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Dr. Henry M. Morris founded the Institute for Creation Research in 1970 with a vision to uncover and present evidence for the accuracy and authority of the Bible. For almost 40 years, ICR has distinguished itself as the leader in creation science research and education, ably assisted by the many fine scientists whom God has led to work here. These men and women have dedicated their training and skills to raising the banner for the truth of our Creator God. We would like you to meet our current on-site scientists and hear their thoughts on the purpose, significance, and importance...

New research has heated up the debate over whether dinosaurs were ectothermic (cold-blooded) or endothermic (warm-blooded like us). The topic is addressed in this week's Johns Hopkins News-Letter and a recent PLoS One paper. The prevailing view for decades was that dinosaurs were cold-blooded, as reptiles, fish and amphibians are today. Now support is leaning toward the warm-blooded dinosaur theory, which opens up a slew of intriguing questions: Did dinosaurs sweat? Were they able to live in very cold regions? Did they have to eat a lot to fuel their lifestyle? and more. Herman Pontzer at Washington University in St....

In May 2009, a remarkably well-preserved extinct primate, nicknamed “Ida,” was hailed as one of the most important fossil finds ever. It had features that some interpreted as a link between two primate body forms. At the time, ICR News suggested that its evolutionary significance was far overblown, predicting that the scientific consensus would offer retractions. Those retractions came three months later, confirming that the fossil―called Darwinius―was really just an extinct lemur variety...

Although creation-based organizations have reported for over a decade on the technical scientific journal articles published about soft tissue found inside dinosaur remains, mainstream media outlets have largely been silent on the subject. But a recent segment that aired on CBS’s 60 Minutes finally broke the news to a broader audience. The soft tissue issue may be gaining more traction, and even “may be changing the whole dino ballgame,” according to correspondent Lesley Stahl.[1] The program is currently viewable online at the CBS website. In a field test demonstration to determine whether a dinosaur fossil was real bone, and not...

Need evidence for Darwinian evolution? Just make it up. That’s the lesson of Donald Prothero’s book, Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why It Matters (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007). Prothero is a professor of geology at Occidental College in Los Angeles. On November 30, he teamed up with atheist Michael Shermer (founding publisher of Skeptic Magazine) to debate Stephen Meyer and Richard Sternberg of the Discovery Institute. Shermer wrote the foreword to Prothero’s book, calling it “the best book ever written on the subject.” In fact, “Don’s visual presentation of the fossil and genetic evidence for evolution is...

A new concept making its way through the scientific community holds that just a few key changes in the right genes will result in a whole new life form as different from its progenitor as a bird is from a lizard![1] This idea is being applied to a number of key problems in the evolutionary model, one of which is the lack of transitional forms in both the fossil record and the living (extant) record. The new concept supposedly adds support to the "punctuated equilibrium" model proposed by the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould. Dr. Gould derived his ideas...

A new dinosaur found in South Africa has given scientists a glimpse into the evolution of sauropods, the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth, a new study says. The newfound, 20-foot-long (7-meter-long) dinosaur species is a close cousin to the common ancestor of all sauropods -- gigantic, four-legged, long-necked, big-bellied plant-eaters. Dubbed Aardonyx celestae, the 195-million-year-old dinosaur had a lot of sauropod-like features, such as a robust skeleton for holding up its heft. (See extreme dinosaur pictures.) Unlike sauropods, though, the newfound species walked on two legs and only dropped down on all fours, the new research shows....

Creationists are ‘liars' (?): Geologist Donald Prothero doesn’t like the fact that we don’t agree with his ideas on evolution. I love the attitude some evolutionists have toward professional, scientific debate. Because creationist scientists do not agree with their biased, subjective and unsubstantiated ideas they spit the dummy and call us liars. The latest tirade from geologist Donald Prothero is in an opinion piece in NewScientist entitled ‘Evolution: What missing link?’1 I like that title. His article was picked up by the Telegraph newspaper in the UK which reported, ‘Creationists “peddle lies about the fossil record�.’2 Lies? Are creationists really...

Many dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded just like mammals or birds, potentially explaining their extraordinary success before their extinction. For decades, scientists assumed that because dinosaurs resembled lizards, they were cold-blooded as well, their internal temperature rising and falling with the outside world. However, birds are warm-blooded, and the fact that birds seem to be descended from dinosaurs raises the question of whether their ancestors were as well. If dinosaurs were warm-blooded, they would have possessed the potential for athletic abilities rivaling those of mammals and birds. They could have survived in colder habitats that would kill cold-blooded creatures, such...

