Yet Another Idiotic Sentence By Carl Sagan

I realize it's childsplay and beating a dead horse to pick on late professor Carl Sagan, especially since most of his idiotic statements were catalogued by historian Charles Ginenthal in his book Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky. However this one is pretty funny:

"Science fiction was a new idea at the time of the Thirty Years War...." -- Carl E. Sagan, pseudoscientist, Cosmos, 1980

Let us analyze this Darwinist claim that has absolutely no basis in historical reality.

The Thirty Years War began in 1618 with the Defenestration of Prague and ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia.

So according to Carl Sagan, the Greco-Roman author Lucian who wrote science fiction in ancient times was actually writing science nonfiction?

"Once upon a time I gathered together the poorest people in my kingdom and undertook to plant a colony on the Morning Star [Venus], which was empty and uninhabited. Phaethon out of jealousy thwarted the colonisation, meeting us half-way at the head of his Ant Dragoons. At that time we were beaten, for we were not a match for them in strength, and we retreated: now, however, I desire to make war again and plant the colony." -- Lucian, author, True History, 2nd century

And again, if science fiction evolved in the 17th century, does that mean the Mahabharata is science fact?

The Miraculous Spontaneous Evolution of Science

"As it turned out, Ionia was the place where science was born. Between 600 and 400 B.C., this great revolution in human thought began. The key to the revolution was the hand." -- Carl E. Sagan, pseudoscientist, Cosmos, 1980

Prior to 600 B.C. no human being had a hand?

After all, Carl Sagan should know since he was there.

Another Problem For Evolution

"All things were mixed up together, then Mind came and arranged them all in distinct order." -- Anaxagoras, philosopher, 5th century B.C.

"Then I heard someone who had a book of Anaxagoras, as he said, out of which he read that mind was the disposer and cause of all, and I was quite delighted at the notion of this, which appeared admirable, and I said to myself; If mind is the disposer, mind will dispose all for the best, and put each particular in the best place ...." -- Socrates, philosopher, Phaedo, 360 B.C.

"... if chance were real, it would seem strange indeed, and the question might be raised, why on earth none of the wise men of old in speaking of the causes of generation and decay took account of chance; whence it would seem that they too did not believe that anything is by chance." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

"Certainly the early physicists found no place for chance among the causes which they recognized...." -- Aristotle, Physics, Book II, 350 B.C.

Institute For Creation Research: Scuba-Diving Caterpillar an Evolutionary Conundrum.

The beautiful Hawaiian Islands are not only desirable travel destinations, they also provide unique habitats for tropical creatures. When certain caterpillars were found living in the wet mountainous regions, researchers were baffled both by their underwater lifestyle and their nonstandard “evolution.” How and why did these insects acquire amphibious traits?

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers were surprised to discover that 12 species out of over 300 Hawaiian moths in the genus Hyposmocoma are able to live, eat, and completely mature underwater. The moths don’t have gills, so their ability to breathe while submerged remains a mystery.

The researchers found that each amphibious species is closely related to a terrestrial variety. They concluded that “this amphibious lifestyle is an example of parallel evolution and has arisen from strictly terrestrial clades at least three separate times in the genus.”1 A clade is a grouping of similar organisms that are thought to be evolutionary related.

Yet another unexpected finding showed that some of the genes that enable these species to be amphibious are found in the nuclear DNA, but other required genes are in separate mitochondrial DNA. So, if the amphibious lifestyle evolved, then the same set of genes evolved independently at three separate times within the same, but separately located, chromosomes.

The evolutionary biologists also considered the possibility that the ancestral Hyposmocoma started out with amphibious genes when it colonized the islands many years ago. The genes would then have subsequently been lost in over 300 descendant species and stayed intact in just the few that remain amphibious. The researchers wrote that “either scenario is remarkable because they represent the repeated acquisition or loss of a truly amphibious lifestyle not recorded anywhere else.”1

Are these finds considered “remarkable” because they do not fit the standard evolutionary story? In the context of big-picture evolution, the authors explained that “it would be parsimonious to assume that it arose once in the genus and that the lineage diversified in the 12 species and three lineages in this study.”1 In other words, it would have been simpler for “nature” to have had all amphibious species “emerge” from one ancestor, not three.

