Tag: creation

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Electrogenic Fish

Electrogenic Fish
To keep a balance among living things in the natural world, there have to be many ways for animals to get food. In lakes, oceans, and rivers this is especially difficult because of the amount of cover that exists in which small fish can hide. If small fish over-populate, they exceed their food supply and the whole ecosystem collapses. One way to keep balance is with a predator that is an electrogenic fish.

One of the agents designed into the ecological system is the existence of living things that send out electrical charges. Very little is understood about how this works, but new data is enabling us to understand how cleverly electrogenic fish are designed to enable them to find and eat forage fish.

The January/February 2018 issue of Popular Science (page 75) has an interesting article by Ken Catania, a professor of neurobiology at Vanderbilt University on his studies of electric eels. What he found is that when an electric eel discharges a high-voltage pulse, the nerve fibers in nearby animals are affected. If a small fish is swimming near the eel, it becomes frozen like a statue long enough for the eel to catch it. Even more interesting is the fact that the eel can make any creature that is nearby twitch when the eel fires off a blip of current. The eel can swim up to a clump of seaweed and fire off a pulse. Anything hiding in the seaweed, like a small fish, will reveal its presence by twitching.

Electrogenic fish are just one of many different systems in the ocean that allow predators to keep a balance in the sea. Everywhere we look in the creation we see the wisdom of God revealed “through the things He has made” (Romans 1:19-20).
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Flat Earth Movement Still Alive

Flat Earth
A Newsweek article for November 30, 2017, reported that more Americans scoured the internet looking for proof that the Earth is flat in the past 12 months than ever before. The first “Flat Earth International Conference” in September drew 500 “believers.” I put the word believers in quotes because there is no way to tell how many of these folks view the whole thing as a joke, and how many people truly believe in a flat Earth.

Atheist and popularizer of secular humanism Neil DeGrasse Tyson got into the act by “sharing a photoshopped image of the moon on Twitter to undermine Flat-Earthers.” The image shows what a lunar eclipse would look like with a flat Earth. Tyson frequently equates belief in God with the flat Earth mentality. We may shake our heads in wonderment at this whole scenario, but it brings to mind the old proverb, “If people don’t believe in something, they will believe anything.”

While the Bible doesn’t discuss this issue directly, there are passages like Isaiah 40:22, Proverbs 8:27, and Luke 17:30-35 which infer that the Earth is round with daytime and nighttime activities taking place simultaneously. Unfortunately, we see some Christians taking positions on scientific issues that are similar to the Flat-Earthers. When the Bible is put in the same arena with flat Earth believers the Bible’s credibility suffers.

You can intelligently and logically believe that “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” There is massive evidence to support that statement. The same is not true of those who believe the Earth is flat.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Dark Energy and Creation

Dark Energy and Creation
One of the great mysteries of cosmology is the fact that the cosmos is speeding up as it expands. Scientists explain this acceleration by an invisible pressure called dark energy which makes up about 70% of the energy in the cosmos.

This explanation is based on an assumption called the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric which took Einstein’s equations and applied them to a universe they assumed to be homogeneous and isotropic. In other words, it assumes a smooth universe. Science has determined that the universe is not smooth. It is made up of great voids separating networks of dense galaxy clusters and filaments.

Emily Conover writing in Science News for November 25, 2017, (page 22) said, “If the universe were soup, it would be more of a chunky minestrone than a silky smooth tomato bisque.” When the equations are applied to a universe that is not isotropic and homogeneous, the acceleration of the cosmos seems to be explained without the need for dark energy. By the very nature of the lumpy design of the cosmos, its collapse is avoided.

It is interesting to note that the cosmos was created in such a way that its very existence contains the fingerprint of a design that allows great stability over an infinite amount of time. The more we know of the creation, the closer we get to the Creator.

Many aspects of the creation we may never understand, but as our instruments get better and data accumulates, we understand that we have, in the words of Issac Newton, “found a pebble of knowledge while an ocean of truth lays before us.”

