Tuesday, July 19. Afternoon.
With the remains of a once magnificent fajita burrito residing comfortably in my stomach, I faced the afternoon with confidence. My choices were “How Our Textbooks Mislead Us: An Expose of Error and Fraud” in the basic track and “Hubble, Bubble, Big Bang in Trouble” in the Advanced track. Figuring that I had a pretty good sense of what creationists think of modern biology textbooks, I chose the Big Bang.
The talk was delivered by John Hartnett, another in the large Australian contingent at the conference. It was his task to persuade us that the Big Bang was a lot of hooey. Which is interesting, since in other contexts creationists love the Big Bang. It allows them to claim that the universe had a definite beginning in time. (Don't trouble them with details like the fact that time itself apparently came into existence at the Big Bang). Since everything that had a beginning must have had a cause....you fill in the rest.
Anyway, the part of the Big Bang they don't like is the implication that it happened billions of years ago. Now, of the various branches of science that come up in this discussion, cosmology is probably the one I know the least about. What little I know about it comes mostly from Brian Greene's excellent books. So I will try to present a straight-up version of what Hartnett said. Perhaps someone reading this more knowledgeable on the subject than I will leave some interesting comments.
Hartnett began with a reasonable description of what the Big Bang theory actually says. He showed some 10-day photos from the Hubble telescope that showed large numbers of galaxies in what was once thought to be empty space. He said that astronomers only have light to work with (which doesn't seem quite right, since they also make frequent use of radio waves) and gave a description of the connection between distance and red shift. He talked a bit about the Doppler Effect, and mentioned that according to relativity theory time and length are affected by speed and gravity. Relativity is real science by the way.
Next he talked a bit about Hubble's law; that the velocity at which a galaxy is moving is proportional to its distance away from us. He described the standard idea that it is the expansion of the universe that leads to the observations of red shifts in the light received from distant galaxies. In particular, astronomers use red shift data to measure distance. He described the “inflating balloon” model of the Big Bang.
Then he described recent data that the explansion of the universe is accelerating, and that the universe is apparently flat. In another strange moment, the flatness of the universe was offered up as a refutation of the inflating balloon model of the universe. This seemed odd, since I've always thought of the inflating balloon as simply a way of illustrating how it's possible for every galaxy to be receding from every other galaxy at the same time. I don't think it was intended as an actual model of the universe.
At this point he returned to the Big Bang and suggested that the apparent absence of anti-matter in our universe is a strike aganist standard Big Bang cosmology. Then he suggested that no one has any idea how stars and glaxies form, suggesting that this was another defect in the theory.
Then he got down to business. He recounted the sad tale of astronomer Halton Arp, who, in Hartnett's telling, was demonized by the repressive American astronomy establishment for his views against the Big Bang. Eventually he ended up at the Max Planck Institute. The centerpiece of Hatnett's case against the Big Bang was Arp's alleged discovery of galaxies with anomalous red shifts. The claim is that there are galaxies with wildly different red shifts that are nonetheless connected by “bridges” of dust and debris. Under the standard model this should not be possible. If red shift is correlated with distance then these sorts of paired galaxies should have the same red shifts. He also pointed out that the bridge itself contains high red shift objects.
He then cited a photo from a 2003 issue of Astronomy (I didn't manage to jot down the date of the issue, but apparently it was on page 13 of that issue) that was supposed to refute Arp by showing that galaxies Arp said were connected in reality were not. But then Hartnett produced another photo, allegedly of the same galaxies, to show that they were.
From here the discussion turned to quasars. He provided something he claimed was evidence for the proposition that quasars are not as distant as commonly thought. Unfortunatly, this went by too quickly for me to jot it down. He then argued that quasars are found across paired galaxies, and concluded from this that quasars are actually being ejected out of galactic activity.
All of this was said to challenge the Big Bang for two reasons: (1) All of our distance estimates based on red shifts are now suspect and (2) Matter is constantly being created from the center of galaxies (so that it is not true that all matter was created at the Big Bang).
From here he suggested that in seeing quasars created from the center of galaxies, we are actually looking back in time 6000 years and watching creation as it happens. Then he recommended Arp's book and called it a day.
As I said, I have no particular knowledge of any of this. I didn't find much on the internet discussing these points, but what little I did find suggests that most astronomers are very skpetical of the claim that the galaxies Arp says are connected are, in fact, connected.
Mostly what I was thinking about at this point was just how much science you need to know to debate these people effectively. This was something many of Duane Gish's debate opponents discovered to their chagrin in the 1970's. Since creationists do not believe it is important to know something about a subject before discussing it, they are free to whip out factoids from whatever branch of science it amuses them to cite. That is why one minute they will be talking about mathematics, then suddenly switch to biology, then thermodynamics, then cosmology, all without missing a step. Real scientists are painfully aware of what they know and what they don't know, and feel uncomfortable discussing things too far removed from their area of expertise. All through the conference speakers were whipping out arguments based on areas of science I know a lot about. In those cases it was easy for me to see why their arguments were incorrect. Then suddenly here's one where I have no foundation for assessing their claims. I noticed that another talk at the conference bore the title “Our Created Moon: Origin, Creation Evidences.” I suspect I would have had little to say after that one as well.
