A glimmer of light in Florida: "Academic Freedom" act would allow public school teachers to present science-based alternatives to Darwin

Greetings all.

I just got a piece of good news here in the Pacific Northwest from an Idaho friend Doctor B telling of a spark of hope for truth and light. Where? Florida.

Doctor B says:
"Academic freedom is on the march in Florida, where an education committee approved a bill which would allow public school teachers to present science-based alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution. The bill would not prevent the teaching of evolution in Florida's classrooms. Characteristically, the only individuals who brought up religion in testimony were opponents of the bill. Supporters were content to talk about science and the glaring scientific weaknesses of Darwinian theory. The bill now goes to the Senate judiciary committee."

You can read it on Tampa Bay Online:

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/mar/27/me-evolution-bill-moves-forward/

Tampa Tribune writer NICOLA M. WHITE writes:

"It's not about letting religion creep into science classrooms, Sen. Ronda Storms insisted.
It's about protecting the rights of students and teachers who don't agree with the science behind Darwinian evolution, the Republican from Valrico argued before the Senate's pre-k through 12 education committee voted 4-1 Wednesday to approve the bill.
Despite her argument, religion kept coming up anyway, as Storms pressed for her "academic freedom" act. Her bill would allow public school teachers to present science-based alternatives to Darwin's theory of evolution, a theory written into Florida's curriculum standards and one that is held as a fundamental concept of biology by most members of the science community."

Congratulations to Senator Storms. It seems that there remains some intelligence on this third rock from the sun after all.

Submitted with great regard for the esteemed Senator,

D.U.

Life as a CREATIONIST just gets better every day. Mantis shrimp can see circularly polarized light (CPL)

GO AHEAD. MAKE MY DAY!

Actually, my day is already made.


Glancing through my most recent copy of Science News (March 22, 2008, Vol. 173) did it for me. Maybe you can make your day the same way. Find it at:

http://www.sciencenewsmagazine.org/articles/20080322/fob2.asp

This one (pp. 179-180) is about the discovery that the mantis shrimp Odontodactylus cultrifer is able to detect circularly polarized light - the first creature known to do so.

As the SN article puts it:

"For love, some would twist the laws of physics. Short of doing that, mantis shrimp communicate with the other sex by spinning light waves, biologists find. The feat seems to be unique to this animal. "

Researcher Roy Caldwell of UC Berkeley says the skill, unknown in other animals, most likely helps the shrimp find mates. "It's the most private communication system imaginable," he says. "No other animal can see it."



Wanna see this cute little guy that is wired to find love? Here is SN's pic:

How does it do it? SN explains:
"The researchers found that some of the eyes' light-sensing cells doubled up as filters, explains Tom Cronin of UMBC. The cells have microscopic structures, like bristles of a toothbrush, that slightly slow light with electric fields parallel to the bristles, but not light with fields that are perpendicular. As a result, the twist of a circularly polarized wave will be flattened into a steady, linearly polarized wiggle, which another layer of sensory cells can then detect. Depending on their arrangement, bristled cells will select right- or left-handed polarization. This parsing enables mantis shrimp to distinguish the two types of light."

I mean, is that cool or what? For those who delight in the works of God, it just gets better and better.

But mantis shrimp detecting CPL is only one of many unique visual detection and communication systems in living things. If you only consider eye designs you may wish to peek at

http://www.eyedesignbook.com/

Eye Design Book author Curt Deckert, PhD, says:
"The frequency of similar but diverse eye designs of different sizes, shapes, and materials establishes persuasive evidence for a single designer, as compared to random events (designs) generating similar creatures. Random designs are more likely to be found in the form of non-living rock formations of Natural Parks, such as the Carlsbad Caverns, Zion, or Grand Canyon, rather than in discrete, functional, living, reproducible vision systems."

As mankind continues to uncover more and more of the mind-boggling features of nature, both living and non, the joy of creationists just continues to swell.


And the folks who insist that intricate complex systems exhibited in living things just somehow fall together by chance - again - and again - and again - just continue the weary broken-record mantra that:

"given enough time ... enough time ... enough time ... ,

all this stuff becomes

a sure thing ... a sure thing ... a sure thing ... a sure thing."

It simply rings more and more hollow. Anyone else out there weary of it?

Enough of the charade. Why don't the God-haters merely declare openly their scorn and hate of the almighty Creator God and be done with it? 'Cause it's not science, it's religion. Bad religion. For sure.

