| VAMPIRE FINCHES EVOLVE, claim scientists and David Attenborough, according to articles in Science Alert 16 January 2021, Smithsonian News 22 January 2021 and The Conversation 15 January 2021 and New Scientist 14 January 2021. Finches on two of the most northerly islands of the Galapagos Islands have been found to feed on the blood of seabirds that also live on the islands. The two islands, named Wolf and Darwin, are barren rocky islands with limited food sources, so scientists suggest ground finches named Geospiza septentrionalis originally co-existed with the red-footed and Nazca boobies, which also nest on the islands, and picked off parasites from the feathers of the boobies, as well as eating seeds and insects. In barren years the finches progressed to using their sharp beaks to puncture the skin of the boobies and drink blood from resulting wounds. The researchers wrote in The Conversation: “Natural selection appears to have fine-tuned the vampire finch beak for skin-piercing and blood-sucking, as the birds have evolved particularly long and pointy beaks compared to non-blood-feeding populations on other islands”. They also claimed the finches resort to drinking blood for survival when they can’t find other food sources like seeds and insects. Vampire finches are featured in David Attenborough’s latest series “A Perfect Planet”, which “examines what made Earth so perfect for life”. According to a review in New Scientist the series “looks at the most influential natural forces, including sunlight and ocean currents, that create the ideal conditions to create and support life”. Links: Conversation, New Scientist, Science Alert, Smithsonian ED. COM. The reason the earth is perfect for life is as the prophet Isaiah reminds us, because the Lord God both created it and made it to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18-19). Therefore, it has all the right physical and chemical properties needed to sustain life. Natural forces such as sunlight and ocean currents cannot create life which requires genetic information. Molecules randomly bashing into one another under the influence of light and flowing water never make anything including DNA. We would also remind David Attenborough that earth was only perfect when God the Creator had completed it and declared it to be “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Since then it has degenerated significantly as a result of human sin and God’s judgement, and is now a tragic mixture of good and bad. The vampire finches, along with the other animals and birds struggling to survive in the harsh conditions included in Attenborough’s series, are a classic example of this. In the beginning, when the world was perfect, all animals were given plants to eat. In that very good world there would have been plenty of nutritious plant food, such as nectar, fruits and seeds for the original created finches to eat. It was only after the world degenerated, especially after the devastation of Noah’s Flood, that finches had to scrape up a living in harsh conditions like the Galapagos Islands. Those that ended up on tiny barren islands used whatever resources they already had to find food, which means those that already had sharp beaks could extract blood from other birds. Those that didn’t have sharp beaks died out when there were no seeds or insects to eat. This is natural selection and the struggle for life at work. These are real processes, but they are not creative processes, and they won’t make anything evolve. They are destructive processes that can only eliminate those living things that are ill equipped for the struggle in a particular environment. Those who want to believe that God used evolution to create need to be reminded that the processes ascribed to evolution, e.g. natural selection, survival of the fittest, only result in death and destruction, and cannot be called “very good”. These processes only came into the world after man sinned and God judged the world. This is one of the most serious problems of the belief of theistic evolution. For more problems with this belief see our report Ten Questions for Theistic Evolutionists here.’ https://creationresearch.net/ |
Evolution
The best way to know what the Leftist Looneys are thinking is to read what they write as hard as that may be. This climate scam is bound and determined to tax you and me for fossil fuels and BREATHING!
‘Reports that Britain’s prime minister Boris Johnson is considering calling for carbon border levies at the G7 summit to be held in London in June have produced a predictable reaction from the Australian government.
The levies would impose tariffs on carbon-intensive goods from countries such as Australia that haven’t adopted a carbon price or a 2050 net-zero emissions target.
Appearing to be shocked by the news, Energy Minister Angus Taylor declared that Australia is “dead against” carbon tariffs.
They were a “new form of protectionism designed to shield local industries from free trade”.
In fact they are already the policy of the European Union and the US, where President Joe Biden calls them a “carbon adjustment fee against countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations”. Canada, which has an economy-wide price on carbon, isn’t worried.
