Today's New Reason To Believe Archives

June 2005

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, June 30, 2005
Design of Opacity in Spiral Galaxy Disks

  • An international team of astronomers has developed additional confirmation for an important design feature for the Milky Way Galaxy. The team demonstrated that dust extinction in the galaxy’s disk is correlated with the type, mass, and age of the galaxy. The degree of dust extinction is one factor determining what kinds of stars and planets will form and, of course, freedom from dust extinction is critical for observers to gain an unobstructed view of the galaxy and the universe. The team’s research shows that for the solar system to possibly support life it must form in a galaxy with the just-right dust extinction characteristics and the solar system must form in a just-right high-dust-extinction region of that just-right galaxy. For advanced life to be possible and to gain a clear cosmic view, the solar system must be quickly ejected from a high-dust-extinction region to an extremely low-dust-extinction region. All this just-right fine-tuning testifies of a superintelligent, supernatural Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Chemical Problems for the Origin of Life

  • New research highlights one of the myriad problems that face evolutionary origin-of-life scenarios. One of the most important evolutionary explanations for life’s start posits that RNA molecules, which possessed both information storage capacity and catalytic properties, preceded the DNA-and-protein world of contemporary biochemistry. This so-called "RNA World" hypothesis rescues the evolutionary paradigm from the chicken-and-egg paradox that naturally arises because of the interdependence of DNA and proteins. For the RNA World model to have merit, origin-of-life researchers need to demonstrate that RNA’s components can be produced under conditions applicable to early Earth. For RNA molecules to be produced, a chemical pathway to attach phosphate groups to the sugar ribose must operate under the conditions of the primordial Earth. New research demonstrates that no such pathway appears to exist. As origin-of-life researcher Leslie Orgel has stated, "It would be a miracle if a strand of RNA ever appeared on the early Earth."
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Lunar Mass Design

  • A mathematician and an astrophysicist at Princeton University have found more evidence for the supernatural design of the Moon for the benefit of advanced life. Their analysis greatly strengthens the plausibility of the Mars-sized impactor that led to the formation of the Moon. Theoreticians have been in agreement that a Mars-sized planet colliding with Earth early in its history is the only way that the Moon (with all of its life-supporting features) could form. However, they were mystified by how a Mars-sized planet could form in a manner that would permit it to make a low-velocity, relatively low-angle collision with Earth. The Princeton team demonstrated that such a planet indeed could form at one of the "Lagrange" points in Earth’s orbit and then slowly drift toward Earth as it interacts with remaining planetesimals in the solar system’s disk. In showing that such a planet could possibly form, the team also demonstrated that both the planet’s formation and its collision with Earth had to be fine-tuned to produce a Moon with all the features necessary to make advanced life on Earth possible.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, June 27, 2005
Biblical Account of Humanity’s Origin Confirmed

  • Genetic studies to date of DNA taken from representatives of different population groups demonstrate that humanity had a recent origin from a single location. These studies also indicate that 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. Genetic data also affirms that humanity expanded from near the Middle East to populate the globe. These insights square with the biblical account of humanity’s origin. New research examines the genetic variation of Asian and Australasian people groups and confirms the primeval migrational pattern of humanity from near the Middle East into Asia and Australia. This new work shows rapid human migration along the southern coast of the Middle East through India and other parts of Asia. As anthropologists study human genetic variation, the biblical description of human origins continues to gain support.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, June 26, 2005
Baryon Fraction in Galaxy Clusters

  • New computer simulations performed by Chinese astrophysicists have solved a long-standing anomaly in the biblically predicted big bang creation model. X-ray measurements had shown that the fraction of baryons (protons and neutrons) in galaxy clusters is slightly less than what would be predicted from the synthesis of baryons in the big bang creation event. The team’s computer simulations establish that about 3% of the cosmic baryons produced in the big bang creation event would remain "hidden," that is, undetectable by x-ray observations, at distances corresponding to the state of the universe 11 billion years ago. About 14% would remain hidden for nearby distances that correspond to the present age of the universe. Adding the hidden amounts of baryons to the observed amounts is adequate to resolve the anomaly. This resolution vindicates the biblical cosmic model while striking a blow at many atheistic and young-earth models.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, June 25, 2005
Biochemists Discover Paley’s Watch

