Malevolent Designer News - How A Bacterium Is 'Intelligently Designed' To Spread Disease

Blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis

Bacteria hijack tick cell defenses to spread disease | WSU Insider

Here we have yet another example demonstrating that, if we apply Discovery Institute fellow William A. Dembski's criteria for proving intelligent design — namely the presence of complex specified genetic information — then we must conclude that creationism's supposed intelligent designer is, in fact, a malevolent force devising ever more sophisticated ways to inflict suffering on the world.

Once again, honest creationists are left with a stark dilemma: either complex specified information is indeed evidence of design, in which case the designer is malevolent, or it is not, in which case a central tenet of Intelligent Design creationism collapses. The dishonest ones, of course, will simply dismiss the evidence, likely misrepresent the science, and continue to bear false witness against scientists. In neither case should we expect creationists to admit that the theory of evolution fully accounts for the appearance of "malevolent" design, arising naturally without conscious intent or divine interference.

It’s a curious paradox that people who claim to worship the God of the Bible as an omnibenevolent, anthropophilic being are so often willing to see that deity cast in the role of a malevolent agent—so long as they can reject the theory of evolution. This strongly suggests that their opposition to evolution is not primarily theological, but political.

The latest example comes from the tick-borne pathogen Anaplasma, which causes anaplasmosis and contributes to Lyme disease. This bacterium hijacks the cellular machinery of ticks to ensure its own survival and transmission to new hosts, including humans. Although Dembski has famously avoided providing a rigorous, testable definition of "complex specified genetic information," any such definition would surely encompass genetic adaptations that promote survival and reproduction.

This discovery was made by researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University (WSU). Their findings have just been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and are explained in lay terms in WSU Insider, the university's online news outlet.

What information do you have on Anaplasma and the tick that transmits it? Anaplasma is a genus of bacteria that includes several species capable of causing disease in humans and animals. The most medically relevant species is Anaplasma phagocytophilum, which causes anaplasmosis—a tick-borne disease that affects both humans and various mammals.

1. Overview of Anaplasma
   • Anaplasma are obligate intracellular bacteria in the family Anaplasmataceae.
   • They primarily infect white blood cells (especially neutrophils in the case of A. phagocytophilum).
   • Disease is often seasonal, peaking during the months of high tick activity (late spring to early autumn in temperate zones).
   
   
2. Disease in Humans
   • Caused mainly by Anaplasma phagocytophilum.
   • Known as Human Granulocytic Anaplasmosis (HGA).
   • Symptoms include:
     • Fever, chills, headache
     • Muscle aches
     • Malaise
     • Occasionally gastrointestinal symptoms (nausea, vomiting)
     • In severe cases: respiratory failure, organ failure, neurological symptoms
   • Incubation period: ~5–14 days after a tick bite.
   • Treatment: Responds well to doxycycline, especially if started early.
   • If untreated, it can lead to complications, especially in the elderly or immunocompromised.
   
   
3. Tick Vectors
   • The primary vector in the United States is the blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis), also called the deer tick.
   • In Europe, the main vector is the castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus).
   • These are the same ticks that transmit Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) and Babesia (babesiosis), leading to frequent co-infections.
   
   
4. Hosts and Reservoirs
   • Main animal reservoirs include:
     • White-tailed deer
     • Rodents
     • Small mammals
   • Ticks acquire the bacteria when feeding on an infected host and then transmit it during subsequent feedings.
   
   
5. Biological Strategy of the Pathogen
   
   Recent research (such as the 2025 WSU referenced) shows that Anaplasmacan:
   • Hijack the tick's cellular defence mechanisms, particularly its oxidative stress response, allowing the bacteria to survive within the tick's gut.
   • Manipulate the cell death pathways of tick cells, suppressing apoptosis (programmed cell death) to extend the viability of the cells it infects.
   • Modify gene expression in the tick to enhance its own survival and transmission potential.
   
   These mechanisms qualify as highly sophisticated biological strategies—precisely the sort of adaptations that Intelligent Design proponents would struggle to explain without appealing to either special pleading or malevolent intent.
   
   
6. Ecological and Public Health Impact
   • Geographic spread is increasing, partly due to climate change, which expands the habitat range of ticks.
   • Public health monitoring is challenged by co-infections and misdiagnosis (HGA is often confused with Lyme disease or viral infections).
   • Preventative strategies include tick checks, repellents, and public awareness campaigns.

Bacteria hijack tick cell defenses to spread disease

---

Washington State University researchers have discovered how the bacteria that cause anaplasmosis and Lyme disease hijack cellular processes in ticks to ensure their survival and spread to new hosts, including humans.

---

Based in the College of Veterinary Medicine, the team found that the bacteria can manipulate a protein known as ATF6, which helps cells detect and respond to infection, to support its own growth and survival inside the tick. The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could serve as a launching point for developing methods to eliminate the bacteria in ticks before they are transmitted to humans and other animals.

