Commenters make my case for me- Part Two
First, I want to clarify my response to a Dan S question. Second, I will use one commenter as a dialogue for the blog post. Third, I will preview tomorrow's new direction for the posts.
1) Question:
Allow me to re-address the question to me from a new perspective. Were I to be convinced that the universe was of a very old age, and were I to be convinced that macroevolution is the means by which organisms that are here today came about, would it shake my faith? No.
GAP THEORY
In that case, I would have to re-address my understanding of Genesis 1-3. There are some who believe that the reading of Genesis 1:2 contains a gap or allows for a gap. Here is Genesis 1:1-2 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
I have bolded the phrase which is in the original "tohu a bohu" which is translated "without form and void". Now the without form, or Tohu portion of this can mean the following:
formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness
1. formlessness (of primeval earth)
1. nothingness, empty space
2. that which is empty or unreal (of idols) (fig)
3. wasteland, wilderness (of solitary places)
4. place of chaos
5. vanity
and "Bohu"
1. emptiness, void, waste
(Strong's Old Testament Hebrew Dictionary)
Some Bible students believe this phrase allows for a gap that could be billions of years, to accomodate a very old age for the universe. I disagree, but there are those who firmly believe this. In addition....
DAYS AS A THOUSAND YEARS
Psalms 90:4
"For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night."
and also
II Peter 2:38
"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."
Bible students also know that at times the language of the Bible is figurative although it is usually literal. The book, context, speaker, style and situation all let the reader know which is which. For these reasons I believe that the reading of the first three books of Genesis is to be done as an historical narrative. Note how the days are presented...
Genesis 1:5
"God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."
An evening and a morning. Just like any other day. Note that the Jewish believer has continued to consider that a day starts in the evening and ends in the morning. This is of particular interest when studying the crucifixion narrative in the New Testament. It explains why the men charged with crucifying Christ and those who had come to bury him were in a rush to get him down from the cross when in our culture it was the middle of the day. It was because with the beginning of evening was a new day, a High (or special) Sabbath day and taking down and entombing a body would be considered work, which was not to be done on a Sabbath. But I digress.
The Hebrew word for "day" in this passage is "Owr"
which means primarily this: bright, clear, day, etc. In any event the usage and language indicates an actual morning and evening, one 24-hour day. But many believe that this day is a figurative day or an epoch in which thousands and perhaps millions of years could pass. They believe the six days of creation are a general description of the stages of time in which God used millions of years and macroevolution to form life as we know it. I don't believe this, but many do.
In any event, I will continue to have faith in God. I hope this settles the question to the satisfaction of all???
2) ANOTHER COMMMENTER MAKES MY CASE
The bold portions to come are from my post. The italicized portions to come are from a comment to the last issue of this dialogue and then I enter responses.
The commenter is saying that only his world view is scientific.
No, the commenter is saying only the scientific worldview is scientific. Law of identity has got you there. Science is only concerned with what it can observe, and all it can observe is matter/energy. Therefore, science is inherently a materialistic study. Come up with a God-o-meter, and we'll talk.
Wrong! Science is concerned with what can be observed and the implications thereof. The materialist excludes the idea of the supernatural and God, thus limiting his science to boundaries set by his world view. I say that such a view hinders his ability to operate as a scientist.
One's world view has a great effect on one's scientific stance.
Depends on what you mean. Technically, you are correct; if I view the world from physical perspective A and you view the world from physical perspective B, we will see different data, and therefore could potentially draw different conclusions. But, I think you mean that people's philosophical world view colors their science. This is only true of poor science, such as creationism. True science minimizes a priori assumptions and is based on the data. As the only data we can measure is material data, it is necessarily limited to materialism. Again, waiting on your God-o-meter to come out.
Wrong again! (Hee-hee, two for two!) Both creation scientists and evolutionists evaluate data and the same data is available to both. The difference is in the interpretation of the data. Your science is limited by your world view and so also your science is the poor science out of the two.
I am saying that, as you say, that both sides should be presented along with the evidence for both. Being in England, I believe, you don't know how it goes here in the states but in our schools Darwinism is presented as the ONLY possibility, which smacks of indoctrination rather than education.
No, evolution is presented as the only theory supported by the evidence (which is true). In science, Bible does not equal evidence.
First, no one has proven macroevolution to be true. Second, the Bible is a historical document and historical documents are evidence that are used in several disciplines known as science. Try archaeology without documentation sometime...
