What to do?

So we all know that this time of year, aka the holidays, bring families together. It has been nice being home and getting to see my family. Over the last few days I have my parent's have had one of my aunts and her son over to visit. And it is nice to see them since I haven't seen them in at least 2 years. My aunt is for the most part conservative but then again so is most of my family but at the same time we are far from religious, although apparently my grandfather is very liberal which made for an interesting situation yesterday when we went to go visit him but that is another story all together. I love my aunt I think she is funny but tonight she said something that disappointed me.

We were watching the TV show The Big Bang Theory, Monday's at 9:30 on CBS, and the intro song mentions human evolution. My aunt said, "I don't believe in human evolution." There was the silence where no one knew what to say or do. One thing is for certain as much as my parent's might not completely understand science they have at least tried and they tend to accept most of the theories, sometimes a little too much against my advising but it has never hurt them. That maybe why both my sister and I have always been interested in science. Anyway this silence lasted for what seems like a couple of minutes but was probably only a few seconds until the next cheesy commercial came on. I will admit I didn't say anything and I probably should have but I tried to make my annoyance known.

So now my question is this: If you were put in the same situation what would you have done? Would you have sat their quietly like my whole family did or would you have said something challenged her or heck maybe you have some sort of middle ground. I just didn't know what to do at the time and just let it slide, since for most things we have very similar thought processes and I don't get to see her very often. I don't know how many people follow this blog but I figured I would ask that question to see if anyone who does read has any suggestions for next time.

Book Review #3

I finally have had some time to read. And while this is a good thing it turns out that I did not bring near enough books home to read. It is kind of sad that a book that I started months ago I read in 3 days, although I only actually read 2 of those days, and the main reason I got done so fast was that I had to wait for 3 and 1/2 hours for my car to get inspected.

But enough about me lets get to talking about the book. This book is a book I promised would be in my second book review when I wrote my first one (1st one here, 2nd one here) and that I failed miserably at. Yes I finally finished Your Inner Fish by Dr. Neil Shubin. In this book Dr. Shubin uses his discovery of Tiktaalik to describe in very simple terms the evolution of humans from simple single celled organisms to what we are now. In the process he talks about the major skull systems like sight, hearing, and smell and describes how they evolved from our more simple relatives to now. The description on the book reads:

WHY DO WE LOOK THE WAY WE DO? Neil Shubin, the paleontologist and professor of anatomy who co-discovered Tiktaalik, the "fish with hands," tells the story of our bodies as you've never heard it before. By examining fossils and DNA, he shows us that our hands actually resemble fish fins, our heads are organized like long-extinct jawless fish, and the major parts of our genome look, and function, like those of worms and bacteria. Your Inner Fish makes us look at ourselves and our world in an illuminating new light. This is science writing at its finest--enlightening, accessible, and told with irresistible enthusiasm.

I really did love this book. It is a very simple read, at least for someone who just took a class in vertebrate paleontology in which a lot of the same topics where discussed, so it doesn't like some one is lecturing too you but at the same time it is not so simple that you feel that someone should be cleaning drool off of your chin. It is clearly written for someone with at least some education that somewhere along the line included some basic biology. He also includes within a couple of quick one-liners that actually had me laughing as I read them. I like the way he treats the subject as well he takes you through his life at the start of each chapter and you can feel him "evolving" as a human and each of his stories in someway tie into the topic of that chapter.

If there was one thing he could have done better is to disguise the book. What do I mean by that? Well the full title of the book is Your Inner Fish, A Journey into the 3.5 Billion-year History of the Human Body. Right away any creationist is not going to pick this book up to read it. And the sad thing is that those are the people who need to read this book the most. He is very clear in how evolution works and would clear up a lot of misconceptions that creationists have about the science involved. So what should he have done? I don't really know the answer to that maybe come up with a name like "How Tiktaalik disproves evolution" and then have "not" written somewhere really small on the cover.

So what do I suggest? I recommend that you read this book it is a very good intro to evolution and if you are a high school or college student interested in evolution at all you should definitely read it. But after you read it you should make sure that your creationist friends read it, I would say go make them buy another copy but then I doubt they would do that since well I have a hard time buying creationist books, they are the ones after all who really do need it.

The author has a website (here) which has a lot of supplementary material for the book, and in fact as I found out from Dr. PZ Myers' blog (Pharyngula found here) today Dr. Shubin and company put out all of the images from the book on PowerPoint slides for teachers to use during their lectures (here). Dr. Shubin they have been downloaded and will be greatly appreciated during my lab teaching in the spring semester but will obviously be referenced to you I thank you.

Book citation
Neil Shubin . Your Inner Fish, a Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. 2008. Pantheon Books. New York.

Book review page

Venomous Dinosaur?

Apparently at least according to the authors of a paper that is about to come out. Based upon this blog post (here) it is hard to tell exactly they have some evidence but nothing certain. I obviously haven't read the paper yet so I can't really say for sure till I do that.

It could always be worse:

The difference between going to Grad school and going to work right out of school

So this may seem really random but where I am currently in both life and in location I really got to thinking about this today. At 23 years old I am in a unique position in life most of my really good friends from both high school and college have a job now but there is a good number, myself included, who decided to continue going to school and are now in grad school. I also am not quite in the position where I know a lot of people who are working and in grad school at the same time so I won't really be discussing that here. But tonight I was hanging out with a bunch of friends from high school we are all really close and it was good to finally see them all again. As I was leaving my one friend's house (yes he owns a house) he jokingly said to me something along the lines of it must me nice to have 3 weeks off but I guess you do kind of work for it. He has next week off and I told him well I can only imagine what it is like in your position.

So what is the point? Well once you get through your undergrad education your life very quickly evolves out of the large amounts of fun it was as an undergrad. I'm not saying life isn't fun but no matter what path you take you will be in working to be where you are. So for example there is no question my friends who have jobs work harder than me when you average it out. They will work 48-50 (5 day) weeks a year I however will get a month off from winter break and 3 months off for the summer. But what do you get for that? One of my friends is working but owns a house and has a kid, my fiance and I couldn't afford to do that if we pooled all of what we make a year, we would still make less than all of my friends except the ones who are teachers (which says something about our society). They tend to get up and are at work by 7-9 in the morning where as I tend not to get up that early but I will be up working on homework or something till 2.

So what should you do? Sometimes you don't have a choice. There are certain fields, and all of academia is included in that, in which you need at least some post-graduate education so you are stuck. But is it worth going to grad school right away or to enter the work force. That I cannot answer for you, and to be honest it took me time to answer it for myself. And that is just it if you can make enough to afford to own a house and have a kid at 23 then I say go for it but if you don't want to leave school right away and are willing to work hard in the academic world go for that too. In the end it comes down to the individual and nothing else!

Climate Change - "Those" e-mails and science censorship

Potholer54 continues refuting those people who cling to the recent e-mail hacking incident as evidence against global warming in his newest video and since I posted his last video (here) and greenman3610's last video (here) and after my post yesterday/earlier today (here) I figured I should pass it along as well:

Why we must tread carefully with climate refrom

So I just finished up my work for the semester and made it home yesterday so I might have some free time over the next few weeks to put some posts together, assuming I can come up with some topics.

