A Letter Arrived from AronRa

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

Here is the full quote, first:

Whoever wrote that apparently hasn't seen much of my videos, because I have often argued that men can't claim 100% absolute positive certainty about very much at all.

I can't be 100% positive that there is no God, (for example) but I can say with absolute certainty that the Bible is not his word.

It is also true that creationism is a rejection of scientific methodology, and I give examples to prove the point. There are creationists who are scientists, but when they do science, they're unable to support creationism, and when serve creationism, they reject scientific principles and practice, from uniformitarianism and methodological naturalism to the peer review process, and requirement that all hypotheses be testable and potentially falsifiable.

For example, science requires that all postulations must be based on indicative evidence, not hearsay, not subjective speculation, not any untestable anecdotal experience, nor any assertions of authority. It is dishonest to assert as fact that which is not evidently true, yet that is the foundation behind all religious beliefs.

Now, to answer point by point:

Whoever wrote that apparently hasn't seen much of my videos - I have in fact preferred reading the scripts, only claim to have read or partially read what I answer in the AronRa series.

I can't be 100% positive that there is no God, (for example) but I can say with absolute certainty that the Bible is not his word. - You mean you could if you knew with absolute certainty that Evolution and Heliocentrism and "no-God-would-favour-one-creed" and such were the absolute truth.

It is also true that creationism is a rejection of scientific methodology, and I give examples to prove the point. - They give examples that Evolutionists by-pass scientific methodology or more properly elementary methods proper to any research for the truth.

There are creationists who are scientists, but when they do science, they're unable to support creationism - Ah, its only when an amateur like me uses chromosome number genetics to refute evolution of mammals from one common ancestor that we can use science to support creationism? Sorry, but Tasman Walker is doing Geology as a means of supporting Flood Geology.

and when serve creationism, they reject scientific principles and practice - scientific or atheist, now? Let's see:

from uniformitarianism and methodological naturalism - which are the atheist principles I am arguing against and which they are arguing against ...

to the peer review process - which is a practise that outside Creationist peer reviews (that refuse to peer review an amateur who is also Geocentric, like me) refuse to peer review Creationists ...

and requirement that all hypotheses be testable and potentially falsifiable. - And Evolutionism is always potentially falsifiable, but only never falsified? You could have fooled me about that ... how do you falsify the claim that Neanderthals breathed an atmosphere containing roughly same account of C14 as ours, if you deny methodologically the use of any document claiming Earth is young enough for that to be feasible?

For example, science requires that all postulations must be based on ... - Do you even know what a postulation is? Postulation: construct a triangle with one right angle. You mean assertions, no doubt.

indicative evidence - How can any assertions be based on indicative evidence unless you have assertions about what evidence is, that are prior to any item of it? For instance?

not hearsay - Fine enough for science, which is about the repeatable, the here and now and everywhere else and always from Creation Sunday to Judgement Day. Less so for history, which is about individual events.

not subjective speculation - How again do you determine what is indicative evidence if you are allowed no subjective speculation? "A does not prove B because it could also be due to C" is obviously speculative, possibly subjective (and certain to be called subjective by some guys) and yet a logical prerequisite for accurately determining what is evidence.

not any untestable anecdotal experience - What do you mean by untestable? If you mean that miracles are "untestable" they are to us, but not to God. That is, we cannot produce them to test them, but God can produce them so some of us can test them.

More people have seen miracles than have walked on the Moon (if there are any of the latter, but supposing there are).

nor any assertions of authority. - Now you rule out peer review, which is a collective assertion of authority about scientific knowledge. In History, as opposed to general science, authority is paramount.

One Richard Carrier says that for Caesar crossing Rubicon, he does not rely on authority but only on physical evidence: but his physical evidence presuppose as a fact from precisely authority that Caesar got from Gaul to Rome with weapons.

It is dishonest to assert as fact that which is not evidently true, yet that is the foundation behind all religious beliefs.

Except Christianity and the OT part of Judaism and some parts of Paganism - like memories of the Flood (although garbled) or of historic facts like Hercules and Romulus and Caesar.

But including Evolutionism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
Sunday
Octave of Epiphany
13-I-2013

Now, for the posts I refer to. The series of AronRa replies will be added as links in top. Here is what I sent AronRa, to which above cited letter is a reply:

"How Science is Done" - "The Test for Credibility"
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-science-is-done-test-for-credibility.html

Here is the reference to Tasman Walker:

Feedback to Tas Walker on Geological Columns
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2012/12/feedback-to-tas-walker-on-geological.html

Which links back to his page:

Tas Walker's Biblical Geology
http://biblicalgeology.net/General/geologic-column.html

Next question: Do Evolutionists Ever Make Unfalsifiable Claims?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2012/11/do-evolutionists-ever-make.html

And about my amateurism on chromosome numbers:

Letter to Nature on Karyotype Evolution in Mammals
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html

And finally, first message - on other blog - of a duo about and mainly against Richard Carrier's Skepticon 5 speech (second being on this blog, internal linking as this message will internally link to others of AronRa series):

somewhere else : History vs Hume
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2013/01/history-vs-hume.html

My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay: shorty:

Here is AronRa actually on video:

Youtube User: AronRa
The Texas Board of Indoctrination
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93mWjngq4oA

Having sound off on this computer, I cannot quote his final tirade from it, but here is my comment on it:

I really like your final tirade!

Pupils are intelligent enough to accept Evolution if given the main facts - but too easily misled if given details that are hard for experts.

Might I suggest they are "hard" to experts because they do not want to relinquish evolution?

o-x . fr / hspi - Karyogrammata. (copy link, remove spaces).

hglundahl

Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

In the phylogeny of human activities, beside the one in which enquiry is limited to material causes, would there be room for one in which enquiry was limited to verifiable causes, but verifiable not to material?

It was like that science used to function. It cannot be shown it was less fertile in technological applications then - goggles were invented by pretty certainly Catholic optic students and electric battery was invented by Volta, who was a Catholic. Pascal was a Jansenist and as such got freewill wrong, but he got creation right. And he gave us the wheelbarrow.

Mendel - whose discoveries were deliberately ignored by Evolutionists for some 50 years - and who gave us laws of heredity quite certainly thought of them only as secondary causes, and of God as the first cause of heredity. He was a monk cultivating and crossbreeding pea varieties for the monastic kitchen, as well as for studies on tied and non tied variables.

Well, seems AronRa still has some kind of issue with non-material causes and their supposed lack of verifiability.

When explaining the scientific method, he even says, at least on one video against the "Texas Board of Indoctrination" that enquiry has been limited to "verifiable, natural, material causes" as if those were synonyms.

Now, funny thing is, neither are all material causes verifiable, nor are all verifiable causes material.

Photons and electrons may be verifiable in the end, but they are not verifiable as a piece of blunt lead is verifiable when fitting with the dent in the head of the corpse. Or as a pistol is verifiable when shooting bullets of same size and scratch pattern as those found in the wall behind the corpse shot to death.

Now, how would you verify something immaterial, such as God?

• - Enumerating all possibilities and eliminating all material and non-divine ones.
• - Enumerating necessary characteristics of a certain cause for a certain effect, and seeing the characteristics lead to non-material conclusions.
• - God choses to make himself material and so be verified materially, we Christians claim that happened 2000 years ago.
• - God repeats his works of upholding and creating the universe in miniature to comply with the repeatability criterium of scientific method.

Enumerating all possibilities and eliminating all material and non-divine ones. - Anything that seems to be (seems to be substance in Aristotle's sense), either it is an illusion, or it really subsists. Anything that exists, either it exists from eternity or it came to existance. Anything that came to existance, it either was created by some intelligent designer, or came to being and that either by change from within, according to possibilities unfolding or by chance from without. So if illusion and eternity and pure chance and evolution can all be ruled out for say life or human intelligence, we have proven an inteklligent creator.

Enumerating necessary characteristics of a certain cause for a certain effect, and seeing the characteristics lead to non-material conclusions. - Acts of mind and of will reveal on introspection immaterial characteristics, which means that mind itself, giving rise to them, is immaterial.

God choses to make himself material and so be verified materially, we Christians claim that happened 2000 years ago. - Only problem: did Jesus exist and did he show himself to be God. We say yes, to both. But that is what I am arguing about on quite another blog, dedicated to vindicating Gospels rather than Genesis, so I had better link there. In the main, the showing himself to be God part coincides with the next part: God repeats his works of upholding and creating the universe in miniature to comply with the repeatability criterium of scientific method.

