosmology, geology, biology or paleontology, that is not slippery, uncertain, contradictory, and disputed between evolutionists?  We’re still looking.  Meanwhile, you can be sure Epcot won’t revise their Living Seas exhibit because of this report.  A good multimedia fantasy is worth a ton of scientific papers.
    These are the kinds of difficulties scientists get themselves into when refusing to accept God’s account of what happened.  The creation account in Genesis 1 presents no enigma; water was present from the very beginning, the very first and most abundant material, prior to everything else.  Notice how improbable and ad hoc the materialistic theories sound.  In light of this story and all the other difficulties naturalistic explanations have (browse through the Geology and Solar System chain links), whose story sounds more plausible?
Next headline on: Geology. • Next headline on: Solar System.

Just storytelling.  Other evolutionists will disagree and like their story better, especially the one about the big meteor.  It makes more exciting computer animations on the Discovery Channel.  (This paper allows for the meteor, but combines it with two other ad hoc mechanisms.  What happened to Ockham’s Razor?)
Next headline on: Dating Methods. • Next headline on: Geology.

The title calls this phenomenon “Rate heterogeneity” – a clever euphemism for “confusion.” This paper is a case study in begging the question.  It only makes sense if you already are convinced evolution is true.  It also only makes sense if you accept their dating methods for fossils, which are themselves based on evolutionary assumptions.  The data show, as we have reported frequently, a big mismatch between molecular family trees and those based on the fossil record (both of which assume evolution from the get-go).  But this anomaly must never cast doubt on the fact of evolution; they just have to force the mismatched parts together, somehow.  They admit in their Introduction that “it has become clear that many estimated divergence times [based on the molecular clock hypothesis] are grossly inconsistent with the fossil record.”  But does postulating a wildly fluctuating molecular clock help?  Does it not just add to the confusion, making it impossible to be sure about anything in evolutionary theory? 
    Don’t forget that the proponents of “punctuated equilibria” theory have postulated that the fossil clock also fluctuates wildly, with long periods of stasis punctuated by rapid periods of evolution (that, unfortunately, leave no trace in the fossil record– thus explaining away the many systematic gaps in the record).  So here, in this paper, you have evolutionists trying to calibrate two wildly fluctuating clocks against each other.  Does anybody know what time it is?  Time to consider alternatives to evolution.
Next headline on: Fossils. • Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

They admit that, “The molecular evolutionary mechanisms underlying the functional divergence of duplicated genes, however, are not well understood, in part because it is difficult to reconstruct the sequences and functional characteristics of ancestral genes and proteins.”  They do little more than hope that “paleomolecular biochemistry” will shed more light on it.  But how did a paper like this slip through peer review?  It reeks of teleology (purpose, plan) – a mortal sin to an evolutionist.  They picture neutral mutations lying in wait for their chance to aid survival.  This is unacceptable.  Mutations don’t care.  They can’t care; like accidents waiting to happen, they are far more likely to damage what is working rather than help.  Even if you granted their premise, does one example justify a theory?  Even if you granted that, the monkeys are still monkeys, so no real evolution has been observed here.  Consider whether this paper helps evolutionary theory at all, especially in light of the next story below on cell motors, which is based on empirical, observational evidence.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

Animal- and human-made motors vary widely in size and shape, are constructed of vastly different materials, use different mechanisms, and produce an enormous range of mass-specific power.  Despite these differences, there is remarkable consistency in the maximum net force produced by broad classes of animal- and human-made motors.

(Gag) There it is again, another glittering generality that time and chance, acting on impersonal atoms, have achieved perfection in engineering!
    Despite the bad punch line, this paper is really mind-boggling, when you think about it.  It’s another example of scientists referring to biological parts as machines – and motors, and marvelling at them.  Not just biologists, but physicists, engineers and inventors are excited about how they work.  Darwin and Haeckel might have been excused for thinking a cell was like a simple blob of jello, but now we know better.  The day may soon come when attributing the exquisite engineering in cells to natural selection will get the reaction it deserves: incredulous disbelief that anyone could think such a thing.
    As is typical each week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the same issue has a plethora of additional research papers about wonders of living cells: for example,

• How cells protect against UV damage
• How water pores help secretory vesicles swell up like water balloons
• How taste buds detect sweetness
• How cells protect their proteins from oxidative damage
• How the cell maintains the integrity of its mitochondrial DNA
• Another essential protein that regulates cell division

So many wonders; so little time.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry. • Next amazing story.

Looks like Kennedy did a flip-flop on this, because he earlier supported the Santorum Amendment (see his statement in our June 30 headline).  One wonders what advice was given him by evolution-only promoters.  Regardless, Dembski points out that Kennedy provided no reason for his blunt statement that ID is not a scientific theory, then provides reasons why it is.  Apparently the 52 Ohio scientists agree, and believe ID deserves to be heard, and that neither Darwinism nor any other controversial theory in science should be treated like a monopoly.  The protectionism demanded by the Darwin Party is going to work against them.  What are they afraid of?  If Darwinism must be shielded from honest inquiry, don’t they realize it makes their case look weak?
Next headline on: Schools. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Get out your Baloney Detector and check out this interesting debate.  Note that the original claim of blood cells came from the evolutionist literature, not from a creationist source.  That means the burden of proof is on them to explain away the data, since they were the ones surprised by what appeared to be remains of blood cells and hemoglobin.  Have they succeeded?  Begging the question (assuming evolution and long ages) doesn’t qualify.
    Since evolution tends to have the smugness of majority rule in explanations, be especially watchful of this critic’s arguments, after clearing away the ad hominems and smokescreens, to see if any arguments of substance remain.  Don’t just accept flat-out bluffing claims on either side; look for raw data and sound logic.  How do you vote?
Next headline on: Dinosaurs. • Next headline on: Fossils. • Next headline on: Dating Methods.

