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Fooling Around with OOL
May 31, 2010 Origin of Life (OOL) research is one of those areas in science where one
doesnt have to make any real progress, as long as he or she looks busy. Anything
the scientist says, no matter how speculative, or even foolish, is likely to be taken seriously,
because the alternative creation has already been ruled out as pseudoscience
by the ruling scientific elite. Here are some recent examples.
That last press release did enlighten readers with some little-known facts about ATP in the real world of
actual lifeforms. At any one time, the human body contains just 250g of ATP
this provides roughly the same amount of energy as a single AA battery. This ATP store is being constantly
used and regenerated in cells via a process known as respiration, which is driven by natural catalysts called enzymes.
That enzyme, ATP synthase, is a two-part rotary motor with multiple interacting parts that is absolutely essential to
all life. It has been discussed many times in these pages (e.g., 03/27/2008).
If what the article said is true, its hard to
imagine a world-class sprinter at the Olympics running on an AA battery. To be sure, your body cycles through
the equivalent of your body weight in ATP in an active day of work, so there is a dynamic interplay of food energy going
into ATP production and out into work throughout the day, but to have only 250g of ATP in store at a time surely
qualifies for one of the most Amazing Facts ever encountered in these pages something worth sharing around the water cooler.
- Cook up that DNA: You can get DNA to copy itself without life. How?
Inside a deep sea vent, says Dieter Braun of the University of Munich.
Scientist gave his idea publicity, complete with a photograph of a black smoker with the caption,
Providing a perfect setting for life to replicate. That idea, of course,
runs contrary to the view of other theorists who consider the deep sea to be the last place one
would think life would begin (e.g., Jeffrey Bada, 06/14/2002; see also
problems with salt in the ocean, 09/17/2002). Braun provided a semblance of empirical evidence for his
view by putting DNA, nucleotides, and the polymerase enzyme that knows how to assemble them
into tiny test tubes and heating them with a laser to set up convection currents.
He and his assistant found copies of DNA accumulating in pockets at the top. Asked how different
configurations might form, he speculated that Fatty acids in the water may have provided a shuttle service,
and even form membranes to keep them together the beginning of cells. Its all so
simple, Nick Lane commented: The work shows that DNA can be both concentrated and replicated
under a very simple set of conditions. Of course, by providing DNA, DNA polymerase and
nucleotides, he gave his experiment a whopping head start. But wasnt RNA supposed to come first?
He didnt say. DNA lacks enzymatic activity. Without enzymes, DNA by itself would be a dead end.
Thats why RNA World theory at least tried to cover those two functions in one molecule.
The RNA World hypothesis has its own set of problems (07/11/2002,
- Top Down: Is it ID? On Live
Science, Stuart Fox speculated that Craig Venters latest experiment with synthetic life
(see 05/22/2010) May Reveal Origins of Natural Life. By that he means that further
experiments that reduce a cell to its minimal components may show how simple a cell can be to qualify as
living. That, in turn, may reveal possible pathways that primitive cells may have taken in their
path from nonlife to life: Venter addressed this issue on Thursday, noting that he and researchers at
his institute had themselves debated how this technology would allow scientists to test the minimum level
of biological material needed to spark life, Fox said. In Venters words,
I think itll be interesting as the people working on origins of life, people trying to understand
these minimal early possible precursors to life as those programs proceed in one direction, and we proceed from the other,
building on top of the evolution of an information system, we might be able to meet somewhere in the middle
and have some exciting new tools. The only thing clear from the articles that the ones doing the
debating, experimenting, researching, working, evaluating, testing, building, meeting and understanding (if that)
were human beings not primitive lifeforms.
- Chirality and shattered mirrors: Marcus Chown published a three-page article in
on the mystery of homochirality why all living things have left-handed amino acids in their proteins (see
online book). He gave most prominence to a theory that supernovas or black holes
gave a slight quantum excess to one form, and that these were enhanced in the waters of the early earth.
This suggestion, however, turned out to be quite weak by page 3, and Chown could only hope for findings to come
forth from spacecraft in the future when all was said and done.
- Phosphorus for us: Theres phosphorus in DNA. Theres phosphorus in
ATP. That can only mean one thing: earth needed phosphorus to have life. Its not
clear how phosphorus got into our atmosphere. Maybe it came
special delivery. PhysOrg reported that
Dr Terry Kee of the University of Leeds thinks it came from meteorites.
Phosphorus is present within several meteoritic minerals and it is possible that this reacted
to form pyrophosphite under the acidic, volcanic conditions of early Earth.
Now, once Earth had pyrophosphite, it had an energetic molecule that, while not as useful as ATP, was at
least somewhat similar. The team found that a compound known as pyrophosphite may have
been an important energy source for primitive lifeforms. Did he have any evidence
for this? No; its just a requirement. Its a chicken and egg question,
he said. Scientists are in disagreement over what came first replication, or metabolism.
But there is a third part to the equation and that is energy. So while scientists
are disagreeing about two things, why not add a third? Thats progress: You need enzymes to
make ATP and you need ATP to make enzymes, explained Dr Kee, as if adding questions qualifies
as explaining something: The question is: where did energy come from
before either of these two things existed? We may not know the answers, but at least
our ignorance is getting more sophisticated thanks to OOL research.
Heres another case where Amazing Facts and Dumb Ideas
got awarded together. That statement about ATP is a gem plucked out of garbage. Think of the efficiency
of the energy system your Maker provided the human body, such that those quadrillions of exquisitely crafted ATP synthase
motors can extract out of phosphorus, using proton motive force, enough energy to send an athlete hurtling
down a track, or pole-vaulting over a bar, or high jumping, power lifting, and all the other amazing feats of speed and strength
we enjoy watching in sports, out of just 250 grams of ATP the equivalent of a single AA battery! Incredible.
Did that superbly crafted design evolve by chemical evolution? Not on your life.
Stem Cells: Hope, Politics, Charity, and Clarity
Next headline on:
Origin of Life
May 30, 2010 Those promising little cells that can differentiate into almost any tissue continue
to make news but they also continue to generate controversy. Actually, only some of them
generate controversy: the embryonic stem cells. Not all of the articles about
stem cells make that clear.
An article on both embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in
Science Daily this month
was strangely silent about the controversy. The focus was on understanding how these cells become
pluripotent (i.e., able to differentiate into numerous cell types) certainly an important issue.
But there was only this brief mention of the ethical controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells:
Because ethical and legal issues have hampered human ES cell research, mouse cells have provided a more
viable platform for ES cell studies. On those ethical and legal issues, however, rides a great
debate, millions of dollars, and fundamental questions about the value of human life.
- Defining life: With the stroke of a pen, South Korea decided that frozen human embryos
are not life forms. PhysOrg reported that
The ruling means that human embryos that are in their early stage and are not implanted into a mothers
womb cannot be seen as human life forms, even though they have a full complement of human DNA from a
father and a mother. Well, if that is the decision, fertility clinics are free to toss out any
ethical concerns about them. The embryos become non-persons. The clinics can dispose of them,
or turn them over to the Science Lab. Following the ruling, shares related to stem-cell research
surged on the local market.
- Your embryonic brain stem cells: When you were a mere embryo in the womb, your developing pin-sized brain had
special stem cells that were busy building the center of higher learning the neocortex.
reported that neurologists at UC San Francisco discovered a stem cell in the human embryo
illuminates human brain evolution, points to therapies. It likely accounts for the
dramatic expansion of the region in the lineages that lead to man, the researchers say.
Is this because mice and monkeys lack these stem cells in their brains? Not exactly; its just that
in primates and especially in humans, the complexity of the layers and types of stem cells is dramatic.
The scientists equivocated about the e-word, saying that their work follows the
molecular steps that the cell goes through as it evolves into the nerve cell, or neuron, it produces.
So whats politics got to do with it? This information could then be used to prompt embryonic stem cells
to differentiate in the culture dish into neurons for potential use in cell-replacement therapy.
But what would somebody elses stem cells, with their DNA, do inside your head? Is that ethical or desirable?
- No controversy in this heart: The phrase non-controversial has a calming effect on
a heart. Science Daily began
an article, A new and non-controversial source of stem cells can form heart muscle cells and help repair heart damage,
according to results of preliminary lab tests reported in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The source is amniotic membrane, a sac in which the embryo develops, which is a form of medical waste normally
discarded after a babys delivery. Now, it can be kept to derive stem cells to heal damaged hearts.
The press release from the American Heart Association said that the cells are not rejected, and transform
into heart muscle cells that start beating spontaneously. In experiments on rats, a significant percent of
them survived for weeks and decreased scarring after a heart attack. If clinical trials show this works on
humans, saving up this previously discarded tissue for heart therapy would be a very loving thing to do.
- Spanish love: Spanish scientists have turned fat into a lovely thing.
Science Daily reported that scientists
at the University of Granada took stem cells from adipose tissue (fat cells) and reprogrammed them into cardiac
myocytes heart muscle. This technique could be used in the future for regeneration of cardiac muscles
through the use of cells directly extracted from the patient. Wouldnt that be cool? Some day,
your doctor might extract your fat and use it to repair your heart.
A somewhat similar study at the University of Texas was reported by
PhysOrg. Your own adult stem cells could be
re-injected into your heart and start the repair process, scientists have found. Injection of a patients
own adult stem cells into the heart has shown some efficacy in assisting recovery after a heart attack
in early human clinical trials, the article said.
- Hope for MS patients in bone: Stem cells in bone marrow appear to offer hope for those with
multiple sclerosis. Science Daily
reported that A groundbreaking trial to test bone marrow stem cell therapy with a small group of patients with
multiple sclerosis (MS) has been shown to have possible benefits for the treatment of the disease.
This was a human trial with encouraging results: The procedure was well tolerated and the participants
were followed up for a year. No serious adverse effects were encountered. Bone marrow stem
cells are a form of adult stem cell, with no ethical or controversial issues; they can be taken from the patient
and re-injected the same day.
- Seeing the way for an embryonic stem cell therapy? A first step toward a possible use of
embryonic stem cells was announced by Science
Daily. Researchers at UC Irvine have succeeded in coaxing human embryonic stem cells to differentiate into
an an eight-layer, early stage retina in the lab. This was in isolation from an actual eye.
We made a complex structure consisting of many cell types, the study leader said;
This is a major advance in our quest to treat retinal disease. It is hoped that creating retinal
tissue might lead to treatments for macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa and other blinding diseases, but
such actual therapies are a long way off. The article did not say whether embryonic stem cells were required
for this feat, or whether adult stem cells, such as induced pluripotent stem cells, could work just as well.
Is it right to do wrong to have a chance to do right? Do the ends
justify the means? If there are two ways to get something done, and one is not controversial,
why choose the controversial way? Have we not learned that declaring someone a non-person is the
first step to unspeakable abuses of human rights?
Is our universe natural? Thats not as simple a question as it sounds. Read the
05/11/2006 entry, then ask if it bears on the question of
what naturalism means.
The proponents of embryonic stem cell research
know how to play on your emotions with tear-jerking commercials of suffering people. Californians
saw that with their $3 billion stem cell initiative they couldnt afford (02/08/2005).
What the pleading scientists
dont tell you is that (1) they stand to make a lot of money from tax-funded ES research,
(2) embryonic stem cell research is getting stampeded by actual successes in the adult stem cell arena,
and (3) ES research is tainted by desires to tinker with human cloning and chimeras (mixing human
and animal cells). Stay away from it. They have nothing to show for it after years of hype and
millions of dollars and one of the biggest scandals in the history of science.
Its advocates are primarily Darwinian leftist progressives. They have
mixed motives. The practice of harvesting embryos opens up a potential shop of horrors, with
markets for women selling their eggs, and catalogs of human body parts. And with
non-controversial iPS and adult stem cells available, we dont need anything theyre selling.
Next headline on:
Politics and Ethics
Science Explains Why the Universe Exists
May 29, 2010 Theyve done it again those clever scientists have figured out
why the universe exists. What would we ever do without them? Michael Bolen at
News had to share the good news, Scientists discover explanation for why the Universe exists.
it as a victory in an ancient contest: Why We Exist: Matter Wins Battle Over Antimatter.
We should be tickled at the news, like one scientist Bolen quoted: Many of us felt goose bumps
when we saw the result, said Stefan Soldner-Rembold, a physicist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Never say scientists are a dull lot.
Theory predicts that equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced in
the big bang. Trouble is, they annihilate each other. Mix them up, and poof nothing
remains but energy racing out in all directions, with no hope for planets and people. Cosmologists
have long hoped to find some mechanism for asymmetry a little leftover of one or the other to make up
a universe of matter (or antimatter; whichever you decide to call it, it doesnt matter).
The latest attempts looked for asymmetry in collisions at the Tevatron and Large Hadron Colliders in
Illinois and CERN, respectively. They think they found it. Thus the goose bumps.
But to explain it, they had to deviate from the Standard Model a little. That might make the
Standard Model a bit non-standard, if that matters.
Adrian Cho in Science was not prepared to diagnose goose bumps.1
They might just be zits, he suggested: the marginal result could be a fluke, and theorists say its
difficult to explain why the effect is so big in this study and so small in earlier work on related particles.
A look into the Chos article reveals a good deal of interpretation of statistical data that is so theory-laden
it is hard to know where observation ends and theory begins. Not only that, the results will need further
testing. Only if one accepts the theory that a B meson can decay into an easily spotted particle called a
muon, whereas an anti–B meson decays into an antimuon, can one call this a success. In the experiment,
two-muon events outnumbered two-antimuon events by only 1%. The experimenters claimed that this bias
is 40 times larger than what the Standard Model predicts. That seems an extremely flimsy occasion
for goose bumps, or for headlines that scientists have discovered an explanation for why the universe exists.
Like David Berlinski wrote in his 2009 essay, The
State of the Matter (The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays, Discovery Institute, 2009, p. 525),
Although a very great achievement, the Standard Model proved in some respects unsatisfying.
No physicist has ever suggested otherwise.... If there were questions that the Standard Model did not
answer, physicists assumed, this indicated only that the Standard Model was a work in process and so a
work in progress. A moving standard is not really a standard, is it?
1. Adrian Cho, Hints of Greater Matter-Antimatter Asymmetry Challenge Theorists,
28 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5982, p. 1087, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5982.1087-a.
What the physicists should be saying is that the asymmetry of matter over
antimatter is another of many finely-tuned parameters of our universe that makes life possible.
It is one of dozens of cosmological factors that shouts intelligent design. Instead of getting
goose bumps over that, they deny it, and prefer to get goose bumps over their own pride at every
suggestion, no matter how trivial and feeble, that they might be making some progress in their own bottom-up
explanation programme. The Standard Model, this godless mind game with a bit of expensive
atom-smashing thrown in, needs 24 elementary particles, 4 forces (some of which they have managed to combine since
the 1970s), an unknown number of quantum fields, various symmetries, some of them broken, and
various numbers of unobservable dimensions, depending on whose Kaluza-Klein theory one prefers. But none
of them know what to do with gravity. It shouldnt be called the Standard Model; it should
be called the Standard Ignorance. It has spawned various non-standard ignorances since, such as
String Theory and the Landscape (multiverse theory), which are all united under the over-arching materialist
Paradigm of Ignorance (Pig) known as the Stuff Happens Law. In a perverse sort of way, therefore,
materialists can claim their world view is law-governed (09/15/2008 commentary),
and therefore scientific even Baconian.
The Factor Economists Neglected in their Models: Integrity
David Berlinskis essay The State of the Matter is a suitable climax to his
devilishly delightful set of essays mentioned above. He is no creationist, Christian, or intelligent design
proponent, for that matter; we do not endorse him for those reasons. But all the more, those reasons
demonstrate that criticism of Darwinism and secular materialism is not exclusively the domain of Christians and
creationists. Furthermore, Berlinski is both a well-read, worldly scholar (particularly in mathematical
physics) and a wordsmith of the first order, making it a delight to read his tactful demolitions of
the secular empire. He is particularly adept at exposing the scientific pretensions of fools.
To whet your appetite, we end with his conclusion to The State of the Matter, an excellent
survey of the rise and fall of 20th century material physics:
What implications in all this for the grand narrative of our times? Where do the arrows of
explanation in the end point?
The full force of those lines, to be appreciated, needs
to have the momentum of all that preceded itthe bizarre ruminations that
led up to the Standard Model, string theory, and the multiverse hypothesis.
The godless have been forced into absurdity by the realities of the universe as it is.
If we are not disposed to escape the Landscape, Leonard Susskind has warned,
we shall be hard pressed to answer critics prepared to welcome theories
of intelligent design.
The plain truthno trivial thing, of courseis that no one knows. It is odd
and remarkable that in the face of theories that have proven inconclusive such as string theory, physicists that they
must at once change the standards by which their theories are judged.
When it is not possible to argue the facts, lawyers quite understand, then
it is necessary to argue the law. In this the physicists have unwittingly
drawn close to doctrines that previously they had rejected as frivolous.
But neither physicists disposed radically to change the law, nor physicists
disposed radically to reject the change, have made arguments that
have persuaded the other side. And if they cannot persuade one another,
surely it is unreasonable for either side to expect that they have persuaded us.
Next headline on:
May 28, 2010 Is economics a science? Its on that borderland that has many things in
common with the sciences; it is highly law-governed (law of supply and demand, for instance); it uses
mathematical models; it uses experimental methods; it develops theories. Granted for the time being that it is a kind of science
(albeit a soft science or social science), some economists are recognizing that they
have been failing to include an important factor in their models morality.
PhysOrg mentioned that factor in a surprising
headline today: Researcher considers the role of morality in modern economic theory.
The first paragraph elaborated with an even stronger word
The worldwide financial crisis in 2008, which led to what many in the United States now call the Great Recession,
has caused researchers to rethink traditional economic theories of financial markets and the corporate world.
Even renowned financial theorist Michael Jensen, whose widely cited work has laid the foundation for the broad use of
stock options as an executive compensation tool, has called on his fellow researchers to incorporate integrity
into their economic models.
The economists are not just taking a moralizing stance here, as if they need to preach to stockholders
and traders, telling them they had better play fair. No they are realizing that partakers of contracts and financial
arrangements really do have moral sensibilities that affect their behaviors.
The article highlights the theories of Douglas
Stevens, an associate professor of accounting at Florida State University, who has for years incorporated morality
into his models. Now, inspired by Jensens call, he has co-authored a peer-reviewed paper in
Accounting, Organizations and Society called A Moral Solution to the Moral Hazard Problem.
When did you ever hear the phrase Moral Solution in a peer-reviewed paper?
Stevens has incorporated a radical new idea in his thesis. Its not enough, he says, to attract
a principal (like an employee or contract partner) with financial incentives. Previous models have
neglected moral content. They focused on more and riskier incentives some of which led to the
financial collapse of 2008. Instead, Stevens broke with the traditional principal-agent model
of incentives, which assumed a moral sensitivity of zero, and factored in the moral sensitivities of the agents.
Thus, their model answers Jensens call to incorporate integrity into economic theory,
the article said; This is significant because principal-agent theory, the most mathematically formal
economic theory of the firm, has previously been closed to moral content.
The new model explains things that the old model found baffling like why people
often do more than incentives provide:
We know from simple observation that the traditional principal-agent model is not fully descriptive of real-world behavior,
Stevens said. A majority of people are paid a fixed salary in their jobs and yet provide sufficient effort for their pay.
This is particularly true in professions and nonprofit firms where the financial incentives required by the traditional model are difficult
if not impossible to arrange. The traditional principal-agent model cant explain this behavior. Our model, however,
demonstrates that a principal can pay a morally sensitive agent a fixed salary that is increasing in the productivity of the agents
Who would have thought that morality is a factor in reducing unemployment, as well as increasing productivity regardless of incentives?
That is actually a principle taught in the Bible that work should be done as unto the Lord, not with eye-service
just to please men (Colossians 3:23,
Ephesians 6:5-6). The
renowned Protestant work ethic taught individuals to believe that a job well done has intrinsic value, regardless of incentives or compensation.
Their model also demonstrates the value of moral sensitivity to the firm and society.
Our model suggests that moral sensitivity increases the efficiency of principal-agent relationships within the firm
which makes more of these relationships possible and allows the agent to receive a fixed salary that is increasing in his or
her productivity or skill, Stevens said. Thus, moral sensitivity increases the general welfare of society by decreasing
unemployment and increasing the productivity and pay of those who are employed. This explains the emphasis placed on moral training
within the firm and society at large. This also provides a warning against letting moral sensitivity diminish.
In closing, the article (actually a press release from
Florida State University),
emphasized the importance of professional ethics training as, if you will, a moral of the story.
Every financial crisis and scandal is a wake-up call for both practitioners and academics, Stevens said.
Hopefully, we wont waste yet another financial crisis.
Where does ethics come from? To find the source, dont walk across campus to the
science lab, where the Dawk is telling impressionable frosh that they are evolved slimeballs.
Dont go to the auditorium where Shermer is telling them intelligent design is a myth and a
pseudoscience, and we must use Reason, but he cant for the life of him tell us a reason why.
Dont walk over to the Humanities, where the profs want to divide everybody into groups of the
aggrieved who want to hold placards with upraised fists dripping in blood and chant, with foaming
mouths, End the Hate! Dont go to the Astronomy department, where they say
universes just happen from time to time, and ours is just one of an infinity that popped into existence
out of a quantum fluctuation, and is on the way to a heat death. Dont go to the music
department where they tell you hip-hop is the equivalent of Bach. Dont go to the History
department, where the profs have no idea why functionally modern humans spent 800,000 years grunting
in caves, then decided in the blink of an eye to build cities, ships, trade, agriculture,
writing, economics, warfare, manufacturing, mathematics, law, religion, morality and philosophy.
Darwinism as All-Purpose Flexible Caulk
No, to find morality, use your head. You have a conscience. Where did that
come from? It didnt evolve. You know innately that certain things are good and
certain things are evil. Good and evil refer to eternal standards. Conscience, in a sense,
is a law of nature. Paul, a scientist of that inner law, explained, For when the
Gentiles [i.e., non-Jews] who do not have the law [the Jewish Scriptures], by nature do what the law
requires [i.e., knowing that murder, theft and adultery are wrong], they are a law to themselves,
even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on
their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse
or even excuse them.... (Romans 2:14-15).
We all know that is true by experience. Steal something, and even if you get away with it
and nobody knows about it but you, the proverbial devil and angel on your shoulders start having
their argument in your ears. People have moral sensibilities, and economic theorists have
been amiss to ignore those factors in their models. By treating people as mere Pavlovian
dogs responding only to incentives, they have been missing out on how the real world operates.
Could that have led to bad forecasts that blindsided the world to one of the worst financial
collapses in modern times? Well, its about time to add the words morality and
integrity back into economics theory for practical reasons if for nothing else.
To find integrity, leave the campus, cross the street, and go into that building with the steeple.
There you will get to the source. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.
Its nice to see that some economists are finding out that integrity matters.
The other sciences could use some integrity training. There was a short-lived call for integrity
in Science and Nature
after the Hwang scandal in 2006 (02/05/2006). Not much
happened. It was followed by shameless arrogance in Darwinist response to the movie Expelled
in 2008, and then a half-hearted admission of fallibility after Climategate in late 2009.
This month there was a rare mention of the I-word in Science
Daily that showed that the IQ (Integrity Quotient) in science needs improvement:
Ethics Experts Call for Refocus of Scientific Review to Ensure Integrity of Research Process.
The article began, In a paper published this week in the journal Science, experts caution that important
ethical issues in the testing of new therapies like stem cells may not be receiving the attention they deserve.
So here we are, four years after the Hwang scandal; has no improvement been made? McGill University
ethicist Jonathan Kimmerman, co-author of a study on how clinical trials are designed, said,
What is often overlooked is that allowing studies of poor scientific quality to proceed
potentially undermines the entire scientific enterprise, because they undermine trust, consume
scarce research resources, and weaken incentives for medical scientists to perform the best research they can.
Scientists apparently dont have the innate incentives to make progress on their own, so we
may have to provide incentives for them. Do your duty; take a scientist to church.
Tell him its an experience thats out of this world, or it will bring true riches, or
tell them its a science project whatever incentive appeals to his or her maturity level.
Take someone who needs it, like the Dawk.
Hes already admitted that he prefers living in a Christian society instead of one that acts
out Darwinian principles, so he is already inconsistent and needs to learn integrity.
If he kicks and screams, give him a pacifier so he doesnt disrupt the hymn. You may
have to use childish incentives on him until he gains the maturity to exercise his conscience,
but real progress will only be possible when he can explain and defend the source and ultimate reference
of integrity. That, of course, will only be the beginning of knowledge, but getting
on the right path is a victory.
Next headline on:
Politics and Ethics
Bible and Theology
May 27, 2010 Fossils continue to turn up surprises. Some of them appear in the wrong
place, in the wrong time, or in the wrong order. Darwinian theory never seems to have a
problem, though. Evolutionary paleontologists always find a way to stretch or shrink their
phylogenetic trees to accommodate the new discoveries, or make up new imaginary tales, to fit
the new findings into the all-encompassing story of universal common descent by natural selection.
National Geographic went on to speculate that the Homo gautengensis creature even had rudimentary language.
Strangely, the article did not consider how it would be possible for a creature intelligent enough to build fire, use tools, and speak
to walk the planet for 795,000 years before ever thinking about inventing a wheel, planting a farm, building a city, riding a horse, or
writing his thoughts down or why in about 3500 B.C. all those things exploded into existence suddenly in the Fertile Crescent,
with long-distance trade, mining, manufacturing, and shipping, too. But Darwin didnt live till the 19th century A.D., and by then,
humans had steam locomotives to transport all the caulk anyone could ever need.
- Proto-squid: What was Nectocaris? The strange fossil in the Burgess Shale,
one of many strange fossils in the Burgess Shale, defied classification since its discovery 100 years ago.
Was it a mollusc? Was it an arthropod? After looking at dozens of them, scientists publishing
in Nature decided this week,1 based on one trait, that it must have been
the ancestor of squids and octopi. That trait appears to have been an organ of jet propulsion that
modern squid, cuttlefish and octopi use to scoot through the water. This organ on Nectocaris
doesnt look quite the same; its at right angles to the creature, for one thing, as if it
would have spun the poor animal in circles. Perhaps it had a pivot so it could be aimed in various directions.
The creature has eyes and tentacles but lacks some other characteristic cephalopod traits. Nevertheless,
Smith and Caron put their theory out there anyway, and Stefan Bengtson liked the theory
enough to title his commentary, A little Kraken wakes.2
The news media immediately jumped on the bandwagon with headlines like the one on
Palaeontologists solve mystery of 500 million-year-old squid-like carnivore.
Even if Smith and Caron are right, it doesnt help Darwins story.
Smith wrote in the press release printed by PhysOrg, This is significant because it means that
primitive cephalopods were around much earlier than we thought, and offers a reinterpretation of
the long-held origins of this important group of marine animals. Like the other Cambrian
body plans, a complex cephalopod emerged out of nowhere. Smith continued,
We know very little about the relationships between the major groups of molluscs, and
the early history of the group, yet somehow, he said, Fossils like Nectocaris
help us to map out how the groups alive today might be related, and how they evolved. If
this is indeed a cephalopod in Cambrian strata, it exacerbates the problem of complex life appearing
early in the fossil record. Far from being mindless filterers or grazers, they [cephalopods] are active predators
possessing the most advanced nervous system known among invertebrates. Their brain-to-body ratio exceeds that of most vertebrates,
Bengtson said. They are masters of camouflage, changing shape, surface pattern, texture and colour
in the blink of an eye and they do have good eyes.
- Swimming tank: Imagine a triceratops swimming across the ocean. Thats
almost what a story in Live
Science is asking us to believe: Newfound Horned Dinosaur Probably Island-Hopped to Europe.
Horned dinosaurs of a type normally known from the Gobi Desert have been identified in Europe.
How did they get there? Based on another paper published in Nature this week,3
Charles Q. Choi reported that the ancestors of this kind of dinosaur were only known from the far east.
Based on what the scientists said, he imagined this scenario: Their ancestors might have swum westward
from island to island, or they might have walked to these areas when the islands were landlocked,
only to get separated later when sea levels rose, he said. Perhaps you can think of other
mental pictures. Xing Xu of feathered dinosaur fame commented on this find in Nature.4
He began by mentioning the large gaps in the record: Reconstructing the historical distribution of Earths
fauna and flora is a challenging task, not least because of the incomplete, often poorly dated, nature of the fossil record,
he said. Such problems are particularly severe with respect to European biogeography in the Late Cretaceous period
(about 100 million to 65 million years ago), when Europe was an archipelago. A shipload of Darwin caulk
is necessary for such situations; maybe even an Ark load.
- Reset button: Science Daily
told a mystery tale of catastrophe: something hit the reset button, and killed almost everything, but fortunately
we survived. A mass extinction of fish 360 million years ago hit the reset button on Earths life,
setting the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity, a new study reports. What was it? Nobody knows, but
Those few species that survived the bottleneck were the evolutionary starting point for all vertebrates -- including humans -- that exist today,
we are told. It was a global extinction. It left a completely different world. Maybe the world got drunk,
because the article said the 15-million-year gap was the hangover after the traumatic Hangenberg event.
Somewhere out of the hangover, our grandpappy emerged. When tetrapods finally recovered, those survivors
were likely the great-great-grandfathers to the vast majority of land vertebrates present today.
It would be nice to know what happened, but: What remains mysterious is exactly what happened 360
million years ago to trigger this mass extinction, the authors said. If you thought trees were our friends,
The first appearance of forest-like environments in some regions might also have produced atmospheric changes catastrophic to animal life.
What did the forest trees evolve from? They didnt say. Perhaps they just appeared.
Maybe this study helped the scientists learn some things about evolution: The research also raises questions about
the pattern of evolution after the extinction event. It remains unclear why groups that were abundant before the event
did not recover, while other groups spread and diversified in radical new ways. Your tax dollars at work:
Funding for the research was provided by the National Science Foundation, the University of Chicago Hinds Fund,
the Paleontological Society, the Palaeontological Association, the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists,
and the Evolving Earth Foundation.
- The cannibal in the family tree: National
Geographic, always one to overdo the shock and awe (how do they fit so many Annual Shark Week events in a year?) decided
to introduce the cannibal in our ancestry, Homo gautengensis. If you hadnt heard of this particular Uncle Harry, or how
they knew someone 800,000 years ago liked the taste of human flesh, the story gets a little sketchy the more you get into the fine print.
First, you find theres not enough bone to make a valid reconstruction. Theres not enough bone to know whether it spent
time in the trees, to know what it ate, to know whether it talked, or to know how it lived. Then you find theres dispute among experts whether
it was Homo at all, or rather Australopithecus. Then you learn that it doesnt really matter, because it and Australopithecus
sediba, another contender for human ancestor, were contemporaries casting the evolutionary status of both fossils into doubt. Then you learn that the
dating of both of these fossils is also very questionable; no one is certain when they lived.
Finally, you learn that the author of the paper about this dude
isnt even sure what he is holding in his hand: It is up to my colleagues to decide whether they are convinced that a new species
is warranted and whether they will use [the designation] in their research. As for its evolutionary value, he said,
The real significance of the new species is that it shows just how complicated, how bushy, our evolutionary tree was.
So by this time, the reader can judge the scientific value of the caulk holding together a picture of a tree-swinging human
ancestor that scraped the brains out of other Homo things for food, as the National Geographic shock-and-awe article opened,
into the grand scheme of human evolution.
Lets return to the opening: Theres a good chance it was a tiny little cannibalistic tree swinger,
but the newly identified Homo gautengensis is family, according to a new study.
Thought to have used toolsand possibly firethe creature is the oldest named species in the human genus,
Homo, study author Darren Curnoe says. Wanna bet on it?
1. Martin R. Smith & Jean-Bernard Caron, Primitive soft-bodied cephalopods from the Cambrian,
465, 469-472 (27 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature09068.
2. Stefan Bengtson, Palaeontology: A little Kraken wakes,
465, 427-428 (27 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/465427a.
3. Osi, Butler and Weishampel, A Late Cretaceous ceratopsian dinosaur from Europe with Asian affinities,
465, 466-468 (27 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature09019.
4. Xing Xu, Biogeography: Horned dinosaurs venture abroad,
465, 431-432 (27 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/465431a.
Do you see how weve been scammed? This isnt science. This is a racket. This is the
biggest con job ever pulled off in the name of science. You should see the phylogenetic tree in the squid paper.
Its all dots, with a few tiny dashes representing actual data. The dots are imagination! The chart
tries to connect Kimberella, one of the Ediacaran creatures that went extinct, with Nectocaris, and those with squids!
Kimberella looks nothing like Nectocaris. Its all a convoluted story, because Darwin needs connections
between things to form a continuous lineage. What if they (in actual fact) had nothing to do with each other?
His disciples are playing dot-to-dot games with dots that are far apart and not obviously connected.
The connections are in their minds, not in the data. Ditto for the dots in the horned dinosaur chart its mostly
dots, not dashes, and the dashes are almost all in contemporary groupings. If anything, the dots, representing ancestral
links, are getting farther and farther apart. They exist only in the imagination of Darwinists.
In our 05/27/2005 commentary, we offered the ACLU some suggestions
on how they could be consistent in keeping intelligent design out of the Dover school district.
They and the students and parents would not have enjoyed the medicine of consistency, so they instead took the
candy of hypocrisy a few months later in Judge Joness ruling (12/30/2005).
The Burgess Shale
is an ecological zone of extinct creatures found in the Canadian Rockies, not an evolutionary time period.
The data exist in the present, not in the past (pause and think about that).
The Burgess Shale fossils were forced into an evolutionary story by evolutionary-minded human beings. What the Darwinists
should be reading from the fossil record, as the film Darwins Dilemma so
powerfully shows, is the abrupt appearance of all the animal phyla without evolutionary precursors. In spite
of this strong evidence, the Darwinian story is
like a big stage show, with painted sets, fogma machines (05/14/2007)
and special effects that trained stage hands operate on cue. Scientists are the actors. They speak their memorized lines with
gusto. Data are the props that give the audience the illusion
of reality, just like props on a stage. And just like theater, its all about a story, not reality.
