Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[curious]

Evolutionists "say" the Evolution is science but
Science is based on obervation
I wonder who then oberved life beginning from single cells in the Primordial swamp,this cell got with that cell,that cell with this cell on & on & on,'til it slimed out of the Primordial soup ?
Who observed this Solar system begin from swirling gases ?
Who observed the Big Bang ?
I'll answer that.......l.

[curious]

I'll answer that...NO ONE !!!!
I believe that it is a religion,or at the very least,a religious philosophy in the belief of origons. Which explains that even when they are confronted with scientific proof disproving it,they STILL argue that it happened.



                           Yours in Yeshua,
                           Curious

[Soldier4Christ]

 Scientists say the Arctic was once a tropical paradise

Scientists have found with first of its kind core samples dug up from the deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor that 55 million years ago, according to their estimates, an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise.

The scientists say their findings are a glimpse backward into a much warmer than thought polar region heated by runamuck greenhouse gases that came about naturally.

The supposed scientific study that revealed the Arctic was a tropical paradise 55 million years ago also reveals that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled. A recent article in Nature Magazine featuring the report of researchers finding that millions of years ago the average temperature in the Arctic near the North Pole was 74 degrees Fahrenheit concludes that this Northern region was somewhat of a subtropical paradise.

Interestingly, these research scientists say they knew of this thermal event but can only suggest that perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean or lots of volcanic eruptions caused the Arctic to have this greenhouse effect.

According to the biblical account of Creation, this scientific report is only partially true. The Arctic was once a tropical paradise. The Genesis account of Creation says that all the foliage that makes up a tropical region was actually brought into existence on the third day of Creation, that's Genesis 1:9-13. According to the biblical account of the worldwide Flood, that took place 1,500 years after Creation, there was no winter until after the Flood, when seasons first appeared, that's Genesis 8:22. Thus, the first 1,500 years after Creation there was indeed a greenhouse effect over all the earth, including the Arctic near the North Pole; the whole earth was a tropical paradise.

According to II Peter 3:3-8, these scientists who appear to be willfully ignorant of what really happened in the past, are evidence that Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

[curious]

Claiming themselves to be wise,they became fools.




                             Yours in Yeshua,
                             Curious

[Soldier4Christ]

CHAMELEON COLOUR NOT CAMOUFLAGE, according to a report on BBC News Online,
New Scientist news and PLoS Biology, 29 Jan 2008. Chameleons are well known for
the ability to rapidly change colour and this is usually explained as having
evolved to avoid predators in the struggle to survive. Another theory claims
chameleon colours were originally for signalling to other chameleons in order to
fend of rivals and attract mates. Two researchers at the Universities of
Melbourne have tested the two theories by studying the colouration and colour
changing capacity of 21 species of dwarf chameleons of the "Bradypodion" genus,
taking into account the colours that the chameleons were seeing, rather than
what humans were seeing. Chameleons are able to see ultra-violet light as well
as the colours that are visible to humans. Therefore the scientists measured the
amount of reflected UV as well as visible light. If the colour changing ability
is for camouflage, chameleons that live in the most variable environments should
produce the most colour changes. The researchers measured changes in colour in
male chameleons confronting one another and in chameleons confronted by a
predator. They also looked at the variation in colour of the natural habitats of
the different species. The results indicated that colour changing ability was
more related to signalling other chameleons than being able to blend into
different background colours. Devi Stuart-Fox, who led the study, commented: "We
found that chameleon species that changed colour the most had displays that were
most conspicuous to other chameleons. But they didn't have a greater range of
background colours in their habitats."

ED. COM. We are often asked why animals appear to be so well designed for hiding
from predators, if God created them to live in a world without predators
(Genesis 1:29-31). This research shows that even though chameleon colour can be
used for hiding from predators in today's degenerate world, it has other
functions (such as finding a mate) that would be useful in the original good
world. Now that the world is no longer good because of human sin and God's
judgement, animals use whatever built in abilities they already possess, e.g.
changing colour, to survive. This change in behaviour may be "survival of the
fittest," but is not evolution because it doesn't explain how the ability to
change colour came about.

