Replies

Nothing is more important to a persons understanding of life and living than his own answers to the three great questions: where am I from? who am I?; where am I going? This is an important issue for the last 100 years, for a system of belief, known as evolution has permeated our society and way of thinking. I believe in creation, not evolution. I believe either system must be accepted by faith, for neither fits the scientific model. For either to be a theory, they must be repeatable events, observable events. God and His angels only observed Creation as taught in the Bible. Evolution by definition, happened when no one was around, and then continued so slowly that no one would be able to discern that evolution occurred, therefore it is also a non-observable event. I believe that whichever belief you hold, when completely understood, will guide your thinking and behavior and ultimately determine your destiny.

When speaking of creation, I define creation as the definite and deliberate act of God causing the beginning of life and material existence of all things in the universe having taken place in a literal six-day period. Evolution I define as the random gathering of individual molecules and elements that by random, chance accumulation formed the material world, and through random, chance events governed by natural laws eventually caused a collection of molecules to become a living organism which in turn progressed through another series of random, chance events expressed over hundreds of millions of years governed by survival of the fittest to eventually appear as life as we know it.

" Where did I come from" starts the argument. If created by God, then we are here for a purpose, a part of a divine plan that God has for all souls in the universe. Our original ancestors disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and became separated from God because of their sins. God instituted the idea of sacrificing an innocent animal to take the place of death for the persons who sinned. The death of an innocent savior, Jesus Christ, fulfilled this need for reconciliation toward God.

If we evolved, then we are here by chance and for no other reason. This means that there is no divine plan for mankind along with no moral absolutes. If the evolutionist believes in God, it can't be a very powerful God if he had no hand in our very beginning and probably has no idea what our future holds.

" Who am I? ", deals with today. With faith in a creator God, I recognize that I owe my very existence to him along with my eternal destiny. In times past, God spoke to us through his prophets until the time of the Bible actually being written and then compiled as we have it today. Many times it is written that God's word is eternal, not conditional, and therefore is applicable to life today.

If evolution is true, then there is no objective standard to follow at any time. Morals become relative and, humanity becomes hypocritical when it comes to obeying laws. A new moral standard will arise someday and put out the old out-molded one. Mankind will be on one big ego trip psychologically, thinking itself to be better and smarter and more in touch with reality than any previous generations. Life itself would lose all-important meaning with only instant gratification the driving force. Any logic-based system of morality would have no feet to stand on, for it would be based only on argument, not divine revelation.

" Where am I going? ", is the final argument. God told us that the only way to be with him at death is to base our salvation on the fact that Jesus Christ died in our place on the cross, taking the penalty for our sins, a penalty that we honestly deserve, dying for us so that we may live with him. Not in our good works, but whether we put our trust in the sacrifice that God provided for us by sending his son to die in our place. Adam brought sin in the world, Christ died for those sins. If creation is true, then so is the fall in the Garden of Eden. If that is true, then we must need a savior.

If evolution is true, then where are we going? Existence of God is brought to a level of superstition, and along with that the need of a savior becomes ridiculous. With no Adam and Eve, and therefore no sin in the Garden of Eden who needs atonement? Often is heard how primitive life survived in a primordial soup, a kind of slime. From slime to man means, in time, man will evolve into a God-like state, having a superior mind and intellect. This divine man is as far ahead of us on the evolutionary scale as we are from the worm. Do worms go to heaven? Will this divine man wink at our beliefs in an afterlife?

As a child, we are told to obey authority figures like our parents and policemen. When we started school, those authority figures became our teachers and our principals. When we questioned the teachers and our textbooks, the final authority became the textbook author and the scientist; the all-knowing, objective human beings who would never steer us wrong because they had studied all the facts before coming up with their conclusions. After studying science myself for a few years, along with writings from scientists that refute another's work, I have arrived at my own conclusion: that as a society, we have become too willing to accept as fact what someone says about a certain subject because of that persons credentials and too willing to ignore our own doubts about these statements that are made because of our own lack of education in these areas.

One of these areas most affected by our easy acceptance of 'scientific fact' is evolution, and specifically, human evolution. Many scientists and farmers are aware that when two animals of the same species mate, their offspring will carry characteristics of both parents, yet be unique in it's own way. Scientists in the 19th century took this line of thinking further and reasoned that these inherited characteristics would make the animal more able or less able to survive, with the weaker characteristics eventually causing the demise of the offspring that carried the weaker traits, and the survival of the offspring that carried the stronger characteristics of the parents. Herbert Spencer, the founder of 'Social Darwinism', took these observed events and applied this logic to humans. Since the European race, (white), was obviously more superior to the African race, (black), in areas of speech, culture, and intelligence, Spencer thought evolution had to be the cause and used his brand of evolutionary thinking to influence many Europeans.