If you want entertainment, you can stay and watch the Darwin Theater of the Absurd, and laugh at how their miracles emerge on cue thanks to
the rigging and special effects and industrial light and magic. But if you want reality, you have to step outside,*
where design is clearly seen, such that men are without excuse.
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
*Be sure to step all the way outside. The Darwin Imagineers
have built a whole amusement park around their theater Fantasyland (02/22/2008,
10/08/2008, etc.), featuring Tinker Bell flitting about Charlies Magic Kingdom,
zapping animals at random with her mutation wand, and Goofy, trying to turn mistakes into innovations, a-hyulk!
Remember, theyre only actors being paid to make it look like wishing upon a star makes your dreams come true.
They bleed when theyre cut, like other mortals but they also have intelligently designed blood clotting
mechanisms at the rescue. And they go to the hospital outside Fantasyland, where altruistic people with real souls
give them love and care.
Darwin in Space without a Helmet
May 26, 2010 Space agencies may one day have Charles Darwin to thank for the longevity of their spacecraft,
began an article in New
Scientist. This seems a strange thing to write about a biologist who knew nothing of space travel.
The life expectancy of a popular type of ion engine has been almost doubled using software that mimics the way natural
selection evolves ever fitter designs. This seems a strange thing to write about a biologist who knew nothing
of software, engines or ions.
Cody Farnell, a space flight engineer at Colorado State University, was inspired by the
father of evolutionary theory to design evolution-mimicking software called a
genetic algorithm (GA), the article explained. It randomly varied the grid geometry and the
voltages applied to it for a new ion-drive spacecraft engine design. Farnell considered these values as roughly
analogous to genes in biology. If the performance was promising, the genetic material
was subjected to further random changes, or mutation, and this process was repeated until no more improvements were forthcoming,
the article said survival of the fittest.
Farnell did not say if his engine had to fight with other engines for mates,
or whether females of the species had to lay eggs or raise their young. Its
also not clear whether the engines would be able to fend for themselves in the wild
without Farnells intelligently guiding hands.
Darwin needs the oxygen of intelligent design to breathe,
just like other mortals.
Whos Denying the Evidence?
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
May 25, 2010 An interesting phenomenon is going on among science news reporters: accusations that denialists are
lurking about. We are told that deniers or denialists are refusing to accept scientific evidence and are clinging to
belief systems in spite of the facts. That would certainly be a serious charge, but it can also be a mask for a
denialist to hide behind. How is a bystander to decide who is the real denier?
Controversy has a long tradition in science. As we saw in the 05/21/2010 entry,
some science educators believe vigorous argumentation should be encouraged. That means that claims should be denied,
and counter-claims should be offered in their stead. Most issues of leading journals have
sections where scientists take issue with each others positions on recent claims. In last weeks issue
of Science (05/21/2010), for example, there were five letters to the editor, signed by 71 scientists some of them very well
known arguing about the meteor impact hypothesis for the Cretaceous extinctions. Undoubtedly the pro-impact scientists feel their evidence is
compelling, but what if they resorted to calling their opponents denialists for refusing to agree?
Only an emotional divide would result maybe even a name-calling war. In the same way, the use of loaded words
like denier and denialist must be examined in context to see if it is warranted, or is rather a means
initiated the subject with a special report, Living in denial. The caption lumped together various
subjects of questionable affinity in an image
of warfare: From climate change to vaccines, evolution to flu, denialists are on the march.
Why are so many people refusing to accept what the evidence is telling them? Right away, readers got
a taste of the message New Scientist wanted to convey, and right away, Darwin-loving ex-Christian apostate professional
skeptic Michael Shermer was there to preach the opening sermon. In his message for
Living in Denial: When a skeptic isnt a skeptic, Shermer was careful to cloak science in non-ideological terms:
What sometimes happens is that people confuse these two types of questions scientific and ideological.
This is the either-or fallacy, failing to
recognize that scientism is itself an ideology. Shermer also set his stage to ensure that he was skeptical
of everything except his own skepticism. Thus, one practical way to distinguish between a sceptic and a denier is the extent to which
they are willing to update their positions in response to new information, Shermer explained.
Sceptics change their minds. Deniers just keep on denying. Yet when Shermer was given
new information by Stephen Meyer in a debate about Signature in the Cell a few months ago, he did not update
his beliefs about intelligent design; he just kept on denying it.
Next in the series, Deborah MacKenzie continued the theme in
Scientist with her contribution, Living in denial: Why sensible people reject the truth. Her entry
was a shameless concoction of association (mixing global warming with evolution with fear
of vaccination), fear-mongering (evil corporations, death by HIV, suffering children),
and glittering generalities the systematic rejection of a body of science in favour of make-believe.
It was hardly worthy of scholarly analysis.
Richard Panzers entry in the New
Scientist series, Living in Denial: How Corporations Manufacture Doubt, is a short but interesting study about
corporate disinformation campaigns. It does not bear on origins, so is not of direct concern to this news service.
Similarly, Jim Giles entry in New
Scientist, Living in Denial: Unleashing a lie, tells how the Big Lie is hard to
stop in the Internet age. As always, let the buyer beware. And dont forward messages without checking them out.
Michael Fitzpatricks entry in the New
Scientist series was a blast of cool air in the heat: Living in denial: Questioning science isnt blasphemy.
Contrary to the others, Fitzpatrick encouraged dissent and criticized labeling people as deniers. He said,
The epithet denier is increasingly used to bash anyone who dares to question orthodoxy.
Among other things, deniers are accused of subordinating science to ideology. Its a form of
ad hominem attack, he argued: How ironic.
The concept of denialism is itself inflexible, ideological and intrinsically anti-scientific.
It is used to close down legitimate debate by insinuating moral deficiency in those expressing dissident views,
he continued. It serves not to refute your opponent so much as to question his motives. Fitzpatrick did not
claim that pseudoscience is not a problem, but insists that name-calling is not the solution. Such attempts to
combat pseudoscience by branding it a secular form of blasphemy are illiberal and intolerant, he said.
They are also ineffective, tending not only to reinforce cynicism about science but also to promote a distrust
for scientific and medical authority that provides a rallying point for pseudoscience.
Scientist gave Michael Shermer the last word. In Living in denial: The Truth is our only weapon,
Shermer implied that truth exists. So if deniers of truth exist, how should we respond to them? At least
he still believes in the open marketplace of ideas: My answer is this: let them be heard. Examine their evidence.
Consider their interpretation. If they have anything of substance to say, then the truth will out.
Shermer associated Holocaust deniers with evolution deniers: Holocaust denial has
always been on the fringe, but other forms notably creationism and climate denial wield considerable influence and
show no signs of going away. In such cases, eternal vigilance is the price we must pay for both freedom and truth, he said.
But at least he was thoughtful enough to consider the possibility he could be wrong, or even if not, that his views could
someday become the minority and would not want his views suppressed by the majority. So Shermer believes in the Golden Rule.
He seems to be reaching into his Christian childhood for concepts of truth and fairness, because it is questionable where
he would find such concepts in Darwinism. Casey Luskin on Evolution
News & Views called this a conflicted message.
Speaking of minorities, Roger Harrabin found himself in a bit of a minority recently at a Climate skeptics
rally in Chicago. As a reporter for the BBC News,
he did his best to present the majority in that venue as a bunch of right-wing fanatics, though he did have to acknowledge that among
the group was noted geologist and Apollo astronaut Harrison Schmidt, who believes that the current climate change is
part of a natural cycle, and some other notable scientists.
Scientist has had another series called Culture Lab. An entry by Amanda Gefter on May 24 bears on the issue of
denialism. Accompanied by a photo of atheist protestors at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, her article,
Tracing the fuzzy boundaries of science, dealt with the demarcation problem how does one separate
science from pseudoscience? Gefter acknowledges that the problem is harder than it might seem. Speaking of
the Dover case, she said It was obvious that the proponents of ID were trying to push a religious agenda into
government-funded schools, violating the separation of church and state, but Nonetheless, Judge Joness
task was not simple. He had to rule on whether or not ID is science, and distinguishing science from pseudoscience is harder
than it might seem. Philosophers have long realized that Karl Poppers falsification criterion is too
simplistic, for instance.
Instead, Gefter found solace in Nonsense on Stilts: How to tell science from bunk by Massimi Pigliucci
(University of Chicago Press), a brilliant book, which ought to be required reading for, well, everyone.
How did Pigliucci attempt to solve the demarcation problem? The construction and testing of hypotheses with
systematic observations or experiments is not enough. A science needs some kind of explanatory framework,
too. Applying that test to astrology, Gefter explains, shows that there is no explanatory framework for why the
constellations, which are mere optical illusions based on our position, could influence our behavior. General
relativity, by contrast, not only makes predictions that have been confirmed but explains what gravity is.
Next, she attempted to apply Pigliuccis demarcation criteria to intelligent design:
When Judge Jones issued his ruling, he declared that ID is not science because it invokes supernatural causation and because it
employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s. A contrived
dualism is a false dichotomy if evolution is wrong then ID must be right and it highlights IDs lack of explanatory power.
ID is nothing more than an attack on evolution; in and of itself it is nothing more than a belief in God. To see what I mean, try this
experiment if you ever find yourself talking to a proponent of ID. Say, OK, for the sake of argument lets say evolution is
wrong and lets forget about it. Now tell me how intelligent design works. Having tried this a few times myself, I
am confident that you will be met with nothing but an awkward silence.
Gefter thus ruled ID as pseudoscience, because it is rooted in religion. She and Pigliucci
ruled three other things as almost science evolutionary psychology, string theory and SETI,
because they are potentially scientific, but not yet grounded in scientific evidence.
Gefter ended by taking potshots at the extremes: the postmodernism of Foucault,
the outlandish claims of Feyerabend, and the relativists. She positioned herself as a solid
progressivist, believing that Bayesian inference and good philosophy of science can nudge us closer
and closer to the truth:
The idea that science cant tell us anything about the objective world just because it is a human activity fraught with human flaws
and biases is easily refuted the minute that planes fly or atomic bombs explode. Scientists, meanwhile, do us a disservice when
they promote scientism the idea that science can answer every meaningful question we might ask about the world.
Gefter likes philosophy of science some philosophy of science. She likes logic some logic.
Philosophers of science were some of Judge Joness best resources in the Dover trial and they are some of our best resources
as a society dealing with the consequences of science in our everyday lives, she concluded. Pigliucci is a perfect example.
For more on Bayesian induction, see Bayesian Epistemology at the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
particularly section 6, Potential Problems.
Between postmodernism and scientism lies a middle way by which objective knowledge of the world can emerge.
We ought to think about science as a Bayesian algorithm, Pigliucci argues, echoing the sentiment of many contemporary philosophers of science.
Bayesian algorithms calculate probabilities of future events or observations based on prior knowledge. As we gain new knowledge,
we feed that back into the equation, updating our priors and leading to increasingly accurate predictions. In this way,
little by little, science nudges us closer to understanding the way the world really is.
There are many names, issues and fallacies in these articles, too many to discuss in detail, but hopefully
you latched onto some of them already.
Could This Protein Delay Aging?
To whet your appetite, lets return to a rhetorical projection theme weve
used before (02/01/2007 commentary)
that is not that unbelievable historically. The Darwinians are usurpers, who have overtaken the castle of science
and driven the rightful owners out. They have taken over walls and monuments they did not build, leaving the founders and
builders camped outside. The Darwin Party also took ownership of the army and propaganda machinery. Every time the
rightful owners demand entry, the usurpers lob stinkbombs over the walls and laugh. Meanwhile, the Darwin Party propaganda machine
keeps the peasants inside persuaded that they are the true owners. They set up a Sacred Tree in the temple shrine dedicated
to King Charles, whom they parade regularly in his New Clothes at regular intervals with pomp and bombast. Anyone who steps
out of line is quickly expelled and sent outside the walls. To maintain the illusion of scientific fairness, occasional
parleys with the enemy are arranged, but these are carefully controlled such that the enemy is never given any real power or
opportunity for rebuttal in the Party-controlled media, which carefully filter what the peasants are allowed to hear.
But lately, the peasants have been seeing increasing anxiety on the part of their handlers. Whispers are going around
that the New Clothes are not what they seem; messages from outside the wall are getting through that maybe they can trust their eyes after all.
Simplistic? Perhaps. New Scientist has offered more nuanced material than this, but it is still
very one-sided and filtered. Heres Shermer: We KNOW that evolution is a fact fact fact and the creationists
are a bunch of narrow-minded, bigoted pseudoscientific simpletons who wont go away no matter how much I wish they would,
but for a moment, Ill grant the slightest, remote possibility that they might have a grain of truth in some of the things
they are saying, and if we stomp on them too hard, and they win the masses and turn on us, they might take revenge, which could
hurt my retirement, so wed better play nice and endure them and just try to listen to them and convince them, because
the TRUTH is our only weapon. Isnt he just charming. Dr. Shermer, you loving little skeptic, you, tell us:
where did truth come from? Did it evolve? If truth evolves, is it really the truth?
Where did the Golden Rule come from? Did you find it in Origin of Species? If a rule evolves, is it really
a rule? If a different rule can take its place tomorrow, was it ever golden? Suppose we do become the majority
someday, and decide your kind are a danger to society, and should all be locked up. Explain on what moral grounds you
should stop us other than survival of the fittest.
Heres Amanda Gefter, a materialist charismatic (04/11/2009):
Philosophy of science is wonderful as long as I get to pick the
philosophers that allow me to punch a creationist. Finding demarcation criteria between science and pseudoscience is
hard but Pigliucci is such a genius, he made it easy. Hes almost as great a philosopher of science as
Judge John E. Jones. I never realized how easy it is. Give me a bag and let me write explanatory framework
on it, and give me another bag and let me write Empty on it, and I get to decide which systems to put in one bag
or the other. I dont like intelligent designs explanatory filter, so Im going to put it into the
Empty bag. I dont like having to explain how chance works in Darwinism, so Im going to dodge that
and ask an I.D. person how God works. I dont like having to explain Darwinist miracles of emergence, so Im
going to tease I.D. people by forcing them to tell how intelligent agents work. Of course, I dont ask that
of SETI people, so well put them in the halfway house and call them almost scientists. But I digress.
Back to our mission: lets all follow the Yellow Bayes Road and we will someday reach the Wizard of Understanding!
Isnt she just charming, Pigliucci tales and all. Thank goodness Fitzpatrick was there to bring us back
to Kansas (12/05/2008).
Next headline on:
Politics and Ethics
Bible and Theology
May 24, 2010 Its called Heat Shock Protein 10. It responds to
stress, and might just slow the aging process, scientists are finding.
reported, Scientists in the UK and the U.S. have discovered that a protein which responds
to stress can halt the degeneration of muscle mass caused during the bodys aging process.
Why do humans lose 25-30% of their muscle strength between the ages of 50 to 70?
Why do they become more susceptible to falls? Could increased levels of heat shock protein 10 (HSP10)
lead to preservation of muscle strength and better quality of life for seniors? A professor
involved in the study said, Our research is the first to demonstrate that age-related loss
of skeletal muscle mass is not inevitable and this could have considerable implications
for the future health care of the elderly.
The book of Genesis says people lived for hundreds of years
before and after the Flood. Methuselah lived for 969 years. People bore children
well into centuries. There is nothing theoretically impossible about it, if
physiological repair mechanisms were working properly. After the Flood, longevity began plummeting
substantially, but even at the time of the patriarchs it was common to be healthy to the age of
150 years. Factors such as UV radiation from a changing atmosphere, new virulent diseases, or mutational load
from a genetic bottleneck on the Ark, could have been responsible.
Butterfly Wing Veins Are Not in Vain
Since sin entered the world, God has put a time limit
on each individuals sojourn on this planet; It is appointed unto man once to die,
and after this the judgment (Hebrews
9:27). Thank goodness evildoers no longer have centuries to work their wickedness.
These days, politicians would certainly have to reconsider Social Security laws if we had Methuselahs
retiring at 65. Its interesting to consider, though, that there are no
inevitabilities to aging as we know it. Through molecular biology and genetics we can discover the cellular
mechanisms responsible for the aging process and perhaps adjust some of them to extend the
quality of life of our senior years before the cosmic ray with your name on it hits you.
Death can be delayed but not denied. Even Methuselah probably thought it came too soon.
But now that the Lord Jesus Christ has taken our judgment for us, death can be the doorway to
eternal life with our Maker, by faith (Hebrews 10-13).
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints ().
Will you be at your welcome home party?
Next headline on:
Bible and Theology
May 23, 2010 Inventors made an artificial butterfly modeled on the tiger swallowtail.
First they made the wing without veins. It didnt fly as well as when they added veins
like the real butterfly, according to a short video clip in an article on
Scientist. The veined wing provided more lift.
The inventors at Harvards microrobotics lab power their butterfly-type ornithopter
or BTO with just a rubber band. Its the first flying insect replica that matches the real thing
in size and weight, they said. The article says their project has been published in
Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, DOI: 10.1088/1748-3182/5/2/026003.
It matches in weight with a rubber band. Now try keeping the
weight constant while providing constant flapping power from an energy source, and providing the
ability to extract energy from the environment, remote sensing with compound eyes and elaborate
coded olfactory senses, rapid-firing muscles, photonic crystals, articulating limbs, and the ability to reproduce
with four-stage metamorphosis via a complex genetic coded transcription and translation system using
thousands of molecular machines. That will be the day
Harvard can brag a little. Just like the real thing the photo caption says
next to a photo of a tiger swallowtail. Theyve got to be kidding. Its
nothing more than a cheap dime-store toy painted like a butterfly on the outside. Well
give them partial credit for learning something about wing veins having a purpose, and for
avoiding mention of evolution.
An important paper on the worldwide fossil record and whether or not is shows evolution was analyzed in the
05/21/2004 entry. Learn what the phrase
tweak space means.
Next headline on:
Venter Group Plagiarizes Genetic Code
May 22, 2010 Is plagiarism a form of intelligent design? We think of intelligent design
in terms of God and creation, but in generic terms, I.D. only refers to purposeful, designed action by
an agent any agent, large or small, good or evil. A planned murder, for instance, can be an evil form of intelligent design.
A forensic team can use
design detection techniques to ferret out the evidence between death by murder over death
by natural causes. In the same way, an attorney general can
determine, using design detection techniques, whether an ad campaign broke copyright laws, and a
professor can discern whether a student borrowed someone elses material to write a term paper.
The news is filled with dramatic announcements that Craig Venters lab has created an organism
with the first synthetic genome. How should this achievement, dramatic and
groundbreaking though it is, be understood?
Science headlined the story, First Live Organism with Synthetic Genome Created.
The word created was emphatic in the article; the J. Craig Venter Institute says
they have succeeded in creating the first living organism with a completely synthetic genome.
It almost sounds like the lab created something entirely new from scratch artificial life.
New Scientist even used religious overtones, dubbing it an Immaculate Creation.
A closer look, though, shows that the synthetic genome still used the 4-letter code of a living bacterium,
and used its own transcription and translation machinery. It would be a little like a programmer
inserting a USB drive with a program into an existing computer; the computer has to have the operating system
and software to recognize the code. This is a far cry from making a computer with its own code
and operating system, like the terms artificial life and completely synthetic genome imply.
Science Dailys headline was a little
more accurate, saying, Scientists Boot Up a Bacterial Cell With a Synthetic Genome,
but even then, Venters team relied on an operating system and coding system that was already defined.
The Venter Institute found out some things about genomes by experience. Notably,
they are not very forgiving. Even a tiny inaccuracy could prevent the inert DNA from
activating into a live bacterium, making accuracy paramount, the Live Science article recounted.
At one point, a single base pair mistake set the entire program back three months.
The team also added panic code that would kill the organism if it left the lab, and took part in
a bioethical review before the project. Its part of an ongoing process that weve been driving,
trying to make sure that the science proceeds in an ethical fashion, that were being thoughtful about what we do
and looking forward to the implications to the future, Venter said.
Unlike surreptitious plagiarizers, the Venter Institute proudly planted watermarks in
their genome. The researchers deliberately inserted four sequences of DNA that serve as
watermarks so they could distinguish between the naturally occurring and synthetic bacteria,
Live Science reported. The watermarks contain a code that translates DNA into English letters
with punctuation, allowing the scientists to literally write messages with the genes.
So what did they write? The 46 researchers included their names, and the names of some famous
scientists, and a URL that anyone who deciphers the code can e-mail.
Geneticists keep walking right into the I.D. trap. Why dont
they acknowledge it? If an alien civilization discovered Venters genome, and read the names,
would they be justified in making an inference to design? Of course. Then why would they
be forced, according to the rules of the NCSE and the Darwin Party, to say that the
explanation for the genetic code itself is blind chance and necessity?
A message is a message. A function is a function. If the function of a URL is to allow a human
to send an email, and the function of a signal transduction system is to send a hormone to a chromosome
to stop or start transcription of a gene, whats the difference? These are both examples of messages that
carry out functions.
Are we to assume that Venters lab found it worthwhile to plagiarize chaos? That would be
like a professor giving a student an F for turning in a term paper that plagiarized gibberish.
May 22, 2010 Science has become the de facto authority in our culture, but it has feet of clay.
Despite its obvious successes in technology, science has left us with fundamental questions in every area it tries to
explain physics, cosmology, biology, evolution that cast serious doubt on sciences grasp
on external reality. These can be seen in leaps in the dark like the multiverse hypothesis and the anthropic
principle that bring scientists kicking and screaming back to the need for a supreme being as an alternative to chaos. But who is
the intelligent designer? Has he not communicated to us? For Christians and Jews, the Bible is that
communication, and it opens with the book of Genesis. Despised and rejected by science of our day, Genesis stands
unequaled in literature, awaiting serious, scholarly and respectful evaluation.
Another lesson from this story is to avoid news media hype. This is an incremental
step, not a breakthrough. Geneticists have been doing genetic engineering for years,
including genetic watermarking. Scientists have inserted genes for insulin in bacteria, and
genes for spider silk in goats. Venters lab has taken existing genes from bacteria and
performed some reverse engineering on it, then inserted it back into the hardware of a living cell. Any way
you look at it, its intelligent design. Venter, your work owes nothing to the Darwin Party
and its ideology. Get on board with the I.D. Movement and give credit where credit is due.
Next headline on:
Politics and Ethics
That evaluation has been provided in a book by 14 Bible scholars who take Genesis seriously.
Coming to Grips with Genesis (Master Books, 2008) counters the rationalist and old-earth compromise positions
with a fresh defense of the conservative interpretation of Genesis 1-11 from literary, theological, internal and historical
evidence. Edited by Dr. Terry Mortenson (PhD in the history of geology), and Dr. Thane Hutcherson Ury
(PhD, systematic theology), with a foreword by Dr. John MacArthur, this book contains chapters analyzing the verbs of Genesis 1, the
genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11, the theology of death and natural evil before Adams sin, the teachings of
Jesus regarding Adam and a young earth, and other topics defending the historical view of creation and the global Flood
accepted by Jesus, the apostles and the church since ancient times. See table of contents on
Old Testament Studies.
The book makes a good complement to Earths Catastrophic Past (Resource
of the Week for 01/16/2010) on the scientific evidence. Available from
Answers in Genesis
Next resource of the week: 05/15/2010.
All resources: Catalog.
Should Darwin Get a Pass in Science Class?
May 21, 2010 In many public school science classrooms today, Darwinism is taught uncritically as a
scientific fact. Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) defends
that practice, and Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute (DI) contests it. This month the two in their
own venues argued their points of view, and another educator weighed in on a larger issue about science education.
In Nature,1 Scott wrote a book review of How Science Works: Evolution. A Student Primer
by R. John Ellis (Springer, 2010). The phrase How science works is often one of her own catch-phrases,
so it would seem she would warm up to this pro-Darwin book, but she had some criticisms. The public misunderstands
and mistrusts the scientific explanation of evolution more than any other branch of research, particularly in the United States,
she began. She thought Ellis did a pretty good job explaining how science works: Students learn about testing multiple hypotheses,
reliance on natural causes, the open-endedness of science, its lack of dogmatism and the function of peer review and replicating results.
But she got a little nervous when he went overboard on his naturalism:
He contrasts naturalism the ideology that only the physical universe exists, operating according to inbuilt,
unvarying regularities with supernaturalism, the view that non-physical active agents interact with
the physical world. Religion, the belief in some superhuman controlling power or powers, is a subset of the latter,
he writes. Ellis distinguishes between the methodological and philosophical aspects of naturalism, but regularly conflates
it with science, which is not an ideology.
Scott also had problems with his uneven definitions of evolution. She thinks he
gave short shrift to common ancestry. He defined evolution as change in genetic composition of
populations with time, hardly a phrase pregnant with images of bacteria to man. She thought his
definition of homology also left the reader with the wrong impression that homology is merely anatomical similarity.
This book review, therefore, shows Scotts views remain the same as when she debated Phillip Johnson in the 1980s:
Science is not an ideology, the rules of science require methodological naturalism, the only methodologically naturalistic
view of biology available is Darwinian evolution, because it does not involve supernaturalism, therefore we must teach
Darwin in the schools and keep out creationism and intelligent design. Scotts last paragraph says all the
reader needs to know about her views, by the company she prefers. It is welcome when scientists explain evolution to the public.
But for a better introduction to the topic I would recommend Jerry Coynes Why Evolution is True (Viking, 2009),
Richard Dawkinss The Greatest Show on Earth (Free Press, 2009), Donald Protheros Evolution
(Columbia University Press, 2007) and Neil Shubins Your Inner Fish (Pantheon, 2008).
Casey Luskin begs to differ. Students benefit from hearing Darwinism taught scientifically,
he said (i.e., with critical thinking), and he wrote a new paper to support it. The paper, based on a presentation
he gave last fall at the University of St. Thomas, has been published in the universitys
Journal of Law & Public Policy,2 The paper made three points summarized
by Luskin on Evolution News & Views:
The full paper can be downloaded as a PDF file from the
- The inquiry method of teaching science stresses process over content.
- There are no legal obstacles to teaching scientific critiques of prevailing theories.
- There is ample evidence of controversy in evolutionary literature.
Luskin got support for his thesis from an unexpected source Science magazine, usually
a staunchly pro-Darwin, pro-NCSE source. Last month, Jonathan Osborne (School of Education, Stanford University) wrote a review article entitled,
Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,3
in which he said basically the same thing: students benefit by learning the process of debate about controversial
subjects including evolution.
Argument and debate are common in science, yet they are virtually absent from science education. Recent research shows, however, that opportunities for students to engage in collaborative discourse and argumentation offer a means of enhancing student conceptual understanding and students skills and capabilities with scientific reasoning. As one of the hallmarks of the scientist is critical, rational skepticism, the lack of opportunities to develop the ability to reason and argue scientifically would appear to be a significant weakness in contemporary educational practice. In short, knowing what is wrong matters as much as knowing what is right. This paper presents a summary of the main features of this body of research and discusses its implications for the teaching and learning of science.
Osborne goes on to say that argumentation is not peripheral to the practice of science, but
core to its practice, and without argument and evaluation, the construction of reliable knowledge would be impossible.
In education, however, scientific explanations are given with the presumption that they are true.
Students are not being given the opportunity to experience how claims are supported by evidence,
warrants, and qualifiers, and subjected to counter-claims, rebuttals and counter-arguments.
Consequently, science can appear to its students as a monolith of facts, an authoritative
discourse where the discursive exploration of ideas, their implications, and their importance is absent,
Osborne lamented. Students then emerge with naïve ideas or misconceptions about the nature of science itself,
even though the AAAS and National Research Council endorse the value of argumentation in learning science.
This is all fine and good, but surely Osborne is not referring to evolution, is he?
Arent all educators and scientists insistent that evolution is a scientific fact, about which
there is no reason to argue?
The study of reasoning also offers an opportunity to explore the types of arguments used in science, which may be abductive
(inferences to the best possible explanation), such as Darwins arguments for the theory of evolution; hypothetico-deductive,
such as Pasteurs predictions about the outcome of the first test of his anthrax vaccine; or simply inductive generalizations
archetypal represented by laws.
Osborne pointed out that students find classroom teaching that emphasizes argumentation skills much
more engaging, too. He ended by arguing that science education cannot be separated from matters of epistemology:
research has demonstrated that teaching students to reason, argue, and think critically will enhance students
conceptual learning. This will only happen, however, if students are provided structured opportunities to engage
in deliberative exploration of ideas, evidence, and argumentin short, how we know what we know, why it matters, and how it came to be.
1. Eugenie Scott, Back to basics by way of evolution,
465, 164, 13 May 2010, doi:10.1038/465164a.
2. Casey Luskin, The Constitutional and Pedagogical Benefits of Teaching Evolution Scientifically,
University of St. Thomas Journal of Law & Public Policy,
Vol. IV(1):204-277 (Fall, 2009).
3. Jonathan Osborne, Arguing to Learn in Science: The Role of Collaborative, Critical Discourse,
Science23 April 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5977, pp. 463 - 466, DOI: 10.1126/science.1183944.
The problem with Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education is that
she never received a good science education. She got a defective education from the triumphalist Julian Huxley
era when logical positivism was in swing and Darwinism was presented as a done deal. That was before Quine
and Kuhn and Feyerabend upset all the applecarts; Lakatos, Laudan, van Fraasen and many others undermined everything
we thought we understood about how science works. Even Osbornes short list begs many questions
about scientific reasoning i.e., what is meant by a law of nature? Scott is living in the 1940s and needs a
refresher course in how science works. She needs to learn about abductive reasoning (used extensively by Stephen Meyer in
Signature in the Cell). She also needs a refresher course in logic so that she does not make
self-refuting statements, like stating the ideology that methodological naturalism is not an ideology,
or claiming that science cannot refer to the supernatural, but then employing reason to make that claim, when
reason is not made of particles or forces, and refers to logical truths that are universal, timeless, necessary and certain.
A Hairy Evolution Story
Eugenie Scott needs to go take classes in Philosophy of Science and Elementary Logic, particularly
in how not to be inconsistent. Her definition of science includes testing multiple hypotheses, as long as the hypothesis selection process
can exclude ones she doesnt like. Her science is fine with natural causes,
as long as she can dip into the supernatural causes she needs, like logic and reason. Her science is open-ended,
as long as she can close off the ends she doesnt like. Her science lacks dogmatism,
as long as she can be dogmatic about the parts she wants to be dogmatic about. Her science is fine with peer review,
as long as the pool of peers is protected against the peers she doesnt like. Her science is fine with replicating results,
as long as she doesnt have to replicate the parts she cant, like universal common descent. Her science
believes in following the rules of how science works, as long as she and her totalitarian Darwin Party hacks get to make the rules.
Is this the kind of shallow, uninformed, naïve, partisan, illogical thinking that should be representing science education at school boards?
Do a good deed for your country: send the NCSE back to school.
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
May 20, 2010 A mammal hair was found in amber. It is claimed to be
100 million years old, but it is identical to modern mammal hair. What is
the meaning of this find? How should it be interpreted? It may say more
about the modern evolutionist than about evolution itself.
Scientist told the story. The title read like a crime scene: CSI 100 million years BC: oldest mammalian hair found.
Romain Vullo at the University of Rennes I in France discovered the hair in a piece of amber (petrified tree sap) in southern France.
This is the oldest sample of mammal hair ever found, the article said.
Reporter Shanta Barley explained right off the bat that the evidence is plain and simple: The scales on the hair
which provide its protective waterproof cover are identical to those found on the hairs of mammals walking the Earth today.
She reinforced the point later: It turns out that the pattern is identical to that found on modern mammalian hair:
rows of overlapping scales stacked on top of each other in an orderly fashion, with each row roughly 2 to 8 micrometres high.
The scientists examining the hair had a little fun imagining what the animal was and how it died.
It might have been a small opossum-like animal, and it might have been running up a tree when it got stuck in the tree
sap. Interpreting the ancient crime scene where the hairs owner died is fraught with difficulties,
Barley noted. Whats really noteworthy is how to explain the hair being identical to modern hair after
100 million years of evolutionary time. Thats where Vullo should have closed his mouth,
because he just won Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week: Perhaps mammalian hair does its job so well that it does not need to evolve.
Once upon a time, children, Hairy and Skinny were clinging to Mr. Opossum in the mystic forest.
Skinny looked at the fantastic array of dinosaurs, birds, mammals and reptiles around him, and thought, Im so
plain and skinny. I really need to reach my potential. I need to stretch and learn new things.
Someday Ill become covering for a whale or an elephant. Ill be a fat hippopotamus and develop
my own sunscreen (05/25/2004). Ill cover fantastic creatures large and small. My sensors will become so fine,
they will rapidly move along the strings of musical instruments, and cover the scalps of philosophers!
Hairy just laughed at all this. You dreamers and visionaries, he said, you always have your
head in the clouds. Dont you realize how many mutations you are going to have to suffer through to wait for
those things to emerge? Skinny sighed, deflated at the prospect. You should be like me, Hairy
said. I dont worry. I do my job so well, I dont need to evolve!
If explaining wings once is a challenge for Darwinists, how can they explain insect wings re-evolving multiple times?
Feel their pain in the 05/28/2003 entry.
Cut, print, publish. Thats genius. Thats the thinking of a real scientist.
Children, arent you glad we have scientists to entertain us with stories of how we got here?
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
How Science Is Done: Upsetting Applecarts
May 19, 2010 Hardly a week goes by without some scientific finding upsetting an
applecart a long-held belief. Often, those beliefs are scientific theories
taught in textbooks by science professors. Defenders of science say that this is the way science works.
Its a self-correcting process, they argue; its to be expected that new data
will lead to adjustments to theories. Is that true, or a marketing spin?
How would anyone tell? Some examples might help. Here are some recent
scientific applecarts that have been upset, according to the news and science journals.
Upsetting applecarts is the way science is done, we are told. Hopefully quite
a few of them are getting upset from upside-down or sideways into the right-side-up position. If the total
number of applecarts in the right-side-up position is increasing over time, defenders
of scientific progress have a case. They are clearly right for the instances where
practical payoffs are visible to everyone: either a rocket gets to a planet, or it
does not; either a signal makes it across the ocean, or it doesnt. But for scientific
theories with no clear payoff, like theories about stellar life cycles, planet formation,
black holes and evolutionary common ancestry, how can anyone tell if scientists are fixing more applecarts
than they are turning upside down? What is the metric to show they are faring better
than a randomly-selected population of clever storytellers could do, given each had a fairly
good understanding of the data and physical parameters involved?