Most research has looked at how these bacteria interact with humans and animals and not how they survive and spread in ticks. What we have found could open the door to targeting these pathogens in ticks, before they are ever a threat to people.

Kaylee A. Vosbigian, lead author
Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology
College of Veterinary Sciences
Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.

Vosbigian and her advisor, Dana Shaw, the corresponding author of the study and an associate professor in the Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, focused their research on Ixodes scapularis, also known as the black-legged tick, which is responsible for spreading both Anaplasma phagocytophilum and Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agents of anaplasmosis and Lyme disease. Both diseases are becoming increasingly common and can cause serious illness in humans and animals.

The team discovered that when ATF6 is activated in tick cells, it triggers the production of stomatin, a protein that helps move cholesterol through cells as part of a normal cellular processes. The bacteria exploit this process against their tick hosts, using the cholesterol — which they need to grow and build their own cell membranes but cannot produce themselves — to support their own survival and success.

Stomatin plays a variety of roles in the cell, but one of its key functions is helping shuttle cholesterol to different areas. The bacteria take advantage of this, essentially stealing the cholesterol they need to survive.

Kaylee A. Vosbigian

When the researchers blocked the production of stomatin, restricting the availability of cholesterol, bacterial growth is significantly reduced. The researchers believe this shows targeting the ATF6-stomatin pathway could lead to new methods for interrupting the disease cycle in ticks before transmission occurs.

As part of the study, Vosbigian also developed a new research tool called ArthroQuest, a free, web-based platform hosted by WSU that allows scientists to search the genomes of ticks, mosquitoes, lice, sand flies, mites, fleas and other arthropod vectors for transcription factor binding sites — genetic switches like ATF6 that control gene activity.

There aren’t many tools out there for studying gene regulation in arthropods. Most are built for humans or model species like fruit flies, which are genetically very different from ticks.

Kaylee A. Vosbigian

Using ArthroQuest, the team found that ATF6-regulated control of stomatin appears to be prevalent in blood-feeding arthropods. Since the hijacking of cholesterol and other lipids is common among arthropod-borne pathogens, the researchers suspect many may also exploit ATF6.

We know many other vector-borne pathogens, like Borrelia burgdorferi and the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium, rely on cholesterol and other lipids from their hosts. So, the fact that this ATF6-stomatin pathway exists in other arthropods could be relevant to a wide range of disease systems.

Assistant Professor Dana K. Shaw, corresponding author.
Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology
College of Veterinary Sciences
Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.

Publication:

K.A. Vosbigian,S.J. Wright,B.P. Steiert,K.L. Rosche,E.A. Fisk,E. Ramirez-Zepp,J.M. Park,E.A. Shelden,& D.K. Shaw
ATF6 enables pathogen infection in ticks by inducing stomatin and altering cholesterol dynamics
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (25) e2501045122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501045122 (2025).

Significance
Infection dynamics for tick-borne pathogens like Anaplasma have primarily been studied in mammals. Comparatively less is known about tick–pathogen interactions. We found that Anaplasma activates the stress response receptor, ATF6, in ticks. Activated ATF6 functions as a transcriptional regulator. Using a custom script in R, we identified stomatin as an ATF6-regulated target that supports Anaplasma by modulating cholesterol trafficking. Our custom tool “ArthroQuest” revealed that the ATF6-regulated nature of stomatin is unique to arthropods. Given that lipid hijacking is common among arthropod-borne microbes, ATF6-mediated induction of stomatin may be exploited in many vector–pathogen relationships. In addition, our findings predict that there are many ATF6-regulated genes unique to ticks, highlighting that there is still much to be uncovered.

Abstract
How tick-borne pathogens interact with their hosts has been primarily studied in vertebrates where disease is observed. Comparatively less is known about pathogen interactions within the tick. Here, we report that Ixodes scapularis ticks infected with either Anaplasma phagocytophilum (causative agent of anaplasmosis) or Borrelia burgdorferi (causative agent of Lyme disease) show activation of the ATF6 branch of the unfolded protein response (UPR). Disabling ATF6 functionally restricts pathogen survival in ticks. When stimulated, ATF6 functions as a transcription factor, but is the least understood out of the three UPR pathways. To interrogate the Ixodes ATF6 transcriptional network, we developed a custom R script to query tick promoter sequences. This revealed stomatin as a potential gene target, which has roles in lipid homeostasis and vesical transport. Ixodes stomatin was experimentally validated as a bona fide ATF6-regulated gene through luciferase reporter assays, pharmacological activators, RNA interference transcriptional repression, and immunofluorescence microscopy. Silencing stomatin decreased A. phagocytophilum colonization in Ixodes and disrupted cholesterol dynamics in tick cells. Furthermore, blocking stomatin restricted cholesterol availability to the bacterium, thereby inhibiting growth and survival. Taken together, we have identified the Ixodes ATF6 pathway as a contributor to vector competence through Stomatin-regulated cholesterol homeostasis. Moreover, our custom, web-based transcription factor binding site search tool “ArthroQuest” revealed that the ATF6-regulated nature of stomatin is unique to blood-feeding arthropods. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of studying fundamental processes in nonmodel organisms.

