Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

An article from Timesonline

Dinosaur graveyard may unearth new reasons for their extinction

Spanish scientists have unearthed what could be Europe’s largest dinosaur boneyard, finding the remains of 65ft plant-eaters never before discovered on the continent. The palaeontologists believe they have found eight different species amid the 8,000 fossils discovered so far.

The range of species they are finding at the 80 million-year-old site and their state of conservation is virtually unparalleled in Europe and challenges long-held beliefs about the way in which dinosaurs became extinct.

“This is completely beyond what we expected to find,” Francisco Ortega, co-director of the excavation, told The Times. “This represents a huge leap in our understanding of the Upper Cretaceous (period).”

Dozens of experts are working around the clock to excavate the site. It was discovered in June during construction work for a new high-speed rail link between Madrid and Valencia. Palaeontologists, who kept the discovery under wraps, have until the end of the month to remove the skeletons of several hundred dinosaurs before the diggers move back in.

Researchers have not finished excavating the entire area of Lo Hueco, near the city of Cuenca, in western Spain. But they say they have retrieved most of the fossils from the path of the railway.

The find is from a period palaeontologists have little information on in Europe. Most of the sites dating from that period have been found in the Americas.

Scientists had long believed that the diversity of dinosaurs declined sharply as they approached the end of their time on earth. Palaeontologists working in Lo Hueco, though, have been amazed to find a wide variety of dinosaurs from the period.

“Everything indicates that the dino-sours were enjoying great evolutionary vigour when they suddenly disappeared,” said José Luis Sanz, the co-director of the dig.

Mr Ortega said the find should help shed light on the extinction of the dinosaurs in Europe and whether they also died out as a result of the huge meteorite that struck modern-day Mexico. The different species found include three, perhaps four, different types of Titanosaurus – huge, long-necked creatures that munched on plants and walked on four thick legs. More than 100 individual Titanosaurus have been found at the site, some of them with thick armour plating on their backs, a feature not previously seen in Europe.

Many dinosaur skeletons that are nearly intact have also been unearthed.“We have found very complete individuals (dinosaurs) and skull fragments” from Titanosaurus, said Mr Ortega.Other dinosaurs found are believed to include Struthiosaurus, a small, armoured, quadrupedal, plant-eating dinosaur.

Until now, only incomplete fossils had been found in Austria and Roma-nia. Researchers also believe they have found two or three types of Dromaeosaurus – small, fast-moving predators with sharp teeth and deadly, sickle-like claws. They have also found a Rhabdodon, a small, two-legged plant-eater with a long tail, short neck and a bulky body.

Researchers also say there is wealth of other plant and animal species at the site that could provide a treasure trove of information about one of Europe’s least-understood periods. They must still sift through 20,000kg of sediment and say they can expect to find dozens of other smaller species. “This is the equivalent of 80 to 100 times the size of a normal excavation in terms of time and money,” Mr Ortega said.

[Soldier4Christ]

Naturally the timeline has been set int order to account for the theory of evolution which is all wrong. This is another example of a catastrophe like a world wide flood that has created this. In order for a large amount of these creatures to be buried rapidly enough to preserve them in this manner they would have to be rapidly covered in mud and debris which would be the case in a rapid world wide flood. In the event of the meteor theory on the other side of the earth they would not be rapidly buried and would have not been preserved. Predatory animals would have torn them apart and spread the bones or at least they would have rotted and disintegrated.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Galloping Glaciers

"By the nearly imperceptible and inexorable work of glaciers, even the mighty mountains are worn down." Such dogma was routinely heard only a few decades ago in all of our university campuses. It is true that modern slow-moving glaciers are gradually eroding rock today and that glacial ice was responsible for some of earth's most breathtaking scenery. But have glaciers always moved at these slow rates? What does glacial surge tell us about the time it may have taken to create stunning landscapes like Yosemite Valley?

A curious thing happens from time to time in glacier-filled valleys around the world. A minority of glaciers that usually flow at rates measured in centimeters per day are sometimes known to surge, or "gallop," at rates of up to 112 meters per day. The significance to geology is that the erosion done in a single, day-long gallop may be far more extensive than what the normal rate of erosion can accomplish in a year.

