The Flat Earth Myth Busted – In AD 1230

Not so flat. Image included in the 1550 edition of De sphaera mundi (On the Sphere of the World). The book was originally published in 1230. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen

The flat earth is a myth that has taken a long time to die. Sceptics often claim that the Bible and the Medieval Christian church believed that our planet was flat. However, they should probably do well to read De sphaera mundi, a book published in 1230, which shows that they are very wrong:

“THE EARTH A SPHERE. -- That the earth, too, is round is shown thus. The signs and stars do not rise and set the same for all men everywhere but rise and set sooner for those in the east than for those in the west; and of this there is no other cause than the bulge of the earth. Moreover, celestial phenomena evidence that they rise sooner for Orientals than for westerners. For one and the same eclipse of the moon which appears to us in the first hour of the night appears to Orientals about the third hour of the night, which proves that they had night and sunset before we did, of which setting the bulge of the earth is the cause.”

Of course, nothing in the Bible suggests that the earth is flat.

Source:

Iohannes de Sacrobosco. 1230. THE SPHERE OF SACROBOSCO. Translated by Lynn Thorndike, 1949. You can access it here.

2000 Years After Herod’s Massacre – The Killings Haven’t Ceased

Herod the Great. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.


Joel Kontinen

Today, we commemorate a sad episode in history instigated by a ruler known as Herod the Great, though there was nothing great in ordering the slaying of innocents in an attempt to kill a new-born King – Jesus, born in Bethlehem.

Historians do not know how many infants were killed through Herod’s degree. However, what is almost certain is that believers are still being ruthlessly slaughtered in our time.

Writing in Christianity Today’s blog, Halee Gray Scott says:

“According to Open Doors, which provides support for Christians around the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world today, with 100 people martyred for their faith each month. The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reports that Christians suffer persecution, discrimination, and harassment in 133 countries—a full two-thirds of all countries worldwide.”

We should not forget them, but pray for protection and do what we can for all believers who are facing persecution and death.


Source:

Scott, Halee Gray. 2013. A Real Cause for Christian Outrage. Christianity Today (27 December).

Copying God’s Design Instead of Evolution

Finnair’s Airbus A321 uses technology copied from nature. Image courtesy of Adrian Pingstone, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

In recent years, researchers and engineers have increasingly turned to solutions they have seen in nature, and copied them. This trend began long before our time. The Wright brothers, for instance, drew inspiration for their flying machine from the mechanics of pigeon wings in flight.

A brief That’s a Fact video produced by ICR looks at biomimicry. You can watch it here.

The First Christmas: When God Became Weak and Vulnerable

God gave us the best Christmas present.





Joel Kontinen

The Bible describes God as all-powerful (omnipotent), but for a brief moment He became weak and vulnerable.

That was at the very first Christmas. For a little while, He was as weak as any human baby, totally dependent on His earthly parents.

Christ became man in order to redeem fallen mankind.

While this might be something some people do not like, it is nevertheless true. The First Adam fell literally; the Last Adam came to set right that what had gone wrong.

Intelligent Healing System in Mouse Embryo

Young mice have a built-in repair system that speaks of intelligent design. Image courtesy of George Shuklin, Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Humans and most animals have a built-in repair system. Recent research published in the journal Cell examined the protein Lin28a found in mouse (and other) embryos. It causes wounds to grow faster, for instance.

The protein is seldom present in adults (or old animals). However, researchers have engineered mice to produce the protein in adulthood, with positive results.

This is yet another case of researchers copying and using systems that have originally been designed very intelligently.

There's no room for blind Darwinian processes in this scenario.

Source:

Embryo protein has healinf power. Nature 503 (7475): 169.

Why Are We So Different From Animals?

An article in Nature looks at what makes us special.




Joel Kontinen

A recent article in Nature looks at why humans differ from all other living beings. Taking a Darwinian approach, it sees man as a result of natural selection acting on random mutations and attempts to discount our uniqueness.

While we might share some traits with animals, the differences are huge. Animals will hardly ask why they differ so much from humans. They do not record their past in annals or plan long-term for the future.

Unlike humans, animals were not created in God’s image. But if we have the wrong assumptions of our past (evolution), we tend to arrive at the wrong conclusions, as the Nature article does, failing to understand what really makes us so special.

Source:

Radford, Tim. 2013. Us and them. Nature 503 (7474): 34- 35.

Scientism in the Brave New World

Joel Kontinen

Aldous Huxley wrote his description of a scientific totalitarian society in 1932. Brave New World could be seen as a criticism of some trends in science and politics that were very evident in Huxley’s time, such as eugenics, which was a mostly Darwinian episode in world history.

Writing in Nature, Philip Ball does mention dystopian science fiction but he does not make the connection between eugenics and Darwinian evolution, which, as such is no wonder in a journal that was set up in the late 19th century for the very purpose to spread the word about evolution.

Brave New World shows that scientism can have its very dark side. When science and politics go together, the result is a totalitarian society that entirely lacks personal freedom.

Freedom, as we all know, is a blessing that comes from Christianity, so Huxley’s dystopian society is understandable – no Christianity, no freedom.

Source:

Ball, Philip. 2013. In Retrospect: Brave New World. Nature 503 (7476): 338 -339.

The Human Brain Inspires Smarter Computers

Joel Kontinen

Compared to the human brain, computers are everything but effective. They use too much power. This has caused researchers to mimic the way the human brain functions.
Recently, an article in Nature featured this trend.

While Nature pays lip service to evolution, even Darwinists have to admit that mimicking the human brain will bring about much more effective computers.

The brain has been designed wonderfully.

Source:

Waldrop, M. Mitchell. 2013. Smart Connection. Computer chips inspired by human neurons can do more with less power. Nature 503 (7474) 22 -24.