This week wrapped up the Copenhagen climate conference in which only very little was accomplished. But I don't really want to discuss what happened there to be honest you will never get most of the developing countries to support something like that until you make it cheaper than just dumping the trash in the ocean, so to speak, and for this reason I think the US needs to take the lead in this attempt to clean up our actions. We have done this before when polluting of water was a major problem and now most countries realize it is wrong it just isn't something they can easily change. We need to set the example!

But, you might be saying that is not what you have as your title to this post. You would be correct and that is because of the economic problems we will face with a sudden drastic change in the way we produce power/drive/etc. The US transport and power industry is currently based on oil/gas and coal if we all of a sudden said no you can't use those any more because it is destroying the world well we will destroy our economy in the process it is currently too expensive to buy the alternative energy sources. I often think that many scientist forget about this cost and that is really too bad but I think most humans tend not to care as much about those who aren't us, so I don't think it is just a scientist thing but I know we do it and think that it should be easy to change things.

So what do I suggest we do, since it is one thing to say something is wrong but we should always be able to provide solutions to the problems we point out? Well we should start by funding alternative energy solutions. The current government subsidies go almost exclusively to oil/gas and coal. Why not scale back a little on that funding, thereby increasing cost and making it less desirable to the average person, and send that change towards alternative options. The strides that have been made in solar and tidal etc have been slowed by lack of money but yet they have occurred.

But the government shouldn't be the only one we as consumer's should demand cleaner resources etc. Vote with your wallet, drive less and walk more, turn off lights when you leave a room, (in honor of the massive snow storm on the east coast) shovel your own snow you don't need a snow blower, all of those things that we have been preached at to do we should. Yes it won't always be easy but it can be done but I do realize that you can never please everyone:

Comfort you are in trouble now

So I know that Michael Shermer tweeted this but I figured I would throw together a quick post on it. The story can be found here. But to summarize it real quickly it seems the evidence is pointing toward Ray Comfort stole a summary of Darwin's life from a professor at the University of Tennessee who is now thinking about legal action for obvious reasons. My favorite part of the article is this:

“I would like to engage him in intellectual combat, but it wouldn’t be fair,” Guffey says. “If he were to play by the rules of reason and logic, I would whoop his ass, but he’s not constrained by those rules, so it wouldn’t be fair to me.”

Yes, he is right that most creationists don't play by the same rules as us scientists but the part I am talking about is the "I would whoop his ass" part. I can see a lot of my professors saying things like that but not to a newspaper article for publication but to each his own.

Anyway this is an interesting development we will have to keep tabs on it to see what happens.

Smacking the Hack Attack

Write a paper of watch youtube videos and post a quick blog article? We will go with the second one.

Ok so yesterday I posted the video posted by potholer54 so today I was glad to see that greenman3610 decided to comment on the hacked e-mails as well. So I will let him take it from here:



So at least these two should help clear things up.

Those hacked e-mails

Ok still busy working on the end of the semester hopefully after the next two weeks I might be able to blog a little bit more.

Anyway I am sure you have all heard about those hacked e-mails from the climate change experts. Well the right here in the US has been holding up a couple as proof that it is just a conspiracy. So Potholer54 did some research and shows that well maybe they don't say what we have all been told they say.



Interesting eh?

Human's the social species.

So anyone who tells you that the final stretch of a semester in graduate school is easy, well that person is lying to you I should be working now but I am taking a break between projects so you get a blog post.

Tonight's post I actually got the idea from the 7/6c episode of Bones on TNT, and yes I am not making any money off of this. Anyway toward the end of the Episode Bones and Booth are talking about the human condition and about how we are in fact always alone as a species. I disagree with this as we will see in a few minutes but I also want to credit another source of the idea for this it is this post by a friend of mine's blog, the main blog can be found here. Toward the end of the post he says this:

Maybe I'm crazy for thinking everyone just wants you to step in line and shut up.

[...]

Meanwhile, I'm going to make this world better than the way it was when I was born. You can either stand up and follow me, or you can stay in line. Your call.

Now most of the rest of his post has nothing really to do with what I want to say here. They question I want to ask is why do humans seem to care so much about what other people think? Why do we care about fashion and other aspects that cause us to "fit in"?

This is where I want to refer back to the Bones episode. Yes each of us is our own person but we are shaped by those around us in fact we care more about their opinion than we do what we think of ourselves most of the time. When my friend argues that he wants people to follow him he is, probably unknowingly, saying that he does not want to be alone. None of us do! We are a social species we evolved that necessity. When we were evolving and living in the wild we did not have the physical ability to defend for ourselves we are very vulnerable. Look at yourself in the mirror sometime you don't have any killer claws, no extremely sharp teeth and for our size we are extremely weak.

So what does all this have to do with fashion? Well if in the wild everyone was moving out to a new location to look for food you would probably follow because everyone else was going not knowing that you are really going to use them as a form of protection. So the extension to fashion is that since everyone else is doing it we don't want to be left out from what the masses are doing in order to allow for "protection" of ourselves, after all we wouldn't want to be "eaten".

So next time someone tells you that each person is an individual think long and hard. Do you think the way you think because it just popped in there or did what people say/teach you cause you to think the way you did. All of our experiences change the way we think and our actions. And every person is effected by everyone they meet whether it is for good or for bad.

Please feel free to rip me a new one for my blindless conjecture, yes I have no supporting evidence and normally I am big on this but I will admit that I am just making conjecture here, or you can agree with me. I welcome all.

Books yay Books!

So while my normal saturday's revolve around college football today was a little different. I started out helping teach a class for Super Saturday's at Texas Tech but then I spent about 3 hours at the Lubbock Friends of the Library book sale. When I first heard about it I figured there would be a few books for a relativly low price. What I found was the entire basement of the Lubbock Library, at 1306 9th Street, full of books in which most hardcovers were $1 and soft covers $.50. This started yesterday for members and today for nonmembers. I recommend this because all of the books are donated, there are a ton, and all of the money goes to the Friends of the Library who sponser great things through the year like helping to improve literacy and numerous other activities. I enjoyed it as you can see here but as with all book stores/sales there are some things you wonder about. So if you are in Lubbock, TX I recommend checking it out tomorrow although I don't know how many books will be left. Their next event is February 13 and 14 when they are putting the books they have left on sale at 1/2 price.

A down an dirty news coverage can be found here.

Obama shouldn’t be silencing opposition

I want to start by apologizing for not posting recently studying and writing has been getting in the way of that, I should be studying now but I don't want to so I'm not.

This post won't be about science like normal and while I said don't want to talk about politics in here well sometime you can't escape it. I came across this story while reading the paper this morning. Now maybe I am a masochist but whatever it I always read the opinion portion of the paper and that is when I came across this. So I read the headline and decided to go ahead and read it.

The article started to annoy me right from the start:

Among the many volatile threads common in the current administration, there is one that is especially troubling. That is the repetition of the attacks our president and his media representatives have repeatedly made against any voice that dares counter his own.