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is really all we need to know. Seeing His power, wisdom and design bolsters our faith in the fact that “The Lord possessed wisdom at the beginning of his work, before his deeds of old: wisdom was appointed from eternity from the beginning. Before the world began…” Proverbs 8:22-23.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Komodo Dragons and Parthenogenesis

Komodo Dragons and Parthenogenesis
There seems to be an unlimited number of methods by which plants and animals reproduce. In 2006 in England’s Chester Zoo a female Komodo dragon (a large lizard) who had never been in the presence of a male laid a clutch of eggs that hatched producing male Komodo dragons.

This self-fertilization process is called parthenogenesis, and it apparently happens often with Komodo dragons. When a female Komodo dragon is isolated so that normal sexual reproduction cannot take place, the isolated female can bear male offspring which will have the same DNA as the mother. When they grow up, they can be the female’s mate. This doesn’t allow for diversity in the gene pool, but it does provide a way for a geographically isolated population to reproduce.

Komodo dragons only live in the wild on seven islands of Indonesia. They are threatened by loss of habitat and poaching of the animals they prey on such as wild boar, water buffalo, and deer. They have been designed with a method to protect them from extinction.

Komodo dragon parthenogenesis is possible because the females have both male and female chromosomes. This allows for reproduction in a way that meets their particular situation. God’s design to keep Earth populated with life is incredible, and discoveries continue to help us understand just how complex the design is.
Reference: National Geographic, November 2017, page 29.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Christmas Date: December 25?

Christmas Date
One of the interesting questions about Christmas is why people observe it as the date of Christ’ birth, and how December 25 was chosen as the Christmas Date.

Many people spend a lot of energy condemning the observance of Christmas as the birth of Christ, because the Bible doesn’t tell us to celebrate it, and because it almost certainly is not the actual date of His birth. Paul dealt with this kind of issue in Romans 14, and he clearly indicated what our attitude should be. In verses 5 and 6, Paul wrote, ”One man considers some days to be more sacred than others while another considers all days to be alike. On questions of this kind, everyone must decide for himself. The man who values a particular day does it in the Lord’s honor, and he who does not regard it does so to the Lord.”

Biblical Archaeology magazine had an interesting summary of the December 25 choice of the date for Christmas in their November/December 2013 issue. It may be instructional for all of us to understand the selection of the Christmas date:

“Most (but not all) Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus on this date. It was first identified by Christian historian Sextus Julius Africanus in 221 A.D. In his five-volume treatise Chronographiai, he calculated the day of Annunciation (Jesus’ conception) to be March 25 in the year 1 B.C.–the first day of the calendar year and 5,500 years after the Creation of the world, according to his estimates–thereby resulting in Jesus’ birth on December 25 of the same year. Later historians came up with the date March 25 for the Annunciation believing there was a connection between the date of the crucifixion, March 25, and the Annunciation. The Eastern Church also linked Jesus’ conception and birth but placed his conception on April 6 and his birth on January 6. In Armenia, Christmas is still celebrated on January 6. For the rest of the East and liturgical churches in the West, January 6 came to be celebrated as Epiphany, marking the arrival of the magi to the Nativity. The 12 days between Christmas and Epiphany became ‘the 12 days of Christmas.’ Many countries–including Russia, Serbia, Egypt, and Ethiopia–celebrate Christmas on January 7 and Epiphany on January 19 because they hold to the older Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the modern Gregorian calendar.”

Regardless of the Christmas date, we hope that you will remember to do as Paul wrote and honor the Lord on any and every day, all day.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Kepler-90: Our Twin Solar System?

Is Kepler-90 a Twin to Our Solar System?
It seems that every week astronomers make an announcement that the media use to suggest that the cosmos is overflowing with life similar to planet Earth. The latest system presented as identical to our solar system–and therefore harboring life–is around a star known as Kepler-90, 2545 light-years away.

