In this Saturday-the-14th newsletter (one day after surviving Friday the 13th):
1) Meet your relative, the sponge.
2) Oldest fossil trails.
3) Upcoming talks all over Canada
4) Thanks for the flood of feedback!
5) Lucy’s iphone

***********************************************************
1) Meet your relative, the sponge.

Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you readers have heard that humans and chimps share 98.4% of their DNA?
Okay, so I can’t see you holding up your hand – but experience tells me that a great many of you are holding up your hand because you’ve heard this before (and because experience tells me that people are wierd, and will put up their hand in response to my asking them to put up their hand, even when I can’t see them put up their hand. heh heh). In fact, experience tells me that probably 1/3 or more of you will have heard this claim. This is an excellent example of the power of evolutionary propaganda, as this is a completely and utterly false claim. In fact, I was blown away when the head of human genome project (the project attempting to decode the human DNA), Francis Collins, stated this “fact” on the air during a radio interview. That such a brilliant man would make such an ignorant statement on something that is in his field of expertise, frankly blew me away. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I have seen an incredibly brilliant, knowledgeable person say something in incredible err whilst trying to defend evolution and an old earth.

Let’s kill the myth:
It’s very simple to show just how wrong this claim is. It is well known (you can look this up on the innernet yerself!) that the chimpanzee genome is roughly 10-15% longer then the human genome (the chimpanzee DNA contains 10-15% more letters then the human DNA).

So therefore the chimpanzee genome is 115% the size of the human genome, yet, somehow the two are supposed to be 98.4% identical!

Does anyone else see a math error here???

Whaaa…? wait… How’d they get that numba?
So you’re probably asking how perfectly sane people who presumably graduated with high-school math could get it so wrong. Well, it’s because of what they didn’t tell you. But before we move on, settle it in your mind:

So what’s spongebob got to do with it…?
Bear with me here – we need to deal a little more with the chimp/human DNA before we get to the report comparing human and sponge DNA.

Basically, it’s been known pretty much since around the mid-70′s that the 98.4% figure wasn’t true. In fact, back in 2007, one evolutionist stated matter-of-factly that this untruth “served us well” !!!!!
Waidaminit – whadya mean it “served us well???” Who’s “us?” And in what way did an untruth serve you well??? How does an untruth serve? An untruth certainly does not serve the truth!
Dr. Coppedge had an excellent article on this in his creation-evolution headlines.

Well let’s say the untruth is truth – what would a measely 1.6% difference really mean? The human DNA is roughly 3.2 BILLION base pairs, or letters, long. So, 1.4% of 3.2 billion = 44,800,000 differences between the two strands of DNA. As little as one change in the DNA can be fatal! Now it’s true you usually suffer about 100 mutations, or changes, in your lifetime, but changes to the DNA are not healthy! You simply cannot make tens of millions of changes to the DNA without killing the organism. End of discussion. So such similarity would be meaningless, even if it were true. An airline pilot flying from Paris to New York flies roughly 5,900 kms, but if he lands early by a measely 1.6%, he’s landed some 82 kms short of the runway. Obviously, this is disastrous and so is a 1.6% difference in the genome.

To achieve the 98.4% number, the scientists first isolated portions of the two DNA strands that were already similar. They then compared those similar sequences. If the research had been reported honestly, you would have been told that huge portions of the DNA strands do not line up at all – in fact, one Nature article pointed out one study in which 83% of the genes compared were different!
We should expect there to be similarities between chimps and humans, after all, we are of such similar structure, shape and form.

In fact, from a common designer perspective (contrary to the view that chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor, common designer means that the chimps and the humans were both designed by the same being) it would make a whole lot of sense to incorporate DNA from one organism into another. For example, once a transmission is engineered, you’ll notice that engineers will use that same transmission in multiple vehicles. This saves a lot of time and energy – it’s smart engineering. So it would make sense that the designer (God) would use similar blueprints and plans in two similar organisms. So similarity between genomes is once again meaningless, because interpretation within the context of a common designer is just as valid as the interpretation of a “common ancestor.”

Uhhh….spongebob?
Ya, ya, I’m getting there.

Okay, so an article recently came out from University of Queensland, Australia. Lead researcher Bernard Degnan claimed that human and sponge genes had 70% similarity. Notice the term “genes.” Once again, like what was done with the chimpanzee genome, portions of the DNA were isolated to compare to the human DNA.

Using the gene isolation/comparison techniques, rumour has it that we also share 50% of our genome with the banana, 40-50% with the fruit fly, and some 97.5% with mice. In fact, laying out any random two genomes side by side, you only have four bases (letters) to choose from, so just mathematically speaking, you’re going to have a 25% match between any two letters! Therefore, based on the flawed logic of these “studies,” you share at least 25% of your DNA with the wombat, T-rex, elephant, killer whale, and the chicken.

Genetic similiarity has been continually, and falsely, parroted to prop up the false hope that is evolution. Genetic similarity is just as logically explained within the paradigm of a common designer, and thus claims of genetic similarity are useless as an argument for evolution.

