Gallup: Belief in Creationism At All-Time Low

Color me skeptical, but the Gallup organization has released its latest poll on the acceptance of creationism and the numbers are down.  Art Swift writes:

The percentage of U.S. adults who believe that God created humans in their present form at some time within the last 10,000 years or so -- the strict creationist view -- has reached a new low. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. adults now accept creationism, while 57% believe in some form of evolution -- either God-guided or not -- saying man developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

This is the first time since 1982 -- when Gallup began asking this question using this wording -- that belief in God's direct creation of man has not been the outright most-common response. Overall, roughly three-quarters of Americans believe God was involved in man's creation -- whether that be the creationist view based on the Bible or the view that God guided the evolutionary process, outlined by scientist Charles Darwin and others. Since 1982, agreement with the "secular" viewpoint, meaning humans evolved from lower life forms without any divine intervention, has doubled..

As the pollsters suggest, this may reflect a growing secularization in American society and not necessarily a change in the way that people understand evolution.  As with most of these polls, however, education plays a role:

Higher education levels are associated with less support for creationism and higher levels of belief in the evolutionary explanation for human origins. Belief in creationism is 21% among those with postgraduate education versus 48% of those with no more than a high school diploma. Agreement with evolution without God's involvement is 31% among postgrads versus 12% among Americans with a high school education or less.

However, even among adults with a college degree or postgraduate education, more believe God had a role in evolution than say evolution occurred without God.

This is not surprising considering that most left-leaning colleges and universities do their level best to beat belief in God out of the students.I came along at a time before the advent of oppressive political correctness and identity politics, so it was okay to believe in God and still be educated. 

What is always interesting to me is the “religious preference” part of the chart. Catholics consistently accept God-driven evolution at a higher percentage than protestants. As with previous polls, at least 50% of protestants believe the young earth creation position, although that number appears to be dropping just a bit.  It is encouraging that 45% of those with post-graduate degrees think that evolution occurred but that it was a God-directed process.  Here's to hoping that number increases.

Bryan College Gives Ken Ham Honorary Doctorate in Science

In what one of my friends calls “perhaps the most perfectly ironic thing to have ever happened,” Bryan College has bestowed upon Ken Ham an honorary doctorate in science for its graduate exercise on May 8. Aside from the fact that Ham has very little background in hard science, this is clearly a move by the president and board of directors to align the college with the hard-line young earth position that Ham espouses and is a slap in the face to those who have struggled to create an open atmosphere of learning at the college.

Joel Edmund Anderson, author of The Heresy of Ham, is not amused:

I’m sure Ken Ham views this as a minor victory in his battle against secular humanism, for just the day before, on May 7, 2017, he wrote a short blog post that discussed how the Department of Defense has just recently added “humanism” on its list of religions. The entire article can be summed up in this short paragraph:

“Humanists are very inconsistent when it comes to their religious designation. They want the privileges that come with a religious designation (such as chaplains), but they don’t want the public perceiving them as religious because many humanist groups spend millions of dollars suing public school districts or counties to get rid of religion (mostly just Christianity). And what do they want taught in place of Christianity or a Christian worldview? Humanism! They are aggressively pushing to have their secular humanist religion imposed on generations of children —and they are using our taxpayer dollars to do this.”

Yes, secular humanism is a religion, and our children are being indoctrinated into the secular humanist religion in our schools. As Ham concludes his article by quoting Ephesians 6:12-13 and stating: “This struggle over worldviews just shows that we are engaged in a spiritual battle.”

This is the kind of work that gets Ham an honorary doctorate…in science…from Bryan College.

If you have a very limited understanding of science in the first place, then, yes, this would be acceptable. As Anderson points out, Ham's position betrays a complete inability to differentiate between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism (that is not the only problem Ham has with science, but it is a big one).  He quotes the late evolutionary biologist William Provine, famous for his treatise that there is no God, no moral absolutes and no afterlife and, further, that evolutionary theory supports this.  To this, he points out:

This is the fundamental, contradictory problem with philosophical naturalism: it’s claim that the natural world is all that exists is not a scientific claim. So, when Provine and Dawkins claim that evolution teaches us that there is no God, and that there is no purpose or meaning in life, they are wrong, and they are playing a philosophical trick on you. Evolution describes natural processes; evolution does not state nature is all that exists. Science and evolution do not support that philosophical claim, period.

Unfortunately, Ken Ham, and, increasingly, other young earth creationists are taking this position, ironically, in support of atheists like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Make no mistake, it is a philosophical position.  One of the things I am quite clear about with my children when they ask me about evolutionary theory is that it is not capable of testing hypotheses involving the origin of life.  It needs life to work.

One of the drawbacks of using the Classical Conversations curriculum is their reliance on a truly terrible book called It Couldn't Just Happen. The author, Lawrence Richards, has adopted this misunderstanding between philosophical and methdological naturalism.  Consequently, all of his excursions into evolutionary theory are predisposed against it, because it is, by definition, atheistic.  This is unfortunate. 

I do not believe that Bryan College will prosper as a result of this move.

Off-Topic: The Troubling State of Social Science

Skeptic Magazine is reporting on a hilarious (in some ways) hoax that was perpetrated on the world of gender studies.  Two authors, Peter Boghossian, a professor of philosophy and James A. Lindsay, a Ph.D. in math and physics,  submitted a paper that, by their own admission, made absolutely no sense but appealed to far-left, liberal socio-political perspectives.  They write:

Assuming the pen names “Jamie Lindsay” and “Peter Boyle,” and writing for the fictitious “Southeast Independent Social Research Group,” we wrote an absurd paper loosely composed in the style of post-structuralist discursive gender theory. The paper was ridiculous by intention, essentially arguing that penises shouldn’t be thought of as male genital organs but as damaging social constructions. We made no attempt to find out what “post-structuralist discursive gender theory” actually means. We assumed that if we were merely clear in our moral implications that maleness is intrinsically bad and that the penis is somehow at the root of it, we could get the paper published in a respectable journal.

In other words, as long as it bashed men, it was okay, even if the premise of the paper was completely unsupportable. As the authors note, it gets worse:

Not only is the text ridiculous, so are the references. Most of our references are quotations from papers and figures in the field that barely make sense in the context of the text. Others were obtained by searching keywords and grabbing papers that sounded plausibly connected to words we cited. We read exactly zero of the sources we cited, by intention, as part of the hoax. And it gets still worse…

Some references cite the Postmodern Generator, a website coded in the 1990s by Andrew Bulhak featuring an algorithm, based on NYU physicist Alan Sokal’s method of hoaxing a cultural studies journal called Social Text, that returns a different fake postmodern “paper” every time the page is reloaded. We cited and quoted from the Postmodern Generator liberally; this includes nonsense quotations incorporated in the body of the paper and citing five different “papers” generated in the course of a few minutes.

On one level, this is hilarious.  It was difficult to get through either the paper, itself, or the authors' report of the hoax.  At one point, I was laughing so hard, tears were coming out of my eyes.  On another, it is deeply concerning.  The editors of this journal should resign in disgrace.

The social sciences have always had a somewhat checkered reputation in the general world of science, and examples like this simply reinforce this perspective. Once upon a time, I had an opportunity to read a social sciences dissertation written by someone that I knew at the University of Tennessee.  He made it clear that the dissertation had already been accepted by the graduate school.  It was terrible, full of spelling, grammatical and logical errors.  I marveled that, had I turned in the same kind of work to my advisor, he would have thrown it back in my face.

It is clear that, long ago, the social sciences burned objective scientific principles at the altar of progressive, ideologically hidebound politics.  This was exposed by the original hoax perpetrated by Alan Sokal, in 1996, in the journal Social Text.

What has just transpired in the journal Cogent Social Sciences, is unacceptable and all of those involved should hang their heads in shame.  Unfortunately, as the authors point out:

As a matter of deeper concern, there is unfortunately some reason to believe that our hoax will not break the relevant spell. First, Alan Sokal’s hoax, now more than 20 years old, did not prevent the continuation of bizarre postmodernist “scholarship.” In particular, it did not lead to a general tightening of standards that would have blocked our own hoax. Second, people rarely give up on their moral attachments and ideological commitments just because they’re shown to be out of alignment with reality.