A salamander allegedly “18 million years old” is the latest fossil to produce astonishingly well preserved soft tissue. This time, it’s muscle tissue, and it is supposedly the most pristine example yet. Background—the “dinosaur connection”...

Nov 6, 2009 — More soft tissue has been found in a fossil – this time in a salamander said to be 18 million years old.  The article on PhysOrg called it “the highest quality soft tissue preservation ever documented in the fossil record.” Unlike the previous discoveries of fossil tissue inside bone or amber, the recognizable sinewy muscle tissue was found tucked inside the body of the animal.  “The scientists claim that their discovery is unequivocal evidence that high-fidelity organic preservation of extremely decay prone soft tissues is more common in the fossil record - the only physical record...

The Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, which opened its doors earlier this year, boasts this country’s second-largest set of displayed dinosaur remains. The record is still held by the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. Both are located in Montana near a rich cache of world-famous fossils. The Glendive Museum stands apart, however, in that it presents dinosaurs as having been drowned and their remains preserved in the massive worldwide flood described in the Bible. This view has prompted reactionary comments from mainstream scientists ...

Fossilization occurs rapidly when the conditions are right. The conditions necessary for lithification of soft tissue give clues to unlock the history of a fossil deposit. Experiments show that microbes are involved in the mineralization of soft tissue. By decaying flesh they affect the acidity of the environment and release ions necessary for its mineralization. Fossilization in apatite seems to require associated death and decay. In the Jurassic Oxford Clay Formation in England, apatite preserved the soft tissue of many squid-like animals, probably after a mass mortality event occurred in a zone of already high phosphate levels from decaying carcasses....

Ardipithecus ramidus is an extinct primate whose fossilized remains were first found along the Awash River in Ethiopia about fifteen years ago. Many fragments were collected, including shattered bones from a four-foot-tall female nicknamed "Ardi." She was chosen to represent her kind, apparently because of the comparative completeness of her remains. Now Ardi's discoverers believe they have collected enough data to reconstruct her history--but what does their data actually reveal? ...

A husband and wife team of American paleontologists has discovered a new species of dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago during the early Cretaceous of central Montana

A husband and wife team of paleontologists has discovered a newfound species of armored dinosaur that lived 112 million years ago in what is now Montana. The duo, Bill and Kris Parsons of the Buffalo Museum of Science in New York, spotted the dinosaur's skull on the surface of a hillside in Montana in 1997. Over the next few years, they retrieved more of the now nearly complete skull along with skin plates, rib fragments, a vertebra and a possible limb bone from the dinosaur species. Now called Tatankacephalus cooneyorum, the beast is a type of ankylosaur, or a group...

Oct 30, 2009 — “Plant fossils give first real picture of earliest Neotropical rainforests,” announced a press release from University of Florida.  The fossils from Colombia show that “many of the dominant plant families existing in today’s Neotropical rainforests – including legumes, palms, avocado and banana – have maintained their ecological dominance despite major changes in South America’s climate and geological structure.” The team found 2,000 megafossil specimens from the Paleocene, said to be 58 million years old.  This is only 5 to 8 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs according to conventional dating.  “The new study provides...

Oct 28, 2009 — Two articles announced solutions to the evidential problem that most troubled Darwin – the sudden appearance of complex animals at the base of the Cambrian fossil record.  Both of them involve chemical elements.  The only difference is which element. Science Daily announced a “Novel Evolutionary Theory For The Explosion Of Life.”  The article acknowledged that “The Cambrian Explosion is widely regarded as one of the most relevant episodes in the history of life on Earth, when the vast majority of animal phyla first appear in the fossil record.”  The article also acknowledged it to be a...

Remnant Press Release FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - OCTOBER 20, 2009CONTACT: H. M. OWEN (U.S.), noevolutioninfo@gmail.com or PETER WILDERS (Europe), wilderspeter@gmail.com The Scientific Impossibility of Evolution November 9, 2009 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. St. Pius V University (Rome) In Response to Pope Benedict XVI’s Call for Both Sides to be Heard The 150th anniversary of Darwin’s "Origin of the Species" in November 2009 will be the occasion for a unique conference at Pope Pius V University in Rome presenting a scientific refutation of evolution theory. According to Russian sedimentologist Alexander Lalamov...

