Human Evolution is Over

Our closest cousins according to T. H. Huxley. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia).





Joel Kontinen


Human evolution is about to stop as there are too few older fathers in the western world.

Recently, Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London, disclosed that due to the scarcity of older fathers, we will have to say goodbye to human evolution. He explained that fathers who are over 35 probably pass on more mutations to their offspring than younger men.

According to Jones, evolution consists of three main elements – natural selection, mutation, and random change. He says that the amount of mutations has diminished considerably. He suspects that this is due to the fact that there are too few older fathers.

As reported by Times Online, professor Jones explained, “Every time there is a cell division, there is a chance of a mistake, a mutation, an error. For a 29-year old father there are around 300 divisions between the sperm that made him and the one he passes on – each one with an opportunity to make mistakes.”

He went on to say that for a 50-year old father there are over a thousand chances of errors. Thus, the decrease in the number of older fathers has an effect on how many mutations can appear.

Jones also thinks natural selection has weakened as people are living longer. Nowadays ethnic groups are more connected with others, which diminishes randomness. Taken together, these factors will bring human evolution to a standstill.

Paul Taylor of the Christian apologetics ministry Answers in Genesis (UK/Europe) summarises professor Jones’ ideas as follows:

1. Actual scientific evidence suggests that humans are not evolving today.
2. We don't have any evidence that they were evolving in the past either.
3. But we think that they were!

In other words, the idea of human evolution is entirely based on faith and storytelling that is typical of Darwinists.




Sources:

Belluz, Julia. 2008. Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over. Times Online (7 October).
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4894696.ece

Taylor, Paul. 2008. Human Evolution Has Stopped! Answers in Genesis UK/Europe Newsletter October 2008 (Issue 9)

George Orwell and Darwin’s Thought Police

Beware what you think: Big Brother is watching (and listening)


Joel Kontinen

Concepts such as Thought Police and slogans like Ignorance is Strength that George Orwell wrote about on the pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four are alive and well in our midst.

The Darwinian Thought Police have been busy recently. In Britain, they forced the resignation of a leading scientist from the Royal Society. In the United States, they questioned the competency of a politician who had the temerity to suggest she would allow a critical examination of evolution in science education.

They would gladly keep as many people as possible ignorant of the flaws of Darwinian mechanisms, i.e. natural selection acting on random mutations, as these poor souls might otherwise end up not believing in evolution.

Evolutionists have adapted a very Orwellian use of words and tactics. Thus, by “science” they really mean “evolution” as in the National Center for Science Education. They only science they ever teach is (Neo) Darwinian evolution (the goo-to-you variety). Thus, anyone disagreeing with Darwin is by definition an anti-science bigot although most of the founding fathers of modern science were Christians who believed in a literal creation and a world wide flood. It was only later that Darwinists hijacked the word science.

Now, as Richard Dawkins and many other fellow-believers would agree, evolution is a great story that seeks to replace the Christian account of creation. There is a difference between being created in the image of God and being the result of natural selection acting on random mutations.

Some Christians have tried to make their peace with Charles Darwin by trying to combine atheistic evolution with the revelation of the God of the Bible. However, just like Christ and Belial (2 Corinthians 6:15) do not mix, it is impossible to marry two great stories that are alternative ways of looking at reality.



Source:

Orwell, George. 2001 (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: The Folio Society.

Time For a Green Bible?

Joel Kontinen

What has going green to do with the Bible? More than we would suppose, if we are to take a new Bible edition at face value.

While the text itself is not new, a Bible with an emphasis on the environment is a rather green idea. According to the publisher, the purpose of the book is “to show how we can care for and protect God's creation”.

HarperCollins has produced a new edition called The Green Bible. While many readers are familiar with red-letter Bibles, in which Jesus’ words are printed in red, the new Bible has over 1000 verses that “speak to God's care for creation highlighted in green”.

The HarperOne website states, “The Green Bible will equip and encourage people to see God's vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it.”

The text follows the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), which was first published in 1989. The NRSV is a revision of the older Revised Standard Version. While evangelicals might have preferred the New International Version (NIV), the Green Bible nevertheless reminds us of an important but often forgotten aspect of God’s revelation to mankind: According to Genesis 2:15 God entrusted man with the task of taking care of the Garden of Eden. Some Bibles, such as Luther’s now revised German translation, also speak of protecting the garden.

The Green Bible itself is printed on paper that is guaranteed to hail from “well-managed forests” with 10 per cent being made from recycled paper. Moreover, the ink is soy-based and the cover is made from cotton and linen.

