Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

Evolutionists claim it took a very long time for glaciers to form. Because of this they also concluded that it would take a very long time for these glaciers to melt. As usual most scientists do not understand the power of God in His creation. It is for this reason that they are so afraid of what is happening and are trying to come up with manmade solutions to these problems.


Ice Dumped by Greenland's Glaciers Triples in 10 Years
# Scientists say 'wake-up call' study indicates that sea level could climb even more quickly than current projections.

By Alan Zarembo, Times Staff Writer

Greenland's vast glaciers are dumping ice into the ocean three times faster than they did 10 years ago because of increasing temperatures, suggesting that sea level could rise even more quickly than current projections.

The study, published today in the journal Science, found that the glaciers contributed 53 cubic miles of water to the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, resulting in about a 0.02-inch rise in sea level.

The models we had were not terribly alarming about Greenland," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University who was not involved in the research. "This paper is a real wake-up call."

Previous estimates of Greenland's contribution to sea level rise were based on tracking the thickness of the glaciers to calculate the amount of ice that had melted and flowed into the ocean.

Researchers estimated that in 1996 total ice lost through melting was about 8.3 cubic miles. Just one-quarter cubic mile of ice would supply the water Los Angeles consumes in a year.

Researchers led by Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, used satellite imagery to measure another source of water: ice cracking off the ends of glaciers to form icebergs.

The imagery showed that Greenland's southern glaciers are rapidly accelerating their downhill, seaward creep.

Take the Kangerdlugssuaq glacier in the southeast. After creeping along at just more than 3 miles per year, it now moves about 8.7 miles per year.

The increased speed of glacier flow meant that far more water was reaching the ocean.

Greenland's ice cap is larger than Texas and nearly 2 miles thick in places. The researchers calculated that its glaciers deposited 40 cubic miles of ice into the Atlantic Ocean in 2005, about triple the 13 cubic miles dumped in 1996.

More than 13 cubic miles of ice were shed through melting in 2005, they estimated.

Both forms of ice loss are related to rising temperatures, which in southeast Greenland have climbed 5.4 degrees over the last two decades.

As surface ice melts, the water seeps to the underside of the glacier, where it lubricates the ground and exerts an upward force on the ice, accelerating movement of the ice toward the ocean, Rignot said.

Sea level is rising at 0.12 of an inch a year. That would raise the oceans about a foot by the end of the century.

The Greenland ice cap is the third-leading contributor to the rise. It ranks behind the melting of mountain glaciers and the expansion of ocean water because of higher temperatures.

That 100-year estimate may have to be revised upward to reflect a greater increase from Greenland's glaciers.

"We don't know how much more," said Jason Box, a climatologist at Ohio State University who has modeled melting of Greenland's ice cap.

[Shammu]

Churches urged to back evolution
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, St Louis

Charles Darwin US scientists have called on mainstream religious communities to help them fight policies that undermine the teaching of evolution.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) hit out at the "intelligent design" movement at its annual meeting in Missouri.

Teaching the idea threatens scientific literacy among schoolchildren, it said.

Its proponents argue life on Earth is too complex to have evolved on its own.

As the name suggests, intelligent design is a concept invoking the hand of a designer in nature.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other"
Gilbert Omenn
AAAS president

There have been several attempts across the US by anti-evolutionists to get intelligent design taught in school science lessons.

At the meeting in St Louis, the AAAS issued a statement strongly condemning the moves.

"Such veiled attempts to wedge religion - actually just one kind of religion - into science classrooms is a disservice to students, parents, teachers and taxpayers," said AAAS president Gilbert Omenn.

"It's time to recognise that science and religion should never be pitted against each other.

"They can and do co-exist in the context of most people's lives. Just not in science classrooms, lest we confuse our children."

'Who's kidding whom?'

Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education, which campaigns to keep the teaching of evolution in public schools, said those in mainstream religious communities needed to "step up to the plate" in order to prevent the issue being viewed as a battle between science and religion.

Sign appealing for voters to support the re-election of a Dover school board Some have already heeded the warning.

"The intelligent design movement belittles religion. It makes God a designer - an engineer," said George Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory.

"Intelligent design concentrates on a designer who they do not really identify - but who's kidding whom?"

Last year, a federal judge ruled in favour of 11 parents in Dover, Pennsylvania, who argued that Darwinian evolution must be taught as fact.

