DNA from 1.8 Million Year Old Apeman Alleged 07/31/2001
An anthropologist claims to have recovered DNA from a blood stains on
1.8 million year old stone tools, according to the
BBC
News.
Bonnie Williamson of the University of South Africa claims
“The DNA we have found is something between a chimpanzee and a human,
which suggests a hominid.”
Others are skeptical. Alan Cooper of the UK, for instance, regards
the likelihood that DNA could survive the heat of Africa for more than
10,000 years as “highly improbable, in fact almost impossible.”
Some put an upper limit of 100,000 years as the length of time DNA
molecules could survive outside a cell, and view the DNA found as
probably contamination.
Wait and see. We saw a
similar claim in January.
Either it is
contamination, or the bones are not 1.8 million years old.
There is not enough data to assert the DNA is transitional between apes
and man. According to Cooper, “Sadly, it is part of
continuing claims of ancient human DNA finds lacking experimental
and intellectual rigor.”
Next headline on: Early Man. •
Next headline on: Dating Methods.
Evolutionists Try to Explain Animal Looks and Lifestyles 07/31/2001
A paper in the July 31
Proceedings of
the National Academy of Scientists by three biologists from
New Mexico, Texas and Oregon formulates a new model for optimum life
history, relating the variables of reproductive potential, life span,
maturity, and body size.
We include this paper for an exercise
in how to detect bluffing.
At first glance it looks very impressive: loaded with technical terms
and differential equations, and printed (after peer review) in the
prestigious journal of the NAS. But look through the text and
you find example after example of questions, puzzles, anomalies and
failures of the model. Some examples:
- Many equations have been statistically fit to body-size growth data
(8, 9) and most merely describe rather than explain.
- Theory for life-history evolution presents a major puzzle with
reference to Fig. 1; many formal evolutionary models (19) predict that
growth should cease with the onset of reproduction....
Because such determinate growth is uncommon outside of birds, mammals, and
insects, the models must be ignoring something very basic and widespread.
- ...a second puzzle: b is the metabolic maintenance cost
per existing cell, which raises the question of why any species would
have a high b– Why build a body of cells expensive to
maintain? We hypothesize that expensive cells (high b) allow
greater reproductive effort...
- Thus, lizards weakly support the model, whereas snakes do not at all.
- One wonders why birds are almost 10 times more productive by this
measure (flight? endothermy? habitat productivity?).
If their model worked, why is the world filled with so much diversity?
The paper is filled with assumptions. It tries to manipulate variables
whose relationships are poorly known, makes a feeble model that might
make predictions, but then
finds whole groups of organisms that don’t fit it. This
is characteristic of evolutionary theory. To the uninitiated, it
looks very impressive and scientific. Look at it in detail, however,
and you find more exceptions than rules (see the
First Law of Scientific Progress, right).
It is simply the art of storytelling advanced to a high level.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
Astrobiologist Claims to Have Found Bacteria From Space 07/31/2001
Chandra Wickramasinghe at the
Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology
claims to have detected bacteria above earth’s atmosphere, which
he assumes has an extraterrestrial origin. He says, “There is now
unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air
samples from as high as 41 kilometres, well above the local tropopause (16
km), above which no air from lower down would normally be
transported.”
Scientific
American says that peers are skeptical. Max Bernstein of NASA-Ames,
a member of the SETI institute, argued that
“it would strain one’s credulity less to believe that
terrestrial organisms had somehow been transported upwards than to assume that
extraterrestrial organisms are falling inward.”
Wickramasinghe, a close collaborator with
Sir Fred Hoyle, has long been cited by creationists for his trouncing of
evolution, such as in their statement that the origin of life by chance
being as improbable as the assembling of a Boeing 747 by tornado in
a junkyard. Their alternative, however, is far from creation by a
transcendent, personal God. They have long promoted panspermia, the
theory that life was seeded on earth as bacteria from space, then evolved
into all the higher organisms. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have a
vested interest in finding evidence to support their theory, but it is
going to be a hard sell to both creationists and evolutionists.
Bernstein also commented, “I think that since the claim
comes from him, it is regarded with perhaps a little more
skepticism than if it came from someone who was a little more critical of the
theory.” Then why do evolutionists discount creation arguments
out of hand, and only accept the claims of those already committed to
evolution?
Next headline on: SETI.
Nazi Memories Haunt Stem Cell Debate in Germany 07/30/2001
Like the U.S. and the rest of the world,
Germany is embroiled in the ethical debate about embryonic stem cell
research. But according to the
Washington
Times, “the battle is complicated by the ghost of Germany’s
Nazi past.” Both liberals and conservatives want to avoid repeating
the horrors of Nazi experimentation on humans. Germany’s president
Johannes Rau has warned against moving ahead without a full debate.
In a related story, the
LA Times
has a Washington Post article by Rick Weiss on the new ethical dilemmas
posed by genetic engineering of humans: “..ethicists and scientists
have no trouble identifying reasons to be concerned about embryo
screening. The most obvious reason is the idea of the designer baby,
with its echoes of the eugenics movement of early 20th century America
and its later adoption by the Nazis.” He asks if we are ready to face
ethics based on a market economy.
Why did Nazi Germany experiment on humans?
Because the Social Darwinism of Haeckel and others promoted the ideas that
that we are just evolved animals, that ethics is defined by pragmatism, and
that personhood is granted by consensus or the state.
Sound familiar in 2001?
Next headline on: Politics.
Christian Legal Expert Urges Christians to Think and Defend Creation 07/28/2001
Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson, widely recognized as one of the leaders of the
Intelligent Design movement, urged Christians to use their heads and
not just their emotions, reports the Baptist
Press. Frustrated at churches that seem indifferent to ideas (which have consequences),
and by Christians who seem weak and unable to defend their
faith intellectually, Johnson points to the doctrine of creation as the natural starting point for effective Christian witnessing
to our current culture that embraces evolutionary naturalism and postmodernism. In the interview, Johnson said he
believes it is essential to point out irrational beliefs within Darwinian evolution, such as the concept that man simply
evolved from nothing. He said that starting with a sovereign Creator fits the world as we see it.
