Not too long ago, I received the third issue of Creation magazine for this year. This high-quality magazine puts many conventional publications to shame just by being void of distracting ads and packed full of captivating graphics. But it goes far beyond that: it is loaded with information people don't hear every day. There is a reason it is sent to more than 100 countries.
As usual, this issue contained a good article about a specific species of animal that cannot be adequately explained by evolution. This time it was the Loggerhead sea turtle.
It has been known for some time that Loggerhead turtles accomplish their outstanding migrations with the aid of magnetic sensing "equipment" that allows them to determine their latitude. This was enough of a puzzle for evolutionists. How could such capability arise due to natural selection? To be an advantage, the magnetic sensing system would have to be fully functioning. The famous evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane would agree, saying in 1949 that evolution could never produce "various mechanisms such as the wheel and magnet, which would be useless until fairly perfect." So that was conundrum number one. The article goes on to say, "Despite this, modern evolutionists have blithely continued to credit the loggerhead's navigational abilities to evolution, illogically disregarding the sophisticated design required for magnetic field sensing."
Well, the evolutionists' job has just become harder. It has more recently been discovered that these turtles can also sense their longitude via the magnetic field. We'll let evolutionary biologist James L. Gould sum up the situation: "A skeptic could reasonably believe that the latitudinal cue is magnetic, but that determining east-west position depends on magic." How did the turtles evolve this sort of sophisticated equipment? Yes, it must be quite sophisticated because the angle of the magnetic field changes only slightly when moving east to west, and it would be necessary to detect this in order to determine one's position in terms of longitude.
How was it determined that turtles can sense their position in terms of longitude? Researchers took newly-hatched turtles from Florida that had never been in the sea and put them in two different tanks equipped with magnetic coils to simulate different locations. One tank was set to simulate a location in the western Atlantic, near Puerto Rico, and the other in the east, near the Cape Verde islands. Sure enough, turtles in the "Puerto Rico" tank swam northeast, and in the "Cape Verde" pool, they headed northwest, as if returning on the homeward leg of their circular migratory route.
And speaking of turtles, their origin and place in the evolutionary tree of life remains puzzling to evolutionists. Due to their hard shells, their history should be easily preserved in the fossil record. But evolutionists have alternatively claimed that tuataras, lizards, and snakes are their closest relatives. However, from a molecular point of view, birds and crocodiles should be their "living sister group". And now a turtle fossil has been discovered in Upper Triassic strata in China, presumed to be 220 million years in age. The paper published on this discovery contained the candid admission, "The new discovery of the beautifully preserved fossil O. semitestacea produces more questions than it answers, reopening questions of turtle origins, shell evolution, and original paleoecology." (Reference: Lyson, T. and Gilbert, S., Turtles all the way down: loggerheads at the root of the chelonian tree, Evolution & Development 11(2):133-135, 2009.)
Evolutionists on this forum may object that science is all about asking questions and finding solutions to dilemmas. But, finally, enough riddles should debilitate the credibility of a theory.
The biblical creationist position accommodates the loggerhead turtle with ease, since turtles were created by God as a specific kind of animal that will always reproduce after its own kind. And Noah's Flood is an easy answer for the existence of "beautifully preserved" turtle fossils. But, as the article says in closing, "...this explanation only works for those who don't want to 'deliberately forget' --2 Peter 3:5-6."
As usual, this issue contained a good article about a specific species of animal that cannot be adequately explained by evolution. This time it was the Loggerhead sea turtle.
It has been known for some time that Loggerhead turtles accomplish their outstanding migrations with the aid of magnetic sensing "equipment" that allows them to determine their latitude. This was enough of a puzzle for evolutionists. How could such capability arise due to natural selection? To be an advantage, the magnetic sensing system would have to be fully functioning. The famous evolutionist J.B.S. Haldane would agree, saying in 1949 that evolution could never produce "various mechanisms such as the wheel and magnet, which would be useless until fairly perfect." So that was conundrum number one. The article goes on to say, "Despite this, modern evolutionists have blithely continued to credit the loggerhead's navigational abilities to evolution, illogically disregarding the sophisticated design required for magnetic field sensing."
Well, the evolutionists' job has just become harder. It has more recently been discovered that these turtles can also sense their longitude via the magnetic field. We'll let evolutionary biologist James L. Gould sum up the situation: "A skeptic could reasonably believe that the latitudinal cue is magnetic, but that determining east-west position depends on magic." How did the turtles evolve this sort of sophisticated equipment? Yes, it must be quite sophisticated because the angle of the magnetic field changes only slightly when moving east to west, and it would be necessary to detect this in order to determine one's position in terms of longitude.
How was it determined that turtles can sense their position in terms of longitude? Researchers took newly-hatched turtles from Florida that had never been in the sea and put them in two different tanks equipped with magnetic coils to simulate different locations. One tank was set to simulate a location in the western Atlantic, near Puerto Rico, and the other in the east, near the Cape Verde islands. Sure enough, turtles in the "Puerto Rico" tank swam northeast, and in the "Cape Verde" pool, they headed northwest, as if returning on the homeward leg of their circular migratory route.
And speaking of turtles, their origin and place in the evolutionary tree of life remains puzzling to evolutionists. Due to their hard shells, their history should be easily preserved in the fossil record. But evolutionists have alternatively claimed that tuataras, lizards, and snakes are their closest relatives. However, from a molecular point of view, birds and crocodiles should be their "living sister group". And now a turtle fossil has been discovered in Upper Triassic strata in China, presumed to be 220 million years in age. The paper published on this discovery contained the candid admission, "The new discovery of the beautifully preserved fossil O. semitestacea produces more questions than it answers, reopening questions of turtle origins, shell evolution, and original paleoecology." (Reference: Lyson, T. and Gilbert, S., Turtles all the way down: loggerheads at the root of the chelonian tree, Evolution & Development 11(2):133-135, 2009.)
Evolutionists on this forum may object that science is all about asking questions and finding solutions to dilemmas. But, finally, enough riddles should debilitate the credibility of a theory.
The biblical creationist position accommodates the loggerhead turtle with ease, since turtles were created by God as a specific kind of animal that will always reproduce after its own kind. And Noah's Flood is an easy answer for the existence of "beautifully preserved" turtle fossils. But, as the article says in closing, "...this explanation only works for those who don't want to 'deliberately forget' --2 Peter 3:5-6."
