And still yet more on the real world's anti Darwinian bias.

Fossil Turaco Is Yet Another Failed Biogeographical Prediction for Neo-Darwinism
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

In a delightful article here yesterday, German paleontologist Günter Bechly documents the many absurdities that result when the Darwinian teaching on universal common ancestry runs up against a consideration of the field of biogeography. 

Bechly: 

[I]t is far from true that biogeography unambiguously supports common ancestry, or that patterns of biogeographic distribution always align well with the pattern of reconstructed phylogenetic branching or the supposed age of origin. Indeed, there are many tenacious problems of biogeography and paleobiogeography that do not square well with the evolutionary paradigm of common descent.

His examples include ratite birds, freshwater snails, trapdoor snails, worm-lizards, iguanas and boine snakes, and more.

Enter the Banana-Eater

Here’s another little story, “Bird family tree shaken by discovery of feathered fossil,” that discusses an additional interesting biogeographical problem for neo-Darwinism. BBC News reports:

They’re some of the strangest birds in the world, known for their bright plumage and their penchant for fruit.

The turacos, or banana-eaters, are today found only in Africa, living in forests and savannah.

But now scientists have found the earliest known fossil of this bird group not in the Old World but in NORTH AMERICA — aged 52 million years!

Why Does That Matter?

It matters because at 52 million years ago, North America was completely separated from Africa by thousands of kilometers, with no land bridges in sight. See here for an idea of how the world is thought to have looked at this time.

Presumably they will just conclude that birds can get around due to their ability to fly great distances, and thus they can avoid another embarrassing appeal to monkeys and other animals “rafting” across the open Atlantic Ocean to solve this problem. But it’s still a further failed biogeographical prediction for neo-Darwinism.

The technical paper in BMC Evolutionary Biology, “A North American stem turaco, and the complex biogeographic history of modern birds,” by Daniel J. Field and Allison Y. Hsiang, is open access and  can be found here.

It says:

Our analyses offer the first well-supported evidence for a stem musophagid (and therefore a useful fossil calibration for avian molecular divergence analyses), and reveal surprising new information on the early morphology and biogeography of this clade.

Where Is the Surprise?

The “new information” is “surprising” only if you rigidly insist on universal common ancestry where species are predicted to exist only in geographical locations that are easily reachable from where you think they originally evolved.

Evolutionists love to boast about the predictive power of their theory. But the paper states:

When informative branch length data are incorporated, the fossil record provides indispensable data on evolutionary and biogeographic history, leading to reconstructions that may be unexpected when one considers extant data alone.

In other words, ancient or fossil biogeographic locations of species don’t necessarily accord with modern day biogeographic locations of species. So on what basis can evolutionary theory make biogeographical predictions?

A better body?

The Perfect Human Body?
Jonathan Wells

We all know that the human body can suffer from flaws. For most people, that doesn’t mean our bodies are accidental by-products of unguided evolution. Instead, they are designed — despite the fact that they sometimes start out flawed or become flawed as they grow older.

For English anatomist  Alice Roberts, however, the human body is a “hodge-podge” of parts assembled in an “untidy” fashion “with no foresight” by evolution. So, like many evolutionary biologists before her, she set out with some colleagues to “design and build the  Perfect Body.” Her results were aired on BBC Four on June 13, 2018.

According to Roberts, the Perfect Human Body would have ears like cats and lungs like birds. (Of course, bird lungs would require major modifications to other aspects of human anatomy, but the details might get “untidy.”) 

The Perfect Human Body would also have legs like ostriches. Ostrich legs are “digitigrade” — they rest on their toes. They are also very fast, enabling ostriches to run very quickly on the plains of Africa. And ostrich legs have proven to be a good model for making prosthetics to help people whose legs have been amputated above the knee. 

Human legs are “plantigrade” — they rest on their soles. They are not as good at running as digitigrade legs, but their stance is more stable and they are a lot more versatile. Would I trade mine for the equivalent of prosthetics worn by an amputee? Not unless I have to.

Another change Roberts would make is to the reproductive system. Because of the large size of a human baby’s head, giving birth can be dangerous and very painful for women — though modern medicine has made it much safer and less painful. For Roberts, it would have been better if humans had evolved to be marsupials, like kangaroos, whose tiny fetuses crawl out into a pouch to complete their development. 

But marsupials are much less intelligent than placental mammals (which include not only humans, but also sloths), because a marsupial brain “differs markedly in both structure and bulk” from a placental brain. So Roberts’s Perfect Human would be much less intelligent than an actual human being.

But my favorite among her “improvements” is the eye. According to Roberts, “our eyes have evolved” such that 

the retina is “backwards.” The light receptors are at the back; the nerve fibre “wires” take off at the front, and then have to converge on a spot where they pierce through and exit the eye — the optic disc — which creates a blind spot. Our brains fill in this blind spot so that we’re not aware of it. But how about we wire up the eye sensibly and avoid the blind spot in the first place. Octopi do just that — so let’s steal their anatomy for the eye.

As I’ve written several times before, this is a myth promoted by Darwinist Richard Dawkins and his followers — even though the evidence against it was already available in scientific publications before Dawkins invented it. The light-sensing cells in a human eye are so metabolically active that they must be nourished and maintained by a dense network of blood vessels and a specialized layer of epithelial cells. If the blood vessels and epithelial cells were between the light-sensing cells and the incoming light, we would be almost blind. By contrast, nerve cells are almost transparent. The so-called “backwards retina,” far from being poorly designed, seems to be optimally designed.