- Checklist:

• God created man? Then he could once again create someone without parents or without one of the parents. Virgin Birth.
• God created life and health? Then he can restore it to the dead and to the sick. Raisings of dead (Jairus' daughter, the widow's son and Lazarus) and healing of innumerous blind, deaf-and-dumb, lepers, bent people, etc.
• God has defeated demons? Then they exist, can tamper with our lives and Christ could easily defeat them again, by exorcism. Check the possessed man at Gadara and quite a few others. Including the one which provoked the extremely dishonest incredulity of Pharisees in Matthew Ch. 12.
• God has created the vine and fermentation? He made water into wine over shorter time than usual in Cana.
• God has created other plants and also animals? He multiplied loaves and fishes, twice.
• God has created physical nature? He stilled the storm. The sun went dark when he died.
• God has created gravity? He walked on water and rose to the clowds before the eyes of his disciples.

But, as said, that is a matter for another blog, about veracity and historic verifiability of the Gospels.

It is called "somewhere else" since an atheist not buying the Jesus mythers asked me to "preach to atheists somewhere else" than under comments on that post.

Here is the url:
"somewhere else"
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com

A little challenge for you, AronRa: millions and billions of years of time are part of the causes evolutionism accepts. And it is as material as a dimension in which matter exists and material states take place can be material. But is that length of time verifiable?

Why so shy about creationist pov on C14?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/07/why-so-shy-about-creationist-pov-on-c14.html

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library of Paris
Sts Perpetua and Felicitas, 7-III-2012

AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution.

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

I have not seen all the fifty-one or fifty-three minutes, but here are my general observations on the kind of proof which Cassiopeia project tries to give in much deeper detail, but not - as far as I could tell from first fifteen minutes - any better kind of argumentation. At least it spares me the chore of going through AronRa's misunderstandings of Creationism without even once getting to the arguments. I warn you it is some time since I saw the video, or rather its beginning, but here goes, it will be from memory after I go through the abstract logics part.

How do you refute an argument of this type?

Basically: "my" theory is selfconsistent and as such predicts a, b, c etc. But a, b, c etc. are true as we know from observation, therefore my theory is true.

First refutation type: your theory is not self consistent.

Second refutation type: your etc. is unspecified, and your a, b, and c. are too few since another theory self consistent or other theories consistent with each other could explain a, b and c.

Third kind of refutation: your theory to be self consistent also predicts d, and we know from observation d is not true.

Fourth kind of refutation: a, b and c are not all of them observed facts but some depend on another theory which we do not know to be true.

Fifth kind of refutation: your a can easily be explained otherwise, but your b and your c weaken each other as arguments.

Sixth refutation type: your theory does not predict one of the obvious things (but this may be because it is incomplete, unless it claims to do otherwise.

Seventh type: an obvious fact contradicts one of your own predictions.

Applied on evolution (this is citing Cassopeia project from memory): a random variation of genes and non-reproduction of specimens with non-functional genes tend to diversify populations until they are no longer directly interbreedable. They can still be indirectly interbreedable through species intermediate in the variation. However, over time some of these intermediate species grown extinct and so the populations not directly interbreedable become not interbreedable at all. They are then free to vary in very different directions, to branch out into cat and dog, into mammal and bird, even into insect and vertebrate if you go far back enough. This obviously goes very far back before we get to the one or very few eucariotic one celled or strictly similar celled species we descend from. Over time - which is very, very long - most traces have been obliterated. This predicts that intermediate forms of less diversification shall be found in earlier fossiles (dating of fossiles is another theory, see dating methods). But most species among earlier ones will not be found at all. Also, the earlier intermediate species will not be random mixtures of later more diversified forms, like they will not be things with fur on one part and feathers on another part of the body. Organs of either vegetative life, perception, or movement will develop through variation and elimination of the unfit, and parts of organs will readapt in later versions of the breed, sometimes leaving non-functional residual forms there.

First refutation type: it is not really self consistent to pretend that organs will arise from organisms lacking them by the random variation with elimination of the unfit. Ear and eye could not have arisen so.

Second refutation type: the variety of species with yet so similar genes and parts of organs are quite as explainable through creation by a common creator, even if we accept the geologic column to be different faunas and floras diversified over time. Intermediate species are explained by God's knowledge of every combination possible and good. Reuse of organ parts as well as genes in other combinations is explainable because of artistic economy in the one common Creator, and avoidance of chimeric forms combining fur and feathers by His sense of artistic coherence..

Third kind of refutation: your theory implies that all mammals have a common ancestor, therefore either that they have same number of chromosomes as original mammal or fewer, or that mammals easily raise the chromosome numbers. But both are false.

Fourth kind of refutation: that the intermediate forms arose very much earlier depends on unproven fossile dating. That the non-found ancestors, intermediate or not, are non-found because of vast time lapse also depends on a dating question and is unproven.

Fifth refutation type: saying most forms are lost without trace contradicts the claim that all intermediate species we need to trace a family tree have been found. Cf. third and fourth refutation types.

Sixth refutation type: evolution does not really at all predict that eyes, ears or mind will arise or even that cell colonies will diversify into multicellular beings with diversified organs. And, unfortunately, it claims, in the atheist version, to be a complete explanation of all that diversifies present species from one celled ancestors.

Seventh type: remember how paradoxic mixtures between diverse diversifications are not to be expected? Ornithorhynchus anatinus! It means "birdsnout the ducklike" - it is a mammal which seems to have a beak. And this is even anatomically a pretty good way to describe it.

So, every kind of refutation this general kind of proof from concurring evidence of verified implications can have, evolution has it.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
BpI, Georges Pompidou
17-II-2012

Is AronRa Incapable of Distinguishing Carolus Linnæus from Ernst Haeckel?

Tucker Out on Evolution
AronRa | 27 April 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggQHB8Evm70

Text transscript up to 2:50:

[Tucker on Rogan:]

it's the idea that you know all 2:13 life emerge from a single cell organism 2:16 and over time

[AronRa's comment begins:]

the first evidence of that 2:19 was revealed by a pre- darwinian 2:21 Christian creationist back in 2:23 1735 [Carolus] Linnaeus tried to categorize 2:26 all living things and he discovered that 2:28 they did not fit into the body boxes of 2:30 created kinds like he was taught to 2:32 believe instead all taxonomic ranking 2:35 revealed a familiar lineage a branching 2:37 tree pattern of separated daughter sets 2:39 descending from a series of parent 2:41 categories themselves descending from 2:43 more distant ancestral 2:45 groups it had already been long 2:47 understood that life evolves under 2:49 direct observation and manipulation 2:50 producing new breeds of dogs cattle 2:53 pigeons and so on

One would expect the illustration to be from a work by Linnaeus, right?

Now, take a look at a snapshot from 2:45, shall we? Here:

Odd. Unless it's deliberately dishonest or misleading, it's very odd to illustrate a proposition about Linnaeus by an illustration from a work by Haeckel.

Perhaps Jeremy Sherman is relevant here?

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Jeremy Sherman PhD
Posted by Hans Georg Lundahl at 17:29 Wednesday 24 April 2024
https://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2024/04/with-jeremy-sherman-phd.html

Me, letter X

... That's not on whether you listen, it's on whether you are decent or not to opponents. I usually am.

Sherman, letter XI

... Here's how it seems to work for all of us: If we want someone's trust – if we want to be seen as credible by someone, we have to earn it. No one owes us trust and credibility. ...

Skipping the gobbledegook and my ire, he is ready to turn down an appeal to his decency on the ground of me not earning his trust.

So, he's really saying, if he doesn't trust me, he doesn't owe me decency. He apparently only owes decency to those whom he trusts.

Could this be a theme with AronRa's morals as well?/HGL

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University*:

George Harrison, the guitarist for the Beatles was a Bhakti Hindu. He believed in a personal god, and he said that if one chants the mantras with devotion, Lord Krishna would visibly appear and speak ,to him in an audible voice. Many pagans are similarly convinced of having met their deities too. For example, a cat fancier in Texas insists he began worshipping Bast only after the Egyptian goddess dramatically appeared physically manifest, having personally chosen him to become her disciple. ... So its not like any “one true god” is really guiding all these people they way they all insist he/she/they, or it is.**

• We believe the devil exists.
• George Harrison and the Bast worshipper probably do not believe the devil exists, and they are probably noy insisting all people receiving Theophanies receive them from God rather than the devil.

If any god exists, and it happens that there’s only one of them, then surely every spiritually enlightened and visionary holy man from any nation or tribe should be able to sense it, if men can sense such things at all. And their scribes would write the scrolls seeking to make sense of it –however feeble an attempt that may be.

