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‘Impossible’ Hybrid Suggests Non-Darwinian Change July 28, 2020 | David F. Coppedge Animals may be more capable of sharing genetic information than coming up with it de novo. What is a sturdlefish? It’s a cross between a sturgeon and a paddlefish. But this is no silly riddle for middle schoolers. It’s a reality that biologists thought was impossible: two species of fish from different continents that interbred and produced live offspring, even though their “common ancestor” supposedly lived 184 million years ago.

A team of paleontologists from the United States, Canada and Argentina has analyzed the fossilized eggs of two different non-avian dinosaurs, Protoceratops and Mussaurus, and found that the eggs resembled those of turtles in their microstructure, composition, and mechanical properties. They've also found that hard-shelled eggs evolved at least three times independently in the dinosaur family tree. For many years there was scant fossil evidence of dinosaur eggs, and all known examples were characterized by thick, calcified shells -- leading paleontologists to speculate that all dinosaur eggs were hard-shelled, like those of modern crocodiles and birds. "The assumption has always...

The largest ever study of global genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has uncovered the hidden history of men. Research published today (25 April) in Nature Genetics reveals explosions in male population numbers in five continents, occurring at times between 55 thousand and four thousand years ago... analysed sequence differences between the Y chromosomes of more than 1200 men from 26 populations around the world using data generated by the 1000 Genomes Project... involved 42 scientists from four continents... Analysing the Y chromosomes of modern men can tell us about the lives of our ancestors. The Y chromosome is...

A new look at the human Y chromosome has overturned longstanding ideas about its evolutionary history. Far from being in a state of decay, the Y chromosome is the fastest-changing part of the human genome and is constantly renewing itself.

The Book of Genesis puts Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden, but geneticists’ version of the duo — the ancestors to whom the Y chromosomes and mitochondrial DNA of today’s humans can be traced — were thought to have lived tens of thousands of years apart. Now, two major studies of modern humans’ Y chromosomes suggest that ‘Y-chromosome Adam’ and ‘mitochondrial Eve’ may have lived around the same time after all. When the overall population size does not change (as is likely to have happened for long periods of human history), men have, on average, just one...

Previous genetic research has indicated the existence of two ancient modern human individuals who passed their genes along to all humans living today... "Mitochondrial Eve"... between 190,000 and 200,000 years ago, and ... "Y-chromosomal Adam", between 50,000 and 115,000 years ago. Now, a team of researchers led by Stanford University's Carlos Bustamente and David Poznik have redefined the ranges for Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve, placing them at 120,000 to 156,000 years ago and 99,000 to 148,000 years ago, respectively. The most significant finding relates to the relative timing of their existence... ...The researchers compared Y-chromosome sequences among 69 men...

The most robust statistical examination to date of our species' genetic links to "mitochondrial Eve" -- the maternal ancestor of all living humans -- confirms that she lived about 200,000 years ago. The Rice University study was based on a side-by-side comparison of 10 human genetic models that each aim to determine when Eve lived using a very different set of assumptions about the way humans migrated, expanded and spread across Earth... "Our findings underscore the importance of taking into account the random nature of population processes like growth and extinction," said study co-author Marek Kimmel, professor of statistics at...

Bat Evolution? Still Looking May 8, 2020 | Jerry Bergman Evidence for Bat Evolution? Still Looking After All These Years Smithsonian Magazine Attempts to Explain Away the Problem by Jerry Bergman, PhD The headline of a new Smithsonian magazine article tells it all: “Why Bats Are One of Evolution’s Greatest Puzzles. Paleontologists seek the ancestors that could explain how bats became the only flying mammals.”[1] Bats have been in the news much lately because they are the main suspect in the spread of many zoonotic diseases into humans, including Ebola and the COVID-19 virus. I have been writing about many...

The Origin of Human Consciousness Stymies Darwinists April 28, 2020 | Jerry Bergman The Origin of Human Consciousness Stymies Darwinists Recent Research Confirms the Gap is Real by Jerry Bergman, PhD One of the most significant gaps, actually a chasm, between modern humans and their putative common ancestor is mind, often generally called human consciousness. The research reviewed here reveals an unbridgeable chasm exists between animal and human minds. Some animals have certain senses that are superior to humans, such as eyesight, but no animal can work algebra or trigonometry problems, write poetry, monographs, or even a short thoughtful letter...

While the rest of us can’t imagine life without beauty, its absence would certainly make life easier for evolutionists. They will just have to accept their beautiful plight. I don’t often think about evolution, but I recently found myself doing so under the warm, cerulean waters of Sharks Cove on the North Shore of Oahu. I was snorkeling, taking in the tropical fish schooling around me. I thought, how did their diverse and extravagant beauty come to exist? If natural selection is the engine that created the living world, what is the reason behind this opulence? Why does beauty even...

