A Frankensteined Fish?

You probably know the story of Baron Frankenstein who stitched together various dead body parts and created a monster. (Note that Frankenstein was the scientist's name, not that of the monster.) A misnamed "frankenfish" was produced by scientists using two types of evolution-defying fish.

Credit: Freeimages / Martin Boose

That's right, the sturgeon and the paddlefish are closely related due to taxonomy, marriage, and global warming. However, they are separated my almost 200 Darwin years, so believers in universal common ancestor evolution are surprised that the two species managed to fall in love and make little hybrid fishies. Some have dubbed the offspring "Frankenfish", but that is greatly inaccurate for a hybrid. Do a search for Frankenfish and you'll see that this incorrect word has been used before. No evolution, no "creation". Just fish giving evolutionists something to carp about and quietly affirming recent creation.

In 2020, Hungarian zoologists described the hybridization of a Russian sturgeon and American paddlefish. Some sources have reported the scientists created a “franken-fish”—as indeed it looks quite bizarre. Researchers, however, are calling it the sturddlefish—with sharp fins and an elongated nose.

A hybrid in zoology is an offspring produced from a cross between parents of different genotypes (the precise genetic constitution of a cell or individual). For example, a zonkey results from a donkey crossed with a zebra; a liger results from a male lion and female tiger producing. This is not evolution, of course—they belong to the horse and cat kind respectively.

 To read the rest, sea "Was a Franken-Fish 'Created'?" Also recommended is "‘Impossible’ Hybrid Suggests Non-Darwinian Change".

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Video Review — Genesis Impact

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen

Under usual circumstances, the secular educational system has students under its control for several hours a day, weeks a year, many years. They are typically given the airbrushed versions of secular humanism and evolution. 

Image courtesy of Genesis Apologetics

Ironically, when Christian and creationist parents want to do what is right and teach their kids the truth, atheists and evolutionists say that we are "indoctrinating" them. Not hardly! In fact, they are doing the indoctrination, then accusing us of what they are doing themselves. It's okay to question evolution so you can learn how it happened, but it is streng verboten to question if it happened in the first place.

"Go to a natural museum history", they said. "You'll learn a lot." Yes, you'll learn how cherry-picked facts based on the naturalism narrative can be presented as scientific truth. Also, you can see from models and reconstructions how artists' conceptions are both fanciful and deceitful. And we are guilty of indoctrination?

Remember when I did a write-up for the Debunking Evolution series a spell back? The good folks at Genesis Apologetics never dismounted and put their ponies in the stable. They have produced several videos and Seven Myths series, and now Dr. Dan Biddle is leading the charge with Genesis Impact. As with Debunking Evolution, we are able to download a free PDF booklet and see videos that supplement the video.

I found out from their mailing list that the video is available for purchase and streaming rental, but I was able to see it free on Amazon's Prime channel. Now I'll give you my thoughts and observations.

Suspension of Disbelief

People who want to pick nits may criticize:

• The docent (Reggie McGuire) who presented an evolution story allowed Christine (Hannah Bradley) to ask questions and present evidence for an hour.
• There was a prairie schooner-full of dialogue that I consider a composite, discussions that could take place between individuals over days or even weeks presented in that hour.
• She pulls out her phone, makes a connection, and shows video segments on the big screen. (We all know how time-consuming that can be in real life and didn't need superficial details, so it was good that they left those out.)
• Most of the students were listening respectfully.

Show some Respect

Suppose you are a student who has been learning the truth about creation and how evolutionary evidence is tendentious and highly speculative. To go into a situation guns a-blazing may make you feel mighty fine, but it's counterproductive. While we are often attacked by internet atheists and Darwin devotees, we are to serve Christ with wisdom and grace despite possible raw nerves. It's far too easy to lose an argument (the real kind, not an emotional shouting match) by being obstreperous from the get-to.

Christine shows humility and shows critical thinking skills. She asks pointed questions that are not laden with accusations, and the docet allowed her to make her points.