Jesus Walking on Earth Was Far More Important Than Mankind Walking on the Moon, Apollo Astronaut James Irwin Says.

Joel Kontinen

Dr. Jerry Bergman has an interesting article on Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin in the November issue of Acts and Facts. Irwin, who spent over 295 hours on the Moon, was a firm believer in the Genesis account of creation.

For Irwin, being on the Moon strengthened his faith in the Bible. Many times he said that Jesus walking on Earth was far more important than mankind walking on the Moon.

This Christmas we celebrate the beginning of Jesus’ walk on Earth.

Source:

Bergman, Jerry. 2013. Colonel James Irwin: Creationist Astronaut. Acts and Facts 42 (!!): 16-17.

The Christmas Wars: Putting Christ Back Into Christmas

This sign in Hamilton in Victoria, Australia urges us to remember why we have Christmas.



Joel Kontinen

Sceptics tend to feel uncomfortable during the Christmas season. Perhaps it reminds them of the reason we have for celebrating one of the major events in Christian history – the birth of Christ.

Christmas is much more than a story about a baby in a manger. It marks the beginning of the first coming of the Saviour to the planet where the people He created refused to obey Him at the dawn of human history.

In other words, Christmas, just like creation and the Fall, is real history.

Unfortunately, some people would want to deny history.

Human Rights For Apes in The US? (Almost)

Some see personhood in this picture. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.


Joel Kontinen


Evolutionists want to see humans as animals - and animals as humans. According to the journal Science,

“An animal rights group known as the Nonhuman Rights Project filed lawsuits in three New York courts this week in an attempt to get judges to declare that chimpanzees are legal persons and free them from captivity.”

This thinking would be impossible without Darwinian evolution that attempts to see humans as evolved primates and nothing else.

As it is, other primates do not file lawsuits, because they can’t. There is a huge intellectual gap between humans and animals that no jurisdiction can do away with.

Source:

Grimm, David. 2013. Lawsuits Seek 'Personhood' for Chimpanzees. Science 342 (6163): 1154-1155.

Conspiracy Moon Theories According To Nature

Secular impact theories cannot explain the origin of the Moon. Image courtesy of NASA.




Joel Kontinen

When an article in Nature is called Lunar Conspiracies and begins with the sentence “Current theories on the formation of the Moon owe too much to cosmic coincidences,” we might expect some interesting revelations.

And we do not have to wait in vain. Robin Canup writes:

“The Moon is more than just a familiar sight in our skies. It dictates conditions on Earth. The Moon is large enough to stabilize our planet's rotation, holding Earth's polar axis steady to within a few degrees. Without it, the current Earth's tilt would vary chaotically by tens of degrees. Such large variations might not preclude life, but would lead to a vastly different climate.”

One could also mention some other benefits of the Moon, for instance, its size and distance from Earth determine how big tides we have. Without tides marine life would sooner or later come to an end, and our planet could turn into Mars’ twin.

In other words, the Moon looks designed to maintain life on Earth.

A big problem with Moon origin theories is that they do not correspond to facts. They do not explain the Moon’s composition.

Summing up the failure of impact theories, Ms. Canup asks:

“Is the origin of our Moon a rarer event than we believed, or are we missing something?”

However, she is unwilling to let go of impact theories. If a Mars-like body did not collide with the early Earth, why not a Venus-like body? she suggests.

Somehow, this sounds even more like fiction.

Source:

Canup, Robin. 2013. Planetary science: Lunar conspiracies. Nature 504, 27–29 (5 December ).

Our Mom Was a Chimp and Our Dad a Pig, US Geneticist Suggests

Our daddy as a young fellow? Image courtesy of Ben Salter, Flickr. (The Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).



Joel Kontinen

Darwinian storytelling can at times be bizarre. Recently, an American geneticist suggested that we are the offspring of a pig father and a chimpanzee mother. According to UK paper Daily Mail:

”The human species began as the hybrid offspring of a male pig and a female chimpanzee, a leading geneticist has suggested. The startling claim has been made by Eugene McCarthy, of the University of Georgia, who is also one of the worlds leading authorities on hybridisation in animals. He points out that while humans have many features in common with chimps, we also have a large number of distinguishing characteristics not found in any other primates.”

There are huge problems with this view. While pigs tend to be hairless like humans, even many evolutionists believe that the hypothesis does not work. For instance, chimps have 48 chromosomes, but pigs have 38.

When evolutionists have to resort to this kind of storytelling, we know that their pet theory is in very deep trouble.

Source:

Gayle, Damien. 2013. 'Humans evolved after a female chimpanzee mated with a pig': Extraordinary claim made by American geneticist. Mail Online (30 November).

Genome By Accident Or By Design?

We are complex. Image courtesy of the National Human Genome Research Institute.




Joel Kontinen

Darwinian storytelling has not become extinct. An article in New Scientist says:

“Our genome is far from a perfectly honed, finished product. Rather, it has been crudely patched together from the detritus of genetic accidents and the remains of ancient parasites. It is the product of the kind of crazy, uncontrolled experimentation that would be rejected out of hand by any ethics board.”

The biggest problem with this claim is that it is entirely bogus. In contrast to this storytelling, our genome looks designed. Full of tiny interacting molecular machines, we are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as the psalmist puts it. The New International Version (NIV) renders Psalm 139:14 as: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

The New Living Translation likewise says it aptly: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous--how well I know it.”

This is obvious to all who are willing to see it.


Source:

Le Page, Michael. 2012. A brief history of the human genome. New Scientist 2882, 30–35.

Creating Life In The Lab – Or At least Trying To Do So

Louis Pasteur experimentally proved that life could not come from non-life. Scientists are still trying to prove that he was wrong. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

The origin of life is a hard nut to crack for scientists who only accept naturalistic scenarios. One cannot blame them for the lack of effort, however.

