The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 5 of 6

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I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Here are some of the subjects: communism, morality, origin of evil, and the Tea Party. I have always loved to post about evolution and I have had a chance in the past to correspond with scientists such as Carl Sagan and George Wald and also had the opportunity to write reviews of science related books that were published.

Recently I got into the subject of evolution on the Ark Times Blogand the subject came up on the Ark Times Blog. I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

The person using the username Olddoc asserted on March 18, 2013:

Plainjim, You have a good point (though actually I respect Ben Stein’s request for tolerance) but I have to speak up because there REALLY are people who don’t believe in evolution and 99.9999999% of them live in the US and almost uniformly get most of their science from those academic academies called “church”.

Almost no one else in the ENTIRE WORLD, not even in the Vatican, rallies to oppose evolution.

So prevalent is that attitude that there is a prominent private school in WLR, that simply goes from chapter 5 to 7 to avoid even mentioning evolution, selection, Darwin, etc.

The wonderful thing about science is that takes into account all the fraud, misinterpretation, wild ass guesses, math errors and weights them and refines the theory as the facts are discovered.

R acts like those changes prove the flaws but in reality they are really the beauty of science. Form a theory, observe or test the data, refine the theory, test some more.

Gravity – we’ve know a lot of the theory, but when someone finds out exactly how Earth is able to tug on the Moon, we modify what we theorize. It may be a small or a radical change, but it doesn’t threaten to make Newton “wrong”

I replied on March 18, 2013:

Olddoc, I am glad you mentioned Isaac Newton. Dr. Larry Vardiman noted:

Isaac Newton is recognized today by almost all scientists to have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest, scientist who ever lived. His breadth of knowledge, his ability to analyze and synthesize the physical world, his development and use of the calculus, his formulation of the three laws of motion, and the expression of the law of gravitation have been unequaled by any other scientist before or since. Yet, it is not widely known that Newton was also a Christian and a Bible scholar. He studied the Bible diligently and wrote commentaries on portions of scripture, such as his monograph on the book of Daniel. He clearly believed that God is the Creator and sustainer of our universe. Misunderstanding the source of Newton’s creativity, some critics have suggested that Newton would have been more productive if he had not wasted so much time studying and writing about the Bible.

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Dr.Herny Morris observed:
One of the self-serving arguments of modern evolutionists is their rather arrogant claim that creationist scientists are not real scientists. No matter that a large number of creationists have earned authentic Ph.D. degrees in science, hold responsible scientific positions and have published numerous scientific articles and books—if they are creationists, they are not true scientists! In a Letter-to-the-Editor, Steven Schafersman, of Rice University’s Department of Geology, says, for example: “I dispute Henry Morris’s claim that thousands of scientists are creationists. No scientist today questions the past and present occurrence of evolution in the organic world. Those ‘thousands of creationists’ with legitimate post-graduate degrees and other appropriate credentials are not scientists, precisely because they have abandoned the scientific method and the scientific attitude, criteria far more crucial to the definition of scientist than the location or duration of one’s training or the identity of one’s employer” (Geotimes, August 1981, P. 11).

Thus modern creationists are conveniently excluded as scientists merely by definition! Science does not mean “knowledge” or “truth,” or “facts,” as we used to think, but “naturalism” or “materialism,” according to this new definition. The very possibility of a Creator is prohibited by majority vote of the scientific fraternity, and one who still wishes to believe in God must forfeit his membership.

Well, no matter. At least we creationist scientists can take comfort in the fact that many of the greatest scientists of the past were creationists and for that matter, were also Bible-believing Christians, men who believed in the inspiration and authority of the Bible, as well as in the deity and saving work of Jesus Christ. They believed that God had supernaturally created all things, each with its own complex structure for its own unique purpose. They believed that, as scientists, they were “thinking God’s thoughts after Him,” learning to understand and control the laws and processes of nature for God’s glory and man’s good. They believed and practiced science in exactly the same way that modern creationist scientists do.

And somehow this attitude did not hinder them in their commitment to the “scientific method.” In fact one of them, Sir Francis Bacon, is credited with formulating and establishing the scientific method! They seem also to have been able to maintain a proper “scientific attitude,” for it was these men (Newton, Pasteur, Linnaeus, Faraday, Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Kepler, etc.) whose researches and analyses led to the very laws and concepts of science which brought about our modern scientific age. The mechanistic scientists of the present are dwarfed in comparison to these intellectual giants of the past. Even the achievements of an Einstein (not to mention Darwin!) are trivial in comparison. The real breakthroughs, the new fields, the most beneficial discoveries of science were certainly not delayed (in fact probably were hastened) by the creationist motivations of these great founders of modern science.