• Thank you for mentioning Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
• Sensing something is however different from witnessing a Revelation by the one true God.
• Which is why we put Revelation above Greek Philosophy.

Perhaps that’s why there are so many different religions; because no man can know the true state of God.

• By himself no - except for the One Who is himself God,
• But by God, yes.

There can only be one truth, and only one version of it. But rather than coming together, as everyone’s search for the one truth should, religions continuously shard further and further apart into more divided factions with mutually-exclusive beliefs, -and there are as many wrong interpretations as there people claiming theirs as the “absolute truth”.

• Or as many, minus one.

Which brings us to the third foundational falsehood of creationism; the assertion that any human's understanding of their various internally-conflicting and inter-contradictory beliefs should, -or even could- be considered infallible or inerrently accurate.

• If God does reveal himself, He does so accurately, and guards His revelation accessible in an infallible and inerrant way.
• We believe that is precisely what God has done.
• We believe the evidence goes far beyond George Harrison, far beyond the Bast worshipper, far beyond the dialogue between Arjuna and his charioteer, as far as evidentiality is concerned.
• Gassing on about how many have how differring views with far too little evidence does not change that in any way whatsoever.

But convincing yourself however firmly still can’t change the reality of things. Seeing is believing. But seeing isn’t knowing. Believing isn’t knowing. Subjective convictions are meaningless in science, and eyewitness testimony is the least reliable form of evidence.*

• Seing, under conditions where hallucination and subjectivity are reasonably excluded, is not just believing, but knowing.
• For the rest of us, we believe those who have seen, whether it be Christ Resurrected or the skull of Lucy being digged out by Leaky.
• And, no, there are no more reasonable possibilities for Apostles Hallucinating than for Leaky hallucinating - even if he was not taking the drugs appropriate to the Beatles song that he named Lucy after.
• Being convinced that the skull of Lucy was digged out, and that Jesus of Nazareth was seen alive after dying, I nevertheless find a certain difference in ulterior evidentiality, also known as good logic, between the two: a resurrection involves a miracle very clearly, a skull with very little Carbon 14 (or none at all) does not as clearly involve 3 millions of years.

Most people really don’t understand science; what it is, how it works, what hypotheses and theories are, or even the purpose behind it. Sadly even those on your school faculty or state Board of Education often need an education themselves before they can be trusted to govern how or what our kids will be taught, and that’s why I thought I should speak up and do what I can to help.***

• How generous of this knowledgeable person to help us out then?
• What about letting each pair of parents decide for themselves if they want their children to have the one or the other or neither kind of science when it comes to human and animal origins?

Professional creationists are making money hand over fist with faith-healing scams or bilking little old ladies out of prayer donations, or selling books and videos at their circus-like seminars where they have undeserved respect as powerful leaders. All of them feign knowledge they can’t really possess, and some of them claim degrees they’ve never actually earned.

• Claiming unearned degrees - sounds like Hovind. Or what he is claimed to be, by his opponents, by the people putting him in jail.
• Feigning knowledge they cannot really possess - sounds like Evolutionists. To me and to anyone else, who is not an evolutionist.
• Our Texas Geoscience Major* has made the point that the Six days, at least before creation of man, are no eyewitness accounts.
• They are certainly no eywitness accounts by men, because men were not created yet.
• But if angels seing it reported to Moses, it is pretty impressive, and not in the wrong way, if Moses delivered a people from virtual slavery - working miracles to glorify the Lord.
• Neither does the billions of years involved in fish turning into amphibian, turning into ... et c. ... turning into one ape, et c. ... turning into man rely on eyewitness, either human, or, as reported, angelic either.
• Divine testimony is stronger than lack of human or divine testimony:
• Especially if the divine testimony is corroborated by miracles, which was not the case with George Harrisons communication with Lord Krishna, as far as we know.

From the creationist’s perspective, the method or mechanism of creation which these mystical beings use is nothing more than a golem spell where clay statues are animated with an enchantment. Or its an incantation in which complex modern plants and animals are "spoken" into being. That’s right, magic words which cause fully-developed adult animals to be conjured out of thin air. Or a god simply wishes them to exist; so they do. That’s it! There really is nothing more to it than that; pure freakin’ magic –by definition. Remember that the next time you hear anything from a creation “scientist”.***

• Some people believe Rabbis using the name of the creator, can give life to a Golem,
• Some people do not believe that, nor that the creator could give life to anything,
• Between the two views, there is one, according to which a Creator can very well do what this Geoscientist calls magic, giving existence to what did not exist and life to what was lifeless, whereas a man, even using or abusing the name of the creator, cannot.
• This latter view is the one of a Christian Creationists, and it is actually compulsory on every Catholic and Orthodox Christian, whether he be a Creationist or a Christian Evolutionist, whether he sells cars or teaches science at a University.
• Remember, next time you hear someone argue against creationism by an appeal to scientific consensus, it might be the consensus of people regarding creation ex nihilo as a "Golem spell".
• In the same essay our Geoscience Major at Texas University* also says that Geocentric intellectuals generally are not scientists, I studied, at age twelve in my own time at home, the creationist view of precisely a scientist, the first of the two mentioned in following quote:

Its first president was Edgar H. Andrews, Emeritus Professor of Materials at Queen Mary, University of London, where he was a long-serving head of department and later Dean of Engineering.[7] He is described by historian of creationism Ronald Numbers as the United Kingdom's "most respected creationist scientist of the late twentieth century", a Reformed Baptist, and a convert to Whitcomb and Morris' flood geology since the 1960s. However, he rejected some elements of their views, particularly dogmatic acceptance of a young Earth (even going so far as to suggest that the first day of creation "might be of indefinite length").[8] Another prominent member, David C. Watts (Professor of Biomaterials Science at the University of Manchester),[9] went even further in diverging from the American view, described giving primacy to the question of the age of the Earth a "great mistake" and admitted the possibility that life existed before the Edenic creation. His views slowly moved to progressive creationism.[10]°

7 http://www.christianity.com/home/christian living features/11636300/page3/ 8 Numbers, Ronald (November 30, 2006). The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, Expanded Edition. Harvard University Press. pp. 624 pages. ISBN 0674023390. - p. 358 - note 10, same and following page. 9 Chemistry, Manchester, David Watts http://www.chemistry.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/staff/show.html?ea=David.Watts

• British and American, US and UK people are supposed to talk the same language, except that these neighbours across the Atlantic delete a letter U from "neighbour" because they pronounce the following letter R. Very logically, especially as the Irish both pronounce the R and keep the U.
• The Geoscience Major* nevertheless ignores the Biblical Creation Society and focusses on Kent Hovind, who is in prison.
• Anyone care to guess if he is anything like partial?

Of the couple hundred different, and often violently-conflicting denominations of Christianity, the largest of them by far is Catholicism followed by Orthodoxy. Both of these have stated support of evolution and denounced creationism.***

• 1 It is quite true that Roman Catholics (Latin or Uniate), or people counted as such, constitute about half of the people described as Christian. Also, Eastern Churches not Uniate consitute the largest group outside Roman Catholics, as this count goes. But our dear little big friend from Texas University has not grasped all there is to grasp about this. True, most US residing Catholic or Eastern Christians are Evolutionist. True, the Pope and Ecumenic Patriarch many of them of either group refer to, advises evolution. BUT:
• Coptic Monophysites and Nestorians (Christians of Egypt and Iraq, excepting Catholics and Orthodox Calcedonians) are usually Creationist,
• According to the Church lore of Eastern Orthodox, the Ecumenic Patriarch is a stand-in for the Pope, because the Pope is considered heterodox since agreeing to filioque in Nicene Creed, and so any Bishop claiming Ecumenic Patriarch is heterodox for advising Evolution can claim a precedent, some do.
• Even among Roman Catholics, there is only so much a Pope can do. Benedict XVI may indeed "advise" evolution. But he cannot dogmatise it. And Catholics are not bound to each and every advice given by the Pope, but to Papal dogmas;
• if on the other hand the Pope should make a bull, saying "sorry, we were wrong about Genesis, nobody can from now on take its first chapters literally" then lots of Traditional Catholics (not necessarily from US) would as Young Earth Creationists, well based on Church Fathers and on Pope St Pius X, say: "well, if he's a hardline Evolutionist, maybe he's a heretic, and so maybe he never was a Pope". To be eligible as a Pope one has to be a quite Orthodox Catholic. It's not like "Heretics need not apply" - nobody applies to be Pope - it is: should a conclave chose a heretic, quite probably there was something fishy with the conclave, but even if not, a heretic is not a Pope even if he fools a conclave.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bibliothèque Georges Pompidou
Candlemass of 2012

*See:
Fourth Foundational Falsehood of Creationism http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/4thFFoC.html
**See:
Third Foundational Falsehood of Creationism http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/3rdFFoC.html
***See:
First Foundational Falsehood of Creationism http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/1stFFoC.html
°See:
Wiki: Biblical Creation Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Creation_Society

Well, how about Mark Isaak? Too lazy to do his homework?

