New Covenant

Science Saturday: Our miracle moon - chance or design?

From NASA's JPL website, Astronomers Say Moons Like Ours Are Uncommon,

The next time you take a moonlit stroll, or admire a full, bright-white moon looming in the night sky, you might count yourself lucky. New observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that moons like Earth's - that formed out of tremendous collisions - are uncommon in the universe, arising at most in only 5 to 10 percent of planetary systems.

...

"We don't know that the collision we witnessed around the one star is definitely going to produce a moon, so moon-forming events could be much less frequent than our calculation suggests," said George Rieke of the University of Arizona, Tucson, a co-author of the study.

Besides the low chance of our moon forming out of a collision event, there are additional factors which make our moon extraordinary. From Hugh Ross' 1998 book, The Genesis Question, consider that the collision event:

• delivered Earth from a life-suffocating atmosphere and produced a replacement atmosphere thin enough and of the right chemical composition to permit the passage of light to Earth's surface
• increased the mass and density of Earth enough to retain a large quantity of water but not life-threatening ammonia and methane
• elevated the iron content of the Earth's crust as to permit a huge abundance of ocean life, which in turn permits advanced land life
• played a significant role in salting the Earth's crust with a huge abundance of radioisotopes, permitting high rates of tectonics and vulcanism
• stabilized the tilt of the Earth's rotation axis, protecting the planet from life-extinguishing climatic extremes

Indeed, Neil Comins, in his 1993 book, What if the Moon didn't exist?, explained how advanced life on planet Earth is dependent on the unique characteristics of our moon.

As Hugh Ross has said, those who seek after a miracle need look no further than our own moon.

NOVA Judgment Day: a quick review

I just finished watching NOVA's Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. From the website:

In this program, NOVA captures the turmoil that tore apart the community of Dover, Pennsylvania in one of the latest battles over teaching evolution in public schools. Featuring trial reenactments based on court transcripts and interviews with key participants, including expert scientists and Dover parents, teachers, and town officials, "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" follows the celebrated federal case of Kitzmiller v. Dover School District.

First off, my stance is that intelligent design (ID) should not be taught in public schools. While it's my opinion that ID cannot escape any correlation to creationism, I think that an allowance for the teaching of ID essentially opens the door for any origins methodology. That said, here are some of my thoughts on the program:

• My wife and I homeschool and, despite the typically ignorant view that all homeschoolers are out to censor evolutionary thought, we had our oldest child sit with us as we watched the program. To spice things up a bit, I even laid out copies of the books that the natural process evolutionists will not permit public schooled children to read within the walls of a science classroom (e.g., Of Pandas & People, Darwin's Black Box, Darwin on Trial).
• I was intrigued by Ken Miller's explanation of the bacterial flagellum and the type 3 secretory system. I especially like the manner in which he describes the two systems as essentially being derived from a design template, not unlike the work an intelligent designer would perform.
• It was also interesting to note how the natural process evolutionists, after going through extensive digging, found a smoking gun that linked creationism with intelligent design (horrors!). The so-called transitional fossil, a typo found in early drafts of the book Of Pandas & People, proceeded along the lines of: creationists  -->  cdesign proponentsists  -->  design proponents. So... the non-functional phrase "cdesign proponentsists" is mockingly referred to as some sort of transitional fossil (albeit intelligently caused).
• Oh, and Ken Miller's non-functional tie clasp (aka a partial mousetrap) was also humorous, if not completely meaningless.

Seriously, if the notion of a science teacher reading a one minute statement advocating the possibility of alternative explanations to the diversity of life, along with the option of reading a book as benign as Of Pandas & People, is so scary to the natural process evolutionists, then how secure is their platform?

Open minded folks (e.g., homeschoolers) should look into Explore Evolution. From the website:

The purpose of Explore Evolution, is to examine the scientific controversy about Darwin's theory, and in particular, the contemporary version of the theory known as neo-Darwinism. Whether you are a teacher, a student, or a parent, this book will help you understand what Darwin's theory of evolution is, why many scientists find it persuasive, and why other scientists question the theory or some key aspects of it.

Evolution vs. Creation: what the debate ultimately reduces to

Despite all the debate over natural selection, transitional fossils, junkDNA, etc., the evolution vs. creation debate ultimately reduces to that of the problem of evil.