Happily, things returned to their proper state of brain-dead insanity any jaw-dropping ignorance in the next talk: Carl Kerby's, “Evolution and Pop Culture.” His competition in the advanced track was “Creation and Cosmology.” Not a hard decision.
Kerby's talk was mostly a series of clips from various movies and television programs that made references to evolution, the ancient age of the Earth, or, occasionally, homosexuality. Kerby would say something like, “How many of you saw the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding? A number of hands would go up. And then Kerby would ask, “Did you catch the evolution?” (Apparently there was a scene in the movie where one character turns to another of a different ethnicity and says something like, “My people were producing great music and art while yours were still swinging in trees.&rdquo) The list of nasty television shows included episodes from Bugs Bunny, the Three Stooges, the 1960's Batman series, an episode of CSI (something about a trans-genedered oyster) and Sponge Bob. One theme that cropped up was that any reference to something being “prehistoric” was considered offensive. Why? Because history began on Day One of Creation Week. There is no prehistory.
Of course, it's not all bad news. There are shows like Gilligan's Island and the Flintstones tha depict humans and dinosaurs living simultaneously. Evolutionists hate those shows, I'm told.
Turning to movies we have Fantasia (by the way, never trust Disney), the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Ice Age, Lilo and Stitch, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Spider-Man. You might enjoy renting those movies and trying to find the evolution for yourself.
The refernce to Ice Age was particularly revealing. For those of you who haven't seen it, Ice Age is an animated movie about a sloth, a mammoth, and a saber-tooth tiger who end up caring for a human infant who was abandoned when the baby's mother was killed by other saber-tooth tigers. The unlikely trio is trying to catch up with a tribe of humans to return the baby. It's a very good movie, both funny and touching.
Kerby showed two clips from this movie, one that he liked and one that he didn't. The clip he liked came from an early scene in the film. We see a large herd of animals migrating South to avoid the advancing ice. We zoom in on two armidillo-like creatures. One says to the other, “Have you seen John?” (I don't actually remember the charcter's name, so I am calling him John). The second one replies in a snide tone, “The last time I saw him he said he was on the verge of some great evolutionary leap.” Just as she finishes saying that, we a third armidillo-like creature in the distance running off a cliff. As he jumps he yells, “I'm flyyyyyyyiiiiiinnnnng....” followed by a Thud as he crashes into the ground. Kerby liked that. Shows the problems that would be faced by creatures possessing only sme incipient stage of a complex system.
But things took a nasty turn later in the film. Seeking a short-cut, our noble trio walk through an ice cave. Frozen into the ice walls of the cave are various other animals who apparently got trapped there. At one point we see the sloth walking through a lengthy corridor. He is on the far right side of the screen from our perspective. Frozen in the ice to his right are three other animals. The camera fixes on this scene for a moment and we see all four animals (the three in the ice and the sloth) lined-up in a row. They form a linear evolutionary sequence from a primitive looking creature on the far right to the modern sloth on the left.
I think it's obious why Kerby wouldn't like that. The interesting part, though, was what he said next. He said something like, “They were trying to indoctrinate your kids, they were trying to show evolution, but they failed. You know why they failed?” Silence from the puzzled audience. “Because they show all four of those animals existing at the same time. That's not evolution!” Cheers from the delighted audience, coupled with the thud of my jaw hitting the desk.
That's about as stupid as it gets when you're discussing evolution. That's up there with the old saw, “If humans evolved from apes, why do we still have apes?” Since I don't think anyone in the room believed that parents wink out of existence the moment their children are born, I think that the contempt and derision I've been heaping upon these people is entirely justified.
There was one other part of Kerby's talk worth commenting on. He showed a clip of a study that was done in which small children were shown pictures of various famous people and were asked if they recognized them. Nearly all of the children recognized Ronald McDonald, and Wendy (as in the Wendy's chain of fast-food restaurants), some even knew George Washington.
Then they were shown one more picture. The scene was shot in a way so that we could not see who the picture was of. One child after another shrugged his shoulders. One finally guessed George W. Bush. The experimenter told him that was a good guess, but not correct. (!!)
Have you guessed yet who was in the picture? It was Jesus! Surprise! The audience was stunned. Shocked. Dismayed. There were gasps and groans aplenty.
For Kerby and the others in the audience there was little doubt that the frequent, casual references to evolution and “millions of years” were part of an orchestrated plot to make evolutionary thinking acceptable by making it so familiar. Kerby encouraged the audience to take advantage of these teachable moments to make sure their kids were sensitive to these attacks on their faith.