These evolutionary descriptions of cultural growth influenced Europe up to the time of Adolph Hitler, who used evolution to explain the differences and abnormalities of the 'inferior' races such as Jews, Gypsies, and Negroes. This type of thinking was also present in the United States where it was concentrated in the area of perpetuating our own apartheid system in the south. It is also the driving force behind Margaret Sangers push for abortion and forced sterilization of American Blacks in the early 1900's.

These events happened because people listened to the authority figures instead of their own conscience. What was worse, these `facts' of evolution were introduced into the public school system and taught as fact instead of as theory. Up until this time, creation was taught according to the Bible account in the United States, yet when 'science' stepped forward and said different, the die was cast. The Genesis account was put in doubt, and since no house can stand without a foundation, the historical accuracy of the Bible became questionable, along with its importance in one's life.

Almost all evidence for human evolution is extremely questionable. Scientists theorize that we evolved from quadrepedal ape like creatures, (hominoids), into bi-pedal erect walking ape like creatures, (hominids), to eventually become ourselves. Many fossils have been found that are claimed to represent the various stages of evolution from quadruped to biped, yet there are 'missing links' between these forms.

Evolution demands that these missing links are authentic, for they would represent the transition from one group into a higher group. What does Charles Darwin say about missing links? " The main cause of innumerate intermediate links not now occurring everywhere throughout nature depends on the very process of natural selection, through which new varieties continually take the place of and supplant their parent forms. But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on an enormous scale, so much the number of intermediate varieties, which formally existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not every geologic formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain, and this perhaps, is the most obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory. The explanation lies, as I believe, in the extreme imperfection of the geologic record." (The Origin Of The Species, chap. 10).

Here, Darwin states that if evolution is true, then there must be numberless intermediate links between species. Yet, Darwin himself admits that there are NO finely graduated links between these species that have been discovered. He then goes on to say that the geologic record is hiding these transitional forms from us. How could a belief system, based on unobserved events with no proof to back it up, become so prevalent in society? In the 100 years that have passed since Darwin, we have more than quadrupled the number of fossil species that we have found and these links still have yet to be announced. Why was Darwin's theory accepted at all when by education he was not a scientist, but a theologian?

If these links were found, how would science know where to classify these fossils? Darwinian evolutionary change happens so slow that the changes would be so minute that it would be impossible to distinguish one species from another, let alone when one species became another.

Modern science has proven through the archaeological record that the geologic column does not contain these missing links or any evidence for gradual change via evolution. Do the evolutionists give up? Nope, they just change their theories.

Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould has introduced his theory to explain the gaps between species. 'Punctuated Equilibrium ' is the new theory that species remain the same for long periods of time, and then through sudden, short bursts of evolutionary lightning lasting maybe 500,000 years or so, then reappear as new, different species. This theory explains the gaps in fossil record because there wouldn't be enough time for significant fossils to be formed in order for us to find them 5 million years later!

Darwin said his fossils were there but we didn't find them yet. Stephen Jay Gould says the fossils aren't there, that's why there are gaps in the fossil record. If I told you I did my homework, but the dog ate it, would you believe me? Once again, the proof, is that there is no proof. Evolution is such a fun theory, you can think up any zany idea from microbes on meteors to aliens with a mission to populate the universe and 'science' will back you up; but what happens if you say, " In the beginning, God......

1.) Neither creation or evolution has ever been witnessed by man. Both beliefs must be accepted by faith. Yet, in order to know which belief is to be held, all evidence must be weighed from one belief against the other.

A literal 6 day creation cannot be proved exactly, but a sudden appearance of life forms on earth, as evidenced by the fossil record, would provide fuel in any debate against an evolutionist as to whether life evolved slowly over millions of years, or appeared suddenly.

Evolution, whether sudden,(punctuational),or gradual,(Darwinian), would require an appearance of life from non-life forms. Yet, is this possible? Spontaneous generation has never been observed. This was proved by Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister in the 1800's when we discovered germs. Life only appears when life already existed. This is called the Law of Biogenesis.

2.) Another way to approach this argument is to refer to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Lord Kelvin stated it this way: " There is no natural process, the only result of which is to cool a heat reservoir and do external work." In more understandable terms, this means that energy will turn to a state of entropy, one of less complexity and greater disorder along with a lack of usefulness unless acted on by an outside force that is directing this energy by means of an ordered arrangement that controls this energy in a useful way. Therefore, the amount of useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Ultimately, the amount of energy available would be zero. Due to this fact, it must be understood that the natural state of any natural system is one of disorder unless acted upon by an outside force in an intelligent, constructive manner. Any system left to itself will begin to degenerate. If you clean your room, it will get dirty again. Any life form alive today will eventually die. Chemical compounds left to themselves will break down into their parent atoms. Energy that is directed into these systems in an intelligent manner can cause greater complexity in the organism, yet when the intelligent influx of energy is removed, the system will begin to deteriorate immediately.

Evolution would require that through random, chance processes, inorganic materials would gather in such a way to create organic materials capable of replicating themselves. This process would require immense amounts of time in order to occur, and not only time, but protection against destructive forces acting on the material that was to become life.

