I have posted previously on The Ultimate Apologetics MP3 Audio Page by Apologetics.com and frankly, nothing can top that as a general resource for all things both audible and apologetic. But when we zoom in and have a closer look at some of those resources in more detail, we find little gems like Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? podcast. [no, the question mark is not a typo]

Relatively unique in its style among many of the podcasts I have heard, host Justin Brierly (pictured), expertly moderates, what can be at times, a dramatic discussion, on a vast range range of hot topics concerning theists and atheists alike.

I knew I had discovered something special having listened to only one show; a  lively discussion on Intelligent Design and Evolution. I was to learn later that the program won a Gold Medal at the New York Festival Awards.

Justin Brierley, produced and presented the award winning show on evolution that features atheist Pete Hearty of the National Secular Society defending the theory of Evolution, while Peter Williams of the Damaris Trust argues for Intelligent Design.

“We chose this particular debate because it is timely.” Brierley said. “There are a number of court cases in the USA discussing what public schools should be teaching regarding evolution and similar heat is now being generated in the UK over schools that have included Intelligent Design on their syllabus.”

The evolution episode of Unbelievable has secured the programme it’s first award, within a year of going to broadcast.

Obviously thrilled, Brierley said, “For us to win an award so early on in the life of the show is wonderful, but for it to be a gold world medal at the New York Festival Awards is astounding.”

The Chief Executive of Premier Christian Radio, Peter Kerridge, said of the show, “Unbelievable is like nothing else on Premier.” Well, not only is it unlike anything on Premier Christian Radio, I haven’t heard anything quite like it anywhere. And I say that as someone who listens to a number of different podcasts, from Greg Koukl’s Stand to Reason radio show to the thought-provoking Apologetics.com broadcast. Those have their niche and I think Unbelievable? have theirs. It certainly is a rare type of show.

Closer to home (my home, that is) fellow Aussie blogger, Stephen Cracknell, wrote a great article that captures the unique mood and style of the show, in words that I’m sure I would’ve used, if only I had written them first. And so I hope he doesn’t mind me closing by quoting him at length.

Just recently a few of us lads headed off to the Katoomba Men’s Convention – a long way from the Mid-North Coast (Coffs Harbour) but, hey, it was worth it.

On the way back home, my son Sam, plugged his iPod into the car’s speaker system and we all settled back (apart from the driver!) to listen to a discussion between a Christian and a non-Christian.

We were stunned! We were impressed! We were focussed!

The actual podcast we listened to was a somewhat tense discussion (at times) between Peter Hitchens (anti-theist Christopher Hitchen’s brother) and Adam Rutherford (atheist and editor of the science journal ‘Nature’).

Christian v non-Christian!

And that, essentially, is what Premier Christian Radio’s ‘Unbelievable?’ is about – provoking discussions between Christians and non-Christians.

…

Occasionally there is the Christian who gets grilled by a number of atheists (‘Grill a Christian’) and sometimes 2 Christians discuss their differences (e.g. is the King James Version the ‘best’ available English translation?).

But mostly, the very likeable Justin Brierley invites prominent Christians (e.g. William Lane Craig, James White, Os Guinness) to debate prominent non-Christians (e.g. John Hick, Dan Barker, Paul Davies).

Justin has that very healthy skill of knowing when to allow discussion (and passion) flow but also knowing when to include his thoughts and questions into the ‘debate’. He’s an intelligent guy, with sensitivity. These qualities help shape “Unbelievable?” as a really valuable podcast.

…

‘Unbelievable?’, I believe (couldn’t resist it!) is essential apologetics podcast listening – I really like it, my friends really like it and I’m sure you would too!

Why? Because there is nothing to hide behind!

‘Experts’ present their views but then must be prepared to defend them, publicly, – how good is that!

My References & Notes:

http://www.apologetics315.com/
http://www.premier.org.uk/
http://www.christianfaith.com.au/

Note: The show does also discuss/debate some topics within the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. For example, as Stephen mentioned, “Is the King James Version the Best?” And another recent discussion that I found very interesting featured opposing views on how we should support Gay Christians. Titled “Ex-Gay and Gay-Affirming approaches to homosexuality – Two different approaches to supporting gay Christians”  with Jonathan Berry & Jeremy Marks.