Hop on creationwiki, read, follow links and read some more until your brain explodes:
http://creationwiki.org/Human_and_chimp_genomes_differ_by_more_than_one_percent_%28Talk.Origins%29

***********************************************************
2) Oldest fossil trails

Reports of the “oldest fossil trails” at Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, are significant. First, the report:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100203085914.htm

This news article is from back in February actually. I was hoping to head back to Mistaken point when I was in Newfoundland in the late winter, but alas, I didn’t make it. I did get to visit this phenonenal fossil site in early winter last year however. The location is littered with hundreds of pristine, soft-bodied fossils. Quite an incredible sight to see actually.

The most common fossil found there is known as Charnia, which various researchers have taken great lengths to portray as not being sea pens. For instance, one article (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/izg/EvolutionaryBiology.htm) takes great pains to point out the incredible diversity of sea pens and sea pansies (which really are both just variants of the sea pen), and then goes to great lengths to state that while yes, its structure is like a combination of sea pens and sea pansies, Charnia it isn’t a sea pen!

Charnia from mistaken point (left), modern sea pens (right) courtesy of Creationwiki.org

Oh C’maaawwn! Charnia is just another variation of the already incredibly variable sea pens/sea pansies. The evolutionary authors place Charnia into nice, pretty cladograms, which I respectfully submit are nothing more then fiction. They are nothing more then a “just so” story. (See my post “More badyear, and ‘Would you believe, a Hippo is a pig?’ ” at http://ianjuby.org/newsletter/?p=165 to read up on cladograms)
The point I wish to make once again is that nothing has evolved - sea pens/sea pansies have reproduced themselves all this time. They have reproduced with incredible variation, yes, but that has nothing to do with fish turning into people over millions of years, it has to do with sea pens reproducing sea pens, exactly as the Bible said they would.

More living fossils
As it turns out the Mistaken point fossil trails tell more of the same story – the trails look remarkably like the trails left behind by the modern sea anenome! The trails already raised excitement because such trails indicate the creatures that made them had some kind of muscles and rigid/semi-rigid framework (i.e., skeleton or stiff tissues), perhaps of collagen. So these fossils being so ‘old’ places muscular evolution way back in time. I would suggest it’s actually good evidence that the sea anenome has evolved into….the sea anenome.

Spectacular sea anenome photo courtesy of Vance Nelson, Creation Truth Ministries

So according to evolutionary theory, the mistaken point fossils are some of the oldest fossils in the world. According to evolutionary theory, organisms change over time. According to the Biblical account of Genesis, ten times in the first chapter it states that God created life to reproduce after its kind. What we see (i.e, the scientific evidence) in the ‘oldest fossils in the world’ is that everything remains the same – in spite of the contortions of some evolutionists who will try desperately to say that the sea pens aren’t sea pens, and the trails which match those of a sea anenome weren’t made by a sea anenome. This is good evidence that the Biblical account of creation is true, and the evolutionary account of change over time is false.

***********************************************************
3) Upcoming talks all over Canada!

I’m presently on the road in Alberta, have spoken in Alberta, B.C., and Northwest Territories, and it’s been awesome seeing souls saved and encouraged by the creation message. I’ll be on the road right through till the end of October, and then I’ll be trying to get bookings within Ontario so I can stay at home more and get construction started on the portable museum.

Looking for bookings in Newfoundland during the month of October, and bookings in Ontario from October through 2011 – drop me a line or call me toll-free to book the museum and a lecture for your group: 1-877-532-9160. Don’t forget the “everything you ever wanted to know about booking Ian and his traveling museum, but were afraid to ask” page at: http://ianjuby.org/promotional.html

August:
22-26th: David Thompson Bible Camp, teen week
29th: Rich Valley Community Church, Rich Valley, Alberta
September:
4-6th: Ross Haven Bible Camp, Homeschooler’s weekend
12th: Community Christian Center, Slave Lake, Alberta
22nd: First Baptist Church, Smiths Falls, Ontario
24th: Halifax, Nova Scotia – details to come
October:
17th: Rocky Harbour Pentecostal Church, Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland
19th: Carbonear Pentecostal Church, Newfoundland
20th: Full Gospel Tabernacle, Glovertown, Newfoundland
24th: Gander Baptist Church, Gander, Newfoundland

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

4) Thanks for the flood of feedback!
Because I’ve been on the road pretty much non-stop for a couple of months now, I didn’t get a chance to write back to all of you who took the time to send in feedback in response to my questions in the last newsletter. I was inundated with responses, so thank you!

I also haven’t been able to send out news bites – internet connection has been sporadic, and it’s difficult to surf the web looking for news bite items and posting them to my blog while I’m driving. :) So I don’t know when I’ll get back to them.

***********************************************************
5) Lucy’s iphone

A recent Nature article reported the evidence of tool-working on bones by an intelligent meat eater. Now Nature is an incredibly expensive mag (and thus probably none of my readers have access to it), but fortunately popular press articles abound, such as on science daily.

The “mammal bones” were found in layers dated the same time as Dikika, which is considered an Australopithecus afarensis. You’ll notice articles (like the Sciencedaily.com article) refer to “Lucy” using the tools. This is because Lucy (reconstruction shown right, photo courtesy of creationwiki.org, photoshop hack-job courtesy of yours truly) is considered an Australopithecus afarensis as well.

Dr. Zeresenay Alemseged, of the “Dikika research project,” pointed out the clear cut-marks made on some mammal bones found in the Dikika research area. There is no doubt these are markings from some kind of tool (presumably stone tool) that was used to cut the flesh off of the bones. There are also percussion marks on the bones, indicative of a creature breaking the bones to get to the marrow. So Alemseged and his evolutionary partners concluded that Lucy (Dikika actually) was the tool maker and user.

