#75 Hospice Workers

If you wanted to know what happens when you die, who would you talk to? Who are the experts? How about a chemist, or a biologist, or a psychology professor? Would you seek out a theologian or a minister? Let me recommend that you talk to a hospice worker. These people belong to a relatively new branch of nursing and have a special calling in life.

Hospice came to America from England, opening the first facility in 1971 in Connecticut. Hospice focuses on pain management, emotional, and spiritual support for the terminally ill. They provide counseling for both the patient who is dying and their loved ones who will be left behind.

Hospice workers see it all. Every day they take care of the dying individual and also their loved ones. They care for all ages, from very young children to teenagers, adults, and of course the elderly who are terminally ill.

Maggie Callanan, a hospice nurse for 27 years, has witnessed more than 2,000 deaths. She is an author and speaker on death and dying. She co-authored the book Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying which is all about the striking similarities of what people experience as they pass from this life. She said:

"Wouldn't you like to learn what dying is like, since you're going to do it? Our patients are talking while it's happening. It's like you're standing there watching a preview of coming attractions." [1]

In 2014 there were more than 8 new books published (see Amazon.com) on Hospice workers experiences. Now’s the time in history that the world is destined to learn about life after death from those workers who intimately experience it every day. Watch for it and you will see more and more stories being told publicly.

Trudy Harris wrote a book in 2008, Glimpses of Heaven, True Stories of Hope & Peace at the End of Life’s Journey, about her experiences with 44 patients who died.

“In the beginning when my patients were explaining these experiences to me, I was very skeptical. I began to hear the same stories over and over and over again…. After twenty plus years of caring for hundreds and hundreds of patients and hearing the same scene played out over and over and over again, the skepticism went away.” [2]

Elissa Al-Chokhachy, author and speaker, wrote Miraculous Moments: True Stories Affirming Life Goes On. This book contains 88 stories she has collected from medical professionals and educators. She writes about the experiences of doctors and family members after a person dies. 

After a death, their loved one comes to them through sight, sound, touch, smell or a sign.

“Originally, I thought it was really rare that people had these experiences of loved ones after they die…. I can now say it's quite common, but very few people talk about it. They don't want people to think they're crazy, and they're not even sure it's real or not.”

“The more I work with the dying, the more I believe in life after death, I know there is life after death because there are so many affirmations.” [3]

Here is more from a news article:

“However, for workers who specialize in aiding dying patients, known as hospice caretakers, the afterlife is a far more solid place than a religious ideal or comforting dream for the dying. Visions of deceased relatives and angels are frequently debunked as the product of a dying brain. Yet, the sheer volume of reports of otherworldly experiences from the dying and the common ground they all share despite religious, cultural, and geographic differences raises questions and suggests these waking dreams are valid experiences, not mere hallucinations.” [4]

In Death-Bed Visions: The Psychical Experiences of the Dying, William Barrett says: “If these otherworldly visions were simply hallucinations, how could countless patient stories match? In fact, there have been several sightings of angels by dying children who were surprised to find their holy guides arrived without wings.” Hospice workers and doctors' reports of their dying patients' visions from Europe, Asia, and the United States were found to have eerie similarities. Aside from minor religious differences, the deathbed visions of these patients were consistent.

Here are some more words from Trudy Harris:

“I began to see a pattern in my work. The closer my patients came to dying, the more their eyes and spirits seemed to open to a reality I only glimpsed dimly. One after another, patients recounted not just visits from absent loved ones but an extraordinary awareness of God’s presence.

Sins they’d agonized over for years suddenly felt forgiven. Grievances they’d spent a lifetime nurturing vanished in a rush of reconciliation. Even unbelievers unaccountably yearned for God, questioning or arguing with me about my faith, until all at once they began praying.

Slowly it dawned on me that death is an ending only for those of us still wrapped up in the story of our own earthly lives. From the perspective of the dying, death is a strange and wonderful beginning, a threshold to some new and more beautiful world.” [5]

If there is life after death and all indicators say that there is, then there must be God.

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[1] Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune, "Striking similarity of dying words, Longtime hospice nurse believes patients are glimpsing the afterlife", http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-06-19/news/ct-x-dying-words-0619-20130619_1_hospice-nurse-maggie-callanan-death-awareness

[2] Trudy Harris, Glimpses of Heaven, True Stories of Hope & Peace at the End of Life’s Journey, Revell, 2008

[3] Jody Feinberg, The Patriot Ledger, "Hospice nurse comforts the dying and bereaved through her work and new book", http://www.patriotledger.com/article/20100810/News/308109676

[4] Joseph M. Higgins and Chuck Bergman, Hospice Workers' Stories, http://www.netplaces.com/evidence-of-the-afterlife/medical-personnel-witnesses-to-the-crossing-over/hospice-workers-stories.htm

[5] Trudy Harris, Guideposts, “Evidence of Life After Death, Is there proof of life after death? This hospice nurse has faith that her patients move on to heaven.”