This process is the reverse of what we know as fact as far as the 2nd law of thermodynamics is concerned. Naturalistic evolution requires that through known, proven physical laws atoms organize themselves into increasingly complex and beneficial ordered arrangements all by chance, and all without intelligent ordering of energy or information causing the change. Over the long periods of time necessary for evolution to occur, these early chance chemical combinations would be bombarded by cosmic rays, radioactive enough to destroy whatever is exposed. This raw energy is absolutely useless to these early chemicals because they have no means to process this energy in any meaningful way. Photosynthesis may be how plants process sunlight, but we're talking about a time before even the first cell; after all, plants have genetic information that programs certain cells in them in how to process this incoming light. Our first primordial cell would have no such mechanism built in yet to process ultraviolet radiation. Therefore, evolution cannot have occurred.

3.) If by chance this pre-organic material formed on the surface of the earth, it would still find it impossible to become a life form for two reasons. Before the introduction of oxygen into the atmosphere, cosmic rays would destroy all life forms on the planet, for it is oxygen that is Ozone, O3. If there was an oxygen atmosphere, which might produce ozone, then oxidation would occur and destroy whatever is floating around. These forces would be the most important factors on whether life would evolve here.

4.) If a life form did evolve, it would have to evolve with many existing functions the first time. A life form needs a mouth, a digestive system, a method of locomotion, and reproductive organs. Just examining the extreme complexity of these mechanisms should stop the argument here, but lets keep going.

5.) With who would this life form mate? This first living form would need to be asexual or have a mate, which was it? What is the proof of either? Asexuality itself demands a complex system of operation, a complex series of commands to initiate. Since we are talking about the first life form, it had to be asexual unless you also want to believe that not only did a life form evolve from inorganic material, but it's mate simultaneously evolved right alongside, right at the same time, in the same conditions, with completely compatible organic operation.

6.) What did it eat? Think, not only did this life form need a mechanism of ingesting material to be processed as energy, but that material had to be nearby. How could all these internal organs evolve by chance? Think, not only the internal organs evolved, but so did the nerve system that controls these organs along with the organism's brain along with the intelligence to operate these organs in a manner that allowed the organism to survive. If you don't believe that was necessary, then you must also believe that some chemical process happened by chance that processed whatever came down the life form's `mouth' in a manner that was compatible with the organism. What happens to this energy while being digested? We call this excess material waste, and it is poisonous. How was this waste removed from the organism? How did this organism not only evolve with a mouth, but also with a method of releasing waste?

7.) How did it survive in it's primitive surroundings? How did any intelligent information get to these important functional systems in a manner that was beneficial to the organism? What type of brain and nervous system evolves by chance? How did something as complex as the eye happen by chance? If the organism didn't have eyes, how did it know when to open it's mouth when it was time to eat? How did hunger pains evolve?

8.) All of these things speak of intelligence. Without designed and coded information, a life form is useless. The pure chemistry of a cell is not enough to explain the working of a cell, although the workings are chemical. The chemical workings of a cell are controlled by intelligent information and commands that do not reside in the atoms and molecules of these chemicals. A dead body is dead; WHY? It has all the chemicals necessary to support life already existing in a complete form with nothing missing, right?

9.) Let's suppose this life did survive. Mendels' law of genetics prove that variation can occur within a species, but cannot create a new species across phylum boundaries. Acquired characteristics cannot be inherited, such as the large muscles of a weightlifter to his son. Natural selection cannot create new genes, it can only select from existing gene information nation. Dogs remain dogs, and cats remain cats.

10.) Mutations are now the only possible explanation for evolution, yet rarely has any mutation been Proven to be beneficial to any organism in its natural environment. Almost all observed mutations are harmful and many are fatal.. There is no known mutation that has ever produced a form of life having both greater complexity and greater viability than any of its ancestors.

Over 80 years of fruit fly experiments involving 3000 consecutive generations, give absolutely no basis for believing that any natural or artificial process can cause an increase in complexity and viability.

What causes variation and change in life? DNA. DNA stores enough information to fill 1000 books, each with 500 pages of fine print. Even the DNA of a small bacterium is composed of 3 million units all aligned in a very precise meaningful sequence. It is a mathematical impossibility for a random chance arrangement of molecules to arrange itself in the form of a DNA helix.

According to Dr. John Grebe, "The 15000 or more atoms of the individual sub-assemblies of a single DNA molecule, if left to chance as required by the evolutionary theory, would go together in any of the 10^87, (10 followed by 87 zeroes), different ways. It is like throwing 15000 pairs of dice at one time to determine what specific molecule to make; and to test each one for the survival of the fittest until the one out of 10^87 different possibilities is proven by survival of the fittest is proven to be the right one."

Evolutionists claim the universe is 10 to 20 Billion years old. There is less than 10^17 seconds in 20 billion years. Even by a trial and error combination occurring every second from the beginning of time till now, there is still no hope.

