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. 

Okay, So Maybe It is Not Like a Toblerone Bar...

Someone once wrote (can't find the source) that the dimensions of Noah's Ark would render it like a Toblerone Bar.  According to a new Fox News report, it may have actually been round.  From the story:

A recently deciphered 4,000-year-old clay tablet from ancient Mesopotamia -- modern-day Iraq -- reveals striking new details about the roots of the Old Testament tale of Noah. It tells a similar story, complete with detailed instructions for building a giant round vessel known as a coracle -- as well as the key instruction that animals should enter "two by two."

The tablet went on display at the British Museum on Friday, and soon engineers will follow the ancient instructions to see whether the vessel could actually have sailed.

That the story of Noah had antecedents is not new.  It is generally accepted that there are "competing" flood stories in the Near East that have some sort of relationship to each other.  This has fascinated researchers for years and was, recently, the subject of an interesting book by William Ryan and Walter Pittman titled Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History that attempted to locate the source of the stories in the Black Sea. Literalistic Christians are uncomfortable with the idea that the flood story in Genesis is not unique and that Noah and his family may not represent real people or if they do, that the flood was a much more localized event (one of several?).

There are several points of argument against the idea that the flood story represents real events.  The first is that there are so many similarities between the stories, from the promise to flood the world, to the rounding up of the animals, to the flood itself, the releasing of birds and the sacrifice, in which variously The Lord or the gods found the aroma of the sacrifice "pleasing." 

The second primary argument is that, given that the flood is supposed to have occurred around 2348 B.C., there is a remarkable amount of amnesia concerning this event.  Within a scant thousand years, there are thriving civilizations everywhere, and no one has ever heard of Noah or his sons.  Their names do not show up on any stelae or in any stories.  The Chinese don't have any stories that don't involve the flooding of the Yalu River and the Egyptians are busy building the pyramids, which may have started 250 years earlier than the flood date.  For Noah and his sons to have restarted the human race, it is more than a tad peculiar that nobody remembers them. 

Irving Finkel, the man who translated the table, agrees:

"I'm sure the story of the flood and a boat to rescue life is a Babylonian invention," he said.

He believes the tale was likely passed on to the Jews during their exile in Babylon in the 6th century B.C. And he doesn't think the tablet provides evidence the ark described in the Bible existed. He said it's more likely that a devastating real flood made its way into folk memory, and has remained there ever since.

"I don't think the ark existed -- but a lot of people do," he said. "It doesn't really matter. The Biblical version is a thing of itself and it has a vitality forever.

This is true and the biblical story, like the Gilgamesh story, speak to the need to turn away from evil, that God punishes, that water is cleansing and that God will not forget or turn away from us forever.

When Acceptance of Evolution is Not Necessarily "Liberal"

Zack Kopplin has written a column for Slate in which he exposes some of the stealth creationism that is going on in some Texas public schools.  Along the way, however, he takes potshots at values that many conservatives, including myself, hold dear and that have no bearing on the creation/evolution debate.  It is a stark reminder that those of us that are conservative-leaning TE/CE are an unusual group.  He spends most of his time targeting a curriculum run by Responsive Ed, based in Lewisville, Texas. 

He writes:

Another Responsive Ed section claims that evolution cannot be tested, something biologists have been doing for decades. It misinforms students by claiming, “How can scientists do experiments on something that takes millions of years to accomplish? It’s impossible.”

The curriculum tells students that a “lack of transitional fossils” is a “problem for evolutionists who hold a view of uninterrupted evolution over long periods of time.”

“The assertion that there are no ‘transitional fossils’ is false,” Miller responded. “We have excellent examples of transitional forms documenting the evolution of amphibians, mammals, and birds, to name some major groups. We also have well-studied transitional forms documenting the evolution of whales, elephants, horses, and humans.”

Responsive Ed is not unique in this and that these organizations, such as Accelerated Christian Education, A Becka, Apologia and others continue to peddle these myths is nothing short of mendacious.  The data is out there and has been out there for decades.  To be shown that something is true and continue to say that is not is a lie.