A recent article in Science states:

“In 2009, Jack Szostak shared a Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the role of telomeres, the end bits of chromosomes that help ensure genetic information is copied faithfully. But his biggest achievement may be yet to come. Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is working to recreate the origin of life, only this time in the lab. He and his team haven't accomplished their goal yet. But in this issue of Science, they report taking another key step: finding a recipe for copying RNA inside ‘protocells,’ membranes made from fatty acid molecules. Next they hope to show that RNA can replicate itself and show the initial signs of Darwinian evolution.”

After roughly a hundred years of trying to figure out a plausible method of how they could get life from non-life against all odds, scientists are reluctant to admit that it cannot be done.

Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) experimentally disproved the idea that life could come from inanimate matter.

As DNA is far too complex, Darwinians have set their hopes on RNA. However, living beings are full of sophisticated nano machines that cannot be produced by gradual Darwinian processes. All parts have to be present and interact with the others from the very beginning.

Source:

Service, Robert F. 2013. The Life Force. Science 342 (6162), 1032-1034. (29 November).

Blue Giants – Stars That Should No Longer Shine

Blue stars can be huge. Image courtesy of Answers magazine.



Joel Kontinen

“Among the kaleidoscope of stars, brilliant blue stars are of special interest. They shine so brightly that they should burn up their fuel in just a few million years. But they’re still everywhere, as if recently created,” astronomy professor Danny Faulkner writes in Answers magazine.

Blue giants are huge – and they are a huge problem for those who believe in a multi-billion year old universe. They should not exist, but they do.

Professor Faulkner says that believers in long ages have attempted to find a solution to this dilemma:

“Astronomers have found huge amounts of gas within the arms of spiral galaxies (called the interstellar medium, or ISM). This gas has the same main ingredient as stars—hydrogen. The gas (and dust) clouds are very clumpy, with a wide range in density. Given the similar chemical composition of gas clouds and stars, astronomers assume that the more dense clumps of gas contract under their own gravity to form new stars.”

However, he says that this scenario is unlikely, as “gas particles don’t naturally collapse into small, burning balls”. Moreover, there are theoretical limits to a collapsible gas cloud and appealing to unknown mechanisms is hardly a scientific method.

In other words, the best answer is that blue giants are much younger than most astronomers assume.


Source:

Faulkner, Danny. 2011. Blue Stars—Unexpected Brilliance. Answers 6 (1), 50–53. (Jan-March 2011.)

Answers in Genesis' Christmas Billboard in New York City

Joel Kontinen

In recent years, atheists have been campaigning for a Christ-less Christmas. They have set up many billboards in major US cities, urging people to be merry without the real reason for the Christmas season.

To counter this tendency, Answers in Genesis-US just set up a new billboard in Times Square in New York. It has an exclusively Christmas message, pointing out that Jesus wants to reach out to even those who reject Him and refuse to believe in Him.

Source:

Ham, Ken. 2013. AiG’s Striking New Christmas Billboard Now in Times Square! Answers in Genesis (27 November).

New Darwinian Speculation: Early Life Built Continents

One of the discarded suggestions for a naturalistic origin of life. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

For Darwinians, the origin and early development of life on Earth are difficult nuts to crack. However, one cannot blame them for not trying to figure out more or less – and usually less – plausible scenarios.

Like the one published recently in New Scientist:

“Biological weathering of land, by which organisms eat up rocks and create sediments that wash into the oceans and pile up several metres thick. ‘Just think about lichens that cover bare rocks and provide continuous contact of water with the rock. Or bacteria that produce acids and dissolve rock,´ [Tilman] Spohn says.”

The Darwinian story continues:

“Algae, bacteria and more complex life colonise the new land, erode it and dump masses of sediment into the ocean. The sediment – 40 per cent water by weight – is eventually pulled down more than 100 kilometres beneath the surface by early subducting tectonic plates, where piping hot temperatures release the trapped water. The hydrated mantle is viscous and more buoyant, so it rises and bursts through the surface in volcanic eruptions that add to the continental plate.”

This scenario is based on the assumption that Darwinian evolution is capable of producing and fostering life. While it is interesting, it is storytelling that relies on a computer simulation of what could have happened.

It has nothing to do with science but everything with science fiction.


Source:

Slezak, Michael. 2013. Early life built Earth's continents. New Scientist 2944 (25 November).

Space Rock Challenges Planet-Formation Theories

2002 UX25 challenges planet-formation theories. Image courtesy of M. Brown/NASA.




Joel Kontinen

A recent Nature news article recounts the standard explanation of planet formation:

“Small dust particles in the swirling disk that surrounded the infant Sun gradually collided and coalesced to form bigger particles. This process ultimately built dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt, such as Pluto, as well as Earth and the other rocky planets in the inner Solar System.”

However, it discloses that this scenario might very well be very wrong. The reason for this is a 650-kilometre wide space rock that is less dense than water. The Kuiper-belt object, dubbed 2002 UX25, challenges current planet-formation theories.

The articles explains why 2002 UX25 matters: “Objects in the Kuiper belt are believed to have changed relatively little since the early years of the Solar System.”

There is no shortage of evidence that confirms that the solar system was designed very intelligently in order to make life on Earth possible.

Source:

Coven, Ron. 2013. Astronomers surprised by large space rock less dense than water. Kuiper belt object challenges planet-formation theories. Nature news (13 November).

C. S. Lewis: From Angry Atheist to Christian Apologist

A new book explores C. S. Lewis’ view of scientism.




Joel Kontinen

John F. Kennedy was not the only famous person to die on November 22, 1963. Half a century ago, the famed professor and author C. S. Lewis also passed away.

Lewis, who in his youth was an angry atheist, became one of the best-known Christian apologists. While the horror of the First World War led to his early atheism, he later realised that the godless ideology that he had embraced could not explain reality.

