Freedom In the U.S. Vs Freedom In China

Who has the greater freedom of speach? Someone living in China or someone living in the U.S.?

Obviously it is the person in the America, right? We have much greater freedom here... or do we?

There is a Chinese paleontologist who travels around the world giving lectures in which he states that recent fossil finds in China are not consistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution. He says this because he has observed that the major animal groups appear abruptly in the rocks over a relatively short time. Darwin's therory predicts that they should evolve gradually from a common ancestor. When this conclusion upsets American scientists, he wryly comments: "In China we can criticize Darwin but not the government. In America you can criticize the government but not Darwin."

I don't claim the Chinese, in general, have more freedom of speach than American's do, but it is ironic that in China a professor can speak openly about Darwin being wrong. That's not allowed in America. To do anything that questions evolution can result in lose of tenure or even the lose of your job.

What for a movie called "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed" that is coming out in April.

Creation vs Evolution Debate (Comments)

A person who calls himself TVL left a comment on a June 2006 post about Creation vs. Evolution Debate vidos. In my response I said that I would post photographs of ancient art that shows humans and dinosaurs together. All it would take is one piece of art, from 1000 years ago, showing a dinosaur and that would be proof that humans and dinosaurs lived together. But there is much more than just one, there are hundreds.

The art does not even have to show people and dinosaurs together, because:

1. Obviuosly there was a person there, because the person made the art.

2. If the art shows an accurate representation of a dinosaur (which it does), there is no other way for the artist to know what a dinosaur looked like unless he saw one, live and in-person. Ancient people did not dig bones out of the ground and try to assemble them into skeltons.

There is not just one or two paintings and carvings showing dinosaurs, there are thousands from many different cultures around they world. They show many different types of dinosaurs, and they show them correctly. That's something we have not always been able to do. For example, for many decades the brontosaurous was considered the largest dinosaur. But, scientists had the wrong head on this dinosaur. That mistake was recently corrected. However, ancient art unearthed nearly 100 years ago shows this dinosaur with the correct head.

What is shown in this post are two ica stones from Peru. The one above shows two people fighting with a dinosaur. The one in front of the dinosaur is attacking it with a spear. There is also a person behindthe dinosaur attacking it with an ax. This carving was made about 1000 years ago and buried as a part of a funeral.

Here is a second ica stone, also about 1000 years old, that clearly shows a different type of dinosaur.

In addition to ica stones, there is other art such as: a carving of a dinosaur in a Cambodian temple; Native America rock petrogliphs showing dinosaurs; tapistries showing dinosaurs; there is even a book from 16th century Europe, that catalogs all the animals existing at the time in Europe... and the catalog includes dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are even mentioned about 40 times in the Bible.

To see ancient art showing dinosaurs visit: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/dino-art.htm.
This web site does not show very good web design skills, but it does have very good pictures.

Secret Emails - Following The Evidence Where It Leads

Secret Emails Reveal How ISU Faculty Plotted to Deny Distinguished Astronomer Tenure
ISU’s tenure process and official explanation in the Gonzalez case exposed as a sham.

Iowa State University faculty plotted to deny tenure to a distinguished astronomer, as revealed in private emails written by faculty and administrators at ISU.

Discovery Institute is making public a record of secret emails exchanged among faculty at Iowa State University about noted ISU astronomer Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez.

The emails demonstrate that a campaign was organized and conducted against Gonzalez by his colleagues, with the intent to deny him tenure because of views he holds on the intelligent design (ID) of the universe, expressed in his 2004 book The Privileged Planet. In spite of his distinguished publishing career, Gonzalez was denied tenure by ISU in the spring of 2007.

Faculty involved in the tenure decision were well aware of Gonzalez’s support for ID. More than one year before his tenure evaluation was scheduled, one ISU professor wrote an e-mail that left no doubt that Gonzalez’s tenure application would never receive a fair evaluation. "He will be up for tenure next year," wrote the professor. "And if he keeps up, it might be a hard sell to the department.

Contrary to his public statements, and those of ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, the chairman of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dr. Eli Rosenberg, stated in Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure dossier that Dr. Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design "disqualifies him from serving as a science educator."
Read the rest of the story here.

Intelligent Design Was the Issue After All: ISU’s official explanation in Gonzalez case exposed as a sham
Internal documents show Gonzalez was denied fair tenure process by hostile colleagues who plotted behind his back, suppressed evidence, and then misled the public.