#74 Proteins

Most people are familiar with proteins, as in “be sure you eat enough proteins.” However, proteins are far, far more significant than that. In fact, if you took all of the water out of your body, what would be left would be 75% proteins. [1]

Proteins are especially troublesome for the God-deniers. This is because thousands of proteins are necessary for even a single cell to exist. However, there is no known process for producing proteins without the DNA from an already living cell. It’s a real “Catch-22”. Without proteins there is no life, but without life there are no proteins.

The total number of different proteins that are estimated to exist in the human body is around 50,000. “The common bacteria, E-coli, is predicted to have a total of 5,000 organic compounds of which 3,000 are proteins.” [2] The sum of proteins in biological organisms exceeds 10 million, but nobody has a clear picture of this. [3]

Proteins are very complicated molecules. If a simple bacteria requires 3,000 in order to live, then it’s impossible that a simple bacteria occurred by accident because you cannot get even one protein by accident, let alone 3,000.

It is estimated that the human body has the ability to generate 2 million different types of proteins. However, the Human Genome Project concluded that there are only 20,000-25,000 genes, i.e. sections of DNA, used to make proteins. How is this possible? The human body clearly is not using 1 to 1 coding to make the proteins from genes. Some process way more complex and intelligently designed must be at work.

Proteins are made up of amino acids, the building blocks, linked together. There are about twenty different amino acids commonly found in plants and animals. A typical protein contains 300 or more amino acids. Especially important to note is that each protein has its own specific number and sequence of amino acids. One mistake in the sequence and it doesn't work, or even worse causes disease.

Yeast proteins are on average 466 amino acids long. The largest known proteins are a component of the muscle fibers with a total length of almost 27,000 amino acids. Do you really think that the thousands of proteins that exist could have accidentally formed with the correct number and configuration of amino acids? Even the simple yeast protein has exactly the right 466 amino acids (of a possible 20) in exactly the right place in the sequence.

Proteins are long chains of molecules, but they are “folded” around on themselves many times making specific, unique 3-dimensional shapes that allow them to do the work they do.

Once a protein is formed, it only exists for a certain period of time and then is degraded and recycled by the cell's machinery. They can exist for minutes or years, having an average lifespan of 1–2 days in mammalian cells. Abnormal and or incorrectly folded proteins are degraded more rapidly.

Proteins are essential elements for growth and repair, good functioning and structure of all living cells. Hormones, such as insulin, control blood sugar levels. Enzymes are a type of protein crucial for digestion of foods. Antibodies, another type of protein, help us fight infections. Muscle proteins allow for contraction or muscles would not work. Hemoglobin, an iron containing protein, transports oxygen via the bloodstream.

From the National Institutes of Health [4] 

Here is another list of protein functionalities from a science website:

Protein has a range of essential functions in the body, including the following:
- Required for building and repair of body tissues (including muscle)
- Enzymes, hormones, and many immune molecules are proteins
- Essential body processes such as water balancing, nutrient transport, and muscle contractions require protein to function.
- Protein is a source of energy.
- Protein helps keep skin, hair, and nails healthy.
- Protein, like most other essential nutrients, is absolutely crucial for overall good health. [5]

Every one of the above processes is almost a miracle of design in itself. For example, every single cell needs nutrition to exist, but the cell membrane is impermeable to food particles. How does a cell eat? The cell membrane has thousands of proteins actually embedded right in the wall. These types of proteins are called “receptor proteins” because they have an exact shape that fits a particle of nutrition that comes along. When that particle fits into the protein, the protein becomes something different and absorbs that particular nutritional element into the inside of the cell. It’s awesome! Clearly it acts more like a designed machine than a random accident.

Here is another additional and more gigantic problem for the God-deniers. “A cell needs over 75 ‘helper molecules,’ all working together in harmony, to make one protein as instructed by one DNA base series. A few of these molecules are RNA (messenger, transfer, and ribosomal RNA); most are highly specific proteins.” [6]

Think about that. Just to make a protein in the first place, you have to have 75 other proteins and specialized molecules already there in place and available to play their role. Try to get that to happen accidentally. Any type of evolution is impossible.

All those 75 "helper molecules" must be present in the right places at the right times in the right amounts and with the right structures or else cells cannot make proteins by using the DNA’s base series coding. If all those requirements are met, then the cell can line up the amino acids at the rate of about two per second. It takes a living cell only about four minutes to “crank out” an average protein (500 amino acids) according to the DNA coded specifications. Wow.