For Lewis, natural beauty, morality, reason and functional complexity pointed to design in nature and this for him led to the Christian God, the Creator of everything.

This brief video explains why Lewis changed his mind and turned to Christianity.

Who Was Cain’s Wife?

Cain killed his brother Abel at the dawn of human history.




Joel Kontinen

The identity of Cain’s wife is an issue that keeps on coming up. Recently, a brief article in Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) addressed this question.

Traditionally, scholars have concluded that Cain must have married his own sister, as Genesis records that Adam and Eve had several children, including daughters.

At that time, the number of harmful mutations in the human genome was probably very small, so marrying a close relative would not have been as disastrous as it would be in our time.

After all, Cain and his sister’s parents were once perfect, without any defects. There was no time for disease-bringing mutations to accumulate in their genome.

Actually, God forbade marriages between close relatives at the time of Moses.

However, the BAR article opts for a very different kind of solution. Disregarding the biblical statement that Eve was the mother of all humans, Ms. Leith suggests that in Cain’s days there must have been other people in addition to Adam’s family, but as they were not of “us”, i.e. the group that gave rise to the Hebrews, they were not counted.

She believes that Cain married one of these outsiders.

There is absolutely no scriptural support for this conjecture. The Bible says unambiguously that all people are the descendants of the first human parents (Gen. 3:20; Acts 17:26).

Source:

Leith, Mary Joan Winn. 2013. Who Did Cain Marry? Biblical Archaeology Review 39 (6), 22, 82, 84.

Intelligent Design: "Octopus Is an Eight-Legged Marvel"

The common octopus (Octopus vulgaris). Image courtesy of Albert Kok, Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

The more we get to know about the animal kingdom, the more amazing it turns out to be. A recent article in Nature news described the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) as a marvel:

“To researchers who study how living things move, the octopus is an eight-legged marvel, managing its array of undulating appendages by means of a relatively simple nervous system. Some studies have suggested that each of the octopus’s tentacles has a 'mind' of its own, without rigid central coordination by the animal’s brain.”

There’s more:

“Now neuroscientist Guy Levy and his colleagues at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem report that the animals can rotate their bodies independently of their direction of movement, reorienting them while continuing to crawl in a straight line. And, unlike species that use their limbs to move forward or sideways relative to their body's orientation, octopuses tend to slither around in all directions.”

The researchers were surprised. So was the article writer. The octopus’ co-ordination is amazing, and so is animal intelligence in general.

It might be good to remember that intelligence is an immaterial trait and cannot be explained away by Darwinian storytelling. Intelligent solutions require an intelligent designer.

Source:

Shen, Helen. 2013. Worm-like movements propel octopus ballet. Nature news (15 November).

More Caveman Inventions: Neanderthal String

Reconstruction of a Neanderthal girl. Image courtesy of Christopher P.E. Zollikofer, Anthropological Institute, University of Zurich via Wikipedia.


Joel Kontinen

We have all heard that cavemen were primitive. It might not be easy to think of them as inventors. However, recent research suggests that Neanderthals, once dismissed as grunting, stooped cavemen, were much more sophisticated than scientists previously assumed. In recent years, they have evolved – in science publications, that is – from dim-witted ape-like creatures to human inventors.

A new discovery suggests that Neanderthals were the first to use string. According to New Scientist:

“Perishable materials usually rot away, so the oldest string on record only dates back 30,000 years. But perforations in small stone and tooth artefacts from Neanderthal sites in France suggest the pieces were threaded on string and worn as pendants. ‘The wear patterns provide circumstantial evidence of early use of string, but the evidence is not definitive,’ says Bruce Hardy at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Similar circumstantial evidence has been found in perforated shells.

Now, Hardy and his colleagues have found slender, 0.7-millimetre-long plant fibres that are twisted together near some stone artefacts at a site in south-east France that was occupied by Neanderthals 90,000 years ago. Such fibres are not twisted together in nature, says the team, suggesting that the Neanderthals were responsible (Quaternary Science Reviews, doi.org/pzx).”

Once upon a time, some 150 years ago, Neanderthals were “proof” that humans had evolved from ape-men. But it seems that the times they are a-changing.

The model based on Genesis has regarded Neanderthals as fully human from the beginning.

(You can read more about Neanderthals here and here.)


Source:

Barras, Colin. 2013. World's oldest string found at French Neanderthal site. New Scientist 2943 (13 November).

”3.5- Billion -Year- Old” Ecosystems Are Complex

Stromatolities.





Joel Kontinen

A recent article in Science Daily begins with the words, “Reconstructing the rise of life during the period of Earth's history when it first evolved is challenging.”

It certainly is, as it is a well-established fact that life only comes from life.

Now, research published in Astrobiology on “the well-preserved remnants of a complex ecosystem in a nearly 3.5 billion-year-old sedimentary rock sequence in Australia” pushes back the emergence of complex ecosystems by 300 million years.

According to the Darwinian paradigm, early life was not supposed to be complex and it was not supposed to emerge too early.

The article continues:

“The Pilbara district of Western Australia constitutes one of the famous geological regions that allow insight into the early evolution of life. Mound-like deposits created by ancient photosynthetic bacteria, called stromatolites, and microfossils of bacteria have been described by scientists in detail. However, a phenomenon called microbially induced sedimentary structures, or MISS, had not previously been seen in this region. These structures are formed from mats of microbial material, much like mats seen today on stagnant waters or in coastal flats.”

The article also speculates on life on Mars. However, the take away message is that if life emerged very early, evolutionists will soon find that there was no time for it to evolve.

And if it did not evolve, it was created.


Source:

Evidence of 3.5-Billion-Year-Old Bacterial Ecosystems Found in Australia. Science Daily November 12, 2013.

Dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?

Dinosaurs on the ark? Yes.




Joel Kontinen

Were there dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark? If we take the Bible seriously, we’ll believe that there were.

