Category: Creationism

Hummingbirds Can Shake Their Heads at 34g!

Most birds aren’t very active in the rain. They can fly in the rain if they have to, but they prefer not to. After all, the longer they are in the rain, the soggier they get. This adds to their weight, meaning they have to work harder to generate the lift necessary to stay in the air. So in general, birds tend to wait out the rain. Like most rules in biology, however, this one has an exception. The activity of hummingbirds is not significantly affected by most rainfall.1

How these incredible birds can fly even after being in the rain a long time was a bit of a mystery to scientists, but thanks to some artificial rain and high-speed photography, we now know that hummingbirds regularly dry themselves off by shaking like a dog.2 The shaking propels the water off their feathers so that the tiny birds don’t get too waterlogged. If you watch the video above (which comes from the referenced study), you can’t help but be reminded of a wet dog coming in out of the rain. Of course, the dog isn’t flying at the time, but the similarity is remarkable.

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Yet Another Failure of “Geological Column” Reasoning

Skeleton of the titanosaur Epachthosaurus at the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic. Note the plant, a cycad, in the display. (Click for credit)

If a display of dinosaurs or dinosaur skeletons includes plants, it usually shows the dinosaurs walking among ferns or cycads, like the picture shown above. There usually aren’t any grasses in the display. Why not? Because according to the geological column, grasses and dinosaurs didn’t live at the same time. After all, dinosaurs mostly died out by the end of the Cretaceous period, which was supposed to have closed about 65 million years ago. According to You Are Here: A Portable History of the Universe, grasses didn’t evolve until much later:1

Rabbits and hares appear 55 million years ago. The Himalayas begin to rise 50 million years ago. The face of the earth looks recognisably as it is now, except that Australasia is attached to Antarctica. Bats, mice, squirrels, and many aquatic birds (including herons and storks) appear during this period, as do shrews, whales, and modern fish. All major plants make their appearance and grasses evolve.

Notice how certain the author is. He is telling you the story of the history of life as if he is watching it happen. According to his “observations,” grasses didn’t evolve until about 50 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs went extinct.

This kind of certainty is rampant in evolutionary writings. For example, The Encyclopedia of Earth tells us:

The evolution and spread of grasses UNDOUBTEDLY resulted from their ability to adapt to seasonally dry habitats created as tropical-deciduous forests developed in the Eocene (58 to 34 mya, million years ago). Considering their importance and taxonomic diversity, grasses have a relatively poor fossil record. While the earliest potential fossil grass pollen was described from late Cretaceous sediments, the oldest reliable megafossil grass fossils were spikelets and inflorescences from the latest Paleocene (about 58 mya). These were PRIMITIVE proto-bamboos with broad leaves, QUITE UNLIKE the narrow-leaf modern grasses of desert grasslands and deserts. (emphasis mine)

Of course, as is often the case, current research is demonstrating just how wrong this evolution-inspired reasoning is.

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Science Will Survive. In Fact, It Might Even Improve…

Steven Newton is the Programs and Policy Director at the National Center for Science Education. He has a B.A. in History from the University of California at Berkeley and a M.S. in Geology from California State University at Hayward. Most importantly, he is a fervent believer in evolution. Because of this, he tends to watch trends in science education as well as the scientific community. His observations recently led to a very interesting article in New Scientist.

The article discusses the fact that young-earth creationists have been presenting at scientific conferences and publishing in the peer-reviewed scientific journals. Since he is a geologist, he is focused on meetings of the Geological Society of America (GSA), where young-earth geologists have presented papers and led field trips in recent years. While he thinks that this is a bad thing, he rejects calls to ban them from the meetings. He says:

Scientific organisations will continue to experience creationist infiltration; this week’s GSA meeting will include several presentations by creationists. But it is important for scientists not to overreact and to remember that science is far stronger than any creationist attempts to undermine it.

While his reasoning is deeply flawed, his final conclusion is correct. As a result, we should at least give him partial credit for his endeavors.