Saying you’re dead against something doesn’t stop it, and nor does asserting that it is anti free trade, when it is just as arguable that it is pro fair trade because it denies exporters from countries that aren’t taking action against climate change an unfair advantage.’https://theconversation.com/no-point-complaining-about-it-australia-will-face-carbon-levies-unless-it-changes-course-155200
Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
Aw the beautiful butterfly! ‘EFFICIENT BUTTERFLY FLIGHT reported in BBC News 20 January 2021, ScienceDaily 21 January 2021 and Journal of The Royal Society Interface 20 January 2021 doi: 10.1098/rsif.2020.0854. Two researchers at the Swedish Lund University have studied the fluttery flight of butterflies, which has been traditionally considered ungainly and inefficient. Per Henningsson and Christoffer Johansson commented in their report: “Butterflies look like no other flying animal, with unusually short, broad and large wings relative to their body size”. Henningsson and Johansson analysed the flapping flight of butterflies taking off in a wind tunnel and found their flight was very efficient due to having flexible wings and using a “clap technique”. During the upstroke of the wingbeat the flexible wings form a cup shape that traps a pocket of air. At the top of the upstroke the wings clap together forcing the air out backwards, which propels the butterfly forward. The downstroke of the wingbeat is then “used for weight support”, i.e. it keeps the butterfly in the air. Henningsson and Johansson confirmed the flexible wings and clap technique produced efficient flying by designing and building similar mechanical winged drones and testing them in the wind tunnel. They found “flexible wings dramatically increase the useful impulse (+22%) and efficiency (+28%) of the clap compared to rigid wings”. The researchers suggest the large wings and clapping technique gave them an evolutionary advantage by being able to escape quickly from predators. Per Henningsson told the BBC: “It’s a strong selective pressure then, because it’s a matter of life and death”. The researchers concluded: “Combined, our results suggest butterflies evolved a highly effective clap, which provides a mechanistic hypothesis for their unique wing morphology. Furthermore, our findings could aid the design of man-made flapping drones, boosting propulsive performance”.
Link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/01/210121132059.htm
ED. COM. Escaping from predators will certainly give butterflies a selective advantage but it won’t make anything evolve. Butterflies that already had such efficient flight didn’t need to evolve. Selection can only eliminate the unfit. It cannot make anything unfit turn into something more fit.
Notice the inconsistency in the researchers’ conclusion: butterflies “evolved” their unique wing shape and efficient clap technique, but man-made flapping drones with the same flying ability will have to be designed and built by intelligent engineers. These researchers, who created their flapping model drones to test in the wind tunnel, are without excuse for failing to recognise the Creator of the natural butterflies, which are not only very efficient but more beautiful and do other things besides fly. Whenever you see a butterfly fluttering give praise the Creator who made it to fly efficiently, fertilise flowers and bring joy to people who see it.’https://creationresearch.net/
2 Peter 3:10“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
‘We live in a world – indeed, a universe – that is in continual change. Things have been designed that way for a very important reason. Unfortunately, some people choose to define evolution as simply change. However, that’s not the kind of continuous change that surrounds us.
The change we see around us serves to keep things the same. Biologists call this “stasis.” That might sound contradictory, but think about it for a moment. A baby is born – that’s change. The baby grows into a child and then a young adult. That’s more change. In the end, though, a new generation is born to replace the last generation, and things are as they were. It’s the cycle of life, common to all living things.
What’s more, the interrelated life cycles of all living things complement each other. Plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to make oxygen and food, which are needed by the animal kingdom and human beings. Each generation of living things reproduces after its own kind, helping to keep this balance in tune.
The change we see all around us was designed by the Creator to renew the creation so that it might remain stable – the same. We can truly say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. However, this state of affairs will not go on forever. One day – and perhaps soon – the world will end. The Son of God, Who was the instrument of our creation and the instrument of our salvation, will return. Are you ready to meet Him?’https://creationmoments.com/sermons/designed-to-renew-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=designed-to-renew-2&mc_cid=38e629a331&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
Whether one lives in the USA or Australia politics is pretty much the same. The Left has taken ahold of most of the pollies and they seem to determined to continue the path of national destruction. Professor David Flint writes that ‘Pilate’s contemptuous dismissal of truth echoes down the ages. Those who, like Pilate, wash their hands while authoritarians try to gag anyone they insist must not speak, ignore what distinguishes civilisation from the evil alternatives.