Is it consistent, on the one hand, to hold to an evolutionary world view, and yet claim, on the other hand, that humans who are causing the extinction of other creatures are improperly interfering with the evolutionary process (e.g. natural selection, survival of the fittest) that’s been shaping the development of those creatures?

That was the question bumping around in my mind on Sunday evening after listening to an interview with Conservationist,  Dr. Samuel Turvey (pictured), concerning the extinction of the Baiji – also known as the Yangtze River Dolphin.

During my Sunday afternoon drive home a couple of days ago, I found myself inadvertently listening to a program called Earth Beat – a product of Radio Netherlands Worldwide – courtesy of ABC News Radio, Australia. During the program we learned that Dr. Turvey has spent quite a bit of time working to locate and preserve any remaining members of the species that had been in steep decline for several decades. As it turns out, he was too late.

The Earth Beat website says that Dr. Turvey describes the demise of the dolphin as “a national tragedy and an international disgrace.” [emphasis mine]

Elsewhere, in several articles citing the paper co-written by Dr. Turvey concerning the extinction of the Baiji (a paper subsequently published in the Royal Society Biology Letters journal), he is also quoted as saying, “This extinction represents the disappearance of a complete branch of the evolutionary tree of life and emphasises that we have yet to take full responsibility in our role as guardians of the planet.”

Now I want you to keep in mind that the broader context of this story is an evolutionary world view. That’s critical context, given that we are dealing with the attempted conservation of a species that has arguably been eradicated by the industrialisation of the Yangtze River.

So here’s the remark that really caught my attention. Earth Beat host, Marnie Chesterton, says:

Read the rest of this entry

Have you ever seen the movie Weekend at Bernie’s, where the corpse of the recently murdered Bernie Lomax is paraded around town by two of his employees who are desperate to convince everyone that he’s alive?

Similarly, despite being presented as the best (the only) explanation for just about anything – from homology to morality; from origins to oration; from lifeless mindless chemicals to living thinking reasoning beings – some have likened evolution to a corpse being paraded around as if alive. For example, there is an apparent pattern of reporting in the secularised mainstream media (MSM) that builds up this facade by trumpeting the latest evolutionary interpretation, while remaining silent as it falls from grace (e.g. see the development on Tiktaalik below). Each new story then, has a cumulative affect, giving the impression that Neo-Darwinian evolution is being constantly validated.

In quite dissimilar fashion, every December, the Access Research Network^[1] publish a relatively unique list that summarises their top ten science news stories that have impacted the development of evolutionary and/or intelligent design perspectives on science. Or to be more specific, it highlights the many ways in which an intelligent design perspective is continuing to have increasingly more explanatory power in the investigation of “natural” systems, while underscoring the epic failure of the evolutionary paradigm to do likewise.

Honourable mentions on the list (those that didn’t make the top ten) include:

(1) The death of the “Primordial Soup” theory for the origin of life. (2) Recent genetic research indicating that chimps are more distant from humans than popularly argued by evolutionary proponents. (3) Evidence suggesting that Neanderthals were in fact fully human, having interbred with them. (4) Automatic turnstiles in cell membranes that expel up to 1500 molecules of toxins from the cell per minute.

Read the rest of this entry

The other night I was watching a show on tv called Richard Hammonds Invisible Worlds (BBC). One of the topics he covered was gecko feet which was quite facinating. The following article goes into some detail of this amazing creature and his feet.

Great Gecko Glue

The best explanation seems to be that the geckos’ feet can exploit the weak short-range bonds between molecules. That is, they stick via van der Waals forces. But for such weak forces to work, there must be an enormous intimate contact area between foot and surface, so that enough individual weak forces can add up to a very strong force.

Under an electron microscope, researchers have found that the feet have very fine hairs (setae), about 1/10th of a millimetre long and packed 5,000 per square mm (three million per square inch). In turn, the end of each seta has about 400–1,000 branches ending in a spatula-like structure about 0.2–0.5 µm (microns—less than 1/50,000th inch) long. These spatulae can provide the necessary contact area.

This website has some good images of geckos’ feet.

