Bizarre Ant Hasn’t Changed in over ”100 Million Years”

Martialis heureka. Image courtesy of Michael Branstetter, www.antweb.org. Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen


When Edward O. Wilson saw the ant, he thought it looked so strange it could have been from Mars. The name, Martialis heureka (‘From Mars! Wow!’) started as a joke, but that is how museums and biology textbooks now know the pale ant that was found in Brazil in 2000.

It does not have compound eyes, and researchers tend to think that it hasn’t changed much in over “100 million years.”

Like other living fossils, this little ant reminds us that stasis or the lack of evolutionary change is very common in the animal kingdom.

In other words, it challenges evolutionary dogma.

Source:

Chang, Kenneth. 2008. Scientists Find One Specimen of Bizarre Primitive Ant. The New York Times (17 September).

350 Years Ago: Creationist Robert Hooke Published First Book on Animals Seen through a Microscope

An illustration of a flea in Hooke’s book Micrographia. Image courtesy of the National Library of Wales, public domain.




Joel Kontinen

In 1655 Robert Hooke’s book Micrographia made history. For the first time people could see what parasites, plants and small insects looked like.

Robert Hooke (1635 –1703) was one of the most important pioneers of modern science. A member of the Royal Society, he was a polymath who has been likened to Leonardo da Vinci.

A ScienceShot article says,

“Robert Hooke was one of history’s most important scientists, coining the word ’cell’ and making profound contributions to timekeeping, astronomy, physics, and microscopy. He also argued, controversially in Micrographia, that fossils were the mineralized remains of ancient living organisms. We’ve learned a lot in the intervening centuries, but Hooke’s illustrations still inspire us to look closer.”

What the brief article in Science does not say is that Hooke gave glory to God. He was humble enough to acknowledge that seeing life through a microscope indicated that compared to us, the Maker of all living beings is really awesome:

““The more we magnify the object, the more excellencies and mysteries do appear; And the more we discover the imperfections of our senses, and the Omnipotency and Infinite perfections of the great Creator.”

Like many other pioneers of modern science, for instance, Sir Isaac Newton and Louis Pasteur, Hooke believed in God, who is introduced to us in the Book of Genesis.



Sources:

Harrison, Peter. 2001. The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rogers, Nala. 2015. Hooke opened up the world of the unseen 350 years ago. ScienceShot (16 October).

Pangolin – No Evolution for “45 Million Years”

A tree pangolin (Manis tricuspis). Image courtesy of Valerius Tygar, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Pangolins are intriguing creatures that have hardly changed at all in “45 million years.” According to the University of Berkeley – California website:

“An essentially modern-looking fossil pangolin, Eomanis, has been found in the Eocene of Germany, and another fossil pangolin has been found in the lower Oligocene of North America.”

The ever growing list of living fossils should be an embarrassment for Darwinian evolution, a theory that is supposed to be characterised by change over time from humble beginnings to ever increasing sophistication.

In very many cases, the data do not support this view at all.

(You can read more about living fossils here, here, here, here, here and here.)

Source:

University of Berkeley – California. n.d. Pholidota.

Okapi: Living Fossil That Defies Evolutionary Explanations

Okapi. Image courtesy of Raul654, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).



Joel Kontinen

Charles Darwin and other evolutionists have made up fact-free stories about the assumed evolution of the giraffe’s long neck. What they have failed to notice, however, is that some animals, such as zebras and gazelles, tend to cope well on the savannah with their much shorter necks.

While the okapi (Okapia johnstoni) prefers to live in the rainforest, it is related to the giraffe. 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) tall at the shoulder, it has remained much smaller than its cousin and mostly unchanged for some “18 million years” and is thus assumed to be a living fossil.

Evolution is often defined as change over time, especially when its advocates want to advertise it as a viable theory, but in practice stasis or lack of change in often the norm, for instance in the red panda, nautilus, koala, or Gingko tree, to name only a few of the tens of living fossils found all over the world.

Leopons Show Genesis Principle Is Valid

Leopons. Image courtesy of TRJN, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

A leopon is a cross between a male leopard and a lioness. The first documented case of this exotic feline saw daylight in India in 1910 and several other leopons have since then been born in zoos.

In contrast to some other hybrids (such as grolars), they are not known to occur in the wild.

The take-away message from leopons and other hybrids is that species distinctions are fuzzy but the After Its Kind principle, introduced in Genesis, is still valid.

Source:

HYBRIDS BETWEEN LEOPARDS AND LIONS.

Tarsier, Pint-Sized Living Fossil, Challenges Evolutionary Thinking

A Philippine Tarsier (Carlito syrichta). Image courtesy of Kok Leng Yeo, Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

Evolution should be characterised by change over time. However, in numerous cases the very opposite – that is, nothing – happens. Animals stay more or less like their great-great-great-ancestors.

Like other living fossils, tarsiers have resisted change for aeons.

Evolutionists tend to believe that tarsiers “belong to a relict lineage of primates that gave rise to monkeys and apes about 60 million years ago.” However, they will admit that they are living fossils that have hardly changed in “45 million years.”

Tarsiers are anything but primitive; they communicate using ultrasound.

And the presence of tarsiers in Asia has prompted evolutionists to speculate that these tiny furry creatures were excellent mariners, crossing the ocean from Africa.

Source:

Dartmouth College. 2012. Tiny primate is ultrasonic communicator. ScienceDaily. (8 February).

Information, Mathematics and Beauty Characterise Our World

The Fibonacci series appears everywhere, even in pine cones.




Joel Kontinen

Contrary to the claims of Darwinists like Richard Dawkins, our world does not look like it was produced by a blind watchmaker. We see order and great beauty all around us.

Information, mathematics and beauty come together in the Fibonacci series. Discovered by a 13th century Italian mathematician, the series is not too complicated, as it involves adding together two integers, either beginning with 0 or 1, to produce a new number.

Each new number is the sum of the previous two numbers, for instance

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144., or

Fn = F n-1 + F n-2.

We can find this sequence practically everywhere in nature, from the very small to the huge. We tend to see beauty in tiny seeds, shells, the petals of a flower and compound eyes, and even in the arms of spiral galaxies. (See examples here, here and here.)

We tend to associate the Fibonacci series with beauty. Indeed, if we divide any number in the series by the previous number, we’ll get a result that is not far from 1.618, which happens to be the golden ratio that is used in the arts and in architecture.

This kind of beauty does not come about by chance. In requires design – and intelligence.

It seems that our Creator was and is the greatest mathematician and artist of all times.

Source:

Reich, Lee. 2013. Nature follows a number pattern called Fibonacci. Phys.org. (20 February).