[Jefferson]

RSF: Spiders & Termites & Magnets

This is the show from Friday April 8thth, 2011.

SUMMARY:



* Spider Webs, Termite Mounds, Earth's Magnetic Force: Co-hosts Fred Williams with Creation Research Society, and Bob Enyart, on this episode of Real Science Friday draw from the latest issue of Creation magazine, April - June 2011 and the Winter 2011 CRSQ Creation Research Society Quarterly. The guys start the show asking how, theoretically, vital organs could evolve, since by definition, they are vital.
- Spider Glue: Not only is the spider's web stronger than any man-made material including Kevlar and steel, but the spider applies twenty drops of glue per millimeter so that insects will get stuck. So, first you have to evolve a spider, then a web, and then the sticky stuff. But this sticky stuff is a "smart material" that holds tighter when an insect is moving quickly trying to get away, but the glue loosens up when the spider slowly moves the dead bug into the kitchen. Oh yeah, and by the way, the glue polymers are cross-linked so that when a bug pulls to get away the force of the adhesion will spread throughout the entire drop of glue. Too cool. And speaking of cool...



- Termite Mounds: These bugs build more highly efficient structures than anything man has ever built, including 30-foot tall mounds that mitigate heat and sunlight, house fungi farms, control moisture, and deny entrance to "air vibrating at higher frequencies" while permitting entry of air vibrating with a low frequency which turns the entire structure into a virtual lung which effectively aspirates and maintains the whole colony. So, conceptually by Darwinism, a bug would get a random mutation in an amino acid in it's deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule which would somehow confer to it the idea to build a grand structure. However, that magic mutation will not benefit the colony unless that one bug gets the colony to agree to his ambitious plan. And how could that happen unless the whole colony had that mutation. This is the chicken-and-the-egg problem that evolution faces everywhere. Proteins need DNA to be built, and the DNA needs the proteins to maintain it.



- Carbon 14 Gives Gas to Evolutionists: Carbon 14, increasingly a problem for Darwinists, is the friend of young-earth creationists. Why? C-14 decays in only thousands of years, and therefore, cannot last for millions of years. Thus evolutionists are shocked when they find find Carbon-14 EVERYWHERE it shouldn't be if the earth were old. Now The Plot thickens. Just as forensic accountants can often determine when a criminal business has cooked its books merely by doing a Benford statistical analysis of the numbers, so too mathematicians have long known that statistical analysis can indicate whether scientific data is a result of measurement errors. So while evolutionists have been forced to claim that all that C-14 results from contamination, but statistical analysis indicates that when plotting those errant ages, they should fit a normal curve. However, they do not. As documented by Rick Sanders in A Case of "Missing" Decay in CRSQ, Not only does their distribution provide evidence that the radiometric ages do not result from contamination errors, but they suggest that the specimens were buried in a single global event.



- Earth's Magnetic Field Decay: Russell Humphreys of Sandia National Labs published accurate predictions of the magnetic fields of Neptune and Uranus before NASA's Voyager mission confirmed his work. Dr. Humphreys has also written extensively on Earth's magnetic field and has now included the available measurements through 2010 in his update, Earth's Magnetic Field Is Decaying Steadily. Like with forensic accounting and statistical analysis, as numbers can often tell a lot about data, not only is the Earth's magnetic field decaying exponentially suggesting an origin of only thousands of years ago, but the decay patterns "weigh heavily against the idea that there is currently a 'dynamo' process at work in the core that would ultimately restore the lost energy back to the field. Without such a restoration mechanism, the field can only have a limited lifetime, in the thousands of years."

