During 15 years of excavation they have uncovered not some monumental temple but evidence of a critical transition in religious behavior. The record begins with a simple dancing floor, the arena for the communal religious dances held by hunter-gatherers in about 7,000 B.C. It moves to the ancestor-cult shrines that appeared after the beginning of corn-based agriculture around 1,500 B.C., and ends in A.D. 30 with the sophisticated, astronomically oriented temples of an early archaic state.

This and other research is pointing to a new perspective on religion, one that seeks to explain why religious behavior has occurred in societies at every stage of development and in every region of the world. Religion has the hallmarks of an evolved behavior, meaning that it exists because it was favored by natural selection. It is universal because it was wired into our neural circuitry before the ancestral human population dispersed from its African homeland.

For atheists, it is not a particularly welcome thought that religion evolved because it conferred essential benefits on early human societies and their successors. If religion is a lifebelt, it is hard to portray it as useless.

For believers, it may seem threatening to think that the mind has been shaped to believe in gods, since the actual existence of the divine may then seem less likely.

In case you missed it before, I think John Cleese’s work in this area is as good or better than any other Darwinist speculating in this area.

Reference:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/weekinreview/12wade.html

Perhaps my impression that this is being held up with a religious artifact for naturalism is hyperbole, but perhaps not. You decide. Here is a quote:

“This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists,” lead scientist Jorn Hurum said at a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History.

“It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years.”⁽¹⁾

Lost Ark? Holy Grail? All that in one? It certainly seems like the whole question of human evolution is solved. However, things are not so wonderful. You know there’s a problem when someone from Scienceblogs (atheistblogs?) criticizes the findings.⁽²⁾

This shoddy scholarship is matched by a weak attempt to show that Darwinius has more anthropoid-like traits than tarsiers or omomyids do. In order for the authors of the paper to make a convincing case they would have to undertake a careful, systematic analysis of the anatomy of Darwinius in comparison to other primates, yet they did not do this. Instead they combed the literature for 30 traits that might help ascertain the placement of Darwinius in the primate family tree and filled in whether each trait was present or absent in Ida’s skeleton.

This find may be interesting and have some scientific value, but the primary value at this time appears to be as a religious symbol for naturalism.

(1). “Missing link found? Scientists unveil fossil of 47 million-year-old primate, Darwinius masillae”
(2). Poor, poor Ida, Or: “Overselling an Adapid”

ID: Darwinius masillae: The Religion in Evolution

IDA: THE HOLY GRAIL OF MISSING LINKS?

Creationism: Ida: the Missing Link at Last?

What does Ida’s anatomy tell us about her place on the family tree of humans and other primates? The fact that she retains primitive features that commonly occurred among all early primates, such as simple incisors rather than a full-fledged toothcomb, indicates that Ida belongs somewhere closer to the base of the tree than living lemurs do.

But this does not necessarily make Ida a close relative of anthropoids – the group of primates that includes monkeys, apes – and humans. In order to establish that connection, Ida would have to have anthropoid-like features that evolved after anthropoids split away from lemurs and other early primates. Here, alas, Ida fails miserably.

So, Ida is not a “missing link” – at least not between anthropoids and more primitive primates. Further study may reveal her to be a missing link between other species of Eocene adapiforms, but this hardly solidifies her status as the “eighth wonder of the world”.

Instead, Ida is a remarkably complete specimen that promises to teach us a great deal about the biology of some of the earliest and least human-like of all known primates, the Eocene adapiforms. For this, we can all celebrate her discovery as a real advance for science.

We do now assert that the mass extinction may have been the result of climate change.  We do know that you are terrified of global warming (praise Science), and we hope you will be even more scared when we are done telling you about just how catastrophic climate change has been in the past.

We do now say that great salt lakes emitted a high level of halogenated gases, which did so dramatically change the composition of the atmosphere as to irretrievably damage vegetation.

According to one of our faithful:

“Our calculations show that airborne pollutants from giant salt lakes like the Zechstein Sea must have had catastrophic effects at that time”, states co-author Dr. Ludwig Weißflog from the Helmholtz-Center for Environmental Research (UFZ). Forecasts predict an increase in the surface areas of deserts and salt lakes due to climate change. That is why the researchers expect that the effects of these halogenated gases will equally increase.

With a great salt lake the size of France, we predict that the emissions would have been catastrophic.  We then make the direct link to today’s global warming and the CO₂ cycle (praise Science).  We do hope you are paying attention, so we can save you from dying off like some of our last common ancestors did a long long time ago.  We do so, perhaps, knowing full well that we are standing in the way of our motto: “Through death comes life and progress.”

Based on both of these findings the researchers were able to form their new hypothesis: At the end of the Permian Age the emissions of halogenated gases from the Zechstein Sea and other salt seas were responsible in a complex chain of events for the world’s largest mass extinction in the history of the earth, in which about 90 percent of the animal and plant species of that time became extinct.