Dover school administrators had pushed for intelligent design to be inserted into science teaching. But the judge ruled this violated the constitution, which sets out a clear separation between religion and state.

Despite the ruling, more challenges are on the way.

Fourteen US states are considering bills that scientists say would restrict the teaching of evolution.

These include a legislative bill in Missouri which seeks to ensure that only science which can be proven by experiment is taught in schools.

"I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design"
Teacher Mark Gihring

"The new strategy is to teach intelligent design without calling it intelligent design," biologist Kenneth Miller, of Brown University in Rhode Island, told the BBC News website.

Dr Miller, an expert witness in the Dover School case, added: "The advocates of intelligent design and creationism have tried to repackage their criticisms, saying they want to teach the evidence for evolution and the evidence against evolution."

However, Mark Gihring, a teacher from Missouri sympathetic to intelligent design, told the BBC: "I think if we look at where the empirical scientific evidence leads us, it leads us towards intelligent design.

"[Intelligent design] ultimately takes us back to why we're here and the value of life... if an individual doesn't have a reason for being, they might carry themselves in a way that is ultimately destructive for society."

Economic risk

The decentralised US education system ensures that intelligent design will remain an issue in the classroom regardless of the decision in the Dover case.

"I think as a legal strategy, intelligent design is dead. That does not mean intelligent design as a social movement is dead," said Ms Scott.

US President George Bush "This is an idea that has real legs and it's going to be around for a long time. It will, however, evolve."

Among the most high-profile champions of intelligent design is US President George W Bush, who has said schools should make students aware of the concept.

But Mr Omenn warned that teaching intelligent design would deprive students of a proper education, ultimately harming the US economy.

"At a time when fewer US students are heading into science, baby boomer scientists are retiring in growing numbers and international students are returning home to work, America can ill afford the time and tax-payer dollars debating the facts of evolution," he said.

Churches urged to back evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

500 doctoral scientists skeptical of Darwin
Growing list of signatories challenges claims about support for theory
Posted: February 21, 2006

More than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution.

The statement, which includes endorsement by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS's "Evolution" series.

The PBS promotion claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."

"Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory," said John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture.

The institute is the leading promoter of the theory of Intelligent Design, which has been at the center of challenges in federal court over the teaching of evolution in public school classes. Advocates say it draws on recent discoveries in physics, biochemistry and related disciplines that indicate some features of the natural world are best explained as the product of an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.

West said Darwinist "efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list."

The statement, signed by 514 scientists, reads:

    "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

West said the Discovery Institute was encouraged to launch a website for the list because of the growing number of scientific dissenters.

"Darwin's theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought," said David Berlinski, a signatory and mathematician and philosopher of science with Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. "It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe."

Other prominent signatories include U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen, evolutionary biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; Smithsonian Institution evolutionary biologist and researcher at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Biotechnology Information Richard von Sternberg, editor of Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum – the oldest still published biology journal in the world – Giuseppe Sermonti and Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.

The list include 154 biologists, 76 chemists and 63 physicists. They hold doctorates in biological sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, computer science and related disciplines.

Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutions such as MIT, The Smithsonian, Cambridge University, UCLA, University of California at Berkeley, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University, University of Georgia and University of Washington.

[Soldier4Christ]

In the late 1950’s, during road construction in the Euphrates Valley of south-east Turkey, many tombs containing the remains of giants were uncovered. At the sites the leg bones were measured to be 120 cms (47.24 inches). Joe Taylor, Director of Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum, was commissioned to sculpt the human femur. This giant stood some 14-16 ft tall (right). Genesis 6:4 claims: "There were giants in the earth in those days;" Deuteronomy 3:11 states that the bed of Og, king of Bashan, was 9 cubits by 4 cubits (approximately 14 ft long by 6 ft wide). In his book Fossils Facts & Fantasies, Joe Taylor cites several accounts of giant human skeletons or depictions being discovered, from Egypt, Italy, Patagonia in Argentina, and the western US. The largest humans in recent history are like Robert Wadlow of Alton, IL (who was just under 9ft tall) who died in 1940.




A toxodon (a rhinoceroslike animal the siz of a large elephant) femur qas found in an Argentine Pliocene formation with an arrow-head embedded in it. The Pliocene era is supposedly prior to man's existance according to evolutionists.

A small zinc and silver vessel was found in a Massachusetts rock layer that is supposed to be 600 million years old.

