18,000 Dinosaur Tracks in Bolivia

 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; 

and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, 

were covered. Genesis 7:19

"A new discovery of 18,000 individual dinosaur tracks in the Bolivian El Molino Formation contains the highest number of theropod dinosaur tracks in the world. The tracks were spread over nine sites in an area encompassing nearly 1.5 football fields. Remarkably, the site also contains the highest number of dinosaur swim tracks ever reported.

Publishing in PLoS One, the joint science team from the United States and Bolivia wrote,

"The Carreras Pampa tracksite in the Torotoro National Park, Bolivia, records a wealth of dinosaur tracks, tail traces, and swim tracks. In this study, we report 1,321 track¬ways and 289 solitary tracks, totaling 16,600 theropod tracks, 280 swim trackways, totaling 1,378 swim tracks, and several trackways with tail traces. Numerous avian [bird] tracks occur locally and are associated with the theropod tracks."

In addition, the team documented the orientation of the trackways,

finding them to have traveled across the site in two primary directions. The swim tracks also followed one of these same directions but were formed on top of (later than) the walking trackways. The scientists wrote,

"The abundant swim tracks were made by the theropods, which nearly floated and swam while kicking the soft bottom with the tips of their toes. The presence of swim tracks impressed upon walking tracks indicates that the latter formed first, and the swim track producers swam later in the same area [and same direction]."

They continued:

"This stratigraphic relation indicates that the substrate preserved walking track impressions even while water levels rose enough for dinosaurs to swim. Swimming trackways and isolated, shallow swim tracks were created by individuals who paddled and scratched the substrate."

The science team also found that

"Theropod footprints with tail-drag traces are abundant and well preserved in the tracksite, appearing in trackways featuring shallow, deep, and very deep tracks. The tail traces suggest that dinosaurs exhibited some form of locomotive behavior in response to sinking into soft substrate, which resulted in their tails coming into contact with the surface."

The rock unit upon which the trackways are found was a rippled limestone bed containing an abundance of small ostracod shells and carbonate ooids and invertebrate burrows. Ooids are little BB-sized balls of limestone that accumulate and roll in shallow waves. And ostracods are tiny crustaceans about one sixteenth of an inch in length. They are commonly found in marine environments but also live in freshwater. The scientists also found fish teeth and shell fragments of bivalves in the same layer. Collectively, these features—the rippled limestone, ooids, and ostracods—are a dead ringer for a shallow ocean deposit.

At another site in the same rock layer, north of Torotoro, the

paleontologists reported finding “a variety of invertebrates, plants, and vertebrates, including dinosaurs, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and terrestrial and marine ichthyofauna.” This mixture of terrestrial (dinosaurs) and marine fauna in the El Molino Formation continues to baffle conventional science. No wonder the uniformitarian paleontology team wrote, “No single paleoenvironmental interpretation explains the entire El Molino Formation [the unit that contains the trackways].”

Q: But why would dinosaurs and birds be “running, sauntering and even swimming” across a soft, fresh limestone bed that was likely flooded by a few feet of ocean water? And why so many in the same directions? 

Q: What were they heading for and/or moving away from? 

Q: And why did this happen just prior to the disappearance of all the dinosaurs in the rock record?

The global Flood provides the best answer to all of these questions. 

--And it offers an explanation for the walking first, then the swimming, and the tail dragging. 

--It also explains the terrestrial and marine mixing that is so common around the world.

The dinosaurs that made these tracks were doing their best to stay above the rising water and were likely heading toward a remnant of higher ground. That may be why so many of the tracks are heading in similar directions. To do so, they had to wade in shallow water on top of a fresh limey substrate, maybe in between tsunami waves. This respite was just long enough to leave their tracks. Then, as the next wave hit, creating the rippled surface and deepening the water, the dinosaurs were forced to swim. But they still kept heading in the same direction, toward what little high ground may have remained.
This explains the order of trackways, starting with walking, the sinking into the soft lime (creating tail marks), and then the outright swimming. It was for survival. But eventually, the floodwaters overcame all of these creatures, washing them away and entombing many of them elsewhere in other rock layers.

Deliberately ignoring the global Flood that occurred about 4,500 years ago leads to great confusion and fictional stories. Believing in the truth of God’s Word resolves many apparent mysteries and leads to clarity." 

ICR

Two-word incantation of science for other gods

Do not forget the covenant I made with you, and do not worship other gods. 1 Kings 17:38 NLT

"Evolutionists, of course, believe that they are appealing to science, in contrast to the religionists' reliance on faith. 

But the truth is that when they utter their two-word incantation, "natural selection," they are not being remotely scientific. 

