Conservapedia on Creation Science

Conservapedia on Creation Science! Woot!


Creation science

Creation science is science free from atheist and evolutionist bias, which shows that supernatural creation of the material universe by God is consistent and compatible with scientific evidence.

That's an encyclopedic definition?!?

So if we had a scientific theory that was free of "evolutionist bias", showed the universe was made by God in a supernatural event, but had "atheist bias", that isn't creation science, right?

How about we have "atheist bias" and "evolutionist bias" but the universe was created by some competing god down the street? Would that be creation science?

And lest we forget, here is the list of the creaionist theories that are free of "atheist and evolutionist bias", show God to have created the universe, and are compatible with all scientific evidence:

None.

Yep! That's right! Throw in the "all" clause - meaning that the theory has to meet all evidence, not just a few pieces here and there and the entire subject washes away with the tide.

Most advocates of creation science believe the earth is approximately 6,000 years old

This isn't even true if we just talk about creation scientists. It's only the bible literalists that hold to the Y6K motif like a drowning man clutches to a life preserver.

In addition, scientists in the discipline of creation science state that the first law of thermodynamics and second law of thermodynamics argue against an eternal universe.

That would be the same ones that state the Earth is 6,000 years old.

They also claim that these laws point to the universe being created by God.

Great hypothesis! Too bad it failed the testing protocols. Bummer.

Creation scientists also assert that naturalistic processes alone cannot account for the origin of life and that the theory of evolution cannot account for the various kinds of animals and plants.

Can I be a creation scientist, too? Making stuff up and just stating it or asserting it sounds way easier than what real scientists do!

Both evolutionary scientists and young earth creation scientists believe that speciation occurs;

So they don't just state that speciation occurs? How quaint!

however, young earth creation scientists state that speciation generally occurs at a much faster rate than evolutionists believe is the case. Many scientists in the field of creation science, such as the scientists at Creation Ministries International and Answers in Genesis, assert that the Bible contains an understanding of scientific knowledge beyond that believed to exist at the time the Bible was composed.

Ah, back to the assertions. And here I thought we were moving forward!

In addition, Christianity profoundly influenced the development of modern science.

For example, torturing Galileo did, in fact, have a profound influence on him.


Creation Science and Genetic Programs and Biological Information

Scientists in the area of creation science and intelligent design advocates state the genetic code, genetic programs, and biological information argue for an intelligent cause in regards to the origins question.

Broken record time, here, but really just stating stuff isn't science any more than holding your hand over the bible is theology.

Dr. Werner Gitt, former director and Professor of Information Systems at the prestigious German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt), wrote that human beings are the most complex information processing systems on earth. Dr. Gitt estimated that the human body processes thousands of times more information than all the world's libraries contain.

This part might be true. We'd need to see his evidence, but the fact is the human brain is an amazing information processing organ.

Dr. Gitt has written several points regarding the origin of biological information:

It's story time!

1. In his work In the Beginning Was Information Dr. Gitt stated that “There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.”

He might want to read Dawkins, sometime. He has a book or two on this subject. I'm sure it's just an oversight on Dr. Gitt's part to not know of a 159 year old theory.

2. Dr. Gitt argued that the density and complexity of DNA information is millions of times larger than mankind's current technology

Might be true!

and this means a supremely intelligent being was the author of this information

Completely false!

What it really means is that there has to be some mechanism to create this complexity. It's completely false to say that only a god could do that, especially since there are other alternatives.

Similarly, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer in his 1996 essay The Origin of Life and the Death of Materialism, wrote that "the information storage density of DNA, thanks in part to nucleosome spooling, is several trillion times that of our most advanced computer chips.

We're amazingly complex, yep!

3. Gitt stated that the author of the information encoded into the DNA molecule, who constructed the molecular biomachines to encode, decode and run the cells was supremely intelligent.

So another axiom that we either believe or don't. Here a hint, scientists, the ones that actually follow the scientific method and test their theories and other weird stuff that you haven't heard of - like independent reviews - don't believe this axiom. They've even come up with other ways that this could happen. And then tested those ways and found that they work!

Isn't real science fun?!? Yeah!

4. Dr. Gitt asserted that because information is a nonmaterial entity and does not originate from matter, the author of biological information must be nonmaterial (spirit).

And is spooky!

Dr. Walt Brown concurs in regards to the supernatural origin of biological information and states that the genetic material that controls the biological processes of life is coded information and that human experience tells us that codes are created only by the result of intelligence and not merely by processes of nature.

Evidence! *whistles like whistling for a dog* Where are you evidence! Come on over, Evidence! Show yourself...someday!

Dr. Brown also asserts that the "information stored in the genetic material of all life is a complex program. Therefore, it appears that an unfathomable intelligence created these genetic programs."

Appears? Perhaps. Did? No.

It really doesn't matter how many times you state or assert something. Until you show evidence of that something you've got nothing more than a bunch of unsupported hopes and wishes.

To support his creation science view regarding the divine origin of genetic programs,

Look, ma! They might get around to showing us some evidence!

Dr. Walt Brown cites the work of David Abel and Professor Jack Trevors who wrote the following:
“No matter how many "bits" of possible combinations it has, there is no reason to call it "information" if it doesn't at least have the potential of producing something useful. What kind of information produces function? In computer science, we call it a "program." Another name for computer software is an "algorithm." No man-made program comes close to the technical brilliance of even Mycoplasmal genetic algorithms. Mycoplasmas are the simplest known organism with the smallest known genome, to date. How was its genome and other living organisms' genomes programmed? - David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors, “Three Subsets of Sequence Complexity and Their Relevance to Biopolymeric Information,” Theoretical Biology & Medical Modelling, Vol. 2, 11 August 2005, page 8"
Creation Science and the Evolutionary Science Community

Nope. No evidence here. Just an unanswered question. Bummer!

Creation science is not accepted by most scientists either in terms of its claims or as a science, on the pretext that it cannot be disproved and therefore cannot be considered "science".

Yep, that's really, really important.

However, Dr. Walt Brown argues that the field of creation science is scientific.

Okay! State your evidence of this.

Also, creation scientists state the evolutionists' objections to creation science are due to the worldviews and preconceptions of the scientists, rather than on the basis of scientific evidence or the scientific validity of the idea.

Oh, of course. You're not going to give any evidence. How silly of me!

Also, Karl Popper, a leading philosopher of science and originator of falsifiability as a criterion of demarcation of science from nonscience, stated that Darwinism is "not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme." Michael Ruse, a leading Darwinist and philosopher of science, conditionally acknowledged Popper's statement: "Since making this claim, Popper himself has modified his position somewhat; but, disclaimers aside, I suspect that even now he does not really believe that Darwinism in its modern form is genuinely falsifiable."

Here's another quote from Karl Popper: “I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation”. You see, Karl found out that he was wrong and so, like a good scientific mind, when he was presented with new data, he changed his mind.

Although a belief in God does not automatically imply a belief in creation science, it is interesting to note that a poll among United States scientists showed that approximately 40% of scientists believed there is a God, while a similar survey found that 93% of members of the United States National Academy of Sciences do not believe there is a God.

And thank you, Conservapedia, for staying on topic!

Be careful out there

Let me take a quick break from the normal religious inanities to another way that religion gets used - this time against the faithful. The following chain letter appeared in my mailbox the other day.


DONATION FOR THE LORD
From: Mrs. Monica Tema


PLEASE ENDEAVOUR TO USE IT FOR THE CHILDREN OF GOD.

The only place anyone can get my email address is from my blog, my writings in other forums, and from someone who has seen either of the two. I think it's really safe to say that I am not in the set of "Children of God"!

I am the above name person from Sierra-Leone.

Sure you are.

I am married to Dr Ebenezer Tema who worked with Sierra Leonian Embassy in South Africa for nine years before he died in the year 2001.

Right. Uh huh.

We were married for eleven years without a child.

Aww...that would be sad if it were true.

He died after a brief illness that lasted for only four days. Before his death we were both born again Christians and we lived happilly. Since his death, I decided not to re-marry.

When my late husband was alive he secured $15Million (Fifteen Million U.S. Dollars) with financial institution here in Cote D'Ivoire. Presently, this money is still with the financial institution.

I suggest investing. Even a simple CD at 2% would produce a $300,000 income for you on $15,000,000. That's more than enough for anyone to live comfortably.

Recently, my Doctor told me that from all the test conducted on my health, I am not going to last long, expecially, due to my cancer and stroke. But what disturbs me most now is stroke.