The North American deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, can transmit up to seven different pathogens that impact human and animal health including Anaplasma phagocytophilum (causative agent of anaplasmosis) and Borrelia burgdorferi (causative agent of Lyme disease) (1). The continuous rise in reported cases of tick-borne disease (2–10) underscores the need for novel intervention strategies. Although the intricacies of mammalian host–pathogen interactions have been well studied, comparatively little is known about tick–pathogen interactions.

Recently we have shown that A. phagocytophilum and B. burgdorferi activate the unfolded protein response (UPR) in ticks, which influences microbial colonization and persistence in the arthropod (11, 12). The UPR is a cellular response network that is initiated by three endoplasmic reticulum (ER) transmembrane receptors IRE1α, PERK, and ATF6. Each branch of the UPR initiates a signaling cascade and coordinates gene expression networks by activating specific transcription factors. We have shown that the IRE1α-TRAF2 pathway leads to microbe-restricting immune responses in arthropods by activating the NF-κB-like molecule, Relish (11). We have also demonstrated that stimulating PERK activates the antioxidant transcription factor, Nrf2, which facilitates pathogen persistence in ticks (12). Out of the three UPR receptors, ATF6 is the least understood (13). When activated, site-1 and site-2 proteases cleave the cytosolic portion of ATF6, which allows it to translocate to the nucleus and act as a transcriptional regulator (nATF6) (14). The role of ATF6 has never been explored in arthropod vectors.

Here, we demonstrate that Ixodes ATF6 is activated by tick-borne pathogens and supports A. phagocytophilum colonization in ticks. To determine how ATF6 impacts vector competence, we used protein modeling and a custom transcription factor binding site query to probe the ATF6 regulatory network in I. scapularis. Gene ontology (GO) and Reactome analyses identified Stomatin, a lipid homeostasis and vesical transport protein, as a potential gene regulated by ATF6 in ticks. Using pharmacological manipulations, RNA interference (RNAi), quantitative fluorescent assays, and immunofluorescence microscopy, we found that Stomatin supports pathogen colonization in ticks by facilitating cholesterol acquisition by the bacterium. These findings demonstrate that stomatin is induced during the arthropod-phase of the pathogen life cycle to enable survival and persistence in the vector.

Programs that predict transcription factor regulatory networks are generally restricted to model organisms, leaving out many arthropod vectors. We used our custom R script to develop a publicly available, web-based tool termed “ArthroQuest” that currently allows users to query 20 different arthropod vector genomes, in addition to Drosophila and humans. Queries with ArthroQuest revealed that the ATF6-regulated nature of stomatin appears to be unique to arthropods. Given that lipid hijacking and cholesterol incorporation is common in many arthropod-borne microbes (15), ATF6-mediated induction of stomatin may be a shared phenomenon among many vector–pathogen relationships that is exploited for the survival and persistence of transmissible pathogens.

K.A. Vosbigian,S.J. Wright,B.P. Steiert,K.L. Rosche,E.A. Fisk,E. Ramirez-Zepp,J.M. Park,E.A. Shelden,& D.K. Shaw
ATF6 enables pathogen infection in ticks by inducing stomatin and altering cholesterol dynamics
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 122 (25) e2501045122, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2501045122 (2025).

Copyright: ©2025 The authors.
Published by the National Academy of Sciences of the USA. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

This discovery poses a significant problem for proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) creationism because it challenges one of their core assertions: that complex specified information (CSI) within genetic material is a reliable indicator of an intelligent, purposeful designer. If we accept this premise, then we are compelled to ask why such intelligence would devote itself to crafting mechanisms that cause suffering, disease, and death—such as the ability of Anaplasma to hijack tick cell defences and ensure its own propagation at the expense of both ticks and mammalian hosts, including humans.

The usual ID response is to insist that their designer is benevolent — typically equated with the God of the Bible. But here, we are faced with a biological system so well-adapted to spreading infection that it must either be acknowledged as a product of evolutionary processes or attributed to a designer with malevolent intent. This is not a fringe example; it is one of many cases where nature reveals a level of intricate adaptation that ID advocates would normally cite as evidence for design, were it not so profoundly disturbing.

What this ultimately reveals is the theological inconsistency at the heart of ID creationism. The refusal to acknowledge the explanatory power of evolution, even when confronted with examples like Anaplasma, indicates that ID is not a scientific theory but a religious or ideological stance. The selective application of their own criteria — applauding "design" in butterflies but ignoring it in parasites — exposes the intellectual dishonesty behind the movement. Evolution, by contrast, provides a consistent and naturalistic framework that explains both the beautiful and the brutal features of the living world — without invoking a morally compromised designer.

