Did Humans Become a Distinct Species 350, 000 Years Ago?

The hits just keep on coming.  On the heels of the discovery in Morocco, at Jebel Irhoud, of a skull with some modern characteristics dated to 315 thousand years ago, we now have a genetic study that proposes that our species emerged between 350 and 260 thousand years ago.  How did a genetic study reveal this?  Science News reports:

The trick was retrieving a complete version of the ancient boy’s DNA from his skeleton to compare with DNA from people today and from Stone Age Neandertals and Denisovans. Previously documented migrations of West African farmers to East Africa around 2,000 years ago, and then to southern Africa around 1,500 years ago, reshaped Africans’ genetics — and obscured ancient ancestry patterns — more than has been known, the researchers report online September 28 in Science.

The ancient boy’s DNA was not affected by those migrations. As a result, it provides the best benchmark so far for gauging when Homo sapiens originated in Africa, evolutionary geneticist Carina Schlebusch of Uppsala University in Sweden and her colleagues conclude.

In line with the new genetically derived age estimate for human origins, another team has proposed that approximately 300,000-year-old fossils found in northwestern Africa belonged to H. sapiens (SN: 7/8/17, p. 6). Some researchers suspect a skull from South Africa’s Florisbad site, dated to around 260,000 years ago, qualifies as H. sapiens. But investigators often place our species’ origins close to 200,000 years ago (SN: 2/26/05, p. 141). There is broad consensus that several fossils from that time represent H. sapiens.

What is important to understand is that we have the fossils from Herto and Omo that date to between 150 and 200 thousand but that does not mean that is the earliest time that our species may have actually showed up. The Jebel Irhoud material is only partly modern—in the face mostly—and we do not know how the genetics for this population would look. It is possible that, as some investigators are saying, the Jebel Irhoud material represents the earliest fossil representation of our clade and that over the next 100 thousand years, the modern form fully evolved.   

Q&A With Lee Berger on Human Evolution

The Sunday Times has an interview with Lee Berger about human evolution, in advance of his new book, co-written with John Hawks, Almost Human: The Astonishing Tale of Homo naledi and the Discovery That Changed Our Human Story. As was reported earlier, the original fossils were undated but appeared to be reflective of an early stage in the development of Homo. This idea was shattered when new dates were derived.  As I wrote at the time:

Homo naledi, however, was missing a date—until recently. Nearly everyone in the scientific community thought that the date of the Homo naledi fossils, when calculated, would fall within the same general time period as other primitive early Homo remains. We were wrong. The radiometric dates—recorded using several methods carried out at different laboratories—yielded almost identical ages of between 236 and 300 thousand years before the present (BP). This was an order of magnitude younger than we expected. To say we were surprised would be an understatement.

Interestingly, the interviewer asks no important questions about Homo naledi or the Dinaledi Star cave, itself.  Amid all of the sturm und drang of his tortuous relationships with Ron Clarke and Philip Tobias (✟ 2012), there is one interesting question about human evolution in general:

Throughout the final chapters of the book you often mention how much there still is to learn about Homo naledi and that it’s very likely that there are more early hominim species which are yet to be discovered. The skeletal material you recently came across in the Lesedi Chamber shares similarities with Homo naledi and adds to this statement. What can/does this new discovery tell us about human evolution in Africa?

I think the clear picture that has come from both the discovery of Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi is that the story of human evolution is not a simple, linear, straightforward one but that ours is a complex history. Naledi and sediba show us that there is more to be found – it’s clear that we don’t really know their ancestral history and the few fossils of other species found across Africa don’t help us much with interpreting where they fit in our family tree – and that’s exciting. We currently are back in the Dinaledi and Lesedi Chambers and making new discoveries – particularly exciting is we seem to have strong evidence that Homo naledi did indeed come down the narrow chute the way our “underground astronauts” come – and that is wonderful and hard to explain – but it’s exciting!

This has been a contentious issue: whether or not the fossil remains were “placed” there or were brought in by scavengers. What is also not clear is if the book was published before the new dates became available, or not.  I will have to buy the book to find that out.  While the rest of the interview is a tad unsubstantive, it is interesting.

Five Peculiar Fossils

Colin Barras of The New Scientist has a very short, very peculiar article on five hominin fossils that have been used to define new species and addresses the validity of each in very cursory fashion.  The strength of the article is in the links that it provides.  About Sahelanthropos, he writes this:

Features at the skull’s rear suggest it sat atop a vertical spine like that of a human, hinting that S. tchadensis walked upright. To make sure, other fossils will be needed – particularly from the legs. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a thigh bone was found with the skull, but this has not yet been discussed in a scientific paper. With so little evidence to go on, some are sceptical that S. tchadensis can really yet be defined as a hominin rather than some other form of ape – yet.

These are the least of its problems, as it is likely a surface find. Aside from this, when Wolpoff and colleagues examined the cranial base, here is what they found:

The prominence of the nuchal muscles, so important in head balance and loading, and shoulder movements, is enhanced by the significant development of the tuberculum linearum. The point is not that the TM 266 cranial rear and posterior portion of the cranial base was unlike hominids because the region looks like apes, but that TM 266 had a posture that is not upright because the region reflects nuchal functions similar to those of apes.

