Today's New Reason To Believe Archives

September 2005

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, September 30, 2005
Biochemical Design: Compositional Fine-Tuning of Cell Membranes

  • A recent study supports the emerging paradigm that the cell membrane displays remarkable complexity and organization that hinges on the fine-tuning of its molecular composition. The traditional paradigm regards the cell membrane to be a chaotic system that lacks order beyond the phospholipids bilayer structure. Researchers from Denmark have demonstrated that solitons, or density waves, can be propagated through cell membranes if the membrane is above the chain-melting temperature for its phospholipid components. The chain-melting temperature critically depends on the phospholipids composition. In nerve cell membranes, soliton propagation explains some of the membranes’ properties that are necessary for its function. This dynamic organization of the cell membrane is an indicator of intelligent design.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, September 29, 2005
Better Understanding of Milky Way Galaxy Structure Affirms Design

  • Research by a Canadian astrophysicist better establishes the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and affirms the design necessary for the Earth-Sun system to be capable of supporting advanced life for long time spans. Jacques Vallée analyzed all the measurements of the Milky Way Galaxy’s spiral arms from 1985 to 2005 to determine how many spiral arms exist as well as their shape, location, and pitch angle. His research revealed that the interarm separation near the sun is 25% smaller than previously thought. When our sun passes through the spiral arms, our solar system is subject to increased cosmic radiation, meteoritic bombardment, and gravitational instabilities-all of which are harmful to advanced life. Since the safe area between the arms is smaller than previously thought, a greater degree of design is required to minimize the time the solar system spends inside the spiral arms.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Biochemical Design: Irreducible Complexity

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, September 27, 2005
New Method to Determine Age of Milky Way Galaxy Confirms Creation Model

  • Research by a University of Chicago geophysicist supports the biblically based cosmic creation model and provides additional evidence for the antiquity of the universe. Nicholas Dauphas measured the abundance of two radioisotopes, U-238 and Th-232, using meteorites and metal-poor stars in the Milky Way halo to precisely determine the otherwise poorly known production ratio of the two elements. Armed with the new value, he then measured the age of the Milky Way in a way that is independent of uncertainties in other measurement techniques. The age measured by Dauphas verifies other measurements and reinforces the idea that the structure in the universe established itself quickly (in cosmic terms) after the big bang. Not only do these results provide additional support for the biblically predicted big bang creation event, but also they refute young-earth creationist claims that the universe is only a few thousand years old.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, September 26, 2005
Biochemical Design: Organization of Simplest Life

  • New insight into bacterial structures provides evidence for biochemical design. Some bacteria possess organelles of sorts. These structures, originally thought to be viruses, consist of a protein shell that contains the enzymes needed for carbon fixation reactions. This compartmentalization provides internal organization in the bacterial cell that is similar to that observed for complex (eukaryotic) cells. This advance demonstrates science working to correct faulty assumptions. The reigning paradigm had viewed the bacterium as a "container" of haphazardly arranged molecules. Such internal organization of the simplest life forms serves as a marker for biochemical design and is expected if a Creator is responsible for life.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, September 25, 2005
Liquid H2O May Never Have Existed on Mars

  • Research from two Caltech and MIT scientists casts serious doubt on life ever having existed-much less originated-on Mars by showing that the temperature on Mars has been below 0oC for the last 4 billion years. By comparing dates obtained from radio- and thermochronometers in Martian meteorites, the scientists were able to place limits on the average temperatures of the top few kilometers of the Martian surface. These limits allow the possibility of stable liquid water for a total of only a few million years. Further, the meteorites were never above the boiling point of water-even during the impacts that ejected them from the surface-illustrating that biological organisms can be transferred between Earth and Mars. This discovery provides further evidence that in the solar system, only Earth is capable of supporting life and that scientists should expect to find the remains of Earth-based life on Mars.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, September 24, 2005
Adult Stem Cells Promise an Alternative to ESCs

  • Public debate over the use of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) may soon end as science advances. New research continues to affirm the value of adult stem cells (ASCs) as an ethically acceptable alternative to embryonic stem cells (ESCs). Researchers have discovered that the human heart possesses a cardiac stem cell population that promotes limited regeneration of heart tissue after a myocardial infarction (heart attack). Now that biomedical researchers know this cell population exists, the hope is that these cardiac stem cells can be stimulated after a heart attack to more completely restore heart function. This study, along with many others in recent months, indicates that scientific advance may provide the way out of this ethical dilemma created by emerging biotechnologies.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, September 23, 2005
Martian "Soil" Inhospitable for Life