Quick death worries you more than slow, painful, lingering death? Okay. I'd choose differently, but that's me.

Having known my condition, I decided to donate this fund to churches or Christian individual that will utilize this money the way I am going to instruct. I want a church or individual that will use this money to fund churches, Orphanages and Widows. Also, the propagation of the work of God, building and maintaining the house of God through this money, is very important.

That would be why you sent this offer to a man who publishes commentary every day about how insane religions are. Got it!

The Bible made us to understand that Blessed is the hand that giveth. I took this decision because I don't have any child that will inherit this money and my husband relatives are not Christians.

Quick hint, because I'm sure that my previous writings haven't been clear on this point: I'm not a christian either.

I don't want my husband's hard earned money to be misused by unbelievers, for their own selfish interest and in an ungodly manner.

So you mailed me for what reason again?

I am not afraid of death hence I know where I am going. I know that I am going to be in the bossom of the Lord. Exodus 14 VS 14 says that the lord will fight my case and I shall hold my peace.

Awwww, that would be so sweet again...if it were true.

I don't need any telephone communication in this regard because of my health,

Now we get down to the brass tax of the scam. Don't call, because that would require a sick woman to talk on the phone. Every scam has ways of keeping the mark in a box and not checking the facts for himself. This is one.

and because of the presence of my husband's relatives around me sometimes. I don't want them to know about this development, but I know that With God all things are possible.

As soon as I receive your reply I shall give you the contact of the Financial institution in Ivory coast. I will also give you all information regarding the deposit of this money. I will also issue you a letter of authority that will empower you as the original- beneficiary of this fund.

And there won't be and delays, red tape, or issues to overcome! Honest!

Well, as honest as the rest of this tripe.

I want you and your church to always pray for me because God work in misterious ways. My happiness is that I lived a life of a worthy Christian. Who ever that wants to serve the Lord must serve him in spirit and truth. Please always be prayerful all through your life.

Any delay in your reply will give me room in sourcing for a church or christian individual for this same purpose. Please assure me that you will act accordingly as I stated herein. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Remain blessed in the name of the Lord.

Yours in Christ,
Mrs Monica Tema

I spend an inordinate amount of time laughing and poking fun at religious people, but for this moment I'm on your side, religious folks.

The above scam is directly preying on your religious beliefs. They are targeting you with flowery words of praise and religious homage. But the bottom line is that they'll want to either have you pay "fees to get past a bit of red tape" or access to your bank account so it can be the final destination of their check kiting scheme and you're stuck with the final bill.

Never, ever respond to these evil scumbags. Remember, they sent this garbage to me. My lack of Christian beliefs are published every day and are exceeded only - perhaps - by a Dawkins or a Harris.

I do want people to recognize what the fables of religion can do for you (make you feel warm and fuzzy) and what they should not do (be used to explain the real world or set public policy). But what I do not want to see is anyone scammed. Unfortunately the state of mind that the religious are put into make them very, very vulnerable to this indeed.

Be careful out there.

Conservapedia on starlight

Eight days ago, we had a guest replier here on the Rational Reply and I mentioned a few things about the insanity that is Conservapedia. What is Conservapedia? We'll no amount of simple introduction of mine will suffice to truly explain the insanity that goes on there, but I'll give it a shot.

Imagine an encyclopedia where the actual stated goal is to be biased. Imagine an encyclopedia where all articles are filtered through one person. If he says that article is good, it is. If he says that article is bad, it is. Imagine an encyclopedia where people are banned regularly for the act of talking about the articles they are writing.

That can't possibly work, can it? Of course not. It's a flaming train wreck of site, a testimony to religious stupidity, and absolutely hilarious to read!

Today, we delve into one of their works - the Starlight Problem!

What is the Starlight Problem? Well, it's that pesky detail that Albert Einstein brought to our attention: the speed of light is a constant. Since we can measure that speed and we can measure the distance to various stars in the cosmos and we find that those things are more than 6,000 light years from Earth, anyone who believes that the Earth is only 6,000 years old has a rather large problem on his hands. Rational people, on the other hand, don't have a problem at all.

Here is, and remember I'm not making this one up, Conservapedia's article addressing this "problem".



Starlight problem

The starlight problem, or starlight travel-time problem is an objection against the young-Earth creationist argument that the universe is only 6,000 years old, in which the age of the universe is based primarily on the Genesis narrative. The problem is that if the universe is only 6,000 years old, one has to explain how light from stars more than 6,000 light years from Earth has reached us in the time available.

This so feels like the Spanish Inquisition Monty Python skit!

* cheesy inquisitor voice *
The problem is how light reached us in only 6,000 years...and measuring the age of the universe from a religious book!

The problems are how light reached us in only 6,000 years, measuring the age of the universe from a religious book, and choosing the bible for that book!

The several problems are...how light reached us in only 6,000 years, measuring the age of the universe from a religious book, choosing the bible for that book, and not checking the accuracy of that book against the rest of the universe!

Amongst these issues are such diverse problems as how light reached us in only 6,000 years, measuring the age of the universe from a religious book, choosing the bible for that book, not checking the accuracy of that book against the rest of the universe, and actively making up bizzaro world theories that kinda, sorta fit in with that book!

Despite this frequently being put as an argument against young-Earth creationism, light travel time is also a problem for the Big Bang theory.

There's stuff we don't know about the Big Bang theory?!? That's it! Young Earth Creationism must be completely correct!

Creationists have proposed a number of solutions. The currently-favoured solutions involve time dilation, in which time passed slower on Earth than in other parts of the universe.

Okay! That makes perfect sense! It's not the ancient goat herders that were wrong, it's that time itself has been altered! It's all clear now.

The size of the universe

Big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it really is.

Using parallax calculations, the Milky Way galaxy alone can be directly observed to have a diameter of approximately 80-100,000 light years. Calculations based on the observed brightness of supernovae of known energy output can determine the distance to more distant objects. The most distant object known is a star cluster approximately thirteen billion light-years away from Earth, observed by the Hubble Telescope using gravitational lensing.

Although creationists have at times disputed the size of the universe, virtually none propose that it is less than 12,000 light years across.

That's a refreshing breath of sanity scented air!

Suggested solutions to the problem

That the book is wrong? Nah! What was I thinking?!?

Several solutions have been proposed by creationists to explain how a young universe may be reconciled with these observations.

* pulls up a chair *

* gets some Doritos *

Oh boy! I can't wait to hear this!

They also point out that there is a logical fallacy in the argument, as the observation that many stars are millions of light years away is one of distance, not time. No matter how reasonable, it is a deduction, not an observation, that the starlight from stars millions of light years away would have required millions of years to reach Earth.

All except for that pesky "speed of light in a vacuum is a constant" thing. Curse you, Albert!

Light created in transit

Some creationists have proposed that the light we see from stars more than 6,000 light years away was not emitted by those stars, but was created 'in transit' by God.

Godidit! But did he use His Noodly Appendage?

However, most creationists reject this explanation,

Because they're not completely stupid.

as the light contains images of events that would therefore never have actually happened, including supernovae, meaning that we are seeing an image of a star exploding, even though the star never existed. This would make the creator a deceiver.

And He would never invite us to the really good parties ever again. He's kind of vicious that way with a really, really, really long memory for those kinds of slights.

Moon-Spencer theory

Some creationists promoted an idea by Parry Moon and Domina Spencer that light somehow takes a shortcut through "Riemannian Space", taking no more than 15 years to reach Earth from the outer limits of the universe. However, this idea never really caught on and appears to no longer have adherents.

And is therefore included in this article for what reason?

Decrease in the speed of light

Creationist Barry Setterfield has proposed that the speed of light was faster in the past. This idea initially found wide acceptance by creationists, but is now widely rejected, although some still hold to the idea.

And, of course, an encyclopedia is the place to postulate widely discredited ideas.

One criticism of it by anticreationists

What is an anticreationist exactly? Is that anyone who disputes any creationist idea? Or is it a code word for evolutionist? Or perhaps a code word for scientist?

was that if the speed of light had changed, we should see the difference in the Fine Structure Constant as measured by nearby stars versus distant stars, but this was not observed. Yet in 1999, John Webb, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues reported astronomical observations suggesting that the value of the fine-structure constant may indeed have changed. They subsequently published this in Physical Review Letters. However, although this showed that mainstream scientists are prepared to entertain the idea of a change in the speed of light when it suits them, the size of the change did not provide specific support for Setterfield's idea.

