It seems to me that the attacks on Christianity today come with greater frequency and greater fervency than I have ever before seen. There are attacks from the “New Atheists.” There are attacks from “science.” There are attacks from the pop-culture. The list could go on, but what is surprising is the veracity of those attacking. It seems that those opposing Christianity are no longer satisfied with simply stating their problem with the Christian faith and then leaving it at that. No, they would prefer to see the Christian faith exterminated. As though it were a rat infestation at a restaurant. However, these attacks have almost always existed since the dawn of the Christian faith. One of the pot shots that have somehow managed to survive through the decades is that the Church has always opposed science and tried to suppress its advancement. A very common example of this today is the notion that the mid-evil church believed that the earth was flat. The common story told in school textbooks is that this is why Christopher Columbus’ voyage was opposed; they were afraid he would sail of the edge of the earth. However, this is a fraudulent myth that has no place in history textbooks. There were no serious scholars (secular or religious) that believed the earth was flat during the Middle Ages. Matt Flanagan has posted an excellent article on his blog MandM that goes through the details of this myth and exposes for the propaganda that it is. I highly recommend following the link over to his blog and reading the entire article.

In my previous post, I covered a few points about the documentary titled “Discovering Ardi” that aired on the Discovery Channel this past Sunday evening, October 11, 2009. In that post I gave a brief summary of the research that has taken place over the roughly 15 years since its discovery. The documentary was two hours in length and probably could have covered all of the information in about one hour. That aside, the first half of the documentary details out Ardi’s discovery and research while the second half is mainly devoted to Ardi’s public relations preparation.

The research team hired J.H. Matternes to sketch out Ardi’s skeleton. One problem here is that they don’t have a complete skeleton. They have a partial skeleton which lacks most of the central structure. The hands feet and skull comprise the majority of Ardi’s fossil remains. There is only part of the pelvis and essentially no upper torso fossil bones. This means that Mr. Matternes had to fill in the gaps when he was creating the sketch of Ardi’s skeleton. This is where some other statements in the documentary bothered me.

Owen Lovejoy, the project biologist made a statement concerning J.H. Matternes, which is as follows:

He is the equivalent of a super-computer, into which years and years of primate structure have been poured and recorded and out of which comes an almost perfect image.

Following this comment by Lovejoy, Matternes said, “My job is to interpolate from what is there and what is missing.” Then Lovejoy adds:

We can take something like a partial foot and describe and interact with him (Matternes), as to what’s present, what’s missing and then based on our joint anatomical knowledge, replace the missing part.

What really bothers me about this is that an hour was just spent describing how Ardi was completely astounding in physical structure, that she was unlike anything they had before seen. Matternes and Lovejoy may have years of familiarity with primate anatomy, but they are completely unfamiliar with what Ardi’s missing skeletal anatomy might have been. It seems to me that they assume too much in their ability to “fill in the gaps.” For example, if Ardi’s feet would not have been discovered, would they have sketched them the same? Almost certainly not. I understand their desire to try and complete the picture, but the statement that Matternes can produce “an almost perfect image” and that using their knowledge they can “replace the missing part” is going beyond what the evidence can bear.

Then there was an interesting point brought out towards the very end of the documentary. Owen Lovejoy stated:

As we track humans back through time into the fossil record and all of our individual special characteristics begin dropping out, when you get to the very bottom, it is simply bipedality that becomes the defining character of being human.

He also noted that bipedality “is a terrible form of locomotion.” Owen Lovejoy is most certainly correct that bipedality is not the fastest or most efficient method of locomotion. The documentary really emphasized bipedality as the defining characteristic of humans also. What really bothered me is the lack of honesty in this statement. Humans are not the only animal that walks upright on two legs. Therefore, the statement that bipedality is the only thing that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is simply not the case. What about Ostriches. Do they not use bipedality as their form of locomotion? Emus, closely related to Ostriches also use bipedality as their method of locomotion. Kangaroos use bipedality as their primary form of locomotion. There are other animals that use bipedality at times, such as penguins when they are on land. Before someone comments on this, I also realize that humans are the only animals that walk completely upright, but we aren’t the only ones that use bipedality.

One question that I know many people are asking is why did it take them 15 years to release this information if it was so revealing and ground breaking? The answer is not extremely simple. One reason is the public relations campaign that had to be prepared. They couldn’t simply release the research. They needed accompanying sketches and digital renditions of Ardi in her habitat.