Most people do not see themselves in the same light that other people do, and the facile nature of the discipline of "gender studies" will likely continue, in spite of this hoax. Nonetheless, these two authors have done an amazingly important service in exposing the shoddy nature of the academic standards of it.
 
P.S. for those of you in need of a laugh, here is the Postmodern Generator.  One of the papers it generated was from Barbara Porter, Professor of English at the University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople. 

Matt Young Not Happy With Treatment of Andrew Snelling

Neither am I.  It seems that Andrew Snelling, a young earth creationist, wanted to do a geological study of rocks in the Grand Canyon and so petitioned the National Park Service to remove a few rocks to do this.  After reviewing the proposal that Snelling sent, the Park Service declined.  Citing religious descrimination, Snelling is suing the Park Service.  Here is an excerpt from the story in the Phoenix New Times:

In the federal complaint filed on Tuesday, ADF uses several key e-mails by scientists who put their feelings in writing to demonstrate the bias Snelling says he encountered.

"It is difficult to review such an outlandish proposal," Ron Blakely of Northern Arizona University told NPS officials in 2014, when he was asked for his opinion about Snelling's proposal.

Gary McCaleb, ADF senior counsel, told Phoenix New Times that Snelling "has been stonewalled for three years. Something's fundamentally wrong when a government stops a good scientist from doing good research."

Whether it's actually "good" research is debatable, of course. But it's unclear why government officials care what Snelling concludes about a relatively small collection of Grand Canyon rocks.

Here is Matt Young's take on it, from Panda's Thumb:

I do not know how many people request permission to remove a few rocks from the Grand Canyon. But Dr. Snelling’s proposal was to remove no more than 60, ~0.2 kg samples to use in his research. He did not ask for any funding. There is not the slightest doubt that his research would conclude that the Grand Canyon was something like 6000 years old. That is, he is pursuing, in the jargon of the times, fake research. So what? It would have been better if the National Park had allowed him to have his rocks and go play in his sandbox.

Instead, Dr. Snelling is now being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has just posted an article Grand Canyon National Park continues history of hostility toward religion, and may become something of a cause célèbre among the right wing. The complaint, incidentally, refers irrelevantly to Donald Trump’s recent Executive Order on “religious freedom.”

This kind of thing gives ammunition to the young earth creationists and it was completely unavoidable. The story in Phoenix New Times suggests that reviewer Karl Karlstrom criticized Snelling's beliefs in a letter he sent to the Park Service in 2014.  Without that letter, it is hard to evaluate that charge.  It may be simply that he thought that Snelling's interpretation of the scriptures had no empirical support (which it doesn't).  That is not the same as criticizing his religious beliefs.  On the other hand, if he did criticize Snelling's beliefs, it will be much easier to get a charge of religious bias to stick.  

New Post on Homo naledi From Darrel Falk and Deb Haarsma

Darrel Falk and Deb Haarsma have teamed up on a new post about the peculiar South African hominin, Homo naledi, a find on which I reported a few days back.  Darrel Falk:

This is a wonderful time to be studying human origins. Scholars used to think that there was a slow steady progression of one single species after another becoming more and more human-like through time. That’s not the way it was at all. Although these fossils give no evidence for when H. naledi went extinct, it’s clear it was our contemporary in Africa for at least a little while. There also were at least several other hominin species outside of Africa at that same time. Some members of our species migrated out of Africa to Eurasia about 70,000 years ago, only to find that Homo neanderthalensis and the related, but distinctive Denisovans were already there. At the same time, the primitive diminutive species, H. florisiensis, occupied an island in Indonesia, and H. erectus was in eastern Asia. Meanwhile, back in Africa, we know from genetic evidence that, in addition to H. naledi, another unknown hominin species was present and interbred with our species as recently as 30,000 years ago. So our lineage shared life on this planet with a whole set of other species up until just a few thousand generations ago.

A bit back, I wrote a BioLogos post where I examined the hominin diversity in the early to middle Pleistocene, in which I asked the question How Many Forms Were There?  In that post, I pointed out that our simplistic notions of hominin taxonomy needed to be seriously re-evaluated. Where we once upon a time thought that there was only one species of hominin between 3 and 3.5 million years ago, there may, in fact, have been anywhere from three to five.  It is becoming more likely that this is a pattern that characterizes human evolution, perhaps, all the way up to the ascendancy of modern humans.  If this is so, then Bernard Wood is correct, in that we have many, many more species throughout the range of human evolution than we thought.  This discovery will cause a radical rethink of how we interpret species in the human fossil record.  Witness the rise of systematics.

Australopithecus sediba Voted Off the Island

This does not surprise me.  Science Magazine has a short story which suggests strongly that the characteristics in Au. sediba render it unsuitable for a possible ancestor to the genus Homo. 

With its fossils dated to 1.98 million years ago, Au. sediba is too young to be directly ancestral to all members of the genus Homo. But Berger and his colleagues proposed in 2010, and again in 2013 in six papers in Science, that given the many humanlike traits in Au. sediba’s face, teeth, and body, the Malapa fossils were a better candidate than Lucy or other East African fossils to be ancestral to Homo erectus, a direct human ancestor that appeared 1.8 million years ago.

In a talk here, though, paleoanthropologist Bill Kimbel of Arizona State University in Tempe analyzed the most complete skull of Au. sediba and systematically shot down the features claimed to link it to early Homo. Kimbel noted that the skull was that of a juvenile—a “7th grader”—whose face and skull were still developing. In his analysis, with paleoanthropologist Yoel Rak of Tel Aviv University in Israel, he concluded that the child already showed traits that linked it most closely to the South African australopithecine Au. africanus, a species that lived in South Africa 3 million to 2.3 million years ago. And had it survived to adulthood, its humanlike facial traits would have changed to become even more like those of Au. africanus.

For example, the breadth of the young Au. sediba’s cheekbones appears narrow, as in early Homo. But by studying other australopithecine, ape, and Homo fossils to see how features of the cheekbones change as individuals grow and chewing muscles develop, Kimbel and Rak could predict how the boy’s face and skull would have looked if he’d grown up to be an adult. The resemblance to Au. africanus is so striking, in fact, that Kimbel thinks Au. sediba is a closely related “sister species” of Au. africanus—and not a long-lost human relative. “We don’t believe … that Au. sediba has a unique relationship to the genus Homo,” says Kimbel.

At this point, it is pretty hard to tell where a precursor might be found. We know that there was considerable variability in australopithecines throughout the Plio-Pleistocene but, as of yet, no good candidate has arisen.What seems to be clear, however, is that there is a general trend toward more modern morphology in the pelvis and hands, as exhibited by Au. sediba.  Whether or not these characteristics are present in other specimens of Au. sediba is, however, unknown.  As Kimbel notes, we need an adult one to see for sure. 

A Conversation with Scot McKnight

Scot McKnight, a New Testament professor at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, and co-author of Adam and the Genome, with Dennis Venema, recently was interviewed and said that it was a BioLogos conference and the evidence he was told there that changed how he viewed the first three chapters of Genesis.  Baptist News Global has the scoop:

“The number one reason young people walk away from the faith is the conflict of their interpretation of Scripture with their interpretation of science,” he said. “Let it be emphasized that we are dealing here with the interpretation of Scripture, not necessarily Scripture’s truest meaning. And, yes, we are dealing with a theoretical construct called evolution.” McKnight said many people on both sides regard science and faith as “implacable enemies.”

“Some scientists think we are fools for believing in the Bible and therefore in Jesus,” he said, “while for some conservative theologians and pastors and bloggers, scientists are materialists, atheists, and those who think they are Christian and evolutionist are oblivious to the slippery slide they are halfway down.”

McKnight said the question he hears most often when discussing Gen. 1-3 is “do you believe in a historical Adam?” It’s a question “loaded with theological meaning,” he said, including belief that Adam and Eve were real people who had a “biological and procreative relationship with every human being who has ever lived” and that all people living today possess a share of their DNA.

I am about three-quarters of the way through the book and it is worth the read. He is one of a growing chorus of people (notably John Walton also) who are raising the concern that people are walking away from the faith because they get to college and encounter grounded science that conflicts with the non-grounded creationism they were taught in high school or home school.