The foramen magnum - orbit plane angle does not directly address posture or locomotion in these hominoid primates (contra Zollikofer et al., 2005). Without a key postcranial element such as a pelvis or femur, none of these data provide compelling evidence for upright posture or obligate bipedal locomotion, and the various details of the nuchal plane argue against it. This functional implication has a phylogenetic consequence—by itself it is sufficient to disprove the phylogenetic hypothesis that TM 266 was a hominid.

This isn't skepticism. This is the door slamming shut.  It can be a surface find and still be a Miocene ape. In my recent piece for BioLogos, it did not occur to me to include this fossil since there are so many problems with it.  At this point, in Africa, the earliest reasonable evidence we have for hominins is Orrorin tugenensis. 

Read the whole (short) thing.

Neandertal Child Gives Clues to How They Developed

Gizmodo is running a story about the discovery and examination of a Neandertal child, from El Sidrón Cave, in Spain, who died under mysterious circumstances:

The first step was to determine the chronological age of death by performing a dental analysis. The specimen, dubbed El Sidrón J1, exhibited a mix of baby and adult teeth. Incremental markings on the teeth, which are counted like rings on a tree, showed that the boy died at 7.7 years of age. The skeletal remains exhibited no signs of trauma, no signs of sickness, or any other physical abnormalities. El Sidrón J1, aside from experiencing an untimely death, appears to have been a perfectly normal and healthy Neanderthal child.

The researchers then compared the skeleton’s biological stage of development with what would be expected in a modern human of the same age. To their surprise, they found few differences between the two human subspecies in terms of the pace of growth.

“The comparison...indicate(s) that there was no noticeable difference in the growth and maturation of this Neanderthal juvenile in comparison with modern human juveniles,” said study co-author Luis Rios, a Member of the Paleoanthropology Group at Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, at a press conference held yesterday.

Research has generally shown that Neandertals developed a bit more quickly than modern humans but, in one critical area, this study did not back up that claim.

Perhaps more significantly, analysis of the Neanderthal skull shows that El Sidrón J1's brain was roughly 87.5 percent the size of an average adult Neanderthal at the time of death. The brains of modern humans, on the other hand, reach 95 percent the size of an adult at that age. Previous studies have suggested that the larger brains of Neanderthals underwent rapid growth during these formative years, yet this new research would seem to contradict such claims.

There is a bit of circularity going on here, though because the child is being aged based on dental development and, if for some reason, the dental development does not completely track with either the current estimates or there were some developmental insults, the age might be off.  This is speculation on my part, though.  In any event, it gives us more to understand the developmental biology and ontogeny of these very, very close relatives.  

Forbes: Ark Encounter Local Tax Scandal Not Very Scandalous

I bit back I reported on the sale, not once but twice, of the Ark Encounter for $10 that, to all appearances, looked like a tax dodge gone bad.  Now Peter J. Reilly, who has written extensively about the Kent Hovind case, argues that, no it really was not that scandalous.  About the back and forth sale, he writes:

That had me a little excited, but as it turns out there is no federal tax issue. If you look at the Forms 990 filed by Answers in Genesis and Crosswater Canyon, you will find that Crosswater and AIG are both 501(c)(3) organizations and that Ark Encounter LLC is wholly owned by Crosswater making it, absent a special election, a disregarded entity. Transactions between the owner of a disregarded entity and the the disregarded entity are, for federal tax purposes, you know, disregarded. Status as a disregarded entity might not a apply for various local tax purposes. I wrote about an Orthodox Jewish school in Lakewood NJ that got tripped up by that. Apparently a similar rule applies in Kentucky, but I'm not equipped to dig deep there at this point.

Reilly sees that the coverage in the news about the transfer was very one-sided (and I did rely on that for my posts), but that there really was an ethical issue. He continues:

Ark Encounter's complaint of unfair treatment by the media might have some merit. Linda Blackford's coverage appears to me to be pretty solid and balanced, but some of what has been in the blogosphere has not been. For example, consider Dan Arel's headline - Ken Ham Sells Ark Encounter Land To Himself For $10 To Avoid Paying Taxes. I don't see that as a fair characterization as to what happened. Hemant Mehta's treatment on Patheos, though quite critical, is fairer and gives full credit to the new sources. Derek Welch of World Religion News got it backward saying that Ark Encounter sold the property to its subsidiary. The transfer was actually upstream.

On the other hand, I'm not displeased to see how they were hoist on their own petard when they transferred the property to beat the city tax. Overall the whole thing strikes me more as clumsy than smacking of deep conspiracy. All in, I think it was a mistake for the Ark to try to be frugal when it comes to supporting local services. Apparently, they think $500,000 is enough, but anything the city got over and above that would be from higher attendance.

The whole thing certainly left a bad taste in the mouths of the people of the Town, including the mayor. It also struck many, if legal, unethical. For someone like Ham, who decries the downfall of civilization because of moral failure, this seems a tad hypocritical.

New BioLogos Post on the Greek Footprints

My article on the Trachilos footprints has gone up at BioLogos.  As always, comments welcome both places. 

