Cnidarians appear to have recruited as toxins the same kinds of proteins recruited by many other venomous animals. However, toxin diversity within groups of organisms does not appear to be related to the alleged evolutionary history of the various groups.
How can some people be so certain about evolution, while others, with the same certainty, deny it? Part of the answer can, in broad terms, be boiled down to the difference between what is seen and what is not seen. More specifically, and in the context of evolution itself, this disparity arises from the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. What are these two concepts, and how does the difference between them help explain much of the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution?
This article was published on the August 2019 issue of Signs of the Times.
The abrupt appearance of trilobites in Cambrian strata and their absence in Precambrian sediments is a real feature of the rock record and not due to failure of preservation in Precambrian rocks.
The study of fossils and the associated rocks in which they are preserved gives us information about ancient conditions in which organisms lived, called paleoenvironments, and the pathways leading to their fossilization.
Confirmation that fathers may sometimes pass mitochondrial DNA to their children violates the assumptions used to calculate the age of the most recent female common ancestor of all living humans. Published in Origins v. 21, n. 2.
Much effort has been expended in attempts to arrange living organisms in a pattern based on genealogy. However, a tree-like pattern is not as evident as evolutionary theory would predict.
In recent decades, epigenetics has been shown to be a promising field of research, since it describes changes in inheritance patterns that do not involve DNA modifications and are related to interactions between the organism and the environment. Epigenetic marks are chemical changes that occur in chromosomes and result in the silencing or activation of specific genes in different tissues. It has been…
A fossil bird recovered from Cretaceous lake deposits in China shows preservation of some soft tissues, including a pair of lungs that appear to have functioned in a way similar to those of living birds.
New observational data on the phenomenon of rapid bedrock erosion became recently available after the well documented events that affected the Oroville Dam in February 2017.
EDITORIAL. Those who study historical topics such as origins often face questions for which no easy answers are evident. Nevertheless, there are some things that can be known, and these should not be overlooked. Published in Origins, n. 65.
ARTICLE. In Utah and northern Arizona is a unique geological landscape feature, called the Grand Staircase. Imagine a staircase with each step a thousand feet or more high, and many miles wide. We will discuss hypotheses in regard to how this feature was formed. Published in Origins, n. 65.
A review of the book, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical and Theological Critique. Theistic evolution, the notion that God is the director of Darwinian-style evolution, is a vain attempt to combine contradictory views of earth history. Published in Origins, n. 65.