It is clear that McKnight has read Walton, however.  Here is how he puts it:

McKnight said he doesn’t like the terms “myth,” “fable” and “legend” when applied to Genesis, so he uses “theological narrative.”

“I read the text as a theological narrative about God as creator, about humans assigned by God to a vocation in God’s cosmic temple on God’s sacred time, and I see the tragedy of humans who refuse to do what God said,” he said.

This perspective is absorbed from Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One, another book I am piecing through, which is considerably denser than Adam and the Genome but worthwhile, nonetheless. 

Surprising New Information About Homo naledi

The Atlantic (and other outlets) has a story on new information on the date of the Homo naledi fossils from Rising Star Cave and it is...surprising.  As Sarah Zhang writes:

The one thing everyone agrees is that the fossils themselves are spectacular. In 2015, researchers unveiled 1,500 hominin fossils found deep in a South African cave, excavated by six cavers who were all skinny, short, and female. The hominin, a new species the team christened Homo naledi, was an unusual mix of the old and modern. Their heads were small, suggesting an early hominin perhaps more than a million years old. But their feet were stiff for walking upright and their hands adept like modern humans.

So in the media frenzy that followed—a National Geographic cover, a documentary, numerous articles—the question kept coming up: How old are these Homo naledi fossils, really? What do they tell us, if anything, about the origin of Homo sapiens?

To that first question, the researchers now have an answer: 236,000 to 335,000 years old. As for the second question, well, it’s complicated. “You can’t tell simple stories anymore,” says Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand who led the research. “This is the gigantic message out of Homo naledi.” The age of these fossils puts these strange, small-brained yet human-like hominins in South Africa just before the emergence of the first anatomically modern Homo sapiens.

Holy Liang Bua, Batman!  If the bones really are 236k, then that would put them roughly 40-50 k years before the advent of modernity represented by the Omo 1 cranium.  Admittedly, that skull is fragments “swimming in plaster” but we have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. We certainly have modernity in the Bouri remains from Herto at 160 ky.

How do we know how old the fossil are?  From the eLife article:

Now, Dirks et al. – who include many of the researchers who were involved in the discovery of H. naledi – report that the fossils are most likely between 236,000 and 335,000 years old. These dates are based on measuring the concentration of radioactive elements, and the damage caused by these elements (which accumulates over time), in three fossilized teeth, plus surrounding rock and sediments from the cave chamber. Importantly, the most crucial tests were carried out at independent laboratories around the world, and the scientists conducted the tests without knowing the results of the other laboratories. Dirks et al. took these extra steps to make sure that the results obtained were reproducible and unbiased.

More specifically, they did Electron Spin Resonance (or Electron Paramagnetic Resonance), Uranium-Thorium disequilibrium, Optically Stimulated Resonance and radiocarbon dating.  This is probably not the last word on the dating of the fossils and there are quite a few assumptions that have been made regarding the provenance of the fossils to the cave sediments, but this is the closest thing that we currently have. One of the critical problems in dating much of the South African cave deposits is their relationship to the hominins found there.  Often, the caves opened up at the top and the fossil remains either fell in, were dropped in or they crawled in.  What makes the Rising Star remains so peculiar is that this cave did not form in the traditional way and the bones were so far into the cave. 

Where does this leave us? It leaves us with more questions than answers.  It has been common consensus that, while there was considerable variability in hominin morphology throughout the Pliocene and early to middle Pleistocene, that this "settled down" and that variability diminished as we made the transition to modern humans.  These fossils suggest the opposite: that large amounts of variability were, in fact, present throughout the range of human existence and only recently (200ky to the present) did this variability drop off.

I am quite sure that more studies will be done to elucidate the relationship that these fossils (there are more very similar fossils next door in the Lesedi cave complex) have to other forms in Africa.  There are obviously very peculiar cultural interactions going on, though (or lack, thereof).  With the Liang Bua remains in East Asia, hypotheses of endemic dwarfism and isolation have been put forth to explain why these remains are so diminutive and primitive.  It is more difficult to put forth these same arguments here where there are few to no barriers to migration and interaction between groups. 

Texas...Again!

This is a follow-up post to another one on March 21.  Hot on the heels of the Texas State Board of Education striking language in the state science standards that would require teachers to “evaluate” scientific theories as they teach them, comes another bill that is an attempt to allow teachers to do exactly that. The Texas Observer has this to say:

Representative Valoree Swanson, R-Spring [natch!], is making a case for why her bill protecting the “academic freedom” of public school teachers wouldn’t amount to an unconstitutional teaching of religion in classrooms.

House Bill 1485 would “free our teachers to where they don’t live in fear of frivolous accusations” and give teachers the ability to criticize scientific theories, she told members of the House Public Education Committee Tuesday evening. Among the theories that teachers would be able to question in elementary, middle school and high school classrooms? Climate change.

Of course she doesn't stop at climate change:

But under Swanson’s bill, public schools are encouraged to create an environment where students can consider “differences of opinion about scientific subjects” and “assist” teachers in teaching subjects that may cause controversy. The bill lists climate change, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life and human cloning as examples of such controversial subjects.

The bill also prohibits school administrators and the State Board of Education from blocking teachers who are helping students “understand, analyze, critique and review” the “scientific strengths and weaknesses” of science subjects.

How is that climate change, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life and human cloning are always the “examples?”  How do you create this kind of environment with “differences of opinion about scientific subjects” without evaluating them?   My experience is that most high school teachers are not equipped to evaluate these subjects because they do not work in these fields.  That is why the language to do so was stripped from the original wording.  The study of the biochemical origins of life is extremely technical, with a  considerable amount of mathematics and, as with all of these subjects, requires considerable time and education to master. 

Nothing good can come from this.  

Motherboard: Florida Bills Would Let Citizens Remove Textbooks That Mention Climate Change and Evolution

First, lets get past the hyperbolic headline.  A bill just passed in Florida is addressing parental concerns about curricular material.  It reads, in part:

2. Each district school board must adopt a policy regarding an a parent's objection by a parent or a resident of  the county to the his or her child's use of a specific instructional material, which clearly describes a process to  handle all objections and provides for resolution. The process must provide the parent or resident the opportunity to proffer evidence to the district school board that:
a. An instructional material does not meet the criteria of 116 s. 1006.31(2) or s. 1006.40(3)(d) if it was selected for use in a course or otherwise made available to students in the school district but was not subject to the public notice, review, comment, and hearing procedures under s. 1006.283(2)(b)8., 9., and 11.

Here is Motherboard's take on it:

The bills are framed in as way to give communities power, but they are among 11 pieces of legislation debated in state houses this year deemed anti-science by critics, and which seek to change the way science is taught in US schools.

The Florida bills don't explicitly target climate change and evolution education, but Port Orange, Fla. science teacher Brandon Haught is worried nonetheless. "With this bill, we're giving a citizen—who can't believe evolution is being taught—more power and more weight, equalling out someone who actually knows what they're talking about," Haught told me.

Maybe. But it strikes me that the opposite might also be true. Look what happened in Dover, in 2005.  The Florida scenario might not be different.  We know that, in some instances, ID or creationist materials are brought into class by teachers, hoping to teach those ideas.  With this bill, an enterprising parent might be able to counteract that.

Conversely, this kind of legislation could open the floodgates to all sorts of mischief in the form of a large uptick in litigation that needs to be handled for every frivolous complaint.  I don't think that the legislature of Florida has done themselves any favors here.  Further, it is pretty clear that the supporters of these bills hope that the school boards will be deluged with complaints about the teaching of evolution.

And, of course, the problem of when people get involved in the process who have very little knowledge of the subject matter is ever present:

Keith Flaugh, co-director of the Florida Citizens' Alliance, a libertarian advocacy group, argued the bills are about transparency and giving communities greater say in school materials, which he said are currently being chosen by "politicized" school districts and "establishment" textbook companies.

"The science here is not proven on either side," Flaugh said. "There are lots of scientists on both sides of that equation: Creationism versus the theory of evolution. They're both theories. And all we're asking for is both sides of the discussion in a balanced way be put in front of the students."

For Haught, that's the kind of argument that raises red flags. "Theory," as a scientific term, is not the same as "theory" in common usage, he said: It denotes "a well-supported observation" offering "the highest level of understanding in science."

