News to Note, December 2, 2006

1. National Geographic News: Single Asteroid Impact, Not Two, Killed Dinos, Study Says

What killed the dinosaurs? Well, if you're an evolutionist, the answer's completely clear: it was either one asteroid impact 65.5 million years ago, or two asteroid strikes about 300,000 years apart. According to National Geographic News, a study of seabed sediments is confirming the latter theory (although only a few weeks ago, the former theory was the hottest science news instead).

So which was it? Secular scientists may never decide, but using the Scriptures we can easily conclude that the massive fossil record-filled with death and evidence of disease and struggle-was laid down by the Genesis Flood in the world's greatest catastrophe (that may well have combined major seismic activity, volcanism, extreme weather changes, and even meteoritic impacts). As for the downfall of the dinosaurs: even though many perished in the Flood, Genesis implies that representatives would have boarded the Ark< and survived the Flood, only to (presumably) die out in more recent history.

2. ScienceDaily: Mystery Of Ancient Astronomical Calculator Unveiled

A hundred-year-old discovery is challenging modern ideas about the intelligence of ancient man. Researchers believe they have determined the function of the Antikythera Mechanism, a gear-driven computing device found in an ancient shipwreck.

Their work having been bolstered by the use of modern X-ray technology, the researchers, headed by Professor Mike Edmunds and Dr. Tony Freeth of Cardiff University, announced that the mechanism was an ancient astronomical computer. ScienceDaily reports, “The calculator was able to follow the movements of the moon and the sun through the Zodiac, predict eclipses and even recreate the irregular orbit of the moon. The team believes it may also have predicted the positions of some or all of the planets.”

Since the mechanism has been dated to the late second century BC, it “could transform the way we think about the ancient world”-at least, in the eyes of those who believe mankind's intellect is steadily ascending. But the riddle-ridden history of mankind is explained far better by the recent creation of highly intelligent humans.

3. LiveScience: Startling Discovery: The First Human Ritual

Evolutionists' ideas of ancient man are also being challenged by the recent discovery, in Africa, of ritualistic artifacts that intriguingly include a 20-foot-long, stone python. Secular science has dated this find to 70,000 years ago, placing it 30,000 years earlier than when evolutionists think “human intelligence had not evolved the capacity to perform group rituals.” Of course, the artifacts' dating is based on unbiblical assumptions, and hence the discovery's dissonance with evolutionary anthropologic theories. What is, perhaps, most interesting to creationists is that the natives, who call the area in which the python was found the “Mountains of the Gods” and the “Rock that Whispers,” have a legend that states that mankind is descended from this snake. Could it be that this myth (along with several others) is a perversion of the Genesis account, and that this was just an attempt for the Serpent to claim “fatherhood” to man?

4. The Guardian: Revealed: rise of creationism in UK schools & BBC NEWS: Let us test Darwin, teacher says

The creation/evolution debate seems to be in full swing in the UK, where evolutionists are up in arms over anti-evolutionary teaching materials sent to secondary school heads of science by Truth in Science (a group whose board of directors includes Dr. Andy McIntosh, author of Genesis for Today). The Guardian reports that the feedback card enclosed with the materials was returned by 89 schools-59 of which were positive responses, and 30 of which were not.

Such acceptance prompted Liberal Democrat parliamentarian Phil Willis to comment, “I am flabbergasted that any head of science would give credence to this creationist theory and be prepared to put it alongside Darwinism.” But Nick Cowan, a former chemistry head at Liverpool's Blue Coat School, explains, “Just because it takes a negative look at Darwinism doesn't mean it is not science. I think to critique Darwinism is quite appropriate.” Cowan also points out that the materials “do not mention creationism or even God.”

Answers in Genesis has long stated that although we do not feel any teacher should be forced to discuss creation, teachers and students should also not be restricted from discussing some of the problems with and assumptions behind Darwin's theory.

5. The Monroe (Louisiana) News Star: Darwin as theory now parish policy

The debate over Darwin in school classrooms is no less heated stateside where, this week, officials in northern Louisiana's Ouachita Parish approved a “landmark” proposal that is sure to cause more than a little controversy. In particular, the approved guidelines state:

Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range of scientific views that exist, why such topics may generate controversy, and how scientific discoveries can profoundly affect society.

Although it sounds as though the move has strong support within the parish (according to the News Star article, “[t]he assembled crowd applauded the board when it passed the measure unanimously”), we doubt it will be long before the proponents of evolution-only education swarm the state-with the media circus not far behind.

6. The (Adelaide) Sunday Mail: Zoo to unveil human exhibit

Australia's Adelaide Zoo will be home to one of the world's first “human zoos,” reports the Sunday Mail:

Six people at a time will be housed in the old orang-utan enclosure-next to their fellow great apes, the chimpanzees and gorillas-and be treated like apes.

It's entirely unsurprising, then, to read that one of the main purposes of the “exhibition” is to “educate people about humans' place in the animal kingdom,” and zoo officials claim it will “encourage people of all ages to re-think their place in the animal world.” Dr. Chris West of the Royal Zoological Society explained that the project “will present humans as another species of ape.”

It seems evolutionists are increasingly trying to force the public to accept that we're all just (though evolutionists wouldn't use that word) animals. But the biggest problem is, how long will it be before people accept “animal morality” (more like animal immorality, that is) as okay for humans, too?

7. Reuters: Study: Humpback whales have 'human' brain cells & LiveScience: Whale Vocabulary More Elaborate Than Thought

In previous editions of News to Note, we have pointed out the high intelligence of many non-ape animals (such as crows), which goes against the standard evolutionary presentation of certain apes as nearly as intelligent as humans and far smarter than other animals.

Whales are the next to join this sort of “animal Mensa.” In one study reported this week, Patrick Hof and Estel Van der Gucht of the Department of Neuroscience at New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that humpback whales have a type of brain cell called a spindle neuron in their cortices, as do humans and great apes. Reuters reports that “this might mean such whales are more intelligent than they have been given credit for”-though, of course, this intelligence is credited to evolution.

In related news, a team led by Rebecca Dunlop of the University of Queensland have reported that “[h]umpback whales possess a vastly more elaborate vocabulary than was known,” and have documented 35 different types of sounds produced by these whales, which may have “a variety of social uses.”

8. BBC NEWS: Meteorite yields life origin clue

As secular origin-of-life scientists put their faith in space-having not found solutions for abiogenesis on earth-those who realize the true origin of life may be in for some humorous reading. Take, for example, this BBC story on “bubbles” on a supposedly primordial meteorite:

Dr[.] Lindsay Keller of Nasa's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, told BBC News that some scientists believed such structures were “a step in the right direction” to making a cell wall.

Wow! But wait, there's more:

But he emphasised that the globules in Tagish Lake were in no way equivalent to a cell.

It seems that, even as secular origin-of-life theories change from year-to-year, these scientists have faith that some day, they will be able to find some way life could have come together by accident.