- Standard candles Not: Supernovas are the standard candles astronomers
use for measuring vast distances in space. At first there was one type, then two.
Then astronomers found sub-types within those. Now, according to
Two faint supernovas unlike any star explosions ever seen before may have exploded in the same way,
or they may differ, but in either case are breaking down categories that distinguish one type of
stellar death from another.
- Water from the rock: Numerous TV documentaries about the history of Planet Earth
have shown the oceans coming special delivery from comets. Now,
Science Daily is claiming
that a new study using silver isotopes indicates that water and other key volatiles may have been present in at
least some of Earths original building blocks, rather than acquired later from comets,
as some scientists have suggested. But then, that explanation conflicts with dating
of Earths crust from hafnium and tungsten. To solve the puzzle, the scientists
appealed to a model of planet formation called heterogeneous accretion, the
article said. This solution ads whatever hoc is necessary to get the two results together.
- Insights into speciation, or outsights?
reported on work by Jeffrey Feder at U of Notre Dame that contradicts a prevailing
assumption about speciation. His work conflicts with current thinking
and he claims that past work on the genomics of speciation lacked experimental data
despite being the main subject of Charles Darwins book 150 years ago.
- Back to the Easter Island drawing board: You know those roads on Easter Island?
They werent for transporting the large statues (moai). They were built for ceremonial
purposes, reported PhysOrg.
The find will create controversy among the many archaeologists who have dedicated years to
finding out exactly how the moai were moved, ever since Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl
first published his theory in 1958. This team accused Heyerdahl of being
so swayed by his cast iron belief that the roads were for transportation he completely ignored them.
But then, are we sure about todays claims? Dr. Colin Richards said, The truth of the matter is,
we will never know how the statues were moved.
- Dinosaur demotion: A dinosaur got demoted to primitive pre-dinosaur reptile.
According to Science Daily,
Azendohsaurus madagaskarensis is not a dinosaur, and never was a dinosaur. Its
now a member of Archosauromorpha, a group that includes birds and crocodilians but not lizards,
snakes, or turtles. They figured this out by analyzing the whole skull, not just
the jaws and teeth.
John J. Flynn, curator in the Division of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History,
commented on the reclassification and reinterpretation of this specimen.
This is the way science works, he said. But in the next breath, he revealed
that the new interpretation drew on a theory-rescuing device called convergent evolution
explaining similar features in unrelated lineages by saying they both hit on the same solution
independently. As we found and analyzed more material, it made us realize that this
was a much more primitive animal and the dinosaur-like features were really the product of convergent evolution,
he said. As if to take the edge off that line, his colleague Andre Wyss added a
cheerful note: In many ways Azendohsaurus ends up being a much more fantastic animal
than if it simply represented a generic early dinosaur.
Behind him, though, was a can of
worms the reclassification opened. Archosaurs were thought to be primarily carnivorous
before now. Now there are many more cases of herbivorous archosaurs. Wynn said.
We are rethinking the evolution of diet and feeding strategies, as well as the broader evolution
of the group. See also the Science
- Two inflations are better than one: Inflation theory was invented in the early 1980s to
solve some conundrums in cosmology. Since the idea caught on, it has undergone several transmogrifications.
Now, there is apparently a need for a second inflation reported Rachel Courtland in
Scientist. Some scientists at the University of Heidelberg have brought in a little inflation
to cover up additional conundrums caused by the first inflation. The idea has the sound of epic myth,
or at least of a whoosh of hand-waving. Last sentence: It just shows that the story might not be as simple as we think.
- Google lab: Citizen scientists can perform their own experiment
by doing a search on science news sites for the phrases, than thought and than previously
thought. For instance, PhysOrg reported
this week that scientists now believe The Earths mantle flows far more rapidly around a sinking
tectonic plate than previously thought, according to new computer modeling by UC Davis geologists.
(Ditto on Live Science.)
A quick search on the CEH search bar turned up 130 hits on these phrases used over the years.
Variations of the phrase can add to the collection, like this one on
Science Daily about genetic
secrets that are coming to light and changing views about genomic dark matter that
were once thought of as nothing more than junk DNA. The phrases
suggest the sound of applecarts turning over.
In the early days of the scientific revolution, science was not
a profession it was an avocation. Many early scientists earned degrees, and some taught
in universities, but many did their experimental work as a hobby because they loved nature, they loved truth, and
wanted to figure things out (browse our online biographies and see).
Undoubtedly many in the scientific community maintain that idealism, but there are good reasons
to doubt it is universal. The professionalization and institutionalization of science has
led to some distasteful consequences: tenure, political groveling for funding, good-old-boys clubs,
networking, going along to get along, and more (see lists in the
What motivation do some career scientists have to get the world right?
Theyve got tenure; theyve got a grant; theyve got grad students they have
to keep busy doing something; they have the respect of their peers. Like Pilate, they
can sneer, What is truth?. Thats of little concern in the humdrum
of keeping the status quo going, looking busy, dealing with each years batch of students,
and pumping out an occasional paper with grad students doing the hard work. They know
the news media will pick up whatever they say as the latest manna from heaven, a breakthrough
that sheds light on whatever and brings us Understanding. You might enjoy browsing through
PhD Comics for a humorous inside look
at academia. Its to the idealism of science what Dilbert is to free enterprise.
Mt. St. Helens Recalls Overturned Paradigms
Happily, many scientists are noble-minded, motivated, serious-minded people
of integrity. But they are that way in spite of the many distractions that pull them
toward mediocrity or business as usual. Announcing each finding as a revelation that
overturns previously-held beliefs plays on the short memories of people. In the short term,
it sounds like scientists are making progress. It keeps hope alive that science is
converging on the truth about the world. We must not be so naïve as to think that is
necessarily true. Like our commentaries have said, not all motion is progress; sometimes
it is just commotion in this case, turning applecarts upside down, only to turn
other ones right-side up, with no net gain in upright carts, but a lot of spilled apples.
One area where science can contribute to progress is in the collection and refinement of
raw data. Speculation thrives in the absence of data. Space missions like Cassini,
Herschel and MESSENGER, orbiters like Aviris and MLS that refine our measurements of climate,
the Human Genome Project and mapping genomes of other organisms, deep sea submarine robot explorations,
ever-increasing resolution in microscopy these at least provide the detail that can constrain
speculation. We sometimes confuse progress in data collection with progress in scientific
understanding. They are not one and the same. In the recent Titan story
(05/16/2010), we saw that Cassini has mapped 22% of Titans
surface with radar a fantastic scientific achievement. It does not necessarily follow
that scientists understand how Titan formed or how old it is. What the data collection does
is put some welcome shackles on the imaginations of storytellers. With fewer applecarts to upset,
and more apples in the bag, hopefully there will be less moldy applesauce on the ground.
Next headline on:
Stars and Astronomy
Darwin and Evolution
May 18, 2010 Thirty years ago this day, May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens blew up.
The catastrophic eruption not only shocked the area around the mountain, it shocked scientists
into a new realization of the power of catastrophist geology. The excitement of that
eruption prompted a surge of young new geologists to enter the profession. One thing that
is instructive on this anniversary is the difference in focus between creationists and
evolutionists on the lessons of Mt. St. Helens.
Live Science provided the most coverage of the anniversary. For starters,
Science posted a series of satellite images showing the vicinity of the mountain before
and after the eruption, and how it looks now, 30 years later. The amount of vegetation that
has recolonized the ground is striking. Live
Science also provided an image gallery of pictures before and after the eruption.
The first image shows the picturesque symmetrical cone of the mountain from Spirit Lake before the
event; all that changed suddenly the morning of May 18, as the remaining pictures show.
Geographic soon followed with its own gallery; the first two photos are worth the price of admission.
Karen Rowan answered the question Why was Mt. St. Helens so destructive? in another
Live Science post.
Considering the ecological effects of the event, Andrea Thompson on
Science provided a fairly lengthy inventory of the plants and animals in the blast zone
with a record of how they have fared since the eruption. Jeremy Hsu wrote for
that Mt. St. Helens remains a mystery still today. Finally, Remy Melina listed for
Science the most dangerous U.S. volcanoes today.
Those acquainted with creation geology literature are undoubtedly familiar
with the fact that Mt. St. Helens has become almost iconic of catastrophism as a support
for rapid change during creation and the Flood. The work of geologist Dr. Stephen A. Austin in particular has had
a large influence in creationist circles. Dr. Austin visited the mountain numerous times after the eruption, and
even took a team scuba-diving in Spirit Lake to study the effects of waterlogged trees sinking
in the peat sediments at the bottom. Some of the lessons from Mt. St. Helens for
catastrophic flood geology were summarized in his 1986 monograph, Mt. St. Helens and
Catastrophism, published by ICR.
He also produced a video (see short clip on YouTube)
and additional writings in creation journals. His findings include:
Discoveries of this magnitude would seem to be paradigm-shifting to the whole field of geology
and indeed they may have been even in some secular circles. Its not that his work can be
dismissed outright, either, just because Austin is a creationist. He has a PhD in geology from a
reputable institution, and his field work at the mountain was of the first order.
But strangely, Nature News
mentioned none of these things. Janet Fang wrote in her article, Hot science from a volcanic crisis,
that The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 left an indelible mark on the field of volcanology.
Indeed it did, but her focus was entirely on other lessons. She noted that volcanologists around the
world stood up and took notice on May 18, 1980, and after the blast, there was an explosion in funding and
a surge in research. Fang mentioned findings about predicting eruptions. She mentioned a new
kind of hummocky deposit that was observed after the blast that shed light on similar deposits in Japan.
She mentioned new theories about how magma rises to the surface through conduits, and new realizations
of the power of landslides and lateral blasts during eruptions. But she said nothing about any
of the points that Steve Austin found so interesting about Mt. St. Helens. Neither did the
writers for Live Science or National
Geographic. Were they even looking at the same mountain?
- A mudflow produced a 1/40th scale model of the Grand Canyon in one day.
- This canyon included a relict river that obviously had not formed the canyon.
- The canyon included side canyons and other features similar to those of the Grand Canyon.
- Pyroclastic flows produced laminated sedimentary deposits in hours, not centuries or millennia.
- The sedimentary deposits showed sudden shifts in bedforms caused by flow rates and source materials, not by long ages.
- Badlands topography along the Toutle River was formed in days, not thousands of years.
- Logs uprooted by the blast were being planted in upright positions at the bottom of Spirit Lake,
giving the appearance they had grown in that position. This was reminiscent of the Yellowstone fossil forests.
- A layer of peat buried in Spirit Lake has the texture and appearance of a coal deposit forming.
For Austins latest views on the lessons from the blast, see his article
this month on ICR,
Supervolcanoes and the Mount St. Helens Eruption.
has a response to criticisms of his claim about the mini-Grand Canyon at the volcano, with
additional images of the canyon.
The complete silence about Steven Austins research at Mt. St. Helens
by the secular media is stunning. Is it because his credentials are lacking? No; he has a PhD
from the University of Pennsylvania. Is it because his field work was unexceptional? No; he was
the only one to don scuba gear and dive to the bottom of Spirit Lake, and use sonar to map the lake bottom.
Is it because his findings with the canyons and stratification lacked significance? No; they were
revolutionary and explanatorily rich. They have been well received in creationist audiences
around the world, but completely passed over by the secular journals, although Austin has a number of colleagues
in the Geological Society of America that have taken interest in his work and spoken well of it. So much
of this phenomenon is political. If you are an overt creationist, as Austin is, it doesnt matter
how good your credentials and field work are. You will be shunned by The Guild, but welcomed by
millions of people who appreciate honest science that is willing to criticize Darwin and Lyell.
Like Magic: Spiders Convert Fluid to Steel-Strong Silk
Your commentator remembers visiting Yellowstone in the 1970s and early 1980s and seeing the
interpretive signs at the Lamar River fossil forests. They spoke of 27 layers of forests that grew
on top of one another over at least 20 thousand years. According to some estimates, it took 50 thousand
years, maybe 100 thousand for each layer to develop: a soil to form, small plants to invade, trees to grow,
a mature forest to develop, then a volcanic eruption to bury the forest and the cycle to repeat again.
Large sequoia stumps are visible in some of the layers. The standard scientific interpretation was that
here was clear evidence of a long passage of a time--much longer than the book of Genesis could allow.
You recall that it was this evidence that caused young Ronald Numbers in college to stumble and lose his
creationist beliefs (01/12/2007). Theistic evolutionists also
used the Yellowstone fossil forests to mock the young-earth creationists and insist there was no way to fit
earth history into a six-day creation. Look: the evidence was right there tens of thousands of
years to form those 27 layers of forests.
Your commentator also remembers re-visiting Yellowstone in 1994 and finding those interpretive
signs gone. Puzzled, he asked three different park rangers about them. Oh, we dont
believe that any more, was the typical response. Ever since Mt. St. Helens, weve come
to believe that lava flows rafted the trees in from some distance away. Then, your commentator
picked up a book in the visitor center, Roadside Geology of the Yellowstone Country by William J. Fritz
(Mountain Press, 1985). Sure enough, he said the same thing:
When I visited the Mount St. Helens area shortly after the eruption, it was just like Yellowstone!
I found many horizontal logs all lined up by the streams and mudflows and some upright stumps that had
been moved by the flows propped upon the stubs of their roots. I found that about 10 percent of the
transported trees remain as upright stumps, the rest as horizontal logs. The mudflows also buried
many standing trees where they grew along the edges of stream channels. Thus, in Yellowstone when
you find concentrations of over 10 percent upright stumps, some were preserved where they grew alongside
stream channels. A few million years from now when the Mount St. Helens sediments have hardened
into rock and the trees have petrified they will be almost like those in the Yellowstone Country.
Both the mudflows and the appearance of the trees is identical.
Aside from the fact that Dr. Fritz just made some reckless drafts on the bank of time, and that petrification
does not require millions of years (01/24/2005), he recognized
that a paradigm shift occurred the Yellowstone fossil forests did not require successive ages.
A catastrophic event is a better explanation. Now we have eyewitness observations to show how.
You can hike the trails up into the Lamar forests and find both upright and horizontal logs that are
analogous to what were seen at Mt. St. Helens. The stumps have their roots sheared off, and no evidence that they grew in soils.
A good analysis of the evidence can be found in geologist Harold Coffins book Origin by Design
(Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1983), ch. 11. The theistic evolutionists were wrong;
you can fit the evidence at Yellowstone in to a lot less time than the secular geologists claimed.
Does it prove a Biblical time frame? No, but it doesnt rule it out, either. Ron Numbers
lost his faith over bad science, and 30 years after Mt. St. Helens, the secular geological community
have turned a blind eye to some of the most exciting lessons from the famous eruption.
Next headline on:
May 17, 2010 How do they do it? Spiders spin their webs with such ease, but
scientists know they are working a kind of material magic. Inside the storage sac,
the proteins act like a fluid. Outside the spinnerets, that fluid turns into a
structural rope that is stronger than steel, but elastic enough to absorb the energy of
an insect. They would sure like to imitate that feat. Some steps toward
understanding the transformation from liquid to strong fiber were announced in Nature
this week, and summarized on Science
The trick goes all the way down to the molecular level. The proteins
line up in the liquid state in such a way that their cross-bridges are unable to form
the strong, taut chains that will characterize the silks in the spider web. Once
the liquid goo enters the reaction chamber, the salinity changes, the pH changes and
the pressure changes. Strong shear forces are set up. This breaks salt bridges
and allows the molecules to realign. The long protein chains are aligned in parallel,
thus placing the areas responsible for interlinking side by side, Science
Daily reported. Presto: The stable spider silk fiber is formed.
Like magic, this all happens in split seconds. The spinneret is quicker than the
eye. In one of the papers in Nature,1 the scientists said,
Our study provides an important stepping-stone for further understanding of the
remarkably fine-tuned process of spider silk formation. The other
paper discussed the controlled switching between the storage and assembly forms of silk proteins
that prevent premature aggregation and denaturation, such that they can be
transformed into extremely stable fibres on demand.2
Scientists can hardly wait to learn how the trick is done.
The potential applications are countless, from resorbable surgical suture material
to technical fibers for the automotive industry. Most people probably
never dreamed that the spiders in their garden held such secrets to a bright future.
1. Askarieh et al, Self-assembly of spider silk proteins is controlled by a pH-sensitive relay,
465, 236-238 (13 May 2010), doi:10.1038/nature08962.
2. Hagn et al, A conserved spider silk domain acts as a molecular switch that controls fibre assembly,
465, 239-242 (13 May 2010), doi:10.1038/nature08936.
This is just another in a long-running series about
spider silk. It highlights a common theme: the wonders of nature
things all around us are more amazing than we imagine. Understanding
their design (not their presumed evolution, a useless distraction*) is the key to
scientific advancement and progress measured in ways that can enrich our lives.
Cool bird tricks from last year: 05/19/2009.
*Only one of the papers in Nature even mentioned evolution and that
was to say, The overall dimeric structure and observed charge distribution of NT
is expected to be conserved through spider evolution and in all types of spidroins.
Conserved means un-evolved. The paper had a lot to say about structure
and function, though. Evolutionary theory contributed absolutely nothing to the research.
Next headline on:
Titan Continues to Surprise Saturn Scientists
May 16, 2010 Since reaching Saturn in 2004, the Cassini spacecraft has now made 68 flybys of Titan,
the large smog-shrouded moon. Space.com
highlighted a recent picture showing the rings appearing to bisect the moon. What are some of the
latest findings of this alien world the only moon in the solar system with a substantial atmosphere?
reported on work by scientists at the University of Louisiana to determine whether there is lightning
in Titans atmosphere. Evidence was tantalizing but not certain from the Huygens probe in
2005. So far, the only world where lightning is 100 percent confirmed is Earth,
said Andi Petculescu, professor of physics at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Now that 22 percent of Titans surface has been mapped in radar,
scientists at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the
University of Tucson in Arizona are trying to get a handle on Titans crater count, reported
So far they have only identified 5 certain impact craters, and 44 probable candidate craters.
That is surprising for such a large world. By end of mission (2017) scientists should have
50% of the surface mapped in radar.
Another story on Space.com
reported that the interior of Titan appears to be slushy inside. Scientists infer from
gravitational tugs on the spacecraft that Titan lacks a hard core. Inferring the nature
of the interior required measuring changes in spacecraft speed on the order of five thousandths
of a millimeter per second, the article said. Assuming the interior is as they believe,
they think Titan must have built up rather slowly for a moon, in perhaps around a million
years or so, back soon after the formation of the solar system.
Geographic also reported this story in March and printed a larger picture of the cutaway artwork
of Titans interior. The finding was really quite a surprise according
to one team member because it suggests that Titan had a very different history than Ganymede,
a similar-size moon of Jupiter.
Some Utah scientists found similarities to their home state in Titans
landscape. PhysOrg said last
March that Cassini scientists found karst-like landscape in the radar images that
suggests there is a lot happening right now under the surface that we cant see.
Liquid methane may take the place of water flowing under the surface. The article includes
a short video flyover of some of Titans canyon country compared with
similar terrain in Utah.
One of the most unusual findings announced recently is that Titans
river channels may be studded with gems. JPLs
announced a rock-n-roll feature this month: Titan may act as a gem tumbler
Large ice boulders like the ones seen by the Huygens Probe may tumble down channels of
liquid methane for hundreds of miles. Like pebbles on earth, which get rounded by
the friction of a streambed, these ice boulders may end up as sparkling spheres of ice 1 to 8
inches in diameter. The effect would be similar to bejeweling an area with
light-catching rhinestones. This may be the explanation for the brightness
of the land of Xanadu on Titan a mysterious region brighter than the rest of the moon.
Each month a Cassini scientist makes a detailed presentation on some aspect
of the science returns of the mission in a series called
Cassini-Huygens Analysis and Results of the Mission. The April
presentation by Christophe Sotin, Titan:
the Moon that Would Be a Planet (PDF) included comparisons of Titan to Earth and Mars.
Sotin reiterated the problem of maintaining Titans atmosphere for billions of years.
Slide 9 says, Without the greenhouse effect caused by methane, the surface temperature would be around 70 K.
Slide 13 states that the methane irreversibly transforms into ethane.
If there is no replenishment (from the interior or from meteorites), the methane would disappear,
the greenhouse effect would vanish, the surface temperature would drop, and nitrogen would freeze,
Sotin said. All this would happen in less than 100 Myrs (likely 30 Myrs).
What is the source of the methane? Can it be replenished from the interior?
Slide 25 says that No convincing evidence of active cryo-volcanoes has been found so far.
It also notes, The number of impact craters is small. It suggests that Titans surface is young.
Young could mean anything from 100 Myr to 3 billion years, he quickly stated, but even the upper estimate
falls far short of the estimated time of Titans formation according to standard theory.
His last slide said the Carbon cycle implies replenishment in methane, but then
said theres no evidence for it: Still lacking convincing evidence for cryovolcanic features.
Its hard to find a news article on Titan without mention of life.
There is no life there, of course, but scientists often presume that the presence of carbon
building blocks says something about the possibility of life emerging, even though the
temperature is 290 degrees below zero, and there is no liquid water usually
considered a prerequisite. This time there was some variety. In the lightning
article on Space.com
Petculescu said, Since Titans environment is not unlike that of pre-biotic Earth,
further studies of lightning can shed light on life emergence not only on early Earth but also,
possibly, on Titan itself. PhysOrg
subtitled its article on crater counts with this line: Impact craters found on Titan could help
scientists determine the age of this Earth-like moon and its potential for life.
But in the body of the story, it said, But its no secret that Saturns largest moon
is a very unfriendly place for life primarily because of its temperature, which makes
liquid water impossible. The article later quoted the opinion of Charles Wood at LPL
who said, If it were warmer, youd definitely think life existed there.
Even without life on Titan, Understanding the chemical processes on Titan may help scientists understand
how life began on Earth billions of years ago, the article said, even though the
evidence so far is inconclusive about the geological prospects for life.
William Bains of the Royal Astronomical Society didnt need evidence to tell UK astronomers
what he thinks of life on Titan. It stinks. Science
Daily shared his opinions: Hollywood would have problems with these aliens, he said.
Beam one onto the Starship Enterprise and it would boil and then burst into flames, and the fumes
would kill everyone in range. Even a tiny whiff of its breath would smell unbelievably horrible.
But I think it is all the more interesting for that reason. Wouldnt it be sad if the most
alien things we found in the galaxy were just like us, but blue and with tails?
Yes, it would be sad. Very sad. Very sad
that scientists get their science from Star Trek and Avatar instead of empirical lab
work, like they should.
May 15, 2010 The blog Uncommon Descent is
the White Horse Inn of the intelligent design movement. Named in opposition
to Darwins notion of universal common descent, UD brings together breaking news and
comments by a variety of authors and writers on all aspects of intelligent design.
Founded by ID leader William Dembski, Uncommon Descent has become a hotspot for ID people,
a refreshing counterpart to the liberal Darwinist blogs that the journals adore.
The life angle is a distraction. Nobody really
believes there is life on Titan. The L-word is the sexy girl standing next to the pickup truck
that draws the public eye to an otherwise ugly, smoggy thing you would not give a second look.
Titan is fascinating in its own way, from a distance, but you wouldnt want to live there. Titans environment not unlike that
of pre-biotic Earth? Who are they kidding? Its vastly different.
We have water here.
Its also illogical to talk about life emergence from
chemical constituents. Life is more than its parts. Why not talk about life on the sun? After all, the sun
has protons and electrons look: the building blocks of life! Oh yes, its
a little hot there, but understanding the chemical process on the sun may help
scientists understand how life began on Earth billions of years ago. Pick any
planet, moon, or location in the universe and you can play their silly game.
The real story they have not addressed is the age question.
Once again we have seen them admit that Titans atmosphere is undergoing irreversible
processes. The methane keeps the nitrogen from freezing, but it is being depleted.
It should have rained down as ethane and formed oceans on the surface, but the surface
is largely dry. Try as they might, they cannot find clear evidence of outgassing
to replenish the methane and where are they going to dispose of the ethane,
which should be a half mile thick over the whole moon? There are also few craters.
None of this says Titan is very, very young, but it sure says Titan is likely not 4.5 billion
years old. If not that old, then many questions spring up, if not a whole new paradigm.
Next headline on:
Origin of Life
You may or may not agree with everything you find on UD, but many of the opinions are
informed with PhD-level academic clout. Youll find tips, links, humor, serious
analysis, inside scoops and gossip that sometimes leads to long debates in the comments.
A fun read after youve had your daily CEH fix. This White Horse
Inn on the internet might just contribute to another English reformation.
Next resource of the week: 05/01/2010.
All resources: Catalog.
If Humans Build DNA Machines, Is It Intelligent Design?
May 15, 2010 Two teams have succeeded in building little robots that work on DNA tracks.
These resemble in many respects the machines that cells use to perform its functions on DNA.
No one denies that humans engineered their nanobots on purpose, but Darwinist scientists claim
natural cellular machines evolved without purpose or design. Whats the difference?
Nature reported on work by two teams that built such DNA robots.
Lloyd Smith commented on these in the same issue as a kind of science fiction come true.1
He made it clear that these are information-rich systems:
There are several interesting concepts lurking in these papers. Lund et al. point out that macroscopic robots generally have to store a fair amount of information to provide internal representations of their goals and environment and to coordinate sensing and any actuating of [their] components. Molecular robots, however, have limited ability to store such complex information. In both devices, the motion of the walkers is thus programmed into the DNA surface, rather than into the walkers themselves. Similarly, by setting the cargo-donating machines into predetermined loading or non-loading states, Gu et al. also use information stored in the walkers environment to control the outcome of their system....
Although both papers integrate DNA walkers with origami landscapes, they differ in one important respect. Lund and colleagues device is autonomous no external intervention is required for it to execute the program built into the system. By contrast, Gu and colleagues device relies heavily on external interventions, most importantly the addition of new DNA strands to drive the movements of the walkers and the operation of the cargo-carrying DNA machines. The reward for this lack of autonomy is greater complexity of behaviour: whereas Lund and colleagues robot is currently limited to walks along a path, Gu and colleagues robot can pick up cargo while walking, and can adopt eight states that correspond to different manufacturing possibilities. Future work will seek to maintain autonomy while ramping up the attainable complexity of behaviour programmed into molecular systems.
Although we remain far away from the possibilities imagined for nanotechnology by science fiction, it is inspiring nonetheless to see such creativity and rapid progress in the development of autonomous molecular systems that can execute complex actions. This is undoubtedly a field to watch.
1. Lloyd M. Smith, Nanotechnology: Molecular robots on the move,
465, 167–168, 13 May 2010, doi:10.1038/465167a.
So if we do it, its intelligent design, but if
nature does it, its blind evolution? You realize, of course, that the natural
machines in cells are far ahead of us: they are not only autonomous, but attain very
complex behaviors that are programmed into their molecular systems. Not only that,
they belong to complexes of molecular machines, which belong to networks of signal processing
systems, that boggle the mind and they belong to entire systems that have a coded
library, and can reproduce all their parts! Why should not scientists find it inspiring
to see such creativity of autonomous molecular systems that can execute complex actions
and ascribe it to design? Molecular biology should be filled with God-fearing,
worshiping, praise-singing scientists shouting Hallelujah! What we get instead
are man-fearing, fault-finding, hate-mongering ingrates shouting Pal-Ayala (next entry).
Media Continues to Denounce ID, Crown Darwin
Next headline on:
May 14, 2010 The news media and journals continue to publish one-sided statements against
intelligent design (ID) even though scientific evidence continues to support design on many fronts
(see 05/11/2010, 05/07/2010, 05/06/2010
from just this past week).
Sometimes, in other venues, the kind of rhetoric employed would be characterized as hate speech.
These statements are usually printed without any opportunity for rebuttal. Often the perpetrators
make religious arguments rather than presenting scientific evidence for their claims. Some of them even
say ID is bad theology, and that religious institutions should ally with Darwinism against ID. At the same time,
they typically will never say anything critical of Darwinian evolution. ID proponents are stuck with
having to respond to these charges in their own websites and publications. Here are some recent examples.
At the same time that supporters of intelligent design are struggling to get a fair hearing in the media against an
onslaught of what they consider misrepresentation, ridicule and repudiation of their views without opportunity for
rebuttal, Darwinists get free rein to pronounce evolution as simply obvious. Claims of evidence for evolution are often
exaggerated and presented uncritically, without opposing viewpoints, often accompanied by triumphal headlines that proclaim
Darwinism has been overwhelmingly confirmed. A good example of this occurred this week when Douglas
Theobald, author of a pro-Darwin book, announced in Nature that a formal test confirmed Darwins theory
of universal common ancestry.3 Mike Steel and David Penny quickly praised this
strong quantitative support for Darwins theory in the same issue of Nature,4
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Theobalds work, they said, is not the conclusion common ancestry
is the default view in science. But a formal test of evolution itself requires considerable ingenuity.
So Theobald got praise for his ingenuity in devising a test of evolution, because ingenuity is required to test a
default view a very strange situation in science, one might think.
- John Avise in PNAS1 wrote a paper labeling ID as religious creationism
but then used religious arguments in a science journal to attack it: i.e., God wouldnt make the world this way
Intelligent design (ID)the latest incarnation of religious creationismposits that complex biological features did not accrue gradually via natural evolutionary forces but, instead, were crafted ex nihilo by a cognitive agent. Yet, many complex biological traits are gratuitously complicated, function poorly, and debilitate their bearers. Furthermore, such dysfunctional traits abound not only in the phenotypes but inside the genomes of eukaryotic species. Here, I highlight several outlandish features of the human genome that defy notions of ID by a caring cognitive agent. These range from de novo mutational glitches that collectively kill or maim countless individuals (including embryos and fetuses) to pervasive architectural flaws (including pseudogenes, parasitic mobile elements, and needlessly baroque regulatory pathways) that are endogenous in every human genome. Gross imperfection at the molecular level presents a conundrum for the traditional paradigms of natural theology as well as for recent assertions of ID, but it is consistent with the notion of nonsentient contrivance by evolutionary forces. In this important philosophical sense, the science of evolutionary genetics should rightly be viewed as an ally (not an adversary) of mainstream religions because it helps the latter to escape the profound theological enigmas posed by notions of ID.
This paper was part of a lengthy series called the Sackler Colloquium, In the Light of Evolution IV,
that was completely one-sided for Darwinism. Not a single pro-ID position was invited, even though there is
a long tradition of theological, philosophical and scientific positions answering the types of arguments Avise presented.
David Tyler presented a rebuttal to Avises position on the ID blog
Access Research Network.
- Michael Zimmerman leapt for joy at Avises paper in the
saying, In case you had any doubt, the last nail was just placed in the coffin of intelligent design (ID).
And, in case you had any doubt, that last nail joins many others that have been in place for quite some time.
His article was entitled, Intelligent Design: Scientifically and Religiously Bankrupt.
Zimmerman is the activist behind the Clergy Letter Project, trying to get religious leaders to sign a statement
in support of Darwinian evolution. Robert Crowther compared his arguments to the Hindenberg on
Evolution News & Views.
- Michael Ruse called ID an oxymoron and a mountain of waffle resting on analogy
Guardian. Neither scientists nor believers should touch it, he said. Responding
to Steve Fuller in The
Guardian (a philosopher who has given ID a fair shake;
Descent), Ruse called ID very bad theology.
Jay Richards wondered on Evolution
News & Views why Ruse, a science philosopher and historian, thinks he is an expert on theology.
Casey Luskin also responded on Evolution
News & Views, joking, I love watching atheists try to tell religious people what they should believe about God.
- Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) wrote for
Science Blogs that
ID and creationism is kind of like believe it or not postmodernism and Marxism.
This is a strange charge, considering that most proponents of ID or creationism would be adamantly opposed to both of those
ideologies. Robert Crowther on Evolution
News & Views tried to straighten the picture right side up again.
- Francisco Ayala is a former Dominican priest turned evolutionary biologist.
One might think a person with religious roots would have a soft spot in his heart for thoughts of
design in the world, but Ayala has been among the most harsh in his rhetoric against ID, calling ID
an atrocity that is disastrous to religion among other things.
He even accused supporters of ID in the Discovery Institute of not really believing what they are saying. He made these remarks recently in
Spain (see Uncommon
Descent for translation). This set off a series of responses by ID supporters (see idnet.com.au response on
and Barry Arrington on Uncommon
Back in March, Ayala wrote a book review critical of Stephen Meyers
Signature in the Cell for BioLogos,
the website of theistic evolutionist Francis Collins. Ayala used the argument for dysteleology and
suffering to call ID a form of blasphemy for attributing the human genome to the design of God. David Klinghoffer complained on
Evolution News & Views
that Ayala apparently didnt even bother to read Meyers book. Klinghoffer later in March
took Ayala again to task on ENV, and with him,
Darrell Falk for allowing a slipshod review by a staunch evolutionist on the BioLogos website.
Meanwhile, Francisco Ayala was welcomed by the National Academy of Sciences Sackler Colloquium, In the Light of Evolution IV,
to present his opinions on the evolution of morality by Darwinian natural selection. In his paper in PNAS,2
Ayalas first sentence paid homage to Darwins Descent of Man (1871). After dismissing theological
explanations for morality, including those of Aquinas and Paley, he gave Darwin the pride of place.
He explained morality in purely mechanistic terms: as an exaptation, or unplanned
consequence of natural selection for intelligence, that turned out to be advantageous. In other words,
morality is an impersonal, unplanned accident. He gave the same explanation for
human rationality. It appears that Ayala repudiates any role for divine involvement for any of the unique features
of the human psyche in any way, shape, or form; yet this is the man that BioLogos welcomed as
a a moderating influence in the science/religion dialog. Ayala also received this years
Templeton Prize for progress in affirming
lifes spiritual dimension an honor once awarded to Billy Graham, Alexander Solzhenitzen, Chuck Colson,
Bill Bright and Mother Theresa (see comment on CMI).
But since Charles Darwins name was prominent and paramount in both papers, the popular press was soon on board, too.
PhysOrg announced First large-scale test confirms Darwins
theory of universal common ancestry, without so much stopping to wonder why it took 150 years for the first such test.