  • In the early nineteenth century, British natural theologian William Paley advanced the well-known watchmaker argument for God’s existence: Just as a watch requires a watchmaker, so life requires a Creator. Although Paley’s analogy has suffered criticism for nearly two centuries, a biochemist from Yale University has just discovered "Paley’s watch" in cyanobacteria. The biochemical systems of these microbes display periodic behavior linked to the day-night cycle. This so-called "circadian oscillation" is regulated by a rotary device composed of proteins that literally functions as a clock. This actual biochemical watch renders the philosophical criticisms leveled at Paley’s watchmaker argument irrelevant. The cyanobacterial rotary clock logically compels the existence of a Divine Watchmaker.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, June 24, 2005
Resolving Nickel Overproduction Anomaly

  • New measurements by Japanese nuclear physicists have solved a long-standing anomaly in the biblically predicted big bang creation model. For the last few decades, astronomers have noted an overabundance of nickel-62 in the universe compared to what the synthesis of heavy elements in the furnaces of massive stars would predict for a big bang universe that has been expanding for about 14 billion years. The team demonstrated that previous neutron cross-section measurements (a measure of how big a target area nickel-62 presents to free-moving neutrons) of nickel-62 were incorrect. Their measurements established that the cross section instead was three times larger. When this corrected value is used, the nickel-62 anomaly in big bang cosmology disappears. This resolution vindicates the biblical cosmic model while striking a blow at many atheistic and young-earth models.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, June 23, 2005
Leprosy Research Confirms Biblical Account of Human Origins

  • A new study tracking a human parasite provides evidence for RTB’s biblical creation model for human origins. Because of the intimate association between disease-causing bacteria and their hosts, leprosy serves as a proxy for primeval human history. Researchers have examined the genetic variation of the bacterium that causes leprosy, and found that the variation confirms earlier genetic studies on humanity’s origin and spread around the world. The earlier genetic studies of DNA taken from representatives of different population groups demonstrate several criteria: 1) humanity had a recent origin from a single location; 2) humanity’s original population size was small and 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. These insights square with the biblical account of humanity’s origin.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Formation Environment for the Solar System

  • Geophysicists from the University of California at Los Angeleshave uncovered more evidence confirming an important design feature of the solar system. They have found that the oxygen isotope anomaly in meteorites arises from carbon monoxide photodissociation. Such photodissociation implies that the solar system was blasted with intense far ultraviolet radiation at the time the planets were forming. Such far uv light typically truncates the outer part of the planetary disk and, thus, offers a good explanation for why astronomers have yet to discover gas giant planets orbiting their stars more distantly than do the solar system’s gas giants. Photo-erosion from such light would also increase the concentration of heavy elements in the planetary disk, which would help explain Earth’s exceptionally high abundance of heavy elements. However, to get a planetary system with both an extremely heavy-element-rich planet and a suite of distantly orbiting gas giant planets (both are required for life to be possible) demands extraordinary fine tuning in either the formation process of the gas giants, the heavy-element-rich planet, or both. These conclusions imply that the solar system features are so rare as to suggest supernatural design.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Biochemical Design: Helicase Motors

  • Greater understanding of the function of yet another molecular motor has strengthened the case for a divine Designer. Biochemists have learned more about DNA helicases, enzyme motors that move along the DNA double helix and unwind it during DNA replication. One such helicase motor, part of the T7 bacteriophage, must work in conjunction with another enzyme, T7 DNA polymerase, in order to efficiently unwind the DNA double helix. The elegant design and machine-like characteristics of these molecular motors suggest the work of a divine "Motor Maker."
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, June 20, 2005
More Evidence for an Early Origin of Life

