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Showing posts with the label Evolution

Evolutionary Reasoning and Tree-Dwelling Ancestors

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When dealing with supporters of universal common descent, it is often frustrating and slightly amusing at the lack of evolutionary knowledge many show. Worse, they accuse creationists of not knowing "science," even when we demonstrate more knowledge about certain subjects than they do. Evolutionary scientists are portrayed as unified with only slight disagreements about details. Supporters seem oblivious to statements against interest where experts admit they have problems. The situation of a shrew-like tree dweller that is held up as our evolutionary ancestor helps illustrate these truths. "Docodonta Order" mostly made at DeepAI , then modified for texts The usual story is that humans and apes diverged from an unknown common ancestor millions of years ago, but this is not LUCA (the Last Universal Common Ancestor). Nor is it fish we all supposedly evolved from, either. The  hominine (the word itself question-begs evolution) are humans, apes, and lots of other crit...

The Bible Among the Sacred Books

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It is quite reasonable to wonder why Christians hold the Bible in such high esteem, rejecting the texts considered sacred by other religions. I did something similar, having been raised in a liberal religion. The Fundamentalist Christian school I attended raised many questions for me. When I confronted teachers and schoolmates with questions, they used the Bible as their authority — not books of any other religion. I spent a great deal of time reading the Bible, references, and apologetics books. Where is this or that doctrine taught? Bible outdoors, Unsplash /  Aaron Burden The liberal rebellion I had eventually reversed and I became more conservative and more educated. Biblical teachings appealed to me, and I learned that creation is true and fish-to-fool evolution is a lie. What played a key part after the school days (1979?) was attending the adult Sunday School of another church. They were listening to cassette teaching tapes of Dr. Walter Martin and cults. Why are we right an...

Fossil Ape Inner Ear Shows No Evolution

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The ear is comprised of three parts, the outer of which helps collect and amplify sounds for the sending of sound vibrations onward. In the middle ear, there are three small bones that transmit information from the tympanic membrane onward to the inner ear. The brain sorts out the sound information. Another function of the inner ear is balance. People who have inner ear infections can have dizziness and spacial awareness trouble. In infection can affect walking and other activities. Darwin's acolytes try to link us to our alleged apelike ancestors by examining fossils of their inner ears. Anatomy of the Human Ear, Wikimedia Commons / Lars Chittka; Axel Brockmann ( CC BY 2.5 ) The inner ear is extremely complex with many parts working together. This specified complexity strongly testifies to the genius of the Master Engineer. Like apes today, those pretended ancestors would have been quite at home swinging from trees. Walking on two legs is uncomfortable and tolerated for short dis...

Using Evolution as an Easy Explanation

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People appeal to evolution frequently, probably to make something appear more sciency. F'rinstance, I stopped watching a video when it said that people scanning their environment is a leftover from evolution. That was insultingly stupid — and unknowable. The idea of injecting evolution into media seems to come from authority figures in the secular science industry: They frequently make unsupportable assertions. Unfortunately, those scientists and many lay people have a worldview that uses molecules-to-mechanic evolution as a foundation. But critical thinkers may ask, "What evidence do you have for your claim?" Time and time again, we have shown how evolutionists presuppose evolution and then "see" it in many places. Variation, speciation, and all that good stuff are not evolution, old son, and fit into the creationist paradigm. Many other instances of circumstances called evolution are only imagined. An expert in plants examined  stomata , tiny openings that all...

Darwinism is Linked to Eugenics

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One of the most reprehensible fruits of evolutionary thinking is eugenics , which literally means good genes  or well born . Francis Galton (February 16, 1822 – January 17, 1911 was a cousin of Charles Darwin. He decided that human evolution should be helped. Having a fundamentally flawed worldview, the idea worked from Darwin's idea of natural selection as a creative force. Eugenics was popular in the United States and Germany in the early twentieth century, but support diminished when the Nazis put eugenics into action: Only the best should be allowed to breed — or even exist. Color added to the International Eugenics Conference logo Who were the best, the fittest? Why, it was certain white folks! Papa Darwin was a horrendous racist  who believed that Englanders were the best and that darker-skinned "races" would be eliminated. Survival of the fittest, natural selection (his version), and that stuff. More importantly, who has the right and the power to decide about life...