Geographic went overboard, though. Its headline, All Species Evolved From Single Cell, Study Finds,
was accompanied by a large photo of a herpetologist looking face-to-face at a snake, as if to evoke an Adamic curse on anyone who would
deny this knowledge of good and evil.
Then the subtitle quoted Theobalds opinion about his opponents, the creationists, who, naturally, were given
no opportunity to respond: Creationism called absolutely horrible hypothesisstatistically speaking.
1. John Avise, Footprints of nonsentient design inside the human genome,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
print May 5, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0914609107.
2. Francisco Ayala, The difference of being human: Morality,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
published online before print May 5, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0914616107.
3. Douglas Theobald, A formal test of the theory of universal common ancestry,
465, pp 219–222, 13 May 2010, doi:10.1038/nature09014.
4. Mike Steel and David Penny, Origins of life: Common ancestry put to the test,
465, pp 168–169, 13 May 2010, doi:10.1038/465168a.
No comments are really necessary here; the articles speak
for themselves. If anyone thinks this situation is fair, or desirable in scientific
or intellectual circles, or represents the way an enlightened free marketplace of ideas
is supposed to operate, that person needs a serious deprogramming session. This is
Malice in Blunderland, where up is down, in is out, the mobsters are running the city,
and the inmates are running the asylum.
Two mutations turned a docile bacterium into the agent of bubonic plague. Read about it in the
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
Should Scientists Take Sides as Political Activists?
May 13, 2010 Scientists turn to win votes announced a
editorial today. The science journal argued its no time to bemoan the loss
of science-savvy politicians, but rather time to make new friends
in the political arena. Other scientific societies should rally their memberships
to get the word out to new parliamentarians about the value of science.
Nature was not cryptic about which side it is on. It mentioned a Liberal party
member as the most articulate voice during the election for science and its importance in policy-making,
but repeatedly chided members of the Conservative party: Since the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
imposed savage cuts to research in the 1980s, most academic scientists have shied away from the Conservative Party,
the article said, only to follow it up with this patronizing statement: Unlike Thatchers party,
the Conservatives of today have made supportive noises about science even if most members lack
a strong understanding of scientific issues.
That editorial was primarily about UK politics. The next editorial,
however, dabbled in the American political scene. The University of Virginia should fight a
witch-hunt by the states attorney general, demanded the editors of
They are upset that Kenneth Cuccinelli, a firebrand conservative elected attorney
general of Virginia, is investigating grant money going to Michael Mann, whose hockey-stick
graph was the centerpiece of the Climategate controversy last year. The journals editors
are demanding that the university fight a subpoena issued by the attorney general on the grounds of
academic freedom without stopping to ask if academic freedom means use of tax dollars without accountability.
Regardless, the editors thought they would paint the attorney general in the worst possible light by
associating him with people whom they assumed their readers would
regard as distasteful: Certainly Cuccinelli has lost no time in burnishing his credentials with
far-right Tea Party activists, many of whom hail him as a hero.
Scientist, Michael Brooks argued that it is time for scientists to go into politics.
He is running for election in the UK in the Science Party,
a political party he founded last month to highlight the importance of science to the UK economy
and sciences lack of representation in Parliament. The Science Party wants members of
Parliament to understand scientific issues such as climate change, genetic engineering, finding
ways to meet our energy needs and improve our nations health, according to their website.
We also believe that the UK cannot afford to cut funding for scientific research.
Brooks takes issue with Martin Rees (05/02/2010), head of the Royal Society,
who believes the role of science is merely to advise and inform government, not make policy. Brooks,
who is angry that politicians often ditch scientific advice when they feel it is inconvenient,
feels government needs to feel the authority of science. This includes issues such as climate change,
he pointed out. Sometimes scientists have to be willing to stand up to those who would seek to
subjugate or sideline science, he said. Often the only people well enough informed to
understand the consequences of not taking scientific advice seriously are the scientists themselves.
Speaking of climate change, a huge number of climate scientists wrote a letter to
the editor of Science
last week, disturbed about the bad rap they have gotten in the media since the Climategate scandal.
Rather than express any remorse, however, they stood their ground that global warming is a fact
requiring humans to take political action to avert catastrophe. They compared it to other
scientific facts including Darwinian evolution:
Scientific conclusions derive from an understanding of basic laws supported by laboratory experiments, observations of nature, and mathematical and computer modeling. Like all human beings, scientists make mistakes, but the scientific process is designed to find and correct them. This process is inherently adversarialscientists build reputations and gain recognition not only for supporting conventional wisdom, but even more so for demonstrating that the scientific consensus is wrong and that there is a better explanation. Thats what Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin, and Einstein did. But when some conclusions have been thoroughly and deeply tested, questioned, and examined, they gain the status of well-established theories and are often spoken of as facts.
The implication is that if you can trust scientists on evolution, you should trust them on global warming.
While the scientists were careful to avoid claiming science can provide certainty,
they implied that science can provide adequate knowledge to assure public trust
and demand political action.
For instance, there is compelling scientific evidence that our planet is about 4.5 billion years old (the theory of the origin of Earth), that our universe was born from a single event about 14 billion years ago (the Big Bang theory), and that todays organisms evolved from ones living in the past (the theory of evolution). Even as these are overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong. Climate change now falls into this category: There is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend.
Sheila Jasanoff of Harvard, however, writing in the same issue of
Science last week,1
had a more nuanced view of the complexities of the science, the politics, and the communication
of data from scientists to government and the public. Here are just some of the issues
that make scientific confidence much more complex than in the 17th century scientific revolution:
In earlier times, it was enough to build trust within a researchers community of scientific peers. Disciplines were small and methodologically coherent. Research neither drew heavily on public funds nor profoundly affected public decisions. Today, the circle of stakeholders in science has grown incomparably larger. Much public money is invested in science and, as science becomes more enmeshed with policy, significant economic and social consequences hang on getting the science right. Correspondingly, interest in the validity of scientific claims has expanded to substantially wider audiences. It is not only the technical integrity of science that matters today but also its public accountability.
Issues of scientific ethics, integrity and accountability have also risen to the forefront.
These were accentuated by the Climategate scandal. It is no longer enough to establish what
counts as good science, she said; it is equally important to address what science is good for and whom it benefits.
The complexity of the scientific relationship with government can be seen as a
three-body problem, she said: the individual scientist, the body of scientific knowledge,
and committees that transmit that knowledge. Just as with three-body problems in
physics, outcomes of the interactions of these entities are not always predictable:
Standards of individual good behavior are especially difficult to identify and enforce in evolving scientific domains with under-developed histories of accounting to external audiences. Divergent national traditions of openness and confidentiality present additional hurdles for climate scientists, who are involved in international, as well as interdisciplinary, consensus-building. As the UK inquiry on the hacked CRU e-mails revealed, some data relied on by climate scientists had been obtained from national governments under nondisclosure agreements. The parliamentary committee conducted, in effect, a process of post hoc standard-setting when it concluded that the climate science community should have followed more open practices of publication and disclosure.
While scientists may point to a growing consensus of so many scientists after many
rounds of assessment as a measure of reliability, other conclusions are possible,
she said: At the same time, the very fact that judgment has been integrated across
many fields leaves climate science vulnerable to charges of groupthink and inappropriate
concealment of uncertainties. Then there was the IPCC setting its own rules,
with no governmental oversight or accountability. Sure, there was peer review,
it could be argued. These methods are good enough to satisfy many scientists,
but they rest on traditions of scientific, rather than public, accountability,
Jasanoff said. Yet the IPCC performs a mix of functionspart scientific
assessment, part policy advice, and part diplomacythat demand external, as well as internal,
accountability. The missing component of accountability is not between
scientists, but relations between science and its publics.
The relationship of trust between the science community and the public
was shaken by Climategate. Science cannot simply validate itself with assertions.
Administrative procedures mostly operate within nation states, and there is no
higher court where science can account for itself to the world.
Presumably that truism would hold even with a world government.
1. Sheila Jasanoff, Science and Society: Testing Time for Climate Science,
7 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 695-696, DOI: 10.1126/science.1189420.
Each scientist has a vote, like any other citizen.
Do they want something more? Each scientist can take part in their political party,
and try to influence their neighbors. What more are they asking for?
Would they be happy with some kind of scientific oligarchy, like a panel of wizards
advising the king? Heaven forbid. Like Jasanoff said, there is no
higher court where science can account for itself to the world. Science must
be accountable to the people.
Worlds Strongest Animal Discovered
Once again we see the fine word science being applied to a
mixing pot of good, bad, and ugly. Not all science is created equal. Not all
science deserves public funding, public support, or public respect. Some of it
deserves to be publicly shunned and criticized. Consider:
Those are just a few issues that bear on governmental and public support for science;
see the 04/02/2010 commentary
for 30 more. We need to decouple scientific institutions and
professional scientists from science per se. If science
is a search for truth about nature in an orderly, methodical, rational way, then we can
all be scientists, and we all should be, to a certain measure. Many great discoveries
have been made by hobbyists and citizen scientists.
Theres something pure about that. Of course, individuals cannot build Large Hadron
Colliders and 10-meter optical interferometer telescopes on Mauna Kea; those kinds of
science projects require huge collaborations and funds. Much of science, perhaps most of
it these days, requires advanced education and a full time commitment. But like Jasanoff said, once scientists
become professionalized and collaborative, they can be subject to groupthink, even if
they follow ostensibly reliable methods like peer review and multiple rounds of assessment.
Dont think scientists are beyond human nature.
- Not all sciences are epistemically equal (compare political science with
- Not all sciences are methodologically equal (compare taxonomy with quantum mechanics).
- Not all sciences are capable of equal degrees of confirmation (compare origin sciences with electromagnetics).
- Not all sciences are practically equal, especially for governments (compare ballistics and
space technology, which have potential defensive applications, with elusive searches for
cosmic strings, dark matter, SETI, or some last universal common ancestor).
- Not all pure sciences generate equal national prestige. Think of an outer planet mission like
Cassini, which has generated international cooperation, stimulated millions of students to
become interested in science and engineering, made people around the world stand in awe of
its amazing pictures, and has given its member nations pride and prestige in science.
Compare that with futile attempts to discover speciation among lizards in the Bahamas
(PhysOrg) or endless attempts
to explain the evolution of altruism via game theory.
Whose science is it, anyway? An argument can be made that
professional scientists, who are forever banging their crutches on the public trough
(as David Berlinski aptly put it), are the last ones who should be influencing public
policy. Governments of the people, by the people, and for the people should have the ultimate
say in how their money is spent. The public must, of course, be informed properly
and have a sufficient level of scientific literacy to understand why a science project
is worth funding (in representative democracy, this is handled by well-educated
advisors of the executive branch). But scientists have a responsibility of
providing visible and tangible benefits to the public not just demands on
the grounds of their authority as scientists.
That huge group of climate
scientists harrumphed about the lack of respect they were getting from the public (and
basically demanded they get it, and demanded the government take their policy advice
seriously). They claimed global warming is a fact that cannot be denied,
despite the scandals. Consider for a moment this notion of global temperature
on which so much of their consensus rests. There is no such thing! The globe
does not have a temperature. Individual points on the globe do, at least moment
by moment, but temperature is a dynamic and localized quantity. Its a hundred below at
the poles at the same time its a hundred above in the desert. There is no
way to come up with a measure of global temperature that is not a function
of (1) the instruments used to measure it and (2) the points and times selected where it is to
be measured and (3) the statistical methods used to average the data and (4) the theory used
to interpret the final number. The answer is theory-laden as philosophers
say. So when climate scientists say that global temperature has increased 0.75 degree
over the last century, what could that possibly mean? It can mean whatever their
political agenda wants it to mean. In fact, in the same issue of
Peter Stott and Peter Thorne basically admitted that temperature data collections are
non-standardized, non-uniform, missing large chunks from big parts of the world,
or are otherwise not easily accessible or for more complex financial or political reasons.
See? There are issues beyond just pure, unbiased science involved in something this
complex and convoluted. They said that there are only three institutions monitoring
global temperature records, the records are in the hands of just a few people who are
trying to get standards recognized. That means, does it not, that records from
early in the 20th century on which the conclusions that temperatures are rising cannot
be relied upon. Moreover, heres what they said about their recommendations
to improve things: The concept we have outlined above has so far been developed
by a few individuals at a single institution. Yet the global warming
community talks like the science is so solid only an idiot could question it.
We talked about this at length in the
so we wont belabor the point again here. Suffice it to say the climate science
consensus complainer corporation compared their fact of global warming to
guess what? Darwins theory of evolution. That tells you all you
need to know.
Next headline on:
Politics and Ethics
May 12, 2010 Scientists at the Technical University of Denmark announced the worlds
strongest animal. The strength of this animal is 10 to 30 times that of any other species.
Before revealing what it is, here are some additional hints:
Even more amazing, this animal jumps with this amazing strength and speed while blind, and while
swimming in what feels to it like heavy syrup. What is it?
Read Science Daily or
to find out. You can also watch the slow-motion video provided on
Incidentally, its only about 1 millimeter long.
- It is the most abundant multicellular animal on earth.
- It has the worlds strongest muscles, and outperforms man-made motors.
- It jumps so quickly, it seems to vanish.
- It can accelerate to over 100 mph in a few thousandths of a second.
- It can jump thousands of times its body length per second.
- If a man could jump as fast as this animal, he would have to go 3,800 mph.
- It has two separate propulsion mechanisms.
- It has finely-tuned legs for swimming.
- It has an optimized hydrodynamic shape.
- It has an exceptionally rapid nerve transmission system.
The authors tried to sneak in evolution into this story,
but they cant get away with it without the Baloney Detector going off.
One scientist said, The copepods evolutionary success should be seen in relation to their ability
to flee from predators. Their escape jump is hugely powerful and effective.
This is a royal non-sequitur. Suppose I made up a theory
called gribbleflix that states that organisms will come up with what they need to survive. How would you feel if
anything you presented, no matter what it was, I could explain by saying the reason it survives was because of its
gribbleflixary success? If it is fast, its because of gribbleflix. If it stays in
one place, its because of gribbleflix. Pretty soon you would be pretty frustrated at me.
Why, then, do we let the evolutionists get away with this trick?
Bacteria: Lets Harness Those Perfect Machines
You probably did not expect these tiny, little, shrimpy, insignificant,
primitive nothings to win the Worlds Strongest Animal Contest. Sounds like
evolution was all downhill from there, and now all we have are weightlifters and
sprinters trying to earn a distant honorable mention.
Next headline on:
May 11, 2010 Ten Italian scientists have a novel idea. They want to hitch up their wagons to bacteria
and use them to power nanomachines. Its too much work to build such perfect
machines from scratch, they said. Why not just take advantage of what nature has
Their paper in PNAS1 is downright dreamy about the possibilities of using
flagella-equipped bacteria as motors for their machinery:
Self-propelling bacteria are a nanotechnology dream. These unicellular organisms are not just capable of living and reproducing, but they can swim very efficiently, sense the environment, and look for food, all packaged in a body measuring a few microns. Before such perfect machines can be artificially assembled, researchers are beginning to explore new ways to harness bacteria as propelling units for microdevices. Proposed strategies require the careful task of aligning and binding bacterial cells on synthetic surfaces in order to have them work cooperatively. Here we show that asymmetric environments can produce a spontaneous and unidirectional rotation of nanofabricated objects immersed in an active bacterial bath. The propulsion mechanism is provided by the self-assembly of motile Escherichia coli cells along the rotor boundaries. Our results highlight the technological implications of active matters ability to overcome the restrictions imposed by the second law of thermodynamics on equilibrium passive fluids.
Thats an interesting term for a living cell active matter.
From an engineers viewpoint, a bacterium can be considered a little bit of energetic
matter that has figured out how to overcome the second law of thermodynamics, at least
locally and temporarily. They do it by converting biochemical energy into mechanical motion.
All engineers need to figure out is how to apply this
active matter in asymmetric ways so that work can be done at the nanometer scale with
a kind of Brownian ratchet effect (see 04/19/2010).
The team ran some proof-of-concept experiments with tiny gears immersed in an active
bath of motile E. coli cells. They got their bacterial helpers to turn
the gear at 2 rpm. In contrast to previous attempts that tried to channel the
bacteria along guided tracks (09/06/2006), this team relied on a self-organizational method.
We demonstrate that the underlying off-equilibrium nature
of a bacterial bath allows one to rectify the chaotic motions of
bacteria by geometry alone, they said, implying that the pre-imposed design in the
setup brings the order out of the chaos. Once the microstructures are
fabricated with a proper asymmetric shape, no further chemical patterning or externally
induced taxis is needed to produce a directional and predictable motion.
A dream of great physicists may soon become a reality, thanks to our little cellular friends:
The idea that, in nonequilibrium states, a directional motion
can arise from the chaotic dynamics of small molecules was first
put forward by [Richard] Feynman in his famous ratchet and pawl
thought experiment . The combination of asymmetry and
nonequilibrium was soon recognized to be at the origin of the
ratchet effect, opening the way to the stimulating concept of
Brownian motors in physical and biological contexts. Many
ways have been considered to drive a system out of thermal equilibrium,
such as cycling temperature or applying time-dependent
external fields. Our experiment demonstrates an intriguing
realization of a ratchet mechanism, where bacteria can be
thought of as intrinsically off-equilibrium molecules. Asymmetric
environments can be used to break the remaining spatial
symmetries and allow the emergence of an ordered, reproducible
motion that could serve as the driving mechanism for completely
autonomous, self-propelling microdevices. Applications at the
micrometer scale, such as self-propelling micromachines or
pumps and mixers for microfluidics, are the most promising,
but it will also be important to answer the question whether
bacterial motors are confined to the microworld, or we can think
of a macroscopic exploitation of bacteria as mechanical power
Now thats a dream; imagine bacteria as power sources for our automobiles.
How many flagella would that take?
The paper was edited by Howard Berg of Harvard, one of the pioneer investigators
of the bacterial flagellum. The authors made no mention of evolution.
1. Di Leonardo et al, Bacterial ratchet motors,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
published online before print May 10, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0910426107.
Evolution? They had no need of that hypothesis.
We hate to keep rubbing this in, Eugenie, Ken, Richard, Jerry, and Francisco, but the
first step in recovery is to admit you have a problem. We know it will get depressing when
nobody calls wanting to hear your rendition of the Theodosius Soliloquy,* and the universities
cant attract bright students fast enough to enter their biomimetics labs. But you can
still have a future in the Design Age. Find a hobby; plant tomatoes, try art, take a hike.
Life will go on.
More Pow in the Cambrian Explosion
Next headline on:
*Nothing in Baal-orgy makes cents except in the lie tough Eve-illusion.**
**Eve-illusion is the old lie, You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil through
mans own naturalistic inquiry, including evolutionary theory and the evolution of altruism (good) and war (evil),
without reliance on Gods revelation of Truth.
May 11, 2010 Scientists have found more fossil evidence for sudden emergence of
animal body plans in the Cambrian strata. Two papers in Geology discuss
evidence on opposite sides of the world. One team found bryozoans in Mexico 8 million
years older than the record-holders in China,1 and another scientist found diverse echinoderms
in Spain dating from the middle Cambrian.2
The author of the echinoderm paper, Samuel Zamora, said,
Because many of these taxa appear close to the beginning of the middle Cambrian,
it seems likely that their origins must be placed in the early Cambrian.2
He argued that his evidence militates against the slow-and-gradual appearance of
echinoderms in the early Cambrian. This shows that, even by the earliest
middle Cambrian, a variety of novel body plans and ecological strategies already
existed among echinoderms, pushing back the timing of important divergences into the lower Cambrian.
Not only that, the ones he found are among the most diverse of anywhere.
He did not use the word evolution nor comment on how these complex body plans
could have emerged and diversified in such a short time.
Bryozoans were thought to make their appearance on earth in the Ordovician.
Landing, English and Keppie reviewed the history of thinking about the Cambrian explosion,
Perhaps the most intensely dissected of these dramatic biotic diversity changes.
They said that until recently, One mineralized group, the phylum Bryozoa, seems to have missed the Cambrian radiation.
Their discoveries in Mexico now confirm that all skeletalized metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian.1
These authors also had little to say about how bryozoans emerged, other than to claim that they did
and now earlier than had been thought. The discovery of these specimens in the late Cambrian does not preclude
the possibility that bryozoans will some day be found in lower Cambrian strata elsewhere.
1. Landing, English, and Keppie, Cambrian origin of all skeletalized metazoan phyla—Discovery of
Earths oldest bryozoans (Upper Cambrian, southern Mexico),
v. 38, no. 6, pp. 547-550; doi: 10.1130/G30870.1.
2. Samuel Zamora, Middle Cambrian echinoderms from north Spain show echinoderms diversified earlier in Gondwana,
v. 38 no. 6 p. 507-510; doi: 10.1130/G30657.1.
The trend of evidence has been clear for decades now.
Every major animal body plan is found in the Cambrian. Each one is found earlier and
earlier. (Search on Cambrian explosion in our search bar for many other
examples.) The earliest ones are just as complex as later ones. Where is the
evolution? Abrupt appearance of complex body plans is not evolution.
If you want to believe Darwins story of slow and gradual evolution, you believe it
not because of the evidence, but in spite of it.
Instant diamonds: how a catastrophic geologic event could bring diamonds to the surface from
150 miles down in a matter of minutes. Unbelievable? Nature said it; read about it in the
Darwins theory is a fully naturalistic story except for all the
miracles needed to prop it up at every stage. How did you like this little
cryptically-stated miracle in the Landing et al paper: specialized zooids
appeared early in bryozoan phylogeny. Appeared. Wonderful.
Tell us, How did they appear? Enlightened rationalists want to know.
Did they just emerge out of the mud? Did Tinker Bell zap an Ediacaran frond and a
specialized bryozoan zooid popped out? After watching
we are getting a little weary of the mythological dogma repeated by the priests
of the church of Darwin who say, just believe.
Next headline on:
Archaeopteryx Fossil Retains Original Soft-Tissue Material
May 10, 2010 We are usually told that fossils involve the complete replacement of original living material
by rock, except in rare cases (such as amber), because organic material is quickly destroyed. One of the most famous rock fossils is
Archaeopteryx, the bird that has often been claimed to be a missing link from dinosaurs. An international
team used X-rays to probe one of the nine known specimens of Archaeopteryx. To their surprise, they found original atoms from the feathers
and bones of the animal still residing in the rock impressions this after 150 million years has past
since the bird died, according to the evolutionary chronology.
Science Daily, the
BBC News, and
Scientist all reported the paper that appeared in PNAS.1
The team, including scientists from Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, Black Hills Institute
of Geological Research, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Manchester, UK, used
synchrotron rapid scanning X-ray fluorescence (SRS-XRF) to detect atomic species in the rock and the
fossil impressions of the Thermopolis Archaeopteryx specimen. Their color-coded map of
the data shows enriched zinc and copper in the bone impressions relative to the rock, and enriched phosphorus and sulfur in the
rachis [main stems] of the feather impressions. They interpret these as remnants of original soft tissue from the specimen
rather than leached material from the rock sediments: Here we present chemical imaging,
they said, ... which shows that portions of the feathers are not impressions but are in fact
remnant body fossil structures, maintaining elemental compositions that are completely different
from the embedding geological matrix. This was the first detailed chemical analysis of this
fossil ever performed, they said. They referred to another study on dinosaur bone that supports
our most striking result: that elevated Zn levels
associated with the skull and other bones have persisted over geological
time and most likely, along with phosphorous and sulfur,
are remnants of the original bone chemistry. The authors seemed to like that word
striking. They used it 4 times: e.g., striking and
previously unknown details about the chemical preservation of
soft tissue, elemental distribution patterns most likely related
to the organisms life processes, insights into the chemistry of
the fossilization process, and details of curation history.
The paper and the popular articles spoke of evolution in various ways. The original
paper had very little to say about it, other than some opening generalizations. The abstract began, for instance, with
Evolution of flight in maniraptoran dinosaurs is marked by the acquisition
of distinct avian characters, such as feathers, as seen in
Archaeopteryx from the Solnhofen limestone. They did not elaborate on how the said acquisition of pennate flight feathers
might have occurred by the unguided process of natural selection. The opening sentence of the paper followed, saying,
Archaeopteryx are rare but occupy a pivotal place in the
development of Darwinian evolution because of their possession
of both reptilian (jaws with teeth and a long bony tail) and
avian (feathered wings) characters. After that, the E-word did not appear further,
except for a brief suggestion, without evidence, that Archaeopteryx appears transitional between dinosaurs and birds.
Jeff Hecht at New
Scientist, however, drew from this the notion that Copper and zinc are key nutrients for living birds, and their
presence in the fossil bones shows the evolutionary link with dinosaurs even though the original paper did
not state such a thing. He did quote Roy Wogelius [U of Manchester] of the team, saying,
Its amazing that that chemistry is preserved after 150 million years,
and There is soft-tissue chemistry preserved in places that people didnt expect it.
The BBC News referred twice to
the fossil as a snapshot of evolution and called it a missing link
that documents a fabulous transition from dinosaur to bird, even though the paper was really not
about evolution or dinosaurs at all. Science
Daily gave the story the misleading headline, X-Rays Reveal Chemical Link Between Birds and Dinosaurs
when, again, the paper made no such claim. Moreover, the article called it a 150-million year old dinobird fossil
and claimed that When the first Archaeopteryx specimen was uncovered a century and a half ago, just a year after
Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, the discovery provided the strongest evidence yet for the theory of evolution.
None of the popular articles dealt with the question whether preservation of original organic material from an
animal as frail as a bird, which usually decays completely within days or weeks, is possible
for 150 million years. None considered whether finding such material should call into question the age of the specimen.
1. Bergmann et al, Archaeopteryx feathers and bone chemistry fully revealed via synchrotron imaging,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
published online before print May 10, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1001569107.
OK, readers; heres the science, heres the data, theres the spin.
You are smart enough to decide. Is it plausible that portions of the original bone and feathers of a bird have
been sitting in this rock for 150 million years? What kind of faith does it take to believe that? Consider
how long 150 million years is. All of recorded human history all the wars, battles, migrations, conquests,
and population explosions fits within 10,000 years or less. That includes all the geological catastrophes
(post-Flood, for creationists): all the volcanoes, tsunamis, Krakatoa, Mt. St. Helens, Vesuvius, and many more. All the
big floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes that people have written about fit within a thousandth of 1% of the time
evolutionists are talking about. Did that time even exist?
Farewell, Once Mighty Jordan River
Instead of asking such questions, instead of doubting their assumptions like good scientists should,
instead of realizing that such discoveries are an assault on their core beliefs, evolutionists just waltz on forward
proclaiming their myths as if nothing happened. Well, what do you know; soft tissue can be
preserved for 150 million years, and isnt it wonderful how Archaeopteryx is such a beautiful icon
to hang at the shrine of the Bearded Buddha? Guard arrest that man! He is not bowing deep enough
he might be a creationist! Expel him lest he commit sacrilege in this sacred place!
Next headline on:
May 09, 2010
The Jordan River is dying. PhysOrg said
it could be dried up by next year. Already, much of its flow is sewage. The source streams
from Mt. Hermon are diverted into farming, leaving very little to flow out of the Sea of Galilee down
to the Dead Sea. Christian pilgrims wishing to be baptized in the famed Jordan waters are
facing serious health threats from the polluted waters.
Friends of the
Earth and other groups are calling for Israel and Jordan to engage in better water management,
and to stop pouring raw sewage into the Jordan valley. Improving the flow of the Jordan River
would also go a long way towards saving the Dead Sea, which is in turn withering rapidly.
Needless to say, a rich ecosystem that once thrived along the Jordans banks has been
See also the Jerusalem Post story.
Its tragic to see a symbol of the Bible being treated
badly; perhaps the governments will realize their mismanagement and do something in time. The Jordan
was once a raging torrent in wet seasons. An old hymn talked about Jordans stormy
banks and as recent as 150 years ago it was a dangerous river to cross at times.
Crossing that old river Jordan was often a symbol of leaving the land
of sorrows to enter heaven. Nothing on this planet is permanent, though. Substance
is more important than symbolism.
Humans and Neanderthals Are One
If you ever visit Israel, be sure to see the beautiful headwater streams north of
the Sea of Galilee, especially near the archaeological site of Tell Dan. The powerful torrents
of clear spring water flowing over waterfalls are a beautiful sight. They remind one
of Psalm 42.
Next headline on:
Bible and Theology
May 08, 2010 If Neanderthals bred with modern humans, they are one and the same species.
That must be the case according to the most widely-accepted definition of a species: those who can
breed and produce fertile offspring. The news media are abuzz with Science magazines
cover story this week, The Neanderthal Genome.1 Most
anthropologists are now accepting the genetic evidence for human-Neanderthal mixing of DNA, and
that there are remnants of the Neanderthal genome walking the earth in living human beings.
There were some surprises in the findings. The main finding was that Europeans and Asians
share about 1% to 4% of their nuclear DNA with Neanderthals, indicating that there was substantial
interbreeding between the two groups in the past (note that your own genome does not have much
remaining of your great-great-grandparents genes, so there had to be substantial interbreeding
for Neandertal markers to become fixed in the human population). The gene flow appears to be one-way,
however, and the researchers did not find those genetic markers among African populations
meaning that there will have to be some revision to the Out of Africa theory.
In short, the evidence has brought humans and Neanderthals together as mere
varieties of the same species, while simultaneously increasing the genetic distance between humans and the great apes.
The team is confident of the interbreeding because they took great pains to eliminate contamination;
they believe any contamination is below 0.7%. Only about 60% of the Neanderthal genome has
been recovered so far. Here are the prime-source articles from Science:
The announcement in Science set off a plethora of headlines in the news:
- A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome is the primary paper by Green et al.1
Some 55 authors are listed on the paper, including Svante Paabo, who has advanced theories about
Neanderthal interbreeding for years.
- Targeted Investigation of the Neandertal Genome by Array-Based Sequence Capture by Burbano et al
compared human and Neanderthal genes with the chimpanzee genome.2
They identified 88 amino acid substitutions that have become fixed in humans since our divergence from the Neandertals.
- Ann Gibbons summarized the papers in a news article in the same issue entitled,
Paleogenetics: Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind.3
- Elisabeth Pennisi investigated the question of whether it might become possible to clone a Neanderthal,
in Paleogenetics: Cloned Neandertals Still in the Realm of Sci-Fi.4
She called it a pipe dream due to technical and ethical reasons.
- Pennisi added a cameo article about Richard Ed Green, the postdoctoral fellow in charge of the
Neanderthal sequencing project at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
He developed barcoding methods for streamlining the effort of wading through the DNA evidence.
In his blog, John Hawks asked and answered his own question if it means Neanderthals belong in
our species, Homo sapiens. He gave himself an unequivocal, Yes.
The New York Times article, however, tried to keep them distinct. It said Neanderthals
were not fully modern and did not expand from Africa, because they supposedly split off from the
line that led to modern humans 600,000 years ago. If so, that raises a question of how they could interbreed
with modern humans after the passage of such immense periods of time before the two groups met around 100,000 years
ago according to the evolutionary timeline. So far, the team has identified only about 100 genes surprisingly few
that have contributed to the evolution of modern humans since the split.
Update 05/15/2010: An editorial in
Scientist said, Welcome to the family, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The article underscored the commonalities
the Neanderthals have with the rest of us; it is hard to see why Neanderthals should be considered as anything other than Homo sapiens.
Their range of genetic variation fits within that of living humans, the editors said. Moreover, Neanderthals share with us a version of a gene
linked to the evolution of speech, and recent archaeological evidence suggests that their minds were capable of the symbolic representations that
underlie language and art. If thats not human, then what is? Ewen Callaway in another article in
Scientist went so far as to predict that Neanderthals were not the only archaic humans our ancestors mated with.
We may find that Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis are part of the family, too.
Scientist said Neanderthal genome reveals interbreeding with humans.
- Science Daily announced,
Neandertals Hardly Differed at All from Modern Humans.
Another Science Daily entry featuring
Ed Green said, Neanderthal Genome Yields Insights Into Human Evolution and Evidence of Interbreeding With Modern Humans.
Geographic wrote, Neanderthals, Humans InterbredFirst Solid DNA Evidence;
Most of us have some Neanderthal genes, study finds.
- Clara Moskowitz got clever with her headline for Live
Science, saying, Humans and Neanderthals Mated, Making You Part Caveman.
- The BBC News wrote,
Neanderthal genes survive in us. The article is accompanied by
a timeline (not to scale), a video clip, and a picture of Svante Paabo.
- Time Magazines coverage
emphasized the opinions of Svante Paabo and Erik Trinkaus. Webb Miller thought this is was a way cool
paper representing great science because Some [scientists] will love it, and some of them will hate it.
- The New York Times highlighted a large
picture of the Croatian cave where Neanderthal bones with DNA were found. Their coverage entertained
some competing views, saying, the new analysis, which is based solely on genetics and statistical calculations,
is more difficult to match with the archaeological record. The Times quoted Ian Tattersall [America
Museum of Natural History] calling it a fabulous achievement but probably not the authors last word,
and they are obviously groping to explain what they have found.
- Probing Question: What can we learn from Neanderthal DNA? asked
PhysOrg on April 22, before the paper was published,
adding, Contrary to their image as knuckle-dragging brutes, the Neanderthals on television play
tennis and attend cocktail parties and sell auto insurance. Maybe some Brutus-types you know
come to mind.
- John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist and blogger, welcomed the news. Neandertals Live!
he announced on John
Hawks Weblog, where a philosophical-looking Neanderthal graces his banner. His entry summed up what this means
for paleoanthropology from an evolutionary perspective.
1. Green, Paabo et al, A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome,
7 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 710-722, DOI: 10.1126/science.1188021.
2. Burbano et al, Targeted Investigation of the Neandertal Genome by Array-Based Sequence Capture,
7 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 723 - 725, DOI: 10.1126/science.1188046.
3. Ann Gibbons, Paleogenetics: Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind,
7 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 680-684, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.680.
4. Elizabeth Pennisi, Paleogenetics: Cloned Neandertals Still in the Realm of Sci-Fi,
Science, 7 May 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5979, pp. 682-683, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.682.
