Why Humans Are Not Animals

Few of you may remember it, but in 1994, an animal rights lawyer, Steven Wise, decided to promote the idea that some animals should be declared humans with all the full rights of any person. Soon came the proclamation that dolphins and whales should be deemed full persons as well. Of course, many have long considered primates to be our cousins and even assured us that we share 98% of their chromosomes. This kind of thinking very much follows from the belief in evolutionism and origins science, not operational science that can be observed and repeated. 

Very few of the public realize that the old assumption that humans and chimps are closely related genetically has now been proven false by several teams of researchers. A new report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that the common value of >98% similarity of DNA between chimp and humans is incorrect. The >98.5% similarity has been misleading because it depends on what is being compared. There are a number of significant differences that are difficult to quantify. A review by Gagneux and Varki described a list of genetic differences between humans and the great apes. The differences include ‘cytogenetic differences, differences in the type and number of repetitive genomic DNA and transposable elements, abundance and distribution of endogenous retroviruses, the presence and extent of allelic polymorphisms, specific gene inactivation events, gene sequence differences, gene duplications, single nucleotide polymorphisms, gene expression differences, and messenger RNA splicing variations.’ (Gagneux, P. and Varki, A. 2001. ‘Genetic differences between humans and great apes.’ Mol Phylogenet Evol 18:2-13.) A number of studies have demonstrated a remarkable similarity in the nuclear DNA and mtDNA among modern humans. In fact, the DNA sequences for all people are so similar that scientists generally conclude that there is a ‘recent single origin for modern humans, with general replacement of archaic populations.’ (10.Knight, A., Batzer, M.A., Stoneking, M., Tiwari, H.K., Scheer, W.D., Herrera, R.J., and Deninger, P.L. 1996. ‘DNA sequences of Alu elements indicate a recent replacement of the human autosomal genetic complement.’ Proc. Natl Acad Sci USA 93:4360-4364) Careful re-tallying of the numbers in the original paper describing the initial elucidation of the chimpanzee DNA sequence suggests that the two species are only ~89% identical. This has now rendered any similarities between chimp and human DNA somewhat meaningless as mice apparently share 92% of the same chromosomes humans do! 

The essence of our humanity is found with our minds. Animals have brains and not minds by this classification. In other words, animals can partially fulfill the lowest three orders of Bloom's Taxonomy but humans can flourish and dazzle all of us up to the sixth and highest level of the hierarchy.  All agree that animals can (1) remember, (2) understand, and (3) apply. But humans can go beyond this in spades. We can independently and without hard wiring, (4) analyze, (5) evaluate (thinking critically), and (6) create. 

The truth is, we really do not know what animals are thnking or even what their true motivation is in their behavior. What you might think is heroism on the part of an animal may well be conditioning that drives it to act as it does for the sake of a reward of some sort. It also seems that animals have a sixth sense that many humans do not have. It doesn't make them smarter but it gives them additional advantages we do not have. But then this has always been the case between animals and humans. Many animals have superior hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching capabilities totally lacking in humans but still never exceeding humans in mental abilities granting them a mind and not just a brain.

Our classification systems have always been a bit awkward and a bit embarrassing. It was Carl Linnaeus who gave started classifying animals and some strange results were produced indeed. We stopped calling whales fish and deemed mammals like us even though a beached whale doesn't fare half as well as a beached human!  We seem to consider birds what they are even though some cannot fly and some can. Snakes are all considered reptiles even though some bear their young as eggs and others bear them alive like mammals! And then there is the Duck-Billed Platypus of Australia that is considered a mammal even though it is equally a reptile and a bird and swims under water as frequently as it dwells on land. There is one species of a wren in the American Carolinas that is deemed another species strictly on the basis of it singing a different song! (Are the French and the English a different race after all? And are the Gaelic-speaking Irish a different species than the English-speaking Irish?)

My contribution to clear up this terrible confusion is to declare outright that humans, when all is said and done, are not animals after all. And we are mammals only because someone has grouped us together with the rest of that class of creatures. Here are ten points that make us strictly human and four sub-points that separate our human minds from the brains of our fellow animals. Below is the combination of two articles combined from Live Science regarding our uniqueness as human beings. Hats off to Charles Q. Choi and Natalie Wolchover and their masterful articles on the subject. 

Humans are unusual by any stretch of the imagination. Our special abilities, from big brains to opposable thumbs, have allowed us change our world dramatically and even leave the planet. There are also odd things about us that are, well, just special in relation to the animal kingdom. So what exactly makes us so special? 

(1) Speech 

The larynx, or voice box, sits lower in the throat in humans than in chimps, one of several features that enable human speech. Human ancestors evolved a descended larynx roughly 350,000 years ago. We also possess a descended hyoid bone — this horseshoe-shaped bone below the tongue, unique in that it is not attached to any other bones in the body and allows us to articulate words when speaking.

(2) Upright Posture

Humans are unique among the primates in how walking fully upright is our chief mode of locomotion. This frees our hands up for using tools. Unfortunately, the changes made in our pelvis for moving on two legs, in combination with babies with large brains, makes human childbirth unusually dangerous compared with the rest of the animal kingdom. A century ago, childbirth was a leading cause of death for women. The lumbar curve in the lower back, which helps us maintain our balance as we stand and walk, also leaves us vulnerable to lower back pain and strain.

(3) Nakedness

We look naked compared to our other hairy animals. Surprisingly, however, a square inch of human skin on average possesses as much hair-producing follicles as other primates, or more — humans often just have thinner, shorter, lighter hairs. Fun fact about hair: Even though we don't seem to have much, it apparently helps us detect parasites, according to one study.

