Micro vs. Macro

A Podcast with Ralph Seelke on Micro vs. Macro evolution can be found HERE.

Ralph Seelke received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in 1981, was a postdoctoral researcher at the Mayo Clinic until 1983, and has been an Associate Professor or Professor in the Department of Biology and Earth Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Superior since 1989.

Dr. Seelke co-authored the science textbook Explore Evolution.

My Political Profile...

Your Political Profile:

Overall: 45% Conservative, 55% Liberal Social Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Ethics: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal Or Conservative Are You?

A good reason to stick with that diet....

Never know exactly where we're heading....there is no ultimate plan.

The Validity of Thought

If life is ultimately the result of natural processes or chance, then so is thought. Your thoughts—including what you are thinking now—would ultimately be a consequence of a long series of irrational causes. Therefore, your thoughts would have no validity, including the thought that life is a result of chance or natural processes.a By destroying the validity of ideas, evolution undercuts even the idea of evolution. “Science itself makes no sense if the scientific mind is itself no more than the product of irrational material forces.”b

A related issue is the flexibility and redundancy of the human brain, which evolution or natural selection would not produce. For example, every year brain surgeons successfully remove up to half of a person’s brain. The remaining half gradually takes over functions of the removed half. Also, brain functions are often regained after portions of the brain are accidently destroyed. Had humans evolved, such accidents would have been fatal before these amazing capabilities developed. Darwin recognized an aspect of this phenomenal capability of the brain.c

Think about it.

Linky

Explore Evolution

Exploring Evolution: The Case for and Against Neo-Darwinism is the first biology textbook to present the scientific evidence both for and against key aspects of Darwinian evolution. For those educators who are interested in teaching evolution minus the dogma, this textbook is for you.

You know you're living in 2008 when...

1. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.

2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of three.

4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.

6. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.

7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.

8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.

10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.

11. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.

12. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to share this list with.

13. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.

14. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.

Building Bridges

There are times when overwhelming frustration leads me to think that trying to building bridges is for the birds...

How to raise activists for ID

Have open minded, tolerant people spend a year in an anti-ID, anti-God, anti-religion, anti-science Darwinist forum, or send them to PZ's place for a peek at what's going on over there.

It'll put a bonfire under their boots...

The "New Atheist" Movement Video

The Evolution of Sexual Reproduction

The notion of common descent seems so simple and matter of fact when described in the just-so stories we find in the media and mainstream scientific journals. Yet, to this day, we can’t even provide decent empirical evidence (29 lame) for macroevolution actually occurring, much less find an example of an organism, through positive mutation, co-evolving with a partner in forming an entirely new way in which to copulate.

Just a small example of the vastly different and complex systems of reproduction:

For the movement of animals and plants from an aquatic to a terrestrial environment, the method of fertilization had to be changed. With plants, sperms are carried in pollen to the flower so that fertilization will occur internally. Earthworms gametes are exchanged when bodies are joined in a wet environment. Other invertebrates like terrestrial mollusks are hermaphroditic. Internal fertilization is the method that is evolved in most other animals. In birds and some reptiles there is a cloacae or receiving chamber for sperms and there is usually a small penis. Rattlesnakes have a forked penis and can mate with more than one female at a time. In mammals and some invertebrates like insects and spiders there is a intermittent organ (penis) that is inserted into the female. Internal fertilization therefore occurs in a liquid environment.

Now to the human penis. You have brought up the dreaded "why" question. I get these from my students all the time. We cannot answer "why" questions directly. All we can say is that the penis is like it is because, through the evolutionary process it has developed in the way that works best. (The "why" question is the only question in science that we can answer by saying "Because, that's why” ). The size of the penis is related to the size of the animal and the position of the female organs. (The penis of the blue whale is 5 meters (16 feet)long.)

As to the "active" male role in reproduction I am up in the air. The fact that some mammals like cats and dogs have a estrous cycle with the female receptive to the male only a few days out of the month obviously has a survival value. Why we do not is a mystery except that sex in humans has emotional rewards and with cats and dogs it is a rape.

The highly complex sexual reproductive systems we observe in nature need a better explanation than “because, that’s why”. When I‘ve questioned in the past as to how male and female reproductive systems co-evolved (morphed so precisely), I‘ve been told, “When you say morph so precisely you imply you believe that there was a plan that had to be followed. There is not.” Obviously, in regard to evolution, there is no “plan” to follow. The co-evolution of male and female evolving these highly complex systems occurred just "because they did" (like everything else). The personal credulity of evolutionists is just so overwhelming that it boggles the mind.

