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Amber and Vampire Hell Ants

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Remember the Dracula  movie with Bela Lugosi? If you looked into his eyes, he had hypnotic power. The lighting helped, too. Here, we look into the amber and see  Linguamyrmex vladi . Scientists got a mite creative there, that last word vladi  is based on Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracul and Vlad the Impaler. He had a nasty way of dealing with enemies, and became part of the inspiration for the Dracula novel and movies. Although nobody has any idea what the thing called a vampire hell ant  actually ate, it had some interesting vertical   trap jaw  mandibles that are similar to vertical  mandibles of ants living today. Did they grab another insect as prey, tip it like Junior's sippy cup and drink bug juice? Not all that likely, really. It may have used it to impale fresh fruit and drink that stuff down like a forerunner of the juice box. I reckon the "vampire hell ant" moniker is just a trifle hyperbolic. Gets your attention, though. Linguamyrmex vladi in amber

Scientism and Free Will

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Every once in a while, an atheopath will claim that "an omniscient God negates free will". This shows a blatant special pleading fallacy: imposing a different standard on others than for oneself. Why is this special pleading? Because free will is impossible in a materialistic evolutionary worldview that atheists presuppose! It is also a ridiculous objection because the owhoot is fabricating a simplistic excuse to rebel against the God that he pretends does not exist (Romans 1:18-23, Psalm 14:1). Why is free will impossible for an evolutionist? Because we are just bundles of chemicals responding to what electrochemical dictate, according to materialists. They are atheists because of their chemistry. The Japanese did not have free will when they bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Chemistry also "explains" mass murderers, abortionists, faqirs, doctors, philanthropists, biblical creationists — we are all "born that way". So, an atheist has no right to complai

Evolutionary Racism Against — Neanderthals?

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Once again, I want to emphasize a couple of things. First, informed biblical creationists do not believe in "races", as evinced in Acts 17:26 and the fact that the Bible does not use the word "races". Also, we do not say that evolution causes racism. Racism has existed for millennia, but Darwinism has been used to make it scientifically respectable . If you study on it, the ones making the "science" thought darker-skinned people were of inferior evolution and Caucasians were superior. And before someone from Fallacy Central puts words in my mouth: no, being an evolutionist does not mean you're a racist. There are no races, but there are people groups. But since "people group-ism" is a mite awkward, I'll use the more widely understood and less syllabic word racist for the purpose of discussion. Despite evolutionary mythology, scientists have reluctantly admitted that Neanderthals were indeed fully human. (See the links at " Losin

Engineered Blind Cavefish

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Some time ago, I posted about how Darwin's disciples are getting things backward. The dogma of universal common ancestor evolution holds that organisms develop vertically, becoming increasingly complex. Evolutionists claim that the loss of traits is an example of evolution, such as the loss of eyes in the blind cavefish . That'll be the day! Research and a bit of thinking shows that there is quite a bit involved in the loss of eyes in the cavefish. An epigenetic process is involved, which illustrates the skill of the Master Engineer in making adaptation possible. Unfortunately, materialists remain willingly blind to the Creator who will one day hold everyone accountable. How do fish with normal eyes in well-lit surface-water environments transform into blind cavefish, and should this loss of structures and functionality really be labeled evolution? The sophisticated mechanism involved in this transformation has dismayed biologists who hoped this would somehow showcas

Geologists Puzzled by Planation Surfaces

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When someone says mountain top, you probably picture a pointy thing, maybe with snow on top. Not all are like that. A feature that frustrates secular geologists is planation. This is where a mountain surface is flat for the most part and extends over a large area, and there are many of them worldwide. Using uniformitarian doctrine ("the present is the key to the past", processes we see today remain essentially unchanged from long ago), these geologists are unable to explain planation ( no ex-planation ). After all, it doesn't seem to be happening today, so that's not helpful for them. Planation at Bayanul, Kazakhstan credit: Wikimedia Commons / Ekamaloff Of course, secularists (and religious owlhoots who deny Genesis) reject creationary explanations out of hand. This is indeed unfortunate, since "science" today is made of people who want to protect their paychecks and paradigms rather than learn that the Genesis Flood models give reasonable explanati

