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Three Cryptozoological Mysteries: The Penn State Dinosaur that Was?; the Ancient Chinese Rhinoceros that Wasn’t; and the 19th Century Pterosaur Displaying Previously Unknown Morphological Features That Might Have Been

Church of Darwin, Crypto, Dinosaurs in Literature, s8int.com, Science, The Flood of Noah, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Feb 04 2012


By Chris Parker

I’m thinking that maybe the best part of my articles are the titles. Should I just stop right here? After all these years I’m still a hunt and peck typist and that took something out of me already. Where’s that Dragon Naturally speaking program?

The Penn State Dinosaur that Was?

Dragon? Oh yeah, naturally, let’s start with the Penn State “dragon”.

To be fair, they don’t call this one a dragon; they call it “zoomorphic”. If you’re interested in looking for dinosaurs in the art of the ancient peoples-in the art of people who lived within the last 5,000 years or so and have an opportunity to search a database of objects, try the words; dragon, zoomorphic, mythical, beast, grotesque, reptile or unknown creature.

This is not to say that these objects will necessarily be depictions of dinosaurs, I’m just saying searching ancient art using the term “dinosaur” is not a profitable enterprise.

I grew up believing that dinosaurs and man lived together as the Bible would have us believe, (calling them dragons). There was a time when I was less than convinced and so set out to find out the truth for myself. Subsequently it’s been confirmed by me after I’ve had the opportunity to search university databases and to view hundreds of thousands of pieces of ancient art in museum collections and for sale in private auctions that we did live within the time of the dinosaurs and that the proof is there.

As for ancient artifacts, the more they resemble a dinosaur, the less likely they will be on public view in a museum and the less valuable they will be. No museum wants to buy your ancient Aztec dinosaur.

Anyway, I read recently that the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was opening its collection of over 1 million objects to public view through a free online archive;

“Since its founding in 1887, the Penn Museum has collected around one million objects, many obtained directly through its own field excavations or anthropological research. Search the Penn Museum’s digital collections including 326,000 object records representing 660,000 objects with 51,500 images.”

Naturally, my immediate thought was; “I wonder if I can find some dinosaurs in that collection”. First, I searched for the word, “dragon”. Slim pickings. Then I searched the word zoomorphic. This is one of the items I discovered.

Zoomorphic Vessel,
Object Number:
35618
Provenience:
Bolivia
Cachilaya
Section:
American
Materials:
Stone
Description:
In shape of a lizard
Credit Line:
Max Uhle, William Pepper Peruvian Expedition, Funded by Phebe A. Hearst
Other Number / Type:
362 / Field No SF

In the shape of a lizard! But no lizard ever looked like that in my estimation. However, being able to call the object; “zoomorphic” and a “lizard” is why you’re getting to see the object in the first place. Any objects which would have to be classified a “dinosaur” are by definition; fakes.

On the other hand since my impression of the object is that it represents a dinosaur, I have to ask myself; what kind of dinosaur? It appears to be a quadrupedal dinosaur, but it is not long necked like a sauropod or even a prosauropod and it is not an armored dinosaur, nor one of the horned dinosaurs of the ceratopsian family.

This is what I did; I Googled; short necked South American dinosaurs and began perusing that group to see if modern day paleontologists had discovered a short necked, squat, quadrupedal dinosaur in South America, preferably in the Bolivian area which corresponded with an ancient artists depiction of a dinosaur living in his time. Did you follow that?

Here’s what I found.


“Brachy-trachelopan is an unusual short-necked sauropod dinosaur from the latest Jurassic Period (Tithonian) of Argentina. The holotype and only known specimen (Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio MPEF-PV 1716) was collected from an erosional exposure of fluvial sandstone within the Cañadón Cálcero Formation on a hill approximately 25 km north-northeast of Cerro Cóndor, Chubut Province, in west-central Argentina, South America.

Though very incomplete, the skeletal elements recovered were found in articulation and include eight cervical, twelve dorsal, and three sacral vertebrae, as well as proximal portions of the posterior cervical ribs and all the doral ribs, the distal end of the left femur, the proximal end of the left tibia, and the right ilium. Much of the specimen was probably lost to erosion many years before its discovery. The type species is Brachytrachelopan mesai. The specific name honours Daniel Mesa, a local shepherd who discovered the specimen while searching for lost sheep. The genus name translates as “short-necked Pan”, Pan being the god of the shepherds.”…Wikipedia

Distance from Bolivia to Argentina? 1500 Miles. So could Brachytrachelopan have had a range of 1500 miles on the South American continent? Is this the least scientific investigation possible?

No, see paleontology.

Could this ancient piece represent in an artful, non literal way a quadrupedal dinosaur like Brachytrachelopan living not millions of years ago but less than a thousand years ago on the South American continent or; is it just a fat lizard?

You’ll have to decide that for yourself.

 

The Ancient Chinese Rhinoceros that Wasn’t


I was saving this as an entry in Part 2 of my Article: Crouching Dragon, Hidden Dinosaur; How Evolutionary Science Hides Historical Man and Dinosaur Interaction in Plain Sight but since that hasn’t been compiled yet I’ll place two planned entries for that article here.

Along with euphemisms like “zoomorphic”, “mythical” and ‘dragon” that it turns out are often appended to the rare depiction of the dinosaur found in museum collections and at private auction sales is the tendency to misidentify animal depictions.

This is because when the curator is not sure what creature it is that is being represented by the ancient artist he still likes to come up with an answer that is not outside the realm of currently accepted science and which satisfies the potential customer.

It’s an ancient Chinese bear, a new owner might say proudly to his houseguests as they stare into his lighted display case at what is actually a ground sloth. Everyone still oohs and ahhs.

This particular piece was sold at auction at Christie’s auction house in 2007 for $216,000. Here is the description:

Lot Description A RARE AND SMALL BRONZE FIGURE OF A RHINOCEROS
TANG DYNASTY (618-907 AD)

Shown standing four-square with tail flicked to the left, the head well cast with two horns of different length, ears pricked back, small eyes and downward curved, overlapping muzzle sensitively cast along the upper edges of the mouth with folds in the skin, which can also be seen in the skin of the neck and chest, the thick hide indicated by overlapping wave pattern diminishing in size on the head and legs, with a rectangular aperture in the belly, the dark brownish surface with some patches of dark red patina and green encrustation.

Lot Notes The depiction of the rhinoceros in bronze is very rare, especially during the Tang period. Earlier depictions do exist, however, as evidenced by the late Shang rhinoceros zun in the Avery Brundage Collection, illustrated by d’Argencè, The Ancient Chinese Bronzes, San Francisco, 1966, pl. XIX and another large zun (22 7/8in. long), ornately decorated, but quite realistic in its depiction of a rhinoceros, of late Eastern Zhou/Western Han dynasty date, found in Xingping Xian, Shaanxi province, included in the exhibition, The Great Bronze Age of China, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980, New York, Catalogue, no. 93


Here’s the problem though; this is Not a depiction of a rhinoceros! (I studied economics in college so….). For one thing, I’ve looked at hundreds if not more than a thousand photographs and depictions of rhinoceri and you’ll not find a single one of them who has horns that point forward. All rhinoceros horns curve backwards.

Small detail, I know but if you look closely at and compare this depiction with that of the rhinoceros you’ll begin to see the differences. For instance, this creature has a beak! No self respecting rhino would sport a “beak” because rhinos do not have “beaks’. Additionally, this rhino has a horn that projects straight up out of the top of his skull. That would appear to be a rhino no no.

There are other differences; the rhino has a sway back, this creature’s back is convex, etc. etc. Did you notice that he’s not wearing the little rhino coat that rhinos seem to wear where there legs seems to be poking out of the short sleeves?

Is there an ancient, perhaps extinct creature with perhaps the size of a rhino, (or larger) horned but with a “beak”? (I may have tipped my hand with the adjacent photo).


Well, the ceratopsia certainly had beaks and ceratopsia does mean “horned face”. After studying members of the ceratopsian family it appears that the comparison with this artifact is pretty solid but; there is one thing missing; the neck frill.

Most if not all known ceratopsian dinosaurs were supposed to have a neck frill although there are some differences among scientists as too how the neck frill appeared.

Also, I can find no photo of the object that shows the tail; only the statement that it curves off to the left. But can a rhino tail do anything but hang? Seeing the tail would answer some questions perhaps because a ceratopsian like tail would certainly rule out the rhino while a rhino like tail would create more questions.

Could this be a yet undiscovered version of a ceratopsian dinosaur without the neck frill? I am put in mind of the Emela-ntouka.
(Although it could also be perspective. The outline of the frill along with the convincing detail of the ceratopsian ‘cheek” may be in evidence).

“The Emela-ntouka is an African legendary creature in the mythology of the Pygmy tribes, and a cryptid purported to live in Central Africa. Its name means “killer of the elephants” in the Lingala language.

In other languages it is known as the Aseka-moke, Njago-gunda, Ngamba-namae, Chipekwe or Irizima. The Emela-ntouka is claimed to be around the size of an African Bush Elephant, brownish to gray in color, with a heavy tail, and with a body of similar shape and appearance to a rhinoceros, including one long horn on its snout. Keeping its massive bulky body above ground level supposedly requires four short, stump-like legs.

It is described as having no frills or ridges along the neck. The animal is alleged to be semi-aquatic and feed on Malombo and other leafy plants. The Emela-ntouka is claimed to utter a vocalization, described as a snort, rumble or growl….Wikipedia

For more information on Emela-ntouka here is a story on Cryptomundo

Here is another aspect of this mystery; Chinese unicorns.

I was researching ancient Chinese rhinos and discovered that somehow there had come to be a conflagration of the rhino and the unicorn; the combo is known today as the “rhinoceros unicorn”. The ancient Chinese unicorn has a frame around its head that somewhat reminds one of the ceratopsian neck frill.

One Chinese site (Chinese-Unicorn.coms) sets out to prove in what would be our 4th cryptozoological mystery that the supposed 50,000 years extinct Elasmotherium is the actual creature being depicted as the ancient Chinese unicorn. Since monokeros is the Greek word meaning “one horn” from which the word unicorn comes to us, the elasmotherium is accurately described as a unicorn whether or not it was the “unicorn”.

Elasmotherium (“Thin Plate Beast”) is an extinct genus of giant rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the Late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 Ma to as late as 50,000 years ago, possibly later, in the Late Pleistocene, an approximate span of slightly less than 2.6 million years. Three species are recognised. The best known, E. sibiricum was the size of a mammoth and is thought to have borne a large, thick horn on its forehead which was used for defense, attracting mates, driving away competitors, sweeping snow from the grass in winter and digging for water and plant roots”….Wikipedia

Here we show an artists depiction of elasmotherium along with two ancient depictions of the unicorn. Left, Eastern Han Dynasty, 206 B.C. – 220 A.D. right, also Eastern Han Dynasty.

What is the being depicted in the object that sold at Christie’s auction in 2007 for $216K? A mythical creature? A ceratopsian? Emela-ntouka?

What it is is a genuine crptozoological mystery.

What it ain’t is a rhinoceros.