Consider the genitalia of various waterfowl:



From the article:

"So, the twists in the oviduct appear designed to exclude the opposing twists of the male phallus. It's an exquisite anti-lock-and-key system."

The number of sacs and spirals in the reproductive tract of various female waterfowl correlates strongly with the length of the male phallus. Comparing the phallus size and oviduct shape in 14 different species of ducks and geese, the authors show that the genitalia of males and females have dynamically co-evolved with one another.

There’s that dratted word design again, but not to worry, there are unlimited just-so stories that one can consider in order to try to simplify the vast complexity of these reproductive systems that evolved through the evolutionary process. It’s not a stretch to consider the microevolutionary means in which organisms adapt within their species, but really stepping back and considering this all occurring from that first spark of life is asking far too much from matter alone.

Casey Luskin recently linked to a portion of Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution which is relative to this topic. Episode 5: Why Sex starts on pg. 69 of that document...a very interesting read.

Oh, and here’s a little just-so story that I wrote a while back in regard to sexual reproduction and the Big O.

Enjoy...maybe I’ll submit it for peer review.

Blog Diet

I've been debating whether or not to use my blog to help motivate me to start my New Year's diet or not.





My sister and I like to compete each year in trying to take the weight off, and last year we found that it was much easier to diet when we had to check in here, write it down and share what we've been doing to take off the weight.

This year, I didn't take the time to try to recruit people to join us from the real world, so I was considering whether or not to even do the blog thingie. But, my sister said it really helped her, so she and I are going to weigh in each week and post it here as well as try to encourage each other to stick with it.

Kristine had been thinking about joining us, but she's seriously ticked off at me right now so she won't be joining us. Maybe DaveScot will still weigh in with us. He's always fun and motivating.

So....tomorrow morning, Big Mama (my sis) and I will start the dreaded diet. Neither one of us are really looking forward to it, but summer is just around the corner and the shorts season sucks if you're not fit. Also both of us have being eating rather poorly lately and that needs to change. Less caffeine for me and better eating habits would be a good thing. Also, I've got to get my butt on that boring treadmill....yuck.

More on the Hydroplate Theory

I missed this November article in regard to Brown’s Hydroplate theory that was posted at the Christian Broadcasting Network website. They did a great job of condensing his theory for a short article.

The Foundation for Creation Doctrine has also posted an article referencing Brown’s work and his take on what some creationists describe as the Catastrophic Plate Tectonic Theory.

It’s interesting to me that there are several mainstream theories that are being questioned lately, yet the latest findings don’t seem to pose a problem for Dr. Brown’s Hydroplate theory. If you are familiar with Brown’s work, consider it with regard to new concerns posed in regard to the supposedly well established ancient super continent Pangea.

Or, consider that some scientists are now questioning the extent to which meteorites or asteroids could have caused mass extinctions.

From Carl Zimmer‘s article in Wired Magazine:

At the same time, scientists have also been putting together a chronology of fossils from the same time, known as the Ordovician Period. They're recording when species first emerged in the fossil record, and when they disappeared as they became extinct. And this week in the journal Nature Geoscience, the scientists report that the impacts coincided with a drastic change in the world's biodiversity.

You might expect mass extinctions. The most famous of all impacts, a ten-mile-wide asteroid that hit the Earth at the end of the Cretaceous Period 65 million years ago, has been linked to mass extinctions that wiped out Tyrannosaurus rex, the other dinosaurs without wings, and about half of all other species on Earth.

But 470 million years ago, that's not what happened. Instead, the diversity of life took a sharp climb right after the meteorites started falling.

Scientists say the discovery is quite unusual. Nature Geoscience's press release declares, "These results are surprising as meteorite impacts are often more commonly associated with mass extinctions."

....

From the Nature abstract referenced in Zimmer’s article:

The rise and diversification of shelled invertebrate life in the early Phanerozoic eon occurred in two major stages. During the first stage (termed as the Cambrian explosion), a large number of new phyla appeared over a short time interval 540 Myr ago. Biodiversity at the family, genus and species level, however, remained low until the second stage marked by the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in the Middle Ordovician period1, 2, 3. Although this event represents the most intense phase of species radiation during the Palaeozoic era and led to irreversible changes in the biological make-up of Earth's seafloors, the causes of this event remain elusive. Here, we show that the onset of the major phase of biodiversification 470 Myr ago coincides with the disruption in the asteroid belt of the L-chondrite parent body—the largest documented asteroid breakup event during the past few billion years4, 5. The precise coincidence between these two events is established by bed-by-bed records of extraterrestrial chromite, osmium isotopes and invertebrate fossils in Middle Ordovician strata in Baltoscandia and China. We argue that frequent impacts on Earth of kilometre-sized asteroids—supported by abundant Middle Ordovician fossil meteorites and impact craters6—accelerated the biodiversification process.