Submitted with great AWE and RESPECTFUL FEAR,

D.U.

The tuatara (Sphendon punctatus), Allan WIlson, and the age of stuff uncoupled.

Greetings today to all.

Executive summary:
Evolutionists try to undermine the creation-proving power of "living fossils" and "living dinosaurs" by saying the animal you see is "decoupled" from underlying genetics. The genes just keep a-changin' while the critters just stay the same. Understand that the fatal weakness of the argument continues to be in the ill-founded assumption of millions and millions of years for fossil ages.


So here we go today:

Dynamic genotype, stasis in phenotype ????

I first met Professor Dr. Allan Wilson when I attended a lecture he gave at Oregon State University around maybe 1990 when he lectured on mitochondrial DNA and the "discovery of Eve", mother of all living. He explained that, as mtDNA comes pretty much all through the mother, it is clear that all humans living today come from the same mother. He explained away the creation implication merely by waving his hands and saying that we have all come from the "lucky mother." All the other evolving mothers were genetically "unlucky" since their mtDNA suffered extinction in the natural course of things, just as folks could suffer family name extinction in a place like Pitcairn Island, of "Mutiny on the Bounty" fame.

Well, I know a bit about statistics and random processes. I was (and I am) absolutely sure Dr. Wilson was bluffing and blowing smoke since such extinction would surely not occur in a population model with an expanding and spreading population in which subsequent generations are geographically and culturally and linguistically isolated from each other and from the remnants of the original population. But that was not my major, so I leave the grunt work to another to do the proof. But if you argue with this, I dare ya to crunch the numbers. And make sure your assumptions are reasonable or the Undertaker's gonna come getcha.

So again today I met Dr. Wilson, so to speak.

I just saw today that a New Zealand lizard-like creature, the tuatara (Sphendon punctatus if you are into Latin), is the fastest-known evolving animal - a "living dinosaur."

Well, if you know me, you know I had to stop and take a look.

First, because when I hear stuff like "living dinosaur" and "living fossils," it is usually in a creationist context. Why? As we continue to point out, stasis (NOT continual change) is a major characteristic of the fossil record and continues to reaffirm the creation view of origins. In particular, stasis supports the Biblical view in which the Creator God of the Universe created living things to reproduce after their own kinds, which is in fact a working definition of stasis in species. See:

http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2007/11/todays-living-fossils-demonstrate.html

And of course I wondered how they came to this "fastest evolving" conclusion about the NZ critter. I especially was curious to see how they measured the rates of evolution, since DNA is not considered to survive in natural environments for more than 10,000 years absolutely positively tops.

I first saw about the tuatara on LiveScience on Yahoo! News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080326/sc_livescience/fastestevolvingcreatureislivingdinosaur

Now LiveScience said,
"It is the only surviving member of a reptilian order Sphehodontia that lived alongside early dinosaurs and separated from other reptiles 200 million years ago in the Upper Triassic period. To make the estimate of evolutionary speed, researchers recovered DNA sequences from the bones of ancient tuatara. The team found that although tuatara have remained largely unchanged physically over very long periods of evolution, they are evolving - at a DNA level - faster than any other animal yet examined."

The plot thickened. Saying "bones of ancient tuatara" did not tell me how old "ancient" really meant. And this paragraph seemed to imply that the evolutionary rate was actually measured over the 200 million years mentioned. That really had me curious since no one has come public (that I have seen) with DNA evaluation even for the 70-million year-old Montana T-Rex fossil with stretchy-squishy material announced a couple of years ago. Much less for 200 million-year-old DNA. I mean, who would even attempt such a measurement?

So I looked further and found:

http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-us/news/article.cfm?mnarticle=tuatara-evolving-faster-than-any-other-species-01-03-2008

Here the plot really thickened but then clarified. It seems that the research was done by Dr. David Lambert at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution in New Zealand, which appears associated with Massey University. The Massey U. article said:

"In a study of New Zealand’s “living dinosaur” the tuatara, evolutionary biologist Professor David Lambert and a team from the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution have recovered DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) sequences from the bones of ancient tuatara up to 8000 years old. They found that although tuatara, have remained largely physically unchanged over very long periods of evolution, they are evolving - at a DNA level - faster than any other animal yet examined. "

So they measured DNA changes over a period of as much as 8,000 years (if you wish to accept that number) up to the present time. But what about the 200 million years? Here is where it begins to clarify.