(4) Clothing

Humans may be called "naked apes," but most of us wear clothing, a fact that makes us unique in the animal kingdom, save for the clothing we make for other animals. The development of clothing has even influenced other species — the body louse, unlike all other kinds, clings to clothing, not hair.

(5) Extraordinary Brains

Without a doubt, the human trait that sets us apart the most from the animal kingdom is our extraordinary brain. Humans don't have the largest brains in the world — those belong to sperm whales. We don't even have the largest brains relative to body size — many birds have brains that make up more than 8 percent of their body weight, compared to only 2.5 percent for humans. Yet the human brain, weighing only about 3 pounds when fully grown, give us the ability to reason and think on our feet beyond the capabilities of the rest of the animal kingdom, and provided the works of Mozart, Einstein and many other geniuses. 

There's no consensus on the question of what makes us special, or whether we even are. The biggest point of contention is whether our cognitive abilities differ from those of other animals "in kind," or merely in degree. Are we in a class by ourselves or just the smartest ones in our class?

Charles Darwin supported the latter hypothesis. He believed we are similar to animals, and merely incrementally more intelligent as a result of our higher evolution. But according to Marc Hauser, director of the cognitive evolution lab at Harvard University, in a recent article in Scientific American, "mounting evidence indicates that, in contrast to Darwin's theory of a continuity of mind between humans and other species, a profound gap separates our intellect from the animal kind."

What makes our brains unique is their...

(a) Generative computation
Humans can generate a practically limitless variety of words and concepts. We do so through two modes of operation recursive and combinatorial. The recursive operation allows us to apply a learned rule to create new expressions. In combinatorial operations, we mix different learned elements to create a new concept.

(b) Promiscuous combination of ideas
"Promiscuous combination of ideas allows the mingling of different domains of knowledge such as art, sex, space, causality and friendship thereby generating new laws, social relationships and technologies." (Hauser)

(c) Mental symbols

Mental symbols are our way of encoding sensory experiences. They form the basis of our complex systems of language and communication. We may choose to keep our mental symbols to ourselves, or represent them to others using words or pictures.

(d) Abstract thought

Abstract thought is the contemplation of things beyond what we can sense. "Researchers have found some of the building blocks of human cognition in other species. But these building blocks make up only the cement foot print of the skyscraper that is the human mind," (Hauser)

What other unique features are human only? 

(6) Hands

Contrary to popular misconceptions, humans are not the only animals to possess opposable thumbs — most primates do. (Unlike the rest of the great apes, we don't have opposable big toes on our feet.) What makes humans unique is how we can bring our thumbs all the way across the hand to our ring and little fingers. We can also flex the ring and little fingers toward the base of our thumb. This gives humans a powerful grip and exceptional dexterity to hold and manipulate tools with. This is getting off the topic, but what if we all had six fingers?

(7) Fire

The human ability to control fire would have brought a semblance of day to night, helping our ancestors to see in an otherwise dark world and keep nocturnal predators at bay. The warmth of the flames also helped people stay warm in cold weather, enabling us to live in cooler areas. And of course it gave us cooking: Cooked foods are easier to chew and digest.

(8) Blushing

Humans are the only species known to blush, a behavior Darwin called "the most peculiar and the most human of all expressions." It remains uncertain why people blush, involuntarily revealing our innermost emotions (we do know how it works). The most common idea is that blushing helps keep people honest, benefiting the group as a whole.

(9) Long Childhoods

Humans must remain in the care of their parents for much longer than other living primates. It could be because our minds require more time to grow and develop than animal brains.

(10) Life after Children


Most animals reproduce until they die, but in humans, females can survive long after ceasing reproduction. This might be due to the social bonds seen in humans — in extended families, grandparents can help ensure the success of their families long after they themselves can have children.

Let's face it. By any stretch of the imagination we are fearfully and wonderfully made and utterly unique from the rest of creation. Stop others from stealing your special human existence. You are unique on the planet and you are unique in the universe!

Terrorist Attack in Nice Has Grave Ramifications

At least 80 bodies lie on streets of Nice, France, after attack.

Just a few hours ago, new reports around the world flashed the tragedy of yet another terrorist attack in France, this time in Nice. As of this exact moment, 77 are dead, but some 50 are still listed as being in critical condition raising the possibility that reports about there being as many as 100 fatalities are a distinct possibility. The act came in the form of a lorry or truck driving along an avenue over a distance of some 2 km (1 mi) at some 30 mph purposely swerving and veering to try and kill as many as it could. There were many children hit as well as adults.

Bob Baer, a former CIA analyst, terrorism expert, and contributor to CNN, immediately saw the ramifications of this new and inventive way to heartlessly destroy people: "In the long term, it will contribute to the rise of far-right political groups in Europe and around the world." Why? Because national security is a political issue and the masses will quickly vote into power far-right leaders who promise better protection. But, along with this change in the political climate, will come new laws which suspend civil rights and override privacy privileges liberal democratic societies have boasted of. In France, this will mean more votes for Marine Le Pen's National Front party. Baer also noted that this increasing fear of terrorism was partly behind the Brexit vote and its promise to control immigration. Why? Because immigration is linked, in turn, to undesirables entering the country and stirring up terrorist activites or radicalizing Britain's Islamic youth who have travelled to Islamic State to serve in their armies.