In a “WITW” moment (“What In The World…?” I made up my own acronym, instead of the commonly used internet acronym “WTF” cause then people will ask me what that means and I aint gonna tell’em), Alemseged said:

In this newsletter:
1) Good grief – now they’re saying the dinosaurs froze to death!
2) Now what can I do for you?
3) Aliens and Creation – new video!
4) Website & channel picks
5) Portable museum: TWO containers!
6) New CrEvo Rant
7) NEW! CrEvo “News Bites” (a whole wack of ‘em)

***********************************************************
1) Good grief – now they’re saying the dinosaurs froze to death!

If you recall, in my last newsletter I responded to a symposium of international scientists who had finally come together to decide that it was an asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs (see “41 Scientists finally figure it out…?”).

I also showed you why they were wrong. Sure enough, not even two weeks after I sent out that newsletter, another article came out from some European researchers, claiming that no, it was not an asteroid impact, but it was in fact cold that killed the dinosaurs! (frigid weather, not the common cold)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/7624014/Dinosaurs-died-from-sudden-temperature-drop-not-comet-strike-scientists-claim.html

Flip-flopping:
Wait a minute – do you have any idea how many emails I got from anti-creationists, screaming “Victory!” because 41 scientists had gotten together and concluded that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs? After all, if 41 scientists say the same thing, well then by garsh, it’s just gotta be truth!
Okay, so what happened to the conclusions of that 41 scientist panel? Why were those conclusions so quickly discarded by this new research team? It was for the same reasons the “impact theory” was not accepted before the asteroid symposium – because it didn’t stack up to the evidence!

Please, don’t bother me with the facts…
However, the European team is equally wrong, for the same reasons that the 41 member symposium was wrong: the evidence refutes their claim. The evidence is that the dinosaurs were killed and buried in a flood – and when you look at the scale of the evidence, it becomes quite clear it was a global flood.
As one example of the evidence, in the photo above, I showed you one of the ways we typically find dinosaurs – ripped apart and buried together with clams which were buried alive. Now the European team has me a little bit paranoid because it does get quite cold up here in Canada, and we do have clams. So now I’m just a little bit nervous that the cold is going to cause me to fall apart and become entombed in dirt which will also rapidly bury a whole pile of clams alive!

As you can see, the suggestion gets kind of ludicrous. This is what happens when you ignore the evidence – logic goes out the window.

Why would the European researchers propose such proposterous, anti-evidence hypotheses? If you recall in my last newsletter, I gave the reason for this: There is a silent rule within the scientific community that you must not acknowledge a global flood. Don’t believe me? Just try and publish something relating to some of the incredible evidence of a global flood, and watch what happens to your career (Warning: I cannot be held responsible for what may happen to you next. You know, things like failing grades in University, facing open, blatant bigotry, getting publically scoffed at and mocked for being a “creationist,” and having various individuals look at you with a bewildered look on their face as though you have the IQ of a stick).

Well I’m here to declare that the evidence for a global flood is overwhelming. And to deny the evidence left behind by the world-wide flood leads to bewildering, illogical suggestions like “the dinosaurs died from a meteor impact” or “the dinosaurs died because of the cold.” Suggestions that simply do not stack up to the evidence!

At this point, I would like to repeat the mantra that I so often hear the anti-creationists cry (when they think it serves their purposes):

***********************************************************
2) Now what can i do for you?

Okay, seriously – I need some feedback. I put a lot of work into these newsletters, and certainly I enjoy putting them together (when I can). I also put a lot of work into the videos, rants, and now the news bites – not to mention the research I do and the work involved in presentations. I want to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of what I do, particularly on the internet. I need to know what you want and need from me.

You folks have all signed up for this newsletter, and I’d like to hear some input on what the newsletter means to you. I’ve also included news bites in this newsletter so y’all can get a taste of those, and possibly give me some feedback on those too.

If any of you could take the time to drop me an email at feedback@ianjuby.org and give me your thoughts (other then the thoughts of some of my ‘fans’ like “I wish you’d shut up and drop dead!” heh heh), here’s some random questions you could answer that would help me out a lot:

• Do you read the newsletter?
• Have you/will you subscribe to the news bites?
• Of all the things I produce (newsletter, news bites, rants, creation lecture videos), which do you use/value the most?
• Do you share the newsletter with others? (i.e., do you forward it to others?)
• Is there anything you’d like me to do that I am not already doing?
• Where could I improve what I do?