As for octopus eyes: Biologists have known for more than thirty years that octopus eyes are inferior to human eyes, because in human eyes the information from light-sensing cells is pre-processed by the nerve cells in the retina itself. Octopus eyes must transmit their visual information all the way to the brain to be processed into images. The result is fuzzier signals and slower processing. An octopus eye “is just a ‘passive’ retina which is able to transmit only information, dot by dot, coded in a far less sophisticated fashion than in vertebrates.” 

Why do people enamored of evolution ignore the evidence and presume they can create the Perfect Human Body? Is this the way science is supposed to work?

On Darwinism's loaded dice.

The Fallacy of Evolutionary Advantage
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC

Consider the following story:

Why are there two modes of transportation for accomplishing the same function? Bicycles and automobiles apparently emerged independently. While both provide transport, the automobile would seem to have a clear advantage in miles traveled per unit energy. Our analysis suggests a possible explanation for this apparent relationship between energy input and mechanism. When the car and the bicycle are traveling at about 10 kph, the ratio of energy expenditure per meter is about the same [for the sake of illustration]. When the conditions under which transport must occur at higher velocity are encountered, the gasoline engine mechanism may have been selected for its kinetic advantage. On the other hand, when conditions require a velocity of 10 kph or less, the foot-pedal mechanism may have been selected for other possible advantages resulting from its structural and functional simplicity.

We laugh at this silly tale, but evolutionists often employ this kind of reasoning very seriously: if something is advantageous, nature must have selected it! Since evolutionary theory forbids any appeal to intelligent causes, whatever scientists observe — no matter how intricate — must have been designed without a designer, and selected without a selector.

Here’s a recent example in PLOS ONE.  Two scientists from the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh propounded the exact same reasoning as our story, except their machines are much smaller. But the same fallacy applies. In fact, we adapted our story from similar language in their paper, “Biophysical comparison of ATP-driven proton pumping mechanisms suggests a kinetic advantage for the rotary process depending on coupling ratio.” Notice the similarities:

ATP-driven proton pumps, which are critical to the operation of a cell, maintain cytosolic and organellar pH levels within a narrow functional range. These pumps employ two very different mechanisms: an elaborate rotary mechanism used by V-ATPase H+ pumps, and a simpler alternating access mechanism used by P-ATPase H+ pumps. Why are two different mechanisms used to perform the same function? Systematic analysis, without parameter fitting, of kinetic models of the rotary, alternating access and other possible mechanisms suggest that, when the ratio of protons transported per ATP hydrolyzed exceeds one, the one-at-a-time proton transport by the rotary mechanism is faster than other possible mechanisms across a wide range of driving conditions. When the ratio is one, there is no intrinsic difference in the free energy landscape between mechanisms, and therefore all mechanisms can exhibit the same kinetic performance. To our knowledge all known rotary pumps have an H+:ATP ratio greater than one, and all known alternating access ATP-driven proton pumps have a ratio of one. Our analysis suggests a possible explanation for this apparent relationship between coupling ratio and mechanism. When the conditions under which the pump must operate permit a coupling ratio greater than one, the rotary mechanism may have been selected for its kinetic advantage. On the other hand, when conditions require a coupling ratio of one or less, the alternating access mechanism may have been selected for other possible advantages resulting from its structural and functional simplicity. [Emphasis added.]

They are talking, mind you, about one of the most amazing molecular machines in all life: the ATP synthase rotary motor. We featured it in an animation. And as we have written about before, it comes in two types: the mitochondrial F0F1-ATPase that synthesizes ATP from a proton motive force, and the vacuolar V-ATPase that acidifies vacuoles with a similar mechanism running in reverse. Just to look at these machines in operation screams intelligent design!

The P-ATPase proton pump they refer to is no less awe-inspiring. Even though it uses a less-efficient mechanism (one proton per one ATP), it sustains critical cellular functions. The gills of young salmon, for instance, use the sodium-potassium pump (Na+/K+ P-ATPase) for adapting to seawater when exiting their natal streams, and use the pumps in reverse when returning. This animation shows that the design, while simpler than ATP synthase, is elegant and effective, like the bicycle compared to the car. Here at Evolution News, physician Howard Glicksman described the many important functions this pump accomplishes in the human body.

Now that we know about the two machines discussed in the PLOS ONE paper, do the authors ever describe how they arose by random mutations and natural selection? Of course not. To them, it’s sufficient to say, “They’re advantageous; therefore they evolved.” Full stop. In fact, the evolutionists double the miracle-working power of natural selection by saying this, fully aware of the complexity of these machines:

Two very distinct mechanisms, which most likely evolved independently, are employed for ATP-driven H+ pumps: the rotary mechanism of the V-ATPase and the alternating access mechanism used by the P-ATPases (Fig 1). The significantly more complex V-ATPase consists of 25–39 protein chains compared to a monomeric or homodimeric polypeptide for the P-ATPase. The operating mechanism for the V-ATPase is also more elaborate consisting of an electric motor-like rotary mechanism. In contrast, the P-ATPase operates by switching between two (E1 and E2) conformations similar to most allosteric mechanisms.

We should gasp at such credulity in a scientific paper. Yet the two authors, with two more colleagues, published a similar paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last year: “Biophysical comparison of ATP synthesis mechanisms shows a kinetic advantage for the rotary process.” The same fallacy is central to their whole paper: “Our analysis shows that the rotary mechanism is faster than other possible mechanisms, particularly under challenging conditions, suggesting a possible evolutionary advantage.”

