Vanishing dinosaurs In recent years many new species of dinosaurs have been described, but now it seems that palaeontologists’ attempts to construct a supposed family tree of these creatures may be badly flawed - for as many as one third of dinosaur species may never have existed. An article in National Geographic News (accessed 09 October) reports on a ten-year study by palaeontologists Mark Goodwin, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Jack Horner, of Montana State Univer- Fossil skull of an adultTriceratops, showing the sity. After examining a range of fossils of forward directed horns and the frilled plate that protected the neck. Image: CSM. Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, they have come to the conclusion that the appearance In Tyrannosaurus, fossils thought to be of of these dinosaurs varied considerably young animals have a relatively long and during their lives. Thus many of the so- slender head with the lower jaw bearing 17 called species may just represent immature teeth, whereas adults have a relatively short individuals. and stout head and with the lower jaw bearing 12 teeth. They suggest that this In Triceratops, they found that fossils change reflects the changing needs of this thought to be of juveniles have the horns on predator as it grew larger – the shape of the the head pointing straight, whereas in adult's snout would have been better able to slightly older animals they curve back- take in very large meals. It would also have wards and in adults they point forwards. In needed fewer blade-shaped teeth and juveniles the neck is protected by a series would have relied more on its bone- of triangular spikes, whereas in adults these crushing grinding teeth. For Goodwin and are flattened and fused into the characteris- Horner, the “smoking gun” came with the tic frilled plate. 1 discovery of a fossil thought to be of a fossils are unreliable, as they depend upon young adult. This specimen had a skull a number of unproven assumptions. Now shape intermediate between the young and evolutionists have the added complication fully adult forms and had 14 teeth in its that the changes in morphology (taken to lower jaw. They also consider that the lean indicate a supposed evolutionary transition and graceful supposed species from “ancestor” to “descendant”) may not Nanotyrannus may actually be just an be reliable either, as they could represent adolescentTyrannosaurus. just one variable species. No wonder Darwinopterus is so puzzling to Independent support for their ideas comes evolutionists with its mixture of “advanced” from Hans-Dieter Sues, a palaeontologist and “primitive” features – there are too at the National Museum of Natural History many presuppositions built in to this in Washington, D.C.. He commented that loaded terminology. How fitting, then, that scientists discovered in the 1970s that this new species has been called some duck-billed dinosaur species were in Darwinopterus. For this name means fact animals in different stages of maturity “Darwin's wing”, and Darwin's theory of - representing a smaller number of species. evolution can certainly be regarded as a flight of fancy. Bearing these facts in mind, what is one to make of an article that appeared only a few weeks earlier on the BBC News website Egyptian Coins with (accessed 17 September) dealing with a Joseph’s Name and tiny supposed ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex? Called Raptorex kriegsteini, this Image animal was only about 3m long and would have weighed about 65kg. The researchers who published its discovery are reported to On 24th September 2009, it was announced have commented that, “the fossil displays in Special Dispatch 2561 of the Middle the same features asT. rex but in miniature”. East Media Research Institute that coins had come to light in the Museum of Egypt It is also fascinating to consider another that bear the name and image of the report from the BBC News website Biblical Joseph. The dispatch, reported in (accessed 14 October) that deals with the the Al-Ahram daily newspaper, attributes discovery of a new species of flying reptile the discovery to the research team led by called Darwinopterus. Dr David Unwin, Dr Sa’id Thabet, who were sifting through from the University of Leicester, UK, is various hitherto unsorted items in the quoted as saying, "The strange thing about museum vaults. Dr Thabet has been Darwinopterus is that it has a head and engaged in a considerable research neck just like that of advanced pterosaurs, programme into the life and times of while the rest of the skeleton, including a Joseph. Some of the coins were also found very long tail, is identical to that of in the vaults of the Egyptian Antiquities primitive forms." Authority. Below is an extract of the report, which may be read in full on the internet: Creationists have long known that the methods used by evolutionists to date 2 “The researcher identified coins from many Cave of Machpelah; in Genesis 37:28 different periods, including coins that bore when Joseph was sold into slavery2, and special markings identifying them as being later in Genesis 42:35, where ‘bundles of from the era of Joseph. Among these, there money’ are mentioned. We are assured by was one coin that had an inscription on it, Bible critics that no coinage existed at this and an image of a cow symbolizing time, but they are once again proved utterly Pharaoh's dream about the seven fat cows wrong by archaeology. and seven lean cows, and the seven green stalks of grain and seven dry stalks of grain. References It was found that the inscriptions of this 1. Web article available at early period were usually simple, since http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Pag writing was still in its early stages, and e=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP256109 consequently there was difficulty in deciphering the writing on these coins. But 2. This is a most interesting sidelight. The the research team [managed to] translate going-rate for a slave in Joseph’s time was [the writing on the coin] by comparing it to 20 silver shekels, the price that the the earliest known hieroglyphic texts…” Ishmeelites paid for Joseph (Genesis 37:28). Before then, it had been 10-15 “Joseph's name appears twice on this coin, silver shekels. After Joseph, however, the written in hieroglyphs: once the original value of a slave rose to 30 shekels (Exodus name, Joseph, and once his Egyptian name, 21:32); the point being, if this part of Saba Sabani, which was given to him by Genesis was written 1500 years or more Pharaoh when he became treasurer. There after the events it speaks of, as modernists is also an image of Joseph, who was part of have been proclaiming since the 19th the Egyptian administration at the time.”1 century, how would the writer, be he J, E, P or D, have known what the price of a Coins (silver pieces) are, of course, men- slave had been fifteen hundred years tioned in Genesis 23:14 when Abraham previously? I think we should be told. was settling with Ephron the price of the Bill Cooper Cuttings & Comments New Scientist from by Dr David Rosevear 1 August p.6 Cool climes, smart times “It is one of the biggest mysteries in hu- man evolution. Why did we humans evolve such big brains, making us the unrivalled rulers of the world?” Experts “hypothesised that our modern Diverse ancient Egyptian coins brain could not have evolved until the Image: W. Cooper 3 Quaternary ice age started, about 2.5 1 August p.25 Letters: Ideas come round million years ago. They reckoned such a This is a load of tripe from a London reader large brain would have generated heat about the Bible supposedly teaching that faster than it could dissipate it in the the Earth is flat. The wonder is that New warmer climate of earlier times, but they Scientist chose to print it. lacked evidence to back their hypothesis.” Donald Rooum insists that“Genesis states The article wonders if there is evidence of that God created the sky in the form of different brain sizes for those living today an inverted bowl holding a mass of water in the tropics and those in Polar Regions. It above the flat Earth. Scientists already is suggested that one driving force to in- knew that the Earth is roughly spherical, crease brain size would be the desire to but many early Christians felt compelled outsmart the neighbours. to believe Holy Writ without question.” Creationists see two fallacies in this Clearly the letter writer has not read Gene- hypothesis. Humans are rulers of the world sis, but relied upon the ranting of those who because we are made in the image of the wish to parody Scripture. Has he not Creator, who gave us dominion over His known or heard? Has it not been told him creatures. Also no amount of wishful from the beginning? Has he not understood thinking can increase our brain size. The from the foundation of the Earth? It is He Ice Age followed the Flood some four and who sits on thecircle of the Earth, whose a half thousand years ago. Since then brain inhabitants are as grasshoppers (see Isaiah sizes and statures have diminished. So 40:21-22). many of these ‘big mysteries’ are solved by using a creationist world-view. 8 August p.28, 10 Mysteries of You The first mystery is why weblush. Charles 1 August p.15 Comets wreaked icy devas- Darwin was puzzled by this. Here it is tation on early Earth suggested that it was initially an appease- It is suggested that during the so-called ment ritual, or a way to foster trust. Women Late Heavy Bombardment, said to have apparently blush more than men, but it is been 3.85 billion years ago, huge numbers not implied that they have more to blush of icy comets