Unintelligent Design - The Extreme Lengths To Which a Shrew Goes To Survive

Masked shrew
Sorex cinereus

By rpoort - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/12617120,
CC BY 4.0, Link

Masked Shrew, Sorex cinereus

Photo © P. Myers,
Mammal Images Library of the American Society of Mammalogists.

New UNCG Research Shows Southern Shrews Shrink in Winter | College of Arts & Sciences

The already peculiar beliefs that creationists must entertain about their supposed creator deity have become even stranger with the discovery that North America's masked shrew actually shrinks as part of its winter survival strategy.

Imagine you're designing a small mammal intended to survive in an environment where food becomes scarce, and temperatures fall too low for typical warm-blooded activity during winter. You've already solved this issue effectively with hibernation — a successful strategy employed by numerous animals, even large ones like bears. Yet, apparently deeming hibernation alone insufficiently complex for the masked shrew, your design involves the creature further reducing its energy needs by physically shrinking, despite the fact that its small size was already a significant part of the survival challenge.

Nevertheless, this is precisely the type of scenario a creationist must accept if they reject evolution as an explanation. Evolution, as a blind, pragmatic process working without foresight, readily generates such unlikely and counterintuitive adaptations through trial and error.

Yet prominent creationist advocates continue to assert that their supposed intelligent designer deliberately creates these seemingly nonsensical adaptations—ironically claiming these designs are beyond the capability of natural evolutionary processes.

This example of Dehnel's phenomenon is the subject of a recent research paper in The American Naturalist by researchers based at the University of North Caroline Greensboro (UNC Greensboro). It is described in a UNC Greensboro press release:

Refuting Creationism - Humans All Fired Up - Tens Of Thousands of Years Before 'Creation Week'

Family life in the Ice Age

AI-generated image (ChatGPT4o)

Section through the large fireplace 1.

Credit: Philip R. Nigst.

Excavation site Korman' 9 located at the shore of the Dnister river in Ukraine.

Credit: Philip R. Nigst.

Sophisticated pyrotechnology in the Ice Age: This is how humans made fire tens of thousands of years ago

In a discovery that defies any literalist interpretation of the Bible's creation narrative—where humans were fashioned ex nihilo only a few thousand years ago—archaeologists have uncovered compelling evidence that Ice Age humans in Eurasia had not only mastered fire but employed it in remarkably sophisticated ways. Far beyond simple warmth and cooking, fire appears to have served as a focal point for social gatherings and perhaps even ritual activity.

What remains puzzling, however, is the relative scarcity of well-preserved hearths from the coldest phases of the Ice Age—precisely when one would expect fire to have been most vital for survival.

Nonetheless, the sites that have been identified reveal an advanced command of pyrotechnology. These early humans used wood, and possibly bone and animal fat, as fuel—achieving temperatures exceeding 600 degrees Celsius.

Life in Ice Age Ukraine: The Last Glacial Maximum. Around 20,000 years ago, during the height of the Last Glacial Maximum, the region now known as Ukraine was part of a vast and frigid steppe-tundra ecosystem. Although glaciers did not cover most of Ukraine itself, the climate was bitterly cold, dry, and windy, with temperatures far below freezing for much of the year. Forests had retreated, leaving open plains dotted with hardy grasses, mosses, and shrubs.

Despite the harshness, this landscape teemed with Ice Age megafauna. Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, reindeer, steppe bison, and wild horses roamed the steppes, hunted by highly mobile bands of Homo sapiens. These human groups were well-adapted to the extreme environment, using sophisticated stone tools, tailored clothing made from hides, and complex hunting strategies.

People likely lived in semi-permanent shelters—possibly built from mammoth bones and covered with hides—situated in areas with access to water, game, and fuel. Fire was not merely a tool for survival; it was a vital element of daily life, essential for heat, cooking, tool-making, and perhaps social cohesion and ritual.

Picture the scene. This is how our Eurasian ancestors would have lived:

Refuting Creationism - More on Stone Tool Manufacture in China - 50,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

The Quina tool kit from Longtan.

Credit: >Hao Li

Quina tools from Longtan

Stone tool discovery in China shows people in East Asia were innovating during the Middle Paleolithic, like in Europe and Middle East

I wrote about the find recently, but this version incorporates the article in The Conversation by Professor Ben Marwick.

The recent unearthing of Quina-style stone tools in southwest China has sparked significant interest in the archaeological community, as detailed in a recent article from The Conversation by Professor Ben Marwick, Professor of Archaeology, University of Washington.

These tools, previously associated predominantly with Neanderthal populations in Europe, were discovered at the Longtan site and have been dated to approximately 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Their presence in East Asia challenges longstanding assumptions about the technological development of early human populations in this region.

Traditionally, the Middle Paleolithic period in East Asia was thought to lack the technological innovations seen in contemporaneous European and Middle Eastern contexts. The discovery of these sophisticated tools suggests that early human groups in East Asia were engaging in complex tool-making practices similar to those of their western counterparts. This finding not only broadens our understanding of human technological evolution but also indicates a more interconnected prehistoric world than previously believed.

From a scientific perspective, such discoveries are invaluable in piecing together the mosaic of human history. However, they also pose challenges to certain interpretative frameworks, particularly those rooted in a literalist reading of religious texts. The existence of advanced tool-making practices tens of thousands of years ago stands in contrast to timelines proposed by young-Earth creationist views, which assert a much more recent origin of humanity.

In light of this, the Longtan findings serve as a compelling reminder of the importance of evidence-based inquiry in our quest to understand human origins. They underscore the dynamic and multifaceted nature of our past, inviting us to reconsider and refine our narratives in the face of new evidence.