---

Advertisement
The Malevolent Designer: Why Nature's God is Not Good

This book presents the reader with multiple examples of why, even if we accept Creationism's putative intelligent designer, any such entity can only be regarded as malevolent, designing ever-more ingenious ways to make life difficult for living things, including humans, for no other reason than the sheer pleasure of doing so. This putative creator has also given other creatures much better things like immune systems, eyesight and ability to regenerate limbs that it could have given to all its creation, including humans, but chose not to. This book will leave creationists with the dilemma of explaining why evolution by natural selection is the only plausible explanation for so many nasty little parasites that doesn't leave their creator looking like an ingenious, sadistic, misanthropic, malevolence finding ever more ways to increase pain and suffering in the world, and not the omnibenevolent, maximally good god that Creationists of all Abrahamic religions believe created everything. As with a previous book by this author, "The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting the Intelligent Design Hoax", this book comprehensively refutes any notion of intelligent design by anything resembling a loving, intelligent and maximally good god. Such evil could not exist in a universe created by such a god. Evil exists, therefore a maximally good, all-knowing, all-loving god does not.

Illustrated by Catherine Webber-Hounslow.

---

The Unintelligent Designer: Refuting The Intelligent Design Hoax

ID is not a problem for science; rather science is a problem for ID. This book shows why. It exposes the fallacy of Intelligent Design by showing that, when examined in detail, biological systems are anything but intelligently designed. They show no signs of a plan and are quite ludicrously complex for whatever can be described as a purpose. The Intelligent Design movement relies on almost total ignorance of biological science and seemingly limitless credulity in its target marks. Its only real appeal appears to be to those who find science too difficult or too much trouble to learn yet want their opinions to be regarded as at least as important as those of scientists and experts in their fields.

---

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

Amazon

All titles available in paperback, hardcover, ebook for Kindle and audio format.

Prices correct at time of publication. for current prices.

Advertisement

Thank you for sharing!

Tweet Link

Refuting Creationism - The Mass Extinction 252 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'

Dr Zhen Xu on fieldwork in China.

Image credit: Zhen Xu

Pre-extinction tropical rainforest seed fern, Gigantopteris, (giant leaves)

Dr Zhen Xu.

New fossils reveal climate tipping point in most famous mass extinction | University of Leeds

Creationists claim that Earth is only a few thousand years old and that it was created perfectly and finely tuned for life—brought into existence without ancestors, from nothing, by means of supernatural command. Their evidence for this extraordinary claim rests on the beliefs of Bronze Age pastoralists who imagined Earth as small, flat, and covered by a solid dome. These ancient myths were eventually written down, bound up in a book later declared by people with a vested interest, to be divinely inspired and historically accurate.

Science, by contrast, presents a very different picture. Far from being a perfect and finely tuned haven for life, Earth is a dynamic and often hostile planet. Life persists here not because conditions are universally benign, but because a small number of organisms have evolved to thrive within narrow environmental niches. Throughout Earth’s long history, global conditions have periodically tipped into extremes so severe that they triggered mass extinction events. Unlike creationist claims, these conclusions are supported by tangible, testable evidence.

One such event—known as the Great Dying—occurred around 252 million years ago, relatively recent in the planet’s \~4.5 billion-year history. This catastrophe, the most severe extinction event known, was likely triggered by intense volcanic activity that caused a rapid and sustained rise in global temperatures. The resulting climate shift led to the collapse of tropical forests, which in turn reduced the planet’s capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon, driving further warming. This cascade of ecological breakdown led to the loss of most marine species and widespread collapse of terrestrial ecosystems.

The outcome was a planetary heatwave that lasted for approximately five million years.

New evidence for the role of rainforest collapse in both the onset and the recovery from the Great Dying has been presented by an international team of scientists, led by researchers from the University of Leeds and the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Their findings are detailed in a recent paper published in Nature Communications and summarised in a news release from the University of Leeds.

Malevolent Design - How Having a Bigger Brain Made Humans More Vulnerable To Cancer Than Our Chimpanzee Cousins

A Single Genetic Mutation May Have Made Humans More Vulnerable to Cancer Than Chimpanzees | Newswise

According to creationists, humans are the designer’s special creation, and the Universe, Earth, and all life upon it were created solely for our benefit.

If that were the case, one might reasonably expect human design to be uniquely perfect—free from disease and physical defects. Yet, paradoxically, we are more prone to cancer than our closest evolutionary relatives, the other great apes. Recent research from the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests that this heightened cancer susceptibility may be linked to the very mutation that enabled us to develop our comparatively large brains.

It’s almost as though the 'designer' either deliberately endowed humans with a cancer-promoting mutation or failed to anticipate the consequences of the so-called "complex specified genetic information" (© William A. Dembski / Discovery Institute) introduced to facilitate brain growth—and then neglected to revise the design when the flaw became evident. But, of course, being omniscient, we have to assume, if we accept creationists dogma for the sake of argument, it knew full well what the consequences of its design would be and designed them with that consequence in mind.

