It began with a short welcome by a graduate named Jensen. When people speak in public, they often take on a completely different personality. Sometimes, this is good, and sometimes, it is awkward. Jensen simply didn’t do that. He came up and welcomed us as if he was talking to each one of us individually. His personality came shining through in his welcome, and it set the tone for what was a very real, very enjoyable evening.

After a sincere opening prayer given by another graduate named Troy, we were treated to a graduate (Joe) who played and sang “If I stand,” by Rich Mullins and Steve Cudworth. Now I play the piano well enough so that I don’t offend anyone, and I thoroughly enjoy listening to those who can really play. I also sing in a way that doesn’t offend too many people, and once again, I love to listen to those who can really sing. Well, this student could really play and really sing, and he could do them both at the same time! The song, of course, is chock-full of meaning, and the chorus says it all:

So if I stand let me stand on the promise that you will pull me through
And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
So if I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home

This inspiring song was followed by an equally-inspiring speech by another graduate, Ashley. She opened her speech so effectively. While I can’t quote her exact words, she essentially said that she wasn’t there to tell her fellow graduates that they could do anything they set their mind to. Instead, she was there to tell them that they could do anything that the Lord had in store for them. With this masterful contrast between the wisdom of the world and the truth of God, she then inspired her graduates (and me) to follow His Way, which was the title of her speech.

Several of the graduates then sang a rendition of “Revelation 19,” a choral arrangement I had never heard before. The lyrics were simple yet profound, and the students did a remarkable job with it. I was particularly struck by the young men who sang. As is the case with most choirs, the young women significantly outnumbered them, but the male part was strong and sure. (The link is not from the graduation, but I think the piece is worth listening to, if you have the time).

As if it wasn’t bad enough for the organizers to put an excellent speaker like Ashley before me, “Revelation 19″ was followed by yet another inspiring speech. This was given by a graduate named Ethan, and the content of his speech was actually quite similar to the content of the speech that I had prepared. While I used the text of Luke 12:35-48 as the guide for my speech, he used the wisdom of Spider-man:

With great power comes great responsibility.

In an animated, dramatic way, he communicated the truth that we as Christians have a great responsibility to the world and that we should take this responsibility very seriously.

Now that all these inspiring things had happened, it was time for a graduate named Tim to introduce me to the audience. I have to say that I was simply floored by what this young man said. Most people who introduce me at events want me to write out something for them to say, or they use one of my published biographies. However, Tim had taken his task very seriously. A couple of weeks before the ceremony, he had called me and asked me a few questions. We talked for a little while, and that was it. While I remembered the fact that I had spoken with him on the phone, I really didn’t remember what we had talked about. Obviously, we had talked about a great many things, because the introduction he gave was very thorough! At the same time, however, it was not overly long.

He talked about the fact that I used to be an atheist but had been challenged during a debate to actually look at the evidence for Christianity. This led to me becoming a Christian. He spoke of my love for the theater and how working with special effects was what got me interested in chemistry. He said some very touching things about my work in the homeschooling community and how I had affected him personally. I have to say it was probably the best introduction I have ever been given!

So then it was my turn. I gave a commencement address that was straight from the heart. I have given it before, but I sincerely mean every word, so I tend to use it for my first appearance at any commencement. If you don’t want to read the text of the speech, the main thrust of the message is that homeschooled students have been given much, so as a result, much will be required of them (Luke 12:48). In the course of driving that point home, I make it clear that the main reason they have been given so much is because their parents have sacrificed mightily for them.

After my speech, we were treated to a lovely rendition of “Nocturne for Harp in Eb” by Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka, performed by a graduate named Olivia. When I had initially walked into the sanctuary where the graduation was to be held, I saw the harp standing on stage. I was excited, because I consider it to be one of the most beautiful-sounding instruments on the planet. Olivia did not disappoint. She played with technical expertise and personal style. It was a wonderful interlude between my speech and the important parts of the ceremony – the granting of diplomas by the parents and the turning of the tassels.

You might have noticed that throughout this blog post, I have used the word “inspiring.” That relates to the secondary message of the speech I gave to the graduates. Homeschoolers have inspired me ever since I started working with them. When I was on the faculty at Indiana University and Ball State University, I was convinced that there was no hope for the future of this country (or the world as a whole). I honestly thought that nothing could clean up the mess that my generation has made, and that this nation and the world would simply continue to deteriorate until Christ comes again. However, as a result of working with homeschoolers, my outlook about the future has changed. I don’t think it is a foregone conclusion by any means, but I do think that things CAN get better, IF homeschool graduates do what is required of them. They can truly change the world, and I know homeschool graduates who are already doing just that. Graduation ceremonies like this one make me even more optimistic about the future.

