Refuting Creationism - How Massive Rock Formations Were Created Naturally - 1.1 Billion Years Before 'Creation Week'.

Anorthosite massif outcrop

Chromitite and anorthosite layers in Critical Zone, UG1 of the Bushveld Complex, in the classic Mononono (formerly Dwars) River outcrop, near Steelpoort, Mpumalanga province, South Africa.

Photo by: Kevin Walsh

Researchers unveil mysteries of ancient Earth | Rice News | News and Media Relations | Rice University

The thing about trying to cling to the childish belief that the Universe and Earth were created out of nothing by magic just 10,000 years ago, is that that leaves the remaining 99.9975% of Earth's history to refute the daft idea.

This means it is trivially easy for science to refute creationism without even trying simply by revealing the facts of events from that vast period of Earth history that wouldn't be there if creationists superstition was correct.

And yet another of those fact has just been revealed by a team of geologists and geophysicists led by Duncan Keller and Cin-Ty Lee, working at Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA.

They have shown how the massive rock formations known as anorthosites were formed. These rocks can cover as much as 42,000 Km². The team focused on the Marcy and Morin anorthosites from the 1.1-billion-year-old Greenville orogen.

Christian Mythology - The Earliest (And only) Evidence of Christian Persecution By Rome... Probably Isn't

The “Christian building” in Dura-Europos.

Photo courtesy of Yale University Art Gallery

Tile (c. AD 200–256) from a ceiling in Dura-Europos with image of Heliodoros, an actuarius.

House call: A new study rethinks early Christian landmark | YaleNews

There is something in Christianity that makes the idea of the persecuted Christian so attractive, as though persecution and martyrdom somehow validates the belief. A cynic might conclude that there is so much that doesn't make rational sense in the religion that it needs this constant reinforcement and reassurance.

American Christians in particular are notorious for seeing a 'war on Christianity' or a 'war on Christmas' at every turn. Even measures to protect society and save lives by mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were claimed to be a plot to prevent people from going to church - a conspiracy theory swallowed by enough people for churches full of people 'defending their right to pray' to become major super-spreader events every Sunday.

In the UK, the far right has had some success recently by appealing to Christian persecution paranoia by presenting an influx of asylum-seeking refugees from wars in Syria and Afghanistan as part of a sinister plot to impose 'Sharia law' on British society and replace the national religion by Islam.

The need for martyrs has meant Christian churches across Europe are full of the body-parts of various early Christian 'martyred saints' who contrived to die in a manner that provided a plentiful supply of these body-parts. No European Catholic cathedral would be complete without it's reliquary, and bits of dead saint that, if they were to be reassembled into a single corpse, would often be that of a monstrous being with multiple legs, dozens of fingers, a couple of heads, and more teeth than a crocodile and multiple bodies so that several churches can each have a whole one.

Early Christianity traces its origins back, not so much to the persecution of Jesus but to the alleged arch-persecutor, who later became a persecutee, Saul of Tarsus, and of course everyone knows how the early Roman Christians were fed to the lions in the colosseum by Nero, don't they? Er... well, the Romans at the time didn't seem to know about it as they left no record of it. The one single reference to it was written by Tacitus in about 117 CE.

Refuting Creationism - Humans Were Moving Into The Pacific Between 40,000 and 45,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Rock art at Raja Ampat Island, Western Papua, Indonesia

Rock art at Raja Ampat Island, Western Papua, Indonesia

New evidence from West Papua offers fresh clues about how and when humans first moved into the Pacific

I realise I'm always writing about things that happened in the long pre-'Creation' period before creationists claim their god magicked the Universe up out of nothing, but there is so much of it. For Earth alone, 99.9975% of its history happened before it existed , if you believe what creationists claim.

The entire history of human evolution in Africa and dispersion into Eurasia, the Americas and the Pacific islands for example, happened before 'Creation Week', as did the transition from hunter-gatherer to settled agriculture and urbanisation.

In fact, it wasn't until humans began to form proto-nation states in the form of waring petty kingdoms led by violent warlords once they had established agriculture and needed to defend their land against other tribes, that they started to invent origin myths to both explain how they got there and to justify their ownership, and probably genocides against former occupiers.

When these tales got written down and bound up into a book decreed by priests to be the inerrant word of their creator god, we got the beginnings of the holy books that some uneducated people today still believe are real science and real history.

But of course, we now know those who made up the origin myths knew nothing outside their tiny fragment of the planet and tiny fragment of time. They would have had no inkling that there were people moving into far away islands in oceans of which they knew nothing, like those in the Pacific, the evidence for which is being revealed by archaeologists and anthropologists using modern scientific methods.

For example, a team led by Dylan Gaffney, an associate professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Daud Aris Tanudirjo of the Departemen Arkeologi, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia have just published evidence that early Homo sapiens were populating the Pacific islands between 50,000 and 55,000 years ago. This evidence was found in Western Papua.

Their findings are published today in the Cambridge University Press journal Antiquity and is the subject of an article in The Conversation. Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Refuting Creationism - Climate Change In the Andes From 6,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Llaviucu in Cajas National Park in Ecuador.

Photos by Mark Bush

Bolivian tropical Andean foothills

CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

New study unveils 16,000 years of climate history in the tropical Andes | Brown University

Ask any creationist who is up to date with the latest dogmas as handed down by creation cult leaders, and they'll assure you their magic creator created Earth just a few thousand years ago and fine-tuned it for the existence of life (especially their life, because it had them in mind all along).

The reality, however, is very different: not only is Earth very much older by several orders of magnitude, but it is a dynamic and changing world, not the fixed, unchangeable world that 'fine-tuning' implies. It resembles a system in chaos, where a small change in one part can cause profound and unpredictable changes in another part. This is especially true of the weather, but is no less true of ocean currents, tectonic activity and the composition of the atmosphere.