Now I’ll give you one more last insurmountable problem for the God-deniers concerning proteins. For over 50 years, even aided by the super-computers of today, researchers have what is called the "protein folding problem". They are able to determine easily what is the amino acid sequence inside a long chain protein, but every protein is a folded up three-dimensional shape and they have failed to find where are the instructions for the folding. They can't crack the coding. It does not seem to exist in the physical, material realm. [7]

There are all kinds of issues associated with protein folding. Why does the protein fold the way it does? Where are the instructions, i.e. the code? What is the mechanism for the folding process? How can they fold so fast? Is there any way to predict how they will fold? The ongoing research is getting better at describing what is going on in the mechanism and the orderly arrangement of the molecules, but the big secret that they are not talking about is that this totally exhibits characteristics that had to be designed. It’s impossible to have occurred without an intelligent guiding force.

One parting shot. You may have heard about Stanley Miller and his experiments in a spark chamber creating what the media called “building blocks of life” or “life in a test tube.” Many school textbooks even proclaim his experiments. Please read up on the latest truth as explained by Prof. Gary Parker in his article “The Origin of Life.” Here’s the summation of what scientists now know about Miller’s experiments. "He had the wrong starting materials, used the wrong conditions, and got the wrong results." [8].

There must be God.

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[a] a. "Protein in the body", Iowa State University, Human Sciences Dept., http://www.extension.iastate.edu/humansciences/protein

[2] “How many Proteins exist in human body?”, http://www.innovateus.net/health/how-many-proteins-exist-human-body

[3] Dr. Gary Parker, The Origin of Life: DNA and Protein, https://answersingenesis.org/origin-of-life/the-origin-of-life-dna-and-protein/

[4] What are proteins and what do they do?, National Institutes of Health, http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/howgeneswork/protein

[5] Emma Lloyd, An Introduction to Protein Molecules: The Building Blocks of Life,
http://www.brighthub.com/science/medical/articles/6050.aspx

[6] Dr. Gary Parker, The Origin of Life: DNA and Protein, https://answersingenesis.org/origin-of-life/the-origin-of-life-dna-and-protein/

[7] Ken A. Dill and Justin L. MacCallum, The Protein-Folding Problem, 50 Years On, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6110/1042.short

[8] Dr. Gary Parker, The Origin of Life: DNA and Protein, https://answersingenesis.org/origin-of-life/the-origin-of-life-dna-and-protein/

#73 Punctuated Equilibrium

Many people have never even heard of The Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium. It has been around since 1972 and it spells the end of Darwinism as you know it.

As I have explained fully in Proof #18, The Fossil Record [1] and Proof #58, The Cambrian Explosion [2], there is no evidence in the fossil record for Darwinism, the slow and gradual emergence of new species from previous species by passing through transitional forms (also called Missing Links, see Proof #64 [3]).

Even Darwin himself recognized this, but he blamed an inadequate fossil record. Ever since Darwin, as more and more fossils were discovered without any transitional forms, evolutionists found this only an uninteresting observation not disproof, if they acknowledged it at all. Certainly they kept it an unspoken secret if it could damage belief in Darwinism.

Here are two quotes from 1980.

“The missing link between man and the apes, whose absence has comforted religious fundamentalists since the days of Darwin, is merely the most glamorous of a whole hierarchy of phantom creatures. In the fossil record, missing links are the rule:  the story of life is as disjointed as a silent newsreel, in which species succeed one another as abruptly as Balkan prime ministers. The more scientists have searched for the transitional forms between species, the more they have been frustrated.” [4]

“… Evidence from fossils now points overwhelmingly away from classical Darwinism which most Americans learned in high school:…Increasingly scientists now believe that species change little for millions of years and then evolve quickly, in a kind of quantum leap…The theory is still being worked out” [5]

You didn’t know that Evolutionists don’t believe in Darwinism any more, did you?

Darwinism actually began to die out among paleontologists even earlier in 1954 when Ernst Mayr published his paper, “Change of genetic environment and evolution". [6] He showed that Darwin’s theory of slow and gradual evolution could not work in real life if there were large numbers of a given species. He proposed “Allopatric speciation” as the process of evolution and it was generally accepted by 1972.

“Allopatric speciation suggests that species with large central populations are stabilized by their large volume and the process of gene flow. New and even beneficial mutations are diluted by the population's large size and are unable to reach fixation, due to such factors as constantly changing environments. If this is the case, then the transformation of whole lineages should be rare, as the fossil record indicates.” [7]

After 120 years of observing the fossil record, the evolutionists finally recognized that any given species does not change much, if at all, for millions upon millions of years. True believers that they are, this didn’t stop them. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution predicted that there would be slow and gradual changes upward over time resulting in many new species. This didn’t show up. Rather than say that the Theory of Evolution was wrong, they decided that the slow and gradual must have been wrong.