Why did evolution select two very different mechanisms for ATP-driven proton pumps? Here we explore one possible consideration: the difference in kinetics, i.e. the rate of H+ pumping, between the two mechanisms, building on our recent study of ATP synthesis kinetics [the PNAS paper]. A mechanism that can pump protons faster, under the same conditions (same bioenergetic cost), may be able to respond to cellular demands and changing conditions more rapidly. Also, a faster mechanism would require a lower driving potential (bioenergetic cost) to achieve the same pumping rate compared to a slower mechanism. Such a mechanism may offer a survival advantage particularly when the difference in rates is large and in a highly competitive environment. Presumably such a mechanism would be under positive selection pressure.

The authors don’t just waltz past these statements, as if to get on to more rigorous matters. No; the Evolutionary Advantage Fallacy is central to their whole thesis. We count the word advantage 25 times, usually in an evolutionary context: in particular, evolutionary advantage or selective advantage eight times. Here it is twice in the concluding discussion:

Why are there two different mechanisms, a rotary mechanism and an alternating access mechanism, for ATP-driven proton pumps? Many factors contribute to overall evolutionary fitness, and here we focus on kinetic behavior, which is amenable to systematic analysis…. These results suggest that when driving conditions are such that a coupling ratio above one is sufficient for viable operation, the rotary mechanism may have a selective advantage. However, when a process requires a coupling ratio of one for viable operation, the alternating access mechanism may have a selective advantage because of its simplicity and corresponding lower cost of protein synthesis.

Another case of the Evolutionary Advantage Fallacy appears in PNAS. Wei Lin and ten other international colleagues think that bacteria evolved magnetotaxis because it would have been advantageous to them. “The early origin for magnetotaxis would have provided evolutionary advantages in coping with environmental challenges faced by microorganisms on early Earth,” they say. Just because the “Archean geodynamo was sufficient to support magnetotaxis,” doesn’t mean that bacteria will create genes and behaviors to make use of it. That’s like saying water creates fish.

Are these isolated cases we’re picking on? A quick search on Google Scholar for “evolutionary advantage” yields over 32,000 hits. In our experience, this is a frequently used phrase that is usually devoid of any detailed description of how random mutations and natural selection could have achieved the said advantages. The simplistic syllogism, “It’s advantageous, therefore it evolved,” is not a scientific theory. It’s mere word salad.

1918 all over again?

More Witnesses Imprisoned After Aggressive Home Raids in Russia

UPDATE: On June 21, 2018, Anatoliy Vilitkevich was released from pretrial detention. Jehovah’s Witnesses had filed an appeal for his release, which the Supreme Court of the Republic of Bashkortostan granted. However, the court ruled that he remain under house arrest.

Over the past month, Russian authorities have stepped up a campaign of terror and arrested and imprisoned more of Jehovah’s Witnesses under the guise of fighting extremism. Police forces raided private homes in Birobidzhan, Khabarovsk, Magadan, Orenburg, Naberezhnye Chelny, Perm, Pskov, Saratov, and Tomsk. They arrested 15 more Witness men, bringing the total to 20 Witnesses in pretrial detention. Two others are under house arrest. At least 15 Witnesses, including some in their 70’s and 80’s, have been required to sign an agreement not to leave the area where they live. As of June 14, 2018, authorities in Russia have brought criminal charges against over 40 Witnesses. If convicted, they face prison terms of up to ten years.

The Russian government has directly violated its guarantee made in open court that the ban on the legal entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses would not affect the right of individual Witnesses to practice their faith. Russia has completely disregarded this guarantee and is misapplying Article 282 of the Criminal Code in order to charge the Witnesses with participating in, organizing, or financing an “extremist” organization. In reality, rather than fighting extremism, Russia is persecuting its own citizens for their peaceful worship.

Recent Raids, Arrests, and Detentions

June 12, 2018, Saratov. Police raided and searched several homes of Witnesses and took at least ten Witnesses to the police station for interrogation. During the search of one home, the authorities planted religious literature that had been banned earlier by Russian courts. Five Witness men were taken into custody. Two of them were later released, but the police detained the other three and charged Konstantin Bazhenov and Felix Makhammadiev with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization.’ The criminal charge against the third Witness, Aleksey Budenchuk, is unconfirmed. On June 14, 2018, the Frunzenskiy District Court of Saratov ruled to keep Mr. Bazhenov and Mr. Makhammadiev in pretrial detention until August 12, 2018. The same court also ruled to keep Mr. Budenchuk in pretrial detention, but his release date is unconfirmed. Separately, the police ordered another Witness to sign an agreement not to leave the area.

June 3, 2018, Tomsk. At 10:00 a.m., police and members of Russia’s Special Military Force (Spetsnaz) raided two homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Tomsk, Siberia. They detained about 30 Witnesses, including an 83-year-old woman. The police seized personal belongings from homes and vehicles, loaded the Witnesses into buses, and escorted them to the Center for Counteracting Extremism.

At the Center, investigators Ivan Vedrentsev, Aleksandr Ivanov, and Vyacheslav Lebedev forcefully interrogated some of the Witnesses until 2:00 a.m. the following morning. The investigators threatened to have one of the detainees fired from his job. During the investigation, ambulances were sent to the Center several times, and at least one Witness was hospitalized.

One of the detainees, Sergey Klimov, was kept in custody. On June 5, 2018, the Oktyabrskiy District Court of Tomsk charged him with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization’ and ordered that he be kept in pretrial detention until August 4, 2018. The judge rejected motions for him to be held under house arrest or to be released on bail.