Know Your Material

Christine said that she had been doing some research. You can set yourself up for a fall by challenging an expert, so do your homework. Nobody can memorize or remember everything, but to simply appeal to the Bible or public figures who support creation science will not be helpful. Remember that many people "think" with their emotions, so they won't care what a person or ministry says (genetic fallacy). Not to say that they cannot be referenced, but there is a time and place — later on up the road.

Cheap Stereotypes

You won't find those here, pilgrim. Some films portray atheists in such a way that the viewer might expect them to grow horns and fangs, then shoot lasers out of their eyes. This docent (Reggie McGuire has an excellent speaking voice, but never mind about that now) was clearly an unbeliever, but he was a decent docent. Also, Christine wasn't acting all highfalutin-like, giving a false victory to Christians by trouncing the docent.

There was an atheist in the audience who criticized Christine, which shows a bit of reality. She and others wouldn't fall for the distraction, but did what unbelievers often loathe: kept to the subject. F'rinstance, I can say, "Sure, my nose is weird. I also cheat at solitaire. But can you respond to my point about how the appendix is not a vestigial organ after all?"

Another cheap trick that was avoided would be to have a group of people falling on their knees, sobbing in repentance like in some comic book tracts. The docent did say, "You've given me a lot to think about". As Christians and creationists, we plant seeds. Some may never grow, and we may never see the results in the future. Remember, we are to be faithful, but it is the Holy Spirit who does the convicting and saving of souls.

Evidence and Faith

Regular readers know that I have problems with the Intelligent Design movement. Creationists use intelligent design arguments and evidence, but the ID movement avoids young-age creation and the Bible. Genesis Impact had a great deal of evidence, but it was not divorced from the gospel message; the idea that we can "leave God out of it" is contrary to Scripture. No, Christine didn't make her arguments with, "The Bible says..." Rather, she intelligently used evidence and brought in the Bible — gently — later.

Genesis Impact is not a showcase of dazzling special effects. That's good, because those would have detracted from the video. (Well, the effect of the video viewer at the beginning was impressive, and I didn't catch on that the very beginning and end were set, say, thirty years into the future.) Having read and watched a great deal of biblical creation science material over the years, much of this material was a review for me. A very useful review. By the way, the majority of the movie is about human origins. Genesis Apologetics has excellent videos about geology and the Genesis Flood, but those areas as well as radiometric dating are not emphasized. Fine, you can watch their channel for them. Or maybe there will be a companion movie later on.

People can use the main video, the supplemental shorter videos, and the booklet to lead a series of discussions. These can be a part of homeschooling, a family event, perhaps at a church function, or more. Use your imagination. I have to interrupt myself here and say that while the target audience is students, anyone who wants to learn about biblical creation science can benefit.

Once again, here is the main page for Genesis Impact, and clicking around the site can be useful to you. I normally dislike embedding videos that are more than about half an hour, but it's been a while since I've done that, and this is important. By the way, if you buy a copy, it's there when you need it even if your internet crashes or something.

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Ice on Greenland Deposited Rapidly

Believers in an old earth refer to slow and gradual processes (uniformitarianism), and a big part of that involves ice depositions. This idea not only relies on several assumptions, but also relies on circular reasoning involving the Milankovitch theory. New research supports creation science models on ice depositions, the Genesis Flood, and the Ice Age.

Nuuk city in Greenland
Credit: Good Free Images / Oliver Schauf

Evidence has existed for a long time that ice accumulates rapidly, and one dramatic example involved airplanes that crash-landed there in World War II. There are times when secular scientists conduct research instead of following the herd mentality of "consensus science". Creation science Flood models involve extreme volcanic activity. Not only does this contribute to planetary cooling, but produces tephra (debris) and ash. These materials were detected in ice core samples, and the secular consensus was upended.

The millions of years is built upon assuming the astronomical or Milankovitch theory of ice ages which has many problems. When the researchers first counted the supposed annual layers, they only reached 85,000 years at the 2,800 m depth. Other scientists claimed this result was wrong because the time did not agree with that of deep-sea cores, also based on the astronomical theory. So, the researchers went back and increased the resolution of one instrument from 8 mm to 1 mm and counted 25,000 more annual layers between 2,300 and 2,800 m, and voila! It matched.