Human bones of complete undisturbed human skeletons were found in the middle of a coal bed. Coal beds are supposedly many millions of years old. Humans were not supposed to exist at the time the coal formed.

[Soldier4Christ]

Evolutionists say:

MUTANT CHICKENS HAVE TEETH, according to reports in ScienceNOW 21 Feb
2006 and Scientific American 22 Feb 2006.  Chicken embryos with a mutation
called "talpid2" have been found to grown tiny conical protuberances on
their jaws similar in shape to crocodile teeth.  The discovery was made by
Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin when he took a close look at
an embryo's beak that had fallen off.  The mutation usually causes embryos
to die before 12 days of development, before their jaws develop, but
Harris's embryo had survived to be 16 days old and its jaw was beginning to
form.  Harris and colleagues from University of Wisconsin and University of
Manchester are studying how molecular signals work in developing  jaws and
have found that a growth controlling gene called "sonic hedgehog" was
activated in the sides of developing jaw in normal embryos, but was
activated in the centre of the jaws in mutant embryos. They were able to
mimic this change in molecular signalling in normal embryos using a
genetically engineered virus.  The embryos developed teeth-like protrusions
for a brief time but they were reabsorbed into the beak.  There is no way of
knowing whether talpid2 mutant chickens keep their "teeth", because the
mutation is lethal and no embryos ever grow into a fully formed chicken. The
scientists claim their studies prove that birds, which don't have teeth,
evolved from archosaurs, extinct crocodile-like reptiles that did have
teeth.

The Christian response:

All this study proves is the embryos with a growth disturbing
mutation have abnormal growths in their jaws.  As the mutation is lethal it
cannot have had a role in any evolution of reptiles into birds.  Whilst no
living birds have teeth, some fossil birds did, but this is no evidence for
evolution.  Losing a structure is the opposite of evolution but is no
problem for Biblical creation.  The Bible tells us the world started out
perfect but has been devastated by the Fall of man and Noah's flood.  As
part of the general downward trend many creatures have died out, including
it would seem, birds with teeth.  On this basis, we predict that hen's teeth
will remain as rare as.(Ref. embryology, dentition, development)

[Soldier4Christ]

Evolutionists say:

NEW HUMAN DISEASES RAPIDLY EMERGING according to a report in BBC online
news 20 Feb 2006.  Scientists speaking at the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference claim that new infectious diseases
are emerging at faster rates than ever before.  Every year scientists
discover one or two new infectious diseases in humans.  Many of these such
as HIV (AIDS) and avian influenza (bird flu) are coming from animals.
Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist at the University of Edinburgh,
UK has catalogued over 1,400 disease causing agents.  He commented to the
BBC: "This accumulation of new pathogens has been going on for millennia -
this is how we acquired TB, malaria, smallpox, but at the moment, this
accumulation does seem to be happening very fast.  So it seems there is
something special about modern times - these are good times for pathogens to
be invading the human population."  Some of the reasons given for the
increase in new diseases are changes in land use and agricultural practices,
global travel and trade and hospitalisation.  Prof Woolhouse also commented:
"Pathogens are evolving ways to combat our control methods."

The Christian response:

Many sceptics have claimed  creation cannot be used as a basis for
science because it cannot be used to make predictions. Over the last few
years we have made the following predictions about human diseases and we are
pleased to see AAAS scientists confirming we were right. In 2002 we wrote:
"The fact that new bacterial diseases are being discovered is good evidence
that the world in general, and humans in particular, are degenerating - is
exactly what you would expect if you take Biblical history seriously."  (See
Beware of Bartonella, 21 Mar 2002). Last year following a report that a US
trade expert claimed 30 new diseases had emerged in the last decade we
wrote: "These new diseases are no surprise to someone who accepts the
Biblical framework, rather than the evolutionary one. The Biblical picture
of Creation indicates that the world began good without any diseases, but
following man's rebellion against the Creator, the earth began a long
progression downhill from good to bad to worse to the present day. This
degeneration commenced with God judging man's sin by cursing the ground with
thorns and thistles and imposing the biological phenomenon of death.  The
world further degenerated following God's judgment at the flood which
destroyed the original balanced environment and soil, and the ideal
atmospheric conditions.  The flood was followed by an increasingly erratic
climate with the coming of winter and summer, ice and snow etc. Human
diseases have been on the increase as a result of this degenerate trend,
which includes the degeneration of the human genome.  WE PREDICT on the
basis of this history, that we will see even more new diseases in the next
50 years, in man, animals and plants, as evidence of this trend."