This is incorrect on many levels.  There is an incredible amount of evidence for evolution.  Mr. Flaugh simply does not know it or chooses not to learn about it.  My experience is that the latter is probably true. 

Secondly, you don't “prove” anything in science.You build support for one theory or another, based on observation of present events or reconstruction of past events.  You cannot have a “balanced” discussion of competing theories when one has little to no empirical support.

Scientists Use Revolutionary Technological Advance to Locate Human DNA

The Telegraph (and other outlets) are reporting on an incredible breakthrough that allows the recovery of human DNA from sediment where no actual human fossil remains exist:

The researchers collected 85 sediment samples from seven caves in Europe and Russia that humans are known to have entered or even lived during the Pleistocene, between 14,000 and 550,000 years ago.

By refining a method previously used to find plant and animal DNA, they were able to search specifically for genetic material belonging to ancient humans and other mammals.

"This work represents an enormous scientific breakthrough," said Antonio Rosas, scientist at Spain's Natural Science Museum in Madrid.

"We can now tell which species of hominid occupied a cave and on which particular stratigraphic level, even when no bone or skeletal remains are present."

Scientists focused on mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down the maternal line, because it is particularly suited to telling apart closely related species. By analysing damaged molecules they were able to separate ancient genetic material from any contamination left behind by modern visitors.

It is difficult to overestimate the importance and impact this will have on the anthropological world. This technique will allow us to reconstruct migration routes, occupational histories, times of first appearance in an area and many other aspects of Neandertal, Denisovan and modern human demography.This will open doors to research that we can only begin to imagine.

Meanwhile, over in...Azerbaijan?

Apparently, Azerbaijan is experiencing some controversy regarding the age of the earth.  Durna Safarova of Eurasianet.org writes:

“And it is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days.” Thus read the draft version of a proposed textbook for 10th-grade geography students in Azerbaijan in a section about how the universe was formed. As homework, the book suggested that students prepare presentations on verses from the Koran, referring them to the Azerbaijani-language website quran.az.

The textbook draft was posted online at the end of March for public comment: it quickly became a hot discussion topic as Azerbaijan wrestles to determine the proper place of religion in public life. In response to the posted draft, a group of parents, scientists, and public figures used social media to organize a campaign against what they described as a government imposition of religious propaganda on their children.

As the story notes, Azerbaijan is almost unique in the region as being a largely secular state, due to years of rule by the Soviet Union.  It is surrounded by Islamic nations, however, and Islam is becoming more commonplace.  This textbook is a reflection of that.  Safarova continues:

“Until now, history books have only presented the theory of evolution,” said Kamran Asadov, the author of the 10th-grade history textbook. “Students should make the choice for themselves about what is correct.”

Others, though, worry about the impact of religion, and especially the growing influence of creationism and other forms of pseudoscience. Azerbaijanis, curious about new ideas after the collapse of the Soviet Union, were favored targets for creationist missionaries from Turkey.

The idea that students should make up the choice for themselves about which is correct is absurd, on its face. It is the kind of thing that is commonplace among young earth creationists, that we have access to the same facts, we just interpret them differently.  This will be a hard thing to fight for the same reason it is hard to fight in the United States: the acceptance of creationism is tied to an acceptance of the one true religion.  People don't tend to think clearly about science if they are driven by this perspective. 

Julie Chang: State panel limits teaching phenomena that challenge evolution

As Don McLeroy suggested, I hunted up Julie Chang's article covering the State Board of Education in Texas.  Here is what she writes:

By swapping out a few words in high school biology curriculum standards, the State Board of Education has limited the teaching of scientific phenomena that challenge the theory of evolution, a move that liberals hailed as a victory.

The panel on Friday approved a pared down version of the high school biology curriculum standards after committees of teachers and scholars worked for months to streamline the state’s voluminous science curriculum for all grades. The standards that covered evolution became the most hotly debated issue during the process.

“It was clear from testifiers that many who had varied concerns found the compromise language chosen by the board to be acceptable, addressing both the need to streamline content while still encouraging critical thinking by students,” said board chairwoman Donna Bahorich, R-Houston.

Then comes a particularly problematic paragraph:

Currently, high school students must learn about scientific phenomena that can’t readily be explained by evolution, like cell complexity, origin of DNA and life, and abrupt appearances in fossil records, which left-leaning critics have said invites teachings of creationism and intelligent design.

The origin of DNA and life is not the purview of evolution. Evolution deals with existing biological diversity. The notion that evolution explains the origin of life is consistently brought up by people antagonistic to evolutionary theory, despite this. Second, what abrupt appearances in the fossil record is she writing about? This phrase is often used by people who are unfamiliar with the fossil record.  Transitional fossils are commonplace in the fossil record and, often, “abrupt gaps” turn out to be nothing of the sort. There are certainly periods of time when evolution proceeds more quickly than others, but that is all.

Then there is the snarky remark that critics are “left-leaning.” I am not left-leaning, nor is anyone that I know at BioLogos.  Evolutionary theory is apolitical, as is gravitational theory, cell theory (which Ms. Chang incorrectly argues cannot be explained by evolutionary theory), plate tectonic theory and quantum theory. To argue that critics of some of these statements are “left-leaning” betrays a political bias, rather than a scientific one.

While the rest of the article may accurately portray the changes that were made to the standards, the editor of the Statesman should have flagged that paragraph for removal, since it adds nothing to the story and includes several incorrect statements. 

Is Homo floresiensis a Sister Species of Homo habilis?

A short blurb in Science Magazine attempts to lay to rest one of the nagging questions in recent human evolution: where did the diminutive “hobbits” originate?  A report by the Australian National University suggests that Homo floresiensis is a sister species of Homo habilis. 

Data from the study concluded there was no evidence for the popular theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from the much larger Homo erectus, the only other early hominid known to have lived in the region with fossils discovered on the Indonesian mainland of Java.

Study leader Dr Debbie Argue of the ANU School of Archaeology & Anthropology, said the results should help put to rest a debate that has been hotly contested ever since Homo floresiensis was discovered.

"The analyses show that on the family tree, Homo floresiensis was likely a sister species of Homo habilis. It means these two shared a common ancestor," Dr Argue said.

"It's possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere."

Homo floresiensis is known to have lived on Flores until as recently as 54,000 years ago.

How do we know this?

Where previous research had focused mostly on the skull and lower jaw, this study used 133 data points ranging across the skull, jaws, teeth, arms, legs and shoulders.

Dr Argue said none of the data supported the theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from Homo erectus.

I think that it is passing peculiar that we have found absolutely nothing else like this in over 100 years of searching in this area, but who knows what these smaller islands have hidden in them. This also raises interesting questions. Since we know that early Homo got as far as Russian Georgia, is it possible they got as far as Flores? That's a long way.  Is it possible that incoming Homo erectus out-competed them in most places except for a few small refugia?  Also possible.   Hopefully more information will turn up to help us answer these questions.

Slightly Off-Topic: The March for Science

The Christian Science Monitor wonders aloud if science and political activism can co-exist.  Amanda Paulson writes:

The foray into activism and politics is a tough one for some scientists. And although the organizers have taken pains to note the march is nonpartisan, concern that the focus will become political has sparked some controversy and debate among scientists.

Many supporters of the march note that science is already political, and that ignoring its importance to policy is disingenuous. The march is needed, they say, due to the increased attacks on science, threats to slash funding for research, and lack of understanding of what scientists do.

But critics worry that despite all the declarations that the march is “non-partisan,” it will be viewed by many Americans as anti-Trump and anti-Republican, and that it will only increase the partisan divide and cement the impression in some people’s minds that scientists are driven by ideology rather than evidence.

“I worry there will be people there carrying signs that have incendiary messages, and it’s that one percent that will become the meme for the conservative blogosphere,” says Robert Young, a coastal geologist at Western Carolina University. He cringes imagining rural America’s reaction to, say, a sign saying “Make America smart again.”