[Soldier4Christ]

LACTOSE TOLERANCE EVOLVED THREE TIMES, according to articles in ScienceNOW 11
Dec 2006 and Science, vol. 314, p1672, 15 Dec 2006. Lactose tolerance is the
ability to digest milk in adult life, and depends on the activity of an enzyme
named lactase that breaks down lactose, the sugar in milk. In most of the
world's population the enzyme is turned off in adult life, and drinking fresh
milk causes digestive upsets. However, some people groups in Europe, the Middle
East and Africa can digest milk throughout adult life. In 2002 scientists found
a variation in a gene that regulates production of lactase in Northern Europeans
that enables them to tolerate lactose as adults. Researchers then looked for the
same variation in other populations that drink milk but could not find it in
Africans and found only low levels of it in southern Europeans and Middle
Eastern people. They then identified the gene in Europeans and then looked for
the same stretch of DNA in a number of African groups. They found three other
variations which had the same effect as the European variation. The researchers
claim this is an "elegant example of how evolution can find different solutions
to the same problem, especially in the face of strong selection." Anthropologist
Ken Weiss of Pennsylvania State University commented: "There is not just one way
to tolerate milk, but several ways. It (the DNA study) is very nice work because
it shows that evolution isn't just about picking one gene and driving it."

ED. COM. The gene discovered in 2002 is a control gene that turns off the
production of lactase after childhood. The "variations" found in the people who
can digest lactose as adults are mutations that stop the gene from functioning,
so that the lactase producing gene never gets the signal to close down. This new
study is not evidence for evolution. Just as there are various ways you could
accidentally stop an electronic signalling device from working, eg. stamping on
it or pouring a cup of coffee into it, there is more than one way to make a gene
cease functioning. This is not evolution, it is genetic breakdown, and is good
evidence that human beings are degenerating, i.e. losing functions, not evolving
new ones. This editor wrote a very unpopular article (particularly with
theologians) in the early 70's called did Adam Drink Milk (Ex Nihilio Vol 4,
June 1982, pp9-13) which concluded that the ability to drink milk in adulthood
is a degenerate loss. Another example of the Predictive value of Creation
Research. Of course it means the scientists' article should be labelled Lactose
tolerance Devolved 3 times. We also PREDICT this loss could occur yet again in
any human group.

[Soldier4Christ]

CROCS SHUNT BLOOD FOR DIGESTION according to an article in ScienceNOW 6 Feb
2008. Crocodiles, alligators and caimans have a four chambered heart similar to
that of mammals and birds. In these hearts low-oxygen blood coming back from the
body tissues is pumped to the lungs to absorb oxygen and off-load carbon dioxide
and then returns to other side of the heart to be sent out the body. Unlike
mammals and birds crocodilians can shunt low oxygen blood into the body
circulation, bypassing the lungs. This is considered to be a "primitive"
function left over from having evolved from amphibians, which have three
chambered heart. Scientists at University of Utah, Salt Lake City have
investigated the shunting and found that the animals send de-oxygenated to their
stomachs after they have eaten. This seemed to confirm a theory that the
shunting helped digestion in some way. The researchers tested the theory by
operating on the arteries of some alligators so that they could not shunt the
deoxygenated, carbon dioxide rich blood to the stomach. Following this they
measured the amount of stomach acid produced when the animals were fed. It was
much lower than that of normal animals. The lack of stomach acid meant the
animals took longer to digest their food. The scientists were intrigued by the
vast amount of acid that normal alligators were able to produce - about 10 times
that of most other animals. Being able to rapidly produce large amounts of acid
is useful for animals that eat large meals irregularly, and which rely on
external sources to get their body temperature up to the level needed for
digestive enzymes to work. One of the researchers commented it is the
alligators' equivalent of making hay while the sun shines.

