Pat Robertson Reiterates His Disdain for Young Earth Creationism

Late last week, Pat Robertson took to the airwaves to, yet again, tell the world what he thinks of young earth creationism.  Here is what he had to say:




He gets very few of the details correct but his general gist is. He seems to be taking the view that Adam is a specially appointed person picked by God to be the first person to walk with God. As Davis Young points out, however, this effectively means that there were quite a few “pre-Adamites” walking around before this with uncertain spiritual identities.  Robertson is a master of understatement when he says that “...we haven't worked all the wrinkles out...”  Interestingly, the article then points this out:

Robertson may have to take this up with his own TV network, which promotes Young Earth Creationist material and publishes articles claiming that opposition to Young Earth Creationism is heretical.

The second article takes the point of view that death could not have occurred before Adam's sin or else Jesus’ atonement would be null and void and that this constitutes a “...direct attack on the foundation and message of the Cross.” There is then a hat tip to AIG and Ken Ham.  Throughout the article, there is absolutely no attempt made to grapple with any of the scientific data.  It is as if it simply is wrong, no matter what it yields.  This is a variant of the “Man's word versus God's word” argument that Ham is so fond of using.

2 Fired Bryan College Professors Sue the College

Last week, the AP reported that two of the professors at Bryan College that have not been retained, Steven DeGeorge and Stephen Barnett, have sued the college for breach of the school charter.  The AP writes:

Science professor Stephen Barnett and education professor Steven DeGeorge say in the lawsuit that college trustees don’t have the authority to make the change because the school’s charter says the statement can’t be altered.

Attorney Rosemarie Hill, who represents the college, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press (http://bit.ly/1jLAoBZ) that leaders at the institution do have the authority to amend the statement.

“You might disagree with it,” she said. “But the college, through its board of trustees, has the right to make the decisions it did.”

Since the school clarified its statement of belief to say that Adam and Eve were historical people who were not created from previously existing life forms, the conflict has escalated with a majority of professors voting “no confidence” in the school’s president, and students and alumni penning petitions in response to the controversy.

Students held a protest day last month prompted by the loss of at least nine of the college’s 44 full-time professors and statements by Bryan College.  President Stephen Livesay, who has downplayed the controversy.

As I said in the last post on this, there is a lot of unwanted attention being paid to the college right now about this and the suit will bring even more to President Livesay and the Board of Trustees. How do you downplay a lawsuit filed by two of your own faculty against policies that a large chunk of the school does not support?

20% of Faculty Leaving Bryan College

The Tennessean is reporting that quite a number of faculty have either left or been dismissed from Bryan College as a direct result of the new statement of faith, promulgated by President Livesay and the board of directors, that the faculty have been required to sign.  They write:

The dispute at Bryan College, named for William Jennings Bryan, began in February when trustees clarified the school's statement of belief to state that Adam and Eve were historical people who were not created from previously existing life forms.

Since then, the conflict has escalated with a majority of professors voting "no confidence" in the school's president, and students and alumni penning petitions in response to the controversy.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press (http://bit.ly/1rPvIwM) reports that in a day of action last week, students wrote notes to the Board of Trustees, signed petitions, wore black armbands and expressed their opinions on social media, among other actions.

The protest was prompted by the loss of at least nine of the college's 44 full-time professors, two of whom were fired after rejecting the college's clarified statement of belief, and statements by Bryan College President Stephen Livesay, who has downplayed the controversy.

How do you downplay the loss of 20% of your faculty? That would be devastating to any institution of higher learning.  Livesay has also said that “the reality is we are solid.” Funny, that is not what quite a few students are saying. From the Times Free Press story:

In the foyer of the small Christian school's administration building on Monday, students wrote notes to departing staffers, whose portraits lined a long table. Recent news stories of the controversy at Bryan hung on a big poster. Comments from Livesay that students are happy and Bryan is "solid" were highlighted.

"Is this your voice?" the poster asked.

More than 170 students initialed a sheet that answered "no." One set of initials sat under the side that said "yes."

Dozens of students tied strips of black fabric to their arms to highlight the sadness on campus.

And at a morning chapel service, the last of the year, students stood up to announce their discontent and that Monday would be a day for students to speak out.

I am not sure how this is going to end up but it does reflect a growing sense that, as a Christian body, we need to grapple with the science coming out of genetics and palaeontology and assess different scriptural models rather than ignore them, which is what the board is doing.

There is a new book out titled Four Views on the Historical Adam (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) which assesses the hermeneutic arguments for whether Adam and Eve really did exist. There is a good reason that there are four views and good reasons that scholars have been wrestling with the relevant biblical texts for centuries.  President Livesay and the board are not only saying that three of the views are wrong, but that they aren't welcome at Bryan.  So much for studied academic discourse and dialogue. 

The Discovery Institute Strikes Again

We don't even have to play “Guess that party!” do we? This time it is Mike Fair, R-Greenville, South Carolina, using the DI template.  The Columbia Post and Courier carries the story:

The S.C. Education Oversight Committee on Monday sent proposed language to the board that would require biology students to construct scientific arguments that seem to support and seem to discredit Darwinism.

The decision comes more than two months after the subject became a divisive issue for many in the Palmetto State and nationally in February, when Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, voiced opposition during the review and approval of a new set of science standards for 2014.

At the time, Fair argued against teaching natural selection as fact, adding there are other theories students deserve to learn. He said the best way for students to learn was for the schools to teach "the controversy." On Monday, he reiterated his stance.

"We must teach the controversy," Fair said. "There's another side. I'm not afraid of the controversy. ... That's the way most of us learn best."

There is no Controversy. The only controversy is one that is manufactured by the Discovery Institute and organizations like it.   Maybe we should start teaching other controversial things.  Controversies exist in science where the data does not clearly point one direction or the other.  It does not exist when the information clearly points one direction.  I would call on rep. Fair to state what, exactly, the controversy is.  My suspicion is that it would be usual canards about transitional fossils and irreducible complexity.  It is one thing to fear a controversy that is real and can shake things up.  It is another to fear one that only exists in the minds of some. 

Evolution Humor

I saw this cartoon on Wonkette and laughed for a good five minutes solid.  Enjoy:

Smithsonian Gets Tyrannosaurus rex, AiG Responds

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the Smithsonian Institution had finally purchased an original Tyrannosaurus rex fossil to replace the replica that has stood in the Dinosaur hall for the last fifteen years.  J. Freedom du Lac reports:

The world’s second-most-visited museum has big plans for the borrowed king carnivore: It will stand as the centerpiece of the new dinosaur hall that’s scheduled to open in 2019, after a five-year, $48 million makeover. The hall — one of the most visited spaces at the Natural History Museum — closes April 28.

“It’s an amazing object,” Johnson said of the T. rex.

The 38-foot-long dinosaur died more than 66 million years ago in a riverbed and was frozen in time — and rock — for ages. It remained unseen and undisturbed from the late Cretaceous Period until around Labor Day in 1988, when rancher Kathy Wankel spotted a small part of an arm bone during a day hike in a wildlife refuge.

The fossil will be in the hall for fifty years because it is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers.  It will inspire students of science for decades to come.  Its purchase by the Smithsonian did not go unnoticed, however.  Ken Ham, of Answers in Genesis, had this to say:

From many of the responses I’ve seen to the Creation Museum’s exquisite dinosaur exhibits and sculptures (including life-like animatronic dinosaurs), it would seem that evolutionists think they “own” dinosaurs! They see dinosaurs as synonymous with evolution and millions of years, and evolutionists can become very upset when creationists use dinosaurs. Evolutionists know that kids are fascinated by these creatures, and so they can be used to draw kids in and teach them about evolution.

For example, recently, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (in Washington, DC), acquired a T. rex skeleton, known as “the Nation’s T. Rex.” This T. rex is very complete. The museum director, Kirk Johnson, believes the new dinosaur skeleton will draw many children to the National Museum of Natural History, saying, “Dinosaurs are the gateway drug to science for kids.”