Mathematician I. L. Cohen says, "At that moment, when the DNA/RNA system became understood, the debate between evolutionists and creationists should have come to a screeching halt. Mathematically speaking, based on probability concepts, there is no possibility that evolution was the mechanism that created the approximately 6,000,000 species of plants and animals we recognize today."

Evolutionist Michael Denton: "The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together by some kind of freakish, vastly improbable event. Such an occurrence would be indistinguishable from a miracle."

Evolutionist Sir Fred Hoyle agrees with creationists on this point. He said the odds that a cell is formed by chance is equal to the odds that a tornado going through a junkyard would create a working 747 with all instruments working. Science has discovered no proof that animals or plants can evolve. The best established facts of genetics, biology, and botany studies indicate evolution is physically impossible.

11.) Let's turn to the origin of man, and specifically, the fossil record of `Man'. Many people believe we have `proof' of evolution through the fossil record, yet is this true? What is the facts surrounding fossils that are presumed to portray man?

Ramapithicus, often pictured as walking erect, has been degrade to the status of extinct ape. It's teeth and dental characteristics are similar to the gelada gibbon.(Richard Leaky/Roger Lewin Origins P.68). It has also been declared to be part of orangutan lineage.(Science News Vol 121 #5 Jan 30, 1982 P.84)

12.) Australopithecine: Not a missing link, but an extinct ape. Dr. Charles Oxnard, U. of Chicago says, " These fossils clearly differ more from both humans and African apes, than these two living groups from each other. "The Australopithecines are unique." (Fossils, Teeth, and Sex: New Perspectives on human evolution; Seattle U. of Wash Press)

13.) Lucy has been compared to modem pygmy chimpanzees. Paleontologist Adrienne Zihlman, Univ. of Cal at Santa Cruz:( Lucy's fossil remains match up remarkably well with the bones of a pygmy chimp,(although there are some differences)). Adrienne Zihlman, "Pygmy chimps and pundits", New Scientist Vol 104 #1430 Nov 15, 1984 P.39-40

14.) Homo habilis was once called a missing link between Australopithecus and homo erectus, and a missing link between ape and man. Current conclusions are a chimpanzee, orangutan, or an Australopithecine. (Albert W. Mehlert, "Homo Habilis Dethroned", Contrast: The creation evolution controversy Vol 6 #6)

15.) Sianthropus, or Peking Man, was found in China in the 20's and 30's. Evidence included skulls and a few limb bones, but were lost during W.W.II. Clear evidence at the same site showed true man along with a 30 ft. deep ash pile and a limestone mine. All of the skulls of Sianthropus were broken in the same manner as those of monkeys who are eaten for their brains.(Ian Taylor, "In the Minds of Men: Darwin and the World Order", Toronto Canada, TFE pub. 1984 p. 234-241

16.) Pithecanthropus, or Java Man, is based solely on the evidence of a skull cap and a femur that was dug up a year later and 50 feet away. The finder, Eugene Dubois, admitted the skull cap was from a gibbon like ape.(Eugene Dubois, "On the gibbon like appearance of Pithecanthropus Erectus", Koniklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen Vol 38 Amsterdam Koninklijke Akademie 1935 P.578)

17.) Nebraska Man was a local fossil, the entire evidence consisting of a single tooth. Nebraska Man was pictured on the front page of Life magazine in a hunter-gatherer mode. During the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, Nebraska Man was labeled a genuine missing link. The tooth turned out to be a tooth of a pig. (Henry Fairfield Osborne, Hesperopithicus Haroldcookii, the first anthropoid primate found in North America, Science Vol 60 #1427 May 3, 1922 P.463)(William K. Gregory, "Hesperopithecus apparently not ape or man" Science Vol 66 #17209 Dec 16, 1927)

18.) Piltdown Man, a deliberate hoax some blame on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, had people fooled for years and even had its picture on Life Magazine.(Joseph Wiener "The Piltdown Forgery" London Oxford U. Press)

19.) Other hoaxes have occurred in the evolutionary tree, consider this one: Science News , Week of Jan. 15, 2000; Vol. 157, No. 3 All mixed up over birds and dinosaurs By R. Monastersky. Red-faced and downhearted, paleontologists are growing convinced that they have been snookered by a bit of fossil fakery from China. The "feathered dinosaur"specimen that they recently unveiled to much fanfare apparently combines the tail of a dinosaur with the body of a bird, they say. "It's the craziest thing I've ever been involved with in my career," says paleontologist Philip J. Currie of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller,Alberta.