rained down upon the Earth over! and Moon. Traces of the metal iridium (Ir) We know that men and women were support the idea (if not the dating). Possi- uniquely made in the image of a holy God, bly“about 3400 tonnes of ice wouldhave and have a sense of right and wrong. hit each square metre of the Earth. That The next mystery is why we laugh, even roughly tallies with the amount of water without being tickled. Apes do pant when in Earth’s oceans today.” subjected to being tickled and it is here Genesis explains how the waters were suggested that the ancestral ‘pant-pant’ gathered together to form the seas on laugh evolved into the human ‘ha-ha’. Creation Day three. Bombardment with ice Laughter, it is said, helps strengthen social may have been part of the physical cause of relationships and is also part of sexual se- Noah’s Flood. If so, the evidence of the lection (lonely hearts ads often insist ‘must heavy metal Ir would be found at the have gsh’). What a mixture of truth and lowest sedimentary levels. Just-So story! Another mystery is why theteenage years of dependence last so long compared with 4 primates. Neurobiology and brain imaging “show that there is a wholesale reorganisation of the brain during the teenage years... adolescence is... about developing a mind capable of negotiating the psychological and social landscape that makes human life so different from that of other animals.”So, we are very different from animals, but that hardly implies evolution. Dreams are useful in enabling our human brains to sort out the day’s experiences. Altruism is explained as promoting a close-knit group, rather than our being made in the image of God. Art suggests that there is more to humanity than planning the next meal.Why should creativity and appreciation of beauty develop to such a marked degree? All these items listed as mysteries of Masked booby adult and chick. The Tasman evolution are explicable in terms of our booby is a subspecies of this species. unique brains and spiritual nature. Image: D. Wright, in the public domain. Superstition is a mystery to evolutionists. Religion may help to explain it.“Religious now been found alive, living among its faith involves a susceptibility to believe fossil ancestors down under. in a spirit world and its efficacy – even if “Geneticist Tammy Steeves, of the Univer- it doesn’t actually work, says Dunbar, sity of Canterbury, New Zealand, and who is a leading proponent of the idea colleagues found a perfect match when that religion is adaptive. He thinks they analysed DNA fragments from six religion’s main function is to persuade a Tasman booby fossils and compared community to toe the line, so promoting them to DNA from a living bird...” cohesion. This is achieved in part by Apart from the fact there had been no tapping into our natural propensity to evolution between booby fossil formation believe in supernatural beings that can and the present, one wonders how long ago influence our fate.” fossilisation had occurred. DNA is We will draw a veil over the other three breaking down and being replaced even mysteries: kissing, nose picking and pubic during a bird’s lifetime, so we wouldn’t hair. expect it to survive for more than a few thousand years. 15 August p.4 Boobies alive and kicking The Tasman booby, an Australian bird, was 15 August p.11 Our ancestors learned to originally described from fossils. It had walk in the trees seemingly become extinct in the late 18th Ridges and concavities in the wrist bones century, after being eaten by sailors. It has of a number of primates had been explained as being supports for the palms 5 of the hand during knuckle-walking. to vary little between chimps and However, it is now found that these chickens, yet humans possess 18 unique features are not present in knuckle-walking changes. gorillas, but are present in non-knuckle- “Not a chimp should be mandatory read- walking monkeys. The wrist bones of ing for journalists who often reinforce chimpanzees may instead have adapted to the general public’s misconception that stabilise the wrist while standing on one chimps are practically human.” tree branch and holding onto another. Jeremy Taylor is a former BBC producer. Modern chimps and bonobos do just that. This cast doubts on whether early humans 22 August p.15 Fire forged the oldest were knuckle-walkers or tree walkers. stone tools Of course, early humans may have always “Prehistoric humans may have harnessed been upright as the spine to skull fire to make hard, sharp stone blades connection suggests. The pattern of the soon afterHomo sapiens emerged in east- pelvis also shows us to be upright. An ern Africa 200,000 years ago. This might evolution from a knuckle-walker’s pelvic mean that complex tool use – and even design doesn’t seem feasible since a language and art – arose far earlier than midway