Monday, July 17. Morning.
After Falwell came David DeWitt, who directs the Center for Creation Research at Liberty University. He made only a few brief remarks, emphasizing Liberty's adherence to a literal interpretation of the Bible from “Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21” In particular, they believe Adam and Eve were real people and that God created in six literal days.
It was the conclusion to his remarks that struck me, however. He was contrasting Liberty's theological purity favorably against the weak-kneed, compromised theology of various other, allegedly Christian colleges. You know the one's I mean. Those are the Christian colleges that present biology and geology in serious way; the ones that suggest that ideas like evolution or the geological column are actually pretty nifty. Wheaton College was singled out for particular derision. It seems that in a survey of Wheaton students, a majority indicated that they were more confused on the subject of origins after going through Wheaton's curriculum than they were before. DeWitt described this as sad. Happy, apparently, is the fate of Liberty's students, who described themselves as less confused on the subject as a result of their education.
After Falwell's theatrics, DeWitt was a bit dull. They wisely got him off the stage quickly. Ken Ham was up next. Say what you want about him, he is never dull.
The keynote presentations were going on in a large collisseum. The speakers stood on a stage at some distance from the nearest audience members, but their charming mugs were projected onto several large screens for the beenfit of the attendees. Spearate screens displayed whatever Power Point slides the speaker chose to use. As Ronald Bailey observed in the article I linked to in my last post, the presentations were very slick and very professional, more so than what you often see at real scientific conferences.
But, then, the explanation for that is not hard to see. At scientific conferences, the purpose of the presentations is to transmit facts and ideas to the audience. Glitz and flash are not viewed as important. But in creationist conferences, the point is to fool people into thinking that something of great import is being delivered from the stage. They want to provoke the reaction, “How could they be wrong? Their presentation is so slick!”
I've tangled with Ham before, so I pretty much knew what was coming. His talk was entitled “Rebuilding the Foundation.” It was mostly a cheerleading talk, with very little scientific content. His rallying cry was &ldquo.We're taking them back!”
Here's a list of the things Ham described as needing to be retrieved by the Christian community: Christian Institutions, History, Creation, Chemistry, DNA, Marriage, Dinosaurs, Animal Kinds, Biology, Genetics, The Meaning of Death, Physics, Geology, The Grand Canyon, People Groups, Education and Genesis 1-11.
Somehow I was reminded of Steven Wright's line, “You can't have everything. Where would you put it?”
There were a few other choice nuggets in the talk. He outlined the “Seven C's” approach to history: Creation, Corruption, Catastrophe, Confusion, Christ, Cross, Consummation. To which I add an eighth C: Clever! There was also the casual suggestion that natural disasters and events like 9-11 are the result of human sin.
Ham closed his talk by imploring the audience to buy lot's of books and DVD's from the concessions in the from of the hall. But I don't mean he simply said, “Please visit the bookstore during the break between the talks.” Not at all. He went on for fifteen minutes desribing in great detail the various titles that were available. In fact, virtually every talk I attended concluded with five to ten minutes of pleas to buy lot's of stuff. Every time you thought they were finished hawking their wares, they'd rattle off a whole new series of products you were expected to buy. It reminded me of the old saying that television is a series of advertisements occasionally interrupted by programming just interesting enough to keep you watching until the next commercial. The actual presentations were the programming; the advertisements were the point of it all.
Exit Ham.
At this point there was a thirty minute break. After that there were parallel presentations going on, one in the “Basic” track, the other in the “Advanced” track. Goodness! What to do?
Let's consdier the options. The advanced talk for the morning was entitled “Refuting Compromise” by Jonathan Sarfati. I was mildly interested in seeing Sarfati since he is an excellent chess player. But the compromise he has in mind involves those Christians, most notably Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, who have made their peace with the great age of the Earth. This didn't seem like something I could get worked up over.
And how could I resist the basic talk, entitled “What's the Best Evidence That God Created?” by Carl Kerby? You might try to anticipate the answer to that question before I come to it a few paragraphs from now.
My one concern about the talk, that it would be dull and ponderous, was put to rest right at the start when Kerby, in a tone more appropriate for an audience of five-year olds (basic indeed), informed us that this would be a fun talk. He began by discussing stars. They blow his socks off! The beauty, the colors the order! He's in awe! As am I, albeit for different reasons.
He then informed us that - surprise! - he was neither deep nor complex. This was a common refrain in this talk, at the conference generally, and in most creationist presentations. It's standard anti-intellectualism. If you think too much you get confused. It's obvious to everyone that there is a God. Only by many years of advanced study at a Godless university could you presume to reject something so clear.
He then showed us a picture of an elaborate sand castle and said, Dembski style, that the castle was obviously designed. But how much more complicated is a star than a sand castle! Like, QED, dude.
We were maybe five minutes into the talk at this point. It was around here that I got the sinking feeling that this talk was not going to get any better. From here Kerby launched into a list of some of nature's oddities. It was standard creationist fare, point to some random structure in some obscure little critter, gush about how complicated it is and how all the parts had to be there before it could function, scoff at the idea that such a thing could have evolved, bask in the cheers and laughter of the delighted audience. Creationists of a bygone era relied on such banalities as the human eye or bird wings, occasionally whipping out something more esoteric, like the defense mechanism of the bombardider beetle. Richard Dawkins gave a good description of the style of argument here:
Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty, not as a spur to honest research but in order to exploit and abuse Darwin’s challenge. “Bet you can’t tell me how the elbow joint of the lesser spotted weasel frog evolved by slow gradual degrees?” If the scientist fails to give an immediate and comprehensive answer, a default conclusion is drawn: “Right then, the alternative theory, ‘intelligent design’, wins by default.” Notice, first, the biased logic: if theory A fails in some particular, theory B must be right! We are encouraged to leap to the default conclusion without even looking to see whether the default theory fails in the very same particular. ID is granted (quite wrongly as I have shown elsewhere) a charmed immunity to the rigorous demands made of evolution.
Notice, second, how the creationist ploy undermines the scientist’s natural - indeed necessary - rejoicing in uncertainty. Today’s scientist in America dare not say:
“Hm, interesting point. I wonder how the weasel frog’s ancestors did evolve their elbow joint. I’m not a specialist in weasel frogs, I’ll have to go to the University Library and take a look. Might make an interesting project for a graduate student.”
No, the moment a scientist said something like that - and long before the student began the project - the default conclusion would become a headline in a creationist pamphlet: “Weasel frog could only have been designed by God.”
Kerby produced a typical creationist menagerie of nature's oddities: The cave Weta of New Zealand, an insect which has “anti-freeze” blood to allow it to survive the cold winters of its native habitat; the Moloch Lizard; the congregating behavior of Emperor penguins, some exotic species of frog then went by too quickly for me to write down, the human body and so on. Kerby has an online version of the talk in PDF format here. The examples used in this online version were not necessarily the same as those used in his presentation at the Mega Conference, but I think you will get the idea.
In every case the argument was the same: The complex system in question could not have evolved gradually because it could not have functioned until all of its parts were in place. No, strike that. It was positively laughable to think that such a thing could have evolved. Utterly ridiculous! You'd have to have no brain at all even to entertain the notion!!
After each example Kerby would ask the audience, “Is this the best evidence that God created?” To which the delighted audience would reply with an emphatic No! So what is the best evidence that God Created? Have you guessed it yet?
It's the Bible! Duh! The best evidence that God created is that He told us He created. And then Kerby closed his talk with a chilling but typically clear expression of creationist logic: “Do not let evidence fuel your appreciation of God. Let your appreciation of God influence your view of the evidence.”
But what really bugged me about the talk was not the extreme shallowness of Kerby's thinking. No, I'm used to that. What bugged me were his incessant imprecations that we be humble before the glories of nature.
Humility? How dare these people talk about humility! You know what scientists do when confronted with nature's complexity? First they spend five years or more in graduate school, living in near-poverty, having no life, studying all the time while being used as cheap labor by the university, just to get a PhD. Then they go out into a job market that presents the very real possibility of unemployment as the reward for all that hard work. If they're lucky they'll land a post-doc, and bounce around the country for a while struggling to find a permanent position. Even if they are lucky enough to land a permanent position they could very well find themselves in some two by nothing town in the middle of nowhere. They spend years trying to get a research program off the ground, scrapping for grant money, and fighting with ornery referees to get their research published.
And why do they do that? They do it because they know that's what it takes if you want to understand nature's complexity just a little bit better. That's what it takes to make the tiniest dent in the sum total of human ignorance.
That's humility.
