Archive for the ‘Evolution’ category

Dinosaur Soft Tissue

August 17th, 2009
T-Rex from ICR.org

T-Rex from ICR.org

Dinosaur Soft Tissues: They’re Real!
by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Paleontologist Mary Schweitzer’s discoveries of soft blood vessels, proteins, various blood cells, and even DNA inside fossilized dinosaur bones have been met with extreme skepticism from the scientific community. It has been well established that such biological structures and molecules should not last beyond a few tens of thousands of years, and could not possibly survive millions of years. So why are they there?

Scientists have made multiple attempts to debunk Schweitzer’s findings. Over the last 15 years, alternate explanations for the soft dinosaur tissue include contamination in the field or in the lab, bacterial activity producing the illusion of blood vessel remains, and the possibility that protein signatures derived from the tissues are actually just statistical artifacts (i.e., distortions or data errors).

In an effort to answer these objections, Schweitzer’s team implemented sterile excavation procedures and had an independent third party analyze their results. They confirmed that the soft tissues could not have come from bacteria. Bacteria do not manufacture products in the shape of vertebrate blood vessels, nor can they produce the kind of collagen found in the dinosaur bones.

The issue has generated such fervor that John Asara of Harvard Medical School, who found clear collagen signatures in Schweitzer’s dinosaur tissues,1 placed his data on line so that anyone could access it. Researchers from Palo Alto reanalyzed the data and published their report on line in the Journal of Proteome Research.2 They verified that four of Asara’s original seven collagen sequences were clearly legitimate, using different statistical and bioinformatics techniques. So far, there is every indication that the dinosaur soft tissues—incredible as it seems—are real biological leftovers from their once-living hosts.

Three options present themselves for the presence of molecules and blood vessels in creatures that purportedly passed on eons ago. Perhaps the soft tissue is some kind of mistake—it isn’t really organic material. But the number of other possible substances it could be is dwindling. Or perhaps there is an entirely unknown natural process that could have preserved soft tissue for millions of years. But this is a special pleading argument, one with strong laboratory evidence against it. Third, perhaps the soft tissue, and therefore the sedimentary rock that encased it, are thousands—not millions—of years old.

Dinosaur soft tissue leaves the evolutionary paradigm, which must have millions of years in order to achieve even remote plausibility, between a rock and a hard place. However, these dinosaur blood cells and vessels fit perfectly into the biblical history of the world, which indicates that man and dinosaurs both were created on the same day in the relatively recent past.3

References
Asara, J. M. et al. 2007. Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry. Science. 316 (5822): 280-285.
Bern, M., B. S. Phinney, and D. Goldberg. 2009. Reanalysis of Tyrannosaurus rex Mass Spectra. Journal of Proteome Research. Published online July 15, 2009, accessed July 30, 2009.
Genesis 1:24-27.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

This post was taken from the Institute For Creation Research

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)

Evidence From Mathematics

August 11th, 2009

simple cell drawingDrawing of a cell membrane from Wikipedia.

At one time living cells were considered no more than empty table tennis balls. As biochemists have learned more about the complexity of life, it has become increasingly apparent that thousands of specific and complex chemicals are required for any form of life to survive. Evolutionist Harold Morowitz estimated the probability for chance formation of even the simplest form of living organism at 1/10340,000,000. By contrast, only 10²º grains of sand could fit within a cubic mile, and 10 billion times more (10³º) would fit inside the entire earth. So the probability of forming a simple cell by chance processes in infinitely less likely than having a blind person select one specifically marked grain of sand out of an entire earth filled with sand.

There is nowhere near enough time nor matter in the entire universe for even the simplest cell to have formed by chance combinations. Even if all the correct chemicals somehow came together in the correct place, you still wouldn’t have life. This is exactly the situation every time a living organism dies. Immediately after death, all the right chemicals exist, in the right proportions, and in the right place – yet the creature is still dead!

Five billion years is nowhere near long enough for evolution to have taken place. In reality, all of eternity would not provide enough time for random processes to form the enormous complexity of life.

This document was taken from Energy Flow in Biology, Academic Press, NY, 1968, p.99 and quoted in A Closer Look At The Evidence, by Richard & Tina Kleiss.

I will proclaim the name of the LORD.  Oh praise the greatness of our God! He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all His ways are just. . .  (Deuteronomy 32:3,4)

Dr. Michael Ruse

August 2nd, 2009

MichaelRuse

Michael Ruse, editor of the Cambridge Series in the Philosophy of Biology and founding editor of the professional journal “Biology and Philosophy” is a hardcore Darwinist. Yet he considers both Dawkins and Dennett “dangerous.” Ruse is worried that if Dawkins and Dennett make evolution and atheism one (they do!) then Intelligent Design advocates will have a legal basis for its discussion in science classrooms. Why? Because teaching Darwinian evolution in the classroom as equal to atheism would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ruse has a valid point. Sooner or later Secular Humanism as a religion will be in the courts, and atheism will be a key element in the discussion. Already the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has declared atheism a religion. But Ruse, who teaches at Florida State University, is even more direct than Dawkins and Dennett, who equate atheism and evolution. In a telling article published in the Canadian National Post (May 13, 2000) he writes, “Evolution is promoted by its practitioners as more than mere science. Evolution is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion-a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality …. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

Secular Humanists generally deny their world view is a religion. Their opponents, however, argue that Secular Humanism IS as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, et al, and, therefore, should not be the religion of American public schools. Ruse gives the whole Secular Humanist case away when he says, “Evolution therefore came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitution for Christianity. It stressed laws against miracles and, by analogy, it promoted progress against providence …. One of the most popular books of the era was Religion Without Revelation, by the evolutionist Julian Huxley, grandson of Thomas Huxley.”

The above excerpt was taken from The Schwarz Report, April 2009, p.2

Paul Amos Moody

August 2nd, 2009

Paul Amos Moody, a superb scientist, wrote Introduction To Evolution published by Harper and Row. In it, he admits to his students that the more he studies science, the more impressed he is with the thought that “this world and universe have a definite design–and a design suggests a designer.” He goes on to say, “It may be possible to have design without a designer, a picture without an artist, but  my mind is unable to conceive of such a situation.”

The above exerpt was taken from The Schwarz Report, April 2009, Volumn 49 Number 4,  p.2