position is unstable. previously thought.” If one thinks that humans evolved from 15 August p.44 Not the naked ape less-than-brilliant apes, then evidence of Review of ‘Not a chimp: the hunt to find intelligence in early man comes as a shock. the genes that make us human’, by Jeremy Here heat-treatment had hardened the Taylor, OUP. crumbly local stone near Cape Town to “Take the 98.4 per cent, an oft-repeated allow it to be sharpened. figure that has been used to argue that Alternatively, man made in the image of chimps deserve human rights. True, God and initially enjoying fellowship with Homo sapiens andPan troglodytes share Him, would have had an efficient brain free an extraordinary amount of genetic from mutations and disease. Pre-Flood similarity – yet humans and mice share men were skilled in working brass and iron, almost as much... A good example is and played musical instruments (Gen.4). FOXP2, a regulatory gene linked to While post-Flood men were handicapped speech and language disorders in by a hostile climate and diminished natural humans. FOXP2 in chimps has barely resources, they were still stronger and changed in the 130 million years since brighter than we are today. This is evi- primates and mice diverged from their denced by various ancient artefacts, as well common ancestor. But after humans and as their longevity. CSM carries the most chimps split, two key changes interesting book ‘The Puzzle of Ancient accumulated on the human line. Man – evidence for advanced technology “Even greater differences may lurk in the in past civilisations’ by Dr Donald Chittick areas of the genome once discounted as (274pp, £8-50). ‘junk’ DNA, which don’t make proteins but instead determine gene activity. One 22August p.37 O others, where art thou? recently discovered RNA-coding Established models of how our galaxy’s sequence that may be involved in cosmic neighbourhood should be, predict cerebral cortex development was found that the Milky Way should be surrounded 6 by thousands of small satellite galaxies. A bit like the emperor’s new clothes! About 25 straggly galaxies, only 1 per cent Some other specialists“maintain that the of the expected number, loiter forlornly mechanism preventing the existence of around the outskirts of our Milky Way stars is the fatal flaw in the dark matter galaxy. “It is the cleanest (sic) case in model. They face an uphill struggle con- which we can see there is something bad- vincing others, however: the majority of ly wrong with our standard picture of astronomers are wedded to dark matter the origin of galaxies.” and will not throw more than 30 years of This observation throws into question the work out of the window lightly. The reality of Cold Dark Matter, the proposed truth is, says Binney, that both dark invisible and undetectable source of matter and MOND[modified Newtonian gravity, not only holding galaxies together, dynamics] are deficient in their own but also forming galaxies after the ways.” postulated Big Bang. Also recently (18 August) the concept of “Our standard picture of the universe dark energy has come under attack; see comes from many decades of observa- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/60434 tions. It asserts that visible matter – the 14/Dark-energy-may-not-actually-exist- kind of stuff that you, me, the planets scientists-claim.html and stars are made of – is outweighed by “Dark Energy: have we seen the light? a factor of 6 or 7 by invisible, cold dark Richard Alleyne Science Correspondent. matter. No one knows what cold matter Dark energy - the mysterious substance is made of, but its existence has been thought to make up three-quarters of postulated to explain how the stars in the Universe - may not actually exist, spiral galaxies can orbit at such break- claims new research. The concept was neck speeds without being flung off into created by cosmologists to fit Albert Ein- the void... Dark matter is also thought to stein's General Theory of Relativity into have played a key role in shaping the reality after modern space telescopes early universe. In the aftermath of the discovered that the Universe was not big bang, it was the dark stuff that first behaving as it should. According to Ein- began to clump together... According to stein's work, the speed at which the Uni- the standard model of cosmology, a halo verse is expanding following the Big [of CDM] as large as the one thought to Bang should be slower than it actually is have seeded the Milky Way should be and this unexplained anomaly threat- surrounded by thousands of mini haloes, ened to turn the whole theory upside which themselves should have seeded down. In order to reconcile this problem small satellite galaxies... all the evidence the concept of Dark Energy was invent- says these galaxies cannot possibly con- ed. But now Blake Temple and Joel tain dark