Of course, secularists know that children love dinosaurs, and they use dinosaurs to indoctrinate kids into evolutionary ideas. “The Nation’s T. Rex” will be a centerpiece for the Smithsonian—a museum funded by our tax dollars. In reality, then, the government is imposing the religion of evolution and millions of years on children visiting the Smithsonian, while also claiming a supposed separation of church and state! Our tax dollars are funding the religion of naturalism (atheism) and its evolutionary story to be exhibited in the Smithsonian in the nation’s capital!

As I mentioned in a comment on my last post, this is part and parcel of how Ham works. As he did in the Ham on Nye debate, by dismissing all of the historical sciences as bogus, he can claim that the Smithsonian is practicing religious indoctrination.  Since, in his mind, evolution is only supported by the fossil record, a record of past events, it isn't scientific.  That evolution is supported by modern genetics either completely escapes him or, worse, is something he ignores because he has to.

Bill Nye Says He Underestimated Impact of Debate

Bill Nye now says that he underestimated the impact that his debate with Ken Ham had on the evolution/creationism debate.  As he writes in the Skeptical Inquirer:

I do about a dozen college appearances every year. It’s a privilege that I enjoy immensely. At first, I figured this appearance and this encounter would get about the same amount of notice as a nice college gig. There’d be a buzz on Twitter and Facebook, but the world would go on spinning without much notice on the outside. Not here: the creationists promoted it like crazy, and soon it seemed like everyone I met was talking about it.

I slowly realized that this was a high-pressure situation. Many of you, by that I mean many of my skeptic and humanist colleagues, expressed deep concern and anger that I would be so foolish as to accept a debate with a creationist, as this would promote him and them more than it would promote me and us. As I often say and sincerely believe, “You may be right.” But, I held strongly to the view that it was an opportunity to expose the well-intending Ken Ham and the support he receives from his followers as being bad for Kentucky, bad for science education, bad for the U.S., and thereby bad for humankind—I do not feel I’m exaggerating when I express it this strongly.

In hindsight, it is, perhaps, understandable that he would think this, but Ham is a showman, who plays for high-stakes and, because creationists are normally not given the time of day by your average scientist, this presented a golden opportunity to tear down what he honestly believes is the heart of the philosophical naturalism that is turning people away from God. That Nye is not known for his church-going behavior only added fuel to the fire. It didn't matter how important Nye thought the debate was.

The other concern, voiced going in, was that, while Ken Ham eats, lives and breathes creationism, Nye was not an expert in this field.  He writes:

I am by no means an expert on most of this. Unlike my beloved uncle, I am not a geologist. Unlike my academic colleague and acquaintance Richard Dawkins, I am not an evolutionary biologist. Unlike my old professor Carl Sagan or my fellow Planetary Society Board member and dear friend Neil deGrasse Tyson, I am not an expert on astrophysics. I am, however, a science educator. In this situation, our skeptical arguments are not the stuff of PhDs. It’s elementary science and common sense. That’s what I planned to rely on. That’s what gave me confidence.

What might seem like common sense to him is, by way of every poll I have ever seen, not common sense to a good deal of the population, especially the evangelical Christian subset, the direct taxonomic descendents of the fundamentalists from the 1920s.  This is, for many people, no less than a struggle between good and evil and, as I mentioned a bit back, modern evangelical fundamentalism has gotten to the point where if science is seen to conflict with scripture at all, it is to be regarded with skepticism and suspicion and rejected, if necessary.  Nye should have seen this as an uphill battle going in.

Nye did, however, have charitable things to say about his debate opponent:

I was and am respectful of Ken Ham’s passion. At a cognitive level, he believes what he says. He really means it, when he says that he has “a book” that supersedes everything you and I and his parishioners can observe everywhere in nature around us. I respected that commitment; I used it to drive, what actors call, my “inner monologue.” I did not choose, as I was advised, to attack, attack, attack. My actor’s preparation helped me keep things civil and be respectful of Mr. Ham despite what struck me as his thoughtless point of view. I’m sure it influenced the countless people who’ve written to me and come up to me in public to express their strong and often enthusiastic support. Thank you all.

I am also respectful of Ken Ham's passion but not the results that it produces. I am not respectful of the untruths (here and here) that he and his organization perpetuate in the service of his passion. I am not respectful of his disdain and condescension of mainstream scientists, and I am not respectful of his attacks on other Christians (here and here) who are also trying to find their way in the science/faith maze. Consequently, it is difficult for me to be respectful of Ken Ham as a person, no matter what he believes.

Your Inner Fish Part 2, on PBS Tonight

Don't forget to watch part 2 of Your Inner Fish, on PBS tonight at 10:00.  The first episode was very good and is a great companion to the book.

Poland Welcomes a New Religion...Maybe

In a recent court decision, a Warsaw court overturned a lower court's decision to deny the request by a group of people to petition that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster should be an accepted religion in the country.  Heather Saul of The Independent reports:

A group of Pastafarians who gathered outside the court shouting "pasta" during the hearing on Tuesday welcomed the ruling.

In January, Pastafarian minister Christopher Schaeffer was sworn into the Pomfret New York Town Council this week with a colander on his head throughout the ceremony to represent his unique religious beliefs.

They now have two more months to gather the necessary documents to prove that their religion should be taken seriously.  What is mentioned briefly in the article is that this movement is a direct response to the Intelligent Design supporters’ statement that, while the original ID movement had strong links to organized Christianity, in fact, the “Intelligent Designer” could be anything or anyone. The response was, then, “If this is so, then we believe that the universe was created by a flying spaghetti monster” and Pastafarianism was born.  As parodies go, it is pretty good and the ID folks only have themselves to blame for this, since they refused to be up-front about something that everybody else on the planet knew: that the “designer” is the God of the Bible. They cannot, of course, do this because if they did, ID as a “legitimate” course of study would be dead in the water as far as the public schools are concerned. They have very nearly given the game away recently by linking ID to “essential Christian doctrines”  in a conference at a Baptist church north of Houston.  In the wake of parodies like the CFSM, it will be interesting to see where the ID movement goes from here.

Teach Both. Let The Kids Decide

Rick Perry once told kids that they teach both evolution and creationism in Texas “…. because I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.” Why stop there?

Kate Mulgrew Was Snookered

Io9 is running a story that Kate Mulgrew does not, in fact, believe that the sun orbits the earth and that she was duped into appearing in the film The Principles. From her Facebook page:

“I understand there has been some controversy about my participation in a documentary called THE PRINCIPLE. Let me assure everyone that I completely agree with the eminent physicist Lawrence Krauss, who was himself misrepresented in the film, and who has written a succinct rebuttal in SLATE. I am not a geocentrist, nor am I in any way a proponent of geocentrism. More importantly, I do not subscribe to anything Robert Sungenis has written regarding science and history and, had I known of his involvement, would most certainly have avoided this documentary. I was a voice for hire, and a misinformed one, at that. I apologize for any confusion that my voice on this trailer may have caused. Kate Mulgrew”

As I mentioned to a reader, Charleton Heston also regretted doing a “documentary” called The Mysterious Origins of Man, but I cannot find his press statement on it. As Ms. Mulgrew mentioned, Lawrence Krauss was also misrepresented. Here is part of his statement on Slate:

I have no recollection of being interviewed for such a film, and of course had I known of its premise I would have refused. So, either the producers used clips of me that were in the public domain, or they bought them from other production companies that I may have given some rights to distribute my interviews to, or they may have interviewed me under false pretenses, in which case I probably signed some release. I simply don’t know.

Many people have suggested I litigate. But this approach seems to me to be completely wrong because it would elevate the profile of something that shouldn’t even rise to the level of popular discussion. The best thing we can all do when faced by nonsense like that, or equivalent silliness promoted by biblical fundamentalists who claim that science supports a literal interpretation of the Bible, is to ignore it in public forums, and not shine any light on the authors of this trash.

And everyone breathes a sigh of relief.  It is unfortunate/tragic/sad that people like Sungenis have to resort to subterfuge to get people to agree with their crackpot ideas.  We should have known better.

