Posts

Giving a Listen

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Listen up! Although several posts about the human ear have been posted here, it is helpful to be reminded of the amazing and complex design involved. Those flaps of skin on the side of the head effectively scoop sounds traveling in the air (there is no sound in space, despite presentations in science fiction movies). Not just sounds on either side, but also above, below, and behind. The brain has been designed to sort out all of that information and make it useful for us, from danger to pleasure and everything between. Ear diagram credit: National Science Foundation / Zina Deretsky (usage does not imply endorsement) Although the bones in the ear have more formal names, eardrum, hammer, stirrup,  and eardrum  are commonly used. Like so many products of the Master Engineer, there is no room for piece-by-piece evolution because everything has to be in place at the same time. Otherwise, nothing would work or even make sense if some parts "appeared" and others came later. Most pe

William Stukeley, the Royal Society, and a Plesiosaur

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Although atheists and other anti-creationists try to avoid inconvenient truths, some of us still try to present them. First, many insist that creationists lack the intellectual prowess to be scientists. We show them that many great scientists of the past were Christians , even biblical creationists. Then they may whine that we are discussing dead people, so we tell them about modern scientists that are biblical creationists . No, they are disqualified because the only true  scientists are materialists. Lather, rinse, repeat, they move the goalposts like they were jet propelled. Plesiosaur skeleton, Flickr /  Kim Alaniz  ( CC by 2.0 ) In 1660 London, the Royal Society was formed to encourage the development of natural philosophy (the earlier term for what is now called science). While some sidewinders say that biblical creation science was initiated fairly recently, the Royal Society had members who believed the Bible, including recent creation and the Genesis Flood. One of their member

Evolution and Human Exceptionalism

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  To be blunt, secularists detest human exceptionalism , insisting that "we are just animals," "we are all apes," "we are all fish," and similar things. Indeed, when doing some background on this article, one about monkeys in space on Wickedpedia used "other animals" and "other primates" in the opening sentence. Yes, according to self-serving definitions, we are animals/mammals/primates. Fine, that is useful for classification and scientific research. To say that we are only  animals which are more highly evolved, that comes from a naturalistic worldview . Chimpanzee Ham with trainers, credit: NASA (usage does not imply endorsement) It is interesting that those with this worldview cannot be consistent with living it. Our alleged cousins engage in cannibalism and other acts of extreme violence that are not allowed in human society — we cannot act like them. I know why, and so do you: Human exceptionalism. Intellig

Beauty and Design in the Motmot

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To stop and think on it for a while, beauty  is a word used to describe many things. Sunsets, waterfalls, canyons, the cosmos, certain people, animals, birds, and much more can be called beautiful. That word  also describes other things picked up by our senses, things not visual. Spring is coming in our neck of the woods. I heard a house finch today singing what I call the "Happy to be a birdie" song, which is beautiful. Who would have thought that beauty could make me sad? It is because my beloved wife is not here to share it with me. Motmot photo by Andy Morffew at Pxhere, modified at PhotoFunia The most likely place to see the motmot bird is in Central America, and maybe further south a ways. It has distinct markings — "What's the deal with the defective tail, Cowboy Bob?" Scientists have found that there certain barbs fall off, which at first may feed into the "poor design, therefore evolution" arguments. In fact, even secular scientists admit tha

Fossil Footprints and Evolutionary Circular Reasoning

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One fine day in what is now Morocco, some folks took a notion to walk on a beach. Believers in descent with variations evolution guess at pragmatic reasons and not for fun. Mayhaps they were on their way to get some tangia with a side of zaalouk. Although researchers said the footprints were made by "hominins," they were clearly made by humans. Not just the robust he-men of the tribe, as the group had members of differing ages. Deep time is once again thrown at the public because reasons  and all that good stuff. Beach footprints via Freepik In addition to using a dating method that makes the footprints seem to be 90,000 years old, circular reasoning ensued. That is, they used a wagon train-load of assumptions and speculations about evolution in order to support evolution. The existence of footprints that old doesn't fit the evolutionary paradigm, and the narrative is more important than the facts — again. The article linked below discusses the footprints, and describes h