Glacial misbehavior like this is sometimes hazardous to normal human activities. For example, when central Asia's largest valley glacier (the Fechenko Glacier) recently surged, the inhabitants of several villages watched helplessly as the ice mass plowed over their homes. And Pakistan's Kutiah Glacier advanced 12 kilometers over a period of 3 months in 1953.

Eyewitness accounts of galloping glaciers seem to substantiate the claim that the surge begins high up on a glacier and then pushes down-valley in a wave. As the brittle upper surface of the glacier buckles violently, it apparently generates a deafening noise. Some people have described loud rumblings and snapping sounds; others have mistaken the sounds for earthquake tremors.

Positive evidence exists for ice surges on a far grander scale in the past. Deep sea cores from the North Atlantic reveal a highly irregular glacial record during the post-Flood Ice Age. Rather than regular and steady sediment accumulation, the core evidence points to large pulses of ice-rafted debris that accumulated suddenly. Marine sediments directly overlying these debris concentrations reveal a peculiar freshwater signature, leading to the interpretation that vast bodies of ice-melt suddenly freshened the oceans on the heels of major surges of continent-scale ice sheets.

Called Heinrich events (after marine geologist Hartmut Heinrich), these glacial phenomena have come under sharper focus as political fears concerning climate change have grown in recent years. What is most puzzling, however, is that the events appear to correspond with globally cold periods, not warm ones. In any event, it is increasingly evident that erosion during the Ice Age was not protracted over vast periods of time, but rather occurred primarily during very brief episodes. The need to invoke a long timescale in glacial geology does not seem to be based on the rock record.

Like all areas of earth history, it is becoming clear that the "rare event" in glacial geology may have provided more significant erosional force than that produced by routine and gradual processes. A biblical post-Flood Ice Age that lasted only a few thousand years makes good sense as an explanation for large-scale, glacially-eroded landscapes on earth.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Inflating the Evidence

In their quest to disprove design in the universe, scientists have produced evermore speculative models of cosmology. Big Bang cosmology, for example, relies heavily on a process called inflation, an ad hoc speculation that remains highly controversial 26 years after it was first proposed.

By the 1980s, cosmologists were struck by the homogeneity and flatness of our universe. In other words, matter appears to be uniformly distributed on a large scale, and the average density of matter in the universe is balanced against its expansion rate to a high degree of precision. These and other properties appear too finely tuned to be a matter of chance.

Uncomfortable with this apparent design, scientists sought a naturalistic explanation. In 1981, Alan Guth proposed the first inflationary cosmology, postulating that "the universe expanded exponentially for a tiny fraction of a second very early in its history--growing from a patch as small as 10-26 m|eter|, one hundred billion times smaller than a proton, to macroscopic scales on the order of a meter, all within about 10-35 s|econd|."1 This expansion theoretically flattened space-time with a quick stretch, masking any inhomogeneities in the original fireball.

Cosmologists jumped on this hypothesis as a way for the finely-tuned state of the cosmos to appear "natural," meaning that scientists might characterize its initial conditions and the laws governing its evolution. "If any system should be natural, it's the Universe," said Sean M. Carroll in Nature. "Nevertheless, according to the criteria just described, the Universe that we observe seems remarkably unnatural." 2

Does inflation make the universe's apparent fine-tuning a "natural" outcome? Carroll answered that despite its popularity, "there is a skeleton in the inflationary closet, at least as far as entropy is concerned."3 Such rapid expansion would need extremely low entropy. He concluded that "it would seem that the conditions required to start inflation are less natural than those of the conventional Big Bang."4 Inflation, therefore, is a step backward in explanatory power.

On the question of matter, Guth concluded that resonances between quantum fields produced it: "Large numbers of particles would be created very quickly within specific energybands," he said. "This dramatic burst of particle creation would affect space-time itself, as it responded to changes in the arrangement of matter and energy."5 So within a tiny fraction of a second, a material universe inflated by 26 orders of magnitude and filled itself with matter. Hardly a "natural" explanation.