  • Comparisons of Martian soil to soil found on Earth reveal how inhospitable for life Mars is while revealing how well Earth supports life. When compared to terrestrial soils, previous Mars’ landers found excess sulfur and chlorine in the Martian soils. Further, the Martian soils lacked any detectable pre- or post-organic matter and showed evidence of strong oxidizing activity. This combination suggests possible "rapid chemical decomposition of organic matter leading to the decimation of living organisms." Scientists have looked (and have found some candidates) for environments on Earth that are analogous to the Martian soils. However, even the most barren locations on Earth have levels of carbonaceous compounds (possibly prebiotic) that are ten thousand times greater than Mars’ levels. These results reinforce how unlikely is the prospect of life on Mars and how Earth is well-designed to support life-even in the most difficult environments.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, September 22, 2005
Biochemical Design: Irreducible Complexity

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Geodynamo Simulations Cross Threshold

  • A team of Japanese geophysicists have performed the most realistic simulations of Earth’s interior dynamics to date, and their results confirm a general understanding of Earth’s formation and remove a notable young-earth objection to the dynamo model of geomagnetic fields. Using a powerful supercomputer, scientists were able to reproduce some key theoretical expectations in their models of the dynamo responsible for generating Earth’s magnetic field. Their analysis showed that the Ekman number (which represents the relative importance of viscosity to Earth’s rotation rate) must be fine-tuned. After reducing the Ekman number an order of magnitude lower than previous simulations, the dynamo was found to be in a predicted quasi-Taylor state where viscosity plays a negligible role in the core dynamics. These more realistic simulations showed polarity reversals matching those found in the geologic record. In addition, the simulated reversals showed precursors that mimic trends seen in geomagnetic data, suggesting a long overdue reversal may be starting on Earth. If true, humanity’s arrival on Earth was optimally timed to avoid the deleterious effects that occur during a reversal.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Biochemical Design: Information

  • New research into the mouse genome demonstrates that the cell’s biochemical machinery (proteins, DNA, RNA, and oligosaccharides) is information-based and, therefore, stems from an Intelligent Designer. In eukaryotes (protozoans, fungi, plants, and animals) a single gene can specify not one but several different proteins. This is achieved through alternative splicing of messenger RNA. (During the process of protein production the cell’s machinery copies the information contained in DNA in the form of messenger RNA. The cell’s machinery, in turn, uses the information delineated in messenger RNA to produce proteins.) After copying messenger RNA, the cell’s machinery excises parts of the molecule and splices the remaining pieces together. Alternative splicing yields messenger RNA molecules with different information content that can be used to direct the production of different proteins. Messenger RNA splicing patterns play a key role in gene expression and vary from cell to cell and tissue to tissue. As researchers studied the mouse genome, they learned that the number of genes involved in alternative splicing is much greater than once thought. This elegant, information-rich biochemical system points to the source of life’s information¾the Creator described in the Bible.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, September 19, 2005
Early Stars Support Biblical Creation Model

  • Recent results by Japanese astronomers confirm a critical step in the biblically predicted big bang creation model and provide additional evidence for a supernatural creator preparing a life-supporting universe. The elements necessary for life (C, N, O, etc) are produced in the interior of stars and distributed throughout galaxies when those stars explode. The very first stars contained only hydrogen and helium and, as a result, were very massive and burned out in a few million years or less. However, the heavier elements produced from these stars seeded subsequent, longer lived stars leading to the formation of our sun. The model of the Japanese astronomers demonstrates that some of these earliest second generation stars have been found and that these stars indeed were forming at the same time that ashes from the very first and largest stars were being exploded into the interstellar medium. These results bolster confidence that a super-caring, supernatural Creator started and sustains the universe.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, September 18, 2005
Biochemical Design: Dynamic Fine-Tuning of Cell Membranes

  • A new study supports the emerging paradigm that the cell membrane displays remarkable complexity and organization that hinges on the fine-tuning of its molecular composition. Biochemists have traditionally regarded the cell membrane to be a chaotic system that lacked order beyond the phospholipids bilayer structure. However, researchers from France have demonstrated that the photosynthetic membranes of bacteria dynamically alter their composition and molecular architecture in response to high- and low-light conditions in such a way to ensure efficient harvesting of light energy in a low-light environment and to prevent photo-damage in high light. Such dynamic organization of the cell membrane is an indicator of intelligent design.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, September 17, 2005
Snowball Glaciation Shows Earth’s Design