There is no need, therefore, to be intimidated
by those who, trusting that science has given mankind all the answers to ultimate reality, rail against believers.
“The real data for science, the real knowledge that comes from science points to the need for a creator,”
he said. “So we have to understand some science, but we have to understand our own doctrines as well.”
Creation-Evolution Headlines can help you do just that. Feed your head: bookmark this page and come back often. This site is unique
in pulling together, on a nearly daily basis, current science news that illustrates the fallacies in evolutionary teaching, and the
evidence for design that is consistent with belief in the God of nature and Scripture. The Chain
Links at the top can guide you by topic through the hundreds of headlines this service has reported in its first year of operation, and
the Baloney Detector can train your mind in the art of discernment.
Next headline on: Bible.
Humans Evolved to Talk, Not Send Email 07/27/2001
Dr. Ned Kock at Temple University School of Business claims that people evolved to relate to one another face to face, not through
phone calls and email. According to the story reported in
EurekAlert, it
will take many years before people evolve better expertise at electronic relationships.
“Since we have communicated during most of the past three to five million years by
using face-to-face interaction,” Dr. Kock says, “you have to conclude that we
have optimized our biological apparatus for that type of communication.”
There is an alternative explanation, you know.
Next dumb story.
Spiders and Cavemen Puzzle Evolutionists With Their Art 07/26/2001
The August 2001 issue of National Geographic is out, and
contains two honest admissions of puzzlement for evolutionists. In an article on spider webs, biologist
Bill Eberhard ponders how evolution could have endowed the lowly spider with these skills:
You have an essentially blind animal with a limited nervous system building a complicated structure
in an unpredictable environment. The spider makes what for a human would be very complex calculations:
‘How big is the open space? How much silk do I have? What attachment points are available?’
Spiders are not little automatons making the same thing over and over. They’re flexible. And they’re
not stupidly flexible; they’re smart flexible.
The article describes how most spiders have three pairs of spinnerets, each with with hundreds of silk-producing spigots
controlled by muscles. Spider silk is more elastic than nylon and stronger than steel.
In an unrelated article, the magazine comments on the artistic skill of prehistoric art found recently in a
cave in France, alleged to be 35,000 years old. “Art this old was supposed to be crude and stiff,
but there is nothing primitive about Chauvet.” The published pictures reveal the “subtle shading,
ingenious use of perspective, and elegant lines of Chauvet’s masterworks” that stunned its discoverers
in 1994. “For decades scholars had theorized that art had advanced in slow stages from primitive
scratchings to lively, naturalistic renderings . . . . Then carbon dates came in, and prehistorians reeled.
Approximately twice as old as those in the more famous caves [such as Lascoux], Chauvet’s images
represented not the culmination of prehistoric art but its earliest known beginnings. A few thousand years
after anatomically modern humans appeared in Europe, cave painting was as sophisticated as it would ever be.”
Here you have two anomalies for evolution to explain: lowly spiders with skill unmatched by humans, building all sorts of clever insect nets that look like
works of art, to say nothing of the problem of how they invented a substance
more flexible and strong than Kevlar. Then on a totally different front, you find the earliest human art
to be the best! Compare these Chauvet paintings
with the crude petroglyphs and cowboyglyphs of the southwest, and you do not find evolution, you find degeneration.
If we just keep reporting stories like this, maybe some skeptical readers will just let the evidence itself gradually convince
them that something is drastically wrong with the evolutionary view of the world.
Next headline on: Bugs. •
Next headline on: Early Man. •
Next amazing story.
Red Hot Peppers Are for the Birds 07/25/2001
According to the BBC News,
Arizona scientists figured out why chilis are so hot. It’s
an evolutionary ploy to repel mammals from eating the seeds. Birds,
you see, who are not affected by the hot sauce (capsaicin), eat the
chilis and pass the seeds, undigested, to a new location.
We need to be like good toddlers
here and ask lots of Why, Mommy? questions when we are told this
bedtime just-so story. Why didn’t the mammals evolve a tolerance
for the hot sauce? (After all, Texans did). Why don’t the
birds digest the seeds, too? How come there are sweet fruits attractive to
mammals? Why are you telling me this – is it true,
I mean really, really true (cross your heart), or did you just make it up?
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory. •
Next dumb story.
Creator Becomes the New Politically Incorrect Word 07/25/2001
According to California state senator John Campbell, appearing on
Hugh Hewitt’s
syndicated radio talk show July 25,
the California Legislature voted down a resolution that would have declared the
week of July 4 as Freedom Week because it made the mistake of
including the word “Creator.” Also, according to
World
Magazine for July 21, ABC Newscaster Diane Sawyer on a July 4 TV special
was heard to edit out the C word while quoting the Declaration of Independence,
saying, “All men are created equal, endowed with certain
inalienable rights.”
Taking by their Creator out of the phrase
is like turning off the engine in a hot air balloon. The balloon may
drift for a short time, but will crash into reality once people
(or politicians) realize there is no ultimate basis for rights.
If God our Creator is not the Author of Liberty, then who is?
Darwin? Chance? Hydrogen? Let’s try that:
All men are created equal – no, that doesn’t scan;
start over – All men are evolved equal – no, equal
implies value, which presupposes some kind of transcendent standard; –
All men are evolved, and endowed by hydrogen with certain
inalienable rights – Aw, skip it.
If the Declaration of Independence goes, the rest of our
nation’s references to God as the giver of rights cannot be far
behind.
In hydrogen we trust. Hydrogen bless America. One
nation, under hydrogen, indivisible, with whatever the courts and
politicians decide for all.
Next headline on: Politics.
Prayer Lowers Blood Pressure 07/24/2001
A research project by Psychosomatic Medicine funded by the National
Institutes of Health appears to show that religious
coping activities lower blood pressure. The study of 155 subjects
showed that, at least among the African Americans, those
who engaged in prayer, scripture study and seeking religious guidance
had consistently lower blood pressure. The finding is summarized in
EurekAlert.
