Piltdown Superman

Down Florida way, the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, you will likely see mangroves. Those shrubs may be the only friends the much taller manchineel tree has. Some people have toxic personalities, but this bad boy is literally toxic in practically every way. While its distant relative the poinsettia (poin-SET-tee-uh, with four  syllables) has an unjustified reputation of being poisonous , the fruit of the manchineel is sometimes called the death apple. This tree looks like so many others that bear fruit — which makes things worse. Credit: Flickr / Anne and David (given to public domain) It is dangerous to eat the fruit, touch the tree, burn it, breathe the smoke when it burns — about the only safe thing to do with the manicheel is to just look at it. So, what good is it? Like other organisms that have poison, humans are able to use the toxic parts of the tree for helpful purposes. Also, when it is cut down and the wood is dried, it makes good furniture. The very existence of the manicheel

As discussed previously, dendrochronology  (counting tree rings) a favorite of people who believe in an old earth, especially because important facts can be omitted so they can get the deep-time numbers they so desire. However, this and other methods of counting layers are terribly flawed . In fact, they like it so much, secularists still use dendrochronology on children as a propaganda tool . With all the difficulties that have been found in counting supposed annual layers , you wooden think they still used that method. Credit: Public Domain Pictures.net / Sheila Brown Some tinhorns exclaim, "Aha! There are trees with rings that date them older than you people believe. Take that , creationists!" Rein in there a mite, Hoss. The basic idea of one growth ring per year is misleading, since some trees produce multiple rings each year, other trees may take a notion to skip a year, and others produce none at all. What is seen is more likely a record of past climate and other enviro

People who read this weblog have probably determined for themselves that our Creator likes variety and beauty. Someone who wants to appreciate nature can be overjoyed at Acadia National Park , found way up yonder in Maine.  For people who do "color tours" in the fall, it should be  quite a sight . As for mountains, well, depends on your perspective. Cadillac Mountain is the highest point on the Eastern seaboard at 1,530 feet. Taller than some, a molehill compared to others, but people like the view. Acadia National Park photo credit: NPS (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Look for the ubiquitous markers that government agencies put up about the age of the earth and the granites at Cadillac Mountain. The propaganda has been refuted, but old myths die hard with a vengeance. Lots of trees, varieties of wildlife, and more to inspire awe (see " Awe Demands an Awe-Giver "). Acadia’s visitors can enjoy appreciating creation ecology—especially wildlife and

Seaweed is found in a variety of sizes and colors, and many boat owners can tell you that it is extremely annoying when caught in the propellers of a motorboat. Fish eat it, and that huge brown sugar kelp can be eaten by humans . Nobody has offered me any. Sugar kelp grows along the coastlines in colder oceanic areas. There is some trading off in the animal kingdom with this seaweed that demonstrates how our Creator cares for the critters. For that matter, kelp's benefits to humans is beginning to be explored. Sugar kelp image credit: Flickr / Byrnes Lab  ( CC BY 2.0 ) Seaweed uses photosynthesis to get nourishment from the sun, but it is anchored so it doesn't get pulled out to sea. Sea otters are not interested in chowing down on the kelp, but other animals are — and the otters eat them. In addition, there is another interesting benefit from the otter-kelp pact. Tidewater-tossed seaweeds display God’s providence. Hidden in plain view, tidewater seaweeds are spectacular exhibi

Although it may take quite a while, plants find the nutrients they need. They also have a habit of growing and reclaiming land and getting into the foundations of buildings. I remember one time when the sewage for a house had backed up because a tree root had grown into the pipe. Plants are persistent things. They also play a big part in biblical creation science models. It is reasonable to use what is observed today regarding living things and expect that they acted much the same way in the past, yes? Creationists present evidence for the Genesis Flood, but it is understandable to wonder how plants played a part in the earth's recovery in the aftermath. Banding in quartzite image credit: Flickr / James St. John  ( CC BY 2.0 ) By the way, I really despise alphabet/Google/Blogger with a passion. This site may become an archive, so eventually the excitement may very well be at  Creation Cowboy  if I can get the hang of the interface. Back in 1980, Mt. St. Helens provided evidence fo