5. Elizabeth Pennisi, Paleogenetics: Computer Kid Makes Good,
7 May 2010: Vol. 328. no. 5979, p. 683, DOI: 10.1126/science.328.5979.683.
Now that we know they are us, and we are them, and that so-called Neanderthals
are walking among us playing tennis and selling us insurance, its time to assess the damage the Neanderthal
myth has done to humanity. This was never about a pure, unbiased search for the truth of human history.
It was all about looking for props to support a story a story of Europeans emerging from lower animals
over millions of years in a way that guaranteed they would be on top. Its a kind of historical
racism, only the victims have been unable to sue in court because they were assumed extinct.
Well, maybe 1-4% of the 6 billion people can find a lawyer now. Got big brows? Are you big-boned?
Maybe you stand to make a lot of money.
Four years ago, it was already apparent that Genetics might prove to be Darwins downfall. Read about
11 evidences reported 05/04/2006 that were difficult even then to fit into
a neo-Darwinian paradigm.
The first Neanderthal bones were found a few years before Darwin published his Origin.
The Neander valley in Germany, by the way, was named after Joachim Neander, author of Praise to the Lord,
the Almighty, the King of Creation. Although the skeletons looked a little strange, it would take a few years
for evolutionary demagogues to find a way to use them as props for the story. Evolution was already on
the rise in Victorian Britain. Darwins grandfather Erasmus, and Lamarck, and Robert Chambers had
written scandalous but delicious tales of humankind arising from the lower animals. The geologists had
already ditched Mosaic chronology for Huttons deep time by the 1830s, with Lyell as their champion, so
the timescale was set. The British Empire with its Victorian theme of progress was already displaying
European superiority over the other races of mankind, and racism was hot. So when Darwin made his
strategic coup by publishing an apparently plausible mechanism for evolutionary common ancestry, evolutionism
exploded on the scene. Acceptance of the controversial theory was tentative at first (many leading
scientists were outraged), but within ten years Darwin, his Four Musketeers (Lyell, Gray, Huxley, Hooker)
and the X-club bad boys had stolen the high ground. By the time Darwin wrote The Descent of Man in 1871,
hardly anyone had the energy to protest not even the clergy. This was not a matter of science;
it was a sociological phenomenon of late 19th century Victorian racist culture.
Now all that was necessary to keep the momentum going was to fill in the blanks of the Darwin Saga
with the appearance of scientific progress. Bones that looked any way different were hot items. They were immediately
placed into the march of progress from monkey to man. Look at the first artist reconstruction of Neanderthal Man
(Wikimedia) made in 1888 when the Darwin hysteria
was in full swing. Clearly the artist was attempting to make it look as brutish, ape-like, and other as
possible. Thats the key: these ancient bones had to be other than people. The Darwinists manipulated
the perception of human history by giving them
other-sounding names: Neanderthal Man, Java Man, Heidelberg Man, Peking Man, Rhodesia Man, Nebraska Man, Piltdown Man.
They manipulated taxonomy to support their Darwinian, deep-time story: Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis,
Homo neanderthalensis. The storytelling continued into the 20th century, with more artist reconstructions,
an elaborate tale of when and where different groups emerged on the scene, and where they migrated.
Fictional stories were concocted about how different species of human ancestors might have met one another
and fought to the death. Other fictional stories were made up out of whole cloth about the invention
of language, culture, and religion. The Neanderthals, we were told, separated from a common ancestor of
modern humans 650,000 years ago. They were portrayed as brutish, stooped-over, heavy-browed, muscular
mammoth-hunting cavemen who knew little more than how to build fire, have sex and eat meat. But when
the intelligent, slender Cro-Magnon arrived (you know, the Europeans), these brutes were no match, and over
years were beaten back to extinction.
Does any of this have any connection to true history? Of course not. Yes, there are
bones, and flutes, and burial sites, and caves, but the scenario is a big, bad myth. It is
150 years overdue to put this one out of our misery. Consider how absurd it is. Evolutionists are
asking us to think that Neanderthals went on their own evolutionary journey 650,000 years ago, only to
encounter modern humans 100,000 to 80,000 years ago, and find they could have fertile offspring!
If Darwins theory means anything at all, in that long a time the Neanderthals and other human species should
have drifted so far apart that interbreeding would have become impossible.. Thats what most evolutionists believed until
very recently. The evidence for interbreeding in the Neanderthal genome is not just an adjustment to
the Darwinian paleoanthropology scenario; it undermines it. Even more nonsensical is the idea that
modern humans, virtually identical in every way to us, walked through Europe for over 100,000 years without
ever inventing a wheel, building a city, riding a horse, or planting a farm. Thats 10 to 12 times
the length of all recorded human history. Anyone who does not see the patent absurdity of the evolutionary
claim needs a serious deprogramming session. Not only that, evolutionists are telling us that human
ancestors were capable of fire and cooking and hunting and upright walking, and maybe verbal and symbolic
communication, for half a million to a million years. As Duane Gish rightly asked in 1993,
what in the world were our advanced hominid ancestors doing for almost a million years?
Why was evolution, both physical and cultural, so quiescent for such a vast stretch of time?
If Homo sapiens had evolved perhaps as much as 150,000 years ago or even longer, why was it that
he invented agriculture and domestication so recently and so abruptly? (Creation Scientists Answer
Their Critics, p. 354).
Creationists you know, those know-nothings who are the brunt of the Darwin Empires
most vicious ridicule and disgust have been saying for a long time that the average brain capacity of
Neanderthal Man exceeded our own. They are not the only ones who have said that if you
gave a Neanderthal a shave and a haircut, dressed him in a business suit, and marched him down Wall Street,
nobody would pay any attention. Now we know they are among us playing tennis and selling insurance.
On top of that, the history of evolutionary hoaxes with early-man fossils (Nebraska Man, Piltdown Man)
and the ongoing wars between todays ape-man hunters vying for the stage with the hottest missing link
is a history of shameful intrigue, extrapolation of evidence, mythmaking and reversals.
They cannot understand how civilization emerged from nothing. They cannot understand why the
first cave paintings were already the best. And they present themselves as making progress toward
understanding our origins.
Readers, people, please: does it begin to dawn on you that we have been snookered by the Darwin Party con men?
Why do we listen to these so-called experts? Why do we think their story is getting better with time?
Is this new paper a sign of progress? No; it spotlights a 150-year detour away from the truth.
They have vaunted their ignorance, yet vented their arrogance by expecting us to believe that the
other parts of their myth are still intact. Im sure you will be thrilled to find out in
another few decades that everything they are telling you in 2010 was wrong, too. Chances are
good that will happen, because not much remains of what they were telling us a few decades ago,
and decades before that, ad nauseum. If your driver chose the wrong road, dont be surprised
when things dont look right after hours of driving, even when your confident-sounding cabbie
has a good story and keeps telling you hes getting closer to the destination. When is
it going to dawn on you that thats his angle keeping a good story going, not looking
for the destination? The Darwinists stay in power by perpetuating an illusion of legitimacy,
as if they are getting warmer. Each new bone, each new genome, is shedding light on
our evolution. Stop believing the lies. The props have nothing to do with it; the story
is the centerpiece, and that is not up for debate.
The Biblical timeline, by contrast, fits known human history well.
One must understand that dating of artifacts beyond 10,000 years ago is infected with the deep-time
mythology, producing a circular system of reinforcement.
Evolutionists need that deep time. To make it look legitimate, they fill it in with
stages in their fictional play, and then they date those stages with infected dating methods to give
them an air of scientific objectivity. Dont follow the script. Look at the hard evidence itself.
The best evidence is inscriptions clay tablets, writing, cities, architecture, pottery.
The birth of civilization in the Fertile Crescent fits what the Bible says about the spread of humanity
after the Flood and Babel. Verifiable records show all artifacts were made by intelligent, skilled,
sentient Homo sapiens every one of them.
And just as people today are quick to migrate to every corner of the globe, migration by true
humans was very rapid after the Flood. Columbus did not discover a New World; people were already there, having
migrated from Asia over land bridges centuries before maybe millennia before. People were in the South Pacific, on Easter Island,
in South America, all over the place when the latecomer Europeans showed up. Who is really superior, the latecomers?
Jon Saboes novel The Days of Peleg (Resource of the Week for 11/07/2009)
provides a plausible account of how all this could have happened in a short time. Another important point is that human population
statistics match the Biblical timeframe like a comfortable shoe. But if upright, intelligent humans
inhabited this planet for nearly a million years, we should be climbing over their bones, not
finding them here and there in isolated caves.
So who were the Neanderthals? For one thing, its time to ditch that name
with its evolutionary baggage. They were Homo sapiens with some accentuated features.
No, they didnt live 650,000 years ago; they lived a few thousand years ago.
They migrated after the Flood, like everyone else. After Babel, close-knit family groups went their
separate ways. Inbreeding of tribes led to accentuated features. Some traits could have been aggravated by
diet, harsh environment, age, or disease. But for all we can tell, they were strong, astute, fit,
creative, intelligent, capable people. Todays pot-bellied scientists with high cholesterol who couldnt
find a steak in a meat market or carve a turkey should aspire to their stature. Maybe they were the frontiersmen of
their day, living out in the harsh extremes of the world, like the Inuit and certain tribal peoples who know
a lot more about living off the land than many scientists ever will. Maybe they preferred the simple
life of the hunter-gatherer, as do some people groups in 2010. Maybe they were the environmentalists;
who knows? They werent around for 650,000 years; just a few thousand, like all the other people we KNOW about,
where know is the operative word.
A creationist taxonomical initiative called baraminology accepts the
Genesis record that God made things to reproduce after their kinds (baramin). The created kinds were most likely
groups larger than a species (although a baramin may represent a species in some cases, such as with
Homo sapiens; for introduction see ChristianAnswers.net
and CreationWiki). Baraminology entails significant amounts of genetic variability inherent in
the genomes of the original kinds. The picture of a gradually progressing tree of life Darwin used to propagate
his anti-Genesis mythology of human history is rejected in favor of the original Genesis picture:
a world of distinct reproductive groups varying within their kinds. Each baramin is related by
common descent, so there is room for some of the same comparative genomics studies within kinds as
Darwinists try to make across kinds, but baraminologists deny that all organisms are related by common
descent. They say, instead, that similarities are marks of the single Creator of all things (see
Walter ReMines thesis in The Biotic Message, Resource of the Week for 10/10/2009).
The built-in variability in
each genome would lead to branching of similar species within kinds up to the genus and family level,
and perhaps beyond (after all, taxons are man-made groupings), as the original kinds invaded new
ecological niches on a dynamic planet. These branchings would not incorporate new genetic
information, but rather express built-in capabilities in new ways and combinations, in some cases
with extreme accentuation of existing genetic tools. In this view, all the human racial groups stem from the
original human pair and retain their full humanness. The slight differences in skin color and
other traits are explained as environmentally-enhanced variations or genetic bottlenecks occurring
since the migrations after Babel. Dr. Robert Carter has an interesting DVD on the genetic evidence
for human migration in and out of Africa that arguably does a better job of explaining the evidence
from a Biblical creationist standpoint than the evolutionist out of Africa story;
see CMI for video teaser and info on how to order;
see also his article on CMI about Adam, Eve, and Noah vs Modern Genetics.
You can reject this view if you want to. Its a free country.
You can let the cultural knee-jerk reflex take over: laugh, mock, scorn, ridicule, and write scathing attacks
on your blog about how stupid the know-nothing flat-earth Neanderthal-faced less-evolved creationists are. Go right ahead; Darwins bulldogs have been
doing that since the X-Club, and creationists are pretty used to it. (Duane Gish has been vindicated, you realize.) Such tactics
only show ones lack of ability to discuss evidence rationally with civility. Among the worst of the mockers
are some theistic evolutionists and some progressive creationists who choose to be so entranced by the siren song
of the deceivers, they have been willing to twist Biblical history to ridiculous extremes so far as to make Neanderthals and
the other Darwinist early-man cartoon characters out to be unsouled, upright-walking animals, equivalent
to us in almost every respect, except lacking the image of God. We hope this revelation is a
lesson to them. The next time the Darwinists have to backtrack and
admit in print that youve been snookered, and everything they taught you for 150 years was wrong about
Neanderthal Man, or Darwins finches, or the human genome, or fill-in-the-blank, dont say
we didnt warn you. Dont say St. Peter didnt warn you, either
(read II Peter 3).
From now on, the only Neanderthal Man you should pay attention to is the original one,
Praise to the Lord, who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;Next headline on:
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
(See Romans 5
and Hebrews 2 for more on that.
Express your humanness as it was intended to be. Get back into a relationship with your Maker.)
Can Darwin Be Rescued from a New Eye Discovery?
May 07, 2010 Darwinists have claimed for years that the human eye is an example of bad design,
because it is wired backwards the photoreceptors are located behind a tangle of blood vessels
and other material. But then in 2007, German scientists found that cone-shaped cells called Müller cells
act like waveguides that transmit the light through the tangles straight into the photoreceptors
(05/02/2007). Some Darwinists responded that this was only
a makeshift correction effected by the tinkering of natural selection. It did not
change the argument that the eye was poorly designed, they said.
Now, more facts have come to light about those Müller cells (also called retinal glial cells). Researchers at
the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have found out that they do far more
than just conduct light to the photoreceptors. Kate McAlpine reported for
Scientist that Müller cells offer several advantages. They act as noise filters, tuners and
At least two types of light get inside the eye: light carrying image information, which comes directly through the pupil, and noise that has already been reflected multiple times within the eye. The simulations showed that the Müller cells transmit a greater proportion of the former to the rods and cones below, while the latter tends to leak out. This suggests the cells act as light filters, keeping images clear.
These findings were made by Amichai Labin and Erez Ribak at Technion and published in Physical Review Letters.1
In the abstract, they said, The retina is revealed
as an optimal structure designed for improving the sharpness of images. Their findings
specifically argued against the idea that the retina is poorly wired:
The researchers also found that light that had leaked out of one Müller cell was unlikely to be taken up by a neighbour, because the surrounding nerve cells help disperse it. Whats more, the intrinsic optical properties of Müller cells seemed to be tuned to visible light, leaking wavelengths outside and on the edges of the visible spectrum to a greater extent.
The cells also seem to help keep colours in focus. Just as light separates in a prism, the lenses in our eyes separate different colours, causing some frequencies to be out of focus at the retina. The simulations showed that Müller cells wide tops allow them to collect any separated colours and refocus them onto the same cone cell, ensuring that all the colours from an image are in focus....
In this study, wave propagation methods allowed us to
show that light guiding within the retinal volume is an
effective and biologically convenient way to improve the
resolution of the eye and reduce chromatic aberration. We
also found that the retinal nuclear layers, until now considered
a source of distortion, actually improve the decoupling
of nearby photoreceptors and thus enhance vision
acuity. Although this study was performed on data from
human retinas and eyes, most of its consequences are valid
for eyes with other retinal structure and different optics.
They are also valid for the more common case of eyes
without a central fovea.
At the end of the
paper, they restated their design theme: The fundamental features of the array of glial cells are
revealed as an optimal structure designed for preserving
the acuity of images in the human retina. It plays a crucial
role in vision quality, in humans and in other species. One of the authors of
the 2007 study, Kristian Franze of Cambridge University, was glad to see this work complement theirs.
It suggests that light-coupling by Müller cells is a crucial event that contributes to vision as we know it,
What will Darwinists do with this new revelation? After all, reporter McAlpine
showed that the backward-wired retina was listed by
in 2007 as one of evolutions greatest mistakes. She started out confessing that
It looks wrong, but then had to admit that the strange, backwards structure of the
vertebrate retina actually improves vision, according to this new study.
She couldnt leave Darwin without a prayer, so she brought in Ken Miller, the
Brown University prof who is Catholic but a staunch Darwinian evolutionist and a tireless foe of
intelligent design. Never at a loss for words in the defense of Darwin, he got his chance
to tell the readers what this finding does and does not mean, evolutionarily speaking:
However, Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island cautions that
this doesnt mean that the backwards retina itself helps us to see. Rather, it emphasises
the extent to which evolution has coped with the flawed layout. The shape, orientation and structure
of the Müller cells help the retina to overcome one of the principal shortcomings of its inside-out wiring, says Miller.
But if that is so, why would Ribak and his colleague think humans should imitate a flawed layout?
McAlpine ended, The new understanding of the role of Müller cells might find applications in more
successful eye transplants and better camera designs, says Ribak.
1. A. M. Labin and E. N. Ribak, Retinal Glial Cells Enhance Human Vision Acuity,
Physical Review Letters,
Volume 104, Issue 15, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.158102.
Its Miller time for the SEQOTW award.
The fast-talking Darwin Party ideologue has shown to all that facts and logic are not as important to him
as defending the shrine of the Bearded Buddha. Some Catholic. Does he not read the Bible?
Ears that hear and eyes that see the LORD has made them both
He would rather say that Gods creations have a flawed layout and principal shortcomings and are
done all wrong than to offend his real god, the one whose work is flawless, Charlie baby.
He tries to have it both ways; keeping his Catholic faith and his evolution (Finding Darwins God),
but when someone has to give on a matter of propositional truth, it is always God, not Darwin.
Cornelius Hunter has made some important points about Millers response to this paper in his blog,
Notable Notes and Quotable Quotes
Look; lets understand something about this dysteleology argument. Flawed is as flawed does. The vertebrate
eye is a marvel of engineering. Its performance is so good, we cannot come close to imitating it in
all its specifications that must be met simultaneously (stereoscopic, motion-picture, miniature,
high-def, self-repairing in many cases, self-cleaning, high signal-to-noise ratio, high depth of field,
high dynamic range, low chromatic aberration, fast focus, image processing, long life, and much more). In fact,
it may well exhibit the best of all possible optics (see 05/09/2002).
What does Miller want God to do better? Does God have an obligation to listen to a fallible humans
uninformed opinion about how to design an eye? The audacity. There are reasons
why the eye is wired the way it is. The photoreceptors shed parts and require a lot
of energy; they need to be near the blood vessels in the back of the eyeball, not facing the inside
(for rebuttals to the backward-design argument, see footnote 1 of the 05/02/2007 entry).
Now we find that it is not just a necessary evil to keep the photoreceptors in back near the
blood vessels. It actually provides optical advantages. The Müller cells act as waveguides,
color focusers and noise reducers. If the photoreceptors were facing the inside, there
is a good chance our vision would be inferior color focus would be poorer, and stray reflections
from inside the eyeball would produce distracting flashes and reduce clarity. Octopi and squid, which have the photoreceptors
in front, live in a completely different environment. They have to operate in the dim light of a
watery medium. Each animal has the eyes it needs for its habits and habitat. Dont you think the Creator knows
a few things about optics and wiring that Ken Miller doesnt?
One of the stupidest evolution quotes ever made has been memorialized in our Baloney Detector.
Jared Diamond wrote this groaner for Discover magazine 25 years ago (6/1985, p. 91) after parading
the old bad-design-of-the-human-eye argument (you see, its been around a long time). Its doubtful
he has ever disowned it, because he still is a staunch evolutionist. He said, the eyes of the lowly squid,
with the nerves artfully hidden behind the photoreceptors, are an example of design perfection.
If the Creator had indeed lavished his best design on the creature he shaped in his own image, creationists
would surely have to conclude that God is indeed a squid.
Jared and Ken have been waltzing around this planet for the last 25 years enjoying their
eyes, looking at wonders of creation, and telling the rest of us that evolution is a fact because no God would ever do such a
bumbling design job. Take note of three little words (underlined below) in the classic Bible passage of why such people
deserve the wrath of God for their unbelief, as stated in Pauls letter to the Romans:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them,
for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead [sum total of his divine attributes, including
wisdom, omniscience, goodness, and ability to design things], so that they are without excuse,
because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in
their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools....
Talk about evidence being manifest in them. Its right there in their eye sockets.
If you are not thankful with all the evidence in front of you, theres no hope.
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
A fascinating article by Brian J. Ford at New
Scientist fits in perfectly with the next entry about the Splicing Code (05/06/2010) and the 05/05/2010 entry about
cell computing. Heres how Ford ended his essay; go read the whole article to see what led up to this amazing statement:
For me, the brain is not a supercomputer in which the neurons are transistors; rather it is as if each individual neuron is itself a computer, and the brain a vast community of microscopic computers. But even this model is probably too simplistic since the neuron processes data flexibly and on disparate levels, and is therefore far superior to any digital system. If I am right, the human brain may be a trillion times more capable than we imagine, and artificial intelligence a grandiose misnomer.
Breakthrough: Second Genetic Code Revealed
I think it is time to acknowledge fully that living cells make us what we are, and to abandon reductionist thinking in favour of the study of whole cells. Reductionism has us peering ever closer at the fibres in the paper of a musical score, and analysing the printer's ink. I want us to experience the symphony.
May 06, 2010 Its sometimes difficult to assess the impact of a
scientific paper when it is first published, but one that came out on the cover of Nature
today has potential to equal the discovery of the genetic code. The leading science journal
reported the discovery of a second genetic code the code within the code
that has just been cracked by molecular biologists and computer scientists. Moreover, they used information
technology not evolutionary theory to figure it out.
The new code is called the Splicing Code. It lives embedded within the DNA.
It directs the primary genetic code, in very complex but now predictable ways, how and when to assemble
genes and regulatory elements. Cracking this code-within-a-code is helping elucidate several
long-standing mysteries about genetics that emerged from the Human Genome Project: Why are there
only 20,000 genes for an organism as complex as a human being? (Scientists had expected far more.)
Why are genes broken up into segments (called exons), separated by non-coding elements (called introns),
and then spliced together after transcription? And why are genes turned on in some cells and tissues,
but not in others? For two decades molecular biologists have been trying to figure out the mechanisms
of genetic regulation. This important paper represents a milestone in understanding what goes on.
It doesnt answer all the questions, but it shows that an inner code exists
a communication system that can be deciphered so clearly, that the scientists could predict what the genome would
do in certain situations with uncanny accuracy.
Imagine hearing an orchestra in an adjacent room. You open the door and look inside, and
find just three or four musicians producing all that sound. Thats what co-discoverer Brendan Frey said
said the human genome is like. We could only find 20,000 genes, but we knew that a vast array of protein
products and regulatory elements were being produced. How? One method is alternative splicing.
Different exons (gene elements) can be assembled together in different ways. For example, three
neurexin genes can generate over 3,000 genetic messages that help control the wiring of the brain, Frey said.
The paper explains right off the bat that 95% of our genes are known to have alternative splicing, and in most
cases, the transcripts are expressed differently in different cell and tissue types.
Something must control how those thousands of combinations are assembled and expressed. Thats the job of the
Readers wanting a quick overview can read the
Science Daily article,
Researchers Crack Splicing Code, Solve a Mystery Underlying Biological Complexity.
It says, Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a fundamentally new view of how living
cells use a limited number of genes to generate enormously complex organs such as the brain.
In Nature itself, Heidi Ledford led off with an article called The code within the code.1
Tejedor and Valcárcel followed with Gene regulation: Breaking the second genetic code.2
Then the main dish was the paper by the University of Toronto Team led by Benjamin J. Blencowe and Brendan J. Frey,
Deciphering the splicing code.3
The paper is a triumph of information science that sounds reminiscent of the days of
the World War II codebreakers. Their methods included algebra, geometry, probability theory,
vector calculus, information theory, code optimization, and other advanced methods. One thing they
had no need of was evolutionary theory, which was never mentioned in the paper.4
Their abstract reverberates with the dramatic tension of a rousing overture:
Here we describe the assembly of a splicing code, which uses combinations of
hundreds of RNA features to predict tissue-dependent changes in alternative splicing for thousands of exons.
The code determines new classes of splicing patterns, identifies distinct regulatory programs in different
tissues, and identifies mutation-verified regulatory sequences. Widespread regulatory strategies
are revealed, including the use of unexpectedly large combinations of features, the establishment of low exon
inclusion levels that are overcome by features in specific tissues, the appearance of features deeper into introns
than previously appreciated, and the modulation of splice variant levels by transcript structure
characteristics. The code detected a class of exons whose inclusion silences expression in adult tissues
by activating nonsense-mediated messenger RNA decay, but whose exclusion promotes expression during embryogenesis.
The code facilitates the discovery and detailed characterization of regulated alternative splicing events
on a genome-wide scale.
The interdisciplinary team that cracked the code consists of specialists from the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the Department of Molecular Genetics and Frey works
for Microsoft Research. Like the codebreakers of old, Frey and Barash developed a new computer-assisted biological analysis method
that finds codewords hidden within the genome. Taking vast amounts of data generated by the
molecular geneticists, the group reverse-engineered the splicing code until they could predict how it
would act. Once they got a handle on it, they tested it with mutations, and watched exons get inserted or deleted
as they predicted. They found that the code can even cause tissue-specific changes, or act differently when the
mouse is an embryo or an adult. One gene, Xpo4, is implicated in cancer; they noted that These findings support
the conclusion that Xpo4 expression must be tightly controlled such that it is active during embryogenesis
but downregulated in adult tissues, to avoid possible deleterious consequences including oncogenesis (cancer).
It appears they were quite astonished at the level of control they were witnessing.
Intentionally or not, Frey used the language of intelligent design not that of random variation and selection
as the key to their approach: Understanding a complex biological system is like understanding a complex electronic circuit.
Heidi Ledford said that the apparent simplicity of the Watson-Crick genetic code, with its four bases, triplet codons,
20 amino acids and 64 DNA words conceals a universe of complexity beneath the surface.1
The Splicing Code-within-the-code is much more complex:
But between DNA and proteins comes RNA, and an expanding realm of complexity. RNA is a shape-shifter, sometimes carrying genetic messages and sometimes regulating them, adopting a multitude of structures that can affect its function. In a paper published in this issue (see page 53), a team of researchers led by Benjamin Blencowe and Brendan Frey of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, reports the first attempt to define a second genetic code: one that predicts how segments of messenger RNA transcribed from a given gene can be mixed and matched to yield multiple products in different tissues, a process called alternative splicing. This time there is no simple table in its place are algorithms that combine more than 200 different features of DNA with predictions of RNA structure.
Informatics computational biology algorithms and codes such concepts were never a part of Darwins vocabulary
as he developed his theory. Mendel had a vastly oversimplified computational model of how traits could be sorted out during
inheritance, but even then, the idea that traits were encoded awaited discovery till 1953. Now we see that the original genetic
code is itself subject to an even more complex embedded code. These are revolutionary ideas. And there are indications
of even further levels of control. For instance, RNA and proteins have a three-dimensional structure, Ledford reminds us.
The functions of the molecules can change when the shape changes. Something must control the folding so that the 3-D structure
performs as required for function. And then the access to genes appears to be regulated by another code, the histone code, that
is encoded by molecular markers or tails on the histone proteins that serve as nuclei for DNA coiling and supercoiling.
Ledford spoke of an ongoing renaissance in RNA informatics characterizing our time.
The work highlights the rapid progress that computational methods have made in modelling the RNA landscape. In addition to understanding alternative splicing, informatics is helping researchers to predict RNA structures, and to identify the targets of small regulatory snippets of RNA that do not encode protein. Its an exciting time, says Christopher Burge, a computational biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. There's going to be a lot of progress in the next few years.
Tejedor and Valcárcel agreed with the complexity concealed by the simplicity.2
At face value, it all sounds simple: DNA makes RNA, which then makes protein, they began. But the reality is much more complex.
We learned in the 1950s that the basic genetic code is shared by all living organisms from bacteria to humans. But it soon
became apparent that there was a bizarre, counter-intuitive feature in complex organisms (eukaryotes): their genomes were
interrupted by introns that had to be snipped out so that the exons could be spliced together. Why? Now the fog
is lifting: An advantage of this mechanism is that it allows different cells to choose alternative means of pre-mRNA
splicing and thus generates diverse messages from a single gene, they explained. The variant mRNAs can then
encode different proteins with distinct functions. You get more information out of less code provided you
have a code-within-the-code that knows how to do it.
What makes cracking the splicing code so difficult is that the factors controlling what exons get assembled
is determined by multiple factors: sequences adjacent to the exon boundaries, sequences in the exons, sequences in the introns,
and regulatory factors that either assist or inhibit the splicing machinery. Not only that, the effects of a
particular sequence or factor can vary depending on its location relative to the intron–exon boundaries or other regulatory motifs,
Tejedor and Valcárcel explained. The challenge, therefore, is to compute the algebra of a myriad of sequence motifs,
and the mutual relationships between the regulatory factors that recognize them, to predict tissue-specific splicing.
To solve the puzzle, the team fed the computer huge amounts of data on RNA sequences and the conditions under which they formed.
The computer was then asked to identify the combination of features that could best explain the experimentally determined
tissue-specific selection of exons. In other words, they reverse-engineered the code. Like WWII codebreakers,
once they knew the algorithm, they could make predictions: It correctly identified alternative exons, and predicted
their differential regulation between pairs of tissue types with considerable accuracy. And like a good scientific
theory, the discovery led to new insights: This allows reinterpretation of the function of previously defined
regulatory motifs and suggests previously unknown properties of known regulators as well as unexpected functional links between them,
they said. For instance, the code inferred that the inclusion of exons that lead to truncated proteins is a common mechanism
of gene-expression control during the transition between embryonic and adult tissues.
Tejedor and Valcárcel see the publication of the paper as an important first step:
revealing the first piece of a much larger Rosetta Stone
required to interpret the alternative messages of our genomes. Future work will undoubtedly improve our knowledge of
this new code, they said. In their ending, they referred to evolution briefly in a curious way: not to say that evolution
produced these codes, but that progress will require understanding how codes interact. Another surprising possibility
is that the degree of conservation seen so far raises the possibility of species-specific codes
The code is likely to work in a cell-autonomous manner and, consequently, may need to account for more than 200 cell types
in mammals. It will also have to deal with the extensive diversity of alternative-splicing patterns beyond simple
decisions of single exon inclusion or skipping. The limited evolutionary conservation of alternative-splicing regulation
(estimated to be around 20% between humans and mice) opens up the question of species-specific codes. Moreover,
coupling between RNA processing and gene transcription influences alternative splicing, and recent data implicate the packing
of DNA with histone proteins and histone covalent modifications the epigenetic code in the regulation of
splicing. The interplay between the histone and the splicing codes will therefore need to be accurately
formulated in future approaches. The same applies to the still poorly understood influence of complex RNA structures on alternative splicing.
Codes, codes, and more codes. The near silence about Darwinism in any of these papers suggests that old-school evolutionary theorists
will have a lot to ponder after reading these papers. Meanwhile, those excited about the biology of codes will be on the cutting edge.
They can play with a cool web tool the codebreakers created to stimulate further research.
It can be found at the University of Toronto
site, called WASP Website for Alternative Splicing Prediction. Visitors will look in vain for anything about
evolution here, despite the old maxim that nothing in biology makes sense without it. A new version for the 2010s might read,
Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of informatics.
1. Heidi Ledford, The code within the code,
Nature 465, 16-17 (06 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/465016a.
2. J. Ramón Tejedor and Juan Valcárcel, Gene regulation: Breaking the second genetic code,
Nature 465, 44-46 (06 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/465045a.
3. Yoseph Barash, John A. Calarco, Weijun Gao, Qun Pan, Xinchen Wang, Ofer Shai, Benjamin J. Blencowe and Brendan J. Frey,
Deciphering the splicing code, Nature 465, 53-59
(06 May 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature09000.
4. Conservation information is mentioned several times, but refers only to a measure of sequence similarity between
species, e.g., between mice and human genomes. Conservation does not have evolutionary significance without begging the question
We are happy to bring you this story on the day of its release. It may be one of the
really big science papers of the year, or decade. It could be Nobel Prize material.
(Any great discovery is, of course, surrounded by the work of many other teams,
as was the work of Watson and Crick.) What more can we add as commentary other than, Wow? This is
amazing confirmation of design, and a huge challenge to the Darwin Empire. It will be interesting to see how they
try to recast their simplistic 19th-century story of random mutation and natural selection in light of this. Did you
catch what Tejedor and Valcárcel said? Species may have their own species-specific codes. The
interplay between the histone [epigenetic] and splicing codes will therefore need to be accurately formulated in future
approaches, they said. Being translated, that means: Darwinists need not apply. You dont have
the skills to handle this. If the plain-old Watson-Crick genetic code was a challenge to Darwinism, how now
with the Splicing Code generating thousands of transcripts out of the same genes? On top of that, the Epigenetic Code controls
the context of gene expression. It may well be that the arrangement of chromosomes inside the nucleus plays a kind of
coding role in the regulation of gene expression, too. Who knows what other codes are involved in this incredible interplay we have only
begun to read, like a Rosetta Stone just beginning to poke above the sand?
Now that we are thinking codes and informatics, all kinds of new research paradigms come to mind.
What if the genome acts partly like a storage area network? What if there is cryptography going on, or compression algorithms?
We should be thinking advanced information systems and storage technologies.
Maybe we will find some steganography even. Undoubtedly there are additional robustness mechanisms, like
backups and retrieval perhaps that helps explain pseudogenes. Whole-genome duplications may be responses
to stress; other anomalies may be due to antivirus activity. Some of these trails may prove useful markers for historical events that have nothing to do with
universal common ancestry, but open up comparative genomics in terms of informatics and design for robustness, and
the understanding of disease.
The end of it all is an organism functioning in the world. Think of a tiger:
strong, sleek, unified, with a coat of fur marked with stripes, eyes and ears pointed forward, stalking through the jungle,
equipped with all the muscles and bones and senses and behaviors it needs to live through the days and nights of a
planet orbiting a star. Above it are birds flying through the canopy. Below are snails and small reptiles and
ants. Fish are darting in the river. Hundreds of species of plants each know how to send their roots
down and their leaves up and when to produce their flowers and fruits. A team of human scientists carries their video
cameras into the jungle hoping to remotely trigger them and capture footage of the elusive tiger. In the soil
below and within and without all these other organisms, trillions of microbes are functioning in their microcosmos.
All this is happening because of molecular codes translating and regulating chemistry into directed function.
What philosophers in ancient times could possibly have known that this level of computational, information-based complexity
undergirded the stuff of life? We are the generation blessed to discover these realities.
