@Eddie: So Sean, when exactly did the ice ages occur? …

Comment on An apology to PUC by Sean Pitman.

@Eddie:

So Sean, when exactly did the ice ages occur? How long was it between the end of the flood and the onset of the first ice age, during which all those slow-poke plants (e.g., liverworts and hornworts) and animals (forgot to mention millipedes, centipedes, scorpions and freshwater minnows) had to dash across Beringia en route to South America before freezing to death? Was there only one ice age or were there multiple ice ages? How much rain would it have taken for ice to accumulate up to 2 miles deep (that’s right, up to 10,500 feet in Greenland) since the flood?

There is good evidence that there were no polar ice caps and that it was quite warm after the Flood for at least 500 years… long enough for millions of mammoths to establish themselves, along with those of many other types of warmer weather animals such as the horse, lion, tiger, leopard, bear, antelope, camel, reindeer, giant beaver, musk sheep, musk ox, donkey, ibex, badger, fox, wolverine, voles, squirrels, bison, rabbit and lynx as well as a host of temperate plants within the Arctic Circle – along the same latitudes as Greenland all around the globe.

After this time, there was a sudden ice age that trapped millions of these creatures within a single season, killing millions of them and preserving their remains, all jumbled up together. The world was a really different place within recent history. It was a much much warmer and wetter place. Even within the Arctic Circle it was warm. Large fruit-bearing trees grew there and a great abundance of animal life was supported which cannot now exist there. Yet, for some reason, even though the Greenland ice sheets are melting right now at a rate of over 250 cubic kilometers per year, scientists somehow believe that these ice sheets survived the Hypsithermal period? – a warm period some 2 degrees Celsius hotter (global average) than it is today? – and lasting until the time the Egyptians were building their pyramids? Based on what? How could everything around the same latitudes as Greenland be warm and lush, and Greenland remain covered with ice? You explain that to me…

Not even Erv Taylor and the 99.9% of scientists that agree with him have been able to explain that one away…

http://www.detectingdesign.com/ancientice.html#The%20Warm%20Age

Also, who said that plants had to migrate? Plants, or their seeds, could have survived outside of the Ark. You keep forgetting that only the land animals with “nostrils” needed to be saved on the Ark to avoid complete destruction by the Flood.

You also forget that the Earth isn’t that big of a place. Even small insects and amphibians can migrate very rapidly given the appropriate conditions and sources of food. Right after the Flood, the warm wet climate would have yielded abundant food for hundreds of years. The continents would not have been nearly as widely separated as they are today. There would have been many more land bridges. Even after the ice ages hit, there would have been more land bridges than there are today due to a significant reduction in ocean level.

As far as the thickness of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets in particular, ice can form very rapidly over very short periods of time. Even today, a period of relatively decreased moisture, dozens of snow storms can hit Greenland in a single season. Along the coasts where moisture is greater and more storms arise, snow can be deposited hundreds of feet thick within 50 years (this is actually documented by the team that search for a recovered a WWII era plane dubbed “Glacier Girl” from deep within the ice sheets of Greenland). How then do you come to the conclusion that the present thickness of these ice sheets is some great mystery from the biblical perspective?

I short, I really don’t see animal migration or current biogeographic distributions or thickness of modern ice sheets as the huge problems for the credibility of a worldwide Noachian Flood that you and others imagine them to be…

Sorry if I seem inquisitive but I’m merely asking some simple questions which I’m confident you’ll have answers for, buttressed of course by overwhelming scientific evidence validating your views. After all, you have spent much more time studying all of this stuff than I have–and my faith just might hinge on your answers.

There’s a difference between having a reasonable faith or belief in the existence of some kind of God or God-like power in the universe and having a rational faith in the credibility of the Bible in particular – vs. other “good books” like the Book of Mormon or the Qur’an. If someone where to ask you why you believe the Bible to be somehow superior or to reveal more privileged information than any other book on God, what would you say? What are your reasons?

I’m sorry, but a response that “I just have faith” just wouldn’t do it for me. Personal faith that is not based on generally available empirical evidence might be fine and good for the one who has faith, but how does that help those outside of yourself? What “reasons” can you offer them that would have general appeal?