Incidentally, for another creationist presentation about evolution and Hollywood, see my description of Jack Cashill's talk from an ID conference I attended a while back
After the not obviously insane talk about the Big Bang, it was nice to get back to creationism as I know it. I left the classroom in a pretty good mood, took another browse through the bookstore, and then headed back to my hotel. The evening line-up was “Distant Starlight: Not a Problem for a Young Earth, the aforemtioned talk about our created moon, and Image of God or Planet of the Apes? I managed to find better entertainment for the evening (as I recall, HBO had a Jeff Speakman movie on that night.)
Wednesday, July 20. Morning.
The morning devotional was given by Charles Ware. It was a standard revival meeting sermon about how he came to know the Lord. Familiar stuff, though offred with enough enthusiasm to make you forget it was eight in the morning.
But the real action for the morning, and the reason I didn't return to Harrisonburg on Tuesday night, was the talk given by Georgia Purdom: The Intelligent Design Movement; How Intelligent is it? Dr. Purdom was one of only two women speaking at the conference. She was the only woman to give a science-based talk.
I almost fell out of my seat when she opened her talk by observing that in the war for the truth about origins, they are winning on the science but losing the propaganda battle. Ahem. The real situation is exactly the reverse.
Her exposure to the ID movement came from reading Behe's Darwin's Black Box. She was concerned that ID did not lead people to Christ. God said He created in six days and that was good enough for her. She realized that the evolution/creation battle was all about our presuppositions - do you look at the world through the Bible or through man's theories. Everything in the Bible dovetails nicely into one consistent account.
She then argued that ID poses grave problems for Christians. She showed the Discovery Institute's definition of ID:
The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection.
Only certain features? Please. And who's the designer?
From here she discussed some history. She began with the natural theology of the eighteenth and nineteeneth century. She discussed Paley, and pointed out the natural theologians were arguing that we could have knowledge of God apart from the Bible. It was a response to the “higher criticism” of the Bible that became popular during the late 1700's. She argued that while God is certainly revealed through his works, special revelation was more important than the study of nature.
Then she jumped to the 1970's and the current ID movement. She mentioned Charles Thaxton, Phillip Johnson and Michael Denton. Oddly, she made no mention of the hostile court decisions that plagued the YEC's during this time period.
After this she launched into a description of ID reasoning, and that's where things started getting weird. She described “Irreducible complexity&rdquo and “Specified complexity” as two different terms for the same thing. They are not, though Dembski does make a point of describing irreducible complexity as a special case of specified complexity. In reality the only connection between them is that both are worthless notions.
She described the mousetrap analogy. She fretted that the analogy was too simplistic and that people on my side of this have a good time tearing it apart. Her feeling is that we can have the mousetrp, but actual biological systems - like the blood clotting cascade - are vastly more complex.
She was really impressed with blood clotting, and gushed about how a system lacking any of the relevant clotting factors will not function. There's no simpler system for clotting blood, she mused. I'm sure that will come as news to the lobsters residing at the local fish store. In fact, she never got around to mentioning that, as described by Ken Miller and others, the evolution of the blood clotting cascade is not that hard to understand.
At this point she launched into an exlplanation of Dembski's explanatory filter, and rattled off the usual examples about SETI, archaeology, and forensic science. She gave a bizarre example about a student who fails every one of her midterm exams but then aces the final. Apparently this would trigger the inference that the student had cheated in some way.
I had to laugh. You see, I did precisely that in a freshman economics class I took in college. I failed the first exam because I had been goofing off in the first part of the semester. I started studying at that point, but failed the second midterm on account of the fact that I deluded myself into thinking I actually understood what was going on. At that point I hunkered down for a full month of real studying, and pulled off an A on the final. Yay me! (Still got a C in the class, though).
Then she talked about the example from the movie Contact. Recall that this was the one where a team of astronomers receive a message from space in which the prime numbers have been encoded. As a mathematician I had to laugh when she said, “These were the primes! It wasn't just evens and odds, it was a particular set!” Ugh. The evens and odds are particular sets, my dear.
She went on in this vein a little longer before coming to the problems with ID. She argued that natural theology backfired, because it led to deism. By divorcing the creator from the creation, they lulled people into thinking that it was enough just to acknowledge the designer, rather than believe specific things about His atttributes. ID is the same as natural theology in this sense. She is concerned that with the ID people saying over and over again that their ideas do not lead to any specific view of the creator, it becomes more difficult for Christians to spread the Gospel. The public will feel deceived if they are told on the one hand that science points to a nebulous designer, but on the other that they have to accept Christianity.
It was at this point that she said the single most insightful thing I heard at the entire conference. She argued that another problem with ID is that it provides no account of dysteleology. She pointed to pathogenic microbes, carniverous animals, and viruses. She said that ID makes God Himself, and not man's sin, the author of evil.