Believers in minerals-to-misotheist need to be asked some direct questions, such as if evolution is a proven fact, why do they expect evidence to be found later? That is faith, old son, not science. Also, why do they need to use falsehoods and chicanery? If evolution were a "proven scientific fact", it could successfully slap leather with all challengers. Helpful hint: Science does not prove anything, only disproves. Hypotheses, theories, even laws stand until even one contrary piece of evidence brings them down. That is falsifiability . I gave Charlie a floral wreath at PhotoFunia . It's quite fitting. Darwin's Abominable Mystery troubled him for years and was never resolved. Flowering plants existed too soon for evolutionists, a fact which supports recent creation. Deal with it, hippies. But no, living by faith, evolutionists have tried to hoodwink us with tall tales and even outright deception instead of admitting that they have insurmountable problems. Of course,

It would be easy for someone to take trees for granted, even though we know that they give us wood products, homes for assorted critters, and produce oxygen. What is easy to overlook is how they are exquisite examples of our Creator's genius. Modified from a US Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Aaron Henson (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents by the Marines or the US Department of Defense, but my USMC brother might approve) Trees can be likened to buildings. A favorite argument of many creationists and those in the Intelligent Design movement is that a painting has a painter, a building has a builder, etc., but the extreme complexity of life is the product of atheistic naturalism and evolution. That's willful ignorance, old son, just like the absurd canard that things only appear  to be designed — which is just an opinion. "Didn't George Carlin ask why they're called build ings  when they're already built, Cowboy Bob?" I think that was him. M

The Institute for Creation Research is developing CET, the continuous environmental tracking  model. This is based on studying living things from an engineering perspective, how our Creator has designed organisms to adapt to changes and even enable the survival of future generations. Credit: Unsplash /  Lukasz Szmigiel It may seem at first glance that plants are extremely limited, what with being rooted in place and all. However, they can adapt (some changes are falsely attributed to neo-Darwinism ) and have amazing abilities to communicate amongst themselves and even with other organisms — all the way down to the roots . There are many aspects of plant life that show the work of the Master Engineer. All plants and animals were divinely engineered with innate systems of adaptation that track various aspects of their environment and respond accordingly—an internal ability known as continuous environmental tracking . While animals, including humans, display intricate adaptive systems, pl

You know about tree resin, right? Although it is similar to and easily confused with sap, it is an important part of many trees and plants. It is heavier, resists being dissolved in water, and was even used by ancient people in shipbuilding. It also traps and preserves critters. Credit: Freeimages /  Antonio Natale A recent find of insects in amber shows that their colors are still present even after alleged millions of years, which should not happen according to secular beliefs, but there they are. (Darwin supporters are known to deny science in biosignatures .) The colors are iridescent, meaning that they are seen through reflections and such and not simply because of pigments. The peacock feather in the picture above is iridescent. How did iridescence happen? Evolutionists make unscientific claims that they somehow evolved, and that they evolved many times. Unfortunately, people accept these faith-based assertions as observational science, but there are no plausible models o

Biblical creationists have been using the 1980 eruption at Mount St. Helens as a powerful illustration of the Genesis Flood on a smaller scale. However, minerals-to-mineralogist thinking has been befuddled by the rapidly-recovering ecosystem. What has been observed is well in line with creationist views. Credit: Flickr / Pacific Northwest Research Station (Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Scientists understandably believed that the blast zone was destroyed of all life. However, biological legacies  that existed before the eruption still existed. Since the Master Engineer designed living things to keep life going, little things began to thrive and replenish the soil, then other organisms joined in. Adlers and other trees are growing next to the remains of dead trees. What is observed fits neatly into the creation paradigm. United States Geological Survey research hydrologist Jon Major has published several reviews in remembrance of the radical eruption of Mo