The authors suggested, “Such diversification and parallel evolution may be possible for the caterpillars owing to particular characteristics of Hyposmocoma but more likely involves features of this insect lineage working in conjunction with Hawaii’s extreme isolation.”1 But this speculative statement fails to address which “characteristics” or “features” could have been involved in these “unparalleled evolutionary phenomena.”1

From a creation perspective, it may be tempting to explain these unusual moths by simply saying that God “made them that way,” but that’s probably too simple. After all, it appears that the amphibious species share many characteristics with strictly terrestrial species of this moth. And considering that members of the same genus are typically very closely related and possibly able to interbreed, perhaps today’s 350 Hyposmocoma “species” descended from a founder population or individual moths that landed on Hawaii when it was a virgin island.

In this scenario, these well-designed moths could have established themselves on Hawaii and diversified, multiplied, and filled then-empty niches. Whatever mechanism brought the amphibian genes into (or out of) certain moths and skipped over others is not yet clear.

However, that mechanism does not appear to have been genetic mutation, because mutations do not build or produce whole coordinated gene sets. Rather, they mostly accrue as miniscule aberrations of genetic data. It is more likely that the addition or removal of coordinated gene sets occurred through a well-designed process that was created for that purpose, just as has occurred with various other animals.2

1.3 Million Year Old Footprints of Modern Homo Sapiens In Mexico

"Our work at Hueyatlaco has been rejected by most archaeologists because it contradicts that theory [evolution], period." -- Virginia Steen-McIntyre, tephrochronologist, March 30th 1981

"The problem as I see it is much bigger than Hueyatlaco. It concerns the manipulation of scientific thought and the suppression of 'Enigmatic Data,' data that challenges the prevailing mode of thinking." -- Virginia Steen-McIntyre, tephrochronologist, March 30th 1981

Renne, P.R., et al., Geochronology: Age of Mexican Ash with Alleged 'Footprints', Nature, 438, E7-E8, Dec 2005

A report of human footprints preserved in 40,000-year-old volcanic ash near Puebla, Mexico (http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/exhibit.asp?id=3616&tip=1), was the subject of a press conference that stirred international media attention. If the claims (http://www.mexicanfootprints.co.uk) of Gonzalez et al. are valid, prevailing theories about the timing of human migration into the Americas would need significant revision. Here we show by 40Ar/39Ar dating and corroborating palaeomagnetic data that the basaltic tuff on which the purported footprints are found is 1.30 +/- 0.03 million years old.

Feinberg, J.M., et al., Age Constraints On Alleged "Footprints" Preserved In the Xalnene Tuff Near Puebla Mexico, Geology, Volume 37, Number 3, Pages 267-270, Mar 2009

Impressions in a basaltic tuff located around Valsequillo Reservoir near Puebla, Mexico, have been interpreted as human and animal footprints along an ancient lakeshore, and are cited as evidence of the presence of humans in North America at 40 ka B.P. In this paper, we present new data that challenge this interpretation. Paleomagnetic analyses of the Xalnene Tuff, and lavas from the volcano from which it erupted, yield fully reversed magnetic polarities, indicating that the tuff was deposited prior to the last geomagnetic reversal (the Brunhes-Matuyama ca. 790 ka). 40Ar/39Ar dating of Xalnene lapilli and lava from the source volcano yields indistinguishable ages of ~1.3 Ma, consistent with a period of reversed magnetic polarity (C1r.2r).

Anaximander's Ancient Hypothesis of Evolution

"He [Anaximander] said that mankind was at the beginning very like another animal, to wit, a fish." -- Hippolytus, priest, 2nd century

It was wrong 3 million years ago, it was wrong then, it was wrong in the Victorian Age, and it's wrong now.