 

20th Century Pterosaur Displaying Previously Unknown Morphological Features That Might Have Been

Iola Register, September 25, 1896
CAUGHT IN FLORIDA. MARKET REPORTS.
Marine Monster Tbat Is Part Fish Part
Bird Part Animal.

“Sea serpents are becoming too common, and when Florida people decided to produce a marine monster the serpent family was ignored and the Diabolus Maris was produced.

The picture which is presented was made from a drawing sent to the Kansas City Journal by Capt. George Bier, of the United States Navy.


The animal was caught off the coast of Florida, at Malanzas inlet, in 72 feet of water. It was caught on a hook and line, and when dragged aboard the boat was full of fight.
In order to preserve the strange monster it was found necessary to kill it, for it was so vicious that it could not be handled.

This remarkable relic of the antediluvian monster seemed to be part bird, part fish and part animal.

Capt. Bier described it as follows:

“It has no scales, although it can swim. A portion of its body is covered with hair and when it wants to fly it inflates two windbags behind its wings. This Inflation is through its gills, which are situated on its breast. It stands upright upon its feet, which are shaped like hoofs. Its face and body are more human like than anything else and its mouth is like that of a raccoon, garnished with two rows of teeth. It stood about 20 inches high and strutted like a rooster.”

Above and below the creature compared to a “modern” pteosaur depiction and below to an antique African pterosaur depiction.

>
After its capture the monster was christened DIABOLUS MARIS, and was transferred to Tampa. Fla. where it has since been on exhibition. Naturalists who have seen it can find no other name for it, and it’s like has never been seen before.

Some fish have fins that resemble wings, and can be used for flying, but fish do not wear hair.

The presence of legs prove that it is not a fish, and its ability to live under water and the gills
prove that it is not a bird.”…End of article

Question? If pterosaurs had an air bladder on their backs that could be filled with air to assist them in flight would we be able to determine this from fossils?

Would an air bladder help to explain how such large creatures could get off the ground? Paleontologists are so confused by the subject that they recently released to widely separated “studies” reported heavily in the media that reached two opposite conclusions; pterosaurs could not fly and alternatively they were the best flyers ever. (Couldn’t Fly-Mar 2009
Could Fly 10,000 Miles-Oct 2010)

Did we know that pterosaurs had “hair” or that they may have been able to breathe under water? That they had gills?

“The pterosaurs seem to have been able to fly soon after birth ( as possibly were some ancestral birds which means that during this prodigious growth their aerodynamics had to be functional at all times. In contrast, modern birds are born flightless and only begin to fly at nearly adult size.” .BBC Science

It makes more sense that God created pterosaurs with the ability to fly utilizing wings and air bladders than to believe that mutation and survival of the fittest created winged flightless creatures, eh Paleontologists?

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The Top 11 Science Stories of 2011 for Christians/Creationists

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, s8int.com, Science, The Flood of Noah, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Jan 11 2012


by Chris Parker

Last year we published The Top 12 Science Stories of 2010 for Christians and Creationists on January 7th so this doesn’t 2011 roundup is not that late after all..

These stories are the ones that strike us as having been the most interesting, the most impactful in terms of the evolution creation debate or because we didn’t want to rename this article the Top 7 Science Stories of 2011 for Christians/Creationists. This year we’ve only selected 11 stories but remember; we’re in a recession.

Our selections are printed here in no particular order.

1)Science Keeps on Marching Backward: Science ‘Walks Back Some Dubious Claims in 2011

In 2009 and 2010 Ardi and Ida were both effectively debunked as human ancestors within six to eight months of their worldwide discovery announcements, setting new records “for scientists had previously thought” reversals.

In terms of past dubious claims, it had taken NASA 11 years to march back from its 1976 alleged alien life on a meteorite discovery. On Friday, March 4th of last year NASA had another opportunity to march science backward with “alien claims”. Nasa scientist Richard Hoover published a peer reviewed article in the Journal “Cosmology” with the claim that that he had found tiny fossils of alien life in the remnants of a meteorite.


This story was published internationally under headlines like: “NASA Scientist Finds ‘Alien Life’ Fossils”. Naturally, the NASA connection seemingly provided some support to the alien claim which was met with excitement-and skepticism.

Hold that thought for a minute before; the rest of the story.

In another area of scientific dubiosity; “Twenty years ago the palaeontological community gasped as geoscientists revealed evidence for the oldest bacterial fossils on the planet.”..naturenews

The evidence here was a piece of rock found in Australia known as the Apex Chert and it contained it was said evidence of the earliest life on earth. Scientists declared that the Apex Chert was 3.5 billion years old, whereas Genesis would set its maximum age at 10,000 years or less. Late last year there was a development re the Apex Chert as described by this headline:

“Whoops! Scientists left red-faced as oldest ‘evidence of life’ turns out to be iron deposits.”

Whoops indeed. And what about all those evolution adherents who had snootily quoted this “fact” to non-evolution believers for twenty years? This ‘scientists had previously thought” item took even longer than the 1976 NASA “discovery” to reverse.

Getting back to NASA scientist Richard Hoover’s “alien life fossils”.

They were announced on a Friday and disavowed by “top scientists in different disciplines”, including NASA by the following Monday, by noon, setting new standards for scientists had previously thought type reversals. No alien fossils and quite probably no bacterial fossils.

Finally there were the international headlines about the “God Particle”. Science it was said was very close to discovering the “God Particle”, which is a major tenet of materialist beliefs about the creation of the universe is a supposed fundamenal particle reponsible for the creation of the mass of the universe’s mass. Two weeks after the banner headlines about the closeness the world of science was to the discovery we learn in less banner headlines that the particle may not exist.

What doesn’t exist any more are the billions of tax dollars that went into the constructiion of the giant CERN particle accellerator in Geneva.

2) A 2011 Gallop poll indicates that 92% of Americans affirm a belief in God. A surprise; Atheists are more likely to live on the East Coast than the West Coast.

Apparently, one of the un-cleverest things that a presidential candidate could utter these days is that they believe that Genesis is the literal story of how the universe was created and that they personally believe that man and dinosaur co-existed. Even the Republican candidates would be hard pressed to say that publically even if they’re trying to win South Carolina.

So, the Atheists and evolutionists must be winning, right? Not so fast.

“A poll released by Gallup yesterday confirmed what a deeply religious America continues to be 92 percent of Americans still say “yes” when asked the basic question “Do you believe in God?” In 1947, this number was 94 percent. Considering the events over the past 60 years, this is a remarkably stable statistic to say the least.

Gallup notes that in particular, the belief in God is high across all subgroups of the population, but there are variances. Women are more likely to believe in God than men. Liberals are less likely to believe than conservatives. Young people are the least likely to believe.

Those with a post-graduate education are less likely to believe than high school or college graduates. Finally, East Coast Americans are the least likely to believe in God, and Southerners are the most, with the West and the Midwest coming in equally in between.

But how do we stack up against other countries? A 2008 Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey reveal that only 1 in 4 of our neighbors up north believe in God. And a 2005 Eurostat poll indicated that the French, perhaps our cultural opposite, had the highest atheism in Europe — 33% responded that they believed in “neither a Spirit, God, or life force.”

Here is the breakdown of the Gallup poll for U.S. adults.”


In concert with these poll findings other recent polls continue to show that Atheists are the most distrusted group in America although Muslims and Scientologists have made up some ground.

Elsewhere:A University of Minnesota Study on “American Attitudes Towards Atheists & Atheism”
Finds that Atheists are Most Despised, Most Distrusted Minority.. The findings indicate that Americans are least likely to vote for an Atheist for President than any other group. What would happen if a Christian acknowledging that he believed in a literal reading of Genesis ran against an Atheist?

3) Darwinists Alarmed at Teachers’ Caution Over Evolution

Jan 29, 2011 — “Creationism” refuses to die in American high schools. Two researchers at the University of Pennsylvania sounded the alarm in Science, with suggestions for what to do about it. The only suggestion off the table was to have debates about the evidence; no, that was completely out of the question: the report was focused on “Defeating Creationism.”

Michael Berkman and Eric Plutzer, professors of political science at U Penn, surveyed a “national representative probability sample” of 926 high school biology teachers about their teaching of evolution. Only about 28% of the respondents consistently teach evolution “unabashedly”.

The rest are either bashful or unabashedly “creationist” when teaching the subject of origins, the survey found. 13% of the teachers “explicitly advocate creationism or intelligent design by spending at least 1 hour of class time presenting it in a positive light (an additional 5% of teachers report that they endorse creationism in passing or when answering student questions).”

This sounds like a very small amount of time to worry about in a semester-long course, but Berkman and Plutzer’s alarm was palpable: “The boldness and confidence of this minority should not be underestimated.”

Of greater concern, however, (to evolutionists) “the cautious 60%” who sit on the fence to avoid controversy. Some of them avoid the topic, or just teach to the test, or teach various views to let the students make up their own minds. Few of the fence-sitters are advocates of young-earth creationism, which Berkman and Plutzer said “would prevent them from becoming strong advocates for evolutionary biology.”

The authors worry that many students, who will take biology as their only science course, will fail to hear from these cautious teachers the “evidence that evolution has occurred,” and that instruction in evolution will be “absent, cursory, or fraught with misinformation” in American high schools.

They worry about a “cycle of ignorance” in many communities, especially the “socially conservative” communities, where more of the “creationist” and “cautious” teachers tend to reside. The cycle must be broken to prevent a “systematic undermining of science.” Source: The fantastic
CreationEvolutionHeadlines

4) Peer reviewed scientific paper claims that the geological time scale could be off as much as 99%.

Guy Berthault, the author of the study is a graduate of The Ecole Polytechnique, France, and a member of the International Association of Sedimentologists and lives in Paris, France. The article is entitled “Analysis of the Main Principles of Stratigraphy on the Basis of Experimental Data”, and although it reaches some startling conclusions it’s caused barely a ripple in the millions of years geological continuum.

They are walking by faith and not by sight (or site) so that mere evidence is not going to impact them.

“When I started my experiments on strata formation I was surprised to find how little work had been done on the subject in the past. Of course, sediments had been examined and flume experiments performed in connection with building and other projects, but none with the object of explaining the mechanics of stratification.

I searched the data banks but found little to help with my research. I began to realize that the basic principles of superposition, continuity and initial horizontality laid down in the seventeenth century had been accepted, albeit with developments, virtually without question. There seemed to have been little attempt to examine the actual mechanics involved.

Yet a few simple experiments, first with laminae and later with strata revealed that the time needed for micro or macro strata formation was of quite a different order to that generally accepted. The implications were far-reaching both as concerns the geological time-scale and the fossil record.” Source: Author’s Site

5) Archaeopteryx Feathers will fly: Archaeopteryx relegated. Reclassification Raises Fear of Creationists
July 28, 2011 by Steve Drury |EARTH PAGES

“This year, 2011, is the 150th anniversary of the first Archaeopteryx specimen being unearthed from the famous Solnhofen limestone lagerstätte. With its feathered, lizard-like tail; two-clawed, stubby wings; a bill-shaped muzzle with teeth but no keratin coating; feet capable of perching and unlike those of small dinosaurs; a ‘wishbone’ and lightweight bones, Archaeopteryx was just the half-and-half missing link in the fossil record so desperately needed to support Darwin’s Origin of Species, published two years beforehand.