20.) The fossil, named Archaeoraptor liaoningensis, comes from the northeastern province of Liaoning, where local farmers have been unearthing many new dinosaur species, some showing evidence of downlike coats and feathers. Currie, Stephen Czerkas of the Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, Utah, and Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing announced the discovery of Archaeoraptor at a press conference in Washington, D.C., at the National Geographic Society last October (SN: 11/20/99, p. 328). At the time, they called it a missing link between birds and dinosaurs because it manifested the long bony tail of dromaeosaurid dinosaurs and the specialized shoulders and chest of birds. The scientists couldn't be sure of the fossil's history because they had not excavated it. Spirited out of China, the specimen attracted Czerkas' attention when he saw it for sale in Utah. His museum arranged its purchase by a benefactor. Recently, while examining a dromaeosaurid dinosaur in a private collection in China, Xu decided that the Archaeoraptor fossil is a chimera [A chimera is a mix of parts from different critters - Mar.]. The tail of that dinosaur is identical to the Archaeoraptor tail, he told Science News. The two tails are mirror images of each other, derived from the same individual, says Xu. When rocks containing fossils are split, they often break into two fossils.

Currie suspects that someone sought to enhance the value of Archaeoraptor by pasting one part of the dinosaur's tail to a bird fossil. Czerkas is reserving judgement until he can view both fossils together. "I've got all this other evidence suggesting the tail does belong with the [Archaeoraptor] fossil," he says. The paleontologists already had concerns about the tail because the bones connecting it to the body are missing and the slab shows signs of reworking. They had convinced themselves, however, that the two parts belonged together. Other scientists criticize the team and the National Geographic Society for unveiling the fossil before any detailed article had appeared in a scientific journal. "There probably has never been a fossil with a sadder history than this one," says Storrs L. Olson of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

21.) While on the subject of birds, here is another 'finding', questioning the normal, accepted theory that Birds came from dinosaurs: June 14, 1999 - No. 386 By DAVID WILLIAMSON UNC-CH News Services ****** CHAPEL HILL - Working together on fossilized remains, Chinese and U.S. researchers have discovered a previously unknown species of primitive bird, a finding that offers new evidence that early bird evolution was considerably more complex than previously believed. In the process, the scientists have identified on its nearly complete skeleton, the world1s oldest surviving horny beak, part of a fossil dating back some 130 million years. They also say they1ve added more weight to the argument that birds descended not from dinosaurs, but rather from unknown earlier reptile ancestors. "One of the really interesting things about these discoveries is that they unexpectedly and vividly show that birds had already diversified by the late Jurassic-early Cretaceous period," said Dr. Alan Feduccia, chair of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.... (from out of nowhere, apparently!!) A report on the discovery appears in the June 17 issue of Nature, a British science journal. Besides Feduccia, authors are Drs. Lianhai Hou and Fucheng Zhang of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and Larry D. Martin and Zhonghe Zhou of the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

The researchers have named the new species Confuciusornis dui in honor of Wenya Du, the man who collected the specimen near the edge of a lake in northeast China1s Liaoning Province and donated it to the Beijing institute. It is a smaller but close relative of Confuciusornis sanctus, another crow-like bird of the same age the researchers found and reported in Nature in 1995. Because hundreds of specimens of C. sanctus now have been found in the same area, volcanic eruptions likely killed them along the lakeshore instantaneously and froze them in time, Feduccia said. The new species was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. "This bird was more advanced than Archaeopteryx in that it had a beak but was less advanced in that it had two small openings in the rear of its skull very similar to the reptile progenitors of birds," he said. "This is a mosaic pattern we see very much in vertebrate evolution - in other words, various lineages showing both primitive and advanced features at the same time. What this really shows is that early bird evolution was not linear, as many people have depicted it, but rather a far more complicated Obush1 with many extinct lines."... (More advanced! Less advanced! Forward and reverse, all in the same bird! Chinese firedrill on evolutionary chronology, everybody!)

Neither of the two cousin species likely were ancestors of modern birds, Feduccia said. Instead, they were side "twigs" that disappeared from their family tree -- or bush -- millions of years ago. Males of both species bore two long tail plumes indicating the sexes differed significantly from each other. Like its cousin, the new bird C. dui also grew asymmetric wing feathers characteristic of all modern flying birds. Ostriches and other birds that can1t fly well sprout nearly symmetric feathers incapable of creating an airfoil and hence lift. "These birds also have highly curved foot claws and reversed big toes showing they were clearly tree-dwelling creatures," the scientist said. "Together, these and other characteristics -- and the fact that the birds lived in complex social colonies - show that they were pretty well developed. "It seems to us that this was a tree-dwelling bird, not an earth-bound, feathered dinosaur as people advocating a dinosaur origin of birds have said."

In 1979, Feduccia made international news by publishing a paper proving that the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, could fly because its wing feathers were asymmetric. Barbs on one side of its wing feather quills clearly grew longer than barbs on the other side. "Some other scientists had speculated that Confusciusornis was a ground-living predator whose beak may have been hooked like a hawk, and this restoration was recently featured as a cover of Scientific American," Martin said. "The new fossil shows something very different. The beak is pointed and turned up at the tip very much like the cartoon bird Woody Woodpecker." Combining modern and ancient features in the same skull was surprising, he said.... (Not if you reject the evolutionary chronology.) Dui, the new specimen, also shows that the half-moon shaped bone in the wrist that1s been used to support a dinosaurian ancestry for birds is the same in Confusciusornis and Archaeopteryx as in modern birds, but is a different bone in dinosaurs, Martin said. "It no longer can be one of the main supports for a dinosaurian origin of birds," he said.

