Focus: news of interest about creation and evolution
Butterflies’ magnetic compass
Researchers have found that monarch butterflies have a built-in magnetic compass
as a navigation aid in their long migrations — e.g. from autumn breeding grounds
in Canada to a winter haven in Mexico, over 4,000 km (2,500 miles) away.
Amazingly, these millions of migrants are going to a destination not one of them
has ever seen, yet they return to the same roosting areas that their great-great
grandparents (or even more distant ancestors) used.
It has long been known that monarchs can orient themselves by the sun, but this
is the first direct evidence that they can also sense directions from the earth's
magnetic field (though this had been suspected for some time — see
The magnificent migrating monarchCreation 20(1):29-31).
However, the experts caution that this discovery is only a small step towards explaining
how monarchs navigate. ‘What the butterflies are doing is very complicated,’
they said. ‘They use things we can't perceive, maybe even things we can't
conceive.’
Science News, November 27, 1999, p. 343.
Things that man cannot even conceive…this indicates a Master Designer, the
Creator of ‘the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them’
(Exodus 20:11).
Plant fossil a record
Fossilized plant spores have been found buried deeper in the earth's rock layers
than ever before. Secular geologists believe that these Cambrian rocks were laid
down more than 500 million years ago, so, for evolutionists, this addition to the
fossil record pushes the origin of land plants back tens of millions of years earlier
than they thought. This is a problem for them, because it leaves even less time
for land plants to have allegedly evolved from green algae.
New Scientist, March 18, 2000, p. 15.
In the face of such evidence, some evolutionists are increasingly entertaining the
notion that bacterial or other spores came to Earth from elsewhere in the universe
(see 'Did Life come from outer space?' p. 40).
In fact, the order of burial in the fossil record simply reflects the order of burial
in the worldwide Flood of around 4,500 years ago, the subsequent Ice Age, and its
aftermath.
Flamingo cat ‘not a fantasy’
A new evolutionary British television series is being prepared for screening next
year using the same production techniques used in Walking with Dinosaurs.
This series, however, will portray ‘lifeforms which will evolve millions of
years into the future’, including flying squid, blood-sucking bees and giant
rats.
One of the alleged creatures presented is a ‘flamingo cat’, which has
long, pink, hairless 'stick' legs for wading in the sea for prawns. Its moustache-like
whiskers will help it filter food out of the water.
A scientific adviser to the series claimed, 'We have devised about 40 computer-generated
animals on evolutionary principles, so the series will not be a fantasy.'
The Sunday Telegraph, <www.news.com.au>, June 4, 2000.
‘Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed
animals and crawling creatures’ (Romans 1:22–23).
Fruit flies spread wings
From a few European fruit flies introduced accidentally to Chile, 22 years ago,
a whole new population of this species has grown to cover much of the west coast
of the USA — and in doing so they are echoing a very curious feature of their
European cousins. Back in Europe, for reasons unknown, flies’ wingspans vary
with latitude, i.e. longest wingspans in the north, shortest in the south. And now
the same characteristic is showing up in America.
Tests have shown that the differences between northern and southern flies in the
USA are due to differences in genetic make-up, and that the degree of wingspan lengthening
is similar to that observed in Europe.
But the adaptation in America has been achieved differently, as it is another part
of the wing that has become longer. Evolutionists are astonished at this ‘alarming’
rate of change.
New Scientist, January 22, 2000, p. 15.
Informed creationists are not at all surprised by this example of rapid change in
response to environmental pressures, as it gives an insight into how the earth's
many ecological niches were recolonised after the Flood. (See also
Brisk bitersCreation 21(2):41.)
The longer wings should not be mistaken as evidence for ‘evolution’.
Rearrangements in existing genes, and possibly deleterious mutations in control
genes, can affect characteristics such as wing length. However, such mutations do
not add information (the wing is no more complex).
Vampire birds
Birds that regularly perch on large mammals are usually thought to help them by
eating the ticks on their hides. But a study of red-billed oxpeckers in Zimbabwe
has found that oxen accompanied by these feathered companions have just as many
ticks as oxen artificially kept separate from these birds.