Hat tip to Jason Broyles

More on Vouchers

One of my readers pointed out that, as much as I castigate politicians such as Paul Broun, who has publicly stated that evolutionary and big bang theories are “lies straight from the pit of hell,” they don't get into the offices they hold without the votes of the people.  That someone such as Broun can rise to hold a position on a science and technology committee is truly astounding, in and of itself and points to gaping holes in our selection processes.  But, back to the people.  Politico is the latest outlet to run a story on the controversial voucher programs being run by an increasing number of states.  Stephanie Simon writes:

One set of books popular in Christian schools calls evolution “a wicked and vain philosophy.” Another derides “modern math theorists” who fail to view mathematics as absolute laws ordained by God. The publisher notes that its textbooks shun “modern” breakthroughs — even those, like set theory, developed back in the 19th century. Math teachers often set aside time each week — even in geometry and algebra — to explore numbers in the Bible. Students learn vocabulary with sentences like, “Many scientists today are Creationists.”

I am assuming that the information being disseminated here comes from the Creationist Voucher Database, compiled by Zack Kopplin, which is a great resource.  Tennessee currently does not have a voucher program but it is being promoted in the state house even as we speak.  Ms. Simon remarks that the voucher support program is very well-organized:

They’ve spent heavily to campaign for sympathetic lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans — often targeting primary races to knock out anti-voucher candidates early. They’ve staged rallies packed with cheering families. They’ve funded local advocacy groups such as North Carolina Citizens for Educational Freedom and Hoosiers for Economic Growth. And they’ve worked closely with black ministers to boost demand for vouchers in African-American neighborhoods.

Wanting a better education for your kids is a noble idea, and if you think your kids are getting an education that is not only bad but reflects world views that are distinctly not yours, then you need to act.  There are schools that promote a Christian world view but still teach good science.  There are also curricula that are oriented this way.  But they swim against the tide.

The principle problem is one of the tragic failures of modern evangelical fundamentalism: that modern science can conflict with scripture and that, as a result, it is to be either regarded skeptically or, worse, dismissed altogether.  How did we get here? 

Slightly Off-Topic: Kate Mulgrew To Narrate Geocentrism Movie

The former Kathryn Janeway, of the starship Voyager, Kate Mulgrew (otherwise known as Mrs. Columbo) has gone down the rabbit hole.  She will be narrating a film by Robert Sungenis, titled The Principle.  The Daily Mail reports:

The film, set for release this spring, was partially backed by a well known anti-Semitic and far-right conservative, Robert Sungenis, who runs a blog called 'Galileo Was Wrong.'

Scientists such as Michio Kaku, Lawrence Krauss, and Max Tegmart all appear in the trailer, discussing the Earth's unique characteristics that allow it to sustain life.

Sungenis himself appears in the trailer to offer some of his conspiracy theory.

'You can go on some websites of NASA to see that they've started to take down stuff that might hint to a geocentric universe,' he tells the audience.

I wrote a post on Sungenis a bit back, when the geocentrism issue appeared on the radar and the post generated some chatter.  According to the story in the Daily Mail, Sungenis has also been tied to anti-holocaust rhetoric and they provide a link to this article, which relates this bit of unpleasantness:

Sungenis, who was born into a Catholic family but became a Protestant before returning to the Catholic Church in 1992, was taken seriously in mainstream Catholic circles for many years, even producing two religious series for EWTN, a Catholic television station. That ended in 2002, when Sungenis published a 33,000-word, anti-Semitic attack on a joint statement by the National Council of Synagogues and the Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs that criticized the Catholic Church's history of attempting to convert Jews. The article repeated a series of ancient anti-Semitic canards, relied on anti-Semites like Father Denis Fahey as authorities, and even praised Fahey and Father Charles Coughlin (the viciously anti-Semitic "radio priest" of the 1930s) as "dedicated Catholic priests who lived impeccable lives and defended Holy Mother Church from every sort of Satanic deception." As a result, EWTN pulled Sungenis' TV series and removed all mention of him from its Web site; in a similar way, Envoy magazine also removed Sungenis from its website. Since then, Sungenis has gone even further into anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering, frequently reminding people that the 1911 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia "predicts the anti-Christ will come from Jewry."

As career moves go, this is not a good one for Ms. Mulgrew, who should know better than to get mixed up with these people.


P.S. Ordinarily I would not touch things that come from the Southern Poverty Law Center, since they are rabidly partisan, sensationalistic, and lean far to the left of MSNBC.  Insomuch as I can tell, they have gotten their fact right here but I have not dug deep. 

Kenneth Miller: Darwin, Design, and the Catholic Faith

Kenneth Miller has a lengthy post for Beliefnet on evolution and faith.  There is no date on the page, so I don't know when it came out.  He writes:

Science is, just as John Paul II said, silent on the issue of ultimate purpose, an issue that lies outside the realm of scientific inquiry. This means that biological evolution, correctly understood, does not make the claim of purposelessness. It does not address what Simpson called the "deeper problem," leaving that problem, quite properly, to the realm of faith.

The rest of the argument is, in many ways, a boiled down version of the one he proposed in Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution, where he argued that contingency is built into the system. He writes:

The neo-creationists of intelligent design, unlike Popes Benedict and John Paul, argue against evolution on every level, claiming that a "designer" has repeatedly intervened to directly produce the complex forms of living things. This view stands in sharp contradiction to the words of a 2004 International Theological Commission document cited by the Cardinal. In reality, this document carries a ringing endorsement of the "widely accepted scientific account" of life's emergence and evolution, describes the descent of all forms of life from a common ancestor as "virtually certain," and echoes John Paul II's observation of the "mounting support" for evolution from many fields of study.

More important, the same document makes a critical statement on how we should interpret scientific studies of the complexity of life: "whether the available data support inferences of design or chance cannot be settled by theology. But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence."

Miller is coming at this from the back side. It is a common misunderstanding that evolution is a random process. This is argued by Cardinal Schönborn (who he quotes in the post as calling evolution an “unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” ) as well as quite a few Discovery Institute fellows like David Klinghoffer and David Berlinski.  Here is the problem: natural selection is measurable and it is directional.  Therefore, if you want to argue that evolution is an “unguided, unplanned process,” than the forces that act on plants and animals in nature are unplanned and unguided as well. I doubt any Christian wants to go down that road theologically.   This is exactly contrary to what Miller is suggesting.  He argues that the events in nature are not random, as is generally conceived by philosophical naturalism, but are, instead, contingent in ways that we, perhaps, cannot understand.

The point he is making is that the scientific enterprise cannot examine this problem.  It is a theological one, not a scientific one.  It is not just that at a gross level we cannot use science to prove or disprove God's existence, but that even at a subatomic level, there is no certainty.  We act on faith, and, sometimes, that has to be enough. 

South Carolina: Naming the State Fossil

An eight-year-old girl by the name of Olivia McConnell had a great idea: suggest that the Columbian Mammoth, common to the state during the Pleistocene, be named the state fossil.  Great idea, right?  Not when politics and creationism get involved.  According to Ron Barnett of USA Today:

The Columbian mammoth survived an ice age, but whether it can survive the South Carolina Senate remains to be seen.

The elephant-sized mammal that once roamed this part of the world is on a path to become the state's official fossil. But it faces a new challenge this week, and the dream of 8-year-old Olivia McConnell who suggested that the Legislature adopt a state fossil hangs in the balance.

Last week, state Sen. Kevin Bryant tried unsuccessfully to insert a Bible verse into the bill. This week, the Republican from Anderson, S.C., is putting forward a new amendment that refers to the animal “as created on the sixth day with the beasts of the field.”

“I think it's an appropriate time to acknowledge the creator,” he said.

Every time that I read that the number of creationists who are democrats is more than you think, I have to wonder: “Yes, but did all of the Republicans who are creationists end up in the state house??”  It is one thing to honor the creator.  It is another to honor the creator with language that is patently young earth creationist in its origin.  The irony, of course, is that this language would be inserted over the traditional understanding of the Columbian mammoth, described originally by Falconer in 1857, which is that it went extinct around 13,000 years ago and was part of an adaptive radiation of Elephas genera beginning around 25 million years ago from what later became East Asia.  The other half of the clade is the Asian elephant, Elephas maximus. This would be jarring, to say the least. 