Another reason is the condition of the bones. They were so fragile that the researchers removed them with clumps of dirt in plaster molds. Then in the controlled setting of a lab, they slowly and carefully removed the fossil bones from the dirt. After they were removed from the dirt, they then had to be reconstructed because of the poor condition of the fossils. The article published in the 2 October 2009 edition of Science. written by Ann Gibbons noted this very problem:

It was the find of a lifetime. But the team's excitement was tempered by the skeleton's terrible condition. The bones literally crumbled when touched. White called it road kill. And parts of the skeleton had been trampled and scattered into more than 100 fragments; the skull was crushed to 4 centimeters in height. The researchers decided to remove entire blocks of sediment, covering the blocks in plaster and moving them to the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa to finish excavating the fossils.

In short, the fossils are in such bad condition that many researchers are skeptical that it can be claimed with any measure of confidence that Ardi walked bipedaly. Ann Gibbons notes this point too in her article, “However, several researchers aren't so sure about these inferences. Some are skeptical that the crushed pelvis really shows the anatomical details needed to demonstrate bipedality.” Who are these skeptical researchers? Paleoanthropologist Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, Columbia; Paleoanthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York; Paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

If that’s not enough to make someone skeptical, then consider this tidbit also from the Science article:

By March of this year, Suwa was satisfied with his 10th reconstruction. Meanwhile in Ohio, Lovejoy made physical models of the pelvic pieces based on the original fossil and the CT scans, working closely with Suwa. He is also satisfied that the 14th version of the pelvis is accurate.

They went through 14 versions of the pelvis and then want everyone to believe they have solid evidence that Ardi represents the connection between humans and chimp/ape primates. I think Ardi is destined to go the way of Ida as far as sensational “missing link” claims are concerned.

I was finally able to sit down and watch the "Discovering Ardi" special last night. It was a very interesting documentary on the work that was accomplished over a period of more than a decade. There were several things which were discussed or stated in the documentary that I would like to address. Before I get into those things, a little background on this discovery is in order.

The full name of the fossil discovered is Ardipithecus Ramidus. It was discovered in Ethiopia in the Middle Awash area. They began discovering some teeth and small bone fragments from many different individuals. How they determined they were different individuals was not mentioned in the documentary. Then they began to discover fragments from the same individual. All of the bones were extremely fragmented and very delicate, to the point that the researchers cemented the bones together and lifted them out in plaster castes. Several years of excavation were conducted before recovering all of the bones which comprise the partial female skeleton that is the current topic of discussion. The researchers then began the painstaking work of removing the bones from the surrounding matrix (dirt) being careful not to damage the bones. They also transported the bones to Japan where they were scanned by a CT machine allowing them to create extremely accurate digital renderings of the bones. The researchers then hired J.H. Matternes to create full-scale reproductions of the fragments. Matternes then drew a complete skeleton followed by a skeleton covered with muscle and then skin, hair, etc. Owen Lovejoy, the project biologist then went to a company to have them create digital videos of how Ardi might have walked and moved through the terrain.

I must state that I think the researchers were very thorough in their work. From watching the documentary, it did not appear that this was hurried or that they were looking to make this “the missing link.” However, some statements made in the documentary caused me to question their conclusions. First, project paleontologist Tim White stated:

“Hominids are incredibly rare. They were rare on the landscape. They had very long life-spans, so few of them die and end up with carcasses on the landscape. They are very smart, smarter than most mammals so you don’t find very many of them trapped in the sediments. So they are extremely rare.”

Few of them die and end up with carcasses on the landscape. ..I don’t think he really thought through his statement here, because I’m sure that he would agree if I asked him if all animals eventually die. This puts one hole in his statement concerning why hominids are rare. They didn’t keep living forever or we would be finding them alive today. To be fair, I don’t think that is exactly what he meant. However, the point is still the same—it doesn’t matter if they lived 150 years or 50 years, they would all eventually die. He also claims that they were smarter than most mammals. The problem I have is that this is an assumption inferred back onto hominids because we as Homo sapiens are extremely intelligent and Tim believes that we evolved from hominids. Please hear me, I am not arguing against the point that we evolved from hominids, but I am arguing against this intelligence assumption. We don’t know how smart they were because it cannot simply be inferred from brain size.