ED. COM. Crocodilians are considered to be primitive reptiles somewhere between
amphibians and mammals, but their circulation is now shown to be not
"primitive," and is definitely not slightly better than the 3 chambered
amphibians heart, nor an unevolved leaky version of a mammal's heart . Reptile
circulation is just different to fish frogs and mammals, and if anything more
complex than mammals, due to its highly variable metabolic rates and mechanisms
for gaining and circulating heat. The fact crocs have a four chambered heart
does not help the neat progression from a fish to a mammal as shown in
evolutionary textbooks. The vertebrate heart is often used in the teaching of
evolution.  Fish only need a two chambered heart because they have low pressure
circulation and get oxygen from their gills. Amphibians get some oxygen from
their lungs and some from their skin so they do not need complete separation
between their lung and body tissue circulation. Mammals and birds need to have a
low pressure system for the lungs and high pressure system for the body tissues
so they need complete separation of the two systems. The croc differences are
now shown to be entirely functionally necessary and so this research confirms
the fact each kind of vertebrate has a heart that is appropriate to its needs,
and this is good evidence for purposeful creation, not mindless naturalism.

[Soldier4Christ]

OLDEST CRAYFISH LIVED IN WARM WORLD according a press release from Emory
University, 5 Feb 2008. A group of American and Australian researchers have
found fossil crayfish and fossils burrows in Mesozoic rocks dated 115 million
years old. The fossil burrows are "nearly identical to those made by modern
crayfish in southeastern Australia." Anthony Martin of Emory University
commented: "Comparing these fossil burrows to those made by modern crayfish in
Australia shows us that their behaviour hasn't changed that much." Crayfish are
found worldwide and scientists from Thomas Huxley (an early promoter of Darwin's
theories) onwards have wondered how they could be so widespread when they cannot
survive in saltwater. Some scientists have tried to explain it with the theory
that all the continents were once joined together. Recently molecular biologists
have suggested that all southern hemisphere crayfish originated in southeast
Australia. Anthony Martin who led the study commented: "The evolution of
Southern Hemisphere crayfish has challenged researchers since the 1870s. Only
now, 140 years later, are we starting to put together the physical evidence for
this evolution through the discovery of fossils." The press release also
comments that the Mesozoic era, when the crayfish lived "is of particular
interest to scientists since it is believed to be the last time the Earth
experienced pronounced global warming, with an average temperature of 68 degrees
Fahrenheit - just 10 degrees warmer than today." Fossil Crayfish, Emory
University Press Release, 5 Feb 2008.

ED. COM. We wonder what those on the global warning bandwagon think caused 10
degrees of global warming, ( which is far in excess of the current warming ),
having occurred at a time when the evolutionists among them would not be able to
blame man's cars or factories? Scientists would be less challenged if they left
aside the evolutionary assumptions and noted that the facts about fossil and
living crayfish fit better into Biblical history where God made one ocean and
one continent and made living creatures to multiply after their kinds (Genesis
1-2). During Noah's flood many creatures would have been would have been wiped
out, but some would have survived in pockets of freshwater scattered all over
the world. During the Post Flood ice ages, when seas levels were low and many of
the landmasses and rivers were joined, crayfish could have spread further afield
without having to survive in saltwater. The fossil findings described above
simply provide more evidence that Genesis is true and it is no surprise to find
crayfish all over the world, whose fossils appear to be the same as living
crayfish

[Soldier4Christ]

NOTABLE QUOTABLE FROM DARWIN to STEVE JONES: Darwin wrote "Why then is not
every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links?
Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and
this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged
against my theory" The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, Penguin Books
1968.Chapter IX page 292.

In his updated version of Darwin "Almost Like a Whale - The Origin of Species
Updated", Professor Steve Jones, Black Swan 1999. p253, wrote: "Far from the
display of intermediates to be expected from slow advance through natural
selection, many species appear without warning, persist in fixed form, and
disappear, leaving no descendents. Geology assuredly does not reveal any finely
graduated organic chain, and this is the most obvious and gravest objection
which can be urged against the theory of evolution".

[Soldier4Christ]