In other sections, Kopplin addresses incorrect historical ideas that are, unfortunately taught as fact. The idea that "Darwinism" led to the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich has been shown to be false.
 
But Kopplin conflates the scientific issues with social issues viewpoints, some with which he obviously disagrees: He writes:

About LGBTQ rights, Responsive Ed says, “Laws against the homosexual lifestyle had been repealed in many states, but some states continued to ban the behavior.” The homosexual lifestyle?

About President Franklin Roosevelt, it teaches, “The New Deal had not helped the economy. However, it ushered in a new era of dependency on the Federal government.”

and also

On the feminist movement, Founders Classical Academy students are taught that feminism “created an entirely new class of females who lacked male financial support and who had to turn to the state as a surrogate husband.”

How is the notion of LBGTQ rights not an issue of "lifestyle?" That is exactly what is being promoted as normal: a lifestyle. If you want to argue for gay marriage, that is a lifestyle choice. If you want to argue that gays should raise children, that is a lifestyle choice.  Surely we are not reducing the rights of LGBTQ people to the sex act alone.

Did the New Deal policies prolong the depression?  Quite a few economists think so.  For example, James Powell of the Cato Institute argues that it not only did that, but that the policies ushered in vastly expanded government interference in private lives.  Two UCLA economists, Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian, also argued that the policies were harmful.

With regard to the feminist movement, the position Kopplin is railing against is exactly what is being argued by Jessica Gavora, in the Washington Post.  She writes:

Julia is just the latest makeover. She is the Democrats’ answer to Romney’s family Christmas card. A nation of women on their own, after all, doesn’t relate very well to fecund portraits of smiling white moms and dads with kids and golden retrievers underfoot. With her spare, faceless affect, Julia is meant to evoke a more modern, independent sensibility — with the exception of her life of endless government dependency, that is.

Julia is Mary Tyler Moore on the government’s dime. You’re gonna make it after all, Julia! Just remember who’s responsible on Election Day.

The problem is, like so much of our political rhetoric, Julia is not a composite; she’s a myth. Some of the nation’s single moms may be successful Web designers, but many are poor — fully half have incomes of less than $30,000 a year, compared with just 15 percent of married women. It’s not Pell grants and SBA loans these women rely on but Medicaid and food stamps. And it’s not comfortable retirements in community gardens they contemplate but bleak old age.

Whereas government benefits were once the state’s compassionate response to women who had lost their husbands, in Julia’s world they are the unquestionable entitlement of women who never married. The decline of marriage and Democratic political opportunism have combined to transform what used to be a situation to be avoided — single motherhood — into a new and proud American demographic, citizens of Obama’s Hubby State.

Can one fault the curriculum for promoting one particular viewpoint on a set of social issues? Perhaps.   But to dismiss these viewpoints as being invalid or wrong is more a product of a liberal mindset than well-constructed complaint against bad teaching.  He is disdainful of one curriculum's attempt to teach abstinence.  Why is teaching abstinence, in an age of growing teen pregnancy, a bad idea? 

Another issue not addressed is that, when one goes to school, a set of values is being taught—even if it is that you can construct your own values in a vacuum—because it is not possible to teach without doing so. Why conservative values any less important than liberal ones?

Where Kopplin objects to substandard science teaching and incorrect history, he is completely justified in doing so. Where he disagrees with conservative teaching for which there are differing viewpoints, he is considerably less so.   These are not issues of creationism or evolution or even of science in general. 

