Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

2. The Guardian (UK): How did we get here?

This article from The Guardian reports on survey information on what students believe about origins, including some interesting facts. For example, ten percent of areligious students accept intelligent design, which counters the assertion that intelligent design is just religion masquerading as science, as some say.

According to The Guardian, “[T]hree years of learning how to weigh evidence appears to make students slightly more inclined towards evolution, with 57% of third-years choosing it compared with 54% of first-years.” But could this 3% of difference be due not to students learning how to weigh evidence, but instead just be a class-to-class variation?

Later in the article, Jeremy Rayner, a zoology professor at Leeds University, comments on the purpose of upcoming lectures on creation and intelligent design: “[T]he idea is to teach students about the creationism hypothesis ‘so they are in a position to make their own rational judgement and counter it.’”

Well, which is it, Professor Rayner—do you want students to make their own rational judgement on the creation/evolution issue, or to counter creationism? I think it’s obvious he wants the latter!

[Soldier4Christ]

3. AP: Many Ark. candidates say intelligent design in schools is OK & Evolution will be an issue in fall vote (requires free registration/login)

The battle over the teaching of evolution in public schools is not just occurring in Kansas and Pennsylvania. In Arkansas, both Democrat and Republican candidates for statewide offices have expressed openness to the topic of intelligent design in science classrooms, making it “available to students” or at least giving teachers academic freedom to discuss the creation/evolution controversy and address intelligent design.

The AP article mistakenly passes on incorrect information about intelligent design, however, stating that “[m]ost scientists view it as a new form of creationism.” In fact, the idea of intelligent design, as a notion apart from the true knowledge of God, has been around at least since Cicero’s day (the first century BC).

In Ohio, a group called Help Ohio Public Education (HOPE) aims to unseat a state board of education who, HOPE believes, supports teaching intelligent design in the classroom. What we’re seeing is an attempt at a grassroots-style reaction to the grassroots efforts to promote openness in science classrooms. The article closes with, “Most scientists view it as a new form of creationism.”

Look familiar?

[Soldier4Christ]

4. The New York Times: How to Make Sure Children Are Scientifically Illiterate

Lawrence Krauss, who will head the advocacy group HOPE (in item 3, above) launched to unseat “anti-evolution” politicians in Ohio, authored this essay attacking a whole slew of anti-creationists. I would suggest he re-title his essay “A Sophomore’s Guide to Arguing Against Creationism,” since it is basically a review of the more juvenile attempts to discredit creation.

Among the hackneyed arguments Mr. Krauss peddles are that creationism is the same as believing in a flat earth, or that if you’re a creationist, you have to believe airplanes and automobiles “work by divine magic,” or that “knowledge is a threat to faith,” or that by belief in creation “require a denial of essentially all modern scientific knowledge.” By this, and by leaning on stereotypes and buying into inaccuracies (e.g., that “[c]reation science evolved into intelligent design”), Mr. Krauss managed to author one of the most worthless anti-creationism essays that I’ve seen. I would say I’m surprised The New York Times printed it, but actually, I’m not.

[Soldier4Christ]

5. National Geographic News: “Killer” Fossil Find May Rewrite Story of Whale Evolution

The recent discovery of a fossilized baleen whale with unusual features has evolutionists scrambling to redraw lines of whale evolution, because this fossil’s features—“enormous” eyes, “flesh-ripping” toothed jaws, skull showing incapability of echolocation and broad, short snout—are unlike modern baleen whales. For this reason, evolutionists want to classify the new species (called Janjucetus hunderi) as an isolated “freak” (no offense, pal) in the ancestral baleen whale line.

The question is, is there any real evidence that this whale belongs in an evolutionary tree, rather than belonging in the creation orchard as just another variant within a created kind?

[Soldier4Christ]

6. Los Angeles Times: Faithful to God, Science

This article, about evolutionist Christian Dr. Francis Collins (director of the [US] National Human Genome Research Institute), is riddled with inaccuracies and misleading statements. For example, according to the article, Collins “entreats his fellow believers to recognize it’s not blasphemous to learn about the world.” By this statement, Collins is furthering the wild idea that Christians who accept the Bible simultaneously reject any knowledge not found in Scripture. Rather, we reject “knowledge” not founded in Scripture—ideas that contradict the knowledge of the true God. In fact, evolutionists do the same thing when they reject creation out of hand, calling it “unscientific” (though it is really not unscientific; rather, it is contradictory to the axiom of scientism, which rejects the idea of revelatory knowledge). But Collins’ comment may make unwary readers think there is actually an “Eleventh Commandment” in the Bible that reads, “Thou shalt not learn about the world.” In fact, almost of our knowledge about the world has its basis in Bible-based science, and certainly doesn’t require a Darwinist paradigm.