More Problems Concerning Ball State University and Intelligent Design

Questions have been raised regarding meetings between Jo Ann Gora, the current president of Ball State University, and Indiana legislators which concern her public stance on the teaching of Intelligent Design.  Christopher Stephens of Ball State Daily writes:

Ball State’s decision to meet in private with lawmakers to discuss concerns about teaching intelligent design is raising questions with some students and professors.

Dom Caristi, a professor of telecommunications, said Indiana’s Open Door Law dictates how accessible official government meetings must be, as well as those involving state employees. He said Thursday’s planned meeting between lawmakers and university officials falls into a gray area within this code.

Indiana code 5-14-1.5, called the Open Door Law, states that the official action of public agencies be conducted and taken openly. This is to ensure that people are able to fully be informed, according to the code.

At issue, apparently, is how representative these meetings actually are and whether they have bearing on the overall legislature in terms of any action. I think that neither party does themselves any favors by having these meetings in private, since the issue of ID at Ball State made the national papers.

Your Inner Fish Coming to a TV Set Near You

PBS has hopped on the bandwagon that Cosmos is on and is airing a miniseries based on Neil Shubin's great book Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. John Easton of the University of Chicago News writes:

The three-part series, which premieres nationwide April 9, brings to life Shubin’s best-selling and highly readable 2008 book, Your Inner Fish. Chicago’s dramatic scenery is a star of the show, as are the UChicago classrooms and laboratories in which Shubin explains anatomical links between seemingly disparate relatives, including the brains of humans and sharks.

The episodes, made possible by a partnership between Shubin, Tangled Bank Productions of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Public Broadcasting Service, also follow Shubin and fossil-hunting colleagues on expeditions to the Arctic, the deserts of Ethiopia and the high plains of South Africa.

This looks very promising. I read Shubin's book and it is both informative and humorous (I laughed for ten minutes at the example of the generation of full bozos.)  If the series lives up to the book, it is something I will have my kids watch with me. Hopefully, unlike Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey—which spares no expense at pointing out how “primitive” religion is—the Neil Shubin series will be more philosophically neutral.

Some Perspective on the School Vouchers Controversy

David Harsanyi, at the Federalist, has an article on the controversy involving school vouchers being used to teach creationism and suggests that it is a mountain  where a molehill actually exists.  He further suggests that this is being used by the organized establishment to attack school choice.  He writes:

Yes,14 states spend “nearly $1 billion” of taxpayer tuition on “hundreds of religious schools” that teach kids the Earth is less than 10,000 years old. This would be more troubling if we didn’t spend hundreds of billions every year not teaching millions of kids how to read. Voucher programs offer a wide variety of choices for parents, unlike the closed, failing districts schools that so many kids are trapped in. As of now, public schools spend around $638 billion on around 55 million students but only 250,000 students – almost all of them poor — are free to use vouchers and tax-credit scholarships. Of those kids, the vast majority do not attend schools with curriculums that feature intelligent design. Yet, judging from all the “special investigations” of creationism in schools, you might be under the impression it was the most pressing problem faced by educators. I suspect that untold numbers of parents would sacrifice their children to the Gods of Creationism if [it] meant they could attend safe and high-achieving schools. A lot of these schools score well. But that’s not the choice, either.

It is absolutely no secret that the vast majority of these schools are better than their public school counterparts and, yes, these parents are very grateful for the opportunity to put their kids in schools that are safe and good.  I support school vouchers, generally, but I see a philosophical problem here.  In the process of supporting the notion of school choice for parents, what is being lost is what is being taught.  We run the risk of becoming so enamored of our ability to pick and choose where we want our kids to go to school that we forget that there are quite a few schools out there that do teach young earth creationism.

Young Earth Creationism is bad science. 

It puts our kids at a disadvantage by setting them back in all areas of science and fills their heads with wrong-headed ideas. As a scientist, I have a moral obligation not just to teach my kids good science, but to advocate the teaching of it in the schools. Having the ability to put your kids in the school of your choice is of no value if the science they are being taught is wrong.

As a family, we are insulated from this directly but are part of a similar tug-of-war.  Because I want my kids to have a better education, we have them enrolled in a home school curriculum.  For the most part, it is exceptional, with plenty of challenges and intellectual rigor.  But, while the science curriculum is at peace with old earth creationism, it leans toward intelligent design as a world-view.  I have already corrected some of the wrong notions that my kids have come home with and my oldest daughter, who is leaning heavily toward botany or biology, and I have had candid conversations about evolution.  The teachers at the school (the ones that teach science, anyway) are familiar with my views on evolution and don't push my kids in class to reject them.  By the same token, I don't have my kids questioning their teachers or the view points of other kids in the class.  That is not their place.  So far, we have managed a Mexican Stand-off.  Soon, however, my daughter will outgrow the current curriculum and begin to discover why, as Theodosius Dobzhansky stated: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”¹ I will be ready for that time.

¹Dobzhansky, T (1973) Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution. American Biology Teacher, v. 35: 125-129

Notre Dame Bestows Laetare Medal on Kenneth Miller

The Notre Dame Observer notes that Kenneth Miller, the Brown, the molecular biologist and critical witness in the Dover School Board trial of 2005 has been awarded the Laetare Medal, given to the catholic “whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the Church and enriched the heritage of humanity...”  The story continues:

Miller, a current professor at Brown University, researches the structure and function of biological membranes. He has appeared on television shows including “The Colbert Report” and C-SPAN programs to debate with supporters of creationism and intelligent design, according to the press release.

“Like many other scientists who hold the Catholic faith, I see the Creator’s plan and purpose fulfilled in our universe,” Miller said recently, according to the press release. “I see a planet bursting with evolutionary possibilities, a continuing creation in which the divine providence is manifest in every living thing.

“I see a science that tells us there is indeed a design to life, and the name of that design is evolution.”

If you have not read Miller's Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
, you should. It is a wonderful tribute to the power of evolution and God's work in nature as well as an indictment of the vacuity of ID as a theoretical construct.

Ian Philbrick: Why Science and Atheism Are Incompatible

Ian Philbrick has a piece for the Georgetown Voice that tackles the controversy concerning Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its host, a professed agnostic with tinges of religious antipathy.  He writes:

Tyson’s perspective is even more relevant to the increasingly antagonistic relationship between science and faith. Perhaps first popularized in American public discourse by the 1925 Scopes so-called “Monkey Trial,” modern “active atheists” (in Tyson’s words) have elevated acrimony to new levels. This activism has been spurred by the emergence of science intellectuals, including Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, whose vociferous atheism is inextricably wedded to their public personas.

While campaigns, petitions, and protests are certainly the prerogative of individuals, they become dangerous when applied wholesale to a discipline like science that derives its foundational credo and central legitimacy from objective inquiry. While dogma and impartiality can certainly exist as facets of an individual (as can religious belief and scientific rationality), the two are less easily reconciled on an institutional scale. Reconciling active atheism and science becomes a problem of participation and fundamentally conflicting ideology. Science, which must resist pigeonholing and generalization by its skeptical nature, is inherently incompatible with an activist movement that brands all faith practices invalid.

In their wonderful book, Science Held Hostage, Howard van Till, Davis Young and Clarence Menninga highlight the pitfalls of using science either in support of a belief position or an atheist position, instead arguing that science, practiced properly, cannot confer meaning in any sort of ultimate sense. It is simply a vehicle by which we understand the working of the universe.This is my general discomfort with the ID movement: using science, you can never show that God exists.  The movement's only recourse is to try to show that ID exists as a plausible notion, often at the expense of mainstream science.  This has resulted in an almost complete scientific sterility because there is no theoretical basis from which to work.  What sort of hypothetical question could you construct for which the null is "God doesn't exist."

by the same token, atheists, such as Richard Dawkins are out of their depth when dealing with religious subjects because atheism doesn't flow from the scientific enterprise.  Consequently, his book The God Delusion, was not well-received.  Dawkins, it was said, was a good scientist, but a rotten moralizer.

Science is best practiced as it is. It tells us how things work and, within its own confines, how they work, but it does not tell us what their ultimate purpose is. 

