Free Republic

Artificially Reconstructed “Ardi” Overturns Prevailing Evolutionary Hypotheses of Human Evolution The missing link presently being touted in the media, Ardipithecus ramidus, has had more reconstructive surgery than Michael Jackson. Assuming that their "extensive digital reconstruction" of its "badly crushed and distorted bones" is accurate, what does A. ramidus (or “Ardi” as the fawning media is affectionately calling it) really show us that we didn’t already know? We already knew of upright walking / tree-climbing, small-brained hominids—that’s what Lucy, an australopithecine, was. We already knew that there were australopithecine fossils dating back to before 4 million years, and this fossil is...

June 17, 2009 — If you are a war-mongering beast who likes to burn things, you’re displaying your evolutionary past. That’s what a couple of news reports are claiming. New Scientist has a review...

June 16, 2009 — What kid hasn’t played with maple seeds to watch them spin in the air like helicopters? Scientists watch them, too. A team from the Netherlands and California found out how they stay in the air for so long without engines to drive them. One would think in an era of advanced aeronautical engineering the physics would all be worked out, but the abstract explains that the seeds know more than the engineers do...

June 18, 2009 — A picture of colorfully-plumed dinosaurs graces an article on National Geographic, but were feathers found with the fossil? No; the article said, “Primitive feathers may have covered the dinosaur’s body, but there is no direct evidence for that, noted [James] Clark, whose work was funded in part by the National Geographic Society” (which also owns National Geographic News). The feathers are apparently completely imaginary. National Geographic has been caught doing this before...

Radiometric dating is often used to “prove” rocks are millions of years old. Once you understand the basic science, however, you can see how wrong assumptions lead to incorrect dates. Most people think that radioactive dating has proven the earth is billions of years old. After all, textbooks, media, and museums glibly present ages of millions of years as fact. Yet few people know how radiometric dating works or bother to ask what assumptions drive the conclusions. So let’s take a closer look and see how reliable this dating method really is...

June 14, 2009 — David Klinghoffer on Evolution News and Views has pointed out that James von Brunn, the man who murdered guard Tyrone Johns at Washington’s Holocaust Museum on June 10, was motivated by ideas of natural selection and eugenics. Klinghoffer provided additional information on Belief.Net with quotes from Brunn’s writings. He also found hundreds of references to...

June 15, 2009 — Sex brings pleasure to many, but pain to Darwinists. Why? Because they can’t figure it out. Nick Lane is a case in point. In New Scientist, he wrote...

Joseph Campbell died in 1987 but remains influential. In this revealing video, Campbell clarifies why he left the Roman Catholic faith of his youth — EVOLUTION...

Despite “decades of persistent failure to create life by the ‘spark in the soup’ method,”[1] evolutionary biochemists are still trying to find an exclusively naturalistic explanation for how the first cell developed. Many possible chemical precursors to life have been systematically ruled out by rigorous experiments. What they have found is that the molecules necessary for life are found exclusively within cells that are already living. One explanation proposed by evolutionists...

String theory “philosophy” challenged --snip-- The big bang is fundamental to cosmic evolution or the idea that somehow the universe made itself. The article majored on the varying ideas that emanate from big bang philosophy, such as dark energy and dark matter etc. that are used to solve some of the “science” problems of the big bang. It then went on to say that string theory is just another one of these ideas with no basis in experimental science...

Whitewashing Darwinism's Ongoing Moral Legacy Is it somehow petty, offensive, exploitative, and beyond the pale to point out how the Holocaust Memorial Museum shooter, who murdered a guard on Wednesday, writes about evolution in his sick manifesto? Should it be considered beneath one's dignity to quote the man and let his words speak for themselves?James von Brunn, the suspect in question, is a white supremacist, a bitter anti-Semite, a Holocaust-denier, a wacked out conspiracy theorist, who served more than 6 years in a federal prison for attempted kidnapping. All this is fair game to report. Everyone agrees to that. But...

Darwin's (Failed) Predictions: An Interview with Cornelius Hunter, Part I The testability of scientific ideas by making predictions about reality is a favorite theme with Darwinists and the atheists who love them. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins endorses a new atheist Ten Commandments, whose seventh commandment reads: “Test all things; always check your ideas against the facts, and be read to discard even a cherished belief it if does not conform to them.” Incidentally, that would replace the old seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Dawkins hails evolution’s “strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in...