The theory of evolution, of course, precisely predicts these kinds of suboptimal trade-offs and their consequences. As an undirected, uncaring process, evolution is concerned solely with reproductive success—not with long-term health, perfection, or ideal design.

Creationism Refuted - Ancient DNA From Before Noah's Flood Shows Genetic Diversity

Final facial depiction of the Nuwayrat individual.

Morez Jacobs, A., Irish, J.D., Cooke, A. et al. (2025)

Geographic location of the Nuwayrat cemetery (red dot), and the previously sequenced Third Intermediate period individuals from Abusir-el Meleq (purple diamond).

Credit: Adeline Morez Jacobs.

Researchers sequence first genome from ancient Egypt | Crick

According to the biblical narrative, the entire human population of Earth was reduced to just eight related individuals around 4,000 years ago, following a global, genocidal flood — a flood which, curiously, left no trace.

Now, as is almost invariably the case, new scientific evidence is entirely inconsistent with that narrative. The genetic analysis of an individual who lived and died in Egypt between 4,500 and 4,800 years ago shows that he was approximately 80% North African, with the remaining 20% of his DNA tracing to the vicinity of Mesopotamia.

Historical evidence also shows that, long before the supposed global flood, agriculture-based civilisations had been established in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. These societies had already formed trading networks and cultural connections, and left behind artefacts — including stone structures and buried remains — which would have been completely obliterated by the kind of flood described in the Bible.

Pottery vessel in which the Nuwayrat individual was discovered.

Image: Garstang Museum of Archaeology, University of Liverpool.

More telling still is that, by 4,500 years ago, the human population — which, according to the biblical account, had only recently descended from a single family via incestuous inbreeding — had already diversified to the point that measurable genetic differences existed between the Egyptian and Mesopotamian populations. This diversity is what made such DNA analysis possible in the first place.

The analysis of this individual’s genome — the oldest Egyptian DNA recovered to date — was carried out by researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), UK. They have just published their findings, open access, in Nature.

Malevolent Designer - How A Common Virus Sneaks Past Our Immune System And Causes Birth Defects

Scientists Uncover How a Common Herpes Virus Outsmarts the Immune System | School of Medicine | University of Pittsburgh.

Intelligent (sic) Design creationists have painted themselves into a corner.

Two of their most prominent arguments—irreducible complexity (Michael J. Behe) and complex specified information (William A. Dembski)—are intended to demonstrate the involvement of an intelligent designer in the natural world. But when these same criteria are applied to harmful parasitic organisms, such as the common herpesvirus (cytomegalovirus), which is the leading infectious cause of birth defects in the United States, the implication is that this virus too is the product of intentional design by the same creator that ID proponents insist is responsible for all life.

Within the framework of Intelligent Design creationism, the conclusion is inescapable: their designer deity—typically equated with the omniscient, omnibenevolent god of the Christian Bible—knowingly and deliberately created a pathogen that causes immense suffering. If ID logic is followed consistently, their deity is not a benevolent creator but a malevolent force that engineers disease and deformity with full foreknowledge of the consequences.

The only escape from this theological and philosophical bind is for ID creationists to refute their own criteria—to claim that irreducible complexity and complex specified information are compelling proof of design when found in beneficial biological systems, but somehow irrelevant or invalid when found in destructive pathogens. In doing so, they are forced to hold two mutually exclusive beliefs simultaneously.

In reality, these hallmarks of design touted by ID advocates are common outcomes of natural evolutionary processes — especially arms races between host defences and parasitic invaders. These processes are inherently unguided and wasteful, which in itself refutes the idea of intelligent planning.

Another striking example of this evolutionary struggle has just been published in Nature Microbiology by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. Their study sheds light on how the herpesvirus has evolved sophisticated strategies to evade the immune system — a feature that ID logic would classify as evidence of "design."

Refuting Creationism - Evidence of Humans In America 13,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Human footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, reported in 2021, show that human activity occurred in the Americas as long as 23,000 years ago – about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. A new U of A study supports the 2021 findings.

Courtesy of David Bustos/
White Sands National Park

Earliest evidence of humans in the Americas confirmed in new U of A study | University of Arizona News

Fig. 3. Alkali Flat east escarpment.
(A) WHSA Locality 2 (view east) (Fig. 2B) with exposure of alluvial beds and palustrine beds along the escarpment. Stratum 1 is exposed in the foreground (comprising the eastern margin of Alkali Flat), but in this photo, it is dried out and covered with a thin sheet of eolian gypsum sand. The finely bedded sands and muds of Stratum 2A comprise the low escarpment in the middle ground, expressed by the thin, horizontal ledges formed by differential weathering of the stream beds. The trench exposing human tracks in Stratum 2A is at the left.