Greek Fossil Site Vandalized

Someone has vandalized the site containing the 5.7 million year old footprints in Crete.  Australian News Limited reports:

Some four to 10 prints appear to have been hacked out of the rock.

And graffiti has been sprayed over much of the remainder.

It’s an attack with devastating implications for the science of understanding humanity’s past.

“We are fortunate that many of the best tracks remain — the people who did it clearly didn’t know what they were looking for,” Professor Bennett writes. “Our guess is that they were simply intending to sell them.”

The site had been recognised under Greek heritage laws, and local authorities were supposed to be watching it.

Greek media reports a 55-year-old man has been arrested in western Crete and that many of the prints may have been recovered.

I certainly hope so. And I certainly hope that very hefty fines and possibly jail terms will be levied against those involved. As for the people in the organization that was supposed to be watching the site, I hope they are out of a job.

Time will have to tell how much damage was actually done but this is nothing less than a travesty.  Because truly stupid people are never in short supply, many of the Neandertal sites in Europe were also looted before they could be fully excavated.  This should be embarrassing to the Greek government. 

5.7 Million Year-Old Human Footprints Found on Greek Island of Crete

Great Googlymoogly!  This one is lighting up all over the Internet.  Fossil footprints have been found in the southern Greek Island of Crete, near the village of Trachilos, that appear to have the distinctive heel-toe-off gait of bipedal humans.  The catch? The prints are 5.7 million years old!  From PhysOrg:

Human feet have a very distinctive shape, different from all other land animals. The combination of a long sole, five short forward-pointing toes without claws, and a hallux ("big toe") that is larger than the other toes, is unique. The feet of our closest relatives, the great apes, look more like a human hand with a thumb-like hallux that sticks out to the side. The Laetoli footprints, thought to have been made by Australopithecus, are quite similar to those of modern humans except that the heel is narrower and the sole lacks a proper arch. By contrast, the 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus ramidus from Ethiopia, the oldest hominin known from reasonably complete fossils, has an ape-like foot. The researchers who described Ardipithecus argued that it is a direct ancestor of later hominins, implying that a human-like foot had not yet evolved at that time.

The new footprints, from Trachilos in western Crete, have an unmistakably human-like form. This is especially true of the toes. The big toe is similar to our own in shape, size and position; it is also associated with a distinct 'ball' on the sole, which is never present in apes. The sole of the foot is proportionately shorter than in the Laetoli prints, but it has the same general form. In short, the shape of the Trachilos prints indicates unambiguously that they belong to an early hominin, somewhat more primitive than the Laetoli trackmaker. They were made on a sandy seashore, possibly a small river delta, whereas the Laetoli tracks were made in volcanic ash.

And now, the other shoe.  How do we know how old the fossil footprints are?  

The coastal rocks at Trachilos, west of Kissamos Harbour in western Crete (Fig. 1a–c), lie within the Platanos Basin, and present a succession of shallow marine late Miocene carbonates and siliciclastics of the Roka Formation, a local development of the Vrysses Group (Freudenthal, 1969 ; van Hinsbergen and Meulenkamp, 2006; Figs. 1d, e and 3a, b). At the top, this marine succession terminates abruptly in the coarse-grained terrigenous sedimentary rocks of the Hellenikon Group (Figs. 1d and 3e, f), which formed by the desiccation of the Mediterranean Basin during the Messinian Salinity Crisis (van Hinsbergen and Meulenkamp, 2006), an event dated to approximately 5.6 Ma (Govers, 2009). The succession (Fig. 1d) contains an emergent horizon with well-preserved terrestrial trace fossils and microbially induced sedimentary structures (Fig. 3d) immediately overlying shallow water ripplemark structures (Fig. 3c).¹

So, the authors are a tad more circumspect than the writers of the PhysOrg story.  The authors posit two hypotheses for their results: 1. the tracks represent the gait of a basal hominin, which explains the non-divergence and shape of the big toe as well as the shape of the ends of the other toes, which resemble those of a human foot and not a non-human foot.  This fits approximately with the dates of the north African remains of Orrorin and, perhaps, that of Sahelanthropus (although that is pretty much a surface find).

The Messinian Crisis was a period of time during the Miocene epoch during which the Mediterranean Sea almost completely dried up.  This crisis began around 6 million years ago and ended around 5.3 million years ago with what is known as the Zanclean flood.  It is estimated that once the barrier at the Strait of Gibraltar was broken, the Mediterranean Sea refilled within two years, which means that the sea level rose at an estimated 30 feet per day.

Okay...now, lets go back here, to the story that came out about four months ago, establishing the possibility that the last common ancestor to apes and humans was in Europe.  In that study, a jaw with human root patterns and an isolated premolar that have both been attributed to Graecopithecus, were re-examined and found by the researchers to have hominin affinities, a surprising conclusion, given their age of 7.15 million years.  At the time that story appeared, I remarked that it was a bit of a stretch to hang one's hat on one premolar and partial ape-like mandible, but in the context of the new finds, maybe not so much.  This strengthens the (admittedly far-fetched) notion that our ancestors did, in fact, originate somewhere in southeast Mediterranean Europe and, over the course of the next two and half million years ago, migrated south to north Africa.