Ken Ham Waxes on the Cost of Belief in Evolution. Dan Wilkinson of Unfundamentalist Christian Responds

Ken Ham had a personal note on the AiG page about the upcoming debate.  He writes, in part:

Because our ministry theme for 2013 and for 2014 is “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids,” our staff thought that a debate on creation vs. evolution with a man who has influenced so many children to believe in evolution would be a good idea. Now, those of you who know me realize that I don’t relish public debates, so please pray for me. But this debate will help highlight the fact that so many young people are dismissing the Bible because of evolution, and even many young people who had grown up in the church decided to leave the church because they saw evolution as showing the Bible could not be trusted. This exodus of young people from the church is documented in my coauthored book Already Gone.

Dan Wilkinson, on his blog Unfundamentalist Christian, responds:

No, Mr. Ham, no one’s leaving the church because evolution shows that “the Bible could not be trusted.”

Mr. Ham, they’re leaving the church because of people like you: people who fervently create walls, erect barriers, establish rigid rules for what one must believe in order to be a Christian. They’re leaving the church because your version of Christianity has nothing whatsoever to do with right practice, and everything to do with “right” belief. They’re leaving the church because by essentially demonizing everyone who doesn’t agree with you, you’ve made believing in Young Earth Creationism* more important than Jesus’ explicit explicit commandment to love God and neighbor.

Ken Ham did not like this much. He responded thus:

Apparently they call this sort of thing 'Progressive Christianity.' I guess that means 'evolving Christianity'--whatever the secular world believes about where they came from, you accept that as infallible and then change their assumed fallible Word of God to fit! So sad. In many ways these sort of people are more dangerous to Christianity than the atheists.

Note--the typical personal attack; no research cited (at least AiG had a professional group--America's Research Group--conduct real research into why kids are leaving the church and published it in the book 'Already Gone'); only one verse of Scripture referred to (Matthew 22); just this person's fallible opinions to justify holding man's word as infallible and God's Word as fallible.

Ham is correct about the lack of research. Wilkinson is working off of anecdotes and conversations. He could quote Glenn Morton, however, who left young earth creationism exactly for the reasons that Wilkinson writes about.  There are others out there, I am sure.  I personally know of one person who walked away from the faith after being home schooled using a young-earth curriculum.  When she got to college, her faith was rocked by the fact that there was quite a bit more evidence for evolution than she had been told.  Ham is also correct that there is invective and ad hominem in the post.  It would have been better if the writer had steered clear of such language. 

On the other hand, Ham, himself, has been guilty of the same kind of behavior, personally attacking Peter Enns to the point where Ham was dis-invited from a home schooling conference for his lack of Christian spirit.  He seems to be unrepentant about this.

Additionally, Ham is guilty of a "one way" approach to the scriptures, in which there is no value placed on either current or past interpretation.  Scripture is revealed directly to us and we do not question what it says or how it says it.  Consequently, passages that have provoked discussion and disagreement in the past are rendered flatly, with no color or depth.   He seems to be unwilling to admit that there may be different interpretations of scripture out there by very thoughtful, honest Christians.  Everyone who thinks differently from him is guilty of believing "progressive Christianity."

Most of the folks at BioLogos and the ASA are charitable to young-earth creationists, even if they don't agree with them.  There is no such reciprocity from Ham.  In describing the EC/TE mindset, he is venomous, calling us "more dangerous to Christianity than the atheists."  More dangerous to Christianity than Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Myers and Sam Harris?  Really?  We seek to follow God, understand His ways and trust in Jesus as our savior, just as Ham does and yet, for him, that counts as nothing.  That is sad. 

New Study: Ardipithecus ramidus Derived In Human Direction

According to Bill Kimbel and colleagues, the skull of Ardipithecus ramidus shows tell-tale signs of being derived in the human direction away from great apes.  From Science Daily:

White's field-research team has been recovering fossil remains of Ardipithecus ramidus in the Middle Awash research area, Ethiopia since the 1990s. The most recent study of the Ardi skull, led by Suwa, was published in Science in 2009, whose work (with the Middle Awash team) first revealed humanlike aspects of its base. Kimbel co-leads the team that recovered the earliest known Australopithecus skulls from the Hadar site, home of the "Lucy" skeleton, in Ethiopia.