With special instruments, a team of biologists and engineers from several American universities analysed a seta from the foot of a Tokay gecko (Gekko gecko). The foot pad has an area of about 100 mm2 (0.16 sq. inch) and can produce 10 newtons of adhesive force (enough to support two pounds). But they showed that an individual seta had an attractive force 10 times stronger than expected. In fact, one seta is strong enough to support an ant’s weight, while a million could support a small child—about 10 N/cm2, where 10 newtons is about the weight of 1 kg. So the gecko has plenty of attractive force to spare. This means it can handle the rough, irregular surfaces of its natural habitat.

Actually, the attractive force is far greater when the seta is gently pressed into the surface and then pulled along. The force also changes with the angle at which the hair is attached to the surface, so that the seta can detach at about 30°. These elaborate properties are exploited by the gecko’s ‘unusually complex behaviour’1 of uncurling its toes when attaching, and unpeeling while detaching. This all means that the gecko can not only stick properly with each step, but also avoid getting stuck, all without using much energy.

In his explanation of this marvelous feature of the gecko, Richard Hammond said that the gecko had to develop this toe curling ability in order to unstick its feet in order to be able to move. The use of the word develop makes it obvious that there are heavy evolutionary overtones that are assumed as the mechanism by which the gecko’s feet came to be.

Can anyone else see the disconnect here?

Evolutionary theory is a slow gradual process. Yet here we find three abilities associated with the geckos’ feet that have to present at the same time in order to work. If the hairs are present without the toe curling ability (which Richard is suggesting here), then the poor gecko will no be able to move and will quickly become a meal to the nearest predator. Without the self-cleaning ability, the geckos’ feet will quickly become non-functioning/useless. And why evolve toe curling as a precursor to hairy feet? To claim that this is the path taken, screams a designer at the helm realising that toe curling is needed to have occured before the hair. And when does the self-cleaning occur? These are not just singular variations in the DNA to change, say, regular toes to curling toes. According to evolutionary theory changes in anatomy like this would have to take many many mutations.

Even if it is reasonable to believe evolution started the ball rolling by giving the gecko a toe curling ability and the gecko was able to function/breed with this ability even though it serves no purpose, where are all the toe curling lizards that didn’t evolve further down the gecko path? There is no “Darwins tree” here whether alive or in the fossil record.

Rather than believe a complex unsubstantiated evolutionary story, a designer at the helm seems a much more simple and likely explanation for such an amazing creature.

My friend and very esteemed colleague Duane Proud two days ago wrote an article in which he asked evolutionists to provide examples of bad evolutionary arguments they have seen used in debates and discussions on origins. And he provided a list of twelve examples to help get the ball rolling, asking whether evolutionists would concede that any of the arguments listed are bad—and if so, which ones—or provide other examples of evolutionary arguments they have seen used which are bad. “In other words,” he said, “I’d like evolutionists to be self-critical and provide a list of arguments they would endorse as ‘arguments evolutionists should not use’.” Duane wanted to see if there were any among our evolutionist readers “who are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument,” which could be demonstrated by their providing “any arguments for evolution they think are lacking and why.”

Not a single response.

Let me clarify that: not a single response that actually answered the question Duane was asking. He received several responses but they mocked Young Earth creationists, defended many of the arguments listed as actually good, provided links to web pages that explain what biological evolution is and why it is true, or they gave completely retarded examples of arguments I’m quite sure nobody ever uses—like the gems that Nocterro provided, e.g., “Evolution is true because my cup is green.” (Given that he values philosophical discipline, he should have known better; moreover, he is the one person I expected relevant and intellectually honest answers from.) But when it came to the question Duane had actually asked, there was not a single response.

So I want to demonstrate something about intellectual honesty. I want to put forward the same question but this time directed toward creationists. That is, I would like the creationists out there to be self-critical and provide examples of arguments they would concede as ‘arguments creationists should not use’. Unlike evolutionists, I know that creationists are capable of reflecting on the merits and shortcomings of an argument and can provide creationist arguments they think are lacking and why. The complete silence from evolutionists regarding Duane’s question will be deafening in comparison to the intellectual honesty and self-criticism of creationists. The contrast of responses will say something important about dogmatism.

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In a recent article from Science Daily [1] we find a compelling bit of science. Evidently the thinking is that humans became the ‘hairless ape’ we are because we evolved in a really hot region in East Africa. You see, the need to “stay cool in that cradle of human evolution may relate, at least in part, to why pre-humans learned to walk upright, lost the fur that covered the bodies of their predecessors and became able to sweat more,” Johns Hopkins University earth scientist Benjamin Passey said. [2] These constituted an “evolutionary advantage” these pre-humans gained. What I find curious, however, is in what intelligible sense this granted an evolutionary advantage when other fauna in that region or similar climates supposedly evolved just fine, walking around on all fours and covered in hair, etc. (picture animals like buffalo, wolf, baboon and such).