Bird-dinosaur claims have many setbacks. Consider this critique of the fossils found:
A Closer look at Dino-BirdsBy G.S. Paul (excerpted from DinoData website)DINO-BIRDS Sinosauropteryx Scipionyx Protachaeopteryx Caudipteryx and Confuciusornis- by G.S. PAUL - Direct examination confirms that the "croc-septum" described by Ruben et al. 1997 consists entirely of breakage and glue. Where all three arrows in their paper point, there is major damage. The ventral flakage is especially hard to see in photos, the dorsal breakage is patently obvious. The central crack was filled with cement colored to match the sediment. The breakage occurred when the slab was broken into numerous pieces during its initial removal by a local farmer, as a result the damage is symmetrical on the two slabs. The repair work was also done by the collector. So Ruben et al. mistook incompetent collection and repair work by an amateur for soft tissue anatomy. What is the dark material? In Scipionyx the probable liver sits well forward in the chest (as in birds), directly above the juncture of the anterior gastralia and what must have been the posterior end of the cartilage portion of the sternum. The authors of the Nature paper have confirmed to me that the liver does not extend dorsally in Scipionyx, contrary to certain claims made at Dinofest. In Dinosauropteryx the anterior end of the gastralia is well forward of the dark material.

Ergo, the liver very probably was not preserved. The dark material is in the same location - the posterior half of the body cavity from dorsal vertebra 8 or 9 back - as the well preserved intestines of Scipionyx, so it too probably represents the contents of the gut. There is no soft tissue evidence for the presence of a croc-like liver, septum, or fore- and-aft partitioning of the body cavity in any theropod. It was suggested at Dinofest that the "body outline" (visible in the photo in July Natl Geo) of the largest Sinosauropteryx lies outside and contains the "internal fibers".

The "outline" is actually the preservative applied after the completion of prep work. In some places on the sediment the sealant is thick enough to glisten (in most areas the coat was so thin that it absorbed into the sediment with a flat sheen), there are some thick circular drip bead marks, the brush work can be seen in some places, in some places there was a shallow shelf of sediment where the brush did not carry the sealant into the base of the shelf, etc. The sealant was applied to preserve the loose feathers on the slab as well (as you can see in the Natl Geo photograph). In the Natl Geo photo, there appears to be an small array of feathers at the tip of the tail of the large Sinosauropteryx. However, the slab was - as true of all of these specimens - badly shattered, and the feathers lie on a separate slab. At first glance there seems to be a couple of distal vertebrae on the feathered slab. However, examination under magnification with a flashlight revealed that no bone is present, the vertebrae are illusions created by breakage of the sediment.

The last few tail vertebrae are missing because they were lost along with the slab that really belongs there. Nor do the feathers have any connection with the vertebrae (unlike the tail feathers of Protarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx). They are just some loose feathers on a slab that the farmer decided looked good at the end of the tail. The "tail flipper" that some seem to think surrounds the supposed tail feathers is of course just more brushed on sealant. From what I gathered some who examined the specimens still belive that the sealant is a body outline and that the tail flipper is real. Mistaking damage and prep work is not, of course science, and one can only hope these nonsensical notions will not see the light of publication.

22.) Back to the mistakes of 'Ape-Men"...

Neanderthal Man was found in Neanderthal Valley in West Germany. Long accepted as a missing link, Neanderthal man has been proven to be human, very similar to Europeans today, yet with proven diseases such as rickets, syphilis, and arthritis.(Carl Hodge "Neanderthal Traits Extant, Group Told" The Arizona Republic Vol 99 #186 P. B-5)

23.) There is no proof that man evolved from an ape like creature. In fact, many fossils of man have been found, dated to coincide with the ages of these extinct apes:

24.) Petralona Man, found in a stalagmite 700 thousand years old.(Current Anthropology Vol 22 #3 June 1981 P.287)

25.) Human Jawbone found in China in Yangtze River dated 2 million years old.(Java Man is only 500 thousand)(Mesa Tribune Mesa Arizona Nov 20 1988)

Also, there are some findings that contradict all known science:

26.) Human skeleton found 1. 6 million years old, by Richard Leaky( Wash. Post Oct 19, 1984)

27.) Human footprints, dated 3.75 million years old at Latolil (Nature Vol28 #5702 Mar 22.1979, P.317-323)

28.) THE OLDEST MAN: "[African footprints]... they belonged to the genus Homo (or true man), rather than to man-apes (like Australopithecus, who was once thought to be the forerunner of Man but is now regarded as a possible evolutionary dead end)... they were 3.35 to 3.75 million years old... they would, in Mary Leakey's words, be people 'not unlike ourselves'" TIME, Nov. 10, 1975, p.93