Asshur is mentioned quite often in the Old Testament; the Assyrians were the nemesis of the Israelites.  That the large Assyrian empire is gone, and may soon be buried under water, while the Israelites flourish in their homeland, is a testimony to the hand of God in history.  Still, we deplore the destruction of archaeological sites that can shed light on Biblical peoples and times.  Iraq is seat of many fascinating historical sites that, sadly, are off limits to researchers because of Islamic extremism and the totalitarian government of a mad despot.
Next headline on: Bible.

Mildly cool temperatures (25º to 15ºC) and the cooling agent menthol activate the TRPM8 ion channel.  This channel is expressed by sensory neurons in the mouth that project to the trigeminal ganglia (TG) in the brain, and by sensory neurons in the skin that project to the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) of the spinal cord.  When activated, TRPM8 channels open, allowing Ca2+ and Na+ ions into neurons, which then become depolarized.  TRPM8, like other TRPM channels, is a tetramer with each subunit containing six transmembrane domains and unusually long amino and carboxyl termini.

Cool, huh?  Just thought you’d like to know.  By the way, there is a different sensor for hot chili peppers and burning heat.  Sometimes, it appears, both heat and cold can trigger the same ion channels.  That’s why touching a frigid piece of metal can create a burning sensation.
Next headline on: Human Body.

Prokaryotic cells, are, of course, the “simplest” and most “primitive” life forms on earth.  Yes, how did they “evolve” remarkable quality assurance mechanisms?  Pray, tell.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry. • Next amazing story.

The 45 million year age comes from evolutionary assumptions; trees have rings, but not 45 million of them, nor do they have dates inscribed on them when they died.  How did redwoods get so far north, and how were they so “immaculately well preserved”?  This is not the only find that indicates a nearly global temperate climate in the past.  Some creationists have used this evidence to support the view that the climate was very different before the Flood. 
Next headline on: Plants. • Next headline on: Fossils.

The report is surprisingly dispassionate.  It reports the viewpoints of both sides, and tells what is occurring.  Sure, there is the quote by the Darwinists that intelligent design is pseudoscience and just a Trojan Horse for sneaking in the teaching of creationism, but that kind of rhetoric is ho-hum; Nature does not appear to take sides.  That’s especially interesting when you read their opening editorial (see next headline).
    In response to the increasing awareness of this topic, and its expected newsworthiness in the upcoming months, we have started a new Chain Link on Intelligent Design.
Next headline on: Schools. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Generating vast sets of data from stressed cells in order to determine patterns of gene expression is an immense step forward.  But beware the false impression that we are close to understanding how networks of genes regulate one another’s expression, and generate phenotypes such as cellular development and behaviour.  Even the true scale of most genetic networks is unknown.  And biologists know that genes are just one aspect of control: protein switches and molecular signalling networks are still a largely uncatalogued universe. ...
    .... Even after one absorbs a thousand or more pages of text, one would still be unlikely to have a feel for the variability and complexity of even the simplest microbe.

In a day when the scale of complexity of living things is becoming known as never before, it is prime time for intelligent design theory to supersede a simplistic Darwinian model that cannot deal with it.  It’s nice to hear Nature admit the complexity, but interesting to note the total silence on evolution and origins in these kinds of writings.
Next headline on: The Cell.

Any new claim about another human ancestor needs to be evaluated in light of all the prior claims we have reported right here in Creation-Evolution Headlines, and what the evolutionists themselves have said about them.  Please browse through the chain links on Early Man, like this series from the Feb 15 Science.   Human evolution theory is 1% data and 99% storytelling based on evolutionary assumptions, and evolutionists practically say so (especially when opining about their rivals’ discoveries).  Why, this time it only took two weeks to overturn the previous claim in Nature.
    Should we be convinced, when National Geographic isn’t?  They argue that any claim is bound to be controversial because the evidence is so fragmentary: “The situation is comparable to a researcher, one million years from now, looking at a few fossil remains of an Australian pygmy and an NBA basketball player.  Both are members of the same species, but their features represent a lot of variation within the species.  Without genetic or other supporting evidence, it’s easy to see how questions could arise among anthropologists of the future.”  Better yet, using this same reasoning, how can anthropologists of the present know anything for certain about the past?  Maybe this new skull belonged to the Shaq, or the Tom Thumb, of his day.  There is more variety among living Homo sapiens than the fossils of early man; would it be fair to line modern humans up in an evolutionary sequence based on some arbitrary parameter, such as skull shape?
Next headline on: Early Man.

Antibiotic resistance is just variation within the species of bacterium; it is not evolution.  To see why, read the Discovery Institute’s response to Episode 4 of the PBS series Evolution.  The bacteria may be losing information, not evolving into something more advanced.  Consider how a man who loses his arm becomes immune to being handcuffed.  Evolution is given far too much credit for helping bacteria evade the handcuffs.  The bacteria are still bacteria, the same species of bacteria, after millions of generations.  What’s evolution got to do with it?
Next headline on: Darwinism.