Professor Marwick's article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency:

Malevolent Design - How Dembski's 'Complex Specified Information' Causes Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Rapid growth of blood cancer driven by a single genetic ‘hit’

William A. Dembski’s concept of complex specified information (CSI) remains ambiguous—arguably by design. His use of the word specified is particularly opaque: is he referring to information that produces outcomes he wishes his readers to believe are purposeful and intelligently designed by a particular deity, or is the term intended to encompass any genetic information that results in any outcome—beneficial, neutral, or harmful?

Taken at face value, and in the absence of a clear, testable definition, there appears to be no reason Dembski’s concept could not apply to information that is ultimately detrimental, either to the organism itself, or to another organism in the case of parasites or cancer. Why, for instance, should we conclude that the complex information in a gene enabling the expansion of the human brain and the enhancement of cognitive function was specified, but that the equally complex genetic information enabling a cell to become a malignant cancer, or allowing the Plasmodium falciparum parasite to evade anti-malarial drugs, was not also specified by the same intelligent designer?

Given that Dembski is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute — an organisation notorious for its Wedge Strategy, which seeks to undermine public trust in science through disinformation and misrepresentation while promoting creationism under the guise of scientific legitimacy — it is unsurprising that complex specified information remains a nebulous and ill-defined term. The strategy’s aim has never been to engage in genuine scientific discourse or subject its claims to critical scrutiny, but rather to advance a religious agenda while avoiding the accountability that comes with reasoned analysis and empirical testing. A cynic might conclude that the leading ID advocates know their claim has no scientific basis but want their target audience to believe otherwise.

So, I invite Intelligent Design creationists to explain why the recent discovery of a gene that promotes the rapid early development of acute myeloid leukaemia should not be an example of Dembski's 'complex specified information' and so evidence that Dembski's intelligent designer designed acute myeloid leukaemia, or whether Dembski's term is deliberately vague so as to appeal to people looking for confirmation of existing bias.

Refuting Creationism - Stone Tool Manufacture In a South African Cave - 10,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Prehistoric stone tools, specifically the “cores” used to create smaller blades.

Photo by Sara Watson

Left: Prehistoric stone tools, specifically the “cores” used to create smaller blades.

Photo by Sara Watson.

Right: Archaeological team excavating in the seaside cave.

Photo by Sara Watson.

Ancient tools from a South African cave reveal connections between prehistoric people - Field Museum

It's a telling example of how creationists can ignore substantial evidence when it conflicts with their belief that the Earth was created from nothing between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Among the evidence they dismiss are stone tools made by humans in South Africa at least 20,000 years ago — well over 10,000 years before their proposed timeline even begins. These tools reflect not only human ingenuity, but also the sharing of technology between different groups across southern Africa.

The tools, associated with what archaeologists term the Robberg technocomplex, were likely used in hunting the large game that roamed the vast coastal plains during the Last Glacial Maximum—land that is now submerged following post-Ice Age sea level rise. Evidence for their manufacture and use has been found in sites such as Knysna Eastern Heads Cave 1, which now overlooks the coast but would have stood further inland around 20,000 years ago.

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, a research team led by Dr Sara Watson of the Field Museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center describes these lithic assemblages in detail. Their analysis of stone tool-making techniques offers insights into the ways prehistoric people moved through the landscape, interacted with one another, and transmitted their technological knowledge.

The team's research is explained in a press release from the Field Museum, Chicago, IL, USA:

Refuting Creationism - Filling The Gaps and Shrinking That Ever-Shrinking Little God

Helmetia expansa

Holotype of Helmetia expansa USNM 83952, dorsal view.

Jean-Bernard Caron and Sarah Losso.

Ancient fossil sheds big light on evolution mystery: solving a 100-year arthropod mystery | Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology

Creationist apologetics often involve attributing phenomena that science cannot yet explain to divine intervention, relying on the assumption that gaps in scientific knowledge serve as evidence for the existence of a deity. This approach frequently employs the false dichotomy fallacy, suggesting that if science lacks an explanation, then "God did it" by default. Such reasoning does not establish the existence of a god capable of addressing these gaps; instead, it often depends on the cultural biases of the audience to support this conclusion.

However, science continually seeks to fill these gaps with evidence-based explanations. A recent example is the formal description of the Cambrian fossil Helmetia expansa, which provides insights into arthropod evolution during the Cambrian Period. This period is often mischaracterized by creationist narratives as a time when multiple distinct body plans appeared suddenly without ancestral forms, purportedly indicating a single act of creation.

The study, published in the *Journal of Systematic Palaeontology* by Professor Sarah R. Losso and Javier Ortega-Hernández of Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology and Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, along with Jean-Bernard Caron of the Royal Ontario Museum's Department of Natural History (Palaeobiology Section) in Toronto, Canada, offers a comprehensive analysis of Helmetia expansa. Their research reveals that Helmetia expansa is an arthropod related to trilobites, shedding light on the evolutionary diversification of this group during the Cambrian. This finding provides evidence of gradual evolutionary processes, countering claims of abrupt appearance without ancestral lineage.

The study is further explained in a press release from Harvard University, which details how this research resolves a 100-year-old mystery surrounding this Cambrian arthropod.

Refuting Creationism - A New Denisovan Jaw Bone - From The Coast of Taiwan

A fishing vessel dredged this fossil jawbone, now confirmed as Denisovan, from the Taiwan Strait.

Yousuke Kaifu

AI-generated impression of a Denisovan male.

ChatGPT4o

Fossil jawbone reveals mysterious Denisovans lived in ancient Taiwan | Science | AAAS

The Denisovans—an enigmatic group of archaic humans known mostly through ancient DNA—just became a little less mysterious. In a groundbreaking discovery announced this month, researchers have confirmed that a robust fossilised jawbone recovered from the seabed near Taiwan belongs to a Denisovan.