They didn’t think to tell every school teacher after about 1954 that what they are teaching about slow and gradual evolution is false. The evolutionists let them go on teaching Darwinian evolution that they themselves no longer believe.

“In 1972, paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould published a landmark paper developing this theory and called it punctuated equilibria. Their paper built upon Ernst Mayr's theory of geographic speciation, I. Michael Lerner's theories of developmental and genetic homeostasis, as well as their own empirical research. Eldredge and Gould proposed that the degree of gradualism commonly attributed to Charles Darwin is virtually nonexistent in the fossil record, and that stasis dominates the history of most fossil species.” [8]

Let me add my own emphasis to double the impact: Darwinian gradualism is virtually nonexistent. 

The Theory of Punctuated Equilibrium states that a species will stay almost exactly the same for millions of years, i.e. in stasis or equilibrium, until there are sudden “punctuated” changes of a huge degree and a whole new species emerges in a very short period of time. The original species will probably continue to exist but a new daughter species will spring up suddenly in some isolated location from a small population. Only a small group of individuals could change so radically in a short geological time frame into a new species.

Here is an astounding statement which is found in Wikipedia. “Before Eldredge and Gould alerted their colleagues to the prominence of stasis in the fossil record, most evolutionists considered stasis to be rare or unimportant.” [9] Darwinism predicts there is slow and gradual change over time and yet Wikipedia says the fact that nothing was changing over time was unimportant to them!

This admission and the new theory obviously turns Darwinism on its head. However, evolutionists, even if they don’t see evidence, still believe it is the truth. Evolution is still true even if they can’t find evidence yet. Besides, they concluded, there was never any real requirement that the changes be slow and gradual.

“…at a conference in mid-October at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, the majority of 160 of the world’s top paleontologists, anatomists, evolutionary geneticists and developmental biologists supported some form of this theory of “punctuated equilibria.” [10]

Let me say that more clearly for you. A majority of the world’s top scientists agreed in 1980 that Darwinism as it was taught to you in school is false. Hence my conclusion, Darwinism has died.

Therefore for teachers to teach that scientists believe in Darwinism has been false since at least 1980.

Punctuated Equilibrium accounts for the fossil record much better than Darwinism. But you are probably asking yourself, “How could such massive changes take place evolving a new species in a short period of time if it hasn't happened over millions of years?” The new theory explains this by saying that the massive changes take place in small fringe populations that get isolated from the larger populations. The huge changes take place in a short geologic period of time, i.e. a few thousand years through processes something like inbreeding and major environmental shifts.

This is very helpful because it explains why there are no transitional fossils, no missing links. The populations were isolated and also there were relatively few individuals, therefore they were less likely to leave fossils in the record.

It’s also very helpful to evolutionists because it predicts that you won’t find the fossils you need to prove it’s true. So also you conveniently won’t be able to find any evidence that the theory is false either.

Many philosophers of science accept a definition of a valid scientific theory as one that is based upon (1) repeatable observations, (2) one that is subject to testing and making accurate predictions, and (3) one that is "falsifiable."  The “punctuationists” clearly have some problems having a valid scientific theory.

Random Mutation and Natural Selection cannot be shown to create any new species even over very long periods of time, so the best new theory evolutionists have come up with is that it must happen over a very short period of time. Their theorized descriptions come off sounding very scientific and very complicated, but the bottom line is that there is no evidence that the process actually works or could work.

Here is an astounding statement by an evolutionist.

“The core observation that once most species show up in the fossil record they exhibit hardly any change at all – not uncommonly remaining essentially static for millions of years – was made 150 years ago and was known to Darwin, but little was made of it until comparatively recently.” [11]

The Theory of Evolution predicts slow and gradual change over time. However, they made the “core observation” for 150 years that this was NOT happening and yet “little was made of it.” Do they really call themselves scientists?

“Now we admit that evolution is more of a fits-and-starts affair than we used to think. This hardly seems to be the stuff of revolution.”[12]

That quote is from Niles Eldredge, who came up with punctuated equilibrium. He can say it is no big deal, but it means traditional Darwinism is dying out, if it’s not already dead. To me that is certainly very revolutionary. Why, because all the schools teaching Darwinism need to stop it right now.