TABLE I
SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES ESTABLISHED
BY CREATIONIST SCIENTISTS

DISCIPLINE SCIENTIST
ANTISEPTIC SURGERY JOSEPH LISTER (1827-1912)
BACTERIOLOGY LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
CALCULUS ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
CELESTIAL MECHANICS JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
CHEMISTRY ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)
COMPUTER SCIENCE CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
DYNAMICS ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
ELECTRONICS JOHN AMBROSE FLEMING (1849-1945)
ELECTRODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
ELECTRO-MAGNETICS MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ENERGETICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ENTOMOLOGY OF LIVING INSECTS HENRI FABRE (1823-1915)
FIELD THEORY MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
FLUID MECHANICS GEORGE STOKES (1819-1903)
GALACTIC ASTRONOMY WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
GAS DYNAMICS ROBERT BOYLE (1627-1691)
GENETICS GREGOR MENDEL (1822-1884)
GLACIAL GEOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
GYNECOLOGY JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
HYDRAULICS LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519)
HYDROGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
HYDROSTATICS BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
ICHTHYOLOGY LOUIS AGASSIZ (1807-1873)
ISOTOPIC CHEMISTRY WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
MODEL ANALYSIS LORD RAYLEIGH (1842-1919)
NATURAL HISTORY JOHN RAY (1627-1705)
NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY BERNHARD RIEMANN (1826- 1866)
OCEANOGRAPHY MATTHEW MAURY (1806-1873)
OPTICAL MINERALOGY DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
PALEONTOLOGY JOHN WOODWARD (1665-1728)
PATHOLOGY RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (1821-1902)
PHYSICAL ASTRONOMY JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
REVERSIBLE THERMODYNAMICS JAMES JOULE (1818-1889)
STATISTICAL THERMODYNAMICS JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
STRATIGRAPHY NICHOLAS STENO (1631-1686)
SYSTEMATIC BIOLOGY CAROLUS LINNAEUS (1707-1778)
THERMODYNAMICS LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
THERMOKINETICS HUMPHREY DAVY (1778-1829)
VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY GEORGES CUVIER (1769-1832)

TABLE II
NOTABLE INVENTIONS, DISCOVERIES
OR DEVELOPMENTS BY CREATIONIST SCIENTISTS

CONTRIBUTION SCIENTIST
ABSOLUTE TEMPERATURE SCALE LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
ACTUARIAL TABLES CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
BAROMETER BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662)
BIOGENESIS LAW LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
CALCULATING MACHINE CHARLES BABBAGE (1792-1871)
CHLOROFORM JAMES SIMPSON (1811-1870)
CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM CAROLUS LINNAEUS (1707-1778)
DOUBLE STARS WILLIAM HERSCHEL (1738-1822)
ELECTRIC GENERATOR MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867)
ELECTRIC MOTOR JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
EPHEMERIS TABLES JOHANN KEPLER (1571-1630)
FERMENTATION CONTROL LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
GALVANOMETER JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
GLOBAL STAR CATALOG JOHN HERSCHEL (1792-1871)
INERT GASES WILLIAM RAMSAY (1852-1916)
KALEIDOSCOPE DAVID BREWSTER (1781-1868)
LAW OF GRAVITY ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
MINE SAFETY LAMP HUMPHREY DAVY (1778-1829)
PASTEURIZATION LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)
REFLECTING TELESCOPE ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)
SCIENTIFIC METHOD FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626)
SELF-INDUCTION JOSEPH HENRY (1797-1878)
TELEGRAPH SAMUEL F.B. MORSE (1791-1872)
THERMIONIC VALVE AMBROSE FLEMING (1849-1945)
TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLE LORD KELVIN (1824-1907)
VACCINATION & IMMUNIZATION LOUIS PASTEUR (1822-1895)

The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 4 of 6

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I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Here are some of the subjects: communism, morality, origin of evil, and the Tea Party. I have always loved to post about evolution and I have had a chance in the past to correspond with scientists such as Carl Sagan and George Wald and also had the opportunity to write reviews of science related books that were published.

Recently I got into the subject of evolution on the Ark Times Blogand the subject came up on the Ark Times Blog. I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

The person using the username “Olddoc” asserted on March 18, 2013:

Saline,

Do you really think ALL the fossiles have been discovered? Heck I’m amazed they have found what they have. Man has walked on this Earth for either 10,000 years (or a whole lot more) I’m thinking a lot of that was on rainy days. If fossiles were that danged common our museums would need 20 floors just to store the hominid fossible!