Dancing with the Double Stars

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Take a look at the starry skies and ponder them for a spell. We know that those points of light are not all stars. Mixed in with stars of varying sizes and colors are nebulae, planets, galaxies — and more stars. Once again, increases in technology bring new knowledge and more frustrations for cosmologists. It has been learned that many of the stars we see are binary (double) stars orbiting a gravitational point between them. Interestingly, Star Wars: A New Hope  used Tatooine, a planet in a double star system in the story before exoplanets were even discovered. Webb telescope shows dust rings around Wolf-Rayet 140, Credits: NASA, et al (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents) Remember, the prevailing view of solar system formation is that a hot, gaseous cloud coalesces into stars and planets. We can reasonably expect uniformity in orbits, content, and such. Many binary stars are doing their dance with mismatched partners, and some go beyond binaries into an even more intric

Jar’Edo Wens and the Accuracy of Wikipedia

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by Cowboy Bob Sorensen  While Wikipedia has some worthwhile information, it is considered less than reliable by many people. Creation science and the Intelligent Design movement are the recipients of substantial bias from there . One of its numerous problems is illustrated by hoaxes. Almost anyone can contribute and edit articles, but only in theory. I have heard from creationists who tried to correct some of Wickedpedia's false information, only to have the edits snap back as if they had never been made. Outright hoaxes are more likely to fly under the radar. Image of nonexistent Jar'Edo Wens generated with AI at NightCafe A tiny entry was made about Jar'Edo Wens, a deity of Australian aborigines. It existed on Wikipedia for several years  and was cited  by users. But he never existed. (By the way, does anyone know if the AI program I used for the graphic got anything right according to aboriginal culture regarding this character? AI has substantial difficulties as well ,

Continental Erosion and the Young Earth

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As creation science develops, conjectures about the past come and go. The Genesis Flood  by Whitcomb and Morris in 1961 put forward some ideas about science while maintaining adherence to biblical truth. Some of its ideas have been discarded, others have had further development. There are some evidences for the young earth that have been offered are still valid today, and believers in deep time as well as universal common descent evolution cannot refute them. One of these evidences is continental erosion. Limestone and mountain, Unsplash / Cowboy Bob Sorensen Signs of erosion are obvious practically everywhere. A mountain has pieces of rock in many sizes because of erosion from wind and water, rivers erode their banks, oceans do their share of erosion. Wind is everywhere, doing its part as well. Uniformitarian beliefs have rates remaining essentially the same today as well as the thrilling days of yesteryear. Using their own material against them, the continents should not even exist a

Evolutionists Cannot Explain Carnivorous Plants

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Bugs for lunch, what a marvelous idea! No, this is not about nutty leftist environmentalists , but rather, something that is in the environment: carnivorous plants. Although not envying their diets, creationists have been discussing pitcher plants and Venus fly traps for years. Pitcher plants are slippery and flytraps snap shut, but there are several other kinds of these plants. While it is true that questions are raised about the existence of carnivorous plants in a very good  creation, biblical creationists take on those challenges . Venus flytraps, morgueFile / xianstudio Carnivory in the plant world is not explainable by evolutionary speculations. One way to evosplain them is to say that various types of these plants "evolved independently" multiple times, but that is sometimes annoying even to Darwin's disciples. In addition, there are disparate mechanisms in place in each kind of plant, each contributing to irreducible complexity: Every part must be in place and w

Tyrannosaurini from out of Time

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Not too long ago, I finished loading supplies into my buckboard and was ready to head on out of town. Of a sudden, I saw Stevia Dolce, the lead baker at the Darwin Ranch. With her was Lotta Lyez who was promoted as an assistant to the cook. Feeling a mite playful, I asked Lotta if she was going to pick up some Tyrannosaurini, it was between the fettuccine and linguine. She stared a moment, then gave a bit of an "Oh, you!" hand flip as Stevia smiled. The wordplay may not have happened if I had not been reading about the sudden appearance of T. Rex  and family. Tyrannosaurus rex , RGBStock / Kevin Tuck Some fossil parts were examined again and the critter was renamed because of subtle differences that were found. (I wonder if that's a bit drastic since people, animals, and so on have variations without having to be branded as a different species.) In the report, homage was given to the puny god of evolution, but with a difference. It is known that dinosaurs have no evoluti