In addition to the Bible text, The Green Bible has a foreword by archbishop Desmond Tutu and essays by other well-known Protestant and Catholic leaders such as Pope John Paul II and bishop N. T. Wright.

The Green Bible received a basically positive response from Time’s religion editor David van Biema in the September 29 issue.

While the New Testament puts more emphasis on the Great Commission than on the stewardship mandate, The Green Bible reminds us that the entire creation is God’s creation and we should take good care of it.





Sources:

HarperOne. http://greenletterbible.com/

van Biema, David. 2008. The Good Book Goes Green. Time (Europe) 172:13, 43.

Genesis is History

Hebrew scholar believes Genesis is history. Adam and Eve at AIG's Creation Museum.




Joel Kontinen

Associate Professor Steven W. Boyd, who has a Ph.D. in Hebraic and Cognate Studies, examined the text of Genesis 1:1-2:3 statistically and concluded that it was historical narrative.

Ancient Hebrew poetry uses parallelism, for instance Psalm 8:4 uses a literary device called synonymic parallelism:

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

The same thing is described twice in different words (man – son of man, mindful of – care for).

Genesis chapter 1 does not use such parallelism. Doctor Steven W. Boyd compared Genesis 1 to a number of Old Testament passages in which the same story is described both as historical narrative and as poetry. These include:

· Crossing the Red Sea: Exodus 14 (historical narrative) vs. Exodus 15:1–19 (poetry)
· The victory of Barak and Debora over the Canaanites: Judges 4 (historical narrative) vs. Judges 5 (poetry)
· The creation account: Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 (historical narrative) vs. Psalm 104 (poetry).

By computing the distribution of preterites to finite verbs and assessing the results statistically doctor Boyd concluded that the probability of Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 being prose is 0.999972604.

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, wrote:

Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:
1. creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
2. the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
3. Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

While professor Barr did not believe that the Genesis account is literal history, he nevertheless confirmed Boyd’s conclusion.

Boyd is more consistent: he believes that Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a reliable historical account of creation. His study was part of the RATE (Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth) project of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).

Sources:

Barr, James. 1984. Letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984.

Boyd, Steven W. 2004. The Biblical Hebrew Creation Account: New Numbers Tell The Story. Acts & Facts 33:11, i-iv (November 2004).

Don’t Hurt the Feelings of Your Hibiscus!

Treat me with respect.

Joel Kontinen

Plants have intrinsic dignity and we should thus take an ethical approach to them. This is the conclusion reached by the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) in a survey study entitled The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake.

This study was awarded the 2008 Ig Nobel peace prize. The Ig Nobels are presented each year at Harvard University at about the same time as the real Nobels in Scandinavia. The ten prizes are a parody of the ones awarded in memory of Alfred Nobel.

The decisions of the Ig Nobel Committee can be surprising. In 2005 the literature prize was presented to a group of Nigerian Internet entrepreneurs who had e-mailed amazingly touching short stories to readers all over the world.

Urs Thurnherr, of the University of Education in Karlsruhe, German, a member of the Swiss Biotechnology Committee, attended the Ig Noble ceremony and accepted the peace prize on behalf of his colleagues. In his speech he asked the audience whether anyone had forgotten to water their plants. If the plants died, "did that make you uneasy in any way?”

Offending plants and causing agony to them should obviously cause us to feel compunction.

For a long time, animal rights activists have tried to do away with the differences that separate humans and animals. In 2007 they made headlines in Austria after attempting to secure juridical rights for a chimpanzee. They gave a 26-year old chimp the name Matthew Hiasl Pan, but the Austrian supreme court judged that it was not justified to regard an ape as a person. In June 2007, however, chimpanzees got limited human rights in Spain.

Animal rights activists and the Ig Noble Committee are not the only ones who try to elevate the status of chimpanzees and plants. Science text books and natural history museums also emphasise the similarities between humans and apes – and often in a misleading way.

If the differences between humans, animals and plants are made more fuzzy, we might soon have to treat our fair trade bananas ethically by not eating them.

We might discern an evolution connection in this year’s choice of the Ig Nobel peace prize. According to to the prevailing great story based on Darwinian evolution, all living beings are supposed to have evolved from the same unicellular organism before the dawn of history. One might, however, ask whether plants are really living and feeling beings.

But there are no prizes for asking such questions.

Sources:

Improbable Research. 2008. The 2008 Ig Noble Prize Winners.
http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2008

Nadis, Steve. 2008. An Ig Nobel diary. Nature News(3 October) http://www.nature.com/news/2008/081003/full/news.2008.1150.html#B2

Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake. http://www.ekah.admin.ch/uploads/media/e-Broschure-Wurde-Pflanze-2008.pdf

Harun Yahya: Darwinists Should Apologise for Their Lies

Ernst Haeckel’s fabricated embryo drawings. Image from Wikipedia.

