Free Republic

Betsy DeVoss will be harassed by two questions involving religion and the supposed conflict between religion and science: Question 1: Are you some sort of a knuckle-dragging, illegal alcohol drinking, hick rube who doesn´t believe in evolution? and Question 2: Are you some sort of a knuckle-dragging, illegal alcohol drinking, hick rube who does not believe that our Earth is four billion years old? The following are the two best answers to all of that which I´ve come across; somebody would be doing Ms. DeVoss a favor if they could get this to her. The answer to question 1:: A...

The platypus - Still more questions than answers for evolutionists by Paula Weston Imagine, if you will, the excited glances exchanged if paleontologists were to uncover a fossil that looked like a mammal, yet also had bird and reptilian features. The immediate reaction would probably be to declare that here was, clearly, a transitional creature that provided an evolutionary link between mammals and their non-mammalian ancestors. That might well be the conclusion drawn if a platypus fossil were found today, without living examples around to indicate otherwise.

Fish as Smart as Apes? by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * Evidence for Creation Since evolutionary thinking permeates the entire spectrum of biology, scientists are consistently surprised by the mental abilities of creatures thought to be lower on the so-called tree of life. In this mythical tree of evolutionary progression, apes are thought to be at the top of the intelligence scale—second only to humans. But now we have numerous examples of other land creatures, most notably birds, that rival or exceed apes’ mental capabilities.1-3 But what about fish, the supposed ancient ancestors of all land-dwelling animals? With such a...

Why do some animals have extravagant, showy ornaments -- think elk and deer antlers, peacock feathers and horns on dung beetles -- that can be a liability to survival? Charles Darwin couldn't figure it out, but now a Northwestern University research team has a possible explanation for this puzzling phenomenon of evolution. The researchers developed a mathematical model that made a surprising prediction: In animals with ornamentation, males will evolve out of the tension between natural selection and sexual selection into two distinct subspecies, one with flashy, "costly" ornaments for attracting mates and one with subdued, "low-cost" ornaments. "Ornamentation does...

A dinosaur fossil that almost went undiscovered is giving scientists valuable clues about a family of creatures that flourished just before the mass extinction. The bird-like species, found at a building site in southern China and nicknamed the 'Mud Dragon', was preserved almost intact, lying on its front with its wings and neck outstretched. Scientists speculate that the creature may have died in this pose after becoming mired in mud about 66-72 million years ago. Scientists have named the new species Tongtianlong limosus, meaning 'muddy dragon on the road to heaven'. The two-legged animal belongs to a family of feathered...

It is for the jury to determine whether this attack upon the Christian religion shall be permitted in the public schools of Tennessee by teachers employed by the State and paid out of the public treasury. This case is no longer local: the defendant ceases to play an important part. The case has assumed the proportions of a battle royal between unbelief that attempts to speak through so-called science and the defenders of the Christian faith. speaking through the legislators of Tennessee. It is again a choice between God and Baal; it is also a renewal of the issue in...

A freaky fish with a head like a dolphin and a body like a tank may be to thank for human jaws. The discovery of a 423-million-year-old armored fish from China suggests that the jaws of all modern land vertebrates and bony fish originated in a bizarre group of animals called placoderms, researchers report in the Oct. 21 Science. “We’ve suddenly realized we had it all wrong,” he says. The jaws of humans — and dogs, salmon, lizards and all other bony vertebrates — contain three key bones: the maxilla and premaxilla of the upper jaw, and the dentary of...

What would scientists say if North Korea nuked their labs? Not much. Two articles about rogue nations underscore the importance of morality for science. In Iran, a shady market for papers flourishes (Science Magazine). Readers of scientific papers naively assume that the authors are honest. It presupposes a moral code among scientists: to understand nature, everyone must report findings correctly, striving to maintain the dignity and integrity of science. This story shows that one cannot assume everyone follows that moral standard. A shady business of papers-for-hire is flourishing in Iran... North Korea’s nukes are nearly ready for launch. Now what?...

It has long puzzled scientists why, after 3 billion years of nothing more complex than algae, complex animals suddenly started to appear on Earth. Now, a team of researchers has put forward some of the strongest evidence yet to support the hypothesis that high levels of oxygen in the oceans were crucial for the emergence of skeletal animals 550 million years ago. The new study is the first to distinguish between bodies of water with low and high levels of oxygen. It shows that poorly oxygenated waters did not support the complex life that evolved immediately prior to the Cambrian...

New Study Shows Awe Bad for ‘Science’ (If by ‘Science’ You Mean Atheism) Douglas Axe Psychology professors from Claremont McKenna, Yale and Berkeley have just published a study that should be “disconcerting to those interested in promoting an accurate understanding of evolution.” Specifically, they’ve identified an insidious factor that has crept into science films and videos, undermining the ability of viewers to be good Darwinists.Awe is the culprit, they say. All those jaw-dropping nature documentaries have been messing with our minds.Most wildlife shows are packaged with the usual Darwinian narrative, spoken in an authoritative tone that isn’t supposed to be...

