Answers in Genesis Corrupts Kentucky's Government

Oh, well, the ACLU's been bored lately, anyway ...

Kudos to scientist Dan Phelps for pursuing this. He tried to get the Convention Bureau to see the error of its ways on more than one occasion, and finally went to the press. The reporter deserves credit also for researching the story. We need more people like Dan on the local level who are willing to take an active role in monitoring and responding to things like this. Go thou forth and do likewise!

We expect Answers in Genesis to lie, but we hope that government wouldn’t join them in it.

The very fact that so many ordinary Americans have visited the museum shows that the opinion polls are correct. Nearly 50% of citizens in the US actually believe this nonsense. It's probably the same here in Northern Ireland unfortunately. The first minister of the new assembly is a YEC (his church actively promotes it).

I am at a loss as to how scientists can convince Christians that they have nothing to fear from science and everything to fear if this were to happen:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/aftereden/view.aspx?id=207

For what it's worth Reed, even though I believe there is a good chance the Earth is Young, I'm not especially enamored with the way AiG does business.

AiG would label my beloved Old Earth colleagues like Guillermo Gonzalez, Michael Behe, and William Dembski as part of an attack against the Christian world view because these scientists believe the universe is old. I don't approve of that one bit.

I hope the YECs prevail, but I can't say I'm enamored with AiG leading the charge. They are doing a lot of evangelism, but their science leaves a lot to be desired.

Eugenie Scott recognizes that AiG/ICR etc. represents a far larger movement than ID (perhaps by 50 to 100 fold in terms of money by my guess).

See: Who Pulled the Stake out of YEC?.

The critics have allowed themselves to be decoyed by the ID movement and allow an immensely larger movement to advance almost un-noticed.

AiG would label my beloved Old Earth colleagues like Guillermo Gonzalez, Michael Behe, and William Dembski as part of an attack against the Christian world view

For what it’s worth Reed, even though I believe there is a good chance the Earth is Young, I’m not especially enamored with the way AiG does business.

I hope the YECs prevail

I don't know Wamba - while I find ID difficult to reconcile with mainstream Christian theology, I strongly disagree with the assertion that Gonzales, Behe & Dembski should be seen as "part of an attack against the Christian world view because [they] believe the universe is old." On this one point, I don't disagree with Sal Cordova - like just about everything else, AiG gets it wrong.

The critics have allowed themselves to be decoyed by the ID movement and allow an immensely larger movement to advance almost un-noticed.

The critics have allowed themselves to be decoyed by the ID movement and allow an immensely larger movement to advance almost un-noticed.

I sent the following e-mail to the clowns that run NKYCVB:

Your promotion of the comical Answers in Genesis Creation "Museum" is a bad joke that further, and unfairly, stigmatizes Kentucky as the land of the toothless back-woods ignorant hillbilliy. What a shame.

As a Christian, I am 100% convinced that the YEC’s will eventually fail.

— Peter Henderson

Just sent this email to them:

Dear sirs,

I would like to complain in the strongest terms possible about the description you give of the Answers In Genesis Creation Museum on your website, the relecant page being located here:

http://www.staynky.com/things/museums2/creation.php

"this "walk through history" museum will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture."

I am horrified that a government funded group would use taxpayer money to spread their own interpretation of religion across a site that is intended to be an informative description of the attractions and amenities of Northern Kentucky. It is not the place of your organization to support or reject any religious stance or religious group, regardless of the opinions of the staff of your organization about a scientific concept. A concept which is, incidentally,
entirely in harmony with the holding of religious faith.

I am a frequent visitor to Kentucky, and I would hate to think that the taxes I pay on hotel acommodation are being used to further such ignorance and push a religious agenda. By all means, advertise the museum. It is a tourist attraction in Kentucky. However, it is the place of the museum to explain its religious agenda, not of public servants funded by the taxpayer.

I am as horrified by this as I would be if your description of the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum described them as "christ-killers", an accusation I am sure you would never level, but one which is every bit as religiously motivated - and every bit as wrong - as your accusation that natural history turns "countless minds against Christ and Scripture".

I urge you to change the information you present on your page to something more balanced and less motivated by the personal religious views of your staff.

Yours faithfully

Ian Rennie

Its ironic that the covention & visitors bureau also promotes the Cincinnati Natural History Museum. Strangely, that link doesn't mention the museum's mission of "turning minds against Christ and Scripture." Fortunately, the creationist republican, indicted criminal who is currently serving as Kentucky's governor, Ernie Fletcher, will be turned out of office this november (he's trailing by 20 points in the polls). Maybe the next administration will correct this idiocy.

My email to the yahoos:

To quote you: this “walk through history” museum will counter evolutionary natural history museums that turn countless minds against Christ and Scripture..

How dare you!

You're implying that by accepting modern science and going to "evolutionary natural history museums," my mind has been "turned against Christ and Scripture"!

This is patently offensive to all those committed Christians who aren't afraid of modern science--including Popes, current and recent.