As Per Ahlberg was quoted as saying:

"This discovery challenges the established narrative of early human evolution head-on and is likely to generate a lot of debate. Whether the human origins research community will accept fossil footprints as conclusive evidence of the presence of hominins in the Miocene of Crete remains to be seen."

This is huge news.  Even if we can't place the LCA in southern Europe, we now have bipedalism extending back into the late Miocene. 


¹Gerard D. Gierliński et al, Possible hominin footprints from the late Miocene (c. 5.7 Ma) of Crete?, Proceedings of the Geologists' Association (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2017.07.006

Will Moroccan Schools Teach Evolution Again

Writing for the Morocco World News, Amal Ben Hadda wonders if the discovery of more early modern human remains from the site of Jebel Irhoud will prompt the government to reintroduce evolution into the curriculum:

While these new discoveries are “shaking up” the scientific community, we should ask ourselves why these theories of evolution are not being taught in Moroccan schools. Why is this scientific approach to revealing the origin of humanity not considered in the manuals programs?

From a religious perspective, some Muslim scholars support the study of human evolutionary theory. The different levels of human conception are mentioned in many verses in the Quran. However, the exegeses of these verses have been influenced by Talmudic interpretations of the Torah and have been accepted as authentic versions of the human “genesis”. As an example of this influence, there is the creation of woman from Adam’s rib. This version, interpreted from the Torah and resumed by mainstream Islamic exegeses, doesn’t exist in the Quran.

In the original text of the Torah, the chapter Genesis shows in 1:27 that man and woman were conceived at the same level and no one is superior to another. However, this woman was diabolized by the patriarchal tradition. Only the version of the creation of woman from Adam’s rib named Eve is considered by the creationists as per the interpretations of the Genesis 2:23.

It is interesting to note that Islam seems to have the same issue that Christianity does in that modern interpretations of scripture have taken hold within a large subset of Muslims regarding this issue.  In Christianity, the days of creation were never originally written as seven sequential, 24-hour periods, yet that is the perspective of a large number of conservative evangelical Christians.  He author calls for a neutral interpretation of the Koran.  I would argue that we need a similar interpretation of the Bible. 

Meanwhile, Over in South Korea...

The Korea Times is running a story about the controversy over creationism in South Korea.  Park Jae-hyuk writes:

The deep-rooted dispute over creationism has arisen here again after Park Seong-jin, the designate for SMEs and startups minister, was found to have worked for an institute supporting what most scientists regard as pseudoscience.

Creationism is a fundamentalist Christian movement that denies the theory of evolution and considers Biblical creation stories as proven facts.

Although Park told reporters this week that he “respects” the theory of evolution despite his religious beliefs, controversy over the issue will highly likely go on, given that opposition parties are expected to mention it during the upcoming confirmation hearing.

“As a Christian, I have a faith in a religion based on creation, but I do not believe creation as a science,” the minister nominee told reporters. “I’ve never individually studied creation science either.”

In response to his remarks during a symposium at Yonsei University in 2007 that “People armed with belief in creation should be deployed in every fields of society,” Park explained the remarks were just made for guests from the United States.

Saying that faith is not subject to qualification, Cheong Wa Dae has dismissed the controversy. Park quit his position as director at the Korea Association for Creation Research (KACR) just a day before his nomination.

It is not a given that this will create problems for South Korean science any more than the appointment of Betsy DeVos will in this country. That is predicated, however, on the idea that the two forms of government are broadly similar in behavior. If they are not, then things could change.Stay tuned. 

More Bad News From Turkey

It seems that, in Turkey, there will be no teaching of evolution any longer.  NPR reports:

When children in Turkey head back to school this fall, something will be missing from their textbooks: any mention of evolution.

The Turkish government is phasing in what it calls a values-based curriculum. Critics accuse Turkey's president of pushing a more conservative, religious ideology — at the expense of young people's education.

At a playground in an upscale, secular area of Istanbul, parents and grandparents express concern over the new policy.

"I'm worried, but I hope it changes by the time my grandchildren are in high school," says Emel Ishakoglu, a retired chemical engineer playing with her grandchildren, ages 5 and 2. "Otherwise our kids will be left behind compared to other countries when it comes to science education."

With a curriculum that omits evolution, Ishakoglu worries her grandchildren won't get the training they'll need if they want to grow up to be scientists like her.

While it is certainly true that this kind of thing also happens sporadically in the United States, like here, what is going on in Turkey is entirely religiously-based.  The interpretation of scripture, in this case, the Koran, will always come first. 

Henry Morris was once asked where Hell was.  His response was that it was directly beneath our feet.  When pressed with the knowledge of observations that there is no place for Hell in the center of the earth because the earth is solid down to the core, he replied that the sounding equipment had to be wrong because that is where the scriptures tell us it is.  It is very hard to fight against that level of strict ideology.  