Later in the Times’ article (after quoting Ken Ham, AiG–US president), Collins’ thoughts are expressed:

    [F]rom God’s perspective, perhaps evolution is a logical, even elegant, way to populate the planet. Maybe God intended mutations in DNA over the millennia to lead to the emergence of Homo sapiens. Once man arrived, maybe God set him apart from the other creatures by endowing him with knowledge of right and wrong, a sense of altruism and a yearning for spiritual nourishment.

Maybe so—if we speak of “God” apart from what we know of Him in the Bible, and if “logical” and “elegant” mean billions of years of cancer, violent struggle, carnivory and death. Furthermore, according to this account, we were set apart because God “endowed” us with the knowledge of right and wrong. Our ancestor Adam was different from the animals because he was made in the image of God, and he gained the knowledge of right and wrong when he, along with Eve, disobeyed God and ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

    Collins knew he could never prove any of these ideas, but that no longer troubled him the way it once had.

Collins’ faith is unapologetic, then—completely unlike the faith we’re to have, as instructed by 1 Peter 3:15. Two paragraphs later, the article quotes physicist Steven Weinberg, who comments that attributing the unknown to God serves only to give believers a “warm, fuzzy, reassuring feeling.” And no wonder—Collins’ theistic evolution is just evolution + God in the gaps. In other words, Collins just places “God” in his “unknown” box. If scientists come up with a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the genetic code, will Collins abandon his belief in a creator, lest he be seen as “rejecting knowledge” (like those of us at AiG supposedly do!)? That is just one of the many problems of theistic evolution, which essentially accepts naturalism plus God in the gaps.

[Soldier4Christ]

7. The Times: Mammoths may roam again after 27,000 years

Scientists hope that by using frozen mammoth sperm, they may be able to reintroduce mammoth-like animals to the earth (specifically, animals that are 50% mammoth and 50% Asian elephant—something like heffalumps). If they are successful, this could help baraminologists learn more about the elephant kind.

8. UPI: Kenya's human fossils disturb church

From this short article’s headline, one gets the idea that Kenyan Christians are upset with the existence of the fossils—as though they are so upset that such solid “proof” of evolution exists. But what is Bishop Adoyo really worried about?

    “The Christian community here is very uncomfortable that Leakey and his group want their theories presented as fact,” Adoyo said.

What theories? Isn’t the age of these fossils a proven, scientific fact, independent of individual bias? Interestingly, we featured an appendix on our website this week that addresses this question quite directly. See The Dating Game.

[Soldier4Christ]

"EVOLUTION IS ON THE WAY OUT" claims an article in the Education Guardian, 15
Aug 2006.  A survey of over a thousand UK students by Opinionpanel Research
found "more than 30% believe our origins have more to do with God than with
Darwin - evolution theory rang true for only 56%."  Belief in creation and/or
intelligent design was highest amongst students who identified themselves as
Muslim or Christian, but even 10% those who claimed no religion believed in
intelligent design.  The rising number of students who believe in creation is
disturbing university biologists.  Steve Jones, professor of genetics at
University College London, recently gave a lecture to the Royal Society entitled
"Why evolution is right and creationism is wrong".  He has been visiting schools
and teaching evolutionary biology for 20 years.  For the first 10 of those he
found less than one student in 1,000 expressed creationist beliefs, but now he
commented, "Now in any school I go to I meet a student who says they are a
creationist or delude themselves that they are."



ED. COM.  In a recent BBC radio debate against John Mackay, Professor Steve
Jones claimed that evolution was proven a century ago and there was no need to
have this debate.  The survey described above proves him to be wrong. Much to
their frustration, evolutionists are finding that you cannot bluff all the
people all the time, AND the long term results of our work in schools and
universities over the past few decades is paying dividends they can no longer
ignore.

[Soldier4Christ]

HOBBIT WARS HOT UP following an article in Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, published online 23 Aug 2006, and reported in ScienceNOW 21
Aug 2006, news@nature and Geotimes 25 Aug 2006.  Indonesian anthropologist Teuku
Jacob of Gadjah Mada University and colleagues have studied the skull and leg
bones of  the "Homo floresiensis" (nicknamed the "Hobbit") and have challenged
the claim that the bones are from another human species.  They compared the
skull with a group of living people, known as the Rampasasa pygmies, who live in
the same region as the cave where the "H. floresiensis" bones were found.  These
pygmies are not only small in overall stature, but some have receding chins and
unusual pre-molar teeth - two of the features that the scientists who found the
Hobbit bones claim show they should be classified as new human species.  They
also compared the left and right sides of the skull and the left and right leg
bones and found they are asymmetrical, which they claim is a sign of disease,
not evidence of a new species.

