News to Note, November 13, 2010

1. Fossil Record Against Darwinian Evolution

The fossil record doesn’t agree with Darwinian evolution: are evolutionists finally catching up to this long-time creationist claim?

2. New Study Lines Up with Genesis Account of Earth and Water

“In the beginning, there was water.” It’s not quite Genesis 1:1–2, but the conclusion of a new study does line up with the Genesis account.

3. Neanderthal Brains Compared to Chimps'

Talk about insulting: our Neanderthal kin/ancestors, who have already taken years of unfair abuse, are now having their brains compared to chimps’!

4. PhysOrg: “Oldest Fossil Shrimp Preserved with Muscles”

Scientists at Kent State University and Ohio University have discovered the oldest known shrimp fossil. And—no surprise for young-earthers—it looks like it could have been formed yesterday.

The fossil, found in Oklahoma and dated at 360 million years old, is considered important not only for its alleged age, but also for its detailed preservation: even the outline of the shrimp’s muscles were preserved in stone, something that’s relatively rare.

Kent State paleontologist Rodney Feldmann explains, “When the animal died, it came to rest on the seafloor. The muscles then were preserved by a combination of acidic waters and a low oxygen content as the animal was buried rapidly.” The theme of rapid burial comes up again and again with well-preserved fossils, collectively attesting to catastrophic forces in creating much of the fossil record.

As for the creature itself, ScienceNOW carries a photograph of the fossil juxtaposed with a modern shrimp. As we said, despite a supposed 360 million years of evolutionary history, the shrimp looks as if it could have been fossilized yesterday.

5. Pastors Who No Longer Believe in God

In a story that reveals just one of the many dark consequences of extracting the Bible from culture and supposed reality, we learn about pastors who no longer believe in God.

And Don’t Miss . . .

• How do mammal brains develop? New research into the “complex patterns of connections in the brain” suggest neurons “are capable of self-organizing with mathematical precision,” which sounds to us like evidence for a creative designer—not chance processes.
• Related to our story last week on parthenogenesis in a snake is news of a self-cloning lizard species that is entirely female.
• It’s finally happened: scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have “reproduced” the big bang, creating a super-hot subatomic explosion that some think will shed light on how the big bang supposedly worked. Of course, the experiment does nothing to actually prove the big bang was a historical event.
• Are the basic building blocks of human eyesight “practically perfect”? That claim contradicts what evolutionists frequently say (giving our eyes as an example of “bad design”), but it’s one of the points of a New York Times article on the incredible workings of life. “You might say, well, the human body is sloppy, but no, we’re better designed than any robot,” says one of the quoted researchers.
• A reminder of the beauty of God’s creation: starling “murmurations”: complex patterns made by flocks of flying birds that still elude a full scientific explanation.
• The idea that life on earth was “seeded” from space hits several obstacles, but some scientists think one—steller radiation—might matter less than was thought. Nonetheless, one scientist is candid: “It must be admitted that all versions of panspermia suffer from a hole in our knowledge, concerning how to go from an astrophysically delivered entity which contains substantial information to one which has the characteristics of what we normally regard as life.” Yet these scientists, who hold onto the hope that as-yet undiscovered alien life somehow survived on earth and evolved into us, think creation is a stretch?