Coming Soon: Creation 2012 SuperConference

Joel Kontinen

This year, Creation Ministries International is having its Creation SuperConference at Lifeway Ridgecrest Conference Center in North Carolina, U.S.A.

The 5-day conference starts on Wednesday, August 1st, and ends on Sunday, August 5th. Most of the speakers, for instance Jonathan Sarfati, Rob Carter, Jim Mason, John Sanford, Carl Werner and Carl Froede Jr., have earned PhDs. Dr. Carl Wieland, the founding editor of Creation Magazine, will also be speaking at the conference.

If you can’t travel to North Carolina, you can watch the sessions live on the Internet. See the details here.

Another Nail in the Coffin of ”Junk DNA”

The DNA of this creature does not support evolution. Image courtesy of George Shuklin, Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

Just a few years ago, “junk DNA” was evolutionary dogma. Richard Dawkins and other ardent Darwin defenders regarded it as fact.

However, as the gaps in our knowledge are being filled, researchers are increasingly finding useful functions for the DNA that does not code for proteins and was thought to be leftovers from evolution.

A recent article in New Scientist stated:

“Some junk is worth keeping. Non-coding, or junk, mouse DNA contains vast amounts of information vital to gene function – and those regulatory functions take up much more space on the genome than the all-important coding segments.”

In other words, without doing away with the concept “junk DNA”, the article actually suggests that this junk is not junk at all. Interestingly, the author Hannah Krakauer admitted:

“Even though the human genome was sequenced over a decade ago, gaps like these demonstrate just how little we know about what the large portions of those DNA sequences actually do.”

The mouse genome does not support Darwinian evolution. That much, at least, we know.



Source:

Krakauer, Hannah. 2012. Mouse 'junk' DNA vital for gene regulation. New Scientist (3 July).

What Does the ”God Particle” Have to Do with God?

Tintoretto: Creation of the Animals (ca. 1550). Image courtesy of Wikipedia. The ”God Particle” can hardly tell us anything about origins.



Joel Kontinen

When a hitherto undiscovered particle gets the name “God particle”, one might suspect that it is not just an ordinary boson. But, then, very little in nature is ordinary. For instance, a tiny cell is full of astounding nanomachines.

The problem with the ”God Particle” or the Higgs boson is that scientists assert that it might tell us something about the origin of some of the fundamental building blocks of matter.

This, of course, is pure speculation. Ink cannot tell us how an author wrote a text and a particle cannot tell us how it came into being. It definitely cannot tell us that God had nothing to do with its creation.

If anything, the Higgs boson suggests that physics is complicated, just like chemistry and biology are.

You can read more of my thoughts on the Higgs boson here.

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani Illegally Imprisoned for 1000 Days

Joel Kontinen

All people should in principal be able to enjoy freedom of religion. However, Iranian authorities seem to think that this does not apply to Christians.

Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani has now been illegally imprisoned for 1,000 days. Watch this video for ways in which to show support for him.



You can read more about Pastor Youcef here, here, here and here.

Millions of Years – It’s an Emotional Issue

Joel Kontinen

Time is not the hero in the fable known as Darwinian evolution, as no amount of time would turn a myth into science. However, as Ken Ham explains in this video clip, the idea of millions of years is a very emotional issue for many evolutionists. They will dislike anyone who dares to question their long age dogma.




However, Christians should acknowledge that the almighty Creator did not need millions of years. In the New Testament His miracles were often instantaneous, so why would He need to resort to deep time in the Old Testament?

New Video: T. rex Blood Cells and Other Fossil Anomalies

Joel Kontinen

The latest episode of ICR’s That’s a Fact video series features blood cells that were discovered in a T. rex fossil, other soft tissue, squid ink and other discoveries that do not fit in with the millions of years paradigm.

You can watch the video here.

Naturalistic Speculations Fail to Explain the Origin of Life – Once Again

Naturalistic explanations of the origin of life cannot explain the origin of life. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.




Joel Kontinen

In naturalistic speculations about the origin of life, the tail wags the dog. As they only accept one game - the one that excludes both design and intelligence - their suggestions usually range from the outlandish to the bizarre.

Writing in New Scientist, Nick Lane acknowledges that cells contain "amazing nanoscopic machines". However, he also speculates about “simple cells” (actually an oxymoron since cells are always anything but simple) that “don't have the right cellular architecture to evolve into more complex forms.”

He also says that “there is an extraordinary energetic penalty for growing larger”. In spite of this, he sees “a freak accident” as the catalyst for growing more complex cells.

There is a much more logical way to explain the origin and development of life. But, as Harvard biology professor Richard Lewontin put it, they “cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”


Source:

Lane, Nick. 2012. Life: is it inevitable or just a fluke? New Scientist 2870: 32-37.