1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Dating History (with Some Help from AronRa), 2) Creation vs. Evolution : Well, how about Mark Isaak? Too lazy to do his homework?, 3) Challenge for Fellow Young Earth Creationists, 4) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on AronRa's very poetic An Archaeological Moment in Time (plus something on "credentialism")

He seems to be, as much as AronRa, one really campaigning on the opposite team. He wrote more than one of the so called rebuttals of Creationist claims on Talkorigins Site. Here is one about Carbon Dating:

Claim CD011.1:

Carbon dating is based on the atmospheric C-14/C-12 ratio, but that ratio varies. Thus the carbon dating method is not valid.

Source:

Morris, Henry M. 1985. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, pp. 162-166.

Response:

The variability of the C-14/C-12 ratio, and the need for calibration, has been recognized since 1969 (Dickin 1995, 364-366). Calibration is possible by analyzing the C-14 content of items dated by independent methods. Dendrochronology (age dating by counting tree rings) has been used to calibrate C-14/C-12 ratios back more than 11,000 years before the present (Becker and Kromer 1993; Becker et al. 1991). C-14 dating has been calibrated back more than 30,000 years by using uranium-thorium dating of corals (Bard et al. 1990; Edwards et al. 1993), to 45,000 yeas ago by using U-Th dates of glacial lake varve sediments (Kitagawa and van der Plicht 1998), and to 50,000 years ago using ocean cores from the Cariaco Basin which have been calibrated to the annual layers of the Greenland Ice Sheet (Hughen et al. 2004).

"The variability of the C-14/C-12 ratio, and the need for calibration, has been recognized since 1969 (Dickin 1995, 364-366)."

Ah, but has it been recognised at its due extent or minimised?

One really must come to different conclusions about this variability within time span concerned depending on choice of Old Earth or Creationism.

The C-14/C-12 ratio basically stays the same due to two opposing processes. C-14 is added all the time through cosmic radiation hitting atmosphere. C-14 is also depleted all the time due to decay. Now decay is proportional to C-14 already present, cosmic radiation is independent of it. If it is assumed to have been constant (and one school of Creation Science - including Kent Hovind - thinks more radiation started hitting us after Flood, that being part of explanation of more rapid aging of man) and C-14 is assumed to have been absent from initial atmosphere, then the two processes would initially (or according to Hovind: initially after Flood) have been in favour of a buildup. That is one assumption one could do.

It seems simpler than saying there was much more C-14 to start with and C-14 has been decaying quicker than cosmic radiation has been replacing it - unless you assume cosmic radiation has decreased.

It is definitely, as is the either theory, simpler than assuming C-14 was always the same, since there is not any unitary cause for the ratio.

Now, the possibility of such a build-up phase having happened very definitely has very diverse consequences for a Creationist and an Old Earther. To the Old Earther such a build-up phase is irrelevant to dating, it must have happened so many billions of years ago that the C-14 from then has definitely gone away, this would definitely be one doubt not to raise.

All variations of the C-14/C-12 ratio would be minor fluctuations which would need minor calibrations as readjustments. Not having read Dickin, A. P. 1995. Radiogenic Isotope Geology, Cambridge University Press, and not knowing who recognised what in 1969, I still feel confident to guess that a Creationist brought up the issue about initial build-up, and then in 1969 someone else - the one cited by Dickin - recognises the issue of minor fluctuations needing calibration.

Sorry, but these issues, though both can be described as related to variability of the C-14/C-12 ratio, since not related to same kind of variability of it, are not same issue. And saying the minor issue has been adressed does not guarantee the major one has been adressed too.

The fact is, I go through the creationist claims answered by Mark Isaak, all through CD011.1 to CD011.6, I do not find this major issue is ever at all recognised as a separate issue, let alone answered as such a one. Sloppy, Mark Isaak. I haven't specifically read Henry Morris' book from 1985. I do not know if this major issue is covered in the pages 162 - 166, or if it was only covered in the next section, omitted from Mark Isaak's citation, like if it was pages 166 (last paragraph) to 167 (not cited at all). I would seriously not be surprised if such was the honesty of Mark Isaak.

I have read From Nothing to Nature by Edgar Andrews, and in it the initial build-up problem for C-14 dating is definitely a major point in the chapter about "clocks". Since my Swedish translation of it was prior to 1985, more like 1980, my twelfth birthday, or perhaps available earlier, and since English originals tend to be somewhat older than Swedish translations, of any book, except those where a Swedish original is older than an English translation (but unlike Astrid Lindgren, Edgar Andrews would not know Swedish, he's an Englishman), I am very sure the argument was well known among Creationists by 1985, and I would be disappointed if Henry Morris had omitted it.

With a man like Mark Isaak, I would not be disappointed if after reading this argument in Morris, he refused to state it clearly before refuting it, and preferred to hide it in a more general argument (also made!) which was less hard to refute in favour of the knowability of C-14 dates older than creation that Mark Isaak advocates.

"Calibration is possible by analyzing the C-14 content of items dated by independent methods."

That is indeed how and why I accept the calibration of the method for historically dated objects and then objects contemporary to those. However, I do not count the coffin of Pharao Djoser as certainly dated correctly historically, and therefore I do not count C-14 measures as proof an object is as old as standard Egyptology counts Pharao Djoser as being. I would count the destruction of Persepolis as sufficiently well dated by writings about the wars and generals involved, and therefore as giving correct calibrations, if an object is found that can be tied to time of destruction.

For non-historically datable or historically more disputably datable objects used for calibration, especially older than that, I count the calibration as untrustworthy and therefore the timelines as squeezable, as far as Biblical Chronology requires.

"Dendrochronology (age dating by counting tree rings) has been used to calibrate C-14/C-12 ratios back more than 11,000 years before the present (Becker and Kromer 1993; Becker et al. 1991)."

The funny, or sad, part is that lines of dendrochronology are not continuous 11 millennia BP, and that claims of dendro going back so far use C-14 as calibration method for key samples.

"C-14 dating has been calibrated back more than 30,000 years by using uranium-thorium dating of corals (Bard et al. 1990; Edwards et al. 1993),"

Except that Uranium-Thorium is untrustworthy. It is definitely not comparable to destruction of Persepolis.

"[...] and to 50,000 years ago using ocean cores from the Cariaco Basin which have been calibrated to the annual layers of the Greenland Ice Sheet (Hughen et al. 2004)."

The so called "annual layers" have not been proven to be annual. It is definitely not comparable to destruction of Persepolis.

"to 45,000 yeas ago by using U-Th dates of glacial lake varve sediments (Kitagawa and van der Plicht 1998), [...]"

Here it seems the "varve sediments" - a variant of "annual layers" - have been fallaciously used to calibrate both Uranium Thorium, possibly and certainly C-14. Once again NOT comparable to destruction of Persepolis for calibration of C-14.

I will select parts of his rebuttals from the following 5 as well.

2.) "The dates come from different mammoths. The reference cited by Brown and cribbed by Hovind likely refers only to a Fairbanks mammoth, which Brown also mentions (Péwé 1975, 30). The 15,380 and 21,300 BP dates come from separate mammoths, and it is noted that the 21,300 date is invalid because it comes from a hide soaked in glycerin. It is uncertain what is Brown's source for the 29,500 and 44,000 dates."

Soaking in glycerin would add organic material (glycerin being organic) and therefore add C-14. It would make for a date too young, whereas it is the older date which Mark Isaak explains like this. As to how many mammoths the different dates come from, one or two, I have word against word, and so far Kent Hovind has better credibility with me than Mark Isaak has.

3.) "The article discussed the potential errors that the presence of "dead carbon" would introduce into the dating of mollusks. For example, carbon dioxide in the water can partially come from Paleozoic limestone, which lacks carbon-14. As a result, the carbon dioxide in the water is deficient in carbon-14 relative to the atmosphere, and mollusks living in the water build shells that give apparent dates older than they really are. This is a type of "reservoir effect." [....] In cases where corrections for presence of dead carbon cannot be made, such dates are readily recognized as erroneous and can be safely disregarded."