Dolophones — Spiders in Hiding

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There are many advantages to reading creation science material, one of which is learning about creatures living all around the world. Australia and its neighbours have some startlers, many of which are exceptionally dangerous. Fortunately, Dolophone  wrap-around spiders are exceptions. They get their handle by the way they hide. Not only do they become almost indistinguishable from branches and such, they wrap around them. They are on the small side, and spend their lives up yonder in the trees — making them even harder to find. Dolophone orb weaver, Flickr / P.D. Amara (public domain) The ability to hide is very interesting itself, but something else to consider from these orb weavers is web silk. This is something that has fascinated scientists for ages. Biblical creationists discuss the amazing construction involved in building webs . There is a great deal of specified complexity involved, all the way down to the DNA, that believers in descent with modifications cannot explain...

Stomping the Human-Chimp DNA Similarity Myth

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Scientific research is unfriendly to atoms-to-ape evolution, and the icon of ninety-eight percent similarity of human and chimpanzee similarity has been long been disputed. Indeed, it is based on bad science that is omitted from the secular science industry propaganda [ 1 ]. Research in chimpanzee genome supports biblical creation science [ 2 , 3 ] instead of evolution. Darwin's disciples get mighty irritated when people say that we evolved from apes or monkeys. We supposedly split from a common ancestor that looks like a monkey [ 4 ] — but they are assuming its appearance. Human-Chimpanzee DNA, made at Night Cafe , then removebg The number for human-chimpanzee similarity varies by a few percentage points, but usually about ninety-eight percent. Darwin's disciples need such a close match because apes and humans allegedly diverged around seven million years ago. That means evolutionists cannot account for a larger percentage difference in those years. Sin...

Sea Turtles and Magnetic Field Navigation

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If it ever comes up in the workplace break room, there is a simple way to tell the difference between a turtle and tortoise . (Well, except for the little detail that all tortoises are considered turtles, but not the other way around.) There are other distinguishing characteristics, but turtles live mostly in or around water, and tortoises live on land. The more we learn, the more fascinating nature becomes. Critters are created with specialized traits. Like several others, sea turtles migrate by tuning into Earth's magnetic field. New research takes this trait even further. Juvenile green sea turtle, Flickr / Silke Baron ( CC BY 2.0 ) Loggerhead sea turtles calculate longitude for use in migration. They can remember certain geomagnetic locations, an ability unique to these creatures. Another benefit is that they can find their way back to nesting locations — even after several years. The specified complexity of the mechanisms involved gives Darwin the sads. They also testify of t...

Failures of both Behaviorism and Darwinism

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There are many schools of psychology, some of which borrow concepts from each other. They are all wrong because they are not only atheistic but also have Darwinian foundations. Although secular psychologists deny the existence of the soul (mind, consciousness), they still try to understand it . In behaviorism, humans are essentially meat machines. They respond to stimuli — behaviors come from conditioning. This includes reward and punishment. Conditioning is gradual, a piece here and there over time. Interestingly, some aspects of behaviorism can be accurate. Brain and network, Pixabay /  Gerd Altmann  (Geralt) Psychologists lost their affection for behaviorism because they liked cognitive approaches and because it failed to explain language. The extreme specified complexity of language speaks (heh!) of the Creator , which flies in the faces of Darwinism and behaviorism. The Intelligent Design article linked below ends with a bit of a cop-out: "The science is clear. Mind, not ...

Hunga Volcano Eruption Confuses Climate Change Alarmists

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To be blunt, people who insist that we are all doomed because climate change is an existential threat are hard to take seriously. There have been many extinction predictions  which have failed spectacularly . Further, the secular science industry has a history of making pronouncements on things they do not fully understand. For example, secularists did not understand DNA, so they assumed certain areas were "junk." Creationists disagreed and were vindicated . Climate is a tricky thing, and those tinhorns famously ignore pertinent data. Also, scientists are learning that they need to be learning. Illustration of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano eruption. Yunqian Zhu , NOAA  CIRES (usage does not imply endorsement) Biblical creationists believe that God keeps his promises and that humans are not going to burn up the world he has given us to care for. For the most part, climate scientists are evolutionists (including geologically) and believe in uniformitarianism (gradual pr...