  • Pennsylvania State University geoscientists have found more evidence confirming that life’s origin on Earth was a supernatural event. Some researchers had claimed that the recently discovered early date (prior to 3.7 billion years ago) for uranium mobility in Earth’s crust necessarily established the widespread existence at that time of oxygenic photosynthetic life. In disputing the claim, the geoscientists pointed out that the implied high levels of oxygen production possibly could be explained by anaerobic (nonoxygenic) bacteria breaking down seawater into hydrogen and oxygen. However, the replacement of oxygenic photosynthetic bacteria with anaerobic bacteria at that time still means that the first life on Earth was complex and that it appeared on Earth in a geological instant. Such a rapid origin of complex life without benefit of a prebiotic soup defies any possible naturalistic explanation.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, June 19, 2005
Biochemical Design: Electrical Motors

  • Twenty-first-century science continues to validate William Paley’s nineteenth-century watchmaker argument for design. Biochemists have discovered two more molecular-level machines that bear a striking resemblance to man-made machines. F1-F0 and V1-V0 Na+ ATPase enzymes function as literal rotary motors, each with a rotor, stator, drive shaft, cam shaft, and turbine. Remarkably, these motors rotate in response to the flow of electrical current through the cell membrane, making the Na+ ATPase enzymes electrical rotary motors. These studies add new insight into the structure and mechanical operation of these motors’ operation. As biochemical systems display such elegant design and machine-like behavior, science once again affirms Paley’s "a watch requires a watchmaker" argument.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, June 18, 2005
Earth’s Earliest Life

  • University of Colorado geologists have found more evidence confirming that life’s origin on Earth was a supernatural event. They performed extensive geological studies of Earth’s oldest rocks located in southwestern Greenland. Their results demonstrate that evidence for life’s remains in those rocks is not limited to the disputed Akilia Island rocks but is indeed ubiquitous in all the supracrustal outcrops throughout the Qilangarssuit region and the adjoining islands. Since all these rocks measure older than 3.7 billion years and since the late heavy bombardment (when Earth sustained numerous life-inhibiting extraterrestrial impacts) did not end until 3.8 billion years ago, the origin of life on Earth must have occurred in a geological instant. Such a rapid origin of life without benefit of a prebiotic soup defies any possible naturalistic explanation.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, June 17, 2005
No Neanderthal-Human Genetic Link

  • A new study of Neanderthal DNA confirms RTB’s creation model for human origins. Researchers compared mitochondrial DNA sequences and demonstrated once again that Neanderthals and ancient modern humans were genetically (and hence, evolutionarily) distinct. RTB’s model regards Neanderthals and other extinct hominids found in the fossil record as nonhuman primates that lacked spiritual capacity. As scientific evidence continues to distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals and other hominids (Homo erectus, Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo rhodesensis), RTB’s explanation for the hominid fossil record passes another test.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, June 16, 2005
Biological Modification of Earth’s Reflectivity

  • A University of Arizona astronomer has found more evidence establishing the supernatural design of Earth for advanced life. He noted that Earth manifests an albedo (reflectivity) that is very unlike the albedos of the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The amount of light Earth reflects to space and especially the spectrum of that reflected light are distinct. The astronomer concludes that the most likely explanation for Earth’s unique albedo is the widespread vegetation on Earth’s surface. Since both light parameters must be exquisitely fine-tuned so that life can exist globally and abundantly on Earth’s surface, such fine-tuning implies that life itself must be finely tuned in terms of its type, its quantity, its timing, and its geographical distribution. Only a supernatural, superintelligent Creator could place just-right life forms in just-right quantities in just-right locations at just-right times so that Earth’s albedo always has just-right properties to provide the best possible environment for all life.
    • Neville J. Woolf, "What Is an Earth-Like Planet?" Abstract # 926, Abstracts of the Biennial Meeting of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, April 10-14, 2005, Astrobiology 5 (2005): 186-87.
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    • Journey Toward Creation, 2nd ed., by Hugh Ross (DVD)

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Biochemical Design: Myosin Motor

  • Scientific advance continues to uncover the work of a divine "Motor Maker." Biochemists have discovered yet another example of a molecular-level machine-myosin, a linear motor replete with a lever arm. Researchers provide new understanding about the mechanistic operation of the myosin motor, including its elegant design and stark resemblance to man-made motors. As scientists learn more about these biomolecular machines, their work points to the activity of a Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, June 14, 2005
New Design Features in Planetary Formation