Probably, it will take time, but the handwriting is already on the wall. Darwinism is dead. What you and I learned in school and what is still being taught today is FALSE and they know it. And they don’t have any viable proof for their latest theory either, just blind faith and hope they can find some other mechanism in the future to make the theory come true without God.

I thought you should know what many of the scientists have admitted to themselves since 1972.

We believers can see that evolutionism is pure faith, not science, even if they can’t.

Actually their faith is less scientific than someone’s faith that there is a Creator God. The theory of a Creator better explains the scientific facts. Maybe if evolutionists keep researching, they’ll eventually find God, but only if they are willing to go where the evidence leads them.

The only truly scientific conclusion is that there must be God.

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[1] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #18 The Fossil Record, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2012/08/18-fossil-record_29.html

[2] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #58, The Cambrian Explosion, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/04/58-cambrian-explosion.html

[3] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #64, Missing Links, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2014/07/64-missing-links.html

[4] Jerry Adler and John Carey, Is Man A Subtle Accident?, Newsweek Magazine, November 3, 1980, page 95

[5] Jerry Adler and John Carey, Is Man A Subtle Accident?, Newsweek Magazine, November 3, 1980, page 95

[6] Mayr, Ernst (1954). "Change of genetic environment and evolution" In J. Huxley, A. C. Hardy and E. B. Ford. Evolution as a Process. London: Allen and Unwin, pp. 157-180.

[7] Wikipedia, Punctuated Equilibrium, Theoretical mechanisms, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium

[8] Princeton University Website, article on Punctuated Equilibrium, http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Punctuated_equilibrium.html

[9] Wikipedia, Punctuated equilibria, section on Stasis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium#Stasis

[10] Jerry Adler and John Carey, Is Man A Subtle Accident?, Newsweek Magazine, November 3, 1980, page 95

[11] Niles Eldredge, Evolutionary Housekeeping, Natural History Magazine, February, 1982, page 79

[12] Niles Eldredge, Evolutionary Housekeeping, Natural History Magazine, February, 1982, page 80

#72 The Superb Lyrebird

Most birds have one or two sounds that they can make or “songs” that they “sing”. The fact that any animal can make sounds like the birds do at all is a phenomenally complex accomplishment involving their ears, brain, syrinx, beak, mouth, and lungs all working simultaneously. It is so amazing that it would “impress the great composers”. [a] [b] (I highly recommend this webpage as an introduction about bird sounds and the messages they are communicating, and the many intricate ways they do it.)

“The vocal skill of birds derive from the unusual structure of their powerful vocal equipment. The syrinx is the sound-producing organ in birds. It is the equivalent of the human sound box. The syrinx contains membranes which vibrate and generate sound waves when air from the lungs is passed over them. The muscles of the syrinx control the details of song production; birds with more elaborate system of vocal muscles produce more complex songs.”[c]

The Lyrebird in Australia gets even more complicated by a whole new order of magnitude. Not only is it considered by many to be the loudest bird in the world, but it can hear, remember, and then somehow imitate extraordinarily complex sounds and sequences. Following are some links to videos on YouTube where Lyrebirds are videotaped reproducing sounds such as a chainsaw, hammering in a nail, sawing on wood, a camera shutter, a motorized drive on a camera shutter, a radio broadcast, and even a man swearing.

Superb Lyrebird imitating construction work - Adelaide Zoo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeQjkQpeJwY#t

David Attenborough, Amazing! Bird sounds from the lyre bird - BBC wildlife

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y#t

National Geographic, World's Weirdest - Bird Mimics Chainsaw, Car Alarm and More

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjAcyTXRunY

This excerpt is from an article in Wikipedia that I highly recommend for more information.

“The lyrebird's syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the Passerines (songbirds), giving the lyrebird extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. Lyrebirds render with great fidelity the individual songs of other birds and the chatter of flocks of birds, and also mimic other animals such as koalas and dingos. The lyrebird is capable of imitating almost any sound and they have been recorded mimicking human caused sounds such as a mill whistle to a cross-cut saw, chainsaws, car engines and car alarms, fire alarms, rifle-shots, camera shutters, dogs barking, crying babies, music, and even the human voice.”[d]

Begging for Love, by Bernd Amesreiter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2UcKFtwS5o

Awesome bird, the Lyre Bird mimicking like crazy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCKxbJA3KpM

Amazing Lyre Bird can imitate Dubstep and Drum n Bass! (WARNING - expletive coming)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJAIkSPK3DI

Check in the footnotes below for some additional videos on YouTube. [e]

“In the wild, males will not only flawlessly imitate some 20 different species of birds, but multiple calls from each. They’re particularly fond of imitating Australia’s famous laughing kookaburras, and Dalziell has heard them mimicking the wing beats of small birds jetting through the forest understory. Up to 80 percent of a lyrebird’s song can consist of such mimicry, according to Dalziell…” [f]

The Superb Lyrebird can imitate other birds so well that they are completely deceived into believing it is one of their own. [g]

Scientists who study the Lyrebirds say they have fossils dating back 15 million years ago.[h]

The Lyrebirds get their name from the beautiful tail feathers on the male that grow when he is 3 or 4 years old.[i] There are 2 species of Lyrebirds (Superb and Albert’s), but only the Superb species has these amazing tail feathers.

