Piltdown Superman

Despite the common misconception of scientists going to and fro on the earth, collecting data and then forming theories, they have existing ideas and try to see if data support them. From there, they build theories and all that good stuff. Like their secular counterparts, biblical creation scientists try to do the same. Unfortunately, the secular science industry has a passel of grotzits to spend on their pursuits, but creationists are severely limited, having to rely on donations instead. Even so, the Institute for Creation Research has been gathering data to support Genesis Flood models. Grand Canyon of Thailand, Pxhere / icon0com Another similarity between creation and secular scientists is disagreement. Scientists put forward an idea and sometimes passionately defend it, others reject it and present their own. As it happens with secular scientists, it occurs with creationists. They do agree that the Bible is true, the earth is young, and there was a global Flood. One disagreement i

Way down Argentina way, paleontologists found themselves a new dinosaur, and named it Meraxes gigas after a critter in George R.R. Martin stories. They were cleaning and studying it for about ten years. The skeleton is said to be more complete than any others of this type. They were so thrilled, this thing was given its own genus. M. gigas  was like T. rex  in body structure, including short arms and a big head. This bad boy was supposedly stomping around about twenty million Darwin years before T. rex  lived. Interesting that tyrannosaurid fossils have not been discovered in the Southern Hemisphere.   Excellent artwork of Meraxes gigas , WikiComm / Carlos Papolio  ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) As regular readers have seen, evidence for the evolution of dinosaurs is based on stories and graphics, not facts. Riding along the science trail, consistency, logic, and other things dropped with loud plops. The secular non-science miracle of convergent evolution  was invoked to explain big heads and small

Although we are going to delve into some in-depth biology, there is no need to be intimidated by the jargon. The recurrent laryngeal nerve involves the operation of the larynx, informally called the voice box. I had to look up why it is "recurring", which is based on the Latin re curr , meaning it loops into the opposite direction. We have discussed dysteleology  before, which is the idea that the Master Engineer fouled up, so he does not exist. (Interesting that secularists praise the grandeur of evolution, but blame alleged bad design on the Creator.) "Bad design" claims keep getting refuted because misotheists and other Darwinists are arguing from ignorance and incomplete information. The RLN is subject to this attack. Recurrent laryngeal nerve, WikiComm / Jkwchui from Truth-Seeker2004 ( CC BY-SA 3.0 ), I modified it for visibility Think of their track record. One of the most famous "bad design" claims is the human eye, which has been conclusively ref

The Big Bang has been frequently Frankensteined with rescuing devices when observed data do not fit the deep-time narrative. After all, it has very little resemblance to what was proposed early in the twentieth century. Biblical creationists are not the only ones who reject the Big Bang . Some folks think that, according to their physics, the universe should not even exist ! Others are beginning to ride for the oscillating universe brand again . A new observation may cause more secularists to abandon the Big Bang, or at least do some more Frankensteining to salvage it. Tucana Dwarf Galaxy and 47 Tucanae, ESA / Hubble & NASA (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) It is thought that there is a supermassive black hole at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. (Fun fact: Galaxy  is ultimately derived from the Greek word  galaxías , part of which means milk .) A black hole cannot be observed because of its immense gravitational force — not even light can escape. They eat

Uniformitarian (slow and gradual processes) scientists are baffled by the woolly mammoths, those elephants frequently associated with the Ice Age. These critters primarily lived in the upper areas of the Northern Hemisphere. A huge mystery is why they went extinct. Among the millions of remains, those found in permanently frozen soil way up north baffles secularists the most. These areas did not have glaciers, so they are not found in glacier ice. Imaginative speculations about these mysteries have stampeded for many years. Mammoths image, Flickr /  Andrew Wilkinson  ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) Some people think (and I bought into this years ago) that they were frozen very quickly. A reason people got that idea is because food was still in their stomachs. That concept fails for several reasons, including elephant stomach biology and the fact that they died in different seasons, not all at once. These and other problems for evolutionists are answered by using biblical creation science models of t

