Honeybees Measure the Scenery, Not the Mileage 05/31/2001
The cover story of Nature
05/31/2001 describes how honeybees communicate the distance to food
sources to their hivemates. Apparently they are not good at
calculating absolute distances, but remember the amount of scenery they
passed on the way. Experimenters made them fly through a tunnel
and found that their subsequent waggle-dances in the hive made their
hivemates overshoot the distance.
Scientific
American says, “Researchers have long marveled over the dance
of the honeybee. In fact, close observation has even enabled
them to read the insect’s waggle performance. Yet despite
years of study, new insight into the creature’s unusual form of
communication continues to come to light.”
Who taught the honeybee how to point
accurately to the food source and communicate the distance, the angle
to the sun, and the quality of the nectar? This is one of the
wonders of creation vividly portrayed in an old classic documentary by
Moody Institute of Science, “City of the Bees,” still available
from Moody Video.
Next headline on: Bugs and Crawlers. •
Next amazing story.
Earth Experienced a Miocene Biological Camelot, Maybe 05/31/2001
According to a grad student and faculty member at the
University
of Michigan, who studied marine sediment cores from two oceans, earth
might have had a bloom in biological productivity between 6 and 4 million
years ago. By measuring phosphorus levels in the cores, they attempted
to determine whether ocean currents shifted phosphorus from the rich to
the poor regions (Robin Hood hypothesis), increased the phosphorus-rich
areas (Sheriff of Nottingham), or increased the levels everywhere
(Camelot). Their best guess is Camelot.
Does anyone doubt that scientists are telling
fairy tales about the past? Take a few data points from two sites on
the globe, assume evolution and long ages, then tell a story. Maybe
A is true; on the other hand, B (the opposite) could be true; let’s
make everybody happy and let both A and B be true.
Next headline on: Geology (also next headline).
Ice Core Dating Unreliable 05/31/2001
Scientists at the University of Washington have found that impurities in
ice cores can travel several centimeters from their starting points through
small channels of liquid water between the crystals. This blurs the
accuracy of climate records based on ice core analysis. They recommend
their colleagues go back and rework the chemistry and adjust their results
accordingly, according to the summary in
Scientific American.
Ice core samples have been used to argue for
long ages and for climate trends, but this reveals another previously
unknown effect that skews the results. This is the problem with all
dating methods; they depend on unknown initial conditions and unknown
processes that can alter the conclusions. We’ve seen that even
tree ring dating,
one of the most reliable of all, is subject to interpretation
and statistical modelling that involves unproveable assumptions. A
classic case of paradigm shift involved the Yellowstone fossil forests.
For decades the Park Service told the public that the forests had grown
one on top of the other for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
Now, that idea has been overthrown in favor of a catastrophic debris-flow
model from volcanic eruptions, and the old interpretive sign was removed.
Always be wary of dating methods involving the unobservable past; look for the
hidden assumptions.
Next headline on: Dating methods. •
Next headline on: Geology.
Darwin Mementoes Go On Display 05/30/2001
The BBC News reports that a recently-discovered box of mementoes, kept by
Charles Darwin to remember his daughter Annie who died at age 10, has gone
on display at Down House where the scientist lived for 40 years and from whence
he wrote The Origin of Species. The memory box includes private
letters about her illness and a lock of her hair. On another continent, a
collection of about 50 Darwin artifacts is on display till June 24 at the
Huntington Library
in San Marino, California.
It is poignant to think of Darwin grieving
over the loss of his little girl. But grief, happiness, love, and
remembrance are just chemical reactions in the naturalistic universe his
theories created, and death ends everything. By contrast, the Apostle
Paul wrote so that we
sorrow
not, even as others that have no hope. Darwin’s little
memory box is a symbol of the vast difference between the two world views,
and the naturalist’s reluctant surrender of faith, hope, and
meaningful love.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
European Space Agency Embraces Astrobiology 05/30/2001
Participants in the first
European
Workshop on Exo/Astrobiology last week
in Frascati, Italy, have embraced the
search
for life in space as a
primary goal. Members of the European Exobiology Network and the
European Space Agency listed three evidences to support the growing consensus
that life could be found beyond the earth: (1) organic molecules in
space, (2) exoplanets (planets orbiting other stars than the Sun), and
(3) extremophiles (organisms surviving in extreme environments on earth).
They discussed plans for ESA’s astrobiology program named
Aurora
to search for biomarkers as well as pave the way for human exploration in
space (cf. NASA’s Origins
program). One of the planned “cornerstone” flight projects
scheduled for launch around
2014 to look for chemical signatures of life around earthlike planets is named
Darwin,
and their Mars 2003 lander bears the name
Beagle
2 after the ship on which the young Charles Darwin sailed as naturalist.
The entire hope of exo/astrobiology
is composed of logical fallacies
built on the assumption of evolution.
(1) Organic molecules in space are no closer to life than a child’s
toy alphabet blocks are to an encyclopedia (reductionism, circular
reasoning, circumstantial evidence, glittering generalities).
(2) Extrasolar planets are collections of rocks or gas that have no
necessary connection to life (extrapolation,
circular reasoning, circumstantial evidence). (3) Extremophiles
indicate adaptation, not abiogenesis (post hoc, extrapolation).
None of these arguments address the critical issue, the origin of
complex
specified information obvious in even the simplest known bacterium.
Astrobiology can be considered an exercise in blind faith, NOT science.
But if their enthusiasm generates new data-gathering missions (paid for by
Europeans), then all the better to have facts instead of endless speculation.
Next headline on: Origin of Life. •
Next headline on: SETI.
Cosmologists Still Lack Many Basic Answers 05/30/2001
The June issue of Astronomy Magazine has as its cover
story “The Ultimate Cosmic Mysteries.” Astrophysicist Mark Sincell lists “The Eight
Greatest Mysteries of Cosmology” which sound pretty great, indeed:
- How multidimensional is the universe? (We don’t understand gravity.)
- How did the universe begin? (How did an explosion produce such smoothness?)
- Why does matter fill the universe? (There should be an equal part of antimatter.)
- How did galaxies form? (“The details are devilishly difficult to understand.”)
- What is cold dark matter? (What is the other 95% of stuff that must be out there?)
- Are all the baryons assembled in galaxies? (Astronomers have only found a tiny fraction of what they expect.)
- What is the dark energy? “Physicists have tried to calculate the observed dark-energy
density from accepted theories of physics, but their results don’t jibe with reality. So far, the
computed value is roughly 1060 times greater than the observed value. (Others say
the number could be off by a factor of up to 10130, but let’s not quibble over the
details.)”
- What is the destiny of the universe?
And you were taught the Big Bang Theory explained everything. If you sweep away the facades of
bluff in this article, you find that cosmologists really don’t know very much at all. For instance,
inflation is still the rage, but the author says: “What drove inflation? Nobody knows.
Physicists have suggested different models to describe the inflating universe, but all the solutions are
mathematical conveniences with no particular physical basis.”