What isn't humility is having a used car salesman give you a brief description of some complex system, conclude after five seconds' reflection that it could not have evolved, and then decide that only an omnipotent God could be responsible for such a critter. That's not humility, that's supreme arrogance. That's pride and sloth all wrapped up into one.
Though the talk was held in a large classroom, there was no question and answer period after the talk. In fact, none of the presentations had Q&A's. Later in the conference Ham would mention that they felt it was impractical to have such sessions, which was total nonsense. It would have been trivial to set up microphones in the aisles for those talks held in the collisseum, while the talks in the classroom wouldn't even have required microphones. In fairness, however, most of the speakers hung around after the talk to take questions on a more intimate basis.
I didn't bother this time. For some of the later speakers I did go up at the end. Myahem ensued but that will have to wait for the next installment.
Next Up: Dr. Emil Silvestru on “Rocks Around the Clock: The Eons That Never Were.”
To be Continued
212 Comments
steve · 21 July 2005
Correct apostrophe use:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_apost.html
steve · 21 July 2005
KiwiInOz · 21 July 2005
Please type faster Jason. I'm left hanging for the next installment! It's almost as bad as waiting for the monthly feedback update in TalkOrigins.
Cheers.
Joseph O'Donnell · 21 July 2005
Pierce R. Butler · 21 July 2005
Mike Walker · 21 July 2005
Karen · 21 July 2005
At scientific conferences, the purpose of the presentations is to transmit facts and ideas to the audience. Glitz and flash are not viewed as important. But in creationist conferences, the point is to fool people into thinking that something of great import is being delivered from the stage. They want to provoke the reaction, "How could they be wrong? Their presentation is so slick!"
The university I attend hosted a scientific conference recently, and as a "student assistant" I got to see how these things are actually run. Money, of course, rules all; the budget is limited by how much the conference can reasonably charge. We provided (rented) PCs and projectors, and I learned the First Law of Presentations is, never, ever, assume someone else's computer has enough mips to run your powerpoint animation. (Only first-time presenters dared to try it, with poor results.)
These creationists don't seem to have our money worries, either.
Karen · 21 July 2005
The first paragraph of comment #38880 is a quote. Obviously, I haven't got the hang of Kwickcode formatting yet.
darwinfinch · 21 July 2005
While their basking in pride (the bad kind) and bathing in the vanity of ignorance, as noted above, anger me no end, what allows me to retain the slimmest thread of communion with these kinds of people, as humans equal in every essential way to myself, is the clear, soft harmonic of fear that sounds in everything they blare out at the world.
The pitiable fact is that those not simply butt-ignorant have NO faith, which requires, like humility and most nobler qualities, a constant sense of doubt, and the certainty that you will never be able to confirm the faith you have. These are bullies, slavish fools, maniacs, and a few simple thieves, whistling in the darkness they fear. Would that they would help carry a light!
Jim F · 22 July 2005
Boy, this thing must be a nice little earner! Take 2000 people, multiply by $150 each, add on the merchandising profit, you're talking big bucks.
mark · 22 July 2005
Even as undergrads, we knew that if we didn't have all of the facts or understand the experiment quite thoroughly, the best thing to do was to do a fancy write-up with lots of eye-wash (back then, this meant using Leroy lettering where most folks would hand-write, because computers and power point were off in the future). That's one reason Jack Chick comic books are much less offensive than "Unlocking the Mystery of Life."
KR · 22 July 2005
Jason,
As an attendee of the Mega conference, so far it is obvious that you've managed to successfully mock Christians and toss around ad hominems. You do well.
But I, nor any other Christian, really expects you to connect with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Carl Kerby, or Ken Hame---men who were delivering Christian messages to Christian audiences.
Now what I do want to see is comprehensive responses to the actual scientific arguments presented in the technical lectures like:
Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble
Creation and Cosmology
Our Created Moon
Design, Intelligence, and the Word of God
Noah's Ark: Current Research and Investigations
Molecular Evidence for Creation
***Helium Leaks Show the Earth is Young***
Genesis and Geology: Evidence and Impact
The Ice Age: Only the Bible Explains It
As of now you've complained about creationist anti-intellectualism, but the real test for this malady is whether you continue to concentrate on people rather than the scientific arguments. We poor creationists might make you shake your lofty head and sigh, but that still won't change the fact that well-qualified scientists are blowing holes in the old earth paradigm. Or would prefer to simply entertain your readers?
Specifically, you're going to have to address irreducible complexity with more than a 'wave-it-all-to-the-side' quote in typical Dawkins fashion. The problem is not that you've received improper time to study irreducible complexity, its that evolutionists are so sure that they will have an answer in the future, despite the undermining of the very Darwinian mechanisms themselves. How great is thy faithfulness! Please respond to Dr. Dewitt's last lecture.
cs · 22 July 2005
KR,
Seriously, how many times do we have to refute creationist lies and propaganda before it will all be over? I have a better idea, why don't *you* open up any issue of Science, find the first article about evolution or the big bang or whatever, and try to refute that.
Good luck!
Jack Krebs · 22 July 2005
Very good, Jason, and thanks for taking the time to do this. I think your remarks about humility were excellence. [/cheerleading]
Flint · 22 July 2005
KR illustrates exactly why they can continue selling long-discredited literature and people keep buying it. They are saying things KR types want to hear, and calling it "science". If KR knew anything whatsofriggenever about the science, he'd be mortified to ask these questions. That's just painting a sign on himself that says "ignoramus".
But it really is kind of a shame that known flagrant falsehoods are described as a "Christian message". KR needs to get out a little more, and discover that one can distinguish one's ass from one's elbow and still be Christian.
Jason's anthropological "look at the practices of this wierd cult" approach is exactly correct. There is no science here. There can't be. This is a PR event, a commercial event, and a pep rally for the determinedly ignorant. As such, it's both hilarious and a sad commentary on the damage organized idiocy can wreak.
KR might do well to reflect on Duane Gish's history of admitting (when backed into a corner) that a claim he made was shown to be false and he knows it was shown to be false. And then the very next week, before a new audience, he repeats the same claim. Clearly, refuting such claims on the merits is a waste of time. More appropriate to focus on the neurological causes of profound self-deception. Like the self-deception that the topics covered in this conference have anything to do with science. Thanks for the $150, pitch the sales literature (sold at high profit) for half the lecture, toss around jargon intended to mean whatever the audience needs it to mean.
Understand, I have nothing against economic enterprise. If I had a guaranteed high-paying audience of guaranteed doofless suckers, I'd fleece them too. And they'd thank me for it! Come again next year, same time, same fee (plus a cost of living increase, of course).
Schmitt. · 22 July 2005
KR, I think the reason that Mr Rosenhouse doesn't debunk claims almost as old as the Young Earth is that most of the people on this site are aware of at least TalkOrigins, and long time readers will have seen the very same issues raised and refuted again, and again, and again. We're all familiar with these ideas and why they're so blooming horrible, and merely noting which ones appears marks out how poor the science is in the conference.
Speaking of which, irreducible complexity was massacred by its very proprietors, for pity's sake. The demands for evidence have been shifted so far (after it was shown time after time that irreducible complexity was not a problem for evolution,) that an irreducibly complex system as Behe and
Isaac NewtonDembski now define it is indistinguishable from any other. It's rendered a meaningless concept.-Schmitt.
harold · 22 July 2005
KR -
I don't see any "ad hominem" whatsoever in the article above. Quite the contrary. I see a lot of valid and well-reasoned criticism. Do you know what the term "ad hominem" - which has been overused on the internet to the point of cliche - actually means?
I'd particularly like to point out the non-Christian nature of this conference, as Rosenhouse emphasizes. Presenting inaccurate material for profit, arrogance, ridicule of people who believe differently (including other Christians) - where's the Christianity?
Why don't you explain one of the items on your list in some detail, and see what responses you get?
yellow fatty bean · 22 July 2005
Flint · 22 July 2005
Schmitt. · 22 July 2005
And, ah, *Dr Rosenhouse, sorry.
-Schmitt.
Slippery Pete · 22 July 2005
KR -
Evidently you aren't aware that refutations of every item on your list have been issued and reissued dozens or hundreds of times, by actual scientists. And by "scientists" I mean people with degrees in the sciences, granted by actual accredited degree-granting institutions.
This is yet another case of wilfull ignorance on your part. The evidence is already out there. This website and Pharyngula (and others) refute these silly claims on a daily basis.
Your refusal to acknowledge demonstrated, documented scientific truth does not constitute anybody else's failure to present the proper evidence to you. The evidence is already out there, everywhere around you. Refute it or don't; it's your choice.
PR events like the one described here are not scientific conferences. No science is presented. No new arguments were offered. It's the same tired nonsense peddled to the same wilfull refugees from enlightenment. Go to talk.origins and then post your specific refutations here. Don't expect others to do your work for you.
