www.jeffthefish.com

It’s possible that Answer in Genesis might not always be as honest as they possibly could be. Check out the headling for item 3 of their latest edition of News to Note:

Scientists have found [indirect evidence of liquid water, which can be spun through evolutionary interpretations as indirect evidence of] life on one of Saturn’s moons!

Well hell. Dem saahntiss sho is dum! The clear implication here is that scientists are claiming to have find life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus based solely on the presence of water. Naturally, I had serious doubts that the article they linked to said anything like that. Here’s the actual headline:

‘Misty caverns’ on Enceladus moon: Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft has obtained strong evidence that Saturn’s tiny moon Enceladus retains liquid water.

Well, nothing about life there. Perhaps if I read on, I’ll see where the article says that this find means we’ve found life on Enceladus.

It means the Saturnian satellite may be one of the most promising places in the Solar System to search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Oh, well, that’s not really the same thing…no, not even close. Maybe some foolhardy scientist is quoted as saying that this find means we’ve found life on Enceladus?

“We need three ingredients for life, as far as we know - liquid water, energy and the basic chemical building blocks - and we seem to have all three at Enceladus, including some fairly complex organic molecules,” commented John Spencer, a Cassini scientist from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado.

“That’s not to say there is life on Enceladus but certainly the ‘feedstock’ is there for life to use if it does exist,” he told BBC News.

Well, hmmm…no…this person goes out of his way to point out that we haven’t found life on Enceladus. I guess that leaves one option, really.

ANSWERS IN GENESIS MAKES SHIT UP.

This comes from Ken Ham’s blog:

One of our Creation Museum guest services staff passed this along to me this past weekend:

This past Saturday I was working close to the 3 C’s room when a guest came up to me to express how much she liked the museum. I told her that I was very thankful for all the scientists and artists who have expended their time, knowledge, and skill to make the museum what it is.

Her reply was, “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought God Himself made it.”

So wait. She admits that something that looks for all the world like God Himself made it can actually have a natural explanation. Perhaps she didn’t think this through.

The BBC is reporting the discovery of a 23 million year old pinniped called Puijila in the Canadian Arctic. It’s around the same age as Enaliarctos, previously the most primitive fossil pinniped discovered, itself an important transitional form.

Here’s an important question that articles like this never answer: how do we know it’s a pinniped?

I’ll let you know when I find out.

UPDATE: Not Exactly Rocket Science has a post with more information about Puijila, including a partial answer to my question above: We know it’s a seal because of the shape of its skull and teeth.

Also check out this section of the Canadian Museum of Nature’s website, dedicated to Puijila, and linked to by NERS.

Yup, some 95 million year old Cephalopod fossils have been discovered in Lebanon, and wouldn’t you know, they’ve got transitional features!  WHODATHUNKIT!

In keeping with today’s theme, here is a reprint of a recent laughing stock by Sean McDowell over at Worldview Weekend.  Except I made him blame Indiana Jones for the incident.  It makes at least as much sense.  Too bad that lady didn’t have any “bad dates” handy GUYS AMIRIGHT???

This week we received the sobering news that a 55-year old woman was nearly killed by a 200 pound chimp. Her face was so severely disfigured and unrecognizable that one news station reported the victim as a man. In case you are wondering how a chimp could be so powerful, an animal expert on CNN (Larry King Live) reported that chimp’s are roughly five times as strong as human beings. The poor woman was utterly outmatched. My heart is truly broken for this woman and I hope and pray she will experience fully recovery.

Nevertheless, we need to ask a basic question: How could something like this happen? How is it that we live in a culture where people think it’s safe to have a chimpanzee as a pet? Where do people get the idea that we ought to take a wild animal and treat it like a human being? The chimp owner treated the animal like a son who ate at her table, slept in her house, and even drove her car.