Perhaps you would consider the existence of Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed as evidence?
Again, in science, Bible does not equal evidence.
Again, see above.
But most of the other evidences such as the fossil record and rock layering depend entirely on how you wish to see them, it would seem.
Amazing how the same people who insist on literal reading of the Bible also insist on convoluted and self-contradicting reading of physical evidence.
Oh, that is rich! Until Uniformitarianism became popular in the 1800's thanks to men such as James Hutton and Charles Lyle, geologists believed that the rock record demonstrated the catastrophic effects of a world-wide flood. Uniformitarianism paved the way for a belief in Darwinism. Now that Uniformitarianism is being challenged and discarded, Darwinists have returned to catastrophism. But now they see the rock record as a series of catastrophes, around the world, rather than all related to the flood.
There is then some follow up stuff, a brief and inaccurate ad hominem attack and then back to our movie...
I posted a thorough look at statistics and have not been given back a straight answer yet. Take the Houdini out of your answers and play it straight, people. Mumbo jumbo with math might impress your friends but not me.
It's the typical creationist "Explain difficult science completely thoroughly, but use small words." You're a computer guy--write me a 100% effective anti-virus program using only BASIC. You have 15 minutes...go!
While plenty of people have given you perfectly correct answers, I'll try to rephrase. It seems like the basic statistical trap you have fallen into is a presumed outcome. You set up your probability based on the premise that evolution requires that we start with slidge and end up with life as we know it. This is untrue. There is no a priori requirement that life end up as we know it today! That's why, even if you knew the correct probability functions to plug into your model, you would fail. It is quite possible that we could have ended up with life that was completely different than what we know right now. To correct an analogy that creationists are fond of abusing, evolution does not predict that a tornado in a junkyard will create a 747. Evolution predicts that a tornado in a junkyard will produce a configuration of junk that has lower wind resistance than the original configuration.
Your answer fails again. The answers I get basically throw out statistics as a science and say that anything could happen and all possibilities are possible. That is the stuff that comes out of the end of the horse! (Previous post)
I did a long post on that one, carefully and patiently explaining why macroevolution, if it operates, must do so against the second law of thermodynamics.
*sigh* Fine, a thermo lesson. The 2nd law, as you stated in the other post, only states that, in the absence of an input of energy, heat only flows from hot objects to cold objects; that is, the thermodynamic entropy of a system can only increase in the absence of an input of energy. Fortunately, we have the Sun. It inputs a lot of energy, increasing the overall entropy of Earth. Plants take that excess energy and use it to generate ordered biomolecules. You can do it without life through photochemistry; unliving molecules get excited by light, and join together into more complex molecules (e.g. aryl azide chemistry). No thermodynamic problem here.
Your ignorant bastarization of the 2nd law states that things can only get less complex. Unfortunately for you, anyone who has seen a snowflake, or a quartz crystal, or normal ice can refute that terrible interpretation--things can and do assume more complex forms without any intelligence guiding them. Another example would be the formation of nylon-digesting bacteria. This entirely new function did not exist before man created nylon; it formed by genetic mutation and selection, causing a new function never before seen on Earth to form. This would also be against Radar's bastardized 2nd Law of Thermo, but fortunately, nature doesn't care what he thinks.
Previous post again. Gee, since the sun was around back in the days of Robert Boyle or Carnot, don't you think they would have been unable to postulate such a thing as thermodynamics? The idea that the sun makes the earth an open system has already been refuted. Tell you a story - When we decided to build our house three years ago, we put a pile of bricks and wood and other stuff on the property we had purchased and left it open to the sun. In a few months the sun had built the house for us and we moved in - NOT!
The sun is undirected energy and guess what? Leave a pile of stuff out for the sun to shine on and it will begin to fall apart and degrade. Cover it up so the sun doesn't shine upon it? It will begin to fall apart and degrade. Here is one of the quotes again...
“...there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems ... there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.” [Dr. John Ross, Harvard scientist (evolutionist), Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58, July 7, 1980, p. 40]
How many of you have the guts to say, "I believe in macroevolution and that life has evolved. Nothing radar can say will change that?"
Because it isn't true. If you discover data and show it to me, it is possible that you could disprove macroevolution and cause a complete reworking of the theory. But either creationists can't be bothered with something as trivial as finding new data, or else they just can't find any convincing data to disprove evolution, no matter how hard they try. Which is it?