I'm not holding my breath.
SteveF · 22 July 2005
KR
My own particular area of work is Quaternary Science - i.e. the ice ages (amongst other things). I would spend some time knocking down the idea that only the flood explains the ice age, but fits of laughing prevent me from doing so. My colleagues might also spend some time doing so, but unfortunately they are still in shock after reading the suggestion that only a global flood can explain the ice age.
Of course, Michael Oard is welcome to change our mind on this issue. He only has to submit his research for peer review. Unfortunately he has not yet done so - maybe he isn't sure where to send his research. I happen to know the editors of a major Quaternary science journal and members of the editorial board on a couple of others. I would be more than willing to pass on their contact details.
frank schmidt · 22 July 2005
These people give religion a bad name.
rdog29 · 22 July 2005
Dear KR -
Consider the statement:
"Do not let evidence fuel your appreciation of God. Let your appreciation of God influence your view of the evidence."
This one sentence is very telling. Whatever kind of endeavor this statement advocates, it is NOT science. If you agree with this statement, you ARE NOT practicing science.
If your research is guided by this principle, it is NOT scientific research. Keep it OUT of the science classroom!!!
That's it, end of story.
FL · 22 July 2005
Flint · 22 July 2005
FL:
So, do you suppose Carver decided to follow the Creationist advice to let their conclusions dictate their evidence? There is a qualitative difference between following the scientific method and subsequently thanking God for your ability to do so, and making stuff up because you THINK that's what God wants.
Can you see this difference?
RBH · 22 July 2005
Rich · 22 July 2005
"God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His. No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way of doing it are revealed to me. I never have to grope for methods. The method is revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain, I am helpless."
It's amazing that the world still has problems with Christians being able to work with God in this divine way. Christians, I beg you -- work with God to cure, hunger, poverty and suffering. You'll convert LOADS and LOADS of people that way -- I'd have no doubts at all.
It wont matter that theism is negatively correlated with IQ when half the team is divine.
Look at Dr. Carver's record of scientific accomplishment. I see no evidence of "Devine Assistance" (DA) [I'm claiming that one as my own].
SEF · 22 July 2005
It doesn't look like this Carver (? George Washington Carver, 1864-1943) received any information or instruction he couldn't have got for himself. IE he made up an imaginary conversation with another person in order to think what a saner mind would have been able to think and simultaneously recognise itself as thinking.
More to the point he got it wrong. The "purpose" of the peanut is clearly to bring death and suffering to a great many humans via choking incidents and allergies.
Greg Peterson · 22 July 2005
Why would Christians want to attempt a scientific propping up of the Noah myth, when, if literally true, it makes their god go up in a poof of smoke?
If god is all-knowing, surely he should have seen that humans were becoming evil and intervened in some other way to prevent the tragedy. And certainly he could have seen that the flood would not, in fact, be at all effective in reducing evil evil (the thoughts of humans are still "continually evil" at the end of the biblical flood story).
If god is all-good, surely he could have employed a method of removing evil from the world that did not involve the agonized drowning of infants and animals.
If god is all-powerful, there must have been some way for him to remedy the problems he saw (in fact, the problems he caused, since god's will must be providential) apart from global plumbing problems. The woman on "I Dream of Genie" could have solved the problem with less mess.
And quite apart from the theological suicide of trying to prove the Noahic flood story literal, it further pisses away religious credibility when any energy whatsoever is expended defending a patently absurd story. Come on. What are we, five years old?
That KR would even include anything about the Genesis flood in his list shows just how infantile and out of touch reality these people really are. But hey, from my perspective, that's great. The quicker religious beliefs are exposed as the frightened nonsense that they are, the faster we can get on with the real work of discovering how to live better in this world.
Matthew Keville · 22 July 2005
FL -
The problem is, the Bible is only convincing evidence to those who already believe in it. The world is full of people who believe that other Scriptures - or none - are God's revelation to humanity, and they feel that their lives have been just as enriched by their truths as you do. How would you convince such people that your revelation is more true than theirs? That's the advantage that science has over Revelation: if you don't believe what a scientist says, you can try it for yourself and find out immediately if they're right or wrong.
With this in mind, the only thing you accomplish by declaring the Bible to be the best proof of Creation is to preach to the choir - the whole point of the Creation Megaconference, it seems. There doesn't seem to be much point to this, unless the point is to encourage the "choir" to go out and take political action which will eventually allow the preachers to believe as the preachers believe and act as the preachers want them to act. I hope that isn't the case, because it strikes me as seriously unChristian.
Matt
rdog29 · 22 July 2005
FL -
Your George Washington Carver argument is a worthless load of crap.
Sure, Carver may be crediting God for giving him the insight to put all the pieces of the puzzle together (which is fine), but do you really think that he was not guided by what the evidence indicated? Do you really think he knew where the journey would take him before he started?
No, whatever credit Carver chose to give to God, he was guided by following the evidence (i.e., science) NOT by cramming a round peg (pre-determined conclusion) into a square hole (evidence).
Rich · 22 July 2005
Gred - regarding the Noah Myth.
The bible gives the dimensions of the Ark. You can make an eductaed guess of the biomass of two of all of the saved creatures. Good look at fitting one inside the other!
Gav · 22 July 2005
KR asked "Please respond to Dr. Dewitt's last lecture." Do you have a link please? Couldn't see one on the conference site. I'd be interested to see if he says anything that hasn't been dealt with at Talkorigins.
steve · 22 July 2005
steve · 22 July 2005
Darby · 22 July 2005
Y'know, I can kind of accept a level of worldly ignorance that allows folks to believe in Young Earth Creationism; what I have a hard time even believing is that adults who can dress themselves can really know so little that the story of Noah makes sense to them. Noah's Ark is from the era of Pandora's Box, and to believe either of these parables is a tale of literal truth is...disturbing.
I don't believe that humans are getting any smarter, but I hope we are getting less ignorant. All evidence to the contrary...
Red Right Hand · 22 July 2005
KR:
Now what I do want to see is comprehensive responses to the actual scientific arguments presented in the technical lectures like:
Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble
I'm sorry, I just have to stop reading now...
Dave Carlson · 22 July 2005
[off-topic]
I attended Wheaton College for two and a half years and while there are many things I didn't like about the place, I have always appreciated the fact that the science faculty (specifically the Biology department) seemed to actually teach good science. If that makes some of the more YEC-oriented students nervous, so be it. At least the Wheaton profs are trying to teach with a modicum of intellectual integrity. That's not something that can be said about Liberty University, in my opinion.
[/off-topic]
Flint · 22 July 2005
I'm convinced the purpose of the conference isn't to preach to the choir, but to fleece them. Any boost of their collective ignorance is only a side-effect, except insofar as it increases their purchases.
Russell · 22 July 2005
Rupert Goodwins · 22 July 2005
Don · 22 July 2005
Good thing George Washington Carver was just working with peanuts.
No books in the lab?
If he attempted that kind of strict intuition in the science of, say, molecular DNA, he would have been back out working at the local McFood in about 5 minutes.
FL and KR, way to go. Don't ever let actual facts get in your way.
Neverland doesn't need that kind of stuff.
FL · 22 July 2005
Stuart Weinstein · 22 July 2005
KR writes: "Jason,
As an attendee of the Mega conference, so far it is obvious that you've managed to successfully mock Christians and toss around ad hominems. You do well.
But I, nor any other Christian, really expects you to connect with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Carl Kerby, or Ken Hame---men who were delivering Christian messages to Christian audiences.
Now what I do want to see is comprehensive responses to the actual scientific arguments presented in the technical lectures like:
Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble
Creation and Cosmology
Our Created Moon
Design, Intelligence, and the Word of God
Noah's Ark: Current Research and Investigations
Molecular Evidence for Creation
***Helium Leaks Show the Earth is Young***
Genesis and Geology: Evidence and Impact
The Ice Age: Only the Bible Explains It
"
KR, I wasn't at the conference.. so what line(s) of creationist bull did you find so enthralling?
Ken Shackleton · 22 July 2005
Flint · 22 July 2005
Sean M · 22 July 2005
Peter Henderson · 22 July 2005
I am one of those christian comprimisers (like for example C.S.Lewis)who dosn't believe in young earth creationism.
If there is one thing that would cause me to doubt my faith it would be listening to the speakers at the mega conference because I know their claims are so untrue.Dr.David Menton and Roger Oakland (Understand The Times International and another young earth creationist from the US) have both spoken at my church,here in Co. Antrim NI.