During this period of uncertainty and massive change in the normal cycle of our daily routines, the Illustra Media staff, board of directors, and our distributor (RPI) want to offer encouragement and hope through the films we have produced during the past 20 years.For the next 60 days, we will make streaming of our full length documentaries available free of charge. Click on any of the titles below to access the English versions. To stream international translations click here. You may bookmark this page for future reference. Please feel free to share it with your friends, family, and social media...

As Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) said to the alien invaders near the beginning of Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” “The earth is closed today!” The world continues to respond to the current novel coronavirus pandemic by closing everything from churches, to restaurants, to movie theaters and many other public spaces in order to limit person-to-person interaction. While my own family practiced “social distancing” this past Sunday by watching a livestream of our pastor, we reflected on current events and the changes we are all making. We talked about having peace in the midst of trouble and the fact that God...

Dinosaur DNA Found! February 28, 2020 | David F. Coppedge Deep-timers had a big enough problem with collagen and melanosomes. But DNA should be long gone. 75 million years? No way! Could this be the last straw? For two decades now, especially since 2005, creationists have been challenging deep-timers (those who believe life is hundreds of millions of years old, and earth is 4.5 billion years old) with dinosaur soft tissue. Secular reports have been coming in regularly about soft tissue in fossils: feathers, melanosomes, collagen, various proteins, and materials in dinosaur bones that look like stretchy blood vessels and...

The $100 million Ark Encounter biblical theme park with a life-sized Noah's Ark replica, and its sister institution, the Creation Museum, have finished No. 1 and No. 2 respectively in USA Today's 10 Best Readers’ Choice Awards for 2020.The Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum received the most readers’ votes from a list of the top religious museums in the nation as selected by a panel of top travel experts.“Both attractions have made Northern Kentucky the leading faith-based destination in America,” the two winners said in a statement Friday.“We are so grateful to USA Today for considering our internationally recognized...

Evolutionist Admits Darwin’s Connection to Racism February 26, 2020 | Jerry Bergman Finally, Some Honesty about Darwin’s Direct Connection to Racism: One AAAS Scientist Admits Evolution’s Sordid Past by Jerry Bergman, PhD Although often ignored, some science organizations that embrace evolution acknowledge the close causative connection between Darwinism and racism. ""...Despite some inaccuracies and fierce opposition, Darwin’s blend of novel hypotheses … and good rhetoric transformed the scientific world within a few decades. By the late-nineteenth century …scientific racism that had made polygenism so popular was soon drawing people to a new cause: eugenics."" So says John P. Slattery, Ph.D.,...

Dear X, I offer you the warmest greetings in the name of Jesus, I am writing out of a concern for you and a lot of others of your generation. You were born into a world which was already well into a “sexual revolution”, and this has presented you with perplexing questions and issues which my generation (Baby Boomers) didn’t have to bear as much as yours. I come as a friend, and concerned Christian, in Jesus name. I want you to understand that I know why there is such a gap between my generation and yours. I didn’t grow...

Join Freepers throughout the world to pray for PRESIDENT TRUMP and VICE-PRESIDENT PENCE and for AMERICA: All Levels of Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, Health Care Systems and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. —1 John 5:14 Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer for our nation.

Wednesday, January 1, 2020: Creation and the New Year Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Hebrews 10:39, "But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved." Hebrews 11:3, "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not not made out of what was visible." The verse is both comprehensive and scientific, viewing space ("the heaven") and matter ("the earth") as functioning in a framework of time ("In the beginning"). This space...

It's pretty amazing how what the Israelites did under Aaron's leadership (while Moses was up on the mountain with God receiving His commandments) closely resembles the idolatrous idea that God didn't create the universe, but instead all this physical and non-physical (spiritual) order and meaning simply produced itself by chance, without any intelligent direction and for no purpose. It sounds a lot like Aaron's defense to Moses that he merely put the gold the people had brought him into the fire, and out came the golden calf. "And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou...

The commenters responses to my book review of Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose, by Physical Chemist, Spectrometrist Researcher Dr. Marcos Eberlin were, in many cases, well informed and insightful, but one extraordinary commentary was provided by Dr. Ronald Cherry of  East Tennessee, who is board certified in four specialties of medicine and an energetic researcher in matters of biochemical cellular physiology and micro anatomy and physiology. Dr. Cherry provided me with a commentary  titled “Zero Probability for Self-Generated Life” that I found compelling and worth summarizing and discussing for the many who are interested...