In a previous post we saw how naturalists are indoctrinating children . After all, secularists control public thought control systems commonly referred to as schools, so they have their minds captive for many hours in a year. That is not the only method. Credit: Unsplash / Aleksandar Radovanovic Another effective means of propaganda is though storybooks. I was talking with Trevor "Red" Schnapper the other day, and he told me about a book for children that he encountered. It was about counting tree rings. This is, to use the expensive word, dendrochronology. (In case you're curious, you can see the word components. -ology is "the study of", dendron is for "tree", cronos is time — but I see you checking the chronograph on your wrist and know it's time to get back to the subject.) Like many other kids, I was taught that one ring means one year of growth. That seems good on the surface, but there are factors involved that sometimes the s

Despite television, movies, and animated shows, the title of  carnivorous plants  is a bit misleading. When I  did a search  for whether or not the things eat animals, results went all the way up to the kingdom level; most carnivorous plants eat insects and only a few eat small mammals. Pitcher plant image by  Elizabeth Hertel  / US National Park Service Usage does not imply endorsement of site contents Many of these plants attract insects with nectar, then they spring their traps. (The New Jersey Pitcher Plant is very brazen, shouting out, "Hey bug! I got yer nectar  right here !") These plants do not rely on prey for nutrients (they do not have a successful capture rate), but it does help photosynthesis in some cases. The digestive enzymes that convert insects to food are used for other things, such as drawing nutrition from "leaf litter" that falls down and other sources. It is interesting that they have symbiotic relationships with other organisms — some

During some archaeology work in Israel, some seeds were discovered dated at about 2,000 years old. Date is the operative word with two meanings because they were date palm tree seeds. Using controlled conditions, some of those seeds were coaxed into growing. Phoenix dactylifera image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Wilfredo R Rodriguez ( CC0 1.0 PD ) An engineer will develop something for a purpose, and more advanced techniques are included to deal with adverse contingencies. The Master Engineer loads a tremendous amount of genetic information into seeds, and they can die and then come back. More than that, the organisms that come from seeds are also designed to reproduce. Dates are popular for their taste and health benefits, and even medicinal qualities; clearly they are one of God's provisions for humanity. The extinct Judean variety of Phoenix dactylifera seeds grew, their genome was sequenced and agricultural processes from way back when were discerned. The clever fol

We have probably seen lichens in many places in various forms, but tend to pay them no nevermind. Some resemble houseplants, but they are far more complex and have baffled scientists for many years. They are actually different organisms that comprise individual entities. Wolf lichen image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Jason Hollinger ( CC by-SA 3.0 ) In the television show Stargate SG-1 , there was a complicated storyline involving Symbiotes , creatures that had humans as hosts but also gave them strength and healing. However, these things were wicked and took over the hosts' personalities. This is similar to a view that the symbiotic relationship between fungi and algae consisted of the fungus dominating the algae. This is not the case. Despite the view of Darwin and his followers that organisms competed, there are many living things in symbiotic relationships — all the way to the beneficial microorganisms living on and in each of us. Lichens not only show symbiosis, but th

Creation science is nowhere nearly as well-funded as the secular science industry, but creationists have still managed to do serious work. However, some areas need development, such as stellar astronomy models. Another area of challenge is that of fossil forests, including botany and geology. Fossil forest on Speciman Ridge, Yellowstone National Park Credit: NPS  / Neal Herbert (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Using a Genesis Flood model, it needs to be determined if fossil trees were buried in situ (where they are found) or were transported before burial by the Flood. There are some expensive words in this somewhat technical article, but the two most common are defined for us: " One must keep in mind that the term “autochthonous” refers exclusively to trees that are buried in position of growth and “allochthonous” is applied exclusively to transported, especially Flood-transported, trees. "  To tell the difference in those kinds of trees, severa

