Video: Deny Evolution, Risk Your Career

Premise:  If Darwinism is true, it does not need "protection" from inquiry and opposing hypotheses.  

Yet Darwinists have erected walls to "protect" Darwinism from being questioned or being compared to alternative hypotheses (Creation by God and Intelligent Design).   Yet the NCSE exists for no reason beyond the censorship of non-Darwinist teaching and materials.   Darwinists are desperate to keep alternative explanations for origins away from the public.  Why do Darwinists fear scrutiny?   

If you were driving your car and were transporting a couple of pounds of "speed" aka methamphetamine on your way to cut it and sort it into baggies for sale, you would do anything possible to avoid attracting the attention and scrutiny of the police, right?  If they stopped you for any reason, you would do what you could to avoid your vehicle being searched and especially deflecting attention from the place the drugs were stored.  Having the police stop you would be a personal nightmare!

But if you had not been drinking and you were obeying traffic laws and you had no illegal drugs hidden in your vehicle, being stopped by the police would not terrorize you.   You would be curious but unafraid, because you had nothing to hide and therefore the police would not be a terror to you.  Right?

Darwinists are like the guy transporting illegal drugs.  They fear scrutiny and do what they can to avoid it because they have things to hide.  It really is as simple as that! 

If any Darwinist tells you that Darwinists do not fear scrutiny, ask them why they do not therefore disband the NCSE?   Why do they cast non-Darwinists out of scientific organizations and academic institutions?  It is not a matter of incompetence, because there are numerous brilliant men and women who reject Darwinism, some of whom are winners of major scientific prizes or inventors of note.   Most of the great scientists of the past believed God created and that continues to this day.  But good and great scientists who admit to doubting Darwin are asking for their careers to be deep-sixed.   Again, this is a sign of fear and weakness among Darwinists.

Here is the scientific Creation Ministries International Fifteen Questions.

I will publish them more fully with a blogpost soon!

Here is the supposed answer to those questions from rationalwiki.

Below we have a three part post:

1) A testimony on the Darwinist hostility to questioning the ruling paradigm, to the point of getting scientists and academics fired and censored and ridiculed on a religious basis courtesy of Piltdown Superman.

2)  An overview of the lack of scientific credibility and ethical behavior amongst Darwinists from CFP.

3) An example post of how a real scientist deals with questions and challenges from Creation.com.

 Dr. Bergman has a  mini-bio here.

Here is a list of his earned degrees excerpted from that bio (there is much more found at the link)!

"Education

M.P.H., Northwest Ohio Consortium for Public Health (Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, Ohio; University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio; Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio), 2001.

M.S. in biomedical science, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, Ohio, 1999.

Ph.D. in human biology, Columbia Pacific University, San Rafael, California, 1992.

M.A. in social psychology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, 1986.

Ph.D. in measurement and evaluation, minor in psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1976.

M.Ed. in counseling and psychology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1971.

B.S., Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, 1970. Major area of study was sociology, biology, and psychology.

A.A. in Biology and Behavioral Science, Oakland Community College, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, 1967."

PART ONE

Video: Deny Evolution, Risk Your Career

To help celebrate Charles Darwin's birthday Question Evolution Day, here is a lecture by Dr. Jerry Bergman about how evolution deniers can lose their jobs and even have their entire careers destroyed. It's ironic, evolutionists feel the need to protect "science" (disingenuously conflating "evolution" with "science"),suppressing dissent against evolution in the scientific community. This is science?Even so, there are secular scientists that dare to speak out and risk their careers.

If you do not like Dr. Bergman's biblical message, just wait it out. The video is about ninety minutes, so get comfy. (The last half hour or so is a Q & A session that you could give a miss if you're pressed for time). 

You may wish to save the video until after the written material below?  It is rather lengthy albeit informative!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One section of Dr. Bergman's book, concerning the disdainful and frankly illegal and unethical treatment of Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez by Iowa State University is here online for your reading pleasure.   Gonzalez was considered a rising star by the University and the scientific community who was a shoe-in for tenure until he dared to propose the concept of design!

A pointed article from the Canadian Free Press that helps explain how and why Darwinists fear discussion and dissension. 