The hope of a better world rests squarely on the shoulders of young people like those to whom I spoke last night. Let us all pray that they continue to follow the Lord’s leading in their lives. It will make their burden a lot easier for them to carry.

The U.S. capitol building at night. (My photo)

Last week, I had the privilege of of speaking to the Bolling Area Home Educators (BAHE), a group of military homeschoolers who live on the Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling near Washington, DC. In other words, I got the opportunity to speak to heroes and their families. These brave men and women sacrifice so much in order to keep up safe, and those who choose to homeschool their children sacrifice even more. The nature of military life often means one spouse is gone for extended periods of time, which means that the spouse who stays at home must carry the burdens of parenting and educating alone. In addition, homeschooling is made significantly easier when you have a consistent network of other homeschoolers in your area. Because our military heroes rarely stay in one location for more than a few years, a military homeschooler rarely has the consistent support network enjoyed by most other homeschoolers in the U.S.

The trip got off to a very military start, because a good friend of mine has his private pilot’s license, and he agreed to fly me there in a Cessna Cutlass 172RG. Since we were flying into the DC area, there were all sorts of restrictions related to where we could fly, and he was actually given instructions on what to do if the fighter jets came to escort us out of a restricted area. Since there were so many restricted areas, I assumed we wouldn’t see any actual military traffic. It turns out that I was wrong.

We were flying towards the Manassas Regional Airport at an altitude of 5,000 feet. There was a solid layer of white clouds at around 2,000 feet, well below where we were. As we were flying, air traffic control told us to be aware that there were two F/A-18 jets doing some maneuvers in our area at about 3,000 feet. We scanned the sky below us and sure enough, we got to see them flying around! Of course, they were flying so quickly that they were hard to follow for any length of time, but it was amazing to watch from our point of view!

Once the bird’s-eye view of military maneuvers was over, we landed, and it was time to get a ground-level view of military life and homeschooling. Because the guest housing at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling was full, we ended up staying in the guest quarters at Fort Belvoir, another military base in the D.C. area. It was very interesting to see life on the base from the inside.

I spent the next day speaking with the homeschooling parents and students. In the morning, I spoke to the junior-high and high-school students. In the afternoon, I spoke to the elementary students. In the evening, I spoke to the parents. There were excellent questions all around, but the one I want to focus on came from a high school student. He asked what I would say to an evolutionist who says we can show the evolution of the shark by looking at rays, skates, and sharks. Consider, for example, the pictures below:

An Atlantic stingray (click for credit)

A longnose skate (NOAA photo by Linda Snook)

An Australian angelshark (Click for credit)

A nurse shark (NOAA photo by Dr. Mathew Gilligan)

According to the student, a teacher had shown him similar pictures and talked about how this was excellent evidence for evolution. After all, there seems to be a steady progression from a roundish fish that has a long, slender tail and lives at the bottom of the ocean to a torpedo-shaped fish that swims expertly through the water.

As I told the student, no evolutionist believes that this is what happened. It goes to show that there is a lot of confusion about evolution, even among teachers. Twenty years ago, evolutionists thought that rays evolved from sharks. In other words, the teacher not only was teaching an old idea, but he was teaching it backwards. According to old evolutionary thinking, sharks came first, then came the angelsharks, then the skates, and then the rays.¹ Of course, no evolutionist who knows the current state of the evolution of fishes believes that anymore. Nine years ago, a study based on specific genes concluded that rays and skates did not evolve from sharks. Instead, they share a recent common ancestor with the sharks, but they evolved independently from that common ancestor.²

As I have noted previously, evolutionary relationships that are based on the appearance of animals are often contradicted by evolutionary relationships based on specific genes, and even those based on specific genes often contradict evolutionary relationships based on other genes. However, right now, the evolutionary consensus seems to be that rays and skates did not evolve from sharks, but instead evolved independently from a recent common ancestor.

While I obviously disagree with the evolutionary consensus (I expect that rays and skates represent one created kind while sharks represent another created kind), I think it illustrates two very important points. First, it illustrates how absurd it is to line up a bunch of creatures and claim they represent some evolutionary lineage based on their appearance. There is such a wide variety to creation that you can always find animals that have certain characteristics in common. Do enough picking and choosing amongst those characteristics, and you can come up with all kinds of supposed evolutionary lineages, even ones that the most ardent evolutionist would never believe.

