Evolution for the Avid Creationist/Bible Believer

The Creation Cycle: A Heretic's Homily

2013-03-09T08:39:00.002-08:00

As far as I'm concerned, God wrote two sets of Scripture. One came from prophets and apostles, and the other comes from the heavens and earth. I read an article on interstellar molecules today, and I just cannot ignore the finger of the Creator in the skies.

Supernovas, because of what causes them, produce massive amounts of carbon-based molecules. Those are called organic molecules because all known life is made from them. This article tells us that the interaction of these organic molecules in space, produce larger and larger molecules. One they found is a precursor to Adeline, one of the nucleotides that is part of the DNA code. Meteors occasionally bring such molecules to earth.

It may not be very convincing to you, but to me this is my favorite argument for evolution. This incredible cosmic machine, spitting out organic molecules, reacting them in space on ice crystals, then carrying them to planets on meteors--that all has nothing to do with life? God did all that for no reason? Instead of using that amazing creation cycle, he molded man from dirt on the ground?

Sorry, I don't believe God's like that. The dust we're made of is stardust, my Christian friends. Very awesome.

Early Christian Views of Genesis

2013-02-14T18:44:00.003-08:00

I don't have time to make a good article out of this right now, but I want anyone reading this to see the quotes. Of course, I don't know if anyone will read this since I haven't posted in over six months. At least it will be here for me to find the quotes with references when I need them again for an article on Proof-of-Evolution.com.

Is it only because of modern science that Christians would take Genesis to mean something other than six twenty-four hour days?

No.

There is Origen, who died around A.D. 250, saying: "Now who is there, pray, who is possessed of understanding, who will regard the statement as appropriate the first day, the second, and the third, in which both evening and morning are mentioned, happened without sun, moon, and stars? The first day was even without a sky!" (De Principiis IV:1:16)

He said in addition, "And who is so ignorant as to suppose that God, as if he were a farmer, planted trees in a garden, in Eden towards the east, with a tree of life in it—a visible, palpable tree of wood—so that anyone who ate of it with bodily teeth would obtain life, and, eating again of another tree, would come to the knowledge of good and evil?" (ibid.)

Justin Martyr, d. c. 165, may or may not have believed Genesis one was a literal six days, but he has this to say about God eating with Abraham: "I would say that the Scripture which affirms they ate has the same meaning as when we would say about fire that it devours all things. We certainly should not understand that they ate, masticating with teeth and jaws. Even in this case, we should not be at a loss about anything if we are even slightly acquainted with figurative modes of expression." (Dialogue with Trypho 57)

If we see people like this discussing "figurative modes of expression" long before evolution and and an old earth were promoted by science, then at least in the past, alternative understandings of creation came from the Scriptures, not just science.

We've Evolved to Disbelieve Evolution?

2012-05-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

I read the most interesting and ironic article today at NewScientist.com.

It is well known that humans have ingrained mechanisms that lead to our being very good at deceiving ourselves. We tend to see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear, and cling to our own opinions and beliefs no matter what flimsy basis on which they stand.

Scientists have had trouble figuring out why this would be so? Why would we evolve such a way of thinking if it doesn't help us to find out what's true?

Now, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, two European scientists have suggested that it is not the ability to find out what is true that enhances survival, but the ability to persuade others to our opinion. So what we have evolved is the desire and skills to sell others on our ideas, while clear, unbiased thinking has taken a back seat, not being as valuable as ability to sell our ideas.

That rings true to me. Sellers influence people, not just clear thinkers, who are ignored all the time.

This was a very satisfying article to me. I've worked very hard at fighting the desire to cling to what I wish was true. I've studied logic, and I've studied argument and reason. I've learned how to properly judge the reliability of my sources, and I've learned to remember them so that I'm not just repeating rumors. I listen carefully to those who argue against me, and I've trained myself to believe that the best way to win an argument is to join the side that has the best evidence.

I rarely find that in others. In fact, in most discussions I find that those who disagree with me can't even conceive of or consider weighing what I have to say and comparing it with what they have to say. They can't even understand the idea of making strong effort to weigh evidence honestly, much less actually do it. Mostly, they just wait for me to finish talking so they can present their next argument, paying only flitting, occasional attention to the answer(s) I've given them.

Now I know why this is so! We evolved to persuade, not to seek truth.

This fits what I believe about the Gospel, too. Most literalist Christians believe that Adam and Eve is a literal story and people are by nature selfish because of the fall. I believe the story of Man and Life (the literal meanings of Adam and Eve) is an allegory meant to express the problems that are in humans.

Jesus and the apostles continually taught that we must overcome the desires of our body. What is of man is not trustworthy. In fact, it's mostly inherently evil. What comes from God is what we must pursue, and we need divine grace to live the spiritual, holy (i.e., set aside for God) lives that God calls us to live.

Evolution fits right into this. Evolution has taught us to desire survival and reproduction. Hence, our earthly body and mind push us to selfishness. We are concerned about the survival, security, and sustenance of ourselves, our family, and our tribe. We want to retaliate when wronged, and we long for food, for comfort, and for reproduction.

Jesus calls us to forsake the desires of the body, and to live spiritually. If we will come to him, he will make us children of God, give us the Spirit of God, and we can overcome bodily desires and live forever. If we live by the flesh, that is, by our physical, earthly life, then we will perish.

Jesus gave proof for this by rising from the dead. We have the testimony of 11 apostles who saw him alive, were appointed witnesses of the resurrection, and who sacrificed their lives in defense of their testimony. We also have the testimony of so many modern people in whom Jesus has risen again, transforming them into new creatures, answering their prayers, and empowering them to live supernaturally peaceful and loving lives.

We must also overcome the desire to be only persuaders, salesman, and not truth seekers. Jesus calls us to seek the truth and to be honest. When Christians lie, deceive, and cover up in order to attack the evidence for evolution, they are yielding to the sin in their human body and storing up wrath and death for the day of judgment. We can't yield to the flesh, even when we think we're defending God, and expect to reap eternal life (Gal. 6:7-9).

It takes work to be unbiased, whether or not we can even be completely unbiased. Not many do that work, just as not many do the work of seeking God enough to obtain his righteousness and grace and overcome their other fleshly desires, whether that be immorality or other things like greed, selfish ambition, and a divisive attitude.

The Cambrian Explosion and a Progenitor for the Phylum Chordata

2012-04-10T20:17:00.000-07:00

Anyone who spends much time in the creation-vs-evolution debate will soon hear about the Cambrian Explosion.

Around 530 million years ago, or perhaps a bit longer, scientists find a host of multi-celled, complex organisms that almost seem to have appeared out of nowhere. Prior to this burst of diversification, most life was one-celled organisms, which were at best organized into colonies. Afterward, almost every current phyla was represented.

Creationists love this little tidbit of information, pointing to it as an act of creation, even though it does nothing at all to defend the creation story as given in Genesis 1 or Genesis 2.

I'm convinced that most creationists who refer to the Cambrian Explosion have no idea what a phylum is.

Scientists classify all of life under an outline. Here's the classifications for a grey wolf, for example:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Canidae
Genus: Canis
Species: Lupus

We share the same class as the grey wolf, but we are in a different order. Our order is primates.

When a creationist mentions that every phylum, or almost every phylum was already represented at the Cambrian Explosion, they generally fail to mention that no mammals, reptiles, or amphibians are found in the Cambrian era. Our phylum, chordata, was represented by species resembling the bluebell tunica:

By Nick Hobgood, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

Or, to give an example of a chordate that actually existed during the Cambrian explosion, this is a recreation from fossil evidence of Haikouichthys.

Recreation by Talifero, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

As you can see, even if the Cambrian Explosion were a special act of creation, there's still a great deal of evolution left to happen before a human appeared on the scene! In fact, the entire lineage from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal is all not represented at the Cambrian Explosion.

The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion Becomes Less Mysterious

Recently, scientists performed some studies on a relatively common fossil called Pikaia gracilens and have been able to determine that it is a possible parent for the entire Chordata phylum.