Don't look for me to be spending any tourist dollars in Northern Kentucky, where apparently a branch of state government has become a mouthpiece for a particular brand of fundamentalist religion. I also intend to let all my fellow frequently-traveling retiree friends know about this offensive stance, and publish it as widely as I can on the Web.

YECism will seriously damage Christianity in the long run.

Salvador: I am constantly amazed that well educated people like yourself cannot accept the antiquity of the Earth/Universe. For me, the nail in the coffin for YECism is the astronomy question and the vast distances from the Earth of astronomical objects.

I can see the new billboards for Northern Kentucky.

Entering Northern Kentucky, set your watch back 200 years.

Remind me again, why would anyone want to visit this area? You can buy moonshine anywhere these days.

Seems Sal has been devolving ever since.

Just whipped off my own e-mail to the NKCVB.
Probably won't do any good but at least their inbox tray will demonstrate to them that some people actually care about this kind of idiocy being funded by tax dollars.
I hope all others will do the same.
Keep it civil but please send it!

85% YEC

I share your concerns. YEC should try to decouple the hypothesis as some sort of litmus test for Christianity. AiG’s influence on the matter is divisive, and just plain wrong. If they want to argue the world is 10,000 years old, they better put up some believable evidence and help with the science. Their evangelism on an unproven theory is pre-mature. Their museum didn’t have any real artifacts for their case, just sculptures and movies and statues. Not much of science museum. Count me in as one YEC who wouldn’t feel bad if the museum falters.

As an employee of state government (not Kentucky), I can say that the issue is a little more complicated than it might appear.

Apparently (from the Enquirer article) their general policy is to list local attractions, and to let the attractions themselves provide descriptions. If their policy is anything like ours, they don't stick their noses into the text unless it's inappropriate for minors or describes or condones illegal activity.

In this case, it's likely that singling the "museum" out for censorship, without establishing that it violates an existing policy, would probably be grounds for an anti-discrimination lawsuit. (Not being a lawyer, I couldn't say for sure.)

Often there is some sort of indemnification statement somewhere that makes it clear that the content of these pages is provided from external sources and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the State or its agencies. I couldn't immediately find one on the site (http://www.staynky.com/), but it sounds like they could use one.

The Enquirer article states: “The museum has numerous other scientific critics.” However, they don’t mention that AiG/Creation Museum has five PhD scientists on staff and is associated with many other PhD scientists across the USA and around the world. Of course, these same critics of the Creation Museum were also claiming that not many people would come to the Museum—they scoffed at the idea there was overwhelming support in the culture for this Museum. Well, 170,000 visitors in just three months shows how wrong they were. So now, they attempt to discredit and attack the local tourist bureau for promoting the Creation Museum as a tourist attraction, which according to the bureau’s own formulas, may have brought over $6 million into the economy of Northern Kentucky! Isn’t it interesting how these ardent evolutionists, with close ties to an organization headed by an atheist, are so worried about ONE Creation Museum—when the majority of natural history museums across the nation present evolution as fact, and the majority of students in the culture go to public schools where evolution/naturalism is presented as fact? If the evidence that man evolved by natural processes (and thus life is ultimately meaningless and purposeless) is so OBVIOUS, why would they be worried about just ONE Creation Museum. They are worried because they know the more people flock to this facility, the more they learn information that has by and large been censored from the culture. The more they realize molecules to man evolution/naturalism is not fact, and real observational scientific evidence does confirm the Bible’s account of history—and if that history is true (which it is), then the gospel based in that history is true. This also means marriage (founded in Genesis) is one man for one woman—life does have purpose and meaning—and all of us need to bow to our Creator and obey His rules!

They are worried because they know the more people flock to this facility, the more they learn information that has by and large been censored from the culture.

They are worried because they know the more people flock to this facility, the more they learn information that has by and large been censored from the culture.

If YEC is true, it has a long way to go in terms of research.

Peter Henderson: If you mean the “direct approach of promoting YEC” will fail, it will eventually go the way of flat-earthism. But the belief will be held by ~50% as long as it is America’s favorite fairy tale.

Sal "Wormtongue" Cordova blithers on:

For what it’s worth Reed, even though I believe there is a good chance the Earth is Young, I’m not especially enamored with the way AiG does business.

How is the way AiG does business worse than the way YOU do business? Glass houses and all that...

AiG would label my beloved Old Earth colleagues like Guillermo Gonzalez, Michael Behe, and William Dembski as part of an attack against the Christian world view because these scientists believe the universe is old. I don’t approve of that one bit.

I can't speak for AiG, but WE label those con-men "an attack against the Christian world view" because they lie, misuse the Bible, ignore the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ, and make Christianity look like the stoopidest religion on Earth. Oh, and then there's that pesky fact that many Christians accept evolution and reject ALL forms of creationism.

I hope the YECs prevail, but I can’t say I’m enamored with AiG leading the charge. They are doing a lot of evangelism, but their science leaves a lot to be desired.