To solve this problem, it is sometimes necessary to analyze it first and find out the connections that are so polarizing our societies right now.  For this reason, it is hardly accurate to impugn those opposed to immigration as racists. Certainly there will always be a minority that are, but the majority of those opposed to immigration are uncomfortable with those peoples who national heritage is so monolithically linked to one particular religion and its ability to coerce its members into fidelity to the faith and the ease with which it can radicalize its youth into believing killing horrifically is somehow a virtue and not a negative in its values.

Believe it or not, this is not unique to Islam for the Western Judeo-Christian religions have also been plagued by it over the course of history. When we think of medieval times and the Spanish Inquisition, we realize that both Catholics and Protestants were quite capable and even eager to vanquish each other from their lands in the names of the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. So too are some orthodox Jewish sects dwelling currently in the modern State of Israel. In North America right now there are dangerous sects listing themselves as Christian who impose the harshest punishments and practices upon their members. The corruption of true Christianity and the true Judaism certainly sets no example for anyone to follow. For this reason, the poplarity of Christianity has diminished markedly recently, enhanced by the widespread sexual abuse of Catholic children and young women by the clergy pretending to be men of God.

Yet the current trends remind me of an essay I once read that, at first, struck me as absurd, but later made me reflect further upon it. The author wrote an essay about the link between violence and the media. He argued that the influence of the media was dangerous to our youth, not because of the realism of its violence but, in fact, because of its lack of realism. He argued that a cowboy decking another cowboy was portrayed too lightly on Westerns; that a real, honest-to-goodness deck would have left a real cowboy with missing teeth, blood running out of his mouth, possibly permanently demaged eyes, and a broken jaw that would have left him howling in screaming pain that wasn't captured by the movies. That a real-life shooting of a person would leave a real-life pool of blood with body parts sprayed over the area with the result of shocking anyone whoever really got to experience this violent act. His solution was, therefore, not to ban violence in the media, but to show its real-life effects. I still don't support his theory but you have to give it to him: He's on to something you might want to ponder a little further.

I use this example to illustrate that the problem with terrorism is not religion per se not even the corruption of various religions. The problem with terrorism is that too many people are raised in the wrong religions that have the wrong values and allow for their own corruption and radicalism. 

"A comparison between the concept of martyrdom in Islam on one hand and in Judaism and Christianity on the other illustrates the emphasis on violent jihad within Islamic jurisprudence. In Islamic practice, the martyr is one killed in jihad. He is entitled to special status in paradise and on Judgment Day. In Judaism and Christianity, a martyr is someone who endures torture and death rather than renounce his or her belief.....There is little tolerance for idolaters within Islam: the first article of faith is the profession, la ilah illa-llah (there is no deity but God).[Muhammad Ibraheem Surty, The Qur'anic Conception of al-Shirk (London: Luzac, 1982)] Muslim jurisprudence considers shirk to be the worst form of disbelief.[Qur'an, 28:17, 31:13, 36:74, 37:158. ] The Qur'an commands Muslims to kill those who commit shirk[Qur'an, 4:4.] and is replete with examples calling for jihad against idolaters. For example, sura (chapter) 9:5 reads, "When the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters whenever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them."[See, also, Qur'an, 2:193. Sura 8:39 reads, "So fight them so that sedition might end and obedience is wholly Allah's"; and sura 9:123 states, "Fight the unbelievers who are near to you, and let them find ruthlessness in you."[See, also, Qur'an, 2:244] Muslims living under the rule of idolaters are obliged to fight their rulers.[16] The Qur'an likewise commands believers to conduct jihad against hypocrites,[‘Ali ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi, Kitab al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyah (Beirut: Wilayat al-Dinn, 1996), pp. 30-1, 44-5, 50-1.] seize them, and do away with them.[Qur'an, 3:167-8; 4:82; 4: 88-91; 4:145; 9:12; 9:73; 66:9.] All infidels, unbelievers, and hypocrites—those who commit blasphemy or treason—are relegated to hell.[Qur'an, 9:73; 47:12; 98:6.]

Prominent Muslim scholars consider the general jihad declaration against the unbelievers to be crucial to Islamic success.[20] Those who sacrifice their material comfort and bodies for jihad win salvation. By their sacrifice, they obtain all the pleasures of paradise, be they spiritual—the close presence of God—or material.[Qur'an, 3:195; 9:72; 47:4-6, 15; 61:11-3.] As an additional incentive, Muhammad promised those mujahideen who fight in a jihad war a reward of virgins in paradise.[Qur'an, 44:51-4; 52:17-20; 55:47, 50, 52, 56, 70, 72; 56:22-4.] Importantly, those conducting suicide bombings do not consider themselves dead but rather living with God. As sura 2:154 explains, "Do not think that those who are killed in the way of Allah are dead, for indeed they are alive, even though you are not aware." Therefore the prohibition on suicide need not apply to bus bombers or other kamikaze jihadists. Martin Lings, a British scholar of Sufism, argues that this linkage between martyrdom and paradise was probably the most potent factor that Muhammad brought to the annals of warfare, for it transformed the odds of war by offering a promise of immortality.