As though to illustrate this, although refuting creationism was probably far from the minds of the scientists - that is a mere incidental of scientific facts as usual - a team of scientists led by climatologists from Brown University, Providence, RI, USA have analyzed the record of climate change in the Andes over the past 16,000 years (i.e. from 6,000 years before Creationist dogma says the Universe was magicked into existence out of nothing) and shown that major changes were brought about ultimately by the level of atmospheric \(\small \ce{\(\small \ce{CO2}\)}\).

Refuting Creationism - A strange Sea Slug - From 500 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

Dorsal view of a complete Shishania aculeata

Image credit: G Zhang/L Parry.

Spines covering the body of Shishania aculeata

Image credit: G Zhang/L Parry

August: Mollusc discovery | News and features | University of Bristol

Palaeontology has a habit of throwing up surprises.

Sadly for creationists, these surprises never show us that science is fundamentally wrong and creationism is fundamentally right. It invariably shows us exactly the opposite.

The surprise today is that an early mollusc resembled a slug with a spiky armour, not the smooth shell we normally associate with snails which were believed to have evolved in the Early Cambrian when this species lived.

The confirmation that creationism is fundamentally wrong comes from the fact that this strange slug lived in that very long pre-'Creation' period of Earth history, 500 million years before creationists think the Universe was magicked up out of nothing by some magic words spoken in a language that no-one else spoke because, so the story goes, there was no-one else for the magician to speak to.

The mollusc, named Shishania aculeata, was probably an early evolutionary dead-end; an early response to the threat to soft-bodies creatures from the emerging predators that gave the impetus for the rapid radiation of forms that characterised the Cambrian.

Malevolent Designer News - Is the Divine Malevolence Having Another Try With Mpox?

Mpox virus particles

Reuters

The Threat of Mpox Has Returned but Public Knowledge About It Has Declined | The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania

The Annenberg Public Policy Centre of the University of Pennsylvania issued a warning today that, as the mpox virus (formerly known as the monkeypox virus) is making a significant comeback, both in the USA where it is making a resurgence, and in its homeland of Africa where a new, more deadly strain has recently evolved and spread to several states.

And, if you believe creationism's divine malevolence is responsible for designing these nasty little parasites, you will have to appreciate how it has been particularly sneaky with the virus, which is closely related to the variola virus that caused smallpox until smallpox was eradicated by a successful WHO vaccination campaign. This vaccination gave some incidental protection against the mpox virus but because smallpox has been eliminated, the vaccines are no longer given. This has allowed mpox to infect people, particularly those who were never vaccinated against smallpox and have never been exposed to the smallpox virus.

Unfit For Public Office - Why Donald Trump's Nephew Will Be Voting For Kamala Harris

‘Fake news of the highest order’: Donald Trump team refutes racism revelations in new family memoir

Donald Trump, that darling of white evangelical Christians, is a heartless racist who thinks disabled children should be left to die, according to a new book by his nephew, Fred C. Trump III.

Refuting Creationism - Why Continents Rise Up Over Millions Of Years.

The Drakensberg escarpment in Southern Africa.

Credit: Prof Jean Braun, GFZ Potsdam

Satellite image of the Great Escarpment in southern Africa from the Sentinel Hub Earth Observation Browser. Taken using the Sentinel-2 L1C dataset, in May 2020.

Credit: Prof Tom Gernon, University of Southampton.

Scientists uncover hidden forces causing continents to rise

Creationist dogma still demands that creationists believe Earth was created pretty much the way it is today, just a few thousand years ago, and it is perfectly 'tuned' for life (especially their life).

In reality, as we’ve know now for over half a century, Earth is far from stable and instead consists of several plates which have been moving around for hundreds of millions of years, causing mountain ranges to rise, volcanoes to explode and earthquakes to open up great cracks in the ground and tsunamis to inundate coast areas, and, latterly, shake human settlements to the ground. Only by filtering reality through a pair of rose-tinted creationist spectacles and dismissing the victims of natural disasters as having somehow deserved it, can creationists maintain the fiction of a planet finely tuned for life.

And now, geologists led by Professor Thomas Gurnon of the University of Southampton, UK, have shown how forces unleashed by plate tectonics are responsible for sections of continents to rise up to form escarpments and domes such as that under the Grand Canyon, the rising of which has cause the Colorado River to carve an ever-deepening canyon as its bed rises inch by inch over millions of years.

Refuting Creationism - Early Mammals Lived Longer 200-150 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Life reconstruction of two coexisting species from the Late Jurassic period in Portugal, showing aspects of their life history. - On the left is a parent of the early mammal Dryolestes which raises a brood after reaching sexual maturity at age four. On the right is a Haldanodon, a member of the family of mammal-like docodonts, before fully reaching the mammalian evolutionary level; the creature's lifespan was eleven to fourteen years.

© Image: James Brown/© Pam Gill.

Artist’s impression of Dryolestes on a stegosaur tail spike.

Early Mammals Lived Longer — University of Bonn

New technology has enabled a team of scientists to examine in microscopic detail, the growth rings in the root cement of the fossilised teeth of early mammals, and to make a surprising discovery - the earliest mammals lived considerably longer than equivalent-sized mammals do today, but they took longer to reach sexual maturity.

These growth rings are like those of trees and record the annual growth of the mammal. They can be seen using a technique called synchrotron X-ray tomography in which electrons are accelerated to near light-speed. This means that like x-rays they can penetrate solid objects such as fossils and bone, which do not need to be cut into thin slices, and like an electron microscope, because electrons have such short wave-lengths, they can resolve much finer structures, hence these microscopic growth rings become visible.

Refuting Creationism - A Badly Thought Out Tale In The Bible - Or, What Did The Animals Eat When They Got Off The Ark?

Long-lasting volcanism has significantly warmed the climate in the Earth's history, which in turn has reduced the climate-regulating effect of vegetation over millions of years.

Image: Mateusz / Adobe Stock

Animals leaving the Ark - with nothing for the herbivores to eat.