"Given the very tiny size of the Ardi skull, the similarity of its cranial base to a human's is astonishing," says Kimbel.

The cranial base is a valuable resource for studying phylogenetic, or natural evolutionary relationships, because its anatomical complexity and association with the brain, posture and chewing system have provided numerous opportunities for adaptive evolution over time. The human cranial base, accordingly, differs profoundly from that of apes and other primates.

In humans, the structures marking the articulation of the spine with the skull are more forwardly located than in apes, where the base is shorter from front to back and the openings on each side for passage of blood vessels and nerves are more widely separated.

Given that the post-cranial remains from Ardipithecus suggest facultative bipedalism, this is not so surprising. If you are going to walk upright at all, you need to be able to see where you are going. This information, in conjunction with the new appraisal of the Orrorin tugenensis remains strongly suggests that, while Orrorin was at or near the junction of the last common ancestor, Ardipithecus, at 1.6 million years later, is quite a bit beyond it. It also reinforces what a terrible model the modern apes are for early human morphology.

More Info on the Ken Ham/Bill Nye Debate

The Columbus Dispatch has a short piece on what to do if you didn't get tickets for the Ken Ham/Bill Nye debate.  The write, in part:

The museum says it’s still possible to watch the debate by reserving a live video stream for $4.99. The stream is free with pre-orders of debate DVDs and/or digital downloads ranging from $12.99 to $24.99.
For information, visit creationmuseum.org.

I will probably watch the stream and get a copy of the debate, as well.

Ken Ham on the Upcoming Debate

Answers in Genesis has written up a pre-debate post on their website.  "Layman" writes:

The agreed-upon topic for the 7 PM debate is “Is creation a viable model of origins in today’s modern scientific era?”
Ken Ham Debates Bill Nye

“A debate with Mr. Nye, nationally known for his children’s TV program and for promoting evolution, will be one of our major events in 2014 to highlight how children and teens are being influenced by evolutionary thinking," declared Ham. “This year, our AiG theme is ‘Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids.’ Having the opportunity to hold a cordial but spirited debate with such a well-known personality who is admired by so many young people will help bring the creation/evolution issue to the attention of many more people, including youngsters.”

Ham added, “I hope to show Mr. Nye and our debate audience that observational science confirms the scientific accuracy of the Genesis account of origins, not evolution.”

I will be curious to see what "observational" science he brings out. One of the principle problems with the arguments against an old earth is that they cannot be used to show that the earth is six thousand years old. When you read the creationist literature, each of the methods is used only to show that the earth cannot be 4.5 billion years old. There is usually no lower limit mentioned. To my knowledge, there is no observational data that can be used to show that the earth is between six and ten thousand years old or that the earth was under water between 2400 and 2500 B.C.  If Nye takes this attack,  it will not go well for Ham.  

HufPo: What We Learned About Human Origins In 2013 Will Blow Your Mind

The Huffington Post has a story on the advances in human origins for the last year.  In the realm of modern human origins:

Recent analyses of fossil DNA have revealed that modern humans occasionally had sex and produced offspring not only with Neanderthals but also with Denisovans, a relatively newfound lineage whose genetic signature apparently extended from Siberia to the Pacific islands of Oceania.

This year, hints began emerging that another mystery human lineage was part of this genetic mix as well. Now, the first high-quality genome sequence from a Neanderthal has confirmed those suspicions.

These findings come from Denisova Cave in southern Siberia, where the first evidence of Denisovans was discovered in 2008. To learn more about the Denisovans, scientists examined DNA from a toe bone unearthed there in 2010.

The researchers found that the fossil belonged to a Neanderthal woman. Her DNA helped refine the human family tree, as it revealed that about 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of modern people outside Africa is Neanderthal in origin, whereas about 0.2 percent of DNA of mainland Asians and Native Americans is Denisovan in origin. [Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans]

As Dennis Venema points out, modern humans appear to come from a population of around 150,000, which likely arose in North Africa.  I would still suggest two possibilities that might explain the hybridization.  One, that from around this time to 50 thousand years ago, humans existed as a generally polytypic species and that interbreeding, until the demise of the Neandertals and the Denisovans was, perhaps, widespread.  In the 50 thousand years since then, these genes have stochastically dropped out of the population.