The reason most people find “science” so powerful as a basis of faith is because it appeals to generally available empirical evidence. That is a very powerful appeal to the rational mind. We, as Christians who believe in the credibility of the Bible should take advantage of this. We should also be able to appeal to the weight of empirical evidence. After all, this is exactly what the Biblical authors do in their own support of the authority of the Scriptures. Jesus is reported as doing the same thing – appealing to empirical evidence to support his metaphysical claims…

In short, faith in the metaphysical is not rational if it is not and cannot be rooted in the physical realm… in empirical reality.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com

Sean Pitman Also Commented

An apology to PUC
@Anon MD:

I am disturbed by much of what I read here. According to Educate Truth’s new policies, professors can no longer teach faith; they can only teach what the “evidence” allows. Professors can no longer teach both sides and allow the student to form their own opinion; they must believe and teach that the weight of evidence supports their views. Professors can no longer teach their conscience; fear of being subjected to public humiliation will hereafter dictate what they teach. Surely Ellen White would roll over in her grave if she learned of the new fear-based pedagogical approach that is slowly taking over our institutions. Good work, Educate Truth!

Have you not read about the time when Mrs. White publicly addressed the Church body telling everyone to avoid sending their children to Battle Creek College because of their promotion of ideas which were not in harmony with the goal and mission of the Church? “In God’s word alone,” she wrote, “we find an authentic account of creation” (5 Test., 25). She displayed a willingness to both publicly rebuke the leadership of the college and to warn church members of the problems at the College. “We can give,” she memorably warned, “no encouragement to parents to send their children to Battle Creek College” (5 Test., 21). She proposed that if the College was not returned to the Biblical-centered model, that the church should “sell it out to worldlings” and “establish another school” upon the “plan which God has specified” (5 Test., 25-26). – Link

Also, have you not read the GC’s request of educators when it comes to what the Church, as an organization, expects its teachers to actually teach? The following is from the 2004 Executive Committee of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists:

We call on all boards and educators at Seventh-day Adventist institutions at all levels to continue upholding and advocating the church’s position on origins. We, along with Seventh-day Adventist parents, expect students to receive a thorough, balanced, and scientifically rigorous exposure to and affirmation of our historic belief in a literal, recent six-day creation, even as they are educated to understand and assess competing philosophies of origins that dominate scientific discussion in the contemporary world.

http://adventist.org/beliefs/statements/main-stat55.html

This sentiment and request was backed up at the most recent GC session in Atlanta. And, the Church has also decided to make more specific the wording of FB#6 on its creation doctrine – in order to make it very clear that the Church, as an organization, believes in a literal 6-day creation week and worldwide Noachian Flood.

Now, you can call such a position “extreme” all you want, but the Church seems to know that hiring teachers to tell our young people that the weight of scientific evidence is against us is quite counterproductive to the Church’s goals and ideals…

Regardless, at the very least, people have a right to know and to choose if such an education is in fact what they want for their own children…

Sean Pitman
http://www.DetectingDesign.com


An apology to PUC
@Ervin Taylor:

There are probably a number of retired Adventist scientists who would relish the idea of writing a review of any book that Sean would write. Although I obviously can’t speak for the current editor, I’m reasonably confident that Adventist Today would be very interested in publishing reviews of that book. If someone still working for an Adventist college or university might have some reticence in putting their name on their review, I would think that an appropriate arrangement could be made.

I have actually written and self-published a little book this year, “Turtles All the Way Down – Questions on Origins”. It can be ordered from my website using PayPal or from Amazon (a bit cheaper from my website). And, by all means, you are welcome to review it if you so wish…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


An apology to PUC
@ken:

Dear Bob

Are you saying that all variations of a single genome must have the same number of chromosomes?

The same functional type of gene pool can have different numbers of chromosomes. For example, horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes while donkeys have only 31 pairs. Yet, they can mate and produce viable offspring (i.e., mules and hinnies). Therefore, they are part of the same functional gene pool of underlying genetic options.