Dinosaurs were land animals, and God told Noah to take two animals of each kind on the ark.

A brief That’s a Fact video produced by the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) features dinosaurs and Noah’s ark.

Watch the video here.

8.8 Billion Earth-Sized Planets Found?

An artist's impression of Kepler-69c. Image courtesy of NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech.





Joel Kontinen

Science headlines in the popular press are often interesting. Recently, Fox news entertained us with this “fact”: At least 8.8 billion Earth-size, just-right planets found, study says.

This reminds one of the buzz that occurs each time a new fossil is found. The headlines almost always get it wrong – very wrong.

So what did astronomers actually find?

Nothing.

According to Fox news, “Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone. The study was published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.”

The number (i.e., 8.8 billion) is merely an assumption, however. Later on the article states: “Kepler has identified only 10 planets that are about Earth's size circling sun-like stars and are in the habitable zone, including one called Kepler 69-c.”

There’s still no place like home.

Source:

At least 8.8 billion Earth-size, just-right planets found, study says. Fox news. 5 November 2013.

The Death of Early Man Theories

Dmanisi skull 5. Image courtesy of Guram Bumbiashvili, Georgian National Museum.





Joel Kontinen

The recent discovery of a skull in Dmanisi in Georgia by anthropologists from the University of Zurich has demolished Darwinian thinking on our ancestors. Previously, researchers “knew” that the genus Homo consisted of Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo rudolfensis and Homo ergaster.

This thinking was mostly based on a few isolated fragmentary skulls and bone parts, each displaying a different trait. It has turned out to be very problematic. Dr. Marcia Ponce de León acknowledges, “At present there are as many subdivisions between species as there are researchers examining this problem.”

Researchers dated the Dmanisi skull as 1.85 million years old and categorised it as H. erectus.

Professor Christoph P.E. Zollikofer’s statement says a lot about how researchers invent species: “Had the braincase and the face of the Dmanisi sample been found as separate fossils, they very probably would have been attributed to two different species.”

Now, researchers are suggesting that the genus Homo only includes a single species.

When a single skull brings down an entire tree one might be justified in concluding that the evolutionary story is anything but robust.

Source:

Unique skull find rebuts theories on species diversity in early humans. EurekAlert! 17 October, 2013.

The Bee Waggle Dance Points to Creation

European honey bee (Apis mellifera). Image courtesy of John Severns.





Joel Kontinen


Honeybees are clever creatures. They have an intricate method of telling other bees where they can find food. The method is so complicated that it took Austrian researcher Karl von Frisch 20 years to figure it out.

The bee waggle dance, as the method is called, suggests that these tiny creatures were created to be intelligent, as this brief video clip produced by Creation Ministries International shows.

100 Million Persecuted Christians - International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on Sunday, 3rd November

Joel Kontinen

Did you know that over 100 million Christians are persecuted right now, as you read these lines?

Following Jesus is not always easy, but in some cultures it is very dangerous. The world hates the true light (Jesus) and those who identify with Him.

Tomorrow, 3rd November, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Don’t forget to pray for those who are being persecuted for their faith.

Earth’s Twin Is Scorching Hot

An artist’s impression of Kepler-78. Image courtesy of David A. Aguilar (CfA).




Joel Kontinen

The more exoplanets we find, the more obvious it becomes that Earth is a very special place.

Recently, researchers reported on the discovery of Kepler-78b, an Earth-sized planet orbiting its star some 400 light years from us in the constellation Cygnus.

According to an article in Nature news, “Kepler-78b travels in orbit about 40 times closer to its star than Mercury is to the Sun; its year lasts just 8.5 hours; and its surface is thought to reach a scorching 2,300–3,100 Kelvin.”

Earth’s twin reminds us of something that Dante could have written. It hardly resembles the bluish planet where we live.

It seems that there’s no place like home in the universe. While this is difficult if not impossible to explain by a worldview based on Darwinism, the Bible tells us that God made the good earth to be habitable.


Source:

Gibney, Elizabeth. 2013. Exoplanet is built like Earth but much, much hotter. Nature news (30 October).

Craig Venter: “Life Is a DNA Software System”

Image courtesy of PloS Biology.





Joel Kontinen

Bill Gates famously stated: “DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software ever created.” Craig Venter has previously said: “"All living cells that we know of on this planet are 'DNA software'-driven biological machines comprised of hundreds of thousands of protein robots, coded for by the DNA, that carry out precise functions."

Recently, Venter basically repeated his thesis. In an interview published in New Scientist, he suggested:

“When we were able to move the DNA from one cell to another, converting one species to another, that was the proof that life is a DNA software system.”

Many evolutionists would reject this view. This probably prompted the interviewer to ask Venter: “Why do you think people find the idea of life as an information system hard to accept?”

Venter answered: “Because we like to think of the complexity of things. When we sequenced the human genome, a lot of people were angry that we only had 22,000 genes instead of 300,000. That is more complexity than any of us could even imagine, but linear thinkers wanted one gene for each trait.”

Venter nevertheless believes that life “evolved from much simpler systems.” However, all software systems that we know of have been designed more or less intelligently. We don’t have any proof that Darwinian processes could be able to engineer robust, working systems that are much better than systems human researchers and engineers have planned and designed.


Source:

Geddes, Linda. 2013. Craig Venter: Why I put my name in synthetic genomes. New Scientist 2940 (28 October).

“Earliest Galaxy” Speaks of Creation, “Formed Stars at a Breakneck Pace”

Image courtesy of V. Tilvi, S.L. Finkelstein, C. Papovich, NASA, ESA, A. Aloisi, The Hubble Heritage, HST, STScI, and AURA.




Joel Kontinen

Many astronomers believe that the first stars formed very fast. A recent article in the journal Science describes the speed as “a breakneck pace” and characterises the era as “an unexpected period of frenetic star birth in the early universe". This era is assumed to have been roughly 700 million years after the big bang.