Closer scrutiny showed that the red-billed oxpeckers, instead of helping the animals,
actually spent much of their time picking at the oxen's wounds. Describing oxpecker
behaviour, one researcher said, '‘They return to the site of the wound and
chisel away at the scab until the blood is flowing freely. We had a donkey with
a hole in its leg that you could insert a finger into.’
New Scientist, April 29, 2000, p. 19.
Researchers are increasingly observing such behaviour in the wild, e.g. the ‘vampire
finches’ of the Galápagos Islands. (See
Piranha article on p. 20.)
After death entered the world because of Adam's sin, perhaps scavenging from carcasses
and blood-sucking from the wounds of live animals were intermediate phases leading
to full-blown carnivory.
Once a taste for blood had been acquired, shortage of other foods could have driven
many species to become predators.
PCA slipping away?
Two years ago the Presbyterian Church of America, ‘rather than have it tear
itself apart over the question of the doctrine of creation’, formed a committee
to try to find a denominational consensus over the meaning of ‘day’
in Genesis 1.
The committee presented its report on 21 June at the annual General Assembly, recommending
that its findings be distributed to all churches for two years consideration. Amid
heated debate and threats of schism, the assembly voted instead to immediately accept
'diversity of views' on the days of Creation.
Presbyterian & Reformed News, May-June 2000, pp. 2, 4.
<http://www.pcanews.com.> 21 and 28 June, 2000.
Artists' impressions
National Geographic recently published the results of an ‘experiment’
in which four artists were given identical casts of fossilized bone pieces classified
as a female Homo habilis (a doubtful taxonomic group in the eyes of most
experts — it should probably have been called Australopithecus, like
the famous ‘Lucy’) and asked to independently sketch ‘the hominid
to whom the bones belonged’.
(From the photos, there appeared to be only seven pieces of bone from which the
artists had to work.)
The results? Four radically different figures, varying in hairiness, posture/locomotion
(one is drawn as a tree-climbing creature, while the others are on the ground),
musculature and amount of flesh on the bones.
The most pronounced variation though is in the facial characteristics, which ranged
from dull, expressionless and ape-like through to human-like.
Acknowledging the discrepancies, the coordinator of this exercise explained, ‘Research
was completely up to the individual. That's why their work looks so different. There's
no one way to draw her.’
National Geographic, March 2000, Behind the Scenes.
This candid admission from an evolutionistic magazine should alert us to the fallibility
of artistic reconstructions from fossils.
In Creation 17(2):16–18, Christian medical illustrator
Ron Ervin told of his discomfort when, contracted to draw ‘Lucy’ for
an evolution textbook, he was told to re-draw his illustrations to make them more
‘ape-like’ or more ‘human-like’.
Misleading evolutionist illustrations indoctrinate the public. This highlights the
role of bias in interpreting the facts, and the importance of quality,
well-presented creationist literature.
Seven ancestral European women?
A study of the mitochondrial DNA of 6,000 Europeans has led Bryan Sykes, Professor
of Human Genetics at Oxford, to conclude that European ancestry can be traced back
to just seven women. (Mitochondrial DNA is believed to be passed down only from
mothers to their offspring.)
The same study has suggested that the seven ancestral mothers are descended from
one of three clans that exist today in Africa, reinforcing the ‘out of Africa’
theory of the origin of modern humans.
The Times, <http://www.foxnews.com/science/041900/times_7women.sml>,
June 20, 2000.
All mankind is descended from Noah's three sons, one of whom, Japheth, is widely
held to have been the ancestor of Europeans. Could the seven grandsons of Japheth,
documented in Genesis 10:2–4, have been the husbands of the mooted seven ancestral
European women?
However, the conclusions of this study should be treated with caution, as geneticists
have begun to question whether mitochondrial DNA can only be inherited via the maternal
line.
(See also Genesis correctly predicts Y-chromosome pattern:
Jews and Arabs shown to be descendant of one man! and also
The sixteen grandsons of Noah Creation 20(4):22-25.)
Archaeoraptor buried quietly
Given the fanfare and 10-page coverage National Geographic gave to its
claim of a feathered dinosaur fossil in November 1999, which turned out to be a
composite of a dromaeosaur tail and the body of a bird, it would have been reasonably
expected that a retraction would be given prominence in its March issue (see
‘Birdosaur’ beat-up Creation 22(2):54-55).