Second, it illustrates how flexible the evolutionary hypothesis is. You can force it to fit any data, if you try hard enough. You can use it to say that the obvious similarities between rays, skates, and sharks make it clear that rays and skates evolved from sharks. When new data come in, you can say that many of those similarities aren’t important anymore, and that rays and skates come from a different evolutionary lineage. They are only linked to sharks by a recent common ancestor. If newer data come in showing that rays and skates can’t have shared a recent common ancestor, you can say that most of the similarities are the result of convergent evolution, and that rays and skates only share a distant common ancestor with sharks.

When a hypothesis is so flexible that it can accommodate any data, its scientific value is very low. That’s the state of evolution today, and it is unfortunate that so many scientists still cling to it.

REFERENCES

1. S. Shirai, Squalean Phylogeny: A New Framework of Squaloid Sharks and Related Taxa, Hokkaido University Press, Sapporo, 1992.
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2. C.J. Douady et al., “Molecular phylogenetic evidence refuting the hypothesis of Batoidea (rays and skates) as derived sharks,” Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 26:215–221, 2003.
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This map of a portion of the earth shows the motion of specific locations relative to a fixed point. The arrows indicate the velocity of each location, and the blue lines are the outlines of what are thought to be the plates that are producing this motion. (Click for credit)

In the theory of plate tectonics, the earth’s surface is broken into several distinct plates which move about, carrying the continents with them. As a result, a fixed location on the planet is not really stationary. It is actually moving along the earth! We don’t notice the motion, of course, because it is happening very slowly. However, according to the theory, it is always happening. If scientists make certain assumptions about how this motion occurred in the past, they can conclude that at one time, all the continents on earth were grouped together in a supercontinent called Pangaea. Over time, the motion of the plates then separated the continents into the positions we see today.

If you assume that the plate motions we think are happening today are representative of how fast the plates have always moved, you find that it would take hundreds of millions of years for the continents to have moved from Pangaea to where they are today. However, many young-earth creationists think that plate motions were much faster during the worldwide Flood, and some have produced detailed computer models that attempt to explain how the Flood happened in the context of this catastrophic plate tectonics. Other young-earth creationists are skeptical about plate tectonics, claiming that there isn’t a lot of evidence to support it.

I tend to disagree with the young-earth creationists who are skeptical about plate tectonics. While I am definitely not a geologist or geophysicist, I do think there is a lot of indirect evidence to indicate that the plates are real and that they are really moving. Interestingly enough, I recently ran across an article by Dr. John Baumgardner that, in my mind, really clinches the case for the reality of plate tectonics.¹ Not only that, the data used in the article are just plain cool!

It turns out that the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been monitoring over 2,000 stationary receivers that have been placed all over the earth. The GPS confirms that these receivers are moving at surprisingly constant velocities, despite the fact that they are fixed to the ground. The map shown at the top of the post, for example, displays several of the receivers and the directions in which the GPS confirms that they are moving. If you go to the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) website that archives these data, you can look at any part of the world and see the receivers that are there and how they are moving. If you do that, you will find that they are moving the way you would expect them to move in the context of plate tectonics.

What’s really fascinating to me about these data is how detailed they are. For example, some of the fastest motion detected by the GPS is around Australia and New Zealand. Let’s look at the GPS data for a receiver that is sitting on the Cook Islands, which are in the Western Pacific, east of Australia:

Changes in latitude, longitude, and elevation for the Cook Islands station over the past ten years. (NASA/JPL image)

The black dots are the data, and the red lines are simply meant to guide your eyes along the data. Note that the graphs span a bit more than ten years. In that time, the receiver has moved about 36 centimeters in latitude and about 60 centimeters in longitude. Its elevation, however, hasn’t changed significantly. Now look at the data points themselves. Notice that for both longitude and latitude, most of the points fall along an almost perfectly straight line. There are a few deviations here and there, but the straight lines are unmistakable. Physics tells us that the slope of a position versus time curve tells you the speed. Since a straight line has a constant slope, the straight lines in these graphs tell us that the speed at which the Cook Islands are moving has stayed remarkably constant over the past ten years.

I just think it is nothing short of awesome that we have these data!

REFERENCE

1. John Baumgardner, “Is Plate Tectonics Occurring Today?”, Journal of Creation 26(1):101-105, 2012
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Saddled Bichir, a representative of the Polypteriformes. (Click for credit)

Atlantic sturgeon, a representative of the Acipenseriformes (Click for credit)

A bowfin, representative of the Amiiformes (Click for credit)

Believe it or not, the answer is as follows: The most recent evolutionary analysis says that nearly all saltwater fishes^* evolved from fishes that were members of these freshwater groups!