Believers in universal common ancestor evolution want others to believe as they do, so they commence to posturing. Since people are willing to bow down to what they perceive as superior knowledge by scientists, they tend to self-censor any questions. We have seen numerous times that Just-So Stories are passed off as serious research (a recent example is in the  post about electric fish ), but they evosplain much without giving any real science. Since all life supposedly began in the sea, evolutionists must explain how plant life developed on land. Hedge Bindeweed, my photo modified with FotoSketcher Mayhaps the self-censoring of questions and objections is partly because people are not taught critical (logical) thinking skills much nowadays. They might see in an article all the assertions without evidence, and appeal to secular miracles.   Yes, secularists have their own miracles, but they have antipathy toward admitting it, so they rename them. Sound familiar? Atheists and Darwin'

Linked below is a technical article dealing with the geology of the Jurassic Coast, but if this child can learn something from it, so can you. Since such articles are written more for people with scientific backgrounds than for folks like us, they contain specialized language. One is geomorphology , the study of changes in land features ( geo and morph ). The predominant word  periglaciation was new to me so I had to look it up . It involves permafrost areas, and uniformitarian (slow and gradual processes over long periods of time) geologists believe that periglaciation, which is the freezing, thawing, and land-shaping that occurred around glaciers, may have formed the dry valleys of the Jurassic Coast. Jurassic Coast, Dorset; Pixabay /  Roman Grac Dry valleys are dry. That is, no rivers flow through them. Secular scientists expect rivers to carve out valleys over long periods of time. They have twenty possible explanations for the dry valleys. Periglaciation is the one they like bes

Sharks and rays are in the same biological grouping, which gives us some interesting characters. Manta rays are nice to watch as they appear to fly underwater. Unfortunately, rays have a tendency to be unattractive. They have some interesting and unique traits. There are several kinds of fishes that have electric organs, but none of them are Hammond organs used with amplifiers in rock bands. The organs (or structures) play a vital part in the lives of these fish, including sensory and offensive/defensive applications. Spotted Torpedo, Flickr / Philippe Guillaume ( CC BY 2.0 ) Have you ever seen animated cartoons where a character gets zapped by an electric "eel" and they light up while jumping around? Yeah, those fish can pack quite a punch like the spotted torpedo and others, but they are not closely related. Darwin's disciples unconvincingly evosplain how those structures evolved. It's called the Stuff Happens Law , sort of like: "How did it get that way?"

Rusty Swingset, foreman at the Darwin Ranch near Deception Pass, was all excited about new efforts that are being made to show how morality itself evolved. Those rascals keep trying to find ways of explaining immaterial things using materialistic presuppositions. That is, only naturalism: No Creator need apply. Their efforts do not go well. To have morality, it stands to reason that consciousness itself must exist. Secularists cannot explain the evolution of consciousness . Then there is the puzzle of how morality evolved, but that is not explained either . Are new efforts to explain the evolution of morality faring any better? Puzzled chimpanzee is puzzled, Pixabay / Marcel Langthim , modified at PhotoFunia Before we go any further, a bit of history. While Charles Darwin gets applause for creating evolution ( no, he did not ), Alfred Russel Wallace is sometimes credited as a co-discoverer of evolution through natural selection. What is less known is that, although they maintained a c

Try as they might, Pseudomyrmex ants cannot successfully protect their property from certain invaders. Especially that pesky jumping spider known as  Bagheera kiplingi —  just a moment. If you are like me, you probably skip over the Latin names for the most part, but take a look. Bagheera was the panther in The Jungle Book , which was written by Rudyard Kipling. (He also wrote Just-So Stories , and when Darwinists evosplain things, they sounds like Kipling could have written them.) The author was honored by those names in 1896. But those stinging ants want that raider behind bars. Or something. Bagheera kiplingi image: Wikimedia Commons /  Wayne Maddison  ( CC BY 3.0 ), modified with Ckler clipart This jumping spider doesn't use a web very much, relying instead of stealth, cunning, and other traits. It likes the same vegetable matter that the ants want. Interestingly, the tree they call home gives them food and shelter, and the ants protect the tree. That's an excellent examp

The word drone  has many meanings, but is clarified by context. People drone on about boring subjects, a drone can be a mindless person, bagpipes and other instruments have single-note drone pipes, and more. Our focus today uses what is arguably the most common defintion today, that of unmanned vehicles controlled remotely or by computers. (This child has embedded videos by drones (often called quadcopters) on this site several times.) Modern drones are impressive, but some researchers want to improve their performance. Swift, Wikimedia Commons /  Dr. Raju Kasambe ( CC BY-SA 4.0 ) People may recall grainy silent videos of early attempts at flight, some including vehicles that had flapping motions. These may be considered biomimetics , which is drawing inspiration from creation for human applications. Those were on the right track, but the flapping of wings is far more intricate than people can see with the unaided eye. Researchers developed drones that are not flying with propellers.