Biomimicry: why the world is full of intelligent design Forget human ingenuity - the best source of ideas for cutting-edge technology might be in nature, according to experts in 'biomimicry' We humans like to think we're pretty good at design and technology – but we often forget that Mother Nature had a head start of 3.6 million years. Now, the way that geckoes climb walls, or hummingbirds hover, is at the centre of a burgeoning industry: biomimicry, the science of "reverse-engineering" clever ideas from the natural world....

Darwin-Only Advisors Hunker Down to Re-Strategize June 12, 2009 — Strict Darwinian materialists are a minority in the United States, yet they enjoy autocracy in educational policy, complete control of scientific institutions, and nearly complete unquestioned support from the mainstream media. Nevertheless, they have to face living in a country that is predominantly religious. Once in awhile they suffer setbacks, like the recent changes in textbook policy in Texas that will require more scrutiny of the claims of evolution. What do they say amongst themselves when strategizing how to handle the public?...

Darwin Versus His Colleagues This is the second part of a review of The Darwin Myth by Benjamin Wiker. Part one is available here. An element of the Darwin story that may surprise many readers of Benjamin Wiker’s fine new biography The Darwin Myth is the ultimate disconnect between Darwin and many of his colleagues. Wiker points out that many of Darwin’s avid supporters, who accepted and helped popularize his theory, rejected Darwin’s materialistic reductionism. They argued, indeed, that the evidence did not support Darwin’s materialistic understanding of evolution. Biologist Asa Gray at Harvard was Darwin’s strongest champion in...

Well-Engineered Ecosystems Bounce Back by Brian Thomas, M.S.* How fast can a disaster zone bounce back? Apparently, faster than previously thought. Yale University ecologists conducted a meta-analysis of 240 studies of devastated ecosystems. They found that ecosystems damaged by pollution can be restored in as few as 10 years. Why then was it believed they would take so much longer to recover?...

According to Benjamin Wiker’s provocative new biography, The Darwin Myth: the Life and Lies of Charles Darwin, Charles Darwin was an honorable and likable man, a family man. He loved his siblings; he was devoted to his wife; he loved his children and grieved deeply over his daughter’s death. But Darwin was also someone who presented to the public an elaborate and even deceptive story about himself and his work to advance a philosophical agenda. While there are many biographies of Charles Darwin, Wiker’s deserves attention because...

June 8, 2009 — Most of the sediments in the world are mudstones – including shales and clays. Until recently these were thought to form only in calm, placid seas. Now, two geologists are continuing to show that they can form in flowing or turbulent water...

June 9, 2009 — In the artwork, it looks so simple: dust clumps into planets that grow into nice, orbiting solar systems – like ours. It’s not so simple when you try to nail down the real physics. Planet-building models have to contend with a host of variables and barriers to growth (accretion). Another barrier was discussed in Astrophysical Journal this month: the electric barrier...

The Darwinian foundation of communism by Jerry Bergman Summary A review of the writings of the founders of communism shows that the theory of evolution, especially as taught by Darwin, was critically important in the development of modern communism. Many of the central architects of communism, including Stalin, Lenin, Marx and Engels, accepted the worldview portrayed in the book of Genesis until they were introduced to Darwin and other contemporary thinkers, which ultimately resulted in their abandoning that worldview. Furthermore, Darwinism was critically important in their conversion to communism and to a worldview that led them to a philosophy based...

June 9, 2009 — “The findings add to a growing body of evidence in the past two decades that challenge some of the most widely-held beliefs about animal evolution.”  That statement is not being made by creationists, but by science reporters describing work at Oregon State University that cast new doubt on the idea that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs.  The main idea: their leg bones and lungs are too different.     Science Daily’s report has a diagram of the skeleton showing...

Opinion What 'Ida' give for a missing link By: Casey Luskin, OpEd Contributor 6/8/08 As a follower of the evolution debate, I love it when new “missing links” are found. Not only does the media plunge headfirst into a crusade for Darwin, but suspiciously, it is only after unveiling the breakthrough that evolutionary biologists admit how precious little evidence they previously held for the evolutionary transition in question. Take the recent media coverage of a fossil primate named “Ida,” hailed as the “eighth wonder of the world,” whose “impact on the world of palaeontology” is being compared to “an asteroid...