By Nobu Tamura, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

The phylum "Chordata" refers to something called a "notochord," a sort of very primitive backbone. P. gracilens has a notochord along with other features that make it clearly a chordate. This article calls it the most primitive chordate and the possible ancestor of all chordates, but the article also dates P. gracilens at 505 mya, which makes it 25 million years more recent than the Cambrian explosion, not exactly a convenient time frame to be the father of the Cambrian chordates.

The idea is that because it is more primitive in structure than any known chordates, it's possible that chordates evolved from earlier versions of P. gracilens.

The abstract from the researchers is clearer. They remark:

Whilst the possibility that Pikaia is simply convergent on the chordates cannot be dismissed, we prefer to build a scenario that regards Pikaia as the most stem-ward of the chordates with links to the phylogenetically controversial yunnanozoans. This hypothesis has implications for the evolution of the myomeres, notochord and gills.

In other words, things are not certain yet. There will be more later.

Note, though, that the reference to "convergent" does not mean that they think P. gracilens may have descended from Cambrian chordates. Instead, they have to acknowledge the possibility that Pikaia evolved from a different direction and ended up being like the chordates. This happens, but it is unlikely. Thus, if P. gracilens did not converge, then its primitive features make it a prime suspect for ancestor of all chordates, and thus man's earliest known forefather.

Unthinking but Certain

2012-04-09T12:21:00.002-07:00

I get enough emails nowadays to provide content for a blog just from the emails.

Last night I got an email that said:

Why do you lie and try and put evolution and creation together. My God didnt need bilions of years of death to get us right. HE did it right the first time. I have no problem with science. Evolution is not science. It is religion just like creation. You cant put them both together. The devil is the author of confusion. And evolution confuses people and takes them away from God. Its not only a dumb theory, it is dangerous. And you will have to answer to God one day. So please brother just listen to these words and consider them. I only say this out of love.

This person then put together a salvation plea for me. Do I know where I'm going when I die?

Who was it from? Who knows. The name was "anonymous," and the email address was fake. This person had something to say, and he didn't want to hear anything.

This person was so upset with my web site that he wrote another email 15 minutes later:

And just so you know, you are leading people away from Christ trying to put in evolution with creation. Let me ask u a question. Which theory did Hitler believe in when he justified the murder of millions of people? And how is "micro evolution" evidence for the other five kinds of evolution? Delusion is something that is going on all over the world.

This was followed with a warning that it would be better for me to have a millstone tied around my neck than to make little ones stumble.

Again, fake email and "anonymous" as the name.

It is exactly this sort of thing that makes people think they have to check in their brains when they become a Christian. A lot of us just can't do that; nor do we believe God wants us to do that. We'd like some actual evidence against the theory of evolution, and that is in short supply unless it's invented by some dishonest creationist.

More Creationist Dishonesty

2012-03-10T11:20:00.001-08:00

Many of my friends listen tolerantly to my comments on the evidence for evolution. They're interested, and they're fascinated by things I point out, but they don't have time for any real research on their own.

I expect those friends to be significantly confused about some aspects of evolution. Did humans descend from apes? Monkeys? Chimpanzees or gorillas?

The basic answer is simple. None of the above. Humans and apes—which include chimps, gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons—descended from a common ancestor, not from one another. We've not yet found that common ancestor, but we get closer to finding that ancestor or a near relative every year.

I don't expect my friends to remember that. They soon fall back to "humans descended from apes or monkeys."

But that's my friends.

When, however, a Ph. D. writes an article against evolution on behalf of the Institute for Creation Research, I expect him to know everything I wrote above, only to know it even better than me because I'm just a layman.

In fact, I'm convinced that Jeffrey Tomkins, the said Ph.D., does know.

He's just not going to tell you.

Dr. Tomkins article discusses the fact that there are places where the genome of the gorilla (the genes that make a gorilla what it is) are closer to human than the genome of a chimpanzee. Since scientists believe that humans are more closely related to chimps than gorillas, Dr. Tomkins claims that this creates a problem in the evolutionary lineage of man.

Of course, it has nothing to do with the evolutionary lineage of man. Here's what's really happening.

Scientists believe that about 7 million years ago, the lineage that includes all the great apes except man branched off from man's lineage. Chimpanzees, they believe, are the closest related to that common ancestor on the great ape lineage. Gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons came later.

With a lineage like that, it is no surprise that there are certain genes that gorillas, orangutans, and gibbons may have that are closer to human than the same genes in chimpanzees. A lot can happen in 7 million years.

There is no way that a Ph.D. like Dr. Tomkins doesn't know this, but he's not going to tell you. Instead, he's simply going to wave a flag and shout, "in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other." He's not going to tell, at least not honestly, what that means ... which, to evolution, is nothing at all. It's simply an interesting fact, not at all surprising in light of what we know about the evolution of apes and humans.

Clues to Abiogenesis; Chemical Origins of Life

2012-01-24T10:42:00.001-08:00

The amino acids that make up life are all left-handed, even though naturally occurring amino acids come in both left and right-handed forms. In the same way, organic sugars (those that are involved in life) are all right-handed despite the fact that both right and left-handed forms are found in nature.

Now researchers have shown a link between left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars.

What we have achieved is the first step on that pathway to show how simple sugars -- threose and erythrose -- originated. We generated these sugars from a very simple set of materials that most scientists believe were around at the time that life began.

The Ica Stones Prove Humans and Dinosaurs Co-existed?

2011-11-03T13:28:00.001-07:00

I put up a new page on my Proof of Evolution site on the Ica stones, astonishing evidence that humans and dinosaurs co-existed ... if they can be proven genuine!

Taking the Anti-Evolutionist Side Today

2011-11-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

I do have to grant one argument to the anti-evolutionists. Sometimes science oversteps its bounds.

This Discover article could have been requested by Answers in Genesis so that they would have an article to abuse.

Holy Nebraska Man, Batman! Discover actually led the article with a picture of one molar with which they are claiming to overturn early European human history!

Given, we can analyze internal and external structures better than we ever could. Determining that a tooth aligns better with archaic Homo sapien fossils than with Neandertal fossils is more possible than ever. Nonetheless, this finding is overriding determinations previously made, probably in similar confidence. Couldn't we at least issue the report a bit more humbly? "It appears ... " or "It may be ... " would be excellent expressions to find in this article.

What are the odds that other leading anthropologists are going to dispute the conclusions of this team? I'd say it's extremely likely. All sorts of confident statements were issued about Australopithecus sediba, but it was mere days before Donald Johanson, famous for discovering "Lucy," was disputing the conclusions of the discoverers.

I don't even want to run into an anti-evolutionist and hear them bring up the last falsely identified tooth one more time. Their argument may be pointless and irrelevant, but it's annoying. Why throw fodder to them when science is supposed to be known for its tentative conclusions.

My Best Argument for Evolution Directed at Creationists

2011-10-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is an email I sent to an inquirer. I put a lot of effort into it, and so I want to preserve it on this site. It is, I believe, the best concise effort to defend evolution as a Christian, godly, and reasonable position to take on the creation and progress of life.

I'm glad to hear the leukemia blog is inspiring. A Christian who can live in submission and faith before God can do anything. Joseph was in a prison cell for two years(!!) and never lost his faith in God. That is true belief.

I believe in gifts of healing and gifts of faith, but I don't believe that being divinely healed of leukemia is the only way to express faith. Putting oneself in the hand of God, no matter what, is the faith we must all have. He can show us where we need to pray for deliverance and where we can rest in confident trust that all things work together for good.

Okay, on to evolution.

Why would our Savior himself even consider utilizing such an unstable process when it could become a conduit for disproving his very existence? That is how I feel about God using evolution as a creation tool.

You're younger than me. You put a bit more stock in "why" questions than I do. I know the answer to a lot of those questions is "I don't know."

I don't prefer evolution. I see that the evidence indicates that it's true. I was against evolution when I began this quest, just like you and many other Christians. I wasn't trying to find out that the evidence overwhelmingly supports evolution, I just did.

So the question of "why" is irrelevant to me. I'm stuck with the fact that it's so. I can come up with answers to "why," but that doesn't make evolution more or less true.