In contrast to previous studies that attempted to correlate blood
pressure and religion by taking measurements in clinics, this
study included measurements during sleep and normal workday
activities. The white participants, interestingly, did not show
the correlation, because, according to the report,
“African-Americans were
much more likely than whites to turn to prayer, religion and God
to cope with daily life.”
While it’s to be expected that
trusting
in the Lord will be good for your health and overall well being,
one cannot test the Holy Spirit with the scientific method.
We need to pray whether or not prayer lowers blood pressure; in some cases,
agonizing
in prayer might even raise it. We pray not for our own
sakes but because there is a
God
who hears and answers prayer.
Next headline on: Health.
17-Year Locusts Evolved Prime Number Life Cycle 07/23/2001
Why do cicadas emerge from their sleep in 13 or 17 year cycles?
Possibly because evolution drove them to pick prime numbers, says a
report in Nature.
By landing on prime numbers, which are only divisible by one, they
evaded predators with life cycles divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 years,
thus evading enemies that would be awaiting the emergence with watering
mouths. The hypothesis was supported by computer modelling done
by a Mario Markus, a physicist in Germany.
So why don’t we have 3, 5, 7, 11 and 19 year
locusts? And why are the prey smarter than the predators –
is the goddess Evolution playing favorites when passing out skill at
natural selection? Even the authors admit that this hypothesis is
highly speculative, and it raises as many questions as it answers.
Notice how ad hoc their model is:
Cicadas were assigned
a random fitness score on the basis of cycle length and the frequency
with which they encountered competitors. Over time, cycle length
evolved until the cicadas hit a prime number, they found. The model
assumes that in the past there were cicada predators and parasites that
became extinct though a lack of the insects.
“It’s a bold assumption,” says Markus.
Evidence of such a creature would give the model a boost. An
ancient wasp is one hypothetical parasite . . . .
But the idea is highly speculative, as fossil records of the
wasp have never been found. Why cicadas evolved such long cycles is
also unexplained, says Simon. A long cycle seems to be a disadvantage,
as the population would grow more slowly than that of competitors who
reproduce more often.
This hypothesis has enough loopholes to drive a truck through.
Next headline on: Bugs. •
Next dumb story.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
Article 07/23/2001: In the August 2001
Impact article #338
from the Institute for
Creation Research, Dr. D. Russell Humphreys recaps the turbulent debate
he spawned seven years ago when he launched a young-earth cosmology based
on general relativity in his book Starlight and Time.
Next headline on: Cosmology. •
Next headline on: Dating Methods.
Scientists Rethink Possibility of Life on Mars 07/20/2001
Friday 7/20/01 was the 25th anniversary of the exciting day the Viking 1 lander
touched down on the Martian surface on July 20, 1976 and began
the first scientific search for life on another planet.
Space.Com
in its commemorative article describes the Viking missions and
current thinking about life on Mars.
After the results of two experiments were negative, and a
third ambiguous, scientists became pretty convinced that Mars
was a dead world. These days, however, some think the
uncertain results of the labelled-release experiment could
keep hope alive for Martian life. (These scientists also
tend to be the ones that view the controversial
ALH84001 Martian meteorite as containing
evidence for fossilized single-celled lifeforms.)
The European Space Agency’s
Beagle 2
scheduled for June 2003 liftoff will pick up where the Vikings
left off, analyzing the chemistry in greater detail.
Give up, you guys. If life
is so improbable on a water-rich planet like earth that it would
never evolve, how much more so for Mars,
a dry, freezing desert, bombarded by deadly radiation?
But let them go and
get facts to end the speculation. Prediction: if life is
found, it will be contamination from earth.
The article does contain interesting historical
links to the Viking missions, with pictures and descriptions, for
those who missed those adventurous days during the American Bicentennial.
Next headline on: Mars. •
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Tiny Crustacean Fossil Fuels Cambrian Explosion Debate 07/20/2001
A tiny but detailed fossil of a crustacean, less than half a millimeter
long, has been found in rocks alleged to be 511 million years old (see
picture in the
BBC
News). Most fossils have only hard parts preserved, but this
remarkable find has mummified soft parts and legs; it must have been
fossilized rapidly (see
Discovery.Com
for close-up pictures). The fossil is “so old, yet so advanced” it
adds fuel to the “Cambrian Explosion” controversy – why
do so many different animal phyla appear abruptly at the onset of the
Cambrian, 545 million years ago? Some scientists speculate that
more fossils like this are not found because geological conditions did
not favor fossilization at the time.
That cannot be an excuse, because the
Cambrian is a long period of time in their scheme, and other similar
periods of time have abundant fossils. The Cambrian Explosion
remains a clear problem for Darwinism. In the absence of any
evidence, scientists in this story claim that “there must have
been a period of evolution prior to the Cambrian explosion.”
The fossil record itself, however, supports
the Theory of
Abrupt Appearance, not the Theory of Slow, Gradual Evolution.
Next headline on: Fossils. •
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
Blame Your Tardiness on Evolution 07/20/2001
If you’re always on time, the predator may be waiting to eat you,
according to a speculation by a Japanese scientists writing for
Physical Review Letters (see Philip Ball’s summary in
Scientific
American). By keeping the biological clock a little
imprecise, evolution may be giving the tardy critters a chance at
survival; e.g., you don’t want to be the early worm if the
early bird knows by habit you’ll check in on time. But the
evolutionist confesses that his model is preliminary:
“The underlying assumptions and simplifications remain to be
carefully examined,” he says.
OK, so let’s do that. Let’s
carefully examine the assumptions: read these pages. Evolutionists
go out of their way to pay homage to Darwin at every turn for every
phenomenon. Anything that happens can somehow, some way be called
an evolutionary adaptation. Evolution, therefore, fails as an
scientific explanation that can be falsified.
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory. •
Next dumb story.
Movie 07/19/2001:
Answers
in Genesis gives Top 10 Reasons Not To See Jurassic
Park III.
Next headline on: Movies.