Dwarf Planet Haumea — It Has a Nice Ring to It

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Our solar system has many oddities, and more are being discovered. Part of the problem for secular astronomers and cosmologists is that celestial objects are recalcitrant regarding speculations regarding the formation of the solar system . Today's instance involves a dwarf planet way out yonder, beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Illustration credit: NASA (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) This maverick was called 2003 EL61 for a spell, then was given the name of Haumea, after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth. (No, I don't get it, either.) Its largest equatorial diameter is 1,960 miles (1,218 km). "Why did you say largest, Cowboy Bob?" Because Haumea is... well, elongated. Kind of like an egg. It also has a very rapid rotation, each day lasting about four hours, and it has a couple of moons. There are a few artists' conceptions ( such as this one ), but a decent photo is hard to find . Haumea is a trans-Neptunian object, a cl

Remembering the Cro-Magnon Folks

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Seems that with all the attention given to the accumulation of evidence that Neanderthals were fully human , those folks called Cro-Magnon seemed to have fallen out of favor as members of the human cave man parade. They used to be in the textbooks. There are a few of reasons we don't hear much about those skilled hunters and artists much anymore. Photo of Lascaux cave painting credit: Wikimedia Commons / Prof saxx Cro-Magnons were named after an area in France where some of there skeletons were discovered. Sure, they were "cave men" at times. Let me ask you something. Does living in a cave make you "primitive"? Nope. Like other people, Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon people groups were resourceful and used the shelter caves provided. (You may want to give it a try yourself .) Since their times on Earth overlapped, mayhaps Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, and "modern" humans shared some living spaces? I'm just speculating, though. The hands at the Dar

Logic and Definitions

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Back in the olden days while studying contract law, one thing was frequently emphasized: for a contract to be valid, there has to be a meeting of the minds. That is, both parties need to understand the terms of the agreement. Ever sign a legal document or read the terms of service for many products online? Words and expressions are defined, often in excruciating detail. This is foundational to reduce confusion. Credit: Pixabay / PDPics Ambiguity can be fun. Some owlhoot challenged me to a debate while I was stuffing feathers into a pillow. So, I threw down on him. "Throw down" can be literal, or the colloquialism for engaging in a challenge. It may have originated in days of old when knights were bold, and one would throw down the gauntlet when issuing a challenge.  We don't need confusion on terms when trying to understand or debate a subject. I disremember when and about what, but I was having an argument with a guy for parts of two days because we each had a

C.S. Lewis and Evolution

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen C.S. "Jack" Lewis was born on November 29, 1989. Originally baptized in the Church of Ireland, which is Anglican, he fell away from his faith and became an atheist. Lewis was reluctant to relinquish atheism, but realized that Christianity is true. Jack was (and is) highly regarded as a leading apologist for the Christian faith. He wrote many fiction and nonfiction books, and most are available today. There are also scores of biographies of this complex figure. Radcliffe Camera, Oxford / William Leighton Leitch While Lewis appealed to many people with his intellectual approaches to Christianity and his refutations of atheism, his theology was rather weak. Apparently, he did not want to offend anyone, and kept his scope broad — too broad, in my view. Like William Lane Craig, he did not argue from and for the Bible, but seemed to argue for theism in general. In addition, C.S. Lewis seemed to affirm the almost-Roman Catholic doctrines of the Ang

Secularist Laments Lagging Evolutionary Indoctrination

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Although evolutionists have maintained a stranglehold on educational indoctrination in many Western countries for decades, some get on the prod that their conditioning is not yet complete. Contrary views of origins are actively suppressed, and even though secular educators claim to encourage critical thinking, only the sanitized versions of evolution are presented and inconvenient facts are omitted in government educational systems. That is one reason Question Evolution Day is important. Modified from a photo at Freeimages, original from Jeramey Jannene (click graphic for larger image) In the United States and other Western countries, fascism is opposed in theory. Many people consider fascist a useful pejorative, projecting it on people they dislike (often without knowing the meaning of the word), and then employing fascistic philosophies and practices , including violence and leftist propaganda — sort of like when the Nazis burned down the Reichstag and blamed others for t