Nor are they expected to provide any details.... To today's biologist, in short, natural selection operates as an omnipotent force, just as divine fiat once did."
Tom Bethell, Darwin's House of Cards (2016), p 123

SATURN: Those Pristine Rings

"Q: What are Saturn’s spectacular rings composed of? 

But there are still huge unsolved problems for evolutionists. presume passing objects were captured and pulverized by large planets’ gravitational forces, struggle to provide satisfactory explanations.
As Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, observed regarding Saturn’s ring ice, “Even if you can get it in the first place, how does it survive for four billion years and still look pristine?”

This was a great mystery to scientists ever since Christian Huygens first suggested in 1655 that Saturn had rings. It was solved by the great creationist physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1859: they could not be solid, because they would be unstable; so instead, they comprised independently orbiting particles.

Q: Why are Saturn’s rings comprised mostly of water ice, whereas the less massive rings of Neptune and Uranus have more rock in them? 

---Current evolutionary theories of ring formation, which mostly

---Aside from the difficulty of explaining how the icy rings formed, one of the problems is the “question of timing” i.e. according to the evolutionary timeline. That’s because the water ice of Saturn’s rings is too clean to be the claimed billions of years in age—interplanetary dust ought to have polluted it, if it really were that old.

Actually, one might say that the One whose handiwork adorns the skies did so in such a way as to thwart naturalistic attempts to explain our solar system and the universe beyond. 

The evidence from NASA probes and other studies of Saturn and its rings and moons now overwhelmingly points to a ‘Young Saturn’. This is right in line with the Bible’s account of our universe having been created only thousands of years ago, not billions. The Psalmist indeed said it well: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.” (Psalm 19:1)." 

CMI

Time & God

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing,

that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years,

and a thousand years as one day.

2 Peter 3:8

Time to God is for purpose, 

not for minutes.

For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Psalm 90:4

But when the fulness of the time was come, 

God sent forth His Son, made of a woman....
Galatians 4:4

I am Alpha and Omega,

the beginning and the ending,...

Revelation 1:8

Convictions of a monkey’s mind?

 For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Romans 1:21 CSB 

"But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" 

Charles Darwin, Letter to William Graham, 1881

Genetics vs. Evolution

 For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,... Colossians 1:16

"Genetics and evolution have been enemies from the beginning of

both concepts. 

Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, and Charles Darwin, the father of modern evolution, were contemporaries. 

At the same time that 

Darwin was claiming 

that creatures 

could change into other creatures, 

Mendel was showing that even

 individual characteristics remain constant.

 

While Darwin’s ideas were based on erroneous and untested ideas about inheritance, Mendel’s conclusions were based on careful experimentation. 

--Only by ignoring the total implications of modern genetics has it been possible to maintain the fiction of evolution." 

CMI

Illusion of Natural Selection

 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Genesis 1:24

"A population of organisms, let’s say racoons, lives in an environment somewhere on Earth and eats a variety of foods. Its kind has thrived in that relatively stable environment for centuries. The weather suddenly cools for an extended period, and the creatures’

main food source diminishes. The racoons promptly respond by shifting their diet and behavior and search out more of their secondary foods. Their physiology appropriately adjusts to the change in diet. The creatures also respond to the temperature change by altering their metabolism—perhaps growing thicker coats and additional layers of fat that enable them to better cope with the cold. And the codes for these trait variations can rapidly transfer to the next generation. So, the racoons innately and quickly respond to the environmental changes in several appropriate ways.

One might claim that the environment influenced the racoons to change. Yet, the environment is only a collection of conditions to which organisms are exposed. The environment doesn’t possess any agency to make any of the changes happen. When people project human-like abilities onto nature it’s called personification. 

Q: What actually caused the creature to change? 

Q: Did nature send some sort of message to the racoons? 

Q: Did nature select for their changes and survival? 

A: No, the act of sending requires a mind and a will to determine the signal’s content as well as the power and means to send the signal. Nature possesses none of these attributes.

It’s clear the environmental conditions changed, but the change was actively detected by the creature rather than being sent to the creature. Information possessed within creatures is what specifies any given condition to be a stimulus for reaction.

We don’t observe natural selection 

“working,” “acting on,” or “favoring.” 

Applying these verbs is inaccurate and misleading. This pseudo-activity is misused by some to project agency onto nature and to view it as a substitute Creator. But all the activity—all the sensing, triggering, processing, and selecting— originated within the creature.

The creature’s body systems are specifically engineered to do all these active things: they sense changed conditions, sort the incoming data, employ the innate if-then logic built into their systems for proper response—often quickly and predictively. 

The systems then execute responses from a number of potential actionable options, enabling the creature to adjust to and thrive in its new conditions. The systems then conduct “surveillance” for the next changes. All these phenomenal attributes are innate to the creature. They were specifically designed and placed into the creature from the moment of its creation." 

