Science Disproves Evolution

[Pahu]

 

Vestigial Organs

 

 

Some structures in humans were once thought to have no function but to have been derived from functioning organs in claimed evolutionary ancestors (a). They were called vestigial organs. As medical knowledge has increased, at least some function has been discovered for all alleged vestigial organs (b). For example, the human appendix was once considered a useless remnant from our evolutionary past. The appendix plays a role in antibody production, protects part of the intestine from infections and tumor growths (c), and safely stores “good bacteria” that can replenish the intestines following bouts of diarrhea, for example (d). Indeed, the absence of true vestigial organs implies evolution never happened.

 

a.    “The existence of functionless ‘vestigial organs’ was presented by Darwin, and is often cited by current biology textbooks, as part of the evidence for evolution....An analysis of the difficulties in unambiguously identifying functionless structures and an analysis of the nature of the argument, leads to the conclusion that ‘vestigial organs’ provide no evidence for evolutionary theory.” S. R. Scadding, “Do ‘Vestigial Organs’ Provide Evidence for Evolution?” Evolutionary Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3, May 1981, p. 173.

 

b.    Jerry Bergman and George Howe, “Vestigial Organs” Are Fully Functional (Terre Haute, Indiana: Creation Research Society Books, 1990).

 

c.     “The appendix is not generally credited with substantial function. However, current evidence tends to involve it in the immunologic mechanism.” Gordon McHardy, “The Appendix,” Gastroenterology, Vol. 4, editor J. Edward Berk (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1985), p. 2609.

    

“Thus, although scientists have long discounted the human appendix as a vestigial organ, a growing quantity of evidence indicates that the appendix does in fact have a significant function as a part of the body’s immune system. ”  N. Roberts, “Does the Appendix Serve a Purpose in Any Animal?” Scientific American, Vol. 285, November 2001, p. 96.

 

d. “...the human appendix is well suited as a ‘safe house’ for commensal bacteria, providing support for bacterial growth and potentially facilitating re-inoculation of the colon in the event that the contents of the intestinal track are purged following exposure to a pathogen....the appendix...is not a vestige.” R. Randal Bollinger et. al., “Biofilms in the Large Bowel Suggest an Apparent Function of the Human Vermiform Appendix,” Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 249, 2007, p. 826.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences22.html#wp1616566]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

[Pahu]

 

Two-Celled Life?

 

 

Many single-celled forms of life exist, but no known forms of animal life have 2, 3, 4, or 5 cells (a). Known forms of life with 6–20 cells are parasites, so they must have a complex animal as a host to provide such functions as respiration and digestion. If macroevolution happened, one should find many transitional forms of life with 2–20 cells—filling the gap between one-celled and many-celled organisms.

 

a.    E. Lendell Cockrum and William J. McCauley, Zoology (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Co., 1965), p. 163.

 

Lynn Margulis and Karlene V. Schwartz, Five Kingdoms: An Illustrated Guide to the Phyla of Life on Earth (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1982), pp. 178–179.

 

Perhaps the simplest forms of multicellular life are the Myxozoans, which have 6–12 cells. While they are quite distinct from other multicellular life, they are even more distinct from single-celled life (kingdom Protista). [See James F. Smothers et al., “Molecular Evidence That the Myxozoan Protists are Metazoans,” Science, Vol. 265, 16 September 1994, pp. 1719–1721.] So, if they evolved from anywhere, it would most likely have been from higher, not lower, forms of life. Such a feat should be called devolution, not evolution.

    

Colonial forms of life are an unlikely bridge between single-celled life and multicelled life. The degree of cellular differentiation between colonial forms of life and the simplest multicellular forms of life is vast. For a further discussion, see Libbie Henrietta Hyman, The Invertebrates: Protozoa through Ctenophora, Vol. 1 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1940), pp. 248–255.

