Privacy concerns mount over retail use of RFID technology

RFID - The next big thing in the AutoID industry, but some major hurdles need to be overtaken first. "Park Ridge, Ill. - Engineers and consumer advocates are pushing suppliers and corporate retailers to take a harder look at privacy concerns related to the use of radio frequency identification technology. Noting that such issues could undermine RFID's enormous potential, engineers at a recent RFID Privacy Workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology called for implementation of "powerful and flexible privacy mechanisms." ... ... calls for high-tech intervention have put backers of RFID technology on the defensive, as consumer groups and the media press for safeguards. ..." The RFID revolution will affect the consumer in one form or fashion - not even related to the security issues. I'm talking about the cost of the RFID tag. The cost of RFID tags will funnel into higher cost of the goods to which the tags are attached - at least at first - until the cost of tags goes down. The main type of tags that will have the most affect (b/c Walmart & the US Defense Dept are using them) is the "868-956Mhz" range tags. Now. If only Smart cards get more widely used. For some reason their adoption is slow going.

Poetry.com

If you like writing poetry, you might want to check out Poetry.com. I have a few things up there. Some decent; other stuff not so.... The neat thing is you have a chance to win $$ :) I had one piece that kept coming up in their discussions. I got tons of mail for it, but I did not win any $$. I'd rather win the $$ than recognition :) hehe Anyway, I digress. Go enjoy it. It's a good site AND you can possibly win $$.!!!

Lyrics

Stacie Orrico's Don't Look At Me has a good message. I know it jams out quite a bit, but the lyrical emphasis is good. The point is we (as humans) get caught up in lifting up man as a hero (at times rightfully so, but other times not so deserving) when we need to lift our Savior up instead. "Don't look at me if you're looking for perfection Don't look at me I will only let you down I'll do my best to point you in the right directon But don't look at me No, no, no Don't look at me, look at Him Sometimes I have a fear That you will see a mirror And get the thought that it's the main attraction But all that you detect Is just what I reflect Of the object of my own affection I'll lead you to the One I found He'll give you everything you need Don't look at me if you're looking for perfection Don't look at me I will only let you down I'll do my best to point you in the right direction But dont' look at me No, no, no Dont' look at me, look at Him It's understandable to want a hero But people can't meet all your expectations Still some can teach you things about the love He brings Just know the source of life is in the Savior I'll lead you to the One I found He'll give you everything you need Don't look at me if you're looking for perfection Don't look at me I will only let you down I'll do my best to point you in the right direction But don't look at me No,no, no Don't look at me, look at Him He's the One who lived a perfect life He's the One who always gets it right He's the One and only guiding light, Ohh, yeah He is everthing you want to be He's the answer to your every need If you follow Him then you will se(e) He's like no other"

HP back on top of PC market

Hewlett-Packard overtook Dell to become the world's largest PC maker in the fourth quarter in a market that is both growing and growing more difficult. Want the full scoop? click on the above link.

Judge rules Microsoft infringed on Eolas patent

A Chicago federal judge on Wednesday upheld a $512 million patent verdict against Microsoft that could ultimately force major changes in many of the most common Internet software products. Judge James Zagel said he saw no reason to overturn an August jury verdict that said Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browsing software had infringed on patent rights held jointly by small developer Eolas Technologies and the University of California. As part of his decision, Zagel barred Microsoft from distributing versions of its Web software that include the potentially infringing technology. However, he immediately put that injunction on hold until an appeal has run its course. ... ... The Eolas patent covers technology used to call up separate applications, such as a media player or document viewer, within a Web page. ... ... Microsoft has said that it believes that the Eolas patent will ultimately be found invalid, either by the courts or by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. ... ... "We remain confident that on appeal, when people hear this though, they will see that--as we claimed--the patent is not valid," Microsoft spokesman Lou Gellers said. "We don't think we violated anything even if it were valid." ... ... The software giant has 30 days to file a notice of appeal in the case. As part of his ruling, Zagel said Microsoft must pay more than $45 million in "prejudgment interest" for the infringement while the appeal is mounted." This one's self-explanatory. doh!

Agriculture epidemics may hold clues to Net viruses

In studying the effects of last summer's MSBlast worm, some security experts turned to an unlikely source in search of clues to the prevention of computer epidemics: plants. Their idea was inspired by parallels that scientists are drawing between the proliferation of computer viruses and the spread of agricultural catastrophes such as Dutch Elm Disease, which has devastated a small variety of American elms since crossing the Atlantic decades ago. Like Dutch Elm, MSBlast was a single foreign entity that infected extremely susceptible hosts of an entire population--in this case, of Windows computers. "People have brought over species that we didn't expect here, just like people have created viruses that Microsoft didn't expect to deal with," said Jeff Dukes, professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, who studies diversity and growth in ecological systems. "These introduced species have had a major impact on our forest and have knocked out entire species." Computer security experts see similarities between the way a disease can devastate agricultural crops and the way a virus can attack Internet infrastructure. The reliance on one type of technology, software or protocol has created digital "monocultures," a phrase borrowed from botany that refers to ecosystems vulnerable to disastrous harm from a single disease. ... ... Even scientists outside technology have expressed concern about the issue. In a letter to a publication called "Emerging Infectious Diseases," a journal of the federal Center for Disease Control, two microbiologists cited specific similarities in the nature of biological and computer viruses. "Biological viruses can mutate rapidly, create novel pathogenic and transmission routes, and develop antigenic variation to evade host immunity. In the computer world, worms exhibit similar behavior," wrote microbiologists Trudy M. Wassenaar and Martin J. Blaser." Are scientists just now figuring out there is a very close tie between biological & digital viri (the correct variant of the word virus when referring to more than one)? I think it is a good thing to have different software packages from different vendors on your machine - the main reason? If a virus hits, you have a greater chance that your whole system will not go down. If your PC's have software from one vendor (i.e. M$), there is a greater chance your whole system could go down b/c all the software packages are based on the same programming scheme - hence, same vulnerabilities throughout (also same security - gasp!). Just a thought.