Neither. Creationists continue to present data while macroevolutionists try to suppress it and call it names. Macroevolutionists in general are afraid to openly discuss creation or Intelligent Design issues and avoid the data whenever possible. They fight hard to keep the open consideration of both schools of thought out of classrooms. It is macroevolutionists who have fought so hard to keep ID information out of classrooms. Why, because ID or creationist proponents are trying to toss Darwin out? No, because they simply want both sides to be considered and the macroevolutionists, far from challenging the other side to present information, are working hard to stifle that information. You claim you want science and only want to study the data but in fact you try hard to stifle any thoughts or ideas that disagree with your own!
For instance, macroevolutionists have tried very hard to stifle the presentation of ideas that do not support evolution in Kansas. Let's take a look at a FAQ for the Kansas Science Standards.
Some excerpts -
Q: How do parents want evolution taught?
A: Parents want evolution taught honestly. Most Polls conducted by highly
regarded organizations show that more than 80% of the public oppose an
“evolution only” curriculum, i.e., one that discourages critical analysis of evolution.
Q: Did the Board remove evolution from the standards as stated by the
National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT)?
A: No. This is misinformation that seeks to suppress any critical analysis of
evolution.
Q: Why has the Board opened Pandora’s box by inserting discussions
of “origins” into the standards?
A: The Board did not insert origins. It inserted objectivity into an existing onesided discussion of origins. Textbooks and prior science standards teach the origin of the universe and the origin of life and its diversity from a single
perspective. The new standards are more objective.
Q: Do the changes seek to criticize evolution to advance religion?
A: No. They seek to eliminate rather than advance a religious bias that
permeated the old standards.
Your world view determines to a great extent where you stand on the creation versus evolution question.
You are absolutely correct; if you demand physical evidence for your belief, then you will twist or ignore the writings in ancient texts and fall toward the evolution side. If you demand a literal interpretation of an internally and externally inconsistent collection of ancient writings, then you will twist or ignore the writings in the ancient texts and fall toward the creation side.
Dr. Henry Morris said this:
"The question arises then, if evolution is so solidly proven, what are evolutionists afraid of? Why must evolution be protected from scrutiny? Why must students be shielded from other views? Why not present all the pertinent facts and encourage the students to think critically, as a good scientist should? Would this not be a good educational technique? Would this not produce better citizens and scientists?
Evolutionists purport that there is no real science supporting intelligent design, that ID is just religion, or at least a “backdoor” to religion. But the facts are that many secular scientists, through observation and experimentation and based on the scientific evidence and data they’ve obtained, have come to the conclusion that life has been designed, not created by mere chance from nothing.
Science involves conducting research, using the scientific method in various disciplines, and reporting on the data and results. There’s no religion in the facts. ICR has recently discovered groundbreaking evidence about rock dating, carbon-14 in diamonds, excess helium within zircons, and other geologic data supporting a young earth. ICR is adamant that this science be available for scrutiny by critical thinkers—that students, specifically, are able to evaluate the evidence and formulate their own beliefs If the science points to a designer, so be it. But if the evidence suggests otherwise, which we’re sure it does not, then so be it. Let the chips fall where they may.
Perhaps evolutionists’ avoidance of these kinds of data exposes a basic insecurity in their position. ICR has long held that evolution cannot stand the test of science—it must avoid the light of open inquiry. Only by limiting the debate can evolutionists hope to maintain their monopoly on education. Yet, it serves us well to recognize that the debate involves a deeper issue than just control of academic content. If evolutionists admit that science does indeed support intelligent design, then they are admitting that there is a possibility of a Creator. Perhaps what evolutionists are truly afraid of are the implications of the presence of a higher power. Higher power means higher authority and, ultimately, higher accountability."
Thank you, Dr. Morris, a founding member of ICR.
It is in fact the macroevolutionist who tries to twist statistical analysis and the second law of thermodynamics like pretzels to fit their postulations. It is the materialists who have sought to re-write history by ignoring and attacking the older geneological records and recorded histories available to them because such histories support the Bible records and they cannot stomach this. My next post, tomorrow, will address this because I have to get the geneological evidence out there before I get to the Flood itself. But I have to tell you, after you read my post you will probably know whether you are descended from Ham, Shem or Japheth!
