Piltdown Superman

DNA is a fabulous molecule, vitally important to living things. Studies of the genome show functions of DNA, then further details and mechanisms are discovered. Epigenetic changes are essentially on top of the genome, regulating how genes are expressed. Also extremely important is RNA, and new research is showing that there are small RNAs that have some extremely important functions. It is also amazing that some changes made can be passed along to offspring, which is not good news for molecules-to-microbiologist evolution. DNA illustration, Pixabay / Miroslaw Miras Researchers injected RNA molecules into certain cells and saw that genes could be affected, even silenced. MicroRNAs regulate gene expression in an important way. Most of their work is outside the nucleus of the cell  but not always. Some of these can even help communications systems between cells. Also, these miRNAs are part of three main systems. Yes, life is the product of the Master Engineer, and the irreducible complex

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  When perusing Evolution News , the primary website of the Discovery Institute, there seems to be a great deal of self promotion. There is also quite a bit of science and philosophy. There are scientists involved, and it is reasonable to think that they publish in secular scientific journals just like creationists. My problems with the ID movement are that while they show unguided  evolutionary processes are not possible, it has a big tent. That is, there are agnostics, biblical creationists, what appear to be theistic evolutionists, and others involved. Sometimes Christians there seemed to be reluctant to mention the Creator. Also, I am a biblical creationist and presuppositionalist. Neon question mark, Unsplash / Emily Morter Everyone has presuppositions, things we assume to be true, that comprise our worldviews . Biblical presuppositionalists presuppose that the Bible is true  and the final standard of truth. "Ya think, Cowboy Bob?" Yes, I had to be

Even people who are not religious have been known to say that the arrival of a new baby into the world is a miracle. It could be rightly said that the birth event is a culmination of a whole suite of awesome circumstances. Conception itself is amazing, usually only one sperm cell reaches the egg. Many aspects of the development of the child in the womb have been documented, but we still cannot understand the ways of the Creator (Ecclesiastes 11:5).  Portrait of an Infant , Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881 Parents are responsible to bring them up "discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4). Many new parents look upon the new arrival and wonder what this new person will achieve in life. Of course, they may not seem "destined for greatness" and their greatest achievements may appear later in life. From conception through birth, a child testifies of the creator.  The phenomenal layers of design manifested in the biochemistry of the cell and the physiological an

That is one ugly fish! Actually, more than one in this group. The stargazer is built with eyes on the top of its head (hence the name), and a downturned mouth reminiscent of  Grumpy Cat . Stargazers come in a range of sizes, and they have some startling traits. One is that it buries itself in the sand so it can hide or hunt. The bobtail squid does this as well. On land, there are snakes, lizards, spiders, and other things that hide in sand. Like the even uglier anglerfish of the deep sea, it has an appendage to use as a lure for prey. Stargazer, Flickr / Etienne Gosse ( CC BY 2.0 ) These traits and more that are rather startling are challenging to both evolutionists and biblical creationists. To simply assert evolution is not demonstrating it. Creationists need to provide plausible explanations as to what may have happened in the once very good creation to have a predator like this, including how the Creator frontloaded genetic information that was later modified. ‘Monster of the oce

Although some Darwinists try to deny it, sexual reproduction has long been a problem for evolution. In fact, it refutes  evolution . The smallest of human cells are spermatozoa, and were once thought to be simple. At one time, cells were thought of as simple until scientists had better equipment and learned that they are amazingly complex. Sperm cells were thought of as simple cells even after other cells were discovered to be fascinating. They lacked certain features found in other cells and functioned differently. Scientists had plausible reasons for thinking they were simple but that all changed quite recently. False-color sperm cells, Flickr / SantaRosa Old Skool ( CC BY 2.0 ) One claim of dysteleology (alleged bad design, therefore there is no Creator) is the vas deferens , which provides transport for the little swimmers. Such a claim is completely refuted . There has been a passel of research on sexual reproduction, and although secularists light their prayer candles to Darwin