Millions of years for plants to recover from global warming | ETH Zurich

A newly-published paper in Science shows how plants take millions of years to recover from catastrophic climate change, yet the silly Noah's Ark tale in the Bible, not only has plants magically reappearing after 'all living substance' on the face of the Earth had been destroyed (Genesis 7:22) (did the authors not think plants were living things?), but then continuing as though nothing had happened.

Plants, of course, are at the bottom of the food pyramid since they are eaten by the animals that the carnivores eat. This is a matter of common sense, yet the authors of the Bible myth seem to have assumed that when they got off the Ark, ecosystems and food pyramids would have resumed where they left off a year earlier.

The authors were, of course, ignorant of almost all biology save that which they needed to find the best places to graze their cattle as the seasons progressed. They even seem to have assumed that 'living' and 'breathing' were synonyms because 'life' could be breathed into nostrils. (Genesis 2:7; 7:22).

How does modern Christian apologetics account for the recovery of ecosystems post 'Flood', during which all living substance had supposedly been destroyed, in view of our understanding of the dynamics of ecosystems? Modern Christian apologetics approaches the question of ecosystem recovery after the biblical Flood from various angles, often depending on the interpretive framework of Genesis—whether the Flood is understood as a literal historical event, a localized flood, or a theological metaphor. Here are some ways these issues are addressed in light of our current understanding of ecosystems:

1. Literal Interpretation with Divine Intervention
   • Divine Power and Miracles: Apologists who take the Flood narrative literally often argue that the recovery of ecosystems post-Flood was facilitated by divine intervention. They propose that God, who orchestrated the Flood, also supernaturally accelerated the repopulation and restoration of ecosystems. This might involve miraculous regrowth of plant life, rapid diversification of species from the animals that were preserved on the Ark, and an extraordinary rate of ecological recovery that is not bound by natural processes as we understand them.
   • Preservation of Genetic Diversity: Some argue that the animals on the Ark carried a rich genetic diversity, allowing for rapid adaptation and speciation after the Flood. This would theoretically allow for a swift recovery of ecosystems as species rapidly filled ecological niches.
   
   
2. Localized Flood Interpretation
   • Regional Impact: Another approach is to interpret the Flood as a localized event rather than a global one. This view posits that the Flood affected only a specific geographical area, possibly the Mesopotamian region. In this case, the surrounding ecosystems, untouched by the Flood, could have acted as a source for the repopulation of the affected area. This view harmonizes more easily with modern scientific understanding of ecosystems and their resilience after localized natural disasters.
   • Surviving Pockets of Life: Some apologists suggest that not all life was destroyed by the Flood, even within the affected area. Small pockets of life could have survived in higher elevations or isolated environments, providing a basis for the recovery of ecosystems after the waters receded.
   
   
3. Theological and Allegorical Interpretation
   • Non-Literal Reading: For those who interpret the Flood story allegorically or theologically rather than historically, the question of ecosystem recovery is not a pressing issue. In this view, the story of the Flood is primarily a moral or spiritual lesson rather than a literal account of historical events. The focus is on the relationship between God and humanity, rather than the specific logistics of animal and plant survival.
   • Symbolic Meaning of the Flood: This approach emphasizes the Flood as a symbol of renewal and new beginnings, rather than an event that necessitates a scientific explanation. The recovery of ecosystems in this context is seen as part of the broader theological theme of renewal and restoration.
   
   
4. Young Earth Creationism
   • Post-Flood Hyper-Evolution: Young Earth Creationists often propose that a form of rapid, post-Flood evolution occurred, where the animals released from the Ark quickly diversified into the myriad species we see today. This theory, sometimes called "hyper-evolution," is invoked to explain how ecosystems could recover so quickly despite the apparent bottleneck in species diversity that the Ark would have represented.
5. Scientific Considerations
   • Ecosystem Resilience: Apologists may also point out that ecosystems have an inherent resilience and can recover from catastrophic events more quickly than expected. They may draw analogies to modern ecological recoveries, such as the regrowth of forests after a volcanic eruption or the return of life after the last Ice Age, to argue that the Earth could have rebounded after the Flood.
   • Migration and Colonization: The possibility of animals and plants migrating from less-affected areas to repopulate devastated regions is also considered. Modern ecology demonstrates that ecosystems can re-establish themselves through processes of colonization and succession.
6. Integration with Scientific Theories
   • Day-Age and Progressive Creationism: Some apologists integrate the Flood narrative with scientific understanding by viewing the "days" of creation as long periods of time (Day-Age Theory) or by suggesting that God guided the process of creation and recovery in a way that aligns with evolutionary principles (Progressive Creationism). This allows for a more metaphorical understanding of the Flood and lessens the tension between scripture and modern ecological science.

In summary, modern Christian apologetics addresses the recovery of ecosystems post-Flood through a variety of perspectives, ranging from literal divine intervention to non-literal, theological interpretations. Each approach seeks to reconcile the biblical narrative with contemporary ecological knowledge, though the degree of reconciliation varies depending on the interpretive framework.

Doesn't the need to include so much additional information not present in the Bible, cast doubt on the truth of the biblical account?

The need to include additional information to explain or reconcile the biblical account of the Flood with modern scientific understanding can indeed raise questions about the nature and interpretation of the Bible. Whether this casts doubt on the truth of the biblical account depends on one's perspective on biblical interpretation, the nature of religious texts, and the relationship between faith and science. Here are a few key considerations:

1. Different Interpretative Approaches
   • Literalism vs. Non-Literalism: For those who take a literal approach to the Bible, the need to introduce extra-biblical explanations (like rapid post-Flood speciation or divine intervention in ecosystem recovery) may seem necessary to defend the text's historical accuracy. However, this can raise doubts if these explanations appear contrived or inconsistent with observable reality.
   • Theological Interpretation: Non-literalists, on the other hand, may argue that the Bible is not intended to be a scientific textbook and that its truth lies in its spiritual and moral teachings rather than in literal historical or scientific accuracy. For these interpreters, additional explanations are not problematic because they see the biblical text as conveying theological truths through symbolic or allegorical narratives.
   
