Did Land Plants Evolve from Algae?
March 19, 2025
A botanist critiques the latest evolutionary claim about plants that conquered the land.
Margaret Helder completed her education with a Ph.D. in Botany from Western University in London, Ontario (Canada). She was hired as Assistant Professor in Biosciences at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. Coming to Alberta in 1977, Dr Helder was an expert witness for the State of Arkansas, December 1981, during the creation/evolution ‘balanced treatment’ trial. She served as member of the editorial board of Occasional Papers of the Baraminology Study Group in 2001. She also lectured once or twice a year (upon invitation) in scheduled classes at University of Alberta (St. Joseph’s College) from 1998-2012. Her technical publications include articles in the Canadian Journal of Botany, chapter 19 in Recent Advances in Aquatic Mycology (E. B. Gareth Jones. Editor. 1976), and most recently she authored No Christian Silence on Science (2016) which promotes critical evaluation of scientific claims. She is married to John Helder and they have six adult children. VIEW HEADLINES ONLY
Internal Beauty: the Nuclear Pore Complex
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Like a 3-D puzzle solved in 15 minutes, the nuclear envelope is a wonder to behold.
HeadStart: New Online Tool for Science Students
February 22, 2022
A new website from the Creation Science Association of Alberta provides resources for the inquiring student.
How the Body Protects the Germline
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Germline mutations – it could have been much worse!
Glass Sponges: Lessons from the Deep
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How can a "simple" or "primitive" sponge surprise engineers with its optimal physics?
Trap-Jaw Ants Pose Trick Question
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Research into varieties of trap-jaw ants leads to philosophical questions about mechanisms of evolution vs design.
Living Fossils: The Horseshoe Crab Story
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Living fossils pose significant challenges to Darwinian theory, even with genomes available. The horseshoe crab is a prime example.
Celebrate ENCODE III and the demise of ‘Junk DNA’
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An international genome survey finds that vast quantities of non-coding DNA are transcribed and probably functional, not 'junk' as evolutionists had thought.
Diatoms Defy the Evolutionary Endosymbiosis Theory
June 29, 2020
Here's why endosymbiosis cannot explain diatoms – or anything else.
Evolution of Vascular Plants a Kaleidoscope, Not a Tree
June 8, 2020
It takes effort to rearrange pieces from a kaleidoscope into a tree, but evolutionists do that with the "evolution" of vascular plants.
Previous Tetrapod Ancestors Fell Flat, Too
May 12, 2020
Fame and Fortune (cont.): What constitutes a sister taxon to tetrapods? By Margaret Helder, PhD (continued from yesterday) Ever since Prof. Edward Drinker Cope identified a lobe finned fish called Eusthenopteron from Miguasha in Quebec, as a promising ancestor of four footed animals, the question arose as to what features in a fish would […]
Latest Tetrapod Ancestor Can’t Stand Up
May 11, 2020
In a two-part entry, Dr Margaret Helder examines the latest candidate fossil for ancestor to all land vertebrates.
Plant Ancestry: Where Are the Lines of Descent? – Part 2
March 30, 2020
In Part 2, Dr Helder explores major differences in land plants from other plants that pose challenges to evolutionary ancestry.
Plant Ancestry – Where are the Lines of Descent? – Part 1
March 27, 2020
A botanist explains why the unique characteristics of land plants defy common ancestry by a Darwinian process.
Flip Flops in Plant Ancestry
March 13, 2020
Are green algae the ancestors of all land plants? Do paleontologists even know that these fossils are green algae?