Al Mohler

Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world. He is a theologian and ordained minister, as well as an author, speaker and host of his own radio program Truth on the Line. On his weblog he posts an entry entitled: "The Case Against Homosexual Marriage" (link above). His entry is quite lengthy which is why I will summarize it for you by noting the highlights. "This is the (partial <- mine) text of Dr. Mohler's opening statement during a debate on homosexual marriage sponsored by The Louisville Forum, January 14, 2004. ..." "The question of homosexual marriage presents the American people with an inescapable moral challenge. The words homosexual and marriage are inherently contradictory. The very fact that these terms are in public conflict demonstrates the radical character of the social revolutionaries that now demand the legalization of homosexual marriage. For at least the last one hundred years, America has experienced an unprecedented season of social transformation. Now, this transformation has been extended to experimentation with the most basic institutions and cherished principles of our common life. A conversation about "homosexual marriage" is only possible if the concept of marriage is completely redefined and severed from its historic roots and organic meaning. Civilization requires the regulation of human sexuality and relationships. No society--ancient or modern--has survived by advocating a laissez faire approach to sex and sexual relationships. Every society, no matter how liberal, sanctions some sexual behaviors and proscribes others. Every society establishes some form of sexual norm. Pitirim Sorokin, the founder of sociology at Harvard University, pointed to the regulation of sexuality as the essential first mark of civilization. According to Sorokin, civilization is possible only when marriage is normative and sexual conduct is censured outside of the marital relationship. Furthermore, Sorokin traced the rise and fall of civilizations and concluded that the weakening of marriage was a first sign of civilizational collapse. ... ... Once individuals--especially males--are freed for sexual behavior outside of marriage, civilizational collapse becomes an inevitability. The weakening of marriage--even on heterosexual terms--has already brought a harvest of disaster to mothers and children abandoned in the name of sexual liberation. ..." This particular entry on his blog is insightful and very thought provoking. I suggest you read the entry to help you understand homosexuality and the sexual revolution is the bulldozer that is shaking the very foundation of our society.

Critical Condition

If you're like me (and most of you are), you don't watch Jeopardy. But I think it would have been neat to see Tom Walsh win it big on Jeopardy with a 7 game streak. (Remember, the 7 game limit has been raised this season. All past seasons were a limit of 5). It's interesting to read his account of what it was like to be on Jeopardy. "Well, all I can say is: I don't understand how it happened either. After the Jeopardy round, I was thinking, "I just won 6 games -- I can't be this bad, can I?" The buzzer is a fickle thing. I'd been through some hot streaks & some cold ones -- many of the hot ones coming at very opportune times -- but my futility for the first half of last night's game was incredible. Dave, & especially Meg, were just faster. But there's nothing you can do except hang in there & hope your luck changes in Double Jeopardy." It's an interesting read....

Opera 7 now for handhelds

"Sharp and Opera Software has announced that Opera is included on the new Sharp Zaurus SL-6000 handheld, the first embedded device to feature the new Opera 7 for embedded devices. Opera was also included in the SL-6000's predecessor, the SL-5500, for which Sharp and Opera received much praise." cool

Smart phones lose steam

"Mobile phone makers are reluctant to invest in smart phones or introduce new models, disappointed by slower-than-expected sales and weak positions on global markets. Major handset-telephone makers rolled out personal digital assistant phones last year but the result fell far short of expectations. ... ... LG Electronics Inc. also announced late last year that it developed a smart phone with a built-in camera sporting 1.1-million-pixel resolution. It priced the high-end model at 800,000 won. The device has 192 megabytes of memory and uses Microsoft's operating system for handheld computers. But the LG smart phone also was largely ignored by mainstream customers." An interesting article. If you want to read more, click the link above.

