Free Republic

Genetic research proves worm has evolved to be less sophisticated than its ancestorsEvolution is not a steady march towards ever more sophisticated beings and therefore the search for the living "missing links" is pointless, according to findings published by a team of researchers led by Dr. Hervé Philippe of the Université de Montréal's Department of Biochemistry. "Aristotle was the first to classify organisms – from the least to the most sophisticated. Darwin's theory of evolution continued this idea, with the concept of a hierarchy of evolution. This way of thinking has led researchers and skeptics alike to look for less...

A 95-million-year-old fossil is helping scientists understand how snakes lost their legs through evolutionary time. Found in Lebanon, the specimen is one of only three examples of an ancient snake with preserved leg bones. One rear leg is clearly visible but researchers had to use a novel X-ray technique to examine another leg hidden inside the fossil rock. Writing in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, the team says the snake records an early stage in limb loss.

In his January Diary, John Derbyshire comes down on the side of the University of Kentucky for refusing to hire Martin Gaskell, a superbly qualified astronomer, for the sole reason that he expressed sympathy for intelligent design. The case of Professor Gaskell, who sued UK for religious discrimination, needs to be understood in the context of widespread anti-Christian discrimination in academic science. I thought readers might be interested in some background on the story and many others like it to which Brother John did not draw our attention. The University of Kentucky chose to pay a $125,000 settlement to Gaskell,...

A giant cache of nearly 20,000 fossil reptiles, shellfish and a host of other prehistoric creatures unearthed from a mountain in China is now revealing how life recovered after the most devastating mass extinction on Earth. This research could help point out which species might be more or less susceptible to extinction nowadays, and how the world might recover from the damage caused by humanity, scientists added. Life was nearly completely wiped out approximately 250 million years ago by massive volcanic eruptions and devastating global warming. Only one in 10 species survived this cataclysmic end-Permian event. Much was uncertain regarding...

A retired science teacher believes the teaching of evolution is "bad science" and has asked a federal court to declare it illegal to teach the subject in public schools. Tom Ritter, a former physics and chemistry teacher of over 10 years, filed a lawsuit earlier this month against evolution in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the same court that ruled that teaching of intelligent design in public schools is unconstitutional. Ritter told The Christian Post this week that he didn't pay too much attention to biology before, but now in retirement he saw problems that...

For fossil hunters, it represents one of those breakthrough moments. A pterosaur has been found in China beautifully preserved with an egg. The egg indicates this ancient flying reptile was a female, and that realisation has allowed researchers to sex these creatures for the first time. Writing in Science magazine, the palaeontologists make some broad statements about differences in pterosaurs, including the observation that only males sported a head-crest. David Unwin, a palaeobiologist in the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, was part of the research team. He told the BBC the discovery was astonishing: "If somebody...

Robert Stacy McCain has, once again, in his own initimable fashion, sallied forth from his citadel, clad in the armour of defiance and eager to poke his lance into the eye of any milksop evolutionist who happens to be strolling back from his or her laboratory clutching a copy of “The Origin of the Species”.

Humans, versus other great apes, are built for running fast and long as opposed to very impressive strength, but what about Neanderthals? If a modern human and a Neanderthal competed in a marathon, who would win? (Comparison of Neanderthal and Modern Human skeletons. Credit: K. Mowbray, Reconstruction: G. Sawyer and B. Maley, Copyright: Ian Tattersall) In a short sprint, the Neanderthal might have had a chance, but most fit humans would always win longer races, suggests new research accepted for publication in the Journal of Human Evolution. Anthropologist David Raichlen of the University of Arizona and his colleagues determined that...

Tom Ritter, who taught physics and chemistry for over a decade, has filed a federal lawsuit against The Blue Mountain School District in the Middle District of Pennsylvania (13:11 – CV – 116), where he resides. This same district that rendered the infamous Kitzmiller decision in 2005. The argument presented in full: Evolution is Unscientific "The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity." -- Richard Dawkins, famous Atheist Biology studies organisms. It can also explain how organisms got that way, but...

Martin Gaskell is an astronomer who studies quasars. He's also a Christian who questions evolution. The University of Kentucky decided not to hire him at least partly because of his religious views. Now Gaskell's won a settlement over it. Good.