Again, what is important here is not the hypothesis presented, but the controversy it points out.  Evolutionists are trying to stuff observations into a story, and one group likes their story better than other groups’ stories.  There is nothing solid to support any of the evolutionary stories, mainstream or not: phrases like “may have” and ”might be” and “perhaps” occur 15 times in the paper.  Reader and Laland spend their introduction describing all the different hypotheses that have been proposed: the behavioral drive hypothesis, the social intelligence hypothesis, the Machiavellian social manipulation hypothesis, the extractive foraging hypothesis, the cognitive mapping hypothesis, the ecological hypothesis – all of which have their advocates and detractors, all of which are untested, all of which have serious problems. 
    None of these hypotheses include a detailed description of how multiple parts of the brain could have improved simultaneously.  If one extremely rare beneficial mutation were possible, giving rise to a bigger frontal lobe, for instance, how much more rare would be simultaneous mutations providing a bigger hypothalamus or hippocampus, or (even more important) the neurotransmitters and receptors involved, to say nothing of multiple anatomical improvements like the ability to walk upright or speak?  And if this proposal were correct, why is there not a gradation in language skills between primates, so that we could converse with monkeys and at least get them to nod knowingly when we explain the Machiavellian social manipulation hypothesis?
Next headline on: Early Man.

Frauenfelder calls self-organization a question of semantics, but it would seem any thinking person could not look at a complex system of this magnitude and call it self-organized.  When the intellectual schizophrenia of evolution speaks with its left brain describing complexity of a high order and its right brain saying “the complexity has arisen through evolution,” sooner or later something is going to snap.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry.

How did brainless algae create such beautiful geometric shapes?  Browse through these diatom collections at Bowling Green State University and the California Academy of Sciences and the Alfred Wegener Institute for an eye-feast of microscopic artwork.
Next amazing story.

The claim of fossilized life in the Martian meteorite created hoopla all over the world, and the news media paraded it for all it was worth.  Reality has a bad way of raining on parades.
    Regarding MARIE, it is unlikely humans will ever go prancing around Mars in their spacesuits like science fiction images have long suggested.  It would be like walking into a firing range.  Mars has neither the thick atmosphere nor the global magnetic field to protect humans and other carbon units from damaging particles.  No other planet in the solar system, however, comes as close as Mars to a vaguely possible habitat for people.  How “lucky” we are.
Next headline on: Mars. • Next headline on: Origin of Life.

The college science curriculum policy clearly states its intent to build on a Biblical foundation rather than a humanistic one.  In this, it claims to be in the tradition of Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton. 
    It’s interesting to compare the reaction of the scientific elite with the attitudes with the elites of another era.  Put miters on Dawkins and his colleagues, and you have history repeating itself: accusations of heresy, and demands for an inquisition.  Darwin has become the new Aristotle, the standard by which truth must be judged.
    Instead of applying political pressure, and insisting on conformity to the opinions of those in power, Dawkins and the humanists should act like scientists: engage in honest debate about the evidence.
Next headline on: Schools.

We need to approach these stories as skeptics.  “Show me!” should be the cry, rather than just acquiescence to authority.  If you look at the raw data without evolutionary presuppositions, all you see are bits and pieces of data that have no necessary correlation with evolution.  What’s more, you find the scientists hedging their bets with if-then statements, disclaimers, and soft terms like “these date suggest that such-and-such happened.”  They get away with it because evolution is a fact that all scientists accept, right?  So no further corroboration is needed, and no one will question it further.  Interesting, isn’t it, that global warming was the cause; aren’t we told that global warming is a human sin?
Next headline on: Mammals. • Next headline on: Fossils.

This story speaks for itself.  We no longer have rational discussions of issues in our culture; political correctness has given rise to utter hatred of anything suggesting God created us for a purpose, even to the point of calling our founding principles offensive (see next headline, also).  1984, anyone?
    If America the Beautiful with its lines “God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood” is too offensive, we have just the thing for the PC crowd: Evolution Anthems that are sure to please the Red Cross, the National Science Foundation, and the National Education Association, and will not offend anyone (except sentient beings).  Cf. our editorial “America the Clueless”.
Next headline on: Politics. • Next dumb (or unbelievable) story.
    PS: The PC crowd seems to be very picky about their sensitivity to not offend anyone.  During the following hour, Dennis Prager interviewed a former slave who had escaped the horrors of the jihad occurring in the Sudan.  He and his sponsor from American Anti-Slavery Group described the wholesale slaughter of entire villages, torture, rape, dismemberment, and slavery occurring in the Sudan, where at least two million south Sudanese have been murdered by the northern Islamic government–a holocaust vastly outnumbering all the atrocities in the Balkans or South Africa, but all but ignored by the media for nearly two decades.