PART TWO

Science Cannot Solve Our Problems Without a Foundation of Humility

Every Scientific Fact is Open to Reevaluation—Except Evolution, by Conservatives

- Kelly OConnell (Bio and Archives)  Wednesday, January 2, 2013

One of the predictable rites of the biological establishment is the outraged, condescending response given to any criticism levied at the theory of evolution by the wrong group. There is no end of the amount of indignant spleen vented towards the supposed interlopers—pig-ignorant, fundamentalist, pseudo-scientific nuts—who dare contradict the most important idea in the history of science. Consider noted atheist and evolutionary evangelist Richard Dawkin’s statement:

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that). 

And yet, in two recent articles on pride and error in the sciences, a foundation is laid for even evolutionary biology to be more open to criticisms, without worrying from where these critiques arise.

In both Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong, by Ronald Bailey, and How Might Intellectual Humility Lead to Scientific Insight?, by W. Jay Wood, a strong argument is advanced for principled and unbiased humility in the search for scientific truth. After all, could it really be any other way? Does the scientific establishment actually stand for the proposition that no accurate criticisms of evolution could EVER come from those of a non-conformists or religious mindset? Why should Mother Nature or God favor a blindly biased cabal of “truth hoarders” arrogantly convinced only they intuit the secret nuts and bolts of the universe?

I. A Stagnant Pool—Reign of Evolutionary “Certainty”

If there is one certainty in biology, it is the unchanging place of evolution as the center of the study of the “genesis” of life. So, the centerpiece of a scientific enterprise is unchallengeable, secular dogma? Yes. Why this is so can be answered from several different angles. From the pro-evolutionary side, the reason is it’s the “only game in town”—claiming no other plausible theory exists to explain life’s origins. Evolutionary critics, on the other hand, will point out that Neo-Darwinian evolution is the centerpiece of a rather simplistic naturalist philosophy that calls upon August Comte and John Stuart Mill’s Church of Humanity. This secular religion demands that only measurable or “natural” explanations be examined in the sciences. So, by fiat, God is rejected.

Evolution therefore inhabits the enviable place of being a “theory” which brooks no dissent. So, how does this effect the biological sciences? Many negative elements are introduced from the presumption of blind evolution. First, its assumed the purpose of biology is the furtherance of evolutionary theory; i.e., all scientific research is understood to be designed to prove, not harm, the central tenets of evolution. Second, evolution encourages an ethic of amorality to pervade the sciences which also filters into society. Third, much time, labor and valuable, finite resources have been expended to prop up belief in the unprovable hypothesis—evolution. Fourth, a spirit of censorship has descended over the sciences in protection of the unchallengeable thesis, driving out many religious and independent thinkers.

Fifth, Darwinism helped encourage some of the most morally reprehensible research and activities in history, such as the eugenics movement, and the scientific programs of the Nazis and Russians. Sixth, a reductionist and highly condescending myth is constantly dispensed in all public forums extolling the truth and rightness of evolutionary cant, including all mainstream science shows. Seventh, an incredible opportunity to better understand nature has been lost if evolutionary theory is wrong from the embargoing of advocates. Eighth, as Darwinism is an unprovable hypothesis, biological science itself is built upon wholly non-scientific criteria, which cannot be questioned. Finally, evolution encourages a jaded view of life, as a series of random events that have no meaning or direction, instead of a mystery and a miracle to behold.

And yet, according to its leading proponents, there can be no intelligent, principled or educated opposition to Darwinism. In his book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution Richard Dawkins says,

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eyewitnesses to the Holocaust. We know this because of a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and this book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it…Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time. I shall be using the name ‘history-deniers’ for those people who deny evolution…

To say Dawkins is closed-minded is as controversial as claiming the Ayatollah opposes pulled pork sandwiches. He goes out of his way to regularly insult the religious, but now has been called out for being a secular “Fundamentalist” by a noted scientist. The UK Mail, in an article titled: Richard Dawkins branded a fundamentalist by expert behind the ‘God particle’, reports:

Atheist campaigner Richard Dawkins was branded a ‘fundamentalist’ by one of his most eminent scientific colleagues. The militancy of Professor Dawkins’s attacks on religious belief mean he is ‘almost a fundamentalist himself’, scientist Peter Higgs said. Professor Higgs, whose theory on the sub-atomic ‘God particle’ was recently supported by experiments at the Cern research centre near Geneva, is considered one of the world’s leading scientists and is widely tipped for a Nobel prize.