While no recoverable DNA remained, scientists used protein analysis—specifically paleoproteomics—to identify the jaw as Denisovan, marking the most southerly and eastern confirmed presence of these ancient humans to date.

This discovery not only expands the known geographic range of Denisovans dramatically but also sheds light on their adaptability, dietary ecology, and evolutionary identity. It may even help pave the way for giving them an official scientific name.

Refuting Creationism - How Large Herds Of Rhino Roamed North America - 12 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

UC researchers discovered that prehistoric rhinos like these that shared a waterhole 12 million years ago lived in enormous herds.

Photo/John Haxby/The University of Nebraska State Museum

Ash from the eruption of a volcano in Yellowstone preserved more than 100 specimens of a prehistoric rhino at Nebraska's Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park.

Photo/John Haxby/The University of Nebraska State Museum

UC study finds evidence that prehistoric rhinos lived in huge herds | University of Cincinnati

Recent research has presented yet another problem for young-Earth creationism, which asserts that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and that all existing species were created simultaneously without ancestors.

A study conducted by paleontologists from the University of Cincinnati provides compelling evidence that large herds of the extinct rhinoceros species, Teleoceras major, inhabited North America approximately 12 million years before creationism's mythical 'Creation Week'.

This conclusion is derived from isotopic analyses performed on fossils of these rhinos, which were preserved in volcanic ash at the Ashfall Fossil Beds in Nebraska. The fossils represent individuals that perished together at a waterhole, suggesting herd behavior. The study, titled "Enamel carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotopes reveal limited mobility in an extinct rhinoceros at Ashfall Fossil Beds, Nebraska, USA," was published in the journal Scientific Reports on April 4, 2025.

The University of Cincinnati further elaborated on these findings in a news release by Michael Miller, highlighting the evidence that prehistoric rhinos lived in substantial herds.

Unintelligent Design - If Scientists Can Do It, Why Can't an Intelligent, Omnipotent Designer - If It Wanted To?

Treatment for mitochondrial diseases within reach | University of Gothenburg

If the human body had truly been intelligently designed by an omnibenevolent, omniscient deity, it would operate flawlessly under all conditions, free from the compromises and constraints inherent in evolutionary history.

Were this the case, much of modern medicine would be unnecessary, limited perhaps to the management and repair of traumatic injuries. Parasites, should they exist at all, would be effortlessly repelled by a perfect immune system. Genetic and structural defects, such as hernias, atherosclerosis, autoimmune disorders, blindness, deafness, neurodegenerative diseases, and complications in childbirth would simply not occur.

However, as I showed in my book, The Body of Evidence: How the Human Body Refutes Intelligent Design, the human body is not the product of intelligent design; it has evolved through a process marked by trial and error, adaptation to existing structures, and the utilitarian pressures of survival and reproduction. This explains the vast array of medical conditions that keep healthcare systems busy, often stretched to their limits. It also drives the extensive scientific research dedicated to discovering the causes and developing cures for various illnesses—achievements that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent creator, if one existed, presumably would have provided already.

Recent news highlights this contrast starkly. Scientists may have discovered a groundbreaking cure for a rare mitochondrial disease caused by mutations in the POLG gene, a condition that leads to severe disability or even early death. This advancement prompts a critical question for creationists: If human scientists can find solutions to such devastating genetic problems, why can't—or won't—your purported intelligent designer? And perhaps, more to the point, why was this defect designed in the first place?

Refuting Creationism - How Sealife Recovered From Disaster - 66 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

AI-generated image (ChatGPT4o)

Life Recovered Rapidly at Site of Dino-Killing Asteroid. A Hydrothermal System May Have Helped. | Jackson School of Geosciences | The University of Texas at Austin

A figure showing a hypothesized semi-enclosed environment created by post-impact hydrothermal activity.

Credit: Sato et al.

A recurring point in this blog is that 99.9975% of Earth's history occurred before the time creationists claim the Earth was magically created out of nothing by an immaterial deity. It is strange how, despite the overwhelming evidence contradicting their viewpoint and a notable absence of credible supporting evidence, creationism endures as a belief system.

This requires either a profound lack of scientific knowledge and understanding, or extraordinary mental gymnastics, to cope with the cognitive dissonance and dismiss the abundant contrary evidence. Advocates of creationism frequently attempt to rationalise away this evidence, attributing it to errors, falsifications, or even alleging a global conspiracy within the scientific community.

Recently, another piece of evidence undermining creationist claims emerged with the publication of a study in Nature Communications. The paper documents how marine life rapidly recovered at the site of the dinosaur-killing Chicxulub asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico, 66 million years before creationism's mythical 'Creation Week'.

This rapid recovery was facilitated by nutrient-rich waters resulting from hydrothermal activity triggered by the asteroid collision.

Creationists might not want to hear this because they have well-rehearsed excuses for dismissing radiometric dating, but the study depended on analyzing the ratios of stable osmium isotopes in sediments at the Chicxulub impact site. This analysis is not a form of radiometric dating; rather, it involves comparing the naturally occurring ratios of these isotopes from terrestrial and meteoritic sources to trace their origin. By correlating these isotopic variations with sediment depth, researchers have inferred the contribution of meteoritic material over time.

The timing of the Chicxulub impact has been corroborated through multiple independent methods, including high-precision uranium-lead (U-Pb) dating of zircon crystals. These zircons, found in impact-related deposits, provide robust age constraints that align with the established date of the event.

Refuting Creationism - How We Know The Bible Was Made Up By Ignorant People

Reconstruction of life in 'Green Arabia'

AI-generated image (ChatGPT4o)

The lush past of the world’s largest desert - Medias - UNIGE

The brown traces represent the beds of ancient streams, organized in dendritic drainage networks that are now abandoned.

