Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Half-Evolved Turtles

Millions of people are taught in schools and textbooks all over the world that the fossil record furnishes scientific proof of evolution. But, where are there fossils of half-evolved dinosaurs or other creatures?

Fully Formed

The fossil record contains fossils of only complete and fully-formed species. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species to indicate that a gradual process of evolution ever occurred. Even among evolutionists there are diametrically different interpretations and reconstructions of the fossils used to support human evolution from a supposed ape-like ancestry. In fact, all of the fossils, with their fancy scientific names, that have been used to support human evolution have eventually been found to be either hoaxes, non-human, or human, but not both human and non-human.

Lying Bones

Yet, many modern school textbooks continue to use these long disproved fossils as evidence for human evolution. Evolutionists once reconstructed an image of a half-ape and half-man (known as The Nebraska Man) creature from a single tooth. Later they discovered that the tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig. The "Nebraska Man" was used as a major piece of evidence in the famous Scopes Trial in support of Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Scattered Bones

At times evolutionists have used various bones gathered from many yards of each other and classify them as belonging to the same creature (even when there's no proof). They then reconstruct from these bones whatever will support their hypotheses. The fossil case "Lucy" is an excellent example of this. Scientists have only forty percent of the bones for Lucy. The bones were found yards from each other, some were found even a mile or more away. The knee joint (the main evidence used) was found two hundred feet below ground from the rest of the bones. Many of the leading scientists doubt that the bones all belong to the same species or individual. And, some of the key bones are crushed. Yet, from all of this evolutionists have reconstructed a drawing of an ape-man creature (in full color) for display in textbooks and museums. Many experts are not convinced that Lucy was an ape-man because they're not convinced all of the bones belong to the same individual or even the same species. Many leading authorities have said that "Lucy" is really an extinct ape, but not an ape-man. Those scientists who are convinced that Lucy was an ape-man are the ones that receive all the attention from the mainstream media.

No Partially-Evolved Species

Even if evolution takes millions and millions of years, we should still be able to see some stages of its process. But, we simply don't observe any partially-evolved fish, frogs, lizards, birds, dogs, cats among us. Every species of plant and animal is complete and fully-formed.

Another problem is how could partially-evolved plant and animal species survive over millions of years if their vital organs and tissues were still in the process of evolving? How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still incomplete and evolving? How were species fighting off possibly life-threatening germs if their immune system hadn't fully evolved yet?

Scientist Dr. Walt Brown, in his fantastic book "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood",makes this point by saying "All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing."

A lizard with half-evolved legs and wings can't run or fly away from its predators. How would it survive? Why would it be preserved by natural selection? Imagine such a species surviving in such a miserable state over many millions of years waiting for fully-formed wings to evolve.

No Transitional Links

Some evolutionists cite the fossil of an ancient bird known to have claws as an example of a transitional link. However, there are two species of birds living today in South America that have claws on their wings, but even evolutionists today do not claim that these birds are transitional links from a reptilian ancestry. These claws are complete, as everything else on the birds.

Recently it was thought they had discovered fossils of dinosaurs with feathers until they found out that the so-called feathers were really scales which only had the appearance of feathers. Scientists theorize the scales took upon a feather-like appreance during some brief stage of decomposition before being fossilized. Even if they were feathers, this still wouldn't be any kind of evidence to support macro-evolution unless they can show a series of fossils having part-scale/part-feather structures as evidence that the scales had really evolved into feathers.

Common Designer

Many times, evolutionists use similarities of traits shared by different forms of life as a basis for claiming a transitional link. But, the problem for evolutionists is that all the traits which they cite are complete and fully-formed. And evolutionists are not consistent. The duck-billed platypus, for example, has traits belonging to both mammals and birds but even evolutionists won't go so far as to claim that the duck-billed platypus is a transitional link between birds and mammals.