   
2. The Nature of Religious Texts
   • Ancient Context: Some argue that the Bible was written in a particular historical and cultural context, where the primary purpose was to convey theological and moral truths, not to provide detailed scientific explanations. The ancient authors might not have had access to the scientific knowledge we have today, so their accounts reflect their understanding of the world at that time. The need for additional explanations today could then be seen as a reflection of the evolving understanding of the world rather than a flaw in the biblical text itself.
   • Progressive Revelation: Another view is that God reveals truth progressively, and that the Bible provides foundational spiritual truths that can be further illuminated by later discoveries in science and history. In this view, additional explanations are seen as complementary to, rather than contradictory with, the biblical account.
3. Faith and Reason
   • Faith-Based Acceptance: For many believers, the truth of the biblical account is accepted on the basis of faith, and additional information is seen as a way to better understand and articulate that faith in light of contemporary knowledge. The need for such explanations does not necessarily diminish the believer's faith in the biblical narrative but may instead enrich it.
   • Critical Examination: On the other hand, those who prioritize empirical evidence and logical consistency might see the need for extensive additional explanations as a sign that the biblical account should be understood more metaphorically or symbolically, or that it reflects ancient cosmology rather than literal history. This can lead to doubts about the historical accuracy of the biblical account, especially when the additional explanations seem to stretch credibility or conflict with established scientific understanding.
   
   
4. Impact on Biblical Authority
   • Preservation of Biblical Authority: Some apologists argue that providing additional explanations helps to preserve the authority and relevance of the Bible in a modern context. They see this as a way of harmonizing ancient texts with contemporary knowledge, thus maintaining the Bible’s credibility as a source of truth.
   • Potential for Undermining Authority: Conversely, if these explanations are seen as overly speculative or inconsistent with observable evidence, they may indeed undermine the authority of the biblical text in the eyes of some, leading to doubts about the reliability of the biblical account.
   
   
5. Philosophical and Theological Considerations
   • Role of Mystery in Faith: Some Christian thinkers embrace the idea that not all aspects of faith can be fully explained or understood, and that mystery is a central component of religious belief. In this view, the need for additional explanations does not necessarily cast doubt on the truth of the biblical account but rather acknowledges the limitations of human understanding.
   • Dialogue Between Science and Religion: Others see the dialogue between science and religion as a dynamic process where both can inform each other. The need for additional explanations might then be viewed as part of an ongoing conversation rather than a reason for doubt.

Conclusion The need for additional explanations to reconcile the biblical Flood with modern scientific understanding can raise questions, but whether it casts doubt on the truth of the biblical account depends on one's interpretive approach and understanding of the nature of the Bible. For some, it may indeed lead to doubts, especially if the explanations appear forced or speculative. For others, it may enrich their understanding of the Bible and deepen their faith, seeing the additional information as a way to harmonize ancient wisdom with contemporary knowledge.

For their tale to be even slightly plausible, the authors should have allowed for the long time-lag between the destruction of Earth's ecosystems and their recovery to the level at which they could sustain growing populations of animals and humans, let alone animals apparently evolving and speciating at the impossible warp-speeds creationists have now incorporated into their dogmas, to account for the impossibility of two of every species, living and extinct (some 220 million species) being housed on a wooden boat small enough not to be destroyed in a year floating about in turbulent waters, or being crushed under its own weight.

Creationists of course, have no problem including lots of new information to supplement what they claim is the inerrant word of a god, presumably because the god forgot to include it.

So, of what modern science were the Bronze Age authors of the Bible particularly ignorant when they were making up the 'Flood' myth?

In a paper by an international team of Earth and environmental scientists from the University of Arizona, University of Leeds, CNRS Toulouse, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL), led by scientists from Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich, have shown how it can take millions of years for ecosystems to recover from catastrophes like volcano-induced climate change, and there could have been few such ecological disasters as a global flood and mass genocide would have been.

Their findings are the subject of a news release from UTH Zürich:

Millions of years for plants to recover from global warming

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Catastrophic volcanic eruptions that warmed the planet millions of years ago shed new light on how plants evolve and regulate climate. Researchers reveal the long-term climate effects of disturbed natural ecosystems - its implications both in geological history and for today.

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In brief

• Disruption of the functioning of vegetation due to warming can lead to the failure of climate regulating mechanisms for millions of years.
  
• Vegetation changes can alter the planet’s climate equilibrium.
• Geological and climatic history provide insight into the effects of global warming today.

Scientists often seek answers to humanity’s most pressing challenges in nature. When it comes to global warming, geological history offers a unique, long-term perspective. Earth’s geological history is spiked by periods of catastrophic volcanic eruptions that released vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans. The increased carbon triggered rapid climate warming that resulted in mass extinctions on land and in marine ecosystems. These periods of volcanism may also have disrupted carbon-climate regulation systems for millions of years.

Ecological imbalance

Earth and environmental scientists at ETH Zurich led an international team of researchers from the University of Arizona, University of Leeds, CNRS Toulouse, and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in a study on how vegetation responds and evolves in response to major climatic shifts and how such shifts affect Earth’s natural carbon-climate regulation system.

Drawing on geochemical analyses of isotopes in sediments, the research team compared the data with a specially designed model, which included a representation of vegetation and its role in regulating the geological climate system. They used the model to test how the Earth system responds to the intense release of carbon from volcanic activity in different scenarios. They studied three significant climatic shifts in geological history, including the Siberian Traps event that caused the Permian-Triassic mass extinction about 252 million years ago.

The Siberian Traps event released some 40,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon over 200,000 years. The resulting increase in global average temperatures between 5 - 10°C caused Earth’s most severe extinction event in the geologic record.

Professor, Taras V. Gerya, co-author
Department of Earth Sciences
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Formed 252 million years ago, these mesas of the Putorana Plateau in Siberia consist of thick layers of rock of volcanic origin.

Image: Sergei / Adobe Stock.

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Rivers have dug deep gorges over the course of time.

