Recently in Bible as Science Category

LEO Weekly, an alternative weekly published in Louisville, Kentucky, reports that fundraising for the Ark Park has gone virtually nowhere since last May. Groundbreaking, if it was ever planned at all, has been postponed and postponed and postponed until next spring at the earliest.

LEO Weekly reports that the Ark Park has raised only about $1 million since last May and has raised a total of $4 million altogether. Its goal is to raise approximately $25 million. A representative of the Ark Park says, “Funding is progressing, a little slower [sic] due to the very slow economy.” He says further that they are 3-4 months behind schedule and adds, “We are considering a few options to help speed up the construction and possibly open to guests earlier than our original schedule. Once we have more information developed I’ll update you – probably by the first of the year.” LEO Weekly estimates that at the present rate groundbreaking might be scheduled for 2024.

My own estimate is that their timescale is skewed by their belief that the Earth is around 5000 years old. It is in fact more like 5 billion years old. Thus, if we take 3-4 months and multiply it by the ratio of 5 billion years to 5000 years, we estimate that the groundbreaking ceremony will take place in 3 million months, or 250,000 years.

Anyone who wonders where the money may be going in the meantime might consider the review by a volunteer named Roxy, posted at Charity Navigator. Additionally, comments to the LEO article claim that the Ark Park itself is a for-profit venture, but the Ark Encounter Website is not completely clear (to me, at least), and I cannot independently verify the claims. I cannot, however, find Ark Encounter in IRS Publication 78 .

Looks like the cartoonist Wiley Miller has started a series of strips on teaching the “controversy.” He’s got the age of the dinosaurs wrong, and carbon dating does not work that far back anyway, but, hell, the strip is called Non Sequitur. The money quote so far is, “Um, just as an F.Y.I., saying ‘facts’ would be a lot less offensive if you used air-quotes.”

The fact that the winner of the Miss USA competition (Miss California, yay) supported evolution, whereas most of the other contestants did not, has gotten a lot of attention in the newspapers and blogs. But I’m not sure how many people have actually watched the answers that the Miss USA contestants gave to the evolution question. Here it is:

I haven’t watched every last answer yet – gotta go to post-Evolution 2011 bar-hopping – but I wasn’t amazingly impressed with even Miss California’s answer (she is at 1:52 if you want to skip there). Sure, she says she’s a science geek (and she used the words “history geek” in answer to another question…good line I guess), and supports evolution. And unlike most responses she doesn’t do a “yes, teach evolution, but teach both sides” sort of answer. But I guess it would asking too much for one of the contestants to say, “Actually, I’m a [scientific field] major and I know that evolution is the central organizing theory of biology, and everyone should learn it as part of a complete basic science education.”

Anyway, it is educational for us evonerds and academics to watch the video. The answers are closer to the kinds of default answers you get when journalists spring the evolution question on politicians. The Miss USA contestants are much closer to where the general American public is at than we are.

PS: Lauren Carter, Vermont, at 13:20 has the only decent answer I’ve heard on this video.

Hat tip: My friend Ashley Eden, who’s awesomer than this whole collection put together.

Most of our readers are no doubt aware of the recent near-expulsion of William A. Dembski from the ranks of true believers. This story in the Florida Baptist Witness covered it in some detail. The basics:

1. Dembski, now a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an apologetics book in which he suggested that one can reconcile an old earth with the initiation of natural evil by a literal Fall of a real pair, Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden in the recent (~6,000 years) past by positing that the Fall echoed backward in time to tarnish all 4.5 billion years of earth’s history (or some such blather). Dembski mentioned en passant that Da Flood was probably a local event, not a global deluge.

2. Dembski was criticized for his apparent old earthism and deference to actual science in a book review by a faculty member at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dembski’s former employer.

3. After some to-ing and fro-ing involving (among others) the Presidents of the two seminaries, both of them young earthers, Dembski issued a clarification reiterating his belief in an inerrant Bible, etc., etc.

