Biblical Creation vs. Evolution

[Soldier4Christ]

A 3.5% variance means that it is a 96.5% match. That is a close enough match to conclude a parental tie in human custody litigations, yet they conclude here that it is a different "species" because of this slight variance. The difference between human and chimp DNA is quite a bit larger yet these scientists still try to tie humans and chimps together in the same species.  Their reasoning gets more ridiculous by the day.

I have already posted another commentary on this supposed extinct fossil fish some time ago that shows the scientific reasoning against the time frame these scientist give to it.

[Soldier4Christ]

Archaeologists have found an ancient buried forest that is still preserved in an underground mine. The trees were not changed into coal and only the trunks have survived. They want us to believe that the trees which were 300 to 1500 yrs old when buried are eight-million-years old.

The trees are a type of swamp cypress. The scientist claim that the trees were in a swamp land and were buried in a sudden sandstorm. The exact age of the trees are currently unknown as a tree ring count has not been made.

I can hardly believe that these trees could be preserved for that long a period of time in the conditions they were in. This is the same as the story of the dinosaur blood being preserved for millions of years when reliable scientists have proven that it was impossible for the blood to be preserved for that long.

If we take a closer look at the estimated age of the trees and the sudden catastrophic covering of the trees (by almost 20 feet of sand in a swamp land) we clearly see evidence of Noah's flood.

[nChrist]

If we take a closer look at the estimated age of the trees and the sudden catastrophic covering of the trees (by almost 20 feet of sand in a swamp land) we clearly see evidence of Noah's flood.

The mountains of scientific evidence supporting Noah's Flood are getting pretty high. Some folks are of the mind to wait until science completely proves something before believing anything in the Holy Bible. I'll do the opposite and believe every word of the Holy Bible, regardless of what scientists say.

However, I do give thanks for many scientists who are also Christians. They don't look at things through warped glasses and are actually able to see the TRUTH. In fact, there are more of these scientists every day, and many become Christians when they see that the Holy Bible is and always has been FACT AND TRUTH. I really enjoyed reading about how many scientists became Christians. It was if a light bulb was turned on and they saw the source of ultimate TRUTH - GOD AND HIS WORD! They were humbled, even with all of their degrees. After all, we know that GOD reveals many of HIS deeper TRUTHS to babes. AND, we know what GOD thinks about folks thinking themselves to be wise.

There will come a time for all Christians when GOD will reveal much more to us that is beyond our imagination. After all, we are just human beings talking about the MASTER AND CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE, ALMIGHTY GOD. HE has told us much that HE wants us to know, and HE will reveal more at HIS appointed time.

Love In Christ,
Tom

 

[Soldier4Christ]

Amen!


I would also like to point out that the fact that these trees were neither turned into coal nor petrified and have still survived is proof that they are not as old as these scientists claim. Even being buried in sand is not sufficient enough to preserve them for that long a period.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity Announces New Website

PSSI International, Inc. announces its redesigned website at www.doctorsdoubtingdarwin.com. PSSI's growing membership (currently 264 medical doctors from 15 countries) is skeptical of the claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the origination and complexity of life and therefore dissents from Darwinian macroevolution as a viable theory. This does not imply the endorsement of any alternative theory.

Sadly, academic freedom is no longer assured in the United States and other countries. This is especially true when it involves espousing views contrary to the theory of Darwinian macroevolution, which has become the consensus of scientists despite its woeful lack of empirical support. Numerous instances have been documented where scientists and teachers have been censored and even removed from their positions for facilitating open discussion of the growing scientific problems of the dominant theory.

As academia has suppressed freedom of speech in this area, another avenue needs to be available to promote accurate knowledge and the free exchange of ideas concerning the debate over Darwinism and alternative theories on origins. To accomplish that goal, Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (PSSI) was established recently. PSSI is a means for physicians and surgeons internationally, as well as members of the public, to be counted among those skeptical of nature-driven Darwinian macroevolution. Allowing physicians and surgeons to speak on this subject with a united voice in significant numbers is one of the best ways to let the scientific facts be known, and to dispel falsehoods, innuendoes, fantasies, and distortions that recently have been flooding the media.

Any person with an M.D., D. O., D.D.S., D.M.D., D.V.M. or equivalent degree may become a physician/surgeon member of PSSI, while separate memberships are available for other medical professionals and the general public. Information provided to PSSI by its physician members beyond their name, medical specialty and city of residence will be kept strictly confidential.