The bones did not contain any material useful for dating the bones themselves. To explain how they dated Ardi to 4.4 million years ago, Yohannes Haile-Selassie a project paleontologist explained:

“We don’t really date the bones themselves, so we rely on geologists to give us dates for the rocks that are above and below the fossils that we are finding.”

How do they date these rocks? There were two volcanic rock bands, one above and one below the location they discovered the fossil. They then take samples from these bands and measure the amount of argon gas built up in the rocks. From this they can determine the age of the rocks. I am not familiar with this type of dating. It sounds very interesting and I will be researching this and learning more about it. One interesting point however, the two different tests came back to essentially the same date. At this point, I would think they might have asked to have the tests repeated because there was a lot of sediment between the two bands, several feet of sediment.

I will continue to make more posts on this documentary and fossil find. If you weren’t able to catch the special when it aired this past Sunday night (October 11, 2009), the Discovery Channel has the entirety of it on their website in small clips.

Click Here to Read Part 2

The Discovery Channel is going to be airing a program titled "Discovering Ardi" this Sunday evening at 9:00 PM ET. This is the latest fossil hailed as evidence shoring up evolution and one more piece of the puzzle from apes to upright bipedal humans.

Obviously I am not posting a critique of the show as it has not yet aired, but I wanted to make all of you aware of it in case you might be interested in watching it. I am recording the show to watch later that evening or Monday evening and I will post my own thoughts and reflections on it after I have a chance to watch it. Look forward to some possible discussion on it with all of you.

Stem cell research seems to be getting dealt some swift blows of late. I have no qualms about adult stem cell research, but I am opposed to embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). An article published back in July by the New York Post exclaimed in its title “The Great Stem-Cell-Research Scam.” The article goes on to explain that researchers have known for some time that ESCR is a dead-end road. It is plagued with problems that are extremely difficult to overcome. This is particularly important now that adult stem cells have been shown to have the same plasticity as ESC’s and don’t come with anywhere near the same amount of problems. The article contends that the reason so much is still being spent on this form of research is that it brings in the big bucks for select groups and companies. What really intrigued me in this article was the manner in which this research was being pushed. The author intimated that it is being sold as medical vs. pro-life politics or as our President so wonderfully stated on 3/9/2009 in his speech concerning federal funding of ESCR—“a false choice between sound science and moral values.” In other words, science vs. religion.

A more recent story in The New York Times reported that a new stem cell drug failed two different late-stage clinical trials. The drug was based on mesenchymal stem cells. These are produced from the bone marrow of adults and are different from the “typical” adult stem cells—induced pluripotent stem cells—which are derived from skin cells. The drug did no better or marginally better than the placebo used in the study. It really makes me wonder how genuine some who so heralded Mr. Obama’s statements that we must make “scientific decisions based on facts, not on ideology”…and “to restore scientific integrity to government decision making”…as well as “ensuring scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda.” It is beginning to seem that it is based more on politics than fact. There have been no successful clinical trials in the U.S. using embryonic stem cells (or adult stem cells at this point). Lots of stories have come from over seas, but many of these are proving to be over-rated, false, or frauds. The fact has come out time and time again that ESCR is a dead-end and the only promising stem cell research is now from adult stem cells. This was even stated by Dr. Oz on the Oprah Winfrey Show (HERE). The fact is if we are going to be spending millions and/or billions of dollars to fund this research it should be going to the more soundly scientific adult stem cell research and not to ESCR being kept on life support by federal funding.

What do you think, should embryonic stem cell research be abandoned to more vigorously pursue adult stem cell research? Why or why not?

President Obama's Speech (video)

The last post in this series discussed the universe. Particularly, whether the universe is eternal or if it had a beginning. The evidence led to the conclusion that the universe did have a beginning. That left us with only two possible explanations as to what brought about that beginning: (1) It brought itself about and developed into what we see today, which is evolution or (2) it was created, which is intelligent design. It is to this point we turn in this post. Does the evidence support evolution or intelligent design?