© Antoine Delaunay/Guillaume Baby/Abdallah Zaki

While the biblical authors drew heavily from earlier Mesopotamian myths — most notably adapting the flood narrative from the Epic of Gilgamesh — they appear to have had little understanding of the broader historical and environmental context of the region. Recent research highlights a striking omission: the rich prehistoric past of the Arabian Peninsula, just to the south of Mesopotamia.

Far from being an eternal wasteland, the Arabian Peninsula was once a verdant, fertile region. Between approximately 11,000 and 5,500 years ago, it featured extensive river systems, lush vegetation, and a large freshwater lake. This environment supported human settlement and migration, acting as a corridor out of Africa rather than the barrier it is today.

The biblical narrative, especially in Genesis, reflects a parochial worldview, lacking any apparent awareness of the dramatic environmental transformations that shaped the region. The latest findings, published by an international team including researchers from the University of Geneva, show that around 8,000 years ago, a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit triggered a weakening of the monsoon systems. This climatic change led to severe aridification, culminating in the desertification of the region and the disappearance of the once 42-metre-deep lake.

What was once a cradle of biodiversity and human migration is now the Rub’ al-Khali or "Empty Quarter"—one of the most inhospitable deserts on the planet. The contrast between this rich prehistoric reality and the narrow scope of the biblical texts speaks volumes about the limited horizons and historical understanding of their authors.

Unintelligent Design - Another Failure By Creationism's Blundering Designer

Machine for repairing broken mtDNA.

AI-Generated image
(with apologies to William Heath Robinson)

The graphic shows images of a cell under mtDNA replication stress made using so-called Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy (for short: CLEM). The mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA, green) is ejected from the mitochondria (magenta) and taken up by a lysosome, which contains the retromer (cyan). The highlighted section was also analysed using 3D-CLEM to obtain volumetric information.

Fig.: HHU/David Pla-Martín.

Medicine: Publication in Science Advances

Yet Another Workaround for a Flawed Design.

Researchers led by Professor Dr David Pla-Martín of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, alongside colleagues from the University of Cologne, have uncovered yet another complex but error-prone workaround—this time, to fix a problem that stems from an earlier design flaw.

They have identified a mechanism used to repair mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) when it breaks. From an intelligent design perspective, mitochondria — once free-living bacteria—were supposedly the 'quick fix' to give eukaryotic cells the ability to efficiently convert glucose into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) using oxygen. ATP is the primary energy currency used in metabolic reactions, formed from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and phosphate.

A truly intelligent designer, however, could have simply endowed cells with this biochemical machinery from the start—no need to incorporate foreign bacteria complete with their own DNA. But apparently, that would have been too simple.

This convoluted solution, predictably, comes with problems. Mitochondria often replicate their DNA imperfectly, or the DNA becomes damaged, leading to mitochondrial failure and a range of diseases. So, yet another layer of biological complexity has evolved to patch up the broken mtDNA. And, in classic Heath Robinson fashion, this repair mechanism is itself error-prone.

Refuting Creationism - The Long Pre-'Creation Week' Evolutionary History of Bacteria

The Great Oxidation Event

AI-Generated Image (ChatGPT4o)

Machine learning helps construct an evolutionary timeline of bacteria - UQ News - The University of Queensland, Australia

A helpful analogy employed by Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow illustrates the vastness of evolutionary time:

Fling your arms wide in an expansive gesture to span all of evolution from its origins at your left fingertip to today at your right fingertip. All the way across your midline to well past your right shoulder, life consisted of nothing but bacteria. Multi-celled invertebrate life flowers somewhere around your right elbow. The dinosaurs originate in the middle of your right palm and go extinct around your last finger joint. The whole story of Homo sapiens and our predecessor Homo erectus is contained in the thickness of one nail-clipping.

We can construct such a timeline because, although microbial life leaves few conventional fossils, it does leave behind chemical signatures in ancient rocks—clues to how bacteria lived, metabolised, and evolved.

By correlating this geochemical record with genomic data, a multinational collaboration – led by researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan, the University of Bristol, UK, Queensland University of Technology, Australia and the University of Queensland, Australia, has used machine learning to reconstructed an evolutionary tree of bacterial lineages. This allows us to trace how different taxa adapted to major environmental changes, such as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Remarkably, this study suggest that some microbes had already evolved the capacity to utilise oxygen even before it became abundant during the GOE.

The disturbing fact for creationists is not the evidence of common origins and descent with modification that this study reveals, but the fact that it all happened billions of years before their mythical 'Creation Week' when their god allegedly created a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle East. But then this is hardly surprising, since 99.9975% of the history of life on Earth happened before that alleged act of magic.

How the team of scientists conducted this study, and their conclusions are the subject of a research paper in Science and a news item from the University of Queensland, Australia:

Refuting Creationsm - Evolution By Loss of Genes, Horizontal Gene Transfer And Gene Duplication

Nitzschia sp

By Kristian Peters - Own work,
CC BY-SA 3.0,
Wikimedia

This article is best read on a laptop, desktop, or tablet

Nitzschia sing1 lives on the alginate in the cell walls of decaying brown algae.

A borrowed bacterial gene allowed some marine diatoms to live on a seaweed diet | PRESS-NEWS.org

A fundamental axiom of creationism is the claim that any loss of genetic information is invariably detrimental—so much so that any mutation resulting in such a loss would be fatal and could therefore play no role in evolution. A second axiom asserts that new genetic information cannot arise naturally and must instead be supplied by a supernatural intelligent designer.

Both of these assertions are demonstrably false. Nevertheless, they continue to feature in creationist apologetics, relying on the audience's ignorance and incredulity to pass as justification for belief in an intelligent creator.