  • A team of astronomers at the University of Colorado has found more evidence for the design of the solar system. They noted that 90% or more of all stars form in dense star clusters. Thus, during the planetary formation stage they are likely to be exposed to intense ultraviolet light from nearby giant stars. Such uv light typically truncates the outer part of the planetary disk, making it unlikely for planets to form there. This result helps explain why astronomers have yet to discover gas giant planets orbiting their stars more distantly than do the solar system’s gas giants. Photo-erosion from such light would also increase the concentration of heavy elements in the planetary disk, which would help explain Earth’s exceptionally high abundance of heavy elements. These conclusions imply that the solar system features (four distantly orbiting gas giants combined with an extremely heavy-element-rich Earth) are so rare as to suggest supernatural design.
    • John Bally, Nick Moeckel, and Henry Throop, "Planet Formation in OB Associations," Abstract # 743, Abstracts of the Biennial Meeting of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, April 10-14, 2005, Astrobiology 5 (2005): 186-87.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, June 13, 2005
More Human-Chimpanzee Genetic Differences

  • New research indicates that humans and chimpanzees possess numerous genes with meaningful differences in their DNA sequences. This study helps to counter the popular notion that because humans and chimpanzees share a 99% "genetic similarity," they must have evolved from a common ancestor. By analyzing DNA sequences, researchers have learned how genes play a role in sensory perception, immune defenses, tumor suppression, and spermatogenesis. From a biblical perspective, this data indicates that the Creator could have made humans and chimpanzees with the same types of genes, but altered the DNA sequence in humans to produce the significant biological differences between humans and chimpanzees.
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    • "Human/chimp DNA Comparisons," Creation Update (12-16-2003)

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, June 12, 2005
Design in Terrestrial Planet Formation

  • University of Maryland astronomers have found more evidence for the design of the solar system. Their work delineated the most realistic planetesimal (small, developing solar system body) collision model to date. They discovered that the kinds and numbers of terrestrial planets that form around a star strongly depend on the initial conditions of the planetesimal disk (area of planetary formation). Thus the initial conditions of the planetesimal disk must be fine-tuned for life to be possible. This discovery provides further evidence that the terrestrial planet features that would permit life to thrive are so rare as to imply supernatural design.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, June 11, 2005
Intelligently Designed Origin of Life Scenario

  • New research designed to explain the origin of life through evolutionary means, ironically, demonstrates that life’s origin cannot occur apart from the input of an intelligent agent. One explanation for the origin of life posits that RNA molecules, which possessed both information storage capacity and catalytic properties, preceded the DNA and protein world of contemporary biochemistry. This so-called RNA World hypothesis rescues the evolutionary paradigm from the chicken and egg paradox that naturally arises because of the interdependence of DNA and proteins. For the RNA World model to have merit, origin-of-life researchers need to demonstrate that RNA’s components can be produced under conditions applicable to early Earth. New research demonstrates that ribose, a molecular component of RNA, preferentially dissolves through the membranes of vesicles (models for proto-cells) composed of phospholipids and fatty acids. However, neither the phospholipids nor the fatty acid vesicles form spontaneously. Rather, their production requires extensive researcher intervention. Moreover, these vesicles are only stable for a few days, at most. In this experimental setup, the hand of the researcher might as well be the hand of God.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, June 10, 2005
Design of Infall Velocity of Galaxy onto Groups

  • A team of South American and American astronomers has uncovered a new design feature for the Milky Way Galaxy. Their study of the two most extensive surveys of nearby galaxies showed that all nearby galaxies exhibit an infall velocity (the velocity with which an object falls toward the center of a region of gravitational influence) toward the center of the nearest group of galaxies and/or the nearest cluster of galaxies. This velocity correlates with both the mass and luminosity of the group or cluster of galaxies. Compared to other nearby galaxies, the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) has an exceptionally low infall velocity. Without such a low infall velocity, the MWG would have suffered gravitational distortions, which would have made the long-term survival of life on Earth impossible. Consequently, the existence of advanced life on Earth demands yet another fine-tuned characteristic of the MWG, namely its infall velocity. The accumulation of such galactic fine-tuned characteristics provides increasing evidence for a supernatural Creator.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, June 9, 2005
Biochemical Design: Ratchets and Gears