Yes, YES a thousand times YES!!! That's exactly right. I've made precisely that point many times at my blog. Once you have God intervening in the world to tinker with his design to bring good things, like blood clotting cascades and immune systems, into being, then he is also responsible for all the bad things. It's inescapable. The YEC's can get around this point by blaming human sin. They're perfectly happy to cite scripture in defense of their views. But the ID folks are running around pretending to be scientists. The second they talk about natural history being influenced by human sin is the day they blow their cover. But this leaves them with no effective answer at all. Usually they just argue lamely that what we perceive as bad design might actually have some hidden purpose. Sorry guys. No one's buying that.
But there was something else weird about this. Note the use of “carniverous animals” as an example of evil. Ken Ham had said the same thing in a previous talk. In discussing what happened as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, he said that before the fall all animals were vegetarians.
I find this mystifying. These are precisely the sort of right-wing nits who usually ridicule vegetarians for their beliefs. But apparently vegetarianism was part of God's plan from the start. Whatever.
The final problem with ID is that it emphasizes God as creator but says nothing about God as redeemer. She closed with a quote from William Dembski to the effect that while ID may be scientifically unobjectionable, whether it is theologically unobjectionable was a spearate issue.
So what is the solution to the problems with ID that she has identified? Take a wild guess.
And then she uttered the line that I mentioned back in the first installment in this series. “God said it, that settles it.”
Epilogue
I wanted to hang around to ask Ms. Purdom some questions, but I had to scamper if I was going to make it back to the Sleep Inn in time for the 11:00 check-out.
I returned to my room, gathered up my things and went down to the desk. The person behind the counter somehow discerned that I was part of the conference and asked how things went. I muttered that it had been interesting as I signed the credit card slip.
Then he said that apparently the organizers were very disappointed with the turn-out, and that they had been expecting more than 3000 people. He asked me if I had heard anything about how many people were there.
I replied that Mr. Falwell (I heard myself call him that, but I still can't quite believe I actually said it) had claimed 2000 people at the start of the conference. (I notice that the conference blog has revised that figure down to 1800.)
Then he said that there were plans for a Super Creation Conference in October, to try to attract more people.
“Is a Super conference bigger than a Mega conference?” I snarked.
We both laughed.
85 Comments
C.J.O'Brien · 29 July 2005
Thanks so much for these reports, and I hope your return to the reality-based community doesn't cause a bout of reverse-culture-shock. ;)
Bill Ware · 29 July 2005
Jason,
Motto: Per aburrita, ad astra.
Thanks again for your attending the conference and your excellent posts.
steve · 29 July 2005
Good work. I'm sure you must've felt like you were in some bizarro world.
steve · 29 July 2005
Scott Simmons · 29 July 2005
Yep. When a physicist says 'light', she generally means 'electromagnetic radiation', from gamma rays to radio waves.
What I really want to know is, where did Kerby get an actual picture of Jesus? :-)
Philip Brooks · 29 July 2005
Coragyps · 29 July 2005
I'll bet that Kerby got his (autographed!) picture of Jesus from Wolfman Jack back when he was hawking them on XEG, Del Rio, Texas! Fifty zillion watts of rock'n'roll three hours a day, and fifty zillion watts of evangelists the other twenty-one!
That really is quite bizarre, asking kids to ID a picture of JC. I wonder if they used a blonde, blue-eyed pic?
Jason - thanks for the reports.
Timothy Scriven · 29 July 2005
Possibly the reason the big bang talk wasn't nonsense was because there is a real case to be made against the big bang, new scientist recently had a balanced issue presenting both sides of the debate it was called "The end of the begining." But it should be noted that rejection of Big Bang cosmology in no way implies creationism.
steve · 29 July 2005
Frito · 29 July 2005
Thanks for the report. I haven't had a biology class since my freshman year in college, but even as a fried law student I understand that the concepts these people think rattles the very foundations of science are based on logical falacies. And if they showed a real picture of Jesus every christian in this country would have no idea who it was, and would likely think he was aa Arab terrorist.
Jaime Headden · 29 July 2005
It would be interesting to note that while Ms. Purdon's perspective of Ice Age was poor due to the reference in the ice cave about progressive succession of form (and ignoring living antecedent survival as Jason notes), she ignores that given the biology of the mammals included in the opening sequence, few are actually found in the same area or the same time, spanning the the Miocene through to the Pleistocene, with North American, South American, and even some Indian Ocean animals (dodos) which were picked for being general mammalian prehistoric humor magnets. The armadillos, which were actually rather bulky and huge relatives called glyptodonts, are especially note worthy in that fossils of them do also show a succession of rounder and heavier "chain-mail" armor, fusion of the armor to the pelvis, a shorter and probably trunk-bearing snout, hoof-like feet instead of claws, and a "mace-tail" instead of the armadillo-like tail wrapped in simple ossicles. Noting special reference in a cartoon as an accurate portrayal of evolutionary thinking when someone is trying to make a joke (flying glyptodonts) makes for good laughs and audience fun, not indoctrination. While it's fun to hear a creationist mock ID, she's making mostly the wrong arguments, since the crap that comes from ID is not scientific reasoning, but objections to the core, making only one predictive statement that cannot be directly tested: "God did it."
steve · 29 July 2005
If they're willing to answer the contrary evidence of starlight from billions of light-years away by saying it was just fabricated such as to imply erroneous age, why do they bother coming up with any more complicated argument for anything? Why come up with any other arguments at all?