Evolutionists claim that the genetic and biological similarities between species is evidence of common ancestry. However, that is only one interpretation. Another possibility is that the comparative similarities are due to a common designer who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all of the various species and forms of life. Neither position can be scientifically proved.

Punctuated Equilibrium

In fact, it is precisely because of these problems that more and more modern evolutionists are adopting a new theory known as Punctuated Equilibrium which says that plant and animal species evolved suddenly from one kind to another and that is why we don't see evidence of partially-evolved species in the fossil record. Of course, we have to accept their word on blind faith because there is no way to prove or disprove what they are saying. These evolutionists claim that something like massive bombardment of radiation resulted in mega mutations in species which produced "instantaneous" changes from one life form to another. The nature and issue of mutations will be discussed later and the reader will see why such an argument is not viable.

Natural Selection

Although Darwin was partially correct by showing that natural selection occurs in nature, the problem is that natural selection itself is not a creative force. Natural selection is a passive process in nature. Natural selection can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. Natural selection itself does not produce any biological traits or variations.

The early grooves in the human embryo that appear to look like gills are really the early stages in the formation of the face, throat, and neck regions. The so-called "tailbone" is the early formation of the coccyx and spinal column which, because of the rate of growth being faster than the rest of the body at this stage, appears to look like a tail. The coccyx has already been proven to be useful in providing support for the pelvic muscles.

Abortion clinics have been known to console their patients by telling them that what they're terminating isn't really a human being yet but is only a guppie or tadpole.

Single Cell

But, didn't we all start off from a single cell in our mother's womb? Yes, but that single cell from which we developed had all of the genetic information to develop into a full human being. Other single cells, such as bacteria and amoeba, from which evolutionists say we and all other forms of life had evolved don't have the genetic information to develop into humans or other species.

Biological variations are determined by the DNA or genetic code of species. The DNA molecule is actually a molecular string of various nucleic acids which are arranged in a sequence just like the letters in a sentence. It is this sequence in DNA that tells cells in the body how to construct various tissues and organs.

Mutations Harmful

The common belief among evolutionists is that random mutations in the genetic code produced by random environmental forces such as radiation, over time, will produce entirely new genetic sequences or genes for entirely new traits which natural selection can act upon resulting in entirely new biological kinds or forms of life . Evolutionists consider mutations to be a form of natural genetic engineering.

However, the very nature of mutations precludes such a possibility. Mutations are accidental changes in the sequential structure of the genetic code caused by various random environmental forces such as radiation and toxic chemicals.

Almost all true mutations are harmful, which is what one would normally expect from accidents. Even if a good mutation occurred for every good one there will be thousands of harmful ones with the net result over time being disastrous for the species.

Most biological variations, however, occur as a result of new combinations of previously existing genes - not because of mutations, which are rare in nature.

Mutations simply produce new varieties of already existing traits. For example, mutations in the gene for human hair may change the gene so that another type of human hair develops, but the mutations won't change the gene so that feathers or wings develop.

Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics.

Furthermore, only those mutations produced in the genes of reproductive cells, such as sperm in the male and ovum (or egg cell) in the female, are passed on to offspring. Mutations and any changes produced in other body cells are not transmitted. For example, if a woman were to lose a finger it would not result in her baby being born with a missing finger. Similarly, even if an ape ever learned to walk upright, it could not pass this characteristic on to its descendants. Thus, modern biology has disproved the once-held theory that acquired characteristics from the environment can be transmitted into the genetic code of offspring.

Science cannot prove we're here by creation, but neither can science prove we're here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.

For more, see . .

--an article by scientist and biochemist Dr. Duane T. Gish "A Few Reasons An Evolutionary Origin of Life Is Impossible".

--articles by scientists at Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California.

The author, Babu G. Ranganathan, has an B.A. with academic concentrations in Bible and Biology from Bob Jones University. He has been recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis Who's Who In The East.

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru».

