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Body Mass Estimates and Encephalization Quotients:
A Fresh Look at the Australopithecines and Homo habilis

Patrick H. Young

The australopithecines and Homo habilis have been publicized for years as examples of evolutionary transitional forms that launched our own human lineage. Dogmatic evolutionists have rationalized these claims on the basis of brain expansion, encephalization quotients, and bipedalism. However, any evolutionary justification for brain expansion in these extinct creatures must rest in a precise model for the determination of body mass. To insure an accurate body mass model, one must take into account whether the animal is quadruped, facultative biped, or obligatory biped. Past body mass estimates for the australopithecines and Homo habilis were based on assumptions about their bipedalism that have proven to be erroneous. When a body mass model is used accounting for the facultative bipedalism of the australopithecines and Homo habilis, the data shows that they are not highly encephalized, and hence nothing more than a microevolutionary adaptation of the pan-troglodytes.

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Neogene Sand-to-Pebble Size Siliciclastic Sediments on the Florida Peninsula: Sedimentary Evidence in Support of the Genesis Flood

Carl R. Froede, Jr.

The uplift and erosion of the southern Appalachian Mountains provided geologic materials that were transported southward across the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains. For a period of time the Suwannee Strait/Gulf Trough separated clastic sedimentation on the coastal plain from carbonate deposition out on the Florida Peninsula. Once the terrigenous sediments bridged this impediment, they rapidly spread southward across northern Florida. Subsequent regional tilting and widespread erosion along the Florida peninsula subjected these coarse siliciclastic sediments to further transport, eventually propelling them to the northern Florida Keys. In the Naturalist interpretation we would expect the particle size of the transported sediments to diminish southward across the peninsula due to both mechanical and chemical weathering over the purported millions of years. However, the identification of quartzite pebbles beneath the northern Florida Keys raises questions about this uniformitarian expectation. An alternative interpretation based on the consistent average quartz pebble particle size extending the length of the Florida Peninsula would suggest that the geologic energy necessary to erode, transport, and deposit the siliciclastic sediments from the southern Appalachians to the northern Florida Keys (approximately 650 miles) is better understood within the high energy framework of the global Flood of Genesis.

Full Article: [PDF]

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The Fiery Flying Serpent

David Woetzel

Over the years Biblical scholars have speculated about the nature of the creature described in the Authorized Version as “the fiery flying serpent.” The nexus of modern archaeological discoveries, ancient historical accounts, and recent cryptozoological research provides new insights into the identification and characteristics of this creature. Moreover, interviews and personal observations from a 2004 expedition that I led to Papua New Guinea convinced me that a fiery flying serpent still survives on a remote island there.

Full Article: [PDF]

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Photographic Essay—
Lichens in Cross-Section:
Evidence for Design and Against Macroevolution
(A Van Andel Creation Research Center Report)

by Mark H. Armitage and George F. Howe

Photomicrographs of lichens show what can be called “tissues.” The functions evident in these lichen tissues provide clear support for their origin by divine design. Macro-evolutionary explanations given for lichen origins are demonstrated to be inadequate and unsupported. Lichens, which are not “plants,” are seen to possess amazing, anatomical counterparts to the complex tissues found in the “higher plants.” Similarities like these, between organisms that are taxonomically quite distant, suggest a “common Designer” rather than an evolutionary “common ancestry.”

Full Article: [PDF]