Forces of darkness – absolutely incredible.  The people who want academic freedom in science, the ones who want the evidence to speak for itself without materialistic bias, the majority of Americans, the scientists who are the philosophical descendents of Boyle, Newton, Maxwell and von Braun,, usually honest and decent people of faith, who believe nature is an expression of the wisdom of a Creator rather than a pointless collocation of mindless atoms, are now called the forces of darkness.  Does this help characterize the nature of the creation-evolution controversy in America today, the way the evolutionists perceive it?  It’s about politics and power, not the facts.  It’s a battle, and they are in it for the long haul.  Notice that Scott was not called a battler for truth.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

“We’ve shown by these computations that biological molecules can be used for distinctly non-biological purposes.  They are miraculous little machines.  They store energy and information, they cut, paste and copy.  They were built by 3 billion years of evolution, and we’re just beginning to tap their potential to serve non-biological purposes.  Nature has given us an incredible toolbox, and we’re starting to explore what we might build.”

It is mind-boggling to consider both the complexity of DNA, and the capabilities ascribed to Mother Nature by evolutionists.  Toolboxes of miraculous machines!  All built by time and chance!  Surely we cannot address evolutionists as “O ye of little faith.”
Next headline on: The Cell and DNA. • Next amazing story.

Water is interesting, but give the believers all they want –flood the entire Martian surface for billions of years – and it still wouldn’t follow that life would ever evolve there.  Teach your kids to think critically.  Water is necessary to life, but life is more than water like a computer is more than silicon.
Next headline on: Mars. • Next headline on: Geology.

A complex subject like this cannot be judged by one pronouncement.  Can science even make a claim one way or another, when so many variables are involved?  Clearly not all religion is healthy – it might fly you into buildings.  Look at the hatred some religion foments.  Some religions have their adherents imbibing or inhaling harmful substances, or skewering their skin with knives; some put their victims into constant states of fear and dread.  Saying “religion” is good for you is like saying food is good for you; it depends on the food.  Broccoli is food, and so is whiskey.  We all know people who take their broccoli on the weekend, and get drunk the rest of the week; i.e., their religion makes little impact on their lifestyle.
    It makes sense that any system that teaches moderation, abstinence from harmful habits, and engenders an attitude of peace or joy is going to enhance one’s health in general, but we must never forget that some of the godliest saints have been martyrs or torture victims.  Anyone following a religion for its potential health benefits has the wrong motive.  Jesus asked his disciples to take up their cross and follow Him.
    The Bible occasionally makes a connection between faith and health.  God promised the Israelites that if they obeyed His commandments He would bless them, and prevent the diseases of Egypt from afflicting them.  Solomon taught that a joyful heart is like a good medicine.  But the Bible also gives examples of righteous people, like Job and Paul, who were afflicted according to the will of God for purposes beyond their understanding.  We all know that, regardless of our habits, death is at the end of our road, most likely due to illness or failure of our bodies that live in a cursed world.  We have all watched the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper.  Considering all these factors, it is doubtful any scientific study could ever prove that religion enhances health.  Most important, faith must be directed toward the right object: the true and living God, the Creator, the Manufacturer who alone knows how to operate His machinery.
Next headline on: Health.

There was something even more surprising.  No one had previously reported voltage-gated ion channels in a microbe.  Jellyfish were the simplest creatures known to possess such channels. It was generally thought that microbes, which lack muscles and nervous systems, don’t need the high-speed reactions that voltage-gated ion channels permit.
    “This changes the whole evolutionary picture of [ion] channels,” says Clapham.  “It means that bacteria, the most primitive life forms, have what was thought to be a very specialized channel.”

Yes!  Keep asking questions like that.  Let the evidence speak for itself.  The closer you look at the cell, the more amazing it becomes, and the more old-fashioned Darwinism looks totally inadequate to account for it.  This article would be great to share with materialists, because, while from a secular source, it makes all the points the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists are making.  There is incredible engineering in the most “primitive” life (bacteria) that is unexplainable by chance and time.  These structures display engineering for efficient function that presupposes intelligence, not chance.  What’s more, the instructions to code for these channels and the processes that build them are, of necessity, even more complex than the channels themselves.
    Let’s consider for a moment how scientific papers might be written from an ID perspective.  Scientists come from a wide variety of cultures and religious backgrounds; how can science remain neutral?  Evolutionists are worried that if ID were to supersede methodological naturalism, scientific papers might include Scripture quotes in them or praise be to Allah or other religious/metaphysical references that could start holy wars in the scientific world.  That is a red herring; it’s like saying it’s better to keep Saddam Hussein in power than to trust democracy.
    Nothing religious is necessary or proper in a scientific paper, which should be concerned strictly with the phenomenon in question, what it is and how it works.  No reference to the identity of the designer should be the intent of empirical studies; just whether it shows design tied to function.  In fact, that is what already characterizes most scientific papers today!  A survey of papers reviewed in Creation-Evolution Headlines will reveal the amount of Darwinian speculation to be inversely proportional to the quantity of good empirical data (see Eddington’s Theory).  Design is also the approach scientific papers used since the advent of the Royal Society, when most scientists were devout Christians.  Science done from a design perspective, therefore, is nothing new or strange.
    What is strange are the forced references to Darwinian evolution and materialism, the near obsession with explaining how complex specified structures arose spontaneously.  If we just omitted those references, we would have Intelligent Design science right now.  This article is a good example.  It shows what the potassium channel is, what it does, what it looks like, how it operates, what genes code for its formation, etc.–in other words, a description of its design.  It is even fair to call it beautiful, intricate, and exquisite.  But the brief reference to the evolutionary history of these channels adds nothing to the story, other than to show what an awful predicament the evolutionists are in.
    Design presupposes information, which could be assumed to be a fundamental entity of the universe alongside matter and energy.  In this way, scientists from around the world, from all different faiths, could abide by acceptable scientific rules of publication.  Everyone can describe information, design, and function, but leave out the identity of the Designer.  That part would be left to the metaphysicians; philosophers, theologians, even atheists, who could attempt to take the scientific discoveries and incorporate them (with more or less success) into their world view.  Design has profound metaphysical implications, but the observation of design comes from the data, not from the metaphysics.
    In short, an ID approach would be good for science.  It is non-religious and non-sectarian, it is empirically based, it has a long history as a fruitful approach.  It’s how Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Pasteur and Carver did their science.  It’s how archaeology, cryptography, forensics, and SETI approach their scientific work even now.  The scientific community has nothing to fear from an ID paradigm.  The cell has fermented naturalism beyond its bursting point.  It is time to put the new wine of biochemistry into new wineskins of intelligent design.
Next headline on: The Cell • Next headline on: Human Body. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design. • Next amazing story.