The other possible model that would explain the variation between Neandertals, Denisovans and early moderns might be a syngameon, in which there are three definable species that, at their peripheries, hybridize.  At some point, then, the modern humans simply swamped the other two genomes. This would be the model of modern-day dogs and wolves which can mate but ordinarily do not. 

Another finding?  That early Homo may have been one highly-variable species, rather than a bush of species:

The level of variation seen in Homo fossils is typically used to define separate species. However, analysis of 1.8-million-year-old skulls excavated from the Republic of Georgia revealed the level of variation seen among those skulls was about the same as that seen among ancient African Homo fossils. As such, researchers suggest the earliest Homo fossils may not be multiple human species, but rather variants of a single lineage that emerged from Africa.

This will rattle those that hold to more cladistically-driven models of human origins like Ian Tattersall who supports a model more like the phylogenetic species concept, in which  single trait difference might confer species-level taxonomy.  This takes care of this issue of why there are two very different morphs on the landscape in East Africa at this time, represented by ER 1813 and ER 1470.  The dimorphism is quite large, but, as we discovered, is not beyond what would be expected in any species of large-bodied hominoid but larger than what would be found in any living population of humans in the last several hundred thousand years. 

A good run-down.  Read the whole thing. 

Ark Encounter Sinking, Ham Blames "Spiritual Battle"

As has been reported here and elsewhere, the Ark-n-Park is in danger of not being built because of lack of funding. Recently, The city of Williamstown released some junk bonds to be bought that would provide funding for the amusement park.   Now it seems that the bonds are not selling. Morgan Lee of the Christian Post has an update on the problem:

In a recent fundraising letter, Answers in Genesis (AiG) President Ken Ham claimed that the organization's theme park's current financial woes were "an indication of the immense spiritual battle we are in."

To open the Kentucky attraction, which would include a full-scale, 510-foot-long model of Noah's Ark, AiG must sell $29 million in unrated municipal bonds by Feb. 6 to avoid triggering the redemption of the $26.5 million of bonds that have already been sold.

  As for the reason this might be, Ham suggests it isn't just the money:

Without specifically mentioning any names or reports, Ham also suggested AiG's bond selling process had been sabotaged by atheists and that inaccurate media coverage had in turn led to some of its financial obstacles.

"From atheists attempting to register for the bond offering and disrupting it, to secular bloggers and reporters writing very misleading and inaccurate articles about the bonds, to brokerage firms saying 'yes,' but after reading these incorrect reports saying 'no' in allowing the Ark bonds into their client accounts—the obstacles were numerous and disruptive," wrote Ham. "Frankly, it has been an extremely stressful and frustrating time for all of us."

Ham does not say who these people are.  Nor does he say what the misleading information that is being published is but it is possible he is referring to the Slate article.   The answer may be a bit more mundane than that.  As Mark Chappatta of Bloomberg wrote:

Industrial-development bonds are considered the riskiest municipal debt because they account for the largest proportion of defaults in the $3.7 trillion municipal market. Williamstown issued the bonds without a rating, making the prospect of repayment even less clear.

Mark Stern of Slate elaborates:

As Answers in Genesis readily admits, the bonds “are not expected to have any substantial secondary market” and are “not an obligation of AiG.” Somewhat alarmingly, the bonds are unrated, an indication that they’re extremely risky—and almost impossible to resell. High risk, higher yield: These, in essence, are creationist junk bonds.

Would you buy them? I wouldn't, even if I thought the cause was a worthy one (which I don't).  The funding issues may also be simply be that God is fed up with the Disney-ization of fundamental evangelical Christianity.  Maybe it isn't a war against principalities.  Maybe the park just shouldn't be built.  Maybe God looked at the "Ten Plagues of Egypt Fun Ride" and thought "enough is enough."   Maybe.  

