Piltdown Superman

A plant is considered a weed partly because it came along and asserted itself without so much as a "by your leave", interfering with the plants that are being cultivated for beauty or food. Persistent, resilient, and with a habit of taking over if left unchecked, weeds are actually doing what the Master Engineer intended. Credit: Unsplash / James Lee If you step back and study on it a spell, you'll see that weeds serve a purpose. We prefer it when they serve their purpose somewhere else. They actually anchor the soil so it doesn't all erode away after construction, for one thing. Also, the lowly dandelion is highly nutritious — all of it, so you can cook up some dandelion greens . Some things considered weeds have medicinal value as well. Don't be getting a notion to be eating or medicating with things you don't know, however.  Remember the post about how the volcanic island of Surtsey and other newcomers are coming along quite well ? Some of the firs

A straighforward reading of the account of creation in Genesis is pretty simple, what with actual days and all. Unfortunately, there are some folks who want to grease up the concept of millions (or billions) of years and force it into the text. The only way to get long ages out of the Bible is to put them in there first, old son. Even so, strange readings of the text, including trying to accommodate the Big Bang, create a passel of problems for both professing Christians and for deep time beliefs. There is just no room for long ages or evolution. Credits: NASA / STEREO / Helioviewer (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) In this case, we see that the heavens and the earth created first (Gen. 1:1). Then we learn that God put light on the subject (Gen 1:2). Okay, that's nice. But soft, what light through yonder universe breaks? The sun was created on the fourth day of creation week. But we already had light! What was that? Plants were created on the third day.

Believers in evolution and deep time get on the prod when soft tissues are discussed, mainly because they cannot exist over millions of Darwin years. Lately, the most frequent discussion on soft tissues involves dinosaurs, but they are found in other areas, such as the ink in a fossil ink sac that was used to draw a picture . In a similar manner to soft tissues, fossil plants are not cooperating with the evolution narrative. Gingko leaves in autumn, Wikimedia Commons / Joe Schneid  ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) Even after the alleged millions of years, original plant molecules and chemical bonds were found — and a term that brings the concept of entropy to mind, thermodynamic stability, was used. Worse for Darwin's disciples, plant material was essentially unchanged between those in the fossils and living counterparts. I reckon that the term living fossils may be applicable here. Yee ha boy howdy, evolutionists were frustrated twice in one study! Truth is, the earth is not billions of ye

Advocates of microbes-to-microscopist evolution have a great deal to say about the hows and whys of the appearances of things living today, and of those that went before. However, it is difficult to examine their evidence, because it's mighty scarce. Sure, we get a passel of authoritative assertions of "it evolved that way", but assertions and tall tales are not scientific evidence. What follows are several links illustrating false claims of evolution happening. This will be good for students to examine and see how science and evolution can often be mutually exclusive. Original image credit: US Dept of Transportation / aschweigert (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Non-Evolving Dinosaurs Assertions of "being covered with feathers" without any sign of the things; why some dinosaurs moved fast, but details are expected in the future; a crocodile fossil that dates 170 million Darwin Years old is essentially identical to modern crocodiles

We ha ve had some heavy-duty material here lately, this piece of light reading may be a nice change of pace. Aside from hybridization and other forms of artificial selection, thousands of orchid species exist in nature. I'll allow that I'm tempted to assign human characteristics to some of them, such as conniving, deceptive, ingenious, and others because of their amazing abilities to get themselves pollinated. They look nice, too. Credit: Morguefile / Moonlightway Most of us know that one of the most important ways for flowers to get pollinated is to let insects — especially bees — do the job. Some orchids mimic insects to attract them, as well as giving a fragrance that appeals to them. There are even a few varieties that have a kind of "catch and release" program for bees — the Bucket Orchid even produces a liquid that makes the male bee attractive to female bees! Other orchids mimic insects to get the attention of other insects. Darwin's disciples