The Hadith collections, the second important source of Shari‘a after the Qur'an, devote considerable attention to jihad, most often in terms of military action against non-believers. Indeed, most Islamic theologians in the classical period (750-1258 C.E.) understood this obligation to jihad as military. There is a whole genre of hadith known as fada'il al-jihad (the merits of the holy war), based on the nine-volume Hadith collection of Muhammad ibn Isma‘il al-Bukhari (810-70) and considered to be the most respected and authoritative collection. He dedicates almost one-third of his fourth volume on jihad as physical holy war against infidels. For example, he relates a hadith of Muhammad commenting that there are one hundred stages in paradise for those who fight for the way of God.  Only those who participate in jihad deserve paradise without any checks and reservations. To exemplify this notion, Bukhari relates a story of a woman asking Muhammad if her son, who was killed in the battle of Badr, is in paradise, and he replied that her son is in a higher paradise.

Consistent with the Qur'an, these hadith generally demonstrate the necessity for Muslims to spare no means to spread Islam by force and strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of God. The main motif of jihad in the Hadith reinforces the concept that death on the battleground in the cause of God leads to paradise and receipt of a "sacred wedding" to black-eyed virgins. From among 262 traditions that are mentioned by Abdallah Ibn al-Mubarak (736-97), a renowned Khorasani scholar who concentrated on jihad warfare as the most important method to Islamic success, thirteen reinforce the concept of virgins in paradise as a reward for martyrdom. 

The Hadith also emphasize the necessity for all believers, whenever called upon, to commit to a jihad war. In one example, Bukhari cites Ibn ‘Umar, one of the transmitters of accounts about the Prophet traditionally accepted by Muslims, who relates, "Muhammad said: ‘I have been ordered to fight against all the people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is Allah's messenger, and offer the prayers perfectly, and give the obligatory charity. So if they perform all that, then they save their lives and property from me and their reckoning will be done by Allah.'" And, in another, a transmitter narrated, "O Allah, you know that there is nothing more beloved to me than to fight in your cause against those who disbelieved your messenger." (Burkey, David. The Religious Foundations of Suicide Bombings. The Middle East Quarterly, Fall, 2006, pp. 27-36) 

I do not indict Islam as being a false religion. I indict all religions as having layered many false layers of traditions that are harmful and, like Islam, completely uninspired. All of them, incidentallyl, draw upon many pagan traditions having nothing to do with the real God. 

While religion is a problem with much of our world today, it is specifically false religion, not true religion, that is the problem. I believe that the true religion is an empirical one that is provable on many levels. In fact, that an invisible God exists is empirical lest how can we explain the origin of invisible forces and invisible laws of physics? That the Christian Bible is the true source of a true religion I can easily demonstrate through fulfilled prophecy (and a lot of it, too!) and the historical, archaeological confirmation of its existence and its surroundings. (The Quran has been criticized for having no archaeology and no broad prophecies but only narrow prophecies about Mohammad himself.) The existence of Jesus of Nazareth can be confirmed by at least 11 non-biblical references which only the dedicated skeptics can discuss on an absurdist level of reasoning. 

What I CANNOT support are the many pagan and false doctrines that have spread in the name of Christianity nor those that have inundated Judaism too. Hard to dismiss that the early Christianity of Christ was already being corrupted by Gnostic-Buddhist traditions when no mention of fathers, abbots, nuns, monasteries, prayer beads, veneration of relics, priestly celibacy, chants, or monks are contained in any of tis pages. Hard to dismiss that the early church observed God's holy days in a New Testament way rather than invent their own based on pagan Saturnalia and Ishtar traditions. Hard to dismiss that Protestantism only got rid of the Buddhism in corrupted Christianity and not its pagan observances. 

The New Testament teachings of Christ plainly teach peace and non-political involvement. So did the Apostle Paul and the early churches continue this traditions. There were no original instructions to Christ's little flock to destroy the world and all its people. He taught them to obey the authorities and become lights in a dark world around them. So many false doctrines and practices have laden believers with guilt and hang-ups that should never have been passed down to them. 

Religion is a dirty word nowadays for very good reasons but it isn't the truth that is threatening the world: It is the falsehoods and wrong conclusions that have corrupted adherents' minds and made them easier to radicalize and embrace devilish ideas, perhaps inviting possession of the devil himself.

Our Backward View of History

Neanderthal Skull

Just watched a BBC video on Neanderthals and the "new discovery" they were human because of their ability to create art. I found this "breakthrough" rather underwhelming because, our accumulated knowledge of this human population showed that they carefully buried their dead in a ceremonial way indicative of belief in an afterlife and they are also known to have created musical instruments, the "Neanderthal flute" being one such relic.

The video shows the results of their exploration of a cave that is part of Gibraltar. Their determination it was a Neanderthal cave is an interesting one in that we are not told how it was determined. Presumably some human bones were discovered that match the body and cranial characteristics of skeletons found in the Neandertal Valley of Germany. Of course, the anthropologists quickly attribute to tens of thousands of years to their residence in the cave (which in itself is difficult to fathom if they were normal, curious human beings constantly in search of food and habitation). 

The real root of this problem regarding our human history is the speculation about deep time when, in fact, our knowledge of time is badly in need of reform. The closest anyone has come in trying to explain time was Stephen Hawking in his book, A Brief History of Time. Here he postulates that time began with a "singularity", but, upon further investigation, this simply turns out to be a meaningless tautology because singularity means spacetime. Ergo, Hawking postulates that time originated with spacetime. This is tantamount to saying that rain comes from water from the sky. It tells us absolutely nothing. But, in one of his lectures, Hawking did admit that our universe and our earth had to have had a beginning, time-wise. Here he was on the right track, to be sure, because time is built into our smallest particle of matter, radioisotopes. In radioisotopes, time is expressed in half lives. Carbon 14 has a half life of 5730 years, which is to say, that half of its isotope mass disappears in 5730 years. And in the following 5730 years, half of its earlier mass disappears. Through this understanding, it is therefore evident that Someone started the clock ticking because there would be no Carbon 14 existing if all of its radioactive mass had disappeared. 