PSSI is a United States 501(c)(3) educational not-for-profit corporation which produces educational events internationally which expose the lack of scientific support for the theory of Darwinian macroevolution in an effort to counter its cultural corrosion. Philosopher of Science Daniel Dennett states: "Darwinian evolution is a 'universal acid;' it eats through just about every traditional concept and leaves in its wake a revolutionized world-view."

[nChrist]

Hello Pastor Roger,

THANKS BROTHER! - This is an outstanding resource for education, and I'm very happy that these doctors have joined together in providing it. It's a breath of fresh air.

Love in Christ,
Tom

 

[Soldier4Christ]

HOW THE BIGGEST BIRD FLEW described in an article in ABC (Australia) News in
Science 3 Jul 2007. Sankar Chatterjee of Museum of Texas Tech University and his
colleagues, have used flight simulation software to analyse the aerodynamics of
an enormous fossil bird named "Argentavis magnificens" which had a seven metre
wingspan and may have weighed about 60kg. The researchers concluded that it was
very good at soaring on thermals (updrafts of air) but could not have sustained
powered flight for very long and would have had a hard time taking off from the
ground. They suggested that it took off like modern day hang gliders, running
with a headwind behind it or on sloping ground. Once airborne it could have
reached speeds of up to 100km per hour. The extinct bird is believed to be the
largest flying bird that ever lived and died out about six million years ago.

ED. COM. It is most unlikely that such a large flying bird could successfully
fly in today's atmosphere, but it could have thrived if the atmospheric pressure
had been higher. This would have not only improved the aerodynamics for large
flying creatures, but also made more oxygen available. Other fossils such as
giant flying reptiles, giant insects and giant plants are evidence that the
atmosphere had been much better for flying creatures. The description of the
very good world described in Genesis 1:1-16, where God placed "waters above" the
atmosphere, would certainly have resulted in a higher atmospheric pressure where
such a giant bird would have fitted well.

[Soldier4Christ]

LIVING FOSSIL FISH STORY reported in BBC News Online 1 Aug 2007. An
Indonesian fisherman has caught a living Coelacanth fish off the coast of
Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. The fish was 1.3 metres (4ft 4in) long and weighed
50kg (110lb) when caught, and has been frozen and sent for scientific tests. The
Coelecanth was believed to have died out over 70 million years ago until a
living specimen was found in 1938 near South Africa. Since then more than 300
specimens have been found in the same region, but in 1998 scientists were
surprised to find one in Indonesia, thousands of km away. The fish has
distinctive large lobe shaped fins and has sometimes been nicknamed "old four
legs". The Coelacanth is a famous "living fossil" - a living creature that is
the same as its fossils. Researchers at the University of Chicago have recently
discovered a fossilised coelacanth fin in sediments at Beartooth Butte, Northern
Wyoming dated as 400 million years old. They claim the fossil fin will reveal
more about the evolution of the fish.

ED. COM. Before the first living specimen was found in 1938 the Coelacanth was
believed to be an evolutionary link between fish and land animals. When the
living fish was discovered it was found to be a deep sea fish that used its lobe
fins to help find food on the ocean floor and shows no sign of changing into a
land animal. The new fossil finding will do nothing to help the theory of
evolution. The reason it was recognised as a Coelacanth fin is because the fish
has not evolved. Instead it has reproduced after it kind - just as Genesis
states living things were created to do.

[Soldier4Christ]

FOSSIL "HUMAN ANCESTOR" JAW FOUND, according to a report in BBC News Online
11 July 2007, entitled "Ethiopia yields ancestral fossils. A research team from
Cleveland Museum of Natural History has found several jaws and one partial
skeleton of "early human ancestors" in the Afar region of Ethiopia. The fossils
are dated as being 3.5 to 3.8 million years old and the researchers believe they
fit into a gap in the fossil record between "Australopithecus afarensis" and an
older species named "Australopithecus anamensis". Yohannes Haile-Selassie, one
of the team's leaders, said the new dig sites also contained the bones of "many
monkeys, antelopes and wild pigs, suggesting that the hominids lived in a far
greener and more wooded countryside than the bare stony Afar desert region seen
today". Meanwhile, the bones of the most famous Australopithecine, Lucy, which
are normally kept in a museum in Ethiopia are being taken on a tour of American
museums.