Image: Crazy nook / Adobe Stock

Move, adapt, or perish

The recovery of vegetation from the Siberian Traps event took several millions of years and during this time Earth’s carbon-climate regulation system would have been weak and inefficient resulting in long-term climate warming.

Julian Rogger, lead author
Department of Earth Sciences
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Researchers found that the severity of such events is determined by how fast emitted carbon can be returned to Earth’s interior – sequestered through silicate mineral weathering or organic carbon production, removing carbon from Earth’s atmosphere.

They also found that the time it takes for the climate to reach a new state of equilibrium depended on how fast vegetation adapted to increasing temperatures. Some species adapted by evolving and others by migrating geographically to cooler regions. However, some geological events were so catastrophic that plant species simply did not have enough time to migrate or adapt to the sustained increase in temperature. The consequences of which left its geochemical mark on climate evolution for thousands, possibly millions, of years.

Today’s human-induced climate crisis

What does this mean for human induced climate change? The study found that a disruption of vegetation increased the duration and severity of climate warming in the geologic past. In some cases, it may have taken millions of years to reach a new stable climatic equilibrium due to a reduced capacity of vegetation to regulate Earth’s carbon cycle.

Today, we find ourselves in a major global bioclimatic crisis. Our study demonstrates the role of a functioning of vegetation to recover from abrupt climatic changes. We are currently releasing greenhouse gases at a faster rate than any previous volcanic event. We are also the primary cause of global deforestation, which strongly reduces the ability of natural ecosystems to regulate the climate. This study, in my perspective, serves as ‘wake-up call’ for the global community.

Professor Loïc Pellissier, co-author
Professor of Ecosystems and Landscape Evolution
Department of Environmental Systems Science
ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

Reference

Rogger J, Judd EJ, Mills BJW, Goddéris Y, Gerya TV, Pellissier L: Biogeographic climate sensitivity controls Earth system response to large igneous province carbon degassing. Science, 8. August 2024, doi: 10.1126/science.adn3450

Abstract
Periods of large igneous province (LIP) magmatism have shaped Earth’s biological and climatic history, causing major climatic shifts and biological reorganizations. The vegetation response to LIP-induced perturbations may affect the efficiency of the carbon-climate regulation system and the post-LIP climate evolution. Using an eco-evolutionary vegetation model, we demonstrate here that the vegetation’s climate adaptation capacity, through biological evolution and geographic dispersal, is a major determinant of the severity and longevity of LIP-induced hyperthermals and can promote the emergence of a new climatic steady state. Proxy-based temperature reconstructions of the Permian-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic, and Paleocene-Eocene hyperthermals match the modeled trajectories of bioclimatic disturbance and recovery. We conclude that biological vegetation dynamics shape the multimillion-year Earth system response to sudden carbon degassing and global warming episodes.

Rogger J, Judd EJ, Mills BJW, Goddéris Y, Gerya TV, Pellissier L: Biogeographic climate sensitivity controls Earth system response to large igneous province carbon degassing. Science, 8. August 2024, doi: 10.1126/science.adn3450

© 2024 he Authors
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Reprinted with kind permission under license: #5845441238068.

The mystery of what the Ark survivors ate when they got off the Ark onto a sterile world is just one of those things that the Bible's authors were too ignorant of biology to have thought about. Others are how many herbivores did the carnivores exterminate in the first days and weeks. Shrews need to eat their body-weight in worms, slugs, snails and earthworms every 24 hours and are not averse to eating hatchling birds in nests. Bats consume moths by the dozen every night.

So, rather than being the saving of every species during creationism's favourite mass genocide by drowning, the 'Flood' if it had been real would have resulted in a mass extinction to rival anything caused by a meteor strike, catastrophic volcano activity or run-away global warming.

And, as science has now shown, Earth's ecosystems would still be struggling to recover from it, and yet the ignorant authors of the tale thought everything was back to normal within a few thousand years.

Refuting Creationism - A Calendar Carved On A Monument in Turkey - 3,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Carvings on a pillar at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey

Carvings at ancient monument may be world’s oldest calendar | School of Engineering

Figure 1. Left: Plan of Enclosures A–D at Göbekli Tepe. Right: Pillar 43 at Göbekli Tepe, Enclosure D.

Image courtesy of Alistair Coombs.

One of the more obvious blunders in the opening verses of the Bible is the use of the term 'day', supposedly before the sun was created. But the measure of time called 'a day' is the rotation period of Earth, as it orbits the sun.

Why would a god choose that measure of time, of all the planets and suns in the Universe, and before it had allegedly created either the sun or Earth? Or more specifically, why would the people who made up the creation myth assume it would when the stories they made up and the Universe they described have no concept of a rotating Earth or of Earth orbiting the sun, which they described as fixed to a dome over a flat, 'fixed, immobile' Earth?

Of course, the answer is that the story tellers had inherited their concept of time and how the passage of time could be measured over the course of 365 days and be found to follow a repeating pattern, and simply assumed any god would use the measure they were familiar with - they were imbuing their god with human characteristics.

One of those cultural ancestors live not a million miles from where the Bronze Age Canaanite Pastoralists who made up the origin myths later incorporated in a book decreed to be holy, but they predated them by many millennia.

Refuting Creationism - The Mammoths Of Vancouver Island - Between 11,000 and 37,500 Or More Years Before 'Creation Week'

When mammoths roamed Vancouver Island: SFU and Royal BC Museum delve into beasts’ history in our region - SFU News - Simon Fraser University

There are no elephants in the Bible.

This news often comes as a shock to creationists brought up with fanciful drawings of pairs of animals walking up the gangplank onto a wooden boat in the childish tale of Noah and his Ark. Why? Weren't there a pair of elephants, as large as life, along with zebras, rhinos, hippos and penguins, according to the Bible?

Hmmm... LOL!

Well, no there weren't, for the simple reason that there is nothing in the Bible that wasn't known to the people who wrote the tale. Nothing outside a day or two's walk from the Canaanite Hills where they herded their goats and built their mud-brick dwellings, like any other Middle Eastern Bronze Age pastoralists.

