Smart Design Feature: Air-Conditioner in Antelope Nose

Image courtesy of Vladimir Yu. Arkhipov, Arkhivov, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

The Saiga antelope might not win prizes in beauty contests. A native of the steppes of Kazakhstan, it has a nose that looks really bizarre.

But just like the Toucan’s beak or the penguin’s cold-proof feathers, it is there for a reason. When it’s hot, the nose acts like a cooler. And when it gets cold, it serves as a heater.

We can see designed features everywhere in nature, provided we’re not blinded by naturalistic thinking but keep our eyes open instead.(See examples here, here and here.)


Source:

BBC Earth. 2016. The bizarre beast with an air-conditioning nose. (30 November).

Big Science, Fake News and the Post-Truth World

Roman soldiers carrying the treasures of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Image courtesy of A. Hunter Wright, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Big science does not like Brexit or Donald Trump. It attributes at least some of the dramatic changes that 2016 brought about to a loss of trust in experts and the proliferation of fake news items.

But one could hardly go to the lengths of extrapolation that New Scientist does in calling this the post-truth era.

After all, the post-truth era did not begin in 2016. It began ages ago, when scientists and thinkers began to speculate that God had nothing to do with the origin of the universe, of life and of humans.

The idea is spurious, as naturalistic processes cannot produce life. We now know that even the tiniest cell is far too complicated to have arisen spontaneously.

Life bears all the hallmarks of being designed intelligently.

Another disturbing lie has become so common that many do not recognize it as a falsehood.

It is known as 'occupied territory', and refers to East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

History will tell us that the Jews lived in that region over 3,000 years ago. The old part of Jerusalem was King David’s capital and his son Salomon built the first temple there soon afterwards.

The Arabs conquered (i.e. occupied) the land over 1,600 years after the first Jewish temple was built.

So, calling East Jerusalem and the West Bank occupied territory is fake news, unless, of course one admits that it is the Arabs who originally occupied land that had been Jewish for aeons.

The truth of the matter is that some Jews have decided to live in the area where Jews had lived before anyone had heard of the Palestinians.

Source:

Corner, Adam. 2016. Here’s how experts can rebuild trust in the post-truth era. New Scientist (20 December).

Created Beauty: God’s Christmas Lights Deep Below the Surface

Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Deepwater Wonders of Wake.





Joel Kontinen

It might be difficult to avoid seeing Christmas lights at this time of year, especially in the Northern hemisphere.

But it seems that there are amazingly beautiful lights in the most unexpectant places, such as 1,500 metres below sea level.

And they are not man-made.

NOAA’s Okeanos Explorer vessel has mapped large stretches of ocean floors, and found great beauty in places where there are few if any human spectators.

Recently, they discovered glowing corals.

Previously they had photographed glowing jellyfish and an outlandish octopus.

The Bible tells us that God has made everything beautiful.

I would suggest that failing to notice all the beauty around us might be a sign of at least spiritual blindness.

Beauty in nature defies Darwinism. Both the very big things and the tiny ones testify of the Creator.

The Fall described in Genesis 3 did not put an end to great beauty: we even see it in ourselves and other people.

Source:

NOAA. 2016. NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer August 12, 2016.

Christmas Reminds Us that We Can Trust the Bible

The prophet Isaiah prophesied about Jesus’ coming 700 years before He came as a baby in Bethlehem. Image courtesy of the Providence Lithograph Company. public domain.




Joel Kontinen

Several Old Testament prophets foresaw major events in the life of Christ hundreds of years before they took place.

Micah prophesied Jesus’ birthplace:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Though you are little among the thousands of Judah,
Yet out of you shall come forth to Me
The One to be Ruler in Israel,
Whose goings forth are from of old,
From everlasting.” (Micah 5:2).

And Isaiah foresaw His virgin birth:

“Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).

Christmas was not built on fables but on real history.

