Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

OLDEST EAR FOSSILS FOUND, according to ScienceNOW and PLoS One 12 Sep 2007. For animals that live on land to hear, they must
convert vibrations in air into vibrations in fluid. In living animals this is done by the eardrum and middle ear bones. Johannes
Muller and Linda Tsuji of Humboldt University, Berlin have studied some fossil reptiles found in the Mezen River Basin in central
Russia, dated as 260 million years old. This is 60 million years before the earliest land animals with ears were believed to have
evolved. The researchers claim the Russian fossils showed clear evidence of having had an eardrum. Some also have a bone similar to
the stapes (a bone used to transmit vibrations from the eardrum to the inner ear of modern terrestrial vertebrates) and “a braincase
specialized in showing modifications clearly related to an increase in auditory function, unlike the braincase of other Paleozoic
tetrapod.” Ears are believed to have evolved separately at least six times in land dwelling animals, i.e. in frogs, lizards,
crocodiles, turtles, mammals and birds. Palaeontologists are not sure why ears evolved. The most recent suggestion is from Jennifer
Clack of Cambridge University who proposed that hearing evolved so reptiles could hear buzzing insects, but buzzing insects are not
believed to have evolved 260 million years ago. Muller and Tsuji suggest that ears evolved so that reptiles could live in dimly lit
places.


ED. COM. Ears may be useful for hearing buzzing insects and/or for surviving in dimly lit environments, but that does not explain
where genes for forming ears came from, and it certainly doesn’t explain how such a complex structure as an ear could evolve
naturalistically, randomly or by chance at least six separate times. This is yet another example of evolutionists confusing a story
about the evidence with what the evidence actually shows.

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CAMBRIAN CRUSTACEANS PUT ARTHROPOD ORIGINS BACK, according to a report in Nature, vol 449, p595, 4 Oct 2007. Xi-guang Zhang of
Yunnan University, China and colleagues from Universities of Leicester and Ulm, have found three previously unknown fossil crustaceans in Lower Cambrian rocks in China. One of the new fossils is described as “markedly similar to those of living cephalocarids, branchiopods and copepods”. These creatures are considered to be highly evolved types of crustaceans, so the researchers suggest the newly found fossils’ “stratigraphical position provides substantial support to the proposition that the main cladogenic event that gave rise to the Arthropoda was before the Cambrian.”

ED. COM. “Arthropoda” are animals with exoskeletons and jointed limbs, and include crabs, lobsters and insects. Cambrian rocks are usually considered to be the oldest rocks containing complex creatures with any hard structures such as an exoskeleton. Because the scientists who did this study believe that such complex creatures took millions of years to evolve from simple creatures, they have
to believe in a “cladogenic event”, i.e. the formation of a new kind of animal, before these rocks were laid down. As the new fossils are “markedly similar” to living arthropods, Occums Razor would suggest it is simpler to say that arthropods show no evidence of evolving simply because they were created as fully formed functional creatures in the beginning, and have reproduced after their kind ever since these rocks were laid down – just as Genesis says. But the unpopularity of that explanation is a reminder that science insists today on naturalistic explanations that exclude God even if He was involved.

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OLDEST BAT FOSSIL FOUND, according to reports in BBC News Online, 13 Feb 2008, ABC News in Science and Nature, vol. 451, p818, 14
Feb 2008. A team of palaeontologists led by Nancy Simmons of the American Museum of Natural History have examined a fossil bat from the Green River Formation in Wyoming USA dated as being 53.5 million years old. This makes it the oldest fossil bat ever found. The fossil has been named “Onychonycteris finneyi”, meaning “clawed bat” and is classified as a new genus and species because it is larger, has slightly different limb proportions to other bats,has claws on its wings and a broad tail. According to Kevin Seymour of Royal Ontario Museum, Canada, who took part in the study “its teeth seem to show that it was an insect eater.” The scientists suggested it did not use echo-location for finding food, unlike living insect eating bats. Measurements of the base of its skull indicate that it had a small cochlea (inner ear) similar to living non-echolocating bats, such as fruit bats, which use smell and
vision to find food.