They honeybee may seem to be a simple creature, but it has been studied for centuries and many things have been learned in the past few decades; it is not  simple. Honeybees are surprisingly intelligent. People have probably heard of the waggle dance. It is   where a bee does an intricate dance that communicates to the rest of the gang where the goodies are located. This dance is like a language, needing senders and recipients. It goes into precise detail and was not decoded until late in the 20th century. Honeybees in honeycomb, Pixabay / PollyDot Basketball is often referred to as "b-ball." When bees split off from a hive that is getting too large, they take up temporary lodging that looks like a literal bee ball. Honeybees are known for being pollinators, which is important in food production for animals and humans. Yes, there are other pollinators, but if these bees went away, the results would be devastating. With all the specified complexities, believers in baryon-to-be

Darwin skeptic Dr. James Tour has been in the news related to Intelligent Design lately, quite probably because he is a brilliant scientist and outspoken Christian. He issued a challenge to ten origin-of-life researchers , but not one rose to accept it. A few months back, he had a debate with atheopath Dave Farina. It did not go well. Farina is abusive and irrational, and Dr. Tour also got excited but was not offensive . Something similar happened with Drs. Tour and Cronin. My Pond-Full-o-Algae photo modified at PhotoFunia In a pair of articles by Casey Luskin, we learn that Dr. Lee Cronin agreed to have a public discussion with Dr. Tour. Apparently Cronin was civil, he still managed to say things that were untrue about Tour, and he spent a quite a bit of time focusing on his opponent rather than dealing with the science. James talked about origin-of-life science and its tremendous problems, but Lee seems to have avoided the subject for the most part. There was a recent exchange at The

It has been said that dogs and cats can see things that we cannot. Based on some of their actions (including giving warnings and such), it may very well be true. We have trichromatic vision, which means all the colors we see are combinations of red, green, and blue. RGB codes are frequently used to get specific colors. Studies show that many critters see colors beyond our range, on into the ultraviolet. Someone took a notion to study the vision of an Asian swallowtail butterfly. It can see ultraviolet. Asian swallowtail butterfly, Flickr / Zorac&Visar ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 )  These flutterbyes can convert ultraviolet light into visible light — an example of specified complexity that defies evolution and testifies of the Creator's skill. Certain things in cancerous tissues are more concentrated and show up under UV light. Scientists are using biomimetics, drawing inspiration from the butterfly's vision, to work on a means of finding cancer! It’s something right out of science f

Believers in universal common descent evolution appear to have cognitive difficulties, or mayhaps it is bravado. I say this because when faced with data they cannot explain, deep-time anomalies, theories shown to be false, they pretend to receive good news and something important about evolution has been learned. Indeed, fundamentalist evolutionists may shuffle the deck and deal again, but they do not question if the deck is valid in the first place — the deck being evolution. They need to cowboy up and question evolution itself. Fighter pilot with nice eyes wearing an oxygen mask, Flickr / Aviatrix (public domain) In their determination to give praise to Papa Darwin, some of his disciples compared the eyes of mammals with those of cephalopods. Interesting that people and critters have two eyes, but many like birds and cuttlefish use each eye independently — but some cuttlefish occasionally use stereoscopic vision. The differences in eyes also means the organisms with them need to hav

Interesting and even surprising studies have been made about how animals communicate with one another, and some of their interchanges are surprisingly detailed. Inter-species connection seems rare and very limited; blue jays sounding the alarm in the woods, for instance. The 1956 children's novel  The Hundred and One Dalmatians has a rather extensive canine conversation network with messages relayed through barking. Despite their intelligence, they never developed a system to communicate with humans. Interestingly, there are videos of animals seeking out humans and making known their needs for help. Barking corgi, Flickr / xan latta ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) Animals can make themselves understood to each other to some extent, but a bonobo and a chimpanzee will never discuss the physics of coconut spinning. The Creator gave many animals the ability to communicate for their survival. There are studies of communication between animals and humans. Notice that it has to be initiated by peop