June 3, 2018, Pskov. Police forces raided multiple homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Pskov. At one home, everyone present was detained and interrogated, including two non-Witness visitors. Several of Jehovah’s Witnesses, including Gennadiy Shpakovsky, were taken to the Pskov Regional Headquarters of the Federal Security Services (FSB) for interrogation. Some of those taken to the police station were pressured to give evidence against Mr. Shpakovsky. Authorities initiated a criminal case against him under the charge of ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization.’ Although he was later released, officials may at any time press further charges.

May 30, 2018, Khabarovsk. Police arrested Ivan Puyda after invading and searching his home. They escorted him to Magadan, where they kept him in custody. On June 1, 2018, the Zheleznodorozhniy District Court charged Mr. Puyda with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization’ and ordered that he be kept in pretrial detention until July 30, 2018.

May 30, 2018, Magadan. Armed and masked police forces raided private residences in Magadan and arrested and detained Konstantin Petrov, Yevgeniy Zyablov, and Sergey Yerkin. On June 1, 2018, the Magadan City Court charged Mr. Petrov and Mr. Zyablov with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization.’ On the same day, the Magadanskiy District Court similarly charged Mr. Yerkin. All three Witness men were ordered to be kept in pretrial detention until July 29, 2018.

Dmitriy Mikhailov

May 29, 2018, Shuya, Ivanovo Region. Authorities took Dmitriy Mikhailov into custody for the second time. After a raid on April 20, police had charged him with ‘participating in the activity of an extremist organization’ and required him to sign an agreement that he would not leave the area. On May 29, authorities also charged him with ‘financing extremist activity.’ On June 3, 2018, the Shuya City Court ordered that he be kept in pretrial detention until July 19, 2018.

May 27, 2018, Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan. Overnight, FSB agents searched ten private residences and seized electronic devices, cell phones, and passports. Ilkham Karimov, Konstantin Matrashov, and Vladimir Myakushin were arrested and taken into custody. On May 29, 2018, the Naberezhnochelninskiy District Court charged the three men with organizing and recruiting for an “extremist” organization and participating in its activity. The court ordered that they be kept in pretrial detention until July 25, 2018. Later, Aydar Yulmetyev was also arrested, and on May 31, 2018, the court ruled to keep him in pretrial detention as well.

May 22, 2018, Perm. When Aleksandr and Anna Solovyev returned to Perm after a trip to Moldova, police officers met them at the train station, handcuffed Mr. Solovyev, seized his personal belongings, and escorted the couple to the police station in separate vehicles. While Mr. Solovyev was in detention, police searched his home and interrogated his wife. On May 24, 2018, the Sverdlovskiy District Court charged Mr. Solovyev with ‘participating in the activity of an extremist organization’ and placed him under house arrest.

May 17, 2018, Birobidzhan. In a sting operation code-named Judgment Day, 150 police officers and members of the FSB raided 22 homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The police seized tablets, cell phones, and money. Police arrested and imprisoned Alam Aliev, one of the 34 Witnesses searched during the raids. On May 18, the Birobidzhanskiy District Court charged him with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization’ and ordered that he be kept in pretrial detention until July 13, 2018. On May 25, 2018, Judge A. V. Sizova of the Appellate Court of the Jewish Autonomous Region granted Mr. Aliev’s appeal and reversed the order for his pretrial detention.

May 16, 2018, Orenburg. Police officers raided and searched private homes. They arrested three Witnesses: Aleksandr Suvorov, Vladimir Kochnev, and Vladislav Kolbanov. On May 18, the Promyshlenniy District Court charged Mr. Kolbanov with ‘financing extremist activity.’ The court released him but ruled that he be kept under house arrest. The following day, the same court charged Mr. Kochnev and Mr. Suvorov with ‘organizing the activity of an extremist organization’ and ordered that they be kept in pretrial detention until July 14, 2018. The investigator also ordered seven other Witnesses to sign an agreement not to leave the city during the investigation.

Will International Censure Have Effect?

Both the European Union (EU) and the United States have issued official statements condemning Russia’s disregard for fundamental freedoms. The EU called on Russia “to respect its international commitments on freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.” The United States additionally urged Russia “to immediately release all those imprisoned simply for exercising their freedom of religion or belief.”

Philip Brumley, General Counsel for Jehovah’s Witnesses, stated: “Jehovah’s Witnesses around the world are greatly disturbed by the harsh persecution of their fellow believers in Russia. Jehovah’s Witnesses are confronting the same type of repression today as they suffered under the Communist regime. By its actions and ongoing oppression, Russia is flagrantly disregarding its own guarantees to uphold fundamental human rights.”

Witnesses recently placed in pretrial detention:

Aleksandr Suvorov, aged 38, Orenburg, detained since May 16, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 14, 2018.

Vladimir Kochnev, aged 38, Orenburg, detained since May 16, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 14, 2018.

Ilkham Karimov, aged 37, Naberezhnye Chelny, detained since May 27, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 25, 2018.

Konstantin Matrashov, aged 29, Naberezhnye Chelny, detained since May 27, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 25, 2018.

Vladimir Myakushin, aged 30, Naberezhnye Chelny, detained since May 27, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 25, 2018.

Aydar Yulmetyev, aged 24, Naberezhnye Chelny, detained since May 27, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 25, 2018.

Dmitriy Mikhailov, aged 40, Shuya, detained since May 29, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 19, 2018.

Konstantin Petrov, aged 31, Magadan, detained since May 30, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 29, 2018.

Sergey Yerkin, aged 64, Magadan, detained since May 30, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 29, 2018.

Yevgeniy Zyablov, aged 41, Magadan, detained since May 30, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 29, 2018.

Ivan Puyda, aged 39, Khabarovsk, detained since May 30, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 30, 2018.