(See inflation, below). Regarding dark energy, “The
biggest problem with this idea is that no one has any idea what dark energy is. ‘So far,
all we’ve been able to do is name it,’ says [Michael] Turner. ‘It could be the
energy associated with nothing [sic!], or the influence of hidden spatial dimensions.’” Sincell
figures we will have all these mysteries solved by 2010, but provides no assurance that cosmologists are
actually moving forward instead of backward. That is why it is so disengenuous for compromise
creationists like Hugh Ross to confidently tell uninformed audiences that the Big Bang is well
established except for a few minor details.
Cosmologists are often guilty of the Best-In-Field
Fallacy, defined and roundly trounced by Norman Macbeth in his excellent book Darwin Retried (Gambit, 1978).
Astronomers admit that the Big Bang has problems, but respond that it’s the best theory we have (assuming,
of course, that only naturalistic theories are permitted, so theism is ruled out by definition).
So if the Big Bang is the leader of problematic theories, Macbeth would claim this is faint praise. “Is there any
glory in outrunning a cripple in a foot race? Being best-in-field means nothing if the field is made
up of fumblers” (Macbeth, p. 77). He continues (p. 78), “It seems that the standards of
the evolutionary theorists are relative or comparative rather than absolute. If such a theorist makes
a suggestion that is better than other suggestions, or better than nothing, he feels that he has accomplished
somthing even if his suggestion will obviously not hold water. He does not believe that he must meet
any objective standards of logic, reason, or probability.”
#2 - How did universe begin: see Genesis 1:1. #8 - Destiny of universe: see
Revelation 20-22. Take your pick of the best in field; at least these have an Eyewitness.
Next headline on: Cosmology.
Space Society Urges Search for Life on Moon 05/29/2001
A Cal State Long Beach professor made a pitch to the
National Space Society
for looking for life, or at least proto-life,
in shaded craters on the moon, according to
Space.Com.
Dr. Jack Green is one of a few who feel the major craters
on the moon are volcanic in origin, not the result of impacts.
That being the case, he feels we might find proteinoid
microspheres or amino acids that formed from volcanic
ingredients and heat, now protected in the permanent ice
shadowed from the sun and its deadly radiation.
“Everything falls into place and it’s extremely
favorable for life,” he says. “I don’t
think it would be anything advanced at all. But it
could be the earliest known species, the Archaea, or bacteria.
This is very possible. I’m not going to say they
are alive, I draw the line there. But I do say it is
possible because of time.”
This reasoning is so absurd, it
can only be coming from someone trying to drum up funding for
another space mission. Evolutionists belittle theists for
believing in miracles. Parting the Red Sea doesn’t
even come close to building a bacterium from a volcanic eruption
on the moon.
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Tropical Glaciers Suggest Frozen Earth 05/29/2001
Did Earth become a snowball in the past?
Penn State
geophysicists don’t see how glacial deposits at tropical
latitudes could have formed unless the whole earth froze over.
Runaway glaciation could have frozen the oceans and formed the
glaciers within a few thousand years, they estimate, but melting
would have taken millions of years even if volcanoes outgassed
CO2 at 300 times current levels. Other scientists
doubt whether life could have survived such freezing episodes.
Be thankful these geophysicists are
only playing with computer models, not the real earth, or you
would have to cancel that cruise in the Bahamas. Their models
reinforce the belief that earth’s climate is finely tuned for
life. Tweak the paramaters a little one way or the other, and you
get a runaway meltdown or a runaway freeze, from which it is very
hard to recover. Just look at Venus and Mars. Glaciers
are a paradox, requiring simultaneous cold temperatures and warm oceans
from which the precipitation can originate. For a model on different
assumptions (a worldwide flood), see the
CSC website; go to the
index and check “Ice Age.”
Next headline on: Geology.
Science Project Criticizes Evolution, Ordered Removed 05/27/2001
A 6th-grade student displayed a Creation vs. Evolution science fair project
that touched off a controversy about science, religion and free speech between
the teacher, school board, superintendent, and his parents.
The story “Creation vs. Evolution” made the front page of
Saturday’s local newspaper, complete with a large photo of the
controversial display.
Joshua Lunetta of Santa Clarita, California included on the creation side of
the display an emblem of a “Truth” fish swallowing a “Darwin”
fish, and a stuffed monkey and action figure under the words “monkey
business.” The superintendent of the Newhall School District did
not appreciate the humor. “It was not acceptable. It was
derogatory toward evolution,” he told the
Daily News, arguing that the
display needed more balance. Joshua’s father, who has an M.S. in
chemistry and is also critical of evolution, agreed to have his son make
modifications to the display, but complained to the school board that they
modified it
further beyond the agreed-on changes, and thus violated his son’s free
speech rights. The school board responded that the student was inserting
religion into a science project: “Children have a right to express
religion, but this was brought under the heading of science,”
Marc Winger, superintendent, said. “The distinction here is
pretty clear – the courts have said school districts cannot teach this
concept. We teach evolution because it’s part of the California
curriculum.” In a letter to Lunetta, Winger further stated that creation
is “first and foremost a religious belief grounded in Biblical text.
While teachers do not and will not teach creation in the Newhall School
District, student-generated reports that include creation science as a
scientific theory present a ‘gray’ area for teachers and
administrators.” Mr. Lunetta and a friend argued that it takes more
faith to believe in evolution than creation, and there is no way to test
evolution, students should be free to present alternatives.
The Supreme Court did not say that
schools cannot teach creation; it made it clear a science teacher can
teach any and all
relevant scientific facts about origins. The
court only ruled that school boards cannot mandate “equal time”
for creation and evolution. The superintendent’s statement
reflects widespread misunderstanding of the court’s rulings, that
make school officials and teachers fear that any mention of creation
in science classrooms (or even criticism of evolution) is against
the law. That is simply not true. In fact, creationists want
to teach more about evolution than the evolutionists want
students to hear! (i.e., the mass of evidence that undermines Darwinism).
But in this
school district, which does not and will not teach creation, they
don’t even want students to criticize evolution.
Why, pray tell, does Darwinism
need such protection from “derogatory” presentations?
Is there some commandment that we must not take the name of Darwin in vain?
While this student’s courage in
opposing evolutionary dogmatism is laudable, perhaps he would have had better
influence by sticking entirely to scientific arguments against evolution and
omitting the Bible and elements that mocked the opposition.
Otherwise, it allows the
evolutionists to retreat into the old either-or fallacies
of “religion vs. science” and
“separation of church and state.” (A comeback to the
superintendent might have been: “Evolution is first and foremost a
religious belief grounded in philosophical naturalism.”)
There is plenty of scientific evidence
to oppose Darwinism (just read these pages), and the implications are
pretty obvious. But students around the country ought to rise up
and challenge the force-fed diet of Darwin on the grounds it is bad
science, not just that it offends their religious beliefs.