Modern Men Are Wimps Oct 23, 2009 — Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?  Our ancestors were much stronger, says the author of a new book on anthropology.  PhysOrg reported on a book by Peter McAllister that says today’s males don’t measure up physically to their counterparts even a century ago, let alone those in the Roman empire and earlier. According to McAllister humans have lost 40 percent of the shafts of the long bones because they are no longer subjected to the kind of muscular loads that were normal before the industrial revolution,” the article said.  “Even our...

The field of biology has provided much support for a recent creation, and physical evidence of very young-looking biological materials from supposedly ancient fossils continues to accrue from around the world, and from various depths under the earth. In August of this year, paleontologists in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England, made a discovery that astounded the evolutionary community...

The Demise of Another Evolutionary Link: Archaeopteryx Falls From Its Perch A few days ago we saw Ida fall from her overhyped status as an ancestor of humans. Now some scientists are claiming that Archaeopteryx should lose its status as an ancestor of modern birds. Calling Archaeopteryx an “icon of evolution,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) borrows a term from Jonathan Wells while reporting that “[t]he feathered creature called archaeopteryx, easily the world's most famous fossil remains, had been considered the first bird since Charles Darwin's day. When researchers put its celebrity bones under the microscope recently, though, they discovered...

A few months ago, “Ida” was sitting on top of the world. She’d been lauded as the “eighth wonder of the world” whose “impact on the world of palaeontology” would be like “an asteroid falling down to Earth.” Falling, indeed. On October 21, Nature published an article announcing that “[a] 37-million-year-old fossil primate from Egypt, described today in Nature, moves a controversial German fossil known as Ida out of the human lineage.” Wired also published a story, noting that, “[f]ar from spawning the ancestors of humans, the 47 million-year-old Darwinius seems merely to have gone extinct, leaving no descendants,” further..."...

Oldest lobster fossil uncovered in Mexico REUTERS May 4, 2007 MEXICO CITY – Mexican scientists said they have identified the world's oldest lobster fossil, that of a creature alive when Africa was only just breaking apart from the Americas about 120 million years ago. The fossil is 4.7 inches long, and its shell and legs are immaculately preserved by the mud in the southern state of Chiapas, where it was found. It is dated as 120 million years old, about 20 million years older than previous lobster fossils. “This lobster that we found in Chiapas belongs to the genus that...

Years ago, National Geographic published a remarkable photograph of a polystrate fossil, a fossilized tree that extended stratigraphically upward through several layers of rock in Tennessee. Its roots were in a coal seam, and the overlying deposits included bedded shale and thin carbon-rich layers. An advocate of any form of uniformitarianism would believe that it took many, many years to deposit this sequence of layers (much longer than it takes for a tree to grow and eventually die and decay), yet one vertical fossil extends through them all. This one fossilized tree offered a direct contradiction to the evolutionary mantra...

Charles Darwin admitted that the sudden appearance of fully formed creatures in fossil deposits was one of the biggest problems with his hypothesis that nature generated living creatures through natural selection. His vision of organisms gradually morphing from one kind to another over vast time spans predicted that most fossils should reflect that steady grading from one basic body plan to another. Some scientists believe they have found a creature that bridges one of the many gaps in the fossil record, although it requires a significant reworking of evolutionary theory. The crow-sized pterosaur fossil from China has been named Darwinopterus...

Rainforest similar to ours flourished at 3-5° hotterFossil boffins say that dense triple-canopy rainforests, home among other things to gigantic one-tonne boa constrictors, flourished millions of years ago in temperatures 3-5°C warmer than those seen today - as hot as some of the more dire global-warming projections.The new fossil evidence comes from the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia, previously the location where the remains of the gigantic 40-foot Titanoboa cerrejonensis were discovered. The snake's discoverers attracted flak from global-warming worriers at the time for saying that the cold-blooded creature would only have been able to survive in jungles a good...

Newsweek magazine recently published a commentary by atheist Richard Dawkins containing some of his arguments against “creationists.” Therein he admitted, “What would be evidence against evolution, and very strong evidence at that, would be the discovery of even a single fossil in the wrong geological stratum.”[1] Out of place fossils are actually common, despite Dawkins’ claims regarding the “massive numbers” of fossils documenting evolutionary history. ICR News has reported on several over the last 12 months [2,3,4,5,6] and another one has surfaced recently...

