NZ fossil – lived in Argentina

NZ living fossil once
lived in Argentina, according to New Scientist,
11 Oct, p17. The Tuatara lizard lives on some small islands in
New Zealand and is considered the only living member of a group
of reptiles named Sphenodontians, which once lived in North
America and Europe but have been extinct for 100 million years.
South American palaeontologists have found numerous fossil
Sphenodontians in the Candeleros Formation in northwest Patagonia
buried with crocodiles, snakes, turtles, Theropod and Sauropod
dinosaurs, mammals and fishes. Some of the fossils were a metre
(3 ft) long - the largest Sphenodontians ever found, and twice
the size of living Tuataras.

John’s
comment: The political implications are interesting,
i.e. there are no such things as indigenous plants, animals or
people. The scientific aspects are also worth noting. These
fossils indicate the history of Sphenodontians is they started
out as many varieties of large animals which are now reduced to
one small species. This is the opposite of evolution, but it fits
the Biblical history of life, i.e. creation of many kinds,
followed by death and degeneration. The fossils were buried with
a mixture of land and water dwelling creatures - evidence that
the rock formation they were in, was formed by a massive flood
sweeping across many environments, collecting a huge array of
living creatures, mixing them up and dumping them.

We've got them worried. On 6th
November, 2003 Guardian newspaper UK carried the
following advertisement: Creationism: Science Versus Faith in
Schools, "A one-day event for secondary school teachers,
scientists and philosophers examining the impact of creationism
on science education in a multi-faith society. An opportunity to
hear and respond to a range of speakers including scientists,
journalists, teachers and pupils who will discuss current
evolutionary theory, creationism and the issues raised for
schools. Monday December 1st, 2003 The Newsroom, 60 Farringdon
Road EC1R"

Hybrids produced new
species, according to a report in New
Scientist, 16 Aug 2003, p12. A team of scientists led by
Loren Rieseberg of Indiana University, Bloomington USA studied
the genes of five species of sunflower and came to the conclusion
that three of them were hybrids descended from the other two. The
“hybrid" species grew in harsh dry climates in salty soil
and appeared to have features that the parents did not have, such
as more succulent leaves and decreased salt uptake. To test the
theory that hybridisation produced the different characteristics
scientists crossed the parent species and then backcrossed the
resulting hybrids with the parent species twice. The resulting
offspring showed many characteristics of the wild species that
grew in harsh environments. Evolutionary scientist Michael Arnold
of the University of Georgia commented: "It is a very significant
finding. It tells us that hybridisation can lead to new
ecological forms."

John’s
comment: The genes for decreased salt uptake and the
ability to make more succulent leaves already existed amongst
sunflowers. Natural cross pollination (Hybridisation) simply
redistributed genes so that some plants received a combination
that allowed them to grow in a harsher environment. As some of
the hybrids were fertile they could then reproduce and survive in
this environment where the others could not, so they are
technically a new species. However, two points need to be
made.

1. They are still Sunflowers - a
   point most evolutionists miss!
2. Often the conflict between
   creation and evolution comes from the definitions, not the
   facts.

The evolutionist 'defines'
evolution in this case as that which turns sunflowers into
sunflowers without any change in the genes definition. This study
better fits the concept of Genesis kind", i.e. the named species
of sunflower were originally all one kind, but have been
subdivided and naturally selected by highly variable climates
without any change in the total genetic information for
Sunflowers.

Walking on water
explained by mathematicians and mechanical engineers who
described their findings in Nature vol. 424, p663, 7 Aug
2003. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
studied waterstriders - small insects that walk across the
surface of ponds, rivers and the sea - to find out how they
managed to go forward without going under. Using high speed video
and particle tracking methods they worked out that the insects
produce vortices under their feet which propelled them along.
They then tested their theory by building a mechanical model of a
waterstrider that moved in the same way the living water strider
moved. Their "robostrider" was able to walk on water using the
same vortex generating movement as a living insect but "in a
style less elegant than its natural counterpart".

John’s
comment: The "robostrider" with its inelegant gait is
proof that living waterstriders were designed and built by a
smarter engineer who not only made living organisms to be
functional but also to work in a most elegant style. The
scientists who studied waterstriders and used their knowledge and
creative intelligence to design and build an inferior copy are
truly without excuse for failing to acknowledge their
Creator.

Universal grammar
for all languages may be embedded in our brains, according to a
report in ScienceNOW
(http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org) 26 June 2003.Children
learn the grammar of whatever language they are exposed to, even
though their parents do not formally teach them the rules.
Neuroscientists at the University of Hamburg, Germany, studied
brain activity in native German speakers who had been taught some
Italian and Japanese words and given six rules of grammar for
each language. Unknown to the subjects 3 of the rules were fake.
The volunteers were asked to assess some simple sentences made up
of the recently learned foreign words as to whether they followed
the grammar rules they had been given. The region of the brain
that controls speech, known as Broca's area, was activated when
the subjects were presented with the proper rules but not with
the fake rules. It seems Broca's area only learns rules that fit
some kind of built in grammar.

John’s
comment: This finding fits the Biblical history of
language very well. Genesis tells us human beings were originally
created with language built into their brains. Prior to the Tower
of Babel all people spoke the same language. Everyone had a
built-in universal grammar system, inherited from Adam and Eve.
It is testimony to the brilliance of God the Word, that He
created so many languages using the grammar system that he
originally designed. To use computer jargon: At Babel all God
needed to do was rearrange the language software to produce
varied new language programs that couldn't talk to each other.
The report in ScienceNOW is also further evidence that
the linguist Chomsky was right. He said this some two decades
ago.

Size matters for
gecko and fly glue pads, as described in New Scientist,
6 Sep 2003, p22. Geckos, flies and some spiders are able to walk
upside down by using tiny flat pads on their feet called
spatulae. The spatulae form temporary atomic bonds with what ever
surface they are walking on. Biologists were puzzled that the
size of the spatulae was larger in small light creatures such as
flies compared with larger, heavier creatures such as geckos.
Eduard Arzt from the Max Planck Institute has solved the problem
by examining the spatulae of insects, spiders and geckos with an
electron microscope and found that by making them smaller they
could pack them more densely which increased the bonding power of
the geckos toes and enabled them to carry a much larger
weight.

John’s
comment: This is a good example of how all aspects of a
system have to work before the system can work. It is not enough
just to have the right material in the stick-on pads - they must
be the right size and density. Also, the animal has to be able to
place them in the stick-on position and be able to release them
when it wants to move on. We also wonder what could have made any
half evolved geckos and flies try walking upside down on
ceilings, branches, cave roofs, when there was every chance they
would fall off. It is far more logical to believe that the God
who designed flies and geckos knew how much stick-on power they
would need and gave them the right size, number and density of
spatulae for it.

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