Blogging

Let me just say, right now, I ... like ... blogging. It's pretty cool. There is a problem with blogging though ... too ... much ... drivel (out there). A lot of people blog about what they ate for lunch, what time they got up this morning, and how many toes they lost during their annual polarbear swim in Marietta, WI. Who cares? Of course the story about someone losing their toes would be cool - although it's not good they've lost their toes, but it makes for a neat story - particularly if you're a Pastor/Preacher - of course I don't know how the story of losing toes ties into anything, but you'll figure that out.... But I digress... There are a couple purposes for blogging. 1. It is a good tool to let friends and family know how you are doing, what you up to, and that you are ok. This purpose is not for the general consumption of the populous (yes, I know populous is an ADJ, but I have chosen to use it as a N) :) 2. You have some good information that people can't get anywhere else. Or you actually have an opinion that counts in an industry. Or your information is highly specialized or in a niche market. I'm sure there are other purposes, but 90+% of the time blogs will fall into one of these purposes in one form or fashion. Now to my point of this post. Check out: The Entrepreneurial Mind - interesting viewpoints & opinions on Entrepreneurship. Another fav of mine is Lawrence Lessig - Professor of Law at Stanford Law School - When he posts, which isn't all the time... Two others are Wireless Doc - a Doctor's perspective of technology and the health industry - very neat insights... and Chumpmonkey! My good friend Allen's blog. I have other blogs I read, but I figured I'd highlight a few of my favs. Happy blogging!

The day has come...

Yes, folks. It has come ... the day I sold my 1995 Ford Mustang GT. < sniff > I'm gonna miss that car. I have in my hands (at the time of this post) the title of the 'stang. I am about to send it off to the new owners. Now the owners seem to be a little different. The woman works at a local university in the food arena (she's been there for 17 years) and the husband has been there 4 years in the same arena just doing a different job. Have you ever seen the old Jerry Lewis movie The Nutty Professor? Do you remember when the professor is in his office and has a flash back to when he was a young kid in a playpen watching his parents? I'd say in one form or fashion this couple (that bought the 'stang) is like the professor's parents. SHE wears the pants in the family. :) hehe I think this woman knew more about cars than her husband did. She mentioned terms I've never heard before! hehe People tell me... "You can't have everything you want at one time" or "You can get another one later on"... umm... duh? hehe - People are great at saying the most obvious things as if it's earth-shattering news!

Let the Blogs Speak!

If you haven't noticed yet, I did have a comments link on my blog. But due to a small situation, the comments are no longer! At least for now... Blog Speak. It was a good service until this happened. Which leads me to the point of this post. I am planning to transfer my blog to another service. Have a Chumpmonkey! My plans are to switch to Moveable Type. I will have more flexibility and everything will be hosted and run by CHUMPMONKEY! ~w3rd up yo! Chump on...

Rights issue dogs CD protection

"A dispute over royalty rights on copy-protected CDs and other types of music discs is helping to stall the release of some new music technology, and could result in record labels owing tens of millions of dollars in back payments to music publishers. At issue are "double session" CDs that include two versions of each song on a disc, formatted for playback on different kinds of devices. The most widely distributed type are copy-protected discs that prevent CD tracks from being copied to a hard drive, but that also include a digital version of the songs, often in Microsoft's Windows Media format, that can be transferred to a computer or portable digital music player. ... ... The licensing dispute highlights the new power of music publishers as the recording industry seeks to shift gears from selling songs on discs meant solely for traditional stereo systems to formats optimized for use on computers and computer peripherals--a change with profound implications for artists, consumers and everyone in between. ... ... The labels are bent on reducing piracy by preventing consumers from making unlimited copies of tracks on future CD releases, much as they have required digital download services such as Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store to include locks on the tracks they sell. Still, labels don't want to see their already beleaguered profit margins shaved further, and they are seeking ways to avoid doubling the amount they pay publishers for what most consumers perceive as the same product. So far, both sides say they want to resolve the dispute through negotiation, rather than litigation. But the high-stakes dispute underscores how technology transformations still remain captive to licensing and rights issues created for a decidedly pre-digital world. ..." An interesting dispute. Technology RULES! hehe Click the link above to read the full article...

AW Productivity Model

Reebok & Terry Tate - what a combination.... Very funny commercial. Watch it.

Flight Sim enquiry raises terror alert

ok. Get this. "A mother's enquiry about buying Microsoft Flight Simulator for her ten-year-old son prompted a night-time visit to her home from a state trooper. Julie Olearcek, a USAF Reserve pilot made the enquiry at a Staples store in Massachusetts, ..." What in the world??? This article has a classic quote: "in Massachusetts, home to an earlier bout of hysteria, during the Salem witch trials." hehe - doh! My question is, how can an enquiry... errr ... I'm in the US ... inquiry about buying M$ Flight Simulator be menacing? Someone give that Staples' clerk a relaxer... :) Read the story at The Register!!

The Clashing of Ideas...

As you can see in my previous post Diversity, America is changing demographically, and as a consequence, the very nature of how we handle education, work, etc... and general neighborly interaction must change. It is interesting to see that the subject of cultural diversity is being brought up. Of course, it needs to be addressed. Our country is changing, and we must change in the process. The clashing of ideas comes into play when we talk about being united within the United States, yet we still try to divide everyone into groupings. "I am African-American", "I am Irish-American", "I am Hispanic-American", blah, blah, blah.... Why can't you say, "I'm American who happens to be BLACK" or "I'm an American whose descendants are from Ireland" ?? It was commented to Whoopi Goldberg, "You know, I don't think I've ever heard you use the term African-American..." Whoopi's response? "No, I've never used it. Because I'm not." Whoopi would even tell you she's an American who is black and who has an African ancestry. Do you see the difference between saying "I'm an African-American" and "I'm an American with African ancestry"? The first seems to be another type of America. It's not just the United States of America, but also African-America, or Irish-America. Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being Irish (or having Irish ancestry) or being African (or having African ancestry), etc... But why do we have to divide everyone? The odd thing is everyone says 'treat me as you would treat anyone else!" - ok, if that's so important to you, why do you want to be known as African-American? Why can't you be known as American? And leave it at that? It seems to me you're looking for special treatment by terming your heritage as "African-American" or "Irish-American" etc... Furthermore, these groups also treat themselves as charity cases. Have you ever heard of "don't let a good mind go to waste" ? Oh.. plllllleeeeaassssseee!! If they're American, they have all the opportunities every American has. I can hear the objections - "But they're from the Ghetto!" Talk to Whoopi Goldberg about that or someone else who's made it big. That's a cop-out. There are poor white people just like there are poor black people. Makes no difference. They both have the same opportunities. There is a serious inconsistency in what people teach. I think I'll just stop there... for now....