Guth's original model was shown to be unworkable, but others arose to take its place: chaotic inflation, spontaneous inflation, and even eternal inflation. "Needless to say, proposals of this type are extremely speculative, and may well be completely wrong," Carroll stated.6

In short, inflation is no help to the Big Bang theory. It assumes the flatness of the universe rather than predicting it, relegating the idea to an untestable speculation that says nothing more than "strange things happen."

There is one form of inflation that matches the observations perfectly, but is never considered by secular cosmologists. This model alone, however, has the initial conditions and power to explain all the properties of the universe:

    He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion. (Jeremiah 10:12, emphasis added)

Observed design makes sense when the Designer is not arbitrarily excluded from the model.

References

   1. Guth, A. H. and D. I. Kaiser. 2005. Inflationary Cosmology: Exploring the Universe from the Smallest to the Largest Scales. Science. 307 (5711): 884-890.
   2. Carroll, S. M. 2006. Is our Universe natural? Nature. 440: 1132-1136.
   3. Ibid.
   4. Ibid.
   5. Guth, Inflationary Cosmology.
   6. Carroll, Is our Universe natural?

[Soldier4Christ]

 The Modern Apologist

Christian apologetics--the systematic defense of the faith--has become popular in recent days. We are commanded to know what we believe and why we believe it, and to be able to defend it scripturally, historically, and scientifically against all detractors (1 Peter 3:15). Indeed, it is a welcome sight to see so many believers embracing this concept.

Several Christian universities are now awarding degrees in apologetics. Many ministries are giving seminars on the subject, and numerous Christian radio programs use the term apologetics to describe themselves, as do a few Christian television programs. There are apologetic ministries that specialize in prophecy, and others that specialize in cults. Some are geared for high schoolers, and some for college students. We can't help but appreciate those who strive to equip Christians to stand strong in the faith. Such endeavors are sorely needed.

Most Christians engaged in apologetics claim to believe in biblical inerrancy. At ICR we take this to mean that you believe all of Scripture, even the literal teachings of young earth creation. But what do we make of the fact that most national apologetic ministries accept some form of evolutionary or old-earth thinking? It has become commonplace for those involved to say, "I haven't made up my mind on the age of the earth," which is like saying "Three days of the week I'm a young earther, three days I'm an old earther, and one day I just don't know."

Often I'm an invited guest on "apologetic" radio programs. All too often, the host does not practice defending Scripture as it relates to creation, but instead points out what he perceives to be its weaknesses in relation to modern scientific theories. For myself, I am certain that science supports a young earth. Scripture is authoritative and clear on that. Why don't self-proclaimed Christian "leaders" rejoice in the evidence supporting scriptural truth, rather than naively accepting Big Bang cosmology, progressive creation, or theistic evolution?

Several years ago I debated old-earth and Big Bang advocate Hugh Ross on a nationwide Christian radio program. I brought up several scientific problems with the Big Bang, but focused on the scriptural evidences. The program ended with the host proclaiming, "Morris has the better scriptural case, but Ross has better science. I'll stick with Ross." How dare the Christian host call himself a biblical apologist? Is not Scripture enough? Must we rely on atheists like Carl Sagan to tell us how to interpret Scripture? Even if young earth science were not firmly grounded on the evidence--which it is--shouldn't Christians hold their questions in abeyance until more research is done, rather than abandon the clear teaching of God's Word?

Modern apologetic efforts are frequently a fence-sitting exercise, and all too often slide over to the other side when it comes to the Bible's scientific accuracy and relevance. But Scripture is clear on this point, and absolutely sufficient. When Christian "leaders" persist in waffling on important issues, perhaps Christ's message to the church of Laodicea is appropriate:

    I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Revelation 3:15-16)

[Soldier4Christ]

Microscopic Masterpieces: Discovering Design in Snow Crystals

One of the most beautiful wonders of nature God has given us is the amazing variety of shapes of snow crystals that fall from the sky on a cold winter's night. Johann Kepler, the famous astronomer known for his laws of motion of the earth around the sun, conducted a study he titled A New Year's Gift, or On the Six-Cornered Snowflake when he was a young, aspiring scientist. Kepler was crossing the Karlsbrücke (Charles Bridge) in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on his way to a New Year's Eve party at the home of John Matthew Wacker when he noticed specks of down falling on his coat, all with six corners and feathered radii. He was embarrassed to appear before his patron without a New Year's gift and decided that a study of the pattern of a snowflake that "comes down from heaven and looks like a star"1 would make a perfect present.