To find out what this excerpt is all about, see "New evidence for rapid Ice Age deposition on the Greenland Ice Sheet". You may also be interested in "Faulty Ice Core Ages and Tephra".

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Examining False Charges of Deluge Story Copying

Hopefully, I can move to a replacement for this awful Google-owned Blogger platform by the end of the year. Like Facebook, they force changes on its users that are dreadful.

Atheists and tinhorn "Christian scholars" level charges at the narrative of the Genesis Flood for being a copy of similar pagan stories. If so-called scholars actually did complete research instead of arguing from superficialities and anti-Bible presuppositions, they would not be making such foolish assertions.

Library of Ashurbanipal / The Flood Tablet / The Gilgamesh Tablet / Wikimedia Commons / Fæ (CC BY-SA 3.0)

As we know, there are global deluge story all over the world. Creationists believe that after the dispersal at Babel, the people took the historical account with them, but they deteriorated. One of the main problems with the idea of the Hebrews copying from pagan sources is that such a thing would be unthinkable to those Hebrews. The cultures of the ancient peoples in question were extremely different, and even a cursory comparison between the plagiarized novel-like approach on one side compared to the sacred trust and desire for historical accuracy on the other side should be obvious — the Mesopotamians were considering it literature or entertainment. There are other major factors to consider.

For a long time, the discovery of Flood literature in Mesopotamia outside of the Genesis account has prompted a higher critical argument that the Genesis account must have borrowed from the Babylonian and Assyrian versions of the Flood story. This thesis, however, can be seriously challenged based on recent archaeological work that expands both our understanding as to how ancient Mesopotamian religion functioned, and how their scribes related to their texts.

. . .

For these and other reasons, the long-held higher critical argument about an alleged textual exchange is now outdated. It is untenable to argue that Hebrew scribal tradition based their sacred history on a foreign text that not only had a hostile religious worldview to that of the monotheistic Israelite one, but was not regarded as historical and sacred by those who circulated them.

Although rather long, this interesting analysis should prove valuable to people who desire historical accuracy and useful information in defense of the Bible. To read all of it, click on "The Mesopotamian Deluge Accounts: Neither History Nor Revelation". You may also be interested in "Gilgamesh, Genesis and Myths". Also, "Another Gilgamesh Great Flood Pretender" deals with a fantasy of one of the sidewinders discussed in the "Mesopotamian Deluge" link, above.

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Brain Complexity is Problematic for Evolution

Rusty Swingset, the foreman at the Darwin Ranch, tends to spill the beans about their weekly chapel meetings. While bowing to Hanuman the Monkey God, the ranch hands chant about simple life forms becoming more complex. A recent study of mammal brains short circuited that idea.

Credit: FreeDigitalPhotos / Renjith Krishnan

Biblical creationists affirm that God made life fully functional from the beginning, so we are not exactly surprised that big brains and little brains in mammals have the same complex connectivity. (For that matter, this is right in keeping with the knowledge that brain size has nothing to do with intelligence or evolution.) Many critters were never scanned before, which seems a mite surprising to me. The results of this study fly in the face of evolutionary dogma.

The evolutionary model of brain development predicted that the complexity of neural connectivity should have increased as brains became larger and the creatures more complex. However, a groundbreaking study has just been published showing that, across the spectrum of mammals, the levels of brain activity are equally complex. In other words, mammalian brain connectivity and its amazing complexity appeared suddenly and fully functional across the board with no evolutionary precursor.

To cognate on the rest of the article, see "Mammalian Brains Prove Evolutionary Disconnect".

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Siberian Cave Bear on Ice

Siberia is famous for extreme cold and political prisoners, yet some people call it home. Imagine if you will some reindeer herders going about their routine and finding the frozen remains of a cave bear. They saw fit to make the finding known. We have a couple of articles on this subject for your consideration.