Evolution is the theory that the origin of life and the progressive change of that life arrived through purely naturalistic means. The first and earliest requirement placed upon Darwin’s Theory of Evolution was by his colleagues. They deemed it necessary to provide empirical evidence to support the sequential pattern of nature proposed by Darwin. Even with all of the evolutionary work that has persisted since the nineteenth century, the hierarchal pattern of nature persists regardless of the infusion of the spirit of sequence and continuity. The argument has, therefore, come about that the hierarchal pattern of nature supports the evolutionary view. This simply is not the case. It is much easier to argue for organic evolution if nature presented itself in sequential patterns.

Another foundational evidence Darwin cited as support for his theory was homologous structures. Darwin defines this term in The Origin to avoid any confusion. The definition he gave is as follows: “The relationship between parts which results from their development from corresponding embryonic parts.” Genetic and embryological research has demonstrated that homologous structures arrive at the end result through different routes as discussed by Sir Gavin de Beer. This demonstrates that homologous structures are not what Darwin defined them to be. This deals a swift blow to the theory because the lack of homologous structures deems descent by modification unnecessary.

Darwin recognized one major area of weakness in his theory. This area of weakness was the fossil record. It could not be ignored that the lack of intermediate species in the fossil record was a flaw to evolution. However, Darwin and those that followed after him believed that the fossil record was not complete enough and that in the future it would bear out the evidence to support the theory. This is such an important area because it is the only physical evidence that will either lend support to the theory or provide evidence that it is indeed false.

A few considerations will reveal that the fossil record does not lend support to evolution currently or in the foreseeable future. First, looking at the total number of fossil species compared to the scarce number of morphological sequences (intermediates) contained therein reveals the lack of any convincing evidence of major transformations in the fossil record. Secondly, the fossil record is nearly complete. When one realizes that 261 of the 329 living terrestrial vertebrates occur as fossils, which yields 79.1% completeness of the fossil record, it becomes apparent that there is not a great disparity in the state of the fossil record. Furthermore, when birds are excluded from the above numbers, since they are poorly fossilized, the percentage rises to 87.8% completion of the fossil record. The argument that the fossil record is not complete enough to conclusively determine whether or not it supports evolution is merely wishful thinking.

Another area often used to support evolution’s claims is vestigial organs. This is the claim that there are organs in the human body that serve no function and can be removed without harm to the body. This argument fails at several points. To simply assume that the lack of harm from the removal of an organ indicates that it is useless neglects the possibility that other organs may compensate for the removal of that organ and that it simply is not feasible to measure any loss of function. Consider the kidneys. A person can have a kidney removed and not suffer serious loss, but they serve a function. In fact, one could actually argue that the loss of function of organs indicates devolving of life, which is the opposite of evolution.

Modern genetics research and the discovery of DNA pose another problem for evolution. Take this along with problems associated with abiogenesis (spontaneous generation), and evolution virtually becomes impossible to argue as a viable hypothesis. The prebiotic soup so often referred to as fact actually has no evidence to support it and in reality has much evidence opposing it. The conditions of earth’s early atmosphere did not consist of the correct elements to produce life and had several factors which led to a “catch 22” situation because if life did happen to arise spontaneously it would have almost immediately been destroyed. Furthermore, the laws of nature clearly define that life arises from life, not that living things arise from nonliving things going against the laws of nature and universal.

The DNA problem has actually caused one atheist to purport that “life in bacterial form may have been transmitted to this planet in a missile from some other part of space.” This does not solve the problem because it still begs the question: “Where did that life come from?” Evolution attempted to show how proteins, the building blocks of the cell and therefore life, arise from purely natural reactions. However, with the discovery of the role of DNA in producing those proteins in the cell, it is more necessary to determine the origin of the information contained in DNA than to determine the natural processes the DNA controls. This presents a conundrum to the evolutionists.

Evolutionists, in general, make the mistake of letting preconceived theories shape the evidence rather than letting the evidence shape the theory. In other words, they are like a fisherman who upon catching a large fish returned the fish to the pond. After watching this happen several times, an onlooker asked the man, “Why do you only keep the small fish and return the larger fish to the pond?” The man responded to the onlooker, “I only have an eight-inch frying pan, and so the larger ones won’t fit!” Simply put, the evidence that proponents of evolution cite does not support the conclusions that are drawn by the evolutionist, or the atheist for that matter.

The evidence does not necessarily prove intelligent design, but it does demonstrate that it better fits the evidence that we currently have about the beginning of the universe and the current state-of-affairs today. The only point left to discuss in this series is that of Jesus’ resurrection. The next post will tackle this topic.