We saw this when they set up a White House Web site for citizens to report any suspicious or contrary information about health insurance during the summer. We saw it when they unleashed havoc on Fox News for daring to criticize President Barack Obama. And we saw it when the administration decided to let loose another attack. This time it battled Edmunds.com over its criticism of the cash for clunkers program.

Ok the White House did not set up a way to report people who were lying, and there were plenty of lies, during the summer they just wanted to know about misconceptions about the health debate so they could correct them in speeches etc. Next how did they unleash "havoc on Fox News"? All they did was refuse to be interviewed by Fox News I would too if they were calling me these type of things:



But you know what I'll give you a chance lets see how you summarize the Obama vs Edmunds argument:

To sum up the squabble quickly, Edmunds claims the administration failed to deliver the facts about each “clunker,” costing taxpayers $24,000, and although it boosted third-quarter sales, the fourth quarter, which is traditionally the worst season for car dealerships, will report abysmal numbers at best.

This administration reports, in contrast, the excitement of an inventive vehicle program drew in purchases that previously would not have happened. What they fail to say is this is highly unlikely for those who did not qualify, which is a greater percentage than one would initially think and during the CFC program, prices on vehicles actually rose.

Really that is it they disagree on what is going to happen in the future? And how is this silencing the opposition? Last time I checked we were allowed to say what we want and we were allowed to disagree in none of the things that you quoted did the Obama administration stop anyone from saying anything. You can speak your mind and guess what he is a citizen of the U.S. so he can...speak his mind too heaven forbid it disagrees with what you think.

I will let you read the rest of the article if you want but he pretty much goes on to say that Obama is wrong and that he doesn't let us use free speech but there is one last thing I want to discuss from the article:

The First Amendment states American citizens have liberty in the areas of the free exercise of religion, of speech, of the press, of assembly and to redress grievances before government. This is a statement that ought to take primacy in the lives of our leaders.

Guess what Obama is an American citizen and has the right to say what he thinks as well but even more so find me one instance where Obama has stopped any of these. Where the Tea party protesters allowed to protest? Yup. Are people still allowed to practice whatever religion they want? Sure. Do people call Obama a Nazi/Hitler? Yup. Has it ever been stopped? Nope. So you and he disagree on political issues, what did I expect living in West Texas, but that doesn't mean that you are being oppressed in what you can do/say.

Child’s question to Obama highlights nation’s hate

Ok so I know I normally avoid politics and I am not going to say anything about this but I actually found this article enjoyable and a good read no matter where you stand on political issues.

Facts vs Politics

So some times I have to look for something to go off about and sometimes you just pick it up on the way to your office. Today it was the later when I came across this article in today's Daily Toreador, the school paper for Texas Tech.

So most of the article is not what I want to deal with it is kind of blah and not really something I care to make an statement on and there were somethings I actually agreed with while reading this. That was until I came to these next few statements:

The fact these individuals believe [...] or that we did not evolve from lower forms of life [...] does not make them evil people.

and then further on

However, if we turn off our minds to their reasoning([...] they do not bow to the supposed all-powerful altar of scientific theory, etc.) we only damage ourselves.

This pretty much pissed me off but what did I expect I am in West Texas. A scientific theory is not a matter of personal belief it is based on evidence, far too much to list right now. You are truing off your reasoning by accepting what has been told to you by church leaders for hundreds of years. Examine the evidence, all of it, with open eyes not with the idea that it is already wrong. The fact that they mix in evolution with Political ideals such as socialism etc is exactly what makes me mad it is not a political issue it is not an idea to be put up for debate by the common person the ideas are being refined and debated amongst scientist and trust me if someone disproves evolution it will very quickly be published in the popular media.

So some of you might be wondering why I don't write a reply in the student paper. I am not because 1) my writing is pretty obviously crappy because I know what I think just not how to write it down and 2) That is not the main topic that they are talking about in their piece, although with the way these topics are included he kind of goes against the main point in his article. Anyway feel free to leave any comments if you think I am over reacting or under reacting here as well as state your opinion on the page for the article itself.

The Dose Makes the Poison

So I have been subscribed to C0nc0rdance for some time now and while I appreciate his videos I normally don't feel the need to post them here. Then I saw this series today entitled The Dose Makes the Poison and in light of the current outrage over the new flu vaccine, and just vaccines in general, I figured I would pass it along. I want to say from the outset that his statements are based on real science and evidence unlike many of those who are against vaccination...anyway enjoy.

The Dose Makes the Poison Part 1


The Dose Makes the Poison Part 2


I recommend watching his other videos and subscribing to him, his channel can be found here.

Build a Museum

I know I haven't posted in a little while school has taken up a lot of my free time as expected and yes I know Saturday is for football but since it is halftime in the Texas vs Oklahoma game, when did the Big 12 start playing defense, so I figured I would get a post in because this is something I have wanted to post about for a long time and keep forgetting about or being too busy. Ok that was a long sentence let me get to what I actually want to talk about.

So for anyone who has been to LSU knows that their Museum of Natural History is small and does not have much in the way of stuff on display. You might also know that they gave some of their stuffed animal collections to a store down I-10. Well there has been a campaign going on to help them build a museum, click here to learn more. This is something that needs to be done, and they are currently not asking for money just for public support. And public support for science is something that is hard to come by, see here and here. For people who don't know the current museum shows almost exclusively stuffed animals and most people in the state and region don't know how much in the way of fossils that LSU has. They have 70% of a Basilisaurs as well as a large collection of other mammals all of which have been found in the state of Louisiana. It would also help attract lots of large traveling exhibits like Sue. The state does not have a major natural history museum but it has plenty of natural history is it any wonder they are one of the worst when it comes to science standards. People especially kids learn the most from seeing these great organisms that once roamed this planet. So those of you be you from the state of Louisiana or not please support this attempt to build a museum in Baton Rouge on the LSU campus, maybe try contacting Mrs. Jindal because we know that Mr. Jindal doesn't support science.

Thank Goodness!

So this story caught my attention today.

In general the parents of a young girl whose daughter died because instead of seeking medical attention let her suffer through complications of diabetes were sentenced today to 6 months in jail and 10 years probation. I am happy for this decision because being a diabetic myself I know two things 1) the complications of diabetes while not painful are very draining I have never been so tired in my life and 2) in the 21st century when we have the drugs to make life very comfortable and live a long time with diabetes you should be forced to treat it. It will also make parents seek medical treatment for a sick child instead of just praying for them.

The judge had this to say:

'God probably works through other people,' Howard told the parents, 'some of them doctors.'

That is fine even if you believe in God there is no reason to seek medical treatment for a disease because without it life expectancy would be much shorter sort of like it was in the middle ages.

The parents had this to say:

'I do not regret trusting truly in the Lord for my daughter's health,' she said. 'Did we know she had a fatal illness? No. Did we act to the best of our knowledge? Yes.'

Dale Neumann, 47, read from the Bible and told the judge that he loved his daughter.

'I am guilty of trusting my Lord's wisdom completely. ... Guilty of asking for heavenly intervention. Guilty of following Jesus Christ when the whole world does not understand. Guilty of obeying my God,' he said.