The words “self-assembly” sound impressive and give evolutionists hope that life assembled itself in the past.  The molecules, however, do only what the chemists and the laws of nature tell them to do, following the well-known laws of thermodynamics.  The rosette-shaped elements of the nanotube first had to be engineered by intelligent designers.  Like magnetized Lego blocks, the forces of attraction bring them together, but the ingredient that requires a mind for self-assembly to work is information, intelligence, instructions; that is the challenge.  Explains the author of the second paper (emphasis added), “The challenge for chemists engaged in this field resides in the ‘programming’ of the system, i.e., in the design and synthesis of components that carry within their structures the pieces of information necessary not only for the construction of the desired supramolecular architecture but also for the performance of the required function.”  I.e., these self-assembling structures have been programmed.  Programming requires a programmer.
Next headline on: Origin of Life. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Notice that important word assumptions.  Dating methods are often presented as empirical tools that give objective results.  In reality, they are interpretations of measurements made with unverifiable assumptions.  Some of the assumptions may seem reasonable, but consider that for decades now, these assumptions seemed reasonable, but are now being questioned.  Does that give you any confidence that the ages tossed around in this story–64,000 years– have any validity at all?  What headline might show up in year 2005 that will throw out the current assumptions?
Next headline on: Stars. • Next headline on: Dating.

The AP story contains the usual distortions.  We challenge readers to find anything of substance in the evolutionists’s statements.  “Intelligent design isn’t science” = hot air.  “A disguise for creationism” = fear mongering (only subversives wear disguises, right?).  “Courts have barred that approach from public schools” = Big Lie.  “I wish we were talking about things that strengthen science and not dilute it” = hot air and non-sequitur.  “If intelligent design were allowed in, I would spend my time teaching why it’s not science” = more hot air.  The Evolution Party seems to think that all they need do is make bald assertions like “evolution is a fact.”  No evidence, no logic, no other support is needed; just demagoguery and appeals to prejudice.  The E.P. knows that it cannot stand up to scrutiny.  That’s why they must insist on forbidding their critics a hearing.  For instance, the National Center for Science Education grades schools on how well they teach evolution; Sola Darwina, K-12, with no criticism, earns their “Grade A” designation.  We thought authoritarian dogma went out of style with Aristotle. 
    Darwinism is one of those ideas that makes sense, when you don’t think about it.  Meanwhile, the baloney bullets are flying fast and furious in these school controversies; forewarned is forearmed.
Next headline on: Schools. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Wright is a good writer.  He is interesting to read, but commits some common misunderstandings about Darwinism and Intelligent Design.  He does treat ID with more gentleness than usual; he grants that it has merit because “ID adherents have raised productive doubts–and in science, being productively wrong is nearly as valuable as being right.”  So has Wright proved ID wrong?  He assumes some flawed points:

1. That Darwin came up with an explanation for how we got here.  On the contrary, other than speculating in a letter to a friend on the possibility of a “warm little pond,” Darwin avoided the question of the origin of life.  As to natural selection being the “evolutionary engine” that Wright calls it, it is not an engine, it is a sieve.  Read this treatise by William Dembski on Why Natural Selection Can’t Design Anything.  Natural selection, at best, conserves what exists and eliminates the harmful.  Treating it as an engine of design that can create wings and eyes where none existed before is unwarranted extrapolation and glittering generalities and subjectivity, not observational science. 
2. That ID has to come up with an alternative to this non-mechanism of natural selection to get a hearing.  This is the old “shifting the burden of proof” fallacy.  ID is like a coroner; did the body die of natural causes, or from murder?  It’s the detective’s job, not the coroner’s, to find out who did it.  ID is like a code-breaker; is there a message in this string of apparently random characters or not?  It is someone else’s job to read the message and figure who sent it and why.  ID is concerned not with explaining how we got here, but whether there is evidence of information and design in biological systems. 
3. That Ken Miller has answered the argument from irreducible complexity.  This is merely an argument from authority.    Read both sides, including this analysis by John Woodmorappe and Jonathan Sarfati, and let Michael Behe respond to Miller’s critiques.
4. That Darwinism is kindly favorable to religion.  Observers of the evolution camp know better.  In the comments of our Jan. 14 headline on the NCSE, read Phillip Johnson’s description of the two-platoon system used by Darwin’s defenders.

