Life

The earliest fossilized form of life was living about 3.5 billion years ago. At this point all of life consisted of microorganisms and algae. Now for a fossil to even form is a rare occurrence. Conditions must be just right for a soft-tissue body to get through not decompsing or being eaten by other animals or some other natural occurrence that would destroy the skeletal system, if a skeleton is present. Only a microscopic portion of the organisms that die ever make it to the fossil stage. Only a small portion of the small portion of life forms that become fossils actually get discovered and studied.

The oldest fossil of a multi-cellular organism was found in Michigan and is reported to be 2.1 billion years old. About 600 million years ago aquatic worms appeared. About 400 million years ago the first vertebrates appeared. All of life at that time was in the water. Rhipidistians were primitive fish with muscular lobes for fins. These fish had the ability to shuffle on land. They came out of the water during droughts to move to another area where water was available. Basically, these were gill breathers with the ability to gulp air and then extract the needed oxygen. These fish were able to exist because they had adapted to the drying up of waterholes...they just crawled to the next water hole. As the droughts became more severe natural selection favored those fish that were able to survive out of water for longer periods of time. These fish became our first reptiles.

Finally about 200 million years ago, mammals evolved. We all basically not only share the same primate ancestors but can trace our family tree back to 150-200 million years ago to a shrew-like mammal. Well, we really can go back to the aquatic worms or even further to micro-organisms living in the water.

The Mesozoic time period was also known as the "Age of Reptiles." The first known mammals and birds split away from the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs had a two hundred million year reign. What happened 65 million years ago? The dinosaurs all died out. But there is proof that they existed and ceased existing 65 million years ago not six thousand years ago like some believe.

Jerry Seinfeld, in his hilarious 1993 book, SeinLanguage, talks about the possibility of finding out what happened to the dinosaurs and compared it to the Kennedy Assasination. He joked that we will never know about the dinosaurs because we cannot even figure out what happened 40 years ago. How can we possibly figure out what happened 65 million years ago?

The first bird, Archaepterx, is clearly a descendant from reptiles. Then came mammals. Tim M. Berra, who wrote Evolution and the Myth of Creation, states that primates, the mammalian order to which humans belong, arose and were widespead 38 million years ago.

Jackie Wellman
www.jackiewellman.com

Pangaea

In 1912, the German scientist Alfred Wegner proposed a theory that all present day continents once made up a single land mass or super continent. That super continent is called Pangaea. The name Pangaea means "all lands" in Greek. Pangaea began to break apart in stages and the pieces drifted away from each other, eventually landing where they asre now. This break up took place in the Mesozoic era. This is the theory of continental dift.

Wegner researched and used the evidence he found to support his theory. The similarities in the West African coastline and the coastline of eastern South Africa match perfectly. Fossils of plants and animals were the same on opposite sides of the ocean. After gathering information to support his theory, he wrote The Origin of Continents and Oceans.

Further evidence that supports this theory besides the already stated is all the continents seemed to fit together like a giant puzzle. There is a distinctive rock stratum that is identical on opposite sides of the ocean. Also, coal is found in dry, cold Antarctica. Coal needs wet, warm regions to form. How can these things be explained without Pangaea? The Biblical story of creation is impossible.

Jackie Wellman
www.jackiewellman.com

George

Do you think he gets it...finally? He received a strong message from the American people. Unfortunately, he can still veto everything. Now maybe George will take the high road and work with the Democratic Congress. Dems will take this opportunity to work with him although in the past when the rolls are reversed...for example when Clinton was President with a Republican controlled Congress, it appeared as though Congress refused to work with Bill Clinton. Democrats are not as spiteful as Republicans and will work with George W. Bush...at least that is the plan, otherwise nothing will get done. We have had six years of nothing getting done, now we need the government to work for the people.

Yesterday put an end to the monarchy...at least I hope so and so do a little over half of the countries citizens.

Jackie Welman
www.jackiewellman.com

Tuesday, November 7th

1o0% Proof Positive that God does not control everything is that George W. Bush is in charge. Saying that he put Bush in charge is like saying God is stupid.

Everyone please do not insult the many people who died so you can vote by not going to the polls tomorrow. It is part of what it means to be an American citizen.

We need a change and that will not happen unless everyone gets out there and exercises their RIGHT to vote.

There has never been a President in need of checks and blanaces like this one. The Founding Fathers wanted it that way.

It only takes about fifteen minutes, at least that has been my experience. No matter how long it takes it is a priviledge that we are given in America.

Jackie Wellman
www.jackiewellman.com

Robin Meyers speech

Please, please read this and think about it before voting on November 7th:


This is a speech from Robin Meyers:

As some of you know, I am minister at Mayflower Congregation UCC Church in Oklahoma City, an open and affirming, peace and justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of rhetoric at Oklahoma City University. But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years and hold the record for most number of angry letters to the editor.

Tonight I join the ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus but whose actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about so-called moral values as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value - I mean, what are we alking about? Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim that moral values are on their side.

When you start a was on false pretenses and then act as if your deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will and that your critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral but immoral.

When you live in a country that has established rules for waging a just war, built the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life and yet fail to acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like never returning violence for violence and those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as the lives of American coldiers and refuse to even count tham, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam and then question the patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the Gospels, which say that the way the strong teat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so that the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners and deprive so-called enemy combatants of the rules of the Geneva Convention, which your own country helped establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the "evildoers," slice up your own nation into those that are withyou of with the terrorists - and then launch a war that enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted instead of helping us kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill but ask us to pay for a war with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was once the most loved country in the world and act as if it doesn't matter what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have sone something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters and seek to use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth, which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, no Halliburton.

When you talk about Jesus, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.


I can't finish, I am getting to pissed off. But please vote Tuesday. This pathetic President is in need of checks and balances. As it is right now, the Constitution is not working like it should.

Just a few more things to think about between now and Tuesday...stem cells, Katrina, Rumsfield, Bush's smirk, minimum wage, as many US soldiers are now dead in Iraq as Americans were killed on 9/11,Intelligent Design, Founding Fathers, the National debt that has gone from a plentiful surplus to a incredibly large debt, the list goes on & on...

Jackie Wellman
www.jackiewellman.com

Radioactive Aging Part 2

In one creationist attack on carbon dating it was said that carbon dating is misunderstood, therefore it must be faulty. Everyone seems to think that carbon dating is supposed to work for millions and billions of years. Since it does not...than it must not work. That argument is misleading, as most religious propaganda ties to brainwash or coerce people into believing the creationist version by using twisted half-truths. Using Carbon-14 dating, things can only be dated to about 23,000 years old. The information that is conveniently not mentioned by creationists is that other isotopes that decay at a much slower rate are used to date other things older than 23,000 years. Carbon-14 is not the only isotope used for dating older objects.

Each rock has several isotopes; the specific half-life of these isotopes dates the rock. Here are a few, I am including them jsut to clarify that there are manyt methods for radioisotope dating. Potassium-40 is another element naturally found in your body and its half-life is 1.3 billion years. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 704 million years. Uranium-238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Thorium-232 has a half-life of 14 billion years. Rubidium-87 has a half-life of 49 billion years. The point, once again, is that there are a lot more isotopes used for dating other than Carbon-14. The use of various radioisotopes allows the dating of biological and geological samples with a high degree of accuracy. The actual definition for radioactive dating is "determination of the age of an object or material based on the known rates of decay of radioactive isotopes of variod elements."

Conclusion--the Biblical version of creation is hocus pocus!

Jackie Wellman
www.jackiewellman.com