| 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/ |
Creation
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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/
This was in an email recently received from https://creationresearch.net/.
‘A lawyer was in the audience, so I asked him what a testimony was supposed to be. “The truth” he quickly replied! That by the way, is why lawyers are paid to probe, investigate, test and challenge any testimony in legal proceedings. They are looking for false testimonies.
However, it is just one testimony that concerns us today. A true testimony which many academics, scientists, church leaders and pew sitters sadly dismiss. It’s been labelled a testimony right from its origin. Not the testimony of man but of the Creator God. Remember the Ten Commandments? The record reports “God gave Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God”. (Exodus 31:18) After the affair of the golden calf Moses smashed the first set of the tablets in anger. God then told Moses “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” (Exodus 34:1) After Moses spent a second time with God on the mountain, he came down the mountain “with the two tablets of the testimony”. (Exodus 34:29)
Nowhere does the Bible treat the Ten Commandments as anything but the actual Word or Testimony of the Lord, e.g. at the giving of the first set we read “God spoke all these words”. (Exodus 20:11) In his address to the people of Israel recorded in Deuteronomy, Moses reminded them: “And the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them were all the words that the Lord had spoken with you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly.” (Deuteronomy 9:10)
As our lawyer friend addresses, if any part of a written or spoken testimony is not true, it is invalid. Including in this case the witness rule in the courts … ’you shall not bear false testimony’. (Ex 20:16) Note well that the Creator Christ testified in the commandments He made the world in six days. So all of those leaders of academia, theology or politics who dismiss the six days, actually have moved to dismiss all God’s commandments. No wonder they move on to legislate the mass murder of infants, block Gender Menders, promote BLM destruction, push climate lies and cash in on Covid-10 controls. Note well – you will all give eternal account to the One who is truth, for He cannot lie. He did make the heavens and the earth in just six days and His moral authority is based on that. You portray Christ any other way and you will be held accountable for calling him a liar – someone who gave false testimony, while taking the moral high ground in labelling false testimony a grievous sin.
Moses’ successor Joshua challenged the people to “… fear the Lord and serve him …. ‘choose this day whom you will serve’ … the gods of this world or the real God … But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:14-15)’
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
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/
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
‘Can you agree that life is seventy to a hundred years, sometime less and very seldom more, and it goes by fast? We know it goes by exactly sixty seconds a minute, but the point is what James wrote: life is a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. On the other hand, eternity is forever. Even in a lesser, albeit significant way, the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a thousand years.
The title brings two biblical metaphors and two secular ones. Let’s go through them. They relate to the first paragraph. Please think about it.
The first one says, you “strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:24). It’s from Jesus. The gnat was the smallest unclean animal in the Old Testament dietary restrictions, and the largest was the camel (Leviticus 11:4, 42). Straining something was the use of a filter. When you went to drink something sweet that attracted gnats, you made sure you got your gnats out with a filter in order to eliminate the unclean thing. There’s obviously hyperbole here, because the filter should get a camel too, but in this metaphor, it doesn’t.
The gnat metaphor compares to Paul’s teaching to Timothy that bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is great gain. Everyone on earth has to focus on physical things, living in a physical world, but these physical things are temporal things, like bodily exercise is. I watch people, who call themselves Christians and they take care of the gnat, but they miss the camel. Their focus is on this life, on temporal things, even when it comes to the problems in this world. How do you see it?
You can see the wrong emphasis on social media. It’s all about this life, and it isn’t important. What are you eating? What car are you driving? What kind of fashion are you wearing? All of this is less than gnats. They are nothing. They are the dung, the Paul uses for a kind of temporal things in Philippians 3:8.
Let’s move on. The phrase, “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” describes a futile, meaningless activity in the face of doom or catastrophe. The Titanic compares to the real catastrophe, lost souls going to Hell. Most of mankind missing Paradise, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and heaven. Greater than that, men please themselves and not God, because they do not receive His Word.
Rearranging deck chairs brings some temporal order and symmetry perhaps, better than what it might for the next cold few hours before the ship disappears in the icy ocean. Imagine while the ship is sinking, the person taking charge of deck chairs announces to signal his virtue, that “he’s going to rearrange the chairs” messed up maybe from the new tilt of the deck. This is the kind of virtue being signaled today. Look at me, I’m tithing of mint and cummin, my little garden herbs (Matthew 23:23), while souls all around are going to Hell, and not once is the gospel ever mentioned, let alone preached.
Nero apparently fiddled while Rome burned. Shame on Nero. It reminds me of Jesus’ allusion in the Sermon on the Mount, not casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). Pigs can’t appreciate the beauty and significance of pearls. Appreciating pearls takes a minimal level of discernment. A particular brand of baseball cap or footwear supercedes eternal life for a lost soul. Is my hair in style? Did I purchase the appropriate brand name of trousers? Are they ripped enough? Can you see the right amount of skin? Rome is burning, and you’re talking about your play list of pop rock tunes, sensual and worldly. This is insane like Nero. There was a reason he was fiddling. You’re fiddling too. Think about it.
Esau famously in Genesis 25 sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, essentially some lentil stew. Sure, he was hungry. Sure, he wanted to tour Europe. Sure, he wanted to fill his bucket list. Sure, he wanted more instagram followers. What about God? What about his parents? Obedience to them? Honoring them? What about the Word of God? What about the work of the church? What about the things that God loves and He wants you to value? This is where the terminology arises, throwing your life away. Esau threw his life away. You are throwing your life away, but posing like your mess of pottage matters.
The Apostle Paul instructed (Ephesians 5:16), “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” What are you doing with your time? Are you just straining at gnats, rearranging deck chairs, fiddling while Rome burns, and trading your birthright for a mess of pottage? You don’t have to. Turn to the Lord now. Like Paul, count these other things as dung for the knowledge of Christ Jesus.’https://kentbrandenburg.com/2021/02/03/straining-at-gnats-rearranging-deck-chairs-fiddling-while-rome-burns-and-trading-your-birthright-for-a-mess-of-pottage/
How anyone can believe everything we see around us came by accident is beyond belief and yet many do. Thankfully, God has given us His Word which tells us ‘simple people’ that He is the Creator in the Book of Genesis.
Genesis 1:7-8 “And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.”
Big Bang astrophysicists are having a bit of a Big Bang bother over trying to work out whether or not the universe is flat. There are some astrophysicists who claim the universe is flat, and others who claim the universe is round. According to Big Bang scientists, space has more dimensions than we can envisage. Even the “simplest” analogy they can make suggests that the universe is on the surface of a four-dimensional sphere, expanding into that fourth dimension. If one could send a rocket far enough in a straight line in any direction, then it would eventually come back on itself – if the universe is round. Yet, other observational evidence suggests that universe is flat – that if a rocket sets off in one direction, it would never return.
A recent New Scientist article made some explanations about these disagreements, and this highlighted why the mysteries arise. For example, one observation concerns “lensing”, where light is bent by gravitational fields of stars and planets. The article explains: “That is because the extra lensing implies the presence of extra dark matter, which would pull the universe into a finite sphere instead of a flat sheet.” But this assumes the existence of dark matter. As we have discussed in previous Creation Moments, dark matter is really a “fiddle factor”, designed to help Big Bang sums work. Creationist cosmological explanations, starting from the Bible, do not require dark matter and don’t require impossible multi-dimensional universes.’ https://creationmoments.com/sermons/big-bang-bother/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=big-bang-bother&mc_cid=015d91feea&mc_eid=00c1dcff3c
whatyareckon 