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. In fact, there is one culprit for the idea that human beings and chimps are really not that different and should be treated that way: Indiana Jonesism. The Judeo-Christian tradition has always taught that humans and chimps are different in terms of kind (Genesis 1-2). While animals are a good part of God’s creation, it is uniquely humans who bear the image of God. Many animals are wild and should be kept that way. On the other hand, Indiana Jones propagated the idea that humans and chimps have a common ancestor and only differ in terms of degree (See Indiana Jones’s The Descent of Man). If humans and chimps are really not that different, then why not expect chimps to act civilly? After all, ideas have consequences.

Last week the world celebrated Indiana Jones’s 200th birthday. Universities placed tributes to Indiana Jonesism on their home page (examples include Oxford and Cambridge) and major networks such as BBC ran extensive programs devoted to Indiana Jones’s great contribution to the world.

Yet, ironically, this week we witness a brutal act that seems to logically follow from Indiana Jones’s ideas. You may be wondering how I can possibly link Indiana Jones to this atrocious event. But think about it, if humans are deeply related to chimps then why not expect them to act that way?

Indiana Jonesists regularly point out the genetic, structural, and behavioral similarities between humans and chimps (of course, they conveniently overlook the profound differences). Yet, since Indiana Jonesists argue so fervently that humans are closely related to chimps, then shouldn’t chimps be expected to act like humans? Shouldn’t Indiana Jonesists take some responsibility when some people actually put their ideas into action? It’s certainly not the Christian worldview that would encourage people to treat wild animals like human beings. The Christian worldview places tremendous emphasis on our need to care for creation, but it clearly highlights the fundamental differences between humans and all other animals. Humans are moral beings; animals are not.

Indiana Jonesism is not only false, it’s a corrosive idea. Equating humans and animals results in the devaluation of both. As I said before, my heart truly goes out to the victim. But this should be a wakeup call for our culture. Treating humans and animals as moral equivalents is a bad idea. What is it going to take for us to realize this?

Perhaps I am stupid, but, uh, isn’t this illegal?

Mike and Lizette have responded to my challenge.  Needless to say, I slept till 10:30 this morning.

Jason, you are correct, I wish I could pinpoint something that evolution claims but with it’s constant changing from one lie to another over the past century it wouldn’t matter what I picked because whatever atheists with the Darwinian evolution ends up being a lie.

By the way, I don’t believe in chance, just certainty of Gods unchanging Word and salvation through Christ. True I would love to see you in church and would be good for you to hear the Word of God preached, however it probably would be meaningless to you until you repent and put your faith in Christ.

Yeah, so either they’re stupid, and they think reading Answers in Genesis is equivalent to examining the evidence for evolution, or they’re lying about having examined the evidence for evolution, or they’re just nuts. Or maybe some combination. When I read things like “whatever atheists with the Darwinian evolution ends up being a lie”, I tend to lean toward stupid.

Today on Ray’s blog, unsmart commenter(s) Mike and Lizette’s Travels and Thoughts left the following comment, referring to the theory of evolution:

 …my Wife [sic] and I have looked at the evidence on [sic] the theory and find them [sic] to be lies [sic].

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  You have to understand that these people think that this is an accurate description of the way evolution works. Clearly, they have not looked at the evidence!  So here comes the flippant response that I am about to post on Ray’s blog:

Yeah right! And yet you can’t tell when someone is making things up about the theory!  Ha!  I will flip my wig if you ever say something about evolution that it actually claims.  Can you do it?  Can you name one thing that the theory of evolution actually claims?  I’m talking IRL here.  I would put money down that you can’t do it.

I’ll tell you what.  If you can respond to this post and tell me one thing that the theory of evolution actually claims, I will go to church this Sunday (you choose the denomination), and I will take pictures to prove it, and I will post them on my blog.

You get one chance.

I have no faith whatsoever in their ability to state a single fact.

May 2008:

Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people. [Source]

February 2009:

I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists. [Source]

What other conclusion could we possibly draw?