Kepler-90 is made up of a parent star and eight planets, the same as ours. The star that serves as the sun for the Kepler system is a G type star, and our Sun is a G-2 star. Some of Kepler-90’s planets are rocky planets comparable to the Earth. There are also two large planets comparable to Jupiter and Saturn. Three of Kepler-90’s planets are the size of Uranus and Neptune. Tabloids have been calling this system our twin because of these similarities. They are even suggesting that we need to make contact with the “humanoids” living there.

The reality is that no scientist, at least in print, feels that this solar system is the same as ours. First, all of Kepler-90’s planets are closer to the sun of the system than the Earth is to our Sun. They would undoubtedly be much too hot to support any kind of life based on carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. It is also important to note that in our solar system our large planets have a function that can only happen if they are farther from the Sun than the life-bearing planet. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all serve as shields to planet Earth. The four Jovian planets will absorb any large object from outside the solar system that is on a collision course with Earth. The famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet in 1992 was torn apart by Jupiter and destroyed. Had Jupiter not shielded the Earth, the collision of the Earth and Shoemaker-Levy 9 would have been devastating.

A system with a star emitting the right spectra and having rocky planets does not necessarily support the existence of life. We produced a chart titled “Evidence for Design in the Universe” that lists 47 variables necessary for a planet to harbor life. You can access the chart on our doesgodexist.org website, or request it from us and we will mail you a copy.

Astronomers haven’t yet found anything close to a twin to our planet. Even if they did, and even if there were life on it, all that would prove is that God created life elsewhere. It would indicate that the Creator carefully chose the right constants and chemical constituents to allow life to exist.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Unobtainium or Unobtainable

Unobtainium
Have you ever heard of the discovery of a new mineral called unobtainium? It has enough power to allow humans to travel faster than the speed of light. Chances are you have heard of it on the internet. As you can probably guess, it’s fake news.

We have received a few emails in the last eight years suggesting that we are on the verge of being able to travel throughout the cosmos because of the development of this new mineral. One writer even suggested that God was an alien who came from a place where this mineral exists in large quantities. The writer suggested that the alien created Earth and all life on it as a great cosmological experiment.

My first contact with unobtainium was when my wife dragged me to a movie titled Avatar produced by James Cameron in 2009. The theme of the movie was that a deposit of unobtainium (spelled unobtanium in the movie) existed on an alien planet inhabited by gentle blue creatures who lived in a tree. Then greedy Earth people came to exploit the deposit, destroying the tree and the aliens in the process.

Scientists and engineers have used the term since the 1950s to describe a mysterious substance that doesn’t exist. It’s is a joke used to describe anything that is impossible. The tabloids may promote this as a real substance, but the only thing that will take you out of this world faster than the speed of light is to be resurrected as described in 1 Corinthians 15:22-57. Unobtainium is truly unobtainable.
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Sophia the Robot Speaks at DePauw University

Sophia the Robot
Sophia the robot carries the title of the world’s “first artificial intelligence-fueled android.” She became a citizen of Saudi Arabia in October, has a face that can show expression, metal hands, and a clear skull that shows the working wires of the artificially intelligent brain. An AP news report said that “in past interviews, Sophia has expressed a desire to be immortal, a mother, and smarter than humans.”

Dr. David Hanson is the creator of this interesting computer, and he owns a company called Hanson Robotics. This robot functions through a Wi-Fi connection and has a large memory for storage of information and a large vocabulary. At DePauw University Dr. Hanson was showing what robots can do. He predicts that robots can be designed to look and function in very human-like ways making them a part of the lives of humans in the future.

The definition of “human” is the real issue here. If you define humans in terms of what they can do, then in the future robots might be considered human. The fact that this robot has been made a citizen of Saudi Arabia shows that the government there has a mechanical definition of what a citizen is, and Sophia can do everything their test requires. What is interesting is that this robot did not happen by chance. It is the product of an intelligence, David Hanson, who worked as a designer with the Walt Disney Imagineering team.