And to set the historical record straight, Anaximander was aware of Atomic Theory a century before Leucippus.

"He [Anaximander] said ... that winds come from the separation and condensation of the subtler atoms of air ...." -- Hippolytus, priest, 2nd century

Humans Didn't Evolve From Apes

"Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme." -- Karl Popper, philosopher, 1976

National Geographic: Oldest "Human" Skeleton Found--Disproves "Missing Link.

Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor. The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago.

The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton—assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus—belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed "Ardi." (See pictures of Ardipithecus ramidus.)

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.

Tiny Raptorex Lived Long Before T-Rex

"Have the subsequently introduced species consumed the food of the great antecedent races? Can we believe that the Capybara has taken the food of the Toxodon, the Guanaco of the Macrauchenia, the existing small Edentata of their numerous gigantic prototypes? Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants." -- Charles R. Darwin, naturalist, 1834

Another problem for Darwinists: Tiny Tyrannosaur: T. Rex Body Plan Debuted In Raptorex, But 100th The Size.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 17, 2009) — A 9-foot dinosaur from northeastern China had evolved [sic] all the hallmark anatomical features of Tyrannosaurus rex at least 125 million years ago.

University of Chicago paleontologist Paul Sereno and five co-authors describe the newly discovered dinosaur in the Sept. 17 Science Express, advanced online edition of the journal Science.

Raptorex shows that tyrannosaur design evolved [sic] at "punk size," said Sereno, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, "basically our bodyweight. And that's pretty staggering, because there's no other example that I can think of where an animal has been so finely designed [as in intelligent design not unintelligent design] at about 100th the size that it would eventually become." [Obviously Dr. Sereno is unaware of giant humans]

The Falsification of Evolution

"...Evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water. When challenged by a zealous Popperian to say how evolution could ever be falsified, J.B.S. Haldane famously growled: 'Fossil rabbits in the Precambrian.'" -- Richard Dawkins, biologist, 2006

Fossil octopuses in the Cretaceous represent a "single fossil in the wrong geological stratum" therefore as Dawkins correctly claims the theory of evolution is "blown out of the water." And if you don't agree with Dawkins, then you must agree with Popper that, since evolution cannot possibly be falsified, it cannot be considered to be a scientific theory.

What Are Octopuses Evolving Into?

How come Octopuses haven't evolved in the past 100 million years?

And if they are evolving, what are they evolving into?

Science Daily: Cretaceous Octopus With Ink And Suckers -- The World's Least Likely Fossils?

ScienceDaily (Mar. 18, 2009) — New finds of 95 million year old fossils reveal much earlier origins of modern octopuses. These are among the rarest and unlikeliest of fossils. The chances of an octopus corpse surviving long enough to be fossilized are so small that prior to this discovery only a single fossil species was known, and from fewer specimens than octopuses have legs.

Even if you have never encountered an octopus in the flesh, the eight arms, suckers, and sack-like body are almost as familiar a body-plan as the four legs, tail and head of cats and dogs. Unlike our vertebrate cousins, however, octopuses don't have a well-developed skeleton. And while this famously allows them to squeeze into spaces that a more robust animal could not, it does create problems for scientists interested in evolutionary history. ...

Palaeontologists have just identified three new species of fossil octopus discovered in Cretaceous rocks in Lebanon. The five specimens, described in the latest issue of the journal Palaeontology, are 95 million years old but, astonishingly, preserve the octopuses' eight arms with traces of muscles and those characteristic rows of suckers. Even traces of the ink and internal gills are present in some specimens. '

"These are sensational fossils, extraordinarily well preserved," says Dirk Fuchs of the Freie University Berlin, lead author of the report. But what surprised the scientists most was how similar the specimens are to modern octopus: "these things are 95 million years old, yet one of the fossils is almost indistinguishable from living species." This provides important evolutionary information.

Indeed: it provides information that none has occured.

Similarly, the tuatara is alleged to be "the fastest evolving animal" yet it's phenotype hasn't changed in 200 million years.