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When You’re Desperate, Anything Is Plausible

A commenter left this link on an unrelated post. Since the commenter has, in the past, tried to support several unscientific positions, I assume he or she thought that the experiment demonstrated the plausibility of abiogenesis, the the idea that life might have emerged through a series of incredibly unlikely interactions between nonliving chemicals. Of course, such an idea contradicts everything we know about the study of life, since all life we have ever studied comes from other living things. I have written several articles (here, here, here, here, here, and here) that demonstrate how the data speak against abiogenesis, but those who want to ignore the scientific evidence desperately hope for some special time in the past when all our current evidence doesn’t apply and life could actually spring from nonliving chemicals.

One of the many, many problems associated with any naturalistic origin-of-life scenario is that of stereoisomerism. As I explain here, there are certain biological molecules that can be formed in two different ways. They have the same chemical formula and form mirror images of each other. However, these mirror images are not identical. Think about your hands. When you hold them palms together, they are mirror images of one another. However, no matter how you tilt or turn it, you cannot make your left hand look identical to your right hand. If you put the palm of one hand on the back of the other hand, for example, one hand’s thumb will be where the other hand’s pinky finger is. So while your hands are mirror images, they are not identical. There are many biological molecules that are like that, and we call them chiral molecules. The two mirror images that are formed by a chiral molecule are called enantiomers.

All origin-of-life scenarios start with simple molecules that do not form enantiomers. We call these achiral molecules, since they cannot form two mirror images that are different from one another. This is a problem, because in the lab, when achiral molecules react to form a chiral molecule, an equal amount of each enantiomer is formed. As a result, you end up with a mixture that is 50% one enantiomer and 50% the other enantiomer. We call this a racemic mixture. The problem is that life isn’t like that. In most chiral molecules of life, only one of the enantiomers is used. We call this an enantiopure compound, since it is purely one enantiomer, without any of the other. So any origin-of-life scenario has to figure out a way of producing just one enantiomer, or it has to figure out a way to get rid of the other enantiomer once it has formed.

This is a major problem, of course, and the link that the commenter left claims that a “plausible” solution to this problem has been found. Of course, when you look at the actual paper you find that the process is anything but plausible in an origin-of-life scenario.

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Just Making Sure That Horse Is Really Dead…

I have written two posts about people who have mischaracterized the views of C.S. Lewis when it comes to evolution (you can read them here and here). At the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to write one more.

In both of my previous posts, I mention an article by Dr. Jerry Bergman. In that article, Dr. Bergman tries to make the case that C.S. Lewis is a “creationist and anti-evolutionist.” I think that my posts have done a good job of showing that Dr. Bergman is simply wrong. Dr. Lewis cannot be described as either a creationist or an anti-evolutionist. I have shared my posts with the author and with the people at Creation Ministries International, the organization that runs the website that published the article. Unfortunately, neither the author nor Creation Ministries International feels the need to retract it. Indeed, in a personal communication with Dr. Bergman, I was told that he had found C.S. Lewis scholars who agree with him. He did not provide the names of those scholars, however, even though I asked for them.

As a result, I decided to see if I could find any C.S. Lewis scholars who agree with Dr. Bergman on this issue. I went to the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s website. This is a wonderful organization that “…is dedicated to advancing the renewal of Christian thought and creative expression throughout the world of learning and the culture at large.” As a part of meeting that mission, the foundation has a study centre at “The Kilns,” Dr. Lewis’s former home in Oxford. I sent Dr. Bergman’s article to the foundation, asking them to have one of their scholars review it to see if it was a reasonable discussion of C.S. Lewis’s views on evolution.

A few days ago, I received a wonderful reply to my question. The author was humble, gracious, and very insightful. It started with these words:1

I am not entirely sure if I should be described as a “Scholar”, in fact I am pretty sure that I should not, but the folk at The Kilns have sent your question on to me.