"Starlight says billions of years."
"Made to look that way"
"Transitional fossils suggest evolution"
"Made to look that way"
"isotopes suggest the earth's old."
"Made to look that way"
"genetic similarities suggest common descent."
"Made to look that way"
If it works for starlight, why not use it everywhere?
steve · 29 July 2005
Perhaps next year a bunch of biologists will go, and afterwards publish a comprehensive book "Errors at the 2006 Creation Mega Conference"
steve · 29 July 2005
steve · 29 July 2005
darwinfinch · 29 July 2005
>"God said it, that settles it."
>>More like"A book says it, I refuse to question it, that settles it."
I'm sure she feels much safer with her head in the sand. A pity to abuse those poor texts so horribly, though.
Jon A. Pastor · 29 July 2005
Re the "Because they show all four of those animals existing at the same time. That's not evolution!" comment: I guess Mr. Kerby has never seen a chimpanzee...?
DEQ · 29 July 2005
Gary Hurd · 29 July 2005
Gary Hurd · 29 July 2005
Sorry, I have to note my massive doubt regarding the existance of a "magnificent fajita burrito" anywhere east of the Mississippy River. (Technically, I doubt any real™, good© Mexican food northerly of a line from San Francisco to Houston. (Err, maybe Seattle to New Orleans. Well, any place you don't actually need to order in Spanish).
Grammer errors now and forever are forgiven.
U.T. Raptor · 29 July 2005
Air Bear · 30 July 2005
euan · 30 July 2005
I'm no expert, but quasars don't show matter being created, instead they happen when stars and matter are pulled into the supermassive black hole at the core of a galaxy. The infalling material is pulled apart by tides, heated up by friction and some is spun out again as two jets on opposite sides of the black hole. A quasar is seen when one jet is more or less aimed straight towards the Earth. Here's a piccie.
Mike · 30 July 2005
Jason, I had a similar experience in my Economics class, only I aced the two midterms and then got cocky (read that: lazy and/or pulled by hormones towards other interests) and bombed the final. to my chagrin, wound up with a C. not sure what this proves, other than a certain erratic behavior of undergrads.
Mike
PS: if you were at Cal in the early 1980s, then I suppose I should say you are welcome for that nudge up the class curve I gave you....
Engineer-Poet, FCD · 30 July 2005
SEF · 30 July 2005
SEF · 30 July 2005
JK · 30 July 2005
Pierce R. Butler · 30 July 2005
Bayesian Bouffant, FCD · 30 July 2005
steve · 30 July 2005
I would suppose, though, that if god were trying to persuade the locals, he would have made jesus look like one of them. Just maybe a little taller and more handsome. However, when I look at the Crazy Street Preacher demographic of today, there's not much overlap with the handsome and taller segment of society, so maybe he wasn't.
anyway, AFAIK, there's not even conclusive proof the historical jesus existed.
Apesnake · 30 July 2005
Bruce Thompson GQ · 30 July 2005
Jason
Those of us at Delta Pi Gamma (the infamous Darwinian Pressure Group) would like to express our appreciation for your endurance during the past week. Enduring mind warping reverse logic must have been stressful. You never mentioned beer in your posts and we can only assume you were deprived of this life sustaining nourishment during your stay, perhaps the University is in a dry county? I'm sure that would be country if some had their way.
We were distressed that we could not send a representative with a supply to encourage you during your long vigil. Although we suspect that the presence of the PT cruiser with its double helix and keg would have drawn undue attention.
BTW - Brothers Harold and Bill. As originators of this idea there needs to be a meeting. Others such as yellow fatty bean and Ediacaran have contributed. I suggest the bathroom.
Scientia et Fermentum.
Von Smith · 30 July 2005
DrJohn · 30 July 2005
Jason,
Thanks very much for this. I would suggest setting these aside as one collection somewhere for the sake of history. You might even consider a mailing to Falwell?
On the issue of evil, it is obvious to any person who can think that if a diety created everything, that had to include evil. Yes, Christians have a starry-eyed view of their god, and can't grasp even that simple inclusiveness issue, or at least argue vehemently against it. They even deny what Is 45:7 actually says in plain Hebrew! (Yes, I had Hebrew knowledgeable folk look at it, and myself saw that the word here is the same as part of the conjoined word for good and evil referring to that nasty tree in Genesis.)