Diversity

We had diversity in the workplace training today. There are some interesting statistics in US demographics. Of course I don't know about that 43% down to 7% White Male demographic in the workforce statistics. Did you know 73.4% of all statistics are made up on the spot? Between 2000 and 2050, the Hispanic population of the United States is projected to triple in number. As of 1997, the percentage of the nation's non-farm businesses owned by women is 26%. According to the 2000 Census, the percentage of US residents age 5 and older with a disability is 19%. The group of adults aged 85 and older is projected to increase, as a percentage of the population, at the fastest rate between 2000 and 2050. According to the 2000 Census, the largest minority group is the Hispanic group. Between 1996 and 2006, 40 million new workers will enter the workforce. 49% of the new workers will be women, 16% will be black, 15% will be Hispanic, and 8% will be Asian or other. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the median age of workers will continue to rise, from 34.8 in 1978, to 35.9 in 1988, to 38.7 in 1998, to 40.7 in 2008. The 2000 Census showed women were 46.5% of the workforce. By 2008, 47.5% of the workforce will be women. According to the US Census Report, by the year 2050, the non-Hispanic White portion of the population will decrease from today's 75% to 49%. The White Male portion of the workforce will decrease from today's 43% to 7%. According to the 2000 Census, there are 35.9 million African-American people and 36.1 million people of Hispanic origin.

Why to believe in God

Foundations of a Christian Worldview Before I proceed with what I taught during my Youth Group's winter retreat this past weekend, I figured I'd give a little background. What I presented is what the Bible already assumes we know. The Bible begins with an Axiomatic statement: "In the beginning, God..." and proceeds from there. The Bible does not try to 'prove' God exists; it merely documents the myriad of manifestations that God exists by showing what He has done. The majority of what I presented is basically 'school subject' material. In fact, a lot of it is Grad level and higher material. I had to do quite a bit of research for this. I will also try to post the sources of my material. I don't have it at the moment, so all I'm posting is the material itself. I tried to format the information to fit a webpage - we'll see how it goes :) Defining the foundation Axiom - (logic) a proposition that is not susceptible of proof or disproof; its truth is assumed to be self-evident. Absolute - Something that is conceived to be absolute; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control. ( www.onelook.com ) certain; not to be doubted ( www.cambridge.org ) Absolute Statement - inflexible reality: fixed, invariable, unalterable facts. Fact - a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred. a Priori - involving deductive reasoning from a general principle to a necessary effect; not supported by fact. Truth - a fact that has been verified. Objective Truth - a statement of inherent reality. It is something that is true independently of the question of its truth, or the opinions or observations of thinking beings. Law - In regards to human action a rule or body of rules of conduct inherent in human nature and essential to or binding upon human society; in regards to nature a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature. Opinion - a personal belief or judgment that is not founded on proof or certainty. A message expressing a belief about something; the expression of a belief that is held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof; a belief or sentiment shared by most people; the voice of the people. ( www.onelook.com ) Probability - a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur. Atheist - someone who denies the existence of god. Agnostic - a person who doubts truth of religion; uncertain of all claims to knowledge. I wanted to establish the definitions of the words we will be using to make our discussion clear. And with these defined words in mind, let's proceed with our discussion. Atheists and Agnostics assert absolute statements do not exist in every area of life. But we must concede every area of life contains absolute statements: 1. Math - 2+2=4 2. Science - The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can only be converted from one state to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. 3. History - George Washington was the first President of the United States 4. Language - a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z create the English language. 5. Philosophy - "There is a God." or "There is no God" (the point of our time together) I want us to consider the concept of "Absolute Statements" because our discussion is based in explaining two absolute statements: "There is a God," and "There is no God," of which one or the other is the cornerstone of everyone's belief system - a paradigm. Before we move on, there is a key factor that must be addressed and answered before proceeding with 'proving' the existence of God. If the person to whom you are talking does not at the very least admit the Bible could be true, there is no need to continue your discussion with them. For how can you believe in God if you are not willing to believe in the Bible? Or vice versa? Your best option at this point is to use Scripture. Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. My purpose today is not to allow Christians to win an argument or debate. My purpose today is 1. Help you know what you believe. 2. Prepare you to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you... The Bible begins with the axiomatic statement: In the beginning God... The Bible makes the assumption God exists; that He is self-evident. God is a foundational concept, an ultimate criterion - for believers He is the way we explain and understand everything. Therefore, He cannot be proven any more than skeptics can 'prove' their foundation, their 'ultimate criterion' for truth without using it. So, if God cannot be 'proven', why are we trying to prove He exists? We must realize we are not trying to prove anything. We are simply bringing to light the manifestations of God's existence. We are showing some of the logic behind what the Bible assumes we should already know. There are four things manifesting God's existence - Mind, Matter, Morality, and Music.

