Free Republic

The controversial Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., marked its second anniversary this past week with slightly lower numbers than its first year but with much excitement. “We enter our third year excited about the growing opportunities the museum provides for reaching people with the creation gospel message,” commented Ken Ham, the founder and president of the 70,000-square foot museum. “We believe God is using us to make a difference in our post-Christian culture, and we will continue to do everything we can to help believers defend the Word of God, from the very first verse,” he added. When the museum...

VICTORIA, B.C. — The announcement of an extraordinary fossil find touted “the missing link” in mankind’s evolutionary development has provoked controversy in the scientific community. But Catholics would do well to stay clear of it, warn several scientists who are believers.However, Catholic critics of Darwinism say the ongoing debate over evolution is an important one for the faith. The find, dubbed “Ida,” is a nearly intact fossilized skeleton of a squirrel-sized, 47-million-year-old primate called Darwinius masillae. Ida’s unusual state of preservation provides a wealth of data about one of the possible branches that led to higher primates such as apes...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Joshua C from Arizona asks about a pre-Fall role for the immune system, given that God created everything “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Medical doctor Carl Wieland responds...

May 28, 2009 — Here is an assortment of short stories from the world of science and evolution reporting...

In the Beginning was Information: Aspects of Information as Found in the Bible (Ch 14) by Dr. Werner Gitt 14.1 God as Sender—Man as Recipient The five aspects of information—statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics—were discussed in chapter 4, and it was stated that all five are indispensable for both the sender and the recipient. It is highly instructive to view the Bible in this way...

(Read the following stories and much more by clicking the excerpt link at bottom) 1. BBC News: “Rooks Reveal Remarkable Tool Use”In yet another study, scientists have revealed the intelligence and sophisticated tool-use abilities of crows.2. BBC News: “Space Rock Yields Carbon Bounty”A meteorite that landed in Canada supposedly holds a clue to the origin of life: record levels of formic acid, a substance rich in carbon.3. The Times: “Jorn Hurum: I Paid $750,000 for Ida the Fossil and Have No Regrets” The paleontologist who brought Ida to the media spotlight dropped a cool $750,000 (£465,000) to get his hands...

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...

Geological pioneer Nicolaus Steno was a biblical creationist by Tas Walker One of the pioneers of geology was Nicolaus Steno who believed the Bible recorded an accurate history of the earth. As a consequence he used the biblical worldview as his starting point for his geological investigations, and as the framework for developing the first geological history ever produced for any location on Earth. His geological framework is remarkably similar to biblical models developed by modern creationist geologists. Nicolaus Steno (1631–1686) has often been called the Father of modern geology. The three principles of stratigraphy he published (horizontality, superposition and...

Texas Evolution Lobby Making Power Grabs to Promote Their Censorship Agenda A Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article from last month, “Education Board in Texas Faces Curbs,” revealed how the Texas evolution-lobby has been seeking to use both censorship and power grabs to promote their agenda. First, they sought to censor from Texas students any instruction on scientific weaknesses in evolution. Having lost that fight before the Texas State Board of Education (TSBOE), they have tried to use other tactics to punish the board for adopting science standards that teach evolution objectively, or to grab power away from the democratically elected...

Physician-geneticist Francis S. Collins, who successfully led efforts to map the human genetic code, is the top choice for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s next director, according to a source familiar with the selection process. Screening for Collins is nearly complete and President Obama may announce his nomination as early as this week, the source reportedly told Bloomberg News, which broke the story. Should he be tapped for the spot, Collins would be faced with calls to boost spending on cancer research and free science from politics as well as financial conflicts of interest. As an agency of the...

May 27, 2009 — How’s the story of human evolution hanging together these days? There’s no better place to look than the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In the yearly issue released this month, Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwartz gave a pretty thorough overview of the “Evolution of the Genus Homo.”[1] Their account is fraught with controversy, confusion and convoluted ideas from the very first sentence...

People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language.

A mass extinction some 260 million years ago may have been caused by volcanic eruptions in what is now China, new research suggests.

Researchers from the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR) have discovered fossils in the TD4, TD5 and TD6 levels of the Gran Dolina deposit in Burgos that date to between 780,000 and 900,000 years ago, and have shown that these belong to a new genus and species of shrew (Dolinasorex glyphodon), from the Soricidae family (small insect-eating mammals)... The morphometric and phylogenetic studies of the new species reveal a close link with the species of eastern Asia... In addition, analyses of jawbones and individual teeth of Dolinasorex glyphodon, collected between 1991 and 2007 in Atapuerca, have enabled the scientists to develop paleoecological...

Cod Still Recovering from Darwin Bulldog's Bite by Brian Thomas, M.S.* Cod fish dominated massive areas of the North Atlantic Ocean until somewhat recently, when their numbers dramatically dwindled due to overfishing. Interestingly, that population decline can be directly attributed to the advice of an outspoken evolutionist...

Abstract Mutations alter the nucleotide sequence of the DNA. They may affect the organism’s phenotype, which can play a key role in bacterial adaptation and transformation to changing environments. Some of these mutations even appear to be beneficial to the organism. However, creationists have tended to offer an inconsistent or incomplete perspective of “beneficial mutations” within a creation framework. This includes the frequent denial that mutations can ever provide a beneficial phenotype, and the concept that “beneficial mutations” are merely an evolutionist exaggeration...