ED. COM. In spite of the small differences between this fossil bat and other bats, no-one disputes that it is a fully formed flying bat. Therefore, at the risk of sounding repetitive, no matter how old scientists believe this fossil bat to be, it is evidence that bats have NOT evolved from the time they were first preserved in the rocks. They only show evidence of having been fully formed animals that have reproduced after their kind, just as Genesis says.

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COSMIC CHEMISTRY MADE US, claim scientists in articles from EurekAlert 13 March 2008. A group of researchers have analysed two meteorites found in Antarctica and found they have highest concentration of amino acids so far discovered in meteorites. Amino acids are basic building blocks of life and are believed to be an essential component of the organic soup that evolutionary biologists
believe the first cells evolved from. The source of the original amino acids is much disputed, and these findings reinforce the theory that much of the original organic material was delivered to the earth by meteoric bombardment early in the history of the solar system. Zita Martins of Imperial College London, one of the researchers, explained: “We know that approximately 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago the Earth underwent heavy bombardment from meteorites which brought molecules to our planet, just before life emerged on Earth. However, there is a gap in knowledge about how life came into being. Our work has shown that it may have been meteoritic amino acids and other biologically useful compounds that spurred life into existence.” The scientists are confident that the amino acids were formed in outer space, and were not acquired after the meteorites arrived on earth because organic molecules from extra-terrestrial sources have different ratios of carbon isotopes. Conel Alexander of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, another of the researchers, suggested the amino acids were originally made by “ammonia and other chemical precursors from the solar nebula or even the interstellar medium ” combining in the present of water. Zita Martins went on to say: “Our increasing
understanding of the materials available for the first living systems in the solar system suggests that we are all products of cosmic chemistry.”


ED. COM. As there were no scientists to observe the earth before life arrived on it, however long ago they believe it happened, these researchers cannot claim to “know” the earth was bombarded by meteorites “just before life emerged on earth”. The finding of amino acids in meteorites only proves that amino acids can be made by chemistry in space, and all nature generated Amino acids to date have been 50/50 mixes of Left and Right forms of the AAs. Earth life never uses such a mix. The new meteorite AAs, do not prove that amino acids turned into living cells on earth. Amino acids are only one of the many building blocks needed to make life, and even if they could all be found to come about by chemical reactions in space (or on earth) that would not prove that life is simply the product of cosmic (or earthly) chemistry. Making living cells requires creative design and manipulation of chemicals, not just the random reaction of the chemicals.

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ANOTHER STEP TOWARDS SYNTHETIC LIFE reported in BBC News Online and Science Online DOI: 10.1126/science.1151721 24 Jan 2008. A team of scientists in the USA have taken another step towards making organisms with redesigned genomes. The scientists set out to make an artificial version of the genome of a bacterium named "Mycoplasma gentitalium". This bacterium was chosen because it has the smallest known genome for a free living organism. The scientists started with small lengths of DNA which had been strung together base by base according to known sequences in the bacterium's genome. These were linked together using enzymes until they had four very long pieces, each representing a quarter of the total genome. They then inserted these into a yeast cell, which copied them and combined them into a single chromosome. To check they had made a complete new genome they analysed the sequence of the newly made chromosome and found it matched that of the bacterium. The scientists describe their work as making "synthetic" rather than "artificial" life. Hamilton Smith, who took part in the project, commented to BBC News: "We like to distinguish synthetic life from artificial life. With synthetic life, we're re-designing the cell chromosomes; we're not creating a whole new artificial life system." He went on to say, "We're simply re-writing the operating software for cells - we're not designing a genome from the bottom up - you can't drop a genome into a test tube and expect it to come to life." The artificial chromosome will have to be transplanted into another cell so that it can use the cellular machinery to grow and reproduce.


ED. COM. It is good to see scientists admit they are only rearranging genetic information that already exists. It would be even better to see them admit that a much smarter scientist must have designed and made the original "software for cells" they are re-writing. Furthermore, they have to use already existing cellular machinery to build the chromosome and use the pre-existing genetic information it contains. Since no-one pretends that computer software wrote itself, or that computer hardware made itself, it is foolish to believe that living cells, and the genetic information they contain, came about by naturalistic or chance random processes.