It has remained controversial ever since, even having been claimed to be a forgery by such luminaries as cosmologist Fred Hoyle in 1985, despite its superbly preserved intricacies and the existence at the time of 6 slightly different specimens from the same source some discovered long after Hoyle’s supposed master craftsman must have died.

Creationists soon after the first discovery claimed it was simply a bird created on a Friday together with fish (Genesis 1:20) and must have predated dinosaurs by a day, as they were created on the 6th Day along with all the ‘cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth’ (Genesis 1:24-31).

That scurrilous sect will certainly leap gleefully on the new discovery of a feathered dinosaur from the ever productive Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation in NE China (Xu, X. et al.2011. An Archaeopteryx-like theropod from China and the origin of the Avialae. Nature, v. 475, p. 465-470) because ironically, by itself, it could be said to be a missing link too.”

In fact, Xiaotingia zhengi possesses features very like those displayed by Archaeopteryx but convincingly close affinities to deinonychosaurian dinosaurs. The shared features show that neither is a bird (Avialae) and nor are they part of the clade that evolved to birds: they are part of the growing group of feathered dinosaurs that may well have glided or even flown.

As Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University has observed (Witmer, L.M. 201. An icon knocked off its perch. Nature, v. 475, p. 458-459),

‘This finding is likely to be met with considerable controversy (if not outright horror)…’.

Source:Earth Pages

6)More Fear of Creationists: Pssst! Don’t tell the creationists, but scientists don’t have a clue about how life began..

John Horgan writing for Scientific American wanted to use that headline 20 years ago when writing about the sad state of science with respect to the origin of life but couldn’t get away with it then. See, science is absolutely certain that life didn’t begin as it is described in Genesis but unfortunately science has no satisfactory alternative explanation. Well actually, they have dozens of alternative, mutually exclusive alternative explanations for the origin of life.

You’re not a scientist? Don’t know much about biology? How about life comes from life? Biogensis, life from life is all anyone knows but science is sure by faith that abiogenesis; life from non-life somehow occurred.

Mr. Horgan is letting us know from the inside that despite their assurance after many years no one has any idea how abiogenesis could have happened.

In 2011 the famous primordial soup grew cold and was thrown out. In our own article on the topic (Life is a Killer Problem for Science –And Hope for Alien Life; Dies Again. Plus, Shhh, Don’t Tell The Creationists we identified dozens of competing theories for the origin of life.

Source:Scientists Don’t Have a Clue How Life Began


7) 80 Whales Buried Mysteriously in Chilean desert .. Shhh, Don’t tell the creationists?
Marine graveyard is evidence for Noah’s Flood?

by Tas Walker
Published: 01 December 2011

“Researchers from the USA and Chile reported, in November 2011, a remarkable bone bed on the west coast of northern Chile near the port city of Caldera, about 700 kilometres (440 miles) north of the capital, Santiago. Excavations uncovered the remains of some 80 baleen whales of which more than 20 specimens were complete.

They also found other kinds of marine mammals including an extinct dolphin with tusks and a sperm whale.

The previous year, construction workers upgrading the Pan-American Highway discovered the fossil site in a road cut just north of Caldera. Since then, teams of scientists led by palaeontologist Nick Pyenson from the Smithsonian Institute and Mario Suarez from the nearby Museo Paleontologico de Caldera have been working to excavate the fossils while the road works were temporarily suspended.

The fossils alongside the highway are confined to a sandstone ridge about 20 metres (70 feet) wide and 240 metres (800 feet) long. Most whales were about 8 metres (25 feet) long, and perfectly preserved. Some whales were so close together that they overlapped one another. The site in a corner of the Atacama Desert is now well above sea level and over a kilometre from the shore. Suarez said it was well known that whale bones jutted out of the ridge, which was given the name Cerro Ballena, or Whale Hill.

Paleontologists were thrilled to find the treasure trove, describing it as “very unusual”. Pyenson thinks the whales all died “more or less at the same time” after they were trapped in a lagoon. Others suggest they became disoriented and beached themselves.

Paleontologist Erich Fitzgerald from Museum Victoria in Australia said it’s possible the remains accumulated over thousands of years. Whale expert Hans Thewissen from Northeast Ohio Medical University thought the whales might have gathered in a lagoon and been stranded by an earthquake or storm. After the connection to the ocean closed, the lagoon dried up and the whales died.

The puzzle of how these marine creatures died has caught news headlines with one reporting “Fossil Bonanza Poses Mystery”. Another asked, “How did 75 whales end up in the desert?”

Interestingly, some of those posting comments on these news reports suggested the creatures perished in Noah’s Flood. Robert Raeburn of Western Australia said, “The whales probably swam there when the whole world was covered in water, about 4000 years ago at the time of Noah. They would then have been stranded when the waters assuaged (drained back) to expose the dry land. … This all makes sense when viewed from a ‘Bible’ perspective.” An email friend suggested the same to Mario Suarez, one of the lead paleontologists. Not surprisingly, this idea generated a deal of web comments.

What stops people making the obvious connection between these fossils and Noah’s Flood? It’s the million-year ages assigned to the fossils.

The field evidence for large-scale catastrophe is overwhelming as these research scientists have reported. What stops people making the obvious connection between these fossils and Noah’s Flood? It’s the million-year ages assigned to the fossils.

On one comments thread Holly from the USA responded to the Noah’s Flood idea with, “Nothing from the Bible perspective makes sense, since 4,000 years ago that area wasn’t covered with water. However it was about 2 million years ago.” “

The remainder of the article and the source: Source

8)Everything that You thought you knew about dinosaurs is wrong! Again!

Were dinosaurs cold or warm blooded? Bi pedal or quadrupedal? Did the hold their heads erect or down? Omnivore, carnivore or vegetarian?

An article written in 2000 in Discover Magazine informs us that no one knows what dinosaurs looked like (except the people who saw them?) A 2009 article in LiveScience suggests that paleontologists have overestimated the girth of certain dinosaurs by as much as a third to a half-all this time.

In 2009 also UC Berkeley paleontologist Mark Goodwin and his partner Jack Horner of the Museum of the Rockies concluded that many dinosaurs once thought to represent new or separate species may have been new or separate at all.

A miniature creature known as Nanotyrannus, the recently discovered “tiny tyrant” that resembled the ferocious Tyrannosaurus rex, may have been nothing more than a juvenile version of the big dinosaur. And a giant headed, frill-necked creature that its discoverers called Torosaurus turns out to be only an old-age stage of the well-known plant-eating Triceratops.

And Hogwartia, the famous dinosaur that looked like a dragon!!? Just a plain old Pachycephalosaurus!

(What now will become of Chrisparkerosaurus!?

Is the constant shuffling of dinosaurs and dinosaur identifications the result of scientists seeking personal glory or the results of a field, paleontology, which is to science what Denny’s is to haute cuisine?

Yes!

Elsewhere on Horner and Dinosaur Identification Problems: “Dinosaur Classification Is a Mess CreationevolutionHeadlines

May 13, 2011 — Are there a thousand species of dinosaurs – or far fewer? John Horner, a dinosaur hunter himself, thinks the classification is a mess and wants to clean it up. According to Science Magazine News Horner is worried that “with almost 1000 types of dinosaurs on record and a new species being named somewhere in the world every 2 weeks—too many supposedly new discoveries are actually duplicates of animals already on the books.” Another paleontologist, Michael J. Benton, estimates that over half of the named dinosaurs are misclassified.

Apparently human pride is to blame. “Part of the problem, Horner says, is that scientists are sometimes too keen on finding and naming new dinosaurs.” Naming a new dinosaur gets you noticed and published. As a result, fossil hunters tend to focus on the differences instead of the similarities.

Additionally, “paleontologists are coming to realize that the bones of an adult dinosaur can be very different from those of a juvenile animal of the same species and can easily mislead scientists into thinking they are two different species.”..….CreationEvolutionHeadlines

9) Some “Non-Avian Feathered Dinosaurs” May Have Been Birds
Oh, I see; some of your non sequential, ill-logical thoughts have been formed into words

Did you follow that? Some “non-bird” feathered dinosaurs may have been birds?

Science writer Jennifer Viegas in Discovery News summarizes a research paper which had been published in February 2009 Medical Hypotheses. What is a non-avian dinosaur? Or more to the point, why are certain of God’s creatures known broadly as non-avian dinosaurs?

After all, aren’t all creatures either avians or non-avians?

It’s because in the absence of that description people would think that they were birds! In order to support the evolutionists current dinosaur to bird mythology, however, science needs these birds to be dinosaurs.

Suppose evolutionists had a mythology that t-rex’s evolved into dogs. Certain extremely dog-like fossils would be named; –non-dog-ian dinosaurs. (non-canine-dinosaurs)That way everyone would “know”. Source: Discovery News

10)Scientists Continue to Marvel at How Much the Universe is Fined Tuned for Human Life

Existence: Why is the Universe Just Right for us?
by Marcus Chown NewScientist, July 29, 2011

“IT HAS been called the Goldilocks paradox. If the strong nuclear force which glues atomic nuclei together were only a few per cent stronger than it is, stars like the sun would exhaust their hydrogen fuel in less than a second. Our sun would have exploded long ago and there would be no life on Earth. If the weak nuclear force were a few per cent weaker, the heavy elements that make up most of our world wouldn’t be here, and neither would you….(Chown)

If gravity were a little weaker than it is, it would never have been able to crush the core of the sun sufficiently to ignite the nuclear reactions that create sunlight; a little stronger and, again, the sun would have burned all of its fuel billions of years ago. Once again, we could never have arisen.

Such instances of the fine-tuning of the laws of physics seem to abound. Many of the essential parameters of nature – the strengths of fundamental forces and the masses of fundamental particles – seem fixed at values that are “just right” for life to emerge. A whisker either way and we would not be here. It is as if the universe was made for us.

What are we to make of this? One possibility is that the universe was fine-tuned by a supreme being – God. Although many people like this explanation, scientists see no evidence that a supernatural entity is orchestrating the cosmos.

(What! See Prior Paragraphs in this article, genuises!…s8int.com)

Source: NewScientist

11) The Continued Rehabilitation of New-anderthal


“New investigations at an iconic cave site on the Channel Island of Jersey have led archaeologists to believe the Neanderthals have been widely under-estimated.” ..BBC UK

Enough all ready! Several years ago a DNA study showed that Neanderthal DNA matched human DNA to 99.97%. You match your neighbor’s DNA to 99.99%. Jack Cuozzo, a dentist discovered that Neaderthal reconstructions had been deliberately tricked up to push their faces forward in order to make their faces appear to be more apelike. Cuozzo Story

But even though science is reporting these recent truths about Neanderthal; that he was fully human, apparently the message hasn’t penetrated the entire paleontological community.