What would you accept as an intermediate form? Neaderthal, Cro-Magnon, Australopithicus? Are they intermediate between some earlier form of human and you?

Perhaps you and Dr. R attended LSU, “where men go in dumb, come out dumb too” As you apply the Second law, a tree couldn’t grow, ice couldn’t form, a fertilized egg couldn’t become a human. All are examples of order from disorder. All require constant input of energy. Learn where the Law applies before you apply it.

As for A. Flew, apparently he never read Heinlein or he would have never tried to teach the pig to sing.

I replied on March 18, 2103:

Are you kidding olddoc about using Australopithicus as good evidence for evolution?

Dr. John Morris wrote:

It’s hard to keep them straight. First there was the discovery in Africa by Raymond Dart in 1925. of an infant skull. Entitled Australopithicus, this creature was recognized to be fully ape-like, but with a few characteristics hinting of human, thus an ape on the line to humans.

Over the years similar bones and bone fragments have been found (never has a complete skeleton been found) each individual slightly different but lumped into the genus Australopithicus, leading to the species names africanus, afarensis (including the famous “Lucy”), ramidus, and most recently ananemsis. A look at the actual data which led to the recent designation reveals the lengths to which men will go to justify their belief in our evolution from the animals.

Ananemsis has been dated as around 4 million years old by evolutionists. Leaving aside the validity of this date, we note that this age places ananemsis as older than the well-known “Lucy,” a creature essentially identical to modern chimps, being totally chimp from the neck up. On her 3′ 6″ frame, only the controversial knee and hip bones give any clue of more erect posture than modem chimps. This species, as is now recognized, had long curved fingers and toes and an opposing big toe. With such a grasping foot, it was obviously tree-dwelling, only occasionally walking on the ground, possibly with a semi-erect posture).

The new ananemsis discovery consists of 2 groupings of bone fragments, together totaling 21. The more recent discovery of 12 tooth and jaw fragments near Lake Turkana in Africa have been lumped with 9 other fragments of teeth and limb bones found in 1965 and later some 100 miles away, near Kanapoi.

The Kanapoi fragments include one end of an arm bone, and the two end pieces of a shin bone, with the rest being tooth and jaw fragments. The arm bone was deemed remarkably “human-like” when discovered 30 years ago, strikingly close” to human in appearance, indistinguishable from modern homo sapiens.”

But herein lies the problem. How could fully human limb bones be found in 4 million year-old strata? All evolutionists “know” that anatomically-modern humans didn’t evolve-until the last one million years or so. How could they be before “Lucy,” their ancestor? Thus the human-like arm bone was shelved. Only the recent discovery of the very human-like shin bone brought the arm to light once again, and forced evolutionists to deal with them both.

In contrast, the recently found Kanapoi jaw and tooth fragments are grossly apelike. Discoverer Dr. Meave Leakey (wife of Richard Leakey) exults that while the chin and teeth are more ape-like than “Lucy”, yet they hint at progressing toward humans, thus earlier on the human family tree. (Doesn’t anyone remember anymore that Lucy is scarcely different, from a chimp?). So, if this creature is more ape-like than Lucy, there is no justification for putting it in the human lineage at all).

The real clincher for evolution lies in the lumping of the recently found and quite ape-like 12 tooth and dental fragments from Lake Turkana in with the human-like Kanapoi limb bones, even though separated by 100 miles. Even at Kanapoi, the tooth and jaw fragments are found in a layer 55′ lower stratisgraphically than the crucial limb bones. Already evolutionists are beginning to call the single-species interpretation into question. I predict that this claim will be discarded, even by evolutionists.

Meanwhile, Leakey’s claims have received extensive coverage in the press. That may be what this is all about.

The Long War against God-Henry Morris, part 1 of 6

Uploaded by FLIPWORLDUPSIDEDOWN3 on Aug 30, 2010

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I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Here are some of the subjects: communism, morality, origin of evil, and the Tea Party. I have always loved to post about evolution and I have had a chance in the past to correspond with scientists such as Carl Sagan and George Wald and also had the opportunity to write reviews of science related books that were published.