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ALLIGATORS USE BUOYANCY TANKS, according to an article in EurekAlert 13 Mar 2008 and ScienceNOW 14 Mar 2008. Alligators draw airinto their lung using rib muscles and a large muscle called the diaphragmaticus which runs lengthways along its body cavity connecting the pelvis to the liver and lungs. T. J. Uriona of Utah noted that the diaphragmaticus in alligators worked in a similar way to a muscle that swimming frogs use to change the distribution of air in the lungs, using the shift in buoyancy to manoeuvre under water. As alligators are particularly good at moving through water with very little movement of lim bs and tail, he set out to see if alligators used the same means of manoeuvring. Uriona attached electrodes to the muscles that move air in and out of the
lungs and studied their activity while the animals were diving. He found the muscles were active, even though the animals were holding their breath. When an alligator was diving, the muscles pulled the lungs down, shifting the buoyancy towards the tail. When the animal was returning to the surface the muscles pushed the lungs upwards, and when the animal rolled in the water the muscles on one side were active - moving the buoyancy to one side. Uriona commented: "Until now, it was believed the diaphragmatic muscle evolved to help them breathe and run at the same time," he says. "Showing they are actually using it to move around in water gives an alternative explanation for why the muscle evolved." Colleen Farmer, a biologist at University of Utah commented: "special muscles that manipulate the position of the lungs - and thus the centre of buoyancy - may be an underappreciated but important means for other aquatic animals to manoeuvre in water without actively swimming." Other animals use buoyancy shifting including crocodiles, African clawed frogs, some salamanders, turtles and manatees. According to Farmer it must have been "incredibly important or you would not see it evolve repeatedly." Uriona and Farmer suggest that the diaphragmatics developed from a muscle originally used in walking that went through two steps of evolution, first to attach it to the lungs so that it could be used to assist swimming, and then a re-wiring process so that it was used for breathing as well.


ED. COM. In spite of the numerous references to evolution, this study is a good piece of practical real world biology that does not need the theory of evolution. The real science in this study is the observation of how swimming animals move and the experiment with the electrodes in alligator muscles. These revealed a fully functioning system of muscles and nervous system control. The speculations about two step evolution in alligators and repeated evolution in different kinds of animals are based on a prior belief in evolution that has been applied to the scientific observations, not derived from them. The fact that fully functioning buoyancy assisted swimming is found in many kinds of animals is evidence for the creation of separate kinds of fully functioning animals, as described in Genesis, rather than repeated chance random evolution.

[Soldier4Christ]

MOLE RATS TUNE OUT, according to ScienceNOW ScienceShots, March 2007. (Whole item quoted.) "Say what? With lives spent underground, it's perhaps no surprise that Fukomys mole-rats have poor hearing. They don't need to hear anything, so their ears gradually became useless over time; at least that was a popular theory. But a new study, published in the February issue of 'Naturwissenschaften', argues the opposite. The authors found that low-frequency sounds, such as those produced by animals and people walking overhead, become amplified in underground burrows - a phenomenon known as the 'stethoscope effect'. Mole-rats may have dialled down their hearing, it turns out, to avoid these nuisance noises."

ED. COM. Then again - what would be wrong with this suggestion - that mole rats were Designed to have the right kind of hearing for their environment - find out by seeing the movie EXPELLED in a theatre near you.

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HUMAN BRAINS WIRED FOR LANGUAGE, according to a report in ScienceNOW 24 Mar 2008. Communicating with complex speech language is unique to humans, and it has long been known that human brains have specialised regions in the frontal and temporal lobes that are used for speech production and the understanding of language. Scientists who study how the brain uses language have also found that these areas must also be connected to one another for effective language skills. Anthropologists at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia used a new brain scanning technique to trace the bundles of nerve fibres within the brain, showing where the internal connections are made. They compared the brains of humans, chimps and macaque monkeys and found "dramatic differences" between the human brains and primate brains. In human brains there are large extensive connections between the speech production region in the frontal lobe (known as Broca's area) and the language understanding region (known as Wernicke's area) in the temporal lobe. In chimps they found only limited connections between the corresponding regions of their brains, and hardly any connections in the
macaques. The researchers concluded that the evolution of speech involved the re-wiring of the brain to make the connections between Broca's and Wernicke's areas. Kuniyoshi Sakai, a language researcher at the University of Tokyo in Japan commented that the brain scan study demonstrates "the uniqueness of the human brain, because it has been widely assumed that the basic brain structures are essentially similar between humans and apes."