First to the mother:

You didn't know your daughter had a fatal illness? Let me describe what happens before people typically get diagnosed:
1) They become thirsty to the point that they are unbelievably thirsty (I would drink multiple hydrating drinks and still thirsty).
2) The need to use the bathroom is almost as bad (I was using the bathroom every hour)
3) Hunger is slowly getting replaced by the wanting to drink (I never was hungry I would only want to drink the only reason I ate was because I knew I had to)
4) People lose weight very quickly (over the course of a few months I lost 40 pounds [I put 15 pounds on the first night I was in the hospital])
All of this was noticeable in to other people which is why I finally went to the hospital but she was even worse than I was she apparently was unable to speak, eat, or drink.

To the father:

You are not guilty of following Jesus' word in fact I had many a christian say to me that Jesus tells us to seek out those who can help us in this world.

Assistant District Attorney LaMont Jacobson said justice was served by the sentences, but he was disappointed the parents never said they were sorry for what happened.

Your kid died the least you can do it feel bad about it.

I don't know if their is a God or not but if there is, to those who think we shouldn't use medicine, and he made us he gave us a big brain that has gotten us to where we are, why can't we use it?

And it gets worse

So I know it has been a few days since my last post life has once again gotten in the way. So we all know about Louisiana's decision to allow the use of creationist material in the classroom passed their state school board earlier this year. Well a couple of weeks ago it got even worse.

http://lasciencecoalition.org/docs/LCFS_release_BESE_complaint_policy_9.28.09.pdf

That's right while they still will allow the Department of Education to review the material the local school boards do not have to listen to them should they disagree. Well considering they will probably be the ones to put the material in the classroom in the first place why should they care what that the state's experts say?

The state of science education in the state of Louisiana is down right horrible right now. And unfortunately unlike the people of Kansas who when they saw the problem elected their school board members out of office the next year I do not feel that this has been publicised enough for it to matter to most people in the State of Louisiana. This is a state that needs science and needs to listen to scientists more and they continue to ignore them. In my opinion the boycott by science organizations not coming to Louisiana is not enough people need to spread to word to others in the state and get the BESE board removed next election cycle. The only other way that I feel this will get changed is through a lawsuit. It worked in Dover and would set a clear precedent that this is the exact same thing.

[I apologize for my grammar to anyone with a respect to the English language out there I was having trouble putting my emotions into words]

Interesting way to handle this

So I was just cruising the internets tonight and came across the Wikipedia article on the Virginia Aquarium and having been to this aquarium before, given it was years ago, I figured I would cruise over to their website (found here). When I got to their website I see that they are going to open a new exhibit in about 56 days. So I decided I would check what all exhibits they currently have there, you have your standard sharks, seals, and turtles (among others) then I went to the new exhibit, found here, where I read this:

The Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center will unveil its spectacular $25 million renovation in 2009. Restless Planet is four immersive habitats, dozens of new exhibits and 110,000 gallons of new aquariums. The Aquarium’s original main exhibit gallery has been dramatically overhauled to represent Restless Planet, where we can see how diverse environments from Virginia’s past compare to similar environments still in existence today

Awesome I thought but they aren't really going to reference geologic time periods are they?

The Malaysian Peat Swamp, resembling Virginia during the Carboniferous period

Yes they are this is awesome and should be an interesting way to help kids see how the Earth and in particular Virginia have changed environments throughout the millions of years of earth's history.

They will have the Malaysian Peat Swamp (representing the Carboniferous), the Coastal Sahara Desert Habitat (representing the Silurian), the Red Sea Habitat (representing the rifts valleys of VA during the "Jurassic" I might lean toward Triassic since they are called the Triassic rift basins [sorry]), and the Indonesia’s Flores Island Habitat (representing the volcanic Precambrian [this might be a stretch but OK]).

Overall I hope that these end up being a good exhibit when it opens if there is anyone reading this who can get there when it opens let me know what it is like, hopefully I can get out there in the next few years but I doubt it.

Oh I'm sorry Dembski

So apparently William Dembski has a problem with a private organization doing something to help shine light on religion. It is a short post on the Uncommon Descent blog and you can find the post here.

The start of his post he says this:

You’ve got to wonder what an organization that touts itself for critical thinking is thinking when it sponsors a BLASPHEMY CONTEST:

I'll tell you what they were thinking they were thinking that they, the Center for Inquiry, a group of Atheists, Agnostics, and FREE THINKERS could hold a contest where people could...THINK. And that is the great thing about the US is that we are free to do that there are plenty of places in the world where this would not be allowed at all. So sure lets spread the word of this contest. Go ahead enter there are people around here in West Texas that could use a good bit of blasphemy and the opportunity will be given on September 30th when the Secular Student Society of Texas Tech University will be having a sell your soul for a cookie table. But I encourage all of you to enter this contest that includes you Bill

Since Darwin is their god, it would be interesting to submit to this contest true statements about Darwin’s less than divine attributes.

Although none of that would be novel since I am sure every supporter has heard them all before but good luck.

Jumping on the bandwagon

I know I am a little late in this game but I just joined twitter so if you want to follow me go ahead, I don't know how often it will be updated but who knows. You can see it over on the side bar so if you want to follow go ahead if not that's cool as well.

Perfect timing

So a day after I mention the Secular Student Society here at Texas Tech it gets a mention in the student paper check it out

http://www.dailytoreador.com/la-vida/society-spreads-word-about-secular-beliefs-1.1883644

This has actually happened a lot with me and this organization the day before the meeting that I attended I had been reading the blag hag blog (found here) and was just thinking about looking into a similar organization here and then found out about the meeting and now this. I guess I just need to keep talking/thinking about them and good things are bound to happen.

So why isn't this movie being shown here

Three posts in one day is pretty intense I know but don't get used to it. Anyway so I came across this and thought it was pretty funny as to why the movie Creation isn't being shown in the US.

Secular Student Society at Texas Tech

So on Monday night I attended a meeting of the Secular Student Society at Texas Tech. It was a good meeting and they seem like they are going to be a good group they just need some time to get organized since this is their first year in existence. I wish them the best of luck and will probably try to make meetings when I can, assuming this whole grad school thing doesn't get in the way (which I am sure it will). From the few months I have been here in Lubbock it has quickly come to my attention just how conservative this portion of Texas is so I was surprised at the number of people at the meeting. I just wanted to throw a shout out to them and to link to their website if you happen to be at TTU and want to learn more or just want to see what they are up to. Their website is http://www.secularttu.com/.

This may be a bit excessive

So a few months ago I read a story about 2 school administrators getting in trouble for saying prayer at a school event and today there was a follow-up released on CNN.com saying that these two men might actually get sentenced to jail for this. Story can be found here.

So it turns out that not only is it illegal to say a prayer in public schools because it violates that whole separation of church and state thing but there is also this:

Both parties approved the consent decree put in place January 9 under which district and school officials are 'permanently prohibited from promoting, advancing, endorsing, participating in or causing prayers during or in conjunction with school events,' the ACLU said.

Lay was a party in the initial lawsuit, and his attorney was among those approving the consent decree, according to the organization. In addition, the court required that all district employees receive a copy.

Whoops I guess they forgot about that consent decree when they did this:

But on January 28, 'Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new field house at Pace High School,' according to court documents.

'Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.'

