Download March 2008 Issue - San Antonio Bible Based Science Association

President - Scott Lane 599-7240
Vice President – Mrs. Cindy Williams
Secretary – Clarence Johnson Treasurer – Carl Williams, M.D.
[P.O. Box 34478, San Antonio, TX 78265]
SABBSA- Believing the Bible from the first verse
At our February SABBSA meeting, Cindy Williams gave us a taste (literally) of the children’s
creation programs available from Answers in Genesis (AIG) and the Alpha Omega Institute (AOI)
and which she is trained to present here in the San Antonio area. We will summarize that
presentation. We had elections at last month’s meeting and some changes will be reported. We also
have news of Dr. Carl Williams’ heart surgery, an examination of evolutionary claims to “switch
on” latent vestigial DNA in organisms and several notices of upcoming events and creation
opportunities available today and in the coming months including Dr. Carl Baugh coming to San
Antonio!
Latent Genes?
A story from ACF News Source on 12/31/2006 had said that scientists say they may hatch a
dinosaur from a chicken egg by the end of the century! This story has also run on the “Osgood
Files” and other shows and one of our readers wanted us to research this topic. In "Jurassic Park,"
researchers recreated long-extinct dinosaurs from blood preserved in mosquito amber. While that's
probably impossible, scientists say they may one day be able to it from a chicken egg. In fact,
UCLA scientists have recently created chickens with teeth and snakes with rudimentary legs, which
they say are vestiges of their long lost ancestors. By modifying the genes of birds, thought by
evolutionists to be the closest living relatives to dinosaurs, and with the right molecular tools, some
say humans may someday bring dinosaurs back into our midst. While that's not the ultimate goal of
the research, rapid advances in genomic research have made it possible to genetically reverseengineer organisms; that is, hit the rewind button on evolution and tap into long-since dormant
genetic instructions that organisms may still be carrying in their DNA.
Dr. Chen-Ming Chuong of UCLA, and his team of pathologists have created chicken embryos with
teeth and other chickens with scales on their feet. This research says Chuong, is a “conversation
with nature, driven by a desire to understand how evolution introduces or takes away different
bodily structures.” Evolutionists believe that if they can understand how the structure and shape of
organisms developed, researchers in the future will be better equipped to engineer human tissues or
organs for people in need. Instead of harvesting controversial, embryonic stem cells, scientists
would prefer to manipulate adult stem cells, turning them into a new liver for a cirrhosis patient or
new skin for a burn victim. But first they need researchers like Chuong to investigate and translate
the deeper science of how, exactly, evolution works bio-chemically, to see how Mother Nature
grows body parts. While they believe evolution "opted out" of teeth for birds, Chuong thought the
molecular pathway to create them had to exist somewhere within the genes of birds. In other words,
it is as if birds still have the molecular capability to grow teeth, but just aren't doing so anymore.
Even though it hadn't been switched on in 150 million years, Chuong wanted to identify and
reconnect that molecular pathway in order to re-active teeth-building processes.
By studying the genes, molecules and chemicals responsible for the growth of mouth and teeth
structures in other organisms, Chuong was able to stir together a mix of molecules that might trigger
the "dormant" circuitry into action. He then placed tiny beads of this concoction in the mouths of
the chicken embryos. It appeared to work. Through the microscope, he and his colleagues watched
the embryos growing, as if the chickens had, all along, the genetic instructions to grow the teeth.
They may have had the ancient circuits to do so, but they needed just the right ingredients to be
properly switched on.
By learning how nature signals for the growth of certain structures, could scientists someday do the
same for people in need of a new spinal chord, eye or kidney? Quite possibly, says Chuong. He
emphasizes that it is not his goal to grow a dinosaur, nor is it the goal of English researchers who
partially restored legs to snakes. But the capability to call back evolution's ancient designs and
manifest them in modern-day organisms begs the question: Instead of creating appendages from
ancient times, could scientists ever re-create a real dinosaur?