Kent Hovind was hardly disputing it could be explained as a reservoir effect. But rather saying scientists may underestimate reservoir effects in using the method. Rather than discrediting Hovind as abusing his scientific source, this answer discredits Mark Isaak, as poopooing Kent Hovind for his being to the point.

As to limestone lacking C-14 that should go for anything from Palaeozoic, if true.

Non-carbon datable things have been carbondated. OK, dates involve dates "before Creation", but irreconcilable with the dates given for "palaeozoic periods" in standard chronology.

The point about presence of dead carbon giving dates that are easily recognised as erroneous is in fact an admission of another of Kent Hovind's points: dates obtained are not all agreeing with each other and therefore retained, they are disagreeing with each other and some are dismissed.

3 b) "Other materials, such as wood, charcoal, bone, and hide, would remain unaffected by this type of reservoir effect. If found with shells in the same layer, these materials could be dated to determine if shells are locally affected by the reservoir effect and, if so, how much their radiocarbon dates have been skewed by it."

As a fail proof method this presupposes it is always assiduously applied. No one can always be thinking of everything. Some reports are less read than others and so less probable to get corrections for blunders, even if glaring.

And replacing post-publication refutals so much with pre-publication "peer review" actual screening is a way of making the problem worse.

Now, I have actually heard no Creationist making a specific creationist claim about a specific fossil from fact that standard scientists failed to detect dead carbon.

I have however as recently as today seen a creationist state that precisely wood (which is presumably without this reservoir effect) has been found in Permian layers and dated much younger:

"However, fossilized wood was extracted from Oligocene rock formations alleged to be c. 30 million years old (myo). Yet the wood appeared fresh, and indeed would still easily burn, as demonstrated in the pages of this book. In another example, wood was extracted from a tree buried in Permian (pre-dinosaur) layers presumed to be around 290 myo. If the tree was buried in layers that surrounded it, and the layers were dated to 290 myo then the tree would logically be the same date. However, the wood was sent to the University of Georgia in the US for carbon-14 dating and came back with an age of 48,160 years. They can’t both be right, because they differ by a factor of ~6,000."

Flood Fossils
A stunning new book with family friendly, groundbreaking creationist research will excite many
[book by Vance Nelson]
review by Gary Bates
Published: 17 July 2014 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/flood-fossils-book

The wood can hardly have had too much C-14 for the 290 millions of years because of reservoir effect. It can however have had too little for a date straight within Biblical Chronology because of initial build-up problem. The one Mark Isaak, like so many other evolutionists, fails to adress.

4.) "[Citing Wakefield:] Radiocarbon analysis of specimens obtained from mummified seals in southern Victoria Land has yielded ages ranging from 615 to 4,600 years. However, Antarctica sea water has significantly lower carbon-14 activity than that accepted as the world standard. [own words:] This is the well-known reservoir effect [...] well known by scientists, who work hard to understand the limitations of their tools. It is explained, for example, in Faure (1986) and Higham (n.d.). Contrary to creationist propaganda, limitations of a tool do not invalidate the tool."

It does insofar as there could be undetected limitations of it. In this case Antarctica sea water has significantly lower carbon-14, that is detected. But how many places or biotopes have had undetected reservoir effects?

Contrary to evolutionist propaganda, the glaring misdates, like Antarctic seal or mollusks, are, though a good way to catch attention, not the main creationist objection about carbon-14. Initial/post-Flood build-up in atmosphere, radically changing the C-14/C-12 ratio, is, and it is not adressed by Mark Isaak.

5.) is subdivided acc. to three answers given:

1° "It is doubtful that the sample was even wood. Snelling was not even sure what the sample was. Nor could the staff at Geochron tell what the sample was (Walker 2000). It may not even have retained any of its original carbon. Using carbon dating was pointless from the start since it would inevitably give meaningless results."

I am unable to check the text, since the link to Tas Walker's article is broken.

However, other samples are pretty certainly wood. Like the "30 million year old oligocene wood".

2° "The sample was porous, making it likely that it would have absorbed organic carbon from the groundwater. It was probably this contaminating carbon that produced the date. Another possibility is that some ¹⁴C was created in situ by natural radioactivity in the surrounding rocks (Hunt 2002)."

Students of the shroud of Turin will note this with interest. In that example the contamination is not a theoretic possibility, but a practical certainty. Once a fire broke out, and instead of water, oil was used to extinguish it. If the fire was small, and the cold quantity of vegetable oil big enough, the extinguishing duly took place, but there was organic contamination. Dito with accumulations of soot.

In the more general case, and the specific one here studied, if taken at face value, Mark Isaak admits a basic unreliability of all datings.

The contamination from groundwater would not a verified fact, since an alternative explanation was given. But even without being anywhere near a detectable certainty it suddenly becomes likely when one has to save the millions of years.

3° "Furthermore, 33,720 years is still significantly older than the age which many creationists, Snelling included, ascribe to the earth, and there are no plausible sources of error to make the age younger than 33,000 years. "

That is forgetting, overlooking or being totally ignorant of previously mentioned initial/post-Flood build-up problem, when it comes to what the ratio between carbon-14 and carbon-12 may have been, while the wood was alive and absorbing atmospheric carbon through the carbon dioxide.

6.) "New ¹⁴C is formed from background radiation, such as radioactivity in the surrounding rocks. In some cases, ¹⁴C from the atmosphere can contaminate a sample. A few processes that can add "modern" 14C to coal are:

• Sulfur bacteria, which commonly grow in coal.
• Secondary carbonates from groundwater that form on fracture surfaces.
• Whewellite, a carbon-containing mineral, that often forms as coal weathers.

Minute amounts of contamination from these sources can cause apparent ages around 50,000 years, which is near the limit of the maximum age that carbon dating can measure. "

The one explanation very carefully NOT studied along with the impressive list is of course that oil and carbon formed during flood, 2957 BC, and that the ages considerably higher than 5000 years BP are due to carbon-14 in atmosphere still being in build-up and very far below the present one.

Can it be that Mark Isaak has some kind of bias against this explanation?

Let us see what his page leads to except TalkOrigins site. For instance:

Problems with a Global Flood
Second Edition
by Mark Isaak
Copyright © 1998
[Last Update: November 16, 1998]
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

I may already have come across this one. But My earlier refutataions were on other details, we shall just look at the first one:

Wood is not the best material for shipbuilding. It is not enough that a ship be built to hold together; it must also be sturdy enough that the changing stresses don't open gaps in its hull. Wood is simply not strong enough to prevent separation between the joints, especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered. The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped. The ark was 450 feet long [ Gen. 6:15]. Could an ark that size be made seaworthy?

Two points:

1) especially in the heavy seas that the Ark would have encountered.

As Kent Hovind is asking: "where was it going?" It was just floating and so it was not encountering any heavy seas. It was drifting with them.

2) The longest wooden ships in modern seas are about 300 feet, and these require reinforcing with iron straps and leak so badly they must be constantly pumped.

This condition is of course for ships, that are actually, unlike the Ark, not drifting with the heavy seas, but encountering them.

And yet this is fully 2/3 of the dimensions of the Ark, that did not have to stand the test of navigation and of encountering any seas.

Mark Isaak, if you are as sloppy as this, keep it up! It is a pleasure to refute one who does half ones job for one!

But seriously, his article has been refuted by Jonathan Sarfati, Mark Isaak courteously linking, and Sarfati's refutation has in its turn found, if not a refutation at least an answer by Kevin Henke (Mark Isaak also courteously links). So we will see what Sarfati and Henke have to say.

The TrueOrigin Archive : Problems with a Global Flood?
(a rebuttal of Mark Isaak’s “Problems with a Global Flood” FAQ in the Talk.Origins Archive)
© 1998 J. Sarfati & Creation Ministries International. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.trueorigin.org/arkdefen.asp

After quoting verbatim same passage, Sarfati replies:

Answer: This argument is often parroted, but is just as bogus as the others. The Ark was built for stability, not movement. A flat-bottomed barge like the Ark wouldn’t have problems with sag. If the lower deck were made of logs, four layers deep, it would have been very sturdy. If they were teak logs, especially specially treated by being buried for a while, the ark would have been especially seaworthy. Woodmorappe points this out too, and much more, so Isaak is dishonest to ignore that. Korean naval architects have confirmed that a barge with the Ark’s dimensions would have optimal stability. They concluded that if the wood were only 30 cm thick, it could have navigated sea conditions with waves higher than 30 m (S.W. Hong et al., “Safety investigation of Noah’s Ark in a Seaway”, CEN Technical Journal 8(1):26–36, 1994. All the co-authors are on the staff of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering, Taijon.)