Evolutionists have quite a number of problems trying to explain how this ability could have developed slowly and gradually in the Lyrebird. They never actually discuss how changes in the brain or vocal mechanisms take place. They refer to some generalized explanation of sex appeal in the male making him more attractive to the female AFTER he has evolved. That's just a “red herring” because there is no evidence of HOW he could anatomically change.

One big problem for evolutionists is, “What was the order of development of the needed parts?” Imagine the brain of a Lyrebird and how it evolved.  Did it first evolve the ability to hear, record, and remember a very complex sequence of sounds slowly and gradually? How would that be a benefit to survival? Then many generations later its lungs, syrinx, and beak changed so it could make all those sounds it could remember.

What about the other way around? Did the mouth, throat, syrinx, and lungs slowly and gradually evolve to this level of specialization and then the brain evolved after that? Could all these complex mechanisms have evolved all on their own without the brain? Note that the anatomical mechanisms evolving slowly over many generations would have to conveniently evolve piece by piece without any designer until the whole thing would suddenly work. Once the “musical instrument” existed, then the brain has to be able to “play” it. The brain would have to evolve so it could eventually learn how to take the stored memory of a sound and reproduce it. Did this take many generations?

Maybe when you were a kid someone made for you a flute out of a hollow bamboo reed. [j] You blew in one end and were shown that by covering different holes you could make different sounds. So far so good.  But how long was it before you could play a song on that flute? Not easy was it? And you were a pretty smart kid! Learning to play even a simple musical instrument is not easy.

The other possibility for evolution is that all these complicated, interconnected systems developed simultaneously. First they were one tenth developed, then one quarter developed, then one half developed, and so on. In this case, it doesn’t seem like anything will work very well until it is all finished. There seems to be very little survival benefit at each of the intermediate stages along the way. So how could evolution like this be realistic? Besides that, the chances of many interconnected mutations happening nearly simultaneously is non-existent. 

Evolutionists believe that the Lyrebird accidentally developed a very sophisticated vocal mechanism (way more complicated than a flute). The Lyrebird can create thousands of sounds compared to a few on your flute. That bird brain also accidentally figured out how to instantly remember various complicated sounds that it hears and then somehow learned to reproduce the exact sounds and sequences using its amazing vocal apparatus (way beyond some simple flute).

That bird brain had to have accidentally developed not only “perfect pitch” [k] and “perfect rhythm/timing/beat”, but also something similar to a photographic memory for sound. If a human being could accomplish something like this, he/she would be considered one of the “wonders of the world”.

The Lyrebird could not have evolved. It was designed.

There must be God.

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[a] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

            “The musical detail would have impressed the great composers. The nightingale, for example, holds up to 300 different love songs in his repertoire. The canary may take 30 mini-breaths a second to replenish its air supply. The cowbird uses 40 different notes, some so high we can't hear them. The chaffinch may sing his song half a million times in a season.

            “Indeed, British musician David Hindley slowed bird song down and discovered parallels between the skylark's blizzard of notes and Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; between the woodlark's mind-numbingly complex song and J.S.Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. It changes its tune according to the rules of classical sonata form.”

 [b] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

            “In most species, a male bird owning a territory is essential for attracting a female and breeding successfully. Males claim a territory by singing in it. They generally use shorter, simpler songs for territorial defense. They are addressing their songs to rival males. These territorial songs carry over long distances and convey detailed information about the location and identity of the singer. Gaps in the song enable the singer to listen for replies, and determine where their rival is and how far off.

Birds can distinguish neighbors from strangers by individual differences in their songs. Males use this information to concentrate their defense efforts. They will not react aggressively against a neighbor as long as he stays on his own territory. But a singing stranger could mean a threat to the territory; a strong response is required to see this potential invader off.

When they are trying to attract females onto their territory, males become operatic. They sing longer and more complex songs.”