And your "science" is better...how? Pretending to support a cause while trying to distance yourself from its tactics only shows your cowardice.

Eugenie Scott recognizes that AiG/ICR etc. represents a far larger movement than ID (perhaps by 50 to 100 fold in terms of money by my guess).

Ed Brayton has just done yet another thorough job of exposing your shameless lies and misrepresentations of what Scott and others actually said. So unless you can provide a direct quote from Scott, your credibility on this matter is ZERO.

I was an Old Earth Darwinist, then became an Old Earth Creationist, then became 85% YEC. I gave YEC no chance until a 2002 report in Nature (along with Paul Davies website) suggested the speed of light was much faster (perhaps “infinite”) in the past.

How does a variable speed-of-light prove a literal interpretation of Genesis?

AiG and ICR shut down the exploration of VSL cosmology...

I notice you don't even try to explain WHY they would shut down research that -- according to you, at least -- could have strengthened their case. Maybe they shut it down because it was going nowhere. Ever think of that?

There are still major problems with a Variable Light Speed cosmology, but maybe someday the problems will be fixed.

In other words, you have nothing, and you're desperately clinging to some vague notion hoping it will be fleshed out sometime in the future. But in the meantime, you have no case.

If YEC is true, it has a long way to go in terms of research.

So why should we take YEC at all seriously? I could just as easily say the same for flat-Earth-ism.

The YECs have to stop running their organizations like churches...

Why should they stop running their organizations like churches, when, beneath all the pretense, that's all they really ever were?

...and reorganize along the lines of the Discovery Institute, as a secular institution that does not discriminate based on religious belief...

Has the Discovery Institute done any actual research? Have they produced any peer-reviewed papers disproving evolution and/or supporting (or even describing) any sort of "ID theory?"

You still haven't apologized for trying to compare my arguments to the (alleged) surgical mutilation of innocent children. Why is that, Sal? Is your Creator still too tired from his six-day rush-job to give you the strength to act like a real Christian man?

At the same time, however, such books demonstrate that YEC’s are much much stronger than evolutionists (including theistic evolutinists) when it comes to addressing creation topics or certain evolutionist objections (such as the “deceiver argument”)from a Biblical standpoint.

That's because YECs have nothing but a literal interpretation of the Bible to back up their "case." That is, in fact, all they do; and that's why they're wrong.

There’s more than YEC’s have to do, there’s more that AIG has to do, there’s more that all non-Darwinists have to do to acheive Long Overdue Paradigm Shift.

Can we take that as an admission that your "Long Overdue Paradigm Shift" is nowhere near close to happening? I mean, you've had OVER A HUNDRED YEARS now, and you're still demanding more effort (and not describing what, exactly, has to be done).

There’s more than YEC’s have to do, there’s more that AIG has to do, there’s more that all non-Darwinists have to do to acheive Long Overdue Paradigm Shift.

I have clearly noted that actual IDC advocates are a numerically insignificant minority

But what the ID proponents lack in terms of money, they more than make up in terms of intellectual talent.

If you missed it, you may appreciate the recent disclosure of edits to Wikipedia made by employees at Answers in Genesis. See http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/08/answers-in-genesis-wikipedia-edits.html We'll need to update this once there is a Wikipedia entry about the Expelled movie, of course...

There is an additional problem for the "changing speed of light" nonsense which no-one has mentioned so far.....SN 1987a:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/ancientproof/SN1987A.html

In the case of this standard candle, an increase in the speed of light actually makes the object further away.

Perhaps AiG has realised this and dropped this claim, instead preferring the equally ridiculous "gravitational time dilation" which Dr. Phelps mentioned in his review.

In the case of this standard candle, an increase in the speed of light actually makes the object further away.

There is an additional problem for the “changing speed of light” nonsense which no-one has mentioned so far…..SN 1987a: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/anci…

Our Pal Sal...!

I don't have the personal patience for it, but it might be amusing if--instead of immediately blowing Sal out of the water--you astrophysics types were to draw him out a little...

Let him weave enough rope to, well, you know.

This could be mighty amusing.

Wormtongue dissembles on...

We could probably put some good arguments to suggest the universe is a lot younger than 13.7 billion years.

"Probably?" Why the uncertainty? Either "we" (you don't say who that is) put out the good arguments you hint at, or "we" don't. What are those arguments, and where is the supporting evidence? Put up or shut up, boy.

YEC needs to be decoupled from it’s religious premises to advance, much like the ID movement is decoupled from religious premises.

In other words, YEC needs to pretend it's not religious, even though it's clearly nothing but a literal interpretation of one small part of a religious text, thinly disguised as "science."

That add by AiG acutally weakens the case for believing YEC.

Your dishonesty, and the dishonesty of every other YECer I've ever heard from, weakens it further. And no, running away and pretending you have nothing to do with your fellow YECers doesn't help.

You can repeat the same lies as many times as you want until you die; but you're still an obvious liar. And now that you're trying to shaft your fellow YECers to save your own image, you're an obvious coward as well.