As for the present report, please note: the fact that some organisms can
combat our control methods is not evolution either.  Our control methods are
eliminating (selecting out) germs already resistant to our control methods.
(See "Soil Superbugs Found" ENEWS 8 Feb 2006).  (Ref. predictions, diseases,
devolution)

[Soldier4Christ]

Evoulutionists say:

"TOXIC TOADS EVOLVING INTO ECO-NIGHTMARE" reports an article on BBC
online news, 15 Feb 2006, about a study of Australian cane toads also
reported in the Daily Telegraph, news@nature and Nature, vol 439, p803, 16
Feb 2006.  Cane toads from the USA were introduced into Australia over 70
years and are gradually spreading over the northern regions of Australia.
Biologists at the University of Sydney have studied the rate of advance of
the invasion front and compared the size of the toads found at the front
with toads in older more established populations.  Ben Philips, one of the
researchers, explained the results: "During an invasion process the
individuals at the front are there because they have moved the furthest.  We
showed that the toads that are the first to arrive at the front are the ones
with the longest legs, and the ones last to arrive have shorter legs.  The
front toads also have much longer legs than the older populations in
Queensland."  Amphibian ecologist David Skelly of Yale University commented
to news@nature that this study is "one the first known examples of a
vertebrate rapidly evolving in a new environment."  He went on to say:
"People have this deep seated feeling that vertebrates don't evolve on these
sorts of timescales.  But this work shows that it can happen."

The Christian response:

What ever cane toads are up to in Australia, they are not
evolving.  All that is happening here is that the toads which are winning
the race across Australia, are the ones that already have a gene for longer
legs. As a result of leaving the others behind the faster toads are becoming
temporarily separated from the shorter legged toads.  Therefore toads at the
invasion front can only mate with toads of similar leg length and thus
reinforce the long legged tendency.  WE PREDICT THAT when the short legged
toads catch up to the front line they will breed with the long legged
animals once more, resulting in a return to the average leg length seen in
older established populations.  When this happens will the evolutionists
claim they are devolving?  (Ref. Bufo, ecology, evolution)

[Soldier4Christ]

Evolutionists say:

IT'S AGOOD TIME TO REMEMBER a previous article on Toad/ Snake evolution
from Evidence News, 2 Feb 2005. AUSSIE SNAKES ARE EVOLVING, according to
articles in BBC News Online, 8 Dec 2004, and Proceeding of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS), vol. 101 p17150, 7 Dec 2004. The BBC article
begins: "Snakes in Australia have evolved to counter the threat of invasive
poisonous cane toads, scientists have found." Cane toads were introduced
into Australia in the 1930's and have had a devastating effect on native
animals that normally eat frogs and toads, because the toads have highly
toxic chemicals in their skin. Ben Phillips and Richard Shine of the
University of Sydney studied changes in head and body sizes of snakes in
regions of Australia that have been invaded by cane toads. They compared two
snakes, the red-bellied black snake and the green tree snake, both of which
are poisoned if they eat cane toads, with two species that are less
susceptible to cane toad poison. They found that the susceptible snakes have
smaller heads in comparison to their overall body size. Because snakes
swallow their prey whole, snakes with smaller heads are limited to smaller
prey and are less likely to eat a cane toad large enough to kill them.
"These results provide strong evidence of adaptive changes in native
predators as a result of the invasion of toxic prey" wrote Ben Phillips.
PNAS classifies this study as an example of "contemporary evolution". BBC
article:

The Christian response:

The change in snake head size is not really adaptation, and is
certainly not evolution. Adaptation is the built in ability of organisms to
cope with changes in their environment. However, when a snake's head has
grown big enough to eat a large poisonous cane toad, it is too late to adapt
once it has eaten one. What has really happened over the last 70 years in
cane toad infested regions of Australia is that snakes that already had
large heads have been killed by eating cane toads, leaving only snakes that
already had small heads to reproduce. ScienceNOW (the online news service
associated with the journal Science) called it "survival of the pinheads".
This is the process of natural selection, and selection, natural or
otherwise, is not evolution. Creation Research has said this many times, and
will go on saying it. To select something is to choose it from an already
existing group of alternatives. It does not explain how the alternatives
came into existence, and it certainly does not make them change into other
alternatives. All it does is eliminate some alternatives, which is the
opposite of evolution. (Ref, snakes, toads, adaptation)