Today’s Resource: You'll just love the science DVDs, books, and written, audio or video debates we offer through our Real Science Friday broadcasts! So have you browsed through our Science Department in the KGOV Store? Check out Bob most highly-recommended astronomy DVD, What You Aren't Being Told About Astronomy! And see Walt Brown’s great hardcover book, In the Beginning! You’ll also love Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez’ Privileged Planet(clip), and Illustra Media’sUnlocking the Mystery of Life(clip)! You can consider our BELScience Pack; Bob Enyart’sAge of the Earth Debate; Bob's debate about Junk DNA with the infamous anti-creationist Dr. Eugenie Scott. And if you have young kids or grand kids, you owe it to them and to yourself to give them as a gift the SUPERB kids' radio programming on audio CD,Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins! And Bob strongly recommends that you subscribe to CMI’s tremendousCreation magazine and if you're up to reading more technical scientific articles, you'll also want to subscribe to CRSQ! And to order any of our BEL science products by phone, just call us at 1-800-8Enyart (836-9278).

* Special Editions of Real Science Friday:
- BEL's famous List of Not-So-Old Things
- Bob's debate with Christian Darwinist British author James Hannam
- PZ Myers blogs against Real Science Friday so we hit back with the PZ Trochlea Challenge
- Waiting for Darwin's Other Shoe: Science mag cover: Darwin Was Wrong on the Tree of Life
- Microbiologist in Studio: Creation Research Society Quarterly editor on new genetic findings
- Caterpillar Kills Atheism: describe how a bug could evolve to liquefy itself and then build itself into a flying creature
- And see the RSF Offer of $2,000 to get 16 letters of the alphabet in their correct places; $500 paid in 1998; $1,500 in 2010...

[alwight]

Aha an irreducible-complexity-and-I-can't-figure-it-out-therefore-goddidit thread.

"Thus evolutionists are shocked when they find find Carbon-14 EVERYWHERE it shouldn't be if the earth were old."

But carbon 14 is created in the atmosphere, it literally rains down on us, it can get everywhere that's exposed and is absorbed by life.
(Waits for an example of "EVERYWHERE it shouldn't be".)

Then I see "What You Aren't Being Told About Astronomy - Volume 1"

"The evolutionary astronomy model has failed. Recent discoveries have revealed that each planet in our Solar System defies this model in multiple ways."

What exactly is this "evolutionary astronomy model"? Nothing to do with the evolution of life (Theory of Evolution) I hope, but I suspect a confusion or misdirection is rather hoped for here.
I'm losing the will to go on now...

[Alate_One]

Yet another *Wrong* Science Friday. Figured out your squid ink issue yet, Bob? Made an on-air retraction this week?

My favorite here: "The guys start the show asking how, theoretically, vital organs could evolve, since by definition, they are vital."

Someone apparently never took comparative zoology. There's a nice progression in complexity (and presence) of quite a number of vital organs.



Here's a detailed discussion

It's really unfortunate that doctors don't learn about the origins of the organs they work on . . . .

[Stripe]

Lining up diagrams is no evidence of common ancestry.

[Yorzhik]

Originally Posted by alwight

Aha an irreducible-complexity-and-I-can't-figure-it-out-therefore-goddidit thread.

It's evolution's claim that it was created by evolution. Therefore it's evolution's job to explain how it happened.

[Frayed Knot]

Originally Posted by alwight

Aha an irreducible-complexity-and-I-can't-figure-it-out-therefore-goddidit thread.

I think the biggest problem with creationists is that they think that complexity implies design, so they point out all the complexity they can find, thinking that it's somehow evidence for design, but it's not. Biologists know that complexity is what you get with a natural evolution process.

But carbon 14 is created in the atmosphere, it literally rains down on us, it can get everywhere that's exposed and is absorbed by life.
(Waits for an example of "EVERYWHERE it shouldn't be".)

I haven't listened to this episode yet, but I think that they're talking about a very low-level of C14 in places that could not have been the result of atmospheric C14 in the last several tens of thousands of years. Psssst - don't tell them, but there are other process that can produce small amounts of C14 via radioactive decay, it's just that C14 produced this way is way less abundant than C14 due to what comes from the atmosphere. We wouldn't expect zero C14 in any material, though, because there's that small amount from radiation that is produced inside the Earth. Don't tell the creationists, though - it's fun watching them look foolish like this.

[DavisBJ]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Lining up diagrams is no evidence of common ancestry.