matter.” Smoller, mathematicians at the Universi- James Binney of Oxford does not want to ty of California and the University of give up the standard model. “He says the Michigan, believe they have come up missing galaxies are simply too faint for with a whole new set of calculations that us to have detected them yet. Or they allow for all the sums to add up without may be exclusively composed of dark the need for this controversial substance. matter with not enough gas to light up However, their research is also contro- stars, he adds.” versial as it relies on our galaxy being at 7 the centre of the Universe - a concept we read that “ancient Egyptian temples generally disregarded in modern science.” were aligned so precisely with If you are happy with the fact that in the astronomical events that people could beginning God created the heaven and the set their political, economic and religious earth, just a few thousand years ago, calendars by them... temples are all complete and very good, you can forget aligned according to an astronomically about fudge factors like CDM and Dark significant event, such as a solstice or Energy used to bolster speculations like the equinox, or the rising of Sirius, the Big Bang. And there is no need to modify brightest star in the sky.” Newtonian gravity. 5 September p.12 Not too big, not too 29 August p.12 Did two species mix to small, Earth’s just right for life make butterflies? If Earth were as large as some super-Earths An egg that hatches into a caterpillar that recently discovered, life would not exist. then changes into a seemingly dormant The pressure and viscosity inside these chrysalis from which a butterfly emerges to massive rocky planets, up to ten times the lay eggs containing all the genetic informa- size of Earth, would be so high that a tion for the entire cycle is rather hard for an stagnant layer would form outside the crust, evolutionist to cope with. weakening convection currents needed to “This is the result of an ancient drive plate tectonics. A magnetic field hybridisation between an insect and a would also be inhibited. Plate tectonics worm-like animal, according to zoologist stabilise climate and a magnetic field Donald Williamson... Nobody knows deflects harmful radiation. where caterpillars came from, says Once again we see the Goldilocks effect: Williamson, who thinks that many other our home is not too big or small, not too hot invertebrate groups acquired their or cold, and our rotation not too fast or larvae in the same way. ‘It is the only slow. Chance? No chance! solution that makes sense.’ “Tommyrot, other biologists snort. For a 5 September p.12 Trick of the light that start, the resemblance between velvet made life left-handed worms and caterpillars is only superficial. “A bizarre form of matter that might be “As appealing to the imagination as floating 90 kilometres above Earth’s Williamson’s theory may be, it looks like surface could help explain one of life’s the evidence is not there to support it.” enduring mysteries: why are the And they say that creationist ideas are an building blocks of the living world abuse of science! Tadpoles into frogs are mostly left-handed?” observed but frogs into princes are not. Bizarre form/ might be/ could help? Probably not. 5 September p.7 Temples aligned with Proteins are made up of 100 per cent left- the stars handed amino acids. Moreover, sugars in Evolution supposes that man is still nucleotides are all right-handed. evolving from dozy to bright, having developed from dumb animals. We find it noteworthy that man was intelligent and technically advanced millennia ago. Here 8 5 September p.15 Genes that only It seems that if global warming continues humans have like this we shall all have to buy thick “At least three human genes evolved overcoats! ‘from scratch’ via mutations in non- coding stretches of DNA, a process 12 September p.17 ‘Incoming!’ warned thought to be virtually impossible until the eye recently. The genes evolved since human “Not just a window to the soul, the eye has and chimp lineages split and so are a few tricks of its own. Newly discovered unique to us.” No animals have these eye cells can warn us that an object is genes, though they are present in all human coming nearer, and do so without the genomes sequenced so far. They code for brain’s help. This ability may have short proteins. evolved to speed escape from predators... Genes that code for proteins have a precise “Further analysis of this one kind of order of nucleotides. It is statistically im- retinal cell revealed that it fired only possible that they could evolve by chance. when an object approached... In order to claim that they evolved, one has “‘It’s an alarm system that’s as close to to assume that chimps and humans evolved the front end of the organism as from a common ancestor. This is arguing in possible’, says Roska, ‘If you left it to the a circle. brain to respond, it might be too late.” Particularly with some boxers. 