For a further discussion of having the same basic type of functional information in different chromosomal arrangements or places, see:

http://www.detectingdesign.com/donkeyshorsesmules.html

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Recent Comments by Sean Pitman

Science and Methodological Naturalism
Very interesting passage. After all, if scientists are honest with themselves, scientific methodologies are well-able to detect the existence of intelligent design behind various artifacts found in nature. It’s just the personal philosophy of scientists that makes them put living things and the origin of the fine-tuned universe “out of bounds” when it comes to the detection of intelligent design. This conclusion simply isn’t dictated by science itself, but by a philosophical position, a type of religion actually, that strives to block the Divine Foot from getting into the door…


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Why is it that creationists are afraid to acknowledge the validity of Darwinism in these settings? I don’t see that these threaten a belief in God in any way whatsoever.

The threat is when you see no limitations to natural mindless mechanisms – where you attribute everything to the creative power of nature instead of to the God of nature.

God has created natural laws that can do some pretty amazing things. However, these natural laws are not infinite in creative potential. Their abilities are finite while only God is truly infinite.

The detection of these limitations allows us to recognize the need for the input of higher-level intelligence and creative power that goes well beyond what nature alone can achieve. It is here that the Signature of God is detectable.

For those who only hold a naturalistic view of the universe, everything is attributed to the mindless laws of nature… so that the Signature of God is obscured. Nothing is left that tells them, “Only God or some God-like intelligent mind could have done this.”

That’s the problem when you do not recognize any specific limitations to the tools that God has created – when you do not recognize the limits of nature and what natural laws can achieve all by themselves.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Bill Sorensen:

Since the fall of Adam, Sean, all babies are born in sin and they are sinners. God created them. Even if it was by way of cooperation of natural law as human beings also participated in the creation process.

God did not create the broken condition of any human baby – neither the physical or moral brokenness of any human being. God is responsible for every good thing, to include the spark or breath of life within each one of us. However, He did not and does not create those things within us that are broken or bad.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?'” Matthew 13:27-28

Of course, all humans are indeed born broken and are in a natural state of rebellion against God. However, God is not the one who created this condition nor is God responsible for any baby being born with any kind of defect in character, personality, moral tendency, or physical or genetic abnormality. God did not create anyone with such brokenness. Such were the natural result of rebellion against God and heading the temptations of the “enemy”… the natural result of a separation from God with the inevitable decay in physical, mental, and moral strength.

Of course, the ones who are born broken are not responsible for their broken condition either. However, all of us are morally responsible for choosing to reject the gift of Divine Grace once it is appreciated… and for choosing to go against what we all have been given to know, internally, of moral truth. In other words, we are responsible for rebelling against the Royal Law written on the hearts of all mankind.

This is because God has maintained in us the power to be truly free moral agents in that we maintain the Power to choose, as a gift of God (Genesis 3:15). We can choose to accept or reject the call of the Royal Law, as the Holy Spirit speaks to all of our hearts…

Remember the statement by Mrs. White that God is in no wise responsible for sin in anyone at any time. God is working to fix our broken condition. He did not and does not create our broken condition. Just as He does not cause Babies to be born with painful and lethal genetic defects, such as those that result in childhood leukemia, He does not cause Babies to be born with defects of moral character either. God is only directly responsible for the good, never the evil, of this life.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Revisiting God, Sky & Land by Fritz Guy and Brian Bull
@Ron:

Again, your all-or-nothing approach to the claims of scientists isn’t very scientific. Even the best and most famous of scientists has had numerous hair-brained ideas that were completely off base. This fact does not undermine the good discoveries and inventions that were produced.

Scientific credibility isn’t based on the person making the argument, but upon the merits of the argument itself – the ability of the hypothesis to gain predictive value when tested. That’s it.

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com


Gary Gilbert, Spectrum, and Pseudogenes
Don’t be so obtuse here. We’re not talking about publishing just anything in mainstream journals. I’ve published several articles myself. We’re talking about publishing the conclusion that intelligent design was clearly involved with the origin of various artifactual features of living things on this planet. Try getting a paper that mentions such a conclusion published…

Sean Pitman
www.DetectingDesign.com