Evolution's Achilles' Heels: New Documentary from CMI

A new documentary looks at the lethal weaknesses of Darwinian evolution.




Joel Kontinen

A new documentary featuring 14 PhD scientists alooks at the weaknesses of Darwinian evolution that undermine the very viability of the theory that some people would assume has been proven to be fact.

The video takes its name from 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. Watch the official trailer of the video:

The Darwinian Roots of the First Holocaust

Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha ruthlessly put down an uprising in South-West Africa. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Writing in Sunday Express, John Lewis-Stempel looks at the roots of German expansionism during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II:

“The Lebensraum policy of expansion was advocated by the 19th-century German geographer Friedrich Ratzel, who distorted Darwin's theory of evolution to proclaim that migration was necessary for a race's survival.”

However, the way the Germans treated black Africans was not a distortion of Darwinism. There was more to the first holocaust than just expansionism. German scientists inspired by Darwinian evolution wanted to examine the skulls of dead Africans. Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species had been translated into German in 1875. In addition, Ernst Haeckel promoted evolution with his writings and Nietzsche proclaimed his view of Übermensch or superman.

German scientists wanted to show that light-skinned Europeans were more evolved than dark Africans.

Germany conquered South-West Africa or the present-day Namibia in 1884. The colonial masters treated their subjects so badly that they revolted in 1896 and 1904-1908. The German troops under Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha put down the uprising ruthlessly. Roughly 60, 000 Hereros and over 10, 000 Namas died either in battle or from malnutrition or diseases in concentration camps.

Lewis-Stempel says that many skulls were sent to Germany “to prove the similarity between the Nama and anthropoid apes”. This was not a distortion but an application of Darwin’s writings in The Descent of Man.

A hundred years ago, Charles Darwin’s shadow extended far from his homeland, bringing desperation, suffering and death to Africa.

Source:

Lewis-Stempel, John. 2014. The women made to boil heads of their own people in Germany's first Holocaust. Sunday Express (January 19).

”100-Million-Year-Old” Flowers Look Modern, Darwin’s Abominable Mystery Still Unsolved

150 years after Darwin, the evolution of flowers is still a mystery.



Joel Kontinen

For Charles Darwin, the rapid development of flowering plants was “an abominable mystery”, as he described it to his friend Joseph Hooker in a letter dated 22 July, 1879.

A recent study on “100-million-year-old” flowers preserved in amber in Burma (Myanmar) reveals that they reproduced in the same way as modern flowers.

Study co-author George Poinar, a biologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, said:” Here you have a hundred-million-year-old flower that looks like it was blooming last week."

For modern-day Darwinists, the mystery of flowering plants is still an abominable one. For all others, flowers speak of the ingenuity and creativity of their Maker.


Source:

Lee, Jane J. 2014. Oldest Known Fossil of Flowering-Plant Sex Found in Amber. National Geographic (6 January).

Ken Ham Will Debate Bill Nye on Creation vs. Evolution - Atheists Are Already Protesting

Joel Kontinen

Freethinkers have never been pleased with the free exchange of ideas, especially if some of these ideas are contrary to their naturalistic worldview.

Once again, this trend has become obvious in the criticism some leading atheists such as Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins (and his foundation) have come up with following the announcement that Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis will debate Bill Nye (known as the Science Guy) at the Creation Museum in Kentucky on February 4th. They have in vain urged Mr. Nye to give up the debate.

Evolutionists tend to be allergic to debates. Richard Dawkins, for instance, has refused to debate Jonathan Sarfati of Creation Ministries International or any other scientist who believes in biblical creation. This, of course, gives the impression that he is somewhat unsure of his ideology.

The two-and-a-half-hour debate beginning at 7.00 PM (ET) on February 4 will be streamed live. You can watch it here.

Source:

Atheists and Their Tantrums—Dawkins Comments on Debate Answers in Genesis 22 January 2014.

Signs of Youth on Dwarf Planet Ceres

Ceres. Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, J. Parker (Southwest Research Institute), P. Thomas (Cornell University), and L. McFadden (University of Maryland, College Park).