Darwinists are in for rough going ahead. The discoverers tried mutating the Splicing Code
and got cancers and mistakes. How are you going to navigate a fitness landscape now, when it is a minefield of catastrophes
waiting to happen when one starts mucking with all these intertwined codes? We know there is some built-in robustness
and tolerance, but the picture emerging is a highly-complex, engineered, optimized informatics system not a random
arrangement of parts that can be endlessly tinkered with. The whole idea of code is an intelligent design concept.
A. E. Wilder-Smith used to emphasize this. A code implies a convention between two parties. Convention coming
together is an agreement in advance. It implies planning and purpose. The symbol SOS, he would say, we use
by convention as a sign of distress. SOS does not look like distress. It does not smell like distress. It does
not feel like distress. Nobody would know it means distress unless they understand the convention. In the same way,
the codon for alanine, GCC, does not look, smell or feel like alanine. It would have nothing to do with alanine unless there were
a pre-planned convention between two coding systems the protein code and the DNA code that GCC shall mean
alanine. To convey that convention, a family of translators, the aminoacyl-tRNA-synthetases, are employed to
translate one code into the other.
That should have nailed the case for design in the 1950s, and many creationists preached it effectively.
But the evolutionists are like fast-talking salesmen. They wove their just-so stories about Tinker Bell zapping the code and creating new species by mutation
and selection and convinced many that miracles can still happen. OK, well now its 2010 and we have the Epigenetic Code and the Splicing Code, two codes much more
complex and dynamic than the simple DNA code. We have codes within codes, codes above and below codes a hierarchy of codes.
They cant just stick their finger in the pistol this time and bluff their way out of it with smooth talking now,
not with cannons to the left of them and cannons to the right of them, a whole arsenal aimed at their vital parts.
This is a game changer. The informatics age has grown around them and they are has-beens, like pike-thrusting
Greeks facing modern tanks and helicopters.
Sad to say, they dont realize it; or if they do, they have no intention of conceding.
In fact, some of the worst and most vicious, intolerant and hateful anti-creationist, anti-design
rhetoric in recent memory has been pouring forth from the Darwin-controlled journals and newspapers this week, right when the Splicing Code paper
was being published. Some examples will be forthcoming. And as long as they have the microphones and control the institutions, many people are going to be misled
into thinking they still have the high ground in science. We bring you this material for you to read, study, understand,
and arm yourselves with the information you need to combat bigoted bluffing blather with truth. Now go do it.
Next headline on:
The Hong Kong team that claims they found Noahs Ark at 14,000' on Mt. Ararat (04/28/2010)
has responded firmly to critics who say the wood was reconstructed up there as part of an elaborate hoax. Impossible,
they say, and they explain why on NoahsArkSearch.net. They still
have yet to provide detailed measurements and scientific data, however, and many questions remain.
Update 12/07/2010: Randall Price was interviewed by CBN and claims he has proof it is a
hoax by a disreputable guide who misled the Chinese team. But he also claims his own team has found a rectangular anomaly
under the ice with ground-penetrating radar, and hopes to excavate it next summer. Video at
World of the Bible.
Biomimetics: Design Science Is Flourishing
May 05, 2010 Some research centers appear to be on the verge of a golden age the age of
biomimetics (the imitation of biological design). Products that will change our lives are
springing from designs inspired by studying how plants, animals and cells have solved real-world
problems. Although some of the research mentions evolution, the real power behind the
research and development is the word design. Here are just a few recent examples.
Overlapping with biomimetics is genetic engineering. Once living designs are understood,
they can be tweaked in ways humans desire. New
Scientist reported on ways that plant leaf shape, stomata density and photosynthesis rate might be
Linda Geddes began the article on Designing Leaves by saying, From blades of grass to the cup-like fly-catcher of the pitcher plant, the
diversity of leaf shapes, sizes and structures is stunning. It is also incredibly useful, allowing plants to
live nearly everywhere on Earth, from the deserts of the US Midwest to the lush shores of the Amazon.
Now the precise molecular switches that control the process are being unpicked. Once we understand
how leaves grow and prosper, the question becomes, what does an optimal leaf look like and can we design one?
If so, we may be on the verge of the next green revolution producing crops with dramatically increased yields,
making food plants more resilient to heat and drought, and taking the guesswork out of selective breeding.
- Make a muscle: Scientists at the University of British Columbia are taking
inspiration from muscle proteins. They want to design materials that mimic their mechanical properties,
which are a unique combination of strength, extensibility and resilience, they said in their
paper in Nature.1 The chief molecule responsible for these desirable
properties is a giant protein aptly named titin. It acts like a complex molecular spring
thanks to a series of individually folded immunoglobulin-like domains as well as largely unstructured unique sequences.
The scientists have now succeeded in recasting solid biomaterials by making
artificial elastomeric proteins that mimic the molecular architecture of titin
that behave as rubber-like materials showing high resilience at low strain and as shock-absorber-like
materials at high strain by effectively dissipating energy. They call it a new
muscle-mimetic biomaterial. Even though it is a passive substance, they can
tweak it: The mechanical properties of these biomaterials can be fine-tuned by adjusting the
composition of the elastomeric proteins, providing the opportunity to develop biomaterials that are
mimetic of different types of muscles, they said.
Wow; will this be the new flubber? We anticipate that these biomaterials
will find applications in tissue engineering as scaffold and matrix for artificial muscles.
Watch for the biceps on upcoming robots. Elliot L. Chaikof commented on this paper in the same
issue of Nature,2. He said that biological materials are
attractive because they allow for dissipation of energy and damping vibrations that prevent structural failure.
The elasticity and energy-recovery properties of such structural proteins are therefore fine-tuned
for their biological roles, and are crucial determinants of the normal physiological responses of a broad
range of tissues, including those that comprise the cardiovascular and musculoskeletal systems.
The problem with synthetic materials in biomedical devices (microvalves, microactuators, etc.) is that
they cannot facilitate tissue repair, remodelling or regeneration, and they often provoke maladaptive
host responses at tissue–material interfaces. Creating parts out of protein is therefore a
worthy goal. Chaikof reminds the reader that we are merely at the frontier:
Lv and colleagues material is certainly impressive, but is it a true muscle mimic?
Muscles are complex molecular machines, in which several components are assembled into well-ordered structures
capable of converting a stimulus into motion. Titin is a major constituent of muscle, but
a titin mimic alone does not reproduce all the properties of muscle such as its tensile strength,
or force-generating and force-sensing abilities. In the absence of a self-repair mechanism,
protein-based materials are also inherently susceptible to biological degradative processes after implantation,
which could release foreign protein fragments into the host. For biomedical applications, such materials
therefore need to be carefully assessed to ensure that no fragments cause adverse immune reactions. Future work
will undoubtedly address these issues, leading to creative designs and fabrication techniques for assembling
artificial muscle elements that reproducibly and repeatedly respond on command, perform work, and function well
after surgical implantation.
Flubber basketball players may have to wait a while longer. This job is harder than it looks.
Science Daily reproduced a press
release from UBC about the progress so far; see also PhysOrgs
headline, Designed biomaterials mimicking biology: Potential scaffold for muscle regeneration.
- Moths are the prototype: A perfectly non-reflecting display would be really cool
for your eyeglasses or camera lenses. Moths are the prototype for a new nanocoating
being developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg, Germany.
Science Daily explained that
moths have to avoid predators while flying about at night. While other insects multi-faceted
eyes shimmer under light, the moths eyes are perfectly non-reflecting.
Thats because Tiny protuberances smaller than the wavelength of light form a periodic structure
on the surface. This nanostructure creates a gentle transition between the refractive indices of the air
and the cornea. As a result, the reflection of light is reduced and the moth remains undetected.
That trick is being imitated in a new process that applies the anti-reflective
surface structure during manufacture of the component, without having to add a second coating process.
This not only saves money but increases durability. The materials the Fraunhofer team is making are
strong, scratch-proof and easy to clean. Imagine soon having cell phone displays, dashboard display covers,
eyeglasses, and any other transparent surface that have all these desirable properties thanks to
the lowly moth.
- Purple is the new green: Purple bacteria, that live in the bottom of lakes and in
coral reefs, are among the very best at harvesting energy from sunlight. According to an article
in Science Daily,
Its natural design seems the best structural solution for harvesting solar energy.
Thats why Neil Johnson, a physicist and head of the inter-disciplinary research group in
complexity in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami, thinks its cellular
arrangement could be adapted for use in solar panels and other energy conversion devices to offer a
more efficient way to garner energy from the sun.
Johnson said (without first-hand observation) that these bacteria have been around for billions of years, and
you would think they are really simple organisms and that everything is understood about them.
But it was recently discovered that they can adopt different cell designs depending on light intensity.
That realization could help direct design of future photoelectric devices.
Purple bacteria have some tricks up their sleeves. They use a non-intuitive technique
to squeeze more energy out of available light. To optimize, they cant stay wide open all the
time; they have to adjust the input to the ability to process the energy which they do.
They hit a balance: purple bacteria create a design that balances the need to maximize the number
of photons trapped and converted to chemical energy, and the need to protect the cell from an oversupply
of energy that could damage it, Johnson explained.
At this point, the scientists are just trying to understand how the bacteria do it.
Currently, the researchers are using their mathematical model and the help of supercomputers,
to try to find a photosynthetic design even better than the one they found in purple bacteria,
although outsmarting nature is proving to be a difficult task. Maybe its just too hard.
So why not save energy, and harness the bacteria themselves? Because these bacteria grow and repair themselves,
the researchers hope this discovery can contribute to the work of scientists attempting to coat electronic devices
with especially [sic] adapted photosynthetic bacteria, whose energy output could become part of the conventional electrical circuit,
and guide the development of solar panels that can adapt to different light intensities.
- Between the fern and the deep blue sea: Tiny Hydrophobic Water Ferns Could Help Ships Economize on Fuel,
Science Daily announced.
How is that? The hairs on the surface of water ferns could allow ships to have a 10 percent
decrease in fuel consumption, the article explained. The plant has the rare ability to
put on a gauzy skirt of air under water. That translates into reduced friction, which translates
into fuel savings.
The tiny water fern Salvinia molesta is so hydrophobic, it never gets wet even
under water. You can pull it out of the water and the water just drips right off, leaving it
completely dry, even after it has been underwater for weeks. Imagine having swimsuits and scuba equipment
like that. Previous attempts to create superhydrophobic materials have not been stable enough to last.
Scientists have known about the fine hydrophobic hairs on the water fern, but they recently discovered
that the tips of the hairs are hydrophilic they attract water. Strange as that seems, it
sets up a water layer that holds the air layer close to the plant. One colleague was excited by
this: After the solving of the self-cleansing of the lotus leaf twenty years ago, the discovery of
the salvinia effect is one of the most important new discoveries in bionics.
Half the energy of moving a cargo ship through the water is caused by friction at
the hull-water interface. A ten percent saving on fuel costs by coating the hull with a salvinia-effect
material could have an enormous impact. Surfaces modelled on the water fern could revolutionise shipbuilding,
the article concluded.
- Synchronized swimming: The dancing of a school of fish like a single organism moving gracefully
through the water is a visual treat. Nature shows and Caribbean vacation commercials often depict a school
of fish moving as a single entity to avoid obstacles and elude prey, PhysOrg
agreed, adding, Engineers hope to give unmanned mini-submarines, mini-helicopters and other autonomous vehicles the same coordinated movement.
To do that, they first need to understand how the fish do it.
Fish signal one another via visual cues and hydrodynamics (the movement of water),
the article explains, describing research at the University of Maryland. A line of tiny hair cells
down each side of a fish helps them to sense the flow of the water around them. A short video
shows how the researchers are making their first clumsy attempts to get yard-long robotic submarines in a tank to
read each others visual cues, using cameras, to steer. Another researcher is working on the
hair cell mimics. All the while, they are monitoring a school of live fish called giant danios to
learn from their coordinated movements. Theyve learned that one fish getting startled can set off
a wave of agitation that propagates from neighbor to neighbors. Another video shows
computer models built on the observations. Were developing modern engineering tools to
quantitatively study this phenomenon, the lead researcher said, an aerospace engineering professor
with the design-friendly name Paley. Were taking methods you learn as an engineering student
and applying them to study biology. Next stop: synchronized aerial vehicles exploring the eyes
of hurricanes, schools of unmanned submarines gathering data in the deep ocean, maybe even synchronized spacecraft.
- Autonomous roach robots: Artificial robots, including drones, unmanned subs, Mars rovers and
spacecraft, have to be driven by humans. Often it takes too long for signals to reach the moving parts
to avert danger, and the robot gets stuck. Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University is envious
of roaches. They respond to obstacles so nimbly, he decided to wire their neurons to see how fast their
brains command their legs. PhysOrg describes his
work in If only a robot could be more like a cockroach.
The way we design robots now is too clumsy for the kind of work we need them to do to go
into the World Trade Center looking for victims, or other rescue situations. So, to make a robot that can turn, back up,
climb over or burrow under and obstacle without the guidance of a far off rescue worker using computer controls,
what could be better than mimicking an insects comparatively simple brain? Ritzmann thought.
Easier said than done, found Ritzmann and his assistant Allan Pollack. If you can imagine
doing brain surgery on the head of a pin, thats about what it took to wire a roach brain to study its
neuron firing patterns when it walks. They found that steps occur about 450 milliseconds after a neuron fires.
The cockroach is controlling the speed of its legs with its brain. If we can ever get our robots to do that,
well really have something especially if we can get them that small, and able to climb walls and
reproduce themselves. On second thought... restaurants, watch out.
1. Lv, Dudek, Cao, Balamurali, Gosline and Li, Designed biomaterials to mimic the mechanical properties of muscles,
Nature 465, 69–73
06 May 2010; doi:10.1038/nature09024.
2. Elliot L. Chaikof, Materials science: Muscle mimic,
Nature 465, 44–45
06 May 2010; doi:10.1038/465044a.
All together now: These articles said nothing about evolution.
This is all design, design, design. We are marveling at the design and complexity of living solutions
to real engineering problems, and trying to imitate them. If imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery, who are we trying to honor? For any Darwin Party maniacs reading this, worried that the
r-word is coming, notice that all this research, though completely compatible with an intelligent-design
approach to science, had nothing to do with religion. It shows that science can approach nature with
regard to intelligent design without focusing on the identity of the designer, Designer, or God.
Evolutionists have made a big deal out of their ability to weave stories of eye evolution from a light-sensitive patch to
the complex eyes of humans and octopi. Then what are we to make of the visual systems of the
box jellyfish? Read all about the eyes of these amazing creatures in the 05/13/2005 entry.
In the ID Revolution, everyone can join in
and get on board without starting a religious war, because the focus is on design
detection and design imitation. Questions about the Designer are, of course, very interesting and
important, and very compatible with all this research, but those discussions can be left in the hands of capable theologians
and philosophers. Individual scientists do not have to state their affiliations in their papers.
None of these did; and none of these felt compelled to tell Darwinian tales, either. If journals will just
loosen the reins, and let scientists like these talk about design, even intelligent design, without getting
whipped for using the phrase, all they would be doing is validating what is already taking place.
Simultaneously, journals need to relax the requirement for allegiance to Darwinism.
Just-so stories are becoming so 1940s. Its getting harder and harder for observational scientists
to maintain belief that blind chance could produce optimized computers (see next entry), synchronized robots, perfectly
non-reflecting surfaces, and so many other marvels. Isnt it time to jettison the bad habit of force-fitting
Information-Age discoveries into a worn-out Victorian mindset?
Intelligent design science is not so much about controversial additions to science. As you can see in
the articles above, design thinking is already being put to great use. Its more about some blessed subtractions.
Next headline on:
Darwins Linux: Did Evolution Produce a Computer?
May 04, 2010 How is a cell like a computer? Some Yale scientists asked that question,
and embarked on a project to compare the genome of a lowly bacterium to a computers operating
system.1. Their work was published in PNAS.2
As with most analogies, some things were found to be similar, and some different but in the end,
these two entities might be more similar overall in important respects.
The interdisciplinary team, composed of members of the Computer Science department and the
Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry department, calls itself the Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.
Recognizing that The genome has often been called the operating system (OS)
for a living organism, they decided to explore the analogy. For subjects, they took the
E. coli bacterium, one of the best-studied prokaryotic cells, and Linux, a popular Unix-based
operating system. The abstract reveals the basic findings, but theres more under the hood:
To apply our firsthand
knowledge of the architecture of software systems to understand
cellular design principles, we present a comparison between the
transcriptional regulatory network of a well-studied bacterium
(Escherichia coli) and the call graph of a canonical OS (Linux) in
terms of topology and evolution. We show that both networks
have a fundamentally hierarchical layout, but there is a key difference:
The transcriptional regulatory network possesses a few global
regulators at the top and many targets at the bottom; conversely,
the call graph has many regulators controlling a small set of generic
functions. This top-heavy organization leads to highly overlapping
functional modules in the call graph, in contrast to the relatively independent
modules in the regulatory network. We further develop
a way to measure evolutionary rates comparably between the two
networks and explain this difference in terms of network evolution.
The process of biological evolution via random mutation and
subsequent selection tightly constrains the evolution of regulatory
network hubs. The call graph, however, exhibits rapid evolution
of its highly connected generic components, made possible by designers
continual fine-tuning. These findings stem from the design
principles of the two systems: robustness for biological systems and
cost effectiveness (reuse) for software systems.
We see they have already concocted a curious mixture of designer language and evolution language.
The design language continues in the heart of the paper. Design principles, optimization,
constraints, frameworks, interconnections, information processing these engineering
phrases are ubiquitous. Consider this paragraph that starts with master control plan.
They applied it not to Linux but to the cell, which is found to have many similarities to the
master control plan of the computer operating system:
The master control plan of a cell is its transcriptional regulatory
network. The transcriptional regulatory network coordinates
gene expression in response to environmental and intracellular
signals, resulting in the execution of cellular processes such as cell
divisions and metabolism. Understanding how cellular control
processes are orchestrated by transcription factors (TFs) is a fundamental
objective of systems biology, and therefore a great
deal of effort has been focused on understanding the structure
and evolution of transcriptional regulatory networks. Analogous
to the transcriptional regulatory network in a cell, a computer OS
consists of thousands of functions organized into a so-called call
graph, which is a directed network whose nodes are functions
with directed edges leading from a function to each other function
it calls. Whereas the genome-wide transcriptional regulatory network
and the call graph are static representations of all possible
regulatory relationships and calls, both transcription regulation
and function activation are dynamic. Different sets of transcription
factors and target genes forming so-called functional modules
are activated at different times and in response to different
environmental conditions. In the same way, complex OSs are
organized into modules consisting of functions that are executed
for various tasks.
And yet, on the other hand, the team felt that both the cell and Linux vary under
processes of evolution:
Like biological systems, software systems such as a computer
operating system (OS) are adaptive systems undergoing evolution.
Whereas the evolution of biological systems is subject to
natural selection, the evolution of software systems is under
the constraints of hardware architecture and customer requirements.
Since the pioneering work of Lehman, the evolutionary
pressure on software has been studied among engineers.
Interestingly enough, biological and software systems both execute
information processing tasks. Whereas biological information
processing is mediated by complex interactions between
genes, proteins, and various small molecules, software systems
exhibit a comparable level of complexity in the interconnections
between functions. Understanding the structure and evolution of
their underlying networks sheds light on the design principles of
both natural and man-made information processing systems.
These paragraphs provide a flavor of the basic assumptions of the paper:
that cells and OSs are analogous in their design principles and in their evolution.
So what did they find? Their most eye-catching chart shows that Linux is
top-heavy with master regulators and middle management functions, whereas a cells
transcription network is bottom-heavy with workhorse proteins and few top management
functions. The illustration has been reproduced in an article on
PhysOrg with the
interesting headline, Scientists Explain Why Computers Crash But We Dont.
A table in the Discussion section of the paper summarizes the main similarities
and differences they found. Here are some noteworthy examples:
The differences seem to be winning. Cells and Operating Systems have different constraints;
therefore, they have different design principles and optimization. But not so fast; the
team only studied a very lowly bacterium. What would happen if they expanded their study
upward into the complex world of eukaryotes? Heres how the paper ended:
- Cells are constrained by the environment; Linux by the hardware and customer needs.
- Cells evolve by natural selection; Linux evolves by designers fine-tuning.
- Cells have a pyramid-shaped hierarchy; Linux is top-heavy.
- Cells dont reuse genes much, but Linux reuses function calls often.
- Cells dont allow much overlap between modules, but Linux does.
- Cells have many specialized workhorses; Linux concentrates on generic functions.
- Cell evolutionary rates are mostly conservative; in Linux, they are conservative to adaptive.
- Cell design principles are bottom up; in Linux, they are top down.
- Cells are optimized for robustness; Linux is optimized for cost effectiveness.
Reuse is extremely common in designing man-made systems.
For biological systems, to what extent they reuse their repertoires
and by what means sustain robustness at the same time are questions
of much interest. It was recently proposed that the repertoire
of enzymes could be viewed as the toolbox of an organism. As the
genome of an organism grows larger, it can reuse its
tools more often and thus require fewer and fewer new tools for
novel metabolic tasks. In other words, the number of enzymes
grows slower than the number of transcription factors when
the size of the genome increases. Previous studies have made
the related finding that as one moves towards more complex
organisms, the transcriptional regulatory network has an increasingly
top-heavy structure with a relatively narrow base. Thus, it
may be that further analysis will demonstrate the increasing
resemblance of more complex eukaryotic regulatory networks
to the structure of the Linux call graph.
1. An operating system is the foundational software on a computer that runs applications.
A useful analogy is the management company for a convention center. It doesnt run conventions itself,
but it knows the hardware (exhibit halls, restrooms, lights, water, power, catering) and has the personnel to
operate the facilities so that a visiting company (application) can run their convention at the center.
2. Yan, Fang, Bhardwaj, Alexander, and Gerstein, Comparing genomes to computer operating systems
in terms of the topology and evolution of their regulatory control networks,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
published online before print May 3, 2010, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0914771107.
This is a really interesting paper, because it illustrates the intellectual schizophrenia of the modern
Darwinist in the information age. It might be analogous to a post-Stalin-era communist ideologue
trying to recast Marxist-Leninist theory for the late 1980s, when the failures of collectivism have long
been painfully apparent to everyone except the party faithful. With a half-hearted smile, he says, So we see, that capitalism does appear
to work in certain environments under different constraints; in fact, it may well turn out to be the
final stage of the proletarian revolution. Well, for crying out loud, then, why not save a step,
and skip over the gulags to the promised land of freedom!
Archer Fish Sees Clearly Up and Down
You notice that the old Darwin Party natural-selection ideology was everywhere assumed,
not demonstrated. The analogy of natural selection to customer requirements and designers fine-tuning is strained
to put it charitably; to put it realistically, it is hilariously funny. The authors nowhere demonstrated that
robustness is a less worthy design goal than cost-effectiveness. For a cell cast into a dynamic world,
needing to survive, what design goal could be more important than robustness? Linux lives at predictable
temperatures in nice, comfortable office spaces. Its designers have to design for paying customers.
As a result, the operating system is more vulnerable to breakdowns because even
simple updates to a generic routine can be very disruptive, PhysOrg admitted. Bacteria have
to live out in nature.
A cost-effective E. coli is a dead E. coli. The designer did a pretty good job to make those
critters survive all kinds of catastrophes on this planet. The PhysOrg article simply swept this
difference into the evolutionary storytelling motor mouth, mumbling of the bacterial design, that
over billions of years of evolution, such an organization has proven robust.
That would be like our communist spin doctor alleging that the success of capitalism
proves the truth of Marxist doctrine.
A simple bacterial genome shows incredibly successful design for robustness when
compared to a computer operating system, albeit at the cost of low reuse of modules.
But then the authors admitted the possibility that eukaryotes might well
have achieved both robustness and modular reusability. That would make
the comparison to artificial operating systems too close to call.
If we know that Linux did not evolve by mutations and natural selection, then it is a pretty good bet that
giraffes and bats and whales and humans did not, either. That should be enough to get Phillip
Johnsons stirring speech, Mr. Darwin, Tear down this wall! to stimulate a
groundswell of discontent with the outmoded regime. May it lead to a sudden and surprising demise of its icons,
and a new birth of academic freedom.
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
May 03, 2010 The archer fish, which lives in mangrove swamps and rivers, is able to spit insects off
leaves above the water with remarkable accuracy (09/30/2002,
10/10/2006). Scientists have been fascinated by this ability
because in order for the fish to calculate the trajectory of its missiles, it needs to take into account both chromatic aberration
and refraction from the air-water interface. Now, scientists at the University of Queensland
have determined that the little fish can see up into the air and down into the water clearly at the
same time. This enables them to aim at the prey while watching for predators, even though the color and refractive
characteristics of the two directions are different.
PhysOrg carried the press
release from the University of Queensland, Australia, which said,
Archerfish spit jets of water with remarkable accuracy at insects as much as a meter or more
above the waters surface, despite the distortion that occurs due to the bending of light as it
passes from air to water. They do all this while being attentive to potential predators approaching
from above or below said lead investigator Dr Shelby Temple.
The press release indicated that most vertebrate taxa are known to have differences in color sensitivity
across the retina, but this is the first time a functional role has been discovered for the phenomenon.
Dr. Temple explained, The correlation we found between the colour sensitivity of the archerfish
eye for looking in different directions and the background environment in those different
directions indicates that the archerfish eye is highly tuned to differences in the spectral quality
of light in different directions.
The article tried to give an evolutionary explanation for this ability in archerfish and other
vertebrates. As this story shows, when they have specific necessary tasks, animals often
come up with remarkable adaptations to help them survive, said Justin Marshall, a professor
at the University and Temples supervisor. That, of course, begs the question of how animals come up with
adaptations, or whether they are even capable of wanting to come up with them, or knowing that they need to, even if they
could. His question-begging only dug in worse when he mixed evolution and
design words, and compared evolution to engineering:
The innovation in design here is called matched filtering where the visual system takes
into account the environment and, through evolution, adjusts its self [sic] to the outside world.
Under water, this world changes more rapidly from top to bottom than it does in air and archerfish have
come up with a neat system of accounting for this change and retaining exquisitely tuned vision in
every direction at once. This design principle is something we can learn from in our own attempts at engineering.
Would this reasoning be invertible? If human engineers were to copy the design principles in the archerfish, would it be called evolution?
Student to Professor: You have just failed your test on Darwinism. Bad prof.
As punishment, you must wear this dunce cap and write on the chalkboard fifty times, Evolution is not engineering, and vice versa.
Are There Limits to Scientific Speculation? A Royal Case
By now long-time readers have honed their ability to spot the tricks evolutionists use to cover their
miracles. Animals come up with adaptations. An innovation in design occurs.
The innovation is called matched filtering. The visual system takes into account the
environment, and through evolution, adjusts itself. Archerfish have come up with a neat
system that amounts to a design principle. See? Theres no such thing as a
consistent Darwinist. Everybody is a supernaturalist. Evolutionists really do believe in intelligent design.
Force them to admit it.
Next headline on:
May 02, 2010 Question: When does science become like a priesthood? Answer: When its practitioners
engage in speculation on big questions impossible to verify with empirical observations. Is this what
the chief astronomer in Britain is doing?
Sir Martin Rees certainly would not have thought of himself as a priest as he wrote an
article for the BBC News,
Hubbles Role in the Search for Aliens. As the Astronomer Royal of Britain, master
of Trinity College and president of the Royal Society, he fancies himself as a scientist.
We think of scientists as dealing in observation, empiricism, data, evidence. How many of the
following statements are amenable to experimental verification, at least within his own lifetime or
a reasonable extension of our civilizations (say, a few decades), such that his statements could
be verified within the memory of people hearing him?
Rees continued by espousing inflation theory and other consensus ideas in cosmology. His speculations were
all encompassing, from the origin of everything to the eternal future, from the emergence of life in galaxies he will never
see, to its evolving to the point of a kind of godhood over the entire cosmos in eons long after his own death.
Even the mysteries of the universe were things he felt comfortable discussing as a scientific spokesman.
- We have established, in outline, a consensus picture of how, from a hot dense beginning nearly 14 billion years ago,
our expanding universe developed galaxies, stars and planets.
- We can set our entire solar system in a grand evolving scenario stretching back to a Big Bang
an era when everything was hotter than the centres of stars, and expanding on a timescale of a few seconds.
- If there is life on Mars, it is very primitive.
- But could some newly discovered planets orbiting other stars harbour biospheres as complex as our Earths, perhaps with intelligent life?
- There are on-going searches for transmissions that might be artificial in origin.... Despite the heavy odds against success, I certainly support these efforts, because of the philosophical import of any detection of a manifestly artificial signal.
- Even if we couldnt make much sense of it, wed have learnt that intelligence wasnt unique to
the hardware inside human skulls, and had emerged elsewhere.
- When we look at Andromeda, we sometimes wonder if there may be other beings looking back at us.
Maybe there are.
But on these remote galaxies there surely arent. Their stars havent have had time to fuse pristine hydrogen
into carbon, oxygen and silicon the atoms needed for planets and life.
- What about the far future? Six billion years from now, when the sun dies,....
- But what might happen still further ahead?.... The best long-range forecast, therefore, is that the cosmos will
continue to expand, becoming ever emptier, ever darker and ever colder.
- We cant predict what role life will eventually carve out for itself: it could become extinct; on the other hand,
it could achieve such dominance that it can influence the entire cosmos.
The latter is the province of science fiction, but it cant be dismissed as absurd.
- After all, its taken little more than one billion years for natural selection to lead from the
first multi-cellular organisms to Earths present biosphere (including us).
Other than the elevated language, this sounds like the kind of storytelling
a shaman would tell gullible tribespeople around a campfire, or a Chaldean would explain to the Assyrian king and his lords
to amaze them with the mysteries of the universe. We need to think big picture, you know; Year 2010 A.D. is nothing
in the big scheme of things, especially when you want to talk billions of years and the births and deaths of galaxies.
Rees is a blip on a screen of no consequence to the scientist in Andromeda who is 100 times his superior
intellectually. For all he knows, the Andromedans are creationists.
Homology explained take the tutorial on a key Darwinian concept in Homology for Dummies,
With all due respect to Sir Rees and his
education and accomplishments in science, what does he know about these things? What does he know about
life on Mars? Nothing. What does he know about
the beings in Andromeda looking back at us? Nothing. What does he know about the first microseconds
of the universe? Nothing. What does he know about what came before that? Nothing.
What does he know about inflation? Nothing. What does he know about the universe six billion years from now?
Nothing. What does he know about the interior of stars, the atmospheres of exoplanets, the hardware inside
human skulls that give rise to the mind, the conditions for life, and whether those conditions exist in distant galaxies? (We use the term know advisedly,
because having theories about them is not the same as knowing first-hand.) Nothing to very little.
If he restricted his science to empiricism, his essay would be very short, and very dull.
Speculating like a shaman is a lot more fun. That does not make it truthful. Wearing badges
of authority, like advanced degrees, knighthood, the consensus, and the respect of ones peers,
does not confer truthfulness either. Ancient authorities had their badges of honor, too.
Modern scientific authority is supposed to be derived from its rigorous, slavish dependence on
experimental methods that are observable, testable, and repeatable. OK, Dr. Rees, wed like to see them.
We have another challenge to Dr. Rees. Our readers will notice that Darwinism is a linchpin of
his argument its taken little more than one billion years for natural selection to lead
from the first multi-cellular organisms to Earths present biosphere (including us).
Yet he turned right around and validated intelligent design, by supporting SETI searches for
transmissions that might be artificial in origin.... Why do you put artificial
in quotes, Dr. Rees? Define artificial. In your world view, there is no such thing.
Everything has to be natural because it all came out of the big bang. Oh, we get it;
thats why you also put intelligence in quotes later on Even if we couldnt
make much sense of it [i.e., the alien message to us], wed have learnt that intelligence
wasnt unique to the hardware inside human skulls, and had emerged elsewhere.
So intelligence is not really intelligence; its just an artifact of hardware. It just
emerged. How did that happen? Was it a miracle? Once it emerged, how was its power to
connect to reality validated? You talked about the philosophical import of any detection
of a manifestly artificial signal. What is philosophy? Is it something that refers to
that which is universal, necessary, timeless and certain i.e., something prior to, and outside the big bang?
If not, if it emerged after the big bang, maybe it will evolve, too. If it evolves, how do we know
that the truth claims you allege today might not evolve into their opposites,
such that a future Scientific Priest six billion years from now might proclaim as true that the big bang never happened,
and Darwinism is a myth? How do you distinguish a manifestly artificial signal from a natural artificial
signal, if everything in your world view must be natural by definition? Is your philosophy ultimately derived from hydrogen?
Then how can you possibly contend that it offers knowledge, whatever that is? But if you arent offering knowledge,
were not interested in what you have to sell.
So lets assess the credibility of Sir Martin Rees, Chief Priest and Knight of the Secular Cross of the Royal Empire
of the United Kingdom. He fancies himself a naturalist, but believes in miracles (emergence). He fancies himself a Darwinist
but believes in intelligent design methods (detection of SETI messages as manifestly artificial). He is a scientist but
spent 95% of his time talking about things with no experimental evidence to support them. As a scientist, he is supposed
to be an empiricist but referred to consensus, an argument from group authority. He pretended to be
intelligent, but put intelligence in quotes, indicating he does not believe intelligence is real.
So why is he trying to reason with us? Can we not assume the poor soul is babbling like a madman?
His views are hopelessly muddled and inconsistent; he must be judged, therefore, a false prophet.
In the old days he would be stoned. These days, they do it painlessly at the Royal Pub; take him
away and give him a rocking good time with some adult beverages to put him out of our misery.
Footnote: In an interview for
New Statesman, Dr. Rees said
that creationists are people who are intellectually deprived. And why is that?
They dont appreciate the wonderful story that science has opened up for us.
(By that he means molecules to man evolution, with Charles Darwin the Grand Poobah Storyteller.)
Well, Dr. Rees, if youre talking stories, the Chaldeans, Greeks and Egyptians had a lot more
sex and drama in theirs. Even the interviewer was a little taken aback by his answer:
Story is an unusual way to describe it, Sophie Elmhirst said (good for her).
Stick it to him, Sophie; as Stan Freberg remarked, were tired of this Royal jazz.
The Royal Society, of which you are president, founded largely by creationists, was built on the principle of nothing on mere authority.