ED. COM. In spite of numerous efforts to find similarities between ape and human brains, specific studies, like the one describe here, keep finding differences. Speech language is unique to humans so it is not surprising that human brains have specialised structures that do not exist in animals. This is exactly what you would expect to find given human beings were unique creations, designed as the image of the Speaking God as described in Genesis 1. The idea that an extensive, complex system of nerve fibre connections would come about by chance random processes is as foolish as the idea that the cables of a computer network would grow and connect themselves to the right computers all by themselves.

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DOUBLE BITE WOWS SCIENTISTS, according to a study published in Nature, vol 449, p79, 6 Sep 2007 and news@nature 5 Sep 2007.
Biologists at the University of California, Davis have use high speed videos to study the way moray eels swallow their food. Most fish draw their food down their throat using suction method. Scientists have known that moray eels are very poor at producing a suction current, but they are voracious predators capable of eating large prey. Some fish have extra set of plate like bones with teeth at the base of their throat that grip the food that has been sucked in and help move it into the oesophagus, the food pipe
that leads to the stomach. These are called pharyngeal jaws. Rita Mehta and Peter Wainwright discovered that moray eels have pharyngeal jaws that are like long grasping arms, bearing sharp re-curved teeth. When the eel captures some prey in its front jaws the pharyngeal jaws are pulled forward to grasp the prey and pull back carrying the prey down the eel's throat using a rachet
mechanism similar to the way snake force their prey down their throat. The researchers commented to news@nature that there is a "remarkable similarity between eels and snakes, despite the fact that they are from completely different realms of the animal kingdom." Mark Westneat of the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, commented that the discovery of the eel's double bite harks back to an age when scientists discovered natural phenomena, rather than developing theories and testing them. He said it was "a classic example of discovery-based science, stemming from a 'wow' moment".

ED. COM. Westneat's comment about how science works in the practical day to day world challenges the commonly made claim that you cannot do science without the theory of evolution. In reality, science is carried out by people who simply observe things happening in the world around them and then take a closer look to see what else they can find out. The theory of evolution is usually applied to the findings afterwards, and makes no difference to what was actually found. When an animal is found to have an efficient method of biting or grasping food it is usually claimed that it evolved to be a voracious killer. However, an animal's jaws and teeth only determine how it eats, not what it eats. Therefore, finding an animal with an impressive double bite does not mean it was created to be a killer. The double jaws would be useful for gripping and swallowing any kind of food.

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SHRIMPS' AMAZING EYES REVEALED, as described in articles in EurekAlert, UQ News Online and ScienceNOW, 20 March 2008. A group of researchers led by Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland and the Queensland Brain Institute have been studying the eyes of mantis shrimps - large reef dwelling crustaceans, also known as stomatopods. They found the crustaceans have the ability to
distinguish between right and left circular polarised light (CPL) - spiralling beams of light that can twist to the right or left. Some animals are known to be able to distinguish between different planes of linear polarised light, but Mantis shrimp eyes have a special filter orientated at 45 degrees to their photoreceptor (light sensitive) cells. The filter converts the circular polarised
light into linear polarised light, which the photoreceptors can detect. To confirm that the mantis shrimps could detect the two different forms of light the researchers gave the animals food in association with either right or left CPL. They then tested them by presenting two feeding tubes, one reflecting left CPL and the other reflecting right CPL. The shrimps went to the tube that reflected the light that had been associated with their food. The exact function of the ability is not known. Justin Marshall commented: "It's complicated physics, but that makes it all the more amazing that some animals would use it for something." The best clue so far is that males, but not females, have patches on their carapace that reflect circularly polarised light, so it may be part of the shrimps' sexual signalling. Marshall also commented: "It's quite amazing to think how much circular polarisation technology we have, and that 400 million years ago nature got there first with a mantis shrimp's eyes." He went on to say: "Us
humans only have three colour channels. These little guys have 12, and can see both linear and circular polarised light - it is remarkable." Circular polarised light is used in human technology in photography and image detection systems. The UQ article comments that the mantis shrimp is "an amazing animal to study as it has a very small brain but one of the world's most complex visual systems." EurekAlert record this comment from the research team: "Whatever the use of CPL signals and CPL vision to stomatopods, comparing design features of their CPL reflectors and sensors to those of man-made systems will be interesting. Humans use CPL filters and imaging in everyday photography, medical photography, and object-detection systems in turbid environments. The reefs and waters that many stomatopods inhabit are often turbid, and it is perhaps no surprise that, perhaps as long as 400 million years ago (when stomatopod crustaceans first appeared), nature got there first."