***********************************************************
3) Aliens and Creation – a new video!

It seems ironically appropriate that I would be releasing my new video at this time. First, a former Russian governor publically admits to having been abducted by aliens (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/05/06/russian-governor-abducted-aliens/), then Stephen Hawking goes on record saying that there is alien life (http://www.cbc.ca/cp/science/spaceyqh.html), and we should avoid them at all costs – which spurned a reaction by NASA (Who said they’re already sending out invitations to any and all alien life to come visit planet earth), Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer (http://www.cbc.ca/cp/science/spaceyqh.html) and the Montreal-based Raelians, (who believe we were transplanted here by aliens and that Jesus was an alien) who said (and I quote):

(From: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/rael-deplores-hawkingrsquos-vision-of-hostile-alien-invaders,1276908.shtml)

Aliens: the problem, and the solution
Well the subject of aliens has now taken over the #1 spot for “Most frequently asked question at Ian’s Creation/Evolution presentations.” That’s right – it finally beat out “What do you think about global warming?” (which, for the record, I think global warming is a GREAT idea – I’m from Canada! Now if only it were true…)

“Genesis and Aliens,” a one and a half hour lecture, is a fascinating and disturbing subject. Starting off with the possibilities, I deal with what the scriptures have to say on the subject, what we can say scientifically on the subject (short answer: they can’t be aliens from another planet), and finally the actual evidence which reveals what these ‘aliens’ actually are. I also deal with what people like the former Russian governor can do about it when these ‘aliens’ decide they’re going to invade your life and make it miserable. I’ll give you a hint: The Lord Jesus Christ is the answer.

You can watch the trailer for the video by clicking the screen shot to the right (13 meg download – right-click it, and select “Save link as…” or “Save target as…”).

You can now pre-order the DVD (due to be released within the next week or two), with a special deal of $5 off.

*Sorry – the pre-release sale is now over. If you had signed up for Ian’s newsletter, you could’ve gotten the subscriber privileges, like discounted prices on DVD’s!*

PLEASE NOTE: This DVD is self-rated as PG-13; Parental Guidance strongly advised.

Or order it through the online bookstore on my homepage:
http://ianjuby.org/books.html

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

4) Website and channel picks

An excellent website with up-to-date headlines relating to the Creation/Evolution debate, as well as Creation Safari and Apollos, the faithful “Baloney detector”:
http://crev.info/

Bugged by evolution? No sweat – just call on Karl Priest to exterminate evolutionism:
http://www.insectman.us
(In particular, you should read his testimony)

A new website I just stumbled upon recently which is quite extensive and intended as a cyber-cafe for creation minded individuals:
http://creationconversations.com

***********************************************************
5) Portable museum: TWO containers!

Thanks to the incredible support of so many of you, the second container has now been purchased and delivered!

The present phase will be a slow one, engineering the structure of the containers, the slide-outs, floor-plans, lift kit, etc… Thanks for your prayers and support, please continue to pray!

A number of people had asked about how I intend to load and unload the containers from the trucks. Actually, a company in the US which builds portable kitchens into shipping containers has done precisely what I intend to do, and they have a nice little short video on youtube:

In particular, pay close attention at the 55 second mark, you’ll see hydraulic legs that fold out. This is precisely what I’m engineering, only mine are electric, not hydraulic. These legs lift the container up, truck drives away, container is lowered in place.

After I sent a thank-you note to one donor, she wrote back something I thought y’all would appreciate:
“Actually, the donation is from Z**** [her son - I.J.]. All his idea. I was checking your portable creation museum site to see if you’d updated it yet, and he looked over and noticed the thermometer at the top, and decided that he wanted to use some of the $ he’d saved from his allowance to give to your work instead of for toys. He asked Jesus into his heart at 5 1/2, and I just love to see this little man’s faith in action. (Off-topic, tomorrow is his birthday.)”

Follow along on the progress of the project at:
http://ianjuby.org/creationmuseum.html
(I really gotta update that page)

Supposed “100 million year old hair” found in some amber is identical to that of modern mammalian hair:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18937-csi-100-million-years-bc-oldest-mammalian-hair-found.html

As we read some ten times in the first chapter of Genesis, God created life to reproduce after its kind. Evolution operates with radical changes in an organism over time.  Therefore we have a nice example of some scientific evidence we can look for to figure out if creation or evolution is true.

With the discovery of this fossil hair, we have another example of what we see in the fossil record: stasis - things reproducing faithfully after their kind.  Even going by the evolutionary timescale (which I do not believe, I see the evidence as quite good for an earth that is young and not billions of years old), what we see in the fossil record is stasis – everything stays the same, affirming the Biblical account of creation and refuting the evolutionary myth.

CrEvo Rant #67: Poor Design? (Lessons from the robots, Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns0KpZJE9F4

The second rant was also my most recent, spurned by the most common “poor design” argument of all, the ridiculous claim that the human eye was “poorly designed.”

CrEvo Rant #50: The eye and the snowflake

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8V0DXaq8U

Well now looky here!  After years of anti-creationist mantra about how the human eye is a poor design (and the creationary community pointing out for many years why the human eye is designed the way it is),  the anti-creationists now turn around and give credit to the god of evolution for the incredible design of the eye!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627594.000-evolution-gave-flawed-eye-better-vision.html

Comments from the famous theistic evolutionist, Dr. Kenneth Miller at the end are especially noteworthy:
” However, Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island cautions that this doesn’t mean that the backwards retina itself helps us to see. Rather, it emphasises the extent to which evolution has coped with the flawed layout. “The shape, orientation and structure of the Müller cells help the retina to overcome one of the principal shortcomings of its inside-out wiring,” says Miller.”