[Soldier4Christ]

Evolutionists say:

VOLCANIC VENTS TOO HOT FOR EVOLVING LIFE, according to a Royal society
press release, 13 Feb 2006 and ScienceNOW, 15 Feb 2006.  A current theory on
the origin of life is that the first living organisms evolved from chemicals
around hydrothermal vents - deep sea volcanoes, because numerous strange
"primitive" bacteria are found living on the sides of these.  A team of
scientists led by David Deamer of University of California, Santa Cruz set
out to test this theory by finding a volcanic pool  devoid on any signs of
life and pouring in "a can of primordial soup containing the building blocks
of proteins, DNA as well as fatty acids that could form rudimentary cell
membranes."  They found such a pool in Kamchatka on the east coast of
Russia, but when they tested the water a few hours after adding the
biological building blocks they found most of the added material was no
longer dissolved in the water but was bound to the clay lining the pool.
According to Deamer, the molecules were "nailed down, so they can't
interact."  Deamer commented to the Royal Society, "The results are
surprising and in some ways disappointing.  It seems that hot acidic waters
containing clay do not provide the right conditions from chemicals to
assemble themselves in 'pioneer organisms'.  We don't know what to make of
this yet, but these results do appear to narrow down some of our ideas about
where life could have begun.  One possibility is that life really did begin
in a 'warm little pond', (as proposed by Darwin 140 years ago) but not in
hot volcanic springs or marine hydrothermal vents."

The Christian response:

Scientists hoping to find the origin of life by experimenting with
chemicals will continue to be disappointed because they are looking in the
wrong place.  Living cells are made up of the chemicals that Deamer's team
used in their study, but living cells work because of the organisation of
the chemicals, in the same way that a complex machine won't work until it
component parts are put together in the right way by the outside
intelligence of the machines creator.  The key to understanding the origin
of life is not in the chemistry, but in finding the source of information
that organises the chemicals.  We suggest that origin of life researchers
start by copying "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). If they really
want results, they will have to play Creator.  (Ref. abiogenesis,
biochemistry, thermophiles)

[Soldier4Christ]

Turkish family walks on all fours

The time-warp family who walk on all fours
by BEN FARMER, Daily Mail

An extraordinary family who walk on all fours are being hailed as the breakthrough discovery which could shed light on the moment Man first stood upright.

Scientists believe that the five brothers and sisters found in Turkey could hold unique insights into human evolution.

The Kurdish siblings, aged between 18 and 34 and from the rural south, 'bear crawl' on their feet and palms.

Study of the five has shown the astonishing behaviour is not a hoax and they are largely unable to walk otherwise.

Researchers have found a genetic condition which accounts for their extraordinary movement.

And it could provide invaluable information on how humans evolved from a four-legged hominid into a creature walking on two feet.

Two of the daughters and a son have only ever walked on two palms and two feet, but another son and daughter sometimes manage to walk upright.

The five can stand upright, but only for a short time, with both knees and head flexed.

Their remarkable story is told in a television documentary, to be screened next week, which shows scientists studying their movement, but also their struggle to fit in with modern society.

Professor Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, visited the family twice. He said: "It's amazing as an example of a strange, strange aberration of human development. But their interest is how they can live in the modern world."

The five are all mentally retarded. Their mother and father, who are closely related are believed to have handed down a unique combination of genes which result in the behaviour.

Some researchers argue the genetic fault has caused the brothers and sisters to regress to a form of 'backward evolution'. Others believe it has led to brain damage which has allowed them to develop the walk.

Rather than walking on their knuckles, like gorillas or chimpanzees, they walk on the palms of their hands, with their fingers spread upwards.

Scientists believe this may be the way hominids moved to protect their fingers for more delicate movements.

Prof Humphrey said he thought the family had reverted to an instinctive form of behaviour encoded deep in the brain but abandoned during evolution.

He said: "I do not think they were destined to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be.

'It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which no one would have guessed from the modern human skeleton."

Study of their hands has shown they are heavily callused and have been walking like this for years.

Prof Humphrey said: "However they arrived at this point, we have adult human beings walking like ancestors several million years ago."

The five siblings spend most of their time sitting outside the family's basic rural home.

However, one brother travels to the local village where he engages in basic interactions with people.


_______________________________

Again the evolutionists disregard the fact that this is genetic material lost in these individuals not a gain of genetic material. Therefoe it is not proof of anything except devolution.