Way back when, I was watching the Adam West and Burt Ward Batman  series and asked my father if Batman could fly. Superheroes do that, right? Well, no version of Batman was a superhero, and he could not fly naturally. He needed something that was intelligently designed. Bats did not need to call Alfred the butler to bring them wings — they were born with them. If one asks a typical Darwinist how bat wings came to be, the response will probably be something along the non-science lines of, "It evolved ." No, thinking people are not interested in naturalistic blind-faith assertions. Flying fruit bat, Flickr / Tambako The Jaguar ( CC BY-ND 2.0 ) Thinking a bit further, it should not be a surprise that an evolutionist would wave off a question about how  the bat got its wings. That's because there is no evidence in the fossil record of bat evolution : A bat is still a bat, as time goes by. Now consider the wing itself. The bat's wings are extremely flexible and capable of

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  Not surprisingly, Scientific American  promoted evolution in " Humans May Be Influencing Bird Evolution in Their Backyards ." The study focused on Great Tits in the U.K., and said that evolution is happening in "real time." I like tits as much as the next guy, but will not be seeing Great Tits in these parts. We like the Tufted Titmouse, and Blue Jay, and Northern Cardinal, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and... One way these owlhoots stack the deck is by labeling every kind of change as an example of evolution, even though what is observed has nothing to do with goo-to-Great Tit evolution. That's the ol' bait and switch equivocation fallacy . Great Tit, Pexels / John Thorne I rode off the trail a bit, didn't I? Getting back to it now, a long-standing "evidence" for evolution cites the Galápagos Finches (also called "Darwin's Finches", even though he didn't know what they were when he visited there). They h

There was a period in certain parts of Europe called (with a passel of hubris in the eyes of this child) the Age of Reason  or the Enlightenment . These things do not simply spring up on their own, but are developed from religious, cultural, intellectual, political, and other cultural views that happened before. The Enlightenment was by no means unified. Some had a fondness for Classical things (Socrates himself was particularly missed by Voltaire). Some wanted knowledge without the senses, others believed knowledge could be achieved by reason alone. This period is sometimes considered a triumph of atheism (indeed, the bloody French Revolution was the culmination). Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles, was an atheist who lived at this time. His Zoonomia  was unfluential to Charlie . Immanuel Kant by Johann Gottlieb Becker, 1768, modified with PhotoFunia Criticism of the Bible was widespread at this time with efforts to find excuses to intellectualize it away. (For that matter,

If asked what we breathe, people will probably say air . When asked for a bit more detail, they may say oxygen.  Yes, we need oxygen and we need it quickly. Pure oxygen is explosive and we can get too much, so it is about twenty-one percent of the atmosphere. Most of the rest is nitrogen. Oxygen is easy to get. Just breathe. Nitrogen is also essential for life, but breathing does not help much. Someone stranded on a desert island can be surrounded by water and die of thirst because salt water is not usable. Similarly, nitrogen needs to be made usable for us. The Top of the Atmosphere, NASA / ISS013-E-54329 (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) The Master Engineer makes sure we have what we need to survive and thrive (e.g., those fossil fuels some love to hate), and he has given the world the nitrogen cycle . One would probably never guess that lightning striking the ground is beneficial! It activates a process where bacteria convert nitrogen gas into stuff that plants c

Charles Robert Darwin took the ancient pagan concept of evolution that had been kicked around for hundreds of years, gussied it up, and speculated about universal common ancestry through natural selection. Traditional Darwinism began to fade, but the modern synthesis  saved it from the scrap heap of history. Incorporating the science of genetics initiated by Gregor Mendel (peas be upon him), mutations  became vitally important. Time, mutations, and natural selection are a trifecta. While Darwin's cheerleaders claim that genetics and mutations support evolution, that is the opposite of the truth. DNA and Mutations, modified from Pixabay / Arek Socha DNA is a complex language or code that is comprised of four letters . A mutation is a transcription error, such as typing an account number of  12 02 1809 as 12 20 1809. Most mutations are harmful. Many have been considered neutral. However, they still add to the genetic load. Consider when running a registry cleaner on a Windows comput