C’mon Miller!  Get with the times and do some research, and catch up on the facts the creationary camp has been pointing out for years!  The eye was built with an “inverted retina” for a reason:

http://www.trueorigin.org/retina.asp

Of course, this is typical behaviour of the anti-creationist camp – evolution has hindered medical research.  For many, many years, if a particular organ seemed to have no function, it was immediately labeled as a “vestigial organ” – a useless leftover from our evolutionary history.  The Creationary camp of course, would look at it, assuming the human body was designed they would assume therefore that this organ must have a purupose, and went searching for the purpose. This has led to the advancement of discovery and science, whereas evolution has retarded science and medical research.  Once again, we see this hindrance of scientific research rearing its ugly head.  Creationists once again lead the way in discovery because we sought an answer, instead of assuming there wasn’t one, and it has to do with our world view.  Your world view effects everything you do, including your science.

“CrEvo News Bites” are short commentaries from Ian Juby on current events relating to creation and evolution.  You can subscribe by visiting his blog at: http://ianjuby.org/newsletter.  He has many informative hours of video available for free viewing on line, including his exhaustive, 12-hour “Complete Creation” video series – a veritable video encyclopedia.  http://completecreation.orghttp://youtube.com/wazooloo

(photo courtesy of Phil Battley, from Plosbiology Creative commons licensing)

From the “Incredible creation” files, satellite tracking tags on migratory birds have now demonstrated a shattered record for long-distance migration.

Known migration patterns are already amazing, what with examples like the hummingbird crossing the Gulf of Mexico in one flight, the American Golden Plovers flying 4,000 kms between Nova Scotia and South America, and the Red Knots flying 4,800 kms between the Wadden sea and Taymyr.

The hummingbird takes between 18 and 24 hours to fly across the Gulf of Mexico (depending on weather) – let’s say it’s an average of 20 hours.  At an average of 40 beats per second, that’s 2,880,000 wing beats, non-stop!

But all of this is nothing.  With the aid of ultra-small satellite tracking tags on the Alaskan bar-tailed godwit, a new record has been set.

Are you sitting down?

We now know that the godwit flies from Alaska to Australia in one, 8-day, 11,000 km, non-stop flight.

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1000362

An extended-range 747 jumbo jet can fly ~14,000 kms, whereas the new double-decker airbus 380 (shown below) can fly around 15,000 kms.

Such aircraft require a lot of careful engineering just for the guidance systems, let alone flight control, etc…  No one would make the preposterous suggestion that these aircraft were not designed.  And yet the godwit blows the doors off the aircraft in efficiency, energy consumption, internal guidance system, etc…  In fact, a couple of the godwits that were originally tagged didn’t make it to New Zealand because the tags messed up the design of the bird!  The satellite tags had to be re-engineered and surgically implanted so as not to interfere with the flight of the bird.

All throughout the Plos article, you can see the necessary nod to evolutionism that must be made in any scientific publication (lest you be barred from being a “real scientist”), and yet the authors are stymied and can’t help but use the word “design:”

They also can’t figure out how on earth all of this could have evolved – or why for that matter.

“How Did Such Long-Distance Migration Evolve?”

” It is unlikely that naïve short distance migratory birds accidentally reached

New Zealand to establish this migration route…”

Well, the reason they can’t figure out how or why such a system evolved is because the godwit was incredibly designed.

“CrEvo News Bites” are short commentaries from Ian Juby on current events relating to creation and evolution.  You can subscribe by visiting his blog at: http://ianjuby.org/newsletter.  He has many informative hours of video available for free viewing on line, including his exhaustive, 12-hour “Complete Creation” video series – a veritable video encyclopedia.  http://completecreation.orghttp://youtube.com/wazooloo

(Photo courtesy NASA)

The original research was rejected by the majority of scientists – and with good reason.  However, the researchers have brought it back from the dead to go for another round.

Now of course, the meteorite wasn’t found on mars, it was found in Antarctica!  So how then do we know the rock came from mars?  Science is based on observation, using our five senses (even if those senses are extended by machinery), so as it was so aptly put by ScienceAgainstEvolution.org, we know the rock came from mars because:

a) it looks like it came from mars

b) it smells like it came from mars

c) it tastes like it came from mars

d) it sounds like it came from mars

e) it feels like it came from mars

When you glance through the Washington post article, you’ll notice:

“the meteorites they are studying — which can be identified as Martian because the gases inside them match the Martian atmosphere — contain the remains of living organisms.”

So then according to NASA, the correct answer is b) we know the rock is from mars because it smells like it came from mars.  There is no other reason to believe the meteorite came from mars.

So the source of the rock is highly questionable at best.  Then there’s the matter of the “fossil bacteria” found within the rock, which has been hotly debated by the evolutionary scientists themselves, with the majority rejecting the “fossils” as such, and instead claiming these are nothing more then geological artifacts.

The “martian meteor” researcher, McKay “pointed to the presence of what appear to be fossilized microbes in other Martian meteorites,” according to Washington post.  Now hold on a minute here: Let’s say that this is true.  Let’s say that yes, there are multiple meteorites that have been found with fossil bacteria in them.  The idea that multiple meteorites could be launched from mars, each with fossil bacteria in them, on a favourable trajectory that allowed the meteorites to land on earth, is stretching credibility to the breaking point frankly.

Instead, I would suggest that a far more feasible explanation would be that these rocks came from earth, and are simply returning home.  ”How?” you might ask, to which I would simply encourage you to read through Dr. Walter T. Brown’s hydroplate model, and in particular his chapter on the origin of comets, meteoroids and asteroids. His entire book is available on line, for free at http://creationscience.com

This is a vastly superior model to any evolutionary model which has rocks from mars somehow magically getting ejected into space and landing on earth.

