I’m movin’ on up, but not to the east side. Sunny Island Breezes is moving up in the Technorati ratings. When I started keeping track of these ratings on May 6th, my little island was rated at 1,951,826. As of today, it’s now in the six digits at 608,266. I’ve finally got a piece of the pie! Okay, I know it’s a very small piece, but I am movin’ on up.
It’s June 15th, time for the Non~FIRST blog tour! Every 15th, we will featuring an author and his/her latest non~fiction book’s FIRST chapter!
The feature author is:
and his book:
Exposing Darwinism’s Weakest Link: Why Evolution Can’t Explain Human Existence
Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
A career biology instructor, Kenneth Poppe holds a doctorate in education and taught in secondary schools for more than 25 years. He is now senior consultant with the International Foundation for Science Education by Design (www.ifsed.org). In addition to working in teacher education and assisting in DNA research of stream ecology, he has authored Reclaiming Science from Darwinism.
Product Details:
List Price: $14.99
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (March 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736921257
ISBN-13: 978-0736921251
AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The majority is not trying to establish a religion or to teach it—it is trying to protect itself from the effort of an insolent minority to force irreligion upon the children under the guise of teaching science.
—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
BRYAN WAS THE ATTORNEY FOR THE PROSECUTION AT THE 1925 “SCOPES MONKEY TRIAL” IN DAYTON, TENNESSEE THAT MADE EVOLUTION A HOUSEHOLD TERM. THE ABOVE WORDS ARE FROM HIS
WRITTEN CLOSING STATEMENT, WHICH WAS NEVER READ IN COURT.
1
EXAMINING YOUR FAMILY TREE
A Monkey for an Uncle?
Consider your biological father. He is responsible for half of the genetic codes that shaped your body, and probably some of your personality as well. Now consider his father, your grandfather. If typical, I would guess at least a couple of your body traits are more grandpa’s than dad’s—having somehow skipped a generation. And how about your great-grandfather? Were you lucky enough to know him, even if just like me, through those vague and shifting memories as a very
small boy? Dare I throw in a great-great-grandfather—in my case known only through legend and those grainy black-and-white photos of a roughly dressed man beside a horse and buggy?
Consider that when your great-great-grandfather was your age, for surely he once was, he could try to reconstruct his lineage just as you have done. What names and faces would he have recalled? And if you could piece great-great-granddad’s and your recollections together, that would create a timeline taking you back eight generations—perhaps 250 years or so! Where would you find your ancestors then? In my case, I’m told, the Hamburg, Germany, area. And would my ancestors then be traced to the nomadic Gaelic stock that inhabited Western Europe before formal countries were established there? And then to where? Ancient Phoenicians, Sumerians, Egyptians? And how about yours?
Now to get to the main point. If you kept traveling back in time in this manner, generation after generation, where would you end up? Where would your dad’s ancestors have been living 1000 years ago? 2500 to 5000 years ago? And so on? Those who believe in strict Darwinism would say an extended family schematic would show your ancestors going back several million years ago where they first evolved on the African continent. And on this reverse journey you would see slowly reappearing total body hair, steadily shrinking brains, increasingly sloping foreheads and jaw protrusions, and extending arms whose knuckles would eventually be dragging the ground, assisting a clumsy, bent-over gait. In other words, strict evolutionists say if you could backtrack your family tree for, say, 5 million years, your ancestors would now be closer in appearance to a chimp than a human. And if you continued farther back in time, the coccyx bone at the bottom of your pelvis would extend into a prehensile tail, and the reappearing grasping toes on your feet would send you back to swinging in the trees from whence you came some 10 to 15 million years ago.
Stop and ponder your supposed family tree in this way—a videotape in rewind. Is this really how it went down? Did humans come from monkeys? (Often a Darwinist will answer no to this question by saying it wasn’t a direct path of evolution. But monkeys have to be on the path before apes, right? And apes would have to be on the path before humanoids, right? So it most absolutely is, in theory, “monkey to man”—no matter how crooked the line.) Now if this isn’t the truth, what’s the alternative? Unless you consult primitive worship superstitions, I’ve stated before that the world’s five major religions give you one origin—Genesis—and it includes a tantalizing tale of an innocent man Adam and his companion woman, Eve, in a pristine garden. But for so many, that’s a fairy tale of bigger proportions than monkeys becoming humans. So what is the truth?