Metallicity Troubles Secular Cosmologists

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People who have been reading this weblog for a spell know that I emphasize definitions, as people can argue with each other about different subjects with the same name. Something that is strange to me is that metals mean something different to astronomers than to the rest of us: Anything heavier than an the atomic weight of helium is a metal. Now that we know, we can see something amazing. Most stars are overwhelmingly composed of hydrogen and helium. Secular cosmology has a story about the origins of metals that does not work. Nebula W51,  NASA  / JPL-Caltech (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) One of the latest threats to the Big Bang story is distant galaxies , and metals are also problematic. Metals are found in stars by using spectroscopes. Different elements have different signatures in the light. Our sun is like the other stars in the universe, and also nebulae, by having only trace amounts of those other elements. Earth, however, has numerous elements a...

Unbelievably Tiny Motors are Complex

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Make a first, then extend your little (pinky) finger. Place it up to the corner of your mouth and say, "400 trillion " like Dr. Evil. That is about how many viruses live within you. No need to get flustered because only a few are owlhoots . They are a part of our microbiome . Strange thing is, viruses are not considered living things! They can mimic life by bushwhacking living cells, infecting them, and reproducing. There are many types of viruses and they do not all work in the same way. Our sub-life friends are viruses called bacteriophages . Working on a motor, Unsplash / Han Dora Viruses are much smaller than bacteria and are selective in their targets. Bacteriophages (phages for short) hunt the bad bacteria and leave the good ones alone. To do their work, they have to work on the DNA molecules in the bacteria. Not only did the Master Engineer give living things built-in viruses to ambush bad bacteria, he also gave viruses a special molecular machine to conduct such detai...

Rapid Speciation and the Young Earth

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For quite a spell, Darwin's acolytes insisted that it took a mighty long time for a critter to get enough variation to classify it as a separate species. (Scientists often throw down on each other over what constitutes a new species .) Rapid speciation was inconceivable . Charlie Darwin was fond of deep time and he used it to develop his evolution conjectures. Scoffers may be locked into that old paradigm, challenging biblical (young Earth) creationists by saying all the species we have now could not have evolved in a recent creation. Wanna bet? Downy and hairy woodpeckers from  Birds of New York  by  Louis Agassiz Fuertes , 1910 & 1914 (PD) Instead of taking great amounts of time, variation and speciation (deceptively called evolution  because the changes were minor and genetic information was not added) have been happening in a hurry. Evolutionists are shocked — shocked , I tell you — by elephants having shorter or nonexistent tusks , also green and brown anol...

Big Bang Threatened by Giant Galaxies

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Go out on some clear night and look up at the stars, realizing the beauty that the Creator has provided. Get away from city lights and see more stars. People have built telescopes to see even more. The Hubble space telescope provided amazing images, and the Webb has yielded truly amazing images. You probably know that one reason the James Webb Space Telescope was put up there in the first place was to support the Big Bang and cosmic evolution stories. Instead, it has caused consternation in the deep time camp. Big Wheel galaxy (cropped), Wikimedia Commons / Safiy14 (PD) Since galaxies have many stars, sometimes in the multiple millions, they are rather complex structures. Some formation stories (such as galaxies merging) would ruin their shapes. Cosmologists have their stories about how galaxies formed, but there is no observational evidence to back up the stories. The JWST was pointed at what was assumed to be the early universe...it did not go well. Creationist predictions were conf...

Cephalopod Camouflage and the US Navy

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Cuttlefish, squids, and octopuses are grouped as cephalopods , and are fascinating in and of themselves. We looked at the brain and neurons recently; the neurons of cephalopods are mostly in their arms, not their brains. Other things about them to amaze is that they are intelligent (even conniving), use their tentacles to grasp things, and have a camouflage ability that is truly startling. They blend in very quickly — yet they are colorblind. This is because the brain is not involved in the color-changing process. Cuttlefish, Freeimages /  John Boyer Some folks like to criticize the military for keeping secrets and trying to find advantages in combat. Well, sure. There are people who want to hurt your country and people, you know. Getting the upper hand is common in the business world as well. The US Navy is studying these critters to learn how they do their camo thing. It is another aspect of biomimetics , where what is seen in nature is imitated for use by humans. Credit seldom ...