29.) TOO HUMAN TOO OLD: Russell H Tuttle, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago, Affiliate Scientist, Primate Research Center, Emory University, "In sum, the 3.5 million year old footprint trails at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern Humans... If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that they were made by a member of our genus... in any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind..." NATURAL HISTORY, March 1990, p. 64

Evolutionists themselves disagree on just what the fossils mean and just how old they are. Consider the following:

30.) RUINED FAMILY TREE: "either we toss out this [skull 11470] or we toss out our theories of early man," asserts anthropologist Richard Leakey of this 2.8 million year old fossil, which he has tentatively identified as belonging to our own genus. "It simply fits no previous models of human beginnings." The author, son of famed anthropologist Louis S.B. Leakey, believes that the skull's surprisingly large braincase "leaves in ruins the notion that all early fossils can be arranged to an orderly sequence of evolutionary change." NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, June 1973, p.819

31.) HUMAN BRAIN: "Leakey further describes the whole shape of the brain case [skull 11470] as remarkably reminiscent of modern man, lacking the heavy and protruding eyebrow ridges and thick bone characteristics of Homo Erectus." SCIENCE NEWS, April 3, 1972, p. 324

32.) "OLD" MODERN MAN: Louis Leakey, "In 1933 I published on a small fragment of jaw we call Homo Kanamens 1s, and I said categorically that this is not a near-man or ape, this is a true member of genus Homo. There were stone tools with it too. The age was probably around 2.5 to 3 million years. It was promptly put upon a shelf by my colleagues, except for two of them. The rest said it must be placed in a "suspense account". Now, 36 years later, we have proved I was right." Quoted in Bones of Contention, p.156

33.) MODERN AND TALL: Richard Leakey, "... the boy from Tukana was surprisingly large compared with modern boys his age... he would probably go unnoticed in a crowd today. This find combines with previous discoveries of Homo Erectus to contradict a long held idea that humans have grown larger over the millennia," NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, Nov. 1985, p. 629

34.) MAN EVEN BEFORE "LUCY": Charles E. Oxnard, Dean, Grad School, Professor Biology and Anatomy, USC, "...earlier finds, for instance, at Kanapoi, existed at the same time as, and probably even earlier than, the original gracile Australopithecines... almost indistinguishable in shape from that of modern Humans at four and a half million years..." AMERICAN BIOLOGY TEACHER, Vol. 41, May 1979, p.274

35.) HENRY M. MCHENRY, U of C, DAVIS, "The results show that the Kanapoi specimen, which is 4 to 4.5 million years old, is indistinguishable from modern Homo Sapiens..." SCIENCE, Vol. 190, p.28

36.) WILLIAM HOWELLS, HARVARD, "With a date of about 4.4 million years, [KP 2711] could not be distinguished from Homo Sapiens morphologically or by multivariate analysis by Patterson or myself in 1967 (or by much searching analysis by others since then). We suggested that it might represent Australopithecus because at the time, time allocation to Homo seemed preposterous, although it would be the correct one without the time element." HOMO ERECTUS, 1981, pp. 79-80

What do evolutionists and other well respected scientists say about evolution? Evolutionists themselves disagree, and those with scientific backgrounds often deny the evidence of evolution. Consider these sources:

The Dissidents:
37.) No less an authority than the world-renowned paleontologist (with Dr. Colin Patterson) for the British Museum of Natural History, Dr. N. Etheridge, has remarked: "Nine tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views. In all this great museum, their is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species." (quoted by Lindsay Gordon, Evolution - The Incredible Hoax, 1977)

38.) Sir Ernest Chain, 1945 Nobel Prize winner for developing penicillin, in D.T. Rosevear's Scientists critical of Evolution, July 1980, p.4: "To postulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance mutations seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irreconcilable with the facts."

39.) Dr. Werner von Braun, one of the leading scientists in NASA's Apollo project (many of you interested in space exploration know the name), wrote the following in a letter to the California State Board of Education, September 14, 1972: "To be forced to believe only one conclusion - that everything in the universe happened by chance - would violate the very objectivity of science itself. Certainly there are those who argue that the universe evolved out of a random process, but what random process could produce the brain of man or the system of the human eye?... We in NASA were often asked what the real reason was for the amazing string of successes we had with our Apollo flights to the Moon. I think the only honest answer we could give was that we tried to never overlook anything. It is in that same sense of scientific honesty that I endorse the presentation of alternative theories for the origin of the universe, life, and man in the science classroom, It would be an error to overlook the possibility that the universe was planned rather than happened by chance."