New Proposed Virginia Bill is Redundant

Climate Progress, a branch of Think Progress has a story on a new "strengths and weaknesses" bill that is being proposed for the public school system in Virginia.  Two things are interesting about the story: how the bill actually reads and how Climate Progress thinks it reads.  First, the bill, itself actually does not mention either evolution or climate change anywhere.  Part A reads:

A. The Board and each local school board, division superintendent, and school board employee shall create an environment in public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about scientific controversies in science classes.

That is as close as it gets to actually mentioning the hated sciences. Climate Progress, on the other hand, in its opening paragraph on the bill, writes:

A new bill, up for consideration this year in the Virginia General Assembly, would give Virginia’s public school teachers permission to teach about the “scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses” of “scientific theories” like evolution and global climate change. The bill is part of a national trend of legislative proposals, led by creationist organizations like the Discovery Institute and climate-change deniers such as the Heartland Institute.

The bill is being promoted by state representative Dickie Bell and a cursory reading of this story would make one think that Bell is going directly after evolution and climate change.  Further, the Climate Progress story goes on:

Bell told the Hampton Roads Daily Press that the bill was intended to protect teachers who might otherwise be disciplined for how they responded to questions from students about topics like evolution. He noted that since the state does not require teaching of alternatives to the theory of evolution, “introducing them into instructional discussion would not seem appropriate.”

If you go to the story in the Daily Press: it reads thus:

One of the handful of former teachers in the General Assembly, Del. Richard "Dickie" Bell, R-Staunton, has been thinking of an awkward spot teachers can find themselves in. Specifically, science teachers when a student asks about alternatives to scientific theories.

For instance, evolution.

Bell says his bill is intended to protect teachers from disciplinary action if people don't like the way they respond to questions about scientific theories.

Did Bell actually say "evolution," or is that the tacit assumption?  His statements about evolution are, in fact, very vague.  It only comes up when he is asked whether or not alternatives to evolution ought to be taught, to which he replies in the negative.  Since the bill, itself, is so scrupulously nondescript in its language,  one cannot help but wonder if he is working off the failed attempts at similar legislation that actually single out the hated sciences.

It seems reasonable to assume that Bell had climate change and, perhaps, evolution in mind when he drafted this legislation.  It is poor legislation and redundant in the sense that what is being proposed should already be a part of the curriculum. Additionally, the "strengths and weaknesses" wording has now become stigmatized as being anti-science in general and specifically anti-evolutionary where its instigation has been attempted.  Whether or not evolution and climate change are mentioned, based on this example of the Climate Progress story, that is clearly what people see.  Fueling this assumption is that, as the Climate Progress story notes, Bell has had the support of Ken Cuccinelli, who has been notable in denying the role of humans in climate change.  Cuccinelli has notably been absent in the evolution debate, however.

Consequently, before we castigate Bell for his anti-evolutionary views, perhaps we ought to make sure that he has them.  He might, but I don't think we can conclusively determine that from this set of stories. 

I have tended to separate the debate on evolution from the debate on climate change because I know a good deal more about the former than the latter and because, rightly or wrongly, I tend to encounter a disturbing number of atmospheric scientists and meteorologists who question the conclusions emanating from the studies being currently conducted and their extrapolations.  I know of no biologists who question evolutionary theory. 

Additionally, evolution, as a scientific discipline, is over 150 years old (older if you count the pre-Darwinian formulations), while climate science is in its infancy.  Therefore, I get uncomfortable when the two are lumped together and argued as a package.

The best thing for this bill is to have it die in committee, like many others of its kind.

Oh Well...

The Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate tickets are already sold out.  How popular is this?  800 tickets sold out in twenty minutes.  According to the site, there are tickets available for a simulcast from the museum.