German Paleontologist Günter Bechy Continues to Doubt Darwin

Dr. Bechy is a dragonfly fossil expert, but that wasn't notable enough for Wikipedia's non-scienctist contributors. Image courtesy of Daderot, public domain.


Joel Kontinen

The message of Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is as timely now as it was almost a decade ago.

Wikipedia editors, most of whom are non-scientists, have erased German paleontologist’s Günter Bechly’s Wikipedia page, ostensibly for trivial reasons, but the real reason seems to be that he embraces intelligent design.

In an interview in World Magazine, Bechly is said to be “an expert on fossilised dragonflies, he has discovered more than 170 new species, and 11 new genera have been named after him.”

He also tells of his aversion to Charles Darwin: “Michael Behe used mathematical modeling to study mutations where we have empirical data: for example, mosquito resistance to malaria drugs. Applying that model to a vertebrate species with a smaller population size and longer generational turnover, we find the time needed to get a single coordinated mutation is much longer than the existence of the entire universe.”

Source:

Lind Schmitt, Jenny. 2019. Fossils and genetics show too little time exists in the universe for evolution  World Magazine (8 February).

The Alpha-Centaury Connection: Could Atheists and Intelligent Design Folks Agree on This?

This who sent by Messier 13 to contact aliens. Image courtesy of Arne Nordmann, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

The problem with intelligent design advocates is that they leave out a God or don’t tell who created life.

Thus, John Zmirak tries to solve the problem – by inventing that extra-terrestrials could have invented live. Here on earth.

"Atheists have a problem. When they look at life on earth, every last trace of it — from single cells rife with complex microstructures, to the eagle’s eye and biologist’s brain — looks like the product of design.

“Stephen C. Meyer, author of Darwin’s Doubt, recounts that Darwin admitted the apparent evidence for design. He wanted to find an alternate explanation.

And as Meyer explains in his rich, well-argued book, it was computer scientists who first raised the serious question: Is it really possible that random changes in DNA code would generate new structures and species? Because that never, never, never happens with computer code.”

Zmirak tells of Charles Darwin and his daughter, who took away Darwin’s initial faith in God, prompting him to posit an explanation, of natural selection doing the things God does:

Atheists speak of materialism. That materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

“How about we stipulate this? All the evidence piling up that random mutations couldn’t possibly have planted and grown the Tree of Life does not point to the God of the Christians and the Jews.
Instead, it points to the design of some higher, alien species. Say, a race of brilliant beings who live in Alpha Centauri, who have learned how to travel by wormholes. No, there’s no evidence for that, but there’s equally little evidence for the “Multiverse.” That’s a favorite fiction of atheists eager to escape the religious implications of the Big Bang. But that didn’t stop Stephen Hawking from touting it.”

The problem with this, is that we can’t be sure if extra-terrestrials dwell on Alpha Centauri. And a second problem is that just getting rid of the evidence here will just posit that natural causes in effect caused intelligent life to turn up here.

Source:

Zmirak, John. 2019, At Last, Common Ground for Atheists and Intelligent Design Advocates.The Stream (22 February).

Evolutionists Get 80, 000 More Years Out of Baffin Island Snow

Image courtesy of Lindsay Nicole Terry, CC BY 2.0.


Joel Kontinen

For students of evolution, Baffin Island can be a blessing. The retreat of Arctic glaciers is ”exposing landscapes that haven't seen the sun for nearly 120,000 years.”


Where did they get their number?

“What's preserved includes tiny Arctic plants and mosses that were last alive when the ice enveloped the land. As the ice melts, study leader Simon Pendleton said, it exposes this ancient, delicate vegetation. Wind and water destroy the long-lost plants within months, but if researchers can get to them first, they can use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of the vegetation.”

They subjected the finds to carbon-14 testing and found “all of their samples were at least as old as the oldest age that radiocarbon dating can detect: 40,000 years. That's a direct indication that the plants had been under ice for at least that long, the researchers reported Jan. 25 in the journal Nature Communications.”

Carbon-14 dating can have its surprises. Not wanting to make a way for Noah’s Flood to have had an effect on it, they just reported what the facts said. Noah’s Flood probably took millions of tons of vegetation into the sea, thus interrupting modern-day time estimates.

The Flood also probably caused rivers in Greenland and well as aquifers in North Kenya.

Source:

Pappas, Stephanie. 2019. Retreating Ice Exposes Arctic Landscape Unseen for 120,000 Years. Live Science (28 January).

Spider Fossils Still Have Silvery, Shimmering Eyes

Image courtesy of Paul Selden.




Joel Kontinen

In South Korea, paleontologists have found spider fossils with their eyes still shimmering.