[Shammu]

Profile of ministries rises as intelligent design debate grows
Traveling creationism workshops take aim at secular teaching

By Jean Gordon

MADISON — The lights dimmed inside Parkway Pentecostal Church's sanctuary Sunday evening as Steve Grohman directed his laser pointer to an excerpt from a biology textbook projected onto a jumbo screen.

"The whole reason they came up with these ideas was to come up with an alternative to the Bible," he said, speaking about evolution. "They think there's a disagreement between the Bible and science."

The leader of a traveling ministry called the Creation Seminar, Grohman is part of the growing creation evangelism industry, which seeks to undo secular teaching about the origin of the world.

As intelligent design debates have rippled recently through schools, courts and statehouses, these ministries have been toiling for years.

"We've been busy all along," said Grohman, who for the past 13 years has been traveling the country in a mobile home with his wife and son leading creation seminars.

Grohman's 10-hour program mixes Biblical teaching with lessons about the atmospheric conditions during the time of Adam and Eve and how dinosaurs were just giant reptiles.

Creation ministries range from Grohman's one-man show to multimedia stalwarts Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research, whose radio programs, books and conferences promote a biblical approach to science.

"The interest is red hot right now," said Mark Looy of the Kentucky-based Answers in Genesis, which held a seminar at Meadow Grove Baptist Church in Brandon last year.

Though Answers in Genesis has grown steadily since it formed in the United States 12 years ago, Looy said recent controversy over intelligent design has accelerated demand for seminars. This year, Answers in Genesis will conduct 500 programs, he said, up from 360 in 2005.

Intelligent design holds that details in nature are so complex they are best explained as products of a designer. The concept doesn't specify who or what that designer may be.

A federal judge ruled in December that it was unconstitutional for a Pennsylvania school district to present intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in high school biology classes.

Still, controversies about evolution have erupted at public schools in California, Kansas and Ohio. And statehouses have joined the debate. The Oklahoma House passed a bill Thursday encouraging schools to expose students to alternatives to the theory of evolution, while the Utah legislature defeated a bill Wednesday requiring public school students to be told evolution is not a fact.

Supporters say creation ministries provide a relief from an evolution-centered world view.

"They very effectively countered a wave of momentum in society that was going against creation," said Rob Waltzer, a biology professor at Belhaven College, a Christian liberal arts college in Jackson, who describes himself as a creationist.

But critics say they undermine scientific principles.

"Essentially what goes on in these seminars is an effort to tell students they should ignore or deprecate the information the teacher is presenting to them," said Eugenie Scott, executive director of the California-based National Center for Science Education. "As a result teachers may teach less evolution, which means we have less science literacy."

Grohman's seminar promotes "young Earth" creationism, which holds God created the world less than 10,000 years ago in six 24-hour days. Mainstream scientists estimate the earth to be 4.5 billion years old, and accept that all living creatures share a common ancestry.

Most Americans believe God created life but are divided over how life has changed since creation. A 2005 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll found 48 percent of people believe life evolved over time, while 42 percent believe humans have existed in the present form only.

Though nearly half of Americans believe humans evolved, 64 percent support teaching creationism along with evolution in public schools, according to the Pew survey.

Pastor Kyle Jones of Beacon Baptist Church in Hattiesburg will host an Institute of Creation Research seminar Sunday at his church. "Quite frankly it's to inoculate the younger people in my church from what I believe is bad science," he said, adding good science includes the ability to observe. "Evolution has never been observed. Never been replicated."

Established in 1970, the California-based Institute for Creation Research is considered the intellectual core of the creationist movement. Along with leading seminars around the country, the organization is accredited to teach graduate-level classes in biology and geology.

Founder Henry M. Morris, who died Feb. 25 at age 87, was considered the father of creation science.

Some observers say creation science is more belief than science.

"If the Bible, which you believe is the inerrant word of God, is wrong about the age of the Earth, then the problem is pretty obvious," said Raymond Arthur Eve, a professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington who has studied the creationist movement. "Then it could be wrong about anything and everything else."

Eve's research has found that people's beliefs about creation and evolution are driven more by values and world views than by their knowledge of science.

Indeed, during last year's Answers in Genesis seminar at Meadow Grove Baptist Church in Brandon, lecturer Terry Mortenson said a nonliteral interpretation of Genesis could condone gay marriage.

"If you reject the early chapters of Genesis you probably don't have a biblical view of marriage," he said.