Because of science's inability to grapple with this "big question", it is therefore quite fatuous to speculate on the age of Neanderthals or anything else they deem old. In fact, it is fatuous to believe Neanderthals are our ancestors in any direct sense because they could, in fact, be a European population group of peoples whose ancestry lie in the Middle East or Africa without relation to other population groups around the world. 

It is geological stratigraphy that provides that basis of our age determination methods. The notion that some relic or fossil is just so old is based on the rock environment it is found in. Despite the suspicion that radiometric dating--scientific dating--was discovered nearly 100 years after Lyell's Principles of Geology, and made to agree, the determination of a geological column was decided upon in a very arbitrary way. The fact that the geological strata is almost never found in the accepted order, is even a further travesty of academic integrity.

"The rocks do date the fossils, but the fossils date the rocks more accurately. Stratigraphy cannot avoid this kind of reasoning, if it insists on using only temporal concepts, because circularity is inherent in the derivation of time scales."—*J.E. O'Rourke, "Pragmatism vs. Materialism in Stratigraphy," American Journal of Science, January 1976, p. 53.

There are many means of determining the age of our universe and its earth, some of which provide us with relative ages and others providing us with absolute ages, and the majority of them vary dramatically from conventional radiometric means. For example, the known number of exploding star remnants (super novas) indicates an age of the universe that is only some six thousand years old. This relatively youthful age of our universe is seemingly corroborated by the Faint Sun Paradox and the decomposition of comets orbiting the sun. The magnetic decay of the earth's north and south poles sets up a trajectory that would make it impossible for our earth to be more than 10 thousand years old--another fact seemingly corroborated by the amount of mud accumulated on the sea floor and the recent discovery of T. Rex soft dinosaur tissue and its accompanying DNA existence.

So to insist on some Neanderthals as our evolutionary ancestors would seem to be wildly precipitous in light of these other age determination methods. 

Ancient histories by pagan Romans and Greeks couples with medieval histories attest to an earth that was peopled from humans originally from Mesopotamia thereby giving credence to their dispersion on the Plain of Shinar just as the Bible records. Raphael Holinshed states that the first human derived from Japheth populated Europe 200 years after the Great Flood. The History of Rome by Livy traces Italy's foundation to the Trojan defeat in its war against Sparta. And as far as the pre-Flood earth, we can only depend on the Bible for that murky period although other ancient histories testify that Seth's ancestors inhabited Egypt giving rise to the Seti name among its ancient Pharoahs living in the Post-Flood world. The

Bible, along with many pagan peoples' records, also verify that the ancient world existed with human giantism and dramatic longevity. The fossil record certainly verifies that almost every life form we know of today existed in the antidiluvian world in some giant form. At least every year, new fossil remains are turning up recording giant boas, bears, dragon flies, oysters, clams, iguanas, tigers, that existed in that pre-Flood world. There are precious few human fossils but, among them there are remnants of human teeth, skulls and skeletal parts (femurs, tibias, etc.) indicating giant human as well. The best documented example was the Giant of Castelnau but other giants were found in the same Bronze Age grave site in Montpellier, France. Yet skeletal parts of many giants were also discovered in North America and recorded in local newspapers (assuming none of these were hoaxes). 

Our interpretation of history is badly damaged and in need of repair. Anthropology is supposed to be looking for the truth but, perhaps as the late primate specialist, Lord Solly Zukerman, intoned is closer to the fact: "Paleontology is closer to parapsychology that science: (from Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Frontiers of Public and Private Science ) Too bad that those with their feet on the ground and perceptive minds are ridiculed for their logical conclusions regarding our past. But then, who ever believed for a moment that scientific truth was established by the majority opinion?

The Fickleness of Human Opinion and Why We Are Close-Minded

A pundit on CNBC Business News expressed a couple of days ago his concern that governments throughout the Western world are now experiencing a new threat of populism, comparing it to the rise of tyrannical regimes in former decades. People of low information needs are electing demagogues championing the will of the people through false promises and over-simplification. What he forgot to mention is that it may be flourishing at the moment but it has always been a risk of democratic nations. For example, many Brits feel they were lied to regarding a Brexit promise that their yearly contribution to the EU would be funneled into funding for the National Health Service. Similarly, the promise of Mexico paying for a southern wall across the US is not considered (1) realistic humanly, (2) possible politically on either side of the border, and (3) very effective in the end anyway. But, whatever, the case the simplistic solutions and promises made to the population is effective without a doubt.

In reference to the Chilcot Report, Matthew Syed wrote an article for the BBC Magazine section entitled: Why We Cover Our Ears to the Facts. Of course I respect his opinions here and appreciate them for no other reason that they give me something to write about!  But his observations are woefully naive and inadequate to answer the question he poses.

He states that, despite evidence to the contrary, people always stick to their position on a matter. I agree with him concerning this overall truth but disagree with him on why people do so, especially in the case of the Chilcot Report. 

People stick to their earlier decisions regarding the Western coalition's intervention in Iraq, not because they defied the facts; they supported the intervention because they never heard the facts! Moreover, the false information they received came from the intelligence services of the number one superpower in the world that shared many of their same values, beliefs and language--the United States. By and large, the US has always been a reliably partner in Britain's transatlantic relationship and this trajectory was one that lulled Britain into a national support for US foreign policy (which apparently was really being controlled by President Bush's aides and not himself). The "slam dunk" certainty about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction came from information delivered to congress that was the result of cherry-picking and the influence of Dick Cheney and other neo-cons. Still the same, Canada was one of the few allies of the US that did not buy the intelligence and this later became a point of pride among Canadians (although they did participate in Afghanistan). 