Won’t it be ironic if the Darwin Wall crumbles from
the hammers of young students astute enough to turn the Darwinists’
own words and data against them?
Next headline on: Schools. •
Next headline on: Darwinism.
Tiny Mammal Ancestor Found 05/25/2001
A fossil from China of a tiny mammal, as small as a paper clip, is all
the rage on the science news wires including
National Geographic. Published in Science (see
this summary and picture in
Scientific American,
the fossil is alleged to be 195 million years old, 45 million years older
than previous mammalian ancestors, but Hadrocodium wui has all the
key features of true mammals, including larger brain and detached middle
ear bones, despite its diminutive size.
Small size is not ancestral any more than
a Palm Pilot is ancestral to mainframes; it could be looked at instead
as a triumph of microengineering. All the features of mammals
are present from the start in this cute little pet,
if you accept their dates, so where is the evolution? We have
seen similar stories recently with ticks
and salamanders, to illustrate that
this is not an isolated anomaly.
Evolutionists are surprised that brain size and
detached middle ear bones apparently evolved together. So here you
have two improbabilities occurring simultaneously, effectively multiplying
the improbability. What’s more, they occurred rapidly,
much earlier than previously thought. Evolutionists cling to
their phylogenetic trees and
interpretations not because of the evidence, but in spite of
it. For another example, see the story “Shaking the Family Tree”
under Related Links at the end of the Scientific American story.
Lucy of Peanuts fame provides a fable on how
a priori reasoning confronts anomalies. Pointing to an
object on the sidewalk, she said, “Wow, look at the size of that
butterfly, Charlie Brown! That must be one of those big tropical
butterflies from Brazil.” Upon closer inspection, Charlie Brown
commented, “That’s no butterfly; that ’s a potato
chip.” “Well, what do you know; you“re right,
Charlie Brown,” Lucy replied. “I wonder how a potato chip
got all the way up here from Brazil?”
Next headline on: Fossils. •
Next headline on: Mammals.
Distributed Shipping Design Found in Nerve Cells 05/25/2001
Researchers at the
Howard Hughes Medical
Institute have found that dendrites, the long stems on neurons,
have the ability to manufacture their own proteins. Erin M. Schuman,
Institute investigator from CalTech, remarked on the economy and
efficiency of this design: “It’s like the
difference between centralized and distributed freight shipping,” she
said. “With central shipping, you need a huge number of trucks that
drive all over town, moving freight from a central factory. But with
distributed shipping, you have multiple distribution centers that serve
local populations, with far less transport involved.”
There appears to be no end in sight for
the design wonders we will find in living cells, and the frayed nerves these
will cause for evolutionists.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry.
Face on Mars Evaporates at High Res 05/24/2001
The Mars Global
Surveyor took the highest-resolution image yet of the alleged “Face
on Mars” that has been the subject of many a talk show, tabloid and
conspiracy theory, but the likeness to a face has diminished considerably
with clearer vision. It now appears that the face is merely a
haphazard collection of buttes on an elevated ridge.
It is interesting to watch the interplay
between the tabloid believers and the NASA scientists on this feature.
The tabloid believers are typically
mocked
for their credulity and
tendency to extrapolate to alien civilizations based
on one questionable, unfocused image (and rightly so, given the
improbability of anything higher than bacteria being able to survive
on Mars). They are also chided for not giving up
when better evidence comes in. But some NASA scientists do the same thing;
they take a meteorite
artifact and believe it evidence for life, against all probability, even
when better evidence keeps coming in that naturalistic abiogenesis is
impossible. Notice the hidden assumptions and credulity of this
typical comment on the Mars
Exploration website: “Water probably didn’t exist on the
surface of Mars long enough for anything other than very small,
bacteria-like life forms to develop.” Don’t they know
how extremely complex a bacterium is? Does it make any more sense to
think a bacterium would evolve on Mars, than to believe an alien
civilization would construct a face?
Next headline on: Mars.
Human Language Learning Period Was Limited by Natural Selection 05/24/2001
In the June 7 issue of the
Proceedings
of the Royal Society, two evolutionists try to explain the limited
time frame in which humans easily learn a language (about 13 years) in
terms of natural selection. They claim there is a stable interval
bounded by opposing forces: (1) the benefit of accuracy by having a
longer period, and (2) the fitness cost of learning.
You can explain anything by natural
selection, therefore you can explain nothing. Evolutionists wrap
the tautology
of natural selection in impressive jargon like “Nash
equilibrium analysis” and “selective forces” but it
doesn’t protect them from
criticism,
even from their own allies,
that natural selection is a
vacuous concept that, like happiness, means
different things to different people. This paper is filled with
differential equations and graphs that look formidable, but look at
their starting assumptions: successful communication increases
an individual’s fitness (whatever that means),
and learning is costly. They have
guaranteed their conclusions within their own assumptions, so all the
math begs the question. Evolutionists are masters of the art
of storytelling with scientific jargon. Any parent knows the
difference between the grunting of animals and
their child’s acquisition of language, from
the cooing of infancy to the debate team in college.
The vast gulf that separates human language
from the animals points to a personal God who created us to interact
with Him and with each other as persons, created in His image.
Next headline on: Human Body.
Experiment Grows Bacteria in Mars-Like Soil 05/24/2001
Researchers at the University of Arkansas
have grown bacteria in a simulated Martian soil, this time without an
artificial buffer.
This story may be of interest to terraformers
(Martian farmers)
but proves nothing for astrobiologists (life searchers).
Next headline on: Mars.
Ad Campaign Promotes Biblical Creation As Answer to Racism 05/23/2001
Answers in Genesis
has launched a new website OneHumanRace.com
and with it, 40 billboards throughout the Cincinnati area. The
evangelistic ad campaign teaches that the answer to racism is
recognizing our common humanity as taught in Genesis, that we
all are descended from the same original human pair, and that
Christ offers the solution to racism. The site also contains
articles documenting Darwinist connections to racism, and sets the
record straight on what the Bible teaches about race.
News Item on same subject: The State of Louisiana House
passed a resolution May 8 condemning racism, but according to
Answers
in Genesis, removed the author’s original references to
Darwinism as promoting the idea that certain races had evolved
higher than others. A sanitized version was passed to keep
the world safe for Darwinism.
Darwinians are quick to associate
Christianity with religious wars and other social ills, but reluctant
to own up to their own dark
history of deception, racism, and genocide. It is true that
misguided Christians have taken
Bible quotes out of context to support
racist positions, but the question to ask is: which ideology,
Christianity or Darwinism, has at is very foundation and core beliefs
the idea that some humans are racially superior to others? Is it not
the evolutionists that even today are telling us that modern humans
outsmarted the Neandertals, therefore won the
coveted fitness trophy (i.e., survival)?