Dog brings home part of mammoth

2007/10/04

A miniature dachshund out for a walk on a beach found a bone which turned out to be part of a woolly mammoth's leg.

Daisy spotted the fossilized remains sticking out of a beach near the low tide mark, reports the Daily Mirror.

Her owner Dennis Smith said:
"Daisy just stood staring at it so I went over to see what it was. She looked quite pleased with herself."
The retired turf salesman, 69, from Witham, Essex, showed the 13ins find to a geologist who identified it as part of a two million year old giant woolly mammoth.

The 8 lb section of leg is believed to have lain hidden at Dunwich, Suffolk, for centuries until uncovered by storms.

Woolly mammoths were 14ft tall and weighed up to eight tons. They died out 11,000 years ago.

The Great Unknown

Guitarist Dies Before Show

After Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Ohio, Hawthorne Heights guitarist Casey Calvert boarded a bus with his band mates Friday morning to start their "Wintour 07," a grueling schedule of back-to-back concert dates that was to include a show in Washington on Saturday night.

But the fast-rising pop-punk group, which finished up a show in Detroit on Friday night, never got a chance to perform for local fans. D.C. police were called to the 9:30 Club in Northwest Washington about 2:30 p.m. Saturday and found Calvert unconscious on the band's tour bus, according to Officer Junis Fletcher, a police spokesman.

Calvert, 25, was pronounced dead at the scene, Fletcher said. Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Family, friends and fans were reeling from the news.

Fan tributes poured in at the Hawthorne Heights Web site, www.hawthorneheights.com, where band members Eron Bucciarelli, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff announced that their "quirky and awesome" best friend had "passed away in his sleep."

"At this time we're not sure what exactly happened. Just last night he was joking around with everyone before he went to bed," the band members wrote in a posting dated Saturday.

The group sought to head off any rumors about Calvert's death. The band's posting said:
"We can say with absolute certainty that he was not doing anything illegal. . We don't want his memory to be tainted in the least."
Hawthorne Heights formed in 2001 and has released two albums. Buzz on MySpace helped boost the first album, "The Silence in Black and White." The second, "If Only You Were Lonely," entered the Billboard charts at No. 3, and the single "Saying Sorry" got play on MTV and VH1.

Calvert picked up a love of music from his father, Greg, a member of Gary and the Hornets, a 1960s band that once performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." His father played bass, but the younger Calvert preferred guitar, his stepmother said.

He loved Dr. Seuss books and Tim Burton films and was so fastidious about his health that he was a vegetarian, she said.

He married about a year ago. His wife is a schoolteacher, his stepmother said.
"He was a very good and kind young man, and right now there aren't any answers."
"Guitarist Dies Before Show at 9:30 Club" by Theola Labbé, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, November 26, 2007.

Engineered Poorly

Two University of Virginia students snatched a man off a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, tied him up in a Falls Church motel bathroom and demanded a $500,000 ransom.

The kidnappers used the victim's cellphone to make their demands, and police were able to pinpoint the motel after AT&T provided an approximate location in Falls Church as the origin of the calls, court records show.

Fairfax County police and the FBI staked out a motel in that area and spotted two men going in and out of a room there. When an officer and an FBI agent knocked on the door, they were allowed into the room and found the victim bound and gagged with duct tape in the bathtub, a search warrant affidavit states.

Police charged Guanyu Lu, 19, and Baichuan Shu, 19, both of Charlottesville, with abduction with intent to extort money. Both were arraigned yesterday in Fairfax County General District Court and ordered held without bond.

The suspects were second-year engineering students at Virginia, university spokesman Jeff Hanna said. Both are Chinese nationals, as is their victim, a 20-year-old man who was living with a host family in McLean, Fairfax Officer Don Gotthardt said.

Someone called the victim's host family that night and demanded, in Chinese, $500,000 for the victim's life, Allen wrote. The caller also threatened to blow up the family's home if they contacted police, the affidavit states.