Kepler's study was done entirely without a microscope or other equipment that could have allowed him to observe the microscopic structure of snow crystals and how they form. He was limited to optical observation, analogy, and logic in trying to explain why the snow crystals all had six corners. He considered the stacking of cannonballs, beehives, flowers, and other spacefilling geometries that later proved fundamental to the field of crystallography. He finally concluded after considerable exploration of many possible explanations that a "formative faculty" exists within the essence of ice that causes it to form in hexagonal patterns. Seldom has a mind of the first order so charmingly articulated an approach to solving a problem.

Modern Approaches

Hallet and Mason2 offered a modern explanation of why snow crystals exhibit hexagonal patterns. They found that water molecules are preferentially incorporated into the lattice structure of ice crystals as a function of temperature. Molecules from the surrounding vapor that land on a growing crystal migrate over its surface and are fixed to either the axial or basal planes depending upon four temperature conditions. For example, snow crystals will grow lengthwise to form long, thin needles and columns like Figures 1 and 2 when the temperature is between about -3°C and -8°C. When the temperature is between about -8°C and -25°C, plate-like crystals will form as shown in Figures 3 through 10. Beautiful stellar and dendritic crystals form at about -15°C. In addition, the relative humidity of the air and the presence of supercooled liquid cloud droplets will cause secondary growth phenomena known as riming and dendritic growth. The small, dark spheres attached to the edges of the plate in Figure 5 are cloud droplets that were collected and attached to the snow crystal as rime as the crystal fell through these droplets on its way to the earth's surface. The dendritic and feathery edges of Figures 6 through 10 are produced by the rapid growth of snow crystals in a high-humidity environment.

A number of other scientists have also studied snow crystals in detail. Notable among these were Nakaya,3 and Magono and Lee4. In addition, many crystallographers have studied and written on the characteristics of crystal growth and why molecules and atoms form into a limited number of basic patterns. The modern explanation of the hexagonal symmetry of snow crystals is that a snow crystal is a macroscopic, outward manifestation of the internal arrangement of the molecules in ice. The molecules form an internal pattern of lowest free energy, one that possesses high structural symmetry. For the water molecule this is a type of symmetry called hexagonal close pack. Science is still searching for the genesis of this property that Kepler called the "formative faculty."

Evidence of the Creator

Modern scientists have the advantage of sophisticated laboratory facilities for growing and observing ice crystals, high resolution photomicrographic equipment, and conceptual advances in understanding very small particles. However, the most basic principle of why the initial molecules in an ice crystal assemble in a hexagonal pattern has still not been fully explained. In his essay on Kepler's snowflake study, Whyte concluded:

    Yet a puzzle remains. For the fact which so impressed Kepler still constitutes a challenge: three-dimensional geometrical symmetry plays an important role in the visual world and yet it is not clear how it is generated in a universe supposedly dominated by random interactions and disturbances. We should not expect complete knowledge of highly complex systems, but it is reasonable to require of science a simple explanation of simple observations. If the hexagonal snowflake is highly complex, is there no short cut from the postulates of physics to our visual observations? What in the ultimate laws produces visually perfect patterns?5

Science always asks the questions of how and why. But in this case an even more basic question comes into play--how can order be explained in the context of a random, chaotic universe? In other words, if we don't believe in a Creator God, the universe should not be ordered. Where is this structure coming from?