Joel Kontinen

Recent discoveries of water and active volcanoes have brought big surprises to astronomers who have assumed that the outer solar system should display signs of mature age.

The latest finding is water vapour that the dwarf planet Ceres seems to be spouting.

According to New Scientist,

“Astronomers used to believe that asteroids from the main belt were too close to the sun to stay wet, and only comets from the far fringes of the solar system were able to hold onto any water ice. But recently, asteroid-belt objects have been spotted with comet-like tails of dust streaming behind them, suggesting that they too have solid ice on their surfaces that is vaporising and releasing dust into space.”"

Astronomers believing in the nebular hypothesis have a huge problem: how can liquid water survive for billions of years on a small planet?

Logic would suggest that it cannot.

Source:

Grossman. Lisa. 2014. Dwarf planet caught spitting inside asteroid belt. New Scientist (22 January).

The War on Humans

Ideas have consequences. Applying Charles Darwin’s ideas consistently causes one to hate humans. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.


Joel Kontinen

A document that will be released later this spring looks at what happens when one applies Charles Darwin’s ideas consistently.

Darwin wanted to take down humans from their pedestal, rob them of their status of being created in the image of God. His followers are attempting to break down the barrier separating humans and animals.

The result is an all-out war on humans:

“Nutcracker Man” Lived In a Tree

A cast of Paranthropus boisei. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. (GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2).



Joel Kontinen

I once read the true story of a man who lived in a tree. However, a recent news update features an arboreal creature that some people would regard as a man, sort of, but was actually not a human being at all.

An assumed human ancestor discovered by Mary Leakey in northern Tanzania in 1959 was dubbed Nutcracker Man. Later research has suggested that this creature, also known as Paranthropus boisei, ate more grass than nuts, however, and preferred to live in a tree.

According to Science Daily, “Researchers found a partial skeleton -- including arm, hand, leg and foot fragments -- dated to 1.34 million years old and belonging to Paranthropus boisei at the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage fossil site in Tanzania.”

P. boisei was “characterized by ‘robust’ jaw and skull bones”. It “was a muscular creature with a gorilla-like upper body and more adaptive to its environment than previously thought, scientists have discovered.”

Charles Musiba, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver, who took part in the research, characterised P. boisei as a tree climber:

“The size of the arm bones suggests strong forearms and a powerful upper body.”

Dr. Musiba does not regard it as a human ancestor.

Many evolutionists believe that Lucy, a.k.a Australopithecus afarensis, assumed to be two million years older than P. boisei, already walked on two feet. There is no real evidence for this, though.

It was time for an old icon to fall. The problem is that evolutionists do not have many candidates who could take Nutcracker Man’s place, however. But, then, with every passing year, the entire Darwinian story is becoming less plausible.


Source:

Discovery of Partial Skeleton Suggests Ruggedly Built, Tree-Climbing Human Ancestor. Science Daily December 5, 2013.

James Watson: “Eugenics Is Sort of Self -Correcting Your Evolution”

James Watson looked like this some 20 years ago. Image courtesy of the National Cancer Institute.



Joel Kontinen


James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, said recently:

“Eugenics is sort of self -correcting your evolution, and the message I have is that individuals should direct the evolution of their descendants, don't let the State do it. I think it would be irresponsible not to direct your evolution if you could, in the sense that you could have a healthy child versus an unhealthy child, I think it is irresponsible not to try and direct the evolution to produce a human being who would be an asset to the world as well as to himself.”

Evolution and eugenics have been Siamese twins since the time when Charles Darwin’s descendants and especially his cousin Francis Galton began to dabble with the idea of improving mankind. Along the way, it led to abortion and genocide. Under Hitler, the German Nazis perfected their “scientific” racism in an attempt to help natural selection improve mankind.

Dr. Watson has kindly reminded us of the Darwinian roots of eugenics.

Source:

DNA Learning Center.