40.) Dr. Pierre P. Grasse, editor of the twenty-eight volumes of "Traite de Zoologie" and ex-president of the Academie des Sciences is considered to be the most distinguished of French zoologists. His conclusions? "The explanatory doctrines of biological evolution do not stand up to an in-depth criticism." (The Evolution of Living Organisms)

41.) P. Lemoine, a president of the Geologic Society of France, editor of the Encyclopedie Francaise, and director of the Natural History Museum in Paris, has concluded: "The theories of evolution, with which our studious youth have been deceived, constitute actually a dogma that all the world continues to teach; but each, in his specialty, the zoologist or the botanist, ascertains that none of the explanations furnished is adequate.... It results from this summary, that the theory of evolution, is impossible." (Introduction: De L'Evolution? in 5 Encyclopedie Francaise)

42.) Dr. Hubert P. Yockey, A Calculation of the Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis bt Information Theory, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 1977, Vol. 67, p.398: "One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom, a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written."

43.) Dr. Derek V. Ager, Geologist, Imperial College, London, Proceedings of the Geological Association, Vol. 87, 1976, pp.132 - 133: "It must be significant that nearly all the evolutionary stories I learned as a student... have now been debunked."

44.) Dr. Michael Denton, Molecular Biologist, evolutionist, concludes his 1986 book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, thus: "Ultimately, the Darwinian theory of evolution is no more or less than the great cosmogenic myth of the twentieth century.... The truth is that despite the prestige of evolutionary theory and the tremendous intellectual effort directed towards reducing living systems to the confines of Darwinian thought, nature refuses to be imprisoned. The "mystery of mysteries" - the origin of new beings on earth - is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle".

45.) Finally, the aforementioned Dr. Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the British Natural History Museum, remarked in a 1981 lecture at the American Museum of Natural History: "Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing... that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time and eventually one person said, "I do know one thing - it ought not be taught in high school."

Have there been any strange findings that disagree with evolutionary thought about how old mankind is?

46.) Gold Chains found in coal.(Morrisonville Times, Morrisonville M Jun 11 1891)

47.) Metal bell shaped vessel found in solid rock.(Scientific American Vol7 June 1851 P 298-299)

48.) Another important topic is the age of the earth. Is the earth billions of years old? The earth's magnetic field was measured accurately since 1835. Since 1835 the earth's magnetic field has decreased by 6%. Physicist Dr. Thomas Bames concluded that the half life for the magnetic field was 830 to 1400 years. That means that 830 to 1400 years ago, the magnetic field was twice as strong as it is today. Another 831 to 1400 years before that, it was 4 times as strong.

According to Dr. Bames," If we went back about 10,000 years, the earth's magnetic field would have been as strong as the field in a magnetic star. A magnetic star is like our sun: it has a nuclear power source. Surely our Earth never had a nuclear power source like the sun. Surely our earth never had a magnetic field stronger than a star. That would limit the age of the earth to 10,000 years. Science could definitely say, from the greatest physical evidence,(the kind of evidence and physics that we design radar sets with, and communication sets with), that the earth's magnetic field cannot be more than about 6 to 15 thousand years old." Thomas Bames, The Earth a young Planet? Films for Christ Assoc.)

Another topic would be population growth. There have been estimates of population growth as high as 2% per year. Assuming that population grows at only .5% per year, it would take only 4000 years to achieve today's population beginning from a single couple. Many creationists feel that Noah's flood was about 4000 years ago, so this fits creation theory quite nicely. If the Earth is as old as evolutionists claim, and the population grew at .5%, in a million years there would be lOE2100 people! Even if it took a million years to get at our present population, there would have been about 3,000,000,000,000 people before us! Where is the fossil evidence? Where is the cultural evidence?

Another topic is space dust, or debris left over from creation or impacts of meteors or comets. If the Earth or the Moon were as old as evolutionists say, there should be plentiful amounts of dust on the Moon that could have been, measured when we landed there. NASA even put large saucer shaped pads on the LEM so that it would not sink into the soil.

49.) Some say that creation is a religious belief. Only Christianity, Judaism, and Islam believe in special creation. Do any religions believe in evolution? How about Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Shintoism, Taoism, Confusionism, Buddism, American Indian Native Religions, Secular Humanism, and Satanism.

To assume that a belief in a creator God would disqualify someone from being a real scientist, consider this list:

JOSEPH LISTER- ANTISEPTIC SURGERY
LOUIS PASTEUR- BACTERIOLOGY
ISAAC NEWTON- CALCULUS
JOHANNA KEEPER- CELESTIAL MECHANICS
ROBERT BOIL- CHEMISTRY
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL-ELECTRODYNAMICS
MICHAEL FARADAY-ELECTROMAGNETICS
AMBROSE FLEMING-ELECTRONICS
LORD KELVIN-ENERGETICS
WILLIAM HERSCHEL-GALACTIC ASTRONOMY
GREGOR MENDEL-GENETICS
DAVINCI-HYDRAULICS
BLAISE PASCAL-HYDROSTATICS
JAMES JOULE-REVERSIBLE THERMODYNAMICS
CHARLES BABBAGE-ACTUARIAL TABLES
JOSEPH HENRY-ELECTRIC MOTOR
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE-TELEGRAPH

I GUESS THE BIBLE'S TRUE AFTER ALL!