Vance T. Holliday et al.(2025)

Fig. 1. Field area setting.
The northern Tularosa Basin showing the area of the White Sands (“Gypsum Sand Dunes”), the Alkali Fat deflation basin, modern Lake Lucero, and present-day Lost River, which drains southwest across the distal piedmont until it is buried by the gypsum dunes (see also fig. S4). The 1204-m contour line approximates the proposed extent of paleolake Otero (15). It was likely more extensive given the >4 m of lake beds at “G.” The two field areas (red dots) are as follows: “G” is the area of Gypsum Overlook, the Central study area, and WHSA Locality 2; “Loc 1” is a stratigraphic section along the west margin of Alkali Flat. The brown pattern at G is the area of exposures of deposits linked to paleolake Otero and overlain by truncated Holocene dunes (31). The inset shows the location of the White Sands and the Tularosa Basin within New Mexico [based on figure 1 in (31)].

Image credit: X. Gong and A. Cowart, University of Wisconsin Cartography Lab.
Vance T. Holliday et al.(2025)

The Bronze Age Middle Eastern authors of the Bible clearly knew little of the world beyond a few days' walk from their homes in the Canaanite Hills. The world they described — and the stories they invented to fill the vast gaps in their knowledge — contained nothing unfamiliar to them. They had no way of knowing the true age of the Earth or the Universe, which they imagined to be fixed and immobile. They knew nothing of the history of living or extinct species, nor of the compelling evidence for common ancestry stretching back hundreds of thousands, even tens of millions, of years. And they were entirely unaware of the existence of other peoples living in distant lands, across vast oceans on other continents.

It should come as no surprise, then, that they got so much wrong, and that their writings omitted nearly everything science has since revealed about human origins. We now know that Homo sapiens diversified from archaic ancestors in Africa and gradually spread across the globe—migrating over land bridges now submerged by rising sea levels and eventually reaching the Americas.

Almost all of this is well-established in modern science, with the only significant uncertainty remaining around the precise timing of the first human colonisation of the Americas from Siberia. Bible literalists attempt to sidestep this discrepancy between the scientific evidence and the biblical narrative by postulating, without any supporting evidence, that the Bible was authored by an omniscient creator god. They argue that any contradiction with scientific findings must be due to mistaken interpretation, not error in the Bible. In essence, their reasoning runs: “The Bible was written by an all-knowing god because the Bible says so—therefore, any conflicting evidence must be wrong.” Instead of critically examining the claims of Bronze Age hill farmers, they demand that science must bend to fit ancient, unsubstantiated assertions.

One striking example of the scientific evidence at odds with biblical literalism is the recent confirmation that human footprints discovered at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, are 23,000 years old—some 13,000 years older than biblical literalists believe the Earth itself to be.

These footprints were discovered in 2021 and initially dated to 23,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier than the previously accepted earliest human presence in the Americas. While this early date was controversial, a team led by Professor Vance Holliday of the University of Arizona’s School of Anthropology and Department of Geosciences has now re-evaluated the evidence and confirmed the original finding.

The team has just published their findings, open access, in Science, with an explanation in an official University of Arizona news release.

Refuting Creationism - The 'Abiogenesis Gap' Just Got a Little Bit Smaller

Image generated with Adobe Stock by Josef Kuster / ETH Zürich)

How urea forms spontaneously | ETH Zürich

Graphical representation of urea formation in a droplet.

Figure: Luis Quintero / ETH Zürich.

Creationism's ever-shrinking, gap-shaped creator god has just lost a little more ground. New research suggests that the formation of basic organic molecules may have been far easier under early Earth conditions than previously thought. Remarkably, scientists have found that urea—a key organic compound—can form spontaneously from ammonia and carbon dioxide on the surface of water droplets. This process requires no catalysts, no high pressure or heat, and consumes minimal energy.

Although vitalism was refuted as early as 1828 — decades before Darwin — creationists still claim that life cannot arise from non-living matter. Yet they quickly retreat when asked how dead food becomes living tissue, or what exactly they mean by ‘life’: a substance, a process, or some kind of magical force. In reality, life is a set of chemical processes, and at its core, it’s about managing entropy—using energy to maintain order against the natural drift toward disorder.

The discovery was made by researchers at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zürich in collaboration with colleagues from Auburn University in Alabama, USA. Their findings have just been published in Science.

Refuting Creationism - Observed Evolution Over 125 Years!

Skull and skin from a vole, collected in 1898 in Chicago.

Authors Stephanie Smith and Anderson Feijó examining chipmunk specimens in the Field Museum’s collections.

Chicago’s rodents are evolving to handle city living - Field Museum

The knee-jerk response from any creationist worth his or her salt, when shown evidence of observed instances of evolution, is to demand a redefinition of the term *evolution*—away from its scientific meaning of a change in allele frequency in a population over time, and towards the creationist’s caricature: a species instantaneously transforming into an entirely unrelated taxon. This is, of course, something evolutionary biologists have never claimed, and which—if it ever occurred—would actually refute the Theory of Evolution.