ED. COM. The name "Australopithecine" means "southern ape" and professional
palaeontologists admit that these fossils are a group of extinct apes. However,
because they fit into a place in the evolutionary timetable when humans are
believed to have started evolving from apes, Australopithecines, are described
in the popular media as human ancestors. If these new fossils are a different
species from "A. afarensis" and "A anemensis" it will provide no evidence for
any theories about apes turning into people. All it will prove is that once
there were more apes in the world than there are now. This is the opposite of
evolution. The finding of many other fossils indicating that Australopithecines
lived in a "far greener and more wooded countryside than the bare stony Afar
desert region today", also fits with the Biblical history of conditions on
planet earth degenerating to the present.

[Soldier4Christ]

BABY MAMMOTH FOUND, according to a report in BBC News Online, 10 July 2007.
The frozen carcass of a baby mammoth has been found in north-west Siberia and
has been sent to Japan for further study. Mammoths are an extinct type of
elephant with long hair and long curved tusks. They are believed to have died
out around 10,000 years ago. The baby mammoth is 130cm (4ft 3ins) tall, weighs
50kg and is believed to have been about six months old when it died. It is
remarkably well preserved, with its trunk, eyes and some fur still intact, and
some scientists are hoping that it contains preserved cells containing enough
viable DNA to resurrect the species. Alexei Tikhonov, deputy director of the
Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, commented: "In terms of
its state of preservation, this is the world's most valuable discovery."

ED. COM. The frozen remains of many mammoths have been found buried in the
northern regions of Russia for many years. Although most are not as completely
intact as this specimen, they are remarkably well preserved. This means they did
not get buried slowly. Snap freezing an animal the size of an elephant, even a
baby one, requires a sudden catastrophic event. There is much speculation as to
what event froze the mammoth, but it may be the sudden icy catastrophe alluded
to when God challenged Job: "From whose womb comes the ice? " (Job 38:29)

[Soldier4Christ]

OLDEST FOSSIL MUSHROOM FOUND, according to reports in physorg.com and The
Seattle Times, 6 June 2007. Ron Buckley, a collector of amber has found a
fossilised mushroom embedded in a specimen of amber collected from Burma. The
amber is dated as 100 million years old. The mushroom was identified by George
Poinar, a retired entomologist who discovered that the specimen contained "two
parasites, one feeding on the mushroom and one feeding on its fellow parasite."
Poinar identified the mushrooms as being similar to pinwheel mushrooms that grow
on the bark of modern trees. He commented, "They dotted the trees 100 million
years ago, so they probably were tasty treats for dinosaurs to nibble on." He
also commented: "I was amazed enough with the mushroom, but then seeing the
parasites was astonishing. No one has ever seen this three-tier association
before. This shows how far back mushrooms, and the parasites that infect them -
go." Joseph Spatafora, an expert in fungi at Oregon State University, commented
that the discovery is significant because mushrooms do not have shells or bones
so their fossils are rare. He also commented: "the amber specimen can give us a
lot of insight to what fungal diversity was at this time in the past."

ED. COM. If you were looking for evidence that mushrooms have not evolved, then
this find showing that "fungal diversity" for the last 100 million supposed
years has been much the same as it is today, means you've got it. So let's admit
it's not the evidence which contradicts Genesis - even though many theories do.

[Soldier4Christ]

OLDEST FOSSIL LOBSTER FOUND according to a report in National Geographic, 3
May 2007. Scientists at National Autonomous University of Mexico have studied a
fossil lobster and have dated it as being 110 million years old. That makes it
20 million older than the previous record holder for fossil lobsters. The fossil
is named "Palinurus palaceosi" and was found in a quarry in Chiapas, Mexico
along with numerous other crustaceans and fish. It belongs to a genus of lobster
that is alive today in Africa. The researchers suggest that the fossil site is
where lobsters first evolved. Geologist Francisco Javier Vega Vera commented:
"The important message that we can give is that the evolution of these groups of
crustaceans needs to be reviewed, since the specialists of the world thought
that it started much later. We could call them living fossils, since they have
had a consistent morphologic pattern throughout many millions of years."

ED. COM. We are happy to call this lobster a living fossil, because living
fossils provide some of the best evidence that the creation account in Genesis
is true. Having "a consistent morphologic pattern throughout many millions of
years" is another way of saying these lobsters have not changed since this
fossil lobster was buried. This means lobsters have reproduced after their kind,
as Genesis states, rather than evolving from or into anything else.