To add further difficulty for creationist claims, scientists have now identified a marine diatom, Nitzschia sing1, that has not only lost the genes and organelles required for photosynthesis — present in its photosynthetic relatives — but has also adapted successfully without them. It achieved this by acquiring new genetic information through horizontal gene transfer from a marine bacterium. The transferred gene subsequently underwent extensive duplication and diversification into three gene families, each with complementary functions. Together, these 91 versions of the acquired gene enable N. sing1 to metabolise alginate, a carbohydrate found in the cell walls of brown algae such as kelp.

Unintelligent Design - Why Humans Are Not Intelligently Designed for Modern life

"Now look what you've done! The place is not fit to live in anymore!"

Humanity's Real Problem: Accelerating Evolutionary Mismatch | Psychology Today

A sure sign of unintelligent design is one that completely fails to anticipate the future. Biologically speaking, poor design occurs when an organism is adapted to an environment at a specific moment but becomes increasingly maladapted as the environment evolves. This happens either because the organism fails to adapt quickly enough or because it was never designed with future changes in mind in the first place.

A good, intelligent designer, especially one equipped with the power of foresight, would not just design for today but for tomorrow, next year and for the foreseeable future. Failure to do so is incompetence, indolence or sheer malevolence in putting its design on course for ultimate disaster.

In my book, The Body of Evidence: How the Human Body Refutes Creationism, I highlight numerous examples where the human body evolved for past environments — previous diets, predators, and social pressures — leaving us today with various vulnerabilities and compromises.

Human evolution moves at a glacial pace, barely noticeable even over many generations, while our environment has dramatically transformed within just a few decades.

Consider the technology available to our parents and grandparents compared to what we now take for granted—steam trains, landline telephones, no internet or colour TV, no central heating or air conditioning beyond an open fire or window, no satellite navigation, and no instant global communication. Further back, major societal shifts arose from mechanised farming, factory work, innovations in textile manufacturing, and even improvements in wheat milling for bread. Later still came automobiles and mass transit.

Yet, genetically speaking, our recent ancestors who navigated these revolutionary changes remain nearly identical to us today.

Now, we stand on the threshold of another seismic shift: artificial intelligence. Just a decade ago, writing this introduction would have involved considerable time researching, fact-checking, and carefully drafting paragraphs that still might not have fully conveyed my intended message. Today, I can draft my thoughts, then leverage the vast processing power of AI (like ChatGPT-4.5) to refine and clarify my ideas effortlessly. These introductory paragraphs are precisely the outcome of such a collaboration.

The core issue, however, remains that human culture is evolving at a rate several orders of magnitude faster than our biological capacity to adapt, creating an ever-widening gap between how we need to respond to new challenges and how we're inherently equipped to do so.

The consequences of this accelerating mismatch are thoughtfully explored in an article by Mike Brooks, Ph.D., in Psychology Today, Humanity's Real Problem: Accelerating Evolutionary Mismatch.

Refuting Creationism - People Of the Green Sahara - No Flood Noticed

View of the Takarkori rock shelter in Southern Libya.

© Archaeological Mission in the Sahara,
Sapienza University of Rome

View from the Takarkori rock shelter in Southern Libya.

© Archaeological Mission in the Sahara,
Sapienza University of Rome.

First ancient genomes from the Green Sahara deciphered

According to literal interpretations of biblical creationism, the first two humans were created approximately 6,000 years ago without any ancestors. Subsequently, around 4,000 years ago, the Earth was supposedly submerged by a global flood. According to this narrative, all present-day humans descended from the eight survivors who endured a year-long voyage in a large vessel accompanied by two (or, in some accounts, seven) individuals of each animal species. After the flood receded, these survivors are said to have repopulated a barren and sterile world in which all previously existing life had been destroyed.

In contrast, scientific evidence indicates that more than 7,000 years ago, human populations inhabited a Sahara region that was markedly different from today's desert. At the time, a wetter climate supported forests, grasslands, lakes, and rivers. These Saharan people were only distantly related to other non-African populations, as they had diverged from East and South African Homo sapiens around the same period—approximately 50,000 years ago—that modern non-African populations migrated out of Africa into Eurasia. Subsequently, the Saharan population remained largely isolated from both sub-Saharan African and Eurasian populations.

The critical distinction between these two accounts lies in their evidence base. Creationism relies solely on written narratives from a text of uncertain historical authenticity, whereas science relies upon verifiable, physical evidence, in this case DNA extracted from two mummified Saharan individuals discovered in Algeria.

This fundamental difference exemplifies the contrast between religion and science: religion typically relies on tradition, superstition, and narratives lacking empirical support, whereas science is grounded in observable evidence and logical deduction.

The evidence for the existence and origin of this Saharan population comes from the work of researchers at the Dept. of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany. It's significance is that it argues against the green Sahara being one of the migration routes for modern humans out of Africa and a return migration back into Africa because the Saharan population were genetically distinct and have a very low level of Neanderthal DNA unlike the western Eurasian Homo sapiens.

The findings of the group are published open access in Nature. The research is described in a Max Planck Institute News release:

Malevolent Designer News - How Monkeypox Is Being Redesigned to Infect More People

Mpox could become a serious global threat, scientists warn | University of Surrey

Science has just dealt creationism another body blow.

Researchers from the University of Surrey, UK, have demonstrated that the monkeypox virus has undergone a mutation that enhances its ability to spread more readily from person to person through direct contact. This increased transmissibility raises the concern of a potential global pandemic.

Since this mutation confers a benefit to the virus, it aligns with William A. Dembski's concept of 'specified complexity', which he uses to argue for intelligent design. By extension, Dembski’s argument suggests evidence of an intelligent designer, whom his intended audience typically identifies as the Christian God.

However, because the mutation has resulted in a greater prevalence of the mutated form of the virus compared to non-mutated forms, this clearly demonstrates evolution through natural selection. Consequently, it contradicts the notion of 'devolution' proposed by Michael J. Behe, who suggests that parasites and pathogens represent biological deterioration rather than adaptive evolution.