With regard to the big bang even if it was found to be wrong it still wouldn't confirm that the Earth and Universe is a mere 6,000 years old.AIG and co. still have the major problem of astronomical distances to sort out.
One of the areas of research that Edwin Hubble was engaged in during the 1920's was measuring astronomical distances using standard candles such as cepheid variable stars.At that time astronomers believed that the Milky Way was the Universe and that the wispy clouds surrounding it (which we now know are galaxies) were clouds of gas and dust.While measuring the distance of a cepheid varible in the Andromeda galaxey Hubble realised that the distance was so great that it could not possibly be within the Milky Way itself.When the Mount Wilson observatory in Calfornia was built in 1929 he was able to image individual stars in other galaxies and the universe all of a sudden became a very much larger and bigger place.Since what we observe is in the past it also became a very much older place as well !
So if there is a problem with these standard candles maybe someone from the mega coference could let us all know what it is ?
The subsequent discovery of red shift,the expanding universe,and the cosmic microwave background radiation, gave rise to the current big bang theory
( a phrase coined by Fred Hoyle-mockingly of course ).
Regarding the centre of the Universe there is no centre!This is only an optical illusion.If we imagine a fly on a balloon and supposing that balloon is blown up and eventually bursts into pieces.No matter what piece of the balloon the fly was on it would still think that all of the pieces were moving away from him(or her).
I have read most of Philip Kitcher's book abusing sience the answers to creationism (which I recommend KR reads) and one sentance caught my eye.He states that science is littered with theories which were fashionable at the time but were proved wrong.For example, the scientists who belived the continents did not move (it's taken AIG over thirty years to accept this),those who thought that the formula of water was HO,and the ones who thought that heat was a fluid.It could well be that the big bang might be one of those theories but untill there is compelling evedince to the contrary it is the best theory that we have at present for the origin of the Universe.
Dave Cerutti · 22 July 2005
AIG is very forthright about their approach. The statement of faith that their employees must sign starts with the notion that science is secondary to faith in their interpretation of the Bible, and closes with the statement that no evidence is admissible unless it confirms their interpretation of the Bible. Case closed.
Henry J · 22 July 2005
Even if the Big Bang theory were in "trouble", what would that have to do with the theory of evolution? If BB were to be discarded (as at least one website I've seen wants to do), that'd leave us with some version of steady state, which would be even older than a Banged out universe.
Re "Now, about the Big Bang being in trouble because the Milky Way is at the exact centre of the Universe and at the bottom of a huge gravity well in order to give the appearance of great age."
I don't follow - that would affect only the relative ages of the stuff inside that gravity well as compared to the stuff outside the gravity well. It'd have nothing to do with the age of Earth or the sun measured in orbits of Earth around that sun.
Henry
Loren Petrich · 22 July 2005
However, I found it doubtful that George Washington Carver had used the Biblical genetics of Genesis 30. Yes, where Jacob made Laban's solid-colored livestock have spotted and streaked offspring by showing them striped sticks as they were conceiving those offspring.
bill · 22 July 2005
Well, I can tell you that all this really hacks me off. It's my own fault, though. If I had been on the ball I could have set up a booth selling "Darwin was a Doofus" t-shirts and CLEANED UP!
Dang, I hate missing opportunities like that.
FastEddie · 22 July 2005
I think KR represents the answer to a question: Why is creationism the zombie that can never die? Because creationism sells. There is a sizable market niche that will gobble up all manner of anti-evolution, anti-old earth literature. If there is profit to be made, someone will exploit it. Surely, many creationist authors are sincere in their beliefs, but it's also obvious some are in it for the money.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
FL · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
C.J.O'Brien · 22 July 2005
Lenny, maybe you're grumpy because you eat too much pizza?
It might be a nice break to find out about the religious opinions of the kid who brought your chinese food last night.
[/kidding around]
Jaime Headden · 22 July 2005
Has anyone heard the argument of Creation based on our imperfect biology?
It goes like this:
"God is perfect. Only God can be perfect. The act of God may be perfect and while this may require His creations to be perfect in His acts, this is not so: For only God ca be perfect. The nature of a flaw proves God's creation explicitly."
natural cynic · 22 July 2005
FL:
How does the case of Carver and a few other reputable scientists attributing successes to God make your case? It would, but only if you could show that the vast majority of scientists testifying under the same circumstances would also attribute their successes to faith.
I suppose you could answer that most scientists could be (willfully?)blind to the situation, but that seems to have a much lower probability than Carver misattributing his success.
Perhaps a greater factor in Carver's successes could be his adoption of the peanut as an object of research - a field that was wide open so that any successes would build a reputation
steve · 22 July 2005
I wouldn't call that an argument, I would call that just some typing.
Joseph Alden · 22 July 2005
Lenny,
You woke up ! Dude, you really need to lay off the crack-pipe every now and then.
On to the joust . . . .
You said in post # 38972 that " IDers are lying to us when they claim it's not about religion."
Incorrect observation. It's not about lying or telling the truth either one. Reason is, religion is defined very subjectively.
Whose definition are we speaking of Loony ?
Yours, mine, everbodys, nobodys.
Some religions, like Buddhism are genuine. Yet, they don't always include space for a theistic type, ID concept at the core. Or, the religions of Satanic worship, like yours, don't follow the ID model either. But, then again, I would think you already know this, schijten for brains, since you are an ordained minister.
You first have to agree on the rules in order to play the game.
So, my feeble-minded one, I know it's easy dueling with the simpleton YECs above. How bout taking a shot at the title with ME ?
And remember Lenny, stay on topic. I know you always get slammed and have to fall back on your crutch, a.k.a. the scientific method of testing for ID, blah, blah, blah. Just keep away from the dope for a day or two and we will get there sooner or later, trust me.
Therefore, I know you will start yawning soon and will need a fix, so I will make it simple. What is your definition of religion ?
qetzal · 22 July 2005
Don't bother with Alden. He doesn't even understand the word "if."
steve · 22 July 2005
Maybe a link to the index of creationist claims could be given a prominent place on this site. That would make it easier to deal with people who show up saying clueless things like 'Why haven't you guys ever refuted Irreducible Complexity?'
for instance, http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CI/CI102.html basically takes care of everything. If you want more on Behe, here you go
http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/box/behe.shtml
darwinfinch · 22 July 2005
Dear Joseph Alden,
You are a rude, and seem a very stupid, person. Perhaps only in this post? (Oh, what an optimist I am! But five years ago, I believed most Fundamentalists were simply ill-informed, rather than actively, and often evilly, ignorant.)
Whatever your excuse for a "religion" is, it must be a very bad one.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 22 July 2005
KR · 22 July 2005
So when is Jason going to save the day with his scientific refutations of the lectures I listed? I am particularly interested your response to Dr. Humphrey, who spent time answering the five objections raised against the RATE work.
Flint · 22 July 2005
steve · 22 July 2005
Maybe KR could let the authors of
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html
know that their page is incomplete. There have been hundreds of antievolution claims, and I'm sure the ones he mentions, given in presentations like "The Ice Age: Only the Bible Explains It", are every bit as devastating.
Flint · 22 July 2005
Alden:
Substantive content would do you more credit.
H. Humbert · 22 July 2005
Michael Tuite · 22 July 2005
KR,
I had the good fortune to attend Dr. Humphrey's polished and meticulously crafted presentation yesterday in Lynchburg. In brief, Dr. Humphrey's argument was this: While the Ur-Pb dating of a granite core sample indicated an age for the rock of 1.5 billion years, analysis of the He diffused from zircons into the surrounding biotite indicated a much younger age for the rock - mere thousands of years. This in itself was presented as confirming evidence of the young earth model despite the contradictory Ur-Pb date. In a seemingly logical next step, Dr. Humphrey's then recalculated the rate of decay of the radioactive Ur to conform with the so recently reconfirmed 6000 year age of the earth and proposed that god had increased the rate of radioactive decay during the creation week and during the Flood (~1600 years later), asserting that the water would have absorbed the excess radiation.
It may very well be that the He diffusion rates measured in these particular zircons were correctly determined and that an interpretation of the results supporting a younger age for the granite might be one of several legitimate interpretations. There is no reason to suspect that the lab results were in any way biased by a priori assumptions. Indeed, Dr. Humphrey's conceded that he had deliberately misrepresented his research affiliation to the testing lab in order to avoid anti-creationist bias in the outcome. Remember, however, that Dr. Humphrey's whole case rests upon two samples from one core. The broad consensus among non-creationist scientists for the age of the earth is based upon measurements of countless samples from all over the world.
In science, you can't make your case based on one discordant datum in a veritable sea of consistent data. An outlier may point to an as-yet undiscovered phenomenon or may simply represent the stochastic variability inherent in all natural phenomena.