New DNA Analysis Allows for Greater Understanding of Modern Human Prehistory

From Science Daily:

A University of Utah-led team developed a new method for analyzing DNA sequence data to reconstruct the early history of the archaic human populations. They revealed an evolutionary story that contradicts conventional wisdom about modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The study¹ found that the Neanderthal-Denisovan lineage nearly went extinct after separating from modern humans. Just 300 generations later, Neanderthals and Denisovans diverged from each other around 744,000 years ago. Then, the global Neanderthal population grew to tens of thousands of individuals living in fragmented, isolated populations scattered across Eurasia.

"This hypothesis is against conventional wisdom, but it makes more sense than the conventional wisdom." said Alan Rogers, professor in the Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study that will publish online on August 7, 2017 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As the authors note, there is mounting evidence of a migration from Africa to Europe, likely by way of the Strait of Gibraltar, in which Acheulean stone tools are introduced by a group which became known as Homo heidelbergensis.  This group, subsequently, split, likely gave rise to the Neandertals  and the Denisovans a bit later.  Then, a second wave of migrations around 90 to 100 ky happened, during which there was hybridization between Neandertals, moderns and Denisovans.

We live in a time where we now have the genomes of archaic Africans, Eurasians, Neandertals, Denisovans and early moderns and can compare them using site pattern analysis.  These authors found that

• In contrast to previous studies, this one indicates that Neandertal population size was large, on the order of tens of thousands of people, in isolated populations
• The split between the Neandertals and Denisovans was early, on the order of 744 thousand years ago.  
• By the time you find these hominins in the fossil record, they had already split from the Denisovans, which explains why the Atapuerca Sima De Los Huesos hominins resemble Neandertals more than Denisovans.
• Therefore, Neandertal features are thought to have emerged over a long period of time in Europe. 

This analysis will help us rethink our understanding of the fossil material from Gran Dolina, which now likely represents a population from which both the Denisovans and Neandertals split.  This makes sense, given the general, non-derived nature of the fossil material from there.  Things are slowly (maybe?) falling into place.

¹Alan R. Rogers, Ryan J. Bohlender, and Chad D. Huff. Early history of Neanderthals and Denisovans. PNAS, August 2017 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1706426114

New 13 Million-Year-Old Miocene Ape Discovery in Kenya

National Geographic (and other outlets) is reporting on a new skull discovered in northern Kenya, near Lake Turkana that is 13 million years old and may reflect the morphology of a sister group to the stem group of hominoids, the group that contains modern apes and humans.  Michael Greshko writes:

“We’ve been looking for ape fossils for years—this is the first time we’re getting a skull that’s complete,” says Isaiah Nengo, the De Anza College anthropologist who led the discovery, supported by a National Geographic Society grant and the Stony Brook University-affiliated Turkana Basin Institute.

Roughly the size of a lemon, the skull belongs to a newly identified species of early ape named Nyanzapithecus alesi. Some of its features resemble those of today’s living Old World monkeys and apes, and the face bears a striking resemblance to today’s infant gibbons.

What’s more, N. alesi offers insight into early apes’ brains, the team reports in their study, published today in Nature. With a volume of about seven tablespoons, N. alesi’s brain cavity was more than double that of other Old World monkeys from the time.

The Miocene is generally thought of as the “Age of the Apes” because there were so many genera (30) and species (over 40) of apes pretty much all over the Old World. As the authors note, however, up to this point, most of the remains have been just jaws and teeth.  This skull is an incredible find and will add immensely to our understanding of this time period. 

Full Page Ad in Chattanooga Times Free Press: Livesay Resign!

A number of alumni and former faculty of Bryan College took out a full-page ad in the Chattanooga Times Free Press calling on President Stephen Livesay to resign from the college and for the Board of Trustees to resign as well.  The ad showed up in the print edition of the paper but has been transcribed to a page on Change.org here.  It reads in part:

President Livesay has failed to act biblically toward believers who disagree with him. Consistent reports from a number of those who have worked at the College show that Livesay does not follow the mandates of Matthew 18:15 and Ephesians 4:13-16 to discuss his differences with other believers in a humble, loving way that could promote correction and reconciliation. Instead, he treats all disagreement with his views as evil and uses deception, threats, and job termination to silence dialogue and hide dissent.
President Livesay has continued to incite the opposition of Christian men and women of proven faith and integrity. Pastors, Christian professionals, faculty and staff who have made sacrifices over many years for Christ and His ministry at Bryan College, and some of Bryan’s brightest and most faithful students, alumni, and friends have spoken up again and again against Livesay’s failures in godly servant-leadership. Yet he has refused to repent and goes on dividing and damaging the body of Christ at Bryan (John 17:20-21).

Rather than doing its job as a supervisory body that exercises authority over the president, the Bryan Board of Trustees has passively and blindly followed the president.

It is difficult to know what effect this letter will have on Livesay. There is nothing quite like being universally disliked.  It is clear that the fortunes and reputation of the college have taken a huge hit, so much so that Mike Adams, the conservative columnist and faculty at UNC Wilmington, has suggested that the college be shut down.  There are very few things worse for a Christian college than to be accused of ethical violations and moral turpitude.  I'm not sure how this one is going to turn out.