  • British geologists have uncovered more evidence that supports the supernatural design of Earth. Detailed study of rocks in Oman confirmed that glacial activity between 500 million and 1 billion years ago extended nearly to the equator. While these near whole-earth glaciation events (commonly known as "snowball earths") are probably critical to prepare Earth for complex life, it is amazing that Earth has experienced them without any runaway glaciation or greenhouse effects. Earth’s two nearest neighbors, Mars and Venus, have not been so fortunate. Once again, the latest research provides more evidence that a supernatural, super-caring Creator is responsible for the place humans call home.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, September 16, 2005
The Conundrum of the Cambrian Explosion

  • Recent work undermines the attempts of evolutionary biologists to avoid the consequences of one of the most powerful pieces of evidence for a Creator’s direct involvement in life’s history. Approximately 540 million years ago, the fossil record shows a dramatic event. Over the course of only 2 to 5 million years, somewhere between 50% and 80% of all animal phyla ever to exist on Earth appeared explosively. The Cambrian explosion, also known as "Biology’s Big Bang" defies a naturalistic evolutionary explanation. Some evolutionary biologists have argued that the Ediacaran fauna, a highly enigmatic collection of fossils that date between 570 and 540 million years ago, represent evolutionary precursors to the animals that appear in the Cambrian explosion. Analysis of the new Ediacaran fossils from China makes this view less probable. A team of Chinese paleontologists demonstrated that these newly discovered fossils are vendobionts, a group of complex organisms that are neither animals nor plants. As such they have no evolutionary connection to the Cambrian fauna. While the Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle for evolutionary models, this remarkable event fully squares with RTB’s biblical creation model.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, September 15, 2005
Modern Subduction Tectonics Started Recently on Earth

  • A University of Texas at Dallas geophysicist has gained understanding about Earth’s tectonic history that also provides evidence for the supernatural design of Earth. Before Earth can have an atmosphere with significant oxygen (which advanced life needs), there must be photosynthetic life capable of producing enough oxygen, and all of Earth’s oxygen sinks must be filled. While photosynthetic bacteria have thrived in the ocean for billions of years, the largest sinks-crustal and mantle rock-are exposed to surface oxygen through tectonic activity that cannot start until Earth cools sufficiently. Robert Stern at UT Dallas finds evidence that this modern episode of subduction tectonic activity started on Earth less than 1 billion years ago. Previous research shows that the oxygen sinks were filled by 540 million years ago-right before the Cambrian explosion (when more than 70 complex animal phyla appeared "explosively"). These results testify of a supernatural, superintelligent Creator preparing a fit habitat and then introducing the most complex life suited to that habitat.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Solar Crossings of the Spiral Arms

  • Georgia State University astronomers have gained understanding about Earth’s ice ages that also provides evidence for the supernatural design of the solar system and the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG). The fine-tuned structure of the MWG and the precise placement of the solar system within the Galaxy means that the solar system makes as few crossings of the Galaxy’s spiral arms as possible throughout its history. Using a detailed model for the dynamics of both the solar system and the MWG, the Georgia State team showed that Earth went through a long-duration ice age at each of the last four crossings of a spiral arm. They attribute these cold epochs to a much higher flux of cosmic rays, which would have led to an increased cloud cover. Cosmic ray and ultraviolet radiation from the spiral arm also would have damaged Earth’s ozone shield and resulted in much more deadly radiation reaching Earth’s surface. Consequently, the timing of the introductions of advanced species and of human beings in particular would need to be fine-tuned. Such fine-tunings testify of a supernatural, superintelligent Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Scientific Support for Genesis 3:17-20

  • New research into the extinction of the Australian fauna between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago makes sense in light of Genesis 3:17-20. This passage teaches that the earth is cursed because of humanity’s sin. It seems self-evident that human behavior has caused widespread ecological disaster. This study describes another historical example. Researchers conclude that when the first humans occupied Australia, they caused wide-scale extinctions of animals. These humans apparently fired the landscape, which converted trees, shrubs, and grasslands into desert scrub. This rapid and destructive transformation of the landscape drove many animal species to extinction. While such behavior provided no evolutionary advantage, the Bible provides a powerful explanatory framework that accounts for humanity’s impact on planet Earth.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, September 12, 2005
Creation Date Measure Based on U/Th Ratio