Scientists May One Day Hatch Jurassic Chicken 07/19/2001
The cover story of the current New
Scientist is called “Rewinding Evolution.” Scientists
think they might some day regress offspring of living creatures into
their evolutionary ancestors. The blurb says, “Bring out the
T. Rex in your chicken and the ape in your aunt. The past is coming
back to life with a roar as we discover the power of evolution’s
sleeping genes, says Philip Cohen.” A review in
Ananova
says “Jurassic Chicken is not far-fetched; Chickens could be turned into
Jurassic Park monsters by turning back the evolutionary clock to when
birds were dinosaurs.”
How much did the makers of Jurassic Park
III pay New Scientist to run this story on opening day?
Next dumb story.
Digital Organisms Achieve Survival of the Flattest 07/19/2001
A team of biological modelers created computerized organisms
and made them mutate and replicate at various rates, according to
Nature.
The ones that survived the best were not the
fittest, nor the ones with the most offspring, but the ones on a fitness
plateau (a flat rate of reproduction) that were the most robust
against mutations.
Evolutionists need to stop playing video
games and get back to the real world.
Next dumb story. •
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory. •
25 Years of Study on DNA Copy and Repair Mechanisms Summarized 07/18/2001
The July 17 issue of the
Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences contains a long paper by
two MIT biochemists on what we have learned so far in 25 years of
study of enzymes that help copy and repair DNA: the DNA
polymerases. Apparently these wonder molecules not only
synthesize DNA but repair a number of different kinds of errors.
The coordination of which polymerase is activated and tosses the baton
to another is still poorly understood. Most of the work has been
done on E. coli, a prokaryote (simpler one-celled organisms
lacking a nucleus), but the situation is even more complex in
the eukaryotes (all higher organisms), “where both the number of DNA
polymerases and the level of complexity of the events are far greater.”
If your brain can tolerate the technical jargon
without crashing, and if you need evidence for a Designer,
you should read this paper. The authors seem truly amazed at the
performance of these submicroscopic molecules. Some sample sentences:
- A common, defining feature of these DNA polymerases is a remarkable
ability to replicate imperfect DNA templates . . .
- The recent discovery
of additional eukaryotic DNA polymerases...further complicates the
already daunting issue of understanding the control systems that govern
which DNA polymerase gains access . . . .
- A growing body of evidence
suggests that an important additional level of control results from
DNA polymerases being "coached" as to their correct biological role
through interactions with other proteins associated with the particular
DNA substrate . . . .
- In addition to their roles in chromosomal DNA
replication, DNA polymerases participate in numerous DNA repair pathways,
including double-strand break repair, mismatch repair, base excision repair
and nucleotide excision repair . . . .
- Elaborate regulatory controls
and a sophisticated system of protein-protein contacts ensure that
the...gene products carry out their appropriate biological roles.
However, as is so often the case in science, the discoveries of today are
posing even more challenging questions for tomorrow.
And this all takes place in the simplest kinds of
bacteria! Remember that Darwin did not know any of this.
To the Darwinians,
cells were little blobs of unknown stuff called “protoplasm” and
it was easy to talk glibly about it arising in some warm little pond and
evolving into higher organisms. As Michael Behe said, the cell
was a “black box” to Darwin, but now we have opened the box and
are staring with awe at the contents. Does a system as complex as
a robotic factory, complete with fail-safe mechanisms, feedback, automatic
repair and inspectors originate out of ooze? No way!
Darwin himself 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. But I
can find no such case.” Well, biochemistry is providing cases by the
truckload. How do you spell DNA? “Darwinism Not
Adequate.”
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry.
Recombination Vital to Genome Stability 07/18/2001
The latest issue of the
Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (July 17) contains a symposium on gene
replication
and recombination, among other papers on DNA. Among the
interesting papers:
(1) A theory on how
genomes can contain vast stretches of non-coding DNA, apparently
inactive retrotransposons that were inserted by recombination, polyploidy
or lateral transfer. These inactive stretches, while harmless, can
greatly expand the genome while keeping the number of actual genes
relatively constant.
(2) A description of how
recombination
is an essential method for repair of DNA breaks, stating that
“DNA synthesis is an accurate and very processive phenomenon;
nevertheless, replication fork progression on chromosomes can be
impeded by DNA lesions, DNA secondary structures, or DNA-bound
proteins. Elements interfering with the progression of
replication forks have been reported to induce rearrangements
and/or render homologous recombination essential for viability, in
all organisms from bacteria to human.”
(3) Another paper describes how
specialized
proteins called topoisomerases help prevent the strain of uncoiling
DNA from breaking, but when they fail, recombination can help
restart the replication process.
(4) A paper describes how
recombination
works to repair breaks in a replicating chromosome.
(5) Some Japanese scientists describe how a gene codes for a
motor
protein that is essential for genome stability.
(6) The cover story
describes the various repair mechanisms, stating, “Maintenance of
genomic integrity and stable transmission of genetic information depend
on a number of DNA repair processes. Failure to
faithfully perform these processes can result in genetic alterations
and subsequent development of cancer and other genetic diseases.”
Describing one such mechanism named Rad52, the authors state,
“The key role played by Rad52 in this pathway has been attributed
to its ability to seek out and mediate annealing of homologous DNA
strands . . . . our data indicate that each Rad52 focus [i.e. active
site] represents a center of recombinational repair capable of
processing multiple DNA lesions.”
These are just samples of the exciting
findings being made about DNA replication. These and other papers
show that it is a fail-safe system with many sophisticated backup
and repair mechanisms. While there is still much to learn, and
many mysteries to explain, DNA’s ability to replicate is truly a
marvel of engineering. Think about the classic chicken-and-egg
conundrum for evolution illustrated by (5) above: a gene codes for a
protein that is essential for the gene to exist. Browse through
the abstracts of these papers just to get a feel for the amazingly
complex world of cellular processes going on in your body right now,
without your conscious thought or control. Modern biochemistry
is putting the exclamation point on David’s praise in
Psalm 139:14 –
I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry.
Time Cover Story Features Ethiopian Ape-Man Find 07/17/2001
With color art of ape-faced upright creatures warily traversing the forests of Africa,
Time Magazine put the latest Ethiopian fossil find onto
its cover this week, stating “The discovery of a handful of bones in Ethiopia this week brings
scientists tantalizing close to the time, 6 million years ago, when our most ancient ancestors took
their first upright steps. A look at the juncture when chimps and man went their separate ways.”