 

Nor do Diplomonads (which have two nuclei and four flagella) bridge the gap. Diplomonads are usually parasites.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences23.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

 

[JohnD]

Science disproves the universe and everything in it).

2nd law thermodynamics = nothing is eternal

1st law thermodynamics = nothing can come into existence from nothing

Yet we (and the universe) are here.

Science (and the existence of a universe that should not be here) proves the existence of God (who is eternal and who transcends the physical laws of nature).

I stump atheists with this one all the time.

They almost never believe it anyway... but it knocks them down a few notches from the smug self-assured worldview they had. And it might plant a few seeds spiritually.

Typically they cop out with some catch phrase like "evolution does not speak to biogenesis."

Huh?

Evolution (according to them) proves the existence of all things without a creator god.

Cop out!

[JTC]

2 hours ago, JohnD said:

Science disproves the universe and everything in it).

2nd law thermodynamics = nothing is eternal

1st law thermodynamics = nothing can come into existence from nothing

Yet we (and the universe) are here.

Science (and the existence of a universe that should not be here) proves the existence of God (who is eternal and who transcends the physical laws of nature).

I stump atheists with this one all the time.

They almost never believe it anyway... but it knocks them down a few notches from the smug self-assured worldview they had. And it might plant a few seeds spiritually.

Typically they cop out with some catch phrase like "evolution does not speak to biogenesis."

Huh?

Evolution (according to them) proves the existence of all things without a creator god.

Cop out!

Aww man, now you made them cry.

[Pahu]

 

Embryology 1

 

 

Evolutionists have taught for over a century that as an embryo develops, it passes through stages that mimic an evolutionary sequence. In other words, in a few weeks an unborn human repeats stages that supposedly took millions of years for mankind. A well-known example of this ridiculous teaching is that embryos of mammals have “gill slits,” because mammals supposedly evolved from fish. (Yes, that’s faulty logic.) Embryonic tissues that resemble “gill slits” have nothing to do with breathing; they are neither gills nor slits.  Instead, those embryonic tissues develop into parts of the face, bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands.

 

Embryologists no longer consider the superficial similarities between a few embryos and the adult forms of simpler animals as evidence for evolution (a). 

 

a.    “This generalization was originally called the biogenetic law by Haeckel and is often stated as ‘ontogeny [the development of an embryo] recapitulates [repeats] phylogeny [evolution].’ This crude interpretation of embryological sequences will not stand close examination, however. Its shortcomings have been almost universally pointed out by modern authors, but the idea still has a prominent place in biological mythology.” Paul R. Ehrlich and Richard W. Holm, The Process of Evolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 66.

 

“It is now firmly established that ontogeny does not repeat phylogeny.” George Gaylord Simpson and William S. Beck, Life: An Introduction to Biology (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1965), p. 241.

 

Hitching, pp. 202–205.

 

  “The enthusiasm of the German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel, however, led to an erroneous and unfortunate exaggeration of the information which embryology could provide. This was known as the ‘biogenetic law’ and claimed that embryology was a recapitulation of evolution, or that during its embryonic development an animal recapitulated the evolutionary history of its species.” Gavin R. deBeer, An Atlas of Evolution (New York: Nelson, 1964), p. 38.

 

“...the theory of recapitulation has had a great and, while it lasted, regrettable influence on the progress of embryology.” Gavin R. deBeer, Embryos and Ancestors, revised edition (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), p. 10.

 

“Moreover, the biogenetic law has become so deeply rooted in biological thought that it cannot be weeded out in spite of its having been demonstrated to be wrong by numerous subsequent scholars.” Walter J. Bock, “Evolution by Orderly Law,” Science, Vol. 164, 9 May 1969, pp. 684–685.

 

“...we no longer believe we can simply read in the embryonic development of a species its exact evolutionary history.” Hubert Frings and Marie Frings, Concepts of Zoology (Toronto: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1970), p. 267.