This is the all-too-familiar, disingenuous tactic of setting the bar impossibly high for one’s opponent, while keeping it at ground level for one’s own evidence-free superstition.

So, for those creationists more interested in finding workarounds to ease the cognitive dissonance between what they would like the facts to be and what science actually shows, than learning the truth about the world around us, the news that researchers at Chicago’s Field Museum have demonstrated evolutionary change in the city’s rodent populations over the last 125 years will likely present little difficulty. They can always chant, “But it’s still a chipmunk/vole/etc., so not evolution!”

However, for those with the intellectual integrity and humility to base their opinions on observable evidence, rather than dismissing any evidence that doesn't conform to their preconceived alternative reality, this finding is a compelling vindication of a basic principle of the Theory of Evolution: that species change over time in response to environmental pressures.

The researchers have recently published their findings in the journal Integrative & Comparative Biology.

Refuting Creationism - The Universe Is Much Grander Than Our Prophets Ever Guessed.

This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF-DOE's Vera C. Rubin Observatory over just over seven hours of observing. Combining multiple images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that make up the Trifid Nebula (upper right) and the Lagoon Nebula, which are several thousand light-years from Earth.

© NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

Vera C. Rubin Observatory Unveils First Sky Images Taken with World's Largest Camera | CNRS

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1.6-10)

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.(Genesis 1.16-18)

How the Bible's authors saw the Universe.

Just imagine, there are adults alive today who believe that is the best available description of the universe, far surpassing for detail and accuracy anything that modern science, with all its sophisticated equipment can produce!

Compare it with what science is showing us it is really like and ask yourself whether a real creator god could have got it so badly wrong when describing its own creation.

Refuting Creationism - Why Modern Humans Took So Long To sucessfully Leave Africa.

Humans learned to thrive in a variety of African environments before their successful expansion into Eurasia roughly 50,000 years ago.

© Ondrej Pelanek and Martin Pelanek

Humans learned to thrive in a variety of African environments before their successful expansion into Eurasia roughly 50,000 years ago.

© Ondrej Pelanek and Martin Pelanek>

Before Dispersing out of Africa, Humans Learned to Thrive in Diverse Habitats

Despite what creationist dogma requires its adherents to believe, anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) were present in Africa for a considerable time before following their archaic ancestors, H. erectus and possibly H. heidelbergensis, out of Africa and into, primarily, South Asia. One find, reported in 2017, suggested that H. sapiens were in Morocco, North Africa, as early as 315,000 years ago. Yet they don’t appear to have made a successful migration out of Africa until about 50,000 years ago.

The question is: what took us so long?

Aside from the need for favourable climatic conditions — providing habitable routes with sufficient food and water for hunter-gatherers — new research suggests that the delay may also have been due to a simple lack of the necessary skills and experience to quickly adapt to unfamiliar environments. It may have taken that long for humans to spread widely enough across Africa to acquire those crucial adaptive skills. Once we had them, there was little to stop us from using them beyond Africa.

Of course, they would not have been migrating in the sense of deliberately moving into new territory, which would imply a detailed knowledge of geography, but were simply spreading naturally into suitable adjacent areas as their population grew.

This new research was conducted by a consortium of scientists led by Professor Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany, and Professor Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge, UK. By analysing a dataset of archaeological sites and environmental records spanning the last 120,000 years in Africa, the team determined that humans began expanding into a wider range of habitats within Africa around 70,000 years ago. Although there had been earlier windows of favourable climate for migration into Eurasia, these attempts appear to have failed. Between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago, however—despite more challenging conditions—the migration that ultimately succeeded took place. All non-African people today are descended from that event.

The consortium has recently published their findings open access in Nature. Their work is also explained in a Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology news item.

Refuting Creationism - The Cambrian 'Explosion' Just Blew Up In Creationists' Faces

Cambrian explosion may have occurred much earlier than previously thought - Current events - University of Barcelona

Creationists have long misrepresented the so-called "Cambrian Explosion" as vindication of their belief in the spontaneous creation of complex multicellular life ex nihilo — as though organisms simply appeared, fully formed, without precursors. They portray it as an instantaneous event that defies evolutionary explanation, and falsely claim that it presents an insurmountable problem for evolutionary biology. In doing so, they even misquote the late Stephen Jay Gould, asserting that he admitted Darwinian evolution could not account for it and so invented the concept of "punctuated equilibrium" to paper over the cracks.

In a particularly striking display of cognitive dissonance, this version of events — supposedly occurring half a billion years ago — is frequently cited by the same creationists who insist the Earth is only 6,000 to 10,000 years old.

As is so often the case with creationist arguments, these claims are simply wrong. The Cambrian Explosion was not an instantaneous event, but a prolonged evolutionary process unfolding over some 10 million years, with evidence showing a transition from the static Ediacaran biota to the more mobile, complex organisms of the Cambrian. Gould, far from being an opponent of evolutionary theory, remained a staunch evolutionary biologist throughout his career. His now largely outdated concept of punctuated equilibrium was never an alternative to evolution, but rather an attempt to explain the appearance of abrupt change in the fossil record — a perception largely due to the compression of deep time in the geological column. When properly scaled, the fossil record easily accommodates the gradual evolution of complex traits.