Surely the Panthera genus had even more selection forces acting upon them, being not only covered in fur but walking around so close to the ground (which radiates absorbed heat, so they get cooked on both sides). What do you suppose they think of this robust evolutionary science?

1. Johns Hopkins University. “Some Like It Hot: Site of Human Evolution Was Scorching.” Science Daily, 8 June 2010 (Accessed 10 June 2010.)
2. Benjamin H. Passey, Naomi E. Levin, Thure E. Cerling, Francis H. Brown, and John M. Eiler. “High-temperature environments of human evolution in East Africa based on bond ordering in paleosol carbonates.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1001824107

According to a recent CreationSafaris^[1] post:

Some Cambridge scientists engineered a four-character genetic code and made some proteins with it. They guided the process at every step, but claim that they “evolved” this code. Is that a fair use of language? This strange admixture of concepts is found in today’s issue [18 March 2010] of Nature. The confusion began right in the title: “Encoding multiple unnatural amino acids via evolution of a quadruplet-decoding ribosome.” [emphasis in original]

http://creationsafaris.com/crev201003.htm#20100318a

After summarising the work as reported in the scientific journal Nature, they rightly observe the equivocation:

…everything was intelligently designed, both the natural and unnatural codes and functions. This paper was one of the best examples in recent memory of Truman’s Law: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.” Using evolve as a synonym for design is a clever way to blow smoke using equivocation. Words mean things. This has nothing to do with evolution in the way Darwin used it, and in the way the debate rages today. It has everything to do with intelligently designing codes to synthesize things they would not naturally do (that is, without the intervention of a human mind). These human designers did not “evolve” anything, and they did not rule out intelligent design in the “natural” systems. If they really wanted to talk about evolution, they should have left the lab and let “nature” take its course. [emphasis in original]

1. CreationSafaris is highly recommended and would be in my Top5 all time websites across all genres. Their team constantly survey the main stream media and secular scientific journals and are well-equipped to point out the many equivocations, failings, misgivings and “baloney” associated with many of their claims. It is one of the best places to get your secular [materialistic] brainwash washed.

[Last Updated: 22 February 2010]

Dr. Terry Mortenson provides a great example of what evolution isn’t in his review of a 33-page 2004 National Geographic cover story which asked, “Was Darwin wrong?”

It’s examples exactly like this that are typically paraded as evolution in action, when really it is nothing of the sort.

The bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, is troublesome to humans, but doctors can destroy it with an antibiotic. After the patient takes the antibiotic, it is absorbed through the cell wall of the bacterium. It has the genetic information to make an enzyme which reacts with the antibiotic converting it into a poison, killing the bacterium. But due to a mutation, some H. pylori cannot make the enzyme and so cannot convert the antibiotic and so do not die but reproduce, giving the patient and doctor a new problem. The mutant survived through a loss of information, which is not a process that will eventually lead to an increase of information to change a bacterium over millions of years into a biologist.

http://creation.com/national-geographic-is-wrong-and-so-was-darwin

In the scenario above the organism with the mutation has indeed – to use evolutionary language – gained an advantage over the other H. pylori in an environment with the antibiotic present. So has the H. pylori evolved? Well that depends on what you mean by evolution. Is the change that occurred in the organism in the direction for the bacterium to develop new body parts or body plans; is it on it’s way to becoming a baboon, a bird, or a badger? Most certainly the answer is NO. The information change is a negative one, not a positive one. In fact in this example not only is no new information created but the mutation destroyed the information in the bacterium’s genome that would normally have allowed it to produce an enzyme. So the non-evolved H. pylori can make the enzyme and the so-called evolved ones cannot; a damaging mutation with a beneficial side effect. Yet examples just like this (information-destroying changes) are often used to provide support for macro evolution, which requires observable information-gaining changes.

If it makes it any easier to understand, believing that these kinds of changes support the evolutionary theory is analogous to believing that your bank balance will steadily increase the more money you take out. Wish I had a bank account like that!