One of the things that I have anecdotally noticed in the thirty some years that I have been associated with science in one way, shape or form, is that people have a tendency to develop their socio-cultural viewpoints irrespective of the science that they practice. For example, I have never seen science turn a Christian into an atheist, or vice versa.  Richard Dawkins once wrote that evolution allowed him to “...be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”  In other words, he was already an atheist.  He was just now using evolution as a cover to justify it.  Given that I know other people that view evolution as displaying the glory of God, the argument that one is tied to the other is somewhat suspect.

One thing is certain: there are already quite a few people out there that have watched the democratic party and its associated left-leaning groups implode after the election and thought to themselves “Good thing I voted for Trump.” The very same thing could happen here if the March for Science is hijacked by leftist groups. It could very well result in Trump and his advisors thinking that, why yes, it would be perfectly appropriate to start cutting these budgets.

The organizers have a golden moment on their hands.  If they can show the world that the scientific endeavor is benefiting all of humanity in noticeable, tangible ways, then it will have done its job.  If it descends into Trump-bashing and elitism, then expect that the general public's support for science, which is already at an all-time low, will continue to erode and, yes, expect budgetary cuts.

Texas State Board of Education In the Crosshairs Again

The Texas State Board of Education is revising standards for science again, in response to criticisms that they allow for the teaching of creationism.  Andrea Zelinski, of the Houston Chronicle, writes:

The Texas State Board of Education on Wednesday took a preliminary vote to compromise on a pair of high-school science standards that critics say encouraged the teaching of creationism.

The 15-member board voted unanimously to change language in its standards to take the pressure off teachers to delve deep in evaluating cell biology and DNA evolution.

"I was very pleased with how smoothly everything went," said Ron Wetherington, an evolutionary anthropologist at Southern Methodist University and member of the High School Biology Streamlining Committee that recommended the board modify language in the standards to save teachers class time.

Standards using words like "analyze and evaluate" are like "dogs whistles," he said, that ideological groups see as an opening to explore creationism and intelligent design as explanations for the origin of life.

The first change to the standards, if confirmed by a second vote on Friday, would require students to "compare and contrast scientific explanations" for the complexity of cells, instead of "evaluate." The change would return the standard to the original language recommended by the committee, reversing an addition in February authored by Republican board member Barbara Cargill of The Woodlands.

As the article points out, Texas has had a long and heated battle with creationists on the board, led by Cargill and Don McLeroy, continually watering down the standards.  Hopefully, things will look up for students of science in Texas.

Off Topic: Freeze Frame!

It seems that we are having a hard time getting our aging rockers to live past the age of 71.  The latest casualty is J. Geils, who's band had some pretty large hits in the 1980s.  From Boston's WCVB TV:

"A preliminary investigation indicates that Geils died of natural causes," police said in a statement.

The J. Geils Band was founded in 1967 in Worcester, Massachusetts, while Geils, whose full name was John Warren Geils Jr., was studying mechanical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Geils served as the band's guitarist and vocalist. Bandmates included Danny Klein, Richard "Magic Dick" Salwitz, Stephen Jo Bladd, Peter Wolf and Seth Justman.

The band, whose music blended blues rock, R&B, soul and pop, released 11 studio albums and built a large following due to their energetic live shows as well as their unusual use of the harmonica as a lead instrument. The band broke up in 1985, but reunited off and on over the years.

I never, honestly, listened to much J.Geils Band music, not being that much of a fan of stripped-down rock, but it was hard not to like the tongue-in-cheek aspect of many of the songs, including “Love Stinks” and “Centerfold.”

R.I.P.


And, of course, the obligatory...

Creationism in Ireland and "Alternative Facts"

I am not sure how this term “alternative facts” managed to become common parlance. The Irish news is reporting on a traveling roadshow that is trying to educate young kids that dinosaurs and humans coexisted (as Barry Lynn notes: "only on the Flintstones").  Paul Ainsworth writes:

AN organisation is to tour Ireland with an event teaching children that dinosaurs and humans existed on Earth at the same time.

The ‘Prehistoric Preachers Dinosaur Roadshow’ is hosted by Creation Ministries, which promotes the belief that the world is only around 6,000 years old.

The fundamentalist Christian organisation says the roadshow - to visit four venues across the north during May before moving to five locations in the Republic – will teach the “true history of the world to young and old alike”.

Children are offered the chance to sit on life-size replicas of dinosaurs and take home an “educational free gift”.

However, it has been warned that the message that dinosaurs did not die out 65 million years ago flies in the face of conventional understanding of natural history, with one critic dubbing the claims put forward by organisers as “dangerous alternative facts”.

There are no such things as “alternative” facts.  There are scientific observations about observable phenomena that generate hypotheses.  If several thousand of these hypotheses support a particular model, then a theory explaining the phenomenon is generated.  That is how we have gravitational theory, cell theory, plate tectonic theory and, yes, evolutionary theory.

Facts are instances in which so many concurrent observations have been made that support a particular understanding of some natural phenomenon that it is regarded as a near certainty.  Everyone on the planet agrees that marble is a rock.  No one has ever observed marble behaving in such a way that makes one suspect that it is not.  Therefore, it is a FACT that marble is a rock.

Theoretical constructs, on the other hand, are open to examination and change.  Young earth creationism is a theory that the earth was created six thousand years ago and that modern science supports this.  That can be critically examined.  When it is, however, it is found that no hypotheses that are constructed to test this theory have been found that DO support it.  Put simply, the theory has no empirical justification.  Further, it is found that the primary advocates of this theory put it forth from a religious and not a scientific perspective.

But you knew this.

The problem is in calling these“alternative facts.” They are not. They are scientifically unsupportable statements made about observable phenomena and that is what they need to be called.

Arkansas Creationism Bill DOA

In a short note, NCSE is reporting that the Arkansas bill authorizing the teaching of creationism and ID alongside evolution never made it to a vote:

When the Arkansas legislature recessed on April 3, 2017, House Bill 2050 (PDF)— which would, if enacted, have allowed "public schools to teach creationism and intelligent design as theories alongside the theory of evolution" — apparently died.

Introduced on March 6, 2017, by Mary Bentley (R-District 73), HB 2050 was filed as a shell bill, with only its title, subtitle, and a description of its purpose provided. Bentley apparently never provided the text of her bill to the legislature.

And there was much rejoicing.

Yaaayyy.

New BioLogos Post on Xuchang Hominins is Up

My BioLogos post on the Xuchang hominins is up.  Comments welcome there and here.

James McGrath: The Implications of Creationism

James McGrath has put together a nifty flow chart showing the implications of young earth creationism.  Enjoy. 

 

The problem, of course, is that your average young earth creationist would look at these conclusions and say “Well, yes.  They are all wrong” without really understanding the implications of that statement.  Even young earth creationists like Todd Wood admit that it all hinges on how Genesis is read.  Since Genesis 1-11 can only be read one way, then the science must be wrong.  It just has to be. 

The Onion: Archaeologists Uncover Last Human To Die Happy

The Onion has a story on how a team of archaeologists has discovered the last human to die happy:

“It’s truly incredible—Felix unequivocally demonstrates that early humans were still capable of dying completely fulfilled as late as the Upper Paleolithic,” said lead researcher Evgenia Halytsky, who went on to say that scientists had previously believed any such trait had disappeared many millennia earlier. “The vast majority of research points to our species almost never experiencing even a day of serenity for the last million years, so Felix totally upends any of our previous notions about human evolution.”

“To think that only 300 centuries ago, a human being actually died happy,” Halytsky added.

Researchers said that a spectral analysis of the remains indicated wear in Felix’s lower extremities consistent with a long, confident gait. Additionally, forensic odontology tests revealed that the man had never grinded his teeth, stunning scientists who had until now accepted that this behavior had become ubiquitous at roughly the same time humans developed abstract thought and the capacity to project into the future.

How does the phrase go: “Nobody ever lay on their deathbed thinking they hadn't spent enough time at the office.” Read the whole thing.

Increased Blood Flow to the Brain Helped Human Intelligence

PhysOrg is running a story about research that focuses on the role that blood flow played in the evolution of human intelligence.  Roger Seymour writes:

My eureka moment occurred when I realised that the size of an artery can be gauged by the size of the hole in a bone that it passes through.

This meant that the rate of blood flow to the brain could be measured by the sizes of the carotid canals in fossil skulls from human evolution.