II. Response of the Evolutionary Critics

Critics from both the religious and atheist school are noted here.

A. Non-Religious Critics—Sir Fred Hoyle

There have been extraordinary rejections of evolutionary theory by some of the world’s leading scientists. According to one site, Fred Hoyle was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century:

Fred Hoyle was an atheist, but also a freethinker who embraced intelligent design. Hoyle was a very famous Cambridge (UK) physicist, astronomer, and cosmologist. The truth is that Hoyle absolutely disbelieved in Darwinism. He thought that there is intelligence “out there” in the cosmos, and perhaps in past time, that is directing the progress of life on Earth. In The Intelligent Universe, Hoyle meticulously demolishes Darwinism in great detail and with scientific precision.

In The Intelligent Universe, Hoyle wrote this famous passage: 

A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.

Hoyle makes an equally strong claim in the same book:

Would you not say to yourself, “Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule?” Of course you would…A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.

And to help illustrate the point, Hoyle gives some numbers as to the odds needed for evolution (see also Mathematics and Evolution). From the book Evolution From Space,

Hoyle calculated the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell was one in 10^40,000. Since their are only 10⁸⁰ atoms in the known universe, he argued that even a whole universe full of primordial soup wouldn’t have a chance. He claimed that the notion that not only the biopolymer but the operating program of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the Earth is evidently nonsense of a high order.

Interestingly, Dr. Hubert P. Yockey, physicist on the Manhattan Project under Robert Oppenheimer, dedicated himself to studying application of information theory to problems in biology. He stated Hoyle was “wildly optimistic” in his numbers on evolution, which he considered much more unlikely, saying: “The origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem.” Thus he rejected the primordial soup theory of the origin of life.

Hoyle was criticized for his views, but not dismissed wholesale by other scientists because of his eminence inside the scientific community. In addition, Harvard’s famous paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, believed the fossil record did not support gradual evolution. He taught, instead, that “saltation” had occurred—that is, episodic flurries of quick evolutionary leaps. He states the problem in an article:

The history of most fossil species includes two features particularly inconsistent with gradualism:

1. Stasis. Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless.
2. Sudden appearance. In any local area, a species does not arise gradually by the steady transformation of its ancestors; it appears all at once and ‘fully formed.’

The problem with Gould’s saltationism is that it pulls the rug out from under slow evolutionists, whose God is Chance and Time. Further, there is no clear method from which saltationist evolution could occur—although he states “punctuated equilibrium” is responsible. While Gould’s ideas were controversial, and perhaps indistinguishable at some level from a creationist account of the rise of animals, his eminence as the world’s greatest paleontoloist, and a best-selling author shielded him from criticism.

B. Creationist Critics

A notable religious critic of evolution is Jonathan Wells (PhD Cal State Berkley). His book Icons of Evolution is an attack against the Darwinist dogma of missing links, etc. Wells describes his “Icons” and why he decided to expose their falsehoods:

We all remember them from biology class: the experiment that created the “building blocks of life” in a tube; the evolutionary “tree,” the peppered moths, and Darwin’s finches. And, of course, the Haeckel embryos. All of these examples, and many others purportedly standing as evidence of evolution, are incorrect. Not just slightly off. Not just slightly mistaken. On the subject of Darwinian evolution, the texts contained massive distortions and even some faked evidence. In fact, when the false “evidence” is taken away, the case for Darwinian evolution, in the textbooks at least, is so thin it’s almost invisible.

Responses to Well’s Icons were extraordinarily condescending and disrespectful. One scientist, Jerry Coyne, composed the following response (including a pointed attack on his religious beliefs):

Wells’ book rests entirely on a flawed syllogism: hence, textbooks illustrate evolution with examples; these examples are sometimes presented in incorrect or misleading ways; therefore evolution is a fiction. To compound the absurdity, Wells concludes that a cabal of evil scientists, “the Darwinian establishment”, uses fraud and distortion to buttress the crumbling edifice of evolution. Wells’ final chapter urges his readers to lobby the US government to eliminate research funding for evolutionary biology.