What provoked the strongest reaction from concerning Syed's article were his statements, "Science has changed the world because it prioritises evidence over conviction. Judgements are subservient to what the data tells us." This is only partially true because science itself is only partly verifiable. The science based on observable evidence that can be repeated at will is certainly evidence upon which decisions and opinions can be made. And so our engineers and other applied scientists do. But historic science is not verifiable and is frequently contradicted though published as fact. 

Science has never answered the biggest questions in life, the questions its own theories are based upon. How did the element of time arise? (It is present in our smallest particle of matter, radioistopes.) How did life arise when no current intelligence can created it (except the parent of every plant, animal and human).? How can the probabilities of millions, billions or even trillions of sequential events have arisen by random chance? Statisticians recognize a virtual impossibility when the smallness of a number is inversely lower than the number of atoms in our universe. 

And it gets even worse: The notion that science can speak to the origins of time, space and life is absurd. It cannot because it is unable. So it attempts to explain its wisdom by, in some cases, publishing meaningless tautologies like "survival of the fittest", "time may have arisen from a singularity (spacetime, Stephen Hawking), or by dating non-radioactive strata by its index fossils and, on other occasions, turning around and dating fossils by the strata they are found in. 

And if Mr. Syed has any confidence in the scientific community and its peer review process, he should research this subject further. Both British and American sources expose the flat-out chicanery of the process and how easily it is circumvented and, therefore, how unreliable it is. An article, The Peer Review Scam, from the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine should dismay him enough: "So we have little evidence on the effectiveness of peer review, but we have considerable evidence on its defects. In addition to being poor at detecting gross defects and almost useless for detecting fraud it is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, something of a lottery, prone to bias, and easily abused." Then he might move on to another article from Canada's CBC | Technology & Science Q&A webpage by Torah Kachur, 2016 ("Science Community Looks for Ways to Stop Fake Papers", where she submitted her own fake paper and received favourable peer reviews. An article from CBC's radio program, the Current, published an investigation into peer review revealing that most of the papers submitted paid for their reviews while other submissions were reviewed by as little as two contributing editors. Lord Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist and member of Britain's House of Lords, assured BBC's Stephen Sackur on his program, HardTalk, that scientists were the least able to change because of their deeply entrenched biases. (She said this in response to her being roundly criticized by her academic colleagues for publishing an article raising the question of cell phones' impacts on neurotransmitters, backing up her concerns by citing some 500 papers published by mostly Scandinavian and Australian universities.) Perhaps our confidence in the objective nature of science needs to be reexamined.

Therefore, it isn't just that people are intransigent when it comes to defying the evidence before them. It is also a matter of believing that the evidence is really true after all. CNN announced some two years ago that 15% of all article published in all medical journals were retracted. Some 5% were actually falsified! 

Mr. Syed must also acknowledge that Prime Minister Blair and some senior members of the British military have denied the truth of some of Mr. Chilcot's conclusions. I guess it all depends on where you get your information from!

A perfect example of the population being dazzled by insufficient evidence is a new book coming out by Canadian-American writer, Malcolm Gladwell, entitled David and Goliath. He has already been on several major US programs promoting the novel and convincing idea that people breaking new ground traditionally are often rejected later on because of a moral license people adopt. His example were powerful to be sure. America had its first Catholic President with John Kennedy but never another one since. How many US cities had one black mayor only to never have another one? By this metric, President Obama may be the last president the US may ever have. And, as a warning to Secretary Hilary Clinton, he mentioned the same trend with regard to women political leaders. (While in Toronto, he cited the case of Kim Campbell and her lone status as Canada's only woman prime minister.) 

If we listen only to Mr. Gladwell's evidence, we might think he has fallen upon some novel truth. But, while speaking in Toronto, he was thoughtfully opposed by a Norwegian lady in the audience who cited the fact the Norway has had several female prime ministers to which Gladwell could not speak to. Likewise, someone from the same audience brought up the integration of African-Americans into the sports world (e.g. Jackie Robinson), paving the way for many African-Americans to come. All of a sudden the new truth he has stumbled upon may not be so universal after all. (He also forgot to mention Britain's several queens.) 

It is true that humans are resistant to change but, as it turns, out this makes them very typical and very average. And the empiricism of science doesn't alter this. "A man convinced against his will of of the same opinion still," goes the old rhyme. 

Would scientists dare to believe that something can come from nothing and then explode? They do. Would scientists believe in this day in spontaneous generation? That life can come from non-life? Despite the law of abiogenesis, they do. Would scientists embrace a molecules-to-man evolution contrary to the class law of cell theory, that no new genetic information can ever be added to a daughter cell? They do. And if the chance that all 52 cards of a deck could be drawn sequentially be 1/(52^52), would scientists believe that millions of sequential developments could bring about our orderly universe and our earth? They do. 

People universally are close-minded it turns out. Very few have been given the gift of an open mind that judges all the evidence critically and arrives at the most logical conclusion. Without this gift, I am afraid our world will continue to teeter-totter back and forth politically and socially until the most harm is done to the most people.

Philistine Cemetery Found...and What to Make of It

BBC News and almost every international news organization has reported on the recent discovery of a Philistine cemetery at the location they believe was ancient Gath, the ancient hometown of the ancient giant, Goliath.