Was not the subtitle of Darwin’s book And the
preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life? Was
it not Jesus Christ, by contrast, who taught us to love our enemies,
support the weak, and lay down our lives for one another? How
un-Darwinian! Was it not the Apostle Paul that taught we are all made
of one blood and children of one ancestor, Adam, and if redeemed are all
one in Christ? Read the
articles at this new site
for more enlightening insights into the foundations of racism.
Next headline on: Politics. •
Next headline on: Bible. •
Next headline on: Darwinism.
Lake Vostok Has No Hot Vents 05/23/2001
Lake Vostok, a Great-Lakes-size body of water under Antarctic ice, hasbeen explored with hopes it might have hot water vents and
thus support a primordial colony of exotic life forms. The
BBC
News now reports, however, that no such vents have been found.
There are no chemical signatures from volcanic activity in an ice core
taken above the water level. Although tube worms and other deep sea vent
lifeforms are ruled out by this finding, there remains a possibility for bacteria or
microbes somewhere within the lake.
Unquestionably, studying life in
extreme environments is interesting. But astrobiologists use a
fallacious argument that because life is found in extreme environments, it
might have originated there. Some even extrapolate
this into thinking life must be easy to evolve from scratch!
That is what is behind much of the search for life in extreme
environments, such as deep sea vents, Lake Vostok, hot springs,
and Mars.
Next headline on: Origin of Life (also next
story, below).
Conference 05/23/2001: The first
European
Workshop on Astro/Exobiology is underway in Italy.
A list of conference topics and reports is on the website.
What is there to talk about?
No evidence exists for life anywhere but here on earth.
There is no such thing, therefore, as “astro-biology”!
But look at the schedule and see how seriously these scientists
take it. Biochemistry takes the “bio” out of
astrobiology, and that leaves . . . (the conclusion is left
as an exercise).
Early Humans Ate Anything, Thus Outlived Choosy Neandertals 05/22/2001
Because early humans took a liking to a fish and fowl diet, they outlived their Neandertal neighbors
who were stuck on bison and reindeer which were in shorter supply, according to the
BBC News.
This from analysis of bones which indicate the sources of protein, published in the
Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences.
Too bad; buffalo burgers are pretty tasty. But apparently a “see-food”
diet is the key to survival. Scientists, like beaver trappers, can tell pretty
good whoppers around the campfire. (Thought Experiment: scientists
discover a few human bones from Boston and from Atlanta in the year 5492
and run chemical
tests on them; make up a story about their habits and evolution. Can
you prove it? Does it matter, if it makes a good story?)
On the other hand, maybe this report is a conspiracy by the poultry and
seafood industries to lure us away from red meat: Don’t go
extinct . . . eat fish!
Next headline on: Early Man.
Book 05/21/2001: Gerald Schroeder (PhD physics), appeared on the
700
Club Monday night, discussing design in nature, natural theology, and his new book
The
Hidden Face of God. Schroeder takes an old earth perspective, equating the
Big Bang with creation, but explains how both physics and biology defy naturalistic
explanation. The book is aimed at skeptics but acknowledges God has spoken
in verbal as well as natural revelation.
Astrobiologists Give Up on Primordial Soup, Look to Comets 05/21/2001
A feature story in Science News May 19, 2001 (pp. 317-319) deals with origin
of life woes. In
“Cosmic Chemistry Gets Creative,” Jessica Gorman rounds up the usual suspects
(McKay, Chyba, Bada, et al) to put a positive spin on a desperate situation: the old Miller primordial soup theory appears
dead, so they are looking to seeding earth with prebiotic chemicals via comets. Scientists are blasting material
together to try to form building blocks of life in hypothetical comets, and see if they could survive the fiery plunge to earth.
Anyone who has followed astrobiology or origin of life studies for the past few decades
should be appalled that it has come to this – that evolutionists would actually consider comets and meteorites
as their last hope to get prebiotic compounds to earth. After Miller’s spark-chamber apparatus became one
of the icons of evolution, evolutionists were triumphant that a theory for a naturalistic origin
of life was now within their reach. Since then, everything has been against them: oxygen in the atmosphere,
inhospitable earth, meteorite devastation, too little time, and most of all, incomprehensible complexity in even the simplest
living organisms. And yet this article, and almost all like it from NASA to National Geographic, never presents even
the slightest hint that there is another explanation, and that a majority of Americans believe it! Our challenge as
creationists is to help atheists see the elephant in the living room.
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Be Cool on Campus: Go to Church 05/21/2001
Penn State sociologist Valerie King and colleagues evaluated 451 families
in rural Iowa and discovered that upright, church-going students were
more likely to get good grades and be popular. “In communities
where churches are strong, especially in the rural Midwest and South,
the involvement of adolescents and their friends in church youth
programs establishes a culture that supports personal integrity,
the virtues of civic life and civility, and an ethic of achievement,”
wrote Dr. King. Surprisingly, she found that being poor didn’t
mean being a social misfit, if the student had a strong family and
religious upbringing. The book published by the Penn State team
attributes the social success of church-going students to the fact that
their peer groups were allies, not enemies, of their parents’
values. Involvement with solid church programs also helped
young people gain self-confidence, which in turn made them sought out
by their peers, i.e., popular.
Well, how about that. The liberals
who always want to equate poverty with social ills (implying money
can create happiness) should look at
this study carefully. For a good historical example, consider the
case of Michael Faraday, whose family was
desperately poor but deeply committed to their Christian faith and their
church. Faraday grew up to be the world’s greatest experimental
physicist, because his values of integrity, character, hard work and
perseverance had been forged in the trials of his youth, reinforced by
faith and love at home.
(Disclaimer: the title of this story is not meant to
imply that desire for popularity is a good motivation for going to church. The
true disciple of Christ must be willing to take up the cross, i.e., be unpopular and
die to self. The popularity here is an attractiveness that shows the peace of
God through a person’s character.)
Next headline on: Schools.
Nature Sights and Sounds Ease Pain 05/20/2001
Researchers at Johns
Hopkins achieved pain reductions of up to 43% by distracting patients
with sounds of a gurgling brook and sights of a tranquil meadow during
bronchoscopy. They believe similar results could be achieved with
other painful procedures.
Got a pain? Go on a Creation
Safari. Garden of Eden environmental sights and sounds might do you
better than that freeway gridlock you’re in.
Next headline on: Health. •
Next headline on: Environment.
Scientists Create RNA Replicator by Test-Tube Evolution 05/18/2001
In a major step forward for the RNA-world hypothesis for the origin of
life, scientists have manufactured an RNA enzyme that can replicate
other RNA molecules.
Wendy Johnston and David Bartel at MIT started with an RNA ribozyme
(an RNA molecule possession enzymatic activity) able to
join just a few nucleotides. Then they sifted through 1000
trillion random RNA sequences of 76 bases each to try to fortify the
ribozyme into a better RNA replicator.