It also undermines Jesus' word, Mortenson said.

"Genesis is fundamental to the Gospel," he said. "If it's presented as mythology, as not true, then so is the Gospel."

Many people are also uncomfortable with the notion that humans may in some way be related to animals.

The crowd at Parkway Pentecostal Church let out a collective grown Sunday when Grohman clicked through a series of slides suggesting apes had human qualities.

"Man is made in the image of God," he said. "We are not just highly evolved animals."

Profile of ministries rises as intelligent design debate grows

[curious]

                 Antelope Springs Tracks.
   
    In June 1968,William J. Meister Sr.,an Evolutionist,was searching for Trilobite fossils in the mountains
of Utah.Splitting a piece of rock in two,he found inside a human footprint stepping on Trilobites.The human
was wearing a sandal !
   Thoroughly shaken,he took other men back who confirmed it and found still more,including some with
sandals stepping on Trilobites.
   As a rresult,Meister became a Christian.The strata was primarily Cambrian,which is supposed to be the
oldest on the planet.


                               Yours in Yeshua,
                               curious

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen curious,

Another thing that has been pointed out on trilobites is that they still exist today in the exact same form as they did in those fossils except that they are now smaller. There is more and more evidence such as you have posted coming to light everyday that proves that the evolutionists are wrong.

Excellant post.

[Soldier4Christ]

Evoulutionist scientists bungle it again. A particularly impressive fossil of a long-extinct rodent was unearthed in China last summer. It was estimated to have died out 11 million years ago, according to fossil data.

Then in 2005 a live, squirrel-like rodent was discovered in Laos at a hunters market in a cage. This rodent was well known by the local populace. So well known they had a name for it, the kha-nyou. The creature has dark-grey fur and is about the size of a red squirrel. It has short legs, a hairy tail and a long snout.

After the kha-nyou was discovered, specimens were sent to London's Natural History Museum, to compare with material in its vast research collections.

Based on differences in the skull, teeth, bones and other body features together with DNA analysis, scientists said it was an entirely new rodent family more closely related to rodents in Africa and South America than in Asia.

In an attempt to further identify it a group of scientists went back through the fossil evidence and found that the kha-nyou's skull, teeth, lower jaw-bone and other skeletal characteristics were a striking match to the fossil found in China.

Chief author Mary Dawson, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said it was extremely rare for a mammal to reappear after such a long gap in the fossil record. (Perhaps because it isn't the gap they thought.)

This "living fossil" as they are calling it has not changed, evolved. It is the same today as the fossil was.

More such evidence is being found almost everyday to show that fossil evidence is the same as creatures still living today.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Why Should Christians believe in Creation?

We believe in creation, first of all, not because of scientific evidence, but because of our faith in Jesus Christ and in His Word the Bible. The Lord Jesus is revealed in the Bible to be the Creator of all things (John 1:3, Hebrews 1:1-3), and He is for Christians the Lord of all and the Head over all things, including science (Acts 10:36, Ephesians 1:22). Our Head has said something about science in John 5:45-47, namely this: If we believe in Jesus Christ, then we must believe Moses' writings. What did Moses write about first of all? He wrote about the creation of all things by God. So we judge science by the Bible and not the other way around. "We walk by faith, not by sight." (I Corinthians 5:7)

God has given us Scientific Evidence for Creation

Since the beginning all men have been without excuse if they have not acknowledged the Creator God, for the evidence is all around them in the created world (Romans 1:19-20). And modern science has revealed a vast web of evidence which supports the biblical record of creation. Let us think first about the logic of the scientific argument for creation.

The Logic of the Scientific case for Creation

Creation is by definition a divine miracle, an act of God which is outside of and above the physical laws He has established in the world. Therefore, scientists who believe in creation do not try to devise theories to explain how God created, for human beings cannot understand how God created. On the other hand, evolutionary scientists say that they are devising theories to explain the evolution of all life and that they are discovering natural processes or mechanisms which can evolve new plants and animals. So we say to them, "The burden of proof is on you. Come on, now, give us theories which really explain evolution, and show us the natural mechanisms or processes which can produce new designs and evolve new plants and animals."

Has evolutionary theory really explained evolution? No. Have they discovered any mechanism or process of genetics which can evolve anything really new. No, they have not. And, as long as this failure of evolutionary science continues, divine special creation continues to be an intellectually and scientifically viable belief for anybody, including scientists, to hold.