Many people believe that it is a good thing to talk to plants. (If you hear them answering, that may be a problem.) It's good for you to get outside (watching out for ticks and dangerous critters, of course), but most of us don't realize that there's a passel of communication happening. Image made with assembled graphics from Clker clipart We looked at an internal tree-mail system a spell back, but the story has grown quite a bit. Trees are sending helpful information to each other and getting cooperation, and sending requests to local fungi to provide them with nutrients. The system is actually quite intricate, and defies evolution because every aspect must be in place and fully operational from the beginning. This tree-mail system is yet another example of the design and provision of our Creator. Stresses constantly threaten to destroy the forest’s surface harmony, and yet modern scientific research is revealing how marvelously the Creator has equipped His woo

There are many questions raised about the Genesis Flood, and one of those is about plant survival. Well, they floated. Okay, too short. Many plants are surprisingly versatile and can deal with harsh conditions. The island of Surtsey was formed by a volcanic eruption in 1963, and within a short time, flowering plants were growing there , a fact that baffled Darwinists. Horse chestnut image credit: Freeimages / alesia17 Seeds come in many sizes, and can be tough. Little seeds can give big plants. (Interestingly, we often eat seeds, even from plants that we do not consume in their mature forms, such as various nuts.) Seeds can appear dead, but are actually just dormant, and may become active in the right conditions because the Creator programmed them in several ways. They can be dispersed in different ways, but seeds are not the only ways that plants reproduce and spread. These things may have been less baffling to evolut ionists if they' d paid attention to the science started

Charles Darwin had a wagon train-load of ideas that he presented but did not have supporting evidence. As time goes on and science develops, evolution has many scientists offering conjectures, but are not offering credible reasons to accept such concepts. They believe by faith in science of the gaps, that maybe someday evidence will be found. That's not science, pilgrim. Welwitchia credit: Wikimedia Commons / Muriel Gottrop ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ) One of Papa Darwin's biggest annoyances was the origin of flowering plants. Some evolutionists think they've partially solved the mystery by using circular reasoning and assumptions involving "a rather original gymnosperm called Welwitschia mirabilis". The plant lives in desert conditions and can survive for a thousand years. So, why evolve? Well, maybe to stop being so ugly, but that's ju st my opinion. Still, no sign of evolution. That's because plants were created and not the product of Darwinian hallucinatio

Most folks know about young sunflowers following the sun across the sky, which has been a bit of a mystery until lately . Other plants have sensory mechanisms as well to improve their survival opportunities, gotta get the most of that sunlight, don'tcha know. Image credit: National Institute of Health , usage does not imply endorsement of this site Further research shows that plant sensors are far more intricate that just pointing a plant toward the light. They even activate "switches" that control the plant's behavior. This is yet another example of the purposeful engineering of the Master Engineer, and makes Darwinism even less plausible than it is now. Plants’ amazing sensor systems enable them to adapt in response to multiple environmental cues. Since plants can’t get up and move around, they have to grow, develop, and thrive where they are. One of the key factors in a plant’s life cycle is processing sunlight in the form of duration (day length), light

Biomimetics (or biomimicry) is the concept of getting ideas from nature and building practical applications for our use . Usually, the owlhoots give credit to the puny god of evolution for the design in nature. (In academia, this theft of credit is called plagiarism. ) Image credit: Elizabeth Hertel / US National Park Service Use does not imply endorsement of site contents Moving on, pitcher — I mean, picture this: a slick surface is needed. Sure, we get those, they repel water. But how about repelling other fluids as well? And repair itself? Such a thing is happening, inspired by our Creator's handiwork on the pitcher plant. We have probably all seen the sign, “Caution—slippery surface,” and likely experienced the slipperiness of a wet floor firsthand. Not surprisingly, surfaces which repel fluids efficiently are correspondingly slippery, and such surfaces can have many useful applications in industry. Vast amounts of money are spent each year in developing materials t