Now what did Henke reply to this?

[More Nonsense on "True.Origins" / Greene's Creationism Truth Filter]
Yahoo!
Sorry, the GeoCities web site you were trying to reach is no longer available.
GeoCities has closed, but there's a lot more to explore on Yahoo!
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/henke/krh-floodnonsense.html

GeoCities, like MSNGroups, have, sadly, closed.

Now, Sarfati seems to have noted another sloppiness in Mark Isaak, he claims Mark Isaak attributes a flat earth to the Bible, and quite correctly states that the passage - Daniel 4 - is a dream vision of a Pagan king, not a Biblical map of the Earth. Even if it were, "ends of the Earth" would not necessarily mean a flat earth, it would as easily denote the end rims of the continents forming the whole called the Old World - on the globe.

As that dream is mentioned, and as it includes the verse:

The tree was great and strong: and the height thereof reached unto heaven: the sight thereof was even to the ends of all the earth.

I think it might be worth mentioning the idea that modern space craft and some related aspects can be as Tower of Babel like and Judgement worthy before God, as a certain "tree" called Nebuchadnessar. Or even more.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Alexius of Rome
17-VII-2014

Update, 13-VIII, St Hippolytus' Day:

If Mark Isaak hasn't dealt with the major C-14 difficulty, another man on TalkOrigins has.

How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?
A Close Look at Dr. Hovind's List of Young-Earth Arguments and Other Claims
by Dave E. Matson
Copyright © 1994-2002
Dr. Hovind (R1): The atmospheric C-14 is presently only 1/3 of the way to an equilibrium value which will be reached in 30,000 years. This nullifies the carbon-14 method as well as demonstrating that the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-c14.html

Matson's resumé of the argument is this one, pretty correct:

Henry Morris argued that if we started filling up our empty barrel it would take 30,000 years to reach the equilibrium point. Thus, he concluded, if our Earth were older than 30,000 years the incoming water should just equal the water leaking out. That is, the equilibrium point should have long since been reached given the present rate of carbon-14 production and the old age of the earth. The next step in Henry Morris' argument was to show that the water level in our barrel analogy was not in equilibrium, that considerably more water was coming in than leaking out. To that end, he quoted some authorities, including Richard Lingenfelter. Having accomplished that, Morris concluded that the barrel was still in the process of being filled up and that, given the present rate of water coming in and leaking out, the filling process began only 10,000 years ago.

His answer is:

It's a great argument except for one, little thing. The water is not coming out of the hose at a steady rate as our model assumed! Sometimes it slows down to a trickle so that much more water is leaking out the barrel than is coming in; sometimes it goes full blast so that a lot more water is coming into the barrel than is leaking out. Thus, the mere fact that the present rate of water coming in exceeds that of the water leaking out cannot be extrapolated back to a starting time. And, that destroys the entire argument.

My answer: it may not be a proven fact that C-14 levels are still rising - nor is it a proven fact that the cause of rising C-14 in the atmosphere is fluctuating, so that no projection at all can be made backward.

It seems that since C-14 levels have been observed, they have been rising, but that is not for very long.

However, the argument is even without proven factuality, just as a theoretical possibility, enough to give a non-sequitur about assurance about very old (pre-Creation) carbon ages. Thus, the argument is better as a refutation of one old earth argument, than as a positive young earth argument in its own right./HGL

Lost In Translation

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

"Evolutionism is the religion of atheists"

Creationists do deliberately misrepresent evolution many different ways in all their arguments. Even when they know better, they still say that evolution necessarily requires the godless origin of life from inorganic matter. But it doesn’t mean that, and never did. For one thing, all the building blocks of life were already organic long before the first organism, before anything could be considered alive. We’ve even detected vast amounts of organic matter in deep space.

But creationists claim space evolved too, and that the big bang is part of the same evolutionary process as that which leads to new species on earth. So they often say that evolution requires “something coming from nothing”, which is ironic since creationists believe that themselves while strict scientists do not.*

and

Creationists often say that secular humanism is recognized as a religion by law, and since they wrongly that think atheism and what they call “evolution-ism” are the same thing, then by extension they think even rationalism should be considered a religion; that even anti-religion is religious. But of course they’re wrong again on all counts.**

Evolution is even less religious! It is the branch of biology which explains biodiversity. As such it doesn’t permit supernatural explanations, has no doctrines, nor dogma, nor fables with morals; it has no rituals, traditions or holidays, nor either leaders or defenders of the faith because it doesn’t allow faith. It holds nothing sacred, there’s no place of worship, no enchantments, no clergy, no fashion of garb, and it neither promotes nor discourages belief in gods or souls, and says nothing about how we should live or what happens after we die. Evolution is therefore NOT a religion, and creationists KNOW its not –but they say it is anyway.**

What a pity the point is missed. For one thing, if a creationist were to say "evolution is the religion of atheism", he would be using a short-cut for what could be more exactly, but not more succinctly stated as:

The materialistic secular atheism has a philosophy, the dreary part of which is an explanation according to which everything in the last analysis boils down to atoms and energy, but the uplifting constant part of a philosophy (hence "religion") is that this by a series of very different evolutions, including but very much not limited to evolution in the biological sense, evolves into the rich existence we actually enjoy. Including experience of religions, which may be enjoyed even by those who believe materialistic atheism.***

Now, is it possible for Mr Geoscience Major from University of Texas to actually conceive how a word like "religion" comes to stand for "the bright part of a philosophy, even if it happens to be expressed in non-ritual ways"?° I hope it is, if you compare it to a phrase like: Frederick II was a thoroughgoing secularist, the one thing he believed in was expanding the power of the Holy Roman Empire inwards against the Church and outwards against rival states.

Do I need to remind any reader not already partial against Creationists, that other than we, for instance Dawkins or Onfray, also tend to use "atheist" as a shortcut for "secular humanist" rather than as obviously in every instance including Theravada Buddhism and Taoism?

But most importantly, as he pointed out in another video, evolution just means change over time, and evolution as in "Origin of the Species" (biologic evolution) is not at all the only instance where such is claimed as the explanation.

Big Bang to galaxies, rotating gas clouds to solar systems, hot liquid states of earth to inhabitable state of earth, all these are, on the view of present day secular humanists, or materialistic atheists, valid explanations.

Of course, even a creationist would admit that God (the omnipotent God of Christianity, the one our opponent in this debate calls a magician) could have used biologic evolution even if he used none of the other means to bring reality as we know it about, of those enumerated here.

But the Christians who believe he used evolution usually also believe in Big Bang. And usually they do state as one reason for their stance, that a more traditional understanding of Christianity takes its recourse to a "Magician kind of God". The same one our dear big friend cannot accept, least of all among scientists.

“Macroevolution has never been observed.”

Speciation is the only taxonomic division which is genetically significant, and it is the only one that can be objectively determined. So it is the only possible point of division between the largely unnecessary distinctions of macro and microevolution.

"The theory is perfectly valid at that level; minor changes that do not produce new kinds of organisms, and that above all do not add to the genetic information, ...breeders are able to produce change only within boundaries. Even those dogs are all members of a single biological species, which are chemically interfertile. Uh, we don't get dogs getting bigger and bigger indefinitely –as big as elephants, or whales, much less changing into elephants or whales. ...and the claim that if selective breeding hasn't produced the kind of macro changes, the kinds of new forms of life, new biolo- complex organs uh, that are needed, that's only because there hasn't been enough time."

Creationists insist that macroevolution has never been observed, and the excuse they use to deny that it has requires the addition of a bogus condition that simply does not apply. Creationists argue that evolution can only occur within “definite limits”, and then only to subtle variance within their “kind”. They say new diversity is limited to rare and unviable hybrids between those “kinds”, and they usually say that the emergence of new species is impossible.

No “Darwinist” would ever say any of these things. Sorry Stein, but you’ve lost your mind.°°

"My terminology is the right terminology. If an observation needs any other terminology than mine to be expressed, it is not a valid observation."

Sorry, but that is all there is to this objection. Unless he prefers to correct "mine" to "ours", but that does not change very much.

Creationists do make a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. We do it in order to observe that macroevolution has never been observed.

The thing about microevolution as in "small step evolution" is, it is from variety to variety.

The thing about macroevolution as in "big step evolution" is, it is, at the very least, from kind to kind.