PEPPERED MOTH COMEBACK described in an article in News Scientist, 8 Dec
2007, p46. For many years the peppered moth "Biston betularia" has been used as
the prime example of evolution occurring before our eyes. This moth comes in two
colour forms, one pale and speckled, the other solid black. Before the early
1800's the black forms were fairly rare but over the next century they gradually
increased in numbers, especially in regions where industrial pollution had
blackened the tree trunks in the woodlands where the moths lived. This change
was believed to be caused by birds eating the moths that could not blend in with
the tree trunks on which they rested during the day. In the polluted regions
black moths would be well camouflaged on the black trees, but pale moths would
be easily spotted and eaten. In the 1950s Earnest Kettelwell carried out a
series of experiments where he released light and dark moths onto tree trunks in
two different regions in England, one where the trees were blackened by
industrial pollution, and one in an unpolluted area whose trees were covered in
lichens. Kettelwell later recaptured moths from both regions and recorded the
numbers of each form that had survived. As he expected more black moths survived
in the region with black tree trunks and more light moths survived in the region
with lichen covered tree trunks. The increase in black moths was called
"industrial melanism" and was presented to generations of biology students as a
classic example of Natural Selection, and according to Darwin, Natural Selection
was the driving force for evolution. This story is in most high school biology
textbooks, often accompanied by photo of moths on tree trunks with a caption
"evolution in action." Kettelwell's results were often used a proof of
evolution, but people who studied moths recognised there were serious flaws in
Kettlewell's method, the main one being that moths did not normally rest on tree
trunks, and he released far more moths that were found in the natural
environment. Because of these flaws some scientists suggested the peppered moth
should not be used as an example of evolution, especially as creationists and
Intelligent Design advocates have used the flaws to criticise evolutionary
theory. Therefore, in order to reclaim the moth for evolution, Michael Majerus
of Cambridge University, has carried out a new series of release and recapture
experiments. He observed that the moths normally took up resting places on the
undersides of tree branches, so he enclosed tree branches with nets and released
one moth into each net at night and then removed the nets the next day, after
the moths had taken up their resting positions. Later in the day he checked the
tree trunks to see if the moths were still there. As the moths normally do not
move during the day, any missing moths were assumed to have eaten. Majerus also
observed birds eating the moths, and he noted they were better at finding dark
moths on the light coloured tree trunks where he carried out his study. Majerus'
study overcomes all the flaws in Kettelwell's experiment, so he claims "It
provides the proof of evolution." The New Scientist article goes on the explain:
"There is no doubt that the peppered moth's colour is genetically determined, so
changes in the frequencies of light and dark forms demonstrate changes in gene
frequencies - and that is evolution. What's more, the direction and speed at
which this evolution occurred can only be explained by natural selection. The
agent of selection remains contentious, but bird predation is the only
hypothesis with any experimental backing."

ED. COM. It is easy to argue that if evolution is true then change in gene
frequency would have to be true - but the reverse is not so. Evolution requires
new genes, not changes in the numbers of already existing genes. Since all genes
involved in Majerus' observations of the peppered moth predate even Kettlewell's
experiment, then nothing has evolved at all - the only valid conclusion is that
Black and white moths turn into black and white moths. Majerus' experiments have
shown that variations in the numbers of light and dark forms of this moth are
genuine examples of natural selection and valid examples of a change in gene
frequency, but he has not provided any kind of proof for evolution. Natural
selection is not evolution. It is a process where some individuals are removed
from a population, leaving the others to breed. It does not create any changes
to living organisms, and therefore cannot produce new species. A change in gene
frequency is not evolution either. Whatever has happened to this species of moth
over the past two centuries, it has not evolved, and we will continue to take
every opportunity we have to teach students this fact, and that the data
supports the Biblical claim that God made moths to produce their own Moth Kind.

[Soldier4Christ]

COW-A-SAURUS CORRECTION. In our 12 Dec 2007 report of the discovery of a
grazing dinosaur the second last sentence should read: "This means they think it
grazed like a cow, although they do not believe it ate grass, because the fossil
is dated as early Cretaceous (about 110 million years old) and grasses are not
thought to have evolved until the late Cretaceous period, millions of years
later." This correction does not alter the Editorial Comment we made about the
dinosaur. Below is the report with the corrected sentence and the original
Editorial Comment. Thanks to the two readers who pointed this out.

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 early Cretaceous (about 110 million years old) and grasses
are not thought to have evolved until the late 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. See previous report, "Grass eating
dinosaur challenges plant evolution" can be found in our Science Reports archive
at www.evidenceweb.net choose Fact File, Science Reports.