Ken Ham Takes Potshot at Bill Nye on Climate Change

Ken Ham...Bill Nye...a plague on both of your houses.  While Bill Nye is out trying to save the world, and Ken Ham is out trying to save the world, the two of them tangled again.  First, Bill Nye was quoted as saying that we will only get serious about climate change when the older generation, who he claims comprise the largest group of climate change deniers, dies off.  From Mandy Mayfield:

“Climate change deniers, by way of example, are older. It's generational,” Nye told the Los Angeles Times. Nye said that he is calling them out with “due respect,” acknowledging that he is “now one of them.”

“We're just going to have to wait for those people to 'age out,' as they say," Nye went on, adding that “age out” is a euphemism for “die.” “But it'll happen, I guarantee you — that'll happen.”

Ken Ham took exception to this. As the Gospel Herald Society notes:

Ham accused Nye of "decrying the older generation" with his comments.

"He knows the younger generation are by and large more brainwashed in secularism and evolutionary teaching and are generally not taught how to think critically," Ham said. "Thus, he is hoping the younger generation will be more supportive of his false anti-observational science views of climate change."

As earlier reported, Nye previously came under fire when, on the season finale of his Netflix show, "Bill Nye Saves the World," he suggested that American families ought to be penalized for having "extra kids" as a solution to overpopulation and climate change.

Well, first off, accepting evolutionary theory and the evidence for an old earth do not constitute a rejection of critical thinking.  If you accept the argument that scientific evidence supports the young earth position, then you need to apply critical thinking to this argument.  Many problems occur when you do.

Here is an example of what I mean: I recently attended a Classical Conversations home school meeting in advance of the new school year.  At the meeting, someone had, for sale, a timeline of history.  I noticed a few odd things about the timeline.

• It began in 4004 B.C., a date commonly accepted in young earth creationist circles but reflecting a somewhat facile interpretation of the biblical chronologies, which have been shown by numerous theologians and biblical historians to be incomplete or replete with symbolism.  
• It places the world-wide flood squarely at 2500 B.C.
• The early Egyptian, Minoan and Sumerian histories are completely absent.  The reason for this is, of course, that if the flood happened in 2500 B.C., anything happening elsewhere in the world not recorded in Genesis simply didn't happen.  No Chinese histories dating back prior to the Shang Dynasty are recorded, either.  

How do you square these things with “critical thinking?”  Objectively, these histories reflect real people, living in real places, doing real things.

As far as Bill Nye is concerned, whatever there was of the objective, humble scientist that did "Bill Nye, The Science Guy" seems long gone, replaced by some loud, obnoxious SJW in a lab coat.  Where once he gave kids a presentation on what it means to be either XY or XX, he is now hawking "Sex Junk" a truly awful video on sex.

Further, his idea of penalizing American families for having extra kids is laughable on its face.  Our population replacement rate is already treading water, as it is.  In Europe and Japan, the populations aren't replacing themselves.  In Japan, schools are closing down because there are not enough rising students to fill them.  If a population does not replace itself, society collapses.  This fact seems to be lost on these climate warriors.

Both Bill Nye and Ken Ham have incredibly warped views on science.  One was a mechanical engineer and the other has an undergraduate degree in science education.  Apparently, neither of those backgrounds are being put to good use. 

Ken Ham Sells Ark Encounter Land Back To Himself

And Hey Presto!  Just like that, it is back again.  The Lexington Herald Leader is reporting that the land on which the Ark Encounter sits, has been sold back to Ark Encounter, LLC for...$10.  From Linda Blackford:

Three days after state tourism officials suspended an $18 million tax incentive, officials at a Noah’s Ark theme park have sold their main parcel back to their for-profit entity for $10.

The issue started in late June after Ark Encounter LLC sold the parcel to its non-profit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon for $10. The deed continues to describe the property as worth $18 million even though the Grant County PVA has assessed the land for $48 million.

Ark Encounter officials have declined to say why they sold the property in the first place, but the move in June coincided with their refusal to pay a safety assessment tax levied by the city of Williamstown. City officials worried that the sale might be the first step in the ark park claiming non-profit status, which would exempt it from property taxes.

But on July 18, state tourism officials said the land sale breached the sales tax rebate incentive agreement, which was with Ark Encounter LLC, not Crosswater Canyon.

Of course Ark officials have declined to say why they sold the land back.  I am quite sure it had nothing to do with the fact that Ken Ham and company somewhat nakedly tried to get out of paying $700,000 in infrastructure taxes to the city of Williamstown by executing an ethically questionable business deal and then, discovering that the $700,000 was a paltry sum compared to the $18 million in tax incentives over the next ten years and seeing how the sale played out in the media, went back on it.  I was going to write “did the right thing,” but I am not sure doing the right thing crossed their minds.

The only consolation in this is that Ken Ham is out $20.

The Continuing Downward Spiral of Bryan College

As if things could not get any worse for Bryan College, news has now surfaced that a much beloved professor, Phillip Lestmann, a tenured professor of mathematics, has been fired for voicing concern about the college and, in the face of recent controversies and scandals, circulating a petition calling for the resignation of President Stephen Livesay.  This petition reads, in part:

President Livesay has failed to act biblically toward believers who disagree with him. Consistent reports from a number of those who have worked at the College show that Livesay does not follow the mandates of Matthew 18:15 and Ephesians 4:13-16 to discuss his differences with other believers in a humble, loving way that could promote correction and reconciliation. Instead, he treats all disagreement with his views as evil and uses deception, threats, and job termination to silence dialogue and hide dissent.