Therefore, the new variant of the monkeypox virus presents either evidence supporting creationism's deity — which would imply intentional creation of viruses specifically designed to cause illness—or clear evidence supporting evolution through natural selection.

Unintelligent Design - The Heath-Robinson Machine That Keeps Rogue DNA Under Control

How a critical enzyme keeps potentially dangerous genes in check – lji.org

The human body, like those of most multicellular organisms, exhibits numerous instances of suboptimal design. These imperfections arise from evolutionary processes that balance competing demands, often prioritizing immediate reproductive success over long-term well-being and efficiency. As a result, many biological structures and functions are prone to errors, which tend to accumulate and manifest more prominently with age.

These inherent imperfections have driven the evolution of additional layers of complexity aimed at mitigating potential failures. Such complexity would likely be unnecessary if these biological systems had been optimally designed from the outset. Therefore, the presence of intricate mechanisms to counteract inherent errors serves as compelling evidence for evolution and challenges the notion of intelligent design. Examples of these compensatory complexities are abundant across all multicellular organisms.

A pertinent example involves the regulation of transposable elements (TEs), often referred to as "jumping genes." These DNA sequences can move within the genome, potentially causing significant disruptions if not properly controlled. In healthy cells, TEs are kept in check within heterochromatin — a tightly packed form of DNA that serves as a "prison" for these elements. Recent research led by Professor Anjana Rao, Ph.D., at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, published in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, has shed light on this control mechanism. The study reveals that the enzyme O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) plays a crucial role in suppressing TE activity by restraining TET enzymes, thereby maintaining genomic stability.

This intricate system of checks and balances underscores the evolutionary arms race within our genomes, highlighting the complexity that arises from natural selection's ongoing efforts to mitigate the potential harms posed by transposable elements.

Refuting Creationism - Stone Tool Manufacture in China, 40-50,000 Before 'Creation Week'.

Quina technology was found in Europe decades ago but has never before been found in East Asia.

Ben Marwick

Discovery of Quina technology challenges view of ancient human development in East Asia | UW News

What may present a fascinating puzzle for science often deals a fatal blow to creationism — if only its adherents would acknowledge it. However, creationism remains a "brain-dead zombie", artificially kept alive by the manoeuvres of creationist leaders whose power and income rely upon it.

For instance, the recent discovery in China of stone tools exhibiting 'Quina technology', typically associated with Neanderthals, raises intriguing questions for archaeologists and anthropologists. Neanderthals were previously thought to have inhabited primarily western Eurasia, yet these Chinese artefacts, dated to between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, suggest their influence or presence extended much farther east than previously known. These findings pose fascinating questions regarding ancient human migration and technological exchange.

However, these same discoveries directly contradict creationist beliefs that the Earth is merely 6,000 to 10,000 years old and that humans appeared through a special creation without ancestral links. While science thrives on unanswered questions and continuously adapts its theories based on new evidence, creationism relies rigidly on dogma. When its foundational claims are refuted, the entire belief system crumbles. Religion insists upon unreasonable certainty, whereas science flourishes through reasonable uncertainty.

The discovery of this evidence of Quina Technology was made at the Longtan archaeological site in southwest China by an international group of archaeologists, which included Professor Ben Marwick of Washington University, USA. It is first such discovery in Asia of a technology known to have existed in Middle Palaeolothic Europe and associated there with Neanderthals.

The question is, does this show that Neanderthals were more widespread than we thought, or has their technology been shared with other hominins such as the Denisovans? Or did the same technology arise independently in China?

Refuting Creationism - A Exceptionally Detailed Fossil - From 440 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

The fossil Keurbos susanae - or Sue - in the rock.

New species revealed after 25 years of study on ‘inside out’ fossil – and named after discoverer’s mum | News | University of Leicester

A major problem for creationists who cling to the delusion that Earth was magically created only 6,000 to 10,000 years ago is that this timescale leaves approximately 99.9975% of Earth's actual history unaccounted for. Consequently, there is an overwhelming abundance of evidence contradicting their beliefs. To maintain their position, creationists are forced to rely on increasingly elaborate mental gymnastics to dismiss the clear indications of an ancient Earth within an even older Universe—evidence consistently revealed and verified by multiple scientific disciplines, including palaeontology and geology.

Refuting Creationism - What Modern Humans Were Doing in West Papua - 40,000 years before 'Creation Week'

Rock paintings provide evidence of social change in West Papua.

Tristan Russell, CC BY-SA

Archaeological evidence shows that people migrating from Eurasia into the Australasian region came through West Papua.

Dylan Gaffney, CC BY-SA

Fitting the ‘missing puzzle pieces’ – research sheds light on the deep history of social change in West Papua

According to the recently published book, West New Guinea: Social, Biological, and Material Histories, by Professor Dylan Gaffney and Marlin Tolla, modern humans had arrived in what is now West Papua at least 50,000 years ago.

This is approximately 40,000 years before young Earth creationists claim their proposed deity created a small, flat Earth beneath a dome in the Middle East, along with a man formed from dust and a woman from his rib as the founding couple of the human species.

As with approximately 99.9975% of Earth's history, the vast majority of human history occurred long before the supposed ‘Creation Week’. The established record of human origins and development differs so radically from the narratives found in the Bible and Qur’an that it is remarkable anyone still considers those texts to be authoritative accounts of history or science—or even credible allegories or metaphors for anything resembling reality.

Genetic evidence further shows that, during their migrations, the ancestors of modern Papuans interbred with now-extinct archaic humans known as Denisovans. As a result, while modern Eurasians typically carry around 2% Neanderthal DNA, many populations in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania—including Austronesian peoples—carry up to 3% Denisovan DNA.