Bogs Form Too Fast

Bogs form too quickly. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen


It is often assumed that peat usually forms slowly, roughly only a millimetre per year. However, a recent article in New Scientist featured the relatively young bogs of Great Britain.

Too young bogs might cause problems for the belief in millions of years.

Source

Battersby, Stephen. 2014. Squelch! The mystery of Britain's young bogs. New Scientist 2051. (14 January).

A Fishy Story: The Darwin Fish

The Darwin fish is a parody of an early Christian symbol. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

Early Christians, who often faced severe persecution, used the fish or Ichthys (ΙΧΘΥΣ) symbol so they could identify their fellow-believers without fear of imprisonment or even death at the hand of pagan Romans.

The followers of Jesus refused to worship Caesar as lord, so they were often regarded as enemies of the state.

Atheists would claim that their worldview is entirely secular. However, the advent of the Darwin fish in the 1980s suggests that there is more to it.

It might be a parody, but the very idea that they have to resort to parody speaks volumes about the anti-Christian faith of Darwin’s disciples.

Evolution, it seems, not only has a religious dimension. It is a worldview vying with Christianity – albeit one that offers no hope for a world direly in need of hope.

New Evolution Story: Lethal Weapons Caused the Evolution of Civilisation

The key to civilisation? Image courtesy of Wikipedia.





Joel Kontinen

The one thing that Darwinian stories do not lack is vivid imagination.

Eating meat supposedly gave us big brains. There are intriguing tales on how we lost our fur. But all such stories rely more on imagination than on evidence.

When one story fails, another springs up to take its place.

An article in New Scientist attempts to describe the evolution of civilisations:

“From the very first spear to nuclear bombs, deadly weapons have directed the course of our cultural evolution.”

The story introduces a weapon that is assumed to be the mother (or father) of all modern weapons:

“IT'S about 2 metres long, made of tough spruce wood and carved into a sharp point at one end. The widest part, and hence its centre of gravity, is in the front third, suggesting it was thrown like a javelin. At 400,000 years old, this is the world's oldest spear. And, according to a provocative theory, on its carved length rests nothing less than the foundation of human civilisation as we know it, including democracy, class divisions and the modern nation state.”

Yes, it is provocative because it is mostly based on speculation of how society could have developed:

“At the heart of this theory is a simple idea: the invention of weapons that could kill at a distance meant that power became uncoupled from physical strength. Even the puniest subordinate could now kill an alpha male, with the right weapon and a reasonable aim. Those who wanted power were forced to obtain it by other means - persuasion, cunning, charm - and so began the drive for the cognitive attributes that make us human. ‘In short, 400,000 years of evolution in the presence of lethal weapons gave rise to Homo sapiens,’ says Herbert Gintis, an economist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico who studies the evolution of social complexity and cooperation.”

The article writer discloses her evolutionary bias by stating:

“The puzzle of how humans became civilised has received new impetus from studies of the evolution of social organisation in other primates.”

Source:

Spinney, Laura. 2012. Lethal weapons and the evolution of civilisation. New Scientist 2886. 46-49.

Oldest Living Fossil: Elephant Shark

New research suggests that the elephant shark is the oldest living fossil. Image courtesy of Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, via Wikipedia.



Joel Kontinen

“It's a living fossil to beat all others. The elephant shark, Callorhinchus milii … has the slowest-evolving genome of any vertebrate.” This is how New Scientist begins an article on what is assumed to be the oldest living fossil.

The elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii), also known as the Australian ghostshark, is not actually a shark at all. Evolutionists believe that C. milii “belongs to a group known as ratfish, which diverged from sharks about 400 million years ago.”

According to New Scientist, “a team led by Byrappa Venkatesh of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore compared its genome with those of other vertebrates, they found it had changed less from its presumed ancestral form than any other.

C. milii outstrips the coelacanth, the fish that previously held the slow-evolution record.”

The article admits that the elephant shark does not fit in well with evolutionary expectations. This is no surprise as evolution is supposed to be about change and many animals show little if any change during their entire existence.