Gotthardt said:
"This is not a random crime. We think this particular victim was targeted."
Shu lives in an apartment on campus, and Lu lives off campus, said a friend of Shu's from U-Va. who also knew him in Shanghai and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals:
"That's unbelievable. I couldn't imagine this kind of stuff would happen. He plays sports. He plays basketball. He has a lot of friends."
© 2007 The Washington Post Company, "Two U-Va. Students Charged in Kidnapping", by Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

Chinese Playground : A Memoir

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

UFOs in Russia

An unidentified flying object appeared in the sky above the village of Molebka in the Perm region of Russia 15 years ago. The anomalous phenomena that have been observed in the area ever since have earned the reputation of the Russian Bermuda Triangle for the village. Foreign ufologists dubbed the place as Zone-M.

Local residents believe the anomalous stories told across villages and towns in the area. Pavel Gladyshev, a specialist in nuclear physics, a native of Molebka, lived in the city of Perm and returned to his home village after retirement.
“I have seen the strange objects in the sky on several occasions. As a physicist I can say that they do not look like man-made objects. I didn’t believe any of those stories until I saw the flying ball myself. That year I was working in the field making hay. We started early in the morning at 4 a.m. All of a sudden we saw another moon in the sky above the field. The ball was throwing dim light on the field, which game shivers to me and my partner. I counted seven beams of light coming down from the ball. When the ball disappeared we came to our senses and tried to work but it seemed all so hard and heavy. I became physically weak for two days."
UFOs have not honored Molebka with their presence for quite a while, but the anomalous zone continues to attract people’s attention. An esoteric company charges about 60 dollars for a trip to the zone. Local residents do not understand those people who come to their village from cities to conduct training sessions on ufology. Old-timers say that their native village has turned into a place of Sabbath.

"Small village in Russian province becomes great attraction to ufologists" 21.11.2007, Elena Trokhova, Pravda.ru

Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us

American Gulag Survivor Dies

John Noble, an American who never knew why the Soviets imprisoned him in their notorious gulag, but not only lived to write books on the grim, decade-long experience but also recovered his family's company and castle in the former East Germany, died on Nov. 10 in Dresden, Germany. He was 84.

Noble's story surfaced in the early years of the cold war, as the United States repeatedly asked the Soviet Union about him, only to be told that the Russians knew nothing. President Dwight Eisenhower personally intervened and won his release in January 1955 after nine and a half years of captivity.

His incarceration included backbreaking labor; minimal water and food; temperatures that regularly plunged 50 degrees below zero; and solitary confinement — first in Russian prisons in Germany, including Buchenwald, the former Nazi concentration camp. Then Noble was sent to Russia's slave labor camps, the notorious gulag. He was Slave No. 1-E-241.

For all the physical pain, the most agonizing experience was never being told why he was arrested in 1945 on charges of espionage. When he was finally tried in 1950, he was summarily sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and given a confession to sign. If he refused, he was told, someone else would sign it.

Noble's path to freedom began with smuggling out a cryptic message taped to the postcard of a prisoner with mailing privileges. His family enlisted the help of a Michigan congressman who met with President Eisenhower, who leaned on the authorities in Moscow.

Soon after Noble's release, The New York Times reported on his reunion with his family in New York on Jan. 17, 1955. Contrary to his later accounts, he said he had been treated well, and the article said he appeared to be in excellent health.

But he soon spoke more darkly of his experiences in many interviews, speeches and writings, which included a series of articles in The New York Times and books that included "I Was a Slave in Russia" (1958) and "I Found God in Soviet Russia" (1959), written with Glenn D. Everett, with an introduction by the Rev. Billy Graham.

He long charged that the Soviet Union continued to hold many American prisoners. In 1968, he said at a mock trial of international Communism organized by anti-Communist groups that the Soviets had held 3,000 Americans in 1955 and still had many. The State Department replied that it knew of no such captives.