ED. COM. The ability to see CPL in turbid water does not explain how the mantis shrimp eyes were made to see it. It required intelligent observation of the properties of light by human scientists to discover, and creative design to make use of it in human technology. In a scientific world that defines itself as limited to naturalistic explanation only, it may be unacceptable, even though it is far more logical to believe that a creative Designer made the mantis shrimp's eyes with a reflective carapace. It is
regarded as more intelligent to believe that unintelligent evolutionary accidents gave rise to it. When your world view of naturalism prevents you from discovering truth because it limits you to arguing about whether something is philosophically science or religion, rather than what is true or false - it's time for Emperor Science to wake up to his Naked stupidity.  The scientists who are amazed at the technology built into this crustacean's eye will one day have to give an account of why they failed to honour the One who made it, rather than credit the shrimp or "nature" with making themselves.

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STICKING A FROG FOOT ON IT, described in ABC News in Science, 12 Oct 2007. Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur have developed a reusable adhesive tape inspired by frog feet. Conventional sticky tapes are not reusable because they crack when removed from one surface, and they collect dust and other particles and inevitably lose their stickiness. Animangsu Ghatak and
his colleagues noted that frogs and lizards have feet that stick and un-stick all the time. The researchers studied the toe pads of tree frogs, and they found a fine pattern of overlaying numerous tiny channels containing glands, fluid filled vessels and blood vessels. The researchers then made an adhesive tape consisting of a soft elastic material containing microscopic channels filled with air and oil. The result was a highly adhesive material that could be removed without any residue. Ghatak explained: "Because of
the capillary pressure, the adhesion stress increased by 30 times. One application is for stickers on utensils, fruit, where you want to remove them cleanly, you don't want the adhesive to remain on them, which is annoying,"


ED. COM. This is one more of a rapidly growing number of inventions that are directly inspired by studying some biological structure.  Next time you are frustrated because you can't get some sticky tape off cleanly, think of the tree frog's foot and give thanks to the Creator Who made the whole frog without having to copy any of it from someone else.

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BAT'S TREE IDENTIFICATION COPIED, according to an article in SciencNOW and PLOS Computational Biology 21 Mar 2008. Bats are well known for being able to find their way around and avoid obstacles using echo-location, i.e. by sending out bursts of sound and analysing the echoes. They can also use the echoes to identify different kinds of trees, even in densely wooded areas. A group of German scientists have recently invented a computerised system to do the same. Researchers bounced sonar signals off five different kinds of trees and bushes and analysed the reflection patterns. They then developed data sets called "spectrograms" which enabled them to identify each type of plant with near 100 per cent accuracy. The scientists are hoping their computer algorithms could be used to make more accurate remote sensing systems.

ED. COM. As the computer engineers who designed the system acknowledge, they copied the method of echo-identification from the bat. The fact that it takes a computer, a machine designed and built by creative engineers, and a computer program, the product of a mind, to analyse echoes and make use of them, is evidence that the bat's brain also was created and programmed by a much smarter engineer. Sadly such evolutionists have no excuse for refusing to believe in the Creator and give Him the glory for inventing the system.