One thing I found of interest in this tempest in a theological teapot was Dembski’s comment on his treatment the local/global flood issue. He was quoted as writing

“In a brief section [of his book] on Genesis 4-11, I weigh in on the Flood, raising questions about its universality, without adequate study or reflection on my part,” Dembski wrote. “Before I write on this topic again, I have much exegetical, historical, and theological work to do.”

Um, Bill? You might consider that you have much geological work to do. After all, a putative global flood is geological event and geologists have been gathering relevant data for, oh, say, three centuries or so. And this is all about the science, isn’t it?

I’ve said in several venues that should the theocrats win, the next day blood will flow down the aisles and under the pews (one hopes only metaphorically, though that’s by no means guaranteed). We see that metaphor scenario playing out in a number of venues in contemporary Christianity. Ken Ham rails against theistic evolution, arguing that its acceptance of an old earth/universe erodes the authority of scripture, and now Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (William Dembski’s former employer), all but accuses Francis Collins’ BioLogos Forum of apostasy (or so Darrell Falk interprets it) on much the same grounds, while endorsing the venerable appearance of age notion to account for the data of physics, geology, paleontology, and evolutionary biology.

More below the fold

I think sometimes academics and bloggers who oppose creationists don’t really fully get the cultural and emotional context that the creationists are living in. You need to watch this May 20^th episode of TBN’s “Praise the Lord”, devoted to creationism. Featured interviewees include Sean McDowell (son of Josh), Eric Hovind (son of Kent), Hugh Ross, Ray Comfort…and well-known non-creationist, Stephen Meyer. But the first 15 minutes of the show gives you some idea of just how far this is from being an academic issue.

Thursday May 20, 2010 Paul Crouch, Jr. hosts “Creation, Evolution and God In Science Night” with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, Eric Hovind, Sean McDowell, Greg Koukl, Ray Comfort, Dr. Hugh Ross, Doug Phillips in Costa Mesa, CA.

In the beginning of years, when the world was so new and all, and the Animals were just beginning to work for Man, the Lord created the Reptile. And the Lord, for a lark, covered the earth with a blue dome that stretched from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. And the dome caused the humidity to rise and the plants to grow without limit. And the Reptiles ate of the abundant plants and were fruitful and multiplied and every moving thing that lived was meat for them. And terrible Lizards grew to gigantic proportions and drove Man to the edges of the earth, to the wilderness of Zin, where the humidity was low. And the Lord saw that the dome was not so good and became wroth with himself and said oops. And the Lord removed the dome, and the Lizards died (save those that were covered with feathers). And Man was fruitful and multiplied and colonized the earth, and every moving thing that lived was meat for him (except for the Pig). And God said let the sky be blue* as a token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations.

* It is not known whether God made the sky blue at the same time as he made the rainbow.

Dedication. I dedicate this essay to Robert Byers.

How did all those “kinds” of animals survive aboard the Ark during Noah’s Flood? Ken Ham has a novel answer. See below the fold.

That is the title of an article to be published in The International Journal of Cardiology, a presumably reputable journal published by Elsevier. Avijit Roy, the editor of the pro-science website Mukto-Mona, published in both Bengali and English, takes Elsevier to task on Talk Reason here.

Via John Pieret’s excellent Thoughts in a Haystack blog I learn of an ongoing controversy about the teaching of evolution at Adventist Universities. (See also this Sept. 1 article from Inside Higher Ed.) The latest event is that the board of trustess of La Sierra University in Riverside, California, voted to endorse young-earth creationism:

La Sierra’s board of trustees last week unanimously voted to endorse Adventist beliefs that the world was created in six 24-hour days and said the teaching of evolution must be “within the context of the Adventist belief regarding creation.”

The board also proposed that all 15 North American Adventist universities develop a curriculum that includes a “scientifically rigorous affirmation” of Adventist creation beliefs.