Wouldn't a faster speed of light in the past cause galaxies to appear to be clumped closer together the further away from us they are? Also their distance apart along our line of sight would become out of sync with their distance apart perpendicular to that.

Hey, that's a testable prediction, isn't it? ;)

Henry

Raging Bee: Your dishonesty, and the dishonesty of every other YECer I’ve ever heard from, weakens it further. And no, running away and pretending you have nothing to do with your fellow YECers doesn’t help.

Ah yes, Raging Bee evidences the intellectual depth and civility PT is so famous for.

Why thank you, Sal! And the fact that you're now running away from that depth of discourse, without even trying to rebut any of the points I made, shows how sincere your flattery is. Maybe next time you show up, you'll be better prepared to engage with us on that substantive level. Buh-bye for now...

I and others pointed out problems for YEC that are legitimate, but that analysis by Greene is not legitimate.

Sal Cordova wrote, "The critics have allowed themselves to be decoyed by the ID movement and allow an immensely larger movement to advance almost un-noticed."

Several people have already responded to this, but it really strikes me what a bait-and-switch Sal is pulling. The young earth creationists have pretty much stopped trying to force their world view into public schools. And I don't know a single scientist who has suggested that YECers should be prevented from spouting their ideas in their churches, or in any other public arena that is not supported by taxpayers. So in that sense, YEC is not really a problem. In fact, it's not clear to me that they are actually 'advancing' at all.

Intelligent Design proponents, however, are waging a slick, well-funded, and relentless campaign to undermine science teaching in public schools. They are getting most of the press because, regardless of their numbers, they really are most of the problem. Sal's attempt to deflect attention to YECers who aren't doing much harm is just one more example of how Machiavellian the ID movement really is. Wormtongue, indeed, Raging Bee.

Thank to Reed Cartwright for permitting my visit. Regards to you, Salvador

I hope the YECs prevail

I always thought this blog was open to all who care about science and good science education, regardless of their religious convictions (or lack thereof)

evidences the intellectual depth

Reed, any relation to Angela Cartwright, the once famous actress?

For YEC to move forward, they need to organize secular think tanks, like a counter part to the Discovery Institute

I’ve been told on three occasions now that “as long as you believe that God created the Heavens and the Earth, how and when he did it is for you to decide”. I would assume from this statement that a Christian could believe anything from Flat Earth-ism, through to theistic evolution (my own view) and it wouldn’t affect their salvation.

Thank to Reed Cartwright for permitting my visit. Regards to you, Salvador

Surely Salvador doesn’t need to ask permission to post on the Panda’s Thumb ? I always thought this blog was open to all who care about science and good science education, regardless of their religious convictions (or lack thereof)

Why is this thread truncated at Comment #201074?

What sort of moron thinks that his “salvation” depends on what some human religious authority tells him?

Okay, I guess I had to post something in order to kick-start this blog to actually update the page. Never mind. As usual, great content, wonky software.

Henderson, I'm not sure Ham has that strong an anti-old Earth attitude. See for example http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/couldnt-god-have-used-evolution where he says that belief in an old earth does not mean one is not saved.

Also around 2002 it became common knowledge among many physicists that the Big Bang was starting to weaken as a cosmology.

It has recently become a fashionable sport for people who have never contributed anything significant to science - and most likely, they never will - to use media and populism to sling mud at the key results of science as we know it in 2007 in order to replace serious science by an irrational media-driven hysteria, at least in the eyes of the public, and to erase the difference between the scientists who are doing or have done something serious on one side and themselves on the other side. Paper can withstand anything and ignorant enough people are ready to believe anything, too, and it is in fact easier for them to swallow an emotionally loaded untrue cliché than a difficult technical argument. So this is quite a good business for these folks. Modern cosmology is slowly joining the list of fields that are under attack. The only difference from high-energy theoretical physics is that I expect that the hysteria won't catch up in the case of cosmology because cosmologists kind of enjoy activities related to P.R. ... He starts with a sequence of hostile comments about the money flowing to cosmology. The subtitle expresses one of the main assertions of the article: current cosmological theory rests on a disturbingly small number of independent observations. ... Also, "modern cosmology has at best very flimsy observational support". ... Are these statements based on actual science? Maybe the kind of science used in Disneyland but certainly not the science used by serious researchers. You may read it yourself: you will see long kilobytes of vitriolic and untrue statements that are clearly not addressed to people who have any idea about the field. Disney says very openly that "his approach should be appealing to nonspecialists, who otherwise would have little option but to believe experts who may be far too committed to supply objective advice." Why doesn't he try to convince experts? Because he must know very well that every expert knows why his text is complete junk. ... What he wants to do is to brainwash uninformed people who are unable to figure out why his conclusions are completely absurd, without any need to offer any technical evidence for these statements whatsoever. What a convenient strategy. [Bold added.]

Henderson, I’m not sure Ham has that strong an anti-old Earth attitude. See for example http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab/cou… where he says that belief in an old earth does not mean one is not saved.