We get it. The truth is; we never thought otherwise and in fact creationists were there from the beginning–from Genesis. If it was me I’d start to get irritated if people kept making a big deal about how “fully human” I am…BBC News UK

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Pair of Graphs Described in Paragraphs Prove Global Warming Proponents Uncool: Scientist Who Made Recent Claim that “Sceptics had been proved wrong” Accused of Hiding Truth by Colleague

Church of Darwin, Fin De Siecle, s8int.com, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Nov 07 2011


Scientist who said climate change sceptics had been proved wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague

By David Rose, Daily Mail Online
30th October 2011

It was hailed as the scientific study that ended the global warming debate once and for all – the research that, in the words of its director, ‘proved you should not be a sceptic, at least not any longer’.
Professor Richard Muller, of Berkeley University in California, and his colleagues from the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperatures project team (BEST) claimed to have shown that the planet has warmed by almost a degree centigrade since 1950 and is warming continually.

Published last week ahead of a major United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, next month, their work was cited around the world as irrefutable evidence that only the most stringent measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions can save civilisation as we know it.

It was cited uncritically by, among others, reporters and commentators from the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian, The Economist and numerous media outlets in America.

The Washington Post said the BEST study had ‘settled the climate change debate’ and showed that anyone who remained a sceptic was committing a ‘cynical fraud’.

But today The Mail on Sunday can reveal that a leading member of Prof Muller’s team has accused him of trying to mislead the public by hiding the fact that BEST’s research shows global warming has stopped.

Prof Judith Curry, who chairs the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at America’s prestigious Georgia Institute of Technology, said that Prof Muller’s claim that he has proven global warming sceptics wrong was also a ‘huge mistake’, with no scientific basis.

Prof Curry is a distinguished climate researcher with more than 30 years experience and the second named co-author of the BEST project’s four research papers.

Her comments, in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, seem certain to ignite a furious academic row. She said this affair had to be compared to the notorious ‘Climategate’ scandal two years ago..

Poles apart: Former sceptic Prof Richard Muller, right, says the latest findings settle the climate debate once and for all (warming). But Prof Judith Curry says such a claim is ‘a mistake’.(not warming)

Like the scientists exposed then by leaked emails from East Anglia University’s Climatic Research Unit, her colleagues from the BEST project seem to be trying to ‘hide the decline’ in rates of global warming.

In fact, Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties – a fact confirmed by a new analysis that The Mail on Sunday has obtained.

‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’

1975 New York Times Headline shows that scientists were concerned about an inevitable worldwide global cooling through the 1970′s…s8int.com

However, Prof Muller denied warming was at a standstill.

‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.

A graph issued by the BEST project also suggests a continuing steep increase.

But a report to be published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation includes a graph of world average temperatures over the past ten years, drawn from the BEST project’s data and revealed on its website. This graph shows that the trend of the last decade is absolutely flat, with no increase at all – though the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have carried on rising relentlessly.

‘This is nowhere near what the climate models were predicting,’ Prof Curry said. ‘Whatever it is that’s going on here, it doesn’t look like it’s being dominated by CO2.’

Prof Muller also wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal. It was here, under the headline ‘The case against global warming scepticism’, that he proclaimed ‘there were good reasons for doubt until now’.Media storm: Prof Muller’s claims received uncritical coverage in the media this week.
This, too, went around the world, with The Economist, among many others, stating there was now ‘little room for doubt’.

Such claims left Prof Curry horrified.

The Entire Article can be Found Here: continued…Daily Mail:

SEE ALSO:Why I Deny Global Warming, by David Deming

All The Really Smart People Believe in Manmade Global Warming

Post Article Making Claim that Global Warming was Proven

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Harold Camping Apologizes For Faulty Rapture Predictions And Retires, (Which was Predictable)

Church of Darwin, Religious, s8int.com, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Nov 02 2011

“You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD?”

If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed.” Duet 18:22

The Day and Hour Unknown
“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away.

That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come Matthew 24:36-

I occasionally came across Mr. Campings radio show over the years; he hd a very distinctive voice and program format. I would sometimes listen for a few minutes, always on the car radio, before tuning in to something else down the dial. When it came to Mr.Camping, I figured that if one claimed to be a Bible expert but couldn’t even get the most basic and most important Bible instruction right; the Gospel and how to respond to it, then nothing else that he had to say could be important.

Mr. Camping like a lot of self styled leaders spent a lot of time on prophesy; he had already made a failed prediction about the end of the world back in 1994. To their followers this Biblical certainty that they expoused must have bolstered their credibilty as deep Bible thinkers. As long as they keep their predictions of a general nature, like the horoscope that could fit anybody and any circumstance they can use their “insight” too build an audience, build up their apparent authority and sad to say, make money. If the Bible is correct, Mr. Camping, however nice a man and no matter how sincere is a “false prophet”. This is what he was even before the two failed predictions this year.

How could Camping or his follwers miss the quote by the Lord concerning the LAST Day?

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”..Matt 24:36

The Lord, certainly knew all scripture as he is (The Word) and yet He wasn’t able to use it to determine the last day-and yet Camping and his ilk claim to be able to do just that!….s8int.com

Harold Camping Apologizes For Faulty Rapture Predictions And Retires, Report States
Harold Camping admits he may have made a mistake; promises to continue searching
By Melissa Bell, Washington Post

When the end of the world failed to materialize on May 21, and again on Oct. 21, little was heard from Harold Camping, the man who claimed to decipher the Bible and its end date.

Photo:Right,above: Scott Noble, a member of Camping’s congregation, stands in the empty sanctuary May 22. It wasn’t the first time Camping’s prophesies let him down. Noble had also believed the religious leader’s 1994 Rapture prediction. (Brandon Tauszik/Sprinkle Lab)

Camping finally broke his silence on the matter Tuesday, in a five-minute recorded message posted to the Family Radio network. In it, Camping says the mistaken date could be seen as an embarrassment to the Christian network, but he says he continues to search the Bible for answers.

“I am checking my own notes more carefully than ever. There is other language in the Bible, and we still have to look at very carefully. … We should be very patient about this matter. At least in a minimum way, we are learning to walk more and more humble before God. We are ready to cry out and weep before God, ‘Oh Lord, You have the truth, we don’t have it.’”

His voice seems thicker, and he speaks at a slower rate, possibly due to the stroke he suffered in June.
Camping does not apologize for the prediction-gone-wrong. He does apologize for saying that people who disbelieved in the May 21 Rapture date would not be saved. He also repeats that it’s a lesson from God, and “sometimes it’s painful to learn.”

Camping’s followers donated more than $80 million from 2005 to 2009, a CNN report found. Before the May 21 prediction, some followers gave up their life savings and donated their possessions in preparation for the Rapture.

Article 2

Three proposed Rapture dates have come and gone, and the world has not ended.

Controversial Christian broadcaster Harold Camping has acknowledged his faulty projections, and issued an apology to his followers. The Christian Post reports that the longtime radio evangelist has retired.

Brandon Tauszik, documentarian, told the Post exclusively that he had spoken to Camping, who seemed “disappointed” by his failed predictions and said he “is no longer able to lead Family Radio Stations, Inc., or his ministry.”

In an audio message posted on Camping’s Family Radio website, the 90-year-old broadcaster told his listeners that the Rapture did not occur October 21 because it was ultimately God’s will. “He could have stopped everything if He had wanted to,” he said.

In addition, he admits that his calculations were wrong and tells his followers that “we should be very patient about this matter. At least in a minimal way we are learning to walk more and more humble before God.”

Camping also apologized for a controversial comment saying that God had stopped saving people who did not believe in his May 21 spiritual judgment day predictions. Camping points out that believers must continue studying the Bible, praying, and remembering that God is in charge.

The evangelist claimed to have cracked a code in the Bible that allowed him to calculate the date of the Rapture. He predicted the world would end in 1994, May 2011, and then in October 2011, the Christian Post reports.

Some devout listeners reportedly sold their belongings and donated money to Camping’s cause, the Associated Press reports.

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Why I Deny Global Warming, by David Deming

Church of Darwin, Science, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Oct 23 2011

by David Deming, Oct. 19, 2011

I’m a denier for several reasons. There is no substantive evidence that the planet has warmed significantly or that any significant warming will occur in the future. If any warming does occur, it likely will be concentrated at higher latitudes and therefore be beneficial. Climate research has largely degenerated into pathological science, and the coverage of global warming in the media is tendentious to the point of being fraudulent. Anyone who is an honest and competent scientist must be a denier.

Have you ever considered how difficult it is to take the temperature of the planet Earth? What temperature will you measure? The air? The surface of the Earth absorbs more than twice as much incident heat from the Sun than the air. But if you measure the temperature of the surface, what surface are you going to measure? The solid Earth or the oceans?

There is twice as much water as land on Earth. If you decide to measure water temperature, at what depth will you take the measurements? How will the time scale on which the deep ocean mixes with the shallow affect your measurements? And how, pray tell, will you determine what the average water temperature was for the South Pacific Ocean a hundred years ago? How will you combine air, land, and sea temperature measurements? Even if you use only meteorological measurements of air temperature, how will you compensate for changes in latitude, elevation, and land use?

Determining a mean planetary temperature is not straightforward, but an extremely complicated problem. Even the best data are suspect. Anthony Watts and his colleagues have surveyed 82.5 percent of stations in the U.S. Historical Climatology Network. They have found – shockingly – that over 70 percent of these stations are likely to be contaminated by errors greater than 2 deg C [3.6 deg F]. Of the remaining stations, 21.5 percent have inherent errors greater than 1 deg C. The alleged degree of global warming over the past 150 years is less than 1 deg C.

Yet even in a technologically advanced country like the US, the inherent error in over 90 percent of the surveyed meteorological stations is greater than the putative signal. And these errors are not random, but systematically reflect a warming bias related to urbanization. Watts has documented countless instances of air temperature sensors located next to air conditioning vents or in the middle of asphalt parking lots.

A typical scenario is that a temperature sensor that was in the middle of a pasture a hundred years ago is now surrounded by a concrete jungle. Urbanization has been a unidirectional process. It is entirely plausible – even likely – that all of the temperature rise that has been inferred from the data is an artifact that reflects the growth of urban heat islands.

The “denier” is portrayed as a person who refuses to accept the plain evidence of his senses. But in fact it is the alarmist who doesn’t know what they are talking about. The temperature of the Earth and how it has varied over the past 150 years is poorly constrained. The person who thinks otherwise does so largely because they have no comprehension of the science. Most of these people have never done science or thought about the inherent difficulties and uncertainties involved.

And what is “global warming” anyway? As long ago as the fifth century BC, Socrates pointed out that intelligible definitions are a necessary precursor to meaningful discussions. The definition of the term “global warming” shifts with the context of the discussion. If you deny global warming, then you have denied the existence of the greenhouse effect, a reproducible phenomenon that can be studied analytically in the laboratory.

But if you oppose political action, then global warming metamorphoses into a nightmarish and speculative planetary catastrophe. Coastal cities sink beneath a rising sea, species suffer from wholesale extinctions, and green pastures are turned into deserts of choking hot sand.