Applying “test-tube evolution,” they ended up with a ribozyme
able to replicate an arbitrary RNA chain, up to 14 bases long,
with 95% accuracy. Bartel, a proponent of the RNA-world hypothesis,
believes this experiment overcomes a major hurdle: how RNA could have
replicated itself. But he cautioned,
“We will never be able to prove the existence of the RNA world because we
can’t go back in time – but we can examine the basic properties
of RNA and see if these are compatible within the RNA world scenario.”
Sources:
MIT Whitehead
Institute Press Release. Summary of report in Science:
ScienceNow.
The bluff in this story is palpable. ScienceNow even has a foolish
cartoon of an undersea copy machine. What they are not telling you,
though, is far more important than what they are claiming. This is simply
an Intelligent Design experiment that has nothing to do with the origin
of life; the scientists purposely selected out their predetermined winner from
a vast pool of candidates. A materialistic earth would have no such
desire or power. With teleological foresight, they removed the
harmful influences and chose the circumstances that would vastly improve
chances for success. Then they subjected the hand-picked winners
to “test-tube evolution” – how’s that for an oxymoron!
This is nanotechnology, not abiogenesis. It involves clever manipulation
of complex molecules, but provides no insight into the origin of
information, the central problem in the origin of life.
For a list of problems with abiogenesis (life from nonlife),
read this summary by
Dr. Jonathan Sarfati that contains links to additional articles
for further study. See also this
critique of
the RNA World hypothesis by Gordon Mills and Dean Kenyon.
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
National Geographic Bemoans Third-World Environmental Destruction 05/17/2001
Two articles on the National
Geographic newsdesk address environmental concerns, but this time
not the fault of the United States.
The first article takes China to task for
shameful corruption, deceit, environmental damage, and
mistreatment of poor peasants due to the ongoing construction of the
Three
Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric project.
The second article deals with rapid depletion of the world’s forests
and ecosystems due to
agricultural
needs of the poor in famine-afflicted countries. The either-or
approach of preservation vs. utilization is unrealistic, and needs to be
replaced with cooperation of the needs of impoverished farmers with theneeds of ecology.
The free world gets blamed for so much
that’s wrong with the environment; these articles provide some
balance. Totalitarian regimes are often the worst culprits, by
impoverishing their people and running roughshod over their land with
massive projects. Starving peasants are concerned with survival,
not noble ideals of environmental protection. It is a free society
at liberty to explore the wonders of nature and do science that has the
best chance to sustain the needs of humans, plants and animals.
Free-world agricultural
chemists, continuing the lead of Christian George
Washington Carver, are finding ways to boost productivity of farms,
and even growing bumper crops out of sand or with no soil at all.
The world can support a large human population. Give me liberty,
or give me dearth.
Next headline on: Environment.
Leaves Tell Tales of Past Climate Changes 05/17/2001
According to Nature,
a scientist at the University of Oregon claims he can read the past in the
leaves. By counting stomata, or breathing pores, in the surfaces of
fossilized Ginkgo leaves and comparing them with similar leaves grown with
differing concentrations of carbon dioxide, Gregory Retallack believes he
has calibrated a correlation between the leaves and greenhouse gas levels.
Moreover, he claims to see a correlation between CO2 levels
and the ice ages, linking these levels with global temperatures.
This confirms, he claims, the linkage of carbon dioxide with climate.
Geologists who have denied the linkage based on their correlations of
isotope ratios in ancient soils think Retallack’s work is
interesting but not conclusive. One says, “Plants are not
machines. Light, humidity and geographical location also have very
strong impacts on stomatal density. Another reminds, “Taken
on their own every method has its flaws.”
Exercise: can you find the hidden assumptions
in the scientists’ claims?
Next headline on: Plants.
Next headline on: Fossils.
Next headline on: Environment.
Articles 05/16/2001: The
Discovery
Institute has two new research papers:
The
Meanings of Evolution by Meyer and Keas, and
The
Cambrian Explosion: Biology’s Big Bang.
Next headline on: Fossils.
Library of Alexandria Revived 05/16/2001
Due to open in June is a resurrected, updated reconstruction of the great Library of
Alexandria, the center of knowledge of the world during the Roman Empire.
A report in the
Washington
Times describes both the old and the new. The World Bank and UNESCO have
supported the project.
Carl Sagan used to point to the Library of Alexandria as a
symbol of the pinnacle of human intellectual and scientific achievement in the ancient world, and
he wrongly accused the Christians of its demise (read the present article for the facts).
Whether such a symbol is needed in the Internet Age, when Alexandria is but a shadow
of its former glory, remains to be seen. One doesn’t need to sail to northern
Africa to check out rare, hand-copied scrolls these days; now there are
terabytes of scientific books and papers available at the click of a mouse from anywhere
in the world.
Update Oct 16, 2002: It’s opening
day, and National Geographi has a report on their impressions.
Solomon also had great works, learning and wisdom, but he knew empires
rise and fall, and the glory of kingdoms fades into obscurity. His words, however,
(more ancient than those of Alexandria), survive untarnished for today’s intellectuals
and truth seekers: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the
holy is understanding” Prov 9:10.
Colorado Rain Forest Rebounded After Cretaceous Asteroid Impact 05/16/2001
Paleontologists from the Denver Museum have uncovered fossil leaves
at Castle Rock that indicate a tropical rain forest lived there 64.1
million years ago, a mere 1.4 million years after the Yucatan asteroid
that wiped out the dinosaurs 65.5 million years ago. At least
that is how it is reported in the
Nando
Times.
It is truly astounding to see the
reckless abandon with which scientists and reporters toss around
geologic dates with utter disregard for honesty and integrity.
A true scientist should be (1) up front about his assumptions, and (2)
extremely cautious about conclusions. This story, as reported,
provides no hint that scientists disagree strongly about the Yucatan
asteroid theory (and yet here, they even know its diameter!) and how
the dinosaurs went extinct. And the error bars on the dating
methods are huge. Scrape away all the storytelling and
bluff, and what do you find? Some fossilized leaves along a
Colorado highway. These leaves do indicate that a lush tropical
environment existed here once upon a time, but they do not
have dates on them, nor do they tell you what triggered their burial.
Notice how the evolutionists were surprised by this find. They
thought it would take 10 million years for a rain forest to recover after
their pet asteroid did its damage. But evolutionary theory is so
flexible, they can incorporate any surprise into the tale.
Using different assumptions, however, you can fit the pieces just as well
into a very different scenario: an antediluvian world of tropical plants
living at now-temperate latitudes, and a watery catastrophe that buried
them all, leaving a fossil graveyard, and a radically changed climate. Take
your pick; just be honest about your assumptions, and where the evidence
ends and the storytelling begins.
Next headline on: Fossils.
Next headline on: Plants.
Is Federal Enviro Curriculum Good Stewardship or Witchcraft? 05/15/2001
According to
Conservative
News Service, a bill introduced by Senators James Inhofe and
Hillary Clinton
seeks to encourage scientifically sound, balanced environmental
education programs for the nation’s schoolchildren.