The search for truth is dependent on freedom of speech. As Robert Menzies warned: ‘Today’s truth is frequently tomorrow’s error…. If truth is to emerge and in the long run be triumphant, the process of free debate – the untrammelled clash of opinion – must go on’.
Menzies practised what he preached. When novice backbencher and subsequently Democrat leader Don Chipp decided to give notice that he would cross the floor over some government bill, Menzies replied, ‘If you feel that way, my boy, you must follow your conscience.’ This freedom is at the very heart of representative democracy. As Burke explained, we choose our representatives for their judgment. Any restriction is contrary to the ‘whole order and tenor of our constitution’.
Craig Kelly has been ordered not to repeat scientifically endorsed views on medicines or vaccinations, a Sydney TV host even ordering him to ‘be quiet’.
Following the US mainstream media, no longer adhering to the adage that ‘Comment is free but facts are sacred’, journalists will too often insert some adjective like ‘baseless’ about something which a responsible media once reported with curiosity and without condemnation, such as the fact that banned medicines may still enjoy reputable scientific support or that allegations of electoral fraud are supported by mountains of evidence. Such journalists will also readily dismiss comment by reference to some non-existent standard such as ‘the’ science.
Rather than limiting themselves to desk-based reporting, such journalists could visit a court room. There they would often see expert witnesses called by both sides.
They would come to understand that scientific truth is determined neither by majority nor even consensus, as demonstrated when Australian scientists won the Nobel Prize for showing that some gastric ulcers can be caused by a virus, Helicobacter pylori.
In the case of Craig Kelly, where the mainstream media have smelt blood, the Prime Minister unwisely surrendered just as he did over the National Anthem. Unsurprisingly, Kelly’s pre-selection is now in issue. On that surely it is time that our normally manipulated preselections be replaced by primaries where registered Labor, Liberal, etc., supporters in the relevant electorate or state actually decide who their candidates shall be.
Probably the strongest reason why there is a bi-partisan move to replace Craig Kelly, as there was with Trump, is that he embarrasses the politicians and their elite allies over the litany of burdens they impose on the people for which they will never have to answer.
Central to this is their endorsement not only of the increasingly discredited theory of man-made global warming but also both the Paris solution and the claim that the successors to the assorted dictators, thugs and dissembling politicians will deliver on their promises decades hence. Independent research suggests that at best this will barely reduce the temperature in 2100, saving about 2 per cent GDP at a cost of between 16 to 32 per cent of GDP. I doubt whether most politicians believe all this. If they did, they would not have ‘carbon’ footprints many times those of ordinary people, unless of course they are outrageous hypocrites.
Why then have they, as Alan Jones and Terry McCrann warned years ago, signed a national suicide note? What they and other elites want is for Craig Kelly and a few colleagues to stop reminding Australians of this. But ordinary Australians are not stupid. Only ten per cent of airline travellers buy ‘carbon’ credits, probably those elites who don’t themselves pay for their tickets.
As with their refusal to harvest water, as with their immigration programme designed to satisfy the fiction that the GDP is rising while wages are stable or falling, as with an education programme delivering declining standards, the politicians are running our great country into the ground. Hence their determination to throw anyone who exposes this out of parliament.
Meanwhile in America, Speaker Pelosi followed the answer given by the high priests when Pilate invited them to explain their case, ‘If he were not a malefactor, we would not have delivered him up unto thee’. There was need neither for evidence nor due process. The voice of Pelosi was sufficient. The so-called Senate trial is undoubtedly unconstitutional for any one of several grounds most of which have been mentioned in prior columns.
One arises out of reliance on Trump’s free speech-protected assertion that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
On that Time magazine has now confirmed the existence of a ‘conspiracy’ among a ‘well-funded cabal’ of ‘powerful people’ working together behind the scenes to ‘influence perceptions’, ‘change rules and laws’, ‘steer media coverage’ and ‘control the flow of information’.
They even admit to using the eight months of violent looting, burning and torching by Black Lives Matter to advance their agenda.
The key moment on the day of the election was 11pm. Trump was winning with a solid lead in the battleground states. In a Zoom call at that time, cabal architect Mike Podhorzer calmed conspirators by ‘presenting data’ to show a Biden victory was in hand. As it was.
