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).