1) Question:
Allow me to re-address the question to me from a new perspective. Were I to be convinced that the universe was of a very old age, and were I to be convinced that macroevolution is the means by which organisms that are here today came about, would it shake my faith? No.
GAP THEORY
In that case, I would have to re-address my understanding of Genesis 1-3. There are some who believe that the reading of Genesis 1:2 contains a gap or allows for a gap. Here is Genesis 1:1-2 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
I have bolded the phrase which is in the original "tohu a bohu" which is translated "without form and void". Now the without form, or Tohu portion of this can mean the following:
formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness
1. formlessness (of primeval earth)
1. nothingness, empty space
2. that which is empty or unreal (of idols) (fig)
3. wasteland, wilderness (of solitary places)
4. place of chaos
5. vanity
and "Bohu"
1. emptiness, void, waste
(Strong's Old Testament Hebrew Dictionary)
Some Bible students believe this phrase allows for a gap that could be billions of years, to accomodate a very old age for the universe. I disagree, but there are those who firmly believe this. In addition....
DAYS AS A THOUSAND YEARS
Psalms 90:4
"For a thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night."
and also
II Peter 2:38
"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."
Bible students also know that at times the language of the Bible is figurative although it is usually literal. The book, context, speaker, style and situation all let the reader know which is which. For these reasons I believe that the reading of the first three books of Genesis is to be done as an historical narrative. Note how the days are presented...
Genesis 1:5
"God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."
An evening and a morning. Just like any other day. Note that the Jewish believer has continued to consider that a day starts in the evening and ends in the morning. This is of particular interest when studying the crucifixion narrative in the New Testament. It explains why the men charged with crucifying Christ and those who had come to bury him were in a rush to get him down from the cross when in our culture it was the middle of the day. It was because with the beginning of evening was a new day, a High (or special) Sabbath day and taking down and entombing a body would be considered work, which was not to be done on a Sabbath. But I digress.
The Hebrew word for "day" in this passage is "Owr"
which means primarily this: bright, clear, day, etc. In any event the usage and language indicates an actual morning and evening, one 24-hour day. But many believe that this day is a figurative day or an epoch in which thousands and perhaps millions of years could pass. They believe the six days of creation are a general description of the stages of time in which God used millions of years and macroevolution to form life as we know it. I don't believe this, but many do.
In any event, I will continue to have faith in God. I hope this settles the question to the satisfaction of all???
2) ANOTHER COMMMENTER MAKES MY CASE
The bold portions to come are from my post. The italicized portions to come are from a comment to the last issue of this dialogue and then I enter responses.
The commenter is saying that only his world view is scientific.
No, the commenter is saying only the scientific worldview is scientific. Law of identity has got you there. Science is only concerned with what it can observe, and all it can observe is matter/energy. Therefore, science is inherently a materialistic study. Come up with a God-o-meter, and we'll talk.
Wrong! Science is concerned with what can be observed and the implications thereof. The materialist excludes the idea of the supernatural and God, thus limiting his science to boundaries set by his world view. I say that such a view hinders his ability to operate as a scientist.
One's world view has a great effect on one's scientific stance.
Depends on what you mean. Technically, you are correct; if I view the world from physical perspective A and you view the world from physical perspective B, we will see different data, and therefore could potentially draw different conclusions. But, I think you mean that people's philosophical world view colors their science. This is only true of poor science, such as creationism. True science minimizes a priori assumptions and is based on the data. As the only data we can measure is material data, it is necessarily limited to materialism. Again, waiting on your God-o-meter to come out.
Wrong again! (Hee-hee, two for two!) Both creation scientists and evolutionists evaluate data and the same data is available to both. The difference is in the interpretation of the data. Your science is limited by your world view and so also your science is the poor science out of the two.
I am saying that, as you say, that both sides should be presented along with the evidence for both. Being in England, I believe, you don't know how it goes here in the states but in our schools Darwinism is presented as the ONLY possibility, which smacks of indoctrination rather than education.
No, evolution is presented as the only theory supported by the evidence (which is true). In science, Bible does not equal evidence.
First, no one has proven macroevolution to be true. Second, the Bible is a historical document and historical documents are evidence that are used in several disciplines known as science. Try archaeology without documentation sometime...
Perhaps you would consider the existence of Jesus Christ and the miracles he performed as evidence?
Again, in science, Bible does not equal evidence.
Again, see above.
But most of the other evidences such as the fossil record and rock layering depend entirely on how you wish to see them, it would seem.