So-called “junk DNA� has fallen on hard times. Once the poster child of evolutionary theory, its status has been increasingly challenged over the past several years. Functions for junk DNA have been cited at other places on this website1 and in the Journal of Creation2. In The Great Dothan Creation Evolution Debate,3 my opponent’s main argument, to which he returned again and again, rested on junk DNA. I warned that this was an argument from silence, that ‘form follows function’, and that this was akin to the old vestigial organ argument (and thus is easily falsifiable once functions are found)....

Isolated hunter-gatherer tribes are often viewed in the West as being primitive (pre-agriculture), not-yet-fully-evolved relics of the Stone Age.[1,2] Such people are frequently dubbed ‘The People That Time Forgot’—a concept widely recognized, even by those unfamiliar with Edgar Rice Burrough’s classic 1924 novel (or the 1977 Hollywood movie).[3] However, faced with intriguing new evidence, anthropologists are having to completely rethink the ‘Primitive Worlds: People Lost in Time’[4] stereotype...

Viral Life from Outer Space? Not Likely. by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Since a whole, functioning cell could not possibly emerge spontaneously from non-living matter, many evolutionists believe that simpler viruses were the first step towards the development of life. Researchers in Finland conducted a test on the survivability of viruses inside bacterial spores, which some scientists hypothesize may have travelled through space on meteoroids to seed life on earth. What the study discovered, however, is that life springing from space-borne viruses was highly unlikely. The question of life’s beginnings has been vexing to Darwin’s supporters. After a lifetime of speculating...

Junk DNA RoundUp (and Rebuttal): How Neo-Darwinism Creates Junk-Hypotheses, Then Resists Their Demise Sometimes after explaining how the now-defunct junk-DNA mindset was encouraged and fostered by neo-Darwinian evolution, evolutionists respond by asserting that nonetheless some individuals from their camp explored function for junk-DNA. This, they claim, absolves their neo-Darwinian camp from any charges of science-stopping, and shows that the neo-Darwinian paradigm did not hinder research into junk-DNA. But if a 2003 article in Science is any indication, then it seems that the neo-Darwinian paradigm did indeed impose a taboo on research into function for junk-DNA. As the article stated:Although catchy,...

In chapter 10, six measures for quantitatively evaluating information (especially its semantics) were identified, namely semantic quality, relevance, timeliness, accessibility, existence, and comprehensibility. Let us now investigate the role of these parameters in the Bible...

Where do inventions come from? Where do scientists find ideas to improve existing technology? Increasingly, the marvels of life—from the microscopic to the massive—inspire engineering breakthroughs. Knowingly or not, scientists are imitating God’s own incredible designs. His first encounter with the humpback whale fin at a sculpture gallery drove biologist Frank Fish to study the strange design. Puzzled by the fin’s “bumpy” leading edge, he first thought the sculptor had made a mistake. Learning that the sculptor was right, Fish spent years studying the design, which defies traditional theories that would suggest a smooth edge.[1] In his research—later confirmed by...

Protein Springs Keep Crabs Happy June 1, 2009 — Crabs and crayfish contain “exquisite” protein springs around their mouth parts that enhance motion, signaling, and sensing of their environment, Science Daily reported, about work done at the University of Cambridge.     The protein involved, called resilin, is almost perfectly elastic.  “The exquisite rubbery properties of resilin are known to be put to use as energy storage mechanisms in jumping insects and as biological shock absorbers in many animals,” said Malcolm Burrows, who conducted the study.  Using just one muscle, crabs and crayfish can move little feet (maxillipeds) around their...

Some Myths About the Quranic Science Written by Mumin Salih Tuesday, 02 June 2009 Islamic Woodooo Recently, Muslims scholars started to falsely claim that the Quran foretold many scientific discoveries that were not known in its time. None of the Muslims’ claims stands scientific or logical analysis. One wonders how the Muslim scholars dare to make such claims despite the obvious contradiction between the Quran and science. The answer to this question is that Muslim scholars became alarmed during the last decades as an increasing number of ordinary Muslims started to learn modern science. To pre-empt any suspicion about the...

une 4, 2009 — According to evolutionary theory, the extra processing required for living in social groups should make brains bigger. Not so, found a couple of scientists who looked into the question. There’s no general correlation. --snip-- Another evolutionary myth has been falsified, and Seth Shostak has been embarrassed again. Keep up the good work...