“Of course we would have expected that the tuatara, which does everything slowly – they grow slowly, reproduce slowly and have a very slow metabolism – would have evolved slowly. In fact, at the DNA level, they evolve extremely quickly, which supports a hypothesis proposed by the evolutionary biologist Allan Wilson, who suggested that the rate of molecular evolution was uncoupled from the rate of morphological evolution.” ... "Allan Wilson, who died of leukaemia in 1991, was a pioneer of molecular evolution. His ideas were controversial when introduced 40 years ago, but this new research supports them."

It is interesting that the results as published seem to support very keenly Allan Wilson's idea of uncoupled molecular evolution and morphological evolution. Why? Because if you EXTRAPOLATE the DNA rate of change measured over 8000 years out to the ASSUMED 200 million years, you would get lots and lots and lots of genetic change (genotype change). But the critter today still looks pretty much the same as fossils (morphological stasis). What does this "uncoupled" idea mean? It means the DNA (genotype) keeps changing and changing while the physical creature that you see with organs and limbs and whatnot all intact (phenotype) seems to change very little. You can see why such an idea would be controversial. On the face of it is illogical and would not be predicted.

But if you are an ardent Darwinian given enough time, the illogical magically becomes logical and the unthinkable becomes politically correct dogma. How is that? Because the 8,000 years (while maybe not precise from my view but OK for this discussion) has a measured rate. The 200 million years is grasped in a death grip of fanatical factophobic Darwinists who absolutely refuse to consider a much lower number for the age of the earth and the age of fossils seen.

And especially if you are working at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology and Evolution , you are going to be happy to get a result that supports Dr. Wilson's decoupling theory. Even if you have to assume ages that fly in the face of logic and observation. So it goes in science sometimes, I guess.

If you go with the alternate (and reasonable) hypothesis that phenotype change should be closely coupled with genotypic change, the observed "living dinosaur" (stasis) provides strong evidence of relatively young fossils, not fossils 200 million years old.

It seems what we really have is a decoupling of researchers' minds from any possibility that the Bible record of a recent creation could be credible. But if this is new to any of you reading this, just go Google "Bible Apologetics" and you will find that the Bible record over and over again has been shown to be credible. I tried it and found:

http://www.provethebible.net/ plus another 578,000 links.

It is surely time to undo the decoupling of science from the Bible.

And it seems one more vote for a recent age of living things.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.

Exciting Biomimetics and Regretful Statements by a Physics Nobel Prize Winner

Hi All :

I just popped the wrapping off my April, 2008, National Geographic (a continuing gift from my brother in Colorado who knows how to get something for the guy who has everything). You need to look at it too, and go for the article "BIOMIMETICS: design by nature" (p. 68).

In case you have not heard, biomimetics is the study of how things work in nature, with the potential goal of mimicking those features in new technology. Wow, look at all the great examples:
(1) boxfish contours inspire improved aerodynamics to boost auto gas mileage;
(2) the thorny desert lizard of Australia motivates a search for dry-region water-capture technology;
(3) the lowly cocklebur inspired velcro;
(4) the naturally self-cleaning and water-repellant lotus leaf inspired "Lotus effect" paints which "repel water and resist stains for decades";
(5) the humpback whale flipper's scallopped edge is inspiring tests of revised wind power turbine blades;
(6) sharkskin inspires synthetic fabrics and coatings which reduce drag, with applications from swimwear to Navy ship hulls;
(7) an insect (the fly) wing inspires new designs for wings;
(8) the gecko foot, with millions of "spatula-tipped hairs", inspires wall-crawling devices that would put Spiderman to shame;
(9) the nanoscale multifaceted eye of a moth is structured to reduce reflection, inspiring German engineers to develop a photosensitive lacquer to vastly reduce glare on a computer monitor.

And that is just the short list. An article in Science News some time ago ("Ocean Envy," Science News, September 4, 2004, Vol. 166, No. 10) took a look at a few "marvels of engineering" in describing locomotion of a variety of sea creatures. The SN article included the humpback whale mentioned in National Geographic, and discussed some biomimetic principles to develop improved watercraft:

"The tubercles significantly altered the flipper's performance in the fluid flow. Lift, comparable to the upward force on an airplane wing, was 8 percent greater on the scalloped flipper than on the smooth one. Drag, the counterbalancing force to lift, was as much as 32 percent less on the scalloped flipper than on the smooth one. The extra lift and reduced drag on the flipper turns a humpback's body more sharply than a smooth fin could.".

