Piltdown Superman

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  The age of Gentlemen of the Rails — hobos — is mostly gone, but they had a long run mainly from the end of the American Civil War to the 1940s. These guys would hitch rides on freight trains and try to find short-term jobs. Television and movies had various portrayals of them that probably should not be taken as based in fact. Also, they were willing to work, unlike traveling tramps or sedentary bums . While itinerant workers like this were found worldwide, most were American. Locomotive 721 Entering Railroad Yard, Texas & Pacific Railway Company, Flickr / DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University The main reasons for the decrease in hobo migrants involved more economic opportunities appearing after WWII, but also the fact that steam engines were being replaced. Steam (choo choo) trains were a mite easier to climb aboard. It could be from a jerkwater town , a big city trainyard, or anything in between. With that bit of background done, we can ride...

There is nothing more pleasant than a cold glass of dihydrogen monoxide, even though it is often used as a solvent or to cut through rock. (Expensive alternative term for water there. Baffle your friends.) As anyone in searching for extraterrestrial life knows, water is essential. When put under tremendous pressure and tightly focused, waterjets cut through rock and metal. It is a solvent because it dissolves quite a few substances. Earth is mostly water, though most of it is not in drinkable form. The human body contains a large percentage of water. Small waterfall on river, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen The three basic states of matter are solid, gas, and liquid. Interesting that there is a huge — indeed, yuge  — range of temperatures in the universe, but water is only liquid within a few degrees. Earth has the right kind of star to let water exist in this important state. Water's specific heat characteristic helps keep the temperature of this blue marble rather steady. Oh yes...

Long ago, I encountered a computer program called ELIZA on the TRS-80, which was a machine for beginners. The Tandy version of ELIZA mimicked a therapist but it could be tricked with clever wording. This was early stages of artificial intelligence. AI is ubiquitous, especially online. (Indeed, when I highlight a block of text I am composing, a particular browser offers to use AI to rewrite it. No. The mistakes and possible cleverness are mine.) It is being used in some amazing ways but some see it as a threat. Robot using computer, Pixabay /  Lukas Many people think that AI will put artists out of work. Some graphics it produces are impressive, but others (especially at the free level) are risible. Many videos on YouTube are entirely made by AI, but there are certain flaws in narration that give them away. (I expect lawsuits because the voices of famous people are often used.) Music is composed by AI that is acceptable but...unsatisfying. Some folks have such a high opinion of arti...

One way to spot a fool is when someone says or believes, "There is no God." This is also seen through life choices as if the Creator and Judge does not exist or care (Psalm 14:1). While believers in molecules-to-microbiologist evolution may have been taught only evolution, they are still without excuse (Romans 1:18-23). Perhaps their efforts to deny the truth are increasing, as there is quite a bit of silliness passed off as evolutionary research. Consider the inane logic in studying nitrogen networks. Aminotransferase monomer, Wiki Comm / Deposition authors - Mcphalen, C.A., et. al . Visualization author - Synpath (PD) Amino groups get transferred from amino acids to keto acids — a very important function. These amino groups are the building blocks of proteins. Using tendentious tree of life formulas and the scientific principle of Making Things Up™, some owlhoots decided that "all of life" worked together to create the complex nitrogen network. No evidence, thoug...

When reading numerous creation science articles, one can gain knowledge on many topics. A subject that frequently occurs is that birds are more intelligent than most people think. (Of course, when American Robins stand on concrete roads listening for worms, their intelligence is questionable.) Crows are demonstrably more intelligent than apes, and their corvid relatives are also quite bright. Darwin's disciples have demonstrated the truth that evolutionary thinking is unnecessary. On the other hand, some seem compelled to insist on inserting evolution to make their research seem more sciencey and stuff. Crows in a tree, Unsplash / Foad Roshan In the post featured below, the first two subjects do not spend much time on Darwinian ideas, so real science may be possible in areas of emu intelligence and energy efficiency in sea birds. Crows are smart, so what does "caw" mean? (I say, "Hi, guys!" but they do not reply.) AI was hooked up to study voice inflections for ...

Although it seems less frequent nowadays, cancel culture  is a method of punishing those who dare to go against the prevailing viewpoint. I believe that people want to be "right" or in the "best" movement, whether it is religious (including atheism), a political party, or something else. Those who disagree are shunned and even canceled. A form of this happened when C. Richard Dawkins was "deplatformed" at the University of California, Berkeley. He said something people did not like about Islam. He has said other things that caused people to dislike him. These come about because someone goes against the trend. Image from "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" by Sidney Paget , Strand Magazine , 1904 (enhanced at iLoveIMG ) Creation science and the Intelligent Design movement are unwanted on social(ist) media, and many times atheists try to have it stamped out. Calls for trolling raids, feculent comments, ridicule, and more are common fare ...