It is puzzling to this child why a bird shares a name with a medium-sized warship. While some pirates used frigates, they had smaller crews and preferred smaller vessels. Those imposing galleons in pirate movies? Fuggedaboudit! There are several species of frigatebirds, the largest is the magnificent and the smallest is lesser  (which still has an impressive body length). The object of our interest today is the great frigatebird . It has several features that affirm intelligent design and challenge Darwin's disciples. Great Frigatebird, Flickr / Makuahine Pa'i Ki'i  ( CC BY 2.0 ) One thing in keeping with a pirate theme is that, like pirates, frigatebirds are opportunists. A flying fish escapes sharks but becomes lunch for the frigatebird . It also steals food from other birds. We know of several birds that can fly tremendous distances (such as the arctic tern and the albatross), but this bad boy excels. It seems to shun land and can stay aloft for weeks . This bird's b

In the parade of our alleged evolutionary ancestors, Neanderthals were iconic. They were portrayed as brutish cave dwellers. After much time and further investigations, this image was shown to be completely wrong. Living in caves...sure, why not? People have done that through history, and even do so today. It seems that the mystery deepened for anthropologists and paleontologists. To them, Neanderthals could be the Cotton-Eyed Joes: Where did they come from, and where did they go? From a biblical creationist perspective using scientific discoveries, they are not so enigmatic after all. Neanderthal Woman, PLOS One / WikiComm /  Bacon CPH  (now deleted) ( CC BY 2.5 ), Modified at PhotoFunia It has been demonstrated that Neanderthals had all sorts of human traits but nothing to show simian ancestry. Most evolutionists have reclassified them as fully human, even though there are still some holdouts (because Darwin needs the narrative). Reconstructions show that they clean up nice and can p

It is common knowledge that the secular news media are, for the most part, heavily biased toward the political left. This obviously influences their reporting — which seems more like propaganda than actual journalism. After all, journalists are expected to investigate and ask hard questions. There are a few reporters who want to do their jobs. Unfortunately, they are obscured by the lapdog majority. In the secular science industry, leftist causes and Darwinism are paramount as well as symbiotic. The public wants answers and is getting annoyed with the science press. Sausages by Amanda Lim at Unsplash (modified, obviously) In an article on an Intelligent Design site titled " Why Are Science Reporters So Credulous? ", David Klinghoffer points out that secular science journalists are assembling press releases instead of doing genuine reporting. He quotes Nicholas Wade, who indicates that journalists put scientists on pedestals which hinders doubt or healthy skepticism. The secu

Centuries ago, I accepted a position as a production scheduler. My knowledge of the product was nonexistent, and the machinery amazed me. My predecessor was supposed to train me, but ran off. Then my supervisor was out sick. That meant I had to get out on the floor and talk to the workers and their supervisors. The biggest problem is that I had no idea of the right questions to ask. There was no framework for my thinking. For Darwin's disciples in the secular science industry, this was the opposite of their problem. The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, 1511 There are tropes about trying to solve crimes or save lives, and the people doing the work often realize, "We're going about this the wrong way." They had to get outside their framework and consider other possibilities. Unfortunately, evolutionists are so locked into their materialistic paradigms that they cannot conduct proper scientific research or solve problems. As we have seen many times on thi

Russell Watchtower, who heads up the Ministry of Truth at the Darwin Ranch, likes to say that time is the hero of the story. Evolutionists often say that given enough time, anything can happen. Like that silly thing about monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare . Not happening, Hoss. When using the science of genetics pioneered by Gregor Mendel (peas be upon him), human DNA has about three billion  letters. Well, four letters occurring naturally: adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). Then they get arranged. Waiting , Vladimir Makovsky , 1875 Our cousins, according to evolutionary dogma, are chimpanzees. If they were going to evolve into humans, they would be much obliged if someone would make up the 300 million-letter deficit between us that chimps are lacking. But that genetic material is not arriving on the Wells Fargo Wagon. In addition, it's that pesky old mutations thing. The amount of time to get even a few letters to line up in a useful way would take bill