Here’s my response. Regardless of which religious view(s) might supply the answer(s), I will stand firmly on this:
There is absolutely no scientific support for the
monkey-to-man scenario—absolutely none.
On the contrary, science, and even philosophy, validate the title of this book and its overriding message as stated a few pages ago.
Either-Or
If there is an alternative answer to the totally unscientific view that monkeys slowly turned into people, ostensibly it is one of the religious variety. But before we tackle the idea, let me first share the concept I find continually bubbling up from the origins cauldron: Almost every major issue concludes with just two choices—either it could have happened this way, or it couldn’t. So grab a writing instrument and check your choice of one of two for each of the ten statements below.
It Could It Couldn’t
Happen Happen
_______ ______ 1. The most violent accidental explosion ever, the big bang, was sufficiently self-appointed to create the largest and most fine-tuned object ever known, the universe.
_______ ______ 2. The sheer number of planets in the universe, and the number of years these planets have existed, give us a mathematical chance that at least one would become a fully interactive biological world—ours—by accident.
_______ ______ 3. Blind luck had the ability to construct the approximately 80,000 different life-required protein chains of specifically sequenced amino acids (from an “alphabet” of 20 different amino-acid choices)—even those proteins 10,000 amino acids long.
_______ ______ 4. The RNA/DNA molecules, containing information equivalent to all the books in 20 standard libraries, suddenly appeared by chance in the “primordial soup” before the first cell was a reality.
_______ ______ 5. Almost as soon as Earth’s conditions permitted, a functional cell appeared, selfprepared with a wide array of metabolizing and reproductive mechanisms.
_______ ______ 6. A half billion years ago, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, the Cambrian explosion self-generated the completely interactive gene pool of all 32 animal phyla with complex organ systems. Once complex life didn’t exist, then it was all there.
_______ ______ 7. After the Cambrian explosion, random scramblings of genetic information kept producing improved genetic codes. This allowed life to surge forward as animals kept giving rise to improved offspring with which, suddenly
or eventually, they could not mate.
_______ ______ 8. These accidental genetic surges adequately explain a whole host of large-scale advances— for example, straight bones in fins turning into jointed bones in legs, reptile scales turning into bird feathers, photosensitive cells turning into eyes, births from amniotic eggs turning into births from a placenta, and chordates like cows or hippos going back into the ocean to become whales.
_______ ______ 9. While animals randomly surged forward within 32 phyla from sponges to mammals, plants accomplished a similar advance in complexity from moss to cacti, but did it in only 8 steps, often called divisions instead of phyla.
And central to this book:
_______ ______ 10. Primates like monkeys left the trees and kept getting bigger, stronger, and smarter. About 5 million years of natural selection was sufficient time for hominids to adapt to walking on their hind legs, learn to use tools,
fashion clothes to wear, master fire, develop first spoken and then written communication, and finally organize societies in cave homes among maple groves that eventually became cottage homes on Maple Street.
So how did you score on this checklist? The two most extreme scores would be to have all ten checks in the right column of “it couldn’t happen”—like me—or all ten checks on the left column of “it could happen.” Of course, you realize that one single check in the right column dooms Darwinism to immediate failure. All it takes is one legitimate “couldn’t” check in this either-or set-up and natural evolution has no chance to produce me the writer, or you the reader. If you can, actually imagine trying to agree with all ten statements as checked on the left, and I’ll wager you’ll feel the full weight of the folly of “self-made” life. Therefore, if you find evolution insufficient in even one instance, you need to consider a bigger-than-science connection— unless, of course, you want to remain apathetic. So, if evolution or apathy is not the answer, I suggest you begin a quest to come to grips with the “God” who engineered this miracle.