The crux of the matter is: do ring species and band species count as the making of a kind, i e species that may not be directly crossbreedable but are inderectly as in crossbreedable with a third between them forming a band or a third and a fourth species on either side, forming a ring of at least indirectly interbreedable species? If that does count as the making of a kind, well then macroevolution has been observed by Darwin. If that is insufficient for the making of a kind, we are back at - macroevolution has never been observed. Like in Galapagos Finches - are they different kinds or not?

The Darwinist claims, basically, that cat and dog had a common ancestor, so they are really part of a ring or band of interbreedable species, only the intermediates are lost, so they are not in a band or ring of indirectly interbreedable species.

The Creationist replies: such a making of two kinds from one or of a new kind, has never in fact been observed.

The Darwinist replies:

If it is possible to walk twenty feet, it’s possible to walk twenty miles. So creationists insist there must be some “definite boundary” blocking the evolution of new “kinds”. But they won’t say where or what that boundary is.

All these reveal that life is a fluid dynamic producing new and subtle variation with every descendant. But evolution only occurs when new alleles are spread throughout a given community. This is where selection comes into play, because the parent gene pool actually does more to inhibit new aberrations than to promote them. A smaller gene pool is much easier to influence. So what you usually get are more significant changes emerging in smaller colonies that have been genetically isolated from the main population. Eventually, they may get to the point where the two groups are distinct, where a trait now held in common by every member of one group is not shared by any member of the other group. This is known as a subspecies, or “breed”. If the two groups resume interbreeding, then all that may meld together again as if it had never been. But if they’re isolated long enough, they will continue to drift further apart both physically and genetically until it becomes difficult to interbreed at all anymore. Eventually they’ll only be able to sire infertile hybrids, if they can still produce anything living. At the point when two sexually-reproductive populations can no longer interbreed with viable offspring, then they have become two different species.°°

The Creationist generally replies: that is the Darwinist view of identity of micro- and macroevolution. We do not share it. I go one further, I claim to have, for one part of animal kingdom, identified a mechanism that is a real barrier. Just like "if it is possible to go twenty feet straight forward, it is impossible to walk twenty miles straight forward without bending along the curvature of earth", I claim that, though genes within or between chromosomes may be pretty fluid stuff, number of chromosomes are, at least upwards, pretty fixed things. In mammals.°°° And this thing which makes us able to ask these questions, essentially mind. As between man and other animals.#

There is a third item which is lost in translation: the Hovind theory, he never found any resistance to Christian mission, except by Evolutionists. Guess he did not get around Muslims very much, but the point is, that was an obvious spoof on "we never found any evidence contradicting evolution".

HGL,
again, same place and date as previous
*See:
The 6th falsehood of Creationism:
“Evolution-ism” (Part II)
“Evolution must explain the origin of life, the universe, and everything.”
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/6thFFoC.html
**See:
The 5th foundational falsehood of creationism;
“Evolution-ism” (part I)
“Evolution = the religion of atheism”
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/5thFFoC.html
***A Dutch pastor of Middelburg, a Calvinist, actually denies the existence of God.
°Unless of course you count school compulsion as a rite often imposed by Evolutionists (and Protestants, and Jews) on Catholics.
°°See:
The 11th foundational falsehood of creationism:
“Macroevolution has never been observed.”
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/11thFFoC.html
°°°See:
Letter to Nature on Karyotype Evolution in Mammals
(and all links from that one on)
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2011/11/letter-to-nature-on-karyotype-evolution.html
#See:
Apes and Fools
(on a very snappy kind of level)
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2012/01/apes-and-fools.html
and:
Funny How Some Systematically Answer the Wrong Questions
(with included links)
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2012/01/funny-how-some-systematically-answer.html
and:
On obedience having limits. Answering two faithful from the flocks of the FSSPX.
(the part after the video link)
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-obedience-having-limits-answering.html

I Like "Miacis Cognitus"

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

Miacis cognitus [link to wiki where this quote is from] is the only species of the diverse genus Miacis that is regarded as belonging to the crown-group Carnivora, within the Caniformia[1]. The type specimen or holotype was discovered in Reeve's bonebed, western Texas, in the Chambers Tuff Formation in 1986.[2] The University of Texas holds this specimen. It is the only confirmed fossil of this species. The holotype is missing the mandible, upper canines, and zygomatic arch. The remainder of the skull is damaged, but relatively intact.

Here is by the way from Feliformia:

In the Middle Eocene (about 42 mya) the miacids started to branch into two distinct groups of the order Carnivora: the Feliforms and Caniforms. The miacid precursors to the extant Feliforms remained forest-dwelling, arboreal or semi-arboreal ambush hunters, while the Caniform precursors were more mobile, opportunistic hunters. While it is clear the first Feliforms appeared at this time, there is no clear common ancestor of the Feliform families in the fossil records. As forest dwellers, the early Feliforms were subject to more rapid decomposition in the absence of sedimentary materials, resulting in large gaps in the fossil records.The miacoids are divided into two groups: the miacids, with a full complement of molars, and the viverravines with a reduced number of molars and more specialized carnassials. These dental differences resemble the difference between Caniforms (with more teeth) and Feliforms (with fewer teeth) but this may not mean evolutionary lineages. It was thought that Viverravidae was basal to the Feliforms. However, recent studies suggest this is not the case (Wesley-Hunt and John J. Flynn 2005).[5]

So, now we go to Miacoidea:

Miacoidea is a paraphyletic superfamily that had been traditionally divided into two families of carnivores: Miacidae (the miacids) and Viverravidae.

And to Miacidae:

Some species of the genus Miacis are closely related to the order Carnivora, but only the species Miacis cognitus is a true carnivoran, as it is classified in the Caniformia.

But is this a good classification? Look at what is left of only fossil:

No nether part of skull left. How do you decide if caniform or feliform?

Now, problem for Creationism is this would be a transitional fossile if Miacis Cognita was caniform but other miacids developing from it were feliform. You see, the African Palm Civet counts as feliform and also counts as closest lookalike to Miacis Cognita:

In skull morphology alone, the African palm civet, Nandinia binotata takes the prize of looking most like its distant relative.

But with five teeth showing and no nether cranium, can we take the classification as a caniform very seriously? Miacis Cognita means Miacis the Known. It is almost as good a binomial as Homo Sapiens which mean Man the Wise. Man is not always very wise and Miacis is not very known. Least of all as a clear transitional fossile between Caniforms and Feliforms. We have not even any clear transition between civets and weasels, and I seriously doubt if anything counts as clear transition between cats and civets or between weasels and dogs or bears.

To my amateur scientist and creationist mind, this is an epic fail.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Biblio/BiJ de Limay
3. sept 2012
Martyrs de la Révolution
(si je ne me trompe pas)

A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is)

	The Series:	A Man not at all prejudiced against God is criticising Creationism (not me, we'll get back to who it is) Further to the Geoscience Major at Texas University Lost In Translation AronRa linked to someone actually trying to prove evolution. AronRa, did I mention you are worthless on history? My Motivation for Arguing Against FFoCr Series Verifiable Does Not Equal Material and Natural I Like "Miacis Cognita." A Letter Arrived from AronRa
Here beginneth our essay:

In discussing Darwinism, it seems to be very important to be very clear about who and what you are. Kent Hovind might have been vague about a doctor title or his accusers might have profited from a perfectly legitimate university being vague about having had Kent Hovind. Now he is doing time.

People at Lund University - some of them at least - are being vague about having had to do with me when I was there. They do not have to be vague about titles, I had none from them. People in prison might be vague about having known me when I was doing time - because they are vague about doing time themselves. I am not vague about doing time. 5 Feb. 1998 two policemen came to help a doctor of medicine examine my mental health, after a social worker, of Moslem extraction, had offered me a mental examination so I could not get expulsed. I had slammed the door, a few hours later the two policemen come along. A little later still one of them is shot in the right hip with his own gun, and the evening is much jollier, because I am in detention before trial, and not in a mental hospital. Prison was avoided first trial, judge settling for putative self-defense, but the general attorney appealed. I got 3 years, 6 months, spent 2/3 of them, and most of that time in forensic psychiatry. After which I spent a few years sponging on ma, who likes among other things my Creationist Writings, including the use I had of Kent Hovind before he went to jail. Then one year more of studies - outside my major subject - then I have been a bum and a blogger and a creationist debater living on the street - and last coffee I had, I spent five minutes wheedling for the change. I also am not vague about being a prolific writer (if you think this blog is not much, even with its French series, check out my other ones!) and half-prolific composer. Nor about prolific not automatically meaning well-paid.