In addition, there were other problems with the theory, leading most creationists to drop the idea, although some credit it with stimulating further research.

Which leaves us 0 for 4 with 4 strikeouts so far with the theories! And we're not saying that the scientists have rejected these ideas, it's the creationists that are saying they don't work!

Not to point out the breathtakingly obvious again, but if no one believes these theories - why are they in an alleged encyclopedia?

* knock knock knock *

UPS delivery man, sir!

* Front door opens *

Yes?

I have a letter for you from a Brother William of Ockham

Thank you!

* Opens the letter *

"Jim, thanks for taking the time to listen to the advice of a friar who's been dead for 660 years! The answer to your question is really, really simple. It's not really an encyclopedia.

Have fun watching the fireworks show tomorrow!

Brother Bill"

You know that guy is so helpful sometimes! He rocks!


Humphreys' model

In 1994 Dr. Russell Humphreys proposed a new cosmology that includes a bounded universe with a center and an edge, that God had created 6,000 years ago as a much smaller body than today, then stretched it out, making it much larger. In Humphreys' model, because the universe has a center and an edge (unlike the unbounded model of the Big Bang universe), the center of the universe is also the center of a gravity well, meaning that gravity is stronger at the center of the universe than at the edge.

As gravity can affect the rate at which time passes, he calculated that while the six days of creation week were passing on Earth, billions of years' of time was passing at the edge of the universe. According to this idea, the Biblical references to time are according to an observer (real or imaginary) on Earth, so ages are given in "Earth time".

This model receives cautious but wide support among creationists.

By jove, this one is just wacko enough to confuse people who a) want to believe him and b) aren't actually scientists! Woot!

Time dilation field

Dr. John Hartnett, a creationist physicist, spurred by Humphreys' model, has proposed an alternative time dilation model, by theorizing the Earth was in a time-dilation field during the first few days of creation, from Earth's point of view, while billions of years passed for the rest of the universe. According to the Bible, God "stretched out" the heavens (space), and this movement during creation week caused time to travel faster for those objects, in accordance with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, adding to the time dilation caused by gravity, per Humphreys, in accordance with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.

When all else fails, lets just go back to the old standard of the Earth being the center of the universe and really, really special!

Starlight Problem for the Big Bang Theory

Despite the use of the Starlight Problem in arguing against young-Earth creationism, the Big Bang theory has its own light travel problem, known as the horizon problem.

The Big Bang model proposes that the temperature of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) would have varied considerably from place to place early in the universe, yet because the speed at which this radiation can disperse from hotter to colder parts of the universe is limited by the speed of light, there has not been enough time for the radiation to even out, yet observations today show it to be extremely uniform (with fluctuations at the part-per-million level).

The problem is this: even assuming the big bang timescale, there has not been enough time for light to travel between widely separated regions of space. So, how can the different regions of the current CMB have such precisely uniform temperatures if they have never communicated with each other? This is a light-travel–time problem.

A number of solutions to this problem have been proposed, including several versions of an "inflationary model", in which space itself expanded faster than the speed of light early in the Big Bang, but after different areas exchanged radiation to even out the temperature. However, there is no consensus on which explanation is correct, and each of the proposed solutions have their own problems.

Which is why the Cosmic Background Explorer's findings completely blow away the Big Bang theory! Oh wait a minute...they don't. It's data actually has shown a great fit with the predicted black body curve.

Still! It's not like they know everything! So that makes one thing crystal clear....Godidit! Yay! Is it time to declare victory and rush back to the church? Of course it is!

Hagee writes a fantasy novel!

Well, okay, it's an outline. And a bad outline from his Weekly Devotional at that.


“Witchcraft, sorcery, magic and idol worship have been around since the earliest days of man.

Oh boy! I love fantasy stories! I heard this one about a guy who could fly and bullets bounced off his chest and we wore a red “S” on his chest. That was a neat story!

They do indeed, pre-date Christianity, as we know it today—just as their practitioners like to point out with pride. But they do not pre-date, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-the one who created the universe. They are, in fact, part of a rebellion against Him and His laws.” (WND Editor Joseph Farah)

Hmmm…the start of this one is a little flat. Maybe you could talk about the witch herself or introduce the evil force that she has to face. Or something about how the magic works in your fantasy world. That would be neat!

The church in America

America! So this is one of those alternate reality stories where witchcraft and magic exist. Those are great!

is getting used to the dark, not because the light doesn’t have the power any more, but because we haven’t turned on the light.

You’re losing readers here. This is both boring and confusing for a fantasy story.

The closing chapters of American history are being dominated by the prince of darkness.

Prince of Darkness! Okay, you got my attention again. He must be the bad guy.

Abortion…anarchy…homosexuality…pornography…drugs…alcohol…divorce…child abuse…suicide…rape…murder…incest…men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil (John 3:19).

You really need to pick a topic for your book and stick with it. You seem to be lacking focus now.

We are surrounded by artificial illumination.

And bad plot development!

Education does not have the light. Education without God only produces intellectual barbarians. Hitler’s Nazis had Ph.D.’s and they threw live Jewish children into the ovens. They were absolutely brilliant, but they were barbarians.

So Nazis are the bad guys? Okay, it’s a bit hackneyed, but whatever.

The New Age movement does not have the light. This is not the dawning of a new era of light; this is the beginning of the new dark ages.

Whoa! You haven’t introduced this character to the readers yet. That’s just bad form.

Feminists do not have the light. The feminist movement is not about equality; it’s about control.

You’re losing focus and readers again! Check your plot outline, I’m sure you can do better!

Environmentalists do not have the light. Much of the ecology movement is not about saving the environment; it’s about nature worship. There is a difference between Mother Earth and Father God. The earth is the Lord’s…the earth is not Lord.

Or perhaps you can’t.

The occult does not have the light. Reading your horoscope is not a harmless diversion; it is witchcraft. Isaiah says, “…Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee form these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame…” (Isa.47: 13,14).

The occult! That would be the people in your fantasy world who can actually do the witchcraft and magic you talked about earlier, right?

We’re getting used to the dark. There is a slow, subtle, sinister brainwashing process

True! Except for the slow and subtle parts.

going on whereby we are gradually being desensitized to the dark. What the church is calling broad-minded tolerance, is merely peaceful coexistence with evil.

Another new character, the church! Since they’re coexisting with evil, does that make this character a good guy or a bad guy? I’m confused.

There is no fellowship between light and darkness.

Conflict! Excellent! This story might just yet be saved.

When the world wants you to be “broad-minded” and tolerant,” what they actually want is for you to crucify your conscience and compromise with their evil.

Me? But I don’t live in a fantasy world where witchcraft and magic actually work! Who are you talking to exactly?

Our job is to turn on the light. But too many Christians suffer from photophobia-they are afraid of the light.

Spooky and indistinct. That’s great for the narrator!

They are so fearful of being offensive that they are not effective. They would rather grieve the Holy Spirit than grieve the fat cats who control their churches financially.

Now it’s just confusing. Okay, you’ve got a good cast of characters, a nice make believe world where magic works in some unspecified way, and the groundwork for some nice conflict that can eventually be resolved.

I’ll give you a B- on this outline. Go back to your plot development and tighten it up a lot, don’t jump to the middle of your main ideas before you introduce the characters, and focus on the foreshadowing. Right now it feels like you’re in a rush to tell the readers everything about your story – especially all that stuff about various characters not having the light – and not giving them the background details.

But keep working on it! If you do so, I know that someday your work will be worth reading!

The Minimal Facts Approach

Our good an noble friends over at Apologetics have come up with an interesting whopper - the "Minimal Facts Approach".

Yep, no fooling around here! You have to give them some credit here, when they don't have the facts every once in awhile, they just come right out and say it! Read on for some jaw dropping stuipity!

We have seen that the resurrection of Jesus and Christianity are bound up together

Yep! Can we go back to that and fill in some more detail, though? We need a DNA sample from Mr. Christ, for example.

…but is there good historical evidence that it actually occured?

Good enough for you? No doubt.

Gary Habermas argues there is. In his “minimal facts approach”

* jaw drops *
Minimal facts approach?
Minimal facts approach?!?!?

Would this be the approach where we just get to make stuff up when there aren’t any actual facts for something?
Sorry…I’m just staggered that someone would so bald facedly give his lack of evidence a name that so clearly screams out that he has no evidence…and then publish it! Can I do this in other situations, too?

