Archive for 1999

Chemical Delights

As a rule, scientists seek answers. They want to answer the “why” questions. Why, for example, are plants green? Why is blood red? These are very simple queries compared to the biggies like why does quantum physics work. Nevertheless, believe it or not , we are as far from answering why chlorophyll is green, and blood cells are red, as we are from explaining quantum mechanics. Two commentators in fact recently termed the reason blood is red a “visual pun of molecular wit.” (Morrison and Morrison. 1998. Scientific American. March p. 106) The explanation for colour in chlorophyll is similarly obscure. The situation becomes even more interesting when we discover that chlorophyll and the heme component of hemoglobin are chemically extremely similar . Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s Mothball the Peppered Myth

In his famous 1959 article, Dr. Bernard Kettlewell described his research on the peppered moth as the “consummation and confirmation” (p. 53) of Darwin’s theories. (B. Kettlewell. 1959. Darwin’s Missing Evidence. Scientific American. March pp. 4 8-53) Since then, the peppered moth has become standard fare in biology and genetics texts. Educators really like this example because it is “extremely visual” and thus easily understood and remembered. While all scientists, whether creation model support ers or evolution model supporters, agree that shifts in the proportions of various characteristics do take place in nature, only the evolutionists draw more extensive conclusions from the data. For example, Nelson Canada’s 1993 high school text Biolog y (authored by teachers from Alberta and Newfoundland), suggests that students explain the statement “Evolution and adaptation usually occur by means of small changes” in connection with the case of the peppered moth. (p. 110) Read the rest of this entry »

Moxie’s Designer Highlights

New Uses for Old Patents

Our uses for good bonding agents are almost endless. We glue craft items, chipped china, broken toys, furniture which has come apart, and so on. The list seems endless. There are industrial uses and medical uses for glue too. During the Vietnam war, for example, the American army developed a medical superglue for treating wounds. This product was less than ideal however because it required dry surfaces in order to set. But, as everyone knows, wounds tend to be wet and yucky. Certainly there would be no dry surfaces inside the body. Now English scientists are getting into the act. Actually they are working with a glue which was invented long ago. They are just learning how to make use of this special product. Read the rest of this entry »

Night Watch

Mankind has always been fascinated by the night sky. Indeed it seems that some of the earliest recorded observations from nature were astronomical. For example, in the mid nineteenth century, English archaeologists uncovered a huge library of clay tablets in the palace of Assyrian Emperor Sennecherib of Nineveh, who lived about seven hundred years B.C. Among other clay tablets were detailed records concerning the planet Venus. It’s interesting that the pattern of appearances and absences from the sky is different from what we see today. It’s hard to say if the observations were accurate, but we do know that many of these ancients took their studies very seriously. The wise men in the gospels are a good example. Moreover an earlier document, the book of Job, mentions constellations such as the Pleiades. Read the rest of this entry »

No Crocodile Tears for Kansas

Indeed it was a “tragedy,” opined an editorial in the New York Times (August 13, 1999). Within this context, naturally enough, the editorialist continued “deep sadness is the most sensible response.” The reader might have been pardoned for suspecting the opinion piece was actually written tongue in cheek. The event which called forth this public mourning was none other than a decision by the State of Kansas’ Board of Education. That action of the Board, according to the NY Times, “makes it more likely that many schools will spend less time on evolution …” Oh really? One might have understood if the newspaper had called the action regrettable or ill-advised, but “tragic?” What was going on here? Read the rest of this entry »

Pushing the Envelope of Creation-based Biology

The new generation of creation scientists are young, smart and sophisticated. Along with geneticists, taxonomists, and palaeontologists, experts in DNA sequencing analysis and phylogenetic analysis (the search for relationship patterns) are asking new questions and revisiting old issues. No longer do they concentrate on fighting evolutionary theories. They don’t need to. Rather, they are forging new creation-based theories. With this positive approach, they are certain to attract yet further support from Christians in educational and professional circles. It was to learn more about some new initiatives that I attended a conference in Lynchburg, Virginia on August 5-7, 1999. Read the rest of this entry »

The Year of the Worm

A special section in the December 11, 1998 issue of the journal Science was devoted to a celebration of the roundworm Caenorabditis elegans. Although a lengthy name has been conferred on this creature, the organism itself is actually at most about 1 mm long. Of the 20,000 or so known species of roundworm or nematode, most are parasites. This species, however, (generally called by the more catchy title of C. elegans), lives free in the soil. Hardly visible to the naked eye, an individual worm nevertheless appears very large when viewed through an ordinary microscope. Except for cells destined to become eggs or sperm, this animal consists of only 959 cells. The whole creature is quite transparent so that, through the microscope, one can easily view the various cells and organs. Development of an individual is fast too, requiring only three days in a life span of two or three weeks. Such an organism seemed ideal for laboratory studies. Thus in 1963 Cambridge biologist Sydney Brenner began a research program which continues to the present. And what fascinating results have been obtained! Read the rest of this entry »

Watch Out Aphids!

Everyone wants to go outdoors in the spring to enjoy the sunshine and the warm breezes. But what is there to do besides sit, or play ball or ride bicycles? Of course there is always garbage to pick up. After that maybe some of the dead leaves and other plant debris can be removed to tidy up the garden a bit. But wait! Under many of those dead leaves we discover adult lady bugs waiting for summer and their favourite food, aphids. There are no aphids to eat just yet as new leaves have not emerged. Let’s allow the lady bugs their peace and quiet a while longer. Soon after the fresh green leaves appear, aphids will be there on some of them and the lady bugs will surely find their way to them. Read the rest of this entry »