He went on to give me his answer, some of which will appear below the fold. In that answer, he referred to Dr. Lewis as “Jack.” This is what his close friends and family called him, so as I read the message, I assumed that this man knew C.S. Lewis really well. As I reached the bottom of the message, I read his name: Douglas Gresham. If you don’t recognize the name, it is C.S. Lewis’s younger son. Lewis adopted both Douglas and his older brother, David, when he married their mother, Joy. When Joy lost her battle with cancer, Lewis continued to raise Douglas and David. He dedicated The Horse and His Boy, one of the books in his acclaimed Chronicles of Narnia series, to both of them. Douglas is a producer for all the Chronicles of Narnia movies, and he strives to make them follow the books as closely as they possibly can. He also appears as a minor character in each movie.

I think it is safe to say that Mr. Gresham is probably one of the few people alive today who knows what C.S. Lewis really believed when it comes to all manner of things, including evolution. Do you want to know what he said about Dr. Bergman’s article?

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Add Water’s Quantum Forces to the List of Things that Are Finely-Tuned for Life

Waves on the surface of water (click for credit)

Water is a strange chemical. It’s molecular formula is H2O, but it is quite different from other chemicals that have a similar formula. For example, the chemicals H2S, H2Se, and H2Te are all gases at room temperature. However, H2O is a liquid at room temperature. Why? Because unlike similar molecules, water molecules are strongly attracted to one other. This causes them to stay unusually close to each other. While a small amount of energy allows similar molecules move far from one another, water molecules like to “snuggle close.” As a result, it takes a lot of energy to pull water molecules away from each other. This makes water a liquid at temperatures where most similar chemicals are gases.

In addition, water has the unusual property of expanding when it freezes. Most chemicals shrink when they freeze, which means that the solid phase is more dense than the liquid phase. As a result, the solid form of most chemicals will sink in the liquid form of the same chemical. Not so for water. Instead, solid water (ice) easily floats in liquid water. It turns out that this is really wonderful, because when a lake freezes, the ice floats on top. As the ice layer gets thicker, it insulates the remaining liquid water below. The practical upshot is that as long as a lake is deep enough, it will never freeze completely solid. That’s nice, because it guarantees the lake’s fishes have somewhere to go, even in the coldest of weather.

If water didn’t have such nice properties, life as we know it would not be possible. Exactly why does water have these properties? Because of a phenomenon called hydrogen bonding. In this process, a hydrogen atom on one water molecule is strongly attracted to the oxygen atom on another water molecule. As a result, the hydrogen atom on one water molecule and the oxygen atom on another water molecule tug on each other, pulling the molecules close to one another. In other words, a weak “bond” develops between two different water molecules. This hydrogen bond is very effective at keeping the water molecules close together. In fact, it is so effective that water molecules must actually pull away from each other a bit in order to form the structure necessary to make ice!

While this is the explanation given in all relevant textbooks (including the ones I wrote), there has always been a bit of a mystery associated with it. Now, this mystery seems to have been resolved.

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Another Point About C.S. Lewis

About three months back, I posted an essay about how people mischaracterize the views of C.S. Lewis to make it look like he agreed with them on some issue. In that essay, I cited Dr. Michael L. Peterson, an evolutionist, who deliberately edited a quote by C.S. Lewis to make it sound like he was an ardent evolutionist. I then cited Dr. Jerry Bergman, a young-earth creationist, who ripped several of Lewis’s quotes waaayyyyy out of context to make it look like C.S. Lewis was an anti-evolutionist. As I said in my essay, neither of the authors is correct. In fact, C.S. Lewis was an evolutionist, but his faith in evolution was never very strong. He thought it might not be the last word on origins, and at minimum, it would require direct intervention by God at certain key points.

I have gotten some flack from a few of my fellow young-earth creationists for calling Dr. Bergman out on his mischaracterization of C.S. Lewis. However, I am very familiar with all of Lewis’s published works, and there is no doubt that Dr. Bergman was simply not being honest in his portrayal of Lewis. The problem is, most people are not very familiar with Lewis’s work. As a result, it is hard for the average reader to notice when people like Dr. Bergman and Dr. Peterson quote him in such a way as to mischaracterize his views.

Well…there is a popular expression: “Actions speak louder than words.” As I was searching for something in a book I read years ago, I stumbled across the fact that C.S. Lewis performed a specific action which definitively shows, contrary to Bergman’s claims, that C.S. Lewis was certainly not an anti-evolutionist.