The fact is, Wells’ critics, instead of thanking him for pointing out obvious and misleading flaws in evolutionary teaching materials, attacked him personally, claiming all his points were either trivial or irrelevant to evolution. Yet, is this really the way science is supposed to work—where only the “right” people are allowed to criticize? Instead, Wells’ critics come off like the jilted ex-girlfriend, personally offended by his disagreements. We do well here to recall scientist Garret Hardin’s warning from Nature and Man’s Fate—that he who does not honor Darwin “...inevitably attracts the speculative psychiatric eye to himself.”

III. Call for Systemic Biological Reform

There is currently an enormous problem with intellectual integrity in scientific publications, as outlined in the article Why Most Published Research Findings Are False which states, 

There is increasing concern that most current published research findings are false…Moreover, for many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.

Further alarms on scientific falsification are happening across the globe in various studies, such as in Global Warming. For example, Michael Mann is infamous for his misleading “Hockey Stick Graph” falsely showing temperatures spiking for the first time in history. Moreover, falsified science is found everywhere—more typically with popular topics. Overall, there has been a—Tenfold increase in scientific research papers retracted for fraud. Finally, wherever we find fame, money, or power, we should keep an eye out for suspect scientific research. And certainly, in such a politically and culturally important field as evolutionary biology, with its vast use as a foundation for all modern, public undertakings, we must especially be on the lookout for fraud—such as the many faked “Missing Links” between ape and man, like Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Peking Man, etc… (list of evolutionary frauds).

Conclusion

So what can be done to improve scientific rectitude and create a more open, and scientific culture? We must acknowledge that “Science” is only the Scientific Method and no one needs special permission to criticize established theories or offer new ones. That is the only way Science itself can evolve. So we must encourage a humble regard for the truth and a measured response to those who challenge even highly regarded scientific “facts”—since today’s facts are often tomorrow’s misinformation—as described in Half the Facts You Know Are Probably Wrong. Overall, a sense of modesty towards dissent should be highly encouraged in the sciences instead of fury when one’s icons are pulled down. One writer suggests the following as an antidote to scientific close-minded arrogance:

I focus on the virtue of “intellectual humility” and ask what relevance it has for the pursuit of scientific knowledge. I argue that intellectually humble scientists have a stronger likelihood of winning knowledge and other intellectual goods than those lacking this virtue.

After all, some of today’s “heretics” will evolve into tomorrow’s visionary geniuses.

Kelly O’Connell hosts American Anthem on CFP Radio Sundays at 4 pm (EST).

Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico. Kelly is now host of a daily, Monday to Friday talk show at AM KOBE called AM Las Cruces w/Kelly O’Connell

Kelly can be reached at: hibernian1@gmail.com

Finally, here is an example how an actual scientist dialogues with and answers questions both intelligent and uninformed with clarity and patience.   

PART THREE

Refuting old-earth church publication

by Dr Jonathan D Sarfati

Bruce B., a generous supporter of our ministry from Australia wrote to us about yet another compromising churchian publication. This one was called Good News for Adventists from New South Wales, Australia, September 2010, in an article “The Age of the Earth” by one Ritchie Way. But this just shows that the craving for secular intellectual respectability has even infected some academics from the Seventh Day Adventists, a denomination once known for a strong stand on Genesis—and many of their churches still support CMI. See some astute quotes on the futility of this craving:

• Doug Wilson: Christians should believe six-day creation regardless of academic respectability
• OT Professor Todd Beall: take Genesis 1 as written, rather than crave secular respectability

Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds to the parts that Mr B. highlighted in the paper.

It’s a shame when professing Christians give away biblical authority and also surrender on the biblical truth of death coming by sin (seeDid God create over billions of years? And why is it important? andThe Fall: a cosmic catastrophe). This undermines the very good news they claim to proclaim, since Romans 5:12–19 and 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 contrast the death brought by the first man, Adam, with the resurrection brought by the Last Adam, Christ (cf. v. 45).

Ice Age

A lot of that article shows that they know very little about modern creationist arguments. E.g.:

No informed person disputes the reality of the last Ice Age; there is just too much evidence for its existence, not only on land but also on the sea floor.

However, for many years, creationists have affirmed the reality of the Ice Age. The difference with the uniformitarians is that creationists affirm a single Ice Age; one that’s the aftermath of the Genesis Flood, while uniformitarians postulate many ice ages without an adequate mechanism (see Mammoth—riddle of the Ice Age).

They fondly ignore the many examples where the ‘dates’ from different methods disagree outside their stated experimental uncertainties.