In fact, so-called “deniers” are not “deniers” but skeptics. Skeptics do not deny the existence of the greenhouse effect. Holding all other factors constant, the mean planetary air temperature ought to rise as the atmosphere accumulates more anthropogenic CO2. Christopher Monckton recently reviewed the pertinent science and concluded that a doubling of CO2 should result in a temperature increase of about 1 deg C. If this temperature increase mirrors those in the geologic past, most of it will occur at high latitudes. These areas will become more habitable for man, plants, and other animals. Biodiversity will increase. Growing seasons will lengthen.

Why is this a bad thing?

Any temperature increase over 1 deg C for a doubling of CO2 must come from a positive feedback from water vapor. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas in Earth’s atmosphere, and warm air holds more water than cold air. The theory is that an increased concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere will lead to a positive feedback that amplifies the warming from CO2 by as much as a factor of three to five. But this is nothing more that speculation. Water vapor also leads to cloud formation. Clouds have a cooling effect. At the current time, no one knows if the feedback from water vapor will be positive or negative.

Global warming predictions cannot be tested with mathematical models. It is impossible to validate computer models of complex natural systems. The only way to corroborate such models is to compare model predictions with what will happen in a hundred years. And one such result by itself won’t be significant because of the possible compounding effects of other variables in the climate system. The experiment will have to repeated over several one-hundred year cycles. In other words, the theory of catastrophic global warming cannot be tested or empirically corroborated in a human time frame.

It is hardly conclusive to argue that models are correct because they have reproduced past temperatures. I’m sure they have. General circulation models have so many degrees of freedom that it is possible to endlessly tweak them until the desired result is obtained. Hindsight is always 20-20. This tells us exactly nothing about a model’s ability to accurately predict what will happen in the future.

The entire field of climate science and its coverage in the media is tendentious to the point of being outright fraudulent. Why is it that every media report on CO2 – an invisible gas – is invariably accompanied by a photograph of a smokestack emitting particulate matter? Even the cover of Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, shows a smokestack.

Could it be that its difficult to get people worked up about an invisible, odorless gas that is an integral component of the photosynthetic cycle? A gas that is essential to most animal and plant life on Earth? A gas that is emitted by their own bodies through respiration? So you have to deliberately mislead people by showing pictures of smoke to them. Showing one thing when you’re talking about another is fraud. If the case for global warming alarmism is so settled, so conclusive, so irrefutable…why is it necessary to repeatedly resort to fraud?

A few years ago it was widely reported that the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause poison ivy to grow faster. But of course carbon dioxide causes almost all plants to grow faster. And nearly all of these plants have beneficial human uses. Carbon dioxide fertilizes hundreds or thousands of human food sources. More CO2 means trees grow faster. So carbon dioxide promotes reforestation and biodiversity. Its good for the environment. But none of this was reported.

Instead, the media only reported that global warming makes poison ivy grow faster. And this is but one example of hundreds or thousands of such misleading reports. If sea ice in the Arctic diminishes, it is cited as irrefutable proof of global warming. But if sea ice in the Antarctic increases, it is ignored. Even cold weather events are commonly invoked as evidence for global warming. People living in the future will look back and wonder how we could have been so delusional.

For the past few years I have remained silent concerning the Climategate emails. But what they revealed is what many of us already knew was going on: global warming research has largely degenerated into what is known as pathological science, a “process of wishful data interpretation.” When I testified before the US Senate in 2006, I stated that a major climate researcher told me in 1995 that “we have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

The existence and global nature of the Medieval Warm Period had been substantiated by literally hundreds of research articles published over decades. But it had to be erased from history for ideological reasons. A few years later the infamous “hockey stick” appeared. The “hockey stick” was a revisionist attempt to rewrite the temperature history of the last thousand years. It has been discredited as being deeply flawed.

In one Climategate email, a supposed climate scientist admitted to “hiding the decline.” In other words, hiding data that tended to disprove his ideological agenda. Another email described how alarmists would try to keep critical manuscripts from being published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. One of them wrote, we’ll “keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Gee. If the climate science that validates global warming is so unequivocal, why is it necessary to work behind the scenes to suppress dissent? You “doth protest too much.”

As described in my book, Science and Technology in World History: The Ancient World and Classical Civilization, systematic science began with the invocation of naturalism by Greek philosophers and Hippocratic physicians c. 600-400 BC. But the critical attitude adopted by the Greeks was as important as naturalism. Students were not only allowed to criticize their teachers, but were encouraged to do so. From its beginnings in Greek natural philosophy, science has been an idealistic and dispassionate search for truth. As Plato explained, anyone who could point out a mistake “shall carry off the palm, not as an enemy, but as a friend.”

This is one reason that scientists enjoy so much respect. The public assumes that a scientist’s pursuit of truth is unencumbered by political agendas.

But science does not come easy to men. “Science,” George Sarton reminded us, “is a joykiller.” The proper conduct of science requires a high degree of intellectual discipline and rigor. Scientists are supposed to use multiple working hypotheses and sort through these by the processes of corroboration and falsification. The most valuable evidence is that which tends to falsify or disprove a theory. A scientist, by the very definition of his activity, must be skeptical. A scientist engaged in a dispassionate search for truth elevates the critical – he does not suppress it. Knowledge begins with skepticism and ends with conceit.

Finally, I’m happy to be known as a “denier” because the label of “denier” says nothing about me, but everything about the person making the charge. Scientific theories are never denied or believed, they are only corroborated or falsified. Scientific knowledge, by its very nature, is provisional and subject to revision.

The provisional nature of scientific knowledge is a necessary consequence of the epistemological basis of science. Science is based on observation. We never have all the data. As our body of data grows, our theories and ideas must necessarily evolve. Anyone who thinks scientific knowledge is final and complete must necessarily endorse as a corollary the absurd proposition that the process of history has stopped.

A scientific theory cannot be “denied.” Only a belief can be denied. The person who uses the word “denier” thus reveals that they hold global warming as a belief, not a scientific theory. Beliefs are the basis of revealed religion. Revelations cannot be corroborated or studied in the laboratory, so religions are based on dogmatic beliefs conservatively held. Religions tend to be closed systems of belief that reject criticism. But the sciences are open systems of knowledge that welcome criticism. I’m a scientist, and therefore I must happily confess to being a denier.

October 19, 2011

David Deming [send him mail] is a geophysicist, associate professor of arts and sciences at the University of Oklahoma, and author of the books Science and Technology in World History, Vols. 1 & 2.

Copyright Š 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

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Were/Are Pterosaurs Bi-Peds or Quadrupeds? The Ancient Maya Weigh In?

Church of Darwin, Crypto, Dinosaurs in Literature, s8int.com, Science, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Oct 21 2011

Photo: Mayan Peten Bowl
500 AD. to 800 AD. $1,895.00
“From ancient Mexico, Mayan, Peten region. Extremely fine and rare polychrome pottery bowl depicting the three failed attempts to create human beings – as published in the Maya Popol Vuh.” Gallery
Private collection

Well, here they are again; pterosaurs. If anyone out there consistently reads this blog it must seem as though pterosaurs are my favorite topic. That’s really not the case; they just seem to come up so frequently as a subject of ancient art is all. Honestly, my interests are broader than it would sometimes seem. I take them as they come.

Pterosaurs had three fingered “hands” attached to their wings at the pinky (a very long pinkie) and of course hind legs. Scientists have gone back and forth on the topic of pterosaur ground locomotion for years. Did they walk bi pedally or did they walk on all fours similar to a quadruped-or both?

The ancient Mayans weigh in with a partial answer; they could and did apparently walk on all fours. Prior specimens of ancient art that we’ve featured here indicate that they were bi pedal as well. The style and nature of this painting made it difficult for experts to identify the creature being portrayed on this ancient piece and they’ve concocted quite the story.

A comparison with recent mind’s eye depictions of pterosaurs on the ground may help the open minded see what the artist was apparently actually depicting; an out of time and place, pterosaur if you adhere to the current paradigm’s version of earth’s history.

“When setting out to restore fossil animals, an artist is faced with a unique problem that is not often faced by scientists. Where a scientist can reasonably reach the conclusion that something is not—or cannot be— known, a palaeontological artist is forced to reach conclusions on things which are unknown, and perhaps always will be.

An artist can’t paint a pterosaur in “don’t know” colours, or behaving in a “don’t know” way. Restoring pterosaurs, therefore, not only requires research into what is known about pterosaur’s anatomy, behaviour, and environment, but also a method for building up complete picture, even when there is little or no evidence to be had.”… John Conway Pterosaur Restoration.net

On Pterosaur Locomotion

“It didn’t take long for early pterosaur workers to figure out that pterosaurs were flying animals. Their hyperelongate forelimbs, fused torso elements, robust shoulder girdle and pectoral elements are clear indications that pterosaurs were adapted for self-propelled flight and, although some arguments have raged over the finer details of their flight styles, no-one has questioned their basic volant ability.


However, the same cannot be said for pterosaur terrestrial ability: for almost as long as pterosaurs have been known, little consensus has existed on both how and how well pterosaurs would be able to move on land. Early workers thought pterosaurs were probably relatively confident terrestrial locomotors, although no-one could agree whether they would stand in a bird-like, bipedal fashion, a lizard-like quadrupedal configuration or an erect, mammal-like quadrupedal stance.

Pterosaurologists of the mid-20th century took a dimmer view: these workers suggested that pterosaurs could barely stand, let alone walk, and would have to push themselves over the ground with dragging bellies and useless forelimbs held aloft.

Opinions changed in the 1980s when several pterosaur workers attempted biomechanical studies of pterosaur limbs in efforts to figure out their terrestrial competence: alas, this confused matters further as different interpretations of the same material led to drastically different conclusions.

In the space of a decade, pterosaurs were restored as dinosaur-like bipeds, penguin-like bipeds, sprawled-limbed quadrupeds and erect-limbed quadrupeds.”… Mark Witton Pterosaur Terrestrial Locomotion

So There You Have It?

“So there you have it. The answer is: Both.


Pterosaurs were both plantigrade and digitigrade. Pterosaurs were both bipedal and quadrupedal. Pedal digit 5 was useful for basal pterosaurs, but not for derived flatfoots. All of these traits are like those of living lizards, the ones capable of standing, walking and running bipedally.

At such times, these lizards turn from plantigrady to digitigrady without overextending the metatarsophalangeal joints, without having symmetrical pedes and without having all of the various morphological advantages that pterosaurs enjoyed, such as an anteriorly elongated ilium, an expanded sacral series for balance and prepubes to help elevate their femora. Pterosaurs likely took off bipedally, NOT with their forelimbs as described here.

They certainly had to land bipedally.”

Pterosaurs: Bipedal? Quadrupedal? or Both?
The Pterosaur Heresies

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Riddle Me This My Good Brother
Which Folly is More Dumber (sic) Than the Other?
To Bow Down to That of Which You are the Carver
Or to Think a Dead Rodent Your Mother?

Amusing?, Church of Darwin, s8int.com, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Aug 27 2011


“….For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles”. Romans 1

“This Descended From A Rodent Declaration Causes a Chuckle
And What of Your Prior Claims of Being A Monkey’s Uncle?”…….s8int.com

Dinosaur-Era Mammal Possibly “Mother” of All Humanity
August 25, 2011 ThirdAge.com

A tiny, dinosaur-era mammal may have been the mother of all humanity — at least in a sense, National Geographic News reports.