If Mr. Wright wants a theory on how we got here, let him ask whether that is even a scientific question, since it is not susceptible to observation and testing.  He certainly won’t find such a theory in natural selection, if he looks more rigorously.  But if he peers into the simplest living cell, he will find abundant evidence of intelligent design unexplainable by natural causes.  Instead of portraying this as political parties battling each other, let’s let the evidence speak for itself.
Next headline on: Darwinism.  See also this Feb. 28 critique of ID. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Nothing has been demonstrated about evolution here (yet).  They just offer this as a research program, not as evidence for evolution.  Variations in butterfly wings, which are examples of horizontal changes, are expected in both creation and evolution models.  If butterflies are still butterflies and fruit flies are still fruit flies when all the experiments are done, then no vertical evolution has occurred.  But why do these scientists call the butterfly wings beautiful?  From where did the concept of beauty evolve?
Next headline on: Arthropods.

We highly recommend this film.  Copies are just now becoming available for $20.  Visit IllustraMedia.com and order it.  View it, and pass it around.  Share it with your teachers, your co-workers, your church.  You will have no embarrassment showing this high-quality, beautiful, amazing film to anyone, even the most ardent evolutionist.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

Shouldn’t students be allowed to hear all the evidence?  Shouldn’t they be allowed to hear both sides of controversial topics, like evolution?  Shouldn’t they be taught to think critically?  What could possibly be wrong with that?  Just watch the pro-evolution forces pull out their arsenal of fear tactics, smokescreens and half truths and you’ll see scientific evidence relegated to the background.  This story makes an interesting placement next to the headline below.  It’s like having a cigarette commercial in the middle of a documentary on the lungs.
Next headline on: Schools. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

• Battery Rechargers: Three biochemists have described how some anaerobic bacteria recharge their batteries.  To get work done, all organisms have to use electricity.  They do this by pushing charges the way they don’t want to go (against the energy gradient), creating an electromotive force (in this case, PMF or proton motive force).  The authors examined the proton pump in the membrane of E. coli, and found that it is a complex of very complicated protein molecules shaped somewhat like a mushroom.  It effectively passes proteins down a 90-angstrom channel somewhat like an electric wire, using a series of chemical reactions called a redox loop. 
• Assembly Plant: The cell is a crowded place.  Newly manufactured proteins, if not protected before folded into their proper shape, can turn into harmful gunk.  Not to worry; a family of chaperone proteins is at their service to whisk the proteins to safe barrel-shaped havens where they can fold in peace.  Two German biochemists have examined the process from newly-synthesized chain to folded protein:

  “To become functionally active, newly synthesized protein chains must fold to unique three-dimensional structures.  How this is accomplished remains a fundamental problem in biology.  Although it is firmly established from refolding experiments in vitro that the native fold of a protein is encoded in its amino acid sequence, protein folding inside cells is not generally a spontaneous process.  Evidence accumulated over the last decade indicates that many newly synthesized proteins require a complex cellular machinery of molecular chaperones and the input of metabolic energy to reach their native states efficiently.” 

  They describe some of the bad things that can happen: aggregation or clumping, which might be implicated in Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease, among many other problems.  The paper describes a staggering array of complex chaperone molecules and procedures that work together to prevent trouble under a wide variety of conditions.
• Editing Room: Two Greek biochemists from Crete peer into the process of transcribing a gene of DNA into messenger RNA, which then travels to the ribosome to build a protein.  It’s not a simple job.  The DNA is bundled tightly into balls of chromatin and nucleosomes, preventing the editing apparatus from getting to it.  Again, not to worry: there is a squad of chromatin-unscramblers to unlock the precious code and let the translator, RNA-polymerase II, scan the code and build the messenger RNA.  Think of scrolls locked in a library of ancient manuscripts that need to be translated into English.  These scrolls contain the instructions for building machines.  You need someone with a key to let you in, then you need a way to safely unroll the scroll to the right spot.  These steps must precede the translation and manufacturing processes.  In this paper, the scientists found that two squads are needed.  A pre-initiation complex (PIC) gets the unrolling machinery ready before the door is unlocked.  A chromatin-remodeling squad unlocks the door.  The unlocking is actually more like unscrambling tightly-wound strands so that the PIC can get to it, before the translator can do its work.

The activities going on in our cells, every moment, every day, are absolutely astounding.  Trouble is, papers like this are very difficult to read; they are loaded with technical jargon and concepts that assume a great deal of prior knowledge.  Nevertheless, just looking at the illustrations and scanning the nearly overwhelming complexity described is a worthwhile exercise.^*  It is also interesting to note that the word “evolution” is rarely mentioned in papers like this.  Even more rare is any attempt to explain how these detailed processes, involving many interdependent complex parts, could have originated in the first place.  The machinery is already fully operational in the simplest living cells!
    It is for this reason many believe that modern biochemistry is sounding the death knell for Darwinism.  Darwin had no idea what his theory would have to face starting in the late 20th century.  But he gave creationists the gun when he said, “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.”
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry. • Next amazing story.
^*Good news: a new film illustrating the wonders of the cell is being released this month.  It visualizes many of these complex processes in a way that is understandable even to children (as long as they are alert and precocious).  More news on this important new film in tomorrow’s Creation-Evolution Headlines.