It was a nice idea, but it took the enthusiasm of my student Vanya Bosiocic to turn it into a piece of research. She travelled to museums in Australia and in South Africa, gaining access to priceless fossil hominin skulls to make the measurements.

We found that the size of the carotid canals increased much faster than expected from brain size in 12 species of our human ancestors over a period of 3 million years.

While brain size was increasing 3.5 times, blood flow rate surprisingly increased sixfold, from about 1.2ml per second to 7ml per second.

This indicates that our brains are six times as hungry for oxygen as those of our ancestors, presumably because our cognitive ability is greater and therefore more energy-intensive.

We require a huge amount of fuel to keep our brains functioning and, while correlation is never causation, there is a distinct correlation between our massive increase in brain size during the late Pliocene/early Pleistocene and the appearance of more sophisticated stone tools, evidence of hunting and, eventually control of fire.  One of the other factors that may have had a role in this was the increase in protein intake in the form of animal meat.  Human evolution is a very complex entity because as we evolved and our brains increased in size, we began to manipulate our surroundings in a more significant way.  This, in turn, changed how we adapted and evolved in response to them. 

PSA Undetectable

Yay.  Still cancer-free!

Meanwhile, in Florida...

NBC2 in Florida reports that a bill has been promoted in the legislature that would allow more "academic freedom" in teaching controversial subjects.  From Dave Elias:

A new bill introduced by a Southwest Florida lawmaker could give people outside the state a say in your child's education. The bill would allow school districts options when it comes to teaching evolution and climate change. It could open the door to creationism being taught in public schools. This bill is designed to give students options in the classroom.

Some say it goes too far. It even gives visitors paying sales tax a say.

Evolution versus creationism has been an ongoing debate in Florida's public schools.

“I think people should be given options on different things like that,” said Beverly Horner of Fort Myers. State Representative Byron Donalds of Collier County feels the same way. “It is important that the public is aware of what is actually in the classroom, and if there are objections to what is in the classroom, we have a process that allows for them to be remedied,” he said.

Donalds further said his bill would allow a balanced and non-inflamatory viewpoint on issues like evolution. “To me, those are code words for saying I don't like evolution,” said Brandon Haught of Citizens for Science.

Haught feels topics like climate change, which are currently taught in Florida classrooms, are in trouble. “They're trying to put some unscientific ideas into the science classroom,” Haught said.

Given the massive, overwhelming evidence for evolution, what would a “balanced” viewpoint look like?  Haught is correct.  They are trying to put unscientific views into the science classroom.  The problem is that they do not have the basic knowledge to understand that they are unscientific.  This is why lawmakers ought to stay out of the science classroom. 

Meanwhile, Back in Texas...

It seems that the ghost of Don McLeroy looms large in the Lone Star State.  From HuffPo:

Legislators in Texas are considering a bill that could make it easier for science teachers to present religious concepts alongside scientific theories like evolution.

The proposed legislation, introduced in February by Republican state Rep. Valoree Swanson, could allow public school teachers to present alternative theories to subjects that “may cause controversy,” including climate change, evolution, the origins of life and human cloning.

The bill is currently under committee review. If passed, it would go into effect for the 2017-18 academic year.

“Some teachers may be unsure of expectations concerning how to present information when controversy arises concerning a scientific subject; and the protection of a teacher’s academic freedom is necessary to enable the teacher to provide effective instruction,” HB 1485 states.

Swanson did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

The bill defines “academic freedom” as a teacher’s ability to present scientific information without discriminating in favor of or against any set of religious beliefs. It also notes that the legislation isn’t intended to promote religious doctrine.

But some Texas teachers say the bill could allow them to more easily blend science and religion in the classroom.

“I simply tell my students [that] as educated young adults they have a right ... to choose what they believe,” high school science teacher Angela Garlington told AFP.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said: “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Providing effective instruction ought to mean teaching prevailing scientific theories about various phenomena, not perspectives for which there is either no demonstrative evidence (young earth creationism) or testable models (intelligent design).  Academic freedom cannot be used as a smokescreen for teaching what any given teacher might believe. That is a disservice to the students. 

400,000-Year Old Cranium Found in Portugal

A multinational research team has discovered a fossil human at the site of Aroeira, in Portugal.  From the story in EurekAlert:

The cranium represents the westernmost human fossil ever found in Europe during the middle Pleistocene epoch and one of the earliest on this continent to be associated with the Acheulean stone tool industry. In contrast to other fossils from this same time period, many of which are poorly dated or lack a clear archaeological context, the cranium discovered in the cave of Aroeira in Portugal is well-dated to 400,000 years ago and appeared in association with abundant faunal remains and stone tools, including numerous bifaces (handaxes).

The skull is considerably encrusted, still and much work will have to be done. It is long and low, with large brow ridges, a sloping forehead and a large occipital protuberance. It does not look like it has an angular torus, however. All of these characteristics are consistent with this date. Neat!

Here is the image from the short post.

A Plug for Resurrecting Orthodoxy

Joel Edmund Anderson, the author of the excellent The Heresy of Ham, has a blog called Resurrecting Orthodoxy in which he tackles weighty issues with all of the aplomb and wit that he exercised in his book.  Have a look!

Another Human Species in China?

The Christian Science Monitor and other outlets are reporting on a new find from Xuchang, China, that seems to possess intermediate traits between archaic and modern Homo sapiens:

In an article published Friday in the journal Science, the researchers note that the skull fragments date to the Late Pleistocene epoch, a time marked by the expansion of H. sapiens and the extinction of other species in the genus Homo. During the early part of that epoch, Neanderthals roamed Europe and western Asia while humans began to journey out of Africa. But fossil records of human species in Eastern Asia from that time period are thin, muddying the picture of that era for a substantial region of the planet.

The skulls found in China were found to bear very close resemblances to those of Neanderthals, including a very similar inner ear bone and a prominent brow ridge. But the brow ridge was much less pronounced than one would expect from Neanderthals, with a considerably less dense cranium, as one might expect in an early H. sapiens. Researchers also found that the skulls were large by both modern and Neanderthal standards, with a whopping 1800 cubic centimeters of brain capacity.

So where do they fit in the grand scheme of things?

"The overall cranial shape, especially the wide cranial base, and low neurocranial vault, indicate a pattern of continuity with the earlier, Middle Pleistocene eastern Eurasian humans. Yet the presence of two distinctive Neanderthal features ... argue for populational interactions across Eurasia during the late Middle and early Late Pleistocene," said Dr. Trinkaus in a statement.

This kind of population mixing makes sense. We already know that modern humans and Neandertals interbred in Europe and that the geographic range of Neandertals stretched from Portugal to Teshik Tash, in Russia and Shanidar Cave, in Iraq.

The remains are dated to Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 5d or 5e, making them between 105 and 125 ky in age.  Here is a description of the neurocranium from the paper:

The large Xuchang 1 neurocranium closely approximates the shapes of those of Middle Pleistocene humans, especially eastern Eurasians (Fig. 2 and fig. S17). The vault height is low, similar to those of the Neandertals and the higher Middle Pleistocene vaults, and the low vault height is reflected in a low temporal squamous portion (figs. S27 and S28). It is also produced by the very flat midsagittal parietal arc. In contrast, the maximum cranial breadth is the largest known in the later Pleistocene (fig. S15), and it is securely based on an undistorted posterior cranium. Moreover, the widest point is low, on the temporal bones (fig. S17), as in most earlier crania, rather than on the parietal bones, as among Neandertals and most modern humans. In addition, the one complete mastoid process is short and slopes inward (fig. S17), rather than being longer and more vertical, as in modern humans and some Neandertals. These features combine to provide the cranium with an occipital profile similar to those of earlier human crania, contrasting with the rounded profiles of Neandertals and the laterally vertical ones of modern humans.