CMI

A Central Computer in our Cells

 I will praise Thee; for 

I am fearfully and wonderfully made: 

Psalm 139:14

"Dr. Capaldi and his graduate students, led by Cristina Padilla, whose story is emphasized in the press release. Here’s how the press release begins:

"For decades, biologists have known that a protein complex called TORC1 acts as a master regulator of cell growth—turning growth

programs on when nutrients are available and shutting them down when conditions worsen. Now, a new study conducted at the University of Arizona reveals that TORC1 is far more sophisticated than previously believed. Instead of functioning as a simple on and off switch, TORC1 behaves more like a central computer that integrates different signals and then selectively turns specific pathways on and off – tuning metabolism, energy-intensive processes and cell division, all in real time."

LoNA appears when cells move from rich nutrients to poorer ones, not to starvation. In this state, the cell neither continues business as usual nor shuts down. 

Instead, it reorganizes itself. 

More than ninety percent of TORC1’s phosphorylation targets, the molecular settings through which it regulates cellular policy, shift to new configurations. Growth slows, but it does not stop. Metabolism is rebalanced. Transporters on the vacuole surface in yeast, or the lysosome in humans, are adjusted to draw in more resources. Autophagy begins in a limited and controlled way, recycling cellular components without triggering full shutdown.
t reveals TORC1 not as a simple pathway, but as a decision-making system with conditional logic, feedback, and distributed sensing. Calling it a “central computer” is not a metaphor of convenience." 

CEH

Geometric Design of the Solar System

 All things were made by Him; 

and without Him was not any thing made that was made. 

John 1:3

"Example of geometric design in the solar system arises from the mean orbits of our innermost two planets, Mercury and Venus. 

Their mean orbital radii are 0.387 AU and 0.723 AU, respectively, where 1.0 AU (astronomical unit) is the average distance of the Earth from the sun. We might ask why Mercury and Venus have these particular orbital radii (actually, these are the semimajor axes of their slightly elliptical orbital paths). Although their distances from the sun may seem arbitrary, we find that they fit a special geometric pattern.

We can see the pattern by drawing any three identical circles adjacent to each other so that each circle just touches the other two. 

Next, draw another circle that passes through the centers of the three touching circles. Call this the mean orbit of Mercury around the Sun, lying in the center of the drawing. Finally, draw a larger circle that just encloses the first three circles. Call this the average orbit of Venus around the Sun.
Using a bit of trigonometry, one can calculate that the ratio of the radius of the larger circle to the radius of the smaller circle is 1.866. Now, here’s the fun part — using NASA data for the average orbital radius of Venus and Mercury, we find that their orbital radii form a ratio of 1.868, matching our simple circle construction to 99.9 percent accuracy!

Another example of geometric design hidden in our planetary orbits relates to the average orbital radii of Earth and Mars. These can be matched to the geometry of two nested pentagons. Inscribe a circle within the inner pentagon so that the circle is tangent to each of the five faces of the figure. 

Call this the mean radius of Earth’s orbit. 

Then circumscribe a larger circle so that it touches the five corners of the larger pentagon. 

Call this the mean radius of Mars’s orbit. 

Using trigonometry, we find the ratio of these radii to be 1.52786, which matches the actual ratio of these two planets’ fascinating geometric number is the Golden Ratio (approximately 1.618), which is also the limiting ratio of consecutive terms in the Fibonacci series of numbers (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…). Returning to the example of Venus “lapping” Earth in its orbit, we find that Venus orbits to a position between the Earth and the Sun (an “inferior conjunction”) every 584 days, or 219 days more than one Earth year. The ratio of 219/365=0.6, so every time this alignment occurs, Earth and Venus are three fifths of a circle further around the Sun. Five such alignments bring us back to the starting point after 5×584 days = 2920 days, or 8.0 Earth-years (which turns out to be 13.0 Venus-years). The relevant numbers in this analysis are 5, 8, and 13, found in sequence in the Fibonacci series. Moreover, the ratio of the orbital periods of Earth to Venus matches the value of the Golden Ratio (99.5 percent).

Additional geometric designs are apparent in the orbits of the planets, moons, and asteroids of the solar system. One or two such patterns might be adequately ascribed to coincidence, even when not predicted by gravitational interactions between the orbiting bodies. But when multiple “coincidences” appear, a thoughtful observer has reason to suspect that a conductor has orchestrated the celestial harmonies, perhaps out of sheer delight in creating a masterpiece.

Geometric design in the solar system as evidence of intelligent design was the conclusion reached by the scientist whose work most fundamentally explained the force constraining the motions of objects in the solar system, Sir Isaac Newton:
"This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." 

SCT