This executive summary outlines the following and includes ISU faculty quotes from e-mails siezed in a public records request last spring.

A. The Campaign to Vilify Dr. Gonzalez and Induce Him to Leave ISU.
B. The Use of Intelligent Design as a Negative Factor in Tenure Deliberations.
C. The Effort to Evade the Law by Suppressing Evidence that Could Be Used in Court to Prove a Hostile Work Environment.
D. Private admissions that Dr. Gonzalez was denied academic freedom or otherwise mistreated.
E. The Cover-Up: Department Chair Eli Rosenberg’s Effort to Mislead the Public.
F. The Rejection of the Recommendations of the Outside Reviewers.
Read the rest of the story here.
Click here to download the summary as a PDF document.

How Eli Rosenberg, Chair of ISU’s Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Concealed Viewpoint Discrimination When Explaining Tenure Denial
Tenure votes at the earliest levels are made by a faculty member’s department, and they typically set the tone for whether that faculty member will ultimately receive tenure. Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez was ... read the rest of the story here.

Secret ISU Faculty E-mails Express Disregard for Academic Freedom
Public document requests under Iowa's Open Records Act have obtained revealing correspondence of key faculty members within ISU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. Various e-mails show that ... read the rest of the story here.

Most Science Studies Appear To Be Tainted

About a year ago I was writing in this blog about the fact that we can not always trust what science says just because it is science. People put blind faith in "science", never questioning what they read or what they see on TV or what they are taught. The problem is science is done by people (scientists are people), and people are not perfect.

Last Friday's issue (September 14, 2007) of the Wall Street Journal had an article called "Most Science Studies Appear To Be Tainted By Sloppy Analysis." The opening paragraph states:

"We all make mistakes and, if you believe medical scholar John Ioannidis, scientists make more than their fair share. By his calculations, most published research findings are wrong."

Two paragraphs later the article explains:

"These flawed findings, for the most part, stem not from fraud or formal misconduct, but from more mundane misbehavior: miscalculation, poor study design or self-serving data analysis."

I'm not saying that all science is bad. I love science. I have an engineering degree and science is the foundation of engineering. There is a lot of good science being done and a lot of problems also. But as flawed as it may be, we need to trust science just to live our everyday lives. But when it comes to something as important as what happens to you after you die, don't blindly trust science, ask questions about what you are hearing and reading.

When someone says a fossil is 65 millions years old, find out why they said that. What evidence do they have and how reliable is that evidence? (The methods for dating fossils are full of holes.)

When someone claims to have found a missing link, find out why they claim that. What is the basis of their claim and how well does is stand up to the test of time? (Many "missing links" have been found, none have stood the test of time.)

When someone says evolution is true, ask "Why do you say that?" Then look at the evidence they claim. There has been no scientific evidence that supports evolution. There is over $250,000 in "prize" money available to anyone who can present evidence proving evolution. The money goes unclaimed.

Links Between Past and Present?

Newsweek likes to regularly publish information that supports evolution as true. The July 9, 2007 issue includes a sidebar, not related to the article it is with in any way I can see, that provides three transitional forms that have been found in the fossil record. Or are they?

First, a good general rule of thumb is that whenever it is announced that a fossil missing link has been found, give it ten or so years for all the facts to come out. It took 40 years from when Piltdown man was "found" until it was shown to be a fraud. Originally the Coelacanth (a fish) was thought to be a transitional form having "fins" used for moving on the watery bottom, until a living coelacanth was discovered (Latimeria chalumnae) and it turned out the fins were used solely for swimming. Time after time, every transitional fossil has turned out to not be what it was originally proclaimed to be.

Let's look at the three transitional fossil in the Newsweek article. To keep this post relatively short, I'll provide a link to explanations describing what has actually been found (no science-based transitional fossils):

Tiktaalik Roseae: This is the latest transitional fossil find. Calling this a transitional fossil has many problems, even at this early stage. What really bothers me is, not only does this fossil not have the characteristics needed for a transitional form, in trying to fit it into an evolutionary sequence of fossils the fossils in that sequence have had their size and position in the sequence distorted. If scientists are going to present "evidence," at the least it should not include intentional distortions.