Red baloney alert! Red baloney alert! Time
has built an evolutionary mountain out of a data molehill that Nature called “extremely
fragmentary” and hard to distinguish between hominid or ape. A handful of tiny bones were found in a
gravelly area in Ethiopia, that have no dates on them and no explanation attached; so what?. All the evolutionary talk
is manufactured out of a pre-existing commitment to evolution; it is not justified by the raw data. Follow
our chain links to see what a hopeless tangle their whole story is, before granting any credibility to this
propaganda outlet for Darwinism.
Next headline on: Early Man. •
Next dumb story.
Science Students Learning in Moral Vacuum 07/16/2001
A report on Ananova
and the BBC
News says that today’s science students are learning in a moral
vacuum, and are ill-equipped to deal with serious ethical questions such
as human cloning and genetic engineering.
In the age of relativism, who is to do the
moral teaching? “Moral” is an undefined term in
Darwinland.
Next headline on: Schools.
Discovery Channel Debuts New Dino Virtual Reality TV 07/16/2001
The Discovery Channel declared Jurassic Week on Sunday
with a new sequel to their immensely popular Walking with Dinosaurs computer-animated world:
When Dinosaurs Roamed America, on the eve of Jurassic Park III which premieres on the 18th.
Clearly aimed at kids and students (watch the commercials), the TV program puts hair and feathers on the
dromeosaurs, describes in detail the senses of various species (how acute their hearing and eyesight and sense
of smell), and ends with the Yucatan asteroid, followed by an eagle in the sky described as the last dinosaur,
and a tiny mammal emerging from the boneyard intact with the words “someday its children
will walk on the moon.”
You don’t need facts any more; virtual reality TV brings
good myths to life. The program is interspersed with a few vignettes of scientists describing what could
have or might have been true, but all the narration is stated so matter-of-factly, and the visuals are made so
believable, it doesn’t matter what the data (or lack of them) are – why, you’re right there,
so it must be true. Kids watch this without any hint of the controversies that exist behind the scenes,
and without being shown any distinction between data and interpretation. The behavior, motives and
even sex appeal of these creatures is all described, extrapolated from silent bones. If you have kids,
teach them to look for the raw data and see if the picture is justifiable from it. You’ll hear a lot
of wiggle words in the scientists’ explanations.
The fossil graveyard at Dinosaur National Monument is interpreted as having formed
during a drought, when both predator and prey died together looking for the last water hole; but if you have ever seen the quarry,
you know the bones are so jammed together it looks like a catastrophe occurred. Animals in deserts
today do not fossilize in such a manner! Their bones bleach in the sun and decay to dust.
They don’t tell you that dinosaurs, like everything else in the fossil record, appear abruptly and fully
formed, and that there are systematic gaps between the different orders. The viewer gets no
information about the guesswork that goes into dating methods, nor the wrangling among scientists
behind the scenes about the origin of birds, feathers, and the cause of the extinction.
Dinosaurs were clearly loaded with complex functions and capabilities, but who
gets the credit? Why “Nature,” of course, the goddess of modern
paleontology, who works miracles with her magic wand of natural selection. Typical quote:
“At [such and such a place, xx million years ago], an experiment in evolution is underway.” This is the
fallacy of personification at work.
Don’t let them get away with it. When Dinosaurs Roamed America makes good
cartoon but poor science. We observe dry bones, but the rest is inferred. The only one
who watched dry bones come to life was Ezekiel (Eze. 37).
The ankle bone connected to the leg bone . . . Now hear ye the Word of the Lord.
Next headline on: Dinosaurs. •
Next headline on: Movies.
Congress Urged to Fund SETI Again 07/15/2001
Ever since the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) was removed from the Federal
Budget in 1994 and deemed unworthy of funding by the National Science Foundation,
according to CBS
News, proponents have been depending on private funding. Now, Rep. Lamar Smith
(R-TX) believes it is time for the government to support the search again.
Four scientific witnesses testified to Congress that the time
is ripe, based on the following findings: (1) Over 50 new planets have been discovered; (2) New
technologies will soon allow chemical spectra from extrasolar planets; (3) Water has been
deemed likely on several planets and moons of the solar system; (4) New theories suggest
planet formation around stars may be common; (5) Life has been found to exist in extreme
environments.
Every one of these arguments is either disputable or
inconsequential. The planets discovered so far have all been Jupiter-sized and
inhospitable. Water is necessary for life, but not sufficient: did the Internet evolve
because earth had dirt, from which copper and other ingredients could be extracted?
We reported recently that earthlike-planets may be rare, not common,
and if life has been found in extreme environments, that argues for its design.
It is a logical fallacy to think that since life is found in extreme environments that it
evolved there. Did firemen evolve inside burning buildings?
Next headline on: SETI •
Next headline on: Politics.
Sandia Big Screen TV Approaches Acuity of the Eye 07/13/2001
A 10x13 foot screen with 20 million pixel resolution has been developed that
renders complex scientific data sets faster and sharper than any
previous displays. According to the news release from
Sandia
National Laboratories, this is achieved with massively parallel
imaging, using 64 computers splitting the processing into 16
screens as a 4x4 set. The technique allows complex images to be
computed in seconds instead of the half-hour time frames required for“rendering farms” used by the movie industry for complex
special effects. The news release states – and this is
the punch line – “The facility’s digitized images, created
of 20 million pixels, approach the visual acuity of the eye itself.”
Did you hear that!? Think about
it! Here our top physicists and engineers have built a screen
taller than a man that can finally approach the capabilities of what
God or evolution (depending on your worldview) has packed into a little
1.5-inch eyeball. And yet Sandia’s 64 massively parallel imaging computers
take several seconds to render what the 3-pound human brain does
instantaneously (in 3D, with surround sound accompaniment, a variable
focus lens, automatic diaphragm, tandem movement, automatic cleaning, and more).
No wonder the eye gave Darwin cold shudders! The eye is just one
of countless wonders that point to a Designer
infinite in wisdom.