Sticks and Stones For the First Episode of Cosmos

The internet has been alive with comments about the new version of Cosmos, hosted by Neil De Grasse Tyson and not all of it has been positive.  At issue, it seems, is the very weird detour that the series made in profiling the life of monk Giordano Bruno, who, according to the show, was burned at the stake for his non-canonical views on astronomy.  As several have pointed out, this is a stretch at best and a lie at worst.  As Becky Ferreira put it:

But the truth is that Bruno's scientific theories weren't what got him killed. Sure, his refusal to recant his belief in a plurality of worlds contributed to his sentence. But it's important to note that the Catholic Church didn't even have an official position on the heliocentric universe in 1600, and support for it was not considered heresy during Bruno's trial.

On top of that, his support for Copernican cosmology was the least heretical position he propagated. His opinions on theology were far more pyrotechnic. For example, Bruno had the balls to suggest that Satan was destined to be saved and redeemed by God. He didn't think Jesus was the son of God, but rather “an unusually skilled magician.” He even publicly disputed Mary's virginity. The Church could let astronomical theories slide, but calling the Mother of God out on her sex life? There's no doubt that these were the ideas that landed Bruno on the stake.

Peter Hess writes:

But Cosmos makes Bruno out to be a martyr who died heroically in the defense of early modern science, and this is a role he certainly did not play. Jole Shackleford details this nicely in his exploration of the myth that "Giordano Bruno was the First Martyr of Modern Science" in Ron Numbers' edited volume Galileo Goes to Jail and other Myths about Science and Religion (2009). 

The question being raised is why, for a series that is an attempt to deliver the best modern science to the public, would they take an obscure monk and mangle his history only for the sake of showing how misguided and vile the medieval Catholic church was?  Cosmos writer Steven Sotor argues that it was Bruno's ideas of the cosmos that were the important aspect of the piece.  If this is so, however, why drag the Catholic church  into the story at all?  Why not just focus on what Bruno's ideas were?  Why camouflage the fact that his ideas were rejected by other astronomers of the day and elevate him to the status of martyr for science when, in fact, he was burned for his religious ideas?  I doubt anyone is going to give the Catholic church a pass for how they treated him, but the idea that he was a brilliant scientist of his day and the church was “anti-science.” doesn't hold up here.

Also, without a disclaimer of sorts, it also smacks of holding the church accountable for actions that it took hundreds of years ago, actions that are now universally held as contemptible and myopic.  Nothing is said of how the church has grown in its acceptance and willingness to contribute to modern science.  Its a cheap shot and it mars the otherwise noble aspirations of a show that should be devoted to science. 

HuffPo: Intelligent Design's Final Days?

The intelligent design movement has labored under the premise that its attacks on evolution are not based on religion but on solid science and that arguments that promote intelligent design have no teleological motive.  This denial of religiosity on the part of the DI led, of course, to the church of the flying spaghetti monster, a parody based on the idea that the “intelligence” that was not attributable to God could, then, be attributable to any form of intelligence.

Well, now the mask is off.  Michael Zimmerman, the founder of the Clergy Letter Project, which can be thought of as a kind of response to the Discovery Institute's Dissent From Darwin list (but not to be confused with the hilarious Project Steve list) has written a piece for the Huffington Post titled Intelligent Design's Final Days?  He believes so.  This is why:

An article in the TFN Insider points out that Faith Bible Church in the Woodlands north of Houston will host a conference this weekend that explicitly links this form of creationism to "essential Christian doctrines." This is of particular significance because the most important talking point of those who promote intelligent design is that it has absolutely no link to Christianity in particular or to religion in general.
The description of the conference is clearly at odds with this perspective.

As Zimmerman points out, this conference is being attended by the movers and shakers of the intelligent design movement, with such luminaries as John West, Stephen Meyer and William Dembski. In fact, all but one of the speakers is a Discovery Institute senior fellow, with the sole exception being Melissa Cain Travis, who has written several books for the YEC-oriented publisher Apologia.While Zimmerman is quick to say that all of the main speakers have publicly distanced ID from Christianity, it should be pointed out that in 1999, William Dembski was quoted as saying that intelligent design was “the Logos of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory” and design leader Paul Nelson has publicly accepted the YEC perspective, co-authoring a book called A Case for Young-Earth Creationism: A Zondervan Digital Short.   Therefore, when these folks say that design is irrespective of Christianity, it is with a wink and a nudge.  The designer could be anybody but really, it is God.

Nonetheless, Zimmerman is correct in his observation that this conference represents a sea change of sorts in the movement.  They have, if you will, gone from latent to blatant.  Zimmerman puts it succinctly: “All three of these intelligent design stars are now comfortable moving away from their previous position and saying what all of us have known from the beginning: intelligent design is linked to “essential Christian doctrines.”  It now becomes clear that they have been “cdesign proponentsists” all along. 

More Trouble at Bryan College

It seems that the latest Adam and Eve brouhaha at Bryan College may be the straw that has broken the camel's back.  The Chattanooga Times Free Press relates this:

The change has roiled the entire Dayton, Tenn., campus. In just the past three weeks:

• A trustee resigned over the issue.

• Faculty passed an overwhelming vote of no confidence in President Stephen Livesay.

• A tug-of-war has erupted over the school's future, prompting hundreds of students and alumni to voice their discontent with the recent change and causing faculty to stand up in unprecedented ways.

Apparently, the dissent has been building for some time and many are unhappy with his handling of many different issues, one of which involved the sweeping under the rug of a case involving a faculty member accused of sexual assault:

And in 2012, when biblical studies professor David Morgan was arrested on charges of attempted child molestation, Livesay told students and professors that Morgan had left the college "to pursue other opportunities." Then the president drew national attention for spiking a student newspaper story exposing the arrest.

These problems come at a time when Bryan is facing some serious financial challenges. The college was funding Todd Wood's CORE but cut funding for that over a year ago. Things have not looked up since.

In a letter to the student newspaper, the Triangle, former student Paul Gutacker wrote this:

To revise the Statement of Belief, and raise one Christian understanding of origins up to the same level as the resurrection and the atonement, is a move away from the best of Bryan’s legacy. Let me be more blunt: this revision is a devolution towards fundamentalism. To believe in young-earth creationism is not to be a fundamentalist; to exclude those who believe differently is. This move is defensive and fearful. It is not historically or theologically or hermeneutically warranted. But, you might say, what of the inevitable warnings of “slippery slope!” and “abandoning the clear teaching of scripture!”? These cries ring hollow in light of the thoughtful, careful reflections of hundreds of thoroughly orthodox, robustly evangelical scholars and pastors who acknowledge evolution and maintain their strong faith.

It is too early to see how this controversy is going to affect Bryan's future but the level of discord that it has produced is significant and painful to watch. Bryan College has much to offer the surrounding community and—as some who have graduated from there have attested—a well-rounded strong education. It would be a pity for that to be marred by the short-sighted and myopic actions of a few.

Oldest Crust of Early Earth Found

It has been thought that, due to crustal subduction, the earliest crust of the planet has long since gone and the earliest that we have on the planet is 3.6 or so billion years old.  The age of the planet has always been derived from meteorites.  The St. Severin, Juvinas and Allende chondrites all have dates that cluster around 4.5 billion years old.

Now it has been found that zircon crystals in Western Australia formed around 4.4 billion years ago.  From the Science Daily story:

Writing today (Feb. 23, 2014) in the journal Nature Geoscience, an international team of researchers led by University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscience Professor John Valley reveals data that confirm the Earth’s crust first formed at least 4.4 billion years ago, just 160 million years after the formation of our solar system. The work shows, Valley says, that the time when our planet was a fiery ball covered in a magma ocean came earlier.

“This confirms our view of how the Earth cooled and became habitable,” says Valley, a geochemist whose studies of zircons, the oldest known terrestrial materials, have helped portray how the Earth’s crust formed during the first geologic eon of the planet. “This may also help us understand how other habitable planets would form.”

Another piece of the puzzle.

Noah's Ark Floats Again

It is being reported that Ken Ham's Ark Encounter is no longer foundering.  From ABC News by way of the AP:

Creation Museum founder Ken Ham announced Thursday that a municipal bond offering has raised enough money to begin construction on the Ark Encounter project, estimated to cost about $73 million. Groundbreaking is planned for May and the ark is expected to be finished by the summer of 2016.