Police Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Me: Yep! But there’s no need for a ticket, I’m using the “doesn’t matter what speed I’m going” approach

Or how about…?

Me: Do you know why my car is making a grinding noise when I step on the brake?
Mechanic: Don’t worry about it. I’m using a “minimal noise noticing” approach

he has come up with 5 facts that virtually all scholars in the field of New Testament studies (liberal, moderate, conservative) affirm. The question before us, is what best explains these facts?
Fact #1 - Jesus died by crucifixion. This fact is recorded in all four gospels as well as being referred to by other NT writers. In addition to these Christian sources, there are several Non-Christian sources that report Jesus’ crucifixion. For example, in AD 115 the Roman historian Tacitus

It took 80 something years for someone to note Mr. Christ’s crucifixion?!? Doesn’t this seem ever so slightly insane? Where were the contemporary accounts? This is like an 80’s hockey writer not knowing Wayne Gretzky.

describes how Christians were blamed for the burning of Rome: “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus [cf. Matt 27:2].” Due to passages like this from outside of the NT

Passages 80 years out of date.

and the strong witness in the NT,

Be still my beating heart.

there is no doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was executed by Roman crucifixion around AD 30-33.

Yeah. No doubt at all.

The real question is why?

Why you blithely gloss over the lack of any contemporary documentation and cite something as ridiculous as a "minimal facts approach"? Yeah, that’s a real question, all right.

Special guest replier: Professor Richard Lenski!

Professor Richard Lenski, as both of my readers know, is an evolutionary biologist who has achieved what creationists claim is impossible - direct evidence of evolution occurring in his lab.

Faced with this horrible blow to their inane beliefs, creationists such as Andrew Schlafly, the chief moron of Conservapedia, have done what they always do when a scientist achieves a landmark breakthrough to help the human race. They attack him mercilessly and stupidly.

Now normally on the Rational Reply, I take the good time and effort to reply to the idiots and their ridiculous claims. But today, we have a special guest star. Professor Lenski himself has taken the time and trouble to reply to the ignorant, impolite, and insane demands of the Schlafly crew. So to see to it that we help the good professor "make sure that [his reply] is made publicly available through other channels", I yield the floor to him to give The Rational Reply.

Take it away Professor!




Dear Mr. Schlafly:

I tried to be polite, civil and respectful in my reply to your first email, despite its rude tone and uninformed content. Given the continued rudeness of your second email, and the willfully ignorant and slanderous content on your website, my second response will be less polite. I expect you to post my response in its entirety; if not, I will make sure that is made publicly available through other channels.

I offer this lengthy reply because I am an educator as well as a scientist. It is my sincere hope that some readers might learn something from this exchange, even if you do not.

First, it seems that reading might not be your strongest suit given your initial letter, which showed that you had not read our paper, and given subsequent conversations with your followers, in which you wrote that you still had not bothered to read our paper. You wrote: “I did skim Lenski’s paper …” If you have not even read the original paper, how do you have any basis of understanding from which to question, much less criticize, the data that are presented therein?

Second, your capacity to misinterpret and/or misrepresent facts is plain in the third request in your first letter, where you said: “In addition, there is skepticism that 3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000.” That statement was followed by a link to a news article from NewScientist that briefly reported on our work. I assumed you had simply misunderstood that article, because there is not even a mention of proteins anywhere in the news article. As I replied, “We make no such claim anywhere in our paper, nor do I think it is correct. Proteins do not ‘appear out of the blue’, in any case.” So where did your confused assertion come from? It appears to have come from one of your earlier discussions, in which an acoltye [sic] (Able806, who to his credit at least seems to have attempted to read our paper) wrote:

"I think it might be best to clarify some of Richard's work. He started his E.Coli project in 1988 and has been running the project for 20 years now; his protocols are available to the general public. The New Scientist article is not very technical but the paper at PNAS is. The change was based on one of his colonies developing the ability to absorb citrate, something not found in wild E.Coli. This occurred around 31,500 generations and is based on the development of 3 proteins in the E.Coli genome. What his future work will be is to look at what caused the development of these 3 proteins around generation 20,000 of that particular colony."

As further evidence of your inability to keep even a few simple facts straight, you later wrote the following: “It [my reply] did clarify that his claims are not as strong as some evolutionists have insisted.” But no competent biologist would, after reading our paper with any care, insist (or even suggest) that “3 new and useful proteins appeared in the colony around generation 20,000” or any similar nonsense. It is only in your letter, and in your acolyte’s confused interpretation of our paper, that I have ever seen such a claim. Am I or the reporter for NewScientist somehow responsible for the confusion that reflects your own laziness and apparent inability to distinguish between a scientific paper, a news article, and a confused summary posted by an acolyte on your own website?

Third, it is apparent to me, and many others who have followed this exchange and your on-line discussions of how to proceed, that you are not acting in good faith in requests for data. From the posted discussion on your web site, it is obvious that you lack any expertise in the relevant fields. Several of your acolytes have pointed this out to you, and that your motives are unclear or questionable at best, but you and your cronies dismissed their concerns as rants and even expelled some of them from posting on your website. [ http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Expelled:_No_Intelligence_Allowed] Several also pointed out that I had very quickly and straightforwardly responded that the methods and data supporting the evolution of the citrate-utilization capacity are already provided in our paper. One poster in your discussions, Aaronp, wrote:

“I read Lenski's paper, and as a trained microbiologist, I thought that it was both thorough and well done. His claims are backed by good data, namely that which was presented in the figures. I went through each of the figures after Aschlafly said that they were uninformative. Actually, they are basic figures that show the population explosion of the bacterial cultures after the Cit+ mutation occurred. These figures show that the cultures increased in size and mass at a given timepoint, being able to do so because they had evolved a mechanism to utilize a new nutrient, without the assistance of helper plasmids. … Lenksi’s paper, while not the most definite I’ve seen, is still a very well-researched paper that supports its claims nicely.”

(As far as I saw, Aaronp is the only poster who asserted any expertise in microbiology.) As further evidence of the absence of good-faith discussion about our research, in the discussion thread that began even before you sent your first email to me, I counted the words “fraud” or “fraudulent” being used more than 10 times, including one acolyte, TonyT, who says bluntly that I am “clearly a fraudulent hack.” In the discussion thread that also includes comments after my first reply, the number of times those same words are used has increased to 20, with the word “hoax” also now entering the discussion. A few posters wisely counseled against such slander but that did not deter you. I must say, it is surprising that someone with a law degree would make, and allow on his website, so many nasty comments that implicitly and even explicitly impugn my integrity, and by extension that of my collaborators, without any grounds whatsoever and reflecting only your dogmatic adherence to certain beliefs.

Finally, let me now turn to our data. As I said before, the relevant methods and data about the evolution of the citrate-using bacteria are in our paper. In three places in our paper, we did say “data not shown”, which is common in scientific papers owing to limitations in page length, especially for secondary or minor points. None of the places where we made such references concern the existence of the citrate-using bacteria; they concern only certain secondary properties of those bacteria. We will gladly post those additional data on my website.

It is my impression that you seem to think we have only paper and electronic records of having seen some unusual E. coli. If we made serious errors or misrepresentations, you would surely like to find them in those records. If we did not, then – as some of your acolytes have suggested – you might assert that our records are themselves untrustworthy because, well, because you said so, I guess. But perhaps because you did not bother even to read our paper, or perhaps because you aren’t very bright, you seem not to understand that we have the actual, living bacteria that exhibit the properties reported in our paper, including both the ancestral strain used to start this long-term experiment and its evolved citrate-using descendants. In other words, it’s not that we claim to have glimpsed “a unicorn in the garden” – we have a whole population of them living in my lab! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_in_the_Garden] And lest you accuse me further of fraud, I do not literally mean that we have unicorns in the lab. Rather, I am making a literary allusion. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allusion]

One of your acolytes, Dr. Richard Paley, actually grasped this point. He does not appear to understand the practice and limitations of science, but at least he realizes that we have the bacteria, and that they provide “the real data that we [that’s you and your gang] need”. Here’s what this Dr. Paley had to say:

“I think there’s a great deal of misunderstanding here from the critics of Mr. Schlafly and obfuscation on the part of Prof. Lenski and his supporters. The real data that we need are not in the paper. Rather they are in the bacteria used in the experiments themselves. Prof. Lenski claims that these bacteria ‘evolved’ novel traits and that these were preceded by the evolution of ‘potentiated genotypes’, from which the traits could be ‘reevolved’ using preserved colonies from those generations. But how are we to know if these traits weren’t ‘potentiated’ by the Creator when He designed the bacteria thousands of years ago, such that they would eventually reveal themselves when the time was right? The only way this can be settled is if we have access to the genetic sequences of the bacteria colonies so that we can apply CSI techniques and determine if these ‘potentiated genotypes’ originated through blind chance or intelligence. But with the physical specimens in the hands of Darwinists, who claim they will get around to the sequencing at some unspecifed future time, how can we trust that this data will be forthcoming and forthright? Thus, Prof. Lenski et al. should supply Conservapedia, as stewards, with samples of the preserved E. coli colonies so that the data can be accessible to unbiased researchers outside of the hegemony of the Darwinian academia, even if it won’t be put to immediate examination by Mr. Schlafly. This is simply about keeping tax-payer-funded scientists honest.”