P.S. The Sandia engineers are bluffing. Their big screen has 20 megapixels,
the eyeball has 120!
Next headline on: Human Body. •
Next amazing story.
Plants Talk to Themselves in Email 07/13/2001
How does one part of a plant know that another part is under attack,
or how do the roots know the weather is changing and affecting the
leaves? According to Nature,
plants have a busy system of email messages spreading the news.
Scientists have discovered messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules travelling
from cell to cell and onto their own little Internet (the phloem),
that apparently let one part of the plant know what’s going
on in another part.
Look at the nearest plant and stare at
it for awhile. It seems to static and motionless; did you have any
idea this beehive of communication was going on? Now look at a
rock for comparison. Evolutionists have to get from one to the
other; it’s like believing a desolate planet, pockmarked with
craters and exposed to deadly radiation, somehow spontaneously developed
its own Internet.
Next headline on: Plants. •
Next amazing story.
Embryos Grown for Stem Cell Farming 07/12/2001
For the first time, according to
New
Scientist, embryos have been created and destroyed for the
purpose of harvesting stem cells. Sperm and eggs from donors
were fertilized for the purpose at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia.
For more on the debate, read this
BBC
News article.
This sounds so harmless to so many people,
but the ethical questions are very serious. What is the difference
between this and playing with any other human being that is not “really
alive” Will we eventually have farms of specially grown
brain-dead people to experiment on or harvest organs?
When man plays God, does he have the righteousness to restrain his
omnipotence?
Next headline on: Politics.
How Small Can Life Be? 07/12/2001
The NASA Astrobiology
Institute discusses the debate about the lower limits of life; how
small can a cell be to be able to replicate itself? The article
interviews believers and nonbelievers on whether tiny organic structures
called nanobes (see 11/20/2000) are
alive or not, and whether the Martian meteorite has fossil evidence of
life, even though they are smaller than the lower size limit some claim
is possible for a self-replicating (and therefore evolvable) organism.
For some of the issues about the lower
limits to size for replication, see Chapter 6 of
Evolution: Possible or Impossible? at
this site.
Next headline on: Origin of Life.
Astrobiologists Discuss the Societal Impact of Finding Aliens 07/12/2001
Lee Steigel, writing for NASA’s
Astrobiology
Institute , speculates on the societal impact of finding aliens in
“The Meaning of Life.” He interviews various thinkers
who believe such a find would generate a new renaissance in human
knowledge, and fundamentally change the way we look at life and the
universe. One of the interviewees, Steven J. Dick of the U.S.
Naval Observatory speculates on the impact on religious belief:
If extraterrestrial life
is found and “if humanity is not the center of attention of a
deity, what does that do to various theologies and religions?”
Dick asks. “If it is Christianity, for example, [what does
it mean for] the doctrines of redemption and incarnation? Would
Christ have to die on other worlds for their sins the way he did here?
. . . For Eastern religions, where you don’t have the idea of
salvation or a single deity, it would be quite different.”
Why is Christianity always the target
of these speculations, but Eastern religions come out smelling like
a rose? You get the impression from some SETI people that they
would love to find aliens just to hammer the last nail (in their
thinking) in the coffin of New Testament theology. But would
it? There is nothing in Christian thought to prohibit a universe
filled with sentient beings; see the science fiction trilogy by
C. S. Lewis,
for instance. The Protestant Christian astronomer
Johannes Kepler didn’t hesitate to
speculate freely about beings on other planets just because he was
a Christian. The New Testament is earth centric in its focus, but says
nothing for or against other creatures an omnipotent God could have
created. Despite centuries of speculation, and decades of
listening for signals, it remains true for now that there is no
evidence of other life in space, even bacteria. Evolutionists
are understandably very uncomfortable with that hole in their data.
Next headline on: SETI. •
Next headline on: Bible.
Gene for Hardwood Evolution Identified 07/11/2001
Researchers in Michigan have isolated a gene that produces a type
of lignin unique to angiosperms, claims a report in
EurekAlert.
“We thought it didn’t make sense for plants to evolve
new proteins and still use the old gene,” Chiang said. “Our
discovery of a syringyl-specific gene overturns that traditional model;
it’s been very exciting.” They also claim two features of
syringyl lignin confer an evolutionary advantage: structural
support and resistance to disease.
All they did was put this gene into a
bacterium and grow angiosperm lignin. The raw data saw nothing
about the evolution of hardwoods or angiosperms, which to Darwinists
is still an “abominable mystery” as Darwin put it.
Although they claim that “At least a part of that mystery may
now be solved,” it does nothing of the kind.
So angiosperms have a second gene for lignin. So what?
There is no gradual chain of transitional forms between them.
What is to demonstrate that either one evolved from the other, unless
you already have a preconceived notion of their evolution?
Both gymnosperms and angiosperms represent diverse and
highly complex organisms that use photosynthesis,
ATP, DNA code, and a host of other irreducibly complex structures
that defy Darwinian explanation. The experimental data
here do not support the conclusions. Some day when the
myth of Darwinism is no longer assumed a priori, these kinds of
just-so stories will be seen for the fallacies they are.
Next headline on: Plants. •
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory.
Oldest Human Ancestor Found in Ethiopia 07/11/2001
According to EurekAlert,
the oldest human ancestor (5.2 million years old) has been found in
a gravelly area in Ethiopia. No skull bones were found, just
some other bones and teeth. A Berkeley paleontologist arrived
at the date with argon measurements of the volcanic rocks, dates of
magnetic reversals, and corroboration with other fossils.
In another
story, Univ. of Illinois paleontologists claim to have found
soil evidence that early man did not evolve on grasslands, as is
commonly believed, but preferred humid forests. “The
discovery challenges long-held beliefs, beginning with Darwin,”
the report states.
Nature has
pictures of the fossils and calls them “extremely fragmentary”
and hard to distinguish from hominids or chimpanzees. Moreover,
it claims this new find fuels the controversy over the
February find in Kenya named Orrorin.