[c] Gareth Huw Davies, Bird Songs, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/

[h] Wikipedia, Lyrebird, Taxonomy and systematics, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

[d] Wikipedia, Lyrebird, Vocalizations and mimicry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyrebird

[i] New South Wales, Australia, Government website, Lyrebirds, http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/Lyrebirds.htm

[f] Matt Simon, Wired.Com, Absurd Creature of the Week: The Bird That Does Unbelievable Impressions of Chainsaws, Car Alarms, http://www.wired.com/2014/02/absurd-creature-week-lyrebird/

[e] Additional YouTube videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Js9DTOoYEM, Australian National University

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2f_7tdOgiQ, Adelaide Zoo Lyrebird "Chook"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr-o7Cw9zA0, Is It Possible

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAwiFMKPHmY#t, David Attenborough

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0tP-p7m40, Lyrebird: The Best Songbird Ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocCPvl6mUmo, This Bird can TALK in 20 different voices!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSZtoXIb7do, Healesville Sanctuary, Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBhTyHIBGU8, Medusa Media, Superb Lyrebird - performing repertoire of local birdcalls and courtship dance

[g] Abbie Thomas, Winter call of the lyrebirds, ABC Science, http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/08/04/3284076.htm

[j] Marc Bristol, How to Carve a Homemade Bamboo Flute, http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-carve-a-homemade-bamboo-flute-zmaz82ndzgoe.aspx#axzz3JAI6aOBd

[k] Google. Definition: Absolute Pitch or Perfect Pitch is a rare auditory phenomenon characterized by the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of a reference tone.

#71 Fruit

Everybody loves fruit. But have you ever done any research on “fruits”? I tried to find out how many different kinds of fruits there are in the world, but I could not find an answer. Nobody knows. Clearly there are thousands. (For fun go to Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [1] or 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know [2].)

“Although it is not known exactly how many types of fruits exist in the world, the answer numbers in the thousands. Agriculturalists constantly cultivate new varieties of fruits; for instance, at least 1,600 varieties of bananas exist as of 2014.” [3]

Imagine a life without fruits. Eating would be much more boring, but we would be much more sickly as a human race, maybe even extinct.

What do evolutionists say about where fruits came from? Not much actually, I googled it. They say of course that slowly over great lengths of time, random mutations somehow produced a sweet fruit. Animals and insects liked them so much more than other plants that they ate a lot of them and spread their seeds all over the place by pooping.

Let’s think about this a little more seriously and try to imagine the step by step processes that would have had to be involved.

I want to discuss particularly two of the most astounding features of fruits: (1) they taste so great and (2) they carry many, many health benefits for humans. There are others, but I think these two will show that fruits clearly defy the concepts of evolution.

Even with all of our creative genius and intelligence as human beings, we cannot create even one fruit that is better than the ones in nature. Doesn’t that tell you something? Not just a few, but all these thousands of wonderful fruits just accidentally happened without any intelligence involved. That means that random accidents are smarter than all the combined human intelligence because randomness comes up with better food for us than we can make on our own. Not only did it happen one time, but it happened over and over again thousands of times. So the smartest scientists are like dummies compared to random mutations.

Evolutionists have a faith in randomness that goes beyond blind faith if you ask me.

So in the course of historical time, what came first, the fruits evolving on the plants or the animals to eat them? Evolutionists say animals spread the seeds that grew in the fruits. So that means that fruits came into existence after there were already animals. But if there were no fruits for the animals to eat, how did they get all the nutrition that they needed to survive. It’s kind of a catch 22. So they would have had to evolve simultaneously, right? But that doesn’t make so much sense either, because if the fruit were only partially developed, why would the animal eat it?

Think for a minute of what is necessary in the way of changes in a plant for it to go from a plant that has no fruit to one that bears fruit. There would have to be thousands of chemical and biological changes in the plant. Usually the fruit is an integral part of the reproductive organs of a plant. This means that the male and female parts of the plant or else the male plant and female plant would both have to make evolutionary changes that completely corresponded to each other simultaneously. If not, then the plant would not be fertilized correctly and there would be no next generation.

Apple seedling

Plants have a life cycle. Starting from a seed, it can take many years for a plant (fruit tree) to reach maturity and be able to bear seeds of its own. Standard apple trees take at least 5 to 8 years to bear fruit and cherry trees take longer.[4] So if a tree is one that does not bear fruit and begins a simple mutation, it is probably going to take some 5 years before that mutation could be passed on to another generation of trees. Remember also that scientists tell us that most mutations are detrimental or neutral and very few are positive.[5] How many of the seeds would actually carry the mutation when it happens? Certainly only a tiny, tiny fraction of the seeds would have any mutation at all, but an even much tinier fraction of those would have a mutation going toward producing a partial fruit. Now among all the seeds that a tree produces each year, what percentage do you think will grow up into another mature tree? I’d be willing to bet that percentage is very low. I remember my aunt and uncle had this huge old cherry tree that used to produce so many cherries that the ground would be covered with them. But not many new trees sprung up.