So, will we share the bacteria? Of course we will, with competent scientists. Now, if I was really mean, I might only share the ancestral strain, and let the scientists undertake the 20 years of our experiment. Or if I was only a little bit mean, maybe I’d also send the potentiated bacteria, and let the recipients then repeat the several years of incredibly pain-staking work that my superb doctoral student, Zachary Blount, performed to test some 40 trillion (40,000,000,000,000) cells, which generated 19 additional citrate-using mutants. But I’m a nice guy, at least when treated with some common courtesy, so if a competent scientist asks for them, I would even send a sample of the evolved E. coli that now grows vigorously on citrate. A competent microbiologist, perhaps requiring the assistance of a competent molecular geneticist, would readily confirm the following properties reported in our paper: (i) The ancestral strain does not grow in DM0 (zero glucose, but containing citrate), the recipe for which can be found on my web site, except leaving the glucose out of the standard recipe as stated in our paper. (ii) The evolved citrate-using strain, by contrast, grows well in that exact same medium. (iii) To confirm that the evolved strain is not some contaminating species but is, in fact, derived from the ancestral strain in our study, one could check a number of traits and genes that identify the ancestor as E. coli, and the evolved strains as a descendant thereof, as reported in our paper. (iv) One could also sequence the pykF and nadR genes in the ancestor and evolved citrate-using strains. One would find that the evolved bacteria have mutations in each of these genes. These mutations precisely match those that we reported in our previous work, and they identify the evolved citrate-using mutants as having evolved in the population designated Ara-3 of the long-term evolution experiment, as opposed to any of the other 11 populations in that experiment. And one could go on and on from there to confirm the findings in our paper, and perhaps obtain additional data of the sort that we are currently pursuing.

Before I could send anyone any bacterial strains, in order to comply with good scientific practices I would require evidence of the requesting scientist’s credentials including: (i) affiliation with an appropriate unit in some university or research center with appropriate facilities for storing (-80ºC freezer), handling (incubators, etc.), and disposing of bacteria (autoclave); and (ii) some evidence, such as peer-reviewed publications, that indicate that the receiving scientist knows how to work with bacteria, so that I and my university can be sure we are sending biological materials to someone that knows how to handle them. By the way, our strains are not derived from one of the pathogenic varieties of E. coli that are a frequent cause of food-borne illnesses. However, even non-pathogenic strains may cause problems for those who are immune-compromised or otherwise more vulnerable to infection. Also, my university requires that a Material Transfer Agreement be executed before we can ship any strains. That agreement would not constrain a receiving scientist from publishing his or her results. However, if an incompetent or fraudulent hack (note that I make no reference to any person, as this is strictly a hypothetical scenario, one that I doubt would occur) were to make false or misleading claims about our strains, then I’m confident that some highly qualified scientists would join the fray, examine the strains, and sort out who was right and who was wrong. That’s the way science works.

I would also generally ask what the requesting scientist intends to do with our strains. Why? It helps me to gauge the requester’s expertise. I might be able to point out useful references, for example. Moreover, as I’ve said, we are continuing our work with these strains, on multiple fronts, as explained in considerable detail in the Discussion section of our paper. I would not be happy to see our work “scooped” by another team – especially for the sake of the outstanding students and postdocs in my group who are hard at work on these fronts. However, that request to allow us to proceed, without risk of being scooped on work in which we have made a substantial investment of time and effort, would be just that: a request. In other words, we would respect PNAS policy to share those strains with any competent scientist who complied with my university’s requirements for the MTA and any other relevant legal restrictions. If any such request requires substantial time or resources (we have thousands of samples from this and many other experiments), then of course I would expect the recipient to bear those costs.

So there you have it. I know that I’ve been a bit less polite in this response than in my previous one, but I’m still behaving far more politely than you deserve given your rude, willfully ignorant, and slanderous behavior. And I’ve spent far more time responding than you deserve. However, as I said at the outset, I take education seriously, and I know some of your acolytes still have the ability and desire to think, as do many others who will read this exchange.

Sincerely,

Richard Lenski

P.S. Did you know that your own bowels harbor something like a billion (1,000,000,000) E. coli at this very moment? So remember to wash your hands after going to the toilet, as I hope your mother taught you. Simple calculations imply that there are something like 10^20 = 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 E. coli alive on our planet at any moment. Even if they divide just once per day, and given a typical mutation rate of 10^-9 or 10^-10 per base-pair per generation, then pretty much every possible double mutation would occur every day or so. That’s a lot of opportunity for evolution.

P.P.S. I hope that some readers might get a chuckle out of this story. The same Sunday (15 June 2008) that you and some of your acolytes were posting and promoting scurrilous attacks on me and our research (wasn’t that a bit disrespectful of the Sabbath?), I was in a church attending a wedding. And do you know what Old Testament lesson was read? It was Genesis 1:27-28[2], in which God created Man and Woman. It’s a very simple and lovely story, and I did not ask any questions, storm out, or demand the evidence that it happened as written at a time when science did not yet exist. I was there in the realm of spirituality and mutual respect, not confusing a house of religion for a science class or laboratory. And it was a beautiful wedding, too.

P.P.P.S. You may be unable to understand, or unwilling to accept, that evolution occurs. And yet, life evolves! [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_pur_si_muove] From the content on your website, it is clear that you, like many others, view God as the Creator of the Universe. I respect that view. I find it baffling, however, that someone can worship God as the all-mighty Creator while, at the same time, denying even the possibility (not to mention the overwhelming evidence) that God’s Creation involved evolution. It is as though a person thinks that God must have the same limitations when it comes to creation as a person who is unable to understand, or even attempt to understand, the world in which we live. Isn’t that view insulting to God?

P.P.P.P.S. I noticed that you say that one of your favorite articles on your website is the one on “Deceit.” That article begins as follows: “Deceit is the deliberate distortion or denial of the truth with an intent to trick or fool another. Christianity and Judaism teach that deceit is wrong. For example, the Old Testament says, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’” You really should think more carefully about what that commandment means before you go around bearing false witness against others.

Ken Ham - Wackaloon!

Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis and religious nutter, objects to PZ Myers calling him a "wackaloon". Amusingly enough, PZ detailed a few more comments for Hammy and, of course, the Rational Reply!


Biology Professor Calls Me “Wackaloon”

PZ Myers, a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota–Morris, ranted in a blog item (which is apparently quite popular among anti-creationists)

Woot! Anti-creationists! Would that be the same thing as evolutionists? If so, why the bizarre negative term? If not, what is it exactly? How much creationism do you have to believe in order to no longer be an anti-creationist? Do Old Earth creationists qualify or only Young Earth creationists?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Okay, I'm sorry, Ken. You're not used to dealing with any inquiring minds, so I'll take it slower. Forgive me, please.

about my speaking at a prayer breakfast at the Pentagon. The arrogance and intolerance of some of these people is remarkable

Almost as arrogant as someone saying that they have all the answers in this little book and only their interpretation is correct? And almost a intolarant as a group of people going to war against lots of other groups because they have the wrong book? That arrogant and intolerant? Wow!

Considering this person is supposed to be an academic teaching good research skills to students at a university, I would not want to trust any of his lectures considering the logic he used in his recent blog.

He stated:

Ken Ham, chief wackaloon at Answers in Genesis, was invited to speak…at a Pentagon prayer breakfast.

Just let that sink in.There are people at the Pentagon who are in charge of planning where your sons and daughter and nephews and nieces and other beloved family members and friends will be sent to put their lives at risk. There are military personnel there who can send missiles and bombers anywhere in the world. There are people there who control nuclear weapons.