No Seal of Approval for Evolution by Frank Sherwin, M.A.* The recent discovery of an incomplete northern Canadian fossil is causing waves in certain evolutionary circles.1 Some scientists claim that Puijila darwini is a flipper-free pinniped (a group that includes walruses, sea lions, and seals) that is supposedly a long sought-after Darwinian transition between a land and freshwater animal. But although a BBC headline proclaimed it a "missing link," this status is made doubtful by the article's uncertain verbiage. Terms such as "probably," "very likely," "suggest," "hint," "apparently," "may have," and "appears to have" are used to describe this animal...

June 3, 2009 — Movements since the late 19th century have employed science as justification for tyrannical ideas. Ziauddin Sardar wrote in Nature, “Misplaced faith in science, as rational dogma, as the enemy of pessimism, as a theory of salvation, often serves as the glue that binds modernity and fascism together.”1 Could that happen again? Sardar, the editor of Futures, was reviewing a new book by Christine Poggi, Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism (Princeton, 2009). He began,...

Sea Urchin Teeth Are Designed to Grind Stone by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Sea urchins are spiny marine animals. Some of them like to hide in holes that they dig out of limestone in the ocean floor, using teeth that are ground down and yet remain sharp. What makes these teeth so special that they can drill through rock and not go blunt?...

Envying the Tooth of the Sea Urchin March 31, 2009 — Did you know the lowly sea urchin has a tooth?  It’s not just any tooth: it’s “a remarkable grinding tool,” according to a team of international scientists.  They even used the word “exquisite” in the title of their paper in PNAS.1  Humans might benefit from knowing more about this tool.  “The improved understanding of these structural features,” they said, “could lead to the design of better mechanical grinding and cutting tools.”     The sea urchin “tooth” is not really a tooth, but a hard rod with a serrated...

101 evidences for a young age of the earth...and the universe Can science prove the age of the earth? There are many different categories of evidence that the cosmos and the earth are much younger than is generally asserted today...

“Junk” DNA: Darwinism’s Last Stand? We are often told that the evidence for evolution is “overwhelming.” If “evolution” is defined as “change over time” or “minor changes within existing species,” this is a truism. But what if “evolution” means Charles Darwin’s theory? According to Darwin, all living things are descendants of a common ancestor that have been modified by unguided processes such as random variation and natural selection. Despite the hype from Darwin’s followers, the evidence for his theory is underwhelming, at best. Natural selection—like artificial selection—can produce minor changes within existing species. But in the 150 years since the...

When talking with friendly journalists, theistic evolution proponent Francis Collins typically insists that he wants to initiate a “dialogue” about faith and evolution. But Collins and his colleagues at the Biologos Foundation seem curiously averse to engaging in real dialogue. A case in point is a cranky blog entry posted this week by theistic evolutionist Karl Giberson, Francis Collins’ colleague at Biologos. Giberson, whom I debated at Biola University a few months ago, denounces Discovery Institute’s new Faith and Evolution website as “slick, well-resourced, rhetorically clever, profoundly misleading, and almost completely devoid of any real science.” Whew! Giberson’s own post...

Evolution As Catch-All Explanation June 3, 2009 — If you were taught a precise definition of neo-Darwinism in school, it doesn’t seem to matter to many evolutionists in the media. In practice, the word “Evolution” seems to act as a catch-all category for explaining anything and everything – whether or not random mutation and natural selection were involved. Some purpose and design can even be tossed into the mix as long as Evolution is the hero of the story. Here are some recent examples of how Evolution is employed to explain whatever:...

When and Why Anti-Darwinism First Arose I'm a big fan of Rod Dreher. His Crunchy Con blog rarely fails to enlighten me, so I've been looking forward to his reflections on faith and science, generated by his current visit to Cambridge University as a Cambridge-Templeton fellow. Rod blogged today in response to a lecture and discussion in which evolution came up. He writes that "Darwinism wasn't initially opposed by Christians" and credits William Jennings Bryan with rallying the faithful against evolution. This is worth some further elaboration. How soon did opposition to Darwinism develop? Among whom, and why?...

Those who say that the creation/evolution debate is really only of academic interest, with little relevance to our daily lives (or to anything else), must surely have been confronted by swine flu’s continuing domination of worldwide news headlines. And of course, the secularists couldn’t resist linking these tragedies with evolutionary propaganda...