“Their bodies are so soft that they typically decay entirely soon after death, leaving no trace unless they happen to end up trapped in amber. But 11 spiders from the Cretaceous period have turned up preserved in shale on the Korean Peninsula. And two of the fossils included the still-shiny traces of sparkling eyes.”

“Those glittering bits are mirror structures in the eyes called tapetums that bounce light from the back of the eye back through the retina.”

Study co-author Paul Selden, director of the Paleontological Institute at The University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum, said: “the eyes called tapetums that bounce light from the back of the eye back through the retina.”

He went on the say: “the canoe-like shape of the 110- to 113-million-year-old tapetums will help researchers place the rare spider fossils on the evolutionary tree.”

They were also covered with the remains of little crustaceans and fish, which suggest a watery environment, obviously the Flood of Noah’s days.

The work was published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology,

Spiders are living fossils. Their forefathers looked just like today’s spiders.

Source:

Letzter, Rafi, 2019. These Ancient Spider Fossils Still Have Silvery, Shimmering Eyes Live Science (13 February).

Anti-Semitism on the Rise in Britain and the USA

Hamas has given the Israelites much to think about.The result of Hamas bomb campaign against an Israeli bus. Image courtesy of B. Železník, public domain.





Joel Kontinen

Anti-Semitism seems to be on the rise in Britain and the USA.

The BBC reported on 7 labour members stayed clear of the party, as a reply to Jeremy Corbyn hatred of Israel and his leftist policy.

Mr. Corbyn has been viewed by Jews as being a fried of Arabs and even associating with Hamas.

In a similar viewpoint, US senator Ilhan Omr, who is a Palestine, has been accused of Anti-Semitism. This caused Nikki Haley to comment strongly against her.

Sauce:

DeSoto, Randy. 2019. Nikki Haley Responds to Ilhan Omar’s Anti-Semitic Comment: This Cannot Be Tolerated in Congress.
Western Journal (11 February).

Canadian Preacher Doesn’t Belief in the Gospel

Jesus Christ is God’s Son





Joel Kontinen

The Rev. Gretta Vosper, the minister of the West Hill United Church in Toronto, has been breaking new headlines. Ms. Vosper does not believe Jesus was the son of God, or in God himself or in the or the Holy Spirit, she has had to organise church worship in new ways.

Since In 2015, a public letter she wrote sparked so much ire, the local jurisdiction of the church launched a review committee to examine Rev. Gretta Vosper beliefs. "She was on the verge of being defrocked."

However, her church – The United Church of Canada – "was the first church to ordain transgender ministers, its leadership supported abortion and same-sex union before either became legal in Canada".

Ms. Vosper has slowly "stripped away the traditional biblical language from her Sunday ‘weekly gatherings.’ In its place, she put words and rituals that reflected her congregation’s agreed beliefs — love, justice, compassion, integrity, forgiveness."

What she doesn’t belief in, these were the words Jesus taught about us.

"Instead of the Lord’s Prayer, the congregation recites the ‘Words of Commitment,’ which Ms. Vosper wrote with her third husband, the church’s musical director, Scott Kearns. They stand to sing humanist hymns dedicated to peace and love that the two also wrote."

Ms. Vosper’s church lacks all the divine input that god can give, as He walks by the Spirit, making us alive.

Source:

Porter. Catherine. A Canadian Preacher Who Doesn’t Believe in God. The New York Times (1 February).

A Taste for Fat May Have Made Us Human

Image courtesy of Delphine Bruyere, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Evolution would be boring without a never-ending stream of new just so stories that often contradict each other, but they do keep on making headlines across the popular media.

Long before human ancestors began hunting large mammals for meat, a fatty diet provided them with the nutrition to develop bigger brains, posits a new paper in the journal Current Anthropology.

"Our human ancestors were likely awkward creatures," the paper’s lead author Jessica Thompson, an anthropologist at Yale University says. "They weren't good in trees, like chimpanzees are, but they weren't necessarily all that good on the ground either. So, what did the first upright walking apes in our lineage do to make them so successful? At this stage, there was already a small increase in the size of the brains. How were they feeding that?"

The easy way to do this was to eat up, so that they’d become less awkward and brainy.

Source:

Yale University. 2019. A taste for fat may have made us human. Science Daily (5 February 2019).

Woman Arrested, for Calling Transgendered People by Their Given Names

Image courtesy of Athlour, CC BY-SA 3.0.





Joel Kontinen

Brexit is not the only thing that is happening in England. Brits are also being introduced to the new way that they can speak about their neighbours, if they happen to be transgendered.