From Telic Thoughts,

According to Michael Behe's blog, Ken Miller has written a second review of Behe's new book, The Edge of Evolution. That Miller went to the trouble of writing a second review suggests Behe struck a nerve. Behe notes, "much of the second review turns on the theological implications of the book." Apparently, Miller raises the argument from evil, thinking that evolution somehow absolves God of any responsibility for malaria.

From Stand to Reason, regarding a debate between Paul Nelson (ID) and Michael Ruse (Evolution),

Ruse repeated this point many times before challenging Christians to think more about the theological issues than the scientific ones. He said, “I’m not going to believe in intelligent design because of all the theological consequences of believing in God.” And he made that clear. In fact, he even interrupted Nelson a few times to reiterate his problem with ID was that he would have to accept theology he believes doesn’t make sense of the problem of evil.

Science Saturday: How not to define ID

At the Thumb, we have a little post extolling Ken Miller's contribution to an upcoming NOVA episode, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Per the NOVA website, Miller states,

What Newton and other scientists did was to assume that the universe made sense because it had a designer, and then to use what we would call ordinary material scientific methods to investigate that universe. That's just what science does today. What intelligent design pretends to be is in the tradition of Newton. What intelligent design actually is, to be perfectly honest, is in the tradition of the Middle Ages, where they stop investigation by saying, "We cannot answer this mystery; it is the work of God the designer."

To be perfectly honest, I'd be interested in finding out just which ID theorists promote the notion that scientific investigation be stopped for any of the features, of the natural realm, that have been proposed as the work of God. I've read Behe, Dembski, Johnson, Denton, and Wells, and cannot recall any one of them advocating such a ridiculous notion. And certainly the scholars at Reasons to Believe do not advocate such a belief, what with their idea of Testable Creation.

Regardless, I suggest that, on November 13th, you pop some popcorn, sit down with your children, and watch the NOVA episode Judgment Day. You might also want to buy a copy of the book Of Pandas and People, noting to your children that not only was it a key issue within the Dover case, it was essentially banned from public school science classrooms as well. For that matter, buy (or borrow) books from ID proponents Behe, Dembski, Johnson, Denton, Wells, Ross, Rana, and evolutionary proponents Darwin, Miller, Gould, and Dawkins, just to name a few.

What a great way to illustrate to your children which side of the debate allows free inquiry.

Ghosts, the human brain, and circular reasoning

From the Thumb, a scary little post pointing us to a Newsweek article titled, The Ghosts We Think We See: Normal brain functions, such as seeing patterns, make us more likely to believe in the supernatural. From the article,

Chief among those normal processes is our neurons' habit of filling in the blanks. The brain takes messy, incomplete input and turns it into a meaningful, complete picture.

...

The mind also tends to impute consciousness to inanimate objects (ever yell at a balky computer?). This leads us to believe that natural phenomena are "purposeful, caused by agents with sentient minds," says Hood, whose book "The Supernatural Sense" is due next year. It's only a short step to thinking that " 'things that go bump in the night' are the result of some spirit or agent," not branches brushing against your drainpipe.

Of course, the Thumb immediately attacks the ID angle, but they make this interesting point:

An important point made in the article is that the tendency to see patters that aren't there or to impart consciousness to things that aren't conscious is a normal outcome of the way the human brain functions, due in large part to having to deal with incomplete sensory input. A couple of important lesson to draw from this (to me anyway) is that, first of all, rigorous empirical testing is necessary in science precisely because everyday perception can be so badly misleading. And secondly, the brain's wiring can make it very difficult for people to disabuse themselves of supernatural beliefs...

Okay. So our Halloween point to be made is that the wiring of the human brain can lead us to see things that aren't there (so they say). In other words, the wiring of the human brain is giving us faulty (on their account) information. Yet, how have we become aware of the fact that the wiring of the human brain gives us false information? By virtue of that same wiring of the human brain, that's how.

So, if our wiring is faulty, why should we believe anything it tells us?

Science, once again, disproves creationism

From ScienceDaily,

Creationism is the belief that all living organisms were created according to Genesis in six days by 'intelligent design' and rejects the scientific theories of natural selection and evolution.

But this research once again demonstrates how selection -- whether natural or, in this case, artificially influenced by man -- is the fundamental driving force behind the evolution of life on the planet.

The critical research in question? That of humans breeding dogs.

