Dangerous Devolution at the Door II

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Jesus Christ is the Truth and truth never changes.  The truth has no opinion.  The truth has no equal.  The truth has zero tolerance.  The truth gives no quarter.  Two plus two equals four and 3.999 just won’t do. 

God’s Word is the absolute truth and it declares that salvation is in Jesus Christ and there is no other.  Have you been born again—born a second time, this time of the Spirit of God?  Are you ready to surrender yourself to the one who never changes?  Embrace the absolute truth today and watch your doubts, confusion, and guilt melt away.  Click onto “Further With Jesus” for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY'S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Psalm 2:1-4:

1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

GOD SAID, Romans 8:22-23:

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

GOD SAID, Hebrews 1:10-12:

10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

11 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;

12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

MAN SAID:  We are constantly getting better and someday soon, we will all be X-Men.

Now, THE RECORD.  Elimination of doubt is central to Christian success.  Jesus said in Mark 11:23:

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Where there is doubt, the mountains don’t move.  The vast majority of Americans believe that God created the earth and its universe, but a sizable portion of that number has doubts about the Bible’s position of a 6,000-year-old earth.  This is regrettable because there exists mountains of research and history that shouts “YOUNG!”  On GodSaidManSaid, there are dozens of features that certify God’s position on the age of the earth, and now here comes one more.  The redeemed and sinners alike can be assured of one thing:  God’s Word is true and righteous altogether, and yes, also in regard to the age of the earth. 

Western society today generally sees themselves as more sophisticated and enlightened than generations of days long past, and most people today do not even bother to study the thoughts and beliefs of their forefathers.  The theory of evolution contributes to this deranged mindset by teaching society that our forefathers were actually knuckle-dragging apes who lived in caves and we are their enlightened offspring.  But is this really true?  Are we really getting smarter and better as time goes on?  Were our forefathers dumber and less capable than we are today?  The evidence, as we shall see, tells a much different story.  The following is from the GodSaidManSaid article Dumb and Dumber and 6,000 Years:

Now consider this headline from the May 2013 issue of Acts and Facts, “Is Mankind Getting Dumber?”  Several paragraphs written by science writer Brian Thomas follow:

Do today’s children have lower I.Q.’s than yesterday’s?  Yes, according to measurements of intellectual and emotional strength gathered from different countries and contexts.  The results show the same basic decline and resist the notion that public or other forms of education are to blame.  Could the cause instead lie within?

Stanford University professor Gerald Crabtree thinks so.  He published a pair of essays in the journal Trends in Genetics, citing new discoveries that show why the human intellect is “surprisingly fragile.”  This Biblical creation-friendly notion didn’t sit well with the authors of a rebuttal paper, who countered that the human intellect is “robust.”  What lies at the heart of this disagreement—bad science or bad assumptions? 

Crabtree identified two fundamental processes as the main culprits.  First, human intelligence uses neurons, and these cells can only function properly if their genes stay in top shape.  Second, these genes are susceptible to degradation.  This loss of organization occurs continually as mutations slowly, irreversibly garble genes, and the resulting errors pile up and are not corrected. 

Each new generation accrues about 60 new mutations to the gene-coding DNA regions of the human genome.  Crabtree applied this rate to calculate that “every 20-50 generations, we should sustain a mutation in one copy of one of our many ID genes.”  As a result, “in the past 3,000 years then (~120 generations), each of us should have accumulated at the very least 2.5-6 mutations in ID genes.”  Accordingly, the human intellect “perhaps reached a peak 2,000-6,000 years ago.” 

This appears to confirm three lessons that can be drawn from the Bible.  First, Adam and Eve’s brains were originally “very good.”  Second, we had our best brains about 6,000 years ago.  Third, humanity has suffered genetic degradation since then under the Curse. 

Both Crabtree and his detractors tried to extrapolate some sets of numbers to make conclusions about the unobservable past.   The rebuttal authors, who resist the genetic-decay principle, hand-picked numbers that supported evolutionary history.  Crabtree instead used numbers collected from real-world studies.  And those studies present an ever-clearer case for a human race that was very good at the start, but is steadily falling apart. [End of quote]

In Part One of this feature, we discussed the genetic decay of all living species and demonstrated that not only is natural selection not improving our gene code, it is wholly incapable of even preserving what we already have.  All life is on a sure path to extinction, and it seems there is little we can do to slow it.  In Part Two, we will provide real-world examples of genetic decay in action, and show that modern man’s narcissism is as ill-founded as his belief in evolution. 