Interestingly, the article suggests that the money began to pour in after the televised debate between Bill Nye and Mr. Ham:

Nye said he was "heartbroken and sickened for the Commonwealth of Kentucky" after learning that the project would move forward. He said the ark would eventually draw more attention to the beliefs of Ham's ministry, which preaches that the Bible's creation story is a true account, and as a result, "voters and taxpayers in Kentucky will eventually see that this is not in their best interest."

Ham's Answers in Genesis ministry and the Creation Museum enjoyed an avalanche of news media attention during the debate, which focused on science and the Bible's explanations of the origins of the universe.

This is, perhaps, the great fear in debating a young earth creationist, especially one as nationally-known as Ken Ham. Many scientists were quite unhappy with Bill Nye for accepting the challenge to debate Mr. Ham for two reasons: first, it is almost impossible to bring up to speed the audience—be they studio or TV—on the science involved. Much of it is technical and complex and requires years of education to understand.

Second, the very act of debating Ken Ham (or any young earth creationist, for that matter) is that it confers legitimacy to their arguments.  If you are willing to debate them, it must mean that their side of the debate has as much validity as yours.  Whether this is true or not becomes, at that point, irrelevant.  This was especially the case in the Ham/Nye debate, where the structure did not really allow them to effectively cross-examine each other's positions. 

I suspect that the difficulties inherent in the first reason likely influenced the kind of presentation that Mr. Nye employed.  Nonetheless, because his talk was so general, there was little to really grab on to.  As a result,  he won points on a few arguments but let many other opportunities slip through his grasp. 

I further suspect that there are other factors at work with regard to the uptick in financing for the Ark-n-Park and Mr. Nye should not feel so downcast.  There are always people out there willing to fund this kind of thing and have money to burn.  Like him, though, I am disappointed. 

Bryan College Officially Supports Young Earth Creation Model

The Chattanooga Times-Free Press is reporting that, following what is considered to be an unhealthy drift toward naturalism, the college administration has revised their faculty pledge statement.  According to the story:

The board of trustees is requiring professors and staff to sign a statement saying that they believe Adam and Eve were created in an instant by God and that humans shared no ancestry with other life forms. If they don’t sign, they fear that jobs could be on the line.

General consensus is that this statement is unnecessary and divisive. Since the ruling, almost 300 students (37% of the total student body) have signed a petition requesting that the requirement be overturned. I suspect that is not likely to happen anytime soon.  This is a matter of faith, not science, and the fact that it further marginalizes Bryan in terms of science education will probably carry no weight.  President Steven Livesay, who formulated the statement was quoted as saying: “Scripture always rises above anything else. Scripture rises above science. ... Science at some point will catch up with the scripture.” What if it doesn't? What if your understanding of scripture and science continue to diverge, as they have for the last two hundred years? What then?

As time goes on, the evidence for the young earth model gets worse, not better. President Livesay, are you so sure that, despite the fact that there is no extrabiblical evidence to support it, your hermeneutic is correct?  Are you willing to injure the reputation of your college and put your faculty on edge for it?

As one of my friends at work (and a graduate of Bryan) put it: “Appalling.”

The Believing Neandertal

The Veritas Forum at the University of Tennessee is holding a presentation and discussion on The Believing Neandertal, a conversation with Jeffrey Schloss, a senior scholar at the BioLogos Institute.  It is in the University Center Auditorium Thursday night, February 27, at 7:00 p.m.  If you are in the area, you should come.  Schloss writes mostly about eschatology, the origin of religion and the supernatural as it relates to evolution.  His web site is here. 

What Did Bill Nye and Ken Ham Miss?

Oliver Putz, writing for SFGate (The San Francisco Chronicle) argues that Bill Nye and Ken Ham both missed the boat in their debate Tuesday of last week.  He writes:

Whether you see religion and science as irreconcilable enemies or not depends first and foremost on the premises with which you engage the question of their relationship. For example, if you agree with Ham that all we have to do to figure out the origins of the various species on Earth is to pick up the Bible and read it literally, you are bound for conflict with evolutionary biology. If your response to Ham is that only scientific evidence leads you to the truth, you are likewise a far cry from common ground. The question is whether these are the only two options when it comes to evaluating the origins of biological diversity.

One commenter remarked that Bill Nye's position is painted in such broad strokes as to constitute a straw man and that Nye never argued that there was only one way to the truth.  This is true and it isn't.  At no point in the debate did Nye state that religious perspectives are worthless or irrelevant and that science is the only way to get at truth.  On the other hand, Nye makes no secret of the fact that he is agnostic and exalts scientific endeavors to a level that is, perhaps, unwarranted.  Science is, as with anything else, a human enterprise and not above error.  One need only look at the Piltdown hoax to see that.

Oliver Putz is correct that there are other alternatives.  An obvious one (that he points out at the end of his post) is evolutionary creationism/theistic evolution, which I represent.  While Ham has made no secret of the fact that he does not care for this perspective, Nye has not said one way or the other if he thinks this is acceptable as a philosophical construct.  As I mentioned in my last post about this, a good response on Nye's part to Ken Ham's litany of “scientists-who-are-also-creationists” would have been to respond with the names of Francis Collins, John Polkinghorne, and Davis Young as “people of faith” who think that young earth creationism is nonsense.  He did not.

The problem with the format of the debate as it was presented is that each person had a chance to say things that the other did not have a chance to counteract or rebut.  That gave the appearance of two people talking past each other.   A better debate structure would have been a roundtable setting with a moderator where each would be able to directly address the claims of the other.  This would have bridged the gap between science and theology.

“Tell me, Mr. Ham, what is the extra-biblical evidence for the Tower of Babel, the flood and the Garden of Eden and why do you hold to such a rigid, literal interpretation of scripture when theologians the world over don't accept this reading?  Tell me, Mr. Nye, can religion play a role in the daily lives of scientists and would Linnaeus’ classification of “God's creation” be an example of this?”

Those (among others) are questions for which I would like answers.

Nearly Half of Americans Accept Astrology As Science

How bad is the science education in this country?  UPI is running a story about the acceptance of astrology in the United States.  It is depressing:

According to a new survey by the National Science Foundation, nearly half of all Americans say astrology, the study of celestial bodies' purported influence on human behavior and worldly events, is either "very scientific" or "sort of scientific."

By contrast, 92 percent of the Chinese public think horoscopes are a bunch of baloney.

What's more alarming, researchers show in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators study, is that American attitudes about science are moving in the wrong direction. Skepticism of astrology hit an all-time high in 2004, when 66 percent of Americans said astrology was total nonsense. But each year, fewer and fewer respondents have dismissed the connections between star alignment and personality as bunk.

This, once again, calls into sharp focus why we have to have good, grounded science education. While it is quite true that many people will accept something because they simply want to, despite the evidence, a good many people simply don't know better. They also don't have a good grasp on what science is and how it operates. One of the principle sections of my Anthropology 110 class opening lecture is how science is practiced and how to distinguish between hypothesis and theory. I am continually amazed at how many people get those questions wrong.

On the other hand, as far as the Discovery Institute is concerned, astrology really is science.

Ars Technica: A visual tour of the Creation Museum

Cheers to Ars Technica for doing something I am not willing to do: pony up the entrance fee to the Creation Museum.  Their diligence in doing this has resulted in a visual tour of the museum that can be found here. 

In his comments, Eric Bangeman makes no secret of the fact that the exhibits have no support in modern science, whatsoever.  If nothing else, they reinforce the flatness of the biblical interpretation.  For example, there are several panels that have two columns which are headed "Man's Word" and "God's Word" as if biblical interpretation were monolithic in its understanding of these issues.  As one goes through the museum, one is treated to a view from 35,000 feet.  There are blanket statements that are only partly true or simply not true at all.  For example

• One of the panels reads: "Archaeology has repeatedly confirmed that the Bible's historical details are accurate."  This is only partly true.  While the Bible has confirmed the existence and historicity of many of the Biblical accounts, absolutely none of Genesis 1-11 has been confirmed and there is boundless archaeological evidence showing human existence back millions of years.  This statement glosses over that.
• Under a breathtaking picture of the Grand Canyon, there is a plaque that reads:

  Secular scientists say the Grand Canyon was formed over millions of years by the normal slow geological processes we see today.  But the catastrophe at Mount St. Helens shows that similar features can form very quickly.