1. Mind

Recognizing Intelligence Scientists get excited about finding stone tools in a cave because these speak of intelligence - a toolmaker. They could not have designed themselves. Neither would anyone believe that the carved Presidents' heads on Mt. Rushmore were the product of millions of years of chance erosion. We can recognize design - the evidence of the out-workings of intelligence - in the man-made objects all around us. Similarly, in William Paley's famous argument, a watch implies a watchmaker.2 Today, however, a large proportion of people, including many leading scientists, believe that all plants and animals, including the incredibly complex brains of the people who make watches, motor cars, etc., were not designed by an intelligent God but rather came from an unintelligent evolutionary process. Design in Living Things Molecular biologist Dr Michael Denton, writing as an agnostic, concluded: 'Alongside the level of ingenuity and complexity exhibited by the molecular machinery of life, even our most advanced [twentieth century technology appears] clumsy. . . . It would be an illusion to think that what we are aware of at present is any more than a fraction of the full extent of biological design. In practically every field of fundamental biological research ever-increasing levels of design and complexity are being revealed at an ever-accelerating rate.'3 The world-renowned crusader for Darwinism and atheism, Prof. Richard Dawkins, states: 'We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully designed to have come into existence by chance.'4 Thus, even the most ardent atheist concedes that design is all around us. To a Christian, the design we see all around us is totally consistent with the Bible's explanation that God created all. Selection and Design Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA. Dawkins believes that natural selection6 and mutations (blind, purposeless copying mistakes in this DNA) together provide the mechanism for producing the vast amounts of information responsible for the design in living things.7 Natural selection is a logical process that can be observed. However, selection can only operate on the information already contained in genes it does not produce new information.8 Actually, this is consistent with the Bible's account of origins; God created distinct kinds of animals and plants, each to reproduce after its own kind. One can observe great variation in a kind, and see the results of natural selection. For instance, dingoes, wolves and coyotes have developed over time as a result of natural selection operating on the information in the genes of the wolf/dog kind, but no new information was produced these varieties have resulted from rearrangement, and sorting out of the information in the original dog kind. One kind has never been observed to change into a totally different kind with new information that previously did not exist! In other words the first law of thermodynamics states that energy can only be converted from one state to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists agree with this, but they believe that mutations somehow provide the new information for natural selection to act upon. Can Mutations Produce New Information? Actually, it is now clear that the answer is no! Dr Lee Spetner, a highly qualified scientist who taught information and communication theory at Johns Hopkins University, makes this abundantly clear in his recent book: 'In this chapter I'll bring several examples of evolution, [i.e., instances alleged to be examples of evolution] particularly mutations, and show that information is not increased . . . But in all the reading I've done in the life-sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information.'9 'All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.'10 'The NDT [neo-Darwinian theory] is supposed to explain how the information of life has been built up by evolution. The essential biological difference between a human and a bacterium is in the information they contain. All other biological differences follow from that. The human genome has much more information than does the bacterial genome. Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it. A business can't make money by losing it a little at a time.'11 Evolutionary scientists have no way around the conclusions that many scientists, including Dr Spetner, have come to. Mutations do not work as a mechanism to fuel the evolutionary process. More Problems Scientists have found that within the cell, there are thousands of what can be called 'biochemical machines'. All of their parts have to be in place simultaneously or the cell can't function. Things which were thought to be simple mechanisms, such as being able to sense light and turn it into electrical impulses, are in fact highly complicated. Since life is built on these 'machines', the idea that natural processes could have made a living system is untenable. Biochemist Dr Michael Behe (see p. 17 this issue) uses the term 'irreducible complexity' in describing such biochemical 'machines'. '. . . systems of horrendous, irreducible complexity inhabit the cell. The resulting realization that life was designed by an intelligence is a shock to us in the twentieth century who have gotten used to thinking of life as the result of simple natural laws. But other centuries have had their shocks, and there is no reason to suppose that we should escape them.'12 Richard Dawkins recognizes this problem of needing 'machinery' to start with when he states: 'The theory of the blind watchmaker is extremely powerful given that we are allowed to assume replication and hence cumulative selection. But if replication needs complex machinery, since the only way we know for complex machinery ultimately to come into existence is cumulative selection, we have a problem.'13 A problem indeed! The more we look into the workings of life, the more complicated it gets, and the more we see that life could not arise by itself. Not only is a source of information needed, but also the complex 'machines' of the chemistry of life need to be in existence right from the start! A greater problem still! Some still try to insist that the machinery of the first cell could have arisen by pure chance. For instance, they say, by randomly drawing alphabet letters in sequence from a hat, sometimes you will get a simple word like 'BAT'.14 So given long time periods, why couldn't even more complex information arise by chance? However, what would the word 'BAT' mean to a German or Chinese speaker? The point is that an order of letters is meaningless unless there is a language convention and a translation system in place which makes it meaningful! In a cell, there is such a system (other molecules) that makes the order on the DNA meaningful. DNA without the language/translation system is meaningless, and these systems without the DNA wouldn't work either. The other complication is that the translation machinery which reads the order of the 'letters' in the DNA is itself specified by the DNA! This is another one of those 'machines' that needs to be fully formed or life won't work. Can information arise from non-information? Dr Werner Gitt, Director and Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, makes it clear that one of the things we know absolutely for sure from science, is that information cannot arise from disorder by chance. It always takes (greater) information to produce information, and ultimately information is the result of intelligence: 'A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor) . . . It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required.'15 'There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.'16 What is the source of the information? We can therefore deduce that the huge amount of information in living things must originally have come from an intelligence, which had to have been far superior to ours, as scientists are revealing every day. But then, some will say that such a source would have to be caused by something with even greater information/intelligence. However, if they reason like this, one could ask where this greater information/intelligence came from? And then where did that one come from ¦ one could extrapolate to infinity, forever, unless... ...Unless there was a source of infinite intelligence, beyond our finite understanding. But isn't this what the Bible indicates when we read, 'In the beginning God ¦'? The God of the Bible is an infinite being not bound by limitations of time, space, knowledge, or anything else. So which is the logically defensible position? That matter eternally existed (or came into existence by itself for no reason), and then by itself arranged itself into information systems against everything observed in real science? Or that a being with infinite intelligence,17 created information systems for life to exist, agreeing with real science? The answer seems obvious, so why don't all intelligent scientists accept this? Michael Behe answers: 'Many people, including many important and well-respected scientists, just don't want there to be anything beyond nature. They don't want a supernatural being to affect nature, no matter how brief or constructive the interaction may have been. In other words ¦ they bring an a priori philosophical commitment to their science that restricts what kinds of explanations they will accept about the physical world. Sometimes this leads to rather odd behavior.'18