There are words with phile  or similar in them that often mean a love of something, such as philosophy (love or wisdom or learning). The word structure can also make it seem like an organism has a fondness for something, actually meaning that it thrives in a certain environment. A thermophile  lives in extremely hot areas such as the thermal vents on the ocean floor. Want to take a crack at halophyte ? That one is a bit tricky, but it uses the word for salt. There are plants that thrive in saline conditions inhospitable to many other plants. Athel Tamarisk, iNaturalist / Xochitl Zambrano ( CC BY 4.0 ) Athel tamarisk is one of those stubborn plants that lives in deserts and is found in many parts of the world. One of its handels is the Athel pine, and it does resemble pine in some ways. It is also useful as a windbreak, and since it doesn't burn easily, it can be used to hinder fire. When it lives in saline conditions, it actually gives off salt! Athel tamarisk was designed by the

So many thing that have been studied, possibly even considered to have been fully understood, became disunderstood later on. Some models of the atom were proposed in seemingly rapid succession, Schrödinger's quantum model being the current favorite. Genetics was begun by Gregor Mendel (peas be upon him) and continues to be developed — and challenging to scientists. Both of these testify to the genius of the Creator. Something else that when scientists are understanding it, theories become frustrated is: The human brain. X-ray-style image of skull and brain, Freeimages / Miranda Knox In A. Conan Doyle's "The Blue Carbuncle," Sherlock Holmes stated the myth that people with larger skulls are more intelligent . People who are analytical use the left side of their brains more, and intuitive people use the right side. But that notion is disputed, and sometimes the brain rewires itself. There are people who live their lives not knowing that significant portions of their bra

Sleep is something we may take for granted or even resent its intrusion. Others find it a way to escape from the troubles of daily life for a while. Sometimes it simply feels good. While it is considered a restful state, there is a great deal of unconscious activity happening. There are many studies of what happens during sleep and that it or something similar is vital to most creatures. One evolutionist said that sleep is our default state, and that we evolved wakefulness. No science there, just narrative-friendly speculation. Sleeping jaguar, Pixabay / edmondlafoto Getting the proper amount of sleep on a regular basis is essential, and we feel the effects when deprived. Sluggishness, dull thinking, irritability, and so on. My experience is pertinent here. Since my beloved Charlene was stricken and died shortly afterward, I have one of many results of acute grief: poor sleep. This affects decision making, coherence, writing, and so much more. A good night's sleep is rare for me. F

Sunflowers are one of the easiest flowers to identify, what with those big yellow heads loaded with sometimes 2,000 seeds and such. They are also a provision of the Creator for our benefit, grown and harvested for oil and the seeds, which are healthy — and may be a substitute for people with nut allergies . Of course, a famous characteristic is how young sunflowers track the sun from east to west. It was thought that this was a kind of phototropism, which is when plants and fungi grow toward (or away from) a light source. Sunflowers, Pixnio / Bruce Fritz It has been learned that this ability of young sunflowers to follow the sun across the sky (even on cloudy days) is heliotropism . It is not fully understood and is very complex. Plants adapt to changes in conditions, and different genes are expressed in response to certain conditions. This is yet another example of the Master Engineer at work. Botanists have long wondered how heliotropism works to allow this amazing plant to track th

My prospector friend Stormie Waters, her fiancé Roland Meadows, and I met up in town after getting our supplies. Stormie works the earth but ponders the skies, and asked Roland about seasonal changes. I simply sat back and listened to his good explanation. Many folks have a basic understanding of how Earth rotates once a day, moves around the sun in a year, and its tilt affects summer and winter. Digging a bit deeper shows that the axial tilt of Earth and other planets testify of design, and also trouble secular origins ideas. Earth's axial tilt and the solstice, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (usage does not imply endorsement) The Nebular Hypothesis includes a story about how all the planets and moons formed from the same stuff. Naturally, these objects should show some amount of uniformity in many areas, including how they tilt. Cosmic evolution fails, and expectations of secularists are not met. (Venus and Uranus don't even bother to rotate in the same way as the ot