 

“The type of analogical thinking which leads to theories that development is based on the recapitulation of ancestral stages or the like no longer seems at all convincing or even interesting to biologists.” Conrad Hal Waddington, Principles of Embryology (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1956), p. 10.

 

“Surely the biogenetic law is as dead as a doornail.” Keith Stewart Thomson, “Ontogeny and Phylogeny Recapitulated,” American Scientist, Vol. 76, May–June 1988, p. 273.

 

“The biogenetic law—embryologic recapitulation—I think, was debunked back in the 1920s by embryologists.” David Raup, as taken from page 16 of an approved and verified transcript of a taped interview conducted by Luther D. Sunderland on 27 July 1979. [See also Luther D. Sunderland, Darwin’s Enigma (San Diego: Master Book Publishers, 1984), p. 119.]

 

“The theory of recapitulation was destroyed in 1921 by Professor Walter Garstang in a famous paper. Since then no respectable biologist has ever used the theory of recapitulation, because it was utterly unsound, created by a Nazi-like preacher named Haeckel.” Ashley Montagu, as quoted by Sunderland, p. 119.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences24.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

[Running Gator]

9 pages in and still science has disproven nothing as science is not capable of such a thing. 

[JoshuasonFlower]

Not even Charles Darwin was secure in his theory of evolution. He was quite conflicted about those things in nature that his theory could not explain.

Science in this regard is actually doing its best to manifest diametric opposition to the universal picture of creation and created. Hoping to prove why we're here, hoping to prove the God science can own is responsible. Without all the worship, the history of religion, and so forth, attached.

Science is hoping to be the prophet of a god of its own creation. Fascinating really given everything science finds was put there by the one eternal almighty power that can be named duck lips for all it matters. God is an eternal omnipresent spirit. There is nothing science can look for that when found is not God.

Scientists are the ones stressing over the proof. Christians know what is inescapable and waiting for them.

[Pahu]

 

Embryology 2

 

 

Ernst Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings (b), originated and popularized this incorrect but widespread belief [of the “biogenetic law”]. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this false idea as evidence for evolution (c). 

 

b.    Haeckel, who in 1868 advanced this “biogenetic law” that was quickly adopted in textbooks and encyclopedias worldwide, distorted his data. Thompson explains:

 

“A natural law can only be established as an induction from facts. Haeckel was of course unable to do this. What he did was to arrange existing forms of animal life in a series proceeding from the simple to the complex, intercalating [inserting] imaginary entities where discontinuity existed and then giving the embryonic phases names corresponding to the stages in his so-called evolutionary series. Cases in which this parallelism did not exist were dealt with by the simple expedient of saying that the embryological development had been falsified. When the ‘convergence’ of embryos was not entirely satisfactory, Haeckel altered the illustrations of them to fit his theory. The alterations were slight but significant. The ‘biogenetic law’ as a proof of evolution is valueless.” W. R. Thompson, p. 12.

 

“To support his case he [Haeckel] began to fake evidence. Charged with fraud by five professors and convicted by a university court at Jena, he agreed that a small percentage of his embryonic drawings were forgeries; he was merely filling in and reconstructing the missing links when the evidence was thin, and he claimed unblushingly that ‘hundreds of the best observers and biologists lie under the same charge.’” Pitman, p. 120.

 

“A Professor Arnold Bass charged that Haeckel had made changes in pictures of embryos which he [Bass] had drawn. Haeckel’s reply to these charges was that if he is to be accused of falsifying drawings, many other prominent scientists should also be accused of the same thing ...” Bolton Davidheiser, Evolution and Christian Faith (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1969), pp. 76–77.

 

M. Bowden, Ape-Men: Fact or Fallacy? 2nd edition (Bromley, England: Sovereign Publications, 1981), pp. 142–143.

 

Wilbert H. Rusch, Sr., “Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 6, June 1969, pp. 27–34.