And they think Ken Ham is a fine-and-dandy, clever feller.

It’s almost enough to make me wish I could pray. It’s not just Ham, either—it’s that the people with the big guns have prayer breakfasts.

Now consider this:

1. Over 23,000 people work at the Pentagon. I spoke to 100 Christians at a prayer breakfast—less than 0.5% of the Pentagon workforce (good response from those present by the way).

I don't think he's worried about the percentages of employees that you talked to. I think he's worried because you're a wack job and anyone is listening to you. And especially worried if those people actually have influence on important things.

2. The military is now one of the most “politically correct” places in the USA. Not only do Christians have the freedom to meet—but so do Muslims, Hindus, and almost any other group you could name. Of course, if I had been a Muslim and went to the Pentagon to address a Muslim prayer breakfast, I’m sure PZ Myers would not have ranted against that—it is only Christians one is allowed to be intolerant of nowadays, it seems.

That makes sense! Anyone who opposes a religious nut job having influence would...not oppose a different religious nut job having influence...

Um, Ken, buddy...I'm just not following you on this one. Can you help me out here?

3. What’s he so worked up about anyway? If he’s right, God doesn’t exist—so prayer can’t do anything and, therefore, can’t harm anything. But, then, who cares about harm in a world without moral absolutes?

Every rational person

It’s the survival of the fittest; so, evolution will inexorably eliminate these weak-minded “idiots” at the Pentagon.

That would be a bad thing, Ken. Really.

If they nuke some people along the way, so what?

Dude, you're losing it here. Stay with me, Ken.


That’s just the death of the weakest in this purposeless accidental existence of ours; sooner or later the more fit will triumph, and the world will be more evolved.

Dude, there's no such thing as "more evolved", there's just "evolution" which is to say "change".


So, what’s Myers concerned about?

That would be all that nuking and killing and knocking off of people that you were talking about. The fact that nature kills off weak things doesn't mean that's a good idea or that we want to. I'm just saying.

This is all just time and chance and the laws of nature at work

No, that would be us at work, actually.

What is, is. There are and can be no “oughts.”

4. Notice how these evolutionists use such emotive language and name calling (e.g., “wackaloon”)—very academic, scientific arguments!

Ken, relax and take a chill pill or something. You're starting to foam at the mouth a little.

Don't worry about us. We have time.

Come on back after you calm down a little and start talking English again.

We'll wait.

People like PZ Myers are those who call for tolerance—but their intolerance for Christians illustrates clearly the spiritual nature of this battle—otherwise, why would they care?

Oh good! You've calmed down a little bit. That's great to see!

Back to your questions, though, it's not intolerance of Christians, it's intolerance of wack jobs. There's a difference, although it might take some effort to explain it to you. Lots of Christians have it down pat, though!

The Yominator Strikes Back!

Our good friend and gold mine, The Yominator, is at it again! He was so much fun last time that I just can't help myself. Lets see which set of 100 year old, time obliterated, pre-debunked, completely discredited arguments he wants to come forward with this time!


Logical and philosophical case for the Divine: Follow Up to Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

*pulls up a chair*

Oh boy! It's like finding the last Wii in town! Sweet!

As many readers know, I recently wrote a column titled “Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound,”

We've been briefed.

which explored the logical and philosophical case for the Divine.

"explored" meaning that you looked for some good arguments and, finding none, wrote a piece of worthy of Tweety's cage.

As I painstakingly pointed out in the column, all of the arguments hold true whether one believes in evolution or not.

Oddly, the spirit of this statement is true. His previous argument's truth value does not depend on evolution. They are worth less than a Louisiana Governor's scholastic opinion regardless of if you believe that evolution is true or not.

In fact, for that very reason I chose not to get involved in the debate on evolution,

That and you'd have to do actual research to talk on that subject. Best to stick to something else that you don't know!

as I felt it to be a distraction from the main point,

There's a point to this?!? Woot!

that a universe so complex in design, and a world that would not sustain life if any one of a trillion necessary ingredients for life were missing, does not come into being in and of itself.

Zzzzz....Sorry, man, but you're repeating yourself here. Let me dig out the archives...

Okay! Here it is!

"1 - I don’t understand the universe, therefore God exists"

Whew! I was worried that I'd have to write new material in response to your recycled stuff. Lucky call there!

Although I had recently concluded a debate with atheists on evolution,

Was that the one where you threatened to tell the world how evil they all were? I get so confused trying to keep up with all your wanderings across the net.

a roughly written

No way! I'd have never guessed that with you, my good and dear friend!

but highly detailed transcript of which can be found at creationistsearcher.wordpress.com,

Would that be "On the Lies and Harassment Tactics of Martin Wagner and Russell Glasser", the former of which so traumatized you that you were forced - forced I say! - to vandalize his Wikipedia page with accusations of pedophilia?

That Martin! Stalking you night and day by - *shudder* - looking up your name on Google!

I felt that delving into the scientific reasons against evolution would detract from the main theme of the column,

And require all that irritating time, effort, and thought. Who needs that?!? You've got several new blogs to write!

that no matter how you believe the universe was designed, it had to have been done so intelligently. (As a side note, the above referenced debate touches on a number of pertinent issues and should be of value to the reader).

Once you buy that the universe was designed, it makes perfect sense that it had to be designed intelligently. Now just provide the proof that the universe was designed and we're good to go!

Nonetheless, many chose to attack the column from a scientific standpoint, not by bringing specific examples, but because of the lack thereof. While they entirely missed the meaning of the column, I would still like to address their issues.

Please do! That sounds like fun!

To begin with,

Dude, we're a long way into this article for the phrase "To begin with". I'm just saying.

not only is evolution far from proven science, in fact there are gaping holes in its theory.

Do tell! There is an entire world full of scientists who would be happy to hear about any actual, real, sound problems with the theory.

One central problem with the theory of evolution is that it dictates that life formed from non-life. This is not plausible.

Okay! There's a good thesis statement: It's not plausible that life formed from non-life. I presume that you're about to talk about those experiments with the creation of ammino acids and abiogenesis, right? Blast holes in those experiments! Batten down those hatches, mateys! Yomin's coming through with a full head of steam!

Furthermore, for there to be a rich enough variance in DNA/RNA this would have had to happen millions of times, separately. DNA and RNA are also both needed to reproduce a single cell.

Um...dude? You were talking about abiogenesis...you had a full head of steam...our ship was blasting through their defenses like the walls of Jericho!

What happened?

A much larger problem with evolution is the lack of transitional fossils, fossils that show a gradual change from one form of species to the next. This isn’t an arbitrary problem. It is inconceivable that if man transitioned from ape, over time, that on the one hand we’d find a plethora of human fossils as well as a plethora of ape ones, but none in between that document such a slow and gradual change.

No one believes that such a transformation could have been sudden. If it had happened we’d have as many transitional fossils as there are human and as there are ape fossils. It also isn’t logical to suppose that reptiles formed into mammals when we have a plethora of both reptilian and mammalian fossils, but none that show a clear transition between one form and the next.

Oh, no...you didn't go there? *sigh*

Okay, so much for the momentum. Okay, hold up a minute and check this one out. Then come on back.

No rush, man.

We'll wait.

No really, take your time. Your readers will thank you for it.

Darwin was aware of this and thought that future fossils would be discovered.

Another win for Chucky!

But in the past 150 years, thousands of fossils were excavated and no conclusively transitional ones were found.

You understand that a transitional form, to the animal in question, would simply be a form, right? That we're all actually transitional and if we die and actually become fossils - something of a rarity really - that we're all transitional fossils. And so every fossil we've ever found is a transitional fossil. Is this getting past Yomin's Demon?

I didn't think so.

He recognized that it isn’t logical that we’d have a plethora of human and of ape fossils but no transitional ones. The late Harvard Professor Steven J. Gould also had to admit that, quote, “the extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.”

Ouch! Wrong choice of guy to quote. Here's another from Professor Gould: "Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but are abundant between larger groups. The evolution from reptiles to mammals...is well documented."

Given the amount of fossils excavated and the utter lack conclusively transitional ones (and the scarceness of any that scientists can even claim to be possibly transition), it’s entirely possible that Darwin himself would reject the theory of evolution today.