  This is a straw man view of modern geology.  While there is evidence for catastrophic events in the history of the earth, what is not said on this plaque is that there is also considerable evidence (more so) for slow deposition that could not have happened quickly—salt diapers, buried coral reefs, compressed aeolian deposits, folded or tilted rock formations—and which contradict the idea that a world-wide flood created the stratigraphic column.  The plaque also states that the local recent catastrophes are the key to understanding the entire geological column.  That is absolutely untrue and whoever wrote this knows nothing of modern geology.  
• On the "What Do We Know About Dinosaurs" plaque, we find the following statement:

  Dinosaur fossils don't come with tags on them telling us how old they are, where they lived, what they ate, or how they died.  We have to figure that out from a few clues we find.  But because we can never have all the evidence, different scientists can reach very different conclusions, depending on their starting assumptions.

  There are no practicing palaeontologists dealing with dinosaur remains who think they were created six thousand years ago.  Scour the palaeontological journals.  You will not find a single article that provides that conclusion.  There simply is no evidence for it.  Who are these “different scientists?” The plaque doesn't say.
• There is a "Did You Know?" plaque that reads:

  Over four thousand years ago, God sent a flood that covered the whole world—even the highest mountains at that time—for almost a year.  That is why we find billions of dead things, buried in rock layers, laid down by water, all over the earth.

  First, there is a good deal of geological material in the rock record that was NOT laid down by water.  This is not explained.  Second, a world-wide flood (especially that envisioned by Whitcomb and Morris) would scramble everything up and yet fossils are never found out of place.  Bill Nye made this point in the debate.  Trilobites are perfectly sorted by the number of compound eye segments.  Dinosaurs are three-quarters of the way up the column and sorted by species, when hydrodynamics would have them sinking to the bottom.  Pterosaurs mysteriously die at the same time the last dinosaurs did, despite the fact that they would have been able to fly to the top of the column.  There are no human structures of any kind to be found at the bottom of the column, which is where they should be.  Where is Cain's city?  The evidence would seem to suggest that all humans lived in open-air environments.
• The plaque on Archaeopteryx is remarkably self-contradictory.  First, it reads:

  Besides typical bird features (feathers, light bone structure, wishbone, and reduced fingers), Archaeopteryx also had teeth, three claws on each wing, abdominal ribs, a long bony tail, and a flat sternum.  Archaeopteryx was about the size of a crow and appears to have been a good flyer.

  Then it reads:

  Archaeopteryx does not support the current false belief that dinosaurs evolved into birds.  Through much research, even most evolutionists now consider Archaeopteryx to be a true bird.  Archaeopteryx: a true, perching bird!

  Which is it?  Is it a true bird, or does it have teeth, three claws, abdominal ribs, a long bony tail and a flat sternum?  Those are dinosaurian characteristics that no self-respecting bird would have.  Furthermore, the part about evolutionists thinking that Archaeopteryx is a true bird is pure fabrication. A check of articles written in the last thirty years on Archaeopteryx reveals that workers in the field, despite being variable in their taxonomic interpretations of where it fits, are uniform in their understanding that this was, at best, a primitive bird and probably a derivative of theropod dinosaurs.  As Mdr remarked in Science Buzz

  For many years some Archaeopteryx specimens languished in collection drawers because they had been initially misidentified as another creature entirely. In 1970, Yale paleontologist John Ostrom was investigating a so-called pteradactyl fossil at a museum in the Netherlands, when he realized it had been misidentified and was actually an Archaeopteryx.  

These points only scratch the surface but if this tour of the Creation Museum is representative of all that is there (and I have no reason to believe otherwise, given what I know of Mr. Ham's message),  the museum is a testament to just how badly evidence can be misinterpreted and how bad creation science can be.  While I am sure that Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis are trying to adhere to what they believe to be a correct interpretation of God's word, there is a frightening level of obfuscation and misdirection in the exhibits.   Massive amounts of evidence that do not support the young earth position are ignored in favor of positions that cannot be independently supported.

That strikes me as deceitful, if not mendacious. As Christians, we cannot afford to be dishonest.  It is a bad witness to non-believers and denigrates the word of God.  Christians need to find a way to honestly deal with the geological and palaeontological evidence that does not involve sweeping it under the rug or twisting it to say something it does not.  Ken Ham's Creation Museum does both. 

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: Public cash to teach creationism

An article in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette raises what is becoming more of a concern among educators: that creationism is being taught in schools funded with public money.  I am in favor vouchers because it is often the only way that kids can escape failing public schools but the more the spectre of creationism raises its head, the less support for the voucher programs there will be.  Julie Crothers writes:

Department of Education officials did not respond to calls or emails asking for a comment about vouchers and private schools teaching creationism.

Evolution is taught in public schools as “an explanation of the history of life on Earth and the similarities among organisms that exist today,” according to curriculum listed on the Indiana Department of Education’s Learning Connection website.

Several Indiana private schools are listed on CreationistVouchers.com, a website opposing the teaching of creationism in schools that receive taxpayer money.

Some schools, including at least five area Christian schools listed on the site, continue to use creationism and intelligent design textbooks for reading, history and science courses, according to curriculum and school missions posted on school websites.

As compelled as they are about teaching what they think to be God's word, this will blow up in the face of the people who use the voucher program to teach creationism as well as for those who use it in the way that it should be used—to get their kids a good education.  In the future, in order to save the voucher programs, riders will have to be introduced that mandate the teaching of established science in order to receive state money.  Otherwise, expect opponents of vouchers to use this as a club to kill the whole program.  That would be a shame, given the sorry state of the public schools. 

Oldest Footprints Outside of Africa

Fossil footprints have been found in England that are thought to be 800,000 years old.  As Science Daily puts it:

The importance of the Happisburgh footprints is highlighted by the rarity of footprints surviving elsewhere. Only those at Laetoli in Tanzania at about 3.5 million years and at Ileret and Koobi Fora in Kenya at about 1.5 million years are older.

A lecturer in physical geography, and co-director of the Happisburgh project (http://www.ahobproject.org/), Dr Lewis added that the chance of encountering footprints such as this was extremely rare; they survived environmental change and the passage of time.

Timing was also crucial as "their location was revealed just at a moment when researchers were there to see it" during a geophysical survey. "Just two weeks later the tide would have eroded the footprints away."

"At first we weren't sure what we were seeing," explains Dr Nick Ashton of the British Museum "but as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints, and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible."

This illustrates the fragility of the fossil record and how incredibly fortunate we are to have anything, let alone what we do have.There isn't a whole heck of a lot in England to begin with.  The boxgrove tibia is around 500 Kya and the Swanscombe skull is around 300 Kya.   We know that early Homo was in southern Europe around 1.2-1.3 Mya and now, in northern Europe by at least 800 Kya. 

Pat Robertson Blasts Ken Ham's View of Scripture

The Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate was watched by many, many people.  One of the them, it appears, was Pat Robertson, the head of CBN and host of the 700 Club.  As the Christian Post reports, on his show he took the time to say exactly what he thought of Ken Ham's theology:

Robertson said that Ham was using faulty data from Bishop Ussher, an Irish Christian, who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. To make his claims, Ussher calculated the date of creation, based on his knowledge of the Bible, the ancient Persian, Greek and Roman civilizations, astronomy, ancient calendars and chronology.

The televangelist said that science had since refuted Ussher's claims.

"The dating of Bishop Ussher just doesn't comport with anything that is found in science and you can't just totally deny the geological formations that are out there," said Robertson.

"Anyone who is in the oil business knows he's drilling down, 2 miles, 3 miles underground, you're coming into all these layers that were laid down by the dinosaurs," said Robertson. "And we have skeletons of dinosaurs that go back like 65 million years. And to say that it all came around 6 thousand years ago is nonsense."

This is not the first time that Robertson has taken a stab at Young earth creationism.  He did so in 2012 as well, in response to a question about how old he thought the earth was.  Interestingly, in that response, he gave no clues to his views on evolution.  In this particular response to the Ham/Nye debate, Robertson does actually endorse Evolutionary creationism. 