Well, maybe believers have their smoking gun, and maybe not.  Many questions remain; why would a dinosaur have feathers?  Is the identification of this specimen truly dinosaurian, or is it a primitive bird?  How or why would scales transform into complex feathers and appear abruptly?  Is this fossil dated prior to other known fossil birds, or after?  Is it another hoax?  The arrangements of these fossilized animals into family trees are based on evolutionary assumptions.  If even other evolutionary paleontologists are reserving judgment, surely it is too early to concede their claim.  See also these counter arguments raised by Answers in Genesis.
Next headline on: Birds. • Next headline on: Dinosaurs. • Next headline on: Fossils.

Pay no attention.  Whatever you learn from this story you will undoubtedly have to unlearn in the next issue.  Even National Geographic, the showcase of evolving ape-men, admits that the human origins debate “has been highly charged for at least 15 years” (try 150).  Human evolution theory is not science; it is more like professional wrestling.
Next headline on: Early Man.

Judson is having a hard time coming to grips with the bitter fruit of Darwinist thinking.  Hamilton was more honest.  Darwin’s world is a world of struggle and death, where morals do not exist, and the heroes (if this concept has any meaning) are those who emerge on top of the boneyard.  How can Darwinism speak at all of “what we would like to become”?  We are all products of selfish genes, mindlessly playing games with human bodies as their pawns.  If this scene is too horrifying, dear reader, please allow us to introduce you to a Creator and Redeemer who described, and demonstrated, true sacrificial love.  The fittest gave Himself for the survival of the weakest and guiltiest.  Greater love hath no gene.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

After all, an appreciation of music confers no glaringly obvious advantage in the darwinian struggle for survival.  Various theories have been put forward - that music promotes social cohesion, for example - but so far, none represents more than a plausible ‘just so’ story.  Our love of music might merely be a pleasurable side-effect of the evolution of other perceptual abilities - representing, as cognitive neuroscientist Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put it, “auditory cheesecake.” . ...
    ... More fancifully, some scientists have even suggested that a mother’s singing can cause her baby’s hair to stand on end and so keep it warm.
    Whatever the function, many of the neuroscientists studying music are convinced that it is the product of evolutionary design [sic].  “The emotional processing of music probably does have an evolutionary basis” says Altenmuller.  “The chills can be so profound, so biological, it seems very likely that the evolutionary point is about social cohesion.”
    Pinker remains unconvinced, arguing that our appreciation of music and our musicianship are by-products of the way our auditory system analyses sounds, combined with our tool-making skills.  “The problem with most of the theories put forward is that they are circular” he says.
    The true answer may never be known.  “We can’t do the experiment to re-evolve ourselves,” observes Halpern.  Thankfully, we don’t need to understand the evolutionary significance of music, nor the details of how it is processed in the brain, for it to continue to work its magic.  As Elvis Presley once said: “I don’t know anything about music.  In my line you don't have to.”

A clearer case of a priori reasoning could hardly be found.  Reductionist Darwinians are so convinced that music must fit into the evolutionary paradigm of survival of the fittest, they feel no guilt in telling just-so stories and arguing in circles to stuff music into the evolutionary box.  The end result is always groups of evolutionists fighting each other about whose just-so story is better, with the reporter concluding that maybe we’ll figure it out someday, or maybe the true [evolutionary] answer will never be known.  And it won’t, on their watch.  As Billy Joel croons, it’s all about soul.  Evolutionists don’t understand soul; in their line of work, they don’t have to.
    Making the baby’s hair stand on end to keep warm; good grief.  For that to fit Darwinist theory, every baby that did not have this lucky mutation would have to die until only the lucky babies that kept warm enough could grow up and have more babies like themselves.  Meanwhile, the mothers of babies without the mutation were too stupid to hold them a little closer, and just watched them freeze to death.  Go put on a good CD and forget this nonsense.
Next headline on: Human Body. • Next dumb story.

Be a good sceptic [sic] and doubt both the dates and the fossils.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, remember?
Next headline on: Origin of Life. • Next headline on: Fossils.

Mr. Hukkeri commented that Darwinism is affecting the faith of Christians, who are in the minority to begin with.  The rising influence of Darwinism in the schools is a major problem to missionaries and pastors in India right now.  It feeds the prejudices of the increasing population of intellectuals and students against Christianity.  Hindus tend to equate Christianity with Catholicism, he explained, since that is mostly what they hear about.  The Catholics in his state in India, however, have a reputation for loose morals and drunkenness, and do not stand for anything, so Hindus tend to feel superior, and despise “Christianity” altogether.  Surprisingly, the Bible Society is under Catholic control, but does not wish the people to read the Bible!  They want to keep people in darkness, he claimed.  For this reason, Christopher recently translated the New Testament into the Konkani language himself, along with the Old Testament books of Joshua, Proverbs, and (almost completed) Isaiah, so that people in his city could have access to the Word of God.  He told how a high government official was recently saved by reading the entire New Testament three times.  Nevertheless, Jesuits in the state of Goa persecute the Christians and cause great difficulty for missionaries like Hukkeri who strive to get the Bible into the hands of the people. 
    One of Hukkeri’s goals on his visit to America was to obtain a video projector so that he can continue to show Moody Science films and other visual aids to present creation and argue against evolution.  (He was very excited to hear that Discovery Media Productions is continuing to produce new films of the same quality.)  Hukkeri is also working to build a creation-oriented planetarium. 
    In spite of the darkness in his native land, Christopher sees God’s hand at work.  The devastating earthquake that hit on January 26, 2001 destroyed a diamond trading center, in which corrupt, evil traders perished with their wealth.  At the same time, a group of Christians were praying on the third floor of a building for God to intervene against an anti-Christian law that was being debated by the government.  At 9:00, while they were praying, the earthquake hit, and the building they were in collapsed to the ground – yet all of them escaped unscathed.  After that, it was the Christians who had access to the devastated regions with food, blankets, medicine and messages of hope for the suffering, while corrupt government bureaucrats were intercepting and keeping for themselves the aid packages sent by international relief agencies.
Next headline on: Schools.