  • An astronomer at the University of Chicago has developed a new, more precise method for dating the cosmic creation event. This radiometric method also buttresses the biblical cosmic creation model by showing that all cosmic dating methods consistently produce the same cosmic creation date. The big uncertainty in the radiometric date for the birth of the universe had been the amount of uranium (U) and thorium (Th) produced by supernovae. The astronomer used measurements of the U/Th ratios in meteorites and in low-metallicity stars and population statistics of low-metallicity stars to precisely determine the U/Th ratio produced by supernovae. Armed with this data, he calculated that the cosmic creation date = 14.7±2.5 billion years, a date that is consistent with the 13.7 billion years derived from the WMAP, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and models of stellar burning. Moreover, his new method will soon yield radiometric dates for the cosmic creation event as good as or better than the other cosmic dating measuring tools. His research also shows that the solar system formed at the moment of maximal uranium and thorium cosmic abundance, a critical feature for the existence of advanced life.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, September 11, 2005
Complexity of Simplest Cold-Temperature Life

  • The first completed genome of a microbe (psychrophile) that thrives at low temperatures exposes problems for cold-temperature origin-of-life scenarios. The discovery of microbes that exist under the frigid temperatures of Antarctica indicates to some origin-of-life researchers that life can originate through natural means at extremely low temperatures. This possibility has motivated the search for life on the icy world of Europa, one of Jupiter’s satellites. Other origin-of-life researchers think that early Earth was a frozen world and that Earth’s life originated under cold temperatures. This study gives some insight into the requirements for a low-temperature origin of life by measuring the complexity of a representative psychrophilic microbe. Researchers studied Colwellia psychrerythraea and discovered that approximately 4,937 genes make up its genome. While this is not likely to be the minimum psychrophilic genome size, it does give some sense of the extensive complexity of psychrophiles. The apparent metabolic complexity of the simplest cold-temperature life forms makes a naturalistic explanation for life’s origin unlikely.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, September 10, 2005
New Tool for Measuring Cosmic Design

  • A team of Japanese and Korean astronomers has established a new and independent method for confirming the biblically predicted big bang creation model and several of the cosmic features that give evidence for supernatural design. They discovered water masers (which amplify radio waves) operating on five Mira-type (large, cool-burning) pulsating variable stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Their measurements on one of the masers produced the first accurate trigonometric parallax distance measurement to a Mira-type star. The completion of such accurate trigonometric parallax measurements on the other four Mira-type stars will give astronomers another independent yardstick for determining the size, age, and expansion rates of the universe. This breakthrough will yield independent means for demonstrating the supernatural nature of the cosmic density parameters and of the quantities and distributions of the different types of matter.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, September 9, 2005
Junk DNA Explains Complexity of Organisms

  • Another recent study has identified function for "junk DNA." Evolutionary biologists maintain that because junk (or noncoding) DNA is an imperfection, it provides incontrovertible evidence for evolution. They reason that if a Creator were involved, he would not create useless material. It turns out that so-called junk DNA plays an important role in determining the complexity of organisms through its gene regulatory activity. The functional importance of junk DNA indicates that careful planning by an Intelligent Designer, rather than undirected, random biochemical events, shaped the genomes of organisms.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, September 8, 2005
Iron-60 Heat Source for Interior Differentiation

  • Researchers have discovered more evidence for how the input of metals from a particular supernova eruption has benefited advanced life on Earth. The team of German astrochemists and American oceanographers found an unusually high abundance of nickel-60 for a sample of chondritic meteorites. Such an excess is attributable to the radiometric decay of iron-60. This high abundance of iron-60 for the primordial solar system implies that the solar system formed at the same time and in the same vicinity as the eruption of a Type II supernova. Such a well-timed and well-placed Type II supernova eruption would have injected many advanced-life-critical elements into the solar system-not too many to prove poisonous and not too few to prove a nutrient lack. The injection of the just-right amount of iron-60 also would have provided the interior of the newly formed Earth with the necessary heat to differentiate it into the types of layers that are critical for the long-term support of the plate tectonics and magnetic field that advanced life requires. The degree of fine-tuning in the location, timing, and intensity of the Type II supernova eruption to make advanced life possible on Earth by itself argues for a supernatural, superintelligent Creator. The fact that no iron-60 (half-life = 1.5 million years) can be found today either in the Earth or in meteorites provides yet another argument against young-earth creationism.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Biochemical Design: Organization of Simplest Life

  • Only a decade ago, microbiologists viewed bacteria as "containers" of haphazardly arranged molecules. Recent advances indicate that this view is incorrect. Microbiologists now understand that these simplest of life forms possess a remarkable degree of internal organization at the molecular level. New research expands upon this new paradigm by characterizing the spatial location of the proteins used to assemble the type IV secretion apparatus of Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This protein plays a critical role in the transfer of bacterial macromolecules into other bacteria and the cells of humans, animals, and plants. Such internal organization of the simplest life forms serves as a marker for biochemical design and is expected if a Creator is responsible for life.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, September 6, 2005
Faintest Known Dwarf Galaxy