A Brief Look at the Evidence

The Fossil Evidence. Evolution is supposed to be a process of change. If some ancient species of worm or other creature without a backbone slowly changed into a vertebrate fish with a backbone, there should be a series of intermediate fossil species which document that actual process of change. These intermediate fossil forms are totally absent from the fossil record. Prof. Alfred Romer at Harvard University wrote that this evolution from invertebrate to vertebrate must have required 100 million years for which we do not have the fossil evidence. Prof. Stephen Stanley of Johns Hopkins University wrote in 1979 that the known fossil record provides not a single example of a series of fossils which prove that a process of evolution really took place to produce a new kind of creature.

These systematic gaps in the fossil record mean that every basic type of plant or animal seems to appear suddenly in the fossil-bearing rocks. The fossils speak of sudden appearance of the kinds, not the slow, gradual change of one kind into another kind. But this fossil evidence appears more in agreement with special creation than with evolution, doesn't it?

Biological Design. Nature is rich everywhere with biological designs which defy evolutionary explanation. Secular scientists, when pressed, have to admit that they cannot offer testable or even plausible explanations for the origin of biodesigns. For just one example, consider the little intestinal microbe, Escherichia coli. Each tiny single-celled microbe propels itself around with six corkscrew propellers which are connected by universal joints to six constant torque, variable speed, reversible rotary motors!

Evolutionary scientists have not the slightest idea how this complex assembly of complex, interdependent parts could have evolved. Yet, they believe it happened. They have faith in dumb atoms. Faith in the Creator God is far superior.

Genetics: For thousands of years intelligent humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals to develop varieties which are of special value to man. So there are 150 varieties of dogs, scores of varieties of roses, many different varieties of cattle and sheep, of apples and potatoes, etc. But they are still dogs, roses, cattle, sheep, apples and potatoes. There is much variation under artificial selection. Also, there is much variation in nature in the wild. But the changes are always limited. Genetics teaches that there are barriers through which genetic change cannot go. Species of plants and animals exist in groups of species which are separated from all other such groups. And this is just what the Bible teaches in Genesis 1 where Moses tells us that God created the "kinds" of plants and animals to reproduce each one "after its own kind." Genetics gives the lie to Charles Darwin's notion that, given time, genetic variation has been unlimited, so that an amoeba could evolve into a university professor in 3 billion years.

Molecular Biology. In 1953 Crick and Watson demonstrated the helical structure of the DNA molecules which are the genes that control inheritance of characters. Since then the new science of molecular biology has opened up a vast new field of knowledge. The amazing accomplishments of molecular biologists are a tribute to the power of the human intellect and of the scientific method. The knowledge of cell biology at the level of the individual molecules is expected to give understanding of life and of evolution. However, after over 30 years of molecular biology it can be said the evolutionary theory has yet actually to explain or demonstrate the origin of anything new. He can boldly say that today there are no testable scientific theories for inheritance, development of the embryo from egg to animal, formation of new species, or the evolution of anything new.

Evidences for Evolution. The standard evidences adduced for evolution can either be shown to be invalid or be reinterpreted within the framework of the creation model of origins. For example the stages and similarities of embryos of different species can be shown to be related to the condition and needs of particular species at each stage. Similarities revealed by comparative anatomy (of the vertebrates, for example) can be explained in terms of the Creator's use of basic designs modified for particular applications. Biological classification reveals the separateness of the kinds, and the data for alleged molecular evolution also shows the separateness of the kinds. Limited space forbids more discussion of these subjects in this brief paper.

Summary

The advocates of evolution are unable to adduce fossil intermediate forms which show an actual historical process of evolution of new kinds of organisms. They have failed to devise scientific theories which really explain evolution, and they cannot demonstrate the evolution of anything new by any known genetic mechanism or process. Furthermore, there is no evidence which proves that the alleged evolution of all life really occurred. Throughout the history of the world no new complex design has been observed to originate except from an intelligent mind. In the absence of an evolutionary explanation, divine special creation remains as the only scientifically viable explanation for the origin of life and of all biological designs.

Conclusion

You and I are not being unscientific in the least because we believe that in the beginning God created the kinds of plants and animals, each to reproduce after its own kind. As Christian citizens we should openly avow our faith in the biblical record of creation. And we should work to stop the dogmatic teaching of evolution and the persecution of Christians in the tax-funded public schools and universities.