The story above misstates one very important truth in what was done by Dr. Chuong and the group
in England that grew rudimentary legs on snakes. They did not merely give these animals chemical
cocktails which turned on the chemical processes already available in their body to grow these
structures. What they did with these chemicals was to actually modify (change) these animals DNA.
It is becoming more apparent all the time that each structure in an organism is not controlled by one
place in one gene, but by many locales across several genes. What their experiments did was to fill
in the gaps in several places to mutate or redesign these animals to grow structures which they were
not designed to have. The fact that it could be accomplished suggests that much of the coding for
these structures already existed in the genome; however it in no way proves that this coding exists
because these animals used to have these structures in their evolutionary ancestry. Instead, this
coding may exist purely as an overall base coding backdrop which God used as the basic blueprint
for all species. Birds may have most of the coding for teeth since some extinct species such as
Archaeopteryx had such structures and God varied the species by only adding the additional coding
to make some structures come to fruition. The same might be true of snakes, but there is even a
more biblical answer for why that coding exists to be easily modified in a snake’s genome. In the
Garden of Eden the serpent talked Eve into sinning and was made to crawl on the ground for his sin.
Most of us think of this part of the story as either an allegory or as the serpent being a symbolical
way of naming Satan and that his punishment was to be banished from heaven to the Earth. If
however, we interpret this passage literally, then a lot of genetic engineering was done with the
serpent which when it was re-engineered to not have legs and crawl on the ground, had its leg
production genes turned off by simply excluding the last set of DNA base pairs needed to complete
this coding. All the English scientists may have done is reinsert the line of code that God wrote out
of snake DNA thousands of years ago!
Where is the Grand Canyon’s Debris?
Articles in this month’s New York Times and Washington Post says some evolutionists have redated the formation of the Grand Canyon from the current conventional age of 6 million years ago
to 17 million years via dating of deposits in caves in the walls. Many evolutionists debate this redating and say there is no scientific basis for it. Of course they are right, but still have the problem
of dating the canyon at least 5 million years older than it is due to their reliance on faulty
radiometric dating. The more interesting thing about this story was what they agreed on. Both,
evolutionary groups agreed that there was no evidence for a dam burst formation of the canyon 17
million years ago in terms of a debris pile. If it formed 17 million, 6 million or the creationists 4000
years ago, where was all the sediment carried away to? The evolutionists cannot find that answer
and it is a problem for their model of how the canyon was formed. However, that is no problem for
the creationist at all. Since we believe the canyon was formed by a much larger event than an
earthen dam bursting and causing a downstream local flood, but by a global cataclysm, we predict
that there would be no debris pile in the area since all the sediment cut out of the canyon would be
scattered far away and distributed over a vast terrain of the Earth.
Elections of Our Board and Officers
At our February meeting, elections were held and the SABBSA board was re-elected except for
Vice President Walter “Dub” Warren. He and his wife are leaving the San Antonio area to move
closer to his children. We wish them well in their move and would like to thank Dub for his service
to SABBSA and the creation movement in the San Antonio area. Dub gave us valuable experience
working from both corporate and outside perspectives. His insights have led us to examine our
goals and refine them. One product of that examination is the refined, expanded and more useable
website that we have today, as well as a new organizational focus, which is one of being a resource
to the churches in our area. He also offered a valuable resource as our connection to AOI, since he
helped proof some of their materials and went through their training. We will miss his expertise as
an engineer, a business man, an organizer, a highly trained creationist and friend. In his place we
elected Mrs. Cindy Williams as our new Vice President, who has now established herself as our
source for children’s creation programs. All other board slots and officers remain the same. Thus,
our board for 2008 will consist of: Scott Lane, President; Cindy Williams, Vice President; Dr. Carl
Williams, Treasurer; Clarence Johnson, Secretary; and board members: Rev. Burton Stokes, Capt.
Harry Jackson; Mrs. Cindy Jackson; Dr. Daniel Harris, PhD; and Ernie Hernandez.