According to a new study, the newly discovered 160-million-year-old fossil species, named the “Jurassic mother from China” [Juramaia sinensis], is the earliest known ancestor of placental mammals — that is, animals, such as humans, that give birth to relatively mature, live young.

Although it’s unclear if the creature is a direct ancestor of modern placentals, it’s “either a great grand-aunt or a great grandmother,” the study’s authors told National Geographic.

According to the study, the newfound eutherian scurried about temperate Jurassic forests, dined on insects under the cover of darkness, and weighed about half an ounce (15 grams), making it lighter than a chipmunk.

“The great evolutionary lineage that includes us had a very humble beginning, in terms of body mass,” Zhe-Xi Luo, a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, who led the team that discovered the fossil, told National Geographic

The discovery brings the fossil record in line with DNA evidence that indicates that the split between ancestral marsupials and placentals occurred around 160 million years ago, Luo added.

“What is clear is that, besides the fact that marsupials and placentals start to differentiate, we also have the other mammals that diversified as well,” he continued. “But we don’t know what would be the specific environmental trigger for that.”

Placentals, which includes creatures ranging from mice to whales, are all that remain of the eutherian mammals.

The findings of the study will be published Thursday in the journal Nature.


“They Refuse to Worship God the Genuine Article
But Bow the Knee to a Non-Existing Particle?”…s8int.com

All idols are not carved from a block of wood.

It wasn’t more than two weeks ago that headlines around the world rang out with the news that CERN had finally found/discovered the elusive “God Particle” which was responsible for giving the matter in the universe mass. Now here we are a short time (and billions of dollars since the start of the program) later with the less than banner, worldwide headlines that the “God particle” might not exist after all. When they thought it might exist they called it the “God particle”; when they realized that it probably doesn’t exist they call it Higgs-Boson. Hedging their bets, scientists claim that the world of physics will be almost as excited if they learn that the particle doesn’t exist as they would have been to have discovered it. ….s8int.com

God Particle May not Exist After All

August 24, 2011

Photo: Statue of the Hindu god, Shiva Outside Cern Headquarters in Geneva


A particle believed to have played a key role in the creation of the universe might not exist after all, a media report said Tuesday quoting experts.

Scientists said last month that they were close to cornering the elusive Higgs boson or ‘God particle’ – a tiny but vital element in the construction of life as we know it.

But hope is now fading after the disappearance of signals scientists had hoped would lead them to it, the Daily Mail reported.

The CERN research centre, whose giant Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been carrying out the work under the mountains on the French-Swiss border, announced its scepticism at a conference in Mumbai.

Guido Tonelli, from one of the two LHC detectors chasing the Higgs, said: “Whatever the final verdict on Higgs, we are now living in very exciting times for all involved in the quest for new physics.”

CERN said new results, which updated findings that caused excitement at another scientific gathering in Grenoble last month, “show that the elusive Higgs particle, if it exists, is running out of places to hide”, the Mail reported.

The centre’s research director Sergio Bertolucci told the conference at Mumbai’s Tata Institute of Fundamental Research that if the Higgs did not exist “its absence will point the way to new physics”.

Under what is known as the Standard Model of physics, the boson – named after British physicist Peter Higgs – is posited as having been the agent that gave mass and energy to matter just after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.

As a result, flying debris from that primeval explosion could come together as stars, planets and galaxies.

In the subterranean LHC, which began operating in March 2010, CERN engineers and physicists have created billions of miniature versions of the Big Bang by smashing particles together at just a fraction under the speed of light.

The results of those collisions are monitored by hundreds of physicists, not just at CERN but in linked laboratories around the world which sift through the vast volumes of information generated by the LHC, the Mail said.

For some scientists, the Higgs remains the simplest explanation of how matter got mass. It remains unclear what could replace it as an explanation.

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A Short Q&A with Jon Saboe, Author of the New Biblical-Historical Novel; The Days of LamĂŠch

Church of Darwin, Religious, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Aug 23 2011

Buy It on Amazon

I still have an email from Jon Saboe dated May, 2007 alerting me that his first novel; The Days of Peleg had been published and was available on Amazon. Around the same time, another friend of mine published his first book of poetry which at least one reviewer called; misogynistic. I decided to read Jon’s book first. I made the right choice as I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Days of Peleg became more and more successful for Jon and even won the Editor’s Choice Award, from Allbooks Review and got new cover art.

Jon’s new book; “The Days of Lamech” is a prequel to “Days of Peleg”. I’m really impressed that he got that guy from CreationEvolutionHeadlines to read and review it. How does that guy have time to read a novel? A portion of CEV’s review is excerpted below but first; here is a Q&A I did with Jon with respect to life after book 1 leading up to book 2.

Chris Parker: Jon, How did you come to write the first book? What was the process you went through to write it?

Jon Saboe: “The Days of Peleg” actually was initiated by conversations with a friend of mine, Dave Ranck, as we discussed the evolutionary biases in modern archeology. It was actually anger at this subversion of a noble science, combined with my reading about the Buache Map that triggered what was supposed to be a short story. I had envisioned a quick tale about how this amazing map of Antarctica – without ice – could have come to be, all within a Biblical timeframe.


However, this soon blossomed into a large story. My study of the ancient Sumerians, coupled with Jewish Midrashim and a Biblical overview, presented me with too many wonderful possibilities. Soon, I had developed an intellectual, but secular, protagonist who is destined to be confronted with multiple world-views—all of which he instinctively despises because of his own natural chauvinism.

However, he soon encounters events and phenomena which he cannot explain, and when he is exposed to yet another world view (a Biblical one from an unexpected source) he reluctantly gives in, since THIS world-view is able to encompass the totality of his experiences, both external and internal.

My writing process was simply one of creating story targets for myself, and then filling in the details. One section, which is more of a Socratic dialogue, was mapped out by the simple verse “…for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6b.

Ultimately, I feel the book is designed to “entice” the unsuspecting reader into adapting a Biblical world-view—while at the same time enjoying a Indian Jones, Michael Crichton, or Odyssey-like (as Kirkus Reviews stated) adventure story. Also, a subtle but clear sub-plot introduces the reader to “The Seed” of Genesis 3, along with an understanding of the need for such a Savior.

Chris Parker: Was the reception for the book what you expected? What has happened as a result of the book that you hadn’t expected?

Jon Saboe: Actually, I had absolutely no expectation regarding Peleg’s reception. I had never written a book before, and I knew that most fiction, especially from a small publisher, never saw the light of day except for a few loyal friends and relatives. To be honest, I have been quite overwhelmed by the amazing response from many diverse quarters. Sales continue, and although I haven’t been able to quit my day job, I am pleased that so many people continue to enjoy it.


What I did NOT expect was the amazing discourses, interactions, and wonderful friends that have resulted from “The Days of Peleg”. I have had the privilege of getting to know many people, from many walks of life, whom I would have never met had it not been for Peleg. Among them are an orthodox rabbi, a Hispanic hip-hop artist, a children’s book author, and an Artificial Intelligence programmer, just to mention a few. I would never have met these individuals otherwise, and I can’t imagine any way, other than the internet, that my book could have ended up on their reading table.

Chris Parker: What came first; the idea for the story of the second book or the demand from readers that you write one?

Jon Saboe: This is an easy one. The demand from readers came first. At the time I finished Peleg, I could not imagine going through that process again, nor could I conceive of any possible story line for a second book.

However, as time went on, I began to envision a story line that utilized unorthodox antediluvian technologies and delved into the Family Wars and the Semyaz, alluded to in “The Days of Peleg.” Eventually I wrote a first chapter, but it wasn’t until about a year later that I began to continue “The Days of Laméch”.

The process for the second book was quite different, though, as I had to rely less on research (there is understandably, very little to study about the pre-flood world) and more on imagination and speculation. There were times I felt like the priests crossing the Jordan—in that the waters only parted once I stepped in. Instead of planning the book mentally before writing (as in Peleg) I was forced to begin the actual work of sitting at the computer before things came to me. It presented a much different walk of faith than the first book.

Of course, there is now a demand for a third book, and my response is invariably the same as the last time: “I don’t see how that will ever happen…”.

Chris Parker: Have you been approached about making a movie from one or both of the books?

Jon Saboe: No I haven’t, and I imagine it will require a much greater circulation before such an offer emerges. However, if anyone knows of a good script-writer—or someone who loves to fund such ventures—I would be very interested. A large number of reviewers about both books have insisted that they would make great movies.

Chris Parker: How does the second book relate to Peleg?

Jon Saboe: “The Days of Laméch” is a prequel that begins with Laméch (the father of Noah) as a twenty year old thrill-seeker who fancies himself an activist and is, initially, a very self-centered and oblivious person. I would say the setting is approximately 700 years before the flood (just as “The Days of Peleg” begins about 100 years after the Tower of Babel).

At this time, the Family Wars are still in the past, but an previously unknown race calling themselves the Semyaz, apparently were greatly involved in stopping these terrible wars, and are now “guiding” the newly rebuilt cities and offering help in improving humanity on many different levels.

Towards the end of “Laméch” we meet a young and “manic” Shem, and see the guiding hand of the Creator as He selects those who will repopulate the Earth

Excerpt from Creation Evolution Headlines Review of; “The Days of Lamech”.

“CEH deals with non-fiction almost all the time, but this fictional tale (based on Biblical history) was a welcome diversion. Little has been written about this period; non-fictional scholarship would necessarily be restrained by limited information available, but the setting is perfect for a novel. Jon Saboe, a man of many talents, has done Bible believers a great service by opening up this era for serious contemplation. Your editor admits he was hooked from Chapter 1. Though cognizant of the outcome in general terms, he was continually surprised by Saboe’s plot lines, woven with picturesque descriptions and lifelike dialogue. The characters are plausible, distinctive, and nuanced. It was very satisfying to see how all the diverse threads came together at the end in the way required by Genesis 6.

If this wasn’t the way things actually happened, maybe it should have been, because The Days of Lamech is a thrill ride for the mind and spirit, equal to – no, exceeding – the drama in The Days of Peleg, which says a lot. The take-home message is that, just as we should never underestimate the potential for evil in fallen beings, we should never underestimate the patience, mercy, and provision the Creator has made for the redemption of the creatures he loves in spite of their sins. And just as in the days of Noah, it is the few – individuals who trust and obey their Maker – who change the world, even when all seems lost. “Even one is worth it,” Lamech said, when the fruits of his sacrificial labors seemed outwardly disappointing. That one might become the mother of a new world, the bearer of a promised Seed. God works through flawed but faithful individuals. We can be, we need to be, the Enochs, Lamechs, and Noahs of our day.”

Read the rest of the review at CEH

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In God-Less We Don’t Trust: Atheists Least Trusted Group In America?

Church of Darwin, Religious, s8int.com, Science, Uncategorized | Posted by Chris Parker
Aug 08 2011


More recent polls continue to show that Atheists are the most distrusted although Muslims and Scientologists have made up some ground.

