1. news@nature.com: “Organic compound found in the stars”

The Search for Terrestrial Intelligence has an important announcement, courtesy of findings published by two teams in Astrophysical Journal:

Thus, the astrobiological announcements carrying the most weight these days ... are decidedly underwhelming to creationists.

Astronomers have found the largest negatively charged molecule so far seen in interstellar space. [...] The molecule is a chain of eight carbons and a single hydrogen called the octatetraynyl anion (C8H¯). Two teams of scientists have spotted it near a dying star and in a cloud of cold gas.

For creationists, the find—while interesting—is clearly a far, far cry from even the most basic form of life imaginable (see our Origin of Life: Get Answers for more on this topic). But consider the plight for evolutionists: not only has off-world exploration not turned up little green men, but extraterrestrial excavations on Mars have failed to turn up signs of even basic microbial life forms.

Thus, the astrobiological announcements carrying the most weight these days—such as this indirect discovery of a pre-pre-biotic molecule near a dying star 550 light years away (and another one 450 light years away)—are decidedly underwhelming to creationists.

2. National Geographic News: “Dinosaurs Had Sex As Youths, Study Says”

It turns out dinosaur youths may have been promiscuous—or so hints research co-authored by Florida State University evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Gregory Erickson and Science Museum of Minnesota paleontologist Kristina Curry Rogers. Their study, published in Biology Letters, describes how “[b]irdlike dinosaurs did not wait until they were fully grown to start having sex” (in case you were wondering). What’s so surprising about the news? (Not that it would be surprising to us—as we’ve stated before, God would have provided Noah with young animals that were still small, easier to transport, yet able or soon able to reproduce.) National Geographic News reports:

Early sexual maturity aligns more with modern-day crocodiles than birds—a surprise because most scientists believe birds are akin to modern dinosaurs.

Birds, as opposed to these dinosaurs, “don’t start mating until well after they are fully grown.” The article points out the dilemma for evolutionary paleontologists: “[g]iven all these similarities, researchers thought they would find dinosaurs grew up and reproduced like birds, too.” That’s because evolutionists have long propped up a supposed dinosaur–bird evolutionary connection to explain the origin of birds.

Of course, scientists should see this discovery as a potential flaw in their dino-to-bird hypothesis (filled with holes already; see below), but, as expected, this is simply seen as a “distinguishing feature” since evolutionists are already confident in their assumption of avian origins:

With the dino-bird link established, scientists are beginning to study what traits make birds stand apart from dinosaurs[.]

It seems the more evidence there is against a dinosaur-to-bird ancestry, the more evolutionists pound the drum of this link being “established,” as if repeating it over and over somehow makes it true. For more on this topic, see Did birds really evolve from dinosaurs? in our Get Answers: Dinosaurs.

3. BBC NEWS: “Scientists map elephant evolution”

Scientists from the U.S., Germany, and Switzerland have “calculated the date at which the African and the Asian elephant went their separate ways”—supposedly some 7.6 million years ago.

Of course, such calculations are based on “facts” that are far from incontrovertible and on methods of interpretation based largely or wholly on presupposed uniformitarian and evolutionary dogma. For instance, this recent elephantine calculation is based on assumptions about the mutation rate, and founded on the idea that two organisms’ joint evolutionary ancestry is reflected in the differences in their genomes (itself an idea based on the presupposition of their long-age evolutionary divergence from common ancestry).

Although we certainly do not (and need not) agree on the timescale, we would agree that the various elephantine creatures mentioned in the BBC article—African and Asian elephants, mastodons, and woolly mammoths—are likely all descended from similar ancestry— the same biblical kind present at creation, as Michael Oard describes in The elephant kind. Oard explains,

The mammoths and mastodons that lived after the Flood may have diverged from two elephants that contained genes for all of the elephant kind. Mammoths are fairly close in anatomy to the Asian elephant. It is likely that if the woolly mammoth lived today that it could interbreed with the Asian elephant.

Ultimately, then, even if we concede the use of the term “evolution” in regard to these scientists’ calculations, it is undoubtedly a downhill form of evolution (the only kind ever observed), one that has reduced or merely shuffled existing overall genetic information over a much shorter period of time—and therefore gives no credence to the goo-to-you evolutionary hypothesis.

4. MSNBC: “Pope: Creation vs. evolution clash an ‘absurdity’”

From Lorenzago di Cadore, Italy, comes a pronouncement by Pope Benedict XVI that the creation/evolution debate is an “absurdity.” The pope instead reiterated the Holy See’s official approval of evolution, echoing his predecessor that belief in evolution can coexist with faith:

“They are presented as alternatives that exclude each other,” the pope said. “This clash is an absurdity because on one hand there is much scientific proof in favor of evolution, which appears as a reality that we must see and which enriches our understanding of life and being as such.”

The pope also pointed out that “while there is much scientific proof to support evolution, the theory could not exclude a role by God” (the pope’s job might be in danger were he to say otherwise!).

Our prayer is that all the [skeptics] of the world would fully examine what science really shows about evolution

We wonder what the pope would say in response to the comments of Dan Barker, who, in an article in this week’s (Ontario, Canada-based) National Post titled “Ditching God,” explains what led him to abandon Christianity:

I realized the Bible has all this metaphor in it. If Adam and Eve are just a metaphor [...] then maybe God himself is one big metaphor.

Sadly, Barker’s “realization” that the Bible—including, specifically, Genesis—is (supposedly) filled with metaphor may have been based on his absorption of the attitudes of those like the pope and compromising Christians, who tout supposed “scientific proof” as confirming the “reality” of evolution and lambaste, often without familiarity, any attempt to critique evolution as “absurd.” It is disappointing that yet another prominent figure in the worldwide representation of Christianity, such as the pope, has surrendered the authority of the Word of God to the fallible opinions of humanity.

Our prayer is that all the “Barkers” of the world would fully examine what science really shows about evolution—and what the Bible plainly teaches as true history—before coming to the conclusion that God may be a metaphor. A wealth of information on the topics of evolution and the Bible (specifically Genesis) is available on our Get Answers section.

5. LiveScience: “Business Booming at Controversial Creation Museum”

If you heard the news, then let us be the first to confirm that, yes, you heard it right: in the slightly-under-two months our Creation Museum has been open to the public, we’ve presented the true account of world history—and the gospel message—to more than 100,000 visitors.

You can read more about our reaching the milestone in our adapted news release, Something to roar about, as well in the surprisingly fair AP story (carried by LiveScience, as linked above in their "Strange News" section).

We thank God for the visitors He has brought to the museum here in northern Kentucky (near the Cincinnati Airport), and continue to pray for the effect their visits will have in their lives and, consequentially, in the lives of those around them. And if you haven’t yet visited, why not start planning your trip?