Darwin’s Albatross

In Six Days

2011-04-24T15:39:00.000-07:00

Scripture clearly, simply, and unquestionably states that God created the world in six days:

"Six days [Yom] shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work.... For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day...." (Exodus 20:9-11).

Yom, the Hebrew word for day is always used in Scripture to denote a literal 24-hour day. Pope Benedict appeared to affirm this biblical prerequisite during an Easter Vigil mass, in St. Peter's Basilica:

"If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense...."

However, his words just don't ring true: Catholic schools include evolution in their science curriculums; Catholic churches teach evolution as a natural God perpetuating process; the Vatican consistently affirms that the "science" of human evolution and faith are not inconsistent.

An earlier pope also allowed "research and discussions...[to] take place with regard to the doctrine of evolution" (Pope Pius XII, Encyclical, Humani Generi, 1950). Attempting to bridge controversy, this pope re-introduced the heretical body-spirit dichotomy of first century Gnostics, i.e., the body matters not, spirit is all. However, the Lord's linage is a linage of the flesh and consequently:

".... every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world" (1John 4:3).

The Babel Syndrome

2011-03-12T23:57:00.001-08:00

"Elementary, My Dear Watson"

2011-02-16T00:40:00.000-08:00

Watson is cheating! Unlike his competitors, he has the unfair advantage of being given a question as an ASCII text message. This is virtually instant i.e., not requiring optical character or speech recognition.

Watson is essentially a basic computer algorithm that searches multiple databases for a closely correlated set of words (those contained in the text question). Once sectors of correlating databases have been identified, these sectors are searched for the single word or phrase of highest occurrence. Add the "What is" prefix and Watson, using voice synthesis commonly found at the checkout counter, spews out an answer.

Watson also has the home team advantage at IBM headquarters where the games were taped, not to mention the virtually unlimited computing power of Watson's refrigerated mainframe. Watson is also allowed unlimited space rather than being restricted between his two spatially disadvantaged competitors.

While his IBM developers affirm it would be unfair to connect to internet, they are actually being deceptive. Raw internet content would be unmanageable; too much inaccurate information. Everyone knows, you can't believe everything you read on the internet. For this reason, pre-processed internet content (reputable databases that Jeopardy uses for determining questions) is stored in Watson's massive memory repository. If that is not cheating, what is!

Of course most will still steadfastly contend that Watson is far more sophisticated even though he repeated Ken Jennings' previously incorrect answer, a coding error most Junior High programmers would have caught. You can be sure that IBM heads will roll tomorrow!

All being said, the Jeopardy event was a more entertaining IBM commercial than their standard fair.

Darwin

2009-11-05T22:22:00.001-08:00

Lucy’s Out, Ida’s In, Here We Go Again!

2009-05-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

The "eighth wonder of the world" or an “asteroid falling down to Earth" is how Philip Gingerich and his confraternity of palaeontologists today praised the skeletal remains of a lemur dubbed Ida. It afforded some an uneasy sense of déjà vu as they recalled Donald Johanson presenting his “bona fide” “crown jewel of pre-human fossils” Lucy to the world a quarter century earlier. Almost felt sorry for Johanson whose life and legacy is so inextricably mingled that of his creation, and how as lowly assistant and associate professor was able to so convincingly dupe a credulous world into accepting rarified artifacts of pseudo pre-human linage.

Interesting how these two “oracles” of origins make common claim: their “Lady” is a transitional species i.e., the “missing link.” Assuming for a moment that Darwin’s premise is true i.e., species experience structural aberration over evolutionary intervals of time. However, we are immediately confronted with a problem: why isn’t this evident in the fossil record? Not just Lucy or Ida, but other transitional forms. And not just other transitional forms, but all forms that lived to fossilize i.e., a continuum, an ad infinitum of aberration that would render either Lucy or Ida or any fossil indistinguishable from any other? Do not those professing to be “wise” have an answer?

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up….” (Romans 1:22-24).

Dino DNA Anyone?

2008-04-20T00:03:00.000-07:00

In Science, 25 March 2005, Mary Higby Schweitzer (North Carolina State University) announced the recovery of “soft tissue” from marrow in fossilized leg bone of a 68 million-year-old Tyrannosaurus ( MOR 1125).

Since that discovery three years ago, not a single mainstream “scientist” (including Schweitzer) has asked the obvious question: “If soft tissue hardly survive a thousand years, might it be possible that dinosaur remains may not be 68 million-year-old?

Since MOR 1125, there have been three other independent “soft tissue” confirmations, two tyrannosaurs and a hadrosaur.

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.... Who changed the truth of God into a lie” (Romans 1:20-25).

The Path Science Follows

2008-04-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

Despite media hype, Johanson's most recent discovery is actually the most discrediting evidence to date for Lucy as mankind's precursor. Not only does it confirm that she had a very ape-like skull with a cranial capacity only one third that of modern man, it also reveals that Lucy's species failed to exhibit evolutionary change! Johanson's radiometric dating indicates that the species had only 3 million years to evolve [into man], yet he determined a period of at least 1 million years during which no [evolutionary] change occurred! Johanson’s all too casual response "This raises many new questions….”