Archaeopteryx: The first thing I notice about this fossil was its history. Discovered in 1861, it came from an amateur collector and local doctor Carl Haberlein, who had received from another person it in lieu of payment for medical treatment. On the other hand, when human fossils are discovered in layers dated to the same age as dinosaurs, professional paleontologists refuse to work on recovering them, so amateurs recover the bones... the "scientific community" calls the discoveries invalid because they were not excavated by professions. So archaeopteryx was excavated by an unknown person who could not pay his medical bills, and it is enshrined as a transitional fossil. My problem is not with amateurs, it is with the double standard.

Is Archaeopteryx a transition from reptile to bird? No, it is not. In 1984 at the International Archaeopteryx Conference scientists agreed that Archaeopteryx was a true bird, not a transitional form. Only a small minority of scientists continue to push for it as a transition form. Why then do publications such as Newsweek still promote Archaeopteryx as a transitional form? Because, even though it is not factually true, it provides compelling evidence for evolution. Evidence based on... nothing.

Pakicetus: A few skull fragments were discovered in Pakistan. They appeared to be from a wolf-like creature that allegedly had an inner ear like a whale’s. Thus these fragments were announced as a transitional form showing a land animal that had become an aquatic ancestor of today's whales. In 2001 research published in Nature showed that Pakicetus was a true land animal, not aquatic. So the theory was reversed and Pakicetus was declared a land animal that is a descendant of whales... although that means the animal we see living today is older than the extinct animal that followed it. Isn't that backwards???

Solid anatomical data now shows the Pakicetus is not an ancestor of the whale.

To find out what really happened pick up your Bible and read Genesis chapter one. Evolution and Darwinism keeps producing evidence that isn't evidence and theories that keep changing. Yet nothing that has been found has contradicted the Biblical account, and the scientific evidence that the Bible is true continues to grow. All of the land animals, including dinosaurs were created on day six of creation. About 1,400 years later there was a catastrophic world-wide flood that buried billions of dead things in rock layers around the world... the fossils we see today.

Investigating Evolution

Dr. Carl Werner did what I urge everyone who believes in evolution should do...

Don't believe evolution just because you've been told it is true.

Don't believe evolution just because everyone else believes it.

Ask questions. Investigate.

Dr. Werner was educated in and committed to evolution. A college friend challenged him to prove evolution was true. He took up the challenge and spent 18 years studying geology, dinosaurs and extinction. But, although he wasn't sure what the problem was, he sensed that something was wrong.

So Dr. Werner and his wife decided to go and see the evidence for themselves. They interviewed scientists. Visited fossil dig sites. Over a ten year period they traveled to 60 museums in seven countries. They compiled hundreds of hours of video, 60 thousand photographs and 1,000 pages of transcribed interviews.

The result was that he failed. He could not prove evolution was true.

You can read about Dr. Werner's investigations into evolution in a new book: Evolution: The Grand Experiment.

Transitional Fossils

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

The comment concerned trasitional fossils.

I could not find information about transitions between trilobite species found in Pennsylvania or Lake Tureana mollusc species. Are you saying trilobites are the ancestors of molluscs?

However, the bottom line of this comment seems to be that, since many scientists believe in the accuracy of various dating methods, then they must be true. There is a huge problem with this. Historically the majority of scientists believed in whatever was the currently accepted scientific "facts" at that time. Why do new scientific textbooks need to be written periodically? Because the scientific facts keep changing. We keep learning and the majority is continually revealed to be wrong. What was accepted as fact 100 years ago, is no longer true today.

At one time the majority of scientists believed the world was flat. They were shown to be wrong.

At one time the majority of scientists believed that letting out blood with leaches was needed to heal saicknesses caused by having too much blood. They were shown to be wrong.

The key question is, what is true? No what does the majority believe?

Yes, what the majority believes is worth investigating. But majority does not equal truth.

Humans and Chimps are Genetically Similar

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

Another comment showing there are scientific fields producing evidence for evolution was: Genetics: The DNA of different species can show a trail of common ancestry, in fact, humans and chimps contain 98 % of the same DNA.

This is a myth that has been around a long time.

There has been some research done in this area. The correct statistic is 96% similarity.

First recognize that there has been no chimp genone project. So there is no direct comparison. There was a study of chimp genes that was limited to 97 selected genes. It was determined that looking at these selected genes, there was a 96% similarly to the genetic information found somewhere in human genes. This was determined using a crude technique known as DNA hybridization. It involves combining single strands of DNA from a human and a chimp to observe similarities.

What is not discussed are the genetic differences. DNA contains a huge amount of information, equal to about a thousand 500 page books. If we accept the 96% similarity number as true, a 4% difference is equivalent to 40 large books or 12 million words arranged meaningfully.