If one is familiar with Brown’s theory, it seems to me that it fits these finding more accurately if one can actually step away from the Darwin/old earth mindset for a bit. Brown’s theory would support the notion that “diversity of life took a sharp climb right after the meteorites started falling“. His theory suggests that comets, asteroids, and meteorites formed when jetting water and rock debris were forcefully launched from the subterranean chamber, escaped the earth’s gravitational pull and blasted into space to become part of our solar system.

For a time after this catastrophe occurred, it would seem to make sense that meteorites and asteroids may have more frequently collided with the earth if they were not launched far enough to escape the earth's gravitational pull. Shortly after the flood waters started to subside and earth became more stable, there would have been a sharp increase in the diversity of life as the population started to grow again.

I also recently read this article in regard to comets. Again, scientists still question where they came from, and are starting to question many previously held beliefs such as the notion that comments helped deliver water to planet earth. What if this hypothetical Oort cloud (which has never been observed) does not exist...where then do comets come from?

I’d also like to know why there are comets left after 4.5 billion years. Where is the evidence for this comet reservoir? Comets have a short life span, so when, where and how did they evolve?

When reading Brown’s hydroplate theory and considering the many issues that it addresses, it’s make so much more sense and solves so many mysteries that mainstream scientists keep going back to the drawing board to try to explain.

Brown’s theory explains...

... using well-understood phenomena, how this cataclysmic event rapidly formed so many features. These and other mysteries, listed below, are best explained by an earthshaking event, far more catastrophic than almost anyone has imagined.

The Grand Canyon (pages 175–204)
Mid-Oceanic Ridge
Continental Shelves and Slopes
Ocean Trenches (pages 138–159)
Earthquakes
Magnetic Variations on the Ocean Floor
Submarine Canyons
Coal and Oil
Methane Hydrates
Ice Age
Frozen Mammoths (pages 220–251)
Major Mountain Ranges
Overthrusts
Volcanoes and Lava
Geothermal Heat
Strata and Layered Fossils (pages 162–173)
Limestone (pages 212–217)
Metamorphic Rock
Plateaus
Salt Domes
Jigsaw Fit of the Continents
Changing Axis Tilt
Comets (pages 254–284)
Asteroids and Meteoroids (pages 286–303)

When reading this material, it fits together so coherently.

Yes, yes, I know....I’m no scientist, so I’m only considering what I read and ponder the issues which seem to be a conundrum for the current scientific consensus, but which seem (to me) to lend some support to Brown’s work.

I won’t be discussing this post here or in other forums or blogs as I’ve grown quite weary of debating with Darwinists who have no intention of actually peering outside of the box.

But, if there is anyone truly interested in meaningful dialogue with regard to Brown’s hydroplate theory, I’d rather you debate the man yourself and allow me to listen as I do not have the background that he does in regard to these issues. A phone debate offer can be found here.

To the dismay of many evolutionists, I find Brown’s work fascinating and probably always will. Although his theory falls in line with the Genesis flood, he has provided scientific evidence for his claims based on empirical evidence or inference to support his theories rather than miracles or supernatural events.

Consider theses final thoughts found in an excerpt from Brown’s Book, In the Beginning:

Thomas Crowder Chamberlin1, former president of the University of Wisconsin and the first head of the Geology Department at the University of Chicago, published a famous paper in which he warned researchers not to let one hypothesis dominate their thinking. Instead, they should always have or seek multiple working hypotheses, especially in fields, such as geology, where much remains to be learned. Chamberlin stated that testing competing hypotheses or theories sharpens one’s analytical skills, develops thoroughness, reduces biases, and helps students and teachers learn to think independently and discriminate rather than simply memorize and conform. Chamberlin said the dangers of teaching only one explanation are especially great in the earth sciences. The explanation for oceanic trenches is an example. The plate tectonic theory dominates the earth sciences. A recent survey of scientists selected it as the most significant theory of the 20th century. Undoubtedly, Darwin’s theory of organic evolution would be voted as the most significant theory of the 19th century. Both dominate, despite their growing scientific problems, because schools and the media ignore competing explanations. Chamberlin warned about the comfort of conformity.