Ken Ham - executive director for Answers in Genesis, who believes that young-earth creation should be a primary emphasis in evangelism. His acerbic tone and views have created rifts with other creationists, such as his declaration that old-earth creationists should be banned from ordination and possibly church membership. Recently, he edited a condemnation of new evangelicalism called When Christians Roamed the Earth. Other titles: A Is for Adam; And God Saw that It Was Good; Creation Evangelism for the New Millennium; D Is for Dinosaur; Did Adam Have a Belly Button?; Did Eve Really Have an Extra Rib?; Dinsoaurs of Eden; Genesis and the Decay of the Nations; The Genesis Solution; The Great Dinosaur Mystery Solved; The Lie: Evolution; One Blood; 101 Signs of Design; What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs; Why Won't They Listen?

I was an Old Earth Darwinist, then became an Old Earth Creationist, then became 85% YEC.

— Salvador T. Cordova

I gave YEC no chance until a 2002 report in Nature (along with Paul Davies website) suggested the speed of light was much faster (perhaps “infinite”) in the past.

There are still major problems with a Variable Light Speed cosmology, but maybe someday the problems will be fixed.

The VSL cosmology would also solve the missing isotope problem and a host of radiometric issues.

Also around 2002 it became common knowledge among many physicists that the Big Bang was starting to weaken as a cosmology.

The Prestigious Sigma Xi Science Organization (many Nobel Laureates) recently slammed the Big Bang recently. This was astonishing! See: Modern Cosmology, Science or Folktale.

The theory of Big Bang nucleosynthesis did a fair job of predicting the relative amounts of most of these substances . . .

AiG and ICR shut down the exploration of VSL cosmology, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth.

A key prediction of YEC VSL may have been confirmed here: Bold prediction of CDK possibly confirmed!!!!.

Did AiG or ICR help lift even one finger to help out in the research? No.

If YEC is true, it has a long way to go in terms of research.

It’s not going to get there if the AiG mindset is involved.

The YECs have to stop running their organizations like churches and reorganize along the lines of the Discovery Institute, as a secular institution that does not discriminate based on religious belief….

Another YEC astronomy claim is the old one on comets breaking up to quickly for the solar system to be old. Why they still persist with this one is beyond me, since several hundred Kuiper belt objects (the reservoir for short period comets) have been discovered thus far.

Futher the energy profile standard deviations are inconsistent with evolutionary explanations of coments.

I gave a discussion of the pros and cons of YEC here, and it’s about a stalemate at this time. See: Reasons for and Against YEC.

I have some ideas as to how to break the stalemate, but it won’t make AiG happy. That’s fine.

As a Christian, I am 100% convinced that the YEC’s will eventually fail. What worries me, is that the church, and particularly the evangelical wing, will be dragged down along with it.

YEC should try to decouple the hypothesis as some sort of litmus test for Christianity.

AiG’s influence on the matter is divisive, and just plain wrong. If they want to argue the world is 10,000 years old, they better put up some believeable evidence and help with the science. Their evangelism on an unproven theory is pre-mature.

Their museum didn’t have any real artifacts for their case, just sculptures and movies and statues. Not much of science museum. Count me in as one YEC who wouldn’t feel bad if the museum falters.

Nigel,

Nice post. Do you happen to have any references for the Chinese records you mention? How far back do they go? Are they accepted by the scientific community as authentic? Sounds really interesting to me. Perhaps another example of cultural bias.

I wouldn’t worry too much. There are millions of people who accept what science has discovered and yet their faith has not suffered. There are dozens of churches that see no need to contradict the discoveries of modern science, and yet they have lost neither faithful nor material.

Peter Henderson: I think I have every right to be worried Nigel. It would seem that the YEC’s are gaining the upper hand within Christianity and no-one seems to be able or willing to stop them.

That quote from Lubos is hilarious given his lame efforts to discredit climate science.

That quote from Lubos is hilarious given his lame efforts to discredit climate science.

Nigel, Nice post. Do you happen to have any references for the Chinese records you mention? How far back do they go? Are they accepted by the scientific community as authentic? Sounds really interesting to me. Perhaps another example of cultural bias.

— David Stanton

I think I have every right to be worried Nigel. It would seem that the YEC’s are gaining the upper hand within Christianity and no-one seems to be able or willing to stop them.

— Peter Henderson

At the same time, however, such books demonstrate that YEC’s are much much stronger than evolutionists (including theistic evolutinists) when it comes to addressing creation topics or certain evolutionist objections (such as the “deceiver argument”)from a Biblical standpoint.

— FL

There’s more than YEC’s have to do, there’s more that AIG has to do, there’s more that all non-Darwinists have to do to acheive Long Overdue Paradigm Shift.

But Peter’s prediction of YEC failing, is just so much incorrect, no-good, Sky-Is-Falling rhetoric.