Confused? You should be. Let me see if I can help clear things up for you. Greta Carrete Vega and John J. Wiens recently published a scientific paper entitled, “Why are there so few fish in the sea?”¹ In it, they attempt to explain why there are so few fish species in the seas as compared to the number of fish species found in freshwater sources. After all, the seas cover about 70% of earth’s surface, while freshwater lakes, rivers, and streams cover only about 2%. Despite this huge difference in living space, there are significantly more freshwater fish species than there are saltwater fish species. With all the resources at their disposal, while haven’t saltwater fishes diversified into many more species?

To answer this question, they looked at DNA data as well as fossil data regarding the ray-finned fishes. This group contains about 96% of all fish species (from both freshwater and saltwater), and it is the most diverse group of fishes in the seas. When they compared all the fishes, they found that the freshwater fish groups represented by the individuals pictured above make up the basal groups for all the ray-finned fishes. In other words, according to their analysis, these three freshwater fish groups came first, and the currently-living saltwater ray-finned fish evolved from them! Indeed, their analysis indicates that the freshwater common ancestor of the Polypteriformes and the Acipenseriformes pictured above appeared about 300 million years ago (using scientifically-irresponsible dating techniques), and the first ancestor that led to the currently-known saltwater fishes evolved from these groups more than 100 million years later!

Now remember, not all saltwater fishes are ray-finned fishes. However, the vast majority of them are. So according to this analysis, the vast majority of fishes that are currently living in the ocean actually evolved from freshwater fishes! Now, of course, this appears to contradict what we see in the “geological column,” since the first fishes that appear there are supposedly marine fishes. Not to worry, of course. There is an explanation. According to the authors:²

Our results suggest that ancient extinctions in the marine environment may have wiped out the earliest ray-finned fishes living in the oceans, that the oceans were then recolonized from freshwater habitats, and that most marine fish species living today are descended from that recolonization (leaving less time for biodiversity to build up in the oceans)…This pattern of ancient extinction and more recent recolonization may help explain why the oceans are now so species-poor, even for fish.

So…in order to believe the supposed evolutionary history of most currently-living fishes as well as geological-column reasoning (which doesn’t work very well), here’s what you are forced to believe: Fish first evolved in the seas, and this eventually led (somehow) to freshwater fish. Then, mass extinctions in the oceans occurred, wiping out nearly all saltwater fish. Then, the freshwater fish were (somehow) able to recolonize the oceans, “rebooting” the evolution of saltwater fish.

I am glad that I’m not an evolutionist! I just don’t have enough faith to believe the wild scenarios that evolutionists must concoct in order to force the data into agreement with their cherished ideas.

* Note that “fish” is the proper plural when you are discussing multiple fish of the same species. On the other hand, “fishes” is the correct plural when you are discussing multiple fish of different species. An aquarium with 8 goldfish is full of fish. However, an aquarium with 7 goldfish and one angelfish is full of fishes.
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REFERENCES

1. Greta Carrete Vega and John J. Wiens, “Why are there so few fish in the sea?,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B 10.1098/rspb.2012.0075, 2012.
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2. “SBU Researcher Finds Surprisingly Low Fish Biodiversity in the Earth’s Oceans,” Stony Brook University Press Release, Feb 10, 2012 – 10:36:20 AM, available online.
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I spent the past weekend in Cincinnati, the site of the Midwest Homeschool convention. This was the original Great Homeschool Convention, and it is one of the most popular homeschooling conventions in the nation. As usual, the attendance was huge, and I gave a total of seven talks over a period of 2 and a half days. There was a steady stream of people coming to my booth to ask specific questions, so when I wasn’t giving a talk or answering questions on stage, I was generally answering questions at my booth. It was very busy, but I had a blast!

I got to meet the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys at this convention. These three young men started posting videos of their bedroom practice sessions on YouTube (an example is given above), and because of their incredible talent, the videos almost immediately went viral. The videos have millions of views, and the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys have appeared as musical guests on The Late Show with David Letterman and the Today Show on NBC. In addition, when they appeared on the Mike Huckabee show (Fox News), they were so popular that they were invited back the very next week. They are the only musical guests to appear in back-to-back episodes of that show.

These talented young men are homeschooled, so it was natural for Great Homeschool Conventions to invite them to appear. They gave a great performance, and later on, I happened to be dining at the same restaurant as they were. As a result, it was my honor to meet them personally. Not only are they excellent performers, but they are also genuinely fine young men who have the right priorities in life. They are just another example of what wonderful things can be accomplished as a result of the individuality and flexibility of home education.

Speaking of the amazing things that can be accomplished through home education, one of the talks I gave at this convention is called “What are they Doing Now?” It is one of my favorite talks to give, because I discuss the incredible things that homeschool graduates are doing right now. I start off with statistics, such as the fact that homeschool graduates age 18-24 are more likely to have a college degree, an associates degree, or be working on such a degree than the rest of the population of the same age. In addition, homeschool graduates are nearly twice as likely as their non-homeschooled peers to be involved in an ongoing community service.