The issue could be turned around. Because we observe order and design in the universe, as exemplified by the six-cornered snowflake, doesn't this demand a Creator who supplies this order and design? Kepler basically concluded this when he proposed his term "formative faculty." That is, a basic tendency was built into the very atoms and molecules of our world to produce this order. The characteristics of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms were designed by God to combine in ways that produce the hexagonal close pack pattern and form the six-cornered snowflake. Unlike linear molecules like carbon dioxide, the water molecule is asymmetric. It is that asymmetry that favors the hexagonal arrangement.

Ice crystals are composed of simple, repeated internal patterns that produce beautiful, external shapes. And built into the laws that govern ice crystal growth patterns are temperature dependencies that add filigrees to the basic hexagonal form. Columnar shapes, needle shapes, plate shapes, stellar shapes, and dendritic shapes are just some of the additional patterns in which snow crystals grow. In fact, because of the myriad of possible combinations of the millions of individual molecules that make up a single ice crystal, it can truly be said that no two snow crystals are exactly alike!

And if simple water molecules that form ice crystals exhibit the "formative faculty" of God's creative hand, consider how much more design is included in larger molecules such as the DNA molecule that determines life forms. The order and design we see in DNA and the laws of nature should forever put to rest the belief that God does not exist. The very molecules testify to God's existence and His love of order and beauty.

I corresponded with astronomer Carl Sagan for two years before his death and had conversations about such evidences for God's existence. In one of his letters he wrote, "The only 'Author' of Earth history that I see is the laws of Nature. Where they come from and why they are the way they are is another and of course very difficult issue." So, the evidence of order and design in our world is a very powerful witness, even to professed unbelievers.

A previous Acts & Facts article6 discussed the erroneous use of the growth of snow crystals as justification for the increase in order that would be necessary for spontaneous evolution. It was demonstrated that the total change of entropy in the universe during the growth of a snow crystal results in a net decrease in order, which agrees with the second law of thermodynamics. The presence and growth of order in snow crystals are evidences for the existence of God, His design in natural processes, and His love of order and beauty. How much more validation of Scripture does one need in order to believe the Lord when He says, "All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made" (John 1:3)?

[Soldier4Christ]

cont'd

For readers who would like to study snow crystals in more detail, several books containing beautiful photomicrographs are available. A classic book containing over 2,000 snow crystal images taken in the late 1800s and early 1900s by a Vermont farmer known as "The Snowflake Man" is Snow Crystals by Bentley.7 A modern collection of award-winning snowflake photographs was recently published by Libbrecht.8 Some of his snow crystal pictures were recently used in a collection of stamps by the U.S. Postal Service. He also has a website at www.snowcrystals.com.

References

   1. Kepler, J. 1611. Strena, Seu de Nive Sexangula, Francofurti ad Moenum. Translated into English by Hardie, C. 1966. The Six-Cornered Snowflake. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 7.
   2. Hallet, J. and B.J. Mason. 1958. The influence of temperature and supersaturation on the habit of ice crystals grown from the vapour. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series A. 247 (1251): 440.
   3. Nakaya, U. 1954. Snow Crystals: Natural and Artificial. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
   4. Magono, C. and C. W. Lee. 1966. Meteorological classification of natural snow crystals. Journal of the Faculty of Science. Hokkaido University, Ser. 7, 2 (4): 320-335.
   5. Whyte, L.L. 1966. Kepler's Unsolved Problem and the Facultas Formatrix, in Hardie, The Six-Cornered Snowflake, 63.
   6. Vardiman, L. December 1986. Evolution and the Snowflake. Acts & Facts.
   7. Bentley, W.A. and W.J. Humphreys. 1931. Snow Crystals. New York: Dover Books.
   8. Libbrecht, K. 2003. The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty. Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press.

[Soldier4Christ]

Paleontologist unveils dinosaur 'mummy'
'This specimen exceeds the jackpot' – much of skin, bone intact

Scientists today announced the discovery of an extraordinarily preserved "dinosaur mummy" with much of its tissues and bones still encased in an uncollapsed envelope of skin.

Preliminary studies of the hadrosaur, named Dakota, are already altering theories of what the ancient creatures' skin looked like and how quickly they moved, project researchers say.