Sergey Klimov, aged 48, Tomsk, detained since June 3, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until August 4, 2018.

Konstantin Bazhenov, aged 43, Saratov, detained since June 12, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until August 12, 2018.

Felix Makhammadiev, aged 33, Saratov, detained since June 12, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until August 12, 2018.

Aleksey Budenchuk, aged 35, Saratov, detained since June 12, 2018, and ordered to remain in jail, but his release date is unconfirmed.

Witnesses who were earlier placed in pretrial detention *

Dennis Christensen

Aged 45, Oryol, detained since May 25, 2017, and ordered to remain jailed until August 1, 2018.

Valentin Osadchuk

Aged 42, Vladivostok, detained since April 19, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until June 20, 2018.

Viktor Trofimov

Aged 61, Polyarny, detained since April 18, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until October 11, 2018.

Roman Markin

Aged 44, Polyarny, detained since April 18, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until October 11, 2018.

Anatoliy Vilitkevich

Aged 31, Ufa, detained since April 10, 2018, and ordered to remain jailed until July 2, 2018.

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Scriptural designations for"The earth":The Watchtower society's commentary.

EARTH

The fifth-largest planet of the solar system and the third in order of position from the sun. It is an oblate spheroid, being slightly flattened at the poles. Satellite observations have indicated other slight irregularities in the shape of the earth. Its mass is approximately 5.98 × 1024 kg (13.18 × 1024 lb). Its area is about 510,000,000 sq km (197,000,000 sq mi). Earth’s measurements are (approximately): circumference at the equator, just over 40,000 km (24,900 mi); diameter at the equator, 12,750 km (7,920 mi). Oceans and seas cover approximately 71 percent of its surface, leaving about 149,000,000 sq km (57,500,000 sq mi) of land surface.

The earth rotates on its axis, bringing about day and night. (Ge 1:4, 5) A solar day or an apparent day is a period of 24 hours, the time taken for an observer at any one point on the earth to be again in the same position relative to the sun. The tropical year, which concerns the return of the seasons, the interval between two consecutive returns of the sun to the vernal equinox, is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, on the average. This figure is the one used in solar-year calendar reckoning, and its fractional nature has caused much difficulty in accurate calendar making.

The axis of the earth tilts 23° 27ʹ away from a perpendicular to the earth’s orbit. The gyroscopic effect of rotation holds the earth’s axis in basically the same direction relative to the stars regardless of its location in its orbit around the sun. This tilt of the axis brings about the seasons.

The earth’s atmosphere, composed principally of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and other gases, extends over 960 km (600 mi) above the earth’s surface. Beyond this is what is termed “outer space.”

Bible Terms and Significance. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word used for earth as a planet is ʼeʹrets. ʼEʹrets refers to (1) earth, as opposed to heaven, or sky (Ge 1:2); (2) land, country, territory (Ge 10:10); (3) ground, surface of the ground (Ge 1:26); (4) people of all the globe (Ge 18:25).

The word ʼadha·mahʹ is translated “ground,” “soil,” or “land.” ʼAdha·mahʹ refers to (1) ground as tilled, yielding sustenance (Ge 3:23); (2) piece of ground, landed property (Ge 47:18); (3) earth as material substance, soil, dirt (Jer 14:4; 1Sa 4:12); (4) ground as earth’s visible surface (Ge 1:25); (5) land, territory, country (Le 20:24); (6) whole earth, inhabited earth (Ge 12:3). ʼAdha·mahʹ seems to be related etymologically to the word ʼa·dhamʹ, the first man Adam having been made from the dust of the ground.—Ge 2:7.

In the Greek Scriptures, ge denotes earth as arable land or soil. (Mt 13:5, 8) It is used to designate the material from which Adam was made, the earth (1Co 15:47); the earthly globe (Mt 5:18, 35; 6:19); earth as a habitation for human creatures and animals (Lu 21:35; Ac 1:8; 8:33; 10:12; 11:6; 17:26); land, country, territory (Lu 4:25; Joh 3:22); ground (Mt 10:29; Mr 4:26); land, shore, as contrasted with seas or waters. (Joh 21:8, 9, 11; Mr 4:1).

Oi·kou·meʹne, translated “world” in the King James Version, denotes “inhabited earth.”—Mt 24:14; Lu 2:1; Ac 17:6; Re 12:9.

In each case of all the above senses in which these words are used, the form of the word in the original language, and more particularly the setting or context, determine which sense is meant.

The Hebrews divided the earth into four quarters or regions corresponding to the four points of the compass. In the Hebrew Scriptures the words “before” and “in front of” designate and are translated “east” (Ge 12:8); “behind” may mean “west” (Isa 9:12); “the right side” may denote “south” (1Sa 23:24); and “the left” may be translated “north” (Job 23:8, 9; compare Ro). East was also (in Heb.) sometimes called the sunrising, as for example, at Joshua 4:19. West (in Heb.) was the setting of the sun. (2Ch 32:30) Also, physical characteristics were used. Being almost the total western boundary of Palestine, the “Sea” (the Mediterranean) was sometimes used for west.—Nu 34:6.

Creation. The planet’s coming into existence is recounted in the Bible with the simple statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Ge 1:1) Just how long ago the starry heavens and the earth were created is not stated in the Bible. Therefore, there is no basis for Bible scholars to take issue with scientific calculations of the age of the planet. Scientists estimate the age of some rocks as being three and a half billion years, and the earth itself as being about four to four and a half billion or more years.