What to make of this? Golly, it sure looks like design! In fact, the cover page of the Science News, September 4, 2004, ran the byline "Marvels of Engineering."

Now the word "engineering" usually implies application of intelligence and design for a purpose. Pity the poor editors. When they know they are supposed to keep inferences of design out of their journals, it's just tough to keep out words like design and engineering when they seem so natural. It is just so natural to talk about the design or purpose of some structure in nature instead of merely referring to its function. Maybe discussion of teleonomy will come another day.

But the bottom line today is to contravene the regretful words of Eric Cornell, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Physics, adapted from a speech he gave at his induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (see TIME, November 14, 2005, "What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell"). Dr. Cornell opines that,
"...as exciting as intelligent design is in theology, it is a boring idea in science. Science isn't about knowing the mind of God; it's about understanding nature and the reasons for things." Then he goes on to say, "My call to action for scientists is, Work to ensure that the intelligent design hypothesis is taught where it can contribute to the vitality of a field (as it could perhaps in theology class) and not taught in science class , where it would suck the excitement out of one of humankind's great ongoing adventures."

Well, belief in intelligent design was in fact THE MOTIVATION for the founders of many of the disciplines of modern science. Let's just take one example. A prayer of James Clerk Maxwell, who formulated the four laws of electomagnetic field theory, said this:
" Almighty God, Who hast created man in Thine own image, and made him a living soul that he might seek after Thee, and have dominion over thy creatures, teach us to study the works of Thy hands, that we may subdue the earth for our use, and strengthen the reason for Thy service; so to receive thy blessed Word, that we may believe on Him Whom Thou hast sent, to give us the knowledge of salvation and the remission of our sins. All of which we ask in the name of the same Jesus Christ, our Lord."

James Clerk Maxwell does not sound "bored" and it does not sound like the excitement of his work had been sucked out. Actually he sounds highly motivated, as in "motivated by the Most High God (El Shaddai)".

And I would venture that James Clerk Maxwell will be remembered long after Eric Cornell is long forgotten.

Need more examples? Just go read some history of science. Maybe begin with The Soul of Science by Pearcey and Thaxton. Don't skip Chaper One.

And this biomimetics stuff - figuring out designs that are already there - is very exciting to some folks. The NG article quotes Andrew Parker, thorny devil lizard researcher:
"I could look through here and find 50 biomimetics projects in half an hour. I try not to walk in here in the evening, because I end up getting carried away and working until midnight."

Finally, beginning with the correct world view (that the world is designed by God, though since fallen to some degreee in the physical world) tends to guide research correctly. Read my recent post about "junk DNA" and "vestigial organs."

http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2008/03/junk-dna-and-kindra-grinsell-poster.html

If you read it carefully, you will see that some folks would have had the Human Genome Project map only the protein-coding part of the genome and not "waste" time on all that non-coding "junk DNA". Maybe all that "micromanager RNA" was discovered only because the Director of the HGP was Francis Collins, who was and is a bold advocate for faith in God. He wrote the book, "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." See:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/03/collins.commentary/index.html

Here is a guy who knows God does not make junk, and had good (theological) reason to look for "signal" in what another man considered "noise."

So... when Dr. Eric Cornell, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics , says "What Was God Thinking? Science Can't Tell," he is simply flat-out wrong. The hydraulics folks started to get clued in what God was thinking when they deduced that those cleverly crafted humpback whale fins increase force and reduce drag. The Human Genome Project folks figured out that God was thinking "micromanager RNAs" (and more) when he created the FULL genome. And there is surely much much more God was thinking in creation. For as much as we now know in modern science, we suspect there is much more that man is only now beginning to glimpse dimly.

And that is not exciting?

I feel sorry for Dr. Cornell that he can find only such earth-bound meaning in the research that he does. But I am much sadder that he deceives people. He deceives people by pompously proclaiming that his way is not only best, but the only way. His promising path for scientific inquiry is to first toss God off the boat and then vaingloriously man the helm to puff the pride of pretentious humanity.

That boat sounds a bit like Titanic to me.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.