Further investigations may reveal detailed information about soft tissues, which could help unlock secrets about the dinosaurs and their descendents, the scientists added.

For now, the team continues to examine the rare specimen, which included preserved tendons and ligaments, and to prepare scientific articles on the find for publication.

"This specimen exceeds the jackpot," said excavation leader Phillip Manning, a paleontologist at Britain's University of Manchester and a National Geographic Expeditions Council grantee.

Most dinosaurs are known only from their bones, which are seldom found joined together as they would be in real life.

But "we're looking at a three-dimensional skin envelope," Manning said. "In many places it's complete and intact—around the tail, arms, and legs and part of the body."

Find of a Lifetime

The hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, was discovered in 1999 by then-teenage paleontologist Tyler Lyson on his family's North Dakota property.

It was an extremely fortuitous find, because the odds of mummification are slim, researchers noted.

(snip)

[Soldier4Christ]

This find is more evidence of a catastrophic situation such as Noah's flood. This dinosaur had to be buried rapidly in order to preserve it in such a condition as it is. Unlike the supposed theory that these scientist claim it died, avoided being eaten by scavengers, avoided the natural decay process and bacterial damage. Such a creature being buried rapidly would account for the avoidance of those things. Even with rapid burial it still could not survive millions of years as it is supposed but could survive the approximate 4,000 years of the time frame of Noah's flood.

[Soldier4Christ]

DINOSAURS - DID YOU KNOW the word dinosaur was invented in 1841 by
creationist Geologist and founding director of the British Natural History
Museum, Richard Owen. He also referred to them as dragons and opposed Charles
Darwin and evolution till his dying day.

[Soldier4Christ]

COW-A-SAURUS FOUND, according to reports in New Scientist News 15 Nov 2007
and PLoS One 21 Nov 2007. In 1997 a team led by Paul Sereno of the University of
Chicago found a strange looking dinosaur in the Sahara, which they named
"Nigersaurus taqueti". The creature's bones were rather fragile but Sereno and
colleagues from various American Universities have studied the fossil in detail
using CT scans as well as making casts. The animal had had extraordinary square
jaws with 60 columns of teeth lined up across the front of each jaw. New
Scientist described it as "a cross between a lawn mower and a huge muppet". Each
tooth had up to nine replacements lined up behind it and the researchers suggest
that the teeth were rapidly replaced, maybe at the rate of one each month. The
skull and vertebral column were very lightweight, suggesting the animal had a
hard time lifting its head above the level of its back. The orientation of the
inner ear and the joints between skull and spine indicate the animal habitually
adopted a head down posture, with its toothy jaws facing the ground. The
researchers interpret their findings as: "Skeletal and dental evidence suggests
that Nigersaurus was a ground-level herbivore that gathered and sliced
relatively soft vegetation, the culmination of a low-browsing feeding strategy
first established among diplodocoids during the Jurassic." This means they think
it grazed like a cow, although they do not believe it ate grass, because the
fossil is dated as Jurassic (about 110 million years old) and grasses are not
thought to have evolved until the Cretaceous period, millions of years later.
They suggest it ate ferns and horsetails and "other non-angiosperms".
(angiosperms are flowering plants).


ED. COM. Until two years ago evolutionary biologists believed that grasses did
not evolve until after the Cretaceous and well after dinosaurs had died out, but
a palaeobotanist found evidence of grass in fossilised Cretaceous dinosaur dung.
The creature described above certainly seems well designed for grazing like a
cow, so it would make sense if it ate plants which we predict will one day be
found to include grass.  Grasses are seed bearing plants and Genesis tells us
that these and all other plants were made on the third day of creation, before
any animals including Dinosaurs were made.