As to time, the Scriptures are more definite about the six creative days of the Genesis account. These days have to do, not with the creation of earth’s matter or material, but with the arranging and preparing of it for man’s habitation.

The Bible does not reveal whether God created life on any of the other planets in the universe. However, astronomers today have not found proof that life exists on any of these planets and, in fact, know of no planet besides the earth that is at present capable of supporting the life of fleshly creatures.

Purpose. Like all other created things, the earth was brought into existence because of Jehovah’s will (“pleasure,” KJ). (Re 4:11) It was created to remain forever. (Ps 78:69; 104:5; 119:90; Ec 1:4) God speaks of himself as a God of purpose and declares that his purposes are certain to come to fruition. (Isa 46:10; 55:11) He made his purpose for the earth very clear when he said to the first human pair: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” (Ge 1:28) There were no flaws in earth or the things on it. Having created all necessary things, Jehovah saw that they were “very good” and “proceeded to rest” or desist from other earthly creative works.—Ge 1:31–2:2.

Man’s habitation on earth is also permanent. When God gave man the law regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, he implied that man could live on earth forever. (Ge 2:17) We are assured by Jehovah’s own words that “all the days the earth continues, seed sowing and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, will never cease” (Ge 8:22) and that he will never destroy all flesh again by a flood. (Ge 9:12-16) Jehovah says that he did not make the earth for nothing but, rather, that he has given it to men as a home and that death will eventually be done away with. God’s purpose, therefore, is for the earth to be the habitation of man in perfection and happiness with eternal life.—Ps 37:11; 115:16; Isa 45:18; Re 21:3, 4.

That this is the purpose of Jehovah God, sacred to him and not to be thwarted, is indicated when the Bible says: “And by the seventh day God came to the completion of his work that he had made . . . And God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making.” (Ge 2:2, 3) The seventh, or rest, day is not shown in the Genesis account as ending, as in the case of the other six days. The apostle Paul explained that the rest day of God had been continuous right through Israelite history down to his own time and had not yet ended. (Heb 3:7-11; 4:3-9) God says the seventh day was set aside as sacred to him. He would carry out his purpose toward the earth; it would be fully accomplished during that day, with no necessity of further creative works toward the earth during that time.

The Bible’s Harmony With Scientific Facts. The Bible, at Job 26:7, speaks of God as “hanging the earth upon nothing.” Science says that the earth remains in its orbit in space primarily because of the interaction of gravity and centrifugal force. These forces, of course, are invisible. Therefore the earth, like other heavenly bodies, is suspended in space as if hanging on nothing. Speaking from Jehovah’s viewpoint, the prophet Isaiah wrote under inspiration: “There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers.” (Isa 40:22) The Bible says: “He [God] has described a circle upon the face of the waters.” (Job 26:10) The waters are limited by his decree to their proper place. They do not come up and inundate the land; neither do they fly off into space. (Job 38:8-11) From the viewpoint of Jehovah, the earth’s face, or the surface of the waters, would, of course, have a circular form, just as the edge of the moon presents a circular appearance to us. Before land surfaces appeared, the surface of the entire globe was one circular (spherical) mass of surging waters.—Ge 1:2.

Bible writers often speak from the standpoint of the observer on the earth, or from his particular position geographically, as we often naturally do today. For example, the Bible mentions “the sunrising.” (Nu 2:3; 34:15) Some have seized upon this as an opportunity to discredit the Bible as scientifically inaccurate, claiming that the Hebrews viewed earth as the center of things, with the sun revolving around it. But the Bible writers nowhere expressed such a belief. These same critics overlook the fact that they themselves use the identical expression and that it is in all of their almanacs. It is common to hear someone say, ‘it is sunrise,’ or ‘the sun has set,’ or ‘the sun traveled across the sky.’ The Bible also speaks of “the extremity of the earth” (Ps 46:9), “the ends of the earth” (Ps 22:27), “the four extremities of the earth” (Isa 11:12), “the four corners of the earth,” and “the four winds of the earth” (Re 7:1). These expressions cannot be taken to prove that the Hebrews understood the earth to be square. The number four is often used to denote that which is fully rounded out, as it were, just as we have four directions and sometimes employ the expressions “to the ends of the earth,” “to the four corners of the earth,” in the sense of embracing all the earth.—Compare Eze 1:15-17; Lu 13:29.

Figurative and Symbolic Expressions. The earth is spoken of figuratively in several instances. It is likened to a building, at Job 38:4-6, when Jehovah asks Job questions concerning earth’s creation and Jehovah’s management of it that Job obviously cannot answer. Jehovah also uses a figurative expression describing the result of earth’s rotation. He says: “[The earth] transforms itself like clay under a seal.” (Job 38:14) In Bible times some seals for “signing” documents were in the form of a roller engraved with the writer’s emblem. It was rolled over the soft clay document or clay envelope, leaving behind it an impression in the clay. In similar manner, at the arrival of dawn, the portion of the earth coming from the blackness of night begins to show itself to have form and color as the sunlight moves progressively across its face. The heavens, the location of Jehovah’s throne, being higher than the earth, the earth is, figuratively, his footstool. (Ps 103:11; Isa 55:9; 66:1; Mt 5:35; Ac 7:49) Those who are in Sheol, or Hades, the common grave of mankind, are regarded as being under the earth.—Re 5:3.