Weird dreams causing fatigue, work pressure, and other things made me want to just be alone. My reading by lantern light was interrupted by the sound of a buckboard approaching. I inwardly groaned, but was pleasantly surprised to see Stevia Dolce, the baker from the Darwin Ranch. She brought croissants. Those and her pleasant demeanor put aside my gloom. Stevia heard Dewey Lye and others at the ranch talking about efforts to clone a woolly mammoth and was intensely curious. Yes, there is talk about that among certain scientists. Mammoth sculpture image cropped from Pixabay /  hansbenn Using a passel of deep time and evolutionary presuppositions, scientists think that humans killed off the Ice Age animals in Siberia. They brought in several cold-weather critters to deal with the wetland, but it only got worse. Cloning a mammoth (well, a hybrid with an existing elephant's DNA and the mammoth DNA) should solve the problem. Not hardly! Using a biblical creation science Ice Age model wo...

While it has been discussed at length that believers in atoms-to-alien evolution have an incoherent worldview, they do try to live it. (Of course, morality and such cannot be rationally explained by atheistic materialism, so they have to draw from the Christian worldview.) Study on it a spell and see that evolutionists believe that the Big Bang ultimately gave rise to life (“You are star stuff, and to star stuff you will return," said Carl Sagan). Other stars had alien races evolve, so we should be able to detect them. Person under starry sky, Pixabay / Gerd Altmann (geralt) Many organizations and individuals around the globe have been interested in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and NASA is one of those. They even have an astrobiology section, though there is no astro to biologize — no alien life to study. NASA had a SETI section that had its government funding cut, restored, cut, then funded through private contributions. The beginning listeners for alien signals ...

Some of us are not surprised when bad science and malfeasance are found among Darwinoids, but some stuff gets me on the prod . They have a materialistic worldview that requires deep time, so interpreting evidence through those glasses is to be expected. Manipulation of that data is another story. Know that "tangled web we weave" line about practicing to deceive? The so-called earliest bird has been discovered in Antarctica. Purveyors of evoporn are web=tangled indeed, conflicting stories are more fun than a pig in a steel barrel. Ducks and Ducklings , John Frederick Herring, Sr. (1850) Evolution is not a person, except when it makes choices and does experimentation. That's pantheistic, old son. The Chicxulub impact caused dinosaur demise, but that story is unraveling and not all dinosaur scientists accepted it anyway. The discovered bird is just like a modern duck, but gets its own classification — because evolution. Wait'll you get a load of the guy who has faith th...

No need to head for deep space to trouble believers in cosmic evolution, just look up about 238,800 miles (384,400 km). We saw how they have difficulties with the rate the moon recedes from the earth, and how it formed in the first place. There is also the moon's magnetic field. No, there is none there now. But those bags of nice expensive rocks that the Apollo astronauts (and other robotic missions) brought to Earth showed that there was a lunar magnetic field in the past. The secular science industry finds that troubling. Moon core cutaway (original image NASA, PD ) with folded generator (WikiComm /  Herbert Ortner ,  CC BY 4.0 )* Scientists have some guesses about what causes the magnetic fields of Earth and other planets, the most popular of which is a dynamo hypothesis. It is a case of, "We got nuffin, but this is better than admitting recent creation." Indeed, the dynamo (or generator) hypothesis even violates laws of physics  — yet secularists think the moon had o...

The morning of the one-year anniversary of my wife's passing , I wanted to commemorate the day. It began by going to the Hudson River in the morning. Those parks open at sunrise, which I looked up online. It happens on a predictable basis. Why should it? Some folks do not like this, but presuppositional apologetics  has its ultimate starting point in the authority of God's Word and character as revealed in the Bible. Science, logic, and other things are not possible in a worldview of atheistic materialism; they only make sense in a biblical worldview. Morning on the Hudson River, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen We all have presuppositions and an ultimate starting point. The sun will rise tomorrow, a lighter will make a candle burn, pictures on the wall will not float upward. Things happened before, so they will again — but that is circular reasoning! God holds the universe together, making logic (inductive and other kinds) possible. From there, science is possible. And mathemati...