The problem is getting all that ice onto the land, which requires snowfall, which requires evaporation, which requires heat. Evolutionary mechanisms postulate that some external cause cooled the entire earth, but that would cut off the evaporation. But the Genesis Flood would have included volcanoes and subterranean water to heat the ocean, while volcanic ash would have been a sunblock cooling the land. This is the perfect condition for an ice age lasting centuries.

All the same, not all evidence attributed to ancient ice ages is conclusive. Some go-called glacial tills mentioned in the article were really submarine landslides (see A classic tillite reclassified as a submarine debris flow). Some transported boulders are better evidence for the Flood, e.g. very hard quartzite boulders show evidence of having been rounded by water transport (see Noah’s long-distance travelers: Quartzite boulders speak powerfully of the global Flood).

Mungo Man

A number of Aboriginal campsites have been discovered around former inland seas in Australia, such as Lake Mungo, which indicates that humans were on Earth during the last Ice Age which came to an end about ten to twelve thousand years ago.

I co-authored an article on that a decade ago: Was Adam from Australia? The mystery of ‘Mungo Man’. My geologist colleague Dr Tas Walker used this as an example of the flaws in ‘dating’ methods in The dating game.

Salt deposits

But sometime prior to all this, the [Mediterranean] Sea had taken one thousand five hundred years to evaporate into salt lakes; become a basin fertile enough to attract elephants and refill again with sea-water. The amount of time required for these events, reveals to us that the Εarth and its biodiversity is much older than is suggested by a superficial interpretation of biblical genealogies.

This idea makes no sense. A slowly evaporating body of water would have time to accumulate dust and other impurities, which we don’t see in the massive pure salt deposits. Rather, they are not evaporites at all but precipitites, resulting from precipitation of very concentrated hydrothermal solutions that would have common in the Flood. See Geology and the young earth: Answering those ‘Bible-believing’ bibliosceptics and The Messinian salinity crisis questioned.

Coral reefs

Many Christians believe that the layers of the geological column were laid down in the space of a little over one year at the time of Noah’s Flood. A major problem with this theory is that within these layers are found glacial deposits, lake beds, coral reefs, river deltas and beaches – none of which could have formed during the Flood. There can be no question that the geological column covers a vast period of time. The onus is on those who dispute this, to explain how lakes, coral reefs and glaciers etc. could have formed and left their footprints beneath the waters of Noah’s Flood.

The above ignores the important role of the post-Flood ice age, which explains the mammoth fossils and also the glacial evidence (see above section on the Ice Age). With the coral reefs, according to Dr Rob Carter, an expert on corals, coral reefs grow much faster than most people think, and there is no evidence that there are any genuine coral reefs in the fossil record, even if some limestone fragments are known.

Radiometric dating

The science of dating rocks, called geochronology, is quite precise. There are labs all over the world dedicated to measuring the ages of rocks that contain naturally occurring radioactive elements. These unstable elements decay into more stable elements, and the rate of decay can be measured quite accurately. Uranium, for instance, decays to lead, and it is known precisely how long this process takes.

Also, we know that many layers can form almost simultaneously, as long as there are differently sized particles and horizontal flow—because we have seen it happen, while no one has seen annual varves forming over millions of years.

This is also nothing new. For example, even if we grant that we know the decay rate precisely, this is not enough to determine age. We must also make assumptions about the starting conditions, and that uranium and lead were from the system measured and nothing got in or out from outside that. However, even the constancy of decay rates claimed in the article has been undermined—see Radiometric dating breakthroughs.

Geochronologists have at least eleven different methods of radiometric dating at their disposal. Three of these methods have been used to date minerals from an ancient volcanic ash-bed in southern Saskatchewan, Canada. The potassium/argon method revealed their age to be 72.5 million years, plus or minus a small percentage. The uranium/lead method dated the ash at 72.4 million years, plus or minus a bit. And the rubidium/strontium method said the ash was 72.54 million years old, plus or minus a little. The date determined by one method is thus corroborated or contradicted by other methods.

These compromisers hope that an alleged example of concordant dates supports their long-age dogma. However, they fondly ignore the many examples where the ‘dates’ from different methods disagree outside their stated experimental uncertainties. Dr Walker provides some examples in Radioactive ‘dating’ methods: Ways they make conflicting results tell the same story, and Ph.D. geologist Andrew Snelling has provided another one where the same sample had radiocarbon and potassium-argon ‘dates’ disagreeing by a factor of 1000—see Radioactive ‘dating’ in conflict! Fossil wood in ‘ancient’ lava flow yields radiocarbon.

