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Creation 23(4):4–5, September 2001

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Fish crossing

I teach 7th-12th grade science from a Biblical creation perspective at a Christian school. My students gained a new enthusiasm for science and creation when I shared your article about the liger and the wholphin (22(3):28-33). Garrett Lentz, a 7th grade life science student, was so interested in this idea of interbreeding species that he decided to do his science fair project on this topic. He won our local science fair with his cross between the two species of tropical fish Xiphophorus variatus and Xiphophorus xiphidium. The offspring [pictured] are fertile, though breeding and gestation were slower. I am very impressed because he didn’t just find out about a cross that happened unexpectedly, but started out with the idea that a cross might be possible and showed two species were the same kind in an experiment.

Perhaps others will continue with this idea, and more crosses will give us more evidence and support for the idea of Biblical kinds.

LARRY GRISE
Texas, USA.


Glided tour

Thank you, thank you, thank you!! Your ministry means more than you can imagine to us. As my daughter (7) walked around the Smithsonian Natural History Museum recently, she got madder and madder since everything is presented as evolution-is-fact.

So she walked around explaining to another visitor about the correct date and age of things, and that the Earth is not millions of years old, and explaining that God created these incredible things. I was amazed at her knowledge and resolve. Thank you for providing information for parents to use to plant the seeds in our children!

THE GLIDEWELL FAMILY
Georgia, USA.


Clarifying creation

Wow! Dr Wieland’s article ‘Muddy Waters’ (23(3):26-29) is the best explanation of what natural selection is and is not that I have ever read. It is written in such a clear and understandable way that it makes it obvious that there are limits to the variation that natural processes can account for. It makes it obvious that to explain the origin of life and its diversity requires a creative intelligence.

Given the information-rich, amazingly complex, and integrated structures found in the biological world, what a creative intelligence this must be! [CMI] serves our Creator well by honouring Him and His Word as the source of truth and the touchstone upon which we must base our life.

ERIC THOMPSON
Ohio, USA.


Khazar Khonfusion?

In his article on population growth (Where are all the people? Creation 23(3):52–55), Don Batten states that the descendants of Jacob numbered about 18 million in 1930. This is not strictly correct because over the centuries, many gentiles adopted Judaism as their religion and no doubt some Jews gave up Judaism. The British, American and Jewish encyclopedias confirm that, in the 8th century (ad), a large number of gentiles in Europe took up Judaism because their king Bulan of Khazaria so decided. In these circumstances, it would be improper to use the Jews for population projections.

GRAHAM WILSON
East Lothian, Scotland.

Dr Jonathan Sarfati (himself ethnically Jewish) replies:

The idea that the Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews are really Khazar converts comes from Arthur Koestler, a secular Jew with anti-establishment tendencies. But it is almost universally discounted by historians as contradicting the extremely well-documented evidence of Jewish history. In reality only a tiny number of Khazars converted to Judaism, while far more converted to Islam and also some to Russian Orthodoxy.

The Khazar converts to Judaism had effectively disappeared by the 14th century, largely by being incorporated into already existing Jewish communities in Poland.

Furthermore, Michael Hammer of the University of Arizona in Tucson studied the Y-chromosomes of a number of different people groups. He found that Ashkenazi and other Jewish populations from all over the world had such strong similarities that they must have come from a common ancestor. The Bible tells us who: Jacob/Israel, son of Isaac the son of Abraham. The Jews were also close to the Arabs, consistent with their descent from Ishmael, the half-brother of Isaac.

Dr Batten’s calculations are therefore an excellent approximation.

Hammer, M.F., et al., Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences early edition, pp. 1-6, 2000.

Sarfati, J.D. Genesis correctly predicts Y-Chromosome pattern: Jews and Arabs shown to be descendants of one man! </docs2/4304 news5-16-2000.asp>, 16 May 2000. (Commentary on above study plus overview of Jewish history, including refuting the false Khazar/Ashkenazi and ‘British Israelite’ views.)


Neandertal Neighbours

I recently saw a man in a queue at the supermarket with brow ridges about of an inch in protrusion, who also had a squarish jaw line. Just 10 minutes before, I had picked up from the post a [CMI] brochure and read the blurb for the book on Neandertals, Buried Alive. I was amazed; I thought, ‘Living proof is right before me that we are all of one blood.’

ALDO D’ANDREA
Essex, England.

Even some evolutionists have noted that Neandertal-like features appear sporadically in living populations. A genetic link between them and us contradicts not only the ‘out-of-Africa’ theory of human evolution, but also the teaching by Hugh Ross and other ‘progressive creationists’ that Neandertals were some sort of soul-less not-quite-human animals—Ed.


Lab real

After a scoffer read one of my Creation magazines, where he came across the article ‘Radio-dating in rubble’ (23(3):23-25), he questioned the authenticity of Geochron Laboratories. As a result, he had some people check into it and has yet to find any such company. I also would like to know if they exist now. So could you please send me an address, phone, fax etc. where they can be contacted?

JAMES OPPERMAN
Pennsylvania, USA.

Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Geochron is one of the largest radiodating concerns in the world. See <www.geochronlabs.com>.

Ironically, another sceptic tried to refute another of our radiometric ‘dating’ articles by appealing to a Geochron employee. See Dr Tas Walker’s refutation by searching our site for ‘Geochron’—Ed.