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SEA SPONGE INSPIRED SOLAR CELLS described in New Scientist, 24 Mar 2007, p32. Some sea sponges are covered with fine spikes of silica, which they make by converting silicic acid from sea water, using an enzyme named silicatein to catalyse the reaction. Spikey structures like these could help make photovoltaic cells (solar panels) more efficient, but making them involves an expensive, high
energy process conducted at high temperatures and low pressures. The sponge makes them at low temperatures and near neutral pH - much easier conditions to work with. Resarchers at the University of California Santa Barbara have studied the golden puffball sponge, which makes silica spikes, and have developed an analogous process that makes crystalline layers of zinc oxide, using ammonia to catalyse the conversion of zinc nitrate to zinc oxide. The researchers have been able to use the crystals to make some simple solar cells. One of the researchers, Birgit Schwenzer, commented: "There are still problems but the process seems to be working at really low temperatures and producing devices at really low cost."

ED. COM. While intelligent, creative chemical engineers continue to apply their minds to solving the problems with the process they invented, the sponge, which has no brain, will continue to make silica spikes without any problems. Therefore, there is no excuse for refusing to believe the sponge, and the enzyme that catalyses the silicic acid reaction, were designed and created by a far more intelligent chemist.

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PLANT SUNSCREEN FOUND, according to an article in New Scientist, 3 Nov 2007, p20. Edelweiss, a small flowering plant that grows on high mountains, where there are high levels of potentially damaging ultra-violet (UV) light, has leaves covered with fine hairs. Scientists at the University of Notre-Dame de las Paix, Belgium noticed that edelweiss leaves do not reflect UV light, even though
they reflect other wavelengths of light. They then studied the fine hairs on the leaves and found they are made up of many fine parallel fibres 0.18 micrometres in diameter - very close to the wavelength of UV light. This means they can interact with the light and spread it along the surface of the leaf so that it doesn't penetrate into the plant tissues. Pol Vigneron, one of the research team, commented: "It's astonishing but the plant completely absorbs the UV." The researchers suggest that new types of sunscreens for people could be developed that use the same method as the plants.

ED. COM. No-one would believe plants are smarter than people, but it will take brains to make a sunscreen to make use of the same method of UV diversion as the plant. If some creative scientists manage to invent a new kind of sunscreen after studying this plant, they should acknowledge that the plant was designed by a smarter scientist.

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BIGGEST BAT TONGUE described in a report in Nature, vol 444, p705, 7 Dec 2006. Nathan Muchhala, a biologist at the University of Miami has found a bat that has the longest tongue relative to its body size ever observed. The bat is named "Anoura fistulata" and lives in the cloud forests of South America, where it feeds on nectar from long funnel shaped flowers. When fully extended, the bat's tongue is one and half times its body length, which makes it proportionally the longest tongue of any vertebrate except chameleons. Unlike all other mammal tongues, which are attached to the base of the mouth, "A. fistulata's" tongue is attached down in its chest, where it is surrounded by a sleeve of tissue called a glossal tube anchoring it between heart and the sternum (breast bone). A retractor muscle extends from the base of the tongue down to the bottom of the sternum. The bat seems to be the only pollinator of a particularly long tubular flower named "Centropogon nigricans". This flower is so long and narrow that other bats could not reach the nectar in the base of the flower. Because of the close match between the bat and flower Muchhala commented:
"After the initial evolution a glossal tube the extreme tongue length of A. fistulata probably co-evolved with long flowers such as C. nigricans."

ED. COM. Muchhala's comment is a typical evolutionary "Just So Story" that leaves more questions than it answers. Which came first, the bat or the flower? Why would a bat with a short tongue that could feed on many kinds of short flowers evolve a glossal tube so it could grow a long tongue that would be a burden if it didn't have an essential function? Why would a normal length flower that could be fertilised by several pollinators grow a long flower that could only be pollinated by one creature? There is no known way that genes for flower length in a plant can influence genes for tongue size in a bat, or vice versa. It is far more logical to believe that bat and flower were designed to work together, and be a sign that points people to the creative designer.