And of course, although creationists will insist that the Bible records dinosaurs roaming the countryside at the time the tale was set, if you change the meanings of a few words, not only are elephants not mentioned, but nor are their ancient ancestors, the mammoths. And nor are continents like North and South America, Australia, Antarctica and of course islands like Vancouver, Greenland, Madagascar, Great Britain and Ireland were entirely unknown and unsuspected by the Bible's imaginative authors.

Which is why they imagined setting the beginnings of it all just a few thousand years earlier, made perfect sense. The entire history of Earth and life on it was as unknown to them as its geography and geology. These were simple people who lived on a flat, magical planet with a dome over it and who didn't know where the sun went at night, or that rain formed in clouds.

So how could they possibly have known about mammoths living on Vancouver Island in North America? It wasn't their fault that they were so poorly educated; they were probably about as well educated as any other Middle Eastern pastoralist of the Bronze Age - i.e., not very well at all, being illiterate and innumerate. The people who've let them down are the later cult leaders who collected their tales, bound them up in a book and decreed it to be the inerrant word of an omniscient god.

Weirdly, there are people alive today, in modern, technologically advanced countries, who believe what those ignorant goat-herders wrote has never been equaled, let alone bettered, by modern science, for its completeness, reliability and accuracy.

But there were mammoths living on Vancouver Island between 13,000 years and at least 35,000 years before the Bronze Age authors of the Bible set their creation myth to try to fill the gaps in their knowledge and understanding with narratives that made sense within their narrow framework of understanding, and this is how any rational person can tell the claims that the Bible was written of inspired by an omniscient creator god is nonsense - a dishonest fiction intended to deceive - false witnessing on a grand scale.

The evidence of these mammoths has just been published in the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences and explained in a press release from Simon Fraser University. The authors examined 32 suspected mammoth samples from Vancouver Island, of which 16 proved suitable for carbon dating. One of the samples proved to be beyond the age at which \(\small \ce{^14C}\) dating gives accurate results (45,000 years) so we only know that there were mammoths on Vancouver Island before 47,500 years ago.

Refuting Creationism - Moral Values Are The Cyclical Product of Human Biology, Not God-Given Objectivity

Christians displaying Medieval 'objective morals'.

People’s moral values change with the seasons

Although religions claim ownership of human morality and demand the 'God-given' right to dictate right and wrong to the rest of us, there is no evidence at all that being religious make a person more moral than others.

The children's story-teller and self-proclaimed Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, once claimed to have found proof of the Christian god in the 'fact' then he could tell right from wrong. He reasoned that because he had no objective way of doing so, he must have been given his morals by a god - who of course was assumed to be the one he was promoting. Sadly, he had failed to establish a priori, that any such god exists, so his argument was never more than the intellectually dishonest circular reasoning and the false dichotomy fallacy, coupled with the arrogant assumption that he had the 'right' morals, so demonstrating the exact opposite of what he claimed as his 'proof'.

'Objectively moral' American far-right Christian Nationalists during the Jan. 6, 2021, failed violent coup d'etat

In fact, the evidence is that antisocial, far-right extremists are much more likely to be hiding behind religion, merely using it as an excuse for hate and violence. The same can be said for the Christian priests, prelates and nuns who routinely used their supposed high moral status to gain trusted access children and vulnerable adults and to cover up and facilitate the sexual abuses of others around them. Meanwhile the pro-social center-left are more likely to be Atheist/Agnostic and are demonstrating a much higher regard for others.

And now, new research involving long-term study of a cohort of 230,000 Americans has shown that moral values are, at least in part, influence by seasonal changes - people are more likely to enforce moral values that improve social cohesion in spring and autumn, than in summer and winter. A similar pattern was found in smaller studies in Australia and Canada.

The research, by Ian Hohm and Professor Mark Schaller of the Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada and assistant professor of psychology, Brian A. O’Shea of the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, is the subject of a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Firstly, as a fascinating background to the subject of moral values and how they originate and impact on society, here is a dialogue with AI ChatGPT 4.0:

Refuting Creationism - More Evidence Of A Dwarfed Hominin On Flores Island - 690,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Mata Menge, Flores Island, Indonesia

Image: Gerrit van den Bergh/SWNS.com

Homo floresiensis and dwarf elephants went extinct at about the same time.

Image: GETTY.

Tiny fossil arm bone sheds light on evolution of ancient Indonesian ‘hobbits’

Science is a continuous process of reconciling new discoveries and existing theories, and revising those theories as necessary. It's a process that often takes time, sometimes a long time, involving reassessing the new discovery, formulating new hypotheses and then waiting for more discoveries to provide enough evidence to falsify some hypothese and add weight to remaining ones, until a consensus is reached that one hypothesis has emerged the winner by failing to be falsified and as having the best fit with the known facts.

Creationists, who base their beliefs not on evidence, but on dogma and 'faith', i.e., believing what someone told them to believe without any evidence, find this process baffling because it looks like scientists can't agree and keep changing their minds. But one thing scientists don't do, unlike theologians, especially in the past before basic human decency got incorporated into religion, is kill one another and have campaigns of persecution and ostracism, while dividing into warring factions with neither side havign any evidence with which to resolve disputes.

More Magnificent Than Our Priests And Prophets Told Us

The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical at left, the Egg, are locked in an active embrace. This near- and mid-infrared image combines data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), and marks the telescope’s second year of science. Webb’s view shows that their interaction is marked by a glow of scattered stars represented in blue. Known jointly as Arp 142, the galaxies made their first pass by one another between 25 and 75 million years ago, causing “fireworks,” or new star formation, in the Penguin. The galaxies are approximately the same mass, which is why one hasn’t consumed the other.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of interacting galaxies Arp 142 seems to sing in primary colors. The Egg shows up as a tiny, teal-colored oval, because it is made up of old stars and has lost or used up most of its gas and dust. At right, the Penguin’s star-forming regions are represented in pink and purple, and contain smoke-like material known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Vivid Portrait of Interacting Galaxies Marks Webb’s Second Anniversary - NASA Science

It takes a special skill to read the description of the universe in the Bible - a single, small flat planet with a dome over it to which the sun, moon and stars are fixed - compared that with what science shows the universe is really like, and conclude that the Bible must have been written by an omniscient, creator god.