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that galaxies that are thought to be very old are already fully formed and fill the sky in an orderly manner. (Astronomers assume that stars with a redshift of seven or so are among the oldest ones in the universe.)

The order seen in the “early” universe supports the Genesis model of creation in which God spoke the stars into existence.

Sources:

Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. 2013. Earliest Known Galaxy Formed Stars at a Breakneck Pace. Science 342 (6157), 411.

McKee, Maggie. 2013. Nature news (23 October).

No Discrepancy Between Darwin and Genesis, Theistic Evolutionist Claims in Christianity Today

A recent article in Christianity Today attempts to show that these gentlemen (Paley, Milton and Darwin) basically agreed on origins.




Joel Kontinen

Some Christians believe that God used evolution. In a recent article in Christianity Today, Andrew J. Wılson attempts to show that William Paley, John Milton and Charles Darwin basically agreed on human origins.

This is not the first time Christianity Today doubts the traditional understanding of Genesis.

Wilson’s thesis is fraught with problems, most of which are insurmountable. Milton clearly believed in a literal creation and a literal Eden. Paley saw design in nature. In contrast, Darwin thought that God and design were not needed at all but natural processes could account for our existence and evolution.

Wilson has an unorthodox view of creation:

“Genesis doesn't actually say that all human beings are biologically descended from Adam and Eve alone. The people Cain was scared of, and the woman he married, don't seem to be related to him. And if they weren't, then we don't actually know if they were created out of the dust of the earth, created out of creatures that already existed, or created in some other way.”

However, the Bible is not silent on this issue. The apostle Paul describes Adam as the first human being. Genesis 3:20 says that Eve was the mother of all the living, and Acts 17:26 states that all people are the descendents of one man (i.e., Adam).

But Wılson goes on to say: “So, I don't think Milton and Darwin are impossible to reconcile. In fact, I can't think of anything Milton (or Genesis) says about Adam and Eve that is contradicted by Darwinian evolution, as strange as that sounds.”

I can. Jesus, for instance, taught that God created man (and a woman) at the beginning of creation (Mark. 10:6) and not billions of years after the beginning. Moreover, Jesus and the apostles clearly believed that Genesis is history.


Source:

Wılson, Andrew J. 2013. Where Did We Come From? How Milton, Paley, and Darwin help us answer the question. Christianity Today (1 October)

Can Darwin Doubters Use Dinosaurs?

Allosaurus. Image courtesy of Nobu Tamura, via Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

It seems that evolutionists are reluctant to let Darwin doubters use dinosaurs.

Last week Answers in Genesis announced that it had obtained a world-class Allosaurus fossil for its Creation Museum in Kentucky. It is a remarkable specimen: its skull is one of the best-preserved Allosaurus skulls ever found.

At least one skeptic was indignant. Dan Phelps, president of the Kentucky Paleontological Society, lamented the use of a dinosaur fossil in a museum that questions Darwinian evolution and promotes the biblical model instead.

There should be no cause for indignation. Fossils do not support evolution. Instead, they speak of death that came into the world through the sin of the very first humans, Adam and Eve.

Source:

Ham, Ken and Steve Golden. 2013. Creationists Perform Good Research, Too! Answers in Genesis (October 22).

History Professor Busts Atheistic Myths

An article in Salvo magazine discusses the relationship of science and religion.


Joel Kontinen

The purported conflict between science and religion is an atheistic myth, Professor Michael Keas writes in Salvo magazine. He says that while leading historians of science, for instance Ronald Numbers, have exposed this as “the greatest myth in the history of science and religion,” many advocates of atheism have continued to use this false argument.

Discussing their views, Prof. Keas says, “An anti-Christian agenda … often lurks below.” He points out that far from hampering science, Christianity actually promoted the growth of science:

“Science and biblical religion have been friends for a long time. Judeo-Christian theology has contributed in a friendly manner to such science-promoting ideas as discoverable natural history, experimental inquiry, universal natural laws, mathematical physics, and investigative confidence that is balanced with humility. Christian institutions, especially since the medieval university, have often provided a supportive environment for scientific inquiry.”

Keas shows that the expression Dark Ages is a misnomer. During the Medieval Period, the Church never hindered scientific progress. Most people never really believed in a flat earth, and the Galileo affair had more to do with the conflict between the Aristotelian view and Copernican cosmology than with theology. In the early 17th century, “the Aristotelian viewpoint, held by most church leaders, was the majority scientific view of the time.”

Thus, even if sceptics might not like Christianity, they should not argue against it by using false arguments.


Source:

Keas, Michael. 2013. In the Beginning: Episodes in the Origin & Development of Science. Salvo 26 Science & Faith Supplement.

“Close To A Miracle” – The Origin of Proteins, According to Science Publication

The protein myoglobin in 3D. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

When an article in a science magazine begins with the words Close to a miracle, we might suspect that it might not ambiguously support the Darwinian view of how we got proteins.

Indeed, the article in ASBMB Today, produced by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, continues with the words Researchers are debating the origins of proteins.

However, when the online version was published, the magazine editors obviously remembered evolution and changed the subtitle to Researchers are debating whether function or structure first appeared in primitive peptides.

The PDF version retains the original subtitle, suggesting that experts find it difficult to explain proteins in a Darwinian framework.

Source:

Mukhopadhyay, Rajendrani. 2013. Close to a miracle. Researchers are debating the origins of proteins. ASBMB Today 12:9 (October).

Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels: New DVD From Creation Ministries International

Joel Kontinen

In Greek mythology, Achilles (Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Troyan war. He was invulnerable in all other parts except his heel.

