Bob “in Christ” Ryan repeatedly mocks evolutionists for perpetuating pet …

Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by Eddie.

Bob “in Christ” Ryan repeatedly mocks evolutionists for perpetuating pet theories by fraudulent hoaxes. I hope most of you reading this would agree that Christians should extend to evolutionists the same degree of courtesy and respect that we expect from them. Many are undeniably honest–despite inherent biases, which we also have–in collecting, analyzing and interpreting data.

Unfortunately creationists have also been guilty of perpetuating hoaxes or carelessly sampling and interpreting data. A classic example is the “human” footprints found among those of dinosaurs along the Paluxy River in Texas. Some of the very creationists responsible for widely publicizing the tracks as human later admitted they misidentified dinosaur tracks. Some of the human tracks were apparently faked, as demonstrated by a certain SDA biology professor at SWAU who cross-sectioned a “human” track in the museum at Columbia Union College.

Another SDA scientist once published claims of finding pollen from flowering plants in Cambrian (rocks from the Grand Canyon, only to be later debunked by the same SDA biology professer at SWAU who revealed that the original samples had been contaminated by modern pollen.

More notoriously, an amateur SDA archaelogist (now deceased) claimed to have found the original Ark of the Covenant and held the original ten commandments, which were held together by gold hinges, in his hands. He claimed to have obtained samples of the blood of Jesus which had dripped onto the Mercy Seat and analyzed it in a lab, which confirmed that the blood of Jesus had 24 chromosomes: 23 from Mary and 1 from the Holy Spirit. I apologize if I have offended anybody who sincerely believes these claims, but I would like to see the empirical scientific evidence supporting his claims before accepting them.

Eddie Also Commented

Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’

such chemical preservatives do not overcome the predictions of kinetic chemistry which would still predict a maximum lifespan of these soft tissues of less than 100k years.

It’s ironic–but not particularly suprising–that Sean confidently accepts the accuracy of the predictions of kinetic chemistry in the maximum amount of time it takes for soft tissues to mineralize, but not in any other method of dating that results in any material being older than 10,000 years.


Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@ Sean:

If the SDA Church expected science teachers to tell our students that the SDA position is scientifically untenable, that the best we have is empirically-blind faith to rely on, that’s what they would have said. But, the Church didn’t say that. They said that they expected a scientifically rigorous defense of the Church’s position on origins to be presented in its own schools…

@ Sean:

I agree that professors should present creationism in the best possible light and to provide as much scientific evidence as possible, but it remains unjustifiable for you–and apparently you alone–to insist those of us who interpret the Bible the same way you do but interpret science differently are not fit to teach in a SDA school. It is unjustifiable for you to imply that we are less faithful to the SDA church and undermining the church simply on the basis of how we interpret science.

The strongest evidence for long ages in the history of Earth and life on Earth comes from radiometric dating. Numerous techniques have been developed and tens of thousands of studies have been published. Virtually all point toward ages much longer than what the scriptures imply (although the Bible never states when the creation week or flood occurred). All you can do is point out flaws in the assumptions and methodology of the research. The best you can do is toss out the data as unreliable–and I honestly hope that you are right. However, you cannot–I repeat–you cannot argue that the flaws in assumptions and methodology of radiometric dating provide empirical evidence supporting the Biblical account of creation. You cannot expect me to stand in front of students and honestly tell them that the weight of empirical scientific evidence of radiometric dating supports the presence of life on Earth for only 6,000 years. If that’s what you want to believe, I’m happy for you, but I don’t see it that way. I totally agree with you that there are other forms of evidence supporting a short chronology, and like you I want to belive that those forms of evidence are more reliable than radiometric dating. But there is no getting around the fact that the evidence from radiometric dating, which provides the strongest evidence for a long chronology, does not support a short chronology.

The strongest evidence for megaevolution comes from the fossil record, not similarity in DNA sequences (which could be created by design). If human and whale bones were mixed in with those of dinosaurs and trilobites, I would agree with you that the weight of empirical scientific evidence favors the creation of modern life forms within a short period of time. However, you know just as well as I do that human fossils appear only near the top of the fossil record, and that whales do not appear until after the dinosaurs and trilobites are extinct. And that the fossil record shows an apparent progression of primitive to complex organisms. The best you can do is point out irregularities in the fossil record, such as the Cambrian explosion and unexpected sequence problems in megaevolutionary transitions (e.g., fish-amphibian transition), and attempt to attribute the apparent sequence of primitieve to advanced organisms to ecological zonation. Just like you I see problems with megaevolutionary theory, but those problems do not–I repeat, do not–provide evidence that humans were created within a few days of trilobites. You cannot expect me to stand in front of students and tell them that the weight of empirical scientific evidence from the fossil record favors the creation of humans and other complex organisms within a few days of the most primitive organisms. If you believe it does, I am happy for you. But I am not going to lie on your behalf in the classroom–and the SDA church is not demanding that I do so.


Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@ Sean:

And no, professors do not own the right to attack the SDA Church, on the Church’s dime, without the Church membership knowing about it.

Informing the church membership and inciting the church membership are two very different things. There are discrete ways in which the church can be informed without inciting harsh judgement and condemnation. I’m really glad that the General Conference, Geoscience Research Institute, Amazing Facts, and other respectable church entities have not resorted to exposing heretics at their websites and inviting church members to rebuke them.


Recent Comments by Eddie

Changing the Wording of Adventist Fundamental Belief #6 on Creation

SDA Bio Prof: The Bible makes multiple falsifiable prophecies about Nebuchadnezzar conquering Egypt, yet history never records it happening. Does this mean the Bible is effectively falsified?

Sean Pitman: Egyptians had a strong tendency not to record their losses… only their victories.

Sean, does that mean YOU personally believe Babylon conquered Egypt, just as predicted by two prophets? In the absence of any empirical evidence? If the Egyptians didn’t record their losses, why wouldn’t the Babylonians have recorded such a stunning victory?


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

Holly Pham: One of the things that has always concerned me is that, according to what I’ve read, birds and reptiles have completely different forms of respiratory systems (flow-through vs. bellows) How is this explained by evolutionists?

Evidence from the vertebrae of non-avian theropod dinosaurs suggests that they, too, possessed unidirectional flow-through ventilation of the lungs. So, according to evolutionary theory, it evolved first in “primitive” non-avian theropods rather than in birds, and comprises one of many shared derived characters supposedly linking birds with more “advanced” theropods. However, I don’t think there is any evidence or even a hypothesis for a step-by-step process of HOW it evolved. Here is a reference:

http://www.ohio.edu/people/ridgely/OconnorClaessensairsacs.pdf


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit
@Bob Helm: Bob, if you send me an e-mail at sdabioprof2@gmail.com I will send you a pdf file of a 1991 article published by Chatterjee in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 332:277-342, titled “Cranial anatomy and relationships of a new Triassic bird from Texas.”

Curiously his description is based only on cranial anatomy. I don’t think he ever published an analysis of its postcranial anatomy.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Eddie, ecological zonation will yield the same basic order that you’re pointing to: invertebrates appear before vertebrates; fish appear before amphibians; amphibians appear before reptiles; reptiles appear before mammals; reptiles appear before birds, etc.

It could, and it’s the best creationist explanation, but it doesn’t explain why flowering plants were absent from lowland forests. Or why so many land plants appeared before mangroves, which today occur strictly in the intertidal zone. Or why no pre-flood humans have been found. Or, if Sean is correct that the flood ended at the K-T boundary, why many modern groups of birds and mammals (including marine mammals) which first appear during the Tertiary were not buried by the flood.

David Read: The fact that something appears before something else in the fossil record is not proof than anything evolved into anything else.

True.

David Read: You seem to be complaining that God has not made the fossil evidence compulsory, i.e., so clear that no reasonable person can possibly doubt it. And if God hasn’t made the evidence skeptic-proof, then the skeptic is God’s fault, God is responsible for the skeptic.

I’m not complaining. I’m merely pointing out that the evidence can be interpreted in different ways by honest people. And I’m relieved to see that even you don’t think the evidence is crystal clear.

David Read: Only people of faith can be saved, that is, only people who are willing to trust God and put away doubts can be saved.

I agree.


Southern Adventist University opens Origins Exhibit

David Read: Those tracks are so obviously bird tracks that the fact that some scientists want to assign them to “birdlike theropods” is itself a very useful teaching tool as to how the model creates the data.

David Read: That the model actually creates the data is one of the hardest concepts to get across, not only to lay people but even to the scientists themselves.

How does the model affect the data? Data don’t change and they shouldn’t change. It’s the interpretation, not the data, that is affected by the model.