Now you ask my friends and I can assure you they will tell you I have a bad memory but it really did seem like this consent decree was shoved down their throats.

Their attorney seems to think that just because the audience was adults it was OK to do this:

Attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group helping defend Lay and Freeman, have said that attendees included booster club members and other adults who helped the field house project -- all 'consenting adults.'

Well sure they were but that doesn't mean that they wanted to have your religion forced on them. What if some of the parents were atheists or even Hindus, or any of the many other possible religions?

Look I am OK if you want to pray to yourself before, during, or after a public event but it cannot be sponsored by people who work for the state at a state run institution during a state run event.

Now you might be wondering why I titled this what I did. Well as much as I am for separation of church and state as the next guy I feel that putting them in jail for it would be a little too strong. Now I know what they would be put in jail for is actually not saying the prayer but is actually for contempt. But this is probably their first time in trouble with the law, they have already lost their jobs, I am assuming, and will probably have a hard time finding another teaching job again after this the least that the state could do is end it there. It would, however, be interesting to see how the prison population would react to these two men being put in jail that when asked what for they say, "We said a prayer."

My View on the happenings at Sam Noble Museum

Alright so it has almost been a week since I last posted anything, but since I have to study tonight why not post something tonight right? So I figured I would make a statement on the goings on at Same Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma. For those of you who don't know go here and you can read both PZ's view on the goings on and he links to the original article.

So after reading the post last night I sent it to a friend who is a grad student there. They told me that they didn't even know about it, till I sent them the article, and that there is a chance most of the scientists probably didn't know about it until recently as well. They also told me that since the museum rents to anyone willing to pay that they don't have any say anyway.

My view is that it is fine with me if the museum rents to anyone to whom the money is right. This is a free country and the museum is part of a state university so they can't dictate who gives a speech there. I am as big a fan of free speech as the next person no matter how wrong it actually is. What I would suggest to all those who live near by and are free thinkers go see this and try to take up all of the question and answer session as much as possible. Be respectful if you go and try to get those in the audience who don't understand evolution or who have never heard the evidence go look up the answers to the questions that the scientists raise. This is the only way to get people to actually think because if you handle it aggressively you will only scare people off like this:

Book Review #2

Alright so I know I promised more book reviews earlier on but life got in the way and now school is starting to again as well but I finally finished another book. This time the book is Dinosaurs of the East Coast by David B. Weishampel and Luther Young, I know I promised to review Your Inner Fish next but this one seems smaller and like it would be a quick read before I started. But anyway before I get to the review here is what the cover says:

"The great dinosaur bone beds of the American and Canadian West are world famous and have yielded spectacular fossil finds. But the eastern United States and maritime Canada, where dinosaurs also roamed in great numbers, have been equally important to the study of these extraordinary creatures.

In Dinosaurs of the East Coast David Weishampel and Luther Young restore East Coast dinosaursto their rightful place on the paleontological map. They describe such dinosaurs as the plant-eating Astrodon johnstoni, similar to the Brachiosaurs, which browsed in the tropical Maryland jungle 100 million years ago. Other East Coast dinosaurs included a distant relative of Astrodon, Anchisaurus polyzelus, which lived in New England some 200 million years ago. And the remains of Hadrosaurus foulkii, a duck-billed dinosaur that lived in New Jersey some 70 million years ago, represented North America's first well-preserved dinosaur skeleton.

The authors also show that dinosaur fossil-hunting has not only had a long history along the Atlantic coast but also is very much alive there today. Some dinosaur fossils have come from the bog iron and clay pits of Maryland and New Jersey, while others have been discovered in the riverbanks of North and South Carolina. Dinosaur footprint sites have been found from central Virginia to the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia.

Richly illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and drawings, Dinosaurs of the East Coast combines science, history, and modern reporting to offer a new look at an always fascinating subject.

Alright on to my review.

Overall I thought this book was an interesting read. But I will say this is not beach reading there is a lot of scientific data and information but it is presented in such a way that anyone who has at least some high school education should be able to understand it. If you have studied a lot about dinosaurs you may not be interested in about half the book which deals with the basics of dinosaur types, and evolution, and the controversies currently being studied in dinosaur paleontology. Another problem I had was that the book seems to spend a lot of time focusing on western dinosaurs for a book about eastern dinosaurs.

If it is your first time sitting down and reading about dinosaurs you should find all of the introductory information very helpful. It is also nice that they refer back multiple times to the chapter in which they talk about something for the first time so if you forget what they are talking about you just have to refer back, trust me I had to do this a couple of times. I learned a lot of information that I did not know or did not remember about east coast dinosaurs. I did not know about all of the sites that they talk about and they smartly do not give away specific locations. There are plenty of pictures especially of the people who are currently doing the research.

All in all this is a well written introduction to east coast dinosaurs, with all their sources cited if you want more information, that plays a great homage to the people who have done the research, are doing the research now, or will do it in the future. While this is not a book for everyone, I recommend this to anyone living on the east coast who has any interest in dinosaurs or to anyone who has any interest in dinosaurs in general.

Book Citation:
Weishampel, David B. and Luther Young. Dinosaurs of the East Coast. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Book review page

9/11

I am sure we all remember what happened 8 years ago today. I remember they whole day as if it was only yesterday and for most Americans it changed our view on the world. So on this day we need to remember those whose lives were lost remember them for the way they lived but we also need to remember why they died. We will probably all hear the conspiracy theories about the attacks being planned by the government or whatever. Well Penn and Teller do a good job, and very simple, job of telling exactly why not to believe them (Sorry I would have embedded it but it was disabled for this video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcrF346sS_I

The rest of this episode is very good as well and I recommend it, along with all of the episodes of Bullshit. So take today to remember what happened so we can prevent it from ever happening again.

Michael Shermer's What I Believe

Michael Shermer the editor of Skeptic magazine, and eSkeptic online magazine, something I recomend that everyone subscribe to (its free), put this out yesterday. It is a good read and while I do not agree with everything he says I agree with enough to send it on. Enjoy

http://skepticblog.org/2009/09/08/science-and-the-power-of-humanity/

Earth Science Video

So this video was made by The American Geological Society (AGI), website here. Anyway someone posted it on YouTube so I figured I would pass it along.

Finally Kickoff

Ok so I would post a preview of the game coming up this weekend but there are so many people who are so much better at it than I am, but before I do we need to win this not just for any chance at making the national title game but also to bring the SEC down a notch.

I am especially fond of Tailgate Fever

I will post a couple of videos to get you pumped up as well:







and finally:



LETS GO HOKIES

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong

I decided I would make it easier to navigate for all those who might come across this blog later so I am going to link all of my posts on the 30 Reasons series so here we go:

The originial article

My Series
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Enjoy

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 5

Part 4 can be found here and the article I am refuting can be found here.

We shall finally finish this article in this post.

21. Not only must there be the input from a greater intelligence in order to produce an increase in complexity and/or intelligence, that intelligence must have a preconceived plan of action. No master craftsman would start to build without first having a plan, a blueprint.

Just like a beaver wouldn’t build a dam without first drawing up a plan. For this one I am going to do something that I should have done for all the other ones and ask you to provide me with the evidence showing that there must, “be the input from a greater intelligence in order to produce an increase in complexity.”