Amazing how the same people who insist on literal reading of the Bible also insist on convoluted and self-contradicting reading of physical evidence.
Oh, that is rich! Until Uniformitarianism became popular in the 1800's thanks to men such as James Hutton and Charles Lyle, geologists believed that the rock record demonstrated the catastrophic effects of a world-wide flood. Uniformitarianism paved the way for a belief in Darwinism. Now that Uniformitarianism is being challenged and discarded, Darwinists have returned to catastrophism. But now they see the rock record as a series of catastrophes, around the world, rather than all related to the flood.
There is then some follow up stuff, a brief and inaccurate ad hominem attack and then back to our movie...
I posted a thorough look at statistics and have not been given back a straight answer yet. Take the Houdini out of your answers and play it straight, people. Mumbo jumbo with math might impress your friends but not me.
It's the typical creationist "Explain difficult science completely thoroughly, but use small words." You're a computer guy--write me a 100% effective anti-virus program using only BASIC. You have 15 minutes...go!
While plenty of people have given you perfectly correct answers, I'll try to rephrase. It seems like the basic statistical trap you have fallen into is a presumed outcome. You set up your probability based on the premise that evolution requires that we start with slidge and end up with life as we know it. This is untrue. There is no a priori requirement that life end up as we know it today! That's why, even if you knew the correct probability functions to plug into your model, you would fail. It is quite possible that we could have ended up with life that was completely different than what we know right now. To correct an analogy that creationists are fond of abusing, evolution does not predict that a tornado in a junkyard will create a 747. Evolution predicts that a tornado in a junkyard will produce a configuration of junk that has lower wind resistance than the original configuration.
Your answer fails again. The answers I get basically throw out statistics as a science and say that anything could happen and all possibilities are possible. That is the stuff that comes out of the end of the horse! (Previous post)
I did a long post on that one, carefully and patiently explaining why macroevolution, if it operates, must do so against the second law of thermodynamics.
*sigh* Fine, a thermo lesson. The 2nd law, as you stated in the other post, only states that, in the absence of an input of energy, heat only flows from hot objects to cold objects; that is, the thermodynamic entropy of a system can only increase in the absence of an input of energy. Fortunately, we have the Sun. It inputs a lot of energy, increasing the overall entropy of Earth. Plants take that excess energy and use it to generate ordered biomolecules. You can do it without life through photochemistry; unliving molecules get excited by light, and join together into more complex molecules (e.g. aryl azide chemistry). No thermodynamic problem here.
Your ignorant bastarization of the 2nd law states that things can only get less complex. Unfortunately for you, anyone who has seen a snowflake, or a quartz crystal, or normal ice can refute that terrible interpretation--things can and do assume more complex forms without any intelligence guiding them. Another example would be the formation of nylon-digesting bacteria. This entirely new function did not exist before man created nylon; it formed by genetic mutation and selection, causing a new function never before seen on Earth to form. This would also be against Radar's bastardized 2nd Law of Thermo, but fortunately, nature doesn't care what he thinks.
Previous post again. Gee, since the sun was around back in the days of Robert Boyle or Carnot, don't you think they would have been unable to postulate such a thing as thermodynamics? The idea that the sun makes the earth an open system has already been refuted. Tell you a story - When we decided to build our house three years ago, we put a pile of bricks and wood and other stuff on the property we had purchased and left it open to the sun. In a few months the sun had built the house for us and we moved in - NOT!
The sun is undirected energy and guess what? Leave a pile of stuff out for the sun to shine on and it will begin to fall apart and degrade. Cover it up so the sun doesn't shine upon it? It will begin to fall apart and degrade. Here is one of the quotes again...
“...there are no known violations of the second law of thermodynamics. Ordinarily the second law is stated for isolated systems, but the second law applies equally well to open systems ... there is somehow associated with the field of far-from equilibrium phenomena the notion that the second law of thermodynamics fails for such systems. It is important to make sure that this error does not perpetuate itself.” [Dr. John Ross, Harvard scientist (evolutionist), Chemical and Engineering News, vol. 58, July 7, 1980, p. 40]
How many of you have the guts to say, "I believe in macroevolution and that life has evolved. Nothing radar can say will change that?"
Because it isn't true. If you discover data and show it to me, it is possible that you could disprove macroevolution and cause a complete reworking of the theory. But either creationists can't be bothered with something as trivial as finding new data, or else they just can't find any convincing data to disprove evolution, no matter how hard they try. Which is it?