Yes, the demonstrable evidence that natural process evolution is, in fact, the driving force behind life (including the creation of life) on planet Earth, can be summarized in the before and after photograph below.

Is it any wonder they have to resort to legal gyrations to insure that their message, and their message alone, is heard?

Science Saturday: How to construct a strawman

From the Panda's Thumb, a link to a cartoon which demonstrates how to construct a strawman.

Coming up next... how conservative school boards propose the teaching of a flat-earth (to be quickly followed by a curriculum on the existence of Jolly Old St. Nick!).

Science Saturday: even when it's not science

Natural process evolutionists will typically proclaim that their intent is to promote science, and that religion, especially in the form of creationism, has no place in the science classroom. Indeed, the Dover decision was based on the notion that ID is simply another form of creationism.

Yet, one does not have to look very far to find natural process evolutionist scientists sometimes having a difficult time preaching simply science. At Aetiology, we find the little ditty, Women are still chattel, Film at 11. Scientist Tara Smith, despite having a blog header which states,

Discussing causes, origins, evolution, and implications of disease and other phenomena

has posted above mentioned entry under the scientific category of "wtf?". Yeah, try finding that in the latest peer-reviewed journals.

What seems to have irked scientist Smith is the fact that Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has a major in homemaking. No, I'm not making this up: a natural process evolutionary scientist is upset with a Baptist theological seminary all because of a non-science related major they offer. What, you may ask, is the issue that scientist Smith has with such an undertaking? Well, as she puts it,

So you have here a lot of women who admittedly sometimes resent their husbands, feel they need to keep their mouths shut, surrender their own happiness, and it doesn't even matter what they think about it, because they claim "the Bible says so." And this, of course, is the formula for a marriage "so harmonious, other women will ask how they manage." Yeah, I bet they'll ask that, but not for the reason Mrs.-Paige-Patterson-I-have-no-identity-of-my-own-anymore thinks they will. I should also note that I think it's great if a woman (or a man) chooses to stay at home with the kids while their partner works, but the way it's done here--out of expectation, coercion, and fear--I have no respect whatsoever for.

On the seminary's website, we find the following statement regarding their women's studies program,

We here at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary want to encourage women to prepare themselves for ministries in their homes, churches, and communities. As you consider how to equip yourself, choose from a variety of programs what is appropriate for your own diverse interests and unique giftedness within the boundaries of biblical priorities. In the programs at Southwestern women are introduced to the marketplace of ideas, including both complementarian and egalitarian positions, and they are thoroughly equipped to give an articulate and well reasoned evangelical response to the feministic ideology of the age.

Scientist Smith certainly has every right to her opinion, and to respect (or not respect) other people's beliefs. Yet, despite her apparent ignorance of the notion of self-sacrifice, much less the self-less aspects of the Christian faith, her self-righteous, intolerant attitude seems, at the very least, a bit incongruous with the liberal, tolerant notions she otherwise claims to hold.

Not to leave us wondering as to why she posted this entry, though, she states,

Oh, and why is this relevant to a science discussion? Well, lookie at one reason they want women to stay at home:

"We're equipping them to do home-schooling."

And you can bet it won't be to teach those kids evolution...

(ellipsis in original, for all you ellipsis police out there)

Ah, yes. The tolerance of natural process evolutionary thought at work once again. If you really are a  betting scientist, Dr. Smith, then please make the wager with me or, say, Theology Mom. As I've stated before, my wife and I will be teaching natural process evolution in our homeschool environment. You see, we aren't afraid of presenting ideas counter to our worldview and, as such, do not have to resort to performing legal gyrations in order to censor books and ideas from our classrooms. Theology Mom, as well, has made it clear she intends to present the naturalistic theory of evolution within the sacred walls of her homeschool. And I would wager that other homeschoolers, such as my friends Wendy, Bonnie, Dana, and Ilona, have a similar approach.

Once again, I wonder, just what is it that the natural process evolutionists are so afraid of?

So ends today's non-science Science Saturday.

Science Saturday: all the lies fit to print

MikeGene, at Telic Thoughts, posts on the current tactics of the natural process evolutionary crowd (regarding their approach towards Intelligent Design) in which they declare ID to be all lies, lies, and more lies.