[Soldier4Christ]

Reflections on the Debate

Creation-evolution debates played a primary role in the early upswing of interest in creationism. In the 1970s, debates became major events on university campuses and were often the first time students were exposed to a credible case for creation. Dr. Duane Gish--senior vice president of ICR for 34 years--participated in almost 400 debates; my father, Dr. Henry M. Morris, took part in more than 100. But now the debates have pretty much ceased. Several leading evolutionists cautioned their colleagues to avoid them, and with good reason. The creationists seemed to always win.

Over the years I was involved in about 30 debates and, strangely, enjoyed it. My background is in geology, while the debates mainly centered on biology and paleontology. Whenever one was scheduled, I hopped on the learning curve, reading everything the opposing professor had written. I was often nervous, but afterward wondered--was that the best the evolutionists could do? It seemed that none had good scientific arguments.

My first debate was in high school, right after my father wrote The Genesis Flood with John Whitcomb. Evolution-creation was a hot topic. My biology teacher arranged for the outspoken class evolutionist to debate me, the quietest kid in class. My opponent began by defining evolution as "change." A baby grows into an adult, a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Change happens, therefore evolution is true. I focused on the evolutionary claim that whales evolved from a land animal. This idea was so ludicrous on its face that no one would believe it. As I recall, I won the debate 28-2.

The theme of defining evolution as change recurred numerous times in later debates. Once I faced the entire faculty of a large university. I insisted that evolution speaks of specific change, of basic types of animals evolving into different types. I challenged the faculty--who had barred students from attending--to demonstrate this sort of transformation from the fossil record. Finally, one brave professor said she was an expert in fossil clams and had evidence that clams had changed. I agreed, but requested that she show how this was proof of evolution. Even with the changes, the clams remained clams.

On a lecture/debate tour in Moscow before the Iron Curtain was lifted, the evolutionists insisted that the main reason they believed in evolution was the existence of pain, suffering, and death, the same reason Darwin gave. The God of the Bible would certainly have done things differently, therefore there is no God and evolution by natural selection is the best alternative. Of course, there is an answer to that: the introduction of sin into God's very good creation. Change happened at the curse, but it wasn't evolutionary change.

Today we face an important choice. Christ offers that we can put off the old and be "renewed in the spirit of your mind" (Ephesians 4:22-24). We can "repent" or change our minds, attitudes, and actions, and accept Christ's solution to the sin problem. We should also repent of our wrong thinking about origins and cease ascribing to natural processes the abilities and intelligence clearly reserved for God.

[Soldier4Christ]

Exploring the Limitations of the Scientific Method

In this day of iPods, cell phones, the Internet, and other fruits of modern science and technology, most people have at least a passing awareness of the concept of the scientific method. But just what is this process that undergirds such spectacular technological advance and development? If it can give us satellites showing the world's weather in real time, is it possible for this method, under certain circumstances, to fail?

The Method Defined

Frank Wolfs, Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, provides his undergraduate physics students with a good working definition of the scientific method: "the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation of the world."1

Professor Wolfs, as a research scientist himself, points out some of its limitations: "Recognizing that personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena, we aim through the use of standard procedures and criteria to minimize those influences when developing a theory. As a famous scientist once said, 'Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view.' In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing a hypothesis or a theory."1

Four Essentials of the Scientific Method

Just what are these "standard procedures and criteria" that scientists apply in their attempt to arrive at an accurate and reliable representation of the world in which we live? Most scientists, including Wolfs, boil them down to the four following essentials:1

   1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
   2. Formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomena. (In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a mathematical relationship.)
   3. Use of the hypothesis to predict other phenomena or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
   4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters.

If the experiments bear out the hypothesis, it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature. If they do not, the hypothesis must be rejected or modified. As Wolfs explains, "No matter how elegant a theory is, its predictions must agree with experimental results if we are to believe that it is a valid description of nature. In physics, as in every experimental science, 'experiment is supreme' and experimental verification of hypothetical predictions is absolutely necessary."1

Wolfs further notes that this necessity of experiment in the method is tantamount to requiring that a scientific hypothesis be testable. "Theories which cannot be tested, because, for instance, they have no observable ramifications (such as, a particle whose characteristics make it unobservable), do not qualify as scientific theories."1 It is fairly obvious that if a hypothesis cannot be tested, it should more properly be called a conjecture or speculation, in which case the scientific method can say little about it.

When Does the Scientific Method Fail?