In a world full of death and suffering, some creatures are known to be fierce carnivores (meat eaters). In fact, the perception of animals eating other animals is seen as normal in today’s secular, evolution-influenced society. But was it always like that?...

Hello Evolution, Nice to Meet You I believe it was Philip Johnson who once said that if you replaced the word "evolution" in biology textbooks with the word "design," almost nothing of substance would change. I think he was right. We wonder at nature, not because we are so ignorant, as some people think, but rather because it is so amazing. As Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt explained in A Meaningful World, nature displays true genius. And it is this plain fact that drives design-deniers to deify, or at least personify, Evolution. Take as just one example this extremely fascinating...

June 2, 2009 — A claim has often been made by geologists that the rock sediments record cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit. Milankovitch cycles, named for the man who analyzed them, are a set of regular periodic changes to the orbital eccentricy, obliquity, and axial precession. Such subtle changes, it is alleged, produce climate change and sea level elevations. The climate forcing, in turn, produces periodic differences in thickness of sedimentary layers. The search for Milankovitch signatures in rock records has been used as a method of dating sediments. Geologists at Virginia State and Virginia Polytechnic tested this hypothesis with...

Physicists Finding Perfection...in Biology June 1, 2009 Biologic Staff When we think of simple, elegant, unifying principles in science, we think of physics.  It’s not surprising then that physicists who examine living systems are looking for principles of this kind.And it seems they have found one.  Simply stated, it is that biological processes tend to be optimal in cases where this can be tested.  Life’s complexity can make it hard to pinpoint what “optimal” means, but sometimes physical limits provide a crisp definition.  Because these limits cannot possibly be exceeded, they serve as an objective standard of perfection.  Interestingly, in...

May 29, 2009 — A battle of websites is rising, and New Scientist is gloating.  Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project (and a candidate to lead the National Institutes of Health) has launched a website promoting theistic evolution called Biologos.org.  The intelligent-design think tank Discovery Institute has offered a counter-site called FaithAndEvolution.org.     Amanda Gefter wrote for New Scientist, “Christians battle each other over evolution.”  Gefter, who subscribes to Stephen Jay Gould’s “NOMA” strategy (non-overlapping magisteria), believes that science and religion must remain separate spheres.  She thinks the latest website battle betrays religious motivations behind the...

Multifunctional Genes Indicate Ingenious Programming by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Computer programs are written in coded computer languages, and sometimes the same piece of code can be reused in different programs to perform new functions. This way, programmers save time and energy by not having to invent new code. For this to work, however, the programmer must intentionally specify how each program will use the recycled code to perform the designated functions. Genes can be compared to computer codes. The same gene or set of genes can be used to build...

You Can Trust a Scientist – Can’t You? May 31, 2009 — After the flap over the “missing link” Ida last week (05/19/2009), paleontologist Christopher Beard warned about how such stunts damage scientific credibility. “The only thing we have going for us that Hollywood and politicians don’t is objectivity,” he told Science magazine.[1] Can the public trust the objectivity of scientists as a class? Do they get more credibility points than other groups of professionals? Do the processes of scientific publication warrant a higher level of trust? A study reported on Science Daily may shake that trust...

Texas School Board Chairman McLeroy Loses Leadership Post by Christine Dao* Texas State Representative Don McLeroy (R-College Station) narrowly lost his bid on May 28 to retain his position as chairman of the State Board of Education. The 19-11 vote, which ran strictly along party lines, failed the two-thirds majority required for the nomination to pass. Opponents of McLeroy cited his creationist viewpoint as a leading factor in the vote, while defenders, such as Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan) stated, “It is not fair to say that if you don’t believe Darwin’s theory of evolution or accept the argument that global...

Dangerous Turn Ahead: Traveling down the road to compromise by Henry Morris, Ph.D.* Genesis 1:1 states, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." This is the first and foremost apologetic. If a person stumbles on this one profound truth, a lifetime of doubt and confusion lies ahead for him, full of uncertainty about the ultimate purpose for being alive. But when a Christian attempts to alter this ultimate statement of reality to fit the compromising philosophies of men--even scientifically-trained professionals--then woe to him for his unbelief and, even graver still, for teaching others that unbelief. The following...