A correction was published, but was buried in the non-indexed Forum section, under
the title 'Feathers for T. rex?'. This consisted of just a 10-line letter
from one of the paleontologists who originally examined Archaeoraptor,
and an eight-line editorial comment citing an investigation that confirmed that
the fossil was a composite, and promising to publish further details as soon as
the studies are completed.
National Geographic, November 1999, pp. 98-107; and March 2000, Forum.
Sadly, many readers of the original authoritatively written article, which asserted
that the Archaeoraptor fossil was incontrovertible evidence that dinosaurs
evolved into birds, will never notice the hard-to-find, small-print 'disclaimer'.
Flood link to fossilized dino family
A ‘family’ of six fossilized dinosaurs have been found buried together
in Patagonia. Resembling Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus,
(Greek gigas [giant] and notos [south]) the yet-to-be-named dinosaur
could be the largest apparent meat-eater to have ever walked the earth.
The ‘family’ of one large adult, two smaller adults, two juveniles and
one quarter-size ‘baby’ dinosaur were found buried together with no
indications of volcanic eruptions or attack from other dinosaurs.
Paleontologists are therefore theorising that the group ‘may have perished
in a flood‘.
Scientific American, <http://www.sciam.com/2000/0500issue/0500scicit5.html>,
April 12, 2000.
Fossils are generally found buried in layers of sedimentary rock, i.e. sediment
laid down by moving water before hardening. New fossil discoveries are frequently
described as having been found ‘on the floor of an ancient lake or sea’
or ‘in an old riverbed’. All consistent with a past global Flood in
which ‘Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils
died’ (Genesis 7:22).
Mussel muscle
Underwater adhesives play a vital role in shipbuilding and repair, but do not bond
indefinitely, as salt water degrades even the strongest of conventional adhesives.
So engineers, in their search for an underwater superglue, are investigating how
mussels can cling onto rocks in some of the world's harshest surf.
The mystery substance (modified proteins containing dihydroxyphenylalanine) secreted
by mussels takes about a minute to harden into an incredibly strong thread, attaching
the mussel to a new surface. In addition to its long-lasting strength in seawater,
the ‘mussel glue’ would offer other advantages over conventional adhesives.
It doesn't need high temperatures to bond, and is not poisonous like standard petroleum
and tar-based glues.
Beyond 2000, <www.beyond2000.com/news/story_395.html>, June 9, 2000.
Science News, July 3, 1999, p. 5.
Everything God does, He does well!
British Christians a ‘deviant minority’
A recent survey has found that as the British abandon Christianity (only 26% now
believe in the God of Christian teaching), they are becoming increasingly uncertain
about their own moral decision making. 75% now claim ‘there can never be absolutely
clear guidelines about what is right and what is wrong’. This ‘decline
of beliefs in any kind of over-arching guidelines or absolutes’ has been accompanied
by a sharp increase in wariness and distrust of other people (59%). One observer
commented that Britons are conducting 'a unique social experiment … trying
to negotiate our way through life without reference to a divine figure to fix our
moral compass'.
Many are alarmed at this, with 45% of those surveyed thinking the abandonment of
traditional religion is making Britain a worse society, while only 20% think it
is making it better. A university researcher warned of the link between the wane
in religion and the rise of mental and emotional illness, alcoholism and suicide.
With Britain to commemorate Charles Darwin on its new £10 note, the
widespread belief in his theory of evolution is evident in that nearly one-third
think ‘we are just a biological organism which ceases to exist at death’.
The drift away from belief in the Bible extends to church leaders as well. An earlier
survey found that only three of 103 British bishops (Anglican, Catholic and Methodist)
actually believe the biblical account of Creation, while 25% do not believe that
Jesus was born of a virgin. Neither do some bishops believe that Jesus rose from
the dead.
A University of Aberdeen sociology professor said bluntly that Britain (the country
in which the church most rapidly capitulated to Darwinism) is now a ‘post-Christian
society’ in which ‘knowledge of Christian ideas is so thin that we're
talking about a deviant minority.’
The Herald Sun, December 28, 1999.
The Daily Telegraph (UK),December 23, 1999, p. 16.
Sunday Express (UK), May 28, 2000, pp. A20-21.
Daily Mail (UK), May 18, 2000, p. 39.
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