Brain Size does not Indicate Intelligence

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For many years, evolutionary scientists wanted to know the cranial capacity of humans and apes they discovered. This came from the idea that a bigger brain meant greater intelligence. Some folks seem to believe this today, an indication of how bad science gains a foothold with the public. Some animals have bigger brains than humans but are not as smart. It could be related to body size. The brain-to-body-size ratio shows that humans have larger brains in comparison to body size than some animals. Where does intelligence come from, anyway? It seems that intelligence is a product of consciousness, but secularists tend to reject its existence . But they also wonder how it evolved . Attempting to explain intelligence appears to be an acceptance of its existence. Another question is, "How is intelligence measured?" Dunno. Part of our brain is gray matter (you may have been told to use your gray matter as a way of urging you to think), Those brain cells called neurons  reside there...

Defining the Dinosaur Fuzz

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Paleontologists see what appears to be fuzz in dinosaur fossils, so they tell a tale of protofeathers. Since most evolutionists believe that dinosaurs evolved into birds, the story needs plot points. If dinosaurs had feathers, they must have originated from something, so this possible fuzz is mow protofeathers . They keep majoring on minors, tap dancing around numerous fundamental flaws in their scenario. F'rinstance, the skeletal compositions between birds and dinosaurs are radically different. Also, feathers have specified complexity and there are different feathers for different functions. Fuzzy T. rex made with AI Image Generator What would dinofuzz do for the animal? Make it cute? Mayhaps scientists could venture further into Making Things Up™ and give dinofuzz and "evolutionary purpose", such as a defense mechanism because it tickles predators. It may have been for warmth. When looked at in just the right way, it could resemble hair, so they were going to evolve int...

Snake Evolution does not Impress Former Atheist

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Atheists and other evolutionists have a tendency to use the word evolution  loosely, conflating change  and variation  with universal common ancestry. That bait 'n' switch trick is used to fool people into believing that Darwin was right, so there is no Creator. If anti-creationists bothered to learn what we believe and teach, they would learn that natural selection , speciation, and other variations are accepted by most creation science models. Also, many evolutionists misunderstand and misrepresent natural selection. Consider the alleged evolution of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades. Burmese python in Everglades (slightly cropped), USFWS / Susan Jewell ( CC BY 2.0 ) These big snakes are native to Southeast Asia (the name kind of gives that away), but some people illegally have them in Florida . (I wonder how many pythons there were named Monty? Just something I had to squeeze in here.) They escape or get turned loose, and are an invasive species that causes ha...

Lunar Volcanoes and the Age of the Earth

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Every once in a while, Darwin's Flying Monkeys™ drop by The Question Evolution Project on Fakebook. Essentially, they tell us that they are smarter than creationists, we do not understand science, if God exists then he is bad, deep time is proved. and so on. Interesting how they do not follow the "science" they believe. Some evolutionists want it scrapped , soft tissues in dinosaurs  are a serious threat to evolution, the lunar formation story and the moon's recession contradict science, and many more problems for naturalism. Speaking of the moon, how about that volcanism, huh? Mare Crisium (modified at PhotoFunia ), NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University (usage does not imply endorsement) The prevailing Just-So Story about how the earth got its moon is that when the earth was still forming, the hot stuff was smashed into by a Mars-sized planet. Big hot splash. Then everything settled down into the earth and moon system with its amazing symmetry and beneficial aspe...

Sophisticated Language in Humpback Whale Songs?

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Whale evolution is a convoluted story, what with evolving creatures in the sea moving to land to continue there, then some went back to the sea, and all that. Believers in descent with modification tell that absurd story with straight faces, but it is disputed. Also,  genetics refutes whale evolution . Language is a strong evidence for creation . Despite the efforts of evolutionists to show language recognition and usage among great apes, the Creator gave us the capacity to use and refine it. But...humpback whales are exhibiting language as well? Humpback whale image credit:  NOAA.gov via  Wikimedia Commons  (usage does not imply endorsement) A scientist recorded humpback whale songs. Lots of them. Over several years, not just a weekend at the beach. Although no whale was recorded singing "Louie, Louie,"  it seems that the whales have a kind of language. Indeed, the songs would even increase in complexity later on. This is markedly different from when birds sing...