I share several statistics like that, but then I start discussing individual homeschool graduates who are doing amazing things with their lives. For example, there’s one who is a covert operative for an intelligence agency. Obviously, I can’t share details about her or the university that she attended, but I do share the fact that she thinks homeschooling prepared her uniquely well for her current line of work. She says not only did it help her to learn independently (something she must continually do as a spy), but it also helped her learn how to interact with all sorts of different kinds of people. She sums up her view of home education this way:

I remember times when we were doing math, and I was in tears; my mom was in tears. But it was so worth it. I have been given such an amazing gift.

In some ways, this is a perfect description of home education. It’s hard. There’s no doubt about that. There are a lot of tears. There’s no doubt about that as well. However, despite the hard times and all the tears, homeschooling is an amazing gift. When I homeschooled my own daughter, there were a lot of tears. However, we both agree that it was the best thing we could have possibly done. It was an amazing gift for me (I got to know her better than I ever would have had she gone to school), and it was an amazing gift for her (she would never have been accepted into or successful at the university of her choice had she not been homeschooled).

So if you are a homeschooled student or a homeschooling parent and all you can think about right now is the tears, remember this: On the other side, you will find that those tears have produced an amazing gift. You can then thank a shadowy spy who is protecting your freedom for reminding you of this important fact!

Since I am not selling anything at homeschool conventions these days, my booth in the exhibit hall looks rather odd. It consists of a plain black-and-white sign that just has my name on it, an empty table, two chairs, and me. In contrast to most of the other booths that try to attract people in with color banners, comfy couches, potted plants, and videos, mine looks pretty bare. The CEO of Home Educating Family thought it was just too bare, so he added one “decoration.” On my plain white sign, he wrote “The Doctor Is In” and gave me a sticky note that said “OUT.” When I left my booth, I could cover the word “In” with the sticky note. Perhaps it doesn’t sound funny to you, but I thought it was hilarious, and I used it the whole time I was there. I regret that I did not take a picture of it before I left.

Although the bulk of this post will deal with a question I got in one of my talks, I do want to mention one thing that really impressed me. It turns out that during the conference, some low-life broke into several of the vendors’ vans. While most vendors didn’t lose much, one vendor’s van was loaded with an iPad and some other important technology, so they were looking at a serious financial loss. In order to help them out, several other vendors took up a collection. Now these vendors are all competitors. If you buy a math course from one vendor, that probably means you won’t buy a math course from any other vendor. Nevertheless, the vendors all gave generously. That really impressed me. Even in business, Christians should put compassion first, and that’s what I saw happening in Memphis.

One of the talks I gave at this convention is entitled “Life and Its Amazing Design.” In this talk, I concentrate on life at the cellular level and how it is clearly the result of design. I talk about how atheists try to argue against this rather obvious conclusion, and I also talk about how at least some former atheists (like myself and Dr. Antony Flew) reluctantly came to to accept it. As always, I opened up the talk for questions from the audience, and one particular question is worth discussing.

The person who asked it had obviously studied evolution a reasonable amount, because he asked about pseudogenes and how they are often used as evidence for evolution. Specifically, he wanted me to address the GULO pseudogene in people and apes. If you aren’t familiar with the term, scientists often say that a pseudogene is a “broken” gene. They say this not because they know it to be true (in fact, we know it isn’t true in certain cases), but because they infer it from evolutionary thinking.

A pseudogene is a stretch of DNA that looks remarkably like a known gene. However, the differences between the known gene and the pseudogene keep it from being a real gene. In other words, while the known gene will cause the cell to make a protein, the pseudogene is different enough that it cannot cause the cell to make a protein. If you believe in the mistaken notion that the only thing a stretch of DNA is good for is to produce a protein, then if a stretch of DNA looks like a gene but can’t make a protein, you conclude that it must be broken. Of course, a more scientific view would be to try to find out if there is some other way that the stretch of DNA could be used by the cell. When geneticists actually decided to follow the more scientific path, they found that many pseudogenes perform very important functions.

One very important function that pseudogenes have is regulation. They can determine how much protein another gene makes. There are different ways these pseudogenes do their job, but one way is to essentially produce a “decoy” that traps a third molecule whose job it is to stop the gene’s product from being made. I wrote about that process some time ago. In order for the pseudogene to do its job that way, it needs to look a lot like the gene that it is regulating. Thus, while such a pseudogene looks like a broken version of a gene, it is not broken at all. It looks similar to the gene because it must look that way in order to do its job.