Agreed. But does showing that the heart is found in various stages of increasing complexity help show that the heart of higher orders of life might have come from simpler forms?

[alwight]

Originally Posted by Frayed Knot

I haven't listened to this episode yet, but I think that they're talking about a very low-level of C14 in places that could not have been the result of atmospheric C14 in the last several tens of thousands of years. Psssst - don't tell them, but there are other process that can produce small amounts of C14 via radioactive decay, it's just that C14 produced this way is way less abundant than C14 due to what comes from the atmosphere. We wouldn't expect zero C14 in any material, though, because there's that small amount from radiation that is produced inside the Earth. Don't tell the creationists, though - it's fun watching them look foolish like this.

It won't go passed these four walls, I don't want to shatter their delusion, then again...
But I do like the way they try to use C14 against an old Earth, as if it did, nice try though shows some promise, they may be evolving.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Yorzhik

It's evolution's claim that it was created by evolution. Therefore it's evolution's job to explain how it happened.

And it is well explained if creationists would actually bother to read the literature, or even a textbook.

But creationists love to claim "evolutionists have no answer" for things that actually have copious amounts of "answers" in the form of published papers and books.

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by DavisBJ

Agreed. But does showing that the heart is found in various stages of increasing complexity help show that the heart of higher orders of life might have come from simpler forms?

I bet I could line them up according to any number of criteria and show an increase in "complexity".

I bet we could line them up according to size and show an increase in complexity!

[alwight]

Originally Posted by Yorzhik

It's evolution's claim that it was created by evolution. Therefore it's evolution's job to explain how it happened.

I at least am quite happy that it does in fact do that very well indeed based in honest real evidence, without having to force-fit any particular preconcluded doctrinal, supposedly inerrant alternatives.

Later Edit: It strikes me that even you might agree that evolution of the old Earth variety is a reasonably enough explanation in itself for the available evidence, even if you do think it is mistaken.
In that case I suggest that it is now time for creationists to falsify it instead of expecting to have every last detail fully explained for you.

[DavisBJ]

Originally Posted by Stripe

I bet I could line them up according to any number of criteria and show an increase in "complexity".

I bet we could line them up according to size and show an increase in complexity!

Perhaps intentional denial of the clear increase of complexity in Alate’s figure is something you feel a deep need for. Not much I can do about that, since “There are none so blind …”

[Stripe]

Originally Posted by alwight

it is now time for creationists to falsify it instead of expecting to have every last detail fully explained for you.

Evolution is not falsifiable, but we can show it to be impossible. Evolution depends upon an increase in the integrity of the information in DNA. This cannot happen by the natural selection of random changes.

Originally Posted by DavisBJ

Perhaps intentional denial of the clear increase of complexity in Alate’s figure is something you feel a deep need for. Not much I can do about that, since “There are none so blind …”

Perhaps you're right.

Doesn't do much for the validity of her evidence, but.

[Alate_One]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Evolution is not falsifiable, but we can show it to be impossible.

It is falsifiable. You just want to falsify it. Which you can't because there is no actually existing evidence to falsify it.

Evolution depends upon an increase in the integrity of the information in DNA. This cannot happen by the natural selection of random changes.

Back to this again. Except you can't define information coherently enough to use it for the actual function DNA.

Doesn't do much for the validity of her evidence, but.

Not only can you line up hearts from different organisms you can observe the formation of the human heart.





And these have phases that look very much like fish and amphibian hearts, and even something simpler, as just two pulsating tubes with interconnections which is very similar to an earthworm's heart.

[Frayed Knot]

Originally Posted by Stripe

Evolution is not falsifiable, but we can show it to be impossible.

Huh? Wouldn't a demonstration that something is impossible, be a pretty solid falsification of it? You keep demonstrating that you have a basic misunderstanding of the terms used in science.

Evolution depends upon an increase in the integrity of the information in DNA.

I see you've backed off your old claim that evolution depends on an increase in the information in DNA. That's good as far as that goes, but what you've substituted here makes no sense. The "integrity of the information in DNA"? What's that mean?