Certainly you dont want us to believe your big sweeping story on the basis of your
authority or Darwins, do you, or because you can ridicule
those who disagree with your story?
Stupid is as stupid does. Sweeping away your critics with a cheap insult is not exactly the way to establish yourself as
intellectually advantaged. Maybe a little wisdom will emerge from your hangover.
Next headline on:
Darwin and Evolution
Dino-Feather Story Gets Fluffier
May 1, 2010 Xing Xu is at it again, claiming that dinosaur feathers are found
everywhere in China, at least, where the bulk of feathered dinosaur claims
keep turning up in farmyards. The latest claim is that Feather structures in maturing
dinosaurs changed as they grew. This story is accompanied by artwork showing the
critters looking as big and fierce as dinosaur monsters (see
Geographic); in reality, though, they would have been as small as pigeons.
Xus paper in Nature concerns two specimens of Similicaudipteryx,
which is, obviously, similar to Caudipteryx. Yet Caudipteryx has long been
considered by some as not a dinosaur but a member of the class Aves (birds) that became
secondarily flightless (see 12/27/2000,
Since none of the critics of dinosaur-to-bird evolution were allowed to rebut the claims of the
paper in Nature, it is hard to have confidence this fossil has anything to say about
a transition from dinosaurs to birds.
Xu claims that the plumage patterns seen in these few fossils suggests that
early feathers were developmentally more diverse than modern ones and have no counterparts
in modern birds. This is assuming that his team has correctly identified the fossils
of extinct animals as members of the same species and can know their ages within acceptable
margins of error without having living examples to observe. Even if that is true, the results do not provide any
simple story for the evolution of feathers. Instead, it appears that modern
birds moulting habits are simpler now than they were in the past.
1. Xing Xu, Xiaoting Zheng, Hailu You, Exceptional dinosaur fossils show ontogenetic development of early feathers,
464, 1338-1341 (29 April 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature08965.
The supplemental materials in Xus paper include a phylogenetic
tree showing all the dinosaur groups that supposedly have feathers, and the feather types that have been
found. At first glance it looks impressive, but a closer look raises questions.
He has tyrannosaurids mixed in with the oviraptors and velociraptors and all these other animals.
The cladogram supposedly shows ancestral relationships, with feather types at the tips of each
group. You look at the feather types, though, and the clear bird feathers (pennate feathers with quills
and barbs and barbules, and asymmetric flight feathers) have question
marks by half the groups. You read the caption and find his disclaimer that the evidence
is questionable for these. The ones that have the bird-like feathers could be said to be
extinct bird lineages or secondarily flightless birds.
May 1, 2010 Under the Influence needs its subtitle attached to avoid sounding like a book
about something else. The subtitle is: How Christianity Transformed Civilization.
Written by Alvin J. Schmidt, PhD, a retired professor of sociology at Illinois College, this book is a springboard
for research. It covers a lot of ground. Its 15 chapters and 400 pages can only briefly
acquaint the reader with hundreds of fascinating characters and interesting subjects, but Schmidt
managed to pack many interesting and little-known facts into his volume. Readers should be aware that the
author is not intending to portray every character as an exemplary Christian in every
way, but rather to show that the Christian world view has a cumulative positive effect on society.
And then think about placing a T. rex anywhere near in
the same classification scheme with little pigeon-size birdy things and you have to wonder if
something isnt seriously wrong here. Classification schemes are, after all, man-made.
They dont jump out of the data. Fossils show mosaics of traits in complex ways.
We dont have the soft tissues, the behaviors, and the environments to flesh out many
important details. Another group of scientists starting with different assumptions (shall
we say, without evolutionary assumptions) could conceivably categorize these fossils in completely
different ways. Consider, for instance, that the grouping maniraptorans was
concocted to include both birds and dinosaurs (01/29/2010),
by the same people wishing to show they are evolutionarily related. That raises charges of
Xu tries to answer the argument that some of the
feather-like structures might have been flayed collagen, but we need to see the counter-arguments
from Feduccia and the guys at University of Oregon (02/09/2010).
Nature, Science and
National Geographic are giving way too much press to one side, to the Mr. Feathered Dinosaur
guy Xing Xu. This is not good science. The whole story is not being heard.
Next headline on:
Under the Influence (Zondervan, 2001) is a tour de force that proves the case for Christianity being
a blessing for civilization from every angle. Schmidt shows how Christianity elevated the dignity
of human life, elevated sexual morality, gave
women freedom and dignity, motivated charity and compassion, furthered health care, fostered education,
improved labor and economic freedom, promoted liberty and justice for all, abolished slavery,
stimulated art and architecture, elevated music and literature and language, and of interest
to CEH readers was a driving force behind the advance of science. What has Darwin done
for you lately in any one of these areas?
The book has a foreword
by Dr. Paul L. Maier, several dozen black-and-white illustrations, photos, and charts, dozens of references
at the end of each chapter, and a thorough index. Published by Zondervan (2001), you can obtain it from
Amazon.com, where all 8 reviewers gave it 5 stars.
Next resource of the week: 04/23/2010.
All resources: Catalog.
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|Guide to Evolution
I always thought that science and the Bible should not be at odds with each other and prayed that God
would reveal the truth about evolution/creation through science to us. I wondered if there existed
scientists who were believers and how they reconciled Genesis with science. Where were they when I was teaching?
Now I understand that these Godly men and women had been silenced.... I am so thankful for your website
containing your insightful and educational articles that reveal your understanding of science and Gods word.
(a retired biology teacher in Ohio)
It keeps getting better and better. Wonderful resources there.
(a mechanical engineer and educational consultant in Texas)
Just stopped by to say Hi; Thanks again for your posting--still the best web site on the net!!
(a regular reader in Illinois)
I accidentally came across your BRILLIANT website today.... your website is mesmerising and i sincerely thank you for it.
Wishing you every success.
(an author in Ireland)
I appreciate your reviews more than I can tell. Being able to find the references enables me to
share them with my colleagues and students.
(a teacher in Virginia)
Thank you for your site. I have thoroughly enjoyed it for a few years now and find it an awesome resource.
(a pastor in the arctic circle)
This is a lovely site, and I personally visit this often.... An interesting thing is also the
creation scientist of the month .... just this information alone is enough to write a book from.
(a reader in South Africa)
What God has done through you and crev.info in the past 9 years is nothing less than miraculous.
(an author, PhD in science, and head of a Christian apologetics organization)
I thank God for you and your contribution to His Kingdom. Yours is my favorite site.
May the Lord bless you this season as you get some rest. We really appreciate your work.
(a consultant in Virginia responding to our Thanksgiving-week hiatus)
Instead of criticising every piece of evidence for evolution how about presenting some evidence for creationism?
Obviously there are holes in evolutionary theory we cant even define a species! But its a theory with a
whole load of evidence and if taken at its definition is a mathmatical [sic] certainty.
(a student in Leeds, UK, who must have reacted to one or a few articles, and appears to be
philosophically and mathematically challenged)
In the creation vs. evolution world, which oftentimes is filled with a strong negative vibe,
your website is a breath of fresh air! Keep it up.
(a business manager in Texas)
The maple-seed helicopter (10/21/2009) is fascinating.
Ill be spending some time surfing your encyclopedic collection of articles.
(dean of the aerospace engineering department at a major university)
I stumbled upon this web site more than once by following links from my usual creationist web sites but now I visit here quite often. I am glad to see that there are more and more creationist web sites but disappointed to find out that this one has been running for nearly 10 years and I never knew about it.
(an electronics engineer in Sweden)
I am a teacher ... For three years ive been learning from you at crev.info/... My wife, a teacher also, passes your website on to all interested. We are blessed by your gifts to the body of Christ through this site! Thank-you for ALL your efforts over the decade.
(a teacher in California)
I just want to thank you for these resources that go back 9 years.
It has helped be tremendously when debating evolutionists. Just like in the Parable of the
Talents, God will say to you, Well done, good and faithful servant!
(an engineer in Maryland)
There is no other place I can find the breadth of subjects covered, yet with the detailed insight you give.
People actually think I am smarter than I really am after I read your summaries.
(a business owner in Utah)
I believe there is a middle ground between ID and Evolution that defines what goes on in the real world. It hasnt been labeled by humanity yet, and its probably better that it hasnt, for now. The problem is there is still so much that humanity doesnt know about the universe we live in and our learning progress is so uneven throughout our population. If there is an Intelligent Designer, and I believe there is, these problems too will be taken care of eventually. In the meantime, you do the best you can, the best that's humanly possible, to be objective and logical, while maintaining your faith.
(a retired letter carrier in Pennsylvania)
The information you have provided has been instrumental in completely resolving
any lingering doubts I had when I became a Christian and being faced with the monolithic
theory of evolution. Your website is unique in that it allows the evolutionists
themselves to shoot them in the feet by quoting them in context. Bravo!
(a retired surveyor in Australia)
I really enjoy reading your posts and often send out links to various friends and family members to direct them to your site.
You have an incredible gift and I truly appreciate how you use it.... I have been a satisfied reader of your headlines for the last 5 years at least...
cant remember when I first stumbled on your site but it is now a daily must-stop for me.
(a senior software engineer in Ohio)
Thank you so much for your news. Ive fully enjoyed your articles and commentary for a while now and look forward to the future.
(a doctor in North Carolina)
I like your stuff.
(a doctor in New York)
Thank you and may God bless you all at CEH, for the wonderful work you do.
(a retired surveyor in Australia)
The information you put out there is absolutely superb.
(a lawyer in Kansas)
Your website is the best website on the web for keeping me current of fast developing crev material.
(a medical doctor in California)
I am a christian & really appreciate the creation websites, I check your site every night.
(a logger in New Zealand)
I just found your website a day or so ago and am totally addicted.
You dont know what that says, considering Im only now within the last few days, as a matter of fact
a recovering old-earther ... Talk about going down internet rabbit trails.
I could go deeper and deeper into each headline you post and never get anything else done...
(a home school educator, graphic designer, painter, former geologist in Texas)
I very much enjoy your web site. I have used it as a resource for debating evolutionist for about a year.
I am impressed at the breadth of journals and quantity of articles you report on. I have recommended your site to
several of my on line friends. I dont care if you publish this post but I wanted you to know how thankful
I am for all the hard work you do.
(an engineering recruiter in California)
I pray that our Lord continue to give you strength to continue writing your articles
on Creation-headlines. I have been really blessed to read it daily....Unlike all
other creation sites I am familiar with, yours has such a high scientific quality and
your discussions are great.
(a scientist and university professor in Iceland, where 95% of the people believe in evolution)
Thank you for the work you do ... I scratch my head sometimes, wondering how you have the time for it all.
(a former atheist/evolutionist in aerospace engineering, now Biblical creationist)
Im a regular (daily :) reader of your site. It is amazing the amount
of work that you impart in such a project. Thank you very much.
(an IT professional with a degree in mechanical engineering from Portugal)
I find your site so helpful and you are so fast in putting up responses to current news.
I have your site RSS feed on my toolbar and can easily see when you have new articles posted.
(a geologist in Australia)
I have been reading your website for several years now. Working in an environment where
most people believe that there are only two absolutes, evolution and relativism, it has been wonderful
to be able to get the facts and the explanations of the bluffs and false logic that blows around.
I have posted your website in many places on my website, because you seem to have the ability to cut
through the baloney and get to the truth--a rare quality in this century. Thank you for all that you do.
(a business analyst in Wisconsin)
...this is one of the websites (I have like 4 or 5 on my favorites), and this is
there. Its a remarkable clearinghouse of information; its very well written,
its to the point... a broad range of topics. I have been alerted to more
interesting pieces of information on [this] website than any other website I can think of.
(a senior research scientist)
I would assume that you, or anyone affiliated with your website is simply not
qualified to answer any questions regarding that subject [evolution], because I can almost
single-handedly refute all of your arguments with solid scientific arguments....
Also, just so you know, the modern theory of evolution does not refute the existence
of a god, and it in no way says that humans are not special. Think about that
before you go trying to discredit one of the most important and revolutionary scientific
ideas of human history. It is very disrespectful to the people who have spent
their entire lives trying to reveal some kind of truth in this otherwise crazy world.
(a university senior studying geology and paleontology in Michigan)
Hi guys, thanks for all that you do, your website is a great source of information: very comprehensive.
(a medical student in California)
You are really doing a good job commenting on the weaknesses of science, pointing
out various faults. Please continue.
(a priest in the Netherlands)
I much enjoy the info AND the sarcasm. Isaiah was pretty sarcastic at times, too.
I check in at your site nearly every day. Thanks for all your work.
(a carpet layer in California)
I just wanted to write in to express my personal view that everyone at Creation
Evolution Headlines is doing an excellent job! I have confidences that in the
future, Creation Evolution Headline will continue in doing such a great job!
Anyone who has interest at where science, as a whole, is at in our current times,
does not have to look very hard to see that science is on the verge of a new awakening....
Its not uncommon to find articles that are supplemented with assumptions and vagueness.
A view point the would rather keep knowledge in the dark ages. But when I read over the
postings on CEH, I find a view point that looks past the grayness.
The whole team at CEH helps cut through the assumptions of weary influences.
CEH helps illuminate the true picture that is shining in todays science.
A bright clear picture, full of intriguing details, independence and fascinating complexities.
I know that Creation Evolution Headlines has a growing and informative future before them.
Im so glad to be along for the ride!!
(a title insurance employee in Illinois, who called CEH The Best Web Site EVER !!)
Thank you very much for your well presented and highly instructive blog [news service].
(a French IT migration analyst working in London)
Please keep up the great work -- your website is simply amazing!
Dont know how you do it. But it just eviscerates every evolutionary
argument they weakly lob up there -- kind of like serving up a juicy fastball
to Hank Aaron in his prime!
(a creation group leader in California)
I just want to thank you for your outstanding job. I am a regular reader of
yours and even though language barrier and lack of deeper scientific insight play
its role I still draw much from your articles and always look forward to them.
(a financial manager and apologetics student in Prague, Czech Republic)
You guys are doing a great job! ... I really appreciate the breadth of coverage and depth of analysis that you provide on this site.
(a pathologist in Missouri)
I have read many of your creation articles and have enjoyed and appreciated your website.
I feel you are an outstanding witness for the Lord.... you are making a big difference, and
you have a wonderful grasp of the issues.
(a PhD geneticist, author and inventor)
Thank you for your great creation section on your website. I come visit
it every day, and I enjoy reading those news bits with your funny (but oh so true) commentaries.
(a computer worker in France)
I have been reading Creation Evolution Headlines for many years now with ever increasing astonishment....
I pray that God will bless your work for it has been a tremendous blessing for me and I thank you.
(a retired surveyor in N.S.W. Australia)
I totally enjoy the polemic and passionate style of CEH... simply refreshes the
heart which its wonderful venting of righteous anger against all the BS were
flooded with on a daily basis. The baloney detector
is just unbelievably great. Thank you so much for your continued effort,
keep up the good work.
(an embedded Linux hacker in Switzerland)
I love to read about science and intelligent design,
I love your articles.... I will be reading your articles for the rest of my life.
(an IT engineer and 3D animator in South Africa)
I discovered your site about a year ago and found it to be very informative,
but about two months back I decided to go back to the 2001 entries and read through the
headlines of each month.... What a treasure house of information!
....you have been very balanced and thoughtful
in your analysis, with no embarrassing predictions, or pronouncements or unwarranted
statements, but a very straightforward and sometimes humorous analysis of the news
relating to origins.
(a database engineer in New York)
I discovered your site several months ago.... I found your articles very
informative and well written, so I subscribed to the RSS feed. I just want to
thank you for making these articles available and to encourage you to keep up the good work!
(a software engineer in Texas)
Your piece on Turing Test Stands (09/14/2008)
was so enlightening. Thanks so much. And your piece on Cosmology
at the Outer Limits (06/30/2008) was
another marvel of revelation. But most of all your footnotes at
the end are the most awe-inspiring. I refer to Come to the light
and Psalm 139 and many others. Thanks so much for keeping us grounded in the
TRUTH amidst the sea of scientific discoveries and controversy. Its so
heartwarming and soul saving to read the accounts of the inspired writers testifying
to the Master of the Universe. Thanks again.
(a retired electrical engineer in Mississippi)
I teach a college level course on the issue of evolution and creation.
I am very grateful for your well-reasoned reports and analyses of the issues that
confront us each day. In light of all the animosity that evolutionists
express toward Intelligent Design or Creationism, it is good to see that we on
the other side can maintain our civility even while correcting and informing a
hostile audience. Keep up the good work and do not compromise your high
standards. I rely on you for alerting me to whatever happens to be the news
of the day.
(a faculty member at a Bible college in Missouri)
Congratulations on reaching 8 years of absolute success with crev.info....
Your knowledge and grasp of the issues are indeed matched by your character and desire for truth,
and it shows on every web page you write.... I hope your work extends to the ends of the world,
and is appreciated by all who read it.
(a computer programmer from Southern California)
Your website is one of the best, especially for news.... Keep up the great work.
(a science writer in Texas)
I appreciate the work youve been doing with the
Creation-Evolution Headlines website.
(an aerospace engineer for NASA)
I appreciate your site tremendously.... I refer many people to your content
frequently, both personally and via my little blog....
Thanks again for one of the most valuable websites anywhere.
(a retired biology teacher in New Jersey, whose blog features beautiful plant
and insect photographs)
I dont remember exactly when I started reading your site but it was probably
in the last year. Its now a staple for me. I appreciate the depth
of background you bring to a wide variety of subject areas.
(a software development team leader in Texas)
I want to express my appreciation for what you are doing. I came across
your website almost a year ago.... your blog [sic; news service] is one that I regularly
read. When it comes to beneficial anti-evolutionist material, your blog
has been the most helpful for me.
(a Bible scholar and professor in Michigan)
I enjoyed reading your site. I completely disagree with you on just
about every point, but you do an excellent job of organizing information.
(a software engineer in Virginia. His criticisms led to an engaging dialogue.
He left off at one point, saying, You have given me much to think about.)
I have learned so much since discovering your site about 3 years ago.
I am a homeschooling mother of five and my children and I are just in wonder over
some the discoveries in science that have been explored on creation-evolution headlines.
The baloney detector will become a part of my curriculum during the next school year.
EVERYONE I know needs to be well versed on the types of deceptive practices used by
those opposed to truth, whether it be in science, politics, or whatever the subject.
(a homeschooling mom in Mississippi)
Just wanted to say how much I love your website. You present the truth
in a very direct, comprehensive manner, while peeling away the layers of propaganda
disguised as 'evidence' for the theory of evolution.
(a health care worker in Canada)
Ive been reading you daily for about a year now. Im extremely
impressed with how many sources you keep tabs on and I rely on you to keep my finger
on the pulse of the controversy now.
(a web application programmer in Maryland)
I would like to express my appreciation for your work exposing the Darwinist
assumptions and speculation masquerading as science.... When I discovered your site
through a link... I knew that I had struck gold! ....Your site has helped me to
understand how the Darwinists use propaganda techniques to confuse the public.
I never would have had so much insight otherwise... I check your site almost daily to
keep informed of new developments.
(a lumber mill employee in Florida)
I have been reading your website for about the past year or so.
You are [an] excellent resource. Your information and analysis is spot on, up to
date and accurate. Keep up the good work.
(an accountant in Illinois)
This website redefines debunking. Thanks for wading through the obfuscation
that passes for evolution science to expose the sartorial deficiencies of
Emperor Charles and his minions. Simply the best site of its kind, an
amazing resource. Keep up the great work!
(an engineer in Michigan)
I have been a fan of your daily news items for about two years, when a friend pointed
me to it. I now visit every day (or almost every day)... A quick kudo: You are
amazing, incredible, thorough, indispensable, and I could list another ten
superlatives. Again, I just dont know how you manage to comb so widely, in so many
technical journals, to come up with all this great news from science info.
(a PhD professor of scientific rhetoric in Florida and author of two books, who added that he was
awe-struck by this site)
Featured Creation Scientist for May
1811 - 1870
This months biography is a true story of how the Bible helped advance science
and alleviate needless suffering. Its the story of the man who invented
the use of chloroform in surgery the surgeon and obstetrician, Dr. James Simpson.
James Young Simpson was the 8th child, and 7th son, of a poor baker in Scotland.
His mother died when he was 9; the fifth son also died young. John Hudson Tiner
says in Those Who Dare, pp. 170-171 (Resource of the Week for
04/23/2010) that the family could only
afford to send one child to school. Because James showed the most promise, he
was selected. He entered the University of Edinburgh at age 14 and graduated
with a medical degree at age 21.
Its hard to imagine today that surgery was done without benefit of
painkillers or anesthesia till the mid-19th century. There was alcohol, of course,
and some opiates that could make people dopey or sleepy that were known since antiquity.
Recall that in Romeo and Juliet the protagonists feigned death, probably with the use of
a soporific sponge with which Shakespeare may have been familiar. Before actual anesthesia
was born in the mid-1840s, surgery was a horrendous affair. Operating rooms were located
far from hospitals where people could not hear the screams. Patients were strapped
down, given liquor or opiates, and cut up and sewn up as quickly as possible.
Imagine being a surgeon and having to put people in agony day after day.
No wonder surgeons had a reputation for being heartless, uncaring individuals.
All that suddenly and dramatically changed in 1846-1847.
Nitrous oxide (laughing
gas), discovered by Joseph Priestly, and introduced by Humphrey Davy in 1799,
had been found to be effective in dental surgery around 1845. Ether was introduced in a
dramatic surgical demonstration by the American physician William Morton on October 16, 1846;
co-priority was claimed by Harvard chemist Charles Jackson a week later. But early attempts at
the use of ether were met with great risk; ether was noxious and flammable, and with gas
lamps around, explosions could occur.
James Simpson experimented with other substances using a risky trial and error procedure: he and two friends
would sniff various chemicals to see if they had any anesthetic effects. Since we prefer not
to consider Wikipedia a reliable source, the following quote can be considered entertaining if not
Dr Simpson and two of his friends, Drs Keith and Duncan used to sit every evening in Dr Simpsons dining room
to try new chemicals to see if they had any anaesthetic effect. On 4th November, 1847 they decided to try a
ponderous material named chloroform that they had previously ignored. On inhaling the chemical they found that
a general mood of cheer and humour had set in. But suddenly all of them collapsed only to regain consciousness
the next morning. Simpson knew, as soon as he woke up, that he had found something that could be used as an
anaesthetic. They soon had Miss Petrie, Simpsons niece, try it. She fell asleep soon after inhaling it
while singing the words, I am an angel!. It was very much up to chance that Simpson survived the chloroform
dosage he administered to himself. If he had inhaled too much, subsequently passing away from an overdose,
chloroform would have been seen as a dangerous substance. However, if Simpson had inhaled slightly less it
would not have put him to sleep. It was his willingness to explore the possibilities of the substance that
established his career as a pioneer in the field of medicine.
So one way or another, Simpson had found that chloroform (CHCl3),
which had been reported by a French chemist in 1831, was effective and reliable. He experimented with
it as a general anesthetic for childbirth, and published a paper on it in 1847: Account of a New Anaesthetic Agent.
Its use thereafter expanded rapidly in Europe especially after Queen Victoria bore Prince Leopold
with its use in 1853. Simpsons fame spread; he was knighted, and his coat of arms
read, Victo dolore Pain conquered!
Yet some doctors did not jump at the opportunity to use anesthesia, Tiner said.
Some argued that pain served a medical purpose. A few doctors, for some strange
reason, voiced religious objections to the use of anesthetics. They argued it was
against nature or against the will of God. Heres where Simpson
found an argument from Scripture. He turned to Genesis 2, where God put
Adam to sleep while performing surgery on him to create Eve from his side.
If God could use a kind of anesthesia before the fall of man, why could not
we use such a technique today? Tiner explains, Simpson believed
the principle that God did not rejoice in needless pain still applied.
This was not an isolated application of Scripture for Simpson. Tiner goes
on to explain that Simpson was an avid Christian, a Bible scholar, and soulwinner.
He even wrote a tract explaining the gospel of Jesus Christ to non-Christians.
Chloroform was a major advance in surgery. Patients think nothing of going
into an Adamic sleep while being cut open for operations that before would have
caused screams of pain, only to awaken sewn up and unaware of the trauma.
Anesthesia has undergone many advances since 1847. Chloroform can be toxic
in high doses and must be used with care, but it is still used
in primitive situations. It is inexpensive and easy to transport and
store, Tiner says; Hot temperatures do not affect it, and an open
flame will not cause it to explode (Tiner, Ibid., p. 171).
In Men of Science, Men of God (1988, p. 52), Henry M. Morris wrote that Simpson could
have boasted about his discovery of chloroform, but exclaimed that his greatest
discovery was, That I have a Saviour! Morris quoted the end of
that gospel tract Simpson wrote. It said:
But again I looked and saw Jesus, my substitute, scourged
in my stead and dying on the cross for me. I looked and cried and was
forgiven. And it seems to be my duty to tell you of that Saviour,
to see if you will not also look and live. He was wounded for
our transgressions, . . . and with His stripes we are healed
If you are enjoying this series, you can
learn more about great Christians in science by reading
our online book-in-progress:
The Worlds Greatest
Creation Scientists from Y1K to Y2K.
A Concise Guide|
You can observe a lot by just watching.
First Law of Scientific Progress
The advance of science can be measured by the rate at which exceptions to previously held laws accumulate.
1. Exceptions always outnumber rules.
2. There are always exceptions to established exceptions.
3. By the time one masters the exceptions, no one recalls the rules to which they apply.
Nature will tell you a direct lie if she can.
So will Darwinists.
Science is true. Dont be misled by facts.
Finagles 2nd Law
No matter what the anticipated result, there
will always be someone eager to (a) misinterpret it, (b) fake it, or (c)
believe it happened according to his own pet theory.
3. Draw your curves, then plot your data.
4. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
6. Do not believe in miracles rely on them.
Murphys Law of Research
Enough research will tend to support your theory.
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of.
1. The bigger the theory, the better.
2. The experiments may be considered a success if no more than 50%
of the observed measurements must be discarded to obtain a correspondence
with the theory.
The number of different hypotheses erected to explain a given biological phenomenon
is inversely proportional to the available knowledge.
All great discoveries are made by mistake.
The greater the funding, the longer it takes to make the mistake.
The solution to a problem changes the nature of the problem.
Peters Law of Evolution
Competence always contains the seed of incompetence.
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Repetition does not establish validity.
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts not the facts themselves.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
Thumbs Second Postulate
An easily-understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex, incomprehensible truth.
There is nothing so small that it cant be blown out of proportion
Hawkins Theory of Progress
Progress does not consist in replacing a theory that is
wrong with one that is right. It consists in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is
more subtly wrong.
The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory.
Error is often more earnest than truth.
Advice from Paul|
Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle
babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge by
professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.
I Timothy 6:20-21
Song of the True Scientist
O Lord, how manifold are Your works! In wisdom You have made
them all. The earth is full of Your possessions . . . . May the glory of the Lord endure forever. May the
Lord rejoice in His works . . . . I will sing to the Lord s long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have my
being. May my meditation be sweet to Him; I will be glad in the Lord. May sinners be
consumed from the earth, and the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!
from Psalm 104
Through the creatures Thou hast made
Show the brightness of Thy glory.
Be eternal truth displayed
In their substance transitory.
Till green earth and ocean hoary,
Massy rock and tender blade,
Tell the same unending story:
We are truth in form arrayed.
Teach me thus Thy works to read,
That my faith, new strength accruing
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdoms fruitful search pursuing
Till, thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the eternal Creed
Oft the glorious theme renewing,
God our Lord is God indeed.
James Clerk Maxwell
One of the greatest physicists
of all time (a creationist).
Like your site especially the style of your comments.... Keep up the good work.
(a retired engineer and amateur astronomer in Maryland)
I really enjoy your website, the first I visit every day. I have a
quote by Mark Twain which seems to me to describe the Darwinian philosophy of
science perfectly. There is something fascinating about science.
One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment
of fact. Working as I do in the Environmental field (I am a geologist
doing groundwater contamination project management for a state agency) I see that
kind of science a lot. Keep up the good work!!
(a hydrogeologist in Alabama)
I visit your website regularly and I commend you on your work. I
applaud your effort to pull actual science from the mass of propaganda for Evolution
you report on (at least on those rare occasions when there actually is any science
in the propaganda). I also must say that I'm amazed at your capacity to
continually plow through the propaganda day after day and provide cutting and
amusing commentary.... I can only hope that youthful surfers will stop by
your website for a fair and interesting critique of the dogma they have to
imbibe in school.
(a technical writer living in Jerusalem)
I have enjoyed your site for several years now. Thanks for all the
hard work you obviously put into this. I appreciate your insights, especially
the biological oriented ones in which I'm far behind the nomenclature curve.
It would be impossible for me to understand what's going on without some
interpretation. Thanks again.
(a manufacturing engineer in Vermont)
Love your site and your enormous amount of intellectualism and candor
regarding the evolution debate. Yours is one site I look forward to on
a daily basis. Thank you for being a voice for the rest of us.
(a graphic designer in Wisconsin)
For sound, thoughtful commentary on creation-evolution hot topics go to
(Access Research Network
Your website is simply the best (and Id dare say one of the most important) web sites on the entire WWW.
(an IT specialist at an Alabama university)
Ive been reading the articles on this website for over a year, and
Im guilty of not showing any appreciation. You provide a great service.
Its one of the most informative and up-to-date resources on creation available
anywhere. Thank you so much. Please keep up the great work.
(a senior research scientist in Georgia)
Just a note to thank you for your site. I am a regular visitor and I use your site
to rebut evolutionary "just so" stories often seen in our local media.
I know what you do is a lot of work but you make a difference and are appreciated.
(a veterinarian in Minnesota)
This is one of the best sites I have ever visited. Thanks.
I have passed it on to several others... I am a retired grandmother.
I have been studying the creation/evolution question for about 50 yrs....
Thanks for the info and enjoyable site.
(a retiree in Florida)
It is refreshing to know that there are valuable resources such as Creation-Evolution
Headlines that can keep us updated on the latest scientific news that affect our view of
the world, and more importantly to help us decipher through the rhetoric so carelessly
disseminated by evolutionary scientists. I find it Intellectually Satisfying
to know that I dont have to park my brain at the door to be a believer
or at the very least, to not believe in Macroevolution.
(a loan specialist in California)
I have greatly benefitted from your efforts. I very much look forward
to your latest posts.
(an attorney in California)
I must say your website provides an invaluable arsenal in this war for souls
that is being fought. Your commentaries move me to laughter or sadness.
I have been viewing your information for about 6 months and find it one of the best
on the web. It is certainly effective against the nonsense published on
Talkorigins.org. It great to see work that glorifies God and His creation.
(a commercial manager in Australia)
Visiting daily your site and really do love it.
(a retiree from Finland who studied math and computer science)
I am agnostic but I can never deny that organic life (except human) is doing a wonderful
job at functioning at optimum capacity. Thank you for this ... site!
(an evolutionary theorist from Australia)
During the year I have looked at your site, I have gone through your archives and
found them to be very helpful and informative. I am so impressed that I forward link
to members of my congregation who I believe are interested in a higher level discussion
of creationist issues than they will find at [a leading origins website].
(a minister in Virginia)
I attended a public school in KS where evolution was taught. I have
rejected evolution but have not always known the answers to some of the
questions.... A friend told me about your site
and I like it, I have it on my favorites, and I check it every day.
(an auto technician in Missouri)
Thanks for a great site! It has brilliant insights into the world of
science and of the evolutionary dogma. One of the best sites I know of on
(a programmer in Iceland)
The site you run creation-evolution headlines is
extremely useful to me. I get so tired of what passes
for science Darwinism in particular and I find your
site a refreshing antidote to the usual junk.... it is clear that your thinking and logic
and willingness to look at the evidence for what the
evidence says is much greater than what I read in what
are now called science journals.
Please keep up the good work. I appreciate what you
are doing more than I can communicate in this e-mail.
(a teacher in California)
Although we are often in disagreement, I have the greatest respect and admiration for your writing.
(an octogenarian agnostic in Palm Springs)
your website is absolutely superb and unique. No other site out
there provides an informed & insightful running critique of the current
goings-on in the scientific establishment. Thanks for keeping us informed.
(a mechanical designer in Indiana)
I have been a fan of your site for some time now. I enjoy reading the No Spin of what
is being discussed.... keep up the good work, the world needs to be shown just how little the scientist
[sic] do know in regards to origins.
(a network engineer in South Carolina)
I am a young man and it is encouraging to find a scientific journal
on the side of creationism and intelligent design....
Thank you for your very encouraging website.
(a web designer and author in Maryland)
GREAT site. Your ability to expose the clothesless emperor in clear language is indispensable to
us non-science types who have a hard time seeing through the jargon and the hype. Your tireless efforts
result in encouragement and are a great service to the faith community. Please keep it up!
(a medical writer in Connecticut)
I really love your site and check it everyday. I also recommend it to everyone I can, because there is
no better website for current information about ID.
(a product designer in Utah)
Your site is a fantastic resource. By far, it is the most current, relevant and most frequently
updated site keeping track of science news from a creationist perspective. One by one, articles
challenging currently-held aspects of evolution do not amount to much. But when browsing the archives,
its apparent youve caught bucketfulls of science articles and news items that devastate
evolution. The links and references are wonderful tools for storming the gates of evolutionary paradise
and ripping down their strongholds. The commentary is the icing on the cake. Thanks for all your
hard work, and by all means, keep it up!
(a business student in Kentucky)
Thanks for your awesome work; it stimulates my mind and encourages my faith.
(a family physician in Texas)
I wanted to personally thank you for your outstanding website. I am intensely interested in any
science news having to do with creation, especially regarding astronomy. Thanks again for your GREAT
(an amateur astronomer in San Diego)
What an absolutely brilliant website you have. Its hard to express how uplifting it is for me
to stumble across something of such high quality.
(a pharmacologist in Michigan)
I want to make a brief commendation in passing of the outstanding job you did in rebutting the
thinking on the article: Evolution of Electrical Engineering
... What a rebuttal to end all rebuttals, unanswerable,
inspiring, and so noteworthy that was. Thanks for the effort and research you put into it.
I wish this answer could be posted in every church, synagogue, secondary school, and college/university...,
and needless to say scientific laboratories.