With all that under your belt, you can now consider the question I was asked. Certain mammals can produce their own vitamin C. As a result, they don’t have to eat foods that contain it. To make their own vitamin C, they use a series of genes, one of which has been called GULO. Well, humans have a sequence of DNA that looks a lot like the GULO gene, but there are some variations that keep this gene from producing a protein. If humans could produce that protein, we might be able to make our own vitamin C. We cannot, however, so we have to eat food that contains vitamin C. As a result, it seems like this sequence of DNA in humans is a broken version of the GULO gene found in other mammals. Because of this, it is usually called the GULO pseudogene.

Well, it turns out that apes also have a GULO pseudogene, and it looks pretty much identical to the human GULO pseudogene. In other words, the ape GULO pseudogene looks like a mammal GULO gene that has been broken in exactly the same way as the GULO pseudogene in humans. This is commonly thought of as great evidence that humans and apes share a common ancestor. After all, consider the possible explanations for why the human and ape GULO pseudogenes are nearly identical:

1. God created both apes and humans with a broken gene that does nothing, and God also decided (perhaps for fun) that the broken gene should be broken in all the same places in exactly the same way.

2. Apes and humans were each created with a working GULO gene and then, over time, they independently experienced the exact same mutations so that their GULO pseudogenes are broken in the same way.

3. Apes and humans share a common ancestor, which had a broken GULO gene. That broken gene was passed on to both apes and humans.

Evolutionists say that #1 is silly, #2 is incredibly unlikely (the chance of all the same mutations happening to break the GULO gene in all the same places in two independent biological lineages is roughly 1 in 1×10³⁹), so #3 has to be the correct answer.

Of course, there are two problems with this argument. First, an option was left out:

4. The GULO pseudogene is actually functional, and the Creator gave it to apes and humans because they both need it in order to survive.

In response to this option, an evolutionist might wonder why this functional pseudogene would look so much like the GULO gene. The answer is simple. We already know that some pseudogenes have to look very similar to the genes they regulate in order to perform their function. It is quite likely that the GULO pseudogene regulates our use of vitamin C. The fact that it looks like a gene that is used by other organisms to make vitamin C might very well be necessary in order for it to perform its regulatory function. In the end, then, the fact that the GULO pseudogene looks the same in apes and humans is most likely the result of the fact that it performs the same function in both. In addition, it looks a lot like the GULO gene in other mammals because it regulates the way we use vitamin C, which is related to the GULO gene.

The other problem with the argument involves the mental gymnastics it takes to be an evolutionist. Let’s suppose the GULO pseudogene really is completely functionless. It has no value whatsoever. Thus, the option I just discussed (#4) is not a reasonable option. What’s wrong with option #2 listed above? Why can’t we consider the idea that apes and humans both started out with a functioning GULO gene and then they both experienced the exact same mutations to break it? Well, according to the evolutionist, the probability is absurdly low: about 1 in 1×10³⁹.

But wait a minute. The chance that one of the simplest proteins of life, ribonuclease, formed by random chemical reactions is 1 in 10¹⁵². The formation of chemicals like ribonuclease must have been incredibly common at some point in earth’s history in order for life to appear as a result of chance. Even once life got started, all sorts of events that have an absurdly low probability would have to occur in order for evolution to proceed. When it comes to these matters, evolutionists have no problem accepting that absurdly improbable events happen all the time. Why do evolutionists allow all sorts of absurdly improbable things to happen when it comes to everything except the formation of the GULO pseudogene? Because they engage in mental gymnastics. When absurdly improbable events are necessary for evolution to proceed, they happen all the time. When absurdly improbable events undermine the case for evolution, however, they can’t happen.

Finally, what about this probability of 1 in 1×10³⁹? It is based on the assumption that all mutations are equally likely in a gene. We know for a fact that this is just not true. There are all sorts of mutational hotspots in DNA. These are regions that mutate much more frequently than other regions. If the places where the GULO gene was “broken” in humans and apes are mutational hotspots, then the chance of apes and humans getting the same mutations at the same spots is much more likely. Thus, it could be that the chance of apes and humans independently getting their GULO genes broken in the same way is fairly high, especially given their similar biochemistry.

Obviously, I don’t think the GULO pseudogene is functionless. In addition, I think its similarity in humans and apes is the result of humans and apes having very similar biochemical needs. However, even if I am wrong, it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to say that it is statistically impossible for humans and apes to have experienced the same mutations in their GULO genes while at the same time saying that even less probable events have occurred as a matter of course throughout earth’s history!