  • Discovery of the cooperation of two tiny molecular motors in cellular processes provides big implications for design. Kinesin, which operates as a Brownian ratchet and dynein, which possesses molecular "gears" work in conjunction to move cellular cargo, like organelles, along a network of microtubule "tracks" distributed throughout the cell. Dynein and kinesin transport their cargo in opposite directions along the microtubule filaments. Until recently, biochemists thought that these two motors engaged in a tug of war, fighting with one another to control the movement of the cellular cargo. New research indicates that these two molecular motors cooperate to ensure that organelles are properly delivered to the desired cellular location. The elegant design and machine-like behavior of dynein and kinesin indicates that these biomolecular machines are the work of a divine "Motor Maker."
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, June 8, 2005
Did Life Have Multiple Origins?

  • Australia’s most famous astrobiologists, in trying to circumvent a supernatural explanation for life’s origin, in fact provide more evidence for it. Paul Davies and Charles Lineweaver note the strong evidence that life arose in a geological instant without the benefit of primordial soup 3.8 billion years ago, and conclude that life must naturally arise easily. Thus, they suggest that multiple independent origins of life must have occurred during Earth’s history and could conceivably occur in the present. Believing that life starts naturally from nonlife many times over, they predict that mounting data on life’s history will show multiple "trees" rather than the single "tree of life" with multiple branches sprouting from a single trunk that is the foundation of current Darwinian evolutionary models. However, Davies and Lineweaver’s hypothesis critically depends on easy, efficient, ubiquitous chemical pathways for inorganic chemicals to transform naturally into complex biological molecules that self-organize into cells. Chemical research increasingly proves that such chemical pathways are extraordinarily difficult, extremely inefficient, and nonexistent in the natural realm. Such factors point instead to supernaturalism.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Biochemical Design: Molecular Fine-Tuning

  • New research in biochemistry illustrates the molecular fine-tuning, and consequently the design, of biochemical systems. Scientists have discovered a correlation between the onset of diseases called mitochondrial encephalomyopathies and structural defects in mitochondrial transfer RNA molecules. They have demonstrated that the failure of the mitochondria’s biochemical machinery to modify just one of the transfer RNA bases in the so-called wobble position (which plays a central role in protein synthesis) has catastrophic consequences. This discovery highlights the precision of transfer RNA and messenger RNA at the ribosome during protein synthesis. Such fine-tuning signifies that life originated from the Creator’s hand.
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    • "Fine-Tuning of Aquaporin Membrane", Creation Update (6-04-2002)
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Monday, June 6, 2005
Gamma Ray Burst Mass Extinction Event

  • A team of American astronomers led by RTB constituent Brian Thomas has found more evidence supporting supernatural creation. They performed the first detailed calculation of the effects of a gamma-ray burst (GRB) about 6,500 light years away upon the atmosphere and surface of Earth. Their analysis shows that such a burst will triple the intensity of hard ultraviolet radiation at Earth’s surface, leading to widespread extinctions. The statistics of GRBs indicate that such an event will occur at least once every billion years in the current era and even more frequently during Earth’s early history. Specifically, the team shows that the late Ordovician mass extinction (~440 million years ago) may have been caused by a GRB. The daunting challenge for naturalistic evolution models is to explain the rapid mass speciation (life-replenishing) events that always follow mass extinction events. This "challenge" is well explained by a biblical creation model where God’s re-creations of life efficiently prepare the planet for humans and human civilization.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Sunday, June 5, 2005
Human-Chimpanzee Genetic Differences