Green River Formation

If the great Flood deposited the layers of the Grand Canyon, and the Green River Formation was laid down after the Flood, the Flood could not have occurred later than four million years ago. Even if a highly improbable average of ten varves a year were laid in the lake, that would still mean that the Grand Canyon sedimentary layers were deposited no later than 400,000 years ago.

There is blatant question-begging above: they assume that the fine layers are annual varves to ‘prove’ that the formation took millions of years. But the GRF is actually evidence against millions of years, because there are well-preserved fish fossils which penetrate several layers (see Green River Blues). Also, we know that many layers can form almost simultaneously, as long as there are differently sized particles and horizontal flow—because we have seen it happen, while no one has seen annual varves forming over millions of years. Here is an example from Queensland: Sandy stripes: Do many layers mean many years?

To get that much chalk requires a huge algal bloom, on a scale not happening today. But the Flood would have provided ideal conditions: warm water and an immense supply of nutrients from decomposing animals.

Chalk beds

These chalk beds were laid down over a period of thirty to thirty-five million years during the Late Cretaceous period. It has been estimated that it took one thousand years to lay down fifteen millimetres of chalk. The computation for this rate is based on the thickness of the chalk and the time it took to deposit it, as calculated by isotopic dates of chalk from the top and bottom of the layer. Consider, on the basis of this estimate, how long it would have taken to lay down 400 metres.

The purity of the chalk beds testifies that they were laid down in calm water. Had they been laid down during the Flood–which creationists claim was so turbulent it created the sedimentary layers of the geologic column–the chalk would have either not formed, or would have been contaminated with a great deal of sediment.

The claims about chalk are wrong on two counts:

1. To get that much chalk requires a huge algal bloom, on a scale not happening today. But the Flood would have provided ideal conditions: warm water and an immense supply of nutrients from decomposing animals. See Can Flood geology explain thick chalk beds?
2. The claim that fine deposits require still water has been demolished by geological experiments—seeMud experiments overturn long-held geological beliefs: A call for a radical reappraisal of all previous interpretations of mudstone deposits.

Salt and the age of the Earth

Salt is dissolved from the rocks and is carried by streams and rivers to the sea. Henry Morris, Steven A. Austin, D. Russell Humphries [sic], and others argue that if the world were millions of years old, the oceans would contain much more salt than they do today. The amount of salt in the oceans, they say, supports the theory that life has been on Earth for only ten thousand years or less. These scientists, however, failed to take into account the fact that when God created the Earth he built into it mechanisms for self-correction, one of which is the removal of excess salt from the ocean and lakes by evaporation, which is then buried by subduction or folding of the earth. Some of this salt was deposited at the bottom of the Mediterranean when that sea dried up, but most of it has been buried deep underground in the earth.

Wikipedia.org

Galileo Galilei

Salt and the age of the Earth: one must wonder if this person even read the Humphreys/Austin paper judging by their patronizing nonsense. They explicitly tabulated measured rates of salt input and output. See Salty seas: Evidence for a young earth, which provides later data showing that they had actually underestimated the rate of salt influx. This would lower their estimate for the upper bound of the age (NB, not actual age) of about 62 million years.

The Galileo canard, again

Remember that it wasn’t too long ago Christians believed the Earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun and stars revolved around our planet. The overwhelming clear evidence of science, however, compelled them to change their unscientific and unbiblical beliefs. Today we Christians face a different challenge; science is revealing that the world is much older than we used to believe.

You didn’t mark that old geocentrism canard, but it’s normal for compromisers to invoke this (see Common errors made by deniers of a young Earth, as well as Galileo Quadricentennial: Myth vs fact).

Death and the Fall

The problem is that even human death is a huge problem for long-earth ideas, because indisputableHomo sapiens fossils have been ‘dated’ to almost 200,000 years old by dating methods they worship.

The Bible says, ‘Death came through a man’ (1 Cor. 15:21). An examination of this passage reveals that it is not talking about death in general, but the death of human beings. Verse 22 says, ‘In Adam all die, but in Christ all will be made alive’. It is clear that these two verses are not referring to animals because no animal was ever ‘in Adam’, nor could it ever be ‘in Christ’.