Joel Kontinen

With Charles Darwin’s 200th anniversary approaching, the Church of England has issued an apology to Darwin.

However, Adnan Oktar, a Turkish anti-evolutionist and activist who uses the pen name Harun Yahya, says that it is the Darwinists who should publicly apologise for their lies. Yahya lists a number of hoaxes such as Piltdown man, Nebraska man, horse evolution, Ernst Haeckel’s fabricated embryo drawings, sticking dead peppered moths on tree trunks and feathers to a dinosaur fossil (Archaeoraptor) that have been used to propagate Darwinian evolution.

Yahya also says that evolution leads to discrimination. He mentions the case of Michael Reiss. Doctor Reiss had to step down from his post as Director of Education at the Royal Society after saying that creationism was a worldview that should not be despised in science classes at school.

Harun Yahya has become famous through his tens of books, especially the massive Atlas of Creation in which he places fossils of extinct animals side by side with modern forms and shows that they have hardly changed. The work has also attracted some criticism since Yahya’s organisation also posted the book to several well-known evolutionists, including Richard Dawkins.

Yahya, who is a Muslim, seems to believe in an old earth and often appeals to the Qur’an.

In Turkey, Yahya is a controversial individual who probably also has political ambitions.

Source:

Yahya, Harun. 2008. The Global Darwinist Dictatorship Must Apologize to the Entire World!
http://us1.fmanager.net/api_v1/productDetail.php?dev-t=7EZU2FZ0164&objectId=9546

Why Critical Thinking is Dangerous

The Ancients were not as ignorant as Secular Humanists suppose. Image of the Antikythera Mechanism, courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen


Massimo Pigliucci, who is known for his anti-ID views, wrote a comment on Sarah Palin’s views on science education. His piece was mostly full of rhetoric and empty of facts. Pigliucci, a professor of ecology and evolution at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, seems to be afraid that opposing Darwinism raises “a nation of ignorant bigots whose understanding of the world is no better than that of a tribe of ancient middle eastern people wandering around the desert thousands of years ago.”

What Pigliucci has failed to sees is that archaeology and historical finds have shown that ancient people were no ignoramuses. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah, for instance, already knew that the earth was round.

Recent research on the Antikythera Mechanicm revealed that the Greeks were more advanced than we thought. A few weeks ago I visited the ruins of Ephesus and saw that the Romans were no simpletons either.

Pigliucci admits that he is not sure whether Sarah Palin is a creationist but has dug up a two-year old interview in which she advocated open discussion on origin issues in class. She later explained that this would not mean including creationism as part of the curriculum.

Open debate is one thing the Darwinists are afraid of. As Eugenie Scott put it, “In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and may lead them to reject one of the major themes in science.”

Ergo, allowing students to think critically might cause them to doubt Darwinian evolution.

Pigliucci writes that open debate would probably make kids conclude that the earth is flat. In his view, a belief in creation is “superstitious nonsense that harks back to an earlier era of ignorance about how the world works.”

Just how objective is this view? Professor Pigliucci writes for Skeptical Inquirer and has for instance taken part in a conference called One Nation Without God? The others speakers included Christopher Hitchens, Paul Kurtz and Eugenie Scott, who are all atheists.

This might say something about the objectivity of his approach, not forgetting the fact that this conference was arranged by the Council for Secular Humanism.

In a survey of the basic tenets of secular humanism, Fred Edwords says that belief in a transcendent God involves “arbitrarily taking a leap of faith and… abandoning reason and the senses.”

This, of course, is a deeply philosophical stance and cannot be supported by science, history or even evidence.

On the contrary, there is much that speaks for the presence of a transcendent God who has revealed Himself in history as Jesus Christ.

In the Soviet Union, science was seen to support the claims of Marxism. Open political discussion was suppressed. Dissenters were often sent to mental asylums. The attitude of some Darwinists is beginning to sound like the approach of the Soviet comrades who definitely knew they were right and all others were wrong.




Sources:

The Cowtown Humanist. April 2003 Volume 5, No. 1http://www.hofw.org/news/news-apr-03-3.htm

Edwords, Fred. 1984. Humanism in Perspective. American Humanist Association. Leaflet reprint from the Humanist, Jan/Feb 1984.

Pigliucci, Massimo. 2008. LiveScience. Is Sarah Palin a Creationist? (1 September) http://www.livescience.com/culture/080901-sb-palin-creationist.html

Witham Larry. 2002. Where Darwin Meets the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press.