I agree that ID proponents (not IDC’s, scince some of the top ID thinkers are not creationists), are a very small minority.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Our little band of rebels are very appreciative of the international attention the critcs have showered upon the miniscule ID movement. Michael Shermer told me the ID movement has gotten more press than the YECs ever have…

But what the ID proponents lack in terms of money, they more than make up in terms of intellectual talent.

The YECs aren’t there, and until they stop running their organization like churches instead of secular institutions like the Discovery Institute, they won’t be competitive in the market place of ideas, they’ll be viewed as self-blinded dogmatists bent on believing what they want to believe rather than having a reverence for facts….

For YEC to move forward, they need to organize secular think tanks, like a counter part to the Discovery Institute, and then the issue will move forward.

Ironically, the one quasi-secular think tank in YEC, the Baraminology Study Group (BSG) has already made it’s mark on the ID debate when the Baraminology Study Group invited Richard Sternberg (an Old-Earth process structuralist) and Stephen Meyer (an old earth ID proponent) to participate. The BSG is even more miniscule than the DI, and look at the influence they had simply by opening the doors to those who disagreed and to those who weren’t YECs.

If AiG is positioning themselves as some sort of infallible guide to truth, this is not good for YEC or for Christianity. They’re setting themselves up to be the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s of the origins debate (sorry if I offended any Jim and Tammy Faye fans out there).

There is a lot about origins we don’t know.

It’s entirely possible the universe is a lot younger and was specially created.

We could probably put some good arguments to suggest the universe is a lot younger than 13.7 billion years.

They Earth maybe 65 million years, but 10,000 is still very premature.

AiG has shut down the debate on Variable Light Speed cosmology which would actually solve the problem of distant starlight and radio-metric dating.

To learn more, see: www.YoungCosmos.com

So, if you all complain about the AiG ad, I’m not going to protest. YEC needs to be decoupled from it’s religious premises to advance, much like the ID movement is decoupled from religious premises.

That add by AiG acutally weakens the case for believing YEC.

I agree that ID proponents (not IDC’s, scince some of the top ID thinkers are not creationists), are a very small minority.

— Salvador T. Cordova

Our little band of rebels are very appreciative of the international attention the critcs have showered upon the miniscule ID movement. Michael Shermer told me the ID movement has gotten more press than the YECs ever have…

But what the ID proponents lack in terms of money, they more than make up in terms of intellectual talent.

The YECs aren’t there, and until they stop running their organization like churches instead of secular institutions like the Discovery Institute, they won’t be competitive in the market place of ideas, they’ll be viewed as self-blinded dogmatists bent on believing what they want to believe rather than having a reverence for facts….

For YEC to move forward, they need to organize secular think tanks, like a counter part to the Discovery Institute, and then the issue will move forward.

Ironically, the one quasi-secular think tank in YEC, the Baraminology Study Group (BSG) has already made it’s mark on the ID debate when the Baraminology Study Group invited Richard Sternberg (an Old-Earth process structuralist) and Stephen Meyer (an old earth ID proponent) to participate. The BSG is even more miniscule than the DI, and look at the influence they had simply by opening the doors to those who disagreed and to those who weren’t YECs.

If AiG is positioning themselves as some sort of infallible guide to truth, this is not good for YEC or for Christianity. They’re setting themselves up to be the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s of the origins debate (sorry if I offended any Jim and Tammy Faye fans out there).

There is a lot about origins we don’t know.

It’s entirely possible the universe is a lot younger and was specially created.

We could probably put some good arguments to suggest the universe is a lot younger than 13.7 billion years.

They Earth maybe 65 million years, but 10,000 is still very premature.

AiG has shut down the debate on Variable Light Speed cosmology which would actually solve the problem of distant starlight and radio-metric dating.

To learn more, see: www.YoungCosmos.com

So, if you all complain about the AiG ad, I’m not going to protest. YEC needs to be decoupled from it’s religious premises to advance, much like the ID movement is decoupled from religious premises.

That add by AiG acutally weakens the case for believing YEC.

Oops, sorry, I seem to have double-posted that one. The browser window just seized up.

If a mod happens by, please could you delete the surplus post?

Thanks.

It is hard to make a career in science.

We know that the Earth is old (4.3 billion years, or thereabouts).

I often wonder what the AiG speakers with Phds are being payed Nigel. I did read somewhere (it may have been Jim Lippard’s blog) that Snelling was receiving quite a handsome salary from the ICR before joining AiG. It would be interesting to know what AiG offered him. Last I heard, Ken Ham was on as much as a top hospital consultant (private work included) in this country, so it pays to be a young Earth creationist it would seem.

— Peter Henderson

. . . I think the last quoted figure for the age of the Earth is around 4.55 billion years Plus or minus about 5% This figure is obtained from dating meteorites. Lunar samples have been dated to around 4.4 billion years. The oldest terrestrial rocks are around 3.8 billion years and are found in northern Canada and Greenland.

YEC’s do not accept radiometric dating though, claiming the methods are based on fallible assumptions. There’s a very good article on the talkorigins website by G. Brent Dalrymple refuting this and examining various YEC claims on the age of the Earth (not enough salt in the oceans, decay of Earth’s magnetic field etc.)