Some parts of the country, however, have had battles
over such programs. Parents in Port Huron, Michigan, for instance,
have been alarmed at a program called Earthkeepers that,
while appearing innocuous on the surface, seems to mimic
Wiccan beliefs and practices more than teach scientific
principles of ecology. The program’s promoters deny it. Why, then, do they have children sit in a darkened
garage with lighted candles and listen to the wizard of the woods?
Sound environmental science is a
worthy goal, but environmental ethics are profoundly influenced
by a person’s world view, philosophy or religion.
Pantheism, for instance, which is part and parcel of Deep Ecology, native
American religion and Wicca, would produce a curriculum that encourages
children to get in touch with the spirits of nature. Christianity
would produce a curriculum that makes children good stewards of nature.
While the end result might have similarities, like encouraging children
to be nice to animals and practice conservation, the theology,
motivation, principles and approaches will be as far apart as the east is from
the west. Parents need to be very wary about nice-sounding
Federal programs that, in practice, could wind up exposing their
kids to pagan religion and doctrines of demons.
Next headline on: Schools.
Next headline on: Environment.
Watch a Living Fossil on the Net 05/15/2001
A website will feature live footage of Coelacanth fish, according to the
BBC News.
Coelacanth lobe-finned fish, thought to be extinct for 70 million years,
caused quite a stir when found alive in 1938. The web expedition seeks
to study the habits of a group of the weird fish found off the coast of
South Africa.
An evolutionary just-so story suffered a
blow when these supposed missing links between fish and amphibians were
found to be doing just fine in modern times, after an alleged gap of
70 million years with no evolution at all.
Coelacanth is just one
of many living
fossils that argue against the geologic time scale and macroevolution.
Next headline on: Fossils. •
Next headline on: Fish.
Antimatter Depletion Explained 05/14/2001
Our universe is made up predominantly of matter instead of antimatter, yet the
Big Bang would predict equal quantities of both. This has been called the
“antimatter problem” in cosmology. Now, scientists at CERN
labs in Switzerland and at Fermilab in the United States have confirmed a slight
asymmetry in interactions between a K meson and its antiparticle. Reported
in the BBC
News, this asymmetry may have led to a universe of matter, in which galaxies,
stars, and people could exist.
The predominance of matter over antimatter is one of
the “anthropic” properties of the universe that allow life to exist.
While interesting, the experimental results reported here describe only possibility
out of many required. The explanation also begs the question of why
there should be an asymmetry in the first place. This is just one of many
tiny coincidences of physics that make all the difference in the world.
Next headline on: Physics. •
Next headline on: Cosmology.
Mass Extinction Opened Door for Dinosaurs 05/11/2001
Scientists at the University of Washington
have found evidence of a mass extinction 200 million years
ago that killed half of all species, popular science sources are reporting, such as
National
Geographic News and
EurekAlert.
The extinction occurred between the Triassic and Jurassic periods and
occurred within a brief 10,000 years, according to Peter Ward.
He bases his theory on examination of fossil layers off the coast of
British Columbia that show a decline in organic carbon and radiolaria
at the moment of presumed extinction.
Whenever you hear an epic saga of evolutionary
history like this, be sure to ask the question “Where’s the
evidence?” All this hyperbole about dinosaurs and millions of years
and half the earth going extinct comes from what? Just some
measurements of carbon on two tiny islands on this huge planet, in one layer
of rock! The rest is all storytelling, based on the prior assumption of
evolution. With such little data,
you can make up any story you want; try your hand at it. After all, Chicken
Little had physical evidence the sky was falling: something hit him
on the head.
Next headline on Fossils: see next story, that tells
how the evidence can tell a different story when you look at it differently.
Paleontologist Maps 3D Fossil Distribution 05/10/2001
Bucking 150 years of tradition, in which fossils are plotted along a single time axis,
William Zinsmeister of Purdue has plotted the three-dimensional distribution of
fossils in Antarctica and found surprises. He claims that anomalous
findings, often discarded as artifacts, reflect rapid
changes (perturbations) that occurred in geologically brief time frames.
Examples he found include ammonites and cephalopods concentrated along single,
thin fossil-bearing layers (horizons). He feels these anomalies reflect true
short-term events that would not be recognized using conventional
one-dimensional plots. Source:
EurekAlert.
It is good to increase the precision of data, but
notice what the data indicate: massive die-offs at particular layers over short periods
of time. Dr. Zinsmeister’s work would never pass peer review if it did
not bow the knee to Lyell and long ages, but when you separate the facts from the interpretation,
you do not see slow and gradual evolution: you see catastrophe.
Next headline on: Fossils.
Plate Tectonics Began Earlier 05/10/2001
Scientists looking at rocks near the Great Wall of China have pushed
back the date of the onset of plate tectonics from 1.9 billion years
to 2.5 billion years, according to a report summarized in
EurekAlert.
They found rocks that look very similar to those due to sea-floor
spreading. According to Timothy Kusky of St. Louis University,
this affects theories on the origin of life: “Because hot
volcanic vents on the sea floor may have provided the nutrients
and temperatures needed for life to flourish and develop, it’s
possible that life developed and diversified around these vents
as plate tectonics began.”
It is astounding how scientists can
get away with weaving such stories around such sparse evidence as
a few rocks in China. This scientist ties his rocks to the
highly questionable and hotly debated idea that life originated
around deep sea vents, a
theory that breaks down when you examine
it, and which contradicts other scenarios like
this. Are
there no critics to speak out that it is indefensible to base such
glittering generalities on a few rocks? How did science
degenerate to such a free-for-all where you can claim anything
as long as it fits in somehow with evolutionary assumptions?
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Next headline on: Geology.
Alien Life Found in Meteorite 05/10/2001
Italian researchers claim they found alien microbes in a meteorite,
according to Discovery.Com.
They took meteorites from a Naples museum and revived microbes that they
claim are primitive and have an unearthly genetic code.
Others
remain skeptical, however, and think the rocks were contaminated with
terrestrial bacteria.
The original report in Italian is at:
this link.
This story is too bizarre to be
trusted. Most likely it will get press for awhile then
die like cold fusion.
These researchers may be just a couple of hyperactive
believers in panspermia trying to get a headline; the report states,
“Now, the results will be published on the Internet and will be
available to the international scientific community, which soon will
make hear [sic] its voice. In the meanwhile, ASI will support the research
- the scientific director of ASI points out - because the chase to
the origin of life is one of the greatest challenges of today’s
science.”
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Men Are Evolving Taller 05/10/2001
Several news outlets have been parroting the report like this in
New
Scientist that tallness may be an evolutionary trend among men.
Scientists from Syracuse and Marzburg studied a 1950 class of West Point graduates
and found that the taller ones had more children.
The explanation is that tallness is attractive, and attractive men have
more options to divorce and remarry and father more offspring -
natural selection at work. Other evolutionists, however, are skeptical.
“One has to be careful in making an evolutionary interpretation
from just one or two modern studies,” one cautions. A member
of a tall men’s club also disagrees: “You don't see a lot of
divorces in the Tall Club crowd.”