 

“...ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, meaning that in the course of its development [ontogeny] an embryo recapitulates [repeats] the evolutionary history of its species [phylogeny]. This idea was fathered by Ernst Haeckel, a German biologist who was so convinced that he had solved the riddle of life’s unfolding that he doctored and faked his drawings of embryonic stages to prove his point.” Fix, p. 285.

 

 “[The German scientist Wilhelm His] accused Haeckel of shocking dishonesty in repeating the same picture several times to show the similarity among vertebrates at early embryonic stages in several plates of [Haeckel’s book].” Stephen Jay Gould, Ontogeny and Phylogeny (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977), p. 430.

 

“It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology.” Michael K. Richardson, as quoted by Elizabeth Pennisi, “Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,” Science, Vol. 277, 5 September 1997, p. 1435.

 

“When we compare his [Haeckel’s] drawings of a young echidna embryo with the original, we find that he removed the limbs (see Fig. 1). This cut was selective, applying only to the young stage. It was also systematic because he did it to other species in the picture. Its intent is to make the young embryos look more alike than they do in real life.” Michael K. Richardson and Gerhard Keuck, “A Question of Intent: When Is a ‘Schematic’ Illustration a Fraud?” Nature, Vol. 410, 8 March 2001, p. 144.

 

c.     “Another point to emerge from this study is the considerable inaccuracy of Haeckel’s famous figures. These drawings are still widely reproduced in textbooks and review articles, and continue to exert a significant influence on the development of ideas in this field.”   Michael K. Richardson et al., “There Is No Highly Conserved Embryonic Stage in the Vertebrates,” Anatomy and Embryology, Vol. 196, No. 2, August 1997, p. 104.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences24.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

[Eha]

On Friday, August 05, 2016 at 9:26 PM, Pahu said:

 

Sexual Reproduction

 

 

   http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-male_and_female_birds.jpg [/img]

Figure 16: Male and Female Birds. Even evolutionists admit that evolution seems incompatible with sexual reproduction. For example, how could organisms evolve to the point where they could reproduce before they could reproduce?

Either this series of incredible and complementary events happened by random, evolutionary processes, or sexual reproduction was designed by intelligence.

 

If sexual reproduction in plants, animals, and humans is a result of evolutionary sequences, an unbelievable series of chance events must have occurred at each stage. 

 

1. The amazingly complex, radically different, yet complementary reproductive systems of the male and female must have completely and independently evolved at each stage at about the same time and place. Just a slight incompleteness in only one of the two would make both reproductive systems useless, and the organism would become extinct. 

 

2. The physical, chemical, and emotional systems of the male and female would also need to be compatible (a). 

 

3. The millions of complex products of a male reproductive system (pollen or sperm) must have an affinity for and a mechanical, chemical (b) and electrical (c) compatibility with the eggs of the female reproductive system. 

 

4. The many intricate processes occurring at the molecular level inside the fertilized egg would have to work with fantastic precision—processes scientists can describe only in a general sense (d) 

 

5. The environment of this fertilized egg, from conception through adulthood and until it also reproduced with another sexually capable adult (who also “accidentally” evolved), would have to be tightly controlled. 

 

6. This remarkable string of “accidents” must have been repeated for millions of species. 

 

a.     In humans and in all mammals, a mother’s immune system, contrary to its normal function, must learn not to attack her unborn baby—half of whom is a “foreign body” from the father. If these immune systems functioned “properly,” mammals—including each of us—would not exist.

 

“The mysterious lack of rejection of the fetus has puzzled generations of reproductive immunologists and no comprehensive explanation has yet emerged.” [Charles A. Janeway Jr. et al., Immuno Biology (London: Current Biology Limited, 1997), p. 12:24.]

 

b. N. W. Pixie, “Boring Sperm,” Nature, Vol. 351, 27 June 1991, p. 704.