Rejecting statement #10 above reflects this chapter’s opening rejection of the idea that all our ancestral lines slowly become more stooped and stupider as we observe the reverse of totally natural processes. If the world generally rejected that notion and stood on the “God alternative” with confidence, it would dramatically change the debate on the other nine statements. And yet if monkeys are not our uncles then how do you explain human origin? How do you explain the master plan of God the Designer?
He also told them a parable: “Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Luke 6:39-42
I won’t be making any seams today. I’ll be spending the day at the farm, but I do have a knitting question for you. It seems that no matter how many years I work at it, I hate to sew up the seams when I knit or crochet. It just doesn’t get easier or better. Can you give me some tips or websites that demonstrate how to do this? Maybe some that are videos? Thank you for your help.
The deed has been done. A big, honkin’ debt has been paid. I had to buy a new central air conditioner last July before we even moved into our money pit. Since I had already laid out the funds to pay half on the home, to put in two new bathroom floors and two low flow toilets and to have the trees hanging all over the roof trimed, and a palm tree leaning out into the street and a bunch of straggly, ugly bushes removed, I really didn’t have the funds readily available for replacing the A/C. But it’s not very pleasant living without it in Florida. Never fear. The offer of credit came to the rescue. When I’m busy crawling up out of debt, why would I be interested in creating more debt, you ask? Well, this was one of those 12 months with no interest deals.
I’ve had all the money tucked away since the beginning of the year. I just wasn’t going to give the interest on it to someone else. It was very interesting to watch the statements come every month – extremely interesting the month the amount owed changed. This A/C cost $4,482.71. Now all of a sudden the amount owed shows $4,480.00. I think it is a sneaky trick to charge me over $900 in interest charges when they discover that after paying off the bill, I still owe $2.71. “Oh, and by the way, Lady. We’ll have to charge you all this interest since you didn’t pay it off before the due date.” My strategy was to pay it off over a month before it was due. That hurt to take that money from my account and zap it over to their account. And I can be sneaky, too. I paid them $4,483. I figured paying a few extra cents just to be safe was a lot better than getting jerked around later. Have any of you had this change in the amount owed happen to you? How did you handle it?
Normally I’m not too crazy about going to the dentist. I’ve been thinking about making a dental appointment and that led my thoughts to an appointment at my dentist in Cozumel, Mexico. Another nurse and I had back to back appointments that day. Connie and I scheduled early appointments so that we could go to our favorite restaurant for lunch. I don’t remember what we had done that morning, but the aftermath was unforgettable. Connie and I had our dental work done on opposite sides of our mouths. Think mirror images.
While walking from the dentist office to Gerardo’s we discovered some interesting ways the numbness of our mouths affected us. For one thing, it made talking and laughing interesting. It’s amazing just how much slobber a person’s mouth can produce. It’s not something a person notices as a rule. Numbness can change that. It all wants to run out one side of your mouth. Ask Connie. She knows. My left side was numb. Her right side was numb. It was like looking in a mirror and watching myself drool and laugh and then drool some more.
So, now we are at Gerardo’s, laughing and acting like fools with our crazy mouths. Fortunately, Joseph was working that day and seated us in the courtyard where we had a bit more privacy. Joseph was more than our waiter since we ate there so often. He was more like friend and family, so he had a good time with it all. Now we both wanted to order the garlic shrimp, but the dentist had said liquids only for lunch. What do you think two ship nurses sitting at the best restaurant in town with instructions to maintain a liquid diet would order for lunch? I don’t know about you, but we don’t drink the water in Mexico. Connie decided we needed a margarita.
There are several things you need to know about me and margaritas. I was a ship’s nurse who hated to be on duty while in Cozumel because the passengers felt it was their solemn duty to try to drink up all the tequila on the island. They would take party boat trips during the day and drink in the sun and heat. Then they would go to Carlos and Charlies and drink tequila half the night before coming back onboard sicker than dogs. Cozumel night was not my favorite time to be on call. Second thing. These babies are not served in a normal size glass at Gerardo’s. You are drinking out of a small mixing bowl on a stem. They are huge.