(a reader in Florida)
You provide a great service with your thorough coverage of news stories relating
to the creation-evolution controversy.
(an elder of a Christian church in Salt Lake City)
I really enjoy your website and have made it my home page so I can check on your latest articles.
I am amazed at the diversity of topics you address. I tell everyone I can about your site and encourage them to
check it frequently.
(a business owner in Salt Lake City)
Ive been a regular reader of CEH for about nine month now, and I look forward to each new posting.... I enjoy the information CEH gleans from current events in science and hope you keep the service going.
(a mechanical engineer in Utah)
It took six years of constant study of evolution to overcome the indoctrination found in public schools of my youth. I now rely on your site; it helps me to see the work of God where I could not see it before and to find miracles where there was only mystery. Your site is a daily devotional that I go to once a day and recommend to everyone. I am still susceptible to the wiles of fake science and I need the fellowship of your site; such information is rarely found in a church.
Now my eyes see the stars God made and the life He designed and I feel the rumblings of joy as promised. When I feel down or worried my solution is to praise God the Creator Of All That Is, and my concerns drain away while peace and joy fill the void. This is something I could not do when I did not know (know: a clear and accurate perception of truth) God as Creator. I could go on and on about the difference knowing our Creator has made, but I believe you understand.
I tell everyone that gives me an opening about your site. God is working through you. Please dont stop telling us how to see the lies or leading us in celebrating the truth. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
(a renowned artist in Wyoming)
I discovered your site a few months ago and it has become essential reading via RSS to
(a cartographer and GIS analyst in New Zealand)
I love your site, and frequently visit to read both explanations of news reports,
and your humor about Bonny Saint Charlie.
(a nuclear safety engineer in Washington)
Your site is wonderful.
(a senior staff scientist, retired, from Arizona)
Ive told many people about your site. Its a tremendous service to
science news junkies not to mention students of both Christianity and
(a meteorology research scientist in Alabama)
...let me thank you for your Creation-Evolution Headlines. Ive been an avid reader of it since I first discovered your website about five years ago. May I also express my admiration for the speed with which your articles appearoften within 24 hours of a particular news announcement or journal article being published.
(a plant physiologist and prominent creation writer in Australia)
How do you guys do it--reviewing so much relevant material every day and writing incisive,
(a retired high school biology teacher in New Jersey)
Your site is one of the best out there! I really love reading your articles on creation evolution
headlines and visit this section almost daily.
(a webmaster in the Netherlands)
Keep it up! Ive been hitting your site daily (or more...).
I sure hope you get a mountain of encouraging email, you deserve it.
(a small business owner in Oregon)
Great work! May your tribe increase!!!
(a former Marxist, now ID speaker in Brazil)
You are the best. Thank you....
The work you do is very important.
Please dont ever give up. God bless the whole team.
(an engineer and computer consultant in Virginia)
I really appreciate your work in this topic, so you should never stop doing what you do,
cause you have a lot of readers out there, even in small countries in Europe, like Slovenia
is... I use crev.info for all my signatures on Internet forums etc., it really is fantastic site,
the best site! You see, we(your pleased readers) exist all over the world, so you must be
doing great work! Well i hope you have understand my bad english.
(a biology student in Slovenia)
Thanks for your time, effort, expertise, and humor. As a public school biology teacher I
peruse your site constantly for new information that will challenge evolutionary belief and share much
of what I learn with my students. Your site is pounding a huge dent in evolutions supposed
solid exterior. Keep it up.
(a biology teacher in the eastern USA)
Several years ago, I became aware of your Creation-Evolution Headlines web site.
For several years now, it has been one of my favorite internet sites. I many times check your
website first, before going on to check the secular news and other creation web sites.
I continue to be impressed with your writing and research skills, your humor,
and your technical and scientific knowledge and understanding. Your ability to cut through
the inconsequentials and zero in on the principle issues is one of the characteristics that
is a valuable asset....
I commend you for the completeness and thoroughness with which you provide
coverage of the issues. You obviously spend a great deal of time on this work.
It is apparent in ever so many ways.
Also, your background topics of logic and propaganda techniques have been useful
as classroom aides, helping others to learn to use their baloney detectors.
Through the years, I have directed many to your site. For their sake and mine,
I hope you will be able to continue providing this very important, very much needed, educational,
humorous, thought provoking work.
(an engineer in Missouri)
I am so glad I found your site. I love reading short blurbs about recent discoveries, etc,
and your commentary often highlights that the discovery can be interpreted in two differing ways,
and usually with the pro-God/Design viewpoint making more sense. Its such a refreshing difference
from the usual media spin. Often youll have a story up along with comment before the masses
even know about the story yet.
(a system administrator in Texas, who calls CEH the UnSpin Zone)
You are indeed the Rush Limbaugh Truth Detector of science falsely so-called.
Keep up the excellent work.
(a safety director in Michigan)
I know of no better way to stay
informed with current scientific research than to read your site everyday, which in turn has helped me understand
many of the concepts not in my area (particle physics) and which I hear about in school or in the media.
Also, I just love the commentaries and the baloney detecting!!
(a grad student in particle physics)
I thank you for your ministry. May God bless you! You are doing great job effectively
exposing pagan lie of evolution. Among all known to me creation ministries [well-known organizations listed]
Creationsafaris stands unique thanks to qualitative survey and analysis of scientific publications and news.
I became permanent reader ever since discovered your site half a year ago. Moreover your ministry is
effective tool for intensive and deep education for cristians.
(a webmaster in Ukraine, seeking permission to translate CEH articles into Russian to reach
countries across the former Soviet Union)
The scholarship of the editors is unquestionable. The objectivity of the editors is
admirable in face of all the unfounded claims of evolutionists and Darwinists. The amount
of new data available each day on the site is phenomenal (I cant wait to see the next new
article each time I log on). Most importantly, the TRUTH is always and forever the primary
goal of the people who run this website. Thank you so very much for 6 years of consistent
dedication to the TRUTH.
(11 months earlier): I just completed reading each entry from each month. I found your site about
6 months ago and as soon as I understood the format, I just started at the very first entry
and started reading.... Your work has blessed my education and determination to bold in
showing the unscientific nature of evolution in general and Darwinism in particular.
(a medical doctor in Oklahoma)
Thanks for the showing courage in marching against a popular unproven unscientific belief system.
I dont think I missed 1 article in the past couple of years.
(a manufacturing engineer in Australia)
I do not know and cannot imagine how much time you must spend to read, research and
compile your analysis of current findings in almost every area of science. But I do know
I thank you for it.
(a practice administrator in Maryland)
Since finding your insightful comments some 18 or more months ago, Ive
visited your site daily.... You
so very adeptly and adroitly undress the emperor daily; so much so one
wonders if he might not soon catch cold and fall ill off his throne! ....
To you I wish much continued success and many more years of fun and
frolicking undoing the damage taxpayers are forced to fund through
unending story spinning by ideologically biased scientists.
(an investment advisor in Missouri)
I really like your articles. You do a fabulous job of cutting through
the double-talk and exposing the real issues. Thank you for your hard
work and diligence.
(an engineer in Texas)
I love your site. Found it about maybe
two years ago and I read it every day. I love the closing comments in
green. You have a real knack for exposing the toothless claims of the
evolutionists. Your comments are very helpful for many us who dont know
enough to respond to their claims. Thanks for your good work and keep it
(a missionary in Japan)
I just thought Id write and
tell you how much I appreciate your headline list and commentary. Its
inspired a lot of thought and consideration. I check your listings every day!
(a computer programmer in Tulsa)
Just wanted to thank you for your creation/evolution news ... an outstanding educational
(director of a consulting company in Australia)
Your insights ... been some of the most helpful not surprising considering the caliber of
your most-excellent website! Im serious, ..., your website has to be the
best creation website out there....
(a biologist and science writer in southern California)
I first learned of your web site on March 29.... Your site has far exceeded my expectations and is
consulted daily for the latest. I join with other readers in praising your time and energy spent to educate,
illuminate, expose errors.... The links are a great help in understanding the news items.
The archival structure is marvelous.... Your site brings back dignity to Science conducted as it
should be. Best regards for your continuing work and influence. Lives are being changed and
sustained every day.
(a manufacturing quality engineer in Mississippi)
I wrote you over three years ago letting you know how much I enjoyed your Creation-Evolution headlines,
as well as your Creation Safaris site. I stated then that I read your headlines and commentary every day,
and that is still true! My interest in many sites has come and gone over the years, but your site is
still at the top of my list! I am so thankful that you take the time to read and analyze some of the
scientific journals out there; which I dont have the time to read myself. Your commentary is very,
very much appreciated.
(a hike leader and nature-lover in Ontario, Canada)
...just wanted to say how much I admire your site and your writing.
Youre very insightful and have quite a broad range of knowledge.
Anyway, just wanted to say that I am a big fan!
(a PhD biochemist at a major university)
I love your site and syndicate your content on my church website....
The stories you highlight show the irrelevancy
of evolutionary theory and that evolutionists have perpetual foot and
mouth disease; doing a great job of discrediting themselves. Keep up
the good work.
(a database administrator and CEH junkie in California)
I cant tell you how much I enjoy your article reviews on your
websiteits a HUGE asset!
(a lawyer in Washington)
Really, really, really a fantastic site. Your wit makes a razor appear dull!...
A million thanks for your site.
(a small business owner in Oregon and father of children who love your site too.)
Thank God for ... Creation
Evolution Headlines. This site is right at the cutting edge in the debate
over bio-origins and is crucial in working to undermine the
deceived mindset of naturalism. The arguments presented are unassailable
(all articles having first been thoroughly baloney detected) and the
narrative always lands just on the right side of the laymans comprehension
limits... Very highly recommended to all, especially, of course, to those who
have never thought to question the fact of evolution.
(a business owner in Somerset, UK)
I continue to note the difference between the dismal derogations of the
darwinite devotees, opposed to the openness and humor of rigorous, follow-the-evidence
scientists on the Truth side. Keep up the great work.
(a math/science teacher with M.A. in anthropology)
Your material is clearly among the best I have ever read on evolution problems!
I hope a book is in the works!
(a biology prof in Ohio)
I have enjoyed reading the sardonic apologetics on the Creation/Evolution Headlines section
of your web site. Keep up the good work!
(an IT business owner in California)
Your commentaries ... are always delightful.
(president of a Canadian creation group)
Im pleased to see... your amazing work on the Headlines.
(secretary of a creation society in the UK)
We appreciate all you do at crev.info.
(a publisher of creation and ID materials)
I was grateful for creationsafaris.com for help with baloney detecting. I had read about
the fish-o-pod and wanted to see what you thought. Your comments were helpful and encouraged me
that my own baloney detecting skill are improving. I also enjoyed reading your reaction
to the article on evolution teachers doing battle with students.... I will ask my girls to read your
comments on the proper way to question their teachers.
(a home-schooling mom)
I just want to express how dissapointed [sic] I am in your website. Instead of being objective, the
website is entirely one sided, favoring creationism over evolution, as if the two are contradictory....
Did man and simien [sic] evovlve [sic] at random from a common ancestor? Or did God guide this evolution?
I dont know. But all things, including the laws of nature, originate from God....
To deny evolution is to deny Gods creation. To embrace evolution is to not only embrace his creation,
but to better appreciate it.
(a student in Saginaw, Michigan)
I immensely enjoy reading the Creation-Evolution Headlines. The way you use words
exposes the bankruptcy of the evolutionary worldview.
(a student at Northern Michigan U)
...standing O for crev.info.
(a database programmer in California)
Just wanted to say that I am thrilled to have found your website! Although I
regularly visit numerous creation/evolution sites, Ive found that many of them do
not stay current with relative information. I love the almost daily updates to
your headlines section. Ive since made it my browser home page, and have
recommended it to several of my friends. Absolutely great site!
(a network engineer in Florida)
After I heard about Creation-Evolution Headlines,
it soon became my favorite Evolution resource site on the web. I visit several times a
day cause I cant wait for the next update. Thats pathetic, I know ...
but not nearly as pathetic as Evolution, something you make completely obvious with your snappy,
intelligent commentary on scientific current events. It should be a textbook for science
classrooms around the country. You rock!
(an editor in Tennessee)
One of the highlights of my day is checking your latest CreationSafaris creation-evolution news listing!
Thanks so much for your great work -- and your wonderful humor.
(a pastor in Virginia)
Thanks!!! Your material is absolutely awesome. Ill be using it in our Adult Sunday School class.
(a pastor in Wisconsin)
Love your site & read it daily.
(a family physician in Texas)
I set it [crev.info] up as my homepage. That way I am less likely to miss some really interesting events....
I really appreciate what you are doing with Creation-Evolution Headlines. I
tell everybody I think might be interested, to check it out.
(a systems analyst in Tennessee)
I would like to thank you for your service from which I stand to benefit a lot.
(a Swiss astrophysicist)
I enjoy very much reading your materials.
(a law professor in Portugal)
Thanks for your time and thanks for all the work on the site.
It has been a valuable resource for me.
(a medical student in Kansas)
Creation-Evolution Headlines is a terrific resource. The articles are
always current and the commentary is right on the mark.
(a molecular biologist in Illinois)
Creation-Evolution Headlines is my favorite
anti-evolution website. With almost giddy anticipation, I check
it several times a week for the latest postings. May God bless you and
empower you to keep up this FANTASTIC work!
(a financial analyst in New York)
I read your pages on a daily basis and I would like to let you know
that your hard work has been a great help in increasing my knowledge
and growing in my faith. Besides the huge variety of scientific
disciplines covered, I also enormously enjoy your great sense of humor
and your creativity in wording your thoughts, which make reading your
website even more enjoyable.
(a software developer in Illinois)
THANK YOU for all the work you do to make this wonderful resource! After
being regular readers for a long time, this year weve incorporated your
site into our home education for our four teenagers. The Baloney Detector
is part of their Logic and Reasoning Skills course, and the Daily Headlines
and Scientists of the Month features are a big part of our curriculum for an
elective called Science Discovery Past and Present. What a wonderful
goldmine for equipping future leaders and researchers with the tools of
(a home school teacher in California)
What can I say I LOVE YOU!
I READ YOU ALMOST EVERY DAY I copy and send out to various folks.
I love your sense of humor, including your politics and of course your faith.
I appreciate and use your knowledge What can I say THANK YOU
THANK YOU THANK YOU SO MUCH.
(a biology major, former evolutionist, now father of college students)
I came across your site while browsing through creation & science links. I love the work you do!
(an attorney in Florida)
Love your commentary and up to date reporting. Best site for evolution/design info.
(a graphic designer in Oregon)
I am an ardent reader of your site. I applaud your efforts and pass on
your website to all I talk to. I have recently given your web site info
to all my grandchildren to have them present it to their science
teachers.... Your Supporter and fan..God bless you all...
(a health services manager in Florida)
Why your readership keeps doubling: I came across your website at a time when I was just getting to know what creation science is all about. A friend of mine was telling me about what he had been finding out. I was highly skeptical and sought to read as many pro/con articles as I could find and vowed to be open-minded toward his seemingly crazy claims. At first I had no idea of the magnitude of research and information thats been going on. Now, Im simply overwhelmed by the sophistication and availability of scientific research and information on what I now know to be the truth about creation.
Your website was one of dozens that I found in my search. Now, there are only a handful of sites I check every day. Yours is at the top of my list... I find your news page to be the most insightful and well-written of the creation news blogs out there. The quick wit, baloney detector, in-depth scientific knowledge you bring to the table and the superb writing style on your site has kept me interested in the day-to-day happenings of what is clearly a growing movement. Your site ... has given me a place to point them toward to find out more and realize that theyve been missing a huge volume of information when it comes to the creation-evolution issue.
Another thing I really like about this site is the links to articles in science journals and news references. That helps me get a better picture of what youre talking about.... Keep it up and I promise to send as many people as will listen to this website and others.
(an Air Force Academy graduate stationed in New Mexico)
Im a small town newspaper editor in southwest Wyoming. Were pretty
isolated, and finding your site was a great as finding a gold mine. I read
it daily, and if theres nothing new, I re-read everything. I follow links.
I read the Scientist of the Month. Its the best site Ive run across. Our
local school board is all Darwinist and determined to remain that way.
(a newspaper editor in Wyoming)
have been reading your page for about 2 years or so....
I read it every day. I ...am well educated, with a BA in Applied Physics
from Harvard and an MBA in Finance from Wharton.
(a reader in Delaware)
I came across your website by accident about 4 months ago and look at it every day....
About 8 months ago I was reading a letter to the editor of the Seattle Times that was written
by a staunch anti-Creationist and it sparked my interest enough to research the
topic and within a week I was yelling, my whole lifes education has been a lie!!!
Ive put more study into Biblical Creation in the last 8 months than any other topic in my life.
Past that, through resources like your website...Ive been able to convince my father (professional mathematician and amateur geologist), my best friend (mechanical engineer and fellow USAF Academy Grad/Creation Science nutcase), my pastor (he was the hardest to crack), and many others to realize the Truth of Creation.... Resources like your website help the rest of us at the grassroots level drum up interest in the subject. And regardless of what the major media says: Creationism is spreading like wildfire, so please keep your website going to help fan the flames.
(an Air Force Academy graduate and officer)
I love your site! I **really** enjoy reading it for several specific reasons: 1.It uses the latest (as in this month!) research as a launch pad for opinion; for years I have searched for this from a creation science viewpoint, and now, Ive found it. 2. You have balanced fun with this topic. This is hugely valuable! Smug Christianity is ugly, and I dont perceive that attitude in your comments. 3. I enjoy the expansive breadth of scientific news that you cover. 4. I am not a trained scientist but I know evolutionary bologna/(boloney) when I see it; you help me to see it. I really appreciate this.
(a computer technology salesman in Virginia)
I love your site. Thats why I was more than happy to
mention it in the local paper.... I mentioned your site as the place
where..... Every Darwin-cheering news article is
reviewed on that site from an ID perspective. Then
the huge holes of the evolution theory are exposed,
and the bad science is shredded to bits, using real
(a project manager in New Jersey)
Ive been reading your site almost daily for about three years. I have
never been more convinced of the truthfulness of Scripture and the faithfulness of God.
(a system administrator and homeschooling father in Colorado)
I use the internet a lot to catch up on news back
home and also to read up on the creation-evolution controversy, one of my favourite topics.
Your site is always my first port of call for the latest news and views and I really appreciate
the work you put into keeping it up to date and all the helpful links you provide. You are a
beacon of light for anyone who wants to hear frank, honest conclusions instead of the usual diluted
garbage we are spoon-fed by the media.... Keep up the good work and know that youre changing lives.
(a teacher in Spain)
I am grateful to you for your site and look forward to reading new
stories.... I particularly value it for being up to date with what is going on.
(from the Isle of Wight, UK)
[Creation-Evolution Headlines] is the place to go for late-breaking
news [on origins]; it has the most information and the quickest turnaround.
Its incredible I dont know how you do it.
I cant believe all the articles you find. God bless you!
(a radio producer in Riverside, CA)
Just thought I let you know how much I enjoy
reading your Headlines section. I really appreciate
how you are keeping your ear to the ground in so
many different areas. It seems that there is almost
no scientific discipline that has been unaffected
by Darwins Folly.
(a programmer in aerospace from Gardena, CA)
I enjoy reading the comments on news articles on your site very much. It is incredible
how much refuse is being published in several scientific fields regarding evolution.
It is good to notice that the efforts of true scientists have an increasing influence at schools,
but also in the media.... May God bless your efforts and open the eyes of the blinded evolutionists
and the general public that are being deceived by pseudo-scientists.... I enjoy the site very much
and I highly respect the work you and the team are doing to spread the truth.
(an ebusiness manager in the Netherlands)
I discovered your site through a link at certain website...
It has greatly helped me being updated with the latest development in science and with
critical comments from you. I also love your baloney detector
and in fact have translated some part of the baloney detector into our language (Indonesian).
I plan to translate them all for my friends so as to empower them.
(a staff member of a bilateral agency in West Timor, Indonesia)
...absolutely brilliant and inspiring.
(a documentary film producer, remarking on the
I found your site several months ago and within weeks
had gone through your entire archives.... I check in several times a day for further
information and am always excited to read the new
articles. Your insight into the difference between
what is actually known versus what is reported has
given me the confidence to stand up for what I
believe. I always felt there was more to the story,
and your articles have given me the tools to read
through the hype....
You are an invaluable help and I commend your efforts.
Keep up the great work.
(a sound technician in Alberta)
I discovered your site (through a link from a blog) a few weeks ago and I cant stop reading it....
I also enjoy your insightful and humorous commentary at the end of each story. If the evolutionists
blindness wasnt so sad, I would laugh harder.
I have a masters degree in mechanical engineering from a leading University. When I read the descriptions, see the pictures, and watch the movies of the inner workings of the cell, Im absolutely amazed.... Thanks for bringing these amazing stories daily. Keep up the good work.
(an engineer in Virginia)
I stumbled across your site several months ago and have
been reading it practically daily. I enjoy the inter-links
to previous material as well as the links to the quoted
research. Ive been in head-to-head debate with a
materialist for over a year now. Evolution is just one of
those debates. Your site is among others that have been a
real help in expanding my understanding.
(a software engineer in Pennsylvania)
I was in the April 28, 2005 issue of Nature [see 04/27/2005
story] regarding the rise of intelligent design in the universities. It was through your website
that I began my journey out of the crisis of faith which was mentioned in that article. It was an honor to see you all highlighting the article in Nature. Thank you for all you have done!
(Salvador Cordova, George Mason University)
I shudder to think of the many ways in which you mislead readers, encouraging them to build a faith based on misunderstanding and ignorance. Why dont you allow people to have a faith that is grounded in a fuller understanding of the world?...
Your website is a sham.
(a co-author of the paper reviewed in the 12/03/2003
entry who did not appreciate the unflattering commentary. This led to a cordial
interchange, but he could not divorce his reasoning from the science vs. faith dichotomy,
and resulted in an impasse over definitions but, at least, a more mutually respectful dialogue.
He never did explain how his paper supported Darwinian macroevolution. He just claimed
evolution is a fact.)
I absolutely love creation-evolution news. As a Finnish university student very
interested in science, I frequent your site to find out about all the new science
stuff thats been happening you have such a knack for finding all this
information! I have been able to stump evolutionists with knowledge gleaned from
your site many times.
(a student in Finland)
I love your site and read it almost every day. I use it for my science class and
5th grade Sunday School class. I also challenge Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers to
get on the site to check out articles against the baloney they are taught in school.
(a teacher in Los Gatos, CA)
I have spent quite a few hours at Creation Evolution Headlines in the past week
or so going over every article in the archives. I thank you for such an informative
and enjoyable site. I will be visiting often and will share this link with others.
[Later] I am back to May 2004 in the archives. I figured I should be farther
back, but there is a ton of information to digest.
(a computer game designer in Colorado)
The IDEA Center also highly recommends visiting Creation-Evolution Headlines...
the most expansive and clearly written origins news website on the internet!
(endorsement on Intelligent Design and Evolution
Hey Friends, Check out this site: Creation-Evolution Headlines.
This is a fantastic resource for the whole family.... a fantastic reference library with summaries,
commentaries and great links that are added to
dailyarchives go back five years.
(a reader who found us in Georgia)
I just wanted to drop you a note telling you that at www.BornAgainRadio.com,
Ive added a link to your excellent Creation-Evolution news site.
(a radio announcer)
I cannot understand
why anyone would invest so much time and effort to a website of sophistry and casuistry.
Why twist Christian apology into an illogic pretzel to placate your intellect?
Isnt it easier to admit that your faith has no basis -- hence, faith.
It would be extricate [sic] yourself from intellectual dishonesty -- and
from bearing false witness.
Sincerely, Rev. [name withheld] (an ex-Catholic, apostate Christian Natural/Scientific pantheist)
Just wanted to let you folks know that we are consistent readers and truly appreciate
the job you are doing. God bless you all this coming New Year.
(from two prominent creation researchers/writers in Oregon)
Thanks so much for your site! It is brain candy!
(a reader in North Carolina)
I Love your site probably a little too much. I enjoy the commentary
and the links to the original articles.
(a civil engineer in New York)
Ive had your Creation/Evolution Headlines site on my favourites list for
18 months now, and I can truthfully say that its one of the best on the Internet,
and I check in several times a week. The constant stream of new information on
such a variety of science issues should impress anyone, but the rigorous and
humourous way that every thought is taken captive is inspiring. Im pleased
that some Christians, and indeed, some webmasters, are devoting themselves to
producing real content that leaves the reader in a better state than when they found him.
(a community safety manager in England)
I really appreciate the effort that you are making to provide the public with
information about the problems with the General Theory of Evolution. It gives me
ammunition when I discuss evolution in my classroom. I am tired of the evolutionary
dogma. I wish that more people would stand up against such ridiculous beliefs.
(a science teacher in Alabama)
If you choose to hold an opinion that flies in the face of every piece of evidence
collected so far, you cannot be suprised [sic] when people dismiss your views.
(a former Christian software distributor, location not disclosed)
...the Creation Headlines is the best. Visiting your site...
is a standard part of my startup procedures every morning.
(a retired Air Force Chaplain)
I LOVE your site and respect the time and work you put into it. I read
the latest just about EVERY night before bed and send selection[s] out to others and
tell others about it. I thank you very much and keep up the good work (and
(a USF grad in biology)
Answering your invitation for thoughts on your site is not difficult because
of the excellent commentary I find. Because of the breadth and depth of erudition
apparent in the commentaries, I hope Im not being presumptuous in suspecting
the existence of contributions from a Truth Underground comprised of
dissident college faculty, teachers, scientists, and engineers. If thats
not the case, then it is surely a potential only waiting to be realized. Regardless,
I remain in awe of the care taken in decomposing the evolutionary cant that bombards
us from the specialist as well as popular press.
(a mathematician/physicist in Arizona)
Im from Quebec, Canada. I have studied in pure sciences and after in actuarial mathematics.
Im visiting this site 3-4 times in a week. Im learning a lot and this site gives me the opportunity to realize that this is a good time to be a creationist!
(a French Canadian reader)
I LOVE your Creation Safari site, and the Baloney Detector material.
(a reader in the Air Force)
You have a unique position in the Origins community.
Congratulations on the best current affairs news source on the origins net.
You may be able to write fast but your logic is fun to work through.
(a pediatrician in California)
Visit your site almost daily and find it very informative, educational and inspiring.
(a reader in western Canada)
I wish to thank you for the information you extend every day on your site.
It is truly a blessing!
(a reader in North Carolina)
I really appreciate your efforts in posting to this website. I find
it an incredibly useful way to keep up with recent research (I also check science
news daily) and also to research particular topics.
(an IT consultant from Brisbane, Australia)
I would just like to say very good job with the work done here,
very comprehensive. I check your site every day. Its great
to see real science directly on the front lines, toe to toe with the
pseudoscience that's mindlessly spewed from the prestigious
(a biology student in Illinois)
Ive been checking in for a long time but thought Id leave you a
note, this time. Your writing on these complex topics is insightful,
informative with just the right amount of humor. I appreciate the hard
work that goes into monitoring the research from so many sources and then
writing intelligently about them.
(an investment banker in California)
Keep up the great work. You are giving a whole army of Christians
plenty of ammunition to come out of the closet (everyone else has).
Most of us are not scientists, but most of the people we talk to are not
scientists either, just ordinary people who have been fed baloney
for years and years.
(a reader in Arizona)
Keep up the outstanding work!
You guys really ARE making a difference!
(a reader in Texas)
I wholeheartedly agree with you when you say that science is not
hostile towards religion. It is the dogmatically religious that are
unwaveringly hostile towards any kind of science which threatens their
dearly-held precepts. Science (real, open-minded science) is not
interested in theological navel-gazing.
Note: Please supply your name and location when writing in. Anonymous attacks
only make one look foolish and cowardly, and will not normally be printed.
This one was shown to display a bad example.
I appreciate reading your site every day. It is a great way to keep
up on not just the new research being done, but to also keep abreast of the
evolving debate about evolution (Pun intended).... I find it an incredibly useful
way to keep up with recent research (I also check science news daily) and also
to research particular topics.
(an IT consultant in Brisbane, Australia)
I love your website.
(a student at a state university who used CEH when
writing for the campus newsletter)
....when you claim great uncertainty for issues that are fairly
well resolved you damage your already questionable credibility.
Im sure your audience loves your ranting, but if you know as much
about biochemistry, geology, astronomy, and the other fields you
skewer, as you do about ornithology, you are spreading heat, not
(a professor of ornithology at a state university, responding to
the 09/10/2002 headline)
I wanted to let you know I appreciate your headline news style of
exposing the follies of evolutionism.... Your style gives us constant,
up-to-date reminders that over and over again, the Bible creation account
is vindicated and the evolutionary fables are refuted.
(a reader, location unknown)
You have a knack of extracting the gist of a technical paper,
and digesting it into understandable terms.
(a nuclear physicist from Lawrence Livermore Labs who worked
on the Manhattan Project)
After spending MORE time than I really had available going thru
your MANY references I want to let you know how much I appreciate
the effort you have put forth.
The information is properly documented, and coming from
recognized scientific sources is doubly valuable. Your
explanatory comments and sidebar quotations also add GREATLY
to your overall effectiveness as they 1) provide an immediate
interpretive starting point and 2) maintaining the readers
(a reader in Michigan)
I am a huge fan of the site, and check daily for updates.
(reader location and occupation unknown)
I just wanted to take a minute to personally thank-you and let
you know that you guys are providing an invaluable service!
We check your Web site weekly (if not daily) to make sure we have
the latest information in the creation/evolution controversy.
Please know that your diligence and perseverance to teach the
Truth have not gone unnoticed. Keep up the great work!
(a PhD scientist involved in origins research)
You've got a very useful and informative Web site going.
The many readers who visit your site regularly realize that it
requires considerable effort to maintain the quality level and
to keep the reviews current.... I hope you can continue your
excellent Web pages. I have recommended them highly to others.
(a reader, location and occupation unknown)
As an apprentice apologist, I can always find an article
that will spark a spirited debate. Keep em
coming! The Truth will prevail.
(a reader, location and occupation unknown)
Thanks for your web page and work. I try to drop by
at least once a week and read what you have. Im a
Christian that is interested in science (Im a mechanical
engineer) and I find you topics interesting and helpful.
I enjoy your lessons and insights on Baloney Detection.
(a year later):
I read your site 2 to 3 times a week; which Ive probably done for a couple
of years. I enjoy it for the interesting content, the logical arguments, what I can
learn about biology/science, and your pointed commentary.
(a production designer in Kentucky)
I look up CREV headlines every day. It is a wonderful
source of information and encouragement to me.... Your gift of
discerning the fallacies in evolutionists interpretation of
scientific evidence is very helpful and educational for me.
Please keep it up. Your website is the best I know of.
(a Presbyterian minister in New South Wales, Australia)
Ive written to you before, but just wanted to say again
how much I appreciate your site and all the work you put into it.
I check it almost every day and often share the contents
(and web address) with lists on which I participate.
I dont know how you do all that you do, but I am grateful
for your energy and knowledge.
(a prominent creationist author)
I am new to your site, but I love it! Thanks for updating
it with such cool information.
(a home schooler)
I love your site.... Visit every day hoping for another of your
brilliant demolitions of the foolish just-so stories of those
who think themselves wise.
(a reader from Southern California)
I visit your site daily for the latest news from science journals and other media,
and enjoy your commentary immensely. I consider your web site to be the
most valuable, timely and relevant creation-oriented site on the internet.
(a reader from Ontario, Canada)
Keep up the good work! I thoroughly enjoy your site.
(a reader in Texas)
Thanks for keeping this fantastic web site going. It is very
informative and up-to-date with current news including incisive
(a reader in North Carolina)
Great site! For all the Baloney Detector is impressive and a
great tool in debunking wishful thinking theories.
(a reader in the Netherlands)
Just wanted to let you know, your work is having quite an impact.
For example, major postings on your site are being circulated among the
Intelligent Design members....
(a PhD organic chemist)
opening a can of worms ... I love to click all the related links and
read your comments and the links to other websites, but this usually makes me late
for something else. But its ALWAYS well worth it!!
(a leader of a creation group)
I am a regular visitor to your website ... I am impressed
by the range of scientific disciplines your articles address.
I appreciate your insightful dissection of the often unwarranted conclusions
evolutionists infer from the data... Being a medical
doctor, I particularly relish the technical detail you frequently include in
the discussion living systems and processes. Your website continually
reinforces my conviction that if an unbiased observer seeks a reason for the
existence of life then Intelligent Design will be the unavoidable
(a medical doctor)
A church member asked me what I thought was the best creation web site.
I told him CreationSafaris.com.
(a PhD geologist)
I love your site... I check it every day for interesting
information. It was hard at first to believe in Genesis fully, but
now I feel more confident about the mistakes of humankind and that all
their reasoning amounts to nothing in light of a living God.
(a college grad)
Thank you so much for the interesting science links and comments
on your creation evolution headlines page ... it is very
(a reader from Scottsdale, AZ)
visit your site almost every day, and really enjoy it. Great job!!!
(I also recommend it to many, many students.)
(an educational consultant)
I like what I seevery
much. I really appreciate a decent, calm and scholarly approach to the
whole issue... Thanks ... for this fabulous
It is refreshing to read your comments. You have a knack to get to the heart of
(a reader in the Air Force).
Love your website. It has well thought out structure and will help many
through these complex issues. I especially love the
I believe this is one of the best sites on the Internet.
I really like your side-bar of truisms.
Yogi [Berra] is absolutely correct. If I were a man of wealth, I would
support you financially.
(a registered nurse in Alabama, who found
us on TruthCast.com.)
WOW. Unbelievable.... My question is, do you sleep? ... Im utterly
impressed by your page which represents untold amounts of time and energy
as well as your faith.
(a mountain man in Alaska).
Just wanted to say that I recently ran across your web site featuring science
headlines and your commentary and find it to be A++++, superb, a 10, a homerun
I run out of superlatives to describe it! ... You can be sure I will
visit your site often daily when possible to gain the latest information
to use in my speaking engagements. Ill also do my part to help publicize
your site among college students. Keep up the good work. Your
material is appreciated and used.
(a college campus minister)
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