He's right. This is, unfortunately, the latest fashion trend within anti-ID circles. Proponents of ID are labeled as disingenuous, hypocritical liars, and portrayed as all-around-dishonest-black-hat-wearing-bad-guys. Of course, the hope behind such a tactic is that the proponents of ID spend their time trying to clear their names before their supporters (rather than continuing to promote their... lies).

I still wonder why, if ID is so full of demonstrably moral evil, does the natural process evolutionary crowd fuels the fire? Why not let ID crumble in on itself?

What are they so afraid of?

Science Saturday: Dinos to birds - which way is up?

Try to imagine a T-rex flying. Yeah, way too big.

In Dinosaur To Birds: Height Or Flight?, we read,

Paleontologists have long theorized that miniaturization was one of the last stages in the long series of changes required in order for dinosaurs to make the evolutionary "leap" to take flight and so become what we call birds. New evidence from a tiny Mongolian dinosaur, however, may leave some current theories about the evolution of flight up in the air.

If you remember the movie (or the book) Jurassic Park, you should remember that one of the notions posited was that present day birds evolved from dinosaurs. Driving the idea that birds came from dinos is the striking similarity that bird skeletons share with theropod dinosaurs. Also, there have been fossils found which indicate some dinosaurs were covered with feathers.

In The Encyclopedia of the Age of the Dinosaurs, by Steve Parker, we read,

If we look at the reconstructed skeletons of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx, and a representative small theropod, such as Compsognathus... we see many comparable features.

But are these similarities good evidence for a close link between birds and small theropod dinosaurs? Many "bird" features are general theropod characteristics, shared by the earlier members of the group... Some of the features were present even before the first theropods...

As Parker states, similarity in appearance alone, isn't enough to link birds with dinosaurs and, as he alludes to at the tail end of the quote I gave, some dinosaurs that most closely look related to birds appear either contemporaneous with or after the first birds. This is the temporal paradox that the dinosaur to bird hypothesis must deal with: the fact that birds appear in the fossil record well before the primary candidates of evolutionary related dinosaurs.

The study referenced above makes note of the apparent fact that certain dinosaurs were getting smaller well before the ability to fly. This throws a wrench into the previously held beliefs about how dinosaurs acquired the ability to fly. From the report:

"We had closely linked smaller size in dinosaurs including birds to flight, changes in growth strategy and metabolism: They got progressively smaller, grew faster, and flew," Clarke adds. "Now we see that small size occurs well before many other innovations in locomotion and growth strategy. It forces us to look at the ways we were explaining trends within this part of Dinosauria, and to question our previous assumptions about causal factors in, and timing of, the acquisition of attributes seen in living birds."

What seems to be beyond the realm of possibility, for these scientists, is the notion that the dinosaurs and birds were specially created. In Parker's explanation of a possible means of acquiring the ability to fly, he states:

Think of Compsognathus. It is small, light, agile, and active. Surely such a dinosaur had very little evolution to do before it became a bird. Change the proportions of a few bones, add some feathers, make a few other adjustments, and the result flies away!

Unfortunately, evolution can't anticipate the need or the goal to fly. The few adjustments described would have little value if not made with the notion of flight already in mind.

In mind? You think? Could it be that if a pre-existing morphological template was slightly adjusted, albeit with complex features (have you ever seen the complexity of a feather?), then we'd have a bird?

Yes, we would. And it would be an act of a mind - a designed bird.

Note: further reference, read Michael Denton's Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, especially the section on how utterly different a bird's lung is from the one found in reptiles.

Science Saturday: Early Human puzzle

From the Smithsonian Human Origins Program, a noble quest:  In search of what makes us human. Within the site we find the Human Family Tree, shown below.

Note that, despite this being declared our family tree, there are several question marks littered on the diagram. Note, also, the dashed lines that link several of the species together, indicating potential evolutionary links.

If the diagram appears confusing it's because, it is. Upon clicking on the active links one finds that, while the evolutionary biologists agree that the species listed are part of our "family tree", there is disagreement as to just how the family members should be linked. For Homo sapiens, one finds that there are two competing evolutionary models:  the multi-regional hypothesis and the out of Africa hypothesis.

Yet, just how did we get to where we are today?

By looking at the family tree, above, we see that there are at least 3 paths, and possibly 4, backwards from Homo sapiens. Why? From Who Was Adam?, by Rana & Ross,

Until a few years ago, paleoanthropologists primarily debated whether it was Australopithecus africanus or Australopithecus afarensis [the two long green bars in the chart above] that morphed into Homo...