Assembled with items from Clker clipart

This critter was dated at many thousands of Darwin years ago, but was in surprisingly good condition. Such a huge amount of time assigned to it is based on the naturalism narrative, not science or even good sense. Ever put a slab of meat in your freezer and then find it again some time later, only to find it has deteriorated and not worth putting in a stew? That's in a well-controlled environment. We're supposed to suspend reason and believe what scientists say, follow the consensus, and believe that seasonal changes, earth movements, predators, and whatever else didn't bother it.

They say this bear, with soft tissue, organs, soft nose and all, died almost 40,000 years ago. Is that credible?

When thinking of fossils, one doesn’t usually think of hair, skin, and internal organs. . . . The scientists are flabbergasted at this first-ever discovery of a whole bear found in melting permafrost, with all its internal organs intact and even its nose soft and completely preserved. It looks like it died a few months ago. How did it get quick-frozen? How did it last up to 39,400 years in such a condition?

You can explore the rest by chilling out at "Ice Age Bear Found Intact in Melting Permafrost". I hope you'll bear with me and come back for the next fascinating article!

Another from Clker clipart

Something else to consider is the extreme contrast between uniformitarian and creation science geology. The naturalism narrative overrides the evidence when it comes to deep time and evolution, so we get tales best suited for telling around the campfire on the trail. Consider an icon of the Ice Age (and of Siberia to some extent), the woolly mammoth. They were all over the northern latitudes.

An animal is not likely to decide to make a home where it will freeze to death , dense fur or not. Also, food and water must be available, among other things. Ice Age critters had needs, and they obviously were met at one time. Using creation science Genesis Flood models for the Ice Age, observed facts make far more sense, and many questions can be answered.

These carcasses, particularly those of the woolly mammoths, present a major mystery to uniformitarian scientists. Millions of woolly mammoths lived in Siberia during the Ice Age. But today, Siberia’s winters are brutally cold, with lows often reaching -40 degrees Fahrenheit. In some places, temperatures occasionally reach -90 degrees Fahrenheit—colder than the surface of Mars! It’s very difficult to see how even woolly mammoths could endure that kind of bitter cold. To make matters worse, uniformitarian scientists think temperatures during the Ice Age were even colder than they are now!

However, the Flood Ice Age model easily solves this mystery.

You can learn quite a bit by reading the full article (I'll allow that the title is weak), "Was This Cave Bear Really 'Prehistoric'?" Also, the short video below (sound optional, no narration) is misnamed. It contains summertime scenes from a place that becomes the coldest on Earth:

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The Geocentrism Resurgence

Most people accept, and even take for granted, the geokinetic (also called heliocentric) model but may not know it by name. In the briefest sense, the sun is the center of the solar system with Earth and other planets in orbit around it. For a long time, the geocentric view dominated astronomy and astrology.

Planetary Orbits, Andreas Cellanius, 1660

The idea that Earth is the center of the solar system was reinforced by the pagan astronomer and astrologer Claudius Ptolemy, who built on Aristotelian ideas. His system was accepted by scientists for many years, and the heliocentric view took a long time to develop and gain acceptance. Although heliocentrism/geokineticism has been established, there is a baffling resurgence in geocentrism. (In addition, many flat-earthers are geocentrists.) Not only do many deny that Earth orbits the sun, but some geocentrists refuse to believe that it rotates on its axis!

One area that atheists ridicule Christians is by accusing us of being flat-earthers as well as believing in geocentrism. Unfortunately, there are professing Christians who believe in these unscientific views. What is worse is that through eisegesis and taking verses out of context, many of them believe they are superior to other Christians. To be blunt, when I encounter flat-earth geocentric creationists, I am embarrassed to be associated with them; creationists have enough problems without sharing the umbrella with believers in such things.

We have a couple of articles to consider. Biblical creation astronomer Dr. Danny Faulkner has put a great deal of work into these, and I hope you'll find them as interesting and useful as I do. By the way, keep an eye out for the sections on how scientists were entrenched in their geocentric views and resisted change. Also, how the view that aether was necessary so light could travel through outer space — think of how Darwinian presuppositions are the basis for failed biological and cosmological conjectures of modern evolutionists.

"Geocentrism: History and Background"

"The Rise of the Modern Geocentric Theory Movement"

Bonus: "Earth at the Center? Not Hardly!"

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