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Making Something 100% Efficient Is No Problem For God!

A model of ATPase. The rotor portion (purple) turns as H+ ions pass through, and the synthesis portion (green) uses that energy to force two molecules (ADP and P) to join together to make ATP. (click for credit)
When you eat food, your body digests it, sending chemicals from the food to your cells. When your cells receive simple sugars like glucose, they are burned for energy. However, that energy is mostly produced in one part of the cell: a small organelle called the mitochondrion. The cell needs energy in many different locations, however, so the energy that comes from burning simple sugars is “packaged” into smaller units that can be distributed throughout the cell. The units are stored in molecules called ATP. When the cell needs energy, it breaks down the ATP, releasing the energy that has been stored there.

So a cell takes the energy that comes from burning simple sugars and stores it in small units that are held in a molecule called ATP. The ATP is then shipped to where the cell needs it, and when that part of the cell requires energy, ATP is broken down so that the energy is released. The two molecules into which it is broken down (ADP and P) eventually make their way back to the mitochondrion, so that they can be put back together to store another unit of energy. The process by which all this is done is mind-bogglingly complex. Ask any biochemistry student who is required to memorize all the chemical reactions that take place in order for this to happen in a cell!

Now we know that this process is not only mind-bogglingly complex, but part of it is nearly 100% efficient!

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A Positive Step for the National Science Foundation

Since 1979, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been producing a study entitled Science and Engineering Indicators. It is a quantitative review of science and engineering progress in the United States and the rest of the world. One chapter from that report is called “Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Understanding,” and it attempts to assess how the people of the United States view and understand science compared to the people in the rest of the world. The way they try to gauge the public’s understanding of science is to produce a survey that asks questions such as, “How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun?” and “True or False: The center of the earth is very hot.”

For 20 years now, two of the True/False questions on that survey have been:

Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.

The universe began with a huge explosion.

According to the journal Science, two expert panels formed by the NSF’s governing body, the National Science Board, have suggested changing these two true/false questions to:1

According to evolutionary theory, human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.

According to astronomers, the universe began with a huge explosion

The National Science Board has decided to ask the NSF to make that change on half of the surveys given out next time to see what effect it has on the results. This suggestion has infuriated some, but I see it as a very positive step for the NSF.

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Despite Their Protests, Evolutionist Do Depend on “Junk DNA,” and LOTS of It!

As important functions are found for more and more junk DNA, some evolutionists are trying to claim it is not all that important to evolution.
Once Susumu Ohno coined the term “junk DNA” and called it the remains of extinct genes1, junk DNA started to become the darling of the evolutionary community. First, it was seen as an effective argument against creationism or intelligent design. After all, why would the Creator put so much useless DNA into His creation? More importantly, however, it was considered an integral component of evolution. After all, evolution requires that genetic mutations acted on by natural selection produced genes with novel functions. However, it is difficult to expect that to work when the mutations occur in genes that the organism needs. Thus, one of the major mechanisms of genetic evolution involves gene duplication. In this view, a gene is duplicated, and one copy continues to produce the protein it always produced, while the other is free to mutate wildly. Waving the magic wand of time, the evolutionist then says that a large number of these mutating copies will become useless junk, but a small number of them will develop into novel genes. As you can see, then, junk DNA is integral to evolution, and according to evolution, most organisms should have a lot of it.

This, of course, is why Dr. Jerry Coyne says the following in his book, Why Evolution Is True:2,

When a trait is no longer used, or becomes reduced, the genes that make it don’t instantly disappear from the genome: evolution stops their action by inactivating them, not snipping them out of the DNA. From this we can make a prediction. We expect to find, in the genomes of many species, silenced, or ‘dead,’ genes: genes that once were useful but are no longer intact or expressed. In other words, there should be vestigial genes…Our genome—and that of other species—are truly well populated graveyards of dead genes.

Unfortunately for evolutionists, function is routinely being found for this supposed “junk DNA.” As a result, some evolutionists have realized that they need to back away from the claim that junk DNA is integral to the process of evolution.

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