Now, the man I am adressing is a "geoscience major" - I was a Latin Lang./Lit. major - at the University of Texas.* It kind of explains that he is very vague about whatever he does not consider science. Including what he considers para-science, like creationism. Including what he considers non-science, and frankly even non-sense, such as religion.

The 2nd foundational falsehood of creationism is the belief that sacred scriptures were written by a god rather than by the actual human authors.**

Strawman. We believe the Scriptures are the word of God, but not that he actually wrote them. Except the Gospel of St John, which the Gospeller wrote in automatic writing, both hands holding pens and writing at same time, because God guided both. It is still worded as St John's word, but God helped him to write as quick as he thought. Second best, you have Moses, loads of Exodus' chapters start with "and God spake to Moses and said..." (or possible it is spoke rather than spake in your Bible, means the same thing). Point is, we believe God is in the same space that we and other material objects occupy (we repudiate the Jewish, not Torahic, theory God had to withdraw himself into himself to make a void to have room for creation), and we similarily repudiate the theory that what man wrote cannot have also God for a writer.

If there really was one true god, it should be a singular composite of every religion’s gods, ...

Actually another atheist argued that Jesus was precisely that. He turned water into wine? Yes, he is Dionysus. He healed sick? Yes, he is a plagiarism of Aesculapius. He raised dead people? Wait, did his Pagan supposed originals miss one out? Or was he Elijah in the Old Testament too?

...an uber-galactic super-genius, and the ultimate entity of the entire cosmos.

And our God is supposed to not be that?

If a being of that magnitude ever wrote a book, then there would only be one such document; one book of God.

There is one Bible. 73 books is a bit longer than 33 Vedic hymns, and a bit longer than the Gathas, and a bit longer than the Quran.

It would be dominant everywhere in the world ...

Won't be that before Harmageddon, if you ask me. And I am not trying to bring that about. However, with abortionists throwing stones at pro-lifers in Barcelona, I think we Christians might want the Bible a bit more dominant than it has been of very recently.

with no predecessors or parallels or alternatives in any language, because mere human authors couldn’t possibly compete with it.

Won't stop them or demonic guiles from trying.

And you wouldn’t need faith to believe it, because it would be consistent with all evidence and demonstrably true,

Is that all you ask? I mean, what about being demonstrated true after being accused of being absurd? I think that might be more impressive.

revealing profound morality and wisdom far beyond contemporary human capacity.

If it were far beyond human capacity to follow, either God would not reveal it, or he would give humans a bit greater capacity. We believe he actually did the latter thing. It is called grace, sanctifying grace.

It would invariably inspire a unity of common belief for every reader.

Supposing God was trying to be persuasive up to that level, yes. Might have been something other he wanted. Like - every honest reader not honestly misled by anti-Bible writings? Every man of good will and open mind? Sure he has not got that? Oh, of course that implies this geoscience major is not quite of honest research and open mind, but that can be arranged.

If God wrote it, we could expect no less. But what we see instead is the very opposite of that.

Wait, everjust even tried the hypothesis to work out implications if by any slight chance this could be the word of God? Like infallibility and inerrance of words "I did not come to bring peace, but to bring the sword" - which is as much literally validated by the swords of Constantine, Heraclius, Franco, fighting to protect his followers, as by the swords of Nero, Domitian, Lenin fighting to oppress them. But apart from literal validation in actual fighting, there is also the validation on a purely intellectual level. Which is the level I happen to like best. Handcuffs screwed up my sexuality a bit, I am heterosexual, but after doing time, I have been a bit interested in bondage. And, holding that pistol was of course nice, when firing so I avoided the shrinks that day, but I was not very good at it. The policeman took his pistol back a few seconds after being shot at. So, even at an intellectual level there is a real disunity about the word of God. Thank you for admitting that prophecy correct.

The Jewish Torah, the Christian gospels,

... are in no kind of conflict. At least that is the claim of the four Gospels. ...

the Qur’an of Islam, the Kitab-i-Aqdas of Bahá’u’lláh, ...the Adi-Granth of the Sikhs, ...the Book of Mormon,

... were all written by people trying to harmonise the conflct there nevertheless is, between Herod and Holy Family, between Jew and Christian, between Muslim, Jew and Christian, between Christians of different confessions. And we say these people were allowed to be deluded by not any kind of sickness, but the devil, because they were eager to seek a harmony they could grasp, impatient to know religious truth and too impatient to learn it where they should. Same goes, though not by visions, for interpreters like the Pharisees, like the Protestant Reformers, and a few more.

the Hindu Vedas, the Avestas of Zarathustra,

...make no real claim to be divine rather than merely elfish or even diabolical. No miracles like parting of the Red Sea or raising of the dead authenticise the message as divine. Pagans are so modest before they divine, they do not know how to ask for real proof.

the Mahabarata’s Bhagavad-Gita,

... I am pretty reasonably sure the charioteer of Prince Arjuna existed, he is there called Lord Krishna by people already believing his soul - soul not body - had, invisibly, except to a poet (those are the details in Mahabharata) ascended into Heaven. Problem with Pagans, again, they do not ask for real absolute proof.

... and the Urantia book are all declared to be the “absolute truth” and the “revealed word” of the “one true” god, and believers of each say the others are deceived. The only logical probability is that they all are –at least to some degree.

Stephen Tempier condemned the proposition that "the Christian law, just as the others, contains errors." What Frederick II and other Averroists called a logical probability and the man I am writing to agrees, is the conclusion of a lazy mind. A mind loth to get through with the evidence. I e precisely what a bit later this man accuses us creationists of being.

As a moral guide, it utterly fails, because much of the original Hebrew scriptures were written by ignorant and bigoted savages

Ignorant because they were not Darwinists? Savages because they did not go to school? But actually there was a caste along them that did. Moses started it, St Matthew was raised in it, before falling as low as a tax collector, before converting, becoming a disciple, becoming the first Gospel writer. (EDIT: they were called scribes or Levites).

who condoned and promoted animal cruelty, incest, slavery, abuse of slaves, spousal abuse, child abuse, child molestation, abortion, pillage, murder, cannibalism, genocide, and prejudice against race, nationality, religion, sex, and sexual orientation.

Half the list is totally made up (I mentioned science students are often vague about things they do not consider scientific), other half at best debatable. Abuse of slaves if a wife unable to beget (as it seems) offers her slave to be an extra spouse for her man? Arguable, but far from evident. Of course, it is repellent to our Christian sensibilities to imagine it done here and now - because Christ raised marriage back to the monogamous relation it was from creation. Hey, wait, that means this anti-creationist of Texas, is actually arguing according to the values of a creationist of the strictest doctrine!

And of course he is hypersensitive, politically correct as he is, about applying capital punishment to sodomy. Some Doric Pagans, of Crete, actually did that too. And Athens even applied capital punishment to accidental killing of a Dolphin - not because of animal rights, but rather in the sense that Hindoos would have done that to someone accidentally killing a Cow.

Why? To justify their own inhumanity by claiming to do the will of God.

Prove there was inhumanity?

[Some author he's quoting]’s right about there being more than one author for Genesis,

Sure, sure! Geoscience is so about ancient authorships, right? Oh, the brazen assurance of outsiders! Or for that matter some modern theologians!

and it was definitely not an eyewitness account!

The six days prior to creation of Adam, were not, if by eyewitness you mean human to exclusion of angelic, of course. So? Moses saw them in a vision.

Some experts now recognize four different sources just for the Pentateuch, the five books of “Moses”, and they don’t credit Moses as the author of any of them as he evidently never existed as described.

Well, if this man ever talks about people talking about things they know nothing about and do not want to study - he has lost his credibility right here, in advance. But the point is not his credibility. Even so he might be right. Who am I to say only credible persons are right? Who am I to say only credible persons should be considered whether they are right or not?

The scholarly consensus is that Genesis was compiled, (probably by Ezra) from several unrelated oral traditions less than 2,500 years ago.

Excluding faithful Christians - or even Jews - from the scholarly consensus, just as he is wont to do with creationist biologists and geologists. Next - check the link for yourself - he compares the oldest known preserved manuscript of Bible texts with oldest traditional authors and author dates (unrevised by scholars) for some other religions. Etc. His outlook on Christianity is worthless - even as a refutal or rebuttal.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Georges Pompidou Library
Vigil of Candlemass, 2012


*See:
Fourth Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/4thFFoC.html
**See:
Second Foundational Falsehood of Creationism
http://darwinwasright.homestead.com/2ndFFoC.html