Does that imply that if you were to gather columns of fossils from all over the world and then order them, that it would produce a geologic column?

The geologic column is unlikely to be complete anywhere in the world, though it is complete in several places. The only way for the geologic column to be complete is for one spot on earth to have been accumulating sediment for the last 600 million years. (Before 600 million years is bedrock.) On that sort of time frame, continents move, mountains rise and fall, and weather changes dramatically. Thus, any one spot is likely to experience both erosion and sediment accumulation during its history. So there will always be gaps in any one spot in the geologic column.

However, what should always be true if evolution is true, is that anywhere that the triassic, jurassic, and cretaceous layers (the Mesozoic era) are found, they should be below layers from our current Cenozoic era. They should contain certain types of flora and fauna and not contain other types. In other words, you will find dinosaurs and other huge reptiles, but you will find only small mammals of a certain type. In the Cenozoic layers, however, you should find no dinosaurs and lots of mammals. In fact, as you go up through the Cenozoic layers, you should see a progression that makes geographic and evolutionary sense, progressing from the earliest mammals to modern ones.

And that's exactly what we find.

There are exceptions. Earthquakes thrust layers out of the ground over the top of other layers. However, this is almost always easy to recognize, especially now that we've identified the major tectonic plates.

After doing my research I've found that no matter where you go on earth, you cannot find a reliable depiction of the geologic column that scientists describe.

Actually, one of the places the geologic column is complete is right here in the good ol' U.S. of A.! It's in North Dakota!

John Woodmorappe has written a rebuttal, but (sorry about being so honest here) like most creationist rebuttals, it's irrelevant. He argues that the sedimentation there is not thick enough. He does not deny that every layer of the geologic column is there.

He says that if you add up the largest thickness of each of the layers anywhere on earth, it would add up to over 100 miles, and the thickest you ever find all the layers together is 16 miles?

I have to ask, what's the point? Does that change the fact, that there, in one place, is the whole lineage from Cambrian fauna to trilobites to fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals? It's a full picture of the smaller picture we find everywhere else in the world.

I ask you, do you believe in the creation process illustrated in the beginning chapters of Genesis at all, or do you completely disregard that and resort to God-induced evolution?

If the evidence were questionable, I would be fashionable and stay out of the whole debate. The evidence, however, is not questionable. It is overwhelming and one-sided (for a person willing to keep digging past where the creationists want you to stop, explained below).

As a result, I have no choice but to believe that life evolved because God's earth says that life evolved.

It was only after I gave in to the evidence that I was forced to ask questions about the literal accuracy of Genesis. Once I did, the whole idea of taking a stand against science based on Genesis 1 seemed extremely presumptuous, even naive.

Now keep in mind, God was kind to me. He made it easy on me. I had already been reading the writings of the earliest Christians for four years before I was confronted with the evidence for evolution. I already knew two key things about the apostles' churches that most modern Christians don't know because they're unfamiliar with the second century writings of the church:

The Old Testament is to be taken primarily figuratively. The narratives may be true history as well, but inspiration primarily means that God has put messages in that history from which we are to learn.

God teaches us through nature as well as through the Scriptures. The seasons and the daily rising of the sun are testimonies and proofs that the resurrection is true. There is nothing in nature that doesn't teach us about God.

Augustine begins his commentary On the Literal Meaning of Genesis by saying that every Christian has to understand Genesis figuratively. After that, we can then determine what is literal as well. He based that on 1 Cor. 10:11, where he reads "Now all these things happened to them figuratively and are written for our admonition" (On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, ch. 1).

Moses was writing a Law. The covenant laws of the Middle East of that time, known as "suzerain covenants," had three parts:

What the Suzerain did for the people

What the Suzerain required of the people

The blessings and cursings for obedience and disobedience

In Moses' case, the Suzerain is Yahweh. Yahweh had done a lot for Israel, including creating the world and creating man. Thus, "Genesis" is not so much about beginnings as it is about what God did for man and how he came to be Suzerain of Israel.

This does not require God to inspire Moses to produce a factual, scientifically-accurate account of creation. Moses can simply write down the creation story as it was known to himself and the rest of the Hebrews. The point was only that Yahweh is Creator.

Now you may say, "But it was inspired!" To that I say that modern Christians have lost an effective, practical, and more accurate understanding of inspiration.

To the early Christians inspiration meant that God guided Moses to write the story in such a way that it would provide admonition and divine guidance for spiritual, born-again, sons of God in the Church despite the fact that it was orginally written for carnal, non-born-again servants of God in Israel.

So my answer is that I do not consider the story in Genesis one to be scientifically accurate or necessarily accurate at all, just a story that was passed down among the Hebrews, albeit one that is remarkably more reasonable than most creation stories involving turtles, snakes, elephants, and a man with the world on his shoulder.

I do believe that the message of Genesis 1 is that God made everything, and that inside that chapter are remarkable lessons that we miss when we argue over science. The third day is an incredible picture of the Word of God and how it works inside of man. The fourth day testifies of the life of Christ, light and darkness, and the role of the church in the world.

Finally, I mentioned that early Christians understood nature to portray the work of God in us. When we are born again, made into new creations, are we as Christians created complete as we ought to be, and then slowly devolve into less than we were when we were born again? Or do we not, as new creations, evolve into something beautiful through a process of suffering and dying to ourselves?

According to the beginning chapters, all mammalian life was created within 3 days of each other ... and would immediately make the geologic column irrelevant to Christians.

And this is why I wrote all that I wrote about inspiration. If modern Christians are right, and inspiration means that Genesis one must be scientifically accurate, then we are going to look really bad because we're losing the evolution argument badly (for those willing to go further than creationists want, which I'll explain in a moment).

Does God want me to trust the description of the days in Genesis one more than the evidence of the earth? That's a premise that must be proven to be true, and I don't believe that the early churches, those started by the apostles, would have agreed with that view of inspiration. In fact, I can produce at least two (Origen and Augustine) who directly argue against that and complain that it makes Christians look foolish.

Could it be possible that those layers, found at different depths all around the world, are accounted for by the Flood in Genesis 6?

Here I'll explain what I mean by going further than creationists want us to.

Brilliant men have been trying to explain how the flood could account for the layers of the earth ever since Henry Morris wrote The Genesis Flood back around 1960. That's a half a century!

The problems have not been resolved. Even if you agree with them that the flood caused the entire geologic column, there are lots and lots of unresolved questions.

Let's look at one, for example. Creationists like to say, "What if there were a vapor canopy over the whole earth prior to the flood? Animals and people would have lived longer due to UV rays being blocked by this canopy. That's why there were dinosaurs, because reptiles grow their entire lives and dinosaurs are just long-lived reptiles. That would also explain why the sun and moon weren't seen until day four even though there were plants. The sun and moon weren't created on day four, they just weren't visible through the canopy until day 4. And the vapory canopy also explains 'the waters above the firmament.'"

The problem? One, the whole system doesn't work very well. A vapor canopy doesn't explain day four or the waters above the firmament. The waters are above the firmament, and the firmament has the sun, moon, and stars in it. You can't hide the sun, moon, and stars above the waters; the waters are above the sun, moon, and stars.

Further, if there were a vapor canopy that large, the weight of it would compress the air on the earth and heat it above what life could bear.

Is what I just said true? It's so true that Answers in Genesis has cried "uncle," and they now include the vapor canopy among their arguments that creationists shouldn't use.

The best canopy model still gives an intolerably high temperature at the surface of the earth. (Noah's Flood - Where did the water come from?)

John Baumgardner is famous for designing a computer program that can mimic the movement of the continental plates. He's also a young earth creationist. He's been working on his own model of how the flood could have laid the geologic column.

The problem is, it's not working any better for him than for anyone else. In a discussion with Joe Meert, Joe pointed out that Baumgardner's model has a "heat problem." Baumgardner's response?

Yes, we recognize that we have cooling problems to solve. Specifically, how are we going to cool all that oceanic lithosphere.