In like manner, Darwinian evolution might sound like a robust theory – except that it isn’t. It has a number of unprotected parts that make it very vulnerable. In an upcoming DVD, 15 PhD scientists disclose why they do not think that evolution is true. Here’s a brief sneak peek at the video produced by Creation Ministries International:




CMI will later produce a book on the topic.

Flowers for T. Rex

New research suggests that flowers were flowers during the dino era.



Joel Kontinen


The evolution of flowers is a big mystery for Darwinists. Charles Darwin actually called it an abominable mystery. A few years ago, evolutionists assumed that the plants that flourished at the time when dinosaurs roamed the world were very much different from what they are today.

However, fossilised dinosaur dung (technically known are coprolites) show that dinos actually ate plants.

A recent discovery suggests the need for a major revision to the evolutionary concept of flowers. According to Science Daily:

“Drilling cores from Switzerland have revealed the oldest known fossils of the direct ancestors of flowering plants. These beautifully preserved 240-million-year-old pollen grains are evidence that flowering plants evolved 100 million years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study in the open-access journal Frontiers in Plant Science.”

Once again, a single discovery upturns old evolutionary “truths”.

Incidentally, the model based on Genesis predicted that dinosaurs and flowering plants existed together.

Source:

New Fossils Push the Origin of Flowering Plants Back by 100 Million Years to the Early Triassic. ScienceDaily Oct. 1, 2013.

Answers in Genesis to Atheists: ”Thank God, You’re Wrong!”

A new AIG campaign challenges atheists.



Joel Kontinen

Answers in Genesis –US just launched a billboard campaign in several locations, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Times Square in New York, Los Angeles and Hollywood.

The current campaign should probably be seen in the context of the atheistic slogans that appeared in busses in several countries in recent years.

The purpose of the campaign is to get people to think that God is real – that He is the Creator and Saviour.


See more details here.

Defying Evolution: The Praying Mantis

Darwinian stories cannot account for the non-evolution of the praying mantis.




Joel Kontinen

The praying mantis most probably lived at the time when T-rex was a fearful predator. The mantis is also a predator but it is still very much alive.

Evolutionists do not have a plausible story of how the praying mantis evolved from some other kind of creature. What is obvious is that it has not changed much for ages.

Once again, a living fossil causes problems for ardent evolutionists. They suggest that evolution is not true.

Evolution and Bias in Science

Recently, an article in Nature addressed bias in research.





Joel Kontinen

Bias in research seems to be an increasingly serious problem. As scientists are humans, they tend to think about things in certain ways and often see what they expect to see.

They might for instance believe that the number of bees is declining and that is what they report although the reality might tell a very different story.

When it comes to topics related to worldviews, the risk of seeing imaginary ape-men or feathered dinosaurs is a real problem that, unfortunately, Nature does not mention among the areas in which research bias occurs.

Source:

Boyd, Ian. 2013. A standard for policy-relevant science. Nature 501 (7466), 159-160.

The Wrong Concept of God?

God revealed Himself in Christ. Christ Pantocrator. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen

Advocates of theistic evolution and other long-age views tend to have a concept of God that differs considerable from what the Bible clearly teaches.

In the New Testament, Jesus did creative miracles (such as raising Lazarus from the dead) instantly. While long- agers might accept that, they have difficulties in believing that God did instant miracles in the beginning, without the need of relying on naturalistic processes.

Our view of God has an effect on our lives and society at large. In his book Passion for Jesus (Orlando, Florida: Creation Hoiuse, 1993) pastor Mike Bickle writes:

”The downward spiral of morality in our society is directly proportional to the loss of our understanding of the greatness of God.”

This calls for a return to the biblical concept of God.

Volcanoes on Jupiter’s Moon Io Suggest the Solar System is Young

The latest issue of Creation magazine features an article on Io’s volcanoes.



Joel Kontinen

We can add a new element to the list of features that speak against a multi-billion year old solar system. In addition to comets, Mercury’s magnetic field and the atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, Jupiter’s moon Io also shows signs of youth (in a relative sense).

If Io were really as old as some astronomers assume, it should be a dead moon.

But it isn’t.

Io’s volcanoes are active and surprisingly violent, suggesting that they could not have been spouting lava for millions of years.

Source:

Coppedge, David. 2013. The Violent Volcanoes of Io. Creation
35 (4), 54-55.

An Evolutionist’s Misleading Definition of Evolution

Joel Kontinen

Reviewing the first volume of Richard Dawkins’ memoirs in Nature, Eugenie Scott writes:

“As befits someone whose life’s work has focused on the cumulative changes through time that we call evolution, Dawkins ….”

Dr. Scott, soon to retire as the executive director of the fiercely anti-creation organization National Center for Science Education, has even previously defined evolution as change.

Darwinian evolution is about much more than just change over time. It is, in effect, an attempt to explain reality without a Creator. Unfortunately for Darwinists, recent discoveries clearly point to design in nature, and, by definition, design implies a Designer.

A major problem with the change that evolution needs is that it does not happen in real life. Instead of gaining new genetic information, animals tend to lose it with the passing of time. Thus, in spite of the desire of Eugenie Scott and Richard Dawkins, Darwinian evolution does not occur in nature.

Source:

Scott, Eugenie C. 2013. Evolution of a mind. Nature 501 (7466), 163.

Why Do Evolutionary Predictions Fail?

Joel Kontinen


“So why do these evolutionary predictions about the genome continually fail in the light of new research?” Jeffrey Tomkins, who has a PhD in genetics, asks in an Acts & Facts article.

The reason is obvious. Dr. Tomkins goes on to say:

“It`s because scientists who possess an evolutionary mindset are always viewing the genome as the product of chance random processes. Instead, we should be looking at the genome from the perspective of functionality and incredible bioengineering – the product of an omnipotent and wise Creator.”

Source:

Tomkins, Jeffrey, 2013. Pseudogenes are functional, not genomic fossils. Acts & Facts 42 (7), 9.