Here is the relevant video from the program.



Like so many of us who watched Ken Ham present his theology, Robertson replies: "There just ain't no way that's possible."  How many people Robertson will sway is not clear.  He has made some missteps in recent years and is not viewed with as much credibility as in the past.  Nonetheless, it will get attention. 

Initial Thoughts on the Bill Nye/Ken Ham Debate...

I took three pages (front and back) of notes but do not have them with me.  My first thought is that Ken Ham is the better debater.  His presentation was well-packaged and just vague enough in places that you couldn't quite grab a hold of it.  I was extremely impressed that he was so open and forthright about his Christianity.  That was gratifying to see.  Bill Nye, on the other hand, is an excellent presenter and had a wit and charm that served him in very good stead.  For the most part, he was able to hold his own and present the message he wanted to get across.  There were, however, a number of golden opportunities that Bill Nye missed that were very frustrating to watch.  Here are some that I remember:

• Ken Ham stated that his model of origins is viable and that there is evidence for the Garden of Eden, the biblical flood and the Tower of Babel.  There isn't.  Bill Nye's argument against the feasibility of floating a large wooden vessel was ineffective and his argument against the possibility that 16 million species could not have fit on the ark was, in my opinion, not well constructed.  The biogeographical arguments alone sink the world-wide flood model. 
• Further, had Nye spent even five minutes talking about how flat Ham's theological construct is and that there are many, many Christians who do not interpret the bible in the way that Ham does, his presentation would have been much more successful.  Nye focused on the fact that the bible has been translated and re-translated many times.  That won't fly.  The historical integrity of the bible is actually quite good. It is Ham's interpretation of the Bible, according to the vast majority of biblical scholars, that is suspect. 
• Ken Ham's initial presentation included the testimonials of real-life, practicing scientists who are self-professed creationists and yet publish in secular journals.  This gave a credibility to his presentation that creationism sorely needs.  What Nye should have done is mention that none of the people that Ham invoked deal directly the palaeontological, genetic or geological evidence involving the age of the earth.  Nye should then have said the reason for that is that 99.9% of scientists practicing in those fields don't accept Ham's model for origins.  It would be even more damaging if he had then brought up counter-examples of scientists who are Christians, such as Davis Young, Carol Hill or Dennis Venema who do not accept Ham's world view.
• When Ham began his diatribe about how we can never know the past because there were no observers (an expanded version of his "Were you there?" argument), Nye gave only two rambling examples of how predictive science is by using the discovery of the Devonian transitional tetrapod Tiktaalik and the 3K background radiation evidence for the big bang found in the universe.  Those examples should have been expanded and there should have been others.  For example, he could have mentioned the prediction of Charles Darwin's that we would find the oldest human ancestors in Africa because that is where our closest living relatives are found, or the prediction that, aside from finding living marsupials in Australia, we would find marsupial fossils in South America and Antarctica based on our knowledge of continental drift, or the hypotheses that resulted in the discovery of the meteorite impact crater in the Yucatan Peninsula that likely meant the demise of the dinosaurs. All of these came true.
• In a related point, Ham makes a mention of the fact that we cannot know the past.  Nye should have pointed out that the Bible was written in the past and that there is no one around today that existed at the time that it was written down.  The answer to "were you there?" is "No, I wasn't, but neither were you."   The bible has been painstakingly reconstructed from ancient texts and manuscripts and, as noted above, the process has been largely successful.  The same is true of the historical sciences, which are trying to piece together a reconstruction of the past world. 

Bill Nye addressed none of these arguments.   He had a message that was "good science education is absolutely necessary for the good of this country and Ken Ham's model doesn't provide it."  He varied from it very little.  Ken Ham's message was that "the Bible has all of the information necessary to develop a well-rounded complete view of the universe, exactly as it is written."

Bill Nye also spent too much time wondering how anyone in their right mind could accept the world as Ken Ham portrays it.  That doesn't matter.  They do.  Thousands and thousands of them do.  He needed to get past that and was, seemingly, unable to.

People will be talking about this debate for years to come and, based on what I have read, supporters of both sides have claimed victory.  It seems to me that very few punches connected on either side, let alone any knockout punches.  It looked, instead, like a fifteen-round split-decision. 

Bill Nye and Ken Ham go head-to-head

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a "head to head" column with Bill Nye and Ken Ham ahead of their debate tomorrow night.  Of note from Ham:

Is Christianity incompatible with evolution?

I’m not saying you’re not a Christian because the Bible doesn’t say you have to believe in six days (of creation) and a young earth. You have to believe in Jesus Christ to be a Christian. But you have to change the Bible to fit with the millions of years theory, and that undermines the Bible’s authority.

Ham is not being genuine in this comment. When Pete Enns tried to offer instruction in how to incorporate biblical theology with evolution at a homeschool conference, Ham publicly attacked him, saying that he was trying to undermine the authority of the bible. He might say that he thinks people can accept evolution and be Christians but when push comes to shove, he will fight that interpretation.  If he really accepts that people can accept evolution, why publicly attack that perspective? 

The interview also suggests that Nye is, at least, not going into this with his eyes closed:

What information do you want the audience to walk away with?

The audience in the theater isn’t likely to be influenced by anything I say. By one account the tickets sold out in two minutes. Presumably the tickets all went to people in his church, and his organization. My main point is that these people exist in the United States, which when I stop to think about it is incredible. It means that I as a science educator have failed. I’m not sure he really believes it, but he says the world is 6,000 years old. Roads have been built, presumably using Kentucky tax money, to a museum that calls attention to this point of view. We cannot have scientifically illiterate students. We have too many problems to solve.

This is true but I am not sure how a debate with the most popular purveyor of this perspective is going to help. You can't look at the audience and appeal to their sense of understanding when most of them accept Ham's version of origins science because they don't know what the science actually says.  Further,  they have had it beaten into their heads that evolution is not science.  As my conversation with my highly intelligent friend who did not know that evolution was testable indicates, the amount of misinformation is, at a debate level, almost too much to overcome.  

I Fear He is Correct...

Brett Byers-Lane of Liberty Voice thinks that Bill Nye will lose the debate with Ken Ham. Here is how he reasons:

Evolutionists have been scratching their heads at the idea of a scientist giving any sort of credence to creationist theories. They argue that a forum such as this upcoming debate only props up those who believe in intelligent design as the architect of life.

However, that is not the real reason why evolutionists are so steadfastly against this debate. Frankly, the ball is in Ham’s court and it is Nye’s game to lose.

First of all, there is the issue of the venue. Essentially, Ham will be on his home turf inside the Creation Museum. Tickets for the event sold out long ago, but it would not be surprising if a great number of those purchases were fellow creationists.

On top of that, there will be a world watching. Students at Liberty University will be watching the entire ordeal via live stream, and it is likely that hundreds of thousands of other individuals will closely follow the action during and after the February 4 debate. After all, with about 50 percent of the country in support of creationism and only 15 percent sure that evolutionary theories are true, Nye has the odds stacked against him in terms of his audience.

As well, Ham knows what he’s talking about, and there is some debate over whether or not Nye will be as prepared. Both men are skilled oral communicators, but Ham is the more well versed as a debater. Furthermore, Ham knows his theories and Nye’s theories inside and out, whereas Nye is not actually an evolutionary biologist at all, and his experience with creationism to this point seems to be the continual assertion that creationists are wrong because science said so.

The reaction that I have is that Ham has been twisting the science for years whereas Bill Nye doesn't understand why anyone would not take the science at face value. Nye is coming at this from an innocent perspective, aghast that anyone would believe what Ham is promoting. That is the problem. Lots and lots of people do, and they hold it as dear to them as any religious belief. I also think that Nye thinks he is going to be able to explain the science in his down-home folksyway and people are going to get it.  They aren't.  Basic science knowledge in this area of research in this country is amazingly lacking.

But even if Nye was able to explain them, Ham will paint the argument in such a way as to show that Nye's perspective is not just wrong but evil.  His message is infused with this: that acceptance of evolution is wrong and anyone who does so is not following after the true faith.  If Nye doesn't appeal to the ability to be religious and yet accept evolution and modern-day science, he is toast.