[Soldier4Christ]

TOOTHIEST DINOSAUR FOUND, according to articles in BBC News Online and New
Scientist News 3 Oct 2007. Researchers at Utah Museum of Natural History have
studied the fossil of a 9 metre (30ft) long Hadrosaur named "Gryposaurus
monumentensis" that was first discovered at Grand Staircase Escalante National
Monument in southern Utah. The animal had robust jaws with over 800 teeth. Terry
Gates, one of the researchers who studied the fossil commented: "The snout is
very robust indeed - it is much larger and much stronger-looking than any other
duck-billed dinosaur. In addition, the angle of the snout is more vertical,
which initially leads to an hypothesis that it had a stronger bite." The
researchers described the creature as a powerful chewing machine, but Gates also
commented: "We just don't know what this dinosaur ate." Other fossils found at
the same site include crocodiles, turtles, other dinosaurs and 20 previously
unknown plants. These creatures are believed to have lived in a "warm and humid
environment, rich in vegetation" and were fossilised when they were covered by
river sediments.


ED. COM. Southern Utah can no longer be described as a "warm and humid
environment, rich in vegetation". Such a climate sounds more like the world
described in Genesis where the ground was watered by a daily mist. However, this
pleasant environment was devastated by Noah's flood, which would have buried
many large creatures and ruined the first world's environment. Following the
flood God warned Noah (Gen 8:22) that the world would have a harsher and more
erratic climate with periods of cold and heat. Some regions like Utah have
become deserts and can no longer sustain large animals. Altogether, Biblical
creation, flood and catastrophic degeneration is a better explanation for these
fossils. We are also pleased to see scientists admit that an animal's teeth and
jaws can indicate how it ate, but not what it ate. Creation Research has been
saying this for many years.

[Soldier4Christ]

DINOSAUR MUMMY GOES UNDER THE SCANNER, according to reports in Manchester
University News, BBC News Online, Reuters 3 Dec 2007 and ABC News in Science, 4
Dec 2007. In 2000 Tyler Lyson found the remains of a dinosaur on a family
property in North Dakota. The dinosaur, a Hadrosaur dated as being 67 million
years old, was so well preserved it was called a mummy because it has preserved
skin, muscle tendons and other soft tissues as well as bones. The dinosaur is
actually a fossil, rather than a mummy, as it has been buried and mineralised,
like most other fossils. The Hadrosaur is between 7 and 9 metres (23 -30 ft)
long and is being studied by a team of researchers led by University of
Manchester palaeontologist Phil Manning. Because it is so large, its internal
structure is being studied using an enormous CT scanner operated by Boeing,
usually used for analysing aircraft and spacecraft parts. So far the results
have revealed that its back end has a greater muscle mass than previously
estimated and locomotor biologist Bill Sellers of Manchester University has
developed a computer programme to reconstruct how it moved. Hadrosaurs are
usually depicted as standing and walking upright, but Seller's analysis
indicates it walked with its head low to the ground, and could run at speeds up
to 28 mph (45 kpm). The scan also revealed the vertebral bones had a gap of
about one cm (half inch) between them. Most reconstructions of dinosaurs in
museums have the bones packed more closely than this, which means some estimates
of dinosaur length may be up to a metre short. The fossilised skin has lost its
colour but shows some variations in the scales that indicate it had a striped
pattern on the skin. The fossil is believed have been preserved when acidic
waterlogged sediments collected around it after it died in a river bed. The claw
of a crocodile was found with the fossil.


ED. COM. To preserve a 7 - 9 metre dinosaur with the muscle mass of this
creature would require more than just the accumulation of acidic riverbed
sediments to preserve it so well. Such good preservation indicates it was
rapidly and deeply buried so that oxygen and microbes could not break down the
soft tissues. The revised estimates of length and muscle mass remind us that
there is only so much we can guess from bones alone, and it is important to
remember this when you see computer generated lifelike images presented in the
same way as images of real living creatures. Whilst there is nothing wrong with
making educated guesses, it is important not to confuse actual evidence with
stories made up about the evidence.