Fossils Can Be Delicious!
Before the elections, we were treated to a “taste” of what we can offer the community in the way of
children’s programs. Mrs. Cindy Williams primarily used curricula from AIG and some AOI
supplementation (fossil molds and some handouts) geared for students in the 1st through 6th grade
age group. She showed the first half of the "Dinosaurs, Genesis & the Gospel" featuring Ken
Ham and Buddy Davis 2 DVD series. The "7 C's of History" (which is available as a stand-alone
children's Sunday School curriculum) was the underlying message. Viewers generally like this as
entertaining, engaging while Biblically accurate. She also showed a Buddy Davis "Creation
Adventure Team" DVD entitled "A Jurassic Ark Mystery" which viewers felt was perhaps a bit
too slow moving. (When viewed at 125-150% speed, it flows much better.) Both of the DVD's were
produced by AIG. At the end of the presentation we were treated to eating chocolate trilobites
which had been made by Mrs. Williams. At his month’s FEAST presentation, the children will
make their won chocolate trilobites before they eat them!
Not shown at the presentation, but now available from AIG is a full-up VBS curriculum with all
the “bells and whistles” one would expect from a first class VBS program. The program is entitled
"Amazon Expedition," but is founded on the "7 C's of History" format. Persons interested in
looking over the above curricula from AIG and AOI can contact Carl or Cindy at
[email protected] or can come to FEAST to hear Cindy's presentation on Monday, March 24th,
2008 at 7 PM at the Burwood street campus building of FEAST just off Blanco about a mile inside
loop 410. A synopsis of these materials is also available on the resources page of our website.
If you haven’t already done, so I would encourage you to read the articles in this month’s Acts &
Facts from ICR. It includes articles on: how the Earth’s mantle could have moved beneath the crust
during the flood; how we could have gotten all of our current blood types from Adam and Eve and
or from the eight people on the Ark; an article which describes how planets cannot even begin to
form without outside intervention; and much more! If you do not subscribe to Acts & Facts, I
would encourage you to do so. Go to the ICR website at www.icr.org/signup. For this Acts &
Facts issue click this icon to see this month’s issue at www.icr.org/aaf . Also, please remember
ICR in your prayers again this month as they deal with the challenge to their application to teach
graduate programs here in Texas as detailed in our last two issues of the Communiqué.
Our thanks go out to God and his people for their prayers and aid to Dr. Carl Williams and his wife
Cindy as he has come through double bypass surgery this past month with “flying colors.” Carl
states, “I am recovering well. I'm still limited on how much lifting I can do and I am not supposed
to drive (steering wheel risk to sternum in case of crash) for at least another few weeks. Otherwise, I
think I'm ready to return to work.” He also says, “Cindy has been a real trooper and we both have
been greatly supported by our church family with meals and transportation.” We thank God for both
of these fine people who have become such a vital part of SABBSA’s ministry and our dear friends.
Exciting news, we will be sponsoring Dr. Carl Baugh when he appears in San Antonio at our
regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 7 pm. His topic is entitled: "Set in
Stone" This "Power Point" presentation will show the interpretation of the "rocks" as evolutionists
see them and the evidence in the rocks of a "special creation.” Due to the size of the audience we
anticipate for this event, we may well move our regular meeting from its normal locale. We will
notify you in next month’s newsletter and on our website of those arrangements.
Finally, we invite you to join us this coming Tuesday night March 11th, 2008 for a special video
titled "The Star of Bethlehem." Dr. Jerry Hardwick a couple of years ago gave us a spectacular
computer representation of what the stars may have looked like on the nights of Christ’s birth and
on the arrival of the wise men in Bethlehem. This video goes beyond what Dr. Hardwick showed us
and shows how God orchestrated the heavens to herald not only these events, but the day of Christ’s
death and more. Don’t miss it! As always, we will meet at the Jim’s Restaurant at the corner of San
Pedro and Ramsey at 7 pm. We will see you there.