We're Created in God’s Image or We’re Bony Fishes?

A fish with a face has made headlines recently. Image courtesy of Brian Choo.


Joel Kontinen

A new discovery of a fish fossil assumed to be over 400 million years old has given rise to some interesting comments from ardent Darwinists. The fossil Entelognathus primordialis was recently published in Nature, and there seems to be no end to Darwinian storytelling:

Matt Friedman of Oxford University said: “We are a kind of very specialized, very bizarre fish that about 370 million years ago went on land and lost its fins … we're bony fishes.”

And Min Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: “Entelognathus primordialis is one of the earliest, and certainly the most primitive, fossil fish that has the same jawbones as modern bony fishes and land vertebrates including ourselves.”

The fish is interesting, because it turns fish evolution upside down. In Darwinian thinking, a single fossil can re-write history.

Moreover, the fish has a face (sort of). But it takes a long – and scientifically and logically – impossible leap from a face to a man. What is needed is faith in naturalistic miracles.

Unfortunately, evolutionists do not have a miracle maker.

But we do.


Source:


Handwerk, Brian. 2013. Fish Fossil Has Oldest Known Face, May Influence Evolution National Geographic News (25 September).

Engineered Systems in E. Coli Bacteria

E. coli. Image courtesy of Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID, NIH. A letter in Nature suggests that the bacterium is even more complex than previously thought.





Joel Kontinen


Bacteria are anything but simple. A recent letter in the journal Nature discusses the overflow system in Escherichia coli and states:

“In bacterial cells, the overproduction of metabolites is normally avoided by mechanisms that are similar in principle to control systems in engineering.”

As far as we know, blind Darwinian processes are incapable of engineering feats. But there’s more:

“We all know that a kitchen sink is liable to overflow if the tap is left on with the plughole blocked. In most domestic sinks this danger is averted, at least partially, by having an overflow outlet near the top. But in more elaborate engineered systems, such as the domestic toilet, an overflow is avoided by means of negative feedback: as soon as the water in the tank reaches a certain level, the inflow is switched off. Bacterial metabolism is in many ways similar.”

Somehow, this sounds like a very intelligently designed system.

Source:

Cornish-Bowden, Athel. 2013. Biochemistry: Curbing the excesses of low demand. Nature 500 (7461), 157–158.

Evolution – A Hypothesis That Cannot Be Tested

This is a scenario that cannot be tested scientifically. Image courtesy of José-Manuel Benito Álvarez, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

When researchers – at least serious ones – propose a theory, they often have facts to back it up. Nowadays, however, there are some notable exceptions, such as (neo) Darwinian evolution.

It appears that Charles Darwin was not entirely objective when he first suggested that natural selection could in effect do what most people until his time believed only God could do.

Disease and death in his family, especially of his ten-year old daughter Annie, caused Darwin to turn his back on the Creator.

What about fossils? The fossils that Darwin assumed would confirm his view have not materialised, over 150 years after On the Origin of Species. The best they have are some highly debated specimens. In other words, we cannot test evolution, because there is very little to test.

No testing amounts to no theory in the scientific meaning of the word.

But there is no end to speculations.

Nigerian Junk Mail and Darwinian Storytelling

New Scientist assumes that evolution explains cat behaviour.




Joel Kontinen

The spam e-mails that most of us are all too familiar with can at times be if not compelling then at least dramatic. They almost always feature a tragic accident or a fatal illness and heaps of money that the sender wants to give you. Or something like that.

It appears that this genre has a close relative in popular science magazines. These also feature death and catastrophes (such as the meteorite impact that supposedly killed off the dinosaurs), but instead of money they boast of new innovations that came into being as if by magic without any logical reason.

Recently, an article in New Scientist asserted: “Cats owe their success as pets to the fact that they have evolved an ability to interact with us in a way that we find appealing.”

How does the writer know that cats have the ability to evolve a particular trait? The obvious answer is that he doesn’t, but he simply assumes that since evolution is true, evolution must have done it.

It seems that Darwinian storytelling has to appeal to something closely related to magic in attempting to explaining features we see in nature.


Source:

Bradshaw, John. 2013. More than a feline: the true nature of cats. New Scientist 2934, 44-47. (17 September).

Starling Flight Defies Evolution

A Eurasian Starling. Image courtesy of Christophe Eyquem, Wikipedia. (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license).





Joel Kontinen

Starlings can fly in flocks of up to 300,000 birds. They can fly very close to each other, almost touching each other’s wings, but they do not crash with their neighbour in mid air.

Starling formations are called murmurations, perhaps due to the sound that they make. Murmurations keep predators away, for instance.

The spectacular flight of these very intelligent birds defies evolution. This video clip from Illustra Media’s DVD FLIGHT: The Genius of Birds shows that Darwinism does not explain the behaviour of starlings.

Inventors Have Copied “Most of the Basic Components of Engineering” from Intelligent Solutions in Nature

This planthopper has made headlines recently. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license).


Joel Kontinen

Can blind Darwinian processes invent intelligent engineering solutions? Some seem to think so. The recent discovery of gears in planthopper legs has given rise to discussion on exactly what has been found in nature.

It appears that much more than gears have been discovered.

“Most of the basic components of engineering have been developed in the natural world,” says Alexander Riedel of the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany, as quoted in Nature news.

And much more than just the basic components are seen in nature. Many of the intelligently designed systems in nature are far better and more effective than the best solutions human inventors and engineers have come up with.

Biomimicry or the imitation of intelligent solutions seen in nature is a flourishing field of hi-tech engineering. Aeroplanes, submarines and robots all use this technology. You can read about some of the solutions here, here and here.

The most obvious explanation for the intelligent solutions seen in nature is that a Master Designer has designed them that way.


Source:

Ball, Philip. 2013. Insect leg cogs a first in animal kingdom. Nature news (12 September).