“A British mother was arrested and incarcerated for referring to a transgendered woman as a man in online communication.”

“Kate Scottow revealed Saturday that police came to her home, brought her to the local police station for questioning and left her in a cell for seven hours while her children watched.”

One of the children was an autistic ten-year-old daughter and the other a 20-month-old son.

They took her laptop, her mobile phone and haven’t returned them yet, even tough it is two months after her arrest.

This event comes after “74-year-old Margaret Nelson was questioned by Suffolk police about her social media comments on transgendered people.”

Source:

Krayden, David, 2019. Mother arrested, spends seven hours in jail for calling transgender a man. Daily Caller. (10 February).

'Oldest' Case of Bone Cancer Is Diagnosed in a 240-Million-Year-Old Turtle

Joel Kontinen

The Fall that we hear about in Genesis 4, brought about cancer in humans and animals.

While evolution cannot create life, it can create cancer.

The latest episode is in “240 million” years old cancer, seen in a Triassic period turtle.

“Researchers over at the Museum of Natural History, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity in Berlin, Germany imaged the fossilized left femur of the shell-less turtle, called Pappochelys rosinae. The bone had been discovered in southwestern Germany in 2013.

A co-author Dr. Bruce Rothschild said, “what it looked like was a malignant periosteal osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.. This type of cancer has been previously reported in a Triassic amphibian, but this is likely the oldest instance found in an Triassic amniote.”

Source:

Saplakoglu, Yasemin. 2019, 'Oldest' Case of Bone Cancer Is Diagnosed in a 240-Million-Year-Old Shell-Less Turtle. Live Science (7 February).

Giordano Bruno was Not a Martyr for Science

The earliest view of Bruno is an engraving published in 1715 in Germany. Public domain.





Joel Kontinen


In Cosmos, ”The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be". This was Dr Carl Sagan’s creed.

We know that natural laws cannot bring the cosmos into existence. The universe looks designed, which is something his successor Neil DeGrasse Tyson will not admit. Instead, it dwells on the persecution of the 16th century monk and philosopher Giordano Bruno, which he sees as a martyr for science.

Bruno was executed in 1600, due not to his views on science, but his low views on Christ. At that time the Counter-Reformation looked on all suppression as potential dissent.

It seems that Neil DeGrasse Tyson was quite clever at fabricating science news.

“Neil deGrasse Tyson may be a fabulous scientist, and a consummate showman, but he's downright terrible at accurately quoting people. Or, if you're a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, you might say that Neil deGrasse Tyson is pretty amazing at needlessly fabricating quotes and scenarios to showcase his own brilliance.”

In evolution news, Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with historian of science Michael Keas. In chapter 4 of his new book Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion Keas shows that Bruno was not martyred for science, "He was burned for his religious view that an infinite God had to make the universe that way — and that everyone’s soul ‘transmigrates’ to other planets after death, rather than meeting a final judgment."


Source:

Giordano Bruno: A Martyr, Yes, But Not for Science. Andrew McDiarmid continues his conversation with historian of science Michael Keas. Evolution news & science today (30 January).

Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution

Darwin.



Joel Kontinen

For decades, evolutionists attempted to explain virtually everything in the animal kingdom as a result of natural selection acting on random mutations.

“Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. The statement, located online at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: ‘We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.* ”

Nonetheless, the researchers at the Third Way and the Royal Society in England are careful not to sound too anti-Darwin, even if they reject the random mutation and natural selection that Darwinism requires.

Source:

Evolution News, 2019. Skepticism About Darwinian Evolution Grows as 1,000+ Scientists Share Their Doubts. Evolution News And Science Today,(4 February).

The Truth About the Dark Agers

Roger Bacon. Image courtesy of Michael Reeve, CC BY-SA 3.0.




Joel Kontinen

Skeptics will tell us that the Middle Ages were exceptionally dark, at least in the intellectual and scientific realm. However, historians would disagree as many great inventions were made during that period .

When it comes to the dark agers, Atheists, like Bill Nye the “Science Guy,” or celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, or the late Carl Sagan are /were telling a story that is not factual.

To combat the error, Michael Newton Keas has authored a book entitled “Unbelievable: 7 Myths About the History and Future of Science and Religion.”

“Keas notes that Christians invented the institution of the university, in which ‘30 percent of the curriculum was devoted to science.’ He cites the example of Roger Bacon, an English monk and natural philosopher (1214-1292) whose work considered the properties of light and other scientific questions. “

However; It flatters die-hard secularists, to forget all this.

Source:

Klinghoffer, David, 2019. “No Astronomical Investigations of Importance” in the Middle Ages? Not True! Evolution news and views. (29 January).