Trace fossils are an indicator of the palaeoecological conditions in which the organism that generated them lived.

Now, new research by Olmo Miguez Salas of the University of Barcelona and Zekun Wang of the Natural History Museum in London has uncovered compelling evidence that pushes the roots of the Cambrian Explosion even further back in time. Their findings suggest that signs of mobility and bilateral body plans were already emerging within the Ediacaran biota. This extends the evolutionary runway leading into the Cambrian, giving more time for the radiation of novel body plans and for the development of evolutionary arms races—such as the emergence of predation, defence mechanisms, and sensory adaptations.

Their results are published in the journal Geology (paper here) and summarised in a news release from the University of Barcelona.

Creationism Refuted - Now It's Frozen Wolf Cubs From 4,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

14,000-year-old frozen wolf cubs recovered from permafrost at the Syalakh site, Northern Siberia

Famous Ice Age ‘puppies’ likely wolf cubs and not dogs, study shows - News and events, University of York

The mountain of evidence that creationists must ignore to maintain their belief that Earth is a mere 6,000–10,000 years old—because it says so in a book of Bronze Age mythology—just got a little bigger. A new analysis of the DNA of two frozen canid cubs found in Siberian permafrost confirms they were wolves, not early domesticated dogs as once speculated. The cubs, discovered near the village of Tumat in northern Siberia, are around 14,000 years old and genetically similar to modern wolves.

An analysis of DNA from their stomach contents reveals a mixed diet of meat and plant matter, consistent with the diets of contemporary wolves. Remarkably, some of the meat—specifically skin—came from a woolly rhinoceros, likely a calf, as adult rhinos would have been far too large for wolves to hunt. An earlier study had identified black fur in the cubs, prompting speculation that they might be early domesticated dogs, since melanism is commonly associated with dogs but not typically seen in wolves. However, further genomic analysis showed that these cubs belonged to a now-extinct wolf population that was not ancestral to domestic dogs. This suggests the black fur mutation may have been limited to that specific lineage, contributing nothing to the modern dog gene pool.

The puppies were found at the Syalakh site, the first in 2011 and the second in 2015. The site also contains mammoth bones showing signs of burning and processing by humans. This initially led to speculation that the cubs might have been tame or semi-domesticated wolves associated with early humans. However, that hypothesis can now be ruled out based on the genetic evidence. It is believed that the cubs died when a landslide trapped them in their den shortly after their final meal.

How the wolf cubs came to be fed on the skin of a woolly rhinoceros remains uncertain, but one plausible explanation is that it was scavenged from a kill made by humans.

Refuting Creationism - Biofluorescent fish 112 Million Years Before 'Creation Week'.

A tropical striped triplefin, Helcogramma striata.

© John Sparks and David Gruber

Creationists bunker - Evidence keep out! No Science Allowed!

Studies Reveal Fish Biofluorescence Dates Back 112 Million Years | AMNH

I sometimes imagine creationists hiding inside a bunker with no windows, completely cut off from the reality outside, where a torrential rainstorm is underway. From within their sealed refuge, they declare to themselves—and to the world outside—that there is no evidence of rain, simply because they can’t see any.

Their only source of information is a handful of picture books depicting a tropical paradise where it never rains, so they believe everything beyond their bunker must be warm and sunny—just as the picture books describe. Anyone who tells them otherwise, or tries to show them a different picture, must be lying to trick them.

How else can creationists be so insulated from the reality of the deluge of scientific evidence in the real world?

That slightly tortured analogy is by way of introducing another couple of scientific papers concerning the evolutionary divergence of the phenomenon of biofluorescence. Unlike bioluminescence—where light is produced by a physiological process using ATP and functions in total darkness—biofluorescence involves the absorption of ambient light, which is then re-emitted at a different frequency. Specialised proteins absorb this light energy, become unstable in their excited state, and return to their ground state by releasing photons—hence biofluorescence functions in low-light conditions.

Fish in particular, but also sea turtles and corals, use these glowing patterns as signals—for attracting mates, confusing predators, and more. According to two newly published papers by a team led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), this phenomenon first emerged around 112 million years ago—once again, firmly within Earth’s long pre–'Creation Week' history. Since then, biofluorescence appears to have evolved independently up to 100 times, a clear indication of its adaptive benefits in dimly lit ocean environments.

Beyond the evidence for biological activity in a time creationists claim the Earth didn’t even exist, there's another uncomfortable detail for them: the researchers declare that to understand the pattern of bioluminescence in nature, “...we need to understand the underlying evolutionary story...” Not something a creationist, labouring under the delusion that biologists are abandoning the theory of evolution in favour of creationism, would want to read.

Their findings are published open access in Nature Communications and PLOS ONE.