  • A large international team of astronomers has discovered a new type of galaxy that appears to establish greater consistency for the biblically predicted big bang creation model. The team found a galaxy that is several times fainter than the faintest known dwarf galaxy. Their discovery is good news for the most popular of the hot big bang creation models, namely a universe where the dominant matter component is cold dark matter. For this model, dwarf galaxies are the primary building blocks of large galaxies and the model predicts that astronomers should see about ten times as many dwarf galaxies as they do. The team’s discovery may resolve the problem. It seems that astronomers have failed to search for dwarf galaxies at faint enough magnitudes. Thus, future searches to such faint levels and beyond could resolve the anomaly of not enough dwarf galaxies for the cold dark matter cosmic model.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, September 5, 2005
Adult Stem Cells Offer A Hopeful Alternative to ESCs

  • Even though embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) holds promise to treat several debilitating diseases and injuries, many people are troubled by ESCR because it involves the destruction of human embryos. Recent advances, however, strongly indicate that adult stem cells are an ethically acceptable alternative to ESCR. New research using pigs demonstrates that mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow restore cardiac function and reduce scar tissue formation when injected into the heart after a myocardial infarction (heart attack). Since these stem cells are derived from adult, not embryonic, tissue, this therapy can be successfully administered without destruction of human embryos. By considering more than one approach, scientific advance provides the way out of the ethical dilemma created by emerging biotechnologies.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, September 4, 2005
Rarity and Design of Late Heavy Bombardment

  • A team of American astronomers has found more evidence that points to the supernatural design of the late heavy bombardment (LHB) of Earth by asteroids. The LHB refers to the time (3.9 to 3.8 billion years ago) during which the inner solar system bodies were subjected to many asteroid and comet impacts. After much searching, they found a star, BD+20 307, with warm silicate dust orbiting it. Warm silicate dust is a signature for abundant, intense collisions between asteroids and/or planetesimals (small solar system bodies). The age of the star system, 300 million years, means that the collisions have taken place relatively late in the history of the system. That the team found only one star, young or old, within 300 light years possessing warm silicate dust implies that events like the LHB are quite rare. Also, the LHB of the BD+20 307 system is far more intense than the LHB of the solar system. This discovery confirms that bombardments of the intensity and timing necessary to transform a planet into a state suitable for the support of advanced life must be so rare as to demand the input of a supernatural, superintelligent Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, September 3, 2005
The Homochirality Problem and the Origin of Life

  • Researchers have closed the vent on a possible evolutionary explanation for the origin of life. One of the necessary steps in the evolutionary origin-of-life scenario is the emergence of homochirality (same "handedness") in amino acids and sugars. Researchers have been unable to identify any chemical or physical mechanism that can produce 100% chiral enrichment (or same handedness, which is required for life). Random chiral molecules are 50% left-handed and 50% right-handed. In this study, researchers from Japan demonstrate that under hydrothermal vent conditions (considered by some scientists to be the location for life’s origin) a 100% chiral excess of amino acids was readily lost. Even though relatively high amino acid concentrations and the presence of metal ions, like Zn2+, prevented a total loss of chiral excess, strict homochirality could not be maintained under hydrothermal vent conditions. To date, all attempts to explain the origin of homochirality have failed. If this necessary chemical property of life cannot be accounted for by natural processes, then evolutionary explanations for the origin of life cannot be valid.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, September 2, 2005
A SuperiorYardstick for Testing Cosmic Creation

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, September 1, 2005
Biblical Account of Humanity’s Origin Confirmed

  • New DNA evidence confirms RTB’s biblical creation model for human origins. Researchers examined ancient DNA recovered from human remains dated to greater than 10,300 years ago and found on Prince of Wales Island (southeast Alaska). Their research provides new insights into the primeval migrational pattern of humanity. The first humans in America originated in Asia, then crossed the Bering Strait and migrated 1) along the Pacific coast; 2) southwardly through Central America; and 3) southeastwardly into the Midwestern region of North America. Previous genetic studies of DNA taken from representatives of different population groups had demonstrated that 1) humanity had a recent origin from a single location; 2) humanity’s original population size was small and that all of humanity traces back to a single woman, called mitochondrial Eve, and a single man, called Y-chromosomal Adam; and 3) humanity expanded from near the Middle East to populate the globe. As anthropologists study human genetic variation, all evidence to date fits the biblical description of human origins.
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