According to the forecast from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), increasing temperatures and aridity due to climate change will also speed up desertification, increasing with it the number and surface area of salt seas, salt lagoons and salt marshlands. Moreover, this will then lead to an increase in naturally formed halogenated gases. The phytotoxic effects of these substances become intensified in conjunction with other atmospheric pollutants and at the same time increasing dryness and exponentiate the eco-toxicological consequences of climate change.

We do hope you are pleased with our latest tale, and want you to know that we are working to incorporate this into future climate models in a desperate attempt to save your life.

References:

(1). New Theory on Largest Known Mass Extinction in Earth’s History, Science Daily, 3/31/09

(2). A Naturalistic Fairy Tale-Part XXII, 12/31/08

Octopus fossil with modern comparison

Paleontologists recently discovered a fossil of an octopus and attributed an age of 95 million years (late Cretaceous) to the specimen.⁽¹⁾ They noted that:

“These things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species.” [EurekAlert] The fossils provide an extraordinary glimpse into the evolutionary history of the creatures, pushing back the birth of the modern octopus millions of years.

The fact that these fossils exist is a small miracle of science and a big victory for paleontologists and evolutionist alike.

Well, praise Science. It’s not quite a bunny in the Cambrian, but it would seem to me to be problematic at best for a theory of change. I suppose we are to believe that the right mix of blind processes and necessity were somehow kept at bay for this creature, or that it is a perfect adesign.⁽²⁾ In other words, this creature has been in the punctuated stage of punctuated equilibrium for 95 million years.

What’s also interesting about the octopus is that Darwinists have claimed that the eyes of the octopus and human eyes evolved

Human to Octopus Eye Comparison

independently.⁽³⁾ They even go so far to note that the octopus eye shows that the human eye is poorly designed, as I’ve noted previously, despite obvious problems with that explanation.⁽⁴⁾ The assertion is that a completely different set of blind circumstances results in technology with all the major functional parts in common.  What makes a great deal more sense is common design by a single Designer. Either that, or mother nature is smarter than you are.  Or as the old saying goes, “Evolution is smarter than you are.”⁽⁵⁾

Interestingly, the phrase is intended to be a rejoinder to the purported logical problem often attributed to IDists and Creationists who claim that blind processes are incapable of producing things of such complexity (i.e., argument from lack of imagination).  The trouble is, that it’s the same old attribution of sentience to blind processes, and the fact of the matter is, some things do not occur through blind processes.  Car parts in a junkyard will not assemble into a brand new car no matter what natural forces act upon those parts regardless of the number of billions of years given to do so.  Similarly, blind processes cannot lead to sentience or sight, but Darwinists will continue to follow that blind watchmaker no matter how incapable she may be.  All the while, they will marvel at her creativity and astounding abilities to create everything from nothing.

References

(1). Against the odds ancient octopus fossils discovered
(2). Darwinists on Design: Jumping to Confusions
(3). Comparative Analysis of Gene Expression for Convergent Evolution of Camera Eye Between Octopus and Human
(4). An eye for creation
(5). Orgel’s rule

Other Interesting Reads:
Octopus–Beautiful AND Intelligent

Creation on the Web has a review of his most recent tome, and there are some interesting quotes from the review:

Dawkins’ sermons fall apart under close scrutiny, and further, he never even considers deeper philosophical problems underlying his method of argumentation. When Dawkins talks of religions fomenting wars, how does he know on a naturalistic basis that there is anything at all undesirable about war?¹⁶ How does he know that there is anything inherently good in ‘truth’? In fact, as Alvin Plantinga has shown,¹⁷ there are reasons to doubt whether human thought is even capable of corresponding to reality within a naturalistic framework—the ultimate reductio ad absurdum of naturalism.¹⁸

As the late Greg Bahnsen noted,

‘One does not decide whether to form some epistemological viewpoint and theoretical basis for certainty or not; he simply chooses whether he shall do it self-consciously and well.’¹⁹

Dawkins has an epistemology. He believes that he is capable of knowing true information by means of the scientific method, but he is entirely without a foundation in naturalism for such a belief. Christians who presuppose Scripture, on the other hand, have epistemological warrant for belief in efficacious reason and science, on the grounds that God is logical and made an orderly universe.²⁰ Small wonder, then, that Dawkins avoids the subject and prefers a surface-level polemical approach. The biblical apologetic not only can withstand his individual ad hoc ‘empirical’ arguments, but even undercuts his entire basis of argument by showing that in order to have a reason to trust reason itself, we must presuppose the God of Scripture.²¹

Some of the reasoning here is similar to things we’ve discussed previously on this blog.  One can sincerely hope that his intense disdain for all authority, other than materialist science, can soften with time.  All things are possible with God.

Source: Secular Sermons.  Creation on the Web.

Grandma Morgie

professor who teaches the Advanced Creation studies class takes his students there every year. The Washington Post had a writeup on the trip, and for the first time in my memory, it was a facts-based article.¹ The author didn’t inject his personal biases whatever they may be. I can’t tell, which is the way good journalism should occur.

I titled this post Grandma Morgie, because there was a particular part of the article that stood out to me:

At one point, DeWitt called them together under a Nigerian proverb stenciled on a wall. “The Earth goddess fashions the human body just as the potter fashions her pot,” DeWitt read. “So there is some religion here.”