 

c. Meredith Gould and Jose Luis Stephano, “Electrical Responses of Eggs to Acrosomal Protein Similar to Those Induced by Sperm,” Science, Vol. 235, 27 March 1987, pp. 1654–1656.

 

d. For example, how could meiosis evolve?

 

Furthermore, if sexual reproduction evolved even once, the steps by which an embryo becomes either a male or female should be similar for all animals. Actually, these steps vary among animals (e). 

 

Evolution theory predicts nature would select asexual rather than sexual reproduction (f). But if asexual reproduction (splitting an organism into two identical organisms) evolved before sexual reproduction, how did complex sexual diversity arise—or survive?

 

If life evolved, why would any form of life live long beyond its reproductive age, when beneficial changes cannot be passed on? All the energy expended, supposedly over millions of years, to allow organisms to live beyond reproductive age would be a waste. In other words, why haven’t all organisms evolved reproductive systems that last a lifetime?

 

Finally, to produce the first life form would be one miracle. But for natural processes to produce life that immediately had the capability to reproduce itself would be a miracle on top of a miracle (g). 

 

e. “But the sex-determination genes in the fruit fly and the nematode are completely unrelated to each other, let alone to those in mammals.” Jean Marx, “Tracing How the Sexes Develop,” Science, Vol. 269, 29 September 1955, p. 1822.

 

f. “This book is written from a conviction that the prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and animals is inconsistent with current evolutionary theory.” George C. Williams, Sex and Evolution (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1975), p. v.

 

“So why is there sex? We do not have a compelling answer to the question. Despite some ingenious suggestions by orthodox Darwinians (notably G. C. Williams 1975; John Maynard Smith 1978), there is no convincing Darwinian history for the emergence of sexual reproduction. However, evolutionary theorists believe that the problem will be solved without abandoning the main Darwinian insights—just as early nineteenth-century astronomers believed that the problem of the motion of Uranus could be overcome without major modification of Newton’s celestial mechanics.” Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1982), p. 54.

 

“The evolution of sex is one of the major unsolved problems of biology. Even those with enough hubris to publish on the topic often freely admit that they have little idea of how sex originated or is maintained. It is enough to give heart to creationists.” Michael Rose, “Slap and Tickle in the Primeval Soup,” New Scientist, Vol. 112, 30 October 1986, p. 55.

 

“Indeed, the persistence of sex is one of the fundamental mysteries in evolutionary biology today.” Gina Maranto and Shannon Brownlee, “Why Sex?” Discover, February 1984, p. 24.

 

“Sex is something of an embarrassment to evolutionary biologists. Textbooks understandably skirt the issue, keeping it a closely guarded secret.” Kathleen McAuliffe, “Why We Have Sex,” Omni, December 1983, p. 18.

 

“From an evolutionary viewpoint the sex differentiation is impossible to understand, as well as the structural sexual differences between the systematic categories which are sometimes immense. We know that intersexes [organisms that are partly male and partly female] within a species must be sterile. How is it, then, possible to imagine bridges between two amazingly different structural types?”   Nilsson, p. 1225.

 

“One idea those attending the sex symposium seemed to agree on is that no one knows why sex persists.” [According to evolution, it should not. W.B.] Gardiner Morse, “Why Is Sex?” Science News, Vol. 126, 8 September 1984, p. 155.

 

g. “In the discipline of developmental biology, creationist and mechanist concur except on just one point—a work of art, a machine or a body which can reproduce itself cannot first make itself.”   Pitman, p. 135.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences42.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]

 

Job 5:13

He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are brought to a quick end.

[Pahu]

 

Rapid Burial

 

 

Fossils all over the world show evidence of rapid burial. Many fossils, such as fossilized jellyfish (a), show by the details of their soft, fleshy portions (b) that they were buried rapidly, before they could decay. (Normally, dead animals and plants quickly decompose.) The presence of fossilized remains of many other animals, buried in mass graves and lying in twisted and contorted positions, suggests violent and rapid burials over large areas (c). These observations, together with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly—not over hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, almost all sediments that formed today’s rocks were sorted by water. The worldwide fossil record is, therefore, evidence of rapid death and burial of animal and plant life by a worldwide, catastrophic flood.  The fossil record is not evidence of slow change (d). 