And yet grifters like Ken Ham regularly reassure their followers and source of income, that the Bible is their god's inerrant word and god never lies so it must be the science that's wrong. Of course, since it's his source of excuses that he uses to justify fleecing his flock, what he can never afford for them to realise is that we can tell the Bible could not possibly have been written by the god described in it because it differs so widely from reality.

God has always existed, knows all things, and cannot lie.

— Answers in Genesis (@AiG) August 5, 2024

Why would a god who knew the truth about the Universe uses such a childishly naïve description that it seems to have been written by simple, ignorant people whose entire world consisted of a few square miles of the Middle East, since it contains nothing that wasn't known to them?

Of course, their description was childishly naive because the authors were childishly naïve. It would have been impossible for them to have stood on a Canaanite hill, look up and grasp the true majesty of the Universe - that each tiny point of light could be one of half a trillion stars in a vast galaxy or that other points of light could be one of maybe a trillion other galaxies each with half a trillion stars around which there could be other planets.

At what speed through space would a person standing on a hill in Canaan in 3000 BCE have been travelling? To calculate the speed through space of a person standing on a hill in Canaan in 3000 BCE, we need to consider three main components of motion:

1. The rotation of the Earth on its axis.
2. The Earth's orbital motion around the Sun.
3. The Sun's orbital motion around the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

We'll break down the calculations for each component and then combine them.

1. Earth's Rotational Speed
   
   The Earth's rotational speed at the equator can be calculated using the circumference of the Earth and the period of rotation (24 hours).
   
   • Radius of the Earth (r): approximately 6,371 km
   • Circumference at the equator (C): \(2 \pi \times 6371 \, \text{km}\)
   • Rotation period (T): 24 hours
   \[\small C = 2 \pi \times 6371 \, \text{km} \approx 40,075 \, \text{km} \] \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Rotational speed at the equator}\\ &= \frac{40,075 \, \text{km}}{24 \, \text{hours}} \approx 1670 \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]
   
   Since Canaan is not on the equator, we need to account for its latitude. Let's approximate the latitude of Canaan (modern-day Israel) as about 32°N.
   \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Rotational speed at latitude}\\ &= 1670 \, \text{km/h} \times \cos(32°)\end{flalign*} \]
   
2. Earth's Orbital Speed Around the Sun
   
   The Earth's average orbital speed around the Sun can be calculated using the circumference of its orbit and the period of revolution (1 year).
   
   • Average distance from the Sun (r): approximately 149.6 million km
   • Orbital circumference (C): \(2 \pi \times 149.6 \times 10^6 \, \text{km}\)
   • Orbital period (T): 1 year (365.25 days)
   \[\small C = 2 \pi \times 149.6 \times 10^6 \, \text{km} \approx 940 \times 10^6 \, \text{km} \] \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Orbital speed}\\ &= \frac{940 \times 10^6 \, \text{km}}{365.25 \times 24 \, \text{hours}} \approx 107,000 \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]
   
3. Sun's Orbital Speed Around the Milky Way
   The Sun's orbital speed around the center of the Milky Way galaxy is approximately 220 km/s.
   \[\small \begin{flalign*} &\text{Orbital speed}\\ &= 220 \, \text{km/s} \times 3600 \, \text{s/hour} = 792,000 \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]
   

Total Speed

To find the total speed, we can combine these three components as vectors. Since the directions are not perfectly aligned, we'll consider a simplified approach by summing the magnitudes approximately, assuming they are roughly perpendicular.

Calculation:

1. Earth's rotational speed at 32°N:
   \[\small\begin{flalign*} & 1670 \, \text{km/h} \times \cos(32°)\\ &\approx 1670 \, \text{km/h} \times 0.848 \approx 1417 \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]
2. Earth's orbital speed around the Sun:
   \[\small 107,000 \, \text{km/h} \]
3. Sun's orbital speed around the Milky Way:
   \[\small 792,000 \, \text{km/h} \]

Since these velocities are mostly perpendicular to each other, we can use the Pythagorean theorem to approximate the total speed:
\[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Total speed}\\ &\approx \sqrt{(1417^2 + 107,000^2 + 792,000^2)} \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]

Let's compute this:
\[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Total speed}\\ &\approx \sqrt{(1417^2 + 107,000^2 + 792,000^2)} \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \] \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Total speed}\\ &\approx \sqrt{(2,007,489 + 11,449,000,000 + 627,264,000,000)} \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \] \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Total speed}\\ &\approx \sqrt{638,713,007,489} \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \] \[\small\begin{flalign*} &\text{Total speed}\\ &\approx 799,195 \, \text{km/h}\end{flalign*} \]
Thus, a person standing on a hill in Canaan in 3000 BCE would be travelling through space at approximately 799,195 km/h (496596.75 mph)

They couldn't even conceive of the idea that Earth could be a spinning spheroid with several continents, held in orbit around the sun by gravity or that they could actually be travelling through space at almost 500,000 mph. Even a sizable proportion of Americans find that hard to understand and still believe the sun orbits Earth, which is at the center of the Universe, so what chance did uneducated Bronze Age pastoralists have?

And, as though to rub salt in creationists wounds, although that was far from their reason, NASA has just released stunning photos of a tiny fragment of the night sky that could be hidden behind a grain of rice held up between thumb and fore-finger, in which two galaxies are interacting.

Vivid Portrait of Interacting Galaxies Marks Webb’s Second Anniversary

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Two for two! A duo of interacting galaxies commemorates the second science anniversary of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, which takes constant observations, including images and highly detailed data known as spectra. Its operations have led to a “parade” of discoveries by astronomers around the world.