MORE ON THE T-REX "FRESH STRETCHY" FEMUR MATERIAL

Hi there y'all. This one is about:

Inferring the obvious from the fact,
denying the inference from the obvious.

I posted about a year ago about the survival of protein in the "fresh stretchy" femur material of the Montana T-Rex.

http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2007/04/wow-i-guess-were-fonna-have-to-rethink.html

Well, "Tantalus Prime", who identifies him/her/it-self as a "misanthropic" something or another who also happens to study neuroscience, posted a link to my post on his blog berating my ignorance, apparently because my degreed training in physics, mathematics, and engineering lacks sufficient credentials in neurology.

It seems TP brags that he predicted some idiot creationist would jump on the intact protein as evidence of a younger age of T-Rex than 68 M years, and proudly pounds his(?) chest when I stumbled into his(?) prediction in a mere two days. See:

http://tantalusprime.blogspot.com/2007/04/i-have-to-admit-when-im-wrong.html

Let's figure this out.

TP immediately recognized that intact T-Rex protein could be taken as an evidence of a younger T-Rex. Congrats TP, you went properly from observation (fact) to inference.

Then TP says I, the Undertaker, am the simpleton in this game because I posted this inference.

Huh?

But it seems clear that mounting evidence such as the T-Rex femur material helps to establish the FACT of a younger T-Rex.

TP denies this conclusion. On what grounds? Maybe TP is a Gouldist - an ardent believer in the deity of Stephen J. Gould, who must have been speaking with infallibilty - ex-cathedra if you are Catholic - when he declared, "Evolution is a fact like apples falling out of trees."

I guess when you KNOW the fact of evolution, anything else is unthinkable.

I hope some of you who may read this will grasp the incongruity of TP's "logic". While true scientists would seek to come to understanding of facts from fair inferences, TP immediately grasps the inference (younger T-Rex) and runs off ranting against the fact inferred (younger T-Rex).

I fear for the future of neuroscience with such practitioners in the pipeline.

I may not be able to quote perfectly something I had tacked on my den wall a number of years ago, but here is a try at it:

"Nothing is more tragic and heart-rending than to see a beautiful theory assailed by a brutal gang of facts."

Keep those facts a-comin', folks.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.

"Junk DNA", "vestigial" organs, and a poster child for California (mis)education

Greetings to all you wanderers who land in the graveyard today. It is just good to know that not all who wander are lost.

You know, I have never met Kendra Grinsell. I don't know if she is smiley or frowny, don't know if she is a Miss or Mrs or Ms, don't know if Kendra has 2.5 children and a dog, or what. All I know is that I only today read a statement attributed to her by a 2004 article in the Sacramento Bee that qualifies her, in this blogster's humble view, to be the poster child of California (mis)education. And I don't always name names, but M. Grinsell, in a public position, put her name and words (and reputation) into the public square. So, here goes.

DUHH ...

It seems that in 2004, trustees of the Roseville (California) Joint Union High School District decided to keep anti-evolution ideas out of biology classes (see Sacramento Bee article:

http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/news/education/story/9195255p-10120592c.html ).

It is an interesting read, but most stunning to me was the last paragraph of the article:
"It's still an issue that they're saying we've got to teach strengths and weaknesses," said Kendra Grinsell, chairwoman of Woodcreek High School's science department. "It wouldn't be a theory if there were weaknesses."

I think it was Jesus who mentioned something about the blind leading the blind. If the Bee's quote and attribution are correct, here is a chairwoman of a high school science department who does not even understand that the scientific method begins with a hypothesis which is subsequently tested by observations which may then falsify or support the hypothesis. By a long long string of successes, a theory may be elevated to a "law" of science. If the Bee's attribution is correct, then serious miseducation in science in California is well into the second generation. If M. Grinsell is close to retirement, then California science miseducation is thoroughly embedded in the third generation and likely beyond.

So let's do just a little bit of the "testing" that M. Grinsell does not understand. We are not going everywhere with this. We are not going to run with the big dogs of genomic entropy or intelligent design or the fossil record. We are just going to peek at a teentsy slice. We will merely look at some implications of the growth of our knowledge of "junk" DNA and "vestigial" organs and see if Mr. Darwin's predictions will wash or wash out.