President Livesay has continued to incite the opposition of Christian men and women of proven faith and integrity. Pastors, Christian professionals, faculty and staff who have made sacrifices over many years for Christ and His ministry at Bryan College, and some of Bryan’s brightest and most faithful students, alumni, and friends have spoken up again and again against Livesay’s failures in godly servant-leadership. Yet he has refused to repent and goes on dividing and damaging the body of Christ at Bryan (John 17:20-21).

 From Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed:

The professor was criticized by the administration for having helped organize an "opposition group" -- and that charge has many saying that disagreeing with the administration has become a firing offense, making academic freedom impossible.

That dismissal appears to have added to the push for change at Bryan, with the petition quickly gathering support among alumni.

Bryan's name honors William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the 1925 trial of John Scopes, a public school teacher accused of teaching evolution. The trial took place near campus, and while Bryan's anti-evolution stance fell from favor elsewhere, it has never fallen with leaders of the college.

Tensions have been growing at Bryan since 2014, when the college issued a "clarification" to the college’s statement of faith, which all faculty members must endorse, asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve. While the college has long had a statement of faith stressing belief in the Bible and various core values, the detail about Adam and Eve struck many faculty members and alumni as going too far, and as a move that would limit the ability of some professors to stay (some indeed left).

The other controversy involved the hushed-up dealings with a Christian camp counselor indicted and jailed over sexual molestation charges. In the wake of this incident, the president, Stephen Livesay, has configured the Bryan College Board of Directors to be supportive of his agenda, and critics have argued that the new board is little more than a mouthpiece for Livesay.

Conservative columnist Mike Adams, who just participated in the Summit Ministries workshop, hosted at Bryan College (to which my son Marcus went last year), tweeted the following: 

Someone has also posted a tweet taking aim at the College's absolutely appalling decision to give Ken Ham, head of Answers in Genesis, an honorary degree in science:

Things will likely get worse for Bryan before they get better, if they get better.  I already know of one person who is a graduate of the college who has requested a transcript from them because he fears that they might shut down.  That would, in many ways, be very sad.  I have visited the college.  It is very pretty and has, from all reports, thriving programs in many disciplines.  Further, the faculty are Godly men and women and should not have to pay for the numerous sins of their president and administration. 

Busted! Ken Ham's Ark Encounter Loses $18,000,000 in Tax Incentives From State of Kentucky

WUKY and other outlets are reporting that the Kentucky Board of Tourism has suspended $18 million worth of tax incentives for which the Ark Encounter had applied prior to its construction.

A general timeline: The Ark Encounter, LLC is set up as a for-profit company for the purpose of overseeing the construction of the Ark Encounter.  This company applies for the tax incentives to help defray the cost of the construction.  Despite controversy, Ham defends the use of the tax incentives.  Ark Encounter LLC also issues junk bonds  for this purpose.  The Ark Encounter opens on July 7, 2016 to much fanfare.  Ken Ham declares that he expects over two million visitors the first year.  Ticket prices are set at $40 for adults, $28 for children 5-12.

Well, after a year, controversy has continued to swirl around the Ark Encounter.  Instead of 2 million visitors for the first year, the Ark Encounter has drawn only 1.1 million visitors.  Ken Ham blames the lack of hotel space for this problem rather than, say, really high ticket prices.

After a year, the city of Williamstown complains that the Ark Encounter has brought in little to no business for local establishments.  Faced with growing infrastructure costs due to increased traffic because of the Ark Encounter, the Mayor of Williamstown, Rick Skinner, informs Ark Encounter, LLC that it will be imposing a 50-center per ticket tax to help pay for the upkeep of the town.

One day prior to the tax going into effect, Ken Ham sells the land on which the Ark Encounter sits to Crosswater Canyon, a non-profit organization owed by the Creation Museum, for $10.  Arguing that they are now a religious organization, Ark Encounter, LLC refuses to pay this tax.  The city of Williamstown pushes forward, threatening a lawsuit.  This brings us to the most recent update.

The Louisville Courier-Journal is now reporting that Ark Encounter, LLC, has had its tax incentives suspended by the state of Kentucky's Board of Tourism.   Deborah Yetter writes:

Kentucky has suspended tax breaks to the Ark Encounter, saying it breached a deal that provides the religious-themed attraction with $18 million in state tax incentives.

The Northern Kentucky theme park, dubbed the "Ark Park" because it features a 510-foot-long model of Noah's Ark, was notified by state officials on Tuesday that the owners have violated an agreement with Kentucky by transferring the property from a for-profit company to a nonprofit company.

It is difficult for me to believe that the managers of Ark Encounter, LLC, did not know that the optics of this deal would look terrible.  Yetter continues:

Earlier in the week, Mike Zovath, chief action officer with Answers in Genesis and principal of Crosswater Canyon, couldn't say why the property was transferred to a nonprofit.

