Creation Guys Episode #004: “Intelligence, Bones and Chromosomes”
On May 10, 2008 in Feedback, Science Related, Uncategorized
It’s often said that Intelligent Design is simply “creationism repackaged” - is that true? After all, they both think we are the result of intelligence, don’t they? What about “vestigial bones” found within whales that, according to Creationists, never used to walk on land - doesn’t this completely debunk the “creation myth”? And what on Earth would a Creationist say if you showed them “undeniable biological evidence” clearly showing a “connection” between men and chimps?
Tune in to this episode to see how a couple of “anti-science bible-thumpers” hold up under direct scrutiny!
Creation Guys Episode #003: “Intellectual Honesty”
On May 02, 2008 in Atheism, In the News, Science Related
Unfortunately, many people involved feel it is acceptable to ridicule and demean the character of their colleagues over what their views regarding cosmogony and the origin and diversification of life are.
Richard Dawkins stated that “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” Statements like this are not honest, and are rather immature.
Join us in this episode as we cover Intellectual Honesty, and the current state of the Origins Debate.
Creation in Common Sense: “Super Senses”
On April 24, 2008 in Science Related
I had a spot in the discussion on Synesthesia in the latest episode of Creation in Common Sense.
I need to clarify something I said in this video. I described a test where people are shown two objects, one of which is very round and puffy, and the other consists primarily of jagged edges and sharp corners. I mentioned how people will generally guess that “kiki” describes the sharp-edged object. I stated that there does seem to be a “dormant ability” in most people, but that probably wasn’t the best choice of words. I do not think that people originally had the ability to taste colors, or smell sounds. I am not convinced that Adam and Eve were synesthetes, nor am I convinced that we will be synesthetes in Heaven. I do think that people subconsciously use combinations of senses often, but not to the scale of noted synesthetes.
To learn more about Daniel Tammet, check out his wikipedia page.
Link Summary
Creation Guys Episode #002: “Meet The TRUTH Group!”
On April 22, 2008 in In the News, Science Related, Uncategorized
Creation Guys Episode #002
In this episode, Jonathan Sampson sits down for a few minutes with Daniel Johnson (The TRUTH Group) to talk about his new DVD.
Subjects covered in this video include “What is the TRUTH Group?”, “Where do Dinosaurs fit into The Creation”, “Are Dinosaurs mentioned in the Bible?”, and “Were dinosaurs meat-eaters?”.
Post your video response from within the United States stating that you would “Like to ‘Reach Understanding Through Him About The Dinosaurs’” and get a free DVD.
First 10 responses qualify. Only YouTube qualifies.
To Learn more about Dan and his Ministry, visit the following pages:
www.thetruthgroup.com
www.youtube.com/theTRUTHgroup
www.myspace.com/planet316
Creation Guys Episode #001: “National Center for Stupid Excuses”
On April 17, 2008 in In the News, Uncategorized
Creation Guys Episode #001
This is our Pilot Episode of Creation Guys, hosted by Jonathan Sampson.
In our first episode we welcome Eric Hovind of GodQuest to discuss some of the latest controversy surrounding the Expelled (”No Intelligence Allowed”) movie coming out in theaters April 18, 2008.
Among our discussion we cover content found on digg, as well as silly statements made in Time Magazine.
Efforts of the National Center for Stupid Explanations (NCSE)
On April 16, 2008 in Atheism, In the News
Well, those idiots over at the NCSE in Berkeley are at it again. Seems like they’re pretty upset over all the attention Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is getting. If I’m not mistaken, their mascot Eugenie Scott was actually interviewed in the video showing how foolish her views are.
So what was Plan B for the NCSE? Make a ridiculous video, put it on the internets, and let the kiddies eat it up.
So I was on Digg yesterday and I came across a new video submission that was getting pretty popular pretty quickly, “Science Teacher Fired for Not Teaching Creationism.” I thought this title sounded awfully bizarre, considering the fact that NO TEACHER IN AMERICA is legally required to teach Creation. I mean, this isn’t 1925 is it? People get fired for refusing to teach Evolution today, not Creation.
So I watched the video. It singles a woman by the name of Chris Castillo-Comer, the ex Director of Science in Texas. She apparently feels like she was fired for “not remaining neutral over creationism.” So obviously she feels as though she’s been martyred for her commitment to Lord Darwin!
This still didn’t seem right to me, something else had to be at play in this. Once the video was over, It all made sense. The closing credits awarded all attention to the National Center for Science and Education - a small store-front building in Berkeley. Little presence, big name. By the way, my new name is King Jonathan the Greatness of All That Is Mighty and Awesome.
So I started doing a little more digging, and I finally came across the actual memorandum Comer’s Boss wrote requesting her termination. The memorandum, oddly enough, was hosted on NCSE’s server.