University of Minnesota Study on American Attitudes Towards Atheists & Atheism
Research Finds that Atheists are Most Despised, Most Distrusted Minority

By Austin Cline, About.com Guide

Every single study that has ever looked at the issue has revealed massive amounts of bigotry and prejudice against atheists in America. The most recent data shows that atheists are more distrusted and despised than any other minority and that an atheist is the least likely person that Americans would vote for in a presidential election. It’s not just that atheists are hated, though, but also that atheists seem to represent everything about modernity which Americans dislike or fear.

The most recent study was conducted by the University of Minnesota, which found that atheists ranked lower than “Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians and other minority groups in ‘sharing their vision of American society.’ Atheists are also the minority group most Americans are least willing to allow their children to marry.” The results from two of the most important questions were:

This group does not at all agree with my vision of American society…

Atheist: 39.6%
Muslims: 26.3%
Homosexuals: 22.6%
Hispanics: 20%
Conservative Christians: 13.5%
Recent Immigrants: 12.5%
Jews: 7.6%

I would disapprove if my child wanted to marry a member of this group….

Atheist: 47.6%
Muslim: 33.5%
African-American 27.2%
Asian-Americans: 18.5%
Hispanics: 18.5%
Jews: 11.8%
Conservative Christians: 6.9%
Whites: 2.3%

Lead researcher Penny Edgell said that she was surprised by this: “We thought that in the wake of 9/11, people would target Muslims. Frankly, we expected atheists to be a throwaway group.” Nevertheless, the numbers are so extreme that she was led to conclude that they are “a glaring exception to the rule of increasing tolerance over the last 30 years.” It’s not that bigotry and discrimination against Muslims is appropriate, but at least it’s not hard to understand where such attitudes would come from.

Every group except atheists is being shown much greater tolerance and acceptance than 30 years ago. “Our analysis shows that attitudes about atheists have not followed the same historical pattern as that for previously marginalized religious groups. It is possible that the increasing tolerance for religious diversity may have heightened awareness of religion itself as the basis for solidarity in American life and sharpened the boundary between believers and nonbelievers in our collective imagination.”

Some respondents associated atheism with illegal behavior, like drug use and prostitution: “that is, with immoral people who threaten respectable community from the lower end of the social hierarchy.” Others saw atheists as “rampant materialists and cultural elitists” who “threaten common values from above — the ostentatiously wealthy who make a lifestyle out of consumption or the cultural elites who think they know better than everyone else.”

Given the relatively low number of atheists in America, and the even lower number who are public about their atheism, Americans can’t have come to their beliefs about atheists through personal experience and hard evidence about what atheists are really like. Furthermore, dislike of atheists doesn’t correlate very highly with dislike of gays, immigrants, or Muslims. This means that dislike of atheists isn’t simply part of a larger dislike of people who are “different.”

Why are atheists being singled out for special hatred and distrust? “What matters for public acceptance of atheists – and figures strongly into private acceptance as well – are beliefs about the appropriate relationship between church and state and about religion’s role in underpinning society’s moral order, as measured by our item on whether society’s standards of right and wrong should be based on God’s laws.” It’s curious that atheists would be singled out for special hatred on the basis of church/state separation which religious theists, including Christians, are usually on the forefront of fighting to preserve separation. It’s rare to find a case filed by or supported by atheists which is not also supported by theists and Christians. In fact, I can’t think of any off hand.

Although people may say that they consider atheists inferior because atheists don’t believe that civil law should be defined according to some group’s conception of what their god wants, I don’t think that’s the whole story. There are too many religious theists who also want civil law to be secular rather than religious. Instead, I think that a much better case can be made for the idea that atheists are being scapegoated the same way that Catholics and Jews once were: they are treated as social outsiders who create “moral and social disorder.”

Atheists can’t both be lower-class drug users or prostitutes and upper-class elitists and materialists. Instead, atheists are being saddled with the “sins” of American society generally. They are “a symbolic figure” that represent religious theists’ “fears about … trends in American life.” Some of those fears involve “lower class” crimes like drug use; other fears involve “upper class” crimes like greed and elitism. Atheists are thus a “symbolic representation of one who rejects the basis for moral solidarity and cultural membership in American society altogether.”

That’s obviously not going to change, because as long as atheists remain atheists, then won’t be theists and they won’t be Christians. This means that they won’t agree that any gods, much less the Christian god, can serve as the basis for moral solidarity or cultural membership in American society. Of course, neither can adherents of many other religions who either don’t believe in gods or who don’t believe in the Christian god. As America becomes more religiously pluralist, America is going to have to change and find something else to serve as the basis for moral solidarity and cultural membership. Atheists should work to ensure that this is as secular as possible.

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On Propositioning Atheists, Giant Penguins in the Garden of Eden and How Science Works #173

Church of Darwin, Giants in Those Days, Religious, s8int.com, Science, Uncategorized, Unexplained Artifact | Posted by Chris Parker
Jul 14 2011


“God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the ungodly behavior and the injustice of human beings who silence the truth with injustice. This is because what is known about God should be plain to them because God made it plain to them. Ever since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—God’s eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, because they are understood through the things God has made. So humans are without excuse. Although they knew God, they didn’t honor God as God or thank him. Instead, their reasoning became pointless, and their foolish hearts were darkened. While they were claiming to be wise, they made fools of themselves. .” Romans 1

Selfish Genes vs “Skepchick’s” Jeans

It turns out that sometimes Atheists like to gather together in halls and hotels for conferences where they seek to encourage one another in the faith and discuss ways to proselytize. They discuss the sacred writings of their high profs; book, chapter and verse. They listen to speeches (sermons?) from those skilled in dealing with their specific articles of faith and of course they socialize and talk about MythBusters.


Rebecca Watson is a young Atheist who leads a team of “female activists” at Skepchick.org and who gets to travel all over the world delivering talks on science, Atheism, feminism etc. She appears on a number of Atheistic/Skeptical programs and has an internet presence. Considering that she is one of the few female stars in the Atheistic realm she is well known and is apparently sought after as a speaker.

Not long ago she mentioned on a podcast following a conference where she was a panelist with Richard Dawkins a story about being “hit on” in an elevator by a conference attendee. Her comment/request has engendered a fairly nasty response from the Atheist/Skeptic community.

“So I walk to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me and said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more. Would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?’

Um, just a word to wise here, guys, uh, don’t do that. You know, I don’t really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I’ll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4:00 am, in a hotel elevator, with you, just you, and–don’t invite me back to your hotel room right after I finish talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner…”

Ms. Watson went on to mention that a number of women she knew did not like to attend these types of conferences because they were “hit on” so frequently and she avowed that this served to limit the number of women in the movement. She went on in a blog about the incident above;

“So here we are today. I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made me one. Every time I mention, however delicately, a possible issue of misogyny or objectification in our community, the response I get shows me that the problem is much worse than I thought, and so I grow angrier. I knew that eventually I would reach a sort of feminist singularity where I would explode and in my place would rise some kind of Captain Planet-type superhero but for feminists. I believe that day has nearly arrived.”

Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous non-believer responded to her advice and concern regarding the elevator incident in a sarcastic message that began;

“Stop whining, will you”? From there it went down hill.

Now, much of the Atheist community is at war (of words). Ms. Watson has received more than 1,300 comments on her site alone and many other acrimonious conversations are taking place elsewhere on the web.

Here’s the thing; why is Ms. Watson surprised by any of this?

As a leader in the Atheistic religion hadn’t she studied its history? Didn’t she know that a powerful force behind the rejection of Christianity and religion in general was “sexual freedom”? It was the burden of morality and the requirement to adhere to societal standards (which drew their inspiration from the Bible and Christianity) that provided a primary motivation for unbelief.

This is something that Christians have been pointing out for decades and that Atheists have tried to argue against; that a powerful motivation for Atheistic beliefs both in the formation of modern Atheism and in many Atheists today is freedom from exogenous moral values.

Aldous Huxley, a famous and influential Atheist of the 1960’s and grandson of ground floor Atheist/philosopher Thomas Huxley explains:

“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption . . The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do . .

For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.”—*Aldous Huxley, “Confessions of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, Vol. 3, June, 1966, p. 19

We could give additional examples but Ms. Watson probably now has hundreds if not thousands of additional, personal examples to draw from. How dare someone, and particularly a woman and particularly one from their own community suggest that there be any restriction on their sexual freedoms? Is she trying to describe a morality that Atheists and particularly male Atheists should have to adhere to, they wonder?

What’s the point in rejecting God if at the end one has to lead a moral life anyway? What’s the point in imagining an entire scheme that makes you an accidental life form in an accidental universe with no one as your boss only to have someone acting as your boss?

No wonder that Dawkins, the titular head of the Darwin party had to step in to try to set things right. As an Atheist, he probably has a hard time even figuring out why she would selfishly say no, anyway. What’s the big whoop he must wonder? Just selfish genes trying to replicate, after all. Dawkins made the notion of selfish genes famous in his 1976 book wherein every action and reaction of man can be seen as selfish genes seeking to propagate themselves. (No doubt many would object to this definition)

The signers of the Declaration of Independence had it right (borrowing from the French) when they said that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, a proposition that would hold true with respect to government for both Christians and Atheists. However, the cornerstone statement in the Declaration is “we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” supersedes even the consent of the government and places those rights and moral responsibilities in the hands of a greater power, God. Moral systems must be obtained from a higher power than man himself since if all men are equal then they are each equally capable of deciding on their own what is wrong and what is right in their own eyes.

Atheists may accept the idea of government and laws based on the consent of the governed but certainly reject the notion that we are endowed with anything from a Creator. We’re surprised that Ms. Watson, as a high priestess of the faith didn’t know that.
As far as Atheists are concerned, heaven is here on earth and that means they don’t need women (or God) getting in the way of their liberation from restrictions, particularly sexual ones.

On Giant Penguins and Conditions That Must Have Existed in the Garden of Eden and the Early Years of this Planet

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that…Genesis 6:4

In September 2010, UPI.com had a report about a giant penguin fossil discovered in Peru:

“The fossil of a giant red penguin, nearly twice as tall as the largest living species, has been discovered in Peru, U.S. paleontologists say. Standing 5 feet tall, nearly twice the height of an Emperor penguin, the fossil, discovered in Peru’s Reserva Nacional de Paracas and nicknamed Pedro, is 36 million years old, the BBC reported.” UPI, Sept. 30, 2011

For those gentle readers who like to play “stump the creationist”, take note. All penguins do not live in the the Arctic or under Arctic conditions. There are penguins living today in a warm South Africa (rather that a cold South Pole) for instance and that’s how Noah found penguins in “Palestine” for the ark.


Science has given these giant penguins its own species name but the fact of the matter is; they are simply penguins. If you were to see one today you would recognize it not as some evolutionary predecessor to the penguin, but as a penguin—albeit a very large one. These giant creatures of the earth’s past are an unexamined and an unexplained problem for the theory of evolution and the life of this planet.