This debate became more complex in 1999 when an international team of scientists reported on the discovery of a new hominid species, Australopithecus garhi, dated at about 2.5 million years ago. Because A. garhi may have used tools to butcher animal carcasses, some researchers have proposed that this australopithecine gave rise to Homo. Others dispute this interpretation and consider A. garhi an evolutionary dead end. [note that A. garhi, above, has one of the question marks]

These minor controversies pale in comparison, however, to those recently inaugurated with the discoveries of Kenyanthropus platypops [yellow in the chart above] and Sahelanthropus tchadensis [red in the chart above]. Instead of these new hominid discoveries bringing clarification and resolution, they throw the entire field into even greater chaos. If Kenyanthropus is indeed a legitimate homind taxon, then neither Australopithecus africanus nor Australopithecus afarensis led to humanity - Kenyanthropus did... The discovery of Kenyanthropus potentially invalidates all traditional hominid evolutionary trees found in textbooks.

To be sure, evolutionary biologists would simply indicate that this is how science works - by continuing to gather data and learning from that data, sometimes revising previously held theories.

Yet, as Rana & Ross state,

To declare human evolution a scientific fact, paleoanthropologists must do much more than reliably define evolutionary relationships among the hominids in the fossil record. They must also establish an evolutionary pathway that compels widespread acceptance among biologists.

Despite the lack of compelling evidence for human evolution, and despite the fact that there is widespread disagreement with regards to a supposed human evolutionary pathway, we're presented with a "human family tree". I would say that a field in which a single fossil find causes so much controversy is a field which is not robust enough to present such a diagram as anything more than speculation.

Science Saturday: Volcanoes, Oxygen, & Old Earth Creationism

The ScienceDaily article, Volcanoes Key To Earth's Oxygen Atmosphere, describes how geologists think that the introduction of terrestrial volcanoes was a critical factor in the production and retention of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. From the article,

A switch from predominantly undersea volcanoes to a mix of undersea and terrestrial ones shifted the Earth's atmosphere from devoid of oxygen to one with free oxygen, according to geologists.

"The rise of oxygen allowed for the evolution of complex oxygen-breathing life forms," says Lee R. Kump, professor of geoscience, Penn State.

Of course, I would state it as the rise of oxygen indicates the careful planning that God exercised in preparing Earth for humanity.

In developing Old Earth Creationism curricula, we should be cognizant of the overwhelming evidence for the careful, fine-tuned, integrated and complex manner with which God works within His realm. Instead of questioning why God would take almost 5 billion years to get from "no Earth" to "humans", we should be marveling at how He carefully timed physical events, within the natural realm He created, to provide the just-right conditions for advanced life.

For instance, consider that the Earth's original composition would not support extended vulcanism. Consider that the moon creation event provided the Earth with the raw materials necessary for vulcanism as well as blowing off a heavy atmosphere. Consider that the increasing luminosity of the Sun has been counteracted by the combined effect of vulcanism, geologic cycle, and water cycle. Consider that the first life forms were ideally suited to provide oxygen to an oxygen-free environment. The list could go on, and on.

Some interesting reference material on this topic are:

• Creator & the Cosmos - Ross;
• Rare Earth - Ward & Brownlee,
• What if the Moon Didn't Exist - Comins,
• Nature's Destiny - Denton,
• Origins of Life - Rana & Ross
• The Privileged Planet - Gonzalez & Richards

The separation of science & faith

From the "Science is neutral with regards to matters of faith; except when it isn't" files:

Scientists, Evangelicals Team Up For Alaska Expedition

The historic collaboration between leading scientists and Evangelicals to protect the environment, spearheaded by the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) continues this week with a trip to Alaska.

"Adam" and AiG's Strange Bedfellows

In more news of the weird concerning the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum, it seems that the actor who played "Adam" in one of the museum’s videos has had other scantily-clad appearances. Eric Linden is the owner and sometime star of a pornographic website, "Bedroom Acrobat".

Young Earth Creationism & Biblicism

At Old Earth Creation Homeschool, Theology Mom discusses Biblicism and Young Earth Creationism:

The biblicist approach asserts that the effects of the first sin were so devastating that they impede the non-Christian's ability to accurately study and apprehend the natural world. For this reason, the record of nature must be interpreted through the lens of the Bible; we cannot study the natural world on its own terms. God's Word furnishes a lens through which to interpret life and the world.