JUNK DNA:

My poking around today began as I read an article in Science News entitled "MICROMANAGERS: New Classes of RNAs emerge as key players in the brain." (Science News, March 1, 2008, vol 173, p. 136). This article was discussing the great importance of a certain class of "non-coding" DNA, i.e. segments of DNA which are not known to code for the synthesis of any known protein. I knew that 30 years ago most scientists considered that the great majority of DNA was "junk DNA', remnants of forms either attempted with failure or selected out by competition against subsequent new and improved forms. It was Professor Susumu Ohno who stated, “at least 90% of our genomic DNA is ‘junk’ or ‘garbage’ of various sorts” (Ohno, S. 1972. So much "junk" DNA in our genome. In Evolution of Genetic Systems (ed. H.H. Smith), pp. 366-370. Gordon and Breach, New York.). When I first heard that, I knew the good professor was way off base, because I know GOD DOES NOT MAKE JUNK. Now accumulations of mutations after the "fall of man" following a perfect creation may create a fair amount of excess baggage as time goes on. But 90%? Uh-uh! And I told that to many people doing research in our local medical university. The increased respect (even awe) now held by the formerly spurned and disdained "non-coding" 90% of DNA is a major story of modern science - and should be a major story of modern science education.

The Science News "MICROMANAGERS" article caught my eye as it said, "Some researchers estimate that as much as 98% of the human genome is copied into RNA ... That figure is vastly different from what was originally postulated." And it goes on to say, "Researchers now know that noncoding RNAs get involved in virtually everything that happens in or to a cell, St. Laurent says. The molecules are control freaks, touching every piece of cellular machinery. They monitor temperature, chemical conditions, electrical currents, and other signals from the environment and then tell the cell how to respond."

Recognition of the value of the entire genome has been building for a number of years, but especially since the completion of the Human Genome Project. See:
"Junk' throws up precious secret," BBC News Online , May 12, 2004.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3703935.stm

"Despite all the questions that this research has raised, one thing is clear: scientists need to review their ideas about junk DNA.
Professor Chris Ponting, from the UK Medical Research Council's Functional Genetics Unit, told BBC News Online: 'Amazingly, there were calls from some sections to only map the bits of genome that coded for protein - mapping the rest was thought to be a waste of time.
'It is very lucky that entire genomes were mapped, as this work is showing.' He added: 'I think other bits of 'junk' DNA will turn out not to be junk. I think this is the tip of the iceberg, and that there will be many more similar findings.'"

So why is there such an upward shift in respect for the "non-coding DNA"? Simply because the general acceptance of Darwin's evolutionary ideas earlier led to the PREDICTION (although rarely stated explicitly as such) that there must be and are useless remnants of DNA left over and left behind from mutations of the past, and that these "vestigial DNA" segments would have a substantial presence in the genome. And well, golly, 90% non-coding means 90% vestigial seemed to just feel kind of right if you were an ardent Darwinist.

The point here: Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory led scientists to believe that the 90% of DNA was useless. The Biblical Creation hypothesis suggested that likely a very large part of the DNA was still functioning as from the beginning, albeit with diminished utility because of natural decay processes active following the fall of man recorded in the Bible, Genesis Chapter 3. Which prediction verified? Without question, the Darwinian "prediction" failed miserably, and delayed the progress of science in the process. Without question, the Biblical Creation hypothesis verified. And the progress of science would have been accelerated had this hypothesis been functioning as the operative view.

Result? GOD, 1. darwin, 0.


VESTIGIAL ORGANS:

The same thing comes up with so-called "vestigial" organs - organs which are considered useless remnants of evolution - remnants of forms which failed or were selected out by subsequent competition. Same story as above. Only a bit more than 100 years ago, the number of organs considered "vestigial" exceeded 100. See:

http://www.creationinthecrossfire.com/Articles/VestigialOrgans.html

"While Robert Wiedersheim listed 180 alleged vestigial or rudimentary organs in 1895, today the list is down to a handful..l Vestigial organs were considered passé because of ignorance, but now we have discovered important biological functions and necessity for every one of them. At an ICR summer institute, Dr. Richard Lumsden stated emphatically that there are no vestigial organs. Creationists would do well to ask, "What was this made for?" when looking at a seemingly useless body part. Since God made the whole body, He had a reason for including every part."