At first glance, it is confusing that this is news. Those of us who are familiar with the history of creationism and have read Ronald Numbers’ classic The Creationists, and learned that the Seventh-Day Adventists were virtually the only fundamentalists who produced major advocates supporting belief in a young earth and global flood in the early 20^th century – based on the literalist visions of Adventist founder and prophetess Ellen White. It was only in the 1960s that the young-earth/global view became dominant within American fundamentalism/conservative evangelicalism in general, primarily through the efforts of Henry Morris and John Whitcomb in The Genesis Flood.

Answers in Genesis is gearing up for a science fair in February 2009 2010. The rules are here. Note that they are parasitic on the Intel Science and Engineering guidelines with two minor exceptions:

3, All projects should be clearly aligned with a biblical principle from a passage or verse.

The student should be able to explain why the verse or passage selected relates to their project. (Students should read the article “God and Natural Law” by Dr. Jason Lisle for an explanation of this concept.)

* Students should consider the context of the verse(s) they are using.

* The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic (e.g., Scripture does not directly address radio waves), but may simply relate the project to the Creator of the universe.

* Students should read the article “God and Natural Law.”

and

4. Students should be able, with a clear conscience, to sign the AiG Statement of Faith, which upholds the belief in the creation of the universe in six, twenty-four-hour days about 6,000 years ago by the Creator God as revealed in the Bible.

Translation of the “The verse chosen does not have to directly apply to the project topic” is “However my experiment came out, God did it.”

If it weren’t so hot and I weren’t so tired I’d get indignant. But mostly I’m sad: Those kids don’t have a chance. This is part of Ken Ham’s solution to the Already Gone problem he sees: The abandonment of fundamentalism by young people whose doubts start in middle school and high school. Ham’s solution is simple: Lie to them earlier and more often. Pity he isn’t self-aware enough to realize that those doubts begin to arise when kids learn that Ham and their pastor have been lying to them. And that’s the counter to the Hamster: Let ‘em know they’re being lied to in the plainest possible terms.

Hat tip to Dan Phelps.

Anyone who thinks it’s worthwhile debating creationists should listen to this podcast of a recent radio ‘debate’ between Michael Schermer of Skeptic Magazine and Eric Hovind, offspring of Kent Hovind. Hovind’s arguments show up a lot out in the boonies and his videos are circulated among fundamentalist congregations. One was in a backpack in John Freshwater’s middle school science classroom in the spring of 2007. If you are involved in these kinds of discussions you must know the arguments that are used, bizarre though they may seem and as irony meter threatening as they are. (The management recommends the Line Noise Laboratories Mark V Excelsior with the new optional emergency override capability for extreme situations.)

Last month I was a judge at a regional science fair for middle- and high-school students, and it was great to see aisle after aisle of smart and hard-working kids doing interesting and careful science. A few weeks later, at a Science Cafe where I was presenting, I had the chance to talk with (and coach a little) two of them who are going to nationals. Those kids are bright shining examples of what we want public education to produce.

On the other hand, there’s the creation science fair. PZ has recently posted on a creation science fair in Minnesota, but now they’re going big time: Ken Ham’s Creation Museum is hosting one next year. (Added in edit: I see PZ has posted on this one already this morning, too.)

There’s a catch, however: In order to enter, kids have to agree with AIG’s Statement of Faith.

Remember the movie “Expelled” which ‘argued’ how ID Creationists were somehow punished for their beliefs? I wonder what the producers of this movie think of this somewhat disturbing piece by Tom Willis in CSA (Creation Science Association for Mid-America)?

Tom Willis Wrote:

Everywhere the subject of origins is discussed, evolutionists routinely, yea, systematically, denounce creationists as some combination of stupid, ignorant, and… dangerous. If we recall there are two major methods men make momentous decisions: empirical and theoretical. I intend to show in a brief space that belief in evolution requires, at minimum, deep delusion allowing one to believe, or pretend to believe, in a manifestly impossible historical scenario. And it leads, both empirically and theoretically, to grotesquely harmful results in every society in which evolutionists are allowed to have a major influence, including our own.

And “Expelled” believes that ID Creationists face problems?