The apostle Peter compares the literal heavens and earth (2Pe 3:5) with the symbolic heavens and earth (2Pe 3:7). “The heavens” of verse 7 do not mean Jehovah’s own dwelling place, the place of his throne in the heavens. Jehovah’s heavens cannot be shaken. Neither is “the earth” in the same verse the literal planet earth, for Jehovah says that he has established the earth firmly. (Ps 78:69; 119:90) Yet, God says that he will shake both the heavens and the earth (Hag 2:21; Heb 12:26), that the heavens and earth will flee away before him, and that new heavens and a new earth will be established. (2Pe 3:13; Re 20:11; 21:1) It is evident that “heavens” is symbolic and that “earth” here has symbolic reference to a society of people living on the earth, just as at Psalm 96:1.—See HEAVEN (New heavens and new earth).

Earth is also symbolically used to denote the firmer, more stable elements of mankind. The restless, unstable elements of mankind are illustrated by the characteristic restlessness of the sea.—Isa 57:20; Jas 1:6; Jude 13; compare Re 12:16; 20:11; 21:1.

John 3:31 contrasts one that comes from above as being higher than one who comes from the earth (ge). The Greek word e·piʹgei·os, “earthly,” is used to denote earthly, physical things, especially as contrasted with heavenly things, and as being lower and of coarser material. Man is made of earth’s material. (2Co 5:1; compare 1Co 15:46-49.) Nevertheless, he can please God by living a “spiritual” life, a life directed by God’s Word and spirit. (1Co 2:12, 15, 16; Heb 12:9) Because of mankind’s fall into sin and their tendency toward material things to the neglect or exclusion of spiritual things (Ge 8:21; 1Co 2:14), “earthly” can have an undesirable connotation, meaning “corrupt,” or “in opposition to the spirit.”—Php 3:19; Jas 3:15.

JEHOVAH God V. Christendom's trinity.

Settling for brass?

New Study Claims People Who've Had More Sexual Partners Report Unhappier Marriages
The Huffington Post  |  By Taryn Hillin

A widely reported new study claims that people -- especially women -- who have multiple sexual parters before tying the knot, report unhappier marriages down the line.

The study comes to us from The National Marriage Project, based off research from two University of Denver professors, Galena K. Rhoades and Scott M. Stanley, who looked at relationship data collected from 2007 to 2008 of 1,000 unmarried Americans ages 18 to 34. During the following five years, 418 of the participants got married.

Rhoades and Stanley took a closer look at those marriages to see if factors, including participants' sexual past, played a role in current marital quality.

Couples' relationship quality was measured using a four-item version of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, focusing on relationship happiness, thoughts about separation, frequency of confiding in one another, and a general item about how well things are going (the full scale, however, contains 32 items).

According to researchers, the 23 percent of participants who only had sex with their spouse prior to getting hitched reported higher quality marriages versus those who had other past sexual partners as well.

They claim this finding is especially true for women, writing in the report, "We further found that the more sexual partners a woman had had before marriage, the less happy she reported her marriage to be."

On top of that, researchers say that participants who lived with an S.O. -- who did not become their future spouse -- also reported unhappier marriages So why would more sexual or relationship experience be associated with worse outcomes later on?

Rhoades and Stanley hypothesize in the report that "more experience may increase one’s awareness of alternative partners." In other words, people who have a number of prior relationships may become dissatisfied more easily.

But isn't that another way to say they might be more aware of a bad relationship? Isn't that a good thing?

Indeed, while the data presented in The Marriage Project's 418-person study is legitimate, experts say that the conclusions drawn from it -- especially those which cast judgement on one's sexual history and incite sentiments of slut-shaming -- may not be entirely accurate.

Researchers in this field, who were not involved with this particular study, told The Huffington Post that these findings should be taken with a grain of salt.

"There are a wide variety of reasons that may lead people to have multiple partners before marriage and, independent of how many partners they have, also be less satisfied in marriage," Dr. Jim McNulty, a social psychology professor from Florida State University who has published a plethora of research on the topic, wrote in an email.

"For example, people who tend to avoid commitment in general may have more sexual partners and be less happy when they settle down. It’s not the fact that they have more sexual partners that leads them to be less happy, it’s the fact that they don’t really like commitment. I would be very surprised if having multiple sexual partners before marriage, independent of any other factor, has a direct causal influence."

In other words, correlation should never be confused with causation.

"We cannot make any conclusions about cause-and-effect," says Justin Lehmiller, PhD, sex educator and researcher at Purdue University, adding, "Could it be that multiple premarital partners impacts marital happiness? Maybe. But it could also be that people who have more partners have different personalities or different attitudes toward marriage or relationships."

Beyond that, Lehmiller says there may be flaws in the way data was analyzed -- the way in which good marriages were separated from bad marriages was "rather odd" he says. "Even the authors admit that they were 'arbitrary' in their report. They defined 'higher quality marriages' as those in which individuals scored in the top 40 percent ... Why the top 40 percent?"

McNulty also points out that though the authors are respected researchers, the study was not reported by an academic journal nor was it peer-reviewed.

What do you think: could having more relationship experience prior to meeting "the one" actually result in unhappier marriages down the line? Sound off below!

A child shall lead them(With apologies to the prophet Isaiah)

A Child’s Intuition of Purpose in Nature Is No Accident
Jonathan Wells

Young children perceive intuitively that the world is designed. 