2. Matter

The myth of atheism and science Many today think that science is anti-God. Atheists encourage this view by claiming that their way of thinking is 'scientific.' In claiming this, they are merely redefining science to exclude God. In fact, science began to flourish only when the biblical view of creation took root in Europe as the Reformation spread its influence. The presuppositions that enabled a scientific approach to investigating the worldthat the created universe is real, consistent, understandable, and possible to investigate, for examplecame from the Bible. Even non-Christian historians of science such as Loren Eiseley have acknowledged this.18 Consequently, almost every branch of science was either founded, co-founded, or dramatically advanced, by scientists who believed in the Bible's account of Creation and the Flood.19,20 And there are many scientists today who believe the Bible.21 Is it Science? Science has given us many wonderful things: men on the moon, cheap food, modern medicine, electricity, computers, and so on. All these achievements involve doing experiments in the present, making inferences from these results and doing more experiments to test those ideas. Here, the inferences, or conclusions, are closely related to the experiments and there is often little room for speculation. This type of science is called process, or operational, science, and has given us many valuable advances in knowledge that have benefited mankind. However, there is another type of science that deals with the past, which can be called historical, or origins, science. When it comes to working out what happened in the past, science is limited because we cannot do experiments directly on past events, and history cannot be repeated. In origins science, observations made in the present are used to make inferences about the past. The experiments that can be done in the present that relate to the past are often quite limited, so the inferences require a deal of guesswork. The further in the past the event being studied, the longer the chain of inferences involved, the more guesswork, and the more room there is for non-scientific factors to influence the conclusionsfactors such as the religious belief (or unbelief) of the scientist. So, what may be presented as 'science' regarding the past may be little more than the scientist's own personal worldview. The conflicts between 'science' and 'religion' occur in this historical science, not in operational science. Unfortunately, the respect earned by the successes of operational science confounds many into thinking that the conjectural claims arising from origins science carry the same authority.

A. Natural law

There is a universal tendency for all systems of matter/energy to run down.30 Available energy is dissipated and order is lost. Without either a programmed mechanism or intelligent action, even open systems31 will tend from order to disorder, from information to non-information, and towards less availability of energy. This is the reason why heat flows from hot to cold, and why the sun's energy will not make a dead stick grow (as opposed to a green plant, which contains specific, pre-programmed machinery to direct the energy to create a special type of order known as specified complexity). Applied to the origin of the first life, this denies that such specified complexity can possibly arise except from outside information impressed on to matter. Applied to the whole universe, which is acknowledged as winding down to 'heat death' (that is, 'cosmos to chaos'), this implies a fundamental contradiction to the 'chaos to cosmos, all by itself' essence of evolutionary philosophy.32,33 So, the universe had to be 'wound up' at the beginning and it could not have existed eternally. This requires some agent outside the universe to wind it upjust as a clock cannot wind itself!