When people mention parasites, various things can come to mind. Pet owners may think of white spot disease in tropical fish or fleas and ticks in furry friends, humans can get lice and internal parasites, and so on. Something that surprised this child is the fact that there are many kinds of plant parasites. Mistletoe image credit: Wikimedia Commons / Pauline Eccles ( CC by-SA 2.0 ) You don't need to worry about a plant attaching itself to you like a leech, however. Plant parasites parasite plants. That is, it is an "in house" thing in the plant world. They are found in many places and there are numerous species. You can ask a Darwinist how parasitic plants came to be, and they will evosplain with convergent evolution and fact-free speculations. Interestingly, parasitic plants are not a problem for creationists who discuss God's very good creation. Parasitism is a subject that not many people think about and even fewer address from a biblical perspective.

Our Creator engineered living things to find ways to continue existing, and he equipped them with a variety of methods. Plants have seeds which fall to the ground and they appear to die, but many can lay dormant for long periods, even after disasters. When the time is right, they start reviving and begin replenishing the earth. Credit: CSIRO / Maurice MacDonald ( CC by 3.0 ) A passel of seeds build up over the years in forest soil. God designed seeds that are banked in soil to sense changes in temperature and other aspects of their environments, then respond appropriately. This includes building relationships with soil bacteria, just like their forebears did long ago. It looked more like a war zone than a forest paradise. Nothing but devastation as far as the eye could see. Smoldering ashes and blackened wooden skeletons were all that was left after the inferno. The scene was overwhelmingly bleak. Yet hope for restoration lay dormant in the landscape! This ashen forest had pre

This post  stems  from a pair of related articles that will be linked below regarding the surprising abilities of plants to communicate. Earlier, we read about some of this in " Tree Mail in the Wood Wide Web ". This  field  is growing, and researchers are conducting some interesting experiments.   Credit: Unsplash /  Lukasz Szmigiel When working on this here post, I commenced to woolgathering about an old  Lost in Space  episode about semi-intelligent plants that were communicating with each other. They had a ruler of sorts, Tybo, who was a giant intelligent carrot, and wanted to turn the Robinsons (the space travelers) into plants.  " The Great Vegetable Rebellion " was considered awful by the actors and even the writer, but the dreadful part of Tybo was performed well by Stanley Adams (who also played the part of Cyrano Jones on the  Star Trek  episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles"). Although that show was chock full of silliness, it hinted at t

My mother insisted that I eat the green beans on my plate, but they were not all that thrilling. She would say that they have vitamins and we know much more now than we did back then about the health benefits of green beans . Interestingly, they have an internal mechanism that loosely resembles one of our own. Credit: Pixabay / Sonja Langford  When we have a wound, the blood will clot and the flow will stop (unless someone has a health condition). The Master Engineer also devised something similar for the beans. They need the sap to flow, but if a part is broken, that's where callose plugs come into play. Try to get a disciple of Darwin to evosplain that to you and come away with a satisfactory answer. When bean plants are bruised or bitten by a caterpillar, what if the valuable sap in the plant’s vascular tubing kept flowing to the injury site, leading to an unrestrained loss of sap? That’s comparable to an injured human or animal losing blood. In humans and animals, inju

It gets a mite difficult for people like me who can place an order for food on the telephone or on a website for delivery — "You do that quite a bit, don't you, Cowboy Bob?" They told me my weight is genetic. Or something. Moving on... Many of us have little worries about getting victuals (correctly pronounced "vittles") at our convenience, so we may have problems understanding or empathizing with those who are desperate for decent food. In other places, people eat and thrive on things that make those of us in the Western world cringe. Then there are various things that people have not considered for sustenance and could theoretically alleviate starvation. Some of the starvation problems are not simply drought, but bad government. Back in 1985 and following, there were rock concerts and such with the noble intention of alleviating starvation in Ethiopia caused by famine. It was not a good idea because distribution and other factors were not considered. E