 Australian anthropologist Peter Brown, one of the team who first studied the
bones dismissed the new claims as "complete nonsense" and said the asymmetry can
be explained by the fact the bones had been squashed and buried for thousands of
years.  Only one skull has been found so far and researchers need to compare
several specimens before deciding whether unusual features are disease or
normal.  Colin Groves, another Australian anthropologist, is also unimpressed.
He points out that lack of chin can only be assessed by studying bones without
soft tissue, but the new study has relied on photos of living Rampasasa pygmies.
A receding chin is not the same as complete absence of a chin.  Other scientists
also dispute the new study on the basis of the brain size and shape, and over
the dating of the bones.

ED. COM.  There is nothing like "hominid" bones to provoke arguments between
scientists.  The original studies of all of the bones indicate that "hobbits"
had an ape sized head with an ape sized brain, and ape shaped limb bones with
ape-like proportions to overall body size.  However, there is no academic kudos
to be gained from finding yet another extinct ape.  As long as anthropologists
ignore the Creator's testimony that human beings are unique creations they will
continue to make monkeys out of themselves by trying to make apes into people.

[Soldier4Christ]

THE ETHERNET BEHIND YOUR EYE described in New Scientist online news, 28 July
2006.  Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have researched how fast
information can be transferred by nerve cells that connect the eye to the brain.
They recorded electrical impulses produced by guinea pig retina and calculated
that it could transfer data at 875 kilobits per second.  As humans have ten
times the number of cells sending information out of the eye, a human retina
would have a "bandwidth" 8.75 megabits per second, similar to a fast Ethernet
connection.  In fact, nerve cells have the potential to transmit data at a
higher rate than this but that would take too much energy.  Therefore, cells
that collect information that needs to be very quickly processed in the brain
fire at the most rapid rate, about 13 bits per second per cell, and the
remaining cells fire at a much slower, but less energy consuming rate.


ED. COM.  The information in this newsletter was transmitted through several
Ethernet connections before it even left the Creation Research office.  Not one
of these got there by chance random processes, and the computers, routers and
cables involved in processing and relaying the information didn't make
themselves either.  Information comes from a mind, and the hardware needed to
process and transmit is designed and built by creative designers and engineers.
Therefore, it is absurd to believe that the much more sophisticated information
processing system inside your head got their by chance random processes.

[Soldier4Christ]

CLEVER FLOWERS MAKE WARM NECTAR, according to the Science Show, ABC
(Australia) Radio National, 12 Aug 2006.  Researchers at Cambridge University
have been studying conical shaped cells on flower petals that focus sunlight,
and found that they made the flowers warmer.  Insects are often observed to rest
in warm flowers, so the researchers set up an experiment to see if warm nectar
was an extra attraction to insect pollinators.  They used artificial flowers
with warm and cool nectar and found that bees consistently preferred the warm
nectar.  Beverley Glover, on the researchers commented; "the implication that
we're really most excited about is that flowers are cleverer than we thought
they were. They can use tricks to persuade pollinators to visit them without
actually expending any energy or much energy, providing a greater reward. So
this is a very simple trick; light is trapped into the flower and heat with it
using a lens-shaped cell, and that costs the flower very little to produce and
yet in exchange it gets the benefit of extra pollinator attention."  The benefit
to the insects is that warm nectar helps keep them warm enough to fly.  About 80
percent of all flowering plants have the conical shaped cells that focus
sunlight, so the researchers are planning to study Antirrhinum flowers
(snapdragons) see if there is any difference in pollination between normal
flowers, which have these cells, and mutant flowers that have flat cells.


ED. COM.  Capturing sunlight to warm flowers and attract insects is clever, but
to the give the credit to the flowers is dumb!  Giving glory to the creation
rather than the Creator is a classic example of those who "professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22).  It is only common sense to
recognise that the artificial light trapping flowers were created by scientists
outside the flower, so why not go the rest of the way and acknowledge the
natural light trapping flowers which warm insects are also the creation of a
truly clever Creator, Who is outside both the flowers and the insects.

[Soldier4Christ]

MUSSEL GLUE SECRET REVEALED, according to a report in ScienceNOW 14 Aug 2006.
Mussels secrete a proteinaceous glue that works under water and seems to be able
to stick to anything.  Scientists have suspected that the secret lay in the
large amounts of an amino acid called DOPA that is found in the mussel proteins
gave the glue its special properties.  To test this theory biomedical engineers
at Northwestern University, Illinois attached a molecule of DOPA to the tip of
an atomic force microscope and touched the tip to a titanium dioxide surface.
They then measured how much force was needed to pull the DOPA off the surface.
They found it took four times as much force as the previous record holders for
two biological molecules stuck together.  They also found that the DOPA bonds
can be reformed under water.  The researchers are hoping to develop glues that
can be used in medical implants and for repairing damaged bones and tissue.