When Genesis reports that there were giants in those days, I think many Christians assume that the text suggests that some of the people in those days were giants and that some survived after the flood. Fossil evidence suggests an alternative; perhaps every creature was created as a relative giant in those days and after the flood, some vestiges of the time of the giant creatures remained.

Fossil evidence suggests that besides giant reptiles, there were giant turtles, penguins, clams, humans, dogs, sheep, fish, deer, rodents, rhinos, insects, birds etc. in the past life of this planet. These giant creatures are as recognizable as are there smaller relatives living today. Evolution does not explain why there was a period in the earth’s history when all creatures were gigantic forms of the same creatures living today.

Kansas giant print 44 inches long-from Valley of the Giants by C.N. Dougherty.

Mary Leakey was one of the discoverers of chimpanzee bone fragments which became known as Lucy which was put forward by paleontologists as a human ancestor back in the early 1970s. You remember that. You don’t remember that her husband Louis Leakey found an “inexhaustible supply of human bones” along with “traces of dinosaurs” in Kenya at Nakeru back in the 1920s because that’s how “science” works. Source: The Montreal Gazette – Sep 24, 1927

Louis Leaky made an even more amazing discovery in keeping with our giant penguins and Garden of Eden theme. As reported in the New York Times of May 11, 1958 Leakey discovered the complete skeletons of gigantic animals along with evidence of giant humans at Olduvai Gorge in East Africa. The New York Times article was entitled; “Gigantic Fossils of Animals Found, East African Expert Cites Sheep as Big as Horses, Hogs with Elephant-Like Tusks”.

Here are excerpts from the article:

“London May 10—The remains of gigantic animals, including sheep as big as present-day carthorses and hogs with tusks like elephants have been dug out of an ancient gorge at Olduvia, in East Africa.

Two giant human teeth have also been found….”

“…Specimens have been brought to London for comparative studies by the man who found them. He is Dr. Louis S.B. Leakey, director of the Coryndon Museum at Nairobi, Kenya.”

“….But the most remarkable character of the Chellean Age was he says, the gigantic size of the animals existing at that time. Dr. Leakey has found the complete skeleton of a Pleistocene sheep with a horn-span of fourteen feet. It was about as big as a big cart-horse, he says. He has also unearthed the bones of wild hogs the size of a rhinoceros with elephant sized tusks.

He has found a giant giraffe, baboons as big as modern gorillas, massive zebras and antelopes. But his most important find from the point of view of the evolution of man is two giant teeth. They are either from a Chellean child or they are from another species of man hunted and eaten by cannibalistic Chelleans. (They appeared to be primary or “baby” teeth).

They are undoubtedly human and larger than any previously discovered. One molar is bigger than that of the mature molars of Peking Man (up to 9 feet tall).” NYT

Leakey attributed the gigantic size of the animals of this time with “trace elements” washed down into the gorge and then consumed by the animals of the gorge.


Despite their protestations to the contrary, Darwinists have no answer for these gigantic versions of currently existing animals. A beaver the size of a modern black bear; an armadillo the size of a Volkswagen, giant oysters in the mountains of Peru 12 feet wide, a type of deer 7 feet tall at the shoulder 8 foot roly poly’s, dragon flies with two foot wingspans, a super croc the size of a boxcar, rodents the size of a bull are outside of current Darwinian understanding to say nothing of 5 foot penguins.

Many of these creatures simply couldn’t exist or function under current gravitational conditions. Sauropods likely could not have lifted their heads. Argentavis magnificens, an eagle like raptor and the largest bird ever discovered could not have flown under current gravity conditions. Very ancient depictions of mastodons show them galloping like a horse. Currently living elephants are too big to run or gallop.


The question is when did these creatures live in the history of this planet? From an evolution perspective; what evolutionary advantage would giant versions of today’s animals have over there smaller cousins? Why is the only difference between the gigantic animals of yesterday and today’s smaller versions their size? Where are the other adaptations that must have taken place over allegedly millions of years? Why would they evolve to large size and then to small?

A 1987 article in Time Magazine might provide a clue; it was entitled Putting On Ancient Airs”, and informed that “two scientists stunned colleagues by reporting that 80 million years ago, (sic) the earth’s atmosphere contained about 50% more oxygen than it does now.”


Geochemists Gary Landis of the U.S. Geological Survey and Robert Berner of Yale were able to measure ancient air trapped in amber. Naturally we don’t subscribe to the age given as 80,000,000 years ago, but it does raise the possibility that at one time on this planet there was much more oxygen to breathe in the atmosphere than there is now. The comparison is 21% oxygen today vs. up to 35% oxygen in the past.

Why did gigantic versions of man and creature live in the earth’s past? Genesis provides the best answer; there were giants in those days…

‘Monstrously Big Ant’ Fossil Found in Wyoming
Giant “Sea Monster” Fossil Discovered in Arctic
Scientists Discover Giant Penguin Fossil (Video)
Giant wombat fossil found (Science Alert)
Giant Ant Fossil Unearthed: Big Pic : Discovery News
Arnold Schwarzenbunny: Giant Rabbit Fossil Found

Spanish island yields giant rabbit fossil – UPI.com

Giant snake fossil hints at a hotter future – environment -
Giant spider fossil found in Mongolia – The Mumpsimus Blog site
Giant Beaver Fossils with Facts and Pictures.
Scientists Discover “Giant Fossil Frog from Hell” –
Giant Condor Fossil | Flickr –
Discovery of a giant fossil bird with teeth – PetHobbyist.com Site …
Cryptomundo Âť Giant Fossil Rodent Discovered
Giant Stork Fossil was found in Flores, Indonesia. – Cultural …

Giant prehistoric fish species found in forgotten fossils (Wired UK)
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How Science Works #173

First of all, we have no idea whether we’ve correctly numbered these “How Science Works” articles. That’s how we work.

Recently, we noted that archaeologists had virtually been forced to acknowledge that an incised bone discovered at Vero Beach Florida was an actual ancient artifact that proved that elephants or mastodons had lived in North America in the ancient past.

They then declared it to be the first such representation in North America. We can’t figure out if that is a bold faced lie or simply a demonstration of real ignorance on the subject as literally hundreds if not thousands of similar depictions have been found in North America over the last several hundred years. Science just managed to declare all previous artifacts “fakes” or simply ignored them.

This is how archaeology works. Theories are promulgated. A consensus is formed and later a paradigm is created.

Evidence that fits the paradigm is catalogued and embraced; evidence that contradicts the paradigm is ignored or falsified. This process is absolute since one countervailing piece of evidence that is permitted to “exist” could weaken or threaten the paradigm.

This is actually how many human systems work to be honest; it’s just that many believe that science is exempt. It is not.

A number of gentle readers of a certain persuasion have asked; where is the scientific evidence, for example of human and dinosaur interaction? Why they ask, haven’t dinosaur fossils ever been found along with evidence of human bones or artifacts? Why are no human fossils found in such and such a strata? We have to assume that these questions are sincere and that they simply don’t know how science works.

Here is a simple case of how science works that may serve to illustrate the paradigm protection apparatus in action.

Frank Calvert (1828–1908) was an English expatriate who was a consular official in the eastern Mediterranean region and an amateur archaeologist. He began exploratory excavations on the mound at Hisarlik (the site of the ancient city of Troy), seven years before the arrival of Heinrich Schliemann. Calvert was the youngest of a family of archaeologists…Wikipedia

“In 1874, Frank Calvert found in a Miocene formation in Turkey (along the Dardanelles) a Deinotherium bone with carved figures of animals upon it. Calvert noted: “I have found in different parts of the same cliff, not far from the site of the engraved bone, a flint flake and some bones of animals, fractured longitudinally, obviously by the hand of man for the purpose of extracting the marrow, according to the practice of all primitive races.” Nature 27 March 1873

This report was made in scientific magazines of the day however; the elephant-like deionotherium was supposedly never seen by modern man. “Modern humans” were supposedly nonexistent in the Age science called the Miocene. On top of that, the deionotherium bone had a number of incised creatures upon it including what people with normal vision might call a dinosaur.
What happened next?

The paradigm protection system went to work.

“In Le Prehistorique, de Mortillet (prominent evolutionist/scientists) did not dispute the age of the Dardanelles formation. Instead he commented that the simultaneous presence of a carved bone, intentionally broken bones, and a flint flake tool was almost too perfect, so perfect as to raise doubts about the finds.” ..Forbidden Archaeology

The following denunciation of the discoveries is a classic of its kind:

“The pretended discovery by Calvert of human prehistoric handiwork in the Miocene of the Dardanelles near Constantinople proves to be unfounded, the supposed tracings on a piece of bone turning out, it is stated, to be merely the eroding work of some crustacean.” Harper’s magazine, Volume 49—Editors Scientific Record, 1874

Finally, here is someone, a scientist, trumpeting the destruction of all evidence proffered by members of their own scientific fraternity of the remote antiquity of man. It should be noted that the Christian view of this phenomena (remote antiquity of man) is that man has existed as long as the world has existed. Here is the “how science works” quote.

“Much of the evidence which had been prominently put forward in support of the high antiquity of man has, during the past few years, been completely abandoned. Thus:—

The Abbeville human jaw from the gravel of the Somme is acknowledged to be “a plant.”

The Paleolithic “beads” of St. Acheul are found to be organisms of the chalk.*

The human bone from the Victoria cavern, which Professor Boyd Dawkins once described as “establishing the fact that man lived in Yorkshire before the glacial period,” and who added, that “the man to whom it belonged was probably devoured by hyenas,” has now been pronounced to be the bone of a bear; \ and a “cut” bone, said to have been found in an undisturbed layer in association with the extinct mammals in the same cave, belongs to a domestic sheep or goat, both of which were unknown in Europe before the Neolithic age.

Some of the artistic drawings upon the fossil bones found in the ThĂźringen Cave in Switzerland, are now pronounced to be spurious, and the result of intentional deception. The same drawings are contained in a work published six years before the discovery of the cave.

The reputed discovery of relics of man 800 feet deep in a Miocene deposit at the Dardanelles, by Mr. Frank Calvert, is now utterly rejected.

The supposed dressed flints from Miocene beds at Theney,** the “worked ” flints from the Pliocene beds of St. Prest, and the supposed basket-work from lignite, in Switzerland, have all broken down under a searching examination.

And I claim, on the evidence adduced in former papers read before this Society, to have stamped out the evidence of Paleolithic man from the “famous” cavern of Brixham.

But above all we are indebted to the Woodwardian Professor of Geology at Cambridge for the important statement,—that the evidence for the antiquity of man has completely broken down in all cases where it has been attempted to assign him to a period more remote than the post-glacial river gravels.” THE SUPPOSED PALEOLYTHIC IMPLEMENTS OF THE VALLEY OF THE AXE. By NICHOLAS WHITLEY, C.E. 1883

Conclusion: In order to maintain the paradigm science lies to both creationists/Christians as readily as it lies to Evolutionists/Atheists.

We wonder if evolutionists even care? After all, it’s their paradigm that is being preserved.

See Also Mega Fauna Section
The Real Story of Vero Beach Wasn’t Ancient Mammoth Art but Rather; Ancient Mammoth Humans and Mammoth Archaeological Misdirection

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