There are a few things that are immediately interesting about this. First, this skull is YUGE.  1800 cc is monstrous.  The average cranial capacity of modern humans is around 1450 cc and that of Neandertals, around 1550 cc.  Second, the low, flat cranium with the widest point on the temporal bones (just above your ears) are traits of Homo erectus, not modern humans or Neandertals, suggesting strongly that there was some sort of continuity from this group through to modern humans in this region.  Neandertals simply don't have those traits.  Nonetheless, the cranium clearly shows some Neandertal traits in the ear and rear of the vault.  This continuity is characterized by the authors thus: "This morphological combination, and particularly the presence of a mosaic not known among early Late Pleistocene humans in the western Old World, suggests a complex interaction of directional paleobiological changes and intra- and interregional population dynamics."  As more information becomes available, we will have a better idea of how this find fits in the east Asian evolutionary picture.  This is exciting.  Up until this point, we have had very few finds in China that fall within this general time frame, most notably the Dali and Mapa remains.  I will have to rework my section on human origins for the BioLogos site for this region. 

Todd Wood on Is Genesis History?

Todd Wood has a post on the reactions to the film Is Genesis History? and he makes some very good points and a couple of lousy ones.  First the good ones.  He writes:

Does the film present a false dichotomy? From the world outside of young age creationism, it definitely does. Lumping all the other positions on creation and evolution into one monumental thing isn't really fair to the vast diversity of opinions out there. That part is quite correct, and if I was an old-earth creationist or theistic evolutionist, I would definitely be bothered by that.

He is absolutely correct about this.  It does bother me that there is a false dichotomy presented here.  I do not for one minute think that the universe and all that is in it was created by blind, godless processes. I have a firm and strong faith in the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the creating power of God.   I also do not think that the universe was created six thousand years ago.  There is simply no defensible empirical evidence for that.  Second point:

Unfortunately, the reality is that we all divide people up into "us vs. them." Let's face it, BioLogos would have you divide up the world into BioLogos vs. those who reject all of science. That's not remotely fair. Paul Nelson wants the dividing line to separate those who accept design and those who accept only naturalistic processes. That division would exclude those, like BioLogos, who think the "naturalistic" processes are God's design. RTB's dividing line isn't so easy to summarize but I guess it would cut off Christians who think the world is young on the one hand and those who think evolution is real on the other.

Too much of this does go on, it is true. I don't think that he has completely accurately characterized the position of BioLogos and it is passing peculiar that he doesn't mention ICR or AiG and the fact that they are pretty specific about who is US and who is THEM.  I do know from my own blog posts and writings that I am guilty of this sort of thinking and that there are many different views along the continuum from the straight six-day model to flat-out atheistic naturalism.

Now the lousy ones.  First:

The theological importance of the historical Genesis is a giant theme of young-age creationism, even if you reject the way some creationists present it. In the case of RTB or Intelligent Design, the theme seems to be fighting over things that really matter like evolution, and not fighting over things that don't matter like the age of the universe. If we don't focus our real disagreement on the "most important" issues (like design), then we damage our witness by exaggerating the importance of secondary issues.

Wrong. None of these issues really matter to the faith. You can be a young-earth creationist, an intelligent design supporter or an evolutionary creationist and STILL be a Christian. In the grand scheme of things, evolution doesn't really matter.  Every Christian should believe the following:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father, by whom all things were made.  Who, for us men for our salvation, came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man.  He was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.   He suffered and was buried.  The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.  He ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father.  He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead.  His kingdom shall have no end.  I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, and who spoke by the prophets.  I believe in the holy catholic and apostolic church.  I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins.  I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. 

That's it.  If you believe those things, you are in the body of Christ.  Nothing outside of that is fundamental to the faith.  That includes evolution.  Second lousy point:

And finally, to those of you patient people who actually read all of this and are still fuming, "That movie was terrible and misleading, and the greater sin is theirs!" you are part of the problem, my friend. If you play the outrage card (BioLogos), you just add fuel to the fire. The response will be, "BioLogos is the one repeating tired old lies about young-age creationism!" So please think carefully before you email me your outrage, and maybe direct that energy to thinking about ways of moving forward and not just yelling the same things at our deafened ideological "enemies." I'd love to hear new ideas.

This gives cover to those who DO intentionally misuse and misrepresent scientific evidence for their own gains.  One of the things that drives me bat crap crazy is that AiG gets scientific information wrong almost all of the time. If you don't hold those people accountable for their abuses of science, and point out where these people are going off the rails, then they get off scot-free and mislead more people.  Wood himself has castigated other creationists for saying that there is no evidence for evolution when there is, in his words "gobs and gobs of it." 

I may not agree with Todd's interpretation of Genesis, but in his scientific endeavors, he always treats the science with respect.  The same cannot be said for many in the YEC universe. Here's a new idea: how about the folks at ICR and AiG actually treat the science with the respect it deserves.  Science is not the be-all-and-end-all.  It only describes the physical universe, but it does a pretty good job of that and if you are going to reject it, come up with some sound hypotheses that can be tested.

Is Genesis History?: UPDATE

Oh well, so much for not seeing the film.  My brother-in-law went and saw it and want to discuss it with me.  Since I know that he has YEC sympathies, I am not looking forward to this.

BioLogos: A Geological Response to the Movie “Is Genesis History?”

Geologists Gregg Davidson, Joel Duff (recently maligned by Ken Ham) and Ken Wolgemuth have contributed to an article taking on the geological premises of the movie Is Genesis History?  While the writing at BioLogos is always measured and civil, underneath, one can sense an air of frustration and anger that, yet again, the scientific evidence has been twisted and misrepresented.  As I mentioned last post, “geologist” Steve Austin figures prominently in this. The authors write:

Just minutes into the film, we find ourselves in the Grand Canyon with Dr. Steve Austin, a young-earth creationist geologist. Here we are told that the layers are flat with no erosion or significant channels, that geologists have abandoned long ages for the canyon formation since it couldn’t be stable over millions of years, that remnants of giant lakes are found that once dammed water before failing and violently carving out the canyon, and that a massive erosional feature near the bottom of the canyon, known as the Great Unconformity, has been observed all over the world. A bit later in the film, we are informed that the layers of the canyon preserve a succession of marine ecosystems, each washed in and deposited by flood surges. Conclusion? “The only explanation that makes sense is a global flood!”

Many who watch this movie will think: “These men are Christians and scientists, so it must be true!” Yet it doesn’t take much digging to discover that evidence of erosion between layers in the Grand Canyon is abundant, including now filled-in river channels as much as 400 ft deep. The so-called “abandonment of long ages” actually means that while some geologists think the carving took over 70 million years, others think it formed over a shorter period of about 6 million years. The giant lakes turn out to be speculation, with no actual evidence of their proposed size. The global presence of the Great Unconformity exists only in Dr. Austin’s mind.

We have already received announcements and invites from our home school group to get a group together to go see this film. I think that I do not have as strong a constitution as I used to. I do not think that I could sit through this film in a theatre without having an aneurysm.It is easy to forgive the average Christian who swallows this stuff hook-line-and-sinker but I have much greater animosity for those who promulgate it, knowing that they are misusing the science.  Young earth creationists tend to live in a self-referential bubble, but these errors have been pointed out to Austin time and time again.  At what point does his further promotion of these ideas become a lie?

Yesterday, I commented that I thought that young earth creationism was, ultimately, turning young, inquisitive Christians away from Christ.  These authors put it succinctly:

While the ubiquitous misrepresentations promulgated in this film are disturbing in their own right, their stated association with the gospel message is what is most alarming. This film will undoubtedly make its way into church libraries, homeschooling and Christian school curriculums, and youth group movie nights, convincing Christian youth that they can safely reject “secular” notions of deep time and evolution. When they go to college or start investigating the evidence themselves and discover they have been misled, the natural tendency is to assume that it is Christianity itself that has failed them. Unbelieving seekers who see this film will likewise be confronted with the confounding association of the truth of Christ with massive misrepresentations about natural history. An enormous stumbling block to faith is laid at the feet of these poor souls, standing between them and the cross.

In the trailer for the film, and in the subtitle, we are treated to this perspective: “Two Competing Views—One Compelling Truth.”This truth is clearly that of young earth creationism, and the stark dichotomy is there to let you know that if you don't believe Tackett's truth, you are “not of the body.” This, Joel Edmund Anderson writes, is heresy:

Read and study the Bible within the context of Church Tradition—that is how the Holy Spirit guides you. Unfortunately, this is precisely where Ken Ham and biblical literalists have gone wrong. Even though they claim they are just proclaiming the clear meaning of Genesis 1-11, in reality they have rejected the “Capital-T” Tradition of the historic Christian faith that makes it clear that the YEC interpretation of Genesis 1-11 has never been universally held by the Church, and has never been seen as a creedal fundamental of the Christian faith. Therefore, Ken Ham has absolutely no authority whatsoever to unilaterally declare that his YEC interpretation of Genesis 1-11 is the fundamental cornerstone of the Christian faith. No one has ever made this claim in the history of the Church up until the 20th Century. That is, by definition what heresy is: elevating a personal interpretation of Scripture above what the Church has always taught.