The more that trees and plants are studied, the more scientist find out that there's much more to learn. They do us a lot of good, you know. Praise should be given to the Creator, not to evolution. Did you know that coconuts float? One of those things I didn't know until recently. Okay. Did you know that structure of coconuts is being studied in a biomimetics effort to make building more sturdy during earthquakes? When you branch out with your studying, we can see that trees and other plants — well, there's a wagon train load of things we didn't know about plants. Coconut tree image credit: FreeImages /  Srinivasan M.V Trees seem to be able to grow out of some unlikely places, including what looks like solid rock. They have nutrient foraging strategies. Another function of trees is water transport, especially of snowmelt. Plants have complex chemical activities going on, including that good ol' photosynthesis. Evolutionists don't understand much about

It's interesting how, even in the concrete jungles of big cities, elements of nature still thrive. Especially with a little help. There are trees on the outskirts of cities, the suburbs, that sort of thing — and within the cities. They break up the monotony and look nice. But they are also shown to be beneficial. Trees in Boise, Idaho. Image credit: FreeImages / Benjamin Earwicker Most of us know that plants take in our exhaled carbon dioxide, use it, and return the favor by producing oxygen. But they also give some unexpected health benefits to humans. There is no record of tree evolution, and when you add this fact to the benefits that trees provide us, I reckon you could realize that they are a gift from our caring Creator. A recent U.S. Forest Service study estimated that the trees planted along California streets provide a billion dollars’ worth of human benefit each year. And that benefit comes cheap. This analysis reveals five tree-related benefits that identify whe

There are several fossil forests, and one in particular was discovered a spell back a few hours' drive from my neck of the woods. Geologists and botanists reckoned that, since they were very old in Darwin years, a few simple trees would be all that existed. More evidence shows that they were riding up the wrong trail again. Assembled at  Sign Generator Their problems lie in using uniformitarian ("the present is the key to the past", slow and gradual processes) assumptions, and those assumptions keep on failing. In fact, a form of catastrophism is used now and then when it's convenient. In the case of this forest, they're closing in on the truth (the Genesis Flood), but are still tied up in their worldview. There are many reports of fossil ‘forests’ across the earth that display vertical tree remnants. Vertical tree stumps and trunks are assumed to be in situ, which seems to be the definition of a fossil forest. Evolutionists think that the first forests w

If you study on it, you may see that there are various things in nature that may hint at God having a sense of humor, things that he put here for the sake of baffling proponents of particles-to-petunia evolution. Some of these things are extremely simple, but have profound significance that should be humbling to the most arrogant of evolutionists. Sunflowers In The Garden At Petit Gennevilliers , Gustave Caillebotte , 1885 Sure, scientists have come up for a mighty expensive word for the way sunflowers follow the sun, and maybe you could learn it and impress your friends (unless they find it pretentious, there's always that chance). But still, sunflowers have no muscles, no brains, nothing to explain how they follow the sun across the sky. Worse yet for creation deniers, when sunflowers are rotated, the eventually set themselves to rights and track the sun again. Something as commonly observable as sunflowers following the sun is difficult to explain. Even children can

Amber is plant resin that dripped down trees, trapping insects and so on. It became fossilized, and paleontologists have a great time studying the amber as well as whatever was inside of it. (There is jewelry made from amber as well, with or without insects and things.) Amber has been an excellent preservative agent. morgueFile / Karpati Gabor Evolutionary scientists have their presuppositions and assumptions, which include how many millions of years to assign to amber. These speculations drip to the ground when the stuff has encased something that should not exist according to their presumptions. In this case, flowers from alleged millions of years ago. And they are just as "advanced" as modern flowers. Instead of supporting evolution, it fouls up their timeline and it needs to be adjusted. Again. But this is exactly what biblical creationists expect to find. Flowers preserved in amber from Myanmar (aka Burma) are not only breathtakingly beautiful but also demonstra