Those with Atheism Spectrum Disorder suppress evidence for the existence of God that is clearly seen (Romans 18:1), needing to repeat the mantra that things only appear  designed. They would have to count many Darwin beads and chant very fast when seeing hidden layers of complexity. In medical science and other areas of biology, advances in technology enable us to view microscopic things we never realized existed, such as cellular machines. In the trees, under the soil, in the oceans are amazingly complex worlds testifying of the Designer. View of Onteora Lake, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen George Washington Carver was a Christian and a creationist. He prayed for wisdom, and God guided him to discover about 300 uses for the peanut. The peanut . It was designed to have many uses. Indeed, Proverbs 25:2 tells us that God has concealed things, and kings discover them. They are not hidden because he does not want them found, but concealed so his work is gradually seen in many areas. H...

One way Darwin's disciples evosplain common traits in unrelated creatures is to invoke convergent evolution , which is lazy and convenient. Study on it a moment. Evolutionists cannot explain a trait, so they distract the issue by claiming it evolved in other critters also. No evidence, though. This was fecklessly about the wings of birds and bats. Powered flight for both is displayed in the fossil record, and despite the efforts of Darwinists, bats have always been bats . This is what creationists have said all along. Now additional news surprises evolutionists. Wing-stretched bat,  Department of the Interior / USGS   (PD, Usage does not imply endorsement) It was wondered why there are flightless birds but no flightless bats. Apparently it is because their limbs and membranes are pretty much united. Wings on both creatures exhibit specified complexity. To believe that they are the products of time, mutations, natural selection, random processes — that's a passel of faith in ...

From the extremely silly material turned in with straight faces as "research," it is no wonder that the secular science industry does not want financial scrutiny. It does not take a scientist to use logic and coherence to determine a...truly bizarre paper. Evolution is supposed to be without purpose because it is not an entity. Sure, figures of speech can treat something like a person, everyone does that. Then Darwin's votaries really do get into pantheism and treat evolution as a being. Luis Zaman claims evolution itself evolves. Video game console and effects, Pixabay / Vika_Glitter The worshipful description of evolution evolving because evolution is evolution and evolution evolves probably embarrassed even Rusty Swingset and the hands at the Darwin Ranch (up near Deception Pass). What was Zaman's research method? Essentially, a glorified video game that oversimplified their subjects. The software itself is known to be faulty. This tinhorn seems utterly committed t...

Bwasted wabbits brought to Australia, then became a nightmare for agriculture! Cuteness evaporates for those viewing them after they damaged crops. Only twenty-four rabbits, and they did what rabbits do: Eat and make offspring. Hundreds of millions of offspring. The conditions were right, since there was great eating and no significant predators. Biblical creationists can use this fluffy bunny plague as an example of population growth and apply it to the Genesis Flood. There are several factors to take into consideration. Rabbit, Flickr / Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar ( CC BY 2.0 ) Scoffers say that it is ridiculous that the populations of humans and animals can be rebuilt after the Flood by so few specimens. They need to learn to do the math and figure in exponential growth. Another objection is that inbreeding depression would result. Today, yes. (Charles Darwin was concerned about his offspring when he married a first cousin.) Back at the time of the Flood, genetic degradation was n...

People have concepts about Noah's Ark, but most of them probably come from cutesie books for children. Mayhaps they imagine those floating bathtub things with giraffes sticking their heads out. Atheists (and many Christians) laugh at Noah's Ark because of what the Bible does not  teach. It may come as a shock that paintings and such showing animals going on the Ark were modern animals, and are probably wrong. The artists worked from what they knew. What Noah carried were the biblical kinds from very long ago. Ark Encounter, Pixabay /  Michael Wysmiersk Several articles have been featured on this site from Answers in Genesis regarding several aspects of the Ark, how it was seaworthy, the way it may have been built, how many animals, and more. But the critters themselves? They researched that aspect as well, presupposing the truth of the Bible but also incorporating paleontology and other sciences. Several things to think about are presented. Formerly a zookeeper at Answers in ...

Americans have a wealth of national monuments and parks, many of which are comprised of large tracts of land.  Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) is the only one named after an individual, as Teddy was both a big game hunter and a conservationist president. TRNP went through changes, first as a memorial and finally as a national park in 1978. (By the way, the teddy bear was named in his honor .) TRNP went through changes, first as a memorial and finally as a national park in 1978. It is an unintentional monument to the Genesis Flood. Layered badlands at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, NPS / Laura Thomas (PD) Sure, like other geological areas, TRNP has information signs promoting the standard uniformitarianism (slow and gradual processes over long periods of time) belief. This view does not hold up for knowledgeable people. Flat planation surfaces, the badlands, layering, and more are far better explained by the Genesis Flood. TRNP consists of a vast badlands landscape of f...