He fueled his message with religious conviction annealed in Soviet jails, and an anti-Communism so fierce that he went on a speaking tour for the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society in the mid-1960s. He was founder and director of the Faith and Freedom Forum, which sold recordings of his books, among other things.

Noble was born on Sept. 4, 1923, in Detroit, where his father, a former Christian missionary, had moved from Germany, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported in its obituary. In Detroit, his father, Charles, took over a photo-finishing company that became large and profitable. Because of poor health, Charles took his family to Dresden to be near German hot springs.

In 1938, the elder Noble bought a camera manufacturer in Dresden, exchanging his own American company as part of the deal. The German company's two founders were Jewish and no longer felt safe in Nazi Germany.

The company, Kamera Werkstatten, in 1939 introduced an early 35 millimeter single-lens reflex camera, the Praktica. Partly because the new camera was immediately popular, the Germans permitted the company to operate through the war. The Nobles, though, were restricted to Dresden.

The family tried to leave under a Swiss-brokered exchange of nationals but were inexplicably turned back at the border, BusinessWeek reported in 1994. When the war ended, the Soviets seized the plant and merged it with other German companies.

The Nobles were advised by the American military to sit tight because the Soviet Union was an ally. They did, and Charles and John were arrested as spies. John's brother and mother were not.

As father and son were shuttled among prisons in eastern Germany, John came up with religious services, exercise programs and other activities to occupy fellow prisoners. One pastime involved counting the number of bodies hauled away, 200 one Christmas Day, BusinessWeek reported.

"It was impossible to block out the screams," Noble said.

His father died in 1952. Noble is survived by his wife and five children, The Telegraph reported.

Money grew tight in the 1970s, and he reluctantly set up an Amway distributorship. He had less and less time for speeches.

"I was trying to save the country," he told BusinessWeek. "I had no intention of selling soap."

In 1990, after the Berlin Wall fell, Noble regained control of part of the German company, but not of its Praktica trademark. He recovered the family castle overlooking Dresden. He introduced new products, including the Noblex, a new panorama camera with a lens that rotates 360 degrees. He was honored with a French knighthood.

But he failed in his attempt to build a robust capitalist enterprise in the former Soviet bloc. In 1997, as his company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, he sold it to his employees.

International Herald Tribune "John Noble, 84, gulag survivor" by Douglas Martin, Monday, November 26, 2007.

The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series)

Hand in the Cookie Jar

NEW YORK - Broadway producer Anthony D. Marshall, the son of philanthropist Brooke Astor, has been indicted on charges of plundering her $198 million estate.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Marshall, 83, with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, forgery, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy.

The top count, grand larceny, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Marshall's former attorney, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., also was indicted on those charges.

"The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of Mrs. Astor's diminished mental capacity in a scheme to defraud her and others out of millions of dollars," said District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Marshall's son, Philip, prompted the criminal investigation last year after he accused his father of neglecting Astor's care and stealing her money. Astor died in August at age 105.

Anthony Marshall, a former diplomat and Tony award winning producer, has denied all allegations that he abused his mother's trust — saying that he cared about her more than anyone else.

Astor, known for decades as the grande dame of New York society and philanthropy, gave away nearly $200 million to institutions such as the New York Public Library and Carnegie Hall and to other causes.

In the final year of her life, the nasty family feud over her care was splashed all over the city's tabloids — including allegations that she was forced to sleep in a torn nightgown on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal.

Astor's friends, Annette de la Renta, the wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, and David Rockefeller, the banker and philanthropist, both signed affidavits supporting Philip Marshall's claims.

The grand jury heard testimony for almost a month on how Marshall and Morrissey managed Astor's estate and documents related to it. Philip Marshall, a professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, testified before the grand jury, according to his spokesman, Frazier Seitel.

Yahoo! News "Astor's son indicted in estate case" by SAMUEL MAULL, Associated Press Writer, November 27, 2007.