“CrEvo News Bites” are short commentaries from Ian Juby on current events relating to creation and evolution.  You can subscribe by visiting his blog at: http://ianjuby.org/newsletter.  He has many informative hours of video available for free viewing on line, including his exhaustive, 12-hour “Complete Creation” video series – a veritable video encyclopedia.  http://completecreation.orghttp://youtube.com/wazooloo

A new study of Neanderthal genetic code has just been unveiled, concluding that Neanderthals bred with humans:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/05/06/tech-neanderthal-genome.html

In order to breed with humans, they must be human. Now of course, I’ve been saying this for years – so it’s nice to see some affirmation of this from a genetic study.  However, this isn’t the first genetic study that’s been carried out.  In fact, as Dr. Sean Pitman points out in his web article (http://www.detectingdesign.com/earlyman.html about 2/3 of the way down the page) the human samples were farter apart from each other, genetically, then they were from Neanderthal!

There are no ape-men.  Everything about Neanderthal in particular, is completely human.

“CrEvo News Bites” are short commentaries from Ian Juby on current events relating to creation and evolution.  You can subscribe by visiting his blog at: http://ianjuby.org/newsletter.  He has many informative hours of video available for free viewing on line, including his exhaustive, 12-hour “Complete Creation” video series – a veritable video encyclopedia.  http://completecreation.orghttp://youtube.com/wazooloo

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100504155421.htm

Now this is fascinating, but let us not forget that we still don’t know how on earth all of these cultures (like the Mayans) built the pyramids, so it should come as no surprise that they had things like plumbing!

It is an evolutionary concept to suggest that people were “stupider” in the past (i.e., we were evolving from less-intelligent apes, according to evolutionary theory).  Adam and Eve of the Bible (the first created humans) were super-human, living to almost 1,000 years old.  Just think of all that could be learned in that time.  There are plenty of examples of ancient technology, including some examples which we still cannot explain to this day.  The people who constructed these buildings/artifacts were so smart, that many have tried to explain it away as instruction from alien intelligence!

I discuss this in great detail in part 8 of “The Complete Creation,” viewable for free on line, complete with free home school resources for the videos at:  http://completecreation.org

“CrEvo News Bites” are short commentaries from Ian Juby on current events relating to creation and evolution.  You can subscribe by visiting his blog at: http://ianjuby.org/newsletter.  He has many informative hours of video available for free viewing on line, including his exhaustive, 12-hour “Complete Creation” video series – a veritable video encyclopedia.  http://completecreation.org http://youtube.com/wazooloo

When one looks in the fossil record,  what we see is stasis and extinction – both of which fit well within the creation paradigm, but run opposite the predictions that evolutionary theory would make.

So even playing by the evolutionary rules, the evidence does not stack up for evolution.  A recent study (using evolutionary assumptions and rules) is now saying the same thing from genetics:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100429172956.htm

In the words of Science Daily,

“A genetic study of island lizards shows that even those that have been geographically isolated

for many millions of years have not evolved into separate species as predicted by conventional evolutionary theory.”

The lizards in the study, even given evolutionary assumptions of millions of years, still interbreed with each other and have not been isolated into different “species.”  This is just one more piece of evidence that evolution is simply not true, but does match the Biblical account of creation.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/28/flying-dinosaur-reptile-pterosaur-texas/

A new, Ptoothy Pterodactyl which was unearthed in Ptexas in 2006, is now being reported.  Of course, such discoveries are always assigned an evolutionary age of millions and millions of years. Question: How do they know how old it is?  Answer: They don’t – it’s assumed. You can’t date sedimentary rocks using radiometric dating methods, but usually there’s biomatter in dinosaur bones – which does mean it can be carbon dated.

Herein lies the problem: C14 (Carbon 14) dating methods always return ages of between 5,000 years old and 50,000 years old, no matter the alleged “age” of the fossil bone, oil, coal, natural gas, CO2 from gas wells, etc…  All of these examples are supposed to be many millions of years old, which means they should have ZERO C14 in them.  The fact that they have plenty tells you right off the bat they are not millions of years old, they are only a few thousand years old.

Further to this, did you ever notice that the fossil record only shows two things: Extinction, and stasis.  I don’t think I need to explain extinction, but I will point out that this does not help evolution one bit – extinction is a loss of variety, a loss of a species, not a gain as evolution needs.

Stasis is an organism remaining the same over alleged millions of years.  The Coelacanth is a classic example.  The Bible says (ten times in the first chapter of Genesis) that God created everything to reproduce after its kind. Evolution has organisms changing over time.  Stasis is what we find in the fossil record, not change – and I give a few examples of this in part 10 of “The Complete Creation” video series, available for viewing for free on the complete creation website:

http://completecreation.org/

(Photo by NASA)

Splashed across the headlines of the past two days are the “discoveries” of ice and organic materials on an asteroid.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100428142302.htm

Actually, this is old news – spectrascopic analysis of comet tails had already shown gases like methane, presumed to be from decaying biomatter in the comet.  Asteroids have been known for a while now to have considerable water content – so really this is nothing new.  Further to this, meteorites have been found containing water, salt, and at least two meteorites have been found with living bacteria contained within them.