Bad scientific method, pure and simple:
insufficient sampling, unwarranted conclusions. (Here is another
similar example.) For fun, read this
joke illustrating how you can fool yourself
in the science lab.
Next dumb story.
Stars Are Planet Cannibals 05/10/2001
Stars sometimes eat their own children - planets - according to
Nature.
The spectrum of star HD82943 indicates the presence of Lithium-6, which
astronomers working in the Canary Islands assume
cannot survive inside a star for more than 30 million
years. The element must have come from a planet engulfed
by the star, they conclude.
How do you get a story like that
out of a spectral line? What happened to the phrase
“jumping to a conclusion”? Part of the motivation
is needing to force-fit an evolutionary story with recent observations:
“Unlike our solar system, many extrasolar planetary systems have
planets the size of Jupiter, or even bigger, orbiting as close to
their stars as Mercury - a highly unstable situation. The only
explanation astronomers have for this situation is that the planets
are slowly falling towards their star, which then either engulfs
them or bounces them off into space.”
Next headline on: Stars.
Next headline on: Solar System.
Asians Walked Out of Africa 05/10/2001
Two early-man stories are making the rounds today; both can be found in the
BBC News.
The first is a claim that Y
chromosome evidence points to Asians having descended from a single African
population. Proponents of this theory say their evidence strongly
contradicts multiregionalism, the idea that humans originated in separate
populations. (Nature
makes a similar claim for Europeans.) The second story claims that
drier
climate in East Africa decreased forests and increased grasslands, making our
ancestors get out of the trees and spend more time on their two feet.
Nature Science Update
puts a wry grin on the spin: “Clearly, there is a lot left to discover about
prehistoric climate change. Too many significant changes at roughly the same time
make it hard for researchers to distinguish causes and effects.
And perhaps it is not pure chance that the north Atlantic region - long thought
to be the key to climate variability - is the home to a large proportion of
climate researchers.”
We’ll just pause here and
let the reader marvel at the ability of scientists to
weave stories out of miniscule evidence and unverifiable assumptions.
Bible believers, of course, have no problem believing all people are
descended from a common ancestor, but deny it was an African ape.
Next headline on: Early Man.
Brain Size and Shape Tells the Evolutionary Story 05/10/2001
Evolutionists claim they can tell the evolutionary
history of an animal by looking at the size and shape of its brain, or
“cerebrotype.”
Sources: Science Now and
Nature Science Update.
Welcome to the new phrenology. This story
only makes sense if you already believe evolution is true. You could
spin the same kind of tale with the screwdrivers in your garage.
Next headline on: Mammals.
Ethics - Assisted Suicide 05/09/2001: Scientific
American reports that many doctors in Oregon are in a moral quandary about whether
to obey the state’s Death with Dignity Act. Many felt they could not
make the determination whether or not a patient had six months to live.
Meanwhile, the
Hague will be hearing a Dutch euthanasia case in which a perfectly healthy
86-year-old man was put to death because he was “tired of living,”
according to the
Times of India.
Next headline on: Politics.
Scientists Speculate on Future of Evolution 05/09/2001
The May 8 online issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences contains a series of papers from their
Colloquium on the Future of Evolution.
Paul
Ehrlich concludes with an article on evolutionary
ethics, defining ethics as whatever keeps evolutionary options open.
For entertainment, you can read the soothsayers
and magicians of Babylon making their prognostications about what they cannot
possibly know (and you thought prophecies were only published in the National
Enquirer, not scientific journals). And then Ehrlich demands we worship
the golden image of Darwin. Where is
Daniel
when we need him?
Next headline on: Darwinism. •
Next dumb story.
Journal 05/07/2001: The latest
Creation
Ex Nihilo Technical Journal, now affectionately renamed TJ, has arrived.
Selected articles from prior issues are available online in
chronological order or according to by topic.
The current issue has a “must-read” article by Jerry
Bergman on the the
Darwinian
foundation of communism: it describes how Marx, Engels,
Lenin and Stalin all had Christian upbringing, but jettisoned it when they
learned about Darwinism in the universities. All of them, and Chairman Mao too,
used Darwinism as a rationalization and foundation for communism. The article
contains eye-opening quotations about their transition from a Christian worldview
to a Darwinian perspective. 140 million
victims testify to the fact that ideas have consequences!
If you don’t subscribe to TJ yet, order it today.
Next headline on: Politics. •
Next headline on: Darwinism.
A Merry Heart Doeth Good Like a Medicine 05/08/2001
A study on aging, reported in the
Nando
Times, echoes Solomon’s dictum in
Proverbs 17:22:
“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” The article states,
“New research released Monday stemming from a 15-year study of aging and
Alzheimer’s disease in nuns suggests a positive emotional state at
an early age may help ward off disease and even prolong life.”
Dr. David Snowden found evidence to support the theory
that negative emotional states like anxiety, anger and
hatred have a cumulative effect on the body, and that switching these
stressful feelings on and off repeatedly over decades can lead to health
problems like heart disease and stroke. The study involved 678 nuns
who agreed to participate in physical and mental exams, allow their early
writings to be examined, and donate their brain to science after death.
The research reinforces the common-sense belief that cheerfulness is good
for you. Dr. Snowden said that cultivating an attitude of
happiness and hopefulness “produces very little stress, and the body
thrives in those conditions. It’s one more thing that people
can do for themselves to try to stay healthy.”
The Manufacturer knows best how to operate
the equipment. Maybe that is part of the reason for the moral
instructions in the Bible such as in
Ephesians 4:
“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away
from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
Next headline on: Health.
Next headline on: Bible.
Symposium 05/08/2001: Leadership
U has a focus section with feature articles on Intelligent Design and Origins,with contributions by Walter Bradley, Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, William Dembski
and others.
Planet-Forming Theories Are Unravelling 05/07/2001
According to a report on NASA’s
Astrobiology website,
planet formation theories are running into trouble. Two competing theories for
how Jupiter-size planets formed have problems, and astronomers don’t know if
combining the two theories helps, either. The venerable “planetesimal
hypothesis” that dust accretes to build up a planet a grain at a time (a story
long illustrated in textbooks), takes too long. It also predicts that Jupiter
would have an iron core equal to 10 earth masses, but recent Galileo spacecraft data
indicate it is less than six earth masses - and there may be none at all.
Carnegie Institute astronomer
Alan Boss has proposed an alternative theory called “disk instability” in which
the original gas cloud had lumps that condensed into the gas giants. But this
mechanism is too short-lived to form planets. Recent observations
of the Orion Nebula show planetary gas clouds evaporating quickly
under the onslaught of ultraviolet light from nearby stars. Additionally,
planetary systems have only been found around 5% of stars surveyed.
These data are causing astronomers to rethink whether or not our solar system is
typical of what would be found around other stars throughout the universe.
Beware the simplistic illustrations in books and on TV.