12 September p.10 World will ‘cool for One has to wonder how such a complex the next decade’ alarm reflex could evolve by small chance “Forecasts of climate change are about to changes. It is more probable that this is a go seriously out of kilter. We could be designed protection created by a caring about to enter one or even two decades God. How often have we all been pre- of cooler temperatures, according to one served by such a blinking mechanism? of the world’s top climate modellers... This discovery of ultra-rapid reflex action “Latif predicts that in the next few years lends further immediacy to the fact that a natural cooling trend will dominate the “we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the warming caused by humans. The cooling twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (I would be down to cyclical changes in the Cor. 15:51-52). That change can’t come atmosphere and ocean currents in the fast enough! North Atlantic... “Latif says the NAO [North Atlantic 12 September p.48 Preaching to the Oscillation] also explained the recent (un)converted recovery of the Sahel region of Africa Review by Randy Olson of Richard from the droughts of the 1970s and Dawkins’ book The Greatest Show on 1980s...the dramatic Arctic ice loss in Earth. recent summers was partly a product of (Olson is an American evolutionist film natural cycles rather than global maker, one of five evolutionists on a warming. Preliminary reports suggest discussion panel against your present NS there has been much less melting this reviewer at Cambridge University on 14 year than in 2007 or 2008.” February last.) Olson is somewhat embarrassed by Dawkins’ style of writing.“Implying that 9 your audience is stupid does not qualify language was also found to improve the as a great new angle. Yet this is precisely ability to concentrate. what Dawkins does... By the first Our physical, mental and spiritual powers chapter he is comparing his predicament work together. These neuroscientists say it to a history professor forced to teach ‘a is a myth that we use only 10 per cent of baying pack of ignoramuses’ and our brains. dealing with a ‘rearguard defence’. Today, he proclaims, ‘all but the 19 September p.16 Brain cells slicker woefully uninformed are forced to than we thought accept the fact of evolution’. “It seems our brain cells are a model of “It’s really kind of comical. If ‘spot the efficiency. Mammalian neurons trans- condescensions’ is a new drinking game, mit electrical signals using much less then bottoms up! There’s one in just energy than suspected.” Mammals’ about every chapter. Though Dawkins brains are much more efficient than, say, says from the outset, ‘this is not an anti- those of squid. religious book’, he can’t help but knock religion throughout. For instance, he 19 September p.16 Master gene that writes: ‘God, to repeat this point, which controls the killers ought to be obvious, but isn’t, never The immune system protects us from made a tiny wing [All things bright and outside organisms (non-self) that might do beautiful] in his eternal life.’ Young harm. In the front line of this defence are Earth creationists are, he writes, the ‘natural killer cells’ that patrol the ‘deluded to the point of perversity’. You bloodstream, the spleen and the lymph get the sense that Dawkins just can’t nodes. They identify and destroy cells that control it. It’s as if he suffers from an are cancerous or have been invaded by anti-religious form of Tourette’s syn- viruses. drome. A master gene has been discovered that “But in the end you have to wonder why sends them into action. “Mice lacking a Dawkins wastes so much time trying to gene calledE4BP4 could make all other argue with creationists.”But he is not so components of the immune system apart much addressing creationists as trying to from natural killer cells, proving that answer their arguments with scorn and the gene is indispensable for making the invective. cells.” But the cells are indispensable for the immune system that in turn is indispen- 19 September p.8 Primed to have learn- sable to the organism. Do evolutionists ing in mind. wonder how life continued before this gene A conference in Berlin has discussed how evolved? the latest findings in neuroscience could be used to improve education. 19 September p.25 One-minute Timetabling exercise just before subjects interview: Trevor Nunn like maths could help children to pay “In 1925 the state of Tennessee took attention in lessons. Physical fitness helps evolution to court. The acclaimed with focusing the mind. director is bringing the episode to the Children performed better in IQ tests after London stage. a year of music lessons. Having a second 10