Dr. Humphrey's and his enthusiastic supporters desperately want their world view to be validated by main-stream science but that will not happen because they use science in the same manner they use scripture - picking tidbits that support their world view while ignoring the overwhelming and persistently inconvenient knowledge that refutes it.
Joseph Alden · 22 July 2005
Flint:
Substantive comebacks are required first.
Rich · 22 July 2005
"True ministers don't go around bashing religion and using the F word, like it was some cool adjective to toss about"
Er, Doesn't Lenny use it as a noun, but it is usually a verb? Its one of my favourite 'doing words'.
Once again, its mainly the Christains that are putting me off Christianity.
And no, I don't no Kwickcode.
Geoffrey · 22 July 2005
"Joseph Alden" - Look, pretending to be an IDer and posting nonesensical, idiotic comments in order to discredit IDers is not cool. That's exactly the sort of ad hominem attack that KR was complaining about, and you do no credit to the cause of real science by acting in this manner. Evolution can stand on its own scientific merits without you exaggerating the mental deficiencies of its opponents.
Rich · 22 July 2005
"Flint:
Substantive comebacks are required first."
So you're only going to post somethinhg worthwhile when someone critiques one of your posts (that isn't worthwhile)?
Joseph Alden · 22 July 2005
Flint:
Incorrect. I am still waiting for Lenny the Fraud to answer my original questions.
I normally don't waste my time with grammar school students like yourself, still struggling with how to spell the word " something."
Rich · 23 July 2005
"Joseph Alden" - Being a grammar school student, I suspect that the singles qoutes around 'Rev Dr' might somehow change their meaning.
Hmmm...
I suspected you might be Lenny himself creating a parody fool, but he would have been more entertaining.
I take it you are a 'Young Earth' proponent?
Ruthless · 23 July 2005
Mike Walker · 23 July 2005
Accusing anyone of child molestation on this board is not cool. Time for "Joseph Alden" to go... for good.
Joseph Alden · 23 July 2005
Hold on Rich ! Nice try, but you'll have to wait your turn in line.
Besides, I detect some paranoia creeping in.
I see that your sitting next to Flint in class.
The correct spelling is "quotes".
But, that's what you get for looking over his shoulder.
Anybody seen Lenny lately ? He's probably banging his head on that rock again. I should have never shared my tag line with him.
Mike Walker · 23 July 2005
I don't agree that these creationist are deliberately "fleecing" their believers. Most of them hold sincere (if deeply misguided) beliefs and want to spread the message any way they can. They do, for sure, understand the value of money. The more money they have, the bigger their own little empire--all the better for gaining more converts, and so on.
So, they do indeed want to sell as much stuff as possible, but I think that people like Ken Ham really do believe that the books and tapes they are hawking will benefit the purchasers, while the money they bring in will go towards furthering their creationist cause.
Of course, their efforts are not purely altruistic, because if they were, all these YEC groups would band together, pool their resources and be much more effective and on message. There are large dollops of hubris (despite all those "humble before God" protestations) and hunger for power and prestige that drive these people. All these things are more important--and self-validating--to them, than money could ever be.
Yes, there are a few YEC Robert Tilton-types around, but Ken Ham and his cohorts are not among them.
Rich · 23 July 2005
Oh, I'm a humble student, of grammar and other things. This thread is about Young Earth Creationism. I think its silly; Do you have an opinion that you want to share, or are you just a troll?
Michael Roberts · 23 July 2005
KR wrote
But I, nor any other Christian, really expects you to connect with the likes of Jerry Falwell, Carl Kerby, or Ken Hame---men who were delivering Christian messages to Christian audiences.
Now what I do want to see is comprehensive responses to the actual scientific arguments presented in the technical lectures like:
Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble
Creation and Cosmology
Our Created Moon
Design, Intelligence, and the Word of God
Noah's Ark: Current Research and Investigations
Molecular Evidence for Creation
***Helium Leaks Show the Earth is Young***
Genesis and Geology: Evidence and Impact
The Ice Age: Only the Bible Explains It
As a Christian and an Evangelical one too, I object to Kr's statement. Most Christians object to the dishonesty and deciet of YECS and the folly of IDers.
Much of the technical arguments of YECs I am familiar wtih especially those on geology, where they twist and weave deceit. As for the paper on Genesis and Geology by Mortenson if it is like his Ph.D. thesis, of which I have a copy it must be the worst thesis ever passed at a british univesity. It is so ludicrous as to be laughable.
In his thesis and probably in his book Mortenson argues that the "Scriptural Geologists " of the early 19th century were competent. One of the best was Fairholme. I now add what I have written about him and how Mortensonthinks he was competent.;
"One of the frequent contributors to the Christian Observer during the 1820s and 1830s on anti-geology was George Fairholme (1789-1846), who signed himself as "A Layman on Scriptural Geology". Fairholme was Scottish born and had no university education. According to Mortenson his denominational affiliation is not known, nor are his evangelical convictions. As well as contributing to the Christian Observer and the Philosophical Magazine, Fairholme wrote on the General View of the Geology of Scripture (1833) and the Mosaic Deluge (1837). The preface of the latter discusses the theological results and scepticism caused by geology and especially the rejection of a universal deluge, "there cannot be conceived a principle more pregnant with mischief to the simple reception of scripture". All emphasis is put on the universality of the Deluge; - "if false....then has our Blessed Saviour himself aided in promoting the belief of that falsehood, by ....alluding both to the fact and the universality of its destructive consequences to mankind".(p61) Fairholme made much of stems of tall plants, which intersect many strata, (an idea revived today by Creationists with their Polystrate fossils) and above all he emphasised a rapidity of deposition.
In the General View of the Geology of Scripture (1833) Fairholme gave the air of geological competence, enhanced by his ability to cite geological works. His geology simply does not bear comparison with major geological writers of the 1820s and 1830s, whether Buckland, Sedgwick, Conybeare, Henslow, or amateurs like Pye Smith. Though he claimed to carry out geological fieldwork, there is no evidence that he did more than ramble though the countryside. There are no field notebooks like those of Sedgwick or Darwin. His lack of geological competence is best seen in his discussion of the relationship of coal to chalk. (In the Geologic Column coal is found in the Upper Carboniferous or Pennsylvanian strata and chalk in the Upper Cretaceous.) Fairholme wrote;
the chalk formation is placed far above that of coal, apparently from no better reason, than that chalk usually presents an elevation on the upper surface, while coal must be looked for at various depths below the level of the ground. (Fairholme 1833 p243)
He had previously discussed this (op cit p207-210) and concluded, having mis-understood an article in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, that "Nothing can be clearer than this account; and it appears certain, that, as in the case of the Paris Basin, this lime-stone formed the bed of the antediluvian sea, on which the diluvial deposits of coal, clay, ironstone, and free-stone, were alternately laid at the same period."(p209)
It is clear that Fairholme regards Carboniferous Limestone and the Cretaceous chalk as the same formation, and wrote on coal fields that , "they lie among sandstones, ..., but have, in no instance, been found below chalk, which is one of the best defined secondary formations immediately preceding the Deluge, ..." Thus the Cretaceous strata are pre-Flood and the Coal Measures were deposited during the Flood!
To any geologist today that is risible, but it is clearly wrong to judge Fairholme's geological competence by the geological standards of 2004. However, by the geological standards of 1830 they are still risible! When Fairholme penned these words, it had been known for decades that Chalk always, always overlie the Coal Measures with a vast thickness of strata in between. In 1799 William Smith drew up a list of strata from the coal measures to the chalk and extended this in the table accompanying his geological map of 1815 (Phillips 1844/2003). This was put to immediate effect by Smith and John Farey in their search for coal, who stressed that it was futile to look for coal in the Jurassic and Creataceous strata. A notorious example was coal hunting at Bexhill, Sussex from 1805 to 1811 where fortunes were lost by looking in the wrong strata, despite Farey's warnings (Torrens 2002). Smith's work was re-iterated with shades by plagiarism by Greenough in his own geological maps of 1818 and 182 (Darwin used a copy of the 182 edition in 1831.). In their Outlines of the geology of England and Wales (1822) Conybeare and Phillips gave the succession from the Carboniferous limestone through to the Chalk. Continental geologists like Cuvier and Brogniart, who had worked extensively in the Paris Basin, gave the same succession. Thus by the standards of his day, Fairholme was talking utter nonsense as he was when he wrote, "But during the awful event [the Deluge] we are now considering, all animated nature ceased to exist, and consequently, the floating bodies of the dead bodies must have been bouyed up until the bladders burst, by the force of the increasing air contained within them. p257
It is impossible to agree with Mortenson's assessment of Fairholme, "By early nineteenth century standards, George Fairholme was quite competent to critically analyze old-earth geological theories,"(Mortenson 252) It is small wonder that contemporary geologists dismissed Fairholme and his fellow travellers with derision and contempt. Though Fairholme took it upon himself to criticise almost every aspect of geology, he did so from a position of sheer ignorance, as is evidenced by his claim that Chalk always underlies Coal.