I will be curious how many people go to see this film. I have yet to formulate a ground plan or response to it, yet. When films like this come out and are warmly received by evangelicals, it further confirms to me that modern evangelicalism is in serious trouble and is off the rails.

Del Tackett: The Truth Problem?

That title comes from a post by “A concerned Christian” on The Truth Project, launched by Del Tackett, in 2004.  Now, a new movie is out by Del Tackett, called "Is Genesis History?"  Clarke Morledge, on the blog Veracity, has this to say: 

According to the promotional material, Is Genesis History? seeks to provide a new look at the evidence supporting Creation and the Flood. But it is important to realize that Del Tackett is putting forward one particular view as to what this means, namely a Young Earth, of no more than about 6,000 years old, and a global Flood in Noah’s day, covering the entire planet.

In the byline for the film, Tackett notes that there are “two competing views… one compelling truth.” The problem here is that Tackett is oversimplifying what is indeed the case among evangelical Christians, just from viewing the film highlight clips on the movie’s YouTube channel. There are actually more than “two” views to consider. For Tackett, the one view he advocates for rejects the concept of “deep time,” the modern scientific consensus of a 4.5 billion year old earth, that helps to explain the origin of our planet and its universe, within the scientific disciplines of geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology, and others, as taught in every American public school and public science museum.

For Tackett, this “deep time” paradigm strikes disaster at the very heart of a Biblical worldview, and specifically the meaning of the cosmic Fall, as taught in the Book of Genesis. There are many skeptical, non-Christian scientists and thinkers who would agree, thereby rejecting the Bible. However, there are also a number of other Christian pastors, Bible teachers, theologians, and believing evangelical scientists who find no difficulty reconciling the concept of “deep time,” with an authoritative, inerrant view of the Bible and its teachings. [emphasis his]

I have already noted, in another context, the fact that, in the trailer, Steve Austin, a young earth creationist, when speaking about the Grand Canyon, states that geologists are “backing away” from the idea that it was created millions of years ago. This immediately set off alarm bells, since it has no basis in truth, whatsoever. One model suggests that the canyon began forming when the Colorado Plateau began uplifting around 3-4 million years ago.  Another model suggests a date of 5-6 million years ago for the main canyon but that older canyons in the system may have been carved as early as 50-60 million years ago.  There are no models that posit a canyon creation 6,000 years ago.

Other problems exist with the idea that the canyon was formed recently.  On the shelf, in the gift store at the Grand Canyon, sits a book called Grand Canyon: A Different View, written by young earth creationist Tom Vail. Here is what geologist David Montgomery has to say about it:

Digging deeper into the book, I read that the canyon was carved when the sediment that formed the rocks now exposed in its walls was still soft. I was puzzled that the authors did not try to explain how a mile-high stack of saturated sediment remained standing without slumping into the growing chasm—or how all the loose sand and clay later turned into solid rock. The book simply stated that, according to the Bible, Noah's flood formed the Grand Canyon and all the rocks through which its cut in under a year. There was no explanation for the multiple alternating layers of different rock types, the erosional gaps in the rock sequence that spoke of ages of lost time, or the remarkable order to the various fossils in the canyon walls. The story was nothing like tale I read in the rocks I had spent the day hiking past.

Steve Austin, if you will recall, did the bogus study on potassium/argon dating of Mount St. Helens lava flows. This man's credibility is wanting.

The trailer for Is Genesis History? makes it pretty clear that the film recycles much of the science that was in the Truth Project.  Consequently, I am not holding up much hope that modern science will be given a fair shake.  Sadly, this is part and parcel with young earth creationism.Todd Wood's clarion call for better science in support of young earth creationism is going unheeded and unheard by people like Del Tackett and Ken Ham.  As long as this is the case, the faithful, who know little hard science, will lap this up, but nobody in the scientific community is going to take them seriously and they will turn new people who are interested in science away from God.  That is sad. 

Ted Davis on Ken Ham

Ted Davis has a post at BioLogos on Ken Ham's Alternate History of Creation.  He chastises Ham for his recent attacks on Joel Duff , saying that his treatment of   creationist history is a “...distorted historical analysis of the openly agnostic, apostate Seventh Day Adventist historian, Ronald Numbers.” Ham claims that young earth creationism was historic Christian orthodoxy until the 19th century (a claim supported by Todd Wood but challenged by Joel Anderson).  Davis writes:

This somewhat ad hominem attack on Numbers and the blanket dismissal of his extraordinarily careful work is very troubling. The strategy of “debunking” Numbers’ careful conclusions is gaining in popularity, and it bodes badly for the future of the body of Christ, since it constitutes a set of “alternative facts” rather than the truth and unfairly maligns a scholar who always seeks to be fair to people whose views he doesn’t share. (Having known Numbers for thirty-five years, I speak from extensive personal experience and knowledge of his professional activities.)

Let me remind Mr. Ham of what Whitcomb said about Numbers’ book. Whitcomb and his close friend Morris both feature prominently in that book, and Whitcomb provided Numbers with some of the correspondence that Numbers used in writing it. In a talk from 2005 published by Ham’s organization, Whitcomb says, “Dr. Morris agrees with me that this is an objective study by one who claims to be an agnostic on the subject of ultimate origins.” The tone and content of this comment—written by someone who is even closer to this subject than Ken Ham—undermine what Ham recently told his readers. Whitcomb said that it presents the historical details without bias, whereas Ham describes it as a “distorted historical analysis.” They cannot both be correct.

Davis is correct. Numbers” book is a wealth of information and an excellent read.  That the granddaddy of them all, Henry Morris, thought it was also accurate is quite remarkable.  Ham is in his own world, here.  Joel Anderson makes a good point that, in all of the early church councils, especially those that produced the creeds, the age of the earth was never debated:

...please note that there is absolutely no insistence anywhere—not in any creed or church council or pronouncement ever—that the early chapters of Genesis were to be read and understood as a point-by-point historical and scientific account of the creation of the material universe in general, and of the first human beings in particular. The historical fact is that early Church Fathers, as well as Christian leaders throughout Church history, held to a variety of interpretations of the early chapters of Genesis¹

Davis focuses on the fact that Ken Ham ignores the role that George McReady Price played in the beginnings of the young earth creation movement, relegating him to casual mentions here and there.  He further points out that this is in sharp contrast to the role that Price's works played in the writings of Henry Morris, who spoke favorably of Price, an Adventist.  Price is known to use the writings of Ellen White, also an Adventist, as the basis for much of what he concocted about modern geology.  Ham seems to be unwilling to admit this, as well.  Davis then hits the nail on the head:

Why do Ham and company go to such lengths to create an alternative history of creationism in which Price and the Adventists don’t receive proper credit? Is it because (like those Christians mentioned by Morris) they don’t want their movement associated with a Christian sect that is sometimes viewed with suspicion? Perhaps that is part of the picture, but I think there’s a much bigger reason behind it. The tangled history of modern creationism threatens the simplistic, highly inaccurate narrative AiG hammers into their followers: that Young-Earth Creationism is, and always has been, the “zero-compromise” option for all devout believers in the authority of the Bible.

This is why Ken Ham ruthlessly attacks any scriptural interpretations that do not line up with his.  As long as "millions of years" can be tied to atheistic or apostate thought, then he can be content to lob grenades at Christians who do not think like he does.  After all, he believes he has the spiritual upper hand.  That this is, at heart, dishonest, is nothing new for AiG.  Ham has been caught in several “terminological inexactitudes” before (the riding dinosaurs, the motive behind the building of the ark encounter).  This is just another one.  


¹Anderson, J. E. (2016). The Heresy of Ham: What Every Evangelical Needs to Know About the Creation-Evolution Controversy [Kindle iOS version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com