What is that queasy feeling in my stomach? Is it because evolution gives me butterflies? A recent article in Phys.org claims that evolution has been using the same genetic cheat sheet for over 120 million years, suggesting that life on earth may be more predictable than first imagined. They studied several distantly related South American rainforest butterfly and moth species that sport similar wing color patterns that warn away predators. The genetic changes in the different butterfly species did not happen in the genes themselves, but in similar "switches" that turn the genes on or off. The moth species surprisingly used an inversion mechanism—a large chunk of DNA flipped backwards-a near identical genetic trick used by one of the butterflies. Professor Kanchon Dasmahapatra, from the University of York's Department of Biology, said, "Convergent evolution, where many unrelated species independently evolve the same trait, is common across the tree of life. But we rarely have the opportunity to investigate the genetic basis of this phenomenon. When scientists cannot explain the origin of something, or why it has a purpose, often they make up a name for it like "convergent evolution". Professor Joana Meier, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said, "These distantly related butterflies and the moth are all toxic and distasteful to birds trying to eat them. They look very much alike because if birds have already learned that a specific color pattern means "do not eat, we are toxic," it is beneficial for other species to display the same warning colors. "Here, we show that these warning colors are particularly ideal as it seems quite easy to evolve these same color patterns due to the highly conserved genetic basis over 120 million years." Knowing that nature follows a particular route and is not as "random" as once thought, helps scientists predict how other species might adapt to their environments, or climate change. Creationists have a more reasonable explanation. The reason distantly related butterflies share similar characteristics is because they have the same designer, just like a computer programmer writing different applications but reusing the same code. A real dilemma for evolutionists is the life cycle of the butterfly. The life span of a butterfly is so short that mutations don’t have a chance to appear and become fixed in the genome. Explaining the metamorphosis of the butterfly results in a lot of logical machinations. While the evolutionary advantages of complete metamorphosis are clear, the details of how this complex process first evolved remain murky. "There are two main schools," Xavier Bellés Ros, an ad honorem researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, told Live Science in an email. One idea, supported by Bellés Ros, proposes that complete metamorphosis evolved as the nymph stage split into the larval and pupal phases. The opposing camp, supported by researchers including Truman, argues that the larval stage originated from an embryonic phase known as the pronymph, the brief phase when an insect first begins to emerge from its egg.

I am really getting tired of claims that say that scientists are finding signs of life on other planets. The Curiosity Rover on Mars is analyzing chemicals dug up at the Gale Crater site. They are looking for signs of life that possibly existed billions of years ago. What did they discover? 1. Long chain hydrocarbons (alkanes) a. Decane (10 carbon atoms) b. Undecane (11 carbon atoms) c. Dodecane (12 carbon atoms) 2. No evidence of amino acids 3. Methane 4. No guanine, cytosine, thymine, adenine. 5. Nitrogen heterocycle (unspecified) 6. Nitric oxide From Nature: "There is no evidence to suggest that the fixed nitrogen molecules found by the team were created by life. The surface of Mars is inhospitable for known forms of life. Instead, the team thinks the nitrates are ancient and likely came from non-biological processes like meteorite impacts and lightning in Mars’ distant past. Features resembling dry riverbeds and the discovery of minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water suggest that Mars was more hospitable in the remote past. The Curiosity team has found evidence that other ingredients needed for life, such as liquid water and organic matter, were present on Mars at the Curiosity site in Gale Crater billions of years ago." "Finding a biochemically accessible form of nitrogen is more support for the ancient Martian environment at Gale Crater being habitable" said Jennifer Stern of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Stern is lead author of a paper on this research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science March 23. Given the list of chemical compounds found on Mars by the Curiosity rover, the claim that this suggests that life existed on Mars billions of years ago is a LIE. It is a deliberate deception. If Curiosity fails to find evidence for life, the mission would be considered an abysmal failure. Justification for funding of missions like this and other missions to extraterrestrial planets with similar purpose would be called into question. Here is an experiment that scientists should undertake to justify their claims. Take the chemicals they have found on Mars and since life is an on-off switch, combine them to form a living system such as a bacterium, worm, insect, and show that they could have arisen from such chemicals spontaneously. This doesn’t take millions or billions of years; you can’t hide behind that. We can give you purified amino acids and nucleotides already in the correct 3-dimensional enantiomer structure. Construct protein chains and DNA from your off-the-shelf chemicals and kick start a living cell. Chemistry doesn’t allow it, and you can’t do it.

Rich Geer presents his intriguing thoughs in archaeology and chronology. He used four references: Archaeology and the Bible by Tom Meyer, Unearthing the Bible by Titus Kennedy, Evidence for the Bible by Clive Anderson and Brian Edwards, and Excavating the Evidence for Jesus by Titus Kennedy. When he was at the University of Wyoming, Rich took a biblical archaelogy class and it was where he first heard that Biblical people and events could actually be verified. One example was the Sennacherib Prism that recounted events that confirmed the Biblical account. Also, Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem is still there, and Rich explored it in 1974. Over 100 cases of Bullae or seals confirm the existence of persons recorded in scripture. The Ipuwer Papyrus confirms the 10 plagues of Egypt under Moses. The archaelogical site of Jericho confirms the account of the collapse of the wall. The House of David Stele confirms the existence of King David. The Mesha Stele mentions Omri, the father of Ahab. The Nabonidus chronicle and cylinder shows that Belshazzar was co-regent under Nabonidus and eliminates the reason for late dating Daniel. The Behistun Monument shows that Darius the Great recognized Cyrus's earlier decree, allowing the Jews to again rebuild the second temple. No archaelogical artifact has a date stamped on it. Lots of schemes has been proposed, but there is much contradictory information that is opposed to the clear Biblical record. Rich has studies the Old Testament chronology and is able to correct a number of assumptions based upon faulty archaelogical dates and come up with a timeline. Scripture is the oly reliable basis to establish a real timeline grounded in history.

Doug and Rich speculates on whether or not artificial intelligence is good or bad. The conversation began to explore the broader topic of AI's potential benefits and challenges. In a 1998 article by Daniel Graves about artificial intelligence and its implications on the RAE website, many of the benefits and problems are listed and still remain today. There is a fantasy about the triumph of reductionism: the doctrine that everything can ultimately be explained in terms of the lowest unit of nature: atoms and the forces of physics and chemistry. Computer genius Alan Turing proposed a test to see if a machine's intelligence rivaled a human. Bring in an astute observer and with a human and a robot typing on a keyboard, the observer asks questions and if he can't tell which answers are coming from a robot, the AI is shown to be as intelligent as a human. Doug shared his experience using Microsoft Word's co-pilot feature to add information to an article about the Michigan ghost town of Summitville, demonstrating how AI can pull from various sources to provide additional context and details. One result was finding the answer to an unsolved question about the death of a young man who wrote poetry and made wonderful drawings in the ledger. Other examples showed that the AI could not understand emotion, illogical arguments or distinguish casual banter from the main topic.