The problem is that even human death is a huge problem for long-earth ideas, because indisputable Homo sapiens fossils have been ‘dated’ to almost 200,000 years old by dating methods they worship (see The Fall: a cosmic catastrophe).

You can read the Bible from beginning to end but nowhere does it establish any connection between the fall of man and death in the animal world.

Evidently this person didn’t read the Bible very carefully, because he would have seen ample connection between the Fall and animal death too. For example, animals and humans were both created vegetarian, and Isaiah 11 and 65 point to an Edenic non-carnivorous state in the future where animals will “no more hurt or destroy” (as you noted yourself in a bold comment on the article). But in between Creation and Redemption, there was the Fall, which had cosmic scope, affecting the entire creation because it was under Adam’s federal headship. This is documented in the paper Cosmic and universal death from Adam’s fall: an exegesis of Romans 8:19–23a. See Shame on Charisma! for more on both human and animal death and the Fall, and The carnivorous nature and suffering of animals.

How did carnivory arise?

Consider this; if God created animals to live without dying, what did tigers and hyenas eat before the Fall? What did sharks and seals eat? What did eagles and swallows eat? Did God create them just as they are today, or have they evolved since the Fall of Adam? Did an elephant never tread upon an ant or worm before the Fall, and did a rhinoceros never eat a caterpillar on a leaf before Adam sinned?

Maybe in return, this author should ask, what did the ferocious piranha eat before the Fall? Answer, just what its relative the pacu eats today— aquatic plants, and fruit that falls from overhanging trees (see Piranha); or what does this official ‘bird of prey’ known as the oilbird eat (only fruits—see The super-senses of oilbirds); or what did this fearsome-looking creature with fangs and carnassials eat (it’s the skull of afruit bat), or what did theropods (which included T. rex and Velociraptor) eat (answer, mostly vegetarian). It’s so obvious that he hasn’t even read our introductory material, such as ch. 6 of our Creation Answers Book which addresses:

• How did ‘bad things’ come about?
• If God’s original creation was ‘very good’, why is ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ now?
• Did God create animals with defence-attack structures?
• Or were they re-designed after the Fall?
• Wouldn’t there be a population explosion if animals did not eat each other?

It’s really hard to take these compromisers seriously when they fail to conduct even basic research on the view they are attacking. Also, we have often pointed out that insects probably don’t count as life in the biblical definition of nephesh chayyah. See for example Venus flytrap: Ingenious mechanism still baffles Darwinists and Captivating chameleons.

This bat eats fruit, although it’s classified as a carnivore because of its fangs and carnassials.

The piranha’s vegetarian relatives, known as pacus. Photo: Don Batten

Genealogies

Genealogies were sometimes shortened, either to save space, or to make them easier to remember. Christ’s genealogy in Matthew, for example, was trimmed, so that each of its three sections would have exactly fourteen generations (Matt. 1:17). If you compare the genealogy in Matthew 1:8–9 with the one in 1 Chronicles 3:10–12 you will see where Matthew shortened his genealogy. (Please note that Uzziah was also known as Ahaziah.)

Genesis 5 and 11 provide the ages of X at the birth of X+1 in the line, so even if they were not strict genealogies, they were strict chronologies, hence ‘chronogenealogies’.

David’s name in Hebrew had a numerical value of fourteen, so some generations were excluded from this genealogy so that a person committing David’s line to memory just had to count the number in each category to ensure he had all fourteen generations.

We are of course perfectly aware that Matthew’s genealogy was selective, but he told us he was selecting 3 sets of 14 (see for example The genealogies of Jesus). But Genesis 5 and 11 provide the ages of X at the birth of X+1 in the line. So even if X+1 were a great-grandson, say, instead of a son of X, there are still Y years between them. So even if they were not strict genealogies, they were strictchronologies, hence “chronogenealogies”—see Biblical chronogenealogies. Since this compromiser also mentions the slightly longer Septuagint chronogenealogy, this article also explains why the Masoretic Text should be preferred to the Septuagint, which in any case doesn’t help his millions-of-years compromise.

The pre-Flood and post-Flood genealogies, as given in Genesis 5 and 11 respectively, have exactly ten generations each, and the last generation in each genealogy has three named sons.