The very fact that the rocky planetary bodies (Mercury, Mars, The moon, and some of the outer satellites orbiting Jupiter and Saturn etc.) are so heavily covered in impact craters does mean that they are ancient surfaces. I have yet to read an adequate explanation for either Lunar or terrestrial impact craters from the YEC’s (surely this alone should should convince Salvador the Earth is a bit more than 6-10,000 years old ?

65,000,000 years? Why on Earth would somebody pick an arbitrary number somewhere between reality and YEC, one not particularly close to either of them, and then claim it means something? (Yeah, I know, there's no real answer to that question.)

osted by Salvador T. Cordova on August 27, 2007 2:17 PM (e)

In the case of this standard candle, an increase in the speed of light actually makes the object further away.

"No it does not because speed of light decay creates apparent slow motion effects, which negates the calculations Green suggested as such. That’s probably why such arguments got pulled from Talk Origins because it was demonstratably false."

There is no speed of light decay Sal. That is simply an assertion. The Andromeda Galaxy is blueshifted. What now, Sal? Andromeda
has speed of light growth?

There is an additional problem for the “changing speed of light” nonsense which no-one has mentioned so far…..SN 1987a:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Thebes/7755/anci……

"As I pointed out, that analysis was badly flawed. If the speed of light were much faster, then then large distances like 150,000 light years would be traversed in less than 10,000 AND the slow motion effect would prevent the interpretation of “higher speed implies, farther distance”.

And you have no clue. If the speed measured by spectral shifts is the Hubble flow (which it most certainly is for any object more distant than 50Mpsc) and that means red shift, then the greater the red shift the greater the distance. That is Hubble's relation.

"I and others pointed out problems for YEC that are legitimate, but that analysis by Greene is not legitimate. If AiG bougth the argument, then all the more reason to discredit AiG’s “science”.

Even the best critic of CDK cosmology, Dr. G.P. Jellison and Dr. WT Birdgman acknowledges that this analysis by critics of CDK is flawed. To their credit, they offer sound arguments against YEC, not flawed ones such as Greene’s."

There is little problem here. As most YEC crackpots don't understand, that you can't change SOL and not cause
other things to change like the fine structure constant. We can meausre such changes now, and have determined that during the course
of Earth history there hae not been any measurable change in such constants. Of course one could argue that stars and supernova are
lying to us.

Its of little relevance if the speed of light was much greater during the earliest nanoseconds after BB. Interesting, but of no relevance to the age of the earth.

"Do you believe the Big Bang is true?"

Truth is for drunks, mathematicians, expanding earthers and creationists like Sal who don't know any better.

Science deals with testable theories and evidence, Sal, not truth. SO know, I don't believe in BB. This
is not a faith issue. I provisionally accept BB as the the theory that best explains the available data.

I also maintain that the available data resoundly falsifies any notion of an Earth less than billions of years old. It doesn't require any faith on my part to accept BB. It does however require not only faith but an actual aversion to reality to accept that
the age of the Earth can be measured in thousands of years.

YEC is in the same category of flat earthers and the hollow earthers, however much that pains you.

Stuart

I’m not aware of the YECs addressing the cratering of rocky bodies.

YEC is in the same category of flat earthers and the hollow earthers, however much that pains you.

A walk through history via the pages of the Bible – exploring how scripture provides an eye-witness account of the beginning of all things.

That was actually one of my sources. I have found TalkOrigins to be very useful in providing essays that summarise whole fields of evidence, and links to the primary literature.

Peter Henderson: I am at a loss as to how scientists can convince Christians that they have nothing to fear from science and everything to fear if this were to happen: http://www.answersingenesis.org/aftereden/view.aspx?id=207

The problem with most folks on the other side of creation is that you can't decipher the simple vocabularic difference in Science (Facts conceived by observational studies) verse Evolution (A man conceived theory using science to support its validity).

Evolution "science" much like Christian "science" both have discrepencies and contrasts from one study to the next.

the study of science is a man conceived and fallible process.

The margin of errors alone found in most research and laboratory work would never stand a chance if evolution were to be put before a court of law and tried based off of the evidence there in.

He and many others [. . .] agree that while science and the conclusions are more than not too close for dispute, he also says it's those fundamental concepts of which theories are produced that when can't be completely determined, must be thrown out and re-analyzed.

. . your evolutionary theory that there is no God

even science agrees we as humans havent yet tapped into the full potential of the human brain. . . Why would we evolve into something so complex and vast that we ourselves can't even make use of it?

After reading through these comments, I find it sad that we put so much emphasis on our own intellect and understanding. Everyone truly has become their own god. Evolution vs. Creationism simply comes down to this:

"If you acknowledged that everything was created by a Creator, then logically you'd be indebted to the Creator for creating you, but if everything was left to chance as with Evolution, then their is no Creator and you're not indebted to anyone but yourself and your own world view."