Fairholme, like all Anti-geologists, attempted from his armchair to find fault with geology, which he ultimately regarded as infidel, but without exception his "scientific" objections were a total misunderstanding of geology. It is small wonder that they were rounded on by geologists such as Sedgwick', who wrote of them in scathing ways. In A Discourse on the Studies of the University (1834 -- 1969), he wrote that the anti-geologists "have committed the folly and the sin of dogmatizing on matters they have not personally examined." (106) And regarded some as "beyond all hope of rational argument." Then, as now, the advantage of writing such ridiculous works is that the refuting of them is beyond the wit of rational people."
There's some real good geolgy there as there was at the Mega Conference
Nick (Matzke) · 23 July 2005
Joseph Alden's offensive post has been deleted and his IP banned. Have a nice day.
(I do appreciate people pointing out ban-able offenses, it is often impossible to closely monitor all the comments.)
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Martin Zeichner · 23 July 2005
I'm going to de-lurk here only because I think that an important point has been missed.
In Comment #38926 FL brings up an anecdote about George Washington Carver in support of the idea that it is justifiable and in fact necessary that a scientist enters a scientific investigation with the preconceived notion that the god of the old and new testaments is guiding his actions. Well, we all know that anecdotes are not evidence but ISTM (myself not being a scientist) that it should be possible to frame his proposition as a question that is amenable to scientific (or at least statistical) investigation.
We have seen statistical surveys of percentages of religious affiliations of scientists and how they have varied over the last century. I would be curious to see how well the intensity of scientists' professed religious views correlate with their professional standing (as a measure of their success). I would speculate that FL would expect to see a high correlation. That is that only those scientists who avidly express religiosity will achieve success. For myself, I would expect a rather low correlation with possibly a slight upturn at the high end of the professional standing scale considering that professional standing will increase with age and that people have a tendency to turn to religion in their old age.
Other experiments could be proposed. Such as, what is the correlation between the intensity of students' professed religious views and their success in completing laboratory coursework?
If such work has been done I would be grateful for links.
It would also be valuable to see the same investigation with people in other fields. I would expect to see a higher correlation in such fields as medicine, sales and law where success is more dependent on an individual's ability to interact with and manipulate other people.
This is because I believe that expressions of religious fervor such as those that FL attributes to GWC in the above comment are, to a large extant, a profession of loyalty to a particular cultural group. It is basically saying, "You can trust me; I believe in the same outlandish stories that all you guys believe in." While science and its method is a relatively new profession in our history. You cannot cajole nature into revealing its secrets. (Yes, I know that individual scientists also bring preconceptions to their work. But they depend upon their colleagues to point out their preconceptions. Contrast this with the responses of Dembski, Behe et al when their preconceptions are pointed out.)
But that's beside the point. The point is that FL and people like FL miss the point that science gives people tools to investigate the universe. These tools only work if you use them correctly; without preconceptions. You have to frame the question correctly before you can hope to answer it.
Anecdotes are rhetoric. There are more logical fallacies here than than you can shake a stick at. Truly FL, what did you think you were going to accomplish with this GWC story? I would sincerely like to see an answer to that question. Because, speaking for myself, the more I see argumentation on this level the less I am inclined to trust you.
MZ
RBH · 23 July 2005
harold · 23 July 2005
Martin Zeichner -
Lacking statistical data, I still believe I can answer your general queries.
Many if not most religious backgrounds are compatible with success in science. I can think of well-known scientists who are actively Protestant, Catholic, Buddhist, Islamic, Mormon, Hindu and Jewish, as well as atheist.
I have also worked with less well-known, but highly competent, people of all of these faiths, in a science-based medical career. These are just examples, of course - I don't mean to imply that other religious backgrounds are not "compatible with science", they obviously are.
Do scientists of these various backgrounds believe that they are in some way honoring the God they worship (if they do) or fulfilling a spiritual mission with their work? Some may and others may not.
Do some believe that their God will reach in and make their science more successful than the efforts of other scientists from different religions? My guess would be that this belief may exist, but is rare. It seems most unlikely that George Washington Carver was trying to express anything remotely like this.
Would statistics show that some religious backgrounds are more common among scientists than among the general population? Certainly, I can almost guarantee that this would be the case. But this may reflect other cultural factors; the religion may be a confounding variable.
Are there some religious stances that are incompatible with the scientific view of reality? Clearly there are. To my mind, the creationist conference described here is neither Christian nor religious - it is merely a blend of aggressive hucksterism and bad crackpot science. However, many of the attendees may sincerely believe their own BS, or the BS of others. Some children are raised with this nonsense, and they are usually conflicted and inhibited when exposed to mainstream science in school or university - many ex-creationist posters here describe this experience.
"Fundamentalist" or "ultra-Orthodox" religious positions do seem to defy scientific reality in many cases. Confusing the issue, they often claim to represent the only "true" interpretation of their particular faith.
Other religious positions appear not to be at odds with science.
Michael Roberts · 23 July 2005
I totally agree with you Lenny, but I started alerting the Church of England in 1971
KR · 23 July 2005
Michael Tuite:
Thank you for the only meaningful response so far.
First, so far was I understand, Dr. Humphrey's didn't recalculate the rate of decay to fit the dates he wanted. He merely propounded that the creation week or Noachian Flood may have accelerated the decay rate. Or am I mistaken?
Second, your statement that the RATE group "deliberately isrepresented his research affiliation" is patently wrong. The He zircon content was measured through an intermediary group that requsted the measurements for an anonymous group (RATE). Anonymity is a common practice and certainly not deception in any sense.
Third, your only real argument against the RATE work is that RATE should take samples from all over the world to verify their findings. This is a good point, and it is true that biotite mica is found all over the globe. But then claiming that the current data is discordant is self-contradicting. Discordant compared to what? You just complained that they have not taken other core samples. Furthermore, Humphreys showed that his predictions fit the data hand in glove. What is the probability that this 'bad' data fits his predictions so perfectly? Finally, even if other samples confirmed the data as discordant, do you really believe that the consistent data will fit 1.5 billion years? Stochastic variability will not produce differences in orders of 100,000.
I concede that RATE should examine other samples, but the probability of RATE's data perfectly fitting the predictions and varying from good data at an order of 100,000 is simply mind-blowing. Therefore, your critique is certainly a worthwhile suggestion, but does not merit your baseless concluding remarks. Of course they reject the evidence interpreted through a uniformitarian paradigm. They are creationists---were you not aware?
Michael Roberts:
I never listed Dr. Mortenson's lecture in the list, sorry. His work is merely historical.
Rev Dr. Lenny Frank
As I recall, "Dr" Humphrey is not a "Dr" --- he's just another in the long list of creationuts with fake or "honorary" degrees.
So LSU awards fake doctorates? Or honorary degrees to 30 year olds? And then Sandia National Laboratories hires him?
Judging by the vacuity of your comments, you are a laymen, correct?
dannyp · 23 July 2005
Does it really matter if those people believe in what they are selling? There is a market for it. They sell. It's capitalism, after all. what is hilarious to me is that the free market enterprise that allows them to exploit these people and Darwinism have a lot in common.
The dynamic between the Fiscal Conservatives in the republican party and the christian right is another relationship filled with irony - the party rails on about Hollywood and porn and Madison avenue, calling it a liberal agenda to corrupt us, but last time I looked movies are made by huge studios, owned by even larger corporations, and same goes for TV, Radio, advertising...etc. These CEO's are on the whole, conservative and worship one god above all others...profit.
Sex sells. And denouncing sex sells. Denouncing evolution is going to sell.
Most of all, eternal salvation sells. They are making big bucks, which is what we have all been taught to do in this country since the day we were born.
Sex,Religion, morality, ID, Creationism - its all a money grab in the end. No one is going to listen to what they dont want to hear, and they will buy anything that gives them answers that they want to hear.
harold · 23 July 2005
KR -
D. Russel Humphreys does indeed have a PhD from LSU, awarded in 1972. Lenny Flank used the words "as I recall", indicating that he was relying on memory with regard to that point, and could be wrong. I don't find it terribly relevant. Humphreys isn't very prominent outside of creationism, but he's often cited as a rare example of a Young Earth Creationist who somehow manages to work as a mainstream scientist.
