Hoos In Christ

How can such a strange phenomenon as the magi seeing a "Christmas star" be explained? This article reviews a book that looks at some not great explanations and offers a better one.

The Christmas Star — A Sign of Design | Evolution News Part of the difficulty with arriving at a satisfactory theory for the Star stems from a compartmentalized approach.

What are you studying, and what is its purpose?

An interesting look into the very different personal experiences of two biologists.

Nature’s Wonder — A Tale of Two Scientists | Evolution News Charles Darwin described an atrophied sensitivity to “grandeur” that he noted in himself.

Interesting thoughts on viewing earth from space -- by the TV Star Trek captain, of all people!

William Shatner and Our Privileged Planet | Evolution News Shatner‘s revelation may be interpreted as an environmentalist creed, but I rather see it as a poetical formulation of the fine-tuning of Earth for life.

Many of the statements we hear from the modern and post-modern worlds are self-contradictory, but we don't always recognize them. A good list is found in this article.

10 Self-Refuting Statements You Must Know Self-refuting statements are amazingly common. Learning how to identify self-refuting statements is critical for being a good thinker and apologist.

Pray for a quick end to the war. https://www.facebook.com/ChristianChronicle/posts/10159978795296834

Why Ukraine matters to Churches of Christ - The Christian Chronicle The number of Churches of Christ in eastern Ukraine once rivaled the number in the rest of Europe combined. Now congregations are scattered across the nation of 44 million souls. Some church members are internally displaced in their own nation. Some have started new lives in Europe and the U.S. Othe...

Do we really know when someone is never going to recover from a vegetative state? Very thought-provoking true story.

Man Awakens After 12 Years in a "Vegetative State," Says "I Was Aware of Everything" - LifeNews.com In the 1980’s, 12-year-old Martin Pistorious became seriously ill with what doctor’s believed was Cryptococci Meningitis. His health started deteriorating and Martin lost his ability to move, make eye contact and even speak to others. His doctors told his parents, Rodney and Joan Pistorious, to ...

Is there a silver lining to the decline of nominal Christianity in America? It depends on whether the churches start doing their job of discipleship again. A thought-provoking perspective that runs contrary to the wailing and gnashing of teeth that are so common among Christians today on this subject.

Good Riddance to Cultural Christianity - James R. Rogers The problem with the Christian Right is not that it’s too Christian, but rather that it’s not Christian enough.

Is the Earth truly special, as we would expect if it required an intelligent Creator to prepare it to host intelligent life? Or is it possible that other planets could be even better hosts for advanced life? The attempt to find examples of better ("superhabitable") planets ends up showing how special Earth is.

Read With all the problems humans face managing Earth’s resources for the benefit of all life, many people wonder if we can abandon Earth and move to a superior planet. Are there planets better suited for habitability than Earth? Three astronomers, Dirk Schulze-Makuch, René Heller, and Edward Guinan, ...

Some very challenging advice.

Tolkien’s Fatherly Advice to His Son on S*x JRR Tolkien's wisdom extends beyond Middle Earth and into the realm of reallife romance

The Cambrian Explosion just got even more inexplicable in terms of macroevolution.

In Carbon Isotope Excursions, Darwinists Lose Another Excuse for the Cambrian Explosion | Evolution News The claim that a spike in carbon isotope concentrations led to the explosion of diversity in the Cambrian doesn’t hold up, as if it would have helped, anyway.

One huge issue in creation vs. evolution has been whether microevolution (new species and sub-species) extrapolates to macroevolution (new genera, families, classes, orders, everything from one-celled organisms to mankind).

In order to extrapolate, you have to examine what is being extrapolated. Dr. Michael Behe's recent book, Darwin Devolves, cites recent scientific research on mutations to show that most non-harmful mutations are what are called "loss of function" mutations. In other words, sometimes if the function of a particular gene is lost or weakened, it can help an organism survive some environmental change.

The point is that loss of function is a poor basis for extrapolation. You cannot document a loss of function micro-evolution and then say, "Now, multiply by a million and you get all the macroevolution you want."

One of his prime examples in the book is the evolution of the polar bear. How did a bear go from the standard bear diet of berries and maybe some fish to an entirely high-fat carnivorous diet? How can its body tolerate that much fat, cholesterol, etc.? It turns out to be the case that a loss of function affecting one gene actually causes the polar bear to clear cholesterol out of its blood more quickly. It might be discovered that some other metabolic function is degraded, but the loss of function of this gene is the basis for its improved fitness for the polar environment, NOT some mutation that leads to greater function, higher complexity, etc.; i.e., NOT the kind of mutation that is needed to extrapolate from microevolution to macroevolution.

The polar bear issue is discussed and criticisms engaged in this linked article. I will post some related articles on other animals soon.

Lessons from Polar Bear Studies | Evolution News Computer methods of analyzing mutations are widely used because they are generally accurate. They do not suddenly lose their accuracy when I cite them.