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Showing posts from October, 2021

Modern Math in Ancient Babylon

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With the advent of modern home computers and smartphones (yes, those are also computers), it may be tempting to smirk at slide rules that were essential for computing. Those began to be invented in the fifteenth century, and were vital for the Apollo moon landings. There was a scene in Apollo 13  where a supervisor announced a problem and scientists whipped out their slide rules and began calculating. Although they did not have a computing device like a slide rule, the folks of Old Babylon knew sophisticated computing way back when. RGBStock /  Sanja Gjenero One of my favorite activities when riding the dusty trail is right after setting up camp and getting the fire going, is to read cuneiform tablets in the Sumerian languages. Not everybody is into that, apparently. A tablet was dug up in 1894 and it took over a hundred years for people to tell them of its importance. Eventually, a mathematician came along and noticed that it involved advanced mathematics in Old Babylon.  The tablet w

SETI, Evolution, and Victorian Mythology

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Out at the Darwin Ranch, some owlhoots in the SETI and Space Alien Propaganda bunkhouse have been dreaming up stuff that is...truly bizarre. It has been obvious that SETI has existed for many years, funded by tax money and then contributions. Still, nothing to show for it . This child believes that SETI and all of those other efforts to find extraterrestrials (including the pseudoscience of astrobiology ) are based on atheistic naturalism. The heart of that is atoms-to-astronaut evolution, which must be propped up at all costs. Pixabay / J. Lynne Hardesty How about another heapin' helpin' of nothing? There have been plenty of false alarms in searches for extraterrestrials (my favorite is the excitement caused by a microwave oven in the break room ), and all they provide are excuses. This stuff can be traced to the fanciful attitudes of progress back in Victorian times. Back then, things were looking mighty peachy. Moving forward, making discoveries, industrializing, and yee haw

Tiny Fake Dinosaur in Amber Embarrasses Evolutionists

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They sure did pick the right location for the Darwin Ranch, what with being near Deception Pass and all. (Not the one in Washington, this is where you take Folly Road past Stinking Lake, which is not as bad as it sounds.) These folks even deceive themselves. We have seen how silly stuff passes the gasconaded peer review process and that retracted papers are still referenced,  resulting in zombie science . A claim of the world's tiniest dinosaur has been refuted despite resistance, but the fake news is still there. Original image: Freeimages / Paige Foster , modified at PhotoFunia Shoddy research based on fundamentally flawed presuppositions such as dinosaur-to-bird evolution is frequently conducted. Consider the  feathered dinosaur tail in amber , or the risible Archaeoraptor  fraud . Some owlhoots said that the world's tiniest dinosaur was caught in amber, but it was published anyway despite other scientists objecting to the claim. Eventually it was retracted, but still avail

Evolution and the Bitter Taste

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Whether rich or poor, all can share a joy from one of our five known senses: taste. We like food when it has a pleasing flavor. Things we do not need are often added in commercial foods to enhance it. Like our other senses, taste is actually quite complicated. We have input, processing, and transmission into the brain so we can respond to what we are tasting. This sense works in conjunction with the sense of smell. That is part of the reason a bad cold spoils the taste of good food. Original image: A Banquet Piece , Franz Snyders, 1620 Darwinists are unable to evosplain how this sense came about. There are the input and processing factors mentioned above, but also important details involving genetics that are simplified away. If you study on it, the sense of taste as well as the others are gifts from our Creator for our survival and even our pleasure. Not all are aware that the experience of tasting the full flavour of our food depends on more than our tongue’s ability to taste (known

The Defective Dunning-Kruger Effect

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen, edited for clarity 2 November 2021  This material should come in handy — especially the featured article linked below. When defending Darwin, The Mighty Atheist™ online is reflexively confrontational. The content that put a burr under his saddle is not dealt with adequately, however. There are several common tactics that are used in their efforts to dehumanize Christians and creationists. (Do not expect civility from a misotheist, because that indicates you are a person.) Their  ad hominem  attacks involve "Poe's Law", "projection", and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Partially made at ImgFlip , plus a great deal of editing Although many who have Atheism Spectrum Disorder insist that they love science and want extraordinary evidence from creationists (which they promptly ignore), many accept internet parlance when it suits their purposes. We know that ridicule is usually their first course of action. (A newer trick on socialist media is when

Refuting the D.M.S. Watson Quote Mining Accusation

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Acolytes in the Darwin Death Cult™ tend to lie. A lot. Especially those patrolling the web, seeking to destroy infidels who have the unmitigated gall  to dare question evolution. Evidence against evolution, evidence for  special creation, those are bad enough. But quotes by evolutionists who express doubt? Katie, bar the door! When creationists quote Darwinists who admit that there are problems with their belief system, things get...truly bizarre. Although the secular science industry, its press, and supporters on the internet have had their dishonesty documented numerous times, they accuse us  of lying. Pixabay /  Henryk Niestrój It really puts burrs under the saddles of misotheists and evolutionists when we point out that evolutionists are not in agreement, and many know they don't have science on their side. There are far more than one might expect. A principle in US law applies here: remarks that work against people saying or writing them are admissible in court as statements a