Really, though, it's more than that. I have a page on the a href="http://www.proof-of-evolution.com/haymond-formation.html" target="_blank">Haymond Formation, which is a formation in Texas, from the middle of the geologic column, that has 15,000 alternating layers of shale and sand. The shale has burrows dug in it. This indicates thousands of years of time, right in the middle of layers that the flood was supposed to have laid.

Creationists like for us to just stop at "the flood laid the geologic column." They don't like us to go further and see whether that's plausible.

In fact, I wrote a blog on John Woodmorappe's response to the Haymond Formation that illustrates the same thing. His answer to the Haymond Formation is that it was possibly dug by shrimp underwater or that the burrows were created by escaping gas.

So what about that response? Creationists want us to stop, not ask more questions, but if we want the truth, we have to follow through on our theories and postulations.

If shrimp dug the burrows underwater, does that change anything?

No, not at all. You still have the problem of 15,000 alternating layers right in the middle of the geologic column. If the flood laid the column, then all 15,000 of those layers, and the burrows, had to happen in the one year of the flood. That's nonsensical.

What about gas escaping?

That still doesn't explain how the shale and sand created 15,000 alternating layers, but it has a further problem. You can look at the burrows and tell how they were formed. It's not enough to say, "What if?" You have to check and see what is. You can tell the difference between gas escape tunnels and burrows.

True Inspiration and Nature

Well, I don't know that this constitutes "taking it easy on you," but I feel like if I say something small and incomplete to you, then I can shake your faith. If I tell you the whole truth, as I see it, then it ought not to shake your faith. You can stand on inspiration when you know what it is. You can stand on the inspiration of God and perhaps get more out of Genesis 1 than you ever dreamed possible.

You can also look at nature and get its message to you. Out of death comes life, and suffering and struggle produces the most marvelous beauty ever.

Let me add one final thing, since I'm on the message of nature.

The final blow for me was finding out about supernovas. Yeah, stars.

Stars give off heat by nuclear fusion. They fuse hydrogen into helium, then helium into carbon, and then carbon into the higher elements.

You probably know that when you fuse hydrogen into helium, great amounts of energy are produced. What you may not know is that as you fuse larger elements into even large elements, once you reach iron, energy is not produced; it is consumed.

When a very large star begins to make iron, the fusion of iron consumes energy, creating a void in the middle of the star. The star then collapses on itself, creating intense heat. The intense heat drives the entire star into fusion (rather than just the core) and the star explodes.

The result can be a beautiful bright object in the sky if it happens in our galaxy. The other result is that carbon-based molecules are scattered like dust across vast reaches of space.

Do you know what we call carbon-based molecules?

We call them organic molecules. They are the molecules from which all life is made.

Am I supposed to believe that God made these huge stars, most of which we cannot see, which blow up in incredible beauty, producing the very dust from which we are made, and then believe that God did that to no purpose? Is it really possible that he never meant to make us from that dust despite creating it in such a beautiful and remarkable fashion?

I can't believe that. I believe those stars explode at the will of God, that he lovingly gathered that dust over eons, and that the end of all that gathering was people who are "the called according to his purpose."

Anyway, that's what I believe.

Bad Creationist Arguments: "There's Such a Thing As"

2011-10-21T23:27:00.001-07:00

On a blog inappropriately titled Truth Matters, I read a complaint against Glenn Morton, one of my favorite writers on the evolution vs. creation debate. That complaint is an excellent illustration of one of the most common bad arguments by creationists: the appeal to "There's such a thing as ..."

Caveat on "Creationist"

I hate referring to anti-evolutionists as creationists. I'm a creationist, too. I believe that God created everything. I just happen to believe the evidence that says he did so by evolving life on earth.

The only reason I refer to "creationist" arguments rather than "anti-evolutionist" arguments is because there's very few of us using "anti-evolutionist" as a term. As a result, if I use "anti-evolutionist," then those who search for "creationist arguments" won't find my blog. If I'm going to write arguments, I'd like for them to be read!

Let me explain what I mean by "There's such a things as ... "

In this case, Truth Matters complained about Glenn Morton's claim that creationists had never answered the things he's written about burrows in relation to the global flood. An excellent example of this is covered on my Haymond Formation page, which is largely based on Glenn Morton's much more complex page on the Haymond Formation.

The Haymond Formation is 15,000 alternating layers of shale and sand. Many of the shale layers have burrows in them, which were then filled with sand. Another shale layer was laid, then more sand, etc., for 15,000 layers.

Of course this argues for many thousands of years of deposits. The problem is that since these layers are below the tertiary they are older than the tertiary period, which means they are older than 65 million years. To creationists, those layers are part of the flood. Explaining how 15,000 alternating layers of shale and sand with burrows in the shale was deposited during the flood is simply impossible.

Glenn Morton claims that no one has answered the Haymond Formation data.

Truth Matters believes Glenn's claim is false.

Truth Matters appeal to John Woodmorappe, a man who needs to be commended for bravely defending his creationist views even when they are easily torn apart by more honest scientists. Woodmorappe is obviously a very brave man.

This, however, is the sort of evidence Truth Matters appeals to based on Woodmorappe and some of their own material:

Shrimp can make burrows, and they can do it even deep under the ocean bottom when they are buried by mud.
Morton claims that the organisms that make the burrow were killed by the sand coming in. Truth Matters argues that there are other ways they could have died.
The escape of trapped gases could cause burrows, as could plant roots that later decayed.
Morton makes up the numbers for his math, and so his math shouldn't be trusted. The math to which Truth Matters is referring is that Morton allowed the ridiculously short period of one day for each set of layers to be laid, burrows to be dug, and sand to fill them, destroying the burrowers. At 15,000 layers, this would have taken about 4 years, not the one year of the flood.

So let me ask. Do your own thinking. Do any of these arguments provide even address the real problem, that these layers could not have been laid during the one year of the flood?

If you said, yes, number three does, then take a prize. Number three does indeed at least address the problem. Numbers one, two, and four however don't resolve the problem even if they're true.

So what about number three? Could these layers have been laid by the flood due to some sort of sorting process, trapping gas underneath, which then pushed out through the shale and sand? In the muddy shale, could gas have left burrows, but the sand have quickly collapsed on itself, destroying the sand burrows and filling the shale burrows?

Maybe. If I leave it at that, it seems extremely unlikely, but let's say it's wildly possible. Somehow, the flood dropped 15,000 layers of shale and sand through some mysterious sorting process, and it only did it in one place! This didn't happen all over the world. It happened in just one place in what is now the southern United States. It looks to be the sort of thing that would happen due to flooding, probably in a marine environment. And it would be limited to one place because only that one place was a repeatedly flooding marine environment pushing sand up into shale, probably on same annual cycle. That makes much more sense, but let's assume it's possible that the flood dropped 15,000 alternating layers of shale and sand.

This is what I mean by "There's such a thing as ... "

Yes, there's such a things as gas bubbling up through mud and leaving burrows. The question is, did gas bubble up through the mud and create these burrows?

Morton takes the time to post pictures of the fossil layers. He quotes researchers who examined the burrows. He also explains how we know those burrows were made by organisms, not gas.

We know that the burrowers who were buried did not survive. If they had, they would have had to dig up through the sand to escape their entombment. There are no burrows going up through the sand. And if there had been these burrows, there should be little circular piles of sand with a central crater pocking the entire upper surface of the sand. (ref)

Whether or not there is such a things as gas bubbling up to create burrows, there is conclusive evidence that gas didn't bubble up and create these burrows.

Honest scientists do not quit at "There's such a things as" gas bubbling to create burrows. They go a very easy step further and try to determine whether gas bubbled up to create the Haymond Formation burrows. It is not any burrows that matter, but these burrows that matter.

It is any surprise that Glenn Morton continues to claim that no creationist has answered his data on burrows? Creationists have thrown out several "There's such a things as ... " arguments ("There's such a thing as shrimp that burrow"), but these arguments do not constitute a direct answer to the data concerning the Haymond Formation without a lot of imagination and wishful thinking. Imagination, wishful thinking, and "Hey, there's such a thing as ... " do not make good science.