22. In order for evolution to be true atoms must form useful molecules such as enzymes, amino acids and proteins by random chance. It is mathematically impossible for these molecules, much less the far larger DNA molecule, to form by random action in nature. It cannot happen!

First off it is not the atoms that have to form into enzymes etc it is the compounds they make up and we already know that atoms form organic compounds after all they have been found even in space. Secondly it is a good thing that the real world does not behave exactly the way that mathematics always predicts. But this is off of the old you have to hit the jackpot x number of times in a row. A better example would be to show a slot machine that you can stop one row at a time. Let’s say you get the first row right then you can begin to focus on the second row then the third etc.

23. Natural selection and survival of the fittest are supposed to be the driving forces of progressive upward evolution. There are no selective benefits for a supposed transitional form. There would be no advantage for a creature to have a half-evolved eye or a half-evolved wing. Indeed, the existence of such structures would be detrimental and serve only to eliminate, not perpetuate, such disfigured organisms from a given population.

Evolution does not have a goal in mind so therefore it is not progressing upward it is just progressing. As far as the eye in concerned I suggest you watch this:



A transitional species is not transitional at the time it is alive it is only when we look back at the fossil record and see what game both before and after that we can get away with calling it transitional. After all you and I are transitions between our parents and our children but we don’t think about ourselves in that light.

24. The presumed intermediates required by evolution do not exist. The missing links are missing because they are missing. Reptilian scales do not/cannot become feathers. These structures originate from different cells within the skin tissue. Reptilian lungs do not/cannot change to become avian (bird) lungs. Air flows in and out of reptilian lungs just as in humans. Bird lungs have a flow through design.

For the start of this point see point 4. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VS0-40R4C5V-N&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=994126200&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=56d80db496bc7cb6adbf8a49a69d647d That should just about cover the reptile to feather controversy.

25. Living organisms are incredibly complex and have specific design features. In order to make this point please consider the following partial list: woodpecker tongue, Bombardier Beetle chemistry, insect metamorphosis, Giraffe heart and arterial system, Gecko feet and human eyes (or human brains for that matter).

Just because these things are incredibly complex is not evidence that they could not have evolved I have already pointed out the evolution of the eye there is no reason that all of the rest of these processes could have evolved through natural means.

26. Single-celled organisms such as bacteria, amoeba and algae have the same degree of complexity within them that multiple-celled organisms have within them. Single-celled organisms have a skeleton, respiratory system, digestion and elimination systems, circulatory system, reproductive system, command and communi- cation [sic] system.

I don’t know what single celled organism he is looking at. Yes they are complex but our cells are more complex than single celled organisms.

27. Life forms are irreducibly complex. To code for RNA production within a cell you must already have whole and complete DNA. To make DNA you must already have whole and complete RNA. In addition, it requires about 70 proteins to fabricate a DNA molecule, but you must have whole and complete DNA to fabricate those proteins.

Life forms are not irreducibly complex see Only a Theory by Dr. Ken Miller. You are right in a human it requires DNA to produce RNA but that is not the way it works in all organisms in fact there are some viruses, like HIV, that use RNA to produce DNA. Search reverse transcriptase.

28. When we see design we know that there is/was a designer. The human mind intrinsically knows the difference between randomness and design. When we see a plastic hair comb, one of the simplest structures ever designed and consisting of only one part, we know that it was designed and made through intelligent effort. A plastic hair comb does not come into existence by random chance.

We see design in nature because that is what was helpful to keep us alive out in the natural world in which we evolved. If some grass moves and you think it is a lion and it is only the wind but you run from it anyway you are still alive. If, however, the grass moves and you think it is the wind and it is a lion so you don’t run then you our lion dinner. The PLASTIC comb is a bad example because the only way that plastic is made only by HUMANS so we know it has a maker since we have seen or can see someone go make one.

If we see three stones sitting on the bottom of a clear stream we know that they got there by the random action of the water current. If we see the same three stones piled up one on top of the other sitting on the bank of that stream we know that an outside intelligence placed them there.

Sure about that?

We see design throughout nature. For good health blood must clot when it gets outside the body, but must not clot inside the body. In addition, it must stop clotting and not continue to clot once exposed to the outside. The molecular motors which turn the cilia of cells look exactly like little electric motors complete with bearings, shaft and housing. Our bodies must make decisions to accept or reject foreign substances or our immunological system does not work. Our bodies must also manufacture effective countermeasures without killing us at the same time.

Because all of these things always work so perfectly. As far as the blood clots and cilia of cells are concerned I again refer you to Only a Theory. Our body instinctively rejects everything you put into it. This is part of why they give people getting another person’s organ anti-rejection drugs. Our bodies easily could kill us while fighting off an infection, this is the reason why people get fevers.

29. Charles Darwin stated that the existence of vestigial and retrogressive organs and structures in the human body were essential proofs of evolution. It has now been determined that there are NO vestigial or retrogressive organs or structures in a human body!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_vestigiality Even if there weren’t any vestigial organs in humans there are plenty in other animals including wings on birds that don’t fly.

30. Evolutionary theories remain incapable of explaining the existence of sex, symbiosis or altruism.

How so? Evolution is perfectly capable of explaining sex, see History Channel’s episode of Evolution on sex. Symbiosis and altruism are even easier and there is plenty of published material on both of these. In general both of these exist because they help the organisms survive better which is after all what evolution is all about.

I reiterate that the solution to evolution is education! If we teach the true facts of science and teach our people to think critically they will never believe the Just So Stories of the evolutionists.

I agree with him that education is the most important thing in this world. However, as I pointed out at the start of this critique as people go further and further through the education program and learn more and more of the true facts that exist they see that evolution is actually true.

Besides, what is so dangerous about the facts that support creation?

Maybe this:

A belief in creation destroys the works of the Devil!

How so?

That is what is so important about it and why evolutionists cling to their faith position concerning it. Evolution is a religion of conveniences. The acceptance of evolution is the only way in which people may mentally justify that there is no God. The acceptance of evolution is the only way in which they may mentally justify that they may lead a sinless life with Jesus Christ. The Bible declares that this is manifest delusion.

I don’t know why people are so insistent in saying that evolution is how people justify atheism. Science is by nature agnostic and since it is constantly changing as we find more evidence it isn’t like it has a set dogma that never changes, unlike something I know of.

Paul used creation to lead the Greek evolutionists of Athens to Christ. (See Acts Chapter 17) Paul wrote a letter to the evolutionists warning of the consequences of evolutionary philosophy. (See Romans Chapter 1:16+) Paul told Timothy to avoid pseudo-science because it caused people to fall away from the faith. (See 1 Timothy 6:20-21) Peter warned us about what evolutionists would say in our time. (See 2 Peter 3:3-7) You and I need to do the same thing in our time. You and I need to:

‘Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might.

Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil [Evolutionary Just So Stories]. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness [those who would teach evolution theory without revocation], against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, [the whole counsel of God] that you may be able to resist in the evil day [in our time], and having done everything, to stand firm.

Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth [in part, the knowledge of the truths of creation science], and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. [If we have our minds right, then false arguments will have no effect on us.]

Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. [Use the Berean method of proof. If it doesn't line up with God's word, then it is to be rejected.]’

Ok I am not a biblical scholar but pretty much what I get out of all of that no matter how much logic and well reasoned arguments one uses against you reject them because a book that was written 2000 years ago in the Middle East is clearly more accurate.

In conclusion it is pretty obvious that all of these arguments have been raised by other people multiple times in the past but creationists are clearly not listening to the arguments I raised back at him. Evolution is a scientific fact and as a process continues to this day. Most of the arguments against his points are easily found on a quick search on the internet and in this day in age in which the internet is at the hands of an ever growing number of people that there are still people who believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and was created in 7 days.

Thanks for sticking with me and hopefully my next few posts won't be quite as long

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 4

Part 3 can be found here and the article I am refuting can be found here.

Lets pick up where we left off:

11. Nature does not provide us with the proof for the ‘Tree of Life’ so glibly talked about by evolutionists. We do not find life starting as simple and then branching upward and outward as it becomes more and more complex. We do not find that life forms follow the pattern of a single tree trunk with many branches. The physical evidence provided by nature gives a picture of an extremely large orchard with all plant and animal types represented from the beginning with their own individual trunks and branches producing the variations within kinds that we have today, but no new kinds progressing from previous kinds.

He is right about this we don’t really see a “Tree of Life” but more of a, as I once saw AronRa say, a bush of life. We do not find complex organisms early in the fossil record as he would have you believe what we find instead it simple single celled organisms. But these found a niche so they are still alive today we then further up the bush find multicellular organisms. These take up less of the bush then the single celled organism but they each find their own niche and relatives of them are found today. We however do not have multicellular organisms appearing at the very bottom of the fossil layers as the author would have you believe.

12. There are no transitional forms found in the fossil record. In spite of all the reports people may have heard, we have never found the fossil of a plant or an animal which is a true intermediate form. The "missing links" are missing because they are missing.

It seems to me like we have heard this point before yup it is pretty much a repeat of point 4, really running out of points already come on. My evidence back would be the same as point 4 so in case you don’t remember go look there.

13. Be wary of artists renderings. An artist's depiction, conception or illustration is imaginary. Simply because we see an artist's illustration of a cow becoming a whale doesn't make it so. Human desire and imagination are not evidence.

He is right artists renderings are done so that a layperson can more easily visualize the creatures that are present in the fossil record. It also doesn’t show you the tons of information that leads scientists to the conclusions that they do. Oh and cows did not evolve into whales it was an organism more like a modern wolf, for more on whale evolution there are plenty of papers but I recommend this one: Thewissen, J., L. Cooper, J. George, and S. Bajpai. From Land to Water: the Origin of Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises. Evolution: Education and Outreach)

14. Ancient man was not primitive. Ancient human cultures had more complex languages than we do today. The engineering feasts of the past cultures are well recognized and in some cases have not been duplicated in modern times. There never was a Stone Age, Bronze Age or Iron Age. Man has used stone, bronze and iron tools in all "ages" of past human activity. Indeed, there is nothing new under the sun.

Why are the more complex because we currently cannot understand them? See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#Number_of_words_in_English not only is English complex but it is growing constantly. Ask a former non-speaker how difficult it was to learn English yes I can assure you we have much more complicated languages now. As for the engineering it may seem hard but we know how they were done and despite what you might hear on TV if we needed or wanted to build what they built we could do and we could probably do it quicker than they did. Continuing on these ages are marked by what was used primarily and what was new. People did not use Bronze before the Bronze age nor did they use Iron before the Iron Age because it requires a set of skills that they had not yet learned. Finally on this point, did we always have internet, how about computers, or how about airplanes, cars, etc there is plenty of new stuff constantly coming out “under the sun.”

The observed Laws of Science contradict the various theories of evolution.

15. The law of Cause and Effect not only describes that for every effect there must have been a cause, it also tells us that the cause must be greater than the effect. No one can create anything greater than themselves. You do not get an increase in intelligence or complexity without the input from a greater intelligence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics) Interesting a physics law being applied to biology. If you can find in there where it makes a statement about evolution go right ahead. As far as the intelligence part. Newton said he stood on the shoulders of giants and saw further than they did. We continue to do that today we used what was learned before and build on it does that mean the people before us were more intelligent than us as the author would have us believe? No we just use what they knew to learn and it will be continued for as long as humanity exists unless we fall into another dark ages.

We are now half way done with his points everyone take a quick break.

Alright back to it.

16. The First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics work contrary to evolutionary belief. The First Law of Thermodynamics (The Law of Energy Conservation) proves that the universe cannot be the reason for its own existence. According to the First Law the universe cannot have been anything less than it is, and if it cannot have been anything less than it is, it had to come into existence whole and complete. If the universe came into existence whole and complete, then it had to be created. Simply adding energy to a system will not cause an increase in intelligence or complexity. The addition of undirected energy to a system accomplishes nothing, except possibly for the destruction of that system.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics (The Law of Entropy) proves that evolution cannot happen. The Second Law stipulates (a poor attempt by scientists to describe The Curse of Genesis Chapter 3 and Revelation) that in all activities some of the energy becomes unavailable for further useful work. The universe is running down, not up.

I want to start by saying that this is the first time I have heard the First law of Thermodynamics used to argue against evolution so I will give the author props there but that is all he gets. He did however get wrong what the first law says (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics). It says nothing about biology and really cannot be used to argue any point in fact it is just a set up for the second law (which can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics) and since there is no reason for me to argue a point that someone else has already done I pass you on to…ok so I found one for the first law so first to the ExtantDodo:



For the second law we go to again to the Dodo:

17. The concept of a ‘Big Bang’ producing the universe is absolutely illogical. Explosions do not produce ever increasing order and structure. Explosions produce disorder and chaos. Explosions break things down or destroy what was previously ordered.

Well then it is a good thing that the Big Bang was not actually an explosion but an expansion of space time. It also has zero to do with biological evolution of which was the point of this originally. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang

18. There is no substantiated method in nature which would allow stars to be ‘born.’ The Gas Laws prove that the pressure of hot gases expanding outward from a center is far greater than the gravitational force drawing them towards a center. Stars could not evolve into existence.

Whew it is a good thing that this has nothing to do with evolution. Oh wait you mean scientists have an explanation for how stars form? Really? Well then I guess I should link to it: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/stars/lifecycle/starbirth.shtml

19. The Law of Biogenesis (the Law of Life Beginnings) accurately states that life only comes from life, and that life only reproduces after its own kind. Life cannot spontaneously generate and life forms do not change from one kind into another kind.

Again it is a good thing that this doesn’t deal with evolution. Nevermind the fact that scientists don’t say that life came from nonlife. And that they actually say that organic molecules over time came together to form ever more complex structures and eventually from this life was able to develop. The question is where do you start life? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

20. The input of undirected energy accomplishes nothing. The input of undirected energy will destroy a system, not build it up. Only the input from a greater intelligence will cause a beneficial increase in order and/or complexity.