Neither. Creationists continue to present data while macroevolutionists try to suppress it and call it names. Macroevolutionists in general are afraid to openly discuss creation or Intelligent Design issues and avoid the data whenever possible. They fight hard to keep the open consideration of both schools of thought out of classrooms. It is macroevolutionists who have fought so hard to keep ID information out of classrooms. Why, because ID or creationist proponents are trying to toss Darwin out? No, because they simply want both sides to be considered and the macroevolutionists, far from challenging the other side to present information, are working hard to stifle that information. You claim you want science and only want to study the data but in fact you try hard to stifle any thoughts or ideas that disagree with your own!
For instance, macroevolutionists have tried very hard to stifle the presentation of ideas that do not support evolution in Kansas. Let's take a look at a FAQ for the Kansas Science Standards.
Some excerpts -
Q: How do parents want evolution taught?
A: Parents want evolution taught honestly. Most Polls conducted by highly
regarded organizations show that more than 80% of the public oppose an
“evolution only” curriculum, i.e., one that discourages critical analysis of evolution.
Q: Did the Board remove evolution from the standards as stated by the
National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT)?
A: No. This is misinformation that seeks to suppress any critical analysis of
evolution.
Q: Why has the Board opened Pandora’s box by inserting discussions
of “origins” into the standards?
A: The Board did not insert origins. It inserted objectivity into an existing onesided discussion of origins. Textbooks and prior science standards teach the origin of the universe and the origin of life and its diversity from a single
perspective. The new standards are more objective.
Q: Do the changes seek to criticize evolution to advance religion?
A: No. They seek to eliminate rather than advance a religious bias that
permeated the old standards.
Your world view determines to a great extent where you stand on the creation versus evolution question.
You are absolutely correct; if you demand physical evidence for your belief, then you will twist or ignore the writings in ancient texts and fall toward the evolution side. If you demand a literal interpretation of an internally and externally inconsistent collection of ancient writings, then you will twist or ignore the writings in the ancient texts and fall toward the creation side.
Dr. Henry Morris said this:
"The question arises then, if evolution is so solidly proven, what are evolutionists afraid of? Why must evolution be protected from scrutiny? Why must students be shielded from other views? Why not present all the pertinent facts and encourage the students to think critically, as a good scientist should? Would this not be a good educational technique? Would this not produce better citizens and scientists?
Evolutionists purport that there is no real science supporting intelligent design, that ID is just religion, or at least a “backdoor” to religion. But the facts are that many secular scientists, through observation and experimentation and based on the scientific evidence and data they’ve obtained, have come to the conclusion that life has been designed, not created by mere chance from nothing.
Science involves conducting research, using the scientific method in various disciplines, and reporting on the data and results. There’s no religion in the facts. ICR has recently discovered groundbreaking evidence about rock dating, carbon-14 in diamonds, excess helium within zircons, and other geologic data supporting a young earth. ICR is adamant that this science be available for scrutiny by critical thinkers—that students, specifically, are able to evaluate the evidence and formulate their own beliefs If the science points to a designer, so be it. But if the evidence suggests otherwise, which we’re sure it does not, then so be it. Let the chips fall where they may.
Perhaps evolutionists’ avoidance of these kinds of data exposes a basic insecurity in their position. ICR has long held that evolution cannot stand the test of science—it must avoid the light of open inquiry. Only by limiting the debate can evolutionists hope to maintain their monopoly on education. Yet, it serves us well to recognize that the debate involves a deeper issue than just control of academic content. If evolutionists admit that science does indeed support intelligent design, then they are admitting that there is a possibility of a Creator. Perhaps what evolutionists are truly afraid of are the implications of the presence of a higher power. Higher power means higher authority and, ultimately, higher accountability."
Thank you, Dr. Morris, a founding member of ICR.
It is in fact the macroevolutionist who tries to twist statistical analysis and the second law of thermodynamics like pretzels to fit their postulations. It is the materialists who have sought to re-write history by ignoring and attacking the older geneological records and recorded histories available to them because such histories support the Bible records and they cannot stomach this. My next post, tomorrow, will address this because I have to get the geneological evidence out there before I get to the Flood itself. But I have to tell you, after you read my post you will probably know whether you are descended from Ham, Shem or Japheth!