2011-10-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

I realized that I write a lot of responses to people to which I give a lot of thought, but no one ever sees it except that one person who asked the question by email. I'm going to make sure those get posted. In this case, I'm talking about people who have written me through my Proof of Evolution site.

What's good about the responses is that we get to address the whole issue of Genesis and evolution from various standpoints.

When you're a Christian, and you've had real experiences with Jesus Christ, you can be thrown for a loop when you find out that all the evidence indicates that life on earth evolved. How does that fit into the idea that God created everything? In fact, that Jesus Christ created everything? Jesus certainly seemed to believe that the Genesis stories were literal? If he's the Creator, wouldn't he know?

Nonetheless, all the evidence indicates that life evolved. In my opinion, there is so much evidence that we cannot ignore it. It's time to face the fact that evolution happened.

On the other hand, our experiences with Jesus Christ have been real as well, no matter how much scoffers mock the idea.

How does one deal with both things being true?

That is a subject that is complicated enough to be worth a lot of words. One web page is not going to do the trick.

So here's one effort I made at addressing Genesis one and evolution. There have been and will be many others. Maybe together, we can come to an understanding that is satisfying to the soul and glorifying to the One who created everything ... by letting life evolve.

*************

The question that prompted my response was:

Doesn't Genesis say that Adam was formed from clay rather than evolved?

I have a pretty long explanation of the whole issue of what is literal and what is allegory in Genesis . That should answer your questions more thoroughly.

I have a friend who likes to point out that the Bible doesn't say how Adam was formed from clay.

Personally, though, I think Genesis one is meant to be a brief explanation that God created everything. I think it was the standard creation story passed among the Hebrew people, and Moses included it as he learned it. He was writing a law, and the law needed to include three things:

What the King did for the people
What the King required of the people
The blessings and cursings for obedience or disobedience

The Law of Moses includes all those things. The "King" in Moses' law is God, so what the King did for the people goes all the way back to the creation.

For the things that happened before Moses, I don't believe God gave Moses special revelation about historical details. Historical and scientific details didn't matter. God created everything, and he preserved the people, who were the descendants of Noah after the flood. That was enough for them to know.

To the early churches, inspiration wasn't necessarily exact historical accuracy. Instead, inspiration was God breathing his life and his guidance, infusing his Word into the text. Thus, though the Genesis 1 story was never meant to be an exact description of what happened, it is carefully guided by God to contain his Word, messages that will guide is today in how we live.

We who are spiritual need our hearts open to receive those messages.

For example, the first and most important thing is light. The beginning of creation, and the beginning of the new creation, is for light to come and to distinguish between light and darkness. Then there is a separation of waters. Waters represent people in the Bible, and there is a separation between the heavenly waters and the waters of the earth. Our fellowship is to be with the heavenly people.

But we live on earth. We live in the midst of earthly people, so God separates the waters, and he gives us dry ground on which to live. We have a place to stand, and it is immediately covered with plants, which are to be for our food. For us, that food is the Word of God, which Scripture compares to a seed.

I could go on like this through days 4 through 6, but the point is that Scripture is to guide us, not to create a scientific history of the universe. In fact, as we learn from nature (as Scripture commands us to, Ps. 19:1-4) we can see that Genesis is not a scientifically accurate history of the universe. This will not stumble us if we know the real purpose of the Scripture and if we have a real relationship with God which can sustain us through everything we face.

How Long Will the Sun Last, and What Does That Have To Do with Evolution?

2011-09-10T19:29:00.000-07:00

These are questions that I was asked by email:

How long did evolution take?

3.5 billion years ago, there were bacteria on this earth. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. So life arose on earth in less than 1 billion years. No one knows how that happened, though scientists have some guesses. Nonetheless, whether it was by divine command, by DNA from other planets, or through the theories that scientists have, life did arise.

Generally, though, the origin of life is not considered part of the theory of evolution. The origin of life is abiogenesis.

By about 550 million years ago, many of the basic body forms that make up life were around. There were some very primitive fish, but no amphibians, no reptiles, no birds, and no mammals. Again, the path from the first bacteria to 550 million years ago is not well known.

From the Cambrian explosion, which happened about 540 million years ago, until now we have a pretty good understanding of what happened and a pretty good fossil record.

How much fuel is in the sun?

The sun is absolutely amazing! It consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen PER SECOND!!!

Nonetheless, even at that rate, it would take 70,000 years to consume the mass of earth. The sun, being much larger, has about 10 BILLION years of usable hydrogen in it. It's about halfway through that cycle, so we've got something over 5 billion years left.

Of course, even then it won't burn out. It will then start converting helium to carbon, which will cause it to expand, become a red giant, and destroy earth (5 billion years from now).

Is evolution possible based on how much fuel is/was in the sun?

Sure. Now, if DNA wandered here on meteoroids from another solar system, then perhaps abiogenesis needed a bit more time and began longer ago. Like I said, abiogenesis is still somewhat of an unknown.

However, over the last 3.5 billion years, yes, we can track how evolution occurred and at what rate it occurred.

When will the sun burn out or supernova?

Our sun is not big enough to supernova. When it gets through its red giant phase, it will collapse down into a white dwarf and last a few billion more years.

So, the sun will destroy life on the earth—and probably the earth as well—in 5 billion years, but it has several billion years after that to survive.

NASA has some great answers to questions about the sun on their web site.

Lots of Earth-Like Planets

2010-10-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm at least as fascinated by how they find earth-like planets around other stars as by the fact that they have.

I read an article once in Discover Magazine—a magazine I highly recommend as interesting, reliable, and readable—explaining some techniques for finding planets.

Think about how hard that would be. You look in a telescope at some distant sun, shining as brightly or more brightly than ours, that is between 4 and 50,000 light years away. Next to it is an unlighted object between 5 and 60 light minutes away from its sun and a million times smaller.

If I used my scientific calculator—an app on my android phone—correctly, which I doubt, then the angle difference between a sun that is 100 light years away and a planet orbiting it at the same distance as earth is less than 2 tenths of one millionth of a degree.

Keeping in mind that an earth-sized planet orbiting an sun-sized star is going to be only one millionth of the size of that sun.

At those distances, it seems like it would be impossible to see the planet.

Nonetheless, scientists at the earth-bound Keck observatory in Hawaii were able to survey 166 sun-sized stars and find 38 earth-sized planets around them.

Amazing.

NASA has an article on 4 ways to to find such exoplanets.

Sauropod Evolution Find

2010-10-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

I thought about not doing this blog anymore due to lack of time. I have a blog on historic Christianity, as well as a web site on Christian history, which is my main focus. Now I've added a site and a blog on fitness.

Combined with being an entrepreneur, small business owner, and father of 4 children that are still at home, there's not a lot of time, and this isn't anywhere near my most popular blog.

But, as I keep reading interesting articles on evolution—and seeing interesting videos—I can't resist commenting even if few people see it.

I guess I'll just learn to keep it short, although with the links it's already taken a little time to write the first couple paragraphs.

Sigh ...

Anyway, scientists have found one more transitional form, this one a sauropod. A sauropod is one of those really big, 4-legged dinosaours, which was mainly the brontosaurus when I was growing up.

That was over 30 years ago, though, so now Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus are the most well-known sauropods ... and there's a new one.

This find is so new that the presentation on it isn't to be given until Sunday (Oct. 31).

An abstract has been written on Yizhousaurus sunae, though. The entire skull plus a lot of the skeleton are preserved. It was found in China, as a lot of recent discoveries have been.

This sauropod was about 9m (29 ft.) long, though I can no longer find the article I read that length in. The abstract says no such thing.

This is one more of millions of examples of transitional fossils that dishonest anti-evolutionists—who are almost always "Christians" as well, which is very sad—say don't exist. As the abstract puts it, Yizhousaurus sunae "fills a critical gap in the early evolution of sauropod dinosaurs."

The Nature of Transitional Fossils

Of course, by filling one big gap, this nearly complete skeleton creates two more gaps, one on either side of itself, that anti-evolutionists will use to argue that transitional fossils don't exist.