The Old "Evolution has been Proven" Trick

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  When Darwin's Flying Monkeys™ try to hornswoggle people by asserting "evolution has been proven", there is a wagon train-load of baggage attached. First,  science does not prove anything   People familiar with its workings should know it, and that science disproves  things. Another problem is that such a sentence uses subtle appeals to authority and popularity. Do you want people to think you are a science denier? Scientists accept the fact of evolution, and so does everyone else . Never mind the manipulation, there are other problems with the claim. One of the main problems is the word evolution . You may have noticed that I often use terms like microbes-to-misotheist evolution , Darwinism, and so on because there are several definitions. Some definitions are vague (such as "change") and worthless without context. Some of the baggage that comes along with the false claim that "evolution has been proven" are from a sneaky falla

Trilobites Doing an Arthropod Conga Line

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One, two, three, stop and put your spines in the air, then back down. Keep going, stay with the beat . Okay, so arthropods probably did not have recreational activities, but it is fun to imagine trilobites doing a conga line. The number of assigned trilobite species is (to use scientific terminology) a passel. None of them are friendly to Darwinian speculations, such as their sudden appearance in the " Cambrian explosion " and the exceptional optics in some species . Strange about that conga line, though. Ampyx priscus trilobite conga line, Wikimedia Commons / J. Vannier, M. Vidal, et alia  ( CC BY 4.0 ) "It looks sorta like a peloton, Cowboy Bob!" Well, that word is used when talking about bicycle races. The main group is in a bunch. Peloton riders may also form a straight line to reduce wind drag (slipstreaming) and trade off the front position. (Clearly exhibited in a bicycling pace line, seen here .) Geese and other migratory birds do that in their "V&quo

The Failure of Cures from Stem Cells

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A few years ago, there was a great deal of excitement over the promise of stem cell research. It was touted as a way to treat and cure numerous ailments, and has even been promised by leftist political candidates as promoting science. Of course, "science" cannot advance without murdering babies, according to those sidewinders. Adult stem cells gave hope that research could be conducted morally because it would not involve child sacrifice. Now we hear far less about stem cells nowadays. Stem Cells image credit: USFDA (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) People were ready to slap leather over the promise of stem cell therapies, and Christians are enemies of science that interfered (also see " UK Prime Minister addresses Climate Change, but undermines Christian doctrines "). Their information came from what "scientists say" through the secular science industry (especially the press), but they were just talking through their hats . After all t

Big Hurdles for Evolution

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The other day, Stormie Waters and I were making chin music with Rusty Swingset, the supervisor out at the Darwin Ranch. We must have caught him in a contemplative mood because he was admitting that evolution has a wagon train-load of challenges. Then Rusty's lady friend Jacqueline Hyde joined us. She and Stormie kept Rusty and I from having another discussion about those "challenges". Jackie said that all the other detailed sciency things aside, she saw some basic hurdles that evolution would have to clear — if it were a sprinter. Unsplash / Interactive Sports Even though Rusty was in a thoughtful mood, Jackie's remarks made him a mite uncomfortable. The Big Bang was supposed to be the start of everything, cosmic evolution, things popping into existence and all that. It violates fundamental laws of science, and she was sorry to say that when scientists say laws were different back then, that's nonsense: "You can put 'em in the oven, but that don't ma

The Folly of Life Originating from Chemicals

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The idea that life could come from non-life defies reason, but people believed it for years. One reason is that people considered it scientific, and like sheeple today, would "follow the science" even when it was bad. Universal common ancestor evolution itself is an ancient pagan idea, and spontaneous generation (also known as abiogenesis or chemical evolution) likely originated from ancient Greek philosophers. Some scientists doubted spontaneous generation, and began disproving it in the sixteenth century. Some people still believed until Louis Pasteur put the kibosh on it. Flickr / Cowboy Bob Sorensen  ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Evolutionists falsely claim that "abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution", but textbook writers, makers of documentaries ( including David Attenborough ), and others apparently never got that telegram. By distancing themselves from the origin of life (even resorting to directed panspermia , where the OoL becomes a problem for space aliens), th

Configuring the Pangaea Supercontinent

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According to secular geologists, there were several supercontinents in the distant past. Using the uniformitarian slow and gradual paradigm, they changed shape and were give other names as they progressed. Geologists also project the shape of the earth in millions of years. Young-age creationists have presented models for the structure of the world before the catastrophic global Flood. The have disagreements and try to work out the best possible answers, these things happen. They agree that the Genesis Flood happened as described in the Word of God. Pangaea, Wikimedia Commons / Fama Clamosa  ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) This model takes several factors into account, including the migration of the magnetic field, fossils (including rainforest fossils at the South Pole), and huge salt layers. Secular geologists have inferred several pre-Pangaea supercontinents, including Greater Gondwana or Pannotia (involving mostly the southern continents) and before that Rodinia. Greater Gondwana (Pannotia) is th

Peer Review, Star Wars, and — Rogeting?