We are taught in school that, essentially, a scientific theory uses accumulated knowledge and can be tested through empirical methods. (This differs from common use of "theory", which has a variety of loose definitions.) Every so often, a discovery that threatens goo-to-you evolutionary ideas is announced. Normally, a theory is adjusted to fit observed phenomena or even replaced. Phlogiston theory was proposed in 1667 as an explanation of why things burn (they contain the mysterious stuff), but with further research and discoveries, it was eventually abandoned. The General Theory of Evolution is the modern equivalent of phlogiston , but evolutionary scientists make guesses and conjectures to keep it going. The True Believers™ accept these stories as if they were verified facts, then claim to believe in "science" and call themselves "thinkers". Alternately, scientists and the faithful often ignore data that cause cognitive dissonance and continue to beli

For some of us, autumn stirs mixed feelings. Falling leaves, falling temperatures, cold rains and so forth remind us to prepare for the upcoming winter. They can get slippery after a rain, so watch your step. And those leaves keep on falling, getting into the rain gutters and on the lawn. People rake them up and put them in piles. Some cities allow them to be raked to the street to be picked up, and some clowns use half the street for their personal dumping ground, but I digress. Other people are able to burn the leaves, depending on where they live and whether doing so is a fire risk. Many people appreciate the fall foliage, often driving for many miles on a "color tour". Image courtesy of antpkr / FreeDigitalPhotos.net Why do the leaves come down? Why can't the doggone trees just hold onto the things, anyway? It would be less work for us, yes? Actually, there is a purpose to trees dropping their leaves. And a science, all the way down into a sequential gene co

Mustard Plants - MorgueFile/citysafari Earlier, we marveled at photosynthesis . But what happens at night? Plants still use food during the night. It involves using just the right amount of starch molecules. Still move evidence of a master Designer at work! A new study came out showing how plants utilize an efficient form of mathematics to precisely calculate how much starch to consume as food during the night. During the daytime, plants make carbohydrates through photosynthesis and store a portion of them as starch molecules. The cells then metabolize that starch as a food source during the night to fuel cell growth and development. One researcher said, "If the starch store is used too fast, plants will starve and stop growing during the night. If the store is used too slowly, some of it will be wasted." However, the plant must use its food reserves judiciously and dynamically by controlling the rate of its metabolism along with the amount of starch used during th

As you probably remember from your basic science courses, photosynthesis is the process where plants process sunlight and make food. This video explains a bit more in a couple of minutes: Dry Lake, San Gorgonio Wilderness/San Bernardino National Forest Carol Underhill, USDA Forest Service Recently, more details of the speed and efficiency of the process have come to light (heh!). The process is truly amazing, and, as usual, evolutionists put on their Darwin Spectacles to give praise and glory to "nature" and "evolution" as if they were intelligent deities. The transformation of sunlight to food gets all the way down to the level of quantum physics! The magic of light capture by plants is so small and fast, its secrets are only now being understood. Lightning is slow compared to photosynthesis. A press release from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) explains how “antenna proteins” capture photons of sunlight and ferry the energy to reaction cen

stock.xchng/Bessarro Most plants need sunlight in order to live. Red and blue are preferable. Bacteria on plant leaves need sunlight as well. Green light. They use use the green light that plants do not want. And bacteria absorb the most light at the same point that plants absorb no light; a win-win situation, not a "struggle for survival". Sorry, Papa Darwin, this is evidence for a Designer, not for evolution. Plant leaves convert light into chemical energy for use in cells. Their biochemistry specifically absorbs the blue and red areas of the visible light spectrum. Now researchers have discovered that light-harvesting bacteria living on the surfaces of leaves gather energy from the green part of the spectrum, meaning that they cooperate rather than compete with plants. How did this perfectly balanced energy-sharing system come about? Knowing that light-harvesting microbes live in aquatic environments, the researchers tested the hypothesis that similar bacteria live