[Soldier4Christ]

DINOSAURS HAD BIRD BREATHING BONES, according to reports in Manchester
University News and BBC News Online, 7 Nov 2007, and ABC News in Science 8 Nov
2007. Jonathan Codd of the Faculty of Life Sciences, and Phil Manning of the
School of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Manchester University have
studied fossils of therapod dinosaurs and compared their ribs with those of
extinct and living birds. They found that the dinosaur ribs had uncinate
processes - bony projections from the ribs that help move the sternum
(breastbone) during breathing. Jonathan Codd explained: "Our work on modern
birds has shown that the way these animals breathe is more complex than
originally thought. The uncinate processes are small bones that act as levers to
move the ribs and sternum during breathing. Interestingly, these structures are
different lengths in different birds - shortest in running birds, intermediate
in flying birds and longest in diving birds. The dinosaurs we studied from the
fossil record had long uncinate processes similar in structure to those of
diving birds. This suggests both dinosaurs and diving birds need longer lever
arms to help them breathe. Finding these structures in modern birds and their
extinct dinosaur ancestors suggests that these running dinosaurs had an
efficient respiratory system and supports the theory that they were highly
active animals that could run relatively quickly when pursuing their prey." The
scientists believe that their findings are more evidence that dinosaurs evolved
into birds. Codd commented: "A number of studies have shown that dinosaurs were
the direct ancestors of birds and have identified a suite of avian
characteristics in therapods."


ED. COM. It's humbling for a palaeontologist to have to concede that until
someone finds a live dinosaur we actually won't know how they breathed. Likewise
if we can conclude they had an efficient breathing system like birds which
enabled them to live active lives, it's again humbling to admit that all we
would have proved is that they were well designed to live active lives. Unless
you already embrace evolution as fact, the data on dino breathing does not
actually prove they changed into birds.  Finding a similar structure in two
different living things does not prove that one changed into the other. It
simply shows that both creatures used a similar mechanism to function.

[Soldier4Christ]

DAWKINS INTERVIEWS MACKAY in a totally unexpected and at short notice (5hrs -
Tuesday 27 November) for a proposed Channel 4 TV UK (release late 2008 as part
of the run up to Darwin's 200th birthday). Dawkins, who has been publically
aggressively anti-creation and anti-Christian to date, did try hard to play the
role of genteel English interviewer as he aimed at our increasingly successful
and widespread work in schools. We can see why Dawkins and co feel they need to
hype up their act as that very day the grade 11's, 12's and 13's at Brentwood
High School (govt) got classroom exposure for around 1.5hrs, with a public
request by the teacher for us to come back again.

Dawkins also took aim at our UK tax charity status, does creation make any
testable predictions, the billions of year age of the earth and our not being
relevant because we were not in agreement with evolutionists, and his accusation
that we surely can't believe what we were saying so it must be a well paid act!
We did challenge him (and the producers) to do a public debate in Darwin's birth
place of Shrewsbury to celebrate Darwin's 200th birthday, but it soon became
evident why Dawkins has not offered to debate thus far as he seems to not be the
world's best at thinking fast on his feet. He has a set line and if you depart
from it he seems to get stuck.

Dawkins, by the way, readily agreed that if anyone accepted evolution they would
have a problem accepting Christianity, and usefully still holds his stated
position he made on his PBS interview by Bill Moyers who asked "Is evolution a
theory, not a fact?" To which Dawkins replied, "Evolution has been observed.
It's just that it hasn't been observed while it's happening" - which made it
easy for John Mackay to hammer the blind faith aspect of his atheist position.

The interview was pre-recorded so the editors will have almost a year to try to
edit it to favour Dawkins if their little heart's desire that. Obviously if the
interview makes Dawkins look too bad they might decide to just show film of John
talking to Richard and scenes of John preaching in a church, then put Dawkins
voice over the top so that he gets said what he wants about these creationists.
They may even want to use it to put alongside theistic evolutionists to make it
look as if Christians are in disarray.

We did get to promote to Dawkins our updated 15 part high school Science course
"Search for the origin of Life", so expect some critical atheist reviews from Dawkins
 in the near future, which will only improve the course. Our course has been
developed by searching the majority of the world's High School Science Texts
and using the most prevalent arguments for evolution, with the very important
addition of showing students what has been left out. It changes the picture totally
and enables an easy move to the subject of creation.

Dawkins and team did get the Gospel as well as the creation bit, so pray for
them.