Herero genocide by Marc Ambler Like most visitors to Namibia,1 one of the memorable pictures I carried away was of the noble-looking Herero people. Their women wear colourful, voluminous Victorian-style dresses and hats, and the men wear uniforms on ceremonial occasions. How terribly sad it was to learn that 100 years ago, their great-grandparents had been the victims of the first genocide of the 20th century. ... That the German settlers and a high-ranking officer like General von Trotha would hold to these ‘superior race’, ‘survival-of-the-fittest-through-“cleansing”-of-the-weakest’ views is hardly surprising. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (which is subtitled By...

Up until now, scientists had only recognized a single species of giraffe made up of several subspecies. But, according to the most inclusive genetic analysis of giraffe relationships to date, giraffes actually aren't one species, but four. For comparison, the genetic differences among giraffe species are at least as great as those between polar and brown bears. The unexpected findings reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on September 8 highlight the urgent need for further study of the four genetically isolated species and for greater conservation efforts for the world's tallest mammal, the researchers say. "We were extremely...

One important task of science is to develop testable theories. And one important characteristic of a theory is the ability to falsify it with evidence gathered from experimentation. Predictions should be able to be made that would verify the theory if those predictions play out, or falsify the theory if the evidence contradicts the theory. If, for example, one theorizes that gravity is a force that causes objects with much larger mass, if unimpeded, to pull objects with smaller mass towards it, one can make the prediction that if he drops an apple from his hand, the larger mass of...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is quite serious about flying safety. If an aircraft crashes, the FAA will conduct an investigation called a Root Cause Analysis. This involves methodical detective work that tracks events from the moment of the crash back in time. Flight and voice data recorders are invaluable to the inquiry. Root Cause Analysis identifies the most obvious problem that led to the crash and then lists the problem’s cause. That cause is then treated like a problem in itself, and the cause for its occurrence is investigated. This cycle is repeated until the very first cause is...

In an extraordinary find, a team of Australian researchers have uncovered the world's oldest fossils in a remote area of Greenland, capturing the earliest history of the planet and demonstrating that life on Earth emerged rapidly in the planet's early years. Led by the University of Wollongong's (UOW) Professor Allen Nutman, the team discovered 3.7-billion-year-old stromatolite fossils in the world's oldest sedimentary rocks, in the Isua Greenstone Belt along the edge of Greenland's icecap. The findings are outlined in a study published in Nature, with co-authors Associate Professor Vickie Bennett from The Australian National University (ANU), the University of New...

One of the great transformations required for the descendants of fish to become creatures that could walk on land was the replacement of long, elegant fin rays by fingers and toes. In the Aug. 17, 2016 issue of Nature, scientists from the University of Chicago show that the same cells that make fin rays in fish play a central role in forming the fingers and toes of four-legged creatures. After three years of painstaking experiments using novel gene-editing techniques and sensitive fate mapping to label and track developing cells in fish, the researchers describe how the small flexible bones found...

Colossians 1:16 "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:" Not long ago, I was talking with another creationist about the impossibility of the first living cell coming into being through natural causes from non-living chemicals. I asked him, "Even if such a thing were possible, what would the first living cell eat?" Without missing a beat, my friend said: "Cellery?" The two of us shared a good laugh together,...

We tend to think of vertebrates as living about as long as we do, give or take 50 to 100 years. Marine species are likely to be very long-lived, but determining their age is particularly difficult. Nielsen et al. used the pulse of carbon-14 produced by nuclear tests in the 1950s—specifically, its incorporation into the eye during development—to determine the age of Greenland sharks. This species is large yet slow-growing. The oldest of the animals that they sampled had lived for nearly 400 years, and they conclude that the species reaches maturity at about 150 years of age. The Greenland...

New fossil finds from China push back the origins of deep soils by 20 million years, new research has uncovered. This is a key part of the stepwise conquest of the land and transformation of the continents, researchers from the universities of Peking and Bristol have discovered. One of the greatest transitions in Earth history was the greening of the land. Up to 450 million years ago, there was no life outside water, and the land surface was a rocky landscape. Without plants there were no soils, and the rocky landscape eroded fast. Then the first tiny plants crept out...

How smart were human-like species of the Stone Age? New research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science by a team led by paleoanthropologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria reveals surprisingly sophisticated adaptations by early humans living 250,000 years ago in a former oasis near Azraq, Jordan. The research team from UVic and partner universities in the US and Jordan has found the oldest evidence of protein residue -- the residual remains of butchered animals including horse, rhinoceros, wild cattle and duck -- on stone tools. The discovery draws startling conclusions about how these early humans subsisted in...