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Okay, so I get peer review. That's the process that seems like a good idea for scientific accuracy, but is saturated with problems. Sure, I know Star Wars, but only the first three that were released. But what's this thing called rogeting ? We had a post at The Question Evolution Project on Fazebook about peer review. Charlie Wolcott and I commented back and forth, and he mentioned that someone pranked the system with a Star Wars -themed paper [ 1 , 2 ], and the actual paper can be had as a PDF [ 3 ]. Some caught the prank, and one reviewer had fun with it [ 4 ]. The author used rogeting as well. Photo before modification: NASA (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) At this point, I need to interrupt because of a development that occurred while this article was in process. Deciding to have a break, I went to YouTube. It suggests videos, and there was one on Agnes Moorehead, who played the part of Endora on the  Bewitched  television serie

Saturn and Pluto Still Troubling Secularists

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Whenever we have to deal with secular stories of origins, we are confronted with errors in science, ignored facts, poor reasoning, and contradictory conjectures. We have seen numerous times where believers in hydrogen-to-human evolution have been stymied by observations that do not fit their expectations. The rings and moons of Saturn are vexatious to secular cosmologies in several ways, especially when attempting to account for their formation and deny their youth — at least, "young" in comparison to alleged billions of years. Pluto is also uncooperative with secular schemes. Saturn, some moons, rings image credit: NASA (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) When questioning the age of the moons of Saturn, the age of its rings are also a part of the problem. There are no explanations that make sense, and many are self-refuting. Ring formation by collision is what can be called the " best-in-field fallacy ": best of the worst. Speculations about age and

Pterosaurs Continue to Baffle Evolutionists

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When looking at illustrations and dioramas of dinosaur scenes, wing lizards are usually included. Pterosaurs. When the dinosaurs went nuts in Jurassic World,  these things carried off people. They are not classified as dinosaurs (because evolution), pterosaurs just happen to be flying reptiles that lived then. When new pterosaurs are discovered, the hands at the Darwin Ranch get all a-twitter, like they did about this one . It is almost fun watching them bluff about pterosaurs as they try to act excited about them. Pteranodon by Heinrich Harder, 1916 Secularists try to hoodwink us about the evolution of powered flight, but they have no clue. (In fact, the failed transitional form Archaeopteryx  flew the friendly skies with pterosaurs .) Darwin's votaries have cannot explain the evolution of flight or pterosaurs themselves, nor can they account for the extreme variations in their sizes — but they're certain that they were not the work of the Creator. Pretty arrogant. Evolutioni

Moses Wrote the Pentateuch

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Something I learned from Ken Ham several decades ago (and stated by many others) is the insidious nature of attacks on the Bible. Those with Atheism Spectrum Disorder simply lash out with ridicule, demonstrating their bigotry and lack of reasoning skills. We easily dismiss them. Christians and creationists have had to deal with more subtle and effective assaults. Specifically, they seek to undermine our foundations. All major Christian doctrines begin in Genesis , and not only has Genesis been getting bushwhacked, but the authorship of the Bible as well. Ketef Hinnom Silver Scrolls , Flickr / Biblical Papyrus Photos Moses is the author of the Torah (Pentateuch), the first five books of the Bible. (Some of us believe that, because of the structure of certain sections in Genesis, Adam and other wrote certain sections, but Moses was the editor and compiler.) When liberal theologians and unbelievers say that Moses had nothing to do with the books for which he is credited, they are calling

Astrobiologists Obsessed with Life on Mars

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People have wondered about life out there, thataway, for a mighty long time. Planetology was unknown, and planets were called "wandering stars" because they moved differently. Some even reversed themselves according to a perspective on Earth. The ancients often used them to represent their false gods. Later, it was learned that planets were not stars. Was there life on them? Mars was one of the candidates, subject of study, fiction, and erroneous science such as "canals". Today, scientists are downright obsessed with it. Gale Crater on Mars image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona (Slightly modified with  Clker clipart , usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Ignoring facts, defying logic and science, secularists soldier on in their quest to find evidence of evolution. They presuppose evolution, and the pseudoscience of astrobiology (I thought a science had to have something to study; there's no biology in the astro). Any possible exc

So-Called Junk DNA and Ageing

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Up yonder at Deception Pass, the hands at the Darwin Ranch have been caught several times doing sloppy science and lying for the Bearded Buddha about DNA. Their viperine tactics fooled many, especially those who are willingly deceived. Remember the now-debunked claim that the chimpanzee genome is 98 percent similar to humans ? It which was stitched together and contaminated. This refuted statement is still being proclaimed. Our main topic today is the duncical declaration that humans are saturated with "junk" DNA. Illustration by Sidney Paget , 1904, modified (find the DNA) Using science and reasoning that thinking scientists should find opprobrious, researchers decided that parts of the human genome did not code for proteins and such. Therefore, DNA parts were useless leftovers from our alleged evolutionary past. This was based on their preconceptions, not exhaustive research. Like vestigial organs, "junk" DNA concepts have been quirted into submission for the mo