(http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Asteroids2.html see heading “Meteorites return home” near the bottom of the page)

Of course the evolutionary theorists like to point to this, speculating that perhaps Earth was “seeded” from space with life, which then evolved.  This does not answer the un-answerable problem of the origin of the first life – it is simply an attempt to put the problem as far away as possible, and as long ago as possible.  (Now picture the Star Wars opening screen, text scrolling off into the distance, “In a galaxy far, far, far, far, far, away, many, many, many, many billions of years ago, the impossible became probable, and the probable became inevitable because of the extreme distance and time…”)

So far as we know, the laws of physics and nature still apply in the far reaches of the solar system.  Therefore, well-established scientific and natural laws apply there – laws like the law of biogenesis which states that life only arises from life, and there has never been an observed exception to this rule, hence the reason it is a law.

An explanation that is far, far, far more plausible is that the water, salt, and bacteria (and possible decaying biomatter) in the asteroids, comets and meteorites came from Earth.  For one theory as to how this could happen, do take the time to read the hydroplate theory put together by Dr. Walter T. Brown, and in particular, pay attention to this “Origin of Asteroids and Meteoroids” chapter:

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Asteroids2.html

(Giant wave ripples in Alaska, photo courtesy of Michael Wiedmer, as shown in Quaternary Research)

From Science News:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100428142338.htm

Oh look – giant wave ripples in Alaska!  From a “megaflood.”  Now notice that whenever chatter is made of megafloods, it is always in reference to an ice-age lake breaching its dam.  Well, 100 foot high wave ripples, spaced a half-mile apart is a pretty big lake.  Reading the article, you’ll notice the researchers are not afraid to use catastrophic terms – as long as it does not refer to a global flood.

Such giant wave ripple features are not at all uncommon either.  This is what led to the discovery of the Missoula flood (not much doubt that one was an ice-age lake), and you can see giant wave ripples all over Alberta, Manitoba, and at several locations here in Ontario.

While I don’t doubt that some of these are from ice-age lakes, I would suggest that at least some of these giant wave ripples are actually from the receding flood waters of the global flood.  But, because evolutionary thinking does not allow for there to have been a global flood, this possibility is not even considered – in spite of the evidence, not because of it.

I should be clear too: Evolution will not permit consideration of a global flood.  Science is perfectly open to it – there is a difference between the two.  Science pursues the facts, Evolution does not even permit possibilities – the opposite of science.

Here are some KMZ links for Google Earth/Worldwind to view the giant wave ripples in Alaska and Manitoba:

Alaska: http://ianjuby.org/newsletters/giant_alaska_dunes.kmz

Manitoba: http://ianjuby.org/newsletters/manitoba_wave_ripples.kmz

The wave ripples in Manitoba are about 1 kilometer, crest-to-crest, and up to 15 meters high.  I know this because I went and personally studied them after seeing them from a jetliner.

Straight from the Sun:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2951855/Nasa-Evidence-of-life-on-mars.html

(By the way, if you read the article, you’ll need your British/Canadian dictionary handy – a “boffin” is a scientist/researcher)

NASA has said they now have evidence of life on Mars.  BUT – don’t get too excited just yet, they didn’t find life, they only found gypsum, which may indicate that there may have been “pond scum,” which the Sun article claims is “the building blocks of life as we know it.”

Actually, even pond scum is incredibly complex.

As a news bite, I’m not gonna say much:

1) They didn’t find life, they didn’t find pond scum – they found minerals which they think may have been laid down by pond scum. (or perhaps it formed by other natural processes)

2) Even if there is “pond scum” on Mars, then one must ask if the pond scum evolved there, or was Mars contaminated by Earth?  We do have pond scum here – and the possibility that the pond scum somehow got from earth to Mars is far, far, far better then pond scum evolving from non-living materials on Mars.

I deal with the subject of life on other planets in my soon-to-be-released video “Aliens and the evolution connection.”

I have many friends who have been expedition organizers/participants on Mt. Ararat as they searched for Noah’s ark, and while I haven’t personally been there yet, I have been invited to participate in expeditions.  After getting a second-hand email from Randall Price (who’s been on Ararat multiple times) giving cautioning words, I also phoned Dr. Don Patton to discuss the recent press release.

The Press Release:

You can read a report on the press release here:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2949640/Noahs-Ark-found-in-Turkey.html

And the website for the Hong Kong search team:

http://www.noahsarksearch.net/eng/

The history:
First, you need to understand that this is the same team that claimed to have a piece of petrified wood, assumed to be part of Noah’s ark, taken from Mt. Ararat two years ago:

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=local_news&month=january2008&file=local_news2008011955044.xml

After the 2008 press release, Dr. Patton and another friend of mine, Dr. Don Shockey (another long-time Noah’s ark researcher and Ararat explorer) flew to Hong Kong to meet with the Chinese team to discuss their findings, and see if they could possibly collaborate on research.

It very quickly became apparent that the “petrified wood” was simply volcanic rock, and not petrified wood at all.  An honest mistake, but unfortunately, this particular piece of “wood” has resurfaced with the media hub-bub of this past week.  This “petrified wood” was not the sample that was carbon dated, mentioned in this recent press release (more on that in a minute).

The person who “found” the site is a Turkish man by the name of Parasut, who has already been known to con ark researchers in the past, and it would appear that this particular case is no different.  Parasut has been the “guide” for the Hong Kong team.