My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her ear–those intricate, perfect ears.  The thought passed through my mind: “No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view).  They could have been created only by immense design.”  The thought was involuntary and unwanted.  I crowded it out of my mind.  But I never wholly forgot it or the occasion.  I had to crowd it out of my mind.  If I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God.  I did not then know that, at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.

What Communist has not heard those screams?  They come from husbands torn forever from their wives in midnight arrests.  They come, muffled, from the execution cellars of the secret police, from the torture chambers of the Lubianka, from all the citadels of terror now stretching from Berlin to Canton.  They come from those freight cars loaded with men, women and children, the enemies of the Communist State, locked in, packed in, left on remote sidings to freeze to death at night in the Russian winter.  They come from minds driven mad by the horrors of mass starvation ordered and enforced as a policy of the Communist State.  They come from the starved skeletons, worked to death, or Bogged to death (as an example to others) in the freezing filth of sub-arctic labor camps.  They come from children whose parents are suddenly, inexplicably, taken away from them–parents they will never see again.

Evolution Monkeys with Duplicate Genes   03/06/2002
An Asian monkey has a duplicate gene that evolved to perform a different function, claims evolutionary geneticist Jianzhi Zhang of the University of Michigan, reports Nature Science Update.  A gene for ribonuclease now codes for a digestive enzyme.  Zhang believes that two processes were involved in the evolution of the new gene: both positive selection (preserving an advantage) and lack of negative selection (a neutral mutation free to evolve till it “finds a new job”).  The report ends with a caution:

Shozo Yokoyama, an evolutionary biologist at Syracuse University in New York state, says Zhang’s functional tests are a difficult and essential step toward understanding the role of duplication. But “the final answer is still not there,” he says. More research is needed to show not only how the amino acid changes reduced the ribonuclease’s old function, but also how they helped it reach its new function.

There is too much play and too little known to assert the conclusion.  Each step has to provide a survival advantage for natural selection to preserve a change.  Yokoyama’s caution is well taken; more research is needed before concluding this is evolution in action.  Just saying so doesn’t make it so.  Besides, the monkey is still a monkey.
Next headline on: Mammals. • Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

We know that pigeons can show quite a remarkable diversity in appearance, yet belong to the same kind, similar to the diversity in dogs.  Note that the odd-looking characteristics of the dodo involve loss of function (flight) and exaggeration of traits from severe inbreeding.  This is allowed in both creation and evolution models; there is no gain in information or function.  Also, it does not take millions of years for such variations to become pronounced.
Next headline on: Birds.

H₂O is to life as ink to a textbook.  You need ink to write a textbook, but you wouldn’t expect a textbook to arise spontaneously from inkblots on paper.  To make it more fun, try using frozen ink.  Then bombard the ink and the paper with microscopic bullets and wait for something like Principia to emerge.
Next headline on: Mars. • Next headline on: Origin of Life and Astrobiology.

And then to finally see it was extremely satisfying.  In some aspects, it was satisfying because many things were predicted, and in other ways it was satisfying because some things that were not predicted were almost more beautiful than anybody would have predicted.  For example, the cavity and these helices were just a marvelous arrangement that Mother Nature used to solve this problem, you know, as if a very brilliant engineer did it all. I think that was very satisfying to see.

Let’s give credit where credit is due.  This is no Mother Nature if you are an evolutionist.  Why does it look as if a brilliant engineer did it all, if a Brilliant Engineer did not do it all?  To parry Dobzhansky’s famous quote against him, in light of the recent findings of biochemistry, Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of intelligent design.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry. • Next headline on: Intelligent Design.

This is a good debate on which to become familiar with the arguments on both sides.  Who is doing the real obfuscation or sleight of hand?  See also Wells’s own response to critics on this January 23 headline.  When judging a debate, always have your Baloney Detector in good working order.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.

Mars is a fascinating place, but today’s news is a reminder of the many “cosmic accidents” that make Earth habitable for life.  See also our 05/02/2001 headline and 09/14/2000 headline about the Martian radiation environment.  We wouldn’t be surprised if some evolutionist announces to the press that the cosmic rays will be a shower of blessing, helping future inhabitants of Mars evolve faster.
Next headline on: Mars.

Yes, take off the shirt and hand it to her to eat while you flex your muscles, guys.  Good grief.
    We have reported earlier how evolutionary theories of sexual selection commit the personification fallacy by putting human emotions into fish brains.  Now they’ve gone further and made males into a candy store for dimwitted females who can’t tell the difference between an orange gummy worm and a member of their own species.  The story is worthless except to notice this sentence: “The research challenges the standard theory of sexual selection, which maintains that sexy traits reveal the quality of a prospective mate’s genes.”  Which, being translated, means: dumb has been replaced with dumber.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
Next headline on: Fish. • Next dumb story.