Recent speculations by minerals-to-magician evolutionists display tenacity, but precious little in the way of science. A new story is...truly bizarre. Remember how evolution is supposed to be without purpose?  In addition, it is not an easy thing to accomplish. We have seen that abiogenesis (chemical evolution) is essentially impossible. But it, and also evolution, are two of many presuppositions made by Darwin's acolytes. Add in teleology and pantheism, and suddenly evolution is not so difficult after all — especially after Earth's environment reached a permissive state. Nebula W51,  NASA  / JPL-Caltech (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Apparently, Earth is an entity. Well, only entities can have desires, make choices, work toward goals, and all that good stuff. This would have also happened all over the universe. Although astrobiologists get paid for studying nonexistent alien life, they're confident it exists. Further, it supposedly has evolved and pr...

At one time, people had souls. Some classical philosophers called it perception. Nowadays, secular scientists and philosophers are almost making their research into a comedy by their conflicting views. Many deny the existence of consciousness but still try to find it in the brain. Someone named Mr. Gordons referred to humans as "meat machines." Alan McComas is a neurosurgeon, one of many people to think they have a location for consciousness in the brain — which he says is an organic machine. Brain as a machine,  MR LIGHTMAN  at FreeDigitalPhotos.net His comparison may seem reasonable at first, but it has some problems because his criteria can make many things into "machines". Also, McComas thinks those clumps of neurons called hippocampi are where consciousness resides. This idea falls apart as well. The truth is that we are created in the image of God, each one with a soul (or consciousness), and it is not a part of the container in which it resides. Over centurie...

A couple of days ago, I was out riding and happened upon my friend Hammond Suisse out riding fences. He would find a place where the fence had a flaw, and either fixed it or made a note to come back later with more equipment. We rode together a spell, and conversation turned to how I had been fighting off a lingering cold. Hammond said, "We have an amazingly complex immune system that God engineered for us. After the fall of man, it gets overwhelmed sometimes." He glanced at a scrape on his arm. Arms and hands, Pexels / Daria Liudnaya (modified at PhotoFunia ) "Seems to me that I got something in common with immune systems." "How so?" I asked. "We're both riding fences. You know, doing work that's often unseen but sure is important. Churches, stores, companies have often unseen people doing work to keep those things going." He glance down. "I better clean that up. Good thing I'm almost done," he added. Then he asked, "...

Crocodilians, thalattosuchians, crocodylomorphs — different words, and the distinctions clutter the discussion. I will stick with crocodilian. Darwin's disciples are excited about a fossil for one of these critters. but it throws off their evolutionary storyline. The tale is that a land animal with four limbs in the Triassic period changed into crocodilians. There was enough of the new discovery available for scientists to identify it and give it a name: Turnersuchus hingleyae . They say it is the only thalattocuchian from its geologic age. Jurassic Coast of England, Flickr / Liam Eldret ( CC BY 2.0 ) There are some interesting speculations about  T. hingleyae , including how its skull indicates that it could bite quickly and powerfully. A suggestion was made that it was a live bearer instead of egg layer, but there is no evidence to support this. Evolutionary speculation without evidence? Say it isn't so! Vertebrate fossils of land-dwelling creatures have also been found in ...

Anyone who has worked the land, even a small patch, has encountered weeds. Sometimes a plant is called a weed simply because it grows where it is not wanted. Many weeds can be considered aggressive: They are hardy, grow quickly, and hog resources. Indeed, some weeds grow larger and taller than desired plants so they  can get the good stuff. Some even suppress the growth of other plants. Yet weeds can be useful , even helping reclaim damaged land and reduce soil erosion. Dandelions are edible . Multiflora rose is a weed, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen Some plants look good, but they are weeds. Goldenrod (also called ragweed) is an enemy of people with allergies. One name of  Achillea ptarmica is sneezewort ( wort  means plant ). Multiflora rose was actually brought into the Americas to help with soil erosion, but it was realized that the plant should have been left alone. Some weeds are deceptive. Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares , and tares (called darn...

People who quote this post on social(ist) media should h!de k3y words... Until recently, there was no doubt that there are only two sexes. Sex-change operations were rare. Discussions of gender never included spectrum or fluidity. Now it is said there are two sexes but multiple genders. Someone can say, "I was assigned the male gender at birth, but I identify as a woman. I feel pretty." People were getting intimidated for a spell and afraid to say the wrong thing. Biblical creationists reject evolution and are called "science deniers," but supporters of transgenderism are the real  science deniers. Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal, Flickr / John Flannery ( CC BY-ND 2.0 ) To use some expensive words, males and females are quite often sexually dimorphic . That is, it is often obvious which are he and she. Males are often larger with more striking coloration, for example. Most of the time in humans the males are larger and have greater muscle mass. Before the leftist preference ...