Science Now
has a picture of the single tooth on which the team judged the
the bones to be hominid, but calls the evidence weak, saying
neither fossil makes a watertight case.
(sigh) Better start revising the
Discovery Channel documentaries again. The storytelling goes
on and on. There is no way to put a few scattered ape bones onto
a human family tree unless you already presuppose evolution and
want to make headlines or keep the funding stream flowing from
the NSF.
Try reading the Nature article from an
unbiased viewpoint, without assuming evolution, and see whether
there is anything in the actual evidence to support the belief
that these bones tell anything about human ancestry. The
article is filled with wiggle words like “could”
Well, that leaves some room for alternate speculations, doesn’t it?
Let’s try our hypothesis: “these bones could have nothing
whatsoever to do with human evolution, but might be recent fossils
of apes.” Think that will get a research grant?
Next headline on: Early Man.
Computer Simulates the Origin of Sex 07/11/2001
Space.Com News
has a light-hearted account of two Caltech/JPL scientists who
created digital organisms in their computers to simulate the
origin of sex, “one of biology’s greatest mysteries,”
since life seemed to get along fine without it.
What mutations and selection pressures could account for such a
radical change?
The article summarizes the findings, saying“Comet or asteroid
impacts could have
stressed asexual organisms enough to send them down the path of sexual
reproduction after forcing a flurry of genetic mutations, the study
shows. Heavy doses of radiation might also have done the trick.”
An evolutionary geneticist from Wake Forest University has doubts about
the technique, however: “Since
the idea came from a study of digital organisms and not from any
historical evidence that such stresses actually acted on living
organisms, or that they would have had the effect of selecting for sex,
I think it’s highly speculative.” One of the authors
of the study is confident the computer simulation would also work in
real life experiments, but he can’t do them – it would take too long.
Your Baloney Detector
will get high readings on this one. Have a good laugh. If
you like your baloney served in a intellectual bun with jargon
sauce, read the original paper in the
Royal Society Biological Proceedings B for 7/22/01, where you
will find words like “digital organisms in silico”
(i.e., imaginary creatures in the computer!).
Next headline on: Darwinism and Evolutionary Theory. •
Next dumb story.
Utah Sandstone Formed by Jurassic Monsoons 07/11/2001
Geologists from the University of Nebraska claim to have found
evidence of monsoon rains in Navajo Sandstone deposits,
common in southern Utah. According to the report in
SciNews,
heavy rains falling on sand dunes created characteristic patterns
in the deposits, which can total more than 2000 feet in thickness.
The rain evidence, however, they find in only the bottom layers, but
David Loope claims “an amazing amount of detail is recorded in these cliffs and we can tell how far the dunes moved each year, and tell that the
dominant wind was in the winter.”
The ruddy Navajo
Sandstone provides some of the
most dramatic scenery
in the southwest.
The layers are so thick and so widespread, it is hard to imagine any
uniformitarian processes producing them. Nothing in these findings
preclude huge floods depositing the Navajo Sandstone; in fact, they seem
to support it. Why would you have annual monsoon rains occurring each
year in a vast desert of sand? Other alleged dune deposits like the
Coconino Sandstone in the Grand Canyon, which also show widespread evidence
of crossbedding, have been explained by Dr. Steve Austin at ICRas the result of waves from strong currents under deep water.
Next headline on: Geology.
Haeckel Fraud Criticized 07/10/2001
The July issue of WorldNet Daily is
devoted to the subject: “Evolution: The Complex and Profound
Basis of All Life, or a Fairy Tale for Scientists Who Reject God?”
The online magazine includes this expose of
Haeckel’s
embryos as one of the “worst cases of scientific fraud;
It’s shocking to find that somebody one thought was a great
scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes me angry . . . . What he
[Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that
the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the
same stage of development. They don’t . . . . These are
fakes.” So said Dr. Michael Richardson to the Times of
London in 1997, after organizing a team to re-photograph embryos and
compare them with Haeckel’s drawings. Many textbooks,
however, still reprint the drawings as evidence of evolution.
How much evidence of evolution is based on fraud or misrepresentation?
If you look at the ten most-cited evidences, including homology,
the horse series, Darwin’s finches, peppered moths, the ape-man
series, Haeckel’s embryos and more – you find every one
of them evaporating under scrutiny. For a complete analysis
of all ten, read Jonathan Wells’ recent book
Icons of Evolution.
The Huntington Library’s recent exhibit on Darwin still featured
both the peppered moths and Darwin’s finches without providing any
information that the evidence was not favorable to evolution.
Human Genome 07/10/2001: The
BBC reports that some scientists dispute earlier estimates that the
human genome only has 30,000 genes. Using different statistical
techniques, they claim it has over twice as many: 70,000 or more.
Update 08/24/2001: A report in
Nature puts the
number at 42,000 but admits it could go higher than 50,000. One of
the difficulties is the algorithms used to estimate the number of genes,
and the lack of knowledge of function of various sequences.
(Earlier reference: February 2001 headline).
Update 11/28/2001: According to
EurekAlert,
scientists at Cold Spring Harbor laboratories, Long Island NY, now have
a computer program able to spot gene "on" switches and promoters.
They think the number of human genes is now between 50,000 and 60,000.
See also this report in the
Feb 22,
2002 issue of Science about discussion among members of
the AAAS.
Another Antimatter Asymmetry Found 07/10/2001
News sources like the BBC
are reporting that Stanford physicists have found another imbalance
in matter-antimatter pair production, and expect to find others.
A rarely observed asymmetry called charge-parity violation was
previously only seen in the K-meson and its antiparticle (see our
previous headline). Now,
Stanford physicists have confirmed CP violation in the heavier
B-meson. Physicists and cosmologists hope these observations
might help account for the preponderance of regular matter in the
universe. A physicist at CERN (Switzerland) commented,
“The standard [big bang] model cannot produce enough CP violation
to explain the total dominance of matter in the universe.”
The antimatter problem has been one
of the puzzles of Big Bang cosmology. If there were a big bang,
there should have been equal quantities of matter and antimatter
produced, which would have annihilated one another. Physicists
must believe that a tiny asymmetry existed, and that most of the
material universe was annihilated, but this tiny leftover fraction
of regular matter became our universe. Is that credible?