The Nature of Christians

It's very sad, really, that most anti-evolutionists are Christians. Somehow, many Christians seem to think that if they are defending God's reputation—or if they think they're defending God's reputation—then it's okay to be purposely ignorant, embarrassingly close-minded, and openly deceitful.

It's not.

The Nature of Christ

I believe that King Jesus is the Truth. He's not just true, he is the Truth.

Thus, I believe that he never espouses dishonesty.

I believe that what The Truth says is true.

Thus, I believe that it's true that those who keep seeking find and those who keep asking receive. I believe that this is especially true when you are pursuing truth.

Pursuing truth will not lead to deception. Pursuing truth will lead to the Truth.

Thus, we can stand up for what's true. We can even be wrong in our pursuit of the Truth, and we will not suffer or fall away for it. Seeking, by definition, suggests that you will first look in the wrong places. That is how you seek. If you don't wind up believing a falsehoods, or at least experimenting with a few falsehoods, then I submit that you have never sought truth.

One Request

Yizhousaurus sunae is a "basal sauropod." Due to the high proliferation of the articles on this find, I was unable to quickly find an explanation of what a basal sauropod is. I did find that they are classified "solely on the basis of fragmentary postcranial material."

Postcranial means back of the skull (basically).

However, it would be nice to know what distinguishes a basal sauropod from other sauropods.

If you happen to read this article and you know, please comment!

Thank you!

Nimbadon Fossils and Proof of Evolution

2010-07-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Science Daily reports that a limestone cave in Australia has produced many well-preserved fossils of a marsupial called a Nimbadon.

There's all sorts of neat information in that cave for scientists. They've learned about the growth cycle of this ancient, extinct marsupial. There's some interesting descriptions of how quickly the brain grows, what the skull was used for, how quickly the fetus moved from the womb to the pouch, etc.

But that's not what is of interest to me.

Proof of Evolution

Here's what the find has to do with evolution.

There are no nimbadons any more. (See the original University of New South Wales article for a picture of the skull, which is pretty neat.)

Antievolutionists say all the time—falsely—that there are no transitional fossils. Not only is this not true, but every fossil find is a transitional fossil, filling in the gaps in the evolutionary record.

The earth provides us fossils in tidy succession. Nimbadons won't be found with more modern mammals—like humans, for example. It also won't be found with any Brontosaurs or Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

Instead, they are found with "galloping kangaroos, primitive bandicoots, a fox-sized thylacine [note: same genus as the Tasmanian wolf] and forest bats."

All of those are marsupials except the bats, and all of those can be traced to specific time periods. They will always be found together and never found with earlier or later fossils.

Taxodium dubium, a miocene era conifer. Even the flora consistently lines up with the fauna in the fossil record.

Thus, either evolution happened or God had a large number of creations and re-creations.

Primates and the Slender Loris

2010-07-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

There's news today about photographs of a primate thought to have been extinct. It's called a Horton Plains slender loris, and it hasn't been seen since 1939.

The loris is a cute creature with huge eyes.

However, rather that just mentioning this discovery, which has little or nothing to do with proving evolution, I wanted to use this as an opportunity to describe what a primate is.

Perhaps the most distinctive feature of a primate is that they have opposable thumbs, like we do. Take this aye-aye, for instance ...

I never really thought about a whole group of creatures having opposable thumbs. Lemurs, monkeys, and apes all do. It's the most defining characteristic of primates, though there are others.

There's more information on primates at my Ape to Human evolution page.

More Arguments Against Evolution

2010-07-06T09:06:00.000-07:00

My answers give a unique perspective on arguments against evolution. Remember, I'm first and foremost a born-again, radical, Christian teacher. By the grace and kindness of God, I even get to be a part-time missionary and church planter.

Evolution is a side note to the Christian life. It is not primary, and it ought not to be a distraction.

Honesty, though, is central to growing in Christ, and honesty is always what I'm after. We may be human and prone to biases and misconceptions, but there is still a difference between those that follow the evidence and those that only gather evidence to bolster their own position.

So here's my answer to 1.) a biblical argument, 2.) a speculative, almost philosophical argument, and 3.) a pseudo-scientific argument. On the scientific one, I am attempting to keep the argument on what matters. Most scientific arguments against evolution are inaccurate, but the ones that are accurate are usually irrelevant.

This post is actually a response to an email I got. Since I don't quote the person who emailed me, I felt free to use it as a blog post.

Introduction: On Evolution and Following Christ

First, it's important to me that you know that I am first and foremost a follower of Christ. I address the evolution issue because it is prone to making people stumble. There are people who see all the scientific evidence for evolution, and it makes them question their faith. I am trying to help them not to stumble or question. A faith based in a powerful, real relationship with Christ will not be shaken by evidence for or against evolution.

That's the issue that matters to me. If evolution turns out not to be true, that wouldn't bother me a bit. I believe God is involved with creation from front to finish whether it happened by evolution or whether it happened instantly through a command of God.

That said, it appears unquestionable to me that the evidence for evolution is very strong, and Christians are failing miserably at finding good arguments against it. That's no problem to me, since I don't think we have to bother coming up with arguments against it. Even if evolution is true, God is still Creator, Jesus is still Lord, and the Gospel still transforms those who embrace it.

Okay, to your questions and arguments ...

1. There are many definitions for "firmament."

I don't believe that's true. I think that the concept of a firmament being something solid is basic to the word, and we just refuse to admit it because we don't like it. I consider the word "expanse" to simply be a dishonest translation, not one of many options.

I don't think the research into that word is that hard. And even if we avoid admitting that firmament is something solid, then we still have to contend with Job 37:18, which specifically says the sky is hard and hammered out flat like metal.

2. The earth only looks like it evolved, though created recently.

Why would God make the world to look like it evolved? I can understand the appearance of age. It takes time for light to get from distant stars to us, so if he created the universe 6,000 years ago, it would be good to have the light already made so we can see the stars.

But really, do we want to believe about God that he created the world to look like it evolved when it didn't? Why would he do that? And why would he tell us to pay attention to his creation in order to learn about him (Rom. 1:20; Ps. 19:1-4) if the creation is tricking us?

3. Inbreeding Depression

This term was used by the person who wrote me. He's referring to the fact that inbreeding causes genetic problems in a population. That being the case, he asks, how can new species evolve from one or two individuals. The new population would have all sorts of genetic defects.

It is much harder to prove that something is impossible than to prove that it is possible. Even many scientists used to believe that it was impossible for a human to run a 4-minute mile. Obviously, it's not; it's been done.

We all know that inbreeding causes problems with DNA. So how could life have evolved from just one original life form?

The correct answer to that question is that it's irrelevant.

There is lot's of evidence that life evolved. For example, one of the strongest pieces of evidence is that the same sorts of fossils are in the same layers of the earth the world around. Where you find dinosaurs, you don't find horses or humans. Where you find ancient amphibians, you don't find any reptiles or mammals at all. Where you find "Cambrian Explosion" fossils, you don't find any vertebrates at all--no fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals or birds.

There's a progression in the earth, and when you conclude from that progression that life evolved, then thousands of other pieces of evidence fall into place.

Thus, somehow, evolution happened despite the problems that inbreeding can cause.

Of course, there's also a good explanation. The earliest life didn't reproduce sexually. Those cells simply copied themselves, so there was no inbreeding. Later, it's whole populations that evolve, not one or two individuals.

Even in a lab, you can isolate two populations of bacteria--or even two populations of moths. Let them reproduce through a thousand generations, and changes happen. Not the same changes in both populations. At the end of those thousand or thousands of generations--which can be seen in a lab due to rapid rates of reproduction in insects--and the two populations are different enough that they won't breed together anymore.

Nature has conducted such experiments throughout earth's history. Populations get large enough to spread over a large geographic area, and sheer size sometimes separates them into groups. Other times, they're on two sides of a mountain with different climate on either side. Or one ends up in the forest and one out. Or they spread across a group of islands. Etc., etc., etc.

Please understand, these questions have been asked. Science was not started by atheists trying to disprove God. Most early scientists were Christians. Evolution is the result of looking at the earth, not the product of people hoping that life evolved.