...Young-earth (creation science) textbooks use the biblicist approach to science. Students are taught to first construct a framework based on the Bible and then interpret the record of nature through that framework...

This is something I've found to be true, when dealing with adherents to YEC. I recall one person describing the YEC point of view as being the "Biblical view".

Okay, so does that make the OEC point of view the non-Biblical view?

The wonderful world of DNA & RNA: why using the word "code" explains it all

As function continues to be found for Junk DNA or, as the natural process evolutionists have increasingly been forced to emphasize, non-coding DNA, the integrated complexity and inherent design of the genome becomes more and more apparent. (and yet, natural process evolutionists continue to promote the idea that non-function will rule the day)

The Reasons to Believe Creation Model posits that,

Because the various classes of noncoding DNA all perform functional roles, it's unnecessary to evoke a common evolutionary history to explain their shared presence in the human and chimpanzee genomes. The RTB model maintains instead that the existence of similar noncoding DNA sequences in these genomes reflects the Creator's use of common design features when He miraculously made humans and chimps...

What about the genetic material without a known function...? Currently the RTB model offers no explanation for this feature. The model does predict, however, that as with other classes of noncoding DNA, function will one day be discovered for these uniting pseudogenes.

- Who Was Adam?, Rana & Ross, p. 243

Indeed, it is reassuring to note how concepts such as front-loading, essentially the idea that some sort of pre-planning went into structures such as DNA and RNA, as well as the RTB model, litter the various findings of current research. Consider the following, keeping in mind concepts such as machinery, design, tools, regulation, phonetics, meaning, etc.:

• Ancestral Expression Patterns (Telic Thoughts) - The paper, ...shows that the genetic and developmental toolkit that builds limbs with fingers and toes was around long before the acquisition of limbs...
• Gene-Transcription Machinery Seen Poised For Action, Held In Check Until Needed - ...a new study led by researchers at The Wistar Institute suggests that the gene-transcription machinery, once in place, can remain poised for action but held in check until a triggering signal sends it on its way down the linear DNA molecule.
• Unravelling New Complexity In The Genome - Increased functional and cellular complexity can be explained, in large part, by how genes and the products of genes are regulated.
• Genetic Phonetics Could Be The Trick To Sounding Out DNA's Meaning - In many respects, researchers think of an organism’s genome as ticker-tape listings of four letters — representing four amino acid bases — repeated in varying orders. The goal is to find meaning within the sequences, to figure out how variations in the pattern affect the organism’s physiology.
• Scientists Retrace Evolution With First Atomic Structure Of An Ancient Protein - The structures allowed the scientists to identify exactly how the new function evolved. They found that just seven historical mutations, when introduced into the ancestral receptor gene in the lab, recapitulated the evolution of GR's present-day response to cortisol.
• Overlapping Genes Evince Intelligent Design (RTB) - The apparent widespread occurrence of overlapping genes doesn’t make much sense from an evolutionary perspective, because of the cost they represent to the organism. This cost is only worth it if there is a rationale for overlapping genes. The research team notes that the overlapping genes they uncovered seem to be involved in biochemical multitasking.
• Bits Of 'Junk' RNA Aid Master Tumor-suppressor Gene: Loss Is Linked To Common Lung Cancer - Now, University of Michigan Medical School scientists provide the most thorough evidence yet that p53 also regulates a trio of genes from the realm of so-called "junk" genes -- the roughly 97 percent of a cell's genetic material whose function is only beginning to be understood.

Science Saturday: Cosmic seeds & the glory of God

From ScienceDaily, Speeding Star: Johnny Appleseed Of The Cosmos,

A new ultraviolet mosaic from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer shows a speeding star that is leaving an enormous trail of "seeds" for new solar systems. The star, named Mira (pronounced my-rah) after the Latin word for "wonderful," is shedding material that will be recycled into new stars, planets and possibly even life as it hurls through our galaxy.

...

Mira's comet-like tail stretches a startling 13 light-years across the sky.

...

