In this insanely long and meaty newsletter:
1) Change in tour schedule: Ontario or bust
2) Scientists choke on T-rex meat
3) Email questions from a nuclear physicist regarding the age of the earth
4) Angus-Reid Poll shows majority of Canadians believe in Evolution – BUT….. (If you’re Canadian, you need to read this!)
5) New Scientist promotes old anti-creation article
6) Anti-creationists step on toes of “Delk track”
7) Way Overdue contest
8) Recommended website
9) Complete Creation video series updates
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1) Change in tour schedule: Ontario or bust
Sadly, with my Dad’s recent passing, I’ve cancelled my US Northwest tour and
will be sticking close to home for the next couple of months. However, this
means that my museum and I will be available for events and talks within
Ontario. If anybody is interested, please drop me a line
(ianjuby@ianjuby.org) or call toll-free 877-532-9160. Check the itinerary often:
https://ianjuby.org/itinery2.html
There is a promotional brochure available as well as a promotional video online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYNXaxPP8yc
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2) Scientists choke on T-rex meat
Special thanks to Teno Groppi who brought this to our attention
(http://www.genesisevidence.org/)
Some of you may recall a stunning piece of research that was unveiled a couple
of years back by Dr. Mary Schweitzer, who first found apparent blood cells in
relatively intact blood vessels within a T-rex bone!
Even more stunning was a couple of years later, they found soft ‘meat’ within
another T-rex bone.
Yesss, I know, I can hear the skeptics already – “It was permineralized Ian!”
What the skeptics are saying here is that the ‘meat’ was coated in rock, and
Schweitzer and her team dissolved this with an acid, leaving behind the soft
tissue.
Yes, it was permineralized – but permineralization is the process whereby the
object being fossilized remains in place and is coated by, and permeated with,
rock. The flesh is still there – and, it was soft!
In fact, as Schweitzer pointed out, when you pulled it, it stretched back to
its orignal shape! (Arrow points to ‘stretchy’ sections in photo)
Now I’ll be honest – I have a hard time envisioning T-rex flesh sticking
around for 4,500 years (approximately when Noah’s flood was supposed to happen
which buried this T-rex), let alone 65 MILLION years that the evolutionists
claim. Especially when one considers that every single study ever carried out
says that flesh decays way, way, way too fast. This is not arguing from what
we do not know (as many of those who want to believe in deep time are want to
do), this is what we do know.
Well apparently the T-rex meat was too tough to chew for National Geographic
and PlOS ONE magazine, and this past week an article came out claiming that
the T-rex blood vessels, red blood cells and meat was actually… ‘slime.’ In
fact, they draw an analogy to what you would see in stagnant water.
Welp, you’ve seen the photos yourself, does it look like “pond scum?” Does
“pond scum” (or the like) stretch back when you pull on it? They also
attempted to explain away the red blood cells as iron framboids combined with
“pond scum.” Interestingly, Schweitzer and her team actually considered this
when they were first examining the soft tissues pulled from the T-rex bone!
They ruled it out for obvious reasons:
-Sure – tubes of slime that look like blood vessels, where we would expect to
see blood vessels, when you squeeze them, round, red globs of what sure look
like red blood cells come out! Sure sounds like blood vessels…
-If these “tubes” were bacterial “slime” then it should be thicker on the
bottom of the tube, due to gravity; it was not
-Schweitzer, and her team had carried out much more chemical and molecular
research on all of this “soft tissue” which the PlOS ONE team apparently doesn’t even
acknowledge. This seems strangely convenient?
-It appears that the PlOS ONE team also did not consider the possibility of it
being both soft tissue with some bacterial slime.
Soft T-rex tissue must be explained away because millions of years are at
stake here! Yet strangely, most skeptics do not question the millions of
years (as they should), instead, they question the science that says it’s
impossible for soft tissue to remain preserved for 65 million years.
It is impossible for soft tissue to stick around for 65 million years. This is what
we know.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080730-dinosaur-tissue.html
Images courtesy of Science magazine:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol307/issue5717/images/large/307_1952_F2.jpeg
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol307/issue5717/images/large/307_1952_F1.jpeg
Schweitzer MH, Wittmeyer JL, Horner JR, Toporski JK (2005) Soft-Tissue Vessels
and Cellular Preservation in Tyrannosaurus rex. Science 307(5717):1952-1955.