Voting was then suspended in battleground states on the ruse there was a drainage overflow in one polling station.
Counting soon secretly resumed in the absence of Republican scrutineers. And as anyone with the slightest experience knows, this was obviously done for one reason and one reason only – fraud.
Biden’s vote suddenly advanced exponentially, massively and as Patrick Basham has demonstrated here, implausibly.
Rather than answering the mountain of evidence Donald Trump’s lawyers subsequently assembled, its existence was denied by the mainstream media with social media punishing anyone who mentioned it. Despite that, Trump still strikes terror into the hearts of the elites. He and anyone considering following him must be silenced.‘ https://www.spectator.com.au/2021/02/kellyleo/
Proverbs 3:7-8 “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.”
‘You’re not feeling well, and you have a fever. Is your increased body temperature good for you or should you try to lower it?
Medical researchers are learning what happens in the body when we develop a fever. They say that the body’s fever response is usually a very important part of our body’s defense against disease. Normally, the body’s temperature varies throughout the day. If the body’s temperature drops below 80° or climbs higher than 108° for a prolonged period, death usually results. Your body has a thermostat, called the hypothalamus, to keep its temperature within that range.
When disease germs are detected in your bloodstream, your white blood cells release a chemical called EP. EP quickly makes its way to the hypothalamus, where it raises the setting of your thermostat. This increase in temperature can make your body increase its production of T cells by 20 times or more to fight bacterial infection. It also increases the production of blood chemicals that fight viruses. EP also blocks bacteria’s ability to make use of the free iron in your blood at just the time bacteria are most in need of that iron. Even iguanas and fish are known to raise their body temperature when ill by moving into warmer environments.
Does the fever response just accidentally happen to help fight infection or was it designed to work the way it does? Clearly we must thank God for this cleverly designed defense against disease.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/heating-for-health-2/
This climate scam is out to destroy not only the economy but to eliminate people! In a Jan. 25 meeting of the Vermont Climate Council, Massachusetts Undersecretary for Climate Change David Ismay blurted out “let me say that again, 60% of our emissions that need to be reduced come from you, the person across the street, the senior on fixed income, right… there is no bad guy left, at least in Massachusetts to point the finger at, to turn the screws on, and you know, to break their will, so they stop emitting. That’s you. We have to break your will. Right, I can’t even say that publicly….” Except he just did. So don’t say you weren’t warned: These people are looking for a 60% reduction in ordinary-life emissions. And of the ordinary-life energy that causes them.
Beginning with cars, of course. The New York Times “Climate Fwd.” says various car companies bending to the wind blowing from Washington “may help the Biden administration move quickly to reinstate national fuel-efficiency standards that would control planet-warming auto pollution”. Meaning what exactly? The issue here isn’t the rhetorical inflation of “carbon pollution” and now “climate pollution” and the tendency of news outlets to beg the question of causality. It’s the question who thinks reducing American car emissions would “control” this “pollution” sufficiently to have an impact on “planet-warming”. And the surprising answer is: Nobody except very ill-informed journalists, politicians and other zealots.
No really. You might think with everyone gaga about the Paris Agreement and Joe Biden rejoining it without all that tedious mucking about with Senate approval of treaties, the scientists who say would be claiming Paris would stop the dreaded warming. But they’re not. They’re also not saying a minor increase in American automobile fuel efficiency would get the United States to Paris. Or that, if the United States went there, the world would.
So unless Biden intends by imperial fiat to require American-made, or -bought, cars to emit 60% less, the measure won’t “control” emissions in a meaningful way. Strike 1. Even if he did, and it worked, which are by no means the same thing, and if they were part of a package of measures that got the United States to its Paris targets and kept it there, it wouldn’t make other nations do it including whatever that big one with the coal plants and nuclear weapons is. Strike 2. And even if it did, according to the alarmists’ own models, everyone meeting their Paris targets would reduce warming in 2100 by about 0.1 degrees, a mere rounding error. Strike 3.