In 2008, Dr. Price and Dr. Patton joined the Hong Kong team for an expedition to the alleged site of Noah’s ark.  After a month of waiting, with Parasut continually drunk, the expedition never happened, and a lot of money was lost.  Not to mention, this is an incredibly dangerous area all-around.  People die on these expeditions – regularly.

The Videos & Photos:

It is difficult and confusing to wade through the photos and videos provided on the noahsarksearch.net website.

The photos are apparently the exact same photos that were presented to Dr. Patton, Dr. Shockey, and Dr. Randall Price two years ago. These photos were apparently not taken by the expedition team but were taken by Parasut, at an undisclosed location.  If the team had “successfully excavated and ventured inside a large wooden structure at an elevation of more than 4,000m above sea level” (noahsarksearch.net website) then why are they using the same photos from two years ago?

In fact, according to Dr. Patton, multiple witnesses have now come forward, saying that the photos of rooms built with wood were actually taken in a wooden ship at the Black Sea.  The Ark Ministries website does not make it at all clear which photos presented on their website were “provided” by Parasut, and which photos were actually taken by the Ark Ministries team.

Also, many “eye-witness testimonies” are recounted on the Ark Ministries website, but again it appears to be a mixture of testimonies from Parasut and his men, and accounts from the Ark Ministries people.  Over and over again, this is found to be the case on the noahsarksearch.net website – for example, in the press release video, which you can see here:

http://www.noahsarksearch.net/eng/video.php?id=5

This is apparently a composite of multiple videos, taken by multiple people, years apart.  But once again, this is not made clear.  The video footage you see inside “rooms” (starting at 1:04 in the video) was apparently taken by Parasut and his men.  Whereas the footage with the Ark Ministries team members is actually in a cave, some 13,000 feet high on Ararat, with some wooden beams and rope – nothing more!  Because of the unclear segway between the different footages, one is left with the distinct impression that this was all shot on the mountain, during one expedition, in one “cave” with several “wooden rooms.”

While watching the video, one has to ask questions when two men rappel down into this room – supposedly 13,000 feet above sea level, carrying very little gear, not even wearing ice-climbing crampons, wearing dust masks and coveralls!  I would think they would be wearing different clothing and carrying different equipment if they had just hiked up to the 13,000 foot mark on the mountain.

Wood fragments & beams:

Beams were apparently transported up the mountain and planted in a cave on two separate ocassions in 2008 and 2009, as has been claimed by several witnesses living the Ararat region.

The wood fragment that was carbon dated was apparently provided by Parasut – so not only do we not have a clue where this wood came from, the carbon date achieved is subsequently invalidated (and I’m not going to get into the dating methods used to date such fragments).

The actual location of the alleged site of Noah’s ark (the “rooms” Parasut and his men photographed and videotaped) is still kept secret, so no one can verify or refute the claims.

Healthy Skepticism:

Unfortunately, everything about the whole report smells of a hoax perpetrated on the Chinese team.  I must be clear: No one is suggesting that the Hong Kong team is involved in any way with the hoax – it would appear that they are the victims of a hoax.  Now of course, I would not be the only one who would be very happy to be proven wrong.  But at this point in time, there are many reasons to be highly, highly skeptical of the claims made thus far.

Perhaps the team will clarify several of the issues raised here, and perhaps correct me and say I have several points wrong.  However, I’m getting the same reports from multiple sources.

The Hong Kong team is doing some splendid work in Hong Kong, building a HUGE replica of Noah’s ark, complete with a creation museum in it. They deserve our support in these matters, as they are doing a tremendous, evangelical work in a country pretty much closed to evangelism.  We need to pray for the team, and especially that if this is a hoax, it would be exposed as such that the Hong Kong team may move on and focus on what the Lord would have them to do.

You can also read Randall Price’s comments here:  http://ezekielcountdown.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/randall-price-ark-pictures-are-fake/

Addendum: Forgot to add in this analysis:  http://smtp.antelecom.net/blogs/bsmaArk/

(Photo credit:  SWNS, one of the fossils Price, et al believe builds the case

that environmental changes killed the dinosaurs)

In my last newsletter, you’ll recall I reported on a team of 41 international scientists who got together to finally decide that it was an asteroid or comet that killed off the dinosaurs during the cretaceous. In that report, I explained why they were wrong and why Noah’s flood was the most likely culprit for killing off the dinos.
Of course, the anti-creationist camp touted their usual mockings towards myself and my fellow creationary thinkers, claiming that the issue was obviously settled, seeing as how 41 scientists came to the same conclusion, obviously we creationists were wrong, and the “scientists” were right (as if being a creationist has anything to do with whether or not you’re a scientist).

Well not two weeks after my report, another team of scientists conclude that NO, it was not an impact that killed the dinosaurs, it was a sudden temperature drop:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/dinosaurs/7624014/Dinosaurs-died-from-sudden-temperature-drop-not-comet-strike-scientists-claim.html

Of course, these scientists are also wrong for a variety of reasons, but I’ll write about that later. I just want to point out that no, the issue is most certainly not settled amongst the evolutionary/old earth camp, and the reason for that is because they have denied the blatantly obvious conclusion that one would arrive at by examining the evidence: It was a global flood that killed the dinosaurs.

More to come in my upcoming CrEvo newsletter.