The people who first suggested evolution had to face intense scrutiny, and questions like the ones you're asking have been asked over and over again. Answers have come pretty easily, which is just further evidence that life evolved.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species

Even Darwin's original On the Origin of Species was full of arguments he had received against his theory of "descent with modification." His answers are amazing and full of natural examples. You can learn a lot about nature from his book, and most of it is fascinating. It's sad more people don't read it. He wrote the book as a believer in God--though he had his doubts--so it is not an attack on people's faith. He had a wife he dearly loved who was a Christian.

2 Billion Year Old Multicellular Life!!!

2010-07-01T12:28:00.000-07:00

Now this is something.

The Cambrian explosion has always been a dilemma. We can follow the development of life all the way back to the Cambrian period, about 570 million years ago, and we find some seriously developed organisms, all with no ancestry. As far as fossils go, life before the Cambrian was all unicellular—one-celled organisms.

Not any more ...

A Note on the Cambrian Explosion

The Cambrian explosion is NOT an argument against evolution. Even if science never explained the origin of the organisms that existed during the Cambrian, we still have to deal with the fact that life has changed dramatically since that time.

Not one vertebrate existed during the Cambrian period. Yes, our phylum—the chordates—was represented, but it was represented by something similar to a sea squirt. No fish; no amphibians; no reptiles, no dinosaurs, no birds, no bats, no cats, no primates.

See the sea squirt picture below. If God created all the phyla 570 billion years ago, suddenly and miraculously, you still have to explain how we got from sea squirts to us!

Photo by Nick Hobgood
Used with permission

Scientists have found 250 multicellular fossils from 2.1 billion years ago.

These fossils are up to a foot long, and they push multicellular life back far further than expected. It was surprise enough to find that prokaryotic (single-celled life without a nucleus) goes back 3.5 billion years, just a billion years after the earth formed.

It is true that findings are reforming science, but not in the direction of a young earth.

The author of this blog is a Christian who believes the Bible is inspired by God—all of it—but who does not believe we ought to resort to fabrication, deceit, quote-mining, and ignorance when it comes to looking at God's creation. It's the Bible that tells us to learn about God from nature, and what we learn is that God has chosen the painful, slow process of evolution to develop life.

Should that surprise us? Isn't that what we experience following Jesus Christ? Do we not progress slowly and painfully through death and suffering after we are born again?

New Australopithecus Afarensis Skeleton

2010-06-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Scientists have described a new Australopithecus afarensis skeleton, dubbed "Big Man," because at over 5 feet tall, he dwarfs Lucy, his famous afarensis cousin.

I use this every day (really). I can vouch for its quality and ease of use.

I asked my wife's back surgeon about inversion tables, and he said, "I have one. I use it every evening. What does that tell you?"

A little later, he added, "What can I tell you? They just work!"

The description is more a display of how hard it is to interpret 3.6-million-year old evidence than it is further insight into A. afarensis as a species.

Was Lucy's Last Name Walker?

The founders believe the skeleton proves that afarensis was an excellent walker and maybe even a runner. They cite long legs and the shape of the pelvis. They also say they have enough of the rib cage, plus a shoulder blade, to say that Australopithecus afarensis had a narrow chest like humans.

The part about the narrow chest didn't seem to be disputed, and it does appear that our ancestors are less chimp-like than we previously imagined.

Everything else, however, was disputed.

Critical scientists said that there's not enough of the leg, just one partial lower leg bone, to confidently assert that "Big Man" had longer legs than previously speculated for afarensis. They say the evidence for skilled walking is inconclusive.

On the other hand, we do have 3.6-million-year old footprints found 30 years ago in Tanzania. These indicate a longer stride than Lucy's, and if "Big Man" had the long legs his discoverers say he had, then he could have made those footprints.

The footprints also indicate A. afarensis had arches, another indication of advanced bipedality.

Australopithecus Afarensis and Climbing

The other controversy was swinging from trees. The discoverers of "Big Man" say that he indicates his species couldn't climb trees like apes.

In this case, whether I agree or not, I loved the critic's response ...

"Riddle me this," asks Jungers in considering Hailie-Selassie's emphasis on a ground-dwelling A. afarensis. "Where did they sleep? Did they wait for fruit to fall to the ground? Where did they go to escape predators?"

Riddle me this? Do you think he was a little irritated?

Scientists are human, too. That's what I got from this finding.

How to Remove a Cow Brain

2010-06-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

I found out the hard way that one of the things you can't find on the internet is how to remove a cow brain from a cow skull!

When my daughter asked me to remove a cow brain from a cow head she'd bought from a friend of mine, I thought she was joking.

It turns out that my friend had bought a slaughtered, whole, grass-fed cow, and apparently the head comes with it. My daughter needed an animal brain for a science presentation, and, ta da ... I ended up with a skinned cow head in my front yard.

WARNING!!!

My family and friends tell me that some of the pictures that follow this first one are ... um ... disturbing. Make sure you have a strong stomach!

If the first one disturbs you, imagine an electric saw added to the picture before you scroll down the page.

We plan our attack. I'm the guy on the right.

How Novices Remove a Cow Brain

We had no idea what we were doing, so we just started cutting. In case it's not already obvious to you, that's not a good idea.

The head was frozen, so we simply used a circle saw, thinking we were going to remove the "skullcap."

We tried a hammer ...

We tried a hand saw ...

Finally, we just started cutting everywhere with the skilsaw and peeling and prying away what we could ...

All of this was to no avail. In an act of mercy, my daughter, who is 14 years old by the way, suggested we thaw the skull over night and try again the next day.

I went in the house to shower, covered with sweat and small, ground-up pieces of muscle and skull. For some reason, everyone in the house fled from my presence ...

How to Remove a Brain from a THAWED Cow Skull

The next day was a lot better. I thought the head would stink to the heavens after thawing all night and all morning, but it really wasn't bad.

I do live in Christian community of 250 people or so, though, so kids were walking by and parents driving by the whole time I'm doing this. Several of the kids commented that the skull stunk.

The meat was still fresh, though.

A Real Meat Head

You would not believe how much meat is on a cow skull. I am certain I removed 3 pounds of meat from the jaw, cheeks, and, literally, between the ears! It all looked good, too, like it would have tasted excellent in a frying pan.

Since my whole family was horrified at such a thought, I didn't try it. I think if that meat had touched one of our frying pans, I would have been hit with the frying pan.

How We Succeeded in Removing the Cow Brain

Unfortunately, I didn't remember to take pictures the 2nd day. We were focused on getting the brain out.

First, that evening I had looked up a diagram of a cow skull so I knew where the brain was. It starts a little behind the eyes, and it goes back to the vertebra that was visible on the back of the cow skull.

The vertebra is those bones that look like a beak in the center of the picture.

As a result of learning where the brain was, I was very concerned about this cut we had made the previous day ...

We had made that cut because one of my daughter's friends had looked up the thickness of a cow skull for us. The internet said it was 4 inches thick.

That's true in places, but it's not true in the place we're cutting in the picture.

As it turned out, that cut had just nipped the front of the brain. We had done a little damage, but when we got the brain out, you couldn't tell.

The way we got it out was first to cut off all the meat we could. A lot of meat was around the area of the ears, below the horns. In fact, we were practically able to cut the horns off without cutting any bone. They were attached mostly by skin and cartilage.

Once the horns were off, I was able to pry off large pieces of bone on the forehead.

Bit by bit that exposed the brain.

Removing the Brain

Once the brain was exposed, my daughter's science partner showed up. This is another young lady of 13 or 14 years of age.

Believe it or not, she was very excited to help get it out.

Together, we figured out that you could reach right in through the vertebra at the back of the skull and help lift the brain out of its cavity. If you do, you will get blood and goop all over your hands, but she didn't seem to mind.

It was a special moment when our fingers touched, mine from the hole in the top of the skull, hers through the vertebra at the back, both of our hands covered in messy liquids that we would normally diligently avoid. We both laughed, as young friends, both male and female, provided a background chorus of oohs. It was like a movie.