As a paleoanthropologist, Peter McAllister has done considerable research in the study of human history.  Being an evolutionist, he supposed his studies would reveal that modern man is at the top of his game, while ancient man lags far behind.  After all, evolutionary teaching presupposes that we have been slowly evolving into some greater being since the beginning of time.  The truth he soon discovered, however, was not so flattering.  The following is from his book, Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male is Not the Man He Used to Be:

I didn’t set out to destroy the image of modern males when I started this book.  Far from it.  As a paleoanthropologist and a man, I love my brother males…I would write an ABC of the virtues of Homo masculinus modernus, comparing him to earlier men to prove that he is—we are—the crowning glory of humanity’s long evolutionary struggle up from our inauspicious beginnings as leopard food on the African savannah.  As you will see, I failed. 

In fact, I didn’t even get past B.  I discovered, to my horror, that it’s impossible to write a book about the superior achievements of modern males because we haven’t made any.  From battling to booze, babes and bravado, there’s nothing we can do that ancient men, and sometimes women, haven’t already done better, faster, stronger, and usually smarter…Typically, that knowledge dawned on me slowly.  Like any challenged male seeking to cover up a gnawing sense of inadequacy, I started by picking on a girl, to be precise.  I decided that demonstrating how strong modern men are compared to our ancient brethren (thanks to fitness science and superior nutrition) would make a great beginning, so I calculated the average upper-arm strength of several winners of the World Arm-Wrestling Federation Championships since 2000 and compared it to that of the Neanderthals who lived in Europe in the Upper Paleolithic roughly 40,000 years BCE.  I must have already sensed I would need to stack the deck a little, since for some reason I decided to start with a Neanderthal woman.  That did me no good, however, for a troubling inconsistency quickly emerged.

She was stronger. 

I checked and rechecked the data, but there was no mistake.  Incredibly, it seemed that even a random, anonymous Neanderthal female would slam the big men of the WAF to the table every time…The further back I went, the more calamitous the news became. [End of quote]

It should be noted that Neanderthal man did not live 40,000 years ago, and he was just as human as you and I.  (For more information, see Neanderthal Man.)  McAllister soon discovered that in every area of human physiology, ancient man had us beat: 

• • Strength:  Nineteenth-century archeological excavations on the Greek island of Thera uncovered a 1,058-pound boulder dated to the sixth century BC bearing the inscription “Eumastas, the son of Critobulus, lifted me from the ground.”  (The current record for stone-lifting is an incredible 724 lbs.)   Another sixth century BC boulder, this time a 315-pound stone found at Olympia bears an inscription to the effect that an athlete called Bybon lifted it overhead one-handed and threw it. 
    
    To get an idea of the kind of colossal strength this feat entails, watch the Atlas Stones event in the World’s Strongest Man Competition.  The event involves five different stones ranging in weight from 220-352 lbs. that must be lifted and set on a platform.  While the strongmen do indeed do a good job with the Atlas Stones that are spherical and more difficult to grip, when one sees the difficulty with which the stones are lifted by those purported to be the strongest in the world, it exemplifies that the amount of strength needed to perform the above feats are unattainable by any living human.
  • Speed:  In 2003, archaeologists from Bond University discovered a series of human footprint trackways preserved in a fossil claypan lake bed in the Willandra Lakes region of New South Wales, Australia.  The most interesting are those of six adult men, probably hunters, who seem to have been running to outflank a prey animal.  An analysis of the men’s speed (calculated from their stride length) shows that all were running fast, but that the outside individual, the 6’5” “T8,” was achieving incredible speeds.  He was sprinting barefoot through a shallow, soft muddy lake edge, and he still managed to clock 23 mph.  Since the energy cost of running through mud or sand is 1 to 2 times that of running on a solid surface (let alone a rubberized track), this implies T8’s real speed was around 27.6 mph.  Given that this may not have been his top speed (his lengthening strides show he was accelerating) and that he was just one of possibly 150,000 Aboriginal men alive at that time (and probably not even the fastest), it seems likely that there were many prehistoric Australian males who could, if they trained, have regularly clocked 28 mph and beaten every Olympic sprinter, including Usain Bolt. 
  • Endurance:  Greek triremes were 132-foot wooden warships driven by the oars of 170 rowers arranged vertically on three decks.  Thucydides, the famous Greek historian, records that in 427 BC the Athenian Assembly hot-headedly ordered that the men of Mytilene, a colony 211 miles away on the Aegean island of Lesbos, should be put to death, and dispatched a trireme with the command.  The next day, they repented, sending another trireme to rescind it.   The first trireme had a whole day-and-a-half start, but Thucydides records that, by rowing for 24 hours straight, the second ship caught up with the first and canceled the murderous order.  Even allowing for exaggeration on Thucydides’ part, this puts the second trireme’s sustained speed in excess of 7.5 mph, or almost 7 knots.  This is an impressive pace, but one that was, according to other Greek writers, commonly maintained by even mediocre trireme crews.  Such statements have caused many a modern person to wonder—could today’s oarsmen achieve such speeds?  Thanks to a British exercise physiologist, the Greek navy, and a dash of Olympic nostalgia, we now know the answer. 
    