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3) Email questions from a nuclear physicist regarding the age of the earth
I was forwarded an excellent letter from a nuclear physicist who had written
to Dr. Carl Baugh of the Creation Evidence Museum. Dr. Baugh happened to be
away, so the secretary forwarded the letter to me.
It was composed of common questions which I know many people have struggled
with – namely, the lack of long half-life isotopes (which implies that
billions of years have passed because they have all decayed away), radiometric
dating, and the Greenland ice cores which imply the earth is at least 250,000
years old – far too old for the 6,000 year age that is implied by the biblical
record.
My response is here:
http://www.ianjuby.org/readerquestion1.html
It’s long and technical, but I figured you guys are smart, you’ll figure it out.
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4) Angus-Reid Poll shows majority of Canadians believe in Evolution, but….
(Canadians – you gotta read this!)
Terry Beh recently brought this poll to my attention (Terry operates an
excellent “Fossil news” e-newsletter than anyone can sign up for – just email
him at TPBeh@aol.com, and ask to be signed up)
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/canadians_choose_evolution_over_creationism/
Two polls were conducted in July 2008 & June 2007.
Here’s the average results from across Canada for last month’s survey:
“Human beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years:” 58% agreed
“God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years:” 22% agreed
“Not sure:” 20%
Source: Angus Reid Strategies
Methodology: Online interviews with 1,007 Canadian adults, conducted on Jul.
29 and Jul. 30, 2008. Margin of error is 3.1 per cent.
You’d think I’d be disappointed right now, but wait for it…..
The June 2007 poll was the same poll that was spurned by the opening of
Canada’s first permanent creation museum, the Big Valley Creation Science
Museum, and this is simply an identical follow-up poll – well, almost
identical. (see the first poll here: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/16178)
Another poll (actually taken before the Angus-Reid poll) was more specific,
and took into account the theistic evolution position:
http://www.decima.com/en/pdf/news_releases/070706E.pdf
This of course lined up better with other polls, with the majority of the
population believing in a Creator God, if you include the theistic evolutionists.
The Toronto star had called last year, asking for my opinion on the June 2007
poll, and I’ll repeat what I said here: The numbers are about what I would
expect. Why? Every poll taken shows that the majority (in both Canada and
the US) believe in a creator God – so why does this poll show the majority
believing evolution?
It’s because of the wording of the questions: The
question relating to evolution would include theistic evolutionists – that is
those who believe God used evolution.
In fact, you’ll notice when you read
the June 2007 poll that they had a second question about dinosaurs and humans
living together, and the majority believed they did! (42% agreed, 37%
disagreed) This flies in the face of evolutionary belief, and reflects the
beliefs of some theistic evolutionists.
Strangely, though this year’s poll is a repeat of last year, they left off the
second question pertaining to dinosaurs and humans living together for this
poll – I wonder why? There is also a couple of very noteworthy changes in
stats between the two polls: Alberta was the only province that had more
people choose creation over evolution. What a coincidence! Alberta is home to
the Big Valley Creation museum, Creation Truth Ministry’s creation museum, and
the Bow Island Creation museum. Interestingly, it is also home to the largest dinosaur museum
in the world, the pro-evolution Royal Tyrell museum.
But that’s not all – let’s praise the Lord together because we now are seeing
the effectiveness of Creation museums! There was a *whopping* turn-over in
opinion in Alberta in the past year – the year following the opening of two
permanent creation museums in Alberta. Last year 58% of Albertan pollsters
believed evolution, whereas a mere 28% believed God created human beings in
their present form in the last 10,000 years. 14% said they weren’t sure.
Clearly the majority believed in evolution and rejected the young-earth
creation model.
Now check out the major turnover in this year’s poll of Albertans: 37%
believed we evolved (down 21 points from 58%!), 40% believed in a young earth
creation (up 12 points from 28%), and 23% said they didn’t know (up 9 points
from 14%)!
Congratulations to Harry Nibourg (owner of the Big Valley Museum), Vance
Nelson (Owner of the Creation Truth Museum) and Larry Dye (owner of the Bow
Island museum) – you’ve had a profound impact on the beliefs of Albertans –
let’s work on the rest of Canada now.