The memorandum states, “I [Monica Martinez through Sharon Jackson] propose to terminate the employment of Chris Castillo-Comer due to misconduct and insubordination. Ms. Comer has engaged in a series of incidents evidencing a serious lack of good judgment and failure to follow agency policies and supervisory directives.”
Whoa, wait a second, a “series of incidents” doesn’t seem to line-up with “Sniff, Sniff, I was fired, Sniff, for not loving Creationism.”
The Memorandum goes on to say, “As the Director of Science, Ms. Comer should understand that it is her job to explain law and rule regarding the science Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), but not cross the line into providing guidance or opinions about instructional methodology or any other matters about which we have no statutory authority.”
So this lady is in trouble for violating her contractual job description. Her job is to make sure TEKS adheres to what they are legally supposed to adhere to, but not to jump aside and promote/demote any type of ideology unless it conflicts with the relevant laws.
No we’re getting somewhere.
Continuing, “It is essential that Ms. Comer support the integrity of the upcoming TEKS development and revision process and ensure that it does not appear in any way that she is advocating for any given position or stance. Ms. Comer should be well aware of her role in the TEKS revision process and the need to maintain neutrality based on the guidance provided by agency management and division procedures as well as numerous meetings and discussions on this topic.”
So her job is to make sure the TEKS development adheres to the laws of Texas, and not her own personal agenda. Appears also that she had plenty of warning also about what she is to do, and not to do according to many meetings and discussions - she can’t plead ignorance…unless she’s just really ignorant.
If you read the Memorandum, you’ll see that it basically boils down to this. Comer isn’t allowed to do anything in her professional capacity that is:
A) Illegal, or contrary to her job description
B) Done without the prior approval of her agency/employer.
As I write this there are currently around 1,300 comments. And practically all of them resemble “bah, stupid creationists dummies! Science is fact and religion sucks.” Not a single one of these guys wanted to investigate a little further, or else they would have seen that the NCSE is full of crap, and this Ms. Comer is an idiot with an agenda.
What the heck is wrong with the world today? Why don’t people question their own beliefs, and investigate claims made by others? I mean, come on. Even if you’re a Christian, Muslim, or Jew investigate your own beliefs! If you’re an atheist or evolutionist, investigate your own beliefs!
I submit the solution to all of the world’s problems: seek truth, question everything, and don’t be lazy. If this model was enforced by every thinking mind on Earth, we would have far less comments on this digg-submission, and practically all would say “She was fired for insubordination and illegal activity. Not for ‘not teaching Creationism’.”
Link Summary
Sight to the Blind (Fish)
On February 04, 2008 in In the News, Science Related
Over the years, Evolutionists have offered example after example of poor-design in nature, and evidence that Creation is not really Creation, but merely the product of billions of years of trial-and-error.
One of the prides of Evolutionists have been Blind Cave fish. The story goes that a moderate population of fish swam down into a cave and got trapped. The fish might have often bumped their eyes on rocks, creating the opportunity for infection to rule, and kill them. Any mutation that halted, or completely did away with, the development of eyes would serve as a benefit in that environment, since no eyes could be bumped and torn in any way.
So in theory, millions of years passed, and the fish lost their eyes. They are still classified as the same species as their surface-dwelling kin. There’s absolutely no evidence that this transition took millions of years, but we are told to believe it anyway.
Eventually, the population switched from seeing-eyes, to visually-impaired. Or did it?
Today I strolled over to LiveScience where I found an article by the title “Blind Fish Still Able to ‘See’“. It’s a pretty interesting read, if anybody is bored. Basically, Scientists found that these fish were able to sense shadows (inadvertently demonstrating their ability to sense light). When a shadow passed over the top of the water, the fish instinctively swam up towards the surface.
Baffled by this, the Scientists began exploring the anatomy of the fish and found that they still contained their pineal gland. When this gland was removed from the fish, they failed to sense the shadows any longer. This gland is sensitive to light in amphibians and reptiles, but not in mammals - probably due to the fact that our skulls are thicker, and light couldn’t reach it anyway.
So the fish didn’t lose their sight altogether. The Scientists theorize that perhaps they retained the ability to sense light because caves are not always dark. But wasn’t it speculated that they lost their site because the caves were dark to begin with? Now they have it because the caves aren’t always dark? It could be that there wasn’t a large enough selective advantage to removing the pineal gland, and doing so may have been extremely detrimental seeing how melatonin (which is produced by the pineal gland) has possible ties to things like infertility, depression and cancer.