"Yomin! This is your demon talking...you just keep on writing! What you're saying fits with all of the facts that you've ever seen come through that gate that I've been helping you by guarding for your entire life! Aren't I a good demon? Helping you filter out all the useless, pedantic, time wasting information such as what evolution actually means, what the scientific process is and can do, what transitional fossils are, and countless other pieces of garbage that would just distract you from the meaning of your message. Keep it up!"

Proponents of evolution incorrectly cite the Archaeopteryx, a fossil that had feathers and scales, as a transitional form. In fact, it has fully developed feathers and fully developed scales. This doesn’t prove transition at all as nothing points to any transformation from scale to feather, like a half-scale for example.

The same is true of the oft-miscited duck-billed platypus. It has features that are reptilian and some mammalian, but none that show a transition from one to the other. Its reptilian, mammalian and other characteristics are each fully formed and do not show any transition of one to the other. In fact, all of its characteristics are perfectly suited to its unique climate. Furthermore, there’s no difference between modern day platypuses and those found in fossils.

The same is true of the hominids, the supposed ape to human transitional forms. Of the 12 hominids cited by evolutionists, 9 have been documented to be extinct species of ape/monkey with no human characteristics at all. The other 3 are modern day humans with no animal characteristics. A true half human half ape fossil has never been found.

Those wacky evolutionists! Pointing to different species that have "traits" "in common" and trying to deceive us into thinking that this might show that these "traits" can be "passed down" to "other generations". What kind of rubbish is that?!?

But none of this was the point of the original column. Its central point was that no matter how the universe was formed, no one can plausibly argue that it happened by itself.

No one! No one at all! Well, except for maybe one or two guys who have actually studied it.

How one can argue that both RNA and DNA came into existence, by chance, at the exact same time (because if not, no cell would reproduce, and it’s unfeasible that they developed separately and then joined together, as they are not found outside of the cellular form) is also unattainable. And we can go on and on about the trillions of coincidences needed for the evolutionist to deny a conscious Creator.

We covered this twice already. Something about the universe being to complex, therefore God exists or something like that. I'm sure I've got it around here somewhere...

I would encourage those who disagree to give these columns fair consideration.

Oh, they have. Much more than fair given the content, really.

The fact that some chose to misread the last column to the extent that they did seems ingenuous,

Or "informed". Either one.

just as those who chose to mistake the meaning of “spontaneous” as it was featured (the point there being that even the theory of evolution necessitates far too many and too complex random coincidences, trillions of them, for it to plausibly have occurred without a conscious designer) did so by reading the column in a way that differed from its obvious and intended meaning. Some even mistook “elements of life” to refer to the Periodic Table of Elements, which was an absurd interpretation and showed a lack of ability to openly think over the points of the column. Please treat the matter with fair consideration. I believe that you will gain from the experience.

I definitely have! It's been a blast...again!

Ignorance by the truckload

Sometimes I run into someone who is so far out there, so determined to be ignorant that I have to question whether or not this is just a parody article. I decided to run with this one since it seemed like fun anyway.

I turns out that it's not a parody. In fact, last night the author came onto the Dawkins forums and complained about being attacked because of his article. That little drama has a couple of directions to it that I'll leave to you all to follow up on if you want. But if you do follow up on it, don't miss out on him being eviscerated by his own people as well!

Without further ado, here's his article!




Logical Proof of the Existence of a Divine Creator, Why Atheism is Not Logically Sound

Great hypothesis! “That God exists can be logically proved”. Do that one and I’ll even give you a free pass on the second part namely that “Atheism is not logically sound”.

One of the beautiful aspects of self evident truths is that they can be proven on both the simplest and the most complex of levels.

Not an auspicious beginning but lets move past that to the proof.

By contrast, to make an argument for what is in fact an illogical fallacy, one must use plenty of skill, sophistry and remain beholden to a dogmatic protection of what is really an illogical position.

Yes…and someone else’s bad proofs have what to do with your soon to be stated, logically sound, undeniable proof of God’s existence?

Yet even after a detailed case is made for the illogical side of the argument, it can instantly be deflated like a balloon with the simplest poke of clear logic. It can also be attacked piece by piece with even greater skill and logic, stemming from a steadfast pursuit of the truth.

Zzzzzzz…oh sorry! I fell asleep there waiting to hear something connected to an actual proof.

Nowhere does the above hold more true than with regard to the existence of a Divine Creator. Proof of a conscious Creator is readily available.

Great! Lets hear it, then.

The simplest proof (yet one that no atheist has ever been able to counter effectively) is that a universe of this size and magnitude does not somehow build itself, just as a set of encyclopedias doesn't write itself or form randomly from the spill of a massive inkblot.

“Take that, Mr. Atheist Guy! You can’t counter logic like that. I know you can’t because I don’t believe that you ever have and I can’t believe that anything can come about without someone creating it. My logic is good enough for Brady and it’s good enough for me! So there!”

The atheist, on the other hand, needs to build a plausible case for this irrational scenario. But first, let's examine how irrational it is:

* sits down in front of the old fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa and listens in raptured silence *

No one in their right mind would claim that 10,000 hundred story buildings built themselves from randomness, even over time.

True! We’ve seen people build buildings, watched architects work and studied their plans, taken pictures of buildings being built, and so on. We’re pretty sure how they come to exist.

Yet those who doubt the existence of a Creator believe that an entire universe, containing all of the billions of elements necessary for life to form, may have come about without a builder.

Yeah. You see we’ve never met this builder you’re talking about. He hasn’t given us his blueprints, we didn’t watch him making the universe, and we don’t have pictures of the universe being built.

I’m awfully sorry, but that kind of leaves a pretty large gap in the analogy.

If you have some blueprints or videotape of the building process, we’d love to see them! That would make a big difference.

As such, they give credence to billions of times more coincidences to having come about.

As opposed to the far more likely scenario of a mythical, supernatural being who never shows up for dinner parties no matter how many invitations we send. Got it! I’m convinced!

They believe that not only did whole planets appear spontaneously, but also believe that the fact that these planets do not collide as meteors do,

Really?!? I’ve heard whole theories based on collisions in the cosmos. You might want to read up on the subject.

that they have gravity, that they contain the proper atmospheric conditions for life to take hold and contain sustenance to sustain this life all happened by mere fluke.
Yet the same people would (rightly) denounce as preposterous the notion that the Egyptian pyramids built themselves.

Again, we’ve seen the blueprints, so to speak, and have really good theories on how those things were built that don’t involve breaking of the laws of the universe or inventing a god.

They would point to the structure and detailed design of these impressive inanimate objects. Yet they outrageously chalk up to coincidence billions upon billions of times more detail and design in all parts of life found in this universe.

To be sure, someone can build sandcastles in the sky on how the spontaneous coming together of molecules, then turning into bricks, changing further into buildings, culminating in 10,000 perfectly aligned skyscrapers all built with no builder is a plausible scenario. They can form intricate arguments to support this theory. But in the end, the entire proposition remains offensive to logic itself.

Wow! I guess that it’s a good thing that no one actually makes that claim, isn’t it?

While there are complex proofs of the Divine, some dating back to the philosophical writings of Plato and others using modern science, the most clearly logical concepts are all readily apparent and simple. An entire world does not create itself.

QED! Zing! Scorch! Pow! Take that all you godless heathens!

Furthermore, proof of a Divine creator can be seen more readily in the small and intricate details of the universe than by considering the enormity of the universe as a whole.

You’ve got more?!? Sweet!

Consider the following:

Even if all the planets somehow formed themselves, all somehow staying in perfect orbit and possessing gravity, even take for granted that all the chemicals needed for life were so how there as well, by sheer happenstance, would it then be possible for billions of species to spontaneously come about, each with a male and female of each kind so that they could exist in the long run?


Lets break this one down a bit:

somehow staying in perfect orbit

Orbits are important. Of course we haven’t found life in very many places other than Earth. Zero so far, to be exact.

and possessing gravity,

Possessing gravity…you mean like every piece of matter in the universe? I think we can safely get away with one.

even take for granted that all the chemicals needed for life were so how there as well,

Which has been shown to be possible in laboratory experiments

by sheer happenstance,

But not by sheer happenstance, actually

would it then be possible for billions of species to spontaneously come about, each with a male and female

Lots of species don’t have sexual reproduction at all. That development is an evolutionary benefit to a species that gets it.

of each kind so that they could exist in the long run?

Lots of them didn’t. Extinction is kind of brutal that way.

Even if this were possible, would the simplest of animals have been able to survive were it missing even one essential organ?