B. Living things

Observed changes in living things head in the wrong direction to support evolution from protozoan to man (macro-evolution). Selection from the genetic information already present in a population (for example, DDT resistance in mosquitoes) causes a net loss of genetic information in that population. A DDT-resistant mosquito is adapted to an environment where DDT is present, but the population has lost genes present in the mosquitoes that were not resistant to DDT because they died and so did not pass on their genes. So natural selection and adaptation involve loss of genetic information. From information theory and a vast number of experiments and observations, we know that mutations (copying mistakes) are incapable of causing an increase in information and functional complexity.34 Instead, they cause 'noise' during the transmission of genetic information, in accordance with established scientific principles of the effect of random change on information flow, and so destroy the information.35 Not surprisingly, several thousand human diseases are now linked to mutations. This decrease in genetic information (from mutations, selection/adaptation/speciation and extinction) is consistent with the concept of original created gene poolswith a large degree of initial varietybeing depleted since. Since observed 'micro' changessuch as antibiotic resistance in bacteria and insecticide resistance in insectsare informationally down-hill, or at best horizontal, they cannot accumulate to give the required (uphill) changes for 'macro' evolution, regardless of the time period.36 These small changes are erroneously used as 'proofs of evolution' in biology courses, yet they cannot be extrapolated to explain ameba-to-man evolution. Such extrapolation is like arguing that if an unprofitable business loses only a little money each year, given enough years it will make a profit. The observed changes do, however, fit a Creation/Fall model well.

C. Fossils

Although Darwin expected millions of transitional fossils to be found, none have been found, except for a mere handful of disputable ones. Evolutionist Dr Colin Patterson of the British Museum of Natural History responded as follows to a written question asking why he failed to include illustrations of transitional forms in a book he wrote on evolution: 'I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them. You suggest that an artist should be used to visualize such transformations, but from where would he get the information? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader? 'I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin's authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it. Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record. You say that I should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the linethere is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.'37 Even the often-claimed transition between reptiles and birds, Archaeopteryx, shows no sign of the crucial scale-to-feather or leg-to-wing transition. While it is always possible to maintain faith in evolution by belief in unobservable mechanisms,38 the evidence of such a systematic paucity of the anticipated evolutionary 'links' on a global scale is powerful, positive support for biblical creation, regardless of any argument about how and when fossils may have formed.

D. The age of things

The evidence for a 'young' earth/universe is, by definition, evidence for biblical creation, as naturalistic evolution, if it were at all possible, would require eons. There is much evidence that the universe is relatively young,39 such as the decay of the earth's magnetic field, including rapid paleomagnetic reversals,40 fragile organic molecules in fossils supposedly many millions of years old,41 not enough helium in the atmosphere,42 not enough salt in the sea,43 carbon-14 in coal and oil supposedly millions of years old, polystrate fossils that extend through strata supposedly representing many millions of years, inter-tonguing of non-sequential geological strata,44 small number of supernova remnants,45 magnetic fields on 'cold' planets, and much more (see What about carbon dating?). Elapsed time extending back beyond one's own lifetime cannot be directly measured, so all arguments for either a long or a short age are necessarily indirect and must depend on acceptance of the assumptions on which they are inevitably based. Young-earth arguments make sense of the fact that many fossils show well-preserved soft parts. This requires rapid deposition and rapid hardening of the encasing sediment for such fossils to exist. Observations of multiple geologic strata and canyons, for example, forming rapidly under catastrophic conditions in recent times, indicate that the entrenched slow-and-gradual, vast-age thinking may well be markedly in error.46,47

E. Cultural-anthropological evidence

Hundreds of worldwide traditions among indigenous peoples about a global Flood, each with features in common with the biblical account, provide evidence of the reality of that account. Also widespread, but less so, are accounts of a time of language dispersal. Linguistic and biological evidence has recently revealed a hitherto unrealized genetic closeness among all the 'races' of people, consistent with a recent origin from a small population source. This denies the previously widely held belief that human races evolved their characteristic features during long periods of isolation. Molecular studies suggest that, relatively recently, one woman provided the mitochondrial DNA which gave rise to the sequences in all people alive today.48 Such evidence may be squeezed into an evolutionary model, but it was not a direct prediction of it. However, it is directly consistent with biblical creation.

F. Design and complexity

Incredibly complex coordinated biological systems are known in which no conceivable part-coordinated, part-functioning, simpler arrangement would be other than a liability.49 Some examples are the blood-clotting mechanism, the bacterial flagellum (used for propulsion), the photosynthetic apparatus, and the pupal transformation of caterpillars to butterflies. Examples abound in living things. The immense complexity of the human brain, its creativity and power of abstract reasoning, with capacities vastly beyond that required for sheer survival, is perhaps the most 'obvious' evidence for intelligent creation. At the molecular level, the organization that characterizes living things is inherently different from, for example, a crystal arrangement. The function of a given protein, for instance, depends upon the assembly sequence of its constituents. The coded information required to generate these sequences is not intrinsic to the chemistry of the components (as it is for the structure of a crystal) but extrinsic (imposed from outside). During reproduction, the information required to make a living organism is impressed upon material substrates to give a pre-programmed pattern, by systems of equal (or greater) complexity (in the parent organism/s) which themselves had the same requirement for their formation. Without pre-programmed machinery, no spontaneous, physico-chemical process is known to generate such information-bearing sequencesthis requires the operation of outside intelligence. The most reasonable inference from such observations is that outside intelligence was responsible for a vast original store of biological information in the form of created populations of fully functioning organisms.50 Such intelligence vastly surpasses human intelligenceagain consistent with the concept of God as revealed in the Bible.