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5) New Scientist promotes old anti-creation article
As we approach Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150 year bench mark of his book
“Origin of the species,” New Scientist magazine put out an article describing
“24 myths and misconceptions” about evolution. First published in April of
this year, it’s way too long for me to do a point-by-point commentary;
although perhaps I’ll do that for a podcast or my up and coming weblogs which
will be on my website. In the meantime though, I thought I’d throw out a
couple of their points here.
The original article:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn13620-evolution-24-myths-and-misconceptions.html
And now for some completely random sampling of some of their “24 mythconceptions”:
“Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection”
I.J.>> Natural selection may explain the survival of the fittest, it has
nothing to do with the origin of the fittest. One of their outrageous claims
on the next page is enlightening:
“Wisdom teeth are another vestigial
remnant. A smaller, weaker jaw allowed our ancestors to grow larger brains,
but left less room for molars.”
Oh puleeze! A change in diet and environment causes completely modern human
beings to grow a heavier, thicker jaw, which is now big enough for the wisdom
teeth to grow in perfectly. It is because of our over-cooked, soft diet that
we have this problem with the lack of development of the jaw here in North
America, and consequently, mis-growing and colliding wisdom teeth.
“Survival of the fittest” justifies “everyone for themselves”
I.J.>> Yup – it sure does! If we have evolved, then there is no
accountability, survival of the fittest is king, and there are no morals, no
right or wrong. Right and wrong becomes completely relative and non-existent.
God and His laws are the standard by which right and wrong are judged.
Remove God, we have no standard – only opinion, which varies like the wind.
We can then no longer say that murder is wrong – some tribes practice cannibalism.
That’s their right. If there is no God, then there is no problem. If there
is a God, then people were created in God’s image, and therefore, cannibalism
is a problem.
Of course, they gotta include some “creationist myths” as well! So, here’s a
sampling of those ones:
“Evolutionary theory leads to racism and genocide”
I.J.>> Gee – maybe the full title of Darwin’s book might be enlightening for
this comment:
“On the origin of Species by means of natural selection, or, the preservation
of favoured races in the struggle for life“
“Evolution is an entirely random process”
I.J.>> Either it is guided, or it is not. If it is not guided, then it is random – take yer pick! Man – what happened to logic?
“Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics”
The origin of information and the origin of life without an intelligent
designer does indeed violate the second law of thermodynamics – an no
hocus-pocus technical lingo is going to change that.
There’s just way too much meat here, and it’s just too hard to keep away from
the fun, so I’ll come back to this later and keep youse guys posted on where
I’ll put the comments.
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6) Anti-creationists step on toes of “Delk track”
In the last newsletter, I reported the finding of a dinosaur track that had
stepped upon a human footprint. This slab was called the “Delk track” in
honour of its discoverer, Alvis Delk.
Well it was only a matter of time before the anti-creationists had to attack
it – after all, proof of man and dinosaur living together completely destroys
the theory of evolution (as admitted by numerous, leading evolutionary
scholars). And so this website was brought to my attention today (Warning:
May contain profane language!) :
http://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/08/carl-baughs-latest-fake.html
Here’s photos of the Delk track, as well as one of the CT scans.
(photo by David Lines, courtesy Creation Evidence Museum)
(CT scan, courtesy of Creation Evidence Museum)
Of course, the skeptic must start off with an ad-hominem attack against Doctor
Carl Baugh; after all, the skeptic has no good arguments with which to attack.
Of course he also hauls out the usual canard that all the Paluxy human tracks are
“carved.” Apparently he’s unaware that the majority of the fossil human
tracks found in the Paluxy were excavated from underneath 12 to 18 inches of
undisturbed limestone….. Are these tracks are carvings?
Oh, man! My hogwash-oh-meter just blew up… those things are expensive too!
Mr. Blogger notes the same thing I did, namely that the rock had numerous cracks like “layers.”
Indeed, when Doug Harris and I were molding the track, we spent an hour just
claying up the cracks. Why? Because we were concerned that the silicone
would get into the cracks and rip the rock apart when we demolded it. Mr.
