Jim Gibson of GRI presented lectures New Books on Intelligent Design GRI Field Conference in the Alps on creation and science in Perth, Sydney and Cairns during a recent visit to Australia. In Sydney, he was joined by Tim Standish for a program for youth at the Fox Valley Community Centre. In Cairns, Gibson spoke to the meeting of the SDA Business Professionals Convention, adding something unique to the rich program.
GRI in Southeast Asia
The conference group at Sustenpass, Switzerland. Foreground rocks are metamorphic Paleozoic Wells, J. 2017. Zombie Science: More rocks. Background rocks are Mesozoic Icons of Evolution. Seattle: Discovery sedimentary cover. Institute Press. $14.84 on Amazon.com. The Geoscience Research Institute Bethell, T. 2017. Darwins House of conducted a field conference in the western Cards. Seattle: Discovery Institute Press. Alps for about 40 church leaders. The $21.95 on Amazon.com. trip started and ended in Milan, Italy, Two new books written from the viewpoint and featured topics in glaciation and the of intelligent design have been released. collision of the African and European Zombie Science, by Jonathan Wells, is a continents. In addition to the geological Ben Clausen points out a geological feature follow-up to his previous book, Icons of studies, the group was treated to spectacular during the field trip. Evolution. Both books expose inaccurate, scenery, fields of wildflowers, occasional Four GRI scientists participated in a Faith and sometimes fraudulent, claims common wildlife and many other evidences of Gods and Science Conference in Bali, Indonesia in evolutionary textbooks. Topics in the power and love of beauty. from May 15-21 sponsored by the Southern newer book include the evolutionary tree, Asia-Pacific Division. More than two natural selection, vestigial organs, the North American Division hundred teachers and others attended human eye and others. Conference on Faith and Science the meetings, which included a field trip The second book, Darwins House of focused on the significance of volcanoes. Cards was written by Tom Bethell, and gives a well-written summary of the Creation Sabbath evidence against the neodarwinian theory Remember Creation Sabbath - October of evolution. 28, 2017. Find useful ideas and resources at CreationSabbath.net. GRI BLOG New blog topics this quarter included dis- Teachers Convention cussions of the relationship of organismal GRI is planning a special series of form and the environment, the end-Creta- Panel members take questions from the presentations for the teachers convention ceous extraterrestrial impact theory, and audience at the conference in St. George. planned by the North American Division the livability or not of newly discovered The North American Division of Seventh- for August 6-9, 2018 in Chicago. Teachers exoplanets. Enjoy them at: https://grisda. day Adventists sponsored a conference on are invited to watch for further information as it becomes available. wordpress.com. faith and science in late June and early July. About three hundred teachers, pastors Geoscience Newsletter is published GRI ON FACEBOOK and others met in St. George, Utah, where Visit our Facebook page at https://www. electronically by the Geoscience they heard lectures on issues in origins and facebook.com/Geoscienceresearchinsti- Research Institute, 11060 Campus visited Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon tute/ for notes on the blog posts or other Street, Loma Linda CA 92350 National Parks. current issues. SCIENCE NEWS tapered like a cone, with walls composed Comment. The finding of gene flow of many fibrils of -keratin. Since the di- among most bear species is expected by Design in Beetle Wings ameter of the cone decreases toward its creationists. As animals emerged from the tip, some of the fibrils must not reach the ark, they must have been able to spread tip. But termination would leave notch- out across the world and adapt to various es of weakness where the feather might local habitats. The result is the formation easily break. This problem is avoided by of numerous locally adapted species from diverting many of the fibrils into the side an original pair of ark animals. Gene flow branches (barbs) of the feather. Further, is to be expected unless it has been blocked the somewhat brittle keratin fibrils are em- by genetic changes, as may be the case with bedded in an amorphous matrix (cortex) the spectacled bear. which is quite ductile, enabling the feather to bend without breaking. Discovery of this Coccinella magnifica, a ladybird beetle from Another Hominid, Another Theory well-engineered design in feathers could Eurasia. Photo Giles San Martin, CCbySA2. lead to improvements in design in human Saito, K. et al. 2017. Investigation of manufacturing (biomimetics). hindwing folding in ladybird beetles Comment. Birds are designed for flight, by artificial elytron transplantation this paper reveals evidence of design ex- and microcomputed tomography. tending to the microscopic level. Well-en- Proceedings National Academy of Sciences gineered designs are not created at random, 114(22):5624-5628. Doi: 10.1073/pnas. but reflect the activities of an intelligent 1620612114. mind. Summary. Ladybird beetles fold their wings using a structure that combines both the ability to deform the wing for folding All in the (Bear) Family and the strength to enable flying. The design of their wings may offer promise for applications in human engineering (biomimetics). Sketch of Homo sapiens skull from Jebel Comment. Design in nature is frequently Irhoud. CC by SA. Wikimedia Commons. discovered to be superior to what humans have devised. This indicates that nature Hublin, J-J., et al. New fossils from Jebel has been created by a Designer far more Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African intelligent that we are. origin of Homo sapiens. Nature 546:289- 292 (2017). doi:10.1038/nature22336. A grizzly-polar bear hybrid, displayed at the Design in Bird Feathers Ulukhaktok Community Center, Canada. Summary. Human fossils were Lingham-Soliar, T. 2017. Microstructural Photo by AE Derocher. discovered in Morocco in 1960 at a site tissue-engineering in the rachis and barbs Kumar V., et al. The evolutionary history of named Jebel Irhoud. The fossils appeared of bird feathers. Scientific Reports 7:45162; bears is characterized by gene flow across to be close to anatomically modern humans doi: 10.1030/srep45162. species. Scientific Reports 7, 46487; doi (AMH), but with some features interpreted 10.1038/srep46487 (2017). as archaic. Newly described fossils from Summary. Hybrids between grizzly and the same locality provide greater detail and polar bears have been known for a long indicate the fossils are the oldest known time, and other bear hybrids have been fossils with anatomically modern traits. reported, both in the wild and in zoos. The Thermoluminescence dating gave an age of extent of gene flow among bears has not about 300,000 years for the fossils, much been studied until now. Complete genome older than any previously known AMH sequencing has been accomplished for all fossil. six typical bear species and the unique Comment. There seem to be several spectacled bear, permitting detection of extinct varieties of fossil humans, found gene flow among the species. Results widely, although not abundantly, in Asia, showed that gene flow is relatively Europe and Africa. This pattern would fit common throughout all six ursine bears, with the possibility that prehistoric humans Drawing showing fibrils of the feather rachis but not in the South American spectacled were divided into several small, isolated continuing into the barbs. Photo Copyright Nature Journal; used under Fair Use. bear. Combined with evidence of gene flow populations. One difficulty in interpreting in other mammalian groups, this suggests these fossils is the paucity of fossils, Summary. The structure of a feather is that maintenance of stable morphology in as shown by the frequent changes in specially designed to provide both stiffness the face of gene flow may be an important interpretation that occur when new fossils and flexibility. The central shaft (rachis) is factor in defining species. are discovered.