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fossil_fish_eating_fish.jpg [/img]

Figure 7: Fossil of Fish Swallowing Fish. The fossilization process must have been quite rapid to have preserved a fish in the act of swallowing another fish. Thousands of such fossils have been found.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fish_in_fossil_fish.jpg [/img]

Figure 8: Fish in Long Fish. In the belly of the above 14-foot-long fish is a smaller fish, presumably the big fish’s breakfast. Because digestion is rapid, fossilization must have been even more so.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fish_in_curved_fish.jpg [/img]

Figure 9: Fish in Curved Fish. The curved back shows that this fish died under stress.

 

http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/webpictures/lifesciences-fossilized_dragonfly_wing.jpg[/img]

Figure 10: Dragonfly Wing. This delicate, 1 1/2-foot-long wing must have been buried rapidly and evenly to preserve its details. Imagine the size of the entire dragonfly!

 

a. Thousands of jellyfish, many bigger than a dinner plate, are found in at least seven different horizons of coarse-grained, abrasive sandstone in Wisconsin. [See James W. Hagadorn et al., “Stranded on a Late Cambrian Shoreline: Medusae from Central Wisconsin,” Geology, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 2002, pp. 147–150.]

 

Coarse grains slowly covering a jellyfish would allow atmospheric oxygen to migrate in and produce rapid decay. Burial in clay or mud would better shield an organism from decay. If coarse-grain sand buried these jellyfish in a storm, turbulence and abrasion by the sand grains would tear and destroy the jellyfish. To understand how thousands of jellyfish were gently collected and preserved in coarse-grained sand, see pages [[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/Liquefaction2.html#wp1100074]195-212[/url]].

     

Charles Darwin recognized the problem of finding fossilized soft-bodied organisms such as jellyfish.  He wrote:

 

“No organism wholly soft can be preserved.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, p. 330.

 

Once again, a prediction of evolution is seen to be wrong.

 

Preston Cloud and Martin F. Glaessner, “The Ediacarian Period and System: Metazoa Inherit the Earth,” Science, Vol. 217, 27 August 1982, pp. 783–792. [See also the cover of that issue.]

 

Martin F. Glaessner, “Pre-Cambrian Animals,” Scientific American, Vol. 204, March 1961, pp. 72–78.

 

b. Donald G. Mikulic et al., “A Silurian Soft-Bodied Biota,” Science, Vol. 228, 10 May 1985, pp. 715–717.

 

“...preconditions for the preservation of soft-bodied faunas: rapid burial of fossils in undisturbed sediment; deposition in an environment free from the usual agents of immediate destruction—primarily oxygen and other promoters of decay, and the full range of organisms, from bacteria to large scavengers, that quickly reduce most carcasses to oblivion in nearly all earthly environments; and minimal disruption by the later ravages of heat, pressure, fracturing, and erosion....But the very conditions that promote preservation also decree that few organisms, if any, make their natural homes in such places.” Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), pp. 61–62.

 

c. Presse Grayloise, “Very Like a Whale,” The Illustrated London News, 1856, p. 116.

 

Sunderland, pp. 111–114.

 

David Starr Jordan, “A Miocene Catastrophe,” Natural History, Vol. 20, January–February 1920, pp. 18–22.

 

Hugh Miller, The Old Red Sandstone, or New Walks in an Old Field (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1858), pp. 221–225.

 

d. Harold G. Coffin, Origin By Design (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., 1983), pp. 30–40.

 

[[url=http://www.creationscience.com/onlinebook/LifeSciences25.html]From “In the Beginning” by Walt Brown[/url]]