From my MultiBible database:
King James Version
45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
Douay-Rehims
IS 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things.
Latin Vulgate
IS 45:7 formans lucem et creans tenebras faciens pacem et creans malum ego Dominus faciens omnia haec
Jewish Publication Society 1917 OT
IS 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.
So, this is an easy one to throw back at them if you want to see fancy handwaving. It is not in any way metaphorical. It is plainly the creation of evil. (The NIV, btw, is a crap translation and should be trashed.)
Of course you might want to have them explain what Ez 23:20 is all about to their kids. Can't be bad and must be important, since it is in the Holy Tome. (I wonder how a prosecution for distribution of pornography would go if the distribution was based on what is in the bible?)
Hyperion · 30 July 2005
Pierce R. Butler · 30 July 2005
Geral Corasjo · 30 July 2005
Certain puts it in perspective, alot different than the old sunday school pictures. He looks more 'roughed' out, not perfect skinned in the pictures. Darker, more arabic looking definitely instead of a white like he's more portrayed. Certainly would be a small man, we'd dwarf over him... humans were pretty short by todays standard even a few hundred, thousand years ago.
BC · 30 July 2005
There was a popular rumor in ancient times that Jesus was, instead, fathered by a Roman soldier named Panthera who, it was claimed, had raped Mary. (Which would neatly explain the whole "Mary was pregnant before Joseph slept with her" thing -- assuming that was true.) So, maybe Jesus actually looked Jewish and Roman.
In any case, the New Testament writers claimed that Mary was a virgin and said that it was prophecied in the Old Testament that Jesus would be born of a virgin. The problem is this: the Old Testament never says the messiah would be born of a virgin. However, the contemporary Greek translation of the Old Testament had inaccurately translated a verse which made it sound like the Messiah would be born of a virgin. So, the question, of course is this: did New Testament authors create the story of the virgin birth in order to match the erroneous translation of the Old Testament? Further, what's the point of the virgin birth at all? There is really no reason for the messiah to be born of a virgin except to reinforce perception of his supposed divine origin. Certainly no other important Biblical figures were born of a virgin, so what's the point?
Dan Phelps · 30 July 2005
There is a good photo of JC at this site:
http://bettybowers.com/fbi.html
ts · 30 July 2005
ts · 30 July 2005
Ok, I missed that you said "given the context of the story, which I personally don't believe". Ah, but the context of the story isn't given. The question Popular Mechanics addressed was, "If Jesus existed, what might he have looked like (using standard techniques of methodological naturalism)", not "If the bible is literally true and God can do anything at all and even the internal biblical evidence of the bible such as Judas's kiss and no mention of Jesus looking radically different from his neighbors can't be considered, what might Jesus have looked like?"
Steviepinhead · 30 July 2005
Everyone is able to speak for his or herself around here (some better than others, admittedly...huh, Peachy?), so I won't bother to speak for Bayes.
But it has appeared to me, on just one or two occasions, that "we" are not ALWAYS being perfectly serious when "we" say things. Perfectly sincere, maybe, but not always perfectly serious.
At times, once in a while, we all are just having fun!
snaxalotl · 30 July 2005
"what's the point of the virgin birth at all?"
In that era, nobody was anybody in the pantheon of magical characters unless they were born of a virgin - it would be the equivalent of all superheroes wearing lycra tights now.
It's impossible to tell whether the Isaiah "prophecy" contributed to the virgin birth attribute, but needless to say people were just as keen then as they are now to find obscure vaguely worded scripture which would look eerily prescient to the gullible. It's worth noting that, even in the greek version (septuagint), reading the entire chapter rather than the isolated verse makes it incredibly obvious the passage is not a jesus prophecy.
Zim · 30 July 2005
Henry J · 30 July 2005
Re "Then he suggested that no one has any idea how stars and glaxies form, "
Funny, I had the idea that lots of people had the idea that gravity had something to do with it.
Re "shows like Gilligan's Island and the Flintstones tha depict humans and dinosaurs living simultaneously."
I don't recall Gilligan's island having dinosaurs, or at least not as regulars on the show. Maybe one episode out of the entire series? Also I've no clue why an "evolutionist" would "hate" the Flintstones. It's a cartoon, for Pete's sake - may as well hate the Road Runner because it depicts road runners as herbivorous when they're not (I gather they'd much rather have a nice juicy lizard or snake than a pile of seeds).
Re ""If humans evolved from apes, why do we still have apes?"
Why stop there? Why are there other primates? Other mammals? Other terrestrial vertebrates? Other any vertebrates? For that matter, other animals? Where does one draw the "line"? (Don't mind me; I'm short on sleep today.)
Henry
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 30 July 2005
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 30 July 2005
Let's see, there was also:
Mel Brooks "History of the World Part 1" -- the dino eats the comedian in the beginning of the movie.