The information in DNA is stored in specific sequences of the nucleotide bases adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). (Click for credit)

We hear a lot about how similar the human genome is compared to the chimpanzee genome. As I have discussed previously, if we compare the genomes one way, they are 72% identical. If we compare them another way, they more than 95% identical. If we compare them yet another way, they are 88-89% identical. That’s a wide range of results! Why can’t we say definitively how similar the human genome is to the chimpanzee genome? There are probably several reasons for this, but I want to highlight a basic one. Even though the human and chimpanzee genomes have been sequenced, we still don’t know them as well as you might think.

To understand why we don’t know these sequenced genomes very well, you need to know a bit about how DNA stores information. As most people know, DNA is a double helix. Each strand of this double helix has a sequence of chemical units called nucleotide bases. There are four different nucleotide bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). Taken three at a time, these four nucleotide bases code for a specific kind of chemical called an amino acid. The two strands of the double helix hold together because the nucleotide bases on one strand link up with the nucleotide bases on the other strand.

As shown in the illustration above, the way the nucleotide bases link up is very specific. Adenine (A) links only to thymine (T), and cytosine (C) links only to guanine (G). Because of this, if you know the sequence on one strand of DNA, you automatically know the sequence on the other strand. After all, A can only link to T, so anywhere one strand has an A, the other strand must have a T. In the same way, C can only link to G, so anywhere one strand has a C, the other strand must have a G. So the two strands of the DNA double helix are held together by pairs of nucleotide bases.

As a result, we count the length of a genome in terms of how many base pairs there are. The illustration above, for example, has 14 base pairs (the black G is hiding a C behind it, and the black A is hiding a T behind it). Obviously, then, the larger the number of base pairs in the genome, the longer the genome is. Believe it or not, even though the human and chimpanzee genomes have been sequenced, we don’t know for sure how long either of them are!

When a genome is sequenced, scientists don’t start at the beginning and determine each base pair until they get to the end. We can’t analyze DNA that way. Instead, we take the DNA and chop it up into little chunks that are generally less than 1,000 base pairs long. When that happens, the order of these chunks is lost. As a result, a sequenced genome just consists of a lot of chunks. The scientists then try to piece those chunks together by looking for regions of overlap among the chunks. This is called “genome assembly,” and it is a terribly difficult thing to do.

With all that information under our belts, let’s look at the human genome as reported by the Ensembl Project, a joint effort between the European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. There are two ways to count the number of base pairs in a genome. First, you can just count the number of base pairs that are found amongst the chunks that have been analyzed. According to Ensembl, there are 3,286,906,305 base pairs in the human genome. However, there is another way you can count the number of base pairs. You can look at the genome assembly that was done, and count the base pairs that are thought to be in that assembly. The Ensembl project calls this the “Golden Path Length,” and based on that method, there are 3,101,804,739 base pairs in the human genome. If we really knew the human genome, those two numbers would be the same. Thus, the difference between the numbers (about 6%) gives us an idea of how well we know the human genome.

Now let’s look at the same source to learn about the chimpanzee genome. There are 2,995,900,563 base pairs in the genome, but the Golden Path Length is 3,309,561,368 base pairs. Once again, if we knew the chimpanzee genome exactly, these two numbers would be the same. However, they are 9.5% different. That tells us that at least in one way, there is an error of about 9.5% when it comes to how well we know the chimpanzee genome.

What does this say about how well we can compare the human and chimpanzee genomes? To me, it indicates that we can’t compare them very accurately. After all, we know the length of one genome to only 6% accuracy, and we know the length of the other one to only 9.5% accuracy. At the very best, then, the error in our comparison will be around 9.5%, the error associated with the genome we understand the least.

In the end, then, while it is interesting to compare the genomes of two different species, we need to take the results of those comparisons with a grain of salt. When we can’t even tell you how long each genome is, it’s not clear how accurately we can determine how similar they are!

Yesterday, of course, was Easter Sunday, which I consider to be the most important Sunday worship service of the year. I was asked to come up with a short drama for the service, and I agreed – with some hesitation. The problem with writing a drama about Easter is that it’s hard to come up with something new. The account of Jesus’ resurrection is so important to the Christian church that it has been written about, preached about, and depicted in all sorts of different ways. How do you come up with something that is original and at the same time meaningful?

Well…here’s what I did. I decided to present a fictional (but maybe plausible?) presentation of Easter from Pilate’s point of view. Pilate was governor of Judaea at the time, so it fell on him to order Christ’s crucifixion. His wife warned him to “have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him” (Matthew 27:19), but he felt pressured by the crowd to order Christ’s execution. I suspect that as time went on, he regretted that decision. I wondered how he might deal with that regret. I then wondered how Jesus might have helped him.