I had the pleasure, by the way, to meet Dr. Richard Lumsden, sitting across from him in a cafeteria in Pittsburgh, PA, USA, about 10 years ago. It would take a lot of ink to print his resume, but what I remember most is that, in his later professional years, he came to consider creation - and then God - and then Jesus - as a result of challenges raised to him (after his class lecture on evolution) by a young pre-med student. She told him that she "just wanted to get her science straight." She later went to Africa to bring healing of both body and soul to that continent.

But why was there such a reigning presumption that so many organs (180 in 1895) were useless? Again, the presumption was made because the reigning Darwinian paradigm demanded that, as evolution marches onward, organs are left behind as well as species. Organs may be left behind with the remnant DNA continuing to express proteins that continue to make the useless organs generation after generation until some other mutation comes along to cease the waste.

But the creation hypothesis says that organs are made for a reason. Even if scientists, for a season, do not understand the function, we still presume the organ is useful until proven useless.

The summary here? Same as with "vestigial" DNA:

GOD, 1. darwin, 0.

THE FINAL TALLY: GOD, 2. darwin, 0.

So there is the result of our little tests of the hypothesis that M. Grinsell seemed to think needs no test. Her Darwinian hypthesis fell flat on its face by virtue of FAILED PREDICTIONS - in both cases.

The little picture shows how continued observation of both organ usefulness and DNA usefulness has led to clear agreement with the creation hypothesis: "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth."

Respectully,

D.U.

SETI yada yada yada SETI

Well, Seinfeld is gone. But will he ever be really gone? The wildly popular TV show added lots of stuff to Americana, so Seinfeld lives on vicariously. Have you heard - or used - the expression "yada yada yada" to imply talk-talk-talk without revealing any of the content of that talk? Thank you, Jerry.

WiIkipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yada_yada) informs that the April 24, 1997, Seinfeld episode had George's girlfriend relentlessly using the phrase "yada yada yada." Jerry says that at least she is succinct and that it is like "dating the USA Today."

So what is yada yada yada now? Yea, I guess I just have to admit it - I am irritated that the mindless Darwinian ideologues continue to mouth the mantra of evolution (by chance of course) to produce everything from aardvarks to zzebras, and we'uns tossed in there somewhere as well. And all that with pompous pontification, as if all you need to establish "TRUTH" is for one of THEM to simply speak the words. My now, aren't they quite the thing! I would be more impressed - and inclined to listen seriously - if one of these cerebrologues could merely speak a world into existence somewhere .... as in "And God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was light."

Hailing clear back to the Roseville (California) School Board hearings, reported in the Sacramento Bee, May 6, 2004, many objected to teaching the controversy of Darwinism, saying it should be opposed because detecting intelligent design in biology is "religion." I liked the Access Research Network description line (http://www.arn.org/docs2/news/newsarchives.htm), observing "SETI must then be 'religion' as well."

So ARN "gets it." I hope more people start to get this point about the inherent nature of SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence). See your fearless blogster's punditification way back in November, 2007:
http://darwin-is-dead.blogspot.com/2007/11/nova-judgment-day-dover-pa-judge-would.html

Here is the repeat:
"So is Intelligent Design (ID) science? To get some traction on this question, let's ask if all the money the US is spending on "search for extraterrestrial intelligence" (SETI) is for "science". My take on it is that the ID folks are the first to really try to synthesize a science framework to discern whether things we observe are sourced in intelligent or in non-intelligent entities or processes. If there is no formal framework to do so, all our SETI money is down the rathole since whatever we observe can not be objectively ("scientifically") identified as inferring intelligent origin. If congress would threaten to eliminate SETI funding because it can produce no verifiable "scientific" result, there will be a whole bunch of salary-threatened folks out at NASA and elsewhere jumping on the ID bandwagon.Now that would really be fun to watch."


But as it stands now, from NASA to Roseville, a few bytes of ordered-appearing "information" might infer SETI? But billions of bytes of information in the nuclear DNA of one cell fail to infer intelligent origin? For matters of intelligence, how vacuous.

Vacuous indeed!

Yada yada yada.

Respectfully submitted,

D.U.

P.S. Wikipedia also informs that: "The word yada is Hebrew for intimacy, so technically, when Elaine says, we went back to his place and 'yada, yada, yada....' Ironically, this could mean (though almost certainly not to her knowledge) that they did have sex." So maybe the cerebrologistic ideologues with the "evolution yada yada yada" are all in bed together in a vast left-wing anti-God Anti-American atheistic conspiracy? ... Well, actually, yeah.