The movie "One Million Years BC" --- lots of dinos (iguanas with glued-on fins) and cavemen. An awful movie, though Raquel Welch looked awfully good back then in a small bit of fur.
Ben M · 30 July 2005
Paul Flocken · 30 July 2005
speck · 30 July 2005
Although it's a Disney flick, what about "Pete's Dragon"?
Do creationists favor appendectomys over circumcision? (Vestigial organs are evil.)
Henry J · 30 July 2005
Re "It was the episode where Gilligan dreams that he's a caveman,"
A dream sequence? Why would an evilutionist be upset by that? A dream sequence can have anything in it. :rolls eyes:
Henry
Marcus Good · 30 July 2005
"The movie "One Million Years BC" --- lots of dinos (iguanas with glued-on fins) and cavemen. An awful movie, though Raquel Welch looked awfully good back then in a small bit of fur."
IIRC, the lizards-with-prosthetics are from "One Million Years"; "One Million Years BC" was the remake with Welch, that featured special effects by Ray Harryhausen.
FWIW.
steve · 31 July 2005
1 Possibly the greatest movie in the world, if you haven't seen it2
2 ah, the Biscuit Conditional.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 31 July 2005
Peter Henderson · 31 July 2005
Jason:You have done a wonderful job and something that Richard Dawkins failed to do:stump some Young Earth Creationists ! By the way I have seen From a frog to a prince (minister on Dawkins silince:"wait untill you see this bit").
In the talk about the big bang in trouble I would also have mentioned standard candles (such as cepheid variable stars and type 1a supernovas) which are used to measure distances for objects outside our own galaxy. Supernova SN 1987A in particular is interesting because even if creationists use the old arguement that the speed of light is slowing down this makes their position worse and actually shows it to be further away than 160,000 light years.I would have hammered on at this.By the way there's a very good article in the talkorigins archive on this subject.It is "determaining distances to astronomical objects" and I think it's around the Oct. 2003 section.
I agree with your earlier comment on phd students attending creationist talks. I don't think the main scientific community has a clue as to what is going on in the church with regard to creationism.I know people like Richard Dawkins refuse to debate them but you have shown that if it is done in the right way it does work.The very fact that these people have persuaded over 50% of Americans that the Earth is no more than 6,000 years old should set alarm bells ringing ! Even in this country Ken Ham can fill churches and pack halls with scientific arguements that were thrown out several hundred years ago. The fact that he has convinced so many people puzzles me.
I also agree with Lenny that the mainstreem churches should take a stand .I have asked my own church(The Presbyterian Church In Ireland) what their position is on creation is.I was told that as long as I believed that God created the heavens and the Earth how and when he did was for me to decide.So this means I can be anything from a flat earther to a theistic evolutionist ! This is a position that AIG and co. totally disagree with.
Since they are intent on turning science back 200 years what really worries me is what happens when we get to medical science.Should we throw out all the doctors and surgeons and employ Benny Hinn (another recent visitor to Belfast) instead ?
Peter Henderson · 31 July 2005
I also saw 1 million years BC at a local cinema. I was a bit younger than Lenny at the time (8) and I remember that I coudn't figure out why everyone cheered when Raquel Welch came on screen !
Douglass · 31 July 2005
Jason,
Thanks for your summary. It was the highlight of my morning reading.
Regarding the Big Bang:
If memory serves, this isn't the first time we've seen "Hubble Bubble Big Bang In Trouble". AIG posted an article with the same title years ago, only then the issue was that we had measurements of stars that were older than the universe. That problem was resolved shortly after it arose. It's dishonest to give a talk like this without reporting the history. At a real conference, any of us would be laughed off the stage if we didn't.
I would argue that the Big Bang theory has at least reached the status of Newton's Laws. The "final" answer will almost certainly incorporate much of the Big Bang, one way or another. In fact, the basic idea has held up great thus far. The deepest problem is that we are missing the physics at the highest energy scales.
Pierce R. Butler · 31 July 2005
M. · 31 July 2005
Gary, the idea that you can't find good Mexican food east of the Mississippi is simply wrong. You may have to look harder in some parts of the midwest and the east, but believe me, it is there.
For instance, I live in Wisconsin. Both Madison and Milwaukee have reasonably large Hispanic populations and good Mexican restaurants, comparable to restaurants I've eaten in in the southwest and in Mexico. Little Latin grocery stores keep popping up around here.
ts · 31 July 2005
ts · 31 July 2005
EoRaptor · 31 July 2005
Arden Chatfield · 31 July 2005
ts · 31 July 2005
Steve Reuland · 1 August 2005
Steve Reuland · 1 August 2005
Steve Reuland · 1 August 2005
Morris Hattrick · 1 August 2005
frank schmidt · 1 August 2005
SEF · 1 August 2005
Ben M · 1 August 2005
steve · 1 August 2005
SteveF · 1 August 2005
Planet Fresh in Santa Cruz for top notch urrito's. I can assure one and all that there are no good burrito's whatsoever here in London. Those who live east of the Mississippi should consider themselves relatively lucky when compared to the good burrito desert that is the UK.
