Posted by Dave Thomas on June 03, 2005 | Comments (36) | TrackBack (0)

PAX Television has a weekly show called Faith Under Fire, hosted by Lee Strobel, a “former investigative journalist for the Chicago Tribune turned apologist” according to a recent article that discusses Strobel’s pro-ID views.

On the episode for Saturday, June 4th, one segment discusses the Bible Code:

“Secret codes. You saw them in National Treasure. You read about them in The Da Vinci Code. Is it possible that there are actually secret codes in the Bible! And if there is some kind of code in the Bible, why is it there? Two mathematicians debate the existence of Bible codes. Insurance actuarial consultant Ed Sherman, author of the Bible Code Bombshell, says he tried to disprove the code notion but ended up being convinced of its authenticity. Physicist Dr. Dave Thomas the author of Skeptical Odysseys and a member of the Committee for Scientific of Claims of the Paranormal, remains unconvinced….”

If you’re curious as to how a Panda’s Thumb blogger does against Ed Sherman, tune in.  If you miss it, the debate between Thomas and Sherman continues on the Web.

Posted by Burt Humburg on May 24, 2005 | Comments (198) | TrackBack (0)

Richard Dawkins has penned another good article on evolution. Read through it and we’ll discuss it on the flipside.

Continue reading  “Dawkins' Gift to Kansas”

Posted by Dave Thomas on May 05, 2005 | Comments (61) | TrackBack (2)

Say hello to Falcarius utahensis.

This creature was becoming a herbivore (plant-eater), but fossils described in today’s Nature indicate his (or her) ancestors were most definitely carnivorous (meat-eaters).

The story can be read on-line here.  Here’s the significant “bite”:

Caught in the act of evolution, the odd-looking, feathered dinosaur was becoming more vegetarian, moving away from its meat-eating ancestors.

It had the built-for-speed legs of meat-eaters, but was developing the bigger belly of plant-eaters. It had already lost the serrated teeth needed for tearing flesh. Those were replaced with the smaller, duller vegetarian variety.

‘I doubt seriously this animal could cut a steak with that mouth,’ said Utah state paleontologist James Kirkland, one of those who discovered the bones of the beast in east-central Utah.

This relates to the never-ending creationism saga in several ways, including one that shows an important distinction between Evolution and Creationism:

Creationists insist that, if creatures changed their eating habits in the past, it was from herbivores (before the Fall, when the Creation was Good) to carnivores (after the Fall, and the introduction of sin and death into the world).

Continue reading  “Evolution - from Carnivore to Herbivore?”

Posted by Jeff on May 04, 2005 | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)

I attended part of a talk by creationist John C. Bilello in Waterloo, Ontario recently.  I’m not a biologist, but even with my amateur’s understanding of biology I could tell it was the usual nonsense, consisting of misinformation, misconceptions, and quote mining.  Every argument he presented has been refuted dozens of times.  Probably yet another refutation of this tired nonsense is pointless, but at least I can document Bilello’s presentation here.

Continue reading  “An Open Letter to John C. Bilello, or More Data for the Salem Hypothesis”

Posted by Nick Matzke on March 27, 2005 | Comments (193) | TrackBack (0)

Everyone check out “The Apocalypse Will Be Televised” by Gene Lyons at Harper’s Magazine. Lyons reviews the Left Behind series, a wildly popular set of novels that portray, in Tom Clancy style, the Rapture and Armageddon according to dispensationalist beliefs.  The antichrist is the head of the U.N. and looks like Robert Redford, the jews must convert or die, that kind of thing.  The novels are by prominent fundamentalist Tim LaHaye, who also helped found such notable organizations as the Moral Majority and the Institute for Creation Research (see the Who’s who of prophecy page on LaHaye).

It turns out that creationism is more closely tied to modern fundamentalist prophecy interpretation than I had previously appreciated.  I’ll quote the most relevant passages from Lyons’ article.

Continue reading  “Creationism really is behind it all”

Posted by Tara Smith on March 24, 2005 | Comments (40) | TrackBack (0)

Everyone’s favorite defender of the 10 Commandments, Roy Moore, has spoken out against evolution on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

Continue reading  “Newest expert on evolution: Judge Roy Moore”

Posted by Henry Neufeld on January 06, 2005 | Comments (32) | TrackBack (1)

Those of us involved in the debate about evolution are often amazed at how little impact the enormous evidence for evolution has on anti-evolutionists.  Each piece of positive evidence is treated in isolation and belittled, while every open question is treated as proof of the demise of evolution.  Positive scientific evidence for special creation is absent, yet every perceived weakness of the theory of evolution is regarded as positive evidence for special creation.  There is a reason for this, which will not come as a surprise to most readers of The Panda’s Thumb, but I want to say it again as part of the foundation for what I am about to write.  The issue from the creationist point of view is really religious and not scientific, and this is true whether one is advocating young earth or old earth creationism, or even intelligent design.  If we did not have a story of creation in the sacred literature of the dominant religious tradition in America, and if that story was not being taken as some sort of scientific evidence, the debate would not be between special creation and evolution, but rather would be between the dominant understanding of evolution and various modifications that might be made to it.

Further, the status of the evidence provided by the Bible is elevated above that of scientific evidence.

Continue reading  “Natural Reading”