In another study by researchers at the University of Maryland, Scientists replaced the lenses of blind fish with their surface-dwelling kin. Eight days later the sightless-fish began developing eyes. The researchers go on to say, “After two months, the cave fish had grown a large restored eye with a distinct pupil, cornea and iris. In addition, the retina of the restored eye showed rod photoreceptor cells, which are rare in the degenerate cave fish eye.”
Dr. Carl Wieland of AnswersInGenesis concludes in ‘New eyes for blind cave fish?‘, “This indicates that the mutation by which the fish initially became ‘eyeless’ did not somehow ‘delete’ all of the ‘eye information’, but just interfered with the process leading to the eye’s development.”
To shed more light on the subject, Rachel Courtland wrote in Nature Magazine on January 7th, 2008 that “Two blind fish can make sighted offspring.” The paper, “Blind Cave Fish See The Light” goes on to describe research that demonstrated the ability to breed sighted-offspring from two distinct populations of blind fish. This indicates that the two populations lost their ability to see in different ways.
In the end, while this is a terrific demonstration of Natural Selection, it doesn’t however demonstrate a mechanism for microbes to become monkeys, mice, or magnolias.
Link Summary
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Cave_Fish
- http://www.livescience.com/animals/080128-blindfish-notblind.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineal_gland
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin
- http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/07/000728082041.htm
- http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4361news8-9-2000.asp
- http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080107/full/news.2008.414.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Selection
A Railroad Worker and His Son
On February 01, 2008 in Uncategorized
A railroad worker brought his son to work one day, to show him what his father did for a living. “See Son, pull this lever and the bridge goes up so the boats can pass. Push it so the bridge goes down so the trains can pass.” His son was excited about his dad’s job.Lunch came along and they were sitting and eating. All of a sudden the train-horn sounded, and it was time to lower the bridge. The little boy raced over to the stairs, and started climbing up to the lever. Losing his balance he fell and landed himself in the large gears beneath the stairs.
His father panicked and tried to reach his son. The train horn sounded yet again, and it was time to make a decision. Hundreds of people on that train are going to die, or his son is going to die. After a painful moment, he turned away from his son and reached for the lever. In tears he pushed the lever, and lowered the bridge. The scream of his own son filled the air.
As the train passed with the hundreds of people who were just saved on account of a horrifying sacrifice, the father screamed at the carts, “Don’t you see what happened! Don’t you see what I gave for you!” The people laughing, drinking, and carrying on to their own business didn’t even see the father screaming, or know of what he did for them.
The Father allowed his Son to be killed, for the many people passing by on the train.
God the Father allowed his Son to be brutally murdered in order to save us. Unfortunately, some of us refuse to believe we are in any form of danger - just as the passengers had no idea the bridge was up. Some of us cannot hear the Father crying out, because of other distractions.
Can America be Saved?
On January 22, 2008 in In the News
Secure the future of your Children, and Grandchildren - Vote Ron Paul.
Link Summary
Are African Elephants Evolving Smaller Tusks?
On January 21, 2008 in In the News, Science Related
The Environmental News Network posted an article yesterday called “Elephants Evolve Smaller Tusks Due to Poaching.” The gist of it was this - people are killing the bigger more beautiful Elephants, so the smaller less-desired ones are breeding more as a result. Because of this, “Evolution” is happening at a break-neck speed and we are now seeing Elephants with smaller tusks in only 150 years!
I get so frustrated with these Evolutionists jumping to title everything in sight “Evolution”. By this reasoning, the Sampson Family has evolved to be shorter, since my Grandfather and Father are both above 6 feet, and I’m a mere 5ft 11in. Actually, the Sampson Family has Evolved to be more tech-savvy too, since my Grandfather never used computers, my Father never used them either, but I do on a daily basis! Wow, let’s attribute everything to Evolution.
This is ridiculous. The example of the Elephant is not Evolution, it’s Natural Selection. Actually, in this case it would be something more like Poacher Selection, since Nature isn’t to blame for this, the Poachers are.
The Genetic information for smaller tusks was already in the Population, it just wasn’t prominent since Females tend to breed with carriers of larger tusks. Now that those with larger tusks are being killed-off, the Females breed with those hulling smaller tusks - what’s the big deal?
In short, there is no big deal, yet the Evolutionists want to imagine that there is. Since they cannot provide reasonable evidence that Man descended from Apes, Reptiles, Amphibians, and Fish, they have to instead tread out these trivial changes in a population and call that Evolution in hopes that you will take the bait and accept the entire frivolous idea of fish-to-man evolution, with the amazing evidence of Big tusk to Little tusk.
I’ve got ten bucks that says if we kill off the poachers the larger tusks will return. Any takers? This whole situation is analogous to Darwin’s Finches. When the drought came, the finches with larger beaks lived. When the drought receded, the finches beaks returned to their normal size. Big friggin’ deal!