Blogger has clearly never been to the Paluxy, otherwise he would’ve see that a
great many of the dinosaur tracks there are in the same kind of rock and have
the same cracks, “laminations” and features as the Delk slab! Yet somehow, Mr. Blogger concludes that this
proves the track is a carving! How, pray tell, does one carve a track by
pounding into this friable rock, without destroying the rock?
Furthermore, he criticized the use of a medical CT scanner for examining the
compression in the rock and wanted the evidence to be published in a
mainstream technical journal. While it is true that
medical CT scanners have a much lower resolution than industrial CT scanners,
the compression shows up even in the lower resolution because it is sometimes
several milimeters deep and wide!
This is like showing someone a picture of a
robin on a 1 megapixel camera, only to have the skeptic argue that he won’t be
convinced it’s a robin until you take the picture with a ten megapixel camera!
Anybody wanna venture a guess that if you take a picture of the same robin
with a ten megapixel camera that they’ll still deny that the robin exists?
I’m guessing that’s the reaction that we’ll be met with if we present higher
resolution CT scans.
Then of course, he ventures into the usual “Creationists don’t publish in
scientific literature” argument. It is well known and even acknowledged by
scientific journals that they will not publish creationist material, or
evidence like this that would support creation. However, this track will be
included in our upcoming article on the Paluxy tracks which will be submitted
to a major peer-reviewed creation journal. I am lead author for that article,
along with five other co-authors. It’s a big job that has literally been
years in the process already, and I am grateful it’s been delayed because we
now have the Delk track to add to the article.
It pleases me greatly to see attacks like this on blogs, because if this is
the best arguments they can come up with, then I’m very pleased indeed.
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7) Way overdue contest
It’s been way too long since I held a give-away contest, so – here it is!
Up for grabs today is not one, but TWO prizes; one for the first person to
send in the correct answer, and one for the second person to send in the
correct answer. There are now five DVD’s in the “Complete Creation” series,
you the winner get to pick which one you want, and you get a complimentary copy.
Here’s the question – be the first (or second) to email in the correct answer
to win your choice of one of the “Complete Creation, 2nd Edition” DVD’s:
In 1999 a supposed “feathered dinosaur” came to light. It had been imported
from China and was highly publicized (particularly in National Geographic) as
the final nail in the coffin for those who doubted that birds evolved from
dinosaurs. Within the month, it was discovered to be a fraud – a faked
fossil. What was the name of that fossil?
Send in your answer, and if you’re one of the winners, I’ll get in touch with
you for your mailing address.
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8) Recommended website
Last, but certainly not least, in my major newsletters, I always try to
promote a website pertaining to the creation/evolution debate that is
especially noteworthy.
My pick for this newsletter is the home of Dr. Walter T. Brown’s book “In the
beginning”, where the entire book is available on line. If I have a question
about creation or evolution, this is one of the websites I visit in search for
answers. His hydroplate model is especially compelling, and I’d encourage
anyone to get a copy of his book, of which the newest and last edition should
be coming out shorlty.
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9) “The Complete Creation” video series updates
I’m now home and editing videos like mad. There are a couple of ways you can
keep abreast of the videos as they come in. The best thing to do is
“Subscribe” to my videos on Youtube: Username “Wazooloo”.
http://www.youtube.com/user/wazooloo
You can also manually check for new videos, all of the Complete Creation
videos are grouped together into a playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=11166601CA0FB279
#10 should be done within the next day or so, and many, many more to follow.
Things are still on track to be finished DVD production by September.
Many have said they want to buy the set, but it’s also kind of expensive to do
it that way, so here’s what I’m going to do:
All DVD’s can be purchased on line through http://genesisweek.com
Buy any one DVD for $15 + $3 shipping & handling
Order any 3 DVD’s, get a fourth one free. Shipping & handling will be $12
When the set is complete, buy the 12 DVD set for $135 + shipping. & handling
(price to be determined)
The “order 3 get the fourth free” enables people to buy the DVD set in chunks,
for the same savings that the set will sell for (buy 9 DVD’s, get the
remaining 3 for free), however, you will wind up paying more in shipping.
The order links should be on line at genesisweek.com in the next few days, but
editing has taken priority over webpage editing, so please be patient and
check back often.