...Mira ejects the equivalent of the Earth's mass every 10 years. It has released enough material over the past 30,000 years to seed at least 3,000 Earth-sized planets or 9 Jupiter-sized ones.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. - ESV

Stanley Miller, atheist scientists, & the Christian's response

Stanley Miller, made famous by his Miller-Urey experiment from the 1950s, died recently. Miller's work, though now viewed as largely irrelevant to the science of life's origins, led to Miller being vilified in many Christian circles. Fuz Rana, from Reasons to Believe, writes a thoughtful post explaining Miller's legacy as well as reminding us that, above all, we cannot forget that Miller was a human being. Dr. Rana states,

If we ever want to effectively engage skeptics within the scientific community, we must avoid alienating them with our apologetics methodology. We cannot treat them as the enemy of the Christian faith, but rather must regard scientists as people occupying an important mission field. We need to look for opportunities to build bridges, not erect walls, as we present the Christian faith to them.

Take the time to read the entire post.

Evolution happens, because we know it happens

If you want to fit in with natural process evolutionists, then remember this motto:  Evolution happens, because we know it happens.

A corollary to the motto is:  Evolution happened, even though we don't know exactly how it happened.

The news reports are out - Fossils Challenge Old Evolutionary Theory, and the natural process evolutionists are covering it like a cheap suit. Essentially, the report states that one of the supposed ancestors to modern humans, Homo habilis, lived at the same time as another ancestor, Homo erectus. That is portrayed as an issue, in the news reports, because if Homo habilis precedes Home erectus (in the evolutionary scenario), then we shouldn't find any Homo habilis primates existing as potential neighbors with Homo erectus primates.

The natural process evolutionists are downplaying the controversy of the find, using the notion of dead-end side-branch. Yes, the answer to this quandary, it would seem, is that since any change from Homo habilis to Homo erectus would occur over a long period of time, it is not surprising to find evidence of Homo habilis dating to time periods that overlap those of Homo erectus. So, along with the previous lineage of:

Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens,

we now have to add the dead-end side-branch of:

Homo habilis (early) to Homo habilis (late)

To make sure you see the sleight of hand going on here, consider the explanation we're being given:

1. Homo habilis evolved into Homo erectus.
2. Homo habilis (late) is found to co-exist with Homo erectus.
3. Homo habilis (late) is obviously a dead-end side-branch.

What is the reason for concluding # 3, above? Remember your motto:  Evolution happens because we know it happens. And: Evolution happened, even though we don't know exactly how it happened.

Such a conclusion is the only one allowed when one views life through evolutionary lenses. Were one to have a bit broader view of the world, then one could also propose that Homo habilis did not evolve into Homo erectus. For that matter, one might even propose that such creatures are exactly what they appear to be - bipedal primates who appear in the fossil record, do not change morphologically, and then eventually go extinct.

It is interesting to note, from the New York Times article, one scientist's reaction,

Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory.

''This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points,'' Anton said. ''This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn't do. It's a continous self-testing process.'' (emphasis added)

First, why mention religion, at all, in an article on science? (hints of the evolution of the evolutionary argument). Second, I suppose Anton is unaware of translator notes, in many Bibles today, which give a clue as to how ancient manuscripts affect the process of Biblical translation. For instance, considering the short ending of the book of Mark, we read,

The Gospel of Mark ends at this point in some witnesses, including two of the most respected mss. ...Because of such problems regarding the authenticity of these alternative endings, 16:8 is usually regarded as the last verse of the Gospel of Mark. There are three possible explanations for Mark ending at 16:8: (1) The author intentionally ended the Gospel here in an open-ended fashion; (2) the Gospel was never finished; or (3) the last leaf of the ms was lost prior to copying. This first explanation is the most likely due to several factors, including (a) the probability that the Gospel was originally written on a scroll rather than a codex (only on a codex would the last leaf get lost prior to copying); (b) the unlikelihood of the ms not being completed; and (c) the literary power of ending the Gospel so abruptly that the readers are now drawn into the story itself.

What was that about what religion doesn't do, Ms. Anton?

PhD scientists on educating your children: how arrogant smugness betrays a nonsensically naive notion

From Joy, at Telic Thoughts, back in April she posted on comment left at a rant by PZ Myers, regarding atheists and creationists, in which the commenter - Coturnix - stated,

Teaching them evolution won't work - they just give you an angry look. Moving the discussion over to the religion vs. atheism playing field is counterproductive to say the least.

That is why others, including liberal theists we disagree with on religion, need to do that kind of persuasion. They speak their language. They have their trust. They can produce results fast.