Some of the hands at the Darwin Ranch were having a party over yonder by Stinking Lake (which is not as bad as it sounds). It seems that they had received good news that their efforts to promote convergent evolution were progressing. Papa Darwin himself would be riding over to visit. Al Buehterawl noticed that I rolled my eyes and kind of snorted, so he took a deep breath and demanded to know why I had an attitude problem. I explained that convergent evolution is unscientific, based on circular reasoning, assumptions, and consensus. Charles Darwin as a cowboy on a horse, made with Img2Go Darwinism itself is an excuse to perform lazy scientific thinking , and convergent evolution ramps it up. Different critters have the same or very similar traits, bones, or whatever, but nothing else in common. They are not biologically related. Therefore, each evolved the same things independently. To be blunt, that is stupid. Homology is classifying things according to appearance and traits, and it i

Over at Evolution News and Science Today , an Intelligent Design site operated by the Discovery Institute, Alfred Russel Wallace is receiving a great deal of attention in his bicentennial year. Professor Michael A. Flannery has written a book and several articles about Wallace. A spell back, I wrote about whether or not we would have evolutionary theory if Charles Darwin had never been born . Since evolution is ancient, it would have been assembled and popularized in a "scientific" format. Alfie almost did that, but Charlie got to the publisher first. Alfred Russel Wallace, ca. 1865 A.F. Wallace did quite a bit of science, but he was eclipsed by Darwin . A problem for him both then and now is that he dabbled in many areas, some of which seemed frivolous. Wallace seemed like an interesting individual. But the Bearded Buddha focused on his own specific areas, which was apparently applauded instead of the multi-faceted aspects of Alfred. Also, Wallace was a kind of forerunner of

Sebastian the latrine digger at the Darwin Ranch (up yonder by Deception Pass) had cleaned himself up nicely and rode into town on payday. I happened across him at an eatery, and we had a nice lunch together. Conversation meandered, and he displayed a great deal of knowledge about cowboy life. He told me that the heyday of Texas-to-Kansas cattle drives ended long ago, but the need for horse-mounted livestock herders exists in many parts of the world — even in present times. We talked about how South American vaqueros and gauchos educated American cowboys, and I wondered why bolas never caught on here — but the bolas spider has that skill perfected. Bolas spider, Flickr / Judy Gallagher ( CC BY 2.0 ) To be blunt, these tiny spiders are ugly, making it a mite difficult to appreciate their interesting talent. A gaucho could twirl a bola (a cord with two or three balls or rocks for weight) and fling it at an animal, entangling its legs and bringing it down. Night-hunting bola spiders pref

We looked at how people suppress the truth about evidence for the Creator , now we will see an example of how ridiculous these efforts can be. Indeed, using evolution as a vague means of explanation is just an excuse for lazy thinking . Claiming to have examples of and proof for evolution is a good way to get the grant money flowing in. Consider flight, for example. As we have seen, Darwin's acolytes tend to ignore important material in their rush to claim victory for evolution. Mosquito, CDC / James Gathany (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Flight involves specified complexity. No problem, an alleged researcher can just shout down the questions by citing evolution repeatedly. Also, promise to explain how something evolved, but don't deliver. True believers will not notice. New PhD grad Jeff Gau puts on his Darwin-tinted glasses and announces, “We’re looking back 400 million years into how ancient insect muscles must have behaved from an evolutionary standpoi

Somewhere around 56 AD, Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans. Presuppositional apologists such as this child frequently refer to Romans 1:18-23 which explains that evidence for God is obvious to everyone. They are without excuse, choosing to unrighteously suppress the truth. As I have stated before, science and technology progress and humanity discovers all sorts of things that testify of the Creator. These can be in the deepest parts of space or found under high-powered microscopes. Scientists are realizing that organisms appear to be engineered. Ribosome mRNA, Wikimedia Commons / LadyofHats (PD) When someone in the secular science industry uses words that even hint at design and creation, it's "Katie, bar the door!" time. They want the praise to go to evolution. Someone will say that things appear  to be designed but they really are not. That is a theological opinion, old son, not science. Indeed, some are skittish about discussing biological machines  because those ar