The Louisiana Coalition for Science has released a press release calling for the Senate to reject the creationist bill approved by the Louisiana House

New group stands up for sound science education in Louisiana

LA Coalition for Science decries House support for SB 733, calls for Senate to reject bill

Baton Rouge, LA, June 11, 2008 — In response to numerous attacks on science education in the Bayou State, concerned parents, teachers and scientists are getting organized. The new group — Louisiana Coalition for Science — calls upon the Senate to oppose SB 733, a bill which will open the door to creationism in public schools.

Spread the news.

Although “Expelled” has been receiving mostly negative reviews from the mainstream media and scientists, creationist organizations other than the Discovery Institute, AIG and ICR (both Young Earth Creationists) have remained cautiously silent. For instance, The Reasons To Believe (RTB) Scholars appeared to be suspicious about Expelled but refrained from any recommendations but now that they have seen a pre-release screening they have sent an email which can be found on the Calvin College ASA discussion list.

Dear RTB Chapter members,

With the impending release of “EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed” (April 18), the Reasons to Believe scholar team thought it best to prepare a statement of our position, a guide for answering questions from chapters, networks, and apologists. Keep in mind that the mission of RTB centers on reaching out to science-minded people with two purposes:

Michael Le Page at New Scientist discusses Evolution: 24 myths and misconceptions.

Shared misconceptions:

Everything is an adaptation produced by natural selection
Natural selection is the only means of evolution
Natural selection leads to ever-greater complexity
Evolution produces creatures perfectly adapted to their environment
Evolution always promotes the survival of species
It doesn’t matter if people do not understand evolution
“Survival of the fittest” justifies “everyone for themselves”
Evolution is limitlessly creative
Evolution cannot explain traits such as homosexuality
Creationism provides a coherent alternative to evolution

Read on for the much longer list of Creationist myths

We learn at the Discovery Institute Blog about a recent lecture tour in Spain by ID creationists

Over an eight day period last January, Physicians and Surgeons for Scientific Integrity (aka DoctorsDoubtingDarwin.com, a rapidly growing, 277-member, physician group from 17 countries) sponsored a lecture tour in Barcelona, Malaga, Madrid, Leon and Vigo. It was titled “Lo Que Darwin No Sabia,” or “What Darwin Didn’t Know.” Tom Woodward, Ph.D. (author of Doubts About Darwin and Darwin Strikes Back) and myself (author of What Darwin Didn’t Know and Billions of Missing Links) lectured on eight occasions to exceptionally large audiences. Santiago Escuain was our translator extraordinaire. Rich Akin, the CEO of PSSI, put in enormous hours into making this trip a huge success.

El Pais reports on the ‘successful’ Spain Tour of ‘Lo que Darwin no sabía’. Of course, the DI does admit later on that the success was limited.

The best I can say after reading and then rereading Mark Oppenheimer’s article, “The Turning of an Atheist,” in today’s New York Times Magazine ( http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/m[…]4Flew-t.html ) is that Antony Flew is not the man he once was and has been out of touch for some time. Readers of PT will recall his recent conversion to deism, which he based on the “teaching” of the old-earth creationist, Gerald Schroeder. Professor Flew recanted his acceptance of Schroeder but maintained his belief in a god - a deistic god, however, not a personal god, and certainly not the God of Christianity.

Now, according to Mr. Oppenheimer, Professor Flew acquiesced when Roy Abraham Varghese, an eastern-rite Catholic, ghost-wrote a book under Professor Flew’s name. Much of the manuscript was book-doctored by an evangelical pastor, Bob Hostetler. Though Professor Flew allegedly vetted the book, it is hard to know how much he truly approved of; he freely told Mr. Oppenheimer that he suffers from a form of aphasia and did not recognize the names of several philosophers mentioned in the book. Similarly, he could not recall conversations that took place in the last year or two and could not define certain words used frequently in the book. Professor Flew is 84 years old.

Mr. Oppenheimer makes a valiant attempt not to conclude that Professor Flew is being exploited, at least not deliberately. It is a noble effort, but it is hard to agree with him.