The authors, Professor Dylan Gaffney and Marlin Tolla have published an account of the research that went into their book, open access in the online magazine, The Conversation Their article is reproduced here under a Creative Commons License, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here.

Unintelligent Design - How The Badly-Designed Immune System Destroys Lungs

Scientists Discover Immune Cell Networks Driving Deadly Lung Disease | Rutgers University

Autoimmune conditions and allergies provide strong evidence for evolution over intelligent design by highlighting the imperfections and trade-offs inherent in the immune system. These disorders demonstrate how a system shaped by natural selection can prioritize short-term survival at the expense of long-term health, leading to vulnerabilities that are difficult to reconcile with the concept of a perfect designer.

Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own tissues. Examples include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, and type 1 diabetes.

The immune system must strike a delicate balance: it must be reactive enough to fight infections but tolerant enough to avoid attacking the body’s own cells. Evolution has shaped this balance, but it is imperfect. A hyperactive immune system, while better at combating infections, increases the risk of autoimmune diseases.

The Body of Evidence: How the Human Body Refutes Intelligent Design pp. 129-130

Now it's beginning to look like we must include the fatal lung disease known as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to the long list of autoimmune conditions that stem directly from the facts that the immune system evolved and was not intelligently designed.

The very existence of the immune system should prompt creationists to reconsider several basic beliefs and especially claims made by leading proponents, such as Michael J. Behe. Behe suggests that pathogens and the diseases they cause result from 'genetic entropy', a degradation enabled by biblical 'Sin', which supposedly causes genomes to 'devolve', thus creating parasites and pathogens. Other creationists suggest an alternative viewpoint, attributing the existence of parasites and diseases to an evil designer, such as Satan - a claim which is regarded as blasphemous by fundamentalists for whom it is doctrine that there is only one creative entity - God.

In contrast, William A. Dembski argues that any 'complex specified information' (CSI) within the genome must originate from an intelligent designer, typically inferred — though seldom explicitly acknowledged by prominent creationists — as the God described in the Bible or the Qur'an. The genes that enable parasites to evade our immune defences are clear examples of what Dembski would term CSI, whereas Behe regards these genes as 'devolved' from an initially perfect creation.

However, neither Behe nor Dembski adequately addresses the question of who or what designed the immune system itself. Was it the same designer responsible for Dembski's complex specified information, or was it Behe's designer of an initial, perfect creation? If we consider Dembski's argument, it raises a critical question: where is the intelligence in designing an immune system to protect organisms against pathogens created by the very same designer? Regarding Behe's perspective, if the immune system were part of the initial perfect design, why would the designer anticipate 'The Fall' and its consequences unless it was intentionally planned? Alternatively, did all organisms possessing immune defences receive an upgrade after 'The Fall', indicating a supposedly omniscient deity initially failed to foresee the need for such protection? This then raises the question, is the designer either not omniscient or not competent, or did it plan for the 'Fall' and the suffering caused by parasites all along?

Not only are there these gaping flaws in creationism's attempts to account for the immune system within their own theology, including its failure to protect us and its propensity to attack us because the delicate balance referred to above is not robust enough or sensitive enough. The fact is that a perfectly designed immune system should make much of medical science redundant. However, the evidence continues to accumulate that the immune system, like the rest of biology is not the result of intelligent design but of an evolutionary process with all its inherent faults, constraints and inevitable suboptimal compromises.

Evidence strongly supporting the theory that IPF is the result of an autoimmune response by an over-sensitive immune system has been provided by a team of researchers led by Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA. Their findings are being published in the European Respiratory Journal and are described in Rutgers Today:

Refuting Creationism - How New Genetic Information Arises - Naturally

Scientists uncover key mechanism in evolution: Whole-genome duplication drives long-term adaptation | Research

Evolved macroscopic "snowflake" yeast from the MuLTEE experiment. The large size of the nuclei (yellow) and cells (cyan) are results of whole-genome duplication and aneuploidy.

Credit: Ratcliff Lab

It is a common claim in creationist circles, despite clear evidence to the contrary, that information theory prevents the creation of new genetic information. They argue incorrectly that Shannon Information Theory dictates that the total amount of information in the universe is fixed. According to this flawed view, creating new genetic information would violate the First Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

However, this interpretation demonstrates a misunderstanding of both thermodynamics and Shannon Information Theory, as well as how these concepts relate to genetic information. In reality, the creation of new genetic information can be readily observed each time cells replicate, as the total genetic content effectively doubles, The elements the 'information' is composed of are neither created nor destroyed in the process and, as the result of chemical processes, there is less energy in the system, so the laws of thermodynamics are conserved.

Gene duplication and entire genome duplication (polyploidy) are common occurrences in biology, particularly within the plant kingdom, where tetraploidy — possessing twice the usual diploid number of chromosomes — frequently arises. It is also sometime seen in arthropods, amphibians and reptiles.

Tetraploidy often appears spontaneously in laboratory populations of various organisms. Typically, without selective pressures favouring polyploid states, these conditions tend to revert to diploidy after several generations. However, recent studies by scientists at Georgia Tech, conducting multicellular long-term evolution (MuLTEE) research with 'snowflake yeast', Saccharomyces cerevisiae, have demonstrated that under specific selective pressures, polyploidy can become stable and confer advantageous survival traits to the organism.

The selection pressure in this case was selecting the largest yeast cells from which to produce the next generation. The researchers discovered that polyploidy had arisen early on in the experiment, after about 10 generations, and polyploid cells tended to be the largest cells, so a polyploid strain quickly arose and remained polyploid over thousands of generations - far longer than would be expected if selection had been random or unrelated to cell size.