If a plant somehow mutated enough to make a fruit, (a big if) how did it get the taste just right to be so satisfying to humans, or even animals? How many possible mutations are there that taste terrible? There isn’t enough time since the Big Bang for a plant to mutate all the combinations of tastes in order to get just the right one. And you can’t please all the people all the time. Some people like apples and some don’t. Some people who love apples love the Delicious but not the Granny Smith. The seeds of the apple won’t get spread for the evolutionist if the people (or local animals) don’t like the taste.

Now here’s another incredible difficulty for evolutionists. They may talk about the great taste of fruits as the reason they are here according to natural selection, but they still have to take into account that fruits each have many, many health benefits. How did that come about? People might eat the fruit because it tastes so great, but what if it poisoned them. No more evolution. How can evolutionists explain that fruits contain many wonderful nutrients for humans? The nutrients don’t particularly help the plant or tree itself. Did the plants mutate again and again until it somehow got exactly the right combination of nutrients for humans (animals, or insects, etc.) and also the right taste too? That would mean thousands of millions of new chemical and biological processes. That doesn’t make much sense because there are so many other plants and trees that are doing just fine and they don’t make any fruits that are edible.

“The total number of plant species in the world is estimated at 270,000. Approximately 1,000 to 2,000 species of plants are edible by humans. About 100 to 200 species of plants play an important role in world commerce, and about 15 species provide the majority of food crops.” [6]

What is more difficult to evolve, a great taste or great nutritional benefits for humans? It seems to me that the chemical and biological processes to produce great taste would be easier and also more likely to get the fruit eaten and the seeds spread. But it is going to be way more complicated for the fruit to become full of healthy nutrients. Even if the plant had wonderful nutrients, humans and animals won’t eat it if it tastes terrible.

     25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas [7]
     Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts [8]
     The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous [9]
     5 Health Benefits of Apples [10]
     15 health benefits of eating apples [11]
     10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple [12]
     13 Health Benefits of Oranges [13]
     Etc., etc., etc.

Once again we could ask, which came first, the nutrients in the fruit or the animal to eat the fruit. If the animals are not there to eat and then spread the fruit seeds, how do the seeds get spread? If the nutritional fruits are not there for the animals, how do they survive without it? If they evolve side by side at the same time, matching each other step by step, you have a scenario that takes more blind faith to believe than any religious person has.

Here’s another very interesting point. You have surely noticed that oranges come in segments inside the peal, usually 10. Another fruit like bananas however grow in a totally different way, on a huge stalk in a big bunch. 

The banana peal comes off rather easily and the banana can actually be divided into 3 sections. What does evolution have to say about fruit being conveniently packaged for human and animal consumption? Could 10 segments in an orange have developed by some slow and gradual process of natural selection? And why is that feature selected for over some other simpler system?

I love fruit. Because there is fruit, I conclude there must be God.

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[1] Christine Vrey, Top 20 Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/08/top-20-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[2] Christine Vrey, 20 More Fruits You Probably Don’t Know, http://listverse.com/2011/07/23/20-more-fruits-you-probably-dont-know/

[3] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[4] How Many Years Until Your Tree Bears Fruit?, by Stark Bro's, http://www.starkbros.com/blog/how-many-years/

[5] Jim Stephens, Proof for God #27, Truth About Mutation, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html

[6] Ask.Com, How many types of fruits are there in the world?, http://www.ask.com/food/many-types-fruits-world-ef78fe775fd75a9b

[7] 25 Powerful Reasons to Eat Bananas, http://foodmatters.tv/articles-1/25-powerful-reasons-to-eat-bananas

[8] Jessie Szalay, Live Science Contributor, Bananas: Health Benefits, Risks & Nutrition Facts, http://www.livescience.com/45005-banana-nutrition-facts.html

[9] Chad Hagy, 14 Banana Health Benefits You Might Not Know About, The Health Benefits Of Bananas Are Numerous, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/14_banana_health_benefits_you_might_not_know_about.aspx

[10] Matthew Kayser, 5 Health Benefits of Apples, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/5_health_benefits_of_apples.aspx

[11] 15 health benefits of eating apples, http://www.besthealthmag.ca/eat-well/nutrition/15-health-benefits-of-eating-apples

[12] Rose Alexander, 10 Reasons To Eat Pineapple, The Health Benefits And Convenience Of Pineapple, http://www.lifescript.com/food/articles/0/10_reasons_to_eat_pineapple.aspx

[13] Diana Herrington, 13 Health Benefits of Oranges, http://www.care2.com/greenliving/13-health-benefits-of-oranges.html