"However this works out, we want to do things that are in the best interest of the Ark Encounter, Crosswater Canyon and everybody that's involved here and works here," he told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

But Williamstown Mayor Rick Skinner fears the move was taken to avoid paying taxes.

"We're skeptical of their thinking and their lack of communication right now," Skinner said.

Ken Ham and the managers of the Ark Encounter have allowed their focus on profits above all else to deflect blame for the park’s low attendance and behave unethically. All involved in the Ark Encounter, LLC and Crosswater Canyon should be ashamed of themselves for this naked shirking of responsibility and cash grab. I am quite certain that Ken Ham will protest this move by the tourism board.  I hope he does.  It will only reveal more shady dealings that, I am sure, are there. 

Ark Encounter Update: Did Ken Ham Just Escape $700,000 in Taxes?

The International Business Times is reporting that Ken Ham has sold his for-profit Ark Encounter to its parent organization, Crosswater Canyon, a non-profit company, for ten dollars.  Linda Blackford writes:

On June 29, Williamstown city attorney Jeffrey Shipp sent a letter to the biblical amusement park Ark Encounter, rejecting its request to be exempted from a new safety tax because its is a religious organization.

Shipp said it was clear that Ark Encounter is a for-profit entity, which is how it has been listed with the Kentucky secretary of state’s office since 2011.

But the day before, Ark Encounter LLC sold its main parcel of land — the one with the large-scale Noah’s Ark — for $10 to its nonprofit affiliate, Crosswater Canyon. Although the property is worth $48 million according to the Grant County property valuation administrator, the deed says its value is only $18.5 million.

That’s the latest salvo in an escalating dispute between local officials and Ark Encounter, but some people are worried that Ark Encounter’s maneuver is a precursor to declaring itself exempt from all taxes, including property taxes that help finance Grant County schools.

“I believe this is the first step,” Williamstown city councilman Kim Crupper said. “The impact would be far larger than just Williamstown.”

The council is scheduled to meet Tuesday night with Ark officials to continue talking about their differences, but Crupper and Mayor Rick Skinner said they think a lawsuit is imminent.

This came about because the city of Williamstown, in order to shore up its police department and roads, decided to impose a 50-cent tax on each ticket sold at the Ark Encounter. Tickets run $40 for adults, plus $10 for parking.

The mayor, Rick Skinner stated that the taxes would add up to approximately $700,000.  Numerous reports already circulate the the Ark Encounter has brought next to no business to the local economy.  All of this comes after the Ark Encounter, LLC received some incredible tax breaks. From the Lexington Herald Leader story:

The tax break allows approved tourism sites to recover as much as 25 percent of their investment through a rebate of state sales taxes paid by visitors. The theme park also will receive tax breaks from Grant County and the city of Williamstown. The state also designated $11 million in road funds for an expanded interchange off Interstate 75.

If this is true, this is a huge black eye for the Ark Encounter and paints a huge target on Christianity. While I have no respect for Mr. Ham and consider this theme park monstrosity one of the most egregious examples of the Disney-ization of Christianity, its effect will reach much further than Williamstown, especially if a lawsuit occurs.  What will strike your average reader is that Ken Ham, after using every trick in the book to get the ark-n-park built, is now shirking his responsibility to the community because his ark is not bringing in the numbers that he thought it would.  This will, further, give ammunition to those who do not agree with the tax exemption of churches.

It all looks very suspicious and underhanded on the part of Ken Ham and Ark Encounter, LLC.  Blackford's article closes with this:

Skinner said he is disappointed in how the town’s relationship with Ark officials has deteriorated, but he said he would wait to comment further until Tuesday’s meeting.

Ark Encounter: Profit or Non-Profit?

The Panda's Thumb is reporting yet another kerfuffle involving the Ark Encounter, the Town of Williamstown, and finances. Matt Young writes:

According to press reports in the Grant County News and the Lexington Herald Leader, the management of the Ark Park is resisting efforts by the City of Williamstown to collect a safety fee that will be used to upgrade police and fire protection because of Williamstown’s increased needs as a result of the Ark Park.

Ark Encounter, which owns the Ark Park, is a for-profit corporation and arguably should be subject to the tax. It is, however, owned by a nonprofit corporation, Crosswater Canyon. Mark Looy of Answers in Genesis has previously admitted that Ark Encounter is a for-profit corporation, but now he argues that they should be exempt from the tax because – you guessed it – Ark Encounter is owned by a nonprofit.

The Williamstown City Council, anticipating a possible lawsuit, has gone into executive session. According to an informant of ours, Williamstown, which was promised untold wealth if it permitted the Ark “replica” to be built there, barely has a coffee shop downtown, let alone the restaurants and hotels which were supposed to provide jobs and revenue. If you need gasoline or a tattoo, our informant implies, Williamstown is the place to go.

There may be more to this story than meets the eye but, on the surface, it seems as if the good Mr. Ham is jettisoning his integrity in favor of meagre profits. All reports are that attendance is nowhere near the estimated 2 million visitors for the year. It is more like 1.4 million and the nearby towns are seeing none of the expected revenue from it.  What a debacle.  It is hard to feel too much sympathy for the town of Williamstown because they bent over backward and made some very questionable decisions to get the park.