And I didn't find the other questions Lenny posed to you vacuous. Why don't you answer some of them?
Stuart Weinstein · 23 July 2005
KR writes "So when is Jason going to save the day with his scientific refutations of the lectures I listed? I am particularly interested your response to Dr. Humphrey, who spent time answering the five objections raised against the RATE work."
So did Humphrey explain how Adam and Eve survived a radioactive hell-hole?
SEF · 23 July 2005
Narcotic drugs and snake-oil sell too. That doesn't mean that damaging and fraudulent things, including certain aspects of religion, should necessarily be tolerated just because capitalism seems like a neat idea (to some people some of the time).
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Stuart Weinstein · 23 July 2005
Michael Tuite writes "It may very well be that the He diffusion rates measured in these particular zircons were correctly determined and that an interpretation of the results supporting a younger age for the granite might be one of several legitimate interpretations. "
The only thing the RATE program illustrates is that helium retention cannot be the basis of a geochronometer. Second, there is considerable sensitivity of helium escape rates on temperature, and I would also guess sensitivity to pressure as well.
Any rock body that has been on the Earth for 3 billion years or more has experienced at least several episodes of metamorphism, even mild Temp increases associated with metamorphism can facilitate the escape of Helium.
In order for helium to be used a geochronometer, we would need to know precisly how the diffusion rate depends on temperature and the P-T history of the rock itself. Such things will affect helium retention but not radio-isotopes.
If I understand Humphreys argument that Noah and his family were protected by the flood water which lasted approx. one year. Then we have other problems..
Basically billions of years of geothermal heat flux concentrated into one year. We cannot have anomalous radioactivity before or after the flood without killing Noah and his family.
So, the current geothermal heat flux is 70mWm-2. THats with a U-Pb half-life of ~4.5 billion years, k-40 half-life ~ 1 billion years etc.. But Humphrey wants to rev that up by a factor of a billion. That implies a geothermal heat flux of 70Mwm-2.
I'd like to know what Humphreys expects do with all that heat.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
Comment #39081
God, Lenny you're good. Do you train for this or is it in the genes?
mynym · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
mynym
Are you a Southern Baptist?
Excuse my ignorance, but I couldn't follow your point in post #39093.
mynym · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
Mynym
Just musing here, but you could divide people into two categories. For example, people like myself and others who don't share my views, realists and idealists, Solipsists and figments of my imagination, or you could acceept the world is a big, scary place and nobody has all the answers and move on from there.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
scuse typo omit superfluous e
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
Mynym
If you have the answer to life and everything, bring it on. But you do need to be a little more comprehensible. I honestly coudn't fathom what you were saying in 39093 and your later post is also somewhat obscure.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
Lenny wrote:
Can someone pelase translate this tirade into the Queen's English for me? I'm afraid that I don't speak "Gibberish" very well
I'm not sure mynym does either.It beats the hell out of me. Virtual six-pack to the best translation.
mynym · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
mynym
You are truly inscrutable.
mynym · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
Mynym
There'a a little line at the top left-hand corner of each post.
FL · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Alan · 23 July 2005
And this is leading where, mynym? I thought you had the answer to life and everything?
mynym · 23 July 2005
mynym · 23 July 2005
Stuart Weinstein · 23 July 2005
mynym writes "Next thing you'll be arguing is that Michael Denton is a YEC because he opposes Darwinism. I.e., ID/creationism/Christian/anti-evolutionist/Greek Stoic/Deist/"Anyone who disagrees that my Mommy Nature makes all my selections for me! She selected these mergings, and that is what is scientific!" "
Actually nobody ahs accused Denton of being a YEC. You say he's anti-Darwinist, but given his more recent works, its not clear what he's against.
DrJohn · 23 July 2005
DrJohn · 23 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
Jim Harrison · 24 July 2005
In the course of attacking somebody, Mynym writes:
"If a religious opinion matches millenia old texts which accurately describe historical events, as well as describe human nature accurately, as well as making some accurate predictions while fitting with empirical observations that can be made and calling for faith with respect to that which cannot be observed empirically, then it can be said to be more authoritative than an ignorant and questionable opinions like your own."
I've got news for Mynym. The Bible doesn't accurately describe historical events. Even the post-dated prophesies in Daniel get the sequence of Middle Eastern empires wrong. The table of the nations in Genesis makes no sense at all as a taxonomy of peoples. The Gospels are full of anachronisms and plain fantasies like the weird notion in Matthew that the Romans made you go to your ancestral home to pay your taxes. And so on.
Do you actually read scripture? I recognize that believers postulate that there must be some way to find absolute truth in the old books, though which old book an individual finds infallible depends upon where they happen to have been born. I have no quarrel with that. I don't try to convince paranoids that they aren't Napoleon either. What puzzles me is why Mynym thinks a non-believer would find an old book persuasive, especially one as uneven and self-contradictory as the Bible. Surely other sorts of appeals would make more sense when confronting us heathens.
Pierce R. Butler · 24 July 2005
steve · 24 July 2005
That nannyware is pretty easy to fool, probably. Maybe keep using those words, but hide them with umlauts or something.
Fück.
See? That's even got a nice european feel to it.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 24 July 2005
steve · 24 July 2005
None of these guys will answer questions. I want to know, since they say that if you come across a watch lying in a field, you can tell it was designed, and since they say CSI is their tool for detecting design, (1) how much CSI is in the watch, (2) how much in the grass, and (3) what's the rule which lets them pick out the watch?
Of course the real answers are
1 who knows, CSI is inadequately defined
2 same as above
3 simple fallible heuristics which go wrong when applied to products of evolution
ts · 24 July 2005
steve · 24 July 2005
IIRC, creationism is big in Poland too.
ts · 24 July 2005
Alan · 24 July 2005
Fundamentalism came up in conversation with some Polish acquaintances holdaying nearby,a couple of evenings ago. They were well informed and spoke excellent English, and aware of problems elsewhere, and gave no indication that such problems existed at home. They may not be represenative, obviously.
Pierce R. Butler · 24 July 2005
Pierce R. Butler · 24 July 2005
ts · 24 July 2005
Rich · 24 July 2005
Pierce:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingchristians.htm
True or not (and that whole correlation is not causation, etc - plus the nebulous nature of what IQ is and isnt) clearly 'smarter than thou' is as invalid as "holier than thou' and attacks people, not issues.
How long before I get my Pandas Thumb membership card and decoder ring?
rdog29 · 25 July 2005
Am I correct in understanding one of mynem's arguments...
We should accept the Bible as an authoritative and reliable guide for inquiry into the natural world because it contains a collection of parables and anecdotes that (supposedly) accurately reflect human nature?
Big deal. So do the Grimm Fairy Tales. So do the ancient Greek and Roman myths. So does Dr Suess.
If antiquity equals "legitimacy", I'm afraid the Greeks and Romans have the Christians beat by a few years.
If the ancient gods don't appeal to you, perhaps contemplating "Green Eggs and Ham" can give us insight next time we need help solving a problem in natural history.
GCT · 25 July 2005
Ric Frost · 25 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 25 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 25 July 2005
Pierce R. Butler · 25 July 2005
Rich -
Thanks for the link - quite interesting.
Somewhere in the last month I ran across, and failed to flag for future reference, a claim from a religious-right source that evangelicals' income is now a bit above the US average. (I skim literally hundreds of christocrat pronunciamentos each week, and that statement involves too many potential synonyms for me to have been able to pull it from my archives so far.)
Part of me finds this claim plausible, because (a) proselytizers have focused steadily on the more affluent for a generation, and (b) financial success these days tends to hinge more on who you know than what you know or how hard you work, and the True Believers are quite good at mutual-support networks.
As for the membership card & decoder ring - you need to cultivate a buddy higher up the archpriesthood than me...
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 25 July 2005
ndt · 26 July 2005
George Washington Carver believed in the Christian God. But I know of no evidence that he believed in a literal Bible. In fact, the statement you quoted, FL, contradicts what you were trying to say. Carver said he didn't bring a book into the lab, but you are saying he should have brought a Bible in.
ndt · 26 July 2005
FL · 26 July 2005
FL · 26 July 2005
rich · 26 July 2005
"There you go. Something to consider. What if the Bible happens to be true, Ruthless?
How would that affect your life"
or the Koran... or any other religous text.
Here's a test.
If you read all the religous texts, looked at the deeds of their followers and made a decision based on the content of those texts and the actions of the groups as to which religon to follow or not, you get a seat at the debating table. If you're religon X because you were braught up that way, then you don't. Because you'd be Ralean if your parents were.