Are there circumstances in which the scientific method ought to work, but for which the method does not provide "an accurate representation of the world"--that is, a correct description of the way things really are? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. As Professor Wolfs mentions above, "personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena." If the hypothesis-testing process fails to eliminate most of the personal and cultural biases of the community of investigators, false hypotheses can survive the testing process and then be accepted as correct descriptions of the way the world works. This has happened in the past, and it happens today.

Some of the most glaring examples of this failure of the scientific method today have to do with the issue of origins. There are two fairly obvious reasons for this: 1) many of the crucial processes occurred in the past and are difficult to test in the present; and 2) personal biases are especially strong on topics related to origins because of the wider implications.

Skipping the Test

Perhaps the most prominent example in this category is the hypothesis that mutation and natural selection produce continuous genetic improvement in a population of higher plants or animals. For the past 90 years, scientists in the field of population genetics have developed sophisticated mathematical models to describe and investigate these processes and how they affect the genetic makeup of populations of various categories of organisms. The work of R. A. Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright between 1918 and 1932 laid the foundation for the field of population genetics. This work in turn, over a period of about a decade (1936-1947), led to the formulation of what is referred to as the neo-Darwinian synthesis or the modern evolutionary synthesis. This so-called modern synthesis integrated the concept of natural selection with Mendelian genetics to produce the unified theory of evolution that has been accepted by most professional biologists.

But does this theory of evolution, formulated essentially in its present form more than 60 years ago, truly deliver on its claims, especially in light of what we now know of how living systems work at the molecular level? The answer is an unequivocal no! In brief, the proteins that make up living systems require such a precise level of specification to be functional that a search based on random mutation can never succeed.2 It is complete scientific foolishness to claim otherwise. That is why there are no papers in the professional genetics literature that explicitly demonstrate this to be a reasonable possibility.

Perhaps even more surprising, natural selection does not deliver the sort of upward genetic improvement that is generally believed and claimed.3 The reason is that natural selection is "blind" to the vast majority of mutations--it cannot act upon a favorable mutation to accentuate it or a deleterious mutation to eliminate it unless the mutation has a sufficiently large effect on the fitness of the organism in its environment. Because the vast majority of mutations are below the threshold for natural selection to detect, most bad mutations accumulate unhindered by the selection process, resulting in a downward decline in fitness from one generation to the next.4,5 Because bad mutations outnumber favorable ones by such a large factor, their cumulative effect utterly overwhelms that of the few favorable mutations that may arise along the way.

For more than 30 years, professional population geneticists have been aware of the profound difficulties these realities present to the theory of evolution.6,7 These problems were treated as "trade secrets" to be researched within their own ranks but not to be publicized outside in the broader biology community. Thus, the crucial step of hypothesis testing has been "postponed."

Most professional biologists have therefore been misled into believing that the theoretical foundation of the neo-Darwinian synthesis is secure when, in reality, the foundation is a sham. The neo-Darwinian mechanism can readily be shown to produce exactly the opposite consequences to those that are believed and claimed.3,4,5 The reason for this state of affairs is that the scientists involved have allowed their personal biases to interfere with and to shortcircuit the usual hypothesis-testing step of the scientific method.

cont'd

[Soldier4Christ]

Geology and Cosmology

A similar state of affairs persists in the geological community, which interprets the primary sedimentary units of most of the fossil-bearing part of the geological record as having been produced by gradualistic rather than catastrophic processes, when the evidence is abundantly in favor of the latter.8

Likewise, in cosmology, to avoid the inference that the earth is near the center of the cosmos, as implied by isotropy of redshift and of cosmic microwave background energy, a highly speculative and difficult-to-test hypothesis has been invoked--namely, the Copernican Principle,9 which posits that the entire cosmos is just like what we observe from the earth, at least at large scales. A result is that gravity perfectly cancels at large scales and keeps the cosmos from being inside a black hole during the early phases of a Big Bang. All Big Bang models depend critically on this hypothesis. The fact that the Copernican Principle up to now has been untestable means, strictly speaking, that Big Bang cosmology cannot be viewed as authentic science since it relies in a critical way on an untestable hypothesis.