    They can’t. 
    
    As part of the opening ceremony for the 2004 Athens Olympics, the Olympic flame was towed into the Athenian port of Piraeus by a trireme named Olympias, which was reconstructed by the Greek navy in 1987 from pictures of triremes on ancient lamps and paintings.  Harry Rossiter, an exercise physiologist from Leeds University and a racing oarsman himself, took the opportunity to test the endurance of trained modern rowers in a real-life trireme.  The results were dismal.  Rossiter reported that the modern rowers could, after several months of training, get Olympias up to nine knots for a brief spurt; but they couldn’t maintain that speed, or even just seven knots, for any sustained period.  Rossiter measured the rowers’ metabolic rates and discovered the reason:  The modern crew just wasn’t physically capable of the sustained aerobic effort required.  “The Athenian oarsmen’s endurance was extraordinary,” said Rossiter’s co-researcher, historian Boris Rankov.  “In that respect, compared to anybody you could find today, they were superior athletes.”  What makes the ancient Greek rower’s achievements even more remarkable is that they were small men.  Champion rowers today average 6’3,” giving them a reach advantage with the oars, but the ancient Athenian males averaged a mere 5’6.”  Remarkable, too, is the fact that Athens seemed to have so many of these superb athletes, at one stage fielding a 34,000-strong army of rowers for the city’s 200-trireme fleet.  The rowers were apparently paid and fed well, but their diet was nothing special, consisting of simple barley meal kneaded with olive oil and wine. [End of quote]

The list could continue and include the fast paces ancient armies marched for much longer distances while carrying much heavier gear than that of today’s armies, or the extreme accuracy Genghis Khan’s archers had from horseback over today’s professional archers who practice standing still and at much closer distances, or the children of Israel who could sling a stone at a hair-breadth and not miss (Judges 20:16).  It could include the African tribesmen who could jump higher than any Olympic athlete in recorded history, or the incredible improvisational and lyrical memory capabilities of the ancient poets who would put any modern rapper to shame, and many more examples.  Despite all of our advances in diet and physical science, it looks as though we just cannot compete with our ancient forefathers.  Upon examining all this evidence, McAllister struggled to explain this evidence from an evolutionary view:

Was the secret behind the incredible aerobic capacity of the trireme rowers, then, also genetic?  Again, this is an appealing explanation, but one difficult to believe given that just three thousand years separate the heroic Athenians from their modern sluggish counterparts.  Evolutionary change, via natural selection, generally works on much longer timescales than that. 

McAllister goes on to suggest that the reason for the ancients' superior abilitiescould be attributed to the working toughness they had developed because of their harsh and demanding lives, causing a lifelong program of bone, muscle, and tendon toughening.  The obvious problem with this theory is that many people today, including Olympic and professional athletes, develop their bodies day in and day out with tough and rigorous training, and yet cannot compete at the levels shown by ancient man.  There are more people alive today than at any time during Earth’s history.  Would evolutionists have us believe that not one person out of the 7 billion alive today, or those alive in past centuries, has trained their body to the same rigorous standards as that of the ancients?  If that is the case, then what do we make of all of the advances in exercise science?  If the ancients’ superior fitness is merely a result of their upbringing, then why can’t we duplicate it?  Do all of the professional and Olympic trainers around the world just not know what they are doing?  Keep in mind that the ancient rowers, for example, were not just a select group of genetic anomalies, but part of the regular rank and file.

Obviously, genetic degradation has taken place.  The degradation is not limited to just humans, either.  There is a popular movement among gardeners to preserve the best crops by using what is known as heirloom seeds.  These heirloom vegetables are old-time varieties passed down through multiple generations of families and are said to be more nutritious and delicious than common hybrid types. 

The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that everything is breaking down and tending towards disorder. 

Evolution's teaching is preventing scientists from acknowledging what should be painfully obvious.  While we can, and should, address the physical and environmental factors that are contributing to, and speeding up, this degradation, it must be acknowledged that there is a very real genetic degradation taking place that is beyond our control.  While this information should be very sobering to any fair-minded person, never fear, dear saints.  God has a plan for His children:  Revelation 21:1-5:

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Since the fall, man has been progressively getting dumber, weaker, slower, and has less endurance, and this world cannot correct the slide. 

GOD SAID, Romans 8:22-23:

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

GOD SAID, Hebrews 1:10-12:

10 And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:

11 They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment;

12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

MAN SAID:  We are constantly getting better and someday soon, we will all be X-Men.

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

GodSaidManSaid, Neanderthal Man

McAllister, P., Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male is Not the Man He Used to Be, 2012

 

• Go Further With Christ
• Email To a Friend
• Comments or Questions?