  • Although it is often reported as evidence for evolution, the 99% "genetic similarity" between humans and chimpanzees merits further consideration. While a high degree of genetic similarity exists, genetic expression accounts for marked differences between the species. New research indicates that humans and chimpanzees have recombination hot spots (sites where new combinations of genes originate) at different locations in their genomes. This means that the dynamic characteristics of the human and chimpanzee genomes differ. From a biblical perspective, this data could be understood to indicate that the Creator made the human genome with different properties than the chimpanzee genome. This genetic difference may well play a role in establishing the significant biological differences between humans and chimpanzees.
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    • "Human/chimp DNA Comparisons," Creation Update (12-16-2003)

Today’s New Reason To Believe-Saturday, June 4, 2005
Abundance of Early Photosynthetic Life

  • Pennsylvania State University astrobiologists have developed more evidence that supports the claim that Earth’s first life forms were supernaturally created. Specifically, they discovered that the hematite (oxidized iron ore) in the world’s oldest hematite deposit (the Towers Formation in Western Australia at 3.46 billion years old) was formed as a result of early deep-sea oxidation. Such oxidation implies a fully oxygenated atmosphere at 3.46 billion years ago. This means that photosynthetic life must have been present and abundant at life’s origin 3.8 billion years ago, with that abundance sustained up until 3.46 billion years ago. Even the simplest photosynthetic life is extraordinarily complex. The origin of such extreme complexity from nonlife poses an insurmountable challenge to naturalistic evolution but is perfectly compatible with RTB’s biblical creation model.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Friday, June 3, 2005
Toumai Man Still Offers Evolutionists No Hope

  • Two new studies confirm the identity of the hominid, Toumai Man. This confirmation creates problems for the human evolutionary model. In July 2002 Nature magazine reported that the skull and jawbone of a newly recognized hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis (nicknamed Toumai Man), was recovered in Chad. The discovery created a litany of problems for human evolution, including: 1) Toumai Man was discovered in the wrong geographical area (central Africa, not south or east Africa) and the wrong time (6 to 7 million years ago, not 5 to 6 million years ago as predicted by the evolutionary model); 2) Toumai Man walked erect, meaning that bipedalism appeared suddenly with the first appearance of hominids; 3) Toumai man lived in a woodland environment, indicating that bipedalism emerged without any evolutionary driving force; and 4) the discovery of Toumai Man shows that a diversity of hominids appeared explosively at the base of the hominid fossil record. To avoid these problems some anthropologists suggested that Toumai Man was not a hominid, but a gorilla-like ape. Two new studies refute this view. New fossil specimens and a virtual reconstruction of Toumai Man’s skull indicate that it was a true hominid. With Toumai Man’s identity secured, the problems this hominid creates for human evolution are unavoidable.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Thursday, June 2, 2005
Supernova Remnant Test for Creation Models

  • New measurements by astronomers provide yet another refutation of a recent prediction made by young-earth creationists while confirming a contravening prediction made by old-earth creationists. The young-earth prediction states that astronomical evidence for highly dispersed supernova remnants will prove false and that astronomers will fail to uncover any more evidence for widely dispersed supernova remnants. Such supernova remnants have been difficult to detect because of background noise, but thanks to new measuring techniques several have been detected in the past two years in the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds. Now, new measurements made by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory establish that supernova remnant B0049-73.6 in the Small Magellanic Cloud has a dispersal diameter that equates to an age = 14,000 years. While not nearly as long a dispersal time as for several remnants found in the Milky Way Galaxy and for many other remnants in both Magellanic Clouds, this new measurement helps determine which creation model is correct.
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Today’s New Reason To Believe-Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Challenge to Biological Evolution: Convergence

  • More evidence for convergence in unrelated species provides ongoing problems for the evolutionary paradigm. With chance governing the process, evolution should not produce the same outcome repeatedly. Yet that is precisely what occurs in biological convergence, where nearly identical anatomical and physiological traits show up in unrelated organisms. In this example, researchers describe the repeated, independent origin of dental and vertebral anatomy in the newly discovered Jurassic mammal, Fruitafossor windscheffeli, and also in modern aardvarks, armadillos, and anteaters. Each new instance of convergence (there are many) challenges the veracity of the theory of evolution, but affirms the idea of a Creator repeatedly using the same good designs as He brought life into existence.
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