I recently picked up the November issue of National Geographic to peruse an article called "From Fins to Wings". The article is once again trying to explain how simpler forms in nature - a fin for example - evolved into something more complex - a limb or a wing.
This is really cool: An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists - New York Times
It raises a hypothetical situation in my mind. What if we were to set this object in front of a Creationist and an Evolutionist and ask them to explain its origin. Which answer would make more sense?
Check out this animation of the inside of a cell and all the stuff that goes on.
Studio Daily | Cellular Visions: The Inner Life of a Cell
After seeing this, could anyone still believe that it all evolved?
In Today's New Reason to Believe e-mail sent out by the Reasons to Believe organization. They state the following:
New work on the characteristics of an enzyme that plays a key role in photosynthesis provides an effective response to one of the most compelling arguments for evolution. Biologists point to seemingly faulty designs in nature as evidence for evolution. One widely recognized example of a "poor" biochemical design is the enzyme ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, which plays a key role in photosynthesis. This enzyme (which converts carbon dioxide and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate into two 3-carbon sugars that eventually yield glucose) works at an extremely slow rate and is readily confused by the presence of oxygen. The biochemical confusion results because carbon dioxide and oxygen are featureless molecules that are difficult to tell apart. However, scientists have found that by slowing down the rate of chemical conversion, the enzyme is able to discriminate between carbon dioxide and oxygen. Thus, the enzyme appears to be perfectly optimized to handle carbon dioxide binding in the presence of oxygen. This classic example of a biochemical imperfection is now recognized as an elegantly designed system.
Here's a link to the article they refer to.
If you don't receive the Today's New Reason to Believe e-mail, you can subscribe to it by visiting the Reasons to Believe website.
NOTE: I have disabled comments on this and all future articles because I am being deluged with spam.
UPDATE: Since moving over to Movable Type, I have reinstated comments. Hopefully, I won't get any spam.
Here's today's Reasons to Believe e-mail. Just thought I'd pass it on. As always, you can subscribe to these e-mails yourself by registering at the Reasons to Believe website, reasons.org, click here to go directly to the sign-up page. Once you've registered and logged-in, click on the link "Signup for various Email lists". If you don't want to register, I believe you can just go here and sign-up without registering.
Okay, 'nuff said, here it is:
"Human Evolutionary Trees Ready to Topple"
New research underscores the inherent unreliability of the evolutionary "trees" used to describe humanity's origin. For human evolution to be declared a fact, evolutionary relationships (phylogenies) among hominids in the fossil record and modern humans must be clearly established (constituting branches that emanate from larger branches and, finally, from an evolutionary trunk). Paleoanthropologists now recognize that no reliable phylogeny for the hominid fossil record exists or is possible. The reason: many of the physical features of hominid fossil remains used by paleoanthropologists to build evolutionary trees appear to be due (from an evolutionary perspective) to processes other than descent from a shared ancestor. New research continues to highlight the seriousness and complexity of this problem. If reliable evolutionary trees for the hominids cannot be constructed, then, at least formally, human evolution cannot be declared factual.
Reference:
Stephen J. Lycett and Mark Collard, "Do Homoiologies Impede Phylogenetic Analyses of the Fossil Hominids? An Assessment Based on Extant Papionin Craniodental Morphology," Journal of Human Evolution 49 (2005): 618-42.
Related Resource:
"The Unreliability of Hominid Phylogenetic Analysis Challenges The Human Evolutionary Paradigm" by Fazale Rana
Here's today's Reasons to Believe e-mail update which I found so interesting, I thought I'd pass it on.
Increasing scientific support for nontestable naturalistic models argues for the recognition of testable supernatural models. One criticism scientists often level against claims for supernatural causation is that it is not experimentally verifiable. "You cannot put God in a test tube!" they state.However, many scientists such as Leonard Susskind enthusiastically support the idea that there are many universes, or multiverses, outside of the one in which we live, even though these multiverses, by definition, lie beyond direct experimental verification. In contrast, RTB's creation model appeals to a supernatural causal Agent but outlines a number of ways to verify that Agent's work.
Certainly, if the unverifiable multiverses are part of the scientific domain, RTB's testable creation model belongs there as well.
Ah yes, I'm back after not having blogged for a while.
This time it's to point out a brief, but good article which is a short list of "Books that question the conventional wisdom on the environment" by famous author Michael Crichton. Check it out.
-RB
Here is an excellent article on the - often vehement - Darwinist refutation of Intelligent Design: David Klinghoffer on Darwinism & Intelligent Design on National Review Online
Here's my favorite quote from the piece:
In a wonderful irony, the only intellectual framework in which people can genuinely be expected to pursue truth dispassionately, even if that truth undermines our sense of personal prestige, happens to be the religious framework, in which people aren't animals at all but rather beings created in the image of God.