If “Climate Fwd.” is deliberately using language that makes an ineffective measure sound effective, Strike 4. Especially as if you believe there’s a climate crisis, the last thing you want is fake solutions. Strike 5. Of course “Climate Fwd.” like the IPCC depends for its livelihood on there being a crisis, and if they were being cynical it would be Strike 6. Instead they’re probably just as confused as they sound. Strike 7. Which seems like a lot but they’re not out.
Instead they’re coming for you. Just ask David Ismay in an unguarded moment.’https://climatediscussionnexus.com/2021/02/10/we-have-ways-to-cut-your-emissions/
Matthew 10:29“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”
The creation is filled with a remarkable number of creatures that are able to fool their enemies into thinking they are something else. They provide us with examples of God’s attention to details in the creation.
The toad grasshopper of South Africa may be found among different kinds of rocks. Grasshoppers that live among quartzite pebbles have the same lighter colors and markings as the pebbles, making them nearly invisible. Across the valley, other toad grasshoppers – living among the volcanic rocks – are darkly colored like the volcanic rocks.
The Kenyan bush cricket lives almost invisibly among the moss that commonly covers trees because it looks just like the moss. The Trinidadian katydid looks as if it might be a patch of blotchy fungus that grows on the same leaves it lives on. The Malaysian katydid takes a different approach. It looks just like one of the veined leaves upon which it lives. The Malaysian tussock moth has transparent patches on its wings so that with its coloration it looks like a decayed section of the leaf upon which it lives. The larva of the silver king shoemaker butterfly eats leaves in the protection of nights’ darkness and by day hangs from the leaf it has been eating, looking like part of the tattered leaf.
No creature was too small or unimportant when our Creator planned the details of His work. We should see from these examples that He cares for each of us. His message of how He cares for you is in the Bible.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/not-always-what-they-seem-to-be/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=not-always-what-they-seem-to-be&mc_cid=046b5593ca&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
2 Peter 1:16 “For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
‘A growing number of scientists, some of them with worldwide reputations, are changing their minds about evolution. While many of these scientists are recognizing that evolution is in trouble, they are not necessarily becoming Christians or creationists.
The world-famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle announced that there is so much information within higher forms of life that they could not have evolved. Dr. Hoyle said that he could not understand why so many biologists deny this obvious fact and accept evolution.
The scientific world was solidly shaken when Dr. Colin Patterson, head of paleontology at the British Museum, admitted at the American Museum of Natural History in Chicago that he knew nothing about evolution that was true. He said that he had asked other scientists if they could name one thing about evolution that was true. Silence was the usual answer. Dr. Patterson called the evolutionary theory “anti-knowledge.” He especially faulted those who say evolution is a fact, yet admit they don’t know how it works.
Evolutionary theory is the great modern creation myth. As a myth, it is no challenge to the Bible. It’s even losing support in the scientific community.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/a-modern-myth-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-modern-myth-2&mc_cid=8699a31b5a&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
Psalm 40:5“Many, O LORD my God, [are] thy wonderful works [which] thou hast done, and thy thoughts [which are] to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: [if] I would declare and speak [of them], they are more than can be numbered.”
‘Though God created the entire living kingdom in only a few days, the variety and creativity of what He made seems nearly unlimited by our standards. One of the more unusual creatures He made was thought extinct until it was rediscovered in 1958.
The kakapo parrot lives in New Zealand. The most unusual parrot on Earth, it is one of only a few known parrots that prefers to sleep during the day and becomes active at night. Weighing in at five pounds, it is also the world’s heaviest parrot. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, the world’s only non-flying parrot.
The Creator’s unusual expression of inventive creativity in designing the kakapo did not end here. The mating habits of the kakapo are especially peculiar for birds. In mating season, the males gather in locations that are used year after year for mate selection. Female parrots come to these places to inspect the males to select a mate. However, in most un-bird-like fashion, the males provide absolutely no help building the nest or rearing the young.
The kakapo is remarkable because of its many strange traits, most of which would make it least fit for survival. In other words, not only is it an unusual creature, but its more unusual characteristics seem to put it at a disadvantage as far as evolution is concerned. So while evolution would not have made the kakapo, our inventive Creator did, perhaps as a witness against evolution.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/a-truly-strange-bird-2/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-truly-strange-bird-2&mc_cid=77f54b9349&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
whatyareckon 