Recently I got into the subject of evolution on the Ark Times Blogand the subject came up on the Ark Times Blog. I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

I stated on the Arkansas Times Blog on 3-18-13:

Yesterday I heard a very good message from our pastor on Genesis 1 and he talked about the fact that evolutionists have “faith” just like we do in the church. The starting point in the universe has to be accepted by faith by both sides. It is hard to argue against that point. http://thedailyhatch.org/2013/03/18/carl-s…

Evolutionists are busy arguing with themselves because the fossil record does not support gradual change as Darwin misled us to believe. Actually it supports the creationist view that there was a sudden appearance of many animals.

Steven Jay Gould said, “Many evolutionists view strict continuity between micro- and macroevolution as an essential ingredient of Darwinism and a necessary corollary of natural selection. Yet, as I argue in essay 17, Thomas Henry Huxley divided the two issues of natural selection and gradualism and warned Darwin that his strict and unwarranted adherence to gradualism might undermine his entire system. THE FOSSIL RECORD WITH ITS ABRUPT TRANSITIONS OFFERS NO SUPPORT FOR GRADUAL CHANGE, and the principle of natural selection does not require it — selection can operate rapidly. Yet the unnecessary link that Darwin forged became a central tenet of the synthetic theory.

The person using the username Zatharus responded:

When some make a habit of misquoting in order to bolster their arguments, the question of whether this is because of mental or ethical deficiencies becomes meaningful.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Fallacy of quoting out of context
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_qu…

The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as “contextomy” or “quote mining”, is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning.

Their [Creationists'] favorite sport is stringing together quotations, carefully and sometimes expertly taken out of context, to show that nothing is really established or agreed upon among evolutionists. Some of my colleagues and myself have been amused and amazed to read ourselves quoted in a way showing that we are really antievolutionists under the skin.

The Creationist redacted quote reads:
“The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change. All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.” Stephen Jay Gould

The actual quote continues:
“… Gradualists usually extract themselves from this dilemma by invoking the extreme imperfection of the fossil record. Although I reject this argument (for reasons discussed in ["The Episodic Nature of Evolutionary Change"]), let us grant the traditional escape and ask a different question.”

Knowing that creationists are quoting him as if he were saying there were no transitional forms, Gould responded:
“Since we proposed punctuated equilibria to explain trends, it is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists — whether through design or stupidity, I do not know — as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. The punctuations occur at the level of species; directional trends (on the staircase model) are rife at the higher level of transitions within major groups.”

“Today the theory of evolution is about as much open to doubt as the theory that the earth goes round the sun.”
Richard Dawkins

I then replied:

Zatharus, I gave the whole quote and it is explained very well by Dr. Gould so I can not be accused of taking it out of context. I actually got it from a website that was critical of a creationist for only taking 8 words out of the quote and using it. Instead, I provided the whole quote. Outlier and Vanessa you need to learn from Tuna who admits that faith is true for the believer as the unbeliever. Do you ever get on a plane without meeting and questioning the ability of the pilot? You have faith in that airline because of evidence you have from the past concerning their reliability.

Paul Covert says that Genesis is just fiction. I have a lot of evidence that indicates to me that the Book of Genesis is reliable.

Dewayne Bryant notes: Archaeology demonstrates solid connections between the biblical record and ancient history, in contrast to Christopher Hitchens’ assertion that it is an implausible record.

Consider the following:

Critics often malign the patriarchs without just cause. They insist that camels were not domesticated during the patriarchal age, thus constituting an anachronism in the biblical text. Yet evidence of camel domestication appears as early as 2000 B.C. in several places in Mesopotamia, concurrent with Abraham—if not slightly preceding him (Kitchen, 2003, p. 339). Another point of confidence is the names of the patriarchs. While God selected Jacob’s name, they all highlight the Mesopotamian roots of Abraham since the names of Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, and Joseph are all of Amorite origin (pp. 341-342). These names were at the height of their popularity when the patriarchs lived in the early second millennium and quickly fell into disuse in subsequent centuries.

A vital piece of evidence is the structure of covenants in the Bible. Covenants made in antiquity evolved over time, and each period has a distinct structure for the covenants made at various times and particular locations. Kenneth Kitchen has surveyed a wide range of covenants used from the third millennium through the first millennium B.C. (Kitchen, 2003, pp. 283-289). He found the Abrahamic covenant made in Genesis 15-17 fits securely in the early second millennium, while the covenants in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua 24 fit only in a late second millennium context. After the evidence is surveyed, it is apparent that much of the criticism of the Bible arises—not from intense scrutiny of the evidence—but from ignorance of it. The overwhelming weight of the archaeological and historical evidence firmly places the Bible in the sphere of reality rather than myth.

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