In the meantime, we'll try to work on their kids so in 20 years this entire discussion becomes unnecessary. (emphasis by Joy)

Joy rightly states,

What DOES concern me is the bolded statement Coturnix finished his post with. It speaks to something that's been ongoing for at least 40 years already (since it's been that long since I took the evolutionary portion of biology in high school), and the American public still isn't buying Neodarwinist pablum as any kind of sufficient explanation for who and what we are, where we came from.

These people seem completely ignorant of why individuals might choose to believe something other than "science = atheism" in spite of their exclusive access to other people's children for the exercise in indoctrination in public schools. We have PZ and gang insisting that Ph.D. candidates, medical students, etc. be denied degrees if they don't swear eternal faith in atheism, and that candidates for tenure be denied on the same basis.

There are, I think, two main points to consider here. One, Joy is correct in stating that, despite 40 years of evolution being taught in U.S. schools, the public still does not buy the notion of nature is all there is. Two, despite such a state of affairs, the worldview of our children is, nevertheless, still under attack.

What people such as Coturnix don't seem to understand, though, is that we, as parents, aren't simply handing over our children to whatever the hallowed halls of education have to offer. Many parents, homeschooling parents in particular, are deeply interested and involved in their children's understanding of all aspects of our world. The realms of science, religion, philosophy, and culture are realms that our children, as adults, will face the rest of their lives. Our children will learn not only the Christian worldview, but the competing worldviews and why the competing worldviews fail to satisfactorily explain the world. It is, indeed, ironically funny that censored books such as Of Pandas and People will be read by our children (along with works such as The Origin of Species), before the learned professors of higher education get a chance to work on them.

And it's not just parents that are involved in this process of educating our youth before they enter the university. Programs such as Torrey Academy, Wheatsone Academy, the Truth Project, Ambassador Basic Curriculum, and the Reasons Institute abound.

Bonus sidenote: How Theistic Evolutionists are - shudder! - creationists! 

Who was Adam?: why "early humans", weren't

Take a look at these two characters and tell me, which one is the human?

Well, the answer depends on how you define "human". While most of us would, I presume, pick Paul McCartney as the human, some scientists just might also include the idealized Homo erectus rendering as indicative of humanity.

So when you hear someone mentioning humans existing from 100,000 to 700,000 years ago, they're not referring to the likelihood of some prehistoric McCartney singing "Can't Buy Me Love".

The advent of humanity is a quirky thing, indeed. Some scientists and educators would have you believe that the natural process evolutionary scenario is all but chiseled in stone. Yet that is not the case. In reading Who Was Adam?, by Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross (of Reasons to Believe - RTB), we find that there are several evolutionary scenarios for humanity's advent and that once accepted evolutionary ancestors have been replaced by newer finds. From the book,

...Instead of hominids emerging from a single species and diversifying in treelike fashion, an explosive diversity of hominids occurred at the time of their first appearance in the fossil record. This explosion of coexisting species persists throughout their history.

At one time Australopithecine was considered one of the earliest human ancestors. Now, it appears that the discovery of Kenyanthropus fossils has unseated the once revered Australopithecine (thereby relegating it to an evolutionary dead-end boobie prize). Regarding Neanderthals and Homo erectus, we read,

Paleontologists now have definitive evidence that Homo erectus and Neanderthals, long regarded as central figures in the human origin sequence, were evolutionary side branches and dead ends.

Cro-Magnon man is touted as an evolutionary ancestor of modern humans, however their similarity with modern humans is so great that they are now considered to be nothing more than modern humans.

Despite the confusion with regards to the genesis of these early primates, they were, nevertheless, interesting creatures. Much can be learned about the uniqueness of humans (i.e., real humans) by studying the traits of the early bi-pedal primates.

From Who Was Adam?,

The RTB model regards humans as qualitatively different from animals, including the great apes and hominids. This distinction does not primarily refer to physical differences. Although such differences exist, the RTB model maintains that humans and all other animals (including hominids and the great apes) share at least some biochemical, genetic, physiological, and anatomical similarities. One main distinctive, however, separates human beings from the animals: Only people bear the image of God. People use their minds to reason and contemplate the future. People create, imitating their Creator. People, male and female, worship the Creator as God.

Fazale Rana and Hugh Ross have provided an excellent resource for the Christian home educator, laying the groundwork for critical thinking and interpretive analysis, as future scientific discoveries declare the complexity and wonder of God's creation.