3. Morality

One of the things we see when we look at life is an inescapable sense of moral obligation. This is more than saying that there are moral values or moral feelings. All people know it is right to be generous, kind, honest, courageous, and fair - and wrong to be selfish, cruel, deceptive, cowardly and unjust. But what we mean by right is not merely that we feel good a out the such actions, but that people are obligated to them no matter what they feel about them. An obligation is objective, not subjective - it is there no matter what anyone thinks or feels about it. But if there is no God, it is very hard to see where these objective obligations come from. Someone may say to you, But I don't believe in objective moral obligation. Every moral statement is only an expression of the subjective feelings of the speaker. Consider what you do when you affirm that there are no objective moral obligations. You are saying, you ought not to evaluate me by your moral principles. But to say this you are pressing an obligation upon me that you are appealing to that is outside of me, to which you say I ought to be accountable. Why? Now if there is a God who created a moral order, so that we are accountable to Him and it, then surely it is fair to say, We ought to be reasonable and tolerant. But if there is no objective moral obligation, how can you even make an argument? If you cannot deny objective moral obligation without using it, then you should admit that you do see it and believe in it. Another person may object with But isn't morality just a product of cultures and relative to them? The problem for those who espouse relativism is that they cannot avoid comparing cultures. Do you think it was a good thing for America to abolish slavery? Are you critical of any ethical practices in your own culture? Do you think that child sacrifice was a bad thing? The only way you can do so is by appealing to objective moral obligations to which others are as bound as yourself. But isn't our sense of morality a product of evolution? It helped us survive. One problem with this view is that it is difficult to prove that unselfishness, kindness, fairness are genetic traits that help one survive! But the problem is that the evolutionary theory can only account for moral feelings, not moral obligation. If a person says, but there are not moral obligation, only evolved, genetically based moral feelings that means that they espouse that murder and rape are not truly wrong, only impractical. But the one espousing this shows the very next moment that he or she does not believe it. They should never be morally outraged or hold anyone responsible for rape and murder. They should not ever hold people morally responsible for swindling and cheating. If our actions show that we believe certain acts to be objectively wrong despite our internal psychology, we show that we don't believe the evolutionary model to be true. Ok. Maybe you're talking to someone who concedes, There are moral obligations. How does that prove God? This is a weak argument. What it is saying is while the view that there is a Creator God would lead us to expect moral obligations, and the view that there is no God would not lead us to expect it, I am going to hold to an atheistic viewpoint anyway. Moral obligations in a world without God mean that the atheistic world would be absurd. Here you have unavoidable obligations to do things that will give you no benefits in this life at a ll. Honestly and courage and love are often extremely impractical, leading to diminishment of money, health, even the end of life. Why would such obligations have ever arisen in a world where death is the end of everything? We know that napalming babies, starving the poor, raping the vulnerable, and buying and selling people is wrong - does not just feel wrong. But if your premise [that there is no God] leads you to a conclusion that you know isn't true [namely that these things only feel wrong, but are not wrong] why not change the premise?

4. Music

One of the things that we see in the world is that great art makes us feel that there is meaning in life, that love is real, that some things are valuable. For example, Leonard Bernstein aid, Listening to Beethoven's Fifth, you get the feeling there's something right with the world, something that checks throughout, something that follows its own laws consistently, something we can trust, that will never let us down. This is a simple fact of experience. We all disagree on which art is great and which art affects us like this, but we all experience it. But if there is no God, love is an illusion - it is just a function of my brain chemistry, and beautiful music is also an illusion - it is just the way my nervous system is designed. Either there is a God, or love and beauty is an absolute illusion. C. S. Lewis put it quite well: Let us suppose that Nature is all that exists... you can't, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties both of her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atom, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can't go on getting very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that its air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it. You may still, in the lowest sense, have a 'good time'; but just in so far as it becomes very good, just in so far ax it ever threatens to push you on from cold sensuality into real warmth and enthusiasm and joy, so far you will be forced to feel the hopeless disharmony between the universe in which you really live (and the universe in which you think you live). So either there is a God, or love and beauty and meaning are a complete illusion (and why would these deep convictions have ever arisen, anyway?) Someone may object with, But just because we feel these things are real is no argument that they exist. But are we only talking about feeling here? There is a difference between innate and artificial desires. For example, jut because you want a Coke doesn't mean there is a Coke at hand, nor does it mean that one exists anywhere in the world. But thirst is fundamental and innate, and it does mean that there is such a thing as liquid. The desire for coke came from factor outside of us (advertising, personal experience), but the thirst desire is completely natural and innate. Artificial desires can exist without a corresponding object. But innate desires correspond always to real objects that can satisfy them, such as with sexual desire (corresponding to sex), physical appetite (corresponding to food), tiredness (corresponding to sleep), relational desires (corresponding to friendship). Now there exists in us a desire that nothing in time and space can satisfy, a desire for an unknown something that no amount of food, friendship, success can satisfy. Human beings everywhere and at all times have been overwhelmingly religious, believing in something beyond the here and now that will fill the desire for that something. There is an innate desire. Again, Leis put it best. So a duckling wants to swim - such a thing as water; a baby wants to suck - such a thing as milk. And if I find in myself a longing which this world cannot meet, then it probably means that I was made for another world as well.