---

Since President Biden and Vice President Harris unveiled the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope two years ago, Webb has continued to unlock the mysteries of the universe. With remarkable images from the corners of the cosmos, going back nearly to the beginning of time, Webb’s capabilities are shedding new light on our celestial surroundings and inspiring future generations of scientists, astronomers, and explorers.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

In just two years, Webb has transformed our view of the universe, enabling the kind of world-class science that drove NASA to make this mission a reality. Webb is providing insights into longstanding mysteries about the early universe and ushering in a new era of studying distant worlds, while returning images that inspire people around the world and posing exciting new questions to answer. It has never been more possible to explore every facet of the universe.

Mark Clampin
Director of the Astrophysics Division
NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The telescope’s specialization in capturing infrared light — which is beyond what our own eyes can detect — shows these galaxies, collectively known as Arp 142, locked in a slow cosmic dance. Webb’s observations, which combine near- and mid-infrared light from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), respectively, clearly show that they are joined by a haze represented in blue that is a mix of stars and gas, a result of their mingling.

Their ongoing interaction was set in motion between 25 and 75 million years ago, when the Penguin (individually cataloged as NGC 2936) and the Egg (NGC 2937) completed their first pass. They will go on to shimmy and sway, completing several additional loops before merging into a single galaxy hundreds of millions of years from now.

Let’s Dance!
Before their first approach, the Penguin held the shape of a spiral. Today, its galactic center gleams like an eye, its unwound arms now shaping a beak, head, backbone, and fanned-out tail.

Like all spiral galaxies, the Penguin is still very rich in gas and dust. The galaxies’ “dance” gravitationally pulled on the Penguin’s thinner areas of gas and dust, causing them to crash in waves and form stars. Look for those areas in two places: what looks like a fish in its “beak” and the “feathers” in its “tail.”

Surrounding these newer stars is smoke-like material that includes carbon-containing molecules, known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which Webb is exceptional at detecting. Dust, seen as fainter, deeper orange arcs also swoops from its beak to tail feathers.

In contrast, the Egg’s compact shape remains largely unchanged. As an elliptical galaxy, it is filled with aging stars, and has a lot less gas and dust that can be pulled away to form new stars. If both were spiral galaxies, each would end the first “twist” with new star formation and twirling curls, known as tidal tails.

Another reason for the Egg’s undisturbed appearance: These galaxies have approximately the same mass or heft, which is why the smaller-looking elliptical wasn’t consumed or distorted by the Penguin.

It is estimated that the Penguin and the Egg are about 100,000 light-years apart — quite close in astronomical terms. For context, the Milky Way galaxy and our nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, are about 2.5 million light-years apart. They too will interact, but not for about 4 billion years.

Now, look to the top right to spot a galaxy that is not at this party. This edge-on galaxy, cataloged PGC 1237172, is 100 million light-years closer to Earth. It’s also quite young, teeming with new, blue stars.

Want one more party trick? Switch to Webb’s mid-infrared-only image to see PGC 1237172 practically disappear. Mid-infrared light largely captures cooler, older stars and an incredible amount of dust. Since the galaxy’s stellar population is so young, it “vanishes” in mid-infrared light.

Also take a moment to scan the background. Webb’s image is overflowing with distant galaxies. Some take spiral and oval shapes, like those threaded throughout the Penguin’s “tail feathers,” while others scattered throughout are shapeless dots. This is a testament to the sensitivity and resolution of the telescope’s infrared instruments. (Compare Webb’s view to the 2018 observation that combines infrared light from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and near-infrared and visible light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.) Even though these observations only took a few hours, Webb revealed far more distant, redder, and dustier galaxies than previous telescopes – one more reason to expect Webb to continue to expand our understanding of everything in the universe.

Want more? Take a tour to the image, “fly through” it in a visualization, and compare Webb’s image to the Hubble Space Telescope’s.

Arp 142 lies 326 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra.

Video: Tour the Arp 142 Image

Video tour transcript

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Danielle Kirshenblat (STScI)

Video: Arp 142 Visualization

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Christian Nieves (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Frank Summers (STScI), Greg Bacon (STScI)

Hover over the dividing line then click to move and compare the two images

Hubble Space Telescope

Webb Space Telescope

A selection of images from the James Webb Space Telescope in 2024

Oh! Silly me! That last one isn't from the James Webb Space Telescope! It's the way the people who wrote the Bible thought the Universe looked like! spot the difference!

It defies belief that there are adults, mostly in the USA, who believe that description in the Bible far surpasses for accuracy and reliability anything that science can reveal, and that this 'amazing accuracy' is proof that it was written by an inerrant god who created it all.

You might expect the fact that the Bible's description is so hilariously naïve would be taken as evidence that the description is proof of exactly the opposite: that the Bible could not have been written by an omniscient god who created the Universe it so inaccurately describes, but there is something about religion that seems to prevent intellectual honesty and the humility to allow evidence to inform opinion. Religion seems to produce the delusion that opinion informs the evidence and if they conflict, then opinion trumps evidence.

The same people also claim to worship a god who told them that vanity is a mortal sin, and a terrible fate awaits those who transgress.

Refuting Creationism - Fruit Bats have 'Uniquely Human' Abilities

Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus

Credit: Yuval Barkai

Egyptian fruit bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus

Can Bats Think Ahead of Time? | Tel Aviv University | Tel Aviv University | Tel Aviv University

Creationists insist that humans are a special creation apart from all the other animals, and normally cite a list of 'uniquely human' abilities as evidence, oblivious of the fact that every species has some unique characteristics - which is why they are a different species.

One by one, with monotonous regularity, over the last 50 years or so, the list has shrunk and one by one these 'uniquely human' characteristics have been shown to be possessed by at least one other species. We used to be the 'only' tool-making species, now there must be about a dozen species who make and/or use tools, including chimpanzees, crows, bumblebees and sea otters.

In fact, what creationists used to claim 'proved' the special creation of humans, because that ability is present in one of more of our great ape relatives, it not only fails to 'prove' special creation but, with delicious irony, actually supports common origins.