Perhaps he should learn to count! From The Genesis 5 and 11 fluidity question:

Külling highlights an important point that most scholars seem to have overlooked; namely, that the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies are not really symmetrical. The genealogy of Adam contains ten names (Adam to Noah), with the tenth having three sons (Shem, Ham and Japheth). The genealogy of Shem records only nine names (Shem to Terah), with the ninth fathering three sons (Abraham, Nahor and Haran).

Adam’s genealogy (Gen 5:1–32)	Shem’s genealogy (Gen 11:10–26)
1. Adam	1. Shem
2. Seth	2. Arphaxad
3. Enosh	3. Salah
4. Kenan	4. Eber
5. Mahalaleel	5. Peleg
6. Jared	6. Reu
7. Enoch	7. Serug
8. Methusalah	8. Nahor
9. Lamech	9. Terah (three sons, including Abram)
10. Noah (three sons)

To say that Abraham (Abram) counts as the tenth generation in Genesis 11 is no help to symmetry, because consistency would then demand that Shem be counted in Genesis 5 (compare 11:26 with 5:32). The supposed symmetry does not really exist.

Conclusion

Hope this helps. This article is really nothing to fear—it’s severely outdated, grossly ignorant of what biblical (“young-earth”) creationiststeach, and undermines the good news they claim to defend.

Related Articles

• Geology and the young earth
• The Fall: a cosmic catastrophe
• Did God create over billions of years?
• How does the Bible teach 6,000 years?
• Response to the evolution appeasers
• Church of England apologises to Darwin
• Refuting compromising critic of CMI seminar

Further Reading

• ‘Young’ age of the Earth & Universe Q&A
• Creation Compromises
• Genesis Questions and Answers
• Geology Questions and Answers
• Death and Suffering Questions and Answers

Obviously, Creationists (and the same can be said for Intelligent Design proponents) do not fear dialogue and arguments and challenges.   In fact, I know for a fact that there are multiple Creation scientists who have been trying to get "leading" Darwinists to agree to debate.    Darwinists are running away from debates because they expect to lose.   

My experience with Darwinist commenters is that they will ignore evidence I have posted and ask me to prove a point in a comments thread that I have made perhaps 3-10 posts worth of assertions about.    

They will claim I have not answered questions that I have already answered and, especially, when I make a post that is impossible for them to counter they just fail to comment at all or comment about another post instead.   

They like to change the subject and try to lead me down rabbit trails.   Just recently a commenter tried to bring up the example of "Nylon-eating bacteria" as an example of evolution, when we knew ten years ago that the bacteria had a system in place to adjust to dine on varied substances as the available substances changed.   As we looked into that particular bacteria, we found that they had a remarkable system already in place rather than having a new ability resulting from mutations.   The whole subject actually was damaging to Darwinism.   

Darwinists trolls have complained about my posts on carbon-14 dating.   I've made it abundantly clear that carbon-14 is no friend of Darwinism, as we find carbon-14 in fossils of organisms and wood and even in diamonds that, by Darwinist time, should be multiple millions of years old.    Well, C-14 will not be in a sample that is older than 100,000 years old (and probably not even 50.000 years) so it certainly is NOT a dating method they should even bring up!   They then make the hilarious claim that other radiometric dating methods are accurate.   I'm going to rip that one to shreds (again) later on this month.   Anyway, after patiently explaining how we calibrate C-14, the commenters either pretend I did not explain it or are unable to reason well enough to comprehend it.   So they just go on and on about a subject that is actually damaging to them!   Pretty funny, huh?

What Darwinists do when they cannot answer a question or deal with evidence, they come up with pet phrases like "Bunny Blunder" or "Gish Gallop" rather than deal with the question, or they will claim a reasoned argument is in fact a logical fallacy.  When I made a post on DNA's mutation-removal system and the tendency of Darwinist to make ridiculous claims, including video evidence and I get a comment dismissing all the evidence (much of it gleaned from secular sources) as "assuming the conclusion?"   So I rarely get an intelligent response to posts that I make.   But when I get a good one, I often make an entire post to answer the comment.    On rare occasion I make a post based on a comment that is remarkably ignorant because it is just too bad to pass up.   Thanks in advance to the next such comment!!

To obtain the book?  You could find it at Amazon!

The book is reviewed here and also here.