The science of population genetics show that human-like animals can produce no more than 1,700 mutations per 20 year generation. It is genetically impossible for humans and chimps to have a common ancestor, even if we allow 10,000,000 years.

On the other hand, similarities can also come from a common designer. For example, a car maker uses the same parts in different models. A 1961 Ford and a 2006 Taurus have four wheels, a steering wheel, windshield wipers, bumpers and many other similar components. No one would say the Taurus naturally evolved from the older car... they had a common designer. If there is a design that performs a function well, it makes sense to use that same design in multiple organisms.

By the way, there is a 75% genetic similarity between a nematode worm and human DNA. There is also a 50% genetic similarity between a banana and human DNA. The same genes, in different objects, can have different functions.

A good web site with information on the subjects we've been discussing is: Darwinism Watch

Convergent Evolution / Homology

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

The comment showing there are scientific fields producing evidence for evolution was: "Comparative Anatomy: This shows the same skeletal elements in the forelimbs of humans, cats, whales, and bats, showing that all have some common ancestry. This is only one small example in this field."

You may be speaking about "convergent evolution" or about the theory of "homology." Both need to be discussed together.

Convergent evolution is when species without a close common ancestor have different looking structures which perform similar functions. The wings of a fly and the wings of a bird would be an example of this. Thus if living things have parts that function the same, but have different structures, it is a proof for evolution.

Homology states that, if there is the possibility of close common ancestor, similarities in structure are due to common ancestory. Similar looking structures evolved to accomplished very different tasks. Thus, if living things have parts that function differently, but have the same structures, it is proof for evolution. This is the option I believe you are talking about.

If we look at the complete picture, what we have is: that if things look the same, it is evidence for evolution. And if things look different, it is evidence for evolution. The problem is that the assumption that evolution is true underlies the conclusions.

If the initial assumption that evolution is true is removed (as should be done for a true scientific investigation) there is a third theory. That biological structures are similar because they were created by a common designer.

So which of these three, or combination of them, has evidence to support it?

If convergent evolution is true, then we should find lots of living things (and fossils of living things) with intermediate stages showing the evolution of stuctures as the environment forces them to change.

If homology is true, then we should find lots of living things (and fossils of living things) with intermediate stages leading back to a common ancestor.

If a common designer made all things, we should see similar structures in various living things. There would be no evidence of intermediate structures. If two living things performed similar functions, but were radically different (flies and birds) we could expect to see different structures. Again there would be no evidence of intermediate structures.

When we look at reality, what do we see? Stasis. We see living things with no evidence of the required change. We do see natural selection. For example, there is evidence that all dogs came from a common ancestor, a wolf. But dogs always create more dogs, nothing else. And the structure of dogs shows no sign of the changes required for convergent evolutiuon or homology. The observable evidence, what we can see and measure (reality), favors a common creator. Comparative anatomy provides evidence for a common creator, not for evolution.

Embryos Have Similar Characteristics?

The following is from on a continuing discussion about evolution arising from a post dated July 1, 2006.

The comment providing evidence for evolution is: "Comparative Embryology: In the developing embryos of very different species of organisms, we see the same structures developing. For example, the embryo of a human is almost identical to that of a chicken or a pig. Developing “arm” buds of each species are indistinguishable, but could develop into an arm, wing, or flipper depending on the certain genetic sequence. Evolution explains why a developing human embryo would possess a tail or gill pouches."

Are you talking about the theory of ontology recapitulates philology? This theory states that embryos go through a genetic sequence that was preserved from their evolutionary heritage. Thus embryos show features from earlier parts of their evolutionary genealogy.

This theory was created 1866 by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel. To support his theory he published a set of embryo drawings that showed the similarities among embryos. When I checked my son's high school biology book in the year 2000, these drawings were in that book. The problem is that Haeckel faked the drawings. His evidence was completely made up. A few years after he published his drawings he was charged with fraud and convicted by a university court. For over 125 years this fraudulent "evidence" for evolution has continued to be included in textbooks.

We now very accurately know what embyos look like, and it is nothing like what is shown in Haeckel's drawings. Why do they continue to be included in textbooks? Because, I've heard debaters say, these drawings provide strong "evidence" for evolution, even though they are not true. In other words, if it looks good, even it it is not true, use it anyway. That's not science. These are people who are desperate for evidence they can not find.