News to Note, February 7, 2009

1. Poll Shows Public Doubts about Evolution

A poll in Britain reveals widespread doubt over Darwinism—or does it?

A survey conducted by ComRes (to coincide with the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth) asked just over 2,000 respondents whether they agree with the statement, “Evolution alone is not enough to explain the complex structures of some living things, so the intervention of a designer is needed at key stages.” Just over half—51 percent—of respondents agreed, but 40 percent disagreed; the rest weren’t sure.

2. Earlier Start for Animal Evolution

It could almost be the plot of an evolutionary Indiana Jones adventure: deep beneath the sands of Arabia, lost and hidden for millennia, lay a secret molecule that transcends what we think we know.

3. Home Away from Home

Astronomers have found yet another “Earth-like” planet (how many does this make, anyway?). Once again, it’s not exactly home away from home.

4. BBC News: “Number of Alien Worlds Quantified”

How many alien civilizations are in the Milky Way? Between 361 and 37,964, reports one “scientist.”

The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence continues after University of Edinburgh researcher Duncan Forgan conducted the estimation, published in the International Journal of Astrobiology. At least Forgan admitted, “It’s a process of quantifying our ignorance.”

Forgan came up with the estimation through a simulation of a galaxy “much like our own,” with life evolving on the various planets according to three scenarios: “it is difficult for life to be formed but easy for it to evolve”; “life was easily formed but struggled to develop intelligence”; or “life could be passed from one planet to another during asteroid collisions.”

In addition to presupposing evolution, Forgan assumed “Earth is an average case.” Both of those presumptions fly in the face of scientific evidence—so it’s no surprise that Forgan’s prediction of the number of alien civilizations does, too!

5. It's a 'Whale'

Does the fossil discovery of an early “whale” offer evidence for evolution or does it merely reinforce presuppositions?

6. Human-Animal Embryo Research Hits a Wall

Experiments to produce hybrid human–animal embryos have been unsuccessful. Will that mean anything to advocates of embryonic stem cell research?

7. Beat it, Stein!

Darwinists at the University of Vermont have done a great service to Ben Stein by proving the point he made in the film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

And Don’t Miss . . .

• BBC News, National Geographic News, and seemingly every other news source on the planet are reporting on a fossil snake as long as a bus that lived a supposed 60 million years ago. Scientists estimated its length based on the size of a fossilized vertebra and a known relationship between vertebra size and length in living snakes. One News to Note reader reported that he contacted a scientist involved with the study and asked him the source of the 60 million year old date: fossilized pollen.
• In the UK, university students are striking back against the notorious “probably no God” bus banners by handing out 400,000 copies of the Gospel of Mark. “Apathy is the greatest spiritual danger in our land, whereas Dawkins militant atheism gets everybody thinking and talking,” one student said. “We are grateful to him for keeping God on the nation’s agenda.”
• Randall Price, director of Liberty University’s Center for Judaic Studies, plans to head to Turkey to search for Noah’s Ark. Price is returning to the location where a Kurdish man claims to have seen the Ark as a boy; Price and others found the location covered deep with boulders during a previous visit. For a biblical perspective on Ark hunting, see Has Noah’s Ark Been Found?
• One reader alerted us to a new study in the journal Nature that shows that fingerprints may be “essential” in helping our tactile sense detect fine textures in addition to helping us grip objects. So they weren’t just created to be a plot device in crime dramas!
• A study in the journal Science has helped reveal why hybrid offspring are usually sterile. According to the research (conducted on individuals from two faraway populations of a weed in the mustard family), the problem has to do with changes in even a single gene. That helps explain how speciation can happen so rapidly, leading from the original created kinds to the many species of today: even a change in one gene can create two species where there was only one.
• A University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of the history of science (and childhood young-earth creationist) told an interviewer, “With evolution, you don’t start out with anything perfect, you start with primitive little wiggly things, which evolve into apes and, finally, humans. There’s no perfect state from which to fall. This makes the whole plan of salvation silly because there never was a fall.” Apparently he “gets” the connection (like Richard Dawkins, and others) that evolution-believing Christians don’t!
• A fossilized turtle found in a surprising geographical location reminds us how different the Earth must have been at the time of the Flood—while an article in Discovery News reminds us of the devastating disasters that accompanied the Flood.
• Explorers have discovered the 250-year-old sunken wreck of the HMS Victory, a wooden ship that has deteriorated so much that recovery is impossible. What does that imply about trees being slowly fossilized over millions of years, as old-earthers believe?