The fact that proof of an ancient Philistine civilization should be of no surprise to anyone because of their mention in our Bible. Archaeologists have known little about ancient Philistia because they have buried their heads in the sand and dismissed written history in favour of buried remains and the interpretations they can generate. 

The red-and-black pottery has now led them to believe they were a Mycenaean Greek peoples of the sea. The Australian ABC Online news amazingly reported that "Goliath's people not giants after all". This is amazing because the Bible, itself, does not claim that the Philistines were all giants. Rather, Goliath was their champion against the Israelites expressly because of his unusual height (some 12 feet by today's estimation). The Bible does speak of giants, though, and even mentions that the Anakim settled in various places, including Gath: "None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod." (Jos 11:22 NKJV) Goliath was the Philistine champion but actually a Gittite which means he could have come by his giantism through an Anakim ancestry. If so, Goliath's ancestors came from the Kiriath-Arba (Hebron) where the Anakim dsecended from their father, Arba (Num 13:22). The Anakim were the giants that the Israelites drove out, the same ones that made them look as small as grasshoppers so tall were they. 

If we value a written record over the meager information we can glean from a spade, the Bible further instructs us as to where the Philistines originated: "Pathrusim, and Casluhim (from whom came the Philistines and Caphtorim)" (Gen 10:14 NKJV; see also 1 Chr. 1:12) The Pathrusim were the people of Pathros in Upper Egypt. (Pathros was the Hebrew name for Upper Egypt just as Mizraim was their name for Egypt itself.) The Philistines, therefore, were descended from the line of Ham. This indicates nothing about their physical likeness for the Amorites descended from Ham, too, and left records of themselves as having blue eyes and blonde hair (one and same as the Amurri according to Dr. Archibald Sayce, Assyriologist, Oxford University), and the Phoenicians, also descended from Ham, were famous for their red hair (from whom the Fenians of Ireland claim part descent). Of course, the genetic pool for the women in Noah's times was still vast being only 10 generations removed from Adam and Eve. 

This is not to exclude the possibility that the Philistines did not have a link to the sea peoples in the region. It is thought that the tribe, the Pelethites (2 Sam. 8:18; 15:18), mentioned in the Bible were also Philistines and that the Cherethites (Ezek. 25:16) mentioned along with them were originally inhabitants of the island of Crete. 

In one sense, the recent discovery of the Philistine cemetery is somewhat old hat. In 2008, the newspapers mentioned the discovery of a shard dating from the very period referencing a shepherd boy (David) killing Goliath.(see left picture, although, amazingly again, Dr. Aaron Mayer has confused the Bible's narrative about Goliath with another account of Goliath's son being slain by one of Daivd's later warriors). Similarly a coin was found substantiating the tale of Samson killing the lion. 

The notion that there were giants in ancient times is one I will not go into right now except to say that all the ancients wrote of giants in antiquity, In fact, many misinterpret Genesis 6 in thinking that giants resulted from the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men. These sons of God were not angels because Jesus taught that angels cannot marry, let alone give birth to offspring. Moreover God would not have punished humankind with a Great Flood on account of this seeing as no compliance is necessary (and therefore no sin) if an invisible angel was actually able to breed with humans! Many have gotten this wrong, including the infamous Flavius Josephus. Though perhaps a fraud, the most credible version of the Book of Jasher corrects this and sees the sons of God as direct lineal descendants of Adam and Eve and their sons (Adam was called a son of God) marrying frequently and promiscuously with the daughters of men (thus explaining what Jesus meant when He said that the days of Noah would be recreated at the end time, people marrying and giving in marriage).

It is true that objective science is not always objective and definitely deficient in the knowledge that comes from simply studying the Bible as a historical basis for truth. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised that, when Microsoft brought out their first computer game, Age of Civilizations, they introduced the battles with the Assyrians by stating that "nothing was ever known about Assyria except for the Bible's account." This should be a clue that maybe a fuller understanding of ancient Palestine (Philistia) might begin there too!

Russia the Prime Target of Largest NATO Exercises in Poland

A headline screams, "Huge NATO Exercise Is a Rehearsal for a Russian Invasion". Largely unrecognized by North Americans, Russian aggression is now seen as the major threat facing the world. Anakonda is the largest joint NATO exercises since the end of the Cold War going on right now in Poland. President Obama is currently there being briefed on the latest developments. 

While Ruissia has been invited to attend and monitor the exercises, there is no doubt who the message is meant for: President Putin.  31 thousand troops are taking part from 24 NATO countries. These exercises are a response to Russian military exercises in March that were clearly targeted at NATO.

The importance of NATO's recent exercises is to affirm its continuing strength partly because of the recent departure of the UK from the EU. Observers are concerned that the unity of NATO may well be threatened by the brush off the Brexit has caused among France, Germany and the other EU-NATO allies. Russia is hoping that the Brexit will weaken the NATO alliance and allow it to pursue its expansionist aims.

It is an interesting footnote to the current times that, while Western powers are facing disunity and increasing political polarization, Russia is rising above it and pushing at the seams to accomplish its imperial aims and capture more territory in an effort to restore its old Soviet borders and satellite influence. The crisis the West is facing currently is a crisis within: Overcoming the decay of the social fabric of its societies and dealing with immigration, tolerance and assimilation issues. British voters were recently interviewed by BBC recently and many declared that their country was no longer theirs as they knew it any longer. Ironically, Scotland is now realizing this fear with the very real threat of a new independence referendum. America is facing a hot day in July at the moment and the perpetural problem of poisonous race relations; so much so, that a law enforcement officai and former policeman from Minnesota thinks America may be revisiting the race wars of the 60's and 70's. The political cultures of both English-speaking powers are dramatically degenerating into factions and bitter infighting.