ED. COM.  It has already taken intelligent scientists doing clever experiments
to understand the physical and chemical properties of mussel glue.  It will take
more creative biomedical engineering to apply these properties for medical uses.
Therefore, it is foolish to believe that a mindless mussel affected by chance
random processes made the glue in the first place.

[Soldier4Christ]

ROBOT TEXTURE SENSOR DEVELOPED according to reports in ScienceNOW,
news@nature and BBC News Online 8 June 2006.  Chemical engineers at the
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, have developed a thin film that could give
robots a sense of touch that enables them to distinguish between different
textures with the same sensitivity as human finger tips.  The film consists of
multiple layers of microscopic gold and cadmium particles separated by layers of
a polymer.  When a voltage is applied from one side of the film electrons pass
from one layer of gold to another via the cadmium particles.  If the layers of
particles are compressed together the electron flow increases and the cadmium
particles emit light.  Therefore, when the film is pressed onto a textured
surface the bumps and ridges on the surface cause a pattern of light to show up
on the film, which can be analysed using a digital camera.  The sensor can
distinguish features as small as 40 micrometres across and 5 micrometres tall.
This is similar to the sensitivity of a human finger.  Scientists are hoping to
further develop the sensor so that the current changes can be interpreted
without having to use a camera.


ED. COM.  It has taken intelligent scientists applying their knowledge of the
properties of gold, cadmium and polymers to create this device, and with the
application of more creative design they should be able to make it work without
having to use a camera.  When they have done this they will have something that
functions in a similar way to human touch senses.  It seems painful to have to
keep saying it but this means they will have irrefutable evidence that human
touch senses are the result of creative design, not chance random processes.

[Soldier4Christ]

ARTIFICIAL BUG EYE MADE according a report in ScienceNOW 27 April 2006 and
Science vol. 312 p557, 28 April 2006.  Biophysicists at the University of
California, Berkeley have made an artificial compound eye by making a dome of a
light sensitive polymer covered with tiny bulges.  They then shone ultra-violet
light onto the dome so that each of the bulges focused the light into a beam
that changed the index of refraction along the light path through the polymer
creating a light pipe under each lens.  Each beam of light emerging from back of
the dome can be captured by a light-sensitive microchip.  The polymer dome works
like an insect's compound eye and the scientists found it worked with much the
same efficiency.  The report in Science is entitled "Biologically Inspired
Artificial Compound Eyes".  Scientists are hoping to use the lens in small wide
angle cameras used for surveillance and biomedical imaging.

ED. COM.  Making this eye required creative design based on knowledge of physics
and chemistry and the properties of materials.  The scientists who made it admit
they got their idea from an insect eye.  Therefore, they should be prepared to
acknowledge that the insect eye was designed and made by much smarter designer
and should give Him the honour He truly deserves.

[Soldier4Christ]

NOTABLE QUOTABLE as Dr Russel Brinkworth from the University of Adelaide
says that, "When it comes to seeing, even a tiny insect's brain can outperform
any current artificial system."  Brinkworth says that his work could solve
problems with the current poor quality of surveillance cameras. Quoted in the
Adelaide Advertiser 29th August 2006 p 12. Of course every artificial
surveillance camera was designed by a creative intelligence.

[Soldier4Christ]

"WHEN IS A CRAB LIKE A HIGH-PERFORMANCE ATHLETIC SHOE?" asks ScienceNOW, 20
April 2006.  The whole item states: "Pump it up. A crab relies on its rigid
shell for protection and support, so it must quickly compensate when it moults.
Marine crabs create a temporary exoskeleton by pumping their outer layers full
of seawater. But what's a land crab to do? Some take a cue from high-performance
athletic shoes. The newly moulted blackback land crab (Gecarcinus lateralis)
traps air within its gut and squeezes, firming up its entire body. Besides being
the first known example of a gas-powered skeleton, the innovation may have been
a key step in the evolution of land-based crustaceans, the researchers speculate
in the 20 April issue of Nature." (ScienceNOW, ScienceSHOTS, 20 April 2006)

ED. COM.  Unless an animal is already living on land it doesn't need such an
impressive gas pump mechanism.  The fact that this mechanism works well for the
land crab does not explain how it came about, nor does it explain how a water
dwelling water powered crab changed into a land dwelling gas powered crab, but
it is good evidence for purposeful creation!  High performance gas pump athletic
shoes are expensive because the manufacturers claim they have better design than
their less expensive non gassed versions.  No-one would ever claim that gas pump
athletic shoes came about by chance random processes, so it is foolish to claim
that similar gas pump crabs evolved by chance. When Nike does a good job on a
sports shoe-give them the credit. When Christ the Creator does a Good Job -don't
forget to give him the Praise also.