Next headline on: Physics. •
Next headline on: Cosmology.
Plate Tectonics Occurs Less 07/09/2001
A report in
SciNews
says that a discovery of a large amount of subducted lithosphere
in the Fiji Islands suggests that plate tectonics occurs less than
previously thought.
Theories seem so nice and neat until
data get in the way.
Next headline on: Geology.
Proteins Evolve in Fits and Starts 07/09/2001
A paper in the Journal of Molecular Evolution reported in
Nature
Science Update disputes the conventional view that proteins
evolve steadily over long ages, regardless of environmental pressures
(neutral evolution). Michael Wallis of the University of
Sussex in the U.K. studied growth hormone in various animals
and concluded that the protein did not evolve at all for long
periods, then had bursts of change. Quote:
“There’s an enormous mass of conventional
ideas that the rate of protein evolution is relatively constant, but
from what I’ve seen that isn’t the case,” says
Wallis. The constant rate of protein evolution is “part of
the dogma” of molecular biology, agrees Rodney Honeycutt, who
studies molecular evolution at Texas A&M University in College
Station.
Did you notice their own use of the
word dogma? Here again is evidence against slow, gradual
Darwin-style evolution. It is analogous to the theory of
punctuated equilibria that Niles, Eldredge and Gould promoted
as a way to explain away the gaps in the fossil record. Even
so, this new story has built-in assumptions of evolution, so it
is like one fairy tale finding fault with another. Somewhere
hidden in the storytelling is a little bit of raw data.
Next headline on: Dating Methods. •
Next headline on: Darwinism.
Clones Express Genes Differently 07/06/2001
Why do so many cloned embryos die before birth? Why do the ones
that survive have abnormalities? According to scientists at MIT
reported by Scientific
American News, it’s because clones express genes differently
than the donor; i.e., even though the donor and the clone have identical
DNA, they do not activate the same genes in the same way.
Apparently there are “epigenetic” factors at work, influences
other than the coded language of life. These include enzyme tags
on genes that affect their expression. Embryonic stem cells with
nuclei from donors can have different tags that cause them to develop
in wildly different ways, producing chimeras (monsters), abnormally
large offspring, or survivors that while appearing outwardly normal
have hidden abnormalities that can lead to problems later.
The statement that the DNA is the master
molecule that accounts for everything in life may be too simplistic.
What are all the epigenetic factors that influence development?
Are any of them heritable? How do cells know which genes to express
in which part of the body, even though the entire code is present?
We don’t know, but the science of cloning is showing just how
complex a process development is, and the ramifications have ethical and
political overtones.
Next headline on: The Cell and Biochemistry.
Sex Selection: The Next Pandora’s Box? 07/05/2001
A scientific breakthrough called the MicroSort technique, (that’s
MicroSort, not MicroSoft - don’t blame Bill Gates) developed
by the IVF labs in Fairfax, Virginia, can allegedly
guarantee 90% accuracy in sex selection, reports the
BBC
News. While this is a boon to certain couples who wish
to avoid passing on genetic defects associated with sex, it also
raises many new ethical questions.
If you build it, they will come.
Many couples would pick the sex of their child for various reasons,
some good, some merely preference. Some cultures are known to
prefer having a boy, especially where the number of children is
controlled.
(Look
what’s happening in India according to
National Geographic.)
What happens a generation later when you have a
population of 75% one sex or the other? Is that fair to the
children? There are also concerns that the technique may
cause genetic damage. These are very serious times for the
scientific establishment to be floundering without an ethical anchor.
Next headline on: Politics.
Patriots Claim Rights From Creator 07/04/1776
A group of anti-royalists gathered in Philadelphia today to declare publicly that all men are created equal and
“are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . . . ” This
new and radical notion is said to be the basis of a new form of government they are planning.
Aren’t you glad they didn’t say that some men are
endowed with superior fitness to ensure their dominance over the weak. As you wave
the flag, don’t forget to honor the Creator on whose principles of law, morality and
righteousness the founding fathers forged a new nation of free citizens. Our father’s God, to Thee,
Author of Liberty, to Thee we sing. Long may our land be bright with freedom’s
holy light; protect us by Thy might, Great God, our King.
Bird Evolutionary Tree Shaken 07/03/2001
A biologist at Penn
State has shaken up the bird family tree, putting short squatty grebes
as close relatives of long-legged flamingoes. Blair Hedges used both
mitochondrial and nuclear gene samples to find close relatives, but was
surprised by the non-intuitive results. He claims this shows that
features like webbed feet evolved not once but many times, and that
evolutionary changes occurred faster than expected.
Does no one have any sense to consider the
possibility that the methods and the conclusions are both bunk?
These findings ought to point out that either gene sequencing is unreliable,
or their assumptions of phylogeny are wrong, or both;
but evolutionary biologists get by with anything,
no matter how illogical, counter-intuitive, or contradictory to previous
evolutionary storytelling, as long as it assumes and promotes evolution.
Next headline on: Birds.
Duke Biologists Deny Validity of Molecular Classification 07/02/2001
Scientists at Duke
University claim to have debunked the method of classifying mammals
and other organisms based on mitochondrial DNA sequences. The
molecular method claims the platypus is related to the kangaroo, for
instance, and that widely disparate animals like hippos and whales had a
common ancestor. The Duke scientists analyzed nuclear genes with
computer software that supported the older common-sense classification
used by paleontologists that groups animals based on morphology (outward
structure and anatomical similarities). The article starts by saying,
“Classifying kangaroos and platypuses together on the evolutionary
family tree is as absurd as adding your neighbors to your own family
ancestral line simply because they share your love of the opera,
according to scientists at Duke University.”
This article is loaded with circular
reasoning. Both sides of this ongoing controversy assume
evolution to prove evolutionary relationships and just argue over
which method produces a better fit to their preconceived notions
of the family tree. It is like arguing over which
classification method does better at proving hammers and screwdrivers
had a common ancestor: metal content or shape.
Next headline on: Mammals.
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