Below the fold you will find a wholly made-up encounter between Jesus and Pilate shortly after the resurrection. This is not meant to have even the slightest hint of historical accuracy. It is just meant to communicate the gospel’s message of forgiveness. I hope you enjoy it.

(Lights up on Pilate, who is pacing nervously next to a large chair that is meant to look like a throne. He sits, exasperated. A servant enters. He holds a bowl of water and a towel.)

Servant: Many pardons, your grace, but I noticed you have been walking outside for quite some time. Would you like me to wash your feet?

Pilate: (distracted) That would be fine.

(Servant kneels and begins to take off Pilate’s left sandal so that He can wash Pilate’s left foot. Throughout the following dialogue, he washes Pilate’s left foot, and when he is done, he put the sandal back on. He doesn’t look at Pilate as he talks, because a servant wouldn’t do that. He concentrates on washing Pilate’s feet.)

Pilate: (suddenly interested in the servant) Are you one of the servants who lives in the palace?

Servant: No, your grace.

Pilate: (now really focused on him) So you have contact with the common man?

Servant: Yes, your grace.

Pilate: I walked around the city all day today, trying to gauge the mood of the people, but I just couldn’t read them. What would you say the mood of the common man is right now?

Servant: I don’t understand the question, your grace. The…mood?

Pilate: (sighing) You see, four days ago I put a popular man….uh…Jesus of Nazareth…to death. I’m afraid that was a bad decision. I’m worried that some of his followers might be fomenting rebellion among the people. (suddenly very earnest) Do you sense rebellion among the people?

Servant: (acting confused) Forgive me for asking, your grace, but do you really need to be worried about rebellion? You have the might of Rome on your side.

(As he finishes his line, Servant needs to be completely done with the left foot, including putting the sandal back on. Servant gets up and walks behind Pilate so that Pilate can’t see him when he delivers his next line.)

Pilate: (seeing the absurdity of the question) Yes, yes…I supposed that’s not my real problem…..Tell me, do you know of this man named Jesus?

Servant: (now that Pilate cannot see him, Servant gives an amused look to the audience, trying to let them know that he is, in fact, the resurrected Christ. This doesn’t have to be overly obvious. The audience will have more opportunity to learn this). Yes…I know him very well.

Pilate: So you are familiar with his teachings.

Servant: (another knowing look) Oh yes…I know his teachings very well.

(Servant now moves to the other side of Pilate, kneels down, and starts taking off Pilate’s right sandal so that he can wash Pilate’s right foot. Once again, he doesn’t look at Pilate until he is instructed to do so. He needs to complete the task, including putting the sandal back on, before he is instructed to look at Pilate.)

Pilate: Are they popular among the people?

Servant: They are popular among some, but unpopular among others.

Pilate: (not satisfied with the answer) What about you? Do you find his teachings to be…good?

Servant: Oh yes. I find them to be good and true.

Pilate: So at least according to you, what I did was wrong?

Servant: Your grace, it doesn’t matter what has happened. There is nothing that can be done about that. What matters is what happens from here. You see, Jesus’ teachings were mostly about forgiveness. God will forgive you for what you have done, if you honestly ask. You need to ask for and accept that forgiveness, forget the past, and honestly try to follow the teachings of Jesus from now on.

Pilate: (impatient – thinking Servant doesn’t understand the gravity of what he has done) Yes, yes…that might be true for someone like you, but it doesn’t apply to me. I am the one who ordered his execution. I don’t think there is any forgiveness for me in that.

Servant: (looking at Pilate for the first time and being very matter-of-fact) But your grace, Jesus taught that you can be forgiven for anything.

Pilate: Anything?

Servant: Oh yes, anything.

Pilate: Even ordering his death?

Servant: Most certainly. I have it on good authority that while Jesus was dying on the cross, He looked up to His father in heaven and asked for forgiveness for the very men who were crucifying him.

Pilate: Wait a minute…you mean to tell me that while he was suffering on the cross, he asked God to forgive those who were causing his agony?

Servant: (Standing, still looking at Pilate) Yes, your grace. If Jesus expected God to forgive those men, surely you can expect God to forgive you.

(Pilate is at a loss for words. He looks away, not knowing what to think. There is an uncomfortable pause.)

Servant: May I have your leave, your grace?

Pilate: (distracted) Yes, yes. (waves Servant away)

(Servant starts to leave, but before he can get off stage, Pilate stops him with the following line:)

Pilate: Wait a minute. I don’t recognize you. What’s your name?

Servant: Who do you say that I am?

(blackout)

If you have a drama ministry in your church and like what you read, feel free to use this script. It is not copyrighted material. The same goes for any other drama I post under this topic heading. If I post a video, feel free to ask for a script, and I will be glad to send it to you.