This blog (here, too) is just to funny to pass up. Go ahead, read it and have a good laugh.
A few thoughts:
Don't worry, I'll be back to harp on this one.
-RB
The June 27th Reasons to Believe e-mail, sent out by the organisation Reasons to Believe says the following:
Genetic studies to date of DNA taken from representatives of different population groups demonstrate that humanity had a recent origin from a single location. These studies also indicate that humanity's original population size was small and that all of humanity traces back to a single woman, called mitochondrial Eve, and a single man, called Y-chromosomal Adam. Genetic data also affirms that humanity expanded from near the Middle East to populate the globe. These insights square with the biblical account of humanity's origin. New research examines the genetic variation of Asian and Australasian people groups and confirms the primeval migrational pattern of humanity from near the Middle East into Asia and Australia. This new work shows rapid human migration along the southern coast of the Middle East through India and other parts of Asia. As anthropologists study human genetic variation, the biblical description of human origins continues to gain support.
Here are two of their sources:
You can look for further information on this and other evidence that the Biblical Account of origins is accurate on the Reasons to Believe website. I highly recommend that you sign up for their Reasons to Believe (amost) daily e-mail.
I watched an interview with Cees Dekker the other evening on Dutch TV. He is professor of Molecular Biophysics and recipient of the prestigious Dutch Spinoza prize (which according to their own website is regarded by some as the 'Dutch Nobel Prize').
He has been published in Science and Nature about 13 times and is, according to the Spinoza website, one of the most famous Dutch physicists outside of Holland. He is famous for his work on carbon nanotubes. Last week, he was a guest in a Dutch debate program called "Rondom Tien" where he was introduced as the one who inspired the Dutch Minister of Education Van der Hoeven to call for a discussion between evolution and ID (eariler reported here and here).
Prof Dekker was interviewed the other night on a Dutch Christian talk show called Het Elfde Uur ("The Eleventh Hour"). This is a well-known talk show that is hosted by Andries Knevel and has gained the respect of a broad spectrum of viewers, christian and non-christian alike. To give you an idea of the caliber of the program, his first guest that evening was the vice-prime-minister of Holland and Minister of Fincance Gerrit Zalm. Anybody who's anybody has been in the program. Here's a link to the program (sorry only in Dutch).
The discussion centered around Prof Dekker's interest in ID, his skepticism of evolution via natural processes and a new book of which he is a co-editor called "Schitterend ongeluk of sporen van ontwerp? Over toeval en doelgerichtheid in de evolutie"* ("Wonderful accident or traces of design? About chance and purpose in evolution") which is a multi-contibutor multi-disciplinary book about ID.
In a weblog, Knevel touched upon the heated debate in the Dutch parliament last week after Minister Van der Hoeven's announcement. He also mentioned Prof Dekker's appearance in "Rondom Tien" (Around Ten) and the emotion which was displayed by the other guest Bert Bakker who is a member of parliament from a liberal party (D'66). This is what he said:
Such agression, emotion and bottled-up anger that came out[in the parliament]! Particularly from the representatives from the Groen Links (Green party) and the D'66. In the last ten years a minster has not been more fiercely attacked than on that day [...] Why such aggression? Because it has to do with a Faith! [Faith as in a religion] Richard Dawkins, the great evolutionary theologist from England, once said that the theory of evolution has finally laid a foundation for atheism. If there was one thing the Members of Parliament in question didn't want, was someone tampering with atheism. One Faith against another, in other words.
And about the show "Rondom Tien":
The pleasant Cees Dekker was compared by Bert Bakker (D'66 party) to the religious fundamentalists in America, even with George Bush himself. Bakker himself appeared to not to know anything about ID.
For more on the reaction of certian politicians go here.
*Cees Dekker, Ronald Meester en RenŽ van Woudenberg, eds., Publisher Ten Have, Kampen 2005, ISBN 90 259 5483 9
A quote from the blog Uncommon Descent strengthens what I said in my previous post, namely, that the impetus of the attacks against ID does not come from scientific objections but largely from the worldview of the scientists who are objecting.
Read this blog:
Uncommon Descent » Some of My Favorite Quotes by Darwinists
Intelligent Design has been accused of having ulterior motives; of trying to slip creationsim and the God of the bible into our schools.
I think anyone reading the quotes in the blog above will see that evolution has an ulterior, nay transparent motive. This is why evolutionists at the highest levels continue to fight (sometimes vehemently, having lost even the appearance of objecvitivy which they hold so sacred) against any kind of Design; or anything else with a capital letter for that matter. Anything else except, of course, for Man.