Oh and, er, creationists suck.
ts · 1 August 2005
geogeek · 1 August 2005
"Anyway, the part of the Big Bang they don't like is the implication that it happened billions of years ago."
I have, for the first time in my (relatively brief) 4-year teaching career, just had office hours in which a student told me that she is becoming convinced of deep time! After being raised in a religiously conservative household and being married to an adamant creationist, she is seeing new information in a new light. I did it (well, she did it) all with sedimentary rocks, and we haven't even gotten to radiometric dating yet! We had a long conversation about the fact that many people respond to set statements about controversial issues with the emotion they were trained to feel in response, and that a questioning mind, in science and in other areas, looks past the trained response and asks about the content of the statements, ask for definitions of meaning, and works to understand the meaning logically. Interestingly, she's also taking an English Comp. class where the students read an essay by Marx (that's Karl, not Groucho), and she was shocked -- shocked! -- to find that it was about people and their economic situations, not about the Secret Police and mind control.
So there's a counter-wave to the religious reactionaries, and education can work. I wonder if she's the adult equivalent of the boy from Jason's post of day Three or Four...
snaxalotl · 1 August 2005
Aaron · 2 August 2005
"In another strange moment, the flatness of the universe was offered up as a refutation of the inflating balloon model of the universe."
I'm impressed!!! The "flatness problem" is indeed one of the major reasons that *inflation* is now a cornerstone of modern cosmology (http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/cosmology/inflation.html). Inflation is an extension of the original Big Bang model; it says that rather than expanding smoothly, the universe experienced a short period of incredibly rapid expansion a few moments after the bang, and then slowed down to the rate of expansion we see today. The SNAP mission should help us figure out more about how this rapid expansion happened (http://snap.lbl.gov/). Inflation is a very promising model because it not only explains why the universe is "flat," but answers a host of other questions, including why the universe seems to be at a fairly uniform temperature, and why nobody has ever seen a magnetic monopole.
"At this point he returned to the Big Bang and suggested that the apparent absence of anti-matter in our universe is a strike aganist standard Big Bang cosmology."
Quite right! Our current models have a hard time explaining why the universe is made of mostly matter, which is why the search for matter/antimatter asymmetries is on the cutting edge of modern physics. For example, the IMB experiment (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jcv/imb/imbp3.html) is currently searching for evidence of proton decay, which is related to matter/antimatter asymmetry in a way I confess I don't really understand. :)
"Then he suggested that no one has any idea how stars and glaxies form, suggesting that this was another defect in the theory."
Right again! It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that "no one has any idea," but star and planet formation is a very hot field in astrophysics, especially now that we've begun to detect planets outside the solar system. There was a very interesting article in Nature News recently! (http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050711/full/050711-6.html)
In conclusion, the speaker's problem is simply one of attitude. Where he sees answers in Genesis, cosmologists and astrophysicists see exciting, promising, cutting-edge research.
Aaron · 2 August 2005
Oops! I wouldn't have talked so much if I'd known there was a REAL physicist around here! Maybe Ben M can explain why proton decay is related to matter/antimatter asymmetry, and correct some of the vapid misunderstandings and gross oversimplifications in my post. :)
"In a nutshell: there's a single 3x3 matrix, the CKM matrix, which describes how the 6 quark flavors interact, and another matrix (the MSW matrix) for the leptons and neutrinos."
Ooooh... pretty! How come Brian Greene never explains it like that? You ought to steal his job.
"CP violation means, simply, that the matrices contain complex numbers as well as real numbers."
What would CPT violation do?
GCT · 2 August 2005
Jason, (or anyone else who is interested,) AiG has seen fit to post an article about your blog series. It can be found here.
SteveF · 2 August 2005
In addition, someone has posted on this thread too:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2005/07/report_on_the_2_3.html#comments
JK · 2 August 2005
Zim · 2 August 2005
Aaron, JK - Since in physics nothing is sacred, not even CPT conservation, there's been a fair amount of work done looking into the conditions required for CPT violation. I found this pdf today during a quiet moment at work. It's fairly mathematical, as you might expect, and shows a number of ways in which CPT might be violated.
Ben M - Thanks for the "Sakharov conditions". I was wondering about baryogenesis, as kaons obviously don't cut it, just after I posted, and took thermal disequilibrium more or less as read. Heh. It's a pity we can't get to the 10^14 GeV level directly, never mind 10^19, but it looks like there are some promising lines of enquiry, for the former at least.
'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 2 August 2005
Henry J · 2 August 2005
Re #40990,
ROFL ROFL ROFL
Henry