For atheists, the birth of Christ might be a difficult occasion, hence they invented the Christmas wars.

Some sceptics would like to celebrate Newtonmas instead, as Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday is on 25th December.

The idea is a bit absurd, as Newton believed in the historical accuracy of the Bible.


Scripture verses from the New King James Version (NKJV).

Our Big Brain Is a Darwinian Enigma

Big-brained fish. Image courtesy of Bjoertvedt, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).



Joel Kontinen

Our big brain is a Darwinian enigma. As evolutionists believe that all creatures have a tiny common ancestor, their problem might be understandable though not logical.

And as they detest the idea of human exceptionalism, they often look at parallels in the animal kingdom.

Yes, they have found a fish that – proportionally, that is – has a very big brain.

Research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B looks at mormyrids, African electric fishes. They use “weak electric discharges to locate prey and to communicate with one another,” as Science Daily puts it.

One of them, Peters' elephant-nose fish (Gnathonemus petersii), has a rather large brain, which makes up 3 percent of its body size.

Ours is between 2 and 2.5 per cent, but the fish is a lot smaller than we are.

Large brains come with a cost. They need more oxygen and more energy than if they were smaller. This prompts evolutionists to assume that something exceptional has to happen before a creature can “evolve” a big brain:

Here’s their suggestion: “Really big brains can evolve only if constraints on energy intake are lifted.”

It seems that common descent is a creed that leads to sloppy thinking – even with big brains like ours.

The human brain is a wonderful organ.

Its amazingly complex interactions cannot be explained away by Darwinian just so stories.


Source:

Washington University in St. Louis. 2016. Why big brains are rare: Studies of electric fish support the idea that really big brains can evolve only if constraints on energy intake are lifted. Science Daily. (21 December).

Picathartes: The Bird Evolution Forgot for “44 Million Years”

White-necked Rockfowl (Picathartes gymnocephalus). Image courtesy of Michael Andersen. Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

The list of living fossils keeps on getting longer and longer.

BBC Earth just published an article and a short video of a West African bird that hasn’t changed in “44 million years.”

The Picathartes lives on the shore of the River Congo. The male and female build a mud nest together, sheltered from the rain by a big boulder.

And they behave just like birds that aren’t supposedly so old.

Living fossils suggest strongly that the millions of years the popular media are so fond of are pure fiction.

Source:

Walker, Matt. 2016. Bird survives for 44 million years. BBC Earth (17 December).

Wonders of Creation: Almost Impossible Giant Plants in New Zealand

Ross lilies (Bulbinella rossii). Image courtesy of Twiddleblatt, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

Ours is a planet where flora and fauna abound almost everywhere – in extreme cold and heat, and in the deep seas.

Campbell Island in New Zealand is home to plants that should not exist.

Recently, BBC Earth had an article on its flowers that defy the cold, wet and windy conditions on the island.

While temperatures seldom rise above 10 degrees Celcius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), the sun seldom shines and gusts blow at 30 km/h (19 m.p.h.), some plants grow to become really huge:

“Amidst the fields of low shrubs and tussock grasses, giants stand tall. Some herbs rise up more than a metre, with leaves as large as a sheet of printer paper. Some species have hairy leaves, while flowers bloom in various colours from dark purple to pink to yellow-green. Scientists call these large herbs 'megaherbs'.”

Birds have intelligently designed features that help them to cope with freezing temperatures and hot weather.

We know that some begonias use a clever strategy to get more energy from the sun.

But what is news is that the Campbell Island flora also use an intelligent method to get more warmth from the sun.

They seem to make as much use of the rare sunny moments as possible. Botanist Lorna Little found that almost all “megaherb species had flowers and leaves that were between 4C and 10C warmer than air temperature.”

This shows that Earth was designed to be a habitable place, just like the Bible tells us.

Source:

Law, Yao-Hua. 2016. The sub-Antarctic islands are home to strange 'megaherbs' BBC Earth (16 December).