More than eighty years ago, America began moving away from its' founding Biblical-based worldview to what President Calvin Coolidge identified as "pagan materialism." Fearing for the future of our Constitutional Republic he said in a speech delivered on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1926: "Democracy is Christ's government in church and state," said Coolidge as he quoted John Wise (1710). "Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights....When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration...

I'm seeing this one at numerous points on the web this afternoon, including anthropology.net and Nature Magazine's website, best seems to be the Hawks blog I'm citing as an url. The gist of the story seems to be that the chimpanzee genome study published in 05 was seriously flawed and tht the corresponding idea of the genetic gap between modern man and the chimpanzee is no longer operative. Hawk is clearly an evolutionist looking for evolutionist solutions, but he appears to state the problem accurately: ..."Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- A Southern Baptist seminary president and evolution opponent has turned sights on "theistic evolution," the idea that evolutionary forces are somehow guided by God. Albert Mohler Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article in the Winter 2011 issue of the seminary magazine labeling attempts by Christians to accommodate Darwinism "a biblical and theological disaster." Mohler said being able to find middle ground between a young-earth creationism that believes God created the world in six 24-hour days and naturalism that regards evolution the product of random chance "would resolve a great cultural and...

Will we ever be able to show the followers of Albert Mohler, John MacArthur and others that Christian theology doesn’t stand or fall on how we understand Genesis 1 or the question of whether Adam and Eve were the sole genetic progenitors of the human race? These are extremely critical issues to many and the task of showing in a convincing manner that evangelical theology doesn’t depend on the age of the earth, and it doesn’t depend upon whether Adam was made directly from dust will likely take decades before it will be convincing to all. So, Dr. Falk sees...

Specialists and collectors around the world have long decried the flood of sham fossils pouring out of China. But Science has learned that many composites and fakes are now finding their way into Chinese museums, especially local museums. One paleontologist estimates that more than 80% of marine reptile specimens now on display in Chinese museums have been "altered or artificially combined to varying degrees." One consequence of the fakery is an erosion of trust in museums, which are supposed to enlighten—not con—the public. Scholars, too, pay a price: They waste time sifting authentic specimens from counterfeit chaff. And a genuine...

No normal science theory is ever defended the way evolution is. What IS defended in that sort of manner are lifestyles, tenures, entrenched positions, and careers which have been built pyramid-style atop a base row which is sitting on quicksand. The people sitting ten or eleven rows of stones up don't like being told that the whole thing is unworkable. What most people are unaware of is that the whole theory of evolution has been overwhelmingly refuted a number of times and via a number of totally unrelated arguments to such an extent that ANY normal science theory under the...

Did visitors from space help build the great pyramids of Egypt and Central America? Is advanced technology from an alien civilization needed to explain how ancient man could move huge stones, build monumental structures, create intricate artwork and organize complex cultures? Some think so, because of their evolutionary belief that ancient man was ‘primitive’. If evolution were true, the further back into history we look, evidence should show a gradual decline in man’s intelligence, moving closer to the ape’s. Biblical creation would indicate otherwise. Man, created in God’s image, has always been intelligent. People make discoveries and invent things, and...

They are familiar scenes: politicians bemoaning the death of family values only for extramarital affairs to be unveiled or politicians preaching financial sacrifice while their expense accounts fatten up. Moral corruption and power asymmetries are pervasive in human societies, but as it turns out, that may not be such a bad thing. Francisco Úbeda, an evolutionary biology professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Edgar Duéñez of Harvard University found that power and corruption may play a role in maintaining overall societal cooperation. A report of their research is published in the journal Evolution. Using game theory, Úbeda and...

If you're in a room of 100 people, odds are likely about 40 think God created humans about 10,000 years ago, part of a philosophy called creationism, according to a Gallup poll reported Friday (Dec. 17). That number is slightly lower than in years past and down from a high of 47 percent in both 1993 and 1999. And 38 percent of Americans, the poll estimates, believe God guided the process that brought humans from "cavemen" to today's incarnation over millions of years, while 16 percent think humans evolved over millions of years, without any divine intervention. This secular view,...

“For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day.” (Exodus 20:11a KJV) According to evolutionary scientists, the earth is over 4 billion years old; but Biblical chronology dates the age of the earth at about 6,000 years. In an attempt to reconcile the two extreme positions, many creation scientists have used 2 Peter 3:8 to state that the six days mentioned in the Genesis account were not literal 24-hour days. However, if we used the “a day is as a thousand years” formula, we would have...