Source:

Holmes, Bob. 2014. Elephant shark takes record for slowest evolution. New Scientist (8 January).

“2013 Was a Terrible Year for Evolution,” Evolutionist Laments

Physicist Karl Giberson laments the fate of evolution. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Evolutionists are not happy. Physicist Karl Giberson, who attempts to do the impossible, i.e., to make Christianity compatible with evolution, acknowledges:

“Evolution did not fare well in 2013. The year ended with the anti-evolution book Darwin’s Doubt as Amazon’s top seller in the ‘Paleontology’ category. The state of Texas spent much of the year trying to keep the country’s most respected high school biology text out of its public schools. And leading anti-evolutionist and Creation Museum curator Ken Ham made his annual announcement that the ‘final nail’ had been pounded into the coffin of poor Darwin’s beleaguered theory of evolution.”

Dr. Giberson managed to include several mistakes in that paragraph. Darwin’s Doubt is not primarily an anti-evolution book. It looks at the Cambrian Explosion and concludes that the evidence does not point to Darwinism. Giberson likewise grossly misrepresents Ken Ham, who, by the way, is the CEO of Answers in Genesis, and he gives a very biased view of the episode in Texas.

But, yes, Giberson is right in saying that 2013 was a terrible year for evolution. But it was terrible because the theory – if one could call it that – is not backed by evidence but by storytelling.

In recent years, Giberson has made some bizarre statements. He has claimed that a traditional understanding of Genesis amounts to robbing Genesis. He has also said that Jesus would believe in evolution.


Source:

Giberson, Karl W. 2013. 2013 Was a Terrible Year for Evolution. The Daily Beast (2 January).

Early Man Was Clever, Monuments Suggest

Stonehenge. Image courtesy of Wikipedia. (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license).


Joel Kontinen

Early men were not simpletons. They were able to build pyramids and other huge monuments on several continents. A recent article in Science looks at Stonehenge that is assumed to be a centre for celebrating rituals related to life and death.

Evolutionists tend to be surprised every time archaeologists discover a hitherto hidden aspect of the prowess of what they call prehistoric man, because it usually conflicts with what they assume.

Their Darwinian perspective has led them to think that in the early days people had to be primitive.

However, the facts show that the Genesis model of early man is right and the evolution model wrong. The early chapters of the Bible indicate that already at the dawn of history, humans were able to smelt and refine metals (Genesis 4:22), just a few generations after creation.

Source:

Balter, Michael. 2014. Life and Death at Stonehenge. Science 343 (6166): 20-21.

Multiverse Theory – An Attempt To Escape God

Multiple universes? Image courtesy of Wikipedia.


Joel Kontinen

Many atheist physicists have espoused the idea of multiple universes. They do this in order to escape the obvious, i.e., that the universe we know is fine-tuned for life.

Writing in Free Republic, physicist Rob Sheldon states:

“Multiverse-theory is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, and that is to defend atheism. It makes no predictions, it gives no insight, it provides no control, it produces no technology, it advances no mathematics, it is a science in name only, because it is really metaphysics.”

It seems that just like Adam and Eve hid from God, latter-day atheists are trying to escape from Him into a plurality of assumed universes.



Source:

Free Republic, 11 July 2011.

Jupiter’s Moon Europa Challenges Billions-of-Years Dogma, Looks Young

Europa looks like this. Image courtesy of NASA.



Joel Kontinen

Some of the big moons of Jupiter and Saturn show signs of youth. If they really were billions of years old, they should be more or less dead.

But they aren’t. There are active volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io. Copious amounts of tholin on Saturn’s moon Titan suggest that the moon cannot be billions of years old.

Recent research also suggests that liquid water is “spurting from [Jupiter’s moon] Europa.” The Hubble Space Telescope has observed “possible plumes emanating from mystery moon's south pole.”

As old moons will hardly spout water, the most logical conclusion is that Europa is not as old as is usually assumed, but supports the Genesis-based creation model very well.

Source:

Witze, Alexandra. 2013. Hubble spots water. Nature news (12 December).