Yep. Name an “essential” organ, I’ll show you a creature that does without it.

Would human beings survive if one organ or cavity was missing or displaced, even after somehow being otherwise perfectly formed with no designer?

You mean like an appendix?

The simple fact is that even if humans were so perfectly formed, if food, water, sunlight or any one of a host of details necessary for life to exist were somehow missing, human life would have lasted on this planet for a maximum of a few days.

Or more correctly, would never have evolved. Good point!

The contention of atheists, that life simply adapted to the conditions it found itself in is also irrational,

Completely irrational. We never see this happen anywhere. Pay no attention to that giraffe eating leaves from that tall tree over there.

as were this to be the case we'd have animals that could solely subsist on snow and ice in some regions.

Huh? I’m trying here man, but this gap is too far for me to jump. I’d try pole vaulting, but you know all about that bum hip of mine…

By contrast, the ability to adapt to small conditional changes is also a fascinating aspect of the body, one that shows that much detail was put into its design.

Ooh! This sounds good! Do go on and tell us more about this part!

The central point of the atheist,

Hey! You were about to actually talk about some designs, blueprints, construction diagrams, or something. Okay, I’m not really sure what exactly, but it sounded like you had something good!

that all somehow came about randomly through evolution, does not help them either.

You’re absolutely right! It doesn’t help them in the slightest! Of course they figured that out a long time ago, rejected the random hypothesis, and replaced it with a far better one. Joe Bob says check it out sometime!

While a separate column will deal with the scientific arguments for creationism and evolution, the topic is not germane here.

I’m not holding my breath.

Going back to the example of a set of encyclopedias,

Oh man! We already covered that! Boring!

a set of Britannicas does not write itself, not from one massive ink blot and not starting out as dots, which form letters, which align into perfect phrases, paragraphs, books and sets. In fact, it's even more incredulous to say that they aligned so perfectly, step by step and dot by dot than it is to say that all appeared at once. Yet that's what the atheist contends when he chalks up life's existence to gradual and detailed formation with no Creator at the helm.

Zzzzzz….

However, despite the fact that even after much debate on the issue I have yet to meet an atheist who can make even a feeble argument to counter any of these points,

Hi! My name’s Jim and I just did so.

You might want to meet actual atheists who have done actual research into the actual subjects that you’re talking about. They really do have lots of arguments that rise above “feeble”. It’s really neat!

they often feel that such grounded proofs aren't complicated enough. Just as a man who spends years coming up with a thousand reasons why an elephant is really a duck will not be persuaded of his error without first addressing all of his complicated fallacies, so too the atheist's contentions must be addressed in detail. For this reason, we will also address some of the more detailed proofs of the existence of the Divine.

Yay! Back to the topic!

Of the many philosophic and scientific arguments brought forth for the existence of the Divine, three stand out.

Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!

The anthropic argument contends that the universe is too complex to have no Creator. This is in effect the central point of this column, although explained in a more common manner. The cosmological argument maintains that finite matter (original matter, which was clearly finite) cannot create a universe that is greater than itself. Especially compelling is the teleological argument, that the existence of a Creator can be seen from the fact that the universe works in perfect harmony, as would a giant machine. Gravity, orbits, chemical atmospheres and all other ingredients needed for life to exist come together in unison to allow such existence to happen. An enormous machine that works like clockwork needs to have a Creator.

In other words:

1 - I don’t understand the universe, therefore God exists
2 – I’ll ignore the equivalence between matter and energy, therefore God exists
3 – I get a warm fuzzy feeling when looking at the cosmos, therefore God exists.

Okay! I’m all sorts of convinced!

THE TRUTH OF OUR SIDE AND THE REAL CHALLENGE TO DEBATING ATHEISTS

But all of these reasons, in reality, are unnecessary. The youngest school child can tell you that a building does not build itself and that, by extension, neither does a universe.

It still makes no sense, but coming from a young schoolchild it’s really cute!

And this is the beauty of self evident truths.

No need to actually prove them?

After all the proofs and reasoning in the world, they remain just as self evident, just as they are also, on the deepest levels, thoroughly profound. Here too, all that is needed to demonstrate proof of a Creator is that the world doesn't create itself, not instantly and not over time. All other issues can then be examined in that light.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what you do.

However, we must realize that while the sophistry it takes to purport a falsehood can be easily countered, the person who has upheld such notions for decades must have each of his or her counterpoints addressed. This is able to be done smoothly, in light of the inherent logic that necessitates the existence of a conscious Creator, but it must be done thoroughly.

Encouraging atheists to open their minds to pure logic and to possibilities that they hitherto only sought to counter or to avoid on any pretext also involves an emotional challenge for them, as they must open themselves to the possibility of having to shed preconceived notions that they've held firm for decades. And that, rather than facts, is the primary challenge to exposing them to insightful logic. However, if they are willing to address the issue honestly, a search for the truth should be of paramount importance and enough reason for them to take an open look.

”Captain! The irony meter can’t take any more o this!”

“Hold it together, Mr. Scott! He can’t keep a straight face through all of this. He’ll crack soon! I’m sure of it!”

NOT RELIGION AND SCIENCE, BUT RELIGION AND SCIENTISTS

Scientists as a whole are increasingly open to the idea of a conscious Creator.

Yes. That’s what scientists do. They evaluate positions with an open mind.

They realize that science points to the complexity of the universe, a complexity that dictates the inevitability of a Creator.

No, that’s what religious idiots do. They believe that the facts they will find down the line will inevitably lead to a particular conclusion.

However, some stick to old ways and old dogmas. A question that arises is why these seemingly logical people possess such illogical beliefs. This fact alone has prevented many from considering the existence of a Creator. But when we understand the reason for their animus to belief, their bias comes to the forefront as opposed to any reasoned argument.

This is one of those moments where I really enjoy this. Here's a devout believer claiming that believing in an invisible, mythological super being is more logical than actually going around the world and looking at the universe itself, collecting evidence, making theories and putting those theories to the harsh test of the real world. And this is more logical to him because some middle eastern tribes made wild claims about a couple of thousand years ago - claims that have crumbled like a house of cards under the hash light of actually checking evidence and building theories that have to work in the real world.

This really isn't that complex. Mapping claims to reality and throwing out claims that don't fit is more logical than making claims and refusing to change them when reality doesn't work the way your claims say it should.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled snarkiness!

Throughout the 20th century, many scientists were enthralled with the progress that science had made. They mistakenly believed that the physical universe, instead of being a creation, contained all answers in and of itself. Any questions would be resolved by science. To look beyond that was viewed in disdain.

Because it isn’t supported by actual, you know, evidence.

The fact that logic necessitates that physical matter must have originated at some point and that a formed universe cannot emerge without a designer was overlooked in the hope that physical science would prove the impossible. Other scientists, today a greater number than the more dogmatic former group, conceded that there may well be a Creator.

Just about all of them do. And then they get persnickety and ask for some evidence. Those fiends!

But they were wholly disinterested in the subject. They too did not realize that our physical universe points to the fact that it was consciously designed. And many of them had the same rigid disdain for religion as the former.

What's true of both groups is that they refused to consider the subject. As such, their rejection of a Creator does not stem from some well reasoned research or thought, but rather from the absence of such reasoning. Their knowledge of religion and philosophy was on par with their knowledge of economics or any other subject that they had never studied. They knew as much about religion as they knew how to paint a house, the only difference between the two being that had they delved into the former instead of reflexively dismissing it, they would have found it to be of profound logic and give depth to their other areas of study.

But these scientists did not give religious or philosophical questions a moment's notice. And what becomes abundantly clear from their statements on the issue is that they have grave misconceptions about religion, misconceptions that stem from their lack of interest. And while it is their right to do so, reflexively and often emotionally dismissing a belief without giving it a moment's thought isn't logic, but rather the opposite of logic.

To be sure, these scientists are indeed very logical and analytical within their main doctrine. It's just that they refuse to examine that which transcends it. As such, anyone who gives credence their views on this issue should beware, as their opinions do not stem from logic. Scientists who have thought over the issue are generally in agreement on this as well.

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: These words….they do not mean what you think they mean.

Seriously, man. Guys like Stenger really have studied your God hypothesis. They didn’t reject it because they weren’t aware of it. A billion religious TV shows remind us of that failed theory all the time.

They rejected it because they did actual research on actual evidence and found out that none of it points to the universe being consciously designed. Claiming that they never studied it is prima facie stupidity.

But please keep on writing! You're a gem!