But in the hall of mammals, which reopened in 2003 after a $23 million renovation, evolution assumes center stage, and the Liberty students grew a bit more subdued. They openly admired the well-lighted, meticulously designed dioramas. But they lamented that the texts and videos give no credit at all to a higher power for the wondrous animal variety on display.

Near the end of the “Evolution Trail,” the class showed no signs of being swayed by the polished, enthusiastic presentation of Darwin’s theory. They were surprised, though, by the bronze statue of man’s earliest mammalian ancestor.

“A rat?” exclaimed Amanda Runions, a 21-year-old biochemistry major, when she saw the model of a morganucodon, a rodent-like ancient mammal that curators have dubbed Grandma Morgie. “All this hype for a rat? You’re expecting, like, at least an ape.”

So, now you’ve met your earliest mammal ancestor, and I hope you were as impressed as I was. DeWitt’s observation that there is some religion going on here, was right on. AIG also discussed Grandma Morgie in the past, and they provide some historical perspective on the exhibit.² Of course as we’ve remarked here previously, the creation of the statue was based on little more than imagination, which is par for the course with many evolutionists.

1). Creationist Students Take Trip to Evolution Headquarters: The Smithsonian
2). Mozart-made in a rat’s image?

Humorously, they continue to use the word Design throughout the video, and engage in the typical anthropomorphism of Darwinists when talking about natural selection.

In the Beginning… Cosmology, Part I – The Pre Big Bang Scenario
In the Beginning… Cosmology, Part II – Book, Chapter and Multi-Verse

“The weakening of Earth’s magnetic field exposed the surface to a shower of cosmic radiation, says Yukio Isozaki of the University of Tokyo. He believes the radiation broke nitrogen in the atmosphere into ions that acted as seeds for clouds enshrouding the planet.”

Yes, we, naturalistic atheists of the TRUE FAITH do believe in a firmament.  Not one that a god had to do with, but the real one that actually happened (praise Science).  We shall explain the global flood from a naturalistic perspective soon (i.e., true perspective), but we’ll use computer simulations, and it will be very, very, far in the past.  Therefore, you can do nothing other than believe, unless you are stupid and lacking faith in random processes. So, at the 250 Million Years Ago point, did a plume of super hot material begin rising through the mantle of the Earth.

This did upset the convection of the core, and did throw the Earth’s magnetic field in disarray.  This did result in massive Global Cooling, and the sea levels did drop (praise Science).  And then did, 5 million years later, the super-hot material did burst through the surface of the Earth in 3 massive super-volcanoes!  Individually, they were inadequate, but all together, they did result in massive death (praise Science).  As we have taught you before, through death comes life.  If we do teach you one thing, this is the most important.  So, did exactly 67% of life become extinct.  That was a close one, but our ancestors did live until they died (praise Science).

(1). Did magnetic blip trigger mass extinction? MSNBC.

IT’S not just the nature of dark matter that’s a mystery – even its abundance is inexplicable. But if our universe is just one of many possible universes, at least this conundrum can be explained.⁽¹⁾

Indeed. It’s a conundrum for an anti-design perspective. From an ID and theological perspective, it’s not surprising that even the quantity of this material points to design. The notion from the anti-design perspective is that “common sense doesn’t work.” Fine. Sometimes it doesn’t. But, I don’t think people even have to rely on “common sense” to support a design perspective. You can rely on logic, philosophy, and scientific reasoning to support a design perspective. It just happens that these perspectives can also correspond with “common sense.” The same cannot be said for an anti-design perspective.

The total amount of dark matter – the unseen stuff thought to make up most of the mass of the universe – is five to six times that of normal matter. This difference sounds pretty significant, but it could have been much greater, because the two types of matter probably formed via radically different processes shortly after the big bang. The fact that the ratio is so conducive to a life-bearing universe “looks like a tremendous coincidence”, says Raphael Bousso at the University of California, Berkeley.

It does look like a “tremendous coincidence.” Thankfully, purely naturalistic scientists have an out. Of course it can’t be verified. Of course it can’t be measured. But it doesn’t start with a “g” or even a “G.” Therefore, it makes rational sense, and is science.

Freivogel focused on one of the favoured candidate-particles for dark matter, the axion. Axions have the right characteristics to be dark matter, but for one problem: a certain property called its “misalignment angle”, which would have affected the amount of dark matter produced in the early universe. If this property is randomly determined, in most cases it would result in a severe overabundance of dark matter, leading to a universe without the large-scale structure of clusters of galaxies. To result in our universe, it has to be just the right value.

In a multiverse, each universe will have a random value for the axion’s misalignment angle, giving some universes the right amount of dark matter needed to give rise to galaxies, stars, planets and life as we know it.

Praise Science that they have an alternative explanation. “So what?” if it is unmeasurable, untestable, and unfalsifiable. It doesn’t involve any kind of “G” word (a scientific explicative). It sounds good, and appeals to Science Fiction; therefore, it’s science.

⁽¹⁾ http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026854.800-universes-dark-matter-mix-is-just-right-for-life.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news