What scientific law is this? I can look out my window right now and can find an example that refutes what you are saying right away and that is simply the sun. The energy from the sun is just directed out into space but some of it happens to shine on us here. That sunlight though undirected is what allows photosynthesis to happen, it is what allows the ground to heat, my skin to burn etc.

So in Part 5 we will go through the final 10 on the list and finish up the rest of the article

30 Reasons Creation is Wrong Part 3

Part 2 can be found here and the article I am refuting can be found here.

So onto the list.

1. The evolution of one kind into another kind is not happening in a measurable way in the present, nor can it be proven to have occurred in the past.

Really? Interesting that this exists then http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/evolutionexampl.html. I was going to go through each one but I figured this one website would cover all the bases.

2. No new kinds of organisms are being observed coming from previously existing organisms. (We "discover" new kinds that we have never cataloged before, but this only shows our ignorance of their existence.)

Of course this doesn’t count the new species of fruit flies we have created in the lab or the constant changing of the flu virus does it? Also there is always this: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v387/n6628/abs/387070a0.html

3. No new structures or organs have been observed coming into existence. All observed structures or organs are fully formed when first observed. (The only observed changes to current structures or organs come from their decay and degradation.)

Except for those lizards cited above some of which went from carnivores to herbivores and had to develop a way to digest the plant matter so they created a new system out of what they already have. But we also shouldn’t see much in the way of organ evolution because it is a long slow process.

4. There are distinct gaps between the known kinds of organisms. One kind is not observed to change into another kind. We do not observe the ‘missing links’ because they are missing, not there, don't exist.

The day that we see one “kind” become another “kind” is the day that evolution is disproven. Evolution does not predict cats turning into dog or whatever it is a stepwise process. In 1000000 your descendants will not look anything like you but if you followed each step in between you might not even notice the subtle differences between each successive generation. As far as the no “missing links” if you mean like the famous crocoduck then I will admit defeat we don’t have any of those, but then again we don’t expect to, but what we do have are these:

5. Life only comes from life and reproduces after its own kind. Life does not come from nonliving material. Life does not spontaneously generate itself.

Evolution does not make a statement about how life came into being that would be abiogenesis. But just for the sake of argument let’s say I know a little bit about abiogenesis. 1) It does not argue that life came from non-life in fact we have found organic compounds in space now which help lead to a higher likelihood of this being true 2) Isn’t that what the literal creation story says anyway aren’t we all made from clay? As for the bit about life reproducing after its own “kind” I have never had anyone tell me what a kind is but as I said line up your past and future relatives and then just look at the two end points say 20 generations apart and tell me how similar they look.

6. Mutations, the supposed driving mechanisms of evolution, are random in nature and are neutral or harmful. They do not accumulate beneficially. Mutations produce the wrong kind of change and will not provide for the ‘upward’ progressive increase in intelligence or complexity required by evolutionists.

This point is fun from the very start. Mutations are no the “supposed driving mechanism of evolution” they are the raw material from which natural selection can “choose.” They provide the genetic diversity that makes each individual of a species unique and different from all of the others. I will agree that most mutations in nature are neutral and that a good majority are harmful in the current environment but it is when the environment changes that allows a previously harmful mutation to become a beneficial mutation. We will use the example of the gene that causes sickle cell. This is a harmful mutation for the people that have it but it also provides a resistance to malaria this is beneficial mutation. So what do we want well in the modern world of medicine sickle cell is a disease that people can get treatment for and can live a relatively normal life. This allows the gene to proliferate and what is even better is that in a person that has both the gene for sickle cell and one of the opposite they still get the malaria resistance. This is a long way of saying that mutation most definitely occurs in the mind and has allowed us to create medicines as well as elsewhere in the gene pool.

7. We observe stasis, not change, in nature. Extinction is a proof of creation. We do not find change in the fossil record nor can we measure it in the present. Animal and plant kinds that exist today retain the same appearance but are smaller in size than their known predecessors.

Interesting but I fail to see how extinction of species is proof of either stasis; of which global climate change, volcanism, etc also apply; but also how this is proof of creation. As far as your last point couple of points I direct you to the Dr. Bruce McFadden paper found here (MacFadden, B.J. 2005. EVOLUTION: Fossil Horses—Evidence for Evolution. Science, 307(5716):1728-1730.).

8. The fossil layers are not found in the ground in the nice neat clean order that evolutionists illustrate them to be in their textbooks. There is not one place on the surface of the earth where you may dig straight down and pass through the fossil layers in the order shown in the textbooks. The neat order of one layer upon another does not exist in nature. The fossil bearing layers are actually found out of order, upside down (backwards according to evolutionary theory), missing (from where evolutionists would expect them to be) or interlaced (‘younger’ and ‘older’ layers found in repeating sequences). ‘Out of place’ fossils are the rule and not the exception throughout the fossil record.

Let me start at the bottom of this statement first. An out of place fossil would be one that was found in a layer that is not of the age that the suspected fossil should be found in example would be finding a mammal in a Mississippian age strata. This has not ever been found if it was then it would falsify evolution right away. But a quick search of the scientific literature finds that this has never happened. Now on to the rest of his point…By “fossil layers” I am going to assume that he means fossil bearing rock layers or just rock layers because there are very few layers in the rock record that consist solely of fossils. He is right in saying that the rock layers are not always perfectly horizontal sometimes flipped upside down and often times just downright missing. But these imperfections in the rock layer can be explained through the process of mountain building via plate tectonics the same pressures that bend rock also cause it to flip. But we can typically distinguish between a rock layer that is laying the way it is supposed to be and one that has been flipped. As for the missing layers that one is easy and simply deals with erosion. All areas of the United States that are currently dry land will not have a rock record for right now where as the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes will have a near complete record. Now my guess is that our author did not make it the whole way through intro geology but instead stopped going after the first class because all of these processes are covered in the class but we start with the simplest aka the law of superposition.

9. Polystrate fossils, fossils which penetrate two or more layers of the fossil record (most often trees), are common throughout the fossil record. In rare cases even large animal skeletons have been found in vertical position rather than in a horizontal position.

As far as the large animal skeletons being found vertical the only ones I know of that have been are the mammoths pulled out of the not yet compressed permafrost soil layers in the Arctic regions. As for the rest:



His source on the polystrate trees is: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html

10. Life forms are found to be complex even in the "oldest" layers of the fossil record. For example, various species of Trilobites are found to have very sophisticated eyesight. Yet evolutionists say that these creatures supposedly evolved into existence when the first multiple celled life forms began to evolve some 620 million supposed years ago.

No we have evidence for life that is much older than 620 million years old in fact we have evidence of communal existence of single celled organisms at 3.4 billion years (source: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section5.html#strange_past) And we have solid evidence for multicellular life at the end of the Precambrian 580-545 million years (source: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/geo_timeline.html). In fact trilobite evolution occurred from at least 545 million years ago till they went extinct at the end of the Permian during the Permo-Triassic Extinction event (source: http://www.trilobites.info/geotime.htm). By the way isn’t it interesting that he uses as evidence against evolution one of the best examples of evolution we have today as well as one that does not currently exist and helps disprove the 6 day creation.

So we are now 1/3 of the way through the list. Part 4 will be the next 10 statments of the list.