Free Republic

Is the H1N1 Flu Evolving? by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Flu is in the news, with some people fearing a possible pandemic from the latest strain. The most recent threat, initially labeled “swine flu,” comes from an H1N1 influenza virus, the same “subtype” responsible for the horrendous 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak. What makes this virus new is that it traded parts with other flu viruses and mutated. However, neither of these processes demonstrates Darwinian evolution...

A Mammoth Discovery by A.P. Galling, AiG–U.S. May 4, 2009 The frozen remains of a baby mammoth discovered in 2007 are stirring up talk—especially because the mammoth is “remarkably preserved,” National Geographic News reports. Found in the icy north of Siberia, the mammoth—named Lyuba—looks nearly lifelike. The photograph best shows how amazingly intact Lyuba is, with even eyelashes and clumps of brown wool remaining. Hers is the most complete woolly mammoth body to have ever been found. --snip-- According to the model of a post-Flood Ice Age (which Oard explains), the frozen mammoths we find today would have been preserved...

A Primer on the Tree of Life (Part 1) Evolutionists often claim that universal common ancestry and the “tree of life” are established facts. One recent opinion article in argued, “The evidence that all life, plants and animals, humans and fruit flies, evolved from a common ancestor by mutation and natural selection is beyond theory. It is a fact. Anyone who takes the time to read the evidence with an open mind will join scientists and the well-educated.”[1] The take-home message is that if you doubt Darwin’s tree of life, you’re ignorant. No one wants to be ridiculed, so it’s...

Worldwide FLOOD Worldwide EVIDENCE When the Bible refers to a worldwide Flood in Genesis 7–8, that’s exactly what it means. Not local, not metaphorical, not some crazy dream—the waters covered the whole earth. Don’t just take our word for it, though. Take a look at the evidence right beneath your feet...

Consensus Science: The Rise of a Scientific Elite by Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D.* In battle, one clever military tactic is to focus enemy troops' attention on a spectacular frontal assault so they will overlook a deadly side attack. This approach works in other arenas, as well. On March 9, President Barack Obama ordered that federal tax money be used to promote medical research through harvesting the stem cells of, and thus destroying, human embryos. There has been much discussion about the medical ethics of this order and the government's increased power to destroy human life for "scientific" progress,[1] but...

Weekend Round-up May 01, 2009 — Here’s a backlog of assorted news stories worth noting before moving on to the big stories for the new month of May...

Swine Flu — It’s Not the Killer You Think It Is Marc Siegel, M.D. FOX News Medical Contributor/Associate Professor, NYU School of Medicine/Author, “False Alarm; the Truth About the Epidemic of Fear and Bird Flu: Everything You Need to Know About the Next Pandemic”I was listening to a conference call on Friday, organized by the NYC Health Department about — you guessed it — swine flu (now known as H1N1). The discussion centered around “Influenza-like illness” and it was soon clear to me that… 1) It is a late influenza season this year and some of these illnesses are from...

"At present, science has no satisfactory answer to the question of the origin of life on the earth. Perhaps the appearance of life on the earth is a miracle. Scientists are reluctant to accept that view, but their choices are limited: either life was created on the earth by the will of a being outside the grasp of scientific understanding, or it evolved on our planet spontaneously, through chemical reactions occurring in nonliving matter lying on the surface of the planet. The first theory places the question of the origin of life beyond the reach of scientific inquiry. It is...

News to Note, May 2, 2009A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint (Read the following stories, and much more by clicking excerpt link at the bottom) 1. LiveScience: “Swine Flu Is Evolution in Action”Swine flu—both the virus itself and the associated paranoia—seems to be sweeping the world. Is it evolution in action? 2. LiveScience: “Some Dinosaurs Survived the Asteroid Impact”The widely taught model of dinosaur extinction doesn’t line up with the latest fossil findings. 3. National Geographic News: “Baby Mammoth CT Scan Reveals Internal Organs”The preserved baby woolly mammoth shows that it died in an “oxygen-deprived environment” that...

Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution A few years ago, the media was abuzz over the scare of the avian flu virus, which led me to write a post titled Avian Flu: An Example of Evolution?. At the time, it wasn't clear whether the avian flu would evolve and "jump" into a highly virulent form that easily infected humans. Had the avian flu virus made the jump, then we would have witnessed a sort of evolution where viruses swap genetic material in a process known as "reassortment" and can then more easily infect new hosts, such as humans....

Conclusion: So the next time someone tells you that it “strains credulity” to think that more than a few pieces of “junk DNA” could be functional in the cell — that the data only point to the lack of design and suboptimality — remind them of the rod cell nuclei of the humble mouse...

The clash between young-earth and old-earth creationists can seem bewilderingly technical at times. Is there any easy-to-understand scientific data for determining whether Earth is young or old?In recent months, new evidence has emerged that may be simple enough for everyone to understand, regardless of science background-as simple as counting tree rings.Scientists are learning much about Earth's past by drilling deep into its surface-both ice and rock-with specialized instruments to remove long cylinders, or "core" samples. Six deep ice cores and one sediment core now provide a clear and continuous record of Earth's history. The ice cores reveal hundreds of thousands...

No Evolution Found in Human Facial Differences by Brian Thomas, M.S.* One common question asked of creation scientists is “If all mankind descended from two humans, then where did all the ‘races’ come from?” New research, published in the journal Evolution no less, supports the creation-based answer to this question...

A dinosaur bone buried for 80 million years has yielded a mix of proteins and microstructures resembling cells. The finding is important because it should resolve doubts about a previous report that also claimed to have extracted dino tissue from fossils...

Obama Pushes for Expansion of Science and Technology by Randy J. Guliuzza, P.E., M.D.* --snip-- Interestingly, the long list of useful items that the president mentioned lacks even a single reference to any benefits derived from or used for evolutionary theory, which is touted by some as the unifying theme of all the biological studies. Was this a tremendous oversight by Mr. Obama? Not likely, since his speech aggressively promoted the practical application of science to the benefit of humanity. Evolutionary theory is totally irrelevant to achieving that goal, as one evolutionist acknowledged: “Most [biologists] can conduct their work quite...

Dinosaur Blood Protein, Cells Recovered (see article link for picture links!) April 30, 2009 — It’s official: soft tissue, including blood vessel proteins and structures resembling cells, have been recovered from dinosaur bone. Mary Schweitzer’s amazing claim in 2005 (03/24/2005) was subsequently disputed as possible contamination from biofilms (07/30/2008). Now, Schweitzer and her team took exceptional precautions to avoid contamination by excavating hadrosaur bone from sandstone said to be 80 million years old. A short description of her findings, and a picture of the tissue, was announced today by New Scientist. The paper was published in the May 1 issue...

Are Secular Geologists Ready to Consider a Global Flood? April 30, 2009 — Everyone knows the Bible tells the story of a global flood in Noah’s day. Creation scientists argue that its effects would have left visible evidence today – including most of the sedimentary layers and most of the fossil record. Secular geologists have laughed off this story since the 18th century as nothing but myth, of course, but a paper in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences suggests that some of them are re-evaluating the role of “megafloods” in earth history. Some megafloods might be considered...

Are Humans and Chimps Related? It is one of the most-asked questions we now receive at Answers in Genesis: If human and chimp DNA are so similar, does this show a common ancestor? When studying the human genome and its similarity to that of the chimp, scientists have concluded that 96–98% of our genome is similar. Much of the similarity lies in the regions of the DNA that result in proteins (the genes). It seems logical that if a protein performs a certain function in one organism, and that function is necessary in other organisms, then the same protein would...

Have you mowed your lawn lately? If so, you may have committed a grave ‘plants rights’ crime, according to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Biotechnology. In what reads like a clever parody, their twenty-four page report argues that plants may well be deserving of nearly the same reverence a human life is due (of course, in practice, these hypocrites would treat plants with greater reverence than human lives, see below). --snip-- Ironically, the great apologist G.K. Chesterton predicted a century ago the move toward plant rights when he discussed animal rights (although he can hardly have been serious when...