Conclusion

In summary, science is a social enterprise. Scientists are human and share the same weaknesses as all members of the human race. The scientific method fails to yield an accurate representation of the world, not because of the method, but because of those who are attempting to apply it. The method fails when scientists themselves, usually collectively, allow their own biases and personal preferences to shortcircuit the hypothesis-testing part of the process.

References

   1. Wolfs, F. 1996. Introduction to the scientific method. Physics Laboratory Experiments, Appendix E, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester.
   2. Baumgardner, J. 2008 (in press). Language, Complexity, and Design. In Seckback, J. and R. Gordon (eds.), God, Science and Intelligent Design. Singapore: World Scientific.
   3. Sanford, J. 2005. Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome. Lima, NY: Elim Publications.
   4. Sanford, J., J. Baumgardner, et al. 2007. Using computer simulation to understand mutation accumulation dynamics and genetic load. In Shi, Y. et al. (eds.), ICCS 2007, Part II, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 4488. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 386-392.
   5. Sanford, J., J. Baumgardner, et al. 2008 (in press). Numerical simulation falsifies evolutionary genetic theory. Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Creationism. San Diego, CA: ICR.
   6. Kimura, M. 1979. Model of effectively neutral mutations in which selective constraint is incorporated. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 76: 3440-3444.
   7. Kondrashov, A. S. 1995. Contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations: why have we not died 100 times over? Journal of Theoretical Biology. 175: 583-594.
   8. Austin, S. A. 1994. Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe. Santee, CA: ICR.
   9. Hawking, S. W. and G. F. R. Ellis. 1973. The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 134.

[Soldier4Christ]

Ice Age Glaciers at Yosemite National Park

Glaciers once filled Yosemite Valley almost to the top of Half Dome, stretching over Tuolumne Meadows and to Tioga Pass near the top of the Sierra Nevada. Large fields of granite that are now exposed were planed down by the movement of the glaciers as they ground downhill, leaving behind evidence of their presence and direction of travel. But if glaciers occurred after the Genesis Flood, how did they form and why have they disappeared?

One scenario is that the Genesis Flood--which ended about 4,500 years ago--left the oceans as warm as 120°F in places, causing a large amount of evaporation. This moisture would have been gathered by winds and blown across the continents, producing heavy precipitation. In California, the Sierra Nevada mountains form a long north-south barrier perpendicular to the flow of air off the Pacific Ocean. Here, the warm, moist air would have been lifted to higher, colder elevations, resulting in large quantities of snow. Precipitation would have been enhanced by a strong jet stream that is believed to have tracked across the southwestern United States during the Ice Age, below its current position along the northern tier of states. These strong winds moving moist air over the area of Yosemite National Park would have produced glaciers. When the oceans cooled two to three thousand years ago, the precipitation would have decreased, permitting the glaciers to melt.

Today, Yosemite National Park generally sees snow only in winter, which then completely melts during summer. Because the sea-surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California dropped after the Flood from an estimated 120°F to a current average winter temperature of about 60°F, the Ice Age ended. Occasionally the sea-surface temperature along the California coast will warm by 1-3°F during what is called an El Niño event. Although these warmer temperatures lead to an increase in storminess and precipitation, the unsettled weather during these periods typically lasts only a year or two and doesn't produce enough snow to form permanent glaciers.

To facilitate the study of the Flood's meteorological impact, a weather and climate model called MM5 has been installed on ICR's Epiphany research computer. Numerical simulations will be conducted of conditions that would lead to more precipitation and glaciers in Yosemite National Park. Variations of the sea-surface temperature of the Pacific Ocean off California will be introduced to see what effects they have on the magnitude and distribution of snow, with a particular focus on short-term cold periods during generally warm sea-surface conditions.

One goal is to find an explanation for some of the short-period fluctuations in the distribution of glaciers at the end of the Ice Age. As the glaciers melted, cold water likely flowed into the ocean and chilled the surface water. This cold sea-surface temperature would have reduced the evaporation and may explain fluctuations in glacial coverage in Yosemite, like those of the Younger Dryas event on the east coast of the United States and Europe. The results of this research effort are scheduled to be presented at the upcoming International Conference on Creationism in August 2008, with a completion of the study over the next few years. Through science, we continue to learn of the works of our Creator, who "casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow" (Psalm 147:17-18).