It took about an hour, but now that I know the process, I think I could do it in an hour, even with the inappropriate tools we were using.

The Process

Thaw the head
Remove all the meat possible with a very good kitchen knife (carefully!!!)
Remove the horns. You can make cuts with the circle saw to do this. You have at least 2 or three inches from the top of the skull down to the brain.
Be careful above the eyes. The brain starts shortly behind them, and the skull is thinnest—about an inch—in the lower center of the forehead. (A slaughtered cow will probably have a hole in the forehead at the thinnest spot.)
Cut shallow and pry pieces off with a big screwdriver.
Once you expose the brain, it seems to hold together pretty well while being removed. Just reach in, separate it from the cavity with your fingers, and lift it out. Reaching in through the vertebra at the back of the skull allows you to reach some difficult to reach places.

There. Now the internet has a "how to remove a cow brain" page.

Homo floresiensis

2010-05-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Most of you probably already know that a miniature species of human, dubbed Homo floresiensis, was discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003.

Today I found a terrific article on Homo floresiensis' brain size.

Here's the basics ...

Someone actually did a comparative study between brain size and body mass on 37 current species of primates and 23 fossil species. They then traced various possible evolutionary scenarios trying to track the growth in brain size relative to body mass.

They then took their results and applied them to Homo floresiensis.

Their conclusion was that if floresiensis descended from Homo erectus, then the decrease in relative brain size is an anomaly. It's a surprise. Though it happens, this reduction in brain size is too much.

However, if Homo floresiensis descended from Homo habilis—Homo erectus' most likely predecessor, for whom there's no indication they ever left Africa—then the increase in relative brain size from Homo habilis would be normal for primate evolution.

They had an even better suggestion, in my opinion, in Homo georgicus being the possible ancestors of the Flores hobbits. Georgicus was described in 2002 and seems intermediate between erectus and habilis.

Homo Gautengensis

2010-05-21T20:35:00.000-07:00

The new species in the human evolution timeline are coming fast and furious now. A Discovery blog says there are more to come ...

Get ready for more big human evolution announcements in the coming months, as anthropologists have shared with me that a number of bones even older than those for Homo gautengensis await study and classification.

Homo gautengensis is a 3-foot, 110-pound, bipedal tree-dweller that lived from 2,000,000 to 600,000 years ago. The identification is based on, "partial skulls, several jaws, teeth and other bones found at various times at South Africa's Sterkfontein Caves, near Johannesburg" (ref).

3 feet tall and 110 pounds! This was a short brute!

Apparently, though, the features of the skull are even more human than Australopithecus sediba, which was being touted by its founders as the most human of the australopithecine lineage.

Homo gautengensis is not considered to be a human ancestor, but a side branch of our family tree.

As stated above, many more such branches are expected to be found. Homo floresiensis, the "hobbit" species of Homo, which died out about 10,000 years ago, is another side branch found in the last few years.

Homo gautengensis is from East and South Africa. Personally, I think Homo sapiens arose from the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, and I consider all the southern branches of Australopithecus and Homo to be side branches.

But then, I'm not a scientist.

I'm sure there's more coming! Have you heard the recent news that we have Neandertal genes in us? That's from the same scientist who thought we didn't based on mitochondrial DNA.

Now, however, with much of Neandertal Man's nuclear DNA sequenced, it turns out that we share a lot of unique genes with our evolutionary cousin.

Biodiversity, the Power of Nature, and the Foolishness of Man

2010-05-19T16:06:00.000-07:00

An interesting article at Scientific American talks about the lessons we learned at Mount St. Helens.

I took special note of the following statement:

... forest managers took notice that areas left untouched by human hands after the eruption fostered greater biodiversity than places where people attempted to speed recovery by salvaging dead trees and planting new ones.

I live in the US South, where fields of kudzu remind us that mankind still doesn't understand nature very well. As in the quote above, usually it is far better for us to leave nature alone.

There's so many examples of our lack of understanding. I'm not going to look these all up, just mention some of them.

I read an article a couple years ago with a pie graph giving exact percentages for each source of methane on earth. Cows, for example, produced 6% of the earth's methane, according to the graph. A week later an article reported scientists' surprise that forests produced methane, perhaps up to 30% of the earth's methane. Oops! It wasn't mentioned on the graph!
Only a few months ago, an article discussed why the earth hadn't warmed as much as climatologists had predicted. I knew the answer, of course. Scientists don't understand climate near as well as they sometimes claim. Later, Phil Jones—the head of the Climate Research Unit who had to resign after the "Climate-gate" scandal—admitted that the earth's been cooling, though by a "stastically insignificant" amount for the last 12 years.
It's a paper put out by Natchez Trace State Park near Lexington, Tennessee that reports that kudzu—the remarkable rapidly-growing vine, able to grow 12 inches and more a day—was introduced to the US to control erosion. Without natural enemies, it grew out of control. Nor did it control erosion. It's root is a single long tendril sinking up to 14 feet into the earth, making it very difficult to kill, though it's proven not so hard to prevent its spread.

Then, a report I read today talked about using friendly bacteria from our nose to control methicillin-resistant S. aureus.

Surely it's not a problem to spray what we know to be a friendly, helpful bacteria into a person's nose, right?

I can't imagine why I wonder ...

Are Theistic Evolutionists Liberal? Are They Just Creationists in Disguise?

2010-04-30T07:20:00.000-07:00

I found a blog today that says theistic evolutionists are "loonier than the evolution deniers."

Warning: I went ahead and linked to the blog. It does not have family-friendly language, especially at the end. If your faith is fragile, you might not want to go there either.

Anyway, I wrote a response there that I think will make a great blog post here:

Hmm. Most theistic evolutionists I know like being called creationists, and we don’t like young earthers having sole access to the term. Of course, the ones I know are very committed, radical Christians.

There’s an underlying assumption here I don’t agree with. I believe in God and Jesus because of a miraculous encounter with him that I was not seeking, and 28 years of experience has only propped up that belief. I didn’t choose to believe this way because of how I was raised. I had been a New Ager and atheist before I became a Christian.

I believe in evolution because there’s excellent scientific evidence for it.

To me, I think, "What’s that got to do with the Bible? Why even bring the Bible into it?"

The problem is that a lot of Christianity in the world is powerless and intellectual, based on tradition and nothing else. Those that are part of it don’t care that much about what the Bible says about how they live. (Where’s the giving up their possessions, denying worldly pleasures, and being as one with one another as the Father is with Jesus?). Thus, if they ignore God’s commands for their tradition, why should they expect God to answer their prayers?

Those that do live the way Christ taught have a very hard time not believing in Christ because so much happens for them. I was listening to a friend–a friend, someone I know, not rumor passed around–telling me about some of the healings they’ve seen when they were baptizing people in Mexico. He lives with the Indians, in a hand-built house without electricity, taking in single mothers and orphans, and sharing his life as well as his Gospel with the Indians.

I believe the stories because I’ve seen some of them myself. My nephew was healed of a year-long infection that had blinded one eye after prayer. The military had moved my sister to the Washington DC area so my nephew could be treated at the military hospital there. They didn’t know what to do, and my sister finally called us for prayer. We prayed, and his sight returned and the infection went away in less than a week.

Those are the dramatic stories. The fellowship with God, the restoration of relationships, the instant transformation of people’s lives that can be seen in their faces, etc., etc., etc. leaves those of us who are willing to take Christ seriously pretty much unable to disbelieve.

So when we find out there’s good scientific evidence for evolution, many of us think, "Hmm. I guess that’s how God created the world," and then we go on obeying Christ and living this powerful, glorious life from heaven we live.

We have a real God that does real things today. I don’t need a magic book as well. The Bible was written by people of our spiritual race. God doesn’t miraculously make them scientific phenoms or inerrant story tellers today, so why should I think he did that with Moses or Paul?

On the other hand, following the spiritual teachings of those who have the best relationship with God leads to having a similar relationship with God. God gave the Gospel to the apostles, not the science book, nor a miraculous ability to tell stories without any mental errors.