Links to other posts in this series:

• Part 1: Three possibilities about God's existence
• Part 2: What is acceptable evidence?
• Part 3: Is the universe eternal?
• Part 5: What about the resurrection?
• Part 6: Where does the evidence lead?

In the previous post, I discussed the possible stances regarding belief about the existence of God. The three possibilities were agnosticism, atheism, and theism. Agnosticism was ruled out as a truly viable option leaving only atheism (there is no God) and theism (there is a God) as tenable positions on the existence of God. That led us to the next obvious question, is the evidence in favor of God’s existence or is it the opposite?

Before one can answer whether there is sufficient supporting evidence or not, some details must be determined. For starters, who has the burden of proof concerning God’s existence, is it the atheist or the theist? In discussing this, it is important to first understand the nature of scientific proof. In order for evidence to be submitted as scientific proof, the one making the hypothesis moves forward under the assumption that the hypothesis is correct. Before a theory or hypothesis is deemed reasonably proven, a succession of tests or evidence that agrees with the hypothesis must be present. There must always exist, however, the possible falsification of the hypothesis by a subsequent test or evidence. Without the ability to disprove the hypothesis, it does not meet the criterion to be truly scientific, according to Karl Popper. When there is an absence of contradictory evidence or evidence that proves the hypothesis false, this validates the hypothesis as true since one could theoretically run an infinite number of confirming tests.

The theists argue there is much evidence to support the case for God’s existence. In court proceedings after the one making the claim has provided sufficient evidence in support of that claim, it is then left to the opposition to disprove the evidence and subsequently the claim. The theists have brought forth evidence to support the claim that God exists, and the burden of proof has, therefore, been shifted to the atheists.

I will now take up the case of the atheist rather than simply state or provide an endless supply of evidence that proves God’s existence; it is more convincing if the only available sources of falsification are shown to be without substance. Three sources of falsification of God’s existence are: the universe, evolution, and the resurrection of Jesus.

Concerning the universe, Victor Stenger wrote:



links to other posts in this series:

• Part 1: Three possibilities about God's existence
• Part 3: Is the universe eternal?
• Part 4: Does the evidence support evolution?
• Part 5: What about the resurrection?
• Part 6: Where does the evidence lead?

Links to other posts in this series:

• Part 2: What is acceptable evidence?
• Part 3: Is the universe eternal?
• Part 4: Does the evidence support evolution?
• Part 5: What about the resurrection?
• Part 6: Where does the evidence lead?

I published a post on June 11 about the possibility that the state of New York was going to begin allowing payment to be rendered to a women that allowed a research agency to harvest her eggs for the purpose of stem cell research. At the time I could not find any independent verification of the story other than the Christian News Wire. After returning today from being out-of-town and out-of touch for an entire week, I was overwhelmed by the number of news agencies reporting that this was in fact the case. Ironically, the affirmative decision on this matter was reached on June 11, 2009—the date that I published my post.

Among the plethora of news agencies now reporting this is the New York Dailey News, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the U.S. News & World Report. This move does not really surprise me all that much, as I stated in the previous post on this topic. This still makes me wonder about something. Is this going to now begin a flood of women into the state of New York only to donate their eggs in order to receive the compensation of up to $10,000.00? Likewise, is this going to set a precedent that those who, for example, donate a kidney to someone to also receive compensation for their “time, discomfort and expenses associated with donating” said organ for said purpose? I must also admit my ignorance at one point here; I have read many times that donating eggs is risky to the women doing so, but I have not read exactly how it is dangerous to the woman’s health—any help on this? Perhaps I am having trouble seeing how this is hazardous to the woman since there has not been any cry about this at fertility clinics. Don’t they harvest womens’ eggs in order to fertilize them before placing them back into the woman?

What do you think about this move by the state of New York—is it good, bad, or somewhere in between?

There was much ado about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) last year. Last week the LHC was back in the news as the announcement was made that it would remain online through the winter months rather than shutting down.

This decision was made to hopefully allow the scientists to continue conducting research they hope will lead to the discovery of the Higgs boson, which deemed “the God particle.” This particle is believed to be what gives all of matter its mass. However, scientists really do not know a lot about this particle in the way of hard, factual evidence. That is what they are hoping to accomplish with the LHC.