Make no mistake about it. Russia is the end-time king of the north predicted in Daniel 11. Putin is its leader and has already emerged as the strongest leader in the world's eyes recently. Russia will rise as never before and succeed in uniting Eurasia in a resurrected Holy Roman Empire. It will also make further forays into the Middle East. As the end-time beast superpower the book of Revelation speaks of, it is important to know that, on account of its refusal to relent in the last days coming soon upon us, the Seven Last Plagues will be unfurled upon it by the omniscient, ominipotent God. These Seven Last Plagues (Rev. 16) come at the end of THIS AGE. The sixth one sees the Euphrates River dried up to make way for the kings of the east. These kings, most certainly the Islamic countries, would certainly benefit from unfettered land access to the Middle East. A final battle in the Middle East is coming soon. So the West will continue to dissemble and divide while Russia will continues to rise and annex adjoining territories. 

Don't be distracted by the short-term trends. The long-term picture foresees a time of trouble this world has never known before in its history. Pray you and your loved ones will escape these remarkable times that lie ahead.

Unexpected Connection Between Senseless Killing of Dallas Policemen and Noah's Ark

The worst killing of policemen since 9/11 the media has reported. The worst direct attack on the police in 60 years another headline declared. An attack on 11 policemen in Dallas with 5 killed so far. Why? It was a protest march following the senseless death of two blacks in Louisiana and Minnesota. The issue causing the protest? Racism among the police. 

Of course, the majority of our police are helpful to the public and no guilty of racism. It is interesting to note that, while the officers were being shot at by the snipers in Dallas, other officers were protecting the public and herding them away from the dangerous area. Both black and white protesters were being protected by the police who were overseeing a protest against their own kind!

Yet there is little doubt that racism is a major factor in the American fabric of society. Few would deny that blacks and other minorities get a raw deal when it comes to American justice. Profiling may not be approved by many police departments, but public opinion and testimony undeniably attests to its pervasive reality.

I am convinced that our ignorance about the reality of Noah's Ark and the survival of humankind is not unrelated by any means to the above tragedy in today's America. Why?  Because Noah's Ark had only eight people aboard, including the wives. All of our so-called races descended from these eight. How could this be?

We must remember that Noah's family were only 10 generations removed from Adam and Eve. Recent anthropological studies indicate that the existence of an original prototypical Eve is even an accepted fact in scientific circles. So how could all our races come from Eve?

Let us clarify the matter a little first. The notion of race as we understand it today was purely an invention of the late 19th century when scientists began an obsession with speciating everything. In actual fact, there was only one human race because everyone could marry and beget children from those marriages. What few realize is that mother Eve was created with a vast genetic pool capable of begetting children of every possible phenotype we know of today. In Eve's womb lay the capacity to bear a child of every skin colour, nose shape, hair type and other characteristics.  And the Bible itself declares that Adam and Eve bore far more children than just Cain, Abel and Seth: "After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters." (Gen 5:4 NKJV)  Thus, there was no problem with Adam and Eve's sons marrying their daughters because, as of yet, there were no harmful mutations to weaken the line and therefore no need for any consanguinity laws.

By the time of Noah, the genetic pool was still vast for the wives. It is entirely possible that Shem, Ham and Japheth looked very different from each other yet still produced offspring of no consistent racial features. Secular history teaches us that the offspring of Ham were sometimes black as with the Cushites yet sometimes blonde-haired and blue-eyed as with the Amorites (the Amurri according to Assyriologist, Archibald Sayce of Oxford U.). The Phoenicians were also descended from Ham and it is quite likely red hair was a common feature among them. And so, all of the physical types of human beings we have today in our world descended from Noah's sons and their wives and every possible physical trait was part of the diversity that ensued. Few people realize therefore, the silliness of racial theories and how they have no justification in separating peoples from each other.

Before the 19th century, race was equated with nationhood. Historians spoke of the American race when they knew full well Americans were descended from just about every ethnicity. So while there are clans and tribes and ethnicities that do bear unique physical traits and characteristics, there are no races in the world except the human race.

This is not to say that cultures do not divide. They certainly do. And sometimes, the major part of culture is religion and religions most certainly do divide. Yet there is even a bit of hypocrisy here, too. While many Westerners are annoyed by special dress worn by Muslims and Sikhs that share their communities, apparently it was always acceptable for Catholic nuns to go about wearing their habits and standing out! Of course, a society becomes entrenched in its own traditions and closes the door to the latecomers.

Therefore, the historical existence of Noah's Ark might actually have contained something far more than just the basic animal types of our planet: It may have contained the answer to our modern racism problems! We all belong to the same human race. It is the evolutionary theory that promotes races and speciation. The late J. Philippe Rushton was a Canadian evolutionist whose book, Race, Evolution and  Behavior,  attracted considerable controversy when he was alive because of its thesis that different ethnicities were either progressed or regressed from an evolutionary standpoint. While admittedly opposed by other scientists during his life, Darwin himself never saw the black man as the equal of the white nor, for that matter, the female human equal to the male. Remember, one of the original titles for Darwin's  classic book was The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

If only the larger lesson of Noah's Ark were known widely and accepted by our world today. What a difference it might make!