This article reveals some of the hand-wringing that goes on behind the scenes before the
reporters digest the story for the public. Whether or not scientists find a
more plausible theory, each naturalistic solution breeds new problems.
Don’t be swayed, therefore, by confident-sounding reporting of evolutionary
theories. As in Greek drama, the comedy mask may be covering up a tragedy face
(i.e., the clown may be broken-hearted).
Next headline on: Solar System.
Leiden University Cuts Evolutionary Studies 05/04/2001
According to Science Now,
Leiden University in the Netherlands has decided to eliminate some sections of its
Institute of Evolutionary and Ecological
Sciences. This is partly due to decreasing numbers of science students, resulting
in a need to cut its budget by 20%, and partly to increasing interest in molecular
biology over other fields.
Undoubtedly some good science has been done at the
Institute, but one wonders
if, some day in the not-too-distant future, more and more universities will see
“evolutionary studies” as a waste of resources, a blind alley, in light
of the amazing discoveries
in molecular biology indicating intelligent design. Perhaps we will look back
and wonder how educated people
in the 20th century could have spent so much time and money trying to prove
it all just evolved.
Next headline on: Schools.
Proteins Are Vastly More Complicated than Previously Realized 05/03/2001
That’s the title of a report today on
NewsWise.com
SciNews.
Biochemists are realizing that proteins are not just static 3-D shapes;
they are subject to dynamic forces of stretching, pushing and pulling
that affect their function. Protein folding has been likened to a
kind of delicate origami, but researchers at the University of Washington
take the analogy further: “Imagine trying to fold a delicate origami
crane from silk paper - while you’re in a wind tunnel. In fact,
imagine trying to fold the origami in a wind tunnel while countless other
hands are also pulling at the paper. And yet, that’s comparable
in complexity to what the hundreds of thousands of cells and proteins are
doing in your body right now.” Dr. Viola Vogel is in the
forefront of this new field that studies how protein functions change
under dynamic stresses. “We are very excited about this because
we believe a new field is being born: non-equilibrium protein
structure-function analysis. It’s very exciting to think
about how nature regulates and controls function. We went from
viewing the cell as a bag full of proteins a decade ago to a view of the
cell as a dynamic place where proteins assemble and change under
mechanical forces,” she says. An update summary 05/29/2001 in
Scientific American
claims that proteins are moving all the time, very fast, and that these
motions affect their functions.
The pit just keeps getting deeper and deeper
for the evolutionist. Having to explain the complexity of DNA and
static protein molecules was bad enough; now this. The article states,
“proteins and cells
are locked together at numerous contact points. The movement of a
cell stretches the proteins around it, and vice versa . . . scientists
are going to have to study how protein structures change when stretched
before they understand how the body functions.” And each cell in your
body has nearly 100,000 different kinds of protein molecules!
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry. • Next
amazing story.
Mars Weather Hazardous to Humans 05/02/2001
An article today on NASA’s Astrobiology
Website describes the hazards of outdoor strolls on Mars. With no global
magnetic shield like earth’s, Mars exposes the hiker to the full brunt of
solar and cosmic radiation, including energetic protons that can rip through DNA and damage
tissues. Mars’s atmosphere, exposed to the onslaught of solar wind,
has eroded to a level 1% that of earth - like living
at an altitude of 70,000 feet.
The Mars
Radiation Environment Experiment (MARIE) on board the
2001 Mars Odyssey
spacecraft that launched on April 7 (arriving October 24) will try to characterize
the Martian “space weather”
for future Mars explorers.
Don’t take for granted
those puffy white clouds floating in our blue sky as you safely take
in a deep breath of oxygen on a bright, sunny day.
Earth’s thin envelope of air, protected by an invisible shield of
magnetic field lines beyond it,
buffers us from a flaring star and a violent universe. We orbit
the sun, as it orbits the Milky Way, as if we were crossing a rifle range
enclosed in a Kevlar bubble.
The space program has taught us
(depending on your world view) how lucky we are, or how gracious our God.
Next headline on: Mars. •
Next headline on: Physics. •
Next headline on: Solar System.
Did Crystal Power Make Proteins Southpaws? 05/01/2001
NASA astrobiologists have published a paper in the
Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences on experimental evidence that calcite
crystals and other minerals might selectively concentrate left- and right-handed
amino acids (click here for summaries in
Scientific American
or
Nature.
NASA’s Astrobiology
Site also has a lay-audience version of the story.)
All living organisms incorporate only left-handed amino
acids into their protein chains; the choice of left or right appears to be
arbitrary, but life depends on 100% of one hand or the other.
In these experiments, the team achieved yields of just under
10% preference for one hand.
This is significant for origin of life scenarios, the paper concludes,
because minerals could have not only concentrated one hand over
the other but also arranged them into chains.
Another weak, weak attempt to explain the
mystery of the left-handed proteins. This
“what-if maybe perhaps” scenario doesn’t come close to
jumping over this major hurdle to abiogenesis. Only 100% yield
will produce peptide chains with any useful enzymatic activity.
Also, amino acids do not naturally join together, even if adjacent;
it requires energy to link them into polypeptide chains.
Thirdly, only some of the simplest amino acids (aspartic acid, alanine)
showed the slight selectivity; others did not.
Fourthly, their theory requires wet-and-dry cycles, presumably on land or
near the surface, where ingredients would be scarce and deadly UV
radiation would be lethal - and it also contradicts other evolutionists’
beliefs that life arose near deep sea vents.
Lastly, and most important, this has nothing to do with the major problem, the
origin of information. As Phillip Johnson says, evolutionists
always like to talk about the origin of the chemicals; when you force
them to talk about the origin of information, that’s their downfall.
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Notice: a new free journal
Astrobiology
has just come online with volume 1, number 1. This should make for
amusing reading from world leaders of the “science without data.”
Orion’s Stars May Be Youngsters 05/01/2001
The Orion Nebula, long proclaimed to be an ancient stellar maternity
ward, may contain
stars much younger than previously believed. According to a summary
in EurekAlert,
the fact that 300 or so have been found with circumstellar disks, which should
have evaporated quickly under the onslaught of ultraviolet radiation by
nearby supergiants, means they could only be tens of thousands of years old,
not millions. The fact that these stars may not be any older than
mankind itself perplexes C. Robert O’Dell, lead astronomer studying the
Orion Nebula with the Hubble Space Telescope, because it appears to go against
the Copernican principle that there is nothing special about the earth in
time or space. “It is unlikely that Homo sapiens and the
Orion nebula should be formed at just about the same time, but perhaps we are
just lucky,” O’Dell says.
The fact is, no one knows how old these stars
are. Estimates of ages depend on unverifiable assumptions. These
findings just show again that long-age estimates often conflict with other
independent data. This is a very surprising admission about
a popular telescope object long assumed to be millions of years old.
Follow the chain links below for more examples.
Next headline on: Dating methods.
Next headline on: Stars.
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