Since I couldn’t come up with an alternative, Connie won that one. Okay, now we are drooling and looking at our drinks. First major problem was how to keep the straw in our mouths so we could proceed with lunch. That was solved by holding the straw in place with one hand and pinching the lips closed with the other long enough to suck up our nourishment. It didn’t take me long to figure out why the glass rims had salt on them. That stuff tastes awful! The salt is there so you can hurry up and get the tequila taste out of your mouth. Funny how I used up more salt than Connie did. I think I might have had to use some of her salt, too. We had to work at this carefully. If we looked at each other, it was so darned funny. It’s difficult to hold the straw, pinch the lips together, slurp it up and laugh all at the same time. What was so amazing was how much better it tasted after I finally got about half of that stuff down. Heck, we decided since we had to suffer and miss our garlic shrimp, we might as well have a second. Strange thing about the second one. It tasted good from the beginning.
Remember when Tiffany at Snapshots of Life ran a contest courtesy of Revka at RS Designs for her one year blogoversary? You are finally seeing the results of Revka’s designing talents. She worked with me until she was able to recreate my peaceful island. She also gave me that cute little palm tree favicon. For those of you who don’t know, a favicon stands for favorites icon. It’s what you see by the address line at the top of the screen as well as beside the name in your favorites list. Revka also took time to teach me along the way so that I would know how to do a little more with the mechanics of my blog. And if you look on the right of this page, you’ll notice that you can now receive my articles by RSS feed or by e-mail. I do hope you’ll take advantage of this and sign up now. Once again, thank you Revka and Tiffany.
I love to read. Anything. Any time. Cereal boxes or the great American novel. If it’s the printed word, I will read it. I keep my local library busy with all my requests, but have learned how dangerous a place it can be when I walk through the door. I try to avoid book stores. I can spend all day and half the night in one. From opening until closing. I can also wipe out a checking account, savings account and max out a credit card without a second thought. I have not been in a book store for about 18 months. If I buy a book for a gift, I buy it online. It’s easier for me to resist making a humongous purchase if I’m not actually holding the written word in my hands. I’ve discovered another way to find reading material. I’ve been reading online. There are many sites out there with free books, including both the classics and newly published.
Arcamax Publishing will send daily installments of books to your e-mail
Zondervan’s Breakfast Club sends out nibbles and tidbits to your in box Monday through Fridays. Being a member of the Breakfast Club nets you sample excerpts from books, sneak previews of upcoming books and you can win signed books and other fun stuff.
In celebration of the publication of I Shall Not Want, St. Martin’s Minotaur is offering the first two ebooks of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s A Clare Fergusson / Russ Van Alystyne Mystery series: In The Bleak Midwinter and A Fountain Filled With Blood.
Other online reading sites include
Page By Page Books hundreds of classic books
Project Gutenberg over 25,000 free books
byGosh.com the best novels of the 20th century
Start surfing. It’s time to read.
Alaska is one huge, beautiful state. It’s wild and frighteningly beautiful with its glaciers, totems and wild life. The towns have the feel of the old west. It truly is our country’s last frontier. From the bounty of this vast state emerges Bone Strings by Anne Coray. This book of poetry displays the contrasting sides of Alaska. You can read more about this book and its author at carp(e) libris reviews. You can also enter to win this book while you’re there.
My Dollar Plan recently chose my post, 2008 Financial Goals Nearly Met, as one of the Editor Picks from The Carnival of Financial Goals. I feel honored to be listed among so many really good posts, especially some by the “big guys” of the financial niche of blogging. A couple of the ones I read on a regular basis are Cash Money Life and Dollar Frugal, as well as My Dollar Plan. I’m still working my way through all the articles listed and am finding new sites that are going to turn into regulars. These include Finally Frugal and Tip Diva. You will find a good variety of financial posts at this carnival. Go on over and read your way through it.