Somebody wrote:

"The margin of errors alone found in most research and laboratory work would never stand a chance if evolution were to be put before a court of law and tried based off of the evidence there in."

Of yea, the old "It's all a conspiracy and all you evil scientists are in on it" routine. Well, just exactly who do you think does the statistical analysis in order to determine the significance of the laboratory results? Exactly who do you think it is they are trying to convince? If any scientists publishes anything anywhere in the peer-reviewed literature, it is subjected to intense scrutiny by reviewers and after it is published, anyone can criticize it. If there is no statistical support for the conclusions they will never be published and even if they are the paper will most likely have to be retracted. How many papers have you written rebuttal articles against? How many papers have you proven were statistically inadequate? If they are all so flawed and you can prove it, you should have no trouble convincing anyone who knows anything about statistics. Either that or you are just makng stuff up about things you know nothing about.

Now creationists on the other hand generally don't go through any review process. They can publish anything they want no matter how flawed. Of course they then get taken down by real scientists who point out the flaws for who wish all to see. Just check out the thread on Unacknowledged Errors to see how shoddy the "scholarship" of creationists can be.

As for standing up in a court of law, the record so far is evolution 12 and creationism 1 (depending on exactly what you count, with the one win for creationism coming in 1925). Courts do not decide what is scientifically valid. And even if they somehow did, they would still depend on expert witnesses, i.e. scientists. An appeal to a court to decide an issue of science is simply ludicrous. That is the strategy used by creationists who know they don't have a scientific leg to stand on.

If what AIG says is a lie, why are you so afraid of it? You have hundreds of other museums promoting your view. I finally have one that supports mine.

If what AIG says is a lie, why are you so afraid of it?

Because lies, and liars, can do a lot of harm when left to their own devices.

If your spouse cheated on you, then lied about it, and then said "If what I say is a lie, why are you so afraid of it?" what would be your response?

You have hundreds of other museums promoting your view. I finally have one that supports mine.

So now you admit that creationism is a "view," not a fact?

Stuart Weinstein: There is little problem here. As most YEC crackpots don't understand, that you can't change SOL and not cause other things to change like the fine structure constant.

Have you noticed that you’re still coming from a naturalistic worldview? If there is an all-powerful God, then He doesn;t have to follow the laws of physics, which He laid down in the first place.

Glen Davidson: But we do have to follow them, and we have to understand the world through them.

we're not denying that God could exist or operate outside of our laws, we're only denying that this has been discovered to be the case through science.

I only expect you to keep trolling, m-m-me.

Glen D

http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah......Blah, blah.

About the best evidence for a young earth would
be the radioisotope polonium-214 shown by physisist
Robert Gentry. Does anyone think that would support
a young earth?

Why shouldn't Taxpayers money be used to promote and alternative theory. After all they promote the tenets of fundamental scientism which are accepted fact by many scientist. They are unprovable assumptions of educated guesswork and extrapolations but they are believed as articles of FAITH none the less.

Oh, lor', now we've gone beyond Darwinism - now we're being accused of "scientism". And what would that be, Raymond, old chap?

Going on the Latin root, it sounds like the doctrine that knowledge is a good idea. This is obviously unprovable, because the world is full of people who prosper while remaining happily ignorant. Ignorance is so much more convenient, after all. It allows one so much more freedom of action. One can, for example, drive by ancient comment threads on science blogs and babble nonsense without the slightest embarrassment. Not knowing what a fool one sounds is so much better, don't you agree?

When the Roman CC treats you as dark age minded cave dwellers without mental merit
That's about as dumb as it gets
(as a Doorknob, as Dog S..t etc ...)

Many in the U.S simply feel we need to keep their foolish ideas as far away from our Govt/Laws as possible & Just sort of Ignore them as many are " Beyond Hope "

But in the USA our dumb ed down "for Profit" media will continue codling these folks until
half of our damn population are dim witted asshats!
Goo Gaa Gaa idt ok boo be baby boo
evewee we one entitled to own opinion
(& facts ?)you do ndt need dat sily willie sciwence.
- This is what you get when you allow a nations news media to be run like a "Business" & not a necessary key fixture of The US Democracy ( as it has always been !)
Sensationalist Garbage News & tabloid poo that happily plays along to Idiot movements such as this are easy to tone down but it costs a little money !

= You Take the Profit motive Out 100% OUT
Just like we did for 100's of yrs with a few key subsidized & partnered media outlets operated as Loss Leaders ie: With their only Goal being to provide the public with .....
THE TRUTH.
END OF STORY.
You could create a sort of 'Real Seal' for Real News Content
& if necessary you have to let the cry babies at FOX & related political party owned Media eat crap & just cry !
Sacrifice a few so called liberal news outlets as well to make Fox & ruperthead Cry Less (doubtful but hey)

But this is something so important, that if ignored It will Grow like black mold until we are a nation of zombie idiots drooling on ourselves while Europe & other free nations watch half scared s.itless & half Laughing their asses off.