Hopefully, as they prepare for the coming year, teachers will not be intimidated by curriculum constraints, but will research the "evidence" in their texts regarding evolution. How appropriate to encourage students to scrutinize evolutionist dogma, challenging them to critique its compliance with scientific method. But most important, remind them that the path science takes in converging to the truth is as much a function of the personalities involved as the reality revealed.

Neanderthal Man

2008-04-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

Skeletal deformities due to age, disease, arthritis, or natural racial variation are apparent reasons human remains have been erroneously classified as Neanderthal.

Evolutionists still regarding Neanderthal Man as a missing link find it a difficult position to maintain with the accumulation of new data: "Modern Homo sapiens Preceded Neanderthals on Mount Carmel..." is the editorial line of an article in the April 93 Scientific American . The mystified author summarizes: "The results have shaken the traditional evolutionary scenario, producing more questions than answers."

Peking Man

2008-04-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

An assortment of skull fragments was the meager evidence that allowed 1927 evolutionists to envision Peking Man. When releasing information to the press, they neglected to mention that modern human remains, contemporaneous with Peking Man, had also been found during excavation. When scrutiny became more intense in later years, the "evidence," except for a few plaster casts of questionable accuracy, mysteriously disappeared. Today, most experts agree that Peking Man was merely an ape consumed as food by modern humans.

Nebraska Man

2007-05-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Illustrated London News, July 24, 1922.

A single tooth and some supposed tools were the only “evidence” for Nebraska Man discovered in 1922. It was immediately acknowledged as a "missing link" by leading evolutionists including the highly regarded Henry F. Osborn. Reconstructions using the “evidence” yielded copy and illustration appearing in newspapers and journals internationally. The “evidence” was even used in the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial." Later excavations however, revealed that the tooth was that of a wild pig (Science, Dec 16, 1927).

Piltdown Man

2007-05-23T22:19:00.000-07:00

Commemorating the edifice of Evolution: left front: A S Underwood, Arthur Keith, W P Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester. Left back: F O Barlow, G Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. From portrait by John Cooke, 1915.

A jaw and a skull were the only remnants of Piltdown Man. For over 40 years, hundreds of “scientists” regarded this as classic proof of human evolution. And that situation may have continued except for a dentist (an amateur paleontologist) who determined that the Piltdown evidence was the combination of a human skull and the filed and stained jaw of an ape. Numerous books have been written investigating the identity of the hoaxer. More recently, Piltdown: A Scientific Forgery (1990) was an attempt by evolutionist Frank Spencer to regain credibility for the scientific community by admitting guilt and assigning blame. However, this belated confession is no consolation for those who based their eternal destinity on “Science.”

Java Man

2007-05-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

A skullcap and a femur uncovered a year and twelve meters apart, was the "quintessential evidence" for Java Man on the Indonesian island of that name. Eugène Dubois, the self-assured discoverer, immediately christened his find Pithecanthropus Erectus (erect ape man).

Imaginative artistic reconstructions, based on a single bone and a skull fragment, appeared in newspapers, magazines, and academic journals arresting the 1892 public’s attention.

The creditability of the discovery was immediately challenged, and the “brute” was generally dismissed as the jumbled combination of human and ape remains. Although Dubois contested that the relics were from a single individual, decades later it was reported that his Pithecanthropus collection contained an additional left femur i.e., Java Man had “two left feet.”

However, despite the hominid’s dubious authenticity, the “evidence” came just in time to rescue Darwin’s waning theory of evolution, a theory that had been increasingly discredited due to a lack of transitional fossil evidence.

The real intrigue of the Java narrative is not the revelation of some primeval “brute” but rather the humanity of its “evolved” counterpart who, compelled by arrogance and ambition, coerced his family to leave the familial setting of his professorship in Amsterdam and live among the danger, pestilence, and stagnant malaria infested waters of the impenetrable jungles of Java. Dubois buried four children there (American Scientist, Vol: 87, Num: 6, p504). And as the desperate ship’s captain, on the itinerant paleontologist’s eventual return to Europe, readied the lifeboats during a violent storm, Dubois instructed his wife: “If the lifeboat is lowered, you see to the little ones, for I shall have to look after this [Pithecanthropus]."

Lucy

2007-04-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

Earlier this spring [August 94], USA Today carried the cover story New Skull Illuminates Early Man referring to Donald Johanson's most recent discovery as the crown jewel of pre-human fossils. Johanson, founder of the Institute of Human Origins, led the team that discovered Australopithicus Afarensis (Lucy) in Africa's Great Rift Valley 20 years ago. This recent find provides the first complete skull of Lucy's species, generally acknowledged as the missing link between ape and man.

Australopithecus afarensis,
AL288-1 (Lucy), Museo
Nacional de Antropologia,
Mexico City.

A three part Nova series aired nationwide in February to commemorate the event. The series, hosted by Johanson and produced in part by his wife, confidently reconstructed Lucy's past using frequent scenes of aberrant human forms wondering among “prehistoric” settings.

But what was the evidence that was so complete, so convincing, so indisputable it allowed Johanson to win almost universal acceptance of Lucy's species as our predecessor? Before revealing the surprising answer, let’s first review some former "crown jewels of pre-human fossils."

Darwin’s Albatross

2007-04-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

Immediate posts are a revision of a column published August 94 regarding the path “science” takes in converging to the “truth.”