In 1929, child psychologist Jean Piaget called children “artificialists” who tend to regard everything as “the product of human creation.”1 Piaget’s claim that young children’s minds are not sophisticated enough to distinguish between human and nonhuman causes was controversial, and subsequent studies have shown that he was wrong.2 Yet he was right in saying that children start out with the intuition that the natural world was made for a purpose. In 2004, child psychologist Deborah Kelemen suggested that young children are thus “intuitive theists” who are “disposed to view natural phenomena as resulting from nonhuman design.”3

Intervention for Indoctrination

By the time they are adolescents, many children have suppressed their intuition of design. This suppression is largely due to influences from the community, especially from parents and teachers striving to acculturate children to a secular society, often in the name of “scientific literacy.” Kelemen and her colleagues have proposed to facilitate this process with “theory-driven interventions using picture storybooks.” They wrote in 2014:

Repeated, spaced instruction on gradually scaled-up versions of the logic of natural selection could ultimately place students in a better position to suppress competing intuitive theoretical explanations such that they could elaborate a richer, more abstract, and broadly applicable knowledge of this process. Storybook interventions such as the ones reported here seem a promising start from which to promote scientific literacy in the longer term.4

“Intervention” usually refers to an action taken to help someone give up an abnormal addiction. For these psychologists, however, it means convincing children to give up a normal intuition. And it is not enough for them to teach “the logic of natural selection.” That logic is quite simple: If organisms vary in certain heritable features, and some variations are more likely to survive in a given environment, then those variations will be more common in the next generation. But natural selection can only operate on variations that already exist; it has no creative power. So in addition to being taught the logic of natural selection, children must also be taught the Darwinian dogma that selection has the creative power to produce the illusion of design — a power that has never been observed. Only then might children be persuaded to suppress their natural intuition.

“Scientific literacy” usually refers to learning about current hypotheses and how to evaluate them critically by comparing them with evidence. For Kelemen and her colleagues, however, it requires believing uncritically in unguided evolution. Thus education becomes indoctrination.

A Gaping Hole

But the intuition of design never completely goes away. Even highly trained biologists retain it, though most consciously resist it. As Richard Dawkins wrote in 1986, “Biology is the study of complex things that appear to have been designed for a purpose.”5 In 1988, Nobel laureate Francis Crick wrote: “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.”6 Why must they do so? Because (we are told) evolution is the “scientific consensus” of the experts, and who is qualified to challenge that?

Well, Douglas Axe, for one. He is a molecular biologist who earned a PhD at Caltech and subsequently did research at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre, and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England. Axe now directs the Biologic Institute near Seattle, where he is engaged in laboratory research and computer simulations that examine limitations on protein evolution.7 In 2016, he published a book titled Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.8

In 2014, Bill Nye (television’s “science guy”) published a book titled Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation, defending (you guessed it) evolutionary theory. Doug Axe’s book, however, dismantles the widespread belief that Darwin’s theory of evolution is indisputably true, and shows instead that there is a gaping hole at its center. The gaping hole is that evolutionary theory ascribes inventive power to natural selection, when invention actually requires intelligence. 

According to Axe, the “universal design intuition” is: “Tasks that we would need knowledge to accomplish can be accomplished only by someone who has that knowledge.”9 Axe then highlights two facts. First, we all validate our design intuition through firsthand experience. Second, we all make mental notes of our experience and build conceptual models to make sense of it, and we then compare those models to subsequent experiences and correct them if necessary. This is exactly how science works, so we are all scientists. Axe calls this “common science,” to emphasize its connection to common sense. “People who lack formal scientific credentials,” Axe writes, “are nonetheless qualified to speak with authority on matters of common science.”10

Too Sophisticated to Be Accidental

Axe himself has impeccable scientific credentials. He has published articles in the prestigious Journal of Molecular Biology on the extreme improbability of getting functional proteins by chance.11 In one experiment (discussed in the book), Axe took a weakly functional penicillin-inactivating enzyme, made lots of variants of it, and then tested the variants to determine whether any of them were as good at inactivating penicillin as the original. The results were striking: the odds of finding a functional protein were comparable to the odds of successfully targeting a single hydrogen atom at the edge of the universe. Axe concluded, “That’s a target we can safely write off as lost in space!”12 In other words, it is irrational to believe that a protein could realistically be produced by “accidental invention,” as Darwinian theory requires.

Yet a protein is just one molecule. Axe defines “functional coherence” as “the hierarchical arrangement of parts needed for anything to produce a high-level function — each part contributing in a coordinated way to the whole.” (This is reminiscent of the notion of “irreducible complexity” that Michael Behe laid out in his 1996 book, Darwin’s Black Box.13) For example, the photosynthetic apparatus in relatively simple single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria has hundreds of molecular parts that are precisely positioned to enable the apparatus to gather photons from the sun and convert their energy into the chemical energy in sugar. The photosystem’s overall function depends on an extensive hierarchy of subfunctions, all “contributing in a coordinated way to the whole.” Axe concludes that such “functional coherence makes accidental invention fantastically improbable and therefore physically impossible.” Instead, functional coherence “can only come from deliberate, intelligent action.”14

Photosynthesis is only one of the many hierarchical systems that cyanobacteria need to survive and reproduce. Axe compares these organisms to a solar-powered underwater vehicle called Tavros 2, a human invention that required considerable knowledge to build. Even so, the vehicle is not nearly as sophisticated as cyanobacteria, so Axe argues that the invention of these tiny organisms — though non-human — required far more knowledge than the invention of Tavros 2. In other words, the origin of cyanobacteria required design.

Could variations in cyanobacteria be naturally selected to produce higher forms of life, as evolutionary theory claims? Not really. Natural selection has never been observed to produce anything more than minor changes within existing species, but higher forms of life contain many more inventions than we find in cyanobacteria. And accidental mutations don’t help, any more than the variants Axe made at the level of a single protein helped him produce functional enzymes. So Axe concludes: “Because each new life form amounts to a new high-level invention, the origin of the thousandth new life form is no more explicable in Darwinian terms than the origin of the first.”15

So our intuition was right all along.