Reconstructions of animals based on fossilized remains are interesting and can be of value. However, they are notoriously subjective. Recent research suggested, for example, that many longstanding dinosaur reconstructions were almost double the size of the actual dinosaurs.[1] And similar distortions are evident in presentations of the fossil world’s latest superstar. Artist sketches and other renderings of “Ardi,” the newly proposed replacement for Lucy as man’s distant evolutionary ancestor, convey more than the raw data. Of the many Ardipithecus ramidus fossil bones and fragments that were collected from 35 individuals along the Awash River in Ethiopia, a female was chosen...

Discovery of 4.4 Million-Year-Old Fossil Does Not Shake Creationists' Faith By RUSSELL GOLDMAN Oct. 7, 2009 Sometimes an ape is a 4.4 million-year-old fossil that sheds light on the evolutionary origins of human beings, and sometimes… an ape is just an ape. In the case of "Ardi," the ape-like fossil recently discovered in Ethiopia and already being celebrated as the oldest found relative of modern human beings, the final determination depends on who is doing the talking. In one camp are evolutionary scientists who last week published and hailed the discovery of an upright walking ape named Ardipithecus ramidus, or...

News to Note, October 10, 2009: A weekly feature examining news from the biblical viewpoint...

Weekend Roundup --snip-- Picture Highlight: the new Herschel Space Telescope, is seeing first light and creating dramatic images of gas clouds in the Milky Way...

ICR Article Link Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. Dinosaur DNA Research: Is the tale wagging the evidence? by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D., and Brian Thomas, M.S.* Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken"...

Anchiornis huxleyi: new four-winged feathered dino?...

Oct 2, 2009 — A new fossil human ancestor has taken center stage. Those who love Lucy, the australopithecine made famous by Donald Johanson (and numerous TV specials), are in for a surprise. Lucy is a has been. Her replacement is not Desi Arnaz, but is designated Ardi, short for Ardipithecus ramidus – the new leading lady in the family tree. Actually, she has been around for years since her discovery in Ethiopia in 1992. It has taken Tim White and crew 15 years to piece together the bones that were in extremely bad condition. But now, Ardi has made...

Storming the Beaches of Norman Norman, Oklahoma, that is. Okay, so there aren’t any real beaches in Norman, Oklahoma. But when Steve Meyer and I went there recently, the Darwinists who have installed themselves as absolute dictators at the University of Oklahoma (OU) made our arrival feel like D-Day. On September 28, Steve gave a talk on his best-selling book Signature in the Cell at the Oklahoma Memorial Union on the OU campus. The following evening, September 29, Steve and I answered questions after a showing of the new film Darwin’s Dilemma at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History,...

Artificially Reconstructed “Ardi” Overturns Prevailing Evolutionary Hypotheses of Human Evolution The missing link presently being touted in the media, Ardipithecus ramidus, has had more reconstructive surgery than Michael Jackson. Assuming that their "extensive digital reconstruction" of its "badly crushed and distorted bones" is accurate, what does A. ramidus (or “Ardi” as the fawning media is affectionately calling it) really show us that we didn’t already know? We already knew of upright walking / tree-climbing, small-brained hominids—that’s what Lucy, an australopithecine, was. We already knew that there were australopithecine fossils dating back to before 4 million years, and this fossil is...

Anchiornis: Foot Feathers Confuse Bird Evolution Story --snip-- This is an opportunity to compare hype with fact. The news media and the discoverers are all chirping that they have an example of bird evolution here. A transitional form between dinosaurs and birds has been found, and now the naysayers need to bow at the feet of the Charlie idol and admit they were wrong. It should be noticed that the Darwinists did not predict finding a dino-chicken with long feathers on its feet. What is this thing? Look at the predictions they had made...

The papers and news sites are full of claims about what some still think is a “new” candidate for an evolutionary ancestor of humans. Called Ardipithecus ramidus (often just “Ardi”), most of the articles actually explain that it’s really a detailed reanalysis of a fossil category that’s been around for years, but still the phones run hot with concerned creationists or gloating skeptics. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the journalistic temptation to run with headlines such as “Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found”—even though the article itself states that the bones were first discovered in 1994!1 In...