That, my friends, is what it boils down to. Man would be king of his universe. He would have no God to reign over him, no morailty or ethics from external sources. Only an "illusion fobbed off on us by our genes" so that when it no longer pleases us to hold to those ethics, we can simply cast them off of ourselves.
You see, if there is a God, or a Designer of some kind, then that must ultimately mean that there are standards that exist outside of ourselves, even outside of our known universe. This is what the atheist and the evolutionist fear in their very heart of hearts. Make no mistake, that is the real impetus behind the attacks on ID.
Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law. - Proverbs 29:18
BBC News is running a story on a new study done by climate scientist in the US. Read the whold story here:
Global warming 'proof' detected. (Quotes around proof were in the original title.)
What exactly do we have here? What we have here is a data taken from measurements made by "a global flotilla of scientific buoys and floats" in the earth's ocean all over the globe, and plugged those numbers into a computer simulation.
Now, I know what your thinking, "Oh buoy boy, another computer simulation. My computer crashes once a week, can we really trust those simulations?"
Well, that's not easy to answer. As stated in the article: "any model can only be as accurate as the data which goes into it". You might have reasonably accurate temperature data, but what other kinds of factors do you add into your simulation? What kinds of things affect the way heat is trapped and/or released and are those factors really anthropogenic (human induced) or naturally occuring?
The fact of the matter is, you may think you have a computer simulalation that reasonably reflects (no pun intended) reality, but if some of your data is even slightly wrong, or you failed to include one or two important factors, your computer simulation could be spitting out data that is a lot less accurate than you realize. There are a lot of things that affect the way heat is trapped, and not all of them can be blamed on humans (check out this article). And as stated by sceptic William Kininmonth:
I do not believe this research team has made a compelling case to suggest that their computer models are sufficiently realistic to justify the implications of anthropogenic (human-induced) global warming that they make
After reading this article. I'm thinking of starting a new category called "Circular Logic".
The authors of the theory suggest that rich biodiversity spawns biodiversity.
But, I guess if you point out yourself that it's circular logic, then it's okay:
He also stressed that a rich biodiversity could not entirely explain a rich biodiversity because, of course, you had to start somewhere."They are saying that if you have biodiversity it will create more biodiversity - I can buy that. But it still doesn't explain the initial step: how do you get more biodiversity in the first place?"
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He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. - The Bible Ecclesiastes 3:11
Reading these words, they make as much sense today as they did when they were first written more than 2400 years ago. Since the time that this was written, many advances and discoveries have been made in natural science, yet this is just as true now as it was then.
The one who penned this verse must have stood in awe of nature, looking up at the night sky, wondering exactly what it was all about. The more we discover, the less we know. The more we have to say that we cannot fathom all that has been done from the beginning of creation until now. From the depths of the sea to the broad expanses of the universe. Looking deeply into the human cell through a microscope, or deep back into time through a telescope.
We, like the poet David in the Bible can only stand, slack-jawed and say, "when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?" (Psalm 8: 3-4)
Don't buy evolution? Or are you an evolutionist and are scratching your head as to why evolution is becoming less and less popular? Here's a good article for you:
Uncommon Descent » Why Joe Schmoe Doesn't Buy Evolution
The BBC reported in an article on the Genographic Project which aims to "collect DNA samples from over 100,000 people worldwide to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was colonised".Very interesting.Ê Geneticists have already shown that all humas descend from a common ancestor(s).Ê Hopefully this project will shed even more light on this confirming the Biblical account. -RB
Much of present-day biological knowledge is ideological. A key symptom of ideological thinking is the explanation that has no implications and cannot be tested. I call such logical dead ends antitheories because they have exactly the opposite effect of real theories: they stop thinking rather than stimulate it. Evolution by natural selection, for instance, which Charles Darwin originally conceived as a great theory, has lately come to function more as an antitheory, called upon to cover up embarrassing experimental shortcomings and legitimize findings that are at best questionable and at worst not even wrong. Your protein defies the laws of mass action? Evolution did it! Your complicated mess of chemical reactions turns into a chicken? Evolution! The human brain works on logical principles no computer can emulate? Evolution is the cause! -Robert B. Laughlin
As reported on the internet, soft T Rex tissue has been found.Ê Read one of the original articles here.
The Answers in Genesis website have claimed that this proves the earth is young.Ê I quote:"This discovery gives immensely powerful support to the proposition that dinosaur fossils are not millions of years old at all, but were mostly fossilized under catastrophic conditions a few thousand years ago at most."Hugh Ross and his team at Reasons to Believe have a different take on it.Ê Listen to their discussion of it on a recent radio broadcast.Ê (Requires that you have Real Player version 10.0 installed.)According to Ross, it is possible that under the right conditions, this tissue could have survived millions of years.Ê It is important to note that some young-earth creationists' claims that actual blood was found are not true.-RB
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