[Soldier4Christ]

HUMUNGOUS FOSSIL FUNGUS FOUND, according to reports in Eureka Alert 23 April
2007, ABC (Australia) News in Science, and Biology News Net 24 April 2007. A
mysterious 6 metre (20ft) tree-like fossil has been identified as a giant fungus
by scientists at the University of Chicago. The fossil, named Prototaxites, has
been the subject of a debate for over a century. It was originally claimed to be
a conifer but other scientists claimed it was a giant fungus, lichen or mass of
algae. These claims were met with some scepticism, as Kevin Boyce of Geophysical
Sciences at University of Chicago explained: "A 20 foot tall fungus doesn't make
any sense. Neither does a 20 foot tall algae make any sense, but here's the
fossil." Boyce, a geochemist, tested the fossil for carbon-12 and carbon-13. The
relative amounts of these two types of carbon are different in plants and fungi
because plants carry out photosynthesis and fungi do not. The results fitted
those of a fungus and not a plant. This confirmed the claims that it was fungus
by previous scientists who had studied the structure of the fossil. Scientists
are not sure why the fungus grew so big. Some suggest it is because there were
no animals to eat them 400 million years ago.

ED. COM. A better explanation for this giant fungus is that it grew in a better
environment. The fossil record is full of giant animals and plants that indicate
that the world was a better place in the past. Genesis tells us the original
earth was watered by a mist rising up from the ground each day, and that the
climate was mild enough for people to live without any clothes. Such a balmy
moist climate would have been quite suitable for a giant fungus. The fact that
it is extinct is further evidence that the world started out good and has
degenerated, just as Genesis tells us.

[Soldier4Christ]

HALF THE WORLD SPECIES CATALOGUED, according to ABC (Australia) News Online,
9 April 2007, which reports: "Scientists working on a catalogue of every known
kind of living organism have reached the milestone of having catalogued one
million species. The project is being led by experts at Reading University in
Britain and the Smithsonian National Museum in Washington. About 3,000
biologists are processing data provided by museums and scientific organisations
around the world. Those involved say it is like putting together a giant jigsaw
puzzle. The biggest section in the catalogue is devoted to butterflies and moths
with more than 250,000 species. The one million species catalogued comprise just
over half of the world's known species. The scientists hope to complete the
catalogue by 2011."

ED. COM. Sceptics have used such large numbers of catalogued species to pour
scorn on the idea of God creating each species separately and of Noah fitting
the animals on the Ark. They also point out that occasionally one species has
been shown to give rise to two separate species, and therefore, Darwin, rather
than the Bible, was right about the origin of species. However, they are
confusing the word "kind" in the Bible with the modern definition of a species.
The two are not the same. The simplest definition of a species is a group of
individuals that breed with one another and produce fertile offspring. It has
been observed that some subgroups within a group of species cease breeding with
others within the group, so technically the species has split and formed two new
species, but this does not explain how the original group or kind came into
being. As such, the title of Darwin's book was quite deceptive. Darwin did
describe some real processes, such as natural selection, that can result in a
large and varied group of living things splitting into two or more separate
groups. However, this does not explain how any living kinds came to exist in the
first place, so Darwin never did explain the "origin' of anything.

[Soldier4Christ]

This article is written by the AP Science Writer, SETH BORENSTEIN


Artificial Life Likely in 3 to 10 Years

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways—in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life—made from the basic chemicals in DNA—may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

Bedau figures there are three major hurdles to creating synthetic life:

—A container, or membrane, for the cell to keep bad molecules out, allow good ones, and the ability to multiply.

—A genetic system that controls the functions of the cell, enabling it to reproduce and mutate in response to environmental changes.

—A metabolism that extracts raw materials from the environment as food and then changes it into energy.

One of the leaders in the field, Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, predicts that within the next six months, scientists will report evidence that the first step—creating a cell membrane—is "not a big problem." Scientists are using fatty acids in that effort.

Szostak is also optimistic about the next step—getting nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, to form a working genetic system.

His idea is that once the container is made, if scientists add nucleotides in the right proportions, then Darwinian evolution could simply take over.

"We aren't smart enough to design things, we just let evolution do the hard work and then we figure out what happened," Szostak said.

In Gainesville, Fla., Steve Benner, a biological chemist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution is attacking that problem by going outside of natural genetics. Normal DNA consists of four bases—adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine (known as A,C,G,T)—molecules that spell out the genetic code in pairs. Benner is trying to add eight new bases to the genetic alphabet.

Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could "run amok," but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem.

"When these things are created, they're going to be so weak, it'll be a huge achievement if you can keep them alive for an hour in the lab," he said. "But them getting out and taking over, never in our imagination could this happen."


Commentary in next post.