Refuting Creationism - How A Couple of Chance Mutations Led to Big Brains in Humans

Microscopic image of a section of an electroporated, genetically modified chimpanzee brain organoid. Cell nuclei in blue, precursor cells in magenta, electroporated, genetically modified cells in green and dividing cells in orange.

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Homo habilis is an extinct hominid species that lived between 2.8 and 1.5 million years ago. It is considered to be one of the earliest members of the genus Homo, and its name means "handy man" in Latin, reflecting its ability to make and use tools.

How did the large brain evolve? | DPZ

Creationists often struggle to explain why closely related species share identical genes located at the same locus on the same chromosome, typically resorting to the argument of common design rather than common descent. Even more challenging for creationists is when these shared genes exhibit slight modifications that result in significant differences between species, strongly supporting descent with modification.

A compelling recent example involves two genes, NBPF14 and NOTCH2NLB, identified by researchers from the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ) and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics. These genes, modified specifically in humans, appear to explain the larger and more complex human brain compared to chimpanzees and bonobos. The research shows that NBPF14 and NOTCH2NLB act synergistically: one gene increases the production of neural progenitor cells, while the other facilitates their transformation into neurons capable of forming more extensive neural connections.

Together, these genetic modifications account for the remarkable increase in the size and complexity of the human brain relative to our closest primate relatives.

For an explanation of how two mutations with a low probability can quickly spread through the gene pool when they act synergistically, see my book Twenty Reasons To Reject Creationism: Understanding Evolution, pages 17-20, in which, using the example of a bacterium and two beneficial mutations acting synergistically, I show that the time take for 50% of the population to have both mutations is actually shorter than the time for 50% of the population to have just one mutation because, the accelerating effect of synergy increases the probability of both being inherited together.

This can explain why a large-brained archaic hominin appeared relatively suddenly in the fossil record. As we shall see, the fact that at least one of our ancestral species went through a narrow genetic bottleneck was ultimately highly beneficial because this reduces the time taken for the whole gene pool to acquire a neutral mutation by genetic drift alone.

Refuting Creationism - How Earth Was Really Formed

Impression of molten Earth at 300 million years old

AI-Generated image (Chat GPT4.5)

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Artistic view of Earth’s interior during mantle solidification in the first hundreds of millions of years of Earth’s history. Gravitational segregation of dense, iron-rich magma (in orange) likely formed a basal magma ocean atop the core, that can explain the present-day structure of the lower mantle.

York U research sheds light on earliest days of Earth’s formation - News@York

According to creationist mythology, approximately 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, a supernatural entity conjured Earth into existence out of nothing. This planet, according to the myth, was initially a small, flat surface covered by a dome, centred around the vicinity of the Middle East.

In stark contrast to this mythological narrative, scientific evidence reveals a completely different history — one so profoundly distinct that any metaphorical interpretation of the myth quickly collapses under scrutiny. The Earth is neither flat nor limited to a small region around the ancient Canaanite hills; nor does it possess a dome overhead. No amount of linguistic gymnastics can transform that ancient depiction into anything remotely resembling Earth, although it may well have resembled the perception of Earth from the point of view of scientifically illiterate Bronze Age pastoralists who had never travelled more than a day or two's walk from their homeland and who though the sky was blue because of all the water above the transparent dome overhead.

As though any more refutation of the idea that the Bible contains an inerrant account of actual history, a recent study by a research team led by Assistant Professor Charles-Édouard Boukaré from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at York University in Toronto, Canada, sheds new light on Earth's early geological development. Their research demonstrates how Earth gradually cooled over its first 100 million years, providing valuable insights into the planet’s current thermochemical internal structure.

Refuting Creationism - Students Discover How The Mammalian Immune System Evolved.

Nebraska undergrads uncover ancient secrets of human immunity | Nebraska Today

(C–F) Expanded views of the interaction interface between STAT2 CCD and IRF9 IAD for mouse (C), human (D), Hypanus sabinus (E), and Stegostoma tigrinum (F). The interactions are observed in the crystal structure of the mouse STAT2-IRF9 complex (PDB ID: 5OEN) [19.1]. For humans and the two cartilaginous fishes, the interactions are based on the modeled structures of the STAT2-IRF9 complex. The key residues involved in the interface are labeled. The phenylalanine (F) on the STAT2 protein is colored in green. The four residues forming the cleft on the IRF9 protein are colored in magenta. The corresponding sequences of the interface area and other details are found in Supporting Information S1: Figure S3.

Recent research conducted by undergraduate students at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has provided compelling insights into the evolutionary development of the human immune system. Under the guidance of Professor Luwen Zhang, students Vanessa Hubing, Avery Marquis, and Chanasei Ziemann co-authored two significant studies published in the Journal of Medical Virology. Their work elucidates the progression of immune regulatory mechanisms in vertebrates, highlighting the transition to more complex systems with the evolution of jaws. Additionally, they explored how a pseudogene, potentially introduced into primate DNA via a retrovirus approximately 60 million years ago, may have enhanced ancestral immune responses.

These findings offer robust evidence supporting the theory of evolution by demonstrating the gradual and adaptive changes in genetic material that have led to sophisticated immune functions in humans. The identification of a pseudogene's integration into primate DNA and its subsequent role in immunity exemplifies natural selection's influence on genetic composition over millions of years. Such evidence challenges creationist perspectives by providing concrete examples of evolutionary processes shaping complex biological systems, underscoring the dynamic nature of genetic evolution in response to environmental pressures.

During the course of evolution, these factors have evolved as additional layers of complexity to improve and refine a system which, as the product of an unplanned, utilitarian evolutionary process was a suboptimal compromise between the tendencies to over-react to some infections and fail to respond to others. An intelligently-designed sytem would need no such regulatory mechanisms. This is how we can tell that such overly-complex systems were not intelligently designed.