The biblical definition of a human is a living being created in the image of God. That image allows spontaneous expression of guilt, sympathy, self-sacrificing love, and the capacity for creativity in art and music. In this case, being human allows the creation of an interesting computer that copies much of what humans possess. However, neither Sophia the robot nor any other android will ever possess those things that make humans special.
(Watch an interview with Sophia in Saudi Arabia.)
–John N. Clayton © 2017

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Yeti or Yogi Bear?

Yeti or Yogi Bear
The Yeti is a legendary creature of the snow-covered Himalayas. He has been described as an ape-like creature taller than a man and covered with white fur. In the 1920s a reporter for a newspaper in India gave the creature the nickname of “the abominable snowman.”

The general public continues to be fascinated with stories about Yeti or his temperate-weather cousin Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Some of the fascination is that there are folks who suggest that this creature offers a proof or disproof about the evolution of humans. The fact that Bigfoot continues to be a show on the Animal Planet network indicates that the value of these mythical creatures is more for entertainment than education.

The first point that we would like to make is that if a human-like creature existed, that science had not discovered yet, it would not have evolutionary implications. Neo-Darwinists would say it was just another dead-end in hominid evolution. Creationists would say that God had created another creature that was previously unknown. Quite often previously unknown species of various creatures are discovered somewhere in the world.

On November 28, 2017, the Proceedings of The Royal Society B, released a report of genetic studies of the remains of bones, teeth, skin, and hair that people claimed were from Yetis. All of them turned out to be from bears. The genome of a bear is distinctive enough that scientists can know with great certainty what creature left the sample. While the report probably won’t cancel any TV series on Bigfoot or interest in Yeti, it does give a rational answer to some of the claims.
–John N. Clayton and Roland Earnst © 2017

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Science Standards Battle

Science Standards
During September and October of 2017, the New Mexico Public Education Department was embroiled in a battle over what was called The Next Generation Science Standards. Those standards were edited by the department to weaken the treatment of evolution, climate change, and the age of the Earth. There was a major outcry led by the National Center for Science Education against the attempts to weaken the standards.

This battle over science standards continues in state after state, with religious groups and creationist organizations trying to stop the teaching of these concepts. The battle is unnecessary, and the attempts to stop the teaching of these subjects is misguided. The opposition is often based on denominational beliefs that are not biblical, and a poor understanding of science. Taking the three subjects that were the focus in New Mexico:

Evolution: The subjects being taught are factual change in living things which is the basis of agriculture and animal husbandry. The Bible speaks about these things in the story of Jacob and Laban in Genesis 30. There is little if any emphasis on theories about human history in the standards, and atheistic concepts are not in the textbooks.
Climate Change: The climate of planet Earth is changing, and it has changed in the past. Much of the area where Jesus walked and taught is different climatically today than it was in His day. Global warming has happened in the past, and all evidence shows us it continues to happen. The Bible makes no statements about climate change. The fact that humans have caused much suffering by our mismanagement of what God has given us is not contestable. This certainly includes the wastes that we put in our waters and our atmosphere.
Age of the Earth: There are major Protestant denominations that have a doctrinal position called dispensationalism. This doctrine teaches that the planet has seven dispensations that are each roughly 1000 years. The doctrine is that Jesus will come to Earth to war with Satan, and establish a political kingdom in Jerusalem on David’s throne for 1000 years. This denominational teaching does not take the Bible literally and contradicts what Jesus said His kingdom was about. (See John 18:36.) For a review of this teaching see “Destructive Dispensationalism” in our journal for November/December 2008, page 11.

We bring reproach to Jesus and the Bible when we oppose things that are clearly factual in educational science standards. There is no battle between science and the Bible. Human creeds and misunderstandings contradict facts and are eroding the faith of many of our young people. We need to follow 1 Peter 3:15 by understanding what the Bible teaches. We also must avoid false science and atheistic traditions.
–John N. Clayton © 2017