FL · 26 July 2005
Jim Harrison · 26 July 2005
Fl's apolegetics about the historical accuracy of the Bible are just that, apolegetics. If you already believe in the truth of the Bible, the discovery of a tile with David's name on it will strike you as big news, though it doesn't even establish that there was a king of Judah named David. (Very few people have any doubts about some of the Kings of Israel, by the way, since we have Assyrian evidence about them.) The rule is, everything, including halfway accurate knowledge of Palestinian geography, will be trotted out as somehow bolstering the authority of the Bible, while its innumerable contradictions and anachronisms wll be waved off or simply ignored. It doesn't bother a believer, for example, that the first of the Gospels begins with the whopper about the decree from Caesar Augustus as if the Romans ever insisted that everybody go to the ancestral home to be taxed. No secular document with so many incoherencies as the Bible would be used as evidence by a reputable historian. We only take the Bible seriously as history because of the political power of its adherents.
Incidentally, the New Testament is no more reliable than the Old. The oldest writings about Jesus are some of the letters of Paul. These scriptures contain virtually no biographical information at all beyond the bare notion that Jesus was crucified. The gospels obviously came later, and the later they were compiled, the more detailed the sacred story became. Which is the normal pattern with the sacred histories of every religion--I recently noticed the same phenomenon in the gradual elaboration of the biography of the Sikh founder, Guru Nanak. Think of the process as the novelization of a myth. It takes a lot of fabricating to achieve the literary effect of versimilitude that the faithful mistake for evidence of veracity.
steve · 26 July 2005
Gav · 26 July 2005
FL - you say "you have Jesus Himself saying that Scripture is the unbreakable word of God (John 10:35)"
What translation are you using? The first one I picked up (New English Bible) says "Those are called gods to whom the word of God was delivered - and Scripture cannot be set aside." Close, I'll grant you.
Do you think that John reports what Jesus said accurately? Do you think John reports him exactly? Do you understand the difference?
Perhaps we could resume this discussion on the Bathroom Wall, if I could find it.
steve · 26 July 2005
Steviepinhead · 26 July 2005
And speaking of "novelization," any halfway competent modern novelist--you know, the writers of those books that start off with the statement that all the people and incidents in it are fictitious--will still make some effort to include a fair amount of historically-"accurate" background detail. Like the movies that try to recreate the look and feel of a given time period through use of "period" fashion, vehicles, figures of speech, and so forth.
Getting this stuff "right" certainly enhances the versimilitude, the sense that maybe, just maybe, this fictitious story could have happened to "real" people living "real" lives, more or less like ourselves. Y'know, that "suspension of disbelief" thing...
None of this realistic background detail, however, means the versimiltudinous story is, in fact, TRUE.
Nor does the fact that an account is fiction necessarily drain the account of all "moral" meaning for the author's readership. The struggles, failures, and triumphs of fictitious or highly "fictionalized" persons may still deeply inform our own struggles, and add much meaning to our lives. Some of the stories in the Bible inarguably enrich our lives in this manner, whether fact or fiction (personally, I've always liked the story of Ruth).
But, sorry FL, that the author(s) managed to get the occasional bit of background detail "correct" is a meaningless datum on the fact-fiction spectrum.
ts · 26 July 2005
Sean M · 26 July 2005
rdog29 · 26 July 2005
FL -
If the divinity of Jesus is so obvious and compelling, why was he not officially declared to be "divine" until 300 years after the fact?
Why were the more Gnostic writings excluded from the "official" version of the Bible?
Could it have more to do with contemporary politics than with divinity?
Gav · 26 July 2005
Sean M - there is quite a respectable body of thought that the author of John's Gospel was the "beloved disciple", although that doesn't in itself mean that he was reporting verbatim. And we've his own word for it that he was selective in what he recorded (21:25). Speaking for myself, I find the undeniable inconsistencies in the Gospel stories rather more persuasive as to their truth than if they had all told the identical story. The differences would have been easy enough to edit out, but the compilers of the NT were wiser than that. On reflection, this might not be as off-thread as I thought.
ts · 26 July 2005
Sean M · 26 July 2005
Gav,
I certainly can't take issue with a literary opinion expressed as such. However, I would dispute the use of "respectable" and of internal evidence. As convenient as it would be if the Bible simply gave it accurate data about itself, it doesn't, and we really cannot rely on it in the way that you imply with "we've his own word for it." The Johannine narrative is not only wildly dissonant from the other four Gospels in narrative, it has a distinctly different theology behind it. Hit up Elaine Pagels for a better explanation. As well, I should note that the earliest actual manuscripts of John date back only to the fourth century, which is hardly persuasive. For further discussion, I recommend The Jesus Seminar, but suffice it to say that "respectable" is a bit of a stretch when applied to a position that says that John was written by a witness to the events of the gospel.
Also, you should take up those inconsistencies with FL. He thinks (judging by his sources) that the Bible is perfectly unified. What say you, FL ?
Gav · 26 July 2005
ts - I'm as guilty as anyone of self-conceit. What else?
Sean M - thanks for the recommendations. Not sure how relevant the date of the earliest surviving copy is. Glad to discuss inconsistencies with anyone.
Sean M · 26 July 2005
Gav,
I recommend a book that I've kept hold of since I began: Stevan L. Davies' "New Testament Fundamentals." Reliable, evidence-focused, and easy to follow. Cheap, too - used for less than $10, probably something similar at friendly local booksellers. Excellent little survey of the scholarship of the matter.
Martin Zeichner · 26 July 2005
SEF · 26 July 2005
Harry Potter must be true too then because it refers to a real railway station.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 26 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 26 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 26 July 2005
Hey Fl, I'm a little curious about something --------
You KNOW that your heroes are in court right now
trying to argue that creationism/ID is SCIENCE and has NO RELIGIOUS
PURPOSE OR AIM. You KNOW that if the courts rule that
creationism/ID is NOT science and IS nothing but religious doctrine,
then your crap will never see the inside of a science classroom. So
you must KNOW that every time you blither to us that creationism/ID
is all about God and faith and the Bible and all that, you are
UNDERMINING YOUR OWN HEROES by demonstrating, right here in public,
that your heroes are lying under oath when they claim that
creationism/ID has NO religious purpose or aims.
So why the heck do you do it ANYWAY? Why the heck are you in here
yammering about religion when your own leaders are trying so
desperately to argue that ID/creationism is NOT about religion? Are
you really THAT stupid? Really and truly?
Any IDer or creationist in here, how about answering
that question for me (since I know FL won't answer any questions). Why are you in here arguing that
ID/creationism is all about God and the Bible, while Discovery
Institute and other creationists are currently in Kansas and Dover
arguing that ID/creationism is NOT all about God and the Bible?
Why are you **undercutting your own side**????????
I really truly want to know.
FL demonstrates clearly why ID will never win. It requires that a small group of religious nuts keep quiet, indefinitely, about the one thing they care more about than anything else in the world --- their religious opinions. They can't. They don't WANT to.
Perhaps if Dembski or some other DI luminary is out there, they can explain to us how they feel about FL's sermons. Sort of the same way they felt about Buttars' idiotic "divine design" thingie . . . ?
Please, Bill, tell us again how ID is all about SCIENCE and NOT religion . . . .. . (snicker) (giggle)
FL, I will personally pay to fly you to Dover to testify on our behalf. Just say the word.
FL · 27 July 2005
Steviepinhead · 27 July 2005
Gosh, FL, it's just peachy-keen that you can believe stuff if you wanna, and other people can believe other stuff if they wanna... Ain't America great?
But it escapes me how that comes anywhere close to being science. Or explaining away all the evidence for evolution.
Individual preconceptions may indeed be difficult to avoid, but the cross-currents of scientific debate, and several other generally-accepted working methodologies, including publication, reproducibility, etc., do a reasonably good job of grinding them away--in science.
What working methodologies generate anything like the same kind of rigor--in religious debate?
If you're happy with your individual preconceptions, and don't actually widh to do--or be informed by--science, then what's the point of your coming here?
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 27 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 27 July 2005
rdog29 · 29 July 2005
FL -
Thanks for the links. Haven't had a chance to read the articles yet - I'm sure they'll be most interesting.
That quote you mention: "They deserved to lose". Sounds like a political judgement to me, as in one faction of the early church asserting dominance over another.
But as I said, I haven't read the articles yet so perhaps I'm off track.
Steviepinhead · 29 July 2005
Sorry about spelling "with" as "widh" in
post # 39810 above.
I must've been having a Peachy moment...
Betsy Markum · 6 January 2006
I can't believe it, my co-worker just bought a car for $40802. Isn't that crazy!
Ubernatural · 6 January 2006
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