Stepping in the middle...which is probably a mistake

Go to my post at Young Cosmos for further clarification on the title of this post.

Merry Christmas!

May you all experience God's love and grace this Christmas and always!

More Christmas Music

This kid can seriously play the guitar...

The Laughing Wii Baby

I think everyone has seen this clip by now, but it still cracks me up...

Jars of Clay jam to the Little Drummer Boy

Kansas Attorney General Resigns

An extramarital affair drops another political figure.

But, this *two-year* fling accumulated a lot of baggage...

This week, his reputation was devastated by revelations of a two-year affair with Linda Carter, a former employee in the Johnson County district attorney’s office, and allegations that he harassed Carter and tried to use her to meddle with the DA’s office, now run by Kline. Throughout the week, Morrison seemed resolute, acknowledging the affair but steadfastly denying the other allegations.

...

The statement included allegations of sexual harassment, including claims that Morrison harassed Carter by phone and made repeated threats to interfere with her attempts to find a new job if she disclosed the affair to Kline. Four of the calls were overheard by two employees of the district attorney’s office, according to the Harris News report.

I didn't vote for the guy...women's intuition that he was a schmuck. Besides that, I wanted to see Kline put an end to Tiller's illegal late term abortions.

Letter from Jesus about 'Christmas'

My Mom sent me this circulating email...

Dear Children,

It has come to my attention that many of you are upset that folks are taking My name out of the season. Maybe you've forgotten that I wasn't actually born during this time of the year and that it was some of your predecessors who decided to celebrate My birthday on what was actually a time of pagan festival, although I do appreciate being remembered anytime.

How I personally feel about this celebration can probably be most easily understood by those of you who have been blessed with children of your own. I don't care what you call the day. If you want to celebrate My birth, just GET ALONG AND LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

Now, having said that let Me go on. If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn't allow a scene depicting My birth, then just get rid of a couple of Santas and snowmen and put in a small Nativity scene on your own front lawn. If all My followers did that there wouldn't be any need for such a scene on the town square because there would be many of them all around town.

Stop worrying about the fact that people are calling the tree a holiday tree, instead of a Christmas tree. It was I who made all trees. You can remember Me anytime you see any tree. Decorate a grape vine if you wish: I actually spoke of that one in a teaching, explaining who I am in relation to you and what each of our tasks were. If you have forgotten that one, look up John 15: 1 - 8.

If you want to give Me a present in remembrance of My birth here is my wish list. Choose something from it:

1. Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way My birthday is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. They are terribly afraid and lonely this time of year. I know, they tell Me all the time.

2. Visit someone in a nursing home. Not just during Christmas time, but all through the year. You don't have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

3. Instead of writing George complaining about the wording on the cards his staff sent out this year, why don't you write and tell him that you'll be praying for him and his family this year. Then follow up. It will be nice hearing from you again.

4. Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can't afford and they don't need, spend time with them. Tell them the story of My birth, and why I came to live with you down here. Hold them in your arms and remind that I love them.

5. Pick someone that has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

6. Did you know that someone in your town will attempt to take their own life this season because they feel so alone and hopeless? Since you don't know who that person is, try giving everyone you meet a warm smile; it could make the difference.

7. Instead of nit picking about what the retailer in your town calls the holiday, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word. Even if they aren't allowed to wish you a 'Merry Christmas' that doesn't keep you from wishing them one.

8. If you really want to make a difference, support a missionary- especially one who takes My love and Good News to those who have never heard My name.

9. Here's a good one. There are individuals and whole families in your town who not only will have no 'Christmas' tree, but neither will they have any presents to give or receive. If you don't know them, buy some food and a few gifts and give them to the Salvation Army or some other charity which believes in Me and they will make the delivery for you.

10. Finally, if you want to make a statement about your belief in and loyalty to Me, then behave like a Christian. Don't do things in secret that you wouldn't do in My presence. Let people know by your actions and words that you are one of mine.

Don't forget; I am God and can take care of Myself. Just love Me and do what I have told you to do. I'll take care of all the rest. Check out the list above and get to work; time is short. I'll help you, but the ball is now in your court. And do have a most blessed Christmas with all those whom you love and remember:

I LOVE YOU, JESUS

I think Mom's trying to tell me something, and I think she's right.