1. Meet “Ardi”Evolutionists aren’t yet sure if they should call it a human ancestor, but one thing they do know is that “Ardi” does away with the idea of a “missing link.”Although first discovered in the early 1990s, the bones of Ardipithecus ramidus are only now being nominated for evolutionists’ fossil hall of fame—via a slew of papers in a special issue of the journal Science. In it, Ardi’s researchers describe the bones and make the case that Ardi is even more important in the history of human evolution than Lucy. Despite claims of its evolutionary significance, one of the...

Bones of “Ardi,” New Human Evolution Fossil, “Crushed Nearly to Smithereens” Another new alleged missing link has been found, if you consider something discovered in the early 1990’s new. This fossil seems to have spent almost as much time under the microscope at Berkeley as it did in the ground in Ethiopia, when it was first buried about 4.4 million years ago. Why did it take over 15 years for the reports on this fossil to finally be published, besides the fact that it allowed more time for planning the now-customary PR campaign? A 2002 article in Science explains exactly...

Did apes descend from us? Skeleton of Ardi, 1.2-metre, 50-kilogram female may hold the clue Joseph Hall Science writer It may well be the closest we will ever come to the missing link between chimps and humans and the most important anthropological find ever. In a series of studies released today by the journal Science, researchers have revealed a creature that took the first upright steps toward human beings and fundamentally changes the way we look at our earliest evolutionary ancestors. The research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes. What's closer to the...

Darwin's Dilemma Los Angeles Premiere Will Mark 150th Anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species with Focus on Controversy over Evolution and Intelligent Design --snip-- LOS ANGELES, CA -- Highlighting the continuing controversy over the origins of life on earth, the American Freedom Alliance will premiere “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion” at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sunday October 25 at 7:00 pm. The event will feature a panel discussion with filmmakers and leading...

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

The most popular dinosaur is probably Tyrannosaurus rex, a Latin term that loosely translates as “king lizard.” Based on evolutionary assumptions, scientists have long held that these dinosaurs lived for “only” 3 million years, approximately 68 to 65 million years ago. A fossil looking remarkably like a small version of T. rex, however, has been located in a much lower rock layer.[1] Using the evolutionary dates assigned to the relevant strata, this adds 60 million years to the T. rex timeline. If the evolutionary interpretation was this wrong about one creature, can it be trusted on the rest of the...

Reproductive Riddle Unscrambled A pair of fossilized eggs found inside pelvis of dinosaur supports a link with birds Friday, April 15, 2005 Updated at 8:30 AM EST From Friday's Globe and Mail Calgary — Scientists have for the first time discovered fossilized eggs inside the body of a dinosaur, which provides concrete clues about ancient reproduction and supports the theory that birds evolved from dinosaurs, according to research published today. The pair of hard-shelled eggs about the size of large, long yams were found inside the pelvis of a female oviraptorid, a meat-eating bipedal dinosaur that lived about 80 million...

Chinese scientists today reveal the discovery of five remarkable new feathered dinosaur fossils which are significantly older than any previously reported. The new finds are indisputably older than Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird, at last providing hard evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Talking from the conference in Bristol, Dr Xu Xing, lead scientist on the report published online in Nature today, said: “These exceptional fossils provide us with evidence that has been missing until now. Now it all fits neatly into place and we have tied up some of the loose ends”. Professor Michael Benton, from the University of...

Just because youngsters are back in school does not mean the family fun has to stop. One attraction that offers tons of sights and sounds as well as several learning opportunities is "Dinosaurs Alive!" at Brookfield Zoo. The "Dinosaurs Alive!" exhibit will introduce guests to dinosaurs ranging from a 4-foot-tall "baby" to adult-size species. When: Through October. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekends. Where: Brookfield Zoo, 3300 Golf Road, Brookfield. Tickets: $5 for adults, $3 for ages 3 to 11 and ages 65 and older, and free for ages 2 and...

Paleontologists said Thursday that they had discovered what amounted to a miniature prototype of Tyrannosaurus rex, complete with the oversize head, powerful jaws, long legs — and, as every schoolchild knows, puny arms — that were hallmarks of the king of the dinosaurs. But this scaled-down version, which was about nine feet long and weighed only 150 pounds, lived 125 million years ago, about 35 million years before giant Tyrannosaurs roamed the earth. So the discovery calls into question theories about the evolution of T. rex, which was about five times longer and almost 100 times heavier. “The thought was...

The largest animals ever to have walked the face of the earth may not have been as big as previously thought, reveals a paper published June 21 in the Zoological Society of London’s Journal of Zoology.